repentance and confession

1 John:7-8
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

"If we believe that we have no need to confess, we have no sin that needs to be brought out before the Lord, if we’re not a sinner and other people are sinners, or if we’re a sinner but it’s kind of that ambiguous, airy way that we’re a sinner and there’s nothing specific in our life that you can point to, if you say there is no sin in you, what does He say? You’re deceiving yourself. You have an exalted version of yourself in your head that’s not reality. And this is what we do. We love to put big sins over here, we define small sins over here as if these sins really upset God, but He’s just okay with these small ones. So God doesn’t like this and this and this, but the fact that you’re still embarrassed of Him doesn’t bother Him or the fact that you’re unbelievably lazy in your pursuit of your relationship with Him doesn’t bother Him at all. We divide it into good sin and bad sin, God really struggles with these people, but He’s glad we’re on His team. The Bible says you’re self deceived, and it probably explains why you’re stagnant in your faith and maybe your faith has begun to retard."

Matt Chandler, A Continuing Ethic (listen to the sermon here, or read it here)