Introduction

There was a bully in my first grade class. I went to a Christian school for first grade and as part of our educational experience, we had chapel at least once a week. One week in chapel a speaker got up front and told everyone who wanted to go to heaven to say a prayer after him. The bully in class said a prayer and told us the next day that he was saved.

He then went on to pick on the other kids just as much as he did before. As a 7 year old, I was not sure what to make of his behavior. Can a person be a believer without any change in their love for others? Honestly, it is a difficult question that not many adults have a handle on and that the apostle John addresses here in the 3^rd chapter of 1 John.

Living in a way that is consistent with our new life on Christ and loving other people in the church are not new themes in the book of 1 John, but as John revisits those themes again, he adds some clarification to the issue – Clarification that may have been helpful to me when I was 7.

In chapters 1-2 when John addresses loving God and loving others, he put a heavy emphasis on fellowship. John made the argument that a person who is obeying Christ’s commands, who is sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and who walking in fellowship with God will naturally be loving to people inside the body of Christ.

Now there is a shift in the emphasis of the text. John is placing a new emphasis on our role as sons and daughters of the King. When we were awakened to spiritual life, we were born of God and adopted into His eternal household!

If some kid walked up to me and said, “hey man, can you buy me a pizza?” I would say, “NO way. Who do you think you are? I’m not going to buy you pizza. I don’t even know you.” However, my own kids are a different story. My children have been trying for weeks to get a 100% score on their math. We gave them a challenge – if you get 100%, we’ll buy you a pizza. Nathan finally reached that goal on Thursday. He was pretty excited. When my children reached that goal, they had confidence to approach us and ask for a pizza knowing that we wanted to give them that good gift.

Sonship gives us confidence to ask our earthly fathers for good gifts. Being a son of God gives us confidence to ask our heavenly father for good gifts as well. God also wants to give us good gifts when we follow His commands and abide in him. Take a look at 1 John 2:28

²⁸ And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. ²⁹ If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

Abiding in Him produces confidence before the Lord. Knowing for sure that we are saved, produces confidence before the Lord right now. Best of all, being a child of God gives us the confidence that if we were to die later today and stand before God, he would be thrilled to see us, and run towards us, and would smile and say, “I’m so glad you’re here…Well done…enter into my rest…I’ve been making a place for you here… I know you’ll like it… Welcome home!”

Confidence at the day of judgment is the ultimate outcome of God’s love perfected in us. Confidence on the day when you and I stand before God to account for our lives. On that day, there are a lot of things that are important to me that don’t mean anything to God.

• My bank account won’t mean anything to God
• My hobbies won’t mean anything to God
• Things won’t mean anything to God

But people mean a lot to God. He’ll want to know how I loved others. He’ll care about how I raised my kids and how I treated my wife. He’ll be concerned with how I cared for you, his church. If I loved others well, then I’ll have confidence when I stand before Him on that day and not be ashamed.

John gives us 3 motivating reasons to live a holy life. Let’s move forward in our text and look at 1 John chapter 3 verse 1.

I read some really difficult academic texts about this passage this week and honestly, I was having a very hard time paying attention to what I was reading. But because I love you and I love the Lord and I love this church, I really try to be diligent in my studying for the teaching on Sunday morning.

I admit that sometimes I’ll be reading a paragraph and have to go back and re-read the paragraph because my mind what not paying attention. Look at that first word in chapter 3. If you were just reading along in this letter and not paying close attention, John is telling you to wake up and pay attention….. because He is about to say something that is really important.

Eidō is the first word in Chapter 3 in the original Greek. The ESV translates that word (eidō) as “see.” That’s technically accurate, but I don’t think that’s nearly strong enough. I think the King James get’s it closer when it translates it as “Behold,” but I don’t normally use that word in my vocabulary. (Behold Lara, the light has turned red and we are about to crasheth) The Greek here means to “Pay attention.” If I was translating this text, I would put it like this:, “Wake up. Pay Attention. What I’m about to tell you is really important.”

Here is the first of 3 reasons that John gives us to live a holy life

THREE REASONS FOR A HOLY LIFE

#1 God’s Tremendous Love for Us

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 1 John 3:1

God’s love for you and I is like no other kind of love in the whole universe. Pay attention. Look at this unbelievable kind of love that God has toward us. The whole plan of salvation begins with God’s unbelievable love toward sinners like you and I.

We have been transferred from the realm of sin and death over to a whole new reality – we are now sons and daughters of the King. We are God’s children. It’s so unbelievable, that the world would never understand our new identity in Christ. Why? Look at the text again:

The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

They don’t know God – how could they ever identify a child of the King if they don’t know the King? That’s why the Bible calls us strangers, sojourners and aliens in this world. We are just passing through and waiting for what God has promised us in eternity. We shouldn’t look like the world. We should be strange here because we look like Christ.

God is in the process of honing us and refining us and protecting us and perfecting us so that we more clearly reflect the image of His Son, Jesus and we look less and less like the world. That process is called sanctification.

In fact, the whole reason He sent his Son to take away our sins, was to destroy the work of the devil in our lives. The purpose for the cross was first for our salvation and then our sanctification. That brings us to the second reason to live a holy life:

#2 Christ’s Purpose in Coming

⁵ You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

God’s love for us does not mean there are no rules for his family. No parent who loves their kids runs a house without rules. When I lived in Prescott, there was a 3 year old who often wandered into our house with her sister. We never met her parents and her parents had absolutely no idea where she was. One day that 3 year old fell down a 40 foot embankment and was laying injured at the side of the road. When the police found out that she often (daily) wandered around the neighborhood unattended, they began to ask serious questions. Why? The lack of rules in a home to keep a child safe is often a symptom of a lack of love in the home.

God is not like the parent who neglected their child. God loves us perfectly and He has rules in order to keep us safe. Proverbs 3:11-12 says:

¹¹ My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
¹² for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.

Parents who delight in their children keep them safe – even if their discipline is unpleasant at the time. Sin produces death and bondage. Sin is unsafe. When God begins to eradicate sin in our lives through his loving discipline, it leads to safety. When we are spiritually safe, we are free to finally really live life to its fullest!

The whole reason that Jesus came and died for us was so that sin would no longer have dominion in our lives. “he appeared in order to take away sins “ We were trapped in our sins and Jesus came to set us free from the death of sin. We are free to pursue righteousness and receive all the blessings God has for us. Best of all, we are now free to love others without having a selfish agenda and without having as ulterior motive. We are free to love others just like God loves us and when we love that way, joy and blessing is the result!

But if our lives are not marked by righteousness, there is a problem. The Bible tells us that there are only 2 groups of people. There are people who are serving Satan and there are people serving God. Our society who have you believe that there are either 1 or 3 groups of people:

• They often make an argument for a 3^rd group of people. A group that is not really serving God, but who are still good people doing nice things. God’s Word does not say that this group of people exists.
• Of they say that there is only 1 group and that God just loves…. He loves everyone regardless of how they act. That’s called universalism and it’s not at all what God’s Word teaches in this passage

Look at verse 6-8

⁶ No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. ⁷ Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. ⁸ Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

Before we move forward, some or you might be reading this scripture from a different translation and the way it’s translated sounds very confusing. How can verse 6 be true (I’ll read it in the New King James) “⁶ Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him…” How can that passage and 1 John 1:8 both be true, “⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Didn’t John write these 2 passages in the same letter? Is John contradicting himself?

A better rendering of the Greek text to English would to read verse 6 this way: “No one who abides in Him practices sin; no one who practices sin has seen him or known Him.” ‘Practices’ (ESV ‘Keep’s on’) is the key word is a proper understanding of this text.

What this verse is saying is that anyone who makes ongoing, willful, habitual sin a way of life is not a Child of God. The salvation of a person who practices (or keeps on or persists in) sin is in question. However, if a follower of Christ commits an occasional sin, there is grace to cover that sin. Remember what John said to Christians back in 1 John 1:9 –

⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If God expected Christians to live sinless lives, then every person in the Bible (other than Jesus himself) would be not be saved. Think about the sins of these great men in the Bible:

• Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife (Gen 12)
• Moses lost his temper and disobeyed God (Num. 20)
• David had an affair and had an innocent man killed (Ps 53)
• Peter denied the Lord 3 times (Matt 26)
• Paul was a persecutor of the Church

Keep your finger in 1 John and turn over to Eph 4.

The thought that God’s grace covered these men in their sin gives us great hope when we sin that the God who we serve is gracious. In His great mercy, he continues to forgive our sins. But the goal of our sanctification is to sin less and to love God and love others more.

• Sin results in death and destruction. We are doing that less.
• Love produces blessing and joy and it pleases God. We are doing that more.

We are pushing for this place where the love of God and the love of others is such a driving force for us that sin diminishes to nearly nothing and our lives are consumed with honoring our King by the way we love and serve other people.

I’ve often said that my main job here at this church is to stir you up to love and good works. (Heb. 10:24) Paul said it even better in Ephesians when he said in chapter 4:11. (Read and comment)

¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. ¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

As sin decreases, as false teaching decrease, as immaturity decrease, as deceit decreases…. What increases? Love – he makes the “body grow so that it builds itself up in love” – so that Love is such a motivating force that God’s people strive toward God’s love being perfected in them…. Love is such a motivating force that we are compelled to love perfectly like God loves us perfectly. I get that from the next chapter. 1 John 4:16 says:

¹⁶ So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the Day of Judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

If love is not being perfected in us, then we are acting like an unbeliever. Any unconverted person lives in a constant state of rebellion toward God. John calls it lawlessness. I’m just not talking about some occasional sins. I’m talking about the underlying state of sin we were all in before we knew Jesus as our Savior. Even when an unbeliever is not in the act of committing a specific sin, they are in a constant state of sin because of their unbelief and rejection of Jesus. Unbelief is the most condemning act of rebellion against God that there is.

There is a story about a little girl travelling in a car with her Dad. As they were going down the road, she unbuckled herself and stood up in the seat. Her dad told her to sit down and get buckled right away. She refused. He said a second time, “Sit down right now or I’ll pull over this car and give you a spanking.” The little girl sat down and then said to her dad, “I’m still standing up on the inside.”

Before Jesus, we were like that little girl. Even when there were time of restraint from the outside, we were lawless on the inside.

However, after a person has become a child of God, he is no longer prone to practicing lawlessness. They are compelled to honor God with their lives because of God incredible love for them. That man or woman is a new creation. The old self has passed away and he has been transformed by the work of Christ on the cross.

To abide with Christ is to abide with the one who is sinless. We draw closer to God as sin is eradicated in our lives. The follower of Christ wants to know more of Him and would not intentionally continue in a behavior that makes them further and further away from Christ.

I like to play puzzle games. Puzzle games in themselves are not wrong, but I know that if I am playing a game when my wife wants to talk to me, my pursuit of a high score will make her upset. If I choose to put down the game and talk to her, that decision draws us closer together. If I choose to continue playing my puzzle game while she is talking to me, it creates a distance between us. The puzzle game can rob affections between my wife and I. I will tell you that the puzzle game is not as satisfying as having a healthy marriage.

Is there something in your life that robs your affections for Christ? Is there something that is distracting you from really going deeper in your affections for the Savior? Even worse, is there a sin that is driving a wedge between you and your King?

A person who is constantly engaging in behavior that drive a wedge between them and Christ is either not saved or they are miserable. All sin is from Satan and it is not a part of the believers new nature as a child of God. God’s seed in the believer (the indwelling Holy Spirit) does not sin, therefore sin is not part of the believers new nature.

God makes sure that we don’t continue down the road of lawlessness by not just being with us, but by sending his Holy Spirit to dwell in us.

#3 The Indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit

⁹ No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. ¹⁰ By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Counterfeit Christians will try to convince you that true believers can be practicing sin and still be living joyfully. John does not deny that Christians sin sometimes, but a person who can enjoy deliberate sin without conviction or experiencing God’s discipline has to examine their standing before God.

Lara has said that as she walks with the Lord, there seems to be walls that form on the side of the narrow path. If she tries to deviate from God’s direction, he is graciously and (even more) quickly changing her direction and putting her back on track.

I like that word picture and it’s consistent with God’s love for the believer. The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is constantly shaping and molding and instructing and correcting the child of God.

When a person receives Jesus as Lord and Savior, a tremendous spiritual change takes place. He is given a new standing before God. He is now a child of the King. He is now righteous in God’s sight because of the blood of Jesus shed on the cross.

The Christian is also given a new position. He is now set apart for God’s purposes. That is a process we call sanctification or from this passage you might refer to it as purification. Look at verse 3 “³ And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” Purification (or sanctification) is the process were God roots out every remaining bit of sin in our lives and we choose to get rid of it. As we get rid of sin, God replaces that sin with increased love for Him, for His Son and for His people. Instead of the dark fellowship (the unholy alliance) with sin we had before, God changes our affections so that we long for a abiding fellowship with the Savior.

Satan will sometimes set up traps for us. James 1:4 says it this way: “…each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” The image comes from hunting and fishing. It is the idea of putting bait on a hook and an animals natural desires, attracts him to the bait and lures him in.

Satan is putting out bait for the believer all the time. He tries to appeal to us on the basis of who we were before Jesus (or who we’d be withoug Jesus). He will entice us with the things that seemed to be so satisfying before and that the world around us seems so content with.

If a believer is tricked by the bait, he’ll take it is and fall into sin. Only to find that the enticements of the world no longer hold the satisfaction that they once had. Because of the indwelling presence of the Spirit and by His power, the true believer will quickly spit the bait back out, turn to God in repentance and return to a position of fellowship with God. Remember what it said in 1 John 1:9

⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Life Application

A true believers does not practice sin. The taste of sin is bitter in his mouth. The counterfeit believer cannot help but to sin because they are still living in lawlessness. However, the words here in 1 John are not written so that you can check up on other people. It is written so that you can examine yourself.

When the first grade bully “got saved” my mom did rightly tell me that I was not in a position to really know where that little boy stood before the Lord, but my job was to check myself. This passage is meant to inspire us to check ourselves. Are we really right with God.? Here are 5 diagnostic questions that might be helpful for checking whether or not you are standing right before the Lord

1. Do I have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit or am I merely pretending to be a Christian?
2. Do I cultivate my relationship with God every day through Bible study and prayer?
3. Is there unconfessed sin in my life right now that s standing between me and deeper fellowship with God?
4. Am I totally in control of my thoughts and desires, or am I being lured away from Christ by Satan’s schemes?
5. When I’m tempted, do I play with it or do I flee from it?

1 Corinthians 10:13

¹³ No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Teaching Outline

THREE REASONS FOR A HOLY LIFE

#1 God’s Tremendous love  for Us – 1 John 2:28-3:1

#2 Christ’s Purpose in Coming – 1 John 3:5-8, Eph 4:11-6, 1 John 4:16

My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
for the LORD reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 3:11-12

#3 The Indwelling presence  of the Holy Spirit – 1 John 3:3, 9-10, Rom. 8, James 1:14 1 John 1:9