Living as a Child of God
John 1:10-14
Where do you stand with Jesus?
What is your relationship to Jesus Christ? I’m not asking what you think about Him, but what your relationship with Him is.
So far in his gospel John has introduced us to two characters: Jesus, so far only known as The Word, The Creator, as God, as the Light and as the Life. The second character is John the baptiser, and his role was to prepare people to receive Jesus and believe in Him when He made Himself known.
Having introduced us to these two key characters, the Apostle John now moves on to introduce us to two categories of people. This is where the attention turns to us. We are now in the story. Every one of us will fit either in the first group that John describes or into the second group, and which group you fit into depends entirely on your relationship to Jesus Christ.
Our Rejection of God
John 1:10-11
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.[1]
Do you understand how amazing that is? Jesus created the world, but when He came into the world He was not recognised for who He was. He was thought of as a carpenter’s son, a Nazarene, as a teacher, miracle worker, trouble-maker and even demon possessed. He wasn’t recognised as being the Word, the Creator, God, the Life and the Light.
He came to those who had been specifically chosen by God as His special people – ones who had the laws of God and the words of the prophets to help them be ready to receive the Messiah, their promised King, but even the people of Israel
Do you know what it’s like to be misjudged and mistreated? It hurts, doesn’t it?
I have a sneaking suspicion that most people in this room carry with them wounds caused by rejection and harsh judgement by others. I certainly do, and everyone I know well does also. I’ve heard their stories.
How do we deal with that rejection? It can crush our spirit and cause us to become self-protective, pulling back from others and never being the messengers of truth and love that God wants us to be. It can produce bitterness and resentment which poisons our spirit and stops us from experiencing God’s truth and love in the first place.
How did Jesus deal with it? He didn’t allow the rejection or harsh opinion of others to change who He is. God is love, and despite our rebellion and hostility toward Him, he has always loved us.
In Matthew 23 we read of a fiery conversation that Jesus is having with the religious leaders, pointing out their sins against God and announcing the judgement that will befall the nation. In the middle of that Jesus says this:
Matthew 23:37
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
Jesus cannot force his love upon these people, but even in the midst of their rejection of Him He still longs to gather them into his loving and protective embrace.
Less than a week later these people have poured out their hatred upon Him, having Him tortured and crucified. Even in the midst of His torment He looks upon them and says “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)
Have you struggled because of the way that you have been judged or treated by others? Have you struggled because of the way people you care about have been judged or treated by others?
Jesus understands. He knows how to persevere and overcome. No matter how bad things are or were you don’t have to be crushed or embittered, with Jesus as your strength and shield.
Psalm 28:7 says:
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
If you are struggling to experience the help of Jesus and follow the example of Jesus in this area please come and talk to me about that. I know what it’s like to carry hurt around, I know how great it is to be free of it, I know how satisfying it is to see God grow you through it. I’d love to share some stories from my own life and principles from the Bible, pray with you and work these things through. Don’t be destroyed by harsh judgement and bad treatment – and don’t do that to others!
Jesus was in the world, coming to His own people, yet His own did not receive Him. Verse 12 continues…
John 1:12-14
12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
We’re going to spend a bit of time this morning thinking about what it means to be children of God. Before we do that we need to define just who is a child of God.
Our Alienation from God
There are many people who would say that we are all God’s children. The Bible clearly teaches that God created us and loves us – all of us. Doesn’t that make us in a sense His children? But verse 12 is clear…
12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
We’ll look at what this means in a minute, but before we do we need to recognise that there are two groups of people that John describes in this passage. Verses 10-11 describe people who reject God, verses 12-13 describe people who receive God and are received by God into His family.
Let’s look at the background to this situation…
When God created humanity He made us in His own image – Adam and Eve were a reflection of the character of God. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, mercy, justice and so on were built into them by their Creator. They enjoyed a pure relationship with God and with each other.
Then they chose to listen to Satan, doubted the goodness of God and grasped after equality with Him and independence from Him. Adam and Eve did the one thing they were told not to do, they ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – they wanted to be able to do evil if they chose to, instead of only knowing what was good. Since God is completely pure and undefiled by evil, their relationship with Him was destroyed – not only theirs, but all of their descendants.
God still loved Adam and Eve, He was still their Creator, but they were no longer family. God removed the gift of eternal life with Him – He barred the way to the Garden of Eden where He used to walk with them and where they used to eat from the tree of life. Humanity lost it’s right relationship with God and it’s gift of eternal life with Him.
However we all retain some of the image of our Creator. Every human being is valuable and worthwhile because we bear the noble stamp of our Creator. There is goodness within every person. There is also evil – what we call sin.
Watch the evening news and you will see both. You’ll see bravery, mercy and faithfulness; and you’ll also see violence, greed and selfishness.
One thing you need to recognise is that we are all in the same boat together. None of us is so good as to deserve God’s acceptance, none of us is so evil so as to be beyond His acceptance. That’s the first group that John is addressing – people who are alienated from God.
One of the reasons that John writes this gospel is to invite people who are in that category to be reconciled with God, and that’s what verses 12 onward tell us about.
Our Reconciliation with God
Becoming a Christian is not about agreeing to a set of ideas about Jesus. It’s not passing a “beliefs” test by reciting a bunch of facts about God.
To become a Christian is to receive Jesus. Not a bunch of facts about Jesus, but Jesus Himself. The Word became flesh – he became one of us who we could either receive or reject.
Verse 12 tells us that receiving Jesus involves believing in His name – what is that about?
The phrase “believe in” is used quite often by John, but isn’t very common in other literature of the period. As one scholar has put it: ‘it involves much more than trust in Jesus or confidence in him, it is an acceptance of Jesus and of what he claims to be and a dedication of one’s life to him’[2]
That’s a very important understanding of what Christian faith is all about. When we talk about believing in Jesus, it’s about accepting all that Jesus claims to be and responding appropriately to that. For example, if you believe that Jesus is Lord you are choosing to obey Him in your daily life. You can’t say Jesus is your Lord if you don’t do what He says!
You don’t believe Jesus is the Saviour if your life is controlled by sinful desires or if you are trying to work your way into God’s good books! You don’t believe God is the Creator if you abuse the earth and oppress the poor (Proverbs 14:31).
That’s why when the bible talks about growing in faith it’s not talking about growing in our knowledge about God, it talks about what we really take on board and allow to influence our whole lives.
That’s why faith in God always goes hand in hand with repentance, because we need to turn away from old ways of living in order to respond to who God is and to live in step with Him. As our faith grows we receive more and more of the character of God which is reflected more and more in our attitudes and behaviours.
Don’t ever think that the way you are living right now is the way that God wants you to be living tomorrow! God wants you to be growing in your faith!
2 Thessalonians 1:3
We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.
Keep that verse in mind as we think together about…
Our Renewal by God
If we receive Him, if we believe that Jesus is who the Bible says He is, God also receives us! He adopts us into His family and even gives us new birth. Not only does He accept us as His children but He remakes us as His children! We become “ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
My Dad came to visit the office the other week, and Maxine could tell straight away who He was – there’s a resemblance there! In the same way, when we say that we are children of God we are saying that we bear a resemblance to Him, and it’s an even closer resemblance than we bear to our human parents.
I want us to think about how this plays out in the life of a Christian.
I want you to understand how incredible God’s gift of new birth into His family really is. It’s even better than what Adam and Eve had before they threw it all away. God actually comes to live inside us through His Spirit. We become His children not only because He made us, but because He lives in us.
We have read that when we believe in Jesus we also receive Him. His Spirit comes to live within us, making us new people. He helps us to grow in our faith by revealing more of Jesus, helping us to believe and respond to the truth of who Jesus is. The Bible describes this process as “growing in faith”, “living by the Spirit”, “keeping in step with the Spirit”, “being transformed” and “being saved” among other phrases. One of the big words that you might have heard from time to time is “sanctification”, which basically means becoming more and more God’s – increasingly set apart not to do our own will or follow the pattern of this world, but to belong wholly to God.
The Christians in Thessalonica were growing in their faith, and as a result they resembled God more and more closely – their love for each other was increasing, reflecting the fact that God is love.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians he said that we “are being transformed into [Jesus’] likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:18).
Is that true for you? Is the glorious character of God being increasingly demonstrated in your life?
Let’s go back to our two groups of people for a minute…
The first group demonstrate both good and evil tendencies. They rely only on themselves and support from each other in trying to live a life that they would consider to be worthwhile. They have no expectation of eternal life with God.
The second group have the same good and evil tendencies, but also have the Spirit of God within them, the support of Christian community (the Church) and the foundation of God’s word in order to build a life that testifies to the goodness of God. They have the certainty of eternal life with God not because of anything they have done but because they have received it as a gift from God through faith in Jesus.
Which group would you expect to see most clearly demonstrating forgiveness? Patience? Concern for the poor and oppressed? Mercy toward the suffering? Pure speech? High moral standards? Practical servanthood?
John 1:12 says that “to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”
It doesn’t say “he gave a ‘get into heaven free card’”, it says “he gave the right to become children of God”.
I know a lot of people who have prayed a sinners prayer or agreed with a set of statements about Jesus just in the hope of getting into paradise when they die, and avoiding the terrible fate of hell. Then they go on living just like anyone else in the first group that John talks about. They haven’t received Jesus, they don’t want a relationship with God, they don’t to become like God in character - they just want a free pass to heaven.
The Bible never makes that offer. If you don’t believe me, read through the letter of 1 John a few times and it will become pretty clear to you. If you have received Jesus you are a child of God and you will increasingly live like a child of God – just like those Thessalonian Christians were doing.
When you say that you are a child of God but are really just chasing a free pass to Heaven you make God look bad. People say things like “How could a just God let this selfish, immoral person into heaven just because they prayed some prayer, when this other person over here who’s tried their best to live a good life, who’s been through all sorts of unfair treatment in this life, gets sent to hell?”
Anyone with any sense of justice is offended by that, and so they should be.
Let me make this clear – grace is not fair. Grace is getting what we don’t deserve. We all deserve to be judged by God on the basis of what we have done ourselves. In that case, people who have done worse get a worse penalty. Revelation 20 talks about people being judged according to what they have done.
However it also talks about a book of life. People who are in the Lamb’s book of life are not judged according to what they have done, but according to what He has done for us – he has taken our sin and the penalty for it and given us eternal life in exchange.
When we live as children of God who have been purified from sin we demonstrate the reality of this message – Jesus has set us free from sin to live forever as children of God. If we say that we are Christians but our lives don’t show any evidence of having been set free from sin, we make the message of the gospel look like a lie. God forbid that your lifestyle or mine should make the gospel seem like a lie. People who claim to be God’s children should live like God’s children.
I want you to ask yourself two questions this week:
How am I receiving Jesus right now?
How am I reflecting Jesus right now?
In the middle of an argument how will you receive the truth, peace and love of Jesus that will enable you to reflect Him in how you deal with others?
In your leisure time would you rather do spend time with God or exclude Him? You can play golf or go surfing with God or without Him! Of course God is with us and within His children all the time – but are we living in relationship with Him all the time or are there times when we are alienated from Him?
I remember playing a rather addictive computer game many years ago, and the further the game went the more gruesome it became. I got to the point of eventually conceding that a true child of God cannot enjoy something that is so offensive to God. I’m very competitive and it was hard to leave the game without winning it, but that’s what I needed to do – and life was better off without it.
I’ve noticed in my life that if I’m watching, reading, listening or doing stuff that doesn’t fit with who God is, then I am choosing to not receive Him at those times, which also means I begin to not resemble Him at all times. I start getting more easily angered. I start getting more selfish. I start being more easily tempted by things that wouldn’t normally affect me. It’s a classic case of “garbage in, garbage out”.
However when I include God in my everyday life - in choices about what I do with my time, in the way I go about whatever it is that I am doing - then I receive more and more of His character and the abundance of life that comes only from Him. I begin to reflect Him better to those around me.
When you are choosing what movie to go and watch or flicking through channels with the remote control, ask yourself “How will this affect me receiving and reflecting Jesus?”. When you are deciding where to go with friends, ask yourself “How will this affect me receiving and reflecting Jesus?”. When you are deciding what do to do with your finances, ask yourself “How will this affect me receiving and reflecting Jesus?”. Does that sound weird to you? Start doing it and find out what a difference it makes!
In the middle of whatever you are doing or whatever situation you are in, develop the discipline of asking “What do I need from God right now? What do I need to ask for?” Don’t live as someone without God, you’re His child! Having received what you need from God the next question is “How can I reflect God right now?” Do you need to speak up about something? Do you need to put up with something? Do you need to do something? Whatever it is, you can do it in His strength.
Receive, reflect… Receive, reflect – it’s the pattern of the Christian life.
What does your life say about Jesus? What does your life say about our message that we can become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ?
If you are a child of God, there is an expectation that you resemble Him. So how are your receiving Jesus, and how are you reflecting Jesus right now? How will you do that this week?
Prayer
You might be someone this morning who is in the first group that John addresses, someone who is not yet in God’s family. I pray that God might reveal to you the reality of who He is and how much He loves you and wants you to be His child, enjoying His goodness for eternity. I pray that you would know that because of Jesus your sins are forgiven and that God accepts you as His child, and that you would receive that free gift.
You might be a child of God, but there are things getting in the way of you receiving Jesus in your daily life – unconfessed sin, poor habits, a lack of desire to spend time with Him, busyness or whatever. I pray for you that you would repent – turning away from those other things and turning toward Jesus. I pray that you would get rid of everything that does not fit with Him and would instead keep in step with His spirit who is within you. I pray that as you seek God first in your life that you would be filled more and more with the fullness of Christ that will be shown in your attitudes and behaviours.
Our Heavenly Father, we thank You that we can call You Father. We thank You that Jesus came into this world to give us the chance to either reject or accept You. We thank You that for all who received Him, He has given the right to become children of God. We thank You for Your patience with us, that You endured the rejection and evil treatment of humanity for the sake of those who would be saved.
Help us Father to live as Your children, that our lives might testify to the grace and truth that is in Jesus. You do not treat us as we deserve, but You give us new life, abundant life, eternal life. May our lives this week reflect more than the usual mix of good and evil present in all humanity. May our lives shine forth the radiance of Jesus Christ. Amen.
[1]Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptures are from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids
[2]R. Brown, quoted in Milne, B. (1993). The message of John : Here is your king! :With study guide. The Bible speaks today (44). Leicester , England ; Downers Grove , Ill.
