Who Are You?
By Rev. Heidi L. Barham | April 14, 2024
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Read 1 John 3:1 – 7 (NIV)
When I began working on the sermon for this week and chose the title, WHO ARE YOU? There was a song that came to mind… it was originally recorded by the English rock band, the Who, back in 1978, but it became the theme song for the hit TV series, CSI, that ran from 2000 to 2015.
Now, I must admit, I did watch the show fairly regularly when it first came out and I even watched some of the other shows that were part of the franchise, including CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. But, hands down, the original CSI was my favorite of all of them.
Now for those unfamiliar with the show, CSI stands for Crime Scene Investigators… and given my past experience as a fraud investigator… it was always interesting to watch. Mysteries have always fascinated me… going all the way back to my teen years reading the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books.
But what does any of that have to do with the New Testament lesson for today… Beyond the title of the sermon coinciding with the theme song from a mystery show…
Well, as we give consideration to the text, I want to read part of the commentary provided in The Inspirational Bible. It is a passage taken from the book, Be Real, by noted scholar and theologian, Warren Wiersbe. And it reads:
The United States Treasury Department has a special group of men whose job it is to track down counterfeiters. Naturally, these men need to know a counterfeit bill when they see it.So, in light of all that, my question to us is a simple one… WHO ARE YOU?
How do they learn to identify fake bills?
Oddly enough, they are not trained by spending hours examining counterfeit money. Rather, they study the real thing. They become so familiar with authentic bills that they can spot a counterfeit by looking at it or, often, simply by feeling it.
This the approach in 1 John 3, which warns us that in today’s world there are counterfeit Christians – “children of the devil” (v. 10). But instead of listing the evil characteristics of Satan’s children, the Scripture gives us a clear description of God’s children. The contrast between the two is obvious…
An unbeliever who sins is a creature sinning against his Creator. A Christian who sins is a child sinning against the Father. The unbeliever sins against the law; the believer sins against love (The Inspirational Bible, 1995, p. 1430).
Well, according to the first verse of the text, we are the children of God… while the second verse goes on to tell us who we are becoming… reflections of God… God’s children who are becoming more and more like Christ…
And the third verse encourages us that when we place our hope in Jesus the Christ… we will purify ourselves to become pure… like Christ… using His life as a model for our own.
WHO ARE YOU?
This is more than a question that I am asking of all of you who are here in the sanctuary or listening on the phone line… this is a question that each of us must ask ourselves when we look in the mirror… WHO ARE YOU?
When I look at myself, I need to figure out whether or not I am a counterfeit… or if I am the real thing… in other words, if I am authentic… when it comes to being more and more like Christ.
Now, in my days as a fraud investigator, I would come across counterfeit bills on occasion… and the protocol for handling them was to confiscate them and turn them over to the Secret Service… who in turn did their initial assessment as part of their alignment with the Department of Treasury. If the bill was real, we got it back… but if it was determined to be a counterfeit… there was likely to be more investigating done.
And that was one of the more exciting parts of my job… working on different investigations with law enforcement officials from various agencies like the Secret Service and the FBI, as well as local police departments, to try and figure out whodunit… and determine just who the guilty party or parties may be.
Now, as we consider this passage from 1 John, what would happen if we were to do our own internal investigation and self-assessment… what would we find?
Would the determination be made that we are counterfeit Christians… unbelievers who are sinning against the law… creatures sinning against the Creator?
Or, is it more likely the case… that we would pass the test and be found to be authentic Christians… Christians who are flawed but who have been forgiven… Christians who may be lacking but who are loved… Christians who are imperfect but who are intentional about following the example Christ set for us.
I am voting on the latter!
Now, someone may be questioning what the example is that Christ set for us…
Listen to verses 4 – 7 of our text as they are found in the Message Paraphrase:
All who indulge in a sinful life are dangerously lawless, for sin is a major disruption of God’s order. Surely you know that Christ showed up in order to get rid of sin. There is no sin in him, and sin is not part of his program. No one who lives deeply in Christ makes a practice of sin. None of those who do practice sin have taken a good look at Christ. They’ve got him all backward.
So, my dear children, don’t let anyone divert you from the truth. It’s the person who acts right who is right, just as we see it lived out in our righteous Messiah.
I want to call our attention to one part of that passage… “No one who lives deeply in Christ makes a practice of sin…”
As one Bible commentary explains it, there is a difference between committing a sin and continuing to sin… in other words making a practice of sin.
In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul explained that, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The propensity to sin is an unfortunate part of our DNA… but it does not have to define who we are.
A believer who commits a sin can repent, confess, and find forgiveness. While on the other hand, someone who simply makes a practice of sin… someone who has committed themselves to living a life of sin… that person will not repent or confess in order to find forgiveness.
They have not made it their mission to truly follow in the footsteps of Christ… they would be the ones who fall into that category of counterfeit Christians… in other words, Christians in name only.
They are the ones who try to put on a good show of coming to church to be seen by others on Sunday… while living a life of reckless abandon Monday through Saturday.
They are the ones who Jesus described as “hypocrites” (see Matthew 23). They go out of their way to make themselves look good… but then they go on to criticize and judge others, calling them to turn their lives around… while failing to do so themselves.
And here is the thing… we have all likely been guilty of doing the same thing at some point in our lives… seeing the speck in someone else’s eye without noticing the plank in our own (see Matthew 7:3 – 4).
And yet Jesus gave His life so that all of us… no matter who we are… no matter what we have done… each and every one of us can receive the gift of eternal life. Thankfully, it is not our past that determines our future… it is the love of God through Christ Jesus.
In his letter to the Ephesian Church, Paul said it this way:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
In his letter to the Romans (6:23), Paul explained it like this, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Simply put, eternal life is a gift from God. It is not because of anything we have done to deserve it… but simply because God loves us just that much.
If that sounds too good to be true, all we have to do is look at the Gospel of John and what is arguably the most often quoted verse of Scripture, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).
WHO ARE YOU? WHO AM I? WHO ARE WE?
WE are the WHOEVER that God loves and who are called to believe in Jesus.
We are the beloved children of God. We are all God’s children…
Just let that sink in for a minute.
As most of you know, I was blessed as the result of the combined efforts of both of my parents, as well as Ron, my aunt Pam, Jane and so many of you who put together an amazing surprise to celebrate my 60th birthday just last week…
But even with all of the love that was shown to me on that day and even in the days since… none of that can truly compare to the love that comes from being a child of God.
Looking back to Romans (8:14 – 17, CEB), we find these words:
All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “Abba, Father.” The same Spirit agrees with our spirit, that we are God’s children. But if we are children, we are also heirs. We are God’s heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, if we really suffer with him so that we can also be glorified with him.What does it mean to be a child of God… one of God’s heirs… a joint heir with Christ? It means we have been blessed beyond measure… and it also means that the half has not been told of what awaits us when Christ returns and we get to join Him in the kingdom of God for eternity.
But even before we get to the eternity piece, there is much for us to do right here and right now as the beloved children of God. There are ample opportunities for us to allow the love of the Lord to shine through us as we serve as Jesus’ hands and feet of compassion here on earth… allowing others to see Jesus who lives in us and works through us.
Perhaps you have heard me say in the past that our lives may be the only Bible that some people will ever read. This means we have the privilege of letting others learn about God’s love, peace, grace, mercy and so much more through the way that we live our lives as authentic, not counterfeit, Christians.
Will we get it right 100% of the time? Probably not, because we are still human after all…
However, we can still do our best to “let [our] light shine before others, that they may see [our] good deeds and glorify [our] Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
We can still make it our mission to follow Jesus in fulfilling the Great Commission found in Matthew’s Gospel (28:19 – 20), when Jesus told the disciples to:
…go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.At the end of the day, there is still more work for us to do because there are still more people who need to know who Jesus is… and as the children of God we can show others who Jesus is, not just by the words that we speak… but by the way that we live our lives in service to God and the people of God.
If we were to keep reading beyond our text in 1 John 3, we would find these words in verses 16 – 18:
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.As the writer James puts it:
My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it? Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone, can it? Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to eat. What if one of you said, “Go in peace! Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”? What good is it if you don’t actually give them what their body needs? In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity.We are not saved by our good works… on the contrary, we have been saved to do good works…
Someone might claim, “You have faith and I have action.” But how can I see your faith apart from your actions? Instead, I’ll show you my faith by putting it into practice in faithful action (James 2:14 – 18).
WHO ARE YOU? WHO AM I? WHO ARE WE? We are the children of God… called to serve the people of God… just like Jesus.
My grandmother lived her life with the motto, “You can serve without loving but you cannot love without serving.”
And what better model of love and serving is there for us than Jesus? What better example of love in action is there than what Jesus did for us at Calvary? Who better to follow than the One who was willing to lay down His very life for us… so that we can truly be the children of God?
Now, I don’t know about you, but I am beyond blessed and grateful to know that I am a child of God… and even though there will be times that we will make mistakes and take missteps… we can still make it our goal in life to love as Jesus loved and serve as Jesus served.
And if that is your desire today to follow the example Jesus set for us and walk the path that He laid out for us… I want to invite you to stand and join in singing our Hymn of Discipleship: I Have Decided to Follow Jesus #344. Return to News
