1 John 2:1-6 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
The New Testament has 1,050 commands for a Christian to follow. If we combine the duplicates, we have approximately 800 commands for obedience to righteousness. If Christians believe we must live by these commands or laws, our primary responsibility should be to know them. We need to catalog them in such a way that we can view them often. Of course, in the New Testament these laws are presented to us, but they get mired in the prose of the writing. If we really believe we must follow them, we need to know them. Obviously, the best way to have them available would be to list them in a booklet, providing a comprehensive understanding of all the commandments in the New Testament. In today’s focus scripture, John says, we validate this claim of intimacy with Christ by keeping his commandments. We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. Considering this and other scriptures, many Christians today attempt to serve Jesus by obeying as many laws as they detect in the New Testament. Of course, the more conscientious believers often will feel they have failed either in their actions or in their thinking. This attempt to be faithful Christians by obeying laws will many times rob people of the joy of their salvation. Serving God through obedience to laws demands constant evaluation of where you stand before a righteous, perfect God. Sensitive Christians who evaluate everything they do or think find themselves unlike God and his holiness. God demands perfection; eternity demands perfection. Eight hundred written laws will sink any conscientious servant of God into failure and defeat, for we know as the Bible says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) In the Old Testament, sacrifices were necessary to appease a holy God. These necessary offerings, appeasing a righteous God, revealed the unholy nature of men and women. For people to be in right relationship with God, the blood of animals was required by God. Death is the sentence imposed upon any imperfection. Payment was required for the sins of a person—animals paid the price of death. Why must anything die? Because God cannot accept the cancer of sin in his presence. If we are to be his chosen, we must be cleansed of imperfection. If we are to live eternally with him, in his very presence, sin must be eliminated from our existence. In other words, we must be holy as HE IS HOLY. Faced with this dilemma, Paul cries out, O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He answers with our only hope, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:24-25)
If we get caught up in our own efforts to be holy, we confuse the issue of salvation. Salvation has not come to us Christians because of our works but as a consequence of Christ’s works. If we sustain our Christian lives through our efforts to keep laws, we contaminate the work of the cross. We do not stay Christian by our efforts, but our lives of purity are based on Christ’s work and not our own works. Is the sacrifice on the cross enough to keep us to the end of our lives as Christians? How do we keep holy, acceptable and right with God if we do not obey all of the eight hundred commandments all of the time? Are we not to be without fault concerning our relationship with God? In the scriptures we find a man devoted to God by being obedient to every commandment and lifestyle demand. He, of course, is Paul the apostle. He attempted to please God through the efforts of his flesh. In fact, he could be considered one of the most righteous Pharisees in the Jewish culture. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. (Philippians 3:4-6) His zeal for God brought him status in the world of Judaism. He was given the assignment to stamp out apostasy. Consequently, he persecuted Christians, even escorting them to Jerusalem, maybe to be put to death. We know he rejoiced when Stephen was stoned to death. He might have been one of the leaders of that mob who took Stephen’s life. The participants in that stoning laid their coats at the feet of a consenting Paul. But Paul counts all of his supposed goodness in serving God with a reverent zeal as garbage. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. (Philippians 3:7-9) Paul explicitly says that righteousness comes from God, not from man’s efforts. To Paul, his effort of pleasing God was garbage in comparison to God’s holiness and perfection. He needed something more than obedience to law. We also need something more than obedience to the eight hundred laws in the New Testament. We need a Savior who is Christ our Lord.
Our salvation is always in flux if we attempt to find righteousness through fleshly efforts. We must count our efforts to be like God as garbage, for the new covenant is God’s work completely. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because HE WILL SAVE HIS PEOPLE from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) We do not save ourselves through our efforts, our goodness, our ability to obey all the commandments. No, God saves his people. The angel announced to the Shepherds, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for ALL THE PEOPLE. (Luke 2:10) Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God brought in a new covenant that would satisfy the wrath of God on sin. No more the blood of animals to appease God’s anger on sin. No, his Son came to pay the price for righteousness once and for all time. Every human being that ever was is under this covenant of grace. God’s everlasting redemptive plan, as timeless as God is, was brokered for all humans made in his image. “This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. (Hebrews 8:10-13) The writer of Hebrews says Good News has come to all people. Through faith in God and in Jesus’ death and resurrection, all people can have the righteousness of God written on their hearts. All people can become the temple of God where the Holy of Holies dwells. All men and women can have the voice of God speak to them through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the innermost part of their beings. We are no longer law bound or law driven, for the Holy Spirit’s work in us is a heavenly work, not of ourselves but of God. If we fail to trust completely in God’s work, our salvation is always uncertain. One day we feel safe and secure in Christ, and the next day we feel desperately lost in our sins. As fleshly humans, we often do things we are not proud of, either overtly or by omission. We can sin and not even know it, such as walking by, brushing off someone who needs our help. God wanted us to help that person, but we disobeyed him by putting our self-interests above the other person’s needs. Such sins are not noticed by us, but God sees these imperfections in us. We waste the resources He has given us. Jesus would not even waste the food that He asked God to bless when He fed the 5,000 men. He had the apostles collect the leftovers, for God had blessed the food. We might have thrown the leftovers in the garbage. The point is: we are not perfect! We need a stand-in between God and us. We need a perfect, complete death for our sins—one that will make us forever acceptable to a righteous God, one that will make us as God: HOLY. GOD IS LOVE. Jesus said if we are satisfying God’s demands on our lives we will love as He loves. By loving we are one with him. The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31) Dear friends around the breakfast table, we should seek to love everyone. By loving people sincerely, we image God’s heart—we are one with him. Our obedience to him by loving him with all of our heart and loving others will satisfy all the laws written in the Bible, for that is how Jesus lived and loved. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:10) Walk in his love today as you love one another.
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