Sermon Tone Analysis

Real Christians

3 See what great lovem the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!n

And that is what we are!

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.o 2 Dear friends,p now we are children of God,q and what we will be has not yet been made known.

But we know that when Christ appears,a r we shall be like him,s for we shall see him as he is.t 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves,u just as he is pure.v

3 See what great lovem the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!n

And that is what we are!

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.o 2 Dear friends,p now we are children of God,q and what we will be has not yet been made known.

But we know that when Christ appears,a r we shall be like him,s for we shall see him as he is.t 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves,u just as he is pure.v

What does the word lavish mean to you? Define it.

This is the love that the Father has for us, that we should be called children of God.

Look at this > “and that is what we are”

This is a declarative statement!

Then He says, but what we shall be has not been made known yet.

The world doesn’t recognize us yet or take us seriously because it doesn’t know what God is up to.

When will we know exactly who we are and how will we know it is what we should be?

The United States Treasury Department has a special group of men whose job it is to track down counterfeiters.

Naturally, these men need to know a counterfeit bill when they see it.

How do they learn to identify fake bills?

Oddly enough, they are not trained by spending hours examining counterfeit money.

Rather, they study the real thing.

They become so familiar with authentic bills that they can spot a counterfeit by looking at it or, often, simply by feeling it

The United States Treasury Department has a special group of men whose job it is to track down counterfeiters.

Naturally, these men need to know a counterfeit bill when they see it.

How do they learn to identify fake bills?

Oddly enough, they are not trained by spending hours examining counterfeit money.

Rather, they study the real thing.

They become so familiar with authentic bills that they can spot a counterfeit by looking at it or, often, simply by feeling it

The United States Treasury Department has a special group of men whose job it is to track down counterfeiters.

Naturally, these men need to know a counterfeit bill when they see it.

How do they learn to identify fake bills?

Oddly enough, they are not trained by spending hours examining counterfeit money.

Rather, they study the real thing.

They become so familiar with authentic bills that they can spot a counterfeit by looking at it or, often, simply by feeling it

The message in v5 says, “All of us who look forward to His coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus’ life as a model for our own.”

What does your life look like if in all things you use Jesus’ life as a model?

What does your life look like if in all things you use Jesus’ life as a model?

Is it the same?

or Is it different”

John is demanding that his people should remember their privilege that they are God’s children.

The fourth-century Church father, John Chrysostom, in a sermon on how to bring up children, advises parents to give their boy some great Scriptural name, to teach him repeatedly the story of the original bearer of the name, and so to give him a standard to live up to when he grows up.

So, Christians have the privilege of being called the children of God.

OUR FUTURE WHAT JOHN SAYS:

(1) When Christ appears in his glory, we shall be like him.

Surely, John had in mind the saying of the old creation story that human beings were made in the image and in the likeness of God (Genesis 1:26).

That was God’s intention, and that was human destiny.

We have only to look into any mirror to see how far we have fallen short of that destiny.

But John believes that, in Christ, people will finally attain it and at last bear the image and the likeness of God.

It is John’s belief that only through the work of Christ in their souls can men and women reach the true humanity that God meant them to reach.

(2) When Christ appears, we shall see him and be like him.

The goal of all the great Christian men and women has been the vision of God.

The end of all devotion is to see God.

But that vision of God is not for the sake of intellectual satisfaction; it is in order that we may become like him.

There is a paradox here.

We cannot become like God unless we see him; and we cannot see him unless we are pure in heart, for only the pure in heart shall see God (Matthew 5:8).

In order to see God, we need the purity which only he can give.

We are not to think of this vision of God as something which only the great mystics can enjoy.

There is somewhere a story about a poor and simple man who would often go into a cathedral to pray; and he would always pray kneeling before the crucifix.

Someone noticed that, though he knelt in the attitude of prayer, his lips never moved and he never seemed to say anything, and asked the man what he was doing kneeling like that.

The man answered: ‘I look at him; and he looks at me.’

That is the vision of God in Christ that everyone can have; and whoever looks long enough at Jesus Christ must become like him.

Now John turns to those who are not doing right.

He says everyone who sins breaks the law.

Now John turns to those who are not doing right.

He says everyone who sins breaks the law.

What law is he talking about?

John says that sin is lawlessness (3:4).

In this one statement, the writer uses two Greek terms, hamartia and anomia, to describe aspects of sin.

This statement helps us discuss and deal with sin because it gives a clear understanding of what John meant by “sin” or hamartia.

For John, sin did not include mistakes and human blunders.

It is true that some of the Greek words translated “sin” suggest a wide scope of weaknesses, misdirection, and wrongdoing—but not in this epistle.

When the writer references the term most often used for sin, that is hamartia, he is writing about lawlessness.

For him, the sin of greatest concern is the inclination, the attitude, the conscious, rebellious determination to do what is wrong.

(1) He tells us what sin is.

It is the deliberate breaking of a law of which people are well aware.

Sin is to obey oneself rather than to obey God.

(2) He tells us what sin does.

It undoes the work of Christ.

Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).

To sin is to bring back what he came into the world to abolish.

(3) He tells us why sin is.

It comes from the failure to abide in Christ.

We need not think that this is a truth only for advanced mystics.

It simply means this: as long as we remember the continual presence of Jesus, we will not sin; it is when we forget that presence that we sin.

(4) He tells us where sin comes from.

It comes from the devil; and the devil is the one who sins, as it were, on principle.

That is probably the meaning of the phrase from the beginning (verse 8).

We sin for the pleasure that we think it will bring to us; the devil sins as a matter of principle.

The New Testament does not try to explain the devil and his origin; but it is quite convinced—and it is a fact of universal experience—that in the world there is a power hostile to God, and to sin is to obey that power instead of God.

(5) He tells us how sin is conquered.

It is conquered because Jesus Christ destroyed the works of the devil.

The New Testament often dwells on the Christ who faced and conquered the powers of evil (Matthew 12:25–9; Luke 10:18; Colossians 2:15; 1 Peter 3:22; John 12:31).

He has broken the power of evil, and by his help that same victory can be ours.

All who have this hope in him purify themselves,u just as he is pure.v

4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.w

5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins.x

And in him is no sin.y

6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning.z

No one who continues to sin has either seen hima or known him.b

7 Dear children,c do not let anyone lead you astray.d