Focal Passage: 1 John 1:5-2:2
Claims
In 2007 Pittsburgh Steelers safety Anthony Smith claimed they would definitely beat the New
England Patriots.
Not only could he not back up his claim, the Patriots specifically beat him, twice, for two long touchdowns.
People claim all kinds of things they can’t back up.
In verses 6, 8, 10, John says, “If we say,” and in 2:4, “Whoever says.”
These are the claims people make. To be a Christian is to make claims.
First and foremost, we claim truths about Jesus. Our claim is that Jesus is the Word of Life, from the beginning.
Pseudo-Christians claim they do not sin or that sin is not important.
In their day many believed that the real me was the spirit.
The body was just a cage and so what my body does is not really me doing it.
That was their way of excusing sin. We deny we sin by trivializing it.
We’ll talk about delicious foods being “sinfully fattening.”
Many so-called Christians today claim they are “saved” and yet think they can sin freely.
If we claim that our souls are saved while we dedicate our mouths to gossip or our eyes to pornography or our minds to greed or our hands to abuse, John has two simple words for us, “We lie.”
First (1:6), we lie to the world to claim one thing and live another way. Second (1:8), we lie to ourselves if we are not aware of our sins.
And then (1:10), we call God a liar. By claiming we’re fine, we’re saying God is not.
We claim to have sin. If we say the same things (“confess”) about sin that God says, then He will forgive us. Here John says that God forgives because He is faithful and just, not lenient and lax.
He is just because, in 2:2, Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, the atoning sacrifice. Notice that it takes blood to cleanse us from sin.
Blood is costly. It takes that blood to cleanse us of sin because our sins are that expensive, that serious.
We claim that He’s the one who paid the price for our sins and so we walk in His ways.
Love and obedience go hand-in-hand. If you’re not obeying, you’re not loving.
Friends, we can’t make claims our life doesn’t back up. If we are to be one of God’s people, in fellowship with Him, then, John concludes in verse 6, we ought to walk the same way He walked. If we’re not walking with Him, then we need to confess and be truly saved.