Charlie Chaplin was a huge movie star in the silent-picture era. He was so popular that several Charlie Chaplin look-alike contests sprung up all around the country. Contestants attempted to imitate Chaplin dressed as the “tramp” character he made popular in his films. Even the young up-and-coming actor, Bob Hope, entered such a contest in Cleveland, Ohio, and won! Chaplin himself entered a look-alike contest in a San Francisco theater. Amazingly, Chaplain failed to even make the finals (Andy Scarcliffe, Edinburgh, Scotland; source: www.snopes.com)
Isn’t that amazing! Sometimes people don’t recognize the real thing even if it’s staring them in the face.
That’s the way it is with God’s children, believers in Christ. Many people don’t see them for who they are, and some of God’s children themselves don’t KNOW who they are. That’s because they’re struggling, or they’ve messed up; they’ve sinned, and they’re not the person they want to be.
Perhaps, that describes you, and you wonder how do I overcome my sin and become all that God wants me to be? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 1 John 2,
1 John 2:29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. (ESV)
The practice of righteousness does not come from your own self-effort. It comes as the result of being “born of God.” When you trust Christ with your life, the Bible says you are born again (John 3:3-8), born into a new family, God’s family, and you are His child (John 1:12). That means His righteous DNA has been implanted in you; and because of that, you can “practice righteousness.” Before you could only practice sin; but now, as a child of God, you can practice righteousness.
So, if you want to overcome sin and become all that God wants you to be, then
KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
Appreciate your relationship with our righteous Lord and be confident that you are His child.
1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. (ESV)
Only those who know Christ can truly appreciate who His followers are. They are children of God, dearly loved by our Heavenly Father Himself.
C. S. Lewis once put it this way: “Remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” (C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, HarperOne, 2001, p.46; www.PreachingToday.com)
My dear believing friend, you are no mere mortal. You are a child of God; and because of that, it doesn’t really matter what people see when they look at you. Our Heavenly Father only sees His child. People may not recognize it, and some may not appreciate it, but that is what you are if you have trusted Christ as your Savior.
So believe it. Count on it! Appreciate the fact that you are a child of God, dearly loved by God Himself, if you want to overcome the sin in your own life and become all that God wants you to be.
Thomas Vander Woude and his wife, Mary Ellen, had seven children. By the time they were expecting their seventh, the couple was in their 40's. The chance of birth defects was high. Josie was born with Down syndrome. Chris Vander Woude, one of his brothers, said, “It didn't matter [that Josie had down syndrome]. He was my father's son, and that was all the reason my father needed to love him.”
Thomas demonstrated that love in 2008. One morning, Thomas and Josie were in the yard when Josie fell into a broken septic tank, which, at 8-feet deep, was extremely dangerous. Thomas tried to grab his son, but it was fruitless. Immediately, he lowered himself into the tank, and because he couldn't keep Josie's head above the water line, decided to hold his breath, dive under, and hoist Josie onto his shoulders to keep him breathing. By the time the rescuers arrived, Thomas had died saving the life of his son. (Jeffrey Goldberg, “A Father's Day Lesson about Children, and Life,” Bloomberg View, 06-17-11; www.PreachingToday. com)
That’s a picture of God’s love for you. He entered the cesspool of your sin, and died to save you from those sins. That’s how much God loves you! You are His child, and that’s the only reason He needs to love you. Please, believe it! It will make a huge difference in the way you live your life.
In his book Delighting in the Trinity, Michael Reeves talks about two ways to look at God.
First, you can view God as the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. For those who have only that perspective, their relationship with Him can be little better than their relationship with any traffic cop. If a policeman were to catch you speeding and so breaking the rules, you would be punished. If he failed to catch you or if he just gave you a warning, letting you off, you might be relieved and grateful, but you would never love him for that…
So it is with the Divine Policeman. If salvation simply means him letting you off… then relief and gratitude is all you have, but you can never really love the God who is essentially just the Ruler. (Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity, IVP Academic, 2012, pages 20-21; www.PreachingToday.com)
In fact, those who have this point of view, find it very hard to relate to such a god. Christopher Hitchens, the famous atheist and author of God Is Not Great, put it like this: “If there was a permanent, total, round-the-clock divine supervision… you would never have a waking or sleeping moment when you weren't being watched and controlled and supervised by some celestial entity from the moment of your conception to the moment of your death… It would be like living in North Korea [under a ruthless dictator].
Reeves says, “The picture changes entirely, though, if God is fundamentally the most kind and loving Father, and only ever exercises his rule as who he is – as a Father. In that case, living under his roof is not like living in North Korea at all, but like living in the household of the sort of caring father Hitchens himself wished for” (Ibid, pp.109-110).
What is your view of God? Is He your Ruler and you His subject? Or is He your Father and you His child? Your perspective makes a real difference in how you relate to God. If He’s a ruthless dictator, you try to avoid Him. If He’s your loving Heavenly Father, you want to please Him.
So if you want to overcome the sin in your life and become all that God wants you to be, then know who you are today! As a believer in Christ, you are a loved child of God. Furthermore, if you want to overcome the sin in your life…
KNOW WHAT YOU WILL BE IN THE FUTURE.
Appreciate the fact that you will be like Jesus someday. Be confident that you will one day reflect the beauty of Christ.
1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (ESV)
When Jesus appears at His Second Coming, we’ll see that we are just like Him! Romans 8:29 tells us that God, our Father, is in the process of conforming us “to the image of His Son.” In fact, 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “We are (present tense) being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory!”
The world doesn’t see it yet; but when Jesus comes, everybody will see you for who you really are – a holy, pure child of God.
1 John 3:3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (ESV)
When you know who you are and what you are becoming, it makes a difference in the way you live your life; it purifies you!
Joyce Daugherty, of Louisville, Kentucky, traveled to an orphanage in the Ukraine several years ago where she saw 2-year-old Kristen. Her beautiful, blue eyes framed the edges of a facial tumor, a hemangioma, but even that could not hide the little girl’s impish grin.
“Kristen’s eyes were so alert that I just kept watching her,” Joyce recalled. “There was something special that tumor could not hide. I could have taken any of the children I saw home with me. At the same time, I knew if I adopted Kristen, she’d have more than a new start – she’d have a new life.”
“These children are throw-aways in the Ukraine,” says Nancy Stanbery, who has helped facilitate over a hundred adoptions in that country. “Most Ukrainian families are afraid of a child with any kind of disability. Mothers take them to an orphanage or abandon in a public place, walk away and never look back.”
But Joyce Daugherty chose to take Kristen home and adopted her as her own daughter. Then, in November 2004, a Louisville surgeon removed the hemangioma. When the scars began to heal, everything about Kristen changed dramatically. She chattered constantly – saying, “I love you” over and over again to her new momma. (Ruth Schenk, “I Chose You,” The Southeast Outlook, February 24, 2005; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s the way it was when God found you. You were disfigured and discarded by the world, but God saw something in you that nobody else saw. Then He adopted you and gave you new life in His Son. Now, He is removing the tumors and healing the scars that hide the beauty of Christ within. Everything about you is changing, and one day everybody will see you for who you really are!
You are a loved child of God in the process of becoming like Christ Himself! Please…
BELIEVE IT!
And then…
LIVE IT!
Be who you are as a child of God becoming like Christ, and practice righteousness, not sin, in dependence upon Him.
1 John 3:4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. (ESV)
Sin is breaking God’s Law.
1 John 3:5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. (ESV)
Jesus came to take away your sins, literally, to lift them up and out of your life. You see, when you trust Him as your Savior, He not only takes away the penalty of your sin; He takes away the power of sin in your life, as well, so you don’t have to sin anymore.
Before you knew Christ, you were in bondage to sin; you did not have a choice but to obey your sinful lusts. Now that you know Christ, you are no longer in bondage to sin; you can now choose to obey God (or not).
1 John 3:6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. (ESV)
Sin is a product of ignorance and blindness towards Christ, but “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning;” literally, “all who dwell in Him are not sinning.” In other words, You cannot dwell in Christ and sin at the same time.
When you stop dwelling in Christ, you fall into sin every time! When you neglect your relationship with Him, you sin, but when you dwell in Christ, you do not sin. So you have a choice! You can dwell in sin, or You can dwell in Christ. Which will it be for you?
PLEASE, CHOOSE TO DWELL IN CHRIST.
Choose to live in dependence upon Him, so you don’t break God’s law.
Julie Canlis talks about the time she was doing graduate studies at Regent College as a young mom. She was working on her PhD, which had turned the words of God into a great, big research project. She said, “I was trying to read my lifeless Bible, but I was interrupted 1,000 times by children needing to be fed, changed, read to, and more.”
She had a desperate talk with Eugene Peterson, one of her professors, begging him to give her a spiritual discipline, some rope to haul her out of the hole she was in.
“Well, Julie,” he said, “is there anything you are doing in a disciplined manner already?”
Julie thought about her newborn daughter, Iona, and the hours that she spent nailed to the couch feeding her. Iona had reflux, and most of what went into her immediately came up again, which meant that Julie had to repeat the feed all over again. “Nursing Iona is the only thing I can count on,” Julie said. “She makes sure of that.”
Eugene Peterson patted Julie’s hand and said, “Julie, that is your spiritual discipline. Now start paying attention to what you are already doing. Be present.”
In those days, Julie said, “I wanted to be FOR Christ instead of being IN Christ. I saw my familial responsibilities as obstacles to a godly life when in fact they were the very place he wanted to meet me. Accordingly, I had to radically revise my view of obedience to include the simple act of abiding in Christ.” (Julie Canlis, “The Bible’s Best Description of Salvation Is a Phrase We Rarely Use,” CT Women, 1-29-19; www.PreachingToday.com)
You see, abiding in Christ is not something you DO! It’s a place to BE! It’s being IN Christ; not doing FOR Christ. It’s living your life with the conscious awareness of His presence. And when you do that, you do not sin! So if you want to overcome the sin in your own life, choose to dwell in Christ. Then…
CHOOSE TO LIVE AS A CHILD OF GOD, not as a child of Satan.
Choose to resemble your Heavenly Father, not your former father, the devil.
1 John 3:7-8 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil (ESV) – or better, “to loose or untie the devil’s work.”
You see, before you trusted Christ with your life, your old father was the devil, who tied you up in sin. Then Jesus came into your life and untied you from your sin. He rendered the devil’s work inoperative and ineffective. The problem is too many Christians live as if they’re still tied up.
They’re like the circus elephants, whose trainers shackled them with heavy chains attached to deeply embedded stakes when they were young. The young elephants cannot break free, so they learn to stay in their place. Then when they grow older and more powerful, with the strength to pull the stake and walk away, they never do. Their conditioning has limited their movements. In fact, after a while, all the trainers have to do is attach a small metal bracelet around each elephant’s foot attached to nothing, and those elephants stand in place even when the stakes are actually gone! (James Belasco, Teaching the Elephant to Dance; www. PreachingToday.com)
That’s the way some believers live their lives. They’re still tied to their habits. They’re still tied to their sins, conditioned to believe that they could never break free.
Yet nothing is further from the truth! If you’re a believer, Jesus loosed you from those bonds; He untied you from your sins and severed your connection with the devil. Satan is no longer your father. Now, God is your Father.
1 John 3:9-10 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (ESV)
Children of the devil practice sin. Children of God are set free from sin. They have God’s “seed” in them, a righteous seed, which cannot sin.
In 1997, a rapidly moving fire destroyed Luz Cuevas’ Philadelphia home. Authorities concluded that the blaze had tragically killed and completely consumed her 10-day-old infant daughter, Delimar. They never found her small body amid the charred rubble of the family home. The family grieved and slowly moved on with life.
Six years later, Luz Cuevas received an invitation to a child’s birthday party. There, a small dimple on the face of a six-year-old girl triggered an overwhelming feeling in Luz. She quietly told her sister, “Look. She’s my daughter.”
The sister thought Luz was losing her mind and could not convince her otherwise. Luz told the little girl she had gum in her hair and managed to take a few strands from the girl. Luz hoped a DNA test would prove her instincts right.
Later, the Philadelphia police confirmed that the child was Delimar, Luz’ lost daughter. Carolyn Correa had kidnapped Delimar and raised the little girl as her own. That’s why she started the fire in the first place, to cover her crime. After discovering the truth, Delimar returned home to be with her real family. (Joann Loviglio, Associated Press, 3-2-04; www. PreachingToday.com)
My dear believing friend, your real family is God’s Family. GOD is your Father, not the devil! Your DNA defines who you are, not your circumstances. The “seed” which comes from your Heavenly Father determines your identity, and that seed is a righteous seed. So choose to live as a child of God, not as a child of the devil.
You are a loved child of God in the process of becoming like Christ. Please, believe it and live it! It’s the only way you can overcome the sin in your life and become all that God wants you to be.
Dale Hahn once encouraged his son Cory at his tee ball and Little League games. Dale continued to cheer Cory on all the way through high school, often playing catch in the driveway and working on Cory's swing. All of that dedication paid off. During his senior year at Santa Ana Mater Dei High School, Cory received California's distinguished "Mr. Baseball" award. Cory declined a $300,000 salary offer from the San Diego Padres so he could hone his skills at Arizona State University on a full scholarship. And just like those early tee ball days, his dad was still his biggest fan and most devoted coach.
But Cory's future plans shattered during his third game at Arizona State. As he was sliding head first into second base, Cory broke his neck. Today he's a C5 quadriplegic, paralyzed from the chest down. He has limited use of his hands and arms. The kid who once led his team to a high school championship by pitching five perfect innings, making an over-the-shoulder catch, and hitting a long home run, battled to eat hamburgers, wash his hair, and wheel to class.
Even so, when Cory moved back to the Arizona State campus to continue his studies, his dad, Dale, moved into an extended-stay hotel down the street. Together they got Cory ready for his daily classes, and each day brought a little more independence for Cory. On one occasion, they celebrated Cory’s ability to use his once-lifeless hands to wash his own hair. Cory also gained the ability to feed himself, but only after countless days of practicing with his dad. “It was really messy,” Cory said, “but we did it.”
Dale drove Cory to campus every day, where Cory wheeled himself to classes. Dale said, “I see all these college kids running and skating across campus, and then I see Cory just chugging along in his chair, the world moving past him… and I am so, so proud of him.”
“We live for the little victories,” Cory said. “We're a team.”
After lunch, they’d go to a gym for therapy, and then his father would drop him off at a Sun Devils baseball practice or game before taking him home for the night. Cory hung out with friends until about 11 P.M., at which point his father returned Cory to his room to lay him into bed and put the television on a timer. Then Dale would slip out with a simple, “Good night, buddy.”
“When you're a dad, you're a dad forever,” Dale says. (Bill Plaschke, “Cory Hahn is still part of a team,” Los Angeles Times, 2-28-12); www.PreachingToday.com)
So it is with your Heavenly Father: He is your dad forever! He sees you in all your brokenness and still loves you with a love that never changes based on your performance or lack thereof. In fact, He is proud you. Tell me. With that kind of a Father, how can you not succeed!
