The Children Of God Series

Introduction: NFL Quarterback’s Pre-Game Generosity Impacts Families

There was a time when he worked a night shift in a low paying job and relied on food stamps to feed their large family. His dreams of playing pro football were all but gone. But that all changed after the Saint Louis Rams invited him to training camp in 1999. Lit could he know that he would become a football MVP and Super Bowl winner. And because of those humble beginnings that man and his family are known as the most generous supporters of charitable causes of any NFL player. But apart from that, the Warner family makes it a point, knowing that they are blessed, to be generous in many other ways.

Kurt Warner, the two-time NFL MVP quarterback of the Arizona Cardinals, started a family tradition he calls The Restaurant Game. The night before he heads out for a road game, Kurt and his wife Brenda take their seven children out to a restaurant to eat a family dinner. One they are seated, one of the children will scan the dining area like a quarterback scans the field looking for potential receivers. When the child picks a table, Kurt asks the waiter to add that table’s dinner tab to his own – anonymously. So on any given pre-game night a family eats freely because of the goodness of a family that knows it is blessed beyond measure. (Karen Crouse, “Warner Sets Example for His Family and the Cardinals,” www.nytimes.com, 9/26/08)

We too eat freely from the smorgasbord of God’s grace extended to us in the birth of the Son of God, who became flesh and blood and body and soul and lived among us and died for us that we might receive the free gift of salvation and be called Children of God.

And so we have sampled the Word who is Christ and we have Received the Word who is Christ and we have Seen the Word who is Christ and we have recognized the Word as the Grace of God in Christ.

And so John declares, 1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! I John 3:1

Source: Monty Newton

I. Behold The Love Of God 1

1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

A. The Love Of God Is Conferred On Us. 1a

1. Because God loves us, He redeems us out of bondage

but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

—Deuteronomy 7:8

2. Because God loves us, He helps those who are in trouble

The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.

—Jeremiah 31:3

3. God demonstrates His love toward sinners

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

—Romans 5:8

4. Because God loves us, He makes us alive when we are dead

4 ¶ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved,

—Ephesians 2:4-5

B. The Sonship Of God Is Granted Us 1b

1. Castaways shall be the Sons of God

Yet the number of the children of Israel Shall be as the sand of the sea, Which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There it shall be said to them, ‘You are sons of the living God.’

—Hosea 1:10

2. Receive HIM

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

—John 1:12

3. Led by the Spirit to become sons of God

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

—Romans 8:14

4. Children of the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY

I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the LORD Almighty.

—2Corinthians 6:18

5. No longer a slave

Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

—Galatians 4:7

6. Blameless

that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,