“Hope”
1 John 3:1-3
I’ve been a Pastor now for 20, going on 21 years.
And, in the past, when someone has lost a parent or a close relative, I have said to them “I can’t imagine what you are going through.”
Sadly, now, I can say: “I know what it is like.
It is horrible.
It is terrible.
There is no other way to describe it.”
My dad passed away three and a half years ago, and my mom passed away January of this year.
They were amazing people.
After several years of marriage, it like looked like they were not going to be able to conceive.
So, they started the adoption process.
And as soon as the adoption was “okay-ed” my mother became pregnant with my sister Lisa.
They still, eagerly adopted my oldest sister Wendy and raised three happy and, so far, healthy children.
Wendy has a beautiful family and a great life.
Wendy also has a beautiful way with words.
I asked Wendy if I could quote some of the things she wrote on Facebook following the death of my Mom and Dad.
She said, “Sure.”
Following the death of my father (and again, I am just repeating a little of what she wrote) Wendy penned: “Daddy—You rescued and adopted me 52 years ago and for that I am extremely grateful.
You welcomed [my husband] into our family and you are adored by my sons.
You left me with awesome memories that will be cherished forever.
I know I am a better person for having been a part of this family.”
After my mom died Wendy wrote this: “Words escape me how to describe my feelings this past week.
Thursday, my 93-year-old mother passed away.
[She] was one of the most amazing women I have ever known: whether it was countless hours volunteering at church, awesome homemade foods (no boxed mixes in our house!), taking us to any lesson/practice we wanted to participate in or just having family friends and relatives over, she never complained and enjoyed every minute of it.
She and Dad adopted me and made me a part of their family 55 years ago and never for one second of that time have I felt ‘not a part’ of the family.
How lucky can someone be!?
So, Mom we will miss you tons and thanks for a lifetime of memories I will never forget.
Please give Dad a kiss from me in heaven!”
Never did my parents think of Wendy nor love Wendy any less or treat her any differently from my sister Lisa and I.
And as for me, unless I am reminded, I completely forget Wendy was adopted.
I am sure the same goes for my sister Lisa.
I am sure it was the same for my parents.
Do you know that God has adopted US, by grace through faith in Christ, into God’s family as God’s sons and daughters?
Jesus Christ is God’s natural Son, but God treats you and I and thinks of you and I as His children as well.
The Bible makes it clear that those who believe in Jesus are God’s adopted children.
Just listen how John puts it in John Chapter 1: “[Jesus] was in the world, and… the world did not recognize him.
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
When we accept the free gift of salvation by receiving Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we become the adopted children of God.
Paul says, we “are all children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus.”
He also says: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God…
…and if children, then heirs; heir of God, and joint heirs with Christ.”
How amazing is that?!!!
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”
In order to arouse that sense of wonder, think about what it would be like to be adopted by the king of a mighty nation…
…or the president of a mighty country…
…or one of the richest families in the world.
But, you know, that kind of adoption doesn’t always work out well, because the adopted son or daughter sometimes gets lost in the shuffle.
But we who have been adopted into God’s family won’t get lost in the shuffle.
God loves us more than any earthly parent loves their child.
We have God’s ear every moment of every day.
Just think about the wonder of that; think about the intimacy of that!
We all have different experiences of being the children of our earthly parents.
For some of us, it wasn’t easy growing up and for others it was a complete nightmare.
But John is saying in our Scripture Lesson for this morning that our earthly experience is not as deep as the truth that we are truly Children of God!
But while we are still in this world, this can be difficult to remember.
There are so many competing voices in the world, ready to tell us who we are.
Some of these voices may tell us that we aren’t as good as others if we don’t wear the right kind of clothes or drive the right kind of car.
Other voices may deceive us into thinking that we are defined by how much money we have or how popular we were in high school.
Others may say that we are defined by our history of mistakes, failures and sins.
The media in fact wants us to constantly question who we are and for us to be discontent with ourselves—this is how they hope to sell us their products.
But that is not how God defines us.
That is not how God sees us.
God sees us as His beloved children for whom He came to this earth and died in order to purchase and save!!!
And God loves us all the same.
Now our Scripture passage moves on to an intriguing promise in verse 2: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.
But we will know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
I am sure you have heard other people say this and perhaps you have even said it yourself: “I am becoming more and more like my parents every day.”
Sometimes this is said in frustration, but sometimes it’s a compliment.
Or how about your children?
How often do you look at your children and see a bit of yourself in them?
I think this is a little bit like what the author of 1st John is talking about here.
As Christians, as Christ-followers we are on a journey.
And it is a journey of “becoming” more and more like Christ.
For instance, before we became Christians or children of God we probably had a hard time trying to understand what makes the children of God tick.
They were so different from the world.
They have something different that shapes their value system.
Christians talk about a new birth that the children of the world can’t quite understand.
Just like Nicodemus in John Chapter 3, they may ask: “How can a person be born when they are old?
Certainly, I can’t enter a second time into my mother’s womb to be born.”
Those who have not yet experienced the saving grace of Jesus are standing with both feet planted firmly in the kingdom of this world.
They don’t know anything different.
They haven’t experienced or tasted anything different.
But those who have been born of God now have one foot still planted in the kingdom of this world, but the other foot is planted in the Kingdom of God.
In other words, we are in a time often referred to as the “now and the not yet.”
We are saved, but we are still in this world.
We are saints, but we are still sinners.
We are in Christ, but we have not yet been perfected.
Or as Paul put in it in 1st Corinthians 13: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
And here lies our hope!
When Christ returns or when we go to heaven—whichever happens first, we will become like God.
“Everyone who has this hope in [God] purifies him or herself, just as [God] is pure.”
This is the process of sanctification, or what happens after we are saved…
…it’s the journey we are now on.
C.S. Lewis wrote that “too often we think that what sanctification is all about is sort of like taking a horse and training it to run a little faster than it used to run.
In actuality,” Lewis noted, “what happens to us as believers once we become engrafted onto Christ is not like taking a regular old horse and teaching it to run faster but more like taking a horse, outfitting it with a pair of wings, and teaching it to FLY!
The saved life in Christ is not just any old life made a little bigger or brighter or some such thing.
It is to take a human life and transform it into a whole new mode of existence.”
“If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”
And that is how regular old humans can be called “saints.”
A colleague of mine writes: “I was leading a Bible Study at the women’s prison a few years ago.
There I stood, waxing on about different takes on heaven, when a woman from the back row raised her hand.
She told me it was all well and good that I had time to play with those ideas but she believed in a place and time when there will be no more hunger, no more thirst, and no more tears.
She counted on it.”
My colleague says, “She ended up being the preacher God put in our midst that day.
And she definitely was a saint.
She might not fit the idea that many modern minds have about what a saint is…
…the term is more commonly used to mean a ‘best-ever-super-great person.’
But she does fit into the saints who are a great multitude.
She is a saint who defiantly bears hope in the face of all things to the contrary.”
Do you hold onto hope, even when things seem to point to the contrary?
Do you hold on to hope in the middle of this pandemic?
Do you hold on to hope when a loved-one dies?
Do you hold on to hope when finances become tight?
Do you hold on to hope when, it seems like, nothing is going your way?
You know you can, right?
We are loved.
We are children of God…brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ Who died to rescue us from sin, death and hell.
One day we will be reunited with those for whom we mourn.
And we will see God as God is—face to face.
And we will know God fully—even as, right now—we are fully known.
And we will be sanctified, perfected, fully purified with both feet planted firmly in the Kingdom of God.
And yes, just like those who have gone before us, those whose robes have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb…
…never again will we hunger; never again will we thirst.
The sun will not beat upon us, nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd; he will lead us to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
(Move into Communion)
