First Step with God Course, Lesson 3
First Step with God Course, Lesson 3
Lecture 3- part -3: When you stumble
Starting Your New Life
A. Living a changed life
When we became Christians, we changed. We died with Christ to that old life and were raised to a new life–a new life of discipleship; a life in which we submit our wills to the perfect, holy will of God. Our lives started to show the Fruits of the Spirit and we began to have God’s love where there was none before; we started to have God’s joy and His peace, patience, guidance, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. In other words, our lives changed.
Yet this new life of fruitful discipleship isn’t automatic, is it? God is at work in us. He is giving us His desires, and then He is giving us His ability to make those desires a reality in our lives. However, God will not force His desires upon us, will He? He will not make us love. He will not make us be joyous. He will not make us feel peaceful. Rather, we must take the next step. We must agree with God that we want His love, His joy, His peace, and His patience. We must take the next step and, empowered by God’s Spirit, be obedient to Him. God gives us the desire; He gives us the ability, but we must take the step. For example, the Bible says, “Do not be conformed to this world”; that’s a step. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”; that also is a step.
Well, amidst all the joy of our new spiritual lives, I do have some bad news. The bad news is that sometimes, if we’re like everyone else, we will fail to take that next step. We will act as if we were not changed in our conversion; instead of love, there will be anger, which might develop into hatred; instead of joy, there might develop a critical and a bitter spirit; instead of peace, there could be anxiety and turmoil.
It took me a long time to determine where I was going to raise this topic, because I know all of you are excited. There is so much joy when a person first becomes a child of God; we realize that we are not going to spend eternity in Hell. We are going to go to Heaven and we realize that we have a new Father and a new family. Yet we need to know that challenges are coming. In fact, those challenges may already have come. So the questions are:
“What are you going to do when you haven’t taken that next step of obedience?”
“What are you going to do when you stumble and fall in the Christian walk?”
B. Defining three terms
Before I give an answer to the questions above, I need to define three terms that I’m going to use throughout the rest of this talk: relativism, sin and temptation.
1. Relativism
The first word is not a biblical word. We’re not going to find it in the concordance, but it describes the world in which we live, and it describes the culture out of which we have come when we became children of God; that word is “relativism.” Relativism is the denial of the existence of absolute truth; it’s the philosophy that there’s nothing necessarily right and there’s nothing necessarily wrong; it says that truth is relative.
Relativism says, “What is true for me may not be true for you. What is true for me this morning may not be true for you this afternoon.” Now, the world has a word for this: They call this “post-modern thinking,” or “post-modernity.” The Bible has a different word for it: It calls it “rebellion” against the authority of God. You and I, as children of God, believe that our Father is the Creator. As the Creator, we believe that He has the right and the wisdom to determine truth. There is absolute truth and it’s what God, our Father and Creator, decrees to be truth. In fact, we believe that God himself is Truth. God is the all-wise Creator who determines what is true.
We also believe that God is good all of the time, therefore, this all-wise, all-good Creator wants the best for His creation. This all-wise, all-good Creator gives us rules and guidelines. He has given us this Book, the Bible, and in this Book, He has told us what is true and false–what is right and wrong. God has told us what is best for you and for me. At times, we’re going to disagree with His judgment call, but truth is not relative, truth is what God has determined; so therefore, what the Bible says is what is best for you and me.
You have passages such as in the Book of Psalms. In Psalm 16:11 the psalmist understands this and he says, speaking to God: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
Notice that the psalmist doesn’t write, “Yeah, you gave me a bunch of rules that I have to follow and in Your presence I’m just miserable because there’s all these things I can’t do anymore and there is nothing good about this”; that’s the sick, weird way that people look at Christians and also the way some Christians look at themselves. The psalmist understands that God has made known to us truth–the path of life. Only in His presence is there real joy. Only at His right hand we find pleasure.
We are not relativists; we believe there is absolute, moral, spiritual truth. We believe truth is determined not by the world, but by our Creator who is all wise and all good, and He wants the best for His creation; that’s the starting point we have and it’s diametrically opposed to everything we’ve been taught in this secular world. We are not relativists.
2. Sin
The second word I want to define is the word “sin.” Sin is a word that we are familiar with, but let me make sure we have a good definition of it. Sin, at its most basic level, is missing the mark. Imagine an archer drawing his bow back and sighting down the arrow. He’s sighting for the middle of the target, which is his mark. He lets the arrow fly and the arrow misses the mark; that, at its most basic, fundamental level is what sin is–sin is missing the mark.
Who establishes the mark? Who says this is the middle of the bull’s eye? Who says this is where our lives are to aim? God does. Our all-wise, all-good Creator says, “That’s the middle.” We draw back the arrow of our lives and shoot it, and sin is when the arrow doesn’t hit the bull’s eye, but it goes aside. For example, what is God’s mark? What is the middle of the bull’s eye as far as God is concerned for our tongue? Where is the middle of the bull’s eye for our tongue that get us into so much trouble? Well, He tells us in Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” 5:4 says, “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving."
God has shown us where the middle of the bull’s eye is. He is saying, “As far as your tongue is concerned, it is to be so full of grace and thanksgiving, and it is to be so busy building up one another that there simply is no room or time to tear the other person down.” We know the middle of the bull’s eye, but what happens in our lives? Despite the fact that we truly do believe that God is all wise and all good, there are times when we say things like,
“No, God, I know better than You.”
“Your ways are not always best.”
“You’re not always wise.”
“This is just not the time to build up, to edify, or to extend grace.”
So we gossip, slander, and hurt the other person. We destroy their reputation. We sow seeds of distrust and discontent. God has shown us the mark and has given us the bull’s eye. Sin is when we miss the mark–when we fall short. Sin is simply missing the mark–stumbling in our walk; that is sin.
3. Temptation
The third word that I wanted to define is the word “temptation.” The word “temptation” simply means to entice to sin. Someone hurts us, and thoughts go through our head to respond in anger; that’s the temptation. Or a woman walks by and–if I believe the statistics now, I have to also say if a man walks by– something inside of us says to look her (or him) up and down; that’s temptation; that’s the enticement to sin.
Let me share with you three things from the Bible about temptation:
a. Temptation Is Not Sin
Temptation is not sin. Thoughts fly through our heads and we say, “Where did that come from?” That is temptation and not sin. Now, temptation becomes sin when we yield to it, right? Temptation becomes sin when we yield and we do respond in anger or gossip and slander. Temptation becomes sin when we let our eyes dwell on that woman and we undress her in our minds. Temptation becomes sin when we fall into this fantasy relationship with some guy. Temptation can become sin when we yield to it, but temptation itself is not sin.
b. You Don’t Have To Give In to Temptation
I will show my age, as it will for some of you, when I make mention of a very famous comedian from years ago: Flip Wilson got a lot of laughs with one line. Do you remember his line, “The devil made me do it”? Flip Wilson made a lot of money and got a lot of laughs out of that line, but his theology was absolutely horrific. The devil can’t make anybody do anything. Sin can’t make us do something wrong. Understand that on the cross and in our conversion, the mastery of sin was completely broken in our lives. We no longer have to sin; it’s still present, but its mastery, its domination, and its control was broken, and we don’t have to give in to temptation.
There are promises all the way through the Bible along these lines. Jesus told the disciples in John 16:33, “…In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” He conquered the world; He destroyed the absolute power of sin. 1 John 4:4, speaking of God, says that, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
The God who is in us, through the Holy Spirit, is greater than Satan and anything else this world has. What is inside of us has conquered what is outside of us. Satan simply can’t make us sin; we sin because we want to. I sin because I yield to temptation, but never am I made to sin, and neither are you. The most important promise along these lines is in Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth. In I Corinthians 10:13, Paul tells them, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man….” Here’s what is going to happen if we’re like everybody else: Temptation is going to come and we’re going to feel completely alone; we’re going to feel as if no one has ever been tempted like this before–no one has ever had this particular temptation. We’re going to feel as if no one had temptation that was this difficult to resist. We may be thinking, “I’m all alone and I’m going to…” (that’s Satan, by the way, if you hear that voice).
The promise of God is that “…no temptation has overtaken you that is not common.” We are not alone. No matter how difficult it is, we’re not alone. If we are being tempted a certain way, other people are being tempted as well; we are not alone.
Then Paul continues, “God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,” your ability to resist temptation, “but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure.” Notice Paul goes not to some inner strength that says, “You know, when you get tempted, just gut it out, hang in there, you can fight it”; that’s not where he goes. He goes where all good theology goes–he goes initially to the character of God.
Paul says that God is faithful. God has made certain promises to us, and our sovereign God is so in control of the circumstances of our lives that He has promised He will never allow a temptation to come into our lives to which we have to yield. We will never have a temptation in which we don’t also have some way, by the power of God, to resist.
In fact, our all-wise, all-good, all-loving, sovereign God says that in the midst of the temptation there will be a way for us to move through and to not yield. God is not going to keep us away from temptation, but He is going to be with us in the midst of it. As we learn not to yield by the power of His Spirit, we grow in our Christian walk. We never have to sin; we sin because we want to and we like it–I do, anyway. We don’t have to sin. We never have to give into temptation. I laughed a lot at Flip Wilson, but he just wasn’t right.
c. God Is On Your Side
Please understand that God is on our side. This joy and excitement we are feeling as new Christians is real and there is victory in our walk as Christians; a large part of that is because God is for us, not against us. God wants us to make it–to not yield to temptation.
I had a basketball coach once that needed to read this passage because he wanted me to fail. I’ve never had a basketball coach like this before, but it was free throws. It was an odd, dysfunctional, triangular relationship between free throws and me and the coach. Every time I got up to shoot a free throw, do you know what I heard? “Miss it!” or “Bet you five bucks you don’t make it!” That was my coach! I would hear the coach and the rest of the team say, “Bet you can’t make it!” He used to bet me all kinds of things if I missed it. He wasn’t a very good coach. I missed a lot of free throws, too, but that is another story.
God is not like my basketball coach. God doesn’t want us to fail. He wants us to succeed and not yield to temptation. In fact, He wants us to not yield so badly that He’s given of Himself to us, and His Spirit lives in us; that’s how badly He wants us to win this battle. He’s going to give us the desire to win the battle, and then He’ll give us the ability to win the battle, too.
Paul tells the Galatian church, “Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Listen to the Spirit; listen to what He says; listen to the direction that He gives us, and then let His power be the power that helps us not to yield to temptation. God is on your side. He’s on my side. He’s not against us; He is for us.
Temptation is being enticed to sin; it’s not sin in itself, and we don’t have to give into it. Understand that we have the power of the risen Christ inside of us to help us not yield to temptation.
C. What do you do
1. Confess
Having discussed those three words, let’s get back to the original topic: “What are we going to do when we stumble and sin?” What are we going to do when we miss the mark? I cannot emphasize this enough, because this is one of the defining moments in our spiritual walk. If we don’t get this right–if we don’t learn what God has called us to do in the midst of sin, we are going to be absolutely miserable the for rest of our lives; I absolutely guarantee it. The most miserable position in the world is to have a foot in two worlds, and to be hanging onto the world and hanging onto sin.
It’s just pathetic to see someone, who is a child of God, who possesses the power that raised Christ from the dead–it is the same power that’s working in us–hanging onto sin at the same time; this is a defining moment for our spiritual lives. What are we going to do when we stumble and fall?
Scripture’s answer is very clear: Confess; it’s as simple as that. Confess our sin. All that confession is, is simply agreeing with God that we missed the mark; that’s all it is. We say, “God, you are100% right, and I am 100% wrong. I know the middle of the mark is to have my tongue so filled with grace, understanding and love that there is no room to be critical. I blew it. I’m sorry.” That’s all that confession is—admitting that you missed the mark, that God’s right and you’re wrong. One of the best-known passages is in the Book of 1 John, Chapter 1, Verse 8, where John says to Christians, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
If anyone thinks they’re free from sin, they’re just deceived, which is what sin is. Right? However, “If we confess our sins, then God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Again, John goes to the character of God and says that God is a faithful God–He is a just God. God is committed to forgive our sin if we would but confess.
2. Psalm 51
If confession of sin is a new thing for you (and it may be for some), I’d encourage you to go to the middle of the Bible, to the Book called Psalms, and look at Psalm 51. Psalm 51 is probably the best model of confession that there is anywhere in the Bible.
Let me read some of the verses in Psalm 51, and you can start to get a feel of what real biblical confession looks like: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love. According to Your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.” (Psalm 51:1) Notice that David, the writer, knows that he doesn’t deserve to be forgiven, so he appeals to God’s mercy. “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin.” (Psalm 51:2)
David understands that forgiveness lies ultimately with God. “For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against You and You only have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight.” (Psalm 51:3) Although we sin against people, all sin ultimately goes to the heart of God and David knows that. Verse 7, “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” He knows that forgiveness is fully available. Verse 10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
Beautiful words! I would encourage each one you that if you were ever to find yourselves in a situation where you need to confess and the words just don’t come, go find a Bible and fall on your knees and crack it open to the middle. Just read Psalm 51 and say, “God, may this be my heart, and may these be my words to you."
As we go through the Psalm, we will start to see the principles of confession. We’ll see that David makes absolutely no excuses; there are no excuses at all in Psalm 51. There is no idea that he is a victim, but rather it is a complete and total admission of sin by saying, “You’re right, God, you’re completely right, and I’m completely wrong.”
David is agreeing with God that sin is really bad. There is no desire in Psalm 51 to minimize sin or to say, “Well, you know, I mean, I’ve done worse things, and it’s not really that bad”; there’s none of that in Psalm 51. David agrees that sin is horrific; sin is a wretched thing.
Then David calls on God to forgive him; not because he deserves it, because he doesn’t; but he calls on God’s character of mercy and grace and says, “Because of who You are God, I ask You to forgive me.” David knows that he will be forgiven.
Psalm 51 is a marvelous model of what real biblical confession looks like, and one against which we need to hold up our understanding of confession and see if our version of confession is or is not biblical.
3. Tendency to do the opposite
Now, I need to tell you–and it may not happen right now–but as life continues, we will most likely develop a tendency to do the exact opposite of Psalm 51. Again, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but sin is sin; it’s been sin for centuries, and it doesn’t change much because it’s so effective the way it is. I do know that in my life and in the lives of people that I know, our human tendency (otherwise known as our sinful tendency) is to do the exact opposite of what David does in Psalm 51.
Sin is still present in our lives, isn’t it? Its mastery has been broken, but it’s still there–nipping, biting, and chomping at our heels because sin knows the power of confession. Sin knows what confession unleashes in the merciful heart of God, and so it whispers into our ears things like:
“No, make excuses.”
“Don’t accept all the blame for what you did.”
“Certainly, you can find someone to blame.”
“Certainly, it’s not all your fault.”
Sin whispers into our ears and the reason it’s so effective is that it’s coming from the inside, and so we really hear the whispering of sin. Sin whispers, “No, don’t fully confess; just confess enough so that you can avoid most of the circumstances.” These confessions are not deep and gut wrenching such as:
“God, against You I have sinned.”
“I am wretched in my sin.”
“I cannot believe that You will forgive me, but I do believe that You will forgive me.”
“I am so, so sorry.”
How many times on our lips has there been that kind of confession? So often, confession is just enough so that we can avoid the consequences of our sin, and of course, none of this is true confession; none of this brings full forgiveness, and none of this brings cleansing. Only a Psalm 51-kind-of-confession brings full cleansing.
D. Practical suggestions
Allow me to give a couple of practical suggestions when it comes to confession of sin:
1. Get It Over With
The tendency I have, and I think most people have, is to mull it over for awhile–to think whether it is really that bad. Just get it over with. Confess it early. Confess it often. Confess it fully. Just get it over with! As you or I hold onto our sin, what we’re doing is only hurting ourselves; we are only falling farther down the spiral of sin, and we are only damaging our relationship with God, and the walls are going up.
The thing about confession that is also important is that when you and I confess, we’re not telling God something He doesn’t already know; it’s not like we’re going to hang onto this deep, dark secret, and we’re not going to tell God! Just get it over with. Confess early. Confess often. Confess fully. God sees what goes on at 1:00 in the morning. God hears what we whisper. He knows exactly what is going on in our lives and in our hearts; we’re not keeping anything from Him–we’re not telling Him anything He doesn’t already know. You and I are the ones who are being hurt when we refuse to confess our sin.
2. Confess Your Sin to One Another
A second piece of practical advice is to simply confess our sin to one another; this is not just a good idea, this is the Bible (James 5:16).
Part of the lie of sin is that while we’re in the darkness of sin and we think no one else knows that we’re fighting with this sin, sin will tell us things such as:
“Don’t tell anybody.”
“It will only get worse if you tell anyone.”
“No, just keep this to yourself and work with it.”
“If you told another Christian, you’re giving them power over you–giving them authority. You don’t want that! They’ll gossip about you and it’s only going to get worse.”
Have any of you heard that voice? It’s the voice of Satan; it’s the voice of sin; it’s the voice of the lie. The fact of the matter is that the power of sin is snapped when we bring it to the light.
If we were in a different environment and we were all being honest, we could probably all tell stories of times in which the sin was yanking at us and pulling us down, taking us farther and farther down that spiral. Then we start to get desperate, wondering how we are ever going to get out of this sin. In obedience to Scripture and perhaps in desperation, we finally to go to someone we trust and confess to them saying, “I need you to pray for me.” What happens when we do that? It’s over, isn’t it? It’s amazing how the power of sin is snapped when we bring it to the light. Right? Right! Get it over with and confess our sin to one another.
Sin is always going to be here. Sin never goes away until we die and go home. Part of the Christian walk is learning to deal with sin. In the midst of our sin and our confession, we are being changed from one degree of glory to another so that we look more and more like Jesus Christ; that’s what this is all about. Right?
E. Receive his forgiveness
So we confess our sin. What happens when we confess? We receive His forgiveness. I John 1:9, “If we confess our sins,” because of His very character of being a faithful and a just God, He absolutely commits Himself, “to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Perhaps as our Christian walk develops, we may get caught in sin and we’ll ask, “How could God love a sinner like me?” The answer is that He loved us before conversion, why would He not love us now? He loved us when we weren’t his children, why would he stop loving us now that we are His children?
The thought may go through our minds, “But how could God really love someone who keeps on doing the same things over and over again? How can he really forgive me?” The answer: Because He’s God, and that’s what being God is about. I would struggle if you kept sinning, and even though I know the Bible says I have to keep forgiving you seventy times seven–just keep forgiving–it’s hard…because I’m human.
God isn’t human; He’s God and He’s a faithful God. God is committed no matter how much we sin, or how many times we commit the same sin, or no matter how bad it gets. If we confess our sin and say, “God, you’re right, I’m wrong,” He will commit Himself, always, with no exception, to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
F. Be cleansed
If you want to know what it’s like to be cleansed, then go to Psalm 103; this is another one of those model Psalms on confession. If you’re caught in sin and want to be forgiven and can’t find the words, find Psalm 103. Read it as your own words. I’m going to start at verse 8, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will He keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those,” who are His children, “who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.”
That’s God’s cleansing method! God has determined what is true and false, what is right and wrong, and what is good and bad. He is our all-good, all-wise Creator, who wants His best for His creation. With all of the joy and all of the victory that there is in the Christian walk, there’s also sin; there’s stumbling and falling; there’s yielding to temptation and missing the mark. Please, confess your sin. Confess early. Confess often. Confess fully. Tell God, “You are absolutely right and I am absolutely wrong. No one else is to blame. I messed up. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” God is committed to forgive, and we will enjoy the freedom that comes from being forgiven and cleansed.
G. Psalm 32
I want to leave each of you with one last Psalm. Another model Psalm for confession is Psalm 32. Starting in verse 3 the psalmist describes what it was like not to confess sin. He says, “For when I kept silent,” when I did not confess my sin to God, “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 as by the heat of summer.”
In another Psalm he talks about his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. However, what happens when he does confess his sin? Verse 5, “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”
Then back to verse 1,“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit."
© 2004 Bill Mounce. Website: www.BiblicalTraining.org.
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