Life Ministries

“Walking In Sin”  (Keyword - “Incompatibility”)
1^st. John 3:1-10 and Mark 9:42-47

    Once again, I have been writing about “assurance”. In John’s 1^st. letter, he gives us eight ways that we can tell, or know, or have the assurance that we are a child of God; saved by grace and walking in righteousness. What I would like to do this morning is put together, or bring together verses 6 and 9 of our text…and see if we can decipher what John means when he says; “No one who is born of God will continue to sin.” He basically says the same thing three times in these verses; “No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning”…“No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or knows Him”…And, of course, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin.”

    Then he tells us why this is so at the end of verse 9 - “because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.” This is how we know! Says John.
    In order to clarify something in our own minds, let me first explain what John does not mean; He does not mean that Christians do not or cannot sin…“never say never”…What I hope will come across is the difference between committing sin - and continuing in sin.
    If we are to understand more fully, we first have to know what our assurance is based on, and why we need it. The truth of verse 1 - that we are God’s children, is only the beginning, and the future we face as His children is far beyond our human comprehension. God has revealed how-ever, that when the Lord returns, Christ’s work of redemption will be complete in us; and “we shall be like him.”  Our resurrection bodies will be like his glorified body…our moral likeness will match his, and the process that began when we first came to the Cross, when we first came to know Christ, will be consummated and we will be fully and completely sanctified!  This is our blessed hope! That “He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it!”  Anyone who has this hope will be motivated toward moral and spiritual growth, with the ultimate goal of being “holy as He is holy!” It’s the assurance of the life to come…the life eternal. I pray you can say that you have this assurance today!
    I could explain what John is trying to tell us in this way; If God lives in us and we in Him, then our lives will be characterized by a constant and consistent walk away from sin and toward righteousness. Commentators have difficulty with these verses, when John says believers “do not sin” in verse 6 - and, “cannot sin” in verse 9… This is evidenced in the fact that they offer at least 8 different views or interpretations. I am not going to confuse you this morning by listing all 8 interpretations, I’ll just give you the right one!  It can be explained in a word; Incompatible.  What John is telling us is not the impossibility of sin, but rather, it’s incompatibility with our “new nature.”  For you see, if we are born again, if we are a child of God, if we have come to Christ, the Bible says we have “put on the new self”… “Old things have passed away, and all things become new.” What this new self, this new nature, does not, and cannot do, is “continue in” habitual and persistent sin.
    A believer may sin, even with the consent of the mind and the will, but because of the indwell-ing Holy Spirit, he is always overwhelmed with grief and repentance…and does not continue in sin…SIN AND HOLINESS ARE INCOMPATIBLE!
    Every one of us has areas where temptation is strong and habits are hard to conquer, but John is not talking about the Christian who does not yet have victory over that area of their lives… What he is talking about is are those who make a practice of sinning while professing to be Christians - and in fact, look for ways to justify their sin! Even to the extent of saying “Well, I just don’t have victory over that yet.”… John says, God is not in you if you continually try to justify sin in your life.
    When we are truly born again, the Holy Spirit gives us a new nature, a new way of thinking, a new way of living, a new way of believing, and acting…a heart that seeks to be Christlike, and that - says John - is incompatible with sin!  Paul suggests the same thing in Romans 8:5 where he says “those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires … and their hearts set on what the Spirit desires.” If we don’t have that kind of mindset, John says God is not in us. And, he goes on to say; the Spirit of God helps us to “put off the old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; and to be made new in the attitude of our minds; and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” We come to know what God desires, and we “do not continue in sin.”
    Let me take a bold step here and suggest that this is - of all the areas John mentions - the area that we can discern the truth of our walk. Hear John’s voice again; “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; He cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God”…An unmarried man and woman for example, cannot continue to live together; it’s incompatible! A bar owner cannot continue in business, it’s incompatible!  I hesitate to use any more examples, so as not to point the finger at any particular sin…sin is sin …whether big or small, noticeable or unnoticeable. A born again child of God cannot walk in the light and walk in darkness at the same time! That person cannot walk with God and walk with the world at the same time. Nor can they be partially obedient…John says “No one who contin-ues to sin has either seen Him or known Him”…The reason is just that simple; there is no real repentance! And, without repentance, there is no atonement, and without atonement, there is no indwelling of the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit of God is “incompatible” with sin!
    Let me close by repeating something I said earlier; John is talking about those who make a practice of continuing in sin…whatever that sin may be…while professing to be a born again, Spirit filled, Christian. It is not impossible for Christians to sin… However, the guilt and convic-tion of the Holy Spirit make it impossible to continue in unrepentant sin…It is incompatible with our new nature!