TOUGH LOVE, 2: SINLESS SINNERS

1 John 1:5-2:2

In a nutshell: Our main problem in not medical or legal, economic or philosophical – our problem is sin. In Jesus we can have our sins blotted out so that we have relationship with God and are declared to be sinless. But while we are declared sinless we remain sinners! So long as we live on this planet we will continue to sin. How does this work?! As justified people we have great confidence in our standing before God – we are assured of his eternal love and faithfulness to us. As people who still sin we need to have great grace towards the weaknesses of our fellow believers, who, like us, are sinless sinners. We must daily experience the Saviours grace and forgiveness towards us.

The problem of sin
Mankind is truly amazing, but also all too obviously flawed. We do well not to become blasé about human potential, but also do well to bear in mind how incapable we are of creating heaven on earth.

Our weakness and flaws require a solution, and we tend to look for it in such things as medicine, education, law, economics and philosophy. All these things are important, but no matter how good our systems are they never get to the root problem. Good health care and good schools and good government and good finances and good thinking are all good – but they can’t make us good!

Our root problem is sin. Unless that is dealt with everything else we do is window dressing. It is good to have good health and money in our pockets and a rounded education, but those things don’t change our hearts. They don’t save our souls.

Who this message is for
In this passage John is addressing three types of people:
1. Sinners: those who need to see the problem of their sin and find forgiveness in Jesus.
2. Sinners who think they are saints: those who are self-deceived and need to come into the light.
3. Saints who know they still sin: these people need to have confidence in God’s forgiveness and grace towards the other sinners around them.

1. Jesus solves the sin problem
Jesus is the message we proclaim and Jesus makes an exclusive claim to be the light. The only way to be free of our sin is to come into the light of Christ. But how?

The problem for us is that God is righteous. How can God be righteous and forgive us? Righteousness alone would condemn us, because it cannot accommodate sin any more than light accommodates the dark: Turning on a light doesn’t redeem the darkness, it destroys it!

The solution to this problem is Jesus. Jesus has himself dealt with our sin, on the cross.

The word used to describe this in the ESV translation of the Bible is “Propitiation.” To propitiate means to turn aside wrath, so John is saying here that Jesus has turned aside God’s anger from us, by his death on the cross. Sin is so serious that only death can deal with it. “Living a little bit better” is never enough: Sin must be killed, and it was killed in Jesus.

When we turn in repentance away from sin and towards Jesus the sin problem is solved. Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient for all – if you turn to him he will forgive you.

2. Jesus calls us to walk in the light
It is not enough to say you know God, you need to demonstrate this knowledge by living in a way that reflects this. To do otherwise is to lie to God.

John is here addressing two groups that look very different, but whose root problem is the same. One group is those who say, “Because I am forgiven, I can do what I like.” Such an attitude is just not possible for those who are followers of Jesus. The other group is the religious, who claim to follow God but who in reality think they are saved by their own good deeds. This attitude is repugnant to Jesus.

The answer for both groups is the way of grace: admit your sin, make Jesus Lord, experience his forgiveness.

A strong piece of evidence that we really are walking in the light is that we are in fellowship with other believers. There is no real fellowship with God that is not expressed in fellowship with believers. To say, “I love Jesus but not the church” is simply to reveal that you really don’t have a clue about Jesus!

3. Jesus is our confidence
We can be certain He has dealt with our sin but we still sin!

Because Christ is our propitiation God looks on us as sinless. But we are still humans, living in a fallen world and we still sin! So we live with a tension: We are not to sin; we are changed people, and our attitudes and actions are evidence of our salvation. But we do sin!

Practically, what this means for church life is that we have high expectations of one another. We really must seek to live lives of purity, and where there is obvious sin, which is not repented of, there must be church discipline to maintain the integrity and health of the church. Yet at the same time we need to display great grace towards our fellow sinners.

Other Christians don’t always act as they should. All of us will at times be offended by other people in the church. And at times our offence will be evidence of our sin rather than the failings of others. Also we tend to make the mistake of assuming people who we like are more sanctified than those we find difficult, which only demonstrates our own sinful tendencies!

The antidote to this is to confess our own sin – to Jesus and to one another. When we do confess we can have great confidence because of Jesus. He is our advocate, our friend, in heaven. As Calvin put it: “Christ’s intercession is the continual application of his death to our salvation.” Jesus is always standing before his Father in heaven as our friend. Because he died, and bore our sin, we can be certain of the Fathers love for us.

I am a sinner, yes, in fellowship with other sinners, but in his sight blameless!


Application Questions
• What examples of mankind’s brilliance inspire you? What examples of his weakness depress you?
• What does the current economic situation tell you about the sinfulness of man?
• What impact has the cross of Christ made on your life?
• What are the practical implications of being a “sinless sinner”?
• How can you deepen your fellowship with other believers?
• Are there sins you need to confess?