Deeply Loved Children: Series – The People of God
1 John 2:28-3:3 Thanksgiving Sunday, Oct 9 2005
Intro:
The Butterball company set up a Thanksgiving hotline to answer questions about cooking turkeys. One woman asked if she could use a turkey that had been in the bottom of her freezer for … 23 years. The Butterball expert—how’s that for a job title—told her it would probably be safe if the freezer had been below zero the entire time. But the expert warned her that even if the turkey was safe to eat, the flavor would likely have deteriorated and wouldn’t be worth eating. The woman said, "That’s what I thought. We’ll give the turkey to our church."
I don’t want to be like that – I want to give God and my church my very best. When I reflect and encounter again who God is and what God has done for me, I want my heart to overflow with gratitude and thanksgiving and praise. Admittedly, I am not always there – I think that is sometimes a discipline – but wow is it ever a good discipline. To take time to reflect again, to relive the stories of who God is and what God has done, to remember the stories of who God is to us as a church and of what God has done in our church – that is a critically important discipline.
Why? Because remembering the past helps shape our present. It puts it all in perspective, reminds us that God is faithful and has always come through with us in the past and so will again today. It is good for us to remember, to journey back, to recall the incredible things that God has done yesterday because it shapes us today.
Remembering…
This morning we are going to take some time together to do that “remembering”. In a few moments, I’m going to invite you to share some of those stories with all of us – stories of the faithfulness and power of God in our life together as Christians, so that we can remember. I’m going to ask this question: “what has God done in our shared life together?”, and record those stories right here on this flip chart.
But First:
Before that time of remembering, however, I want us to focus our hearts on just one verse from 1 John – 3:1. To put it into context, I’m going to read from where we left off last week, 2:28, up to 3:3. “28And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.
29If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.
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.”
Context:
John begins a new section here with the words, “and now, dear children…” I don’t like the next word that the NIV translators use, so let’s replace it with a better translation: “abide”. Abide in Jesus. That is what I was talking about last week, when we talked about not loving the world but instead loving God, and we saw that the antidote to the powerful pull of our materialistic culture is growing more deeply in love with Jesus. And then John takes us to a neat place – to the second coming of Jesus. “so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming”. That is great context for a thanksgiving Sunday – Jesus is coming back. The word for “coming” in the original language was used to describe the arrival of the king or the emperor, so we should recall the visit of Queen Elizabeth here in Alberta this past summer, with all of the celebration and festivities and anticipation and rejoicing, and apply that to Jesus’ return. We are right to hope in that, to look forward to that day with eager anticipation, to hold fast to that promise when life is difficult, and to be thankful even in the midst of a trial that Jesus has promised that one day He will return and all of those earthly struggles will be over.
The last part of verse 29 leads us into today’s main verse: “everyone who does what is right has been born of him.” It is the idea of rebirth, of a new creation, and it recalls Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (John 3:3). What a place to begin remembering the things God has done – with our salvation and “rebirth”!!
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us! (3:1)
With those two reminders, that Jesus is coming again and that we have been “born of him”, John writes this incredible verse: “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!” This is the one I want to meditate on this thanksgiving Sunday.
The verse begins with the words, “how great”. When John wrote the epistle, he chose a rather unusual word here – one which “meant originally ‘of what country’. It is as if the Father’s love is so unearthly, so foreign to this world, that John wonders from what country it may come. The word ‘always implies astonishment’” (John Stott, Tyndale NT Commentary The Letters of John, p. 122). In John’s mind, as he begins to think of Jesus coming again and of us being “born of him”, he explodes into this verse – he is amazed, overwhelmed, astonished at the incredible love of God.
I want us to go there too today, as we remember and recall who God is and what God has done. And I pray that as we do, we too will be “astonished” at how great our God is and how deeply He loves us.
I love the word that the NIV uses next – “lavished”. The dictionary defines that word like this:
• Characterized by extravagant, ostentatious magnificence
• Given to or marked by unrestrained abundance
• Characterized by bounteous giving
That is our God. That begins to describe the love that He has given us: extravagant, magnificent, unrestrained, abundant, bounteous giving. Perhaps a good image to picture in our minds is the love of a child, elated to see a parent after a long absence and running to them and throwing their arms around them. Or perhaps, even more appropriately, the love of a parent for a child who was kidnapped and then set free.
Children of God:
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Where do we see this lavish love, which astounds us? In our adoption as God’s children. That God should take us, previously filthy street children with dangerous rebellious self-destructive tendencies, who have rejected and insulted and rebelled against the love of God, and bring us into His very home. Welcomed us with open arms, not afraid of getting His white robes dirty as He wraps His arms around us and holds us close and tucks our heads into His shoulder and wipes the tears from our eyes. He takes us inside, shows us to the washroom where we can get cleaned up, takes our filthy rags and exchanges them for royal robes, kills the fattened turkey and prepares a banquet, leads us to a room prepared just for us, and then gives us the key to the whole house and says “welcome, my child, into my family. You are my child, and I love you. All I have is yours. Enjoy it and enjoy me.”
Is that for real? John answers, “and that is what we are!”
Who are we as the people of God? We are God’s deeply loved children.
Remembering the Lavish Love of God For Us (service #1):
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
Now I want to ask the question I promised earlier – where have you seen this “lavish love of God?” What has God done in our shared life together? What have we prayed for and seen answers to, what has God done in our church, what has God done in your life through our church, what are the big “high points” where you have seen and known the lavish love of God in your life? I’m not going to limit this to what God has done in our church, as I want us to share what God has done in our lives too, but I do want to direct our remembering to what God has done in our shared life together. Let’s remember the stories.
Conclusion (service #1):
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” You know, I think the thing I love about this most is – its permanence. Nothing can change your parentage – nothing can change who you are the child of. God’s love, His great, lavished love, is because of our relationship, not our activities or our failings, our achievements or our disappointments, our obedience or our sinfulness – God’s love is because of our identity: as His deeply loved children. For that, we are truly thankful!
Remembering the Lavish Love of God For Us (service #2):
- rehearse the stories shared in service #1; possibly invite others
Conclusion (service #2):
“He couldn’t have been over six years old. Dirty face, barefooted, torn T-shirt, matted hair. He wasn’t too different from the other hundred thousand or so street orphans that roam Rio de Janeiro.
I was walking to get a cup of coffee at a nearby cafe when he came up behind me. With my thoughts somewhere between the task I had just finished and the class I was about to teach, I scarcely felt the tap, tap, tap on my hand. I stopped and turned. Seeing no one, I continued on my way. I’d only taken a few steps, however, when I felt another insistent tap, tap, tap. This time I stopped and looked downward. There he stood. His eyes were whiter because of his grubby cheeks and coal-black hair.
“Pao, senhor?” (“Bread, sir?”)
Living in Brazil, one has daily opportunities to buy a candy bar or sandwich for these little outcasts. It’s the least one can do. I told him to come with me and we entered the sidewalk cafe “Coffee for me and something tasty for my little friend.” The boy ran to the pastry counter and made his choice. Normally, these youngsters take the food and scamper back out into the street without a word. But this little fellow surprised me.
The café consisted of a long bar: one end for pastries and the other for coffee. As the boy was making his choice, I went to the other end of the bar and began drinking my coffee. Just as I was getting my derailed train of thought back on track, I saw him again. He was standing in the cafe entrance, on tiptoe, bread in hand, looking in at the people.
“What’s he doing?” I thought.
Then he saw me and scurried in my direction. He came and stood in front of me about eye-level with my belt buckle. The little Brazilian orphan looked up at the big American missionary, smiled a smile that would have stolen your heart and said, “Obrigado.” (Thank you.) Then, nervously scratching the back of his ankle with his big toe, he added, “Muito obrigado.” (Thank you very much.)
All of a sudden, I had a crazy craving to buy him the whole restaurant.
But before I could say anything, he turned and scampered out the door.
As I write this, I’m still standing at the coffee bar, my coffee is cold, and I’m late for my class. But I still feel the sensation that I felt half an hour ago. And I’m pondering this question: If I am so moved by a street orphan who says thank you for a piece of bread, how much more is God moved when I pause to thank him—really thank him- for saving my soul?”
from “No Wonder They Call Him the Savior” by Max Lucado
