OUR LIVING MEDIATOR

OUR LIVING MEDIATOR 1 John 2:1-2 November 12, 2006 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction If you’ve recently tried to telephone your insurance company, bank or credit card center, or computer help line, your call was probably answered by a pleasant but dispassionate voice luring you into a perpetual electronic maze. Welcome to the advent of IVR—interactive voice response—a way for you to feel like you are talking to someone without actually doing so. I don’t know about you, but I find it creepy. Every year companies spend around $10 billion to beef up their IVR systems, adding multiple layers of menus and information which serve, among other things, as insulation between you and any real human contact in their company. The reasoning is it simply costs too much to chat with us about our needs. Don’t you wish sometimes they would just be honest and upfront about it? Hello, and thank you for calling Conglomerates Corporation. Your call may be monitored for our future entertainment. Your call is very important to us, but not nearly as important as it is to you. If you are calling from a rotary phone well, that’s just sad. Our automated voice system enables you to answer the prompts by voice instead of pushing buttons making it seem like you’re talking to an actual person. We know that you’re not really fooled by this, but we’re going to do it anyway. We don’t have to pay the computer or give it a coffee break, health insurance or a vacation, so the whole thing works great for our profit margin. You can scream at it all you want, but it will still be pleasant. Please listen to the following menu options, and then press or say the number that corresponds with your choice. You will need to have in your hand your SSN, your entire 54-digit account number, your eighth-grade locker combination number and the names and birth dates of your entire extended family. If at any time you wish to speak to a customer service representative, hang up and call the unemployment office. God is the ultimate example of customer service. Not only is He the perfect personal connection and access to Him easy and direct, but He also has all the answers and won’t ever need to pass you along to another extension. I would like for us to consider an extremely important teaching from the New Testament, so let’s start together at 1 John 2:1-2. The writer of our text is by now considered the spiritual grandfather of the believer in Asia Minor—a personal connection in itself. He has just finished reminding the Christians that when they confess their sins, the Lord is faithful to forgive them and to cleanse them from all unrighteousness. Jesus is our Advocate My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. And that’s really the purpose behind so much of the Bible’s teaching, isn’t it? To give us the inspiration and the motivation to live for God when our carnal natures urge us to serve other gods. I guess what I am reminded of here is the truth that the Christian is able, with the power of the Holy Spirit, to live life free from sin. But no one does. Howard Hendricks was speaking at a conference in Dallas, and asked the question of the audience of 2000, “Do you know someone who is perfect?” He was about to go on, when he noticed a lone hand raised in the back of the auditorium. Hendricks asked, “Are you perfect, or do you know someone who is?” The man replied, “Oh, no, I’m not perfect. But as far as I can tell, my wife’s first husband was.” The fact is, though we are theologically, theoretically able to live without sinning as Christian people, we fall short of that perfect standard on a regular basis. And so, John gives us a pastoral reminder that in our failure God does not give up on us. His forgiveness is still available—not because we have somehow earned it, but because—an only because—Jesus has made it possible. More about this in a moment. Back to verse 1 – But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. Here the Lord Jesus is described in two ways. He is called the “righteous one” and that means exactly what it sounds like. We admit that we all fall short of sinless perfection, but Jesus didn’t fall short. He is the only one who ever walked the earth who has never been guilty of sin. So He is known as the Righteous One. The other description of Jesus in verse one is in the phrase one who speaks to the Father in our defense. The word PARAKLETOS is used here and means in its simplest form, advocate or defense attorney who pleads our case before the Father. He is our mediator, and is interceding in our behalf at the throne of the Father. Romans 8:34 says Jesus is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. This comes eight verses after the promise that God’s Spirit intercedes for us as well—that is why verse 34 says also. Over in Hebrews, chapter seven there is another reference to this idea. Verse 25 reads: He is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. The point is that we have an advocate pleading our case in heaven, and it is none other than Jesus Christ the Righteous One. The advocacy we have in Christ concerns our sins, which keep us from any kind of relationship with God the Father, who is holy and cannot accept sin. But through Jesus and His death on the cross, believers are forgiven and continue to be forgiven of sins through the advocacy of Jesus in heaven. How is this possible? Jesus our Satisfaction, Propitiation In verse two we have a further description of Jesus that helps us to understand how it is possible for Him to plead our case before the Father. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins… When there was need for forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament (and there always was, of course), God provided a way to absolve the sins of the people—to forgive them, to expiate their guilt, and restore them to fellowship with Him. The ceremony of Yom Kippur, celebrated on October 2nd this year by Jews, centered on the sacrifice made on that day for the forgiveness of the sins of the people. The high priest, every year on this day, entered into the Holy of Holies, dressed in the penitential garments, amid a cloud of incense and carrying the blood of the sacrifice. There was only one piece of furniture in the 15-foot cubicle room—the ark of the covenant with a gold slab on top of it. That gold slab was the mercy seat, the symbolic seat of Yahweh. According to the Law the high priest poured the blood onto the “mercy seat”—an offering to satisfy the wrath of God. The blood paid the redemption price for the sins of the people for. The technical word for the blood offering was the “propitiation”. That same word (ILASMOS) is used here in 1 John 2:2. Jesus fulfilled perfectly the forward looking symbol of the Temple, the Holy of Holies and Yom Kippur. It is His blood—the blood of a perfect, spotless offering, and He himself is called the ILASMOS. He is not only the offering but the mercy seat. The entire transaction of sacrificial blood propitiating the judgment of God centers on Jesus. The book of Hebrews goes as far as to say that the Old Testament sacrifices were really of no value, save to forecast the coming of the true Lamb of God. They could not make perfect those who draw near to worship. (Hebrews 10:1ff) It is in His atonement alone that we may find forgiveness. Now, because the price of redemption has been finally and forever paid, God is free to love and receive sinful people without compromising His righteousness or justice. The righteous wrath of God the Father has been satisfied by the blood of Christ. Jesus has become our SATISFACTION, our ILASMOS. I think an even simpler term to help us understand the ministry of Jesus in our behalf is the word REMEDY. The cure for our sin sickness is the forgiveness that Jesus provided. 1 John 2:1-2 pictures Jesus, like a defense attorney, bringing a defense for us against every charge, every sin. Hebrews 7 says He always lives to intercede for us. In A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World, Ron Lee Davis retells the true story of a priest in the Philippines, a much-loved man of God who carried the burden of a secret sin he had committed many years before. He had repented but still had no peace, no sense of God’s forgiveness. In his parish was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ and he with her. The priest, however, was skeptical. To test her said, “The next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary.” The woman agreed. A few days later the priest asked., “Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?” “Yes, he did,” she replied. “And did you ask him what sin I committed in seminary?” “Yes.” “Well, what did he say?” “He said, ‘I don’t remember’“ What God forgives, He forget. Here is the important thing to remember, Christian: forgiveness is available to you no matter how many times or how far you wander from fellowship with God. No matter how much your enemy Satan works you over with trumped up charges and raw wounds of guilt, in Christ you can have complete forgiveness. Why? Because He is your PROPITIATION! In the 14th century, Robert Bruce of Scotland was leading his men in a battle to gain independence from England. Near the end of the conflict, the English wanted to capture Bruce to keep him from the Scottish crown. So they put his own bloodhounds on his trail. When the bloodhounds got close, Bruce could hear their baying. His attendant said, “We are done for. They are on your trail, and they will reveal your hiding place.”   Bruce replied, “It’s all right.” Then he headed for a stream that flowed through the forest. He plunged in and waded upstream a short distance. When he came out on the other bank, he was in the depths of the forest. Within minutes, the hounds, tracing their master’s steps, came to the bank. They went no farther. The English soldiers urged them on, but the trail was broken. The stream had carried the scent away. A short time later, the crown of Scotland rested on the head of Robert Bruce. The memory of our sins, prodded on by Satan, can be like those baying dogs—but a stream flows, red with the blood of God’s own Son. By grace through faith we are safe. No sin-hound can touch us. The trail is broken by the precious blood of Christ. “The purpose of the cross,” someone observed, “is to repair the irreparable.” For us and for everyone – anyone Look again at verse two, because there is another phrase that is so important. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world! Can you understand the enormity of that statement? There is enough healing in the sacrifice of Christ to pay for the sins of every man, woman and child in history! There is forgiveness available not only for you, Christian, but for everyone you know! Go tell them! Karl Menninger, the famed psychiatrist, once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75 percent of them could walk out the next day! Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candor on television, Marghanita Laski, one of the best-known secular humanists and novelists, said, What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me. The good news, Marghanita Laski, is that Jesus Christ has already paid for your forgiveness. He has already forgiven you—forensically. The wonderful news for everyone in this room this morning is that Jesus Christ has already purchased your pardon from God’s wrath. You are forgiven—if you will receive it. An item in the May 2, 1985, Kansas City Times reminds us of a story you may be able to use in an evangelistic message. The item had to do with the attempt by some fans of O. Henry, the short-story writer, to get a pardon for their hero, who was convicted in 1898 of embezzling $784.08 from the bank where he was employed. But you cannot give a pardon to a dead man. A pardon can only be given to someone who can accept it. Now, for the story. Back in 1830 George Wilson was convicted of robbing the United States Mail and was sentenced to be hanged. President Andrew Jackson issued a pardon for Wilson, but he refused to accept it. The matter went to Chief Justice Marshall, who concluded that Wilson would have to be executed. “A pardon is a slip of paper,” wrote Marshall, “the value of which is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon. George Wilson must be hanged.” For some, the pardon comes too late. For others, the pardon is not accepted. Conclusion There is a reason why John 3:16 is the most memorized verse in all of scripture—it’s message is so profound and so wonderful! If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior. Will you let Him forgive you today? Whether you’re a believer and have fallen victim to your old nemesis again, or if you have never yet allowed yourself the greatest blessing ever extended to anyone—the freedom of forgiveness through Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.   [Back to Top]