Encouragement for when We Sin

by Jeremy McKeen

In the beginning of 1 John chapter 2 we learn that there is great encouragement for our souls when we sin. Now please don’t misunderstand me. What I’m about to say isn’t an encouragement to sin but an encouragement for when we do. This is why John writes “my little children I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” Now we all sin everyday to some degree in our thoughts words and deeds, but John is talking about particular sins that trip us up that we are very conscious of when we commit them. And when we do, what’s broken is our fellowship with God. That’s what John is ultimately concerned about – our fellowship with God, because that’s what our souls need to experience life and joy and peace throughout our day.

So then he says, “…if anyone does sin we have …” Listen to this – “an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ …”. We have a defense attorney with the Father. And now the idea isn’t that Jesus is always pleading with an unwilling Father and trying to convince him to let us go and not punish us every time we sin, as if the Father is against us but the Son is not. After all the Son and the Father are one … The point is that like an attorney, Jesus stands in our place. He represents us. So the possibility of restored fellowship with God isn’t based on our performance but it’s based upon the performance of our advocate.

That’s why John says … Jesus Christ, the righteous and that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins (A big word that simply means the absorber of our guilt and penalty for our sins). What John is teaching us is that Jesus’ perfect life in our place and sufficient death in our place is what enables us to constantly come before God and find restored fellowship even when we sin. Every good defense attorney uses the law on behalf of his client, and so John is teaching us that now in Jesus this is how the law works for every believer; it works for him, to give him continued standing and fellowship with God. Someone put it this way, “The Devil says look at your sin; God says look at my Son!” 

So remember this week that we have great encouragement for when we sin and that encouragement isn’t our ability to hide our sin from God (we never can) or our own resolutions before God to never do it again (we all know those don’t last as well as we’d like) or to do something that will make up for it (that doesn’t work either). Our great encouragement is the living person and liberating work of Jesus Christ. He’s our advocate and he’s never lost a case. He daily says to us … “Come! Come to the Father and find restored fellowship through me!”