1 John 3:1-7 (NLT)
See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.
Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.
Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous.
This is the second sermon in a six-part series, “Children of God.” It is written in conjunction with Life Group Bible studies held through Luminary United Methodist Church in Ten Mile, Tenn.
As we’ve already discovered in our opening sermon and first Life Group study, God is relational. Most of us have heard the assertion “God is love,” but we sometimes fail to make the connection that God’s love implies a desire for a close relationship.
Thinking God wants us near him is hardly a leap of imagination, though. “I have loved you from afar” is a poignant statement, not a happy one. We automatically understand a long-distance romance to be a difficult situation for lovers. Loving parents do not want to be separated from their children indefinitely; there may be no greater pain for a parent. God’s love for us is no different.
Created in God’s image, we also are very capable of love, although our ability to love is hampered by sin. As we understand how much we are loved by God—as we experience how love was expressed in action on the cross, feel that love through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and grow in that love by being in community—we should find ourselves able to love more freely. And as we grow in love, we also see the reason for pursuing holiness, an act of love that has so often been misunderstood.
Love in Action
Holiness is just a churchy word meaning we behave as God would have us behave. It’s a difficult concept for people who resist or reject Christianity because they perceive conversations about holiness as evidence of God’s authoritarianism, or worse, a church’s attempt to control society at large.
By the way, this is why I don’t like to see Christian behavior forced on people through government legislation—such tactics simply reinforce the idea that churches exist to impose rules rather than offer a loving relationship.
But the call to holiness you hear from God in Scripture and through Holy Spirit-inspired churches has nothing to do with such negative motives. We simply are being reminded to live in a way that should be a natural response to God’s overwhelming love.
John goes so far as to make a bold, flat statement: “Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin.” That’s from the New Living Translation; older or more formal translations use that wonderful but slightly anachronistic word “abide.”
John is talking about people who stay so spiritually close to Jesus that it is as if they were pressed against him, like the beloved disciple in the dinner scene in John’s gospel, or the woman who knelt to anoint the Savior’s feet and wash them with her hair.
Abiding is much more than being in the building with Jesus, or even the same room with Jesus. When we find ourselves asking, “Why am I still trapped in sin,” a good follow-up question might be, “How far have I strayed from Jesus lately?” Odds are, we’re not truly abiding, gazing at him through our study of Scripture or leaning against him in prayer and worship.
Little Children
Let me switch back to the image of a loving parent and child. Where are children the safest? Well, when they are near a loving parent, of course. It’s hard to get into trouble when you’re holding a parent’s hand.
In the wrong setting, even the slightest distance between child and parent can mean potential trouble. As good parents, we’re always trying to manage that distance, sometimes literally keeping our children on a short leash.
When my oldest child was beginning to move from toddling to real walking and running, we bought a springy little wrist tether so she would have more freedom to move when we were out in public. I still remember attaching the adult end to my left wrist and the complicated system of velcro and watchband-style straps to her right wrist.
Being spatially gifted, she studied it for about five seconds and had it undone, proudly handing it back to me. I did the only thing I could do—I went back to holding her hand.
It’s good for children to have that desire to be independent from us. Ultimately, their instinct to go it alone makes it possible for them to grow into independent adults, although parents certainly have to manage those impulses over a couple of decades.
Acting like independent-minded children in our relationship with God is a bad idea, though. We are not little gods, needing to pull away in order to grow. We instead are part of God’s creation, designed to abide in our Creator for all eternity. We grow by remaining close to the Father.
In fact, the author of 1 John makes an interesting promise: Abide long enough, and we not only will see Christ, we one day will be surprised at how much we resemble the one who has shown the greatest love of all. We will not be gods, but we will bear the same purity and speak the same glorious truth as our Savior.
Those of you in Life Groups will learn more this week about how we can help each other live into our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In the meantime, stay close to God every moment of every day, and if you fail in some way, run back to the one who loves you perfectly.
The featured image is a depiction of Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus’ feet. It is a detail from an altar in Saint Vincent Church in Heiligenblut, Austria.
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