This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions and Day 3 of our look
through 1st John 3. We're looking at verses 7 to 10 today. And as we look at
these verses, we're going to be talking about what's the difference.

What's the difference in your life when you become a believer in Jesus Christ?
What's the difference? Well, John puts it this way.

What's the difference between the children of God and the children of Satan?
There's a family resemblance depending on who I'm following in my life. And so
here's what John says about this in verses 7 to 10.

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is
righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil,
because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. No one who
is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him, and he
cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God. This is how we know who
the children of God are and who the children of the devil are.

No one who does not do what is right is not a child of God, nor is anyone who
does not love his brother. Now I want you to notice clearly that John begins by
saying, "Don't let anyone lead you astray. " Remember, there were false teachers
in this church.

There were false teachers involved in the lives of these believers, and they
were teaching that because our relationship with God is all about knowledge, it
doesn't really matter what you do. As long as you love God with your mind, the
sins that you commit with your body, they were teaching, are irrelevant. By the
way, false teaching about sin takes two major forms, legalism and license.

Legalism is a false teaching that says, "I can keep a bunch of rules, and by
keeping those rules, I can get sin out of my life and get closer to God. " And
license, that's the other side of this false teaching that says, "I don't need
any rules in my life because God loves me and Jesus came for me. There are no
more rules.

I can do whatever I want. It doesn't matter what I do. " These false teachers
were teaching license, didn't matter what you did.

And John is writing and saying, "Of course it matters. The devil's sinful from
the beginning, and those are his children, that's how they act. If you're a
child of God now, you're going to begin to act in a different way.

" He was trying to clear up the spiritual confusion in their life. These last
couple days, we've been talking about what it means to be a child of God. Here
John talks about a child of Satan.

Who is that? Who are the children of the devil? Well this might shock you, but
it is anyone who is not a child of God.

It is all of us. It's you, it's me, before we became children of God. We're all
born into this world as children of Satan.

That's weird for some people, they think, "That innocent little baby, they're a
child of Satan? " We're talking spiritually here. And spiritually, I either live
in relationship with God, or I live out of relationship with God, which means
I'm living in relationship to Satan, the evil one who brought the fallen to this
world and is leading all of us to destruction without God's salvation through
Jesus Christ.

When I say we're all children of Satan before we get to know Jesus Christ, a lot
of people think that's harsh. No, it's just true. Satan is our spiritual father
before we get to know God through Jesus Christ.

You are not born spiritually innocent into this world. We are all born into this
world stained by sin, born into a sinful world. Now I know, we look at this and
we think, "But I don't feel that evil.

" Of course you don't. If Satan lets you see who you really are, how evil you
really are, you would run to God in a second. So he fools us into thinking that
because we're all God's creation, we must all be God's children.

God's children are going to follow him, be obedient to him. God's children are
going to look more and more like him. That's what it means to be God's child.

To say that because I'm God's creation, and yet I'm a murderer, and so I'm God's
child. Because I'm God's creation, yet I'm a rapist, so I'm God's child. That's
ridiculous.

That's what John is saying here. He's saying there is a difference. There is a
marked difference between being a child of Satan, which is what we all are,
before we get to know God through Jesus, and being a child of God.

What's the difference? How do you tell whose family you're in? Well, it's pretty
clear.

He brings out one thing very strongly here, and one at the end of these verses
he begins to talk about, and then next week we're going to talk about a third
thing. Let me share with you all three of them. How do you tell whose family
you're in?

Number one, am I doing what is right, or am I doing what is sinful? He who does
what is right is righteous just as he is righteous. How do you recognize if
you're God's child, you're obedient to him?

In fact, John is very clear about this. He really goes against the false
teachers here, and he says Jesus Christ came to destroy the devil's work. So
those who are teaching you that doing the evil things that Satan teaches us to
do, pride, seeking after the possessions of this world, seeking after power
selfishly, you could just use the word selfish.

That's the devil's work. Jesus Christ came to destroy that. You see, this
follows up on what we talked about yesterday.

When you become God's child, when I become God's child, I can't continue to sin.
I can't have a lifestyle of sin. Now, some of you may have been thinking about
that, even since we began to talk about it yesterday, this idea of a lifestyle
of sin.

You might have been thinking, how do you tell the difference between an incident
of sin and a lifestyle of sin? Well, let me just say this to you. Just the fact
that you're thinking that is an indication that you are not choosing a lifestyle
of settled sin.

Those who live in sin as a lifestyle don't think about it. They don't worry
about it. They don't even allow themselves to feel guilty about it.

They just do it. And the fact that you're listening to this study and the fact
that you're thinking about I don't want to live that kind of a way, that says
something about your heart right there. How do I recognize a child of God?

It's somebody who is following God as their father, following and being obedient
to him. How do I recognize a child of God? In verse 10, he talks about a second
way.

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the
devil are. Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God. That's
the first one.

And now the second one. Nor is anyone who does not love his brother. So the
question is, do I love my brother or do I hate my brother?

How do I treat the people in my life? He doesn't stop just with actions in my
life, my own personal actions of sin or rightness. He also goes to relationships
in my life.

And how am I treating the people in my life? Do I love my brother or do I hate
my brother? And then he talks about a third thing.

We're going to get to this as we get to the later chapters of 1 John. Do I
acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? Do I acknowledge that Jesus
really came, he really lived, he really died, he really resurrected, that he is
God in human flesh?

You see, you can try to love people and you can try to do what is right in your
life, but you can try to do it on your own power and energy. And as John writes
about what it truly means to be a child of God, he says the child of God is
going to recognize the Son of God. He's going to recognize that he's come into
this world to give us the power to live in a new kind of way.

You see, pride is not only caught up. This is a sad truth. It's a tricky truth
for some of us.

Pride is not only caught up in me trying to get things for myself. Pride is also
caught up in me trying to look good in front of others. And sometimes even the
good things that I do, I do them out of pride.

That's hard to admit, but it's true. I do them out of pride, not out of love,
not out of selflessness, not out of gratefulness for what God has done to me,
but out of pride. Pride that somebody else would recognize what a wonderful
person I am, or pride that I might be able to make my own way into heaven.

There are children of Satan in this world and there are children of God, and the
only way to become a child of God is to cross the line, to make a decision.
Jesus Christ came into this world to destroy the devil's work, and one of the
ways he does that personally in my life, in your life, is when I come to that
moment and I say, "I'm switching family allegiance. I'm recognizing God that
you're my father, not just my creator.

You are my father. I'm going to follow you. I'm going to love you, and I'm going
to trust what you've done for me in Jesus Christ to give me forgiveness.

I'm going to accept your gifts in my life. " That's what it means to treat God
as a father, and maybe you need to do that right now. Maybe as you've heard me
talking, you're not certain that you have that kind of a relationship with God
in Jesus Christ.

In fact, the truth of the matter is you've been trying to develop a relationship
with God or trying to make your way to heaven or trying to do what's right in
this world by just the good things that you do. They're not good enough. They're
not good enough to make up for the wrong things that I've done, to make up for
the sinful world that I live in.

Jesus Christ came into this world to pay for it all and to give us new life, and
I encourage you, if you've never said to him, "I want to begin a new life with
you," say it right now. Just say, "Jesus Christ, right now, right now I want to
become a part of your family. And God, I want to trust you as my father.

I trust you in that I want to follow you and do the things that you teach me to
do, help me to understand your word. I trust you in that I want to receive your
gifts, the gift of forgiveness that you've given me, the gift of life that you
want to give me. And I trust you in that I trust your love for me, the
relationship that you want to have for me.

Thank you, God, for loving me. In your name, Amen. Join us tomorrow.

We're going to talk about what love looks like as we look at verses 11 to 18.