As you are being seated, go ahead and take your Bibles with me and turn to the passage that was just read, 1 John 3:4-10. We are continuing our series today entitled “Love One Another.” And the issue that we are dealing with today is … are you a child of God or are you a child of the devil? Which is it? Because you can’t be both. And you can’t be neither. You are either one or the other and if you don’t know or if you aren’t sure, let me just warn you, the default position is not a child of God.

There’s an old expression that goes like this: “Born once; Die Twice. Born Twice, Die Once.” Those who are born once, and then born again are the children of God. Those who aren’t born again are the children of the Devil. Everyone is born once, and we are born into sin. And we are born as children of the father of sin, that ancient serpent, Satan. But for those who are born twice, they shed their serpent skin and they put on the garments of Christ. And they become the children of God. 

The message today is entitled, “Paternity Test” and what we want to examine this morning is what are the identifying markers of the children of God and what are the identifying markers of the children of the Devil. Who’s your Daddy? That’s the question we are asking today! Who’s your Abba?

Romans 8:15 says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery … but… the Spirit of adoption… by [which] we cry, ‘Abba! Father.’” 

Similarly John 1:12-13 says, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Church, if you are born of God, you are a child of God. That is a precious term that applies only to Christians. But as precious as that term is, you need to know that the only other option according to 1 John 3:4-10 is child of the Devil. It’s one or the other. As one commentator puts it, “Our parentage is either divine or diabolical.” And one of the implications of this is quite simply that the children of God will increasingly act like God, because we have God’s DNA built into our soul. And the children of the Devil will act like the Devil, because they have the Devil’s DNA built into their soul. 

This children of God (i.e. “the son of God”) language would have been even more impactful in Jesus’s day, because a son would have been trained in the profession of his father. If your dad was a carpenter, you were a carpenter. If your dad was a farmer, you were a farmer. If your dad was a Levitical priest, you were a Levitical priest. 98% of sons did what their fathers did. Nowadays 98% of sons do something different than their fathers. My dad was a software consultant, and his dad was a West Texas oilman. So some of this father/son imagery is lost on us.  

But the essence of this passage is that children will be like their father. And one of the ways that you can identify who your father is, is to ask… “Do I act like him? “Have I been redeemed by the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and am I increasingly living a holy life like my Holy Father?” 

So who’s your daddy? Who’s your daddy, church? Let’s find out by taking the paternity test that John is administering today. 

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From the text today, I’ll give you,

Five identifying markers for the Children of the Devil: 

And then also, 

Five identifying markers for the Children of God: 

Let’s start here with the first identifying marker for the children of the Devil:

1) Sin and lawlessness (3:4-5)

4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 

Jesus said similarly in John 8:34, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” Surely John was listening carefully when Jesus uttered those words. 

John uses some good wordplay here in verse 4. He says everyone who practices “sin” (Greek: ἁμαρτία) also practices “lawlessness” (ἀνομία). And ἁμαρτία is ἀνομία. The Greek ἀνομία is derived from the word νόμος which means “law.” And the idea here is that sin is defiance towards God. Sin is rebellion towards God and God’s laws and God’s ways. 

Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness [ἀνομία]’” (Matt 7:21–23).

“Oh it’s just a little sin, Pastor Tony. No big deal. It’s not a big sin. It’s not hurting anyone but me. It’s not like I’m murdering someone or doing something illegal.” No. You don’t get to do that as a Christian. You don’t get to qualify your sinfulness. You don’t get to indulge your flesh as a blood-bought child of God. Sin is lawlessness. Sin is an affront to God. Sin is an affront to your Father in Heaven.

John Stott calls lawlessness, the “defiant violation of God’s moral law.” And sin has consequences. And everyone who makes a practice of sinning… everyone who habitually and unabatedly indulges their flesh without any remorse or repentance or renewal over time is not a child of God.

And here’s the reason why. Look at verse 5. 

5 You know that he 

Who’s the “he” in verse 5? It’s Jesus. Whenever you see a “he” or “him” in 1 John, you should assume it’s Jesus, unless you have clear-cut reasons to believe otherwise. 

5 You know that [Jesus] appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 

The appearance that John is talking about here is the incarnation. John uses “appearance” language for both Christ’s first and second coming. Here it’s clear we are talking about the first coming. John the Baptist when he saw Jesus said, “Behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).

For those who have received Jesus Christ as their Savior, Jesus took away your sin. He was the ἱλασμός (hilasmos), the propitiation for our sins (2:2). He is our wrath-averting, sin-atoning, Savior. 

And one of the reasons he can be both the wrath-averter and the sin-atoner is because as John writes at the end of verse 5, “in him there is no sin.” He was perfect. He was sinless. 

So write this down as the first identifying marker for a Child of God. They are, 

1) Justified by Christ (3:4-5)

You put your faith in Christ, church… You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are justified, you are made righteous before a righteous God, and you are saved. He becomes sin for you and pays the penalty for your sin, and therefore his righteousness becomes your righteousness. The theological term for this is imputed righteousness. Your sin is imputed to Christ on the cross, and Christ’s righteousness is imputed to you as your righteousness.

Now let me say something that is probably the most important thing that you will hear me say about this passage, and maybe the most important thing you need to know about how to interpret 1 John. Everybody listening? You will come to points in this book where you will ask yourself is John talking about imputed righteousness (The righteousness we receive from Christ)? Or is he talking about the righteousness that we produce that inevitably results from a life that has been transformed through faith in Christ? Which is it? 

You’ll notice righteousness is mentioned a few times in this passage. Is this imputed righteousness? Or is this righteousness that flows from a redeemed life? We’ve dealt with this already in our series, and I want to make a clarifying statement on that right now. Here’s my take on that.

John weaves in and out of those two ideas throughout this letter, and I get the sense that they are so inextricably bound up in his thinking about salvation, that he lumps them together. And here’s the essence of what he’s saying, “Imputed righteousness will inevitably produce empirical righteousness in the life of a believer.” Everybody got that? If Christ has saved you, you will increasingly act like Christ. If you have been justified by Christ, that justification will showcase itself in an increasingly righteous life.

And I think the reason John is so adamant about this issue, is because he looks out on a sea of “professing Christians” who claim imputed righteousness, but they have no empirical righteousness to show for themselves. And John says, “That can’t be.” “There’s a glitch in your theology.” “There’s something faulty in your salvation scheme,” because “Imputed righteousness will inevitably produce empirical righteousness.” No empirical righteousness, no imputed righteousness. It’s that straightforward in John’s thinking. You might say it this way—no fruit, no faith! 

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Now just to confirm that further, John writes in verse 6. Look at your Bibles with me.  

6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 

Now that is a very blunt, alarming statement right there. And if you aren’t alarmed by that statement, then you aren’t reading it right. Actually the King James Version is even more blunt than this: “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not” (1 John 3:6 KJV). That’s actually closer to the Greek.

Henry Alford writes, “The plain words of the Apostle must be held fast and must not be tamed down’ to suit our convenience.” This is a shocking statement, and John wants to shock you. So let’s take this passage at face value and try to make sense of it.

First go ahead and write this down as a second identifying marker for the Children of the Devil: 

2) Ignorance of Christ (3:6) 

John writes, “no one who keeps on sinning has either seen [Christ] or known [Christ].” John is talking about men and women who abide in sin as opposed to those who abide in Christ. They sin, and sin and sin and they refuse to turn from it. There’s no conviction that comes over them to change their lives. There’s no Holy Spirit residing within them to force the issue. 

And really this shouldn’t surprise us. They don’t know Christ. They are stuck in a state of ignorance. So we as Christians shouldn’t be surprised when unbelievers act sinfully. That’s their default mode. They don’t know Christ.  

It’s not a lack of effort on their part. It’s not that they had a rough childhood. It’s not that they are smart or stupid—ignorance of Christ is found all along the intellectual spectrum. It’s not that they don’t have enough protein in their diet. It’s a lack of knowledge. They don’t know what Christ has done for them. And if they know it conceptually, they haven’t embraced it by faith. And our deepest desire as Christians is that unbelievers might hear the truth of the gospel, and that would take them from ignorance to knowledge and from unbelief to belief and from enemy of God to child of God. 

Now for the Christian. Write this down as an identifying marker for the Children of God. A Child of God,

2) Abides in Christ (3:6) 

We’ve talked about this for the last two weeks. This is one of John’s favorite concepts—abiding in Christ. This is what we do. This is what God has called us to do. This is the command that John gives us twice in Chapter 2. Abide in Christ. Abide in him. And he says again in verse 6, 

6 No one who abides in [Jesus] keeps on sinning

“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not.” Now, here’s where we have to do some deep thinking. So gear up, church! We’re going deep. And here’s what we have to do… How do we reconcile this with what John said earlier, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8)? How do we reconcile this with what John said earlier, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10)? Do we sin or do we not sin as Christians? 

In 1 John 1, John says we’re sinners. To deny that is to make Jesus a liar. In 1 John 3, John says, “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not.” John says it even stronger than that later in verse 9. He says, “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning” (3:9). The ESV actually does something interpretive there. Literally the Greek says, “Everyone who is born of God does not practice sin.” And you might say, “Pastor Tony, I’m born of God. At least I thought I was. But I’m struggling with sin. How do I make sense of this verse?”

Well let me help you with that. Some say Christians eventually reach a state of Christian Perfectionism where they don’t sin. Many Wesleyans and Arminians advocate for this theology, and 1 John 3:4-10 is a key passage for them. So do we reach a place of Christian Perfectionism, where we don’t sin anymore? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that you can reconcile that with “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).  

Others advocate for some variation of what’s called Antinomianism. It’s the idea that laws and rules don’t apply to the Christian anymore. So we can sin, sin, sin, and it doesn’t matter because Christ paid the penalty for our sin. More sin; more grace. Is that it? Is that what John is talking about here? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that meshes with the thrust of what John is saying in this book. Like I said imputed righteousness leads inevitably to empirical righteousness not unabated sinfulness. 

So if perfectionism is wrong and antinomianism is wrong, what’s the right interpretation here? Well I agree with those who say that what John is saying here is not so much a statement of fact but a statement of intent. John is not describing what’s called an ontological possibility, “No one who abides in [Jesus] keeps on sinning.” “It’s impossible for them to sin!” He’s describing an ideal. He’s not saying, “believers don’t sin, because they are incapable of sinning.” He’s saying, “believers don’t sin, because we don’t do that anymore!” “We can’t do that anymore.” “We won’t do that anymore!” It’s possible to continue sinning, but it’s not what God has called us to. 

D.A. Carson says that this is actually conveyed as part of the Greek present tense for these verses. And I agree with that. And Carson illustrates it this way. He describes a teacher that he had in Junior High named Mr. Cooper who was extremely strict in the classroom. Mr. Cooper was a WWII veteran. And he was retired military, so he ran his classroom like the military. And this teacher had a number of rules that he would enforce with great vigor. 

And the rule that Mr. Cooper enforced the most vehemently was his rule about gum-chewing. There was no gum-chewing allowed in the class.

In fact whenever a person was found gum-chewing, Mr. Cooper would take the wastebasket and bring it to the student and stick it under their nose and say, 

A gum-chewing child and a cud-chewing cow

look so much alike but different somehow

what is the difference? Ah I see it now

tis the thoughtful look in the face of the cow.

And then he would yell, “Spit!” And this was Mr. Cooper’s way of saying, “Gum-chewing is not done here.” In other words, “You can’t chew gum here.” 

Now here’s the point. Some smart-aleck student might turn to him and say, “O yeah I can… look I’m doing it right now.” But the teacher was not saying it’s ontologically impossible for you to chew gum. Obviously that’s not the case. It was possible in that sense. But it wasn’t allowed. It wasn’t proper. And any gum-chewing was forcibly stopped.

Similarly that’s how sin works in the life of a Christian. “You cannot sin as a Christian” meaning it’s not allowed. It’s not proper. Any sin will be forcibly stopped by the Holy Spirit’s conviction inside of you. And when it happens, it will be dealt with. And if it’s not dealt with… if there’s no Holy Spirit conviction, if there’s no guilt, if there’s not change over time, then the clear reason for that is you’re not saved. You’re not a child of God. The Holy Spirit doesn’t live inside you.  

6 No one who abides in [Jesus] keeps on sinning

In other words, “Sinning is not done here.” No one who is a child of God will continue unchecked habitually and unabatedly in sin. You can’t do it! You have to change. I’ve experienced this in my own life. The weight of the Holy Spirit’s conviction is so heavy in my soul, that I have to change. I’ve got to kill that “thing” in my life that is keeping me from deeper fellowship with God. And so it’s forcibly removed! 

And then as soon as I get a handle on something, God brings the weight of conviction in another area of sin in my life. And he redirects my attention to that thing. And I’ve got to kill that “thing” too. And this process never ends until Christ takes us home.

And that may feel like something tedious and burdensome to you, but I’ll tell you what, it feels good to kill that thing. It feels good to distance yourself from sin. There is such a joy and peace that comes over you. There is a freedom that is more satisfying and precious than any of the temporary pleasures of sin. People think that indulging their flesh is an act of freedom. It’s not. It’s bondage. And it feels good to lose those chains. It feels good to experience real freedom. 

Children of God have real freedom. Children of the Devil only pretend to have freedom. But it’s not. It’s bondage.   

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Write this down in your notes as a third identifying mark for the Children of the Devil:

3) Imitation of the Devil (3:7-8)

No surprise there, right? Children act like their parents. And write this as well on the other side of the ledger. The Child of God on the other hand will experience…

3) Victory in Christ (3:7-8)

John writes in verse 7,

7 Little children, let no one deceive you 

And let me tell you church, we are so deceived right now in our country. Many people who call themselves Christians are deceived. They think, “you walk this aisle, pray this prayer, jump through this hoop… then it doesn’t matter what you say, do, or believe afterwards you are saved.” That’s how many, many people misrepresent the gospel in our day. And John, as a pastor, as someone who is desperately concerned with the souls of his people says, “Don’t let anyone deceive you.” 

Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 

Children will act like their father. Children of God will act like their Righteous Savior, Jesus Christ. There’s no such thing as a “Carnal Christian.” Antinomianism is a farce. It’s a tool of Satan to convince unbelievers that they are believers.  

Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. 

The Devil, as you know, wanted to dethrone God in heaven. The Devil was filled with vanity and with pride. That’s why God cast him to earth along with the other fallen angels, and they became the demon hoard that terrorizes our world. 

The Devil, as you know, tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden. He beguiled them with promises of being like God, and he got them to doubt God’s goodness. He is a liar, and the father of lies. He’s a murderer. He roams around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Pet 5:8). He’s the Prince of Darkness, the Prince of the power of the air, the Serpent, the Accuser, the Adversary, the Slanderer, the Dragon, the Evil One, and the God of this Age. 

He is the Great Enemy of God! But he is not God’s equal! Don’t mistake who he is. He’s a created being, just like us, and his power, although it is mightier than ours, it is infinitesimal compared to the God of the Universe. 

John writes at the end of verse 8, 

the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 

Here’s the logic of what John is saying. How could someone who makes a practice of sinning like the Devil, be born of God when God came to destroy the works of the Devil? Something is incongruous there.

You know for all of us there comes that moment when we sin, and we feel terrible about it. There’s this heaviness that comes over us, and we feel kind of sick to our stomach. And there’s this guilt that weighs us down. I hate that feeling. I hate it. 

But you know what’s worse than having that feeling? Not having that feeling. Because that wrenching of your soul, that heaviness of failure that you’ve let God down, and that you have failed to meet his expectations for your life, that’s evidence that you are saved, that you are a child of God, and that your Father who is in heaven loves you and wants better from you.

You know what’s worse than disappointing your father in this life… not having a father to disappoint. That’s worse. You know what’s worse than disappointing your Father in Heaven… not having a Father in Heaven! Not being saved and indwelt by the Spirit! Not having a Father in Heven but instead having the Devil as your Father. That’s worse. 

You know what’s sickening in our world right now is watching people who are so deceived by their false religion that they would actually strap explosives to themselves and walk into a building and kill innocent people and say that they are doing it at the bidding of their god. People go out and kill or kidnap innocent people and pretend that they are pleasing a god with their actions. We know who their god is, though! And we know that they aren’t children of God! We know whose children they are.

And what’s sad is that that reality is no less true for the agnostic or the atheist or the pseudo-Christian than for those terrorists who follow a false religion. And their destiny is the same as well. The only Children of God are those who are born of God. The default mode is children of the Devil. And at the end of this life, the children of God go where God goes. The children of the Devil go where the Devil goes. 

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Write this down under 4. The Children of the Devil are…

4) Born of Sin (3:9)

They are born only of Sin. The Children of God on the other hand are… 

4) Born of God (3:9)

“Born Once; Die Twice. Born Twice; Die Once!”

9 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.

In other words, there will be a crisis. Something has to give eventually. “God’s seed abides in him” means that God’s seed abides in the child of God. That’s a pretty vivid metaphor right there. 

The Greek word for “seed” here is σπέρμα. God’s seed in you may be a reference to the Holy Spirit. Or it may just be a reference to your new life in Christ. If God’s seed is in you, you are like your Father… And if that’s the case you cannot keep on sinning. You’ve got to stop. There’s going to be a crisis. There’s going to be conviction leading to repentance. You’re going to change. 

And if there’s no change… if you’re not increasingly walking in the light as he is in the light… if you aren’t increasingly distancing yourself from darkness… then the sad reality is, you’re not saved. You’re not a child of God.

I hope you realize how important this is, church. And if our time in 1 John has sobered you and helped you realize that you are not a child of God, then here’s what you need to do… Get saved! Go back to the gospel. Repent of your sins. Embrace Christ by faith and walk in the newness of life that God gives. 

But hopefully this time in 1 John has revealed to you that you are saved. Hopefully, it’s given you assurance of salvation, because you have passed the Paternity Test along with all the other tests of 1 John. But maybe it’s revealed to you that some of the people that you thought were saved aren’t saved. And if that’s the case, all I ask is that you don’t feed that person assurance of salvation. Because that’s a false assurance. Instead, if you love them, and if you’re concerned about their soul, share the gospel with them, the true gospel. And maybe share 1 John 3 with them. 

9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him.  

You might say something like this: “When I look at your life, brother, sister, friend, I don’t see righteousness as he is righteous. I see sin. I don’t see 1) Justified by Christ (3:4-5), 2) Abides in Christ (3:6), 3) Victory in Christ (3:7-8), and 4) Born of God (3:9) … Instead I see … 1) Sin and lawlessness (3:4-5), 2) Ignorance of Christ (3:6), 3) Imitation of the Devil (3:7-8) and Born of Sin (3:9). 

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One final marker. For the Children of the Devil, their lives are characterized by…

5) Unrighteousness and absence of brotherly love (3:10)

For the Child of God, there is… 

5) Righteousness and presence of brotherly love (3:10)

10 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.

If you have an ESV Bible, you’ll notice that the “Heading” for the rest of 1 John 3 is “LOVE ONE ANOTHER.” That is the title of our sermon series. And “Love” as an overarching theme is the emphasis for the rest of the book. And the love that John references is not a generic, unqualified love for everybody and everything. It’s more particularly love for the brother, that is, love for fellow Christians. And the idea is pretty simple—if you belong to the Father you will love your siblings. Plain and simple. 

In 1970, the Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer wrote a book entitled The Mark of the Christian. And in that book, he said the following: “Through the centuries men have displayed many different symbols to show that they are Christians. They have worn marks in the lapels of their coats, hung chains about their necks, even had special haircuts… Of course, there is nothing wrong with any of this, if one feels it is his calling. But there is a much better sign—a mark that has not been thought up just as a matter of expediency for use on some special occasion or in some specific era. It is a universal mark that is to last through all the ages of the church till Jesus comes back. What is this mark? … At the close of his ministry, Jesus looks forward to his death on the cross, the open tomb and the ascension. Knowing that he is about to leave, Jesus prepares his disciples for what is to come. It is here that he makes clear what will be the distinguishing mark of the Christian: ‘Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me; and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.’ (John 13:33–35) This passage reveals the mark that Jesus gives to label a Christian not just in one era or in one locality but at all times and all places until Jesus returns.”

For the Children of the Devil, their lives are characterized by unrighteousness and absence of brotherly love. For the Child of God, their lives are characterized by righteousness and presence of brotherly love. 

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I’ll close with this. Several years ago I wrote a poem about this subject matter. It’s a poem called “Soteriology.” And I wrote it to convey in short verse the Christian essentials about salvation: 1) our fallen state, 2) the reality of sin, 3) the need for a savior, etc. And I know I didn’t cover all of the essential elements of a fully developed soteriology, but hopefully I covered enough to get across the gist of what I believe, and what the Bible says about salvation that comes through Christ. 

And here’s my last statement before I read it. The truths conveyed in this poem, I want you to know that I believe these things more now than ever. They are more true to me than the air that I breathe. And I hope they are for you as well. 

SOTERIOLOGY 

Thrust into hopeless circumstance

Forsaken, lost, not happenstance

A world became fallen and man was lost

Sin-stained, ship-wrecked, ocean-tossed

A simple command casually transgressed

A perfect state despairingly regressed 

A serpent’s guile proved fertile and fatal

To arouse in men’s hearts something fleshly, something banal 

Course desires, greed, lust, vengeance and pride 

Covetousness, deceit, and homicide

Sin swallowed our world in desperate darkness

God’s good creation marred by fallenness

Then Christ appeared and hope was manifest 

Life eternal was secured, and Life temporal was blessed

Faith, hope, love, joy, peace, and righteousness

patience, kindness, goodness, self-control and gentleness

no longer Children of the Devil; no longer enslaved

But Children of God; and on his palms engraved 

Sin is defeated and death is no more

and Christ is returning to settle the score 

Born once, die twice was mine to endure

But my eternity with him is now forever secure

Born twice, die once abiding always in my Lord

Awaiting rapturous bliss in God’s presence forevermore