Freedom from Constant Sin
1st John 5: 16 – 21
Jeff Hughes
I. Introduction
a. As humans, it is part of our nature to fall into sin. Our flesh is constantly desiring to fall into sin. We have been like this from the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve decided to eat the forbidden fruit. But, as born again believers, we can rest in the assurance that Jesus paid the price for all our sins at Calvary. He has given us the Holy Spirit to enable us to break the bondage of habitual or besetting sin, but it is up to each one of us individually to decide if we will lay hold of that victory or not.
b. Tonight, we are going to look at three safeguards the Lord has given us to help us in getting free from sin. First, we will look at prayer from the bretheren, next, we will look at knowing who we are in Christ, and who our enemy is, and last, we will look at abiding in Christ.
c. Follow along with me starting in verse 16.
d. 16 If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death. 18 We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
e. Tonight, we will look at these three topics in-depth as we study God’s Word.
II. PRAYER
III. Illustration
a. In the 1960s, drug companies were presenting nearly 700 applications a year to the Food & Drug Administration for new medicines. The stressed New Drug Section only had sixty days to review each drug before giving approval or requesting more data.
b. A few months after Dr. Frances Kelsey joined the FDA, an established pharmaceutical firm in Ohio applied for a license to market a new drug, Kevadon. In liquid form, the drug seemed to relieve nausea in early pregnancy. It was given to millions of expectant women, mostly in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Although scientific studies revealed harmful side effects, the pharmaceutical firm printed 66,957 leaflets declaring its safety. The company exerted great pressure on Dr. Kelsey to give permission for labels to be printed, in anticipation of the drug’s approval.
c. Dr. Kelsey reviewed the data and said no. Through several rounds of applications, she continued to find the data "unsatisfactory." After a fourteen-month struggle, the company humbly withdrew its application. "Kevadon" was thalidomide, and by that time, the horror of thalidomide deformities was becoming well publicized! One firm "no" decision by Dr. Kelsey spared untold agony in the United States.
d. Sometimes standing your ground on something may not seem that important but in time you may see the "big" picture.
e. God tells us to stay away from sin because He knows how harmful it is to our physical and spiritual well being. Although the world is pressing us to say yes to sin, we must have the courage to stand up and say "NO". It may not be the most popular decision, but it will be the wisest decision.
IV. Study
a. Freedom from sin
i. God wants us to walk free from sin. His Word gives us much instruction as to how we should avoid sin in our lives. He gives us many tools and helps along the way as well, and that is what we are going to look at tonight. Follow along with me starting in verse 16
b. Prayer from the bretheren – 5:16-17
i. 16 If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death.
ii. Well, before we delve into just what John meant here, I think it is essential for us to note what is most important here. That is simply if we see another brother, another believer in Christ walking in sin, we should pray for them first. All too often, prayer is the last thing we do for someone caught up in sin.
iii. Many times we are very selfish in our prayers. We pray for our own requests and the things we want and fail to pray for others who need our prayers. Verse 16 and 17 has to do with intercessory prayer as it relates to the matter of sin in the lives of other believers.
iv. Our human nature wants to do one of three things when we see someone in sin that is a believer.
1. The first is to go and gossip about the individual, which is clearly wrong. Even in the context of sharing it with other believers with the auspices of prayer, it is wrong to gossip about someone else.
2. The second thing we might want to do is confront the individual immediately. That can get a bit dicey. When confronting someone in sin, it is important to pray first, and get the Lord’s guidance on how to approach the person.
3. The third thing we might be tempted to do is ignore it completely. This is wrong too, since your silence may be a silent approval to that individual.
4. Scripture tells us here to pray for the individual. First thing. Maybe the Lord will then put it on your heart to approach the individual, but it’s a lot easier to approach someone knowing you prayed about it, and God is in control.
v. Look here in verse 16, though. God will bless the prayer you pray for a brother caught up in sin. That is important to note as well. In the context of John’s epistle as a whole, I think God is blessing this prayer, because we pray for another brother caught up in sin out of love, a main theme of the epistle.
vi. So, what does John mean by sin that leads to death? Because he speaks in context of a brother, it is wrong to see him meaning a sin leading to spiritual death; what he means a sin leading to the physical death of the believer.
vii. A sin that brings death is a difficult concept, but we have an example of it in 1 Corinthians 11:27-30, where Paul says that among the Christians in Corinth, because of their disgraceful conduct at the Lord’s Supper, some had died - not as a condemning judgment, but as a corrective judgment.
viii. 1st Corinthians 11:32 tells us 32 But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. From that, we can see that apparently, a believer can sin to the point where God believes it is just best to bring them home, probably because they have in some way compromised their testimony so significantly that they should just come on home to God.
ix. It is presumptuous to think this about every case of the untimely death of a believer, or to use it as an enticement to suicide for the guilt-ridden Christian.
x. John takes pains to recognize that not every sin leads to death in the manner he speaks of, though all sin is certainly unrighteousness.
xi. The important thing that we need to notice in verse 17 is that John is not trying to minimize any act of sin, because he says in v. 17, “all unrighteousness is sin.” One of the real tragedies of life is the loss of an awareness of sin. All sin is serious! That is why we need to know
c. Who we are in Christ and who is our enemy– 5:18-19
i. 18 We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.
ii. In the battle against sin, it is essential that we keep our minds set on who we are in Jesus Christ; if we are born of Him, we have the resources to be free from habitual sin. John tells us here that God keeps those who are born of Him.
iii. If we are born of Him, we have a protection against the wicked one, a unique protection that does not belong to the one who is not born of Him - knowing this gives us godly confidence in spiritual warfare.
iv. In verse 18, John is telling us that we are kept by Jesus and protected from Satan by Him. It is not us that keeps us from sin. Notice the phrase we know at the beginning of verse 18. This tells us that this is a certainty in our Christian walk. So, as believers, we can count on being kept by Jesus.
v. The question is, what are we being kept from? Well, obviously sin. But, verse 18 says that if we are in Christ, the evil one doesn’t touch us. Does that mean we are just totally free from sin? No. What it means is that if we are in Christ, we are to be free from habitual or continual sin, and I’ll explain why.
vi. It all has to do with the word touch in verse 18. In the original language, it means to grasp or to hold fast, touch is not a very good translation. I can say that because the only other place John uses this particular word for touch is in John 20:17, where He literally tells Mary to stop clinging to Me, I haven’t ascended to the Father yet. So, taking that into account, if we are in Christ, he keeps us from the grasp of the evil one, which in context, is habitual or continual sin.
vii. John goes on to explain to us in verse 19 that the whole world is in the sway of the evil one. Remember what it was like to be in the world? To be in the sway of the evil one? Well, Titus 3:3 reminds us 3 For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.
viii. Notice again though, John says we know. We can rest assured that we are separate from the world in Christ, we are set apart, no longer to be held in Satan’s sway.
ix. Many believers don’t know this. Obviously they didn’t know it in John’s day or he wouldn’t have written this for them. As believers we have within us the Holy Spirit, and this gives us power to walk free from sin. We have to decided that we want to though. Knowing this simple truth means that we can be free to be what we are in Christ and separate ourselves from the world system in rebellion against Him. If we do this, we are
d. Abiding in Christ – 5:20-21
i. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
ii. In concluding his letter, John underscores for us one more way to help us walk free from sin, and it is a major theme of the letter – Abiding in Christ.
iii. The work of Jesus in us gives us an understanding, and the ability to know Him, and to be in Him - the abiding life of fellowship that John invited us to first in 1:3
iv. 3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
v. --This is the true God and eternal life: John Stott once said "this is be the most unequivocal statement of the deity of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, which the champions of orthodoxy were quick to exploit against the heresy of Arius."
vi. In John 10:10, Jesus tells us - The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
vii. We have already seen in the previous verses who our enemy is, and John 10:10 tells us that he’s only up to no good as far as we are concerned.
viii. Now, since we know Jesus is the true God, what are all these other people worshiping? False ones, or idols, John gives a last warning to the church concerning false religion in verse 21. We see in verse 21, that John says to keep ourselves from idols.
ix. The enemy to fellowship with God is idolatry - embracing a false god, or a false idea of the true God; John rightly closes with this warning, after having spent alot of time in the letter warning us against the dangers of the false Jesus many were teaching in his day. Augustine once said, Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshiped.
x. Though we do not face a pantheon of false gods like the Israelites did, we face pressures from a pantheon of false values--materialism, love of leisure, sensuality, worship of self, security, and many others. The second commandment deals with idols. This may be something that most of us can’t relate to--unless we include life goals that revolve around something other than God Himself. What is the object of our affections, our efforts, and our attention? Where does the majority of our time go? On what do we spend the greatest amount of our resources?
xi. Finally we come to the end of the Book of First John. John chooses to end it with Amen. It means “so be it”, or “may this come to pass”. So, what John is saying, is he’s praying that the things he had written to the church in the letter would come to pass.
xii. The word "amen" is a most remarkable word. It was transliterated directly from the Hebrew into the Greek of the New Testament, then into Latin and into English and many other languages, so that it is practically a universal word. It has been called the best-known word in human speech. The word is directly related -- in fact, almost identical -- to the Hebrew word for "believe" (amam), or faithful. So, it came to mean "so be it" or "truly", an expression of absolute trust and confidence.
xiii. John’s main goal for writing the letter was that the church would walk in the confidence that had already been given them by their faith in Christ. He wanted them to flee from the false religion that was creeping into the church of the day.
V. Conclusion
a. So, what can we take away from all this? We saw three safeguards God gives us as believers to keep us from habitual sin. You can count on these three safeguards as well. You can take them to the bank, once you have laid hold of them in your Christian walk. God wants us all to be free from the grasp of habitual sin. I’d like to close with a story to illustrate God’s love for us in that area.
b. God often allows the ungodly to amass great wealth--to their destruction. But if you are one with whom God is dealing and if you put the pursuit of riches (or anything else) before service to Christ, God may take away those riches (and other things) until you turn to Him. Some years ago Donald Grey Barnhouse was counseling a young woman on the sidewalk in front of his Church following an evening service. She said she was a Christian and that she wanted to follow Christ. But she wanted to be famous too. She wanted to pursue a stage career in New York. "After I have made it in the theater, I’ll follow Christ completely," she said. Barnhouse took a key out of his pocket and scratched a mark on a postal box standing on the corner. "That is what God will let you do," he said. "God will let you scratch the surface of success. He will let you get close enough to the top to know what it is, but He will never let you have it, because He will never let one of His children have anything rather than Himself."
c. Years later he met the girl again, and she confessed that this had indeed been her life story. She had dabbled in the stage. Once, her picture had been in a national magazine, but she had never quite made it. She told Barnhouse, "I can’t tell you how many times in my discouragement I have closed my eyes and seen you scratching on that postal box with your key. God let me scratch the edges, but He gave me nothing in place of Himself."
d. In Luke 22:31 and 32, Jesus said, "Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.
e. Likewise, Satan desires to sift all of us as wheat. Help us to stand firm in You, Lord, and walk free from sin.
