Sermon Tone Analysis

Are you God’s Child?

Are you God’s child?

For some, this question seems worn out and obvious at this time.

To others, perhaps, it is new.

But to all, this question should probably strike us more than it does.

If your answer is “yes,” then you must be able to defend your assertion.

By what means did you become God’s child?

What evidence do you have that you are God’s child?

Why is being God’s child of any relevance at all?

If your answer is no, then may God reveal to you the means and the significance of being His child through the Scripture.

This third chapter opens in an explosion of delight over this proposition.

Clearly the idea of being a child of God is of paramount importance to John!

John speaks of this concept in many places, but he does so first in

So you may say, “well aren’t we all God’s children?

Didn’t he create us all?

Don’t we all come from Him?”

So you may say, “well aren’t we all God’s children?

Didn’t he create us all?

Don’t we all come from Him?”

That we all come from his creation is true, but an inference that this makes us all his children in the way John speaks of here is false.

To the contrary, we are born into this world as not being God’s children, but rather his enemy.

Cf.

Seeing then our natural position, it makes the idea of becoming God’s child that much more relevant.

When we see the immense action of God’s sovereign love that is necessary to transform one from his old nature into being a child of God, then we too will rejoice as John does here!

And this title of “Children of God” is more than just that designation, but it carries with it the transformation that takes place when God’s work is active in an individual.

And although we are “children of God” by designation, we are actually children of God by the new birth.

And since this is more than a title, we ought to expect evidence of this reality to play into our lives, and also our future.

Therefore;

As children of God, we behold what God’s love has accomplished, wait earnestly for our ultimate glorification, and persevere in sanctification.

Beholding God’s Love

What does it mean to see, or behold, God’s love?

And what is it that makes God’s love so worthy of our attention?

The word here is perhaps stronger than is first let on in a word-for-word translation.

Understand God’s love, pay attention to it, visit it in your mind’s eye, learn about it.

Perhaps all of these wrapped up together give us an idea of the importance John is giving to the concept.

It is important because of What Kind of love it is.

Literally, “from what country did this love come from?”

It is a foreign love, a love that is not inherent in our human nature.

It is as if the love of God is so unparalleled in human experience that John cannot even tell where it coule come from!

Of course, we know the source - it is from God!

So what is this great love?

What it is ties directly into what it means to be God’s children.

For this love is directed toward us who have become God’s children, and this love is the direct means by which we have become God’s children.

Later on in this very letter, John gives a short treatise on what love looks like, and he gives us more insight into the Father’s love.

God’s love acted, in that God’s only Son was sent into the world, and not without purpose, but with the purpose of being the propitiation for our sins!

Our great sin, that sin which was spoken of in - that sin which caused us to be mortal enemies with God, by this great love He has propitiated.

Here we see another display, in that God loved the world in this manner.

that He gave his only Son - that theme repeated.

His only son was given so that all the believing ones, literally, would have eternal life.

Propitiation for our sin, hope for our mortality, What else?

Here Paul gives us an even clearer understanding of God’s love.

Why is God’s love so great?

Because it made atonement for us.

When God’s love was displayed, Christ Jesus was on the cross in our place - on our behalf.

And by this display of love he made the idea of Propitiation, justification, and reconciliation a concrete reality.

God’s love is great and worthy of our attention because it is not simply some abstract idea or concept, and it is not some general benevolence, but God’s love for His children is displayed fully in the substitutionary atonement!

And we would be remiss if we didn’t see another aspect that ties directly into our Sonship

So then, what kind of love has been given to us, GOd’s children?

It surely is a glorious love worthy of all our attention and consideration!

And what of being God’s child?

Well, it took the propitiating sacrifice of our perfect Savior to accomplish.

As we began to read earlier, let us now finish the thought in

And here is where we begin to see the reality of this love played out.

Why does the world not understand the importance of our adoption, of our Sonship of God?

Because it does not know the God whose children we are.

Illustration of a child with a significant father.

Child of God, behold God’s love!

Dear ones here without God’s love, may you see it here in the scripture and by God’s Spirit see the importance thereof.

Waiting for Glorification

All of these truths made actual by GOd’s love have real effects on our existence.

God did not bring children into spiritual life to thereafter abandon them and let them go to hell.

He brought them into life in order to make them completely like Jesus and take them with him into heaven.

Therefore, John cannot stop his rhapsody with the mere thought of what we are but rather goes on to reflect on what we shall be when Christ shall appear and we shall be made like him.

Within this verse lies a bit of mystery.

For even John says, “I am not totally sure exactly what we will be like - it hasn’t been revealed.”

But what we do know is this, our future existence hinges on the appearing of our Savior.

Not simply a mere spiritual appearing, some sort of apparition, but a real appearing - that which the Angel in told about.

And as was revealed to John in Revelation

And also what we know is this; when he comes, and he is coming, we will be made like Him, for we shall see Him as he is.

It is interesting, and we certainly cannot be dogmatic about exactly how it will happen, But John’s language here seems to suggest that there is something in the mere sight of our glorified Savior that will work to purge his followers of sin at last, and conform them finally to his own perfect image!

What an expectation!

We who were created in God’s image, yet marred that image severely by sin and the fall, will once again be in that perfect image if we are His children indeed.

Persevering in Sanctification

We have seen God’s display of love that made us to be children of God, and we have seen our future expectation that we will be made fully and finally like him, but we would be remiss if we did not see how this plays into the here and now.

For all of the truth that we have positionally by God’s decree, justification, adoption, future glorification, etc, we have a current reality that displays God’s supernatural work in us.

Consider how John began this section in 2:28

1:john 2:28-29

Righteousness?

Well yes, we have Christ’s righteousness on our account, right?

Yes of course, for that was accomplished in the atonement.

But furthermore, it is God’s will of desire for His children in this present age to pursue practical righteousness.

And the catalyst of this pursuit is Christ himself.

Everyone who hopes in him purifies himself, everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

These are marks of evidence - evidence that our claim to be “children of God” is a reality.

The meaning then is, that though we have not Christ now present before our eyes, yet if we hope in him, it cannot be but that this hope will excite and stimulate us to follow purity, for it leads us straight to Christ, whom we know to be a perfect pattern of purity.

John uses strong language to illustrate this in the next few verses.

Consider a couple of them briefly with me.

1 John 3:4-

This ties directly to the statement in verse 1 - the world does not know us because it does not know the Father.

We bear resemblance to something other-worldly, because of the indwelling Spirit and the work of Sanctification in our life.