2016 11 20 am 1 John 2:1-2 Twin Remedies

Every Christian faces two dangers in relation to sin – complacency and hopelessness. John gives us the remedies for each.

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, Cadets and GEMS,
Once upon a time, a group of young people were having a good old time, when one of them said, “Why do we need the old men?” And as they began to talk about their fathers, who were always giving advice, and uncles with their old-fashioned ideas, they all agreed: The old men were old. Surely the young people had ideas that made more sense in these modern times.
So they decided to go to the palace to tell the young king of their idea — that it was time to get rid of all the old men. And the young king liked their idea. So the next day, he ordered his soldiers to gather all the old men in the whole country and to lock them away, so no one would have to listen to their advice anymore.
But one young man named Felix hated this new law. He loved his father and considered him the wisest man in the world. So they agreed that the old man would hide in the cellar, and they would visit each other only at night. No one would know.
Well, it wasn’t long until a drought hit the land; crops died, Winter froze the ground, and there was no good seed left. And no one knew know what to do.
Now Felix, on his nightly visits, had been telling his father about this situation. One night, his father said, “Take our plow and go to the city. Plow up the roads that lead into and out of the city.” Well, Felix was not sure what this would achieve but he trusted his father, so the next morning, he did what his Father said. And as he plowed up the roads, he saw that the earth he turned over was thick and moist, and, to his astonishment, he saw seeds beneath this soil that were not dried up or frozen or dead. And in just a few days, these seeds began to sprout and grow up from the tilled land.
When people saw this, they began to ask questions: “Why did you do this? How is this possible?” But Felix refused to answer their questions. So the neighbours ran to the palace to report this to the young king, who soon sent for Felix. “Why did you do this? How did you know this would work? Speak the truth and I promise I will spare your life. Lie to me, and you shall die.” Felix looked down. He said. “My father lives in my cellar. It was he who advised me to plow up the main roads.” “Bring your father to me,” the young king commanded Felix.
So Felix returned home, and the next day, he and his father travelled together to the palace. When Felix and his father arrived at the palace, the young king looked the old man in the eye. “What is the meaning of the advice you gave your son?” he demanded. “Why have you destroyed our roads?” “Your majesty,” the old man said, “carts filled with seeds and corn pass through our village all year-round. Some of those seeds fall from their carriages and get trodden into the ground, and they can grow if given a chance. That is why I told my son to dig up the dirt — to give them a chance.”
So the young king saw that he had been quite foolish; he understood that just as the earth stores nourishment, old people store wisdom. So that very day, he ordered all the old men to be set free.

Well, why have I shared this Romanian fable with you? You Cadets and Gems probably think that your Counselors gave me the fable so you would think of them as very wise  But that is not the case. I shared this fable because we have another example of a Father’s wisdom in the verses before us today. The Apostle John was a very old man when he wrote these words but he also saw himself as a spiritual father of the members of this congregation. So he addresses them as his “LITTLE CHILDREN.” And this form of address reveals his tenderness and affection for these people. But it also says something about his authority to instruct them as someone older and wiser in the faith. He wanted them to listen as carefully as a little child listens to the words of his or her Father. So we also do well to listen carefully to these words.

In recent verses, John has taken aim at a particular group of people who claimed to be in fellowship with God but who held to a very unbiblical set of ideas called GNOSTICISM. And they had caused a lot of trouble in the congregation. So in v5, John began with a benchmark statement; a kind of ultimate measuring stick: “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” So that means that those who truly are in fellowship with God will be those who walk in the light. And then began a series of contrasts between those who walk in the darkness and those who walk in the light that continues all the way into chapter 3. And the contrasts began with the “If we say…” statements about sin in vv6-10. And these statements made it very plain that despite their fellowship claims, these Gnostics were not in fellowship with God.

Well, the contrasts will continue with v3. But with vv1-2, FATHER JOHN PAUSES TO SPEAK TO BELIEVERS ABOUT SIN. From his own experience and from his years of service as a minister of the gospel, John knows well that there are two main dangers that always confront us as Christians when it comes to sin – the danger of complacency, which I will explain in a moment, and the danger of hopelessness. And so, in these words we see the remedy for COMPLACENCY and the remedy for HOPELESSNESS.

I. So first of all then, the remedy for COMPLACENCY.
A. To be complacent is to be satisfied with how things are and not eager to make changes when there is danger. And so, by way of illustration, from time to time there are these adverts on TV or in the newspaper about preparing for earthquakes. And this is because if you live in NZ, it’s just a matter of time before you experience an earthquake. But if you don’t experience an earthquake for a while, it is easy to get complacent; you don’t put a strap on the base of your flat-screen TV, and you don’t screw the bookshelf to the wall, and you don’t keep some fresh water and candles in a cupboard. That’s what it means to be complacent – she’ll be right, whatever!, I’ll get ‘round to it one day, maybe; no worries, mate!

B. Well, John has just said in CH.1, v8, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,” and in v10, “If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and the truth is not in us.” So, everybody sins. And this includes Christians, who shall only be free of sin in heaven. But do you see the danger of this reality? And do you see why this reality is especially dangerous for those raised in Christian homes? You see, if you grow up hearing that we all sin and that we will only be free of sin in heaven, or if soon after becoming a Christian you learn that struggling with sin will always be part of the Christian life, it is easy to get complacent with sin. Answering back to your parents, speeding, lustful thoughts, losing your temper, a lie here and there, cheating at school, bad language, taking longer lunch breaks at work than you are supposed to, jealousy – what’s the big deal! Why should I be concerned about my sin? Everybody sins. Even Christians! This is what it means to be complacent about sin. And it is a danger that all Christian face.

C. But what John said in CH. 1, v9, can also lead to complacency about sin; he said, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” And can you guess were our sinful minds can go with this truth? We think to ourselves that because God is a God of forgiveness, then if we sin, we can just get forgiveness again and again and again. And in actual fact, our hearts are so wicked that in the very act of asking God to forgive us, we can already be giving ourselves the excuse to sin again, of thinking that repeating that sin is inevitable, because we can’t help it, or because we always struggle with this sin, or because its just a part of our personality, or no matter how often I have tried to stop, I just can’t…. But it’s OK, because we all sin and I can just ask for forgiveness, again. One commentator said, “The purpose of God’s forgiveness is to prompt those who experience it not to repeat the mistakes of the past.” But if we instead bank on God’s forgiveness as an excuse to sin again, we have fallen into a dangerous complacency about sin.

D. And so, precisely because Father John knows how what he said in 1:8&9&10 could feed complacency, he says, “My little children, I am writing these things to you SO THAT YOU MAY NOT SIN.” Romans 8:29 tells us that GOD’S PURPOSE IN SALVATION IS TO MAKE BELIEVERS LIKE HIS SON, JESUS. And Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus was and is without sin. Well, the moment you believe that Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of all your sins, you become a child of God. So your eternal destiny is decided. But until you reach heaven, God is like a Master Sculptor and you are like a block of marble. And God is now slowly chiseling away every bit of flawed marble until all that remains is a perfect replica of the Lord Jesus. Everything He is busy doing with you now is designed to completely remove sin from your life.
1. So what does this mean for you as a believer? If you know that this is God’s aim and design, what should be your aim and design? There is an old saying that goes like this: “Aim at nothing… and you will hit it every time.” So if you, in your heart, have the idea that sin is inevitable, well, guess what! you will sin.
2. But if you know, as we have just seen, that God’s aim for you is that you not sin, and that sin is disobedience to God’s law, and that sin is not being ruled by God but being rules by the evil one, does not please God but instead pleases the evil one, and that sin leads to things like poverty, and division, and disease, and divorce, and guilt, and doubt, and even death, and that sin is what brought such terrible agony and suffering to the Lord Jesus, then you must have it as your aim that you not sin! It must be your strong and serious intent that you not sin.
3. God hates sin and so should you. His purpose in salvation is to make you like His sinless Son, Jesus. Everything He is busy doing with you now is designed to completely remove sin from your life. So, “my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” This is the remedy for complacency.

II. But added to everything we have just said about why not sinning should be our aim, it needs to be said also that sin eventually leads us to a sense of utter hopelessness. People feel themselves to be beyond God’s ability to save because they see themselves as having done too much wrong. And it could be that as I have described what it means to be complacent about sin that I am describing you. Perhaps you are adding up the times you have repeatedly committed the same sins or banked on God’s forgiveness as an excuse to continue sinning, and you are without hope. Well, that is why John, our wise Father in the faith, also gives us the remedy for HOPELESSNESS, in the rest of our text: “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

A. If you look back at your life and you see a vast mountain of sin, you need to know that if you believe in the Lord Jesus then ALL your sins are forgiven, forgotten, cancelled, blotted out, cleansed, removed, paid for, atoned, washed away, cleared, pardoned. 1 JOHN 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And even though we might misuse God’s promise here as an excuse for complacency, that does not minimize or alter the power of this promise: “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

B. And if you are hearing this but are still thinking to yourself, ‘You don’t know how much I have sinned and how terribly I have sinned,’ then I have to say to you, Friend, look where you are being pointed. You are not to focus on you and your sins; you are to focus on Jesus Christ, our advocate with the Father.
1. And boys and girls, the best illustration of an ADVOCATE today would be a lawyer who represents your interests at court. Because of his expert knowledge, he can provide a much better defense for you than you could for yourself. But you know what? In NT times, an advocate was not some no-name professional from an office of lawyers but your best friend. You would ask your best friend to serve as your advocate. So what we are being told here is that because the Father loves us as His children, He has provided His Son to be the Advocate we need, and His Son is our best friend!
2. And Jesus is the Advocate we need and our best friend because “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” He doesn’t stand there and argue with God that we didn’t know this was wrong, or that we have done this or that sin less times than we did last week, or that it wasn’t really our fault, or that the Father should also take into account these good things we have done, because “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all” – absolute perfection is the only standard He can accept. No, He reminds the Father that “He is the propitiation for our sins.”
3. And this sounds like it is meant to be good news but the problem is that none of us know what PROPITIATION means, right! Well, earlier in the service we read from Numbers 16 and the story of Korah and Dathan and Abiram’s rebellion. They sinned. And we caught a glimpse of God’s terrible wrath at sin as those men got what they deserved when the “earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up … and they perished.” And then the fire of the Lord consumed the 250 men who had stood with K&D&A in their rebellion. And then, almost unbelievably, given what they had just witnessed, the whole congregation grumbled that in their view this seemed unfair. And we are told that the Lord was ready to destroy the whole nation and begin again with Moses and Aaron. And so, a plague started to spread through the congregation. But Moses had Aaron take his censer and carry it to the congregation “to make atonement for them,” which meant to satisfy or appease or turn away the wrath of God. We read that Aaron “stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.” God chose to accept the incense offering in place of the death of the whole congregation. Well, that offering was a symbol or a type of the greater atonement that the Lord Jesus would make on the cross. For there on the cross He appeased or satisfied or turned away the wrath of God. God chose to accept the sacrifice of His beloved Son in place of the death and condemnation of His chosen people. That’s what propitiation means. It is to turn away or satisfy or appease the wrath of God against sin. And so, the advocate we need, our best friend, Jesus, stands in the presence of the Father and says to Him, Father, I have paid the price for ALL this one’s sins. Pointing to His nail-scared hands and feet, He says, These marks testify that I have suffered ALL the wrath and judgment that this one deserves.
4. And if you are still in any way concerned about your sins and how great they are, Friend, “He is the propitiation for … the sins of the whole world”! Your sins, however repeated and however grievous they might be, are just a tiny part of a very large bucket-load! So don’t listen to the devil. Don’t let Him drive you to hopelessness and despair. Just go to God and say or sing what we sung earlier in the service: “My guilt, my shame, I all confess; I have no hope nor plea but Jesus’ blood and righteousness; be merciful to me.” And believe that God is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you!

C. Now, it would be remiss of me not to at least make one further comment about the last part of v2, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and NOT FOR OURS ONLY BUT ALSO FOR THE SINS OF THE WHOLE WORLD.” For these words appear to say that Jesus died for everyone. And indeed, that is how many people interpret these words. Well, let us be satisfied with these few, brief comments.
1. First – the rest of the Bible makes it very clear that not everyone will be saved. So these words cannot be suggesting a universal salvation.
2. Secondly – remember that an underlying problem in this congregation was the Gnostics. And the Gnostics were a very exclusive bunch. So John’s words here are probably said to counter the kind of limited and exclusive ideas of the Gnostics. And similarly, for many centuries previously, God’s salvation focus was limited, by and large, to just the Jews. So John’s words here are probably also said to counter the kind of limited and exclusive ideas of the Jews. Jesus said to His Apostles that they would be His witnesses “to the ends of the earth,” and that they were to “go and make disciples of all nations…” So “not for ours only but also for the sins of the world” is meant to enlarge the salvation horizons of these believers beyond just themselves.
3. But thirdly, as we have already seen, these words were also PASTORAL words meant to counter hopelessness. If you think your sins are vast, just remember that Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient for the sins of the whole world! But remember also that these words are the words of a father in the faith to his “little children.” And further on in v1, John says, “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ.” And “we” is not everyone. “We” is those who know themselves to be sinners, and who believe that Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of their sins, and who confess their sins because they know that God is faithful and just to forgive them, because Jesus “is the propitiation for our sins.”

Jesus Christ is the remedy for hopelessness. So are you one of the “we”? Are you one of the “little children” for whom these are the wise words of a father IN THE FAITH? Is Jesus your advocate? Amen.