Discerning God’s Children & the Devil’s Own | 1 John 3:9-11

Lord's Day: March 16, 2025  Preacher: Carlos Montijo  Series: First John  Topic: The Christian Life   Scripture: 1 John 3:9–11, 1 Peter 1:23, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 John 4:8, Psalm 5:5, Psalm 7:11, Romans 13:8–10, Romans 5:8, Romans 6:1

I.  The beloved apostle continues expounding for us the black and white, good and evil, light and darkness, God and devil, Cain and Abel contrasts

⁷ Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. ⁸ The one who does sin is of the devil, because the devil sins from the beginning. The Son of God was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. ¹⁰ By this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifested: everyone who does not do righteousness is not of God, as well as the one who does not love his brother. ¹¹ For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; ¹² not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous. 1 John 3:7–12

• God’s Seed and Purpose (Providence) and the Devil’s Seed and Schemes ("works")
• The threefold sense of God's Seed
• We are regenerated by God, adopted by His fatherly love

II.  By counterfeited contrast, the devil and his own, his seed, are diametrically opposed to God and His seed, and all that is true, good, and beautiful; pure, lovely, and excellent (Php 4:8)

• 3. The devil’s seed and works are, in sum: The devil’s anointing, a false anointing of lies and disobedience, sin and shame/guilt, and of overexposure (perversion, corruption)

III.  Although these verses contain serious warnings against living in continual, unrepentant sin…

• W.G.T. Shedd: “Holy inclination is inability to sin…. The [holy inclination] originates in the operation of the Holy Spirit upon [the believer’s will], while the [unbeliever’s sinful inclination] is self-determination [self-will] pure and simple [flesh], without any internal efficiency [power] of the Holy Ghost…. There is, consequently, a “slavery to righteousness,” as well as a “slavery to sin.” A [believer’s] will which, by regeneration, has been “powerfully determined” (Westminster L. C., 67) and inclined to holiness, is unable to sin, in the sense in which Christ intends, when he says that “a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit” (Mat. vii. 18); and in which St. John intends, when he asserts that the regenerate [believer] “cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John iii. 9). This does not mean, that the regenerate, while here upon earth, is sinlessly perfect, committing no actual transgression, and having no remainders of sinful inclination. See 1 John i. 8. But it means that the regenerate [believer’s] will is unable to sin in the manner of the unregenerate [unbeliever’s] will: i.e., impenitently and totally.”[1]

IV.  In verses 10-11, another explicit connection between “doing righteousness” and love—loving your brother, by contrasting the opposite

• Remember, to do righteousness is first and foremost to believe and apply the truth of God, and it means to love, love God and neighbor [even personal enemies, cf. the gospels, Matt 22:36-40], but loving God and neighbor also means to love and obey God’s law
• PSA: It is fatal, destructive heresy to divorce love from the Law of God—Antinomianism

V.  No such thing as lawless love, that has no repentance, because God’s love is not unjust

• God is love (1 John 4:8), and His love, like His law—and like Himself—is holy, just/righteous, and good
• Many today, within and without the church, agree with movements like “He Gets Us,” who claim that Jesus is “the world’s most radical love activist”[2] who “created a radical love movement,” who “‍touched lepers. Welcomed outcasts. and loved without condition.”[3] Their favorite words…radical and love
• “We’re challenging our own assumptions and preconceived notions about who he is and creating space to doubt, question, and learn from the authentic Jesus,” outside of the church, because “He Gets Us is not a back to church campaign”
• This Jesus is only about unconditional love, not hate, not repentance, not even about church—but about love divorced from truth, justice, holiness, and the church
• Liberals like Gary Wills, a leftist Roman Catholic scholar who wrote What Jesus Meant, but, what Gary thinks Jesus meant is that the Father's "love is undiscriminating and inclusive, not graduated and exclusive" (29).[4]
• “What are the tests for entry into the reign [of Heaven] or exclusion from it? They are very simple. One will not be asked whether one voted, whether one was a good citizen, or even whether one dealt justly. That is not enough.... The simple test is this. Did you treat everyone, high and low, as if dealing with Jesus himself, with his own inclusive and gratuitous love... "Whenever you did these things to the lowliest of my brothers [take note!], you were doing it to me." [This] means that...those who despise the poor are despising Jesus. Those neglecting the homeless are neglecting Jesus. Those persecuting gays are persecuting Jesus.... Our test for entry into heaven's reign is whether we fed Jesus in the hungry, clothed him in the naked, welcomed him in the outcast [accepted LGBT]. (58, 137)”
• He Gets Us: “Many of those who represent Jesus have made people in the LGBTQ+ community feel judged and excluded. And others in the Jesus community have simply ignored their stories and lived experiences. So let us be clear in our opinion. Jesus loves gay people and Jesus loves trans people. The LGBTQ+ community, like all people, is invited to explore the story of Jesus and consider his example of unconditional love, grace, and forgiveness of others. No matter who you are, YOU are invited to explore the story of Jesus and consider what it means for your life.”

VI. This is antichrist—no mention of repentance, repent or perish (Lk 13:3), of holiness, of God’s Law which condemns all of us guilty sinners (Rom 3, etc.): False gospel

• God is “a just judge who has indignation [righteous hatred] every day” (Ps 7:11), who “hates all workers of iniquity” (Ps 5:5), “who will by no means clear the guilty” (Ex 34:7), unless you repent.
• Contrary to popular belief, God's love discriminates and is selective/exclusive: He loves Jacob and hates Esau, and prepare vessels of wrath that are fitted for destruction? (Rom. 9) Are not "the wicked reserved for the day of doom" and also "be brought out on the day of wrath"? (Job 21:30, cf. Prov. 16:4)
• 10. We should not insult or be abusive or sin against LGBT people, but we must love them with and warn them with the Truth

VII. PSA: True love is defined and conditioned by God's goodness and Law

• PSA: If you do not have repentance, you do not have God’s Love
• And we receive God’s love, and “we love [truly], because He first loved us” (1Jn 4:19), “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that [even] while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)
• In one sense that God loved us first, without us having to fulfill any conditions ourselves, but this is not the full picture, because not only is God’s love defined and conditioned by God’s goodness and Law, but His gracious, adoptive love also grants us and conditions us (conforms us) with the gifts of regeneration, and repentance, and faith, and sanctification, glorification, all of salvation—by grace alone, through faith alone apart from works conditions, in Christ alone, based on the ultimate authority of Scripture alone, and all to the glory of God alone
• God’s love conditions us and conforms us to the image of His Son and away from sin, from our fallen, wretched old man, away from the flesh (Rom 8:29)

We meet on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

• ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
  4712 Montana Ave
  El Paso, Texas 79903

Contact us at:

• web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
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Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com

[1] William G.T. Shedd, A Critical and Doctrinal Commentary Upon the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1879), p. 166 <https://dn720502.ca.archive.org/0/items/criticaldoctrina00shed/criticaldoctrina00shed.pdf>.

[2] ‘He Gets Us Has an Agenda.’, He Gets Us <https://hegetsus.com/en/articles/he-gets-us-has-an-agenda> [accessed 15 March 2025].

[3] ‘Come Near’ <https://www.comenear.org/> [accessed 16 March 2025].

[4] Carlos E. Montijo, ‘What Garry Wills Thinks Jesus Meant’, ThornCrown Ministries, 12 May 2017 <https://thorncrownministries.com/blog/2017/05/12/what-garry-wills-thinks-jesus-meant>.