ACF Large Group 2 Notes

I John 2:1–11 — Love and the Little Children

2 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

The New Commandment

7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

ACF Large Group 2 Notes

Verse 1:

-Advocate: A person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy.

-No matter how badly we mess up in life, we will always have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

-Think about the advocates in our own lives. It could be our parents, our friends, or our teachers. Think about the way they have supported us in the past, and think about how much more confidence should we have with Christ as our advocate.

Gordon’s story about his father being his advocate:

After graduating from practice for a year, he encountered this very technically difficult dentistry case on a wisdom tooth that was grown at a weird angle. Theoretically, he knew how to perform the operation, but he has never done in practice. Prideful as young people usually are, he didn’t consult his father and decided to call the patient in to perform the surgery. Two hours after the operation began, Gordon knew he was in for the long run. The patient also noticed that the operation was going badly. After Gordon consulted his father, his father suggested that they stop the operation and continued at a later time. However, the patient didn’t want to come back. Six months passed, and a police came to his door with a court case. The patient sued Gordon for one million dollars for the failed operation. Gordon found out the hard way that there exists a law in Pittsburgh that states that if you start an operation, even if another dentist finishes that operation, you are still responsible for the damage done. The case ended up lasting two years. Throughout the process, Gordon constantly dreaded the consequences and even prayed for the person to be hit by a bus. This is understandable, since if the patient wins the case, then Gordon would have to work to pay off the debt for the next 20 years. Despite how tedious the process was, Gordon’s father advocated for Gordon, and even put his fifty years of practice on the line for Gordon. Not once did his father complain about how dumb or arrogant Gordon was. The case was finally closed when Gordon decided to pray for the patient’s salvation. He ended up paying for much less than the one million dollars he was sued for.

Verse 2:

-Worldly Appeasement v.s. Godly Appeasement

1. Worldly appeasement is out of selfishness. For example, a bully asking for a kid’s lunch money will not be satisfied just because the kid complies. Instead, the bully will ask for more.
2. Godly appeasement is out of selflessness. God doesn’t need anything from us, his creation. Nothing we give or do affects him or makes him better. He asks for offerings or confession and repentance from us because he is a just God, and that by doing those things, we will be the happiest.

Verses 3–6:

Note: There were some confusions about verses 3 and 5, so I will clarify below

-Interpretation of verse 3: If we keep his commandments, we have assurance that we have come to know him. Note: keeping his commandments is referring to doing it in general, since it’s impossible to keep God’s commandments constantly (the “in general” is implied because throughout I John, it talks about how we are imperfect and still sins.)

-Interpretation of verse 5: a mature and whole love for God (“perfected love”) occurs through obedience to God’s word. The extent that we keep God’s word is the measure of maturity of our love for God.

Verses 8–11:

-God places difficult-to-love-people in our lives sometimes. However, I believe that there are characteristics that God wants us to learn that can only be obtained from us learning to love these people. Whether it’s learning patience from loving someone who is arrogant, or learning kindness from helping out someone in need, or learning self-control from being around gossiping people.

Things to think about:

-Are there people you need to learn to love and accept?

-When given the opportunities to become an advocate, will you take up the burden as Jesus has done for us?