God’s Promise of Forgiveness | 1 John 1:1-10

Show Notes

Episode 826: 
In this episode, we kick off the week with the topic of God's promises, focusing on forgiveness and mercy as outlined in the book of 1 John. I share my personal connection to this scripture, emphasizing the importance of God's forgiveness in our lives. We read through the first chapter of 1 John, highlighting key themes such as the nature of God as light and the significance of confessing our sins.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Good morning, good morning on a Monday talk home do good morning, good morning to you and you and you. I mean, has that ever happened. That I don't believe? So I don't believe it has I don't believe. But we want to welcome you to the Bible. Guys. You got all kinds of people going shop crests. It's Monday, It's Monday. Yeah, okay, well, hey, you just delighted us. I hate Mondays. Oh man, that might be that might be becoming everybody's favorite segment. And now it's all downhill. Yeah here, Yeah, it's not gonna get better than that. Yeah, that's a no sense of tuning in the rest of the week. I just want to say, wherever you're at, and whatever time of day it is, thanks for tuning in. Yes, we are super glad to be here. Yeah, And if you want to like or subscribe to the Bible Guys, please do so. Do so on the YouTube. I think we just crested a thousand. On the YouTube. Yeah, on the YouTube. Face Facebook. I'm the Innerweb. I'm the interweb. Just go to www dot right. Yeah, okay, Well, we have one of our favorite segments. Yeah, today is it's the only segment that has uh a James song. It does have a theme song. Yeah, I say jingle, but I guess I guess theme song is. Two words right, well jingle? Yeah, and it's called mail bad. There you go, so yeah, mail bag? I did I did that last time? Hit the high note. Yeah, that's really good. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, don't ever say Jeff doesn't say. That's right, just give you two words. Here you go. Uh. Well, hey, this one here is by Brandy n Hi Brandy, and we appreciate Brandy writing in. She said, Hey Christian Jeff, thanks for everything you two do for this podcast. You both have talked about who would want Nope, you both have talked about who I think. It was you would want. Okay, so it is a type of ye who you would want to play yourselves in a movie. But my question is if your life had a narrator, whose voice would you want? And then a separate question, how much would they roast you? Oh? I think that'd be amazing. Can you imagine if live if our lives had narrators. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah. And then he walks through the door. Yeah yeah, yeah, looking like a million bucks. And you would you'd really truly be able to roast somebody because oh, you'd be able to make fun of them as they're sitting there like just not you look with a scowl on his face. You're like, what you're talking about? I don't know, a scal on my face. I think the life I live, I would be getting roasted sixty percent of the time because that's how my family. We love each other and we laugh all the time. But there's a lot of roasting going on. Yes, yeah, so they're busting my chops all the time. Yeah, and I would say yeah, just as much for me, I think so. I think that's the second half. But the first one, who would you use? Who would you have be a narrator? I almost want to do Rock Paper Scissors, because I think we might go ahead, we might say the same. I doubt it. Oh, well, for me, it has to be Morgan Frame. I knew you were going to say Morgan Frame. Of course, is there a better voice. He's got a great voice. I mean everything that he does I heard him one time narrate something for the Discovery Channel. I was like, I have never found earthworms so exciting because he is just wonderful. Yeah, and he's the voice of God. He is the voice of God. Yes, in Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty. But he's also the narrator in the regarded as one of the best movies of all time, which is. Called Princess Bride. No, I would say that is that is one of the best classics. I don't know comedies, but no, regardless as the best movie by IMDb is Shawshank Redemption. Oh yes, you've told me that before. It is the only one that is actually a ten out of ten. There may be another one, but that one's that has the highest rating across the board Rotten Tomatoes everything. Well, I was as soon as we read that. The first person who came to my mind was Robin Williams would probably be who would be assigned. He's dead though, yes, yeah, yes, it does have to be a living person. Uh well, because already not, I wouldn't be able to use like James Earl Jones either. Yeah, he just died, so there's some of those. Okay, but you know what I would like in my head, so I feel like I would get assigned Robin Williams okay, and it would just be sound effects and trash talk. It would be and it would be so random, yeah, because he's here when I was back and forth a little frenetic. But in my mind, what I would want is Sam Elliott. Oh right, that cowboy voice, that deep voice, just a little put out everything kind of Wouldn't it be great? That's what I want? Uh. So along those lines, though, if you blended I think if you blended Sam Elliott and Robin Williams, so I picked I picked a couple of guys that are no longer with. Us, you can't blend those. I think it would be. Matthew mcconnie is a blend of those. Yeah, he's got the Texas accent like Sam Elliott, but the frenetic, kind of weird, uh thought processes, philosophical. I'm gonna have to disagree with you that I don't think that there's I don't think they're in the same category just because he's Southern. I don't think it. Matthew McConaughey is not Sam Elliott, samulit is everything he is, not. Sure Okay, yeah, I think so. I think that they sound a lot like what they do. Sam. It's the old. Yeah, their accent, you're thinking range, but their accent's almost identical. They're from the same area. The feeling I get when I listened to Matthew McConaughey and when I listened to Sam Eliot is radically different. Absolutely. I wasn't saying that, Okay, I was saying if you blended that, if you blended Robin Williams and Sam Elliott, I think you get Matthew McConaughey slightly frenetic, a little nuts but with the Texas. That problem Williams and Sam Eli he had a baby. That's not what I was saying. But if you yeah, so anyways, yeah, it would be one of those three guys. Okay, So if you have to pick a living people, I would hope for Sam Elliott. Okay, yeah, yeah, but charitably that he's still alive. Actually yeah, but yeah, I would. I would choose Morgan Freeman. Okay, Hey, great segment. That was such a good one. Thank you, Brandy. Fun nothing like starting off a Monday with us arguing about movie stuff. I can't keep up with Czar ba on the movie thing. Yeah, well, not many people can. But you know what, I can't keep up with you on the Bible. Oh what a transition. I love it. I get hang with you. Yeah, I can do my best. Yeah, I'm the other Bible guy. That is so good. Yeah. I was gonna say. The only one other one on staff who's as big of a movie nut is Chad. Chad as our executive pastor. Yeah. Yeah, he's a pretty big movie nut. Every time that I mentioned movies, he he claims. He claims that most time when I'm guessing movies, he beats me. He has a very quick mind. His memory is very fast. Yeah, I like, uh, yeah, I think I've seen that movie. Maybe maybe tell me who's in it? Right? And he but he plays close to things. So anyways, in we are in uh do you love movies? Yes, well, we're reading from the book of one of the books about love in the Bible, and first John it's all about love. What Wait, did you mean to ask me, do I like romantic movies? No, I asked you, do you love movies? Yeah? Oh? Love? So I'm just talking about love. And okay, I was thinking of the of the subject. I'm trying to transition back to the Bible. Thing. We got there and then you took his back to the movies, and now we're trying to get back there again. Well, okay, how about this, Jeff. We're in the middle of a series talking about God's promises. Yes, every week has had a theme, and we've had several weeks. Now we've been in this, what five weeks? Yeah, it's been a while. And so this week is God's forgiveness and mercy. So they're different promises, same topic, but different contexts. And so today is that one of my favorite verses in the Bible? Good special says that I know, but this says a very special media. Yes, yes, oh I remember. Yeah, yeah, Well this is one of the most famous verses in the Bible about God's forgiveness of mercy. But I'm going to just read the whole first chapter. I think it's not that long, I don't think. And first John, chapter one, verse one, And let me just say, if you're new to the Bible, there's the Gospel of John. Yeah, and then there's first John, Second John, and third John. Because John is super original in his in the naming of his books. I think I'll call this John again. But it's funny because it's first John. We already have a John, right, So there's the Gospel of John, and then there's these three letters, First John, Second John, third John. Those are letters. And then he also wrote the Book of Revelations. So he wrote four books in the Bible, four or five books in the Bible. Four of them are named John. He should have called it John's Revelation. Yes, yes, well, some people do call it that. So here you go. It says in First John, chapter one, we proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one, who is life itself, was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy this is the message we heard from Jesus. And now declare to you God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying. If we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness, we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other. And the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and decleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. Wow. Yeah, So this is the first of the three letters. And he immediately starts out talking about God and I love, or Jesus and God and I love. How he says he is eternal life. Yes, he doesn't say he has the answer to eternal life. He is the one who is eternal life. Yes, It's so good, isn't it. And then he also says, he is the word capital W of life, right right, and the meaning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God and so yeah, so Jesus has a lot of different names. And anyway, I just love his description of Jesus. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He said, I'm just writing you to you because he's an old man at this point. He hasn't yet been sent to the Isle of Patmos, where he was exiled until he died, so this is just before that. But he's probably the last living apostle at this point. And so I think he has this strong sense that hey, listen, if there's anybody who can tell you whether Jesus was legit, it's me. Well, and so I'm writing this because I touched him. Paul was with Paul was an apostle at this time. No, no, this would have been in the eighties. A d and Paul died in the sixties. This is somewhere between eighty five. Last and Paul. Yeah, he was like one hundred and ten years old when he yeh yeah, yeah, yeah, I was thinking before Paul died in the sixties, Paul came later. Yeah, Paul died like sixty seven, sixty eight a d R. Yeah. So anyways, in this situation, John is very old but not yet gone. He's the last of the Apostles. And he's saying, listen, I'm writing about the person that I saw him with my own eyes, and. He said, touched him with me, he was with and he's with the Father, right, and then he was with us, right, and he went to heaven came back right. Yeah, that's pretty he's saying, I saw the God man. That's that's what you're saying. Yeah. Now, do you think at this point, since we sort of talked about Timeline, had he had he been boiled in oil? No, not yet, because he was boiled in oil and then sent to Patmos So when he didn't die when they tried to boil them on oil, they they banished him to the island Patmos. So this must have been just before they tried to martyr him. Yuck. Yeah. Do you think he was all scarred up? Probably so absolutely, yeah, yeah, it would have been like fried chicken. My word, there's a visual John the Revelat had mister chickens man. Oh no, yeah, so he says, then he said, I've seen him, yep. And so because of that, you and I can connect with Jesus. And I'm just trying to affirm your faith what you believe in. I knew him, I saw him, I spent time with him. And then he says, so, let me tell you the message that Jesus gave. God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. And so you know, in John, the Gospel of John, he says he was sent into the world like a light, right, but men love darkness rather than the light. And so he's contrasting the fact that there's this universal battle between light and dark and God is light. Yeah, and you know it's interesting how many different places they talk about light and darkness, right, And so yeah, he says, he said that he is the light of the world. He also tells us in Matthew what is it five, that we are the light of the world right in the city that's set on a hill cannot be hidden, right, so that our light shine before men. And then here he's talking about being the light. And then also in Matthew six, also says he talks about us and he says the eye is the lamp of the body. Right, he's talking about our perspective and how we view things. And then he says, if when we have an unhealthy eye or perspective, then our then our body is filled with darkness. And how great is that darkness? Right? But if we see with a healthy perspective or a healthy eye, then we'll be filled with light. And so right here he now here he's talking about having fellowship with God, and fellowship of course he's talking about relationship with God. Right, So if we have a good relationship with God, meaning we're you know, in agreement with him, we follow him, we're in communion with him. Uh, then then we'll be filled with light meaning truth. Right. You think light is truth? Light is what the truth of God's word. That light's our way, lights our path. Truth is uh the answer right? The revelation perspective light Light's pretty cool? Yeah, I think so. The Life Application study Bible, it says light represents what is good, pure, true, holy, and reliable. Both darkness represents what is sinful and evil. See, you could have written, he's not. Read that again. It represents what what is good, good. Pure, pure, true, holy, and reliable. That's great. Yeah, And the statement that God is light means that God is perfectly holy and true, and that He alone can guide us out of the darkness of sin, showing us the right path. His light clearly and truthfully exposes our motives, whether good or bad. In the dark. Yeah, in the dark, if you can see it, all different objects look alike. In the light, good and evil can be clearly distinguished. Just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, sin cannot exist in the presence of a holy God. If we want to be in relationship with God, we must put aside our sinful ways of thinking and living. We become hypocrites if we say we belong to Him, but then go out and live only for ourselves, with little thought of serving others. Christ will expose and judge such deceit. You weren't here last week. I was here with Wesley, you know we did. We did the platinum edition, so yea, yeah. It's big time, one above way above this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our poor listeners have to stoop back down now that I'm back. Yeah, the regular edition. But anyway, you remember the Psalms where it says Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and the light into my path. We talked about how light makes shadows shifting, shadows run right, And so the things that are scary, the things you wonder about or you can't see, the things that bring fear, light makes them they shift and then they just go away. And it's almost as if they run away, right. And if you think about, you know, how it says your wor will be filled with darkness versus the light it is. You know, think about the seasons of our lives. You can have a season where you have no hope, you can be fearful. You can say, God, I don't know what's coming, and I have anxiety over it. All these different things that represent darkness or that we even experience practically in the dark. The light of Christ takes those things away, and all of a sudden we see things more clearly, we have less fear, We're able to see where we're going, we see the path mark before us. I mean, it's just such great imagery. Yeah, the imagery light and dark. Did you know darkness is not a thing, right, Only light is a thing. So a lot of people are fearful of the darkness. They're fearful of evil things, they're fearful of what the dark represents in the Bible, and the reality is darkness has no power. The only power it has is fear. Right God choosing to represent light. Light is a thing. Light is actual energy, and so light is a thing, and light always there's never time, it doesn't. Light always overcomes darkness to get in the black hole thing. And even then that light, then there's light there. You just can't see it with our eyes, but it still exists. But darkness always is repelled. You turn out a light and darkness disappears. Darkness never overcomes the light. And this is what I love about God choosing to use that. So then it's in that context then that he says, hey, don't go around keep practicing darkness. If you've been saved by the light, don't keep going back and playing with the darkness. And this was he wrote this little book it's on a few chapters long, to try to encourage them in their faith and then to dispel some false teaching, because there were these groups of people who were who were going two different directions. One was saying, well, your body is just all sinful and bad all the time, so just keep living in sin. Right, someday God's going to fix it all. Just enjoy all the sin you want to enjoy, do all the wickedness you can do, right, that kind of a libertine kind of a view. And then others were saying, you are so wicked and evil. There's no chance to go to heaven unless you unless you never ever sin again. Right, So you have to completely stop sinning. And so he's trying to adjust the biblical you. He's trying to help everybody see the fact that, yes, God is light. We cannot be choosing to embrace sin while we're going to walk with God. But he said God has a solution for us sin even though we're sinners. Right, So I always referenced, let's get to the main verse here. I always reference the uh uh. This first John one nine was the first verse ever quoted to me, But actually there was there was one other time when the verse was quoted to me. I just started going to church. I'm talking like maybe two three weeks, right, and I was playing volleyball on a Sunday night, and I was cussing and I wasn't a Christian and I was just acting, uh, you know, unsportsmanlike, and you know, all these different kinds of things making fun of somebody. I mean, I was just I was out of control. Right, this was a couple of weeks ago, No. I said, a couple of weeks after I start going to oh, because fourteen years old. I was fourteen. So anyway, I h somebody had had actually written Luke six forty six and put it underneath my windshield under window wiper. They put Luke six four six, and uh, And I remember going to the car with my brother and and again I was just brand new to the whole thing. So I actually open up, you know, my windshield. I looked at it and said Luke six four six, And I said, who is Luke? And where's the rest of his phone number? Oh? Yeah, I had no idea. I'm like, where's the rest of his phone number? I'm like, this doesn't make any sense? What? Right? Which is, why do you call me lord? Lord? And don't do the things which I say right, which didn't even apply because I wasn't a Christian. But anyway, the point is is that I always tell the story, but I'll make it extremely quick. I usually don't tell this. I'm out of detail of it, but I'll tell you this that I made a promise to God once it became a Christian, I said, God, I promise I will never do this thing again. And it's and it's unimportant what the thing was. But I made a promise, I say, God, I said, I will never do this thing. I will never do it again. But then I did it again, and so I was nervous, and so at the end of church, I went down to the altar because they used to have alter calls, and I was crying and and again I'd only been a Christian, like maybe a month of this time, and I had come back to my seat, and I was just really visibly upset. And my wife, who was my girlfriend, I wasn't even dating her. I was dating this other girl, so I wasn't even necessarily even talking to her. And she was a friend, but you know, she wasn't just you know, a person that I would often go to. But she wrote me a letter. It was like four pages long, single space, front and back back when people used to write letters to one another. Yeah, I remember that. In this letter, she just tried to comfort me and encourage me. And I talked her on the phone and said, here's why I was upset. I don't know if God's going to strike me. I don't know if he's gonna punish me. I don't know if he's gonna Like, I just didn't know how God worked. So she read me this letter, comforting me, telling me that's not how God works. And at the end of the letter she quoted me First John one to nine. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us all of our sins and us from all on righteousness. And she says, just remember. And I remember thinking at the time, where in the world did she ever find that verse? Do you ever see footloose? Where where she brings that verse to him about David danced? And he goes, where did you know how to find this? And she's a pastor's daughter, and she goes, are you kidding me? Like this? That was the scene. So I was, I was him, I was Ran, I was I was Kevin Bacon in that moment, I was like, where did you find that? Like? That verse fits perfectly to what I had told you, and it's and so it meant the world to me at the time. It made all the difference in the world because I realized, oh, my goodness, God actually forgives me. I was blown away believing for the first time that God forgave me. Wow, it's powerful when somebody else got how God uses people to come and say, hey, yeah, here's what God's word says, right. So he uses the testimony of others and he uses his word to bring us back in alignment. So he says, here the two arguments that John is trying to fight against is one, hey, you're just body anyways, and your body is decaying, live it up, go crazy. So he's pushing back against that. You can't. You got to walk in the light and not in the darkness. Push back, fight against your flesh, and then if you stumble, God will forgive you. The other side is there's no hope for you. If you sin, you have to be sin less. So there were some Christians walking around claiming, oh, I never sin anymore. I quit sinning. And so he has to say, on the other side, listen, if you claim you have no more sin, you're only feeling yourself and not living in the truth. And then he ends it with if we claim we've not sinned, we're calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. So there's the one side that says, just do whatever you want to do. Oh well, and he says you can't do that. That's not the right answer. Fight against your flesh. And at the same time, you can't claim you stopped sinning. That's not true either. You're still a human. There's this spiritual battle between the light and dark in your life. There's a spiritual battle between the flesh and the desires of your flesh and the spirit. And God is waging that war. So what he's saying is the answer is not to pretend like you never sin, or the answer is not just to indulge. The answer is when you sin, run to God. Right, you run back to God. You fall and you skin your knee, you run to mama, right kind of thing, you fall, you sin, you run back to God. That's the answer. And he's faithful and he's just, So he's doing the right thing. He's not just making an excuse. He's just. But he's faithful, and he'll cleanse us. He'll forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so if wef have listeners that are listening today, going, man, I messed up, Maybe God can never use me again. This verse is proof. John splits the hair. He goes right in between the two ideas and says, God's faithful and just. It's all about him and you. It's all about your relationship with him. It's not about you and your relationship with sin. Walk away from sin, come back to God. That's great. Well, hey, that is our time, so we'll see you tomorrow hopefully on the Bible. Guys, h