Obedience and the Light

Prayer:  I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."  I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, as you know, O Lord I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.  I do not conceal your love and your truth from the great assembly.  Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord; may your love and your truth always protect me (Psalms 40:8-11).

Main Scripture: -

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 (1 John 3:1-2). 

Associated Scriptures:

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you. Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O Lord (Psalms 89:14-15)

Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart.  Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name (Psalms 97:11-12).

Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice (Psalms 112:4-5).

Correlative Quotes:

He tacitly thus admonishes them to say, when tempted by seducers, "The anointing abides in us; we do not need a teacher [for we have the Holy Spirit as our teacher, Jeremiah 31:34; John 6:45; 16:13]; it teaches us the truth; in that teaching we will abide." And therefore, God is sufficient for them who are taught of Him; they are independent of all others, though, of course, not declining the Christian counsel of faithful ministers. "Mutual communication is not set aside, but approved of, in the case of those who are partakers of the anointing in one body."[1] – Jamieson, Fausset, Brown

He will be manifested, and we too shall be manifested at His coming; and there is evidently the possibility of the believer being put to shame in that solemn hour. It is very likely that in these words the Apostle indicated his own sense of responsibility toward them, and he wished them to do him credit in that day. But they also surely indicate that we each may be put to shame on our own account. Let us each so really abide in Him that we may be fruitful now and have confidence.[2] – F. B. Hole

That everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him. Or rather, is begotten of him; is truly a child of God. This truth is everywhere taught in the Bible and is worthy of being often repeated. No one who is not, in the proper sense of the term, a righteous man, can have any well-founded pretensions to being regarded as a child of God. If this be so, then it is not difficult to determine whether we are the children of God.[3] – Albert Barnes

Study:

As we grow in Christ Jesus, our love for the world will, at the same pace, take second place to our love for Him.  Growing spiritually means a change of focus.  As we focus astutely on the things of God found in His word and realize its interpretation by accomplishing His works, we will care less and less about the things of this world.  The truth will become a reality and the false nature of our fleshly desires will diminish. 

1. What we are: See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are (vs. 1)! I once saw a pastor, when talking about the sacrifice of Jesus, spread his arms out fully sideways and say, “He loved us this much.”  A great illustration of God’s love for us.  He loved us so much, that while we were in complete disobedience to Him, Jesus died for us (Romans 5:8).  That act of obedience redeemed our acts of disobedience and granted us the title of “children of God.”
2. What we will be: Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known (vs. 2). What we will become here on earth, in this life, we do not know. What will become of us, how we shall die and the death experience itself, we do know.  We do know that we have eternal life through Jesus and we will spend eternity praising and thanking Him for His great sacrifice.  Finally, we do know that when He comes, we will be like Him.  We do know that we will be like Him, loving and perfect, throughout eternity.

What we will be in near future we don’t know.  God has a plan for our lives.  He has a specific plan for each of us that is tied directly to our spiritual gift(s).  We can’t see the future, only God can do that, but if we follow the leadership of the Spirit of God, he will direct our paths (Proverbs 3:5-6) and we will have continual fellowship with Him (1 John 1:7).

3. What we should be: All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. (vs. 3). Having this hope, that we will be like Jesus when He takes us home or returns to get us, we should be obedient. God demands obedience from his children (1 Peter 1:14).  Through the power given us by the Holy Spirit, we should resist the temptation that once so easily trapped us before we accepted Jesus as the Lord of our lives.  As we grow, we should be more like Him who gave his life for us. The motivation for counteraction is the crucifixion; the power for resistance is the Spirit of God.
4. What we won’t be: No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him (vs. 6). We don’t know what we will be but we do know what we won’t be; we won’t be continuing in sin (Romans 6:1-4). When we were born again into Christ, we died to our sin.  We were freed from its grip.  Before salvation we were slaves to temptation, we could not resist its grip, nor did we wish to escape.  The gift we received did not free us from the desire to sin, it released us from the necessity.  We now understand wrong from right and we have the ability to choose right.  This is the product of our salvation and the victory that was won through Christ’s blood.

Summary Statement:

We are by our very nature rebellious.  We don’t listen.  We don’t always learn from our mistakes.  We are insubordinate and mischievous.  But as children of a loving God, we are forgiven.

We are born again, so we will be with God in His heaven forever.  We will have new bodies.  We will never again be the rebellious creatures that we not are.  We will live in a world of eternal love and kindness.  We will never again experience brokenness. 

We are many things.  But, one thing we won’t be is forgetful of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.  We won’t forget the price He paid for mankind.  We won’t be unappreciative.

Lesson within the Lesson:

As children of God, how will we be like Jesus?

What gives us victory over sin and how is it sustained?

What is the hope that all people have in Jesus Christ and how is it attained?

What is the victory we have won through Christ’s sacrifice and how should it impact our lives?

[1] Jamieson, Robert, D. D.; Fausset, A. R.; Brown, David, "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible," Ibid, P. 3077.

[2] Frank Binford Hole, Hole's Old and New Testament Commentary, Ibid, P. 10.

[3] Albert Barnes, Notes Explanatory and Practical, Ibid, P. 4835.