Well, good morning. It's good to see you all here. As we are in our summer months, if you find yourselves overwhelmed with heat, you can move up.
There are a couple of seats in the front in the fan zone, kind of like the splash zone at SeaWorld.
And so you'll get a little bit extra wind. And also, downstairs, if you go out here and downstairs, there is air conditioning and live stream.
If that will help you, stay with us for the next little while as we look into God's Word together.
You know, I used to have in my dresser two broken watches. Technically, they were called Folexes.
Maybe you're familiar with this. A Folex is something you can buy on the street, probably in New York.
I purchased mine in China. They cost about $8, not the thousands of dollars that real Rolexes cost.
And they reveal themselves by their workmanship and by where they come from.
I have actually seen and been in a real Rolex shop once in Switzerland.
And if you have seen the true thing, they are amazing.
Their workmanship, their beauty, their style, their quality, truly amazing.
But the Folexes are not that.
And the first time I bought them, I thought, maybe I'm getting a deal.
Maybe this is kind of like slightly shoddy workmanship, but maybe this is pretty close.
Not so.
It broke before I got home.
And the second time I bought it, I knew exactly what I was getting.
But I thought, this is fun. Why not?
But it raises a question, how do you know the difference?
How do you know the difference between a Folex and a Rolex?
Well, where it was made and the character and quality of its work.
And this is a question that's been asked not only if watches, fake and real,
but throughout the history of the church, it's a question that the church is asked about
what is the true nature of a Christian?
What do you look for so you can distinguish between what is fake and what is real?
It's asked by those outside the church who look at the church and the breadth of people
who claim the name of Christ and wonder what is real here?
Because there's a breadth of all sorts of things.
And it's asked within the church, as people want to know for themselves,
how can I know that I truly am a Christian?
How can I get some kind of assurance or confidence that my Christianity is really what the Bible says?
Well, it's to this that our passage speaks to this morning.
We're in the letter of 1 John.
John, that's at the end of your Bible, right before Revelation, page 960 is where we're going to be today.
And as you know, John is writing to a church at the end of the first century or near the end of the first century.
And what he's writing about is how to give confidence in the face of some other believers,
other teachers who were showing and demonstrating something different than what they had seen or heard from the beginning.
Last week we looked at it.
We saw that true Christians are those whose doctrine about Jesus is true,
that we know and understand who Jesus is rightly.
And this was in response to those who seem to be trying to mislead the church about the nature of Jesus.
Well, let's go ahead and look at the passage today to see what John adds to our understanding
of what true Christianity is meant to look like.
So, 1 John, we're going to start in chapter 2, verse 28, and we'll go through chapter 3, verse 10.
Let's read along together.
And now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence
and not shrink back 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,
and 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.
And you know that he appeared 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 brothers.
Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus, we ask for your help this morning.
Lord, let us receive this word from you with understanding in our mind.
Lord, with gladness in our hearts and with willingness in our spirit.
Lord, to follow you and to heed this word and to sit under it as it teaches us and instructs us and leads us.
Lord, I pray for your help this morning.
You would help me that I might speak your word clearly.
And Lord, together we might honor you by sitting under it together.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So where does the confidence come from to know that we are true Christians?
Well, there are three things.
The three things, and here's my attempt at an outline.
We'll see how it flies, but I think it'll work.
The first one is the confidence that true Christians have that they are children of God.
That's the first thing we're going to look at.
Second thing that John says is that there is a character that true Christians must demonstrate.
And thirdly, that there is a champion that true Christians trust.
So there's a confidence, a character, and a champion.
There's your outline if you're a note taker.
Hopefully we'll be able to walk through the passage together today.
First of all, then, in the first part of this passage, what is the confidence?
The confidence that Christians can have is that they are truly children of God.
Why does this come up?
Well, in verse 28, John starts by saying,
Now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears you may have confidence and not shrink back.
John is looking ahead to a day of judgment and to a day of return where Jesus is going to come back to the earth,
and he's going to call all people to account.
And what he's saying is, I want you to have confidence on that day that you will be able to stand before him and not be ashamed.
Now, why does he talk about shame here?
Well, there could be a number of different things, but I think the shame he envisions here is actually different than guilt.
Guilt would be being brought before a judge in a courtroom, right, where our transgressions, here's the law,
you have broken the law, and you receive a judgment and a penalty for it.
But I think the shame here is actually something different.
It's the shame that we feel rightly when we recognize that we have let down those that we love.
So if you're a student and you have to go home and confess that your teacher caught you cheating on a test
or copying your friend's answers on their homework, and you have to face those parents, you feel shame.
When you've made a promise to someone, whether it be marriage or in a work context or others,
and then you've broken that promise, and you have to go and face the one who you've broken that promise with.
This is the shame that John envisions that sinners will have when we stand before a holy God.
He who is perfect in goodness and beautiful in his majesty, when we stand before him,
when we know ourselves, there is this fear.
But John says, I tell you, there is a way that we can stand before him where we will not feel that shame.
How is it?
It is that we are children of God.
This is the whole part of this section from 28 through 3.3.
This is the thrust of it.
You see it in chapter 3, verse 1 so clearly.
Behold what manner of love the Father has shown to us, that we should be called children of God.
And let's be clear about what he's talking about here.
He's not talking about a creator-creation relationship.
Sometimes we talk about humanity, all of humanity as children of God.
Aren't we all children of God?
And at one level, that's recognizing that we're created in God's image.
And so rightly, all of creation in some way is a reflection of God.
But here there's something more specific.
This is about God's elected, adopted children.
The one that he has chosen to rescue out of sin and fallenness and make them his own.
And the doctrine of adoption that we, because of our sin, have been alienated from God
and have been rejected from him and are not a part of his family.
And yet God has come to us and called us into his family through Jesus Christ.
And at the core of that calling back in and that adoption is this amazing doctrine
that we are born anew into his family.
Because that spiritual alienation is also a spiritual death.
And when God comes to us through the gospel and invites us into a living relationship with Jesus,
he makes us born again.
This is what Mina read earlier from John 3, a famous passage about Nicodemus.
How must I enter the kingdom of God?
You must be born again.
What does that mean?
It means that God's spirit working in us brings alive what was dead in us spiritually
so that we can actually know and relate to God.
And as God does this, he brings us into his family and he says,
you are now my special children.
And in my love, I have imparted to you in this spiritual reawakening,
this spiritual rebirth, a new nature
so that you are now no longer an alien from me,
but you are now like me.
We are born then into his family so that we might be like him.
And this is the thing that John is threading all these massive theological themes together
to say that when we become children of God,
we are then meant to bear a family resemblance.
I've been told that I resemble my father in a number of ways,
not only in physical appearance, but in my mannerisms, in my disposition.
My brothers and sister-in-laws, my sister-in-laws especially,
because you know sister-in-laws are always really,
they've got a good radar for stuff like this.
They're like, you're like your dad.
I'm like, really?
Okay.
But it's true.
But so in my family, there's this family resemblance
that has been passed down from my dad to me.
And this is what God is doing.
As he makes us born again, he then calls us into remaking us
so that we are going to be reflective of him and his character,
and particularly in this context, in his moral character.
This is what we see in verse 29.
If we know that he is righteous,
then we will be, everyone who practices righteousness like God,
will demonstrate that God has made him born again
into this kind of righteousness.
And in verse 3 of chapter 3, you see it again.
And as we know that he is pure,
then his children purify himself.
That is, we move away from the defiling things
and towards the goodness of God and his character.
And this is the hope and the confidence
that John wants to give true Christians.
That we could be called children of God
because this work that God is doing in us
is producing something that is visible.
And he's doing this, I think,
and we'll explore this a little more in a bit,
but he's doing this because it seems that
some of those who had left the community
but were still claiming the name of Christ
were saying, I can claim to be a child of God,
and it doesn't matter how I live.
I can live no matter how I want.
And John is saying, that is deception.
That is not true.
And in order to bring this to bear more clearly,
he then, as we move on to our second point,
he then brings a contrast into focus.
This is what we see in verses 4 through 10.
Most clearly, he makes a contrast,
and he's very black and white in his language.
It's shocking, striking, and fearful sometimes
how John speaks.
But he says, you are either a child of God
or you are a child of the devil.
And if you've been at Trinity a lot,
you know this is not language that we usually use around here
because it's shocking and it's sort of,
it feels extreme.
And if you're visiting today, know that this isn't.
But this is what John is actually saying here.
He says there are two kinds of people.
How does he say this?
Well, it's at the core of it, right, is in verses 8 and 9.
And he says you can tell the nature of a person
by their character and their actions.
Verse 8 and 9 says this,
whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil,
for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
And 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.
He cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
So the contrast here is very stark, right?
If sin is characteristic of your living,
then you are like the devil.
And look, John defines sinning particularly in this context, right?
Verses 5, he says sin is lawlessness.
What does that mean?
A spirit of independence, of freedom from any authority, right?
And he might be thinking violating the law of Moses
in the Old Testament,
but I think his picture is actually larger than that.
It's a fundamental spirit of rebellion against God
as our ruler and judge and creator
to whom we are accountable.
It is a rejection that he is the one
that defines good and evil, right and wrong in the world.
And the sin here is the practice of
regularly rejecting God, taking this role in our lives.
And when we reject God in that way,
the DNA that emerges through our actions,
what we see is the same thing we see in the devil
because that's what he did from the beginning.
He rebelled against God.
He enticed humans to rebel against God.
And this is his fundamental character,
is to reject and rebel against God.
And so this is what John is saying.
And he makes a contrast then.
In verses 7 and 8, he then said,
or in, I'm sorry, in verse 9,
he makes the contrast negatively.
If you keep on sinning, you can't be born of God
because this spirit of rebellion
is contrary to the DNA of the person
who has the seed of God in him.
Now, some of you are like biologists
and know far better than me.
But a particular plant, seed,
can only produce a particular kind of plant.
If I plant a marigold seed,
I'm not going to get a chrysanthemum.
I'm going to get a marigold, right?
And so when God plants a seed in his children
by making them born again,
that seed of God is going to produce
godly action and character.
So to be born of God is to submit to
rather than reject God's rule.
It's to gladly embrace his determinations
and his ways.
To be his children is not a duty
of rules we have to keep so we don't get spanked,
but a delight so that we might please him.
And it's not an independent spirit
of I want to do my own thing,
but a joyous dependence.
God, show me how I might live
so that I might flourish and glorify you.
And to keep on sinning, John reminds us,
is to inhabit a practice of rebellion
is the opposite of this spirit.
Just like a maple tree cannot create acorns
and a corn stalk cannot make radishes,
so someone born of God
cannot produce this spirit of rebellion.
Remember Jesus said,
a tree is known by its fruit.
So John brings this contrast to bear,
and it's really stark.
And if we're listening carefully,
we should start to be afraid, right?
How do we respond to this?
How do we think about this?
Because if we're honest with ourselves,
we're all finding ourselves
not in the children of God category,
but somewhere else.
And what are we gonna do with this?
Three applications for this major point
before we move on to our third point.
First, we need to be careful not to be deceived.
This is what he says in verse seven.
Don't be deceived.
Character and the actions are the ultimate test
of who we are in our nature, okay?
And anyone who teaches that I can reject God
and still be God's children,
that I can live in rebellion against him
and still be rightly related to him,
this is falsehood.
And it is the hypocrisy that we hate
or should hate,
and that the world hates
when they see it in the church.
So we need to not be deceived
by this teaching that is prevalent,
not only today,
but in the first century.
John Stott,
the great British commentator and pastor,
wrote this about it.
The heretics seem to have taught
that the enlightened Christian,
that to the enlightened Christian,
questions of morality
were a matter of indifference.
Now, today, our sins are excused
either by euphemisms like,
oh, I have personality problems,
or by a plea of cultural relativity.
Well, is it really that bad?
In contrast to such underestimates of sin,
John declares it is not just a negative failure
of missing the mark or unrighteousness,
but it is essentially an active rebellion
against God's known will.
Those who say that God's will has shifted,
that his standards have changed,
that sin isn't sin,
and that God will accept us
no matter what,
no matter how we live,
no matter what we do,
this is not truth.
This is deception.
So we need to hear this.
Now, again,
if you're not afraid yet,
you should be, right?
Let us examine ourselves
because John wants us to hear this
and to know this standard,
and one of the ways we might respond
is to find ourselves
in judgment of other people.
That our response is to sit back
and look at this passage and say,
oh, well, now I know
who the real Christians are
because it's me
and, well, he looks really good
and I think she looks really good
and the rest of you,
yeah, probably not.
And we have this spirit
and this desire to judge.
And look,
there's something right about this.
I want to be careful with this
because when our church,
for instance,
when we baptize people,
we do so upon their profession of faith,
but we affirm that we see
the seed of God planted in them
bearing fruit.
And when we bring someone
into membership,
we affirm their profession of faith
in Jesus Christ
partly on the basis
of what we see in their lives.
If someone is actively rebelling
against God and says,
I want to be a member of the church,
we would say,
we love you,
but we're going to call you to repent
before we can bring you
into membership.
And if there's no repentance,
then we can't affirm
that God's seed is producing
this righteousness in you.
Now, having said all that,
let us hear C.S. Lewis
because he has a great word for us.
He says,
human beings judge one another
by their external actions.
God judges them
by their moral choices.
When a neurotic person
who has a pathological horror of cats
forces himself to pick up a cat
for some good reason,
it is quite possible
that in God's eyes,
he has shown more courage
than a healthy man may have shown
in winning the Victoria Cross.
And when a man who has been perverted
from his youth
and taught that cruelty
is the right thing
does a little tiny kindness
or refrains from some cruelty
that he might have committed
and thereby perhaps risks
being sneered at by his companions,
he may in God's eyes
be doing more than you and I
would do if we give up life itself
for a friend.
So this is the humility.
You hear what C.S. Lewis is saying?
Recognize that we don't all start
at the same place
and what we see on the outside
is not always the true growth
of that spiritual seed in someone.
And depending on where we started,
we might look really good on the outside
and yet our hearts are not good.
Or we might look a little rough
around the edges
but our hearts are good.
So we want to be careful
with how we hear this
and yet we do want to hear
the exhortation
and the standard that John is saying.
We've got to see fruit
of God's seed in us
to know that we can be true Christians.
And this brings us
to the very crux of the crisis
that this passage ought to bring to us.
Because in 1 John 1,
he told us,
if you claim to have no sin,
you lie
and the truth is not in you.
If you claim that you have not sinned,
you deceive yourself.
And now John says,
if you have sin,
you can't be a child of God.
Well, what is it, John?
How do we do these things?
Well, two things
to bring us together
so that we can see
that John is not actually speaking
out of both sides of his mouth
but he is speaking
in each context
towards a common truth, right?
First, in this passage,
there is a repeated emphasis
not on sin
but on sinning, right?
So the verbs often indicate
ongoing action,
continuous presence, right?
And so what he is talking about
primarily here
is not a single act
or a single thought
but a pattern,
an attitude,
a character trait.
Right?
Again,
the big picture
is a question of rebellion
versus submission to God
and his law
and moving towards
and it's a question
and here's what John
would want to say to us.
If we are complacent
in the face of our sin
when we excuse it
rather than hating it,
when we are comfortable
in our sin,
when we are unwilling to,
as Jesus says,
pluck out our eye
in order to stop sinning,
if we find ourselves
defensively denying sin
when others graciously
pointed out to us,
these are some of the warning signs
that we have these patterns
so embedded in us
that we have taken hold of
a spirit of not submission
but rebellion.
John is not calling
for sinless perfection here.
I don't believe.
Chapter 1 would tell us
very clearly
that's not true
but he is saying
what is your trajectory?
What direction are you headed?
Are you headed towards God
and continually being refined
and as things become clear,
you repent of them
and you change?
There is a sense in which
it is true
that we are always going
to be sinners
this side of heaven
so that we will not be perfect
and yet,
we should never say,
but that makes it okay
for me to sin in this way
because John would say,
no, don't you see?
This is contrary
to the very DNA
of who you are.
A Christian must be moving
towards righteousness
and it is the direction
that we are headed
that is most important
and as we hear this word,
for those of us
who are in a battle
against sin,
a particular thing right now
that you're fighting
that right now
the Holy Spirit
is bringing to your mind
going,
oh my gosh,
my deceit,
my anger,
my pride,
my selfishness,
my pornography,
whatever it is,
it's coming to mind
and you're thinking,
okay,
he gave me a little room
to be okay
with being in battle.
Here's what we need to do.
Never use this passage
and this idea of trajectory
to let you be complacent.
You need to fight against sin.
It needs to include lamenting
of your fallenness.
It needs to include confessing
as we saw in chapter one.
It needs to include repentance,
turning away,
changing your life,
changing your mind
and drawing on the resources
that God has given us
to move towards the things of God.
We should always hate sin
as a foreign invader
for those of us
who are truly in Christ.
But it's more than that
and this brings us
to our third point.
As we fight this battle against sin,
as we see this trajectory,
how do we know
that we are children of God?
Because we have a champion
in which true Christians trust in.
Verse five,
look with me at it again.
You know that he,
that is Jesus,
appeared to take away sin
and in him there is no sin.
When Jesus Christ came,
he came as the only sinless human.
Though he was fully human,
he had no sin
and he perfectly obeyed his father
in every way
and his perfect obedience
showed his true nature.
He was unstained
by the sin of Adam and Eve
so that he might be our savior
and that through his life
on our behalf,
through his death
in replacement for us
and in through his resurrection
displaying his perfection,
he then comes to take away our sin.
His life, death, and resurrection
for true Christians
erases the record
so that when we go into the police station
to say what's on his rap sheet,
there's nothing there
because Christ has taken
all of those things for us
and given us his sheet
which is all righteousness.
Jesus through his life,
death, and resurrection
has also washed us clean
though the stain of sin
from Adam and Eve
would continue to pull our hearts
towards rebellion
and away from God.
He has washed us clean from that.
White as snow
and removed from us
our sins as far as the east
is from the west
and this is what happens
when he plants his seed
and then he calls us
to be who he has made us now
in Christ.
This was the purpose of his work
that sin would not continue
but it would end.
That the devil who comes
to encourage sin and rebellion
would ultimately be seen
to be the defeated one
not the victorious one
and that God himself
would be lifted up
in the midst of his whole creation
as the glorious savior
as the truly righteous one
and his people
would be a reflection of this
in his world.
This is our champion
and this is our hope
because when we see him
we know that sin
does not have the ultimate power
that the devil
does not have control over us
but instead
when the gospel seed
takes root in our hearts
we now have a new nature
to be born again
and we will see this
in the midst of our battle
we will see this
by growth in righteousness.
Now you guys have heard me
say this before
one of the amazing things
that happens in saints
is that as we go along in life
the older we get
the more righteous
we should become
and the more aware
of our sin
we become
at the same time.
So when you ask
the older saints
in the midst of us
they're not going to tell you
how perfect they are
they're going to tell you
how much more
they see their sin
and yet
when you look at their life
the fruit of it
you will see
they have become
increasingly righteous
they are less selfish
they are less
they're more
giving and sacrificial
they are more patient
they are less angry
etc. etc.
And this is what we should see
is growth
in both of these things
so a true saint
will be more aware
of their sinfulness
and yet
produce more of the fruit
of the seed
that God has planted
in them
this is what John
is looking for
and he's saying
this is what we should
be looking for
and if you want
the confidence
of true Christianity
look for that
gospel dynamic
look for the seed
of God
in one born again
producing fruit
someone who's
battling against sin
someone who's
humbled by their weakness
and yet someone
who is being conformed
more and more
so that they're like Jesus
because Jesus
came to make us
his brothers
and sisters
under our heavenly
father
born again
into the family
of God
behold what manner
of love
the father
has shown us
that we should be called
children of God
let's pray
Lord Jesus
we thank you
for this word
Lord we confess
as we come to you
before it
God we are not perfect
and Lord we pray
for you
oh Lord
will you
by your spirit
strengthen
gird us up
to fight
against sin
help us
to lay hold
of the seed
of the gospel
and the new life
that you have
given us
Lord
so that we might
not become
complacent
or weary
in fighting
against sin
but rather
Lord
that our trajectory
would be always
towards you
pleasing you
honoring you
doing what is right
Lord we pray
as a church
that
Lord we might
pursue this fight
with humility
with grace
and with
stubborn
steadfastness
Lord
that we would
not be
like the world
that does not
know us
because they did
not know him
but that this church
would be
reflective
of you
and the seed
that you have
planted
in us
in the gospel
Lord I thank you
for this word
may we be encouraged
by it today
we pray in Jesus name
Amen
That means
to be
we pray
enough
to be