Confessing Our Sins

As you and I live to the glory of God, in those moments we are growing, we are progressing today.

A question that a lot of people probably have is this. How can I glorify God in the midst of this holiday season, particularly in those get-togethers that include unbelievers? Praise expresses gratitude to God for all the good gifts that He's given to us. Praise the fruit of our lips. The Scripture says, gives glory to God. We give glory to God when we proclaim the gospel. We give glory to God when we pray because we direct our dependency on Him and we submit to His will. We give glory to God when we understand the Scripture. We give glory to God when we live obedient lives. We give glory to God when we express what I guess you could say is the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. All these fruit of the Spirit manifest the work of the Spirit in us, and that gives glory to God. So every scriptural means that is laid before us, every scriptural expression, every opportunity for us to do that which will express the will and purpose of God is to His glory. And that's why it's summed up so beautifully by the Apostle Paul in, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it all to the glory of God.

And that's the blanket reality of it. Everything you do, you do to the glory of God, asking always the question in the back of your mind, will this glorify God? How will this glorify God?

Let that be the issue. That should really be the driving motive of everything we do, and this is a great season to get conscious of that and make efforts to bring glory to God in everything you do and say, and that should open up opportunities for you to proclaim the gospel of Christ. Thanks, John. And I know that your message today is going to help show the connection between confessing sin and glorifying the Lord.

It's a connection that's easy to miss. So let's get to that message now. Here again is John MacArthur continuing his series from Ephesians chapter 1, titled Back to Basics. In our lesson this time, we're continuing to study the theme of spiritual growth, this very essential reality of maturity in the Christian life. And whether you're a new Christian, a Christian who's a little bit along in years of knowing Christ, or whether you've been a Christian for a very long time, you never really stop the process of spiritual maturity.

If you do, you're in sad shape to be sure. But a Christian who's committed to Christ is going to be in the process of spiritual growth. So these principles are not those that relate, say, only to a spiritual infant. But anyone along the path of life before you're in the presence of the Lord and have received your instant perfection is involved really in a process of maturing or growing. And so the truths we're sharing in these studies are for everybody. Hopefully they'll bless your life no matter where you are on your Christian pilgrimage, and hopefully you'll pass them on to someone else who will find great benefit from them.

Not because they're my thoughts, the Lord forbid that they should be, but rather because they come from God's Word. Now in our studies past, we have helped perhaps to focus on the significant points of growth by reminding you of 1 John 2 verses 13 and 14, in which we find there are three levels of spiritual growth. First, babies. Second, young men.

Third, fathers. And that corresponds with human life. There's beginning in infancy where there is parental recognition. You know to whom you belong.

And then there is young adulthood. This is the time when you know what you believe. Spiritual maturity in the sense of doctrinal comprehension. You have a comprehension of the Word of God.

You have your feet on the ground. You're no more tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine. Finally, spiritually being a father means you not only know to whom you belong, you not only know what you believe, but you know the one in whom you believe in a deep and abiding and mature way. Now the process of spiritual growth then is ascending at all times toward that goal of really knowing God. Even the Apostle Paul, of whom we might think little remained in the spiritual process of growth because he had reached such a high level, said this, at the height of his life when he had ministered most of his ministry, it was in the past when he had accomplished all the great dreams and ends that consummated most of his heart's desire, said this, that I may know Him. In other words, no matter how far along that path of growth he had come, there was still a longing for a deeper and a more vital and a broader and more fulfilling comprehension of the very person of God.

Whom he loved and whom he served. We pointed out to you that the key to this whole thing is living to the glory of God. We only grow, now mark this, we only grow when we are living to the glory of God. When we live for ourselves, we flatten out.

Nothing positive happens in our lives. Growth only takes place in the times when we are spiritual, not when we are carnal. Growth only takes place when we are living for the glory of God, not in times when we're living for ourselves.

Now, keep this in mind. Most of us when we're saved have a kind of a balancing act that we carry on. In fact, this is true of all believers, I'm sure.

We have the principle of new life in us. We also have the old sin that's around us, the sin that's in our flesh, that thing which is no good that's part of being human. And now that we're a believer, we find that a little bit of our life is given to God and a little bit to sin and we kind of balance it off. But as we mature, there is an increasing frequency of righteousness and a decreasing frequency of sinfulness. There isn't the idea that sometime in your Christian life you stop being sinful and you just are righteous. No, it's always a progress. It's always a moving. Paul says, not as though I had attained, but I press toward the mark.

You're always moving up and the evidence of moving up is the decreasing frequency of sin. I use myself as an illustration. I'm a well-known sinner. And when I was saved, it was a struggle, a very great struggle, a kind of a struggle Paul talks about in Romans 7. Things I wanted to do, I didn't do.

Things I didn't want to do, I did. And I was fighting against the flesh and all of this. The struggle is the same now, but what I've noticed is that as I've grown, grown by living to the glory of God, grown by walking in the Holy Spirit, grown by a life of obedience, as I have matured in the progress of spiritual maturity, I've seen the decrease of the frequency of sinfulness, not its absence. It just doesn't happen as much as it used to, as I'm growing away from that toward a more righteous standard. Now, glorifying God becomes the key thing. 2 Corinthians 3.18 was our verse on that and we said that in that verse it says this, that as we with an unveiled face, that is there's no more veil over us as there was in the Old Testament, the veil is taken away, we behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. So as we focus on the Word of God and as we obey its principles, we are seeing in this the mirror of God's glory. And then Paul says, as we see that glory, we move from one level of glory to the next level of glory to the next level of glory, conforming to the very image of Christ by the working of the Holy Spirit. Now, spiritual growth then is not just seen in the Bible as a baby and a young man and a father. It is seen as going from one level of glory to the next level of glory to the next and that happens when we focus on glorifying God.

Now, let me sum up what I've just said. As you and I live to the glory of God, in those moments we are growing, we are progressing toward Christ-likeness. The times of our lives when we live for self and the flesh are times when that does not happen. Now, let me remind you also that there are some very practical principles involved in living to the glory of God.

And we began to look at those last time and I'm just going to remind you of the two major ones we discussed and then we'll move on. If living to the glory of God is the key to spiritual growth, then what does it mean to live to the glory of God? You know, we talk about that a lot. We sing to God be the glory, great things He has done. We say glory to God all the time. We read it in the Bible.

It's just everywhere. It's a very familiar phrase but I'm afraid it doesn't have a lot of practical meaning and we want to give it that. Now the first thing we said in our last study was that we glorify God by confessing Jesus as Lord. That's where it all begins. Philippians chapter 2 says that we are all to confess Jesus as Lord to the glory of God. Before you can ever begin the path of spiritual growth, before you can ever begin to progress toward Christ-likeness, you must confess Him as Lord. That is the new birth. That's being born into the family. Before you can be a spiritual father, you have to be a spiritual baby, right?

Before you can be a man or a woman, you have to be an infant. And so you have to enter the situation and you enter it when you confess Jesus as Lord. For that is indeed who He is.

He is Lord. And when you do that, you thus are giving glory to God. For God has indeed placed His glory in Christ, according to John 1.14.

Now, second thing we said, and this is just a brief review. We said that if we are to live to His glory, we not only confess Him as Lord, but secondly we aim our life at His glory. And we mentioned 1 Corinthians 10.31 that says, Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. Now that I have confessed Jesus as Lord to the glory of God, I will aim my life at His glory.

Now that's very basic. You remember what we said that means? We said that that means that you are content to give Him glory no matter what it costs you personally.

We also said that it means you are suffering the very anguish that God suffers when He's dishonored. In other words, if I'm living to the glory of God, I don't care what it costs me. I don't care whether I live or die. I don't care whether I gain the credit for anything as long as He is glorified. It doesn't matter what my price has to be. It doesn't matter what I have to give up.

Now let me just talk about that for a minute. It has interested me in the society in which we live here in America, our Christian society, that we are breeding a generation of people who don't have that mentality at all. Even in Christianity, it is amazing that instead of having an attitude of service, instead of having an attitude of humility, instead of having the Spirit that says, I give my life for the will of God no matter what it costs me, I will give myself for His glory at all costs, our attitude is I want to be successful. I was listening to a minister and he was saying that it's interesting to him that whenever we go to a conference or whenever we pick up a new book that's being written, whenever anybody wants to draw a big crowd of Christians together, it's always by gaining a celebrity.

It's the beautiful people. When you look and see who's speaking at a conference, it's Miss America, or some wealthy businessman, or the president of a company, or a very successful person in Hollywood who's made it in television or movies, or a famous athlete, or a politician. These are the crowd getters, the wealthy and the famous and the elite. And what this is doing in Christianity is providing a model for us of success, personal success rather than service.

You see? Now when we go back to this kind of a generation of Christians we're producing and try to get them to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the world, it's going to be tough to get them to do that. When we go back to them and ask them to give their life for the cause of Christ, it's going to be tough because they've been told, whether verbally or not, that the people who make it in Christianity are the rich and the famous and the successful and the popular. And so we're producing a generation of Christians who are oriented toward personal success much more than they are toward humble service. And this is exactly the opposite of living to the glory of God. Living to the glory of God is not making a career for myself.

Living to the glory of God is not hiring a press agent to book me. Living to the glory of God is being expendable. Living to the glory of God is to die if it needs be to accomplish God's ends. I know in my own life that I'm expendable, just like Paul said. If I die in the service of Christ, sweet death. If I die or be offered as a sacrifice for the cause of your joy in the gospel, I'll die gladly.

I'm expendable. And that's the attitude of one who lives to the glory of God. And what I'm saying is the bottom line is humility. If you are aiming your life at the glory of God, you have the kind of humility that says in effect, God, I hurt when you hurt.

My heart beats with your heart and all I seek is to give you glory no matter what it costs me. We see this even with people who want to go into Christian service. There are a lot of people who are going into seminaries and Christian colleges and so forth. They want to serve the Lord, only they want to serve the Lord on their conditions, in the perfect environment, with everything the way they want it, with all of the success factors laid in so that when they can go in, it'll all really happen. And you wonder where are those humble people who are willing to risk a great adventure for the glory of God even if they're lost in absolute obscurity. We talked also about the fact that if you live to the glory of God, you're content to be outdone by somebody who does exactly what you do better than you do it, as long as God is glorified. Now this is the bottom line, people.

These are the first two things that we need to see. If we're to grow spiritually, we have to lose ourselves. First, in the lordship of Christ at the moment of salvation. Secondly, in the lordship of Christ as He dominates our lives from then on. And as we obey Christ and respond to His direction in our lives with no thought of what it means to us, no thought of are we going to be successful, no thought is this comfortable for me, but rather is He being glorified, we are then moving along in a progression of growth. For every time we do our own thing, choose our own way, seek our own will, even in the matter of Christian service, if the motive isn't right, we flatten out and growth doesn't take place.

Now let's move on to a third major point. How do we glorify God? We glorify God thirdly by confessing sin. By confessing sin.

Now this may seem a little bit strange, but it follows along the same line I've been talking about. The greatest, now mark it, the greatest expression of humility is to confess sin. But most people don't do that. Most of us, even Christians, kind of gloss over our sin. We're too busy to bother to acknowledge it.

Or we sort of figure we're pretty good most of the time. There's no sense dragging up dirt about ourselves. Or we blame our circumstances or our environment or the people around us, but we are prone not to confess sin, and thus we miss the glory of God. Now in Joshua chapter 7, there's a most insightful verse. You'll remember that the children of Israel had come into the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua, not under the leadership of Moses, because he had sinned in hitting the rock with a stick when God told him to speak to it, because Moses was seeking his own glory and wanted everybody to think how powerful he was when he hit the rock, and so he forfeited his right to take the people in. But Joshua led them in, and they went in and they had a great victory at Jericho.

The walls fell down, they took the city, and that was the first of the cities they were to take as they dominated the land of Canaan. But they had been told one thing, don't take anything out of that city. I don't want you to have any remnants of pagan society, God said. I don't want you to gather up anything. I don't want you to haul anything away.

I want you to leave it there. It represents a society that you are apart from. But there was one man, and you remember his name if you've studied the story, his name was Achan, and Achan was just Achan to steal things. That's how I remember him. And he took some things out of the city. And of course as a result they were defeated at Ai, the next city. And then Achan was confronted in Joshua chapter 7 verse 19 by Joshua himself. And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel.

Now how are you going to do that? By this, by making confession unto Him. And tell me now what thou hast done, hide it not from me. And Achan answered Joshua and said, Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done.

And then he goes on to describe when I saw this I wanted it, and when I saw that I wanted it, and he buried it in his tent and all of this. Now listen, Joshua says to him, Give glory to the God of Israel by making confession of sin. Now that verse says it glorifies God to confess your sin. To acknowledge that you have sinned is to glorify God.

Why? Well let me show you what happened. Verse 24, And Joshua and all the children of Israel with him took Achan and the son of Zerah, the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, that's all the things that he had taken, his sons and his daughters, his oxen, his asses, his sheep, his tent and all that he had, and they brought them unto the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day. You notice that even though he had confessed his sin, his judgment was coming? You see, confession doesn't preclude chastening. David confessed his sin in Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 and God forgave him and then punished him. So just because there's forgiveness doesn't mean there won't be chastening. He had confessed, that was in the past, but God's going to judge him anyway. And all Israel stoned him with stones and burned them with fire after they stoned them with stones. They raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger, wherefore the name of that place was called the valley of Achor unto this day. And Achor, by the way, in Hebrew means trouble. Now look, God was going to teach Israel a lesson. The lesson is this, don't disobey me.

If you do, there will be severe consequence. The consequence was that Achan and his whole family, who evidently were implicated in the crime also, were all stoned to death. Now listen, why did he want Achan to confess his sin?

I'll tell you why. Because God would have looked like a cruel ogre if he had taken the life of this man and his family and nobody known really why. When Achan confessed his sin, he was saying, God, you as a holy righteous God are free to punish me, free to chasten me with no impunity against your righteous nature because I deserve it.

You see? Now maybe you've never thought of confession of sin that way, but that's exactly the heart of the matter. The reason God wants Achan to confess his sin is so that God is free to chasten him and not have anybody think that it was undeserved. God is a holy God and God reacts against sin. He cannot tolerate sin. He cannot let sin go unpunished. If he could have, he never would have had Jesus die. God must deal with sin. And God will look unjust and God will look unfair in the eyes of people if you and I do not admit that everything that God does to chasten us is deserved.

In verse 20, he said, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel. He didn't blame God. He didn't blame the circumstances.

He didn't blame his influences. He accepted the responsibility. You have a similar situation at the crucifixion of Christ. The thief on the cross had dishonored God all his life. He had done exactly what he wanted to do and now he was hanging on a cross beside Jesus Christ.

But in that very moment, the last moment of his life, hanging on a cross, for one time in his life he gave glory to God. You know what he said? He said to the other thief in Luke 23, 41, We indeed suffer justly.

In other words, he said, what are you complaining about, fella? You're getting exactly what we deserve. In other words, you cannot dishonor God in this act. We deserve this. You cannot impugn God for this.

We deserve it. Now, friends, that's really the heart of what I want you to understand. Whenever you excuse your sin, you're really putting the blame on God. You have a classic illustration of this in the book of Genesis. You remember that Eve sinned and then Adam sinned? And then God comes to Adam and he says, Adam, why did you do that?

And you remember what Adam said? He said, the woman you gave me. And people have always thought he blamed Eve, but he didn't blame Eve. He said, the woman you gave me. Who did he blame?

He blamed God. You gave me this woman. I went to sleep.

A bachelor woke up married. What choice did I have? You could have picked any woman you wanted. Why her? She's a loser. You made her. I didn't even know what a woman was. And then I was married to one.

Look at this mess. The woman you gave me, by not being willing to blame himself, he impugned God. And he also implicated the woman and no doubt in so doing implicated the serpent. But he never took the blame himself.

Now that's the very opposite. Giving glory to God means that I'll accept the responsibility for sin. It isn't God's fault. It isn't the fault of somebody God brought into my life.

It isn't the fault of some circumstance. You can't say, well, God, you didn't have to make a Satan. You didn't have to let him fall. You didn't have to put me in the city I'm in.

You didn't have to bring that person across my path. You're a sovereign. You're in control. And all of those things we always try to say to get out of things. Excusing sin impugns God. If you sinned, if I sinned, whose fault is it? Ours and ours alone.

That's all. So if God chooses to chase in us, he's free to do that. We cannot deny responsibility. Now people, I really believe this is part and parcel of spiritual growth. I feel that you grow spiritually as you consciously, openly face the reality of your sinfulness and confess it.

Because you see what you're doing then? You're really dealing with the dead weight that drags down the process of spiritual growth. If growth is like a race, we can't run it with weights, as Hebrews 12 says. That just pulls us down, slows us down. We need to be dealing with sin.

Now this is a very important theme. As we acknowledge our sin, as we face our sin, as we confess our sin, that weight drops off and we really begin to grow. To glorify God with your life, you need to confess your sin. It's a simple point, but it's one that's of paramount importance to your spiritual growth. John MacArthur is showing you the fundamentals you need to master to grow spiritually in this study called Back to Basics here on Grace To You.

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