They turn in your Bibles to 1 John, chapter 3. 1 John, chapter 3, we're going to consider this evening the amazing love of God or the privileged status of the believers, specifically 1 John, chapter 3, verse 1. That wonderful statement where John declares, Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. I'll just pick up reading in chapter 2 at verse 28. Here, John is introducing, or John is describing, the marks of, or the characteristics of, the children of God.
So, beginning in 1 John 2, verse 28, And now little children abide in him, that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him that is coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him. 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.
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. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him. Little children, let no one deceive you.
He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for his seed remains in him.
And he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. 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 brothers 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.
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. And by this we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him.
For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. Whatever we ask, we receive from him. And because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight, And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment.
Now, He who keeps His commandment abides in Him, and He in Him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. Amen. Well, let us pray.
Opening Prayer
Father, thank You for 1 John. Thank You for the fact that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. And we pray even now that you would thoroughly furnish us with every good work, that we would marvel, Lord, at your great love for us, that we would just stand amazed at what you have done in our lives, that again as we reflect upon the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, our hearts would be drawn out in worship, in praise, and in adoration unto you. And we ask this in Jesus' holy name.
Amen.
Introduction
Well, as I said, the entire section here is a description or marks of the child of God. John says that believers practice righteousness, according to chapter 2, verse 29, because they have been born of God. We have been born of God. completed action with current abiding results. Because of that, we practice righteousness.
In chapter 3, verse 1, he calls attention to our present blessedness. And again, that's where our focus will be this evening. But it's interesting how he moves from the present to the future and then calls us to engage right now. Verse two, he says, Beloved, now we are children of God and it is 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. So we are presently the children of God. There is a great hope laid out for us in the future. And based on that hope, we are to purify ourselves just as He is pure.
So that's kind of what's going on here in 1 John 3. Now we're going to just take verse 1 and hold it up and seek to understand what John is calling us to consider.
A Call to Consider
Notice the amazing gift of God's love. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us. There is first this call to consider. And it's unfortunate that we have to remind ourselves to focus on such things.
John says, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us. It's as if he stops for a moment to consider this very glorious truth. The fact that he is describing the characteristics or the marks of God's children causes him to reflect on the fact that we are God's children. He's not just describing what we are or what we ought to be, but he stops for a moment and calls us to consider and ponder the very fact that we are this.
It's an amazing reality. That's why he says, behold, we need to stop for a moment. We need to focus on this. We need to give attention to this.
John Gill says, see, take notice, consider, look by faith with wonder and astonishment and observe how great a favor, what an instance of matchless love, what a wonderful blessing of grace. We need to do this from time to time. Yes, search first, John, for the marks of the child of God. Yes, search first, John, to see that a child of God loves God and seeks to keep his commandments.
Search first, John, to realize that a mark of the Christian is that we now love other people. Prior to our conversion, we probably hated, we probably despised, we probably tried to keep away from people. But in Christ, this is a mark of how we know we've passed from death to life, that we love the brethren, that we have affection for them. But don't just consider those marks or descriptions of the Christian without stopping to reflect on the fact that I'm a child of God.
We're children of the living God. We are sons and daughters of God. That's what he is calling attention to. Another commentator says behold or see calls upon the readers to take a heart moving look at the amazing love which gave them membership in God's family.
So it's really quite a first step before you consider the marks of reflect on the glorious privilege that is yours. Reflect on the fact that at one time you were a child of the devil. You were serving your own flesh. You were serving your own carnal lusts.
You were children of the wrath, just as the rest. But now God has brought you savingly into his family. The Apostle Paul calls his audience to reflect upon this as well in the book of Ephesians. You may turn there.
Ephesians chapter three. Just so we can see that we ought to take time, we ought to stop and reflect, we ought to behold, yes, what our duties are as God's children, but what we are in our privileged status as God's children. Notice in Ephesians chapter 3, Paul is making a bit of a transition. He has set forth the doctrine of God's saving gospel in chapters 1 and 2.
He'll get into practical Christianity in chapters 4 through 6. He will exhort the believers there how they ought to conduct themselves. So, chapter 3, he records his place in redemptive history. His particular calling to be an apostle and to preach the gospel.
And then in the latter part of chapter three, he calls attention to the way that he prays for the people of God in Ephesus. He doesn't do this like, hey, this is how I pray. I'm a great prayer. No, he's just reporting to them the things that take up space in his prayer closet with reference to the Ephesian Christians.
He says in verse 14, For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man. It's a good way to pray for your brothers and sisters. God would grant you the Spirit, that God would strengthen you with might in the inner man. so that Christ may, in fact, dwell powerfully in your heart through faith. That's the first petition, spiritual strengthening.
The second petition is found in verse 17, after that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Now he says that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. You see, Paul wants the Ephesian Christians not to focus on their love for Christ, but he wants them to focus on Christ's love for them. He wants them to be scholars in Christ's school of love.
He wants them to be educated. He wants them to be knowledgeable. And the beautiful way that he describes Christ's love here is just breathtaking. You having been rooted and grounded in love, I want you to be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge.
He wants them to be spiritually educated, to understand something of Christ's powerful love for them. And then just so we finish the section, he also wants them to be spiritually saturated. As he says there at the end of verse 18, verse 19, he says, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So when Paul prays for the Ephesians, there are three particulars that he wants.
Spiritual strengthening, spiritual education, and spiritual saturation. But it's that education that I want to draw our attention to. We need to focus on this. We need to ponder this.
We need to behold what manner of love the Father has given to us. We need to consider how great the love of God is on our behalf. That is precisely what the Apostle John is doing here in 1 John chapter 3 verse 1. So there is first a call to consider.
The Object in View: God's Love
Secondly, the object in view, he says, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. The object in view is God's great love, God's amazing love. Again, John Gill says, this blessing comes not by nature, nor by merit, but by grace. The grace of adoption, which is a person's unto an inheritance that have no legal right unto.
The spring of it is the everlasting and unchangeable love of God. Isn't that beautiful? Does that encourage you that God is unchanging? Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
That means he doesn't save you and then discard you. He doesn't save you and then cast you off. It means that the new covenant is, in fact, unbreakable. I will make a covenant with them in those days, not like the one I made before, which their fathers broke.
Our blessed Savior holds us in the grip of his hand. Gil says there was no need on the adopter's side. He having an only begotten and beloved son and no worth and loveliness in the adopted, they being by nature children of wrath. It is a privilege that exceeds all others and is attended with many.
So that it is no wonder the apostle breaks out in this touching manner and calls upon the saints to view it with admiration and thankfulness. That's what John wants tonight. That's what John would have for us to do. And if we consider this love of God, I just want to set forth quickly five things with reference to God's love.
Love Before the Foundation of the World
He loved us, first of all, before the foundation of the world. Well, I think John says, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us. Doesn't the Scripture teach us that? God loved us before time.
Ephesians 1-4, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Romans 8-29, for whom He foreknew The foreknowledge in Romans 8, 29 is not God's looking down the tunnel of time and seeing you and I deciding for Jesus, and then he elects us unto salvation. That is not foreknowledge in the Scripture. It doesn't say for what he foreknew, our act of faith or our act of repentance, but whom he foreknew.
The language is language of intimacy. He foreknew us, he loved us, he set us apart as vessels of mercy from before the foundation of the world. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us. He loved us before the foundation of the world.
Love Manifested in History
A second observation on this love is that he loves us in history. He loves us in history. That means that it breaks forth in time, in space and manifests itself. John 3, 16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
When we look at the cross, we ought to think of the righteousness of God, the justice of God, the sin-hating character and wrath of God, but we ought to focus on his love as well. God commends his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The cross publishes, the cross is a pulpit to demonstrate and to proclaim the great love of God. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us.
Love Continuing Throughout Eternity
For a third observation on this love, he will love us throughout eternity. And this love is too good to be true. I just read a quote recently said, if you're preaching doesn't sound too good to be true, you're not preaching the Bible. Right.
He loved us before the foundation of the world. He breaks into time and space through the person of His Son to demonstrate this love. And He will love us through eternity. He's not going to have cabin fever.
You know what cabin fever is, right? You go away on a vacation and you're with your family and it's raining, raining, raining, raining. And this is the people that you love the most. These are the people that are nearest and dearest to your heart.
You find yourself longing for that sun, so we can get out, we can get away. Not forever, just get some space. God's not going to have cabin fever with us. John 13, verse 1.
Jesus in the upper room. Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come, that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. It is a relentless love. It is an unstoppable love.
It is an immutable love that will carry on throughout eternity. First John 3 2. We saw that beloved. Now we are children of God.
It is 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. We'll be like Jesus, not deity. not God, but we will be like him by virtue of our union with him. We will be brought out of this sinful state into that glorious state.
And as the father loves his son, so he will love us unto all eternity. Behold, what manner of love the father has bestowed on us.
Love Wonderfully Demonstrated
A fourth observation. God has wonderfully demonstrated this love. I've already mentioned John 3, 16. God so loved the world that he gave.
Husbands, if you're only ever telling your wives you love them and you don't demonstrate it, it'll be suspect. Same thing, wives. You may say, I love you, honey. I love you, honey.
I love you, honey. But love is concrete. Love is active. Love is an action word.
And God demonstrates that love and that while we were yet sinners. But even in the passage that we read, notice in 1 John 3, 16, it says by this we know love because he laid down his life for us. You ever wonder about the love of Christ? He laid down his life for us.
It is demonstrable, it is concrete, it is rock solid, it has been wonderfully demonstrated. He didn't just announce it, but he comes and he lays down his life on behalf of the people of God. 1 John 4, verse 7, 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. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.
It is before the foundation of the world. It is revealed in history. It will continue throughout eternity. It's wonderfully demonstrated.
And
Love Sovereignly Bestowed
a fifth observation on this love is that it's sovereignly bestowed. Behold what manner of love The Father has bestowed on us. We didn't deserve it. We were unlovely.
We didn't earn it because we're wicked. We didn't merit it because we're lawbreakers. God displays this love. God bestows this love according to His good pleasure.
It is sovereign grace. That's why we sang Hymn number 96. "'Tis not that I did choose thee, for, Lord, that could not be." Just turn there. "'This heart would still refuse thee, hadst thou not chosen me.
Thou, from the sin that stained me, hast cleansed and set me free. Of old thou hast ordained me, that I should live to thee. To a sovereign mercy called me and taught my opening mind. The world had else enthralled me, to heavenly glories blind.
My heart owns none before thee, for thy rich grace I thirst. This knowing, if I love thee, thou must have loved me first. It is bestowed by sovereign grace alone." Does it make you scratch your head when people have a problem with God's sovereignty? Apart from God's sovereignty, we all go to hell.
Apart from predestination and election and God's choice of us in Him before the foundation of the world, there is no hope. There is no reflecting like John does here. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, has bestowed, highlights the gracious character of this love. The present tense, or the perfect tense, indicates that what we have received is permanent and abiding.
Go back to 1 John chapter 4, verse 9. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." Now, notice verse 10. In this is love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
You see what John says? The thing to be amazed about isn't that we love God. We should love God. It's a no-brainer.
Everybody ought to love God. The native sin of man is that they hate God, they reject God, they defy God, they revolt against God. There is no fear of God before their eyes. When by God's grace we pass from death to life, we do love him because he first loved us.
It is a sovereign bestowal of this love. Hopefully now you'll see why John with his pen says, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us.
The Blessed Result: Children of God
Notice thirdly, we've looked at a call to consider the object in view. Notice thirdly, the blessed result, that we should be called children of God. Some manuscripts add, and we are. That's what we are.
He's not just describing. He's not just giving a theological list of marks that characterize the children of God. No, it is that. You cannot take that away from it.
But it is a reflection upon the fact that we are children of God. We've been brought from death to life. We have passed from darkness into light. We went from children of wrath to children of God.
It's not what Paul says in Ephesians chapter two. That's how he describes us. We were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. A child of wrath passes by the grace of God into being a child of God most high.
Remember who it is. We're sinners. We justly deserve his condemnation. We justly deserve his wrath.
We justly deserve his fury. I mean, we would never say, behold, what manner of anger the Father has rightly portrayed upon us or poured out upon us because we're sinners. That's not a marvelous thought. That's not an amazing reality.
That's not something that we go, wow. You know, when we read in Romans 6, the wages of sin is death, that's the way it is in a moral universe. The glory is that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's what the amazing part of the scripture is.
It shouldn't surprise us that God is angry with the wicked every day. It shouldn't surprise us that God has prepared hell for those who reject him. It shouldn't surprise us that God will indeed condemn those who reject his son into the lake of fire. That is just recompense for sin.
What ought to surprise us, what ought to cause us to side with John, what ought to cause us to stand in amazement is behold, what manner of love the father has bestowed on us. Sinners, wretches, children of Adam, those who rebelled, those who rejected, those who despised. He's not writing to an audience that were upright, perfect, moral human beings. They were sinners saved by grace.
That's why Jesus was the propitiation for their sins. As he's writing to us, he's not saying, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us because we deserved it, because we earned it. Because we're lovely? No, we're unlovely.
There's one in the moral universe that is altogether lovely, and it ain't us. It's Jesus. This is an amazing reality.
Adoption and New Birth: Paul and John
B.B. Warfield notices something that I think is very perceptive. John refers to us as having been begotten. John refers to us as being born again, doesn't he?
John refers to us as being children of God. Paul treats us as adopted sons and daughters. Not that he's saying we're less or dissimilar or anything like that. It's the same truth.
Adopted sons and daughters of God. Children of God. It's the same thing, but it's sort of looked at from a bit of a different perspective. Warfield notes this.
There is a corresponding difference in the use by Paul and John of the conception of childship or sonship to God. In accordance with his juridical or legal point of view, Paul speaks of sonship conferred by adoption and thinks of our acquisition of the rights and inheritance of sons, doesn't he? Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, in love, having predestinated us unto adoption as sons by Jesus Christ. Romans 8, 17, he says we are joint heirs with Christ.
There's that legal element, there's that legal viewpoint that the apostle approaches this with. And now what Warfield says concerning John, in accordance with his essential point of view, John speaks of childship as conveyed through birth and thinks of growing up into the likeness of God. Accordingly, Paul prefers the term sons. We are adults received by God's grace into the number of his sons.
John prefers the term children or even little children. It's not different. It's not like it's two different categories. It's just being looked at, like you pick up a jewel or a gem.
You look at it in various angles to see the shimmer and to see the luster. Well, gospel doctrines are like that. You take salvation. You look at it from the angle of redemption.
We've been purchased. We've been bought back from our slavery and sin. You look at the angle of propitiation, where God has laid upon the Son the wrath that was due for our sins. You look at it from the angle of reconciliation. where an angry God and hateful sinners are brought together through a great peacemaker, the Lord Jesus.
It's not different. It's a particular facet. It's an emphasis that these brothers highlight for our our our amazement. He says, accordingly, Paul prefers the term sons, where adults received by God's grace into the number of his sons.
John prefers the term children or even little children. We are born into the family of God as the infants of his household. This difference in the use of the conception of childship is not a difference of doctrine. It is only a difference in the illustrative use of the conception of childship in the setting forth of doctrine.
John says that in John 1, the gospel of John written by this same dear brother in John 1 verses 12 and 13, a familiar passage of scripture to all of us. It says that as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become what? Children of God. Many has received him.
He gave the right. He conferred upon them that right to be called children of God. Those to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. This is the blessed result in view of this amazing love.
John says, Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that We should be called the sons of God or the children of God.
Application
Those, hopefully, are some thoughts to stir us up, to encourage our hearts, to strengthen us as we enter into another week. Now, the temptation is there, brethren, when you're tried and you're discouraged and there's difficulties to look at yourself. I'm not saying that's always wrong. Scripture says we need to examine ourselves from time to time.
But the Christian, first and foremost, is extraspective, not introspective. Our life hangs upon another, not our own. We look to Jesus. We look to Christ.
We relish Him. We focus on Him. We listen to the Apostle Paul, who tells us, I want you to understand. I want you to comprehend.
I want you to get your noses in the book to learn something about the love of God. Again, it's not rocket science, it's not magic, it's not hocus-pocus. Where do we learn about the love of Christ? Where do we learn about the love of God?
Through Scripture. Very often our struggles and our trials are intimately connected to our lack of searching the book. We've got everything here for us. I want you to understand what is incomprehensible, basically, is what Paul says, that love that surpasses knowledge.
Isn't that an interesting play on words? I want you to comprehend what is incomprehensible. I want you to wrap your mind around this. It's like pouring the ocean into a glass cup.
I want you to work on it. I want you to focus. I want you to think. I want you to study.
I want you to get your nose in the book. You need to fill yourself with the promises of scripture. You need to look at the cross. You need to study the gospel.
You need to look at the Old Testament. You need to see how that promise is being opened up until the fullness of the time when God sends forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. You go back to eternity past, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Instead of being afraid of the doctrine of predestination, you embrace it and you praise God for it.
You bless him for election. You bless him for sovereignty. You bless him that he has in his grace and mercy included you so that you can say with John, behold, what manner of love the father has bestowed on us. that we should be called the children of God. We need to study the love of God.
We need to understand this blessed truth. Yes, we need to love one another. Yes, we need to do good things. Yes, we need to engage in good works.
The Bible says all of that to be sure. But the tendency is, for most of us, is to go out and do instead of stop for a moment and reflect. Much of our Christian health, much of our Christian comfort, much of our Christian encouragement is involved in knowing the truth. That's why Jesus prayed in this high priestly prayer, sanctify them by what?
By good works. Make them go out and do many things. Cause them to go out and help old ladies across the street. Cause them to give all their money to the poor.
Cause them to have fellowship lunches where they put everybody first. No, sanctify them by thy truth. There's an intimate connection between what we know and how we live. The Scripture envisages that.
The Scripture calls us to consider that. That's why many of Paul's epistles are set out that way. Doctrine and then application. We need to reflect on this manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.
Perhaps when we reflect on it, perhaps when we feel the import of it, perhaps when we are dazzled by it, then we'll go out and love our brothers. Then we'll go out and give our money to other people. We'll go out and do those things that God has called us to do. Not because we think we're going to get from God, but because we've already received from God everything.
We can't help but go out and be like Christ at this point. So, brethren, focus, think, concentrate. Use your melon just for more than holding up your glasses. Use your head for more than just, you know, putting a hat on.
Use your head in Christianity so that your heart is filled with the knowledge of the love of God that will see you through the various difficulties and the various trials that no doubt plague God's people. Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank you for this wonderful statement of the Apostle John. We say with him, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God, how we thank you for sovereign grace, how we thank you for that adoption as sons in Christ, how we thank you that you have begotten us by the power of your Holy Spirit through your great and glorious truth. And I pray that this would be a means of encouragement for each one here tonight to strengthen us, that you would watch over us. For any and all who do not know Christ as Lord and Savior, we pray that you'd open their hearts to respond to the truth. in faith, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls.
And we ask this in his most blessed name. Amen.