Weekly Sermon

"God's DNA Profile" : May 4, 2003

The Reverend Anne Benefield

I John 3: 1 - 3

See what love the Father has given 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.

2) Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when Christ is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

3) And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Prayer: Heavenly Father, as we pause to study your word may we recognize how great your love is for us and how great our debt of gratitude is for you. Show us how to live as your faithful children. Amen.

I understand that recent research shows that every person in the Western world is descended from Charlemagne, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. If you think about it, when you go back far enough, everyone is related to everyone else. That is logical. We all have two parents and four grandparents, but as you go back in the time the numbers grow quickly: eight great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents, 32 great-great-great-grandparents. Go back 40 generations, or about a thousand years, and each of us has, theoretically, more than a trillion direct ancestors. Since our family trees are not independent, but overlap and intersect, we are all from the same genetic pool. At some point, we're all family, sharing the same genetic material!

Enough of that. Let's look at our text from I John. Here we find a very different kind of family described. This family is not made up of people who trace their lineage back to kings and queens. In this passage we hear about tracing our lineage to Christ and through Christ to God. We are talking about people who share the same spiritual genes. So what are the significant DNA markers for a child of God? First, we all have the very same Father. You often hear, "You can't choose your parents." In the family of God, that is even truer. We have not chosen God; God has chosen us. We didn't first call God "Father;" God first called us his children. We haven't earned our position in God's family by our words, thoughts, and deeds. Only one thing brought us into the family of God: the generous love of God the Father. And because God's love is so generous, God has a big family…

A group of expectant fathers was in a waiting room, while their wives were in the process of delivering babies. A nurse came in and announced to one man that his wife had just given birth to twins. 'That's quite a coincidence,' he responded, 'I play for the Minnesota Twins!' A few minutes later another nurse came in and announced to another man that he was the father of triplets. 'That's amazing,' he exclaimed, 'I work for the 3M Company.' At that point, a third man slipped off his chair and lay down on the floor. Somebody asked him if he were feeling ill. 'No,' he responded, 'I happen to work for the 7-Up company.' (Source unknown) God has a lot more than seven children! The truly amazing thing is how much God loves all his children. He loves us each. I like the way Tony Campolo puts it. He says, "God carries your picture in his wallet."

Christianity Today carried an article taken from Jeanette Clift George's book called Men of Integrity. She tells the story of a woman and her baby, flying home on a very turbulent flight. Every time the baby cried, the young mother fed the baby a little fruit and a little orange juice, but because the flight was so bumpy, everything that went down came back up. At the end of the flight, the carpet was a mess, and the baby looked awful. At the gate was a young man who had to be Daddy wearing white pants, white shirt and carrying flowers. Jeanette George thought to herself, "He's going to run to that baby, get one good look and keep running!" Of course, he didn't. He grabbed the messy baby, held her against his white shirt and whispered loving things in her ear. All the way to the luggage claim area, he never stopped hugging and kissing that baby, stroking her hair, welcoming her back home. Jeanette George asked herself, "Where did I ever get the idea that my Father God is less loving than a young daddy in white slacks and white shirt?" Our God has chosen to make us his children, and he is going to embrace us and accept us with open arms, no matter how messy we are. [George, Jeanette Clift, "Dad meets the messy baby," Men of Integrity, January 18, 2000, Christianity/Today.com]

Another DNA marker of the child of God is that he or she is growing, developing, and maturing. What we are becoming is not yet completely clear, but John tells us that when our growth is finished we will be like God's son Jesus. That's in verse 2 of our passage. Being a Christian means our journey toward God is never complete. We are always growing, learning, praying. According to Os Guinness, a brilliant scholar whose work is devoted to bridging the gap between academics and life, says that "a truly mature person has an audience of one, and that One is God." In other words, mature people seek no one else's approval but God's approval. Mature people know in the end, God's judgment stands; all others are mere opinions. Not only that, God's approval is motivated by his love for us; while the approval of others is motivated by our support of them.

Growing to the point where we have an audience of one is an unachievable goal, but it is worth striving for. The grave danger we face is that we will think that we have perfected our faith, that we know better than others how to live, that we will become pious.

Fred Craddock tells an interesting story about a man he knew. He says, "When I was in Cincinnati, I met a lot of people I was glad to see, and a few I didn't really care to see again, but there they were. One of them was a fellow in one of the churches in the Midwest; I'll not identify him any further. Grumpy sort. A controlling man-that was the problem I had with him. I gave Bible studies and preached in his church lots of times. He's a layman in the church, and a sort of controller, a very controlling man, one of those people that act like they're in the background…but they're really in charge. He controls his family, controls his kids, controls his grandkids, controls the whole family, controls the church… "I saw him coming. There was nowhere to go. I shook hands with him and said, 'How're you doing?' "He said, 'I'm doing all right.' "I said, 'How's the church?' "He said, 'Better than we're ever been.' "'Really?' "And this is what he said: 'God is at work in our church.' "I'd never heard him say anything like that; I'd just heard him criticize. 'God is at work in our church.' I said, 'That is wonderful.' "He said, 'We're in better shape spiritually and in every way than we've ever been in my memory.' 'That is wonderful! Who is your minister?' "He said, 'We have a woman.' He never did give me her name. He said, 'We have a woman.' "I said, 'You do?' "He said, 'Yeah. I voted against her, and all my family voted against her, but we got outnumbered.' 'And…' "He said, 'I was wrong. I was wrong in my estimation of women.' And then he looked at me and said, 'Brother Fred, if I was wrong about her, I was probably wrong about a lot of other stuff.' "Isn't that great? Finally, he met the gospel, broke the pattern, and he was making a new way." [Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories, (St Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), 121]

When we're growing in faith, we discover so many new ways. I have to admit-and many of you know it-that I am wrong quite a bit of the time. I'm starting to learn that it's not so bad to be wrong, and trying to be graceful about it makes it a lot easier! We've talked about two of the DNA markers of God's children: 1) His love is imprinted on us and 2) We are growing, developing, and maturing in faith. There is one more DNA marker that John writes about. As children of God we are committed to purity and righteousness. It is hard to be committed to purity and righteousness. The world certainly doesn't applaud us for it. It takes discipline to choose the pure and righteous way.. There is a story about a converted American Indian. He described the old and the new nature this way, "There's two dogs that live in me; one's the old dog. He's mean and vicious and hard and sinful. Then there's the new dog who walks after Christ. They are constantly fighting to have control. Which one wins? The one I feed the most, that's which one wins." [told by Ed Wood in "Reasons for Righteousness," April, 2001] We are children of God. God's image, God's DNA is written in our souls. That's pretty heady news, but it comes with responsibilities and a great support system. We are supported by God's great love, but it's our responsibility to grow in faith and purity. And like all true families, we come to the table together and are nurtured to grow in faith by our Savior.