1 John 2:28-3:10

This is week 6 of our study through 1st John. We’re just about halfway there, and I feel like it would be good to do just a brief refresher before we jump into the text for this morning. Remember that John wrote this letter to address a new belief system that was forming, one that focused on a knowledge of God more than an intimate relationship with Him. He shares this stark contrast between light and darkness, spiritually speaking. It’s impossible to live in both, for once the light appears, you can’t have darkness. In chapter 2 he reminds them of the role that Jesus had played and continued to play in their lives, and then gives a specific example of living in the light by loving one another.

He then talks about this tension between living in the world but not loving the world. There’s this push and pull that happens once we have the Spirit living in us, and it’s a constant, daily battle that wages between our flesh and the Spirit that has been given to us. He then calls out this group specifically with the name “antichrist,” which he defines as anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah.

Up to this point he is pleading with them to stay strong. “Here’s the opposition that you are facing, humanly speaking as well as spiritually, so remember Jesus. Remember your Father. Remember the Spirit that has been given to you. Abide in them. Draw life from them. Your identity is found in your relationship with Jesus, in your Holy Spirit anointing.”

John continues this back and forth pleading into chapter 3, which is where we are this morning. He uses some new identifying terms, specifically calling them “children of God.”

1 John 2:28-3:10

This is an interesting passage structurally. Verse 28 could perhaps be the closing statement of the previous section. Read vs. 27-28. It also could be the opening of the section we just read, but when you look at verses 1-3 of chapter 3, they kind of seem out of place. If we were to read verses 28-29, and then 4-10, it would make a lot more sense.

Let’s talk first about the privilege we have as children of God, and then look at the identifying features that he lays out.

1. The Privilege of Being a Child of God

Martin Lloyd-Jones, a well-known pastor, says, “To be a child of God means that we stand in a certain position; a child is in a certain relationship to the parents – he has a certain station and is therefore entitled to certain privileges. The word child carries with it a kind of legal statement which defines the relationship… A child is one who is related to a given parent in a way that no one else is.”

When people see us, when they observe our lives, it should be obvious who our Father is. We should look like Him, talk like Him, act like Him, love like Him. And with this relationship comes specific privileges.

There’s a really cool progression that happens here. John first says that we are “called children of God.” But then he says, “and so we are.” It’s who you are. It’s that identity that we are taking about.

And as a child of God, John says we are unrecognizable to the world. This happened to Jesus. Listen to what John said in the first chapter of his gospel: “He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.” People who literally saw Jesus, watched Him perform miracles, the Son of God, the One who created them, right before their eyes, missed Him. They did not recognize Him for who He really is.

Paul says in Philippians 3 that we as Christians are citizens of heaven. Peter in his 1st and 2nd letter refers to believers as sojourners and exiles. Listen, this earth is not our home. We don’t belong here. We are foreigners, sojourners on a journey through this life with the final destination that is our home.

“Alright Adam, not really picking up the privilege yet.” Look at verse 2. Read vs. 2.

John’s like, we don’t know exactly what we are going to look like, but we know we are going to look like Jesus. And he doesn’t say that we’ll look like Him when He walked the earth. He says we shall see Him “as he is,” as He currently is. A lot of scholars agree that this isn’t necessarily Jesus’ physical appearance, but is more about his moral and spiritual purity. This clue is given in the next verse. Read vs. 3.

As He is pure. As we continually set our sights on Jesus, and find our hope in Him, our hearts and minds are purified. This is part of our sanctification process, the growing into Christlikeness that happens until we leave this earth.

This is the privilege that John is laying out. As children of God, we will obtain the moral and spiritual purity of Jesus in its fulness when He returns. Have you ever thought about this? We don’t just die and go to heaven. There is an end to all of this, and when Jesus comes back, and Satan is defeated in finality, and God recreates the new heavens and the new earth, and Jesus sits on his throne and rules, for the rest of eternity, we will live in absolute perfection, in the perfect image of God in which humanity was created.

This is so incredible! It’s so rich! What a great interlude that John puts here. It is a privilege, and it’s because of the supernatural, sacrificial, overwhelming love of God that we are brought into His family.

Alright, remember that John is contrasting two groups of people all throughout the book. There was a group of people that had left the fellowship, and were trying to pull the young believers with them. So what John is doing is providing clarity around these groups so that the young churches will be able to better discern in the specific context to which John is writing. And this is so applicable to us today, because there are people being led astray by false gospels and we must be able to stand on the unwavering truth of God.

The rest of the passage in front of us has an explanation around the defining factor of the children of God.

2. Living as Children of God

Let’s jump back up to verse 29 and get our definition.

When we had Lennon, we were pleasantly surprised when she came out with a bunch of orange tint to her hair. We did our research and found that in order for her to have red hair, it had to come from both sides of the family. It’s a recessive gene, so it can sit for generations before it reappears. We traced it back to Jade’s grandmother’s generation, and my great-grandfathers generation. We all have dominant and recessive genes that make us who we are. Both Jade and I have blue eyes, which means both of our children have blue eyes.

What John is saying here is on a whole different level. While our human characteristics can have so many combinations and uniqueness, there is only one possible way that someone can live out righteousness. The only people who can practice righteousness are those who have been “born of Him.” Those who are His children. So, the definition that John lays out here is that children of God practice righteousness.

He spends verses 4-10 justifying his definition, and provides us a comparison with those who he deems children of the devil. It’s harsh, but let’s work through it and see what he means.

John isn’t saying anyone that sins, for we all do. But it’s the practice of sin. It’s the habit, the lifestyle that is marked by sin. John is hitting at the truth that sin, at its core, is much worse than an outward breaking of a commandment. To practice sin is to be in open rebellion against God Himself. That’s different than just making a mistake once in a while.

Jesus came to take away sins, therefore, no one who abides in Him keeps on sinning. If they do, it means that His work on the cross is void. It means that there is no power found in His death, burial and resurrection. It means we make God a liar. If we continue to live in sin, it points to an unrepentant, unredeemed heart who does not know God.

So, if the definition of a child of God is one who practices righteousness, then the definition we can bring to the table of a child of the devil is one who practices sinning. We can say this because John lays it out for us in verse 8: “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.”

One commentator explains it like this: “Just as a Christian lives under the influence of God living in him, so do sinners live under the influence of the devil and allow themselves to be seduced by him. Consequently, just as he who is born of God and in whom God dwells does what God does, or concretely, ‘lives the same kind of life as Christ lived’ (1 Jn 2:6), that of a son of God, so the ‘children of the devil’ can only do what their ‘father wants’ (Jn 8:44), those very deeds which the Son of God came to undo.”

In context here, God’s seed is referring to the Holy Spirit. Think about what Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3. To be born again, you must be born of “water and the Spirit.” The reason why a child of God cannot sin is because God’s seed, the Holy Spirit, lives in them.

And finally we hit the clear definition laid out again in verse 10.

Alright, wow, deep, that’s a lot. It’s one of those passages that has some very clear, easy to grasp concepts, while at the same time some deep theological elements that are harder to understand. But the clarity comes in the comparison between the children of God, and the children of the devil. Contextually, John is trying to show these young believers who the antichrists are. Not only do they deny that Jesus is the Christ, but they don’t walk in righteousness, carrying on in the sin that defined them before their claims to be followers of Jesus.

And it’s this same litmus test that we use today to determine genuine followers of Jesus today.

We have to start with ourselves. So we ask the question: Is my life defined by righteousness? Or do I practice sinning? In other words, what defines me? Am I pursuing Jesus, convicted when I mess up, constantly fighting forward in my faith? Or am I still defined by the sin that has gripped my life? It sounds so harsh when we ask the question, but John paints it pretty clearly for us.

We either practice righteousness or we practice sinning.

Application

We understand of course that John was writing this letter to a specific group of people in a specific period of time going through something very specific. But we can take the truths and principles found here and pull them into our individual and cultural contexts.

Can we just take a moment and appreciate the fact that the God of the Universe, the Creator Himself, loved even us, and desired to bring us into His family? Can we just be blown away for a minute that He calls us His children? Can we just let it sink in that our identity is a child of God?

Listen to these passages that speak to this truth of God being our Father, and we His children:

Matthew 6:25-30 - “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

Colossians 1:11-12 – “being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”

James 1:17 – “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Romans 8:15 – “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Our Father is patient with us. Our Father is approachable. Our Father loves us unconditionally. Our Father will never stop loving us. Our Father wants what’s best for us. Our Father knows what’s best for us. Our Father knows us to the very hairs on our heads. And can you believe that we are His children?

What a privilege.