A Savior Has Come...to Destroy

The following is an editing sermon transcript:

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother."

-1 John 3:1-10 (ESV)

Let us pray.

"Heavenly Father. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the gift of Your Son, the greatest gift of all time, a gift that surpasses all understanding and defies all reason. A gift that overwhelms the heart and strengthens the weary soul. As we take part in Your word and communion and celebrate together, we pray that You would overwhelm our hearts with the vastness of love by which You gave such a glorious gift to us. We thank You for it and praise You for it; In Jesus' name, amen."

There are many things one could preach about on Christmas. Perhaps thankfulness or the giving of ourselves. You could, of course, preach about the birth of Christ. One could be content merely retelling the story as it is in scripture and reflecting on the glory of that moment momentarily before returning to our eggnog and Christmas movies. These are all things I will likely do in the coming years. Tonight, however, something specific caught my attention that I wish to draw everyone here into seeing.

The title of this message is: "A Savior has come… to destroy."

Call this quick message reactionary if you must, but there is a tendency in Christian culture (regarding Christmas) to (and please forgive me, as this is the only term that currently springs to mind) "sanitize" Christmas. There seems, in church culture, a willful attempt to pry the teeth out of Christmas; To prop up the inherent beauty of the holiday with none of the raw power of the biblical significance on display.

There is a time, place, and space for our carols, hot chocolate, gifts, etc. Please don't get the impression that I am coarse towards such things and believe other people should follow. Rather, something weighed on my conscience as I read scripture in preparation for this sermon; What if the Christmas narrative has been robbed of its grittiness by popular imagery? What if the spiritual reality was more severe than garland or mistletoe can convey?

You know the Christmas narrative as believers; The baby Jesus was born in a manger under the star that the shepherd's witnessed, and the angels sang "Gloria," and… you get the picture. You know that story by heart, likely having heard it every Christmas. And don't take my words as Grinchiness because we need that story! It's amazing!

But I felt weighed down as I read through the Christmas story again, and I asked myself, "Why? Why am I not inspired?" To that end, I felt the Spirit leading me to other scriptures, the first of which we just read. The second is found, funnily enough, in Revelation. See if you can spot the Christmas narrative in the following.

A Not So Starry Night

"And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!"

-Revelation 12:1-12 (ESV)

Most of you that meet with me in our home on Sundays know that 2022 will be where we wrap up Romans. After that, we're likely going into an expository series through Revelation. Given that that series is still a few months off, I don't want to get too "spoilery" yet. Even so, tonight, I'm willing to spoil one thing about Revelation.

Literal interpretation often doesn't lend itself to the "revelation" of Revelation. Revelation unveils reality in an imaginative way that we may not have pondered before. To that end, we'd be wise to consider what these scriptures mean to unpack regarding the reality of the world around us.

The woman is traditionally understood to be the Virgin Mary, about to bear the mighty King Jesus into the world. The dragon, Satan, is looking to devour the child. Why did Satan go to eat the child? Because Satan knows what Christ's birth truly means in spiritual reality. And so that dragon will employ every measure at his vile disposal to end this boy here and now.

Hear me; I do not wish to distract from the beauty of that night. It was the holiest of moments, where once again, heaven and earth collided to bring about God's glory. Everything we always reflect on (the wise men, the shepherds in the field, the angels singing, etc.) is all so wonderful and inspiring. It ought to compel radical worship. (And an overt engagement in American consumerism for some reason, but I digress.)

But would you spare me a moment to walk in spiritual reality for a moment? To engage your imagination past what happened in the physical realm that night? As Mary was straining to give birth in that manger, a heavenly war transpired. The dragon comes to slay the Son of Man, and Michael and his angels meet Satan and his angels.

War breaks out in the heavens! The final fight for the heart of humanity! It's a battle that the devil ultimately loses, leading him and his minions to be cast down. He has been defeated, failing in his mission to annihilate the child. That's not something you sing about in Christmas carols. ("O Holy Night… the angels are killing each other.”)

Is this something you typically think about when you look at the beautiful Christmas decorations around town? Does it cross your mind when you watch your Christmas movies; Whether it's another crappy Hallmark creation or Jim Carrey's How The Grinch Stole Christmas (the best Christmas movie ever made, don't @ me)?

Ladies and gentlemen, Christ's birth signifies so much more than a great gift we only think upon for a few moments before we tear into our presents around the tree. It signifies the beginning of salvation for all. It signifies Satan's downfall. It signifies the end of a spiritual era with the enemy's defeat. Such significance was my main focus tonight.

In that focus, First John 3:8 stood out to me as if laden in pure gold:

"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil."

The deeper reality is reflected in John 3:

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

-John 3:17 (NIV)

But what I came to understand is that saving work is going to happen through the Savior destroying the works of the devil. Christmas is about destruction; how crazy is that?!

The Destruction of Sin

You'll understand this "destroying" if you understand a surgeon cutting out a tumor. The Savior is the great surgeon, cutting into the hearts of men and women alike to wipe out their sickness; To destroy it with impunity. As Christ explains to us today:

"Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

-Mark 2:17 (ESV)

Those who cannot welcome Jesus as the destroyer of their sin and their sickness will likely not understand Him as their Savior at all. Therein lies a reflection of the message I preached this past Sunday, wherein I stated, "If the gospel slots easily into your life, you've likely not understood the gospel at all." Christ must destroy something in us. So when Christ comes to destroy the works of the devil… I'll let you draw your own conclusions there.

When Christ was born on Christmas day, God had a particular goal in mind. He was going to destroy something. He was going to destroy the works of the devil. With that in mind, let me quickly exegete these few verses before we close for communion.

What are the works of the devil? We can reasonably assume that this scripture infers such to be sin, that same sin which manifests in each and every one of the corrupted sinners. I take this from verse's eight and nine:

"Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God."

The devil is the father of sin. Therefore, those who sin are his. Following this statement, John tells us that Christ is destroying the devil's works. Ergo, Christ is destroying sin.

Understand that operating in unrepentant sin is doing the work of the devil. We might pretend that it's just us being tempted, and we're just making an innocent mistake. I will never allow such shilly-shallying here. Know, here and now, that operating in unrepentant sin means operating as tools of Satan. If the Son of God has come to destroy sin, to eliminate, eradicate, and completely obliviate sin, then the unrepentant sinner would do well to tremble at the coming of Christ.

Reread verse four:

"Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness."

What is inferred is that everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. Such is when you're broken God's law and refuse to repent.

What does this look like in life? It is living as if your intellect is superior to the Lord's, where your ideas are superior to His own. Lawlessness foolishly declares, "I don't care that God demands it! I prefer to act in this way!" Lawlessness glances at God's law and casts it away for the sake of one's desires. This heart protests the law of the Lord, remarking, "There is only one law that matters, and that law is my own."

So if we welcome the gift of Christ, we welcome the destruction of lawlessness. Concurrently, we welcome the destruction of that which is rebellion in us. That which is in us that says "God has no right to be our ruler" is slated for demolition. We either build our pathetic little castles, rejecting the authority of God as we put ourselves on the thrones of our own kingdoms, or we ask God to obliviate everything in us that displeases Him; Even if that means we lose our precious domains.

In you and I and every single one of us is this spirit of defiance which resists the Lord on one level or another. That same spirit is what Christ came to destroy in you and me. It invites us into communion with the Father. And doing so means we drop everything of ourselves that rebels against Him. Tim Keller puts it this way:

"When you come to Christ, you must drop your conditions. You have to give up the right to say, 'I will obey you if . . . I will do this if . . .' As soon as you say, 'I will obey you if,' that is not obedience at all. You are saying: 'You are my adviser, not my Lord. I will be happy to take your recommendations. And I might even do some of them.' No. If you want Jesus with you, you have to give up the right to self‐determination. Self‐denial is an act of rebellion against our late‐modern culture of self‐assertion. But that is what we are called to. Nothing less."

Living in Light

I find verse nine worth obsessing over and honestly internalizing:

"No one born of God makes a practice of sinning."

Christ's death is one of the most beautiful things. Christ's resurrection is one of the most beautiful things. But consider the evident reality that these two things are not enough in themselves. His birth is pivotal and reflects what must happen in us. One must be born of God, or in our case, we must be reborn.

That's why verse nine says, "no one born of God makes it a practice to sin." Why don't they? Because God's nature abides in them, and one cannot sin because they are born of God. If you are genuinely born of God, you are born with new desires. You are born with an existence that craves God's desires for your life. So, knowing this, we are called to as Ephesians 4:24 says,

"put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

-Ephesians 4:24 (NIV)

To clarify, it's not that we teach sinless perfection here. We never will. And John doesn't intend to teach us that in any regard. The Greek verb John employs in verse nine implies continuous action. Another decent translation of the verse might be: "No one born of God is content to continue sinning." In fact, in verses eight and ten, John goes far enough to tell Christian that it's a sin to say you are sinless.

So sinless perfection is not what John's teaching; We can't be sinlessly perfect. But we also cannot be content in our sin. Contentment in sin is the first sign of an unrepentant heart. If one has been called out on where they have continuously failed as a believer and yet refuses to repent, watch out! This person stands on the precipice of disaster!

We cannot be content to go on sinning, my brothers and my sisters. Christ teaches:

"A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit."

-Matthew 7:18 (NRSV)

Further, John teaches us:

"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; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. Whoever says, "I have come to know him," but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, "I abide in him," ought to walk just as he walked."

-1 John 2:1-6 (NRSV)

That last verse implies that our righteousness is something that we must work at; Not that our works are the source of our righteousness, but that the righteousness working through us leads us to make it a practice to walk in the light. Another verse in first John helps us here:

"This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin."

-1 John 1:5-7 (NRSV)

We know that the blood of Jesus cleanses us of our sins. We know that nothing else makes us worthy of heaven, not a single thing. So, knowing that, why would we continue to walk in the dark? It's something I spoke about last week when I spoke about light and darkness. How could Christians who have been reborn into the light then put on their dusty rags of darkness?

Instead, we ought to cast off the darkness and walk in the light. It doesn't mean we'll live in sinless perfection. It teaches that the joyful believers' life should not be characterized by setting up a lawn chair and drinking a mojito while residing in the darkness.

It's difficult to hide your sins when you're living in the light. It's tough to hide your imperfections. In the darkness, say if this room were pitch black, there could be a revolting beast in this room, and none of us would know it because we couldn't see it. The light reveals that which would prefer to leave unseen. So that's why it's sometimes painful to go into the light, but nevertheless, the light is where we must go.

Believers understand the truth that when we crossed over and said yes to the love of God, we said yes to a battle. We said yes to opening the most vulnerable parts of ourselves and welcoming in Christ as Lord. And when we receive Christ, we now understand that He's going to destroy some things; And that's probably going to hurt.

The blood of Jesus cleanses us. The works of the devil are destroyed in the process. We're about to take communion and reflect on that same process, which is why we need to grasp this reality.

We've been brought into the light to see the world the way God does and to see our hearts the way God sees them. Where the beauty of His holiness contrasts with the ugliness of our sin, bringing us on our knees in front of God, saying, "Please oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

I invite you to join me as we reflect and ponder upon the words of John three:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."

-John 3:16-21 (NRSV)

In His sin-destroying light,

RJ

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