Behold Our Heavenly Father's Love

Alba 7-28-2024

BEHOLD OUR HEAVENLY FATHER'S LOVE

I John 3:1-3

Juanita Slater of West Chester, Ohio told this story in the Christian Reader: She said, “When I was staying with a neighbor’s five and seven year olds, I heard a squeal coming from the next room. Then I heard Becky’s voice, 'Mike, God doesn’t love you when you do things like that.'

“A second voice, 'Yes, he does love me. He’s ... he’s just disappointed in me.'” That sounds about right. Indeed, God must be disappointed with us at times, just like any other parent—but He doesn’t stop loving us!

Our Heavenly Father has loved us from the beginning, even when we were not so lovable. God does not abandon us when we mess up. His love is amazing. God loves His children lavishly. How can we be so sure? Because God would not have sent Jesus to die for our sins if He didn’t love us.

I John 3:1 speaks of that great love saying, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us.” Some translations say, “See how much the Father has loved us”. But there is something stronger that gets our attention in the word, “Behold!” I am sure that none of us can fully grasp the extent to which God's love is given to us.

We can talk about the care He took in creating this world to provide us with wonderful things.

We can talk about the way He cares for us as we daily walk with Him. And we can talk about the great love He showed when Jesus came to this earth, first as a baby, and then as our Savior who sacrificed Himself for us.

There is no greater love! The closest we can come to grasping the full extent of that love is to come to know that He did all of that for each of us. When we experience that love in our own life, when we accept the reality of such love and allow it to touch the depths of our hearts and minds, that's when we begin to grasp how wonderful it is. Behold such love! Because of His love for us...

1. Look At Who We Are

We are the children of God. I John 3:1 says that the Heavenly Father claims us as His children! In fact the gospel of John chapter one tells us that we have been birthed into His family. Verses 12 and 13 say this: “as many as received Him [that is, Jesus], to them He gave the right to become children of God, 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.”

Jesus told us in John chapter three that we must be born again. And then He said, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (vs. 5) We come to Christ by being aware of and repenting of our sins. And in faith we then submit to the Lord in baptism to rise in newness of life, born of the water and the Spirit.

But God so wants to be our Heavenly Father that He doesn't stop there. We are not only His by birth, but also by adoption. Some children were playing out on the playground at school, teasing each other as children often do. They began to pick on a child who was adopted. "You don’t have real parents," they taunted. "You don’t even know who your real parents are! You’re just adopted."

To that, the adopted child responded. “Oh yeah? When you were born, your parents didn’t have a choice. They had to keep you. My parents didn’t just have me. They wanted me!”

Christian, you are a child of God because God wanted you. In Christ you became a member of His family.

He put His name on you when you were baptized. And that work which began at that time, God has continued in your heart to this day so that you can say with confidence, “I am a child of God!”

What wonderful place to be. We are the children of God. Yet the world doesn't seem to appreciate who we are. That's why verse one says this: “Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” Think about it. They rejected Jesus, treated Him as a criminal, spat upon Him, killed Him.

They took some nails and the nailed Him to the cross until He died. Why should we expect to be treated any better?

In John 1:10-11 we read, “He [Jesus] was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” If those who saw Jesus Christ didn’t know or receive Him as the Son of God, how can we expect nonbelievers to know and receive us as children of God? We are among those who because of our relationship to a Heavenly Father are actually aliens here in this world. Nonbelievers often are not in agreement with God’s values or instructions, but that’s to be expected.