1 John 3:4-10 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 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. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
The fall from God’s presence in the Garden was complete, dividing God and his righteousness from man’s spirit of the flesh. From the beginning, man broke the one commandment from God, separating himself from God’s absolute authority. Rather than not eating of the Tree of Good and Evil, man chose to disobey, attempting to become his own creator. Now he thought he could make creation better by taking control. By being willfully deceived by Satan, the spirit of alienation came into his heart. Freed from God’s authority, he could think entirely for himself, as the Evil One was free to do. Through his action of disobedience to God’s commandment, his heart became depraved as is the devil’s heart. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. Paul describes the results of this separation from God’s authority: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10-12) The contamination of unrighteousness is complete and devastating. The history of man chronicles pain, killing, war, destruction. Millions have faced death by human hands; millions of women have been raped; millions of children have been abused or made orphans because of the sin of humankind. Even today we have millions enslaved by others. Sin remains rampant on the face of the earth, as it has been in every millennium. The hearts of men are deceitfully wicked; who can know them. Of course, this sinful nature is in all flesh, even in us who are reading this breakfast. We deceive ourselves if we do not understand our fleshly nature. All flesh tends to be selfish and self-absorbed. When John the Baptist answered the question of those who desired to escape the coming judgment of God, or hellfire: What should we do then? John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” (Luke 3:10-11) John was very direct; he called the crowd that came to be baptized vipers, fleeing from the wrath to come. (See Luke 3:7) Why was he so vehement? They were but fleshly people, filled with their own needs, wants, and careless ways of living without God’s purposes in their lives. To reveal their selfishness, John told them they should share with the poorly clothed and the hungry. John said these words because he lived in the desert, full of the Holy Spirit from birth, and he knew God’s heart—his concern for everything and everyone on Earth. The truly righteous should have God’s mind, caring for others, all people and the earth God gave them. Who are the righteous? Those who love God with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength, and love their fellow man as they love and care for themselves. Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister. As you can surmise, none of us, even the redeemed, are truly righteous in the flesh. How many of us have inventoried our wardrobe and given half to the poorly clothed; how many look daily at the food we eat, thinking to share some with the hungry. As Adam and Eve, we have been given domain over the earth, every animal, plant, natural resource that exists on the earth, yet our sinfulness exploits everything for our own purposes, not sharing with others. In Isaiah 58, we hear the Lord say that He does not want religiosity, long prayers, temple worship, fasting. What He desires is service to him from the heart by freeing those who are wrongly imprisoned, lightening the burden of the worker, setting the oppressed free, removing the chains that bind people, sharing food with the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing those who need clothing, and helping relatives. These actions are important to God. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. The devil’s work is to hurt, depose, destroy, neglect, and the like. The Lord has come to bind up wounds, to bring peace to a hurting world of violence and harm.
When John says, No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him, he is talking about people who claim to know God, but do not change their lives to serve God. Rather than change their lifestyles, they allow sin to exist in their lives with little or no feeling of conviction. They remain committed to the devil and his way of thinking. They practice sin rather that excise it from their lives. They keep lying for their own purposes; they hold bitterness in their hearts because they feel it is justified. They hurt others with their tongues or physically abuse them, believing they are doing what is good for themselves. This kind of lifestyle conflicts with God’s nature. Jesus did good to people, expended his energy and time to bring help to the hurting, the lame, the sick, the captive. We who are under the authority of God through our faith in Jesus Christ and his works should always image God to the world. We are to love as He loves; we are to serve as Jesus was a servant to the world. We are to give our best for the purposes of saving people from the hold of the devil. Without thinking this way daily, we will think as the flesh does: ME FIRST, ME ALWAYS. This is not the new life of the new creature within us. A self-serving life reflects the devil and his attitude about life. Jesus said, we must be born again; we must start over, clothed in a new way of living. As born again people, we are obligated to put on the new clothes of the new creature birthed in us. These new clothes of love and concern for the world, even for our enemies, are very shiny, for they reveal clearly to the world a hundred-and-eighty-degree shift from the sinful nature of humans. A sacrificial love becomes the center piece in a new creature. Men sometimes do good, even sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others, but the abiding nature of servanthood to all people at all times is not endemic in people. We will often judge whether people deserve our help or not, or we will need a natural disaster or calamity before we will serve unreservedly. This is who we are as natural people! But Jesus and the new creature ask more of us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8) We are to serve even the froward master, one who hates us and abuses us. Christ died for all: we also should sacrifice our lives for all, not depending on circumstances or places.
To be willing to die for everyone depicts the nature of God and his righteousness. John says, The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. How can we in the flesh be that righteous? Are we to give our lives for God by sacrificing even for those who hate God? Well, yes! But our righteousness does not depend on our actions. Our rightful place by the side of Christ IN GOD does not hinge on our goodness or lack of fidelity; our place in the family of God relies entirely on Christ’s works, not ours. Yes, we should do what is right. We do not want to be called vipers, or the unredeemable. We do not want to be alienated from the love of the Creator. However, without the works of God in us, through faith in Jesus Christ, that is what we are. As people of fleshly endeavors, we tend to be contaminators, often displaying the selfish works of the devil more than the loving works of God. We usually are not cognizant of our selfish lifestyle. In our daily journey, we often forget our obligation to display our Creator’s generous love to the people around us. But righteousness is a gift, not something deserved or earned. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:22-24) We are justified freely by God’s grace that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. We are new creatures because Christ has come into our hearts. We have been born again. Our trust is not in whether we are righteous in our actions or not; our trust relies entirely on Jesus’ righteousness. We do not look at ourselves and condemn ourselves for who we are in the flesh. Jesus did not come into the world to condemn us, for he knows who we are. He knows the bondage of the devil in men’s hearts, but He came with a message of love from the Father. He came to redeem the vipers, the unredeemable. He gave us a new name, written down in the Book of Life. He knows each one of us; we cannot deceive him. He knows the intents of our hearts, how much we are committed to him or not committed to him. He knows our personal journeys through life: how we were formed, what happened in our early lives and later years that causes us to think and react in this world as we do. He knows everything about us; the good and the evil. HE KNOWS! How then must we live? We live by faith in God and his righteousness. Every day we look to him and praise him for the new work He has done in us. Every day, we attempt to display God to the world. Every day, we lay our lives down for the purposes of God as children of a living God. He knows our names and we are GREATLY FAVORED. Amen!
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