There seems to be a theme or a consistency in my sermons lately. I chalk that up to God, because I certainly haven’t planned it. In fact, I got to the end of this sermon and found out I have to continue it next week, because the last verse of our scripture this week is a sermon unto itself. As is often the case, this week’s sermon topic found me as I was watching a YouTube channel called Wise Disciple, which I think I’ve mentioned before.
And there was a point made–not the point of the episode, but a point in the episode–that struck me. And it coincided with a big churchy word that I’ve used the past couple of weeks, the word propitiation. There is no reason for me to consciously use that word three weeks in a row. It just came up three times. And so, I believe the Lord is directing these sermons along the lines of propitiation.
If you have your Bible, you can turn with me to 1 John–not the Gospel of John, but 1 John–and we’ll read the first six verses.
As you’re turning there, many of you know that I will sometimes read lyrics from old contemporary Christian songs–usually from the 80s or 90s. I’m going to read from two old songs this morning. The first one goes back to 1989, it is from David Meece, and from one of the greatest Christian albums of all time, in my opinion. The song is called “To Know Him” from the album Learning to Trust (I think I’ve read the lyrics to that song in a sermon one time as well), and the lyrics to the chorus of “To Know Him” are short, sweet, and simple.
They go like this:
Out of the fire, There springs a desire To know him;
In my dark hour, He brings me the power To know Him
Yesterday, I posted a preview of today’s sermon. I usually do that, sometimes using songs. These are the lyrics to the preview song from yesterday. It’s from a contemporary worship chorus that goes back to the 90s.
It says:
[Verse 1]
In the secret in the quiet place, In the stillness You are there
In the secret in the quiet hour, I wait only for You
‘Cause I want to know You more
[Chorus]
I want to know You, I want to hear Your voice
I want to know You more (More and more)
I want to touch You, I want to see Your face
I want to know You more
[Verse 2]
I am reaching for the highest goal, That I might receive the prize
Pressing onward, Pushing every hindrance aside
Out of my way, ‘Cause I want to know You more
Simple lyrics, as choruses usually are. But profound. There is something when you put music and lyrics together that helps bring a certain something to our souls. You can’t deny it, music is a powerful tool, whether it’s in God’s hands or Satan’s hands.
Look at Ozzy Osbourne, who just passed away; the whole world mourned. I think his funeral was even broadcast live.
But how much more powerful and wonderful it is to worship God in songs of praise. My faith formation growing up was songs like this. More so than going to church. But the point of my sermon today is not music, it’s the lyrics of these two songs. To know Him more and more.
Scripture: Let’s go to our scripture this morning and look into that. 1 John 2:1-6 says this:
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. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice [propitiation] for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
So there are several places where John uses the phrases ‘know him’ or ‘in him.’ Even one time where he says, ‘we know we are in him.’ Those are the main words I want to focus on today–do you know you are in him?
When I worked for Empire, there were three other men there who were Christians, and you could tell that they were the real deal. But starting work at another place recently, I’ve been surprised at how many people will say, I’m a Methodist; I’m a Baptist; I’m a Catholic; I’m a fill-in-the-blank. But you would never know it.
See, their spiritual identity is in their denomination, not in Christ. And so what happens? The same words and sexual innuendos fly out of their mouths just as much as those who don’t claim any religion at all. There’s one person that I think may actually be a Christian. I haven’t gotten to know him well enough yet, but sometimes, you can tell just by looking at someone, there’s a light and a difference by the way they carry themselves that says, I think that guy might be a Christian. He’s a churchgoer, but unlike the others I just mentioned, he might actually be a Christian.
I had that happen to me a few times when I was driving the medical shuttles. People would say something to the effect, “I knew you were a Christian (or religious, or however they may say it), you just had that way about you.”
Maybe you’ve had someone say that about you, or maybe you’ve seen that in others. There’s just this certain something in true Christians that isn’t there in others, even if they are religious. Some religious people act just like non-religious people. Why?
Well, first of all, we shouldn’t strive to be religious. We should strive to know Him.
Going back to that word, ‘propitiation’ in verse 2, my translation used the phrase, atoning sacrifice, not that that’s any easier to understand, but again, the meaning is that Jesus was the mediator, the bridge between God and man, who reconciled us to God.
Propitiation is a two-part act that involves appeasing the wrath of an offended person and being reconciled to him.
Jesus’ sacrifice wasn’t just so that we can be forgiven, it was so that we can be reconciled to God. Reconciliation is the restoration of a relationship–let me say that again–reconciliation is the restoration of a relationship. Christian reconciliation is the work of God through Christ by which He restores mankind to a loving relationship with Himself.
Isn’t that amazing? We can’t earn this reconciliation; this propitiation is strictly the work of God, and it is ours to accept. That’s why John 3:16 is so profound. We’ve heard it and memorized it, and it unfortunately loses its intense overwhelmingness in the same way “Amazing Grace” does. We’ve heard it so many times, we know the lyrics, but does “Amazing Grace” amaze us anymore?
I like the way the New Living Translation puts this–Colossians 1:21-22 says:
“You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault”
Woodruff Baker, in his dictionary of Biblical theology, stated:
“We are no longer enemies, ungodly, sinners, or powerless. Instead, the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit whom he has given to us (Romans 5:5). It is a change in the total state of our lives”
Did you catch that last sentence? “It is a change in the total state of our lives.”
The reconciliation that we have through Christ isn’t an excuse to go on sinning, as Paul said to the Romans; it is a chance to change direction. It is the power to repent. It is the ability to live a new life, to be born again.
Did you know that the phrase, to be born again, has two connotations? One is to be born anew, the other is to be born from above. Going back to John 3:16 again, just before that, in John 3:3, Jesus explains to Nicodemus that no one–no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
How are they born again? By being born from above. And if you are born from above, of course, that means that you are being reconciled by God through Christ. What else would it mean? A new heavenly, spiritual birth, a brand new start. A renaissance of the spirit. God’s Holy Spirit within you.
Therefore, we have been reconciled to God as was intended since before the creation of the world.
Do you remember the relationship Adam and Eve had with God? Genesis doesn’t say much, but from one or two verses, we can glean that they had a close relationship with God before the fall. There’s the old hymn, “In the Garden,” and it would have been like that.
Genesis 3:8-9 says: Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
As you can see, before the fall, Adam and Eve both had an intimate relationship with God. In Genesis 4:1, the King James and New King James say that Adam ‘knew’ Eve, his wife, and she conceived a child.
So we know what ‘knew’ means here. Other translations, like the NIV, which I normally read from, say Adam made love to his wife Eve. But the word ‘knew’ in this passage in Hebrew means the same thing as it does in our scripture passage, in Greek, in 1 John.
It doesn’t mean sexual intercourse; it means a deep intimacy.
God had a deep, personal intimacy with Adam and Eve, the way a father would. But sin broke that relationship, and now, they were relegated to punishment, sacrifice, and sin. Can you imagine the heartache of Adam and Eve? Adam lived 930 years. He witnessed the earth go from paradise to plunging into darkness. He lived long enough to see Noah’s father, if that gives you any indication.
Noah saw all of the great patriarchs except for Adam and Enoch.
Although it took another four thousand years, at just the right time, when the fullness of time had come, God made a way to reconcile us back to a right relationship with him. And even though it probably isn’t quite the same as the Garden of Eden, we can still walk with him in that garden, talking with him, as he encourages us that we are His own. And in those moments, we share a joy that cannot be found anywhere else on this earth because that joy is not from this earth.
So how can we have this sort of relationship? How can we be more than religious or a believer or even saved? How can we have more than that? How can we, as the David Meece song says, know Him more?
Verse 1 of the worship chorus again says,
In the secret in the quiet place, In the stillness You are there
In the secret in the quiet hour, I wait only for You
‘Cause I want to know You more
Let’s look at 1 John 2, verses 3-6 again:
3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. How in the world am I supposed to live up to that? I disobey God every day. I don’t always do what he commands. I fall short. I can’t live as Jesus did.
The good news is, no one can. And that’s part of God’s Amazing Grace.
I think many of you have seen the meme that says, “When God put a call on your life, he already factored in your stupidity. That’s the most encouraging thing I’ve heard all day.”
When God saved us, redeemed us, made us right with Him, reconciled us, and placed His Holy Spirit within us, he factored in our stupidity. He factored in our shortcomings. He factored in our weaknesses, our hurts, habits, and hangups.
And that’s what He’ll work on with us, if we’ll let Him.
In the meantime, as the Christmas meme says, wise men still seek Him.
James says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”
Jeremiah, long before the atonement, was the prophetic voice of God when he said, Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord,
I know what some of you are saying, that was a prophetic voice for Israel, not us, but it shows God’s heart for His people. Going back to 1 John, Jesus was not the atoning sacrifice for just Israel. John said that Jesus was the atoning sacrifice for our sins, the sins of the whole world.
If we seek God with all our hearts, we will be found by Him.
Verse 1 of the chorus again says:
In the secret in the quiet place, In the stillness You are there;
In the secret in the quiet hour, I wait only for You;
‘Cause I want to know You more
I’m going to read to you the second verse of that chorus, but before I do,
Let me go back to 1 John 2, starting with the last part of verse 5 and into verse 6:
“This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.”
Again, not very encouraging. I mean, how can we live as Jesus? No one can live as Jesus. But we can walk with Jesus, and in the walking, we become more like Him, step by step. It’s the relationship God wants. And in the relationship, as we draw ourselves closer to Him, He will draw Himself closer to us. And that relationship is where the pruning takes place. It’s where we are molded more like Him. It’s where the fire burns out the impurities. It’s a give-and-take relationship where we humbly ask God for His holiness over our sinfulness.
Going back to the chorus again, verse 2 says:
I am reaching for the highest goal, That I might receive the prize;
Pressing onward, Pushing every hindrance aside;
Out of my way, ‘Cause I want to know You more;
(More and more)
Does that sound familiar?
Here are the words of Paul to the Corinthian church
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
And his words to the Philippian church
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
And then from the first three verses of Hebrews 12
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
So this race that we are in, if you want, you can think of NASCAR since it’s NASCAR weekend here at the Glen. It isn’t over until it’s over. You keep going, even if you’re last in line. You don’t give up. And the more you go–in this race, the more you’re gonna want to keep going.
Why? Because we are becoming perfected with each lap around the track. We are not who we were when we started. When we run each lap, a piece of our old selves burns off of us, and we become lighter and freer and more full of joy each time around.
It reminds me of the Christian Olympic runner Eric Liddell, who said, “When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” It is the same when we run the spiritual race set before us. There may be Satan’s hurdles, but don’t let that stop you. Jump over ‘em. Don’t be intimidated, just jump over ‘em.
Let me go back to Philippians 3 again and reread verses 12-14, but this time adding what precedes it:
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 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 9 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. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
In verse 6, John exhorted us to live as Christ did. That short sentence packs a huge punch. Like I said, how are we supposed to do that?
Paul was an example of living as Jesus did.
He said, going back to 1 Corinthians again, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”
Or as the New King James puts it: “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”
So it apparently can be done, at least to some degree.
But what is that degree? What’s the formula, how do we live as Christ, as John and Paul urge us to do? Well, I don’t have time to tackle that today. So, I’ll tackle that next week. In the meantime, let’s pray.
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