Wednesday, November 25 –
We’ve
reached the middle of the week and the middle of 1st John. Today’s reading is 1 John 2:29 – 3:24. Please
read the Scripture first and I’d invite you to come back and walk through it
with me again.
The chapter division is again unfortunate, so we began our reading today at the
end of chapter two, which connects the thoughts of John to the early verses in
chapter three. Look again at the
transition:
“If
you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices
righteousness has been born of him. 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.
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet
appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we
shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself
as he is pure” (2:29 – 3:1-3).
The
issue is what he calls “practicing righteousness” based on our identity
as children of God. This is both our
assurance as well as our response. It is in God's love that we have this identity as his children, and it is because of
Christ Jesus that we are adopted into the family of God. The great hope of our lives as Christians is
summed up in those words “we are God’s children now, and what we will be has
not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because
we shall see him as he is…(3:2). If we can think about what he says, we
realize how much we will be changed in our passing from death to life eternal
with Jesus. It is the prospect of this
glorious transformation that he reminds us to live in purity and holiness now
before God. For this reason, John now
gets serious once again –
“Everyone
who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is
no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on
sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one
deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.
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. 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. 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” (3:4-10).
What
ever happened to sin in our culture? We
have a society that has removed sin from the dictionary of practical living. Sadly,
sin has also been removed from the language of the church. I once sat with a friend who told me he made
a “mistake” in having a relationship with another woman. I said to him, “you didn’t make a mistake,
you sinned against God and your wife!” It is a good question to ask – “whatever
happened to sin in our lives, in the church, in society?” The word translated “sin” comes from the
Greek word – hamartia (to miss the mark). John writes of “sinning”, a
present tense verb that implies a willful continuous rebellion to God’s
word…along the lines of excusing habitual practices and being unwilling to see
that the actions are wrong before God. That
is important because John is not saying that we will not sin. He already established that at the end of
chapter one and the first verses of chapter two. We cannot deny that we sin. In fact, we’re to admit it and confess it,
and live in the assurance of forgiveness that comes from Christ Jesus, our
advocate. This sin he writes of now is
continuous without regard for God. Just
as he had written about “practicing righteousness” which implies we keep
on working at doing the right things, so also now he writes of the opposite in “everyone
who practices sin”. This is a
habitual, unwillingness to see the wrong, the lifestyle of sinful actions. The person who does this is not a believer but is lost and in need of the saving work of Jesus Christ. It is Christ Jesus who came to “destroy
the works of the devil…that we might be born again into the family of God”. Then God’s Spirit is planted within us and
while we will still sin, our conscience will bear witness that this is wrong,
which will lead to confession, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration – all
because of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus.
Adding
to this admonition, John ties in another facet of practicing righteousness – the
way in which love overcomes hatred and the ways in which that affects our
lives.
“For
this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love
one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and
murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were
evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the
world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life,
because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no
murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (3:11-15).
If
our lives are changed by Christ Jesus within, so also is our nature changed
from envy, strife, hatred, to love in relationships. It is the love of God that
invades our lives in Christ, and it is this love that spills out into our world
with others. Hatred is a strong word we
must always learn to deal with in harsh terms.
It is the world without Christ that is most prone to manifest
hatred. A Christian is to hate sin, but
not the sinner. It is love, even for
sinners, that marks the difference between the believer and the
unbeliever. As Jesus had taught John
(Matthew 5:21-23), John also teaches us – before God there is no difference
between hatred and murder!
We
are seeing a pattern of contrasts that mark the difference between the believer
and the unbeliever. Living in continuous
sin, verses confessing of sin; living with hatred, verses loving in
relationships – the pattern was biblically rooted in the story of Cain and
Abel. The pattern of envy, strife, malice,
slander, hatred – which is murder before God – has to change…we have to allow
the Spirit to confront these things in our own lives and be willing to
“confess”, say what God says about it – which is “this is sin”. It is not a matter of being perfect – that
will not happen in our lifetime – but it is a matter of “practicing
righteousness”. We are not made
righteous in our own efforts, but through the work of the Spirit, we can make
progress…progress not perfection!
“By
this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down
our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees
his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love
abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in
deed and in truth” (3:16-18).
If
hatred lives in the heart, love cannot.
The love that Christ had was demonstrated in his sacrificial
giving. The practical of that is
demonstrated in actively caring for those in need – that is love, a love that
sees and acts in deeds, not just words.
We are not perfect, but we are people in process, and it’s our progress
that is meant to be seen –
“By
this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before
him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart,
and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we
have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him,
because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his
commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one
another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments
abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the
Spirit whom he has given us” (3:19-24).
Having
just finished reading the Gospel of John we can see the words of Jesus from the
Upper Room (John 13 – 15) in these few verses at the end of the chapter. The truest evidence of faith is an assurance
that leads us away from condemnation to confidence in God. We are not children of God by virtue of our
efforts, our religiosity, or works. The
awareness of our own sinfulness is assurance, not condemnation. It reminds us
that our hearts have been softened, invaded by the love of God, and the love
and passion of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
It is in our love for Christ that we have a desire to obey Christ, and
it is in our obedience that helps us see the work of Christ is alive in the
Spirit of God within.
Simply
put, we love God because he loved us, and sent his Son, Jesus to die for
us. He deposited his Spirit within us as
a down-payment on eternal life. Consequently, we worship Him, read His Word, we
pray to Him; and we grow in grace through our faith in obedience and service to
Him. We are “abiding” in Christ, because
He abides in us. It is His gift that we
are secure in Him.
Peace
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