Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows: God Solves Our Sin Problem

We live in a world of Christian celebrity. Over and over again, we’ve elevated leaders who we say lead us to worship God, but often, in our actions and attention, it’s like we’re actually worshipping them instead. There’s a lot of pressure and performance at these elevated levels of fame, and over and over again recently, we’ve seen these famous Christians fail.

Jerry Fallwell Jr., the former president of Liberty University, stepped down from his position after a seven year long sexual relationship between his wife, a pool attendant at a Miami hotel and himself came to light. After his death in 2020, Ravi Zacharias was accused of sexual misconduct, spiritual abuse and manipulation, which included pressuring massage therapists into performing sexual acts. He told one of them that if they spoke about any of it, their words would harm the reputation of the entire Christian faith.

The International House of Prayer severed ties with founder Mike Bickle after confirmation of a sexual abuse scandal came to light. And, earlier this year, two of IHOP’s worship leaders, Kevin Prosch and Misty Edwards admitted to a years long extramarital affair. Karl Lentz was fired from Hillsong Church in New York after admitting to an extramarital affair. There’s quite a bit of abuse and burying that abuse in the history of the Hillsong central leadership. And there’s too much to say about Mark Driscoll, the former pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle. You can learn all about that story on a podcast called “the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill”. It’s really insightful, I’d highly recommend it.

Here, at the Duluth Vineyard, we also have a recent history of sexual crimes, spiritual abuse and manipulation, which you can read more about on our website. And even though our former senior pastors wouldn’t be considered at the level of Christian celebrity as these other folks, they were well known throughout the Vineyard movement. They are still currently being investigated for how they used their positions of power and authority to abuse people not only at the local church but throughout our movement at the national level.

We hear the stories of these people and be shocked by what they’ve done. How did this happen? How did their actions go unchecked? What’s going on here? The short answer: sin. Sin is what’s going on here! We can be tempted to point at others and think, “yeah! Those Christian leaders are the worst.” But, what’s happening when we point at someone else? Have you tried this? Three fingers are pointing right back at us. Sin isn’t just their problem, it’s our problem. And yes, these people made some massive, public failures. But if we think we’re better than them, that if we were in their position, we’d never do the things we did… we might want to check our pride. And while the mistakes made by these leaders are truly horrible, each of us have a sin nature lurking within us, ready to devour us. Our journey today is going to be about the courageous act of considering our own horrible mistakes.

This fall, we’re in a series called “falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows”, where we’ve been looking at the book of 1 John as we explore, well, the God Jesus knows. We’ve been learning about how good and beautiful God is because of different things about who he is and what he’s done for us, and we get to continue on that adventure today as we get to talk about sin. Sin, are you guys excited? Well, I am excited because I think God has something incredible for each of us today.

We’re going to spend some time understanding what sin is, and addressing our misconceptions about it. And. We’re going to talk about the fact that God’s solution for overcoming sin is even more amazing than we may actually know.

Pray.

Defining our sin problem

What is sin? 1 John 3:4 gives us a pretty straightforward definition of sin. 1 John 3:4 “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.” Sin is not submitting to God’s authority, it’s breaking his kingdom rules. It’s insubordination. Sin is more than our mistakes and failures, it’s rebellion against God’s law.

The Greek word for sin that’s used here is hamartia. Hamartia is a power or force that rules humans. It means falling short, deviating from God’s standard, it’s a failure to fully love God and others.

What does it mean to fully love God? 1 John 5:3a “In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands.” We’re not supposed to disrupt the kingdom rule and reign. We do what God tells us to do.

When we fail to treat others as image bearers of God, when we miss the mark, when we break the rules, we are ultimately not just sinning against them, but against God. When we treat someone unkindly, when we’re disrespectful, when we don’t see every other human as someone created in God’s image but instead reduce them to a frustration or inconvenience… like that person driving too slow in front of me, my annoying co-worker who’s never on time for a meeting, that person who always has to hear themself talk, the person who cuts me off when I’m talking and I can’t complete my thought, the young person I can exert power over and claim it’s in the name of Jesus, that guy begging outside of Target that just needs to get a job already… when we see others in this way, it’s sin!

Our sin isn’t just about how we love God and others, it’s also in how we love ourselves. Our sin is driven from our selfish impulses. The things we want dictate our behavior. 1 John 2:15 “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.” Money, pleasure, status, comfort, success, convenience, entertainment, security… what do we want? When we love these things, when we gaze at them, dwell on them, God’s love isn’t in us.

These sinful tendencies begin when we’re born. We have to teach kids to share, to practice thinking of others first, to wait their turn to talk, to say they’re sorry, to be kind. You know what we don’t have to teach kids? To talk back. To demand what they need. To push their siblings. To lie. To keep things for themselves. To yell that's not fair! To want to eat candy for every meal. We humans are hard-wired to satisfy ourselves first, it comes already loaded. This is our sin nature.

Why are we like this? The first time we read the word sin in the Bible is in the story of Cain and Abel, two of Adam and Eve’s sons. Because Abel offers God a better sacrifice than Cain, God favors Abel and that makes Cain angry.

In Genesis 4:7, God says to Cain, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin (which here is the Hebrew word khata; meaning failing, missing the mark) sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

“it desire to have you, but you must rule over it.” Cain has a choice about what to do. Rather than forcing him to love him, God gives Cain, God gives all of us free will. And what does Cain do with his anger? He murders his brother. We are innately programmed with selfish desires that cause us to act for the benefit of ourselves at the expense of others.

Wait, it gets worse. The war happens inside of us, in what we consider before we actually say or do anything. The devastating description of sin gets even more devastating when we look at what Jesus has to say. Remember the ten commandments in the book of Deuteronomy? Things like don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t give false witness. In the sermon on the mount, which we’ll be diving into next year, Jesus repeats these commandments and then amplifies them: “you’ve heard the law about not committing adultery but anyone who even looks at someone lustfully has committed adultery in their heart.”

And he says “don’t murder” and then is like, “anyone who is angry at a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” This isn’t just about a list of rules we outwardly obey. This is part of what “Minnesota nice” is, isn’t it? We think we’re being polite by avoiding confrontation. We pretend we’re good with someone but internally? We’re fuming. Instead of forgiving someone, instead of addressing what’s stirring, we keep it buried, we tell ourselves we’ll just get over it. We wait for the anger to fizzle out like a dying campfire.

Our actions can look a certain way, but the condition of our hearts can be wildly missing the mark.

I’m a professional Christian. And to be honest, reading stories of so many Christian leaders failing on such a colossal scale terrifies me. Being a pastor means being a person of character, it’s built into the job description, right? The way we’d expect a surgeon to perform a skilled surgery or an accountant to balance the budget, I am expected to follow Jesus well and help others do the same. On the outside, it can appear like I’m doing good things. I show up at church, I’m nice to people, I pray, I serve, I listen… but what you can’t see is what’s below the surface. Friends, it’s so easy for me to slip into auto-pilot. I tell myself I’m a fraud. I think that if I screw up, you all will reject me and I’ll lose my job because I didn’t perform well. I’m scared I could be one phone call, one text, one internet search, one decision away from a catastrophic mistake that destroys my life. I’m afraid that if I don’t know all the answers to all the questions you ask, or I say something unbiblical here on stage that I will be responsible for your eternal damnation. And thinking I have that kind of power, that’s also loads of pride. So there’s another right there. Do you see the problem? My motivations are the problem. My sin nature is the problem. I can seemingly do the right things and still very much miss the mark.

This is our sin problem. It’s a lot. And it can sometimes feel like it’s so much that we make up things to rationalize the sin in our lives, elevating it to unscalable heights or minimizing it and pretending it’s not there. Let’s dig some more as we consider ways we misunderstand, explain away and rationalize our sin.

Our Sin-Filled Misconceptions

Sin is a big deal. And, because it’s such a big deal, it can be difficult to wrap our minds around. We love to rationalize it, we make decisions contrary to scripture either to help ourselves not feel so bad or try not to offend others or we think Jesus covers us with his fire insurance so what we do doesn’t really matter. These may be some ways we think or unknowingly act that reveal how we don’t really get this whole sin thing.

One misconception is: My sin isn’t that big of a deal.

Seriously, I don’t murder people, I don’t lie all that much, I don’t steal, I surely don’t think I could single handedly be responsible for people being thrown into hell as I’m not nearly as bleak as Becca… I’m a pretty decent person!

When we try to do good but don’t address our hearts, it’s like an out of control disease that infects every part of us.

1 John 1:8: "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." When we give ourselves a passing grade, when we think we’re mostly ok, we probably haven’t faced the depth of our sin nature. When we find ourselves thinking our mistakes aren’t that big of a deal, that should be a red flag that we’re off course.

Another misconception: Jesus died! What I do doesn’t matter.

If Jesus died for all of us, for all of our sins, why should anything I think, say or do matter? It’s covered! I have a pass to do whatever I want, I just say I’m sorry and I’m be good.

1 John 3:6–9 “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. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one 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 them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.”

Genuine, real faith leads to a transformed life, one that does not habitually continue to sin. Knowing God and having a relationship with him causes our lives reflect his character. If we say yes to God by believing in what Jesus did on the cross and then continue to live our lives exactly the same way, to do whatever we want, we probably didn’t actually give our lives to Jesus.

Here’s another misconception: Because of my own sin and mistakes, there might be hope for you, but there is no hope for me.

I get it, through Jesus, we’ve forgiven. But maybe you’re thinking, “I get that for you, Becca. You’re just a pastor who has insecure motivations. You don’t understand what I’ve done.” We start to compare and weigh our sins against others and make the decision that what we’ve done is so awful we have to haul it around with us because we think we deserve the punishment we get. We punish ourselves. There’s no getting past it, I’ll be dragging this thing around with me, this stain, this mark, for the rest of my life.

We sometimes live our lives trying to make up for our mistakes. We get that God can forgive some things, but surely He won’t forgive this thing I did, this pattern of sin in my life.

1 John 2:12 “I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.”

I hurt a friend recently. Without going into the details, I carried around that pain for months. Any time I’d see them, I’d apologize over and over again. When we talked just a few weeks ago, that friend looked at me, with tears in their eyes and said, in a way I finally heard and accepted, that they forgave me. I didn’t deserve it, you guys. I was wrong, I’d treated someone I really care about poorly. And, I was given a beautiful gift of freedom by finally accepting their forgiveness and ultimately, allowing God’s grace and kindness to take that pain from me.

1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." Confession is just agreeing with God, it’s allowing Him to shine a light on the lawlessness in our lives and agreeing with what He finds. It’s saying, “Yep, look what you found deep in the recesses of my heart. That’s messed up God, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

We know what the thing, or that pattern, is but we’re so embarrassed, so sure we’ll never be able to release it because we deserve what we get. Friends, do we think we know better than God? He isn’t faithful and just to purify us from some unrighteousness, he’s faithful and just to purify us from ALL unrighteousness!

What is it? What’s the thing we’re hauling around? Really, let’s take some time right now, because I think God might want to bring some freedom this morning.

I want to invite us to close our eyes. This is a private thing between each of us and God, and even if you’re not participating, I want this to be a safe place for all of us that’s why I’m asking all of us to close our eyes. Consider opening up your hands. Opening up our heads is both a posture of letting go and receiving. Maybe you notice your hands are tense, or it’s hard for them to actually open up and release. Come Holy Spirit.

Pray.

One final misconception before we move on. I can fix it myself.

We love sin management, don’t we friends? We do something wrong against someone, we apologize and then say what can I do to make it right? And let’s be clear, this is a great thing to do, making things right can strengthen relationships but we can’t fix it. Or we secretly gave in, we watched something with that actor or actress that makes us feel all twitter-patted, we have another drink, we obsess over Mom Tok, we imagine what it would be like if we had some soft swinging in our marriage, or if I only had that kind of car or just a little bit more money… when we finally pause to consider what’s taking root in our hearts, we may find our American cultural messages. We are people who work hard. We get it together, we make lists, we come up with a plan, we take Tik Tok off our phones, we throw out all the alcohol, we decide to never watch that on Hulu ever again. We take steps to better ourselves and try not to do it again. We set up boundaries, we tell some trusted friends. And doing these things can be good!

But… when we do these things and say to God, see look at all I did! I set up all these safe guards so I’ll never do it again, that’s enough, right? NO, it’s not! Ephesians 2:8–9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

No matter what we do to make up for it, or make sure it won’t happen again, it’ll never be enough! And in fact, to add onto the already huge crap pile that is our sin, the fact that we think we can fix it is a sin itself, it’s self-righteousness!

Ok, this takes us to the solution. So far it’s been all bad news.

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” As we sin, what happens, what’s our consequence, what’s our sentence, what do we deserve? Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death.”

Great, we all suck and deserve to die. Yes! And, stick with me. When we get in touch with the depth of our sin, we get to really understand the extravagance of God’s love. The good news, (we’ve finally made it to some good news!) is that God totally and completely solves our sin problem. And, He made a way for ongoing transformation in our lives. the answer to our sin problem, the source of our journey of transformation into Christ-likeness, is Christ, the messiah, the savior of humanity… the answer is always Jesus!

Our Ongoing Transformation

The answer is always Jesus: the Atonement (1 John 2:2):

Before we get into this last part, let’s talk about why 1 John was written. At the time he wrote this, John was overseeing churches in what was probably Ephesus, which is in Turkey today, and those churches were in crisis and splitting apart. There were people who’d decided that Jesus was just a guy, he wasn’t the son of God, he wasn’t the promised messiah. John writes this letter to encourage followers of Jesus that this offshoot group was wrong, he calls them deceivers in 2nd John. John doesn’t really teach anything in this book that Jesus hasn’t already taught, John is reminding these churches who Jesus is and that what they already believe about Jesus is true. So who is Jesus, why is he the answer, and why does it matter?

God created us and loves us. Because of our sin that began back in the garden of Eden, we humans couldn’t be with God. Because of his absolute holiness and goodness, God can’t overlook or excuse sin.

So in his mercy, God provided a way to deal with sin through the perfect life, death and resurrection of Jesus: 1 John 2:2 “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” When Jesus died, he paid the price for all of our lawless ways.

Romans 5:18 “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.” It began in the garden with some fruit and a suggestion to be like God. And it was righted at the cross. We get to have a restored relationship with God and a clean slate before him. We can be totally, completely free and blameless.

1 John 4:10 “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Atonement means “at one ment”, bringing together two parties that were separated by wrongdoing. Atonement heals the broken relationship between God and us, by a sacrifice that pays the debt owed for our offenses. In the Old Testament, animals were sacrificed as a symbolic atonement, the animal’s blood paid for the sins of humans, the animal took our place. These atonements were temporary and had to be repeated regularly, you can read more about that in the Old Testament book of Leviticus.

1 Peter 2:22–24 ““He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.””

Jesus as the "atoning sacrifice" means that through His death on the cross, he paid the cost of our sin, reconciled us with God, and made a way for forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus' sacrifice satisfies God's righteous anger against sin. His one righteous act fulfilled the Old Testament system of sacrifices and provided a final, perfect atonement for sin, restoring our relationship with God. So, really, the answer to all the sin, all our faults, all our lawlessness, to everything wrong… the answer really is just Jesus! Not Jesus and my payment, Jesus and my good works, Jesus and my self imposed punishment…His death is the only solution for the problem of sin.

This whole idea of Jesus taking our place, paying our debt may not be new to many of us. This is what we remember every Sunday when we take communion together. We take in his symbolic body and blood in gratitude for his atonement. What we may not consider nearly as often, where the magnitude of the good news maybe gets lost is that our sin problem isn’t just that we’re sinners and can’t get into heaven. Yes, he atoned once and for all. And, he’s actively at work transforming us here and now.

The answer is still always Jesus: the Advocate

The first part of 1 John 2:1a says, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.“

1 John 3:6 “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.”

1 John 3:9 “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.”

Wait, what? We won’t sin? What about the whole “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” deal? I knew the Bible contradicts itself. Hold on, let’s look at the second half of 1 John 2:1 “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.”

And John writes this about living in the light in 1 John 1:6–7 “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

Steph talked about this a couple weeks ago, walking in the light means our minds are in the Bible, where he tells us who we are and where we learn about the life he has for us by looking at his life and the lives of his followers, he guides us.

Jesus came not only to redeem our sins but to transform us so that we don’t sin again. If this is the goal, if we’re really in the light, if we really live wholly and completely in and for God, we won’t sin anymore. As we grow in our relationship with God, our sins do begin to decrease as we rely on his presence, his power, his guidance. When God’s love is in us, our actions change. Maybe we stop hanging out with those friends who pressure us into doing things we know aren’t right. We set our alarm earlier to make time to start our day in the Bible or we’re more influenced by what God says than the voices in our social feed, podcasts, or news outlets. We throw away the junk food we normally run to when we’re feeling sorry for ourselves.

When God’s love is in us, our thoughts change. Those people we’ve reduced to an annoyance become people we look at with compassion and curiosity. Instead of jumping to unkind and unhelpful conclusions about others, we instead wonder if there’s something we’re missing, and remind ourselves that the Bible says they are a fearfully and wonderfully human who is a son and daughter of King Jesus just like us. Instead of spending our time thinking about all the things we don’t have, we thank God for the good he’s given us and recognize that it’s enough. We’re able to forgive others because we know God has forgiven them and he’s forgiven us.

When God’s love is in us, what we want changes. Instead of being so concerned with saving up for that brand new car, we instead buy a used car and generously give our money away to help someone who doesn’t even have a car. We’re able to see the injustice in the world around us and consider how God might be using us to end systemic racism, to battle economic inequality, to engage in mental heath awareness and gun violence prevention.

And if we sin, if we fail, if we miss the mark, we have an advocate to take care of it. We get to turn to God, through Jesus our advocate, for forgiveness and rescue. And that is where transformation happens! John talked about this when he kicked off this series a few weeks back, God is knowable and as we grow, as we’re transformed, we’ll have common interests with God, what we want will align with what he wants! We’ll have his voice in our head. We’ll want to avoid sin like he does because we’re becoming more like him!

This isn’t about trying to be perfect, it’s about genuine transformation because of the impossibly amazing sacrifice that took place on the cross.

When we think terrible things about ourselves, when our hearts deceive us, when we act on that selfish impulse… Jesus is there, with us in a kind of imaginary courtroom, as our advocate. All have sinned, right, so we’re guilty, imagine you’re at your guilty hearing, where the judge is deciding what time you have to serve. There’s God, the judge, sitting up there about to pass down the sentence. And what does Jesus do? Jesus doesn’t present the evidence of what we’ve done, of how we’ve screwed up again, of why we deserve eternal separation from God. Jesus presents the evidence of Good Friday. Jesus shows what happened, reminds God of when he said “it is finished” and then died on the cross.

Jesus paid the price once and for all and because of that, all of us are innocent. Jesus is like, “nope! Remember what I did, dad, I died, I took the punishment. They’re free, they don’t have to be locked up because of what I did.”

For me, when I’m in the courtroom, I imagine him saying, “yes Becca messed up, yes she lied, she raised her voice, she made a harsh judgment about that person, yes she’s still is pretending to be nice and laugh at their joke because she wants everyone to like her and she wants to keep her job… now all of you are gonna be wondering if I’m actually laughing at your joke or not, which is fair considering I just showed my hand… I imagine Jesus saying, “she missed it, she screwed up. Again. But, she can’t do it on her own, God, and we can help her!” And then I show up again after doing or thinking some other dumb thing and Jesus is like, I’ve still got it! And over and over again, Jesus explains why we don’t get what we deserve because of what he did that he didn’t deserve. Every time we show up to the metaphorical court room for the trial of our sin, our advocate stands in the gap to forgive our lawlessness because of his one righteous act on the cross!

When we understand how serious our sin really is, how we really can live a life free from it and if we do sin, Jesus will advocate for us… talk about happily ever after! While there is a huge pile of crap, there is an even bigger pile of goodness and hope. God’s rescue plan is both the most pessimistic and most optimistic mission ever!

And, as followers of Jesus, we sometimes try to live out this transformation by the mixed up motivations of our good works. Even as we don’t give in to the temptation, even when we attend church regularly, practice the fruits of the Spirit, give our time and money, relying on these actions misses the mark. Because our confidence can't be based on ourselves.

We get to experience who good and beautiful God is not because of the good things we do, but because our confidence is in Jesus’s death and resurrection as our atonement. And if we mess up, He advocates for our freedom and stands in our place, securing our forgiveness.

Sin is a serious problem, one that separates us from God, but God has provided the answer—and that’s Jesus as our atonement. His sacrifice on the cross wasn’t just to deal with our sin, but to bring us to life, to restore what was lost. Because Jesus advocates for us, we can now live confidently in the knowledge that we are forgiven and free, empowered by the Holy Spirit to walk in His light. God’ not only solved our sin problem—He made a way for us to live as His perfect kids.

Prayer ministry:

sin management and control

watering a tiny sin plant

Lynn: Getting myself out of the way so we can see Jesus. “I see Jesus in you” Of you want others to see Jesus in you…come up for prayer.

Say thank you for coming to the Vineyard at the end.

Communion

1 John 2:1–2 “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Jesus is our advocate and atonement. Like we talked about, Jesus as the "atoning sacrifice" means that through His death on the cross, he paid the cost of our sin, reconciled us with God, and made a way for forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus' sacrifice satisfies God's righteous anger against sin. His death is the only solution for the problem of sin. For each of us personally and for the wrongs, the failures, of the entire world.

1 John Sin verses: 1 John verses on sin

1 John 1:8–10 “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 is not in us.”

1 John 2:1–2 “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”

1 John 2:12 “I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.”

1 John 3:4–6 “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so 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.”

1 John 3:7–10 “Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one 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 them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have 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 God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”

1 John 4:10 “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

1 John 5:16–18 “If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death. We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.”