In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Just because a person claims to be a true child of God that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are one. Take, for example, what we see happening in our Gospel lesson today from John chapter 8. That’s the account of Jesus’ tense interaction with the Jews. They had the revealed knowledge of God in the Old Testament Scriptures. They had the blood ancestry of Abraham, and the covenant of circumcision. They had the witness of the temple, the daily sacrifices, and the direct promises about the coming Messiah. And yet, in spite of all that, Jesus said that they were liars and enemies of the truth. Even though they considered themselves to be God’s special people, Christ had to forcefully show them that wasn’t the case.

A true child of God has to love Jesus. It doesn’t get more basic than that. As our Lord said to the Jews in verse 42 our reading, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came from God and I am here.” The easiest way to tell if someone is on God’s side is by asking them what they think of God’s Son. What do they think about Jesus? Do they love Him? Do they even believe that He exists? Do they confess Him as their Lord and Savior? If the answer is “no,” to any of those questions then the case is closed. We don’t need to do this whole thing about how only God knows what’s going in their heart. Of course, only God knows what’s going on in their heart, but we don’t need to see inside a person’s heart when we can clearly hear what’s coming out of their mouth. When people tell us openly and plainly that they don’t love Jesus, we should take them at their word.

The Jews in our text today said that Christ was a Samaritan and that He had a demon. They made fun of Him, and called Him all kinds of terrible names, even accusing Him of being the offspring of infidelity. They argued with Him over every single point of His teaching, and then, in the end, they even tried to stone Him to death. Now, if you can do all that, and still be God’s child, and have His blessing and favor, then what on earth do you have to do to lose it?

No! All those who openly reject Christ and do not love Him are not part of God’s family. That doesn’t mean that God didn’t create them in His own image and likeness, or that doesn’t want them to be saved. But it does mean that in their current spiritual state, they’re not His children. In fact, they are the children of the devil. That’s what Jesus literally says in our reading today. He says to the unbelieving Jews, “You are of your father the devil.” Everyone who denies the divinity of Christ, and doesn’t acknowledge Him as the only Savior of sinners is on Satan’s side. That includes the atheists and the agnostics. It includes the Muslims and the Mormons. And, yes, it includes even the present-day Jews, who do not accept Him as the Messiah.

Sometimes, because of our context today, and especially the ongoing war with Iran, we hear all sorts of rhetoric from Evangelical Christians about how the Jews are God’s special people. They make it seem like supporting the modern nation state of Israel isn’t just a good political move, which maybe it is, but that its some sort of a theological necessity. They point to passages like Genesis 12, which say, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you,” and they make it seem like that is about present-day Jews who reject Jesus as the Christ. But Jesus’ words are clear as day, “If God were your Father, you would love me.” The true children of God are not those who can simply trace their ancestry back to the likes of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It’s those who love Christ. 

As John the Baptist tells us in Matthew chapter 3, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” Who you’re related to in this life, and who’s in your family tree, doesn’t do you any good if you reject the true Tree of Life, Jesus Christ. As Saint Paul also writes in Romans chapter 9, “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” What Paul is arguing here is that you can be descended from the man Israel, and still not belong to the true Israel. You can be a biological Jew, but not a real child of Abraham. And that’s because the true children of Abraham are those who share the same faith as Abraham. They are those believe in the same Christ. You and I, the Church, we are the true Israel of God because we are to ones who actually believe in Jesus. As Saint Paul also writes in Galatians 5, “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” A true child of God is first and foremost someone who loves Christ. And loving Christ starts with actually saying and acknowledging that we do. 

But, that, of course, isn’t’ where it ends. As Jesus also tells us in our reading, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God.” A true child of God listens to God’s Word. They don’t just say that they love Jesus with their mouth, but they bear witness to that love for Him with how they live their life. They want to learn from God, and grow in their faith. They care about what the Bible teaches and they want to do what it tells them. Just looking at someone’s outward confessing, and whether or not they say that they believe is Jesus, is definitely a good place to start to know whether they are a child of God, but we should remember that that’s the floor and not the ceiling. Plenty of people are willing to pay lip service to Christ, and say that they believe in Jesus. But when push comes to shove, what they do, and how they act, reveals something different. 

You know how this goes. “So and so” doesn’t go to church. They don’t pray. They don’t read the Bible. And they don’t give. They don’t even try to keep God’s Commandments. More or less, their life is completely indistinguishable from that of their heathen neighbor. They sleep around and get drunk. They take God’s name in vain. They hold grudges. They gossip. They lie. They cheat. And they steal. They do what they want to do when they want to do it. But because they were brought up in a Christian household, and because when they get asked if they love Jesus, they nod their head along and say that they do, we say about them, “Well maybe deep down they really do believe.” Dear brothers and sister in Christ, we have got to stop doing this. It’s dishonest, and worse than that, it’s unbiblical. True faith in Jesus is living and active. It’s shows itself in real fruit, no matter how meager that fruit might be. It’s not just about what you say you believe, but about what you do because you believe. No, good works will not save anyone. But we should not image that true faith can exist without them. That’s literally what Saint James tells us in His epistle, “faith without works is dead.” What he means by that is that it isn’t true faith at all. And that’s what Jesus is getting at in our text today too, when He says, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God” and “The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” The Lord is reminding us that His true children, that is, true believers, want to hear what He has to say and they want to do it. They want to live by it, even though sometimes they fail. And when they do fail, they repent and seek God’s forgiveness. They trust in Christ as their Savior, not as their enabler. They look to the Him for forgiveness, and the strength to do better in the future.

They reason why we need to be so clear about who a true child of God is, and why all of matters, is because of what Jesus tells us at the end of our text today. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” Now, that, of course, isn’t a promise about how true believers won’t physically die. That sort of thing happens every single day. Rather, it’s a promise about living eternally with God even if we do die. Yes, as the Jews pointed out somewhat correctly, Abraham died, as did the prophets. But where they went wrong was in assuming that because they died, they were truly dead. That’s not true. In fact, its blasphemous. Christ wasn’t talking here about a when a person’s lungs stop breathing and their heart stops beating. He was talking about the eternal nature of the soul. He was talking about how anyone who believes in Him will never experience everlasting punishment; how His true children will reside with the Him in heavenly bliss, even as they await the resurrection of their bodies.

A true child of God will never see hell. They will be spared from the agony of eternal judgment because they trust in the One who already suffered that judgment for them. They believe in Jesus and love him, because they know that He loves them, and that in that love He died to save them on the cross. As Christ said to the Jews, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” When Abraham took his son Isaac up on the mountain to sacrifice him, and God intervened at the very last minute, providing him with a ram to kill instead, he was given a picture of what the Messiah would do to rescue the world from their sins. He was given a picture of how God would provide His only begotten Son, as a spotless lamb and substitute in our place. Abraham saw Jesus’ day by faith, and God counted that faith to him as righteousness. Therefore, Abraham is not dead, but is alive with the Lord. He is alive because he believed. And the same is true for all our Christian friends and family who share Abraham’s faith too.  

Being a child of God is the greatest blessing we could ever have in this life. It’s a blessing we should want not just for ourselves, but all those around us too. We pray that God would open the eyes of everyone who reject His Son. We pray for all those who are hostile to the Christ and critical of His Word. We pray for our enemies who curse Jesus and mock the Scriptures. We pray for those who have walked away from their Confirmation vows and abandoned their first love. And we pray for the Jewish people who though they had the right and privilege to hear the Gospel before anyone else, have still refused to believe it. We pray for their salvation. But we don’t act as if they, or anyone else, will somehow be saved apart from the Savior. We don’t act as if it’s possible to still be a true Child of God with loving God’s Only Begotten Son. 

What makes us God’s children is not the blood that runs through our veins. It’s the blood of Christ that cleanses us from our sin. It’s Jesus, who not only loosens our tongues to confess His Name, but equips us in this life for every good deed. He is our treasure. He is our inheritance. He is our Lord and Savior. He is the eternal Son of God. And it’s only in Him that we are God’s children too. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.