Did you know there are people who have literally won the lottery but have never picked up their prize? While it isn’t the norm, it does happen. In fact, the largest unclaimed prize in Ontario is $5-million from a LOTTO 6/49 draw in 2005. What a waste! Can you imagine winning a life-altering amount of money but never cashing-in?

Tragically, this is exactly how many Christians live their lives. Believers in Jesus are sitting on a ticket worth more than millions. This is a prize that goes beyond the future afterlife we’re guaranteed by virtue of our faith in Christ and includes the potential for a present abundant life (see John 10:10), one marked by peace, joy, maturity, liberty, purity, and intimacy. Yet many Christians never show-up to collect, leaving this life-altering prize unclaimed and unapplied. What a waste!

Well, God doesn’t want that for his children and today we’re going to be reminded of what we’re to do to cash-in and what God has done to make us eligible.

SERMON MANUSCRIPT 

Did you know that there are people who have literally won the lottery but never picked up their prize? According to a Toronto Sun article published last year, it happens because the winner is either ignorant that they’ve won or they lost the ticket proving they’ve won.

And we’re talking big money. Someone in Scarborough won the $70-million LOTTO MAX grand prize in 2022, a cheque that, four month later, remained unclaimed. Someone in Hamilton purchased a $7-million ticket and hadn’t yet shown up. The article explained that “it’s rare for major prizes … to go unclaimed, but it does happen sometimes” and that the largest unclaimed prize in Ontario was $5-million from a LOTTO 6/49 draw in 2005. Can you imagine winning a potentially life-altering amount of money but never cashing-in? 

Tragically, this is exactly how many Christians live. As believers in Jesus Christ, we’re sitting on a ticket worth more than millions, a prize that goes beyond the heaven we are guaranteed (1:5).

The eternal God has made himself knowable and one of his characteristics is that he is Light—undefiled holiness, undiluted warmth, and unhindered illumination. God is the standard of morality, the decider of truth, the definer of reality … all without a hint of darkness. 

And as his children, we’re invited to walk in that Light. We’ve won the grace sweepstakes, invited to live lives marked by a peace, intimacy, joy, freedom, and purity only offered by the God who is Light. Christians are sitting on a ticket worth more than millions, but many never cash-in. Have you? Have I? Have we?

Today, as we jump into the meat of 1 John, we’re going to be challenged with this question. We’re sitting on a life-altering amount of power and grace, and John’s going to show us what we’re to do to live in it and what God has done to make us eligible.

What We’re To Do

The text we’re looking at today contains three things you and I, as believers, need to chase in order to cash-in. This is what we’re to do to walk the Light. First, if we want to cash-in on the life Christ won for us, we must walk in holiness (1:6). 

You can’t claim to love Light and live in darkness. You can’t claim to be vegan and eat steak every night. You can’t sing, “You are my all in all” to God on Sunday and then put him in the margins of life on Monday. If you do, you’re lying. You may be saved but you’re not walking in Light but darkness. And, walking in darkness is dangerous. At my house I’m going to step on the worst piece of Lego ever created. If Christians walk in darkness, in unholiness, we’re going to get hurt.

[1:7] When we walk in holiness, in the Light in which he himself resides,  we enjoy fellowship with God and we’re cleansed from all sin by Jesus’s sacrificial and atoning death. “What can wash away my sin? / Nothing but the blood of Jesus. / What can make me whole again? / Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

Now, John is encouraging believers to walk in holiness that they may be cleansed. But aren’t we washed the instant we trust Christ (see 1 Cor 6:11)? Here’s where we must understand the two types of washings, a one-time washing for justification and a repeated washing for relationship. The cleansing John’s describing is that which we need for unhindered intimacy with God (1:8).

One preacher from long ago said, “He who cannot find water in the sea is not more foolish than the man who cannot [find] sin in [himself].” John says, don’t fool yourself: we all sin and we all need cleansing. And here’s how we get it: 1:9–10. If we assume we have nothing to confess we are, again, living in deceptive darkness. Ouch!

Read 2:1–2 and you can hear the pastoral concern dripping from John’s pen. He wants believers to enjoy the Light now, to walk in the warmth, clarity, protection, and purpose that only intimacy with God can give.

But to do that, we’ve got to walk in holiness, desiring fellowship with God so that you may not sin. But when you do sin, confess and our Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, is faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us. And he can do that because he himself is the propitiation for the sins of the world, he’s the instrument by which appeasement was made. He that is the righteous (2:1) is righteous (1:9) to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1:9). Go to him and accept the prize.

Do you pursue purity of life? Do you understand the depths of your sin and the height of God’s forgiveness? Or do you walk in the darkness, believing the lies of this world that you’re good just the way you are? Do you love what God loves and hate what God hates or is your moral palette being honed by a world set against God? 

Brothers and sisters, John is asking us, do we walk in holiness? And he’s asking because many Christians, in the 1st and 21st centuries alike, do not and because of that, will never experience the abundant life Jesus came to offer us.

If we want to cash-in on the life Christ won for us, we must walk in holiness. But we must also walk in obedience (2:3). There’s knowing and knowing. Years ago it came up that I didn’t tell my wife I loved her as much as she would like. I thought, “But I married you, that should be proof enough.” She disagreed. Why? Because a functional knowing is different from an experiential knowing. They’re both true, but the latter is an intimate awareness of the former.

As believers, we know God through faith in Christ (see John 17:3). It’s immovably true. But, as we’ve seen, John wants us to know Christ experientially and intimately. And we can, if we walk in obedience.

Read 2:4–6. Like in the first section, someone who claims to intimately know God but disregards God’s word is a liar. A teenager who claims to love her parents but sneaks out past curfew to drink with friends is deceived and a deceiver. Still a child, but not one that enjoys a flourishing relationship. But a child of God who obeys his word finds his love perfected, meaning it’s had its intended effect: to conform us into the likeness of God’s Son, to live like Christ lived.

There comes a point when every parent, grandparent, babysitter, or child-care worker must say to a kid, “because I said so.” You will obey, because it’s best for you even if you don’t understand why or how. You’re going to have to trust me. And, lo and behold, when kids obey the relationship is less strained anymore enjoyable.

It’s the same with God. If we want an intimate relationship with our Saviour, we will walk in obedience. And when Christians and churches decide to play fast-and-loose with his word—an extension of his very being—we play fast-and-loose with our very relationship with him.

If we want to be a people who walk in the Light, growing in our relationship and experience of God, we will be a people who walk in holiness, walk in obedience, and, finally, walk in love. Verse 6 called believers to walk as Christ walked and, now, John explains what exactly he had in mind: it’s the walk of love (2:7–11).

Again, if someone claims he is in the Light, enjoying an intimate relationship with God, but hates their fellow Christian, their lying. It’s the one who loves their brothers and sisters in Christ who actually walks in the Light, avoiding the dangers of groping about in the dark.

Love one another. On one hand, it’s an old commandment John’s readers have heard many times. It’s found at least a dozen times in the NT—John 13, John 15, Romans 13, 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Peter 1—not to mention the OT. It’s old. But it’s also new in that this sacrificial love has now been modelled perfectly and brightly when the word became flesh, dwelt among us, and died for us (see John 15:13). It’s old in substance, new in demonstration; old in content, new in power. 

You want to walk closely with your God? You want to enjoy intimacy with he that has saved you? Walk in love, sacrificially loving brothers and sisters in Christ like Christ himself loved.

It can be popular today to besmirch the church. “I like Jesus, I just don’t like his people very much.” What a garbage statement. Jesus died for his church. He’s purifying his church. He’s coming back for his church. A church that, by the way, he calls his bride. We best not slander the bride of the King of kings.

Can it be hard to love sinners? Of course. But when I start thinking that way I just need to be reminded that I’m one of them so maybe it’s time for me to get down off my high horse.

So, how do we enjoy intimacy with the Almighty? How we do move from knowing God in salvation to knowing him in relationship? How do we take steps from being Christians to being disciples, used mightily by God for his glory and for our enjoyment? 

Well, John is clear: walk in holiness, walk in obedience, and walk in love. If you claim to know God but fail to walk this way, you’re lying to yourself and others. We’re sitting on the winning ticket, brothers and sisters. Perhaps it’s time for some of us to cash it in and for others of us to continue to enjoy the prize.

What God Has Done

Now, before John moves on he wants to remind his readers of who it was that bought the ticket in the first place. How are we even eligible for such a relationship with him? John’s been describing what we’re to do but wants us to end thinking about what God has done.

Before I read these final verses, I want to give a key to understanding who’s being spoken to. John is about to address children, fathers, and young men. When he speaks to little children and children, John is addressing the whole church. He does this seven other times in this letter (2:1, 18, 28; 3:7, 18; 4:4; 5:21). Children are believers.

But then, staying with the family theme, he speaks to fathers, who I take to represent mature believers, those who parent others, and young men, those newer to the faith, more full of zeal than maturity. But, throughout it all, it’s very clear that John is writing to saved people and wants them to know what God has done for them. As believers, we are sitting on a winning ticket. And here, John gives us a sample of our prize. Three things that we’ve received from God.

First, God’s given us forgiveness from our sins (2:12). We know from the testimony of Scripture that we have all sinned, falling short of God’s standard. We are stained with iniquity and that the cost of such filth is death. But we’re also told that Jesus paid our penalty and, in his blood, provided to only detergent strong enough to purify (see Psa 103:12). If you have believed in Jesus for everlasting life you have been given forgiveness from your sins, past, present, and future, and you cannot now out-sin God’s eternal forgiveness.

Second, God’s given us victory over evil (2:13b, 14b, d). The same author records Jesus telling his disciples, in John 16:33 and in 1 John 4:4. We are living in a sin-scarred world full of sin-stained people. And this is a world set against the things of God. We do battle, not against flesh and blood but against the powers in the heavenly places. We war against an Enemy who steals, kills, and destroys and prowls about hungry and murderous. We, left to ourselves, are outgunned. But, in Christ, we have victory over evil, that we can say with Paul, “to live is Christ, to die is gain.” We’re untouchable in him.

Third, God’s given us knowledge of himself (2:13a, c, 14a, c). As believers, we’ve come to know God because he condescended to introduce himself. This whole topic of growing in intimacy with the Almighty is predicated on him being knowable in the first place. We have been given knowledge of God because God graciously revealed himself to us.

So what has God done to make us eligible for such a prize? He has given us forgiveness from our sins, he has given us victory over evil, and he has given us knowledge of himself. 

And because of what God has done there are things we’re to do if we want to enjoy the abundant life we’ve been offered, to cash-in on the prize for which we’ve been made eligible. We’re to walk in holiness, walk in obedience, and walk in love.

---

---