Handling Sin

Text: 1 John 2:1–6 ESV

Welcome to chapter two of 1 John. We titled our series Genuine Faith, and you'll notice that we have three subtitles — three components of genuine faith: loving Jesus, loving others, and living righteously. Each sermon in this series we will end up talking about one, two, or all three of those components. Today, we're going to be touching on at least two of them: loving Jesus and living righteously. 

Another way to think of this series is as an answer to the question, “What does it mean to be a Christian?” Imagine, you meant someone who has never heard of that. What does that mean? What would you say? How would you describe it? 

Being a Christians is not summed up by saying, “Oh, I go to church on Sunday.” It doesn’t even mean, “Well, I read the Bible one time, or prayed a prayer, or I was baptized.” None of those are an accurate summary. So what is it? What does it mean to be a Christian? Well, hopefully this series will help answer that. Hopefully, even the titles and subtitles help. 

You wouldn’t just want to summarize the Christian life as only one of those subtitles, like believe in Jesus. That wouldn't be the whole story. “No, I believe in him, and I follow him.” In the words of our sermon series, I live righteously. It wouldn't be sufficient if all you said of what it means to be a Christian is that you follow the rules that the Bible outlines? No, when you when you fail, and when you fall short, Jesus's blood covers you. 

Of course, you would want to talk about the community, of the fellowship of believers that have been bought, and what it means to love these believers. As we look at verses 2:1–6 today, I’m sure it is no surprise that John is going to talk about what it means to have genuine faith. Here's how I break it down:

• Don’t sin (1a)

• But when you do sin, you have a solution (1b–2)

• But don’t sin (3–6)

Let’s begin with verse one: 

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

John’s got a lot of purpose statements and his letter. But here's one of them: I'm writing to you that you don't sin. Here’s why I think this matters to John at this part of his letter. If we go back and rewind a little bit to where Andrew left us last week, we saw an acknowledgement that we sin. But we have a solution. “If you confess your sins to God, he forgives you and cleanses you.”

Now, we might find it easy to eat that and be like, “Oh, thank heavens. You get me.” Verse 10 is like this wave of relief:

“If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:10 ESV)

Yes, I do sin. I mess up. Thank you. And you can easily then let your mind go too far and say, oh, great, there's a solution if I sin. You know what? I’m just not going to worry about sin. I'm going to do whatever I want. Because if I confess my sins, he's faithful and just to forgive. 

Now John cuts that thought off right at the root. Here's what he says. “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” That brings us back down to reality. If we were tempted to go down that road, John says, that's not the road I'm going down. 

We are going to see in a minute that you do have an advocate. You do have one who takes the punishment that you deserve. But first he has got to let you know, “My goal here is to write so that you would put sin to death, you would kill it.”

This is not the only place in the Bible where that kind of logic is happening. Look a how Romans 6 begins:

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1–2 ESV)

You see a similarity, oh, grace covers my sins? Well, should I just go keep sin because then grace is going to look really good. I'm going to make a really ugly backdrop to the beauty of grace. So why don't I just go out and do as much as I can, so it looks as good as it could.

Here's Paul's answer, “By no means.”

These authors just know so much of the human heart. They know how we might use a loophole to make life easier or to do what we want. I feel like companies have come up with solutions for this, but I remember when I was younger, websites, games, software, etc. would offer free trials and all you needed to do was given an email. 

Oh, I really want to try this. You set up an email, you get a month trial. But then you would need to pay $7.99 a month. All right, go sign up for another email. It just keeps going and going and going. Here I was finding a loophole to get a free trial. Let there be no doubt, left to our own, we would happily find a loophole to let us continue in sin. 

John wants to stop and say there is no loop hole here. That's not where this is supposed to take you. I heard a pastor outline it like this. I’ll paraphrase it here and later. This section feels like John is almost addressing two very different people. The first one we find here. 

The first one is one who falls for the loophole whether they know it or not. What has happened? They just don't care as much anymore about what they do and how they act. And they just live however they want and the other person is someone who just lives under the condemnation of their shortcomings and feels like they don't have a helper, an advocate, a proposition.

Our passage begins (and ends) by first addressing the one who doesn't care how they live. This morning, there may be some of you who John is talking to you. You're here this morning, and if you're honest, you have started to become presumptuous. We've all been there. We will all probably slip into this again. You fall into the mindset of “God will forgive me. so it's okay to do this.” I'll do that this time he's going to forgive me.

You're slipping. You're just drifting, and you might not have even known it happened. All of a sudden you just wake up and you're just thinking, how did I get here? How did I let pride take me to the point of anger? How did I let lustful thoughts linger around so that I’m laying here in this bed with this person or looking at this on my computer screen? How did I let my mouth run so much that right now I'm literally telling some gossip that is way inappropriate for me to be talking about? How did I let food consume me as an idol that I turn to when I'm stressed?

You find yourself indifferent to godliness and worldliness. You're like in a river that if you're not swimming against the current — fighting sin — it's just going to be taking you downstream. You are just coasting. 

I want to say this morning that John is writing to us to awaken. To say, if that's you, I'm writing that you may not sin. If you look at your life and your sin and the fact that you're drifting, and you have let sin take over, let John’s words snap you back to reality. 

Wait, wait a minute. Yeah, you're right, John. If you're a Christian, and you're confronted with that reality, and that's true of you. You would say yes, that’s me. And then you don’t crumble and despair. You don’t hear, “Nope, sorry. Try again next time” You don’t first go out and try to earn your favor back with God. Andrew told us last time where it begins: “If you confess.” The fact that you are willing to bring your sin to the light shows that you are different from one who does not care about that sin.

People don’t come to the light because they don’t want their works exposed so they stay in the dark. John is saying if you hear that you are backsliding, then genuine faith comes to God begins with confession.

John now goes on in the rest of verse one and two to our second point: When you do sin, you a solution — a place to go (1b–2):

“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.” (1 John 2:1–2 ESV)

When you sin, you run to your help. Andrew so helpfully pointed out that this is the kind of good news that allows us to confess our sin. Imagine if after confession you were punished and expelled from God’s presence. Not really signing up for that. But instead, when you do come to him with your sin, you are greeted with an advocate on your behalf and one who paid your penalty. 

Notice first who the advocate is. It is not you. You don’t come presenting a list of good deeds you did to make up for your mistakes. No, you have Jesus, the righteous one as your advocate. The picture is of you, the unrighteous one, the one who was slipping into sin, who drifted into rebellion, and you bring that mess. Next thing you see is the spotless lamb advocating on your behalf. 

Then John describes the advocate as being able to defend you because he is “the proposition” for your sin. I heard a pastor this week say, that's probably the most important term in the Bible — with perhaps the names of God as the exception. Outside of that, he said this was the most important word in the Bible. 

I thought, yikes. When I read the passage, I stopped and thought wait a minute, what does propitiation mean again? I’m guessing most of us can guess its general meaning based on the context, but I was really wanting to make sure I knew what this word meant.

I mean, let’s be honest. We don‘t really use this word that often any more. Really, when's the last time you dropped that word when you were hanging out with your friends? You’re over at their house for dinner. “Hey, how was your day?” “Oh good, you know, the propitiation from today really worked out.” We just don't use this in our day to day life. 

Let's then just take a few minutes to try and make sure we at least have some idea of what this incredibly rich theological term means here. The best place to start when trying to define a word is in the verse and the surrounding context:

“He is the propitiation for our sins,” (1 John 2:2 ESV)

Clearly, propitiation is answering some problem we have with sin. Next best step is to look at other uses of the same word in that book. So turn with me to 1 John 4:10:

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10 ESV)

We get some further confirmation that we are on the right track that this has to do with God’s solution to our problem with sin. 

Now, we can start to ask where else is this word used and what is the problem with sin it is addressing. Quite possibly the clearest and most helpful diagnosis of our problem with sin comes in Romans 6:23:

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 ESV)

Now, we can start to get a picture of the problem, and it’s a big problem. In fact, the same pastor who said this is probably the most important term in the Bible was because it answers the biggest problem in the Bible. What is that problem? 

God, the holy judge has rendered a verdict. The verdict is that our sin must be punished by death. Therefore, if God is going to be just, he must punish sin with death, separation from him, eternal damnation. If he fails to do that, he is not just. God can't just look at our sin and say, “You know what, I’m loving. I’m just going to go ahead and forgive you.” That’s not justice. 

Look at it this way—a good example I heard. Someone comes, and they slaughter your family. You walk in you catch the murder with blood on their hands. But you tie him up and the police grab them. They take them to prison. Court date comes around. The guy stands before the judge guilty as he could be. The judge admits the man is guilty, but then how would you react if the judge was to say, “I'm a loving guy, you know, I forgive you. Go ahead and be free.” How would you react? You would say, “Whoa whoa wait a minute. That's not just. That's not right. He deserves to be punished for his sins.” And you are right. In fact, here is the Bible's own words saying that same truth: 

“He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.” (Proverbs 17:15 ESV)

That judge's verdict would be an abomination. So it would be for God just to look at our sin and say, “You know what? I’m loving, so I’m going to just forgive you.” 

So we have a problem. How can God say things like we are justified and not just condemn us for our sin. Well, that brings us back to propitiation and one of the most important paragraphs in all the Bible, Romans 3, let’s begin in verse 23: 

“and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:24–26 ESV)

This is the answer to our problem. God does punish our sin, but he pushes on his substitute, Jesus. Jesus became the propitiation for us. What Jesus did was satisfy the requirement for justice. He appeased God. He was the solution to this problem. He was the one who took the punishment we deserved. Returning to our verse and context, you can see why John highlights that our advocate was Jesus, the righteous. 

That’s at the heart of the gospel. If you have never come to Jesus and put your trust in him, you can. There will be only one other way to satisfy the justice demanded for sin. You must perish because of sin. But if you would come to Jesus as your propitiation, he will take your punishment, and you will get the second half of Romans 3:23 as your promise: 

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 ESV)

I want you to see and understand how full and deep this love goes. How rich this propitiation is on your behalf. I remember being at Bible camp in Highschool and being undone by understanding God's love for me. He would send his Son to be a propitiation for me. And all my condemnation, all the weight of my sin, gone. Let us never be those who are bored by that news. Let it never become old news.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this happen. But maybe you hear a new song and you just love it. You listen to it over and over. And then all of a sudden, you don't know when, but you're just like, “Eh,” You get kind of burnt out—tired of hearing that song. Would we not be people who ever tire of hearing — if you do sin, you have an advocate because Jesus was your propitiation.

This brings us to the second person John is trying to address. This is the person who when you look at your life, you hear John’s opening line of “I’m writing these things to you so that you may not sin,” and instead of feeling like you have been drifting in life and not taking sin seriously, you instead take sin so seriously that you let it blind you to the fact that you have an advocate and your debt has been paid. 

You're wrecked when you look at your life. And you think like, yeah, I sin and my sin, it's just so it's clear to me. I'm falling short. I'm not living up. You get stuck in guilt, and you can feel weighty, and you can feel like you will never live up. Like, you'll never make it. 

I think John, very lovingly, is coming to those and saying, “But if you do sin, you have a solution.” If that's you, if you're so aware of your sin and you let it condemn you, I want you to hear from John that you don’t need to be overweight by your sin. Jesus has taken your punishment. 

You do not need to live under the condemnation that the devil would so happily have you live under. Because here is what can happen. You may think, I'm not good enough to do that. I'm not good enough to go to that mission field across the international dateline. Or I'm not good enough to discipline them. I'm still growing. Or you think, wait a minute, how could I ever say anything at Bible studies for life groups, or whatever, because, I'm just a hypocrite if I say something.

I want you to hear, you have an advocate. I think most of us are actually a pendulum between these two people. Sometimes we are finding that we are not taking sin too seriously, and we are drifting into rebellion. Sometimes we are taking it too seriously in a way that blinds us to God’s forgiveness. 

That brings us to the last point—don’t sin. Hopefully, these last verses can show us what a right balance of this looks like. The balance is someone who takes sin seriously by pursuing righteousness but also knows where to go when they fall short. When they fall short, they don’t just stop pursuing righteousness. They receive forgiveness and carry one walking, with Christ’s strength, as Christ himself. Look at verse 3–6:

“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, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:3–6 ESV)

Maybe what comes to mind when you hear that is Jesus's word, you'll know that by the fruit. Which is really true. If you've ever gone out to Emmett, for example, to go pick apples, the fact that there's an apple on the tree makes it pretty clear, it's an apple tree.

I remember when we were there last time, we were under a tree having lunch, and we asked, “What is this tree?” There's no apples on it. Oh, it’s a cherry tree. We're definitely coming back for the cherry harvest, like the Cherry Festival, because that sounds awesome. You know it by its fruit.

“By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:5-6 ESV)

 John is saying the same thing. Here is a good litmus test. If you're keeping God's word, you're showing who you are at the root if you are keeping his commandments. And if you're not, if you think that you are a Christian, and you’re like, “Okay, not doing what he says.” John wants you to know that doesn't make any sense. 

Picture it like this. If I told you, 

“Man, yeah, I'm a baseball player, bro.”
“Oh, really? What's your batting average?”
“I don't bat.”
“Oh, you're a pitcher.”
“No, never done that. Nope.”
“Really? Tell me about being a baseball player.”
“I read these books about being a baseball player. They're awesome.”
“Do you ever play baseball?”
“No. I watch baseball though.”
“Yeah. Okay, well, I think you're not actually a baseball player because baseball players actually play baseball.”

If you're saying, “I love Jesus. But I’m not really into following him.” You don’t really love him. You may think that sounds silly. Like no one does that. But first, it happens. It means that there are people who are fooling themselves into thinking they are actually Christians. 

There are also subtler versions of this. I love terms like gospel-centered and gospel-culture. But there is a dangerous, extreme version of that which says you don't have to worry about obeying because obedience is not the goal. They have tried to so overcorrect the problems of the second person, who feels condemned by their sin, that they have sold them a lie that they don’t even need to worry about obedience. 

This line of thought gets so scared of words like obedience and following God’s commands. They rightly say, “We can’t earn our right standing with God. Our justification is not about obedience.” But then they go too far and say that obedience doesn’t matter. Obedience does matter. Here is Jesus’s own words: 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15 ESV)

“Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23 ESV)

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36 ESV)

Listen to this quote from John Piper: 

Christ shed the blood of the new covenant (Luke 22:20) he secured, at infinite cost, not only the forgiveness of our sins (Jeremiah 31:34), but also God’s writing of the law on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). He secured infallibly for all the elect the new covenant promise “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:27).And he did this not by giving us his Spirit and removing all commandments from the New Testament and replacing them with the Holy Spirit. He did it by giving us hundreds of commandments that describe the narrow path of love that leads to life, and then giving us his Spirit so that we would love these commandments, and they would not be burdensome (1 John 5:3), but his yoke would be easy (Matthew 11:30), indeed, more joyful than if there were no commandments at all.

Here’s what I mean by saying I hope these last verses add a balance to the Christian life. It doesn't swing too an unhealthy gospel-centered disregarding obedience, it doesn’t fall into backsliding, and it doesn’t sit under condemnation. Instead, it joyfully lives out the forgiveness and new life we have in Christ by joyfully following him. Listen to these phrases: 

“we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3 ESV)

“walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:6 ESV)

They do that because their life has changed. They do it not as a burden, but out of joy that overflows from their heart. Therefore it is no surprise that the New Testament has commandments. As Piper said, God did not in the new covenant say, don’t worry about any commandments, just live with the Holy Spirit. No, he spelled out a life of love. Look at these commandments from Romans and Ephesians: 

• Outdo one another in showing honor.

• Do not be slothful in zeal.

• Be patient in tribulation.

• Be constant in prayer.

• Contribute to the needs of the saints.

• Show hospitality.

• Bless those who persecute you.

• Live in harmony with one another.

• Repay no one evil for evil.

• Never avenge yourselves.

• Put away falsehood.

• Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

• Let the thief no longer steal.

• Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths.

• Put away all bitterness and wrath.

• Be kind to one another.

• Sexual immorality must not even be named among you.

• Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking.

• Don’t get drunk with wine.

• Children, obey your parents in the Lord.

John wants us to know that if we are people who delight in doing these types of things, then we are showing that we truly belong to God. He wants us to know that genuine faith lives righteously. But he also wants us to know that genuine faith loves Jesus. Genuine faith knows where to go when we fall short. It knows where to go when we need an advocate and a reminder of the proposition on our behalf. 

“The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24–26 ESV)