Basic Training -- 1 John 2:28-3:3

We really deeply appreciate y'all, and we stay in touch regularly with Jeff and James and Elliot. It's been a huge blessing to us, and honestly, I don't even know where we'd be without y'all. So genuine, thank you. I say that on behalf of my wife, Heather, and my kids, and all that stuff too.

Let's jump into our scripture passage this morning. First John chapter two, verses 28 through 3:3. Y'all say scripture together, I believe. It'll be on the screen.

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. — 1 John 2:28-3:3

Brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, I'm not sure how you feel about listening to a Canadian speak on July 4, but here we go. I think you could compare it to America's Got Talent, where it's your show, but foreign judges will be judging you along the way. I will try my hardest not to make any side remarks like happy treason day, but I'll keep those comments to myself.

But seriously, though, I do love living in North Carolina. And every once in a while, I'll get those "you're not from around here, are you?" kind of comments. I used to get it a lot more before I started adapting the accent a little bit. So you'll probably catch some things here and there.

There's a video posted a few years ago on YouTube called "Where Are You From?" I don't know if some of you have seen it, but let me paint the setting for you. It's a woman who's Korean, a runner. We know she's Korean because she reveals that later in the video. Another runner passes by her, stops, walks up to her and says, "Hey there. Nice day." She says, "Yeah, finally." And he responds, "Where are you from? Your English is perfect." She goes, "San Diego. We speak English there." Then he shakes his head and says it a little louder: "No, no. Where are you from?" She says, "Well, I was born in Orange County, but I never actually lived there." He goes, "No, no, no. Before that." She says, "Before I was born?" He goes, "Yeah. Where are your people from?" And it just gets worse and worse from there.

It's brilliantly put together to highlight how we often ask really awkward, rooted, ignorant, and self-entitled curiosity type questions at best.

Now I want to take that picture and flip it on its head a little bit. Imagine people walking past you, but rather than see your skin color or what you're wearing or your ethnicity, they see the overflow of your love for Christ and your faith for him and your love for your neighbors. It would be so great. People would be like, "What planet are you from?" Imagine that. Imagine your lifestyle is so foreign that your love is the catalyst for people to say, "Where are you from?"

First John 3:1 is one of the most beautiful verses in the entire Bible:

See what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. — 1 John 3:1

That first statement there—"see what?"—"see what kind of love?" That literally means "from what country?" What kind of foreign love is it that you are called a child of God?

God's Otherworldly Love

This morning, we're going to explore this foreign love. We're going to explore three ways in which God's otherworldly love changes our love—that is, how God's love influences our love. So we're going to talk about three parts, if you like to take notes:

1. God's love changes our identity today
2. Shapes us for tomorrow
3. Shapes our behavior in the in-between

We begin with our identity today. God's love changes our present identity because we are God's children. That's what we read in First John 3:1. See what kind of unearthly love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. This is a present reality for us.

In the beginning of John's gospel that he also wrote, he writes this in chapter one, verses twelve to thirteen:

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. — John 1:12-13

So if you're a Christian, being a child is not recognized by ethnicity or accent or skin tone. God's otherworldly love came in and engulfed you, and the Holy Spirit made you a new creation, made you something entirely new from the start. Nicodemus asked, "Well, how does this work? Do I need to go back into my mom's womb?" He's not even thinking straight. No, this is God's doing to us. God's outlandish love came within to change you.

Now how do we understand this? Well, the word "children" in our passage has the sense of "begotten" to it. John Stott points this out, and I think it's really helpful because it has a sense of inheriting a way of being. It's like the difference between identity and bloodline. For Jesus, because he was the Father's Son, his begotten Son, he inherits all the character traits. He is the full expression of the Father. But we are also children of God. So how do we understand this?

Well, fortunately, in the sixteenth century, Christians were asking that same question and the Heidelberg Catechism answered it for us. It says this:

Why is he called—that is Jesus—God's only begotten Son since we are also children of God? Because Christ alone is the eternal natural Son of God. We, however, are children of God by adoption, through grace, by Christ's sake.

So we are adopted, begotten children. The Spirit grafted you into this new lineage, this new heritage, this new genealogy, this new spiritual ethnicity, if you will. Our culture is really big on self-identification. But what gives the Christian its primary sense of identity is being a child of God. Period. All other senses of identity hang on that one primary true identity of who we are: children of God.

And there's a sense of urgency that John wants to make sure we know about. He's like, "I really want you to know this."

See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God. — 1 John 3:1

He could have put a period right there, but no—it's like, "and so we are." Like now, today, not tomorrow. And then verse two says it again:

We are God's children now. — 1 John 3:2

Today, this is your identity. It's a claim of assurance that we can take to the bank today.

Yesterday, we had a conversation—probably about half an hour. Every other week, there's a group of us that does door-to-door evangelism, old school. And we're having this conversation over about half an hour with a Muslim man who was very articulate and had actually participated in interfaith dialogues before and panels in churches. He was a very interesting guy to talk to. And we asked him, "Well, what kind of assurance do you have that you're going to make it to paradise?" And his response was, "Well, you don't know. You have the five pillars of the faith that you need to live out, and you just hope for the best." We kept pushing him, and he said, "Well, you know, for the Christian, we have that assurance. We know. And it's not anything that we need to do. It's through faith alone."

Can you imagine every day thinking, "I don't know, maybe, maybe I'll make it"? No. It's not "you will be a child." It's not "well, maybe you are." No, this is a statement of fact: You are now a child of God. And if you're a child here, you are now endowed with this otherworldly love that changes who you are and how you operate in this world. You are dubbed child no matter what. No matter how old you are. No matter what you've done.

Orphan Mentality vs. Adoption Mentality

Now how do we understand this? Well, there's a really great curriculum out there called Sonship. Some of you may know it. It's a discipleship program you go through, and it helps you understand how to have a sonship mentality. For just today's purposes, I'll use the concept of an adoption mentality. And they compare in this curriculum the difference between an orphan mentality and an adoption mentality.

An orphan mentality tries too hard to please, whereas an adoption mentality cries, "Abba, Father," and expects to be heard.

There's a story I heard about a couple that went to visit an orphanage, and it was filled with babies in cribs. And they thought, "Well, where are all the babies?" Well, the babies are all in the cribs. They have learned that crying doesn't make a difference in their life, so it's completely silent in there.

As children of God, we get to cry out, Abba, Father, help me. That's the primary essential quality of being a child: dependency.

Let's compare a few others here. An orphan mentality operates on a success-fail basis. But an adoption mindset is partnership with God. One side has little faith and lots of fear; the other side is working to trust in God's plan. Rebellious versus strength to be submissive—think of that concept. Strength to be submissive. Not teachable versus teachable. Needs to be right versus safe, secure, and able to take risks and fail. When I think of that one, I think of church planting for myself. It's a risk. And every day I gotta remember: adoption mindset.

I can do it myself versus I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Has a critical spirit versus praises and encourages. Often dissatisfied versus focuses on what is good and lovely. Gossips versus confesses other people's sins, whereas freely confesses personal faults. Points to personal accomplishments, boasts versus her weaknesses.

We can do this all day. And when we go through that list, I know you're thinking, "Oh, that one was me. Maybe not that one. Oh man, that one hit me." Right? Because we slip into that orphan mentality. When you today are called a child of God, begotten with the endowed beauty of God's love. So before we move on, just make sure you know who you are. You know what your identity is. God's foreign love created a foreign identity that creates such peace that nothing external can influence that confidence. And of course, we're not gonna experience that fully in its perfect form until Jesus comes back. Because it's always gonna be a battle. There's always gonna be that tension. But the goal is to remember and claim your identity along the way.

Our Future Hope

But let's now look at the future. Let's look at this massively hopeful future. God's love changes our identity today, but also shapes us tomorrow. That's where we're gonna move on now. Shapes us tomorrow when Jesus comes back. There are two verses in our text that talk about the return of Jesus. One has to do with being changed—like another identity issue—and the other one has to do with mindset.

The first one is verse two where it says:

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. — 1 John 2:28-3:2

So the flow of thought here in verse two is this: we are God's children now. Someday we will be something different, but we will be like him because we shall see him as he is. So when we see him as he is, what are we gonna see? We're gonna see the king. We're gonna see Christ the king. Right? We're gonna see royalty. Therefore, we will experience royalty. We are his brother. We sang about that this morning. We are co-heirs with Christ. Therefore, we get to experience that same royalty as God's adopted children.

And then there's not only royalty, there's righteousness. We get to experience righteousness. The same way, like, Christ is pure and righteous. We get to experience that. We will never sin. We will never be able to sin because we will be made totally righteous. We'll be real. We'll be able to have authentic, real relationships with people. They will see you for who you are and love you. God will see you for who you are and love you, which he is already doing today and which we often doubt. You don't have to put up a fake profile. People will see who you really are. You will be real. You'll be royal. You'll be righteous. You'll be real.

And let me just stop for a second. How awesome is that? Like, how awesome of a picture that is? And it's so funny how John writes it: you'll see him and boom, you'll be like that too. It's like, how is that? I don't even know how that works. You see, we'll become this way because we've seen him. So somehow, like that imprint of who he is will be adopted, somehow transferred onto us as well. Beautiful picture of our future and something I need to remember every day when I'm struggling or in pain or I'm doubting or whatever issues that you're working out. Remember, we have an end game that's absolutely beautiful as children of God today and as children of God in the future.

So that's the one thing about the future: our change of identity. But there's also a change in mindset. And that's where we're gonna go to verse 28. So just before chapter three, it says:

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. — 1 John 2:28

So as a play on words in this passage, confidence comes from the word paresia, and coming is the word parousia. So we're gonna experience confidence—paresia—where at the parousia, at the coming. Alright? That's a helpful point.

David Jackman brings that up, and I think it's helpful to remember the connection between the two. Confidence at his coming. Confidence at his coming. Now let's work this out a little bit. How does this work? This is a concept I was working on this past week because I've struggled with it in the past. I want to work it out with you today.

Therefore, do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God. — 1 Corinthians 4:5

I don't know about you, that passage freaks me out. Right? What does it say? Disclose the purposes of the heart? What does that mean? Like, will it be like a PowerPoint show of each of our lives? And it's gonna be like, check out this, and check out this sin, check out this darkness, check out this purpose of the heart. As a kid that really freaked me out because I'm thinking, "Don't want people to know about that."

But I think what 1 John is telling us is that when we look at that slideshow, we're not gonna be looking at it with shame. We're gonna be looking at it with confidence. We're gonna be saying things like, "Look at how deep the Father's love came for me. He saved me from this." And we're gonna nudge each other like, "Check it out. Isn't that amazing? All that Jesus did for me to save me." Total confidence.

Now I'm not giving you the excuse to sin so you could celebrate more in heaven. That's not what I'm saying. But it's gonna be total confidence. Imagine a picture up there with you like as a kid stealing a cookie out of grandma's cookie jar. You look at that and think, "Man, that was such a loser move." But then there are other things that we could see—way beyond being a loser. Idolater, manipulator, cheater, traitor, abuser, discriminator, judgmentalist, accuser, narcissistic, cruel. None of those things are gonna hold water. None of those things that you hold on to in your own heart will hold any water in the future. Because you'll be able to see those issues and say, "Look how far the Father's love went down to save a wretch like me." Can I get an amen? How awesome is our God?

The Shame of Those Apart from Christ

But there's a shame part. This is not the experience of the Christian. The confidence is for the Christian, those in Christ, those children of God. But for those apart from Christ, this is what shame looks like.

Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone slave and free hid themselves in the caves among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand?" — Revelation 6:15-17

That's the experience for them. Not the confident ones. Not the paresia ones.

And so my question for you this morning is: Which group will you belong to? I'm preaching to the choir. I'm preaching to church people. But we need to ask ourselves that question. If you're someone here who's struggling with faith, this is an invitation for you. Think through seriously: Am I a child of God? Am I going to be one of those confident ones? Because I'm here this morning. We're here this morning to tell you that all that stuff that you feel like is keeping you down, those identities that keep you locked up, they will not have a hold on you someday. Completely. You'll be completely freed of how you have self-identified yourself. Christ gives you that identity.

Now for some of you who may be wondering, "What does that look like? How do I know? How do I know if I'm a child of God?" Well, we know it begins with faith. And what does faith do? Faith produces fruit. And so that's what we're gonna be focusing on for the rest of this morning's sermon—a litmus test of how you know you are a child of God.

So to recap: God's love changes our identity today, shapes us for tomorrow, and shapes our behavior in the in-between.

If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. — 1 John 2:29

This is an amazing statement, and we're gonna flip it backwards so hopefully it makes more sense. Why John just didn't write this way, I have no idea. Maybe he was a little grumpy that day.

If you're born again, you practice righteousness because you know him. In other words, as David Jackman writes, the habit of righteousness is the proof of the relationship. So the habit of righteousness is the proof of the relationship.

I talked about the experience that those in shame will experience. Well, what will the experience be for the bride of Christ? We know that in Revelation 19:8, it says:

The bride of Christ was dressed in fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. — Revelation 19:8

I always find that such an amazing statement because as a good reformed theologian, I want to say the righteous deeds of Jesus that was transferred onto us, his righteousness. No, it actually says deeds of the saints, deeds of people. So it's still the Holy Spirit doing the work through us, but we're gonna be dressed with these good works someday. Amazing statement. So foreign love demands foreign living.

Righteousness and Purity

Okay, so we have the concept of righteousness. Now we're gonna focus on the concept of purity, which comes out in verse three here. Verse three says:

Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure. — 1 John 3:3

It's the continual habitual process of being made pure. So we have what John Stott says: John's reason for writing about the return of Christ and our final state is not theological, but ethical. I'm not talking about the varying different views of end times. I'm not talking about post-millennial dispensationalism or any of that stuff. I'm talking about ethics because the end influences our behavior right here and right now.

Colin Cruz writes: The hope of being like Christ in the future expresses itself in an effort to purify oneself to be like him in the present. So we have this righteousness and we have this purity—practicing righteousness and practicing purity because of this future vision of the Christian person.

Now I don't know how many country music fans there are here. Probably not a ton. But anyway, there's a great song out there by Tim McGraw called "Live Like You're Dying." And the chorus goes like this: "I went skydiving. I went Rocky Mountain climbing. I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu. And I loved deeper, and I spoke sweeter, and I gave forgiveness I'd been denying. And he said, someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying."

And I think for the Christian, we can word that a little differently. We don't say "live like you were dying," but it's more like live like you will be living. Right? Because for us, death is just a blink of an eye. Live like you will be living today.

Addition and Subtraction

So let's work this out a little bit further. We're gonna push this a little further this morning. It's introspection time where we focus on who we are today, who will we be in the future, and how we will behave along the way.

So with works of righteousness, practicing righteousness, I think has to do with addition. What are you adding to your faith to grow in righteousness, to practice righteousness? Maybe your prayer life is just awful. Or maybe you haven't picked up your Bible in weeks. Maybe that's just not part of your rhythm at all. Maybe you need to add acts of service to your daily, weekly routine. Maybe you need to schedule some type of door-to-door evangelistic thing going on in your own world. Or maybe you just have to join a church plant. Shameless plug.

But seriously, what are the things that you're doing to add to your faith? Maybe you need to create a bucket list. Remember that Parks and Rec episode where Andy created a bucket list and they drove to the Grand Canyon and he asks the question, "Where are all the faces? The presidents." The point of that episode was for him to do stuff so he could kick that bucket list and say, "I got it all done." What is it that you need to add to your practicing righteousness bucket list? Write it out. Be practical about it. Put it in your Bible. Put it on a bookmark. You're looking at it every day. "I'm going to be praying for this person every day. I'm gonna take a young person out for coffee and mentor that person." Like, whatever the case may be, grow in practicing righteousness because by doing so, you're affirming that who you are as born again, as God's child.

What do you need to subtract? That's the next question. What do you need to purify? And we're not talking essential oils or some type of detox diet. Right?

I'm talking about how you're seeking ways to purge yourself from behavior that is completely incongruent to being a child of God. When I ask that question, oftentimes I think there are things that pop in your head, like, yeah, I gotta give that up. For some of you, it's, I wanna give it up, but I can't give it up.

And so that's the beautiful thing about the church—we get to spur one another on, encourage one another. Don't do it alone. Think through someone who you can choose to meet with, like, "Look, I need to meet with you every other week to talk about these things that I need to purge myself of." Because that verb is habitual. It's a continual process of purifying yourself.

And of course, it's not a self-help thing. Make sure you hear what I'm not saying—don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that this is all your work. This is the Holy Spirit working through you, helping you understand your identity in Christ as righteous and as pure.

Closing Questions

Let's wrap up with a few questions for you. Are you turning heads along the way? Like, are you stopping people in their tracks and people asking you, "Where are you from that you love so deeply, so generously? Where are you from that you care about me so much? Where are you from that you forgive so excessively? Where are you from that you practice righteousness so well?"

Jeff sent me an email, and all those people who are preaching this summer an email asking us to introduce the sermon with certain words. I'm gonna conclude with them. Jeff's not here, so I can get away with that. But here's words from your pastor:

The overall theme of First John is a call to the basics of the faith or back to the foundations of Christianity. First John reminds us that God measures our discipleship by one metric: our love. Love of God shown in our obedience and love of our brothers and sisters. No matter how educated or theological or wise or sophisticated we think we are, we need to go back to basic training. Are we growing in love?

It's a great question. And if you still don't know what I'm talking about here, pick up your Bibles and read about Jesus. Read about who Jesus was, how He operated. He constantly just looked for the attention of His Father over the attention of the crowd. He just ignored the popularity and the wealth. He wasn't trying to turn heads in Rome; He was just turning heads in Galilee. Throughout, he was guided by the will of his father.

And then as you continue to read through those gospels, you find that Jesus lived as if he was dying too. When he came, he didn't suddenly appear as a full-grown man and die on a cross. No. He had this life to live. He was born and he lived and he taught and he healed and he talked about the kingdom. Why? So that he could be that pure and spotless lamb for the sacrifice to be effective. He practiced pure righteousness and stayed away from all temptation in order for him to be that lamb that we needed him to be.

And now you, we are called to be living sacrifices. Living sacrifices. We live because Jesus died for us. Today, live today like a child of God—to add to your faith and subtract the imperfections, to grow as God's adopted begotten child.

Prayer

Let's pray. Dear gracious Lord, we pray this morning that your Holy Spirit will have imprinted in our minds and our hearts that we belong to you and that we belong to your family, that we are labeled children of God, fully dependent, crying out, Abba, Father. And someday looking forward to this royalty and this righteousness and this realness. It's a vision of the future, Lord, that gives us so much hope within the stuff that we experience today, the goods and the bads.

And so, Lord, we pray that you will equip us as we leave this place. As we have this vision of who we are today and experience that as we have a vision of the future of what we will be. Give us strength in the in-between—to add what we need to add and to subtract what we need to subtract. We can only do this through the power of the Holy Spirit. And so we pray for his work in our lives in this moment and as we leave this, as we live the rest of this week, as we will try our best, Lord, to grow and as we need to come back to church the next week and just repent and be fed once again along the way.

We thank you for the community of church. Whether we're worshiping in the same place or not, we thank you for the body of Christ to spur one another on, to encourage us to do good works, to give you all the glory. We pray in Christ's name alone.

Amen.