Liberty Baptist Church
September 20

      • Psalm 86:1–12ESV

  • O WORSHIP THE KING
  • O LORD MY ROCK AND MY REDEEMER
  • HOW GREAT THOU ART

      • Psalm 145:3–9ESV

  • LIVING HOPE
  • Ok 4 & 5 year olds you guys are dismissed to go up stairs for children’s church. While they’re headed out, if the rest of you would grab your Bible’s and head to 1 John 1. Two weeks ago I preached part 1 of this
    MPS: Rest in Christ’s work as you pursue righteousness.
    Pt. 1 Recap
    Lies we Believe
    Hypocrisy “walk in darkness”
    Self-deception “say we have no sin”
    Unbelief “Have not sinned; God is wrong”
    1 John 1:5–2:2 ESV
    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 for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
    This is God’s Word for God’s People. And we respond: Thanks be to God. Let’s pray.
    Pursue Righteousness
    John’s own confession leads him to respond in love for others
    Saving faith isn’t just built on knowledge
    Saving faith isn’t just built on right action
    John models saving faith is knowledge that leads to actions done in love.
    Has your faith actually changed you to be a person who continually brings things into the light out of love for others?
    John also shows saving faith is knowledge that leads to actions done in love with a purpose…
    “Do not sin”
    Love for others is displayed by a concern for their sanctification
    1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV
    For this is the will of God, your sanctification…
    Eph. 5:25-26, 28
    Ephesians 5:25–26 ESV
    Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her…
    Ephesians 5:28 ESV
    In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
    How do my actions done in love help people grow in holiness?
    This doesn’t mean we’re brow beaters with the Bible.
    “Hold up the mirror”
    Is John’s expectation sinless perfection?
    No that would be a) crushing and b) fallback into the lie of self-deception
    Progressive sanctification is the goal.
    Are you growing in holiness?
    Contextually, are you growing in confession and fellowship?
    If not, why?
    We don’t take sin seriously so we slip back into lies we believe
    We have a cheap view of grace.
    Cheap grace means grace as doctrine, as principle, as system. It means forgiveness of sins as a general truth; it means God’s love as merely a Christian idea of God. Those who affirm it have already had their sins forgiven. The world finds in this church a cheap cover-up for its sins, for which it shows no remorse and from which it has even less desire to be set free. Cheap grace is, thus, denial of God’s living word, denial of the incarnation[2] of the word of God.
    Without a proper understanding of our sin, grace is cheap. And if grace is cheap, why not go on sinning? A proper view of sin causes us to treasure grace and seek to stop sinning. But when we do that we find we still sin.
    MacArthur, “As I grow as a Christian I sin less, but it hurts more.” So what do we do when we sin?
    Rest in the righteousness of Christ.
    Pursuing righteousness might sound crushing
    Christ as King. Christ as friend.
    Advocate
    GK Parakletos = someone who appears on behalf of another, come alongside
    When does someone need an advocate?
    What do we tend to do when we sin?
    We gloss over (cheap grace)
    Hypocrisy, self-deceit, unbelief
    Advocate for ourselves
    Argue our case, atone for our shortcomings
    Example: Kids when they’re told they’ve done something wrong
    Why do we do that?
    We believe we have to prove ourselves.
    We don’t trust that Jesus will advocate for us.
    What do you think Jesus thinks of you when you’re in the midst of that deep dark sin? Or even those little sins that just feel hardwired into you? More than that, what do you think Jesus is doing when you sin?
    Jesus our advocate.
    What kind of advocate is Jesus?
    Righteous
    Only one who can go to the Father vs when you or I go before the Father.
    In the picture of a righteous advocate standing before the Father on our behalf, ‘the case is not that of love pleading with justice’. Rather the opposite: ‘Justice pleads with love for our release!’ (Findlay ).2
    Because he is righteous his advocating is perfect
    He argues from perfection (because he is perfect)
    His argument is perfect because of his perfect sacrifice
    He is the propitiation for our sin
    Propitiation = it conveys the thought of an offering made by a man in order to placate the wrath of a god whom he has offended4
    God is justly wrathful towards sin.
    God is radically generous in his payment for it.
    When Satan accuses...Jesus doesn’t deny it, he paid for it.
    “The Christian’s defense isn’t innocence. It’s propitiation.
    “Yes, we fail Christ as his disciples. But his advocacy on our behalf rises higher than our sins. His advocacy speaks louder than our failures.” Ortland
    Christ’s intercession is the continual application of his death to our salvation’ (Calvin )5
    Does his propitiation cover all sin?
    Sufficient for all, efficacious for those who believe
    “What if we never needed to advocate for ourselves because another had undertaken to do so? What if that advocate knew exhaustively a better defense for us than we ever could? No blame shifting or excuses, the way our self-advocacies tend to operate, but perfectly just, pointing to his all-sufficient sacrifice and sufferings on the cross in our place? We would be free. Free of the need to defend ourselves, to bolster our sense of worth through self-contribution, to quietly parade before others our virtues in painful subconscious awareness of our inferiorities and weaknesses. We can leave our case to be made by Christ, the only righteous one.”
    When Jesus is your advocate you can rest. Rest from proving yourself. Rest from making sure everyone understands all the extenuating circumstances. Rest from having to parade your virtue. Rest from having to win the case.
    Knowing I have an advocate frees me to walk in the light.
    I can confess without minimizing because Jesus advocates for me.I can admit I'm wrong without self-deception because Jesus advocates for me.I can agree with God's verdict instead of calling him a liar because my hope isn't that God's verdict about me is wrong. My hope is that Jesus Christ the righteous has answered that verdict with his own blood.
    So when you sin, what are you running to? Are you advocating for yourself? Proving.
    Insert long Bunyan quote here
    “‘Christ gave for us the price of blood; but that is not all; Christ as a Captain has conquered death and the grave for us, but that is not all; Christ as a Priest intercedes for us in heaven; but that is not all. Sin is still in us, and with us, and mixes itself with not only our prayers and our sermons, our hearings and preaching; but our houses, our shops, our trades, and our beds, are all polluted with sin.
    Nor does the devil, our night and day adversary, forbear to tell our bad deeds to our Father, urging that we might forever be disinherited for this.
    But what should we now do, if we had not an Advocate; yes, if we had not one who would plead; yes if we had not one that could prevail, and that would faithfully execute taht office for us? Why, we must die.
    But since we are rescued by him, let us, as to ourselves, lay our hand upon our mouth, and be silent. (Bunyan)’
    Do not minimize your sin or excuse it away. Raise no defense. Simply take it to the one who is already at the right hand of the Father, advocating for you on the basis of his own wounds. Let your own unrighteousness, in all your darkness and despair, drive you to Jesus Christ, the righteous, in all his brightness and sufficiency.” Gentle & Lowly, by Dane Ortlund, pp93-94.
    1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 43.
    Findlay George G. Findlay, Fellowship in the Life Eternal: An Exposition of the Epistles of John (Hodder & Stoughton, 1909).
    2 John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 19, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 85–86.
    4 I. Howard Marshall, The Epistles of John, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1978), 117.
    5 Calvin John Calvin, Commentary on the First Epistle of John, Calvin’s Commentaries, ET by T. H. L. Parker (Oliver & Boyd, 1961).

      • 1 John 2:12–17ESV

      • Leviticus 19:9–18ESV

      • 1 John 1:1–3ESV

      • Titus 2:8ESV

      • Ephesians 6:10–20ESV

      • 1 John 2:15–17ESV

      • Genesis 3:6ESV

  • JESUS PAID IT ALL
Liberty Baptist Church
office@lbcdalhart.com
8062495344
http://www.lbcdalhart.com
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