How Great Is The Love Of God! Series

I John 3 – “How great is the Love of God?”

Thesis: God’s love is so great that with it he has made us children of Him and with that comes all the royal inheritances if we live the way we are suppose too.

Scripture Text: 1 John 3: 1-24

1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

4Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

7Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

11This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Introduction:

1 John 3 reminds us about how great God’s love really is. We could ask the question “How great is it?” It is so great says John that we actually are called the children of God. We are family to God! We are God’s sons and daughters. We belong to his blood line his heritage. We are his heirs. With son-ship and daughter-ship comes family blessings and promising that go with this royal family. We are Sons and Daughters to the King of Kings, The Lord of Lords, The Great I Am, The Creator of the Universe, the Alpha and Omega, and all the other royal titles that go with God. This thought for many people today is not thought about very much. We have often ourselves forgotten who we are when we become the recipients of God’s Divine love and forgiveness. John reminds us we become the children of Almighty God! Wow what an honor!

John tells us in our chapter that we have not experienced all that we are going to be when we get to heaven. There is in store for us Crowns associated with our life on earth. There is coming a new name for each of us that Jesus will give us. There is coming the literal encounter with Jesus Christ. There is coming an inheritance from our Father. There is in our future our own mansion in glory. There is in our future leadership and positions of honor over the nations. There is close encounters of the God kind. There is the privilege to eat from the tree of life. There is coming the day when we get to see our name in the book of who’s who in Heaven “The Lambs book of life!’ Think about this our names will be beside names like David King of Israel, Moses, Peter, Isaiah, Jeremiah guys and girls who are known by only one name. We ourselves will be there right next to others with outstanding reputations.