Well, good evening, welcome. It's a bit damp outside, but that's all to the good. We need a bit of rain. Let's turn in God's word to Leviticus chapter 19. Leviticus chapter 19. It might not seem like the most encouraging place to start a prayer meeting, but believe me, it really is. If you remember back to when we went through Leviticus, this was one of those chapters that especially struck me We're only going to read the first 14 verses, and there's so much in here that speaks of God's grace and mercy in his covenant faithfulness, and it's worth reading this evening, and it has an impact on what we will look at in a little while. Leviticus 19, verse 1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father and keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols nor make for yourselves molded gods. I am the Lord your God. And if you offer a sacrifice of a peace offering to the Lord, you shall offer it of your own free will. It shall be eaten the same day you offer it, and on the next day. And if any remains until the third day, it shall be burned in the fire. And if it is eaten at all on the third day, it is an abomination. It shall not be accepted. Therefore, everyone who eats it shall bear his iniquity, because he has profaned the hallowed offering of the Lord. And that person shall be cut off from his people. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your God. You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. And you shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. You shall not cheat your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning. You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God. I am the Lord. Let's pray. Lord our God, we come before you this evening and we do so with wonder and awe that we who are by nature sinners, rebels, aliens from your grace, yet we have been accepted in the Lord Jesus Christ, washed clean of our sin, brought into your family, made one with you, and we thank you and we praise you for that. Lord, as we read out of your law, we're amazed by the grace and the mercy you showed to the weak and to the vulnerable, to the distressed, that Lord, you had a care for each one. We thank you for that, and it reminds us of that greater care you have for us that you had towards us in salvation when we were the weak and the poor of this world outside of your grace, yet you poured grace out on us. You drew us with cords, Lord, that were irresistible, and you saved us, and oh, how we thank you for it. And so Lord, as we come now together to worship you, we pray that it might be from a heart that is thankful, willingly offering the praise of our hearts as well as of our lips that you might be magnified. Be with us then we ask for your namesake. Amen. Let's take our hymn book, start to sing 158. One, five, eight. When oceans vast their depths reveal and moons have ceased to wane, the Lamb who died and rose again on Zion's hill shall reign. 1 5 8 ♪ And business as usual ♪ ♪ As boundless as the close of day ♪ ♪ Or sand upon the shore ♪ ♪ A resting place, a restful place ♪ ♪ In him forevermore ♪ ♪ And every other day we sing his name aloud ♪ I'll turn with me please to 1 John chapter 1 and verse 5. 1 John 1 and verse 5. 1 John 1 and verse 5 But 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. Brethren, I write no new commandment to you but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment, I write to you, which thing is true in him and in you? Because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. He who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going Because the darkness has blinded his eyes So reads God's Word. Let's just pray a moment as we come and consider those some of those verses Lord we do thank you for your word We thank you that you have spoken in words that are clear and plain and Lord, as we come now to your word, we ask that by the Holy Spirit, we will know that opening of the eyes of our understanding that our minds might be taught. And by the Holy Spirit, the opening of the heart that we may indeed be touched by the spirit in the inner core of our being and that Lord, we might discipline ourselves to be teachable and to be obedient. So Lord, take your word and help us now as we look at it, we ask for your namesake. Amen. We are looking really at verses 10, verse 10 of chapter one through to verse two of chapter two, although really we're just looking at verses one and two of chapter two of 1 John. Now two weeks ago we considered the three if we say statements that fall in verses 6 through to 10. If we say we have fellowship with him at walk in darkness, if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and if we say we have not sinned we make him a liar. In each case, an antidote is provided if we walk in the light, verse 7, verse 9, if we confess our sins, and then verses 1 and 2 of chapter 2 form the antidote to verse 10. So before we deal with the antidote, very, very quickly I want us to remind ourselves of what we said about That third statement if we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us verse 10 Quite simply beside this that God says sin is sin and He doesn't excuse sin on any level, in any way, at any time, and at any point. He does not excuse sin. If he did, if God excused it, if he ignored it, he would not be holy and he would not be God. To be God by definition means he cannot simply blink away sin. Because it is utterly opposed to his character and his nature. So if we say we haven't sinned when God says we are sinners and we have sinned, we are calling God a liar. And the presumption of that is that we are right and that God is wrong. So this Third, if we say statement, is in some ways the most serious of them all. Because if God calls what you and I are doing sin, if God puts his finger on our lives and says, that's sinful, that's wrong, we should not pretend that we haven't sinned, lest we be found to call God a liar. Now the antidote, of course, is first, Stop persisting in saying we haven't sinned. That's the problem so often we want to cover up our sin and we say no no no sin here nothing to see and the antidote begins by stopping doing that. Stop covering up. Because if God in his word by his spirit points to our sin, then woe is us if we don't pay close attention. We need to listen to what God says in his word. If he points to sin in our lives, even if we don't like what God is pointing at, we need to listen. And if we don't listen, it is the mark of very, very serious spiritual decline. What we need to do is to acknowledge that we are, all of us, still prone to sin. There's not one of us in this room this evening that is not exempted, that is not prone to sin. We all are. None of us is exempted. Sin lurks around us. Sin lurks within us. So that scripture says often we are led astray by the lusts that are within us. Instead of denying that sin, we need to deal with that sin. Which is why verse 1 of chapter 2 begins with John saying he is writing these things so that you may not sin. He says, I don't want you as Christians to be sinning. You shouldn't be sinning. God says sin is an offense to him. Therefore, you shouldn't be sinning. And I'm writing these things to remind you that we are to fight at all times against sin. We are to avoid sin at all costs. Now, I'm sure most of us will be familiar, whether we use the shop or not, with Sainsbury's just down the road, on the Ring Road. There are essentially two roads in. There's the nearer road, which involves turning down into Chapel Ash and then immediately off again. That's got a couple of speed humps, it's not too bad. And then there's the other exit, the other entrance and exit. Exiting is not so bad. Entrance, well, I can only say that the rover that's running around Mars probably has an easier time because that stretch of Tarmac Adam has long ago disintegrated. It's in an awful, awful state. And there's no use denying it. We all know if you've driven across it and if you never have or you've got a nice car with comfortable suspension come in my little Peugeot I'll drive you across it at speed and then you'll know just how interesting that stretch of road is. You'll need spine surgery afterwards. There's no point denying that's a bad bit of road and there's no point us denying the sin in our hearts. That road needs to be dealt with. The sin in our hearts needs to be dealt with. and John says I don't want you to sin but he goes on to say and but if anyone sins and he acknowledges the sad reality that we do sometimes sin even as Christians even at our best even when we are striving A holiness. There are times when we take our eyes off the Lord, we take our eyes off the ball as it were, and we fall and sin. That's why John is writing these things. So that we may understand what the antidote is to sin. John says, I don't want you to sin, but there are times when we do sin. And what's the antidote? Well it's dealing with it. How? First, admitting we have sinned. And when we do that in the first place, John says we have an advocate with a father. Isn't that wonderful? We've got an advocate with a father. Now the Greek word there for advocate is actually the very same word that is used of the Holy Spirit in John 14, 15, and 16, is parakletos. It's the same word. And it carries the general sense of one who helps. And it carries here specifically the legal sense of one who is called alongside to intercede on behalf of another. In other words, it is literally an advocate, one who pleads on your behalf. So then here is the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is here in a judicial sense. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the one who intercedes for his people when they return to him in repentance after sin. He literally is our legal advocate, the one who helps us before the bar of heaven. He comes alongside to plead on our behalf, to intercede for us in the heavenly courtroom. Now, that's very simple and straightforward, isn't it? But there are implications that I want us to go through very carefully here. And the first is this. Christian, we need an advocate. We do need an advocate. Yes, we've been saved. Yes, we have been redeemed. Yes, we've been adopted into the family of God. Yes, we're indwelt by the holy spirit of promise, the spirit of adoption, the arabon, the down payment, the one who guarantees all that's to come. Yes, all of that is true and yet we still need an advocate. you and I as Christians. And John's whole point in the verses that have led up to this is that as Christians living in this world we are wrong, we are fools if we say we never sin. We can sin and sadly we do sin and the answer isn't to hide it or deny it, it's to come to the Lord who saved us and to confess our sin to him and to ask the Savior to deal with it on our behalf because he alone is the only one who can intercede for us. We need an advocate, we need his advocacy. Christian, you and I, we need his help. It's the ongoing work of our Savior in glory. While yes, it's true he has sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, yet he stands there also as our advocate pleading on our behalf and we need his advocacy. Then in the second place, he is the perfect advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is perfect in his advocacy. Here then is the Savior, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And he is perfect. He's without sin. And yet he is the one who takes our place on the cross. He's the one who dies paying the penalty of our sin. The Lord lays on him the iniquity of us all. We couldn't even pay for our own individual sin. Jesus paid for all our sin. And of course he died to be able to forgive us, he rises again to justify us, to make us right and holy before God, clothed in his righteousness. So he is the one who's paid the price for our sin. The perfect one, the holy one, who makes us acceptable and perfect and righteous in the sight of the Father. He alone then is in the perfect position to intercede for us as the perfect advocate. We need an advocate and Jesus is the perfect advocate. His blood pays the penalty for our sin. And then in the third place, you and I, we don't need another go-between. Do you notice there is no room in these verses for another go-between? It's just not here. John doesn't say that we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous who works through a priest stroke Bishop stroke Pope stroke patriarch. It's not here is it? There's not even an opening for it. There's not even a whisper of it. It's Jesus and he alone. There is no other advocate and no need for any other advocate. He is sufficient. He is the only one. There is no other one who is righteous and perfect and pure and holy and utterly clean. He and he alone is all of that. He is Jesus Christ, the righteous. And that righteousness is inherent to him. He didn't earn it. It wasn't given to him. It is his own righteousness. So he is Jesus Christ the righteous in regard to, yes, salvation, but also in restoration. There is no other we need to come to. Don't listen to anybody who says you need to do this, that, or the other. No, you need to come to the Savior and to him alone. and he is the one who intercedes for us. And then in the fourth place, he is all sufficient in his advocacy for our sins. Go back to his words on the cross. One of the last words on the cross, it is finished. It's actually a little bit stronger than that in Greek. It really means it's accomplished, it's done. brought to the finalization. It is all completed. And that's amply demonstrated when he rises again. So the question is what else is there to be done? What else is there to be done? Now Rome says that we need to add something here. They would deny it but that simply implies that there is something lacking in what Jesus does. both in his salvation and in his advocacy. There is something extra we need to add to top it all off to make sure that we are saved. Something Jesus didn't accomplish. No. Romans 6.10 is probably my favorite verse in scripture if I'm truthful. It's the only verse I've got in my wallet and I've actually got it in Greek as it happens. The death that he died to sin, he died efferpax once and forever. Never more to be repeated. It's a done deal. It's complete. There is nothing that can be added. There is nothing that should be added. He is all sufficient as Savior. He is all sufficient as the righteous, ascended, glorified one. He is all sufficient both to save and to restore. He is enough in his own work and in his own person. And then fifth, even now, he is our advocate with the Father. Now he stands ready, willing, and able to restore us to that place where we would not be able to go without his intercession and advocacy. Nobody else can do this for you. You can come and confess your sins to me and hope I don't write it down and use it in a book later on, which I won't. I can't do anything for you other than pray for you but you go to him you confess your sin to him and he will deal with it by pleading on your behalf he alone then is the one and he is your advocate now right now Not at some future point, not at one point in the past, but right now, pleading on your behalf. This is his great work right now in glory on the behalf of his people. That's the wonder of the one who is our Savior, who ever lives and pleads for me. So Christian, when you sin, be sure that you remember the Savior is your advocate. that He is interceding for you with the Father. That's why you need to go to Him. Deal with your sin there. Don't leave it fester. Don't leave it go. It's like finding you've got an open wound and instead of dealing with it you just leave it and you let it fester and it gets nasty and eventually it begins to smell and you go to the doctor finally and the doctor says, if only you'd come before. Gangrene has taken hold. It's got to come off that limb. It's got to come off. Instead of hiding from it, running from it, denying it, we need to go to him, deal with our sin. He in his person, he in his work, he is the antidote, he is our advocate, the answer to our falling in sin. So John says, I'm writing so that you don't sin, but if you do sin, remember we have an advocate. He is the one you need. He is the one you've got to go to. You go to him, you deal with him. And then in the second place, the second part of this, propitiation. When we sin, it is Jesus Christ who alone can be and is our advocate. He is the one alone who intercedes with the Father on our behalf, and he can do so because he is holy and pure. 2 Corinthians 5.21 makes that very clear. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of Christ in him, of God in him. As a result, verse 2, he himself. So you get the emphasis there. John could have simply said he is the propitiation, but he says he himself. It's reflective. In his own person, in his own being, in his own work, he, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the propitiation for our sins. I remember when I was young, my father used to get very hot under the collar that certain modern translations, which remain nameless, like to take the word propitiation out of the English translation. But actually it's a very good translation. A very good translation. This is how the ESV Study Bible explains it. It puts it so simply and helpfully. It says that here, propitiation means a sacrifice that bears God's wrath and turns it to favor. It takes God's wrath, away from you and turns it to favor for you. So instead of wrath falling on you, it falls on the sacrifice, and favor falls on you. As the perfect sacrifice for sin, Jesus turns away God's wrath. That's what he does. He turns the wrath of God at you and your sin away from you to himself and in its place pours out grace and mercy and love upon you. It's the finished sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. There, Jesus is our propitiation. So when we sin and we repent and turn back to the Lord, he doesn't lay judgment on us. That was laid on him. It isn't penance that's laid on us. There's no sense of penance in Scripture. The penalty was paid by the Savior. Our sin was laid on him. He has already paid its full price on our behalf. So when we turn back to the Savior and we know that sorrow at our backs sliding, he does not go to the Father and present our repentance. That's so important again. He does not present our repentance to the Father. Look father, he's repented, she's repented. No. He presents his sacrifice, his blood, his righteousness on our behalf. He says, I have paid the price. He is the propitiation. The wrath of the father was turned on him and instead the love of the father falls on us. He's already paid the price. He bleeds His righteousness on our behalf. And that's true, you notice, whether you are Jew or Greek or Roman or wherever you come from. Because what John says here is, he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only. He doesn't mean not only for Christians, but for everybody in the world. No, no. Not for ours only, but also for the whole world. What he means is this. Not that everyone is going to be saved at the last. Current Pope believes that. Francis believes that ultimately everybody's gonna get a heaven including those who are atheists and hate God that's fine eventually God will let them in and we'll all be happy together that does not appear anywhere in Scripture but all who believe of every tribe tongue and nation all those who have been made disciples and baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit all of those who are blood-bought children of God will find their advocate pleading and presenting his own righteousness, his own accomplished sacrifice on their behalf as the propitiation for their sins. So that there is one Savior, one sacrifice, one church, one body, one advocate who is the one propitiation for our sins and it doesn't matter where we are or where we come from. Now it's important to underline something at this point. This is not a get out of jail free card. If you've ever had the misfortune to play Monopoly you'll be familiar with a card. You get this card and if you are suddenly sent to jail for any reason on the board you can present the card and get yourself out of jail. This is not a some sort of get out of jail free clause which allows you to go on sinning as a Christian. Because if you think that, you need to go back to verses 5 through to 10 of chapter 1. It is unthinkable that we should feel we can do what we want, live as we want, sin in any way we want, and it's not going to be a problem. Because it is a huge problem. And Christ's sacrifice on the cross shows us the nature and the depth and the awfulness of the problem. No, we are saved to be clean, to be holy. Peter tells us that in 1 Peter 1 and that's why we read Leviticus 19 at the beginning. Did you notice it in verse 2? Be holy says the Lord for I am holy. That's always been the Lord's call for his people. Without exception every one of us as a Christian is called to be holy and if you think you can live your Christian life any way except God's way and that it isn't a problem well let me tell you you've got a massive problem. And you need to stop thinking like that now. You need to stop and go back to your savior in repentance and trust in his righteousness. He who was the propitiation for your sins and ask him for mercy as he acts as advocate on your behalf. And then the spirit helping you go and live as you ought. No, this isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. But here rather is the reason we can, as my old pastor used to say, keep short accounts. Now, keeping short accounts is something that puzzles some people today because we are so used to living with credit. I can remember my grandfather, he would talk about people living on tick. And he would talk about people living on tick as though it was something distasteful. Something that was unpleasant that left a nasty taste in the mouth. He came from a generation where living on credit was not something you did. No. We need to keep short accounts. We need to settle our debts with the Lord regularly. Deal with our failings and our fallings and our sin before the Lord. And it's the Savior, it's our advocate, the one who's the propitiation for our sins, is the one we go to. The propitiation for the sin of every one of his people. So what we need to see is the super exalted Savior, our Lord and our God, the one who deals with our backsliding, with our failing, with our falling, with our sin. We should go to him and deal with our sin. We don't do it regularly. In fact, we hardly ever do it, but there are churches where they will have, they will recite a general confession of sin. It's not a bad practice, you know. I'm not suggesting we're suddenly gonna start it here, but it's not a bad practice for no other reason that reminds us that we are far from perfect in this world and we need the Savior's forgiveness. He is the only one because he took the wrath of the Father that should have been ours. That's why we should hate sin. We should hate sin. We should hate coming up short in the Christian life. The question I suppose is do we? We need to pray that we would. That we would hate sinning. And what if we are struggling with sin? And we need to remember the greatness of our Savior's finished work of salvation. Remember the glory of His righteousness. The perfection of His finished work of salvation. And trust Him to plead all of that on our behalf. So rather than struggle, we need to submit to the Lord and trust Him. And so live to His glory, my little children. These things are right 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. Oh, what a savior, ascended, glorified, our advocate, the propitiation for our sins. To him be the glory. Amen. Let's take our hymn books before we come to pray. Turn to 680. 680. Christ of all my hopes the ground, Christ the spring of all my joy, still in thee may I be found, still for thee my powers employ. 680. ♪ O my joy ♪ ♪ Still in thee may I be comforted ♪ ♪ Still for thee my heart employ ♪ ♪ As I love my God in faith ♪ ♪ O my sight ♪ ♪ Be thy praise my highest favor ♪ ♪ Be thy smile my cheer delight ♪ ♪ Bounding up on glowing praise ♪ ♪ Savior of my hopeless dear ♪ ♪ May I close my earthly praises ♪ ♪ May I prove in Christ to live ♪ ♪ Sing in my court ♪ ♪ Nothing shall my God confound ♪ ♪ Safely I shall pass the flood ♪ ♪ Safely reach Emmanuel's crown ♪ ♪ Let us give to the land of our residing ♪ ♪ And we know it's right to live ♪ ♪ Let me know it's right to die ♪ I want to run through a number of things that we can pray for this. Any number of other things, please don't think this is the list you must pray about. There will be things close to your heart that you will want to lead us in prayer about. Please do that. This is just a gentle reminder. Some of us will have actually read the notice sheet, the service sheet from Sunday. Some of us possibly won't. If we have read it, we probably won't remember all the details. So this is, by the way, of a gentle reminder for some things. I want to run through a number of the issues in the church. Eddie, who is still in a great deal of pain, waiting for test results. I don't know if he's had them. No. And Elizabeth as well, his wife continuing to suffering from terrible back pain. Lycia, she is recovering from surgery. They had to do more than was expected to arise and so stands in need of our prayers. Lawrence is recovering at home after surgery. I don't know what sort of patient he is, but pray for him as he recovers. Dave Deans has been grappling with employment issues and I know whatever the decision is, he will need our prayer in the days that lie ahead. Then let's not forget the persecuted church. There are places around the world where the church is being persecuted actively, where the gospel is being, or at least they're trying to suppress the gospel. But pray for the church that is persecuted. They serve the same savior, have the same advocate, and hold the same hopes, so pray for them. Then we are also asked to pray for Christians in areas affected by warfare and civil unrest, particularly but not exclusively Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Gaza, Sudan, and the DRC, for those who don't know, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where insurgents from neighboring Rwanda are trying to capture cities. We were also asked to pray for the work of MRF, SGA, SASRA, EMF, Albania Evangelical Mission, and ROOP. To that list, I'd like to add three things briefly. First of all, Anastasia is getting married in just over a week and a half. We need to pray for her and Paul. Exciting times. I'm sure there's 10,000 things to be done. But the most important thing is that they ready their hearts before the Lord. Pray for them. Steve should have been taking this evening, but he's had to go across. the other side of the country because of issues with his dad and mum. So pray for Steve. He's got his own parents to deal with. He's got his in-laws as well. And it's very, very hard on Steve. He really does need our prayer. I can say that as he's not here this evening. Pray for Andrew and Philia as they're away from us in all their travels as well. Anything else anybody wants to add? They were silenced by the space of half an hour. Well, if there's not, let's come to prayer, shall we? Let's pray. Oh, our Lord and our God, how thankful and grateful we are that we have this tremendous means of coming before you, that we are able to come before you who are the holy and the righteous one, and to know we're accepted in the Lord Jesus Christ, to know that our sin and our backsliding is dealt with. Lord, we confess before you, we are not the people we would want to be, our sin so often pulling us down. We are certainly not the people you call us to be, and Lord, we ask that you would forgive us. that you would cleanse us, that, Lord, you would search us out, and if there is any wicked way in us, that you would lead us in paths of everlasting righteousness. Lord, we would ask that we would know that portion of your spirit, that we might be enabled from now forward to live in holiness for you. Lord, what we pray for ourselves, we pray for all your people, Lord, that they might know that presence of the Spirit upon them. Lord, we're aware that some this evening will be working. Some will not be able to come because of the busyness of the midweek with families and early hours. Lord, we pray for them that you will touch their hearts. and Lord some perhaps away and we pray your hand of grace upon them some Lord not well and Lord especially we would pray for them that you would be dealing with them that Lord you would heal them strengthen them and that above all Lord they would be drawn closer to you at this time as they go through these things so Lord as we come now in prayer we ask that you will help us that we will not be afraid to lead one another before your throne of grace That, Lord, we won't be looking necessarily for long press, and, Lord, we won't be afraid of praying short press. But, Lord, always we will be concerned to lead one another to you. That, Lord, together we might seek your grace, your help, your aid, and that you might be glorified in all things. So help us now, we pray, for your name's sake. Amen.