A Family Resemblance, Part 1

Calvin Coolidge. I had clipped this away some time ago as the President of the United States in 1923. He was known for being a man of few words evidently.

I've never read his biography, but he was somewhat renowned for never using an unnecessary word. One Sunday morning, he returned from a church service and a White House staff member asked him what the preacher had preached about in his sermon that morning. And Coolidge replied with one word, sin.

The staff member waited for a little more information and none was forthcoming. And so he said, well, what did the preacher say about it? Coolidge responded, he's against it. Sin is something that all of us as believers stand opposed to, isn't it?

We may not always articulate this as succinctly as President Coolidge did, but it's true. The Apostle John said this, In other words, we are to pursue holiness as Christ was holy and oppose sin as Christ opposed sin. You're going to learn more about this today. As a Christian, you're supposed to resemble Jesus. That's why Stephen called today's message a family resemblance. Open your Bible to 1 John as we get started. Right in the middle of the third chapter of 1 John is a mirror. It's going to reflect back to us what we actually look like and also challenge us regarding what we should look like. What we do see and what we want to see.

What we ought to see and what we do want to see is a family resemblance. A reflection of somebody belonging to the family of God. And whenever you hold the mirror of the word up, you also immediately notice things that need fixing, right? We were confronted with our spiritual complexion.

We discover things that mar our reflection. In this spiritual analogy, John is going to make very clear that sin is the marring, disfiguring, destructive agent that distorts our reflection. It marrs the image of Christ in and through us. In fact, I'll tell you ahead of time, the subject of the sermon is basically sin. John is going to mention sin or some derivative of that word ten times in this paragraph. Ten times in the next seven verses. He's going to talk about sin.

And he's basically going to make it clear that we've all got to do daily diligence in relation to sin. Because it's going to show us our reflection. So there's no need hiding it. Just as a mirror doesn't really hide anything. So the word, the mirror of God's holy standard, doesn't either. Let's expose it for what it is, and then let's deal with it.

Let's just deal with it. Calvin Coolidge, I had clipped this away some time ago as the President of the United States in 1923. He was known for being a man of few words, evidently. I've never read his biography.

But he was somewhat renowned for never using an unnecessary word. One Sunday morning, he returned from a church service and a White House staff member asked him what the preacher had preached about in his sermon that morning. And Coolidge replied with one word, sin.

The staff member waited for a little more information and none was forthcoming. And so he said, well, what did the preacher say about it? Coolidge responded, he's against it. There you have my subject and my verdict.

We could pack up and go to lunch early, but not on your life. This is the Apostle John. He's going to effectively ask and answer the question, what's wrong with sin? In fact, I know it sounds weird to say it this way, but he's going to answer the question, what's so bad about sin? And you think, we don't need to talk about that.

I think you'll agree as we get through this that we indeed do. John's going to provide at least five descriptive propositions that reveal why sin is so sinful, why sin is so bad, why sin is so wrong. And the first is this. It's wrong because sinning repudiates the righteous standard of God. Look at verse three.

Back up and get a running start. Everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he, Christ, is pure. So sin defies this pure standard of God modeled by Christ. Sin defies the moral and ethical parameters provided by God in his word. Now, if you've been a believer or any time, you've probably encountered scriptures that talk about or give you different definitions of sin. Think of Proverbs 24 verse 9 that says, the devising of folly is sin. Or John in 1 John 5.17, all unrighteousness is sin.

He just sort of lumps it all in there. All unrighteousness is sin. James 4.17 says, to the one who knows something good to do and doesn't do that good thing, that's also sin. Sin then is repudiating, it is denying, it is disobeying, it is refusing to apply the standards established by God. So when he says in verse 4, everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness. He's given us a loaded phrase. The word, in fact, sin used here, hamartia, literally means to fail to hit the target.

And that's typically all that's ever brought out, at least in my own studies and what I've heard. But that's actually the classical Greek translation or definition of hamartia. It means to have a target. God places a target there on the side of the barn. You get your bow and arrow out and you shoot it and you miss it. Sin is missing his target.

It's aiming your life, man, I got to hit the target and I missed it. And we do that, by the way, that's a good definition. However, the New Testament takes that word hamartia and adds this element that's often lost in our studies. It is this added characteristic of open rebellion. An attitude of actual hostility toward God for putting that target up there. And it isn't so much you got your life aimed at that target and, oh, I missed it again. It's actually knowing that God has placed the target there of his holy standard and we willingly say, I'm going in this direction.

If that's what you say is right, I'm headed there. That's the element of hamartia that John is bringing out in this defiance, this revulsion of the standard of God. It is willful rebellion. And listen, men and women, sin is not an unfortunate choice. It is, but it isn't, right? It isn't an accident and we just couldn't help it. And, you know, boys will be boys or whatever.

That's what we hear. It isn't what he's saying here. In fact, go back to verse 4. He says sin is lawlessness. It's like saying sin is sinful.

But he's actually saying that sin, by the way, is the breaking of the law of God. It's doubly corrupt. Now that's going to cause an automatic problem in the mind of our own culture and certainly that's trickled down into our own thinking. Certainly in our generation today, it's creating tremendous confusion in the court systems. You cannot make moral arguments anymore.

Our educational system. In fact, it throws the whole of society into this awful state of confusion because you avoid, you ignore the law of God. And if you ignore the law of God and you reject the law written on your hearts, Romans 2, you're in a mess and a muddle, right?

You no longer know what's right, what's wrong, what's sinful, what's acceptable. Well, maybe sin really is just some kind of genetic predisposition, some kind of inheritance of hormones, some adolescent behavior. Maybe it's excusable on grounds of a, you know, a deprived childhood.

I think the right things to eat or some cultural conditioning. It's only wrong because culture says it's wrong. Maybe our sense of right and wrong is just a relic of evolutionary origin. I've heard that used, by the way, more and more. I've heard that argument used to excuse the promiscuity of married men who cannot help their adulterating.

Why? Because it's really just an evolutionary leftover from the alpha male animal they descended from who's doing nothing more than ensuring the continuation of his tribe or his herd. He's just an alpha male.

No, he's a sinner and he's doing something bad. We're having the rise of pseudo-science called neuro-criminology. You hear about it often, in fact, more and more, where criminal behavior now is nothing more than the unfortunate result of genetic makeup. Well, their brain's that way. That's the way they act. They can't help it.

It's just how they're put together. In fact, if you followed the stories out of the most recent school shooting, it was explained in one national newspaper. It wasn't the headline. It was the headline of an inside page. And the headline, I thought they were joking. They weren't. The headline said the genes did it.

G-E-N-E-S. I thought they were sort of tongue-in-cheek or whatever. They weren't. They were dead serious. You would expect an eruption of anger over that justification and none came.

The shooter couldn't help it. The American Psychiatry Association, of course, has bought into this theory, has for decades been promoting it. In fact, I read just this past week and we've heard about it and we know that they're coming out with their fifth edition of this manual called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders.

They put all kinds of things in there and they take all kinds of things out and it's taken 13 years to revise. We're not surprised to learn how they're viewing incorrect or sinful behavior. But those who've seen pre-publication copies, such as one of our own Duke professors nearby, said that the manual is now classifying temper tantrums in children as mental disorders. They don't need discipline. They need therapy. Man, I wish my parents had had that when I was growing up.

I would have been spared an awful lot of suffering. What confusion, right? What confusion? Dr. Tripp recorded in his book a few years ago, I think 2004, 2005, he copied in his book entitled Shepherding a Child's Heart, a report by the Minnesota Crime Commission released this report on the untamed child. Now, about 40 years has so totally changed the perspective of our culture.

I want to read you some of this report. And remember, this is coming from a secular commission on the issue of child rearing. And I quote, every baby starts life completely self-centered and selfish. He wants what he wants when he wants it. His bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toy, his uncle's watch. Deny these and he seethes with rage, which would be murderous were he not so helpless.

Keep that in mind. This means that all children, get this, not just certain children, but all children are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in the self-centered world of infancy, given free rein to their impulsive actions, every child will grow into some form of criminal.

We've come a long way, so that now a temper tantrum is really a mental disorder. The problem with this ever growing perspective, by the way, we would expect the world to continue to shun sin and redefine it. We understand that inside these walls. The challenge for us is then in attempting to reach our culture with the gospel. You see, they don't have a problem with sin. They've got a disorder, some genetic predisposition that yields longings and actions that must be right because they feel them so strongly. The gospel, however, that you present to them does not present salvation from some kind of dysfunction or some kind of disorder, some kind of malfunction, some kind of alpha male virility, does it? The gospel presents a savior who will save them from their what?

I heard a lot of ths. Did you say self-image? Oh, sin. It's okay? Right. You can say that in here.

It's okay. Sin. And what's so wrong about sin? You delivered to them the message that sin repudiates the moral standard of God, exhibited in and through the life of Christ.

Alright, enough on that point. Sin, secondly, is tragically wrong because it depreciates the enormous sacrifice of Christ. Verse 5. You know that he, Christ, appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. In other words, Christ was sinless, therefore capable of taking away our sins. The Paschal Lamb, the sacrifice atoning for our sinfulness. And John says here, he came to deal with our sin. He appeared, that's a reference to his first advent, coming as a baby, living a sinless life, being announced as the Lamb of God who takes away the what? Sins of the world, John 1.29.

He fulfilled that mission then by dying on a cross, the land sacrificed once for all. John writes here, to take away sin. Literally, to lift up and bear away our sin. So you see, you get rid of the concept of sin and you eliminate the need for a savior.

You also eliminate the potential of forgiveness. Like one secular author who transparently lamented, we have gotten rid of God and now we have no one left to forgive our sins. You see, the tragedy of sin is that it depreciates the enormous sacrifice of God.

It rejects God's glorious solution to our great problem. Listen to these thrilling words from scripture. For while we were helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Did you get that? The ungodly. Do you qualify for salvation? Maybe you're wondering. Are you ungodly?

Yes? Good, you qualify. He died for you. God, he writes further, demonstrated his own love toward us and while we were yet sinners. You qualify for salvation? Are you a sinner?

Yes? You qualify. Christ died for us then. Much more than having now been justified, declared righteous on Christ's account. That is, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. That is, God will punish unrighteousness. He will either punish Christ and you in Christ and you're free. Or you outside of Christ will bear the punishment all alone. That punishment against an infinite God will take an infinite time to bear. Listen, you've heard this perhaps before but I want to repeat it.

Several commentators included it in their commentary. If mankind's greatest need was education, God would have sent us a teacher. If mankind's greatest need was advancement in technology, he would have sent us an inventor. If mankind's greatest need was sickness, he would have sent us a doctor. If mankind's greatest need was finances, he would have sent us an economist or a financial planner. Our greatest problem is sin.

So he sent us a savior. So at the very outset John says, go ahead and take out the mirror. Hold it up.

Take a look at your reflection. We've all got a problem. It's called sin.

Let's call it what it is. Then let's glory in the rescuing, dying, resurrecting, saving, forgiving savior. Those who want to reject Christ and keep on sinning as it were, John warns sinning is bad.

Why? It repudiates the holy standard of Christ. Secondly, sinning depreciates the enormous sacrifice of Christ. Thirdly, sinning indicates a genuine desire to walk with Christ.

It indicates a lack of desire, I should say, genuine desire to walk with Christ. Look at verse 6. No one who abides in him sins. No one who sins has seen him or knows him. Now that's an interesting verse.

Did I read that right? No one who abides in him sins. No one who sins has seen him. Does John mean to say that now that we've all admitted we're sinners, that we're sinners until we come to faith in Jesus Christ and then we never sin again? Some throughout church history have taken it to be that way.

Like John Wesley in early Methodism believed that you could reach or attain sinless perfection. Others viewed this as willful sin. You know, John's talking about somebody who willfully sins, as if we don't willfully sin. But this is the willful sin. This is a Christian, and a Christian is never one who sins willfully. It's never premeditated, they would explain. It's accidental. Oops.

And Christianity has accidental sin insurance, which is a great thing, so you don't have to even pay a deductible. You just, you know, you're clear. You're record. You're never at any points. Your record remains clear. It was just an accident.

And you're covered. Still others have said, there are about nine views, I'll give you about three or four, that John the Apostle is clearly saying that Christians don't sin. So, anyone who sins is either not a Christian, or they were a Christian who just lost their salvation. Popular view. The problem with that view is that you're going to keep losing your salvation then, because you're going to keep sinning. In fact, you already have today. So, I'm speaking to a group of unconverted people, and I'm among them. Right?

You'll never be good enough to keep it. So, others sort of agree with that viewpoint, that nuance, came along to redefine sin to try to settle the problem. I mean, think about it, if you include coveting, or unkindness, or impatience, or selfishness in your list of sins, you're going to have to get saved every single day. So, what we'll do, is we'll make a list of sins, big ones, and little ones. We'll call the little ones, venial sins, which is classic Catholic theology. And we'll call the big ones, mortal sins. Incidental, or venial sins, don't even ever have to be brought up to the priest in confession.

Basically, it don't matter, no sweat, no problem. Mortal sins, however, forfeit, they write, the grace of justification. In other words, you're earning, you're salvation, you commit a mortal sin, you're back to square one, if not worse.

So, no one is ever really confident that they are indeed regenerated. So, the key issue there with that view, is don't do the big ones. Don't do the horrendous ones. Anybody, either body in the freezer in your garage, stay away from that, stay away from cannibalism, and witchcraft, and I looked up the list, by the way.

Stay away from those, and you're good to go. The trouble is, of course, the Bible doesn't create those kinds of categories. Sin is what? Sin.

Sin. And the Bible doesn't teach repeated regeneration, either, or multiple spiritual rebirths. John 3 talks about being brought to life physically, once, and being brought to life spiritually, once. In fact, the view that you can gradually overcome sin, until you are completely sinless, and then, having arrived at that point, you no longer lose your salvation, directly contradicts what John has already said in chapter 1. If we claim that we're not sinning, we are deceiving ourselves, we make them a liar. In other words, if you claim to not be sinning anymore, you just told a lie, and guess what you just did?

You sinned. You may have noticed, as well, in your studies, throughout the New Testament letters, that the genuine believer, just as John will do here in a moment, the genuine believer will be exhorted and challenged and warned against sinning. Listen, repeated exhortations not to sin would be needless if a Christian couldn't sin. And the promise to the believer that we can directly, regularly, daily, moment by moment, confess our sins to our mediator.

We don't have to stand in a line with a turtledove. We don't have to stand in line at some confessional booth. We can go directly now to God through Christ, our mediator. What good would that do unless we sinned and we needed his mediation? We can daily restore fellowship with God the Father. That would be pointless if what we needed was conversion instead of confession. So what does John mean in verse 6?

No one who abides in him sins. Okay, what does that mean then, Stephen? I know, I've been stalling.

I'm going to get there eventually. Here's the answer. The answer is in the tense of his verb. He uses a present active participle. In other words, John is referring to someone who continually, habitually, sins. In fact, his lifestyle is sinful. And he isn't talking about the big sins or the little sins. He's simply describing someone who maintains an ongoing, unrepentant, unremitting, unashamed life of sin. Sin doesn't bother him, and not walking with Christ doesn't bother him. That's who he's talking about. Keep in mind that John's definition of sin, back in verse 4, is what? Lawlessness. He lives with this, oh God, there's the target, well then I'm going this way.

That's my life. That person who has nothing to do with God, nothing to do with the standard of God, nothing to do with longing to meet the affections of God through holy living, but says I'm going to do exactly the opposite, that's my life. That person is self-deceived. But John is warning these believers of not being deceived, they may be unbelievers. He's certainly telling those who live this kind of life that they have nothing to do with God. They have no part of Christ. And they don't care about him anyway.

Because they're openly, defiantly rebelling against him. Now what John is going to do here in this paragraph is describe not two kinds of sin, but two kinds of people. The defiant, rebelling, unbeliever who loves to practice sin and doesn't abide in, or meaning commune with, or fellowship with Christ.

That's one category. And the other category for John, who is very black and white, is the obedient, redeemed believer who loves to practice righteousness and longs to fellowship or abide with Christ. What he's describing is two kinds of people and this is their bent, this is their desire, this is their love. He isn't saying that a Christian can't do something evil, but he's saying in general terms this is the direction of their lives.

Like a flowing river there may be bends and turns and backward turns, but ultimately this is the direction their lives are flowing. John writes in verse 6 that a person who claims to have seen Christ, he's talking about faith, by faith, a person who claims to be knowing Christ, that is by faith in a relationship with Christ, and yet lives in open rebellion to God as a matter of life and longing and love, self-deceived. He's actually contrasting the difference between sinners, which we all are, and the lifestyle devoted to sinning. See the difference? That's the difference between sinning in life and living to sin.

Even as we pursue the removal of sin from our life, we do so with great hope and encouragement that comes from knowing that God forgives our sins when we fail. I'm actually interrupting Stephen's message right here because we're almost out of time for today. This message is called A Family Resemblance.

It comes from 1 John and a series called Heart to Heart. Well, this year is rapidly coming to a close, isn't it? It's hard to believe that when we come back next week, it'll be 2023. I hope you have a wonderful New Year's celebration and that you'll be back with us next time as we continue bringing you Wisdom for the Heart. .