Power to Become Children of God (John 1:1-18)
Power to Become Children of God
January 4, 2026
John 1:1-18
By Pastor Mike Conner
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Here at the starting line of another year, I want to return to speak of something very fundamental, this great gift that John speaks of in the poetic prologue to his gospel: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (1:12).
He gave power to become children of God.
He.
That is, Jesus. The eternal Word, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, through whom all things have come into existence. He is Emanuel, God with us. Jesus has been born into our flesh and blood and bone. Jesus has entered into our vulnerability and weakness. Full of grace and truth, of life and light, he wants nothing more than to be here, to be close to you and me, no matter how sullen, distracted, anxious, or arrogant he finds us at first. As the book of Hebrews puts it, “The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God” (1:3 NLT). He does this in a baby’s body swaddled in cloth, in a man’s body suffering on the cross. He has come so that each of us might rise to be with him where he is, “close to the Father’s heart” (John 1:18). He.
He gave.
Yes, Jesus is the pre-eminent giver: “From his fullness,” John writes, “we have all received, grace upon grace” (1:16). This is what he does with who he is and what he has: he gives it all to us. His kindness and his compassion, his creativity and his patience. Jesus’ earthly ministry was a ministry of gifts: turning water into wine, feeding the crowds, healing the sick, forgiving sins, calling the disciples into their purpose, and even receiving the love others desired to show him. “Though he was in the form of God,” Paul writes in Philippians, “he did consider equality with God as something to be grasped for himself, but emptied himself…” Jesus pours himself out to bless us and enrich us with love. He is with us in every experience of doubt and abandonment, in every moment of healing and beauty. He is not one who grasps, possesses, or hoards. His openness to us, no matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done, is definitive. He gave his very life away in order to redeem us, and now he gives us to one another in a community of gifts. He gave.
He gave power.
This is the gift for us to linger with today: Jesus gives power. This word in the New Testament, exousia, is about freedom and privilege. There are other words that indicate physical strength, personal ability, or social charisma. One of them is dunamis, which enters English as ‘dynamic.’ But this word, exousia, is about authority, capacity, choice. Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus will say, “I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again” (10:17-18). Herod thinks he has authority over Jesus. Pilate thinks he has authority over Jesus. The crowd thinks it has authority over Jesus. But any authority they have to determine Jesus’ fate comes because it has been first given to them by the One who has chosen to humble himself unto death on a cross. The Son of God throws the full weight of his divine privilege into the sacrifice of his life. What mystery is this, that the one through whom all things have come into existence would use power to give away power, and in that gift establish himself as the one worthy to receive “all authority in heaven and on earth,” as Matthew puts it in the closing words of his own Gospel. Jesus freely sacrificed himself for us, died our death, and now meets us in the moments and places of our God-forsakenness. He gave power.
He gave power to become.
This is the power he gives us: the freedom to become—to grow, unfold, heal. None of us is ever “finished” in this life. God is boundless and infinite. With God there is grace upon grace. Which means that our desire for God is never fully quenched, and our spiritual ripening can never be considered a done deal. So he gives us power to become.
Power to become! One of the greatest gifts that any of us can give to another person is the time and space, the affirmation and patience, for them to discover their own identity and purpose in God’s love. The power to become has made all the difference for me. I have had people come alongside me in every season of my life who have seen potential gifts in me and wanted to help me grow. The power to become is what I want to give my kids: the trust, self-compassion, curiosity, and sensitivity they need to receive whoever God has created them to be. As a pastor in Pocatello, I see that the power to become is a gift denied to so many of our neighbors, who, in order to be worthy of acceptance in their faith communities, must foreclose on certain possibilities of self-expression and relationship, certain lines of doubt and exploration.
Jesus does not give us power for conformity. He does not give us power to control others, or to manipulate our circumstances, or to be important and talented, or to depose the leaders of foreign lands with a word. He does not give us power to get things right all the time, to have masterful recall of the scriptures or to spin eloquent theological arguments. No, he gives us power to live our questions, to receive each day as fresh and full of mercy, to embrace new people and ideas and callings, that we might say with the poet Rilke, “I want to unfold. / Let no place in me hold itself closed, / for where I am closed, I am false. / I want to stay clear in your sight.” He gave power to become.
He gave power to become children of God.
Children of God. Power to become…a child! A child of God. We are given the authority that we need to abide in Christ and experience ourselves in him as the Beloved of God—together. Children are dependent on others; children need help; children are impressionable, voracious learners, attuned to wonder. Children raise their arms to be lifted up; they throw themselves fully into whatever it is they are doing. They feel all their feelings intensely. By coming to us as the Word-made-flesh, the Son of God has given us the power to become spiritual children. As John writes elsewhere in the New Testament, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are (1 John 3:1). As children, we are destined for joy in God. As children, we pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As children, we are seen, provided for, never alone, no never alone.
As the first theologians affirmed so very long ago, God became a human being so that human beings might become God. He descended to us that we might ascend with him. By uniting humanity and divinity in the body and history of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God has opened up the possibility for each of us to have a vibrant, intimate, faithful relationship with our Creator. He gave power to become children of God.
Friends, this is the essence of the Gospel. The power to become a child of God is available to each of us right here, right now. In the words of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist revival in 18th century England, “[I]t is a present salvation. It is something attainable, yea, actually attained on earth, by those who are partakers of the faith.” To partake of this faith, the Gospel invites us to receive him, and to believe in his name.
To receive him means opening the door of your heart to him when he comes knocking, when you sense that he wants something to do with you.
To receive him means being like Mary, and the Shepherds, and the Magi, and the Stable, saying Yes, come, Lord Jesus, I will give you room in my heart and in all my life.
To receive him means setting out to meet him in the places where he has promised to wait for us: in the Scriptures and at the Table, in the company of other believers, and in the face of every despised, rejected, vulnerable, or destitute person in our world.
And to believe in his name?
This simply means to trust him. To trust that Christ is the one who the scriptures and the saints and your deepest longings say that he is: God with us in love and unconditional acceptance and perfect justice. He is the Messiah, the Christ, who died our death, raises us to new life, and gives us the power to be children of God, “close to the Father’s heart.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.