Transcript

Identity theft has become an incredible problem today. I have read that there are more than 130 million computer programs designed to steal your personal information: a credit card number, a Social Security number, a PIN number. Thieves will then use that information to obtain some benefit—to purchase some item or simply empty your bank account if they can.

Frankly, I am amazed at how clever and deceptive they are at trying to get our personal information—to steal our identity—for their own benefit.

Has it ever occurred to you that as a Christian, by definition, you possess someone else’s identity? You are called a Christian because you have taken Christ’s identity.[1]

You did not steal it, but you were not born with it either. Your new identity as a Christian is not the result of identity theft. Your new identity happens to be God’s gift to you.

As we set sail today, back into 1 John 2, the apostle is going to talk about our new identity in Christ, and he is going to carry this theme all the way through chapter 3. His main point is found here in 1 John 3:1:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

John is excited to write this truth. He is saying, “Look at this! Look at this great love God has for us! It is a kind of love the world never thought of! God has invited you into a new, personal identity as a child of God.”

It has now been decades since John first met and began following Jesus. John still has not gotten over the privilege of being one of God’s children. I am afraid that when we meet new believers who are so excited about their conversion, we think, Eventually, they’ll get over it. John never got over his new identity.

We have been given a new name: Christian. And that is not a label; it is not a little sticky name tag we wear on Sundays that does not match our outfit. This is who we are by faith in Christ.

In verse 2 John adds, “We are God’s children now.” It is not some far-off future thing. He is treating us now as His beloved sons and daughters because we are related by faith to God the Son. That is still not all. John goes on to write, “And what we will be has not yet appeared.” He is saying, “You have begun your lives as God’s children, but you have not seen anything yet!”

John continues, “When he appears we shall be like him.” We will be like Jesus one day! That does not mean we will become divine, but it does mean we will be without sin; we will be glorified, shining with the brilliance of the sun, just as Moses and Elijah shone with brilliant light when they met with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. You, beloved, will one day become a magnificent, shining immortal.

Then, in verse 3, John makes a point of application: “And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” We are God’s children now, and that will never change. But since we are God’s children, we ought to change; we ought to live like His children.

John helps us out here by giving us three major ways we should live pure lives.

First, we live like God’s children by putting away sin. In verses 4-10 John shows that sin is a disfiguring, destructive agent that distorts the image of Christ in us. Frankly, sin makes us look more like the devil’s kids than God’s (verse 8).

John reminds us that Jesus, who has no sin at all, came to take sin away (verse 5). That means people who claim to be believers but keep on sinning without any regret or guilt or caution are proving they do not know Him. John writes in verse 7 that true believers “practice righteousness.” On the other hand, those who make “a practice of sinning [are] of the devil” (verse 8).

He is not saying Christians do not sin. He has already written in 1 John 1:8 that if we claim we do not sin, we are lying. He is saying that one whose life is characterized by the practice of righteousness is a believer. In contrast, a person whose life is characterized by sin is a follower of the devil. He does not confess his sin; he desires it and defends it.

I can remember not long after giving my life to Christ, I had a summer job before heading off to college. I worked for the Norfolk Bridge Tunnel, a tunnel and bridge system that linked Portsmouth with downtown Norfolk, Virginia. In those days there were toll booths set up where we collected money from people driving through that tunnel system.   

One night as I stood outside with another employee who was about five years older than me, he pointed across the water to a large hotel and said, “Look at all those hotel rooms over there with the lights on. Can you imagine all the parties going on right now over there and all the girls and all the guys who are going to get together tonight? And I’ve got to be working here when I could be over there.” I will never forget thinking, Here I am as a young man fighting temptation to sin, and this guy is longing to sin.

Well, that is who John is describing here—a person who is “practicing” sin and longing for the day when he gets to sin again. A believer is longing for the day when he will never sin again.

Second, as children of God, we ought to love one another. John shows how vital this is by contrasting love for one another with the life of Cain, the world’s first murderer. Cain murdered his own brother, Abel, because he hated him. And verse 12 says he hated him “because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s [were] righteous.” Imagine that. He killed his brother simply because his brother was living for God.

The world hates Christians for the same reason. Look at verse 13: “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.” But our response is not to return hate for hate but to return love—especially toward other believers (verse 14).

John illustrates the very practical nature of love with his question in verse 17:

If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

Love is not just a topic of conversation; it is a call to action.

Finally, we demonstrate our identity in Christ by keeping His commands. John knows that his strong exhortation on practicing righteousness and love will raise doubts in some of his readers minds. They are going to think, I fall short of these things so often. Am I really a Christian?

So, in the remainder of this chapter, John provides some reassurances. In verse 20, he writes, “Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”

He already knows the worst about you and me and yet loves us still. And that is because Jesus has already paid for every sinful thought and deed. So, as John wrote back in chapter 1, let us be quick to confess our daily sins so that our fellowship stays fresh with the Lord.

When you do that, verse 21 says, you “have confidence before God.” This kind of confidence frees us to keep the Lord’s commands, not by our own strength, but “by the Spirit whom [God] has given us” (verse 24).

This passage is a wonderful reminder that through faith in Christ our identity has entirely changed. It was not identity theft; it was God’s identity gifts to us. We belong to the family of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit for life, and we even have a new name—His name. We are Christians because we belong to Jesus Christ.