All right, well, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and reach down and grab them. We'll be in John chapter eight again. John chapter eight, just slowly working our way through this chapter and this gospel. And today we'll especially be looking at verses 37 through 47. John 8, 37 through 47. This is the word of the Lord. I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with my father and you do what you have seen with your father.' They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. you do the deeds of your father. Then they said to him, we were not born of fornication, we have one father, God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come of myself, but he sent me. Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word. You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears God's words, therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God. Let's pray. God, we thank you that we have heard your words. God, and we pray that we would not be like these unbelieving Jews, Lord, who you say their father is the devil. God, we trust in you and in your word, Lord, that when we call upon you, from our hearts, Lord, we are born not of the seed of Satan, but of the incorruptible seed of Christ. God, we just thank you for this time to gather together to worship, Lord, that we are able to freely join here and hear from you. God, I pray you would truly meet us in a powerful way. God, bless all those that are hearing this word from you. Lord, let me not be a distraction, but let them hear directly from your spirit preaching to their hearts. God, please bless me as I seek to just expound and apply your word rightly. God, give me great unction and liberty in delivering this message. God, if I'm beginning to say something wrong or unhelpful, or correct me before it comes out of my mouth. God, we thank you for your goodness to us and ask your continued blessing now in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. There's a fairly common notion today, both in the culture and even in some segments of the church, that says that everyone is a child of God. Politicians make this claim when they're trying to be both inclusive and faith based. Democrats and Republicans, it doesn't really matter, both parrot this nonsense. Some of our cultural songs claim the same thing, whether they're pop or country or blues or whatever. Listen to these lyrics, for instance, by Alan Jackson. He sings, here comes a Baptist. Here comes a Jew. There goes a Mormon and a Muslim too. I see a Buddhist and a Hindu. I see a Catholic and I see you. And then the chorus goes, we're all God's children. We're all God's children. We're all God's children. Why can't we be one big happy family? Alan Jackson has written some great songs, but that is absolutely not one of them. But he's just reflecting American cultural beliefs. That's that vague, even jellyfish type of cultural American niceness Christianity right there. It's just a common cultural belief, but it's not true at all. We are not all God's children. Some of us are children of God. Some of us, God's word tells us here, are children of the devil. So we might ask, well, how do we know then who God's children are? And to answer that question, we'll look at three marks of a child of God that we can see here in John 8, verses 37 through 47. Three distinguishing marks of a child of God. First mark, if you are God's child, you will love Jesus. If you are God's child, you will love Jesus. Second mark, if you are God's child, you will receive love and understand God's word. You'll receive love and understand God's word. And then the third and final mark we'll look at today, if you are God's child, you will do the works of God. If you are God's child, you will do the works of God. And we'll go through these one at a time. So our first point, if you are God's child, you will love Jesus Christ. This seems so basic probably to all of us in this room. that we might think this doesn't really need to be stated. But look at the example of the Jews in our text today. They say, they claim that Abraham is their father. And then when Jesus is not buying it, they say even more clearly, verse 41, listen, we're not born of fornication. We have one father, God. To be Abraham's child is the same thing as to be God's child. Scripture equates those two phrases. A child of Abraham is a child of God. And Jesus is saying, no, no, no, you are not God's children. You are not Abraham's children, regardless of where your descent is from. Because if you were born of God, then you would love me. And Christ says, I know that you don't love me. There's no doubt about it because you're trying to kill me. And you don't try to kill people that you love. But these are people, these Jews, who profess a belief in the God of the Bible. They are in visible covenant with this God. They bear the sign of faith, which at that time was circumcision, as a continual reminder that they have been set apart by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be holy to Him. These Jews, in many ways, externally appear very obedient to God's law. And they are even teachers of God's law. Yet they are so evidently not God's children. Because at the end of the day, you cannot be a child of God if you hate God. And these Jews hated Jesus Christ, who is God himself in their hearts. Our Lord tells us so plainly here in John 8 and verse 42, if God were your father, you would love me. The clearest mark of whether or not you are God's child is whether or not you love Jesus. A.W. Tozer famously wrote that, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. I wanna expand on that statement just a little bit. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Certainly, I would agree with Tozer that What you believe about God is of the utmost importance. For example, when you think of God, do you think of Him like the shorter catechism would teach us in question four? The catechism asks, what is God? Answers, God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. In His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Is something like that what comes to your mind when you think of God? Do you think of our triune God revealed in the scriptures? Or do you think something heretical, like God being an exalted man, as the Mormons believe, or that Allah is the one true God, as the Muslims claim? What you believe about God is of great importance, but of equal importance, and I'm sure Tozer would agree with this, of equal importance is the response of your heart when you think about God. Because if you can affirm the Apostles' Creed and the great Reformed confessions of faith, but not have your heart warmed when you think about the King of Kings, then you are in a very dangerous position. Just like these Jews here. In many ways, they had good Orthodox doctrine, but their hearts were as hard as stone. If you are not moved to praise and thank and honor God when you are thinking of Him, then you need to get down on your knees and pray that he would open your heart. Ask that God would revive you, that he would help you to love him as you want. Loving God is the highest duty a human being has. And this heart affection and head knowledge, they're not two separate things that, you know, never the twain shall meet. They go very much hand in hand. You have to love God as he has revealed himself in his word. Because if you have, remember that pristine doctrine, and you understand all mysteries and all knowledge, but have not love, then the Apostle Paul says that your knowledge profits you nothing. But then on the other hand, if you have a great heart affection for God, but your affection is not according to knowledge, which is the charge laid against the Jews in Romans. If you love a God of your own design, or if you love a God of a false religion, then all the sincerity of your heart will likewise profit you nothing. There are many people who are sincere in their belief about God, but they're very wrong. And sincerity about error does not get you entrance into the kingdom of heaven. You must love God as He has revealed Himself, and God has revealed Himself chiefly in Jesus Christ. Paul tells us this in Hebrews, God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds. who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a much more excellent name than they. Jesus is God himself, and he reveals God to us most clearly. Jesus will go on to say, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. I and the Father are one. So we cannot be children of God if we do not love God, and we cannot love God if we do not love Christ. As we've said before, these Jews here in John's gospel, they make a big deal about being children of Abraham. That's very important to them, who their parents were. But Jesus says, you now seek to kill me, but Abraham did not do this. Now, what does he mean Abraham did not seek to kill Jesus? Abraham lived a long time ago. But if we remember back to Genesis 18, I think it tells us something here. Yahweh himself appears to Abraham as he's sitting in the doorway of his tent in the heat of the day. And Yahweh appears to him as a man. Looking back from this side of Jesus' incarnation, we can clearly see that it was Christ himself who appeared to Abraham. Jesus was there at Abraham's tent. And how did Abraham respond to this guest? Well, in contrast to the Jews 2,000 years ago, Abraham did not try to kill Christ because he was bringing bad news or something like that or bringing the truth that he didn't like. Rather, he welcomed him. and asked him to stay with him for a while. And he brought him good food out of the best of his cattle and grain. Abraham was hospitable and reverent toward Christ. He loved Christ. And if we are to be children of Abraham and therefore children of God, we must love Christ too. There's no other way about it. Our second mark that we're gonna look at today is this. If you are God's child, you will receive love and understand God's word. If you're God's child, you'll receive love and understand God's word. We see this particular truth affirmed over and over and over again in this one unit of text we're looking at. Mainly, Jesus is affirming this by showing how those who are not God's children will not receive and love and understand his word. He's teaching us a truth by its opposite. Verse 37, I know that you're Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. Very similarly, verse 40, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. Why is it that the Jews are seeking to kill Jesus? He says it's because he, Christ, preached the word of God to them, which he received from his father in heaven, and they hated it. They did not receive the word of God with joy and with submission. Verse 43, why do you not understand my speech? because you are not able to listen to my word. Jesus is saying that unbelievers can't understand his teaching because they have not received and submitted to his word. That might sound a little bit like circular reasoning, but it's not. Jesus is saying, of course you don't understand me. Your hearts aren't even able to listen to me. Of course a dead man doesn't have faith in Christ. Can a dead man do anything? And we see this so often in unbelievers today. They'll claim the Bible has contradictions, or the Bible is too outdated and outmoded, or it's just a bunch of nice stories. But this is because either number one, these unbelievers actually haven't read the Bible, which is often the case. Somehow they become experts on a Bible they have not read. Or number two, they haven't approached the Bible with the reverence it is due. If you approach the word of God with an arrogant and hard-hearted posture, or you read God's word with anything less than a worshipful spirit, then you shouldn't be surprised if God doesn't bless you with understanding. Now, God can always do a surprising work of grace. I think of the story of Lee Strobel, the journalist who set out to disprove the truth of the Bible and ended up becoming a Christian and a pastor in the process. And God sits in the heavens and laughs. But generally, God works in such a way that to understand Christian doctrine, you first must submit to the word of God. You don't wait to obey until you can understand everything. Rather, you will understand when you first obey. And then verses 45 through 47, the same truth is coming up. If you're a child of God, you'll receive his word. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears God's words. Therefore you do not hear because you are not of God." They say, we're children of God. Jesus says, children of God hear and receive his word. They don't hate the truth. What does that make you seem like? Jesus could not be more clear here. If you are one of God's children, you will receive God's word. You will hear the truth of the gospel and you will believe it. And those who are not God's children will not hear God's word rightly. In just a couple chapters, Jesus will go on to say even more clearly, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. If you're a child of God, you will receive and love and understand God's word. You cannot be a Christian and hate the Bible. This means that when God says something in scripture, it'll ring true in your heart. You'll accept it with confidence. I've met several people that say things like, well, I believe parts of the Bible, but then there are some parts which I just can't accept. Or maybe they're a little more humble seeming, not really truly humble, but they'll say, there are some parts that I'm just, I'm not sure about. And I'll say to them, okay, well, why do you get to stand in judgment over God's word? When you start evaluating the Bible and deciding which parts you're going to accept and which parts you're going to reject, then you've put yourself in a position of authority higher than scripture. You're acting like you must know better than God. Even when you say you can't understand what he's saying, somehow that makes you know better than him. You've reversed things here when you do that. As a Christian, your attitude must always be to accept whatever God says in his word. The Word has absolute, complete, total authority over you. You have no authority over the Word. And this heart posture is what will unlock Scripture far better than any amount of study that could be done with a cold, dead heart. You won't understand everything. You certainly won't understand things perfectly all the time. In fact, you still might be massively confused. about some parts of the word of God. But you will see the good news of Jesus Christ bleeding through the words of the Bible, and you'll embrace this word as your rule for life and as your great treasure. And the final point of our sermon today, the third mark of a Christian, is if you are God's child, you will do the works of God. John 8, verses 39 through 41, they answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father, who is the devil. Jesus tells us plainly that we will know who the children of God are by their fruits. How do you know for certain that an apple tree is going to give you apples? You know for certain when it gives you the apples. Now that sounds silly, but it's true. That's how you know the apple tree is giving you apples. When you pluck that apple off of its branch. We don't know infallibly and with absolute certainty that an apple tree is going to give us apples just because there's a sign on it that says apple tree. Or because the man at the plant nursery says, here's your apple tree. But at the same time, we can trust even before the fruit comes that it is in fact an apple tree. Before the apple time comes, we can make a judgment of charity that the tree will one day give us delicious fruit to eat. But we cannot make a judgment of absolute certainty until we see the limbs bearing forth the fruit. So we know who Christians are when we can see the fruit of Christ in their lives. I wanna be clear here, we're speaking of works, good works cannot save you. But if you are saved, you will without a doubt do good works. Martin Luther said that we are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. Children of our congregation, you bear a family resemblance to your parents and to your other relatives. I bet all of the children in this room here have heard things before, like you look just like your dad. or you have your mother's eyes, or you look like a mini version of your big brother, something like that. But family resemblance isn't only what we look like, it's also how we act. I see my kids acting like me all the time. I see them running around, I'm like, that is a little James right there. And sometimes that makes me happy. I remember things about my childhood that make me smile. Sometimes it makes me sad, because I see them sinning in the ways that I struggle with sin. You bear a family resemblance to those that you're related to. And Jesus here tells these unbelieving Jews, if you were really Abraham's children, you would act like Abraham. Abraham honored and obeyed God. He trusted God's promises. He built his entire life. He put the life of his posterity totally on the certainty of God's promises. He loved his neighbor as himself. He had the law of God on his heart and he obeyed it. We need to do the same. If we are children of God, we need to act like we're children of God. The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter two, by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. If you're God's child through faith, then God has already prepared the good works that he wants you to do. He has designed them just for you, appointed you to do them. He has laid them out neatly in front of you. Now you just need to follow him in obedience in them. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who's at work within you both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. Abraham is described in scripture over and over again as a man of faith. But faith isn't just when you say, I'm a Christian. Faith is when you have a true trust of Christ in your heart that overflows into all the other areas of your life. Think about how your heart, your physical heart, works inside your body. It pumps blood to every single part of your body, to your toes, to your brain, to your lungs, to your fingertips, everything. Well, if you have Christ in your heart, then that's also going to give life to every area of who you are. It's going to affect every aspect of your existence. Just like the blood just doesn't stay right here, hanging out in the heart, so your faith in Christ and the power of his spirit doesn't just stay right here. It's not just a nice feeling you have. It brings life to every part of you. And people will see that. They can't see inside you, but they can see what you're doing and the way you're doing it. And the Bible says that they will give glory to your Father in heaven because of your good works. Puritan Pastor Thomas Goodwin writes that the object matter of all religion is reduced to credenda and agenda. Credenda is an old word that means what we believe. It's where we get our word creed, I believe. I believe in God, the Father Almighty. An agenda then is based on that credenda, what we do. We still use that word today, agenda. We might look at our agenda for the day and see what tasks lay before us. Well, when we look at the agenda of our heart, do we see good works? which honor God and serve our neighbor? Or we see evil works, which show us to be children of the world, the flesh and the devil. What's on our agenda for the day? The interesting thing is, and what feels like the very frustrating thing, is that when we look within ourselves, we often see both. We see good works on our agenda. And also we see this desire or this tug to do bad works. You may think, well, what does that mean then? What if I think I might have both? Well, it means you're not yet glorified. Your salvation is not yet complete. If you're in Christ, you will continue to struggle with sin, but you will hate it. Paul says very clearly in Romans 7 that he delights in the law of God in his inner man, and he wills to do that which is good. Only a Christian could say that. An unbeliever would never say, I delight in the law of God in my inner man. Yet Paul also says he keeps doing the thing which he hates. He keeps sinning, even though he loves and trusts in Christ. Paul says there's this war going on within him, a war between the spirit and the flesh, a war between the old man he was in Adam and the new man he is in Christ. And Paul hates this about himself. He is in anguish. He feels terrible. He says that even though he is born again and safe in the arms of Christ, sin continues to attempt to bring him back into captivity. Wretched man that I am, he cries out, who will deliver me from this body of death? That is the cry of a Christian. So if you see within you a desire to love God and do his will, but you also feel this ungodly draw, to sin and break God's law and it disgusts you, then that is a sign that you are in the war and you must fight. You must fight every single day and never give up. And in the end, you will win the prize. People that are not born again do not have any fight going on within them. They just have sin sitting on the throne of their hearts and they're bowing down to it. They may be pricked in their conscience at times. They may feel bad when they do wrong things. They might know that they're doing wrong things and even start to feel disgusted by it in a way, but they don't fight it. They don't fight the sin. They submit to it and they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. It is a good sign if you are fighting against your sin. Even when you lose some of the battles, the fight is important. Press on knowing that in Christ you will win the war. Now, the three things we've looked at today are the marks of a Christian, love of God, love of his word and good works. And to be precise, these three things do not make you a Christian. They just show that you were a Christian. To be made a Christian, you simply have to be given the gift of faith in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. So if you're not sure exactly what you're standing before God is, that's where you have to start. If you want to love God, you first have to trust him. If you want to understand and embrace the truth of God in his word, you first have to trust him. If you want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, you first have to trust him. That's the foundation. When we come upon texts like this, the first thing we should do is examine our hearts. and repent of our sins and ask Christ to revive us again. Renew your faith in the Lord Jesus, no matter where you are on your spiritual journey. When you come across texts like this, you should call upon Christ in faith and ask his grace to flow through you more powerfully than ever before. But another practical use that we have for these texts is that God wants us to discern who other Christians are. We're not called to sit in judgment of others here in this life, but we are called to look at each other's fruit. Not because we're being self-righteous, but when we look at each other's fruit, we know how to help our brothers and sisters in Christ. We know how to encourage them in their war that they're dealing with for holiness. We know who to evangelize. We know how to safeguard the purity of the church and the sacraments. so on and so forth. We do all this by looking at fruit. And one group of people that especially may come to mind when we read texts like this is our children. Jesus says a lot about parentage and children and ancestry and identity all throughout John chapter eight. And the Jews say a lot about it too. We might think, well, if natural descent isn't enough to ensure that my children are Christians and I have to look for all these marks of a true Christian in their lives, then how am I supposed to view my little children especially before I see any noticeable fruit one way or the other? Should I assume that they are unregenerate pagans from the womb? No worse or no better than the man who's never heard of Christ who belongs to a cannibalistic tribe in the jungle somewhere. Is that what I should assume? This is a very good and important question we need to ask ourselves. When we baptize a little child, we are making a judgment of charity that that little child is a Christian. Now, why would we do that though, when we don't see the fruit in their lives yet? Because they are part of God's covenant people. Remember the olive tree, or I'm sorry, the apple tree we talked about. You don't see the fruit yet when you bring it home from the nursery, but it has a sign on it. And the man says, this is an apple tree. Looks like the other apple trees. You say, okay, this is an apple tree. And just like that, we see the example of the olive tree in Romans 11 that helps us think through this. Covenant children are branches shooting out from the olive tree of God's people. They're not plum tree branches. They're not orange tree branches. They're not even wild olive branches. They are natural branches on the olive tree, but they just don't have any olives yet. So we make a judgment of charity that they will produce olives one day. Now, I looked this up. I don't think Paul's being overly precise with the metaphor, but I looked up how long does it take an olive tree to bear fruit? Well, it generally takes about three years for an olive tree to begin producing its first olives. But you don't get the first full harvest until at least seven years. Now, we don't assume that for those first three or seven years that the tree planted in faith is not an olive tree. We're not thinking, I'm not believing a second of this until I see olives. That wouldn't make any sense. We don't think it's really a pear tree fooling me. But at the same time, we don't presume on the harvest of the olives. So what do we do? We exercise faith, faith in action. We water the tree. We make sure it has good access to sunlight. We make sure there's good soil around it. We probably use some type of fertilizer. And we pray for the harvest. Find me a farmer, regardless of his religious profession, who doesn't pray that his crops grow and that his animals don't die, and who doesn't work hard to give them every chance at life. We make use of every means available to us to encourage that little olive branch to grow olives. So we should view our children as true olive branches, and we should act in faith, believing that God will give us the fruit in season. But we should not presume that the harvest will ever come apart from means. The Jews here in John 8 thought that they had a harvest without means. They thought they were true children of Abraham, regardless of whether they loved God or received His word or did good works. They thought, hey, we're on the olive tree. That is deadly thinking. Just as we should examine ourselves and others, we also must teach our children that God's children love Him, obey Him, and receive His word. Children being raised in Christian homes. You should never think that you're saved just because of who your parents are, or because you're baptized, or because you're members of the church. But you should know that you're saved because Christ died for you, he rose again for you, he lives in your hearts, and because you trust in him alone for salvation. and then out of that seed of faith that's sown into your hearts, you children should pick up the sword of the spirit and begin slaying that old man of sin that wants to master you. Christ has called each one of his children to be a dragon slayer. Who here wants to slay dragons? I do. I see a lot of hands. It's exciting. It might be scary at times, but we have a guaranteed victory over these dragons. If you want to be a dragon slayer, then put on the armor of God and get to work. You've been drafted for a great and terrible war, but you have been promised victory and eternal life. Through Christ, you will be more than a conqueror. So love God, receive his word, and do his works in faith. Let's pray. God, we praise you that you are a good and loving God. Lord, we thank you that we do not have to bear fruit in order to be regarded as your children. But God, we do thank you that if we are your children by faith, we will bear fruit. God, I pray that we would examine ourselves. Lord, that we would not be afraid to look within and see what areas need refining and that we would be humble enough to lay down before you and ask you to do the work of a refiner in our life. God, I pray that you would prune off the areas within us that are lifeless and that love sin and that want to submit to the devil. God, I pray that everyone in this congregation would just be bursting with fruit, Lord, that they can just use to glorify you and to signal to others that they have a good loving father in heaven and that you will be their father too. God, we thank you for your love that you have adopted us into your family, that we as Gentiles have been grafted in and now we are just like the natural olive branches growing on your tree. God, we love you and we praise you in Christ's name.