Children of God

Passage: 1 John 2:28-3:24

Fallen condition focus: Practice of sinning without abiding in Christ Jesus (rather than love)

Introduction

Father’s Day is a time to remember our dad’s and honour them for what they have done.

At the same time, this day may not be pleasant for many others for a variety of reasons. It might be a day that brings back painful memories and you would rather not think about it.

Today, I want to bring our attention the greatest blessing that we have recieved and that is to have the perfect Father, as our Father, and that we can be called His children.

Every flaw that we have seen in our earthly fathers is not seen in our Heavenly Father.

When we think about the enormity of such a great blessing, it should change who we are, and should lead us to be in total love with the greatest Father of all eternity, and for Him to be the treasure of our lives. He must be someone we adore and worship and look up to.

Illustration

I always looked up to my Father as I was blessed with someone who loved His family and would care for them.

As I was growing up, I would always “look up” to my dad, and he was really my hero.

I would do things to please him, and make him happy.

Especially as most of my life I was in boarding school, as my dad was doing missions and travelling a lot, I would not see a whole lot of him.

But the times he was with us, he ensured that he spent time and gave us everything, even though he would need to sacrifice a lot for both my brother and I. He was my hero.

I remember while I was at boarding in India. The school was located in a small town on a hill station eight hours from my house. We would get to walk into town every Saturday and we all had pocket money that we could spend. It wasnt very much. We could just about buy a small meal and if we are lucky had money left over for a ice-cream.

My dad knowing that we would go into town, organised with a local store owner to have a system where I could buy items on credit. In other words, that I could buy what I wanted from there without any charge, but when he came to visit us every few months, he would pay off the debt. This was a great set up for me.

I utlisied this to the max, brought things for my friends and myself and my dad would end with with a large invoice to pay. On the other hand my brother was very frugal, always thinking of my dad and his situation and ensuring no further burden was on him. In fact, he would still give me things when i ran out of food.

I often relate this when I think of our Father God in Heaven and imagine what greater love He has for us than our earthly father’s. Especially that He paid the highest debt of sin, wiping our slates clean, and making us heirs with Christ.

In todays's talk I hope to reveal the beauty and truth of us “becoming children of God”, and what that means for each of us in order to look up to our hero Father in Heaven, and how we can please Him in all we do, to bring glory to His name and that we may be a reflection of the one we praise. And secondly to examine what it looks like to be a part of His household and family.

By doing so, it is to bring us “HOPE” in Christ Jesus by understanding our position in Him, and what the furture holds for us.

I understand that not everyone has the privelegde of knowing thier dad or even recieving the love they deserve from thier dad. Especially as some may have grown up or living in broken families, some have been orphans, others growing up in foster homes, with no sign of an earthly father you can look up to.

In fact, this is a description of our previous spiritual condition if we are a believer in Christ. If we are not a believer, this is a chance to know and experience the love of our Heavenly Father.

Apart from Jesus Christ, we are separated from God and we have a disease called “sin”, that will kill us and separate us from God. We have no family, no real father, no future in this spiritual condition.

In his hopelessness is when we see the appearance of Jesus, and the incalculable, unfathomable love of God, where He sends His only Son, Jesus Christ, so that we can be adopted into His family, into the family of the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, who alone has power of eternal life, and of salvation. Amen!

To do so, we will look at the following three points:

Adoption into God’s family

The mark of a child of God

Following the example of love.

“Adopted” into God’s family (1 John 2:28-3:3)

1 John 3:1 “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.”

This passage begins by asking “see what kind of love the Father has given to us - that we should be called children of God”

We are to begin by reflecting “what kind of love” the Father has given us. To give us this amazing opporuntiy to be adopted into God’s eternal family. We were spiritual orphans at one point, and now we have been brought into the family of the Loving God, the King of Kings, and to become heirs to all that He has prepared for us.

This adoption is only made possible by the work of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:15 “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!””

Jesus Christ is also our elder brother (amongst other things) while the Father is called “Abba” which is an Aramaic term for father.

What is meant by adoption?

Lexham Survey of Theology Adoption

Adoption is the divine work wherein God declares regenerated believers to be his beloved sons and daughters and welcomes them into his eternal family.

Adoption is what makes a person a legal son or daughter of the family into which they are being adopted.

This is how believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are brought into the family of God. Galatians 3:26 “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”

These are imageries of our position in Christ. To understand our status these two words are used. We are both born-again - having new birth, and we are adopted:

Adoption: expresses a legal imagery of being included in God’s family

Born-again: expresses a biological imagery of being included in God’s family. (1 Peter 1: 3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” )

What this means is that every believer in Christ becomes our brothers and sisters in the divine family of God.

The “love relationship” we now have becomes both horiontal and vertical, where our vertical relationship is with God our Father and our horizontal relationships with fellow believers in the family of God.

There are many people who adopt children. Generally, choices are made on who they adopt by looking at all the certain aspects of children, often having a selection criteria of the type of child they want to adopt..

Criteria’s may be things like, how cute they seem at first, or ones who are intellectually superior to others, or they physically are pleasant to look at, and many others.

It is not often that someons wants to adopt a child with a disability, or if they have a sickness, or thier particular ethnic background, or who thier natural father and mother was, etc.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, praise be to God our Father, this is not how God chose any one of us.

We were not chosen because we were better than others, or there was something good in us. It was not our beauty, or wisdom, our history, or anything else we can bring to God.

Instead, God loved us just becuase He loved us. God loved the unlovable, the unappealing, the unlovely, and one who is not worthy of His love whatsoever. We were deceased and marred with the sickness of sin. We were rebellious. We were selfish. We were disobedient. We hated authority. We were prideful, hateful, sinful.

YET IN THE MERCY, GRACE, LOVE SO UNIMAGINABLE, HE DECIDED TO ADOPT US INTO HIS ETERNAL FAMILY!

God rescued us from the gutter of sin and made us His child. Not only that but He has made us a coequal hier with Christ Jesus. Romans 8:17 “and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,”

Sometimes we just need to pause in our lives in Christ to reflect on what Christ has achieved for us on the cross, and the Father ‘s love we now have, and the guidance of the Spirit to keep us in Him.

J.I. Packer says:

“adoption was a practice ordinarily confined to the childless well-to-do. Its subjects … were not normally infants, as today, but young adults who had shown themselves fit and able to carry on a family name in a worthy way. In this case, however, God adopts us out of free love, not because our character and record show us worthy to bear His name, but despite the fact that they show the very opposite. We are not fit for a place in God’s family; the idea of His loving and exalting us sinners as He loves and has exalted the Lord Jesus sounds ludicrous and wild—yet that, and nothing less than that, is what our adoption means.”

John reveals our new status as children of God but also reminds us that it is not only a legal one, but it is also a lived one (1 John 2:28-3:3).

As His children, we are longing for His return and for us to be with Him. Our hope is that He will come back to take us with Him to the place prepared by the Father.

Now that we have understood our position in Christ, let us look at what that means for us.

The hope of all of those adopted into His family is for the return of Jesus Christ

This hope of Christ’s return must have a sanctifying effect on our behaviour and thoughts.

The one who is in the family of God will have the following features of hope waiting for His return:

Abiding in Him (1 John 2:28 “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.”)

persevering in the faith. The hope of Christ’s return produces the effect of continually abiding as we long for the glorious future prepared for us His adpopted children

This abiding must be pursued actively in our lives by reading His word, spending time in prayer, and loving God above all else.

Practice righteousness ( 1 John 2:29 “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.” )

Those who hopes and waits for His return makes righteousness a habit

We have the nature of our Heavenly Father

We are God’s children now (1 John 3:2 “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.”)

When Christ returns we shall be like him, in nature, experiencing conformity to His likeness

We are not perfect like God, but we ought to live righteousness, and become more like Him every day.

Purifies yourself as He is pure (1 John 3:3 “And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” )

Living out the reality of Christ’s return now

Desire to become like Him now

Application

Take time to think about what it means to be now called a child of God, and to have the eternal God as your Father in heaven. How are you abiding in Him, and waiting for His return, in a way that will make your Heavenly Father proud of His child?

Or maybe you’re not yet in God’s family cause like a lot of orphans you’re scared or thought you’re just better off alone apart from God but you really wanna be loved. Well friend, His love’s on offer, there’s a divine family & church family holding out their hands to you so what are you waiting for?

The mark of a child of God (1 John 3:4-10)

The next few passages may be difficult for us to sometimes understand. it is a vertical test of our relationship with God.

Now that we know of this wonderful blessing of adoption into God’s family. John goes on to describe how the children of God are identified.

When the passages in 1 John 3:4-10 are read, we may think there is too high of a standard to be in the family of God as His child. Is this even possible?

For example. 1 John 3:6 says, “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.”

Does this mean that if there is any sin, however small or big, that we are not actually saved or a child of God?:

What John is referring to here is to those who use God’s grace as an excuse for sinful behavior or make a pratice of it without any remorse (similar to Romans 6:1-11)

a child of God does not continue in perpetual sin. Like it was said to us earlier in 1 John 3:3, that those who are in Christ purifies himself. This is an ongoing activitiy of purification

Also as it was said in 1 John 2:29 says those who are born of God, practices righteousness (not sin).

Illustration

There are 2 examples to relate to the above.

Example 1

In my initial years at university, i attended a church in Sydney, in a place called Chester Hill. There was one particular person we knew and he was struggling with a sin which he committed, and believed it was too far gone for God’s forgiveness. I am not sure the specifics of what was done, it was never told, but he believed it was too much and God had given up on him. He used to come to church, but it meant that he was often depressed and impacting every area of his life, even his job, and a total lack of joy. Everyone tried to talk to him about the grace of God, and the sacrifice of Christ, and that anyone who calls, repents, and turns to Christ, He will never cast away. There is always time to repent and seek forgiveness and ask for the help and guidance of His Spirit. It was quite sad to see that nothing we said was making a difference in His life and to understand what it meant to be a child of God.

- Are we trying to gain’s God love by works OR are we living out a righteous life daily becuase He already loves us we love Him, and we rely on His grace and His Spirit to help us become more like Him every day?

Example 2

The second example was many years back when my daughter attended a early learning centre in Canberra. One of her teachers who also was a Christian was part of a group who believed that once you are born again and become a believer in Jesus Christ, then the only way to gain access to heaven was to be 100% “sinless” or in other words be perfect.

What this meant was that she was going back to a works based salvation trying to earn your way into God’s kingdom RATHER than a love based child relationshop with the Father, who by grace saved us not because of our works, but beacuse of His kindness and love, through which we are saved. The fruit of our love for God produces the practice of righteousness and we purify ourselves by the help of His Spirit so that we can honor our Father and God in heaven.

This is not what the passage is saying, becuase that would be impossible. In fact John, just a few chapters earlier says:

1 John 1:8-2:1 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

What the above teaches is the there are no “sinless christians” and second we have an advocate to help us if we do sin.

In other words, John does not assume that if you sin, you are not born again. but that it makes no sense to keep on living like an orphan after you’ve already been adopted into a family.

This is how the we are differentiated from the world, and differntiated from being a “child of the devil” and a “child of God”.

Child of the devil:

Everyone who makes a “practice” of sinning also practices lawlessness (1 John 3:4)

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning (1 John 3:8)

Child of God:

No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning (1 John 3:6)

Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous (1 John 3:7)

If you are struggling with a particular sin in your life, then you can rely on God’s grace and His Spirit to help you overcome those sins.

This is important to becuase of the work of Christ that was accomplished on the cross and not undermining the power of what He achieved for God’s children. Knowing this grace that Christ poured out into our undeserving lives ought to bring to a place of loving God and as a result of that, practice that things that will make our “Abba Father” proud.

1 John 3:5 says that Jesus Christ appeared in order to take sins away, and in Him there is no sin.

John is asking us to reflect on the design of his death and resurrection and that should lead us to abhor sin. He came to take away sin (John 1:29) and did so by bearing it in his body (1 Peter 2:24). Such could only be accomplished by someone who is himself sinless.

If Christ was sinless and came to remove sin, how can one abide both in him and in sin simultaneously? The one who abides in Christ does not sin as a ongoing habit.

1 John 3:7 says the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil AND

“if … the whole purpose of Christ’s first appearing was to remove sins and undo the works of the devil, Christians must not compromise with either sin or the devil, or they will find themselves fighting against Christ. If the first step to holiness is to recognize the sinfulness of sin, both in its essence as lawlessness and in its diabolical origin, the second step is to see its absolute incompatibility with Christ in his sinless person and saving work. The more clearly we grasp these facts, the more incongruous will sin appear and the more determined we shall be to be rid of it” (Stott, 125).

1 John 3:9 says that we cannot keep sinning becuase God’s sees abides in us

And the reason the new birth inevitably changes the life of sinning, John says, is that when we are born again, “God’s seed” abides in us, and we “cannot keep on sinning.” That’s how real the connection between the new birth and daily physical life is. God’s seed cannot make peace with a pattern of sinful behavior.

The seed may be:

the Spirit of God and/or

the Word of God

God’s seed cannot make peace with a pattern of sinful behavior.

“The one who practices sin is of the devil.” It was Augustine who said, “The devil made no man, begat no man, created no man, but whoso imitates the devil, becomes a child of the devil, as if begotten of him.” The phrase “of the devil” indicates that such a one draws from him the ruling principle and power of his life as does a son from his father.

Application

It is not possible for us to achieve this on our own, but God has given us His Spirit to help us to produce the fruit of the Spirit, and the fruit of rtighteousness (Galatians 5:22-23).

Take time to examine ourselves as children of God and our LOVE FOR OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. If there is sin in us, we have an advocate who stand with us. May we rely on God’s grace through His Spirit to enable us to practice righteousness.

Following the example of love (1 John 3:11-23)

Finally in 1 John 3:11-23 we will look at how “love” defines those who belong to the family of God.

As Christians we are to follow the example of Christ in regards to brotherly love and how we interact with one another. This is a horizontal test of how we interact with one another in the family of God.

To describe this, John gives us a comparsion of brotherly hatred as seen through the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4, as opposed to the love of Christ where He sacrifices Himself for others.

The main theme in all of this that characterises one who is in the family of God is “love”.

In fact, it is so, becuase “God is love”, and if we are His children, we must be a reflection of our Father in Heaven.

There are two disntinguishing marks that we can understand from this passage.

The world is identified by its hatred (seen in Cain)

The church is identified by its love (seen in Christ)

It does not mean that any non-Christian cannot be good, or cannot love. But what the passage is decribing is that the world in general has an affiliation towards self centeredness, envy, pride, and other things that are a result of the fallen human heart.

Stott summarizes: “Hatred characterizes the world, whose prototype is Cain. It originates in the devil, issues in murder, and is evidence of spiritual death. Love characterizes the church, whose prototype is Christ. It originates in God, issues in self-sacrifice, and is evidence of eternal life” (144).

So, we must not be surprised if the world (Cain) hates us for our trust and obedience in the Lord Jesus Christ and, rather we must look to the example of Christ which is of self-sacrifice leading to a practical outworking of love

This love must go beyond our feelings, and instead be shown in our deeds of sharing and caring for the needy brothers and sisters in Christ, and in our family.

This is the true nature of love, compared to the opposite, which is hatred.

The righteousness of the Christian will always appear to the world as arrogant conceit (John 15:18–20 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.” ).

This is why Cain hated Abel, because his own deed were evil and his brothers righteous (1 John 3:12). This hatred led to murder.

We see hatred in many areas of our life, when we try do good, and especially when we speak of the Jesus Christ and His gospel to those around us.

They do not want to hear it, or have any part of it, instead in return we are treated with contempt.

We see persecution of the church all over the world, where the gospel is preached.

Likewise, if we in the family of God hate one another, then we are more like Cain, rather than Jesus Christ.

In stark contrast those who are in the family of God is characterised by “LOVE”.

In Genesis 4 Abel’s blood calls for vengeance from the ground yet God shows mercy to Cain

Hebrews later picks up on this, teaching that Jesus’s “sprinkled blood . . . speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).

By our sin we, like Cain, have struck down our “brother” (Hebrews 2:11). Yet Christ came precisely for this purpose: to be crushed for us and for our salvation (Isaiah 53:4). How much more ought we to be like Him.

Again, in 1 John 3, we see the example of the love of Christ. 1 John 3:16 “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

Christ laid down His life for us and we ought to love in like manner. It had to be a practical love, not one that has just been spoken:

That is, if we have the world’s goods and sees our brother or sister in need, and closes his heart to them, How can God’s love abide in that perosn

Our love needs to be more than talk, and should be put into action. When there is a need, and if we can help, we must be self-sacrificing and look out for each other just as we do in our earthly families.

In fact, God could have taught us all He wanted in scritpure about His love for us, but we would never have been able to experience it or comprehent it, if He did not show that love our practically without Him sending His only begotten Son to die in place of us on the cross, so that we could be justified and have eternal life with Him, becoming children of God, and hiers with Christ!

So, if we love Christ, and we love our Father, and love His Spirit, then we will also love the rest of His family and we will be charactericed by love.

Application

So, 1 John 3:24 says, “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” (it’s almost as if keeping His commandments becomes our adoption papers)

The assurance we then have is that:

we abide in God and love Him and His family when we practice righteousness by keeping his commandments

and we know that, becuase His Holy Spirit has been given to us.

By this we are children of God becuase we love our brothers and meet thier needs. Not just loving in talk but acting in out ny helping each other.

So, who might you help meet the needs of this week:

Are you aware of a need of a brother or sister in Christ, what are you going to do about it?

Conclusion

In conclusion, we are such a blessed people, to recieve the greatest blessing of being adopted into the family of God and to call God, the creator of all thing, “Abba, Father”.

We are all in the family of God, and may we rely upon His Spirit, to produce fruits of rigteousness by abiding in Him, as we look forward His coming and that we may be found ready and waiting.

Finally, may we love one another like Jesus did, serve one another, meet each others needs practically, and as we do so may, glorify our Father in Heaven. Amen!

Bibliography

Sam Storms, Biblical Studies: First John (Edmond, OK: Sam Storms, 2016).

Douglas Sean O’Donnell, 1-3 John, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, 1st ed., Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2015), 91.

John Calvin and John Owen, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 201–202.

The MacArthur Study Bible, 2nd Edition, English Standard Version, ESV.

Susanne Calhoun, “Adoption,” in Lexham Survey of Theology, ed. Mark Ward et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).

Samuel M. Ngewa, The Epistles of John: Their Message and Relevance for Today: A New Covenant Commentary, ed. Michael F. Bird and Craig Keener, New Covenant Commentary Series (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019), 49–55.

R. C. Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015), 2271.