Hey everyone I’m Pastor Gary Hoban and welcome to Refinery Life Australia.
One of the greatest tragedies of life is the inability or the neglect of a father to pass on to his children the benefits of his experience.
Fathers must instruct, warn, and encourage their children.
For the next while Wednesday evenings messages will be from John’s first epistle and are titled “The Counsel of a Spiritual Father to His Children.”
Today we are discussing Family Traits.
Text
1 John 3:2 (AMP)
2 Beloved, we are [even here and] now children of God, and it is not yet made clear what we will be [after His coming]. We know that when He comes and is revealed, we will [as His children] be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is [in all His glory].
Introduction
In our text, John was talking about spiritual family traits.
When we are born again, we receive a new life, not a biological life, but a spiritual life.
And just as your biological life is “programmed” into our genes, so our spiritual life is predetermined by God to produce certain characteristics.
For example, Paul said in Romans 8:29 (AMP)
29 For those whom He foreknew [and loved and chose beforehand], He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son [and ultimately share in His complete sanctification], so that He would be the firstborn [the most beloved and honored] among many believers.
However, just as in the physical growth process certain things such as illness or injury can change one’s hereditary development, so in the spiritual realm disobedience and sin can cause us to slow down or even abort the spiritual growth that God desires us to experience.
Throughout the New Testament, we find many passages that remind us of the spiritual family traits we should develop in our lives.
John revealed four things about these spiritual family traits that God programmed into us when we were born again.
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Refinery Life Church Australia