Bible Text: 1 John 1 | Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christian Preus
Our Lenten midweek series this year is simply the book of first John. It has five chapters, so it’s convenient to hear it over five Wednesdays, but it’s also particularly Lenty, appropriate for the season of Lent. John is known as the apostle of Love, because he talks about love so much: from him comes the famous saying, “God is love,” and, “in this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son as the bloody sacrifice for our sins.” He also calls himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” which, of course, we should all appropriate for ourselves – there’s some good cultural appropriation, “I’m the disciple that Jesus loves.” But if you read through first John, and that’s exactly what we’re doing, you’ll see that he could just as well be called the disciple of Sin, because he talks about sin so much. It’s actually 46 uses of love and 30 uses of sin in this book. And Lent is the season when we focus on sin, on our sin, not others’; it’s the time when we devote ourselves to living lives where we avoid open and rebellious sin, but still confess that no matter how much we avoid outward sins we still have sin that dwells in our hearts and that comes to the surface time and again. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And if we’re going to talk about John as the apostle of sin, we’re also going to have to talk about him as John the apostle of the atonement, the apostle of the bloody sacrifice of the Lamb of God, who bore our sin’s punishment on the cross, because this is the apostle who never tires of pointing to Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He was there, John was, when John the Baptist first said those words as he pointed to Jesus. It was those words that made John the apostle leave John the Baptist and follow Jesus. Because no talk of God being love means anything without God become man, the Word become flesh, laying down His life for you, a sinner. And no talk of sin can end in anything good, unless that sin is met by this very specific love of God, where He Himself bears its curse and its punishment.
And that, I think, gets us to the first insistence of John in our epistle, what makes him not just the apostle of love, not just the apostle of sin, and not just the apostle of Christ’s bearing that sin, but the apostle of reality. That’s how he begins his beautiful letter. “That which was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have beheld and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.” John is the apostle who stood there at the cross and saw with his own eyes the spear pierce Jesus’ side and the blood pour out of His dead body. He was there, he heard it, when Jesus cried out, “It is finished.” He saw Him risen. Saw Him show His pierced hands and side to them all and heard His words, “If you forgive anyone His sins they are forgiven.” John heard Jesus so much and saw Him do so many things that the world could not contain the books John could write about Him (given enough time). It’s all real. He’s the apostle of reality.
And this entire epistle, this entire book, is devoted to reality. Whether he’s talking about love or sin or Jesus’ sacrifice. He’s talking about reality.
So first, your sin is real. When John calls Jesus the light of the world, when John says that there is no darkness in Him, when John says that if we want to have fellowship with that light, we can’t walk in darkness, he is first of all saying what the light of Jesus exposes, and that’s your sin. Christianity is for serious folks. It’s not for those who walk in darkness and won’t confess the obvious about themselves, it’s not for those who will do nothing but point the finger at others and make excuses for themselves. John is the one who saw Jesus, bloodied, beaten, with crown of thorns on His head, and who saw Pilate point at Him, who heard Pilate say, “Behold the man.” He saw with his own eyes what his sin brought on the Son of God. Behold the man. There’s reality. And that’s the light shown on your sin. Don’t hide it from God. He knows it. He bore it. There is no walking in darkness, no pretending, with Him.
So we confess reality. John calls that walking in the light. This isn’t some sort of morbid preoccupation with our sin. It’s facing the reality that we simply can’t deny without living a lie. The pride, the worry, the unbelief, the blaming of others, the selfish thoughts, the lusts, and whatever words and actions come from these sinful desires, these are real, you know them, God knows them, and they really separate you from God and deserve His punishment. Don’t ignore. Confess.
Really confess. Learn to do it during Lent. You should prepare yourself for Sunday morning. Prepare yourself to confess your sins and hear forgiveness. Don’t just mouth the words. Don’t allow your mind to be distracted by happy things or sad things or important things or useless enjoyments in your life. Before you come to church, at home, or in the pew before church begins, or before the Lord’s Supper, examine yourself. Are you worried about money? That’s wrong, confess it. Are you scared for your health and does death terrify you, because you really like this world and its pleasures and heaven seems like a sorry consolation prize? That’s unbelief. Confess it. Are you nursing some pet sin and thinking it’s not so bad because God forgives it anyway? That will lead you away from Jesus and everlasting life. Confess it. Are you holding a grudge, are you bitter, are you engaging in gossip? That offends God. Confess it. Don’t try to come up with fake sins, don’t try to be really pious and dig up sins that aren’t there. Be honest with yourself. Know yourself. Confess what’s real. That’s walking in the light.
But the disciple of reality doesn’t stop with the reality of sin. He says, “And God who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That’s the reality. It’s what John saw with his eyes and touched with his hands. It’s as real as the blood he saw pour out of Jesus’ side, as real as the resurrected body of the Lord. When you walk in the light, the light shines on you, and it finally doesn’t show any sin, because the sin is gone, it’s paid for by the blood of the Lamb, it’s already been answered for, God’s wrath has already been quenched and swallowed up in Jesus’ love. Behold the man, and you see where your sin went, and if it landed on Him it can’t be on you. There’s the reality. And it’s not a reality you have to wait to see or taste. It’s not simply in heaven or in history or in the future after you’ve done enough good works. No God delivers it to you. He gives it all to you when you hear your pastor forgive you your sins. Those are Jesus’ words, won by His own blood, and He made sure you would hear them. It’s the reality placed in your mouth when you receive your Lord’s body and blood.
The devil wins far too often in his tempting. You sin. There are sins you can resist, open sins, and you should take particular pleasure in beating the devil when he tempts you to do wrong, and you do right instead. But you will sin. And the greatest way the tempter falls, fails, loses, is when you confess your sin, confess the reality, say, yes, I lost to you devil, but I know the One who conquered you and crushed your head, and I confess my sins to Jesus who bore them. And that crushes the devil under your feet. It’s pure victory.
Because in that forgiveness you have fellowship with the Son of God. There is nothing separating you from Him and His victory. Not sin or life or death or anything in between. And if you have fellowship with the Son, you have fellowship with the Father. You’re His child and He’ll care for your every need of body and soul. That’s the reality.
And this is what defines, governs, determines everything for the disciple of love, not just for John, but for us. It is Jesus crucified for sinners. There’s where God’s love meets man’s sin and totally erases it, Graven in our hearts forever, dwell the cross, the crucified. Amen.