October 3, 2004
Service Theme – “Our God Is
Righteous”
1 John 1:5-2:6
When We Practice the
Presence of Christ, We Practice Righteousness and Renounce Evil
B.
Context
– Lucado is right. The distance between
good and evil is dangerously small, not because God is not completely good and
evil is not utterly evil. It’s because
of what goes on in our own hearts and minds.
(NEW SLIDE) How we deal
with good and evil is what determines whether or not we’ll cross the line. And the first step toward crossing that line
is tolerance.
C.
In
the mid-1800s, tolerance started being used in regard to goods made by American
manufacturers. The Europeans were into
extreme perfection of craftsmanship, while Americans realized that what they
made only had to be good enough to do the job.
Tolerance prompted manufacturers to ask, “If the ball bearings don’t
have to be perfect, how much error can be tolerated? How much variance can we get by with?” By the 20th century, we had become very comfortable
with tolerance, because it obviously worked.
Now with the concept of tolerance becoming prevalent in our society,
we’ve found it very easy to allow it into our personal lives and even into the
church. But this morning, as we
continue in our Mainstay Ministries’ series “Seeing the Unseen Christ: How His
Presence Transforms Life”, maybe we should begin to realize that He is less
tolerant in spiritual matters than we are.
Let’s read 1 John 1:5-2:6 to find out more about this, and I’m reading
from the New Living Translation.
II.
Scripture
Passage
A.
1
John 1:5-2:6 (from the New Living) – (NEW SLIDE) This is the message he has given us to announce to you: God is light
and there is no darkness in him at all.
6 So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living
in spiritual darkness. We are not
living the truth. (NEW SLIDE) 7 But if we are living in the light of God’s presence, just as
Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his
Son, cleanses us from every sin. (NEW SLIDE) 8 If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and
refusing to accept the truth. 9 But if
we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to
cleanse us from every wrong. (NEW SLIDE) 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and
showing that his word has no place in our hearts. (NEW SLIDE) 2 My dear children, I am writing this to
you so that you will not sin. But if
you do sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who pleases God
completely. (NEW SLIDE) 2 He is the sacrifice for our sins.
He takes away not only our sins but the sins of the whole world. 3 And how can we be sure that we belong to
him? By obeying his commandments. (NEW
SLIDE) 4 If someone says, “I
belong to God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and
does not live in the truth. (NEW SLIDE) 5 But those who obey God’s word really do love him. That is the way to know whether or not we
live in him. 6 Those who say they live
in God should live their lives as Christ did.
III.
Experience
Victory over Sin!
A.
In
a lot of respects, that passage is a little hard to swallow. We tend to feel that a little sin should be
tolerated. We tend to feel that, if a
person is doing well 85 or 90 percent of the time, then God surely can be
tolerant the other 10 or 15 percent.
Shouldn’t He? What if we asked
Jesus about this? How do you think He’d
answer? If I said, “Jesus, it’s good to
have You with us. Have You changed Your
mind about being tolerant of sin?” We
know how He’d answer, don’t we?
B.
Now
that doesn’t mean that we should assume He’d be intolerable to have
around. But when it comes to spiritual
warfare, He doesn’t allow for any fraternizing with the enemy! Ephesians 6:10-18 ties in very well with our
passage today. I’m not going to read it
right now, but I’ll remind you that it’s about putting on the full armor of God
in order to be able to stand against the attacks of the devil. A simple truth all of us have got to learn
early on, and some of us haven’t, is this: (NEW
SLIDE) When sin in tolerated in someone’s life, the presence of the Lord
seems to fade. That's because God and
sin simply don’t go together. If
you think they do, take another look at Jesus’ suffering and death on
Calvary. It’s there that we see how
terrible sin is, and how loving God is.
C.
Two
weeks ago I included in the bulletin insert Mainstay Ministries’ plan for
reversing a destructive pattern – otherwise known as overcoming a temptation,
or learning to experience victory over sin.
It’s in your insert again this week to help all of us, and also the
thick bunch of papers folded together is a guide with Scriptures to memorize
and use in fighting specific sin issues.
You see, the issue of sin is so incredibly important in all of our lives
because sin very quickly becomes a destructive pattern for us. (NEW
SLIDE) Sin is not our friend. It
will always take us farther than we wanted to go, keep us longer than we wanted
to stay, and cost us more than we want to pay. God and sin simply do not go together.
D.
Illustration
– Early church father John Chrysostom wrote, WE MUST REMEMBER that we deal with a crafty enemy. If we were suddenly
aware of a serpent nestling in our bed, we would go to great lengths to kill
it. But when the devil nestles in our souls, we tell ourselves we are in no
danger, and thus we lie at ease. Why? Because we do not see him and his intent
with our mortal eyes. This is why we must rouse ourselves and be more sober. (NEW SLIDE) Fighting an enemy we can see makes it easy to be on guard, but one
that cannot be seen we will not easily escape. Also, know that the devil
has no desire for open combat (for he would surely be defeated), but rather,
under the appearance of friendship, intends to insinuate the venom of his
malice. (JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, DEVOTIONAL CLASSICS, RICHARD FOSTER, ED., HARPER:
1990, P. 328.)
E.
That’s
a powerful picture of how temptation works.
And it reminds us of how strongly we’ve got to fight against it. Because when we are involved in sin, the
presence of the Lord fades away from our senses. And whenever there is a strong sense of the presence of the Lord
in a congregation, there always comes a time when people are made aware that
holiness is important to Jesus. Living
like Him becomes the standard, and so sin becomes intolerable. Confession finds its way into the church
again, and the people begin to long for a continuing spirit of victory. That victory can be won if we fight against
the self-destructive patterns of sin in our hearts and lives. Two Sundays ago I asked for you to pick one
self-destructive pattern and begin to work on it using the guidelines in the
bulletin insert. What one did you choose? A critical spirit… materialism… arrogance… a
short temper… perfectionism… profanity… workaholism… pornography… gossip? Those are the kinds of sins that caused the
scars on the hands, feet and side of Jesus.
Remember that as we sense Him here with us.
F.
(NEW SLIDE) Most of us have several
sins we’re aware of. But remember that
I’m only asking you to work on overcoming just one of them over the next
several weeks. The goal is that we
reverse that self-destructive pattern by the time this sermon series is over,
which is the first Sunday in November.
Each day you’ve got to chart your behavior in that sin area on a scale
of one to ten. Ten means you’ve done
well, and one you’ve done poorly. Be
sure to ask yourself, “How would Jesus grade me today?” and not, “How do I
grade myself?” Jesus isn’t tolerant of
sin, but He is extremely understanding of sinners. So be honest. Then chart
out the dots from day to day, and see what pattern emerges. You will have times of doing well and
probably times of not doing so well.
God is not tolerant of sin, so we’ve got to make the effort to break
free of it, and following His leading in choosing a sin and working to overcome
the temptation to commit this sin is the minimum we can do to walk in the
light.
G.
But
what about those times when we don’t do so good? What about those times when we fail and give in to the temptation
to sin? Remember what John wrote in
verse nine? But if we confess our sins to
him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. That means that when we fail, and all of us
do, we’ve got to go back to the cross and tell Jesus something like, “I did it
again. I’m so sorry! Cleanse me once again by the power of Your
blood and make me clean again. Forgive
me so I can start over again. Thank You
for doing this out of Your great love for me.”
When we pray like that, He will respond. That’s what His Word tells us.
Fight the temptation, and when we fall, take care of it right away.
H.
Have
you ever noticed that the only offensive weapon in Ephesians 6 listed to use
against the enemy is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God? We can use God’s Word for more than just
confessing sins and claiming forgiveness after we’ve fallen to temptation. We can hide God’s Word in our hearts so that
we don’t sin against Him. We do that by
memorizing Scripture. This isn’t some
panacea that they told us in seminary to give as the cure-all for sin. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by
Satan, He defeated the enemy by using Scripture He had memorized. Jesus kept coming back with Scripture, and
the devil left Him. (NEW SLIDE) God’s Word, when
memorized and used properly, is powerful and effective in fighting temptation.
I.
Did
you know that the battle over most temptations is won or lost in those first
few seconds? Either we wipe out Satan
quickly and consistently with the sword of the Spirit, or we will slowly give
in to the temptation that he’s holding in front of us. If we don’t quickly resolve the issue, we’ll
probably lose. (NEW SLIDE) We will most likely win or lose in those early
moments right after we’ve become aware of the temptation. At those moments, we’ve got to practice
seeing the unseen Christ by recalling His words from Scripture that we’ve
memorized. One problem: what if
we’re blind-sided and don’t have time to think of Scripture? When do we do when something comes up and we
shoot off our mouths without even thinking about it? Know what? We don’t need
to worry about that right now if we’re consistently winning when
we do see the enemy coming.
J.
None
of us will be perfect in this. (NEW SLIDE) Christian perfection
means being pure in heart and loving like God loves, not being perfect in
performance. We can get to the
point where we defeat specific temptations every time they hit us, but then God
will reveal other areas to work on. He
purifies our hearts in one step, and purifies our performance over time. But we can cultivate a spirit of victory in
our lives, so that by the end of this series we will be able to say that we’re
well on our way to seeing this specific evil become a thing of the past. (NEW
SLIDE) We can live in victory over sin.
It will take time, but we can win!
K.
Once
again, I’m not expecting perfect performance in defeating this specific sin
immediately. It takes time. How do we get started? Once again, by charting out each day how
well we’re doing in overcoming this self-destructive pattern. Then we can notice when we do well and when
we don’t, and write down a plan of new behavior strategies as a result of what
we see in our chart. If we notice that
we tend to sin more when we’re around certain people, then we can try seeing
less of those people. Or if we’re being
negatively influenced to sin by certain TV shows or movies or magazines, then
we can stop watching or reading those things and see the results. My greatest fear in this is that any of us
don’t take advantage of this time to make the effort, see some progress, and
begin to break these self-destructive patterns of sin. We can help ourselves do this by telling
someone that we’re working on breaking a pattern of sin. We don’t have to tell them what the sin is,
but if we tell someone then they can encourage us, support us in prayer, check
on our progress, and give us a swift kick if we’re not working at it. The accountability and support of another
believer can make all the difference in the world, even if we’re doing taking
the other steps.
L.
We’ve
got to become aware of the devil’s schemes.
As the Bible tells us, we’re not ignorant of his devices. We’re learning to stand strong, to support
and rejoice with one another, to know the sweet fellowship of our Lord that is
unclouded by sin. Seeing the unseen
Christ in our congregation should result in our embracing righteousness and
renouncing evil. There are two kingdoms
we see clearly – one of darkness and one of light – and we’ve got to
consistently stay in the kingdom of light.
This is war. And when we slide
over into the kingdom of darkness, we’re traitors to the cause of God. We see that consistently in our world –
church soldiers sampling the wares of the enemy so that the cause is undermined
and Christ is shamed. In this area
we’ve got to learn intolerance. We’ve
got to remember what Paul wrote in Ephesians.
(NEW SLIDE) Our enemy is Satan. We don’t hate people – we reach out to them
in Jesus’ name. But we’ve got to have
no tolerance for Satan. Our
attitude toward him has always got to be one of extreme caution.
M.
What
would you think of someone who, after being sprayed by a skunk, let it happen
again? What if that person over a
period of time started saying, “Oh, the smell isn’t so bad once you get used to
it”? That’s a no-brainer. And yet that is what Jesus is saying to any
of us who don’t reverse self-destructive patterns of sin. (NEW
SLIDE) Something is wrong when anyone gets used to the smell of that
great skunk, Satan. Learn to deal with
him quickly instead. Don’t allow him to
do his work in your life. Above all,
don’t get used to him!
N.
In
his book Quest for Renewal: Personal
Revival in the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1986, pp. 20-21), Walter
Kaiser writes that in all Old Testament revivals: There was a deep sense of sin and an overpowering desire to separate
themselves from it and from all its sponsoring causes. Such divinely induced anxiety and agonizing
conviction of sin needs no prompting or psychological maneuvering. The work is uniquely that of the Holy
Spirit. The failures of the past, even
those that have been forgotten, suddenly become so real and so painfully present
that no amount of comfort or personal rationalization will assuage the terrible
pressure of individual guilt and heartbreak.
Accordingly, so spontaneous and thorough should be the conviction and
simultaneous hatred of sin that there will be no need to plead with men and
women to make any decisions. I
believe that over the next several weeks our church can be transformed by the
presence of God bringing this same conviction of sin to our body. That’s what my heart cries out for. That’s why it’s so important that we learn
to defeat the enemy on a day-to-day basis.
So that the Holy Spirit can be freed to do that kind of work among
us. So let’s all work at it. Let’s all chart our progress, mapping out
strategies to bring improvement, knowing that sweet spirit of victory as it
begins to permeate our lives, experiencing the excitement of being in a
congregation that is growing in its ability to defeat Satan, and being tolerant
of people but intolerant of Satan and all he stands for. Then all of us can rejoice in renewed
fellowship with our Lord because of the closeness to Him that forgiveness
brings. Then we can all experience
revival and be transformed by the power of His ever present Spirit!
O.
Illustration
– Neva Coyle writes, ANYONE WHO KNOWS ME
CAN TELL YOU that I make more than my share of mistakes. They could also tell
you that I’m harder on myself about those mistakes than most people. You see, I
want perfection. And for a mere mortal person, perfection is an impossible
dream. But not so with integrity. . . . Integrity is adhering to a code of
personal values that include honesty, openness, and truth. Does that mean that a person of integrity never cheats on a
diet, overlooks an important detail, or weakens in the face of temptation? No,
it means that persons of integrity correct their mistakes whenever possible,
make amends whenever necessary, and repent when they have sinned. (NEW SLIDE) Persons of integrity grow from their mistakes and missteps, holding
the goal of honesty, openness, and truth ever in the forefront. (NEVA COYLE, MAKING
SENSE OF PAIN AND STRUGGLE, MINNEAPOLIS: BETHANY, 1992, PP. 141–142.) May all of us learn to embrace righteousness
and renounce evil, so that we can become a transformed people of integrity before
our God!
A.
My
prayer this morning is that all of us choose to reverse those self-destructive
patterns of sin that are holding us and our congregation back from the
blessings of revival that God has for us.
But that is something each one of us has to decide. We’re going to spend some time doing that in
a moment, then we’ll celebrate communion.
B.
When
Jesus took the bread and wine with His disciples that last time, I believe it
was in a way a kind of commissioning time.
He was telling His disciples that even though He knew that they would
fail Him, it wasn’t the end. They would
have the victory. He gave them the
bread, His body broken for them, so that they could be made whole by His brokenness. He gave them the wine, the new covenant of
His blood, so that His life could course through their veins by the power of
the Holy Spirit.
C.
The
same holds true for all of us here this morning. It doesn’t matter if we’re struggling with self-destructive
patterns of sin – the power of His brokenness and of His life can overcome
those sins. All we have to do is ask
and obey. (NEW SLIDE) So spend a few moments seeking what He has to say
about any sin pattern in your life, and then confess and take care of it with
Him. Then come forward, take the bread
and the juice, kneel at the altars and partake of them when you’re ready. Then when we go home, begin leaving those
patterns behind right away! Come
forward when you’re ready.