Grace Church exists to glorify our Heavenly Father by
 continually making more disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Taking Sin Seriously 1 John 3:4-10 Get Real: A Study of 1 John Sermon #14 Cool Cal. That was the nickname of our 30th president, Calvin Coolidge.  He was known to be a man of few words. On one occasion a visitor to the White House told him, “I've made a bet with a friend that I can get you to say at least three words this evening. What do you say to that?” To which Coolidge responded, “You lose.”   One Sunday afternoon President Coolidge returned home from church and found his wife sitting in the chair. Unable to go that day because she was ill, she was still interested in what the preacher had to say. She asked her husband what the preacher spoke about and he said, "Sin." Well, a one word answer to a question wasn’t quite satisfactory, so she pressed him for what the preacher had said about it. Finally, Coolidge responded with, “He was against it.”   Are we? Are we against sin? Do we take sin seriously? In his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, Ron Sider writes, “Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most ‘Christians’ regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment. The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like the Gallup Organization and the Barna Group are simply shocking. Gallup and Barna…hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general. Divorce is more common among born-again Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers.”   Poll after poll consistently indicates that there is virtually no difference in America between those who claim to be born again Christians and the population at large when it comes to sexual morality, materialism, hedonism, and worldview. Those claiming to be Christians think and act just as the world does. We may claim to believe in Jesus and the Bible, but our lives don't back up the claims.   1 John is a much-needed antidote to this current form of Christianity. In combating certain heretics who had left the church and who were recruiting others to join them, John gives three tests of authentic Christianity: the moral test (obedience to Christ); the relational test (love for others); and, the doctrinal test (believing the truth about Christ). From 1 John 2:28-3:10 John gives the second application of the moral test. He makes it clear that a righteous life is a distinguishing mark of one that truly has been born of God. John's overall theme in 3:4-10 is simply this, Because sin is heinous, true Christians do not and cannot live in sin. That’s why we must take sin seriously! Turn to 1 John 3:4-10 (p. 863).   Years ago I worked with products that contained cyanide. When you work with chemicals that are dangerous, there are huge warning labels plastered all over the container. That’s what John is doing for us. He’s plastering warning labels all over sin so we’ll remember that sin is deadly serious. 1. Most of us forget that sin is serious. This past week I called Debbie Varga to see how she was doing. Though she’s doing better she had quite a bit of pain. The surgeon had told her that this wasn’t a horribly painful surgery but Debbie said her pain had been as bad as her original car accident, when she’d been struck by a drunk driver nearly twenty years ago, and they weren’t even sure that she would survive. But I remember thinking when she told me that she’d been told that it should not be a terribly painful surgery that that had not been my experience. Through the years I’ve ministered to folk as they have had nearly every surgery imaginable. A hip replacement has always stood out as one of the most painful. It’s easy though for medical staff to become desensitized to pain, they’ve seen so much of it that it’s easy to become calloused.   Nearly all of us do that when it comes to the loss of human life. Graphic images of horrible deaths from around the world in the media desensitize us. It takes something like six people being murdered in Delavan, two of whom were infants to shake us out of our lethargy. The same is true of sin. Our culture has gone full circle where we are today fulfilling Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”   Check your sin sensitivity? When you hear a friend is committing adultery or getting a divorce, does it bother you? Do you wince when you learn a couple is living together or someone is sleeping around? How about when you hear someone take the Lord’s name in vain? Use an obscenity? Does materialism, greed or lust bother you? How about gossip or complaining? Anger? Maybe we should instead ask, “What sins really do bother me?” Folks, our complacency toward sin should frighten us. We must see sin from God’s perspective because to be haphazard about sin is to be completely apathetic and even opposed to the whole purpose of Christ’s first appearing.   a) Sin is rebellion against God. John writes, “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness” (v. 4). Remember John Walker, better known as the American Taliban. John Walker was captured after we invaded Afghanistan. He was a twenty-year old American citizen who had converted to Islam and was fighting against our forces on the side of the Taliban. He was a traitor and tried for treason.   Sin is treason. It’s rebellion against God. Some years ago Billy Graham said, “We stand at the heart of a world revolution. Our world is on fire and man without God cannot control the flames. The fires of greed, hate, and lust are sweeping uncontrollably around our globe. We live in the midst of crisis, danger, fear, and death.” All of us are aware of the accuracy of those words. When we think of sin we need to picture the LA riots with its violence and smoldering ruins.   For me probably the most repulsive symbol is that of flipping the finger. If I’m driving and someone flips me off, I can literally feel my blood boil. Sin is flipping the finger at our Heavenly Father. When we have a cavalier attitude toward sin, that’s exactly what we are doing. The conventional wisdom of the day is that if it doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s okay or that we are only human. Sin is rabid rebellion against God.   This word lawlessness does not mean without law. It means opposed to God’s law. To sin then is to rebel against God.   Shortly after she had her baby, Madonna was interviewed by a reporter and one the questions she was asked was, "What type of religion are you going to give to your little baby?" Madonna answered, "I am baptizing her Catholic. There are things about Catholicism I disagree with but there a lot of things I am still intrigued by. I still go to Church and light candles. The Church provides a kind of sanctuary and a sense of community. I'll teach her about Catholicism, but also about other religions, especially Buddhism, Judaism, and the Cabala, which is ancient Jewish lore. My own religion combines all of those things. I would rather present the Bible to my daughter as some very interesting stories you could learn from, rather than that it is the rule you must live by." Madonna is dead wrong! The Bible is God’s law for life. It’s the rule we must live by as Christians. We are to dedicate our lives to living as God has told us in His Word, otherwise we are lawless.   John is a blessing to us here. By showing sin for what it is, he encourages renunciation of sin. For how can sin—rebellion against God—be part of the lives of those who vow their allegiance to God? To further support his argument John talks about the origin of sin.   b) Sin originates with the Devil. Look at verse 8.“He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.” This is the first of four occurrences of this word devil in this letter. The name means “slanderer,” one who knowingly and deliberately advances charges against God and His people. For God and His children, the devil is public enemy #1.   If I told you that your house was previously owned by Osama Bin Laden and had been used by the 9-11 bombers, would you still want to live there? If I told you that your car had been owned by Hitler, would you still want it? Remember the outcry some years ago when it was reported that some of Kathy Lee Gifford’s clothing line were being manufactured in 3rd world sweat shops. Whether that story was true or not, I’m not sure. But we do know where sin comes from. All sin is devilish. Combine all of the horrible faces from all those who have perpetuated crimes against humanity; Castro, Stalin, Mussolini, Bin Laden. One face is behind all of the others, Satan.   When we sin, we are using his products and supporting his “government.” Vaughan points out that this phrase “does what is sinful” describes the person who makes a business of sin. Such a person, John says, is “of the devil.” Literally, he/she has the devil as his/her spiritual father and draws from the devil the ruling principles of his/her life. Sin then is a paternity issue. It’s serious because it’s rebellion against God that was hatched by our worst enemy, Satan himself. 2. Sin is so serious that Jesus came to earth to deal with it. Look at verse 5, “But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.” Heinous horror calls for awesome heroics. Even a lost, pagan world knows this. Think about how many movies are about some crises. The end of earth seems inevitable. There are no solutions. But there is some glimmer of hope. Some heroic, self-sacrificing act of one or a team will save the world. The list is endless: Armageddon, Deep Impact, Space Cowboys, The Core, even the Spiderman and Lord of the Ring movies. But the incarnation is not some movie or work of fiction. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, left the glories of heaven, took on human flesh and ultimately gave His life on a brutal cross – because it was the only solution to the sin problem. That’s how serious sin is – there was only one cure, only one solution – the life of God’s only Son.   a) Jesus came to take away our sins. John’s words echo what he wrote earlier in his gospel when John the Baptist said of Jesus, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John’s point is not so much that Jesus came to take away sin but He stands in opposition against sin. He’s asking his readers “how could they sin when Jesus gave everything to take away sin?” That’s also why John makes a point of what theologians call the impeccableness of Christ “in him is no sin.” Only someone who is sinless could pay for the sins of others. That’s why the Cross is the heart of the Christian message. As Guy King says, “His precious blood is the Sovereign Eraser of all our guilty stain.”   Among the many things that Jesus did at the cross, He dealt with the sin question. If you took out a piece of paper and started writing down every sin that you’ve ever committed, you’d never finish. Jesus not only took care of every one of your sins but every sin of every person in the world for all time. I heard Erwin Lutzer once say, “that adultery is like burning down a magnificent cathedral to fry yourself an egg.” That could be said of any and every sin. And that’s John’s point. If Jesus gave so much to take sin away, why would we be part of “bringing it back?” When we sin, we act as if Jesus did not die for us or worse, that we don’t care. To sin is to undo His work. It’s to bring back and multiply the very thing that He came to free us from.   b) Jesus came to destroy the works of the Devil. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (v. 8b). D. L. Moody once said that he knew that the Devil was real for two reasons: first, because the Bible says so; and second, because he had done business with him. We’ve all done business with the Devil.   To destroy these is to demolish them, to undo them, to put an end to them. The context suggests that the works of the devil were like chains binding us. Christ came so that He could shatter those chains and loose us from them. That’s why a believer can never say, “I can’t stop sinning.” Jesus already broke the chains off of us. We’re free. We can live a life of victory.   For many months after the end of World War II Japanese troops were discovered hidden in the caves and jungles of the Pacific islands. Some of these stragglers were living like frightened savages. They didn’t know the war was over. Once they understood that it was no longer necessary for them to fight, they surrendered. We can rest in the fact that Satan too is a defeated enemy. He may win a battle here and there, but he has already lost the war. As Christians, we are free!!   John Stott wonderfully sums up John's argument thus far: “If the first step to holiness is to recognize the sinfulness of sin, both in its essence as lawlessness and in its diabolical origin, the second step is to see its absolute incompatibility with Christ in His sinless Person and saving work. The more clearly we grasp these facts, the more incongruous will sin appear and the more determined we shall be to be rid of it.” 3. A child of God realizes how serious sin is. This past week Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of Billy Graham, went Home to be with the Lord. Decades before Billy Graham, Billy Sunday, a former professional baseball player got saved and became a nationally known evangelist. He traveled all over this country during the 1920’s and 30’s calling for people to hit the “sawdust trail” and get saved. Thousands were converted under his tabernacles and ministry. He never cut any corners or left any doubt how he felt about sin and certain evils. He said, “I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. When I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition.” Billy Sunday was serious about sin, are we?   Do you know the one sin that I’ve had more people come to me about over the years? The one sin I’ve had more Christians feel guilty and defeated and ashamed about? Tobacco. They either struggled with smoking or dipping. While I think smoking is wrong, I don’t think that it’s on God’s Top Ten List of Terrible Sins. And I can’t remember anyone ever coming to me and asking me to pray for them because they had a problem with gossip or bitterness or pride or materialism…but those do a lot more damage than smoking.   As Christians, we must take sin seriously. John’s words in verse 6 should rattle us. They ought to strike fear in our heart. “No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him.” This verse and also verse 9 have generated a lot of confusion and controversy. It's one thing to say that no one who is born of God practices sin, but John goes a lot farther than that and states that that a Christian is not able to sin! I'm sure my experience is just like yours: I feel quite capable of sinning and years of walking with the Lord have not lessened my ability! So what does John mean?   Here are some principles to guide us. First, we must assume that John did not contradict himself or any other New Testament writer. He’s already said, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1:8). He said that he is writing so that we may not sin, but then he adds “But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (2:1). Obviously, He wouldn’t have written those words if believers were incapable of sinning.   Second, John's main concern is not to delve into some deep theological discourse, but rather to be pastorally practical. He does not want his flock to be deceived by the heretics whose errors lie behind the apostle's words. Verse 10 is crucial to understanding the entire passage: John wants us to be able to identify the children of God and the children of the devil by observing their behavior. To do that he paints in black and white, with no gray areas. His point is that those who are truly born of God practice righteousness; those who are of the devil (the only other category) do not practice righteousness.   There have been many different attempts to explain these verses. I found eight in my preparation for this sermon. Only two have validity and I wrestled with which one really fits. After going through about 30 commentaries, I even called some ministry friends who are very proficient in Greek. The key question in interpreting this verse is whether John is speaking about committing individual acts of sin or is he talking about sin as a way of life? John uses the present tense throughout this section, and while the Greek present tense does not necessarily emphasize continuous action, it certainly allows for it. In 3:8 when John says, “the devil has been sinning from the beginning,” the verb is in the present tense. Clearly he means, "From day one and persisting ever since, the devil is characterized by sinning." So when John says that those born of God do not practice sin and that they cannot sin, he means that it is impossible for a child of God to persist in a lifestyle marked by sin.   I believe that what John is saying is that it is impossible for the Christian to live a life of unchanged continuation in sin the same as when he was not born of God. In view of all his insistence that Christians do sin, we can't take these verses to mean Christians don't sin at all. We should take them to mean that Christians don't go on sinning without conflict and confession. Christians see it, hate it, confess it and fight it. And they do so with increasing vigilance as they grow in Christ.   Let me illustrate this. Here’s a professional football player. He’s a great receiver. He knows where to line up. He’s great at splitting to the outside. He’s a great runner and can catch basically anything the quarterback throws his way. But every now and then, even with a good pass, he drops the ball or doesn’t watch the line like he should and steps out of bounds. But that’s the exception, not the norm. It’s the same with the Christian life. Dropping the ball or stepping out of bounds -- sinning is the exception and not the norm. If you are born of God, you do not practice sin.   When a child is born, we ask “who do they look like?” If someone has been born of God, they ought to look like God. If they look like the devil, if they habitually live in sin and don’t care about pleasing the Lord, then we need to question their paternity. That’s what John is saying…like Father, like child. Sin is abnormal and unnatural for the child of God. Friend, if sin is comfortable for you, you need to check and see who your father really is.   Behavior is a critical indicator of Christianity. An old Methodist evangelist named Dr. Morrison taught the doctrine of holiness and it is said that he came closer to practicing it than most folks. Someone asked him one day, “Dr. Morrison, have you reached a point in your life where you do not sin?” He replied, “No, my brother, I have not yet arrived at such a place, but I can tell you where I am right now; I have come to the place where I sin but I cannot enjoy it.”   This isn’t the way that we typically think but John is pointing out that when a Christian sins, he is concealing who he really is rather than making it manifest. If you’ve been “born of God” you cannot live in sin and get by with it or enjoy it! Why? John says, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother” (vss. 9-10). Conclusion: Let me close with what we could call a Father’s Day parable.      It’s Friday, the week is over. You’re driving home looking forward to the weekend. You tune in your radio. You hear a blurb about a little village in India where some villagers have died suddenly, strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before. It’s not influenza, but three or four people are dead. They’re sending some doctors over there to investigate it. It’s kind of interesting, but you’re more concerned about the weekend weather. You don’t think much about it, but on Sunday, coming home from church, you hear another radio spot. Only they say it’s not three villagers, it’s 30,000 villagers in the back hills of this particular area of India. It’s on TV that night. CNN runs a little segment; people are heading there from the Disease Center in Atlanta because this disease strain has never been seen before. By Monday morning when you get up, it’s the lead story. It’s not just India; it’s Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and before you know it, you’re hearing this story everywhere and they have coined it now as “the mystery flu.” The President has made some comment that he and everyone are praying and hoping that all will go well over there. But everyone is wondering, “How are we going to contain it?” That’s when the President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their borders. No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the countries where this thing has been seen. That night you are watching a little bit of late night TV before going to bed. Your jaw hits your chest when a weeping woman is translated from a French news program into English: “There’s a man lying in a hospital in Paris dying of the mystery flu.” It has come to Europe. Panic strikes. As best they can tell, once you get it, you have it for a week and you don’t know it. Then you have four days of unbelievable symptoms. Then you die. Britain closes its borders, but it’s too late. The USA also closes its borders. It’s Tuesday morning when the President makes the following announcement: “Due to a national security risk, all flights to and from the United States have been cancelled. If your loved ones are overseas, I’m sorry. They cannot come back until we find a cure for this deadly plague.”   Within four days our nation has been plunged into an unbelievable fear. People are selling little masks for your face. Many have headed for the hills. Rural communities have barricaded the roads. People are saying that it is only a matter of time until it comes to our country. A week later it’s Sunday morning and you’re here at church when somebody runs in from their car and says, “Turn on a radio, turn on a radio.” We listen to a little transistor radio with this microphone stuck up to it, as this announcement is made, “Two women are lying in a New York City hospital dying from the mystery flu.” It’s in America. Within hours it seems this thing sweeps across the country. People are working around the clock trying to find an antidote. Nothing is working. New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Detroit, Chicago and finally Milwaukee. It’s as though it’s an unstoppable wildfire. Then, all of a sudden the news comes. The code has been broken. A cure can be found. A vaccine can be made. But, it’s going to take the blood of somebody who hasn’t yet been infected, and so, sure enough, all through the nation, through all those channels of emergency broadcasting, everyone is asked to do one simple thing: “Go to your local hospital and have your blood type taken. That’s all we ask of you. When you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, please make your way quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals.” When you and your family get down there late on Monday night, there’s a long line. They’ve got nurses and doctors coming out and pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it. Your wife and your kids are out there, and they take your blood type and they say, “Wait here in the parking lot and if we call your name, you can be dismissed and go home.” You stand around scared with your neighbors, wondering what in the world is going on. You wonder is this the beginning of the end? Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He’s yelling a name and waving a clipboard. What? He yells it again! And your young son tugs on your jacket and says, “Daddy, that’s me.” Before you know it, they’ve grabbed your boy. “Wait a minute, hold it!” And they say, “It’s okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure. We want to make sure he doesn’t have the disease. We think he has got the right type.” Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one another, some are even laughing. It’s the first time you have seen anybody laugh in over a week. A grey-haired doctor walks up to you and says, “Thank you, sir. Your son’s blood type is perfect. It’s clean, it is pure, and we can make the vaccine.” As the word begins to spread all across the parking lot full of folks, people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying. But then this grey-haired doctor pulls you and your wife aside and says, “May we see you for a moment? We didn’t realize that the donor would be a minor and we need…well, we need you to sign a consent form.” You begin to sign and then you see that the amount of blood to be taken is empty. “How much blood do you need?” And that’s when the old doctor’s smile fades and he says, “Sir, we had no idea it would be a little child. We weren’t prepared…Look, we need it all!” “But, but ...” “You don’t understand. We’re talking about the world here. We need it all, I’m sorry, we need it all!” “But can’t you give him a transfusion?” “If we had clean blood we would. Can you sign? Would you sign?” You weigh it up and in numb silence and finally you sign. Then they say, “Would you like to have a moment with him before we begin?” Can you walk back? Can you walk back to that room where he sits on a table saying, “Daddy? Mommy? What’s going on?” Can you take his little hands and say, “Son, your Mommy and I love you, and we would never ever let anything happen to you that didn’t just have to be. Do you understand that? We love you son!” And when that old doctor comes back in and says, “I’m sorry, we’ve got to get started. People all over the world are dying.” Can you leave? Can you walk out while he is crying, “Dad? Mom? Dad? Where are you going? Why are you leaving me?” And then next week, the President has ordered a ceremony in every town and city to honor your son.   But, most folks don’t even come because they go to the park or the lake, some folks sleep through it and some folks come with a pretentious smile and just pretend to care. You notice how even among those who came they can’t wait for the ceremony to end so that they can just get on with their lives, put this all behind them. Wouldn’t you want to jump up and say, “MY SON DIED TO SAVE YOU! YOU WOULD BE DEAD WITHOUT HIM! DON’T YOU CARE?” It would tear your heart from your chest.   And yet God the Father has had to endure this torment daily. He sent His beloved Son to the cross for the world, for you and me. He proclaimed that: “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Jesus Christ made the ultimate sacrifice to take away your sins and to destroy the work of the devil. Yet much of the world spurns this mind-numbing act of love. They act as if it never occurred. And even worse, there are those who claim to reverence Christ, yet spurn His act of love by continuing in sin.   That’s what the Apostle John is doing in this passage. He’s standing on top of a chair shouting, “CHRIST DIED TO SAVE YOU! YOU WOULD BE DEAD WITHOUT HIM! DON’T YOU EVEN CARE?”   John earnestly desired that we would be holy as Christ is holy. His deepest plea is that everyone who names the name of Christ would stay pure so that they could greet the Second Coming of Christ with joy! John says that because you are His, you will desire to live righteously and love fervently in this life and when it is done, you will greet Him with confidence because He has paid the price.   “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God.” Are you living for Jesus, the One who gave His life for you? My friend, do you take sin seriously?