One of the amazing principles taught consistently throughout the Scriptures is, when we come clean and confess our sins, God is so generous to forgive. But if we refuse to come clean and deny that we are guilty before God, he will not forgive. This is taught clearly in 1 John 1: 8 – 10. Many today, when you talk to them about Christ will say, “I am a good person”. What they are saying in essence is that, “I’m good enough on my own merit to go to heaven.” This answer is no different than the Pharisees who said, “I thank you that I’m not like other men” (Luke 18:9 – 14). John deals with this answer when he writes, “8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” (1Jo 1:8-10).
John tells us first of all, that if we claim to be without sin we are self deceived and God’s truth is not in us. The “truth” that John is talking about, is the word of God. When we come face-to-face with the word of God we come face-to-face with who we are. The person who says, “I’m a good person”, has not come face-to-face with the truth of the word of God. Without the conviction of the word there is no salvation. That is why John writes earlier in verse 7, “but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purified as us from all sin”. “The light” that John is talking about is the light of the word of God. John is saying that salvation is found in walking in the light, where the truth about us is revealed and where there is constant exposure to our own sinfulness. Now that can be a pretty scary place to be, because we are exposed and left bare in our guilt and condemnation. But the good news is once we recognize our guilt are sinfulness then we can flee to the promise of God, which is salvation through Christ. When a person insists upon “I’m a good person” they are showing that they have never allowed the word of God to convict their hearts with the truth.
John also tells us if we claimed we have not sinned we make God out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. When a person says, “I’m a good person”, he is denying what God is said about them. God has said, “There is none righteous, no not one” and “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. In essence what they are doing is calling God a liar because they are denying God’s testimony about themselves.
The good news, is what John tells us in verse 9 where he writes, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”. Once we are exposed by the truth of the Scriptures and feel guilt, and are exposed to the judgement of God, and we confess our sin, then we find that God will freely forgive. That’s why John uses the words “faithful and just”. Faithfulness means that God is absolutely consistent in his generosity, it doesn’t matter how bad a person has been when we confess our sins God will forgive, he is faithful. Just means that God is right in doing so there’s no injustice when God forgives when we confess.
In a self-righteous culture we must not shrink back from declaring the sinfulness of all people. This may sound cruel at first glance and a bit too narrow, but the truth of the matter is, this is the essence of evangelism. There’s no comfortable way around this if we are going to be faithful to the Great Commission. We need not be afraid to point to the fact that people are sinners, because this will help them understand the grace of God. How do we do this? We must expose people to the truth of the scriptures. The requirements that God has given us in his word that are absolute and binding on all people.
Here’s where the difficulty comes for us, we have so many people around us who go to church, and so we tend to assume that they are okay. Many of these churches do not preach the gospel so they give their members the impression that by their own goodness they can go to heaven. The question isn’t whether they go to church are not, but what are they trusting in. If someone is trusting in anything other than the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross, 2000 years ago, for the remission of their sins then they are not saved. Religion, good deeds, being a nice guy, generosity, being a good family man or woman, church attendance, etc. can never save a person from their sins. God’s standard is absolute and that standard is his righteous and holy law, which every person will be judged by.
The best diagnostic question still is, “If you were to die today why should God let you into heaven?” Because the answer reveals what the person is trusting in if they say, “I’m a good person” then they need a little more law. They need to be convicted of the fact that they are not good enough to go to heaven on their own. If they show that they are convicted of their sins then they need the gospel to show them the solution for their sins.
My heart is more and more stirred with gospel themes; and my prayer is that your will be as well, and that together we at St. Paul’s will see a great harvest for the gospel.
Blessings,
Pastor Steve Wenner
