I John 2:2

I John 2:2 And he (Jesus) is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Wow! Now here is a big word. The word is propitiation. Propitiation means the payment for our sins. Remember last night’s verse? God is our judge and Jesus is our advocate – our trial lawyer. God finds us guilty for our sins, but Jesus pays the fine for our sins. Jesus not only pays for our sins, He Himself is the payment for our sins. Jesus paid for our sins on the cross of Calvary. He was our payment! But our verse goes on to say that Jesus not only paid for our sins, but He paid for the sins of the whole world. Can you say John 3:16 from memory? God loved the whole world. Jesus died for the whole world. And it is our responsibility as Christians to tell this good news to all of the world.

I John 2:1

I John 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: The old apostle John here writes very tenderly. He uses the words, “My little children”. But he is speaking to adults! he is telling us not to sin. But in the very same verse he says that if we sin God has made a provision for us to get forgiven. John knows us. He knows that we cannot, not sin. We all sin so very often. And God knows that too. God wants to forgive us, so He sent His dear Son to die for us and to pay our sin penalty. But what is Jesus called here in our verse? Do you remember? Jesus is called an advocate. The word advocate means our lawyer. God is our judge and we are guilty. But God, the Father sent Jesus to become our lawyer to stand up before the Father to plead our case. God declares us guilty, but Jesus paid our fine in God, the Father’s court! I can’t imagine a better lawyer than Jesus Christ. And I can’t imagine a fairer judge than God the Father. That is God our Father. That’s great to know, isn’t it?

I John 1:9

1John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why do we have to confess our sin? When we are saved, Doesn’t Jesus forgive us of all of our sins? Doesn’t Jesus forgive us of past, present, and future sins? Yes He does. But when we sin, we feel guilty. Even though Jesus has forgiven us of our sins, we may not feel like we are forgiven. For example, when we disobey our mother, she is disappointed. We are ashamed and embarrassed. Are we still our mother’s child? Of course we are! But we feel guilty. We don’t feel like we are loved. The problem is not with our relationship; the problem is with our fellowship. And we have to ask forgiveness of our mother in order to restore that fellowship. She always loves us, but we do not feel like we are loved because we feel guilty. So, like our verse says, we need to ask forgiveness to get our fellowship restored. And Jesus is faithful. If we ask for forgiveness, He will forgive is. Actually, He already has – 2,000 years ago!

I John 1:8

1John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. When someone tells a lie, they are deceiving someone else. But worse than that is lying to yourself. Our verse for today talks about deceiving ourselves. If your mother says to clean your room, you may intend to clean your room, but you just put it off. You may say, “I’ll do it later after I have had some fun.” But after you waste some time and play around, it gets too late to finish cleaning your room on time. And you get into trouble because you lied to yourself. You told yourself that you had plenty of time. Our verse says that we should be honest with ourselves about our sin. We are all sinners. We may try to make excuses for ourselves, but we should just be honest. And once we admit that we are a sinner, then we can do something about it. Once we admit that we are a sinner, then we can confess and forsake our sin. Only then can we become clean with God’s forgiveness.

I John 1:6,7

I John 1:6,7 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. My tee shirt says, “Jesus is good, Satan is bad. Be like Jesus.” That is what verse six is saying. You can’t say that you love God and walk in darkness – that is do bad things. You either love God and do right or do not love God and do bad things. But you can’t love God and do bad things. If you follow Jesus and someone else follows Jesus you are both going along together towards Jesus. That means that you have fellowship with each other. We have fellowship because Jesus Christ cleanses both of us of our sins. That is verse seven. Satan is evil and likes darkness in order to hide his wickedness. Jesus is truth and likes light because Jesus is not afraid for everyone to see what is going on. Satan is a liar and wants to keep up his lies, so he needs darkness to hide in. But Jesus isn’t afraid to let everyone see what is going on because Jesus is truth. I want to follow Jesus, don’t you?

I John 1:1

1John 1:1,2 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. When there is a big court case and the judge and lawyers from both sides call in witnesses, they lawyers are not interested in what the witnesses think. The judge is not interested in who the witnesses think are innocent or guilty. The judge and lawyers want to know what the witnesses actually saw and heard. Were they there? Were they a real witness of things that really happened? The old apostle, John tells us here in our verses for today that he was an eye-witness. He isn't telling us what he thinks might have happened or what his opinion was about things. John is telling us what he actually saw and knows about Jesus Christ.He actually saw Jesus do the miracles. He heard the voice of God, the Father speaking from heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son, hear Him." John is a good witness because he was there. So, as we learn from John's written words in his book, remember, we can believe what he is saying. John is a true witness to the facts of Jesus Christ.