Everyone Who Sins 1 John 3:4-6

Adapted from a Steve Shepherd sermon

http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/everyone-who-sins-steve-shepherd-sermon-on-sin-general-148969.asp

1 John 3:4 NET Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; indeed, sin is lawlessness. 5 And you know that Jesus

was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 Everyone who resides in him does not sin; everyone who sins has

neither seen him nor known him.

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until

you hear them speak.

People who know the most, know they know so little, while people who know

nothing want to take all day to tell it to you.

A man was visiting with a lady who showed some interest in becoming a Christian. He was using the "Roman Road" method to show her

the way to salvation. He hit a roadblock when he shared passages from Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3:10 NET just as it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one, 11 there is no one who understands, there is no one

who seeks God.

12 All have turned away, together they have become worthless; there is no one

who shows kindness, not even one." (Psalm 14:1-3) 13 "Their throats are open

graves, they deceive with their tongues, the poison of asps is under their lips."

(Psalm 5:9; Psalm 140:3)

14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." (Psalm 10:7) 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood, 16 ruin and misery

are in their paths, 17 and the way of peace they have not known." (Isaiah 59:7-8) 18 "There is no fear of God before their

eyes." (Psalm 36:1)

At this she protests, "That sure doesn't describe me! It's not talking about me at all!

I'm not a sinner!"“Let's look a few verses down.”

Romans 3:23 NET for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

"Jesus only died for sinners. God can’t save you until you become conscious that you

are a no-good sinner and need His forgiveness.”

The man decides to take another avenue to get his point across. He turns to 2 Timothy

3:16 NET Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for

correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work."Will you accept these two verses as being

true?"

"Yes, I believe the Bible is from God & I'm sure it is good for doing the things it says

here.""Then you agree, There is no one

righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who

seeks God. All have turned away, together they have become worthless;

there is no one who shows kindness, not even one, are words inspired by God.

So each time it says no one & all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God that

includes me & you. We all are no-good sinners!“ She replied, “But you don’t

understand. I’m really not a bad sinner. I’m a good sinner.”

“A good sinner! Lady, there are no good sinners.“ Finally she looked him in the eyes and said, “Oh, please forgive me. I know I am a no-good hell-deserving sinner. I am a proud, no-good sinner. I do need Christ to

forgive me of my sins.”

“Wonderful! Now, lady, you are ready to do business with God.”

NO ONE CAN DO BUSINESS WITH GOD UNTIL THEY ARE WILLING TO CONFESS

THEIR SINFULNESS TO HIM!

Luke 18:13 NET The tax collector, however, stood far off and would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God,

be merciful to me, sinner that I am!'

1 John 1:9 NET But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our

sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.

Daniel Webster, the famous American politician and orator, once spent a summer in New Hampshire, and every Lord’s Day

went to a little country church morning and evening. His niece asked him why he went

there, when he paid little attention to far abler sermons in Washington.

He replied: “In Washington they preach to Daniel Webster, the statesman, but this

man has been telling Daniel Webster, the sinner, of Jesus of Nazareth.”

That’s the right attitude to have. It’s called humility.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

1 Peter 5:5 NET In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility

toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

(Pro. 3:34)

Sin: most either love it or leave it. God calls us to leave it behind

with His help.

What happens when a person sins? That is, what happens from God’s

perspective, since He is the one who counts most of all. Our text gives us God’s mind on

the subject of sin.

1- Everyone who sins breaks the law2- Everyone who sins needs a sinless savior3- Everyone who sins and keeps on sinning does not know Him

EVERYONE WHO SINS BREAKS THE LAW

1 John 3:4 NET Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; indeed, sin is

lawlessness.A poll of 5,000 students concluded that 46

percent of them would cheat on an important test. Thirty-six percent said they would cover for a friend who vandalized school property, while only 24 percent

would tell the truth.

Five percent said they would steal money from their parents if given the opportunity.

Truth be told, I bet it’s worse today because this was an old poll taken nearly 20 years

ago. People break the law in many different

ways. In fact, there are hundreds of ways to break

the law and people do it. Sin is also a matter of breaking the law.

When we sin, however, we may not always break the law of the land but we will most

certainly break God’s law.

Again, this is why God gave man His law...so he would know that he had sinned against God. All sin is against the law of

God.

The two great commandments that Jesus gave are what?

Matthew 22:36 NET "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"

37 Jesus said to him, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all

your soul, and with all your mind.' (Due 6:5) 38 This is the first and greatest

commandment. 39 The second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (Lev

19:18) 40 All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

Any time we sin we will break one of these two great commandments and probably

both.

For example, Bernie Madoff broke both of these commandments by stealing billions of

dollars from people. He broke God’s law that says, “Thou shalt not steal.” By stealing he showed that he did not love God nor did

he love his fellow man. HE IS GUILTY ON BOTH COUNTS.

Imagine all the obstacles a person might have to overcome if he were to walk from New York City to San Francisco. One man who accomplished this rare achievement

mentioned a rather surprising difficulty when asked to tell of his biggest hurdle.

He said that the toughest part of the trip wasn't traversing the steep slopes of the mountains or crossing hot, dry, barren

stretches of desert. Instead, he said, "The thing that came the closest to defeating me

was the sand in my shoes."

Sometimes it’s the small things that get to a person the most. It’s those small, nagging sins that trip us up the most. And when we

sin, we all have broken God’s law.

"What's wrong with the world?" a newspaper editorial once asked.

G.K. Chesterton wrote in reply, "I am."

ME TOO.

EVERYONE WHO SINS NEEDS A SINLESS SAVIOR

5 And you know that Jesus was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

Ezekiel 18:4 NET Indeed! All lives are mine — the life of the father as well as the life of the son is mine. The one who sins will die.Romans 6:23 NET For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in

Christ Jesus our Lord.

Talk about hot water, this is far worse! Because we have sinned, we deserve to die! Most people don’t think it’s so bad to

sin. In fact, many people brush off sin as no big deal.

What is sin? Someone said it like this.Man calls it an accident, God calls it abomination.

Man calls it a defect, God calls it a disease.Man calls it an error, God calls it an enmity.

Man calls it a liberty, God calls it lawlessness.

Man calls it a trifle, God calls it a tragedy.Man calls it a mistake, God calls it a madness.

Man calls it a weakness, God calls it willfulness.

Many people like to call sin by other names, which makes it less harmful or damaging.

Sidney J. Harris, American journalist, once said: Once we assuage our conscience by

calling something a "necessary evil," it begins to look more and more necessary

and less and less evil.A man purchased a white mouse to use as

food for his pet snake. He dropped the unsuspecting mouse into the snake's glass cage, where the snake was sleeping in a

bed of sawdust.

The tiny mouse had a serious problem on his hands. At any moment he could be swallowed alive. Obviously, the mouse needed to come up with a brilliant plan.

What did the terrified creature do? He quickly set up work covering the snake with sawdust until it was completely buried. With that, the mouse apparently thought he had

solved his problem.

The solution, however, came from outside. The man took pity on the silly little mouse

and removed him from the cage. No matter how hard we try to cover or deny our sinful nature, it's a fool's work. Sin will eventually awake from sleep and shake off its cover.

Were it not for the saving grace of the Master's hand, sin would eat us alive.

Because we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, we need help! WE NEED A SAVIOR. There is no way that we can save ourselves or make up for our sin. There is no amount of good deeds that we can do to make up for our sins. We need a

perfect Savior to pay the price.

Hebrews 4:15 NET For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet

without sin.2 Corinthians 5:21 NET God made the one

who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the

righteousness of God. 1 Peter 2:22 NET He committed no sin

nor was deceit found in his mouth. (Isa. 53:9)

I’ve met some really good men in my time, but none that could pay the penalty for my sins. None that could and none that would,

except Jesus.

1 Peter 2:24 NET He himself bore our sins (Isa. 53:4; 53:12) in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you were

healed. (Isa. 53:5)

EVERYONE WHO SINS AND KEEPS ON SINNING

DOES NOT KNOW HIM6 Everyone who resides in him does not sin; everyone who sins has neither seen

him nor known him.

How can this be? If I mess up & commit a sin is my name erased from the book? I love Jesus…but I made a mistake! Does that mistake nullify my relationship with Him? Let’s review a couple verses we

studied a few weeks ago.

1 John 2:1 NET (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 One, 2 and he himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins but also for the whole world.

John does not teach that believers do not sin, but is speaking of a character, a habit. Throughout the Epistle he deals with the

ideal reality of life in God, in which the love of God and sin exclude each other as light

and darkness. (VWS)

Sin must be paid for and Christ did that for us! Thank God the price has been paid!

Thank God He sent Jesus to save us! And thank God Jesus is still our lawyer,

speaking on our behalf whenever we sin! Here’s the CEV translation.

1 John 3:6 CEV and people who stay one in their hearts with him won’t keep on sinning. If they do keep on sinning, they don’t know

Christ, and they have never seen him.

Take a look at verse 6 in The Message. 1 John 3:6 MSG No one who lives deeply in

Christ makes a practice of sin. None of those who do practice sin have taken a good look at Christ. They've got him all

backwards.

Don’t the phrases keep on sinning & makes a practice of sin convey the thought of

being a habitual sinner?

When the teacher asked in what part of the world the most ignorant people were to be found, a small boy volunteered quickly, “In New York.” The teacher was amazed and

asked the boy how he obtained his information. “Well,” he replied, “the

geography says that's where the population is the most dense.”

There are definitely more ignorant people in New York than in most places because

there are more people in New York!

Will Rogers once said, “Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”

This is very true but there is one area of life where man can’t afford to be ignorant and

that’s about God!

A famous billionaire was asked one time, “What about death? Don’t you worry about

dying?” The billionaire said, “No. I’m fatalistic and I protect myself as well as

anybody can. I prepare for things.”

(Fatalism is the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually

do. I guess, what will be, will be.) As the billionaire started walking up the stairs to have dinner with his family, he hesitated for a moment. “No,” he said finally, “I don’t believe in reincarnation, heaven or hell—but we go someplace.”

Again a pause, “Do you know,” he added, “I cannot, for the life of me, figure out where.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11 NET God has made everything fit beautifully in its appropriate time, but he has also placed ignorance in the human heart so that people cannot

discover what God has ordained, from the beginning to the end of their lives.

Some years ago (1988), Orel Hershiser was pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers. They

had just won the World Series. And Orel had been named the Most Valuable Player.

One of the TV shows about the series showed him in the dugout just before the

9th inning started. He was leaning against the wall. And his lips were moving.

So when he was a guest on the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson asked him what he

had been saying. "I wasn’t saying anything," Orel responded. "Well, then, tell us what

you were doing." Finally Orel replied, "I was singing." Johnny said, "You were singing? I didn’t know you were a singer. Come on, let’s here it!" And Orel said, "Nah. I don’t want to." And the audience clapped and

said, "Yeah! Let’s hear it!"

Finally, Orel Hershiser started to sing: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise him above Ye heavenly host. Praise Father,

Son and Holy Ghost!”

Johnny Carson was speechless. Johnny Carson didn’t get it. He didn’t understand.

Just like so many people.

People who continue to live in sin (whatever their sin is) know not. They know not the

true and living God and they know not His truth. The older I grow, the more I want to

know Him who created me and saved me.

HOW ABOUT YOU?

1- Everyone who sins breaks the law2- Everyone who sins needs a sinless savior3- Everyone who sins and keeps on sinning does not know Him

Do you get the idea that sin is our problem? It’s always been our problem. Sin separates

us from God. Sin destroys people’s lives, marriages, families, etc.

There is only one answer for sin: The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

He alone is our sin-bearer and Savior.