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It has been said by someone, somewhere, that we live in a world that is satanically controlled, in rebellion against God, and under a curse. Or to put it another way, as the great Rocky Balboa said, “Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.” We all know that life is hard through personal experiences. Our society also knows life is hard with the mental health crisis going on in our nation, especially among younger people. Depression and anxiety seem to be running rampant in the world around us. This is because institutions such as governments, false religions, and popular people, that claim to have the answers and solutions are found empty and lacking.
There is only one answer for all the problems of life. This answer is found in the source of truth, goodness, mercy, love, hope, justice, and joy. The solution for the darkness of this world is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Messiah Yeshua. Only with Messiah Yeshua as the foundation of our lives can we be transformed and have hope that will never fail us. This morning, we will be examining together 1 John 2:1-6, which explains to us how we can experience this transformation. 1 John 2:1-6 teaches us that our sinful lives are transformed through Messiah Yeshua’s atonement and advocacy, which also equips us to follow His teachings.
1 John is a letter written by John, the Beloved Disciple, to those who follow Messiah Yeshua. This letter is full of encouragement and teaches us how to know if we are true followers of Adonai. At the end of 1 John 1, we are told that those who consistently walk in darkness are not true Disciples. We are also told that if we claim to be sinless, we are deceiving ourselves. In this first chapter we also have a beautiful promise from the Lord, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 2 begins with restating the purpose of this important letter.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
The way the Apostle John writes this is like a parent writing to their child. Messiah’s Community are seen as little children, who are loved by their parents but need to be taught how to think and act. It is written for those who want to understand John’s message and apply it to their lives. This message begins with a command to not sin.
Sin is one of those words we use all the time but may not truly understand. So, what exactly is sin? Sin is anything that disrupts our relationship with Adonai and with other people. Violating God’s commands are more than just doing something “wrong”. We place distance and distress between ourselves and the Lord. Sin creates a barrier between our Creator and also His community.
Sin is the root cause of every problem in our society. Every single issue, big or small, global or just in our own lives, can be traced to sin. This profound brokenness floods our world and leaves a constant path of destruction. Sin is like a huge tsunami that washes over the entire world creating enormous devastation. Except this is a tsunami that reappears repeatedly every single day, every single hour, every single moment.
Yet in this first verse, we are instructed not to sin. We can be given this command because of our wonderful Messiah. Through Messiah Yeshua, we can overcome the tsunami of sin and have hope in such a devastated world. We can experience every day the transforming and equipping power of the Lord. But as John told us in the previous chapter, if we claim to be sinless, we are deceiving ourselves.
As Disciples, we strive to live lives as sin-free as possible. Lives that are transformed through the power of Adonai. But when you are clean it is much easier to recognize being dirty. When we sin after becoming part of Messiah’s Community our sins can seem magnified and cause us to despair. This despair is also amplified by Satan. Satan’s goal is for us to feel hopeless and then abandon our relationship with the Lord and each other. This is not what the Lord wants us to do. So, when we sin we are promised a powerful advocate.
But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Messiah Yeshua the righteous.
If we do sin, we have this promise from the Lord. We have an advocate in Messiah Yeshua. This word translated as advocate is a difficult word for English. It is sometimes translated as Helper or Comforter. This word is also used in John’s Gospel to describe what the Holy Spirit does for us. So, when we sin, Messiah Yeshua acts on our behalf. He advocates, helps, comforts, and counsels us.
When we see people we love hurting, our first instinct is to rush to their aid. If your child, spouse, parent, friend, or pet, was in danger you would drop everything to save them. Messiah Yeshua acts as this kind of advocate for us. Standing before God the Father, He declares us forgiven based on His righteousness every time we sin. This is the opposite of the work of Satan, who wants us to sin, orchestrates temptations, and then accuses us when we fall.
But Messiah Yeshua is greater than Satan and His righteousness is greater than our sinfulness. He is able, more than able, to be our advocate no matter the situation. God loves us so much that He refuses to abandon us even when we want to be abandoned. Messiah Yeshua is with us through the best and the worst days of our lives. We know this to be true because of John 10:27-28, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” In moments of failure, The Lord is with us both personally and through the Holy Spirit. He comforts and encourages us to not give up and instead experience more of His transforming power. His advocacy is our defense.
As fallen human beings we do not need to be taught how to defend ourselves. Catch any small child misbehaving and they will have an excuse for why they broke a clear rule. As we grow older our excuses and rationalizations become much more complex and often more damaging. We often hurt others when we justify our reasons for treating people poorly.
It is hard to take responsibility for our actions, but we must as Believers. In these low moments, we do not need to advocate for ourselves. We should do the opposite, we need to freely and honestly acknowledge our sinfulness, repent, and know our judge is also our defense. Messiah Yeshua’s defense through His advocacy is made possible through His atonement.
He is the atonement for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Messiah Yeshua’s sinless life and death atones for our sins. Every other human being is guilty of sin, guilty of harming our relationship with the Lord and other people. Our sinfulness causes us to be unable to stand before our holy, righteous, and perfect Creator. We are also deserving of the punishment for our sins. Fortunately, Messiah Yeshua died so that our sins could be washed away, like washing away dirt in the shower. If sin is a tsunami, then Messiah’s atonement is a cleansing spring rain that refreshes and restores everything it touches.
This atonement, His sinless death for our mistakes, was for the whole world. Messiah Yeshua died so that people from every nation throughout all time could have their relationship with Adonai restored. No matter how great your sins are, or when they happen, Messiah Yeshua’s sacrifice can wash them away and turn away His judgment. This atonement is available for everyone, but it requires us to become His Disciples.
So, in these two verses, John tells those who follow the Lord that we have advocacy and atonement through Messiah Yeshua. These two great ministries transform our broken lives. When Messiah Yeshua becomes our Lord, He enters our hearts and begins the process of putting us back together. This transformation changes us into the best versions of ourselves. We become more like our wonderful perfect Messiah. We are better able to resist sin, become sensitive to it in our lives, and experience real freedom and rest. Sin is the source of everything terrible in our lives, Messiah Yeshua is the source of everything wonderful. Asking the Lord to save us from our sins and then following Him is the most important decision we will make. Nothing is more important than restoring our relationship with Adonai.
Each one of us needs Messiah’s atonement and advocacy. Unfortunately, many people avoid confronting this important issue. But even more dangerous are those who convince themselves they are going to heaven when they are not. They claim to belong to Adonai when they have yet to be transformed. How can we know if we are following the Lord and experiencing His advocacy and atonement? Verses 3-6 in 1 John 2 give us one answer to this all-important question.
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
Knowing the Lord is more than intellectual knowledge. It is not just checking some theological boxes. To know Adonai is to be in a covenant with Him, to be in a formal relationship. Those who are part of this relationship experience the blessings of God such as advocacy, atonement, and eternal life. Those who are not in this relationship will not experience these blessings. This verse makes it clear that we can know if we are in the right relationship with our God if we keep His commandments.
Now you might be asking, which commandments? Is this the Ten Commandments? The commandments of the Mosaic Covenant? The greatest of the commandments? Likely John is referring to the entire teaching of Messiah Yeshua. Several Messiah’s commands are repeated in 1 John, such as loving our brothers and sisters and believing in the message of Messiah Yeshua. Following the commandments of the Lord means applying the entirety of His teachings to our lives. This can seem complicated with debate about the Lord’s teachings. There was even some debate among the Apostles! However, most of the Lord’s teachings are very clear on how we are to live. This is not a popular message today and was an issue even during the life of the Apostle John. Many people want to advocate for a reinterpretation of God’s Word that focuses on their desires. They want to ignore teachings that they disagree with or add their own commands. If this is the way we are living our lives, we should be very concerned. John goes on to give us a further warning.
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,
Sometimes the word of God can seem complicated and unclear. Fortunately, we have verses like 1 John 2:4 which reveals difficult truths. If we claim to know the Lord, to be His follower, and do not keep His commandments, we are lying to ourselves and others. This can seem like a harsh teaching, but it must be harsh because the subject is so serious. Our relationship with the Lord is a matter of life and death. Thinking we are redeemed when we are not is a danger that cannot be overstated.
As John said earlier, everyone sins and falls short of perfectly keeping Messiah’s commandments. This is not a message for Believers who confess their sins, battle against their fallen nature, and acknowledge God’s truth. Verse 4 is about a person who has deceived themselves and others about the clear teachings of the Lord. This is the person who embraces false teachings. False teachings such as Messiah Yeshua not being God. Or that certain people do not need His atonement. Or that the way He taught us to live our lives can be ignored.
More specifically, these are so-called pastors who embrace the prosperity gospel, claiming to know God, but do not keep His commands. They lie and the truth is not in them. Those who reject Messiah Yeshua and yet claim to know the Father, also do not have the truth in them. I am reminded of how Messiah Yeshua called the religious leaders who rejected Him, liars, in John 8:55 and remarked that they could not bear to listen to His teachings. But if we do strive to obey the Lord then we have a beautiful promise in the first part of verse 5.
but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.
If we believe in the Lord and strive to keep His commands, then the love of God is completed within us. By loving God, His teachings, and Messiah’s community, we are connected to the divine love that made Yeshua our advocate and atonement. This love is so much greater than our sinfulness. The transforming power of God’s love cannot be overstated. The Lord’s overwhelming, incomprehensible love moves us towards the goal of loving Him with everything that we are and loving others as well.
It is through embracing the commands of the Lord that we experience the transforming power of God’s love. This is why His atonement and advocacy are linked to our obedience. We are not being transformed by the love of God when we intellectually understand the Lord. We are transformed when we welcome Him into our hearts. If we refuse to change the way we live we cannot experience the transformation that saves our souls. John reinforces this truth in the final verse of this passage.
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.
If we want to know whether we are joined to Messiah Yeshua, we just need to look honestly at our lives. Are we living our lives like He did or are we not? The more we allow the presence of God to transform us, the more our lives will look like the perfect example we have been given. As we reflect on our lives there should be a positive change after being redeemed. The way we live should look different than it did in the past and should continue to change as we grow in the Lord.
The opposite of this statement is also true. Those who do not belong to the Lord will not live their lives by His example. Despite clever arguments, those who mock or disregard the clear teachings of our Messiah show they are not joined to Him. False teachers who lie to themselves and others grow in darkness not light. I think of so-called pastors like Kenneth Coplin who seem to have become more wicked as they have grown in age and power.
As I reflect on 1 John 2:1-6 I come to one inescapable conclusion. Through Messiah’s advocacy and atonement, we experience real transformation and the freedom to live our lives rightly. Messiah Yeshua’s advocacy and atonement calls for two different responses depending on our relationship with Him.
If you are someone who has not yet experienced this transformation, then I urge you today to ask the Lord to transform your life. To ask God to transform you from the brokenness of your sins into a new creation who can walk the same way Messiah Yeshua walked. Only through Messiah Yeshua will you find real rest for your soul. Hope, strength, joy, and peace that never fails is found through God alone. Only in God can sin, which destroys our lives, be brought to an end.
If you have already become a Disciple of Messiah Yeshua, then I pray this passage will cause you to examine your life rightly. We must pray to the Lord and ask Him to illuminate our lives. This means asking Adonai to shine His light into the areas of our lives that need to be tested and changed. It is not enough to be partially transformed, to partially walk as Yeshua walked. Every part of ourselves, including what is hidden, needs to experience the advocacy and atonement of Messiah Yeshua. His ministry will remove the despair, distractions, and deceptions in our lives. Then we will experience hope, joy, peace, and love that never fails.
We also need to remember when we sin, we have an advocate who will never abandon us. We have a hope that can never be taken away. God never is tired of helping us. If we desire to walk as He walked then we can confidently pray for the strength to do so. The Lord wants us to succeed and He will provide us with every tool to do so. He will also provide everything we need to persevere even when we stumble, no matter how large our failures. Satan, society, and even our minds will magnify our failures. But through Messiah, we can correctly see our sins, know we are forgiven, and move forward to grow in righteousness.
Finally, in a world filled with so much hatred, we must be filled with love. In Messiah, we are filled with God’s love which is brought to completion in our hearts. The overwhelming nature of His love for us should cause us to love others. This is a key part of following His commandments. Messiah Yeshua commanded us in John 13:34-35 to love our brothers and sisters, just as He has loved us. Other people, who struggle with sin just as we do, will let us down. We cannot allow hatred to rule our hearts. We cannot abandon those that the Lord has called. Through the love of God, we can have compassion for the broken people around us. His love encourages us to compassionately share His commands with others. We must not give up on ourselves or on others who are truly part of Messiah’s Community.
I pray that the advocacy and atonement of Messiah Yeshua will transform each of our lives. That every day we would grow in righteousness and obedience through His love. May we all know without a doubt whether we truly belong to Him. May our lives overflow with God’s love so that our hurting world will be drawn to Him.