Obvious Christianity – Part 4
1 John 3:1-10
May 8, 2022
We’ve been studying this text now for 3 weeks
And this morning we want to bring it to a close.
What we’re talking about here is a sort of SPIRITUAL PATERNITY TEST.
We are identifying those who are children of God
And those who are children of the devil.
And as one might assume, the DIFFERENCES ARE OBVIOUS.
(10) “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”
And I realize just in reading that verse that
It has sort of a tendency to raise the hair on the back of your neck.
After all, if you go out into the world and call someone
“a child of the devil” it is BOUND TO OFFEND them.
In fact, it is common place today for people in the world to say just the opposite about humanity. They like to say, “We are all God’s children”
And one could even quote Paul’s sermon at Athens when he confronted those non-believers saying:
Acts 17:28 “for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’”
SO IT CAN GET A LITTLE CONFUSING.
WHICH IS IT?
Is everyone a child of God like Paul said,
Or are the unredeemed actually children of the devil?
And it is worth explaining a little this morning.
All of humanity is in one sense a child of God
Hopefully our students will remember this from our recent Disciple Now, but man was created back in Genesis in the image of God.
• Man was created to be the image bearer of God to creation.
• Man was to be the representative of God to creation.
But you are aware that man fell into sin.
• That divine image was marred.
• That divine image was distorted.
• Humanity fell into rebellion and transgression and sin and lawlessness.
The usurper (the evil stepdad) entered the garden and KIDNAPPED humanity.
The reality for mankind is this.
• We are all God’s children in the sense that we were made by God in His image.
• However, we are at the same time born children of the devil because of our rebellious and fallen nature.
We are born estranged from God.
We are born at enmity with God.
We are in need of restoration.
We need for that divine image to be restored in us.
We need to be delivered from our captivity to Satan.
So it may be offensive to the world to be called a child of the devil,
BUT IT IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE.
They have been kidnapped by him
They are owned by him.
They are enslaved by him.
John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
It is only those who have placed their faith in Christ who have been redeemed and restored back to the position of children of God.
What John is doing in 1 John is helping us recognize
Whether or not that redemption has occurred.
• Have we been redeemed?
• Have we been adopted back into God’s family?
• Or do we still walk enslaved to the devil?
The issue of 1 John 3:1-10 is that of purity or practical righteousness.
AS JOHN SO CLEARLY POINTS OUT.
You recognize a child of God by righteous living
And you recognize a child of the devil by sinful living.
Now, what we’ve been talking about the last 3 weeks is
Why Christians live righteous lives.
Again, it is NOT why they “should” live righteous lives,
But why they “do” live righteous lives.
#1 THE HOPE PRODUCING LOVE OF GOD
1 John 3:1-3
• God loved us when we were unlovable.
• God redeemed us when we did not deserve it.
And God’s love transformed us to the point that
We become unrecognizable to the world.
In reality God’s love is transforming us into the image of Christ.
It is restoring that divine image that was marred at the fall.
And God’s love comes with the ultimate hope that
One day we will actually be like Christ.
THAT IS THE CHRISTIAN HOPE.
To which John said:
(3) “And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
Those who have received that love and have that hope
Will naturally and instinctively seek out purity in their lives.
It is not what Christians should do, it is what they actually do.
God’s love produced hope which in turn produced righteous living.
You can tell a child of God by this mindset.
#2 THE SIN-CONQUERING WORK OF CHRIST
1 John 3:4-8
We discussed this last week with two basic questions.
1) What did Jesus come to do?
2) Did He do that in your life?
We found out that:
“He appeared in order to take away sins”
“the Song of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil”
Jesus came to break the yoke of Satan in your life.
• He came to destroy what Satan did to you all the way back in the garden.
• He came to set you free from that slavery.
And so the question is:
Has Jesus done that in your life?
For it is very simple: (6) “No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.”
(7b-8a) “the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil.”
Because Jesus takes away sin from those He redeems
We then know a redeemed person by their righteous living.
So thus far we’ve seen that Christians live righteous lives
Because of the work of the first two members of the Trinity.
God’s Love & Christ’s Work both produce righteous living in the Christian
To such a degree that their redemption is obvious.
THIS MORNING we look at the third reason Christians live righteous lives.
#3 THE LIFE-CHANGING PRESENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
1 John 3:9
Here we have the third member of the Trinity.
It is the Holy Spirit and we see that He also is unified in His work
To produce righteous living in the life of those who have been redeemed.
In fact, John uses the exact same DIRECT LANGUAGE yet again.
• “No one who is born of God practices sin…”
• “he cannot sin…”
There’s no ambiguity in those statements.
They are clear and direct.
So let’s discuss it a little more this morning.
• I want to break this verse down into two points this morning.
• I want to talk about “The Event” and “The Effect”.
1) THE EVENT
John says “His seed abides in him” (or “you”)
The specific event John refers to is the birth or new birth of a Christian.
That event in which they are “born of God”
So what we need to discuss this morning is:
• WHAT IS THIS?
• And: HOW DOES IT HAPPEN?
• What does it mean to be “born of God”?
• What does it mean to have God’s “seed abide” in you?
• AND how does that occur?
Well first let’s read a statement from John’s gospel.
John 1:11-13 “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
That is a pretty clear and thorough statement
On the reality of being “born of God”
WE LEARN SEVERAL THINGS
We find out that being born of God is NOT A UNIVERSAL REALITY for all men, but rather it is a privilege that is granted to a person by God.
Specifically this privilege is granted only to those who receive Jesus,
Or who “believe in His name”.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God”
So it’s not a universal reality for all men.
• Not everyone is born of God.
• Not everyone is a child of God in this sense.
As we already stated, many in our world,
Though they were certainly created in the image of God,
Are in reality today children of the devil.
We also learn from this passage in John’s gospel something regarding
HOW ONE BECOMES A CHILD OF GOD.
John says they “were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
We understand birth.
• It is a common occurrence in our world.
• It is a natural occurrence that most are familiar with.
But John says become a child of God is NOT A NATURAL THING.
You don’t become a child of God by “blood”.
• In other words, it is not genetic.
• Just because your parents are Christians that does not automatically make you one.
We remember John the Baptist confronting the Pharisees.
Matthew 3:9 “and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.”
You aren’t born a Christian.
It is “not of blood”
John said it is also not “of the will of the flesh”
• Which means it is not by human effort.
Becoming a child of God is not a status you earn
Through hard work and devotion.
• It is NOT a reward for years of going to church.
• It is NOT an achievement you obtain through religious effort.
• You DON’T graduate into becoming a child of God.
John said it is also not “of the will of man”
• Which means it is not up to you.
Sinners, who have offended God through their lawless rebellion
Don’t just get to wake up in the morning and decide,
“I think I’d like to be a child of God today.”
That would be like me going up to Tommy and saying, “I’ve decided I’m going to become your child today. Go ahead and put me in the will, and Zek (your new grandson) will be hitting you up for college tuition here in a couple of months.”
You don’t become a child of God because you want to.
IT’S NOT GENETIC…
IT’S NOT EARNED…
IT’S NOT UP TO YOU…
But a person becomes a child of God when they are “born…of God”
That is, when God, (according to His sovereign love),
Determines to adopt His enemy and make them His child.
The means of that adoption occurs through the redemption of Christ and when the rebel believes in Christ, God adopts them into His family.
And THE SIMPLE POINT I want you to grasp here is that
Being born of God is NOT something you do,
It is something God does for you.
This should make sense.
How many of you had any say at all regarding your physical birth?
• Did they give you month options?
• Did they ask if you’d like your birthday in the summer or fall?
• Did you get a say in who your parents would be?
Nope, that was all determined for you.
You were a RECIPIENT of birth, NOT a DETERMINER of it.
So it is with being born of God.
Let’s look at another passage:
TURN TO: JOHN 3
You are familiar with this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.
(READ 1-3)
You see here that Nicodemus comes at night
And he comes with a preconceived idea about Jesus.
• Namely that Jesus is “a teacher”
• And even a teacher “from God”
But Jesus blows his thinking out of the water when He says,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again
he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
• A teacher comes for the purpose of education and training.
• A teacher would come and tell you what needs to be done by you.
• A teacher comes to correct and direct and show you what to do.
Nicodemus was looking for a teacher.
(But being a child of God is not something you do, remember?)
Jesus corrected him,
• “You don’t need a teacher, you need a miracle!”
• You need to be re-born.
• You need to scrap all of this and start over.
The statement certainly puzzled Nicodemus.
(READ 4)
It didn’t make sense.
Such a birth is not possible for man to accomplish.
(That’s what we just said wasn’t it?
It’s not something you do, but something God does for you)
Jesus goes on to explain.
(READ 5-8)
• What does Jesus mean by this?
• What is He talking about?
Jesus is making a reference to an Old Testament promise.
Jesus said “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
So first it was “born again”
Now it is “born of water and of the Spirit”
TURN TO: EZEKIEL 36:22
Know that at this point
• Israel had offended God and were now being judged by having been exiled to Babylon.
• God had given them the Law and they had failed to keep it.
• Their punishment was that they were kicked out of the land.
However
Ezekiel spoke of a day when God would forgive and restore them.
(READ 22-24)
Clearly God has a plan of restoration.
(READ 25-28)
Do you see what Jesus spoke of there?
“born of water and of the Spirit”
When Jesus tells Nicodemus he needs to be born again
Jesus is referring to this reality that Ezekiel spoke of.
“Nicodemus you don’t need to be instructed better, you need for God’s Spirit to move into your life and change you from the inside out.”
And look at what Ezekiel said.
What is the CHIEF THING that God’s Spirit will do your life?
(27) “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes…”
God’s Spirit will cause obedience.
This is what we call the New Covenant.
Jeremiah spoke of it as well.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
You see it there as well don’t you?
God said, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it…”
What is that?
• That is the Holy Spirit moving in.
• That is being born again.
• That is being born of God.
It is something God does in your life.
• You aren’t born that way…
• You don’t do it through your efforts…
• You don’t obtain it by your will…
God does it out of love and through the work of Jesus,
And by sending the Holy Spirit into your life.
He changes you from the inside out.
He washes you and causes you to be obedient through the Spirit.
When we ask: HOW IS ONE BORN OF GOD?
That is how.
• God set His love on you.
• Christ came and removed your sin.
• The Holy Spirit moved in and changed your life.
But we also asked: WHY IS ONE BORN OF GOD?
Why does this happen?
I mean, let’s think about it.
We already know that through Jesus we are justified.
That is to say that His righteousness was credited to us,
We are declared forgiven, and there is no condemnation for us.
In that sense, we have been saved.
We are headed to heaven.
We are forgiven.
But God didn’t stop there.
It didn’t end with the empty tomb or even the ascension.
There was another monumental event that occurred after the cross,
After the resurrection, even after the ascension.
The Holy Spirit was sent to us at Pentecost.
Peter explained it like this:
Acts 2:33 “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.”
And here’s something to ponder:
• If Christ finished it on the cross and purchased our redemption…
• If Christ sealed our salvation by conquering death and rising from the dead…
• If Christ ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father to intercede…
All of those things speak to the completion of salvation.
Then why did God send the Holy Spirit?
Why did God orchestrate the new birth?
This should be obvious, and from John’s perspective it is.
The Holy Spirit was sent to produce righteousness in us.
He was sent to wash us…
He was sent to cause us to obey…
He was sent to make us new…
I asked you a couple of weeks ago, but it is so clear.
• If I told you that God put a public speaking spirit in you, what would you expect to be able to do?
• If I told you that God put a cooking spirit withing you, what would you expect that to do to your life?
And so, if I tell you that God put the Holy Spirit within you,
What sort of effect would you expect that to have?
So we saw THE EVENT.
God caused us to be His children by redeeming us and placing His Spirit within us.
That is the event
2) THE EFFECT
We see that word “because” jump out at us twice.
“No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
• What is the effect of being born of God?
• What is the effect of having God’s seed or God’s Spirit abide in you?
HOLINESS
• “No one who is born of God practices sin”
• “he cannot sin”
WHY?
• “because His seed abides in him”
• “because he is born of God”
When the new birth occurs, which is God’s Spirit moving in causing obedience, the slavery to sin is removed.
That person is now changed.
That person is now transformed.
God places a new Spirit; the Holy Spirit; into the believer
Which has a profound effect on their life.
The most often quoted verse here is:
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
And this is because of the new birth
In which God’s Spirit moved in and changed you.
John says, “No one who is born of God practices sin”
That is to say,
• Their entire disposition regarding sin has changed.
• They no longer desire to live in it.
• They no longer desire to practice it.
Romans 8:12-17 “So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
When the Spirit of God moves in, He changes the persons desires.
1. They receive a love for God which causes them to call Him “Abba! Father!”
2. They are “being led by the Spirit” which indicates that they now live by His desires not their old ones.
3. And “they are putting to death the deeds of the flesh”
That is the effect God’s Spirit has on their own will.
That is the effect God’s Spirit has on their own desires.
When He moves in, He changes the heart; He changes the will.
The new believer no longer wants sin.
The new believer no longer desires sin.
In fact, they hate it in their life.
Galatians 4:6-7 “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.”
He changes your entire disposition.
• God’s Law is written on the heart…
• The heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh…
• Enmity with God is replaced with love for God…
• Hatred of God’s Law is replaced with love for God’s Law…
You didn’t do it, the Spirit did it in you.
But it changes you.
And God’s Spirit causes a person to no longer want to practice sin.
In fact, John says, “he cannot sin”
And again, it is a mistake to assume John is saying that Christians never sin at all.
Clearly they do and they confess it according to 1 John 1:9
No, what John is saying here is that
Not only does the Spirit change your attitude toward sin,
But He also is actively at work to keep you from sinning.
The Spirit of God WILL NOT ALLOW one of His to remain in sin.
TURN TO: GALATIANS 5:16
(READ 16-17)
Paul says that if you follow the Spirit, you will not follow the flesh.
It won’t happen.
WHY?
(17) “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.”
The flesh and the Spirit are polar opposites and sworn enemies.
And it is the Spirit who is “against the flesh”.
“So that you may not do the things that you please.”
You are all familiar with that Romans 7 passage
Where Paul lamented not being able to conquer the flesh.
Remember: “For what I am doing I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”
• There you had Paul fighting the flesh with the flesh and he was losing.
• He even later begs to be set free, which Jesus did.
• And then Jesus gave His Spirit.
Galatians 5 is the follow up to that scenario.
After we are saved God then places His Spirit into the believer
And the Spirit fights the flesh.
When Paul says, “so that you may not do the things that you please”
He means is that “so that you won’t do the things that please the flesh”
You’re not alone in that battle anymore.
HE JOINS THE FIGHT!
The Holy Spirit won’t let you stay in sin.
I always liked the statement of Adrian Rogers who said, “God doesn’t make it where a Christian cannot sin. He makes it where a Christian cannot sin and enjoy it.”
That is true!
• He places misery with it!
• He places mourning with it!
The Holy Spirit will make you miserable when you try to live in sin.
Indeed, a believer cannot do it long.
And that is what John is saying here.
“he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
Because of the presence of God’s Spirit,
A believer cannot stay in a lifelong pattern of sin.
That is the 3rd reason Christians live pure lives.
1. They have been given hope through the love of God that produces a desire for purity.
2. They have been set free through the work of Christ that results in Christ cleansing and sanctifying.
3. They have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit who will not let them stay in sin.
And then John SUMS UP the entire segment with this pointed verse.
(10) “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”
“By this…are obvious”
John extinguishes all debate here.
If there is no righteousness or if there is no brotherly love
THERE IS NO SALVATION.
And so upon completion of this text
We really have to do a moment of SELF-EVALUATION.
This text should either give GREAT ASSURANCE or GREAT ANGUISH
This text will either AFFIRM YOU as a child of God
Or EXPOSE YOU as a child of the devil.
And whatever you learn,
The response should then become obvious as well.
If you are a child of God then praise God for such blessed assurance.
• Praise Him for loving you with such a great love.
• Praise Christ for removing your sin and destroying Satan’s grip on you.
• Praise the Holy Spirit for changing your heart and for fighting against your flesh.
God is saving you from sin and He should be praised for that.
If you are a child of the devil then it is time to repent.
• It is time to receive Christ and believe in His name.
• It is time to humble yourself about your sin and lawlessness.
• It is time to cry out for mercy and plead for redemption.
And the good news is that if you are motivated to do any of those things, it is evidence that God is already at work in you.
• For you wouldn’t even see your sin if it weren’t for Him.
• And you wouldn’t be aware of the coming judgment if it weren’t for Him.
• And you wouldn’t even be motivated to cry out to Christ if it weren’t for Him.
Even being exposed is a mercy of God
And if He has done that to you, respond to Him!
Cry out and believe in Christ.
Confess Him as Lord and trust Him with your life.
DON’T IGNORE WHAT IS OBVIOUS.
