8/17/25 “Your Do Reveals Your Who”
“Your Do Reveals Your Who”
1 John 3:1-10
Have you ever taken a test that is meant to reveal something about your personality – or your character.
The other day, I stumbled across a website that presented me with 20 questions about myself….
When I finished answering the questions, a new window popped up and said “According to your answers, if you were an animal, you would be a __________”
Any guesses?
Apparently…your pastor is an owl.
According to the description, “The owl represents wisdom, independence, and introversion. They are also very logical thinkers, and they wait to analyze different situations before taking action. While they are very complex, they don’t need much to be happy.”
Wanna know something really funny?....Just for fun, I went back and answered all of the questions in the opposite of how I did the first time just to see what “My Opposite Animal” would be….
….it turned out to be my favorite animal of all!.....The Panda!
Playful…Outgoing…Carefree…Sleeps a Lot…Eats a Lot… It would be so cool to be a Panda!....
So…There was another site that promised to reveal what kind of person you are by the color of vehicle you drive….see if this holds true for you:
Black – Sophisticated, stylish, and always under control
Grey (Silver) – Sensible, reliable, and conform to society’s expectations
White – Clinical, Organized, Clean, and Strive for Perfection
Red – Dynamic, Bold, and Outgoing
Yellow – Optimistic, Fun, and Energetic (You’re a Panda!)
Blue – Safe, Loyal, Calm, and Confident (You’re a Preacher!)
Purple – Original, Unique, and Creative
Pink – Bright, Bubbly, Bold….and a bit Unhinged.
Gold – Traditional, glamorous….and Old
Green – Energetic, Grounded, and Balanced
…..So – there you have it – was it accurate?….did it describe you pretty well?
I noticed Orange didn’t make the survey….
Bo & Luke Duke would be quite upset about that…
Come to think of it….Neither did Brown….perhaps that’s a good thing!
Anyway – all of these fun and silly psychological tests are meant to shed light upon something a bit more serious….what kind of person you are.
Or – another way to put it – your choices and preferences are meant to reveal something about your intrinsic nature….your natural disposition.
…they are designed to expose the “Real You”
Well…John does something similar in today’s passage of scripture.
As we move into the 3rd chapter of 1 John…he begins to speak very directly about how our actions reveal the type of person we are…
Or – to be more theologically specific – how our decisions regarding sinful behavior reveal whether or not we are members of the body of Christ…
In other words…Our Do reveals our Who.
Quite honestly, these 10 verses of scripture constitute perhaps the most sobering passage in all of scripture…
John is not pulling any punches here…he is laying out the hard truth that we are either a child of God – or we are a child of the Devil…
…and our relationship to sin can be used to reveal whose spiritual family we belong to….God’s – or Satan’s.
A family relationship is actually what John begins writing about In verse 1 (1 John 3:1) of today’s passage.
He speaks of God’s love for His children….those individuals who have been adopted into His family through faith and trust in the person & work of Jesus Christ.
Believers can be called ‘Children of God’ – and like any good father – He will love us with an unconditional love…
…In fact – because the heavenly Father is perfect – He loves His children with a perfect love….
…A Love that goes far beyond any kind of love that a human father being can have for his children…
Dads….think about how much you love your children.
…now, multiply that by a million – and you may be approaching the perfect kind of love (Agape love) that God has for His children.
Now….You probably have heard people say things like “We’re all God’s children”…or “Every human being is a child of God”…
…And I understand the sentiment behind those kinds of statements…and they are true to a certain extent.
Remember those transitive statements back in math class?
They would go something like this:
If A=B…and B=C….then – by the transitive property of equality – A also equals C
The statement that all humans are God’s Children uses similar reasoning.
If God created every human being.
And passages such as John 3:16 tell us that God loves His entire creation - including human beings
Then - by the transitive property of theology – we come to the logical conclusion that God loves all people.
….And – folks – that is true.
On a general level – God does love every single human being.
We are reminded by passages such as 2 Peter 3:9 that God is patient with mankind – and because of His love for them – He “Is not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Paul reminds us in Romans 5:8 that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Yes – God indeed loves His masterpiece of creation – the human being.
But…as John tells us today…the love God has for His spiritual children – those who have been adopted into His family through faith in His Son – this love is a special kind of love.
Another way to express this truth is that God’s love toward unsaved humanity in general is called God’s ‘Common Grace’….
While His love toward believers is referred to as God’s ‘Special Grace’…
This is love expressed in its most pure and enhanced form – specifically reserved for members of His eternal family.
Summers are always a popular time for family reunions and get-togethers.
I remember when we would bring our girls to large reunions on Lisa’s side of the family…
for the better part of a day, they would have fun running around and playing games with their cousins, 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins, 4th cousins, 5th cousins twice removed….you get the picture.
But – even though Lisa & I loved all of those kids in a general way – the 2 girls who climbed into our car to go home with us at the end of the day…
…they were loved with special love that exceeded the love we had for the other children.
Why? because they were our immediate flesh and blood….they belonged to us….and they trusted us for their survival in a way that other children did not.
When you gave your heart to Jesus Christ, it’s like you climbed into God’s spiritual minivan….
…you were welcomed into an environment that was different that the one in which you had previously lived…
And with that different environment – comes a different form of love expressed from the heavenly Father.
I love how John 1:12 states this truth. It says “Yet to all who receive Him, to those who believed in His name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
See what’s being expressed in this verse?
Having the right to become a child of God is predicated upon one’s belief in Jesus…
In other words, we are adopted into God’s family as His spiritual children – only through faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ.
Those who are capable of choosing to follow Jesus, yet choose not to…
…they are loved by their creator in a general sense – but they have not been adopted into His eternal family….with the ability to experience a love that transcends human understanding.
Beginning in verse 4, John transitions into talking about sin – and the way in which a person’s relationship to sin in their life is a reliable indication of one’s spiritual standing with the savior.
Have you ever been driving down the road and your check engine light comes on?
These days, there can be numerous things causing this to happen…
…everything from an insignificant sensor malfunction – to a serious problem with your engine.
So – you take your vehicle to the repair shop and they run a diagnostic test to determine why the check engine light is on.
Typically, they can home in on the issue – get it fixed – and the light doesn’t come on again for a very long time…
But sometimes, the check engine light continually comes back on – even after its been to the service center multiple times…
…When this happens, it can mean there’s a deep-seated issue with your vehicle that remains unfixed
Folks – when someone chooses to indulge in a consistent, continual, habitual sin that just keeps coming back on a regular basis…
…It’s like a spiritual check engine light that keeps coming on.
…and it’s revealing a deep spiritual problem in that person’s life…a problem that remains unfixed.
This is the point that John is making in verse 6 (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.”
John is not saying that Christians never sin.
In fact, if you recall, back in chapter 1 he said this: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)
Even though believers have the power through the Holy Spirit to resist temptation each and every time it appears – sadly – we don’t always do so.
There will unfortunately be moments in our lives when we choose to disobey God, in favor of obeying our old natural, sinful desires.
So, sinless perfection is not what John is referring to here in verse 6…
…Or in verse 9 (1 John 3:9) when he says, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin….”
The key to understanding these passages has to do with how they describe the exact nature of sin in a person’s life.
The NIV uses the phrase “continues to sin” in verse 6….and again in verse 9, uses the word ‘continue’’.
The ESV translation uses the term “keeps on sinning”
…while maybe the most accurate translation of verse 6 would be the North American Standard Bible, which renders it like this “No one who remains in Him sins continually; no one who sins continually has seen Him or known Him.”
I think the wording of this translation accurately reflects the essence of John’s point here…
…the idea that continual, premeditated, willful sin is of a different nature than sin that is not continual, premeditated, and willful.
Why?...because the person who continually engages in sin without any desire to repent - and turn from it - reveals a heart that doesn’t grieve when sin is committed.
….when we sin, our heart should grieve….we should be distraught – because we know that our disobedience grieves the heart of our Savior.
One of the hardest things in life is to see your spouse, or your children cry because of something you’ve done…right?
It’s in that moment you realize whatever you chose to do that made your family member react in so much pain – whatever it was….it wasn’t worth it.
Brothers & Sisters…engaging in sin is never worth it.
Sin will always have consequences….
Consequences that will affect other people…people close to you.
Satan tries to convince us that our ‘secret sins’ aren’t hurting anyone….but that is a demonic, deceptive lie.
Chronic, habitual sin changes us…it affects the way we treat others, how we think about others…even how we perceive ourselves.
…Sin is like a cancer of the heart – and once it surfaces….if its not taken out immediately – it will metastasize throughout your entire life…and – if not treated - it will end up destroying you.
I was talking with someone the other day who once worked in a factory where hazardous chemicals were present on the jobsite each and every day.
He only worked there a short time, but said that the vast majority of people his age who continued to work in that environment had already died of cancer – or they were currently very sick.
Chronic exposure to destructive chemicals ravaged their bodies…
In the same way…chronic, willful, exposure to sin will ravage the soul.
This is what John is describing here in these verses…
The apostle Paul teaches the same truth in Romans chapter 6 “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” (Romans 6:6-7)
Paul was teaching here that since believers have put to death the old self – we are no longer slaves to sin…
We are now slaves to Christ…We are slaves to righteousness…and – as such – our lives will inherently be free of continual, habitual disobedience.
This is what John is alluding to in verse 9 (1 John 3:9) when he speaks of God’s seed being permanently implanted within the genuine believer.
Just as a plant seed contains information within it that will direct the trajectory of its physical growth and maturity…
Likewise…Having God’s spiritual seed within us – something you receive at the time or your conversion – will direct the trajectory of your spiritual growth and maturity
Lastly, in verse 10 (1 John 3:10) John concludes this section with a summary of how continual sin simply cannot become a lifestyle of a genuine Christian…
…and he also adds an interesting sentence at the end of verse 10 about not loving one’s brother.
Not only is staying free of habitual sin a test to gauge one’s relationship to Christ…but also the ability to love others.
If you recall, John says in chapter 13 of his gospel, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)
As believers, you have within you the supernatural capacity to love others to a degree that the world cannot duplicate on its own.
Sometimes it’s not easy to love someone who is very different than you.…yet – through the power of the Holy Spirt – you have the ability to overcome natural differences…or potential prejudices…and demonstrate true, selfless love to such people…
This is one of the marks of an authentic faith…
If you find that its difficult to demonstrate love to people in general on a regular basis – maybe its time to reevaluate your relationship with Jesus…
If you find that its difficult to break free from a besetting sin that continues to pop up on your spiritual dashboard like a check-engine light…
…maybe its time to take a good long hard look in the mirror….and perhaps you need to truly ask Jesus into your heart…maybe for the very first time in your life.
Today – after we celebrate communion together –
…I…along with one or two of our deacons, will be up front here by the altar…
If you’re caught in the quicksand of habitual sin…or your finding that its very difficult to selflessly love others…
…Please come see us. Let’s talk about what it looks like to truly surrender to the savior….to give your life entirely over to Him.
Please use the time wisely that God has graciously given you…
Time to establish a saving relationship with the only person who can save you from your sins…and usher you into eternity in heaven….
The savior, Jesus Christ.
Let’s Pray.