All creatures of our God and King
It is good to sing thy praises
Jesus, lover of my soul
Break thou the bread of life
My hope is built on nothing less
Take my life and let it be
To thee, great one in three (244v4)
(1 John 2:1-6 ESV)
The Bible tells us that we sin. It's part of who we are as natural people. God also tells us that he will forgive us our sin.
So some people taught that sin matters not. Go ahead and sin, God will forgive you.
John reminds us that this is not what God is telling us.
John is saying that our lives do not need to be characterized by sin.
God sent his son to die for us to free us from the bondage to sin.
Galatians 5...we are called to the freedom to not sin.
Sin is part of our lives, but we are to NOT sin. But when we sin we know that Christ will deal with that. Jesus Christ is our advocate.
He is our propitiation....Jesus dealt with the justice our sin demanded and made us right with God.
Jesus simply advocates saying the price for our sin has already been paid. He says "it has been paid"
So we have no excuse to sin. If we do willingly sin we are showing we don't really know him.
How do we show that we really know Christ?
Now do we show that connection?
- by doing that which he asks of us
- our knowing is shown by how we live our lives
So if we say it's okay if we sin because we will be forgiven..we need to remind ourselves of what the cost for that forgiveness costs.
Remember the cost.
Remember the love that God showed us.
We need to really know Jesus so our lives may be changed.
How do we know that we know him?
Keep his commandments
Walk as Jesus walked
If we see our lives and see that God is changing us. God is in us and we know we know Christ.