Know Your Family (Part 1 of 2)

Introduction: The Book of 1 John as a Roadmap

It has been a while since we have seen you, and to jog our memories, we have been going through the book of 1 John. This book has a very important message for every Christian, but especially for us as a youth group. It is easy for people to come into a youth group saying they are Christians, doing the same things and saying the same things as the rest, making public demonstrations that could be considered righteous. Yet the moment they leave church and go home to their private lives or hang out with other friends, the way they live and act clearly indicates they are not Christians.

The book of 1 John is a roadmap for identifying what a real Christian actually looks like and does. There are important concepts about what a Christian is and what a Christian does. These are the three points in this passage: a Christian demonstrates they are Christian.

If you are a soccer player, there are things that indicate you are a soccer player. Construction workers, painters, mechanics—each has distinctive marks. Painters come home covered in paint. Mechanics have oily, muscular hands. These are indicators of identity. Our world is against stereotyping, yet people fall into stereotypes by how they act, dress, and live. The more time you spend with someone, the easier it is to see what group they belong to.

My question is: If someone who did not know you started hanging out with you, would they quickly recognize you are a Christian, a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ? People rarely say "follower of Jesus Christ." It is easy to say you are a believer, but are you devoted, committed? The term "Christian" was originally an insult—"little Christs"—because their lifestyle, behavior, actions, commitments, devotions, beliefs, and practices reminded people of Jesus. In the first century, when Jesus was well-known, his followers were immediately recognizable.

Is that the case with you? Or would someone have a hard time believing you are a Christian because your life looks no different from a worldly unbeliever's? Like two similar-looking ducks, people question how they could be different.

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. 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. 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. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

1. Who We Are: Children of God

There are two types of identities in these verses, becoming more intense as we go through chapter 3. One fascinating description is that genuine believers are legitimate children of God. When you become a Christian, you are adopted into God's family, and God makes you in your nature an actual child of God through regeneration and sanctification, conforming us to his image.

If you claim to be a Christian, you are a member of God's family—a child of God. We are children now, and we do not know exactly what we will be like, but we will become like him. Why is this significant in 1 John? Children of God act completely differently than children of the world, who are children of Satan. There is no third group. You are either a child of God or a child of Satan.

Jesus told the Pharisees, who claimed Abraham as their father, that their father was Satan. You are not neutral; you exist in one state. Either you believe, practice righteousness, confess sins, and do not continue in sin—or you are a child of Satan. Do children of Satan act, behave, and believe the same as children of God? No. If obvious, apply it to your life and assess where you are.

2. What We Do: Practice Righteousness and Love

Everyone who hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning practices lawlessness. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.

For a child of God, there is a specific activity: spiritual purification. It is an issue of holiness and sanctification. There is no neutral ground. What does your activity look like? The child of God spends time purifying themselves—an ongoing action. The Greek verb agnizō means to morally revolutionize and purify, like the Nazirites in the Old Testament.

They actively investigate their behavior to see if it is biblically correct. During the Protestant Reformation, Reformers examined God's law not to earn favor, but to please God and demonstrate purity. The law showed ways to live differently from the world—like avoiding what Canaanites did.

Purity includes sexual purity, rejecting worldly views on sexuality, genders, and marriage. Abstain from drunkenness, be filled with the Spirit. Examine shows you watch, songs you listen to, people you spend time with. Purifying yourself means moral and spiritual reform.

If regenerated and a new creation, yet living the same, is that evidence of being a child of God? A bully who continues abusing after professing faith? No. But exceptional church attendance, studying Scripture, hours in prayer, serving Christians? That makes sense. When was the last time you spent even 15 minutes in prayer with the God who saved you?

A genuine child of God spends time talking to God, blessing and serving other Christians. It is bizarre to claim to be God's child yet ignore his people. Hebrews 6 compliments those who love and serve God's people as evidence of salvation.

By this it is evident who are children of God and children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

3. What We Don't Do: Practice Sin

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. Jesus appeared to take away sins. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil.

The key term is practice—like practicing a sport. Soccer players practice soccer, not volleyball. Violinists practice violin for hours. Yet Christians spend less time on their relationship with God than on hobbies.

Practicing sin means making a habit of it—doing it so much it becomes muscle memory. Christians after years of bad habits struggle to stop, but the born-again do not make habits of sinning.

Examples: chewing your lip until it bleeds out of habit; boredom leading to pornography. The LGBTQ lifestyle makes sin a habit and demands celebration—the Bible disagrees. Alcoholics wanting validation for drunkenness. Psychology labels and solidifies the habit.

But when you repent and believe, you break sinful habits and form godly ones: studying Scripture, praying, serving believers and unbelievers, evangelizing. These are far more enjoyable than old sinful habits. We are not telling you to do something boring—we are telling you to do something significantly more enjoyable.

Identifying Sin as Habit

One of the things we need to do is stop and really examine our lives to find out if the sin remaining within our lives has become a habit. Sometimes I sin without even thinking about it. That's what you can do with a habit: engage in the activity without thinking.

When you drive for a long period of time, it's crazy because you can get into the driver's seat, drive around town, and there's little thought process that has to go into it. There are times when I was living up in Santa Fe and commuting back down to Albuquerque that I would be driving long stretches of road and not even remember the past five minutes. Pretty scary, but there's a certain degree of okayness in the fact that it's muscle memory. I drive that road constantly—driving without even thinking critically about what you're doing.

You know what it's like in driver's ed for those who have experienced it. You're behind the wheel with this instructor next to you. He's probably creepy, maybe smells a little bit. You're driving, really thinking about everything. In fact, sometimes you're overthinking it. What do you have to think about? Where do my hands go? I need to buckle up. I need to check mirrors. There's a car 20 feet away—I might die. You're analyzing everything significantly.

But as time goes on, some people get lazy and lax in their driving because it's just a habit. Statistics show you're actually a better driver fresh out of driver's ed than if you've been doing it for 30 years—because you're thinking more critically about it.

Making Repentance a Habit

The idea of making something a practice or habit is that you do it so much you can do it without thinking about it. That's what repentance is: thinking about something to the point where you're no longer doing it, thinking about what to replace it with, practicing it so much that you no longer have to think about it anymore.

My hope is that in the coming weeks, you really spend time analyzing how much time you're spending doing pure, godly, holy things—and how much time you're actively thinking about things that are wrong in order to correct them and replace them with what is right. Make a practice of righteousness. Don't make a practice of sin. That's how you tell the difference between those who genuinely say those words and those who do not.