The Root of Resilient Love: Christ, Our Advocate

Intro

1 John 2:1–6 NASB 2020

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever follows His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says that he remains in Him ought, himself also, walk just as He walked.

The prodigal son, was defined in the end not by his hateful rebellion, but by a father who stood up for him. Yet it wasn’t until he got tired of the slop that he was able to return to his father who longed to advocate for him.

Many of us have become convinced that the slop tastes good, and that is our greatest problem.

"All the evils in the world come not because our desires for happiness are too strong, but because they are so weak that we settle for fleeting pleasures that do not satisfy our deepest souls, but in the end destroy them. The root of all evil is that we are the kind of people who settle for the love of money instead of the love of God (1 Timothy 6:10)." -John Piper

Many of us have settled for far less than our Father has provisioned for us.

"Physical nature must not be made the direct object of obedience; it must be enjoyed, not worshipped." -G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)

Before the Lord can use us to drive back darkness around us, He must drive it back inside of us.

Truth

I. John’s goal is to empower us to overcome the sin nature. (1)

These things I have written...

That Christ is the Incarnate Word.

That Christ is Eternal Life.

That Christ is Pure Light.

That Christ forgives us when we are honest about our sins and confess them to Him.

That you won’t sin anymore...

John knows that we desperately need freedom from sin, and that freedom can only come through forgiveness of our sin debt.

He also knows that the only way to be free from our debt is for that debt to be paid.

Because our debt was already more than we could ever pay, plus it continues to grow, and even worse our payment would be in a faulty currency; we are in desperate need for intervention.

John understands that the key to no longer participating in the sin nature, is to know that we have a new nature in Christ and to be called up into that, leaving the old behind.

We fall into sin management mode when we've been saved by grace but we act as if we are working out our salvation by our own good works rather than by the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

What we need to overcome our sin nature isn't to do better or to try harder, but to look ever more intently upon Christ. We need to know who Christ is, and who we are in relation to Him, and we need to walk by the Spirit.

It has never been about adding anything to ourselves. It has always been about the Spirit calling us up into what we are already in Christ and Him empowering us to walk our new nature out.

The bottom line is, we will never overcome our sin nature so long as we act as if the work is ours alone. We must understand that the work is Christ's, that it is finished, and that the Spirit will now teach us daily to walk in what Christ has won for us.

II. Knowing that we have an advocate empowers us to live more boldly. (1-2)

Like the tightrope walker who knows he has a net underneath him, the Christian knows he can step out and even if he does fall, he will not ultimately perish.

If you are in Christ, you are a person who Christ stands up for.

Christ is a better advocate, because He has already paid for our sins.

An advocate is “a person who speaks or writes in favor of something.” The classical definition gives us better clarity, “one who pleads the cause of another.” It comes from the Latin word advocatus which most literally translates to “one who is called to aid.”

An advocate can be a counselor or a lawyer. In this case a lawyer is probably the most appropriate modern concept of what Christ does for us when we advocates. He lays out our case.

Most advocates rely on external facts or testimonies. Christ advocates for us with His own testimony of having died in payment for our sins already.

Two important qualifications for Christ as our Advocate.

He is righteous.

Because He is Light and there is no darkness in Him, He is able to speak up on our behalf.

He is the propitiation for our sins.

Propitiation is “the act of appeasing or placating someone, especially a god or deity.”

It comes from the latin word “propitiare” which means “to make favorable.”

John is the only Biblical author who uses this term. It has its root understanding in the Old Covenant sacrificial system so the concept is found in many other places.

In ancient times, kings and priests would offer up sacrifices to appease a god.

In modern times people do similar things, making compromises and personal sacrifices to remain within the good graces of culture.

Christ is different in that He is both Lord and King. Rather than offering one of us to appease His anger over our sin, He offers up Himself as the final blood sacrifice to end all blood sacrifices.

No greater blood can ever be spilled and no further blood now needs to be spilled. The King has appeased Himself by His own blood and now we can live in true freedom from sin and all its effects.

Our challenge isn’t to overcome our sins. Our challenge is to live as if Christ already overcame our sins.

Christ as the propitiation for our sins means He is the mercy seat upon which the wrath of God is poured out so that His people can be forgiven and freed. He is the place where God’s mercy, grace, and our conciliation.

Conciliation is the process of resolving a dispute between two parties. Christ resolved our dispute by paying the disputed payment Himself, even though it was His debt to collect and ours to pay.

III. Obedience to Christ is the mark of a person who knows Christ. (3-6)

"More than any other single thing, in any case, the practical irrelevance of actual obedience to Christ accounts for the weakened effect of Christianity in the world today, with its increasing tendency to emphasize political and social action as the primary way to serve God. It also accounts for the practical irrelevance of Christian faith to individual character development and overall personal sanity and well-being." -Dallas Willard

Obedience to Christ’s word is one of the ways in which we have assurance of our salvation. (3)

By this we know that we have come to know Him...

Obedience cannot prove us in God, but it does prove that we know Him.

In other words, obeying can’t earn us righteousness. Our debt is too great and our currency is bankrupt in sin.

As I father, I delight in the obedience of my children. Why? It isn’t because I have a power hunger that needs to be fulfilled. It is because I care about them and I want them to grow up to be good people. When they obey me it shows two specific things.

It shows that they trust me.

Disobedience is rooted in a lack of trust in the one who gave the word.

It shows that my values are in them too.

Disobedience proves that the value system of the lawgiver is not a priority for those who disobey.

When we see ourselves growing in obedience to Christ, it boosts our confidence about our place in Him.

We can easily compare and contrast where we used to be in sin verses where we are now and we know our transformation would not be possible without the presence of the Holy Spirit in us.

The more we look like Christ rather than the world, the more we feel like we are part of the Father’s family.

The vast majority of Christians I have known who doubt their salvation also have some sin in their life which they have not been able to release to Jesus.

There is often a direct correlation between doubt and disobedience.

John wants to get us free from our doubt so we can thrive in Christ and he knew that the path towards freedom is the path or repentance and receiving forgiveness from Christ.

In true Christian faith, obedience is not a legalistic requirement, but rather the natural byproduct of new life in Christ.

By obeying the Word, we bear the family resemblance. (6)

Obedience flows out of trust in Christ and is a sure sign of the perfecting work of the Spirit in us.

The more we grow in the Spirit, the more we trust Jesus and the less we will return to our old sinful ways.

IV. Obedience to Christ is a sign of true love permeating our lives. (5)

According to Paul, love is the ultimate pursuit of another’s good (1 Corinthians 13). Therefore, if we love God we will go after that which honors and glorifies God.

God is honored and glorified when we live up to the purpose He made us for, which is to be His image on Earth.

Gospel Application

Our ability to obey depends on our place in Christ.

Our place in Christ is already secure because of what He’s done.

Because we have a place in Christ, we are free from the old sin nature.

Because we are free from the old sin nature, we are able to live, by the Spirit, in our new nature of life and purity.

Challenge