1 John 3:1-2

See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now that we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But, we know that when Christ appears we shall be like Him for we hall see Him as He is. 

More identity crisis. Don't you know who you are? Remember. See. Look. Behold. Experience the beautiful, extravagant reality of being a child of God. I am reminded of the story of the Prince and the Pauper. Did the Prince forget who he was? Knocked about, bruised, battered by the world. Repeatedly told that he was delusional, that he couldn't possibly be royalty. Did he start to believe that for himself? Doubting his birth and his rightful place? 


John asks for a different kind of paupering. Princes and princesses undercover but with the purpose of being discovered. Our purpose is to betray our identity. We are meant to be found out. Our character should expose us. Unmistakably royal. Kind. Generous. Compassionate. Sacrificial. When people saw Jesus they doubted his parentage (Matthew 13:55). This man couldn't possibly be the son of a carpenter. There had to be more to it. And so with us - there has to be more to us. Our behaviour should be inexplicable. It should beg the question: Who on earth are you? 

And in the answering we must point back to Him. We must take after John the Baptist in being those who direct people away from ourselves (John 3:26-30). John says that people will not recognise us as God's children because they do not know God. It is impossible to see the resemblance between a Father and his children if the Father is not known. And so our task is to reveal the identity of the Father through being his children. There is a sad nod of recognition when a teenager's awful behaviour is understood in the light of an abusive childhood; when patterns and actions are traced back to a child's experience of their parents. Not so with us.When people ask for an explanation for our inexplicable behaviour we are to smile and say, Let me tell you about my Dad.

1 John 2:29

If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

This is an identity issue. In John’s gospel, Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the middle of the night wanting to whether this strange man from Nazareth is really who he says he is, but Jesus flips the pharisee’s question on its head and it is Nicodemus’ identity that is called into question instead: does Nicodemus really belong to God’s kingdom? Has he been born again? In essence, Jesus is asking who his Father is. (John 3:1-21)

In his letter, John repeatedly uses his rabbi’s phrase: born again. The greek word is ‘gennao’, to be fathered by. Have you been fathered by God? Have you been begotten not just by the will of a man and a woman but by the Spirit (John 1:12-13, 3:5-8)? Because – if you have – it has consequences for your behaviour: those who have fathered by The Father do what is right. John is concerned with authenticity. How can you be sure that you are following Jesus? What are the hallmarks of a genuine relationship with the Son? What does fellowship with the Father look like?

I don’t think he intends to scaremonger, but he wants his readers to be sure. He wants them to know know know that they are born again, and he wants them to be cautious of those who claim to follow Jesus and yet live lives that do not testify to their identity of sons and daughters of God. There is beautiful, wonderful affirmation here, but there is also a challenge: to what extent are we like our heavenly Father? Where do I need to live differently that I might look like my Father’s daughter? Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19). He was completely in sync with his Dad – so much so that he could say If you have seen me then you have seen the Father. (John 14:9) Can I say this? Can I say that if you have spent time with me then you will have glimpsed something of the character and heart of God?

We are not Jesus. We are not perfect. We are still weighed down by sinful desires and yet John says that sin stops being attractive for the Jesus follower. (1 John 3:3, 3:6, 3:9) We stop doing wrong thing and start doing right things because, through the Spirit, we are being formed into the image of Christ; we are being moulded to look like the Son. (Galatians 4:19, 2 Corinthians 3:18) Through the Spirit sin loses its appeal; it stops tasting good. We don’t lose the capacity to sin; we lose the desire to do so. For John, this is one of the hallmarks of authentic Christianity.

1 John 2:28

And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

There is a beautiful tenderness to John's ferocity. In chapter 2 alone, he uses the refrain 'dear children' five times - not a patronising or belittling address, but a reminder of who his readers are to him: they are his little ones, the precious offspring born of his ministry, his dearly beloved. And yet, there is a fury to this gentleness, a vehement kind of determination, a passionate plea - these are the words of a Father shouting out across the fields to his prodigal as he walks away. Please. Don't. Do. This. These are words full of jealous, firey love that calls out to the wandering adolescent about to make a terrible mistake. Words that seek to save and protect, to spare from harm. To prevent the vulnerable from being led astray (2:26, 3:7)

John urges his readers to stick with it. Continue, remain, remember, keep going. A father standing by the side of the track on Sports Day coaxing his child to look ahead rather than look at his competitors, to get up when they stumble, to remember that there is an end, a finish line, a promise (2:25), a prize.

And so, two questions: who is cheering me on today? And who am I cheering for? As I am urged to continue, am I also urging others? Do I have the same fierce tenderness of John that delivers timely encouragement when it's most needed? Even though I was once a prodigal, have I also become a Father? That is the reminder that Henri Nouwen gives in his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, that regardless of which kind of son we are, the greater call on our lives is to become a father. Once we know the wonder and the grace and the joy and the goodness of being welcomed home, we must do as John did: we must become fathers ourselves that we might call home lost sons.

"The time has come to claim your true vocation — to be a father who can welcome his children home." (Henri Nouwen)

1 John 2:26-27

I am writing these things about those who would lead you astray. As for you, see that the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit - just as it has taught you: remain in him.

How easily I am led astray. The word here describes a 'wandering planet', a planet that has somehow flung itself out of orbit and is spinning and spiralling into the unknown. I seem to do this most days. I am the hammer all too keen to be released from the grip of the hammer thrower, determined to make my own course instead of trusting in the hands of the one who holds me, the one whose expertise will let me go only so that I will be guided to the place he would have me. I am the hammer that ends up outside the boundary markers with nothing left to do but wait to be found and collected. The lost sheep of the field events. 

Do not let yourself be led astray. Do not let yourself be distracted, lured, enticed, confused. For you have the remedy. You have the Holy Spirit. Deep magic indeed. We - little old, imperfect, sinful, messed up w - carry the Holy Spirit. Since the day that we decided to follow Jesus, He has dwelt within us, He has remained in us in exactly the same way that he did in Jesus. Unlike the Old Testament heroes of old who merely carried the presence of the Holy Spirit for a season, John the Baptist's Messiah was to be identified by the remaining presence of the Spirit of God; we are to be identified in much the same way. 

We are those in whom the Spirit remains. We have everything we need to follow Jesus and live as he did. God has provided us with a permanent teacher, a scripture-revealer, wisdom-giver, gift-bestower, truth-teller. But this is a two-person tango. We remain in him even as he remains in us. We give Him our full attention. We talk to Him. We let him lead us, guide us, teach us, correct us, convict us. This is not a one-way conversation; we are invited into dialogue. 

1 John 2.24-25

As for you, see that what you heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us - eternal life.

What have John's readers forgotten? What is it that has escaped by the back door, that has fallen away, that has been eroded by the lies of those who have come amongst them? John says that it is the first things. The simple things. The elementary truths (Hebrews 6.1). Our baby milk. (Hebrews 5.12)

We all too easily forget the basics, trying to munch our way through solids when actually our body is aching for the simplicity of milk. Desperate for fresh revelation, for new ways of knowing, for hearing what God has to say for today we sometimes neglect the beautiful things that he first said to us. We forget that day when he called us by name and said You are mine. (Isaiah 43.2) We fail to celebrate the wonders and the goodness of the good news.

And so, start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). Return to your first love. Remind yourself of the things you knew at first that have been neglected. You are loved. You are broken. You have been rescued. You are made for more than this. There is so much more than what the world has to offer (1 John 2.15-17). There is an eternity that awaits. Let's rejoice in that today.

1 John 2.22-23

Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist - denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

John does not mince his words. And I squirm uncomfortably as Peter surely did. Not me. Not I. I never will. (Matthew 26.31-35) You can count on me, Jesus. You can trust me, honest. I'm not like the others. I'm unmoveable, unshakeable, unswayable.

Only I find that I'm not.

I am all too easily persuaded that Jesus isn't really the one I thought he was. That he isn't really the long waited for one. That he can't possibly be the Messiah. That this humble, foot-washing, cross-carrying, spat-sneered-scorned and bloodied criminal cannot possibly be the king of all creation, redeemer of the world. Can he? That the dead cannot rise, the sick cannot be healed, the broken cannot be fixed, the lost cannot be found.

And yet that is who he is. He is Jesus. He is the Christ. To say anything less about him is to be a liar. To be worse than a liar. (Matthew 16.23) I say less about him all the time. Sometimes I don't say anything at all. I mumble along with Peter, I don't know what you're taking about, I do not know that man. (Matthew 26.70, 72, 74)

Oh! Come on, crumbled courage! Come on, weak resolve. Do not shrink back. Say all that can be said about this altogether lovely One, about this friend and shield and shelter and strong tower. About this lion of Judah, this slaughtered lamb. For then you will HAVE the Father. You will have the Father. You will have laid hold of God. You will hold in your hands and your heart and your head, in your very soul, the One who made you. And how I long for that! How my soul aches to find itself held and holding the One I was made for.

1 John 2:20-21

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know it, and no lie comes from the truth.

'Know' is one of John's favourite words. It is more than simply knowing something on a surface level; it is a kind of seeing that leads to spiritual understanding. Similar perhaps to the way that we use the word 'see' - not just to physically see something but to really, truly see it, to see it and understand the significance of what it is. I see. The difference between seeing Jesus and seeing him, between coldly observing a historical figure and recognising King Jesus in all his goodness and beauty and glory. 

John tells his reader that they know the truth. He isn't writing to them because they don't know it, but because they have forgotten, because they need a reminder, because they are scared and doubting and people in their midst have shaken their faith. This truth is a person. Jesus claimed it as a title for himself, as a way of explaining who he is and what he's like. He is the truth. (John 14:6) John's readers have met the truth, but their view of him has become clouded. They have started to forget what he is really like. They have forgotten that he cannot lie. (Titus 1:2, Numbers 23:19, Hebrews 6:18) That he alone is completely pure and sinless and trustworthy. John's words urge them to remember: remember who you know and what he has given you. Remember what it means that you have been given the Holy Spirit. Remember who gave you such an anointing. 

I need such a reminder today. I need to remember the anointing that I received (2 Corinthians 2:21-22. In a world where we are so easily side-swiped, I need to remember who I know and who I belong to.