I'm going to attempt to preach that song we just sung. I didn't know Paul, I never really looked to see what songs are chosen for any given week, and that song definitely says much about what we're going to be looking at in 1 John today. And that's where we are. 1 John, not the quote according to John, but John's first epistle, it's right after 1 and 2 Peter in your New Testament. And we're going to pick up where we left off. I'm actually going to back up a little bit. I wanted to handle the first six verses of Chapter 2 today, but it's really all one flowing thought. It's really an unfortunate chapter break. So I want to back up and pick up the last six verses of Chapter 1 and then move into the first six verses of Chapter 2. And the first six verses of Chapter 2 is what I really want to preach on today. So let me pray for the word as you're finding your way over to that great book. Our Father and our God, I just want to come before you before your word is read, Lord, that we might remind ourselves of the greatness of your word. No common book here. This is your revelation to mankind. This is your absolute pure truth, the canon, the straight rule by which we align our theology and our thinking. So Lord, we pray that you would illumine our minds, enable us, Lord, to take in the truth that is here in this book that we might be changed from glory to glory, for your glory's sake, in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, I think what I'll do today is just read this straight through and then I'll come back and probably re-read some parts that are in chapter 2, but I just want you to get the flow of what's going on here. You'll see repeated over and over again in these verses, sin. And we're going to deal with the subject of sin, and then Jesus being advocate and propitiation. And they're big words, big terms, but we're going to hopefully put the cookies on the lower shelf where we can all grab a hold of it and understand the greatness of Jesus and our problem with sin. So let me read this. In chapter 1 of 1 John, beginning in verse 5. This is the message which we have heard from Him and declared to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, We make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. Now by this we know that we know Him. if we keep his commandments. He who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. Thus far the reading of God's Holy Word and let's go back to chapter 2 and begin to look at this. John is going to begin to tell us in chapter 2 that one of the purposes, there's like a four-fold purpose of his writing this, one of the purposes that he's writing to the church is that we would not sin. And he says as much, you know, don't sin. When he gets into the subject, and this is always the case, whenever we hear the law strongly preached to us, it's going to lead us to possibly despair. So he's going to begin by saying, don't sin. And then he's going to move on to say, but don't despair. And he's going to speak of the advocacy, the fact that Jesus is our advocate, Jesus is propitiation. So we're going to look at that as well. But to begin with, he says, don't sin. He says, my little children, this is chapter 2, verse 1. My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin." What is sin? It's good for us to know that John, in chapter 3, I'm just going to borrow from a future study, in chapter 3 of the same book, 1 John 3, 4, he defines sin for us. If you want to turn to that section, chapter 3, verse 4, he says, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness. And sin is lawlessness. It's the breaking of the law. It's the breaking of the law of God is what sin is. So John is saying, my little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. He's writing to Christians. He calls them little children. It could be evidence that John is later in his years, and maybe as an older man now, probably so, looks to the church and could really stand in a pulpit and look out to everybody in the congregation and call them little children. John might have led some of these folks to the Lord. He might have been the pastor that came to them with the gospel and they're his children in the faith. But when he speaks of Jesus Christ, the righteous, who is before the Father, and he's going to talk about that as well, he's showing us that we are the children of the Father. We're Christians. This is a letter to Christians. He wants us to understand that what the will of God is for the Christian is that we would forsake sin, that we would depart from iniquity. And that's the purpose that he has here in the letter. So sin is defined for us. And there's some reasons why this is. And I just want to go over a few. There's many more, but I don't have time to get into it too deeply. But sin itself. In John's letter, he's telling Christians that we break our fellowship with the Father when we sin. There's broken fellowship with the Father. We're going to look at a few lies that he roots out for us in a moment, but it's a breaking of fellowship with the Father. God is light. God dwells in unapproachable light, the Bible says. He's in the light, and if we are habitually in the darkness, if we're habitually walking in the dark, we can't possibly have fellowship with God who is light, who's in the light. And when we sin, even as Christians, there's broken fellowship. That's why John says, if you sin, you need to keep short accounts with the Father, come to Him and confess that sin, find healing, and have that relationship healed. We don't lose our salvation. And it's not as if God departs from us, but in our sin, we tend to hide behind a bush somewhere. We tend to not want to come out into the light. We tend not to want to have close fellowship, intimacy with the Father. We tend not to want to pray to him because we're in sin. And John says, I'm writing this so that you may not sin because it breaks fellowship with God. Sin is an act of rebellion against Jesus's Lordship. The same Jesus who died for us, who rose again, who sent the spirit that indwells us, sin, actual willful sin, is rebellion against his Lordship. In 1 John 3, again borrowing from a future study we'll look at in a few weeks, 1 John 3, beginning in verse 8, he says, He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him. He cannot sin because he has been born of God." Now he's not speaking there of sinless perfection. John is speaking of a holy direction, that we have been indwelt with the seed, we've been indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God. He's doing a work in us of purging out sin and making us into the image of Christ. When we sin, what he's saying is that you've really shown forth the image not of Christ, but of the devil who was a sinner from the beginning. We're to be image bearers. We're to be Christians. We're to be carrying the light of Christ to a lost world. We're to shine as lights in the darkness of this perverse generation. And when we sin, we're more portraying the face of Satan than of Christ. So we must not sin. And John writes, because it breaks fellowship, because it's an act of rebellion against Jesus's lordship. And there's consequences to our sin. Even as Christians, when we walk off into disobedience, there are natural ramifications, natural consequences that come to us. Now Jesus' blood purges us, it cleanses us, it heals us, we don't lose salvation, but there are many woeful consequences that come upon us, and we know that. Sin also is a reproach to the name of Christ. And you're probably like me, we love the living Lord, And when we hear that somebody, especially somebody that is known to be a Christian, somebody that is maybe a popular Christian, falls into sin, and it's such a reproach against the name of Christ that the world will scoff when we come to talk to somebody about Jesus. They want to mention, you know, old Reverend so-and-so that fell, or so-and-so that they know that, well, yeah, they thought they were all about that too, and look at them. They're just wicked like everybody else. It's a reproach against the name of Christ. So John is writing us and says, my little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. If I could, just for a moment, before I move on from that, I want to talk about Romans 6 and 7 a little bit. Romans 6.22, now the writer, not John, it's Paul. In 6.22, this is true of the believer. This is true of the Christian. 6.22, it says, But now, having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life." Let me read that again. Now having been set free from sin, we were once in bondage to sin, we were slaves to sin. The gospel came to our ears, we responded, we received Christ by faith. At that moment, the shackles of sin came off. The bondage we were under came off. The power of sin was broken. He says, but now, having been set free from sin, having become now slaves of God, You have your fruit to holiness. We have the Holy Spirit abiding with us. And he's doing a work in us. It's a fruit to holiness that's carrying us somewhere. And that end, he says, is everlasting life in God's presence. We're saved once for all at the gospel call when we respond and receive Christ by faith. But that puts us on a new path of sanctification. We aren't perfected immediately. We're on this road where we are putting off the old self and starving the old man to death. feeding the new man through scripture, through coming to church, encouraging one another, and it's a process. But the power of sin has been broken and Romans 6.22 is true of the believer. Romans 7.15 is also true of the believer. At the same time, The same relationship, it's also true what Paul wrote, and he says, for what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, I do not practice, but what I hate, that I do. Paul, like us, he was a sinner saved by the grace of God on that path of sanctification, looked at his life at times, doesn't go into too much specifics here, But it says, I hate the sin that I find myself in. I hate it. There's times where I love God's law, I love the living Lord, I love Jesus Christ, and I find myself in sin. I hate that. I hate the sin that's still in me. I want to see that purged out of me. And when Paul looks at his life, convinced that the power of sin has been broken because Jesus has come to him. He's a new creature in Christ. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. He's renewed over in the renewing of his mind as he thinks the thoughts of Christ. He's in the heavenlies with Jesus Christ, seated with Christ in Ephesians, he says. But he finds that there's this law at work in his own body that he has not perfected yet. And he finds himself in sin, finds himself at times maybe afraid, finds himself at times having sinful thoughts, sinful actions, sinful deeds. And he hates that. And he's wanting to see that just purged out of his being. Listen, this is so important to get. In that chapter 7 of Romans, when Paul looks inward, He's contemplating that sin. He's looking inward. It leads him to despair. You and I are on a road of sanctification, and we're not perfected yet. Satan would love to just accuse us, stop us dead on our tracks, and say, who are you kidding? Who are you kidding? You're no Christian. Look what you just did. You're no Christian. And when we look inward, when we hear those accusations from the evil one, our own conscience, and we look inward, it will always drive us to despair. And John knows that. He's going to have something to say in a minute. And when Paul looked inward, he said, Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? That's the inward perspective. Now, it's okay to look there because we're going to find that in and of ourselves, we're weak, we're frail, we're sinful. We think, Lord, I got so far to go. And when we look inward, we will end up in despair, see ourselves as the wretch, and think, who's going to deliver me? But when you say to yourself, who's going to deliver me from this body of death? You have to look outward, away from yourself, to find that deliverer. Do you understand that? And that's what Paul does. And he says in the very next verse, in chapter 7, verse 25, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He looks outside of himself, looks to God, sees Jesus, his advocate. He sees Jesus who made propitiation. He says, I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. He moves on to chapter 8 and says, there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. He propitiated my sins. And it empowers him to move on out of that sin slump that we fall into, to confess that sin, to find healing, and move on from grace to grace. from glory to glory. We're all being changed over into the image of the sun. He's doing a work on us, and we fall and we sin, but our falls aren't final because we have an advocate in heaven. And that's what John's getting at. It's the logical next step. I just want to go to Romans to show you that outline, because it's right here in our letter of 1 John. He says, don't sin, but don't despair. He says, my little children, These things I write to you so that you may not sin. That's very important, that we want to purge sin out of our lives. But as we look inward, we're bound to go to disparity. He says, but if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. He immediately says, now if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father. If we are truly saved, if we have saving faith in the atonement provided in Christ Jesus, then we are once for all saved. Nobody's going to pluck us out of His hand. Nobody's going to pluck us out of Jesus' Father's hand. Jesus said, I and my Father are one. We have the whole of the Godhead on our side, and we are saved completely. And he says, if anyone sins, we have an advocate. We have an advocate. I think it's important to note that he doesn't say, if anybody repents of their sins, we have an advocate. That first repentance that we actually come to when we're saved is us finally turning from sin life and saying, I don't want to live like this anymore. The law of God has had its effect on me. I don't want to live in darkness. I want to come into the light. I turn my back on sin and God be my helper. I'll turn away from that and walk in godliness. But part of that repentance is that we finally come to the end of ourselves and say, you know, there is nothing meritorious in me. And if I stood at the bar of God's judgment, I would be condemned to hell eternally. I need a Savior. We finally say, there's nothing in me that's meriting heaven for me. God's not going to look at me and say, well, Larry, he's a pretty good guy. No, he's not. And I understand that and I repent of those old thoughts that somehow I was going to march into heaven. And I turn from that and I find the Savior. And so I'm saved on that ground. And now, as a sinner, yet saved, in my sin, Christ is my advocate. I've come to Christ, He's my advocate. He doesn't say, well, when you repent of that sin as a Christian, then I'm your advocate. Or, when you really muster up the tears, when it finally hits you in the heart and you're contrite, then I'm your advocate. No, because He's my Savior, He's also my advocate. The very reason why the Christian is pricked of heart, the very reason why the conscience condemns and leads us to confess that sin to Jesus, is because Jesus, who is our advocate, has interceded for us. He doesn't leave us to wallow in sin. He pricks our conscience. He brings that thought to mind. He bears the Holy Spirit upon our spirit, and we turn to Him and confess the sin and find healing and forgiveness in Christ. He's our advocate if anyone sins. We have an advocate. Darby, I might read a quote from Darby in a minute, but Darby in his commentary does a real good job with this. He looks at the picture of Peter. He says, look at an example of this. Peter, who would forsake the living Lord. He would deny his Lord three times before the cock crowed. And Peter is told this by Jesus before it ever happens. Peter, I tell you assuredly, you're going to deny me. Three times before the cock crows. Three times it's going to happen. Peter goes, oh, it'll never happen. Never happen? No. Everybody else might happen, not with me. Then what happens? He actually does that. He fails. Jesus didn't make him fail. He just foreknew that he would. And Peter falls. And it says in the Gospel that Jesus looked at Peter. And when Jesus looked at Peter, he had already prayed for him. He said, Peter, I've prayed for you. And when you are restored, you go and encourage the brethren. He foretells them. He knows it's going to happen. And Jesus looks to him as an advocate. And when Jesus looked at him and their eyes locked, Peter wept bitterly. Those were tears of godly repentance. He had failed his Lord. And when Jesus looked at him, he wept bitterly. Jesus later comes and restores Peter. That's the nature of us as Christians. We commit a sin. The Lord looks at us with a gaze of His Holy Spirit and we weep bitterly because our advocate has performed advocacy for us. He's come to us. He's awakened us to our sin that we might have it purged from us. We can come and later on Peter understood the depth of what had gone on there. He understood it later on. And we can come and say, Lord, I understand now what a stench this is in your nostrils. I'm so ashamed of this. And we lift it up and the Lord finds healing for us. He says it's covered, but it needed to be purged out of you. That's the pattern that we see here. Jesus, who's our advocate. There's a passage in Jeremiah, because I think it's interesting here. He says, my little children, these things are right that you may not sin, but if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Jesus Christ the righteous there's a passage in Jeremiah and Jeremiah is a really heavy prophecy I think we just got done studying it because it's God said they aren't gonna repent I'm through with them I'm casting them from the land and it's a long book and over and over again you get that cycle that God says you know if anybody would if one would repent I'd heal them but they're not going to Jeremiah that they're gonna be cast from the land and eventually they didn't repent and they were cast from the land but within that book There are these little diamonds of hope that God was going to send a redeemer. And when God promised that he was going to send forth a good king, because the kings of Israel, the kings of Judah were wicked kings. And God says, I'm going to send forth a good king, a righteous king. And he says, you're going to call him God, our righteousness. That's what you're going to know him as. He's going to be known as God, our righteousness. Jesus Christ, that's why I said I was going to preach that hymn we sang. Jesus Christ is God, my righteousness. And even, and this is what John's getting at. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is my righteousness. When the devil comes pointing his finger at me, I say, well, were you talking about me? I mean, I could tell you a lot worse things than that. I mean, I'm wicked through and through. We look outside of ourselves and we say, but my righteousness is in heaven with the Father, because Jesus himself is my righteousness. And we cry out to Jesus, who is our righteousness. So Jesus is our advocate, and Jesus as propitiation. This is the hope we have as the children of God, as we examine our own hearts. We come before the Lord. And this is a wise thing for us to do, because none of us that are in Christ want to live a life of sin. We don't. We hate the sin that we see. And we come before the Lord and we ask Him to shine the light of His truth on our souls. Lord, will you please examine my heart and let me know if there's anything in here that displeases you, any wicked way within me that I'm blind to, because I want to confess it. I want to have it out. I don't want to have a broken relationship with you. Shine the light of your truth on me that I can confess it, put it out of my life, and move on in holiness. We need to constantly come before the Lord like this, but our confidence isn't in our confessing. Our confidence is in our advocate and the one who made propitiation for our sins. That's Jesus. propitiation big word I told you a couple weeks ago a lot of Bibles are taking it out the NIV I think replaces it with atoning he's an atonement it depends on what way you're looking at we think that original word is meant to be used it could be expiate which is meaning that something that Jesus did, because we know that he is our propitiation, so whatever that word means, it means it's something that Jesus has done, something he's performed, something that's a part of what his ministry was that he propitiated, so whatever that is. And if it's expiate, which means that he carried our sins away, That whatever went on with that cross, if I've come to Christ as Savior, that He has expiated, He's cast out of me the sin, the sin that was on me, the sin that was in me is no longer here because somehow He took it away from me, took it to Himself. He became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. So He took that sin away, and that's true, but I think really here the word really does mean propitiate. Propitiate the reason why some of the theologians struggle with it is because it's used so much in the non-biblical circles of like paganism Because what it means is to appease the wrath of an angry God, but guys that's exactly what Jesus did Jesus appeased the wrath that was against us He being perfectly righteous Undeserving of a drop of wrath because he had merited heaven he could he could have returned to heaven you know, commanded the gates of heaven to open. And as now the God man, he could have commanded the gates open because he had merited heaven for himself. But we all would have died and gone to hell. So Jesus, on the cross of Calvary, atoned for our sins. That means he took our place. And he propitiated our sins. I like the way Jerry Bridges defines that, and I think it helps a lot. He says, propitiation, it isn't just that he turned aside God's wrath from us, Almost like the water of God's wrath was about to pour out on your head and God and Jesus sort of diverted that so it just missed you and fell to the ground. That's not what He did. In propitiation, Jesus Himself in His own body exhausted the wrath of God as He took it into His own self and bore the entirety of the wrath of God for anyone who had ever placed their faith in Him on the cross of Calvary. He exhausted the wrath. There's not a drop of wrath left over your head if you're in Christ Jesus. He is our propitiation. That's the confidence that we have as we come to the Father, even in our sin, we come to confess our sin. Not saying, well, Lord, surely there's something meritorious about my confession. No, there's not. We commonly say, no, Lord, there's nothing meritorious in me, but I have a savior who's my advocate, Jesus the righteous, and he made full propitiation for my sin. And in thankfulness to him, I want to walk in holiness as he enables me through his spirit. But I have this sin and I must confess it, that you can wash it, and that I might have restored fellowship with you. That's what John's talking about here. So as propitiation, Jesus has cleansed me as my advocate, Jesus defends me. Two things, one against the accusing finger of the law. In his propitiation, he took all the wrath. The accusing finger of the law has been dealt with in the body of Christ on the cross of Calvary. When Jesus was teaching in John chapter 5, he said this. This is interesting. It's chapter 5, verse 45. He says, do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. This is what Jesus told the sinners. Don't think I'm going to accuse you to the Father. He says, no, there is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust. What was Jesus saying? He said, I don't have to say a word against you. Moses will do that. The law itself will condemn you on Judgment Day. The very Moses that they were trusting in, that law, He said, no, that's the very thing that's going to accuse you unto hellfire. That law has an accusing finger pointed at you. We come to Christ and we find that all that the law accuses us of, which was so true, Jesus bore the wrath that was against us because we're lawbreakers, in his own body, in his atonement on the cross. So the accusing finger of the law has been dealt with. Jesus is our advocate. Jesus is our propitiation. And it's also against the accusing process that silences the devil with his own lifeblood. 10 describes Satan's voice saying, In heaven now salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ, and the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God, day and night, have been cast down. Once and for all, Satan dealt with. And what's he doing? He accuses the brethren day and night. But Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, Jesus the righteous, who pleads for us. He's our paraclete, our righteous one. I'm going to skip that Darby. Who's the liar? Moving on here. I want to go back and look. There's four of them so far. There's going to be four. John is trying to get us to filter out the lie. That we're talking the truth. We're so prone to believe the lie. And John's going, no, if you believe the lie, that's a lie. You need to realign your thinking with the truth. There's four of them I want to look at. In 1 John 2, 3, he says, Not that we know that we know Him, but that we keep His commandments. He who says, I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar when the truth is not in him. Now, there's four of them I want to look at. The one living, continual, habitual sin, and the other is the one that is not in him. We say that we have fellowship with Him, and when we walk in darkness, we lie to the truth. Secondly, it says, the one who claims to have reached sinless perfection. Oh, I used to sin, but I came to the Lord, and I haven't sinned in years. 1 John 1a says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. They don't see themselves in the true light of God's law. We say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in us. Clearly the one who claims he has never committed sin. Sometimes you go to witness to somebody, and it's just amazing. You're thinking, this person doesn't think they've ever committed offense against the living God. That's what it says. They don't think they're lawbreakers. I've never committed sin. You go on and on with them, and they're so dug and trenched that they, hey, I don't care what you say. It's always some kind of a lesser law. It's like, well, you know, not the law of God, but my lesser law I've lived up to. Nobody's perfect. Well, God demands perfection. God demands perfection. Well, nobody's perfect, and according to my lower law, I'm sinless. Well, John 1.10 says, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar. You're calling God a liar. And his word is not in us. And then the fourth one we just looked at in 2.4, the one who claims to have intimate knowledge of God, yet disobeys. And it says, I know him, but doesn't keep his commandments. He's a liar, and the truth is not in him. And these are filters for us to go through to make sure that we have true saving faith, that we've really come to that blood-stained cross, that we've really yielded our lives to Jesus Christ, accepting the gift, because that gift, not that any of our obedience leads to salvation, but once we've come freely to Christ, we've come to that salvation that is free, it will naturally, and I'd say supernaturally, will have an effect upon us. We've been made over. We're new creatures in Christ. We hate the sin that still clings to us. We love Jesus. We love his word. We love his truth. We want to walk in his truth. And there's going to be a direction shift, a change when we repent. We're going to love his law. Even though we see ourselves in sin and we must come confessing, we love the law. And God is actually progressively moving us from holiness to holiness as he's doing the work of perfection in us. If that's not true, if you don't see that in your life or if you're witnessing to somebody, then those are all lies. Because this necessarily will be true that if we've come to Christ we've been changed a couple passages that just support that a little bit The truth is not in him. He's self-deceived. There's a self-deception that's gone on Titus 1 15 says To the pure all things are pure But to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but even their mind and conscience are defiled you see they profess to know God and But in works, they deny Him. It's when you go to witness to somebody and say, I know God, and you find that the God they know is an idol. That's not the living God. You profess to know God, but you deny Him in your actions. There's no sign here that you know God, because there's no sign of the inner working of the Spirit in your life. 2 Timothy 3.2, same basic theme for men will be lovers of themselves, talking about the end times, from the time of Christ until He returns. Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. from such people turn away, for of this sort are those who creep into households, make captive of gullible women, loaded down with sins, led by various lusts." Listen, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. I like the New Living Translation on 3.5 there, that same section. The New Living Translation paraphrases it like this, they will act as if they are religious, but they will reject the power that could have made them godless. That's America. Have you gone out and talked to anybody? They think they're religious, but they refuse to come to Christ, who could make them godly. This is the condition. And John 1 here, 1 John, is coming to us and saying, this is a filter. These things are lies. When people say this, or if you're saying this about yourself, you're self-deceived. You haven't come to Christ. Repent and turn from your sins and come to Christ. And then lastly, God's love. perfected. First John 2, 5, and 6. He says, But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. There's a new walk for us. We've come to Christ. I'm nothing like the man I was before I came to Christ, and I'm nothing what I'll be when I'm perfected in glory. I've got a long way to go, guys. But there's been a paradigm shift. There's been a new direction of my life, and I'm sure that's true with you as well. You've come to Christ. You're on a new path. There's a direction shift. You really want to walk with the living Lord. You want to walk in the light. You hate it if you see some thought come into your mind or some angry thing, you know, something happening, you responded in anger, and you think, oh, Lord, that wasn't of you. You know, forgive me of that. And we quickly come and confess our sin before the Lord and find healing and forgiveness, because we truly want to walk in the light. We want to walk as He walked. And we should. There's an oughtness to this, it says. We ought to walk as He walked. There's an oughtness to this. This is naturally going to flow from our salvation. When it says that God's love is perfected in this, That does not mean that God's love was imperfect, and then somehow, because we're changing over and becoming more and more like Christ, suddenly God's imperfect love has been made perfect. That's not what it's saying. What John is saying is that God's perfect love is finding its fruition. It's finding that it is bringing us to its perfect intended destination as He purges our sin out and has us to walk more and more in the glory of the image of Jesus. That's the perfecting work of God's perfect love in us. And what John is saying, if you don't see any of that work, even the beginnings of that work in your life, then somebody needs to come to you and say, have you repented of your sins and come to trust in Christ as Savior? Because that's where it all begins. And he who began there will bring it to absolute completion. Jesus, he's the author of our salvation, he's the completer of our salvation. He'll be doing this work in us, and God's love is perfected in that way. I think I'll end there. You've got some other notes in your outline you can read on your own, but for time's sake. And I think I've said everything I needed to say, so let me end right there. Our Father and our God, I just want to thank you for your word. There is a need for us to depart from sin, even as Christians, That we should walk away from sin. We should turn away from temptation, Lord. We should find that open door of escape that you provide for us when we're tempted to sin. So there's no doubt that we who name the name of Jesus should depart from iniquity. Yet, Lord, we find ourselves in sin. And I think that we not only need to turn from sin, but we don't have to grow weary of our souls for we have an advocate. We have one who made propitiation for our sins and our trust in our faith is in the finished works of Christ, Lord Jesus, we pray that you would do a purging work in our souls Lord. Bring our sins to the surface that they might be dealt with in love. We can cast them out as your Holy Spirit does a work on us. Lord, help us to walk in purity as your pure bride. We thank you for that, in Jesus' name. Amen. Paul's going to come to lead us in 502. And I'll open this up as a time of invitation. Just anything that's on your heart. I never know what the Holy Spirit's doing in people's hearts. If there's anything you'd have me to pray with you about, or you've got questions about anything, salvation, or baptism, or church membership, or just some sin you're wrestling with you want me to pray with you about, whatever it is, I'm here to pray with you as the Lord leads, but let's stand.