Those Who Practice Righteousness

October 12, 2025|Those Who Practice Righteousness|1 John 3:4-10

John-Daniel Cutler

Click here for sermon audio

In our study of 1st John we have reached the middle of the letter as we get into chapter 3. Last week we saw that John begins a new section at the end of what we call chapter 2 of this letter addressing the children of God. Now, the most important question you can ask yourself, is whether or not that applies to you. Do you fall into that category as one who has been born of God? Are you a child of God?

John says that the world at large and those in it do not know God and they do not know those who are children of God. He also says that Jesus is returning and when he does those who are his will be like Him. He call this our hope. Arguably, you cannot have that hope of being like him if you are not sure if you belong to him, and since the statistic for death is still at 100% of us will die if Jesus tarries or we will, in the twinkling of an eye be face to face with him when he returns, it is an important thing to know what will happen when you see him face to face.

For the child of God, John, beginning in verse 28 of chapter 2, the apostle draws our hearts upward to consider the greatness of God’s love in that he has adopted us as his children, he reminds us that righteousness is the evidence of those who have been born of him, and that our future hope of being like him ought to spur us on to live in light of his return, striving for purity in our lives seen in the statement he makes in verse 3. "And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” I made the statement towards the close of our time last week that I believe John is essentially saying that, if we possess the hope of being with Christ and like Christ in the future, we should display the fruit of being with him in the present.

That statement, I think sums up John’s emphasis in this section of his letter.

The children of God ought to live lives that are manifestly different than those who do not have the same hope. That is that there is a way to know whether we are a child of God or not.

...if we possess the hope of being with Christ and like Christ in the future, we should display the fruit of being with him in the present.

While there are perhaps many ways we could articulate that difference, the main way that John addresses it in these verses is in terms of those who make a practice of sinning verses those who practice righteousness.

I will remind you that towards the beginning of us looking at the letter of 1st John we talked about its intensity.

Although it is written in a simple greek style and is pretty straightforward in terms of writing style, it is one of the more intense letters in the New Testament epistles. The late John MacArthur, in speaking about this letter says it can almost suffocate us at points with its intensity.

Truly, from time to time it does seems that John’s words suck the oxygen out of the room.

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

4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Even believing faithful Christians can find themselves taken back by John’s powerful statements.

(what if I sin, what is I don’t keep his commandments, what if I find in my heart love for the world)

I bring that up today, because the verses we are looking at today have that kind of weight.

Taken in isolation they can feel like they are going to crush us.

It is tempting to try and quickly try to get out from under that weight by thinking, John didn’t really mean that, or to desperately scan back in 1 John or quickly look forward in the letter, looking for relief.

I think this is mistake. I think John wants us to sit with the weight of what he is saying.

Here is my encouragement to you this morning as we go through these verses.

Embrace the heaviness, sit with the weight, wrestle with the implications. Just like any muscle, we grow when we encounter resistance, when we go through difficulty, not when we avoid it.

We find out what we are made of by enduring not escaping.

Lean in, listen closely, and allow God to use the living word, a scalpel in the hands of the Holy Spirit, to probe your heart and life, knowing that it is through this sometimes painful process that God shows us his truth. As we turn to our text today, John continues addressing the evidence that we are children of God by reminding us of why Christ came, of the evidence of our abiding in Him, and a reminder that that evidence is not merely an internal reality but external evidence that can be observed.

If you haven’t already, open your Bibles to 1 John chapter 3, we will pick up in verse 4. 1 John chapter 3, at verse 4.

1 John 3:4–10 (ESV)

4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 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. 9 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. 10 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.

In our text today I see three main ideas that John calls our attention to.

The sinless Savior. The deceitful confession. The clear evidence.

Let’s turn our attention first to…

I. THE SINLESS SAVIOR

Before we can rightly understand the statement, and in him there is no sin, we have to rightly understand sin.

John begins in verse 4 getting to the heart of sin, but also mirroring his last statement in verse 3. There he says, 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”, now he says “4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.”.

Here John again draws on contrasting ideas that he has been using so far in his letter.

Light and dark, death and life, love and hate.

Here the contrast is purity and lawlessness. You will remember that purity here carries the idea of ceremonially cleansing, used metaphorically of moral purity. The Israelites were called to purify themselves because of their uncleanness as a result of violating divine commands.

It is no surprise then that John contrasts purifying with lawlessness.

Lawlessness is literally a violation of law, or more fully a contempt and violation of law. It is intentionally violating the law without regard to the law or the lawgiver.

When we talk about sin, the most common definition given is what? That sin is missing the mark. We draw on its usage in archery to define sin. And while that can be helpful, in a way, that may inadvertently soften the idea of sin. Right? If we miss the bullseye in archery, we can still have a good shot, can’t we? For our bow hunters, you can miss the exact spot you are aiming at and still drop the deer.

But, John doesn’t give us that wiggle room, he says, sin is lawlessness. Sin is a violation of the divine law. Sin is rebellion against a thrice holy God. Therefore John can say, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. A life of sin is a life of lawlessness. And it’s not as though John is alone in defining sin as lawlessness.

Jesus says in Matthew 7, 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Paul drawing distinctions between believers and unbelievers in 2 Corinthians 6 says, 14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”

So we have a problem, don’t we?

The Bible says in Romans 3:23 “23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” We have all practiced lawlessness, we all are by nature, unrighteous, which Paul reminds us in 1st Corinthians, will not inherit the kingdom of God. If we were to stand before a just and holy God as we are apart from any divine intervention, we would all hear, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

No one is righteous, no, not one.

With one exception. The God-man, Christ Jesus.

John says, in him there is no sin. Not only did he not inherit the sin nature from Adam because of his miraculous nature, he perfectly followed the law of God.

Not once did Jesus rebel against his Father’s will or decrees, he perfectly submitted himself to the Father in truth and in love. He was the only one who has lived who did not deserve to die, and yet, John says he appeared, he was manifest, he came into the world he created, to take away sins.

Take away sins in what way?

John has already established that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. He is the one who stands between the just and holy wrath of God against sins as both the mediator of a better covenant and the righteous sacrificial atonement. He is the reason those we confess their sins can be forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness. He also redeemed us from under the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. He is said to have set us free from the enslavement of sin. He who was without sin, became sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God. This is the great exchange that we talked about on Wednesday night.

John begins there, he says you know- that he appeared in order to take away sins. There is a definite article here, so that we should read it ‘the sins’. In order means that his appearance had a purpose, had an end or a goal. He came to take away the sins. Furthermore, John reminds us why he could do that, you know that in him there is no sin (singular) not even one. Not there was no sin, but there is no sin. Jesus Christ is and will always be the sinless lamb of God. You know that, John says. So you ought to know that no one who abides in him keeps on sinning. There is an incompatibility here. In Jesus there is no sin, so that it follows that those who are in him should not keep on sinning. In fact, John presses harder into the idea, he says, no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

Seen him is in the perfect tense, indicating something that has been completed in the past. He says, you have not seen him, normally this verb is used in the sense of physical seeing, but here I think the idea is you have not understood who he is, you have not seen Jesus for who he is, indeed, whatever you may think you know about him, you do not know him. How similar is the language here than that of what Jesus says in Matthew 7 to those who say, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I (Jesus says) declare to them, ‘I never knew you;

If you have seen the sinless savior, if you understand who Jesus is and you look at him truly as he is, upon the cruel Roman cross, bearing your sins in his flesh, John says you will not keep on sinning. Here, at least I can testify of my own heart, encountering John’s difficult words here, I can begin to feel a panic or a hopelessness rising up.

How can John say that?

What does he mean ‘no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him’?

This is the weight I was talking about in the beginning. Jesus Christ is the sinless savior, completely righteous, perfectly holy. The more fully we see him as he is, the more the weight of our sin feels.

And yet, John presses on.

Let us turn our attention to the…

II. THE DECEITFUL CONFESSION

Little children, he says. Here John gives his readers a moment to breathe.

He still calls them little children.

He still addresses them with love and concern.

He is no doubt, seriously addressing them, but he wants them to know that it is from a place of love and fatherly concern.

As earthly fathers, when we have had to discipline our kids, we know this feeling. We in no way want to minimize the seriousness of their disobedience, but we also want to look them in the eyes and reaffirm our love for them. Godly fathers want to connect love and discipline, care and correction.

John is concerned that these men and women that he cares for deeply have those who are trying to deceive them. We have talked about these false teachers many times over the last nine weeks but in essence it seems they are teaching that what we do in the body does not matter, as long as we are spiritual. That there is a separation between the spirit and the material and one does not affect the other. John says, please do not let anyone deceive you, whoever practices righteousness is righteous. If it wasn’t for that little addition, as he is righteous, we might get to define righteousness as good enough, or close enough, but John says our standard of righteousness is Christ himself, the sinless lamb of God. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous. The idea of righteousness is to live uprightly, to keep the commands of God.

On the opposite side John says.

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is what? Of the devil.

Out of or from the devil, who John says had been sinning from the beginning. While the scripture does not give us an exact moment that Satan began sinning and fell, we know that somewhere between God pronouncing everything that he had created being good and Satan’s temptation of Eve in the garden, Satan had sinned.

This is what I think John means by from the beginning. Satan was the first sinner, the first one to rebel against God’s righteous law and person. His first recorded act then is coming to Eve and causing her and Adam to violate God’s command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In that moment, the moment they believed Satan and doubted God they displayed that they were capable of being like him.

So John says, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. They are willful rebels against a holy God. Returning once more to the appearance of Christ, he again reiterates, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. To overthrow, to do away with the works- the result of the devil’s work in deceiving Adam and Eve, resulting in their fall and separation from God. Jesus is the glorious answer to the insurmountable problem that began in the garden and that has plagued man from then on. Sin separates us from God.

John’s application seems to be this.

Christ appeared to break the power of sin, to pay the price for sins, and to reconcile us to the Father, how can you continue practicing what Jesus came to deal with and still claim to belong to Him?

No, he says, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning.

No one born of God.

This is a phrase found throughout both the gospel and this epistle of John describing God conferring upon men that nature and disposition of his sons, imparting to them spiritual life.

It no doubt comes from Jesus’ own words when he tells Nicodemus John 3:3“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John refers to this experience of being born of God six times in this letter, the first of which from our text last week when he says 1 John 2:29 (ESV) 29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

What is the difference between one who is born of God and one who is not?

God’s seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.

The idea of cannot here is literally, he is not able to, he does not possess the power to. Some see God’s seed as the gospel truth, others the presence of the Spirit in the lives of the believer.

Either way we take it, the idea is that being born of God involves receiving something altogether outside of ourselves. It is the implanted word as James calls it in James 1:21 “21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

It is the seed that will one day bring forth a complete child of God when we see him as he is and we are transformed into his image, fully and finally.

While we are not what we will be, as John previously said, when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

No one who possesses this gracious gift from God will make a practice of sinning, for he cannot keep on sinning, and anyone that says differently or teaches others differently John says is trying to deceive you. If someone says they belong to God and they make a practice of sinning, they prove no matter their confession that they have not seen or known Christ, that they are of the devil, and they are not born again, and they do not possess the seed of God. As we turn to our last division, we want to explore this evidence more fully as we look at…

III. THE CLEAR EVIDENCE

Let’s go back to verse 10. 1 John 3:10 “10 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.”

By this it is evident- is John’s way of saying, what follows this statement is how you can judge those who claim to be of God. Here John summarizes what he has been saying throughout this section.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, and therefore they are not children of God, but children of the devil. Nor John says is one who does not love his brother.

Beginning immediately after our verses this morning and continuing throughout chapter 4 John is going to devote much time to the idea of love, but for now he adds it as the evidence that someone is a child of God, they will love his other children with whom they share a father.

Since it has consumed so much of our time this morning, I want to focus in on the first portion of the evidence John says is the way we can know a child of God from a child of the devil.

As we have said, John is summarizing everything he has said so far concerning the practice of sinning or lawlessness and the practice of righteousness.

When he says by this it is evident, the word he uses is tied to the word appeared or manifested that he has used previously. In other words, the way that you will know that someone belongs to God or to the devil is whether or not they practice righteousness.

Being such a weighty and central evidence of sonship, I want to spend our remaining time seeking to understand this principle.

The word translated practice in English is the idea of what one does. More specifically in the way John uses it in what one performs or accomplishes.

Now, we have a couple of options in understanding John.

One. He is teaching that once we come to Christ we are now sinless.

Two. He is teaching that once we come to Christ we no longer intentionally sin.

Three. He is teaching that even after we come to Christ, we may sin, but we do not habitually sin or take delight in it when we do.

Now, I think we can clearly set aside the first option by now bringing in what John has previously said. 1 John 1:8–10 “8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” 1 John 2:1 “1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

That leaves us two options. To say that we never intentionally sin, is to, for at least my own experience, to put me in a place where I have to either redefine sin or redefine intentionally. I know that much of the sin I commit in my life is not accidental or sins of omission. Unless I am the only one who still finds myself falling short of God’s standards, I think that we are left with the third.

Those born of God, who possess the hope of one day being fully set free from sin, who have seen and know Christ, both his sinless perfection and the price he paid as the propitiation, will not have the same relationship with sin. Our lives will not be characterized by sin, it will not be normative for us to live in ongoing, impenitent sin. To say it another way, we will not be comfortable in sin, because we are no longer slaves to it, we are no longer dead to righteousness, but we have been given new life in Christ. Our desire will be to live uprightly, to keep the commands of God, to live in such a way that we are pleasing to our Father and actively being conformed to the image of our Lord.

We will not throw our hands up and say, well, we are all sinners. When we sin, we will fall on our face, confess our sin, seeking to daily deny ourselves, fighting the flesh and the temptations of the world. We will resist going back into the bondage of sin.

The clearest evidence that someone is a child of God is their relationship with sin.

On the other hand, we will not just hate sin, we will love righteousness. We will want to obey God’s word. We will take pleasure in the things that please God, we will actively pursue the things that God desires and commands of us.

The clearest evidence that someone is a child of God is their relationship with sin. Will we be perfect? Not this side of heaven. Will we sin? This side of heaven we will.

But will we live in unrepentant sin, willfully rejecting the commands of our Father in Heaven? Absolutely not. We cannot. The Spirit that dwells in the believer will not allow it.

The Apostle Paul, in Romans 8 spends a considerable amount of time describing the difference between someone in the flesh and someone who has the Spirit of God in them. The one in the flesh cannot submit to God’s law because it is dead, but the one who has the Spirit is alive and we have been empowered by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the body and live. We have been empowered to fight sin, not falling back into slavery but longing for the true freedom from sin and death we will experience in Christ at his return, which Paul reminds us is our destined end when he says. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, as Paul says in Ephesians 1:14. What is the evidence that we belong to God? We have his Spirit within us. What is the evidence that we have His Spirit within us? We do not makes a practice of sinning or keep on sinning.

The evidence that we have the Spirit is not that we enjoy worship, it is not that we have a warm fuzzy feeling, its that we hate sin and love righteousness. We do not live in habitually impenitent sin, but rather when we sin, we repent and confess our sin so that we can be cleansed of all unrighteousness.

Here is where I want to land this morning.

Sin is lawlessness, and we know that no one who practices lawlessness has been born of God, and everyone who practices righteousness is of God. John has clearly drawn a distinction between those who belong to God and those who do not.

As you think about the weight of his words, if you look back over your life, this week, this month, this year, do you find clear evidence that you belong to God?

First, when you have sinned, when you have failed to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, when you have failed to love your neighbor as yourself, which Jesus says hangs all the law, are you okay with that? Does it bother you? Do you regularly confess your sin? Does it break your heart? Or are you able to carry on with life without any concern? What is your relationship with sin?

Second, how important is obeying God in your life? How often do you consider what God desires or commands and then spend your energy and time pursuing what pleases the Father? Is your life consumed with thinking about fulfilling your desires and doing what pleases you or with what God desires and what would please Him? When you examine the rhythms of your life, do you find clear evidences that God is first in your life, that pleasing him is your priority, or do you find someone or something else occupying that place in your life?

I believe John wrote primarily so that his readers would be able to clearly see who these false teachers were, and so can we, but I also believe that secondary to that, what John wrote was an invitation for his hearers to ensure that their faith was more than a profession but a genuine possession. That they might evaluate themselves and having found clear evidence that they belong to God, that they might be encouraged and assured in their faith. But if they did not find such evidence, they would genuinely repent and place their faith in a risen savior.

If that is you, if you know that the evidence of your life would indicate that you do not belong to him, let me encourage you to look to the savior. That you would see Him as he is, the eternal son of God, who took on humanity so that he might live the sinless life you and I never could, and having lived it perfectly, willingly allowed himself to bear the weight of our sins. See him as they beat him, as the mock him, as they drive him outside the city and nail him to a cross, see as they lift him up and continue mocking him, until he had endured more agony than any man in history has or will endure, bearing the full weight of the just wrath of God against sin, see him as he commits his spirit into the hands of the Father. See him now, risen, unable to be held by death, ascending into the heavens to sit at the right hand of God, having completed his purpose to take away sin and destroy the wicked work of the devil. See him now, pierced hands and scarred side, crowned with honor and glory interceding for those who belong to Him.

See him and fall on your face before him placing your trust and hope in him and him alone for forgiveness of your sins. Faith in Jesus is the only way to be born of God. This is what John wanted us to see, may we see it today.

Let us pray.