Behold, what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us. What is it? What is that love? How is it
manifested? How did He bestow it upon us?
That we should be called the sons of God. Open your Bibles
to 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3. I'm amazed that we can read verses
like this and not be overwhelmed by the weight of the truth, the
glory of the honor, grace, love. But we're cold. We're cold. In
our warmest moments, we're still cold. compared to what we ought
to be and one day what we shall be. Behold what manner of love
the Father hath bestowed upon us, all you believers here this
morning, that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore, because we are the
sons of God, therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew
him not. Hold your place here just a moment
and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. I want to show you something. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. While we were singing the last
congregational hymn, I thought of these verses. Verse 14. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. for their foolishness to him.
Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual, he
that is born of God, he that has the Spirit of God, judgeth
all things. And yet he himself cannot be
judged by the men of this world. They don't know him. They don't
understand him. But we have the mind of Christ.
We have the mind of Christ. We have the Spirit of God. We
have a new nature. We're born of God. We're born
again. And we have a spiritual understanding. And to illustrate
that, one man of the world, man of religion, may say, talk about
God and what he's doing for God. And he's talking about a different
God than the one I know. If you're born of God, you know
the God of this book. He taught you. Talk concerning
the elect of God, John chapter 6 verse 45, they shall all be
taught of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father just goes running to Christ. They're all taught of God. Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we
should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth
us not, because it knew him not. The world can be satisfied with
any form of religion. our feet grounded in the truth
of God's Word. The truth as it is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And Christ said, they won't hear
another voice. They won't follow anybody else.
They've got to hear the truth. Beloved, right now, this morning,
sitting here, Madisonville, Kentucky, those who are believers, true
believers, You are the sons of God. Sons of God. And it does not yet appear what
we shall be, what the end of this thing is, the end of this
matter. The conclusion, the full fruition of being the sons of
God does not yet appear. We don't know. But we do know
this, that when He shall appear, because God tells us, When He
shall appear, we shall be made like Him, for we shall see Him
as He is. The writer of this book, And
second and third John, and the gospel according to John, and
the book of Revelation had seen and experienced many things,
but he'd never seen the glorified Christ. See him as he is right
now. And when we see him as he is
right now, we'll be made like him. Like him. Like him. Every man that hath this hope
in him purifieth himself, even as Christ is pure." It never
says he ought to, it never says he might. It never said, I hope
he will, but it says he does. May God help us. May God help
me as we look into these verses of scripture. I want to talk
to you just a few minutes this morning about the children of
God, the sons of God, and what it means to be a child of God. What it means to be a child of
God. There are in this book numerous
and infinite blessings given us in Christ Jesus before the
foundation of the world. And all together in this covenant
of grace, these numerous blessings are like so many links someone
said in a golden chain. And they make one glorious whole,
our salvation. But in the Word of God, they're
broken down. They're laid out in different
points, in different aspects of salvation. We read about regeneration. You must be born again. Must
be. And then we read about calling. Make your calling and election
sure. We read about justification and
sanctification, which go together. If you have one, you have the
other. And we read about adoption and eternal glory. But all these
things together make up one wonderful, amazing, glorious, unspeakable,
indescribable salvation, which we have in Christ. All of these
things together. Justification, just to illustrate
what I'm talking about, these things are laid out like this,
point by point, for our instruction, our better understanding. But
justification, for example, is a forensic term. That means it's
a legal law term. Justification, justify, that
means nothing against you. He's just. He's right. No charge. No charge. And then, Jimmy, you
get to this word adoption. Sonship indicates another aspect
of our relationship with God. A family. Family relationship. We all understand about families.
We all grew up in families. And we're in another family if
we're born of God. We're in the family of God. The
family of God. Listen to this. God takes us
on purpose to be his children. An old preacher said one time,
to express a point, he said God got up early one morning gazed
for a few minutes on the face of his only begotten son, and
determined on the spot to make millions more just like him,
to make them out of sinners, fallen, dead, dull, worthless,
useless, good-for-nothing sinner, to make them just like his son.
And that's what this world's all about. God is bringing many
sons unto glory, predestinated their adoption before the foundation
of the world, And He's bringing these sons under glory. That's
why we're here today. He hasn't brought them all in
yet. When they're all home and the door's closed, it'll be over.
Time shall be no more. The mystery of God shall be finished. That's what this world's all
about. I know by the grace of God, the wonderful, amazing grace
of God, The power of the Holy Spirit is my instructor through
the Word. I know who I am. I know what
I am. I know why I'm here. I know who
God is. I know why He made this world.
And I know what the end's going to be." That's wonderful. I know
what the end's going to be. What the end's going to be. And
the end's going to be sort of like when the son stands before
the father and says, I am the children which thou
hast given me. We are all here, having lost
one. Having lost one. What an amazing thing to be a
son of God. A son of God. I've seen people
brag on their fathers, bragging on themselves when they say,
he's my father, that man's my father, that great man's my father.
Or they say, I'm akin to the president or something like that. God is our father. Almighty. Unchangeable. Eternal. One whose name is light
and love and holy. He's our God. He's our Father. He's our Father. God takes us
to be His children. We are the family of God, the
children of God, the household of God, the household of faith.
The singular, perhaps most blessed privilege this side of eternity
is having God take us to be His children and treat us as children
as we pass through the world. Behold what manner of love. The Father hath bestowed upon
us. God hath predetermined, predestinated us unto the adoption of sons,
and to the perfect conformity of His Son. We are predestinated
to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ as our
Mediator, made just like Him, without sin, without blemish,
perfect, and that forever. No chance of a fall, forever,
forever. He gives us the nature of His
Son. He gives us the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. It's just as natural for me.
Anything that comes up, any trouble, any trial, any perplexity, to
say, Oh God, help me. Our Father. God gave me that. God gave me
that. Like it's natural for a little
child to cry out to their natural father when he's in trouble.
I'm a father. And he's given us not only the
spirit of adoption, he's given us the attitude of sons, the
spirit of obedience. And he becomes a father to us. Our father. And he says, any
cares you may have, each and every one and all of them, cast
Him upon me. I care for you. He's our Father. He's our Father. Christ, before He ascended up
to heaven, He said, I'm going to my Father and your Father. His father is our father. And we're brothers. We're brothers. He's our elder brother. Consider
these children in these things. They're born of God. Born of
God. Born again. Have a new nature,
a new life. And they have God for their father. We know something about that.
We have Christ for our brother. I remember being in school, and I had two older brothers, and they usually knew where I
was on the playground, and I never worried about any of the big
boys. I have a brother. We don't have to worry about
anything in this world. We have a brother, an advocate,
an intercessor, a savior, who is almighty God. He rules and
reigns over all things, and this whole universe is at his disposal
for our good. We don't have anything to worry
about. What a blessed, blessed privilege. Blessed, blessed privilege. And we have, we were born of
God. We have God for our father. We
have Christ for our brother. We have our citizenship in heaven. That's where your citizenship
is. It's in heaven. You say, well, I'm a citizen
of Kentucky, the United States of America. Yeah, you are, but
you've got another citizenship, a higher citizenship. This will
fade away. This state will forget all about
you. But you have a citizenship in
heaven. And you're going there one of
these days. Like when I was in Okinawa, I lived there, and I
did all right, and I managed fine. but I knew all time my
citizenship's over here. This is my country over here.
And that's what the Bible says about Abraham. He lived a lot
of years down here in this world, plodding along from place to
place, but he always had his eyes and his heart set on a city,
a heavenly city, a heavenly country. His citizenship was in heaven.
His heart was in heaven where his citizenship was. And God
says to us, set your affections on things above. Things above
is where your citizenship is. And we have the saints of God,
saints of God, their love, their fellowship, their understanding,
and their encouragement of the whole family of God. And we have the Holy Spirit to
be our instructor, to remind us, to teach us, to remind us
again, and teach us, and remind us again, and give us strength
and help, keep us, keep us to the end of our faith. Eternal glory. 1 John 3, 1, Behold! Behold! One writer said it's
something like this. I changed this some, but this
is close to what he said. This, he said, is an exclamation
of rhapsody of admiration, wonder, and praise for the fact that God has loved
us, made us sons. You can't express it highly enough. You can't exalt Christ highly
enough. You can't talk too much about
His love. He made us to be the children of God. Sinners! Children of the thrice holy God. That's what He made us to be. And that's what we are right
now. Right now. Sinful men and women made to
be the children of the Holy God. Oh, how can it be? It is. It is. Behold means also think. Consider, study,
and ponder. Give it your attention. Behold,
he's about to say something. Behold, it's important. It's
urgent. Think about it. Hear it. Consider
it. What is it? He made us to be
children. He made Himself to be a little
lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that He might
make us a little higher than the angels. The angels don't
call Him Father. They love Him. They worship Him.
They serve Him. But we're the children. And the
angels are sent forth as ministering spirits. Are we the children? What a privilege. He lived and
suffered and died and rose again and ascended back into glory
to make us the children of God. Behold. To make us higher than the angels,
to make us sons and daughters. Sons and daughters. I wish I could, I wish that truth,
all these truths in here would grab me like they ought to. Like
I ought to be grabbed. It's not the fault of the truth,
it's the fault of the recipient here. Something wrong. I want to give you four, three
or four points and then I'll close. Points about the children
of God. That's what you are, the children
of God. And I say again, some people
brag upon who their daddy is, and I'm so-and-so the second,
and I'm so-and-so the third or the fourth, and so what? We're
the children of God. We brag on that. Not on us, but
on our God, our Father. He's something else. That's what Eliezer did when
he went to get a wife of Isaac. He bragged on Isaac and the Father.
Isaac and the Father. And that's what we need to do,
brag on God. Our God and our Christ. Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we
should be called the children of God. This is God's supreme
act of love. Romans 8.32, He spared not His
own Son, but delivered him up for us all.
Delivered him up to become a man, lower than the angels, made in
the likeness of sinful flesh, to live down here on this sin-cursed
earth, this cesspool of iniquity for thirty-three and a half years,
and then finally to die under the curse of the sins of the
elect. God spared him up, but delivered him up to make us sons. to make us sons. He must have
really wanted us to make us sons. Look in 1 John 3, just a moment
here. 1 John 3 and verse 16, Hereby
perceive we the love of God. Here's how we know it. God so
loved, He gave His Son. Hereby perceive we the love of
God. He laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down
our lives for each other, the brethren. Chapter 4 and verse 10. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. To satisfy the triune God for
our sins. Satisfy God for us. And I could go on and on with
these passages of Scripture as you know. 2 Corinthians 5.21, I will repeat
this one. Or quote this one. God made Him,
Christ, to be sin for us, that one who knew no sin. God made
Him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him, justified, no condemnation, perfected forever,
them that are sanctified by His one offering. Oh, behold, what
manner of love. God spared him not, but delivered
him up, made him to be sin, and made his soul to be an offering
for sin. And many, many more things than
that. What manner of love. Number two,
love to God and his family is the standard of sonship. They
love God, they love each other. That's the standard of sonship. I didn't make it up. It's not
made up by some creed or confession. It's what God himself says. Christ
said in John 13, by this, shall all men know that you're my disciples.
You love each other. This is a new commandment I give
unto you. As I have loved you, love each
other. Not love as a brother, in that
sense, love as you love yourself, but as I loved you. That's the
principle. Love each other as I have loved
you. And then it goes on and on and
on. 1 John 5. one through three, whosoever
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone
that loveth him that beget loveth him also that is begotten of
him." If you love God, you love the children of God. And there's
no two ways about it. By this we know that we love
the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments.
You've got to tie in this thing of obedience as children, submission
as children. And then let me look at another
place or two here. Chapter 3, 11-16, 1 John. This is the message that you
heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not
as Cain, who was of that wicked one and killed his brother. And
whereof slew he him, because his own works were evil, and
his brothers were righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the
world hates you." They don't know you. They don't understand
you. But we know, now listen to this carefully, we know there
are millions of people in this world, in the United States,
who talk about being born of God and having eternal life,
that have no interest, hardly any interest in the Church of
God, the Word of God, the glory of God, the people of God. And
yet, he says here, we know that we've passed from death unto
life because we love the people of God. We love the children
of God. We love the brethren. And we know this, that we've
passed from death unto life. We love God's people. We understand
God's people. They understand us. We have the
same family. We have the same Lord, the same
faith, the same Spirit. He that loveth not his brother
abideth in death, whoso hateth his brother is a murderer in
the eyes of God. And you know that no murderer
hath eternal life abiding in him." Chapter 4 and verse 20. If a man say, I love God and
hates his brother, he's just a liar. He's just a liar. That's all. Just a liar. Thirdly, walking in righteousness, walking
in the light, is an evidence of sonship. We
know we've passed from death unto life. We love the brethren.
We have the spirit of obedience. We walk in righteousness. 1 John
1. I'm just skipping around here
in this one book, but it's throughout the Word of God. 1 John 1. Verses 5 through 7. This is the message we've heard
of him. and declaring to you that God
is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have
fellowship with God and walk in darkness, we're just lying.
We're just deceiving ourselves. And the truth is not in us. We
do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as
he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood
of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. The only way
you can have fellowship with God is to walk in the light.
God is light. If you say you have fellowship
with God, or you love God, or you know God, and you walk in
darkness, you're just lying. You're just deceiving yourself.
You can't have fellowship with God and walk in darkness. We're
not only walking the light, we're not only as a candle set on a
hill, a light under the Lord, but we are, Ephesians said, you
are light in the Lord. You are light. And we walk in
the light. This is in the light. Chapter two, verse 29. if we know that he is righteous. You know that everyone that doeth
righteousness is born of God. That's the only way you can do
righteousness. Born of God, have the Spirit of God, the grace
of God in your heart and upon your life. Chapter 3, verses
9 and 10. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot
sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are
manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever abideth,
whosoever doeth, rather, not righteousness, that means he's
not of God. He doesn't know God. Doesn't
have the Spirit of God. Neither he that loves not his
brother. You can't be the children of God. If you don't love the
brethren, if you don't walk in obedience, don't walk in the
light. And I could go on and on and
on and on, but that's enough. Fourthly, The children of God
have fellowship with God in Christ, and that's the grand privilege
of sonship. We who were darkness, our hearts
and our understandings were darkened. We who were dead, totally plum
dead in trespasses and in sins, we are now the children of God.
We were alienated from God, now we're the children of God. We
were estranged from God, now we have fellowship with God.
We have fellowship with God. That's the grand privilege of
sonship. Turn to 1 John verses 3 and 4,
chapter 1, 3 and 4. That which we have seen, and heard, declare we unto you that you
may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with
the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And these things
write we unto you, that your joy may be full. Lord, to have
fellowship with God makes up for a lot of things, a lot of
crosses and trials and temptations and sufferings and heartaches.
Yeah, but I have fellowship with God. God acknowledges me as a
son. God's given me the spirit of
adoption. God said, don't bear these burdens
alone. Cast them on me. I'll take care
of them. What a God. What a privilege. He tells us, cast all your cares
upon Me. Have you ever heard that real
good? Take your burdens to the Lord and leave them there? I
bet a lot of times you've taken them there, but you didn't leave
them. You brought them home with you. It's easy to take them,
it's hard to leave them. But God tells us to do it. He's
our Father. We're His children. Number five, seeing our elder
brother and being made like him is our hope, and it's a sure
hope. It's according to the purpose
of God. He chose to make us his children, and he's kept us along
the way. Though we fall, he's picked us
up. He's kept us. We're kept by the power of God's
faith. And we're one day, this is our
hope, to be with Him, to be like Him, without sin, forever and
ever and ever. That's in our text. First three
verses. We are the purchase of God. And
this is the purpose of God. And our hope is sure and certain. Our hope is sure and certain.
Every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even
as he is pure. We know, we know that when he
shall appear, we shall be like him. When we see him, we'll be
made like him. When we see him, In the exceeding
brightness of light and truth of His appearance, the saints
shall be changed, and those who are not saints shall be destroyed
by the same appearing." They cannot stand in that light. They
cannot stand. Behold! I hope God will write this on
your heart. Behold what manner of love. The Father hath bestowed
upon me to make me a son, call me his child. Thus saith the
Almighty, they'll be my sons and my daughters. I'll be their
God, they'll be my people. Many take great stock in human
relationships, as I mentioned before. They speak of being the
sons of God as a small matter. I take great stock and pride
and talk about who's my father in this world, or who's my uncle
or grandfather. But it's sort of trivial. They don't talk about God being
their father. When they do, they take it lightly.
God's everybody's father. Not hardly. He is in the sense
of creation, but not in the sense of sonship and redemption. Not
at all. Many take great stock in their
inheritances down here below. and are almost totally uninfluenced,
totally uninfluenced by the inheritance they claim to have above. John Newton says some people,
on the other hand, they talk about what they've got above
that great, great inheritance and then they drop a plate and
break it and have a fit for 30 minutes. Isn't that something? We are heirs of God, joint heirs
with Christ, and this world is ours. This world, it was made for us.
And it's going to be remade, remade for us. Righteousness and righteousness
only dwell up there. and the children of God shall
dwell therein." Listen to these words. I wrote this down by memory. But John Bunyan said this, something
like this, years ago, 1600 and something. He said, if a
man or woman with understanding from the heart can bow their
heads and say, Our Father. You can't make a greater prayer
unto God. If you know what you're saying,
you understand in your heart. Our Father. May God teach us
to say it with power. May God put power on these words.
Our Father. Our Father. How can we get to
be the children of God? Through faith in the Son. Through
faith in the Son. I thought you said, preacher,
they predestinated to this, to adoption before the foundation.
Well, they are the elect of God. But I don't know who they are.
And then when one over here and one back around, they believed,
and I know who they are. They believe they're the sons
of God. Old Paul told the people at Thessalonica,
he said, I know, brethren, beloved, your election of God. Now, how do you know that? Because
the Word didn't come to you in word only, but in power, demonstration
of the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. When the Word comes
in power, when God speaks to you through this Word, He's speaking
to His children. May God increase the faith of
each of us. Those who haven't exercised and
known the joy of believing before, may God grant you faith. May
you believe this morning through grace. Okay, David.