1 John 3:1-3 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! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear 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. 3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
Some children were playing out on the play ground 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!"
Friends, you are a child of God because God wanted you. From eternity, he chose you to be his own. Before you were ever born, before you ever had a chance to prove yourself to be a sinner, God chose you to be a member of his family. He made your place in his family possible by carrying out a plan of salvation through his Son, Jesus Christ. Then, in time, God made his choice and his adoption a reality by sending his Spirit into your hearts and making you his own. He put his name on you when you were baptized. And that work which began with your baptism God has continued in your heart to this day so that you can say with confidence, "I am a child of God!" That’s what John says in our text. God has called us to be his children and we can say ...
God’s Children - That Is What We Are!
I. Believe it!
John was not a young man when he wrote these words - perhaps in his 90’s. You would think that by this time he would take his place in the family of God for granted. But not John. Can you hear the wonderment in his words? "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!"
Have you ever seen the musical "Annie?" All the children in the orphanage hope that someday, someone will want to take them home and make them their children. Not in Annie’s wildest dreams did she think someone rich and wonderful like Daddy Warbucks would choose her to come live with him! Why would anyone want someone so plain and ordinary like herself? For Annie it was a "pinch-me-and-tell-me-it’s-real" experience.
So it is with being a child of God - but in a much, much more dramatic way because its real. There is no reason I ought to hold this hope in my heart - that God would want me and choose me to be his child. I have no right of birth. The human race lost the right to be counted in God’s family when Adam and Eve fell into sin. Listen to Genesis 5:1-3 This is the written account of Adam’s line. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man." 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. Do you here what it says? God made Adam in his image. Therefore Adam had the right to call himself a child of God. But then Adam had children. And they weren’t born in the image of a holy and righteous God. They were born like Adam - sinful and rebellious. That’s why the Bible says [Ephesians 2: 3] Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
Nor have we earned the right. Have you always used God’s Name with respect? Have you always loved his Word and used it diligently? Have you always loved your parents and obeyed them? Have you never lost your temper and said something you later regretted? I know I haven’t kept one of God’s commandments perfectly. I do not deserve to be God’s child.
Yet John says without a doubt. "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!" How can he be so confident? How can WE be so sure? Because God would not have sent Jesus to die for our sins if he didn’t love us. And God wouldn’t not have put his name upon us in our baptism if he didn’t want us to be his children and choose us for himself.
"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!" Wonder at this. But don’t for a moment doubt it or not believe it! Because that is what we are! And if that is what we are, can you imagine what is in store for us someday? John invites us to do just that.
II. Imagine it!
Listen to John: "Dear 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." There is so much that God has left for our imagination! What will it be like in heaven? Will there be beds and pillows and houses and streets and cities? Will there be gardens and trees and rivers and seas? Will there be basketball courts and golf courses? Will we have opportunities to study under some of the greatest teachers of all time, or will we know everything perfectly? Will my body be twenty years old or forty years old or will there be some with gray hair and wrinkles only with their strength undiminished? John says, "Now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known."
But there is enough even here to fuel our imagination! John says that "we will be like him." I don’t think that he’s referring to what our bodies will be like in the resurrection - though we know that our bodies will be glorified, just as Jesus’ body was glorified in the resurrection. But even then, what does that mean? I’m not sure! But what I think John is referring more to what our life will be like. We shall be like him - perfect and holy. We shall be like Adam and Eve in the beginning, created in the image of God and made to be like God. Gone will be our sinful flesh and all those terrible temptations! Gone will be the guilt and the shame we feel when we’ve failed to do the good and managed to do the evil! Can you imagine that? Can you imagine having only pure and peaceful and happy thoughts in your mind all the time? Can you imagine the joy of loving perfectly all the time?
And that’s not all. John says that we will see him as he is. I remember visiting an elderly Christian a week or two after Easter [several years ago]. As it turned out, she only lived a few months after that. We were talking about Easter - and about the resurrection. And she looked into my eyes with a joy and a twinkle in her own and said, "Can you imagine? We’ll see Jesus face to face! Can you imagine what that will be like?"
I believe John did a lot of such imagining at the end of his life. Imprisoned on an island. Separated from his friends. Living into his 90’s under the harsh conditions on a prison island. I doubt if there wasn’t a morning that John didn’t rise and think, "Maybe today I will get to see Jesus face to face!" I doubt if the sun ever set that John didn’t pray as he prayed at the end of the book of Revelation, "Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"
Friends, when life is not treating you fairly ... when you are struggling with your health ... when you can’t seem to keep a handle on your emotions ... when you wonder why bad things can happen to good people ... would you just take a few moments to imagine? God’s children have that right! You have that right! Because that is what we are! Believe it is so. Imagine what it will be like. And finally, work at it!
III. Work at it!
John writes, "Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure." Children - consciously or unconsciously - imitate their parents. If you saw me standing next to my two brothers, you could easily tell that we came from the same family. We don’t all have the same color eyes. We don’t have the same build. One of us has considerably less hair than the other. But if you stood us side by side, it would be quite obvious we were from the same family. Because we all stand like this (with round shoulders). And if you put our father in front of us, you would know where we got it from. No matter how often my mother said, "Stand up straight!", we still ended up standing like this. Because children naturally imitate their parents.
Can people tell who your heavenly Father is by taking one look at you? And do you look much like the other children of God that you see in God’s family? Is your walk through life straight and true? Can people tell from the smile on your faces that you are radiating with the joy of God in your hearts? When you open your mouth, is your speech characteristic of your Father’s Word? Is it truthful? Honest? Pure? Kindly? Are your desires for heavenly things and not earthly pleasures?
"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!" Remember who you are! God has purified us with the blood of his Son. He has called us to be his own. He put his name on us in our baptism and made us adopted members of his family. And at the same time that I know that I am God’s child, I also want to become more like him every day.
That’s why John says, ""Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure." In this case, the English verb does not quite catch the flavor of what it says in the Greek. May a better translation would be, "Everyone who has this hope in him keeps on purifying himself, just as he is pure." I wasn’t born with round shoulders and a stooped back. That was something I learned by walking beside my father for some 18 or 20 years. In the same way, as God’s spiritual children, we become more and more like him every day we make our walk with him. We keep on purifying ourselves, just as he is pure.
What does that mean to "keep on purifying ourselves?" It’s very simple, really, just not always easy. It’s something that we do - or maybe we should say that God works in us by his Spirit- every day. First, we examine ourselves so that we can see the impurities and the imperfections. We look at how we act and how we talk. We examine our feelings and our attitudes and our desires. Are they godly and godlike? If not, we bring these impurities to the throne of our Father and claim the promises that he has given us. In the first chapter, John wrote, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." In humbleness and thanks, we determine to rid our life of this sin or that. We cannot tolerate it any longer. It has no place in our lives. Because we are God’s children! That is what we are! And if we are unsuccessful today because we are weak, we will look to him for strength and try again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. And even if in this life we are not able to become just like him in every way, we will not despair. Because in our baptism God promised never to forsake us as his children. And we know that one day, when we are with him in heaven, we shall be just like him! For we shall see him as he is.
Go home now and memorize these verses - at least the first. "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!" Believe it to be true. Imagine what it will be like in heaven someday! And work at becoming more like him every day of your lives.
