We tend to use the word “practice” two different ways.
First, we might refer to how we do things. “It is our practice to….” That’s why attorneys practice law or doctors practice medicine.
Second, we do something over and over to get better at it (think learning a sport or a musical skill).
John is going to use the word poieo (poy-eh-o) numerous times in today’s passage, a word often translated as “practice.” I think that the two meanings for practice put together capture what he is trying to say: poieo is how we do things, or it’s something we do over and over and get better at it. Keep that in mind as we read.
Everyone who practices sin (lives a life of habitual sin)[1] is living in moral anarchy. That’s what sin is.[2] Jesus came to take our sins, but there is not the slightest bit of sin in Him. The ones who live in an intimate relationship with Him do not persist in sin, but anyone who persists in sin has not seen and does not know the real Jesus.[3]
“Taking on our sin” has an interesting image associated with it. It’s the idea that someone picks something up and takes it with her, like what the lame man did with his bed (Matthew 9:6), or like a transferred yoke from one cow to another in farm work (Matthew 11:29). Remember how Jesus asked people to take his yoke upon them?[4] He was asking them to “take” his mission, to join him in where he was going. More on this later, so keep that image in mind.
Children, don’t let anyone deceive you. The one practicing righteousness (persistently doing the right thing and getting better at it) is just imitating Jesus, the Righteous One. The one who practices sin (persistently doing the wrong thing and getting better at it) belongs to the diabolical one, who has been all about sin from the beginning. That is why the Son of God came into our world: to destroy the plague of destruction inflicted on the world by the diabolical one.
No one who has been born into God’s family practices sin as a lifestyle because the God’s children are the spiritually generated offspring[5] of God Himself. Therefore, a child of God has the power to reject a life of persistent sin. So it is not hard to figure out who are the children of God and who are the children of the diabolical one: those who do not practice righteousness (what God approves) and those who don’t practice agape love for one another do not belong to God.
Practicing righteousness vs. practicing sin.
Poieo.
Getting better at righteousness vs. getting better at sin by doing them.
Last weekend I was talking with a young man from Russia (one of Braden’s friends.) I was reminiscing about how last summer he cooked us borscht. I thought I was doing pretty good with my English pronunciation, but when he started rolling those r’s to show me how it was really pronounced, I was in trouble. He was good at it because he grew up doing it. He got better and better because he’s done it millions of times. I, on the other hand, have not. I have practiced ‘hard’ r’s, and I’m good at those.
Poieo.
I was watching a new series on Neflix. In episode one, a boy hides from bullies. A nun tells him, “If you want to be the kind of boy who runs from bullies, you might last until you are 20.” It was harsh world. She was probably right. It morphs into a scene 10 years later where he is fighting the equivalent of MMA, taking on all comes, with a reputation of a guy who was not afraid of anything.
Poeio. Practice.
This is not in opposition to the reality that God gives us gifts. It’s in conjunction with the reality that God gives us gifts. Something can be given to us freely, and we still have to practice.
My dad gave me a basketball, a bike, a BB gun. I still had to practice to get good at them. I had good singing voice when I was younger. I had the ability to find the rhythm with a bass. I could speak in front of others without fear and trembling. I could write good – sorry, I could write well J I had the genetics to be relatively successful at a few sports. I did not earn any of these things. They were in some sense given to me. I had to practice if I wanted them to grow.
It’s Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour/10 year rule. You do something for 10,000 hours, you are probably really, really good at it. The more poieo, the more accomplished you become at. It begins to feel natural because you get used to it and the exercise of that gift becomes more and more natural.
John does not claim we earn our righteousness. Biblical writers are clear that our being declared righteous is a free gift from God. But he still says we must practice it. And our practice is guided by our yokes.
Eventually, you get used to the yoke you wear. You get better at following the direction of the yoke, fulfilling the mission of the yoked.
The yoke is something farmers would hook up to two oxen for plowing a (hopefully) straight line. There were good combinations and bad. Ideally, they moved in a straight line toward a common goal. We yoke with something or someone for everything. We have all picked something up and taken it with us wittingly or unwittingly; we have all willingly joined the formation or course of our life with something or someone else.
I was an Auburn fan when I was a kid for no reason other than somebody got me an Auburn jacket. Then, when I moved to Ohio, I (by the grace of God) became a Buckeye fan.
I like food you find in the south because I grew up in the south. Boiled crawdads and fried catfish and grits, man. I even like dried okra.
I speak English - for a while with a good Southern accent.
Those are all things I unwittingly took on. It was just a natural thing based on the social ecosystem in which I lived. There are other things – yokes, if you will - I chose wittingly:
I became a Christian – I took on that yoke.
When I got married, Sheila and I yoked together.
When we started coming to church at CLG, we yoked with the people here.
We constantly ‘put on’ things, and when we do, poieo will follow. We will inevitably practice. From the moment we get out of bed, every day, we are practicing righteousness or sin based on who or what shares our yoke.
Paul addressed this reality with the church in Corinth. When Paul first went to Corinth, he had apparently warned them about associating with people who were sexually immoral. Unfortunately, they did not understand what he was trying to say. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul clarified his command: “I didn’t mean people who aren’t following Christ. You would have to leave the world.” In other words, of course you are going to have friends and relate to people who don’t agree with you or live like you.
In his second letter, he gives them a little more clarity on how not to be “of” Corinth even while they live “in” Corinth:
“Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers. What common interest can there be between goodness and evil? How can light and darkness share life together? How can there be harmony between Christ and the devil? What business can a believer have with an unbeliever? What common ground can idols hold with the temple of God? For we, remember, are ourselves living temples of the living God.” (2 Corinthians 6:14 - 7:1)
You may have heard this passage used about marriage, but it’s not about marriage specifically (it applies to all relationships). Everybody yokes. Be careful with whom you yoke.
There are some things that will either guide us on a straight path in the Kingdom of God or try to pull us around into a different Kingdom altogether. Every yoke works with us or against us as we move toward a goal. If we want to practice righteousness well, we must yoke with the righteous. Be careful who shares your spiritual yoke.
During the Roman persecutions, Christians were commanded to cast a little incense on the altar of a pagan god. They refused to do it, and thousands were killed. Just a little incense. Why was this such a big deal?This was a question of allegiance and partnership. It seemed like one small thing, but it was practice. It was the first step in poeio.
This is the idea behind the imagery of the infamous “mark” in the book of Revelation (as I understand it). What marks you? What are you known for? Where is your allegiance? With whose identity does your practice yoke you and thus mark you?[6]
· Who gets your conscious, deliberate sacrifice? Not of incense, but of time, money, energy, thoughts, priorities? Who yokes you into supporting them in thought or in practice? And how does that mark you? If something is going to give in your schedule during the day, what gives? Poeio. If something is going to give in your week, what is it? Poeio.
· For whom or what will you go out of your way, rearrange your schedule, bump other things? Who or what yokes you into prioritizing them, and their agenda, and their schedule? Poeio.You are practicing something that will make you a particular kind of someone.
· With whom are you willing to unite to avoid hardship or discomfort or get what you want? How much are you willing to compromise for pleasure and comfort? Will you walk into or away from tension with others? Poeio.
· Who or what forms your view of world events, and thus orders your thoughts and speech and actions? Who yokes you into thinking like they do? You can find out what leading Christian thinkers say about it first, or you can start with leading politicians or talking heads on TV. Every one is poeio. You are practicing.
John has already told us the importance of yoking with Jesus, with the Word, with God’s people, through the power of the Holy Spirit. For the rest of the book, John is going to tell us how yoking in this way will mark as one of God’s righteous children. The mark is the practice of showing the righteous love of the Father to others. [7] Those who practice righteousness and those who practice agape love for one another belong to God (v.10). We bear the mark of Christ when we live the love of Christ.
· 1 John 3:11 “For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.”
· 1 John 3:14 “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other.”
· 1 John 3:16: “We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”
· 1 John 3:23: “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”
· 1 John 4:7 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.”
· 1 John 4:11 “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
· 1 John 4:21 “Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”
· 1 John 5:2 “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.”
That which leads us to practice a greater righteousness and display the fruits of the Spirit (starting with love) is of God; that which leads us to practice sin and show contempt, disdain, or hatred to others is of the devil.
You want to know with whom you are yoked? Are the fruits of the Spirit growing or fading, beginning with love?[8]
When we survey the cultural landscape and see all the things that stand in opposition to the Kingdom of God, are we marked in our internal and external response by the fruits of the Spirit that proclaim us to be a child of God and a practitioner of righteousness, and does it call out of us a desire to agape love those both near and far from Christ?
When we watched or read the coverage of George Floyd’s death, and then the trial of one of the officers this past week, and then news stories with an intersection of violence and race, what increases in us? Was it a practice in righteousness? Did our thoughts, emotions, or words bear the mark of Jesus and show that we have partnered with him in spirit and in truth? Did it call out of us a desire for all those involved to experience the agape love of Christ, beginning with the embodiment of that love as displayed in His people?
As COVID rolls on with all of its devastation and frustration, are we increasing in peace, joy, hope and love, or are we increasing in anger, bitterness, judgment and fear? Is our voice and presence stabilizing and soothing a tumultuous world, or inflaming it? Is the love of Christ for others growing in us for all of the following:
· maskers and anti-maskers
· COVID vaxxers and COVID anti-vaxxers
· lockdown fans and lockdown opponents
· people who have lost loved one; people who have lost jobs
· exhausted health care workers in hospitals
· people longing for unmasked faces – or masked faces
· people wrestling with mental health issues more than ever
· politicians whose decisions will always put them in somebody’s sights
· that person walking through this church door that we think is living in fear because they wear a mask or don’t get a vaccine, or living in arrogance because they don’t wear a mask or brag about their vaccine
Do you feel it after that list? Something is rising within you? Are the fruits of the spirit bubbling up more than ever? Did you feel agape love? Did any of that take your joy? Are you at peace even if something on that list triggered you? Are you planning how you can show patience, kindness and gentleness to “that person?” Were you considering how your presence around others on this list can be characterized by faithfulness and goodness? Is your self-control being tested? What’s winning?
Is the love of Christ moving in us so that we are seeing all of these people as Christ sees them, thinking of them as Christ thinks of them, speaking to and of them as Jesus would speak if they were here?
“How can we avoid sin? By keeping the commandments of Christ. And what is that commandment? It is that we should love. Love, and sin is undone.” (Augustine)
Keeping the commandment of love. Poeio.
Practice love, as one who has passed from death into life (1 John 3:14).
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[1] A. “The present tense of the Greek suggests behavior that is characteristic or usual. In this way John acknowledges, but does not excuse, the possibility of occasional sin. Another possibility is that John has in mind the specific sin of apostasy, mentioned in 2:19 (cf. also 5:16–18). If so, John means that true believers will not totally abandon their faith.” B. “John is not teaching sinless perfection (see 1:8, 10; 2:2). He speaks here of habitual practice of known sinful acts. The true believer’s actions will conform to the character of his true father, either God or Satan. The person born of God will reflect this in his behavior.” (Both quotes from commentary on Bible Gateway.) C) “Christ in himself is most pure, and he came to take away our sins, by sanctifying us with the Holy Spirit, therefore whoever is truly a partaker of Christ, does not give himself to sin, and on the contrary, he that gives himself to sin does not know Christ. (Geneva Study Bible)
[2] That moral anarchy is disregard of known law, or acting as if one has no law when if fact the law is known. (Cambridge Bible For Schools And Colleges)
[3] “Hath not seen him - It is no unusual thing with this apostle, both in his gospel and in his epistles, to put occasionally the past for the present, and the present for the past tense. It is very likely that here he puts, after the manner of the Hebrew, the preterite for the present: He who sins against God doth not see him, neither doth he know him - the eye of his faith is darkened, so that he cannot see him as he formerly did; and he has no longer the experimental knowledge of God as his Father and portion.” (Adam Clarke)
[4] Matthew 11:29
[5] “3:9 God’s seed. A daring metaphor employing the word “seed” (Greek sperma) to depict the Spirit’s work in believers. Unlike the children of the devil (in this case the secessionists), the children of God do not go on sinning because the Spirit dwells within them. There is an apparent contradiction in 1 John concerning sin in the believer’s life: those who claim not to have sinned are liars (1:10); those born of God do not and cannot sin (3:6, 9). A possible resolution is that, in context, 3:4 defines the latter sin as “lawlessness” (Greek anomia). In the NT this word refers not to breaking the law but to rebelling against God (like the devil’s rebellion). If this is the case, John is saying that those who claim to know God and yet sin in this way certainly do not know God and are, in fact, in league with the devil. This is the sin that those born of God do not and cannot commit. It is possible for believers to sin in other ways, as 1:8—2:1indicates.” (NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible)
[6] Question to the Bible Project guys: Is there a relationship between the engraving of Yahweh’s holiness on the golden plate of the priest’s turban in Exodus 39:30 also described in Exodus 23:28 as a mark on Aaron’s forehead, and the mark of God’s name on his bondservants’ foreheads in Revelation 7, Revelation 22? ? And is there also a counter relationship to the mark of the beast?
[7] All disobedience is contrary to love; therefore sin is the transgression of the law, whether the act refers immediately to God or to our neighbor. (Adam Clarke)
[8] “No man is of God who is not ready on all emergencies to do any act of kindness for the comfort, relief, and support of any human being. For, as God made of one blood an the nations of men to dwell upon the face of the whole earth, so all are of one family; and consequently all are brethren, and should love as brethren.” (Adam Clarke)