Sermon Outline: 1 John 2:1-2
1st John 2:1-2
When Sin Overtakes Us
Pastor Jason Stewart
I. Introduction:
As Christians what are we supposed to do when we fall into sin, and no matter what we say, or no matter what we do, we can’t seem to escape the bondage of that sin? Along with feeling trapped and in bondage, there is also the fruit of sin that brings with it depression, discouragement, condemnation, and spiritual unrest. What do you do when the enemy of your soul convinces you that you are a worthless person, and that God is finished with you, due to the fact that you feel as if the sin in your life has overtaken you. How are we supposed to live out our lives for Jesus, when we know deep down inside that we are falling way short in certain areas of our lives.
Today we are going to be looking at a passage of Scripture from 1st John 2 that answers these questions for us, in a message entitled “When Sin Overtakes Us.”
II. Revelation: When Sin Overtakes Us
a. We have God’s Word (2:1a)
God’s Word was given so that we would follow it and not remain in sin (1:5-10). The way that John has exhorted us to follow it thus far is by:
- Fellowshipping with God (1:5)
- Practicing the Truth (1:6)
- Walking in the Light (1:7)
- Confessing our Sins (1:8-10)
b. Jesus is our Advocate (2:1b)
In the Greek this word for Advocate is “parakletos”, and it means one who defends, or comes along side to give aid. This word is used 5 times in the New Testament, and each time by the Apostle John. It is used by John four times in his gospel (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7), and once here in 1st John 2:1. In John’s Gospel it is the Holy Spirit that is called our parakletos by Jesus, and in John’s epistle it is Jesus Himself who is called our parakletos. As our Advocate, Jesus defends the position of the believers in the presence of the Father in heaven, while the Holy Spirit is our parakletos on earth.
The Bible tells us in Romans 8:26-27 that the Holy Spirit is interceding on our behalf from earth. While Romans 8:34 tells us that Jesus intercedes for us from heaven.
c. Jesus Christ the Righteous One (2:1a)
The term “righteous” (dikaios) is found in four other places in this letter (1:9; 2:29; 3:7, 12), and in each case the term is related to righteous behavior. Thus it would seem that it is used in the present context to indicate that it is the One who has acted righteously, who now stands in the presence of the Father to speak on behalf of those who have not acted righteously.
The reason this is an important term is because even though God in His mercy, sent us His Son to pay for our sins. It wasn’t God’s mercy that enabled us to be saved, it was Christ’s righteousness that saved us.
d. Jesus Christ our Propitiation (2:2)
This means that when Jesus died for us, He set us free from the guilt and condemnation that our sins brought upon us, and restored us to a right relationship with God. In other words He won God’s favor towards us.
To propitiate means to win the favor of someone by doing something that pleases them. In this case, it was Christ that won the Fathers favor by dying for our sins. The reason that this is an important term for us is because without Jesus being the propitiation for our sins, we would not be made right with God. To propitiate means that He made a sacrifice in our place, that pleased God.
III. Application: When Sin Overtakes Us
a. We have God’s Word (2:1a)
God’s Word was given so that we would follow it and not remain in sin (1:5-10). However, it has to be more than just information to us. We have to take the information from God’s Word and turn it into application, if we ever want to experience transformation. This is the first aspect of “Overcoming the Sin” that is in our lives. It is by clinging to God’s Word. (cf. Psalm 119:9-11)
b. Jesus is our Advocate (2:1b)
When we think of the word “advocate”, we are naturally given a picture of a lawyer, who advocates for his defendant. The dictionary defines this word as “a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause, or who pleads on someone else’s behalf.” He is our Advocate (2:1) and our Judge (2 Cor. 5:10).
Where this gets interesting is that even though Jesus pleads our case before the Father until the end of the age, at the end of the age the Bible says, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10; cf. Rev. 21:11-15 for unbelievers). What a comforting thought that our Judge is also our Advocate. It is nice to know that the One who is our defender throughout all eternity is also the Judge. Talk about assurance for the believer. The One defending us, is the One who will judge us. Meaning, we are totally protected by Christ.
This word “advocate” is used 4 times in John’s gospel and once here in 1 John 2:1 (John 14:16, 14:26; 15:26; 16:7). This is the second aspect of “Overcoming the Sin” that is in our lives. It is by trusting in Jesus as our Advocate.
c. Jesus Christ the Righteous One (2:1a)
1st John 2:29 tells us, “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.” We must respond to Him in like manner. This is the third aspect of “Overcoming the Sin” that is in our lives. It is by trusting in Jesus’ righteousness (cf. Romans 5:18).
d. Jesus Christ our Propitiation (2:2)
To propitiate means to win the favor of someone by doing something that pleases them. In this case, it was Christ that won the Fathers favor by dying for our sins. It is a Covering. This idea of Jesus being a covering for our sin, or hiding it from God so that He does not see it, but instead sees Jesus, reminds me of my grandfathers’ backyard towards the end of his life. Do you remember the show called Sanford and Son?
Fred Sanford reminds me so much of my grandfather, not only was my grandpa just as ornery as Fred Sanford was, but he was in a similar line of word. My grandpa was a self-made man, who created his own businesses, which supported his family all the days of his life. He was mainly into selling bicycles and cars. When he finally retired, he began to start another business out of his house. His business was doing yard sales. He would go to auctions and junkyards, and get just about anything, and then fix it up and sale it. He did this for many years and made really good money at it, until he was no longer able to move around as much. And so what began to happen over the last couple of years before my grandparents sold their house is that my grandpa would still purchase junk from auctions to sell at his yard sale, but he wasn’t having his yard sales as often and so this caused all of his junk to begin piling up in his backyard. As my grandparents got to the point where they were not able to take care of themselves any longer due to their failing health, they ended up moving in with my parents. And when that happened there was a lot of work that had to be done to clean up their house in order to get it ready to sell.
If you remember the show “Sanford and Son”, then you can get some sort of idea of how my grandparent’s house looked like. Their entire backyard and 2 garages were cluttered with junk everywhere. Anything from beat up rusty automobiles, to lawn mowers, bicycles, and various other contraptions that one might find at junkyards and auctions. It was so bad you never knew what in the world you would run into when you were out there sifting through things. This house was pretty embarrassing to look at and to live in when it got to that point, and so what we did is we put large tarps over all of the junk that was in the backyard to protect them from the elements, and to keep them from being such an eye-sore to the neighbors.
The point of me sharing this story with you is because just as my grandpa had a yard full of absolute junk that needed to be covered up and removed, so too do we have junk in our lives that need to be covered up and removed by Jesus.
Before we placed the tarps over all of my grandfathers’ junk, you could see it laid out everywhere. It was easy for anyone to point out the junk that was in his backyard. And that is exactly what Satan does with the junk that is in our lives. He points it out to God day and night (cf. Revelation 12:10). And yet, none of his accusations fazes God one bit, due to the fact that Jesus is in heaven, as our Advocate before God. In fact, Jesus is like the tarps in my grandpa’s backyard that covers all of our junk so that when God sees us He doesn’t see our sin, He sees Jesus.
That is what it means when the Bible says that Jesus is the “Propitiation” for our sins. It means that He covers all of our sins up with His precious blood, and causes our sin to never be seen again. That is the work of our amazing Advocate! Here we see that the final aspect of “Overcoming the Sin” that is in our lives is by having Jesus as our Advocate.
III. Conclusion:
We have learned that as Christians we are called to walk in the light as He is in the light (1:7), but because we are stuck in this body of flesh that wars against the Spirit who dwells within us, we are prone to wander away from the light almost daily. And when we begin wandering out of the light, we need to do what Scripture prescribes for us to do.
We need to: (1) Cling to God's Word (2) Trust Jesus as our Advocate (3) Trust in Jesus' Righteousness (4) Stay under Jesus' covering.
