1 John 1:5-2:2
Notes
Transcript
1 John 1:5-2:2
1 John 1:5-2:2
Good morning church! Welcome back to all of the ladies that were at the retreat last weekend, we missed you and are glad that your here this morning. The men would like to ask all of you to return the favor and begin to pray for our retreat in September as we did for yours as there is power in prayer.
Sadly, we didn’t make it very far last week, so if you want to read the first 4 verses while I’m getting started here, you’ll be all caught up. But first, we get to do one of my favorite things this morning, we have some child dedications to do, and our first one with twins…so can I get elders and your wives up here if you are present. I know we have a few at the weekend to remember marriage conference.
Baby Dedication
Baby Dedication
Just to be clear there are two ordinances that we recognize as part of the New Testament church, those being baptism and holy communion. What we are doing here this morning is neither of those, it is not a requirement, it is a commitment. See we practice what the Scriptures teach concerning baptism, that we are to believe and then be baptised. That a decision must first be made to follow Jesus, and then baptism is a public profession of what has occured on the inside between you and the Lord.
A Baby dedication is a commitment of parents in the church to raise up their children in the Lord. To teach them how much their Creator loves them personally, that He became flesh and died for them, taking upon Himself the penalty for their sin, and to train them up learning His written Word.
This act is done before God and the church for the purpose of us coming alongside of them to help and to hold them accountable. We see this being done by Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus.
"21 And when eight days were fulfilled so that they could circumcise Him, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. 22 And when the days for their cleansing according to the Law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord" - Luke 2:21-22 LSB
SO this is what we are doing here this morning. So Casey and Abigail, you are committing before God and your church family to raise these little ones teaching them about Jesus, instructing them in the Word of God, and modeling what it means to be a follower of Christ by example in your own lives. And church we are committing to love them, assist them, and hold them to this promise that they are making. Deal? OK, lets pray....
All right…I want to read through our text this morning in it’s entirety and then we will go back through it. So, 1 John chapter 1 beginning in the 5th verse...
5 And this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not do the truth;
7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
Terrible spot for a chapter break, so lets keep going.
1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
Now, I understand that this is a short little letter and that so far, we are not off to an impressive start. I mean only 4 verses last week, and with a 100% improvement, we’re shooting for 8 this week, but this is an important letter and I don’t want to risk missing anything.
Let me remind you of the things that John had in mind when he sat down to write this letter to the churches. Some of the reasons he gave, or his purpose behind the pen. In verse 4 of this chapter he said...
4 And these things we are writing, so that our joy may be made complete.
We spent a lot of time on this particular point last week, so I won’t today, other than to say that if your joy is lacking, if it is not fully complete, then dig into this letter. Read all 5 chapters each week during the week, it will help you in our studies and in your Growth Groups.
Also, John tells us more about God, I think than any other writer, concerning His attributes. He tells us in John 4:24
24 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
John tells us more about this joy that we can have in the gospel of John, in the 15th chapter. There he quotes Jesus as saying...
9 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.
10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
He goes on to explain in the next chapter that prayer has an important position relating to our Joy...
23 “And on that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.
24 “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made complete.
So that is a desire of John for us and one of the reasons he wrote this letter, the second, I already read this morning, in chapter two verse one.
1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
Also in chapter 2, verse 26 he tells us it is written so that we will not be deceived, and in chapter 5, so that we can know.
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
So, again who wouldn’t want to have their joy be complete, to have freedom, not just from the penalty of sin, but also the pull of sin? None of us want to be deceived, we gather because we want to study the truth, and I want to know that I know, that I really do have eternal life in Heaven, and I haven’t somehow been tricked into believing something that’s not true. So we are in a good spot.
One of the other things that John makes us aware of is False Professions that people make. I think there are 6 in total that he illuminates for us, and we have three of those this morning to look at together. So lets dig into this verse by verse and see what we can mine from it. Verse 5
5 And this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
It is so important to understand that this is not the thoughts of John, or a my imp W ressions of Jesus blog. John tells us that this that we received from Him is what I am giving to you, and then be basically condenses His gospel and this letter by saying…God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. Light illuminates darkness. It is under the cover of darkness that much evil is done…etc.
And now in verse 6 we come to our first of the false professions people make...
6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not do the truth;
Brian Porter did a great job for us men yesterday talking about fellowship and the importance of fellowship. But John is talking about a false claim here. That people can profess something that is not actually true, even folks that aren’t lawyers or politicians.
People can claim to know God, claim to have relationship with God, and yet John says don’t go by their talk, the true examination is in their walk. Are they walking in darkness, or are they walking in light? Now, I want to be careful to point out that he says walk in darkness, not a slip or a fall, etc...
He also says, and I think this is super important today, He points out that we do not do the truth. Sadly, a common expression that we hear in today’s world, is “well, that;s not my truth, or this is my truth.” There is truth, and there is error. We don’t get to define what truth is God does, in fact Jesus says He is truth.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.
So, we can’t claim to be in relational fellowship with God, and then disregard everything about God in the way that we live our lives. Verse 7
7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
if we do, means we can. Not a state of complete and continuous sinlessness. But walking in the light, abiding in Christ. Every once and a while a church movement will claim that this state of sinless perfection can be obtained and sustained. Certainly the bible speaks of sanctification and that is the process of becoming more and more like Jesus the longer that we walk with Him.
However, to never have a sinful thought, to never fail in a fight against temptation, just doesn’t happen for us, or at least not yet for me this side of Heaven. There is a funny story concerning this and the old English preacher, Charles Spurgeon. I spent some time trying to verify whether or not it was true, but couldn’t find anything definitive. It has been repeated many times, but that doesn’t make it true either. So, I share it and can only say, I hope it was a true story. Charles Spurgeon and another man were both sharing at a conference.
The other man started talking about this state of sinless perfection that a man could reach and his evidence for it was that he had experienced it in his own life. Some versions claim the man professed to having been in this sinless state for the past 5 years. Well, Spurgeon did not confront him on the topic immediately, but rather waited until breakfast time the following morning when he came up behind the man and dumped an entire pitcher of cold milk over his head. As you can imagine the man responded as a sinner.
But our response to this shouldn’t be complacency. Well, everyone sins, or hey I’m not perfect, or my pastor’s not perfect, so what can you expect? Just as sinless perfection this side of Heaven isn’t biblical, neither is complacency, nor stagnation. We’re not to sit still, we are to be walking in the Light, moving forward, growing in our faith and relationship with Jesus, and…some of you might not want to hear this…but he goes on to say that if we are walking in the light, then we are going to have fellowship with others that are walking in the light. Other Christians…now I know some of you don’t have any interest in hanging out with me…I’ll just assume you’re walking in darkness…No, kidding.
God want’s fellowship with me, and I think that’s crazy! But man, I want that. And John is telling us that if we are walking in the light, we’re actually going to desire to have real fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ! Now, look at the end of this verse...
And the blood of Jesus cleanses us from ALL sin…etc, Now we have another false profession that people may say...
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
We are sinners by nature at birth...
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
from all unrighteousness
Guzik
Our sins are not forgiven because we confess. If this were the case—if forgiveness for a sin could only come where there was confession—then we would all be damned because it would be impossible for us to confess every sin we ever commit. We are forgiven because our punishment was put upon Jesus, we are cleansed by His blood.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
Because God says that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Romans 3, 23
1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
Not limited Atonement!
Grace and Peace