Pure and Righteous Children of God1 John 3:1-10

When Others Look At Me

•What do they see?

•Do they see what I wish I was?

•Do they see what I truly am?Am I a pure and

righteous child of God?

Lavished Love

•1 John 3:1-2 -- See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Lavished? Bestowed?

•NIV – lavished•NAS/KJV – bestowed

Called Children of God

•John 1:12 -- Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God

Galatians 3:26-27 –

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Strong Contrast With The World

•We have become strangers

•The world no longer recognizes us.

Right Now We Are in Preview Mode

•Full experience to come.

•Perfecting Purity

Vs. 3-6 -- All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.   Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

We are motivated to purity by our hope

•Romans 8:24-25 -- For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Our purity is motivated by the example of Jesus our Lord

Our purity is realized by abiding in Him.

Are You My Father? Vs. 7-10

•We all are children of our father.•Question is: Which father?

•John 8:44 -- You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.

How Do We Tell The Difference?

•Vs. 7-10

• The one who does what is right is righteous.•The one who does what is evil is of the devil.•Jesus came to wipe out sin.•If we are born of God we will cease to sin.

•Vs. 10 – “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child….”

What Should We Be Doing?

•Will we join Jesus in wiping out sin?

•To be a child of God is more than knowing about righteousness. It is DOING righteousness.