“Sin or Righteousness?” 1 John 3:4-10

Turn with me in your Bibles once again to the book of 1 John. 1 John, and we are in 1 John chapter 3. And this passage we are coming to this evening is one of the more controversial, I guess you could say, passages, passages that are taken in different ways.

You really have some extreme ideas that come out of a passage like this, some extreme differences of opinion that come from ideas like this. Some of these opinions are that, well, after you become a believer or after you come to faith, it really doesn’t matter how you live. You can live whatever way you’d like. You can continue in your sin, and as long as you came to faith, whatever that means, then you can continue in your sin. It doesn’t matter. Or you have other extreme ideas that you can become perfect in this life, that you can stop sinning altogether and that eventually you will progress to a point where you are perfect and you are completely holy this side of death and our resurrection with Christ. And that all is based on different opinions of this passage. Different opinions and how we understand what is a bit of a difficult passage to read and to understand. So we’ll see that tonight.

We’ll be in 1 John chapter 3 starting in verse 4. As we come to that passage, it is important, if we want to rightly understand it, to understand exactly what John has been talking about. And we’ve seen, really back into chapter 2, starting in verse 18, where he started this idea speaking to them of the future, the end times, the things that were coming. And he said, we know that many antichrists have come. And in fact, that’s a sign that it is the last hour. And then he talked about the Antichrist. And as his encouragement and his really remedy to the idea that there are Antichrists, even among them, and those who had then gone out from them, was in the end of chapter two, verse 29. And he says, if you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone also who does righteousness has been born of him. So it was his encouragement to these believers. is to do righteousness, to be righteous, to live righteously.

And then, as we saw last time, which was a couple weeks ago now, you come to chapter three and John pauses for a moment because there at the end of verse 29, he speaks of everyone who also who does righteousness has been born of him. And then he pauses in verses one and two of chapter three and just Reflects on the idea that we are born of him that we are children of God We are children of God how great a love the father has given to us that we would be called the children of God And he talks about that for a few verses, but then verse 3 he comes back to his point He comes back to the idea. He was getting across to them that you need to live righteously and he says in verse 3 and everyone who has this hope the hope of being children of God is purifies himself just as he is pure. And as we’ll see tonight.

He continues this discussion of righteousness, of righteousness in sin and what it is to be a child of God and how that should affect our life. Really what this whole passage is about is that sin is incompatible for the child of God, for the believer. that it does not fit with our life. It is out of place. It is a mismatch for what we are now in Christ and what sin is. It’s like mixing two things that should not be mixed. And if you do mix them, something will go wrong. You think of things like vinegar and baking soda. You mix those two, you’re gonna have a reaction. You mix fire and water, there’s gonna be a problem. If those two things are combined, there will be a major change or reaction in what the thing was originally.

So here we’re going to see that sin itself is incompatible with the life of a believer. The one that is born of God, the Christian, should be living a life that is not characterized by sin. That we are not those who are bound in sin. We are not those who are living in sin. There has to be a difference. Beloved, we are the children of God. We have been born of Him. He is righteous and we too should be righteous. And he’ll continue that this evening.

So let’s read our text this evening before we get into some of the things that we need to really introduce before we explain what this text is speaking of. So I’m gonna read verses four through 10 of 1 John chapter three. 1 John chapter three, starting in verse four. Everyone who does sin also does lawlessness. And sin is lawlessness. And you know that he was manifested in order to take away sins. And in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins. No one who sins has seen him or has come to know him. Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does righteousness is righteous. just as he is righteous. The one who does sin is of the devil, because the devil sins from the beginning. The Son of God was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifested, Everyone who does not do righteousness is not of God, as well as the one who does not love his brother.

So you see, in this section, sin is a main focus. It’s a big problem. And we really need to understand what it is John is talking about. What is sin? What is sin in this context? What is sin in the discussion that John is making? John is really not being unclear here. He’s not being vague. He’s making it pretty obvious what he’s saying. Really, that verse 10, by this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifested, or in some versions, are made obvious. It’s revealed. That’s why he’s having this discussion. to show you who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. And that revolves around sin.

How can you tell a Christian from a non-Christian? How can you tell someone who is born again from someone who is not? How can you tell if someone is born from God or born of the devil? The answer, according to verse 10, is anyone who doesn’t practice righteousness is not of God. Also, anyone who doesn’t love his brother. He states it matter of fact. If you aren’t doing righteousness and you aren’t loving your brother, that itself reveals who you are. There’s nothing unclear there, but it does raise some questions.

And I’m sure you may be already asking questions in your head, thinking of what John has already said in this letter, and comparing that to what he says here in this paragraph. In this text tonight, we’ll see three different ways that sin is incompatible for the believer. And really, John structures this in a Trinitarian way. He speaks of God, the Father, the Son, Christ, and the Spirit. We’ll see first the incompatibility of sin with the law of God. Then we see, secondly, the incompatibility of sin with the work of Christ. And then thirdly, we’ll see the incompatibility of sin with the ministry of the Spirit. So there you have God, the Father, Christ, the Son, and the Spirit. And we’ll see all that in this text as we go through it. But before we get there, we do need to answer a few questions so that we rightly understand what’s going on here.

First, we do need to define what sin is, as I mentioned. If sin is this crucial to what John is saying, if it is the thing that differentiates the children of God and the children of the devil. We need to know what sin is. And now in English, sin is a word that covers a lot of ground. A lot of things are included when we use the word sin. And even in English, we have a few other words that really mean the same thing as sin, but we really need to understand all that it encompasses. when John speaks of sin.

So we’re gonna look at a few different terms that the Bible uses that speaks to what sin is. If you really wanna understand what is sin, what is John using as his criteria here, what is sin that he’s talking about? Well, the New Testament was written in Greek, and really the four main words that are used, that sometimes are all translated as sin, We’re going to look at those this evening as we begin, to really frame our conversation so we know what it is John’s talking about.

The first one that we’ll see, and this is the most common one, it is the word hamartia, and it’s most often just translated as sin. It’s the homardiology, it’s the theological study of sin. What sin is and all the things that go along with that. And that word means missing the mark. It means missing the mark and falling short. It gives the idea of like an archer who’s shooting an arrow at a target and he can’t hit the target. He misses the mark. And in the same way, that’s what sin is. It’s missing the mark, it’s falling short. As we see in Romans 3.23, for all have sinned, that’s that word right there, hamartia, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Paul explains the word there. We have sinned, or in that word, we have missed the mark, and we have fallen short of the glory of God. It’s not as though we aimed too high and we shot over the target. It’s not that we were too righteous, For God, we fall short. We miss the mark and fall short of the glory of God.

And the second word is adikia, which is unrighteousness. Again, that word is often translated as sin as well. So that’s involved in our idea of what sin is. So not only is it falling short, this word for unrighteousness gives the idea of being measured against the righteousness of God. It’s like using a level to see if something is in line. Chelsea and I are building our house right now, and it’s like a mason who builds with blocks, and they have to keep measuring with a level to make sure they’re building straight. Well, that’s what this idea is. This word communicates that idea of measuring us up against the righteousness of God and realizing We are unrighteous. We are not in line. We are out of sync with God’s righteousness. We don’t measure up. So not only do we fall short, we don’t measure up. So that’s the second idea. We see that in Romans 3.10. There is none righteous, not even one. Nobody measures up. When it comes to the righteousness of God, there is none who is righteous. Nobody squares up to Him.

The third, paraptoma, is a word that means an offense or something that is out of bounds. So not only do we fall short, not only do we not measure up, we go out of bounds. We transgress. That’s often the word that’s used, but again, it can be translated as sin, too. We transgress. We step over the line. It’s like on our roads, we have lines to tell us where to be on the road, and we need to stay within those lines. Well, on God’s road, he too has boundaries. We are to stay within, and we step outside the boundaries. We veer off course and go off the road outside of the lines God has set for us to stay within. That’s this idea of transgression. We have stepped over the line. We continually step over the line. We see this in Romans 4, Romans 4 25. He who was delivered over on account of our transgressions. You see, Jesus never stepped over the line. Jesus stayed within the line the whole time. And yet he’s delivered over for our transgressions. stepping out of bounds, stepping over the line, those transgressions, and he was raised for our justification. So that’s the third way.

We fall short, we don’t measure up, we step out of bounds, and the fourth one is a word we see in our text tonight, anomia, which is unlawful. We are unlawful, or as this text says, we are lawless. We are lawless. We are people who are rebellious. We act as though there is no law. It’s like the Wild Wild West. We live the way we want to live. We are our own law. Or it’s like the book of Judges. Everyone does what was right in his own eyes. That’s how we are in our hearts. We act like God isn’t even there and he hasn’t told us how we should live. We are lawless. God has given us a law to reveal Himself and to reveal what He expects of us and we act like it’s not even there. We are people who are lawless.

We see this in Romans chapter 1 as really just an explanation of what it is to be lawless in the heart of man. I’ll just read a few verses from Romans 1, verses 18 through 20. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident within them. We know naturally the things that are revealed about God, the things that can be known, and yet we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power, divine nature, have been clearly seen, understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. This is the state of man.

God, through his creation alone, has revealed enough to know there is a God, and yet we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And without Him stepping in to deliver us from that, that sin, that wickedness of suppressing His truth, we would still be there. And further down at the end of chapter one of Romans, it says, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind. to do things which are not proper, having been filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, their gossips, slanderers, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And if you missed anything, you could add that to the list too. We’re lawless. All of these things are prohibited by God’s law and we act like it’s not even there. And although they know the righteous requirement of God, the law of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do them, but they give hearty approval to those who practice them. That’s the lawless nature of man. That’s what sin is.

Sin is missing the mark, falling short, not measuring up, stepping out of bounds, and sin is lawlessness. We see that in verse four. Everyone who does sin also does lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. Sin is anti-God. It’s treason against the king of the universe. It spits in the face of God. God is holy and has revealed himself as such. And yet we are completely unholy. So that is really a definition of what it is that John is talking about when he speaks of sin. This is what differentiates the one who is born of God and the one who is born of the devil. Sin and righteousness.

So, as we look at our text this evening, John says in chapter 1, that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. That’s chapter 1, verse 8. Then in verse 10, he says, if we say that we’ve not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. So, our text this evening raises another question. What about what John already said? Because here he says, in verse eight, the one who does sin is of the devil. And in verse nine, everyone born of God does not sin because he cannot sin. So in chapter one, he says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And if we say we’ve not sinned, we make him a liar. And now he says, Anyone who sins is not of God. He’s not born of God. The one who is born of God cannot sin. He says in chapter 2, verse 1, if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father. So he assumes when you do sin, if anyone sins, we do sin, and yet he says we cannot sin if we’re born of God. So there seems to be a contradiction in what John’s saying here. So what does he mean?

What does he mean that we cannot sin? What does he mean that the one born of God does not sin, cannot sin? And yet, earlier it seemed as though he was saying, when you do sin. So, what we need to understand here is that in this text, these words, the way they’re Again, English doesn’t really bring it over very well in the way just our words work, but these verbs, speaking of sinning or doing sin, they are in the present active sense, which just means that it’s a continuous thing. It’s ongoing. It’s an action that continues. And so when he speaks of sinning, what he’s really saying is the one who continually or even habitually sins. The one who does not stop sinning, the one who continues in his sin, that’s the one who is not born of God. Because if you’re born of God, how can you continue in sin? You cannot.

So that’s what the difference is there between what he said earlier and what he’s saying now. This passage does not contradict what he said earlier. It doesn’t disagree with what he already said. it’s saying it in a different way. So on the one hand, we are not perfect, not yet. We will be. When we see him, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is. But on the other hand, we as believers do not continue in a life characterized by sin. We do not continue in this rampant sin. We don’t continue in this habitual patterns of sin in our life. Instead, when we do sin, we feel that sting of what sin is. We feel the sorrow and the shame over what we’ve done. We’re convicted of our sin because of the Holy Spirit, because of that seed that is in us.

As he says in verse 9, everyone who has been born of God does not sin because his seed abides in him. We don’t continue in sin because the Holy Spirit doesn’t let us. He convicts us. He brings us to our knees over our sin. We are broken over our sin. That’s what it means to be a child of God. That’s the difference.

So now that we have a bit of an understanding of the conversation here, let’s begin to look at these verses and what John is saying. And as I said, we have these three divisions in the text. that show how sin is incompatible with the children of God. And first is sin is incompatible with the law of God. And we looked at this with our discussion of lawlessness. But in verse four he says, everyone who does sin, or as we said, who continues habitually sinning, also does lawlessness. Because sin is lawlessness.

John’s very matter of fact here. He doesn’t leave any room for doubt. That’s very typical of John. Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness, because sin is lawlessness. It’s not as though, well, you only broke a few laws, it’s not a big deal. As long as you didn’t kill anybody, I guess it’s not a big deal, right? As long as you didn’t do that, as long as you’re not as bad as that guy, no, sin is lawlessness. James 2.10 says, whoever keeps the whole law and stumbles in one point, which even that’s hypothetical because everyone stumbles in more than one point anyways, but even if you could keep the whole law and only stumble once, you’ve broken the whole law. You’ve become guilty of all. That’s what he means that sin is lawlessness.

There are no little sins. All sin is lawlessness. Whoever makes a practice of sinning continually and stays in that sin is displaying lawlessness in their life. They’re acting as though the law of God is non-existent to them. Jesus confronted people who pretended to be God’s people, who acted as though, well, we’re on Jesus’ team, We’re gonna go around and do all these wonderful things in the name of Jesus. In Matthew 7. And Jesus says on the day of judgment, he’s telling them what things will be in the day of judgment, and he says to these ones who used his name to go around and do what they thought was their own righteousness, he says, depart from me. I never knew you. And what does he call them? You who practice lawlessness.

Lawlessness. Because you can’t cover over your lawlessness with these self-contrived acts of righteousness, that you think you’re doing so much good and you’re doing them for the recognition, which is what these people were doing. And Jesus says, I never knew you. That’s the point. I never knew you. You can claim what you want to claim, but you need to know Him. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. You can’t be lawless and know Christ. How does He know that He never knew them? Because they’re lawless. They’re showing they don’t know Him.

Paul said it similarly. In Romans 6, let’s turn to Romans 6. We’ll turn back there a little bit later as well when we get to another part of this passage, because it really parallels Romans 6 very well. But in Romans 6, verses 16 through 18, Paul, having a similar discussion, says this. Do you not know that when you go on as presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one to whom you obey? either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching from which you were given over. And having become freed from sin, you became slaves to righteousness.” And he goes on and says, I’m speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. But he’s having that same discussion.

You cannot be a slave of sin and a slave of righteousness. You’re a servant of one master, one or the other. You can’t live a life of sin, being a slave to sin, and also claim that you’re a slave of Christ. You’re either a slave of sin or a slave of Christ. You can’t be both. If you truly know Christ, you will not be lawless. You will not make a practice, a habit, a life out of loving your sin. Sin is lawlessness and everyone who does sin also does lawlessness. The law that comes down from God the Father to his people, Christ who perfectly obeys that law, sin is living as though that law never existed. Sin is lawlessness. So that’s our first division there. Sin is incompatible with God’s law.

Secondly, we see this in relation to the Son, Christ. Sin is incompatible with the work of Christ. We see this starting in verse 5. And you know that He was manifested in order to take away sins. And in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins. No one who sins has seen him or has come to know him. Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous. The one who does sin is of the devil because the devil sins from the beginning. The Son of God was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. Now John’s a bit repetitive in this section. He kind of keeps saying it and saying it again and saying it again. But he says it, if you notice, he says it differently every time. He says it in every way that he can think of so that we get it. So that we don’t misunderstand what he’s saying. But his emphasis in this section, verses five through eight, is the work of Christ. Because he gives two reasons why Christ came.

Two reasons why he did what he did. Two purposes of the work of Christ. The first one, he says he was manifested in order to take away sins. He was revealed. He was revealed as the Son, God with us, for the purpose of taking away sins. That’s why he came. That’s exactly what the angel told Joseph in Matthew 1.21. She will bear a son, you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Right from the beginning when Joseph was told of his son, of the son that was to be born of Mary, he was told why. He came to save his people from their sins. God sent his son, his sinless son, into the world to satisfy his justice through Christ’s obedience. Christ actively obeyed God by keeping the law, by perfect obedience. He never sinned. Deceit was not found in his mouth. And he also was passively obedient. and that what was done to him was for our sake. On the cross, he bore our sins on his body. He committed no sin of his own through his obedience and he took on our sin through his obedience. Paying the penalty for sin on the cross for those who believe in him. He did that to satisfy the penalty for this sin we are talking about. He did that so believers could be separated from sin.

This is why sin is incompatible for the Christian. This is why sin contradicts the work of Christ, the work that He did on the cross. Sin is incompatible for the Christian. Because Christ died for sin. Christ died to make you His, and in so doing paid the penalty for sin. Titus chapter 2 speaks of this very thing. Titus 2.11 says, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. And verse 12, Instructing us, so that even His appearance and the work of salvation that He did, that itself teaches us. the denying ungodliness and worldly desires that we should live sensibly and righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us so that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works. He died to save us from our sin. He died to redeem us from this lawlessness and to purify Himself a people.

Therefore, sin is incompatible for the life of a Christian. Verse 5 says, in Him there is no sin. In Christ there is no sin. No one who is in Christ can live in unrepentant sin, habitual, life-characterizing sin. There is no such thing as a carnal Christian, a Christian who never turns from sin, a Christian who just loves their sin and lives a whole life of sin. There’s no such thing. They don’t exist. When you are redeemed, you are redeemed from lawlessness. He died to purify himself of people. He died so that you would be set apart from sin. If you are carnal, if you are living in your sin, if you are living according to the flesh, that’s what carnal means, if you are carnal you are not in Christ.

Verse 6 says, no one who abides in him sins. No one who sins has seen him or has come to know him. You cannot be in Christ. You cannot be identified with Christ. You cannot know Christ. And continue unchanged in your sin. Again, let’s go back to Romans 6. Romans 6, Paul again having a similar discussion, this time earlier in his discussion. What shall we say then? Right in verse 1, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? May it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? That’s meant to be a ridiculous question. Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism. That’s the picture of baptism. Or, that’s a Greek word you know. It means immersion. So verse three, do you not know that all of us who were immersed into Christ We’re immersed into his death, therefore we were buried with him through immersion into death. Our baptism signifies what has happened to us. We were buried with him, and then we were raised with him. So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so too we might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that the old man was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died has been justified from sin.” It’s the same discussion that John’s having.

You cannot be in Christ and still be a slave to sin. You cannot be buried with Christ in our baptism, in our salvation. Our baptism signifies what has happened in our heart. That our old man was crucified and buried and we are raised again as a new man. So that we would walk in newness of life. So that we would not walk like the old man anymore. We would not continue in our sin. This idea is all over scripture. True Christians have the Holy Spirit within them. Romans 8, 12 to 17 tells us that. True Christians receive a new heart. That’s in Acts 16. True Christians are completely forgiven in Colossians. And then later in Colossians it says true Christians have a transformed life.

Sin is incompatible with the Christian because Christ came to die for sin. And put sin in our lives to death. Put our old man to death. When you come to Christ, you have been raised with Him, to newness of life. And then he gets to verse 7, little children. There’s that term of loving pastoral care, little children. Let no one deceive you. Let no one deceive you.

There are many who are deceived. There are many who are deceived and thinking that they can continue in their sin. That loving their sin and living a life that is just full of their unrepentant sin is no big deal as long as I pray the prayer. As long as I did what they told me to do and they told me I’m now a Christian, I can continue on doing what I want. It makes no difference. I can live an unchanged life.

Many people are living lives of rampant sin and rebellious sin, living in complete opposition to God and His law, what He calls us to, thinking that they are all good, that they’re saved. But what John and what Paul and what the whole New Testament is getting at is that you cannot live a life of sin. You cannot be unchanged. You cannot be a Christian and not be a new creation. When you come to Christ, when you believe in Christ, your life will show that. Your life will show that you have changed. You cannot live a life of unrepentant sin. You cannot.

Verse seven, again, let no one deceive you. The one who does righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous. The one who does righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous. That’s a mouthful. You can simplify it. True Christians look like Christ. Christian means like Christ or little Christ. If you are a Christian, you should look like Christ. That should be the evidence that you are truly a Christian. He is righteous so that those who do righteousness are like him. The one who does righteousness is righteous because he is righteous.

And then we get to verse 8 and we see the second reason why Christ came, the second purpose of the work of Christ. The one who does sin is of the devil because the devil sins from the beginning. And here it is, the Son of God was manifested for this purpose. He said in verse 5, he was manifested in order to take away sins.

And the second reason in verse 9, he was manifested, or verse 8, sorry, the Son of God was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. To destroy the works of the devil. Sin is incompatible with the work of Christ because he came to take away sin and to destroy the devil. The one who practices sin regularly and unrepentantly is of the devil. That’s what he says, the one who does sin is of the devil.

So if you do sin in this sense, if you continue in your sin, if it’s a continuing characteristic of you, it shows that you’re on the wrong team. You are of the devil. You cannot be in sin and in Christ. You cannot be on the devil’s side and on Christ’s side. Christ came to destroy the devil and his work. And if you. Are of the devil, as verse 8 says. If you are of the devil. And you never come to Christ and you are never in Christ. He came to destroy you too. He came to destroy the works of the devil.

The one who does sin is of the devil. The devil is not some fairy tale. He’s not some imaginary figure. He is very real. He is the father of this world. He is the prince of the power of the air. And he has his people too. He has those who are born of him. And the one who does sin is of the devil. Because on the cross, Christ didn’t just take away sin. He destroyed the devil. Genesis 3.15 told of one that would come and crush the head of the serpent. That’s Christ. His destruction of the devil and his work began on the cross and one day, He will cast the devil and all of his angels and all who are in death and Hades, all of them are going into the lake of fire. The one who does sin is of the devil. That will include you if you do not come to Christ.

If you are not in Christ, you are of the devil and you will go to the same place the devil is headed. So if you’ve not come to Christ, you need to come to Him now, before it’s too late. Sin is incompatible with the work of Christ.

And our last division here is that sin is incompatible with the ministry of the Spirit. You see that starting in verse nine. Everyone who has been born of God does not sin because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he’s been born of God.

So John uses this metaphor here of having God’s seed within us. He’s not the only one who uses that idea, that the seed of the Spirit is within us when we come to Christ. But this is exactly what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3. You need to be born again. You need to be born of the spirit. Nicodemus comes to Jesus and asks him how he can have eternal life. How can he come into the kingdom? And Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So Nicodemus says, how can man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? And Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. You must be born again. You must be born of the Spirit. And John says here that his seed abides in us when that happens.

When you are born again, a spiritual seed is implanted in you that grows into spiritual life. The seed is implanted by the word of God. And we believe the word of God and come to salvation. This is how Peter speaks of it. 1 Peter 1, verse 23, for you have been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible. That is through the living and enduring word of God. When we hear the gospel, God plants that seed inside of us. and it grows into spiritual life. This new birth that Jesus speaks of is our beginning of life in Christ, this beginning of this spiritual life. Our old man has been buried in Christ, as we already saw, and we are raised to newness of life. We are new creations. That is why he goes on and says, The one who has been born of God does not sin first because his seed abides in him and he cannot sin because he’s been born of God.

There’s no room for doubt or question in what John says. He cannot sin. It is not possible for him to continue in this life of sin unchanged. And again, there are many people who think that you can. There are many people who think that your life doesn’t have to change. If you say the right words, that’s all that you need. You don’t need to come to Christ. You don’t need to change. You don’t need to evidence what Christ has done inside you. I don’t know how you can read this passage and come to that conclusion. You cannot be born of God and continue to sin, continue in your sin. You cannot. Not you should not. You cannot.

When someone is saved, you are given spiritual life, the ability to respond. to spiritual truth. And when we do, this changes us. We are given new life. And it is not as though we will never sin again. We will. As John said, if anyone does sin, we do have an advocate if we’re in Christ. But. We do not continue living in our unrepentant sin unchanged. We hate our sin. We hate it. It burns within us when we sin. It cuts us deeply when we know that we have grieved our Savior who died for that sin. We fight it. We feel the pain of battling with our sin.

As I was reading through this passage and studying it, one of the things that kept coming to mind is one of the questions that I am asked the most in counseling, when someone comes for counsel, one of the things that I’m asked the most is this. If I’m a Christian, why do I keep on sinning? If I’m a Christian, why did I do that again? I hate it. I hate the way it makes me feel. I hate it. Why do I do it again? And you know what my answer is to that question? That question itself tells me that you’re a Christian. Because you hate your sin. Because you know that you don’t want to keep doing it. Because you know what sin is, and you know that it grieves God, and you don’t want to do it anymore. That is the evidence that you’re a new creation.

Unbelievers love sin. They find excuses for their sin. They find ways to get around that their sin is sin. They want you to stop bothering them about their sin. Believers hate their sin. Believers are broken over their sin.

In 1 John chapter 5, the end of his letter, verse 13, he tells you why he wrote it. He gets to near the end of his letter and he tells you exactly why he wrote this. And he says, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life. The reason why he’s having this discussion of sin is so that you will know you will have eternal life. That you may know that you have eternal life.

The whole purpose of this letter is assurance of your salvation. Am I saved or not? John tells us how to know. You want to have assurance of salvation even when you struggle with sin and you keep falling into it and you struggle and you fight. Your assurance is the struggle. The fact that you hate your sin and you fight with your sin and you battle to have victory over your sin, that’s assurance that you are in Christ. That you battle to put your sin to death That you hate it. That struggle is your assurance. If you weren’t saved, there would be no struggle. If you weren’t saved, you wouldn’t be asking the questions.

Again, unbelievers love their sin. We are dead in sin. We can’t do anything but sin. We are slaves to sin. But when you’re in Christ, you’re a slave to Christ. And that’s why when we sin, we are so broken over it. I’m serving the wrong master. There are two groups of people in this world, believers and unbelievers. And there are two responses to sin in this world. Unbelievers love their sin. They continue in their sin. They make excuses. They love it. But believers struggle with sin. They battle sin and they show that they have been born of God and that sin is incompatible with their life.

Earlier I gave those examples of things that don’t mix or there’s going to be a reaction. That’s what sin is in the life of a believer. That reaction, that burning, that hatred of sin shows you that sin is incompatible with your life as a believer. He closes with verse 10 by this, this very struggle that he’s talking about. This identification of not continuing in sin if you are born of God. By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifested, or are revealed, or made clear. It’s obvious. By this, everyone who does not do righteousness is not of God, as well as the one who does not love his brother.

If you love your sin, if you’re trying to find excuses to stay in your sin, if you just want to continue in your sin and stop being bothered about it, just leave me alone. You’re of your father, the devil, and you need to come to Christ. You need to come to him. You need to repent, turn from your master, turn from sin, and come to Christ, your new master. Confess your sin and trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for your salvation. Only then can you live a life of one who is born of God. Only then can you live a life and begin to live for Him. So if you’re an unbeliever, you need to come to Christ so that you can live this life.

But if you’re already a believer, and you still battle with your sin, and you are the one who keeps asking questions like, if I’m a Christian, why did I do it again? Why do I do it? I hate it. If I’m a Christian, why am I struggling with sin? Well, take courage because your assurance is in the struggle. The struggle shows you who your master truly is.

Let’s stand and close in a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for a passage like this that is difficult. It’s difficult to read. It can be difficult to understand. It’s difficult to think about our life and the sin that we struggle with, the sin that we battle with. But we also thank you for the encouragement that comes from a passage like this. that the reason why we have that struggle, the reason why we feel like it’s not right, the reason why we hate our sin is because we’re born of God. And by this, we may know that we have eternal life. We thank you for Your word that tells us this. We pray that you would, by your spirit, apply this word to our hearts and help us live a life that puts our sin to death daily. That we would have no desire to continue in the sin that put Christ on the cross. Pray that this word would continue in our hearts, that it would stay with us throughout this week and that we would live a life that would glorify you. We pray all this in Christ’s name, amen.