Sermon: The Children of God

Well, I invite you to grab a Bible and open with me to the book of First John and chapter two This morning we are going to be studying First John chapter two verses 28 through chapter three, verse 10.

If you are a visitor here or you're new to this church, uh, we have a normal practice here in the Church of preaching consecutively through books, verse by verse, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter. And there's some reasons why we do that. One is that we believe all scripture is God breathed, and so therefore all of it is useful, is profitable, uh, to our growth and grace and godliness. Uh, we also do this because we believe in a sovereign God, a big God, a God

who knows far better than any preacher does, what God's people need to hear and when. And so as we preach through books, we're trusting God to, uh, bring to you just what his people need at the right time. You gotta love it though as a preacher when no thanks to you. Uh, the passage that God has appointed fits so well with what is going on in the life of the church. And we have that this morning in one John, uh, chapter two

and three, the theme of this chapter and the title of this message is the Children of God. We've just had a whole bunch of children here on, uh, the platform being baptized. So, uh, before we read this text, let's ask for God's help and blessing.

Well, father in heaven, who are we that we should call you Father and that we should be called your children? How great is your love? How great is your grace? Oh God, would you stir our hearts and affections this morning by the truth of your word as we hear it red and preached? And would you help us to hear it and to believe it and to practice it? For we ask for this help in the name of Jesus and by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Amen. First John chapter two, beginning in verse 28, and now little children abide in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink 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 God. 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.

Well, dear people of God, I wonder if you can finish this sentence. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck. That's right. This is an informal saying, a way of saying that things often appear to be, uh, things often are what they appear to be based on the consistent behaviors or appearances of that thing. So an animal that waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck is probably a duck because that's what ducks do.

There's a congruence between what the duck is and what the duck does. Already in one John, we have learned that there is a, a congruence for the Christian between who they are and what they do. We have learned that there are behaviors or characteristics in the Christian that ought to be evident and observable that leads one to believe and to conclude that they are a true Christian. What the children of God do. What Christians do as this passage says,

is practice righteousness, not sin. That's what the children of God do. You see that it's evidence from verses 29 and verse 10 of the true character of someone. And verse 29, John says, if you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. It's evidence. And verse 10, he says, as much by this, it is evident who are the children of God. There is evidence that a Christian is in fact a Christian.

Now, it's likely, it seems what John is here addressing in this passage are those who would say, I'm a Christian, I know God, but you see them and they're not walking like it. They're not talking like it. The evidence of their lives is not in con, is not congruent with that profession. And I think in particular, John is writing to those who would say is writing about here in this passage, writing to those who would say holiness isn't a big deal.

It's not that important. Maybe it's good for the, the elite Christians or the the super spiritual Christians, but it's not that big of a deal for me. And it's not even that big of a deal. If I sin, if I, if there's a contradiction in my life, it doesn't matter. I'm still a Christian. And John is saying, no, no, no. If it walks like a child of God and talks like a child of God, that's how we know it's a child of God. Now, there's an important clarification here

that I wanna make before we get going in this passage. And it's this, it's important for you to know that John is not writing this or telling you here how to become a Christian. That's not his point in this passage, not telling you how you become a Christian. What he is telling us is how a Christian shows that they are a Christian, how they show it. John says that we become God's children by the grace of God to us in Christ and applied to us by the Holy Spirit.

God's grace is at work in the children of God to make them children.

It is not your righteous deeds that make you a child of God. It is the grace of God that makes you a child of God. But when you are adopted into God's family, when you are his child, when God's grace is at work in you, there will be evidence. And one of those pieces of evidence is that you will pursue holiness and forsake sin. That's what the Christian does because that's who Christians are. So I wanna take both of those points that John is presenting

to us here, both of both parts of this, that the children of God practice righteousness and and make those the two points of our passage today. So the first is that Christians are the children of God. And the second is that Christians practice righteousness, not sin.

Now, chapter three, as we jump into the text, begins with one of the most well loved, most well-known verses in all of the scriptures. And rightly so, it is, uh, precious. It is a precious verse to Christians and it ought to be. Look how John begins. He says, see what kind of love, see, behold, this is a formal way of speaking that we don't really use today. Uh, you instead we might think of it and might say something like, quick look.

Would you have a look at this? Look, look, look, this is amazing. You think maybe of a, a child who's gone on a hike with his parents as children do they run up ahead, they wanna be the first to see what they're gonna see. And so the child is the first one who's run ahead to see the clearing, to get to the clearing. And from the clearing, the child can see all of the mountain peaks that you've been waiting to see. Grand and majestic and glorious and huge.

And he can see the, the valleys below and the the little lakes and ponds that fill the valleys. And he's so impressed, he's amazed. He, he loves seeing it. And so he runs back to the parents, guys, come on, you gotta see this quick. I want you to see this. That's what John is saying to us here. See, behold. And what is it that he wants us to behold? God's love, his amazing great love. See the kind of love the Father has given to us

that's there at the end. What's so amazing about God's love? It's a love that makes us children of God. It's a love that gives us the privilege of being called the children of God. John is amazed And he's expressing it almost like he's heard it, heard this good news for the very first time. You know, sometimes if you see something over and over and over again, it sometimes loses its wonder. Uh, I had this experience when I was a college student.

I had the, the privilege of being a a Covenant College, Scott, we come from the mountain. That's, that was our, that was our little motto. We come from the mountain. It's true. We came from the mountain. Uh, covenant College is located on the top of Lookout Mountain and my dorm building was almost castle like sitting up there on the top of the mountain. It was magical, almost almost like Disney World. Now, the cool thing about living up at

Covenant College on top of Lookout Mountain was how beautiful the sites were. If you look to the east, you could see mountains in the distance and you could see the sunrise over those mountains. And then you also got to see the sunset. If you just looked over, uh, the bank to the west side, it was beautiful and majestic. And as you see that day after day, as you just sort of live there and walk the campus, those overlooks aren't

that attractive anymore. They're not that impressive anymore. The sites kinda lose some of their wonder. And you forget how amazing that is until someone comes with fresh eyes and says, wow, that's amazing. And John this morning wants us to see with fresh eyes, the love of God for us, the love of God given to us, that we should be called his children. It is amazing love. Why is it so amazing? Well, if you're familiar with your Bibles, you know

that in Ephesians two, we by nature are called not the sons of God, but sons of disobedience and children of wrath.

That is who we are by nature. But now we've become children of God. It's a privilege to be loved by God and to be his child. And it's not one that you deserve or that I deserve. And yet John wants you to know God. The Father has given it to us.

It's been said multiple times as we've been studying through this book, that one of the reasons first John was written is to give assurance to Christians that they are true Christians, that they are walking the right path with Christ. And here in one John three, one, we have, as one commentator calls it the bedrock of our assurance, The bedrock, the very foundation God's love. It's not something you deserved, it was given to you.

Some of you ask from time to time and you wonder, does God love me? Does God really love me? How could he love me? And one John three verse one says, yes, God loves you. He adopted you into his family and he made you a child, though you didn't deserve it then, and you don't deserve it now. He made you his child. That's what Christians are, and that's who they are. It's true of you. It's not like my kids playing family, I'll be the dad.

You be the kid. See, you're my kid. No, it's not pretend it's true, it's real life. God is our father and we are his children. John says so in verse one. So we are so, we are. And he says in verse two, beloved, we are God's children now, even though you are not what you will be as a child of God in five years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, you are God's child now. And there's two things that this means for us. One is we don't have to wait to grow up.

We don't have to wait to be become mature, to be called to be God's children. The moment that you are born again, of God's spirit and call out to God's son in faith, That is the very moment that God adopts you into his family and gives you all the rights and all the privileges of the children of God. You are God's children now. But I also, I think it also means another thing, some of our privileges that we have as the children of God.

And there are many privileges that we as the children of God have. Some of them are not experienced in full, they're not fully realized just yet. John says, one of the privileges of the children of God is that we shall see him. We will behold him as he is right now. We only behold Christ by faith with the eyes of faith. But our faith will become sight. You will see God and you will be like him. John says right now we are

under construction. You could say the spirit's work has begun in us. He's already begun to make us like Christ, to restore in us the image of God that was distorted by the fall and by our sin already. Now the spirit of God is transforming the children of God from one degree of glory to the next.

Your progress in sanctification dear Christians, may feel as never ending and as awful and slow as Michigan Road Construction does.

But you can be sure of this. God will complete in you what he started. God will do it. It's not a question of if it's a question of when we shall be like him. John says, we will have glorified bodies like Christ. No more death, no sin, no physical limitations. We will not be, be set by falsehood or error in our thinking. We will be morally perfect just as Christ is. Our sanctification will be complete. I, uh, lived in Charlotte for a number of years

when I was in seminary and I had the privilege of going a number of times to the Billy Graham library. Billy Graham, uh, was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. And, uh, his childhood home is placed on this property next to a museum in his honor. And one of the things that, uh, is cool about the Billy Graham Library is that Billy and Ruth are buried on the property. Their their graves are visible. You can walk right up to him

and you gotta love Ruth Graham, her, her tombstone on it. It says, end of construction, thanks for your patience.

That is true of all of God's children. When you die, the construction is over. Perfection, glorified bodies, our sanctification will be complete. And John wants these precious truths to sink deeply into your soul. He wants you to see them and to cherish them, to know you are loved God's child, that you'll be made like Christ. And one of the reasons he wants to do so is to reassure you in your Christian walk. But he also wants you to know that you are a Christian,

that you are a child of God because he wants to impress upon you the truth, the reality that there is a, a consistent way of living that matches what is true of the children of God. There are behaviors that are consistent with this reality of being a child of God. And you can see that's what John spends the majority of our passage talking about. He starts in verse 28 and 29. He takes a little interlude in verses one and two to tell us that we are God's children.

Christians are God's children. But then he picks it right back up in verse three.

If we were to summarize all that John has to say in one sentence, we could just say it like this, you live like the children of God, not by practicing sin, but by practicing righteousness. That's how the children of God live. Christians practice righteousness. Now, John has a few things to say in this text about how Christians practice righteousness, how you actually practice righteousness and forsake sin. But I think what seems to me

to be emphasized even a little bit more strongly in his passage is the why. Why do we do the things we do? Why is it that Christians ought to live a life of holiness, to pursue a life of holiness? Why is it consistent with our, our being to live this way? And there's three reasons that I want to draw out for you. Three reasons that the children of God practice righteousness. Why does right and fitting. And you'll notice that these three reasons are all pairs.

So the first reason is because of who God is and who they are, who God is and who they are. First. John is a very practical book. It's a, it's a pastoral book written by a pastor to a church. Sometimes you think if it's practical, then it's not theological. And that is not true. In this book, there is a lot of theological truths, truths about God that you find in this book. And we find a lot of them here in our passage.

So notice what John says, uh, about who God is and what he is like, who God is and what he is like. He says in verse 29, he is righteous. And he says the same thing in verse seven. Uh, whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. John says in verse three, he is pure. And then he says in verses five, and it's implied in verse nine, that God has no sin in him. He is perfect, pure, righteous, holy doctrine.

And theology is practical. It is practical. We as Christians practice righteousness, purify ourselves as verse three says, and don't make a practice of sinning. Verse nine says, because he is righteous and he is pure, and he is without sin. And because children of God have been born of God, they are his children. And if you've been born of God, then you will resemble your father and you'll resemble your older brother,

the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you are born again, you are given new life. And with that new life comes new affections and new desires.

We don't just resemble our father, we want to be like our father. We want to imitate our father. We want to love what he loves and hate what he hates. Just as my kids like to imitate me and and love what I love, they they want to join in. I bring out the lawnmower. They go find their little plastic lawnmower to push alongside of me. I turn on the TV to watch sports and they say, dad, who who are you cheering for? I wanna cheer for them. The children of God want

to be like their heavenly Father. And the new birth gives us new desires and new affections. Christians begin to dislike sin because God dislikes sin and they begin to appreciate righteousness because they want to be like their father who appreciates righteousness. They want to be like their father and do as their father does. So the first reason why we practice righteousness, why Christians practice righteousness is because we are God's children

and the children of God resemble their father. The second reason why the children of God pursue holiness and practice righteousness instead of sin Is because of sins, origins and sins nature. Look at verse eight. You see here the origin of sin.

It says, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. For the devil has been sinning from the beginning. Sinning is characteristic of the devil. It's what he does because it's who he is.

He's a deceiver, he's a liar. And he sins and gets others to sin with him. And you see that in verse 10, that the children of God or that, uh, the devil in, uh, in fact does have children who resemble him. John writes by this, it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. There are some who resemble their father, the devil by doing what he does, sinning and not practicing righteousness

or loving his brother. Now, the reason why the children of God don't sin or don't make a practice rather of sinning is because they have been born again of God. They are not children of the devil. They are children of God. Sin originates from the devil, but you are of God. And so we don't practice sin because of its origins, but we also see in verse four, the true nature of sin. It says there that sin is lawlessness for many people in our society.

Sin is not that grave. There's there's a lack of gravity to the concept of sin. And I think the main reason why that is, is because there's, there's no recognition or reference to God and to god's holiness. And what that leads people to do is just to think of sin as an oopsie. Oops, That was a mistake.

But what we see here is that sin is far more serious than just being a mistake. Sin is lawlessness. It is active rebellion against God, against his will, against his commandments, and to the children of God. This ought to be repulsive.

At one time, you may have found sin to be acceptable. You might have found it to be enjoyable. Sin often is enjoyable, otherwise you wouldn't do it. But we have gone undergone a major change, a major change. Sin is now repulsive to us, not acceptable or enjoyable because we see sin for what it truly is. Sin is lawlessness. It's rebellion against our Father who loves us. It's wicked and evil. And so the children of God, Christians

practice righteousness and forsake sin because of sins, origin and because of sins nature. And then thirdly, the third pair reasons why we practice righteousness and forsake sin, pursue holiness is because of Jesus's first coming. And his second coming. The word appears or appearing is a, is a main theme. It's a main theme word in this section of scripture. In this passage shows up six times and four times. It's in reference to Christ's appearances,

meaning his first coming and his second coming. If you wanted to sort of outline this part of the, of First John, you could do so in reference to those first and second comings. You'll see that in verse 28 all the way through verse three. John is speaking about Christ. Second coming, says it in verse 28. He says it again in verse three. But then in verse four through verse 10, John is speaking about Jesus's first coming.

The reason why John brings up the appearances, the first and second comings of Christ is because they give us motivation to forsake sin and to pursue holiness.

Why is it that Jesus came to earth? Well, he came to Earth, verse five tells us in order to take away sins.

And verse eight says, the reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. The devil's work is to entice people to sin, entice people to rebel against God. But Jesus's work is to remove sin and destroy the devil's works. And so in the Christian, there ought not be any indifference to sin. There ought not be any indifference to

settle sin in your life, practiced sin in your life. There ought not be indifference to it. Indifference to sin communicates indifference to Jesus because Jesus is not indifferent to sin. He came to remove sin. He came to destroy the works of the devil in causing people to sin. Jesus removes it. And so if you are indifferent to sin, there's a warning here. It reveals that you may not have seen him by faith. Verse six says, and you may not know him,

Christians don't make a practice of sinning because it, it contradicts the very reason, the very purpose that Jesus came to earth. It contradicts it. Why? Why would we contradict the reason for Jesus is coming. But the message of the Bible is not just that Jesus has come, but that Jesus is coming again. And His return, his coming again, produces motivation to forsake sin and practice righteousness as well when he returns.

Verse two says, we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. And verse three gives the the logical conclusion, the practical conclusion to that. He says, everyone, all of us who hope in his return, all of us who are eagerly awaiting his coming, all of you who are longing to be perfect, ready to be done with sin and its remnants in your life, And Those people don't just sit back

and do nothing passively waiting for Jesus's coming. No. If you want to be like Jesus, you want to see him, you want to be like him when he comes, you want to be like him then, then you'll want to be like him now, now to live with, to live like him, to love what he loves. And so the Christian knowing that Jesus is coming and what is coming for the Christian when he returns, he even now purifies himself from sin and seeks to grow in holiness.

So we see here reasons why Christians pursue holiness and not sin because of who God is and who they are because of sins, origins and sins, nature, and because of Jesus' first and second comings. These are motivations to live out who you are, to be, to live out, who you, uh, have become in becoming God's child. And so John wants you, if you are a Christian, adopted into his family, are a child of God. He wants you to live like it.

If you walk like it and talk like it. Let's pray and ask for God's help in doing this. Oh Lord, we do ask that you would help us by your spirit

And through the help of your word to practice what this word says, that we want to be doers of your word. Oh Lord, we thank you that, uh, your commandments are sure that they are, uh, that they reflect your character. We thank you oh Lord, that we have a great direction from your word and with the help of your spirit to, to carry this out, to live as becomes the followers of Christ. And we do thank you oh Lord, for the precious promises of your scriptures.

What, what a privilege to be your children to call you our Father. Well Lord, would you, uh, help each and every one of these Christians here today to be able to, uh, live out, uh, what this passage teaches to practice righteousness, to pursue holiness, and to make an end of practicing sin? We ask for this in Jesus' name. Amen.