Becoming Children of God: A Spiritual Transformation

Closer to this, maybe, and my voice will carry out. I want to read a passage of Scripture from the book of John. We've been looking in the last few weeks in our small group time about the church and the nature of it. The church is a group of people drawn together because of a common surrender and submission to the authority and power of God. So that someone says to God, here is my life, would you take my life? I want you to direct me and I make a commitment to you to live in obedience to you as best I can the rest of my life. At that moment, then, God enters that person's life by placing his spirit in their mind, in their heart, as a guide for them. And they begin to be changed or transformed. Now, this group of people surrender to the authority of God, so he's the head of each one of them. Then he draws them together in a group so that he's the head of that whole group. So he has authority over them, that's what the church really is. Then God brings them together in this group. They are reflecting God to the world, but in each one of them his spirit resides, and they are called the temple of God. So that anyone who sees them will see the reflection of who God is. He brings together this group of people, making them a spiritual community. Most of the people around us live based on the physical things of the world, choices they want to make, things that satisfy them, the material things around them. But God brings together in the church a spiritual community where God is in charge and the issues that control them are spiritual issues. This is what the church really is. Now I want to talk about what happens as the consequence or the result of people who place themselves in the presence of God in faith and trust. John chapter 1, this is John's Christmas story. It's not like the other Christmas stories that you see in the Bible, but a clear declaration of what God did when he came into the world. He was in the world, John chapter 1 beginning at verse 10. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decisions, or of husband's will, but born of God. When he says he gave them the right to become children of God, to those who received him as the Messiah, that is the one who was promised of God to rule his people, they were those who received him and believed on his name. His name is a way of talking about his character. Who trusted the fact that his character was the guide for them. So they recognized his authority and trusted his life to Christ as a guide for their lives. What we would call giving faith to God, allowing God to take control of them. To them, he gave the ability to become the children of God. Now, this is a powerful illustration of what the church really is, and what it means to become a follower of God. If you think about somebody, say in Russia, a little boy in Russia, who grows up in a family, his family dies, and someone from this country adopts this young man. They bring him from a culture where he speaks Russian, where he knows people, where he knows things around him, to a foreign culture in this country where he knows no one and speaks not the language. He is transported from one world to another world. What the passage is talking about is, Jesus says, if you live your life and you're controlled by the material things in your life, what you have to do, the physical things, you're transported to this spiritual world. It's like you're being born again in a new culture, a new world, and a new set of circumstances. Now, the Bible describes this transformation in the Old Testament and the New in a little bit of a different language. It's describing it in terms of God leading his people out of Egypt into the land of promise that he was bringing them to. He was trying to make sure that they understood the transformation that was taking place for them. In the book of Leviticus, God was giving them his instructions and rules by which they should live. And in this passage, chapter 20, verse 26, he was describing the change or transformation that was going to come to them. Therefore, he made a distinction between the clean and the unclean animals. Now, when the Bible talks about in the Old Testament what's clean and unclean, it's simply saying those things that you can eat and those things you can't eat. They weren't really physically clean or spiritually unclean. They were just things God said, this is what you can eat and this is what you can't eat. So he's talking about this distinction between clean and unclean animals, between clean and unclean birds. Do not defile yourself by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground. Those which I have set apart as unclean for you. He was bringing the people out of Egypt who were able to eat anything they wanted. And he said to them, when you get in the land where I'm going to send you, I want to remind you that I am in charge. So I'm going to tell you what you can eat and what you can't eat. And every time you sit down to eat, it reminds you that I am in charge of your life. You know that I am the God, the ruler of heaven and earth. Then he ends this by describing what this means. You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy. I have set you apart from the nations to be my own. All of this was to say to them, you're leaving Egypt now to come and live in the land I'm going to give you. And I'm going to give you rules by which I want you to live. And every one of those rules are going to reflect to you that I am in charge of your life and you have surrendered your life to my direction. And you will be separated. Not the same as the rest of the people in the world, but you will be separated. A different group of people than anyone else around you. And he calls this separation in the Bible by the word that we use for holy. So whenever John is talking about what happens to us, he gives us the ability to become the children of God. It's the same as what he's talking about in Leviticus. The Jewish people were set aside. Now in the New Testament, those who place their life in Christ's hands are set aside, separated. Unique. They're not like the rest of the world because they belong to God. He has authority over them. God's rule over their lives makes them holy. The word for holy translated in the Bible in the Old Testament and the New Testament is really the word for people use for the word saint. It is the word for saint. Whenever you give your life to Christ, he forgives you of your sin. He makes you now a part of his family and you become separated from the world and you become a saint. Now we often think of the word saint as a result of a person's achieving extraordinary spiritual ability. That is not what the word is used for in the Bible. The word in the Bible is used for the fact that God has set you apart to be his. Let's go back to that picture of adoption. You have a boy in Russia. The family goes over and selects this boy. They've chosen him to be a part of their family. From all the boys that they see, they've selected this one and they separate him to come and be a part of their family. He is different than all the other boys around them because he is a part of their family. That's what the Bible is describing. Where God looks around to the people around him and he reaches out and chooses you and says, I want you to be a part of my kingdom. How do you know that that happens to you? Well, you begin to realize that there's something in your life missing or you realize that you've messed up your life and you want to say to God, would you help me? He's already initiated that by saying, I want you to come to me. You say to him, I surrender my life to you. And he receives you as his child to as many as believed him and who he was to them. He gave the ability to become the children of God. He sets you apart from all the rest of the world and makes you his child and a part of his family. This sets you apart from the world. You are separated and you are holy. Now, what he does is he puts your old life of past behind you, like the adoption. The boy grows up in Russia, whatever his family is, whatever his language is, he moves them, puts them to this country and says, now this is your new world. You're going to learn to live in this. It doesn't change the fact that the boy still speaks Russian. It wouldn't change the fact that all the things that he's ever done in his life, good or bad, are still there. But what the family has said is put this old thing behind you and now come and start a new life all over again. You are in our family. You are now a part of our group. That's what the word holy means, separated, not like all the other people in the world. You are our son. This act of God transfers our lives from simply living an ordinary life like other people around us to living in this community where people say, I give my life in service and obedience to God. It can be something as simple as working in camp for a summer. It could be as complicated as going as a missionary overseas where your life's in danger every day. But God says, I have plans for you. So holy in the Bible means that you are separated from the rest of the world around you in a unique circumstance belonging to God. That's what happens whenever you turn your life over to Christ. Now, he begins this process once that happens to you, you have changed, to begin to incorporate you into his family. Let's talk about the boy again. He comes to this country, may not know a word of English. He didn't know anybody in the family except the two people who picked him up. He don't know any of the relatives, don't know any of the background of any of these people. But every day he begins to learn more about the family. He learns about siblings. He learns about aunts and uncles. He learns about grandparents of the family. He learns the language. He learns the rules of the house. He learns all the things about him. He begins to grow from that person who's just been set apart to be a part of this family to being integrated in the family to be a seamless part of that home. I had a funeral a week or so ago. And in that family, there were two boys that had been adopted in the family. And I remember when they were adopted, their families had difficulties. And no more family left. And this family adopted these two boys in the family. They had a little hard time adjusting. You know, you get sucked out of one place where you think you know everybody and your life is normal. And all of a sudden, you're plunged in the middle of another group of people. I think they lived in the city and moved to a farm. All that's different. And I saw in that family as they were together some 25, 30 years later, they were seamless. If I had said to you that a couple of these kids have been adopted, you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between those who were born in that family and those who were adopted. What happened is, over the time, the parents and grandparents of this family became their parents and their grandparents. They learned the history of the family and that they had experiences together where they went camping and all these things that they told stories about. And whenever they would start a story, everyone would participate. And you couldn't tell those who were adopted from those who were born into the family. They were made into one family. It didn't happen overnight, and it wasn't easy for everybody, but they were changed and made into one family. That's what the Bible is talking about when it means, when it tells us that God has drawn us together, making us holy, allowing us to become a part of the lives of each other. In fact, it was one of the most powerful parts of the Bible's story, because you have to people all the time who have great difficulty being able to be integrated into the life of people who are strange to them. In the book of Acts, chapter 6, a very unusual circumstance occurred. The early church was starting, and many of the Jewish people who came to be followers of Christ came from people who were Jews, but they spoke the Greek language or Aramaic, the form of Hebrew, and a group who spoke the Greek language. Whenever they accepted Christ and were made children of God, they were isolated from their former families, that is, the Jewish community. And the method of taking care of people with difficulty or financial difficulty was that they would go down to the synagogue and their food would be distributed. Since they were disowned by their family, they had no access to this. So the poor people, the widows, especially in the church, couldn't go to the local synagogue because their families would have disowned them because they had accepted Christ as their Lord. And so the church took money in and provided food every day for the people who were hungry, the orphans, the sick, the poor, and the needy, and so on and so forth. But some of them spoke Greek, and some of them spoke Aramaic. And you know what happens when you're in a group where you don't understand the language very well? It's awfully easy to think that the majority group takes advantage of who you are, and there was a great disturbance that arose among the people because there was conflict. In those days when the number of disciples were increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against those of the Aramaic-speaking community because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the twelve, the twelve disciples, gathered all the disciples together and said it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. They didn't want to quit preaching and reading and praying and doing the ministry of thanksgiving to distribute food. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer in the ministry of the Word. The proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit. Also Phyllis, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them. You know how you stop a fight? You quit fighting. And what happened was the smaller group thought that their people were being mistreated by the larger group. And so the larger group said, you pick people that you want. And they chose every one of these names was a Grecian name. They let the minority who thought they had been offended take charge of the entire food program. This problem was never mentioned in the Bible again. It was just solved. So the Word spread, the Word of God spread, the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. This group that was divided because of their language and because of their culture and their background suddenly became merged into one powerful body. And it was such a wonderful testimony to what God does to take people who are different and make them one. That people around them said, I want to be a part of something like that where people can live together in harmony. And it says many priests turned to them. And I can understand that. You work in a congregation of people for a while, and there's fighting and quarreling everywhere. And they said, we don't want to do this. We've been that. But this group has something really different and special. God can take people who are at odds with each other and make them one, not only with himself, but with each other. God has, as a result of our surrender to him and the promise that we make to do whatever he asks us to do in any way he asks us to do it. When all of us live that way, whatever our differences are, we come together as one. Whenever you trust the boss who's in charge and do whatever he tells you and he knows what he's doing, then you work together in harmony with conflict receding. It just doesn't seem to take its place or hold on. It's gone. What God does is powerful in bringing together people whose lives are very, very different. In Acts chapter 15, this passage, it is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from meat of strangled animals, and from blood. For Moses had been preached in every city from the earliest times, and it was read in the synagogue on every Sabbath. The heart of this story now, the believers have gathered, followers of Jesus. They were going out all over the countryside proclaiming the truth of what God wanted. They believed that Jews, whether they were Grecian or Hebrew, would come to follow Christ. But a very strange thing happened. As they began to proclaim the truth, Gentiles, that is non-Jewish people, listened to what they had to say and said, we want to follow Jesus too. The Jews were startled by this. They didn't think that Gentiles could ever be followers of God. But they found in this preaching that there were masses of Gentiles who were ready more than even the Jewish people. So now we had religious dissension and racial dissension. What are we going to do about these Gentiles who are coming into our church and want to act like they're some of us? You know what racial conflicts are like. They're powerful and strong. And we don't have any differences in race in our culture as powerful as that between Gentiles and Jews. The Jews believed really that Gentiles were less than human. Their word was not for humans or being. Human beings was the word for Jews. But for Gentiles, it was just others, animals. And now the Jews were having to look across and see seated with them a Gentile. They didn't know what to do about this. So they came to this assembly in Jerusalem. There were gathered all the leaders of the church. What are we going to do? The whole assembly became silent as he listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the miraculous signs and wonders that God had done among the Gentiles through them. When they finished, James spoke up. Brothers, listen to me. Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking Gentiles, a people for himself. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this as it's written. After this, I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild. I will restore it. And the remnant of men may seek the Lord. And all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord who does these things. It's been known for ages. All of a sudden, because the boss said, these Gentiles, I love as much as I love you Jews. I want you to become one. And the conflict was over. God has the power to break down the most powerful barriers that exist between people to make them one. He sets them apart in a group so that they are holy, set apart for him. Then they begin to learn what God is like. They learn how to treat each other. They learn how to treat God. They learn what love is. They learn what forgiveness is. They learn what compassion is. And then they suddenly find that their lives have been molded together in a tight knit family of God. And if you were to get the New Testament and start reading through it, and you read the stories of all these churches and what went on in them, you would discover that they were very, very dependent on each other. Blended together so that when we read it, we hardly even see the difference between Jews and Gentiles. They're all children of God. He makes them one. What happens in the church is God brings together all kinds of people. We forget our past, what we used to be, and we remember what's now. He has taken me and set me apart. I am holy. And then he teaches us how to live a holy life. Many people think if I get good enough, I can join the church. That's not the point. The point is, if you say to God, I want to be your child, and I will do everything you tell me, then he takes you and he brings you into his community of faith. And then he begins to teach you how to live the way he lives until suddenly he brings you together, until you feel like you're brothers and sisters in Christ, until you feel like you're a part of each other's lives. In the early church, it's not uncommon for people to give sacrificially for other people who are not even related to them. Stories are told. One, I remember of a man who was sent to prison. He had a family, couldn't provide for him. Another man who had no children, no family, came and took his place in prison to serve out his term so that the man could take care of his children. They were not brothers and sisters physically or in this world's eyes, but they were brothers and sisters in the eyes of God. A blending so powerful that a man would give his life for someone who was really a stranger. The result of giving our lives to God means that God sets us apart to be holy, different than the rest of the world. He makes us into one so that we live together, even though we have differences of opinions and different ideas, because we stop when those differences occur and say, what do you want me to do? And then if everyone does exactly what God wants them to do, the fight is over. The victory is won not by one or the other who are different in their opinions, but it's won by God because he's taken conflict and he's made their peace and harmony. What God does is he makes us holy, separated from another, and then he makes us one, and then he makes us one by the power that he alone can bring in the New Testament, in the book of Peter. Peter is writing about the church and he's talking about how we maintain this kind of relationship with each other. What is it that causes people to be able to turn aside from the conflicts that they have and opinions that they have and the difficulties that they face and find harmony and peace in first Peter chapter one? Peter is writing, beginning at verse 13. Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Be self-controlled. Now, when the word self-control springs at us, we think of a person saying, OK, I'm going to do exactly what I should. But the Bible describes self-control as a control of the mind. The Bible describes self-control as a result of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. He gives us a gift of self-control. So he's talking about that. Allow this self-control of the spirit to control your behavior. Set your hope fully on grace to be given you when Christ Jesus is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires that you had when you lived in ignorance. He's pointing out like he would say an adopted family would say, now, don't act like you did in Russia. This is the United States. Don't act like you did with your other family. This is our family. This is the way you should live. Do not conform yourself to these evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all that you do. For it is written, be holy because I am holy. Since you call on a father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him, you believe in God who raised him from the dead and glorified him. And so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have been purified by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God. For all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers, the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever. What Peter is describing is that the change that takes place is because of the word of God. What causes people to change their lives is whenever they discover that something's true and they accept it and they believe it and they act on it, when they understand that something is wrong and they reject it and turn their back on it. Not all adoptions work well. Sometimes a person is adopted into a family and they can't forget their past. They want to go back to their original family that they had. I think we saw the other day the little boy got on an airplane and in the cargo section of it and he wanted to go back to Africa to see his mother in Africa. He didn't want the family that he was in. What Peter is saying is you have to have a desire to make sure that you live your life in obedience and submission to God. And when you do, the transformation of your life comes about. God will change you. You turned away from the past of your forefathers and you focused your life on what Christ wants. And the more you read the Bible, the more you know what he wants you to do. The more you bring to him the issues of your life, the more you know what he wants you to do. The more he convicts you of the things in your life that need to be changed, the more you know what he wants you to do. Submission and obedience to him not only makes you different than the rest of the world, it brings you together so that you live this lifestyle that Christ lived himself. And it is that lifestyle that makes you like God. So become holy, you become holy by God separating you from the rest of the world and saying you're mine. You become, you grow in holiness when you keep before you the picture of Christ saying I want to be exactly like you. And when you become more like him, you grow in holiness. God has a plan for people in this world. It's not a life of conflict, anger, resentment, and bitterness, but a life in which we find peace, harmony, and oneness with those who are also part of our lives in Christ. He can transform any human being, any home, any church, if he is in charge and the people who listen submit to him. God wants to set us apart from what the rest of the world is like. He wants us to find a way by which we live in harmony and peace with each other. And he wants to teach us how to live as Christ lived, the life that is a model for us from the beginning to the end. What he needs from us is what happened in the very first chapter of the book of John. To as many as believe that these things were true and believe that Jesus Christ was the sent Messiah and are willing to say, I don't want to live this way anymore, I give you my life, I will listen to what you have to tell me, and I will put my trust in you to live in obedience. He will transform you. He will change you from the world you live in to a life of being a holy person, a saint, in God's eyes, a saint. And then he will teach you day by day to grow, to be more and more like him until your life is shaped in the fashion of his own character. That is God's plan for the church. It is the place where you hear the words of God and where you see the things taught and lived so that you know how you can follow him. A lot of people go through the motions of all this. They can say, yeah, I want to be adopted in your family. But they don't want to do that. They just want out of where they're at. And as soon as they can get out of that, they go on their own. And a lot of people can say, I give my life to Jesus. But they just really want to be sure that they don't go to hell. They can say, yes, Jesus Christ is my Lord. But in the back of their minds, they're still saying, I'm going to do what I want to do. Only you and God know if you've ever said to him, I surrender my will to you. I surrender my life to you. And I want you to take my life and shape it to be exactly what you want it to be. If that's happened to you, he's made you holy and he's beginning to teach you how to live. If it's never happened to you, it's an offer that God makes. And if you want that, it's as close as saying, God, teach me how to live. Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment to pray. If you've experienced this transformation that God makes to make you from an ordinary person to a holy person. I want you to give thanks to God for that. If that's happened to you, until you die, God is constantly in the process of saying, oh, yeah, here's another thing that I think you need to do. Until you die, God is constantly in the process of saying, oh, yeah, here's another thing that I think I would like to change about your life. So if that's happened to you, you probably know what God is asking of you. Maybe something to start or something to stop. I'd like you to say, God, thank you for all you've done. Help me to take this new step in obedience to you. What I'm talking about, about this holiness and oneness and unity between you and other people, it's not a part of your life and you'd like it. I have the authority to say to you, you can have it. All you have to say is, God, regardless of the cost or difficulty, I want you to adopt me into your family. I will accept all of your children, brothers and sisters of mine, then. And I will start this journey learning how to think like you think. Learning how to make choices that you want me to make. And learning how to treat people so that I have peace and harmony with all those around me. This morning, you may know what God wants you to do. You may feel a need to express that openly. We're going to give you a chance to do that in just a moment. I'll stand at the front and Ros will be here, too. If you want to say openly and publicly to God and others, I know what God wants of me and I've decided to do that. We want to pray with you and encourage others who are here to pray for you. So I'm going to give you a moment to think about what it is that God has said to you today. It's a pianist's place. If God has said to you, you'll have this thought in your mind, how to get up and go down and tell him what God wants me to do and I'm ready to do it. It's God talking to you. And the first step of having God change your life is to do what he tells you. So in the quietness of this moment, I'm going to stop and God's going to talk to you. Would you please do what he tells you that it might give you life in all of its fullness?