All right, brothers, we'll turn
to 1 John. 1 John chapter 1. I want to... Me and Kimberly
was talking this morning. I've been asked if I'd... A person
asked me if I'd learned anything out of this trial that the Lord
sent this nation. What have I been taught? And
me and her discussing some of our trials that we've had. I'm
taught the same thing in this trial that I am in every other
trial. That may be something I learn
worldly. It may be a new aspect of the
character of God that I learn, but the lesson that's taught
in every trial is how dark I am and how bright His light is.
Look to Christ. How faithful He is to forgive
and how just He is to forgive. We'll see that today. I hope
we learn something in this text. 1 John 1 verse 5, This then is
the message which we have heard of Him and declare unto you that
God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that
we have fellowship with Him and we walk in darkness, we lie and
do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as
He is in the light, we have fellowship one with 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. His Word is not in us. And then
chapter 2, verse 1, My little children, these things write
I unto you, that ye 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 only for ours only, but
also for the sins of the whole world. Now many times this passage
of text here in Scripture is used to whip people. They're
used to whip people into works, whip people into submitting to
the law, get men and women to do better. But that's not my
intent. I was corrected and scolded a
few times as a child growing up. Not enough. But I was corrected
and scolded. I got spanked a few times. And
in the beginning, I physically feared my father. I didn't want
that switch to come in contact with me. But as time went on,
I grew in size, I grew in knowledge, I grew in understanding, and
I no longer physically feared him. I wasn't physically afraid
of correction anymore. But my fear went from a physical
fear to an honoring fear. I respected him. I didn't care
if he spanked me. I didn't want to disappoint him.
I respected him. He changed too. He changed from
correcting me with his hand and went to correcting me with a
word. And he used that word to correct
me and he didn't have to tell me what I was doing was wrong.
But he told me why I should do right. That changed. But once
love and respect had been established, that word would sting a whole
lot more than that switch would. And he would not just correct
my action, he would show me why my action should be corrected. He would show me why. But John's
exhorting believers in this letter, he's being gentle and loving. to believers because he tells
us why we should long for these things. Why we should have joy
and why we should not desire to sin anymore. That's the title
of my message, Have Joy and Sin Not. He stirs up our pure minds
as Peter wrote. He says there in chapter 2 and
verse 1, my little children These things I write unto you that
you sin not." John addresses our brethren as little children.
Nine times throughout this epistle he says that. Little children. And this is how our Lord addressed
His disciples. It didn't matter how old they
were, how mature they were, or how mature they were in the faith.
He spoke to them the same. He said there in John 13, little
children, yet a little while I am with you. Christ calls His
disciples little children. Why the elect of God called little
children? Well first it reminds us of our
weakness in ourselves. We're like a small child. A weak
child. And it shows us our dependence
on our Father. We're in need. But how do we
become little children? How do we get that way? Believers
are made little children by God the Holy Spirit when we are born
again. That new man in us starts out
like a baby, doesn't it? It needs milk. It can't chew
a steak. It starts out weak and needy. But we're given this new
man in us and just like that young child, just like a small
baby, we are solely and utterly dependent on our Father. We look
to our Father for all things. Now some people will be offended
to be called a little child. Our nature Our flesh that we
were born with in Adam, it wants us to be strong. I want to be
big. Spiritually, I want to be an
adult on day one. From the first time, I want to
be in charge, I want to be a grown-up. But I saw that many times, once
people find out I'm a pastor, I can speak to them normally
for a long time, and they find out I'm a pastor, all of a sudden,
they have an urge to tell me how strong their faith is. I
find that odd. Because the apostles, what did
the masters say their faith was? It was less than a mustard seed.
That ain't that strong, ain't that big, is it? If it was as
big as a mustard seed. But our old man, he wants to
be mature. He wants to be sturdy. We want to have strong faith.
We want to be strong believers. Remember Matthew 18? When those
disciples asked Christ, who would be the greatest in the kingdom?
Matthew 18.1 says, And at the same time came the disciples
unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the
midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be
converted. and become as little children,
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore
shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven." We will be converted if we're
His. We will be humbled. Why? We're not above our Master. And
who's the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? Who's been humbled
the most? Who was humbled the most? Me? No. Apostles? No. Christ was. He was God Almighty
in Heaven and He come down, made in likeness of man, made in our
flesh, born of a woman. He'll be the greatest. But our
pride and our arrogance and our abilities and our works and our
faith, it cannot be present for us to enter into Christ's Kingdom.
We can't have those things. We must be humble. We must be
converted. We must be made to see our weakness. We must be
made to see we're truly sinners in need. Truly a needy sinner,
a weak child, little child, looking to his father. But John's writing
to believers that have been converted. Believers that have been changed
by the Spirit. They've been given a new and
humble heart. That's who he's speaking to. And also, he's speaking
to those believers now Same as He has then and those believers
to come. Lord, preserve this Word that
way we can learn from these things. And He says to them, I write
these things unto you that you sin not. He says He writes these
things. What were the things He wrote?
Let's look back in chapter 1 and verse 1. First John 1.1, that which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have
handled, of the Word of Life, capital W, the Word, Christ the
Word of Life. For the life was manifested,
made flesh, and we had seen it and bear witness and show unto
you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested
unto us. Christ became a person. They
saw Him. They touched Him. That's who
He's telling us about. He's telling us about a person.
Verse 3, That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you,
that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly, our fellowship
is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Now we looked
last time, last weekend, at the fellowship we have with one another.
We looked at the fellowship we have with the Father, and we
looked at the fellowship we have with Christ. But let's be reminded
of what this means. Let's turn over to John chapter
17. John 17. What does it mean when Christ
makes us fellows in the same ship? What does it mean when
He gives us fellowship? John 17 there in verse 18. It
says, And thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also
sent them into the world, and for their sakes I sanctify myself,
that they also might be sanctified through truth. Neither pray I
for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me
through their word, that they all may be one. as thou, Father,
are in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that
the world may believe that thou hast sent me." We are one with
Christ. We're made one with Him. Because
of that, we're made one with the Father. We're adopted as
sons. We're His children now. And because
of that, we have the same Father. Brethren do. Bob, you have oneness
with the Father and I do. We're both children. We have
the same Father. That makes us brothers. It gives us fellowship. And not just that we have them,
it's Christ in us. Christ in you, Christ in me.
That's the oneness. We're made one. Made from one.
Now back to 1 John. 1 John 1. Through being made one
with Christ, He made one with Him. Now we have joy. 1 John
1 verse 4. 1 John 1... I said that right, I'm sorry. 1
John 1 verse 4. And these things write we unto
you that your joy may be full. We don't just have joy in it,
but it's full. Paul wrote to the church of Ephesus that Christ
may dwell in you in your hearts by faith that ye, being rooted
and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints
what is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height
and to know the love of Christ with which passeth knowledge
that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. That's the fullness that we've
been given. And our joy is full, isn't it? Now, we see two reasons
that John is writing this letter. Here in chapter 1, verse 4, he
says that your joy may be full. And then in chapter 2, verse
1, he says that you sin not. That's his two reasons. Now,
what message can we proclaim that will give someone joy and
he'll give them a desire not to sin? If you whip somebody
into not sinning, there ain't a whole lot of joy there. There's
no joy in that switch, is there? But what can we tell folks out
of one message that will give them joy and give them a motivation
not to sin? It is the gospel, God's free
and sovereign grace. That is the only message that
can do that. Whenever we consider God's electing
grace, we consider His redeeming grace, His regenerating grace,
His forgiving grace, His preserving grace, and the grace that He
gives us to glorify Him. That's the only message that
will do it. We'll have true joy and we'll truly have a desire
not to sin anymore. Salvation is all of God's grace. God didn't choose any sinner
because of anything in the sinner. He didn't elect the people because
of something in them. And nothing in a sinner will
cause God to forsake His mercy to that child, no matter what. But we don't have a desire to
sin anymore. That doesn't give us a license
to sin. That's not lasciviousness. We
don't want to. We don't want to sin against
our Father because we're no longer under that reign of sin. Now
look here in verse 8, 1 John 1.8. If we say we have no sin right
now, currently, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. Now look down at verse 10. If
we say that we have not sinned, past tense, that we haven't sinned
before, or we haven't sinned since we've been saved, or I
don't sin every day, We say that we have not sinned, we make him
a liar and his word is not in us. Any sinner who will not come
to Christ because he thinks he has no sin is deceived in the
darkness of his natural born heart. He's deceived. That nature we got from Adam
pulls the wool over our eyes. We can't see the light and the
truth's not in you. Now that flesh This flesh that
drinks iniquity like water, it tells two common lies. First
off, we lie to ourselves. The one thing keeping a fallen
man from coming to Christ, laying all his care on Christ and Him
alone, is that they will not take sides with God against themselves. And in doing that, we lie to
ourselves saying we're good. that we have no sin and the truth's
not in us. The second way that this flesh
lies, it lies to God. Any man who claims to be a believer,
they claim they believe this gospel and they imagine that
they have no sin. They think that they're good.
They think that they're right, that they're perfect. That man
deceives himself and the truth's not in him and he calls God a
liar. That's a strong... That's fighting
words. That's a strong statement. But
I didn't say it. The Lord said it in His Word,
didn't He? If we say that we're good now, we're calling God a
liar. Because He said that all flesh
is grass. A believer knows that. As believers,
by God's grace, through faith that we're given in Christ, we
know that through His finished work, as our full and total representative. Through His work, we are a few
things. We know we're freed from the
guilt of sin that really was made His. We're freed from the
condemnation of sin, from what we owe. We're freed from the
dominion of sin reigning over us. That's no longer our master.
It's with us. It's present, but it doesn't
rule. We're free from the wrath of God towards our sin. What
he owed us in justice, the wrath that I deserved, was placed on
my substitute. That was satisfied. And before
God in Christ, the believer has no sin. It's not as though he
sees us as if we're holy. Right now, you're holy. Perfect. in His eyes. If Christ effectually
did the work, you are. But because we're made to see
His light, as we looked at the other day, His holiness, His
perfection, we know that our flesh still dwells no good thing.
We see how perfect our Savior is. We see how wretched we are.
Sin is mixed in everything that we do, every moment. And the
believer knows that we have a need of being cleansed every day,
all day, every hour. When I prayed at the beginning
of this message, there was enough sin in me while I prayed to God
to put every one of us in damnation for eternity. It's throughout
us, woven in us, and we're too blind to see it, because that
old flesh is still in darkness. You can't see nothing if you're
in the dark. Our sin is continually before us. Paul cried out, O
wretched man that I am. Not that I was. So wretched man
that I am, right now, who shall deliver me from this body of
death?" Now remember, John's writing these things that our
joy might be full and that we sin not. That's just two reasons.
Here's the joy a believer has and what constrains us, what
gives us that motivation not to sin. This is what drew us
to Christ in that first hour. When we first saw Him, we first
came to Him, and that's what draws us now. Nothing's changed. Gives us joy and constrains us. There in verse 9, 1 John 1, 9.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
our sins and to cleanse us from all righteousness. It says there,
He is faithful. God is faithful. He's faithful
to Christ. For Christ's sake, and in turn
by doing that, he's faithful to his children for his righteousness
sake. God's faithful. And he's just. He poured out justice on Christ,
on that God-man, on our mediator. And he paid all the debt that
his children owe. He swallowed all the wrath that
was for all of his children. And God's the one that performs
it. He forgives, He cleanses us from unrighteousness. Joy
is being able to come to God in honesty, confessing what we
are. We can joyfully come confessing
what we are and knowing that He is faithful and just to forgive
us. He is faithful and just to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. Now God proves this to us a thousand
times in our life, in our walk of faith. He proves it through
trials. He proves it through His Word,
through our memories. Right now, in this trial we're
in now, the Lord's proven that He is just and He is faithful. That's what we're going to learn.
Over and over throughout our lives, He keeps filling our hearts
with this love and He draws His people to Him. He keeps doing
it. But here's the question, how
can God be faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness? How can He be faithful to do
it? How can He be just to do it? Chapter 2, verse 1, My little
children, these things I write unto you, that ye sin not, and
if, and the word if there in Greek is ehon, and it means though,
when, or whether. And whether any man sin, and
though any man sin, and when, when any man sin, we have an
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteousness, and
He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world. I'll address that
whole world right now. I'm just going to say that to
the end. That ain't everybody underneath
the sun. That's His people all throughout the world and all
throughout time. The Lord's people. If I wrote that I was going to
give a hug to everybody at San Diego, if I was still on the
East Coast, I don't think 3 million people would be getting a hug
when I got here. It would be just the folks here.
We know that. That's who they're writing the letter to. that he
speaks to his children. But there it says advocate and
a propitiation. I pray if the Lord sustains a
ministry work through me that you never have to use a thesaurus
to figure out what I'm talking about. Earnestly. So what's an advocate? An advocate
is one that pleads before a judge. We call them a lawyer nowadays.
And a propitiation is what satisfies an offended party. In this case,
the judge. Our propitiation is what satisfies
the judge. Christ is our advocate with the
Father. He's our representative with
the Father and He's what satisfies the Father. He not only is our
lawyer, He's our payment. Christ went in our place before
God the Father and He said, I represent these people. You gave them to
me. They're mine. I represent them.
And I'll take their debt, all the debt they had in the past.
Any debt that they owe now, today, and any debt that comes in the
future, it's mine. I'll take it. I'll pay it. He's
our advocate and our propitiation. He handled all the communication
and all the compensation. He did it all. It's finished.
We had no part in that other than the benefit. We had the
responsibility of our sin, He had the accountability for it.
He had the responsibility for our benefit, and now we receive
that benefit. And with that message, we only
glory in Christ who's our advocate and our propitiation. He's our
lawyer and our payment. We have no pride in ourselves.
But understand this too, that forgiveness for one of Christ's
redeemed elect, for one of His children, is not only an act
of mercy, from God. If we're saved, He was merciful
to us. We know that. But it's also an
act of justice when He saves His children. He is faithful
and just to forgive us. Turn over to Psalm 69. Psalm
69. This is one of the messianic,
all the psalms are messianic psalms, we just may not have
the light shine on it to be able to see it. The cross was honored,
magnified, the law of God before those that He represented on
the cross. Jew and Gentile, male and female,
rich and poor, all across the world. throughout time. And Christ is an advocate with
the Father for His people while He sits on the right hand of
our Heavenly Father. He sits at His right hand. So
here Christ is speaking when the Lord made Him sin for His
people. Psalm 69 verse 5, Oh God thou
knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from Thee. If that weren't If He hadn't
preserved that in His Word, I would shake at saying that. But He
took our sins. There's three things here in
Christ declaring that my sins are His sins. First, in confessing
that the sin of His people is His own, Christ justified the
sentence of the law against Himself in a place for those He died.
He proclaimed that He took our place. Second, in presenting
himself to pay the wages of that law, he declared and validated
that that law was perfect. He showed that that law was holy
and true by bringing himself before it. He came to it. And thirdly, in actually paying
the wages of sin and actually swallowing that wrath, he satisfied
the law. That's where he became our propitiation. became our appeasement. That
means that His people, His chosen sheep, have honored and fulfilled
the law in Him. We looked at that law and I said,
I can't keep that. The Lord looks at you and says,
you kept every one of them. So Christ is the advocate of
His people, as the righteousness of His people, as a propitiation
for the sins of His people. And He pleads two things. We'll
be looking at verse 6. First he pleads for his own sake
and then he pleads for the sake of God's own justice. Psalm 69
verse 6. Let not them that wait on thee,
O Lord, God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Don't let your people
be ashamed. He said, if we turn to Him, we
will not be ashamed. Why? Because we kept it? No,
for my sake. Let not those that seek Thee
be confounded for my sake. Oh God of Israel, because for
Thy sake I have borne reproach, shame hath covered my face. He
says in that Psalm, for my sake, He says that because He bore
the shame and reproach of our sin and paid for our crimes. He said, Lord, I've become their
righteousness. Don't charge them. They're not
guilty. And he says there, for thy sake,
O Father. That's because his justice has
been satisfied towards them. For the sake of his own righteousness,
don't charge them. That's been paid. That crime's
already been addressed. Augustus Toplady wrote this.
Payment God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding surety's
hand and then again at mine. We call it double jeopardy in
our day. It's been done. So by the blood and righteousness
of Christ who died in the place of His people, God is faithful
to forgive His people and He's just to forgive His people and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Then we cast all of our care
at Christ. We confess our sins through His
blood. And the Spirit of God cleanses
us in the court of our own conscience. Relieves us. Gives us that joy. Turn over to Zechariah chapter
3. Zechariah 3. Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew.
Zechariah 3 verse 4, And he answered and spake unto those that stood
before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him.
And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity
to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. My garments of iniquity are gone.
What's that change of clothes we got? Those old grave clothes,
those old iniquities took from us. We've been given that new
raiment. We've been given Christ's raiment,
His robe of righteousness. Isaiah wrote, Thus saith the
Lord, Thee, Lord, and Thy God that pleadeth the cause of His
people. Behold, I have taken out of Thy hand the cup of trembling,
even the dregs of the cup of my fury. Thou shalt no more drink
it again. We've been made perfect in the
eyes of God because He provided His own Lamb. He provided that
propitiation and we'll never face condemnation for that iniquity
again. He's just because He's been satisfied.
That fruit of God's grace that He gives us, when He gives us
grace and He forgives us, it produces these two things in
a believer. It fills us with joy and praise
to our God. We are filled with joy. He's
given us grace. Lamentations 3 says, O Lord,
thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul. Thou hast redeemed
my life. You've been my advocate. You've
pleaded for me and you've given me your life. Our joy is that
our Master has given us life and we are given eternal life
in Him. and our warfare is accomplished.
The second thing it produces is it mortifies our sinful flesh. It corrects us. It creates a
desire to keep the commandments of our God, creating love and
mercy in us towards our brethren. I want to uphold that law. I
want to love my brethren. I want to be kind. Why? He's been kind to me. He's loved
me. He's upheld to all. I want to
uphold to all. I want to honor Him in it. But
if we're made to see what Christ has done for us, that that new
man, that new man in us does not want to sin against God.
We now want to be gracious to our brethren, gracious to all
men, because God was so gracious to us. We want to love them as
we've been loved. We want to forgive because we've
been forgiven so much. Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus,
"...and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Only this message of God's grace
of forgiving our sins for the sake of Christ, for His name's
sake, that's the only thing that can cause a believer to truly
have joy. And not only just in the letter of the law, but in
the God of the law. We don't want to sin because
He's the God of the law. Sinner, I pray that you will
flee to Christ if you never have. Come to Him. Confess your sins
to Him. Not to a man, not to a priest.
Confess them to Christ. Test Him. Try Him. Come to Him
and see if He's faithful and just to forgive. You won't be
ashamed. And for those of you that have,
to the believer. I pray the Lord fills us with
joy, that joy of forgiveness in Christ and He gives us a desire
to sin no more. I pray He puts that in us. He has to be the one that does
it. Let's pray together.