1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
Sandi Patti did a medley of songs during one of her concerts that is on her “More Than Wonderful” album. It is a funny routine and it showcases her wide range of vocal talent and it also makes a point.
In this medley she follows her progression into music from age 2 through college and she talks about how, at different stages, she wanted to be just like whoever the popular singer was at the time. First it was Karen Carpenter, then it was Barbara Streisand, then she wanted to be a great opera singer.
I can remember those days in my own life, only for me it was first The Lone Ranger, then Zorro, then Captain America, then Spider Man; then I got older and realized I couldn’t possibly be any of those fictional characters.
So I wanted to be John Wayne. Then Clint Eastwood.
I know there are exceptions and my wife is probably one of those exceptions, but I’d guess that almost every child goes through at least a short season of wanting to ‘be’ their favorite hero or heroine. Wanting to emulate their finer qualities in their own life and be looked up to for those qualities.
Well, what we call John’s first letter to the church is about wanting to be like our hero. It’s not that simple; it really covers a great deal of territory concerning love and light and truth.
But a recurring theme running throughout is to tell us what Jesus is like and encourage us to strive to be like Him, as can be discerned in the reading of the rest of this chapter.
Now here is an interesting thing to point out. Little girls don’t usually want to be some male hero, like the Incredible Hulk or Daniel Boone, and boys don’t want to be Cat Woman or Florence Nightingale.
Yet all believers in Christ are encouraged to want to be like Him because who He is and what He is so far transcends human sexuality that the thought of being ‘just like Jesus’ poses no threat whatsoever to our own identity as individuals.
In fact, the mandate of scripture is to seek to ‘abide in Him’ to the degree that our selves are as dead and our entire life is immersed in His Life. Not that we lose our identity as individuals; quite the contrary, the more identified with Him we are the more worth is given to us as individuals.
I want to narrow our focus though, from these other issues John is addressing in this letter, to just these two verses today and let’s just get a blessing thinking about what John is affirming that we are, and forecasting what we will be.
A FOREIGN-KIND OF LOVE
One language expert says that a literal translation of the first phrase in verse one would be, “Behold, what a foreign-kind of love…”
Someone else rendered it this way: “Behold, what peculiar out-of-this-world kind of love the Father has bestowed on us…”
So the intent of the original language is to convey something more than just the fact of God’s love. It is amazing! It is a sort of love that cannot be found elsewhere in this world. It is, in fact, a kind of love that anything or anyone of this world is incapable of having or even comprehending.
Now before I get too far into this to go back, let me note that the verse begins with a call to observe something. Depending on your translation it will say ‘behold’, or ‘see’, and if you have one of the lesser read translations it may use some other word but it will mean the same thing.
Unfortunately there is one popular translation that is apparently read ‘internationally’ that leaves it out altogether. That’s too bad, because John was calling his readers to pay special attention to something so they wouldn’t miss it, and that something was this out-of-this-world, utterly foreign to human emotion sort of love that God has lavished on us.
What makes this love so foreign to human experience? We only need take a look at Romans 5:6-10 to see it.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
Friends and family, the world cannot match that! The world cannot understand that. The natural mind of man cannot fathom that. It can only be grasped by the Spirit-enabled regenerated mind and heart.
The God of Creation, the Eternal, Omnipotent, Omniscient, God and Lord of all, while we were helpless, sinful, enemies against Him, made us right with Him by the shedding of the blood of His innocent Son, and having so reconciled us to Himself raised His Son from the dead promising us that our own resurrection was to follow.
That’s why John, here in our text, calls God’s love ‘out-of-this-world’, and says that God bestowed it upon us with the purpose and intent of making us His children.
KINGDOM KIDS
That calls us back to our text. “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God;”
Now there are two ways to take this sentence. One, God bestowed His love on us by the giving of His only Son so that we could be adopted as children. Two, it is in calling us His children that He demonstrates His love for us.
I am sure you have all heard sermons or been in a Bible Study where someone has expounded on this theme of adoption and all it entails and I don’t want to belabor a well-used topic but we have to take notice of just the basics here today for the sake of emphasis.
Although the word ‘adoption’ is not used here, we know that Paul uses it no less than five times in his epistles. Three times in Romans, once in Galatians, and once in Ephesians 1:5 where he says:
“He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself…”
Gerald Penix tells a touching story of when he and his wife adopted a son.
“My wife and I waited 15 years for a child that never came by the natural way. However we were approached one day with a lead of a newborn not yet born. I remember standing in front of the judge on our day of adoption. He pointed his finger and asked of me, ‘Is anyone coercing you to adopt this little boy?’ After we had assured him that we were doing so out of love for our son, he made this statement. ‘From today on, he is your son. He may disappoint you, even grieve you but he is your son. Everything you own one day will be his and he will bear your name.’ Then he looked at the clerk and gave this command. ‘So order a change in this child’s birth certificate and may it reflect that these are the parents of this child.’
It was then that I realized that my Heavenly Father loved me so much that, without coercion, He loved me and gave His all to me. On that day, He changed my name and I gladly bear His name and His image.”
John says that our Father in Heaven manifests His love for us in that He calls us His children, and then John emphasizes the point so that we cannot miss it.
“And such we are”.
We are not just ‘called’ the children of God, beloved, we are children of God by His own reckoning and His own calling.
Think about that and let it settle in for a moment. Jesus, God’s only Son, purchased us from ruin at the cost of His own blood so that we could be made children of the Father by His own choosing, given His name, made heir to all the riches of Heaven, and such we are.
ALIENS IN A FAMILIAR PLACE
John goes on now and makes a rather strange statement. “For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”
‘What does that mean,’ you might ask, ‘that the world doesn’t know us?’
I mean, there are lots of people in the world who don’t know me, but the few who know me…know me. Right?
Again, John is teaching spiritual truth. The unregenerate, that is, those in the world outside of Christ and without His Spirit cannot comprehend a spiritual relationship with God.
Even for Christians the perception must be a spiritual one. When we became believers we didn’t change physically. We look fundamentally no different than anyone else. People won’t know by looking at us that we’re a Christian unless we’re wearing a shirt that says so or jewelry that sets us apart as such.
There’s a young lady who works at our bank who often wears a necklace that is a cross in the center of a Star of David. Now, I don’t know her, but although many people wear crosses around their necks I don’t think very many who are not Christians would be wearing a cross inside a Star of David, because people outside the church would not get the significance of that symbolism.
But although she seems like a very nice young lady if I had never seen her wear that necklace I wouldn’t know she is a Christian unless I asked or she offered the information.
Yet I could go into that bank this week and say something like, “I am a believer in Jesus Christ; are you?” and as soon as she said ‘Yes’, we would have confirmed to each other that we belonged to the same eternal family and that we are among those who because of their relationship to a Heavenly Father are actually aliens here on this world. We belong in another place now and someday we’ll be there. For now though, we’re incognito.
The world doesn’t know us and in fact, even if we tell them who we are they will not recognize or understand because in order to recognize what and who we really are one first must recognize and understand who Jesus is.
Because you see, our identity is in and through Him. If you don’t know Him then you cannot really know us. We’re aliens.
JUST LIKE JESUS
Now we come to the fun part. The really exciting part that calls for some imagination because it goes so far beyond us.
I don’t mean that it is an imaginary thing, like fantasy. It is a real thing we’re just too feeble and too focused on this world to be able to really get hold of it.
But it’s fun to think and talk about, not in the same way as imagining winning the lottery or going on a long cruise, but because it is more certain than the chance of winning the lottery and will be infinitely more lasting than a cruise.
First, John reminds us again in case we didn’t get it. “Beloved, now we are children of God”. Get it? Now. Right now we are children of God. Not gonna be. Are.
“And it has not appeared as yet what we shall be”
Hear that? ‘shall be’. We are now. But there’s a ‘shall be’.
That’s what I was talking about. Y’know what? I’m going to give that young lady at the bank a copy of this sermon and from now on every time we see each other we’ll be a reminder to each other that there is a ‘shall be’.
We should all remind ourselves and each other of that, believers in Christ, because what we believe determines how we behave. If we remembered on a regular basis this promise that what we really are is going to be revealed when we get there and see Jesus face to face I think we would live and behave much differently than we habitually do.
Ok, let’s think about this.
“We know that”… John says we know. So you’re supposed to just know this, Christian. “We know that when He appears”… that’s a reference to His coming for us and catching us up to Himself at which time we’ll be instantly glorified… listen to Philippians 3:20-21
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
Paul said to the Thessalonians that we will be changed in the time it takes for a ray of light to bounce off an eye ball.
Samantha Stevens couldn’t even wiggle her nose that fast.
Are you getting a sense of the power of our Lord? That millions upon millions upon millions, many from the grave and the bottom of the sea and many who are living and walking the earth at the time, will be simultaneously and instantly changed into something that can exist in Heaven. These bodies wouldn’t make it. They can’t go in.
They’ve been tainted by sin and they are dirty, decaying things. They have to be changed. So He’s going to do that in the twinkling of an eye.
John says we will be like Him when we see Him as He is. So what does that mean?
Well most importantly we’re finally going to think like Jesus and not have to struggle to do it. We’re going to love like Jesus. We’re going to desire unfalteringly and unendingly to please the Father, like Jesus. We’re going to live to the glory of the Father, like Jesus.
And then of course there’s the really fun part. Jesus, after His resurrection, was not confined or limited by time or space.
On Star Trek they’re always messing with or worrying about the space/time continuum. Someone’s always causing a rift in it or a warp or a bubble or something.
We won’t bother with all that. Jesus appeared in locked rooms, yet He ate. I kinda like knowing that part.
Jesus ascended and descended to and from Heaven at will.
As a kid I always wanted to fly. That’s right; I just remembered someone else I wanted to be. Peter Pan.
When we are transformed perfectly to His image and are glorified we will fly.
No more back pain, no more knee pain, no more struggles with weight, no more weariness and exhaustion. Read the 21st chapter of Revelation once in a while for a lift.
Most wonderful of all… we will be able to worship perfectly. When we cast our crowns at His feet and bow down in worship it will be the truest worship we’ve ever offered, because it will be absolutely devoid of all human pride and ignorance and self will.
There is one more point I’d like to make before we’re done because we still are in this world although not of it, so we have important work to do yet.
Listen to C.S. Lewis from one of his essays in “The Weight of Glory”
“Nature is mortal. We shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image; the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects.
…
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses; to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory” 1949, Macmillan
Christians this is why it is so important that we have the mind of Christ toward sin and toward the unsaved. Because while we celebrate being called children of God and rejoice that when we see Him we will be instantly like Him, let’s not forget that those without him are becoming what they are going to be eternally also. Something Lewis called immortal horrors.
Imagine the lusts and sinful desires of man that are now only checked by threat of punishment and social mores. Read the last five verses of Romans 1 and verses 10 through 18 of Romans 3 and imagine being that kind of creature, without a body but with all the desires, alone in the darkness, growing worse, forever.
Don’t shrink back from it, Christian. Use your imagination and let it trouble you deeply.
Because just as certain as what we will be, is what they will be if they never come to Jesus.
‘My goodness, Clark! Build us up to heights of glory then just yank the ol’ rug out!’
No. I do not mean to discourage you; but to encourage you.
You see, they cannot help themselves and no one else can help them except you and me.
Because we are children of God, ‘and such we are’, we are their only link to Him. Christian, you have life in you that you can pass on by your witness and the gospel message.
You can rescue them from an eternity as an ‘immortal horror’ and you don’t even have to do the work. Jesus did it; you’re just called to tell it.
Do you know something? The same power that Jesus will exert to glorify you; that power He has to subject all things to Himself, is working in you right now to continue the work of sanctification in you; making you more like Jesus.
That same power working in you can work through you to adopt people into God’s eternal family. Tell the old, old story to someone you see and watch His power change them into ‘everlasting splendors’.
That they may be what we are; that they may be changed along with us when we see Him as He is.
