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Our Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous (1 John 2:1) · Verse by Verse

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. I'm Kendrick Diaz, and this is Verse by Verse, a short podcast all about exploring the insights and the lessons of the inspired word of God. Christ expects his followers to live like he did. I don't think that's news to anybody. In fact, that's what Christian means.
• 0:21
  Now, some don't try at all to do that. Others though, they make a sincere effort to live the way they should. But what happens inevitably? They mess up because they're human. They make mistakes.
• 0:34
  They sin even when it's not their intention, and what can happen, they can become so discouraged. So if that describes you, then you need to hear the verse we're covering in today's episode. Today we're looking at first John 21. This is what it says. I'll read it.
• 0:47
  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. So John was realistic. He basically said, look, you might mess up and sin, and if you do, remember, you have an advocate. So he didn't want his readers to take sin lightly, but he also didn't want them to get so down on themselves that they just give up and quit.
• 1:15
  So John reminded them of their advocate, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So in what way is Christ our advocate, and how should that affect the way we respond to the sin in our lives? The Greek word here for advocate is. It can be translated a couple of different ways depending on the context, but here it seems to mean someone who pleads your cause, someone who's on your side. Now, an easy way to understand what an advocate is is to just know its opposite, an accuser.
• 1:44
  You don't get any support from an accuser, but you do get support from an advocate. An advocate wants to help. An advocate wants to defend. An advocate wants to get you off the hook, so to speak. That's Jesus Christ.
• 1:57
  Now I do think it's a mistake to imagine that when we sin, there's this courtroom scene up in heaven where god slams down his gavel and is about to strike us dead until Christ sort of speaks softly to him and calms him down. No. That's not how it works. John was simply making the overall point that we're guaranteed guaranteed the kind of comfort, security, and forgiveness that someone who's actually in front of a judge is going to want. Why?
• 2:24
  Because of the advocate, Jesus Christ. All those privileges are available because the one who lived the sinless life and sacrificed himself for us ensures that they are. And let's not think for a second that when we get on our knees and confess our sins to god, somehow we end up speaking a foreign language, and we're just never really going to communicate how legitimate our struggles are. No. That would ignore the reality that Christ became human so he could identify with us.
• 2:53
  He was here. He knows what it's like. He understands temptation. He never gave in to it, obviously, but he felt it. So, yes, god understands.
• 3:03
  And that's the encouragement John was offering. God understands. Doesn't mean he tolerates sin, but he is willing to forgive us when we repent because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and because he knows how weak we are. Christianity isn't easy, and it was never supposed to be. You might remember how Jesus told his disciples, narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life.
• 3:27
  Those words continue to ring true today just as they did for the disciples who were living at the time. This society is becoming increasingly hostile toward Christian values, and we're gonna feel the burden of it as we navigate the narrow path. And we'll stumble and fall from time to time, but the important thing is to get up and keep going, knowing we're going to receive forgiveness and get a clean slate because we have an advocate. Now the condition, of course, is genuine repentance as I mentioned, and so I wanna end this episode by encouraging you to check out the show notes for a link to our article on repentance. There is, in fact, a way to respond to sin that won't guarantee us the benefits the advocate offers, and you need to know what they are.
• 4:08
  But taking the steps laid out in that article will ensure that that never happens to us. So don't let sin have the final word in your life. Don't be crushed by your sins to the point that you're ready to just throw in the towel. There is a path forward, and John says it's through the advocate, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Verse by Verse is a companion podcast to the daily bible verse blog, which you can find on the Life, Hope, and Truth Learning Center. Check out the show notes for more.