Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

Text:

A goody-goody is defined as “a person who behaves extremely well in order to please a superior.” So you often hear people say, “Don’t be a goody-goody.” But the phrase comes from a nursery tale titled, “The History of Little Goody Two Shoes.” In the story, a poor girl who only had one shoe was graciously given a pair of shoes. This inspired her to work hard all of her life, doing good, and living virtuously. But if it weren’t for the gracious gift of the shoes, she would never have lived that way.

With we respect to God, we ought to behave a certain way in order to please Him. God is our superior, and we are His servants. We serve God not in order to earn His favor, but because He’s already given us His grace.

The sermon last week focused on the truth that we need to practice righteousness. Just as Jesus Christ is righteous, His followers are called to be righteous. This isn’t merely an option that we can choose to ignore. We must be righteous. But how do we do that at all when we have so many things working against us? There are so many temptations! The apostle Paul stated that at times it seems impossible to live the way God wants us to (Romans 7:19). The Scripture this morning will help all of us to pursue righteous living.

“Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” (1 John 3:4-10)

We need to understand what sin really is. Sin is lawlessness (v. 4). John was writing from a Jewish perspective. Jews consider the Law to be of utmost importance. The Law is how we know God. The Law is how we please God. Lawlessness, therefore, is contrary to knowing God, and those who practice lawlessness cannot please God.

But not everyone John was writing to was Jewish. Yet even Gentiles know the importance of being lawful. What happens when we break the law? We pay the consequence. What happens when societies disregard the law? Chaos ensues. Did you see the riots that took place in London not long ago? That’s lawlessness. But when the police force was able to make their presence known, order was restored.

Even unbelievers know the importance of being lawful. Even though there’s no logical reason within an atheistic worldview to embrace morality. Yet if everyone were to choose their own morality, there would be chaos! So unbelievers recognize that lawlessness is bad, and they choose to live moral lives even though there’s no logical reason to do so.

Recognizing that lawlessness is bad, John wrote that sin is lawlessness so that we would all see just how bad sin is. Sin is casting off all morality. Sin is rebellion against God, the Law-giver, and crowning ourselves king over our lives. And John wrote that everyone who makes a practice of sinning is practicing lawlessness and therefore is rebelling against God.

The fact is, we don’t have the right to rebel against God. He created us, and we are His servants. But someone might say, “But this is my body. This is my life, and I can do what I want with it! I have rights!” Wrong! You don’t. God is our Creator. God is our King. God is our Ruler. We are His servants, and we must do whatever He tells us to.

We must never become content with allowing sin to remain in our lives (v. 6). It’s time you get angry about your sin! If we allow sin to be our master, then we show that God is not our Master (v. 8-10). When we sin, we’re declaring Satan to be our master. We must do everything we can to resist sin and do good instead. Hebrews 12:4 tells us how far we should go in order to resist sin. We haven’t resisted to the point of shedding our blood in our struggle against sin, but Jesus has. Jesus shed His blood for our sin, taking our sin upon Himself, so that we might take His righteousness upon ourselves. Trust in Him! When we do this, His righteousness starts to show itself in our lives. When we practice righteousness, it’s not by our power, but by Christ’s power in us.

Jesus did not come merely to forgive you of your sins, but to eliminate sin from your life (v. 5). Jesus had to die because of sin, but not His own sin. He did this to take away your sin. And He didn’t just take away your sin in an eternal sense so that we can be with God forever. He came to take away sin from our lives now. When we know Jesus, we ought to be living more righteous lives (v. 7). When Jesus died for our sin, he made us righteous before God. So as we live, our lives ought to reflect how we are now righteous. This doesn’t mean we’ll never mess up. But it does mean that we’ll never give up.

Strive to be righteous, but never rest in your striving. Rest in the grace of God. Jesus is the perfect Lamb of God, sacrificed for your sin and mine so that we can be righteous through Him. Rest in that.