Principles of Position Lesson 20 week 1
Mike Doyle · Oct 23, 2016
Principles of Position, No. 41
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926541197177

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK, we are starting Lesson 20, which is the beginning of Chapter 10 in the book that we're kind of following. And that's the last chapter of the book. And so potentially we may finish the book before we run out of time, which would be kind of cool. So we've left it up to J.D. and Courtney to come up with something. Yes, ma'am.

I was probably a very revealing and dumb question. But when you say what lesson are verses from the reference list, where do we actually look for those? I handed them. I handed out the reference list at the beginning of the class. This thing. Oh, it is always somebody to let me know. I'll bring them. I'll send them out to you on that. When there's a mention of verses in the questions, with the questions, I read those. OK. OK. I don't understand anything that she's talking about. So what am I missing? You see right here it says, read the verses from the reference list. I've got one here, Mike. For 9 and 10? But not nine and 10. OK. How did you get for reading the instructions? Reading in the green. This was very daunting. I'll get it. I'll get it. Thanks for it, Carol. Thanks for letting me know.

And what they're missing. OK, so the title of this chapter is Sins and Confession. Now, I think the best way to start this, do you remember way back when we first started? What's the name of the class? Start out with an easy question. What's the name of the class?

The Holy Spirit. Faith. It's the principle of position. And we use the synonym for the word position. You remember what it was? Source. Hallelujah. You get the star. And your wife isn't even here to help you. No. She'll give me notes. So source is what position is all about. What's the source?

Keeping that firmly in the front of your mind, why is God free to forgive you or forgive us our sins. Why is he free to do it? Because Jesus paid the penalty already. His answer was because Jesus has paid the penalty already. Is that enough? He was able to do it. So think about this now. In relationship to source, Jesus did two things, two basic things. One is he paid the penalty that was accrued and accrued through all of time for all the sins committed, right? And why did he do that? Well, because that's grace. Not yet. Yeah, he had an agreement with the father.

But the father and the son had to come up with some way to deal with this sin. Because sin is foreign or it's like a virus in God's community. And every single sin ever committed was an offense against God. And he just doesn't say, never mind, because he's holy, he's righteous. So there's a penalty that has to be paid for the insult of sin. And Christ paid that penalty.

But there's another issue going on here that has a lot to do with why he can forgive us our sins. What's the other aspect of it? And that's kind of where I'm going with source. He took care of the source of sin. You see that? That's as important, probably more important for the growing believer to understand that Christ and his work took care of the source of sin. So two things are happening. He's condemned the source and he has paid the penalty for the actions of sin.

So when we confess our sins, it doesn't have anything to do with condemnation. Why not? Because the condemnation part has already happened. Who got condemned? And your sin nature is condemned, so the source has been handled. So because of that, then what does confession amount to? What does it come down to?

What is the purpose? It has to do with communion, fellowship, and the cleansing from so that the fellowship can be maintained. But it has nothing to do anymore. One of my favorite questions is this. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, if the only thing that he did, the only thing he accomplished was to pay the penalty for your sins, that's all he did.

Do you have a right to be in the presence of a holy God? Yes. I got one yes. You yes? In Jesus Christ. No, you. Do you have a right as a forgiven sinner to be in the presence of a holy God? Yes. Answer, no you don't. You don't? No. I get everything wrong. Why don't you?

We would be raptured into heaven with a sin nature. That's right. You can't go as a sinner, being identified with sin, you can't go in the presence of a holy God, even though your sins are forgiven. There's got to be an intrinsic change at the source. What's the change at the source? The sin nature. Your sin nature was condemned. You've been included. in the death, burial and resurrection with Christ. And as a resurrected one, you're not identified with that sin nature anymore. And because that's not part of you, you have a right to be there. You can be there. Does that make sense to you? No. She has a right now because the source of her sin has been.

That's right. Not only have your actions as sins been taken care of in terms of penalty, but you the sinner have been condemned. Identification truths. Do you believe or do you think you were crucified with Christ? Yes. Okay, and so in that crucifixion there was a death that took place, right? Right. His and yours? Right. But if you had not been crucified is your point, right? That's the point.

If you had not been crucified with Christ, your sins would have been paid for, you'd have been a forgiven sinner, but you'd have still been a sinner. You see that? So, if you're crucified with Christ and you die, what does death mean? It means separation. What did you get separated from?

The old man. And is the old man a sinner? from him, positionally in Christ, put me in the grave and then resurrected me to newness of life. In the newness of life which is in Christ, I think that's what Carol said, I can be in the presence of a holy God because God looks at me as a new creature resurrected.

On Wednesday night we're at Colossians 3.1. Since you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. Set your mind on things above and not on things of the earth, because you died and your life is now hid with Christ in God.

Well, what was your first question? You mean the source question? Yeah, that I got wrong. This question? Source? He said, if you're a believer in blah, blah, blah, are you able to be in the present? My answer was blah, blah, blah. Again, I'm going back and I'm talking about what Christ's work on the cross, and He paid the penalty for my sins and your sins. But if that was all He did, if I was not crucified with Him, buried and resurrected, I'm still a forgiven sinner. Here's a better question. Is everybody in this room a sinner by definition? Yes. No, you're not. Let me maybe put it another way.

So, in order to be in the presence of God, you not only have to have forgiveness of sin, but you have to have complete and perfect righteousness as well. You have to have wholeness, right? to be in the presence of a perfect God, you too must be perfect. Just to be forgiven of your sin does not give you perfection, or the holiness required to be in the presence of a holy God. So, it's the death, burial, and resurrection, and all the things that the Lord has done to separate us from the sin nature, but also imputing righteousness on our account, allows us to be in the presence of God. Not just the forgiveness of sin. It is being that new creature the resurrection side of identification that completes the two parts of what is required to be in the presence of your God.

Did that help? Yeah. Well, you have to believe on the work of Jesus Christ. Yes, you do. To get there. And salvation for a non-believer to come to Christ. What does he have to believe? That Christ died on the cross for his sins. He was buried and resurrected.

At that point, you're saved. You have no idea about the source. No idea at all. All you know is that I'm saved. I get to go to heaven. And my sins are not going to come back and dog me. And the guilt is gone too. Right? But then, over time, you begin to think, well, maybe I'm still a sinner. And then somebody introduces you to Romans 5 and 6 and 7 and 8, and you begin to find out, gee, maybe I'm not a sinner anymore. Why would all of Paul's epistles start out with calling believers saints? What are saints? What's the word saint mean?

It means separated. Separated ones. Not going to be separated, but you already are separated from what? I mean, if you grow up like I did in a Catholic church, what they're going to do is if you live a holy life and fake enough people out, They're going to have a big ceremony and they're going to declare you to be a saint. What does it mean in Catholicism to be a saint? It means that you made it to heaven. That's all it means.

From a biblical standpoint, a saint is someone who's been separated from two. from their sins and sin to Christ. And their righteousness now is because they are identified and positioned in Christ alone. We are the righteousness of God in Christ. So we stand before a holy God with no blemish, no spot, no nothing, positionally.

Now your condition may not at all indicate what your position is. You may be a rotten dog sinning like crazy. Well, those guys over there do. Those guys over here don't. But the thing about your sins is that all of our sins in this room are future when Christ took care of them, weren't they? So they all got handled at the cross. Even the one that you're going to do this afternoon paid for.

The way I think of it too is that even though we have a sin nature and sometimes we kind of fall into that sin nature of confessing and restoring fellowship, when we die that sin nature doesn't come with us. That's exactly right. So that's why the fact that we won't have a sin nature is part of what allows us to Even though our sin nature does sometimes get fixed in us today, it doesn't go with us to heaven. So we are lovingly righteous and don't carry that sin naturally. Yeah, and it's a difficult concept to have having been a sinner all your life and to come into contact with the truths that I've been identified with Christ and His death and I'm separated from that sin nature and I have no longer any identity with it at all. And it's a struggle learning that because our experiences and our temptations and our desires are all over that sin nature and the world and all that it offers.

And to even entertain the thought, now wait a minute, before God I'm not a sinner anymore? Well what am I doing sinning? Well, I do have a sin nature in me. The thing is that before I was saved, and I notice the for sale sign is still up. So when someone comes up to you as a believer and says you're a sinner, you can correct them and say, no I'm not.

It doesn't mean you don't commit sins, but from an identity like, I'm a white privileged guy, right? Are they correct for somebody to say, well, you're white? Yeah. But what if I wasn't white? It wouldn't be correct. It wouldn't be correct. Am I a sinner or not? I'm not a sinner saved by grace. I'm a new creature in Christ with all of his qualities and all of his characteristics and all of his acceptability before God.

So, Wanda, I think what's tripping you up question. And so the answer is, yes, that's required, but that's not all. So there's more to it. It's that there's a sin problem. But his question is a trick question in a way. Yeah, he does. So when you say you say you even get accused. Yes.

And is it enough for you to be forgiven all your sins to be in the presence of God? No, but that is required. What is also required is His perfection. He just asks one side of the question in order to make you think about what else is required in order to be in the presence of God. Not just forgiveness of sins, but also you as a new preacher. You have to be covered in His righteousness to be in His perfect presence.

Does that make sense? Yeah. But what about the scripture that says, I can't find it, but where as a believer, now I'm in the presence of God. I am in, I mean, I am there. My position, I am there. And it says that right in the Bible. And when you said that, it made me think that I'm not there? No, you are there. That's the whole point. You are there. But if someone believes and they say, I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and all that, does that mean that they're not... They're not what? Positioned? Let's look at it this way.

Who's this guy? Who's that guy? He's the first man. He's the first man. Did everybody in this room come from that man? Yeah. He was the source of our life. Everything that was true of Adam is true of me. Everything, including sin nature. including sins, including everything that he is. I got all of Adam when I was propagated by my parents. I got a sin nature from my dad. I got everything that's in Adam. Is Adam acceptable in the presence of God?

I don't know. Why? Didn't he have a chance to be... I mean, was... I don't know. What positional Adam then? Positional Adam. Let's talk about positional Adam. Now, I think Adam is safe. And the reason I think that is because when God offered him the skins, he took them. But Adam is not in the body of Christ. He's an Old Testament saint. Right? I'll ask you this question. It's not a trick question.

The thief that was crucified next to Christ, that said to Christ, remember me today when you come into my kingdom. And Jesus said, today you will be with me in paradise. Is he a member of the body of Christ? Well, if Jesus said so, I would think. Is paradise and the body of Christ the same thing?

I have no idea. They're not. They're not? No, they're not. Because you don't get into Christ until the work of Christ is finished. He's still hanging up there dying. He's still dying? No, he was at the time when he said to the, today you'll be with me in paradise, he was still alive. He hadn't paid the penalty yet. Right. And he hadn't dealt with the source of sin yet. Right.

So I don't know, I think Jesus probably died first, then this guy dies. buried, resurrected. When did the body of Christ begin? Who was the first at Pentecost, right? The church. When the church began, at Pentecost. This guy didn't make it to Pentecost, did he? Well, what happened to him? He went to paradise. He went where Abraham is. He went where Isaac and Jacob is. He went to where all the Old Testament saints are. but they're not in Christ. Now are they happy? Are they saved? Are they going to enjoy eternity without having to get a little warm? Absolutely. But they're not part of the Bride of Christ and you will not find in the Old Testament or in the Gospels that any of those saints were going to be members of the Body of Christ or the Bride.

We're separate. So at Pentecost this whole new thing starts. It's called the church. And it'll go to the rapture. Now once the rapture happens, how about the guy that says the rapture happened six minutes from now? So eight years out, we're back ruling and reigning with Christ and somebody we know believes that Jesus is the Savior, the Messiah, and he gets saved.

Does he get into the body of Christ? No, we've already had the wedding feast of the Lamb, we're not going back. But is he saved? Is he a saint set apart for God? Yeah, but he's a millennial kingdom saint. So the body of Christ is a unique thing in the program of God.

It's the bride. That's the era or the... I don't want to use the word dispensation. responsibility that we're involved in right now. We're members of the body of Christ. To be a member of the body of Christ, you have to leave Adam, because there aren't any Adams in the body of Christ. In order to get into Christ, God has to somehow disconnect you with Adam and connect you with Christ. How do you do it?

He crucified you with Christ, right here. When He died, so did you. So what did you die from? What did you get separated from? Adam. Not only his sin nature, but everything about him. Everything. You left the existence of Adam. You left it. It's like, are we earthly creatures now? No, we're not. We're heavenly creatures. Everything that we were in Adam, we got separated from. We get buried, and when we were resurrected, where did we come up? Over here. We're new creations in Christ.

Does Christ have a sin nature? Do you have a sin nature in Christ, positionally? No. That make sense? Now your experience may not align with this at all. This is solely for faith. When God says it, when He says in Colossians, since you have been risen with Christ, what do you do? You seek those things that are in Arvada. No. You seek those things which are above. Why? Because that's your home now. Okay, what's that scripture?

Colossians 3.1, 2 and 3 and 4. Okay, and when you kind of get this in your mind, you'll start to see in the study of Paul's epistles, this is everywhere, you know.

Christ, this man was under the law, wasn't he? Is this man under the law? No. Am I free from the law? Answer, yes, I am. I now live under this new thing called grace. Am I an earthly creature anymore from position? No, I'm not. I'm now a heavenly one. So, my source in Adam I no longer have. Well, you have it. He's there, but you're not identified or united to him at all anymore. Okay. So, do I have a source now? Yes. Right here. Right here.

I have a new source. Yeah, you have a new source of life. And that new source of life has no sin, lives under grace. There's an interesting thing that happens here though, because... I'll explain this as simply as I can. We share a position in the resurrected Christ.

The problem we have is we still have a body that comes from the Adamic world, don't you? I mean, as far as I can tell, all you guys are getting older, right? And you're headed towards the grave. And sometimes the parts aren't going to work as good as they used to. So you still have Adam's body. Now that I understand. So we still have Adam's body. We still live in Adam's world, don't we? Isn't this Adam's world? And we still have within us this thing called the sin nature, the propensity to sin. The problem is that as long as I'm in this world with this body, I've got this sin nature floating around inside of me.

I am not the way God looks at me now. I'm here. And I don't have to respond to this temptation from the sin nature. It's in me, but it isn't of me. I'm not identified with it anymore. But when it raises its head and I start listening to the music and my feet start moving, guess what happens?

I sin. I commit sins. But you know what sin is for a Christian? It's spiritual insanity. It's just craziness when you think about it. Because the man in Christ can't sin. So I have to take my focus off of Christ and focus on where I came from. Paul says, whatever is not of faith is sin. Boy, that covers everything. And Paul said in chapter 7 of Romans, he said, that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. He's talking about this in nature.

Our job as Christians is not to try to fix Adam up. Our job is to abandon him and walk away from him and be focused in on this man. Because that's who we are. Am I acceptable before a holy God with my position in this man? Absolutely I am. So, back to the first question. Why is God free to forgive me my sins? One, he paid the penalty, but two, he took care of the source. He took care of Adam for the believer. So now I'm no longer identified with Adam.

That's the one point I wanted to start with. Any questions? It's pretty quiet in here. Mike, another thought that runs through my mind on this is spiritual versus carnality, that is a way of looking at it, that we're in the spiritual realm or we're in the carnal realm. Right.

A carnal Christian is a person who has this identity, but who's acting like this man. Does his acting like this man harm his position in Christ at all? No, it doesn't. Because this is a position he obtained by somebody else, by God himself. Now he can act like an idiot and he can sin, but it will not affect his position.

It certainly affects his fellowship and his peace and rest, there's no question about that. connected with Christ and the Holy Spirit that convicts us of that sin. It's not a conscience that says, oh, you shouldn't have done that. It's the Spirit itself that's saying that. It's kind of the flavor of this chapter 10 that we're going through.

How do you, as a believer, walking around in the cesspool of the earth with the sin nature floating around inside of you, how do you deal with the sin issue from a practical standpoint? You start with understanding the source of sin, and that the source of sin has been dealt with by God. Okay? Your sin nature has been dealt with. You have. So, what causes a Christian sometimes to flounder in darkness and guilt or to hide from the light? What causes a believer to do that kind of nonsense? The self. How about something simpler than that?

The first thing I wrote down or read was that he's unaware of his perfect position. He doesn't know it. So if you grew up and lived under a reformed covenant theology, you'd never hear this. You'd never hear this. Because they're too busy keeping you under Adam with a law around your neck. The believer doesn't realize that the Father has already placed him in the light of God's presence. He doesn't know that. He doesn't realize, wait a minute, I'm here. How do I know I'm here? Because He told me.

He says it. In all of Paul's epistles, he focuses on being in Christ. In Paul's epistles, In all the New Testament, from Romans forward, the term in Christ, in the Beloved, in Him is used like 160 times. Paul uses it 147 of those 160. You think he knew what was going on? In Christ is the most critical two words in Paul's epistles. I'm in Christ. I'm identified with Him. If I don't know that, And I don't know how I got there. What's the default position? In working as hard as I can to make him good.

Is he going to ever be good? There are 3,000 years and 3,000 pages of the Old Testament that prove he isn't going to get good. It's like God said, OK, I'm going to give you all of these thousands of years just to prove you one principle. this guy needs to die. Because God says I have worked through the whole Old Testament to make him righteous and it isn't going to happen.

So now we're going to deal with it the way it should be dealt with and that is those who believe in my son are going to have crucified the flesh, it says. You know. Third point. The believer is more aware of his self-centered condition than his Christ-centered position.

I would say, I don't know, you tell me, how many people have you met in your life that are really aware of this? How many people have you met in your life that this is really where they are? Most every one of them. Most every Christian I've ever come in contact with, this is where they are.

Isn't that true? And they're really working hard. They're praying, they're studying, they're doing whatever. And how many people have you run into, just believers, who say, well, let's sit down and talk about our position in Christ. I want to do that.

And the one who is acting like he's going to heaven just doesn't know he's not. He doesn't know. It's not that he's not going to heaven. No. It's just he's just struggling down here. Sure. He still thinks... Wayne and I talked about this a long time ago. I asked him a question.

I said, which side of the cross do you live on? Do you live on this side or do you live on that side? Do you live on the death side or the resurrected side? Which side? If you're under law, if you're trying to be a Christian, if you're doing all the stuff that's necessary, you're here. If you're resting, you're here.

Because from this position you realize that the work's already done. It's all done. I was just thinking about how many people we know that are in one camp or the other and I think... Didn't take you long. No. I think there are quite a number of believers who are just simply confused and they're bouncing back and forth. Okay, I agree with that. Let's be clear, they're bouncing back and forth in and out of fellowship.

Well, maybe that, but they're also, I've met a lot of believers who are confused about position and condition, and they'll read in Paul's epistles something that they don't know how to reconcile in their mind. They believe it, so far as they understand it, but they're confused. And so they are, they're in a confused, they've heard a little of that, a little of this, more comfortable with the law, but at the same time they're reading things that they don't know how to reconcile positionally.

Or they've read from some authors that Adam actually died, that the sin nature is dead, and then at some point they've got to think, well if he's dead, how come I'm still... And then they get into this role of trying to say, well, what part of the law comes with me? I'm going to take a little bit of that. Maybe it's the law of Christ.

Believers kind of get confused in that. Yeah, they do. But I just think that there are a number of believers who are not simply working to be better Christians. They recognize that Christ did it, but they just don't know how it gets accomplished. And they're dealing with sin. They can't fix the sin thing.

Well, I was just going to say that I think a lot of times as believers, at least speaking for myself, I choose Adam because I go for that, whatever the emotional attachment is there. My justification of a mistreatment or something like that, I'll run down that road and park Christ. Let me offer this to you. If I have not accepted the benefits of being in Christ, then when it gets difficult, I'm going to stay here.

I'm not going there, because I'm more used to Him and what He's about than what Christ, the benefits that Christ has told me are mine. Because I haven't, why haven't I gone that way? You haven't lived in them. I haven't lived them, maybe I believe them or don't, or I'm confused.

See, I think there's a, you know, where the curse, the question, what causes the curse, and sometimes the flounder in darkness, you get guilt, and we kind of touched on it, and I probably need Leslie to, the facts and the tracks, and the da-da-da-da-da.

It's knowledge, knowledge first, but then it comes down to believing. Those are the two foundational things. You have to know, and if you don't know, and you're taught something else, or you don't do the scripture, you're never going to get there. Or you create your own religion. You do. But then if you know, you still have to believe. Yeah, you do.

And that's where I think we flounder, is do we believe what he told us? And one, we have to know what he told us, and then two, do we believe it? Those are the two reasons why we flounder, is we don't know and then we don't believe it. There's a third one that I'll mention in a minute. Go ahead.

And that's why Paul said, who can deliver me from this body of sin? It's just flesh that we deal with. Even if you grew up and met Christ when you were a little kid, if you have never been taught this information, you're constantly living out of Adam. If you met Christ later on in life and you grow and you're thankful, then sin is still there.

It's still dogging you. And you begin to doubt. You think, well, I can't doubt. That's not cool. I better trust them. The most important thing to start with is know. You got to know. Second thing is that when you know it, you got to believe it. Believe it.

Your faith is not going to make it experiential in your life. That's the job of the Holy Spirit. But He is not going to implement it in your life until you do believe. It's like, you may know all of the information about the gospel as a lost soul, but until you believe it, you're not saved. I did it. I sat in front of these guys for two weeks and I said, I hear what you're saying and I think you're right. And they said, well, why don't you believe it? I said, I haven't got a clue. It scares me to death.

Well, not only our position, but how we got there. See, this is a position. Romans 6 are the mechanics of how we got here. God tells us very carefully, here's how I took you out of Adam and put you into Christ. Here's how I did it. And I did it. You didn't do it. And your job is just to trust me. There's a third aspect. You know what the third aspect is? that you, get the right word, that you yield. You go to God and you say, okay, I believe you and I'm going to let you pull this off in my life. I'm going to let you do this and I'm going to stop working at it. Those are the three phases of growth. That's right. There they are. You all right with that?

But I'm going to say something that I know I shouldn't say. This reminds me of what's happening in politics. Explain that to me. Because it's like a war. I mean, it is with me. An eternal war, yes, no question. That has separated me from some members of my family, I mean not really separated, but we can't talk about anything about that. Sure.

Oh, when I was a young believer and I was first learning about this, my mother was a go-to-mass-everyday kind of a Catholic woman, you know, and we were talking on the phone and she said to me one day, all I hear from you is death. Death, death, death all the time, that's all you ever talk about. And I said, well, that's where I am. In other words, I'm learning about the significance of my dying with Christ. Someday, maybe I'll talk about resurrection, but right now, all I know is it's about death. And she didn't understand me.

And that's okay. That's okay. One of the things that Barbara, my sister, learned in this regard is that the Catholics have Christ on the cross. They never got him off, did they? Right. And she realized that that is their focus rather than his resurrection. What's the difference between keeping Christ on the cross or keeping you under a law system? It's the same. Still an atom.

Yeah, you said something earlier about when we were in Adam, we know him so well. Oh boy. And we're so used to him and him being a part of us that it's very familiar and it's easy to live there. Now when I become a Christian and I have the new life of Christ and a new source and all that stuff, I'm not used to that yet. Nope. Here's the other thing you're not used to is the whole concept of grace and how it works. Right.

And so the idea of, which it seems like I struggled a lot with for many years, of this bouncing back and forth between being in fellowship. Oh, I'm not in fellowship at this moment. Please, Lord, put me back in, you know, all that, back and forth, back and forth. And it's like in my older years now. You're in good company.

Yeah. It's like it has become so easy. And I don't know if it's proper to say that or not because maybe I sin a whole lot more than I think I do. But it seems like it's so easy to... I've become more familiar with Christ. I know him better than I did when I was first saved. And certainly better than when I first began to learn the vision. And so it seems like...

If I sin, it seems easier to get back into fellowship. It's not a big chore, like, oh, I've got to get into fellowship. Well, and the whole idea of this chapter is going to be, as you all confess my sins and God is faithful and just. And what does that do? It restores me to fellowship here. It doesn't get me out of hell again. I'm already out. It restores the fellowship.

And that's the work of the Spirit in a believer's life because God doesn't want us spending our entire Christian life in the struggle. He wants us resting here. Because when we rest here, this life of Christ is manifested through us. If we're struggling, Christ doesn't have to struggle. Is he still struggling about sin? No. He's resting. Oh, by the way, he's sitting down at the right hand of the Father. He wants the entire creation from sitting down at the right hand of the Father. Well, I guess I could sit down too. I would say the reality in this life, you understand about death. You talk about that to understand it. You talk about the beautiful life we have in Christ all the time. Yeah, but you got to know the life. And that's what the Spirit of God does. He begins to show us Christ and His life. and it becomes more attractive to us and more familiar to us than good old Adam was.

The believer who flounders in darkness or guilt or hides from the light does not feel forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness and he soon gives up confessing. He flounders in the darkness of guilt and there is a predicament of all too many believers. Confession is really a cool thing when you understand what's it about. We'll expand on that going forward. God, when we go to God and confess that sin that we've done, it's not like man is afraid to go do that. He convicts us, so we'll go to him. It's not like we're afraid.

Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for this incredible position we have in your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we were to ask anything, we would ask that we continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus. We pray in his precious name. Amen.