Practice Righteousness
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Introduction - Explain PRACTICE. Use medicine and law as an example - correlate to sin and Righteousness! (Apply information instead of theory)
Transitional - Just as a Doctor or Lawyer practice law the Children of God should practice Righteousness. And today's passage tells us about practicing Righteousness - let’s open our bibles to 1 John 3:4-12
4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.
6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.
7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;
8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;
12 not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.
So, what does John mean when he talks about practicing sin?
Well to practice something you can be (applying information instead of theory)
or it could mean - the customary, habitual, or expected procedure or way of doing something. This is what we mean when we say practicing sin. We make sin a habit or way of life.
Explain - Immoral life style, chronic lieing, continuous adultery - and so on.
This habitual sin is lawlessness which is a state of disorder due to a disregard of the law.
Talk about speeding?
According to verse 8 of our passage the one who practices sin or lawlessness is of the Devil. Practicing sin is something the sons of disobedience do. Ephesians 2:1:2 says:
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Exactly what can we do about our lawlessness? Jesus! Jesus bled and died for us that our sins might be forgiven.
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered.
This verse points to the covering of sins. That covering comes from the blood of Christ Jesus. Without the forgiveness of sins we have no hope and will not be freed from sin and death. If you want to know more about how we die to sin through Christ Jesus and are raised again to live in Christ Jesus read Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6 talks about sanctification and the process we go through as we grow closer to God. But right in the middle of that chapter Paul says:
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
If you are practicing sin you are letting sin reign in your mortal body; which means you are presenting the members of your body to sin. Stop - repent and present the members of your body to God as instruments of righteousness. Just remember that the process of sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit. If you haven’t accepted Jesus as your Lord you won’t even be able to stop presenting the members of your body to lawlessness.
After your sins are covered and you are no longer a slave to sin and you have the Holy Spirit you can abide in Christ Jesus. According to verse 6
6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.
once you are abiding in Him you will no longer sin. You will no longer be a slave to sin and you can stop sinning. Your sin nature can be overcome and the habitual sinning can end. Once you abide in Him the Holy Spirit will begin to convict you of your lawlessness and lead you into righteousness. But without Him you have very little hope of breaking your lawless ways. (we will be justified by Christ Jesus)
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
This is one of those points where you have to check your salvation. If you think you have been saved by Grace through faith yet you continue to sin then you might not have really come to know Him. Verse 6 says that anyone who sins has not seen Him or knows Him. This is tough. You could think you are a child of God but if you still practice sinful, lawless ways then you don’t really know Him. (Expand) Let’s say you said the sinners prayer after someone and you where told that’s all it takes. You aren’t told that you need to change your ways so you continue on in your immoral lifestyle without a second thought. According to this verse would you be saved? I don’t think so. So, look again - look and see if you actually see and know Christ Jesus.
So let’s say we take a look back and check our salvation and we believe that we have actually come to a saving knowledge of Christ Jesus. What’s next.
Well now that Christ Jesus is abiding in us and we in Him we are free from sin and death. Having been freed from sin and death we are able to practice righteousness because we can present our members to God as instruments of righteousness. And righteousness is the quality of being morally right or justifiable. In other words we will practice or make a habit of doing that which is right and proper. No more immoral lifestyle choices, no more covetousness, greed or any of the other lawless ways that the children of the devil practice.
Now that we are born of God we are able to practice righteousness. When we have come to know Christ Jesus we are born of God and verse 9 of our passage says:
9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
No one who is born of God practices sin because His seed abides in him.
Seed? What seed? I don’t want a seed in me.
But this seed we definitely want? The seed is Jesus! In the beginning God spoke of the seed from the woman that would come to save the world. Since the seed or Jesus now lives in us we can stop sinning; in fact we can’t sin because there is no sin in Christ Jesus. That’s a tough one too. I can’t sin? I wonder how that works?
So I’ve probably said the same thing a couple different times but we need to remember that Jesus is the key to practicing righteousness. We can’t do it on our own. Only through the presence of Christ Jesus in our lives can we overcome sin and be freed from our bondage to sin.
That leads us to the point of what John is talking about in the passage. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. (This is one of those angel on one shoulder and devil on the other moments.) He has been leading up to the point of telling us how we can tell the difference between a child of God and a child of the devil.
Those who practice sin are children of the devil. Those who have not truly accepted Christ Jesus will practice sin or in another word lawlessness. They continue in their habit of sin without even thinking what they do is sin.
On the other hand those who have accepted Christ Jesus and have become children of God will repent of their sins and begin practicing righteousness. They will allow the Holy Spirit to work in their lives and they will begin producing fruit in accordance with repentance. But then John slips a but if into the verse… nor the one who does not love his brother.
He has said it multiple times during the first two chapters of this letter - love your brothers. And verse 11 here says it again.
11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;
In other words you can be perfect in your actions in accordance with righteousness, no sin at all but if you don’t love your brother you are still a child of the devil. Wow - that’s harsh. But that’s John’s point. Those who are born of God will love their brothers and sisters in Christ. We are a family.
So just like a doctor or lawyer practicing their trade we as children of God should be practicing righteousness. Our lives should be such that habitual sin has nothing to do with us. We should be avoiding immoral lifestyles, covetousness, lieing, and a whole lot of other things that are considered to be sinning. But more than that we should be living as if the Spirit of God is dwelling in us, for if we are children of God He certainly is dwelling in us.
This brings us to the point of this message. Practice righteousness. If you are a child of God righteousness should be fairly simple. Let the Spirit of God lead you. But if you are still a child of the devil you won’t be able to practice righteousness. So get right with God; this includes those who think they are saved but are still practicing sin. Only through the blood of Christ Jesus will our sins be covered. Only through the blood of Jesus will we be made righteous so that we may be Children of God.
But remember the big point - Love your brothers and sisters in Christ!
So, practice righteousness and love your brothers and sisters; but remember your righteousness does not save you. Only the blood of Jesus saves! Grace thru faith saves not our works. So put your trust in Jesus and not your ability to do good works or practice righteousness.
Pray!