Written more so in response to your 1st paragraph. If a person is a truly 'born again ' believer ( John ch 3 v 1-20, especially v's 3-5-7 ) thru Romans ch 10 v 9, not just baptized and or confirmed, their sins are no longer before the Lord according to Is c 65 v 16 ( last 2 sentences ) Psalm 103 v 12; Ephesinas ch 1 v7. If one is not a born again believer, only baptized and or confirmed, they are still in their sins according to John ch 8 v 24 ; c 9 v 41.
Fixed points in time
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When we hear the Word of God and God blesses us with faith, we must continue in a good relationship with Him. We have to turn from disobedience and walk in obedience. When we hear "be baptized" the right thing to do in a good relationship with God is to obey. It is part of salvation for us to continue in our Savior. If we love Him, we will keep His commandments. If someone says you don't have to obey God, it is like saying you don't have to continue in a good relationship with Him. We should all be speaking with one voice by the same Word and the same Spirit and it is clear that God wants us to obey Him. The context of every commandment is obedience. We can't be saved by works but works are part of our relationship with God. We must continue in Him!
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I often think about the attributes of God, which are truly mind-blowing. For example, He transcends time while we have the past, present, and future; He is. Thinking about that, it dawned on me that as I have lived life from start to where I am now, each time I sinned against God and man, it was as if someone did something at this moment in time, in the now. I experience all things in the now, but then things fade into the past. So I can get angry about what someone just did to me. Still, with God, every time I lied in the past, cheated, stole, those things I don’t even want to admit I did, or even all the evil things I thought about doing, all are before God in the here and now with Him, they do not fade into the past, as He does not experience reality as I do.
So each day we live, our sins compile before God, and we move toward the end of our lives, a fixed point that is certainly coming for all of us. Then I think about Jesus’ life here. He went through life healing while we killed, all He did, we were doing the opposite, and at the end of His life, He lay down, He was crucified. At the end of His life, He was sinless.
So, the fixed point in time, the cross of Christ, what happened there was He who knew no sin, became sin, ours! His walk here was blameless, ours was full of guilt, and at the cross, He willingly took the blame for everything each of us ever did or thought to justify us by being punished for our sins. In our lives, He tells us to pick up our crosses and follow Him, giving ourselves to Him as He gave Himself for us. In Him, justified by the very God of all creation, by the very righteousness of God! We were not saved by the love and mercy of God at the expense of God’s goodness and righteousness, but through God’s goodness and righteousness, He gives us His love and mercy.
We cannot earn God’s grace and mercy; even trying to earn it, or feeling that God owes us because of something about us, such as how we live or who we are, diminishes it by suggesting it wasn’t enough, so we have to add to it. We are called to come to Him, own our sins before God, and repent of them, asking Him to make us new creatures in Christ by His work in us.
God is the best part of being a Christian; to make claims about being one without actually turning to Him for His soul-saving work in our hearts, we miss out on the reality of Christ and the joy of the Lord. One of the best parts of the gospel of Christ is timelessly the same for all of us, those who have been walking with Him for years, those who just started their lives with Him, those who are on the fence, and those who don’t know, its still the same answer, Jesus is Lord and He died and rose from the dead to save us from our sins before God. It is an experience of divine making, not a theological theory or doctrine; it must be in the heart, not the head.