Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:35 — 19.6MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | TuneIn | RSS
1 John 2:29-3:10
A few things that we want to look at today.
- Being God’s Children
- How do we, as God’s Children, behave?
- How is this passage useful today?
Being God’s Children
You cannot find a righteous person who is not a child of God. People born of God live righteous lives.
This is the first time in this book that John uses this term “born of God.” How is possible for us to be the children of God? It is only through the love of God that we can become his children.
God’s love leads to action. It is because of God’s love for each of us that Jesus left heaven, came to earth to live, die and conquer death. All to take away our sins.
How do God’s Children Behave?
John says that God’s children practice righteousness because God himself is righteous. The new birth must be followed by new behavior.
God’s children also hope in God. Right now we are God’s children, we don’t know what we’re going to look like when we get to heaven, but we do know that when we see him face to face we will be like him. We will be transformed.
2 Corinthians 3:4 – We are being transformed even now. When he comes we will be further transformed. His work in us will be complete. It is a hope that we place in Him.
1 Peter 1:3 – A living hope. A hope that causes us to purify ourselves now, but that will be taken significantly further at the appearance of Christ.
John says that a child of God is going to be committed to sinning less. There is evidence throughout the New Testament that christians will fall into sin at least occasionally. The words that John is using here talks about a continued action of sinning less and less. The difference here is between living in sin and not living in sin.
God is love. We cannot be children of God not love our brothers and sisters in Christ. There is a quality of love that can only really comes from God.
Behavior reveals the parent. Children of God live lives patterned after God. Children of satan live like satan does.
Ephesians 2 – We are regenerated for the purpose of doing good, not evil. It is unnatural and “weird” for christians to go about sinning. For us to sin is to go against the mission of Christ. We need to experience sorrow for our sin, we were not designed for sinning.
This Resemblance is Natural and Should Continue to Grow
God is on our side. We hope in him.
If our growth in Christ stalls, we should be increasing in maturity in resemblance of our Lord and Savior.