Alright, 1 John 2. Let me read
the first six verses. My little children, these things
write I unto you, that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And
He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do
know that we know Him if we keep His commandments. He that saith,
I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and
the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth His word in
him, verily is the love of God perfected or brought to maturity. Hereby know we, this is how we
know, he says, that we know him. He that saith that he abideth
in him ought himself also to walk, even as he walked. Let's pray. Our Father, thank
you for this day that you've given us. Thank you for your
mercies that you've shown to us this week. Thank you for the
Lord Jesus Christ, in him we are complete. We have everything
we need in Christ to stand in Your presence. And we thank You
for it. Instruct us this morning by Thy
Spirit. Send forth Thy Word in power.
Make it live in our hearts. Forgive us our sins for Christ's
sake. In His name we pray, and amen. The title of the lesson We have an advocate. We have an advocate. We have
one to represent us before the throne of God. What good news? I couldn't bring you better news
than that this morning, could I? I could not bring you better
news than to tell this group of sinners. Now, if it was all
a bunch of good people, it wouldn't be good news, would it? You don't
need one. I need an advocate. I need an
advocate. If you're in trouble, if you've
ever been in trouble with the law, you need an advocate, and
you need the best one. You need the best you can get. And we have the best there is. God Himself is our own advocate. That's astounding to think of
that. What is an advocate? An advocate is a person who pleads
the cause of another in a court of law. An advocate is one who
represents another. An advocate is an intercessor. John encourages us here by telling
us that when we sin, it says, if any man sin, it's when, it's
when, you can change that word if to when. When any man sins,
we have an advocate in heaven. It's not that it's over. No,
because you and I sin every day. We sin a whole lot more than
we realize. But we have an advocate, one
to plead our cause in the court of heaven. That is the highest
court there is, the court of heaven. Now John says, my little
children, John always preached the gospel in love. And some of the people he was
writing to, no doubt, were converted under his ministry. Oftentimes,
when I write to my pastor, Henry, and I sign it, your son in the
faith, John Chapman. That's how I sign it, your son
in the faith. Paul said to Timothy, he said
that Timothy was his son in the faith. And here, John is writing
to many that were converted, no doubt, under his ministry,
and he calls them, and how tender this is. My little children. My little children. He is that apostle that leaned
upon our Lord's breast. He is the one our Lord told to
take Mary home with Him when He was hanging on the cross.
He is probably the most tender of the apostles. Probably the
most tender, no doubt. And He says here, my little children,
these things write I unto you. This is a reason I've written
unto you. I've written to you about the word of life. We have
touched life, we've witnessed life. This is the message He's
given us, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
I've written these things to you that you sin not. that you do not walk after the
flesh. Because we still have this body
of flesh. And I'm not talking about just
skin. This old nature. We still have it with us. We
have two natures now. One that's born of God and one
that's born of Adam. It goes back to Adam. Corrupt nature. Nothing you can
do for it. There's not a thing you can do
for it. That's why we had to be born again. That's why Christ
said to Nicodemus, you must be born again. God's not in to renovating. He says in one place, behold,
I make all things new. And so he's saying here that
you sin not, that you do not walk after the flesh. You do
not indulge the flesh. You do not behave like the world.
That's what Paul said to the Corinthians. He said, I stand
in doubt of you, the way you're acting, the way you're carrying
on. He said, you act like a bunch of carnal men. And John's saying,
don't do that. Because it's in us to do that.
That you sin not. John wrote in chapter 1, verse
9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. However,
that does not mean we can sin and not be concerned about it.
No child of God, I can say this with confidence, no child of
God ever enjoys sin. The Holy Spirit by which that
child of God is sealed will not allow it. That new nature by
which we are born of God is repulsed by it. But there will be some. There's always going to be some.
And Paul says this over in Romans. Let's see where it is. I want
to read this to you. In Romans 5. We'll go over in Romans 5. In Romans 5, let's look in verse
20. Moreover the law entered, that
the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Now look in verse 1 of chapter
6. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? Somebody, and Paul
heads this off, he says, somebody's gonna bring this objection up.
Shall we sin if grace, if my sin makes the grace of God abound,
then just let us sin? And Paul says, no, no, no. No, that's the way the unregenerate
think. That's the way the world thinks.
It's written in Galatians 5.13, for brethren, ye have been called
unto liberty. Only use not liberty as an occasion
to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
John says that you sin not. We are not free to sin, but to
serve, to serve in love. But John knew, as Paul did, there's
some gonna try to abuse this. There's gonna be, here's what
it is, there's gonna be some tears among the weak. there are
gonna be some goats among the sheep. And this is how they're
gonna take it. This is how they will use it
and abuse it. It's like this. The scripture
says the grace of God. Now, get this one. The grace of God teaches us to
deny ungodliness. That's what grace teaches. Grace
does not teach me that I can go live like a heathen and it's
all right. That's Catholicism. You just
go say a bunch of Hail Marys and go on your way and do it
again. But the grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness, to shun
every appearance of evil. That's what the grace of God
teaches us. Then he says here, my little
children, these things right out of you that you sin not,
And if any man sins, or when any man sins, because you know
and I know it's going to happen, if it doesn't happen in thought,
it'll happen in action, we know it's going to happen. We do sin
often, but when we do, and this is what John's saying to these
little children, he's like he's speaking to little children that
are growing up in Christ, that when we do, you need not despair. Because I tell you this, when
a child of God does sin and is made aware of it, it does lead
to despair. It does lead, it leads you to
be cast down. David said in one place, why
art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God. It'll bring
you down. Sin brings you down. And John is saying here that
when we sin, when any man sins, when any child of God sins, we
don't have to fall into despair over it. We'll not lose our salvation. We'll not lose it. Our salvation
is not dependent on us. I am Christ's responsibility.
He's my surety. My salvation, your salvation,
is totally dependent on Jesus Christ, 100%. We might lose the joy of it.
Now, we can lose the joy of salvation. David said, restore unto me the
joy of thy salvation. We can lose that. Because I tell
you, we are sinners at best, aren't we? I mean, at best, that's
all we are, we're sinners. And we're gonna sin. And John
said, you don't need to go in despair. You don't need to do
that. We have, we have an advocate,
a representative with the Father. I couldn't,
as I said, I could not bring you better news this morning. I cannot give better news to
guilty sinners. Now, if you're not guilty, if
you don't know what that is, if you really don't know what
sin is, this doesn't mean anything to you. It won't mean anything. But if you're guilty, and you
know it, and you know what sin is, and you know what you are,
this is good news. This is the best news you've
ever heard. We have an advocate. We have a high priest with, with the Father, right now, seated
at God's right hand, is my advocate. My advocate, your advocate. We have a court-appointed advocate.
God appointed this advocate. But God, with whom we have to
do, appointed this advocate for us, to represent us, to represent
our cause. God appointed Him. Christ said
many times in the Gospel, I didn't come on my own. The Father sent
me. The Father sent me. One who's ever present with the
Father. It's not like Not like on this
earth, we sin, we gotta go get a lawyer, an advocate, we break
the law, we gotta go find him, and then he's gotta go to court,
he's gotta get an appointment. No, this one's seated right there.
At all times. Making intercession for transgressors. Making intercession for us. Continually
cleansing us. One who intercedes for us. One
who is always heard. Our Lord said in His prayer,
Father, I know. I know that You always hear me. Wouldn't you like to have that
confidence? Don't you feel sometimes when
you pray that it doesn't go past the room? But our Lord was so confident.
He said, I know. that you always hear Him. And
He always gets what He asks for. Because everything He asks for
is according to the will of God. Everything. Everything. He is one who is with the Father. He's with the one... Now, listen. He's with the one
who we have sinned against. The one who we've sinned against.
He's seated right there beside of Him. Right there with him,
at his right hand. Interceding for us constantly. Constantly. How many times you
sin? Constantly. There's sin in everything
I do. Sin mixed with everything I do.
Let me show you this over in Romans. Look over in Romans chapter
7. Romans 7, look in verse 18. For I know that in me... And he clarifies
what he's saying here. Because he has to. He says, that
is in my flesh. Because if I'm born of God, the
Holy Spirit's in me. If I'm born of God, Christ is
in you. The hope of glory. So he says, I know that in me,
that is in my flesh. dwelleth no good thing." Nothing
good, not a trace of goodness. You can't find a trace of goodness
in human nature, no more than you can find a trace of goodness
in the devil. You see, God's standard of good
is far above our standard of good. God's standard of good
is himself. Perfect. God is good. Christ said to that young man,
there's none good but God. None. For the will is present
with me, but how to perform that which is good, I don't, I just,
he said, I find not. I want to, I desire to. I desire
to serve God. I desire to do what's right.
That desire, that craving is there. I want to serve my Lord. I want to serve Him without sin,
but Paul says, but that which is good, I find not. It eludes
me. For the good that I would do,
for the good that I do not, but the evil which I would not, that's
what I do. This guy sounds like a mess,
doesn't he? He does. No, that's the two natures that's
in a believer. That's the warfare that goes
on in the heart of everyone of God's children. The flesh lusts
against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh. They're constant
warfare. Now, if I do that, I would not,
it's no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. Got this sin problem in me. I
find then a law that when I would do good, that when I would do
good, evil is present with me every time. Every time. I cannot have an absolute pure
thought. I cannot do an absolute pure
deed that sin somehow doesn't enter into it. I can't do it. For I delight in the law of God,
I delight in the word of God, the precepts of God, that's what
he's talking about, the precepts of God, the whole word of God. I delight in the law of God after
the inward man, that's that new man that's born of God. But I see another law in my members.
and this flesh warring against the law of my mind and bringing
me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my memories. And that's when he just cries
out, oh, wretched man that I am. He would not have said that when
he was a Pharisee. He would have choked to death
before he would have said, oh, wretched man that I am. He said,
I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. But after God saved him, he said,
oh, wretched man that I am. But I want you to understand
this. Paul said, oh, wretched man that
I am. But he did not live like a wretch. He didn't live like
one. That's why John said that you
sin not. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death, this body of death
I carry around with me? We carry around, the believer
carries around with him or her a body of death. A body of death. I thank God. Here's who's gonna deliver me.
I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then, with the mind,
my heart, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh,
it's that law of sin, that principle of sin that's in me. And it's
a warfare all the way to the end. All the way to the end,
all the way to the grave. But bless God. We have an advocate. We don't need to despair. We just fall on our knees and
call on Him. We confess our sins. He's faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
because our advocate, our surety, our high priest, our atonement
is seated right there with God. Right now. Christ pleads for our forgiveness. Now I don't know, I have to put
this in language, as it's given to us in language, we can understand. But I don't think that Christ
is standing there pleading. You know what I'm saying? Just
His presence. Just His presence intercedes
for me. Just His presence for me. but in language so that language
you and I can grasp, I'm gonna use it this way, that he pleads
for our forgiveness on the grounds of his atonement. That's the
only reason I'm forgiven for Christ's sake. That's the reason
God's forgiven you. If you've been forgiven of any
sin, all sins, if you've been forgiven of any, you've been
forgiven of all. He forgives us for Christ's sake.
That's why. God can and will forgive us our
sins. Every time we call on Him, every
time we confess, He forgives us our sins for Christ's sake. Christ's sake. Do we realize
what is going on in heaven right now on our behalf? While we sit,
we come here, we gather here together to read God's word. We're going to sing his praises.
We're going to preach. And the only thing that makes
that acceptable this morning is Jesus Christ. That's the only
thing. You know as well as I do, sitting
there, it's hard to keep your attention. It's hard to keep
your mind. You always got to try to arrest your mind and bring
it back and listen. And your mind wanders off again.
Oh, aren't you glad He intercedes for us? The only thing that makes
this service accepted of God this morning is Jesus Christ.
The only thing that makes my worship accepted is Jesus Christ. I thought of that when I was
going over these notes this morning. I thought, if I could realize
what's going on on my behalf, on our behalf this morning, we would be amazed. And notice here, he identifies
our advocate. Now, John identifies our advocate. Is Jesus Christ the righteous? Not just any advocate will do.
Not just anyone. It's Jesus Christ. Christ is His office. It's the
one appointed of God. Jesus identifies Him with us.
We have one of us seated at God's right hand representing us. One who was bone of our bone,
flesh of our flesh. A high priest that can be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. We have one at God's right hand
that's capable of representing us. Because he became one of
us, except he knew no sin. He became one of us. God became
a man. Somewhere I read one of the writers
said this, he was as much man as if he were not God and as
much God as if he were not a man. When I heard that in my early
years, I had to really think about that one. Then I began to understand that
this man was created of God in the womb of a virgin. And he
is a man in absolutely every way except for sin. He knew no
sin. And he is the man that represents
us. Not an angel. An angel is not
representing us. God. God appointed God to represent
us to God. It doesn't get any better than
that. Not at all. Let's see where I was at here.
Jesus Christ the righteous. John identifies our advocate.
He's the son of God. He's righteous. What's he saying here? He has
the credentials to be there. If I walked into a court and
I was going to try to plead a case, I don't have the credentials.
I don't have the credentials to go in and plead a case. But our Lord is Jesus, He identifies
with us. Christ, He's appointed of God.
And righteous, that's exactly what God demands. Righteous. Righteousness. He has the credentials
to stand in the court of heaven and plead our case based on His
righteousness. based on His obedience for us,
based on His blood shed for us. You know, all the sins that He
pleads for are the ones He died for. Every sin He pleads for my forgiveness
are the sins that He died for and satisfied God's law. And that's how God can forgive
me. And the law cannot demand no more of me than what Christ
provides. It cannot demand any more. And not only is He our advocate,
but listen here in verse 2, He is the propitiation for our sins.
He's exactly what's needed to put away our sins. He's exactly
what's needed for God to forgive me of my sins. As I prayed this morning, we
have in Christ everything we need to stand before God's presence. The Scripture says in Colossians,
in Him, you are complete. You don't need anything else.
You and I don't need to bring anything else. He's provided
all of it. All of it. Propitiation means
this, it means to cover, It means to atone for, it means to pardon,
it means to reconcile. Christ is the sin offering for
the sins he pleads forgiveness for. They're covered. All my sins are covered. I recognize
some of them. I know we don't recognize all
of them. But I recognize them, but God doesn't. They're gone. They are gone. And not only is He the propitiation
for our sins, but for the whole world also.
Not for us Jews only, that's what He's saying. Not for us
Jews only, but Gentiles. People like you and me, scattered
throughout this world. That's why we send the gospel
out. That's why we preach the gospel and try to get it out
as far and wide. Because the Lord has sheep out
of every kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation. Every bit of them. Now, verse 3. I got a piece of ice on that
one. Let's just leave the ice out of that. And hereby we do
know that we know him. Now, he said Jesus Christ is
our advocate. He's our propitiation. How do I know that's for me?
John tells us right here, how do I know that's for me? You
know, when you have sinned, you feel like you're the last one
God's gonna have anything to do with. But how do we know, and hereby
we do know that we know him. How do I know this? Well, the
way we discern that we are coming to know him, the way we discern
is not that we believe a set of doctrines, because he didn't
bring that up here. If you believe the gospel, if
you believe the gospel, you're gonna believe the doctrine. You're
gonna believe that God chose a people. You know that's the
only way you'd be saved. You know that. You're gonna believe
particular edition because you know that Christ died for those
whom God chose. You know that. But how do we know that he's my advocate, he's my
propitiation, that I really know him, that he's mine? He says
the way we discern that we are coming to know Him is if we keep
in mind and we observe His teachings,
His precepts, and His words. I want to do what my Lord commands
me to do. First, love one another. What
about that Sermon on the Mount? Love your enemies. Love your
enemies. Do good to them that despitefully
use you. These are His teachings. You
know what doctrine means? Doctrine means teachings. These
are His teachings. What John means is this, is that
by faith, by love, by forgiveness, by humility, by works of charity,
that we are given to these things as we walk through this life,
and we love it. That's our character. The tenor, listen, the tenor
of a believer's life is after godliness. The tenor of a unbeliever
is after nothing but ungodliness. That describes them. But that
which describes a believer, his walk, his talk, is after God. That's what John's saying. That's
what he's saying. If we love His Word, you know,
now listen, you know whether or not you love His Word. We
know what we love. What has your interest? The Lord
said where your treasure is, your heart is. If Christ is my
treasure, and these are His words, that I treasure His word, I get
into His word, and I ask the Lord to teach me. I said that
in a prayer, Lord, instruct us, teach me. David said in Psalm
51, teach me in the way to go. Teach me. And we love His instructions. We love the gospel message. We are not here this morning
because it's Sunday and it's what we're supposed to do and
we do it and we go home. No, we're here to be instructed.
We come here and we say, speak Lord, teach us, instruct me. We love his word, we love his... Job said, I read it to you here
in one of the messages, Job said that his word was more to him
than his necessary food. And he said, that's how we know
that we know him is that we love his word, we believe on Christ,
and we love his teachings, his precepts, And we walk by faith in Him.
We walk in the light, as He is in the light. That's how we know. He says there in verse four,
He that saith, I know Him, sounds like we're reading James all
over again, doesn't it? It sounds like we're reading James all
over again. That shows you how the message never changes. You
know, John and James, their message is one, it's Christ. It's Christ. But he that saith, I know him,
I am a Christian, calling himself a Christian,
I'm a Christian, I know the Lord, and keeps not his commandments,
has no real love for his teaching, no real love for the Word of
God, never opens the book. not interested in it, never affected
by it, doesn't guide his walk or talk. Because I tell you what, the
person who's born of God, this book right here will guide our
walk and our talk. It'll do it. He that saith, I know him,
and keep not his commandments, Has no interest in it, no love
for it. He's a liar and truth's not in
him. Now he's not saying keeping his commandments, you know this.
He's not saying he keeps commandments for acceptance. That has nothing
to do with it. We are accepted because of Christ. We are accepted in the beloved,
is what it says in Ephesians chapter one. But it's that love
of the truth. Paul said that God will send
them a strong delusion there were going to be some whom God
was going to send a strong delusion. And one of the reasons is this,
they received not the love, the love of the truth, the love of it. But whoso keeps
his word, loves, now listen, loves his precepts, loves his
word, gives attention to the gospel message, follows on to
know the Lord, continues in faith, that man is in Christ. That man
has an advocate. That man has a propitiation. That one does. And he that saith he abideth
in him, ought himself also to walk even as he walked. He's
our example. That's what he said right there.
He's our example. If I wanna know, if you wanna
know how to walk in this life, study Christ. Study Christ. And to study Christ, you have
to study the word of God. To walk even as he walked. I
would to God, I would to God I could, And I know you do too. You've been born of God. You
desire to walk in a way that's pleasing to God. I know you do.
You want to walk in the same manner that Christ walked. You
want to walk in the same love that Christ walked in. I want
to love. I want to be able to love my
enemies. That's a tough one. God will
have to work that in you. God will have to work that in
you. It's easy to believe the doctrine of election, but to
love your enemy, that is the deep things of God. Someone said
one time, election, just so. I think it was Henry said one
time. He said, election, just so. Particular
redemption, just so. That's just, it is, it's just
so. But to love your enemies, to pray for them who despitefully
use you as our Lord did, now that, those are the deep things
of God. And I pray, I pray that you and
I will find real comfort in that we have an advocate who is the
propitiation for our sin. He's the sin offering for our
sins. And I pray that he give us a
genuine, a genuine love for Christ, a real love for him. to seek
after Him, to follow after Him, and to learn what He has to say
to us out of His book. All right, you're dismissed.