1st John chapter 2. 1st John chapter 2. The scripture
says, My little children, these things write I unto you,
that you sin not. And if any man sin, We have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Now this term that the Apostle
John uses here, little children, is the same word that is used
in verse 12 when he says, I write unto you, little children, because
your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. Verse 13, I write unto you, fathers,
because you have known Him that is from the beginning. I write
unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked
one. Now notice this, I write unto you, little children. This
is a different word, not the same word being used. Same in
our language, but it's not the same in the Greek language. What's
happened here is this word in verse 12 and verse 1 speaks of
children as a father would have a son or a daughter. They are
the children of their father. But the word in verse 13 speaks
of maturity. Maturity. The age level or the All I can say is maturity. That's
the only word that comes to my mind right now. So that's all
you're getting. Maturity. So this is not the same word. This word here, my little children,
is a term of endearment that is exclusively meant for the
children of God. The children of God. All believers, listen to me,
all believers in Christ are children of God. This word this morning
to you, little children, you who are the precious darlings
of the Father, this word is to you. John is writing here the
Word of God as he received it from God, as it was manifest
to him by the coming of Christ. He writes this to little children.
It is a term of endearment. Who are these children? The Scripture
says to as many, in John the Gospel, chapter 1, verse 12,
to as many as received Him. To them. gave he the right to be called the sons of God."
Do you have a right this morning to be called the son of God?
Is that your right? Do you have it? Well, have you
received Him? How is it that men receive Him?
Being born, not of the flesh, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. How is it
that men receive Christ? How is it that they have the
right to be called the children of God? It is only by new birth. New birth. And only these are
children of God. This is a mistake. This is a
horrible, actually it's just, it's a horrific That's all you
can say because it's not in Scripture. It is a philosophy that all men
are God's children. That is not so. All men are God's
creation, that's so. But not all men are God's children. Can I prove that in Scripture?
Absolutely. You remember the Lord Jesus Christ
when he was talking to the Pharisees in John? He said, you are of
your father, the devil, and the will of your father you'll do.
Your father, the devil. All men are creatures of God,
but only believers in Christ are true children of God. We
as believers are children of God by two means. How is it that
a man is a child of God? By two distinct means that are
given to us in Scripture. First of all, we who believe
on Christ, we who receive Christ and are born of God, we are the
children of God by election, by eternal adoption. Adoption. All the children of God were
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Go to Ephesians
chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. Verse 3, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him, in love having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. Why would He do such a thing?
According to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of
the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. He hath predestinated us to be
sons. If you are a son of God, a child
of God, it is because of the eternal adoption. Adoption! God has adopted His children
before there was ever sin. Before there was ever a creation.
God chose a people. And the kick against this is
the kick against God. To fight against this is to fight
against God. God has done it. And who are
you to reply against it? He says of the two children in
Romans chapter 9, the two children not yet being born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to
election, might stand. Scripture says, For Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. Is there unrighteousness with
God? Is God unfair? Is God unjust to do such a thing? God forbid! He told Moses, He
said, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. Listen to
me, if God's going to have mercy on you, it's because He'll do
it, not because you deserve it. If God will have mercy on you
or God won't have mercy on you, that's God's business. That's
God's business. He said, I'll have mercy on whom
I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I will have
compassion. So then, it is not of him that
willeth nor him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. Mercy. Before there was ever a sinner,
Friends, there was a Savior. People often ask this, why did
God allow sin into the world? Why did God not prevent Adam
from sinning? Listen, I only have one answer,
according to the praise of the glory of His grace. That's it.
That's all the answer God gives you. God says, I'll do whatever I
please. And whatever I do is right, no
matter what you think about it. What God does is right. And in
this matter of predestination, God gets all the glory for salvation. You want to know the difference
between the true gospel and a false gospel? Who gets the glory? Who gets the glory? In works
religion, man gets the glory. If God's done all He can do and
the rest is up to you, then man gets the glory. But I tell you, that's not the
gospel. That's not a message from God
at all. In God's message, God gets the
glory. That's it. God gets all the glory
for salvation. All the glory. The scripture
says, that he hath made Christ to be wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption, so that no flesh glory is in
his sight. No flesh. No flesh is glory in his sight.
Praise be God that chose some of Adam's race. Praise God he
chose me before the world began unto adoption. Because that's
the only way anyone is ever a child of God, is by eternal adoption. I tell you, if God has not chosen
you to be a son, you'll never be a son. That's just so. What does that do to you? That
puts you where you belong, in the dust before God. And I tell
you, you should beg Him for mercy. You should beg Him for mercy. Some say that's not fair. Hey,
God chose some and didn't choose others. That's not fair. No,
my friend. I don't want fair. Do you? I want mercy. You see, I need mercy. I need
God to give me something that I don't deserve. Because if God gave me what I
do deserve, hell is all I deserve. And I tell you, it's all you
deserve. It's all you deserve. If you want God to give you what
you deserve, he will. He'll give you what you want. He'll give you hell. I don't
want hell. I need mercy. I need mercy. I'm thankful for the scripture
that says, but God who is rich in mercy. God is so rich in mercy
that he would spare some who deserved none of his mercy, that
he would give some mercy. I'm thankful that he would give
some mercy because none deserve it. None deserve mercy. God is rich in mercy, and He
has given some of Adam's rebellious race. So for God's hating race,
He's promised to give mercy. You that kick against the mercy
of God in election, kick against the only hope for man. The only
hope for man is that God did choose some. Otherwise, none
of us would ever have come. None of us. in love having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children. Just as an adoption process takes
place You have a woman that has a child, and that child's unwanted,
and then you have parents come in, and they select that they
want that child. They want that child before it's
born. They have that sight unseen. They want that child so bad.
They sign out, and they fill out all the adoption papers.
They pay all of the fees, and when the child is born, in the
process of time, when it's appointed, that child becomes theirs. Now,
it was theirs before. They paid for it. They signed
all the work. It's their child. But at the
appointed time, then they received the child. This is how it is
in the spiritual adoption. We were born dead in trespasses
and sins. Like all men, we were born under
the wrath of God. All self-righteous and religious
by nature. We were born aliens. Estranged from God. when from the womb speaking lies. You teach your children to lie
or they pick it up all by themselves? How'd they get it? They got it
from you. Man by nature is born sinful,
born wicked. You don't have to teach a man
to be wicked. If you're here today without Jesus Christ, I
tell you this, you are lost. And the only hope for you is
the election of God, that God chose you, that God adopted you
from before the foundation of the world. You are dead in sins,
trying to please God by your religion and dead works, useless,
empty. You can by no means please a
holy God by your pitiful, foolish works of the flesh. If you're trusting in your religion
or your good deeds, I tell you, if you're even trusting in the
love of God, I tell you, many are trusting in the love of God,
aren't they? They're saying, oh, God loves everybody. It's
all right. I'm trusting in God's love. There's
no hope in that. There's no hope in trusting God's
love for everyone. And just believe in God for whatever
it is. How many times have you heard
that foolish saying? Well, I'm just believing God
He'll heal my son or my daughter. I'm just believing God. Man,
if you don't have a promise, you have no hope. If you don't
have a promise, You're vainly trusting in something that God
has not promised you. There's no hope in it. God may
or may not heal that person, but your trusting in it has nothing
to do with it. Salvation, friends, is not in
your works. It is in a person. It's not you. It is Christ Jesus, the Lord.
There's salvation. There's where God put all His
eggs in that basket. Jesus Christ all of his elect
were put in Christ before the foundation of the world Christ
plus nothing nothing Don't hold to your baptism don't
hold to your decision that you've made your family's religion You
can hold to them if you want to you can hold them all the
way to hell Cuz they ain't gonna help you a bit The only one can help you is
Jesus Christ plus nothing. Him alone. Salvation is not in
a plan, it's not in a creed, it's not in a church, it's not
in a priest, a pope, or a pastor. It's not repeating some prayer.
Salvation is in a person. Jesus Christ, and by His work
alone, by His righteousness and death alone, by His burial and
resurrection alone, He has adopted His people. You see, God purposed
adoption, He planned adoption before the foundation of the
world, and He told, by a covenant of grace with His Son, Christ
agreed to pay the adoption price. What was the adoption price?
His righteousness and His blood. That was the price to adopt His
elect. If we are children of God, consider
this how great it is that we were His in election. We were
His children before the foundation of the world in Christ. Second
of all, if you are a child of God, it is by spiritual birth. This is the evidence of election.
If you are the elect of God, now I've never seen the elect
book with all the names written down, never seen it. I don't
know who's elect and who's not. That's not my business. I'm just
declaring to you what God said. I'm declaring to you how it is
that God saves sinners. And I tell you that spiritual
birth is the evidence of election. How can you know that you are
a child of God? How can you know that God chose
you? Have you been born again? I remember a preacher giving
this illustration before. He said a man, a false preacher,
was up there, and he was witnessing on John 3, and he said, you know
what? You've got to be born again.
Now let me tell you how you can be born again. And he stopped. He couldn't tell you how. I can't
tell you how to be born again. I tell you, you must be born
again. And the how is by God alone,
not by what you do. There's no steps to it. God must
give you life. If God don't give you life, you
don't have life. To be born again is to be born,
that's better translated, born from above. Born from above. God has to come down to you. Scripture says faith is on this
wise not to go up but that God come down for you. God has to
come to you. God has to come to you. He has
to save you. Jesus said you must be born again.
This is not an option. This is not an option. You must be born again or you
will not see the kingdom of God. Another way to look at the new
birth is this, to be raised from the dead. All men being dead
by our father Adam, died by our father Adam, must be raised from
the dead and receive spiritual life by the divine mercy of God. You must be raised from the dead. Do you not see that this is something
you're powerless to do? Do you see this is not something
that's in your hands? In this Western, Western culture,
we always say there's got to be something you can do, right?
It's our innovation. We think really highly of our
innovation. There's got to be a way. There's
got to be a way. No. There's nothing you can do. Isn't that something? To be born again is to be born
by the Spirit of God. It's something God must do for
you. It's not something you do for
God. To be dead in sins, my friends,
is evidenced by your love of darkness rather than light. Why
do men love darkness? Some of you, when I talk about
sin, you begin to squirm. I talk about judgment, you begin
to squirm. What are you doing? You're trying
to find some darkness. You can't stand this light. I
gotta get out of this light. I don't love it, I hate it. I
gotta go back to my darkness. And as soon as I, you'll be out
of here and back in the wallow. You'll wallow back in your sin
and the mire. filth of this world as soon as
you can. Why? You love darkness. You don't
love the light. You don't love this gospel. Men
love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. And they see nothing wrong with
doing what pleases their flesh even though it goes against his
conscience and the law of God. You see nothing wrong with it.
Well, it's just It's just, you see nothing wrong with it. Sin
is just a mistake to you. It's not pure evil like God says
it is. You see, you love the wallow
in darkness. You don't have any love for the light. Every man's
will and action are according to the confines of his nature.
The emotions and will and religion, religious acts are according
to your greatest desire. Man, you know, you do sin because
you love sin. That's just so. You sin because you love it.
You may be ashamed of it if it's exposed and things like that,
but, you know, pretty soon conscience will be seared and you'll be
right back to where you were. What do you need? Why is that so?
Because you're dead and you need life. Because you're dead and
you need life. If you're lost in your sins,
you're bent is toward pleasing yourself. Even the so-called
good deeds and sacrifices you make are nothing but full of
sin. Man may be very religious, but
having religion is not the new birth. This matter of being born again
is not getting religious, it's not turning over a new leaf,
but it is a sovereign act of God alone upon the heart of the
dead sinner. A new birth is not brought forth
by an act of faith even, but faith comes as a result of the
new birth. You see, It's not my faith that
made me alive. It was God that gave me life,
and therefore, he gave me faith. With faith comes life, and with
life comes faith. They come together. They come
together, never apart from each other. You can't be alive without
faith. It must come together. And when
a man is born again, what does he do? He confesses his sin,
like John said. If we confess our sin, we confess
our depravity. You see, total depravity is not
a doctrine just to be acknowledged. Total depravity is our experience. If you've ever been born again,
then you've seen who you are by nature. You've seen that all
you are and all you do is sin. I am a complete sinner in need
of a complete Savior. And when you are given life,
it is immediately then your eyes are opened. And what do you see?
You see Christ. You see He's your only hope. And as being your only hope,
you flee to Him with everything in you. Scripture says the kingdom of
heaven is taken, suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
Oh, my friends, give me Christ, lest I die. That's someone who's
been risen from the dead. Second of all, to be born again
is to be a new creation. You know how God made the world?
He spoke and it was done. How does God make a new man?
He speaks and it's done. He creates in us a new heart,
a new life. Whereas before all I loved was
sin and self, but now I despise myself, repent in dust and ashes,
and look only to Christ as all my salvation. This is what it
is to be given life. This is what it is to be adopted.
It is to be a son. It must be by the new creation,
by the new birth, by life, giving life to me from the dead. That's
what it is to be born again. is to have a new creation. Scripture says, for by grace
you are saved through faith. You must believe. Do you hear
me? You must believe. Problem is you can't. For by grace you are saved through
faith, and that..." What? That faith is not of yourself. Faith is a gift of God, not of
works. "...lest any man should boast.
For we are His..." What? "...workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus." unto good works. Good works does not save us,
but we are saved unto good works. Just like a living man breathes. He breathes because he's alive. If you believe on Christ, it
is because you've been given faith and life. You have a new
creation. The righteousness of God has
been given to us. And what means does this come?
The means of this birth is always the same, by the preaching of
the gospel. No man is ever saved by nature
or by natural means. In other words, you won't be
walking through the woods one day and all of a sudden have
an epiphany. That's not how God saves man. Just don't do it.
He saves by the preaching of the gospel. That's how He saves. This is His means. Some men say,
well, you know what, I'll just get along and get the scriptures
all by myself, and I'll just read them myself. You won't have
any natural understanding by yourself. Otherwise, do you think
Paul do you think God would have sent Philip now Philip the Evangelist
he was preaching and all of a sudden man the the Spirit of God was
being poured out There was a lot of people there in Samaria. He's
preaching to and they were believing you know what God did God said
I need you Philip I want you to get up and I want you to go
out in the middle of the desert Why why would he send him in
the middle of the desert? Because there was one Ethiopian
eunuch out there Now if that Ethiopian eunuch
could have been saved by reading the scripture, he had the scripture
all by himself. He was reading it all the way from Jerusalem
to Ethiopia in a carriage. Why did he need Philip? Because
God told him he did. Because that's a means God chose
to save sinners through the foolishness of preaching. If you're ever
going to be saved, it's through the preaching of the gospel by
the means of preaching. There's no power in me. I don't
give myself any glory for anyone who's saved. This is God's means. This is the way God saves sinners,
the way God calls his children. And this is the message that
we preach, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and life
is only to be found in Him. How can you know if you're a
child of God? Do you believe on the Son of God? Do you believe on the Son of
God? Not halfway, not partially believing on the Son of God and
yourself. Do you completely rest on the Son of God alone as all
your righteousness? John says in chapter 5 of his
book, in 1 John chapter 5, In verse 1 he says, Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And there's something else, everyone
that loveth him, that begat, loveth him also that
is begotten of him. Do you love God? see this is another product,
another grace that God gives to those who are alive we love
God and we love the Son of God well I love God probably ask
people that and ninety-nine out of a hundred you probably get,
oh yeah I love God hmm that's great do you love his word? Do you love his people? How can you love God whom you've
not seen and not love your brethren that you've seen? John says you
can't and you're a liar. We who are born again of God
and children of God, I tell you we love our Father. And I love
his word. I love His Son, and I love you. That's evidence. That's proof
that we are the children of God, that we are the children of God.
And notice what John says, and I'll wrap it up. John, back to
our text. He said, My little children,
are you the children of God? Then this word is for you. I
write unto you that you sin not. Because we are the children of
God, does that give us any license to sin? We know absolutely that's
not true. God forbid! Shall we sin that
grace may abound? God forbid! God forbid. Matter of fact, we hate sin.
And not just hate sin in others. That's natural. Everybody hates
sin in others. I hate sin in myself. I loathe me and my sin. Therefore, we're given this exhortation
to sin not. And notice this, and if any man
sin, that word if is better translated when. It's not a matter of if,
it's just a matter of when. Do you know I've not done anything
in this flesh that's righteous ever? Never. All I've done is sin. But look
at my hope. If any man sin, when any man
sin, we have an advocate, a lawyer, a high priest with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous. Here is my only hope. Jesus Christ is my high priest,
my advocate. that intercedes for me. And you
know when He intercedes for me? Always. When do I sin? Always. When does He intercede
for me? Always. You know the only scars
in heaven will be His scars? That's the only scars will ever
be in heaven. And they will constantly remind us of His great redemption. His great payment for Is he all
your hope? If he is, you are a child of
God, an adopted son from eternity,
a redeemed son by the blood of Jesus Christ, and a called son
by the Holy Spirit. Do you suppose then that he will
ever forsake his children? Never. Matter of fact, the scriptures
are very clear. All things are yours. Do you get that? All things are
yours. Now you run as far as you want
to with that. Would to God I could run farther
with it by faith. All things are yours. Because
you are a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God, join heir with Christ. Is that not comforting to you?
I love that. And I love him. May God bless
it to your heart. So stand when we dismissed in
prayer.