A number of fascinating stories have arisen in the last few years of identical twins separated at birth, adopted by different families, and then re-united in adulthood. Even though these twins lived far apart, sometimes on different continents, the similarities are often striking. Barbara Herbert and Daphne Goodship were adopted by separate families after their mother committed suicide. When they were reunited as adults, they discovered many strange coincidences in their lives. Both left school at 14 and met their husbands when they were 16. Both suffered miscarriages in the same month, then had two sons and a daughter. Both preferred their coffee cold and had phobias about blood and heights. They have the same heart murmur, thyroid problem, and allergies. (source: https://www.verywell.com/stories-of-twins-separated-at-birth-2447136)

It’s hard to explain those kinds of things, but they do illustrate the power of family identity. Identical twins have identical DNA (although, fascinatingly enough, they have different fingerprints). But their shared family identity exerts a powerful influence on their life and behavior.

What is your spiritual family? If we could do a spiritual DNA test, to which spiritual family would you belong? The Bible teaches there are only two spiritual families in the world: the family of God, and the devil’s family. Jesus Himself used that strong language in John 8:44 when speaking to a crowd, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.” (John 8:44)

We are, in this series, looking for all those Scriptures that make it unambiguously clear who is in the family of God. Who is born from above, a child of God? We are not asking, do you identify as a Christian? We are asking, do you have the unique marks of someone who has been turned into a Christian? We are not asking, which religion do you associate with? We are asking, have you been changed from within so that you belong to a new family?

The Bible calls that change conversion, regeneration, being born again, being saved, born from above. It calls it receiving Christ, becoming a child of God. That is not merely a personal feeling you have about yourself, it is something done to you, received by you.

To do this spiritual DNA test, we have to distinguish sure signs of being in God’s family from inconclusive or ambiguous signs. An inconclusive sign is something that may be true of a believer, but it could also be true of an unbeliever, and therefore should not be relied on as a test for regeneration. A sure sign is something Scripture says is true only of those born from above, born of God, born again. Last week we saw the first sign from 1 John 5:1: whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. True faith in the true Christ.

We come to the second sure sign of regeneration, one which is repeated many times in Scripture. This is a mark which has entirely to do with family relationships. It has to do with who you love, who you regard as family, who are your spiritual kin? John describes three unique signs of being born from above that have to do with family relationships.

I. Recognize God as Father

1 John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 Jn. 3:1-2)

When the new birth has taken place, a person is aware that a change in relationship with God has taken place. Whereas before He was God, Creator, Lord, now, He is Father. Before, you might have thought of yourself as religious, or as a good person. But that all changes the day you understand the gospel: that you are a sinner, in deep and profound need of forgiveness and a new life. But that changes when you receive Christ. As John 1:12 says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: (Jn. 1:12)

Once you are born from above, the Holy Spirit within prompts you to think of God, to address God, to approach God as a child before his or her father. No one has to coach you to do it; it is coming from within. I have many roles in my life. I am a husband, I am a father, I am a son, I am a brother. I am a pastor. I am a teacher. I am a friend. But when my children see me or think of me, which of those roles should be the primary one they think of? Father. It would be an odd thing if my children saw me coming and said, “Look, here comes the pastor of NCBC!” or “Here comes the husband of Erin!” What would be natural is if when they think of me, or speak to me, the word and the idea is “Daddy”.

Paul describes this in Galatians 4:6-7:

And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father! Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Gal. 4:6-7) Now God is also many things. He is Creator, He is Master, He is Sustainer, He is Judge, He is Lord of all. But when someone is born from above, what is the primary way you identify Him? Father. Abba. The Aramaic word Abba is a word that communicates intimacy, a word of loving closeness. Before the coming of Jesus, no one would have thought of addressing God as “Abba”. But this has changed.

When you begin praying, perhaps even in those moments of emergency when you cry out to God, how do you think of Him? How do you address Him? Is there a deep identification with God as Father?

Let me be clear. I don’t mean the false teaching of the universal fatherhood of God. The universal fatherhood of God is the claim that every human being in the world is a child of God. God is everyone’s father, they say. And didn’t Paul himself say in Acts 17 ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Paul did say that, and it is true. We are the creations of God, His progeny, His handiwork. But that does not mean all people are God’s children. That would make nonsense of Jesus’ words that some are children of the devil. It would make nonsense of the idea that as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God. No, being a child of God is a privilege granted to those who receive the Son as the way to the Father.

And that’s why this can be evaluated objectively, not just subjectively. It is not just if I feel God is my Father. It is if I have the right to call Him Father based on my attitude towards His Son. John tells us that a little earlier:

Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:23)

This is a sure sign of family identity. Let us contrast that with an inconclusive sign. It is no sure sign that you have been born from above because you are associated with church or religion. Probably most people in the world want to belong to something, be involved in some group or organization bigger than themselves. And the Bible is replete with examples of people who were involved in religion, but were not spiritually alive. Consider that Jesus said of a whole church – the church at Sardis – “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. (Rev. 3:1) Here was a local church, functioning in every outward capacity – preaching, baptizing, doing the Lord’s Supper, but Jesus said they were not regenerate. Most of them were not born again.

Religious involvement does not bring life. If there is life, there will be religious involvement, but it is possible to be dead and be involved. No one illustrates that better than the Pharisees. You couldn’t have met more religiously involved people: zealous, exacting, scrupulous over the things of religion. But according to Jesus, they were dead: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matt. 23:27-28)

Read how Paul overturned this thinking in Philippians 3. He had a powerful CV, a resume of note when it came to involvement in religious activities. But he didn’t see them as a sure sign of regeneration.

Paul says: I would have got the Olympic gold medal in strict religion. But I’d throw that gold medal in the bin, as it kept me from a personal knowledge of God through His Son. Association, affiliation with God in or through religion is not the same as love for the Father. Knowing God as Father comes because you have received the Son, and the Spirit now makes that objective relationship known and felt inwardly. There’s a second, connected sure sign of being born again. The second spiritual DNA marker of being God’s child is this.

II. Relate to Other Christians as Family

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 Jn. 4:7-8)

We can summarize this sign like this: the mark of being truly born again is loving identification with the family of God. The truly regenerate person sees God’s family as his or her own family and loves them.

Everyone who loves is born of God. The sure sign of being born of God is love, and the lack thereof means the person does not know God. But this is not a vague, generic love, a warm feeling about some Christians. No, John is clear whom we are supposed to love: let us love one another. The ‘one another’ here refers to fellow believers, fellow Christians. What John is talking about is not merely a sentiment towards those people in church who happen to appeal to you, but a family bond. John uses language which emphasizes that this love is rooted in a family connection, a shared blood, a common parentage.

John goes on to show us that there is no such thing as a purely vertical relationship with God. There is no such thing as someone who is truly born of God, loves God as Father, but has no love towards God’s other children.

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. (1 John 5:1)

Notice the idea here: if you love Him who begot – the Father – you will also love those begotten of Him – other Christians. Your family love for God that comes out of having God’s nature in you, will find a love for others with the same nature in them.

If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. (1 Jn. 4:20-21)

A love for God as Father extends to those from the Father. Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me (Jn. 8:42)

So much so, that John says the way you show vertical love for the invisible God is shown in horizontal love for your visible brother:

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. (1 Jn. 4:12)

A sure sign of life is love for the brethren. So what does it mean to love the brethren.

In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. (1 Jn. 3:10-16)

Brethren. This Greek word, adelphoi means siblings, brothers and sisters. Now that word, used in our physical families helps us understand what it means to love one another.

In a family, love between brothers or sisters does not always mean the tenderest of feelings. Siblings may often be very irritating to each other, annoying, or obnoxious. Brothers in a family might not have ended up friends had they not been born in the same household. But what remains in any healthy family? A deep-seated loyalty to one another. You hear people saying to each other, “Well, in the end, it’s family. He’s family. Blood is thicker than water.”

Someone born from above has that deep family kinship with other believers. The family of God is made up of all kinds of people, some of which rub you the wrong way, annoy you, or are not the sort of people you’d choose as companions. But when you are born from above, there is this kinship that says, “These are my people. These are the people I go to in an emergency. These are the people who, wherever I go in the world, I seek out. These are closer to me in priorities and loves than my physical family.”

John describes this brother to brother love in the next verses.

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. (1 Jn. 3:16-18)

At the heart of love for one another is a willingness to sacrifice to meet needs. The heart of our faith is Jesus who gave the ultimate sacrifice in love for us. So flowing out of that should be sacrificial, Calvary-like love for each other. Whether it is the need for food, or the need for encouragement, the need for counsel, the need for rebuke, the need for advice, the need for comfort, brothers and sister meet needs. When I feel the needs of my brothers and sisters more than I feel my own need, and I leave my comforts and conveniences to meet those needs, it’s because I feel the family bond.

And it’s difficult and even risky. “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers…of love is Hell.” – C.S. Lewis

Now let’s contrast this sure sign with an inconclusive sign. It is no sure sign that you are born from above that you have been included in a church through baptism and membership. Not just involved, but included, brought in, recognized. (Acts 8:9-24) Here you had a man who seemed to believe in Jesus. His profession of faith was believable enough that he was baptized by the church at Samaria. He had passed the filters of the local church, demonstrating a mental understanding of the Gospel, being willing to publicly identify with Christ. But when the apostles from Jerusalem came up to Samaria, he saw the unique power of the apostles, Peter using the keys that Jesus had given him to extend the Gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, with the external sign of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling. Simon sees this and his unregenerate heart lusts for this kind of power. Still being an unbeliever, he hasn’t grasped the idea of grace – he still thinks it is a trade, a deal, a purchase that can be made with money. And Peter rebukes him sternly, using several phrases to show he is an unbeliever: he is going to perish, he has no part or portion in the work of God, his heart is not right with God, he needs to repent of wickedness, he is poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity. This is said of someone who had been baptized by the church in Samaria.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I think professing your faith before a healthy local church in baptism and church membership is one of the most important things you can do. Given what we have already seen about the dangers of self-deception, I don’t want to rest on my own sincerity, or trust in my trust, or take confidence in my self-confidence. I want to submit myself to a properly organized local church, to which Jesus said has the power to state if people are bound in sin or loosed from their sin. Churches corporately recognize faith in Christ, and corporately discipline rejection of Christ. So I am not saying this is unimportant or even optional. I am saying that being included in a church by itself is no sure sign of being God’s child. You can give a testimony that checks all the boxes, and outwardly, no one has any reason to doubt your faith in Christ. But believers can only judge by what you say and by what they see, and so it is not a sure sign that you have been born of God.

Religious inclusion is not a sure sign. True believers should want to be in covenant with a healthy local church, but unbelievers can slip into even the best churches.

Connected to this is another sign which is inconclusive: it is active ministry. You can not only draw near to a church, be included in that church, but you can begin doing Christian service, and it is no sure sign of being regenerate. Remember Christ’s words in Matthew 7: “Not everyone who says to Me,Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day,Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them,`I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matt. 7:21-23)

The striking thing about Christ’s words is that he does not deny that these people did those works, or even that they were miraculous. What he denies is involvement. “I never knew you” means we were never in union, so I was not the source of those works. You might have done them in My name, or for me, but I was not behind it all, empowering you, enabling you.” They will be shocked, because nothing is more comforting to people than to use religious works as evidence they are right with God. And the bigger the works, the more of them, the more people feel they must be righteous.

In 2005, a secular Jewish lady named Gina Welch decided that she wanted to understand Christian evangelicals, so she decided to go undercover, pretend to be a believer, and take notes for a year. She joined Thomas Road Baptist Church, pretending to be a new convert. Unbelieving, she was baptized. Unbelieving, she took the Lord’s Supper. Unbelieving, she went on a mission trip to Alaska and led a little girl through the sinner’s prayer. But all along, she remained unconverted. And she then wrote her experience in a book called “In the Land of Believers” in which she comes out as never having believed any of it, but having convinced everyone around her that she was a believer, and having been used in Christian ministry.

Religious involvement is not a sure sign. True believers will be involved, but unbelievers can be involved too. Active ministry is no sure sign. True believers will serve and minister, but Judas, Balaam and Diotrephes show us that you can be in ministry and not be in Christ.

The sure sign is love for the family of God. You sense your kinship, your belonging, your common bond. You feel obligations to them. Your rejoice when they do well, and you hurt when they do not. Their wellbeing is your concern. You feel accountable to them. You accept that they have some right to inquire after you, to ask after you, to look into your life. You are happy to publicly identify with them in a local church through covenanting together. The same connection, loyalty, identity, obligation that you have to physical family is what you now have towards those who also claim God is Father through belief in the Son.

Now there is a third sign of life connected to this family identity, and it is negative.

III. Refrain from the World as Foreign

John is emphatic that the world is a different family.

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. (1 Jn. 3:1)

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world– the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life– is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. (1 Jn. 2:15-17)

The world refers to a culture, a way of thinking and acting which Satan is the mastermind behind. We’re told that explicitly in 5:19: “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. (1 Jn. 5:19) He grows and develops this system wherever there is the society of unbelievers. It can take all kinds of shapes and forms, but its root beliefs are lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life: temporal gratification, temporal ambition and desire, and temporal independence. These things are hostile to God, they are in rebellion to God.

And make no mistake, it goes both ways. God hates the system of worldliness, but the world hates the system of righteousness. Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. (1 Jn. 3:13)

Now if God is your Father, and if other Christians are your true brothers and sisters, you should sense a kind of alienation from the world. Yes, you work with unbelievers, you do business with unbelievers, you might be part of certain societies or associations or groups in which you must be with them. But what you should feel when you are a child of God and the values of worldliness are being propagated and celebrated is, these are not my people. What they love, what they desire, what they take pleasure in, what they laugh at, what they long for, what they live for, is not what I love or desire. I am not at home with them, because the most important thing in my life is not the most important thing in their lives.

This is why it is hard for me to understand how a Christian would want to court or date an unbeliever. If you are born from above, then fundamental to your identity is God as Father, Christ as Lord, Spirit as indwelling Comforter. To pursue the closest of relationships with someone who does not love what you love, means you either don’t love what God loves, or you are very torn and mixed up as to what is most important to you.

A Christian has to be in the world all week, but longs for the Lord’s Day to be with his people, her people. A Christian sees the billboards, hears the songs, sees the movie trailers, and says, “Not my values. Not what I love. Not what I think life is about.”

Now when you love these things, you love what God hates. You can’t do that all your life and be a child of God, because your new nature will struggle to love what you should hate, and to hate what you should love.

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world– our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 Jn. 5:4-5)

John says those born of God overcome the world. What does that mean? It means the world does not assimilate them and squeeze them into its mold. Instead, because believers are possessed of faith, they escape the gravitational pull of the world. Faith enables us to pursue higher pleasures than what the world offers, better things than what the world offers, greater fulfillment, The problem with the world is not that it offers too great joy or delight, but too little. When you’re in God’s family, you know from the Word, and from your new nature that the world does not satisfy.

Religious involvement, inclusion in a church, ministry in a church are not sure signs. They are good signs, but not sure signs. This is deep family identity. In your spiritual DNA, God is Father, Christ is your life, by the indwelling Spirit. And so you are kin with those who have the same nature, and you feel all the loving duties and responsibilities to your spiritual family that you would to your physical. And unbelievers don’t have that nature, they have a different father, and when they act in line with that, there should be a profound sense of alienation. Jacob wanted to be buried with his people, not in Egypt, and so we should long to be with our people, in life and in death.

Test your spiritual DNA. Is God primarily Father to me? Do I see other believers as my family to whom I owe my love? Do I see the world as a different family, from which I am separate?