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I'M A CHILD OF GOD
~1 John 5:1-5 ~
In-person service at
Second Baptist Church
2412 Griffith Ave.
Los Angeles
David Emmanuel Goatley, Guest Minister
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Many people struggle with identity. God’s love enables us to weave together the strands of our believer, birth, and behavior to overcome the world.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is
the Son of God. 1 John 5: 1-51 John 5:1-5
I
Long before Anthony Anderson hosted a version in recent years, the TV show,
To Tell the Truth debuted in the 1950s. Four questioners would interview three challengers with questions to determine who was actually the central character whom the host had described. The central character was usually someone with an unusual ability or occupation. Two imposters were allowed to lie, but the central character had to tell the truth. After the series of questions, the interrogators would write down who they thought the real central character was. Afterward the host would say, “Would the real XXX stand up.” It was an enjoyable show in which viewers would also join in to try to figure out who was the central character.
Who do you understand yourself to be? What is your identity? Will the real you stand up?
Consider what it means to be clear about your identity as a child of God.
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Many people struggle with identity. They may not be sure who the real me is? Or they may know who the real me is yet not be comfortable with their identity, or they may not even like who they are.
Some live behind elaborately constructed facades. A façade is an outward facing appearance, but it hides the reality. I recall visiting Louisiana a few months after the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the early 2000s. We stopped in front of what we thought was a church building. The brick building had tinted glass doors with
a chain lock on the handles. Once we exited the van and walked a little to the side, we discovered that while the front of the building stood erect, the rest of the building had collapsed. Standing directly in front of the doors, you thought you were looking at a building. When you moved to the side, you realized that you were looking at a façade,
a front. Things were not what they appeared to be. And so it is with some people today. Who are they? Who are we? Who are you?
Followers of Jesus do not have to construct stories and create false identities. God’s love enables us to weave together the strands of our belief, birth, and behavior to overcome the world.
Consider what it means to be able to weave the strands of your faith,
birth and behavior about your identity as a child of God.
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II
Belief, in John’s perspective, is more than intellectual assent. Sometimes people think about options, add the positives, subtract the negatives, and determine the bottom line of belief.
Do you remember your accounting class when you had to balance the debits and credits? Or maybe you are familiar with financial statements that categorize assets and liabilities to determine the financial health of a corporation. This tool allows people to evaluate and conclude whether they believe one is in reasonable, profitable, or fragile financial condition.
Some may, in the philosophical approach, begin with a thesis – a proposition – introduce an antithesis – a response or challenge to the proposition – and then reach a synthesis – the reconciliation or resolution or a working out the tension between the thesis and antithesis.
When John writes that, “everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God,” he is not dealing in the world of ideas, intellectual explorations, philosophical assertions, formulaic equations, and the like. He is not dealing in the world of scientific verification where hypotheses can be proven or disproven through replicable experimentations. No, John is talking about something deeper, wider, and firmer than what our thoughts can deduce.
Our translation that, “everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ,” really needs a verb, but faith has no verb form. It is similar to Sis. Mary in the congregation of the church in which I served as pastor. She grew up in the deep south and had a phrase that her son had to explain to me. On occasion Sis. Mary would say in response to a sermon, “Reverend, you hoped me today.” I politely thanked her for her ministry of encouragement, but never thought much about the phrase until her son explained.
One day he said, “I bet you think that momma is mispronouncing a word when she says that ‘you hoped me,’ don’t you?” While I don’t recall my exact response, it was probably one of those bumbling courtesies we say when we don’t want to tell the truth. He then said, “Where she is from, people say ‘you hoped me’ when you have helped me, because if you help me you give me hope.” That has stayed with me for decades. When you help someone, you give them hope. Therefore, on occasion, I will say – but only to people I am confident can handle it – “you hoped me today.”
Consider what it means that helping gives one hope,
and the expression how helping "hoped" you.
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Our text today is something like that. We need a better word. We do not have an English verb for faith, so we end up with the weaker term “believe.” Now the intellectual and philosophical idea of believe is important. After all, when Jesus is asked in
Matthew 22: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment.” For John, faith, is foundational and indispensable. Our task, as the Benedictine monk, philosopher and theologian Anselm of Canterbury describes, is faith seeking understanding, or faith seeking intelligence. In his words, "I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but rather, I believe in order that I may understand".[1]
Consider what it means that you do not seek to understand in order that you may believe, but rather, you believe in order that you may understand.
1. [1] "ANSELMUS CANTUARIENSIS | PROSLOGION". www.thelatinlibrary.com (in Latin). Retrieved 2023-05-16.
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III
Another strand of our identity as disciples of Jesus is, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." The old fashioned word is “begotten.” It has to do with procreation. It means that one is born and not made. You can make a chair, write a script, produce a score, paint a picture, and more. But a child is not made. A child is born. A child is begotten. And John tells us that, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.”
This is a critical insight that should never be taken lightly. Our true identity as disciples of Jesus is that we are children of God, and that means something. I remember seeing a poster my sister gave me in my childhood days that made an impression that stays with me these many decades later. It said: “I know I’m somebody, ‘cause God don’t make no junk.” The grammar will not suffice where proper language is required, but the sentiment is as solid as it comes. You have meaning. You have value. You are special. You are begotten of God. This is not something to brag about, but it is something beautiful to behold. Regardless of your biology, your psychology, or your pathology, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” And because you are God’s child, you are loved.
Regardless of our faults, despite our failures, notwithstanding our fragility, we are loved because we are God’s children. In the face of the scars we bear in our hearts, and minds, and bodies, and spirits, we are loved because we are God’s children. No matter what people do to you or what you do to yourself, you are loved because you are God’s child.
Consider what it means that if you believe in Christ you are a child
of God despite your faults, failures, and fragility.
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Pastor Freddy Haynes of the Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, TX, tells about a transforming experience he had when someone took him, as a very young man, to visit the Christian mystic, pastor, and theologian Howard Thurman. Thurman addressed Haynes as “God’s child” which had a transforming impact on him that day that has continued throughout the decades of his life. He had been described as and referred to in negative, critical and condescending ways for many of his adolescent years. To have a wise man of God to look at him and refer to him as “God’s child” helped to alter his self-understanding, self-awareness, and identity. Regardless of how others judged, evaluated, and made conclusions about who he was, he was able to hear the whisper of the spirit across the years – “God’s child.”
Finally, in addition to the strand of faith, and being born of God is love: “and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.” I John 4 tells us:
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another,
God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.
God loves us. This is the arc of the story of Scripture. Certainly there are hard texts, complicated texts, and as some call them – texts of terror. But read the whole story. Examine all of the evidence. Take time to live with the word, examine the word, learn about the world behind the word. As we engage this text along with contexts and the texts of our lives, we will come to see that God loves us. As 1 John 4:10 teaches us, 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Listen again to our text for today, 3In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
Consider what it means that as a child of God you can overcome the
world with all of its chaos, confusion, crises and conundrums.
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There is much to complain about, criticize, and even sometimes be cynical about. But we should never forget that, “everyone born of God overcomes the world.”
And that should outshine every negative thought, word, and deed that comes near us.
Jesus told His disciples in John 16:
32“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Because of what God has done for the world through Jesus Christ, we can – we will – overcome the world. Because Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
The old spiritual song says it well:
If anybody asks you who I am …
Tell them I’m a child of God
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