Children of God: Our Adoption, Our Advocate, and the Fight Against Sin

In the adult Sunday school hour, Brother Danny Corprew continued the class’s study of First John, focusing on 1 John 2:1-3. John writes so that his readers “sin not,” yet assures them that when they do sin, they “have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” who is the propitiation for their sins and for the sins of the whole world.

Brother Danny opened by revisiting John’s tender phrase “my little children,” a term that identifies believers as spiritual children belonging to the family of God. Drawing on Galatians 4:5, he distinguished regeneration from adoption: the new birth makes us God’s children, while adoption bestows on us a special status and standing in Christ. We are family—brothers and sisters with God as our Father.

Because believers are so loved, sin is never something to take lightly. The lesson pressed home that sin is first and foremost an affront against a holy God. David confessed in Psalm 51, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,” even though his sin had wounded others. Saul, by contrast, admitted “I have played the fool” only after a lifetime of willful disobedience—not merely breaking God’s commands but presuming to correct them.

The evidence that we truly know Him, John says, is that “we keep his commandments.” Yet obedience is a daily battle between flesh and Spirit. Turning to Galatians 5:16, Brother Danny urged the class to “walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh”—a categorical promise. Victory comes as believers yield to the Holy Spirit, crucify old habits, and give themselves to disciplined prayer at set times rather than surrendering to the excuses of the flesh.

The class closed with the encouragement to live in loving response to God’s grace by obeying and serving Him.