A Death Worth Living For | 1 John 2:1–6

Introduction:I. Introduction: Thank you all for being here with us for the second meeting of The Walk. If you were not here last week, you are in luck, our passage is similar to the that we looked at last week. Last week, we looked at how we can believe that Jesus is real and the impact that has on our lives. This week there are some similar themes with different truths that we will unpack from those themes. Tonight, we are going to deal with both the seriousness of sin and the seriousness of obedience. The main idea of tonight’s message is that If we truly know a Holy God that made forgave us for our sin, we will live like it. There are two main points found in our text that demonstrate this main idea. The first is that both sin and the solution to sin are serious. The second is that there is a difference in knowing God and knowing about God. If you would please stand with me to honor the reading of God’s word.

Transition: So looking the first two verses of this chapter. In the first two verses of the chapter, we see the first main point of the passage. Both sin and its solution are serious.

Both Sin and It’s Solution are Serious (1 John 2:1-2)

Exposition: We start by looking at verse 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.” John starts by showing his care for his readers by calling them little children. He means this as a term of endearment. He sees himself as their spiritual father. By the time this letter was written John was an old man. He had been ministering in the area of Ephesus for quite some time. Moving on in the verse he says that he is writing them so that nobody sins. But if they do sin, they have Jesus as an advocate. John here is acknowledging that there are two things that are true at the same time. Sin is not a good thing. Our desire should be to avoid having sin in our lives.

Application: It is very easy at times to just ignore the seriousness of sin. We think that what we are doing isn’t really that bad or since everyone else is doing it it is probably ok. Sometimes we just try to ignore the fact that we know what we are doing is wrong and think that if we don’t think about it, we don’t have to deal with the fact that we have sin in our lives. But John is saying that it shouldn’t be that way. He is writing expressing the seriousness of sin, as he did in the passage we talked about last week, because we should not act like it’s not a big deal. Sin is serous.

Exposition: At the same time John is urging his readers not to sin, he acknowledges that sin is something that affects all of us. He says we have an advocate with the father. That advocate is Jesus who since ascending from earth back to heaven is sitting at the right hand of the Father.

Illustration: An advocate is somebody that speaks on your behalf, particularly in a courtroom setting. A scholar by the name of David Allan explained it using lawyers. I would make a lawyer joke here but not everybody in the room would approve of it. Pretend that we are in a courtroom where the devil is the prosecutor. Remember, the term Satan means accuser. So satan is the prosecutor, The Father is the judge and Jesus, the Son, is the defense attorney. Satan goes before the judge and says this person is guilty of this crime. Jesus, the advocate or defense attorney says to The Father who is the judge, “Yes, this person did commit the crime, but the punishment has already taken place.” That is how Jesus, the righteous operates as our advocate.

Exposition: The term the righteous is important because of what Johns tells us about Jesus in verse two. He is the propitiation of our sins, not for ours only, but also for this sins of the whole world.

Explanation: I’m just curious, How many of you feel like you could confidently give the definition of propitiation? How many of you are confident you could spell it correctly? What the word means is something that bears the wrath of God. You seen God is a loving God, but He is also a just and Holy God. God couldn’t just forgive us our sins because that would mean that he just let sin go unpunished. He couldn’t do this because if He let sin go unpunished, He would not be the perfect example of justice. We also already talked about how serious sin is. Sin separates us from God and puts on a path to eternal damnation. God is a loving God and didn’t want us to have to die in our sins. So he sent Jesus to die on a cross for our sins. Jesus took on the punishment that we deserved. He allowed them to drive nails through his wrists and ankles and died an agonizing death so that he could take on the punishment we deserved. While being righteous, he died for our unrighteousness.

Illustration: The president of the seminary I am at student at told a story during chapel one time I thought was very interesting. How many of you have heard the song, “In Christ alone.” There is a line in the song that says, “On that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. For every sin on him was lain. Here in the death of Christ I stand.” There was a liberal denomination that wanted the rights to sing the song but change the words to, “On the cross as Jesus died, the love of God was magnified.” Keith Getty declined because he felt it was not true to the message of the song.While there is no doubt that God’s love was magnified on the cross. We can’t forget why that was. God loved us so much, that he sent his son to take on the wrath that we deserved.

Application:These two truth are so important for us to remember. Yes, sin is serious. It is serious enough that the only way for it to be atoned for was for the perfect Son of God to come to earth and die a brutal death. It’s not the action that makes us guilty but what the action is. Adam and Eve cursed all mankind for eating an apple, right. I mean what is so bad about that. Actually what they did was say that they knew better than God, that they didn’t really believe God when He told them something was not good, and that they were going to do whatever they wanted anyway. All sin is rebellion against God and we should treat it as such. But we should also acknowledge that we live in a fallen world and we are going to mess up. We are going to have moments where we do something we shouldn’t until Jesus calls us home. And for this reason, Christ came and took on our punishment and now he sits at the right hand of the Father saying, “Yea, he did it, but he’s not guilty because I already died for him.” Or, “Yes, she did do something that was sinful, but I already paid the price for her sin, my blood has made her clean. See her as righteous.”

Exposition: But as we see, John points out that Christ was not just the propitiation for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. We know that John was not endorsing universalism and saying that all people go to heaven. He speaks too much about having a true relationship with God for that to be the case. What he is saying is that the hope of the gospel is for all people. There is not one race of people Christ died for, there is not one location Christ died for and He did not only die for those who have the opportunity to hear about Him. No Jesus died for all the world, and for this reason all the world needs to hear. Those who know Christ have a responsibility to proclaim about the forgiveness of sin to those around us, those across the world, and everyone in between. You all are young, but I plead with you to begin to pray about where God is leading you. Perhaps God is calling you to go to the nations and proclaim the word of God to those who do not know Him.

I. Transition: The second main point we find in the passage is found in verses 3-6. That main point is that knowing God is different than knowing about God. I think there are a lot of people who know about God, but don’t truly know God.

There is a difference between knowing God and knowing about God

Exposition: Starting with verses three and four John writes, “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him.” John here is speaking about how we know we have assurance of our salvation. This is if we keep his commandments. Now, this does necessitate perfection. John has already addressed the fact that we will have moment of sin for the rest our lives. But if we examine the trajectory of our lives, there will be evidence of whether or not we know God. We cannot earn our salvation, that can only come by believing Christ rose from the grave and confessing Him to be savior and Lord. But obedience is a sign of our salvation. Ephesians 2:8-10 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not as a result works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good work, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Obedience is an outward sign of what has already happened.

Illustration: I read this illustration once, and I think it’s a good one. Say I was in the church parking lot one day, and I saw something shiny coming from the street. So I started walking towards it. It was so cool I just couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I keep walking and walking and BAM! I had walked into the middle of the street and got hit by a mack truck. There would be evidence of that. But if I were just trying to tell you I got hit by a Mack truck, you probably wouldn’t believe me.

Application :Now, there are some times we all drift away and into sinfulness. There are times we don’t live obediently. But for those in Christ Jesus, in those times we can feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We know what we are doing is wrong and we feel that inner conflict. If today you know you don’t have that, maybe it is time to examine your salvation. Maybe you don’t truly know God. You might know about Him but you don’t know Him.

Exposition: Verse 4 says, “Whoever says, “ I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Why is this? It’s because of who God is. If we truly know God, we know that He is the sovereign creator of the universe. We know that he possesses all authority and both demands and deserves our authority. If we truly know God then we know that His ways are better and we want to follow them because they are better. There are a lot of people who know about God. They may even be in church and know a lot of the stories. For this reason they may tell people that they are a Christian. But unless with our lives we acknowledge God to be who the Bible says He is and for this reason do the things that Jesus has told us to do in His word, then this cannot be true. There’s a difference in knowing God and knowing about God.

Exposition: Verse 5 says, “but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him.” We aren’t just being changed to live as robots. We are changed to show the love of God. What John is telling his readers here isn’t suppose to lead them down a path of legalism where there only hope is to do good things. It’s to help them become more like Christ. God has demonstrated His love on the cross. He has demonstrated His love in how he walks with us through good times and bad. By keeping His word, we are going to become more like this. We will also show that love to others around us. It won’t just be our choices that help us have the assurance of our salvation, it will be the way we live out God’s love. Our concern for others will show this as well.

Application: A part of knowing God is having a heart for the weak and vulnerable like He does. It is helping one another walk through life’s struggles. It’s also having a heart for those who are still in their sins. It is a heart for proclaiming the message of Christ to all those that don’t know Him so that they may experience this love.

Exposition: John closes this section with verse 6. He writes, “whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” How many of you own a pair of crocs but don’t own a pair of chacos? Well, you’re clearly disobeying this verse. It says to walk as Christ walked, and we know Jesus wore sandals. When I was a senior in college I went on a spring break mission trip to Brunswick,GA. One of the things we did, was go each afternoon to a mobile home community and spend time with the kids there. I put a picture up on Instagram one day of myself with one of the kids. In the picture, I was wearing chacos. A friend of mine commented, “Is it even a mission trip if you don’t wear chacos?” I responded, “The Bible called us to walk as Christ walked, and He wore sandals.” I thought it was pretty witty, but obviously that’s not what John is saying here. The word walk here, and in other parts of the Bible, “signifies a pattern of behavior that is characterized by obedience to God’s word.” (David Allen) If we say we are abiding in Christ. If we say that we know Him, we must walk as Christ walked. This verse is one of the reasons we are calling our Sunday night gatherings The Walk. I want us to learn to walk as Christ walked. But I have a question for you? How many specific examples can you give of how Christ walked? My guess is that you can mention the cross. My guess is that you can mention vague examples of His actions. But I fear that we don’t have a lot of specific places in scripture we can point to. If we are going to be obedient to God’s word, we have to know God’s word. This is only going to happen if we are regularly studying it. We cannot be a people of God without being a people of His word. On your chairs tonight was a sheet of paper with some questions on it. The questions are questions to help you do a quiet time. I encourage you this week to spend time in God’s word. I want to challenge you to each day spend time reading a chapter of the book of John and answering these questions. If you need a Bible, we can get you one out of the back.

I. Transition: As Leighton gets ready to come back up here tonight, let us consider our attitude toward God’s word.

II. Conclusion: Do you know God, or have you realized tonight that you simply have just spent time knowing about God. Maybe you do know God but realize you have taken too casual of an approach to sin. If either is the case, take the chance tonight to rectify the situation.