Children of God, So We Are (1 John 3:1-10)

The second reading is from the first letter of John chapter 3, starting at the first verse.

John 3 · chapter mention

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, but 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.

You know that he appeared in order 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 brother.

The word of the Lord.

As John frames the Christian life as walking in the light.

By walking in the light, we find we have fellowship with our triune God, and we have fellowship with one another as sisters and brothers in Christ.

This fellowship in the light requires a cleansing from darkness.

It requires a living out, a confessing of our sins, a receiving of forgiveness, and a continual life of repentance and renewal.

In a way, it's this question that frames John's letter to his little children, to his precious flock.

As a pastor, he's writing to warn, he's writing to correct against false doctrine that's spreading around his church in Ephesus, kind of like an infection.

And he's writing to call attention to the gospel, the good news of being made children in Christ of the Most High God.

What greater privilege could there be?

He wants to make sure that his flock, just like our flock, doesn't confuse the good news of Jesus, the gospel, with anything that's second best.

Because second best just won't do.

It is not the good news.

The good news that John sees for us about the Christian life is this.

What does it mean to live a truly Christian life?

It means to live as a child of God.

Walking in the light, living as a child of God.

It's almost like spinning the same ruby and seeing the light refract and reflect in a in a new and surprising and marvelous way.

This is the fundamental truth of who we are.

Those of us who are in Christ are children of the Most High God.

What a wondrous truth this is.

What a marvelous thing this is.

This is a truth that John wants us to make no mistake about.

It is so fundamental to who we are.

And yet John wants his precious flock to understand that this is not a truth that is an easy thing, nor is it something we can assume, as though this is some kind of default position between us and our God.

See, John writes with a warning, and we see this in verse 10.

John writes that by this, all this being the case, 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 brother.

See, it's evident who belong to God, who have a family connection, as it were, a familial relationship with God as their heavenly Father, and those who are counterfeit, those who claim to be children of God, and yet their practice and proclamation testifies otherwise.

I take it that John is referring to these false teachers.

He's referring to these counterfeit Christians passing themselves off as children of God, when in fact their proclamation says just the opposite.

And John wants us to understand that apart from God's light, we belong to darkness.

We saw that last week.

We see a similar truth in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

You were formerly in darkness, but now you are the light.

Now that you are light in the Lord, walk as children of light, is what Paul says.

Apart from God's light, we belong to darkness.

Apart from God's truth, we are bound in deception.

Apart from God's forgiveness, we practice self-righteousness.

In other words, all these things being the case, we have more in common, a closer relationship with the lies of the enemy, with the lies of the devil, than with the truth and light of our Lord.

So, what does it mean to be a child of God?

What does it mean to live as a child of God?

This is fundamental to who we are.

This is not incidental stuff, nor is this sentimental language.

The late J.I.

Packer writes this.

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his father.

If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.

When we think about being a Christian and practicing our faith, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

Our systematic theology?

Our good works.

We are children of God.

So we are.

We are God's children now, John says in verse 2.

This is who we are.

What does it mean to live like that?

Well, this is where I have to confess, friends, that when I prepare a sermon, I aim for something like two complementary points.

Sometimes I'm concise enough to have one point.

This morning is a personal record of mine.

I've got seven points.

So it's, I encourage you to get comfortable.

It's going to be a wonderful three hours together.

But even if we can only touch on some of these points as we see like steps that build onto the next one, even if we can only touch on them, I want us to see how fundamental this reality is of our identity in Christ as children of God.

This is who we are.

And in these ten verses, I think John has seven aspects of what it means to live as a child.

So if you have a pen or a paper, maybe you want to write these down as we track along.

What does it mean to live as a child of God?

Well, a child of God is one, loved by the Father.

A child of God is loved by the Father.

Number two, a child of God is estranged to the world.

A child of God is estranged to the world.

Number three, a child of God will be like Jesus when he appears.

A child of God will be like Jesus when he appears.

Number four, a child of God is purified in hope.

Purified in hope.

Number five, a child of God does not practice sin.

Does not practice sin.

Number six, a child of God does practice righteousness.

Does practice righteousness.

And finally, number seven, a child of God loves her brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is where John goes next in his letter.

His entire, in the paragraphs to follow, our text next week, will be him exploring the implications of what it means to love our sisters and brothers in Christ.

So this will be something of a cliffhanger, something of a to-be continued.

But we do want to see this part in light of the whole.

What does it mean to live as a child of God?

Friends, this is fundamental to who we are, so let's dive in.

A child of God, number one, is loved by the Father.

Verse one see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God, and so we are.

Does this strike us as something that's obvious?

I think it's easy to assume that God loves us because that's like his job, right?

God just loves, that's his thing.

Friends, we have to grapple with how extraordinary this love is.

In fact, you could translate this phrase, what kind of love, is something like, how extraordinary is our Father's love?

How very much has he loved us.

This is a marvelous truth.

This is a remarkable truth.

This word love is a Greek word, agape.

It's a generous benevolence.

It's not an obvious kind of love, it's a wildly surprising kind of love.

And I say that because this John who writes this pastoral letter is the same John who wrote the gospel according to John.

And in that gospel, chapter 15, Jesus is teaching his disciples in the upper room.

He says that greater love, greater agape has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

This is a remarkable, surprising kind of love that the Father has for us.

It's a self-sacrificing love.

It's not a love that demands, it's a love that pours out.

Does that surprise us?

It should.

This is a good shepherd kind of love.

We read Ezekiel 34 and John 10.

Sometimes I think we pit the Old Testament against the new as though God was just a really ticked-off guy in the Old Testament and a, you know, really just he kind of softened up somewhere towards the New Testament.

But that's not true.

Ezekiel 34 displays God's righteous indignation, that's true, but he is angry with shepherds who haven't cared for his beloved flock.

He's angry with shepherds who've taken advantage of his flock.

He's calling them into justice.

The same shepherd's heart he's had since the very beginning of the Old Testament is the same heart revealed in our Lord Jesus when he says, I'm the good shepherd, and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

This is the heart of the Father revealed in our Lord Jesus.

We are beloved children, outrageously loved, extraordinarily loved, with a self-sacrificing love of God.

Maybe for some of us this is a corrective.

Because for some of us, I suspect, this was not the kind of love we experienced from our biological fathers, from our earthly fathers.

Maybe for some their earthly father was distant.

Maybe was quite ruthless.

And so it's an easy thing to retreat from God, to expect the same kind of treatment from the greatest father.

But friends, John wants us to, John wants to call our attention to the kind of love with which our Heavenly Father loves us.

A self-sacrificing, an abundantly pouring out kind of love for us in Christ.

See, a child of God is not left wondering how our Father regards us.

He regards us with an extraordinary love, a powerful love.

So, friends, we ought to dwell on the love of God in Christ.

Earlier this week I posted on Facebook a list of six things that a Christian can remind themselves of every day.

Again, this was written by J.I.

Packer.

I'll just say the first two.

Number one, I am a child of God.

And number two, God is my father.

Something we can say to ourselves every day to remind ourselves of this reality.

We are abundantly, powerfully, extraordinarily loved by the Father.

This is who we are.

A child of God is loved by the Father, and as we receive this love and reciprocate this love, we're transformed in this relationship of love.

And when we are transformed and we become more and more like our Father so that we can share this love, more and more our hearts get set on odds with those who are not of the Father.

A child of God is loved by the Father, but a child of God is also estranged to the world.

Here's how the New Living Translation translates the last part of verse one.

The people who do not belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know him.

That is, they don't know the Father.

John is saying a couple of things here.

Number one, he's saying not everyone knows God as their father.

Not everyone shares this relationship of a well-loved child and their father.

We might know God as the creator.

Some might affirm God as a philosophical principle, but John is calling attention to the fact that there is a unique kind of knowledge of God that comes in Christ, and that is the knowledge of a loving heavenly father.

Does God love and care for everyone in Christ and outside of Christ?

Of course he does.

Is everyone in Christ and outside of Christ created in the image of God?

Of course.

But John calls our attention to what he includes in the intro to his gospel.

He says, Jesus came to his own, and his own people, the covenant people of Israel, did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

So there are those, even among religious folks in John's time, who rejected Jesus and did not receive him, but to those who did receive Jesus, who put their trust in him, they had the right to become well-loved children of God, to know God as their Father, to pray our Father who art in heaven, and to be assured of God's loving disposition towards them.

See, we might use the phrase something like we're all God's children, and by that we might try and convey something of God's providential care or something of being created in the image of God, and those things are true, but we have to be careful with this biblical principle, because it's a unique reality in Christ that we get to claim this identity of being children of God.

Children of God by adoption in Christ.

We're not saying God doesn't love non-Christians.

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

In Christ, so only in Christ can we know the heart of the Father.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

That's what Jesus says.

So knowing God's heart means God's children live from one degree or another in estrangement with the world.

Believing in Christ, reciprocating this love means becoming less and less like the world around us and more and more like our loving Heavenly Father, getting caught up in this identity of children of God.

Consider, as Christians, the way we regard relationships, the way we regard our neighborhoods, or the way we regard parliamentary legislation or marriage or work, these are all realities that get caught up in the context of our loving relationship with our Heavenly Father.

So it's not uncommon for us to receive a sideways look or a sideways look or be credited with unpopular convictions.

These are nothing new for Christians.

In fact, these are true in John's time as well.

In Christ, John is saying, there will be a discontinuity between God's children caught up in his love and with the world that does not know the Father.

We can see it as a privilege to be caught up in this love.

We can endeavor to share this love with those who do not know God as their father in Christ, because no one knows the Father except through the Son.

Perhaps evangelism becomes less about changing people's minds about data and more about sharing the love of God in Christ, which is love and truth.

And a child of God is estranged to the world.

A child of God will be like Jesus when he appears.

We see this in verse 2.

Beloved, we are chill God's children now, that is a present reality, and what we will be has not yet appeared.

But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

We see in our creed, week for week, that our Lord Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

We look forward to that last day, to that culmination of history, when God will dwell with his people forever, and we shall be like Jesus.

Paul writes about this in his letter to the church in Philippi when he says that we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus lives, and we eagerly and we are eagerly awaiting for him to return as our Savior.

He will take our weak and mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.

So what does it mean that we will be like him when he appears?

What is Jesus like now?

He's resurrected, he's glorified, he lives eternally, death has no dominion over him.

Just as Christ is, so will we become by grace.

In Christ, God's children have a glorious future ahead of them.

We will participate in this resurrecting and glorifying work of God in Christ.

We will live forever with God in Christ.

We have a hope that we will share in the resurrection and glory of our Lord Jesus.

And friends, this is a present reality because we need ever-present reminding that this is the case.

Especially when our mortal bodies start to fail us, start to decay, we start to get sore and we don't know why.

When our sin-corrupted bodies give way, we need reminding that we have a glorious hope for a future.

And every Sunday becomes a celebration of this Easter hope, that we will share in a resurrection like Christ's, and we will share in his eternal glory.

A child of God will be like Jesus when he appears.

We will share in that glory and resurrection.

But that hope of Jesus appearing is not a static thing.

In fact, it transforms us.

See, a child of God is purified in hope.

That's number four.

When I was an undergraduate student, I had uh the privilege, really, of um spending a semester studying in Regensburg, Germany, and that was just a tremendous time.

I made some really wonderful friends and saw just some incredible sights and was able to study about Luther and the Reformation and then visit the Wittenberg church where he nailed the theses on the door for, you know, it was incredible and developed a lifelong love of Schnitzel and everything German.

Thank you, Jonathan.

It was it was just on it was it was a remarkable time, but before I knew anything of what was in store for me.

And this just this tremendous, this tremendous German experience.

When I just signed up for the trip, all I had in my heart was anticipation for what was to come.

I was just looking forward to this.

This is going to be an adventure.

And so I started to do some peculiar things.

Like I picked up this quirky book on German culture and understanding the German people.

And I'm reading this thing and studying it and trying to understand what it is that is at the heart of this wonderful people.

And then I loaded this language program on my computer, trying to learn conversational Deutsch.

And I'm starting to speak German to myself in all in anticipation of this trip that's to come.

I didn't have my head wrapped around everything that would look like.

But that anticipation of a future hope started to spill into the present.

I wanted to bring that anticipation of Germany right into my very present moment, plugging away on my computer in Canada.

And I think this is something of what John is getting at here.

See, our hope for the future should spill into the present.

If our hearts are set on this heavenly hope, this glorified hope, this hope should spill into our present.

It should come to define who we are.

Our hearts and our minds should be so set on heaven that will we live on earth as it will be in heaven for all eternity.

Those who've been taking this journey through reframe with us know that we've been talking about living as ambassadors.

We are citizens of a heavenly country, and we know that one day our king will come to dwell with us, and so in the present time we become those who are ambassadors of a heavenly kingdom in the world around us today.

Suddenly, things like truth and love and integrity and courage and joy and the fruit of the Spirit become less of the behavior modifications we experience as Christians, and more about living on earth as it will be in heaven, anticipating that future day when we will be in that eternal country with our Savior.

See, in Christ, the anticipation of our glorious future inspires our present desire for purity and holiness of life.

So we set our eyes and our hearts on the hope of heaven.

I wonder how much time we spend every day thinking about heaven.

We'll spend all eternity there with our Lord Jesus.

This is where history is going.

This is where we will go.

We will be a part of this.

We can get so caught up and swept up into the frenetic pace of our earthly life do we take time to settle, to anticipate, to hope, not wishful thinking, but with a sure and certain conviction of God's word.

We can set the hearts, set the eyes of our hearts on heaven.

We can pray for grace to live accordingly, to live on earth, as things will be for all eternity.

A child of God is purified in this hope.

So the question becomes, how do I become pure, even as Jesus, the righteous one, is pure?

Well, number five, a child of God does not practice sin.

Verse six.

No one who abides in God keeps on sinning.

No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

No one born of God, verse nine, that is, no child who knows God as Father 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.

Well, you might say, hold on there, John, this sounds like a contradiction.

Because my pastor preached a sermon on chapter one last week, and you said, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Aren't you saying we will always have sin in our life, John?

Now you seem to be saying that those who abide in God can't keep sinning.

So which one is it?

Well, I want to say this.

I want to say that although this appears to be a contradiction, in fact it's not so.

Keep in mind that John in chapter 2 says, I'm writing these things so that you may not sin.

John's purpose is he's aiming at holiness and purity of life.

This is not a contradiction, but John wants us to understand the contrast between sinning and practicing sin or practicing lawlessness, transgressing God's law.

See, as Christians, as fallen human beings, we will fall into sin.

And when we fall into sin, we confess our sins with the assurance that we will find forgiveness in God.

But practicing sin is a habitual, willful disregard for God's commandments in Christ.

It's saying, God, I know what you expect of me, but I'd really rather do my own thing.

Thank you very much.

Maybe that's greed.

Maybe that's willful disobedience.

Maybe that's addiction.

But John is saying that a Christian cannot abide a life that settles for or accommodates sin.

We will not be content to just wallow in sin like a pig might wallow in mud.

Sin might be a prerequisite for the Christian life.

After all, the fact that we are sinners qualifies us for salvation and our righteous Savior.

But sin is not an ongoing requirement for the Christian.

We are called to a holiness of life, a renewed, purified life.

We're called to be sanctified, to abide in Him.

This is the kind of language that evokes that image of the branches abiding in the vine, drawing their life from the vine who is Jesus, yielding themselves to this life.

We're called to yield ourselves more and more to the life and purity of God in Christ, because God's seed, his life, is in us.

See, Christians are not content to settle for or accommodate a life of willful, habitual unholiness and moral impurity.

We're called to abide in Christ.

And as we abide in Christ, though we may sin, we confess our sins, we surrender them, we find assurance of forgiveness, because if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

And yet we will be inspired more and more to pursue that holiness of living.

Friends, I think this requires humility.

We recognize we cannot do this on our own.

Perhaps that requires us to confess our sins to a brother and sister.

Perhaps this requires us to seek counsel, to seek a spiritual direction.

But friends, Christians are not those who settle for a life of living in darkness and living in sin.

Those belong to our former life, those belong to our enemy.

We are those who strive for a life of light and holiness.

So if we don't practice unrighteousness, if we don't practice sin, then Christians are those who do practice righteousness.

Number six.

Here's verse 10.

By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are children of the devil.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God.

Or stated positively in verse 7, John says, Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he, our Lord, is righteous.

So what does that mean for us?

I suspect it means as children of God, we live our life in a humble, reliant, dependent imitation of our righteous Lord Jesus.

I'm an only child, so I don't really have the personal experience of having an older sibling, or for that matter, a younger sibling.

But I'm delighted when I watch two young siblings interact.

And I'm delighted when the younger sibling just thinks the older sibling is the coolest person in the world.

Maybe you had an older sibling and you know what that feeling's like.

Maybe you were that older sibling.

That older sibling just looks up at their, or that younger sibling just looks up at the older brother, older sister, and just think, you are the coolest.

And anything you do is what I want to be about.

See, I think as children of God, we're called to receive and reciprocate the abundant, profound, remarkable love of God, our Father.

We're called into a life of imitating our righteous older brother.

Because we think he's the coolest.

Because he loves us so generously.

Because he's given his very life for us on the cross.

We're called to deny ourselves and offer ourselves for others.

We're called into a life of receiving and reciprocating this love of God in Christ.

So we practice righteousness, not as those trying to earn God's approval, but as those who know God's forgiveness and his generous love and say, We just want to be like you.

We just want to know you and love you, even as we are known and loved by you.

See, children of God imitate their father and they imitate their older brother, Jesus.

This is where we can hang our hat, friends.

Number seven, a child of God loves her brothers and sisters in Christ.

John has said that it's evident who are children of God, they practice righteousness.

Those who are children of God love their brother.

That's what he says in verse 10.

This is where John's going next.

So we'll explore this more next week.

But for the time being, I just want to share this one simple verse.

Again, in the upper room with Jesus.

He says in John chapter 13, 35.

John 13 · chapter mention

He says, By this all people will know that you are my disciples, that you're following after me, that you're learning from me.

Because you'll be so self-righteous.

No, that's not it.

Because you will have love for one another.

Our love for one another reflects that generous, extraordinary love that we've received from God our Father.

It spills out into our relationships with one another.

We can't help it, but we become a people caught up and defined by love.

Loving our brothers and sisters reflects the love that we receive from God the Father, and we love one another in the same manner as we are loved by the Father.

So, friends, we are children of God.

So we are.

We are loved by the Father.

We will experience estrangement to the world.

We will be like Jesus when he appears.

We are purified in hope.

We do not practice sin.

We do practice righteousness, and we love our sisters and brothers in Christ.

As children of God, we are no longer in the darkness, but we are in the light.

We are no longer deceived, but we are in the truth.

We are no longer self-righteous, because no one can boast, but we receive forgiveness from a loving Heavenly Father as a gift.

So, Christian, meditate daily on your fundamental identity.

You are a child of God.

So you are.

This is who you are.

Let us pray for grace to live accordingly.

Amen.