To Be Clean Again

The sermon opens with a reading of Ecclesiastes 3:1‑8, reminding listeners that God created time so we can experience seasons of beginnings and endings. The speaker uses this truth to celebrate the church’s recent achievements—new building projects, a thriving youth camp, record giving, and a growing mission focus—while urging the congregation to treat the start of the new calendar year as a fresh opportunity to close the chapter on the sins of 1974. He then moves into a thorough teaching on sin, explaining that sin is fundamentally an attitude of the heart, not merely an external action, and distinguishing between the unsaved person’s need for a new birth and the believer’s need to confess and repent specific sins. Drawing on Scripture (1 John 1:9) and personal anecdotes, he stresses that confession must be specific, followed by genuine repentance—being sorry and turning away—so that the blood of Christ can cleanse and restore a clean slate. The preacher warns against two common pitfalls: exaggerating the power of sin to the point of paralysis, and minimizing it by rationalizing wrongdoing. He encourages believers to resist the devil’s accusations, claim the forgiveness promised in the gospel, and rely on the Holy Spirit, the Word, and prayer to overcome habitual sin. Concluding with a prayer, he invites the congregation to step into 1975 with confidence that, through confession, repentance, and the blood of Christ, they can be clean again and live in the freedom of God’s grace.

What is Houston's First Baptist Church?

Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!

About midway through the Old Testament, you will find a section that we refer to as the Poetry and Wisdom books, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Turn back in there and find that, and you should not be too far away from finding the book of Ecclesiastes. Find it and look in the third chapter, if you will, please, as you're turning. I'm very happy to have some friends this morning. Reverend Harold Thompson from First Baptist Church, Stroud, Oklahoma. Reverend Buster Reeves here and his wife from the First Baptist Church of Dodge City, Kansas. Reverend Dick Bruner, Mill Valley, California. Our own Dick Bruner home. And my high school English teacher, Mrs. Corr, who I ain't seen for many years, is here from Perry, Oklahoma. The Lord bless each one of you. We're delighted you have come. Ecclesiastes chapter 3, please, verse number 1. Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 1. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose unto the heavens. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to keep, to get, a time to let loose. A time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to rend or tear and a time to sow. A time to keep silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace. I suppose that one of the most genius things the father ever did was to create time. The major events such that they have a beginning and an ending. I think he knew somehow how important it would be for us to have experiences in life. When we could pick up the broken fragments and start over again. And close out the chapter of yesterday. A couple of weeks ago I asked Gerald if he would begin the service this morning. As we so wonderfully did by the singing of one of my very favorite hymns. When morning gills the skies my heart awakening cries. May Jesus Christ be praised. The psalmist said every morning will I seek thee. Every night will I praise him. David had three special times in the day when he prayed. Morning, noon, and night. The Lord gave in the Old Testament many feast days. And special events that marked times of the year. Which were symbolic of the beginning of one thing. And the ending of one thing. And the beginning of another. Each day is a new opportunity to wipe the slate clean. And start all over again. Somehow there come times in life when we just have to close out the chapter on what's gone before and start all over again. But I think the most wonderful thing the Lord ever did for us in that manner is to give us the calendar year that dates from his birth. That every 12 months we can close out the chapter on an old year and start a new one. This has been one. It's been a very wonderful one for all of us. The coming of Steve O 'Kelly. The tremendous commitment of enlargement that the church has made. The new building being under construction. The great advance in our educational program. The incomparable pageant that we've experienced. A magnificent youth camp. All of the activities of the year. The largest income in the church's history for the cause of Christ. Causes me to believe that this has been a marvelous year. And one that we'll not soon want to forget. But we're going to have to forget it because the Bible tells us we're to forget those things which are behind and press on. There's a new day coming. And it begins at midnight this Tuesday. Now as we start the new year there are some things that individually all of us will want to be doing. I know all of you will look in the mirror and make that new year's resolution to get up back on that diet or to start it. We're going to exercise more in the new year. We're going to save money. We're going to be a bit more frugal. And all of those things that we've been rehashing year after year after year. And for a few of us we'll be lucky and pull off at least one or two of them. As a church there are some new year's resolutions I want us to make. I'm going to go to Richmond, Virginia about the middle of January and spend a day with the men on the foreign mission board and talk to them precisely about what this church can do to be a pace setter in world mission. and I hope that some real innovations and dreams can be born in the fellowship of this meeting. And in that context, one of the things we're asking you as a new church to do throughout this coming year of 75 is to pray every single day by name for our foreign Southern Baptist missionaries who were born on each day of the year. You'll receive in the back of the bulletin of the Orbit every week this year that comes to your home a list of those names. Please pray for them. Another thing that we're going to do is make a new commitment to evangelism. It seems like the last two years that all we've been doing is building a staff and building buildings. The staff with Steve O 'Kelly's coming has never been in better shape. The building is under construction. The bulldozers are digging holes, and by Easter we'll begin to see things sticking up out of the ground. I want us to give 1975 to a year of enlargement and evangelism. I hope it's going to be back on the track for First Baptist Church. That's my commitment, and I know it's one that you join with me in, but I'm glad that we've had the opportunity to back up and regroup and dig in and really get going for the Lord in that area. It's a year that we're going to have to give serious attention to the paying of our building fund pledges. I, for one, go on record as saying if it becomes necessary, I'll live in a tent, and I couldn't meet it more seriously, and sell everything I have to pay mine. One man in our church, a fine doctor, said, I'm going to give 40 percent of my income until that building is paid for. And when we begin to be that serious about paying those pledges, we'll never have to worry about the threat of depression and recession. Then, in 1975, all of us are going to be making private commitments of things that are just between us and God. But I want to say to you that of all the needs in 1975, I think that collectively and individually for us, there is nothing any more important than that we go into the new year with a clean slate. That we don't drag in the old sins and the old convictions hanging over us of things that we've done that we're dead sure are not settled between us and God. Many of you have heard of a man named E .F. Halleck. My college friend, Curly Brown, is pastor of the First Baptist Church in Norman, Oklahoma, and he tells me that it, because of the ministry of this man who for 47 years was his predecessor, that it is indeed one of the great churches of the world. There's a real quality there. This man is a very wonderful man. He's a pastor of a great college church, and he had been pastor there, Dr. Halleck, for 13 years. And one Sunday morning, he walked off the platform and said, I have a confession to make. I've never truly been saved. I've wrestled with it for four years. And he made a public profession of his faith in Christ. His honesty before the Lord has become legendary. I had the pleasure of attending, after 40 -some years, a retirement party that was given for that wonderful, wonderful pastor. We began talking informally, and someone began asking questions. One of the questions that was asked was this, Dr. Halleck, if you had your ministry here in this church of over 40 years to live all over again, what one thing would you change? And Dr. Halleck thought of a moment and he said, I think I would be more consistently careful to make sure that my people knew how to deal with their sins. I think that was a beautiful, beautiful, profound statement. Now, I'm not going to try to say anything profound to you. I don't even have an outline this morning. I want to talk to you as a pastor to his people, as though we were talking heart to heart and one to one about how to deal with your sin. I want to know that you understand very clearly what to do with the sins of 1974 and to know that you're clean again and that you can begin with a brand new slate in 75. If there's anything in this world that you and I need, it is to know how to do that. Dr. Graham Blaine, Jr., the eminent Radcliffe and Harvard psychiatrist, who's a fine, sterling Christian, said a long time ago that in his opinion, the biggest psychological problem in America is the problem of guilt complexes. And he said in all probability, 90 percent of guilt complexes are nothing but unconfessed sins. He said a whole lot more folks that I deal with need to know about the blood of Christ than need the psychiatrist's couch. Now, ladies and gentlemen, let's just talk for a moment about our sins and what is sin, because I think sometimes we preachers assume that in high -sounding theological terms, everybody understands what we're talking about. I want to make sure that not one of our people misunderstands how to deal with your sins, that you can start with a clean slate and be clean again as you move with that clean slate into the beauty and Shekinah freshness that is the opportunity of 1975. How do we clean up 74 and start with a clean slate? Well, I think for one thing, we need to understand what sin is. Sin is not an action. Sin is an attitude. Jesus Christ made it very, very clear when he taught us that by what we say and how we look and how we act, that the body is only the manifestation, the vehicle through which sin is expressed. But sin is an attitude in the human heart. One psychologist called it an attitude which wishes God were dead. That's a good psychological definition of sin. Theologically, it is independent action from God. Practically, it's doing your own thing and whatever you get good and ready to do. It is making a kind of little tin God of yourself. I don't really think in a land like ours that most of us have very much trouble knowing what's right and what's wrong. Oh, but we have a good deal of trouble doing it, don't we? Now, we need to understand that sin is something in the heart which produces a result which is called sin. Now, to the unbeliever, a person that has never been saved, you don't need to confess your sins. You don't need to come along and pray, Lord, well, I got drunk and I cheated on my income tax three times and I ran a red light twice. And acknowledge your individual sins. That doesn't get an unsaved man saved. He must deal not with his individual sins which are the result of the fact that by nature his heart is one of sin. He must deal with the principle of sin. He must acknowledge before God, woe unto me, I am a sinner. And if you've never dealt with the matter of sin, if you have never acknowledged that your heart is one that is filled with sin which makes you commit sins, then if you've never been saved, acknowledging your individual sins won't get it for you, you've got to come to a new birth experience. You must come to a time where you acknowledge in contrition and repentance that the heart is desperately wicked who cannot. Out of the heart proceed the issues of life. The unbeliever doesn't need to deal with the issues of life, but he needs desperately to deal with the wicked heart. And the only way that a heart can be made new is not to be patched up, but to have a transfusion of a brand new heart, a brand new nature. When you're saved, when you become a Christian, the Spirit of God does not come in and patch up the old nature. What he does is to forgive you of it, but to implant inside of you a new nature. And something happens that is so drastically different, as now a man receives a new nature which is inclined toward the Lord instead of away from the Lord that the Bible calls it actually being born all over again. Conversely, the man that has already been saved no longer has to deal with the problem of sin. Now he must deal with sins. First John 1 9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You say, what do you mean, preacher? Simply this. When you receive Jesus Christ, he does not eradicate the old nature. You are forgiven of the fact that you are innately a sinner. But the old sin principle is still operative in your life. You do not become free from the power of sin. You are saved. Now you are free from the penalty of sin. But the power of sin must still be dealt with in our lives. So now in essence, what has happened is we have a new nature and an old nature which buy within each without with our ourselves with each other for supremacy in our lives and when that old sin nature which is forgiven but still operative causes us to commit sins then the believer must deal not with the old sin nature again but with the sin specifically and individually with which he is now of which he is now guilty now you can't break your relationship between you and the lord when god comes into your life he saves you but you can break the fellowship between you and the lord and sins break the fellowship you've got weeds in your garden you can't just keep going along and cutting off the snips you've got to get down to the root that's what the unsaved man does the believer must always be dealing with the upcroppings of the individual little flowers that come out of that old sinful nature and so the bible says specifically that to be forgiven we must confess our sins the word is plural it is if it is conditional it is we it is personal we confess our sins so what am i trying to say simply this it doesn't get it for you to get down on the end of your bed every night and say lord forgive me of the sins i committed today no he doesn't say that at all lord i'm a sinner i'm sorry forgive me i'm a sinner the individual sins of the believer are to be individually acknowledged and remembered and dealt with and confessed you are to take the time to spell out as a believer the specific sins you have committed day by day you say man i haven't done that in three years it'd take me forever well then you better get started you say sometimes we pray lord forgive me of all the sins i committed today and the sins i i committed i didn't know i committed you don't need to pray that way if you will take the time to be still and be alone before the lord the holy spirit will recall from your subconscious mind all of the sins you've committed the problem is not that we don't remember them the problem is that we rationalize them and try to explain them away when they do come which brings me to this i think there are two dangers in the matter of the believers dealing with sin one is he tends to have too high an opinion of sin now that might surprise you that we give too much attention to our sin you need to remember that there is no sin that's greater than the power of christ within you you don't need to run cowed before the devil greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world some people have committed sins that have become an obsession with them and they can't find cleansing they can't find forgiveness and they just cave in on them and really sin is too big it's too important and it's really not that much in their life but they've made it that they're kind of sadistic they enjoy reliving they don't know that they do the the memory that comes of the sin and they really don't want forgiveness of the thing listen you can make too much out of your sin don't worship the shrine of sin don't let it get such a hold on you that you think well this is too big for me i can't handle this one i've got to drag it into the new year the bible says there is no temptation taken you but that god is faithful to give you a way of escape with the temptation you can be victorious over sin he will forgive sins when they are confessed don't get neurotic about the matter of your sin don't become obsessed with some sin that keeps recurring it can be dealt with i think there's another problem the believer has and that is that we don't make enough out of our sin i rather imagine that the most consistent problem that we have is that we try to justify our sins we try to reason and rationalize and explain them away an individual may be cheating on his income tax and he thinks something like this the government wastes all that money they really don't need mine he may be cheating on his wife and he reasons like this she really doesn't love me and i deserve to be loved he may be cheating on his boss he may be stealing from the company and he's justifying it like this i only make four dollars an hour i'm really worth five i do more work than those that get five so that's really my money they're just not giving it to me so I'm not stealing it when I take what's already mine. Oh, it's very easy to justify your sins, but the Bible says if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. So what does it mean to confess? Well, it doesn't merely mean to acknowledge though that's a part of it. Let me say again, to confess does not merely mean to acknowledge though that is a part of it. Your individual sins as you pray, God convicts you of them, he reminds you of them, are to be individually named and acknowledged to the Lord. Lord, yesterday I so -and -so and so -and -so. Lord, I haven't been able to get this out of my heart, but earlier this year I so -and -so, and you spell it out to God. But now that's not all there is to it, but that is a part of it. I could go to the newspaper and make a big take out a page listing all of the sins of my, well, I have to take out the whole newspaper probably, listing all the sins of my life. And I could confess to the whole world what I've done and keep on doing it. No, that's not all there is to it. That is a part of it. Acknowledgement is a part of forgiveness. But a second part is repentance. To repent. What does it mean to repent? Repentance means two things. To be sorry and to turn away from it. To be sorry and to turn away from it. Now there's a difference in being sorry and in turning away. There are a lot of jailbirds over in the county jail today that are sorry. They're sorry they got caught. But as soon as they get out, they'll go and do it again. They're not so sorry that it changed the way they live. To really repent means to be sorry I did it, to be sorry that it hurt me, that it hurt someone else, that it hurt the Lord, that it hurt his cause, that it hurt my life, that it broke the heart of Jesus Lord. I just wish it could never have happened. And also to turn away from it and so start to live that it doesn't happen again. So to be forgiven of your sin, as an unbeliever, you don't need to go through all the specifics. You need to acknowledge I am a sinner by nature. God be merciful to me a sinner and give me a new nature. Then the old sin, old nature is crossed out. It's still there. It still operates. But you're not guilty of it before God. To be a believer then means to receive a new nature. Not to be guilty for the old, but to still have to deal with the sins individually, which come from the result of it still being operative in our lives. You say, why do I keep on sinning? Because the old nature is still there. Because you don't avail yourself of the cleansing blood of Christ, the word of God, the fellowship of believers, and the fullness of the spirit that is available to you to keep you from sinning. You don't have to live as you do. You can be stronger than you are. But there's a price to be paid, and it's the word of God and prayer and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. There's a fight to be fought, but it can be won. But when, you see, when you are saved, it is proper to say, I have been saved. People say, oh, you've been saved. I notice you still sin. Well, I have been saved from the penalty of my sin. I'm not going to go to hell. I'm not judged. I'm not damned before God. I've been saved from the penalty of sin. But as I grow in Christ, I am daily being saved from the power of sin. And thank God one day I will be saved even from the presence of sin. That's glorification of the believer. That's what it means to go to heaven. So as you and I, justified before God, stand in a state of righteousness, and that's what justification means, to stand before the Lord in his eyes as though you had never sinned, it means that daily you keep your sins confessed up to date. Not to keep the relationship with God, not to keep saved, but to keep in the beautiful fellowship of the Lord. When my little boys come and say, I did something, Daddy, forgive me, I say, okay, you can become my little boy again. Let's go to the court, fill out the favors, I'll adopt you into my family again. I don't do that, do I? They're still my child, but now we're back in fellowship. Now we're getting along again. The same thing happens when the believer gets his sins confessed up to date. It is to acknowledge. It is to be sorry that it happened. It's to fess up and admit it. It's to turn from it and stop doing it. But you say, I can't stop doing it. Well, there's good news for you. God will forgive you another time. That's what the gospel is all about. That's what the grace of God is all about. As long as you're dead on it, as long as you're trying, as long as you avail yourself of the power that is at your disposal, he knows that we're humans. He remembereth our frame that we are but dust. We remember the rock from which we were digged, hewn in the pit from which we were digged, and thank God, so does he. He knows how much we can take, and he never allows us to be tempted by Satan more than we can handle. But when we blow it, he's always there to the rescue, always with open arms, saying, I will forgive you. If you will acknowledge it, if you'll be sorry about it, if you'll turn from it, if you'll claim cleansing, and ask me by my spirit to give you the power to make the honest effort to do better next time, you can know the cleansing of God. I don't care what you've done this year. I don't care how badly you've blown it. I care not what sins are between you and God. It may be an awful thing. It could be incest. It could be murder. It could be a terrible lie. You could have stolen thousands of dollars. No matter whomever you may be, the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. I've got good news for you. The greatest sinner that ever was saved, that ever lived, has already been saved. The worst man that ever lived, and ever will live, is already in heaven. The apostle Paul made it very clear that he was the chief of sinners. You don't need to drag a guilt complex. You don't need to drag some sin into the new year. You say, preacher, I'd like to start off all over again next year, but I just can't seem to find the peace of mind that knows that it's really forgiven. I've done something. I've acknowledged it to God. I've repented the best I know how, but I still feel badly about it. What's happening? I'll tell you what's happening. The devil is trying to defeat you and make you feel miserable about something that's already under the blood of Christ. You say, the devil, that's absolutely right. The Bible makes it very clear that Satan is the accuser of the brethren, and he takes no little delight in badgering us about our sins. He says, remember that? Remember that? How do you know you're forgiven? That was too bad. God couldn't cleanse that. You have the voice of the devil, and you have the word of God. My Bible says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanses from all unrighteousness, period. He is faithful. He is just. All unrighteousness. All sin. Then why do you still feel guilty about it? There are only two powers in the world. One is the Holy Spirit. He's not convicting you. The other power is the devil, and he's trying to make you feel miserable about it. So he'll drag you down. You'll get discouraged. In your depression, you'll do it again, and on and on you go. How do you deal with that? The Bible says, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. You put up a little fight. What are you fighting with? You get a baseball bat? No. These are they, the revelation writer says, whose garments were made cleansed by the blood of Christ, and who overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. There's one thing the word of God tells us the devil can't stand against, and that's the blood of Christ. The blood of Jesus will never lose its power. The devil can't stand up against it. The Lord Jesus defeated him unto him which loved us and gave himself for us, and has cleansed us by his own blood, who defeated him which had the power of sin, death, hell, and the grave on the cross. That is the devil. Jesus destroyed him on the cross. He defeated him on the cross, and when you come and conviction comes into your life, and you know it's forgiven, you just wheel around and say, devil, get out of my way. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. That sins under the blood of Christ. You see, you fight back. You don't give up. You quote some scriptures. You claim the blood. You tell him to resist you, and you'll find that he cannot stand up long when you say over and over again, Satan, that sin is confessed under the blood of Christ, and in the power of the blood I rebuke you. Get thee behind me and leave me alone. Soon the conviction will go away. Have you ever wondered why the Bible says when he forgives our sins he casts them in the ocean, he puts them in the depth of the sea, uses many analogies. One of them says he puts his sins behind his back as far as the east is from the west and remembers them against us no more. You ever wonder why the east from the west? Why did he say from the north to the south? Because you can measure the distance from the north to the south. From the north pole to the south pole is measurable, but there's no east -west measurement. You can't measure how far it is from the east to the west. That's how far the sins of the believer are away from the mind and heart of God. God has the perfect capacity to remember, and he has the perfect capacity to forget, and he can forget forever what he chooses to forget. What does he choose to forget? The sins of the believer. When once confessed, don't drag things into the new year. Don't let the devil defeat you. Don't make too much of that sin. Don't believe that it's greater than you and you just can't win. Don't think too little of it. Acknowledge it to God and repent of it and claim the blood of Christ. And you can go from here today with your shoulders feeling like a burden's been lifted. You can go from here this morning feeling clean and right and fresh and white and pure on the inside and start a new life. 75 can be as the dawning of a whole new life. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. What more could he do? He's tied more than a hundred yellow ribbons around an old oak tree. He hung a ribbon of crimson around the cross and said, I love you. I forgive you. You can be free. Welcome home. Come on back. The way of the cross leads home. He loves you. He'll forgive every sin if you repent of it and claim it by the blood of Christ. Don't let the devil defeat you and destroy you. You can begin again. This moment, a clean slate in this day and this new coming year. May we bow our heads together and bow our heads in prayer. Our Father, we want to thank you for the word of God. We want to thank you that the Bible promises to every man that confesses his sins and repents of them and turns away, cleansing a new beginning. Lord, we know that there's pleasure in sin. Sin has a sweet taste of ecstasy. The proverb writer has said, she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. Lord, we know there's a spiritual life. There's a freedom. And out of the glorious bondage, awful bondage of sin, to the glorious freedom of Christ's liberty we would come. Lord, help us not to drag the old fettered chains and shackles of bondage of sins and ghosts out of the past into a new year. But to here draw a line and repent and claim cleansing and step on through the threshold of a new year to be clean again. In Jesus' name we pray.