It's a delight and a real privilege to be with you here today. I'm honored to be asked to address the conference and even more excited and privileged to address it on this particular topic. The text that I was assigned is one verse in the prologue of the Gospel of John. It's in John 1 12. So please open your Bibles to John 1 12. I'll read this verse and then we'll ask the Lord's blessing once again on his word. John 1, verse 12. Remember, as I read what may be a very familiar verse to you, bear in mind this is the Word of God. John 1, 12. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. Let's pray together. Our great God, we are privileged to be gathered here today. What a great blessing it is to have Your Word. We confess to You that we would be in the dark had You not revealed Yourself and Your Son to us in Your Word by Your Spirit. We thank You that Your Word carries with it Your promises that you promise your word will not return to you void, but will accomplish what you purpose. We thank you that your word is called for us, the sword of the Spirit, and that it is a two-edged sword that cuts through the very thoughts and intentions of our hearts. Take your word this morning and use it to convict us and to train us and to equip us cause us to understand more fully the blessings that are ours in Christ. And we ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, as I said, it is a privilege to open this particular text of Scripture. The Gospel of John has always held a special place in the hearts of many within the church. One commentator has said that the Gospel of John is like a pool that even the smallest child can wade in, and yet it has depths that even an elephant couldn't reach the bottom of were he to swim in them. It is indeed a deep book, a profound book, a significant and foundational book, and yet one that also simultaneously very clearly presents the truth about Jesus Christ and the truths about salvation. At the end of the Gospel of John, John explains what his purpose is in writing this Gospel. He says, these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name. And if you've been in the church for any amount of time, you probably know, as I do, a number of people whom the Lord has brought to saving faith simply by encountering and reading the Gospel of John. I have about a half dozen people who come to my mind immediately and their testimony is just that. I was reading the Gospel of John. Someone gave me the Gospel of John. I opened my Bible to this Gospel and the truth of Jesus Christ was impressed upon my heart and I came to faith. This is the story that my father tells of his own conversion, reading the Gospel of John by himself and the Lord using that to illumine his heart and cause him to understand his need for a Savior and the truth of who Jesus Christ is. And within this profound, deep, and yet clear gospel, the prologue stands out. Because in this prologue, in this beginning section of John chapter 1, John lays out clearly at the outset just who it is about whom he is talking. when he gives this good news. He gives to us clear Christology, a clear record of who the Son of God was and is in his incarnation. John says things like this in verse 1, that the Word was in the beginning. He says in verse 1 as well that the Word was both with God and in fact the Word was God. He goes on to say in verse 3 that the Word is the creator of all that is, that nothing was made but through Him. He says in verse 3 that the Word is the source of all life. The Bible says in Him we live and move and have our being and the way John puts it is all things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that has been made and in Him was life. Just as we can call the Son of God the source of life, John says in verse 4 that He is also the source of the light. John writes this, the life was the light of men. And He is the light, John tells us in this prologue, who shines in the midst of a world of darkness. And this Word, this Creator, this One who is Life and Light, was testified to, John tells us, in history, in time, by John the Baptist, whom the Bible calls greater than all the prophets of the Old Testament. And in verse 11, we read this, that this Light, in a mystery and in a wonder that we cannot fully comprehend, came to His own people. What does it say? It says that he came unto his own, verse 11, and his own people rejected him. The light, the life, the Word, who was God, came to his own and his own received him not. And that brings us to verse 12. Because in verse 12, After receiving this astounding, earth-shattering news about the Son of God and the incarnation of the Son of God and the rejection of the Son of God, we are told that while His own did not receive Him, there are some who do and did receive Him. Here's what it says in verse 12, who did receive Him. And that should immediately arrest our attention in the midst of this prologue. That should immediately cause us to sit up and ask the question, how is it that some received Jesus? How is it that some received this Word, who is light and life, even though in the main He was rejected by His own people? And the next clause tells us, it says, to all who did receive him, who believed in his name. What does it mean to receive this one who is the word? What does it mean to receive this light and life of whom John speaks? Well, what it means, John is going to tell us, is that we receive him through faith alone. We believe in his name, and that's how reception of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's how reception of the Son of God comes about. John goes on in the rest of his gospel to describe certain things about Jesus, certain truths about Jesus that are constituent of believing in His name. It's not just a vague trust in Jesus or the vague language of trust in Jesus, no. We have to actually trust in His name. And John goes on in this gospel to tell us what the name of Jesus is and what it means to trust in His name. John tells us in John chapter 6 that Jesus is the bread of life. John tells us that He is the light of the world, that He is the door, that He is the good shepherd, that He is the resurrection and the life. that He is very pointedly the way, the truth, and the life. You remember when Jesus says that in John chapter 14, He says, no one comes to the Father except through Me. So what John is teaching us, even in this very short verse, is that to receive Jesus, to receive the Word, is to believe all these things that are said about them and that He Himself testifies. So perhaps you're hearing about the Word of God, you're hearing about the Son of God, and asking yourself what it means to receive Him. John would say, you believe in what He testifies about Himself. and what this gospel testifies about Him. You entrust yourself to Him and to Him alone for your salvation. That's what it means to receive Him. We put this in all kinds of ways when we're trying to describe and break down what belief, what faith in the Son of God means, but perhaps we could say it most simply that the acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone. for justification, sanctification, and for eternal life. There are those who receive Him. There are those who believe in His name. And if this isn't true of you, then what the Bible would say and what I would have to declare to you openly is now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation. Today, if you hear His voice, The Scriptures say, do not harden your hearts. Now, the main subject, of course, of our study today is in what follows in verse 12. To those who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. This sounds almost too good to be true. that what happens and what is wrapped up in our reception of the Lord Jesus Christ and our reception of this Word is that we are put into a new relationship with God Himself. And remember that all of this comes through faith alone. It's not something that comes about through our human lineage. It's not something that comes about by our membership in a certain organization or even in the church. It actually makes no difference, John will show us, whether in the past you have rejected Christ. No, for those who through faith alone receive Jesus, he gave the right to become children of God. We need to note something here in the language that John uses because it's slightly different from the language that's used elsewhere in the New Testament. John uses the word children of God. Now this is not at odds with what the Apostle Paul says. The Apostle Paul frequently refers to us as sons of God when he describes our adoption. And that has a very special significance in Paul's understanding of what it means to be adopted in God's family. And that special significance is not at odds with what John says here when John calls us children of God, but there is a nuanced difference. Martin Lloyd-Jones puts it this way, the Apostle Paul, when discussing this glorious truth, this truth of adoption that we're looking at with special attention this weekend, when Paul discusses this glorious truth, more often he uses the word son, which emphasizes the external and objective. But he says the word children in John as we trace it through the gospel of John and as we trace it through the letters of John seems to focus more on the relational and the transformational. In other words, when John says we are adopted as God's children, the emphasis, the nuance seems to be that this is a relational change, and that it's a relational change that transforms us from the inside. And this then points to one of the great truths of this verse. Those who have believed in Christ, those who have received Him in all of His glory, in all that's revealed about Himself through faith alone, are born again. There is new life. There is a new relationship to God and a transformation on the inside. There's a new birth that's taken place. And all you have to do is read another page or two in John's gospel to see this take precedence in John's description of what it means to be a child of God. To be a child of God, John says, is to be born again by the Holy Spirit. to be transformed from the inside by God Himself and therefore to enter into a new relation with God the Father. And I would suggest to you that as we look at this verse, and as we look at the way in which John uses the language of this verse to describe what it means to be a child of God, there are at least three privileges, three rights we might say, three transforming relational aspects to the fact that we are now children of God through faith. And the first of these aspects has to do with our new relationship both to God and to other people. This is of primary significance. This is, in fact, obvious, I think, when you look at the language of being a child of God. clear away some misconceptions that people have today and misconceptions in the way we use the language today. Oftentimes, sometimes within the church, but certainly outside the church, oftentimes people will say something like this, well, everyone, all men, all people are actually children of God. Interestingly enough, the Bible doesn't use that language. Now the Apostle Paul, it's true, in Acts 17 does say, we are all, and he's speaking there to everyone, we are all God's offspring. But what he's describing there is the fact that God is the creator of all people, and that's true. The Bible makes that crystal clear. All human beings created by God, all human beings have value and significance because they're created not just by God, but in the image of God. And that's what Paul is referring to in Acts 17 when he says we're all God's offspring. But the New Testament reserves this language of being a child of God and certainly the language of being a son of God for those who come to God through faith in Jesus Christ. Now what are the benefits of this new relationship? What are the benefits of being a child of God through faith in Christ? What are the benefits of having God as our Father in this particular way? Well, there are a number of benefits that the Bible outlines, but we could look at just a few here. One benefit, of course, of this is the security that we have in God through Christ. The security that we have with God as our Father. The security that we have knowing that we are children of God, children of the God of the Bible. If you've lived long enough, you begin to realize that nothing in life is entirely secure. You can't count on the fact that tomorrow will be like today. You can't bank on the fact that your health will always remain the same as it is now. You can't count on all of your relationships remaining intact as they are. All kinds of things can change. There's constant change in our lives, but the Bible says He alone, God alone does not change. Malachi 3.6. And so to be a child of that kind of Father is to have the utmost security. Because we are connected with God as our Father, and God Himself does not change. James, when describing The good gifts that we've received says this, every good and perfect gift comes from above, from our Father of lights in whom there is no change, no shifting shadow. Being a child of God, being in this relationship with God brings us ultimate security. And that security we read in John's gospel is not just for this life, but for the life to come. Jesus can say to his disciples, I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you, I'll come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. The security that we have with God as our Father, with us as His children, is a security that persists throughout this life, and a security, in fact, that binds us to Him for all eternity. And just as good fathers provide security, so also they provide care. And being a child of God, as John articulates it for us, also involves this kind of care from our Father. The Bible actually teaches us to think of God's fatherly love by comparing it to the love of the best kind of human father. Jesus says this, if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, How much more shall your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask them? We see this throughout the Bible as God cares for his people as a Father. He blesses them. He provides for them. The scriptures tell us He has given you everything you need for life and godliness through the knowledge of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. To be a child of God is to be in the most secure relationship imaginable. To be a child of God is to have God providing for you. God binding Himself by oath that he will take care of his children. Many great Christians of the past have reflected upon this, have reflected upon what it means to have God as our Father even in the midst of suffering. John Cotton says, though the children of God be afflicted and weather-beaten, Yet God has promised blessing to them as their father. Circumstances often can deceive us, but knowing that we are children of God, oh, that gives us all the comfort that we need. Are these the kinds of things you're looking for? Do you recognize this to be the case? Oftentimes Christians, those who most of all should recognize the blessing of being a child of God, Ignore it. Forget it. You think that God's holding out on you in some way. That He really hasn't given you everything you need for life and godliness through the knowledge of His Son. That He's not actually a Father who knows how to give good gifts to His children. But when we do that, not only do we violate the law of God, we sin against the goodness of God. spitting in the face of this loving, caring, providing Father of mercies and God of all comfort. This new relationship with God as our Father also means that we have a new relationship on the horizontal level with other Christians. As believers, the New Testament calls us the household of faith. Believers are referred to as brothers and sisters in the Lord. We're one in Christ. And as adopted children, we're invested with all the rights and privileges of being a part of God's family, with God as our Father, and with us as His children. Now, this has obligations, of course, that go along with it. Paul, in Ephesians chapter 4, after discussing these great truths related to our redemption, talks about what that must mean in our lives, how that must transform our thinking and transform our actions. And what he says is this, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, And he goes on to say, why? Because there's one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. To recognize God as your Father and to be one of His children does necessarily imply that your relationship with others who have God as their Father with other children of God must also be different. It's a great privilege, but it also carries with it great responsibility. But if that family imagery weren't enough, the Bible actually goes a step further. God is our Father. Other Christians as our brothers and sisters. And then we have this beautiful image, relational image, that Jesus Christ is our elder brother in the faith. The book of Hebrews puts this most clearly in Hebrews chapter 2. It tells us that Jesus is our elder brother and what that means is he came to destroy death itself and accomplished it. And therefore, because he as our elder brother has destroyed death once and for all, he's also destroyed the one who has the power over death and destroys the fear of death within us. And not only that, it says, he's a faithful and sympathetic high priest who understands our weaknesses. He knows us in that kind of familial way as an older brother. The writer of Hebrews says this, since therefore the children share in the flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through the fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery, and he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people." What a friend, what an elder brother we have in Jesus. This is part of what it means to be a child of God. Now the second aspect of being a child of God, as John articulates it, is that we now therefore have a new nature. This is what is wrapped up in the idea of the new birth and being born again by the Spirit. Again, Martin Lloyd-Jones puts it this way, the position of Christians is not that they remain what they were, somewhat better, but now called children of God. No, they become the children of God. Something happens to them. This is real transformation. Jesus and the apostles don't shy away from calling those who reject Christ the children of the devil. But the Bible, likewise, doesn't neglect to call us children of the living God and therefore transformed because of it. In 1 John, John says this, no one who is born of God, and he's referring to those whom he calls children of God, no one who is born of God makes a practice of sinning because God's seed abides in him. He can't keep on sinning because he's been born of God. Peter says this, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he's caused us to be born again through a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This is so significant because the Bible says that all of us, by nature, apart from this living relationship to God, apart from being children of God through faith, are actually sinners bent toward disobedience to God. By nature, the Bible tells us, we can't even think straight. We can't even understand good and evil in the proper way. Paul puts it this way in Titus 1, to the unbelieving and defiled, nothing is pure. Both their minds and their consciences are defiled. In the Old Testament, Jeremiah puts it similarly. He says this, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? And then the Lord Jesus, our elder brother, our Savior, the Word made flesh, says, out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. In other words, the Bible's testimony to those who are not children of God is certainly not follow your heart, do what you're passionate about. The Bible says the heart is deceitful, but the Bible also promises this. These children of God have a new heart. The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel puts it this way, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And Paul reflects on this He talks about this new heart and says, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. And we need this teaching today because there are many people who claim to be children of God but think of it as only a nominal change, only a change in name. What the Bible teaches, what John teaches, what the Holy Spirit teaches us in the Scriptures, is that there is a change in name, and there is a change in relationship, but there is also a change in heart. The Synod of Dort reflected on this. Here's what they concluded, by the efficacy of this regenerating spirit, he pervades the inmost recesses of man. Maybe you think that there's something in you as a child of God that God the Holy Spirit is incapable of transforming. No, what the Bible says is as a child of God, as one who has received this new birth by the Holy Spirit, that that same Holy Spirit pervades the inmost recesses of man, transforming It's a transformational kind of grace, a new nature. Thirdly, what does it mean to be called a child of God? Well, what it means is that we have a new identity in God's family. This goes beyond The relational aspect, God is our father, therefore we are secure, therefore we know our needs will be met, therefore we have Jesus Christ as our elder brother and other brothers and sisters in Christ as our family. No, this goes beyond that and it goes even beyond the fact that we have a new nature as children of God. This means that we are to identify ourselves and to be identified in an entirely different way because of our presence in God's family, because of our membership in God's family as his children with him as our father. This is good news. Identity is talked about a great deal today. You know the kinds of discussions that are had over identity, the way in which identity is conceived of, the way in which identity can, in some circles, gain you certain kinds of credibility. There are all kinds of discussions today about the nature of identity. And actually, those discussions aren't entirely new. The Apostle Paul talks about his own understanding of his identity, where he found his value, what he thought was significant. And he had a kind of Jewish religious identity that was vitally important. He says, if anyone else thinks he has confidence in the flesh, I have more. Let me list for you the ways in which my identity matters more. I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But then he says this about his identity. Whatever gain I had, I now count that as loss for the sake of Christ. Paul also explores very perceptively how this identity game plays out in the lives of Christians. In Galatians 4, when he's talking about adoption, when he's talking about the fact that we are now children of promise, he says, actually, in the past, though, you were enslaved to the elemental principles of the world. And if we look at the book of Colossians, where Paul uses that same language, we see exactly what that means. It's in contrast to the identity we have in Christ. It's an enslavement to the traditions, the philosophies, the ways of understanding yourself and your identity as a person that are found in the world. We might think of it this way in our own time. People often think your identity comes from your job. or your identity comes from your human family, your human lineage. You're defined by your friends. You're defined by other kinds of relationships. Or maybe we even think about it this way. This is in line with the philosophies we see in the New Testament. You'll be satisfied with life. You'll have all the answers if you just get this one thing. Now what Paul says about that is all of that is slavery. That's enslavement to the elemental principles of the world. But all of us feel the weight of those things. It's why our lives are often consumed by comparisons with others. It's why we often feel like failures because those identity markers are, by their very nature, ephemeral and changeable. But we have, Paul says, a new identity as children of God. We're freed from slavery to those elementary principles of the world. There's something else that we read about identity in the New Testament. We can be identified even with religious things, and Paul says, I count that all loss for the sake of Christ. We can be identified with worldly philosophies, the ways of attributing value to ourselves found in the world. Paul says those are elementary principles of the world. But we're also not to be ever identified by sin Paul makes it very clear that sin is not to reign in our mortal body, that we are to consider ourselves dead to sin. Sin isn't in charge. It doesn't define you. It's not the way you are to be named. And sometimes this can take place in obvious ways. Sometimes it can take place in less obvious ways that are more acceptable to us, where we say, This is how I was born. This is how I'm wired. You can't expect someone like me to change." Well, that's just another way of identifying yourself with your sin rather than with Christ. You might also even eliminate agency from your life. You might say, I didn't set out to do this, but it's how I am. No, the Bible says. Children of God. have a new identity in Christ. This, of course, means we have to make certain moral decisions, draw certain moral lines. Thomas Hooker writes this when he's talking about what it means to be a child of God. He says, abdicate and abandon all bad company, all your former sins and lusts, never to resume or take them into your practice again, because it is shame for us who are heirs apparent of the kingdom of heaven, children of God, to be groveling among things in this life with others." Now, it is the case that we might not always feel this change in identity from slaves to children, from those who are disconnected with God to now being children of God with God as our Father and Jesus as our elder brother. We might not even feel this change in identity which the Bible clearly describes. But the Bible says it is nonetheless real. John Bunyan beautifully meditated on this verse and actually the verse to follow. It was his last sermon, the last sermon he preached after a life of great suffering. He preached a sermon on verse 13 of John chapter 1 and he reflected deeply on verse 12. And what he said as he lay dying, meditating on this description of what it means to be a child of God. As he says, there's usually some similitude, some similarity between the father and the child. Maybe that the child looks like the father, so that those who are born again have this same similarity. They have the image. of Jesus Christ, everyone that is born of God as something of the features of heaven upon him. Therefore, they are called, he says, children of God. To be a child of God is to have a new relationship with God and with others, to have a new nature, and to have a new identity. The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, came into the world only to be rejected. But, the Bible tells us, through faith in Him, we can be called children of God. Children with a new and vibrant and living relationship to our Creator from whom we are estranged. Children with an entirely new nature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Children whose identity is not found in vain ideas, certainly not found in sin, which easily entangles us, but in our secure relationship with God as our heavenly Father. And what kind of a father is he? Well, the Bible says he's a father who cares for us, who loves us, who knows us, and in whom we are secure. You may know perhaps the words of the hymn based on the 103rd Psalm. Father like he tends and spares us, well our feeble frame he knows. In his hands he gently bears us, rescues us from all our foes. What does the hymn writer do with that teaching from the 103rd Psalm? Well, he says, praise him, praise him. Praise him, praise him, widely as his mercy goes. Let's pray together. Our great God, we thank you for these truths contained in this verse. Oh, Father, the fact that we can even come to you as our Father is such a great privilege and gift. We confess that we bring nothing in our hands. Simply to the cross of Christ we cling. We thank you for the blessings that are ours in Him, and we thank you in His name. Amen.