Destroying the Works of the Devil

We have an opportunity to continue in our studies here on the Sabbath day, in between and in these days of Unleavened Bread. With that, the title of our sermon today is Destroying the Works of the Devil. Destroying the Works of the Devil. And those words are found in the passage of Scripture that we're going to turn to now, so I invite you to open your Bibles. And let's turn to 1 John 3. We're going to begin in verse 1 in just a moment. 1 John 3 verse 1. As you turn there, and as we know we are here in the days of Unleavened Bread, and this week calls us to fulfill a task. As we seek to fulfill the call of these days of Unleavened Bread, we want to turn our focus here to John's letters. What are we being called to today as we gather during these days? Simply stated, we are being called today to destroy the works of the devil in our lives. Again, these days of Unleavened Bread call us to the task of destroying these works completely. So we're not called today to simply make a little progress with regards to putting the sin out of our lives. We're not called to make a little gains here or there in these days. Rather, we are called to a full eradication of sin.

Now, we know that we will not be completely sinless here as we walk on this earth. Complete sinlessness will not occur until Christ's return. God willing, we will then rise to join his spiritual family. That day it will be achievable. But as sons and daughters today, God is calling us to reach for a complete destruction of anything that is of the devil in our lives. Here in 1 John 3, the Apostle John, the Apostle known as the Apostle of Love, now reaches out to God's people, reaches out to those who are the recipient of God's law, and he calls them forward with a striking call to remove the sin in their lives so that they can usher in a realm of righteousness. And so I want to prepare you for this passage that we're about to read because there's difficulty with it. And the difficulty in this passage is not so much in understanding, but the difficulty lies in its application as we're going to deal with this whole issue of sin and removing the works of the devil. 1 John 3. Let's begin in verse 1. We will read through verse 9. Written to the children of God, John writes, Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God. Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know him. Beloved, we now are the children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, at his return, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Verse 3. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness, and you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he's been born of God. Let's stop there.

Now, quite a passage and quite a call, right? And to give you a little context, you know John here, he was writing. If you take a look at the first two chapters in your home studies, you quickly realize that John was writing in the context to those and to God's people who were being deceived. And they were taking on the belief that somehow sin was just a matter of indifference, if you will. You know, there were false teachers and there was this notion that was being put forward that sin really doesn't matter too much. And these false teachers would put forward that, you know, after all Christ dealt with sin, you have God's grace, and that grace then is sufficient for sin's past, present, and future. And so there really isn't any need for a call to eradicate sin from your lives. You know, this was an erroneous teaching, a false teaching. And so Paul is tackling that. And in many ways, it was the same thing that John is tackling this. It was the same thing that Paul tackled. We won't turn there, but in Romans 6, you remember this exchange where Paul, in speaking about sin, was then asked the question, What shall we do then? Shall we continue in sin so grace may abound? That was the question. And Paul answered, No, of course not, certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? You know, we mustn't do that. Paul took that on, and now in many ways, John is taking on that same task and establishing that Christ manifested themselves to take away our sins. That's there in verse 5 here. And the second part of verse 8, if Christ came to destroy the works of the devil, it's inconceivable then for those in Christ to continue to live in it. Right? That's there in verse 3. Everyone who has this hope of him, if you have this hope of his return, if you have this hope that he manifested himself to remove the penalty of death, if you have that hope, then everyone who has that hope is going to purify himself, just as he is pure. Okay? So this is the argument that John is putting forth here. He who has hope in Christ and what he's accomplished, he who are the children of God, if you have the hope in his appearing, is revealing, then it's absolutely nonsense for that individual who has that hope to persist in sin. Sin, which signifies rebellion against the one who you're hoping for. It's a logical argument, isn't it?

Tell us more or why. And why is that? And John puts forth a contrast here with verse 4 and 5. He contrasts sin with Jesus Christ. They're in opposition to one another. Verse 4, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. Verse 5 contrasts, and you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. So on the one hand you have the lawless perfect one who kept the law in all of its perfection, and on the other hand you have sin here. It's complete opposition to one another.

And he would go on to say that he did not come to destroy the law. He told this to the Pharisees, and in fact, rather than destroy it, he came to fulfill it by keeping it perfectly.

So you can think in terms of Christ came to fulfill the law. He came to fill it up, magnify it. And so he came and he said, you know, it's been said that you shall not murder, that is true, and that's good, but now that I'm here and I am coming to magnify the law, I'm telling you you can't even be angry. And in fact, I'm not going to stop there. I'm going to tell you to love your enemy. So he magnified the law. He didn't come to destroy it, you see. And John is expressing this truth. If you're looking forward to his return, everyone will know it, not necessarily by what you say, but they will know that you're anticipating his return and his revealing and his appearing by living a life that will not display the very thing he came to take away. Good argument here. And this is what John is declaring. And when you begin to understand this, you see this truth while it is so obvious in one way or another, you see it on full display. When Jesus Christ appeared to start his ministry, you remember John the Baptist looked across and he sees Jesus come and he says, oh, there's the Lamb of God, the Lamb of God who does what? Who takes away the sin of the world.

That's, for your notes, that's John 1.29. John 1.29. So now, with all of that, don't necessarily say, yeah, I get it. Of course, you know, I know that. He appeared so that he might take away our sins. We don't want to miss this because as clear as that is, we should recognize that he came for this purpose and for this purpose.

It is a great stumbling block and foolishness to so many who even call themselves Christian in this world. Did you know that the fact Christ came and died to take away sins? It is a stumbling block and great foolishness to many men and women today. Why is it a great stumbling block and foolishness to so many?

Well, man does not want to stand before Christ's crucifixion, and they don't want to stand before that crucifixion and the reason he had to die because it'll convict them. And so it's foolishness. It's a stumbling block to them. Let me show you this. 1 Corinthians 1, verses 21 through 23. If you want to put your marker here, 1 Corinthians 1, verses 21 through 23, the fact that Christ came to take away sins by his crucifixion, it is something that men and women do not want to hear.

This is what we're seeing when we look out into the world and even into what would be so-called religious world today, the Christian world. They're moving more and more away from this. 1 Corinthians 1, look at the beginning of verse 21.

1 Corinthians 1, verse 21. For since in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. Verse 22. For the Jews request a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but Paul says, but we preach Christ crucified.

And to the Jews it's a stumbling block and to the Greeks it's foolishness. Let's stop there. So the Jews demanded miraculous signs. The Greeks were looking for wisdom. So Paul, you know, how about a few miracles, Paul? We'll get behind that. We'll accept that. Or Paul, you're a bright man. Why don't you wow us with a little bit of your wisdom? You know. And Paul says, forget about all that stuff. The Jews demand miraculous signs. The Greeks demand wisdom, but we preach what? We preach Christ crucified. And when we preach Christ crucified, it's a stumbling block to the Jews and it's foolishness to the Gentiles. To the Gentiles. And it's the same way today.

Go out, and many of you have this week, and explain that you are keeping the Days of Unleavened Bread symbolic of putting sin out of your lives for seven days. And look at the response on their face. It's a stumbling block. It's confusing putting sin out of your lives. It's even foolishness. And sometimes you'll come across an individual who'll say, not only is that foolish, that's offensive to me. That's offensive to me to talk about putting sin out of my life, you know. Talk about his example.

Talk about Jesus' example. Talk about his love. We don't mind those things, but I don't want to hear that he came to take away my sin. I don't want to be confronted with the fact that I must do the same. And it's fascinating to see. I've done the hard work for you, so you don't have to do this. If you look at and view some of the mainstream Christian church messages these days, you will very quickly acknowledge and be able to see that they've redefined sin.

They have absolutely redefined sin. They will not talk about putting sin out of your life. They won't talk about the gospel Christ crucified. Rather, you will hear this, they have redefined sin as merely being an absence of an abundant life. That's how they define sin. And the gospel, they say, is if you feel low self-esteem, well, Christ came to make you feel good about yourself, and so that you can have an abundant life. That's their definition of the gospel. And you see how they've redefined it in this way.

And so they get many followers who say, great, I want to feel good about myself. And so this is good news. I love this gospel. But Paul comes and he says, and John echoes it, and he says, well, what we preach is Christ crucified. And you're going to have to turn from sin before you ever feel good about yourself. That's the message that we preach. That's Christ crucified.

And God commands us to come together, specifically to focus in on these days of unleavened bread, to turn our focus onto the one who died in order to take it away, so as to create in us that deep desire to allow him to accomplish the very thing he came to do. And that is to destroy the works of the devil in our lives.

Going back to 1 John 3, verse 5. If you look at the gospel writers and the early those who God worked with, very logical. Very logical. And it's beautiful. There's a beautiful logic to this, and the logic is to create in the listener a stirring to accomplish all that we need to accomplish as followers of Christ. Go back to 1 John 3, and we're going to begin in verses 4 through 6 again. What we notice, I want to turn back to this part because there is a question that I believe emerges for us from this passage. A big question that emerges for you and I. Again, 1 John 3, verse 4, "'Whosoever commits sin, commits lawlessness, sin is lawlessness, and you know he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him.'" Yeah, I think there's a big question that emerges here, particularly verse 5, in knowing why he was manifested and why he came to this earth. Here's the big question that emerges here. If Jesus Christ came to take away sin, the question is, has he then taken your sin away? Has he taken away your sin?

Only you can answer that this morning. Has he? Has he taken away your sin? Do you know what is the wonder of how Christ can deal with your sins? Do you know you do not have to go through life defeated by sin? By sin? Is that the reality in your life?

Do you know that you do not have to continually and constantly be defeated by sin?

That's a big question. How many of us have a particular sin in our lives where we've just simply conceded that it's just going to be a part of our life for the rest of our life?

Do you live in a daily defeat to the hands of sin?

Here's the question. Has he taken sin away from your life? It's a big one. This is a big question.

If you begin to think about it, you think, well, how do I know? How do I know that he has taken sin away? He is taking sin away. How do I know he's accomplishing this purpose in my life to which he came? Verse 6 maybe gives us a little bit of the logical deduction here in answering that. Verse 6, whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him. So maybe the question is, the question, have my sins been taken away by Christ? The answer is found in the evidence of our daily abiding in him.

In other words, you will know he's dealing with your sins by his undeniable abiding presence in your life. Do you feel close to him this morning or do you feel distant from him? Whoever abides in him does not sin. So I got to tell you, if you're like me, when you're in a sinful season of your life, you can almost feel like you don't feel his presence as great as it should be. You know, in my heart, I feel like, whoa, I feel distant from him and it's a worrisome feeling. It's a horrible feeling. When I'm in those seasons of sin, I can feel that I'm less and less abiding with him and him and I.

And so I know that I reveal myself either as abiding in Christ or not by the evidence of the fact that sin is not reigning in my life. You know, I opened this sermon by saying, in this physical life, we will never be fully sinless. We know that. I probably will say it again one more time just to acknowledge that. In this physical life, we will never be sinless. Yes, acknowledged sinlessness will not come until the spiritual transformation into his family.

But, but, today we are to abide in him and abiding in Christ will be evidenced by the fact that while sin remains, it does not reign. Okay, very important understanding. While sin remains, it's going to remain the rest of our life. Those abiding in Christ, it absolutely will not reign. It will not reign in our lives. For the child of God, if they continue to allow sin to reign, they have neither seen Christ, nor will they know him, nor will they live in him. So those of us who are in a season of sin, and if it's raining in our life, you will absolutely feel distant from him. You will not feel his full presence in your life. And you know this to be true. I'm not telling you something you don't know. You know we have experienced this, right? So let's take the full force of this. Let's take the full force of this. Again, if he came to take away, eradicate sin, how can the individual say, I am in Christ, at the same time cherishing or conceding to sinful behavior? Fellowship with a sinless Savior while fostering a sinful life, it's mutually contradictory. And so this is what John is putting forth. This is the gospel. We're preaching Christ crucified, so there's no soft peddling this. If you hold up John 3-6, 1 John 3-6, to our perpetual, habitual sin, I suggest to you that 1 John 3-6 presents as chilling of a challenge to our spiritual life as any verse in the whole Bible. No one will either know me, and no one will live in him who will know him if they keep sinning.

So what sin in your life is currently reigning? Now is the time to destroy the works of the devil. In many ways, this passage and this whole study is to have us consider, perhaps reconsider, a sin in your life which has a stronghold. And I want you to consider that stronghold sin, and what the Apostle John is asking us to believe, and that is Jesus came to destroy it. To destroy it. You first have to believe that. I gotta tell you, until I began to believe, I truly believe that Jesus was manifest to destroy sin in my life, I never made progress, particularly over the strongholds in my life. I just thought it's just been a part of me since the beginning. It's a stronghold, and somehow, somehow, I have to allow myself to be defeated by it forever. And I had to get to these words that John is putting forth here, and believe Jesus for the purpose he came.

In verse 7, verse 7 here, little children, let no one deceive you. So there were those putting forth a false gospel, he who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous.

So we have to destroy these works that will allow us to then usher in this realm of righteousness that he speaks of here. So the summary of John's argument, verse 3 through 7, is if you have hope in him, then we must dedicate ourselves to allowing him to destroy all the works of the devil in our lives. All right, deep breath as we come to verse 8. I've got bad news for you. You would almost think at this point John would now let him off the hook a little bit, but rather, John in verse 8 is going to turn the screws a little bit more here. He's going to ratchet it up. He's going to push the pedal down even further here. Verse 8, look at this dramatic statement. If it hasn't been dramatic enough, John says, verse 8, He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of Man was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Stop there. So he who sins is of the devil. Very straightforward, very direct. Let's have it say what it says, right? Simply stated, it's the characteristic work of the devil to sin, and all those who are in habitual sin and conceding to it in those moments, they declare themselves to belong to the devil. So how we live will be evidence of who we give our allegiance to, whether we belong to God or whether we belong to the devil. It's an incredibly dreadful statement here.

I told you it was difficult, a difficult study here.

But John points out something important that will help us in our endeavor here, and that's in verse 8. This has helped me. I want to pass this thinking and this technique on to you. Verse 8 again, there. John points up the fact that sin can be traced all the way back to the devil. Verse 8, He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. Note that statement, from the beginning. The devil has sinned from the beginning. Here's an important technique to get through us, not only believing what Christ came to do, believing that, that He came to destroy the works of the devil, but this also is an important statement. The devil has sinned from the beginning. He is the source of all sin. And I think John makes this statement here because sometimes we're tempted to trace the origins of our personal sin back to someone or back to something else other than the devil. And if we do that, we will never grasp ahold of a critical truth to actually deal with the sin in our lives. To our young people, to our young people, I'll start with you first, they will say, my friends are a bunch of horrible, what a horrible group, you know. And I behave in this way. I miss the mark with God's way because my friends are horrible if you knew them, you know. So you see what they're doing? They're tracing their own personal sin back to and assigning it to someone or something other than the originator, which is Satan the devil. What I did for many years, and perhaps you'll relate, I had a traumatic event happen in my life when I was a kid, right? I didn't deserve it. I was young, traumatic, trauma. And since that time, I struggled with particular sins. It was a vulnerability, a weakness created in me as a child. And I just brought that, I buried it for a while, but I brought it into my adulthood. And I never dealt with it. So how I dealt with it was to manifest that hurt and that weakness, that trial that occurred into sin in my adulthood. And I conceded to it because I was assigning it back to an individual or a circumstance that happened in my life early on. This is why I am missing the mark in sinning in this way today, because this happened to me back then.

Perhaps you can relate to that. And it is true. It's a true statement. That it was created in me, that weakness. And I get it. At some point, at some point, I had to step up to my belief that Christ came to destroy it, and I had to believe that he came to destroy it. And at some point, I had to assign the sin that I was engaged in back to the original source, which was Satan the Devil. And it wasn't those individuals. It wasn't that circumstance. Satan got a hold of them. They were just passing it on to me. But if you go back far enough, I needed to assign it to the devil before I could ever start the process of destroying it in my life. Very, very important. Very, very important. Believing that Christ came to destroy that which the devil brought into my life in my early ages.

Ultimately, we trace sin back to the source and the one who sins from the beginning, Satan the Devil.

So I can't simply say, well, you know, in response to this call to destroy, oh well, you know, this happened to me then. I had this weakness towards sin. No, for the child of God, just know that the one who's abiding in you and with you came to destroy the works of the devil. Not some, but all of them. And particularly those sinful strongholds that have been in our life, sometimes for many years. And so if he came to destroy the works of the devil in your life, would you believe him and would you join him in fulfilling that purpose? This is the purpose that the Son of God was manifested here, as we see in verse 8. And so, acknowledgement, understanding, belief, placing the sin in the proper context of who we are and how sin and Christ, the one we're hoping in, they're in direct opposition to one another. So you have all these, you're placing it in your mind in the correct posture and position.

And then we get to verse 9, which then should empower the Son or Daughter of God and give us the understanding, the means by which the destruction of sin can come, ultimately. Verse 9 comes, and he says, whoever has been born of God does not sin, for his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he has been born of God. Again, we know the ultimate fulfillment of sinlessness will come when we're born into the spiritual family of God. We acknowledge that, but we also acknowledge today, called children of God, with Christ abiding in them, they can fight sin on this spiritual plane, and thereby today we can have victory over sin. Today. And so John introduces his readers to the devil in verse 8, and then he introduces them to the victor in verse 9, and that's Jesus Christ. Also acknowledge this is a supernatural battle. I knew the roots of sin were so deep in me. I needed to acknowledge that this was going to be it. This was supernatural. I wasn't going to be able to overcome this oven by my own means, and so I needed to access. I needed to fight this war on the spiritual plane, and I realized all these demands of destroying the works of the devil in our life. They are only achievable by the one who lives in us, the victor, who's already destroyed the works of the devil. And he refers to the seed here. That's the power of the Holy Spirit today for us, and we are to reach for this power in a greater way, and ask God to help us overcome it. So as chilling as verse 8 is, we realize that verse 9 introduces us to victory. Victory!

So, as we begin to conclude today, I just want to tell you unequivocally, unequivocally to everyone here, you are not the child of the devil. You are the child of God, and therefore, step up to that identity. Step up to that identity. We have the power, the Holy Spirit of the One, who's already defeated the devil. We have that same power, and we need to understand that in his death and resurrection, he's already ultimately dethroned Satan in our lives today. And as a child of God, with the power of the Holy Spirit, you're enabled to destroy more and more of the works of the devil. So let's this year all come together. Call upon that transformational power of the Holy Spirit, that which makes all that John is calling for possible. Believe Christ will do that in your lives. Bow to God with full desire. Ask him to take away your sin, and he will do so. So let's individually and collectively destroy the works of the devil.