Message Info:
- Text: 1 John 3:4-9, NKJV
- Series: Assurances (2021), No. 6
- Date: Sunday morning, October 10, 2021
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Audio File: Open/Download
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Transcript:
⟦Transcript⟧ I read an article, I read an old article a few days ago, came across it. And I say old, it’s about my age, but for a president that would be young, but for a news article that’s kind of old and outdated. But I thought it was interesting anyway, because the FBI in this article was talking about their surprise at realizing that the cost of employee fraud and embezzlement in the banking industry cost more to the banking industry than bank robberies.
You know, we hear stories every time a bank is robbed, every time there’s an armored car robbery, any one of these things, it’s dramatic and it makes the news and we think these people get away with millions and millions of dollars. They said that the cost, even back then in the mid 80s, of people just pocketing a few dollars here and there or moving money around that they’re not supposed to, they said the cost of that was even greater than all the bank robberies combined. And I grew up in a banker’s household.
My dad is a banker, and I remember hearing stories at the table, not of him taking the money, but he would tell stories about how years ago it was the case that at least at certain banks, they wouldn’t go after employees, they wouldn’t write them up, they wouldn’t terminate them, They wouldn’t prosecute for certain amounts of money. It had to be over a certain amount before they would do anything. And I remember dad telling me as a child, but now if you steal a penny, they’ll go after you.
Now, he didn’t know that from experience that, hey, I pocketed all this. Dad was very often one of the ones that would have to investigate those things and balance the bank vault and track down the missing money, that sort of thing. But I remember as a kid going to work with him on a Saturday and him talking about how if somebody even takes a penny, they will go after them.
And I think it’s because the banks realized that a little bit here and a little bit there adds up to a lot. There’s no. . .
When you’ve got thousands of employees and thousands of banks all over America, a little bit, a lot of no big deal adds up to a big deal. It adds up to where there was more money lost to employee theft than to bank robberies. So they eventually realized that every little bit is a big deal. And as we go to 1 John this morning, that’s what we need to realize about sin from God’s perspective. That there’s no such thing as no big deal. What we would look at and say, oh, it’s no big deal, it’s just a little bit.
Listen, it all matters. It’s all big to God. John assured the believers that he wrote to, as we’re going to read today, he assured them that it is a big deal. Sin is a big deal. It’s such a big deal that God dealt with it himself.
On our trip, there were several instances of boys being wild in the back seat. I’m sure that’s hard for you to imagine. And I had to at times say, do I need to pull over and deal with this?
You’ve probably been on both sides of that conversation in your life. Sometimes just there being a little noisy, guys, keep it down back there. And Charlie starts spitting or starts screaming, boy, do I need to pull over and come back there and deal with this myself.
No. A couple times I had to, but most of the time he said no. Because at that point, if you’re going to cause me to have a wreck, it was a big deal. Folks, sin was such a serious deal that God pulled the car over and came back here and dealt with it. We’re going to read about this morning.
We’re going to be in 1 John 3. 1 John 3, if you would turn with me there, if you’ve got your Bible, If you’re using your phone or tablet to read the scriptures, there’s a link right there in our bulletin, or it’ll be on the screen for you if you don’t have any of those options available to you. But we’re going to be in 1 John chapter 3, and we’re going to start in verse 4.
If you’d stand with me, if you’re able to, without too much difficulty, as we read from God’s Word together. Starting in verse 4 and going through verse 9 this morning. It says, Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and that in him there is no sin. Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him.
Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. whoever has been born of God does not sin for his seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he has been born of God and you may be seated so he begins here by by addressing the problem of sin sin is the problem and as I said he makes makes it clear that it’s a big deal he makes it clear that it it does matter as a matter of fact we’ve been talking about in the book of first john I might have said the book of John earlier, but the book of 1 John, we’ve been talking about these statements where he says, you know, where John was writing to reassure believers, especially in a very confused time where this was all new and they were dealing with false teachers who wanted to twist the gospel and he wanted to reassure them of the things that they needed to know.
He says here, you know that he, Jesus, was manifested to take away our sins. He wanted them to understand the gravity and the importance not only of our sin, but of what Jesus did to deal with it. And we have to understand, first of all, that sin is a massive problem.
Our human nature is sinful, and it puts us in opposition to a holy God. Now, he says here that sin is lawlessness. This is important to understand because these are two different words.
The Greek word that’s translated as sin means falling short. Sometimes it can be used to describe missing a mark, like when you shoot an arrow and you inevitably miss. If you’re me, you miss.
You would describe it possibly with that word. And so in our society, just like theirs, where people love their sin, that’s not unique to our society. That’s kind of human nature.
But here in our society, we do do a whole lot of excusing of sin. We do commit a lot of acting like it’s no big deal. And there’s an attitude that says, well, you know, none of us are perfect. Oh, I made a bad choice.
Adam and Eve made a spectacularly bad choice, right? I made a bad choice. I had a little oopsie.
John wants us to understand the gravity of what our sin is. He says it is lawlessness. It is lawlessness.
That word indicates defiance against God and His law. So when we sin, it’s not just that, ooh, I made a mistake. Ooh, I fell short.
Nobody’s perfect. Oops. It’s not a cute little thing.
He’s saying that when we sin, it is defiance against a holy God and His law that He has put there for our protection. So when He says, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, He said, we’re not just falling short. It’s defiance.
And I know that may be hard for some of us to swallow. Why is it such a big deal? You know, the editor of Christianity Today years ago wrote an article that still just burns me up.
Talking about how he wished God wasn’t such a drama queen about these things. In a magazine founded by Billy Graham. How far have we slipped here?
How he wished God would just kind of go with the flow about sin. He wished God could just kind of let it go sometimes. Folks, the reason why God can’t let it go is because right and wrong, and those standards are rooted in His nature.
I’ve told you this before. They’re rooted in His nature. Honesty is right because God is a God of truth.
Lying is wrong because it’s not in God’s nature to lie. Faithfulness is right, and adultery is wrong because God is a God of faithfulness. It all, every bit of his law is rooted in his character and who he is.
So when we reject that, we’re not just rejecting some abstract standard of right and wrong, we’re rejecting who he is. And I’ve told you before, it’s like looking at somebody and saying, I hate everything about you. Now why can’t we be friends, right?
That doesn’t work. When we choose sin, that’s what we’re choosing is lawlessness. Sin is not just a bad choice.
By its very nature, its defiance against God. And so he says in verse 8, He who sins is of the devil. The devil has sinned from the beginning.
Now this is not intended to be an insult toward anybody. If you leave here thinking today, well that preacher down at Central, he said I was of the devil. Yeah, and so was I.
It’s not unique to you. It’s not unique to me. It’s our human nature.
When we are sinning, we are literally following the lead of the devil. Who first and foremost is the one who convinced Adam and Eve. to do the same thing.
He has been from the beginning trying to convince people to turn away from God. And he’s been pretty successful at it. And he sinned from the beginning.
Satan in his pride tried to be God himself. This is intended here when he says, he who sins is of the devil. It’s intended to make a point that our rebellion puts us on the side of Satan in rebellion in opposition to God.
Are you getting the sense yet that John thinks this is a big deal? And not just John, but the Holy Spirit. John is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
God is saying this is a big deal. Sin is a big deal. God wants us to understand the gravity of our sin, and he wants us to understand that we cannot just continue in it. If you belong to God, you cannot just continue in it. There comes a time when we are called on to change by the power that he gives us, Not through our own effort, not through our own goodness.
Not as a way to earn salvation, but as a result of the salvation He’s given us. If that salvation is there, our hearts should be changed, and that should begin to wane, that old way of sinning. Now, many times in this passage when you see the verb sin, it’s talking about a continuous action.
Not a single instance in time, but an ongoing thing, more like a lifestyle. So what this is not saying is that, hey, you messed up. You did something you weren’t supposed to.
You said something you weren’t supposed to. You instantly regretted it. You repented.
It doesn’t mean that because you sinned in that moment that you don’t belong to Jesus Christ. Now, going back to chapter 1 of 1 John, he said, when we sin, if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. His righteousness is enough when our righteousness inevitably falls short. What this is talking about is a lifestyle of sin.
If I come to Christ and I still cling to the old ways of sin as a lifestyle, and I don’t care anything about changing, I don’t care anything about obeying Him, I don’t care anything about demonstrating my love for Him through the change that He wants to make in me, it’s evidence that the change may not have taken place after all. It’s evidence that the salvation may not be there after all. It’s at the very least cause for concern.
Our sin separates us from God. And we cannot persist in embracing sin as a lifestyle and pretending we belong to God. We just can’t.
And it doesn’t, honestly, it doesn’t matter what that sin is. For some people, it may be that they started out as the town drunk and came to Christ. I’m not saying that because they’re a Christian, they’ll never struggle with it again. I’ve known some people who’ve sworn it off when they came to Christ, and it’s never been an issue since.
Some people may struggle with it the rest of their lives. But what we can’t do as Christians is go on being the town drunk and being okay with that and not caring that God wants us to live sober and righteous. Some people have affairs.
Some people sleep around before becoming Christians. And they may struggle with the temptation to continue that. But what they can’t do as believers is continue on in that lifestyle and act like it’s okay and not care anything about changing and still pretend that they belong to Jesus Christ. Sometimes I struggle with pride.
I can’t just feed that constantly and act like it’s okay and not care what the Bible says about pride, not care what Jesus says about humility and act like my pride is okay and pretend I belong to Jesus Christ. You’re supposed to struggle against that sin. We all have what Hebrews calls the sin that does so easily beset us. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a socially acceptable sin.
Like our society has socially acceptable sins, basically anything but intolerance. Even in church culture, we have socially acceptable sins. Like we’ll come down real hard on gay marriage and abortion, but we’ll look the other way for gluttony and gossip.
They’re all sins. Now, some have more grave implications than others. Somebody said to me a couple weeks ago, aren’t all sins the same in God’s eyes?
Well, yes and no. Any sin we commit is enough to condemn us, enough to separate us from him. And they’re all serious in that regard. Some sins have more grave implications.
Some sins have more serious consequences than others, just from an earthly standpoint. But we can’t say that any sin is no big deal. I mentioned Wednesday night that the president of our convention, I read an article where recently, I read a recent article where at some point in the not too distant past, he had said certain group of sins that the Bible uses its whisper voice about. He said the church shouts about these and the Bible uses its whisper voice.
The pronouncements of the progressive wing of our denomination notwithstanding, God doesn’t whisper about any sin. He uses his outside voice about all of it. It’s all a big deal. Whether it’s what we’d look at and say is socially acceptable or whether it’s something we’d look at and say, oh, shame on them.
It’s all sin. And it’s all a big deal. And lifestyle of deliberate sin means that we are rejecting God. And so there was a solution to this because you and I are separated from God by this sin.
There’s a solution that God devised to deal with it. And Jesus Christ came to deal with our sin problem. You and I never could.
Do not take from this message, okay, I just need to clean up my life and stop sinning. We can’t. We cannot live well enough, live righteously enough to live up to the standards of a holy God.
We just can’t do it. Jesus looked at the most religious people in his day and then pointed to the people he was talking to and said, if you’re not better than them, you’re not getting into the kingdom of heaven. He looked at the Pharisees and said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom.
Guys, they were the most religious people. And Jesus said that was not enough. From an outward standpoint, they were the most moral, upstanding people.
Jesus said that’s not enough. The answer is not, I just need to try harder. I need to stop doing whatever I’m doing that while he’s up there talking about, I feel like he’s talking about me.
Trust me, I don’t know anything. I hear from time to time when I get done preaching, were you talking to so-and-so? I’m not going to tell you that.
Were you talking to me? No, I didn’t even know you were involved in that, all right? I don’t know.
But whatever, as I’m talking about sin, whatever the Holy Spirit’s tapping you on the shoulder about, the answer is not for you to try harder and say, well, I’m just going to quit that. The answer is that Jesus Christ came to deal with it because we couldn’t get past that on our own. Because we have sinned, we’ve already fallen short of the standard.
And there’s no amount of good that we can do to fix it. We’re totally separated from God. So we need a Savior who doesn’t have the same problem have, and that’s why it’s so important that verse 5 says, in Him there is no sin.
It’s talking about Jesus Christ. In Him there is no sin. Jesus Christ never sinned once, so when He came to the cross, He was not dealing with the consequences of any of His actions. He was paying for my sin and for your sin in full.
And by the way, let me back up for just a second. I meant to do this earlier. Let me explain again what sin is, in case you haven’t heard it or it just hasn’t clicked before.
Sin is anything we say, think, do, or don’t do that displeases God. And it can be big, open, outward sins. It can be the things that we hide down in the depths of our heart, whatever it is.
If it displeases God, it’s sin. And Jesus had to come and deal with that. The things that you’ve done in your past that you’re proud of, that God’s not pleased by, Jesus died for that.
The stuff you’ve done in your past that you’re not proud of. The stuff that’s there today that you’re not proud of. Jesus died for that as well.
In him there is no sin. He didn’t die for his own sin, he died for ours. And it says here in verse 5, you know that he was manifested to take away our sins.
Now this word manifested in Greek has the connotation of a light shining out into the darkness, piercing the darkness. We were driving through the panhandle this week. Sorry, all of my illustrations this week are panhandle related, but I feel like we were gone for a month.
We were driving through there and it’s pitch black out there. And there’s about a 50 mile stretch of road where there aren’t even any curves in the road. It’s just straight and very few hills even.
And so a car comes on the horizon. You can see them about 10 miles away at night. You’re out there in the pitch black and suddenly those headlights come out.
You can see them and you know they’re there. That light shining out in the darkness. That’s the idea of Jesus being manifest and piercing the darkness.
But not only that, it points to the fact that Jesus Christ didn’t just show up on earth. He didn’t just start to exist. Bethlehem was not the beginning for Jesus Christ. He was already there, and he just was manifested. What was already there became visible.
Jesus Christ, the point John’s trying to make here to the Gnostics that we’ve talked about for several weeks, is that Jesus Christ was the Son of God before there was time. He’s always been the Son of God. He’s always been God the Son.
he’s not some lesser god he’s not just some wise human teacher he is god the son in human flesh who showed up who pierced through the darkness to take care of our sins contrary to what the gnostics thought and his entire purpose in coming was to take away our sins as verse 5 says to carry them away to get them away from us to rid us of the guilt that accompanies those sins now for him to take away our sins. Again, it doesn’t mean that we will never commit an act of sin anymore. What it means is He took away our bondage to that nature, and He took away the guilt that we experience and that weighs heavily on our shoulders and on our soul as a result of the sin that we’ve committed.
And some of you know what I’m talking about because we’ve done things that we carried around with us for years because we knew it wasn’t right in God’s eyes. And Jesus came to lift that burden off of us so that we could walk with the Father. And while the Gnostics, they denied sin and they denied Jesus, they said there’s no such thing as sin.
Just go out and do whatever you want. Folks, there are Gnostics in our midst today. I don’t mean necessarily in this building, but there are Gnostics in our society today who will say sin is no big deal. It’s nothing we have to worry about.
Who’s to say? What’s the standard of right and wrong? Who gets to decide what sin is?
they said all these things and they still do. And while the Gnostics denied sin and they denied Jesus as the Son of God, they denied Him as the Savior of mankind, they denied Him as the Savior who came in flesh. While they were doing all this denying John who knew Him best because He was the last living eyewitness to His ministry, John insisted that there are three things that we do know.
The Gnostics speculated and John said there are three things that we know. Sin is real and it’s a serious issue. Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came to earth in the flesh, and that his whole reason for coming was so that we could be forgiven and be reconciled to God.
Unlike the Gnostics whose name meant knowledge, but they were constantly just questioning and speculating, John said, there are things that we know. To simplify it a little bit, sin is bad, Jesus is God, and he came to deal with our sins. Is that simple enough terms?
And he accomplished exactly what he came to accomplish. And he overcame Satan’s stranglehold on us. Verse 8 says, for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
So back in verse 5, he said that he was manifested to take away our sins, and then he explains a little more in verse 8. Why was he manifested? To destroy the works of the devil.
What the devil set out to build this kingdom full of people who would do his bidding, who would listen to him and join him in opposition and rebellion against God, Jesus came and bulldozed through that, destroying the works of the devil. Jesus came and tore all of that down, broke the hold that Satan has over us so that we can be reconciled to God. But folks, Jesus doesn’t just deal with past sin.
He also deals with the present and future sin. It doesn’t say that he was manifested to take away some of our sins. It says that he was manifested to take away our sins.
The result of what he did is a changed life. Jesus alone can remove our guilt and overcome our sinful nature. And John does not want them and he does not want us to be in doubt about this.
He wants us to understand this very important truth that Jesus came to deal with our sin problem once and for all. And so he says in verse 6, whoever abides in him does not sin. Now when I’ve talked to you before about abiding, we could call it resting in Jesus.
We could call it fellowship with Jesus. It’s the idea of sticking with him. So what he’s saying here is that if we stick with Jesus, we will not sin.
But remember that the way that verb reads in the Greek and just the context of the whole of Scripture, it doesn’t teach that we become sinlessly perfect. What he’s saying here is that we do not continue on in the same lifestyle of sin. If we stick with Jesus, we will not continue on in that lifestyle of sin.
We’re talking about a habit, a lifestyle of unrepentant sin. And by the way, even as I say lifestyle, it’s more important that we understand it’s a lifestyle of unrepentant sin. Because there may be things that you will struggle with for the rest of your life.
It doesn’t mean you’re in bondage to it for the rest of your life, but it means you may struggle with it. Some people struggle with cravings for alcohol or drugs, but they struggle against it through the power of the Holy Spirit and don’t give into it. Some people struggle with attractions.
That they’re not choosing that they have those attractions, but they struggle against them rather than giving in to them. Folks, we all have sin that, like I said earlier, the Bible calls it the sin that does so easily beset us. We all have those areas of weakness where Satan knows that’s how I’m going to get him.
There are certain things that you may be tempted by that don’t bother me, but there may be things that I’m tempted by that don’t bother you. Satan knows where he’s going to get us. It doesn’t mean we will never sin again.
I don’t know about you, but as a believer, every time I sin, even when I say something or have an attitude that does not comport with what he wants from me, I have that instant moment of regret afterwards and think, what did I just do? What did I just say? Why did I think that?
I have that feeling that I’ve let my father down and I hate it. And so I go to Him about it. And that’s repentance.
That’s the difference. None of this is a license to go out and do whatever we want and just repent later. That’s evidence that we’re not repentant.
But if we can go on and just sin like we always have, and we never feel that tug at our heart that we’ve disappointed our Father, we’re not on that same page with Him where we hate these things. Even Paul said, the things that I wish I didn’t do, I do anyway. If we never have that moment of hating our sin, but we just go on embracing the sin as a lifestyle and we never repent.
It’s an indication we are not abiding in Him. Because He says in verse 9, whoever has been born of God does not sin, does not continue sinning, for his seed remains in him and he cannot sin. Again, cannot continue, cannot go on sinning in the same way, because he has been born of God.
We’ve been reborn into the family of God. And because of that second birth, some things are going to be changed. Some things are supposed to be different.
I was telling Charla stories about things Charlie did on the trail, and she said, well, in some ways, he’s Daddy Junior. So I’m not sure you can say that about somebody who runs around in their underwear all the time, because I don’t do that. I don’t even like to be barefoot.
But in some ways, he’s Daddy Junior. You know why? Because he’s born of me.
They all have elements of my personality, and they’re never more annoying to me than when they’re acting out elements of my own personality, right? Because we are born into the families that we are, it contributes to the way that we are. Because we are born into God’s family, it should show up in how we are.
It should show up in who we’re growing up to become. As we grow, we kind of morph into our parents. I’m amazed at how many times I open my mouth and Bart Byrns’ voice comes out of it.
Right? And Benjamin, you’re going to slowly morph into me. And it just, it happens.
It’s unavoidable. Right? As we’re becoming more and more like our father, the evidence of being born of him should be there.
You understand this, right? To describe the seed for us, we might talk about DNA, but for God’s seed to be in us and bearing fruit, it’s talking about the gospel. That’s what caused us to be born into his family.
And yes, I know we’ve talked about being adopted into his family too. They’re both accurate. They’re both accurate.
They’re both examples that God gives to illustrate different aspects of the truth of the gospel. We’re born into his family. And so there should be that evidence.
There’s a change that occurs in us because Jesus brought us into this family and we were reborn in him into the family of God. So as a result, verse 7 says, He who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous. Jesus gives us his nature to replace the old sinful one.
Yes, we still have the flesh, but that flesh is now robed in the righteousness of Christ. We have his spirit, we have his power. For the first time, we are not bound to our sinful nature to do what it demands of us. We’re free to follow him and walk in his righteousness.
And so the bottom line here is that we can be confident our sins are forgiven, and we can be confident that we are able to walk faithfully with the Lord Because Jesus is able to accomplish these things. Sin was such a big deal that God himself, God the Son, came down here to deal with it. Just like when it got serious enough, I pulled over the car and went back there and dealt with it.
Sin was serious enough. Don’t ever treat sin like it’s a little thing. It was serious enough that Jesus came and dealt with it himself.
But folks, because of this, John says you know that he was manifested to take away your sins. We can be confident that because it was such a big deal that He came to deal with it, that our sins can be forgiven and our nature can be changed. So don’t be deceived.
Our lifestyle shows whether or not we know Him. Don’t. We do it all the time.
I tell myself I can eat whatever I want and I’m not going to gain weight again. I know it’s not true. We lie to ourselves.
Don’t lie to yourself and say, I can live however I want and still pretend to belong to Jesus Christ. It doesn’t work that way. He tells us in verse 7 not to be deceived. We cannot belong to Him and embrace sin as an unrepentant lifestyle.
Doesn’t mean we lose our salvation. It’s more along the lines of evidence we never had it to begin with. Because if we belong to Him, there’s going to be a change.
And if you’re saying this morning to yourself, how do I get that change? Because I told you early on, the answer here is not for you to try to clean things up so that you can be right with God. How do you get that cleansing?
How do you get that change? It starts with Jesus Christ and the realization that we have sinned against God. The realization that we are separated from Him because of that sin, because of that rebellion, that defiance, we’re separated from Him.
And the realization that we needed somebody to pay for our sin because we couldn’t. And that only Jesus came as the one who had no sin, so that He could be nailed to the cross and shed His blood and die to pay for my sin and for yours, so that we could be forgiven. It was serious enough that He came to deal with it Himself.
And then He rose three days later to prove it. And this morning, if you recognize that you’ve sinned, If you recognize that you’ve disobeyed him and you’re separated, but you believe that Jesus died to pay for your sins so you could be forgiven and be reconciled, all you have to do this morning is believe in Jesus as your one and only Savior. Believe that he died for you and rose again and ask God’s forgiveness.
Not because of your goodness, but because of what Jesus Christ did for you.
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