Eternal Life Is… Being Children of God
We are Infants in Christ
1 John 3:1-8
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. April 14th, 2024
Every household works differently. Some of my earliest memories going to friends houses are being surprised by the way they pray (holding hands instead of clasping) and being amazed at all the toys they have that I didn’t have. Like Power Wheels. Other homes were tidier than what my parents tolerated from me. Others were significantly less tidier than my parents would tolerate from me. Sometimes I’d wonder how anyone in that house could think, because it was significantly louder all the time than what I was used to at home. One summer I went to a friends house regularly on the other end of the neighborhood, and his parents got annoyed if we were inside too much and booted us out of the house regularly. Where my parents would never boot me out of the house.
Tidiness, volume, time spent inside, toys, meals, every household has a different way of doing things and walking through the door as passing a threshold into their world. And for a moment, if they are a good host, you are a part of the family until you go back to your own. For John there are two families, two households that matter. There’s the household of God and there’s the household of the world. The family of God, and the family of the world. In one place we find eternal life and joy. We are the beloved little children of God! But in the other is rejection and lawlessness. That’s is broad view of the world, one that at first might seem a tad unforgiving.
John tells us this morning that we are, by God’s grace, children of God. Not of our own accomplishment, but as God’s whole and complete gift for us. That means we are family. Family with each other, and family with God. The Church is like a household with her own ways of doing things. And as children of God we are expected to take on the ways of the household. To take on the practices and form of life of God’s children.
He goes on to say, “Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.” Like I said before, John has a circular way of writing that can get confusing. But he points to the character of the children of God. Jesus came to take away sins. So the children of God abhor sin. We are not lawless like the devil, but we are righteous. And we abide in God by putting away sin.
What does it mean to be a child of God? To live in the household of God? But to put away sin. To follow the will of God. To show forth his life, to forgive as he forgives, to show mercy as he shows mercy, to abstain from all the temptations of the world. When we do these things we abide in God and know his eternal life. Because we live the life we were made for.
But this presents a problem. Can we say any of us are children of God by John’s standards? He says being a child of God is a gift of God. Not an accomplishment. And yet he says a child of God does not sin. That if we abide in God we will not sin. If this is what it takes to be considered a child of God, a member of the household of God, I don’t know if I can count myself in that number. I doubt any of us here can do so either. As it stands, how is any of this good news? Would we all be banished from eternal life because we cannot keep the standards of children of God?
But John also says, “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” We are children, yes. We are infants in Christ. We cannot take care of ourselves. We are utterly helpless. Though we are learning! Most of the time I sin I don’t even think about it. I’m like an unthinking baby. And maybe when you think on your mistakes you’ll see the same. God makes us his children, but what we are is not yet to be revealed. God makes us his children, and will work through us that we may grow into the fullness of Christ, that is the fullness of love.
We are infants who have not yet reached full maturity. But that is why we have grace, that is why we have the church, that is why we have the scripture, that is why God does not give us up or abandon us. The household of the family of God is the place where we, who find ourselves brothers and sisters, may grow and mature. Where we, who are made family, may take on the characteristics of the family. May learn the rules of the household. And may show forth in the witness of our lives the love of our Father in heaven.