Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Covering Up Sin | New Testament | 1 John 1

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

If someone is a true Christian, will they stop sinning? What should you do when you sin? Do you try and protect your sin from the light? Jensen kicks off out time in 1 John by sharing what chapter one says about the importance of confessing sin.. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Prepare your heart to celebrate Jesus. Sign up to have the 'I Am Your God' Advent Devotional delivered directly to your inbox starting Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 John 1

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. A good friend of mine had a small dog growing up, and everyone in his family loved this dog. One day, though, he came into his room to find a large party-sized bag of M&Ms completely empty. Now, these particular M&Ms were not supposed to be in his room. His mom had asked him to put them up in the pantry, but he hadn't. And he had really wanted to eat them in his room. Unfortunately, he had left them somewhere that their beloved family dog could get to.

And he realized that his small dog had ingested an entire bag of chocolate Eminems. And so he did what any kid would do. He hid the bag of Eminem's and kept his mouth shut so his mom wouldn't get mad at him for disobeying her. But, as we know, chocolate is poisonous to dogs. And the next day, when their dog was showing signs of serious illness, he finally confessed what he had done, and they were able to rush the dog to the vet and get him sorted out before the worst happened. See, when my friend saw that bag of M&Ms, he made a choice, and because he didn't realize just how deadly chocolate could be to a dog, he chose to cover up

and hide his disobedience rather than confess it to his mom. He hid his mistake, and because he did, the problem got much, much worse. Now, I can't help. but see myself in this story. But instead of a dog and some chocolate, I think about the ways that I try to cover up my mistakes, hide my sin from God, from the people around me. And instead of this being the brilliant idea that I think it is, harboring that sin doesn't make it go away. It just gives it a front row seat to eat away at my heart. When I don't realize what's at stake, I'd rather hide my Listen, wish it away, then pull it out, confess it, and deal with it. Maybe you've experienced this dilemma before too. You've felt that tug to just cover up mistakes. Explain away the ways you've

messed up, ignore the ways you're hurting the people around you. Maybe you've been working really hard to put on a good face, to look like a good Christian, to convince the people around you that you have it all together. Maybe you've been doing it for so long that you've actually convinced yourself, you're doing okay. You don't even notice the sin that's silently growing in your heart because you think you're doing pretty good compared to who you used to be or compared to the people around you. No matter your reasoning, when we make the choice to hide, protect, or ignore the sin in our hearts, we don't make it go away like we want. We just give it room to get much, much worse. And we know why we do this, don't we?

we would hate for anyone to see our mistakes. We don't want to admit that we were wrong. We don't like the feeling of humbling ourselves. We're afraid of what will happen if the people around us know what we struggle with. So we hide. We cover up. We lie to ourselves.

My friend did not want to tell his mom. He did not want to get in trouble to face the consequences of his actions. But had he realized the gravity of what hiding his mistake would cost his dog, his family himself, he probably would have faced the truth rather than hide it. What if we believed that what happens when we hide, cover, and lie about our sin is much, much worse than the pain of admitting we were wrong? When John wrote first John, he knew the stakes were high, and he knew that

the human heart has been trying to cover up and hide and lie about their sin since the garden. And so, when he addressed the early Christians in the first chapter of 1 John, he reminded them of what was at stake. He begins the chapter by letting his readers know that he was a firsthand witness to Jesus, God incarnate, who has existed since the very beginning and who came to earth to share and tell the world about the gospel. And because of this, John is compelled to share that truth with everyone so that they too can have fellowship with other believers and with God.

God himself, so that those who hear the gospel could share in the complete joy that comes from believing and living out the gospel. It's a beautiful opening, and it's followed directly by sharing the message that Jesus gave. Let's read it now, verse 5. This is the message we have heard from Him and declared to you. God is light. In Him, there is no darkness at all. If this idea sounds familiar, it's because John has talked about it before. In the opening of his gospel, John tells his readers that Jesus was the light of men, that he had come to shine in the darkness and that darkness could not overcome him. Throughout scripture, this imagery of God as light and evil as darkness is common. Light symbolizes purity and holiness. God is pure. He is without

contamination. Where there is light, there can be no darkness. God is good, and in him there is no evil. Continuing on, John is going to show us false claims that we can make about ourselves and our own sin, and he's going to help us see what's at stake if we continue to live out of these claims. Verse 6. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out 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, purifies us from all sin. So here, John is very straightforward. No matter what you claim, if you walk in darkness, you are a liar.

True Christians cannot walk in darkness because the one they follow is light. Now you may be asking, does this mean that Christians shouldn't sin at all anymore? And we'll see in the next verse that this can't be what John is saying. See, the imagery of walking in darkness instead correlates to the life of someone who is continuing on, living in patterns of sin without bringing it into the light and allowing the Holy Spirit to work in them and transform their hearts. So someone who walks in the darkness protects their sin. They keep it hidden. And John says that if we do this, we will lose out big.

Because those who walk in light, who live like Jesus, they will have true fellow. with one another and with God. The blood of Christ will cover and purify them from their sin. Those who walk in the light who faithfully follow Jesus will be light because he is light. They will be purified because he is pure. See, John is urging his readers to not keep their sin hidden, to not continue on in their old ways, but to bring their entire lives into the light. because no matter what fear they have that keeps them in the darkness, when they enter the light, they will be met with fellowship and purification by the blood of Jesus. But this isn't the only thing that John addresses.

Verse 8. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his word is not in us. So while we may be tempted to continue to live in darkness, to protect our patterns of sin, John tells us here that we may also be tempted to falsely claim that we have no sin. But to do so is to deceive ourselves. He goes so far as to say that we call God a liar when we say this, because throughout Scripture we are told that we have sin.

Maybe you wouldn't go so far as to say I never sin, but I know that I am guilty of deceiving myself about my sin. I'm guilty of wanting to explain away my sins, justify them, make them out to be mix-ups or accidents, rather than acknowledging what they really are. My sin separates me from God. My sin makes me guilty before a holy God. My sin is serious, and if I cannot see that, then the truth is not in me. What need do I have of a Savior if I've never sinned? You see, the mark of a Christian is that they know their guilt. They see their sin and instead of hiding it away or ignoring it, they bring it into the light and they confess it. No matter how scary that can seem, they confess it because John tells us that when we confess our sins, Jesus is faithful and

just and he will forgive our sins and purify us for all our unrighteousness. You see, the truth of the gospel is that when we acknowledge our sin, when we bring it into the light, when we confess the ways that we have fallen short in our disobedience to God, we are forgiven. Jesus lived a perfect life. He died as a sacrificial lamb for all of creation. Those who put their hope in his blood, those who see their need for him, those who faithfully follow him and put their hope and trust in him, are seen as righteous before a just and holy God. On our own, we are walking in darkness, but a light has dawned. Jesus has come to the world to redeem it, and when we put our hope in him, he takes his perfection, his holiness, his righteousness,

and puts it on us. We are light because he is light. Not because we are perfect, not because we haven't sin, but because he lived a perfect life and he lived without sin. When we try to hide our sin, when we don't want to admit we are wrong, when we ignore our brokenness and continue to walk in darkness, blind to our need for Jesus, we give sin free reign to grow, and we are unable to be in fellowship with a holy and perfect God. Each and every one of us will stand before our creator, good and holy and just judge. That is our future reality. Will we stand before him covered in the righteousness of Jesus, covered by his perfect purifying work that he did on the cross? Or will we stand before him with our haphazard attempt at hiding and covering up our own sin? It won't fool a just

judge. We may not have had to do the painful work and difficult work of facing our sin in this life, but we will face it one day. John knows the stakes. He knows that no matter how much easier we think it is to cover up and hide our sin, that in the end it will just get much, much worse. We will stand before the judge. Everything we have worked to cover up will be exposed. It is my hope and prayer that each and every one of us would step into the light, that we would recognize that we are broken, that we are sinful, but that Jesus has made a way for us to live in the light. Turn to him, confess your sins, find fellowship and belonging in the blood of Christ, so that one day, one day when we stand before the throne of God, we will be seen as Jesus

is seen, righteous, pure, holy, and welcomed in as daughters. and sons of the king.