Friday, March 7, 2008

The First Epistle of John: Lesson Twenty-Nine

"For He made Him who knew no sin




to be sin for us, that we




might become the




righteousness of God in Him."








2 Cor 5:21








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Let's seek the Lord this day...








"Holy Father, today as we look in scripture about how You gave us Your Son, the perfect sacrifice, as the Lamb so that we may have eternal life, please make our hearts full of gratefulness and love for You. It is good that You gave us this story so that we can know completely what it was that You have done for us: gave us Yourself so that we may become the righteousness of God.








Lord, because I sin, I pray that You will forgive me of my sins and wash me clean. I know that I am no longer a slave to sin, but yet I continue to sin. I pray that You will create in me a clean pure heart like Yours.








I lift up each lady reading this study to you today. I pray for her walk with You. May You bless her with every spiritual blessing and encourage her. Fill her with Your wisdom and understanding.








In Jesus' name...amen."








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Sin is the main topic of 1 John chapter 3. In today's lesson, we will delve deeper into what sin does and what Jesus had to do in order to make us reconciled with God. As we read this lesson, pray that the Lord will speak to our hearts this Resurrection Season and prepare us to worship Him on Resurrection Sunday.








1 John 3: 5








"And you know He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin."












Conviction








When I was a bailiff, I had the chance to witness many sentencings of criminals from all walks of life. I even had to "babysit" a woman's young children as the Judge sentenced her to probation. Her infant son spit up on my silk blouse!








Sometimes it was easy watching the sentencing because the person heading to prison was guilty and it was a good thing for this person to be off the streets. Other times it was hard because the person's children were watching.








I often wondered what it must have been like to be caught and convicted of a crime. So, when I taught in the prison, I asked some of the women what it felt like to be caught by the police and put in prison.








Most of them said one word: relief.








They were so tired of running and being scared of being caught that they felt relieved when they were caught because it was over. The hectic life of trying to hide and not get caught came to an end.








It was interesting to hear them put their experiences into those words.








Please read:








John 1:29




Rev 5:6-14




1 Pet 2:21-24







These ladies felt relief because they knew they were guilty. They knew they deserved to be stopped and punished for their crimes.




But our Lord Jesus was innocent. He was pure....sinless. Never did He committ any crimes against the Father or mankind. Yet He went to the cross for us and became sin on our account that we might know that relief from the guilt of our sins.




If you are a Christian....a follower of Christ....one of the evidences of your conversion is the attitude you have toward your sin and any sin.




Before your conversion, your sin was trivial and easily ignored or rationalized. Now that you are a new creation, your sin should haunt you and make you so uncomfortable that you confess it daily.




Matt 16:24




Just as Jesus did, we have to deny ourselves daily and that means denying our desires and anything that comes between us and the Lord.




John's purpose here is to remind us of these things. He knows that we, as sinful humans, will never....NEVER....search for a way to reconcile ourselves to the Lord. Our first instinct is to run and hide, just like those prison inmates I wrote about above. We will run and hide until we are found and caught. But we are not caught by people.....we are captured by the Holy Spirit, persuaded by the Spirit of Truth to stop.




As though we were ill, the Holy Spirit makes us finally see how badly we need the remedy. God doesn't want us to just feel guilty about our sins and ourselves, His purpose is to bring us to that point of despair to where all we can do about our sin is cry out, "What must I do to be saved?" (The Epistles of John, 2006, p. 124)




Acts 2:36-38




Acts 16:30




As the Lord stopped and convicted Saul on the road to Damascus, He stops us and blinds us to the world and our life before....then He, and only He, restores our sight and gives us our purpose.




Acts 9:1-16




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"And you know He was manifested to take away our sins....."




John wants to remind fellow believers of the Lord's purpose: to be the sacrifice for our sins.




Matt 1:21




Luke 1:31




JESUS...our Savior. The purpose for His manifestation, or appearing, was to save us from our sins. As Dr. Joel Beeke (The Epistles of John, 2006) stated:



"Because of the spotless Lamb of God, who paid for our sins in his own body on the accursed tree at Golgotha, God delights to cast our sins behind him into the sea of eternal forgetfulness" (p. 125)



God, in His infinite wisdom and knowledge, knew before He created all things, that the remedy for reconciling us to Him had to be equal to Himself or it would not satisfy His divine justice. Therefore, only He Himself could be that perfect and satisfying sacrifice if we were ever to be brought back to Him.



"..and in Him there is no sin."


Many people think this is unfair: that we are punished for sins that Adam and Eve committed and that Jesus, an innocent man, died for our sins.


But the Bible clearly tells us that Jesus and God are one, so it was God Himself who became the sacrifice for our sins....and Adam and Eve's sins affected all of creation until it is newly created again by the Lord.


Rom 8: 20-22


Ps 103:12


Rev 21:5


I love how our little church is located next to a small farm where sheep quietly graze each Sunday morning. Each Spring, we are witnesses to the little lambs walking along with their mothers as they eat the cook grass. These lambs are so cute! Their little tails wag behind them as they walk with their mothers. One cannot help but think about how each Jewish family kept a lamb in their home to prepare for the Passover meal. The lamb was treated as a pet and the children took care of it. But the little lamb was eventually sacrificed in remembrance of the Passover Feast. How hard it must have been for the family members to watch their little lamb die.


So, our perfect Savior became the Lamb of God....that staisfying divine justice:


Gen 22:7-8


2 Sam 12:1-4


Is 11:6


Is 53:7


1 Pet 1:17-19


Rev 5:12


Rev 12:11


Rev 13:8


Rev 19:9


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Life Application


"...knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold...." 1 Pet 1:18



There is comfort knowing that we were redeemed by God Himself through Himself. If we had been redeemed by perishable items, then we would not have eternal life. As we read further into chapter 3 of 1 John, we will learn more about the Christian and sin. There will be much soul searching involved as we realize that a True Christian cannot possibly continue in sinful living.


But as Christians, we have that eternal salvation because our sins were redeemed with Christ's perfect blood. This Resurrection Sunday, take time to reflect just how it was that Jesus suffered.


I remember the first time I saw The Passion of the Christ in theatres. It wasn't a great telling of Christ's crucifixion because the director took liberties with the gospel message, but I will never forget the brutal scene of Christ's scorging by the Romans soldiers.


The gospels do not elaborate on just how Jesus was beaten, instead the Lord let's us rely on historical fact about Roman methods of scorging. The film accurately portrays just how these professional soldiers made beatings a specialty.


To see the character of Christ being whipped and bloodied like that really had an impact on me. I am a visual person....I guess most artists are....so colors and images really affect me. All the blood pouring and the flesh ripping convicted me on the spot...and I wept.


Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and one of his most favorite works is death. No, he doesn't have control over who dies, but he so enjoys all the methods of death there are in this world.


I can only imagine how he was celebrating Christ's slow and painful death. And it was all done for us. Christ succeeded in defeating the devil's work once and for all when He rose again and walked out of that tomb victorious.


What a magnificent blessing our salvation truly is!


Take time today to seek the Lord in prayer and thank Him for walking up that lonely path to that beam of wood surrounded by Roman soldiers who were waiting to pierce his hands and feet. Thank Him for hanging there among enemies shouting hatred at His blood soaked face as His friends, the disciples, were nowhere to be found. Thank Him for hanging there in humiliation, among thieves even though He alone was innocent. Yet He remained.


But, most of all, thank Him for conquering death and rising out of that tomb so that we may pass from this life to the next and see His face in all its glory.


Yes, thank Him today.


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Until next time....



"The chief trials of Christ's virtue, and so most bright and eminent exercises, were in the abasement, labor, and suffering that He was subject of for our salvation. This certainly may well endear those virtues to us, and greatly engage us to imitate that example. So the things whereof this example consists were things by which we have infinite benefit, without which we should have been unspeakably miserable forever and ever, and by virtue of which we have the glorious privilege of the children of God, and have a full title to the crown of exceeding glory and pleasures forevermore at God's right hand."


-Jonathan Edwards 1703-1758 (Altogether Lovely, 1997, p. 195)


Blessings,


Ruth














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