1 John 3:1-7
3 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. 2 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.3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
I remember growing up and visiting my grandparents during the summer. I would spend time with my grandmother in Freeport Illinois and my grandmother in Chicago Illinois. I would be in Freeport and go to the gas station, or the pizza place, or the park, and my grandmother, I called her Grandma Bruce. Grandma Bruce would say "that's your cousin" she introduced me to so many cousins that I grew up thinking I was related to everyone black in Freeport. I would go to Chicago and at my grandmother Grandma Hargrave as I would call her kept a picture on the wall of the stairs between the basement and the ground floor of the house, that picture had little squares on it with names, children, parents, grandparents, great grandparents going as far back as what had to be sharecroppers and slaves, I talk with my aunt all the time about this picture. Both Grandma Bruce and Grandma Hargrave instilled something in me, the importance of knowing who my family is.
We all have ways to identify who is in the same family, some people have the same shaped nose or same eye color, natural athletic ability, accents, freckles, style of hair and/or hairlines, the list goes on and on, there are many ways to identify who all are in the same family. Even with ways to tell who is in the same family, sometimes people can be excluded from a family
There is an example in scripture about identifying family in 1st John. 1st John is attributed to John the Elder, written just like the Gospel according to John, it is written to a community or person scholars say that with this book we are reading someone's mail-in this book. This was written after the resurrection of Christ and the people of God were waiting for Christ to return but doing nothing while waiting. While they were sitting around doing nothing, they were also trying to determine who was in and who was out. They deciding who were children of God and who were not. Not only were the church folk trying to keep people already in the family out, but there were also people on the outside who couldn't get in.
Those who are born of him are true “children of God.” We are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27). At the beginning of the gospel of John, we read that Jesus, the Word made flesh, is the perfect image of God, the one who has “made him known” to the world” (John 1:18). John 1:12-13 tells us that those who receive him have been given “power to become children of God, who were born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).
All of this is at God’s initiative, out of God’s imagination, and through God’s love. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are” (1 John 3:1). But we aren’t merely God’s children now, John goes on to say. We are to imagine something more. “What we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure” (vv. 2-3). In other words, the children of God are to imagine that they can and will become like Jesus, the perfect image of God!
We can't just sit around waiting for Christ's return, we can work while we wait. Christ beat sin now it’s our turn to act like it. The community is being encouraged to dwell where they are but prepare for Christ's return. Preparing for Christ's return mean just sitting around doing nothing,
The Love of God makes us nothing less than the children of God. I am a child of God because God loves me, you are a child of God because God loves you, we are all children of God because God loves us. We are all God's children because God loves us. God's grace is his love bestowed on us without us having to earn it.
Whose love do we want to claim?
I was sinking deep in sin,
Far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within,
Sinking to rise no more;
But the Master of the sea
Heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me–
Now safe am I.
