We're back in 1 John, we'll be looking at the first two verses of chapter 2. And just a few things by way of review, I suppose. In the first week, we talked about the organization of the book, how it's not laid out in a typical fashion. We might view its organization, if you will, kind of as a funnel, starting at the bottom, so very – kind of a narrow circle at the bottom and getting larger as we go up. And so John introduces ideas, a circle of ideas, and then he reintroduces those ideas again, and he expounds on them a little bit more and a little bit more, so it gets larger. And within each of those sections, there tends to be these tests that we can hold ourselves against to see if our faith looks like a genuine type of faith. And within each of those sections, there is generally a doctrinal test. So here's truth. Do you line up with this truth? Do you hold on to this truth? Or do you disagree with this truth? And then there generally is a moral test. and often it's twofold, obedience, you keep His commands or you don't, and you love the brethren. We are coming to the end of the first of those doctrinal sections, and verses 1 and 2 are kind of transitional because they deal with that, but they also kind of introduce verses 3 through 6 with the whole idea of obedience to His commandments. And so, that's where we are at the moment. Within these first two verses of chapter 2, There are a lot of ideas packed, and we're not going to hit them all. A lot of them are potentially controversial, and there are a lot of ideas that spring out of these two verses. Just as a for instance, there are those who would come to these two verses and argue that we can know sinless perfection. From what John says in verse 1, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And so there are people who have grabbed that sentence and said, see, we don't have to sin, But it even goes to the point of saying we can live in a sinless state of perfection. I'm not going to argue that with you. If you have questions about that, you can call John and Lainey later. There are those who would take these verses and argue a kind of antinomianism and say, well, John does say that we don't have to sin, but he goes on and says that our sin has been dealt with at the end of verse 1 and end of verse 2. And so if sin is covered it's already dealt with, we can really live like we want to. And, you know, we don't have to be careful. Others would use these verses as a springboard to argue propitiation versus expiation. You know, is it just that my sin guilt needs to be removed or is it also that the wrath of God needs to be turned away from me and turned on to another? This is one of the handful of verses in the New Testament that mentions the word propitiation. And then others would argue about the nature of the atonement. Is it universal or is it particular or limited? And even to the point of universalism, that ultimately because Christ is, it says here, the propitiation not only for our sins but for those of the whole world, that everyone will be saved whether they come to faith and repentance or not. So there's lots of things we could argue about and talk about tonight, but I don't want to miss the forest for the trees, you know. John is saying something particular and I don't think he meant to argue with us about the nature of atonement or any of these other things. It's not that those are unimportant. I mean, they're doctrinal truths. It's just, one, I don't think we really have an argument in here. I don't think. And two, that's not the main point that John's making right here. John gives us two statements and I think that's where we need to center our attention tonight. Two statements. The first is this. I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And the second, and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And so we have these two wonderful statements. And in giving these two statements to us, John gives us a two-fold cure, a two-fold prescription for two errors that we often fall into. We've talked about this here before many times. We're walking along the road, the Christian life, and there's a ditch on either side. On one side, we have the sin of presumption. And if we're not careful, we fall into that ditch. And on the other side, there's the ditch of despair. And we tend to run back and forth from one to the other. We run to presumption, and then presuming that it'd be alright to do this, we do it, and then we despair. I shouldn't have done that. We run to the other ditch, and we're back and forth between them. But as John gives us these two stories, giving us a cure for both of them. Here, as we battle between complacency and hopelessness, John gives us both an exhortation to avoid presumption and then wonderful comfort when we tend to despair. And if we find ourselves in either of these ditches, if we have presumed upon grace and we are doing what we want to do because we don't think it really matters, God will forgive me anyway, We've broken fellowship with God. And if we're despairing, we're refusing to run to the source of this fellowship and to get things right with Him. And so again, we are without fellowship and without the joy that should come from this fellowship. And so, if we're in either of these ditches, we don't enjoy the fellowship that John tells us should be ours as believers. And so, let's look at these two statements tonight. If you want to maintain fellowship with God, then stay away from sin. Seems pretty simple, doesn't it? And yet, it's not that simple either. We want to avoid the sin of presumption. The idea that I can do this thing that I want to do and it won't matter. Because God will forgive me or because it's such a small consequence. You know, it's not one of those big things and so I can do this. And it won't interrupt the fellowship between me and God. But it ignores the realities. We've said before, I think on the first week, as we talked about the nature of this fellowship with God, that the only way to have fellowship with anyone, including God, is that there has to be some common ground. And since God does not change, and we can change, it's us who has to change to match Him. We have to have some common ground. It's true of anyone. And so, If we will have the same mindset as our Heavenly Father, if we're going to have His interest as ours, if we're going to have common ground with Him, we must hate sin because He hates sin. Sin is opposed to Him. It's against Him. He is opposed to it. He can't look on sin. We talked about how He is holy. And so John writes to us and he says, I'm writing these things to you that you may not sin. And when he says that, he really is giving the war cry to believers, that I don't want to sin. I may sin, that may be my reality, but my desire should be that I want to be done with it because God has transferred me from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And I don't want to live that way anymore. This is imperative for fellowship. But it's also imperative because of the nature of this salvation. The notion that we're saved from the guilt of sin, but not the power of sin, is strange to the Bible. And it should be a strange notion to us. Well, if we're to avoid this sin, if John's writing and says, look, I'm writing to you so that you may not sin, then let's look at this a little bit and answer a couple of questions about it. I guess first we should ask the question, what is sin? And there are a lot of answers we could give, but let's give the one that John gives in the third chapter, in the fourth verse. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness. And sin is lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. It's disobedience to God. God has said, do this and don't do this, and we do the exact opposite. It's lawlessness. And so, the Bible says to put away all deceit, and we're deceitful in many ways. Perhaps, you know, on our taxes, we fudge a little bit and try to make our financial picture look differently than it really is so that it's to our advantage. But in doing that, we've committed lawlessness. Or, the Bible says to abstain from every appearance of evil in 1 Thessalonians 5.22. And so, we wouldn't actually do that, but we're in situations where others look on and think, I'm not sure, but it looks like they're in the middle of that. And we have the appearance of evil. And in doing so, we've committed lawlessness. Now, we're generally, not perfectly, but generally pretty good at staying away from the big sins, the black and white issues. But all those great things, all those little respectable sins we've been reading about in Jerry Bridges' book, all those little areas that don't really bother us too bad and other people wouldn't point a finger and say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Society wouldn't shroud that. Those aren't as easy, are they? We heard this quote a while back, and I think it's helpful. John Wesley, while away at college, wrote to his mother, Susanna, and asked her for a list of sins he should avoid. And she didn't give him a list, she gave him something better. She said, whatever weakens your reason, whatever impairs the tenderness of your conscience, Whatever obscures your sense of God, whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind, whatever takes away from your relish for spiritual things, that to you is sin, no matter how innocent it is in itself. What a statement! Whatever impairs the tenderness of your conscience, so that It's a little bit harder than it was before. Whatever takes away from your relish for spiritual things, so all the good things of God that you would enjoy, now you enjoy a little bit less, or your attention's caught over here, and it's not that you despise that, but this just looks better right now. Innocent as that may be in and of itself, to you that's sin, because it's taking your heart away from God. We sing, ah, give me, Lord, the tender heart that approaches, that trembles at the approach of sin. But do we really mean that? Do we really want that kind of a tender heart? Or are we content to have a heart that's bothered by things that others are doing or those big things, but not those little things, the things that I really cherish, the idols of my own heart? Are we willing to be that careful that we would define sin like Susanna Wesley did. That's being pretty careful. You can't walk through your day haphazardly, can you? You have to stop and think. But when we think about the holiness of God that we've seen, when we think about this fellowship that can be ours and should be ours because of the work of Christ, how can we not be careful? with sin. That's looking at the whole issue from a negative light. Look at it positively. Let's turn it around and say, well, how do we avoid this? Well, we could say, as John has put it here, we walk as people who live in the light. We've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. So, we live as people walking in the light. Or we could answer it this way, the first question of the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession, you know it, what's the chief end of man? What is it? Yeah, glorify God, enjoy Him forever. Easy answer to an easy question, but how to live upon it? How to put it into practice? So that day by day and moment by moment as I'm making decisions, as I'm dealing with my children, Filling out my taxes or whatever else. That is my end, my goal. To glorify God, to enjoy Him forever. Another somewhat familiar quote around here from Amy Carmichael. We are not here to enjoy one another. We are here to do the will of the Lord. But not just not here to enjoy one another, we're not here to enjoy ourselves either, are we? Ultimately, it's not that we're here to please me, it's I'm here to please God. I've been bought with a price. And so daily, we need to set our heart to walk with God. Daily, moment by moment. My desire should be what is God's desire. And we must take up the means of grace then and put them to use. So we want to avoid sin. God has called us to do so. Think about it. is that that is condemned and hated by God. He's opposed to it. It's opposed to Him. It's opposed to His divine and holy nature. And if we say that we're in fellowship with Him and we walk where He walks, then we must hate what He hates. We must be done with it. But sin is also the terrible thing that caused suffering to Christ. He bore our sins in His body on the tree. He became sin for us. He who was without sin. And so if I believe that, how can I easily run back to sin and embrace it when I know that it's the terrible thing that Christ bore? It's that which the Father, rest on Christ, that the Father couldn't look at. Is it any wonder that John writes, says, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. Stay away from it. When we know this about God, we know this about Christ, and we run back to sin anyway, we're saying, in effect, I don't regard your suffering as sufficient incentive to stay away from that thing that I really like. Further, sin is dishonoring to the Gospel and to its claims. It's dishonoring to the power that the Gospel has. as well as our profession. We profess the hatred of sin, we profess to be delivered from sin, but the Gospel claims that it actually does deliver us, not just from the guilt of sin, but from the power of sin. And we, when we choose sin again and again, dishonor that Gospel. And we announce to the world it's not really all that we said it was. Too often, our attitude is a terrible attitude. I'm in Christ, I've been forgiven. And we're not going to sweat the small stuff, you know. It's kind of a lackadaisical approach to everything. We're going to let go and let God. But that's not a biblical approach. We're not to yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness anymore. We're to put on our armor and pick up the sword of... Truth, thank you. Yeah, and the shield of faith. You'll go to battle. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. We've been called not to sit back and rest right now. We are to stand up and fight. We are to, by the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the flesh. We must beware this presumption that says it's okay to sin because it really doesn't matter. It does matter. And the moment we sin, we have broken fellowship with God. When we do this, it leads to a sense of condemnation. We feel it in ourself. We know what we're really like. It leads to a loss of joy. It leads to doubts. We wonder if we really know God or not. It makes us feel like we can't pray. It leads to hopelessness and despair. We presume it's okay, and then we despair. We must be the dumbest of God's creatures to be given such a grand rescue and run back again and again to embrace that from which we've been rescued from. But I guess the question I should have asked already and haven't is, do you really want fellowship with God? Because John says it's possible. He says that he and the apostles enjoy a fellowship with God. And you can have that fellowship too. But do you really want it? I mean, if you don't, then I guess you go ahead and dabble with sin. But if you want fellowship with God, then you must be done with sin. Do you really want to be done with sin? I can't help but remember Tozer's quote that we have as much of God as we want. Are you content to obey Jesus just in the big areas? leave the others alone for now. We'll deal with them later. John says, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. Well, I would stop there, but that's terrible news, isn't it? I mean, because we do sin. We shouldn't. We should hate sin. We should run from sin. But we do sin. And so John doesn't stop there. He goes on and says, if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father. We don't want to presume. And so John tells us, don't sin. Don't do it. But neither do we want to despair. We know what we're like. We know we're prone to wonder. So John says, we have an advocate with the Father. Do you know that Christ is your advocate? Do you understand there's no forgiveness except in Christ? In fact, as you look at the New Testament, practically anywhere you look, when sin comes up, right on its heels, there's Christ. Here's the problem, but here's the cure. And we look in the Old Testament, in all of the Old Testament, looking forward to this one, all the shadows, all the types, all the pictures, All are fulfilled in Christ Jesus. He is the one we need, but how does He do this? How does Christ bring this restoration or this reconciliation between us and God so that even though I do sin, I have an advocate with the Father who is propitiated on my behalf? Well, let's look at this a little bit more closely. First, we do have this advocate. An advocate is one who represents another. It's a person who's stands in court and presents the case of another. He represents that person. He pleads for that person. We just sang it. Before the throne of God above, I have a strong, a perfect plea. A great high priest whose name is love, whoever pleads for me. He never, though, pleads my innocence. Strange to turn. He always pleads my guilt. But he pleads His righteousness. Now, when you think about Christ as an advocate, and you think about Him kind of as a lawyer, you know, pleading your case, we must never think of Him standing before a God who is ready to strike us down, and the only thing that's holding Him back is Jesus. We must not think of God that way, that He is angry with His children, and Christ restrains them by constantly saying, Oh no God, don't do that, don't do that, remember what I did, remember. It's not that way. God is not unwilling. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God has demonstrated His own love toward us. And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You know, Christ is, of course, the one who came. He's the one who lived here and died and rose again. But He didn't come on His own. He didn't, you know, humanly speaking, wake up one morning and against the interest and the protest of the Father say, no, no, no, I'm going down there and I'm going to do this. No. But the Father sent Him. In Galatians 4.4 the Bible says, But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son. 2 Corinthians 5.19 says that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. The Father sent the Son for this purpose. The Father delights to look on us in His Son. And so He's not an unwilling Father having to be held back by loving Jesus. Don't get that in your head. This may baffle our understanding that there's not this conflict between the Father and the Son, but it is what it is. In the divine economy, we might say that the Father has given this particular work to the Son. And so Christ, our High Priest, has become our advocate and He has offered Himself. But not only has He offered Himself and He pleads the merits of His work, this is true, He also takes what we do. He takes our prayers and everything we do, and He sanctifies them and passes them to the Father. And so, we pray. And we may feel unworthy to pray. And in truth, our words and all of our sentiment and whatever else often is contradicted by how we live. It doesn't, isn't it? So we feel all that, but our prayers are given, our prayers, Christ takes our prayers and He adds His own blessed, glorious, perfect person and passes them to the Father. And the Father hears our prayers because of the Son. And so we have this advocate, this one who not only died for us but lives. Hebrews says it this way in chapter 7 and verse 25. Hence also He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. He did die, yes, but He lives and He always lives and He's always making intercession on our behalf. And so we have the Son interceding for us. The Bible also says we have the Holy Spirit interceding for us within us. Christ intercedes for us, the Holy Spirit within us interceding, building us up in Christ, teaching us, guiding us, showing us what to do, what not to do, and then Christ makes intercession for us and on our behalf and represents us before the Father. Now, get this, right now and always, the Lord of Glory is concerned about you, child of God. The Lord of Glory is concerned about you. He is not angry with you, He's willingly listening through His Son to you and looking upon you with favor. We are frail, we are weak, we fall, we fail, we are prone to wonder, but we have an Advocate with the Father. And when you've fallen and Satan tempts you to despair and tells you the guilt within, and you say, oh, I can't go back to him again, I can't say it again, yet once again I seek thy face. All those times we sing, remember, you have an Advocate with the Father. And He is with the Father. Do you remember, I guess it's months ago now, I want to say weeks, but I have no sense of time, John chapter 1, I guess verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. When John covered that, the Word was with God. He spoke of how it didn't just mean that He's in the same vicinity as God, or just that He co-existed with God, but the idea was that He's face to face with the Father. There's a communion between Father and Son from eternity past. It's the same concept here, except we're looking forward. We are having continually an advocate with the Father, face-to-face with the Father. He's not just in the same vicinity with the Father. He doesn't have the Father's attention sporadically. You know, the Father is very busy over here with other things, and He keeps calling out, trying to get His attention to plead on our behalf. No. He's face-to-face with the Father. He has a perfect communion with the Father. He always has the Father's ear. He pleads for us. So, again, when you've sinned and you feel you have no right to come into His presence, remember that God in Christ has become your Father, and we have an advocate with the Father. Not a God who's opposed to you, but one who loves you with an infinite Father's love. But who is this advocate? John says that He is Jesus Christ the Righteous. He doesn't write these things accidentally. You understand, He's inspired. All of these words are there for a reason. So, what does He say to us? He is Jesus Christ the Righteous. He is Jesus. He is the One who's come to save His people from their sin. He is this High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses. He is the God-man. And so, there's an emphasis here, I believe, on His humanity. The same humanity that John had emphasized in the first few verses of chapter 1 here in 1 John, when he talked about how they had heard this eternal Word. They've seen Him with their eyes. They've looked at Him. They've touched Him. Even though others have said, no, He didn't have a real body. Yes, He did. We saw Him. We walked with Him. We interacted with Him. We got our hands on Him. We know He was real. This God-man, this Jesus, this One who comes and understands our weaknesses, He, though tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin, He is the One who advocates before the Father on our behalf. So, Here we go again. When you are conscious of guilt, and you know your smallness and frailty, and you think about how big God is. You remember that He's light. There's no darkness in Him at all. And you wonder, how in the world can a person like me come to a God like this? How in the world can He understand? a person like me, and me falling again and again. You have an advocate with the Father, Jesus, who understands you perfectly. He has a high priesthood. And He stands before the Father, but He stands as one who understands your weakness. He sympathizes with you. Not that He's sympathetic to your sin, He's okay with it, but He understands we're frail. He understands we're dust. He understands what it is to be tired. He understands what it is to be hungry, to be thirsty. He understands these things. And so He stands before the Father and pleads on our behalf. Look sometime at Hebrews 4 and 5. It explains it all. But He is not just Jesus. He gives us that. But He also says He is Jesus Christ. He is the Anointed One or the Appointed One. He is the One who has been sent by the Father." Again, get rid of the notion that God is against you, believer. It is God Himself who appointed the Son to this office of advocacy. The high priest was never self-appointed. He was always called of God. Hebrews 5, verses 4 and 5 say, "...and no one takes the honor to himself..." This honor of high priesthood. "...no one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was." So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become high priest, but He who said to Him, Thou art my Son, today I have begotten Thee. This advocate has been appointed by the Judge. The Father, in His everlasting love, has set Him apart and anointed Him for this particular task. But John doesn't even stop there. He says that He is Jesus Christ, the Righteous. I think here John is referring to Christ's character. Though He became a man, though He sympathizes with our weakness, our infirmities, though He was tempted in every point like we are, yet He never sinned. No fault was found in Him. He is absolutely perfect and I need such a representative in the presence of this God who is light. To be an advocate, you must yourself be accepted. were in some legal trouble and needed to go to court. You would not want me as your attorney. They wouldn't let me in the door as your attorney. I'm not an attorney. I know nothing about being an attorney. I would be an unacceptable advocate. But so would anyone else who tried to stand before God on your behalf. Only Jesus Christ was fit for this task. Jesus Christ was the righteous. So, Christ stands before the Father. And He never pleads anything wrong or unworthy. He never asks God to overlook your sin. He never asks God to forget your sin. But in essence, what He says is, Father, it's only right that you should forgive the sins of these people. Because I have borne their sins. And the punishment of their sins has fallen on Me. The law has been fulfilled. Death has died. The punishment has been enacted. They're free because I died for them. It's Jesus Christ the righteous who enables God to be at once just and justifier of the ungodly. Satan tempts you to despair. Don't despair. We have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous. And so, because of Christ and His advocacy, we can even say, we say it very respectfully, but with confidence. If you're in Christ, God would be unjust if He did not forgive your sins. Because it has been paid at the cross. This advocate is our propitiation. And it's not just that he has rendered a propitiation, but he himself is the propitiation. It is emphatic. He himself has done this. What does it mean to propitiate? Well, there is the idea of turning away the wrath of God, appeasing it. There's also the idea of turning one towards another with an eye of favor and pleasure. So here's God who was angry, justly angry with us because of our sin, but that wrath has been satisfied in Christ, and now His attention has been turned toward us with pleasure. And so this points to the fact that Christ is the High Priest, but He's also the offering. Christ does not offer a sacrifice outside of Himself, but He Himself is the propitiating sacrifice. He Himself is the propitiation. Everything that's necessary to reconcile the sinner to God is found in Jesus Christ. He is the prophet. He is the priest. He is the king. He is the sacrifice. It is His blood that has been shed and presented. He has purified the heavenly temple. It is all in Him. And we need nothing else. We need no one else. He Himself is the propitiation. And because it is the Son of God who is the propitiation, we need have no fear about our sin. We can say with John that He is enough. This sacrifice is sufficient. We need no other argument. We need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me. Oh, let's stay away from sin. Let's not be presumptuous. John says, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if you sin, don't despair. 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. Well, praise the Lord.