Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Prayer
The last couple of weeks we have been studying the doctrine of adoption.
The fact that God in Christ Jesus has adopted us into His family.
The fact that we are His children NOW, we will ONE DAY be His children, and as we wait we must purify ourselves by hoping in Jesus.
John is launching into a new section which is focusing on different contrasts which create evidence.
They are going to look at sin and righteousness, love and hatred, and truth and error.
This first contrast is between sin and righteousness.
The Blame Game
It is no exaggeration that we live in a world which loves to blame other things.
Everywhere you turn, the motto is, “Never take responsibility, only find someone else to blame”
A father is struggling to fix a broken toy.
He erupts into a tirade of profanity, slams the toy to the floor and blames the child for breaking it.
A mother comes home from work on Friday afternoon and explodes when she sees a messy entryway and hears music blaring.
She grounds her teenaged children for the weekend and insists they clean the entire house.
A husband gets home from work two hours late.
He forgot to call, but is still upset that no one waited to eat dinner with him.
He eats alone and sulks, refusing all attempts from others to comfort him.
A friend feels hurt that one of her girlfriends went out to dinner with another friend.
She ignores her calls for three days.
But even more problematic is the blame which can occur in the spiritual realm.
“I only sin in this way because of my circumstances in life.
I had a family who never really loved me.”
“I’ve been really struggling this past week because the devil made me do it.”
As long as blame is being shifted onto someone else, than we will never examine our own life.
As long as the blame game is being played, truly experiencing the joy of our assurance will NEVER occur.
Since everyone who is born of God will be Holy, examine your life for holiness,
so that you may experience the assurance that you are a child of God.
Sin and Lawlessness
“Verses 4, 8a”
John is about to tells us what sin is, what sin does, why sin is, from where sin comes, and how sin is conquered.
John says that sin is lawlessness.
What is lawlessness?
The word that John uses here for lawlessness means those who despise the law.
Those who have a disposition toward rejecting God and His rule over their life.
He equates sin with lawlessness.
He equates sin with a disregard for God’s ways.
I think the ESV helpfully shows some more of the nuance happening here.
The Direction of Your Life
“Verse 4”
The kind of sin and lawlessness John has in mind here is not a simple one-time act.
He is emphasizing the ongoing nature of sin.
As one commentator said, it is “characterized by ‘willful, habitual action’”
He is referring not just to occasional acts, but a lifestyle.
It is a habit of sinning which gives no regard to God.
I thought you said we were from the law?
Why would John be talking about lawlessness?
We can say for sure that John does not mean the Mosaic law.
He does not have in mind here the food laws and ceremonial laws in the Old Testament.
I think it is more appropriate to view this law as the law that Paul talks about in Galatians.
So Paul knows that he is no longer bound by the OT law, but he says we are still bound by the law of Christ.
Or in another place, we see Jesus distill the law down to this.
So all of the OT can be summarized by these two commandments, love God and love people.
This is the law of God.
Therefore, being “lawless” means living the kind of life that tramples these great commands.
Sin is loving the things God created more than loving God.
Sin is loving oneself more than loving others.
How do you measure the direction of your life?
Think about where you were a week ago.
A month ago, how about a year ago, how about 10 years...
When we think about the direction of our lives, we need to measure in the same way you would measure the growth of a tree.
We can’t do this in an instance.
We must do this over time.
And over time, if John were to give an analysis of the one who makes a practice of sinning.
The rings would be all shriveled.
It would be rotting.
John is addressing here an indifference to sin, which is likely what the Gnostics held.
I like what one commentator said, “You can be no more indifferent to sin than you could be indifferent to a rattlesnake in your house.”
They had an indifference to sin in their lives.
I think we are honestly bad judges of this though.
Charles Spurgeon once made the observation that we sometimes mistakenly judge the gravity of sin merely by the consequences of it.
Rather, we should not judge the weight of sin by the damage it does, but from the thing itself.
We need to see that our problem is the sin itself, not the result of the sin.
And do you see, this is what blame shifting does.
It looks at the consequences rather than the thing itself.
Now the believer, the true Christian, knows this.
Notice, he doesn’t know that he is a good person.
And John is saying, “There should be no indifference to wickedness and rebellion, because of what sin is and where sin comes from!”
So, where does sin find its origin?
1 John 3:8 (NKJV)
He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
The Origins of Sin
“Verse 8a”
Again, John is likely addressing a kind of “no big deal” approach to sin in this community.
John is seeking to remind and surprise his readers by this striking statement!
1 John 3:8 (ESV)
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
The one who continues in sin, is one who is showing who he is following after.
He is one who is following the one who has been sinning from the beginning.
Example - Handing a Telescope to a Blind Man
You may put a telescope into the hands of a man who is blind, and bid him look at some distant star, or on some lovely landscape.
He tells you he sees nothing.
Well, his witness is true.
But if the blind man goes further, and asserts that because he sees nothing there is nothing to see, his assertion is untrue, and his witness is worthless, because he speaks beyond the range of his capacity.
Such is the value of the natural man's opinion when he declares his mind on spiritual things.
The natural man’s opinion is such because he resides under the grasp of the evil one.
He stands under the power of sin over his life.
How then is sin conquered?
The Purposes of Christ
“Verse 5, 8”
These purposes of why Christ came are critical.
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