Sermon 1 John 3:1-7 Children of God

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

First Presbyterian Church of Ocean City

Sermon 1 John 3:1-7 Children of God

April 26, 2015

I am continuing today with the second of a series of sermons drawn from the book of First John. As we saw last week this book was probably written by the pastor of a church that has been ripped in two. People have left the church over the interpretation of the Gospel of John. Most of this is due to the interpretation of the identity of the Son of God in who you must believe to receive eternal life. 

The pastor said unequivocally that the Son of God is none other than Jesus of Nazareth who died, and was raised from the dead. The pastor saw him, touched him and ate with this Jesus. His resurrection was an experienced reality that proves his identity as the Son of God.

Today this pastor will make the analogy that just as Jesus Christ is the Son of God, so too are we children of God. We will see today what this means, but first let's pray.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our rock and redeemer.

1 John 3:1-7 3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

The author of 1 John has called us “children of God”. So our relationship with God is similar to the relationship a child has with a parent. Consider for a moment what it would be like to be a toddler or preschooler again. Also suppose that you have a teacher. Now, let's say that the teacher want to teach you something. How would he or she do it? Or looking at it another way, how does a young child learn?

If a teacher gave a group of 2-year-olds a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannicas, and told the children to read them, what would happen? Well, the 2-year-olds would quickly figure out how to rip pages out of books. That what 2-year-olds do. And they will rip pages out the books until they get bored and move on to something else, or until an adult stops them.

Young children learn not by reading books, but by imitating adults. They see what we do and do it themselves. Over time, around 18 years or so, they see what we do and hear what we say and learn more and more about what it means to be an adult. So, if we are children of God, God's 2-year-olds, how would we learn about God? Would we learn about God by reading books? No. We would learn about God by watching what he does and hearing what he says. Then we would imitate him. And by imitating God we learn more and more about him.

This is why we are to obey the commands of God, by walking in the light of Jesus Christ. Jesus loved God and loved others. So if we imitate him by loving God and loving others we learn more about him. Every time we worship or work in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter or pray, we experience some of the things Jesus experienced and we come to know him better. We can't fully know Jesus by reading about him. We must do what he did. And by imitating him we come to know him, just like we know what it means to be an adult by imitating adults when we were young. So to be children of God means that we imitate Christ to get to know him better.

Of course we could decide to disobey God. We could do those things God does not want us to do. Or we could refuse to do what God wants us to do. And in our disobedience we would also learn something. We would learn more and more about the devil. Cheat on your spouse, steal from your employer, lie to your friends and you will know more and more about the devil who does all these things too. Don't do this. Imitating the devil is never a good idea.

We have found that children learn about their parents by imitating them. But there is something else that happens when young children imitate their parents. When children do what their parents do they grow up into adults. They learn to be adults by imitating what adults do. This is a process that takes eighteen years or so. So too in our relationship with God. As children of God if we do what Christ told us to do then we become more and more like him. We grow into the full stature of Christ. So as we feed the hungry, care for sick, and nurture children we become more and more like Christ who also did all of these things. This is the goal of all Christians: to become more like Christ. As children of God we do this by imitating Christ.

Of course we could grow up imitating the devil. By doing what he does we become more and more like him. We grow in sin and become more and more evil. Don't do this. It doesn't end well.

So far we have seen that as children of God we can know more about God and we can become more like Christ by obeying his commands. But something else happens as well. Let me explain.

How does the world know about God? How would the tourists coming to Ocean City this summer learn more about God? How would the international students who come here to work know more about God? How would the immigrants who study ESL in our church know more about God? How would the people in AA or those working on GEDs come to know about God? We could give them a book to read, but they would probably just rip out the pages or throw it away. The way people in Ocean City come to know God is by watching us. They hear what we say. They see what we do. And if we are faithful in our imitation of Christ then they will see God in us. If visitors to Ocean City imitate us then they will know more and more about who God is, and they will become more and more like Christ. And this is how faith in Jesus Christ grows.

Of course the other is true as well. If we imitate the devil others will too. So if we hang out in bars, engage in casual sex, and pass out drunk on the streets we will become more and more like the devil and visitors to Ocean City will do the same. Don't do this. Don't lead people to Satan by your lifestyle, what you do and say.

I can remember talking to my grandmother. Her mother prayed and read her Bible every day. Her mother took her to church every Sunday. When my grandmother became an adult she continued these practices. To remind her of the importance of obeying Christ's commands a friend gave her a picture with the the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments. My grandmother hung this picture over her bed so that every morning and every evening she would be reminded to pray and obey God's commands.

When my mother was born, my grandmother put this picture in her room so that my mother, by imitation, would learn the importance of daily prayer and righteous living. I found this picture in my Grandmother attic. The newspapers which held the picture in the frame were old and faded. She told me the story of how the picture was given to her after her father died and she had to go live with her brother. She told me how it hung in my mother's bedroom. So I asked for the picture and hung it in my bedroom to remind me to pray every day and obey God's commands. Today that picture hangs in the Pastor's office of First Presbyterian Church reminding me that I am a child of God.

I am concerned about young Christians today. So many of them choose to worship only with other young Christians. Churches have been established just for the young with musical styles and fellowship that caters to them. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that young Christians will not have the opportunity to be in church with people who have been imitating Christ for decades. They won't have the role models of faithful living that young people have had in the past. My prayer is the one day all generations will worship together so young Christians can learn about Christ from people like us.

I recently heard a story about a Presbyterian church in Lake Park Iowa. The pastor of this chirch preached a children's sermon on Jonah. He explained to them that Jonah was reluctant to go to Nineveh to proclaim the love of God. He said that many Christians today also have this reluctance. Well, the children of the church decided to do something about this. A couple of 3^rd and 4^th graders got the other children in the church to contribute almost $100 to support Leisa Wagstaff, a 

Presbyterian educator serving in the southern Sudan. The children of Lake Park wanted to help the children of the Sudan to go to school. Presbyterian children in the Sudan were overjoyed when they received the gift, and one boy said, “They know we exist!”. The adults in Lake Park realized that sometimes real children know how to act as children of God more than adults. So they decided to imitate their children and begin supporting Presbyterian mission activity too. (http://www.pcusa.org/news/2015/3/18/childrens-sermon-moves-iowa-children-support-missi/)

We are all children of God. Our responsibility is to know God as a parent. We do this through the process of imitation. We obey God's commands and do what Jesus did. As we do these things we learn more and more about our God, we become more and more like Christ, and we bring more and more people to Christ by what we say and what we do. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we are your children. We thank you for the love you have given us. We thank you for all the blessings we have received. Strengthen us to imitate you so that we can know you better and be more like you. Use us as role models to help others find you. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.