Like Father, Like Child

I.          Intro

As a father, one of the most humbling and rewarding experiences you can have is to see yourself in your child. You look down at this little being and you start to see your eyes, your skin color, your smile, your hair -- or in my case -- unbelievable curls and waves. Yeah, in case you were wondering, those are from me. There is a reason why I keep my hair short! You long for them to love the things you love; hate the things you hate. Love the Red Sox. Love the same music. You long for them to believe as you believe and to have a heart for those things that you treasure. It doesn't take long to look at my daughter, Alessandra, to know that she is mine – even at just nine months old. In fact, I was looking through my old pictures from my childhood and found pictures of me when I was her age. It was amazing to look and see the female version of myself thirty-one years ago.

For years, I was passionate about genealogy. I absolutely loved digging into my family history. Mainly, because I wanted to know my roots and to see how physical resemblance, passions, and personalities had passed down through my family over generations. Several years ago, I found a picture of my great-great grandfather from the mid-nineteenth century when he was in his late twenties. If you held a picture of my father up at the same age, the resemblance was remarkable. On my fridge growing up, my mother had placed a magnet with two pictures side-by-side. One was of my father when he was about twelve; the other was me at twelve. If it hadn't been for the aged photo and the black and white in my dad's photo, you would have had a hard time determining who was who. In both cases, it was absolutely clear: we were both the children of our fathers.

But resemblance doesn't simply come through DNA. Being a child doesn't mean just physical resemblance. There may be several of you who have never known your biological fathers or were adopted, but had a person in your life who took that place as a fatherly influence in your life. Many of you may not know that Jackson is not my biological son -- we do not share the same DNA, and there is nothing I can do about that. However, he is my son and I love him regardless of DNA. And I also know that he is watching and remembering everything that I do. Fatherly influence goes far beyond DNA. On one occasion, soon after Amy and I were married, we were getting ready for church one Sunday. I was wearing a blue button down plaid shirt. Jackson came out of his room in his usual t-shirt and jeans. Shortly after he came out however, he went back into his room. About 5 minutes later, he walked out again with a whole new outfit on. There was my mini-me, who stood about 3 feet tall, wearing a very similar blue button-down plaid shirt. Walking into church that morning, I felt a sense of pride and humility that I had never experienced before. Someone wanted to be just like me. And as a father, I longed to have someone be like me.

On another occasion, I had a little book by Charles Spurgeon that had a leather cover with gold pages, much like our Bibles. Jackson, having watched me preach several times took my Spurgeon book – his Bible, he called it -- and started walking around with it, talking and preaching what he called “his sermon”. He still keeps that book next to his bed, much like I do with my Bible.

At almost five-years-old, he is watching everything that I do; the way that I treat my wife and his mother; the way that I pray; the way that I love hot dog; the way I wear my hat backwards; or the way that I love the nations and love God and display the fruit of Christ's work in my life – all of those things may very well be replicated in his life if he remains close and diligent to stay by my side.

As a parent, you see that a child will reflect the image of their father.

II.         The Image of God

It is here that I would like to turn to our text:

1 John 2:28 - 3:3 reads:

"And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him.

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 will 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."

John is a very peculiar and particular writer. He really is unlike any other NT author in how he writes. In the Gospel of John and in his letter here in 1 John, he loves to compare and contrast. We see the comparison between love of God and love of the world; between light and darkness. In chapter two, we learn of various antichrists and how they act. This is part of what Rick taught us last week. And now here in this passage, we have the contrast to those that are antichrists -- those who are called “children of God”. And it is here that I would like to dig in a bit to understand what this means and what this tells us of who we are before a relationship with Jesus and the identity we have when we put our faith in Jesus.

Now, I am going to get to our text in 1 John, but to do so I want us to take a trip back a bit to understand who you and I were and to be clear about who we are now. So bear with me because we are going to take a little bit of a detour from our text and then we will land back here in 1 John.

To start, I am going to take us right back to the beginning of the Bible to Genesis. In Genesis 1:26, right before God makes man, He makes this declaration:

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

In vs. 27, the text reads:

“So God created man in His own image;

In the image of God He created him;

Male and female, he created them.”

God declares at the very beginning of His word his intention to bring a being into existence that would be like Him; a being made after His likeness. But yet, just three chapters later, man is not content with the likeness that God gave him. In fact, he fell to the temptation to take on another likeness. God had said: "You will be like me!" and man bought Satan’s lie that He needed a different image.

And yet, what man got was everything unlike God: hatred, darkness, distance from God, and death which took the place of love, light, fellowship with God, and life. And we have a very long history in the Bible of the trajectory that this new likeness has taken us.

Now, at the point that we land in the NT, it is obvious that the true likeness of God had been far removed from the earth. At one point, God even wipes the earth of mankind with a flood because they had strayed from and perverted His image so badly. Sin had destroyed the image of God in mankind.

Mankind no longer displayed the likeness of God. In fact, Jesus tell us at one point that we "...are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires." and that "The reason you do not hear the Words of God is because you are not of God."

The way mankind has acted displayed who their father was. They were reflecting their father’s image. They had taken on the likeness of another. And it was not God!

That is a scary indictment and a picture of what sin and the replacement of the likeness of God has done. And every one of us was born into that likeness.

But, if we left the story there, there would be no hope for us. With an indictment like that, we can feel the weight that is on us. And so it is. The wrath of God sits on those whose father is not God.

But the story doesn't end there, does it?

After thousands of years and a trajectory that only lead to destruction, a man was sent to earth that bore the full likeness of God. Paul tells us in Colossians that this Man "is the image of the invisible God." The author of Hebrews tells us that "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature." In fact, when He faced the temptation to take on a different likeness in the wilderness, He succeeded where we failed. He was not defiled by disobedience or discontent in His image. He, fully human and fully God, bore the likeness of God for His entire life, never tainting it with sin or discontent, even when death was certain.

This man was Jesus Christ and in Jesus, the hatred, darkness, disconnect, and death that was manifested in man, was replaced with love, light, fellowship with God, and life.

This is what righteousness is: The embodiment of love, light, fellowship, and life; the embodiment of all that God is. The pure image of God.

The perfect image bearer of God came and lived a perfect life embodying those very things. Again, Colossians tells us that He was the firstborn of God. He was the only human in all of history to faithfully say that He maintained the image of God, never corrupting it. Therefore, He was the first one to legitimately call God “Father"! Hebrews tells us that "I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a son."

Jesus was the Son of God -- the perfect image of the Father; the righteous One; and the fulfillment of Genesis 1:26, where mankind drastically fell short; where you and I, fell short. He bore the likeness of God that you and I never could.

So, how does this relate to us and to this text in 1 John? We have two pictures here -- the unrighteous and the righteous; the child of the devil and the child of God; imperfection and perfection; one bearing the image of all that isn't God and one bearing the exact image of God. We do not have to read far into the scriptures to see which of those two images best describe us. We don't have to live long on this earth to understand the difference between the two. We are surrounded by it. Romans 3:23, probably one of the most well-known evangelistic verses, tell us which category we all fall into: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..."

Just before that, Paul reads this from Psalm 14: "None is righteous; no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."

This is the identity that all of mankind is born into.

III.        From One Father to Another

So how do we go from this: "not of God" and what Paul tells us of "falling short of the glory of God" and "ungodly" and "unrighteous" and “child of the devil” and one who cannot do good to what John is alluding to in our passage today in 1 John? John is calling us "children" here; an intimate term that indicates a close relationship. How do we make the transition from that likeness that we bear without God to that of a "child of God"?

God's plan from beginning of time -- even before the foundations of the earth -- was to substitute this perfect image-bearer for those who have forsaken it for a different image. You would expect that the cross would be the end of God's purposes -- God Himself, killed; the perfect image-bearer of God destroyed by hatred, darkness, and death. Instead, the very instrument that seemed to shatter this perfect, righteous, person of Jesus became the very instrument that fulfilled His promise in Genesis 1 to bring about a being that displayed the righteousness of God.

Romans 8:29 tells us that "for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers."

This has been God's plan before the foundations of the earth. He has chosen a people to be conformed into the image of His Son! On the cross, He died so that you and I, through faith in Christ, could be conformed into His image.

With Jesus' death and resurrection, He conquered death. Through faith in Him, we are born again, not as children of the devil as we were before, but now as children of God. This is why Jesus tells us that we must be "born again". We had a different father before and now, through Christ, we have been adopted into the family of God. God is now our Father. Something we could never have said before!

In other words, through Jesus' death, those who profess their faith in Christ are now considered Children of God. What an amazing truth!

Why? Why would God do this? The answer is simple and it is found in 1 John 3:1: John bursts forth in praise saying "See! See what kind of love the Father has given to us? That we should be called children of God: and so we are!"

John loves to try and wrap his head around the love of God. Here, we get a glimpse into John being amazed at this love. It implies "great astonishment". And this love not only determines what we are now, but what we will be.

We see something similar in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."

God has displayed His love to us in an amazing way, my friends. Dwell on this. Ponder it. Chew on it. Think about it. Savor this. We were once children of darkness, loving everything that didn't bear the image of God. But yet, through the cross of Christ, those who believe in this Jesus not only obtain eternal life, but also become "children of God", a term that brings such intimacy that you are not only simply called that, but as Paul told us in Romans and John tells us here that you are being conformed into the very likeness of God. Our very DNA is being changed into that of Jesus'. We ran after all that was not like God. And God, through the death of His Son, has pulled us back, called us His children, has transformed us back into children that display His likeness, made us righteous, given us eternal life -- and has done it because He loves us.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes the following:

“Words, of course, become meaningless at this point; there is nothing to do but to gaze upon it and to wonder at it all, to stand in amazement and in astonishment. Oh, the quality of this love! Just realize what it means, the freeness of it all, that you and I should be called and become children of God! The freeness of this love that has looked upon us in spite of our sin, in spite of our recalcitrance (or stubbornness), in spite of our unworthiness, in spite of our foulness as a result of the fall, and our own actions. Oh, the love that has not merely forgiven us but has given itself to us, that has entered into us and shared its own nature with us; stand in awe at the greatness of it all! Think of what it cost Him, our Lord Jesus Christ, to come into the world, to live in the world, suffering its treatment, staggering up Golgotha with that cross upon His shoulders and being nailed to the tree. Think of Him dying, suffering the agony and the shame of it all in order that you and I might become children of God.”

Savor this love, my friends. Cherish it.

V.         Conclusion

John begins this text with these words in vs. 28: “And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.”

My friends, God is coming back! And there will only be two responses to Him: You will either respond to Him in confidence or you will respond in shame.

For those who have put their faith in Jesus, John is calling you to abide in God; to remain in Him; to draw close to your Father. If a child reflects the image of His father, John is calling you to show forth your lineage buy reflecting God’s image. For that is how the world will know who your real Father is. And they will hate you for it because they reflect the image of one that is not God. Are you willing to be shamed now by man, than by God when He returns?

And when He returns, John tells us that we shall be like Him – instantly conformed into His image – when we see Him face-to-face. You are God’s child now; and then, not only will you be His child, but you will perfectly reflect His image, just like mankind was meant to do, but never could. You shall be like Him. We are being transformed now. We will BE transformed at that time.

“Is this your hope?” John asks in verse 3. Then show it! Hoping that one day you will be transformed into the image of God at His return should lead us to imitating Him now.

If we are to be like Christ at His return, then we must act like Christ now, imitating Him now.

The uniqueness of this relationship with God is that, like my relationship with Jackson, God has adopted us as His own children when we have placed our faith in Christ. But unlike my relationship with Jackson, God is changing our very DNA to be like His own. I will never be able to do this with Jackson. As his father, I long to seem him reflect some of me, but he will never look like me. Yet, God through His Son, has not only made it possible for us to have our hearts that reflect the character of His Son, but our very DNA is being conformed into the image of Jesus.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones again writes the following:

“What are we? The answer is that we are ‘called children of God’, and there is a sense in which this is so staggering and so overwhelming that we find it almost impossible to accept it, and to retain the idea in our minds. Yet that is what is said about Christians everywhere in the New Testament. Let us never again think of the Christian as just someone who is trying to live a good life, trying to be a little bit better than someone else, a person with a belief in doing certain things, going through certain forms and ceremonials and keeping certain regulations dictated by the church. Christians do all that, but before all that is the vital fact that they are children of God. They have been born again, born from above, born of the Spirit; they have received something of the very nature and life of God Himself. They are a transformed people, they are a new creation, and they are absolutely, essentially different from those who have not experienced that.”

What really makes us children of God is that God has put His own life into us.

As a child, you reflect the image of your father. So who is your father? Whose image do you reflect? Whose likeness do people see when they see you? For the Christian, do you show love for God and love for your neighbor?

For those who do not know Christ, you reflect a different father. You may have gone your entire life thinking you had one father, only to realize the image that you have been bearing is that of another. The invitation to be born into the family of God is real and open. It can only come through faith in Christ. And when we are born into the family of God, your DNA will change to reflect the one who is your real Father. One day you will stand before God when He returns: will you shrink back in shame because you have a different father or will you stand in confidence because you are part of the family when the Father comes for His children?