Rightly Called Children of God
God loves His children deeply.
The first thing on our minds when we remember God, and we remember that God has saved us is that He loves us.
Let me be more specific: when we have chosen to make Jesus our Lord, when we have believed in the Name of Jesus the Son of God and chosen to follow Him and no other, and we have believed that God has raised Him from the dead, God has accepted us forever into His family. This family relationship is characterized most of all by unconditional, boundless love. God loves us. John starts out 1 John 3 by reminding us, “See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children — and we are.” We are most of all loved as God’s children.
John goes on and tells us two things that will characterize our lives present and future as God’s beloved children.
The first is that we will begin being transformed into the image or likeness of Jesus Christ. I love that John begins by saying how this process is going to end up. He says in 1 John 3:2-3 that when we see Jesus either when we die or at the end of all things, the purification and transformation process that begins at our salvation is going to reach completion because we are going to see Jesus. John says essentially, ‘we don’t know everything that will happen when we get to heaven, but we know that we’re going to be like Jesus.’ It’s a wonderful and wonderfully encouraging promise.
John goes on and says the character of a saved person demands a particular response to this news. In other words, the Holy Spirit that lives inside all believers demands that we respond to this promise of final purification and transformation into Christlikeness. Our right response is that we begin to join with the Holy Spirit in this transformation work now. Peter says in 2 Peter 1:5-7 that because of our salvation and the promises of God and the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we should, “make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”
Peter’s point is the same as John’s: we don’t coast in our Christian life just because we know we will eventually be made perfect. We join with the Holy Spirit in working on this process now. We begin our purification now. As John says, we purify ourselves, just as Jesus is pure. (1 John 3:3)
John goes on and says that this will naturally put us in conflict with the world. The world is going to do evil deeds. It isn’t being purified by the work of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t going to be purified by looking at Jesus the way someone who sees Jesus is at the end. The world isn’t in a child-Father relationship with God the way we are.
So John reminds us to expect the world to hate us, but at the same time, John reminds us that we should look different than the world. Similarly, John says that it’s okay for us to acknowledge that our actions are going to be different than the world. Our morality is going to be different. We aren’t going to be able to do the things that they do. We aren’t going to be able to say, “this is good,” to the things the world loves. The world is following a different path. They have a different goal. John wants us to remember that our standard isn’t and never will be the world or what the world says is good. Our standard is always Jesus and what He says is good and, more starkly, what we will see when we see Him.
So what will we do? We will live as His children. John says remember God’s love for you. Hebrews 10:11-14 reminds us that God looks at His saved children and sees the perfection of Jesus instead of our sin, just like 1 John 3:1-3 reminds us of the love that God has for us as His children. So we don’t live in fear. We remember that God knows us intimately. If we are God’s children, He knows our sins, and He forgives us completely and forever. He knows our failures, and He accepts us fully. So we don’t fear. We purify ourselves. We live differently. We live like God’s children.
It’s okay for us to acknowledge that there’s a certain way a child of God should live. John says it’s the way of love. Just in case we’re confused, he also says it’s the way that’s free from sin. Those two things are not in conflict with each other. We need to lean into the life God has prepared for us. The world will tell us that its way is freedom - even love. But it isn’t.
God is the keeper of the good way. As John has said in 1 John 2: if anyone would abide in Jesus, they must walk just as Jesus walked. So we don’t fear, but we must purify ourselves, just as Jesus is pure.