Obvious Children

One of my favorite ways to start a sermon is to tell you something about myself that you might not have known and then to connect that thing to the main point of the message.

Well, today, I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to tell you something about my WIFE that you might not have known. Don’t worry; it’s nothing bad.

What you might not have known about Annette is that she is a closet Disney-phile.

Now, I didn’t know this about her, either, until 15 years ago, when we took the whole family on a trip to DisneyWorld. While we were there, I saw my wife’s face light up like I’d never seen it do so before, as we walked around and explored all the wonders to be found at the Disney parks in Florida.

People say there’s nothing like experiencing the joy of Disney through the eyes of a child. That may be true. But my own experience is that there’s nothing like seeing your wife beaming with happiness in the Happiest Place on Earth.

This was one of those trips that was a long time in the making. We booked it through AAA something like nine months in advance, which gave us lots of time to prepare.

Disney is great about building anticipation for a visit, and they sent us regular emails and countdowns.

Our hotel and park tickets were all booked right from the start. But for the special group experiences and meals, we had to wait for the reservation windows to open.

When they did, we were quick to let them know we wanted reservations for a luau and for a character breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends.

And in the meantime, we scoured the Disney store and thrift shops and other sources for Disney-themed luggage and plush characters for the grandchildren.

We looked for comfortable shoes that to wear for the many miles of walking we would do. We made sure the kids had the right clothes, including Pirates of the Caribbean costumes they could wear to the park.

When the airline ticketing window opened, we made nine reservations.

And then, when the day of the trip arrived, we got up early and packed all the luggage in the back of the pickup truck.

Then, we woke up the grandchildren and said, “OK, it’s time for Grandma and Grandpa to leave for our trip to Disney! Y’all come along with us, and you can give us hugs at the airport.”

You see, we’d kept it a secret that anyone was going on this trip except for Annette and me. I hadn’t wanted to hear “How much longer until we go to Disney?” every day for nine months.

So, when we got to the airport, everyone piled out of our vehicles. Then, I opened the bed of the pickup and began handing the Disney-themed luggage to the grandchildren, who took much longer than I’d expected to understand that they were going on this adventure, too.

It wasn’t the last time we took them on a surprise vacation. In fact, that was one of my favorite things to do with them when they were young enough to do such things.

But I’ve also recognized that giving them this Disney trip as a surprise kept them from experiencing the anticipation of it. And it kept them from being able to participate in the activities we took part in as we prepared for the trip.

And today, as we continue our series, “Walking in Truth and Love,” we’re going to see what the Apostle John says about living in anticipation of something to which Disney absolutely pales in comparison.

John will remind us in this passage that we who have followed Jesus in faith have been adopted as sons and daughters into the family of God. He will remind us of the hope — the confident assurance, the anticipation — we have of Jesus’ return for us.

And, in light of that hope and our status as children of God, he’ll remind us that we should live like God’s children and not like children of the devil.

And I want to be sure you notice that the passage we’re studying today, beginning with verse 28 of chapter 2, follows the passage we studied last week.

Last week’s passage was about being careful whom you believe. It was John’s warning about not following the false teaching of those who reject Jesus, those who claim that we can find salvation in any other way, those who say that it doesn’t really matter how we live here in THIS life.

Remember, there were people seeking to influence the church of John’s time by rejecting what Jesus had revealed about Himself and about salvation.

Some of them rejected His deity. Some of them rejected His humanity. And some of them rejected His call for believers to be righteous — for them to be morally upright.

And so, in the passage we studied last week, John encourages believers to hold fast to the true message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He reminds us of the promise of eternal life — life in perfect fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And he encourages us to abide in Jesus through the Spirit who abides in us through faith in Jesus.

And with all that in mind, John transitions with this week’s passage into a long portion of this letter that deals with how a follower of Jesus should live, considering what it is we anticipate, considering what is our hope.

Just as the anticipation of that trip to DisneyWorld caused us to do certain things — to prepare ourselves for it — our anticipation of heaven should cause us to do certain things, to live a certain way, to prepare ourselves for the day when we see Jesus face to face.

Let’s take a look at this passage now. We’ll begin in verse 28 of chapter 2.

1 John 2:28–29 NASB95

28 Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. 29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.

Listen, we talk about this all the time, but I suspect that most of us go through our lives for the most part without giving much thought to the return of Jesus for His Church.

And I can be confident that we don’t give much thought to it, because if we did think about it more, we’d do a lot less sinning.

The Greek word that’s translated as “coming” at the end of verse 28 is parousia. It was a term that spoke of the arrival of a king or ruler, often with great spectacle and splendor and to the great respect of his subjects.

And I think that if we kept it in our minds that the King of kings and Lord of lords might return at any time, we who are His subjects as citizens of His Kingdom would pay a lot more attention to what we’re doing from one minute to the next, what we’re thinking from one moment to the next.

Someday Jesus WILL return, praise God. Our King will come for His subjects. And the question you should ask yourself if you are His follower is what will you be doing then?

Will you be involved in some activity or captivated by some thought that will cause you shame when you see Him? Or will you be abiding in Him and, hence, able to experience the fullest joy at the sight of His face?

These are the questions John suggests we should be considering from day to day as followers of Jesus. Our choices in this earthly life should reflect the anticipation we have of His return.

We who have been born again through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous one, should live lives that are examples of His righteousness. We honor Him by reflecting His character.

And not just His character, but the Father’s too. Yes, you can walk in darkness as a believer. Yes, we can sin as followers of Jesus.

But when we do so, we’re not honoring our righteous King, and we’re not reflecting the character of our Heavenly Father.

And what John says in the next couple of verses should serve as points of conviction for us whenever we step out of the light and into the darkness. Look at verse 1 of chapter 3.

1 John 3:1–3 NASB95

1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us that we would be called children of God.”

The Greek word translated as “how great” here always implies astonishment in the New Testament. As John considers our adoption into the family of God, he is amazed and astonished.

In fact, the term originally meant “of what country,” and so the suggestion is that the magnificent love of God through which we come to be called His sons and daughters through faith in Jesus is so unusual, so foreign, that John wonders what country it must come from.

“God’s love is foreign to humankind in that we cannot understand the magnitude of such love. It astonishes, amazes, and creates wonder within those who properly reflect upon it.” [Daniel L. Akin, 1, 2, 3 John, vol. 38, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001), 133.]

In fact, it’s so foreign that the lost world doesn’t understand it at all. And therefore, it doesn’t understand us.

Indeed, WE don’t even fully understand what it really means to be sons and daughters of God. Not yet, at least. The full extent of that status, the full abundance of life in the family of God, is something we’ll never know this side of heaven.

But John’s not done describing the wonders promised to us as followers of Jesus. Look what he says here.

“When He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”

Friends, I certainly don’t want to downplay the abundant life you can have here and now as you walk in the light of fellowship with God in Christ. That’s the main message of this letter, after all.

But what we will experience when Jesus returns is transformation. Glorification. We will become like Him.

Not little gods, as the Mormons believe. But like Him in holiness and righteousness and in our glorified bodies that are no longer subject to decay or death or the attractions of sin.

These things have been the foundational hopes of Christ-followers since He walked on earth. These are the things Christians have been anticipating since the Church began. This is what Jesus meant when He promised eternal life for all who would turn to Him in faith.

And just as my family made preparations for that anticipated trip to DisneyWorld, we who have placed our faith in Jesus must be preparing ourselves for His coming, for the parousia of the King.

Just as He is pure, we who have new life in Him should be purifying ourselves. This hope we have — this anticipation in which we should be living as believers — should incite us toward pure living in our everyday lives.

The world serves sin as its master, but the Master we serve is the righteous King. And our King has every reason to expect us to reflect His righteousness, rather than the sinfulness of the world.

In fact, what John says next is that sin reflects a repudiation of our King. When we sin, we are essentially defecting from Jesus’ kingdom of light and life to spend time in the kingdom of darkness and death.

Look at verse 4.

1 John 3:4–6 NASB95

4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.

The literal translation of verse 4 is “Everyone doing sin also does lawlessness.” And lawlessness for John is “an active disobedience against God’s moral standard.” [Daniel L. Akin, 1, 2, 3 John, vol. 38, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001), 140.]

So, in other words, sin is a choice to violate God’s moral standard. It’s a choice to rebel against the standards of God’s kingdom.

And when we sin, we essentially thumb our noses at Jesus, because Jesus came to take away sins. He isn’t just sinless; He is hostile to sin in all its forms.

So, when we as followers of Jesus choose to sin, we put ourselves in opposition to God. We rebel against Him. And that’s the very situation Jesus came to correct.

He came and gave His life at the cross so that we who were rebels against God because of our sins could be welcomed as citizens of His kingdom through faith in Him.

So, in a very real sense, when we as Christians turn back to sin, we are defecting — however temporarily — from God’s Kingdom.

And that’s the key to understanding verse 6.

When we defect from the kingdom, even though we’re still citizens by faith in Jesus, we are no longer abiding in Him. We are no longer in fellowship with Him.

The word that’s translated as “seen” in the second part of verse 6 literally means “to stare at.”

So, the idea here is that if we’re sinning as Christians, we’re not keeping our eyes on Jesus. And if we’re keeping our eyes on Jesus, we won’t be sinning.

Brothers and sisters, you MUST not be indifferent to sin in your own life. When you turned your life over to Jesus, you became new creatures, made for fellowship with God in Christ.

But every sinful deed, every sinful thought, injures that fellowship. And it cheapens both the relationship you have as sons and daughters of God and the sacrifice that Jesus made of Himself so that you could HAVE that relationship.

If you have been saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus, then you shouldn’t be doing SIN but doing righteousness. That’s what John says in the next couple of verses. Look at verse 7.

1 John 3:7–8 NASB95

7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.

Don’t let the antichrists deceive you, John says here. Don’t let the ones opposed to Jesus lie to you. They’ll tell you that sin isn’t a big deal.

But what John says is that what you do reflects whom you are following.

Those who abide in Jesus — those who are walking in the light and pursuing fellowship with Him — will do righteous things, just as He is righteous.

But when we stop staring at Jesus — when we take our eyes of the Light of the world and turn them toward the darkness of the world — we become people of the devil.

As believers, we don’t lose our salvation, but we harm our fellowship with God by temporarily allying ourselves with the devil, whose sin caused him to be cast out of heaven.

And ever since he was cast out of heaven, the devil has been working to undo the goodness of God’s creation by tempting the people created in God’s own image to turn from Him in disobedience and sin.

The lost world can’t help but contribute to the devil’s work. But we who are “born of God” have been given the Holy Spirit to help keep us from sin.

Look at verse 9.

1 John 3:9–10 NASB95

9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

Yes, of course you can and will sin as a follower of Jesus. You still have a sinful nature within you.

But you also have within you the sinless nature of Jesus, the nature of the one who is utterly opposed to sin. And He has given you His Spirit as a helper to warn you of sin, to convict you of sin, and to enable you to turn from sin when temptation arises.

And because you have the sinless nature of Jesus within you — because you have the Holy Spirit within you — sin should be contrary to your fundamental nature.

As J. Vernon McGee put it, the prodigal son finally left the pigpen, because he wasn’t a pig. “He was a son of the Father, and he longed for his Father’s house.”

Yes, you do have two natures warring within you. The question is which nature you will allow to control you.

Will you allows the sinless nature of Jesus, the Light of the world, to control you? If so, then you’re demonstrating for all the world to see that you are a child of God.

But if you allow the sinful human nature to control you, then you’re effectively doing just what the prodigal son did.

You’re turning your back on the Father who made you citizens of His kingdom and calls you sons and daughters. And instead, you’re embracing the devil, whose works God’s Son came to destroy.

“The absence or presence of sin in the believer’s life gives evidence of his or her relationship to both God and Satan. It shows under whose authority we are living at any particular time in our lives.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), 1 Jn 3:9.]

In the church, we often get caught in the trap of condemning the sin of the world. And we’re not wrong that the world is a sinful place. It IS getting worse all the time.

But Jesus said the lost world is already condemned because it has not believed in Him. Those who have rejected Jesus, he says in that passage following John 3:16, have already been judged because of their unbelief.

My point here is that we need to spend a lot less time worrying about the sins of the world and a lot MORE time worrying about our OWN sins.

WE are the ones who are waiting with anticipation for the fulfillment of Christian hope. And so, we should be doing the things necessary to prepare for the day when Jesus returns.

And THAT means purifying ourselves. THAT means doing righteousness, rather than doing sin. THAT means allowing ourselves to be controlled by God, rather than controlled by the devil.

THAT means living each day — living each moment — as if Jesus could return any time and find us ready to face Him either in confidence or shame.

Yes, you DO have two natures at war within you. But you also have the power of God within you, and you CAN have victory over sin, even in this life.

How? By abiding in HIM. By keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus and not the world. By taking the energy you expend on condemning the world’s sin and turning it toward condemning your OWN sins.

Let’s get to work preparing for Jesus to come. Let’s have Him find us confident and filled with joy at his return, rather than ashamed. Let us stop being indifferent to our own sins and the damage they do to our fellowship with God.

Let us commit ourselves to being obvious children of God.