Children of God

To understand ourselves better, our future better, and our God better, we must abide in the Lord. Why abide? Because Jesus is coming back!

Well, good morning church, and good to be with you today. I was having a chat. He doesn’t know I’m about to say this. I was having a chat with my friend Philip recently, and we were talking about this truth. Parents of young children, I listen up, I want to help save you some money. Your kids don’t care where you travel in the world, so long as there’s a pool. Right. See, when I was growing up, my dad was a teacher and therefore had, you know, a modest salary. And look, my, my parents gave us a lot. And it was wonderful. And when we were older, we did some of those more exciting trips. You know, we did the Disney thing. We even did Europe when I was in high school. Super cool. So I’m not, I’m not in no way am I disparaging. What my parents provided for me was amazing. But I’m going to be honest, one of my favorite family memories was when we got in a conversion van with my grandparents, my sister and I and my parents, and we drove 30 minutes away to a mid-range hotel and spent the weekend eating peanut butter and jelly and swimming in the pool. And what I mean is like, I’m not talking the fancy pools, you know, with the slides and the splash pads. Like some of y’all. It’s too fancy. Do you know what I mean? We’re talking like a 20 by 30 pool in a Comfort Inn.

You know what I’m saying? And it’s honestly one of my greatest memories as a child. Like, why is that okay? So maybe when you’re six, your world is kind of small. You know, you don’t have big expectations for vacation. Fine. But I think there’s something deeper going on there. It’s because I didn’t need thrills. I didn’t need roller coasters. What I really wanted was to spend time with my people. I just wanted to swim with my dad and sit next to my mom in a restaurant and talk with my grandparents and belt out Disney songs in the back seat with my sister. You know, a whole new world. Okay. Anyway, that was not in my notes. Just kind of happened. Here’s the idea. We just wanted to spend time together, or to use the phrase that we’re going to see in this passage today. But also we’ve seen earlier in this letter from John that we have. I just wanted to abide with them. I just wanted to dwell with them, spend time with them. That’s what I wanted to do. So what is abiding? We’ve encountered it a little bit throughout the letter, but here is one commentator’s definition. To abide is to stay, remain, live, dwell, abide. To be in a state that begins and continues, yet may or may not end or stop.

To abide in Christ is to follow his example of a life obedient to the will of God. As we look back into this letter of First John that we’ve been traveling through a little bit, we see abiding used in several different ways and referring to several different ideas. John is using this repetitive language, presumably on purpose to make a point. Let’s look at some of this repetition briefly in verse ten. He says, whoever loves his brother abides in the light. So he’s talking about abiding in the light. Then in 14 the Word of God abides in you, or in 17 the will of God abides forever. These are all different forms of abiding. Twenty-four, what you heard, the gospel, let it abide in you. And. And if it abides in you, you too will abide in the Son and the Father. And then last week we heard about this anointing that you received abides in you being the Holy Spirit being within you. And then right at the end of 27, you see John make this turn. He says, so I’m going to give you an imperative. Now, if you are abiding, abiding in all of these things and all of these things are abiding in you, then what are you supposed to do? You’re supposed to abide in him. And that’s what we’re going to see moving forward here. There’s a second contextual piece, though, that we need to understand before we jump into our passage for today.

And that’s the idea that I need to make sure it’s very clear, because we’re going to talk about being a child of God here. And I want it to be understood that not every human who walks the face of this earth is necessarily a child of God. Now that gets confusing because God as creator made every human. So in that way, he’s a father. And that does make sense. But that’s not the way that John is using it here in this letter. He is defining who is in the family of God and who is out of the family of God. Or as my systematic theology professor used to say, who are the innies and who are the outies? Knowing whether or not you are a child of God is essentially important to your life, to your future, and your eternity. And so what John’s been doing throughout the letter so far is he’s been making a claim about who’s in and who’s out. In chapter one, verses seven through nine, he says, those who walk in the light are in the family of God. Those who confess their sins are in the family of God. In chapter two, verse three, if we keep his commandments, we may be in the family of God, and we need to walk in the same way in which he walked. We need to behave like he behaved, like Jesus behaved.

In chapter two, verses nine and ten, we see whoever loves his brother abides in the light. But if you hate your brother, maybe you’re not in the light. We’ve spent some time over the previous weeks defining how to enter the family of God and what it means to enter the family of God. In today’s passage, he’s describing what someone should do as a child of God. And so wherever you sit, if you’re a child of God, we’re going to talk about how we should behave today. If you’re not a child of God, this is what’s being asked of the children of God. And that’s something you can consider and reflect on as well. So here’s what I’d like us to draw from our passage today and focus in on. To understand ourselves better, our future better, and our God better, we must abide in our identity as children of God. As children of God. We need to get really comfortable with that. So here’s our passage for today. We’re in first John, continuing in chapter two, beginning with verse 28. And 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. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. 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. 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. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. So three things we’re going to look at self, future and God. Things that we can learn from this passage. Now abiding in our identity as children of God helps us to understand ourselves better. That’s true, but that almost sounds like a trap because Scripture isn’t about me, and it’s not about you. It’s not about us. It is about God, isn’t it? And so a focus on self could feel like it’s somehow anti-gospel. But it’s not here. Because what we’re doing is we’re trying to understand ourselves in relationship to God and understand ourselves based in the truth of Scripture. And in that way, it’s a very good thing and an important thing to do. And so the first thing I want to hone in on is this, is that when we abide in him, we can have confidence in our identity. And we see this bore out in verse 28. Little children abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.

We see this moniker of little children. It’s one that John has used before in this letter. He’ll use it again, and it’s setting us up to understand this Children of God idea. And I just want to be really clear here. This is not a title that is in any way meant to be negative or pejorative. This is not like stop being such a child. You know how we use it sometimes. No, this is something entirely different. This is a title of great honor. It’s not immaturity, it’s possession. It’s identity. It’s belonging. And I think it’s important that we just we just sit in that reality a little bit. If we meet those earlier criteria we mentioned, if we truly trust and treasure Jesus, what an honor it is to be counted among those who can call themselves a part of God’s family. What a beautiful thing that is. Based in that identity then, John identifies expectations of the children of God in response and behavior. What is it that these little children are to do? Well, it’s a clear imperative. They are to abide in him. They are to act like they are a part of the family. They’re to be close with him. And this makes sense, right? Children in a family, in a family home. They’re not outsiders. They’re not strangers. They’re not guests. They’re a part of the family.

They’re supposed to be there and they should act like they’re supposed to be there. They should go banging around in the kitchen and letting themselves eat whatever food they want, because it’s their house. There should be a level of comfort here. You can tell who lives in a house and who doesn’t when they’re in it. And so the question is begged here by John, are you willing to accept the acceptance of God that abiding requires? See, this really has to do with how you view God, right? If you view God as like a cosmic police officer who’s sitting there with his radar gun waiting to see if you’re speeding, sinning, right? Ha ha! Sin! Like if that’s how you see God, you’re going to have a hard time with this idea of abiding. But if you see him as a good and loving father, it’s easier to abide, isn’t it? You don’t need to perform for that. Hopefully you grew up in a house where you didn’t have to perform in order to receive love. Hopefully, you received love as a child simply because you belonged in the family. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, and that’s certainly the way that God treats us. If you’re in his family, you have his love. If we abide, we accept our identity as children of God, and we can have confidence related to our identity in him. We are welcome where he is.

We can have confidence, as the verse says, and not shrink away because of our belonging. Let me be clear. The confidence isn’t in my performance. It isn’t in how good I’m behaving. The confidence is in the relationship. It’s not in the behavior. It’s in the relationship. It’s just in the family belongingness, as it were. Now, it would be easy to miss this first little phrase, too. The verse also points out when someone should abide. They should abide now. Now, little children. Abide now. Don’t wait. Don’t wait to do that. In this sentence, the word abide is in the present active imperative tense. It’s not something that happened back then, not just a decision that you made once upon a time to join the family of God. It’s not something that you’re waiting to happen someday in the future, hoping that you know you can pray the right prayer before you get hit by the semi truck or however you go out. No. It’s present. It’s active. It’s imperative. Abide in the Lord right now. Be in relationship with him. And there’s such an interesting tension here, right here in this verse because it’s saying we should do it now because Jesus is coming back. We should do it now because Jesus is coming back. Well, why would we do that? Because we have to practice. We have to be ready for his return. Jesus is coming back. We got to be ready for it.

And when he comes back, what he wants to see, what he desires to see in his people is deep and active dependence on him. So the right time to depend on him, to actively lean on him is both times. It’s right now, and it’s later when he comes back. The implication is that it’s always, it’s always the right time to be abiding in the Lord. It’s not just now. It’s not just then. It’s always. We’ll say a little bit more about that later. But before I step away from this point about family identity, I want to take the moment to say this. Parents and especially dads, your kids need to know how much you love them and how much you’re proud of them, no matter what. It is essential. And I’ll just say, just from my own perspective of somebody who’s been working with young people for a very long time, when children have the confidence based on the love of their parents, they are less likely to rebel. They’re less likely to be promiscuous, they’re less likely to seek attention in destructive ways. They’re less likely to choose bad friendships. It’s a big deal. So parents don’t miss the chance to show what a loving parent looks like, what an unconditional love from a parent looks like. Don’t miss the chance to make them know that your love is based on the fact, not of their behavior, but it’s based on the fact simply because they are yours.

And there doesn’t need to be any other reason. Because that’s how God loves us. The second way abiding in the Lord helps each of us understand ourselves better is this. When we abide in him, we behave more righteously. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practice righteousness has been born of him. We see it here again, born of him, a child, a child. His child is just another way of saying in the family of God. And what he’s saying basically is you can recognize God’s kids because they behave in a way that honors him through obedience and righteousness. And let me be clear, we are not saying is that good behavior is how someone becomes a child of God. Of course not. That’s nonsense. Righteousness doesn’t create sonship. It only reveals it. That’s all it does. We can’t earn our way into God’s family. No child gets to earn their way into a family. But they might reveal who they belong to in the way they behave. There’s two important ways, I think, to look at this. One is that righteous living is the way a child of God is supposed to behave. Maybe you’ve encountered this before with like a sports team in the Bill Belichick Tom Brady era. It became very famous to talk about the Patriot Way. It was a shorthand way of saying this is the way we do things here.

And by the way, it leads to championships. There’s a certain way of doing this. It’s a shorthand explanation of a set of behaviors expected. If you are one of us, so to speak. Children of God live in a certain way and in shorthand we call that righteousness or obedience. It’s what’s expected. It should be the culture of the children of God. The second point is this righteousness is a part of the identity of the child of God. It doesn’t just speak to behavior, it speaks to identity. What I mean is that we are most what we are meant to be when we act in righteousness. We are most what we’re meant to be when we act in righteousness. Walking in righteousness is about obedience, yes, but it’s also about being what you were always meant to be as a child of God. A paintbrush was designed to paint stuff. It wasn’t designed to knock nails into a board. It’s not what it was made for. You were made as a child of God to live in righteousness. You were not made for something else. It’s part of your identity. If you feel like you’ve failed to look like the child of God that you are, don’t worry. There’s good news. The way we become more righteous is to abide more fully in the Lord. As we abide in him, as we dwell with him, as we spend time with him, we grow to be more fully like him. And we abide with him in all the ways that you already know. In prayer and study of His Word and being in, you know, Christ-centered community and worshiping together and encouraging one another to love and good works. This is what abiding in him is, and abiding in him leads to more righteousness in our lives. Not magically, but certainly. Now, the next part of the passage reveals two more key abiding truths about ourselves and one about our future that we’ll kind of circle back to. But as we round the bend into chapter three, we see this. When we abide in him, we understand that we are deeply loved members of the family. I love the poetic language John uses here. See what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. Right. John repeats this phrase in truth because it bears repeating. We’re God’s children and we need to be reminded of that. But in this verse he adds more than a status. He also adds a condition. Not just we are children, but that we are loved children. Here’s the thing no child gets to decide to become a child in a particular family, whether it’s a biological process or a legal adoption process. I’ve done both. The child isn’t the one doing anything to make himself a child.

No, it’s the love of a parent and the work of a parent that makes the child a part of the family. A father’s love is the pathway to sonship. A mother’s love is the pathway to sonship. But John also adds a qualifier here. God’s children are not only his children in theory or in technical legal status. Look, we’ve all observed, you know, fathers who are deadbeats, absent, emotionally distant or whatever. We’ve all seen people who have that title but didn’t wear it very well. But John clarifies that that’s not the kind of father we’re talking about. We’re not talking about a deadbeat dad here. And he does it with one word: beloved, The loved ones, the ones who are deeply loved. The ones who, by the way, are deeply loved by the Lord, not in flowery language or good intentions, but by incredibly sacrificial actions on the cross. It’s not a nice sentiment, only. This belovedness was bought with blood. This isn’t just words. It was paid for with pain and suffering and deep, deep love for his children so that you could have access to be in his family. What kind of love does the father have? A deep, real sacrificial love. That’s the kind he has. And it’s a love that creates sons and daughters. And what that love does for us is it creates us a new status. We get to be a part of his family.

Now, as the passage continues, this sort of this interesting thing that happens. There’s the point that John makes here is that not everyone recognizes a child of God when they see one. When we abide in him, the passage argues, we look unfamiliar to the world. It says it really clearly here. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Well, so why do the children of God not look familiar to the world? Like, what’s the deal here? Well, they don’t look familiar because the world doesn’t know their daddy. If they don’t know what he looks like, they don’t know what they look like. And why don’t they recognize God or his people? It’s because they aren’t abiding in the Lord. They don’t know what it’s like because they’ve not been there. It’s kind of like this. I have never been to the country of Burkina Faso. Okay. Some of you are like, there’s a country called Burkina Faso. Yes. It’s one of the least-traveled-to countries in the entire world. And so somebody walked up to me and they showed me a picture of Burkina Faso, and they were like, does this look like Burkina Faso to you? I’d be like, I have no earthly idea what it looks like in Burkina Faso. Or maybe they would show me a picture of people from Burkina Faso.

They’d be like, do you think these people look like they’re from Burkina Faso? And I’d be like, I don’t know what people from Burkina Faso look like. I mean, look, I have some vague ideas about. They don’t look like this, you know what I mean? Like it’s different, but, I don’t know. I don’t know what they look like compared to any other country or. I’ve never been to Burkina Faso. I’ve never been to a country that neighbours Burkina Faso. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a person from Burkina Faso. And I had no idea that I would be saying that name of that country that many times in this part of the sermon. But here we are. There’s a point here, though. You can’t understand somewhere you’ve never been. Abiding in the Lord means a closeness and intimacy with him that leads to greater knowing. Yes. But it also leads to a transformation and a transformation that someone who has never been there, who has never been in relationship, could ever understand. Abiding in him may make us unfamiliar to the Lord or to the world. Excuse me, but contrast that with the familial connection and deep knowing that God has with his children. Here’s the point John’s making. Who cares if the world doesn’t recognize you if you’re known by the Lord? Who cares. If you have the love of your father you don’t need the love of the world.

That’s a beautiful thing. So yes, this passage helps us understand ourselves better in the Lord, but it also helps us to understand our future better if we’ll let it. See, when we abide in him, we are assured of our future sanctification. We see that here in verse two. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him. The great news about being in the family of God, being a child of God, is that it’s no small thing. It’s a good thing, and we can have confidence in it, as this passage points out. But maybe you’re like me, and if you’re a child of God and you know that’s your status and you know that’s where you belong, sometimes you feel this huge tension. If I am a child of God, why is it so hard sometimes to behave like it? Why is it so hard to live in righteousness? Clearly, I’m not the only one who struggles with this, right? The Apostle Paul speaks to this very well in Romans chapter seven. In verse 15, he says, for I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. And then continuing on. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. I don’t know about you, but there are some days when this feels like my life verse.

Like this just describes what I’m going through. There are sin in all of our lives. We do things we don’t want to do that we know we’re not supposed to do. We sometimes behave unlike the children of God we claim to be. And that feels really frustrating. But I think this passage is meant to be encouraging to us. Abiding with the Lord should help with that here in this life. But there’s a greater encouragement yet too. Our abiding means the difficult parts that seem to never be fully sanctified someday will be. Someday will be something better. Not because of our efforts, but because of his grace. Not because we deserve it, but because Jesus earned it for us. Jesus will redeem us and make us something different and better, something more like him, even if it takes death for that to happen. In fact, it’s amazing that the promise is that when we abide with the Lord, when we treasure him and trust him with our lives, the reward we get is an eternity of abiding with him. What a beautiful thought that is. We’re practicing for heaven when we abide with him. That’s what we’re doing. The next way that we see our future made better by abiding is this. When we abide in him, we are preparing for his return. See in verse two here it says, and what we will be has not yet appeared.

Part of our future is that Jesus is coming back. You’ll encounter him at some point again here. He will appear again. And this is part of our future because it will require a response from all people. When you encounter Jesus again, it will require a response from you. And there will also be consequences based on your abiding. Revelation 22 talks about it in no uncertain terms. Jesus is speaking here and he says, let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy. But then he says, behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done, to repay each one for what he has done. Don’t get it twisted here. This isn’t Jesus looking at a list of sins. This is Jesus looking at whether or not you’re abiding. And those who abide will be seen one way, and those who do not will be seen another. But if we take the whole verse we’ve been looking at, the whole passage we’ve been looking at today in context, when he returns, there will be some who are ready for his return. His children will have confidence in what will happen next when he returns. When these consequences come to bear, his children can have confidence and not shame because they know what happens next, because they have confidence in their status.

But there will be some who are not prepared for his coming, and both groups will be repaid for what they’ve done. When Jesus returns, we know that not everyone will understand or see Him as He is meant to be seen. So if the children of God are there to witness his glorious return, they will know that it is Jesus they are seeing. It’s not someone or something lesser like the beasts in Revelation that others will worship unknowingly. No, those who abide in the Lord, who have spent enough time with him to know who he is and what he looks like, they won’t make that mistake. When we abide in him, we’re preparing for his return, and abiding helps us prepare for the future. Similarly, I ask my boys to do something. My boys are 13 and 11 and they have three older sisters and a mother. And when we go out and about and go into a restaurant or whatever it is, I require them to hold the doors open for their sisters and their mother. And I do that, because I want them to hold the door for their wife someday. I want them to prepare for this next thing. They’re practicing now, preparing for the future. Another truth about our future is revealed in this passage as well. When we abide in him, our hope is properly placed. Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

When I first read this, it felt a little strange. What do you mean? If you hope in God it purifies you? How does that work? Well, it’s not some kind of incantation. It’s not some kind of formula. I can’t just call on the name of Jesus and, like, poof, everything’s better. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Purity here is the idea of being of one thing. When we hope, we have to hope at something. Hope is always directional. In the same way, you can’t throw at nothing. You have to throw at something. You have to hope at something too. And so what John’s calling into question here is how pure is your hope? What are you directing your hope and your future on? Pure gold, pure water. Right is only gold. Only water down to the cellular level. But see if your heart is divided. If it’s more than one thing, if it’s pursuing and desiring more than one thing. God and the world. God and sin. Then there’s confusion. Your heart is divided and you’re not pure. Let me see if I can demonstrate this. Thank you to Francis Chan, who I saw do this many years ago at a thing. Okay, so let’s say this lemonade that I got from Kwik Trip is pursuing God, right? Like, this is the pure life of having my hope in the Lord, right.

And you just, you know, it’s kind of hot today. You get that little bit of sweetness, that little bit of sourness. Lemonade is good, right? This is life with God. This is a delicious thing. And if you’re just sitting here drinking your lemonade and that’s all you’re drinking, like you’re going to enjoy it, right? Lemonade is delicious, but maybe your heart is divided. And instead, you also have sin in your life represented here by coffee, which is disgusting. And. Right. So, okay, so here’s the thing. Like, I can’t believe I’m doing this for you guys. Just so you know, this proves that I love you. Okay, so this is sin. Oh, okay. And sin is terrible. Okay. It’s disgusting. But you know what makes it even worse? Is if you drink the lemonade first and you got that nice sweetness, and then you taste the awful bitterness. Oh my gosh. It’s so much worse. And here’s the thing. Some of you sickos, if you only were drinking this, you’d be happy, okay? And if you were only drinking this, you’d be happy. But if you’re trying to drink them both at the same time, your heart is not pure. You’re pursuing two different things at once, and it’s disgusting. And if you’re wondering what this tastes like, it’s like when you brush your teeth and then drink orange juice. Same idea. Okay, like two contrasting things, and I’m going to take it a step further.

And I’m really going to call some of you out. Some of you have acquired a taste for this garbage drink. And don’t we do that with sin? Don’t we sometimes get so comfortable with it that it begins to actually taste good to us? That’s not what we’re supposed to do. Our job is to pursue the Lord and him only and have the pure, wonderful taste of I have to drink this last because guys like that’s so bad. I don’t understand you. The pure, wonderful taste of pursuing a life with God. John is telling us that if we properly put our hope in the Lord and in him, only if we put aside our desires to walk in the darkness and tolerate sin in our lives, we make ourselves pure by pursuing the goodness of God and rejecting the ways of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And just to be clear, we should not pursue purity to become children of God. We pursue purity, goodness, because we already are God’s children. The last point here is that, in addition to understanding ourselves and our future, abiding makes us understand better who God is. When we abide in him, we see him clearly because we shall see Him as He is. As John writes, my dad is low-key, one of the most famous people I know. Here’s what I mean.

My dad has been a teacher for over 50 years. He’s been a coach and a theater director and a student council advisor. And if I go anywhere, anywhere in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with him, we will run into someone he knows, someone he’s taught or coached or something, Mr. Martin. And they, you know, whatever. And it goes beyond that. I mean, in Green Bay, sure. I have been at a museum in Chicago when we ran into somebody he knew. I have been at Disney World when he ran into someone he knew. Friends. I was at the Eiffel Tower, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the real one, and he ran into someone he knew. What is this? He’s kind of famous. But here’s the thing. I know him better than all of those people. I know him better because we’ve lived together. I have known him for my entire life. We’ve lived in the same home. We swam in the same mid-tier hotel pool together. Because our many years of co abiding means I know him better than almost anyone else. I see him more fully and more completely. I see him for what and who he really is. And why do I know him better than them? Because I didn’t just take a class from him. I abided with him. And that’s all the difference. To understand ourselves better, our future better, and our God better, we must abide in our identity as children of God.

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