Series:  Light, Love, & Truth-- A Study of 1 John
Message:  "How to Win Over Sin"
Pastor Bret Johnson     Sunday, June 13, 2004

Listen to the Message 

"How to Win Over Sin"

4 Those who sin are opposed to the law of God, for all sin opposes the law of God.
5 And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, for there is no sin in him.
6 So if we continue to live in him, we won’t sin either. But those who keep on sinning have never known him or understood who he is.
7 Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it is because they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous.
8 But when people keep on sinning, it shows they belong to the Devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy these works of the Devil.
9 Those who have been born into God’s family do not sin, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they have been born of God.
10 So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the Devil. Anyone who does not obey God’s commands and does not love other Christians does not belong to God.

Introduction

Weary Warrior—picture from D-Day remembrance last week. That’s how most Christians are that I know—kind of weary.

Read scripture passage

The nature of sin—sin is lawlessness—that is, sin opposes the ways of God, the rules of God. Sin seeks its own way. Sin is selfishness personified.

1) Recognize the nature of sin

Sin is lawlessness—breaking both the written law of God and the law written on our hearts.

Quote by Elton John:
Pop singer Elton John told the German magazine Amica:

I am gay and wouldn't want to be heterosexual for all the money in the world….I've got enough money, don't have to follow any rules, don't have to be in the office from nine to five and take the kids to school in the morning. It is simply a fantastic life when you don't have any parameters. It's brilliant.

2) Realize that Jesus is both sinless and the sin remover.

• 2Co 5:21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

• Heb 4:15* This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin.

• Heb 7:26* He is the kind of high priest we need because he is holy and blameless, unstained by sin. He has now been set apart from sinners, and he has been given the highest place of honor in heaven.

• Heb 9:28* so also Christ died only once as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again but not to deal with our sins again. This time he will bring salvation to all those who are eagerly waiting for him.

• 1Pe 2:22 He never sinned, and he never deceived anyone.

• 1Pe 3:18 Christ also suffered when he died for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners that he might bring us safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit.

3) Allow the fullness of Christ to live in you.

Look at John 15—a kind of parallel passage.

• 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful apart from me.
  5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
  6 Anyone who parts from me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.
  7 But if you stay joined to me and my words remain in you, you may ask any request you like, and it will be granted!
  8 My true disciples produce much fruit. This brings great glory to my Father.

Note:






"Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea".15


Sin is not sweet anymore to us

Out of Texas history comes the story of the conversion of Sam Houston. At one time, the Texas hero was called “The Old Drunk.” While he was governor of Tennessee, his wife left him. In despair he resigned as governor and tried to escape his problems by going to live among Cherokee Indians. He stayed drunk much of the time. It is said that the Indians, as they walked through the forest, would have to move him out of the path where he lay in a stupor. Later, he went to Texas, where he became the great hero of the Texas revolution when he routed General Santa Ana’s Mexican army. Houston’s battle cry, “Remember the Alamo!” helped win independence for Texas. He married the daughter of a Baptist preacher and later trusted Christ, but he still had some of his old tendencies. One day as he rode along a trail, his horse stumbled. Houston spontaneously cursed, reverting to his old habit. Immediately he was convicted of his sin. He got off his horse, knelt down on the trail, and cried out to God for forgiveness. Houston had already received Christ, but God was teaching him to live in fellowship with him moment by moment. And as soon as the Holy Spirit made Sam Houston aware of his sin, he confessed it.


It's not just about saying "I suck." Rather, it's loving GOD for the fact that, as John Piper put it, "I have defamed the glory of GOD every day of my life, and yet I live." It's important to remember that GOD doesn't necessarily want me to feel like crap about myself. He wants me to find satisfaction in HIM. HE wants me to recognize who HE is and what HE has done for me. And HE wants me to know that HE is sufficient.



"The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it - all this provides admirable opportunities for wearing a soul out by attrition."17

"If on the other hand, the middle years prove prosperous, our position is even stronger. Prosperity knots a man to the World. He feels that he is "finding his place in it", while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home in earth, which is just what we want."18