Works of the DEVIL | 1 John 3:4-10

Context and the Major Themes of 1 John

Okay, where are we at?

1 John chapter 3.

Oh yes, 1 John chapter 3. Alright, I'm going to ask a question. It's been a while. So, someone help me out. What does the word context mean? Liberty.

The verses that surround.

The verse that surround? A verse? That tell us more of what we're looking at. So, in school, have you all heard of the phrase context clues? What does that mean, Aaron?

It means that it's the clues around a certain passage, text, or just certain reading.

Absolutely.

So, when we're asking about the context, it's the same thing. What is the flow that the author is trying to communicate to help inform us of any particular word, phrase, or verse that we're looking at?

What we want to avoid is taking any one verse out of context and then just building off that by itself. Because if you do that, you can essentially make the scripture say whatever you want. But you can't do that if you look at verses within their context.

So, with that, what are a few themes that we've been talking about in 1 John? That's really important for the context. One of my favorite ones we've talked about in chapter 1, verse 5. It says that God is light and in him there is no darkness.

So, this is telling us that God is holy. That he is the bar of perfection of all that is good, right, and holy. 1 John is going to continue to talk about how God is light, God is love. All these things are wrapped into one.

God cannot sin. There's no darkness. He can't change his mind. God is the God of truth. Right? So, that's so important for us to understand as Christian children of God. Because when he makes a promise to us, then we're like, hey, I can rest in that.

That's going to change how I live to glorify him because I have the promise of eternal life. So, what's something else that we talk about in 1 John?

There's the love that God does not, like the love of the world.

There's a love that God hates, which is kind of weird to think about. But God hates sin. God hates evil. He has a purpose for it existing, but it does not please him. The world does not please him. All that's in the world is the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

Ultimately, that is ran by Satan, the God of this world. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one, 1 John later brings out. So, that's a really good point. We are to be children of God, and that automatically puts us in opposition to the world.

James 4 says you can be a friend of the world and be an enemy of God, but you can't be both. Now, we live in the world, but we're not of the world. We love on people. We share the gospel with them. We share with them God's truth.

We pray for them. We're super kind. But we don't make unbelievers our closest friends. You can't. Scripture tells us bad company corrupts good morals. And I've lived it. I've seen it. You try to be the one to impact them.

I'm hanging out with them just to help change them. It's going to have the reverse effect. You want to limit your time. You pray for those opportunities to rub shoulders and do fun things. But this right here, fellowship, is another key theme.

You want your closest friends to be those that you have deep spiritual fellowship with, that spiritual bond in the gospel. What about Jesus being our advocate? A lot of times we talk about Jesus as kind of the middleman.

He's our intercessor. He comes to our defense when the enemy accuses us in spiritual warfare or when our own hearts and flesh condemn us. We're in Christ. Nothing can take that away. But that's something you have to look inwardly and determine.

Am I trusting in Jesus? Do I love him perfectly?

No.

Do I love him at all? If the answer is yes, then you can rest assured in your salvation. Now the problem is we don't always do that because sin enters into our life. And when sin enters in, our joy will be taken away.

Our peace will be taken away. But, oh, when we go to the Father in prayer and we confess our sins and we repent, that joy and that peace is restored. That quininea is restored. So some more context. Y 'all remember we talked about two spirits of antichrist that rival the gospel of grace.

Avery?

Licentiousness.

Licentiousness.

Do you remember what it means?

So it's licentiousness. Yeah. It's basically saying, oh, it's all of grace all the time. I can go live however I want. Because if your heart has been changed by God's grace, then you don't want to live in the flesh.

You don't want to go back to living like you were before Christ saved you. You want to live your life to the glory of God. So licentiousness or antinomianism, same thing. Anti-law. What's the other extreme, Josiah?

Legalism.

Legalism.

What is that?

The opposite.

It's the opposite? So someone else explain what the opposite of licentiousness is, Lauren. In our area here in Jonesboro, I mean, I think we actually see both extremes. But there are those people that you can just tell.

And they will just openly say, well, of course our works save us in terms of making us right before God. Whether they say your baptism or you have to keep living holy lives. They're looking inward. Legalism says I have to make sure I obey to the best of my ability in order to go to heaven.

In order to earn favor with God. They may not use the word earn. But these are the people that say, well, you see, Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. But the balance is saying, look at the first part.

If you love me, if you know me, well then, yeah, there's going to be an evidence of a changed life. But legalism is works righteousness and tries to earn favor with God. Whether they say that's what they're doing or not.

Okay, so those are two opposites. And the balance, the gospel of grace, is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. That's why you hear us, 12 .5, talk about faith alone. Not faith plus your works.

But once you're saved, once you're justified by faith, then it's all about works. All of us had to get up and come here this evening. But the motivation and perspective is different. We want to come here in light of what Christ has done.

Now, some of you might be like, well, I'm forced to come here by my parents. Hopefully that's not the case. But, yeah, that's something that we've been talking about is the spirit of antichrist. Comes in many different shapes and forms.

The biggest one in the context of 1 John and the first century was Gnosticism. Saying that, oh, we believe in Jesus, but he didn't really take on flesh. He was just kind of here spiritually. This kind of dualistic Gnosticism said everything spiritual, good.

Everything physical, matter, evil. And the problem with that mentality is you can have no incarnation. Someone help me. What does the term incarnation mean?

Aaron?

Taking form.

Taking on, I guess, the form of?

Flesh.

Yes, you're exactly right. To take on flesh. So probably one of the best verses is, I think it's John 1, 14. It says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Who's the word?

Christ.

Christ, who is the second person of the Trinity. Eternal face-to-face relationship in the Father and also relationship with the Spirit. And eternity passed before the foundation of the world. And it is Jesus, the eternal Son, took on flesh and dwelt among us.

Philippians 2 also talks about that. And John, 1 John here, is talking about that that is a crucial doctrine. If someone rejects that Jesus came in the flesh, they're antichrist. And they don't have the Son and they don't have the Father.

So the doctrine of the Trinity is so important. That's why we sing the doxology every Sunday. I love it. Okay, as we're talking more about the context, does anybody else remember anything that we've talked about?

Why is the Holy Spirit indwelling us so important? Y 'all remember talking about that anointing that's been given to the children of God? So look with me back in chapter 2 at verse 20. But you have been anointed by the Holy One and you all have knowledge.

Now look down at verse 27. But the anointing that you receive from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about everything, it is true and is no lie, just as it has been taught to you, abide in Him.

So this is telling us that the Holy Spirit is the anointing in us, given to us by the Holy One, Jesus. And that Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, guides us into the Word of God, and protects us from error, protects us from the teaching of Antichrist.

We don't need the teachers of the world to tell us what truth is, why we're here, what's the purpose in life. The world doesn't get to tell us that. It's all cloaked within Satan, right, which we're going to get into spiritual warfare today.

But the Holy Spirit teaches us through the Word, through other teachers within the church that have the Holy Spirit. So that's really important. If you look at verse 28, tell me if you all remember anything about this from last week.

But John encourages his audience, which are children of God, Christians. He says, So what does that mean, when Jesus appears at His coming? What's that referring to? Delaney?

Definitely.

This is the second coming of Christ when He's going to restore all things, when He's going to resurrect us, give us new bodies fit for eternity. And look at 3 verse 2. This is such a beautiful verse. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.

But we know that when He appears, like Delaney said at His second coming, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. We're going to be resurrected, fit for eternity, like Christ. So John is reminding his audience, look forward to these things.

The end times, have your hearts encouraged. Remember I told you one of the biggest no-no's in school is you don't pick up a book and read the last page, read the ending before you get started. It's not true for Christians.

We flip to the back of the book, which the book of Revelation, I think in many ways, gives us a picture of the last days, the end times. And you know what? Jesus wins. And we are more than conquerors if we're in Christ.

And so we get to be encouraged by these truths. Our faith is here and now, but it's also looking forward to our blessed hope. So with that, look with me at verse 4. We're going to cover some ground today.

Sin as Lawlessness and the Need for a Sinless Savior

Let's look at verses 4 through verse 10, where we read, 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. That's a lot there.

Was there anything that caught anyone's attention as we briefly looked at that?

Kennedy?

Sin is lawlessness. I'm really glad you brought that out, because we've already been alluding to this a lot, building up, because it's so important, right? In God, in Jesus, is light, and in Him there is no darkness.

So we've already been talking about how God is holy, holy, holy, and He cannot sin. Christians are walking in the light. Unbelievers are walking in the darkness. So we've already been kind of laying this foundation.

So look back with me at verse 4. Let's go ahead and tackle this. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. So someone help me out with the word practice.

We've talked about this a lot too. What does it mean for someone to practice sin?

J .D.?

To repetitively, is that the right word?

To repetitively do something.

Yes.

Another good word is habitual, right? To do it over and over and over again. And remember I've asked you all before, who all play sports? Does anybody play instruments? So at this point, everyone, do you all practice, whether it's instruments or sports?

So someone help me out. What's a good understanding of the word practice? J .D.'s already said you do it repetitively.

Aaron?

To continue in it.

You continue in it. And something that I want to pry deeper into is you want to do it. You diligently plan for it. I remember Lauren had said a while back, I really like that, you diligently plan for it.

You want to do it. And sometimes we talk about we even do it and we don't want to do it sometimes, right? For soccer practice and things like that. For music? Oh, okay. Well, you know, I grew up playing basketball, and some days I didn't want to shoot, but I knew I needed to for practice.

So here's the idea. Someone who is a rebel against God, an unbeliever, they habitually, continually practice sin, but there's a deeper issue. They want to. They habitually want to do things that are not pleasing to God.

Now, the reverse is true for Christians, right? We habitually want to be obedient to God, to know Him. His commandments are not burdensome, 1 John will later say. Now, we're not going to be perfect at it, but we want to practice it.

We long for it, right? So you see kind of the repetitive nature, the repetitive side of things, this habitual continually. The pattern of your life is evidence of where your heart is. Remember the Sermon on the Mount?

We can't serve two masters. So your heart can't be divided. It's either going to love the world. Remember earlier there's three things, the world, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life, or it'll long to please God.

And so over time, where your heart is truly trusting and resting, your life is going to give evidence of that. So that's what John is bringing out here, is we see a pattern of the world, unbelievers, and then we see a pattern of the children of God and how they live their lives to the glory of God.

So verse four again, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Someone help me out with the word lawlessness. What is that talking about? I like the word lawbreaker. A little bit of rake comfort.

Because a lawbreaker is just simply saying, what? You disobeyed the law. You've transgressed the law. And we don't say, you know, so-and-so is lawless. Maybe we don't say it, but we will talk about someone breaking the law, which they are worthy of just punishment.

That's what lawlessness means. That means to break the law. And everyone has broken God's law. And I want you to think about this principle. We all are sinners, not because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners.

Does that make sense? Literally, we are born into this world, children of wrath, children of the devil, longing to sin, rebels against God. That's why we're sinners. So it follows that as you grow, you will break God's law.

I'm of the opinion, even infants are not able to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. I don't think that's just for people that can cognitively piece that together. I think it's for all image bearers.

And so the point is, we are born not capable of filling God's law. And so what does this mean? We need a savior that kept the law perfectly. So sin is lawlessness. When we start talking about sin, just think, sin means you're a lawbreaker.

You've broken God's law at some part, and it's not just the actions. It's the heart. Remember Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount? It's not just the act of committing adultery. It's not just the act of murder, but it's the intention of the heart.

If you've been angry at someone, all of us, then we're murderers of the heart, and we've broken God's law. And so the point of the law is to show us our need for a perfect savior, something that only God can do.

So the miracle of the incarnation is the only ticket for God to be just and merciful, that God fulfill his own law perfectly that reflects his character, but he also must take on flesh humanity to represent mankind.

And so you can have your choice. You can either be represented by Adam, who fell, and sinned against God, or you can be represented by Christ, who is a perfect savior, by faith alone. It's easy for me.

I want to be represented by Christ. You know what I mean? So we have a personal responsibility in our rebellion against God. Even though we're all born in our sins and trespasses, we are culpable for what we want to do.

We're not born robots. We're not born, you know, kind of in this neutral zone. We're definitely not born perfect. There's a lot of people that push that, and I would just say no. The doctrine of original sin is that there's none righteous, there's none good, no one seeks after God.

And people try to make exceptions for that, and I'm like, nope, in light of the fall, everyone stands condemned already. And that's John chapter 3. So that's the state that all men are in. All mankind, and we bear personal responsibility in that.

But then there's also spiritual warfare. So spiritual warfare, think of the spiritual realm, things you can't necessarily see. So there's a war of spirits that we can't necessarily see. So what does that first start making you think about?

Spirits that are at war that we can't see. Makes me think of demons. Makes me think of holy angels. It makes me think of the kingdom of darkness. It makes me think of the devil. So what I want you to think about is we are responsible for our sin, but there's also other agents out there, angelic beings, that are also at work.

And it's kind of outside our comprehension. Like we can know some truths about it, but for the most part we are physical beings. We're also spiritual. But we can't see the spiritual warfare all around us.

We know it's true because God's word informs us, and we see a lot of its effects. You know what I mean? So I do want us to start thinking in that term because Jesus came already, and he's going to come again.

The first coming, when he was a suffering servant, lived a perfect sinless life, died on the cross, satisfying the wrath of God. He died, was buried, resurrected three days later, defeating the power of death, defeating the work of the devil.

He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and he will return again. So look with me at verse 5. You know that he appeared, Jesus' first coming, in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

I'm going to spare you. I mean, we could talk about this so much, but I want you to look at the last phrase. In him there is no sin. Remember, God, he is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

So when John says that in verse 5, this is the message that we have heard and we proclaim to you, the gospel. He's talking about the perfection of Christ that the Old Testament prophesied to. They witnessed it.

They got to see, they got to touch, they got to be there, and they are telling us about who King Jesus is. And here's the key, no sin. He was tempted in every way, like we are, categorically, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, all those temptations came at him.

Remember in the wilderness, Satan tempted him in all those three ways? But guess what, internally, that temptation had no foothold. Morally, it could not actually find a place to set in.

Why?

Because Jesus is God in the flesh. He is without sin. He perfectly is obedient to the Father. So I'm saying, I love this. Some people get really hung up on the fact and say, well, Jesus potentially could have sinned.

I'm like, that is the most absurd thing I've ever heard in my life. Jesus is God the last time I checked, and God can't even be tempted with evil. And yet Jesus is truly human. Temptation truly came at him, but it wasn't gonna find a foothold on him in any way.

Jesus is our perfect high priest, so when we pray to him in our hurts and pains, he knows what that's like even better than we are because he actually never fell. We fall all the time, right? So this is so important that Jesus was without sin.

He who became sin knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God. That's the whole point of the gospel, okay? But look at that phrase. Actually, look at verse five just in total again. You know that he appeared, his first coming, in order to take away sins.

Someone help me out. What does that mean in this context? Any thoughts? Jesus, at his appearing, his first coming, he came to take away sins. Delaney?

So, like, before we had talked about it, I think it was Sunday about how he knew who he was going to save before everything began. So when he came to... What was the verse? To take away our sins, essentially.

He was coming down for us to die on the cross because he lived a perfect life. He could take all of our sins, and so it's taking us in his arms.

Another sinner can't account for the sin of another sinner. You need someone who is sinless. You need God, and then you need God for that, right? That's a really good point. Look back at chapter two. Let's just look at one and two together because I love reading about how Jesus is our advocate.

And remember, he is righteous in the absolute sense. He is without sin. He is light, and in him there is no darkness. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone sins, is that going to happen?

Yeah.

Definitely going to happen. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, the one who is without sin. He is the propitiation of our sins, and not only for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

And so we've talked about the context there, he's talking about the whole world of believers, whether it's Jew or Gentile. We've got to always be sensitive to the immediate audience, but he's our propitiation.

He took away the penalty of our sins on Calvary. Because I want you to explain something. You hear us all the time talk at 12 .5 about justification, sanctification, and glorification. Justification happens because of what Jesus did on the cross, and he forgave us from the penalty of our sins.

So we're never going to be condemned for our sin when we're in Christ. But during our sanctification, we are at war with the power of sin. We know it's defeated. The power of sin is ultimately defeated by Christ, but we're still warring against it now in our flesh in this world, right?

So we still see the power and presence of sin in this world as we grow in sanctification, but when we're glorified, at his appearing where we become like him, receive bodies fit for eternity, then we are going to be saved from the presence of sin for eternity.

Okay, Dillon.

So when you die and go to heaven, does he already give you that?

Great question. Many theologians believe that to be absent with the body is present with the Lord. That's what Paul says. And we truly go to heaven now, which is called the intermediate state. So we leave this earth, don't know how time works, but we are more than likely just a spirit, not an angel like all the Hallmark movies try to tell us.

It's not true. We don't get wings. We might can fly. I'm still looking forward to that. But we go to heaven. He goes to prepare a place for us. We go to be with him, but that's not our final destination.

We don't receive our resurrected bodies yet, to your question, because he's going to return to the earth to conquer the last enemy, death, and then he's going to restore all things. In that time period, that's when we receive resurrected bodies, when heaven comes to earth and it's a new order.

So that's the thing. Look forward to heaven and know that there is still yet a new heavens and earth that will even happen. Isn't that cool? Great question. So when he says take away sins here, he's talking about, I think, primarily the penalty of sin that happens in our justification by faith, because he's talking about the purpose of Jesus' first coming, which he died on Calvary and accounted for all of the penalty of sin for those that will be saved.

And in our context, we're not afraid to talk about the elect, those who will receive Jesus by faith. That's appealing to God's sovereignty. He knows. He not only knows, but he has purpose in those things.

And so we rightly should say, well, how do I know if I'm one of the elect? You have to look at your heart. Do you love Jesus perfectly?

No.

Do I love him at all? And if the answer is yes, then you know that he who began that good work in you, he's going to bring it to completion. That's awesome. That's how you can be confident and know that you have everlasting life.

So look with me at verse 6. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

Okay.

This is where we have to do some interpreting, because interpretation's good. Interpretation is simply teaching, rightly understanding what's being said and applying it to our life. Because if what John is saying here is the one who keeps on sinning, do you think he says that we will never commit a sinful action again while we're here on earth?

What do y 'all think?

Avery, what do you think? I like this.

We're not sinners anymore.

Yeah, because for one, context, everything that he's been saying in 1 John, remember, if we sin, because we're going to, we have an advocate. Remember earlier in chapter 1, the person that says they have no sin, you're a liar.

You're trying to deceive yourself and you're trying to deceive us, but we know better. So he's not going to contradict what he said earlier. He has a different idea. I think it's kind of like what JD was saying earlier.

The one who wants to keep on sinning, loves it, plans for it, practices it, that person is not born from above. They've not been born again. They're walking in darkness. They are a child of who? The devil.

Verse 10, you're either a child of God or you're a child of the devil. So I just want us to say, this is not talking about some sinless perfectionism of the one who doesn't keep on sinning because they somehow arrived at perfection.

No.

It's talking about the disposition of one's heart, what they plan to do, what they want to do, what they practice to do. Because in the life of a Christian, are we going to sin?

Yes.

But it breaks our hearts when we do. If we have the seed of God abiding in us, meaning that we've been born again, we're going to repent. We're going to confess that to the Father. We're going to go to God in prayer and say, hey, I hate this thing.

James 5 .16 says that we desire to confess our sin to one another and we may be healed. Because there's healing in having Christian accountability and fellowship. So that's what he's getting at. He's talking about the disposition of your heart.

He's not talking about being perfect. But I will say this, for someone who is truly in Christ, they cannot desire to practice sin. And so that's where we need to examine our hearts. Do I love sin? Is there something that's sinful that I know about that I do in my life and I'm not really convicted and I don't tell anybody about it because that's what I long to do?

Or when sin rears its ugly head in my life, do I try to crush it? Do I try to plan to avoid certain temptations? So do you see the difference? It's the difference of the heart, what one practices and plans for.

The Devil, the Fall, and Spiritual Warfare

So look with me at verse 7. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he, Jesus, is righteous. Now verse 8 is very interesting. 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. Okay, so I actually want to camp out on this for just a little bit. Does anybody know the origin of who Satan is, where he came from, and how he first began his works of evil?

Avery?

You said something real interesting. Kind of being second in command. We're not told explicitly, but we kind of get that picture, that he was the most superior angelic being. He was an anointed cherub, is what some translations say.

Some say he was a covering cherub. So there's been speculation of what that looks like. One person explained it to me like this, so this is kind of loose understanding, but I like how you said it's almost this idea that he was second in command.

But he seemed to be the angel that was kind of in between God and his eternal glory that couldn't totally be looked upon. And all the other angelic beings had to look through the covering cherub, Lucifer, Satan.

When I say Lucifer, many theologians look at some passages in the Old Testament and see this dawn of the morning, Lucifer as perhaps being Satan before he was a fallen angel. And so those same texts tell us that pride found itself in Lucifer's heart.

He wanted to become like the Most High God. Isn't that wild? He wanted to be God. He became jealous of the worship that was being given to the creator of all things, and he wanted it for himself. Now we're reading between the lines a little bit, but there's many verses that tell us that Satan was cast out of heaven.

Does anybody know perhaps how many angels went with him? A lot. Some theologians point out in Revelation 12 that maybe a third of the angels went with Satan. We're not told how many angels exist, but they are beings.

They are persons, not with flesh and bone, but they are moral agents that can decipher between right and wrong. They are intelligible. They can reason. They can make schemes and plot. These are the spiritual warfare that I'm talking about.

Demons are fallen angels. They're not holy angels that worship God and are messengers and are obedient to him. So you have two types of angels. You have holy angels and fallen angels. The fallen angels used to be holy angels.

And so like Avery was saying, there was at one point in time, not sure if this was before the foundation of the world or since the very foundation of the world, there's kind of a dispute, but Satan began his works of evil and was cast out of heaven.

And so at some point in time, Satan entered into the garden in Genesis 3. Someone raise your hand. What did Satan do with Adam and Eve? Does that ring any bells out there? Justin, do you know what Satan did with Adam and Eve in the garden?

He tempted them.

He tempted them. Does anybody else remember how he tempted them? Liberty?

Disguised as a snake.

Yep.

And he told Eve that she could be like God if she ate that.

If she ate the forbidden fruit, as we might say, ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he started casting doubt on God's word. Did God really say? And then, like you said, he said, you will be like God.

And the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life started to set in Adam and Eve's heart. But you notice Satan is in the mix. The works of evil are beginning within human history.

Right?

So ever since the fall, remember God made that gospel promise that Satan will bruise the heel of the promised offspring, the Savior, to come. But ultimately that coming Savior will crush the head of the serpent.

And so all in the Old Testament, think about Israel, remember? They were enslaved in Egypt and they went around in the desert. That was God's chosen people. Satan at large pretty much had the pagan nation's hearts captive.