The DNA of “What Makes a Christian” # 2
The DNA of What is a Christian – # 2
12th September 2012 – Wednesday
Matthew 7:
Assurance – “How to Know You Are a Child of God”
My greatest fear as a Pastor is that people think that they are Christians and in fact, Scripturally/Biblically they are not! It’s one thing to be deceived by a con artist, and that’s being your own con artist and “deceiving yourself”. Deception that steals your money is costly, but deception that condemns your soul is fatal.
You must have full assurance of your personal salvation from sin.
The Pharisees thought they were the children of God, but John the Baptist called them a brood of vipers – Matthew 3:7; and Jesus said they were the children of the devil – John 8:44.
It is no wonder then that Jesus issued this solemn warning in Matthew’s Gospel:
Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
What a shock to get to the end of your life and discover that you have been practicing lawlessness – Gk – Anomia – 1) the condition of without law 2) contempt and violation of law, iniquity, wickedness
Instead of Jesus being your Saviour, you find He is your Judge.
Instead of being welcomed into heaven, you are cast away from His presence!
That is the ultimate tragedy of self-deception!
So how can I know for sure that I am a child of God?
This is actually one reason why the Apostle John wrote his first letter:
1John 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may [continue to] believe in the name of the Son of God.
Seven times in his first letter, John used the phrase born of God; and when you summarize these statements, they describe the DNA of what truly is a true child of God!
PRACTICING RIGHTEOUSNESS
The Bible says that when you are born of God, you don’t practice sin:
1 John 3:9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. NIV.
Let me qualify what John is saying here which so many people get confused about. Christians have the ability to sin, but the point John is making is that Christians don’t have the habitual desire TO sin!
God, remember from our last study, has planted His divine nature “God’s seed” within us, and we have acquired new ambitions, new appetites, a new life.
Paul puts this beautifully in 2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone [is] in Christ, [he is] a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Now Christians are tempted, but it is not a sin to be tempted – remember Jesus was tempted and He was sinless.
The fact we do not consistently yield to temptation or deliberately try to get into situations where we tempt ourselves indicates that God has changed our hearts!
Now, there are times when a person is converted to Christ who has been under the bondage of a certain bad habit and immediately that habit no longer holds them, it’s gone.
But not all Christians enjoy that kind of immediate deliverance and they find themselves struggling to over come old ways, old habits, old enemies.
They find themselves asking themselves over and over, “Are they really born again?”
But the very fact that they don’t want to cling to or live their old way of life is an indication that new desires have been planted in their hearts!
So, according to the Apostle John, for ‘professing Christians’ to love sin – and habitually make every effort to enjoy sin – is PROOF that they are NOT really born of God!
We would naturally expect unsaved people to live, according to the course of this world…fulfilling the desires of the flesh – Ephesians 2:2-3.
BUT true children of God don’t live that way.
So what 1 John 3:9 states negatively, 1 John 2:29 states positively: If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
When you are truly born again, you amazingly realize that you have a powerful new desire to obey God and do what is right!And this new desire reveals itself in the little things of life as well as the big things.
You find, for example, that you are becoming more and more sensitive to the sins that are in so called good standing like pride, gossip, self-will and criticism; and you ask the Lord to help you overcome them!
Not practicing sin – which is the negative – and practicing righteousness – which is the positive – are obvious in the DNA of a true child of God.
LOVING OTHERS
When you are born of God your life is motivated by love!
1John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
1 John 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. NIV
Now since God is love – 1 John 4:8,16. And those who are born of God have God’s nature within them, it is therefore reasonable to expect that the children of God will too act like the Father and manifest love.
Remember – what we DESIRE and what we DO depend largely on the nature we possess.
My human nature – beach, surf, outdoors, classical music.
It’s the Christian’s desire to experience and express the very love of God in what is basically selfish and violent world!
One of the FIRST evidences that I had been born again was a powerful desire to be with God’s people – the church!
As I personally experienced the love of God being poured out in my heart Romans 5:5, I began with Helen attending the Sunday evening service as well as the morning service and the midweek Bible and prayer meetings and I was totally wrapped to be able to enjoy them! My life had changed!
Before long, we volunteered to fill any servant vacancies, additional 24 hour prayer team, youth group, Sunday school….whatever!
When you are one of the Lord’s sheep, you want to be with the flock!
OVERCOMING THE WORLD
When you are born of God, you overcome the world: 1John 5:4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith.
What’s the “world”
It is the invisible system in human society that hates God and opposes Jesus Christ and His people. It’s society without God.
It’s the Egypt in the OT and the Babylon of the Book of Revelation.
Peter H Davids defines the “world” as “human culture in its independence of and hostility towards God.”
The Apostle John teaches us, 1 John 2:15-17 – 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.
John’s warning tells us what the world is!
It is ANYTHING in our lives that keeps us from enjoying the Father’s love and doing the Father’s will.
This warning also tells us how the world tries to influence us.
It puts pressure against three critical areas in our lives:
The body – the lust of the flesh
The mind – the lust of the eyes
The will – the pride of life
So the “world” system around us pressures us constantly to gratify OURSELVES, our desires and act the same way the world acts.
That is to abandon God’s truth and think the way the world thinks, and to satisfy our egos and promote ourselves the way the world promotes itself!
When I was born the first time I was born a loser; but when I was born again, I was born an overcomer!
WITHSTANDING THE DEVIL
When you are born of God, you overcome the Devil: 1John 5:18 We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.
Before we trusted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, we walked …according to the prince and power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience – Eph 2:2
We were puppets to Satan – he pulled the strings and we danced to his tune!
The worst part is we thought we were free!
When we believed on Jesus Christ, God Col 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed [us] into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
Conveyed…. Is a picture of prisoners of war being moved to another location.
When John wrote, that the child of God keeps himself, he wasn’t suggesting that Christians keep themselves saved, because that’s the work of the Spirit of God Who has sealed us – Eph 1:13-14, and the Son of God Who intercedes for us in heaven – Romans 8:31-39, Hebrews 7:25.
We never keep ourselves “saved” but we do keep ourselves SAFE.
Some people, places and activities make it easier for the devil to tempt us.
We pray, Do not lead us into temptation… Matthew 6:13 we are asking God to help us so we won’t tempt ourselves by disobeying or tempt God by willfully getting into a situation out of which only He can deliver us!
Martin Luther said, “I can’t keep the sparrows from flying around my head, but I can keep them from making a nest in my hair”.
The DNA of a non- believer The DNA of a child of God
Eph 2:1-3 1 John
We lived for the world v2 We overcome the world 5:4
We were energized by satan We overcome the devil 5:18
We satisfied the flesh We overcome the flesh 2:29
We pleased ourselves We overcome selfishness with love 4:7, 5:1
But the fact that we have been born into God’s family does not mean that we have automatically defeated the world, the flesh and the devil once and for all, nor that selfishness will never rear its ugly head again.
If that were so the NT would not contain so many admonitions to believers to fight the good fight and overcome the enemy.
Hear what James said to the believers in the early church:
Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you
James 4:1-4, 7.
Next time we gather – New birth explains how to enter God’s family, but ADOPTION tells you how to ENJOY God’s family.