That's next week's sermon. And they answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God, and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, do you not believe me? Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God." This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Our gracious God and Father, we know that all those who are children of God will come to resemble the Lord Jesus Christ. And those who are of the seed of the serpent, those who are the children of the devil, will also resemble him. so cause us to examine our own hearts and root out the sin that so easily besets us so that we too may be transformed as we see the image of the Lord Jesus Christ shining brightly. May we be transformed into his image day by day. For we pray this in his precious name and amen. Amen. You may be seated. Over the years, many famous family feuds have made headlines. One of the most renowned in literature is, of course, the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. This feud tragically ends with the death of two young lovers from these constantly warring families. However, there are many real-life examples that also exist, such as the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. How many of you have heard of those names? They were often referred to as the modern-day Montagues and Capulets. This feud, which unfolded in West Virginia and Kentucky in the late 19th century, comprised several court cases and even a Romeo and Juliet-like love affair and resulted in over a dozen deaths. This family warred over and over again across the generational lines. Family feuds are as old as humanity. Following the fall of Adam, which we just read, it did not take long for the first brothers to fall into a disagreement with each other, resulting in the death of one and the exile for the other. However, in the case of Cain and Abel, it was clear who was in the right and who was in the wrong. And there it illustrates what God had promised in his curse to the serpent. He says in Genesis 3 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. And this bitter feud which separates two distinct family lines, the line of the godly and the line of the serpent, the line of the woman, and the seed of Satan, the devil. And it has continued ever since the beginning, and it began in heaven. And it has passed down through two family lines, and each family bears the unique identifiable characteristics of its father. And John 8, 37 through 47, Jesus describes the characteristics of those who have the devil as their father. And by examining these traits, we can discern the difference between the children of the devil and the children of God by considering three marks of the devil's children. we can infer the opposite characteristics of the children of God. Because children resemble their fathers, we must examine our faith and practice and make sure that we resemble the children of God. So notice that children have the same characteristics as their fathers. The first mark of the children of the devil is hate. hate. Jesus says in verse 37, I know that you are the offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. The interesting thing about the devil is that he has found himself in a very interesting position. He is created by God, but he's rebelled against God. He has He hates God, and in his pride it caused him to turn away from God, actually to exalt himself to try to be like God. But it didn't work. God cast him out of heaven, and although in his pride he exalted himself, he could do nothing and be nothing like God. And this, of course, must have angered him all the more. He did not have the power in himself to create anything. God is the creator. All he could do, all that remained for him to do, was corrupt the good things that God had made. All he could do was take life. All he could do was murder. And even this was only temporary. As Jesus says, don't fear the one who can destroy the body, but fear the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell. And that is the first mark that would come to define all of the children of Satan, murder. which its cause is found in hatred. And just as with the father, the devil, this hatred was both of God's God and of his people. And I'll just read a couple of Psalms to give you the flavor of this kind of hatred. In Psalm 68, one, it says, God shall arise and his enemies shall be scattered and those who hate him shall flee before him. And again in Psalm 44, 7, it says, but you have saved us from our foes and have put to shame those who hate us. See, sin follows a predictable path. Hatred produces anger, which if not restrained, gives way to murder. And God warns Cain, saying, if you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door and its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. But Cain could not rule over his hatred and anger, and so he killed his righteous brother Abel. And that same path marks all the devil's children. Jesus says in verse 44, he lays this charge against the Jews. because they were rejecting him as the Christ, refusing to believe the truth. He says, you are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth. If the first mark of the devil's children is hatred, then the opposite is also the first mark of those who are children of God, namely love. That love must be defined, for the concept of love has of course been co-opted by our culture and twisted in many perverse ways. Notice that Jesus says in verse 42, if God were your Father, you would love me. What characterizes the children of God is first a love for Christ. For which all other loves gain their direction, their goal, their purpose. It begins with love for Christ. And true love for Christ then ends in obedience. As Jesus said in John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. See, the devil's children begin with hate fueled by anger, which leads to murder. Whereas God's children begin with love for Christ, fueled by the Holy Spirit, and they are driven to keep his commandments. So just as hate leads to murder, love for Christ follows its own predictable path. When you love Christ, it would be completely antithetical for you to not also love His people. But it doesn't make sense to stop there. Love for Christ leads us to love for our neighbor and even for our enemies. We are so good at turning people into enemies. It's easy to sit and point fingers to people out there. who are hateful and murderous. Many of us watched the riots in 2020. We were aghast that people could be so hateful, so destructive to people's property and person. sort of wonder what drives, what fuels that kind of hatred. And we look down on those who push the woke agenda. We vilified them. All of this political turmoil had the effect of solidifying any divisions that we previously had, further entrenching us into our own positions. Somewhere along the way, we jettisoned love. Now love does not mean compromise. Sometimes love means that you must not, under any circumstances, compromise. But not compromising doesn't mean being a jerk or alienating yourself from your enemies. But love may mean that despite real, tangible differences, you choose to look past those to see a person made in the image of God with dignity and honor and respect and you relate to them based on that. Not whether they're Democrat or Republican. I will say this more and more, especially with an election year approaching. We must not divide over those kinds of things, especially here in the body of Christ where we are meant to show the world a picture of a people that has been united under one head, who has been made one body. The sad thing with hatred is that it often blinds you to what is right in front of you. See, these Jews were so blinded by hatred that they missed Christ. He was right in front of them. And they want to kill him. Now, I know that this is hard for us to understand. These are a people who have been waiting for generations for this man to come. They have staked their whole future life on him coming. They have anticipated and planned. You think our Advent celebrations, they're nothing compared to celebrations that lasted for thousands of years. And then he shows up right in front of them and they want to kill him. They turn him into an enemy and they miss seeing who he actually is. Have you ever read that stunning statement in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 2 where the author of Hebrews is encouraging them not to neglect hospitality? And he uses a reason that I never in my wildest dreams would have thought of. He says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. I would commend to you a essay by the late C.S. Lewis called The Weight of Glory. It was actually published into a book, but it is one essay that's towards the end of that. And he talks about, in that essay, The Weight of Glory, talks about how if you were to run into somebody who had been transformed into their glorious state, what they will be in the life that is to come, you would be tempted to fall down and worship them. The people that Christ died for, the ones he is in the process of remaking to be more like him, the ones that you disagree with and are your enemies. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. You don't even know if the person that you're having over to your home is not an angel. And that's the reminder not to neglect this. You want them to come into your house. How much we are going to stand and judge angels. We're going to rule over the world to come, the author of Hebrews says. Not angels, us. And yet, we're in petty squabbles with each other over insignificant things. just as they were with Jesus, seeking to kill Him, driven by hatred and fueled by anger. And it would be bad enough if that were the only mark that distinguished the children of the devil from the children of God. But there are two others that Jesus singles out. One goes right along with hate like two peas in the pod. And the last is the root or the genesis of both of the others. Not only was the devil a murderer, he was also a liar. Jesus goes on in verse 44 to say, "...you are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies." He lies because it's in his character to lie. In fact, the very first words out of the devil's mouth were a lie. And we believed them. He's not surely said you will die. God's a liar. Jesus calls these Jews who believed in him children of the devil because he tells the truth and they don't believe them. If someone came telling them lies, they would believe them readily enough. But when they hear the truth, it's so foreign to their ears that they just simply reject it. They prefer lies. This is the case whenever we go our own way, whenever we prefer autonomy, substituting what we believe to be right in place of what God has said. We prefer lies when we call evil good and good evil, Isaiah 5.20. Cleverly, our culture has called this, this lie, my truth. popularized by Oprah, pursuing my truth is a heroic attempt to live an authentic life without respect to how God has created us to live. Secularism has given us the mistaken belief that our lives are infinitely malleable. They're like Play-Doh. You can do anything you want with it. In a recent substack by Mary Harrington, she uses the illustration of processed meat to describe this phenomenon. She says, quote, and this in turn reveals the lie at the heart of the transhumanist promise. and reordering humans to the standing reserve, what we get is not the technological means of making ourselves into anything we desire. Rather, it's a new order of pervasive substitution in which we are forbidden to notice the difference between real and synthetic. This is the mindset which tries to convince consumers that deli meat slices made from mechanically recovered meat slurry is the same as cured ham. or that synthetic plant-based proteins formed and flavored via intensive laboratory processes, artificial flavors, stabilizers, preservatives, and so on, is the same as actual meat. There is human nature, which is not infinitely malleable. You cannot make anything you want of it. God has circumscribed its limits. And there are those who would say, I can do anything I want. And one is like the slurry that is called deli meat. And one is real, actual meat. And the problem with our current cultural moment is that they're telling you that you must accept this synthetic blend for the actual real thing. That's a lie. That is a lie. We now traffic in lies. And the worst thing about this is that the more people tell themselves their truth, the more they believe that it really is truth. Consequently, if you follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole, you end up unable to accept what Francis Schaeffer called true truth, true truth about God, true truth about us, true truth about the culture around us. Embracing the lies of your own fictional wonderland will leave you unable to recognize the truth. You will prefer lies. Paul says in Romans 1, therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Why? Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. And they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen. They exchanged the truth for a lie, so God gave them over to that lie. You want a lie? Here, have it in full measure, running over and heaped out. Sin is an attempt to have life apart from God, which is a lie. And when you choose that, often God gives you what you want. Fine, you want life apart from me? Here you go, it looks like death. Don't think we're safe from this in here. I would argue that we are not at all. Many of us are more catechized by Netflix than we know. Just because you don't accept transgenderism doesn't mean that you have not been influenced by the culture's idea that our lives are infinitely malleable. Christians are just as susceptible of adopting relativism's stance of my truth. We've all been in that small group, right, where the person says, well, this is what I believe it means for me. That's the same thing the culture is doing. But the obvious flip side and the mark of the children of God is their acceptance and promotion of the truth. Pontius Pilate in his decidedly postmodern mood asks Jesus, what is truth? God is truth. I think the best definition of truth is that which corresponds to reality. That which corresponds with reality. And this is true externally as well as internally. God, as the foundation of truth, internally corresponds to himself in absolute perfection. He is true to himself in righteousness, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. So truth is that which corresponds to reality and lies are attempts to create our own reality. For example, when someone makes a statement about a fact, it is only true if it corresponds with reality. So it is true that the earth is round. Hopefully most believe that. That statement can be verified to be true. Steve will help you. And it corresponds to reality. To deny that and say that the world is flat is a lie because that does not correspond to reality. To say that a person is a male if he has XY chromosomes But if that same person with XY chromosomes claims to be female, he is lying because his statement does not correspond with reality. Sin is living a lie, since that which is sin does not correspond to reality. You may say here, isn't sin the reality of us all? Are we all born in sin with the devil as our father? True. That is true, but the lie at the heart of sin is that the sinful fallen condition of the world and our own hearts is what reality should correspond to. But God created us to correspond to himself. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. So the fall brought man under the false reality that does not correspond to the truth. Now man is born living a lie, born into sin. And the other metaphors that are used to describe this condition all fit well within this scheme, like darkness, or blindness, or being dead, even broken, or lost. describe a life that is living apart from or not corresponding with reality. God's children are marked by their acceptance of the truth, which of course is acceptance of Jesus and His Word. We'll talk about that in a moment. There can be no acceptance of truth without also walking in the truth. John says in 1 John 2-4, whoever says, I know him, that is whoever says, I know Jesus, but does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. And here, the religious hypocrisy of these Jews comes to the surface since they claim to have God as their father, yet they are seeking to kill Jesus, a clear violation of the commands of God. It may not be apparent at first, but they're mocking Jesus. They're mocking him for his paternity. In verse 41, he says, you are doing the works your father did. They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. They're saying, Jesus, we're not sure who your father is. Some say God, but it looks like she was pregnant before Joseph and her married. Your paternity is the one under question here, not ours. We are descended from God. Do you see John's irony? Jesus, who came from the Father. And yet they mock him. But the root of hate and lies is the presence or absence of one key thing, and that fundamentally is whether you receive Jesus as Christ or not. And that's the last mark, unbelief or faith. Notice in verse 37, Jesus says, essentially, I know that genetically you are the offspring of Abraham, but there's more than genetics at stake here. For instance, my word, which is straight from my father, it makes no progress among you. And the reason is that they call Abraham as father, but they don't do the works of Abraham. And that causes us to ask the question, well, what were the commendable works that Abraham did? Was it that his obedience was flawless? No. Was it that he never lied? No. A half-truth is a lie, brothers and sisters. He said, Sarah is my sister. Well, technically that was true. But it wasn't true. They were married. God promised him that the promised seed would come through Sarah. And yet he took matters into his own hands. and had a child through Hagar, his wife's servant. So, what is it that, what are the works that Abraham did that Jesus is commending and that these Jews are not doing? It's faith, it's his faith. He believed the promises of God. It says in Genesis 15, five and six, and God brought Abraham outside and he said, look toward the heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. Then God said to Abraham, so shall your offspring be. And Abraham believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. The simple truth Jesus is trying to get across to this Jewish crowd is that although they claim to be heirs of Abraham, by their rejection of Jesus they prove that they are actually children of the devil. For to believe the covenant promises of God is to accept that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world. But here's the interesting thing that Jesus is saying. He says, there are two fathers who have two families. That is, two classes of people who resemble them. If you're born into this family, you look like your father. If you're born into this family, you look like your father. Jesus says, whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. The reason that they are filled with unbelief, which leads them to lies, which leads them to seek to kill Jesus is because they do not belong to the family of God. They are not his children. Jesus is saying, your lives do not correspond with reality. You claim to be children of God, yet you reject me, the truth. Since you reject me, you cannot have God as your father. Therefore, you are liars. So we see the marks of whose family you belong to like hate and lies or love and truth are rooted in the presence or absence of faith. Faith in Jesus Christ. Brambles do not produce figs. Jesus says in Matthew 7, verse 15, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. you will be known by your fruit. Since children resemble their fathers, we must examine our faith and practice and make sure that we resemble the children of God. One good place to start is the larger catechism's exposition of the law. There they distinguish between what the law requires and what it prohibits. It is not enough just to refrain from murder. You must also seek to preserve life. Simply keeping your tongue from speaking falsehood is not enough. You must also speak the truth. But more importantly, you must embody the truth. If it is a lie to live a life that does not correspond to reality, that means you are lying every time you sin. So to bear the marks of truth, your life must be congruent with what Christ has made you, saints, called to be holy. And this calls for a holy war, for the blood feud between those two warring families runs right through our hearts. Paul says in Romans 7, I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law, waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, I Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is a difference between those who practice is to hate and lie, rooted in unbelief, and those whose practice is faith, working through love. And I've said this many times before, we need to be very cautious in examining our own hearts. We often find things that are not there, and we very often miss the obvious things that are there. However, it's not an option not to search your heart. So here is your homework. I want you to go home and dig out your copy of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, which I know, I know, as good confessional Presbyterians, is right on your nightstand. Amen. I want you to go into your prayer closet and over the next week I want you to read each day and meditate on the larger catechism. Question 135, 136, 144, and 145. One per day. Read it slowly. Meditate on it. Look up the scripture proof texts. And then pray. Pray, O Lord, search out my heart and show me my sins. Show me the ways that I have transgressed against your holy word. And show me the ways that I have left undone those things I ought to have done. Pray, good Lord, who has called me out of sin to resemble your Son in perfect righteousness, work in me those things which are pleasing in your sight for Jesus' sake. Amen. And as you do this, I want you to keep this one thought in mind. The miracle of Christmas is that although man had been seduced by the devil, believing his lies, and through their sin had plunged the world into sin and misery, God did not leave us in that lost condition. But he chose the most stunning, almost unbelievable way to free man from his bondage to sin. He sent his son to come to earth, leaving the majesty and glory of heaven to dwell here on earth. So that as Augustine said, man's maker was made man, that he, ruler of the stars, might nurse at his mother's breast that the bread might hunger, the fountain thirst, the light sleep, the way be tired on its journey, that the truth might be accused of false witness, the teacher be beaten with whips, the foundation be suspended on wood, that strength might grow weak, that the healer might be wounded, that life might die. The staggering thing is that in taking on flesh, he was preparing himself to become sin for us. He who was the only natural born son of God descended and came and took on flesh and became the son of man. He brought himself into the family of the devil, taking on him all of their sins. That way he might die to transfer all his people who were heirs of hell by enabling them to become children of God. And if you have been adopted into his family, then you must not bear the marks of a different family. You must come to resemble the Son. Calvin said, Jesus' task was so to restore us to God's grace as to make of the children of men, children of God. Of the heirs of hell, heirs of the heavenly kingdom. Who could have done this had not the selfsame Son of God become the Son of Man. And had not so taken what was ours as to impart what was His to us. And to make what was His by nature, ours by grace. Therefore, relying on this pledge, we trust that we are sons of God, for God's natural Son fashioned for Himself a body from our body, flesh from our flesh, bones of our bones, that He might be one with us. Ungrudgingly, He took our nature upon Himself to impart to us what was His, and to become both Son of God and Son of Man in common with us. And this way we are assured of the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom. For the only Son of God to whom it wholly belongs has adopted us as his brothers. Amen. Whose family do you belong to? Does your life correspond to reality or are you living a lie? Jesus came to die so that you could be adopted and brought into his family, but only through faith are we transformed to resemble his Son. By faith, the Son sets you free from sin's bondage of hate and lies and unbelief, granting you the liberty of love. to embrace the truth all by accepting and resting in Jesus as the Christ. Since children resemble their fathers, we must examine our faith and practice and make sure that we resemble the children of God. Amen? Let's pray together. Oh Father, If we're honest, we look at our hearts and we see so much that remains from the old Adam. We see so much of the children of the devil still at work in us. We want so desperately to have our lives correspond to your reality. To die to sin every day and more and more to live to Christ. And as we have come this morning, And our hearts have been confronted with the marks of the children of the devil and the marks of the children of God. We pray that you would root out all sin that remains in us, making us more and more like your Son. For we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.