"Children of God"

Well, good morning. It's good to see you all here. As we are in our summer months, if you find yourselves overwhelmed with heat, you can move up.

There are a couple of seats in the front in the fan zone, kind of like the splash zone at SeaWorld.

And so you'll get a little bit extra wind. And also, downstairs, if you go out here and downstairs, there is air conditioning and live stream.

If that will help you, stay with us for the next little while as we look into God's Word together.

You know, I used to have in my dresser two broken watches. Technically, they were called Folexes.

Maybe you're familiar with this. A Folex is something you can buy on the street, probably in New York.

I purchased mine in China. They cost about $8, not the thousands of dollars that real Rolexes cost.

And they reveal themselves by their workmanship and by where they come from.

I have actually seen and been in a real Rolex shop once in Switzerland.

And if you have seen the true thing, they are amazing.

Their workmanship, their beauty, their style, their quality, truly amazing.

But the Folexes are not that.

And the first time I bought them, I thought, maybe I'm getting a deal.

Maybe this is kind of like slightly shoddy workmanship, but maybe this is pretty close.

Not so.

It broke before I got home.

And the second time I bought it, I knew exactly what I was getting.

But I thought, this is fun. Why not?

But it raises a question, how do you know the difference?

How do you know the difference between a Folex and a Rolex?

Well, where it was made and the character and quality of its work.

And this is a question that's been asked not only if watches, fake and real,

but throughout the history of the church, it's a question that the church is asked about

what is the true nature of a Christian?

What do you look for so you can distinguish between what is fake and what is real?

It's asked by those outside the church who look at the church and the breadth of people

who claim the name of Christ and wonder what is real here?

Because there's a breadth of all sorts of things.

And it's asked within the church, as people want to know for themselves,

how can I know that I truly am a Christian?

How can I get some kind of assurance or confidence that my Christianity is really what the Bible says?

Well, it's to this that our passage speaks to this morning.

We're in the letter of 1 John.

John, that's at the end of your Bible, right before Revelation, page 960 is where we're going to be today.

And as you know, John is writing to a church at the end of the first century or near the end of the first century.

And what he's writing about is how to give confidence in the face of some other believers,

other teachers who were showing and demonstrating something different than what they had seen or heard from the beginning.

Last week we looked at it.

We saw that true Christians are those whose doctrine about Jesus is true,

that we know and understand who Jesus is rightly.

And this was in response to those who seem to be trying to mislead the church about the nature of Jesus.

Well, let's go ahead and look at the passage today to see what John adds to our understanding

of what true Christianity is meant to look like.

So, 1 John, we're going to start in chapter 2, verse 28, and we'll go through chapter 3, verse 10.

Let's read along together.

And now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence

and not shrink back from him in shame at his coming.

If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

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,

and 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.

And you know that he appeared 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 brothers.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we ask for your help this morning.

Lord, let us receive this word from you with understanding in our mind.

Lord, with gladness in our hearts and with willingness in our spirit.

Lord, to follow you and to heed this word and to sit under it as it teaches us and instructs us and leads us.

Lord, I pray for your help this morning.

You would help me that I might speak your word clearly.

And Lord, together we might honor you by sitting under it together.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So where does the confidence come from to know that we are true Christians?

Well, there are three things.

The three things, and here's my attempt at an outline.

We'll see how it flies, but I think it'll work.

The first one is the confidence that true Christians have that they are children of God.

That's the first thing we're going to look at.

Second thing that John says is that there is a character that true Christians must demonstrate.

And thirdly, that there is a champion that true Christians trust.

So there's a confidence, a character, and a champion.

There's your outline if you're a note taker.

Hopefully we'll be able to walk through the passage together today.

First of all, then, in the first part of this passage, what is the confidence?

The confidence that Christians can have is that they are truly children of God.

Why does this come up?

Well, in verse 28, John starts by saying,

Now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears you may have confidence and not shrink back.

John is looking ahead to a day of judgment and to a day of return where Jesus is going to come back to the earth,

and he's going to call all people to account.

And what he's saying is, I want you to have confidence on that day that you will be able to stand before him and not be ashamed.

Now, why does he talk about shame here?

Well, there could be a number of different things, but I think the shame he envisions here is actually different than guilt.

Guilt would be being brought before a judge in a courtroom, right, where our transgressions, here's the law,

you have broken the law, and you receive a judgment and a penalty for it.

But I think the shame here is actually something different.

It's the shame that we feel rightly when we recognize that we have let down those that we love.

So if you're a student and you have to go home and confess that your teacher caught you cheating on a test

or copying your friend's answers on their homework, and you have to face those parents, you feel shame.

When you've made a promise to someone, whether it be marriage or in a work context or others,

and then you've broken that promise, and you have to go and face the one who you've broken that promise with.

This is the shame that John envisions that sinners will have when we stand before a holy God.

He who is perfect in goodness and beautiful in his majesty, when we stand before him,

when we know ourselves, there is this fear.

But John says, I tell you, there is a way that we can stand before him where we will not feel that shame.

How is it?

It is that we are children of God.

This is the whole part of this section from 28 through 3.3.

This is the thrust of it.

You see it in chapter 3, verse 1 so clearly.

Behold what manner of love the Father has shown to us, that we should be called children of God.

And let's be clear about what he's talking about here.

He's not talking about a creator-creation relationship.

Sometimes we talk about humanity, all of humanity as children of God.

Aren't we all children of God?

And at one level, that's recognizing that we're created in God's image.

And so rightly, all of creation in some way is a reflection of God.

But here there's something more specific.

This is about God's elected, adopted children.

The one that he has chosen to rescue out of sin and fallenness and make them his own.

And the doctrine of adoption that we, because of our sin, have been alienated from God

and have been rejected from him and are not a part of his family.

And yet God has come to us and called us into his family through Jesus Christ.

And at the core of that calling back in and that adoption is this amazing doctrine

that we are born anew into his family.

Because that spiritual alienation is also a spiritual death.

And when God comes to us through the gospel and invites us into a living relationship with Jesus,

he makes us born again.

This is what Mina read earlier from John 3, a famous passage about Nicodemus.

How must I enter the kingdom of God?

You must be born again.

What does that mean?

It means that God's spirit working in us brings alive what was dead in us spiritually

so that we can actually know and relate to God.

And as God does this, he brings us into his family and he says,

you are now my special children.

And in my love, I have imparted to you in this spiritual reawakening,

this spiritual rebirth, a new nature

so that you are now no longer an alien from me,

but you are now like me.

We are born then into his family so that we might be like him.

And this is the thing that John is threading all these massive theological themes together

to say that when we become children of God,

we are then meant to bear a family resemblance.

I've been told that I resemble my father in a number of ways,

not only in physical appearance, but in my mannerisms, in my disposition.

My brothers and sister-in-laws, my sister-in-laws especially,

because you know sister-in-laws are always really,

they've got a good radar for stuff like this.

They're like, you're like your dad.

I'm like, really?

Okay.

But it's true.

But so in my family, there's this family resemblance

that has been passed down from my dad to me.

And this is what God is doing.

As he makes us born again, he then calls us into remaking us

so that we are going to be reflective of him and his character,

and particularly in this context, in his moral character.

This is what we see in verse 29.

If we know that he is righteous,

then we will be, everyone who practices righteousness like God,

will demonstrate that God has made him born again

into this kind of righteousness.

And in verse 3 of chapter 3, you see it again.

And as we know that he is pure,

then his children purify himself.

That is, we move away from the defiling things

and towards the goodness of God and his character.

And this is the hope and the confidence

that John wants to give true Christians.

That we could be called children of God

because this work that God is doing in us

is producing something that is visible.

And he's doing this, I think,

and we'll explore this a little more in a bit,

but he's doing this because it seems that

some of those who had left the community

but were still claiming the name of Christ

were saying, I can claim to be a child of God,

and it doesn't matter how I live.

I can live no matter how I want.

And John is saying, that is deception.

That is not true.

And in order to bring this to bear more clearly,

he then, as we move on to our second point,

he then brings a contrast into focus.

This is what we see in verses 4 through 10.

Most clearly, he makes a contrast,

and he's very black and white in his language.

It's shocking, striking, and fearful sometimes

how John speaks.

But he says, you are either a child of God

or you are a child of the devil.

And if you've been at Trinity a lot,

you know this is not language that we usually use around here

because it's shocking and it's sort of,

it feels extreme.

And if you're visiting today, know that this isn't.

But this is what John is actually saying here.

He says there are two kinds of people.

How does he say this?

Well, it's at the core of it, right, is in verses 8 and 9.

And he says you can tell the nature of a person

by their character and their actions.

Verse 8 and 9 says this,

whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil,

for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

And 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.

He cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

So the contrast here is very stark, right?

If sin is characteristic of your living,

then you are like the devil.

And look, John defines sinning particularly in this context, right?

Verses 5, he says sin is lawlessness.

What does that mean?

A spirit of independence, of freedom from any authority, right?

And he might be thinking violating the law of Moses

in the Old Testament,

but I think his picture is actually larger than that.

It's a fundamental spirit of rebellion against God

as our ruler and judge and creator

to whom we are accountable.

It is a rejection that he is the one

that defines good and evil, right and wrong in the world.

And the sin here is the practice of

regularly rejecting God, taking this role in our lives.

And when we reject God in that way,

the DNA that emerges through our actions,

what we see is the same thing we see in the devil

because that's what he did from the beginning.

He rebelled against God.

He enticed humans to rebel against God.

And this is his fundamental character,

is to reject and rebel against God.

And so this is what John is saying.

And he makes a contrast then.

In verses 7 and 8, he then said,

or in, I'm sorry, in verse 9,

he makes the contrast negatively.

If you keep on sinning, you can't be born of God

because this spirit of rebellion

is contrary to the DNA of the person

who has the seed of God in him.

Now, some of you are like biologists

and know far better than me.

But a particular plant, seed,

can only produce a particular kind of plant.

If I plant a marigold seed,

I'm not going to get a chrysanthemum.

I'm going to get a marigold, right?

And so when God plants a seed in his children

by making them born again,

that seed of God is going to produce

godly action and character.

So to be born of God is to submit to

rather than reject God's rule.

It's to gladly embrace his determinations

and his ways.

To be his children is not a duty

of rules we have to keep so we don't get spanked,

but a delight so that we might please him.

And it's not an independent spirit

of I want to do my own thing,

but a joyous dependence.

God, show me how I might live

so that I might flourish and glorify you.

And to keep on sinning, John reminds us,

is to inhabit a practice of rebellion

is the opposite of this spirit.

Just like a maple tree cannot create acorns

and a corn stalk cannot make radishes,

so someone born of God

cannot produce this spirit of rebellion.

Remember Jesus said,

a tree is known by its fruit.

So John brings this contrast to bear,

and it's really stark.

And if we're listening carefully,

we should start to be afraid, right?

How do we respond to this?

How do we think about this?

Because if we're honest with ourselves,

we're all finding ourselves

not in the children of God category,

but somewhere else.

And what are we gonna do with this?

Three applications for this major point

before we move on to our third point.

First, we need to be careful not to be deceived.

This is what he says in verse seven.

Don't be deceived.

Character and the actions are the ultimate test

of who we are in our nature, okay?

And anyone who teaches that I can reject God

and still be God's children,

that I can live in rebellion against him

and still be rightly related to him,

this is falsehood.

And it is the hypocrisy that we hate

or should hate,

and that the world hates

when they see it in the church.

So we need to not be deceived

by this teaching that is prevalent,

not only today,

but in the first century.

John Stott,

the great British commentator and pastor,

wrote this about it.

The heretics seem to have taught

that the enlightened Christian,

that to the enlightened Christian,

questions of morality

were a matter of indifference.

Now, today, our sins are excused

either by euphemisms like,

oh, I have personality problems,

or by a plea of cultural relativity.

Well, is it really that bad?

In contrast to such underestimates of sin,

John declares it is not just a negative failure

of missing the mark or unrighteousness,

but it is essentially an active rebellion

against God's known will.

Those who say that God's will has shifted,

that his standards have changed,

that sin isn't sin,

and that God will accept us

no matter what,

no matter how we live,

no matter what we do,

this is not truth.

This is deception.

So we need to hear this.

Now, again,

if you're not afraid yet,

you should be, right?

Let us examine ourselves

because John wants us to hear this

and to know this standard,

and one of the ways we might respond

is to find ourselves

in judgment of other people.

That our response is to sit back

and look at this passage and say,

oh, well, now I know

who the real Christians are

because it's me

and, well, he looks really good

and I think she looks really good

and the rest of you,

yeah, probably not.

And we have this spirit

and this desire to judge.

And look,

there's something right about this.

I want to be careful with this

because when our church,

for instance,

when we baptize people,

we do so upon their profession of faith,

but we affirm that we see

the seed of God planted in them

bearing fruit.

And when we bring someone

into membership,

we affirm their profession of faith

in Jesus Christ

partly on the basis

of what we see in their lives.

If someone is actively rebelling

against God and says,

I want to be a member of the church,

we would say,

we love you,

but we're going to call you to repent

before we can bring you

into membership.

And if there's no repentance,

then we can't affirm

that God's seed is producing

this righteousness in you.

Now, having said all that,

let us hear C.S. Lewis

because he has a great word for us.

He says,

human beings judge one another

by their external actions.

God judges them

by their moral choices.

When a neurotic person

who has a pathological horror of cats

forces himself to pick up a cat

for some good reason,

it is quite possible

that in God's eyes,

he has shown more courage

than a healthy man may have shown

in winning the Victoria Cross.

And when a man who has been perverted

from his youth

and taught that cruelty

is the right thing

does a little tiny kindness

or refrains from some cruelty

that he might have committed

and thereby perhaps risks

being sneered at by his companions,

he may in God's eyes

be doing more than you and I

would do if we give up life itself

for a friend.

So this is the humility.

You hear what C.S. Lewis is saying?

Recognize that we don't all start

at the same place

and what we see on the outside

is not always the true growth

of that spiritual seed in someone.

And depending on where we started,

we might look really good on the outside

and yet our hearts are not good.

Or we might look a little rough

around the edges

but our hearts are good.

So we want to be careful

with how we hear this

and yet we do want to hear

the exhortation

and the standard that John is saying.

We've got to see fruit

of God's seed in us

to know that we can be true Christians.

And this brings us

to the very crux of the crisis

that this passage ought to bring to us.

Because in 1 John 1,

he told us,

if you claim to have no sin,

you lie

and the truth is not in you.

If you claim that you have not sinned,

you deceive yourself.

And now John says,

if you have sin,

you can't be a child of God.

Well, what is it, John?

How do we do these things?

Well, two things

to bring us together

so that we can see

that John is not actually speaking

out of both sides of his mouth

but he is speaking

in each context

towards a common truth, right?

First, in this passage,

there is a repeated emphasis

not on sin

but on sinning, right?

So the verbs often indicate

ongoing action,

continuous presence, right?

And so what he is talking about

primarily here

is not a single act

or a single thought

but a pattern,

an attitude,

a character trait.

Right?

Again,

the big picture

is a question of rebellion

versus submission to God

and his law

and moving towards

and it's a question

and here's what John

would want to say to us.

If we are complacent

in the face of our sin

when we excuse it

rather than hating it,

when we are comfortable

in our sin,

when we are unwilling to,

as Jesus says,

pluck out our eye

in order to stop sinning,

if we find ourselves

defensively denying sin

when others graciously

pointed out to us,

these are some of the warning signs

that we have these patterns

so embedded in us

that we have taken hold of

a spirit of not submission

but rebellion.

John is not calling

for sinless perfection here.

I don't believe.

Chapter 1 would tell us

very clearly

that's not true

but he is saying

what is your trajectory?

What direction are you headed?

Are you headed towards God

and continually being refined

and as things become clear,

you repent of them

and you change?

There is a sense in which

it is true

that we are always going

to be sinners

this side of heaven

so that we will not be perfect

and yet,

we should never say,

but that makes it okay

for me to sin in this way

because John would say,

no, don't you see?

This is contrary

to the very DNA

of who you are.

A Christian must be moving

towards righteousness

and it is the direction

that we are headed

that is most important

and as we hear this word,

for those of us

who are in a battle

against sin,

a particular thing right now

that you're fighting

that right now

the Holy Spirit

is bringing to your mind

going,

oh my gosh,

my deceit,

my anger,

my pride,

my selfishness,

my pornography,

whatever it is,

it's coming to mind

and you're thinking,

okay,

he gave me a little room

to be okay

with being in battle.

Here's what we need to do.

Never use this passage

and this idea of trajectory

to let you be complacent.

You need to fight against sin.

It needs to include lamenting

of your fallenness.

It needs to include confessing

as we saw in chapter one.

It needs to include repentance,

turning away,

changing your life,

changing your mind

and drawing on the resources

that God has given us

to move towards the things of God.

We should always hate sin

as a foreign invader

for those of us

who are truly in Christ.

But it's more than that

and this brings us

to our third point.

As we fight this battle against sin,

as we see this trajectory,

how do we know

that we are children of God?

Because we have a champion

in which true Christians trust in.

Verse five,

look with me at it again.

You know that he,

that is Jesus,

appeared to take away sin

and in him there is no sin.

When Jesus Christ came,

he came as the only sinless human.

Though he was fully human,

he had no sin

and he perfectly obeyed his father

in every way

and his perfect obedience

showed his true nature.

He was unstained

by the sin of Adam and Eve

so that he might be our savior

and that through his life

on our behalf,

through his death

in replacement for us

and in through his resurrection

displaying his perfection,

he then comes to take away our sin.

His life, death, and resurrection

for true Christians

erases the record

so that when we go into the police station

to say what's on his rap sheet,

there's nothing there

because Christ has taken

all of those things for us

and given us his sheet

which is all righteousness.

Jesus through his life,

death, and resurrection

has also washed us clean

though the stain of sin

from Adam and Eve

would continue to pull our hearts

towards rebellion

and away from God.

He has washed us clean from that.

White as snow

and removed from us

our sins as far as the east

is from the west

and this is what happens

when he plants his seed

and then he calls us

to be who he has made us now

in Christ.

This was the purpose of his work

that sin would not continue

but it would end.

That the devil who comes

to encourage sin and rebellion

would ultimately be seen

to be the defeated one

not the victorious one

and that God himself

would be lifted up

in the midst of his whole creation

as the glorious savior

as the truly righteous one

and his people

would be a reflection of this

in his world.

This is our champion

and this is our hope

because when we see him

we know that sin

does not have the ultimate power

that the devil

does not have control over us

but instead

when the gospel seed

takes root in our hearts

we now have a new nature

to be born again

and we will see this

in the midst of our battle

we will see this

by growth in righteousness.

Now you guys have heard me

say this before

one of the amazing things

that happens in saints

is that as we go along in life

the older we get

the more righteous

we should become

and the more aware

of our sin

we become

at the same time.

So when you ask

the older saints

in the midst of us

they're not going to tell you

how perfect they are

they're going to tell you

how much more

they see their sin

and yet

when you look at their life

the fruit of it

you will see

they have become

increasingly righteous

they are less selfish

they are less

they're more

giving and sacrificial

they are more patient

they are less angry

etc. etc.

And this is what we should see

is growth

in both of these things

so a true saint

will be more aware

of their sinfulness

and yet

produce more of the fruit

of the seed

that God has planted

in them

this is what John

is looking for

and he's saying

this is what we should

be looking for

and if you want

the confidence

the confidence

of true Christianity

look for that

look for that

gospel dynamic

look for the seed

of God

in one born again

producing fruit

someone who's

battling against sin

someone who's

humbled by their weakness

and yet someone

who is being conformed

more and more

so that they're like Jesus

because Jesus

came to make us

his brothers

and sisters

under our heavenly

father

born again

into the family

of God

behold what manner

of love

the father

has shown us

that we should be called

children of God

let's pray

Lord Jesus

we thank you

for this word

Lord we confess

as we come to you

before it

God we are not perfect

and Lord we pray

for you

oh Lord

will you

by your spirit

strengthen

gird us up

to fight

against sin

help us

to lay hold

of the seed

of the gospel

and the new life

that you have

given us

Lord

so that we might

not become

complacent

or weary

in fighting

against sin

but rather

Lord

that our trajectory

would be always

towards you

pleasing you

honoring you

doing what is right

Lord we pray

as a church

that

Lord we might

pursue this fight

with humility

with grace

and with

stubborn

steadfastness

Lord

that we would

not be

like the world

that does not

know us

because they did

not know him

but that this church

would be

reflective

of you

and the seed

that you have

planted

in us

in the gospel

Lord I thank you

for this word

may we be encouraged

by it today

we pray in Jesus name

Amen

That means

to be

we pray

enough

to be