1John 2:1-6 - "The Truth Part 2 The Sequel"

“The Truth Part 2 The Sequel”

Last week we looked at Family Trait #1.  

God's Family Trait #1: Honest about sin.

We saw that God’s people, the family of God - those who have really and truly come to know Him, are those who embrace the truth about sin.  They are honest about their sin.  They admit their guilt.  They own it.  They freely admit that they fall short of the glory of God.  God’s children are not perfect (not yet!!!), and His church is not perfect. We are not perfect - far from it.  Just forgiven.  And it is this fact of admission which opens up the way for forgiveness.  For cleansing.  Being washed whiter than - so that we can more perfectly reflect who God is.  The God of light.  In Whom there is no hint of darkness.  So we have this family trait of honesty, and at the same time we now belong to a family where our Dad is perfect.  Our Big Brother is perfect.  The standard is perfection.  White as snow.  No hint of darkness.  Much less walking in it.  We are totally okay with admitting our mistakes, our sins, knowing that the abounding grace of God and the blood of Jesus completely covers it - but what John tells us today is that we are totally NOT okay with continuing in sin.  In this respect, we are truly intolerant.

1John 2:1-6   My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.  3 By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: 6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

My little children…  John calls us his little children.  Seven times in this letter, in fact.  Not just children (which is teknon in the greek), but a cuter sounding word for a smaller cuter child (teknion).  It would be somewhat like how we would call a young Bob, ‘Bobby’, or a young Susan, ‘Susie’.  And when they grow older, they most likely come to prefer to be called by the more adult-sounding name.  But they will make an exception for their parents or grandparents, most likely.  My grammy got to call me ‘Chrissy’.  Or the family will simply persist in using the cuter nickname.  We call this is a term of endearment, and John uses one of those here.  Whatever his relationship with these readers, we can understand that John thus has a fond affection for them, for us.  He cares.  He is the parent, or the wisened old grandparent, passing on sage words of advice to these younger readers of whom he is so fond.

I am writing…  Remember we are classifying this as a writing.  It reads like no other epistle in the NT.  No introduction or identification of author or audience, no greeting or farewell, no real sequential flow.  It reads more like Psalms or Proverbs or Ecclesiastes - sort of a stream of spiritual consciousness.  I am writing, John says, so that:

• 1 - my joy may be made complete (last week)

-Remember, joy is not the same as happiness.  Happiness is all circumstantial.  When my circumstances change, that can rob me of my happiness.  Joy is qualitatively different.  It is a deeper abiding sense of goodness and satisfaction which is rooted in the reality of Who God is, what He has done for me in His Son, and who I am in Him.  It is grounded in timeless unchanging truth.  Which is why Scripture tells us to rejoice always.  Truth is always truth.  So that which is my cause of rejoicing today - truth - will (or should) still runneth over my cup tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.  Joy triumphs over circumstances - or should.  It washes over the brokenness and the sadness and the loss and the missteps, and says, something greater is here.  Something good is here.  In fact, it is a Someone, and He working a weight of glory which is far beyond compare.  And right here, right now, even though my circumstances don’t feel good, HE is good, He is in control, and He is with me.  Emmanuel.  And John’s joy here could be increased glory for Jesus or increased joy for his readers - either will result in filling up his own joy.  That is why he is writing.

• 2 - you all - John’s readers, His little children - WILL NOT sin…

Confession means forsaking.  Turning around and away from it.  Breaking ties and fleeing from it if you have to.  It’s not just that we admit it and say we’re sorry and go right back to it.  No…

Bar set high.  Family trait.  Our goal is not to just get hit a little.  It is to not get hit at all.  No darkness - just like our heavenly Father.  Maybe you’ve seen those Geico commercials?  We’re okay.  I’m just an okay tattoo artist.  Or an okay surgeon.  Or an okay mechanic.  And we totally okay with being just okay.  I’m just an okay Christian.  Just a little bit of poop in the brownie - have you heard that one?  But the whole point of those commercials - and of what John is saying here - is that we ought NOT be okay with sub-standard following.  WhatchuNOTgondo.

Why so seriousness about this high bar…?

The truth about dirt - is that - if we let ourselves, we get used to it.  We compromise with dirt.  That’s one reason why this metaphor of Light, of blinding whiteness, whiter than snow, works so well.  Totally white means the dirt shows up.  So we notice a sudden splash of mud or grape juice or spaghetti sauce on our brand new white shirt.  But what we don’t notice is the dirt creep.  The slow discoloration over time - and now the shirt is off-white.  It has a tinge of dirt.  The slow creep of compromise.  We get used to a certain amount of smudging and discoloration.  We forget how white white really is.  We are like Isaiah, needing fresh and terrible visions of the Majesty on high…

Isaiah. 6:1-5   

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, 

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, 

The whole earth is full of His glory.”

And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, 

“Woe is me, for I am ruined! 

Because I am a man of unclean lips, 

And I live among a people of unclean lips; 

For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”

Here is where these twin towers of grace overlap.  God’s children are those who are "okay" with their sin - because God’s grace and the blood of Jesus completely covers and cleans it.  But we are also not at all okay with our sin, with continuing in it.  He loves us just the way we are, but too much to let us stay that way.  We see this overlap in verse one.  This is our current reality if we are in Christ, our struggle, if you will.  We still struggle with sin, but we struggle against it, because we hate it - or should.  And by His grace we experience freedom!  Healing!  Victory!  Further up and further in!

The good news, John says, is that we have an Advocate!  Because we do still struggle with sin, and we most likely will - or should - be having these these fresh visions of glory, these fresh crises of filthiness, we need a Helper.  And that’s Jesus.  Jesus Messiah.  The Christ.  Savior.

• Advocate (paraclete)
• We think of someone who is our champion, who has our back.  Could be a lawyer, someone Who pleads on our behalf before a Judge.  Which Jesus does, for sure!
• The word in the Greek is paraclete - same word Jesus used for the Holy Spirit.  One called alongside to help.  Our Helper.  Jesus is the One Who actually perfected the art of being in two places at once.  He is seated at the right hand of the Father, praying for us, interceding for us.  But He is also with us, right here with us.  I am with you always, even to the end of the age, He said.  The Helper, the Spirit of Christ, will be with us forever.
• Jesus Christ the Righteous
• who better to help us obey than the One Who always did everything His Father wanted.  He kept His shirt totally clean.  Not one spot.  So He can sympathize with us while still being our Ultimate Example.  But He also has the impeccable credentials to approach the bench on our behalf.  He can - and does - do both.
• Propitiation
• He is both the priest AND the sacrifice 
• For the WHOLE WORLD.
• He is Knowable - Abide-able - Imitate-able

But so here we come to Family Trait #2

God's Family Trait #2: Obeys Him

By this we know (which John repeats 2x)

• That we have come to know Him
• That we are in Him

Those who know - Keep His commandments/His Word (3x)

• this means guarding - attend to carefully, take care of, to carefully hold on to it and protect it

• I can tell you this, John is talking about so much more than compliance.  He is not talking about lip-service, rote obedience.  As much as anything he is talking about heart.  

• This is what Moses was trying to communicate to the Israelites

Deut 5:24-6:10 “You said, ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives.  ‘Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer, then we will die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? Go near and hear all that the LORD our God says; then speak to us all that the LORD our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it.’ …Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!  Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.  Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.  Then it shall come about when the LORD your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself, that you do not forget the LORD.”

Dirt creep.  We compromise.  We cut corners.  We forget.  We forget Who He is, what He is like.  We become enamored with other lesser things.  Like Martha, we get busy and distracted and focused on other things, worried and bothered by so many things.  But just a few things are necessary.  Really only one, Jesus said.  And Mary found it.  Remember?  What was she doing?  Listening, and paying careful attention to what?  The Words of Jesus.  Truth.

Truth in me, God’s love in me (these things being perfected/completed)

• The Truth is in fact NOT in me if I am not keeping it
• Perfect love, the perfection of it, it's already completed, actually.  It has been completed at some point in the past in the life of this one who in the present is keeping God’s commands
• John talks about joy being completed (1:4) by this love being completed

The God Who forgets our sins wants us not to forget Him.  Not ever.  This is our family trait.

Is. 43:25    

“I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

Is. 44:21    

“Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant, O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me.”

We are "obligated", John says.  He says that if you say you are abiding in Him, you are obligated to be walking just as He walked.  How did He walk?

Luke 6:42-46 “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye. For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.  Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

There is this overarching commitment.  And it flows from the heart.

Lev. 16:29-31 

“This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you; for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD.  It is to be a sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute.”

Humbling our souls.  Obeying God’s Word, His commands, doing what He wants - from the heart.  Because He is our Father.  Because Jesus is our Savior - and our bestest Big Brother, Who we want to be like when we grow up.  He is our Perfect Example.  He’s the Big Brother Who looks out for you and shows you what to do and how to do it by how He lives - AND He helps you to do it!  Best Big Brother ever!  But there is a heart for truth, for God’s Word which reflects our heart for Him.  This is how you can tell if a person has come to know the Father - they carefully hold on to and protect His Word.  They listen to it and observe it carefully with every ounce of strength the Lord provides.  

2Corinthians 5:14-15 

For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.

Gal. 2:20 

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Not how much I love Him - but how much He loves me.  But our response is one of full out reciprocation.  So we are doing what He did, yes.  We are following Him - like Vector (the villain in Despicable Me).  We’re talking about direction, and magnitude!  Fixing our eyes on Jesus, following in His footsteps, and doing what He did, but also greater works!

This is, All the way in - like Reepicheep, the talking mouse of Narnia, who was all the way in with his eyes fixed on pursuing Aslan: "While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world into some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.”

1John 1:5-10 - "Can I Handle The Truth?"

Previously we looked at "ALL IN in the Family…"  John is writing to a spiritual family.  We are a family.  And John's writing - being Scripture - is inerrant.  To begin with, it's true.  It's also not in the wrong order.  It’s in exactly the order which God intended.  Every letter, every last jot and tittle, and none of it will ever pass away without being fully accomplished.  It will never fade into irrelevance.  It is totally true, completely trustworthy - you and I can bank on it, and base our entire life on it - and should.  But the numbering and groupings have been determined by man.  So if you think verse 5 here goes better with verses 1-4 than with verses 6-10, then you go right ahead and group them up.  Or if you think verse 10 here goes better with the thoughts of the first verses of chapter 2, then regroup.

Truth can be a dicey proposition in our world today.  A bit of a moving target.  Esp with the advent of things like “Virtual Reality”.  Computer imaging.  Photoshop.  How can we even know what is real anymore?

[photoshopped vs real images]

Today we look at verses 5-10 of chapter 1.  Let’s read them together…

1John 1:5   This is the message we have heard from Him and are messaging to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 

6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 

7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 

8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

We heard from Jesus, John says.  We saw, we heard, we touched, we saw, we heard.  This is the message, HIS message, this is what we heard - and we are messaging it to you.  We’re hitting that share button, and forwarding it on to you.

We HAVE heard, John says - let’s not miss this.  It is the perfect tense - which means a completed action in the past which has continuing results in the present.  In other words, we DID hear, and it is still making a difference in our lives.  No forgetful hearers here.  We heard it, not simply with our ears, but with our hearts.  We listened.  We paid attention.  Parents - you know what I’m talking about.  Kids who profess to be listening but aren’t paying attention at all?  Teachers, you can also relate.  We would all do well to pay attention to this message…!

-light and darkness - here we have the first of several motifs john begins to take up in this letter.  God is light.  let’s consider this for a moment.  for the pre-edisononian world, light was/is fire.  think about that - even the sun - it’s fire.  as far as a consistent source of illumination - and so we would be excepting lightning and bioluminescence (fireflies), there is basically one natural source of light, and that is fire.  so fire illuminates, yes, and fire is hot, yes.  and it purifies.  it consumes.  it is no coincidence that fire was an integral part of the mosaic law and operation of the tabernacle.  fire, consuming and purifying the sacrifices.  fire on the golden lamp stand, representing the constant presence of God.  and of course there was the shekinah glory, blazing above the mercy seat in the holy of holies.  God is light, and He dwells in unapproachable light, light so blindingly bright that human eyes cannot gaze at it directly and even the backside of it will light up your face like the sun.  He is an all-consuming fire.  Only fire can give even a remote conception of God’s incomparable holiness.  In fire He appeared at the burning bush; in the pillar of fire He dwelt through all the long wilderness journey; the fire that glowed between the wings of the cherubim in the holy place was called the Shekinah, the Presence, through the years of Israel’s glory; and when the old had given place to the new, the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost in a fiery flame and rested upon each disciple.  Fire.  Besides fire, God Himself is the other source of light in Scripture.  in the beginning, the first thing God said was, ‘let there be light’.  He had made the heavens and the earth, but the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the earth.  the eternal God spoke into the darkness and created the light with a word.  and light is the first thing mentioned in all of Scripture which was good.  light is good - maybe unless you need to sleep?, but here it is good, breathtakingly so.  and in this sense, darkness is bad.  light and darkness are completely antithetical - they cannot coexist.  think about it -darkness is the absence of light.  it is the concealment of light, where the God of light and His holy truth and righteousness are suppressed and where i can (try to) hide and do those things of which i am (or should be) ashamed.  where light goes, it dispels darkness.  and as you get closer to God, and approach all the way to Him, you will find that there is not even a single bit of darkness.  no hiding.  no concealing.  nothing but light.  blazing, blinding, purifying brilliance.  truth, justice, and the heavenly way.  and so we observe that john is beginning with the character of God, reminding us of Who God is and what He is like.  this is the God with Whom we have to do.  This is our Father, and Light is a family trait.  Light dispels darkness - the two do not and cannot coexist.

-now from a certain perspective, darkness - or night - is a necessary concession to the physical constraints of life on our planet.  living things need to sleep - and the darkness of night certainly seems more conducive to that.  but a 24-day - let’s say for the sake of conjecture that the earth did not rotate around its axis once every 24 hours but simply went around the sun with one side constantly facing towards it.  that side would be total desert.  the other side would be a massive ice cap.  it is difficult to imagine how life as we know it could exist without a period of darkness.  nevertheless, we are told that one day - when the children of the Light find themselves in the new heavenly jerusalem, with a new heavens and a new earth - that there will be no longer any night, nor even any need for a sun.  God Himself will be present in that realm, and the Light of His glory will illuminate the entire place such that somehow there is no longer any night.  what a(n unending) day of brilliant blindingly breathtaking goodness that will be...!

And so, to be sure, There is no darkness in our heavenly Father.  God is Light.  He is in the Light.  He is Light.  An all-consuming fire is our God.  He consumes the darkness by His very nature.  No darkness.  Not even a hint of it.  And again - what is darkness?  Absence of Light.  Light exposes.  Light highlights.  Light illuminates what is real.  Reality.  Truth.  Light exposes.  What you get with God - and those in His family - is Truth.  It’s a family trait.  In the family of God, you are gonna get truth.  Truth about God.  Truth about His Son.  Truth about us, and about sin.  The question is, what do we say about what God says?  What do we say about the truth, and can you and I handle the truth?

In the movie "A Few Good Men", Tom Cruise as the Navy lawyer says he wants the truth, and Jack Nicholson as Marine Col. Nathan Jessup shouts, "you can’t handle the truth!"  He is saying that there is a grotesque and incomprehensible reality which most civilians would rather just ignore.  The truth about what he feels he has to do at Guantanamo Bay.  And for us there is a real grotesque reality, an uncomfortable, inconvenient truth which most of us are default wired to do our darnedest to try and sweep under the rug.  To hide from the light of day and from our consciousness.  We prefer to walk in darkness.  Jesus said it - Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.  We humans like to say that we are all basically good, and like to ignore or deny the fact of the depravity of man.

But the inconvenient and grotesque truth is, all have sinned.  That’s what God says.  All of us were born in sin.  We were born separated from God and living for self.  Instinctively choosing what I want over God and what He wants.  As sons of Adam and daughters of Eve it is our default position, from the start.  We can do no other, apart from His gracious intervention.

If we say we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves, John says.  And we are calling God a liar.  Darkness walking.  Lying.  We are not practicing/doing/working/making/producing the truth.  It is about outcome.  Truth is the outcome.  Out comes truth.  Truth comes out.  Those in God’s family produce truth.  And what is the truth?  God, and His Word.  It is precisely what John heard from Jesus.  The words of Jesus.  I am the Truth, He said.

What is truth?  It is not a new question.  Pilate asked that question of Jesus.  But we are living in the so-called post-truth age.  An age where facts no longer seem to matter, not as much as feelings.  Don’t confuse me with facts - I just want to feel good.  I want to feel good about myself, and about life, about those around me.  An age where lies create a false view of reality and serve to reinforce prejudices.  Biases.  We are all biased towards something - and our greatest bias is towards self.  And against the truth that I am broken, and the world is broken.  We are wired for paradise, for perfection, but the grotesque truth is that I am not perfect - far from it.  I am not ok, nor is my neighbor.  I am sinful, and separated from God, from the One Who is Light.  And inside of me, in my flesh, I am desperate to maintain and reinforce the bias, the illusion that I am ok.  To hide my sin and my shortcomings and my brokenness.  I don’t need help, or forgiveness - or a Savior.  I am not accountable to the Creator of the universe.  I just need to hide.  Or blame someone else - live in denial.  Lies as old as the garden.  So I have two choices.  I can do my darnedest to try and continue hiding from Him and from the truth about who I am and what I do/have done - or I can come to the Light.  I can come into the Light, walk in the Light, and be honest about who I am.  I can embrace the Truth, and follow the Truth.  The truth about Who God is and what He is like, and the truth about who I am and what I am like.  This is the family trait.  Those who have God as their Father can handle the truth.  They prefer it.  They insist on it, in fact.  They share this family trait of walking in the Light, of living lives which are honest, full of integrity, doing what is right, and making it right when we don’t.  We are those who CAN handle the truth.  We admit our guilt.  You find it throughout the pages of Scripture:

Lev. 5:1    “If you are called to testify about something you have seen or that you know about, it is sinful to refuse to testify, and you will be punished for your sin.

Lev. 5:2    “Or suppose you unknowingly touch something that is ceremonially unclean, such as the carcass of an unclean animal. When you realize what you have done, you must admit your defilement and your guilt. This is true whether it is a wild animal, a domestic animal, or an animal that scurries along the ground.

Lev. 5:3    “Or suppose you unknowingly touch something that makes a person unclean. When you realize what you have done, you must admit your guilt.

Lev. 5:4    “Or suppose you make a foolish vow of any kind, whether its purpose is for good or for bad. When you realize its foolishness, you must admit your guilt.

Lev. 5:5    “When you become aware of your guilt in any of these ways, you must confess your sin. 

We admit our guilt - to Jesus - and He takes care of it.

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

Thus begins the Narnian adventure of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  The two younger Pevensies - along with their spoiled, bratty cousin, Eustace, find themselves on a boat traveling the eastern seas of Narnia.

On one of the islands the crew lands on, Eustace finds a dragon's lair and is very greedy for the treasure. He puts on a gold bracelet and falls asleep, and when he wakes up, he has been turned into a huge dragon, with the bracelet now cutting deep into his huge dragony arm. Lewis writes, "Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself." Eustace has fleeting thoughts of relief at being the biggest thing around, but he quickly realizes he is cut off from his companions, and all of humanity, and the weight of loneliness begins to show him how odious his behavior had been.  He desperately wants to change.

That night, Aslan comes to Eustace and leads him to a large well "like a very big round bath with marble steps going down into it." with water so clear, and he thought if he could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in his arm. But Aslan tells him he has to undress first. And doesn't God ask this of us? As Lewis wrote in Letters to Malcolm: "We must lay before him [God] what is in us; not what ought to be in us.”

Eustace finds that no matter how many layers of dragon skins he manages to peel off of himself, he is still a dragon.

“Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.”

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off ... And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again..." - C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 

God/Aslan had to go to extreme measures to help Eustace realize that in his heart he was a beast.  He needed the proverbial light to go on.  The Lord of Light shines the light on our beastliness, so that we will admit to it to the point where we turn to Him and trust Him to take care of it.  We cannot peel off the dragon skin by ourselves.  The process is by no means easy or pain-free.  But our first and most critical step is simply realizing that we are a dragon.  Step 1.  Isn’t that the first step, 12-steppers?  Admitting that we have a problem?  A big scaly ugly one.  Huge.  Unmanageable.  Houston, we have a problem.

The family traits of Light and Truth show up in the lives of those who profess to follow Jesus.  He faithfully shines the light on our sinfulness.  On our desperate need for a Savior, for Jesus.  And to trust Him - not only for forgiveness but also for cleansing.  Forgiveness is primarily positional - when we trust in Jesus, in the truth about His death and the blood He shed on the cross for our sin, God forgives the guilt of our sin and removes it as far as the east is from the west.  Gone.  Real gone.  All the way.  Forever.  Our position in God’s eyes is as if we had never sinned.  When we are in Jesus, in God’s eyes we’ve done everything right.  And of course we struggle to believe that truth because in our experience we still struggle with sin.  We still mess up.  We still fall short of loving God with all our heart and we still choose what we want over what He wants and we still put other things in His rightful place in our hearts.  And so we need the Light of His Truth to cleanse us, to give us that delicious sense of being clean and righteous in His sight.  Justified.  Just as if we never sinned.  That place of perfect peace where I know that I know that I know that in His eyes I have done everything right.  Not because of anything I have done - other than trusting in Jesus.  Coming to Him, into the light, and admitting that I am not perfect.  I am a sinner.  Which still leaves us with the same two choices - every moment of every day.  We can choose to the path of Light, or the path of darkness.  We can choose to be honest about our sin, about our mistakes, and find grace and forgiveness and cleansing in Jesus, or we can hide.  We can try to cover it up.  We can lie about it, deny it, and pretend that we haven’t sinned.  We can call God a liar, in other words.

And when we do this, John says God’s Word is not in us.  One of the core issues of our time, of all time, in fact - God’s Word.  Is it true?  Is it still true? Is it all true? How can we trust what the Bible says - is it trustworthy?  Is it binding on all people at all times everywhere?  Is it binding on me, in other words?  Did God really say that?  A question - an accusation, really - as old as the garden itself.  Has God really said that (Gen 3.1)?  If God said it, it’s "probably" true, but how do we know if He said that?  A tiny seed of doubt, a little leaven of rebellion, and if left unanswered, left to fester, it will produce a crop of unbelief which will spring up to a fountain of godlessness and death.  Is there a good answer to that question?  Many - including myself - say, yes, yes!  We believe that God’s people - including John the Witness - were moved by His Spirit to write down His Words, and the rest of those who were truly His received this Word and obeyed it - saw it confirmed by transformed lives and societies and by fulfilled prophecies and miracles and by the empty tomb of Christ Himself - and they faithfully preserved and handed it down to us so that we too could believe and receive and enter into eternal life.  If you hear His word today, do not harden your heart, simply believe...

So the question is - can I handle the truth?  Can you handle the truth?  Can you admit that you have blown it?  That you have sinned, that in your heart of hearts you're an ugly scaly beast and you need to be rescued?  You need to be forgiven?  You need Jesus.  The blood of Jesus is the only way God has made for us to be forgiven.  John is saying, if we confess our sins, if we admit to them, if we agree with Him that we have blown it, that He will forgive us.  You can tell Him that right now.  

And for those of us who have already put our trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, this then becomes truth which we practice and cultivate every day.  We don’t need God’s forgiveness again - His forgiveness in Christ covers all our sins - past, present, and future.  Jesus’ death on the cross paid for all my sins.  But we daily remind ourselves of our deep need for Jesus, and we live in this place of honesty, of being honest with God and ourselves when we mess up.  Because we still do struggle and blow it from time to time.  So we agree with God when we sin, and we remind ourselves that He has already forgiven it.  That’s what confession is - we agree with what God says.  We agree with God about our sin - it is sin, and it is forgiven.  We leave the guilt behind, and press on.  Clean.  Washed whiter than.  

What’s the whitest thing you can think of?  We’re not talking about ethnicity or skin color…

[white things - hyams beach, cyphochilus beetle, titanium dioxide, snow]

White shows up quite a bit in heaven.  White throne.  White cloud.  White horse - all places where the Lord is seated.  White hair.  White garments and robes - washed white by the blood of the Lamb (Rev 7.14).  Don’t get me wrong - God created all the colors to be enjoyed.  But white.  White is the color of clean - but it is technically not a color, is it?  That which is most white is that which most perfectly reflects the entire spectrum of light, is it not?  God is Light, and we are washed white so as to more perfectly reflect a broader spectrum of Who He is and what He is like.  We exhibit family traits.

So yes, we still do sin,  We still blow it.  But admitting our sin.  Owning our mistakes.  Bringing those into the light.  This is a family trait, a distinguishing characteristic of the family of God.  It’s something we share in common - and this kind of open honesty helps foster a deeper level of sharing between us.  We are kindred spirits, because we share this sense of overwhelming gratitude for the magnitude of God’s grace and forgiveness, for all He has done in sending His Son to purchase our forgiveness on that cruel Roman cross.  We’re okay with our brokenness and with one another’s brokenness, we accept one another, because God has accepted us, thru Jesus.  No more pretense.  No more pretending.  No airs.  No need to fake it.  We don’t need to try and put on a good face and make like we have it all together.  It is the blessed beauty of being able to relax and be ourselves.  Like we tend to do in our home.  Family.  Because that is what family does - we accept and love and commit to one another, in spite of our faults.  Because we are family.

So, how about it - can you and I handle the truth?