Finding Confidence as a Child of God...

At the church where I serve we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled Connect. During this series, we are looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of 1 John. During this series, we are going to discover the components that make for true connection and community. During this series, we are going to discover the landmines and roadblocks that keep us from true connection and community. And as we go through this series, our hope and our prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts, and hands, in a way that moves us to the place where we can experience the connection and community with God and one another that we were created and designed to experience.  

This week I would like for us to spend our time together picking up where we left off last week. And as we jump into the next section of this letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of John, we will see John reveal for us another timeless truth when it comes to how we can experience the connection and community with God and one another that we were created and designed to experience. So let’s jump into the next section of this letter together, beginning in 1 John 2:28-29:

Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. ²⁹ If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.

John begins this section of letter by commanding the members of the church at Ephesus, who, as we have seen throughout this series, were every near and dear to his heart, to abide in Him. As we have seen throughout this series, this phrase “abide in Him” literally means to not leave a certain realm or sphere. John here is commanding followers of Jesus throughout history to remain in connection and community with Jesus as followers of Jesus.

John then provides the reason behind his command by stating that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. John is pointing the readers of his letter throughout history to the climactic scene that will occur at the end of God’s story here on earth, when Jesus Christ will return to earth. John’s point here is that those who remain in close connection and communion with Jesus will have a confidence and boldness in that relationship and connection when they see Him face to face. This confidence and boldness comes from knowing that they had lived in genuine and authentic relationship and connection with Jesus that leveraged their time, treasure, and talent into the kingdom mission that they had been given by Jesus.

When John uses the phrase “to shrink away in shame”, he is referring to those who we looked at last week who rejected the message and teaching of Jesus to instead follow false teaching. John is revealing the reality that those who fail to remain in connection and community with God by rejecting the message and teaching of Jesus to instead follow false teaching will find themselves ashamed and will experience disgrace of the worst kind at His second coming. This shame and disgrace will occur as the result of the realization that those who rejected the message and teaching of Jesus and attempted to fill the empty spaces in their lives through pleasure, possessions, or position will have leveraged their lives into a lie.

Then, in verse 29, John explained to the members of the church at Ephesus, and followers of Jesus throughout history, that “if you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him”. But what does that mean? What is John’s point here? To fully understand what John is communicating here, we first need to look at a section of an account of Jesus life in the Bible, called the gospel of John. Because it is in the first section of the gospel of John that we see John provide the answers to this question. So let’s discover the answer to this question together, beginning in John 1:12-13:

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

In these verses we see John unpack what he means when he uses the phrase receive Him. However, to fully be able to wrap our minds around the significance of what John is saying here, we first need to wrap our mind around some words. When John uses the word received here, this word means to recognize and acknowledge one’s authority.  John’s point here is that Jesus provides the person who recognizes and acknowledges who He is as God in a bod the capability to experience a change in their nature that results in entry into a relationship with God as part of the family of God.

John then answers the question “how does one receive Jesus” with the statement “to those who believe in His name”. Now the phrase believe in here, in the language that this letter was originally written in, is the same word that is also translated trust in our English Bible. This word literally means to entrust oneself with complete confidence to someone or something. John’s point here is that when we respond to Jesus making Himself known to us by placing our confident trust in Him and recognizing and acknowledging who He is by accepting Him as being large and in charge of our lives, we become a part of the family of God.

That is what John is referring to in verse 13 when he uses the phrase “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” The phrase were born refers to the process by which one becomes part of the family of God as a child of God. In verse 13, we see John reveal three ways that one does not become a part of the family of God.

First, John reveals that we do not become a part of the family of God by being born of blood. This phrase refers to one’s physical birth parents and family tree. In other words, we do not become a part of the family of God in relationship with God by being born into the right family. Just because your parents or grandparents are Christians does not mean that you are automatically a follower of Jesus. And being a part of the family of God has nothing to do with one’s nationality, or ones ethnic or cultural background.

Second, John reveals that we do not become a part of the family of God by the will of the flesh. Now, the will of the flesh refers to our sexual desires. John’s point is that we do not become children of God simply because our parents desired to have children and acted on that desire to have children. Our sexual desires that result in physical birth does not result in our spiritual birth as a child of God.

Third, John reveals that we do not become a part of the family of God by the will of man. The will of man refers to our desires as human beings. John’s point here is that we do not become children of God simply because there are people around us who desire us to. And it is not our desire to perform for God by keeping a list of rules for God that results in us becoming a part of the family of God.

Instead, John explains that we become a part of the family of God as a child of God because we are born of God.  John here is revealing for us the reality that becoming a part of the family of God as a child of God is solely the result of God’s transformational activity in our lives. It is only through God’s transformational activity in our lives that flows from His desire to bring us into an eternal relationship with Him that results in us becoming a child of God as a part of the family of God.

We see Jesus Himself reveal this reality in a conversation that Jesus had with a man named Nicodemus that is recorded for us in an account of Jesus life that was also written by John. So let’s look at a part of that conversation together, beginning in John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

When Jesus uses the phrase kingdom of God, He is referring to God’s royal reign. You see, the Jewish people were looking for a rescuer, a deliverer, a Messiah who God had promised would bring the Jewish people back to God and back to prominence in the world. Jesus told Nicodemus that, in order to be a part of this kingdom with the Messiah, one must be born again. This little phase, born again, in the language that this letter was originally written in, literally means to be born from above. We see Jesus continue to engage Nicodemus in verse 4-8:

Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? "Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. "Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Jesus statement here, if communicated in the language we use today would have sounded something like this: “No Nicodemus, you cannot enter into the womb again, you cannot be born from above because of something you do. To be born from above is something that the Spirit of God does to you. In the same way that you have been brought into the world physically in a way that resulted in you entering into a relationship with your earthly parents, you also have to be brought into a relationship with God by the Spirit of God. Nicodemus, you should not be surprised at what I am telling you. It’s like the wind. The wind moves throughout the world every day. And no one has any control over the wind. The wind does whatever it desires. The wind starts when it wants to start; the wind goes where it wants to go; the wind ends when it wants to end. Just as no one can control the wind, no one can control the activity of the Holy Spirit and what He does in bringing people to the place where they are brought into a relationship with God that results in them being a part of the Kingdom and family of God.”

Now looking back at 1 John 2:29, when John uses the word righteous, this word refers to something that is upright, just, and fair. So when John uses the word righteous about Jesus Christ, he is proclaiming that Jesus is right in character and is always right and just in His actions.

You see, as John remembered and reflected on Jesus conversation with Nicodemus, the point that John wanted to make unmistakably clear is that if we know that Jesus is totally just, fair, and right in character and actions, then the person whose life is marked by doing what is just and right reveals the reality that they have a genuine and authentic relationship and connection with Jesus as part of the family of God. John is revealing the reality that it is the life of a person who reveals and reflects Jesus in their character and conduct that produces the confidence that, when Jesus returns, they will enter into the fullness of the community and connection with God that they were created for as part of the family of God. 

And as John continues in his letter to these early followers of Jesus, we see John transition to reveal the reason why followers of Jesus can have confidence as a result of their connection with Jesus as a part of the family of God.

We will discover that reason tomorrow...