Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
1 John 1:9–10 (NIV)
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
CONSIDER THIS
“Self-deception makes us immune to the truth” was the lesson from the previous chapter. Here we will learn that “Self-awareness opens the way for the truth to set us free.”
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
John is giving us a major insight into both the broken nature of people and the merciful nature of God. The nature and character of God is beautifully and perfectly seen in Jesus Christ. He is “faithful and just” and forgiving in a way that actually changes us.
We can’t purify ourselves from “all unrighteousness,” but Jesus can. While we can’t purify ourselves, we do have the power in our will to prevent unrighteousness from happening—not in the sense of becoming sinless but in becoming less sinful. Perhaps the most critical word is the first word in today’s text: “if.”
“If we confess our sins.” Everything hinges on this massive “if.” Of course, we learn in verse 8 that the reason we fail to confess our sins is because we have lost awareness of them. They are who we have become. Over the course of long periods of time, we ever so slowly walk away from God. The gospel of Jesus Christ says that even if we are a million miles away, one simple act can restore us to the immediate blessing of fellowship with God. “If we confess our sins.”
It’s a catch-22 though. How can we confess our sins if we have no sense of them? How can we confess our sins if our hearts have become hardened to them? Here’s my take: Confession doesn’t begin with naming our sins. It begins with claiming the truth that we are sinners. Remember: We aren’t sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. That word sinner is loaded with all kinds of shame-filled baggage. But to identify myself as a sinner is not to heap shame on myself. It’s the only way to become free of shame. To identify myself as a sinner is the first step on the journey to becoming aware of my sins. Finally, to identify myself as a sinner is the only way to be not only cleansed from sin but progressively set free from it.
Because of the finished work of Jesus Christ through his death, resurrection, and ascension, sin has lost its power. Be clear, though: sin will not go away quietly. It’s no match for the power of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, but we have a clear role to play in the process. It comes down to one big “if.”
THE PRAYER
Lord Jesus, help me understand that I am not a sinner because I sin but that I sin because I am a sinner. Humble me with the self-awareness of the brokenness of my identity, that I might learn to humble myself and so rise up into the wholeness of who you say I am and are making me to become. In your name, Jesus. Amen.
