Good evening everybody. I'm glad you could all make it out this evening. I'm really honoured to be here with you all tonight. Today we're going to be continuing in the book of first John, and we'll be in chapter 2 covering verses one through to 14.
While you turn there to recap, Kyle started us in this in First John chapter 1. And in this first chapter, John begins by reminding his readers of the Word that they've heard and seen that is Christ walking on the earth, living a perfect life, dying on the cross, and being raised. Three days later he is proclaiming this truth so that his listeners may also have fellowship with Christ. He then goes on to explain that God is light and in him, in Him,
no darkness is found at all. He explains to his readers that those who have fellowship with Christ must also walk in the light and those who claim to be in fellowship with Christ and walk in darkness are liars. John gives readers hope and explains that when we sin, Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us. He even explains that we will all sin and we do all sin and anyone who claims that they
don't sin is a liar. So we're going to continue now in first John chapter 2, we're going to read verses one through to 14. 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 for 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 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. Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word
that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I'm writing to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there
is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the
evil. 1 I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil. 1 Let's pray Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful day that you've blessed us with. We thank you for your word to us that we can open up and study together. And I just pray that you would give us a desire to know and
understand your word better. I pray that you would Pierce our hearts with your word to us this evening as we look to be shaped by You. I pray that our lives would be changed by your word and that we would be a light to those in our daily lives, that we would be bold in our daily life, living in the light of the gospel so that others may see us and give
glory to you in heaven. Amen. 430 years in Egypt, 40 years in the wilderness, and finally the Israelite people stood outside of Jericho with the promise of living in the promised land. The land first promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and now these would be the descendants that would finally see this promise come to pass.
The people of Jericho recognized the power not of Israel, but of Israel's God, and so they were tightly shut, shut and in in hiding, terrified of what may happen to them. There were typically a few ways to attack a walled city, by going over the walls using ladders or ramps, by digging a tunnel under the wall, by smashing a hole through the wall, or by laying siege until the city is starved into
submission. But the night before the attack, Joshua was visited by an Angel who gave him instructions on how they were to take the city. The plan was unlike anything that an army would normally use. Anyone without faith in the Lord would have thought the plan was ridiculous. Priests were to carry the Ark of the Covenant, and seven priests bearing 7 trumpets of Ram's horns were to go before the ark, blowing the trumpets continually. They were to circle the city once each day for six days.
And on the 7th day the men were to March around the city 7 times. And after the 7th circuit the priests were to make one long blast on the trumpets, and at the trumpet sound the people were to shout loudly. So the next day the people did exactly as the Lord had instructed, the wall fell and the Israelites went into Jericho and took over the city. What is so remarkable about this
battle? Victory is not anything to do with the strategy or with the strength of Israel, but the faithful, the faithfulness of God to fulfill His promises. If we look at Joshua chapter 6, verse 2, it says, and the Lord said to Joshua, see, I have given Jericho into your hand with its king and mighty men of a veiler. God had said this to Joshua before the Israelites even began attacking Jericho. God gave the Israelites victory over Jericho before they even started fighting.
All they had to do was obey God's instructions and they would take the city. They had victory over Jericho, but that didn't mean that they could sit back and do nothing. They were do no credit for the victory at Jericho, but they still had to obey the Lord's command. Could God have sent a lightning strike and taken the city in a blink of an eye without any help? For sure. But He wanted the Israelites to be a part, be a part of it, to show them His faithfulness.
They still had to pick up their swords, obey God's instructions, and go into battle. They were already given victory over their enemies, but that didn't mean they would not face hard times. They would lose men, they would sin against God, and they would have to continue to fight. In a similar way, all of us who truly put our faith in Christ have victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ our Saviour. And just like the Israelites, we do not have the power to save ourselves.
We have nothing to boast in regarding our salvation other than to boast in Christ. Before we even entered the world, Christ gave us this victory. We did nothing to earn it. So where does that leave us? What is our responsibility in this life? Are there battles that we need to fight?
Like the Israelites, we do indeed have VV in Christ, but God still calls us to obey Him. He calls us to pick up the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and look to be perfected in Christ. We have battles to fight in this world before we enter our final home with our Father in heaven. What we will see through First John chapter 2 is that there are battles in this life that are ours to fight, and there are battles that we have no business fighting because they have
already been won. We will see that we need to fight the battle between sin and truth. We need to fight the battle between light and darkness, and we need to stop fighting the battle for our salvation. So the first battle we need to fight is the battle between sin and truth. Let's begin again by rereading verses 3 to verse 6. John says, 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. So the evidence of someone having fellowship with Christ is pretty simple according to John, Someone who keeps his commandments. A loving obedience of God's command is a natural result of fellowship with Him.
And when we commit our life to Christ and put our faith in Him, we are given a new heart. This heart has God's commandments written on it. This new heart desires to follow those commandments. We also have the Holy Spirit that convicts us and leads us when our flesh desires to go back to sin. John goes even further in verse 4 to say that whoever knows him and does not keep his commands is a liar and the truth is not in him.
So if anybody claims to know Christ and follow Christ, but yet lives completely opposite to His commands, it is right to question his devotion to Christ. John is so certain of Jesus Christ's saving and changing power that he says anybody who is not changed by it does not know Christ as they should. John continues in verse 5 by saying, 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. Those who have been truly transformed by Christ's loving sacrifice will obey His word, and they will be perfected or sanctified as they continue to grow in their knowledge, in their love for Christ.
Everybody's walk may look a little bit different, different people grow at different paces, but the fact remains that anybody who is truly saved will be changed and will act differently than they did before they were saved. We cannot go through life thinking that we're good enough. Oh, I'd say I do more good things than bad things. I don't, I don't think I'm, I think I'm all right. Not only is that likely not true, it is not the attitude of
a believer. We are to strive to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. Of course, we will never achieve perfection, but it is what we are to fight for. Think of a marriage relationship. Would we ever say that it is OK to disrespect our spouse? Sometimes when you sit down with your wife or your your husband, do you say to each other, listen honey, this week I'm hoping to only disrespect you twice, maybe three times. And I think if I keep it to three, I think that's really good.
Of course, you never do that. I think we would all agree that it is never OK to disrespect your spouse and you should never. We would never say that we desire to do it. Instead, our desire is to love them and be patient with them always. Yet we all fall short. But the desire should remain. We do not want to disrespect our spouse. It is the same with our sin. We should never be OK with our
sin. We need to fight the battle between sin and truth because first of all, God tells us to, and because sin separates while truth draws us closer to God. So are we grieved by our sin or do we shrug it off because we are fallen and we can't help it? As Christians, we need to battle daily against sin. So how do we practically do that? I think our D groups do a
wonderful job of this. Our discipleship groups involve four to five guys or four to five women and a group meeting weekly to talk about their Bible reading, talk about their sin and their struggles, and hold each other accountable and pray for each other. These D groups, when taken seriously, are huge in our battle against sin, but only if we take them seriously. We cannot excuse sin in these groups. We're not there to make each other feel normal in our sin because Oh well, we all do it.
These groups are there so that when I fall, one of my members will take me by the hand and say to me, what are you doing? You can't, you can't be doing that. Or they'll say to me, why didn't you do a hear journal this week? Why aren't you reading your Bible? What's going on? If we are willing to join AD group and be honest to them, to ourselves and to God about our sin, that is a huge step in the battle between sin and truth. Because when sin is exposed, it loses its power very quickly.
But when when sin is hidden, it festers. It leads to bigger sin, more sin, and it breaks up family and destroys relationships. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides that they want to cheat on their wife. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to become a drunk. It starts much sooner than that. When hidden sin is not exposed and is, and it is allowed to fester and fester and fester and we do not have to wonder what's right and what's wrong.
It's all in God's Word. So if you open God's Word and it teaches you to do something, then do it. And if it says to stop doing something, then stop. Be malleable and be willing to learn and be changed by God's Word as you allow it to shape your life rather than your sin or the beliefs of the world shaping you. Pick up the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God each and every
day. Join AD group or find somebody that you can be accountable to and fight the battle against sin and desire rather to know the truth and live in the truth. Not only are are we to fight the battle between sin and truth, we also need to fight the battle between light and darkness. Let's continue reading verses 7 through to 11. Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.
At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you. Because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling, but whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. John is teaching both an old commandment and a new commandment old, and that from the beginning God's command was
to love him and to love others. Jesus confirmed but also renewed these teachings when He gave this command to His apostles in John chapter 13 verse 34. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Jesus says that love is the way that the world will know that believers are in Christ.
The age to come has not yet fully arrived, but is progressively coming as the darkness passes away into light. The true light is already shining, that is Jesus. John is explaining to his listeners that when they embrace this new commandment to love, they also are shining God's light in a world full of darkness.
Then jumping back to first John in in verse 9, John goes on to say that anyone who says he is in the light but hates his brother is still in darkness, but whoever loves his brother abides in the light. We can do all the right things, we can know all the right scriptures, be knowledgeable in every way, but if we lack love, we have nothing. The difference between somebody walking in light versus darkness
is love. Turn with me to 1st Corinthians chapter 13. Now this is a a chapter often used at wedding ceremonies, but it is actually written to describe how fellow believers we're supposed to love one another. So this the chapter starts by saying this. If I speak in tongue in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy
gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all that I have and I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is everything. Anything we do without love is pointless. But how do we love? Well, if we continue reading in First Corinthians, he continues
to say love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. Do we love our brothers and
sisters in Christ in that way? Or are we jealous of them, wishing we had their job, their car, their house, their gifts? Does our heart break when we hear of a brother who has fallen into sin? Or do we say to ourselves, boy, I'm not surprised he fell into sin, he sure had it coming. Do we hear gossip about a brother or sister in Christ and immediately join in and assume it's true? Or do we seek the truth for them? Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
and endures all things. While there is a place for calling out sin in a loving way, there is nothing our brothers or sisters in Christ can do that would excuse us of this responsibility to love them. Gossip, hate, and slander, they come really easy to us. We're good at it. Even. Love takes intentional hard work, and we have to fight this battle between this light and darkness and desire. Love over hate. We first and foremost love our brothers and sisters in Christ
and desire unity with them. But also we shine the light of Christ to unbelievers and we love them also. Not the kind of love the world talks about making people OK with their sin. We love them by sharing the gospel with them, desiring for them to see their need for Christ and the hope that is in Christ. This battle for love will go against every fabric of society because it is it is a love that will not not make sense to the
world. I think of Jesus's words in the Sermon on the Mount when he says you have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.
Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes His Son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be there, be perfect. Therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect, if you live your life with this sort of love to those around you, regardless of what you think they may deserve, people will look at you like you've got a third eye. They will wonder, what in the world is this guy on? Why does he treat people so well no matter what they do to him?
And in that moment when all the eyes are on you, you are shining the light of Christ, and you can look at them and point them to Jesus and say he is why I live the way that I do. Wake up each day and ask God to bring you opportunities to shine His light. Fight against the darkness that can sometimes feel like it's prevailing in this world, and fight it with the light of Jesus Christ.
We are called to fight the battle between sin and truth, between light and darkness, but we must also stop trying to fight the battle for our salvation. I want to close out tonight by reading verses 12 to 14 and verses 1 and 2. I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from
the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil 1. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil. 1 Then jumping to verses one and two, 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 for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. In this first verse, John gives his reason for writing these
things so that they won't sin. And like we've already said, Christ's sacrifice does not give us a license to sin, but should give us a desire to flee from sin and instead desire to obey his commandments and shine his light. But John recognizes that we will fall short. We do fall short and we will sin. In fact, in chapter 1, he says that anyone who says he doesn't sin is a liar. So he goes on to say, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus Christ the righteous is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. These verses are the foundation of our faith in Christ. God being a just and holy God must punish sin. It has to be paid for. And because He loves us so much, He does not want us to die having to face that punishment. So He made a way. He made a plan before the foundations of the earth for us to join Him in His glorious
presence. So while we were still sinners, He sent his only Son down to earth to become a man, to live a perfect life that we couldn't. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf so that God might see us as righteous. He died a brutal death on the cross in our place, taking all our sins onto Himself. Then he didn't stay there, but he defeated death and was raised on the third day.
And now, after all that, after He's paid our debt, appeased God's wrath, experienced the brutal death that we deserve, he sits with God the Father in heaven, and He advocates to the Father for us. Our sin is what put Jesus on the cross, and yet He still loves us so much that He actively is lobbying on our behalf to the Father and makes us righteous in His sight. Do we realize how amazing this this is? This is why we fight the battle against sin. This is why we fight the battle
for light over darkness. Not to earn our salvation or to check some sort of box and make ourselves feel good, but because we have a Saviour who not only died for us, but who now sits with the Father and advocates for us. So how do we find the endurance and the desire to fight the battle against sin and against darkness? We must preach this gospel to ourselves and to others day in and day out. If we do this, we will be changed and others will be changed as well.
Not because we worked a little harder to stop sinning, but because the Gospel of Jesus Christ has power to save and change lives and it will change yours. In fact, it is the only thing that has power to save. We cannot save ourselves or others. We can never hear the gospel enough because despite how amazing this sacrifice and this good news is, we forget it.
Or maybe we don't forget it, but we don't think about it or let it sink in. But if we're willing to preach this gospel to ourselves every day, if we stop fighting the battle for our salvation, but find joy and hope in the battle already won in Jesus Christ our Savior, our lives will be changed. We will love one another more. We will sin less and less, and make no mistake, we'll still sin and fall short of the glory of God. But take heart because Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior has
overcome the world. He's already won. It was finished on the cross. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you again for this day that you've blessed us with. I thank you for your Son, Jesus, who you sent down to to die in our place, to take our sin unto himself and to to take the punishment that we deserved. And he was he didn't stay there, but he was raised on the third day. And he, we just thank you that he now sits beside you and advocates for us on our behalf.
And I just pray that you would help us to take heart in that truth, in that promise that we would just continue to fight the battle against sin, the battle against darkness while we we live in this temporary world, that we would shine your light wherever we go and just continue to be sanctified in the truth of Jesus Christ. Amen.