Child of God

Family Father

How do you stand out in a crowd? When there is mountains of people around you, how are you supposed to be unique, how does your individuality show amongst others?

Some of you may have felt those questions before, because it is normal today to ask questions about uniqueness in the world. How are you going to standout from the others in class?

What is different and unique about you?

Well we are going to be looking at what it means to be unique this month, how does our uniqueness and identity play into faith.

or rather to spin it around, how does our faith change our identity?

Are y’all ready to discover what makes you unique?

John 1:12–13 NIV

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

When we read that we look and we can say that if we have received him then we are the Children of God.

Right because as John writes is that if,

receive him

gain the right to be children of God

However we need to know what that means, because we all like to joke that we are children of God or jokes that we are all brother and sisters in Christ. Which is all good and fun, but we do not know what it actually means to be Children of God.

Well what does it mean to be a Child of God, well we look at that and we say you must be apart of a family, which is 100% true and we talked about that all last month how we are one family which is the Church, but I actually want to step away from that and towards the ownership of the family.

God is the Father of the family, the fathers job is to care for their children, to take care of them and protect, guide, support their family.

Think about your Dad, maybe you like your dad or maybe you do not like your dad.

Now think of a better version of that.

so if you do not like your dad that might be easier for you but if you think your dad is awesome I want you to think even better. See God is your father,

When we look at what it means to be a Child of God we have to look at the fact that we have entered into God’s family. We are representatives of God, by look yes as we have talked about a few weeks ago we are Imago Dei, we are made in the image of God and, just like actual families. Your appearance is the representation of God.

However so is what it means to go about life.

When I left highschool my father said a few words that have never left my mind.

You are a Cowman.

I think that was so influential in my life, he said who you meet, what you do, who you are, they all point to your place in the family.

No matter if I was going off on my own adventure or if I was at home where everyone already knew me.

They would know I am a Cowman, my identity started with my family.

The same goes for our family with Jesus. That when we receive Christ, that he invites us into his family and we are now putting that as our identity.

So all in all put “Child of God” as your Insta Bio today.

All jokes aside, if we call ourselves a Christian then we identify in God’s family, and that all we do needs to be reflected as such.

If we have committed to Jesus then we are Children of God and must live like we are apart of his family. It’s now apart of our idenitiy, that we are Children of God and what we do shows that we have commited our life to our Heavenly Father.

Are you living like you are a Child of God?

Do you know that you are a Child of God?

Forgiving Father

However when we do not live the way that is a good representation of the father then we see that He does not disown us but he forgives us.

1 John 2:1 NIV

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

See although we mess up and feel like he have been tossed outside of the Fathers plan, we still have Jesus who is constantly advocating for us on behalf of the Father.

Since we are not perfect people, nobody here is a perfect person.

We make mistakes

We have faults

We are perfectly human in those aspects

However we are still Children of God, we never loose the family name that we gained. We get the ability to be called sons and daughters of God and we will never loose that.

So, even when we mess up we must know that we will never lose God as our father and we will never be removed as a child of God. No matter what you have done, if you follow Jesus you are still considered a child of God. If you have not received him, I want to invite you to become a child of God tonight.

If we mess up we still have Jesus who is our advocate:

this means that when we mess up Jesus takes our side and argues for innocence to God. That he is in your corner and he will talk to God on your behalf.

Cool right? that even when we mess up that Jesus still wants to advocate that we should not be thrown out of God’s family.

If you have not been living like a child of God, then I still want you to know that you are a Child of God, that you have never been throw outside the family. You are not disowned but still loved just as you were before.

Jesus advocates on your behalf, all we have to do is ask him to.

Do you need to seek out Jesus to advocate for you today?

What is something cool about your family?

What makes up a family?

What does it look like to be a Child of God? (Or apart of God’s Family)

What are the benefits of being a Child of God?

What does it mean that Jesus is our advocate to the Father?