Dealing with Sin in the Justified State

Introduction: The Gospel of Justification and the Problem of Ongoing Sin

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, August 26, 2007, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. I begin this morning by asking you to listen as I seek to become the echo of the voice of a man of God who spoke the following words more than 250 years ago. Are any of you depending on a righteousness of your own? Do any of you here think to save yourselves by your own doings?

0:44 I say to you, your righteousness shall perish with you. Poor, miserable creatures, what is there in your tears? What in your prayers? What in your performances to appease the wrath of an angry God?

1:03 Away from the trees of the garden, come, you guilty wretches. Come as poor, lost, undone, and wretched creatures, and accept of a better righteousness than your own. As I said before, so I tell you again, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is an everlasting righteousness. It is wrought out for the very chief of sinners.

1:31 Oh, everyone! Let him come and drink of this water of life freely. Are any of you wounded by sin? Do any of you feel you have no righteousness of your own?

1:47 Are any of you perishing for hunger? Are any of you afraid you will perish forever? Come, dear souls, in all your rags. Come, you poor man.

1:59 Come, you poor, distressed woman. Come, you who think God. God will never forgive you, and that your sins are too great to be forgiven. Come, you doubting creature, who are afraid that you will never get comfort.

2:14 Arise, take comfort. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of life, the Lord of glory, calls for you. Oh, let not one poor soul stand at a distance from the Savior. Oh, come, come!

2:30 Now, since it is brought into the world. By Christ, so in the name, in the strength, and by the assistance of the great God, I bring it now to the pulpit. I now offer this righteousness, this free, this imputed, this everlasting righteousness to all poor sinners who will accept of it. Think, I pray you, therefore, on these things.

2:58 Go home, go home, go home. Pray over the text and say, Lord God, you have brought an everlasting righteousness into the world by the Lord Jesus Christ. By the blessed Spirit, bring it into my heart. Then, die when you will.

3:18 You are safe. If it be tomorrow, you shall be immediately translated into the presence of the everlasting God. That will be sweet. Happy they who have got this robe on.

3:32 Happy they that can... Say, my God has loved me, and I shall be loved by him with an everlasting love.

3:41 That every one of you may be able to say so. May God grant, for the sake of Jesus Christ, the dear Redeemer, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Whose voice was that that spoke those words 250 years ago? It was the voice of George Whitefield.

4:04 And what was his subject? It was the pure, biblical, and apostolic gospel, central to which is the doctrine of justification by faith alone. A doctrine which dares to declare that almighty God, the righteous judge of the world, is prepared to pardon all of the sins of the guiltiest of sinners, and to...

4:35 Credit to that sinner a perfect record before the law, based upon the suffering and the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ and of him alone. It is this wonderful, this amazing privilege of redemptive grace, which we have been considering for some 22 sermons in recent weeks and months, and having expounded the substance of the biblical doctrine of justification, using the definition of the larger catechism as a preaching outline, I'm now dealing with issues that I'm calling related pastoral issues to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. We looked at the apparent contradiction between the emphasis of James and the emphasis...

5:33 of the Apostle Paul. And now for several weeks we have been wrestling with what I have described with these words, justification and the problem of ongoing sin in the life of the justified. And I've been addressing this under three major headings. First of all, we considered the problem identified.

Wrongly Handling the Problem of Ongoing Sin

6:00 And I said there are two realities that create this problem of ongoing sin in the life of the justified. The first is the reality of the nature of God's justifying act. We saw from the Scriptures as we worked through the outline of the larger catechism that justification is an act of God's free grace in which He pardons all of our sins and accepts and receives our persons as righteous in His sight. And if we understand and grasp the nature of God's justifying act and set it against the second reality, the reality of remaining sin and specific acts of sin in the life of the justified, we have a problem. On the one hand, we do not want in any way to erode the marvelous reality of what it means to be justified. On the other hand, we do not want to harden our consciences and dishonor God by acting as though our sin were not sin, failing to feel the gravity of it, failing to deal with it in the ways of God's appointment. So, this problem is identified in the conscience of any true believer who has some measure of understanding

7:30 of the nature of God's justifying act. The act on the one hand and the reality of His remaining sin on the other. Then my second heading was the problem wrongly handled. And it is wrongly handled in two major ways.

7:47 There is a wrong and potentially soul-destroying use of the doctrine of justification. Historically and up to the present day, there are those who would affirm God sees no sin in the justified. And therefore, the justified should not really take their sin seriously. There is one man who has been a popular teacher in our generation who has said that it is wicked, it is dishonoring to the God of justifying grace even to ask for the forgiveness of our sins.

8:23 He would negate the request that our Lord said should mark our prayers. Forgive us our debts. Forgive us our trespasses. He would say no.

8:34 All we need do is say, Lord, here's what I've done. And that's it. No serious consideration of dealing with our sin. That is a wrong and potentially soul-destroying use of the doctrine of justification that addresses the problem wrongly.

8:52 But then on the other hand, there is a wrong and soul-weakening response to the reality of our remaining sin and our acts of sin. In which people handle it in such a way that there is little evidence that they know the joy of their justified state. They go about with a heaviness, a joylessness, and oppressiveness because they cannot deny the reality of remaining sin as a foul principle within and their actual acts of sin in thought, in word, in deed. So, we looked at the problem identified, the problem wrongly handled, and now we are wrestling with this third heading, the problem rightly handled. And I said that we would open up this line of thought by means of several principles, the first of which we have addressed, and it was this. Sin in a justified person must always be acknowledged and dealt with as sin. Sin in a justified person must always be acknowledged and dealt with as sin.

Principle 1: Acknowledge and Deal with Sin as Sin

10:09 And how have I sought to open up this principle? Well, in the following way. I've sought to remind ourselves of what has happened to us in our justification with respect to God's holy law. What demanded our justification or our damnation?

10:29 The fact that we are all lawbreakers as sinners. As the Apostle Paul says, whatsoever things the law says, it says to them that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. And the wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

10:52 But we must be clear with respect to what has happened to us in relationship to God's law in God's courtroom before God, the ultimate, holy, just judge of the universe. And I've tried to condense and collate the biblical teaching in this way. The condemning power of the broken law has been exhausted in the death of Christ for me. If you're justified, you have a right, you have a duty to affirm that in faith and with holy joy sitting here, this morning, to look as it were into the face of the holy God of the universe, the perfectly just God who will by no means clear the guilty and say, the condemning power of the broken law has been exhausted in the death of Christ for me. The Apostle affirms it when he says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having been made, a curse for us. But secondly, the commending power of the kept law has been secured by the obedient life of Christ for me. Not only the condemning power

12:19 of a broken law exhausted in the death of Christ, but the commending power of the kept law has been secured by the obedient life of Christ. The life of Christ for me. Romans 5.19 As through the disobedience the one the many were constituted sinners, so shall we by the obedience of the one be constituted righteous.

12:50 Christ's perfect righteousness secured by His meticulous obedience as one made under the law constitutes our power of the Son of God. We are not simply put back on the footing where Adam was before he sinned. No guilt. We are put on the footing where we have fully kept the law in our surety and representative.

13:19 God commends us and accepts us as righteous in His sight. We've got to understand that, grasp that, and dare in the midst of the greatest conscience of indwelling sin and the tumult that it often can cause within our breasts to say, there is no condemning power of a broken law for me. There is no commending power of the kept law that I must secure. But thirdly, the commanding power and governing rights of the law remain upon me.

13:57 They remain upon me. Do we make void the law of God by faith? Nay, Paul says, we establish the law. As long as God is God, then we are His creatures.

14:10 The authority of His holy law, not just the summary of the moral law in the Ten Commandments, but every revelation of His will as God for us the creature is as much upon us as though we never heard the gospel. John Owen captured this truth so succinctly and accurately when he said, and he wrote, upon this complete justification, believers are obliged unto universal obedience unto God. The law is not abolished, but established by faith. It is neither abrogated nor dispensed withal by such an interpretation as should take off its obligation in anything that it requires, nor as to the degree and manner wherein it requires it, nor is it possible that it should be so, for that law, the revelation of God's will, is nothing but the rule of that obedience which the nature of God and the nature of man makes necessary from the one to the other. That's stating it so accurately, succinctly, the commanding power and governing rights of the law remain for me. Now why is it so vital to understand that? So that when we sin, we recognize that my sin as a justified believer

15:38 is exactly what any sin is. We learn from our catechism what is sin. Sin is any lack of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. And therefore, if we are as justified believers to deal with our sin as sin, we must, must in our consciences be persuaded that it is as much transgression of the law as our sins were before we were justified.

16:13 Thank God the condemning power of that broken law has been exhausted in the death of Christ. And He thought that we could render an obedience that would commend us to God. That commendation of obedience has been secured in Christ, but the commanding, the power and the rights of the law remain upon us. And therefore, when we sin, we must see our sin as a transgression of God's law, as an affront to the person of God, and as provoking the fatherly displeasure of God.

16:52 And last Lord's Day, we looked at that paradigm of this reality in the way God dealt with David's sins in 2 Samuel, chapter 12, where all three lines of that, the last verse of chapter 11, the thing that David did displeased the Lord. Then God charges him with despising His word, His law, and then despising His person, you have despised me. Now today, as we press on in our wrestlings with this issue of the problem of ongoing sin in the life of the justified, we're going to consider the second message, major principle of the Word of God. If the first major principle is sin in a justified person must always be acknowledged and dealt with as sin, the second is this. Sin in a justified person must always be dealt with in a manner consistent with the true and unchanging state of the justified. Let me give it to you again. Sin in a justified person must always be dealt with in a manner consistent with the true state, the true and abiding state of the justified.

Principle 2: Deal with Sin Consistent with the Justified State

18:17 Now what do I mean by stating the issue this way? Well, let me try to explain. I want to show from the Scriptures that while God demands that justified sinners deal honestly and thoroughly with the reality of their sin and their sins as sin. Nothing else.

18:40 Sin is sin. Before or after justification, while God demands that they deal with their sins as sin, He does not call them to deal with their sins in such a way as to blur or to negate in their consciousness who, and what they are as justified sinners.

19:09 You following me? What you're thinking, Capon? I don't know how to simplify it any more than this. State it in a clearer way.

19:18 Let me try to come at it from another way. It is my duty as a justified sinner to maintain by faith the consciousness of who and what I am as justified. Having therefore been justified, justified by faith, we have peace with God. And then Paul goes on to say there in Romans 5, 1 and following, not only do we have peace with God, but we have access through faith into this grace wherein we stand.

19:53 We've been introduced to the realm of grace as justified men and women, boys and girls. We stand in that framework and we rejoice in confident expectation of the glory of God. Our justification will never be reversed, never be rescinded. Now the point I'm making is this.

20:15 The God who calls you and me to deal honestly with our sins, to open up our souls to look upon them in all of their vileness, in all of their ugliness, not only as offending a holy God and being breaches of His law, but now, now as Christians, I see that He bore my sins in His body up to the tree. And when I bring before me the scenes of Gethsemane and I see my manly Savior staggering like a drunk man, the Greek in Mark speaks of perpetual, repeated action of falling to the ground and rising and falling and falling, under the weight and the pressure of the cup of the suffering He would bear as He carried our sins up to the tree. And when I see the scenes of Golgotha with the shrouded heavens and I allow my ears to hear the piercing cry of dereliction, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me? And I say, my sins cause, my Lord, to stagger before the cup and to pray, O my Father, if it be possible,

21:42 let this cup pass from me. My sins blacken the heavens. My sins squeezed out of His heart and up over His vocal cords the cry, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me? My sins did it.

22:03 And when I look at my sins in the light, in the light of Gethsemane, in the light of Golgotha, I cannot take them lightly. I cannot treat them as in a cavalier and flippant way. Well, we all sin, you know, we all sin, but we're justified. Let's sing a happy little chorus.

22:24 No, no. The God who calls me to take my sins seriously, not only serious in the light of God's holiness and His righteous law, but even more so in the light of the agonizing suffering of my Savior. That same God says when dealing with the utmost seriousness with that sin, willing to see it in its ugliness in the context of Gethsemane and Golgotha, feeling genuine grief, that godly sorrow that works repentance not to be repented of. At the same time, I'm dealing with my sin as sin in all of its vileness, in all of its ugliness, in all of its God-disarmeringness. I must refuse to allow my consciousness as a Christian either to have who and what I am as justified eroded, blurred, blotted out. I must, by God's grace, hold tenaciously to who and what I am in Christ as justified while dealing deeply and thoroughly with my sins

23:52 as one who still has remaining sin and commits sin. That's what I want to try to demonstrate from the Bible. Sin in a justified person must always be demonstrated and dealt with in a manner consistent with the true irreversible state of the justified. Now, the best way I know to try to open this up from the Scripture that is both biblical, theologically sound, and intensely pastoral is to state the matters in the first person.

Refusing Legal Bondage and Fear

24:36 If I, I want to put into the Bible, if I, I want to put into the Bible, if I want to put into your hands something that you can take into the theater of your own dealings with God, if I, as a justified man or woman, boy or girl, am determined to deal with my sin as sin, and yet deal with it in a manner consistent with who and what I am as a justified sinner, I must constantly say to myself, and we're just going to give you one statement this morning, God willing, one or two more next Lord's Day. This is what you need to say to yourself. I will not allow my sins to bring me back into legal bondage and fear, but I will deal with them as a justified sinner and an adopted child of God. That's what you've got to learn to say to yourself. If you were in the previous hour when Pastor Smith taught on the tenth commandment, if you could come through that and not see the ugliness of the seething cauldron of your covetous heart, I pity you. I saw mine afresh.

25:57 And when I went in that back room to pray with my brethren, you know what I had to say to myself? What I'm preaching to you. I had to say to Albert Martin, I will not allow my sins to bring me back into legal bondage and fear, but I will deal with them even my sins of covetousness and my covetous heart as a justified sinner and as an adopted child of God.

26:27 Let me explain now what I mean by legal bondage and fear.

26:32 If you're saying to yourself, I'm not going to allow my sins to bring me back into legal bondage and fear, what is that monster? Well, before we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ, if we are at all in touch with our true state, then we know that our sins deserve the wrath of God. If we are at all in touch with our true state, we know that we live under this frightening canopy, this heart of God.

27:09 If we're at all in touch with our true state, and the scriptures tell us that even pagans who've never seen the pages of a Bible are to some measure in touch with this reality, so Paul can write at the end of Romans 1, after listing all of these sins that mark the pagan, Greco-Roman world of the first century, he says as a capstone in verse 32 of Romans 1, who knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practice them. Among the things they know by general revelation in the world without and the psychological world within, with its conscience and with the blurred but remains of the law of God, there written upon the human heart in Adam our first father, they know the righteous judgment of God that they who do, these things are worthy of death. And you have a classic example of that in a real life situation in Acts 28 in verse 4. Paul and his companions and a number of other prisoners are shipwrecked

28:38 and they land on an island called Melita. And the barbarians show them kindness. They kindle a fire and Paul gathers a bundle of sticks. Isn't that interesting?

28:50 You talk about his servant's heart. All the prisoners are there and all the Melitites in their air, but who goes and gathers sticks? Paul does. And a viper came out by reason to the heat and fastened on his hand.

29:03 And when the barbarians saw the venomous creature hanging from his hand, they said one to another, no doubt this man's a murderer, whom though he has escaped from the sea, yet justice has not suffered him to live. Here are pagans who've never seen the lids of a Bible, who've never heard anything of the Old Testament, or what is to us the New Testament, and yet they have this sense that certain actions precipitate the judgment of God. Now how much more is that conscience heightened when we come under the light of God's Word, whatever things the law says, and when we have been exposed to God's law, by the law comes the knowledge of sin. We know, we know, that outside of Christ and sheltered in His love, His sacrifice and perfect life, we stand exposed to a holy, just, righteous God deserving of His wrath. And as long as that's our posture, that posture is one of bondage and of fear. The fear of dread. The fear of those men that were apprehended, who committed that brutal, heartless crime near that schoolyard in Newark a few weeks ago, constantly on the lam, looking over their shoulder, wondering when the authorities may pounce upon them.

30:30 That's the attitude we have to God. We cannot desire communion with a God whom we know could zap us at any moment, whose judgment and wrath could fall upon us. That's the spirit of bondage and of fear. It's what the writer to Hebrews says when speaking of Christ.

30:48 He partook of flesh and blood that through death, He might deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage. That horrible bondage of knowing I am a marked criminal and at any moment, God could fall upon me in His justice and deal with me righteously and consign me to everlasting darkness. But, such a person embraces Christ as He's offered Himself in the Gospel, as our sin-bearer, as our righteousness, the Christ whom Whitefield preached in his Gospel preaching, his robe of righteousness to cover all of our deformities and all of our ugliness. When we've embraced Christ and have some understanding that that wrath that hung over our heads was swallowed up in the death of Christ and in the perfect life of Christ, all the demands of the law necessary to be declared righteous, He has met them for me. That spirit of dread, fear, and bondage is broken. And by receiving Christ as Savior and Lord, we are brought into the family of God as many as received Him.

The Reality of Remaining Sin in the Adopted Child

32:15 To them gave He the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name, John 1, 12, and now we begin to experience what Paul says in Romans 14, 17. The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and we begin to understand something of the blessedness of being able to think of God with delight.

32:48 He is now my Father, and having embraced the salvation, that is in Christ, the Scripture says, because you are sons, He's given us the status of sons legally. He has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, we have a felt, inward, existential awareness. My relationship to God is not the guilty criminal on the land. Bondage, fear, it's that of a son.

33:20 God is my Father. And I have access to His heart. I have access to His promise. I have access to His person.

33:32 However, however, in law, with reality, that we find out, though God has brought this marvelous work, given us with that status in the courtroom, a marvelous transformation within. We have been born of the Spirit. To use the language of the prophets, that God's taken out our heart of stone that was unresponsive and adamant in its opposition to God and His law. He's given us a heart of flesh.

34:02 He's written His law upon that heart. He has given us an inclination to obedience and to a filial fear of God. It isn't long before we discover as much as we want to please Him, we want to maintain unclouded communion with Him, we come to grips with that second part of the problem. We still have sin within us.

34:26 We're shocked in that very heart that bubbles up with joy unspeakable and full of glory that Peter talks about. That heart can think mean, ugly, vicious thoughts. That heart can still be envious and covetous and lustful and proud and vindictive. And the lips that for the first time have engaged in spontaneous praise and praise and worship and adoration and songs of gratitude to God, those lips can still speak harsh, cutting, curt, unclean, nasty.

35:09 What do we do? What do we do? We know we can't deny the reality of this principle of what Paul calls indwelling sin. When I would do good, evil is present with me.

35:22 It is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. And we're conscious of that reality. We're conscious we commit specific acts of sin. And now our sin is more ugly than it ever was.

35:36 Because we do see it in the light of Gethsemane. We do see it in the light of Golgotha. We do see it in the light of a God whose glory has been revealed to us in the face of Christ and His holiness and His righteousness are precious to us now. They're not just a threat.

35:57 They're precious. What do I do with my sins? Well, if I'm not careful, if I'm not careful, if I haven't grasped this principle, I will not allow my sins to bring me back into legal bondage and fear, but I will deal with them as a justified sinner and as an adopted child of God. The devil will be at our elbow pushing us back into a spirit of sin.

36:27 A spirit of legal bondage and fear.

Romans 8:15 and the Spirit of Adoption

36:33 Here I want you to turn with me to Romans 8 in verse 15. This is absolutely critical, dear people, if you're going to live a stable Christian life.

36:46 Romans chapter 8 in a section where the apostle is expounding the implications of the Spirit of God dwelling in all of the justified. He says in verse 9, Romans 8, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

37:13 And if Christ is in you, notice Spirit of God, Spirit of God, Christ Himself. Christ dwells in us in the person of the Holy Spirit in all true believers. If you do not have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you, you're not a Christian. And if you say, hey, He's dwelling in you, then the evidence will be, verses 12 and following, so then, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh.

37:41 If you live after the flesh, you must die. But if you by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live for as many as are led by the Spirit of God. And in the context, being led by the Spirit of God means you're in the way of putting to death the deeds of the body. You're pursuing holiness.

38:01 And if you're not pursuing holiness, you're not a Christian. You don't have the Spirit of Christ. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these and these only are the sons of God for, now verse 15, you receive not the Spirit of bondage again unto fear, but you receive the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Now, the men who give themselves to trying to expound the Word of God accurately differ as to the precise meaning of these words.

38:40 You receive not the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption. It seems to me there is warrant to take this language, bondage and fear. And when someone who is indwelt by the Spirit, united to Christ by faith, a justified sinner, comes under a spirit of bondage and fear, it is not the Holy Spirit who's brought him there. The Holy Spirit convicts of sin before we are converted.

39:16 Jesus said, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will reprove the world of sin. And in the life of the believer, the Holy Spirit keeps our conscience tender. The Holy Spirit takes the Word and uses that as an instrument to show us our sin. Jesus is praying at the right hand of the Father.

39:37 Sanctify them in the truth. Thy Word is truth. In answer to that prayer, the Holy Spirit takes the Word as we read it, as we sing it, as we sing it one to another, as it is preached, as it is taught. And the Holy Spirit will show us our sin.

39:52 However, the Holy Spirit always then points fear into Christ, what we are in Christ, what we are in Christ, what we are in Christ, what we are in Christ, what we are in Christ, what we are in Christ, what we are in Christ, what we possess in Christ. For Jesus said, the Spirit will testify of Me. He will take the things of Myself and show it unto you. And the Holy Spirit is operative in this matter of dealing with remaining sin in the life of the believer.

40:19 He does not push us down into a legal spirit of bondage and fear. The Holy Spirit doesn't do that. That's the work of the enemy of our souls. That's the fruit of an imperfect understanding of separating justification and sanctification.

40:37 And frankly, this is what disturbs me when people say our sin on heavy doctrinal preaching. What you're saying is I don't want to be a stable Christian. If you don't understand clearly the difference in Christ's justification, Christ's work will testify of Me. He will and sanctification, the Spirit's work is done to you.

40:58 Be a man of the Holy Spirit. Operative ability matter of devulnerability remaining sin in the life of a believer. He does not push me of your soul into a legal spirit of bondage. I can live.

41:13 The Holy Spirit doesn't do that. That's the work of the enemy of our souls. The fruit of that's an imperfect understanding of separating justification and sanctification. And frankly, this is what disturbs me when people say our sin on heavy doctrinal preaching.

41:30 What you're I don't saying is don't want to be a stable Christian. If you're a Christian you don't understand clearly the difference at least with justification. But it cannot make him put on his robes as a judge, go back in the court and yank me into the courtroom and indict me and damn me. It cannot do that.

41:51 Vulnerability can do it. Can do it. And I need if I'm taking my walk with God seriously to grasp that reality. Now I want to turn to two passages with you.

Matthew 6:9-13: Praying as Children to a Father

42:06 Only two this morning that I trust will help us to see that this is the biblical perspective of how the justified sinner is to deal with his sins clinging to his true state as a justified sinner and a child of God. Turn to Matthew chapter 6.

42:31 Matthew chapter 6.

42:35 First of all the Lord gives the negative instruction. Verse 5. When you pray don't be like the hypocrites. Then he describes how they pray.

42:46 Verse 6. Positive. When you pray enter your inner chamber. Shut your door.

42:53 Pray to your Father in secret. Now a negative. Verse 7. Praying.

42:57 Don't use vain repetitions. They think they'll be heard for their much speaking. Don't be like them. Now for your Father don't be like them.

43:06 Knows what things you have need of before you ask him. Now specific instruction. After this manner therefore pray. Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done as in heaven so on earth give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our our debtors and in the parallel passage in Luke 11 in verse 4 same thing starting in verse 2 when you pray say Father hallowed be your name verse 4 forgive us our sins. What did Jesus teach us? He said for my children true sons and daughters of the kingdom those who have cast themselves upon me as their only hope of righteous standing before God have been adopted and taken into the family of God. God is their Father.

44:19 Now he says when you pray say Father. Now did he want us just to mouth the word? Of course not. He wants us to internalize the reality of that relationship.

44:33 He didn't say when you pray say O Sovereign Lord of the universe though God is that and it's right to approach in that way. We have many expressions of that in the Psalms and in the prophets but he says my children you who are part of my family in this kingdom of grace you are to say Father you are to consciously bring to mind what your relationship to God now is and in that context alone you are to say forgive us our debts we have real debts O Lord your law this day demanded that I love you with the whole heart mind soul and strength every moment of every hour and O God I've not so loved you I have a debt an unpaid obligation an unmet obligation forgive me but forgive me as my as my father not as my angry judge who may zap me concerning whom I need to look over my shoulder like I'm on the lamb and somehow I can just turn my head and say oh God forgive me I blew it no I look into the face of my father who has not thrown me away because I've

46:02 sinned against him forgive my debts and then in the Luke passage forgive my trespasses I've overstepped the bounds of your law where it said thou shalt not I have done what I should not have done father forgive me father for Jesus sake forgive me and one of the brethren pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago it's interesting that in both the Matthew and Luke passage asking for forgiveness was not the first petition you might have thought that the Lord said when you pray say or after this manner pray our father forgive our debts thinking that he won't hear any other petition until I deal with my sins I'd never thought of that before and I've been reflecting upon it and I believe there is a significant purpose for which the Lord Jesus said you can pray for the advancement of the kingdom you can pray for the hallowing of my name you can pray for your daily bread and then you can come to an honest dealing with your sins because you're not playing games with me God knows when you're playing games God knows when you have no intention to deal seriously with your sins this assumes that you come as a child into the presence

1 John 1:5-2:2: Confession and Christ's Advocacy

47:31 of your heavenly father fully intending to deal honestly and thoroughly with your sin and then the second passage is in first John we read it this morning I want you to turn there with me as John sets out some of the tests of true spiritual life this commentator that I referred to expressed it this way he says claims to know God are to be tested by our attitude to sin first John one five to two two and I believe that is an accurate summary of John's emphasis claims to know God are to be tested by our attitude towards sin John makes it clear that sin is not the dominant moral territory in which those who really know God walk hear me now John has made plain abundantly plain that sin is not sin is not the moral the dominant moral territory in which those who know God walk look at verses five and six this is the message we've heard from him and announced to you that God is light infinite unsullied

49:00 moral perfection and purity in him no darkness at all if we say we have fellowship with him we have a relationship with God and it's a present tense and we walk about in the darkness sin is our dominant moral territory what does John say we lie and we do not the truth we're unconverted as the devil and some of you need to take that seriously you glibly say you're a Christian and yet this past week the dominant moral territory in which you walked with your mind with your words with your thoughts with your desires was the realm of darkness the realm of sin John says you're a liar however John makes it equally clear in this passage that those who truly know God still sin and they are honest about that fact look at verse 7 if we walk in the light light truth honesty moral purity that's our dominant moral territory what happens we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus is the blood of Jesus and the blood of the Son continually cleanses from all sin while walking in the light we still have sin that needs to be cleansed verse 8 if we say we have no sin

50:29 we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us you see how John sets the two opposites if we say we know God and sin is our dominant moral territory we're liars we don't know God the truth is not in us on the other hand if we say we know God and say there's no sin John says no then you're a liar and you don't know God either the true child of God while walking in the light is his dominant moral territory in which he is comfortable which he chooses he's a child of God but he still sins he needs continual cleansing verse 9 if we confess our sins verse 10 if we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us now then we come to chapter 2 verse 1 and 2a that's where I want to park for a few moments why am I parking there I'm parking there to try to underscore what I'm saying I must learn to say to myself I'm going to own my sin I'm going to deal with my sin but I am not going to relinquish what my Bible tells me I am as a justified sinner and a child of God my little children these things I write unto you that you may not sin I'm calling that the sincerely embraced ideal of the true child of God what happens

51:59 when you hear those words my little children what I've written to you I've written to the end that you may be sinlessly perfect what does your heart say to that they say forget it no way or does it say oh God oh God I long for the time when I shall be sinlessly perfect and if I could be now oh Lord if it meant I had to cut off my pinkies I'd do it by your grace that's what McShane knew when he wrote those well-known words among us when I see thee as thou art love thee with unsinning then Lord shall I fully know not till then how much I owe what is your greatest longing what is your greatest longing to go to heaven next to seeing Christ what's your greatest longing Paul said I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ next to that what's your greatest longing I hope you can say that I'll never sin again sin and I will make an eternal divorce can you say that if so then when you read these words my little children these things I write into you that you may not sin that's the sincerely embraced idealism of the true child of God but then notice

53:27 the realistically anticipated experience of the child of God but and if any man sin there's the realistically anticipated experience John knows that those who are committed to walk in the light when they hear the words I write these things that you may not sin that their hearts will leap at the prospect that that's coming he addresses it in chapter 3 we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him we'll see him as he is and the child of God says oh Lord haste the day haste the day John knows the sincerely embraced ideal of the child of God is absolute sinlessness but he also knows the realistically anticipated experience of the child of God if any man sin commit a specific act of sin not if any man chooses as his dominant moral territory a life of sin chapter 3 says such a person is not a child of God but there's the anticipated experience then you have thirdly the graciously provided remedy for the true child of God look at it if any man sin notice he doesn't say he he says we he puts himself in there with the rank and file

54:56 of God's people we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous he is the propitiation for our sins God's graciously provided remedy for the sins of his justified people his adopted sons and daughters is an advocate we have a counsel for defense we have one who there in the presence of God pleads our case we could go into the significance of the use of the term advocate here it's used in John's gospel of the spirit being that other comforter that other advocate but probably it has the legal concept of someone who would come alongside a friend in a legal setting to bear witness on his behalf we have an advocate and notice how he's described John's Jesus Christ the righteous whatever he does as my advocate is not to erode perfect righteousness but it's consistent with perfect righteousness whatever he pleads for me has a righteous basis and what is that basis

56:24 he tells us he is not he made but he is the propitiation he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins he is the one who made propitiation that is a sacrifice that turned away the wrath of God but by his presence at the right hand of the father he embodies in his person all the virtue of that sacrifice so when he appears as my advocate he does a righteous thing his presence if I may say it reverently reminds the father that there's no thunder for this justified sinner there's no wrath for this justified sinner though his sins are real as real as they ever were but the wrath deservingness of that broken law has been exhausted in the agony and death of the Lord Jesus and what thrills me is this conjunction if any man sin we have an advocate at the point of my sin his advocacy is efficacious and therefore I do not need to put myself under legal bondage and fear my sin is real it's even

57:53 more ugly now that I'm a Christian because of the privileges that I have the way I view my sin in the light of Gethsemane and Golgotha and all of the privileges of grace but when I sin I am to know that I have an advocate and therefore I do not come under a legal spirit of bondage and fear but I maintain my posture and I say oh God I know your law has no thunderings to damn me but it condemns and it articulates my sin and you have said I have an advocate with the Father Jesus the righteous one who is propitiation for my sins all their wrath deservingness was swallowed up in him and oh Lord I confess it and I ask forgiveness for it go back now to verse 9 and fit it in with these two verses if we confess our sins what is our responsibility confess homologeo to say the same thing about our sins it's to do what David did in Psalm 51 have mercy upon me O God according to the multitude of your tender mercies blot out my transgressions against you and you only have I sinned and done that which is evil in your sight that you may be justified

59:22 and clear when you judge Lord you've judged it to be sin I now say the same thing about it I have sinned I have transgressed I have violated your law I have indulged in that which is twisted and perverse if we confess our sins own them to be what God says they are he God is faithful he can be counted upon and notice righteousness is now our friend again he's faithful and righteous to forgive I thought mercy impels forgiveness not righteousness but when I have a surety who paid for the sin it would be unrighteous for God to bring me under legal bondage and fear because no longer does the law thunder its curses against he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness there's a beautiful little phrase in Hebrews 9 14 that fits in this same context where the writer to the Hebrews says this concerning our Lord Jesus as our high priest Hebrews 9 and verse no it's not

60:51 verse 14 it's verse 24 for Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands like in pattern to the true but into heaven itself now to appear before the face of God for us as surely as his perfect life secures the approbation and commendation of the law in the court of heaven his death on my behalf turns away God's wrath his living presence in the very face of God secures my perseverance and my ultimate salvation Christ is for me from the time he assumed all of the liabilities of the and responsibilities of my salvation in eternity past and when he came to Mary's womb and when he lived and died and rose again he is still for me for me at the point that I need him he is my advocate appearing in the presence of God for me has the Holy Spirit helped you to see it at least a little I told my fellow elders you know me well enough I almost always have not just clear major

Conclusion: Hymnody and Final Exhortation

62:20 heads but clear sub-heads but as I've wrestled for hours with these things I said I can't I can't break it down because it's it's the language of Christian experience that can't be broken down into neat little headings and there is an inter-penetration and a confluence of so many dimensions of God's truth and so I've just had to cry to God Lord take your word and by the Spirit be pleased to make it plain to your people at the point at the occasion of my sin when I feel so dirty and feel so filthy and I'm tempted to feel I need to go through a period of emotional flagellation stop it if any man's sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous One confess the sin is sin and believe that God is faithful and righteous to forgive and I close this morning by wanting to show you how this is all beautifully captured in our hymnody familiar words Jesus my great high priest offered his blood and died my guilty conscience

63:49 seeks no sacrifice beside his powerful blood did once atone and now it pleads before the throne to this dear surety's hand will I commit my cause he answers and fulfills his father's broken laws Christ obedience commending me behold my soul it freedom set my surety the one who stands in my place paid the dreadful debt now this third stanza my advocate appears for my defense on high the father bows his ears and lays his thunder by not all that hell of sin can say shall turn his heart or his love away a debtor to mercy alone of covenant mercy I sing nor fear with thy righteousness on my person an offering to bring the terror of law and of God with me can have nothing to do my savior's obedience and blood hides all my transgressions from you didn't know that's what you were singing what I've been

65:18 trying to preach this morning that's what you've been singing the terrors of law and of God with me can have nada zilch nothing to do I will not come under a spirit of legal bondage and fear it dishonors my savior it puts a distance between me and my God and then from our new hymn book what we sung what we sang this morning but there's another one from whence this fear and unbelief has not the father put to grief his spotless son for me and will the righteous judge of men condemn me for the that debt of sin which Lord was charged on thee complete atonement thou hast made and to the utmost limit paid all that thy people owed nor will God's wrath my soul distress is sheltered in thy righteousness and covered by thy blood if Christ my discharge has procured and freely in my place endured the whole of wrath divine God will not payment twice demand first at my saviour's at my dying saviour's hand and then again at mine turn then my soul to joy and rest the merits of my great high priest have bought my liberty

66:48 trust in his all sufficient blood ending my banishment from God for Jesus died for me and then what we sang this morning when Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin because the sinless saviour died my sinful soul is counted free for God the just is satisfied to look on him and to pardon me oh may God help us dear people if we're going to take our sin seriously and there's never one word in the Bible that ever rebuked any man woman boy or girl for taking sin too seriously there's hundreds charging people with taking sin too lightly when you find anything in the Bible that charges anyone with taking sin too seriously I'd like to see that first I've not seen it yet and if you take your sin seriously you'll be vulnerable to coming under a spirit of legal bondage and fear and you must determine in the light of the grand doctrine of justification to say I will not dishonor God by coming under a spirit of legal bondage and fear but I shall deal

68:17 with my sins deeply honestly thoroughly as a justified sinner and as an adopted child of God our father who but you could ever conceive of so marvelous a provision that involved the enfleshment of the second person of the Godhead placing himself under the very law that he himself promulgated from Sinai wrote upon Adam's constitution in Eden oh father our minds are too small they stagger we can't wrap the fingers of our thought around such massive glorious realities but we pray the Holy Spirit will enable us to embrace them by faith and to live in the light of their glory we pray for those who have no hiding place in Jesus Lord strike them with terror may they tremble at the thought that you have a controversy with them and until they hide in Jesus by faith that controversy cannot be resolved in time or in eternity so we commit to you your word trusting you to bless it to the prophet of

69:47 all of our souls in Jesus name Amen