Are you prone to self deception?

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…