We need an advocate because of our sin.

Introduction

• Sermon Introduction

• I thank you for having me out today to share God’s word with you. My name is Josh Underwood if we have not met before. It is a privilege to be here on the day that you vote on my brother in Christ, Jacob, also with a biblical J name. I thank you also for welcoming my family. We have my daughter, Thea, my wife Mattie, who is not pregnant anymore, and my youngest son, also with a biblical J name, Judah.

• Today we will continue on in your series working through 1 John.

• Turn To Text

• 1 John 2:1-2

• Scripture Introduction

• Context

• Although John has been talking so far about the forgiveness of sin and God’s cleansing from all unrighteousness. He clearly does not condone sin. He certainly does not want us to be complacent about our sin. In fact, John has already been contrasting the darkness of sin with the light of God’s holiness. Verse five of chapter one of the letter says “that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” There is none not even a bit, none, no darkness in God. He is perfectly and completely holy and without sin. This should be set in contrast to us. One commendable response to witnessing God’s holiness is that of Isaiah, who lays his eyes on a holy God and then declares, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isa 6:5)

• Now church let us look at this text as John addresses Christians that sin.

• Restate Scripture Address

• 1 John 2:1-2

• Read Scripture

1 John 2:1–2 (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.

• Pray For Illumination

• Incline our hearts to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain.

• Open our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of your law.

• Unite our hearts to fear your name.

• Satisfy us with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all of our days.

The Problem - 1 John 2:1a

• Explanation

• 1 John 2:1 “1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

• First off, church let us look at John’s pastoral heart. He addresses this section of his letter to my little children. Now this is not meant to go to his flesh and blood only but the flocks that he cares for. So John starts this section with a tender-hearted fatherly tone which he continues throughout 1 John. He also uses beloved as well.

• So he writes with fatherly love to this congregation and gives his purpose for writing as well. Which is stated explicitly in the text. “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” What a beautiful image of what fatherly love is. A desire for those that he loves to walk in the light, to not follow the heretics teaching falsehood and sin. This is a good model for us as we parent.

• Do we delight in our children (nieces, nephews, children in the community) walking in the light.

• Do we desire them to live in upright ways, walking in the truth, and not sinning?

• Do we desire our children to know truth? If we say yes to this, are we actually doing something about it? Are we taking time to teach our children regularly what is true? It is not uncommon for me as a school teacher to see students who are on devices and electronics constantly when they are outside of class. We cannot expect a single hour or for that matter two hours at church during the week to compete with multiple hours each day or social media.

• Now does John have any expectation in writing this that we are to live in sinless perfection? Absolutely not! If I was Paul I would say “by no means!” For even in the next sentence John writes, “but if anyone does sin”. So John expects that those that he is writing to, Christians, will sin still. In fact in 1 John 1:8 he says“ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” So, John desires them not to sin, on one hand, but he understands that they will.

• This is the difficulty of the Christian life, inst it? That we are born again, that we have been converted and regenerated. That we have expressed repentance and belief in Christ, but that we still sin.

• Now lets be clear, now as Christians, as believers in Christ the struggle has begun. Before we were believers we were just dead in our sins and trespasses. We were slaves to sin, unable to bring ourselves out of it.

• Indeed this was our universal conditions, Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, and written by David and confirmed by Paul, Rom 3:10 “None is righteous, no, not one.”

• Paul goes on to say “that sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned”.

• So sin is universal, and as we just heard death came about through sin.

• Consequences of sin

• Paul says - that “the wages of sin is death” 6:23

• Isaiah says that “your iniquities make a separation between you and your God” 59:2

• Ezekiel said that “the soul who sins shall die.” 18:20

• So church this is pretty bleak.

The Solution - 1 John 2:1b-2

• Explanation

• 1 John 2:1-2 “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

• Church this is the news that we need. That we have an advocate with the Father. This advocate or counselor is for us. And he is none other than Jesus the messiah.

• I know that we can sometimes be hesitant to go to Jesus. Robert Murray McCheyne said regarding when we sin. “I feel, when I have sinned, an immediate reluctance to go to Christ. I am ashamed to go. I feel as if it would do no good to go—as if it were making Christ a minister of sin, to go straight from the swine-trough to the best robe—and a thousand other excuses; but I am persuaded they are all lies, direct from hell.”

• And I agree with him. When we sin, we should indeed be willing to run into the arms of our advocate, of our counselor, of the one who came to help us.

• Indeed, this has always been a problem in the church, the reformer Martin Luther gives us the following wise counsel. If someone errs and sins, he should not add the sin of despair. After sin the devil always alarms the heart and makes us tremble. For he hurls a person into sin in order that he may finally force him into despair. On the other hand, he lets some live smugly without temptation in order that they may think and believe that they are holy.… This is his cunning. He wants to make saints sinners, and confident sinners saints. (2x)

• But in that same sentence John presents another problem.

• “Jesus Christ the righteous”

• This simple descriptor about Jesus actually unveils an enormous problem. Jesus is righteous, he is just. And as we have already seen we are deserving of death, we are deserving of punishment, of condemnation. So if Jesus is just, then he must know that punishment must be delivered. It must be meted out.

• How then can all of this be true? It seems like there must be some falsehood here, otherwise how could we hold all of these things together?

• Well church, I have good news for you. John keeps on writing. He answers this quandary that we have when he says in verse 2 “He is the propitiation for our sins,”.

• Jesus is the propitiation for our sins church. Now some of you may be sitting out there thinking the same thing that I thought when I first read this passage. Which was “what is the world does propitiation mean?”

• In short propitiation is the “atoning sacrifice” that Jesus accomplished on the cross. This is where Jesus took the wrath of God on himself as our substitute. He was able to do this as the spotless lamb because he had lived the perfect life, the life without sin.

• This is important to understand church. God did not just forget about our sins with nothing else involved. That would be unjust. Justice requires that God’s wrath be poured out to punish sin. That wrath was indeed poured out on Jesus. If we think about our sin as something that God just waved a hand, dismissed, and it was gone then we also dismiss the suffering and death of our savior on the cross.

• David Allen puts it this way church, “At the cross God’s wrath, love, justice, and holiness met together. God’s holiness makes sin an affront to his character and to his universal governance. God’s justice demands payment for sin. God’s love causes him to love sinners. Because of God’s love, he sent his Son Jesus into the world to die on the cross for the world’s sins. God’s wrath was poured out in judgment upon Jesus, who bore our sin on the cross as our substitute. By his death on the cross for sin, Jesus satisfied the wrath and justice of God. Thus, when John says Jesus is “the propitiation” for our sins, he means that sin has been expiated (its penalty has been removed) and God’s wrath is likewise propitiated, that is, turned away.”

• B.F. Westscott wisely points out here that Jesus is not the propitiator, that is not what the text says. If he was just the propitiator he would have been the one to bring about the atoning sacrifice. John says here that Jesus was the propitiation. Church he was not the one who brought about the atoning sacrifice needed to appease God’s wrath. Church, he was the atoning sacrifice. There was no ram caught in the bushes nearby that was able to be sacrificed in his place as there was with Isaac. Jesus, the Son, was sacrificed as the propitiation for our sins.

• And church that is not where the text stops. It goes on “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

• “and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

• Now there are two ways to take this part of the verse.

• 1) That the sins of the whole world are forgiven because of Jesus and therefore everyone must be saved. But this is clearly in contradiction with any place that talks about Hell or punishment in scripture. Indeed, even later in this very letter John says “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” So we cannot take this verse to be a universalist text that would say that all people everywhere are saved.

• 2) Instead, I would suggest to you that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus is 1) available and 2) sufficient for the sins of the whole world.

• 1) Listen to these words from JC Ryle regarding the availability of Christ’s offer to all:

• “I will give place to no one in maintaining that Jesus loves all mankind, came into the world for all, died for all, provided redemption sufficient for all, calls on all, invites all, commands all to repent and believe, and ought to be offered to all—freely, fully, unreservedly, directly, unconditionally—without money and without price. If I did not hold this, I dare not get into a pulpit, and I should not understand how to preach the Gospel.

• But while I hold all this, I maintain firmly that Jesus does special work for those who believe, which He does not do for others. He quickens them by His Spirit, calls them by His grace, washes them in His blood—justifies them, sanctifies them, keeps them, leads them, and continually intercedes for them—that they may not fall. If I did not believe all this, I should be a very miserable, unhappy Christian.”

• Indeed church, who could be not be miserable if we remain unaware of the work that Jesus Christ does lovingly for us.

• 2) Regarding the sufficiency of Christ’s work. If all of the world were to come and to heap their sins upon Jesus. If every person were to repent and believe, Jesus would be able to carry the load. The sacrifice of Jesus is sufficient for all who come to him, even the whole world. What a savior! That is the power of Jesus church. That is the power of our savior and Lord.

• Implication: This has an implication church. And that is that when we go out witnessing. When we go out sharing the gospel in the places that we live, the places that we work, and the places that we rest. We can proclaim confidently that Jesus’ sacrifice is enough to take away their sins. No matter how great.

• In fact, there was a man who recently came to my home church and shared about his experience in a prison ministry. I’m going to use a false name for privacy. But this man shared the story of a man named Fred who would come to their ministry sessions in the prison. Fred was not a Christian and had an issue with some of the teaching of the ministry. He came up after a session and spoke to the minister. Saying that, Jesus could not take away all of his sins, he had done too much. He explained that he had been in a cartel and that he had tortured and murdered people. This church, is the message that Fred needs to hear over and over. That, Jesus’ death was sufficient to cover not only his sins, no matter how great they are. But our sins as well church, and not only them but Jesus’ sacrifice is sufficient enough to cover the sins of the whole world.

•

Conclusion

• As we close today. I want us to be able to walk away confidently knowing that Jesus has made a way for us. Even as we live out our Christian lives in this fallen world. We have an advocate. We have one lived the perfect life, was righteous, and died the death that he didn't deserve. The death we did deserve. He took our place and was the propitiation for our sins. This sacrifice makes his gospel available and sufficient for all.

• As John Newton Wrote:

1–3 John—Fellowship in God’s Family Jesus Our Propitiation When We Sin (v. 2)

I saw One hanging on a tree In agony and blood, Who fixed his languid eyes on me, As near the Cross I stood. Sure never, till my latest breath, Can I forget that look; It seemed to charge me with his death, Tho not a word he spoke. Alas! I knew not what I did, But now my tears are vain; Where shall my trembling soul be hid? For I the Lord have slain! A second look he gave that said, “I freely all forgive; This blood is for thy ransom paid; I die that thou may’st live.” Thus while his death my sin displays In all its blackest hue, Such is the mystery of grace, It seals my pardon, too.

• Prayer

• Father I thank you for the church that is assembled here today. I thank you for their desire to gather and hear your word preached. May they go home today and remember your love, your sacrifice, your propitiation. Lord guide and direct this church in the coming days and weeks. That they would desire you above all things.

• In Jesus name: Amen.