If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 2 Cor 5:17
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These pages are designed to aid study or investigation for Christian discipleship through individual Bible study, Cell groups, Home groups, or meeting one to one. The questions could be used alone allowing each person to use their own Bible.
Introduction
There are two senses in which we are God’s children.
First - physical. All are created by God, so He is Father to all. He loves and cares for all. This is a vital reality, for God our Father does not appreciate the way we mistreat His children. However evil His children, He loves them and He loves us.
Second - spiritual. God is Spirit and when we are born spiritually we become His children spiritually. This is a more intimate level of becoming His children than physical. There is in the spiritual realm a far greater opportunity to interact as a child should interact with its Father.
Being His children gives us value; Not for what we do or achieve, but that God, the source of the universe created and loves us so we are His children.
Bible Zone
- Father of all - God is Father since He created all.
- Born of God - Those who have had spiritual birth, are God’s children.
- Born of Spirit - We are born again by the Spirit of God.
- Spirit Speaks - The Spirit testifies to our life by speaking to our spirits.
- Born of Word - The involvement of the Word of God in our spiritual birth.
- Impact of new birth - God impacts our lives through the new birth.
God is the maker of all creation and thus is the Father of all. Acts 17:24-29 describes how and why He created.
- What is the extent of God’s creation?
- Why did God create mankind?
- How does this affect your view of your place before God?
Acts 17:24 "He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't live in man-made temples,25 and human hands can't serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.26 From one man* he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.
27 "His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.28 For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your* own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'29 And since this is true, we shouldn't think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.
John 1:11-13 describes our becoming children of God.
- Who is given the right to be a child of God?
- By what means do people become children of God?
John 1:11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him.12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
For there to be life there needs to be a source of that life. What does Jesus say is the source of life? John 3:3-8
- What is the source of Spiritual life?
- Why do we need to be born again, of the Spirit?
- What is the significance of Jesus’ allusion to the wind, and the difficulty of knowing where it comes from?
John 3:3 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, unless you are born again,* you cannot see the Kingdom of God."
4 "What do you mean?" exclaimed Nicodemus. "How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?"
5 Jesus replied, "I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.*6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.*7 So don't be surprised when I say, 'You* must be born again.'8 The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit."
This position of being a child of God is not merely symbolic. God’s Spirit works out the reality into our lives. Galatians 4:5-7
- How did we become God’s children?
- What does God do for those who are His children?
- How does the Sprit calling out in our hearts help us?
Galatians 4:5 God sent him (Jesus) to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.*6 And because we* are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father."*7 Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child.* And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
Peter takes a different angle 1 Peter 1:23-25
- What is the nature of the source of life in us?
- What is the nature of people without God’s Spirit alive in them?
- What is the nature of those who are born again?
1 Peter 1:23 For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.24 As the Scriptures say,
"People are like grass; their beauty is like a flower in the field.
The grass withers and the flower fades.25 But the word of the Lord remains forever."*
And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.
John speaks of the impact on someone’s life of having this new birth. 1 John 4:1-3
- How is this new birth an indication of the Father’s love?
- How do those who have the hope of Jesus live?
1 The Father has loved us so much that we are called children of God. And we really are his children. The reason the people in the world do not know us is that they have not known him.2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and we have not yet been shown what we will be in the future. But we know that when Christ comes again, we will be like him, because we will see him as he really is.3 Christ is pure, and all who have this hope in Christ keep themselves pure like Christ.
John now goes on in 1 John 4:9-10
- What is the impact of the new life that God has put into His children?
- Note the contxt of 1 John 2:1-2. John is not speaking in absolute terms about sin or no sin, but rather a lifestyle?
- How have you observed the effects of new life?
1 John 4: 9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
1 John 2:1 My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous.2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
CHILDREN OF GOD
