Fellowship in Forgiveness

Well, good morning. We are beginning this morning to work through the book of First John together. It's our first series, and I want to give a few introductory notes to the book of John. The first thing is one of the reasons I chose John is that it is a very simple book of the Bible. It is written in some of the clearest prose. John is known for this being very clear and precise and easy to read. But I also chose him because along with that clarity and simplicity, there's a great depth to what John says. The words that he uses are used in a simple way, unlike Paul sometimes. Peter says Paul says hard things. But John, he writes with simplicity of depth. talking about the love of God and the work of Christ. And so, as we begin together, I wanted to start out with the simple truths of the Christian life. The second thing we need to look at is that the work may be a letter. It really doesn't have the normal characteristics of a letter. Typically, if you go back to Ephesians or Philippians, you can see that it says, Paul, a bondservant to the churches of. That's your typical greeting. Grace and peace to you. It lacks that. Instead, it has really what is like a prologue, like you see in John 1. As we read it, I think you'll hear the similarities between John 1 and 1 John 1. So I'm not sure if it's technically a letter. We'll keep calling it a letter because the top of my page, it says first letter. And I just say what I see there. But it could be a little sermon. Could be a devotion. It could be a letter as well. Second thing we need to look at, or another thing we want to consider before getting into the work itself, is that it is an occasional piece. Right? John wrote the Gospel of John. The same author is writing the first letter of John here. The gospel of John is a universal declaration that is good for all people at all times to understand who Jesus is and what He has done. It's universally declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ, telling His life, telling His work, describing who He is and what He's accomplished for us. The purpose of the gospel of John is that people may believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. First John, is taking the truth that the gospel of John gave and applying it to a specific occasion. It's kind of like a sermon in that way. What John is doing in this book is he's taking the gospel truth and he's applying it to a specific problem. That's what it means that it's an occasional piece. It's written to a specific occasion. So what was the specific problem or problems that John is writing to? The first reason John writes this letter, in addition to the gospel, is he wants to apply the gospel truth to the error of false teachers arising among the churches. The letter is written to confront and correct false teachers. And there's a number of problems that are happening in these churches that John is addressing. They're attacking the personal work of Jesus Christ. There's a Gnostic group, which we'll define as we get to that particular section. That's denying that Jesus, the Messiah, has actually come in the flesh. They're denying the humanity of Jesus, and they're denying the person of Jesus. Along with that comes a very arrogant spirituality. They're not relying upon the gospel truth that has been revealed by the eyewitnesses, but they're relying only upon their own spiritual experiences. Now, realize the problem isn't relying upon a spiritual experience. The problem is relying only upon a spiritual experience apart from what's revealed in the gospels. Real Christian living looks back to who Jesus was and relies upon the Holy Spirit. They've stopped relying upon Jesus. They're only relying upon their spiritual experience and is leading to an arrogant spirituality. And finally, what we're going to look at specifically today, that leads to a problem in their confession and their morality. They have begun to live as if their behavior has nothing to do with their salvation. Remember last week, we said there's two basic problems that plagued the church then and plagued the church now. One of them is corrected in the Galatians, where people are adding to the work of Christ in two faith. You have to do something in addition to perfect the work of Christ. Well, that's not the problem we're addressing. And John, no, we're addressing the problem that says all you have to do is say a prayer. All you have to do is make a simple confession and then live however you want to. It's using the cross and the person and the work of Christ as an excuse for ungodly living. And so John is writing first to confront these false teachings. But secondly, he's writing to reassure the faithful. Because whenever false teaching enters the church, no matter how foundation, how big and strong your foundation is built, No matter how clear you understand the gospel, when false teaching enters the church, it causes doubt. It causes us to all reflect. And so what he wants to do is correct the false teaching and reassure the faithful. He's wanting to give a clear declaration to the faithful as to how they can have tests for their assurance of salvation. And as most of us are probably aware of, 1 John is your assurance book. When you're doubting, when you're questioning your salvation, assurance is the main issue that's always being brought up. And we're going to see a couple of times here in our first chapter. 1 John is directed to assuring believers how they can know they are walking in the light. Why is assurance so important? Assurance is absolutely necessary for the believer. Because if we're going to be living gospel lives together, I need you to be assured of the gospel. I need you to have assurance of who Christ is and what He's done and who you are in Him so that you can boldly confront me with the gospel when I need it. We need assurance in the body of Christ because we have to boldly apply the gospel, like John does here, to one another. Assurance is necessary for us to strive and be built up and grow in the gospel. Because I'm not going to be bold with the gospel in my conversations with you and in the pulpit if I don't have absolute assurance of who Christ is and what He's done for me and for you. And likewise, we're commissioned to share the gospel with those outside of our membership. outside of these walls and outside of other churches. You're not going to be bold in evangelism if you are not absolutely assured of who Christ is and what He's done. Assurance is foundational for us to be faithful believers. And so let us look at what John has to say about assurance this morning. And assurance has two major aspects. Fellowship and forgiveness. Fellowship and forgiveness. The first section we're going to be looking at this morning is John 1 John 1 verses 1 through 4. And there we're going to see that we are united in fellowship in Christ. We are united in fellowship in Christ. Let's read this section together. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life. The life made manifest, and we have seen it, and testified to it, and proclaimed to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Now, the first observation I think we should see is the repetition of the eyewitness claim. Did you hear it over and over again? There are three different sections. John really gets redundant here. Which we have heard, we have seen with our eyes, we have looked upon, we have touched with our hands, we have seen it, we have testified to it, we proclaim to you. We have seen, we have heard, we proclaim. In case you missed it, he has it three different times. We, the apostles, we who are writing this letter to you, John, as the primary writer, we're claiming that we know the Gospel the clearest. We're claiming an authority over the false teachers because we're the ones who walked with Jesus during His earthly ministry. We're the ones who saw Him resurrected. We're the ones that He told, I will send the Spirit and He will remind you of all things so that you can lead the church in godliness. Now, last week, we contrasted eyewitness accounts with the Bible. And Peter actually argues that Scripture is more authoritative than the eyewitness accounts. But that doesn't mean the eyewitness accounts are unauthoritative. That doesn't mean they lack any authority whatsoever. No, in this particular debate, the eyewitness accounts have absolute authority because these false teachers who never saw Jesus, who've never known Jesus, they're coming in and they're presenting a brand new type of Jesus. What John the Apostles are doing is saying, no, we're the ones that heard him teach. We're the ones that the Spirit has come upon to write down and inspired in their scriptures what he taught and who he was and what he did. So the first thing we see is the repetition of the eyewitness account, because that really is a major claim of authority over against the false teachers. The second thing we should see is that Christ is central to the latter and to the Christian life altogether. Look at the way he describes the different, what is he talking about? So if we look past the eyewitness claims, That which was from the beginning dropped down to the very end of verse one, the word of life. The life was made manifest. The life was the eternal life, which was with the Father and made manifest to us. There are really four descriptions here of who Christ is, and they're very much like John's gospel, and they're very much like other declarations we see throughout Scripture. The first one we see is Jesus is the word of life and he is from the beginning. That is in verse one. He is the word of life. And if we go back, we obviously are hearing John one one in. He was in the beginning and he was with God and he was God. The word was in the beginning. What we hear there is that the Word was at the very beginning. The beginning of what? Well, we know that's echoing Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And how did He create the heavens and the earth? He spoke it into existence. Now, this really magnifies the greatness of God. He spoke the beauty that's all around us into existence. Now, we may have some artists, we may have some engineers, we may have some very creative people here, and we may be able to make things that are attractive and cool and nice and pleasant to the eye, but no one's speaking such beauty into existence. To say that the Word is from the beginning, like God, or as God, is a huge claim, because the Word of life here is speaking of the One who preexisted creation. The Word of Life from the beginning is claiming that He is God Himself. The one John is talking about is just not a man who walked on this earth, but the very God who created the heavens and the earth that we read about in Genesis. Continuing on, not only is He the Creator, it says that He is with the Father. Now, this is where it can get a little complicated. because you have the Word of Life, the Son, who's the Creator, and you have the Father, who is fully God, who's the Creator, but yet we're only going to confess one Creator. Does that mean something's wrong? Does that mean there's some confusion in what John is saying and what the New Testament Church has confessed, that the Son is God and the Father is God and there's only one God? Well, first of all, it's not a mathematical equation. God is infinite. God is spirit. God is completely unlike us, already evident by the fact that He speaks things in creation and we simply form things. So how is Jesus Christ fully God and the Father fully God, and yet both are there as the one creator? Well, I think 1 Corinthians 8.6 is actually a helpful declaration from Paul that gives clarity to this. Paul says there is one God, the Father, from whom all things exist. And there is one Lord, the Son, through whom all things exist. There you see that there are two persons who are participating in the activity of creation. There are two creators. There's only one God who's creating, but each person has a specific role in the creation. It is all from the father and it is through the son. And that makes sense if we read Galatians, because the father is declaring his word through whom he's going to create all things. So if you look at this confession of Jesus Christ, he's the word of life who is equal with the father. He is the very creator himself. He is. the One who has given us life. He has a great power. But beyond that, if we keep looking in verse 2, He is the eternal life. He's not only the God who created life, but He's the God who looked at the life He created, and He watched us all rebel against Him, and He was patient and kind and made promises, and in the very word that created life, came down to bless us with eternal life. He's God, our Savior. The second person of the Trinity came down not only to provide life, but incorruptible, perfect life, so that we who rebelled against him might have peace with God. And finally, the last thing we see, the fourth thing we see is that He was made manifest. We see that twice. We see that He was manifested because the Word became flesh. The One that angels long to look upon. The One that was promised to Abraham and Moses and all the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah. The One that was promised and every prophet in the Old Testament longed to look upon. Well, He's been made known. And John got to see Him, to worship Him, to deny Him, and to be redeemed by Him. To see Him in His resurrected body. The one that we have all been waiting for has arrived. And we continue to wait for Him to be manifested again. Now, the third part of This section. Begins halfway through verse three, and I like John again, this is the simplicity, he makes it very clear what he's doing. He has a purpose in what he's proclaiming to us. He's writing so that you, too, may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the father and his son, Jesus Christ. Now, what is Christian fellowship? What is the fellowship that John is talking about? Well, let's say what it's not. Let's describe how Christian fellowship is different from other groups that would claim to be fellowshipping together. The first way Christian fellowship is not, it is not a meeting or a gathering for selfish reasons. It's not a club or a community that gathers over a like interest. It's not a country club that we all gather because we like playing golf. Playing golf is fun. Gathering others who play golf is fun, but it's not the church. We're not coming together just for a common interest or a common hobby. I'm not just here because I need other people to play a game. I'm not here for selfish reasons. I'm not gathering with you for my own benefit. Secondly, Christian fellowship is not a meeting merely to help other people. There are other groups that gather to help other people and that are completely selfless. We think of a soup kitchen. We think of Habitat for Humanity. These are groups of people who have good hearts and want to help other people. We are gathering for a different reason. We're not just gathering to help one another. So what makes us so unique? What makes Christian fellowship so distinct? Christian fellowship is unique because it is meeting together to experience Christ and one another. Christian fellowship is different. Christian fellowship is unique because it's gathering together to experience Christ and one another. You see, what makes Christian fellowship Unique is the fact that whenever two, or three, or a hundred, or a hundred and fifty of us are gathered together, someone else joins in. Someone else comes down and meets with us. It's Jesus Christ Himself. We are all enthralled by the Spirit. Whenever we come together, Christ says He will magnify His glory among us if we truly meet for the purpose of Christian fellowship. And that is to experience. Jesus Christ in each other. So how does that that's a great abstract concept that I'll admit I'm completely stealing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in our life together, if you want to read more about this. There you go. But I think it's true, and I think it's clear from this passage, even because John says that you may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is is with God. You're not just coming to get to hang out with people you like. No, you're coming to meet with other believers so that you can experience Christ in them. So what does this look like? Well, when we come together, we're coming as a people who confess our brokenness together. We're coming as a people who are going through various trials. We're coming as a people who have various backgrounds and educations and vocations and life situations. And as we meet together, we should be pursuing what is God doing in each one of us. Our conversations aren't about golf or some other activity. Our conversations in true Christian fellowship is about Jesus Christ and what he's doing in each one of us. An example of this already I've experienced this morning. Ed gave a testimony in Sunday school about how he raised his children. And the joy that he has now that he raised his children to honor him, and his children now love him, and they're friends. You see, I need advice as a young, naive man. a young naive husband, a young naive father. I need to hear words from brothers and sisters who are in a different stage of life, who have experienced more life and experienced more Christ. I need to hear words from other brothers and sisters and what Christ has done for them so that I can know how to best experience Christ in my present life. I need to hear how Christ is confronting you of sin. So that I can be humbled and analyze my own life to see if that sin is existing in me and if I need to be confronted by that sin. I need other brothers to come and point out my sin so that I can experience Christ more. I need to watch and learn from brothers and sisters who persevere in suffering. We need to learn to see the glory of perseverance and suffering together. Because that's where Christ is magnified and glorified. So, brothers and sisters, every single one of us was raised with the ideal survival of the fittest. We were all taught that and trained to think that. And a lot of us live that. Because we're afraid to talk about our infirmities. We're afraid to talk about how unfit we are. We're afraid because we've adopted little slices of that worldview that we deny in principle. We're afraid to talk about how weak we are and how much we need other people and how much we need Christ. No, the Christian worldview is that the weaker I proclaim myself to be, the greater Christ is exalted. The weaker I am able to see myself to be, and the weaker we come together and confess ourselves to be, the more Christ is exalted. If we want to see Christ magnified, if we want to see Christ and experience Him among one another, we have to stop being selfish with our sufferings. We have to stop being afraid of our infirmities. We have to stop being afraid of talking about our sin and how broken we are. Because it's those precious moments that will help us to experience true Christian fellowship. It'll help me see Christ and how He has worked in you and through you. To hear your testimony, to hear how He brought you out of the domain of darkness, to hear how He continues to keep you in His kingdom of life. Brothers and sisters, we need to have a culture. We need to have a fellowship where Christ is always on our lips. And He's on our lips most clearly when we're talking about how He is strong and we are weak. How He's the healer and we're sick. We're going to talk more about this. This is exactly where John takes us. Our next section. is really going to give us rules so that we can have fellowship with one another. Again, I like rules now. These are rules to play the game of fellowship. And as we read this, I want you to be listening for two particular aspects, two particular components that run through this section. And notice how they're intertwined. They're woven throughout. There's our deceit and darkness that destroy, and there's Christ's word that forgives and his light that purifies. To speak more generally, there's a problem and there's a solution. And as we read it, the hard truth is we're the problem, Christ is the solution. There's our lies, his truth, our sin, his forgiveness. So as you read that, be listening for these two components. Verse five, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light. We have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. 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. He is the propitiation of our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 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 as a liar and the truth is not in him. 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. So, brothers and sisters, I hope we we heard those two components. Our deceit and darkness that destroy us were mentioned in verses 6, 8, 10, and chapter 2, verse 4. Christ's word that forgives us is declared throughout in so many precious ways. He purifies us. He forgives us. He's our advocate. He's the righteous one. He's our propitiation. And if we're going to have true Christian fellowship, we have to make sure that both of these components are always present. in our conversations, in our life together. Now, one of the great declarations here, it's the simplicity of John. This is the message we proclaim to you. God is light and in him is no darkness at all. One of the motifs that John has is he's always contrasting light and darkness. It's kind of like Star Wars in that way. Only there are no lightsabers. Also, there's, instead of having a personal, Star Wars doesn't have a personal power. God is a personal being who is light, and light has personal power in us. So, Star Wars is an impersonal power. Another contrast would be the fact that light will conquer darkness. Light is necessarily more powerful than darkness. Whereas in Star Wars, there are two equal forces. So really, in conclusion, there's nothing like this in Star Wars. It's completely different. Because the God that we know as Light is the one true personal God who comes and will conquer darkness. There's no if. God is light. He is perfect. And what makes him different from us, not only is he the one who creates ex nihilo, but he is light and there is no darkness in him at all. And now that's contrasted with us, isn't it? Who are filled with darkness. We are filled with darkness. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that what's being attacked here by the light is our own sin. If we truly desire to fellowship with one another as Christians, if we truly desire to have fellowship with Christ in one another, we must be clear about our sin. And the first thing I want us to look at is our deception. We need to properly diagnose the problem so that we can truly appreciate the solution. Let's look at verses eight and 10, because they are similar in the way they address our deceit and darkness. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Now, here the particular problem is people saying they have no sin. This is the spiritual arrogance that was taking place. They were actually saying that they had been lifted up and out of the realm of sin. There was no sin that took place in their hearts. There was no sin that took place in their behaviors. Well, this is a destructive and difficult lie itself. It's self-deception to say, we have no sin. But it's really easy to fall into that self-deception that leads us to think that we have no sin. See, each one of us have believed in a lie. At some point in our lives, we said to ourselves, you know what, what I'm about to do, I know it ain't right, but I really want to do it. It'll just be once. No one's going to be hurt by it. No one else will even know. It's done here in private. What happens is that little lie that sets you in pattern to where you continue to participate in whatever sin that is. You start justifying your sin and saying it's just a little sin. It's just a little problem. It's done in private. No one will ever know. Well, what you do is you set forth a pattern to where what you once recognized as sin, you now think it's just the normal way of doing things. You've justified it to the point where you now think your sinful desires and your sinful actions and your sinful behavior, it becomes normative. And to the point you start saying, well, I'm just human. Everybody else is doing it. It's not hurting anybody else. It's only in private. For it's easy for us to get into a pattern of sin. Once we begin to justify it, to continue to deceive ourselves. That's why we need other brothers and sisters in our lives to keep us from lying to one another, to ourselves, to keep us from believing in the lies and to analyze our lives in light of the gospel. Let's think of some specific ones, because what we have to do is recognize that we believe in a little lie and what we're doing is we're attacking God at some level. When we believe in a lie that leads to self-deception, that leads to us thinking something is not a sin, what we've done is attack God at some level. So how do we protect our hearts from deceit? How do we protect our hearts? Well, first, let me talk to the children. We are blessed with a number of children among us. And I want to make it clear that the one command in Scripture that is specifically for you is for you to honor your mother and father. The specific command for you is to honor your mother and father. Now, as you obey your parents, this is the question. Do you obey out of a desire to honor them? Or do you obey begrudgingly because you know you have to? Obedience is great. But what I want to challenge you today with is whenever you are asked of something from your parents, they ask you to do something, they tell you to do your chores, they give you instruction. Ask yourself, am I going to obey merely or am I going to start disciplining my desire? Am I going to start exercising that desire that says, I'm going to do this out of honor? It's not mere obedience that glorifies God in the home. It's your desire to honor God. It's your desire to obey your parents out of honoring them. It's your desire to honor God. It's your desire to honor God. It's your desire to honor God. It's your desire to honor God. It's your desire to honor God. It's your desire to honor God. It's your desire to honor God. You are blessed with parents who love God. You are blessed with parents who have your best desires and your best ends in mind. And it is for your good that you obey them and that you honor them. Adults. Let's go back to thinking about that particular little private guilty pleasure you justify. It's not little. Because once we start allowing that little pleasure that is lurking there, seeking to devour you, once you start giving it little pieces of your heart, little pieces of your desires, it's going to corrupt and pervert everything about you. It's not little. Because once you start giving it a taste, it's going to consume more, and you're going to give it more. It will overtake you and change you. Secondly, it's not private. Because sin is always manifested publicly, no matter what. Sin will always affect you and your closest loved ones. Now, let's get to a specific sin. This age is particularly sexually charged. You cannot go out of your home. You can protect your home, but that's about it. You cannot go out of your home and not notice how sexuality is flaunted in every way in this society. And the temptation is always to notice this and to be entertained by it. You see, we may think that little private, secret, guilty glance at something inappropriate or those thoughts and those daydreams about something that's little and secret and a guilty pleasure in terms of romance. Anything you are thinking about or letting yourself be entertained by that is a perversion of the opposite sex changes everything. It's not little because it's going to change the way you think of other men or other women. If you're married and you're allowing yourself to think about other women, it's going to change the way you think about your wife. It's going to affect the way you love her. It's going to destroy the way you're supposed to be thinking of her and loving her alone. Women, if you entertain ideas of romance from magazines, If you're allowing a false view of what love is to always be in your mind, you're going to be thinking of your spouse and making him live up to wrong, ungodly expectations. These little pleasures are not little. They're not private because they affect everything around us, but they are guilty. We could list other sins. How we think it's okay to be angry and angry in private. We can yell in the car whenever someone slams their brakes in front of us and we can express anger privately. As long as no one else sees it, it's okay. No. That anger that you're feeding in every moment is just devouring more of your heart. It's just a matter of time before it devours someone else. Friends, we claim we do not have sin that really matters. I know every one of us will confess, oh, I'm a sinner. I know I'm a sinner. I'll admit I'm a sinner. How far have you really looked into your heart and in your behavior and in your actions and consider the depth of your sin? Be afraid of justifying your sin. Here's a test to see how well you think about yourself as a sinner. When you confess your prayers to Jesus, when you confess in your prayer to Jesus your sin, do you just simply say at the end of the day, Lord, I'm a sinner, I've sinned, please forgive me? Now, that's obviously following in some way the pattern of that Jesus taught us to pray, but is that specific enough? To simply end the day, Lord, I've sinned, forgive me? No, I think that's just evidence of a heart and a mind that hasn't disciplined itself enough to really pursue the depth of the soul, the depth of perverse motives, of perverse desires. How specific are your prayers for forgiveness? I beg you to not just pray the prayer, forgive me my sins. Look into the specific sins. Ask your spouse or your friends what specific sins you need to ask forgiveness for if you have a hard time finding them. The second test. If we believe we're supposed to be in fellowship with one another and we believe we're sinners, we're going to sin against one another. That's inevitable. It's just like in marriage. You get two sinners living that close together or in your roommate situation. You get that many sinners living that close together. There's going to be sin against one another. If we believe that's true, when was the last time you asked someone for forgiveness of your particular sin? When was the last time you witnessed someone and gave a true honest, I am completely wrong. Please forgive me. For my wrong actions, for my wrong words, for my hurtful words to you. So that's a test to see how well we actually acknowledge we are sinners. The problem with the church is that we can easily just pretend everything's OK. The test. When was the last time you had to ask forgiveness? And not one of these apologies I used to try to slide by my wife. I'm sorry, but. That's not an apology. The but was always an added on self-righteousness, but this was the circumstances that led to what I did. I'm not really culpable. No. One of the most amazing things, if we look at this text, is in verse 10. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar. If we say we have not sinned, we are stating that Christ is a liar. Christ's Word has come to us to confront our darkness. That's why He had to come and die. Our darkness. When we say we haven't sinned, we're saying He came for a lie. We didn't need that. No, Christ came to heal sinners. If we deny that we're sinners, proclaiming Jesus came for the wrong reason, He was confused, or rather, He lied about us. Notice the gravity of your confession of sin. The second major way that we are the deceptors in the darkness in the passage is the fact that We claim to have fellowship while we walk in darkness. One of the main aspects we need to look at here is that John says that we are to live out the truth. This is in verse six in chapter two, verse four. If we're truly going to be confessing Christ in the fellowship, we're confessing that we're sinners, but we're also going to be pursuing truth. We're confessing we are living in darkness, but we're going to pursue the light. One of the main questions we have to look at in chapter 2, verse 1, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. Now, how does that relate to the fact that he just said you can't say you don't have any sin? Well, the sin that we ought to be aware of is the sin that's always lurking and here in the present danger inside of us. I think what he's referring to here in the fact that you may not sin is an intentional pursuit of sin, a lifestyle of sin, walking in sin constantly. It's those who are intentionally pursuing sin without any fear of its circumstances. Those are the ones who are also lying. Because they're not living out as the confession that Christ is both their God, their Savior and their Lord. Let's look at the major component here that's still left, and that it is Christ's Word that forgives us and gives us light. Look 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. Since He was the second person of the Trinity, the Son who was with the Father from the very beginning as the one God, He is also our advocate. He is the righteous one. Our propitiation. See, we are unrighteous. The more we understand the depth and the gravity of our sin, the depth and the gravity of our darkness, the more we're going to appreciate the fact that Christ had no darkness. He was light. Christ had no sin. He was perfect. And he came to offer us the sweet exchange, he came to be punished as one who is unrighteous, even though He is the Righteous One. You see, on the cross, the Righteous One, the One who knew no sin, He was nailed to that cross. And that wasn't the most pain He felt that day. The pain He felt the greatest was the pain He felt when the Father put wrath upon Him. You see, the Son deserved no wrath because He had no sin. No, the wrath he experienced was the wrath that we're supposed to experience. The wrath he experienced was for our sin, because if our sin gets in the presence of a holy God, his wrath is going to be poured out upon it because he is holy. God's wrath was poured out upon Jesus so that when we place, we put our faith in him, his wrath is removed from us. And instead of receiving wrath from God, we receive love. We receive blessing. We receive adoption as sons and daughters of Jesus Christ, because His righteousness is placed upon us. That's the sweet exchange, friends. Our unrighteousness, our wickedness, our darkness is put on Him and He suffers the wrath of God. And He puts His righteousness His loyalty, His obedience, His sonship. He puts that on us. It's a sweet exchange. We get everything. We get new life. We get eternal life. We get to be sons and daughters of the Father. Because He became our propitiation. Which means the wrath of God was satisfied. We have to do nothing else but place our faith in Jesus Christ to have the wrath removed from us. It is satisfied. It is done. The wrath of God has been perfectly and justly poured out upon the infinite Savior who conquered it. Who conquered our sin and death. Friends, as we close, I want to think about those who may not be believers among us. And you may be thinking, I do not care to have anything to do with a wrathful God like the one you're talking about. Well, first friend, I'm not sure if you really have that option. You may not like that wrathful God. You may not like that holy God. But if we take Scripture seriously, if we take the depravity of man seriously, We take what Christ came and has done for us seriously. We realize we don't have the option to choose what kind of God we're going to serve. Secondly, I think you actually do like a holy and wrathful God. Because when people sin against you, when people have done wrong against you, you want them to suffer the consequences. You do believe in holiness. You do believe in wrath. You do believe in vengeance. You do believe in a proper order. You just do not want to be held accountable to the same standard you put upon others. For you may not like the idea of a wrathful God, but the nearer you come to terms with the truth of God and His holiness and His wrath upon your sins, the more attractive and the sweeter and the more glorious that humble life of Jesus Christ will become. The one who died so you do not have to suffer wrath. Friends, as we close, let us think about the assurance of salvation we have. And the fact that Jesus has come, the Creator came down to redeem us, and now we can have assurance because He's given us His Holy Spirit, as we know in other texts. He's given us His Word in Scripture. And this morning, as we looked at it, we can see that it's our fellowship we can have assurance. In our fellowship together, we should be pointing out evidences of grace among one another. We should be telling each other, I see God's work in you, in your service, in your love, in your godliness, in your perseverance. We need to be a church that fellowships around telling others where they see God working in each other. And we also need brothers and sisters to come and give us assurance by pointing out our sin, by confronting us in the way they've sinned against us, and offering a Christ-like forgiveness. When we confess our sins to one another in the fellowship, we should be quick to say, I know by the gospel of John, by the gospel of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the whole of Scripture, that if you confess this with a true repentant heart, you are forgiven. in Jesus Christ. We can have assurance among one another because we can be assuring one another of the great, powerful, infinite forgiveness that Jesus Christ gives. Let's pray together. Almighty God, we come before you and we praise you. We thank you, Lord, that you have created us to know you. And even though our hearts Our hearts have hated You at times. Our hearts have run away from You and rebelled against You. You sought us out. And not only have You sought us out, You came down to us to die for us, to rise again, to give us assurance of life as our Advocate at the right hand of the Father. And Lord, You've given us Your Spirit. And today, we thank You that You've given us one another. You've given us a fellowship where we can experience You in each other, in hearing the words of forgiveness, in hearing words of how You manifest Yourself in us. Lord, be manifested today as we confess our sins and lift You up. In Your holy name we pray, Amen.