Living as the True Children of God

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If you would like to learn more about us, please visit us at our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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Please enjoy the sermon. Well, as I mentioned, we're back in 1 John 2, and in verse 28, as we come to this particular text, we see the

Apostle John shifting gears once more in this letter. And we are coming to what is,

I'm going to say, one of the most remarkable themes that we will find, that we do find in the pages of Scripture.

And I'll leave you on a cliffhanger here. We'll read the text together, and then I'll take us a little bit further.

In 1 John 2, in verse 28, this is God's word for us. 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.

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. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

Sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

So as I mentioned, we are, as we enter into the study of God's Word, coming to a remarkable theme that is before us.

As you know, John has already taken his readers through a series of test cases up to this point to help us to discern, help his readers to discern, whether or not we have eternal life.

And over the last several weeks, we have seen these presented one by one. The true

Christians, if we were to summarize it, are those who walk in the light, who acknowledge our sin and confess it, who keep

God's commandments, who sincerely love the brethren with a brotherly love, who refuse to love the world, and who confess, as we saw last week, who confess

Jesus Christ in truth. And as we continue to make our way through John's first epistle, we come across another momentous truth, and that is this.

The Christian who possesses these qualities that I have just listed does not have a mere acquaintance, acquaintanceship with God.

He is not a mere associate of God or a nameless subordinate in a crowd of adherents, but the true

Christian, the true Christian in Christ is a true child of God.

That this is at the heart, the very heart of the identity of those who are in Christ, that the

Christian possesses a status that is altogether unknown by any creature in the animal kingdom, that the

Christian occupies a domain that far exceeds the grandeur of any celestial body, no matter how vast or how glorious it may be.

The true Christian, if I can be so bold, holds a position higher than the station of any angelic being, even of those who serve continually in the presence of God, and that is because the

Christian, in his very identity, at the core of who he is, is a blood -bought member of the household of God.

He is a member of God's family, if I can put it that, and in the most unique way possible, he is a true child of the living

God. Now, many of you have no doubt heard this before. This is not groundbreaking to most of you when

I say that you are God's children, but the problem is this, that this truth has largely gone untaught and ununderstood in the most significant of senses amongst the average rank -and -file

Christian. Sure, this truth is aggressively taught to first -graders in Sunday school.

You can picture it as the children are coloring their picture of Noah's Ark or of the

Lord Jesus surrounded by a circle of children and the Sunday school teacher patting them on the heads and saying, you are all

God's children. It has been co -opted by self -help gurus who will tell you that all people everywhere are

God's children without distinction and without definition. It has been presented most often in vague and fuzzy ways so that most people would say, you might even run into co -workers, unbelieving neighbors, who will in some kind of sub -spiritual or pseudo -Christian way say, but we all are

God's children. If you were to ask the average

Christian today to tell us what it means that we are

God's children, I think that most, many at least, would struggle to present even a most basic definition, and this is a serious problem.

To quote from J .I. Packer, some of you may have read his book, Knowing God, he says, if you want to judge how well a person understands

Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being

God's child, of having God as his father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and his prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand

Christianity very well at all. And how many there are who do not understand

Christianity very well at all? How many Christians in the world lack an understanding of biblical

Christianity and of biblical, of what it means to be a child of God? How many have a theology of adoption that is more informed by the spirit of the age than by Scripture?

How many in this room even have had, and I say this for your good, have had your joy plundered and your communion with God impeded because you have never truly comprehended your spiritual heritage to whom you belong and your rightful relationship with God?

But here at the end of chapter two, the beginning of chapter three, John comes to our rescue and he explains something of what it means to be a child of God.

It is a remarkable thing, as we will see, that is worthy of our awe. It is a status that we cannot think of too often or too highly of.

It is a reality that by necessity transforms every single thing about us.

Now, I know that I'm talking about something familiar, that we are children of God, and this familiarity can breed contempt.

But ask yourself, do you live day by day as a child of God, as one who knows with certainty that I am loved,

I am accepted, I am received of God? Or do you live under a sense of condemnation or of distance from this

God or of a sense of legal status with Him, but no familial status?

We will certainly see John deal with this. Now, there's more to be said, but we'll start somewhere.

We're actually going to start, not at the start, but in the middle. And the reason why we're going to do this is because if you've been tracking with me through John, we did this last week as well, that John tends to recapitulate in his writing.

It is, I was saying to our brother, it is a difficult book to preach because John will tell us a fantastic truth.

And as a preacher, you can preach that truth, you can try to hit it home, and then in two weeks you go, he's saying the same thing.

I think I preached myself empty the last time I spoke on this. But what John is doing here is he is recapitulating.

And so we're going to start in the middle. We're going to start with the identity of the Christian, and then we're going to look together at what the life of a child of God looks like.

And so, in order for us to begin, logically at least, we must first understand this, that we are

God's children. This is the first point that I intend to make, that we are

God's children. As John opens this letter, he uses an expression that we are familiar with.

In verse 28, he addresses his readers, the Christians and us, the Christians in Asia Minor and us, as children.

This is something that we've seen already four times in his letter. Children, children, little children.

And as he begins verse 28, he intensifies his use of this word.

In this brief passage, he makes or addresses his readers as little children or as God's children five different times.

In verse 28 here, and then in chapter 3 in verse 1, and then in verse 2, and then in verse 7, and then again in verse 10.

And the reason for this is clear. John is seeking to show us that our identity has fundamentally changed as a result of us having been regenerated in and justified in Jesus Christ.

Verse 28 hints at this, but then chapter 3 and verse 1 gives it to us crystal clear.

And we'll look first at verses 1 and 2 in chapter 3. John writes, see what kind of love the

Father has given to us. Brother, sister, see what kind of love the

Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.

And so we are. He writes, the reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

And then at the beginning of verse 2, he adds, beloved, we are God's children now.

What a wonder of all wonders. Have you ever not just thought about it at a shallow or surface level, but have you ever given significant thought to this?

That so often we think about our standing before God when we think about it, and these are terms we use all the time, that we consider that we are forgiven, that our debt has been paid, that when

Christ was on that cross, yes, as we looked at last week, as we have looked at in previous weeks, he paid the penalty that we deserve.

He was our penal substitute. We have considered that Christ's righteousness has been imputed to us, that we have been reconciled to God, that there is now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ, that we have peace with God.

These are things that we repeat very frequently. And I'm going to maybe even correct our emphasis just a little bit, my own emphasis.

So often we think about our relationship with God in legal terms. And we certainly enjoy a right relationship with him in legal terms, not to minimize that.

But as John writes to this church that has been wracked by confusion, that has been stirred up with division, as he is seeking to help them make their calling and election sure, he is not content to deal with them only in forensic language.

This is a comfort, but he has a greater comfort still to give them. And so rather than dealing with them merely as legal entities, he addresses his readers with some of the warmest, some of the most tender, some of the most comforting, and some of the most earth -shattering language that we find in the whole

Bible. And he tells them that you are just not guilty. It's not that you're just not guilty in the courtroom of God, but you have been accepted in the most personal of ways into the very family of God.

John is saying that it's not because of anything found in us, if we look at verse 1, what kind of love the

Father has given to us, but it is because it pleased God to lavish his love upon us, and he has afforded us the privilege of being called the children of God, that we should be called the children of God.

But John doesn't just stop there. He certainly could, but he doesn't want us to be left thinking that we are merely called his children, but that we don't possess the truth of that.

And so he adds, and so we are. At the beginning of verse 2, beloved, we are

God's children now. Believer, if you are in Christ, this does not apply to you.

I must say, if you are not in Christ, but believer, if you are in Christ, you are forgiven all your sins.

And this is true, and it will never cease to be true. But do not stop there.

Allow me to take you to a part of the gospel that is often left out, that there's a truncation of the gospel that takes place, and there is a truth beyond that truncation line that we often see.

You are not only forgiven legally, forensically, but you are accepted by God as a child of God.

Do not let the enemy, or the world, or even your flesh convince you otherwise.

The Father did not send his Son to hang on the cross in your place.

He did not pour out his wrath upon his Son in full. He did not decree that Christ should lay lifeless in a tomb, and then rise from the grave triumphantly, so that you could go around carrying a mere certificate of pardon.

But the Father appointed our redemption. Christ died to apply it, or to accomplish it. The Spirit now applies it, so that we can hold a birth certificate that holds the family name.

It is a pardon, but it is more that we not only are accepted by God, but that we, brothers and sisters, belong to God.

That we are His, and He is ours. We are called the children of God, and so we are.

And while John doesn't go into great detail about how this came to be, we find really a whole trail of breadcrumbs throughout our

New Testaments that we can follow to understand the dimensions of this relationship that we are children of God.

Just listen to how your Bible describes your standing before God. In John 1, we find the first mention of this.

It's interesting, John loves this language about us Christians, those of us who are justified in Christ being the children of God.

In John 1, you'll remember that in verse 1, it begins with those familiar words, in the beginning, what is it?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word dwelt among His people.

Christ Himself, God the Word, God -man, dwelt in the midst of His people, and His people did not recognize

Him. But in John 1, verse 12, we read John add this, he says, but to all who did receive

Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.

To be a child of God is a God -given right. Sometimes we talk to our children, and we help them to make a distinction between what is a right and what is a privilege.

We say, you're being able to come and go freely, to eat food in our home, to breathe the air that God grants, that is a right.

But to drive my car is a privilege. To go out with your friends at this hour is a privilege, and it is granted to those to whom

I trust. Now, God does not say that He gave us just the privilege to become the children of God, but that He gave us the right, that we have not only a familial standing, but a legal standing as well.

In John 1, verse over, we're told that we have become children of God, and we were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, that it is of supernatural origin.

It is by the new birth. Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 5 tells us that we were predestined for this very purpose from before the foundation of the world, that He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.

We are Reformed, Baptistic Christians, and we love to talk about God's sovereignty.

It was God's sovereign plan from before the world began to make you His son, to make you

His daughter. Romans 8, 15, we have received the spirit of adoption by whom we relate to God, by whom we cry,

Abba, Father. Now, what does it mean that we have received the spirit of adoption as sons?

Perhaps this is best illustrated in one of my own experiences in this regard.

Perhaps, if you are anything like me, I had a father who was kind of a conflicting character in my life story.

He loved me, and I seek to honor him when I speak about him publicly. He sought to honor or to love me in the best way that he knew how, and for him that was by working to provide for our family, and what it meant doing is often leaving the city, leaving home, not just for days, but for weeks, and sometimes for months, so that we would see sometimes our father every once in a while, and then wouldn't see him for three months, and then he would be back for a time, and then wouldn't see him for two months, and that was just the way life was, and when my father was home with our family, he was not an overly affectionate man, and when he was with us, he was a man who was often ruled by his own vices, so that when

I was 15 years old, he died as a result of those vices, and I recall after my father dying that the government began sending me mail.

Maybe you know what I'm talking about, but every month I would get a letter that on the front of it would say something along the lines of Service Canada, and I would open it up, and it would be a check titled

Orphan Benefit, and it was great for a young man in terms of paying for things that I liked.

I remember being in university collecting my orphan benefit, and being able to live on my own, and go through school, and that was quite nice, and I always kind of chuckled in my mind thinking it's funny the government thinks

I'm an orphan. If it comes with a check, I suppose I'll take the title, but then

I recall being a new adult, or being a young adult, moving into a new home, and coming to a place,

I remember the moment when I became acutely aware that there were aspects of my life that were distinctly orphan -like.

Some of you men, you had a father who would take you under his wing to show you how to fix a flat tire on your bicycle, or to replace a drain in your sink, or in this case for me, it was simply how do

I plant grass in my back lawn, and I remember a moment in my kitchen going, becoming overwhelmed with frustration at this, that I do not have a man,

I do not have a father who can teach me, who will teach me how to fix my car, how to be a loving husband to my wife, how to parent my children, to be a father myself to my own children, and I remember a sense of grief overcoming me.

I was not a believer then, but just a few months later, I remember as the Lord saved me, coming across and being gripped for the first time by a passage in John chapter 14, in verse 16, specifically

John 14, 16 to 20, and if you want to go there, you can read it with me.

As a man grappling with what it means to be a man, to have someone who can father me,

I came across John 14, in verses 16 to 20, where our Lord is speaking to his disciples.

He is about to go to his death, and he says, and I will ask the father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.

Notice the familiarity in the language with our passage. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you, and then our

Lord adds, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you, yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live, and you also will live, that in that day you will know that I am in my father, and you in me, and I in you.

Even as our Lord was going to the cross, he made certain to tell his disciples that he was not going to leave them as orphans.

He would come to them first in his resurrection body, and then what's more, he would give them his indwelling spirit, the spirit of adoption, if we can call it that, if we can call him that, through whom we would have access to the father forever.

I remember as a new Christian being gripped by this, to the point that I began to weep that I had a father, perhaps for the first time ever.

Maybe some of you had the best father. You have the best father in the world. Maybe some of you have had an absent father.

Maybe some of you have had no father at all. Let me tell you, if you are in Christ, you have a father, a better father than you could.

I try to be a good father. I know other men in this church try to be good fathers, a better father than any of us, a father who loves us, a father who receives us, who welcomes us, who disciplines us for our good.

We have God as our father. We have him as our master.

We have him as our friend, and we have him as our Abba Father, and we have this by the redemption purchased in Christ, by Christ.

In Galatians chapter 4, verses 4 and 5, we read, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

What a thought that Christ came, yes, to redeem us, yes, to justify us, yes, to make us a people for himself, and yes, to make us sons and daughters through adoption.

To quote Martin Lloyd -Jones, he said, the Son of God became man that the children of men might become children of God, and so we are.

Now, this is our identity, at least painted in a basic way. Now, John tells us more than this.

He actually tells us how we are to live as true children of God, and for the remaining points of my sermon, about the second half or so, we will look at what exactly this is.

If we were to go back to verse 28, we read this, 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.

The second point that I intend to put before us is this, God's children, not only are we God's children, but God's children abide in Christ.

In verse 28, John leads out with the first imperative statement of the passage, and it is this, abide in him, referring to Christ.

Now, we often hear that word abide. We've already heard a great deal about that word in this passage, but what does it mean?

If we were to look at the noun form of abide, it is abode, and what do we do in abode?

But we live in it. We dwell in it. We stay in it. It becomes our lodging, and so to abide, or more specifically, to abide in Christ means to remain in him.

It is to reside in Christ. It is to persevere in union and communion with our

Lord. It has been defined by one as permanently remaining in Christ.

While the world goes from bad to worse, while false professors and heretics and persecutors come and go, one of the defining characteristics of a true child of God is this, that he or she abides in him, and this abiding takes many forms.

In John 8 and verse 31, our Lord told us that those who are truly

Christ's disciples abide in his word. Earlier in this letter, in 1

John 2 and verse 6, we're told that whoever abides in Christ ought to walk in the same way in which he walked, so abiding in his word, abiding in his walk, if we can say it that way.

In 1 John 2 and verse 20, we're told that those who abide in Christ love the brethren.

We have heard a great deal about that. Or in chapter 3 and verse 24 of 1

John, whoever keeps God's commandments abides in him. Or in 2

John 9, we are told that this includes abiding in the teaching of Christ. The picture that John is painting is of one who runs the race with endurance, who walks in communion with God, not for a season, but for all the days of his life.

It is one thing, you and I both know, it is one thing to start a marathon, and it is altogether something else to finish that same marathon.

It is an altogether new thing to finish the race. And think with me, how many people you know who have started the race well, but who at this very moment now have dropped out of that race.

I have not been a Christian for that long, less than two decades. And I can think of many people, some of the people in fact who

I was closest with as a Christian early in my walk with the Lord, who no longer walk with him.

They started so well, and yet they did not finish, demonstrating that they were never truly children of God to begin with.

Brothers and sisters, this is a theme that comes up again and again in 1 John. And so I won't go too much beyond this, but I made it at least my own commitment every time the

Holy Spirit has inspired the repetition of this. And this is fresh in our minds, I think for many of us, that we must remain in, abide in, dwell in, be steadfastly committed to Christ our

Lord. This is a true child, the mark of a true child of God, that he starts as a child of God and he finishes as a child of God.

More mature, but a child of God nonetheless. Now, the next way, my third point before us, that we are to live as children of God is this, that children of God, God's true children, reject lawlessness.

In verse 4, chapter 3 and verse 4, we read, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

Sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in him there is no sin.

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

And then if we can jump on to verse 8, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

In verse 4, we read that those who practice, make a practice of sinning, practice lawlessness.

The Greek term there is anomos, or anomos, from which we get the term antinomian.

The a in antinomian, or anomos, is to be without or against.

The word anomos, which means the law. We are not, brothers and sisters, antinomians.

Those who are without a law, those who are against the law, those who minimize or deny the law.

As R .C. Sproul would put it, the opposite of its twin heresy is legalism.

The opposite, I should say, of antinomianism is legalism. And the child of God actively fights, make no mistake, against sin.

We agree with men like John Owen who say that we must either be killing sin or sin will be killing us.

And we must, brothers and sisters, if we are in Christ, not only reject lawlessness, but we must come to treasure

God's law. Now we know that this is a point that is often discussed today, and we have a whole spectrum of positions on it.

I'm going to put forward what would be the confessional Baptist perspective, but more than that, what

I think is the biblical perspective. Now some will come and they will argue from passages like Romans 6 and verse 14 that we are not under law, but that we are under grace.

That's what Paul says in Romans 6 .14. And then the question becomes then, well then what law do we follow?

If we are not those who are lawless, if we are not antinomians, then what is the nomos?

What is the law to which we subscribe? Now our Reformed brethren in the

Westminster Confession of Faith, I think they have summarized it nicely, they said that the law that we follow is the moral law that can be, though not exclusively, comprehended in the

Ten Commandments. Or to use maybe Paul's language, it is the law of love.

In Romans chapter 13 and verse 8, we see Paul using this language. He says this, owe no one anything except to love each other.

For the one who loves has fulfilled the law. You shall not, and notice where he is listing these laws from.

He says, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment, these are summed up in this word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Notice with me that the Apostle Paul does not do away with the moral law, but he upholds it and summarizes it in this law of love.

We see him doing this elsewhere, in places like Romans chapter 3 and verse 31, where he says, do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

By no means, on the contrary, we uphold the law. Some might think or not think of our

Lord Jesus as being a theologian like the Apostle Paul, but he very much was, and a better one at that.

In Matthew chapter 5, we see our Lord applying this law of love.

In Matthew 5 .17, where he says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets,

I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly

I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

The law has not been done away with. Our Lord, in fact, through that fifth chapter of Matthew, ends up expounding upon the law.

You have heard it said this, but I say to you, and so he deals with adultery and murder and anger and divorce and various other things.

The moral law has not been done away with in the New Testament, but rather in the New Testament, we learn how to use this moral law lawfully, as Paul would say it.

It is good if it's used lawfully, and men through the ages of the church have helped us to perhaps understand this more clearly,

John Calvin being one of them, who pointed out that there are three appropriate or lawful uses of the law, and those are to condemn, to restrain, and to guide.

To condemn, to restrain, or to guide. We know, first of all, that God gave us a law to reveal our sin, that it exposes our inability to obey

God, that like a good tutor, it shows us our need for Christ. In Romans 3, we read about this, that the law was given that every mouth may be stopped and that the whole world may be held accountable to God, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

But the law was not given only to condemn, it was given to restrain, to establish decency in society at large, in the old covenant, and yes, even now today, that the law provides a framework for law and order in the world.

Romans 13, for instance, teaches us that the government is given as a servant of God to punish bad conduct and to reward good conduct.

Who gets to define that conduct? God does in his law. In 1

Peter 2, in verses 13 and 14, we read that we are to be subject, for the

Lord's sake, to every human institution, whether it be the emperor supreme or to the governor sent by him, to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

This is why when our society is at its healthiest, and when it functions at its best, it prosecutes crime that is defined in Scripture, that theft is punished for being theft and murder for murder.

And it's why the best countries in the history of the world have leaned on God's law to restrain evil and to promote good.

It's why we give thanks to God that we live in Canada, because at least at some point, the foundation of our country was built upon the law of God.

But it's not only been given to condemn or to restrain, but it's been given, and this is the one that I want to hone in when

I say that we are not lawless, to guide. And that is to provide a rule for life, a rule for those who are justified and regenerated through faith in Christ.

And we see this, again, apply in the New Testament. Some of the fathers in this room, maybe you are like me and you have memorized

Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 and 2. Maybe your children have memorized it too, if they've heard it enough, to the point that you might just be able to say, remember

Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 and 2. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

What is Paul doing as he gives this instruction to New Testament children, the sons and daughters of New Testament Christians?

He is applying one of the 10 commandments, namely the 5th commandment, even with the promises that come attached with obedience to that commandment.

Brothers and sisters, some will say to you that what it means when we say we are not under law but we are under grace, some will say that means that we have no law, that because Christ died for us we don't need to do anything else, there's no expectation upon us, we can just, as has been said, sin and sin boldly.

That is not what John is teaching. That is not what Paul is teaching. But what it means is that we are not under the law as a covenant of works, that we are not under the law as a system through which we bring our meritorious obediences to God that we would be accepted by Him, but that we are under grace and that we are accepted and only will ever be accepted by grace through Jesus Christ.

And yet we have the law, not as a covenant of works, but as a guide for our daily walk.

R .C. Sproul says in this point, antinomianism's primary error is confusing justification with sanctification.

We are justified by faith alone, make no mistake about that, apart from works.

However, all believers grow in faith by keeping God's holy commands, not to gain

God's favor but out of loving gratitude for the grace already bestowed on them through the work of Christ.

In Psalm 119 and verse 70, we see the heart of the true child of God, where it says, their heart is unfeeling like fat.

Speaking of the unbelievers, but I, the child of God, but I delight in your law.

Or in Jeremiah 31 and 33, where we're told that God would make a new covenant with the house of Israel after those days, and he says,

I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

Or as John the Apostle would say in 1 John 5, for this is the love of God, that we keep

His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome. We keep

God's commandments because we love Him and because we are His children. And if we look at verse 5, you know that He appeared in order to take away sins and in Him there is no sin.

Here he alludes to the words of John the Baptist in John chapter 1, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

That He has taken away, child of God, the punishment that you deserve. But John is applying it in another way here, that he has not only taken away the punishment, but he has taken the power of that sin away.

That Christ has freed us to live our greatest desire, which is to obey

Him, albeit imperfectly, always relying on grace, always trusting in Christ.

But we get to, He has empowered us to, He enables us to obey the living

God, just as our heart desires. That He has given you this power, that He has not left you powerless to be a victim to sin, a victim of circumstance in your life, but that He has given you the ability to kill sin, to put it to death.

And as he says in verse 6, no one who abides in Him keeps on sinning.

No one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him. Some will say, well,

I think I keep on sinning. Do I see Him? Do I know

Him? Here, as John says this, he's using it in the present active indicative.

He says that it is an ongoing practice. It is habitual to use, to rely on perhaps the commentary of one.

It is characteristic, persistent, impenitent sin. In this way,

John acknowledges but does not excuse the possibility of occasional sin in the life of the believer.

But this is something that the man or woman persists in. Calvin would say, when men with their whole heart run into evil.

If you can, with your whole heart, run into evil, then yes, you ought to question, am

I a child of God? But if you are fighting against sin, though you lose from time to time, though you resist against it, and you are seeing it being put to death, you are seeing growth in your life, then this is the mark of a true child of God.

In verse 9, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning.

For God's seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. One writes, the new birth sets a person irrevocably against sin because the seed of new life abides in that person.

The final defeat of corruption and death for him is inevitable. This is one of the senses in which no one in Christ makes a practice of sinning because the final defeat is sure.

Sin for the believer does not define his existence absolutely. If you're

God's child, you love God's word more than that you love his law, at least applied lawfully, and you desire to put sin to death.

Number four, God's children, we practice righteousness.

In verse 29, we read this, if you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

Or in chapter 3 and verse 7, little children, let no one deceive you.

Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.

Thus far I've framed this almost entirely negatively, that a child of God will reject lawlessness, that he will not practice sin.

But John doesn't just teach us to put off, to put off sin, to put off lawlessness, but he teaches us as well to put on.

And what he is teaching us to put on is righteousness. The word born that he uses in verse 28 is the same verb that John uses in chapter 3 as our

Lord Jesus is dealing with Nicodemus, telling him that you must be born again. Those who are born of God, he gives us the desire and the practice of righteousness.

In verse 7, whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.

And John adds, let no one deceive you. Now what is probably happening here is the secessionists that we have talked about, those who have been arguing against the church to whom

John is writing, it's very likely that they were saying that they claimed a righteousness that was not necessarily found in their conduct, but it was found in their secret knowledge.

That they possessed something that was outside of you that was righteous.

And John is saying no. No, no, no. Let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous.

Not those who claim they have a knowledge, not those even, brothers and sisters, who possess a perfect theology or a near -perfect theology, but those who are truly righteous are those where righteousness is exuding from them.

It is coming from them. It is an overflow of their lives. It is a conformity then righteousness is, a conformity to the demands, the obligations, and the will of God.

The Lord has not only saved us from sin and lawlessness, but that he has freed us to live for righteousness.

Not only to avoid every prohibition, but to enter into the joyful obedience of our master.

And this should stir our hearts up in a glad way that as children of God, we get to serve

God with righteousness. That Christ himself, he gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Or in Titus 3, that we are to devote ourselves to good works so as to help cases of urgent need and not to be unfruitful.

Our identity, we are born into this. It is bound up within us. The child of God makes the family business his or her business, and that business is obeying

God and fulfilling righteousness. The wise child of God seeks to redeem the time, to improve every minute that we would serve

God better, that we would serve him in righteousness. There's a story from the life of John Wesley, where at one point he was kept waiting.

And if you know much about John Wesley, you can appreciate this. It's very Wesleyan. He was kept waiting, and as he was waiting to do whatever it was, he looked at his watch and he exclaimed,

I have lost 10 minutes forever. It should be our desire to redeem, to improve every minute, every 10 minute interval that we might serve

God and give him our very best. Paul tells us that we were once slaves of sin, but we have become obedient to the heart, to the standard of teaching, to which we were committed, having been set free from sin to become slaves of righteousness.

And then lastly, God's children have a confident hope.

In verse 28, he says in the second half, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.

Or in chapter 3 in verse 2, beloved, we are God's children now, and what 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 because Christ came, because he came to redeem us from all lawlessness, because he came that we might be adopted as sons and daughters, because he came to fulfill the plan that God had established from before the foundation of the world.

We can come and we can look forward to the coming of Christ confidently and unashamed.

We can sing that hymn that we sung earlier in our service. This journey ours together, we're almost home.

Unto that great forever, we're almost home. What song anew we'll sing round that happy throne, come faint of heart, we're almost home.

All men and women and everyone else who is not in Christ is crawling into rocks, under rocks and caves, and crying for the mountains to fall upon them.

We are those children of God who have loved and will love his appearing, who earnestly seek that he would come sooner, to bring that coming faster and faster still, with not the fearful expectation of judgment, that when we see him, we will be turned to dust.

But when we see him, we shall be like him. Not that we, as some would say, become small g gods, that we would somehow share and possess our own glory to be worshipped by worlds far off from here, but that we might share in the glory of Christ, in the glory of the

Father. It is his glory, and we merely get to share in it.

That we will be, as Paul would say, transformed to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Matthew Henry says about this, he says, little does the world know of the happiness of the real followers of Christ.

Is that true in your life? Little does the world know. Little does the world think that these poor, humble, despised ones are favorites of God and dwell in heaven.

Let the followers of Christ be content with hard fare here, since they are in a land of strangers where the

Lord was treated so badly before them. One day,

Henry adds, the sons of God will be known and be made manifest by likeness to their head.

That if you are in Christ, you are a child of God. And having been made a child of God, you abide with him.

You abide in him. He will enable you to persevere. I'm not inclined, when

I speak about Tulip, to speak of the perseverance of the saints. When it comes to the pea and tulip,

I prefer the preservation of the saints. That when we abide in him, it is because he keeps us.

That if we were to hold onto him, and if it were dependent on us to grip him, then we would be lost,

I assure you. But that he holds us, that we will abide because we are his.

For those of you who are parents, if your two -year -old tries to leave out the front door, you will abide with me.

And so we will abide with him. He has trained us not to live the lawless lives that we once did, but to love his law.

And not only to love his law in a dutiful sense, but to desire it and to desire righteousness so that we would grow more and more into that for which we were made.

And when he comes, we will see him and we will be like him and enjoy him forever.

J .I. Packer, to finish with this, he says, do I, as a Christian, understand myself?

Do I know my own real identity? Do you? I am a child of God.

God is my father. Heaven is my home. Every day is one day nearer.

My savior is my brother. Every Christian, my brother too. Say it over and over again to yourself, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, any time when your mind is free, and ask

God that you may be enabled to live as one who knows it all utterly and completely to be true.

For this is the Christian secret of the Christian life, of a God -honoring life.

And for those of us who are in Christ, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God.

And so we are. Let's pray. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church.

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