Well, it is indeed our privilege to be with you once more, and we've been asked to bring you greetings from the McGowans, those of you who remember them. The closing two verses of the scripture reading are my text this evening. 1 John chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. They begin a new chapter in our Bibles, but as you are well aware and were reminded once more by the reading, they are intimately connected with all that has gone before in the first chapter. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. The Apostle John is plainly writing about sin and sinning. There is no way in which we can avoid the plainness of what he has to say on those matters. And he is particularly concerned that those whom he addresses as his little children should adopt a particular attitude with regard to those matters. In addressing them as his little children, he isn't being paternalistic. but being truly pastoral. The Apostle John had this wide ministry based at Ephesus throughout Asia Minor. And those to whom he writes this general letter were those not only in that city, but also in its surroundings. And he is particularly concerned that they should not think that anything that he has just written provides them with the least encouragement to sin. But in addition to that, he is equally earnest in assuring them that if they do, All is not lost. We have, he says, an advocate with the Father. A note, he uses the first person plural there, including himself along with them. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. Now, sin is a fact of human life. It's part and parcel of everyone's character. And in varying degrees, it makes itself known in everyone's consciousness. Different views, of course, are taken with regard to it. And there are different ways in coming to terms with, in which people come to terms with, this universal reality and the endemic fact of human sin. We are coming up to that time of the year in the States when the great Protestant Reformation is remembered. And that movement of the Spirit of God was born out of an intense concern in the heart and conscience of Martin Luther to find a way whereby his sin could be dealt with so that he was no longer exposed to the just wrath and condemnation of God. And daily he plagued his confessor priest to provide him with some assurance on that matter. By contrast, a couple of centuries later, Voltaire, the French skeptic and fierce critic of the Roman Catholic Church, on his deathbed, refused the ministrations of a Roman priest, saying, God will forgive me. That's his job. Two very contrasting views of sin and one and neither of them Christian. Of course, as we know, Luther came to peace through believing that the righteousness of God spoken of in Romans 1, which he understood as the righteousness God required and which he could not provide was in fact the righteousness of God which he provided and which could be freely received by faith. Here we have the Apostle John writing to those who had already trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. And his purpose in doing so is expressed in words with which he concludes the letter, these things have I written unto you who believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. His purpose, therefore, was to provide them with assurance, but an assurance that was well grounded and sure. And that kind of assurance requires that we are able to adopt a particular view of sin and sinning. That is the constant trouble which can undermine and gnaw away at our assurance of salvation, the reality of sin, and the fact that we ourselves sin. So in these verses we have these two aspects of his exhortation. First, my little children, these things I write unto you that you sin not. He reminds them. but in no way should they imagine that there is the least encouragement to sin in anything that he has said. Now we may wonder whether anyone reading the first chapter could conceivably come to that kind of conclusion that anything that he wrote there should be used or understood rather to convey a rather superficial view of sin and its relative unimportance. But little children, in the grace of God, need such reminders. Sin is always deceptive. It always pleads its own cause. It always advances reasons so called why it should not be treated with the utmost seriousness and rounded on with total and absolute rejection and condemnation bias. There were people at the time, and John refers to them in the first chapter, who had such a view of sin and sinning. He says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And then he says, if we say that we have not sinned, and those two statements are not synonymous, if we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar and his word is not in us. Current in the religious culture, At Ephesus, there were those who took such views of sin and sinning. And breathing the same air as it were as they, Christians could be affected by such an attitude. And the Apostle John makes it perfectly clear that to think of sin and sinning in those ways is to pull the wool over our own eyes and to regard God and all his warnings against sin in his word as telling a lie. But he says something else in John 1, 1 John 1, which could be abused And it is, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This abundance of pardon and cleansing, which is so extensive and which is so ongoing, dear dying lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more. Such pardon, such cleansing can be taken for granted, and when that happens, then sin and sinning become less than the truly awful, God-rejecting, Christ-dishonoring thing that it is. And so he says to them, these things I write unto you, that you sin not. There is nothing from Genesis 1-1 to the end of Revelation which is pro-sin and sinning. Every single thing in the scriptures outlaws it, and repudiates it, warns against it, and protests against it, and of course, against the devil, its author, and chief perpetrator. There is nothing in the word of life the opening verses of the first chapter, nothing in the Word of Life that encourages it, and there is nothing in the walk in light which the Word of Life produces which encourages such an attitude to sin and sinning. Sin is always lawlessness. which means not only that it is against the laws of God, but is against the very idea of law. Absolute, universal, categorical, unchangeable, the justice of God is the antithesis of sin and sinning. Its character is in subordination. rebellion, uprising against God, excluding him or granting him permission to enter into the margins of our thinking, of our desiring, of our speaking, of our acting, but no farther. That is enmity against God and opposition to him. And what the Apostle is saying here is, I am writing these things to you that you should not do it. You should not commit, and the tense that he uses here means that you should not commit a particular sin. But the very fact that he expresses himself in that way indicates that sinning is not inevitable for a Christian. Sinlessness is unattainable in this life. But sinning is not inevitable. The next sin that you and I commit we didn't have to do. The next temptation to which we succumb we need not capitulate to. That's the emphasis that he's striking here. In the third chapter, he refers to the way in which those who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God have the seed, the life of God, implanted in their hearts. And the result is this, that they no longer continue in sin. capital S you may think. Here's the distinction you see between sin and sinning. The tyranny and the bondage of sin has been once and for all broken through union with Jesus Christ by the Spirit through faith. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are no longer under law. We are under grace. We are new creatures in Jesus Christ. And that kind of new eternal spiritual life enables us to resist the devil, enables us to counter temptation, enables us to fight against sin, and not to commit that next sin. So, in saying these things I write unto you that you sin not. He isn't just expressing a total prohibition. He's reminding them. that they are able now to engage in, as it were, hand-to-hand combat with that next sin or with that old sin that rears its head once more. Whenever we sin, it is always our responsibility. We are always sinning against our better nature, always against our Heavenly Father, always against the One who bore our sin and guilt and condemnation once and for all in His own Body on the Cross. To sin against the Ten Commandments is one thing. To sin against the Gospel is even worse, because the Gospel provides resources to enable us to resist the devil and to refuse to commit that next sin. My little children, he says, these things I write unto you that you sin not. And if you're a Christian, don't you agree? If you disagree Then, are you one of God's little children? This is part and parcel of what it means to have become a Christian. That within our understanding, within our affections, within our wills, our hearts, that term sums us all up in cameo in miniature. There is this protest against sin and its author registered, indelibly written in our hearts along with the word of God written there. Now, we are no longer what we were and we know it. And we are determined to be less and less like what we were. Though we know that we are nowhere yet near what we ought to be, we know that by the grace of God we cannot ever become again what once we were. The Apostle, however, goes on, and he goes on because he knows that little children, for all the new resolves and determination that they have as children of God have a body of flesh. They're in a fallen world. They're weak, they're frail. And sinning, while not inevitable, is frequent. And so what he says to them is, if anyone sins, we have. Don't think if you sin, you haven't anymore. You've lost. All has come to collapse and ruin, and it's the end. Do not sin, but don't be discouraged if you do. because you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, he says, not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. Speaking of the wonderful richness and the immense availability of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, no longer restricted to one nation and race and so on, but more than enough for the whole world. If anyone sins, we have an advocate with a father. He doesn't say if you sin because you're a little child, it doesn't matter. It does. He doesn't say if you're a little child and you sin, it doesn't matter because God is your father. Though that is true. Sinning Christians need an advocate in order to be pardoned and cleansed. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And what I want you to note in particular is this, that there's no mention of an accuser here. None at all. The word advocate appears, law court, counsel for the defense, and immediately into our minds springs the reality of the counsel for the prosecution. An accuser. But John doesn't mention an accuser here. We may not have an accuser before the father. We may not have an accuser before the Father. If anyone sins, we have an advocate before the Father. That's true. But if we sin, it's possible, and I put it no higher at this point in time, in order to bring something out. It may be possible that we do not have an accuser before the Father. That's the operative phrase in the surprising thing I've just said. We may not have an accuser before the Father. Now, to be sure, we have an accuser within. And the Apostle John doesn't ignore that. In 1 John chapter 3, verse 20, is it? Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, he envisages there a condemning heart, that is, a condemning conscience. And Christians do have condemning consciences, don't they? reminders of what we have done and what we have failed to do, of what we have done again or failed to do again, and so on. And that gnaws away at our assurance. It should concern us. But we should not let it have free run in our thinking. We should counter it and deal with it. And John tells us here how we can do that. So we have an accuser within. But we may not have an accuser before the Father. Now I'm sure some of you are thinking of the book of Job. And some of you are thinking of the book of Zechariah. the sons of God appearing before Job, the angelic hosts and Satan coming among them. And then in Zechariah, Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord clothed not in priestly garments but in filthy garments and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. There a depiction, I suggest to you, of reality before Christ died. Because in Revelation 12 and verse 11, what we read is this, that the kingdom has come and the accuser of the brethren has been cast down, cast out, who accused them before God day and night. The atonement that Jesus Christ accomplished has the effect of silencing Satan in the presence of God. He can no longer bring an accusation. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ has died, ye rather, is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. With such an advocate, is there room in heaven for an accuser? I leave that with you to sort out in your own minds. But this I must insist on. If an accuser, namely Satan, does appear in the presence of God against you and me when and because we sin, He fails. His accusations are dismissed, out of court, irrelevant, don't apply. Why? Because we have an advocate who is righteous. And who is the propitiation for our sins? If that were not so, if you and I didn't have someone who has a right to stand before a holy God for others, then what hope have we, unrighteous, of being cleansed and pardoned? None at all. None whatsoever. But we do have someone, someone who's kept the law perfectly to the satisfaction of God, not merely human scrutiny and not merely the testimony of his own human conscience that he always did those things that pleased the Father, to the one who sees motives He was the Lamb without spot and without blemish. In the estimate of God, He has a right to be there on His own account. No one can expel Him. He has a right to be there, and He has a right to be there for you and me because He has made propitiation for our sins. And so, even if, and I don't think we have, but never mind, even if we have an accuser before the Father, the judge of all the earth rejects his accusations, even though, even though they're based on evidence, even though they're not fabricated. They're not a trumped-up accusation. He can say, so-and-so thought this, so-and-so said that, so-and-so did the other. All true, but non-valid. Why? Someone lived and died for us. Those sins have already been born. They've already been punished. Payment. God will not twice demand. First at my bleeding surety's hand and then again at mine. We have an advocate. What are we told here about his advocacy, about his intercession? Well, not much, not much. Our hymns, their poetry, borrow imagery from the Old Testament, priestly ministry and the high priest's ministry. Names are being mentioned, hands are being spread and so on, depicting the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they have their point. He does make intercession for us. He does mention our worthless names before his Father's face. And he is doing so now. now to appear in the presence of God for us. That's where He is, not there. He is at the right hand of God in heaven and yet He is remembering us down here, down here below in this frail body of sin and death. What is He doing actually Well, what John says is that he is our advocate, not because of something more that he's going to do, but of something that he did once and for all and long ago. Didn't Jesus say in the upper room, I do not pray the father for you. but because the Father loves you. He was thinking there of the work that was as good as done, shall we say. The work of atonement that was finished. And on the basis of that, he prays and teaches. He says, I don't need to persuade the Father to love you. I don't need to plead you a cause as plead your cause before someone who is no longer your father, who is so displeased with you, so mortally, grievously offended by us, that his love has turned to wrath. He doesn't need to do that. The basis on which he makes his intercession is his atoning work. And the character of his intercession is in terms of his presence. Presence before the Father in that now glorified body which still bears the marks of his having suffered for sin. We have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous, who is, here is the endless reality, the ongoing vitality of that once for all atoning work that he accomplished on the cross. And that remains. And your sin and mine. which shouldn't be done. We'll never cancel it out. Our sin will never expose us to any of the demands of God as a condition of our salvation, nor to any of the sanctions of God, the terrors of God, as a punishment for our sin because He kept them all and bore it all for us. And so, is this an argument for sin or against it? Is it an argument for sinning or against sinning? If you and I think that we can look into the face of Jesus Christ and him crucified and say sin and sinning don't matter, it's almost too horrid a thought even to express with that preposition if in front of it, isn't it? If we think that, we don't understand anything about the virtue and the cost of human salvation. We are not yet saved. We don't know the Savior. If we think that all we need to do is to come here, eat and drink, say sorry, try harder, try to do better, and then come again. That's no different from the ignorant Roman Catholic going to the confessional week by week or day by day and hoping that a declaration by a priest so-called coupled with a penance will deal with our sin. It won't. It can't. Jesus dealt with it. He paid for it. He suffered for it. And He, in His infinite grace, has pardon and cleansing for all those who confess their sins. He will cleanse us. from all unrighteousness. My little children, sin not. But if you sin, you have an advocate who will, just as Jesus prayed for Peter before he fell, and so kept hold of him in his falling, and restored him afterwards, he will never let you go. May we keep a hold on him as our only savior and advocate.