Nature vs Nurture in Righteousness.

My name is Nermalis Vera, and I'm the associate pastor here at New Culture Church, and I'm so excited you decided to join us today.

Today we are doing week three of our sermon series on the letters from John. So today we're going to be jumping right in to 1 John 2, verses 28 through chapter 3, verse 10. Lots of reading today. It says:

And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears, we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But what we know is that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves just as he is pure. Everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one 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 them. They cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God. 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 God's child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

1 John 2:28 - 3:10

Deep breath. See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. Today, I want to talk about nature and nurture, and their role in the development of our character. Nature versus nurture is an age-old argument. You've probably heard of it already, but I'll tell you about it anyway.

It's an argument about what has the greatest impact on how we develop in our character development, who we become. Is it our nature, being our genetic predisposition, or is it nurture, being how we were raised, who raised us, where did we grow up, where did we go to school, and other environmental factors that could impact who we become. The argument ranges from whether addictive behaviors are a result of your genetic makeup or if it's based on behaviors you were exposed to in childhood. The argument dips into whether your sense of humor is innate or if it's a learned behavior.

I recently had this conversation with my childhood friend, Jennifer. She just had her first baby, and he's so cute and so sweet. He came out of the womb making the same facial expressions that she's been making our whole lives. So for that one, I'd say there's at least a little bit of nature in there. On the other hand, I worked with infants at a preschool, and I had a little baby girl who started under my care at eleven weeks old until she was almost two. One time, she spent about nine hours a day with me, five days a week. And one time, my sister came to the school because she was presenting something. She did an activity with me and my kids, and she told me, "You know, if I didn't know better, I would think that little girl was yours." She's most definitely not. So nurture probably has something to do with it in there too.

This is also a common discussion in terms of children who are either adopted or have parental figures that are not their biological parents. Which matters more, nature or nurture? I don't know. To be perfectly honest, I think they both play some role. But the point of me bringing it up is not to make an argument for one or the other. I want to talk about nature and nurture in terms of righteousness and being children of God.

Nature: Our new identity

First of all, I want to talk about righteousness and our identity. Identity. This all comes down to identity, who we are. Some common phrases throughout this passage that get repeated over and over again are born of God, God's seed, God being in you, Father, children. All of these different words that identify the believer. God transforms who we are. Maybe today when I talk about nature and what we inherit from our biological parents, your stomach started twisting in knots. I don't want to be like my father or my mother. Maybe you feel gratitude towards your parents, or maybe you exist somewhere in that in-between. Whether you fall wherever you fall on that spectrum when it comes to who you came from, I have really good news for you today. You have been given a new nature. Your very being is transformed from the inside out when you enter the family of Christ.

The new has come, the old has passed away. The old self is cast off and the new self is embraced. Your identity is the first thing the Father transforms. You have a new nature. You are no longer subject to what your father or mother on earth has done. You are empowered by the nature of our heavenly Father. What great love the Father has lavished on us. We are his. We've been given his nature instead of our own.

Well, my mother struggled with anger. Well, my father was an alcoholic. Well, no one in my family did well in school. Well, this runs in my family. You have been given a new nature. Your righteousness is not what changes you. Your behavior and sinless way does not establish your identity. It is your identity as a child of God that makes righteousness possible.

By the Father's love, we are his children. And embracing our identity as children of God, the fruit that our lives will bear will be righteousness. If you are here today and you're frustrated because you're doing all the right things, and you still feel far from God. You're trying so hard to keep sin out of your life, but it keeps creeping back in. And when it does, you feel shame and you lose that confidence in Christ.

What great love the Father has lavished on you that you should be called a child of God. I am so privileged to have always had the lens of looking at God as a heavenly Father through my wonderful, not at all perfect, but wonderful anyway, good earthly father. I think about one moment in particular when I was seventeen. I came to Christ when I was a teenager, when I was fifteen. And when I was seventeen years old, I just really felt like, and I really wasn't sure. I was like, "This really could go south, because I just started this whole talking to God thing." So me thinking the Holy Spirit is telling me to do this, I could be wrong. But I really felt like, okay, this has to be the Holy Ghost, because there's no way I would opt to go confess to my parents. I wasn't going to do that on my own. So this had to be the Holy Spirit.

But I felt the Holy Spirit pushing me and encouraging me to sit down and talk to my parents. And so I did, and I was going to confess a bunch of stuff that you would probably want to go to the grave without your parents knowing. I was going to tell them about some things that had happened years before that had a major impact on me. Between what I had done and what had been done to me, I was approaching this conversation from the position of being completely unworthy of either of my good, wholesome, and sweet parents. Completely unlovable. And they were about to find out. I knew, I just knew, that when I told my good father about this, the only result would be that he would reject me.

And I will never forget looking up at him after having said all of these awful things. I will never forget the tears in his eyes. A father whose heart was broken for his child and his hand reaching out to pull me in. And I sobbed and I said sorry a million times. And somewhere in me saying sorry and blubbering, I just remember my dad saying, "You're my daughter and I love you." Hear me today, you are not a person in need of earning sonship.

You can be the best Christian in the world, but the scripture said it. This is how we know who the children of God are. You must first be a child of God, and the rest flows from there. God changes who we are. And in changing who we are, what we do changes. What we do is not our identity, but it is the evidence of our identity. What great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. You have been given a new nature, and from that the fruit of righteousness will pour out of your life.

Nurture: Our relationships in community

I also want to talk about righteousness in our relationships. I want to point out the emphasis that keeps coming up. If you've been following along now for the third week, so these past three weeks we've been going through these chapters, and something that I think is really interesting is that somewhere in all of these, the emphasis is righteousness and the love of God and the light of God. But without fail, John feels the need to say, in the very beginning, in chapter one, if you'll remember, he says that the purpose of writing the letter is so that we can have fellowship with God and with each other. And at the end of this passage, he just slides in right there at the end. He says, "Nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister."

How we love our brothers and sisters is directly connected to whether or not we are living in such a way that honors and reflects Christ. The ultimate evidence of righteousness, the ultimate evidence of relationship with God, is how you treat the person sitting next to you. You have not just been given a father. You have not just been given a new nature. You've been brought into a family. How we love one another is ultimately what shows the world that the Father is in us. It's how we love our brother and our sister that reveals our nature.

You've been given a community and they will shape you and mold you because they're part of your nurture now. Yes, this can swing different ways. This can be a really great thing or a really hard thing. That's part of why I think John says, "Don't let anyone lead you astray." Because not everyone in the community is their nature's been fully transformed, right? And not all of us have been made perfect. We're not in heaven yet. But it says to love each other and to love each other well. Your community will shape you and mold you. You've been given a community and you will shape and mold them. You will be a part of their nurture. You have a responsibility and you have a duty to love others well.

So what today

So what today is: when our identity is firmly rooted in the Father, righteousness will be the fruit. When our identity is firmly rooted in the Father, righteousness will be the fruit. Now what today is to embrace your new nature. And like, what does that mean, embrace my new nature? I think oftentimes the part of us that almost rejects our new nature rejects God as a father, rejects an identity as children of God. Not that we would say we're rejecting it. We just really don't know how to live in it. We just really don't know how to embrace it.

Well, it's because the transformation is something that takes time. And there are all these different thoughts and lies in our head about not being worthy and not being lovable and not being good enough and all these different things. Well, I had a leader one time who said that we should take scripture to combat lies, like we take antibiotics to combat sickness. We should almost take it like a prescription. And I think that is so true.

So my challenge for you this week to embrace your new nature is to take a seat with the Bible and find one to five Bible verses that talk about your identity. Or maybe you're hearing like, "I know I'm a child of God, but I'm anxious." Find some scriptures that talk about peace, talk about worry, all of those things. And take it like medicine. Read those scriptures over and over again. If you are like super scheduled and structured and routine and you want to set an alarm on your phone and you're going to take it with every meal the way you would take a pill, then do it like that. If you're more like, "I'm just going to write it on a sticky note and put it by my desk," that's what I do. I have like a sticky note by my desk with whatever scripture I'm sitting on, and I'll just look at it throughout the day.

But that's what it means to meditate on scripture. To have this ruminating in your mind. So that when lies come up in your mind that would pull you farther from God, instead of you embracing your identity as a child of God, you have something to say. Know this is truth, and begin to embrace your identity as a child of God. And the outpouring of that will be loving your neighbor. The outpouring of that will be loving your brother and sister. The fruit will be a righteous life.

Closing: Displaying your Father's character

I'm going to invite you all to stand up on your feet. Speaking of my dad, I've said this before, but I'll say it again. His name is Manuel, and my family thinks it's funny to call me Manuela because I'm a lot like my dad. You know, that's all right. He's a good guy. I'm a lot like my dad. But as I was reading and prepping for this message, one of the things I was reading about in the sentences was just talking about how the child displays the Father's character. Which I think in an earthy way, it's like, oh, it has a lot of pressure. But how special is it that as children of God, whatever flawed character you came to the table with, you get to display the character of your Father because you've been given the nature of a good and perfect and holy God.

I'm going to invite everyone to close your eyes, bow your heads. I'm just going to pray for us to close out. Nothing fancy, nothing crazy, but my prayer for each of you this week is that you would walk out like the beginning of the scripture says. With confidence and unashamed before Christ. Not because you're perfect, but because you've been given a new nature and things are being worked out in you. And you have a Father who has lavished such great love on you that you have been called a child of God.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much. We thank you for who you are, that you are matchless and you are holy. That your love for us is not deterred by what we do and by what we don't do. We thank you not just because you love us, but your love transforms us from the inside out. Lord, I pray that we might come to you as children with the confidence that we have a good and loving Father. And I pray that our heart's desire might be to reflect that to everyone around us. That the way we love one another might be evidence to those who look from the outside that you are King, that you are our Father.

Lord, we pray that when people look to us, they might see your face. That they might know that we are yours. We are children of God the same way my dad's co-workers used to see me and say, "That's Manuel's girl." That when people see us, when they talk to us, when they see how we love people, how we serve, how we live, that they might know whose we are. In your holy name, I pray. Amen.