Welcome back to the third part of our series on Lies, deceptions, and commonly held beliefs that often hinder us from abiding in Christ. So far, we’ve seen how the church today, is not a building, but rather the collection of people united in Christ Jesus.
We also saw how good works are a product of a regenerated life produced by the Holy Spirit, and not a means to salvation.
Today, we’re going to be looking at sin and confession — and more specifically, the lies surrounding these concepts. While both sin and confession are essential elements in Christianity, it’s very easy to get them twisted, especially with so much confusion surrounding them.
The Infinite Confession Loop
When I was a new church-goer and before I knew anything about the true gospel message, every week there would be a call to come down to the altar in the sanctuary, and I would dutifully go down each week, and confess my sin over and over again. I would leave the sanctuary no different than when I came — never feeling any peace, and never truly being cleansed.
It got so bad, and the burden of my sin became so heavy that I began to think that God was ignoring me purposefully… that he just didn’t care. And as I discussed this experience with others, I realized that my experience was not unique. People from all walks of life are trapped in what I call the infinite confession loop. Constantly confessing their sin, but never being free.
This is a very depressing and pitiful state to be in, but to truly escape it, we must know why it happens.
The first thing I can assure you of, is that God is not ignoring you, and God hasn’t abandoned you. I can say this confidently because the scriptures say it. Plus, if God was going to give up on anyone, it likely would’ve been me, so the fact that I’m here now, should speak volumes.
Much of the guilt and burden comes from a misapplication of 1st John 1:9 which says:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Now sure, if we just take this one verse out of context in isolation as many have, it can lead to the very confession and guilt cycle that we’ve been talking about. The common interpretation of this one verse that says that unless people continually confess their sins, they again become unrighteous and lose fellowship with God. However, this commonly held belief ignores one crucial fact: Jesus Christ himself!
The Perfect Righteousness of Christ
Turn to Hebrews 10:6-10:
“In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have had no pleasure.
Then said I, See, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do your will, O God.
Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin you would not, neither had pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
Then said he, See, I come to do your will, O God. He takes away the first, that he may establish the second.
By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
The burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin that were offered under the Law gave God no pleasure… the only reason He accepted them at all for a time was because He knew that His Son Jesus would come. And as proclaimed in verse 7 by Jesus, He came to do the will of God (so that we know this is not the will or word of man here) Jesus came to offer Himself, as the true sacrifice and burnt offering for sin.. Furthermore He also mentions that in the volume of the book it is written of Him. Even the Old Covenant prophets were proclaiming the coming of the Messiah Jesus. They were looking forward to an event in the future when He would come; while today we are looking back, at the fact that He indeed has come, and that today we exist in Him and are made completely clean and holy and righteous in Him and through Him.
This simple fact is where so many Christians today are stumbling, because they do not recognize this truth for themselves. They behave as though Jesus has not come yet. They behave as though they are still under the Law of Moses and the Old Covenant. They think that they are still clean one moment and unclean the next— and when you’re on this shaky foundation, you will grasp at anything, even your own performance in desperate search of some stability.
However look at what Jesus says in verse 9: See, I have come to do your will, O God. It is so very important that we recognize that what He has done is the very will of God the Father. Because so many Christians today think that the marvelous finished work and the very Grace which Christ brought is a false doctrine of men. Look at what Christ has done, and what the will of the Father was: He takes away the first, that he may establish the second. Jesus put an end to the Old Covenant of the Law, to establish the New Covenant of Grace. And He did so by the will of God the Father. And as we continue to verse 10, it is by this New Covenant of Grace (not by the Law) that we are sanctified (made holy) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. This is a one-time offering with a sanctification that lasts for all eternity. You are not sometimes holy and sometimes not. You have the very Spirit of God, His Spirit of Holiness on the inside of you. And that Spirit makes you Holy completely, as verse 14 of this same chapter also says, by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. So you see, this is not a “sometimes sanctification”, this is not an “occasional holiness” based on your current performance-level, feelings or emotions… this is a “forever holiness” based on the eternal Christ, and our Lord and Savior Jesus by the power of His Holy Spirit and the will of the Father.
Once you see this, you will not be one of those people who are constantly confessing and re-confessing your sins, or constantly repenting over-and-over for fear that you have somehow become unclean in God’s sight.
The Father and Jesus Agree
I’ve had people tell me that they see God the Father as a mean and judgmental figure, while Jesus is constantly trying to subdue the Father’s infinite wrath. Yet as we bring this series to a close, I want to call your attention to a rather well-known verse with a particular detail that often gets overlooked. 1st John 2:1:
“My little children, these things write I to you, that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”
Did you catch that? If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, not to the Father; the Father is right there with Jesus being our advocate! My friend, this is such a huge paradigm shift, in the common misconception about the character of the Father! The Father is not your enemy, and Jesus is not protecting you from a rampaging God out to get you — in-fact it was The Father who sent Jesus to redeem and save you! The enemy is sin! The enemy is the devil and evil spiritual forces! But God, through Jesus, has already won the victory for you.
I encourage you today to drop the heavy burden of lies and deceptions, and embrace the true nature and character of God, which will allow you to abide with full confidence in him.
Until next time, I look forward to thriving with you again.
Be blessed.
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