Tonight, we continue our consideration, our study of 1 John. And if you would turn with me to 1 John chapter 3. The text for tonight being verses 4 through 6, but I'd like us to read together the text from two weeks ago, actually chapter 2, verse 29, beginning there, and then also read what will be, the Lord willing, the text for next time, through verse 10 of chapter 3. 1 John 2, verse 29, through 3, verse 10. Hear now the word of the Lord. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of Him. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure. Everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He appears 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. He who does what is right is righteous just as He is righteous. He 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 him. He cannot go on sinning because he has 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 a child of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother. May God add His blessing to the reading and the preaching of His Holy Word. Dear people of God, last week, Sunday morning, in connection with the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 32, and the truth from that Lord's Day, that although we are delivered from all of our sin and misery and saved by God's grace, yet we must still do good works. In connection with that, we mentioned what R.C. Sproul calls the antinomian hymn. Remember, the antinomian is one who is against the law, one for whom there is no law, he says. And the words of that hymn are, Free from the law, O blessed condition, we can sin all we want and still have remission. Now that's a catchy tune, of course, but more than that, it's a dangerously false view that so many hold to today. This is true even among those who are around us. No doubt many of us have had someone or have heard of someone who said something almost like this, I can live the way I want, I can sin freely and not worry about it, I'll just ask for forgiveness and everything will be fixed again. Not a problem. As well, many think that just because they attend a church regularly and have their name on the membership rolls and confess the Apostles' Creed with their mouth. Therefore, they're safe. They're in. They can live like they want. But again, what a dangerous and what a fatal idea. The Bible, God's own Word, tells a much different story, especially in the New Testament after Christ's accomplished work. And I emphasize after because so many say, well, because of Christ, the Old Testament is no more. We don't have to worry about it. And, you know, the Old Testament includes the law. and so we don't have to worry about it. But this first epistle of John is one of those places that emphasizes how wrong that view is. He's made it clear so far as we have considered that one who has fellowship with God does not walk in the darkness of sin, but instead obeys the commands of God and walks as Jesus walked. He teaches that one who is born of God is a child of God and that which characterizes the child of God is that he does right. Throughout this epistle, we know that John teaches about the conduct. The conduct of the believer. And with the text before us tonight, he drives home the point that one most certainly cannot sin all he wants and still have remission. In fact, in this text, John underscores just how terrible and just how deadly sin is. In the previous text, chapter 2, verse 29, through chapter 3, verse 3, which we considered a couple of weeks ago, John considered holy living from the standpoint of Christ's second, future, and final coming in the fact that we shall be like Him. An incentive, if you will, for holy living. And therefore, as verse 3 of chapter 3 says, everyone who has this hope, this hope of Christ coming again and being like Him, purifies Himself just as He is pure. But you see, that time has not yet come. And so now John talks about holy living from the standpoint of the purpose of Christ's first coming. He looks backward instead of forward in what Christ accomplished. After considering the future glory of the believer, John draws our attention back to earth, back to the reality of today and the life that we live even at this very moment. And therefore, this is the Word of God that we consider together tonight. The first coming of Christ empowers the believer for holy living. And we notice, first of all, the need for holy living. And then the accomplishment of holy living. And then finally, the practice of holy living. John begins this text in verse 4 by pointing out the need for holy living. And he does this by talking in just a few short words in this verse about how terrible sin is. Everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, sin is lawlessness. You see, beloved, we must understand and we must continue to understand and we must teach our children and we must continue to teach our children about the seriousness of sin. And that's because the unbelieving world plays sin down. It doesn't take sin seriously. To the unbelieving world, sin is considered to be a weakness or an imperfection that is the result of some sort of a psychological defect. Or sin is simply a mistake that we all make once in a while. And the world excuses sin by saying that people can't help the way they are, they can't help the way they act, they are just the products of their environments. But surely they can't be held responsible. It's not my fault, you see. Or there is what is called relativism. What is relative to you or to me? What is sin for you? You see, may not be sin for me. If you think that living with a person of the opposite sex outside of marriage and committing fornication is a sin, well, that's up to you. But someone else may not see it that way. If you think that committing adultery is a sin, well, that's up to you because someone else might not see it that way. If you think that homosexuality is a sin, well, again, that's totally up to you. But also, again, someone else might not see it that way. Everything is relative, you see. But sometimes even we as believers laugh at sin, like little white lies, we make jokes about them. Or when young children who don't know any better say curse words, we snicker how cute that is. The unbelieving world does not take sin seriously because it does not understand what sin is and whom sin is committed against. But if we don't understand the serious nature of sin or if we downplay it, we will never understand our true condition and our need and the need for Christ's first coming. And that's why John says again in verse 4, Everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, sin is lawlessness. Now we all know of a number of Scripture terms that are used for sin. Iniquity, transgression, unrighteousness, or as here, lawlessness. And of course the word sin itself. And the word sin in general means missing the mark. Boys and girls, like an archer, one who shoots a bow and arrow, and that arrow misses the bullseye, it misses the mark. In relation to God's people, the mark, the bullseye, is the law of God. Sin is a serious matter, you see, because it has a direct connection to God. And that connection is that all sin, even a little white lie, is always, always, let me say it again, always, enmity against God. And it always opposes His will. The law of God is His revealed will for His people. The law of God is holy and it is a reflection of God's holiness. And through keeping God's law, God's people reflect His holiness. Through His law, God gives directions to His people for holy living. He tells us what pleases Him. There's no guesswork involved, beloved. It's all right here. He tells us exactly what we need to know. He tells us what it is that pleases Him. We don't have to guess about it. All sin is lawlessness. It is not just a weakness or a failure on my part. It is breaking God's law. It is rebellion against God. It is disobedience. It is failure to live life as God has commanded. And it is worthy of eternal death because to reject the divine law is to reject the lawgiver, God Himself. Of course, this won't mean a thing to you if you don't understand who God is. And we could spend all of our lifetimes talking about who God is and we would never get through. But congregation, God is holy. One of His many wonderful, marvelous attributes. He is holy. And His holiness sets Him completely apart from all that He has made, apart from a specially sinful man. His holiness points to His greatness, His purity, His moral perfection. And the fact that God cannot and will not tolerate or have fellowship with sin and that which is unholy. And that includes all of mankind, even you and me, apart from Christ Jesus. When John says, everyone who sins, the tense of the Greek there teaches us that he is talking about one who continually practices sin, one who does nothing but habitually sin, these continually violate God's law and His holiness and continually offend Him without conscience. Paul makes the need for holiness clear when he says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And he graphically describes the sinfulness of man in Romans 3, verses 10-18. The same chapter where that the other verse comes from. There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways. In the way of peace they do not know. there's no fear of God before their eyes. What a graphic picture of dead men walking, as we heard this morning. What a graphic description of the ugliness of natural man. People of God, if we do not understand the truth about sin, that because of sin we are under the wrath of God, deserving and waiting for eternal punishment, if we do not understand that, then we will not understand the reason for Christ's first coming and we cannot have the assurance of His work. Only in Him can we understand and enjoy the accomplishment of holiness. Verse 5 says, But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins, and in Him is no sin. Now notice in that verse that John talks both about the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Boys and girls, the person of Christ, meaning who He is and the work of Christ, talking about what He has done. He talks about the person and work of Christ in relation to sin. What was the purpose for Christ's first coming? Why did He come? What was His work? John says in verse 8 that He came to destroy the works of the devil. We hope to consider that next time, the Lord willing. But here in verse 5, John gives another purpose. Maybe we could say a little closer to home, and that is that He came to take away our sins. How serious is sin? We needed another to come and to take away our sins, to take care of it for us. But not just anyone. Beloved, we talk about the fact that Christ, the Son of God, was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was born into this world of the Virgin as a baby in Bethlehem. We speak of His incarnation, God becoming man in the flesh. We speak of the fact that He left His throne in glory to enter this world and be surrounded by sin. He lived a perfectly righteous life. His ministry included teaching and healing, works of miracles, mighty acts of God. He was crucified on the cross, suffered hell, died, was buried, rose again, and ascended. We profess these things and more about Him. Why? How do we explain all of those things? What is the explanation for them? Why did He do this? You see, the answer is not only to reveal God, not only to teach about God, not only to give us an example of holy living. All of these things are true, of course. Christ did all of these things. But first and foremost, all that we confess about Christ has meaning because of our sin and our deadly position and predicament. Our deadly position and predicament, you see, has to do with our relationship to God in the light of God's holy law. Our position is that by nature we stand opposed to God and His law. Our predicament is that we are under the curse of God's law. Apart from Jesus Christ, we are lawless when it comes to God's law. We are sinners who need another to rescue us and deliver us from the hell that our sins deserve. We needed that which makes us unholy and that which separates us from God. We needed that removed, namely our sin. We needed that removed in order to be accepted by God. And in order to enjoy the fellowship with God that John has talked about before, we needed God to do something for us. That's what particularly struck me this morning about Pastor Donovan's sermon. The truth about who we are by grace. We needed God to do something for us. Jesus Christ is the only one who could deal with our sin and His coming is the only way to be delivered and rescued and redeemed from the curse of sin. This was Christ's work to take away the sins of His people. And the beauty here, we must understand that John says it this way, this is what he means, the beauty here is that this is an accomplished fact. He has taken away all our sins. Yet we misunderstand, congregation, that as believers, when we sin, we still break God's law. And our sin is still terribly offensive to Him. Don't ever think that it's not. But our comfort, the comfort of those who are truly sorry for their sins and confess their sins, as John said in chapter 1, verse 9, is that those sins are also forgiven by God. Even the sins that we have committed today are taken away by Christ. In order to truly and rightly understand salvation, we must truly understand how serious sin is and that only the Son of God, God Himself, could rescue us from our sin. And we must truly understand the person of Christ and the person of ourselves. That by nature, we were lawless. and that our sins, every last one of them, even though we sin against each other at times, that ultimately all of our sin is against God Himself. Jesus Christ alone is the great Deliverer. But how was He able to accomplish our salvation and transform His people from lawbreakers to lawkeepers? John says it so beautifully, so few words, and in Him is no sin. You see, one who is himself a sinner cannot pay for his own sins, let alone the sins of anyone else. Our mediator and our deliverer, as the catechism beautifully says, had to be perfectly sinless. Now when we think of the sinlessness of Christ, we can think of it in a couple of different ways that are both true. On the one hand, He did not have a sinful nature like you and me. He was not conceived and born in sin like you and me. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit of God Himself. He was not totally depraved so that every part of his being was saturated with sin like you and me. Saturated like a sponge saturated with water. The writer of Hebrews says that he was tempted in every way just as we are yet was without sin. You see, beloved, he also, on the other hand, never committed an act of sin. He never sinned. Not even once. Boys and girls, think about that. Jesus never sinned. Never did He say a sinful word. Never did He think a sinful thought. Never did He act out anything sinful. It's so easy for us to say, yeah, I know that. I've been taught that in Sunday school already. But do we really understand it? I don't think so because we can't. We can't fathom that. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Now Paul does not mean that Christ became a sinner. But that as Isaiah says, He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. But do you know what? Even before He took our sins upon Himself, taking them away from us forever, even before that, He perfectly kept the law of God that we had broken. Not only did Christ commit no sin, but positively speaking, He satisfied God's law actively and completely. you see not only did we need our sins removed but we had to keep God's law but there's only one way that that is possible and that is through Jesus Christ by His perfect atoning sacrifice He delivered His people from the guilt and the punishment of sin and by His perfect righteousness imputed to us freely given to us even when we didn't want it. We are made acceptable in the sight of God. So God sees His children as righteous in Jesus Christ. He calls us sons and daughters. But also, our Lord delivers us from the pollution of sin as His Holy Spirit sanctifies and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. And that's still ongoing today. But the beauty is that Jesus Christ has accomplished holy living for you and me and that He has given us new birth, complete with a new heart, equipped with new desires, a new direction for life, a new king, a new home. He has equipped us for holy living. And all of this is real because as Paul says in Romans 5, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And therefore, it should be no surprise that even as Christ empowers the believer for holy living, the believer then practices holy living. Verse 6 says, No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him. Now, John has been good at contrasting opposites throughout this letter so far. Boys and girls, just as we sometimes contrast and compare light with dark or right with wrong, John does some contrasting and comparing of believers and unbelievers. The difference between believers and unbelievers, you see, is sin. Not, as we have made clear before, not that unbelievers sin and believers never sin. John covered that in chapter 1. Remember, again, verses 8 through 10, If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His Word has no place in our lives. The sad truth is that believers still sin, but the believer's comfort is as chapter 2 verse 1 says, but if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. The difference between believers and unbelievers is that Jesus Christ has taken away the sin of the believer so that His sin will never be held against Him as God's child. Never will He be judged according to His sin. But Jesus Christ has not taken away the sins of unbelievers. And therefore, unbelievers continue to sin and continue to live in sin. Their every desire is lawlessness because their goal is not to please God, but only to please themselves. God is not in their life because, as John says, they have not seen Him nor have they known Him. Unbelievers do not see Christ with the eye of faith. They do not know that they have not experienced His redeeming love. In other words, they are blind toward God. They are ignorant about God. In Romans 1, Paul says that although the unbeliever could see from creation, from all that God had made, he could see that God is God, yet their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. And John says in chapter 2, verse 11, He does not know where He is going because the darkness has blinded Him. But for those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ by grace through faith, this is not true. For those who live in or abide in Christ. For those who have taken up residency in Christ because He has bought them and made Him His own possession. They have seen Him. That is, they have seen Him with the eye of faith. They have seen the majesty and the glory of His saving sacrifice and His resurrection and His ascension. They believe on Him because they know Him through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. And they can say with Paul, for to me to live is Christ. And they can also say with Paul, it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me. and gave himself for me. Believers cannot help but to practice holy living because they are no longer spiritually dead but by the grace of God spiritually alive. And because their lives are bent away from sin as Paul makes clear in Romans 7. The desires of the transformed heart are to do what is right. You see, sin is now, believe it or not, sin is now abnormal and unnatural for the believer. Yes, we sin. But the true believer hates sin and is sorry for his sin and repents and confesses of his sin and seeks and desires forgiveness and tries not to sin. Tries not. to sin, but instead tries to live holy. See, all of this is a fact for those who live in Christ. Are you a believer? Ask yourself if these things are true for you. John says again in the beginning of verse 6, No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. You see, beloved, the one who purifies himself keeps on purifying himself by the power of the Holy Spirit, sweeping sin out of himself more and more, and giving himself to righteousness in thought, word, and deed more and more? How is this possible? Because Jesus Christ breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the prisoner free. And because of the seed of God that John talks about in verse 9 that we also hope to consider next time. Those who enjoy the expectation, those who expect communion with Christ in heaven above, will practice communion with His sinlessness through holy living here below. The true believer keeps his eyes on Jesus and desires to walk as Jesus walked. He knows that as David the psalmist says in Psalm 139, He knows that God knows. God knows His thoughts before He thinks them. He knows His words before He says them. He knows that God knows everything about Him, even down to the deepest secrets of the heart. And His desire is that God will be pleased with what He sees. Again, is that your desire? Is that my desire? Beloved, it must be our goal as those who profess to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that we not sin. Ever. We must not adopt a callous attitude towards sin. We must not compromise God's law to make it say what we think it ought to say or to make it say something to fit with what we already practice and are comfortable with. We must not willingly give in to what we know is not right. And this is for all of us. Children, young people, young adults, even all the way up to the most senior of citizens among us. And when we truly understand what sin is and how it is so offensive to our holy God and when we think about the blood that Jesus Christ shed for all of our sins, then we must shape our entire way of thinking so that our one and only goal is to please God. Why? Because Jesus Christ appeared that He might take away our sins. Our response of thankfulness for such a great salvation is to be obedient to our holy God. You see, if our sins are not taken away, we have no hope. We have no future glory in heaven. We have no Savior. We have no salvation. Simple as that. But the believer has all of these benefits and more and therefore will do all that he or she can do in the power of the Holy Spirit to walk as Jesus walked. Oh, beloved, praise God that our salvation did not and does not depend upon our accomplishing perfect righteousness or any righteousness at all for that matter. If that were the case, all that we could accomplish along with all those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ, all that we would be able to accomplish would be eternal hell. But as those who have been born again by the power of the Holy Spirit because of Christ's work, and as those who have been brought to repentance and faith in Him, our joy and our assurance is that we are children of God right now. And when Christ appears, we shall be like Him. And if that's not enough to sing our great Redeemer's praise, then there is nothing, I'm afraid. Praise God for the triumphs of His grace. Praise God. Praise our Lord Jesus Christ for His blood availed for us. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, we thank You for the blessed instruction from Your Word which we have received in this day, Both morning and night. We thank You for Your love for us. Love so undeserved that You should continue to teach us and instruct us about who You are and who we are apart from Christ but most gloriously in Christ. We thank You for the comfort and assurance that You give to Your people that in Christ all of our sins are washed away. Father God, we pray that you would move us by your Holy Spirit to more holy living tomorrow than we practice today and the next day from tomorrow. Make us, we pray, more faithful service of the Most High God. Not that we might boast. Not that we might think that we earned something by it. but simply because our desire is to praise Your holy name and our desire would be that others too would enjoy the salvation that we enjoy. Heavenly Father, we thank You and we praise You in humility for Your great gift to us. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray these things. Amen.