If you will, open your Bibles
to the book of First John. First John. When I start to prepare a message,
I always have three things in mind. First and foremost, the
glory of God. Everything preached ought to
be inspired by and seek the glory of God, seeks to inspire those
who hear to glorify God. That God may be honored in all
that we do ought to be the constant highest motive of our lives,
especially in preaching. The second thing I have in mind
is you who are gods, the people of God. I want so very much to
instruct you in the truth of Holy Scripture, the doctrine
of the gospel. You ought to learn something
every time I preach to you. And I want to comfort and strengthen
the hearts of believing sinners. I want to inspire you to devotion,
to consecration to Christ, to renewed dedication of your heart
and life to our Redeemer in all the details of life. We ought
never be satisfied just to come and hear. We ought to come seeking
a word from God for our souls for the present time. And I had
a homiletics professor, pastoral theology professor in school,
and he used to say to us in the preacher's class, where there's
no summons, there's no sermon. Every sermon ought to call for
an immediate response from you who hear it. And I pray that
God the Holy Ghost will do that for you. And I always have in
mind the needs of immortal souls on the brink of eternity. I want
always to call centers to life and faith in Christ the Lord.
Excuse me. I want to inspire and motivate
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I know I can't do any of these
things, but that's what God the Holy Spirit does as the gospel
is preached in the power of the spirit. Now with that in mind,
I want us to look at a couple of passages here in first John
will begin in chapter 1 First I want us to take an honest
look at ourselves An honest look at ourselves verse 8 first John
chapter 1 If we say that we have no sin
We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we say
we have no sin, we're without sin, we deceive ourselves, the
truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, excuse
me, I got a frog in my throat this morning. If we confess our sin, That's
not talking about going to a confessional booth or coming to a preacher
or coming to the church and confessing your sin to me and confessing
what you do to people. Sometimes I remember back years
ago, folks would have people to come and confess their sins
publicly before congregation. That's horrible. It ought not
be done. I don't need to hear about the
evil that's in you, nor do you need to speak about it. It's
all about confessing our sin to our God. openly confessing
to God what we are, acknowledging honestly before God what goes
on inside us. If we confess our sin, he is
faithful and just, faithful to his word and just through the
blood of Jesus Christ to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
That's not to say we have never sinned. If we say that we have
not sinned in anything we do, if we say that we're without
sin in any action, any thought, any word, we make him a liar
and his word is not in us. Now I'm going to tell you some
things about myself that may shock some. Those who refuse
to be honestly facing themselves before God, who refuse to honestly
face what they are, who refuse to be honest with God and honest
with themselves will be shocked by the things I have to say.
Believers, you who know God, you will be compelled to say
amen to everything I'm about to tell you about myself. I want
us to open the dark door of our corrupt hearts and enter into
the most secret chambers of that dark, dark, depraved thing we
call our hearts. What loathsome, creeping creatures
are there. What abominable, frightful things. In my heart, this heart of sinful
flesh, I see everything that a man has ever done are imagined
against God or man. Everything. Out of the heart,
this one right here, proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. And then our Savior
says, these are the things which defile a man. But to eat with
unwashed hands defileth not a man. Most people think and religious
people are taught by the religious leaders that if you don't do
this or don't do that, if you don't eat this or don't eat that,
if you don't drink this or don't drink that, then you won't defile
yourself. The things by which we are defiled
are the things that come from within. The influence of the
world is horrible. The influence of evil is horrible.
I encourage you to avoid all evil influence. But the fact
is the things that defile us are the things that are in us.
Here in my depraved heart, I see depravity itself. With me, depravity
is much more than a doctrine I have learned. It is the daily
experience of my life. Evil thoughts, murders, vile
adulteries, fornications, deceit, thefts, lies, blasphemies. These are the things that I find
in my flesh relentlessly. Therefore, I readily acknowledge
in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing, nothing. Before God saved me, I never
dreamed life with Christ in this world would be as it is. I knew
my sins would not be eradicated. I never thought that would be
the case. But I did think they would at least be fewer, weaker,
and less troublesome. Things are not as I had dreamed.
One day I woke up shocked. to realize that I am by nature
just as sinful and vile as ever. And that as long as I live in
this world, that's the way things are gonna be. Until this body
of flesh dies, sin lives in me. Now I'm trying to be honest with
you because I want you to be honest with yourself and honest
with God. Before God saved you, did you
ever imagine that a saved sinner could be such as you are. I never imagined that a saved
man could be such as I am. I never thought it was possible
for a saved person to love Christ so little and love the world
so much. I never dreamed that a saved
sinner could trust the Son of God so little as I do. and fret so much. I never dreamed that I might
have such a cold heart of indifference to the things of God and a heart
so quickly stirred about things that don't matter. I never dreamed
it'd be possible for a saved person to have such a hard time
praying as I do. reading the word of God. Never
dreamed that it was possible for a saved person to be so impatient,
murmuring and resentful of God's providence as I am. One of the
old writers said, it takes as much grace to bear patiently
the breaking of a piece of fine china as it does to bear the
loss of an only child. I recall years ago, I was visiting
with Walter and Betty Groover down in Mexico. That's been a
long time ago. And over the course of years, Betty had hung on to
just a few things, just a few things that were dear to her,
things that had been given to her by parents or grandparents.
And one day, Walter got up too quickly and Betty had placed
something on the shelf right above him. And when he did, this
little vase of some kind, just a little thing, fell over and
was just shattered. And Walter felt horrible. He
just felt horrible. When Betty heard it, saw what
had happened, And she went in the kitchen, got a broom, swept
it up, and said, well, I won't have to worry about that anymore.
It was the last thing her grandmother had given her, and she'd kept
it well for all those years. What a remarkable display of
patience. Would to God he would teach me
something of that kind of patience. In myself, honestly, in myself,
I see no good thing, nothing righteous, nothing holy, nothing
good. Yes, I pray. But my prayers,
my God, I confess, are full of selfish desires. I never prayed a prayer fit for
God's ears in itself. Yes, I read this book. I studied
this book. I desire to believe and obey
it. But as I read the word of God, my mind wanders and strays
in a thousand directions. I can read worn ads in the newspaper
about which I have no interest at all and focus on them. Read
this book, a thousand things come into my mind that ought
to be doing, that need to be doing, things that need attention. Yes, I love my Redeemer. I don't talk much about it. I
don't even say much to him about it because my love for him can
hardly be called love. But with Peter, I say, Lord,
you know all things. You know that I love you. We love him because he first
loved us. And I trust my God. I commit to Him all the affairs
in my life. But my faith is so mingled with
unbelief that it can hardly be called faith. I rest in Christ. He is my Sabbath. But oh, how
I toss and turn on that bed of rest. How restless our souls
are in this world. What about you? What do you find
in yourself? John Newton said it better than
I can. He once wrote, I am nothing, I have nothing, and I can do
nothing. So if I come to nothing, nothing
will be lost. God teach me that. I am nothing,
I have nothing, I can do nothing. If I come to nothing, nothing
will be lost. Now, turn over to the next page,
1 John chapter 3 and verse 5. Let's take a careful look at
our Lord Jesus Christ as he's revealed to us in Holy Scripture. And ye know that he was manifested
to take away our sin. and in him is no sin. Our blessed savior, though he
was made sin for us, when he hung upon the cursed tree, bearing
our sin in his own body, had no sin. He was and he is the
virgin born son of God. He was and he is born of a virgin. the woman's seed. He is God eternal. But as a man, his holy humanity
was conceived in the womb of the virgin. And he was conceived
without the aid of a man, the virgin born son of God. He had
no original sin. He had no nature of sin. No corruption
passed on to him from father to son as it is to us. He had
no sin. He did no sin. He knew no sin. Our Lord Jesus was the only man
ever to live in this world who truly knows what sin is because
he's God. That one who is God knows what
sin is as God. But this man knew no sin. He was holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners. He ate and drank with sinners,
he walked in the midst of sinners, and sinners were perfectly comfortable
in his company. That ought to say something about
us, shouldn't it? Harlots and publicans, the debased folks
of society who were uncomfortable around self-righteous religious
people were perfectly comfortable in his presence. He didn't make
people feel uncomfortable by acting some way before them.
And yet he was not at all influenced by those sinners who gathered
themselves around him. He was infinitely separate from
sinners, personally, perfectly, wholly, both as God and man. Now I stress this constantly
to you because In order for him to be a suitable sacrifice for
sin, it was necessary for our Savior to be altogether without
sin. The sinner's substitute must
be perfectly personally innocent. That is, he must be both righteous
and holy, one who has done no sin and has fully obeyed God. He must be a man. If he's not
a man, then he can't die for men. Our Lord Jesus came into
this world. He said, sacrifice an offering
thou wouldest not. That is all those Old Testament
sacrifices. They were just pictures of him.
He said, a body hast thou prepared me. A body suitable for life
in this world and suitable to die in our stead at Calvary.
A body made to be sacrificed for us. He not only must be a
man, he must be a perfectly righteous man, one perfectly obedient to
God. Otherwise, his own sins would
have to be paid for. His own sins would demand his
sufferings. It is written, it must be perfect
to be accepted. He must be God man in one person,
so that this man who is God is a sacrifice of infinite worth,
able to satisfy totally the justice of God when he suffers for sin. But in order to redeem us from
our sins and justify us, in order to make us just before God, the
darling of heaven, the Lord of glory must be made sin for us. I haven't begun yet to understand, let alone proclaim,
this wondrous mystery revealed so clearly in the Gospel. By
a just righteous and legal transfer of sin and guilt to him. A just, righteous and legal transfer
of sin and guilt to him. The Lord Jesus was made sin for
us. Our sins were made his. They became his own. Our guilt
was made His. It became His own. And when our
sin and guilt was made His, He was justly charged with sin. It was imputed to Him. Our shame
became His shame. Our reproach became His reproach. Our foolishness became His foolishness. Our Lord Jesus was made sin for
us, He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. He bare our sin in His own body
on the tree. The Lord Jesus was made sin for
us, and when He was made sin for us, He alone became responsible
for our sins. He assumed all responsibility
before God and his holy law, and he was rewarded accordingly.
So that when Christ died at Calvary, he died, Mark, because he deserved
to die when he was made sin. How can that be? Only by the
unimaginable, by the unimaginable, by the unimaginable mystery of
God's wondrous grace. Our sin became His, and when
He was made sin, justice drew forth its sword and slaughtered
the Son of God. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. Look back at our text here in
1 John 3, 5 again. The Holy Spirit declares He was
manifested to take away our sins. Either He did it or He didn't. When He died under the terrible
wrath of God as our substitute, He actually put away our sins
by the sacrifice of Himself. Our sins, which had been made
His, He put away. He purged them from us. He removed
them from us as far as the East is from the West. Thank God Christ
has put away our sins. And when He had put away our
sins, then He was risen from the dead and justified in the
Spirit. He was delivered for our offenses,
Paul tells us in Romans 4.25. That is, delivered to the hands
of justice because of our sins made his. He was justified, justified
because of our justification. He was raised from the dead for
our justification, because justice was fully satisfied. And Paul
tells us in 1 Timothy, that's called being justified in the
Spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed
Savior, has, like the scapegoat, put away our sins. That man carried the scapegoat
into the distant place in the wilderness, an uninhabited place,
and he came back without the goat. Our Lord Jesus carried
our sins into the depths of the sea of God's forgetfulness, and
when he rose from the dead, he is freed from sin. Turn back
to 1 Peter, I want you to read this. 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse
1. John tells us, in him is no sin. For as much then as Christ has
suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with
the same mind. That is, you recognize what happened. For he that hath suffered in
the flesh hath ceased from sin. Yonder sets the Lamb of God on
his throne. A lamb as it had been slain,
and he is free from sin. In him is no sin. Now one last thing. I want us
to see ourselves in Christ. This, for me, is even harder
to grasp than the fact that our Lord was made sin. In Him is no sin. John is talking here about God's
people. He's telling us Christ was manifested
to take away our sins. Since He did it, in Him is no
sin. in the mediator himself, in our
surety himself, but all who are in him now are freed from sin. All who are in him before God
have no sin. Now what does that mean? Does
that mean that we don't experience sin day by day? We've already
dealt with that. You know better and I know better.
Does that mean that God is not aware of our sins? Of course
not. That would be a denial of God's
omniscience. The Lord saw the thing that David did in the matter
of Uriah, and it displeased the Lord. And God showed his displeasure
by his chastisement of David. What then does this mean? In
him we have no sin. In the record book of heaven,
Before the law of God, before the justice of God, every sinner
believing on Jesus Christ is totally free from sin. So totally free from sin that
God sees no sin in Israel. He observes none. So totally
free from sin. that God will never remember
our sins against us. I will not remember their sins
is the oath of God given in the covenant of grace. I will not
remember their sins. So totally free from sin that
David could sing as he confessed his sin in Psalm 32. Blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord will not impute sin. That means no matter what goes
on in you, no matter what goes on in me,
no matter how we may fail, no matter how we may sin, as we
are in Christ, the Lord God will not impute sin to His own. How come? because he imputed
our sins to Jesus Christ, his son, and found full satisfaction
for sin in his son. Somebody said, well, that was
our past sins. This is talking about now. All
of our sins were future when God forgave them. They were all
future when Christ died for them. The Lord Jesus redeemed us from
our sin, past, present, and future. Put away our sins, past, present,
and future. Oh, how that ought to encourage
us to trust him. How that ought to encourage us
to devote ourselves to him. What good news the gospel is,
in him is no sin. Amen.