Fellowship Part 5 - Learning to Sin Less

 

Fellowship Part 5 – Learning to Sin Less

 

 

As we are continuing in this series of short studies through the epistle of 1 John, we get to a series of articles that will deal with the characteristics of someone who has truly taken advantage of being in the fellowship.  As a reminder, the key verse of this series of studies is 1 John 1:7

 

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (ESV)

 

In the previous article, we talked about how the removal of sin from our lives is one of the results of being a part of the fellowship.  That is because

 

A person fully living in the fellowship of believers is learning to be sinless.

 

That is the characteristic we will explore today.  That is not to say that such a person will actually be sinless.  We saw in chapter 1 that if we believe we have no sin, then we are liars.  But consider what John says in 1 John 2:1

 

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin…

 

You see that, right?  John wrote this letter, in part, so that we would overcome sin in our lives – that we would sin less – even if we cannot actually be sinless.  Fortunately, since we can’t truly be sinless, John also reminds us in that same verse that

 

…But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

 

Thank you, Jesus for being our advocate.  But if John is writing to us so that we do not sin, then apparently there an expectation towards that outcome.  So how do we reconcile John’s intent in writing the letter with the reality that we know we all sin? We reconcile it by recognizing our goal versus our reality and coupling those together to see our responsibility.  Starting first with the goal.

 

Our goal is to become sinless.

 

There is a movement among many Christians to downplay the idea of living holy and striving to live without sin. In this twitter-oriented, short attention span world, we latch on to certain catch phrases that become excuses for how we live our lives.

I’m just a sinner saved by grace.

I’m not perfect, just forgiven.

God’s not done with me yet.

All of these statements are true, but none of these statements should be excuses for attempting to live holy.  Repeatedly in the book of Leviticus, as God was laying out the requirements of the law, God said “Be Holy for I am Holy.”  The apostle Peter quoted these verses in his epistle.  In 1 Peter 1:15-17 he says

 

but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (ESV)

 

 

We read those social media quips and we use them as an excuse to stop trying to be holy and sinless. No – our goal has ALWAYS been to be holy as God is holy.  That means our goal is to be without sin. 

Knowing we can never achieve that goal is no excuse for pursuing it. Thus, we pursue absolute sinlessness, but we recognize our reality.

 

Our reality is that we still sin.

 

And that sin – all of it – everything we have done and still do – incurs the holy, righteous wrath of God the Father. That is why John says here we have an advocate with the father. 

 And that sin – all of it – everything we have done and still do – incurs the holy, righteous wrath of God the Father.

 That is why John says here we have an advocate with the father. Consider what John says in 1 John 2:2

 

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (ESV)

 

Jesus is the propitiation of our sin.  Propitiation – that is a big word but one of the most important ones in Christian language.  Propitiation means that Jesus satisfied the righteous wrath of God on our behalf so that we don’t have to face it.  How exactly did he do that?  God poured out his wrath on the cross.  Jesus took on our sin debt and paid the penalty associated with our sin.  He literally faced the wrath of God and endured hell on our behalf so that we do not have to face that wrath ourselves.

 The result is that we are in a very interesting situation.  We still experience the presence (and the potential earthly consequences) of sin in our lives, but we have been relieved from facing the eternal consequences of those sins. 

So when we examine our goal to be sinless – to be holy because God is holy - and compare it to the reality that we still sin, then we can conclude that we have a responsibility.

 

Our responsibility is to sin less.

 

Indeed, this is the objective of sanctification in our lives – to become more and more like Christ by sinning less and less in our own lives.  A characteristic of someone who is part of the fellowship of Christ is someone who is striving to sin less.  Consider how Paul says it in Romans 8

 

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you are living in accord with the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:12-12 (NASB)

 

Our responsibility – our obligation if you will – is to strive to remove sin from our flesh. It is a lifelong pursuit that we will never achieve in this life, but for which we never stop striving.  Again, Paul’s words are important here:

 

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14 (ESV)

 

The goal for Paul was the perfection that ultimately will come when we are glorified at the resurrection.  He recognized that he had not already obtained it nor would he obtain it on this side of glory, but that does not change the fact that he was pressing forward toward that goal.  He even tells us to forget the past and strive for the future.  In other words – don’t worry about yesterday. You should be doing better today than you did yesterday, and you should do better tomorrow than you are today.  This is our responsibility.

Even though Paul says “forgetting what lies behind”, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to occasionally look behind just to make sure we really are making progress.  Can you look back at your life 20, 10, 5, even 1 year ago and say that where you are today is further along on the journey of sanctification than you were before?  If not, then perhaps we need to ask the question why not?

This is not a responsibility you are to try to bear on your own.  One of the major purposes of the church is to walk with one another, helping one another with this process.

So in conclusion, one of the key characteristics of someone who is in the fellowship is someone who is relentlessly pursuing a sinless life by sinning less.

In the next article, we will look at the characteristic that a person who is living in the fellowship is someone who is living in obedience.

 

He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. 1 Timothy 6:15-16 (ESV)