What IS a Christian? - A Christian is God’s Child

Intro

welcome

glad you’re here

I’m Keenan

next gen pastor

wife is Skylar

Halfway through our What IS a Christian sermon series

Tonight we will be talking about how a Christian is God’s Child and what that means and how to be and act like God’s Child

tonight we will be in 1 John 2:28-3:24 to see what God says about it.

pray

Let’s look at verses 1 John 2:29-3:10

1 John 2:28–3:10 CSB

29 If you know that he is righteous, you know this as well: Everyone who does what is right has been born of him. 1 See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him. 2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. 4 Everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there is no sin in him. 6 Everyone who remains in him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The one who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s works. 9 Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister.

God’s Child is set apart

To be called God’s child is a big deal

We know that Jesus is called the Son of God

So when God refers to Christians as His Children we shouldn’t just take that with a grain of salt.

When we are saved Romans 8:29 “For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” says that when we are saved we are conformed to the image of the Son so we can be children of God. When we make that decision to be saved we are adopted into God’s family.

We are God’s Child then

When we are adopted into God’s family as His children there is an expectation for what God wants from and for us just like there is in your family now.

In this passage John talks about how God’s children don’t sin, and there’s a difference between God’s children and the devil’s children.

God’s children are known by remaining in Christ and his commands, by not practicing sin, and by pursuing righteousness.

By doing these things God’s children are set apart from the children of the devil who is everyone else who is unsaved.

The devil’s children whether they realize it or not regardless of the good works they may do are not pursuing Jesus but other purposes.

The devil’s children don’t remain in Christ but remain in selfish or worldly ways.

They find their identity in their sin rather than righteousness.

But verses 4-10 talk about how those that sin are lawless, working for the devil, and not God’s children. 1 John 3:4–10 “4 Everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there is no sin in him. 6 Everyone who remains in him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The one who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s works. 9 Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister.”

How can it be that we are saved and still work for the devil when we sin?

We are conformed to the image of the son when we are saved like we talked about from Romans and we are adopted into God’s family and there’s nothing that can take that away from us.

But when we sin we act like we aren’t God’s children.

When we start sinning we stop remaining in Christ.

When we stop remaining in Christ we start working for Satan.

Looking down at verse 10 we see John again hone in on the importance of loving their brothers and sisters

John is very serious about how not loving other followers of Christ stops us from looking like God’s children.

John has in mind one of the primary ways that followers of Christ are set apart is in the way they love their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Just because we are accepted into God’s family once we are saved, it doesn’t mean that we act acceptable all the time.

Think about with your family at home. You are your parents kids. Regardless how old you’ll be they’re still your parents. I’m sure that as a family you have traditions and things you do that sets your family apart from others. When you go over to a friends house there’s some differences in how they talk to each other, who is doing chores, whether they eat together for family dinner or not, fun things they do together as a family that yours may or may not. It could even be the way they dress. When you get to know a family you can just tell the different things that shows that they’re a family. There are indicators that set them apart from being identified from being apart of other families. Imagine you have a family that loves sports and they’re very happy-go lucky, caring, and giving, only listens to joy fm, and bubbly people. But one of their kids is mean, hates sports, is selfish, and listens to screamo. Unless you knew the family they were in you wouldn’t expect them to be apart of that family. This seems pretty extreme and im not saying there’s anything inherently wrong with hardcore music but it’s about how even though they’re in that family, no one except for the people that really know them would think they’re in that family. Even though it’s an extreme example in reality and as we look at Scripture, it’s not all that extreme in the way that God views sin and how it looks like.

God takes sin seriously as you can tell.

Just like any good parent God wants the best for us.

The reason why He is so serious about sin is because of how bad He knows it is.

When we sin we don’t realize how bad the sin really is or the weight and consqequences of it.

Here in chapter three, John says that sin is so serious that the moment we do it, we end up working for the devil.

When we do that we aren’t acting set apart from the world and the devils children.

Maybe you’re here and you’re saved and you have been having a hard time giving up a sin and you haven’t been acting set apart.

Maybe it’s an addiction, maybe it’s gossipping, maybe it’s lying, maybe you’ve been dating a girl or guy who isn’t a Christian and you’ve been doing too much with them and you feel like you can’t stop.

Even though you are a child of God, every time you go back to it, Scripture says that you are essentially working for Satan and acting like you’re not His.

You’re going to have things throughout your life that you’ll struggle with sin over, but focus on the you right now here tonight.

Later when we have response time, whatever you’ve been holding onto that is taking you away from seeming like you’re a child of God, bring it to Him tonight and turn away from it and toward Him.

Then this week act on setting yourself apart as God’s child.

God’s Child has Confidence before God

But maybe you’ve been feeling ashamed of your sin and you just don’t feel like God’s child even though you’re saved

Let’s look at verses 2:28 and 3:19-24 to see how we can work through this problem

1 John 2:28 CSB

28 So now, little children, remain in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

1 John 3:19–24 CSB

19 This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight. 23 Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps his commands remains in him, and he in him. And the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he has given us.

John’s talking to the followers of Christ here at the church who have been feeling condemned and unassure to help remind them how they can have confidence.

When we feel convicted or feel ashamed about our feelings about our place with God even though we are saved, John says that we can have reassurance because God is bigger than those feelings and bigger than what we’ve done and He already knows everything.

One way John says we can have confidence before God is through knowing God is bigger than our feelings and mistakes

The next way that John shows that we can have confidence before God is that we remain in Christ.

verses 21-24a 1 John 3:21–24 “21 Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight. 23 Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps his commands remains in him, and he in him.

When we remain in Christ and keep His commands we can feel more confident going before God to ask Him things.

We don’t feel the shame and worriness as if we were not living in obedience to Christ.

The last reassurance of confidence that John gives that God’s children have before God is in verse 24, 1 John 3:24 “24 And the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he has given us.”

When we are saved we are given the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit guides us and teaches us Jesus’ commands and convicts us when we sin.

Ephesians 1:13–14 “13 In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. 14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.” Says that the Holy Spirit is given to us as a downpayment to give us assurance of what we hope for.

When I was your age I cared a lot about looking like a good kid, especially to my parents. They were the kind of parents who set high expectations. Which in itself is not a bad thing. It helped me realize that I can do things even though it’s hard. This also applied to how I treated others, sports, and following Jesus. For most of my childhood I was very confident in my identity as my parents son. I treated others well and was respectful and in school I did very well rarely getting anything below an A. I served in church and tried to follow Jesus’ commands. But over time as school get harder and took more discipline I started to have more freedom. I started to not do as well in school and my behavior and my view and relationship with God started to fall away too from the expectation my parents set. I started to hide stuff from my parents. I wasn’t as confident in my stance with them. My relationship with them wasn’t as good as it was before because I wasn’t living in the role and expectations that I knew were set for me. I started to not want to spend time with my family and started to be less willing to talk about things I was struggling with. Because of that, I hid more things from them and the more I kept going down the rabbit hole of not acting like their child and the more I kept losing confidence in my relationship with them. I could have been honest with them and because of the things they have wisdom on and worked through they would have helped me because I’m still my parents son and they love me. But I waited until everything hit the fan and I was basically forced to tell them how far away I had strayed and all the stuff I got myself into. And because they love me and I’m their son despite all the bad stuff I had done and the lying and hiding from them. They helped me get clean and helped me get back into my relationship with God and

Maybe you have parents like mine who no matter what you do they’ll see your mistakes and problems and help you.

Whether you do or don’t God is the perfect parent

Verse 20 says whenever our hears condemn us: for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things.

When you are carrying shame from your sin and you’ve been running from the identity of a child of God, or when you sin and you beat yourself up and have a perfectionist mentality, God is greater than your sin, He’s greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.

You can go to Him and He can help you overcome that sin and ask for forgiveness and he’ll forgive you and help you.

Once He’s taken that condemnation from us verse 21 says that we have confidence before God.

If we know God can take our shame and condemnation for our sins and we remain in Him then we have more confidence in our relationship with Him and our standing with Him.

If you’re here tonight and have been struggling with the shame and condemnation from your sin and you are a child of God

God wants to help take those things from you. He wants to reassure your status with Him and help you overcome that sin so you can have confidence in your relationship with Him.

During response if there’s a sin that’s been holding you back from having confidence before God, He already knows all things, he knows the shame and feelings you have, He knows how long you’ve been struggling with it, He knows how you’ve been hiding it from your parents and your friends, and God. But we can’t hide from God. And that’s a good thing because if you’re His child, He will work everything out for your His and your good.

And know that He wants you to have confidence before Him if you’re his child.

Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you can’t do it

If you are here though and you don’t have any confidence in having God as your Father because you don’t have Him as your father and you want that, then I want to tell you tonight that you can have that tonight.

That you can have him save you from your sins and your brokenness, from a lack of identity, purpose, and you can have your identity be set, and have a purpose that’s better than anything you could ever think or imagine.

God wants to adopt you as His child tonight if you haven’t ever made that decision. He’s just waiting on you.

God sent His son to die for your sins so you can be adopted into His family. There’s no work that you can do to be accepted into His family.

You and me and all of us aren’t big enough to remove the penalty of sin.

So Romans 10:9 says if we believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord we will be saved.

So tonight if you want to have confidence before God, and you haven’t ever had confidence because you aren’t saved and aren’t apart of His family, I want to lead you to make that decision tonight.

Prayer of salvation

Call to response of salvation

Pray

Call to response