5th January 2024

5th January 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read - 1 John 3:4-10 (focus v8-10)


Message Alan Burke 


Are you desiring to please yourself today or are you desiring to live in a way that pleases your heavenly Father? We should be those who are desiring to live in a way that pleases our heavenly Father now that we are his children and adopted heirs with Christ. Think of it like when you were a wain, did you try to do things that pleased your parents or were you intent on doing what you wanted knowing fine well it would bring their destain? I’d suggest the former, we desired to live in a way, tried to live in a way that pleased our parents. We should be those who are trying to live in such a way that pleases our heavenly Father. 


Look to what John says because ultimately for those who are not trying to live in a way that pleases our heavenly Father and do what is sinful they are off the devil. John doesn’t beat about the bush, he calls it as it is, those who live lives that are continue without repentance are showing that they are of the devil. Now I know people who call themselves Christians, but their sin shows that they are of the devil, they can call themself a Christian but a christian is one who is seeking to die to their sin, to mortify it. 


For the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devils work, and what is the devils work, the devil work as been to hold sinners captive to sin, so that they may be lost, they may be filled with the fear of death and the condemnation that is due for their sin (Heb 2:14-15). Whereas the son came and paid the penalty that was due to sinners, that had been promised in the midst of the fall, (Gen 3:15) to destroy the work of the devil. 


Those who make claim of being a christian but who are not seeking to live in a way that is accordance with the revealed will of God is a nonsense because Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, if someone continues to live in a way, to sin without attempts to mortify it, maybe they see that sin as part of their identity, maybe it is a hidden sin known only to the individual, then they are showing that they are not Christs’. They are doing what the devil does, they are opposed to Jesus. 


For those of us who claim Christ as our own we should be able to look back and see a change in our behaviour over the years as we have been transformed from living as one of the devil to living as one who is in Christ. For those in Christ the power of sin has been broken, and this is displayed in our lives as we move from living one way to another. We should be as children of the living God becoming like our adoptive God, the familial likeness should be increasing because of learnt behaviour, the way we sound, the way they say things their mannerisms begin to micmic those things of God and not of the devil. 


Because God’s seed remains in us we cannot go on sinning, because we have been born of God. Sin will not define us, for those who claim Christ, claim the name christian and the reason is that for those ho have been born of God his seed remains in him, and what is meant by this is for those who have been born of God the Holy Spirit dwells in them, they have been given new life, and as Jesus has said "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out”. (Jn 6:37). We should not take sin lightly Our God doesn’t, our saviour had to bleed and die for our sin to redeem us, to make us his children, and it is only those who repent and believe are his children, the rest are the devils children who will be judged in their sin as his children.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q34 What is adoption?
Adoption is an act of God’ s free grace, (1 John 3:1) whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God. (John 1:12, Rom. 8:17)
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