1 John 2:28-3:3, "Unashamed Children"
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Southwest Airline commercials, “wanna get away?” Have you ever felt so exposed and ashamed that you wanted to leave town? Wouldn’t you like to live a life free from shame? Wouldn’t you like to be able to say that you are making a habit of doing the right thing, not perfectly, but growing in purity?
Out of all the experiences you’ve had that have made you feel exposed, like hiding in shame, nothing compares to seeing God face to face in your sin and impurity. Every testimony we have is one of the tendency to shrink back from God in fear and shame. Adam and Eve in the garden, Isaiah in the heavenly temple.
If Jesus appeared here in front of us, just as He is now, you would see the glory of total righteousness, purity itself. Even on your best day, your immediate reaction would be to fall flat on your face in awe and wonder; see John’s own experience,
Revelation 1:17 (ESV)
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
That’s what makes the gospel, and our passage today, so powerful. You can be unashamed before God if you abide in Jesus. John’s promise is that abiding in Jesus, spending time in His presence now, seeing Him as He is, will empower us for righteous living, it will help us understand our identity, understand the love of God for us, and we will grow in purity. And when Jesus appears in all His glory, you will not shrink away in shame, but you will stand, confident that your hope has been realized.
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.
Abiding in Christ is spending time in His presence. It is learning to listen to His words. It is learning to trust His guidance and care, and learning to put your hope in Him. John says that if we abide in these ways, our confidence grows as we get closer to meeting Him face to face when He returns in power and glory as the judge of this world.
The promise that Jesus will once again appear on earth is the promise that every injustice will be judged by someone who is perfectly righteous. John says in verse 29,
If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
As we abide in Jesus, spending time listening to Him and practicing what we hear, we find over time that we begin to make a habit of practicing the righteousness He has. He lives His life in and through us. John is saying that this is assurance that you have been born of Him. You have a new life. Jesus isn’t making you a better person. He is making you a new person, with a new identity and a new way of life.
Rather than some legalistic, fear-driven religion, John is telling us that for the person abiding in Christ, who finds Jesus forming their habits to be more righteous, this is a sign that they have been given a new life in Christ. And if you are in Christ, you have a new identity as a child of God. You are greatly loved.
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.
There are different kinds of love. John seems amazed and surprised at this love that he is learning in Jesus.
"See” = “behold, consider with me...”
"what kind" = "of what country" From another world, out of this world, a kind of love unknown in these parts.
“that we should be called children of God"
This is John, a Jew, one of the chosen people, talking. They already considered themselves the children of God. All of Jesus’ first disciples had presumed God’s love because of their nationality. But as they learned more from Jesus, John and the others came to recognize the love of God was completely different than they had expected.
This is undeserved, unconditional love, not based on your position or power or progress or people group, but grounded in God’s nature. This love is not based on what you can offer God, but who He is for you, and what He offers in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son - total forgiveness and a new life.
The kind of love the Jews had known was nationalistic and maintained by what they did for God. What kind of love do we know in our culture? Our culture loves others for qualities we find desirable, the ones that meet our needs or please us. We don’t understand how anyone could love someone they don’t find desirable or pleasing. God’s love is a very different kind. God loves us because of qualities in Him that He knows we need.
This is the sacrificial, giving kind of love we see demonstrated in Jesus. It is active love. It's the kind of love that changes the identity of the beloved. When a man loves a woman, he makes a commitment in the covenant of marriage and gives her his name, his very identity, and changes hers. They share an identity. When Karen and I got married, she became Mrs. Kenneth MacLeod. It has nothing to do with patriarchal society. It is a cultural practice that can teach us about God’s love. We see the same kind of picture in adoption. A father gives a child their name and inheritance.
But marriage and adoption are just part of the full picture. The love of God that John is talking about gives us new birth, a complete restart. John says the kind of love God has is that “we should be called children of God.” God calls things into being that did not exist before. If He calls you child, you are.
As John writes in His gospel, John 1:11-13
John 1:11–13 (ESV)
[Jesus] came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
When God arrived in the flesh, even the Jews had to renounce all other claims to divine favor, and receive the Son who would give them the right to become God’s child. When Christ appeared, it was time for a new identity. You don’t need to be more righteous. You need a whole new life.
"Those to whom God is not all in all are slaves. They may not commit great sins; they may be trying to do right; but so long as they serve God, as they call it, from duty, and do not know him as their father, the joy of their being, they are slaves--good slaves, but slaves." George MacDonald
God did not come to gather slaves, but children. Think about His love for you. As you abide in Christ, you will grow in understanding His love for you. In fact, the longer I’ve known Jesus, and been trying to understand God and how to live in a way that would please Him, I’ve grown to believe that I cannot do enough to ever please God. I cannot love God enough. I am learning to rest in His love for me - the kind of love I see in Jesus, who gave His life for me. I am learning to seek all my hope, happiness, significance and security, my all in all, in Him.
Don’t expect others to understand it.
1 John 3:1 (ESV)
The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
The world doesn not know or understand this kind of love. You should not expect the world to know or understand God. There are too many Christians who seem to be really upset that the world does not want God these days. This should not surprise you.
This world will not give you true hope or happiness, significance or security. In Christ, you have a new identity, you have been awakened to reality out of those asleep in the dark, made alive in the land of the dead.
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.
Will we be something other than children of God? No, but we are growing to know Him more as we see Him more clearly. As we abide in Christ, as we consider the love of God for us, we grow until the day that all is revealed, and then the process will be complete. Not before.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
In the meantime, our goal is to cut through all the distractions of this world. Cut through the distractions of legalistic, fear based religions, or religions that claim to be religions of love, but aren’t this kind of love. Seek to see Jesus as He is. Seek to grow in understanding God’s love for you.
Find every opportunity to put your hope in this promise. That the new life you have been given, and the process you are in, growing in righteousness as you experience the life of Christ in you, He will bring to completion on the day Jesus appears. You won’t get it right every time. But there is something better coming. When you can finally see Jesus as He is now, you will be like Him.
And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
We’ve been watching some of the Marvel superhero movies. There are some really amazing parallels to the gospel in them. There is redemption, salvation, sacrificial love for the world. But there is also that thing that happens in your heart. When you see the superhero with the truly noble character who can do what you can’t to save the world, you are inspired to be more like them. In looking forward to Jesus’ appearing, we contemplate Jesus Christ in all his power and glory, and this spurs us on to be like him.
As we hope in Jesus more than our own righteousness, as we learn to trust in God’s love for us more than our love for Him, we are purified of our shame, and our confidence grows. One day, when we see Jesus face to face as our judge, we will also see Him as our older brother, welcoming us home into the house of our loving Father. Let that hope purify you.
Extra thoughts...
One thing have I asked of the Lord , that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Psalms 27:4
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. Psalms 63:2-3
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Matthew 11:25-27
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." 2 Corinthians 3:17-18
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Titus 2:11-14
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5:1-5
Word Studies in the New Testament (Chapter 2)
The idea of free, open speech lies at the bottom of the word: coming before God’s bar with nothing to conceal. The thought is embodied in the general confession of the Book of Common Prayer: “That we should not dissemble nor cloke them before the face of Almighty God our Heavenly Father, but confess them.” So John Wesley’s Hymn:
“Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress:’
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
Bold shall I stand in Thy great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am,—
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.”
Discussion Questions
Was there anything you learned about abiding in Christ this week that you can share with us?
What are some things you hope for this year?
What are some ways our hopes shape our behavior and our identity?
When you think about the return of Jesus, what emotions do you experience? Where do those come from?
How do we know that we are God’s children? Is there anything in this passage that might help?
What kind of love does the Father have for us?
How does thinking about the love of the Father shape our hearts, minds, and behavior?
From your initial thoughts on this passage, how does anticipation of the return of Jesus change the way we live now?
How will you respond to this passage this week?
Is there someone you can share this passage with this week?