1 John 3:1-3. "Who Are We Because of God?"

Trying to find your identity in the world may be tough sometimes. An element to this may be trying to understand "Who Are We Because of God?". In 1 John 3 verses 1-3, we find the answer: We Are The Children of God. As children of God, a Christian's hope is understood by living in this reality. We do so while clinging onto God’s promise. This is why by God's grace that is all loving, Jesus calls us brothers and sisters without shame! (Hebrews 2 verse 11) When Christ  appears, we will be like him, and live with him in a renewed world where sin and death passes away.  We do so while clinging to God’s promise. Once again, our status as his children is not predicated on our righteous actions, but on his grace. This episode goes into depth to bring out that: we are who we are because he is who he is.

This Sunday sermon, based on 1 John 3 verses 1-3, was preached at Grace of God Lutheran on November 5,2023. Scripture selections come from the New International Version. 

Our services are at 9:30am every Sunday morning, at our campus in Dix Hills on Long Island. Visit our website for more information, at www.graceofgod.church

Transcript

Grace and peace to you from God our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, friends. Amen.

Last week - Reformation Sunday - I talked to you a bit about assurance. Assurance, in Christian theological terms, is knowing what God thinks of you. Does he reject and condemn you, or does he welcome and reward you?

The Protestant Reformation was grounded on the teaching of assurance based solely on God’s grace, received by faith alone, earned for us through the work of Jesus alone. To say that without all the theology mumbo-jumbo, the Reformers taught that we can trust that God welcomes us solely because of his incomparable love, which he showed when he sent Jesus into our world to save us. 

What we read last week in Romans three very much taught us assurance. But one phrase in today’s reading from First John is among the clearest, most beautiful declarations of assurance in the Bible. It’s in the middle of the first verse of that selection, and I want to ask you to read it with me. I’ll read the beginning of the verse, and then I’ll have you jump in with the phrase I want to highlight.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” Now read this next phrase - the next six words - with me. “And that is what we are!”

Wow! What an incredible proclamation. “That is what we are.”  We are God’s children. Not in the way that the Bible does speak of every human as God’s offspring, but as Christians, we are God’s children. We belong to his family. His Son Jesus calls you “brother” or “sister,” Hebrews two eleven tells us.

How can we be sure that this is true? Because, to be clear, the Bible doesn’t teach universalism; the idea that everyone, everywhere, will be saved. So how can we have assurance about whether I belong to God’s family or not?

First and foremost, God says it. His Word says that in and through Jesus, you are his son or daughter. The Word of God brings about what it describes. You can be sure that God is serious about that promise, because he sent his Son Jesus to die on a cross. If God were not serious about the things he says, he would not have done that. If someone hears that promise from God and shrugs, walks away, then so be it for them. But if you hear that promise from God and want to know that he means it for you also, you have no reason to think that he doesn’t.

But so that you may further cling to this same promise, God has given Baptism to his people. You may be able to doubt that the Word being spoken applies to you, but the water of Baptism is poured over your head and no one else’s. 

What happens in Baptism? It is not simply that a pastor takes some water, splashes it on you, and calls it a day. And it’s not that there’s anything special about the water itself. It’s not “holy water” or “magic water.” Baptism is simply the Word of God brought to you in an unmistakably individual way, as the Word is connected with water in that particular time and place according to God’s promise. God’s promises about Baptism are found in his Word; such places as Acts chapter twenty-two, “Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away.” Or Galatians chapter three: “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” God makes you a promise in Baptism, not the other way around!

The actual words which God commands we use in Baptism are simply his triune name. The one baptizing speaks over the one being baptized, “Your name, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Not only “in” that name, but “into” that name. God’s name and yours are put together in the same sentence. He adopts you. Where your last name would go, God’s name is placed there. In Baptism, you’re given a new family name.

John says here that your status as God’s child is based on one thing alone: The “great love the Father has lavished on us.” God has loved you deeply; does love you deeply; will love you deeply. He will provide you with what you need for body and soul every day of your life.

But it doesn’t always seem that way, does it? It does not always seem that God is loving you deeply, as he promises to do, when the car’s transmission falls out. When Grandma ends up in the hospital. When you lose your job, or your marriage fails. From the outside, our lives rarely look as though we were God’s dearly loved children. Surely the beloved sons and daughters of the king of the universe should live more highly than this!

But John, who walked with Jesus during Jesus’ ministry - who was very possibly Jesus’ cousin, in fact - reminds us, “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” When the very Son of God himself walked on earth, he was “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” He “had no place to lay his head.” As a preacher and teacher, he was often scorned and rejected. The world, as John says here and in the Gospel he wrote, did not know him. He did not seem to be God’s Son; not according to what they expected.

Nor does the world recognize who you are. Again, “the reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” Anyone who doesn’t recognize Jesus as God’s Son will not recognize you as God’s child. But John repeats the promise, verse two: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.” That’s important. Our hope is for the future. We look forward to our status as God’s children being revealed when Jesus returns, just as he has promised to do. “When Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” 

When Jesus comes back, we will be shown to be God’s children. We will live with him in a renewed world, a world where sin and death have passed away, where every tear will be wiped from our eyes. That is the Christian hope, our hope as God’s children.

What does that hope do for us? Verse three, “All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” 

Because we have hope for our future - promised by God in his Word, individually promised to us through Baptism -  we live, here and now, as his children. We reflect his character in our lives. This is something all people readily understand; we view the character of children as reflective of the character of their parents. Now, sometimes that’s unfair. But it’s how we humans view things. 

Likewise, we children of God reflect his character to the world. We do so as we live in the ways Jesus described in our Gospel reading. When we live “meek” lives; when we “hunger and thirst for righteousness;” when we are “merciful” and “peacemaking;” we reflect our Father and our Brother to the world. We do so while clinging to God’s promise. Our status as his children is not predicated on our righteous actions, but on his grace. We Are Who We Are Because He Is Who He Is. Amen.