At
the church where I serve, we recently launched a brand new sermon series
entitled Connect. During this series, we are looking at a letter that is
recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of 1 John.
During this series, we are going to discover the components that make for true
connection and community. During this series, we are going to discover the
landmines and roadblocks that keep us from true connection and community. And
as we go through this series, our hope and our prayer is that God would move by
the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts, and hands, in a way that
moves us to the place where we can experience the connection and community with
God and one another that we were created and designed to experience.
Last
week, we looked at the opening section of the book of 1 John, where we
discovered the timeless truth that we experience true
community with others as we experience true community with God. We talked about
the reality that there is no true community with God which
is not expressed in community with other followers of Jesus.
We experience true community and connection with God
and others when we strive to conduct our life in the light of that nature and
character of God that was revealed and explained through the life of Jesus and
through the message and teaching of Jesus. We experience true community with
God and others as we live in community with others who are connected to God and
who embrace and engage in the kingdom mission that was give by Jesus.
However, when we are conducting our day to day life in
the moral and spiritual darkness that comes from selfishness and rebellion we
retreat into the darkness and put on a façade to those around us so that we are
not exposed by the light of true community with God and others. And it is that
façade that keeps us from experiencing close community with others. And it is
that façade that keeps us in the darkness of our selfishness and rebellion that
keeps us from experiencing true community with God.
Now this week, I would like for us to pick up where we
left off last week. And as we jump into the next section of this letter that
has been preserved and recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible,
called the book of John, we will see John continue to address how conducting our day to day life in the moral
and spiritual darkness that comes from selfishness and rebellion keeps us from
experiencing true community with God and others. So let’s jump into the next
section of this letter together, beginning in 1 John 1:8:
If we say that
we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
John
begins this section of his letter by making three if/then statements
surrounding the connection between our response to our selfishness and
rebellion and our connection with God. First, in verse 8, John proclaims that “If
we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in
us.” As we talked about last week, when John refers to sin, he is referring to acts of omission and
commission against God and others that flow from a selfish love that places one
above God and others and acts in rebellion against God and others.
When
John talks about deceiving ourselves, this phrase conveys that sense of
misleading oneself in a way that results in one going astray from something.
And that something, John explains is the truth. When John refers to the truth
here, he is referring to the message and teaching of Jesus that forms the
content of the Christian faith.
So
if John was communicating this statement in the language that we use in our
culture today, this statement would sound something like this: If we say that
we are not guilty of selfishly and rebelliously doing things that we should not
do, or not doing things that we should do that hurt God and others, we are
misleading ourselves in way that leads us astray from God and reveals that reality
that the truth of God that was communicated to us by Jesus is not in us. John’s
point is that we deceive ourselves when we proclaim that we are not guilty of
selfishly rebelling against God.
Now
notice what John does not say. Notice that John does not say that we deceive
others when we say that we have no sin. The only person we deceive is ourselves
when we say that we have no sin.
You
see, we are prone to self deception when it comes to our selfishness and
rebellion. While it is easy to see the selfishness and rebellion of others, we
often deceive ourselves when it comes to our own selfishness and rebellion. And
if you do not think that is that case, just say to those who are closest to you
that you are not guilty of selfishness and rebellion and then watch how they
respond. The timeless reality is that humanity throughout history has been
prone to self deception when it comes to our selfishness and rebellion.
In
addition, John explained that when we say we have no sin in our life, we reveal
that reality that that the truth of God is not in our life. We reveal the
reality that the truth of God is not in our life because Jesus and the message
and teaching of Jesus contained in the letters that make up the Bible make it
abundantly clear that we have committed sin in our life. Jesus and the letters
that make up the Bible make it abundantly clear that every human being is
guilty of selfishly and rebelliously doing things that we should not do, or not
doing things that we should do that hurt God and others. To say otherwise is to
reject the core message of Christianity.
John’s
point is that to deny that we have selfishly rebelled against God is to deny
the truth of the message and teaching of Jesus.
Thursday, we will see John make the second of his three if/then
statements…
No comments:
Post a Comment