1 JOHN 3:4-10 - The Practice

Somewhere along the line I heard the old witticism (you’ve probably heard it too) about a lawyer that they’ve been “practicing law” for twenty years, and hopefully one day will start getting it right (or something like that, you can use the same pun on doctors who “practice” medicine…) For some reason we refer to the career of doctors or lawyers as a “practice”—the years of their training and conducting their expertise in their field.

You may have noticed that the word “practice” comes up a lot in the verses of Scripture I just read for us:

1 John 3:4 (ESV)

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness...

1 John 3:7 (ESV)

...Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous...

1 John 3:8 (ESV)

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil...

1 John 3:9 (ESV)

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning...

1 John 3:10 (ESV)

...whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God...

And I think that the way John is using the word practice here (it’s the Greek word for doing) is meant to get across the same kind of sustained, regular conduct that is meant by referring to a doctor’s practice of medicine. And I think we can state the main idea of these verses this way:

You cannot be a “PRACTICING Christian” if you are still PRACTICING your sin

You may have heard people talk about their spiritual condition that way: “Oh, I’m Catholic, but I’m not a practicing Catholic...” What they mean by that is that they have some affiliation with the Catholic Church, but the duties and obligations and spiritual pursuits of being a Catholic are not a part of their lives. There is no sustained, regular reality of their Catholicism woven through their daily experience.

I think that’s a good example of what John means when he writes about those who practice righteousness or practice sin. And his point here is that if your daily experience, your regular conduct is one of sinful behavior, rejection of God’s demands for holiness, pursuing your own desires and wants and turning your back on Him, then you are a “practicing sinner”. And if you are a “practicing sinner”, you are not a Christian.

The reason John says that is because of what we read in verse 5:

1 John 3:5 (ESV)

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

Last time we saw that the blessings of the Christian life come from abiding in Jesus—here John points out that you cannot be “abiding in Him” if you are a “practicing sinner”, because in Him there is no sin! The life of a Christian is totally incompatible with a life of a “practicing sinner”, because

I. Christ came to DELIVER you from your SIN (1 John 3:4-6)

John says that a Christian—one who “abides in Christ”—cannot “make a practice of sinning” because “sin is lawlessness” (v. 4)

1 John 3:4 (ESV)

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

We are accustomed in our day and age to talk about sin (if we talk about it at all) in terms of “making a mistake” or “poor choices” or “failure to live in a way that maximizes human flourishing” (I didn’t make that one up!)

But John doesn’t let us get away with this sort of euphemistic language when it comes to sin—sin is not just “making bad choices”; sin is breaking God’s laws. God has commanded us to obey Him, to do the things He has revealed in the Bible and not do the things He prohibits. And when we do the things He prohibits anyway, we are lawbreakers, we are outlaws.

Sin is breaking God’s laws—sin is an infinite offense against the utterly holy, infinitely righteous and powerful Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, and it is the single most deadly thing in the world because there is enough lawlessness in even the “smallest” sin to damn a sinner to Hell for all eternity.

And this is why the Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for sinners, isn’t it? Because

He APPEARED and CONQUERED sin (3:5; cp. John 1:29)

1 John 3:5 (ESV)

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

The Good News is that Jesus Christ, the only Sinless One came and took away the sins of everyone who calls on Him in faith! It is impossible for a “practicing sinner” to stop practicing sin on his own: eventually, a sinner will always succumb to the temptation to sin.

But Jesus Christ is the opposite—it is impossible for Him to sin! Where we are outlaws, continually practicing sin, He is the sinless one, who never even once sinned in even the slightest way at all. As the writer of Hebrews puts it, because Jesus could not sin,

Hebrews 7:25–26 (ESV)

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

Jesus appeared and conquered sin by His death on the Cross as a perfect substitute for hopeless outlaw sinners like you and me. John points this out here in verse 5 because he wants us to see that there is no way a “practicing sinner” can be abiding in Christ, the Sinless One who came to take away sin, because

We ABIDE with Christ and do not LIVE in sin (1 John 3:6)

Look at verse 6:

1 John 3:6 (ESV)

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

There is no sin in Christ—in fact, He came into the world to take away sin. Therefore, no one who continually and unrepentantly sins is living in Him. And if you are not living in Him, then you are not a Christian. If you are abiding in Him, then you will not be constantly, actively, continually pursuing the life of an outlaw, breaking and ignoring God’s laws.

If you are abiding in Him, you have a power that you did not have before; you have the power to say no to sin that you never had before—before you came to Christ, you might be able to resist sin for a while, but eventually you would always give in. Because, deep down in your outlaw heart, you wanted that sin! It was attractive to you, you wanted that sin more than you wanted anything to do with God, and you didn’t care what God thought of your behavior.

But now that you abide in Christ, you love Him more than you love that sin, you want Him more than you want whatever that sin promises you, you are able to turn away from that lawlessness and embrace Christ instead. Jesus appeared in order to take away the penalty of sin from you, and He took away the power of sin to enslave you!

This is why John says that you cannot be a “practicing Christian” if you are still practicing the lawlessness of sin. Jesus appeared in order to take away sin, and in verses 7-8 we read that

II. He came to DESTROY the works of the DEVIL (1 John 3:7-8)

1 John 3:7–8 (ESV)

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.

Not only is sin lawlessness, as he writes in verse 4, John goes further here to say that sin is Satanic— whoever makes a practice of sinning is not only an outlaw, but is also diabolical. The silly old bumper sticker “The devil made me do it” might try to play this for laughs, but the truth is that living a life of constant, unrepentant breaking of God’s laws, not caring (or even scorning) the warnings of God’s punishment for sin is the work of Satan himself in your life.

John writes about Satan’s work in terms of deception—when he says “Let no one deceive you, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil”, he is pointing out something that Jesus said in John 8—that the Devil has always been a liar. And He says that Jesus came and

Exposed the Devil’s DECEPTION so that we may pursue RIGHTEOUSNESS (v. 7; cp. John 8:44)

A few verses down from our Scripture reading in John 8 earlier, we read that Jesus said that the Devil

John 8:44 (ESV)

...was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Satan’s lies about sin usually fall into two broad categories—first, he uses the lie

--that sin is NO BIG DEAL

He used that deception against our First Parents in the Garden of Eden, planting the seed of doubt in Eve’s mind: “Did God really say this was a sin? I don’t think God even cares if you do this, it’s so insignificant compared to other sins!”

And his other tactic is the lie

--that sin is INEVITABLE

that resisting his temptation is pointless, that you may as well give up and give in because that temptation to sin won’t go away, and that you just have to make your peace with your anger or your lust or your bitterness or envy or gossip or faithless fearfulness because you will always have it with you, and since God has already forgiven it anyway it doesn’t matter whether you sin or not.

But Jesus Christ came to defeat that deception—He defeated the deception that sin is “no big deal” by His death on the Cross—sin is so serious that the only way to defeat it was for the sinless, perfect Son of God to be abandoned by God the Spirit and tortured to death under the wrath of God the Father!

And He defeated the deception that sin is inevitable by demonstrating just the opposite—that practicing righteousness is inevitable for those who abide in Him! As one writer puts it,

“[Satan’s] deception is defeated by a righteous life that gives tangible, visible evidence that we have been born again through faith in Christ” Akin, D. L., Platt, D., & Merida, T. (2014). Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary) [E-book]. Holman Reference. loc. 1310

Jesus came to expose Satan’s lies so that we may pursue righteousness, and He

Exposed the Devil’s SINNING and DEFEATED him (v. 8)

1 John 3:8 (ESV)

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.

The word “devil” comes from the Greek word diabolos (where we get words like “diabolical”). The root meaning of the word is accuser or slanderer (the equivalent word for “accuser” in Hebrew is shaitan, which is where we get the other name by which we refer to our Great Enemy: Satan.)

The Devil is an accuser, a slanderer. And this is the other side of his deceptions. We said earlier that he lies and says that sin is no big deal—but after you succumb to his temptation—after you sin—he accuses you of being such a miserable sinner that you can never be forgiven! That you are a failure, that God doesn’t want you anymore, that you are such a wretch that you should stop even calling yourself a Christian at all!

But John says that the Son of God appeared in order to destroy the works of the devil! This is the first of seven times that John will refer to Jesus as “the Son of God”--the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son. And his aim here is to demonstrate how completely God the Son destroyed the works of Satan. By His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus took away the penalty of your sin before God. John describes the effect of Jesus’ death on Satan’s power in Revelation 12:9-10:

Revelation 12:9–10 (ESV)

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

Satan has been permanently disbarred from the throne room of God! He can no longer bring formal charges against you, Christian—by canceling the penalty for your sin by His blood, Jesus Christ destroyed the devil’s ability to accuse you before God!

And not only has Jesus taken away the penalty of your sin, when you abide in Him you are abiding in His death to sin! The power of sin has been broken in you! Paul says in Romans 6:2-4

Romans 6:2–4 (ESV)

“...Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil—he can no longer deceive you into saying “sin is no big deal”. Whenever he whispers that into your ear, remember how your Savior cried out in anguish over being abandoned by God for that sin you are about to commit.

He can no longer deceive you by saying that sin is inevitable—what is inevitable in your life, Christian, is righteousness as you abide in Christ!

You cannot be a “practicing Christian” and a “practicing sinner” at the same time—because the Son of God in whom a Christian abides came to deliver you from sin; He came to destroy the works of the devil, and in verses 9-10 we see that

III. He came to DEFINE the CHILDREN of God (1 John 3:9-10)

Look at verse 9:

1 John 3:9 (ESV)

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.

In his book, Counter Culture, pastor and author David Platt has a good illustration about the Christian’s relationship with the old life—you’ve probably heard me use it. It goes like this: Suppose I came in to church one morning and said, “You’ll never guess what happened to me on the way in this morning! I got a flat tire on Eriton Hill, and while I was changing it a tractor trailer came barreling around the corner and slammed right into me and the Jeep—I went flying about twenty feet into the woods and hit a tree about ten feet up in the air!” What would you say if I told you that? Probably something along the lines of, “No, you didn’t!” Because if that really happened to me, I wouldn’t be standing here telling you about it! There’s no way you have a “close encounter” with an 18 wheeler and come out unchanged!

It’s the same thing with the Christian life! No one comes away from their encounter with Jesus Christ’s salvation unchanged! When we come to salvation by faith in Christ,

We have experienced the NEW BIRTH (v. 9)

This is part of what John means when he writes that “...God’s seed abides in” the Christian. Jesus described this to Nicodemus in John 3 as being born again. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17

2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

The theological term for this new reality, the new birth is

REGENERATION: The work of God the Holy Spirit as He SUPERNATURALLY and IMMEDIATELY changes the DISPOSITION of the soul from spiritual DEATH to spiritual LIFE.

And John says here that if this new birth has taken place in us, then

We can no longer make a PRACTICE of SIN (v. 9)

1 John 3:9 (ESV)

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.

A couple of years ago, Dad traded in his Dodge Ram diesel truck for a Dodge Ram gas-engine truck. There are a few differences—he has a six foot bed instead of an eight foot, and he can’t pull quite as heavy a load as he could before. But he also can’t pull into a diesel pump anymore!

In the same way, Christian, you have a different heart that doesn’t run on rebellion against God anymore—your heart now runs on love for God. You can no longer make a practice of sinning, you can’t keep on sinning, because you no longer run on the same fuel as you used to.

Your practice of sin is over--it may still tangle you up from time to time, but you are no longer enslaved to sin as Jesus said, you are no longer mastered by it! And if you are able to pull up to that old diesel pump and run on a tank full of rebellion just like you did before you prayed your prayer or walked the aisle, you are not a Christian. You simply can’t be! A Christian’s life can no more run on a heart full of sin and rebellion than an engine can run on fuel it wasn’t designed for. Your so-called “Christian life” will either sputter out and die like a gas engine running diesel, or blow apart at the seams like gasoline combusting in a diesel engine. There is simply no way to be a “practicing Christian” if you continue to practice your sin.

And if it weren’t for Christ appearing on this earth in order to take away your sins ,destroy the works of the devil and bring you to New Birth in Him, you’d still be there in that old life, enslaved to sin and the Devil! Any righteousness that comes to pass in your life, any good work that you do flows from the righteousness of Christ poured into your life by means of the New Birth” (Akin, D. L., Platt, D., & Merida, T. (2014). Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary) [E-book]. Holman Reference. loc. 1356)

Through the new birth that takes place in you at your salvation, you are no longer running the old fuel of rebellion and sin in your life; you have been transformed into a beloved child of God that produces the righteousness of God. We can no longer practice that old life of sin, and

We are known by our LOVE (v. 10)

1 John 3:10 (ESV)

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.

John is wrapping up the topic he started way back in Chapter 2:

1 John 2:3 (ESV)

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.

and he is setting up his next theme—that we will be shown to be abiding in Him when we love one another. Or, to put it another way, when you abide in Christ you will do right before Him, and that means that you will do right by others. Or again, Christian love is righteousness in relation to your neighbor (Plummer, The Epistles of St. John, p. 128 quoted in Akin, D. L., Platt, D., & Merida, T. (2014). Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary) [E-book]. Holman Reference. loc 1371)

This then, is the “acid test”; the way that your claim to be a Christian is found to be genuine or a lie: Those who hate sin, who have been set free from the devil, and who are born of God will do what is right and love others (ibid., loc. 1371) Those who are of the devil will do what is wrong and hate others.

What does God’s Word reveal in you this morning? If you abide in Christ, if your entire existence is woven up in Him and He is your treasure, your greatest joy and you entire hope for this life and the next is anchored in Him alone, then what is inevitable in your life is not sin, but righteousness! The seed of God’s righteousness has been planted in you, Christian, the penalty and power of sin has been conquered by the appearing of the Son of God—and He promises that someday the very presence of sin itself will be banished from you forever! Here in this life you can be holier than you ever thought possible, and someday you will be completely free when you awaken in His presence in eternity!

You cannot be a practicing Christian if you are still practicing your sin—if you have been making peace with your sin, if you have given up fighting is (or, if in fact you have never really made any effort to fight the sin that still dogs you), then you need to hear the wake up call that comes down the centuries from John’s pen by the inspiration of the Spirit of God to you—Jesus Christ came to take away sin, He came do destroy the works of the devil’s deceptions, and you cannot say you abide in Him if you are still hanging on to that favorite sin of yours.

That habit that attitude, that indulgence that you keep going back to, that lust, that bitterness, that envy, that laziness, that cynicism, that ingratitude that you refuse to mortify, that you make excuses for—you have to make a choice today. Abide in Christ, or indulge that sin. You cannot do both. Don’t listen to the lies of the devil telling you that they’re really “no big deal”—that bitterness you hang onto, that rotten temper you indulge, those images you search for online caused your Savior to groan in agony as His body was broken on that Cross—how dare you presume to bring them with you as you abide in Him now?

And most of all, don’t listen to the lie that says you cannot conquer them! Christian, the only thing that is inevitable in your life is not your sin—it is the righteousness of Christ Himself that grows in you! “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6). So stop believing that sin is “no big deal”, stop believing that is impossible to resist. Instead, in the power of the New Birth that has taken place in you, go to war with that sin, hunt it down and kill it and bring its corpse to the foot of the Cross of Jesus Christ and leave it there. And if you have to do the same thing again tomorrow, do it again. Because the Son of God appeared to destroy the work of the devil, you have power in Him to do righteousness and do right by others, and prove that you are a child of God, to the praise and glory of your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION:

Ephesians 3:20–21 (ESV)

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

What does it mean to “practice” sin? What is the difference between “practicing” sin and succumbing to a particular temptation?

What are the two main ways the Devil tries to deceive Christians about the nature of sin? How did Jesus destroy those deceptions by His appearing?

Why does John say that practicing righteousness and loving one another make it “evident who are the children of God?” How do you see those two elements working in your life?

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