1 John 3.1 See what love the Father has given 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.
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989).
(1 Jn 3:1). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
John’s
Revelation
John had a revelation of God and of himself that will
revolutionize our thinking if we allow it to become our understanding as well.
John viewed God as a loving Father who generously gave
his love to his children. We as God’s
children are the objects of his love. True
love has to be given to another person.
God created us because he wanted to share the love that existed in the
Trinity with people he would create that could also be loved and give
love.
God did not create us to control us, force us to do
his will, use us for his own purposes to accomplish what he wanted to do. He created us for his pleasure, the pleasure
of giving his love to us and calling us his children.
When we respond
to his love and return our love to him we bring glory and honor to him. When a parent sees their child respond in a
loving way to another person it brings joy to their heart. The child is doing what the parent wants them
to do without telling them to do it. What the parent has modeled and taught
their child is now in the child and they are responding in a loving way to
others.
Manipulation
God is love, it is his nature to love, to give of
himself unselfishly, sacrificially and without expecting love to be
returned. It brings him joy when love is
returned but he does not demonstrate his love for the purpose of receiving
love. If that were the case it would be
a form of manipulation . God does not force people to love him just as he
will not force people to go to heaven.
His love is so perfect that he can love all of mankind and not withhold
his love in spite of it being rejected.
As our Creator, he created us to be loved by him and that will not
change. His love will always be
demonstrated toward us even in our worst fallen state of rebellion against
him.
John saw the love of God being given to us that we
would be called the “children of God.”
He saw himself in a Father-son relationship. He was God’s child, God’s love child. A child conceived in love and nurtured in
love throughout his life. John’s
identity was found in his relationship to his father. He was the son of his father. Orphaned children struggle with finding their
identity because they do not know their father.
The father image is so important in establishing our identity. I remember growing up and being asked what my
last name was followed by who is your father as there were other people with
the same last name. Once they knew who my
father was then other things were automatically associated to me, good or
bad. Our identity is established through
our heavenly Father who is perfect in all his ways. He is flawless and is the
perfection of every good character trait that exists. When we call him our Father we are also being
identified with him in the way people understand what God as a Father is like.
As his child, I am like him or have the capacity to be like him. I have his DNA because I am made in his
likeness and image.
Altered Image
Through the fall of man this image has been severely
damaged and altered to the point of being in a state of depravity. Our fallen condition makes us unacceptable to
God. God knew that man would fail and fall into this state. He knew man would
make the choice to make his own decisions rather than submit to the authority
of God as his Creator. He knew that man
would choose knowledge over obedience.
In spite of the consequences of the decision which God clearly stated
would be death, man chose to not obey God. Fallen man was now branded and
driven out of paradise. The unholy could
no longer be in a place of perfection.
Man in his fallen state could never enter into a place of perfection
where God dwells.
Restored
Image
God had a solution before the problem came into
existence and that was his plan to send Jesus to the world to be its Savior and
restore man in his relationship with him.
Jesus as the perfect sacrifice would give his life in payment for the
penalty of sin which was death. God in
his great love for man created a plan for his restoration. Through Christ we
can now become a new creation in which the image of God is restored.
Man’s
decision
Man is now faced with another decision to accept what
God has provided for the reestablishing of our relationship with him or man can
try to do what he thinks will make him acceptable to God. The response of many people is to follow a
set of rules or do good works so that God will accept them.
A story is told of two brothers who were very wicked
men. When one of the brothers died he
talked to a pastor to conduct the funeral for his brother. He told the pastor he would pay him a large
sum of money if during the eulogy he would refer to his brother as a
saint. The pastor agreed to do it.
During the message he said of the deceased brother, “this man was evil, he was
a liar, a cheater, an adulterer and a murderer but compared to his brother he
was a saint.” Man wants God to accept him based on his good works but the
problem is that man is not qualified to determine what is good. Also the motivation of the heart is what God
judges and often the motivation of doing what man thinks is good is influenced
by selfishness and pride.
Fallen man wants God to accept him on his terms not God’s. This is another form of manipulation, “If I
do good works, God will have to accept me”.
Others invent rituals and ceremonies that they think will appease God
and receive his favor and approval. This
can involve human sacrifices or self-inflicted pain that seeks to satisfy a
need to purify oneself from the evil deeds they have committed. None of these
man made solutions will ever be acceptable to God. God as our Creator has set the terms for our
reconciliation with him.
When John declared, “Behold what manner of love the
Father has given unto us…” he was thinking of the greatness of God’s love for
us that has provided a way for us to be restored in our relationship with
him. We were created by God’s love and
we are redeemed because of his love and nothing will ever be able to separate
us from his love.
Adopted
Children
We are now his children because we have been reconciled
to him. We are his adopted children
which does not mean we are second class kids.
In the Roman world many slaves were adopted into the families of their
owners. They were given the exact same
privileges as a natural born child, there was no difference but there was one
privilege that they had. An adopted
child could never be rejected as a family member whereas a natural born child
could be thrown out of the family. We
see this even today in the Jewish and Muslim culture when they become Christians
or marry outside of their faith. The
Jews have a funeral service and the Muslims completely cut off the child from
the family and strip away any inheritance they may have received. As adopted sons and daughters in God’s family
we will never be rejected by our Father.
We are in his family and no one can take us out of it.
As God’s children we are heirs or joint heirs with
Jesus. We have an inheritance that we
will be given when our life on earth is over. But more than the future
blessings that await us are the daily benefits we receive as children of
God. He is our loving Father who
provides for our needs, protects us, guides our decisions, comforts us in our
times of grief and loss, encourages us and constantly demonstrates his love for
us.
Rejected by
the World
John also recognized that we as God’s children are not
accepted by the world.
” The reason
the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”
The world does not know God as their Father and as a
consequence they do not recognize his children.
Without the true knowledge of who God is, man can never recognize the
children of God because they are like him.
As God’s children we are different than the world. We have values that are different and we are
seeing those values being tested and rejected by the world. One example was
demonstrated in the news recently. It is
difficult to accept what the world values as courageous when they give an award
to a man who went through sex change procedures so he could become a
woman. He is lauded for his courage to
become something he was not created to be.
I can think of many other people who were more deserving of an award for
courage. His decision to become a woman
has no biblical basis and is in defiance of God’s original design of male and
female. The acceptance of homosexual
marriages and now the acceptance of transgenders is being forced upon the
Christian community. Our values as
Christians seeking to uphold the values of the Word of God are being rejected
and penalized. We are being forced to
condone behaviors that are not acceptable to God. But when the world does not know God as a
loving Father who is perfect they can do whatever is pleasing in their own
eyes. It is no longer an issue of morality but of what brings man
pleasure. This has created a slippery
slope that will have no end because the pleasures and desires of fallen man
will lead him further into depravity. We
are heading to the same state of mankind before the flood.
5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind
was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their
hearts was only evil continually.
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989).
(Ge 6:5). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
As God’s children we will not be recognized or
respected by the masses that are following after their own pleasures and have rejected
the moral statutes God has given for the preservation of society. God’s love for mankind established boundaries
and morals that are for the good of mankind.
These were laws of love that God gave because of his love for mankind
and his knowledge of what evil will do to a culture.
God’s
Counterculture
We are God’s counterculture in the world today. We are his children who will reflect his
character, his values, his priorities and his love for a fallen world. We are to live as children of the light and
not walk in the darkness of the world.
We are in the world but not of it.
Our identity is in our relationship to our Father who is perfect and
just in all his ways. We are to love as
he loves but love does not mean we have to accept and approve of the ways of
the world. To do so would be to deny our true identity and the values that God
has given us as our Father. We have to
evaluate what the world is promoting as an anti-Christ spirit. The spirit of the world is in complete
defiance and opposition to the rule of God.
If we give in to the world we are also rejecting what God has ordained
and declared to be Truth. The world evaluates the Bible by their experiences
but we must evaluate our experiences by the Bible. We cannot live for the
approval of the world. We must live for
the approval of our Father, it is his approval that really matters and has
eternal consequences.
When we have the true revelation of God as our father
it clarifies our identity as his children whom he dearly loves. We are in him and he is in us. The world needs to see the Father in the
light of the Truth that God has revealed to us.
There are millions of people today who do not know their true identity
because they have never met their true Father or have been given a wrong
example of what he is like. We as his
children have the opportunity to show the world what God our Father is truly
like. We will not always be accepted by
the world but we will always be loved and accepted by our Father and that is more important.
