Sunday LinkUp – 14April2024

Today is the third Sunday of the Easter season, when we remember the resurrected Christ, our risen Saviour and Lord.

This week’s theme is new identity, new power.

OPENING SONG

SPEAKING OF LIFE

• Since Jesus sees the Father, He is compelled to share him with us.
• Listen to the interplay between experiencing God personally and witnessing to him publicly in this Psalm:  
• The more we turn to him and come to see and know him the more our witness of him will naturally flow out of us.  We won’t need any fancy marketing campaigns.   We will just tell that epic story as we experienced it. 

SERMON      

1 John 3:1-7  Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of ^[a]God!  Therefore the world does not know ^[b]us, because it did not know Him.   ² Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.   ³ And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.  

⁴ Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.  ⁵ And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.  ⁶ Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.

⁷ Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.  

CLOSING SONG

CLOSING PRAYER

SHARING TIME

BENEDICTION

1 John 1:1-9  That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— ² the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— ³ that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. ⁴ And these things we write to you that ^[a]your joy may be full.

⁵ This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

2 My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin.  And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. ² And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only  but also for the whole world.

³ Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. ⁴ He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵ But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God ^[b]is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. ⁶ He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

^7 [c]Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard ^[d]from the beginning. ⁸ Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

⁹ He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. ¹⁰ He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. ¹¹ But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.  

¹⁵ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. ¹⁷ And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.  

¹⁸ Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the^[e] Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.  

²⁰ But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you^[f] know all things. ²¹ I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. 

²² Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?  He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. ²³ Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.  

²⁴ Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.  ²⁵ And this is the promise that He has promised us — eternal life.  

²⁶ These things I have written to you concerning those who try to ^[g]deceive you.  ²⁷ But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you ^[h]will abide in Him.   

²⁸ And now, little children, abide in Him, that ^[i]when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. ²⁹ If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.  

Being Who You Are

1 John 3:1-7 ESV

For today’s message on the third Sunday of Easter, we will remain with the Apostle John’s writings, only we are going to change books.  Instead of looking at John’s Gospel, we are going to look at a letter John wrote to a close community of believers who had been exposed to some false teachers.  These false teachers were former members of this community who left and took some followers with them.  So, John is writing to remind those who remained loyal to the community of believers the truth that goes back to “the beginning.”  This Truth, as John begins his letter, is Jesus himself, who came down as the Incarnation to bring us into eternal life.  So, for the season of Easter, we can read John’s short passage today as a reminder of the new beginning we are given in Jesus on account of his resurrection.  Easter changes everything.  And one of the key changes it makes for us is defining our true identity and helping us live out of that reality every day.  John reminds them, and us, of whose we are, so we can live being who we are.

I’m sure we can all recount times in our life that our identity has been challenged.  A time of crisis or challenge can shake our beliefs down to the roots and cause us to question who we are.  When it comes to the reality of our identity in Christ, this becomes an issue of having our faith shaken.

In the wake of false teachers who have inflicted losses on those John addresses as “little children,” John knows he needs to build their faith by reminding them of who they are in light of their relationship with the risen Lord.

This letter is included in the canon of scripture as the Holy Spirit knew we too would need this constant reminder.  As was stated in last week’s sermon, the Easter season is a time when the church can once again revisit the biblical witness of the risen Jesus along with the blessing that comes to those who put their trust in him.  John is trying to restore the trust of his “little children” in Jesus, by writing a letter that we now can read for restoration of our own.  As we read, we will discover some beautiful blessings that come to those who live in trusting obedience as “little children” who belong to the Father on account of the risen Lord.

As a backdrop, it is good to be aware of a hideous practice that was common in the Roman Empire at the time of the writing of this letter.  John is writing to people who understood the Roman practice that took place when a child was born to a Roman family. The child would be placed on the floor at the father’s feet.  If the father accepted the child, he would reach down and pick the child up to indicate that the father has accepted the child as his own.  The child would then become part of the family, taking on the family name and all the benefits thereof.  If the father did not choose to accept the child, he would walk away, leaving the child to be cast out on the streets.  This barbaric practice may have been the norm in the culture of the time, but it was not the message of Good News about Jesus’ Father.  This is why Christians during that time were known to rescue these abandoned children that had been so inhumanely cast out.  John, in this passage, grounds our identity in the Good News that the Father has reached down into our humanity and lifted us up in his Son, Jesus Christ.  The Father is one who loves all his children, and he never turns his back on us.  This is a Father we can trust, who places his name on us, and who gives us all the blessings that come with that trust.

If we are going to grow in our trust in the Father, we must come to see more and more who he is.  Is he like the Roman fathers who may or may not turn us away and leave us for dead?  Or is he the Father Jesus reveals to us?  This is a big reason Jesus had to come in the flesh.  The Incarnation provides for us a revelation of the Father.  Everything we see Jesus do and say reveals something about who the Father is.  Understanding God as Trinity is essential for this understanding which the early church grasped and passed down to us.  It springs from Jesus’ own words to us when he says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), and, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”  On this biblical and theological foundation we have the historically orthodox understanding of Jesus as the self-revelation of the Father.  Jesus never does anything or says anything that would contradict the Father’s own heart and character.  It is from this foundation that John is going to boldly proclaim the love of the Father for us and remind us what we have been given as his children.

Specifically, as we go through the passage, we will be able to see four aspects of our identity as children of God.

1. Peace
2. Permanence
3. Personhood
4. Participation

A reminder of who God is as our loving Father can safeguard us against the lies and deceptions that false teachers, and the evil one pulling their strings, use to lure us away from the community of faith.  If you have struggled with your faith and identity because of some confusing rhetoric from outside the church, and even more disturbing, from within the church, then listen to John’s words of affirmation of who we truly are in Jesus Christ.  We will be reminded that we are the Father’s children who have been claimed, loved, and eternally embraced in the death, resurrection, and ascension of his own beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

Let’s begin with the first verse of our text to see the first of four realities about our identity established in Jesus Christ:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.   The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. (1 John 3:1 ESV)

Peace

There is no conflict between being “called children of God” and actually being his child.  Our identity as belonging to the Father is not in label only.  The Father calls us children and we know the Father does not tell a lie.  Being a child of God is the most fundamental truth of our identity.  We may not always experience being known by others in this way, but it does not change the reality of who we are.  We cannot expect the world to tell us who we are.  We do not belong to the world; we belong to the Father.  The world with all its allure will clamor to have you place your identity in anything other than Jesus, the true Lord and King of this world.

The next verse contains two realities regarding our identity in Christ:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2 ESV)

Permanence    

Being a child of God is not a potential or some idealistic dream for the future.  It is our identity “now.”  We may not fully see our identity now, but we can trust that it is who the Father made us to be.  We are included in the Sonship of Jesus and therefore share in the very life and relationship between the Father and his Son in the Spirit.  Our identity of being a child of God will never be revoked any more than Jesus will cease being the Son of the Father.

Personhood

The full revelation of who we are as children of God is grounded in a face-to-face relationship with Jesus.  Our personhood is fully seen in the person of Jesus.  We are not fundamentally “individuals” but rather persons in relationship.  We do not realize or actualize our own identity from a center within ourselves.  Our identity is centered in Jesus Christ.

• When we look elsewhere, we remain confused about our identity as children of God.

The final four verses give us our fourth reality regarding our identity along with some implications of living this reality out in our daily lives:

And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.  Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.  You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.  No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.  Little children, let no one deceive you.  Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.  (1 John 3:3-7 ESV)

Participation

The Father did not claim us as his children just so he could put us on a shelf for decoration.  He created us to be real participants in the divine life.  We are made to participate in the very life the Son has with his Father.  As we participate, we are truly being who we are intended to be.  This is the good life of faith, hope and love.  We don’t have to create this life for ourselves.  We can participate in it as blessed children of the Father for that is indeed who we are.

Children receive all their Father has to give them.  They do not have to earn it by making a name for themselves.  The Father’s name has already been placed on them.  The lie we may be tempted to believe is that the Father really wants slaves, not sons and daughters.  This is a false teaching deeply embedded in our world, tempting us to ground our worth and value in what we can do or produce (for the Master) rather than who we are as children of the Father.  If you ever seen the 2005 Batman movie, Batman Begins, you may recall the scene where Batman reveals his identity to his childhood girlfriend by saying, “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”  This can illustrate how we too can go through life hiding behind the mask of “good works,” finding our identity in what we do (or don’t do).  Like Batman, we can become vigilantes by taking of the fruit of “The Knowledge of Good and Evil.”  We decide for ourselves what is right and wrong and choose to be the source of our own identity.  But, unlike Batman who lives a double life, we do not define ourselves by an identity we can carve out by our own works.  We do not achieve our identity, rather we receive it from the one we belong to, our Heavenly Father.

This is the context John has in mind when talking about sin.  Sin, which is nothing short of thinking and acting as if we are not the children of God, has no place in the life of his children.  When we participate in sin, we are not participating in the life we have in Christ.  We are not receiving our identity he gives us in his Son.  We may be trying to achieve our personal identity for ourselves, in one way or another.  However, the Father has placed his name on us.  John’s pronouncement that sin is lawlessness reminds us to live out of the true identity of who we are.  The word “lawlessness” comes from the Greek word “anomia” which means “without name.”  We are not without name.  The Father has lifted us up, claiming us, placing his name on us and giving us full fellowship in the family.  John doesn’t want us to be deceived about our true identity.  He wants us to live out the identity we have already been given in Jesus Christ.