The Village Church
I'm a Child of God, You Know Me - Part 1 - Audio
It means we will stand before God to give an account for how we live that life, even as believers. One pastor says, "We must all give an account for how we live in light of the fact that Christ is coming back, for we all have to answer to God for every choice we make. That often calls us to take our choices in life seriously. To make us think twice about short-term pleasures we enjoy and view the long-term consequences, which await us. Our choices ought to be influenced by the fact that we all long to hear this one phrase from God, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." Isn't that what you want to hear? If you are a child of God, that's what you want to hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." And by abiding in Christ, we have confidence. We can have boldness to draw near to Christ at the second coming, and we will hear that phrase, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." Abiding in Christ. Who are those who will hear that word? Who are those who will continue to abide in Christ? Who are they? Verse 29, "If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness have been born of him." Those who have been born of God, who know God in relationship with God, we're here that phrase from God. You know what I'm saying? You can't earn your salvation. You can't work for it. But those who are truly believers, we're here that word because they will continue to abide in God. You will. To know that God is righteous means you have a saving faith in him. You are in covenant relationship with him. You know his character. You know who he is. He's righteous. He's a holy God. And those of us who have a saving faith in God have been born of God. That's the point John is making here. The one who's born of God will continue to abide in God. And in this context, it means you will reflect God's righteous character in your life. That's what he means. Practice in righteousness. You are practicing the righteousness that Christ has given you. It's not your own. If you reflect in God's righteousness in your life, the way you live your life. You see, the practice of this righteousness is a natural consequence. If you've been born of God, it flows out of that. If I've been born of God, then there's going to be evidence in my life. It will. You see, every believer should have a desire to be like God. To be like him in their character and the things that they value and the things that they love. As a parent of a 3-year-old, you know, as one channel you watch a lot of and it's the Disney Channel. Can't ever get enough of it. And it's amazing how at 33 you can get something into these kid shows. And, you know, this one show came on. It's a movie. It was called Camp Rock. And it's basically about a 10-inch girl named Mitch. She's a young singer and she wants to be a professional singer. So she wants to go to this music camp to learn to be able to horn her skills. But the camp is so expensive she can't afford to go to the camp. But her mother, her loving mother, works out and agreement with the camp owner. She says, "I'll provide the food. I'll be the camp cook." And then her daughter gets to go to the camp for free because of that. So her mother made this great sacrifice. So I'm gonna cook your food for these campers and my daughter gets to go to camp for free now. But Mitchie, once she gets into the camp, start making friends, she starts to feel shame. I'm only here because her mom's a camp cook. I can't let anyone find that out. So she creates a false identity. So she can fit in in the camp. So she lies about who she is. She lies about who her parents are and what they do for a living because she felt shame that her mother was a camp cook. She did all this so she could fit in. We do the same thing. We do the same thing. We hide our true identity, who we are so that we can fit in with the world around us. So people want to think with Jesus' freaks or whatever. So we hide our identity. And you see, as children of God, your identity has to be in God. And John is saying, no. No. You don't have to hide who you are. Pretend to be something that you're not. Your identity is in the fact that we are children of God. John says in verse three, chapter three, verses one and two, "See what kind of love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called, children of God, 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." Do you see the passion that John has here in this two verses? He says, look, see, behold, what kind of love the father has given you. This love is amazing. You should be excited about it. You're amazing. You should be passionate about it. It's awesome love. It's a wonderful love. It's a powerful love that he has freely given you, that he has lavished upon you. And you didn't even have to earn it. Now, creator of the universe, do you understand God who made everything in this world has placed his love upon you and how much you don't really value it as much as we should, the fact that God loves us that much. You have been born of God, your children of God, and you should try to find your identity in that. Are you amazed about this love in your life? Does it excite you to be a child of God? That's cool. Or is it, huh, what else you got? Yeah, I'm a child of God, but you know, give me something else. No, what else you got? That ain't doing it for me. You see, if this doesn't move us, maybe we have this attitude that we deserve to be children of God. Do you think we deserve it? It's our birthright. Could it be, if we don't appreciate it, could it be, we're trying to find our identity and other things, other people, things we do, career, job, ministry, whatever? What is your view of God's love? You see, what we fail to remember is that we used to be orphans. You realize that before you were a Christian, you used to be an orphan. No father. God has adopted you into his family. More than that, he adopted his enemies into his family. That's what you were. That's what I was, an enemy of God, a God-hater. But he chose to place his love upon me and to bring me into his family because of mercy, not because I had it all together, not because I had the right name, because of his mercy. You see, each of us used to be children of wrath, objects of God's wrath, but in Christ Jesus, you were not objects of his ever lasting love. See, it was mercy that you don't get what you truly deserve. It is mercy that you don't get your true birthright, and it is mercy that God does not give us what we are truly entitled to get. Don't forget it. Everything is mercy. Every morning, his mercies are new, and you better thank God they are new. Because every morning, every morning, we mess up, and every morning, his mercies are new because we mess up. We ain't ever going to measure up. As our merciful father, God is not inferior to this world. He does not conform to this world. He does not lure his standards to this world, nor did he get his identity from this world. The world is in his hands. He is God for crying out loud, and as his sons and daughters, we should not be inferior either. When we do what this girl did in this movie, we lure our standards when we pretend to be something that we're not. You see, we get no gain from pretending we're not true enough God. You realize that? You're going backwards. You ain't moving forward. You ain't moving on up like the Jesper says. You're moving backwards. When you do that, you got to see that. When you try to find happiness outside of God, you are settling, but we don't think we are, but you are. You are. The reason the world does not know us is because it does not know him. Let that sink in. The reason the world is never going to accept you. The reason the world is sometimes going to talk bad about you. The reason in the world sometimes the world is going to look down upon you isn't because of you. It's because they don't know him. Because they don't know Jesus. The world would never understand and recognize us who we are as church and of God because they don't know our God as Father. And remember, the world that John is talking about here is humanity that's an opposition to God. It's those who don't know God, those who hate on God, those who rebel against God. That's who he's talking about here. That part of the world would never understand who we are. Sometimes they will think we're crazy. I don't believe us to be good up and go to church on Sunday. For what? They just religious zealots, what they are. Jesus freaks. That's fine. You shouldn't get upset about it. You shouldn't get down about it. You shouldn't even get discouraged by it. When non-believers prosper more than you, don't get upset. When they suffer lesser than you, don't get upset. Never, never, never get upset about those things. Never let the world define who you are as a believer. You are, as John says here, the love it, we are God's children now. Not in the future, not when Jesus comes back, in the hearing now, you are God's children now. At this moment, in whatever circumstances you're in, in whatever situation you're going through, you're a God's child. In the darkest hours of your life, you're God's child. When life gets hard, you're still God's child. When you don't get that promotion, when you still haven't got any money to pay bills and life, your life has fallen apart, you are still God's child and he never forsakes his own. You got to believe that truth. That doesn't mean my life is going to be okay that I'm not going to have a suffer, but it means you have someone that's going to bring you through it. You have someone that's going to bring you through it. Children of God, that is not an empty phrase, that is not an empty mission statement. That's who you are. That's who we are. It's a reality, a reality. Just like my friend Corb said last week, he says, once you were not a people, remember of Corb sermon last week? Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy by this great and awesome mercy. Orphans who were once God's enemies have now become his beloved children. His people, his chosen possession. And that is what we are now. And that is where we need to rest. That is where we need to get out of our identity and wrapping your arms around that should refuel you. It should gas you back up to go back out there and fight. I'm a child of God. Therefore, that means something in this life. It means something in this life. In his essay, the way the glory says, if there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing. I submit that this notion has no part of Christianity. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospel, it will seem that our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us like an ignorant child who wants to make mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by offer at the holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. Let's see what Spurgeon, let's Lewis is saying there. There's nothing wrong with desiring our own good when it's directed at the right thing. The problem is that our desire is too weak because if we really desire our own good, if we really desire our own best, then that will push us to the gospel. That will push us to the gospel. As children of God, when you try to find your identity and things lesser than God, again, you settle for this. I just settle, God. I don't really don't want the best. I'll settle. It shows that our desire for our own good is too weak. We want mud pies instead of infinite joy. Please keep this in mind that in our relationship with the Father, we married up. He did not. You know that, right? He, we married up in this relationship. He did not. And every time you step out on God with your idols, with sin, he chose to have a fling with something less. But because his mercies are new every morning, he always welcomes us back. You see in this relationship, God's righteous character has to be rubbing off on us. It has to rub off on us. Because if you're drawing your identity from him, then who he is is going to rub off on you. And that's going to have an impact on your life, on the things that you do, on the things that you value. And so we have the treatment of God, abiding God, the treatment of God, find their identity in God, and the treatment of God, get their hope from God as well. Beloved, we're God's children now. What will it be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we should be like him because we should see him as he is. And everyone who hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. All believers from all time have a future hope in Christ. And the object of that hope is when he returns. See the doubt that when he comes back the second time, it's going to be judgment for some. But for the people of God, it's going to be everlasting joy, right? Because we know for us when he comes back, life just begins in a real sense. We're going to see him as he is. Paul says in Titus 2, 3, we await for the blessed hope, for the appearing of the glory of our great God and savages of Christ. We wait for what we great patience, with expectation. This is our hope. We should be like giddy about it. Like, man, I cannot wait. When Jesus comes back, he's going to make everything right. It's a wonderful thing. It's an unseen hope. You really know that it's an unseen hope, but yet it's hope nonetheless. And it has not appeared yet because he has not come back. And on this side of heaven, we live our faith. When he comes back, our faith will be made sight. We will see him as he truly is. Wow. We will see him as he truly is face to face. We will see Jesus. I don't know about you, but man, since years I must find. I will see him as he truly is. And I will be like him. You see, another part of our hope is that when he comes back, we would not only see him, but we would be like him in our glorified bodies. No more sin, no more weakness, no more struggles, no more suffering, no more pain, no more sickness. We would be like him, perfect and holy. And this is what we wait for that you're in the God. This is what we wait for. The time when we would truly be transformed into the likeness of Christ. That would take place completely when Jesus comes back. What does that mean for now? I mean, that's the come Alex, but what about now, man? Come back to reality. What about now? That future hope has a present reality. What do I mean by that? I mean that the future hope of being transformed into Christ's likeness is a process that has already begun in your life already at this moment, even as I speak. That is why John says that everyone who has this hope implanted in him purifies himself as he is here. And then here and now you are being transformed until likeness of Christ, loving what Jesus loves, valuing the things that Jesus value, loving the people that Jesus loves. One Christian says that Christians who fix the hope upon Christ return will purify themselves, not ceremonially, but morally. You will have, you will see your role in the process. You will begin to strive and fight to abide in Christ. You will begin to fight and strive to find your identity in Christ. You see, our future hope is linked together with Christ's second coming. But the present reality of that hope is linked together with the first coming. And this is what John does here in this past. He goes back and forth. He starts with the second coming of Christ. When he comes, this is what we will be when he comes. But then he goes and reminds us of the first coming. He says, everyone who makes a practice of sin and practice lawlessness, sin is lawlessness, but you know that he appeared first coming of Christ to take away sin. And then him there is no sin. No one who abys in Christ 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. Again, the reason the Son of God appeared first coming, was to destroy the works of the devil. The reason you have this present reality is because of what Jesus accomplished in his first coming. He appeared to take away our sin, and in him there was no sin. He was crucified for our sins. He was a substitute for us. He alone satisfied God's righteous wrath towards us. You realize that? You realize that? Jesus satisfied God's righteous wrath towards us. And that's why we are now God's beloved children. You understand what that means for you? He satisfied God's righteous law through his obedience. And in him there was no sin. He took away our sin by placing upon himself, he who knew no sin became sin. He took away our sin and he destroyed sin's power over us. The reason that we are children of God is because of what Jesus did with his first coming, what he destroyed, what he defeated. He defeated sin. He defeated the enemy. And secondly, he said he appeared to defeat the works of Satan. Satan and our sin works together. He saw it in the garden and it still works together in our lives. And Christ, in his first coming, he began to process a redeeming and restoring what Satan has destroyed through the following. The process started when Christ came back, when Christ came the first time. He's going to make all things new through his death and resurrection. And that has started now, it's a process. And that when Jesus took away all your sin, all your frailty, he gave you his righteousness. Right? Right? It's called the greatest change. He gets all my sin, I get all his righteousness. And when the Father looks at me, he sees Jesus' blood over me. Jesus accomplished all of that when he came the first time. We have now been declared righteous in God's sight. You see, only in the infinite merciful mind of God, in the plan of God, can someone who is totally sinful be declared righteous by act of another person. And that person is Jesus, who gave himself to redeem us from all alllessness, to purify for himself, a people for his own possession. That's what he did. And now I ask you, what does that mean for your life now? What does it mean that you have been declared righteous in God's sight? First, it means you don't have to earn it. You don't have to earn that righteousness. You don't have to earn it. You don't have to prove it. You were righteous before God. His blood covers you. You've got to learn to embrace it, to rest in it, to live in it, and you have to practice it. See, many of us have heard the illustration that Jesus has canceled out our sin debt before God. Have you heard the illustration? He had deposited his righteousness into our account. Have you ever heard that before? Jesus canceled out our sin debt through the death from the cross, and he gave all his righteousness. He put all, he gave his righteousness into our account so that when God sees us, we're not righteous, because our account is filled with his blood. Have you heard that before? But that illustration overlooked something, and it came to me this week. Now, if I put a million dollars into a bank account, what's going to happen to that million dollars? Over time, what's going to happen to it? What's it going to do? What? Yeah, all right. If I'm covering the righteousness of Christ, over time, it should be doing what? In my life, his blood doesn't cover you and just sits there. His righteousness doesn't cover us, and we just sit here. Well, I'm going to cover the righteousness of Christ. I'm good. If his righteousness is over you, it's going to begin to draw interest in your life. What do I mean by that? It's going to begin to bleed over every single crack of your life until you begin to breathe like Jesus, faint like Jesus, sleep like Jesus, walk like Jesus, believe like Jesus, fight like Jesus, love like Jesus, go his blood and righteousness has power in our life. And if that is not happening to you, then you need to do some business with God, because I'm telling you, I'm telling you, his blood doesn't discover me and I just sit here. It's going to move me. It's going to move me to do something with it. Are you moving? Is it moving? That's what it means when his blood is over me. It's going to have some kind of effect on my life. It's going to change everything about me. It has to. That's what happened for the first coming. That's what he accomplished for us. And so when you practice righteousness, it's not even your own righteousness that you're practicing. It's the righteousness that Christ has given you. You're just living it out. You're just living it out. You're just living it out. Living it out. He says, you will not continue to live and sin, because we know that sin is lawlessness, that Jesus has redeemed us from lawlessness. No one who abysing him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning, that means continuing to live and sin, has he seen him or known him. Verse 9 gives us the reason. He says, no one born in God means to practice the sinning, but God sees a body in him and he cannot keep on sinning because God, he has been born of God. Those born of God will practice righteousness and they will renounce sin. Now we're not perfect. We still struggle with sin, right? This is him talking about you will repent of your sin. He's not talking about perfection. You will be convicted of it and you will repent of it. All this happens because of God's spirit in us. It's because you are God's children that you live like children. So because you have already been made righteous, that you live righteous, it's because you have already been set for your sin and you confess your sins. Now, that's what it means to live as a true number of God. Our sin, the taste of your sin, should be coming less sweet and more bitter every day. It should be bitter. It should be sour milk to you. I mean, you should vomit every time you taste it. Is that happening to you? I'm talking about every sin, even your pride, your self-righteous, your anger, whatever it is, it should be bitter to you, not sweet. That should be happening for the child of God. In college, I learned something called DTR. DTR is a conversation that would take place between a guy and a girl. After they've been spending some time together, hanging out, going on dates, and DTR means, you know, define their relationship. Let's define the relationship now. Sometime that happens out there one day, which you probably shouldn't do, but it will happen. You will have to define the relationship. And now I'll have a couple of those conversations in college and let's say none of them painted out very well. But even though we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ and we strive to practice righteousness and find our identity in Him, we still are in a love affair with certain sin in our life. We still are in a love affair with it. And it's time that we have a DTR without sin, have a DTR with that sin that you love, that this is the way I am. You need to set that sin down, whatever it is, your pride, your self-righteousness, love, whatever, and just set it down and say, it ain't me and she. I got to break up with you. I got to let you go. Why? Because someone else has found me that can do for me what you can. He loves me. He adores me. And more importantly, he dies for me. And so how do you do that? The repentance. You break up what you're seeing every day through repentance. You have that conversation every day. Every day you got to break up what you're seeing. Every day you got to say, I got to let you go. Now, we know sin is like a crazy ex, but they always come back. But you got to always break up with it. I love illustrations because if you get the point, you got to break up with it every day. And as children of God, we live between the commons of Christ, the first common and second common. That's our reality. And in some sense, we're going to struggle with identity issues. But we've got to remember, now, what John says in 1 John 5, 18, we know that everyone born of God does not keep on sin because he's been born of God. Listen to this, Jesus protects him from the evil one. The evil one cannot touch him. You know that? Those born of God, evil one cannot touch him. Christ protects us. And what I mean by that, what I mean is that he can't steal your identity. You would never be a victim of identity death from Satan. Who you are in Christ is written in stone. What's coming to you is written in stone. Satan can't take that away. Your sin can't take that away. Jesus paid for it all. He died for it all. And so your identity is secure. You would never be a victim. And that should refuse you to go out and say, "Game on." "Game on, man." Let's pray. Father God, I praise you that my identity is secure in Christ. My place in heaven, my name in the book of life is there. And Satan can't take it out. No matter what he throws at me, no matter what he puts in my life, Jesus has secured my spot, Lord, in your magnificent kingdom. And that's for every child of God. That even in our darkest hour, even when life gets hard, even when we have these battles, where we got to always come back to who we are, we are God's children now. And that means something for us in this life, so far as we go out and if the enemy comes and as we continue the battle sin, let us learn to embrace your truth, embrace this truth, and also, Lord, I just embrace it, but to let that empower us to be able to fight the enemy and to fight our own sin. Let us be a people who repent more than we do, Lord, in Christ in my prayer. Amen.