Can a Christian Live Like the Devil?

A few years ago, Billy Graham was on a flight from Chicago to Charlotte, North Carolina. Directly in front of him on the airplane sat a rather large man who had obviously been drinking before the flight. Once the plane was airborne, this man immediately rang for the flight attendant and asked her to bring him another drink.

She said that she would not be serving drinks for another few minutes. He became very upset with her and he began to curse the situation. A little while later, when the drink cart finally came along, he bought a number of drinks. The more he drank, the louder he became, the rougher his language grew, and the stories he told got more and more crude by the minute.

He continually embarrassed the flight attendant by rudely flirting with her. The people who were sitting near him were getting more and more annoyed by his obnoxious behavior. You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife.

Finally, one gentleman sitting nearby decided to take matters into his own hands. Rising to his feet, he said to the drunken man, “Sir, do you realize that the great preacher Billy Graham is sitting right behind you?”

At that, the bleary-eyed man staggered to his feet, and slowly spun around. He leaned over the seat back, right into Billy Graham’s face. He stuck out his hand and said, “Billy Graham! Put ‘er there and shake my hand. I’m really glad to meet you. You have no idea how much your sermons have helped me!”

Well, I certainly hope that the sermons you hear from Sunday to Sunday will be of more help to you than that. But secondly, that story raises a question that we want to deal with today: Can a Christian be saved and yet still live like the devil?

To put it another way: If you’re a Christian, how does that impact your lifestyle? Does it make any change at all in the way you live, in your habits, in how you conduct yourself, in the way you approach each day?

I was reading recently about a man named Fred. To say that Fred has a colorful past is to put it lightly. He has a history of sexual relationships with people of both genders. A recovering drug addict, he attends a 12-step recovery program almost daily. He recently celebrated his tenth anniversary of sobriety, and has even become a substance abuse counselor.

Along the way, Fred became a Christian. He says he was converted by two hymns: Just As I Am, and Amazing Grace. As he heard the words of those hymns, it sunk in for the very first time that God really did want him to come just as he was. God’s grace was that amazing. And Fred has been trying to follow God ever since.

But he’s the first to admit that he has not experienced the victorious Christian life. He overeats. He chain smokes. Sex continues to be a problem: he frequents adult movie theaters, and has an extensive collection of pornography. Since he never manages to get up in time for church on Sundays, Fred totally misses out on Christian worship and fellowship.

In fact, Fred seems to be stuck somewhere between ‘Just as I Am’ and ‘Just as God wants me to be’”.

What are we to make of Fred and the many other people who say they are Christians, but show very little evidence of it in their lives? Are they really saved? Are they really born again Christians who are living in a more or less permanent state of backslidden-ness? Are they died-in-the-wool carnal Christians?

That’s a difficult question to tackle, but that’s the question that John addresses in this section of 1 John. Is it possible to be a Christian and still be living like the devil?

Let’s look at that passage again:

1 John 3:4-6 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

We’re living in a world in which there are no more absolutes. Truth is whatever you make it. There’s a whole generation who believe with all their hearts that truth is relative. What’s true for you may not be true for me. So we all have to figure out for ourselves what our value system - what our truth system - is going to be.

That’s what the Bible calls lawlessness. Back in the book of Judges, the children of Israel were living in a state of anarchy because everyone was doing “that which was right in his own eyes”.

Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way.

Sin is living life your own way, not God’s way. Sin is when we abandon God’s standard. Sin is when we break God’s law. Sin is when we go our own way, according to our own law. That’s what sin is. And John is saying to us in this passage that real Christians do not make a habit of doing that. They’re different; they do not keep on breaking God’s laws.

1 John 3:6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

1 John 3:9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.

The verb used here are present tense verbs, verbs that indicate continuous action. John is not saying that Christians never sin. He is saying that real Christians do not go on sinning.

So what does that mean? Well, it means that a person can claim to be a Christian, but if he is living like the devil - if he is living a totally self-centered, self-directed life, if he’s habitually doing what he wants rather than what God wants, then you have serious reason to doubt that that person is a Christian.

Doesn’t matter that he made a profession of faith sometime in the past. Doesn’t matter that he may have been baptized. Doesn’t matter that he claims to be a Christian.

If there is no evidence in his life that he is living according to God’s standard, rather than his own, then that is probably because he is not a Christian. Being a Christian makes a difference in how you live. If there’s no difference on the outside, there’s been no change on the inside.

John says: “Real Christians don’t go on sinning.” But let’s stop looking at other people and let’s look at ourselves in the mirror for a minute. What do you see when you look at your own life?

Well I don’t know about you, but when I look at my own life, I find that often times I do go on sinning. I find that there are certain areas of my life where I seem to be constantly struggling against sin and often it seems that I am losing the battle. It can get really discouraging at times.

Several years ago, there was a popular Broadway musical called “Damn Yankees”. In fact, they’ve just re-done it, and it is getting rave reviews. The hero of the play is a man named Joe. Joe is an avid baseball fan. He roots for the Washington Senators.

Being a fan of the Washington Senators was a pretty depressing occupation! The old joke was that Washington was first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League. Joe roots his heart out for the Senators, but in the end, they always lose, and the Yankees win. And that’s when Joe cries out in frustration “Damn Yankees”.

I guess sometimes it feels like getting the victory over sin in the Christian life is like rooting for the Washington Senators. Sooner or later, no matter how hard you fight, you lose and sin wins. That temper keeps rearing its ugly head. Those evil thoughts keep dancing through your brain. Those harsh words just keep popping out of your mouth.

And with a steady diet of that kind of failure, it’s easy for you to lose perspective. You may become depressed and just stop trying. Throw in the towel.

I believe that this passage in 1 John 3 is meant to help us restore a proper perspective on our fight against sin. We need to realize that the Bible teaches us that we will be struggling with sin all our lives. We will never be beyond its pull.

Sometimes, like when you go swimming in the ocean, the undertow of sin will knock you off your feet. But this passage in 1 John is good news. It affirms that we will gain victory over sin in our lives and it tells us why.

There are three things that are present in your life as a Christian that help you to gain victory over sin:

1. You have an identity as a child of God.

2. You have a Savior who is the Son of God.

3. You have a new nature which is the seed of God.

…and these three things help you to make progress in your fight against sin.

1. Your identity as a child of God:

1 John 3:1-2 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

How did we become children of God? The love of God the Father made us his children through Jesus Christ.

John 1:11-12 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God

There are only two families in the world: the children of God and the children of the devil. You get to be a child of God by receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior. Jesus had some interesting conversations with the children of the devil. They were the most religious people of their day. With long flowing robes, they memorized the Scriptures and did all the right things. But they rejected Jesus. That was all it took for them to be children of the devil. Whose family are you in today?

As children of God, we are in a process. The process is that God is shaping and moulding our character into the image of Jesus Christ. That is part and parcel of our identity as children of God.

Romans 8:29 For … God … predestined us to be conformed to the likeness of his Son

2 Corinthians 3:18 And we…are being transformed into his likeness

A story is told about the great sculptor Michelangelo. One day, he took delivery of a huge block of stone. As he walked around surveying it, he ran his hand over the rough surface and he said “Aahh… I see David in there.”

That is how God looks at us. With our rough edges and odd shapes, we don’t look very attractive. But God sees the image of his Son in us. “I see Jesus in there.” he says.

And God, the master sculptor, is going to chip away and polish and smooth until the image of His Son is revealed in us. That process may not always be pleasant. A block of granite, if it could, would feel pain under the sculptor’s hand. The sculptor uses sharp chisels and hammers and sandpaper. And sometimes we experience that under the hand of God.

But the result is worth it. And the result brings glory not to the block of stone, but to the sculptor by revealing the image the sculptor intended.

So the fact that we are God’s children and we’re undergoing this process means that we will be achieving victory over sin in our lives.

2. We have a Savior who is the Son of God.

There are two things we need to remember about Jesus with regard to sin. They are found in verse 5.

1. He appeared to take away our sins.

2. In Jesus Himself there is no sin.

He himself is sinless, and His work was to remove sin. Now not only did Jesus remove the legal guilt of our all sin before God by dying on the Cross as our substitute. He is actively involved today in purifying us from the polluting influence of sin in our day to day lives. Remember

1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

Hebrews 9:14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ… cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

Jesus, our Savior, has a present ministry of cleansing in the life of the Christian, and that helps us to overcome sin.

But what’s more, we understand from the Bible that Jesus was without sin in his own character. And last week, we learned that one of the things we are called to do, as authentic Christians, is to abide, or remain, or continue in fellowship with Christ.

You know, you always find that when you are at your worst, it is because you haven’t been spending time with Jesus. When you’re crabby with others, when you’re depressed, when you have a really negative attitude, it usually boils down to the fact that you haven’t been spending time with Jesus.

1 John 3:6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

You see the word “lives” there in verse 6? It’s the word “meno” - abide, remain, continue. If you “hang out” with Jesus Christ on a regular basis, you’re going to find that you will gain more and more victory over sin in your life. Because Jesus is without sin, and, quite simply, he’s going start to rub off on you.

Who’ve you been spending time with lately? Maybe that has something to do with how your Christian life is going.

There is one more factor to consider:

3. We have a new nature, which is called in v. 9 “God’s seed”.

Everybody is born with a sin nature. Take a baby. There are lots of things that you don’t need to teach a baby. You don’t need to teach him how to demand his own way. He already knows. You don’t need to teach him to be selfish. He already knows. You don’t need to teach him how to make other people miserable as he gets older. He already knows. How does he know? He has a sin nature. It’s inborn.

Now let’s say that little baby grows up and receives Jesus Christ as his Savior and becomes a child of God. That doesn’t mean that his sin nature disappears. It’s still there. It’s still trying to exert itself. But the difference now is that he’s got a new nature. And the new nature is from God. God planted that new nature in him. It’s like God took a little piece of himself and planted it like a seed in his life. And that new nature, that seed that God planted, is going to make him want to do what pleases God. And that seed is growing.

There once was a man who had a farm out in California. In that part of the country, avocado trees grow wild, and the farmer had a few wild avocado trees on his property. They didn’t give him any good fruit, though. Those wild avocados were dry and scrawny and tough. But one day, the farmer had a great idea. He got hold of a branch off a good avocado tree and he grafted it onto one of his wild trees.

Lo and behold, the next year that branch produced the most delicious, succulent fruit he’d ever tasted. The other branches still bore the bad fruit but that one branch, because of the life in it from the good tree, bore good fruit.

That’s what it’s like for the Christian. Except better. Because God hasn’t grafted his life onto an old tree, he’s made the old tree into a new tree. He’s put his seed into our lives, and it’s growing. That’s why verse 9 says that a real Christian can’t just go on sinning as though there were no change in his life. He’s a new man. He’s got God’s seed in him.

So we’ve seen that there are three things our lives as Christians which help us to overcome sin:

1. Our identity, a child of God - He’s conforming us to Christ.

2. Our Savior, the Son of God - a friend without sin who purifies us

3. Our new nature, the seed of God - the new life in us

That is really encouraging! So although we will continue to fight against sin in our lives, we do have the assurance that we are on the winning side. And the victory comes as we simply abide in Christ and live out these truths that John has clarified for us today.

Last fall, most of the leaves fell from the trees. But there are still a few that are hanging on tenaciously. This incredible winter hasn’t loosened them. Those determined little leaves are still clinging to the trees. The icy cold and the snowstorms of January and February and March haven’t dislodged them.

Those leftover leaves are not very pretty by this time. They are brown and shrivelled. They look awful. In fact, you almost want to go around pulling them off one by one. But that would be silly. Because you don’t have to.

You know what’s going to finally knock those old leaves off the trees? The new leaves that bud in the spring. As new life surges through the branches of the trees, those old leaves haven’t got a chance of hanging on! And they will fall one by one as the beautiful new leaves blossom.

That is how it is in the Christian life, dear people. As we abide in Christ, God’s new life is going to flow through us. It’s going to knock off the old, ugly leaves; the old habits, the old thoughts, the old sins.

And the Spirit of God will bring beautiful fruit to take their place. As we abide in Christ and in the Word, that’s what will happen: the old besetting sins will fall quietly away. We will not continue in sin. Because one of the marks of an authentic Christian is that he does not keep on sinning.

So be encouraged! Keep up the fight! Because God is doing his work in you.