Guard Your Heart!

Q: What does the Bible say about guarding your heart?

The Bible emphasizes the importance of guarding your heart, as it is the source of life and affects all aspects of your being (Proverbs 4:23). Proverbs 4:23 instructs us to 'guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.' This highlights the heart's centrality in our spiritual and moral lives. The heart is not just the organ that pumps blood; it represents our emotions, desires, and thoughts. Therefore, to guard our heart means to protect it from influences that lead to sin, ensuring that our affections and priorities align with God's will. Consequently, a heart that is attuned to God will lead to a life that glorifies Him.

Q: How do we know that sin hinders God's glory?

Sin robs God of His glory by preventing us from living a life that reflects His character and holiness. The presence of sin in our lives directly obstructs the manifestation of God's glory. As Dr. Steven Lawson explains, sin separates us from God and diminishes our ability to represent His holiness to the world. When we allow sin to persist, we fail to honor God as our loving Father and to walk worthily of our calling. Thus, acknowledging and repenting of sin is essential not just for our spiritual health but for the purpose of glorifying God. The more we allow sin to remain unchecked, the more we hinder the reflection of God's nature in our lives.

Q: Why is it important to confess and forsake sin?

Confessing and forsaking sin is crucial for receiving God's compassion and maintaining a right relationship with Him (Proverbs 28:13). Proverbs 28:13 articulates the principle that 'he who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.' This reveals that acknowledgment of sin is vital to maintaining a relationship with God. Only through genuine confession—where we agree with God about our sin—can we hope to receive His forgiveness. Forsaking sin is equally significant because it demonstrates true repentance; merely confessing without turning away from sin negates the authenticity of our confession. A life that seeks to truly forsake sin reflects a heart transformed by grace and committed to living in a way that honors God.

Q: What are the steps to overcome sin according to Jonathan Edwards?

Jonathan Edwards emphasizes five key steps: acknowledge sin, trace it back to the heart, forsake it, fight against it, and pray for God's help. According to Jonathan Edwards, addressing sin requires a comprehensive approach. First, one must acknowledge sin, confronting it without denial. Next, it is essential to trace the sin back to its source in the heart, as all actions originate from heart conditions. Forsaking sin comes third, where genuine repentance involves a conscious decision to abandon sinful practices. Edwards also emphasizes the necessity of fighting sin, suggesting that it will not relinquish its hold without effort. Finally, prayer is crucial, as it invites God's strength and grace to aid in the struggle against sin. These steps create a robust framework for believers dedicated to living a holy life.

Q: How does God view unconfessed sin?

God views unconfessed sin as a barrier that prevents His blessing and fosters spiritual disconnection. Unconfessed sin creates a chasm between the believer and God. Proverbs 28:13 warns that those who conceal their transgressions will not prosper. God desires authenticity in our relationship with Him, and hiding our sin establishes an impediment to experiencing His grace. Importantly, when Christians harbor unconfessed sin, they not only forfeit God's blessings but also fail to reflect His righteousness in their lives. Confession, followed by genuine repentance, restores the relationship, allowing believers to walk in the light and experience the fullness of God’s compassion and mercy.

Well, it is so good to be with
you for this weekend. It is so good to be here tonight.
And this opportunity that we all have to sit under the ministry
of the Word of God, I do believe that this is a God-appointed
time, that there is an eternal purpose for each and every one
of us to be here tonight. And that purpose is for God to
work within our souls and to work within our hearts to bring
us to that place where He desires us to be in our walk with Him.
Perhaps some of you here tonight, for you to enter into the Christian
life and enter into a life of faith and walking with the Lord
for the very first time. For the rest of us here tonight,
we want our lives to be what God wants them to be. And last
night, together, we spoke on pursuing God, pursuing the glory
of God more than anything else in our lives. And tonight, what
I want to speak to you about is the one thing that will prevent
and hinder God's glory from being most manifested in your life.
And that one thing is the presence of sin. It is sin that robs God
of His glory in our lives. And as we love God with all of
our heart, soul, mind, and strength, as our affections are set upon
Him, we would never want to disappoint Him as a loving Father. we would
want to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. And so, we who
are under grace and who have been forgiven by His grace would
never want to presume upon that grace. We would never want to
live our life in any way where we thought we had a free pass
and could live however we wanted to live. In fact, If that were
our attitude, it would be questionable whether we truly knew the Lord
or not. So tonight, I want us to sit
under the ministry of the Word of God, and I want us to be discipled
by our elder brother, Jonathan Edwards, as he will take the
Word of God and apply it to our lives tonight. And what I want
to talk about tonight from the Word of God through the voice
of Jonathan Edwards is your heart. Because the very epicenter of
your life is your heart. The Word of God says to watch
over your heart, for from it flows the issues of life. The
reality of who you are and what you are is your heart. Nothing
more, nothing less. Your heart is your affections,
it is your mind, it is your conscience. As Dr. MacArthur spoke to us
this morning, it's all that you are on the inside. And if you
are to truly glorify God, and if you are to truly honor God,
your heart must be right with God. And so tonight, I want us
to look at one resolution that will deal with our heart, because
for the heart to be in the right place, it will inevitably lead
to your life being in the right place. And so often, the case
can be that we simply have behavior modification on the outside but
our heart has not changed. That was the game that the Pharisees
had perfected to an art form. They were very good at cleaning
the glass on the outside, but they never cleaned the inside
of the glass. They were very good at whitewashing
the sepulcher and the tomb on the outside, but on the inside
they remained dead men's bones. And so it does no good to be
religious with the veneer on the outside. What God is after
tonight is your heart, for your soul. Who you are, what makes
you tick, your heartbeat on the inside, that is what God wants
because that is the root. And to control the root will
be to inevitably control the fruit. So to trace the stream
back to its origin, to trace the stream of your life all the
way back to the source of beginning is to trace your life back to
your heart. And only if the fountain of your
soul is right and is pure will there come forth this stream
of a pure and holy life that will flow as you live your Christian
life before others. And so, in order for you to pursue
holiness, and in order for you to pursue godliness, it is the
heart that must be pure and right. when we were born again, when
we were converted to Christ, He gave us a new heart. He took
out our old heart, our stony heart. It was a stony heart in
that it was cold towards God. It was hardened towards God.
It was insensitive towards God. And God took out that stony heart
by the miracle of regeneration, by divine initiative and by sovereign
grace. God reached down and took out
that old, stony heart and He gave to us a heart of flesh. It is alive. It is a living heart
that lives for God and loves God. And He put new affections
within your heart and a new love for God now that there is this
overflowing passion for God and for the things of God. And now
as we live our Christian lives day by day, we must watch over
this new heart that God has given to us. Watch over your heart,
for from it flows the issues of life. As a man thinks in his
heart, so is he. And we can become so very good
at the facade of Christianity on the outside. it can cover
up the reality of what's on the inside. And so tonight, I want
to look â€“ I want to do two things tonight. I want to look at one
of Edward's resolutions, and I want us to sit at his feet
and let this brother disciple us and talk to us and encourage
us and point us in the way that we should live our lives. And
then I want to look at one of His sermons, and I want that
sermon to speak to us tonight as He will take the Word of God,
He will break the bread of life, and He will feed us. So, I want
us to look at one resolution. I want us to look at resolution
number 24. You received a booklet as you registered, and some of
you picked it up today. And inside that booklet are the
seventy resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. And Dr. MacArthur told
us this morning, rightly so, that these were crafted by Edwards
in the privacy of his devotions with God. These were resolutions
that he made to himself, to his own heart. A commitment that
he made to himself to monitor his spiritual life and to watch
over his Christian heart. Number 24 reads this way, resolved. Whenever I do any conspicuously
evil action, that would be sin. Whenever I do any conspicuously
evil action, notice what he says. to trace it back, to trace it
back till I come to the original cause, and then both carefully
endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my
might against the original of it." We would say the origin
of it. When I was a young boy, when
I was in the third grade, I lived in Fort Worth, Texas, and I remember
we bought a home. And we moved into this home,
and there was no yard in the front or the back. It was a brand
new home. And before we were able to sod
the yard, the job that my dad gave to me was to remove all
the weeds. front yard, side yard, back yard. And I went out and as I tried
to remove all the weeds, I discovered it was much easier to deal with
the weeds above ground level. And so I just was snapping them,
pulling them, cutting them off. And when my dad came home, you
couldn't see a weed in the part where I had worked. It looked
great. And he came over and he began
to inspect the ground where I had worked. And he said, you have
not gone beneath the surface and removed the roots. And so
he went in the house and he got a screwdriver and he came walking
back out and he got on his hands and knees and he pried up the
root structure beneath the ground and he pulled up this hideous,
foul-looking root system of these weeds and he said, if you do
not remove these weeds, you're actually making the weed stronger. It will grow back stronger. because
the roots will still be there and they will continue to develop
and grow and what they will produce will be an even stronger weed. The only way to deal with this
is to dig up the roots. Well, that was my job for the
rest of what seemed to be the rest of the summer, to dig up
all of the roots That's what Jonathan Edwards is saying here
about his own heart, that he didn't want to simply just cut
off the outward action without dealing with what was beneath
the surface that was unseen, that was really foul and hideous,
that was down in his heart. that if he was to deal with his
sin, he simply couldn't just cut off the weed at the stem
level, he had to dig it out of the soil of the heart. And that
requires care and deliberation, and that requires much intense
focus and prayer and repentance and confession and mortification
of that sin. That's what God desires to do
in your life and in your heart, not simply change the outside
of you, but to get down into your heart and to remove the
sin that is allowed to fester and to go on down in the heart. And so I want us to look tonight
at this resolution for a moment, and then we'll look at a sermon. And I want to bring to your attention
five keys from this resolution, five keys that will unpack what
is contained in this resolution regarding dealing with sin in
our lives. And remember, the reason why
we're talking about this and the reason why Edwards is talking
about this is that sin robs God of His glory in our lives. And
if we're passionate for God to be glorified in our lives, and
for the character of God to be put on display in us and through
us, and for us to live in a way that is pleasing to Him, then
we must root out the sin from our hearts. So I want to give
you five keys as I look at this...at this resolution. And I think
it begins, number one, for all of us as it did with Edwards. With this, we must first acknowledge
sin. We can't be in some state of
denial, whether or not there is any sin. 1 John 1 says, if
we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us. We all have sin in our lives,
and it is the ministry of the Word of God and the Spirit of
God working with our conscience to put its finger upon issues
of sin within our life, both on the outside as well as on
the inside. And Edwards says, I want to deal
with sin on the outside, but that's not enough. I want to
trace it back to the heart. But it begins by acknowledging
sin in our lives. Let me give you a verse, Psalm
51 verse 3. David, when he was finally brought
to this point in his life, said, for I know my transgressions
and my sin is ever before me. That is a very healthy place
to be in your Christian life. where your sin is before you
and you see it. I want to submit to you that
as a Christian, the more you grow in the grace and knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more easily you are aware of
the sin in your life. There ought to be less sin in
your life, but a deepening awareness of less sin. As you draw closer
to the light, it is the light that exposes those things in
our lives which are harmful. And the closer you draw to the
light of the holiness of God, the more it will reveal the light
of that holiness, our imperfections. First John 1, 5, God is light
and in Him there is no darkness at all, and when we walk with
Him in the light, it exposes those hurtful things in our lives
that must be removed. That's where it begins. There
must be this acknowledgment of sin, and this is what Edwards
was alluding to When he writes, whenever I do any conspicuously
evil action, it begins by taking ownership of your sin. It begins
by saying, it's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in
the need of prayer. It begins by stopping, pointing
your finger at other people and passing the blame elsewhere And
it begins with that finger coming back to your own life and your
own heart and acknowledging, my sin is ever before me, I know
my transgressions. That is a wonderful place to
be, to know your transgressions because you cannot deal with
sin until you see it. Second, not only acknowledge
sin, and I guess I would add one other thing to that before
I move to the second. Implied in this, although this
resolution does not directly state it, others do directly
state it, in this acknowledging of sin, there is the confession
of sin. And when we confess our sin,
we are saying the same about our sin as God says about our
sin. You see, it's not what the preacher
says about my sin. It's not what your parents say
about your sin. Ultimately, the issue is, what
does God say about your sin? And to confess your sin is to
agree with what God says about your sin. It is to take sides
with God towards your sin and to acknowledge that sin and to
confess it before God. Jesus Himself taught us in His
Sermon on the Mount to pray this way, forgive us our debts as
we also have forgiven our debtors. And it is to be a lifestyle of
the disciple to be one who is a repenter and who is a confessor
of sin. Now second, not only acknowledge
sin, and this is where this becomes so provocative. Edwards rightly
said, second, trace sin. Not only acknowledge it, but
trace it and trace it back to the...to the original, as he
would put it. Trace it back to the origin.
And he's referring to his own heart because all sin is flowing
out of the heart. And so the heart of the human
problem is the problem of the human heart. Edwards himself
once said, when I look into my heart, when I look into my heart
and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely
deeper than hell, unquote. We've become very good at spotting
sin in the lives of others and becoming worked up about it in
the lives of others and how we need to look within our own heart
and soul and trace back deeper than the action, down into the
deep crevices of the heart to see, there is the original, there
is the origin of my sin. Let me give you some verses.
You'll want to jot these down. Psalm 26 verse 2, The psalmist
David cries out, "'Examine me, O Lord, and try me. Test my mind
and my heart.'" There is the psalmist tracing his sin back
to its origin. "'Examine my heart. Test my heart. Reveal my heart,
not for God to see it, but for the psalmist to see it.'" Allow
me to see myself as you see me, God. Allow me to see my own heart
as you see my own heart. Only therein can we take steps
towards glorifying God." Psalm 139 verses 23 and 24. You're
familiar with these verses. Search me, O God, and know my
heart." Now, he has already said in the opening verses of this
psalm that God knows every thought within His mind and heart. Before
there is even a word that comes forth, he says, Lord, Thou knows
it all. So what is he saying here? Search me and know my heart. The implication is, is that God,
You would reveal my own heart to myself. I am living in self-deception. I am covering over my own sin. Search me and know my heart.
Try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful
way in me and lead me in the everlasting way." Have you prayed
that to God lately? Have you taken the prayer of
David in Psalm 139, the last two verses? and come before the Lord's throne
in your time of prayer and said, God, search me and know my heart
and try me and know my anxious thoughts. What a healthy thing
that would be that would lead to God being glorified in your
life. For God to turn the searchlight
on into your heart and soul by the Word of God and the Spirit
of God and making known to you. your own heart. I'll tell you
why it's necessary. Jeremiah 17 verse 9, the heart
is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who
can understand it? And the answer is, not a one
of us here tonight. God must reveal our own hearts
to ourselves. Jesus said in Matthew 12 verse
35, the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. And Jesus said in Mark 7 verse
21, from within, out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts,
fornications, thefts, murders. In other words, long before the
deed was ever committed, it was already in the heart. adulteries,
deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality,
envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All of these evil things proceed
from within and defile the heart. It's the doctrine of total depravity.
It's the doctrine of remaining sin in the life of the believer. It is the sin that remains within. And Edwards said, I want to glorify
God in my life more than anything else, and I know that what hinders
that is the presence of sin in my life, and I will acknowledge
my sin, I will trace my sin back to my heart, and then third,
I will forsake sin. I will forsake sin. Confession of sin must lead to
repentance if it is real, the abandonment of that sin. Martin
Luther said earlier, to do so no more is the truest repentance. It's not crocodile tears. It is to do so no more. That is genuine repentance. The Bible says in Isaiah 55 verse
7, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his
thoughts and let him return to the Lord. Isaiah 1 verse 16,
remove the evil of your deeds from my sight. Cease to do evil. Listen to what Jesus said in
Matthew 5 verse 29 regarding the forsaking of sin and the
dealing of sin with sin and the removal of sin from My heart. You remember Jesus said, well,
you have heard it said that you shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you that if you
lust for another person, you have committed adultery already
in the heart." Then he went on to say this, if your right eye
makes you stumble, in other words, with the eye there is the lust. He said, tear it out and throw
it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts
of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
I once preached a sermon on this entitled, Sex and the One-Eyed
Christian. The place was packed. Cyclops sex. What Jesus is saying is what
you need to do. It's what I need to do. is that
we must deal with sin with radical repentance. Whatever it takes
to get it out of your life, get it out to the point of cutting
out your eye, chopping off your arm. He is not saying that we
are to remove our body parts. It is hyperbole. He is overstating
the case to make the point, and the point is, deal with it. Forsake it. Abandon that practice
of sin. Turn away from that sin. Do not continue to coddle it
anymore because you cannot glorify God the way that you're living
if sin continues in your life. Colossians 3 verse 8, put them
all aside. anger, wrath, malice, slander,
abusive speech. Ephesians 4.22, lay aside the
old self which is being corrupted. It's a picture of taking off
dirty clothes in order to put on clean clothes. We must forsake
sin. What sins are there in your life
tonight that you must forsake? This is not an abstract point. This is very personal. This is
very real. What sin is the Spirit of God
pressing upon a live nerve in your soul and surfacing in kindness
so that it can be removed so that you may glorify God with
your life to the maximum? And if you will forsake that
sin and repent of that sin, it will enhance the shining forth
of the glory of God from your life. But as long as that sin
is there, it is a covering over and a preventing of that glory
to burst forth from your life the way that you are living. There's a fourth key that Edwards
resolved, not only to forsake sin, but he then said to fight
sin. You see, sin will not go easy.
Sin will not give up without a fight. And he said, I am resolved
to fight with all my might against it. This removing of sin, Edwards
said, would be a fight to the finish. And as long as you and
I are upon this earth, this is part of the good fight that we
must wage against our own flesh like a soldier engaged in hand-to-hand
combat against a deadly foe. This is how Paul put it in 1
Corinthians 9 27. Let me just read this one verse
to make the point. I buffet my body and make it
my slave." This verb, I buffet, it comes from the Isthmian games
which were the Olympic-type games outside of Corinth. And there
were the boxing matches. And when two boxers went into
the ring in that day, it was like they had on brass knuckles
except they were...they were spiked with studs and they would
literally fight to the death. Only one would walk out of that
ring and they would fight against one another and they would plummet
one another. And this word for, I bruise or
I buffet my body, literally means to beat black and blue. Now notice what Paul says. He
says, I buffet, I bruise my own body. I...I deal radically with
sin in my life and I fight against it and I beat my flesh till it's
black and blue as I am resolved in the power of the Holy Spirit
to resist sin. And then fifth and finally, Edwards
said, to pray against sin. And when he said pray against
sin, there is so much in that, in that he is acknowledging that
he cannot deal with sin in his own life in the power of the
flesh. How could the flesh resist the flesh? It would only be by
the power of God would he repent and would he deal with sin in
his life. That is why he said, I must pray
with all of my might. God must give me the grace. God
must give me the empowerment. God must divinely enable me to
overcome this sin and to repent of this sin, not by might nor
by power but by my spirit, says the Lord. Zechariah 4.6. Listen to 2 Thessalonians 3 verse
3, but the Lord is faithful and He will strengthen and protect
you from the evil one. What sin is there in your life
that has entangled you that is a repeating sin that you have
confessed and have confessed and with sincerity have sought
to turn away from it and it continues to be an entanglement in your
life? I want you to know that the power
of God to overcome that sin is mighty and it is great and His
grace is abounding and we must pray and ask God for the grace
to put away that sin from our lives. This is what Edwards purposed
and resolved. He would live this way to watch
over his heart. not simply to deal with sin on
the outside, but to trace it to the origin and what was on
the inside. Are you watching over your heart
tonight? I want to tell you the reality of who you are and what
you are is the status of your heart tonight. And the most important
thing in your spiritual life is that your heart be pure, and
that your heart be clean, and that your heart be passionate
towards God, and that you love God more than you would love
sin, that you love God more than you would love the world, that
you love God more than anything else this world has to offer,
and that within your own heart you would pursue His glory. This
is Edward's resolution. And I want to say tonight that
I think that there are some Christians who are at times just too neutral
towards sin and give up in the fight and just cave in to the
temptation and just go with the flow and are too easily succumbed
by the pressure of others. And how we must be like Edwards,
resolved. What does this say? Resolved. Whenever I do any conspicuously
evil action to trace it back till I come to the original cause. Later tonight, I wonder as you
go back to your room what weeds are yet under the surface that
need to be rooted out. by the mercy of God from your
life. Now, second, I want to talk about
a sermon that Edwards preached. It's a sermon that he preached
in March of 1752. It's a sermon, the shortened
version of the title is, Confessing and Forsaking Sin. And the text
is Proverbs 28 verse 13. Proverbs 28 verse 13. It is one of the most blockbuster
verses in all of the Word of God. Listen to this verse. Turn to it even in your Scripture.
If you have a pen or a pencil, draw a box around this verse. Draw arrows out next to the box. Put an exclamation point out
next to the arrows. Draw asterisks all around the
box. Take your yellow highlighter.
Underscore this verse. This is a critically important
verse. It was Edwards' text. I want
to first just read this text because God desires to speak
to your heart tonight through this text. This is God speaking. Just like C.J. told us this morning
as we read from Galatians, that God put this into Scripture not
simply for the Galatians but for all the believers down through
the centuries who would read this. So it is with Proverbs
28, 13. This is what it says. He who conceals his transgressions,
you know what that means, to cover them up, to put a facade
over them, to put a bow on it, to act as if it never happened,
to be in denial, to call it something other than transgression, to
call it something other than sin, to call it a weakness. to call it a tendency. He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper. The blessing of God will not
be upon that. But, and as Martin Lloyd-Jones once said, praise
God for the buts in the Bible. But he who confesses and forsakes
them will find compassion. You cover over your sin, you will not prosper. You will
find God against you. But you confess it and forsake
it, and you will find the Lord's compassion. I've heard John MacArthur
put it this way, he's always quoting me, you know. He who conceals his sin, God
will expose it. But he who exposes his sin before
the Lord, God will conceal it with His grace. How much better
for us to expose our sin before the God of the universe who loves
us in Christ, and to confess that sin, and to forsake that
sin, and for God then to cover over that sin, than for us to
try to hide that sin and repackage that sin as something other than
what it is, or to be in denial about that sin, or just think
it will go away and God will never see it, to conceal that
sin, God is then going to blow it wide open. Secret sin on earth
is open scandal in heaven. He who conceals his transgressions
will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will
find compassion." And so Edwards, as he took this text, what he
said in the introduction we need to hear again tonight. He said,
mere words, that is not confessing sin. He said, words are but wind. They're empty, they're void,
they're null, they're of no effect. there must be a reality about
the confession. And so, what Edwards does is
he talks about the nature of confessing sin. I think it would
be good for us tonight to hear what is the nature of confessing
sin. And as only Edwards can do, he
unleashes his theological genius in his mind that has been dipped
in the pages of Scripture, and he lays out seven keys in truly
confessing sin. I want to lay these out for you. Number one, if there is to be
a true confession of sin where it is not mere words, where it
is not mere wind, where it is not just easily spoken and soon
forgotten, number one, there must be a conviction of sin. a conviction of sin. God Himself must convict us of
that sin and God must put His finger upon the live nerve of
that sin and the pain of that conviction to draw our attention
to that sin so that we can confess it and forsake it and prosper
before Him. It is a merciful finger. that
presses upon that sin. Edwards said, there must be a
conviction of sin when they confess that they are sinful. There must
be a conviction that it really is. In other words, you're not
just saying this so that you can win back someone's favor,
or you're not just saying this to God in an attempt to just
quickly gloss it over and move on No, it's more than simply
saying it, but that you believe in your heart, Edwards says,
that it really is. He goes on to say, they must
not only say that they have done wickedly in this, but there must
be a sense of it, a feeling down on the inside and a convinced...being
convinced on the inside. They must have their sins set
before their eyes in order to hearty confession. So, number
one, a conviction of sin. But that's only the beginning.
Second, a realization of evil. To realize that all sin is evil. No sin is a misdemeanor. All sin, the root of that sin
is vile, it is hideous, and it is evil. Edwards put it this
way, quote, in Confession, they acknowledge that what they have
done, here is three synonyms, evil, unreasonable, and hateful. It's unreasonable in that who
would ever want to sin against the glory of God? This is an
unreasonable way to conduct yourself. And it is to be hateful. For
men to confess their sin as though they own them to be very odious,
vile, and detestable, and at the same time to think them to
be desirable, he said, is but a mocking of God. For you to
confess something that you do not truly believe is an evil
in your heart, you are mocking a holy God because God says it
is evil. For a person to confess his sins
is to express his sense of the hatefulness of it, for you to
hate that sin. You cannot love God and love
sin at the same time. One displaces the other. And
it is only truly increasing in the love of God that will bring
about the hatred of that sin. Edwards then plunges yet deeper
in this matter, not only a conviction of sin and a realization of evil,
but he goes deeper and he speaks of a recognition of rebellion. that every sin is a rebellion
against God. Even if we offend one another
and come to one another and say, would you please forgive me because
I hurt your feelings because I said this, please forgive me,
there is still must be the recognition that this offense against a brother
or a sister is ultimately a sin against Almighty God in heaven. Edward says, they are sensible
of the evil of what they have done as it is against God. And they have wronged God. They have affronted God. They
have dishonored Him. God they have injured, and therefore
to Him they must confess. And there must be a sense of
the evil of sin as committed against God, as contrary to God's
will, as contrary to God's glory. And Edwards then cited the following
verses in staccato fashion, rapid-fire succession. 2 Samuel 12 verse
13, David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. From a human perspective, he
committed adultery with Bathsheba. From a human perspective, he
committed murder against her husband. But from the eternal
spiritual perspective, when the light is turned on, he saw his
sin for what it truly is, I have sinned against the Lord. So have
I and so have you every time we sin. Nehemiah 1 verse 6 and
7, Nehemiah prayed, we have sinned against you. We have acted very
corruptly against you. And David said in Psalm 51 verse
4, against you and you only I have sinned and done what is evil
in your sight. Do you think about that? Do you
think about the sin that you commit even against your parents,
a brother, a sister, a teacher, a coach, an employer, it is all
ultimately a sin against God. And to truly confess that sin,
there must be this acknowledgement that I have sinned against the
high court of heaven, against the Lord. Fourth, Edwards plunges
yet deeper, and he speaks of a provocation of God, that this
evil and this sin against God has brought about God's displeasure,
that God is not a stoic sovereign who is indifferent towards our
sin, but that God's displeasure is provoked against our sin when
we sin against the Lord. And if we desire to glorify God,
we would never want to bring about a displeasure to Him, now
would we? In fact, Edwards uses some very
strong words. He speaks of God abhorring that
sin, and that sin being an affront to the holiness of God, and that
God is angry. towards that sin. I want you
to understand that at the cross, Jesus absorbed, Jesus bore all
of our sins. Our sins were transferred from
us and placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and He bore them in His
body upon the tree, and He became a curse for us under the law. And God in His holiness poured
out the entirety of the fury of His wrath upon His only begotten
Son as Christ bore our sins in our place upon the cross. And the Bible says that God is
now propitiated, which means that God's Wrath is now satisfied
towards us because Christ has suffered for us under the...under
the law becoming a curse for us. And the wrath of God has
been placated and the wrath of God has been satisfied. There is now therefore no condemnation
for them who are in Christ Jesus. And there is no more wrath to
be poured out upon God's elect as they are in Christ by the
miracle of the new birth and are justified with the perfect
righteousness of Jesus Christ. And judicially, as we stand before
God, we have now settled out of court, and Christ has pleaded His blood
on our behalf, and the Father is satisfied. But now as we live
our Christian lives, we no longer stand before the moral judge
of heaven and earth. We live our lives as unto a loving
Father in heaven. He is no longer our wrathful
judge. He is now our loving Father as
we have been adopted into His family and may join heirs with
His Son. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children
of God, sons of God, and such we are. And yet now as we live our Christian
lives, God is not a stoic sovereign who is devoid of feelings. And now as we live before a loving
father, we may and do provoke his displeasure. Depends upon how your father
really interfaced with you and what flashes into your mind as
you think of a father-son relationship. Martin Luther said, he could
never pray, my father, which art in heaven." Because his father
was so abusive towards him. We're not talking about the anger
of an abusive father to cross the line with his children. But
when we sin as a Christian, We need to understand that we
grieve the Holy Spirit of God within us. And I believe that
there is a sense of the anger of God, not the wrath of God,
but a holy reaction on God's part towards the sin in my life. If I am to confess my sin properly, there must be this recognition
that I have grieved my father in heaven. And grace is not a
free pass to live however I want to live. Grace is an introduction
into the kingdom of God to live in such a way that I would want
him to be glorified in and through my life and all that I say and
all that I do and all that I am. And my greatest disappointment
would be to bring disappointment to him. Every sin brings this disappointment
to a holy God in heaven. Judicially, it's under the blood. Parentally, there is sin that provokes him. Edwards then went yet deeper
and spoke of a justification of anger. that God is justified
to feel this way towards our sin even as a believer because
God is a holy God and holy God abhors sin. He says, those who do sincerely
confess their sins are sensible that God might justly be angry
with them and punish them and follow them, they are sensible
that they have deserved," listen to this, the displeasure which
He manifests towards them. Hebrews 12, 5 through 11 speaks
of a loving Father who disciplines us when we sin. And there ought
to be a healthy, holy fear of God within us that we would sin against Him. Sixth, there's two more steps
now. plunging yet deeper. And I think
what Edwards would have us to see from the Word of God that
to confess sin is not simply coming before the throne and
just tipping your hat and throwing out some words, but that there
needs to be, as we will see sixth now, a humiliation of heart. a lowering of yourself, a not
presuming upon His mercies and His grace. In fact, the more
that you learn of His grace, the more you will humble yourself
beneath His mighty hand. Edwards writes, he who heartily
confesses sin does it with humility and abasement of soul." We understand
what abasement is, it's the lower floor. The abasement of soul
means to lower yourself before God, not in a...in a way of wallowing
in the mud, but a recognition that God is opposed to the proud
but that He gives grace to the humble. There is a show of persons,
Edwards says, in a true confession, humbling themselves in their
confession of their sins. In other words, no one struts
before the throne of grace. They make as though they had
a humble sense of their own unworthiness, and as though they were willing
to lie low before God. He is little and vile in his
own eyes and has a sincere disposition to lie in the dust at the foot
of God. There is a gracious humbleness
and, listen to this word, brokenness of heart. Matthew 5 verse 4,
"'Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.'"
And that's not only how we enter the kingdom, it's how we continue
in the kingdom. There is a holy mourning over
our sin, a disposition to set God on high and to lie at the
footstool. That's what Job said in Job 42
verse 6, "'I repent in ashes and dust.'" Ezra 9.6 says he
identified with the sin of the people of God around him. He
said, I'm ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face. Seventh and last point of a genuine
confession is an expectation of pardon. This is not a coming before God
in such a despair that there is no hope for mercy and grace. It is a coming before a loving
Father in heaven assured of His unconditional love and of His
unconditional grace that He pours out and coming knowing that God
receives us in Christ and that He will surely forgive us. Edwards writes, in hearty confession
of sin, there is an apprehension of the mercy of God to pardon
sin. You see, confessing sin does
not drive us away from God in despair. It drives us in humility
before the throne of grace, knowing that God will place His hands
of forgiveness upon our bowed head and there remove the sin
parentally. This is our encouragement to
confess our sins, that God is merciful and that there is hope
for us, meaning a steadfast assurance for us in His mercy that we will
be pardoned. God is in the business of forgiveness.
And surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life. And there is with the Lord abounding
grace for the greatest of sinners. This is what it is to deal with
sin and to confess it. Do you know this in your own
life experientially? What sin is there in your heart
tonight? that must be confessed this way. Remember our verse, Proverbs
28, 13, there is an and in the beeline. But he who confesses
and forsakes, and forsakes will find compassion. In other words,
it's not enough simply to confess true confession has intrinsic
in it a forsaking of that sin and a turning away from that
sin. And I very quickly want to lay
this before you because this takes it all the way to fully
deal with the sin in my life, having traced it back to my own
heart and standing with God and agreeing with God about my sin
and sing it for the awfulness that it is and confessing it
and expecting and anticipating His mercy and forgiveness, there
must now be this forsaking of sin. And he says three things
about the forsaking of this sin. He says that the heart must forsake
all choices of sin. In other words, if we are to
forsake our sin, the heart must agree to choose not to pursue
that sin any longer. Edwards writes, if they truly
forsake sin, they will forsake it and renounce it in their choice
and choose that which is contrary to it. And they choose God and
choose a life of holiness and obedience. They renounce sin
with all its advantages and pleasures, he would say momentary pleasures,
and choose a life of holiness with all its disadvantages and
temporal difficulties that attend it. In other words, to give up
the passing pleasure of sin, to forsake that in order to embrace
this forgiveness. And then he says we must forsake
all affections for sin. The heart itself must no longer
desire the sin that we confess to God. When men do truly forsake
sin, Edwards writes, their affections forsake those objects which they
loved before. That which before they thirsted
after is now loathsome to them, they delight not in it that they
rejoiced in before they now mourn over it. And then third and finally,
a true forsaking of sin involves not only forsaking all choices
of sin and all affections for sin, but all practices of this
sin. The truest evidence that one
has forsaken it in the heart is that it is forsaken in the
outward deed and act. And so, I conclude with this,
which is where Edwards concludes, the nature of pardon sin. And
I want to end with this emphasis upon the mercy of God. Edwards says two things. Let
us hear him on this. He says, sin is forgiven and
sin is forgotten. I helped him with the alliteration. Sin is forgiven. Edwards cites
these verses. Let us hear these verses. Psalm
32 verse 5, you forgave the guilt of my sin. That means that it
is wiped away. There is a cancellation of a
debt. There is the wiping clean. It
is a clean slate with God. Verse John 1, 9, he cited, if
we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I would add
these verses, Psalm 103 verse 12, as far as the east is from
the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Did
you get that? When you confess and forsake
your sin, God removes your sin, His displeasure towards that
sin as far away as the east is from the west." Now, think about
this. You can measure the north from the south. You cannot measure
the east from the west. I have a globe that sits on my
desk, and I can measure the north pole from the south pole, and
as I twirl it, it remains the same. But when I twirl that globe,
whenever the east goes one way, the west is also going, and the
east will never meet the west. So far has God removed our sin
from us when we confess it and forsake it. I hear Isaiah 1 verse
18, "'Come now and let us reason together,' says the Lord, "'though
your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though
they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.'" That is
the power that is in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
when we confess our sin and forsake it, He does wash us and cleanse
us. and he forgets that sin. Ezekiel 18 verse 22, all his
transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against
him. How about Isaiah 43 verse 25,
I, even I am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my
own sake and I will not remember your sins. The devil remembers
them. Your flesh remembers them, but
God chooses to forget them. All of this is based upon the
triumph of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. That in the fullness
of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a virgin, He was born
of a virgin that He might be pure and sinless, be born without
a sin nature unlike you and me. We were born in sin and iniquity. We...we...we came forth from
our mother's womb speaking lies. And yet, the Lord Jesus was born
of a virgin. He was born without sin, and
He was born under the law, and He lived a sinless and a holy
and a perfect life. There was no sin that could be
charged against Him. Even the demons of hell said,
Thou art the Holy One of Israel. And Him who knew no sin, God
made to be sin for us as He was lifted up upon that cross. And
all of our sins, all of our guilt were lifted off of us and they
were placed upon those strong shoulders of the Lord Jesus Christ
as He was appointed by the Father to be our sin-bearer. and He
shed His blood, He gave His life, He made the only atonement for
sin upon that cross. He dealt with our sin upon the
cross and there is no other dealing with sin apart from the cross. There is only a placation of
the wrath of God in that blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
Him who knew no sin, God made to be sin for us. And upon that
cross, He cried out to the Father, it is finished, which means paid
in full. He paid in full our sin debt. They took Him down off of that
cross, they placed Him in a borrowed tomb, and on the third day with
all of the power and authority that was inherently His as the
second member of the Godhead, He raised Himself up from the
dead. And He walked out of that tomb
a risen, living, victorious Savior. And in forty days He ascended
back to the right hand of God the Father where He now ever
lives to make intercession for us. And there when we put our
trust and put our faith in Christ, He pleads the merit of His death
on behalf of His own people to remove sin from our lives. The only way that sin will ever
be removed from your life is through the substitutionary death
of Jesus Christ who hung upon that cross, bearing our sins
and suffering our shame and suffering under the wrath of God. There are those of you here tonight
who have never yet come to God for mercy. You have never yet
come to God as the lepers came and cried out to God, unclean,
unclean. You must acknowledge your sin
before a holy God. We have all sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. Christ only died for one kind
of person. He died for sinners upon the
cross. He came not to save those who
are well, but for those who are sick. And you must come to that
place in your life when you see your sin as God sees your sin,
and until that happens, you can never be saved and you will live
in self-deception. But when God opens your eyes
in the miracle of the new birth and He opens your heart and He
opens your ears to hear the good news of the gospel of Christ,
that Christ has died for sinners and He has lavished His grace
upon all who call out upon Him. If you will come to God tonight
and if you will repent of your sin and turn away from your sin
and embrace the Lord Jesus by faith. And say, oh, God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. You will find abounding mercy. An amazing grace and perfect
forgiveness from God above. And he will crown he will set
his grace upon you. And you will become a trophy
of his grace. If you will call out upon the
name of the Lord. The Bible says, behold, now is
the accepted time. Behold, today is the day of salvation. The Bible says, boast not thouself
of tomorrow, for thou knows not what a day may bring forth. Tonight,
while the doors of heaven are open and while the mercy of God
is extended to you through Jesus Christ, I call upon you tonight
to believe upon Christ and to be saved. Let's pray. Our Father, tonight, we thank
you for the forgiveness and for the grace and for the mercy of
the Lord Jesus Christ, who has become the savior of his people. And Father, we thank you that
tonight you have allowed us to sit under your word and to hear it in our heart and
to be reminded that you're a holy God and you can have no fellowship
with sin, but that you have made the way
for us to come into your presence and to come before your throne
exclusively in the cross of Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but
through me. Father, we love to quote that
verse. And it reminds us that there is salvation in no other
name. Father, I pray that tonight there
would be men and women who would bow the knee to Christ and turn
away from their sin and believe upon the Savior unto eternal
life. O God, I pray that you would do this for the honor of
your name. And Lord, tonight for Christians,
we who have been saved, Oh, God, how we want to walk in a manner
worthy of our calling and how we want to be holy as you are
holy. We desire not to compare ourselves
with others who are seated around us, but to compare ourselves
with you. And we see afresh our sin. And
even as we draw closer to you, we are convicted of hurtful ways
within us. But we are not in despair because
we know your mercy and your grace. And so tonight, Father, we desire
afresh to be repenters and confessors of our sin. and to turn away
from our sin, and no longer to gloss over it, and no longer
to try to explain it away, or to point a finger in another
direction, or to bring our lame excuses before you, but to name
it for what it is. It is a transgression against
you, and it is an evil against you. And we agree with you, and
we sense that it has hurt your heart, and we would desire to
never do that. And so we humble ourselves beneath
your mighty right hand and we choose to turn away and we forsake
our sin and we forsake our affections for sin and we desire to no longer
practice this sin and we thank you that you will forgive us
and forget and no longer remember our sin. We thank you for the
power that is in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
the Lamb of God, who took away our sins. In Jesus' glorious
name we pray, amen.

Guard Your Heart!

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about guarding your heart?

How do we know that sin hinders God's glory?

Why is it important to confess and forsake sin?

What are the steps to overcome sin according to Jonathan Edwards?

How does God view unconfessed sin?

Sermon Transcript

About Dr. Steven J. Lawson

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Articles

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Guard Your Heart!

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about guarding your heart?

How do we know that sin hinders God's glory?

Why is it important to confess and forsake sin?

What are the steps to overcome sin according to Jonathan Edwards?

How does God view unconfessed sin?

Sermon Transcript

About Dr. Steven J. Lawson

Comments

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