Abide with your Father
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Worship Service: Announcements, John Ivan Byler
Call to Worship, Offering
Singing Evan McGurrin
Reading and Pastoral Prayer James Groff
Scripture Reading Stephen Wenger
Message James Groff
“Abide With Your Father”
He looks just like his daddy. She is the splitting image of her mother. Children, whether they like it or not, are born in the image of their parents. They grow like them, they learn like them, they talk like them, and they often think like them. A child’s identity, what others think of them, and what they think of themselves, is often a direct result from their parents identity.
The promise of the gospel is that if you place your faith and trust in Jesus as the Messiah, you will be reconciled to God, and he will make you his child.
Just think about that for a few seconds. In the declaration of Jesus as Lord and Savior, God makes you his child, and begins to bring about the identifying factors that show you are his child.
READ TEXT
Main Idea: “A divine indwelling brings forth an unmistakable identity”
Main Idea: “A divine indwelling brings forth an unmistakable identity”
1. The Love of God is expressed to us in the calling of us as his children.
1. The Love of God is expressed to us in the calling of us as his children.
In our text, vs 28 “little children”,Vs 1 “children of God”, Vs 2 “God’s children”, Vs 7 “Little Children”, Vs 9 “born of God” and vs 10 “the children of God”.
This truth is a familiar truth, and I wonder of we underestimate the significance of it.
My children are my children, your children are not my children, and my children are not yours. The truth of paternity is a concrete reality that we can never change.
The child did not choose the parent.
The child did not choose which of his parents attributes to receive.
The parent will express very deep-seated desires for the character and nature of the child.
How does a parent go about passing his values and desires on to his child? He abides with them.
The old saying “More is caught than taught”
Let’s think of this idea in light of being God’s child
3:1 asks us to consider the love God gave us, that even in our rebellion, even in our sinfulness, even in our enmity to God, he brought about our salvation, and our rebirth as his children.
We have many here who have adopted another biological child, and have made them their own, and we celebrate that. This is the nature of what God through Jesus has done for us. He has called us from being children of darkness to be children of the light.
This is the nature of what God through Jesus has done for us. He has called us from being children of darkness to be children of the light.
3:2 “What we will be has not yet appeared”. It’s unique to see your children growing, and often you remark to yourself, I wonder how they will be when they grow up. To abide with God, to be a child of God, is to be on a journey of maturity. And, as we abide with God, we are being formed into his likeness, so that when we see him face to face, we will be like him.
The modern world of social media has enabled many separated children to be reunited with their birth parents, and it’s often there that the child goes, that’s why I am this way. That’s why I exhibit these traits.
The same will be when we meet Christ. That’s why I am like him.
And, he invites us to abide with him
I don’t know about the rest of you fathers, but the greatest thing my children can do for me is “abide with me”. One of mine likes to come to the living room before bed, and sit on my lap for an extended period of time. No matter what I am doing, the phone gets laid down, the book gets a marker...
God invites you to abide with him. How do we do that?
The image we see in as we remarked last week is of Jesus standing at the door of our lives, and longing to participate in a meal with us. A meal is a mundane part of every day life. God wants to abide with us in every day life.
The ways we abide have a few different forms, and defines those for us
See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
1 Thess
One, Rejoice always - abiding with God will allow us to see that life with him is Joy
Live in community, specifically live in God’s community - God is a Triune God, which means he lives out his God-Ness in three persons that are mutually communicating, loving, and obeying. We image the trinity, when we live out our lives in a community of mutual relationship, love and respect.
One, Rejoice always - abiding with God will allow us to see that life with him is Joy
Pray without ceasing - allow your life to be a constant conversation with God - imagine here a day with a talkative child - they are praying with you unceasingly
Be thankful to God for your blessings
Seek to do good - it is God’s good nature being born in us when we seek to do good.
Search out the scriptures to find more about God
Abstain from every form of evil
2 As his true children, we express the characteristics of our Father
2 As his true children, we express the characteristics of our Father
of our Father
If you have been born of God, the righteousness of God will be displayed in you.
This passage goes to some effort to let us know how we will be identified as a child of God.
We will live openly and without shame at his coming - each of us has seen the child who has been disobedient, and they shrink from your touch, they are tore up by their guilty conscience, because they know they did not image your character.
We will practice righteousness
1:29 “everyone that practices righteousness has been born of God”
3:3 “”everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as HE is pure”
3:9 “No one borne of God make a practice of sinning.....because he has been borne of God”
3:10 It is “evident who are the children of God”
Those “children of the Devil”........
3:4 “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning” is lawless
3:6 “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning”
3:6 those continuing in sin have not seen Christ
3:8 “Whoever makes a practice of sin is of the devil”
So, in both of these examples, the identity of our father, is not seen in our declarations, it is not found in our knowledge, it is only found in our behavior. vs 10 “by this it is evident who are the children of God”.
And so, how do you know if God is your Father?
And so, how do you know if God is your Father?
And so, how do you know if God is your Father
Do you look like him?
Do you love like him?
Do you represent his character?
Do you hope in him, and allow that hope to effect your behaviour?
Do you regularly seek to glimpse his glory?
The emphasis here in several places is not that we assemble a list and model of what it looks like to be like God and then we seek to be like him, it is more like a little boy. He sees his dad playing ball, and without any intentions or pretenses, he pics up a ball, and he tries to throw it like dad. Because in his world, his Dad is to be followed because he is so much greater than the son.
If you are not regularly seeking to know and understand God, you efforts will never bring about the righteousness you seek.
Again, this is not merely duty. This is delight in the father who has adopted you, and is forming you into his image.
“We shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is”
An unmistakable identity