Who We Are Determines the Direction We Go

To abide in Jesus is to remain in His love, to be connected to Him, to be dependent on our relationship with Him. No good fruit comes apart from an abiding relationship in Jesus Christ. And for someone so deeply connected to Him, connected to this one who had no sin in Him, perfectly righteous, who came to do away with sin, for someone who is abiding in Him to continue sinning, it makes no sense. It'd be like a healthy vine that's producing grapes, and all of a sudden, a branch produces poison. Right? Like, it makes no sense. That just wouldn't happen. [00:17:54] (40 seconds)  #AbideInChrist

You ever wonder why our world is so broken? It's because of this. Right? We live in a world of people who are apart from God and who are living lawlessly. Sure, you can create civil laws and moral codes and things like that that people kind of live by, and we're grateful for those things. But at the end of the day, apart from Christ, people are lawless. We are lawless. We live as our own authority. When you have a bunch of people living as their own authority, you get chaos. You get brokenness. You get war. [00:15:39] (33 seconds)  #LawlessWorld

There's this thing called soap. Right? It is the means of purification. Go back and try again. Right? Actually, use the soap. Scrub your hands. Get clean. I think there's a picture there of remembering our source of purification. We can't purify ourselves through our efforts, through our actions. We've got to go to the source of purification, which is Jesus Christ. That's why we're called to confess our sins. That's why we come back to him every time we fall short. [00:13:25] (34 seconds)  #SourceOfPurification

And I really wrestled with this text because it's like, why would John say purify yourself? Like, can't purify ourselves. Right? That's the one thing we can't do. But I think what John is doing here is pointing us back to our source of purification, our means of purification. Remember what John wrote in chapter one. He said, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [00:12:14] (31 seconds)  #ConfessAndBeCleansed

So will we continue to struggle with sin as believers, as followers of Jesus? Yes. Until the day we die, I believe we will wrestle with sin. But that's the key there. Is it a wrestle? Is it a struggle? Is it a fight? Are we pursuing obedience? Are we practicing righteousness? Who you are determines the direction of your life. As Nate said a few weeks ago, it's not about perfection, it's direction. I love that saying. [00:28:18] (34 seconds)  #DirectionNotPerfection

It's clear that John is addressing these lies here in this text because it's impossible to be a child of God and embrace sin as just a normal part of life. No. He says whoever practices righteousness is righteous. In other words, your actions are the evidence of who you are. Your actions, your life is the evidence of who you are. But here's the good news. Just as we talked about practising sin as being this ongoing, habitual sin, we can practice righteousness. [00:20:31] (41 seconds)  #ActionsRevealIdentity

Why did Jesus appear? Why did Jesus come? To take away sin, to deal with it, to destroy the works of the devil, he'll say later. So for us to continue in righteousness makes no sense excuse me, in sin and lawlessness makes no sense. We're called to practice righteousness because Christ came to do away with sin. Verse six. [00:16:35] (23 seconds)  #PracticeRighteousness

Again, remember who we are. We've been called children of God. We've been saved by grace through faith in Jesus. We've been adopted into God's family. We've been indwelled by the Holy Spirit, God's seed in us. We've been united with Christ. We've been made new, and we're being made new. So what does this mean? Where do we go with our lives? I think this is what it looks like. It looks like abiding in Jesus through word, through the word, through prayer, through fellowship with one another. We need each other. [00:32:06] (35 seconds)  #AbideInWordAndPrayer