The Way we Walk… (week 2)

Announcements:

A few things coming up that we need help with is our mother and son adventure night and daddy daughter dance

We need young adultCan help set up teardown and are available to serve in whatever other capacity is needed

If you are interested, please let me know. We should be getting a sign-up sheet together. This will be feb 7th

But let’s go ahead and jump into our text…

Text:

1 John 2:1–6 ESV

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Prayer:

Amen…

So looking at the text tonight, is there anything that stands out to you?

Any versus thoughts or observations?

I believe we see a repetitive nature in first John he points back to what he just said. Talking about walking in the light. Summarizes why he says that and reminds us of our hope in Christ.

But then we see John remind us again how we’re supposed to live

By jumping into the first section John rights as a father would write to his children or grandchildren

There is a level of tenderness and love within what he’s saying

How many of us in this room have had good grandparents or maybe parents by raise your hands?

I think we can safely view John’s rebuke or encouragement as something that a loving, father or grandfather, would say to his children or grandchildren

It’s the reality of I’m saying this because I love you not because I want to hurt you

Or the reality of this is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you… I do this because I love you…

John is writing to you and I to the church saying I love you and I want you to have assurance. I want you to know that you’re a Christian, but I also want you to know if you’re not.

John doesn’t want us to have false hope

So inverse one we see him restate his purpose in writing

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

What does the word advocate mean?

A picture that I think of for advocating is me standing in between two parties

Often times we see this as a picture in the courtroom the judge and the accused party has an advocate between them the lawyer

The lawyer advocates the case of the accused defense and argues for his innocence

Or in some cases, plead guilty and argues for an advocate for a lesser sentence or a plea deal

So John says that I’m telling you these things so that you and I will not sin!

John wants us to understand the seriousness of sin

The damage that causes and the reality of what it looks like to walk in the darkness…

But he wants you and I to understand that there’s hope

That when we repent of our sin and believe in Jesus, we can be saved and sanctified

Romans 10:9 ESV

9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

and this is because we have an advocate…

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed an advocate?

Probably not courtroom or a lawyer, but maybe just you needed somebody to fill in the gap between you and someone else so that you could have good relations?

I remember that when I was a kid I would advocate between my siblings and my parents for extra time on the TV

Or if my siblings wanted my parents to bring home food after they went out on a date I would call my mom and try to advocate for them to bring food home

But with Jesus, this is a far more extreme reality much like the courtroom example we talked about

But you and I have someone who’s on call 24 seven standing between you, me and God pleading our case if we are believers.

So let’s look at verse two

2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

What is propitiation? What does the word mean?

According to the Logos factbook propitiation means. “That by which God is rendered propitious, i.e., by which it becomes consistent with his character and government to pardon and bless the sinner. The propitiation does not procure his love or make him loving; it only renders it consistent for him to exercise his love towards sinners.”

In other words, Jesus, being our propitiation means that he is the reason that God’s justice and God’s love can become consistent with each other

It’s the balance between God’s Justice needing to be satisfied meaning that you and I have fallen short of the glory of God we have send we have done wrong

But God also loves us and wants us to be with him and be restored to Wright relationship with him

But God cannot lie. He cannot contradict his own character so what does he do?

He since Jesus to be our propitiation, The sacrifice that pays the penalty for our sin and gives us the ability to walk within his love and not his wrath.

It makes God consistent between the God who cannot stand sin and a God who loves us despite our sin.

And what I wanna make clear here is that Jesus doesn’t just say you’re forgiven and move on. It wasn’t free. It was paid for in blood by Jesus.

You and I Have fallen short of the glory of God we have sinned.

And that’s serious… We have committed a crime in front of the god of heaven, and he knows our sin

So Jesus died to pay for our sin… And I want us to understand that that someone died so that we may live

Salvation is a free gift, but it comes with a cost to the giver

When I give a gift to somebody, it comes to them for free, but it came to me at a cost.

So I want us just to take a moment just to think about the fact that the God of heaven sent his son Jesus to willingly die in the cross so that you and I might live

Let that sink in let that move you and me to a place of love and adoration for God.

When we have a low view of Jesus’s sacrifice, we no longer have a high view of the severity of sin

When I was a kid, I would receive a gift from my parents and be excited and then play with it and then break it and wouldn’t care too much

To me, it was free… But now that I’m a full grown adult, I can see that my parents had worked hard and spent money on what they had given me

So now when my parents get something for me, I cherish it. It was still free, but now I have a greater perspective on what has been giving.

Do we have a great perspective on what has been given to us from Christ??

And what are some ways that we can keep a good perspective on the propitiation of Christ on his advocacy on his sacrifice?

How can we as Christians encourage one another to see the value of the free gift of salvation?

What are some thoughts that you guys have?

Looking at three we see this

3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,

What do you see this passage saying??

What are his Commandments?

Matthew 22:37–39 ESV

37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

In this passage received the commandments to be love, God

Which means worship him only

Read his word study who he is and grow in relationship

Have no other idols no other gods, but God

This means you can’t worship a person over God God comes first

You can’t worship a career over God God comes first

You cannot love anything in this world more than God

This means with everything you have pursue a deeper relationship with God

Don’t pursue sexual sin, Don’t pursue arrogance and ego, Don’t pursue disobedience, but pursue obedience

And the second Commandment is similar, love our neighbor as our self

In the same way, we care for and put ourselves first we should put others before ourselves

We should seek after the good of one another before we seek after our own good

And Jesus says this is the entire law of the entire Bible love God and love, man

And my question for us is do we say that we know him?

And if we say that we know him, do we keep his commands?

Now again, looking back at the previous passage, talking about walking in the light, this is a pattern of life A pattern of perseverance, not a pattern of perfection.

Because we see in…

1 John 1:8 ESV

8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

You and I are sinners plain and simple. And if you don’t believe that, I’m scared for you if you don’t think that you are sinful and that you have fallen short of the glory of God, I’m scared for you

Because that means we’re self deceived if we don’t see Our own sin…

And I want us to understand that we need Christ because we are sinners

So we see a reality where we can’t be perfect we can’t say that we don’t have sin because we do have sin

So I don’t believe John is asking if we are perfect in keeping the Commandments

But are we persistent In the pursuit of keeping the Commandments?

Is there a pattern of the pursuit of Jesus?

Do we seek to flee from sexual immorality?

Do we seek to run away from sin?

Or are we comfortable with sin?

Because if we say, yeah, I know Jesus he’s my savior and our life is a picture of willful, blissful disobedience.

The John says that we’re lying not just to others but to ourselves and when we are self deceived, it is the most terrifying thing in the world…

Have you ever seen someone who is self deceived? maybe not with biblical things but other things?

How did someone who is self deceived become undeceived?

They must be confronted with truth… And the Holy Spirit must be active in this process

So I want us to ask God to confront us if we’re self deceived, but then also ask God to use us if he wants to use us to confront other people who are self deceived.

Maybe you have someone in your life that you know says the Christian, but doesn’t act like it. Pray for them and try to bring them to an understanding of the truth.

Do we need to look at ourselves first pull the Plank out of our own eye Before we can help anyone else…

So we see what happens when we claim the name of Christ, but don’t live the life of a Christian

What happens if our faith produces works?

lets look at verse 5

5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

If we have confessed Christ as Lord, and believed in him for salvation…

If we are believers, we will keep his word

And in us, the love of God is perfected, meaning that we now have the fountain of life within our heart

We have a love that overflows out of us into others. We are no longer needing other others to fill us, but we go out to fill others because God has given us so much.

This is the reality the switch that means that we understand the cost of salvation and that shows how much God loves us

We have an understanding that there’s nothing that we can do to make God love us more and there’s nothing we can do to make God love us less

And the way that we know that we are in him that we are saved that we are part of Christ

Our life will be a pattern of walking the same way Jesus walked

Meaning, we will demonstrate our faith by our works

If we look at John 15, If we say we abide in Christ, then we should produce a life consistent of that

If I claim to be alive, I claim to be connected I claimed to be Christian that I should be producing a walk that reflects Christ.

And I want to understand we won’t be perfect in this, but we will desire this

This is not perfection, but perseverance, a desire to look like Christ

If we have no desire to walk the way, Jesus walked if we have no desire to pursue holiness

If we have no desire to love, God and love man that there is a good chance of the truth is not in us

Tonight I want us to challenge and think about do we love Christ not perfectly, But as a pattern of life and the ups and downs, the highs and lows, do we come back to wanting to be like Christ?

And if that’s the truth, I want to encourage you do not grow weary of doing good. Keep on going run the race well

If you have no desire to please Christ, please understand that I want you to have a relationship with him and you can have that tonight. Don’t allow pride or arrogance to keep you from running to Christ.

lets pray.

Point 1:

Point 2:

Point 3: