Blessed Assurance Pt 2 – A new nature
Readings: 1 John 3. 1-10
I wonder how you think about Christian faith? If you were to boil it right down to it’s core what would you find?
We’ve skipped ahead a little in his letter, to chapter 3 past his words about love for one another, we’ll pick them up in a few weeks when he returns to that theme, past his warnings against a group of false teachers, and now at this point John is rejoicing in God’s love and his gift to us. And John states that because of God’s great love for us, we are called his children, indeed we have become his children.
I don’t know what you think makes a Christian. Someone born into a Christian family or in a Christian country. Someone who goes to church. Someone who believes certain things about God and Jesus and the world. And some of that, going to church, believing certain things, are part of what being a Christian involves, but they’re not what being a Christian is. No, for all who have put their faith in Jesus, who have believed in him and in his death and resurrection; we are changed, there’s something different about us John says. Far from our faith being about adding some extra things into your metaphysical inventory, the bag of stuff we believe about the world, faith in Jesus means that we are adopted into God’s family.
Once we were not his children, and yet now through faith we have become his children. We often talk of the Gospel as being about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, to pay the price for our wrongdoing, and rising to life so we can have eternal life. And that’s true, certainly in its mechanical sense. But at its heart is a God who is fundamentally a Father loving his Son, and who longs to bring us into that relationship, to add more children to his family. And so the Son is sent to rescue, ransom and redeem us so that we can be adopted into that family.
And as with any family becoming part of it means things change. We’re no longer outside looking in, we’re brought in, we’re brought in with God, can call the God of the Universe Dad. Jesus who has joined us as our brother in his humanity, we are now joined with him in his risen life. The Holy Spirit is given to us to enable us to live the new life we now have, the life lived with God at it’s centre. Yes it’s about sin and justice and righteousness, we’ll circle back to those themes in a moment, but at it’s heart it’s about the God of the Universe wanting you in his family, to be with you forever.
So right now, if you’ve put your faith in Jesus, you’re a child of God, a Son or Daughter of the King of the Universe. That’s true right now. And John goes on that if we experience friction with the wider world because of that, then we shouldn’t be surprised. If the wider world doesn’t recognise us as one of its own its because it doesn’t recognise the one to whose family we belong, we shouldn’t be surprised. Right now we’re God’s children. What we will be? John isn’t sure. But he does know this. When we finally see Jesus face to face, we’ll be like him. He can’t draw us a diagram, can’t give us a detailed description but he can point us to the one who has gone ahead of us to bring us to where he is. As Jesus is the first of the new humanity, the resurrected humanity, we know that as he is, we will be.
So what are we to do until then. We’re to purify ourselves so that day by day we become like Jesus who is pure. This is part of being in on God’s family, we’re to grow in the family likeness. We’re to start living and acting as children of our Heavenly Father, reflecting his life and goodness in our world. And this is where this section shifts a little because John is really harsh on sin. He declares that it’s lawlessness. That it’s a total rejection of God’s ways. We’re often tempted to play it down as mistakes or personality flaws but John wants us to be clear how serious it is, it’s a rejection of God’s law, and as children of God that shouldn’t be us.
And the he says something in v6 which may trouble us a little.
‘No one who lives in him (Jesus) keeps on sinning; no one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him’.
And we could breeze right past that and perhaps we often do when reading this passage. But lets look at it. ‘No one who lives in him keeps on sinning; no one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him’.
Is John here saying that if we’re truly in Jesus, if we’re truly in on God’s family, that we will no longer sin? Is he saying that when we sin it’s evidence that actually we don’t know Jesus at all. If that’s what he’s saying I’m sure I’m not the only one here who would find that rather troubling. Because we all sin don’t we. The whole reason we have a time of confession near the start of our worship is because we all sin. Every day without fail in big ways and small ways we sin. Does that mean that actually we aren’t Christians, aren’t part of God’s family?
Well no, that’s not what John is saying here thankfully. You’ll remember in the latter part of last week’s chapter that John tells us what we’re to do when we sin, that God is faithful in his forgiveness of us when we confess. So sin meaning we aren’t Christians can’t be what he’s saying here.
No, what he’s saying (and the NIV helps us a little here) is that if we are in Jesus, we can’t continue as we were before, we can’t dwell in sin, carry on living as we want oblivious to it. Not shouldn’t; shoulnd’t dwell, shouldn’t be oblivious, can’t. Because we’ve been changed. Adopted into God’s family we’ve been changed and part of that change is that the Spirit at work within us pushes back against it.
Our new nature as God’s children means that we’ll become both more aware of our sin, we’ll start to notice more and more things we do that God calls us away from, and that we’ll become more repulsed by sin, being part of this family means we don’t actually want to live that way anymore, we find that God’s way brings us life and peace in a way nothing else can. So whenever we sin we’ll feel that inner pull to go back, to repent and go the right way. We cannot live sinful lives anymore, uncaring and unmoved about it, the pull to righteousness is there inside us, God’s Spirit within us will not allow sinfulness to flourish in us unchecked. Far from recognising our sin and wanting to turn from it being a sign that we aren’t God’s children, it’s a sign that we are, that God’s Spirit is at work in us daily conforming us to the image of Jesus, so that at last we shall be like him.
My brothers and sisters, for that is what you are. Our faith isn’t a set of extra beliefs we hold in our heads. It’s the power of God to make us his children, at work within us to day by day grow us in the family likeness. So let us let go of the sin which tempts us, let us not fall back into rebellion and rejection, but instead live out what we are, as God’s children let us live for him, revealing him in our world, until at last we become like Jesus our Saviour.
Amen.