Episode #20260816
I Must Remember Who I Am in Jesus
Please note: This transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for the most accurate information and meaning. Sermon Summary This sermon explores 1 John 2:12-14, challenging believers to tune out the distracting voices of the world and remember their true identity in Christ. The pastor highlights three foundational truths for all Christians: their sins are entirely forgiven through Jesus, they share a deeply personal and intimate relationship with God the Father, and they possess the strength to overcome the evil one because the Word of God lives within them. Key Points Remember Your Identity: In a culture full of external messaging telling us who we should be, Christians must actively remember who Christ has made them to be. We Are Forgiven: Forgiveness is not earned through our own actions but is granted freely on account of Jesus’ name and His finished work. We Know God: Christianity is not a distant, transactional religion. Through Jesus, believers have an active, intimate relationship with God, akin to a loving father who is ever-present and eager to teach His children. We Have Overcome the Evil One: Believers are inherently weak on their own, but they are made strong because the Word of God resides in them. Because Jesus has already defeated sin and death, Christians live in the reality of that victory. Sermon Transcript Introduction to 1 John 2:12-14 Well, as we continue in worship, let’s turn our attention to the Word of God, looking at 1 John chapter 2, starting in verse 12, and we’ll read down to verse 14. Some commentators would say that 1 John doesn’t have a typical introduction. It does have an introduction, but it’s just kind of skipped down into the body of the letter a little bit. As he gets into these couple verses, he’s addressing the congregation. We don’t know what church exactly it is that he’s writing to, but he’s giving reasons for why he’s writing to them. We see the phrase “I write to you” repeated six times. That’s an important indication of the reason he is saying the things he’s saying at this moment. He’s writing these things because of the qualities and characteristics of these individuals. This is his introduction, his welcome, his greeting to the folks there at the church. As he’s doing that, he addresses three groups of people: dear children, fathers, young men. He’s giving a rundown of basically the entire church. I don’t want you to get caught up on the little children, I don’t want you to get caught up on the old men, and I don’t want you to get caught up on the young men. He is basically saying whatever stage of life you’re in in the church, that’s who I’m addressing, and these things are true of you. These are rhetorical devices being used to describe the totality of the church and that these things described are true of everybody who is in the church. Because of that, as we consider this passage this morning, yes, it’s presenting John’s reasons for writing, but more than that, it’s identifying who the people in the church are. It’s identifying what is true of those people. Significantly, what is true of those people in relation to the work of Jesus for them. As we consider these couple verses this morning, that’s what I want us to be considering. We must remember who we are in Jesus. We must remember what is most true of us in Jesus. That’s some of the things that John is highlighting about the believers there that he’s writing to. So with that in mind, let’s go to the Word of God. Scripture Reading & Opening Prayer “I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” This is the Word of God. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your grace to us this morning. You have given us your Word that is holy and inerrant. Lord, we pray that you use it in our lives to bring us to deeper knowledge of Jesus, that you remind us of the beauty of the gospel through it, that you challenge us, and help us to grow into th e likeness of Jesus through it. We pray that you would use your Spirit to appl y this Word to our lives this morning and to transform and change just as you promised to. We ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Remem bering Who We Are in Jesus As we consider these things that are true of us as believers, it’s important that we remind ourselves who we are because we so easily forget in our culture. We have so many voices that tell us who we are, whether it be TikTok, Instagram, ads on the television, or ads we see along the highway on billboards. There is all sort of messaging that we receive on a daily basis that is pumped into our brain and into our eyes that says, “This is who you are,” or “This is who you should aspire to be.” You should aspire to be this type of person, you should aspire to buy a Lexus and to have a Rolex, or you should aspire to be a fly fisherman, or you should aspire to be an influencer, whatever the case may be. Those voices seep in, they start to draw us in those directions, and we get a little confused and lose sight a little bit of who we are in Jesus. We lose sight of what Christ has done for us, and as He has done it for us, what He has made us to be through His death and His resurrection. When we’re confused, we become like a boat in the ocean that has lost control of its rudder. We’re just floating, or we’ve lost our mast in a storm. We’re floating around directionless. We have no power to move in the direction we ought to be moving, but instead, we just get swamped and we drift aimlessly. There’s a great moment in the movie Moana . My pastor in York would use this one, and he’d tear up every time he would tell it. In Moana , there’s this scene where she has finally reached Te Fiti. She’s coming up to that big battle against this demigod, this god of the ocean and lava and smoke. She’s unsure of herself sort of all through the movie. The movie is really about identity more than it’s about the main conflict. About who is she, can she lead, can she show up, can she accomplish the mission in front of her? She gets to that climactic point where she’s toe-to-toe with this giant lava monster thing, and she says, “I am Moana.” She gains the victory as she recognizes who she is. As you go through the story, you recognize that she’s building this identity of her ancestors, of all these other experiences, her experience of traveling across the ocean to get there. Her identity is not just individualized in herself, but she’s recognizing all these other things that have come before to make her who she is. It’s in that recognition of who she is that she has the power to overcome the reality that’s in front of her. The same is true for you and I. Although we’re not talking about a giant lava monster in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and we aren’t talking about the evil one who wars against our souls, who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. We are in opposition and in a conflict against our own sin, our own flesh, and the brokenness of the world. Just like Moana was able to say, “I am Moana, this is who I am,” and interact with that conflict, you and I, as we recognize that we are in Jesus and that these things are true of us that John is talking about, we recognize that we have the power to overcome sin, death, and the devil. Not through our own power, not because it’s just us and our individual experience, but because of what Jesus has done for you and I. John goes through three major categories as he’s talking to the different age groups in the church. We Are Forgiven The first thing he starts with: “I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.” The first thing we must remember about ourselves, about our identity, is that we are forgiven. Your sins—past, present, future—have been forgiven. That necessarily means you need the bad part of the gospel: that you’re a sinner. You’ve done what is wrong in the sight of God. You’ve missed the mark. You’ve hurt others, you’ve hurt yourself, you’ve sinned against God. Some of us have a hard time reckoning with that reality in our lives. In fact, all of us do. That’s why corporate confession of sin is so helpful for us. Because we know at least one time a week, we’re going to come in this room with a bunch of other people and say that we’re sinners together. That should encourage us! Everybody else here is a sinner, so we can be honest about that reality. As we’re honest about that reality, we’re also living in the fact in our identity that we’re forgiven. To be forgiven means that we were sinners and that we are sinners. Our need for forgiveness implies the reality of sin. But it’s not just that we’re forgiven. Sometimes we think about forgiveness and we think, “Well yeah, I need to be forgiven, but the process of forgiveness—especially in our earthly horizontal relationships—starts with our own, not just confessing our sin, but then making it right.” I’m forgiven only when I take care of the mess that I made. I’ll ask for forgiveness, you know, if I hit a car in the parking lot this morning. I’m not parked in the parking lot so I should be good, but if I did, yeah, I could say sorry. But I would kind of recognize that I’m not really going to feel forgiven until I file the insurance claim and insurance makes it right, or I pay out of pocket to make the other person whole. We have this understanding that with forgiveness, there is still this responsibility that we have to actually make it right, to actually be forgiven, we still have to do something. But as John’s talking about forgiveness here, he says this: “I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.” On account of Jesus. The sins that you commit are forgiven not based on your account of righteous deeds, not on your account of good stuff, not on your account of making things right, but instead, your sins are forgiven because of the name of Jesus. Because of what Jesus has done for you. That’s where the source of forgiveness comes from. Which means that every sin, no matter how horrific, no matter how terrible, any of those sins can be forgiven and are forgiven freely and completely because Jesus is God himself. Jesus is the one who created all things. Jesus is the one who lived a perfect life and died the death we should have died, and rose again for our justification so that our sins might not be just partially forgiven, but fully forgiven. We must recognize that our identity as believers, our identity as sons and daughters of God, is that we are forgiven people. Forgiven on account of the name of Jesus, forgiven on account of the work of Christ for us. Not because of anything we’ve done, but solely because of what Jesus has done. As we live in that place of knowing that’s who we are, we then are able to confront the reality of forgiveness in our own lives in terms of a horizontal relationship. As we need forgiveness, we are empowered to then ask for forgiveness because we recognize that we have been fully and overwhelmingly forgiven by the work of Jesus. As we recognize that, we can then give forgiveness freely, recognizing that, “Hey, I’ve already been forgiven. My debts have been wiped clean. My sins have been cast into the depths of the sea. And if that’s true for me, then I am now freed up to grant forgiveness freely to those around me because my sins have been taken care of.” We can then live with boldness towards obedience to the law of God, obedience to what Christ has commanded, to walk in the light as God is in the light, as we talked about previously in 1 John. Because our sins have been forgiven, we can walk in these ways of light, these ways of obedience, rather than continuing in ways of darkness, because we are forgiven, and we have everything we need in Jesus. It’s been provided for us, so we are free to go. We’re free to give forgiveness, we’re free to receive forgiveness, we’re free to live in obedience. Because we haven’t just been forgiven, we are those who have been forgiven . Our identity is as someone who has received the forgiveness of Jesus. We Know God Sometimes we think about forgiveness as something that’s just a transactional thing. I did something wrong, I asked for forgiveness, the other person gives it to me. And then we just repeat that process every single time it happens. But in Jesus, forgiveness is not transactional, it’s relational, and it’s about our identity. It’s tied to our relationship with Jesus, and now we’re not just people who receive forgiveness, but we are forgiven people . We’re identified by forgiveness itself, because of what Jesus has done for us. John goes through three major categories as he’s talking to the different age groups in the church. The first thing he starts with is being forgiven. The next section is pointed towards older members: “I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.” He’s certainly talking about the knowledge of God. They know the factual information about who God is. They know the factual information about who Jesus is. Colossians and Ephesians and other places tell us that Jesus is the one who, by whom and through whom all things have been created. We recognize that reality. But the word ginosko in Greek is the word for “know,” the verb there. It’s not just an intellectual knowledge, but in this setting, in this context, it’s also speaking of a relational knowledge, an intimacy of knowledge that exists, that’s not just assenting to a set of facts, but instead acknowledging a relationship and a real interaction has occurred. When it says you have known the one who is from the beginning, he’s not just saying you have right knowledge about God—that you know the Bible, that you’ve gone to church, that you’ve been around the block a couple times and you know where things are in the Bible and you’ve memorized some things. He’s emphasizing you know the one who is from the beginning. You have a personal relationship with the one who created all things. You have a personal relationship with God the Father. If you remember, as we are forgiven by Jesus, as our sins are removed from us and as we’re given the righteousness of Jesus, as we’re justified before God, we are then able to walk into a close relationship with God through the work of Jesus. Because we’re forgiven people, we can then be people who are known as those who know God, those who have a personal relationship with God. We must remember that we are forgiven, but we also must remember that we know God. That we have a personal interaction and relationship with God. I’m afraid that many of us, as we approach Christianity, as we approach our devotional life, as we approach reading scripture, as we approach prayer, as we approach going to church, that we kind of do it going through the motions. We do it in a sort of disconnected way, that we’re just kind of like, “Yeah, I’m doing this stuff. I hope this is true. I hope this is right.” I think we all feel that on different days. I hope I’m not just talking to the ceiling right now. Often times we think about our relationship with God and knowing God in that sort of disconnected way. We think that’s just how it’s meant to be. We kind of think of God as an estranged father, an estranged dad who lives across the country. Yeah, we’ll get a phone call occasionally, maybe once a year we’ll fly out and see him. But that’s about it. He exists, we know he’s over there, maybe we email, maybe we send some letters, maybe we talk a little bit, but there’s this chasm. There’s this lack of knowledge, this lack of intimacy that exists in the relationship. But our God is not a God who is like a disconnected, not-present dad. Instead, our Father is like a dad who takes us fishing, who shows us how to work on a car, who teaches us how to ride a bike, who teaches us how to throw a ball. Because oftentimes, when I speak with people who have difficult relationships with their fathers or difficult relationships with parental figures in their lives, often times what you end up hearing as they’re adults is, “My dad showed me exactly what not to be as a dad.” The lack of intimacy led to: “I’m doing things way differently than how he did it.” But then oftentimes, on the opposite side, if you have a dad who’s really close to you and who has taught you things and who has maybe brought you closer to Jesus, or shown you how to live life and has supported you and loved you and been there, then you’re like, “Yeah, my dad showed me what to do, and I’m going to try to model and be as good of a dad as my dad was, or to be as good of a mom as my mom was.” You see the difference of relationship that exists there. Sometimes we think, and we live most of our Christian life, I’m afraid, in some contexts, in a place where we think God is just disconnected, He’s out there, we’re related, but not sure how. But what the scriptures call us to is a deep knowledge of God, that He is present with us, that He is omnipresent, that He is all around us, that He’s always with us, that His angels are always ministering to us. Whenever two or more are gathered, there He is also. He is our ever-present help in a time of need. If that’s true of God, God is here. And what’s missing in our daily experience is our leaning into His presence. We are the ones who know God, yet we often live our lives in this place of spiritual lethargy. But we have what we need. We have the scriptures, we have the Word of God, we have public worship, we have fellowship with other believers. Oftentimes, God is just inviting and calling and waiting for us, like a patient father, to return to Him and to look to Him and remind ourselves He’s always there. There’s a story I heard my senior year of high school. I was at a school retreat sort of thing, and the speaker shared a story about talking to an older man who was turning 99 or 100. He had been a Christian for the majority of his life, and he asked him the question, “What’s it like being a Christian for 90-plus years?” And his response was, “Jesus is closer to me than the air that I breathe.” It was just this statement of over my life, I’ve become more and more aware of the closeness of Jesus. That God is not far, but He’s near. Especially as you get to an advanced age like that, you start to realize nothing else really matters. Everything else is fading fast. When you’re young, you have the illusion that it’s not, but as you get older, you start to realize it’s all going to go. We don’
