The Village Church
Preventative Maintenance For Your Life - Audio
Father, You are holy and You are merciful and in Christ You You take away our sin, our shame, our guilt, and all that's been nailed to the cross. And our soul can arise, our soul can arise because in Jesus we are forgiven and Jesus all of our sin is paid for, Lord, and we praise You. You live your name on high for that and You love us. You adore us. You like us. You have and strive us on the palm of your hand. And Your Word says You dance over Your people with shouts of joy. You want to be with us. You want to fellowship with us. And so Father, we ask You that You meet us where we are this morning. We are all dealing with something in our life, some issues, some sin, some brokenness. And we all need You to come and speak Your truth into them to encourage us to give us hope, to sustain us, to give us rest, to be our refuge. You are our all and all and everything that we need is bound to You and Your provision, to be crushed in our prayer. Amen. And we all need You to come and pray. And we all need You to come and pray for us. And we all need You to come and pray. We all need You to come and pray. Jesus comes in His hand. And now that the weak say I am strong, that the poor say I am rich because of what the Lord has done for us. And now that the weak say I am strong, that the poor say I am rich because of what the Lord has done for us if thanks. If thanks with a grateful heart give thanks to the Holy One give thanks because He is giving thanks because He is giving thanks to the Holy One give thanks because He is giving thanks to the Holy One give thanks to the Holy One give thanks to the Holy One give thanks to the Holy One give thanks because of what the Lord has done for us. And now that the poor say I am rich because of what the Lord has done for us if thanks. Well, I know well this morning. Well if you have your bowels with you open them to 1 John. This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in the darkness we lie do not practice the truth. 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 cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned we make Him a liar and His truth and His word is not in us. I love the children. I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin but if anyone does we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world. Let us pray. Your word is truth Father. Your word is right. Your word is truth. Your word is holy and I pray that your spirit will come and He will take your word and apply it to our hearts and apply it to our lives. And then if our lives are out of line with your word Lord you will bring us in line with it. And as I pray all the time Lord this is not about me. I am not the Christ. I am not the head of the church. I am a shepherd, an undersheper to the shepherd and I pray that you will be glorified, that Christ will be lifted high and people will see Jesus, Lord, and He will be made great during this time. And Christ saved my prayer. And every month I travel to Birmingham for church planters training and a couple of months ago we had a guest speaker from St. Louis come. And I think I shared this with you before. He told us a story about how he used to discipline his son where he used to say to his son whenever his son was disobedient. He used to say son you are a bad boy, a bad boy because you did that. Every time his son did something wrong this is what he was telling. You are a bad boy because you did that. And then his wife one day asked him is this the way God treats you when you are disobedient? Does God say you are a bad son because you did that? He thought to himself that he became convicted because he realized no. This is not the way God treats him whenever he is disobedient. And so now whenever his son does something wrong this is what he tells him. He says son don't do that because you are my son. Son, daughter, don't do that because you are my son because you are my daughter. Do you see the difference? This is exactly the way God deals with you, his sons, his daughters. He does not say Alex you are a bad boy for doing that. He says because you are my son Alex you shouldn't live that way because you are my son you shouldn't do that. He motivates us to live for him by reminding us who we are in him. Who are we? Who are we in Christ? We are imperfect people in fellowship with the perfect God because we have been covered in righteous blood. That's who we are. And he calls us sons. He calls us daughters. And in this section of 1 John John takes the same approach. You see last week we saw that John wanted all of his readers to be in fellowship with the father and his joy was going to be made complete when that happened. And now he is going to use that fellowship to motivate them to stand guard against false teaching and to also give them assurance that they have salvation. He says in chapter 2 in verse 12 he says on writing to you little children because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. On writing to you fathers because you know him who is from the beginning. On writing to you young man because you have overcome the evil one. On writing to you children because you know the father. I write to you fathers because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you young man because you are strong in the word of God abysing you and you have overcome the evil one. This phrase here I'm writing to you is repeated throughout this letter and he said I'm writing to you because you already know the father. He's writing to the church because your sins are already forgiven. You are already in relationship with the father. You already know the word. You have already overcome the evil one because all those things are true about you. I'm writing this letter to you because I am concerned about you. So he's not writing to people who don't know Christ. He's writing to those who say I know him. I have a relationship with him. He doesn't want them to become complacent. He wants them to have assurance of the salvation but he doesn't want them to become complacent and fall into false beliefs. And as I said last week there was a group in the church that John wrote to who taught things that were not true. Who believed things that were not true. And so in giving us assurance he wants us to be able to stand firm on what God's word teaches us not to drift off into our belief and to drift off into believing things about Christ that is not true. The church here in our time we're not immune to false teachers. We're not protected from false teachers rising up in the church and teaching things that are not true. That happens every day. Every denomination. And we don't realize how easy it is to fall on the false teaching and how gradually you can begin to believe things that are not true. We can't fall. Do you understand that? Do you believe that? I can't hear you. He wants us to continue to grow, to press forward, to stand firm and not to be lazy to the point where everything you hear from the word you think is true without ever checking up on me. If I want to preach something and you like well does that sound right you need to go to the word and see if it's right. If you hear a sermon on TV on the radio go back to the word say is that true? Just because a person says I'm a preacher of God he might not be a preacher of God. If his word and his message is not scripture and you won't know it's not scripture if you don't know the word you're just like well that's a new revelation from God so I guess I need to do that. Know the word for yourself long to be in a deeper really richer devotional life with Jesus. Be careful and watch over your life. Learn to sharpen your walk. Some years ago a friend of mine he received a car from a family he went to church with. It was a nice car. It was a reliable car. He got half a point A to point B. But one day the car stopped working. It turned out the engine locked up on him because they didn't have any oil in it. He never checked the oil in the car and he never changed the oil in the car for six, eight months. And then they eventually died. And like many of us there's two words you quickly learn when you have a car. You know that word is preventive maintenance. If you don't do it you pay the price down the road. Getting a spot post change, tire rotation, your oil change, your tune ups. When you do those things it prevents you from having to pay for a major car expense down the road. Now if you do that for your car what about your life. What about your relationship with Jesus. Should you perform preventive maintenance for that? Preventive maintenance in your life in your relationship with Jesus in your relationship with God. This is what John called us to do. Because even in your relationship with him there are still things that can hinder that relationship that can hinder that fellowship. I mean it's like having a cluttered desk or a bed or a closet. You know what I mean? Do you have a cluttered room, closet, desk? Anybody? Or is it just me? You know the desk is there. But it's cluttered with so much stuff you can't even see it. Bills, papers, big mat boxes or whatever is just there. And our fellowship with God it can be cluttered with so much stuff, cluttered with so much stuff that we place on top of it. Our business, our unbelief, our legalism, our false teaching, our sin. All that stuff can clutter that relationship. And John is saying you need to perform preventive maintenance this morning on that relationship. And John deals with it here. He deals with three false claims or misunderstandings that are not just your need to these false teachers but it can be true of me. It can be true of each of you. And so you can't tune me out. You can't say well I got my stuff together Alex. I don't need this sermon. My neighbor needs it. No you need it. None of us get to the point where we're so holy that we don't ever need to do any preventive maintenance and our leadership with God. We have to do it all the time. So each of these false claims they all are tied to a misunderstanding of God. And this is one thing I'm learning is that when I'm struggling with something there's always something I'm also struggling with about God. If I have a false belief or a false understanding about God it messes everything up in what I believe as a Christian. John knew this and this is why he says in chapter 1 verse 5 this is the message we have heard from him who is from beginning that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. God is light. What does that mean? He is holy. He is morally perfect. Perfect. He is spotless. He is blameless in every way and you can't read through God's word and not see that. God is a righteous holy God. He is light. That's the story of the point. This is what John is saying. You have to see that. And this is what the gospel shows us too. God is holy. Habakkah 1.13 says your eyes are too pure to look at evil. You cannot look at wrong. Psalm 27 the Lord is my light and my salvation. Psalm 36 says for with you is the fountain of life. In your light we see light. Psalm 5 you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. Our God is the high and lofty one. He lives forever and his name is holy. Our God is light and in him is no darkness at all. One pastor says it is the nature of light that is to be visible to make itself known. God does that. He has made himself known. He reveals himself to you so you can know him. Have relationship with him. And the fact that he is holy. The fact that he is perfect will never change. Ever change. And we have to understand that. Because if you don't that misunderstanding will clutter your fellowship with God. Just like these false teachers. And John shows us that their misunderstanding to God led to them to have a misunderstanding of fellowship. If God is not holy, if God is not really light. That means when you are in fellowship with him you can pretty much do whatever you want to do. And he is cool with it. He is cool with it. And that is not true. John says in verse 6 and 7. If you say you have fellowship with the Father while you walk in darkness you lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins. If I make a verbal profession of knowing Jesus. I love Jesus. I sing songs about Jesus. Then I must practice what I preach in my life. There has to be some consistency in what I say I believe and in the way I live my life and in the values that I hold to. If you don't understand that being a fellowship with Jesus means you also live for him then you have a misunderstanding of fellowship. You see the false teachers that they thought they could be a fellowship with God and still continue to live an unrighteous life. That didn't think sin still broke fellowship with God. That God was not cool with it. To walk in darkness what does that mean? It means it's a person who claims to know God but still continues to make a habit of living in sin without any sense of conviction. I'm going to live in my sin. But it's all good. It's all good. I got my grace coupons. I'm all good. God is okay with me doing it my way. It's like I got grace. One Christian author said that's easy grace. Easy grace. If you're living in sin you know it. You know if you're not living right because you're creating the image of God and you know when you're doing things you shouldn't do. I don't have to list off things. You know if you're not living right and John says you are a liar and you do not practice the truth. If you walk in sin live in sin and claim to know God. You're bathing in mud. So how is that mud bath going for me for you? And the question that I asked myself this week as I was preparing the sermon is does the fact that Jesus died for my sin means God now delights in my sin? Does it mean that? Because the fact that Jesus died for you died for your sins died up on the cross. Does that now mean God delights in your sin? He loves your sin? Does it mean that? That he no longer takes your sins seriously. Does it mean that? Oh little Johnny is sleeping with his girlfriend. Oh that's cute. That's cute. One day he'll grow out of that. Little Susie she's cheating on her husband. Well she just needs to get it out of her system then she'll be fine. Come on son Mike send them all out. Your Heavenly Father I'm so proud of the fact that you are a self-righteous jerk. I'm proud of that. Now I want you to go back out there and continue to let everybody know you're better than they are. High five. Is that the God you know? We live that way sometimes. We live that way sometimes. Loving God loving you where you are doesn't mean he keeps you where you are. He pulls you out to bring you to the place he wants you to be. God still hates sin and if you are in fellowship with him you will grow in hating it as well. Do you hate it? Do you hate yours? Do I hate mine? Not as much as I should. Not as much as I need to. Listen I have bathed in the mother of my own sin too. I have and I don't always practice what I preach. The things I'm saying to you now are probably going to go out late and not even believe it. So I too have to do to prevent this maintenance. None of us ever get to a place where we are above in this stuff. You see one Christian says truth in the inward being is what God desires and his people and where that is present you will manifest itself in all ways of life. If the gospel grabs your heart takes hold of your life is going to manifest itself in every area of your life. Whatever you do you're going to show that you are a believer in Christ. It can't happen. It's an overflow. That's the power of the gospel when it takes a faith in our lives. So how can we provide preventive maintenance to this? John tells us that you have to walk in the light as he is in the light as opposed to walking in darkness. If you are in relation with God you will begin to reflect him, his character in your life. You will strive to live a responsible transparent life before God. Not hiding, not concealing things. You will bring to light those secret sins that no one else knows about. But God knows he just wants you to admit it. You won't deny them but you're confessing. Piper says walking in the light means seeing things the way God sees things and responding to them the way he does. Walking in the light means you hate the sin we fall into. You hate it. You see it as ugly and you agree with God and you turn from it. That's what it means to walk in the light. You practice the truth, which is God's word. You practice the truth. Psalm 119 says your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. Do you hear the word? Do you spend time in the word? Are you listening to the word? Are you just going through the motions? Are you here? Because this is the southern thing to do to go to church. Just him check off a box. Are you here so that God's word can speak truth into your life so that you can actually live life? You see? To live life. That's what his word does for us. So we grow in our fellowship with him and we grow in our fellowship with other believers. He says but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one note that in the blood of Jesus continues to cleanse us from our sins. And that's what that means when he says the blood of Jesus cleanses us from our sins. It means he continues to do that through our lifetime. He is progressively changing us more into his image as we live this life. That's good news. That's good news. That he died on the cross for all my sins, pay for them. But the sins that I'm dealing with now he will continue throughout my lifetime cleanse me from now. That's the gospel. That's good news. Do you experience that? So that was one misunderstanding they had. Do you have that misunderstanding of fellowship? The second thing is that they had a misunderstanding of human nature. Verses 8 and 9 says if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now this is different from what we just finished talking about. Removing from sin is cool and okay to the fact that I don't have any sin at all. The false teachers here believe that Jesus of death on the cross has made Christians perfect in the sin that I no longer have sin because I know Jesus. That Jesus is going to progressively make me more sinless in my life. That kind of thinking leads to self-righteousness. And John says you are self-deceived and you pretty much are living in a make believe world. You actually believe that. In the word of God the truth of God is not in you. And so you are if you believe that if we believe that we don't really understand the truth. That we're not. Jesus doesn't make us sin less. He never makes us sin less. And what I've learned is I've only met one person in my life who has claimed this fact to be pretty much sinless. One person. I think I will share this with you several times. But when we talk about our sin and when we talk about Christian maturity we're actually trying to obtain this. And different folks I talked to especially folks who lived a very immoral life before they came to Christ. And then when Jesus finally saved him they lived under this constant depression and doubt in the salvation because they can't stop struggling with sin. I just can't shake it. And then the voice comes. You're not a Christian. How can you be a Christian and do that? And so the person now makes a commitment to be holy. I'm going to be holy and I'm going to follow all the rules. That's one way we try to tame a sinless life. Another thing we do is that, another thing is that we all have that one sin. Don't we? That one sin? You know what I'm talking about? The sin we always go to the Lord with. Promise Lord. This time, this was the last time. I'm not going to do it anymore. I promise this was the last time Lord. I'm for real this time. I'm for real. We have that one sin that we feel like is holding us back from our full potential. You know what that full potential is? No longer needing grace because you want to be sinless. Is this you this morning? Is this you? See, both of those are in temp to have what we cannot have in this life. You see, Christian maturity and growing in relation with God does not mean you become sinless, but you grow and sing just how simple you are. That's Christian maturity. That's Christian growth. Yeah, we have big real by sin, but you ain't ever going to stop struggling with it till you die and cross over the glory. Christian maturity. I had to learn this the hard way that growing in Christ, my sin becomes bigger and the cross becomes bigger. Grace becomes bigger because I see the depth of it, the ugliness of it. And so we have to do more what John says here. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins because it cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Instead of denying our sin and trying to live a sinless life, you need to learn to repent and confess more. How is that going for you? How is your repentance going for you? How is your confession going for you? Because you ain't ever going to be sinless. If you're not a believer this morning, I'm here to tell you, when you come to know Christ, you ain't ever going to be sinless. You ain't ever going to be perfect. You ain't ever going to be holier than now. And that's not what God requires of us. It's not, it's not. Just admit when you say it, don't try to hide it. David says in Psalm 32, when I kept silent about my sin, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up. It's about the heat of summer. It's been hot outside this summer. And you know what it's like being in the hot sun? It's like it sucks the energy out of you. And when you don't repent, it's like the heat just sucking the life out of you because you hold on to it, trying to hide it, keeping it under the rug. And Jesus, when David says, I will not cover my iniquity. I acknowledge my sin to you. I said I will confess my transgression to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. That's what I'm talking about. And God, that's the same for us. And when we do that, He is faithful to you, to forgive you of your sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Every time you repent, every time you confess, how's your repentance gone? How is it? I was speaking with a friend a few weeks ago, and you know about some of my struggles, and I was down beat myself up because, you know, I'm perfectionist. I want my life to be lined up like I wanted. Life is not that way. And what He told me, He said, Alex, you have to learn to embrace your sin. Not in the sense that my sin is okay, but in the sense that I realize I'm never, I'm not ever going to be sinless. And the Father knows that I am but does. You see, this is not a loving embrace, but I embrace it to repent of it and to fight it. And in the fight, there are victories and there are times when I get knocked down on the mat. That's the nature of a fight. But God knows that you are a sinner. Even when you kind of know Him, He knows the sins that you're going to deal with. And He knows that. He's not shocked by that. It's not like, Oh my goodness, I cannot believe she did that. No, He knows. And Christ came because you're not perfect. He came because you're not perfect. So that's the second misunderstanding about human nature is found in verse 10. He says, if we say we have not sin, we make Him a liar and the word is not in us. This is the most serious of all the misunderstandings because this phrase have not sinned. It's made by someone who pretty much thinks they have never done anything wrong. Never done anything wrong. That I'm not a sinner. And when you start to go down that route, when you start to say things like that, He says you make God a liar and His word is not in you. And what does that mean? This means that we live in a culture where people think being good and having good morals makes a person good. That's because I go down and I donate some money to the Red Cross. I go down to the Gulf Shores and help out with the oil spill. If I go down to Louisiana to help out with Katrina, if I give money to Africa, then that is good enough. My good deeds will outweigh my bad deeds. And in the end, God's going to show me favor because I did never get more good and bad. Is that what God thinks of us? Is that going to get you into the kingdom? And we live in a society now where people think they don't really need God. I'm okay. All I need is just a little bit of religion. Just a little bit. Just a little bit to help take away some of my guilt. I don't really see the heinousness of how sinful I am because self-righteousness is sin too. Thinking you have your life all together. Thinking your life is so comfortable. Thinking you don't really have any issues. That too is sin to God. It stinks. It smells bad. It's like bad breath to him. Because the Bible is clear, all have sinned, all have fallen short of God's glory. That's everybody. Here in America, here overseas, whether you're rich, whether you're poor, whether you're black, whether you're white, we all have sinned and fallen short of his glory. And guess what? If you deny the fact that you have not committed sin, you just committed your first one. So how about that? How about that? There's no way around it. When I first became a believer, I became pretty much, I followed all the rules. I had to keep the rules. That's what I did. I had my quiet times every day, my scripture memory. I read Christian books. I was in this Bible study. And I led a Bible study. I went to church on Sunday, Sunday school sometimes. And I thought, "Yeah, this is it." And what happened, I became self-righteous. And I thank God that deserved to have me on this team because I was knocking it out of the ballpark. Jesus loved me because I kept the rules. But I didn't realize that was sin. That was sinned. Then when God showed me that, guess what happened? I went to the other side. I didn't spend time in the world that much. I didn't share my faith that much. I didn't like going to church anymore. And I didn't share my faith and I didn't leave Bible studies. Because I'm on the grace now. I started to live how I want to live. And I became self-righteous about the fact that I saw my sin and other people didn't. I'm better than you because I know I'm a sin and you don't. You see, there's no way around sin. That's how messed up we are. And so it doesn't matter if you're over here, if you're over here, you're going to deal with it. You're going to struggle with sin. And John says, finally, my little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. It doesn't want you to sin. But if anyone does, because you will, he says, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, advocate that he pleased your case before God. For he is the propitiation of our sins. And not only for all sins, but also the sins of the world. What does that mean, Alex? It means that Jesus Christ has turned God's wrath into favor for you. God's wrath is no longer geared toward you. It went toward Christ on the cross. And now his favor is upon you. And if you know him, and if you don't know him, you can have that favor. Christ is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Not just for us here in Huntsville, but for every people group in the world Christ died for, not for this for one race or one culture. One pastor, James Montgomery, a voice said, this is the principle of 1st John 2, 1 and 2, forgiveness in advance for any sin that may come into your life. This is God's promise, and it's given to you precisely that you may not sin. God is not shocked by human behavior, as we often are, for he sees it in advance, including the sins of his people. So in Jesus, you have forgiveness in advance for the sins you're going to commit when you leave here this week. Let us pray. Father, God, I do pray that we would know that we do have forgiveness in advance, and that we will live in that. I pray, Father, that you will show us, you know, ways in which we're not believing things about you. Do we know that you're like? I pray, Father, that for those times when we think, we can say we know you and do whatever we want to do on the side. You never call us to do that. You're not honored by that. I pray for those times in which we leave, that we can have a sinless life. Lord, there's no, that we cannot have a sinless life in this life. Lord, we can repent of the things that we struggle with. I pray that we repent. Lord, I pray that as we go out this week, watch over us, protect us, sustain us, and rest in our prayer. Amen. I want to have a time of this personal reflection, time of personal repentance, about where you are with those three things. Are you dealing with it? Where is your sin? Are you beating yourself up? Do you need us to take yourself lightly? Are you just insane? You don't feel bad about it. So let's spend a couple moments now of just a reflection and asking the Holy Spirit to show us our sin and lead us to the throne of grace.