Christ in Everyday Life – 1 John 2:1-6

Christ in Everyday Life: Our Advocate and Our Example

I like studying John’s writing because John is straightforward. There is no gray area for him, and it is black and white. My wife would tell you I follow the keep it simple method, and I would much rather have something plainly stated than complicated. First John 2:1-6 does that, and it also shows us what Christ looks like in our everyday life.

A Pastor Writing to His Little Children

John never names himself, but the early church was clear that he wrote the letter. Polycarp, a second century bishop, knew John personally. John wrote this late in life, probably with the churches around Ephesus on his mind, and he opens with “my little children.” In the original language that is a diminutive, a word of special affection, like a grandparent speaking to a grandchild. I have had older men who poured into me and put up with the foolish things I did as a teenager, and that is the tone here. John is a very old man, perhaps the last who walked with Jesus, and he does not get irritable with their foolishness. He has tenderness for his little children in the faith.

I Am Writing So That You May Not Sin

If you are in Christ, sin “should not be indulged in even once.” Sin is such an affront to God that we should run from it and run to him. But John knows we are frail. He says “but if anyone does sin,” and that is going to happen. He is not giving us a justification for sin, because “if we practice sin we will become more proficient in it.” John wants his readers to conquer sin. Although Christians sin, they can conquer sin.

We Have an Advocate

When we sin, it is not up to us to restore our standing with the Father. In ancient Greece an advocate was a defense attorney who pleaded for someone accused of breaking the law. Jesus is ours. Let’s be honest: there are sins we know are wrong, but we really like them, whether anger or gluttony, and we hold on to them. When we lose fellowship through cherished and unconfessed sin, Jesus does not say, well, look at all the good he has done. He “pleads our case on the basis of his Precious Blood and that alone.”

John calls him the propitiation for our sins. To propitiate means to satisfy the wrath of God against sin. The picture is not Jesus talking an unwilling Father into loving us. As one writer put it, “the case is not that of Love pleading with Justice.” Christ is the provision of the loving Father, so that God can love us with perfect justice. And 1 John 1:9 says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us.

How We Know That We Know Him

Verses 3 through 6 give a simple test. If we keep his commandments, we know we have come to know him. Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar. John is not afraid to say it. He said the same in chapter 1: if we say we have fellowship while walking in darkness, we lie. “Obedience to God’s word is proof of our love for him.”

There are three motives for obedience: “we obey because we have to we obey because we need to or we obey because we want to.” A slave obeys because he has to, and an employee because he needs the paycheck, but a Christian obeys because he wants to. Jesus says in John 14:15, if you love me, keep my commandments. It is like growing up. First we obeyed because we would be disciplined. Then we found that obeying brought rewards. Eventually we obeyed because we loved our parents and knew them.

Walking as Jesus Walked

Verse 6 says whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way he walked. How did Jesus walk? He was led by the Spirit and in prayerful dependence on his Father. In Gethsemane he said, not my will but yours. Spurgeon said, “if we talk we must walk or it will be mere talk.” If the general tone of your conduct is not like Jesus, it is worth pausing to ask honestly whether you are genuinely in him. “A faith that doesn’t translate into a changed life is a faith that falls short of the transformative power of the Gospel.” Our obedience is not what saves us. It is an expression of gratitude for what Christ has done.