Welcome to the Servants of Grace podcast hosted by Dave Jenkins. Our podcast exists to provide trustworthy, expository messages through the Bible and faithful answers to your theology questions. Now, for today's episode, let's join our host, Dave Jenkins. Well, welcome back to this Servants of Grace podcast. My name is Dave and I'm the host for this show. And on today's episode, a listener writes in and they have a great question. And the question is this, if I sin, does that mean I'm not a Christian? Now we must say at the outset, every Christian will continue to sin. We will never become sinlessly perfect in this life. It will not be until we go to heaven and enter into a glorified state where we become what we would call sinlessly perfect. And so when 1 John 3 says that no one who abides in him sins, it's in the present tense verb, and the idea is still an ongoing lifestyle of sin. It's not speaking of the perfection of your life. It's speaking of the direction of your life, that you're no longer pursuing sin as you once were when you became a Christian. You have now died to the ruling power of sin in your life. Sin is still present in your life. It's just no longer president over your life. And that's the difference. You're under new management now, and you're under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, we still continue to sin because we retain sinful flesh and a sinful nature within us. And so just because someone sins does not mean that they're no longer a Christian. In fact, 1 John even goes on to talk about confessing our sin, and that one mark of a true believer is they're known as a lifelong confessor of sin, just like he's a lifelong repenter of sins. And so we, as Christians, will be continually confessing our sins. And it's actually a mark that we're truly saved because we're not numb to our sins. We're not oblivious to our sins. The Holy Spirit who dwells in us convicts us of our sin, and our conscience has become heightened with a greater sensitivity to sin. and where we used to sin and even enjoy it, the passing pleasure of sin, now when we as Christians sin, we feel awful about it. I mean, we're talking about feeling guilty about our sin. We feel convicted and it drives us to our knees to come before the throne of grace and to acknowledge our sin to the Lord, knowing that He will fully and freely forgive us of our sin. But the fact of the matter is, yes, we will still continue to sin. And if you study the word of God and you read it from cover to cover, you're going to see the greatest of the saints continue to sin. I mean, let's look at Moses. He struck the rock in anger and the Lord said, you're not going to enter the promised land. David committed two horrible sins, adultery and then conspiring to murder of Bathsheba's husband. Those were horrible sins. Solomon was an adulterer. Peter denied the Lord. Ananias and Sapphira lied through their teeth to God and church. The Corinthians, when they came to the Lord's supper, they came in an unworthy manner, and the Lord made some of them sick, and others fell asleep. It's a euphemism for death. God struck them dead. And so, to be sure, Christians can continue to sin and will continue to sin. But the lesson for us is this. We need to be quick to repent and quick to confess it and quick to humble ourselves beneath the mighty hand of God. The Apostle Paul answered a very similar question in Romans 6, 1-2. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means we die to sin. How can we live in it any longer? The idea that a person could trust in Jesus Christ for salvation and then just go on living just as they were before is absolutely foreign to the Word of God. Believers in Christ are new creations according to 2 Corinthians 5.17. The Holy Spirit changes us from producing the acts of the flesh in Galatians 5.19-21 to producing the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22-23. The Christian life is a changed life because a Christian is changed. So what differentiates Christianity from every other religion is that Christianity is based on what God has done for us through Jesus Christ, divine accomplishment. Every other world religion is based on what we must do to earn God's favor and forgiveness, human achievement. Every other religion teaches that we must do certain things and stop doing certain things, other things in order to earn God's love and mercy. Christianity, faith in Christ, it teaches us that we do certain things and stop doing certain things because of what Christ has done for us in his death, burial, and resurrection. So how could anybody, having been delivered from sin and penalty, eternity in hell, go back to living the same life that had them on the path to hell in the first place? How could anybody, having been cleansed from the defilement of sin, desire to go back to the same cesspool of depravity? How could anybody, knowing what Jesus Christ did on our behalf, go on living as if He were not important at all? How could anybody, realizing how much Christ suffered for our sins, continue sinning as if those sufferings were meaningless? Romans 6, 11-15 declares this, In the same way, count yourself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness. but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means. So for the truly converted then, continuing to live sinfully is not an option. Because our conversion resulted in a completely new nature, our desire is no longer to live in sin. Yes, we still sin, but instead of wallowing in it as we once did, we now hate it and even wish to be delivered from it. So, the idea of taking advantage of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf by continuing to live sinfully is unthinkable. Christians who have no desire to live for Christ, but instead find themselves living lives indistinguishable from those of unbelievers, should examine whether they have ever genuinely received Christ as Savior, Lord, and King. 2nd Corinthians 13 5 says examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith test yourselves Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you unless of course you failed the test? So we need to be careful here because the fact that he uses the present tense I am the foremost in 1st Timothy 1 15 and It means I remain, among all people, the least likely candidate to have received salvation because of my former life, but it does not mean that he is living as foremost of sinners right now. James 5, 19-20 calls this backsliding Christian a sinner. James says there, my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, anyone among you, to be clear, Christians, and somebody brings him back, let him know that whoever brings him back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. So yes, that's right. James does use the word for Christians. And of course, we know from 1 John 1, 8-10, there is no such thing as a Christian in this life who does not sin. 1 John 1, 8-10 says, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So, if we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His truth is not in us. And we know from Romans 7 that Paul treats himself, while a Christian, as one who does some sins that he hates in Romans 7, 15. And Jesus taught us to pray daily, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors in Matthew 6, 12. And the reason I say daily is because the immediately preceding requests in the Lord's prayers give us this day our daily bread in Matthew 6, 11. You see, we need daily bread. We need daily forgiveness. and there's no thought of there being any sinless Christian in this life. So the question then becomes, should I stop right there? End of answer, there you have it. Christians are called sinners. We're sinners. But let's not stop there. The question before us now is, can we who are saved by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone still be called sinners? Answer is yes, end of question. No, but we shouldn't stop there. We dare not stop there, because that does not get to the heart of the matter. Paul calls Christians saints, that is, holy ones, consecrated ones, set apart ones, being made right. ones in his letters. They are holy ones, saved, set apart for God, walking in the light. He calls Christians saints 40 times in his letters, and he virtually never uses the noun sinner to describe Christians. You might think there's one or two exceptions, but I would probably argue not. At any rate, 40 to almost nothing. Why would that be? This is at the heart of the question that our listener is asking, and many Christians do today. Why would that be since we all sin? In fact, in Romans 5, 8, Paul says, God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Well, what does that mean while we were still sinners? It means that Paul has a way of understanding sinner that no longer applies to us. That's what it means. This is what this question is getting at. This is why this question is so relevant, so very important, but we need to be careful here. We need to be thoughtful. We don't want to be superficial and say, whoa, the Bible says we always sin. A person who sins is a sinner, so it's right to call Christians sinners. Well, let me be clear, it's not that simple for two reasons. First, saying somebody sins and saying they're a sinner may not mean exactly the same thing. Would you call yourself a liar because sometimes you lie? The connotation is not quite the same. And here's the other reason why it's not so simple. Christians really do have a different essential identity now that we're saved. We really are new creations in Christ. Sinner is not our essential identity any longer in Christ. That's the nub of the matter. Now consider this remarkable statement in 1 Corinthians 5, 7. Cleanse out the old leaven. Cleanse out the old yeast. That's what it means. He's using this for a picture of sin. cleanse out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump of dough, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Unleavened really means unleavened. In other words, because of Christ's death for us, we are in our most essential identity, unleavened, that is, sinless. and that the unique thing about Christian morality, Christian ethics, is that we now fight against our sin. Really fight against our own sinning because it's gone. It's not there. Cleanse out the old sin because you're sinless. That's the mystery of the Christian life. Cleanse out the old sin. Kill sin in your life, according to Romans 8 13, because you're sinless. That's who you are. The fight, the real living daily fight, is evidence That's what pastors look for in their people. You're looking, pastor, for evidence that this person is a Christian, and the evidence is that they're in Christ. And if they're in Christ, you're without sin. So fighting sin, dear Christian, is the evidence that you are without sin. So So, in Colossians 3, 19-10, Paul puts it like this, So kill that. Get rid of that sin. Don't do it. Confess it. Repent. Turn away from it if you do that. Don't do it. Why? Seeing that you have put off the old self, the old identity, the old you, you put it off, it's dead. It's crucified with Christ with its practices, and you put on the new self, the new identity, the new you, which is being renewed according to Paul in knowledge after the image of its creator. You have to put off your old self, namely the self that was in its essential identity a sinner. That's what you put off. That self has died with Christ. Now you are a new self. Put it on. Put on what you are. That is, cleanse out the old leaven because you are unleavened. Specifically, he says, don't lie to one another. You are without sin. You are not liars, so don't lie, so don't sin. That's the glorious paradox of the Christian life, and that is why Paul virtually never uses the noun sinner to describe the Christian, because it sounds like a deep identity marker, and so it would not be true. Now, Paul gives plenty of evidence that Christians still sin. We battle sin, we are to put it to death, according to Romans 8, 13. But he makes plain that's not who we are. And listen to Colossians 3, 12-13. Put on, then, as God's holy ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. This is Paul's typical way of thinking. You are chosen, you are holy, you are loved. So put this identity on and treat each other with the love of Christ. So what's the answer then? Well, as a Christian, we need to understand that this is how it all started, with the question of trying to be faithful to the Lord. And this is how the New Testament reckons with these two realities. The ongoing sin is real in our lives. And second, there our deepest identity as chosen, holy, and loved, and that's real. So, Pastor, then teach them, one, who they are, and two, what they're going to have to deal with and how they relate to each other. Speak to them according to this reality and let us understand these realities as Christians. Well, I want to thank you for listening or watching this episode of the Servants of Grace podcast. Until next time, may God bless you and keep you. Thank you for listening to the Servants of Grace podcast today. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave a rating on the app, and share our episode with your friends and family. 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