Monday, October 1, 2012

Victory Over Sin

The emphasis of 1st John has been to give us assurance. John wants to give us a practical ways to prove we are saved. Remember the purpose verse? First John 5:13 says “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”

So to give us that assurance, John gives us a series of practical tests – fine and dandy. But, sometimes, the tests hit kind of close to home. Why? Because we are left in that gray area, that no-man’s land in between - neither lining up with what John says a Christian acts like, nor being as bad as John says an unbeliever is. We are just kind of in the middle, inconclusively in the middle.
That’s the way it was with the last test we looked at: First John 3:6-8, “Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”

Oh, Oh! That’s scary! That hits way too close to home. Thankfully, we were given an out as we delved into the tenses of the verbs. The correct tense shows the test to be the practice of sin, not the absolute absence of sin. A believer can’t practice sin, not and have assurance. Sin can’t be the defining characteristic of a believer’s life, not if his claim to salvation is to be believed. You have no valid claim to salvation if you live a life of sin.

But, that still leaves me uncomfortable, doesn’t it you? We’ve sort-of sanitized our lives. We have no glaringly awful sins left in us like murder or bank robbery. We’re generally honest and upright citizens. Most of us Christians are like the old ditty: “We don’t drink, and we don’t chew, and we don’t run with girls that do.” And yet, we’re ashamed to admit that we do still practice sin. I do, don’t you?

Our lives still are filled with those “not-so-bad” sins (at least we think they aren’t) - sins like envy, or laziness, or bitterness, or a loose tongue – “Hey, everybody does it, right?” - certainly nothing that would get us thrown into jail over. But still, these kinds of sin are an all too common occurrence in our lives.

In John’s day, the Gnostic heretics he battled came to the same conclusion about the predominance of sin in us. But their conclusion was, “Don’t worry about sin.” John’s conclusion, on the other hand, was, “Don’t sin!” First John 2:1 says, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin.” And, therein lies the battle. Previously, we saw John’s conclusion that Jesus won the ultimate battle against sin. He came to achieve Victory! First John 3:8 told us, “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” And He did

Yet, the battle over sin in our lives goes on - day after day, moment by moment - as we struggle to live like a Christian should. So what gives? Is there victory or not? Is there an answer to this battle that rages within us over sin, or are we left to live in defeat? We will find the answer in the next post.

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