https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=I+John+1%3A8-2%3A2&version=NRSVACE (I John 1:8 – 2:2) I have a confession to make. I am a screwup. It pains me to admit this to myself and to you, but it happens to be true. Let me explain. I try to live the Christian life – to obey, to be faithful, to have the mind of Christ, to love as Christ has loved me, to walk in the light and goodness as God is in the light. But, I have a lousy batting average. I strike out a lot. I tend to miss the mark. I do the things I don’t want to do, and I don’t do things I want to do. For instance, I want to be more gracious in life, but I find myself falling prey to being more judgmental of others, being harder on them than I might be on myself. I want to be more humble as God would have me be, but ego and pride rear their ugly heads way too often as I play comparison games. I can get so careless with my words, they will wound instead of heal. When it comes to loving, I’m so inactive at truly loving someone as Christ has loved me. I find I avoid difficult people sometimes. It’s hard to love people you don’t like. And when I get home (this is the worst place), I’m inattentive to my wife, and I don’t listen very well. I’m downright rebellious when it comes right down to it. I rebel against God’s commands. I know I shouldn’t watch this or read that, or say that or do that. I know it’s wrong, but I’m enjoying it! There is an iniquity within me that Scripture talks about. I’m twisted up inside, contorted. I just can’t get things right! Like a piece of warped lumber. “All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” Scripture tells us. We’re wired that way. We tend to be selfish and turned inward wanting to be our own gods with our world revolving around us. We’re all in that place, Scripture says. A few years ago, John Ortburg wrote a book called, “The Life You’ve Always Wanted.” In it he tells a story illustrating this. Some years ago, we traded in my old Volkswagen Super Beetle for our first piece of new furniture: a mauve sofa. The man at the furniture store warned us not to get it when he found out we had small children. “You don’t want a mauve sofa” he advised. “Get something the color of dirt.” But with the naive optimism of young parenthood we said, “We know how to handle our children. Give us the mauve sofa.” From that moment on everyone knew the number one rule in the house. DON’T SIT ON THE MAUVE SOFA. DON’T TOUCH THE MAUVE SOFA. DON’T PLAY AROUND THE MAUVE SOFA. DON’T EAT ON, BREATHE ON, LOOK AT, OR THINK ABOUT THE MAUVE SOFA. It was like the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. “On every other chair in the house you may freely sit, but upon this sofa, the mauve sofa, you may not sit, for in the day you sit thereupon, you shall surely die.” Then came the Fall. One day there appeared on the mauve sofa a stain. A red stain. A red jelly stain. So my wife, who had chosen the mauve sofa and adored it, lined up our three children in front of it: Laura, age four, Mallory, two and a half, and Johnny, six months. “Do you see that, children?” she asked. “That’s a stain. A red stain. A red jelly stain. The man at the sofa store says it is not coming out. Not forever. Do you know how long forever is, children? That’s how long we’re going to stand here until one of you tells me who put the stain on the mauve sofa.” Mallory was the first to break. With trembling lips and tear-filled eyes she said “Laura did it.” Laura passionately denied it. Then there was silence, for the longest time. No one said a word. I knew the children wouldn’t, for they had never seen mom so upset. I knew they wouldn’t because they knew that if they did, they would spend eternity in the timeout chair. I knew they wouldn’t because I was the one who put the red jelly stain on the sofa, and I wasn’t saying anything! The truth is, of course, we have all stained the sofa. I am a screwup, a sinner. I have a feeling you are too. Over the years, I’ve...