1 John chapter 2, and we'll read
from 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 for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby do we
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. Hereby know we that
we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him
ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. Brethren,
I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment,
which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word
which ye have heard from the beginning. Again a new commandment
I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you? Because the darkness is past
and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light
and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. He that
loveth his brother abideth in the light and there is none occasion
of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother
is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither
he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. I write
unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for
his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because
ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you,
young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto
you, little children, because ye have known the father. I have
written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from
the beginning. I have written unto you, young
men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you,
and ye have overcome the wicked one. Amen. May God bless to us
this reading from his word. Now our thoughts today are going
to be upon those verses from verse 7 through to verse 14. That's the next section that
we have before us and they will take our attention this morning. As we begin, let me again repeat
and restate a very familiar message to you, a message that you have
heard often, and it is this. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
way, the truth, and the life. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
way, the truth, and the life. He it was who said it, I am the
way, the truth and the life. John heard it and wrote it down. He wrote it down in his gospel.
You can find those words in John chapter 14, verse six, I believe. And as believers, we delight
to repeat those words of the Lord and be reminded of them. Now, I know that we have a number
of young people listening in today, and I want just to draw
a couple of things to your attention. When we say the Lord Jesus Christ
is the way, if you wish to find your way
in life, seek it in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, I am the
way. And I know that when you are
young, because we've all been there, you sometimes wonder about
what does the future hold for me? What is my life going to
be like? Which way will I travel? Which
way will I go? Seek your way in the one who
says, I am the way. And no doubt that means many
things, but surely it means trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and
putting Him first in the decisions that will steer your path and
guide your steps in life. And maybe there are some younger
adults with us and you've got your families. and you maybe
hoped that your life would get easier as you became settled
and established and you had your children and they began to grow
up. But what in reality you have discovered is that life becomes
a growing challenge with increased confusion and becomes a series
of compromises. But the Lord Jesus Christ says,
I am the truth. And so at that stage in our life,
we find that truth, all truth and only truth is found in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And maybe you have been let down. by your hopes and your aspirations
and ambitions. Maybe you've been let down by
people. Maybe you have been disappointed about the way things have gone
for you. Are you going to grow cynical?
Or are you going to trust that the Lord Jesus Christ is the
truth? and find your comfort and your
solace and your strength and your happiness in Him. And maybe
we've got older listeners here today and you're discovering
that your strength is diminishing and that your usefulness is waning. You're realising that your future
is precarious. Let me remind you that the Lord
Jesus Christ is life. This is no empty dream sold by
some marketing company. He is everlasting life and we
have seen the way in which our lives have unfolded and sometimes
we've been caused to have much in the way of regret as to the
things that we have done and the places that we have gone
and those things that we have been engaged in. and the way in which we have
let down that testimony which we once had. But it is not those things which
are the sum and substance of our life, but Jesus Christ himself,
who is everlasting life, who is eternal life, who is glorious
life, who is satisfying life. And we will soon trade this earthly
life for that eternal life which he alone can give. Life is in
Christ. and in Christ alone. And for
all who struggle with assurance, and for all who struggle with
the questions of election and salvation, this is the same message
that we have, that Christ gave, that John gave, that preachers
down through the ages of the church have rehearsed and repeated
and restated in the ears and before the eyes of men and women,
Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. And faith
and belief and trust in Him is all that we have and all that
we can have in this world to bring comfort and joy in spiritual
matters to us. That's the message of the Bible.
It's the heart of the gospel. It's the revelation which the
Lord Jesus Christ came here to give to sinful men and women
like you and like me. And this is the substance of
John's comments to us here again today. Let me summarize what I'm about
to say in a few words if I can. This is the same old story. but it is ever new. And therefore
I have something fresh to say to you today. I'm going to tell
you the same old story but it is bright and it is shiny and
it is new and it is fresh. and it is the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ to the hearts and to the souls and to the consciences
of sinners like you and like me. And we may be young or middle-aged
or old, but here is a story. And John is reminding his hearers
of the pedigree of this story, the pedigree of this message.
He is saying to them here in these verses before us today,
I'm not telling you anything new. This is no new commandment,
that's what he says. It is the same old story. The old commandment is the word
which ye have heard from the beginning. The message of the
Lord Jesus Christ himself. I am the way, I am the truth,
and I am the life. I like this, I like this. You
see, it matters not whether we think of this... beginning here that we're spoken
to about in the opening verse before us, where John says, brethren,
I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which
he had from the beginning. It doesn't matter if we think
of that beginning there as the beginning of, I don't know, the
apostolic ministry, perhaps, or the beginning of the Gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the earthly ministry of Christ. Both
of those were beginnings. Mark chapter 1 verse 1 tells
us that it is the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God. And Paul, in his letter to the
Philippians, chapter 4 verse 15, speaks about the beginning
of the Gospel. Or maybe we can drive that beginning
further back even and think about the ministries of men like Moses,
who certainly preached the gospel. Or Noah, who preached of righteousness. Or David, who spoke about the
Lord, his shepherd. Or Isaiah, who told us about
that one who would come. And we can see that throughout
the Old Testament Scriptures, there was the Gospel being preached. You know, we can drive this message
of the beginning right back to the Garden of Eden, and there
find what is called the Proto-Evangel in the words of God to Adam,
that there would be one who would come, who would bruise the serpent's
head. This is the beginning of the
word because this is an old word. This is an ancient message. This
is a gospel which goes back right to the beginning of time because
it is the purpose of God here in this world. And the point
is that the Lord Jesus Christ himself is our Alpha and Omega. He is our beginning and our end. So that when John here speaks
of the word which ye have had from the beginning, he is speaking
about the word which we have had from Christ, from the very
beginning, that which is from the beginning. That's what he
wrote in chapter 1, verse 1 of this epistle. He said, that which
was from the beginning, which ye have heard, which we have
seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands
have handled of the word of life. And in his gospel, John wrote
something very similar. He wrote, in the beginning was
the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And
so we can see that even although we're talking about something
that is new, something that is fresh, something that is lively,
this gospel message, yet it is an old message. And we see that
being repeated in a number of ways in scripture. We speak,
for example, about a new covenant or a new testament, but that
newness is not to blind us to the fact that it is the same
gospel. We're speaking rather about quality. and brightness and improvement
and the way in which it speaks to us with a new freshness. So John is saying to us here
in these verses, I'm not changing anything. This is the same message,
this is the same gospel because it's the same word, the same
Christ, the same Lord as it has always been. So when he continues
in the next verse to say in verse eight, again a new commandment
I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, let
us not think that he is moving us on to some new revelation,
but rather he is speaking about the same one, Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, today and forever, the same one who is the way,
the truth and the life, And though it is an old commandment that
you've heard from the beginning, it is yet new also because it
is being revealed to us ever more clearly. So he goes on to
say it's true in him and in you because the darkness is past,
the dimness with which we saw these things, there is an increasing
light which is revealing more and more to us of the purposes
of God, of the gospel of salvation and the way of life as it is
found in Jesus Christ. Because the true light now shineth. So we've not to think of this
message of John as being new in time so as to, as it were,
break the continuity of the message and cause a division between
those that were past and those that were yet to come. But we
are to see this thing as being an increasing light, brightness
shining upon the revelation which has always been there right from
the very beginning of time. And John speaks of it, this revelation,
this gospel message, this way of grace and salvation as being
true in him. And that is speaking of Christ,
of course. Speaking of Christ because Christ is God. And we
need to remember that we will never fully understand the Lord
Jesus Christ because he is God. There is always going to be something
new. So while he is the same, let
us never think that we can come to an end of understanding his
completeness. There is a depth to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and a breadth, and a height, and a length that
is unfathomable. This is an old, old story, but
it is ever new. New because it is newly revealed. In Romans chapter three, sorry,
Romans chapter 11, verse 33, Paul says, oh the depth, of the
riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable
are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Paul's basically
quoting a little passage from the book of Job there, one of
the earliest books, if not the earliest book in the whole Bible.
And Job was able to speak of God doing great things. God executing
wonders without number. And that's what Paul is saying
here. So this is the same God, the same unfathomable God. And now we are seeing him more
clearly. Not a breach, not a break, but
a continuity and an enlargement and a freshness about the way
in which we understand the things of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ
is ageless and eternal. Our Lord is infinite. And so
every time we come to consider Christ, we have opportunity of
learning something new about him, something true about him,
something of that one who is the way and the truth and the
life in all of its magnitude and immensity. And as that's
true for Christ, so it is also true in us. This new commandment,
this new revelation of the gospel is true in us because it is we
who receive those new insights. So we should come to the gospel.
We should come to our church fellowships. We should come to
the word of God. We should come to our times of
prayer and meditation and fellowship with God, seeking new insights. fresh applications, deepening
of our understanding of the things of Jesus Christ. I was going
to take a few moments there to, well, I'll do it. Let's just
read Hebrews chapter one and verse one. Just look with me
please at Hebrews chapter one and verse one if you have your
Bibles. Because here, the writer, to
the Hebrews is just pointing this out to us. He's speaking
about the fact that this is an old message and yet it is new.
He says there, God who at sundry times and in divers manners,
in past times, at various times and in many different ways, spake
in those past times, times past unto the fathers by the prophets,
hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. whom he hath
appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world. So what the writer there is telling
us is what John is telling us, that here this new commandment
is true in Christ, this newness, this freshness, and it is new
in us because we are receiving these new, fresh insights every
day of the Lord Jesus Christ. The darkness, the dimness, The
shadowlands have passed away and the gospel light is shining
brightly in the Lord Jesus Christ to reveal God's grace and God's
will and God's purpose to our gaze. And as we gaze upon these
things in the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the word of God, so
they retain their freshness and their brightness and their attractiveness
to the Lord's people. This is what Paul calls in 2
Corinthians chapter 4, the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. It's a gospel light and that's
what he is going on now to speak to us about. It is the true light,
the light that now shines by Christ. It was another phrase
that the Lord Jesus Christ used. He said, I am the light of the
world. These I am statements in the
book of John's gospel are drawn upon in John's letters now to
illuminate and enlighten our understanding as to the nature
of Christ. And we see that there are effects
of that light upon whom it shines. Now undoubtedly John speaks in
this little epistle about brotherly love and we're going to get there
in the coming weeks and in coming passages we're going to get to
his teaching on brotherly love. And here is a little reference
here to brotherly love in verses 9 to 11. But I'm not going to
dwell upon brotherly love because we're going to get there in coming
weeks. But I want to show you what I
think John is pointing us to here. He is showing us that when
we see Christ, when we learn of Christ, when we know Christ,
that there is a consequence in the life of those who follow
after him. And that's the point of verse
9 to 11 here. He is showing us that to know
Christ and to walk in the light of the knowledge of Christ alters
our lives, it changes us. Now, we might call that our conversion,
and that's okay, that's a good word, it's a Bible word, our
conversion. But equally, let us not be constrained
to think about conversion as a moment in time when something
happens. changed and altered and was a
one-off event because like the newness of Christ always being
fresh, so our experience of Christ ought always to be fresh and
we are growing in him. growing in grace, growing in
a knowledge of the one who is the truth. And so we are always
being converted as we learn more of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that conversion has an effect on the way that we live. Let
me explain to you. Now, I've stressed many times
in the past, I'm sure, that we only know Christ by faith. and that all spiritual truth,
all spiritual knowledge, all spiritual understanding and revelation
of the divine things comes by faith, and that is true. However,
spiritual knowledge, those things that we learn by faith, they
bring real, tangible, life-changing effects. Evident fruit in a believer's
life by that believer embracing good and shunning evil, a change
has taken place, a conversion has begun, if you like. Now that
is not perfect good for none of us, any of us who have any
experience and honesty in our lives. We know, we lament the
sin that still remains in our life. but we also know that a
change has taken place because there has been an alteration
in our perspectives, an opening up and a blossoming of our understanding
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what he has done and the
consequences of that work. There has been the beginning
of the end of Satan's rule and the establishment of Christ's
rule in our lives. There has been the beginning
of a battle between the old man and the new man. And what John
is saying in these verses to us here is simply this, knowing
the truth changes you. Trusting Christ makes a difference. The transformation that has taken
place transforms that one who has been touched by grace. And the greatest blessing that
comes from this knowledge and from this light is to know that
our sins are forgiven. That is the experience, effect
of Christ's work upon the cross that flows to individual believers
in faith. It is what our faith testifies
to when God calls and quickens by the Holy Spirit those who
once were enemies of God, out of their enmity into the experience
of his grace. And that's what John writes about
here in verse 12. He says, I'm writing to you,
little children, you who have heard this old commandment and
this new commandment, this unchangeable message of God's will and purpose,
you who have seen the light shining in Christ and in your own hearts
as grace has illuminated the things of Christ to you. I'm
writing to you because your sins are forgiven you for his name's
sake. And I think that's a delightful
little verse. That's the key verse for at least
me today in this passage before us. Verse 12. I write unto you,
little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his
name's sake. And if you don't remember anything
else that we've talked about or said today, let this savour
rest in your mind in the days to come. Your sins are forgiven
you for his name's sake. John uses that little children
identifier once again. That's how he started this chapter,
you will remember. And it just shows us that these
are God's children, God's little ones. But let me turn the phrase
around that John quoted there in verse 12 and say it to you
like this, just to increase the emphasis. For Christ's sake,
your sins are forgiven. There's something beautiful,
there's something lovely about John's simplicity here in the
way in which he sets this before us. He is telling us that our
sins are forgiven, but they've been forgiven to us for the sake
of Christ. It's not your faith that has
brought the forgiveness of sins. It's certainly not your works
nor your will, nor your tears, nor your asking. But for Christ's sake, our sins
have been forgiven. And it's lovely to see the Apostle
lift our gaze from man and place it on Christ in the context of
this great blessing. This heavenly blessing, this
divine blessing which comes to any sinner upon the face of this
globe who by faith sees the Lord Jesus Christ as the way, the
truth and the life, knows that their sin is forgiven, but not
because of anything in them, for Christ's sake. because he
fulfilled his covenant obligations, because he died, because you,
as one of God's elect, have been promised to him as his prize,
because he shed his blood for you. The Lord Jesus Christ's
dying prayer was, Father, forgive them. John was standing at the
cross and heard the Lord Jesus Christ utter those words. And
now he tells his audience, now he tells his readership, now
he tells you and me, that the Father, for Christ's sake, in
answer to that prayer that fell from the lips of the dying Christ,
your sins are forgiven, as the Lord Jesus Christ requested.
For his sake, your sins are forgiven. Salvation isn't our prize for
believing the gospel. Rather, we are the trophy, we
are the prize that the Lord Jesus Christ has received for his work. This is for His glory. And His
name incorporates all His accomplishments. So that when John says, our sins
are forgiven for His name's sake, it is talking about all of the
accomplishments of Christ for His people. Our sins are forgiven
because Jesus Christ did all that was required for our forgiveness. We are passive recipients in
this matter. We are chosen by grace. We are
redeemed by grace. Let me be specific here, if I'm
not already being. Nothing is arbitrary in this
matter. All that we have, we receive
by grace and mercy. the Lord Jesus Christ satisfied
God's holy demands, satisfied them justly, satisfied them suitably
as the God-man, satisfied them appropriately as to the extent
and the nature and the dimensions of that blood, the precious blood
that he offered to God and the altar of his own life. and his achievements met the
demands of God's justice and God's holiness. That's why John
says we have a propitiation. He is the propitiation for our
sins. Without the shedding of blood
there is no remission of sin and Christ's blood was shed.
It was a life for a life. He gave his life a ransom. That is a price. He paid the
debt for many. He has borne our griefs. He has
carried our sorrows, says Isaiah. He was made to be sin for us,
says Paul in Corinthians. He learned obedience by the things
that he suffered. He became obedient unto death,
even that accursed death of the cross. And because he did, your
sins are forgiven you. Because he did this, God sees
no sin in his people. In verses 13 and 14, let us wrap
these verses up. The apostle John here speaks
to groups within the church to whom the blessings of grace come. The blessings of forgiveness
of sins are granted. Let me say here, every believer
has all of Christ. This is not talking about degrees
of reward or degrees of experience here. Every believer has all
of Christ. But our experiencing of God's
gift and mercies differ from person to person, from time to
time. And that's one of the reasons
why John was able to say earlier that these things are new in
us because this is God's purpose, to use his people for the well-being
of the church at different times and in different ways. And The
breaking up or the identifying or specifying of those who are
older or those who are younger or those who are little ones
in the body of the church, in the experience of the people
of God, it speaks about these different ways in which we are
of usefulness one to another. Because by this means we are
all allowed, each and every one of us, to contribute to the fullness
of the needs of the body, or to the fulfilling of the needs
of the body. I doubt that what John is saying
here in these final few verses have to do with age or indeed
gender. Rather, it is speaking in the
usage of human attributes being used to express the spiritual
qualities and accomplishments in men and women by faith. All
spiritual gifts come by faith and every advance of our spiritual
growth comes by faith. But Paul is using these ages
and these distinctions in order to show that we all at different
times contribute to the well-being of the body. to the knowledge
and the experience. Youthfulness, for example. So
he speaks about old men, and old men have walked the walk. Old men and old women, the gender
isn't important here, but age brings experience. Youthfulness
brings strength, strength for battle. You don't send old men
to war. Children have a dependency and
a need on their parents and yet out of the mouth of babes can
come such beautiful phrases and delightful insights because they've
not been spoiled by the conditioning of the things around about them
that we wonder at them. And so by using these different
groups we can all be all. over time to one another. We learn by faith to see Christ
in the gospel, we prove Christ in the battle, we trust Christ
in our individual needs and dependents and so we are the whole man or
woman in our experience of grace at different times and in our
fellowship together one towards another. John's message isn't
difficult to understand or complicated. His doctrine's not hard to hear
or receive. He writes to tell us about his
Lord and his Master and to encourage God's little children in the
blessedness of the knowledge of our sins forgiven because
of what he has done for us. Christ's provision for us and
the blessed wholeness that we possess in the forgiveness of
sin. Who is he whom we have known
from the beginning but the Lord Jesus Christ, the living word?
He is our Redeemer and no one else is our Redeemer, Christ
alone. He is our representative and
no one else. He is our substitute and no one
else. He is our covenant keeper and
mediator, no one else. He is our advocate and propitiation. He is our way to walk. He is our truth to trust. He
is our life to live. And that's what it is to know
Christ by faith. That's what it is to trust in
his blood, to live in his light and the revelation that he has
given us of that everlasting plan and purpose of God to save
his people from their sins. Maybe you think that's too much.
Maybe you think, how can I overcome the wicked one? How do we overcome
the wicked one? How do we fight these battles?
We're tried, we're tested, we struggle day by day, but this
is the battle and we are overcoming. Though the battle ebbs and flows,
though the line moves backwards and forwards, this is a battle
in which Christ is the captain and he is leading his people
to victory. Have we, do we overcome the wicked
one? Yes, by faith we do. We have and we do and by abiding
in the truth of the word of God, we acknowledge and honour Christ
day by day and we continue in the battle to his glory. Joseph Hart wrote, what is it
to be blessed indeed? but to have all our sins forgiven,
to be from guilt and terror freed, redeemed from hell and sealed
for heaven, to worship an incarnate God and know he saved us by his
blood. May the Lord bless us indeed
this morning as we consider that the Lord Jesus Christ, by his
life and by his death, has saved his people from their sin and
brought us into the experience of forgiveness. Amen.