Today's podcast is about the importance of what to do when we mess up and our assurance of forgiveness. I emphasize that acknowledging our sins is crucial, as it enables us to receive God's forgiveness. The scripture from 1 John 1:8-9 reminds us that if we claim we are free from sin, we are only deceiving ourselves. It's vital to admit our wrongdoings; this act of coming clean allows God to wash us clean and restore our relationship with Him. I also explore how societal norms can sometimes blur our understanding of right and wrong, making it essential to know what the Bible says to maintain a clear moral compass.
Takeaways:
We must recognize that we all mess up and need forgiveness, which is available.
Admitting our sins to God is essential for restoring our relationship with Him.
Grumbling and arguing are behaviors that violate God's standards, often unnoticed in society.
Engaging with the Bible is crucial for understanding what pleases God versus societal norms.
We can ask God to make us sensitive to sins that have become acceptable in our lives.
Confessing our wrongdoings allows us to experience the cleansing power of God's forgiveness.
Hi, welcome to the Hobo Soul podcast of road advice from the Bible and from me, Yvon Prehn, someone who's a little further down the road of life. I'll talk to you every weekday for about five to 10 minutes, with periodic longer talks on serious Saturdays.
Let's get started with our topic today, which is
"What to do when you do mess up, also known as our assurance of forgiveness."
Our verse for our talk today is "If we claim we're free from sin, we're only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense.On the other hand, if we admit our sins, simply come clean about them, he won't let us down. He'll be true to himself. He'll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing." This is 1 John 1:8,9 in the Message translation.
In our last podcast, we talked about how we don't have to mess up in life. God always provides a way out, but there are times we don't take the way out. We mess up repeatedly.
The astounding thing is that our gracious Saviors provided a remedy for us when that happens. But the remedy of forgiveness isn't applied until we do something. What we need to do is clearly spelled out in the verse that I just quoted to you.
We need to admit our sins, as the Message translation says, and quote unquote, "simply come clean about them." When we do that, God will forgive us. To me, it's like stepping into a shower which washes us clean, ready to go back out into the world to serve Him.
Because this, the admitting of our sins, is such an important topic, let's look at it a little bit more. Again, I'll use the analogy of a friendship or marriage.
If you do something really rotten in the relationship, from telling a lie to an unhealthy habit and hiding it, to having a work relationship that maybe goes a little beyond what's professionally required. There are many things, big or little, that create a barrier between the free exchange of love and communication in a relationship.
In a healthy relationship, the love between the two of you doesn't change, even if there is a temporary breach. But a barrier is put up, and if you don't take care of it, it will get higher and higher.
Confession clearly naming what you did and acknowledging it as wrong breaks down the barrier, restores the relationship, and allows the love and interactions to flow again. That's how it is with God. He doesn't love you any less when you sin. But sin puts up a barrier in your relationship, and confessing it brings it Down.
Now, that all sounds good and true, and it is. But here's the challenge.
In our world today, it isn't always that simple or easy, because sometimes we honestly aren't even aware that we've sinned, that we violated God's standards. Because, and this is true even for those who go to church, have been raised in a Christian family, and consider themselves good Christians.
Our world today has moved so far away from a truly biblical standard of what is right or wrong, it's easy to sin, meaning we violate God's standards without even realizing it. Now, I'm not talking about the obvious sins, like murder, stealing, adultery, all that sort of thing.
What we need to ask God for is that he make us sensitive to sins that have become socially acceptable, like constantly complaining.
Today it's almost an art form where we find fault in everything from rehashing every trouble or trial in our lives, to the fine points of error we found in the Sunday sermon to how a restaurant didn't prepare our food exactly as we wanted.
But when we do that, we forget that the Bible clearly tells us in Philippians 4, excuse me, Philippians 2:14-16, where it says, "Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God, without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life."
"Do everything without grumbling or arguing."
We've got to look at how often grumbling and arguing fill our lives. It isn't okay because everybody's doing it. When we do that, it's sin. We need to name it and stop it.
Here's what's really great about this verse and the command is that it gives us a reason for not doing the negative, the grumbling and arguing. The world today tells us that we're being insightful or standing up for our rights or whatever.
But this passage shows us the context of this sort of speech, which is simply a warped and crooked generation. We are part of that when we constantly grumble or argue, but we have a choice.
When we stop doing that, when we don't grumble when everybody else is, we become blameless and pure. And even more, I love how it says this. "We will shine like the stars in the sky." What a great picture.
The Bible is full of contrasts like this between what is acceptable in our world today and what pleases God. And the obvious application is to get into the Bible more so that you'll learn what they are.
You'll learn these contrasts, you'll learn what pleases God, even though something totally opposite might be acceptable in the world. Now you can do this by either reading or listening to the Bible.
The YouVersion Bible app is a great tool for listening and if you don't know where to start, start in the Bible, I've written a little book Start Here, a Plan for curious people to begin reading the Bible. It's available on Amazon and you can find out more about it on the Bible805 website.
Listening or reading, getting into your Bible is strongly recommended.
But also, don't forget you also have a God given conscience, and most likely you don't have to think very long and hard before realizing there's something in your life you need to chat with God about. Tell Him. Name what it is that you know isn't how he wants you to live, and the shower of forgiveness will flow over your life.
That's all for this podcast, for transcripts, links to related material, and much more to help you learn to know, trust, apply and teach the body. Go to www.bible805.com for now, let me end with this benediction and prayer.
May you walk each day surrounded by the gracious love of the Father, guided by the gentle wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and conscious of the astoundingly real presence of Jesus, who will walk with you until you're no more a hobo soul, no more a transient wandering heart, but at home in the kingdom prepared for you with your God forever. Amen.
