MORE THAN LIP SERVICE

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.  
(1 John 2: 3-6 – NAS)


John makes his point so earnestly in these verses that it seems clear that even in his time – within the lifespan of someone who had actually walked  with Jesus – there came to be “followers” who were declaring that they “knew the Lord,” but whose actions certainly did not show that to be the case. How heart-wrenching that must have been for John, to see that there were people who wanted to be “in with the In Crowd,” as it were, but who were not really interested in doing those things Jesus had taught and commanded.

And it still happens, of course.

Why is that? Why would people declare themselves Christians and yet not live according to the guidelines Jesus gave His followers?

It’s human nature to want to be well-thought-of. We do crave the respect of others, the admiring and appreciating regard. And certainly, the type of person who follows the commandments of Jesus would be a very admirable person: peacemaker, merciful, generous, caring, attentive. Who would not want to have such a cloak around their shoulders?

And to gain that respect and admiration, why, all one has to do is claim  to be a follower of Jesus. Right?

We walk the fine line between the issue of salvation by declaration of faith and salvation by works. Arguments had been made, even in the days of the Apostles, that all that was needed to gain salvation was a confession that Jesus is Lord. Because Jesus died for our sins, all our erroneous actions were paid for by Him, and we are allowed into the presence of God. But the expectation is that gaining that salvation would change us so much that we would now live according to the commandments of Jesus (or at least try to do so).

But even in John’s time, apparently there were plenty who merely gave lip service to being followers of Christ.

“Lip service” is one of those phrases we use a lot without thinking much of it. It means to vow adherence or allegiance to something, saying the words but not following through with the actions that would actually show the allegiance. The only thing “serving the cause” are the words of the declarer.

John makes it clear that when it comes to following Christ, that’s not good enough. “Talk is cheap,” we like to say. It’s very easy to say we follow the Lord, to say we believe in His sacrifice. But John says that if we say these things, and yet do not act according to the commandments of Jesus, we’re lying about our faith.

For John, who had been in the living presence of Jesus, who had walked the dusty roads with the Lord, sat in fields while Jesus spoke to crowds, been squashed into corners of houses packed with people who wanted to see Jesus, it must have seemed sad and strange that there would be “followers” who would claim to love the Lord and yet not be so transformed by that love that they did not start trying to act like Jesus. Their love, it seems, went no further than saying words.

Even now it is very easy to say we are “in the Lord” to mean that we have a certain circle of friends who share a certain outlook. And that that circle can include people we’ve only just met, but who we allow in because they make the same declaration. It becomes just a social designation, and we don’t think about what John really was saying about “abiding in the Lord.”

After all, what does “abiding in the Lord” really mean?

I think it means that Jesus has taken each of us into His heart -- deep into His heart, to that place where no defenses are raised, where love is unconditional and always available. He allows us into that place to dwell forever.

How can we not be changed by such an experience? How can we not grow in a desire to become more and more like that which surrounds us, there in the heart of the Lord?

But we don’t, not always. Because it is not such a visible, tangible thing to us as we want. We have only the assurance of the words left to us and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And the presence of the Holy Spirit is (usually) something invisible, and thus easy to dismiss if not exactly ignore.

John wants to shake us up, to wake us up. He knows that if we are not reflecting the nature of Christ in our actions, we aren’t really inside His being: we are not abiding in Jesus.

He’s not claiming that we have to be following the commandments of Jesus perfectly. Of course we’re going to stumble, and fumble, and get some things wrong. But if our intention truly is to be like Christ, the Lord will handle our missteps (as noted previously, He is the propitiation for our sins and errors). The Lord’s love becomes perfect in us. It’s something He does because we have opened our own hearts to the experience of being inside His heart.

But inevitably, there should be some evidence of it. The transformation that God’s love works on us should show up in our actions, not just our words. And it’s not like we don’t know what the Lord’s commandments are: there’s a whole Sermon of the basics of what our live should look like.

What it comes down to, in a popular phrasing, is – Don’t just talk the talk: walk the walk.

We should give the Lord much more than lip service.

PROPITIATION

and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

(1 John 2: 2 – NAS)


John has just told us that Christ is our Advocate before the Lord, our representative who will argue in the Ultimate Court in our defense when we face God’s justice for our sins. Now he takes that description a step further, and tells us that Christ is also “the propitiation for our sins.”

“Propitiation” is not a word we use much these days. It means to gain or regain the favor of someone, to appease or conciliate. It implies that the person being appeased has some authority over the person offering the propitiation.

Why would propitiation be needed?

It is needed because the holiness of the Lord is such that anything that is stained cannot endure in His presence. And we stumbling humans cannot help but be very stained by our lives; our sins of choice, our sins of error, our sins of omission permeate our being. On our own, we have no hope of being able to approach God because we cannot rid ourselves of these effects, at least not by our own efforts.

But Jesus Christ our Advocate also absorbs the consequence of our sins. However you want to look at it – that Jesus stands between us and a just punishment, or that He takes into Himself our sins so that we would then stand free and clear and pure in the presence of God – Jesus is the one who “makes things right” between us and God the Father.

It is not that the consequence of our sins is brushed aside and forgotten. No, instead, Jesus takes it all upon himself. The consequence is still the consequence and it must play out. But because of His sacrifice upon the cross, Jesus is the one that takes on those consequences.

I think that sometimes we undervalue what it means to have Christ as the propitiation of our sins. And we take it for granted. We walk through our lives as followers of Jesus, and discount the effects of our less-than-perfect actions. After all, our intentions were good, and that should be enough, shouldn’t it? We hardly consider the possibility that something we said or did with good intentions might in fact have had evil consequences.

God does not un-make any of the consequences of any action. He set the Universe to work in a certain way, and one of those ways is that consequences follow actions. He does not change that.

But what He does do is let His Son Jesus take on all those negative consequences. Instead of letting them fall upon us (the fate we deserve), Jesus has taken them on to Himself. And not just the negative consequences before God of the actions of believers, but of the whole world. Jesus stands between everyone and the divine judgment leveled against them, and all anyone has to do is accept Him as Lord in order to gain the benefit of that.

The whole world.

We like to say of extreme consequences that they are “a whole world of pain.” But for Jesus, that is the literal truth. By taking on the role of propitiation for our sins, He has taken on all the pain we would justly receive as a consequence for our actions. No matter what.

It occurs to me that when outraged believers ardently desire heavy punishment to fall on sinners, whether the sinners are repentant or not, the believers are desiring to see others suffer. Humans have a strong impulse for vengeance. We desire to return all ills that we receive. And when we can cloak that desire as the delivery of a just punishment, we feel a sense of satisfaction. So we willingly acquiesce to harsh punishments.

But Jesus is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. Every divine punishment we could wish upon other sinners, Jesus has taken onto Himself. Because God so loved the whole world that He sent His only Son.

And whatever we do to others, we do to Jesus.

I am certainly grateful for Jesus taking on the consequences of my own sins. I am capable of thoughtlessly or carelessly injuring others, capable of any number of “small sins.” And I know I am not shut away from the presence of God as I deserve because Jesus has absorbed the consequences of those actions.

What I had not considered before is that He does that for others as well, even when I feel that they should at least have a sense of the lash or retribution. Someone did an injury to me: I want them to know what they did and be punished for it. But God’s love is such that even there, Jesus stands as the propitiation for sin. That consequence, that punishment that I want to see visited on another is instead visited on Jesus. It humbles me. Shall I then add to the wounds of the whip that tore apart the skin of the Lord? Shall I too drive the nails into His hands and feet? This He did for the sins of the whole world.

Perhaps we should not be so eager to demand retribution. We all of us deserve it. But Jesus is the one who takes the eternal consequences upon Himself.

OUR ADVOCATE


My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
(1 John 2: 1 – NAS)


John again mentions the “why” of his letter. He had opened with the urgency of an eye-witness, reminding the readers that he had actually seen Jesus Christ alive, in action, in the flesh – had touched the Lord, spoken with Him. Now the old man (as he would have been at the time of this letter) uses “my little children” to convey his live and affection and his paternal concern that the followers of Christ understand their faith clearly. In particular, he is driven by the awareness that sin separates us from God, from the love of the Father and fellowship with the Son. And John does not want to see anyone so separated.

Thus, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.”None of us care to be on the receiving end of scolding lectures. It doesn’t matter what our age is, we squirm and grimace when someone decides that “for your own good you need to hear this.” It may be true that we do need to hear it, but most such lectures end up being delivered in a manner that distances us from the lecturer. The person scolding us usually wants to be objective, but unfortunately only ends up coming across as disengaged, remote and judgmental. John, however, takes a different manner. “My little children” from a beloved old man carries such a stream of love that we stop and listen. He loves us. He is anxious for us. He sees us heading toward a door leading to disaster and has only his words to halt our progress through that portal.

“My little children.”

He wants us to listen to his words so that we will not sin. But he also immediately tells us that even if we do make that mistake, if we do trip up and commit errors, all is not lost.

Sin separates us from the love of the Father, and with that separation the weight of judgment falls upon us. The consequences of our actions will follow us around, often with dire results. To be separated from God removes the only shield between ourselves and the harshest evaluation of our deeds. And this is particularly true for those believers who let go of their commitment to the Lord.

But John says that even if we do sin, believers have an Advocate with the Most High, someone who will speak up for us, plead our case and gain mercy for us. And that Advocate is no one less that Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, who is one with God.

John is not saying that believers can sin willfully and with impunity and still stand secure in the presence of God. I’m sure there are many who would like to think that. They want to believe that once they formally say “Jesus in Lord” they are absolved of all future sins, and can happily go about doing whatever they want. But that’s not what John means.

Let us remember that he’s just spent a deal of time telling his readers that only genuine confession of sins can keep someone in fellowship with Christ. We all make mistakes, we all sin. “Anyone who says they do not sin is a liar.” It is crucial for us to confess the sin and repent of it because we do understand that such actions can separate us from the holy and loving presence of the Father.

We’re not very good at being our own advocates. When we confess our sins, we’re admitting that we knew we were doing wrong and yet we still did the wrong thing. It’s rather difficult to be standing in front of a judge going “Yes, I knew it was wrong and I still did it. But I’m asking you to have mercy on me.” We need someone to speak up for us, as a character witness perhaps, but certainly as an advocate who will say that we are deserving of mercy, if only by way of the grace of love. We need that advocate, because our own actions have said that we made the mistake of not properly valuing the Grace and Love of God.

But, our confession of our errors and mistakes, of our sins, does win us an Advocate before the Most Holy Judge. And that Advocate is Jesus Christ. John goes to the trouble of adding “the righteous” to the name of our Advocate (though you would think “Christ” would be enough).

Jesus Christ the righteous will speak on our behalf. For all our sins, big and little.

Jesus: that man who lived and walked and ate and slept among us in flesh and blood. The person John had talked with and walked with. They had traipsed the countryside of Judea during Jesus’ ministry. They had eaten meals together in the homes of friends. They and the rest of the company of the close disciples had been out on the Sea of Galilee fishing together, laughing as they hauled in nets filled with fish. This was not some abstract phantasm surrounded by a holy glow. It was someone who got dusty from walking, who got wet from splashing fish, who shared meals, who sat by wells and asked for drinks of water. It is someone who knows exactly what it is like to be alive as a human being. Our Advocate.

Christ: the Holy One of the Almighty, the one who came to save us. Our Messiah, savior, shield. The one who went so far as to die in our place, to take our punishments upon Himself. Our Lord. The priest and sacrifice that was needed to allow us to even approach the presence of the Most High. Our Advocate.

“The righteous”: the one who knows how to live rightly according to the desires of God the Father. The one who knows and chooses to do what is right in the eyes of God, who does those things with love and joy. Our Advocate.

That is who will speak on our behalf before the Father. Not some fly-by-night lawyer who will look for every loophole possible. No, our Advocate is Jesus Christ the righteous.

“My little children” – you have stepped into the Royal Arena of Creation, you are out of your league, you don’t have a chance on your own. Except that Jesus Christ is on your side.