Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - You're Not Perfect | New Testament | 1 John 3

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

If Christians are called to stop sinning, does that mean they have to be perfect? In today's episode, Patrick uses 1 John 3 to discuss how to balance God's call to holiness and his forgiveness. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Prepare your heart to celebrate Jesus. Sign up to have the 'I Am Your God' Advent Devotional delivered directly to your inbox starting Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 John 3

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Have you ever read a passage in the Bible and you find yourself thinking, this sounds like the exact opposite of what I believe? You know you've hit one of those passages when you're in a Bible study and people start arguing about it. Or they start saying that the author of the passage means exactly the opposite of whatever

he's saying. One of those passages is 1 John 3. Let's read a bit of it together, and we'll see if we can get our heads around it. Verse 4. Everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he, he's talking about Jesus, appeared so that he might take away our sins, and in him is no sin. Okay, so far so good. We believe everything that's been said. But then John says something wild. Verse 6. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in them. They cannot go on sinning, because they have been. been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are.

Anyone who does not do what is right is not God's child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister. Maybe you're reading this and wondering, did I just hear that right? Is John saying that true Christians must be perfect? It seems like the only honest answer is, yes, that's exactly what he's saying. But then again, John also seems to be awfully confused because he also said this earlier in his letter. 1, verse 8. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his word is not in us. So how do we put this all together? On the one hand, it seems like John is saying that true Christians

are sinless. But before that, he says that anyone, who claims to be sinless is a liar and therefore a sinner. So I suppose the only logical conclusion is that no one is a true Christian because a true Christian would have to be both sinless and admit that they're a sinner, which sounds like it's impossible. But yet again, John befuddles us because he does seem to think that it's possible to be a Christian. In fact, that the people he's writing to right now are children of God. Just before the passage we began with, he says this in 1 John 3, verse 1. See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are.

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. All who have this hope in Him purify themselves just as He is pure. And so you're in the Bible study and the argument starts, and the argument has consequences. You see, there have been some Christian holiness movements throughout history that took John's word about perfection seriously. They said that perfection is not only possible, but that perfection, sinlessness, is the necessary outworking of faith. Sometimes these people say that you need a second baptism of the spirit.

And others strode off into the literal desert to try and perfect themselves through ascetic. and self-inflicted suffering. Then there's a whole different group of Christians who pointed out what I've already said, that anyone who claims to be perfect, anyone who claims to be sinless, is a liar, and that God promises to forgive sins because, well, he expects we'll be battling with sins our whole life. And in this group, some people even go further. They might suggest that all that matters is believing the right things and confessing our mistakes and that vigorous, active pursuit of holiness is a little more than legalism. They would say it's an effort to win the salvation that Jesus has already won. And any such effort is nothing more than idolatry because

you've replaced yourself with the divine savior. You are trying to save yourself. So what do we do with this argument? Well, I believe that the answer is shockingly simple, almost unbearably obvious. We simply need to read John's letter as a whole. John had no idea that one day, people would add chapter numbers and verses to his letter, or that they would build whole theological systems on cherry-picked parts of his words. No, he simply wrote a letter that's actually probably a sermon, and he expected that sermon letter to be read aloud and heard in a congregation all at one time, and so he expected that everyone who heard the bits about our ongoing sinfulness and forgiveness would also hear the bits about sinlessness and perfection. I suspect he

expected people to wrestle with this contradiction right there on the spot. I think he probably wanted us to deal with these two things simultaneously. First, the profound comfort of God's forgiveness, but second, the profound calling of God's holiness. These two things are not opposite poles, but a spiritual feedback loop. And just as John loops around on these themes and ideas throughout his letter, he expects us to do likewise. He expects us to seek the heights of holiness by God's grace, and yet he also knows that we will stumble. And when we do stumble, he wants us to return to God's forgiving arms. Yet, he doesn't want us to become stationary in confession. From the moment we lay our sinful burdens down, he expects us to circle back once more to the call to holiness.

He expects us to march onward in God's power. You see, that's the beauty of John. letter. He says things in such a stark way, in a way that we're never really free of his words. His words itch at us. They call us upward to righteousness and inward towards God's grace and forgiveness. And that dynamic of holy pursuit combined with honest confession is precisely what the children of God do. I'm not sure which message you need to hear today, but I want you to hear it. You aren't perfect. But Jesus died for your sins and he is always faithful to forgive you. But also, Jesus is perfect and all who follow him should walk in his perfection. So don't stop pursuing holiness. Let one feed the other. Jesus designed discipleship this way and it's a wonderful way to walk in.