Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Choices… we love the power of choice but oh my, it can really cause both us and others many problems, have you found that to be true?
The past two days we’ve been looking at a very significant issue with the apostle Peter as he is writing his second chapter of his second letter found in the Bible. The issue Peter addresses is prevalent in every society of the world, every generation, all the way back to when Peter was writing in about 67ad. In fact, the apostles Paul and John address this problem issue also. What issue? It’s the troubling reality that Christians choose to sin even after they have received their salvation from God! Here’s the question: How can people who have trusted Jesus Christ to be their Savior, who are adopted by God into His family and have experienced the transforming work of God in their lives, then choose to return again to their sinful lifestyles, resisting the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives and yielding to the temptations of the devil?
And here’s an even bigger question you may have heard: If someone does this, do they also lose their salvation in the process, are they expelled out of the family of God? Or, does their behavior tell us they were never an authentic born again Christian to begin with? Or, is there some other explanation?
The apostle John addressed this issue in this way: “Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The person who does what is right is righteous, just as He [Jesus] is righteous. The person who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God.)
A few months ago, in our “Walking with Jesus” journey, we spent several weeks with the apostle John seeking to understand this powerful little letter. Several times in 1 John, the disciple John, who was a dear friend of Jesus, deals with this question of the legitimacy of a person’s salvation and relationship with Jesus the Son of God, IF they continue to live in unrepentant, sinful, rebellion against God.
John’s conclusion is that if a person has authentically been transformed by God through their being redeemed by the atonement death of Jesus, and if they’ve been “born again” by the Holy Spirit of God, they are, as Paul says, “a new creation in Christ, the old has gone and the new has come, and all this is from God.” (2 Cor. 5:17,18) John is the one who tells us that Nicodemus the Pharisee came to see Jesus and Jesus explained to him this miracle of being ‘born again’ as the Holy Spirit of God births a new, holy, spiritual nature in us, through the regeneration work of God in our salvation. (John 3:3-7) John makes it clear that if a person claims to be a Christian and yet lives in unrepentant, sinful rebellion against God, their behavior indicates their salvation may not have been authentic, they may not have been given a new spiritual nature by God because, as John says: “ they cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God.”
The apostle Paul wrote it this way: “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what their flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Holy Spirit, have their minds set on what the Spirit of God desires. The mind governed by the sinful nature is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit of God is life and peace. The mind governed by the sinful nature is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” (Romans 8:5-9) Our choices and behavior are always a product of what is deep in our hearts, how we think, and what we desire, isn’t that right?
For the past few days we’ve been discussing how Peter addressed this issue when he wrote: “If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.” (2 Peter 2:20,21)
Do you see Peter focusing on several key points here?
First, the phrase ‘escape the corruption of the world’ suggests the person has experienced a work of God in their life and they have been delivered from the corruption of their sin bondage and sin condemnation. (Romans 8:1)
Second, the phrase ‘knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ suggests they have a legitimate relationship with Jesus. (1 John 3:24)
But now Peter’s phrase ‘are again entangled in it and are overcome’ suggests the corruption of our world this person had escaped by their salvation and the victory of Jesus in which they were once living… is no longer their experience since they have evidently yielded to the temptations of our corrupt world, and they have returned to their sinful ways.
Peter’s phrase ‘they are overcome’ suggests their repeated yielding to the devil’s temptations has now accomplished an evil stronghold in their life, so they no longer have the desire or strength to respond in repentance to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Instead, they grieve the Holy Spirit as they intentionally yield to temptation and sin against God.
Sadly, Peter uses a very strong phrase to describe the situation in which this person now finds themself: “they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning”. Have you ever seen a person who once was addicted to drugs or alcohol and then experienced a time of sobriety or freedom from any drugs? It’s wonderful isn’t it? Clean and sober, they were a different person, living a whole new life, weren’t they?
But have you also seen that same person turn back and yield to the temptation and dabble again in that once which addicted them? Have you seen them fairly quickly find themselves enslaved back in their addiction again? Oh that’s so terrible isn’t it? And have you seen that now the stranglehold of the addiction seems even more severe than before they experienced their season of deliverance and freedom? That is exactly what Peter is talking about. For the Christian who repeatedly resists the help of the Holy Spirit and yields to the temptations of the devil, they may find the strongholds of sin may now become even greater than they were before their salvation!
But how is this possible you might ask? That is the power of our human free will which God has given to us. It is one thing for our sinful nature to yield to the temptation of the wicked world in which we live, that’s normal for every person of every age.
But when a born again, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, adopted into the family of God person, who has received from God a holy, spiritual nature, intentionally refuses the work of the Holy Spirit in them and stifles their holy nature, in order to follow their sinful nature in yielding to the devil’s temptation, and then in rebellion they choose sin against God, that action, as you can see, is quite different from the natural sin of the sin nature. But it happens everyday to authentic, genuine Christians who yield to the devil’s schemes and temptations, doesn’t it?
If you are a parent or grandparent who has watched your child or grandchild welcome your love for them, and often show you their love for you, but also turn away from the instructions they’ve received from their family and choose to do things that they know will break their heart of their parent or grandparent, then you understand.
That is what God experiences every time one of His children yields to temptation and sins. But, and this is very important, John the disciple writes: “We have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the anointing sacrifice for our sins…” (1 John 2:1,2) When a Christian yields to temptation and sins against God, Jesus our Savior stands before the Father as our advocate, interceding for us, pleading the blood He shed, as payment for our sin.
Therefore, our sin does NOT affect the irreversible, blood bought adoption into God’s family which Jesus has earned. Our sin does NOT affect the glorious, holy, spiritual nature the Holy Spirit has birthed in the Christian. But sin always causes separation between any person and God, thus when we grieve the Holy Spirit and choose to sin, we choose rebellion against God, and that sin builds a wall of separation between Holy God and rebellious, sinful us. And the only way that relationship can be restored is our repentance and God’s forgiveness and reconciliation of us back to Him!
Now here’s a song to help us celebrate this, and we’ll return back here tomorrow to continue this important discussion:
Today’s Scripture is 2 Peter 2:20, 21 & 1 John 3.
Choose below to read or listen.
2 Peter 2:20, 21
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1 John 3
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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