Tending Toward Righteousness

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February 5, 2006  A.D.


Tending Toward RighteousnessWhat does the Bible teach about the present life pattern of the saved? Is it possible to live in this world completely without sin? Does the commission of a sin cancel the grace of God which is in Christ Jesus? Just what did Christ Jesus do for us on the cross of Calvary? Beloved, hang on to your seats and listen in as Pastor: Landis deals with these and other pressing critical issues in this weeks installment in our teaching through the Epistle of First John which he has chosen to title: “Tending Toward Righteousness” 

Old Testament Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 7:1 – 11  (NASB)
Deu 7:1  “When the LORD your God shall bring you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and shall clear away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you,

Deu 7:2  and when the LORD your God shall deliver them before you, and you shall defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them

Deu 7:3  “Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons.

Deu 7:4  “For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you.

Deu 7:5  “But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.

Deu 7:6  “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

Deu 7:7  “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples,

Deu 7:8  but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Deu 7:9  “Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments;

Deu 7:10  but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face.

Deu 7:11  “Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them.
New Testament Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:29 – 3:10  (NASB)
1 John 2:29  If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.

1 John 3:1  See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

1 John 3:2  Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

1 John 3:3  And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

1 John 3:4  Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

1 John 3:5  And you know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.

1 John 3:6  No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.

1 John 3:7  Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;

1 John 3:8  the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

1 John 3:9  No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

1 John 3:10  By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
Transforming Power Statements:

#1) Persons who have their hope fixed on the glory of the Messiah Jesus, are immediately purified by faith in His blood, and are in the process of being purified / sanctified by His Spirit and His Word, because they realize in fact that the initial purpose of His coming is to save His people from their sins. (The God-head demands perfection that therefore, only Christ Jesus can supply, and sets the Christ as a model of the goal of perfection, to be fervently pursued by all recipients of grace on His behalf.) It is a serious error for anyone to think that God would go to the extreme of the cross for His Son in order to allow sinners to continue in their sin, rather than to deliver them from it. 

#2) It is the Holy Spirit, {The anointing that we have received from the Holy One} who provides the conviction to the gospel believer, to notify them of their lawlessness which prior to salvation could not be known nor fully understood as reason for God’s just judgment to fall, and also instructs and admonishes compliance with the righteous will of God as proclaimed in His Word. 

#3) The ultimate monitor of the growth of this Spiritual Fruit in the gospel believers lives is their love for God which is measured by personal obedience, which is realized through a sincere love of the brethren.