Discover even more places to enjoy Truth.Love.Parent.
Episode Notes
Click the link below to download the PDF.
TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome back to our family devotional time through the book of I John. Today we have some equal parts heavy truth as well as comforting hope.
Since this is Part 8, if you’re just joining us on this study, please stop this session and go back to episode 613 for Part 1. Just like I have the other seven times, I’ll have free session notes, a transcript, LifeWork, and related resources linked for you in the description of this episode. I pray you’ve taken advantage of them from time to time and will continue to do so. A few episodes ago we talked about the Enemy. Today we’re we’re going to discuss the Battle. So, let’s get started. Topic
Let’s begin with our LifeWork check? Did you read the passage at least two times? Did you take multiple times this week to thank God for the hope of glorification? Did you strive in His power to live a pure life for God’s glory?
I really pray you did because all of that would be amazing growth and change. It would show that your family is either growing as a Biblical Family or you’re slowly becoming one. Praise God for that. However, we need to look at the other side of our checkup. It is very likely that some of the families out there or at least a member or two in most families is just here because they have to be. They have no real interest in this study, but they keep coming back so they don’t get in trouble or because they think it will somehow earn them points with God or their pastor or someone. If that’s what your family is doing, or if that’s what people in your family are doing . . . that’s not good. That’s a sign of spiritual immaturity or even a complete lack of spiritual life. God wants us reading His Word and praying and being changed into His image. The LifeWork I give is nothing more nor less than what God wants from His children. Therefore, a person who regularly refuses or conveniently forgets to deny themselves and pursue God’s will is a person who is probably deceived about their relationship with the Lord. Either that or they know full well that they don’t care. Now, why am I being so blunt about this? As we just noted, this life is a battle. Satan wants to destroy you, God wants to save you, and I want to help the Lord. I love you and your family enough to warn you when I see danger, and the Scriptures help us to understand what’s dangerous. So, please continue to pursue the LifeWork and grow in it. It’s by this process—of intentionally wanting to please the Lord—that real change and victory happens. In fact, it’s where the battle is fought. Now, some people may think that words like “battle” are too dramatic or unnecessary for describing the Christian’s life, but the Bible is very quick to describe it as a war. Ephesians 6 describes the spiritual warfare in which we battle every day. The books of I and II Timothy frequently refer to fighting the good fight. The New Testament regularly refers to Christians as soldiers. Paul referred to waging war against his sinful heart. And the list goes on. Why does God repeatedly illustrate this life with wartime imagery? Because that’s what it actually is. Spiritual warfare is real and ever present, but—because it’s spiritual—it’s actually easy to miss or forget. And God wants us to stay alert and awake spiritually so that we’re not overcome and lose the battle. Now, today’s text doesn’t use the imagery of war, but it is describing the army you’re in and—therefore—helping us understand what this battle is. Let’s read the passage together. I John 3:4-10, “Everyone who does sin also does lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5 And you know that He was manifested in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or has come to know Him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8 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. 9 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. 10 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.” I think it’s pretty easy for us to see the dividing line between those who sin and those who do righteousness. But our first point of the day is one of the most important because there’s a very real misunderstanding to which we can come that will send our families careening in a very dangerous direction. A plain English reading of this text makes it sound like those who are in God—those who are saved—absolutely do not sin . . . ever. The people who sin are of the devil. Therefore, people need to be perfect or they’re not saved. There are professing Christians who will say that no born again believer sins or can sin. They believe this so ardently that when a professing believer does something the Bible clearly identifies as a sin, they jump through so many hoops to try to make it sound like it’s not a sin for a Christian to do something God says is a sin. Other people think that Christians lose their salvation when they sin and have to be resaved. Is that what God would have us believe? 1. Do Christians Sin? The simple answer to this, “Yes.” Christians do sin. They shouldn’t. It’s wrong. God wants them to mature by not sinning and—instead—making more Christ-honoring choices, but they do daily sin. This is not an excuse; it’s simply the reality. We’ve talked about this before. I already shared with you about the Apostle Paul’s battle with sin. But listen to James 3:2, “For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the entire body as well.” “But, Aaron,” you might say, “James didn’t talk about sinning. He talked about stumbling.” We need to be very careful when it comes to language. We have many resources on our Truth.Love.Parent. podcast about communication, language, and the many pitfalls we encounter with them. Just because James didn’t use the word “sin,” doesn’t mean that’s not what he’s describing. Early in James 2:10, he said, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” What is it to keep the whole law? It’s obeying. It’s righteousness. What is it to stumble and be guilty? It’s sin and disobedience. Back in James 3, James unpacks the destruction of a sinful tongue, and he says that the tongue “defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our existence, and is set on fire by hell.” He also says “But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.” And then he goes on to give us the cure. We need the wisdom of God. But pursuing the wisdom of God doesn’t mean that we stop stumbling or that we’re able to always control the tongue. In addition to that, keep in mind that each of the New Testament epistles was written to born again believers, and each of them frequently commands that the readers stop sinning. And many of the over 30 one-another commands in the Bible that define what discipleship is require that we rebuke and admonish and correct and reprove our brothers and sisters in Christ. Why would God tell us to stop sinning if we were incapable of sinning? Why would He give us pastors to equip us to speak truth in love so that we grow up into Christ if we were already sinless? The answer is, He wouldn’t, and He doesn’t. We do still have a sin nature, and God wants to purify us in this life as He uses us to reach others with the truth of Jesus Christ. So, why then does John write, “Everyone who does sin also does lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness . . . . No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or has come to know Him . . . . The one who does righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8 The one who does sin is of the devil, because the devil sins from the beginning”? The answer is in a correct understanding of Greek grammar. Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, language is important and correct grammar is how we are to use language correctly. Do you remember what a tense is? In English we have many tenses, the most familiar are present, past, and future. An example of a present tense English verb is the word “play” in the sentence “I play games.” Of course, there’s also the Future Perfect Progressive tense. This one is more complicated and sounds like this, “I will have been playing for 5 hours by the time you come home.” To put it into our vernacular, Greek verbs have tenses too. The Greek words translated “sins” and “abides” are present active participles that refer to continuous habitual behavior or lifestyle. GotQuestions.org addresses this passage like this, “believers will not continue practicing sin as a way of life. There will be a difference between the old life without Christ and the new life in Christ. The thief who was characterized by his theft is a thief no more; he has a different way of life. The adulterer who was characterized by his immorality is an adulterer no more; his behavior patterns have changed. The child of God who was a former thief may still struggle with covetousness, but he no longer lives according to the pattern of stealing. The child of God who was a former adulterer may still struggle with lust, but he has broken free from the old life of immorality. “All who have this hope in [Christ] purify themselves, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). “The Amplified Bible brings out John’s meaning clearly: “No one who abides in Him [who remains united in fellowship with Him—deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin. No one who habitually sins has seen Him or known Him” (1 John 3:6, AMP) and “We know [with confidence] that anyone born of God does not habitually sin; but He (Jesus) who was born of God [carefully] keeps and protects him, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18, AMP) It goes on to say, “The word habitually is key. A believer will struggle with sin and sometimes give in, but giving in to sin is no longer normative. As we grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord (see 2 Peter 3:18), we are being sanctified. As we are led by the Spirit, we will walk more and more in obedience to the Word of God. “If a person claims to be a Christian but lives in defiance of God’s Word, then that person is showing the world he or she is unsaved. No one who continues to live in willful sin knows God. Because continual sin is incompatible with new life in Christ, living in unrepentant homosexuality, idolatry, or falsehood is proof that no regenerative work of the Spirit has yet taken place in the heart, regardless of anyone’s claims to the contrary. “John gives us the reason why believers do not continue to sin: ‘No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God’ (1 John 3:9). A genuine Christian will not ‘deliberately, knowingly, and habitually’ sin. It’s just not in their ‘spiritual DNA.’” I’m sure you can see why we spent this much time on this point. Yes, Christians do sin. However, the focus is a question of consistency and habit. This is why we need to be very careful to see our lives as God does. It’s easy to be tempted to make excuses for our habitual sin because, “Well, I’m a sinner.” Yes, you are a sinner, but the most important part of being a Christian is that we will want to stop sinning, not make excuses for it. And with this, we’re going to move to our next point. 2. Biblical families repent. This is the daily battle, and we could do a whole series on this point. In fact, we have produced so much content all about repentance, and just some of that will be liked for you in the description to give you a starting place. To put it succinctly, though, repentance is nothing more nor less than changing directions. If I were walking due East, repentance would be me turning around and walking due West. Repentance isn’t merely stopping. It isn’t simply turning, but not moving. Repentance is going in the exact opposite direction, or—more specifically—doing the exact opposite thing. No passage explains this more clearly than Ephesians 4:22 to the end of the chapter. Allow me to read a few verses; Paul says that we have been taught “to lay aside, in reference to your former conduct, the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” And then he gives us a bunch of examples of what this looks like. I’ll read three of them. “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity. 28 He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.” We see how we need to stop doing one thing, think correctly about the situation, and start doing the right thing. In Matthew 5:29-30, Jesus explained repentance like this: “But if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.” Earlier in Matthew 5, Jesus showed us that someone who knows they’re a sinner and is grieved by it will humbly go to God—asking for His help. From there we see that the people who have received the grace of God in salvation will hunger and thirst after righteousness. Back in Ephesians 2 Paul writes the following—I’ll be starting in verse 1, but I’ll also be skipping over some things, “And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world . . . doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath . . . . 4 But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus . . . . For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God . . . . 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Yes, I sin. Sometimes I get angry with my family members. Sometimes I become impatient with my counselees. Sometimes I eat too much when I’m stressed. Sometimes I waste time. Sometimes I don’t do my best. But, the Holy Spirit convicts me. He convicts my heart, He uses the Bible, and He uses His people to show me I’m wrong, and . . . by the grace of God . . . I am convicted. I feel guilty. I’m ashamed. So, what do I do? I continue the same process I started when I became a Christian. I grieve over my sin, confess it to be what God says it is, ask for forgiveness, and strive in the power of the Holy Spirit to not live like that any more. And I do that over and over again. Confessing, apologizing, and repenting, my friends, is the clearest sign of true Christianity. And it requires all three steps. An unbeliever can hate something he did and want to change, but why is he changing? He’s changing for himself. But confessing is agreeing with God about my sin. Apologizing is asking God and the people against whom I’m sinned to forgive me. And repenting is obeying God by doing the right things in the right ways for the right reasons. And this leads to our final point for today. 3. God gives grace for the battle. Every single day we are tempted to sin. It comes from Satan, the World, and—most dangerously—from the Flesh. Multiple times a day we are faced with a decision to sin or do right. And—if we’re being honest—we fail a lot. We lose the momentary battle. But we don’t lose it because we have to lose it. John makes it very clear that the only people who can stop consistently and habitually (and therefore unrepentantly) sinning are people who have been born of God. If you have been born of God, He gives you so many tools with which to fight the battle. In our Family United in God devotional you can access in the Evermind App—and which I suggest you do together after you finish this study—we talk all about Ephesians 6 and the many weapons and tools God has given us to fight this daily battle. We talk about these same tools in our Spiritual Warfare Series. But I want to focus on a few other gifts and tools God gives us to win the battle. A. God always gives us a way to escape temptation. We looked at I Corinthians 10:13 a few sessions ago. It says, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” Based off of this promise, Paul continues by saying, “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” We never have to sin. We choose to sin, but we don’t have to choose to sin. With every temptation, God will always provide a way for His children to say, “No.” But you may be thinking, “I never see how to escape.” That may be for a couple reasons. First, you may not have learned what the escape looks like. Or you may not be a Christian. God doesn’t provide a way to escape for people who aren’t born again. If you’d like to learn what escape hatches God has in your life, one of our biblical counselors would love to work with you and your family. B. God gives us His Word. The Bible is where we learn what is a sin and what isn’t. We learn about how we should be living and why. And we learn about all the weapons, tools, and power God has given us to obey Him. C. God gives us the Holy Spirit. We’ve already talked about this as well. It’s only in the power of the Spirit that we can say “No” to sin. D. God gives us other Christians. Whether they’re in your home, church, school, or neighborhood, God wants His people to help His people grow in their maturity and conformity to Christ. If we only use these tools, we will see increasing righteousness in our lives. A former pastor of mine put it this way, “No Christian is sinless, but every Christian should be sinning less and less.” Conclusion
As we finish up today, let’s read our passage one more time—making certain to remember all the things we’ve learned today.
I John 3:4-10, “Everyone who does sin also does lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5 And you know that He was manifested in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or has come to know Him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8 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. 9 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. 10 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.” With these truths in mind, here is our LifeWork for this week. 1. Read and meditate on I John 3:11-24 at least two times this week. Remember, if you can’t read or can’t read well, ask one or more of your family members to read the passage out loud for you and ask you questions about it. 2. All throughout the week, ask the Holy Spirit to help you find the escape hatches from temptation. But don’t just ask. Keep your eyes open to the wrong things you do, the things you do in the wrong way, and the things you do for the wrong reasons. 3. Renew your mind, put off, and put on. As you learn what the Bible says about your sin and God’s will for your life, agree with God. Trust Him. Believe His Word. And then act on it. Stop doing what He says is wrong, and start doing what He says it right, in the right ways, and for the right reasons. And don’t forget to share this devotional with your friends. Wouldn’t be great if God could use your friends to help you become more like Him? And don’t forget to email us at [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (828) 423-0894 if we can help you practically apply God’s Word to your life. And then join us next week as we talk about the Consequences of Love. I’ll see you then!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Receive UpdatesJoin The TLP Family and receive email updates when we publish new articles and episodes.
Subscribe to Our Podcast Categories
All
Archives
March 2026
|
||||||||
RSS Feed
