Every Christian is meant to experience God.  The book of 1 John speaks to ways we experience Him.  In my last two blogs, we saw that one way we experience Him is that we have a new relationship with sin.  In chapter two we see we achieve stability as a ship at anchor is stabilized.  John doesn’t use the term “anchor” in 1 John 2, but the Christian life is certainly described here as anchored.

             Notice all the affirmative statements in 2:12-14.  “Your sins are forgiven.”  “You know Him.”  “You have already overcome the evil one.”  “You are strong.”  “The Word of God abides in you.”  Anchored, solid, and stable.  What a contrast to the hyper spirituality of the heresy of Gnosticism which said you need to know more and more and be more and more pure but could never tell them how much more of either.  For them the carrot of God’s love and approval was always within reach but never in the mule’s mouth.  For the Christian, God in His grace hands the carrot to His people.

             The promise of stability is a wonderful promise in a world as unstable as ours.  I hope you are growing in being anchored, but I warn you.  Unless you get anchored rightly, when things in your world get better, the anchor of Christ can start to feel like a ball and chain.  Remember, rightly anchored doesn’t mean just staying in the same place all the time.  It means you are willingly connected to Christ by faith and surrender and are being drawn to Him by the work of the Holy Spirit.  If this is not the nature of your anchoring, it may not feel like a blessing to you the way it should.

 Anchored Rightly…and NOT

             The worst possible way to be anchored is when you are rowing like crazy in another direction.  When we are dishonest, immoral, or drugged, yet we have honestly accepted Christ as our Savior, His Spirit, Word, and church are annoyances to us.  They’re more like a dog barking when we’re trying to sleep.  The problem for you is God is always right.  If you ever get right with God, you’ll be glad He didn’t say, “Oh, it’s ok.  You go ahead.  I understand.” 

             Another unhelpful way to be anchored is when Christ is like a heavy weight on the bottom that keeps you from going anywhere.  This keeps you from harm but also keeps you from growing and having any Christian dynamic about your life.  This, unfortunately, is what too often passes for Biblical Christianity.  It feels stable to us but looks stuck to others and to God.  The old song, “I Will Not Be Moved” meant I will not be shifting constantly.  It did not mean I will not change as God leads me.

             Christ, our anchor, functions in our lives like the ancient anchor post.  These were found at the ends of piers in the ancient world.  A rope passing through the anchor post was fastened to a ship so that it both kept the ship from danger and thereby made it stable but also drew it home, changing its position.  Our lives are designed to be both stable and changing.  What a reassuring and excitingly dynamic relationship with the Lord this proves to be.  In the next blog please look for anchors that are available to us that produce both stability and dynamic.

(Continuation of my blog on 1 John 1:5-10 “The Christian’s New Relationship with Sin”)

            The 9^th verse teaches us that the cure is universally available and 100 percent effective.  Any Christian can receive full forgiveness by confessing his sins.  The word “confess” means “to say with” or “to say the same as.”  In other words, God’s light shines into our lives (verses 5 – 7).  We must not deny what it reveals (verses 8 and 10).  Instead we say, “God, I see what You mean.  I agree with You.  I am a sinner.  I have sinned.  I need Your forgiveness.”  It tells us we can depend upon His character which is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all the penalty and power of unrighteousness in our lives. So at the moment of confession, we are clean.  There is also no limit on the number of times we can utilize the power of confession. 

             One of the greatest lines ever uttered in a movie is the one Tom Hanks said in Apollo 13 – “Houston, we have a problem.”  No one thought when they watched the movie, “What a fool to have said that to Houston.  He’d have been better off just to have solved the problem himself.”  He needed help from Houston as we need grace and forgiveness from God.  Our new relationship with sin begins with regularly admitting – “God, I have a problem.  I have sinned again.” Then be specific with Him about the particular sin(s) and need for forgiveness.

1 John 1:5-10  

          The first sermon from 1 John covered the reality of the Christian life as an experience with God.  The second half of this chapter deals with the Christian life as a different experience with sin.  It’s important that you read this part of the chapter also and understand how it applies to your life.  Let me help.

             I’m well aware that when the subject of sin is raised, gloom and doom is anticipated.  It is actually no gloomier than raising the subject of smallpox when a 100 percent effective cure is available.  Sin is a gloomy subject only for the prideful who don’t want to admit they have a problem they cannot solve on their own.  The doctrine of sin is really the most practical and helpful doctrine in Scripture.  Nothing sets you up for miserable heartbreak in life like denial of the reality of sin.  When we believe life is rosy or everybody is good and just occasionally messes up a little, we are sure to be not just disappointed but to be gut punched.  When we understand what 1 John 1:5-10 teaches about sin, we understand it is the most fixable problem any of us will ever face.  However, it is also a problem that we MUST deal with honestly and successfully.  This cannot be done apart from the grace of Jesus Christ.

             But we have the grace of Christ.  In it we are able to establish a new relationship that is not casual (I’m only human) but secure (in my sinful humanity I am confident enough in God’s love to be able to quickly and easily recognize and confess my sins).  What has God done to make this possible?

             Verses 5 – 6 teach that the new relationship is a RELATIONSHIP OF LIGHT.  We want God to shine the light of His truth and holiness into every corner of our lives and point out our dirt, failures, and sins.  Verse 1:7 tells us that as believers God’s truth is light for us that enables us to look honestly at our sins, and the inability to be honest about sin means we are still in the dark.  So the first difference is we grow in our preference for honesty and clarity and our rejection of denial, dishonesty, and rationalization regarding sin.

             In your personal devotional life try saying, “Dear God, You are welcome in my life.  Please point out anything to me that displeases You. I am ready to hear anything You may have to say to me about my sin.”  Receptivity to the light of God is the first difference, and verses 8 and 10 reemphasize this idea because of open honesty with God and His Word. 

             How do we say we have no sin apart from outright denial?  We do so when we say things like my sin doesn’t matter because it’s no worse than anybody else’s or it doesn’t matter because I don’t see it doing any direct harm to anyone else. Verse 8 says the unwillingness to acknowledge and deal with sin is self-deception.  It indicates a lack of truth in us. That is, the light described in verses 5 – 7 is absent from our lives.  In verse 10 when we say we have no sin, we make God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, a liar and indicate His Word – the Word of God – is not active and working in our lives because when it is, we will freely admit, “I am a sinner.  I have sinned.  I need God’s redeeming grace.” 

 (Continued in my next blog)

In the Scripture passage from Sunday, January 31, (Romans 6:12-14) Paul said, “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”  Presentation has to do with who you offer yourself to. In fact, if you think about it, that’s what worship is – loving God and offering yourself to Him.  When we pass the offering plate, it’s just one way you have of offering yourself and the substance of your life to God.

  Paul is saying to us that if we present ourselves to God, we will become more like God.  On the other hand, if we present ourselves to sin, we will become more sinful. We have a tendency to think that what really matters is what we do.  But doing is always caused by something else.  It is that something else that presentation addresses. 

 This passage of Scripture teaches that we will all be determined by what we present ourselves to.  In other words, if you think all the time about money or work all the time to get money, it’s going to be very difficult for you to be generous or people-centered.  If you think all the time about drinking, it’s going to be very difficult for you to stay sober.  If you think all the time about being sophisticated, it’s going to be very difficult for you to be down to earth and available to the people around you.  So what you present yourself to, who you hang out with, what you spend time thinking about, and what you value in life are going to be the great determining factors of your life.  It’s no wonder that people who set these ungodly values are surprised by their ungodly actions when they really meant to do something else.  Good news.  If you present yourself to Jesus Christ repeatedly, guess what will happen then?  That’s right.  You’ll become more like Him, and you will do His will more readily.

             When we are born again we are given the power of the Holy Spirit so that we will be naturally drawn to God and have the ability to relate to Him.  Yet, many of us who have that natural ability don’t use it.  We’re like a person who has the capacity to be a great pitcher but never picks up a baseball or picks one up only to toss it around the yard from time to time.  If you are born again, you have the Holy Spirit.  You have the ability to present yourself to God over and over again and to find increasing joy in it.  Do you take advantage of the opportunities we offer here at the church to present yourself to God or are you just coming to Sunday school and church?  Is it a duty or is it an opportunity for you to draw near to Him and present yourself to Him? 

             The Scripture says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).  This is the same as saying, “Present your bodies to God as an instrument of righteousness” (Romans 6:13).  That is, present yourself with the desire that God would use you for a righteous purpose.