Mensa Otabil - Jesus Pleads Our Case
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Well, we start another study, and we go to First John chapter 2. My purpose in where to go is to cover as much of the Bible as possible and give the listeners and people who read a broad view of the Bible and the word of God so we don’t become just narrow and shallow with just a little bit of the Bible. I try to cover as much of the Scriptures as possible every week.
So, First John chapter 2-we’ve already done chapter 1 earlier. In verse 1, it says, «My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin; and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.» The Apostle John, who wrote the first, second, and third John, was one of the last living Apostles of Jesus. At this point, he’s correcting some of the errors that are creeping into the early church. Most of the things he addresses are related to wrong things that are being taught in the church.
He tells us not to be in the habit of committing sin. He tells us God’s ideal; he says, «I write to you that you do not sin.» God does not want us to sin, but then he says, «If you sin,» if you should sin, then God has a way of dealing with your sin. And that’s what the Christian life is all about. God wants us to live without sin; that is His perfect will for us-that’s the ideal. But sometimes we sin, and we do something that is wrong. In those days, some people would sin and say, «Well, it doesn’t matter; I’ve already been forgiven by Jesus,» and so the sins I’m committing now have nothing to do with Jesus Christ. They didn’t take sin seriously. John is saying it’s a serious matter.
So, God doesn’t want you to sin, but if you do sin, then this is how God wants you to handle your sin. He says we have an advocate with the Father. An advocate is a defense lawyer. What John is envisaging here is a courtroom-God’s courtroom-and God is the judge. When we sin, we are the accused, and Satan is the accuser; he’s the one who accuses us before God, and Jesus is the advocate. So there is God, the judge; we, the sinners who have committed the sin; Satan, who is pointing to say, «Yeah, they did it, yeah they did it,» and Jesus, who is our advocate. In the passage, he calls Jesus the righteous one.
What he means is that the reason Jesus can defend us before God is because He is righteous, and he uses His righteousness as our defense. So when we sin, our defense is not that, «Oh, I didn’t know it was a sin,» or «The devil made me do it.» We point to the Advocate because He’s the righteous one, and He’s vouching for us. He’s defending us by pointing to Himself, saying, " I am the righteous one, and because I am righteous, I defend these ones.» That’s why in Christianity, we don’t come to God on our own merit; we come on the merits of Jesus Christ, the righteous one.
So when you sin, instead of running away with your sin, instead of saying, «Oh, it wasn’t my fault,» or «I didn’t know about it,» you own up to your sin and go to Jesus. Jesus Christ, who died for us, then steps in before God and pleads for us on the basis of His righteousness, not our righteousness, because we don’t have it. When we have sinned, we have a righteous relationship with God, but the sin has marred our righteous relationship with God, and Jesus, the righteous one, then steps in to defend us.
He still speaks to us today. God doesn’t want us to sin, but when you sin, don’t defend yourself. You go to Jesus; He’s our defender. When you sin, don’t plead, «Oh, innocent, oh, I didn’t do it; they put it on me.» Own up to your sin and go to Jesus, and our advocate, the righteous one, stands before God and pleads our case for us. That is what John the Apostle told the early Christians and is telling us now about how to handle sin if it should ever befall us.
Let’s pray. Say with me: Heavenly Father, I desire to live righteously before you. Thank you for providing a way out of sin. In Jesus' name, Amen and Amen.