I'm just going to take a moment
to read these verses once again. It's a very short reading. We
do well just to remind ourselves of what John is saying here in
1 John chapter 3. So we'll read the verses over
once again. 1 John chapter 3 and verse 1. 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. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is. I'm going to take a few thoughts
from these verses today, and as the Lord enables, I trust
he will bless them to our hearts. I want to draw your attention
right at the very beginning to the opening word, behold, because
it's one of these words in scripture that we often read as just an
introduction to the verse, as if we're being told to look at
this. And we are, of course, in a sense.
But I want to point out that it's a very strong word. The word behold in scripture
is a strong word. It's like the word verily. When
the Lord Jesus Christ uses the word verily, verily, verily,
I say unto you, verily, verily, I say, that is drawing attention
particularly to those words. That's not to say that we give
those words any greater importance than the other words of scripture,
but it does draw our attention. It's like underlining or highlighting
in a piece of text and that's the same with the word behold. Behold is a strong word and it's
used in scripture as an emphasizing word and as an attention grabbing
word so that when you're reading down the passage in perhaps your
own reading and you come across a behold Pause and think about
what it is you're about to read because that's what the writer
was intending you to do. It's more than just looking or
observing. John is saying here, I want you
to think about this and give it its proper attention. It's as if he's saying, do that
and you'll be amazed. Think about this and you'll be
impressed. Give it its proper attention,
examine and admire what is being said. This is an opportunity for us
to hear about the wonder of God's love. Consider how surprising
it is. Consider how unexpected it is
that we should learn something about the nature of God, the
love of God, and what it is that he has accomplished. And I mention
this because I want to come back right at the end and make a little
application about the connection between this word, behold, and
the necessity of faith. the necessity of faith to understand
what the scripture is saying and what the apostles are telling
us when they write these letters. What the apostles were conveying
to their readers back then all through the history of the church
and still today. This living word is a message
to each of us to be received personally and to be understood. And Paul tells the Corinthians
in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 7, he says, we walk by faith, not
by sight. So although there's a behold
here, look at this, We're not just looking at it with our physical
eyes and endeavouring to understand it with our physical capacities,
our mental acumen and abilities. We have to look at this by faith. And that's the point that is
being made. We walk by faith, not by sight. And all our beholding needs to
be infused with faith. or will never comprehend the
dimensions of God's love. But more of that later. I'm not
going to give you my final paragraph before I've given you my opening
introduction. So let's have a think about this
verse. The heart of John's message to
us is the love of God. And that's going to be largely
our subject today. The love of God. And I think
there can be few grander subjects for the Lord's people to dwell
upon than the love of God and the manifestations of that love
in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Love is essential
to God's nature, for God is love. And we learn in the Apostle John's
gospel, so back in the gospel of John, that it was love that
motivated God to send his only begotten son into the world for
the salvation of his people. We learn from scripture that
the love of God has no beginning and it shall never end. God's
love for his elect people is from everlasting. We learn that
it is unchanging because God himself is unchanging. We sometimes use the word immutable. Well, I guess most people know
what a mutant is. Certainly some of the younger
people will know what mutants are, right? So you know what
a mutant is. Yeah. Well, God is immutable. That means he doesn't change.
He is the same forever and ever and ever. And he is unalterable. And so here we find that the
love of God is unchanging. Scripture teaches us that the
love of God is unconditional. It doesn't depend on what we
do. It doesn't depend on what we
say. It doesn't depend on how we live. It's distinguishing. It is discriminating. It does
not settle equally on all men, women, boys, and girls. It does
not come as a general or universal benevolence, a kind of background
concern for the general well-being of everyone. That's not God's
love. Now, we might like to think about
that as an ethos. We might like to think about
that as a good thing, a sort of warm feeling of this care
that God has for his creation. Well, think about that by all
means, because in that sense, there is a care that God has
for his whole creation, but it's not his love. His love is different,
his love is special, his love is discriminating. There's no evidence in scripture,
there is no biblical grounds to support the idea of universal
love of God. God's love is effectual. That love of God motivates all
his dealings with his elect people. And ultimately, it is his love
that accomplishes and applies salvation to particular individuals. And it's a manifested love. That
means it's shown, it's seen, it's made evident, it's revealed.
God's love is revealed in effectual saving grace according to God's
own will and pleasure. A board, a notice board outside
of the church just along the road from where I live says,
God's love is for everyone. And while that sounds nice and
generous, it's unsupported by the biblical text. And just because
lots of people say it, doesn't make it any more true. And I
know that the Lord Jesus says in John chapter three and verse
16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. And I know that whenever we speak
about the special, distinguishing, discriminating love of God, that's
the verse that we get confronted with, because that's very often
the only verse that people know. But the world in that verse does
not mean every person in the world. It is referring to, in
the context, which is always how we have to interpret scripture,
it is referring to, in the context, God's elect people amongst the
Gentile peoples of the world. The Jews, and remember the Lord
was speaking to a Jew. He was speaking to Nicodemus
at this time, who was a Jewish leader, a Jewish Pharisee, and
a very capable and able man in the Jewish religion and the history
of the Old Testament. And these Jews considered themselves
to be God's people and the rest, well, that was just the world.
And what the Lord is telling Nicodemus, the Lord was telling
Nicodemus things that were so beyond this man's comprehension
that he, for all his wisdom, was struggling to understand
what the Lord was saying. And statement after statement
in that little passage is Jesus telling Nicodemus, you ain't
seen nothing yet. This gospel, this work that I
am building, this kingdom, this is going to all the world. This
isn't just for the Jews, this is for the whole world. And he
was telling Nicodemus that this message would be taken by his
apostles to the ends of the earth. And that's the context in which
that verse is to be understood. It would no longer be that salvation
would be primarily revealed amongst the Jews, but it would go out
to the whole world for the gathering in of God's elect wherever they
might be. The heathen, the idolatrous nations
of the world, would see the Lord Jesus Christ in the same way
as the Jews had for hundreds of years been viewing the Lord
Jesus Christ. They would see him as God's one
and only way of salvation. And people might say, well, where
did the Old Testament Jews see a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ
as God's only way of salvation? Well, actually, everywhere in
Scripture, because the Old Testament Scriptures are full of pictures
and full of analogies and full of what we call types. types,
the Lord Jesus Christ being the anti-type or the fulfillment
of the picture. And one of the finest types of
the Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament was the picture
of the brass serpent in the wilderness that was put on the pole. And
if people looked at that, having been bitten by a venomous serpent,
if they looked at that pole, they lived. And if they didn't
look, Well, that serpent's venom took its course and they would
die. And so the picture of the brass
serpent on the pole was a picture of the coming way of salvation,
so that when people looked to the Lord Jesus Christ, looking
to the author and finisher of faith, they would find life in
him. And the Old Testament people
had all of these pictures given to them with the benefit of the
commentaries that the prophets provided. And they learned to
understand the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, looking forward to
his coming. In the same way as we learn to
understand the Lord Jesus Christ's saving work by looking back in
faith to what he has accomplished. So it was faith on both sides
of that time in the history of the world when the Lord Jesus
Christ came and died. And faith is required to understand
what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. God's love. Here's something else that we
find about God's love. God's love is an unmovable foundation
upon which God's electing grace is built. If God loves us, it's
because he has always loved us and we may be sure that he always
will. All he does in time, from his
throne in eternity, to justify, to sanctify, to redeem and to
glorify his chosen people is accomplished because of his love
towards us. So when John says to us, behold,
he's calling us to consider two things predominantly. First, the love of God as it
is in himself, And we've characterized some of those in little phrases
that we've used already. The eternal, the immutable, the
distinguishing, the perfect, the effectual to save. And he
is also directing us to the manner in which it is shown to us and
revealed to us in this world in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So this is the first thing that
I want us to notice. John is speaking about the Father's
love. And that doesn't exclude the
love of the Lord Jesus Christ, nor does it exclude the love
of the Holy Spirit. But he's speaking predominantly,
specifically here about the Father's love. The Lord Jesus Christ,
of course, he loves his bride. The church, the Holy Spirit,
comes to that loved people. And in love, the Holy Spirit
blesses and preserves and quickens and comforts those that he loves. John's emphasis, however, shows
us that in the covenant of peace that these parties to the covenant,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, entered into, it
was God's choice of certain individuals in what we call election, it
was God's choice of certain individuals to salvation that is founded
upon his love. God the Father set apart and
delivered into the hands of Christ a people whom he loved and who
were for known Fornone in the divine affections and he adopted
them as his sons. Now, just, I don't want to go
over this without drawing attention to this. There are lots of people
say that word fornone means that God knows what's going to happen
in the future. Well, I want you to dismiss that
because that's not what fornone means. What fornone means is
forloved. It's the love that God had for
his people that is the foundation of everything else that happens
in the so-called chain of salvation. It's love that is at the foundation
of that. And it's nothing to do with God
looking forward into the future and knowing what would happen
and making a decision based on what he knew other people would
decide in the future. That's just such a circular argument
as to be nonsensical. But here we see the love of God,
the foreknowledge of God as being that which brought all the blessings
of salvation to his people. God set apart these people and
he predestinated them in love to be made like Christ, to be
conformed to the image of his Son. He brought them into his
family and just as Christ is truly and properly the eternal
Son of God, so we are, we have, by God's adopting love, been
included with Christ in the family of God and made heirs of the
Father and joint heirs with the Son in the covenant promises
of grace and glory. You know, it is so amazingly
wonderful what God has given to us because He loves us. And another thing we discover
about God's love is that it is revealed and it is communicated
and it is bestowed upon us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we
kind of spent a bit of time thinking about that previously. That was
in our thoughts yesterday. But let me just briefly mention
again, the manner or the nature of God's love towards us is in
Christ and it is active and it is able. What do I mean by that? Well, just this, God's love isn't
passive. It goes forth to accomplish his
will. It's a love that goes out and
gets what God purposes to do. As a loving father, he is active
for the good of his children. You know, we would look askance,
we would look with disgust at a parent who let their infant
child crawl or walk towards the side of a fast-flowing river
and not do anything about it. We would say, that's not a fit
father, that's not a fit mother that would allow their children
to come into such danger. And if we said to that parent,
well, shouldn't you be taking care of your little one? They
said, well, you know, if he wants to go near to the river, well,
that's up to him. We would say, no, you arrest
that child. You take that child's hand and
you bring that child back. And that's God's love. God's
love goes and gets us. when we are in danger. And the things that we do, the
things that we engage upon, God's love is active. He does not passively
wait for sinful men and women to come to him for salvation. He knows that no one ever could
or would do such a thing. being as we are, fallen, rebellious
creatures who are, well, the Bible says, at enmity. That means we are his enemies.
In our nature, we're the enemies of God. The last thing we're
going to do is go to him. What we want to do is run away
from him. but he comes and gets us and
that's the arresting work of God, the active and enabling
love of God. It's in God's nature to come
and get us because it's in our nature to run away. If God waited
for sinners to love him, he would wait forever and then some. But because he first loved us,
he sent the Lord Jesus Christ to die for us and redeem us from
our lost condition. Because he loved us, he took
the initiative to accomplish the salvation of his elect. God commendeth his love towards
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And it was when we were enemies,
when we were sinners, that we were reconciled to God by the
death of his son. It's God who takes the initiative
in the work of salvation. And here's a third point that
I just want to leave with you here at the moment. The death
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the single greatest evidence of God's
love for his people. The death of the Savior is the
single greatest evidence of God's love for his people. And here
we see the clear biblical teaching of the coextensiveness of God's
love and Christ's redemptive sacrifice. God's elect were loved
and chosen before the foundation of the world, and the Lord Jesus
Christ came to redeem that people and to bring them and reconcile
them to God. And indeed, the Holy Spirit will
go in time to one town, and one city and one village and one
country throughout the history of the church, and he will pick
individuals here and there to bring the gospel to them, so
that all those who are loved by God, redeemed by Christ, will
be gathered into the family of God, the adoption of sons, because
of this love. I want us to realize what that
means. It is not that salvation was
made possible for everyone, but that certain individuals have
been actually redeemed by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ
on the cross and will be gathered in through the preaching of the
gospel. It's not that it's man's free
will that brings us to God, but rather God's sovereign will that
arrests us and brings us from that place of danger and judgment. Throughout history, the number
and identity of those chosen redeemed individuals are unknown
to men and women until they are revealed by God's work upon them. And that work will bring them,
through the preaching of the gospel and conversion, through
the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust in Him and receive that
love as an experience in their own hearts and in their own lives. And we can be sure that not one
of those upon whom God the Father has bestowed His love can fail
to obtain salvation. because their sins have been
remitted in Christ's death. Redemption has been gained. Righteousness has been imputed
according to God's covenant promise. And the Holy Spirit is not going
to lose anyone for whom Christ's blood was shed, such as the preciousness
of that blood. God's love for his people means
that their salvation is certain and sure. And our Christian confidence,
our assurance of faith, to use the theological word, but our
confidence, our trust in the Lord is not founded upon our
ability to maintain a good Christian witness or to persevere in the
Christian life. but it is founded upon God's
grace and his faithfulness to save and to keep the people that
he loves. John goes on in this little paragraph
to say that we are to behold the manner of love that God has
bestowed upon us and that by that love we shall be called
the sons of God. One of the accomplishments of
God's love has been to effect and to formalize a new relationship
between him and fallen sinners. And that relationship between
men and God is termed our adoption. And I want us to note this, that
God's people are called the sons of God because that's what we
are. It's not that we are divine like
the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. We are created
beings and we always will be created beings. Nevertheless,
such is our union with the Lord Jesus Christ that Peter tells
us we are made partakers of the divine nature. So we've got an
interest, we've got a union in that divine nature. It's not
our natural nature. But we are brought into an experience,
into a partaking of that divine nature because of what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done and because of the love of God. Being called
the sons of God doesn't mean that we're merely appointed to
some special office or some special role. But we are owned by God. We are honoured by God in a fatherly
way, which is the finest and the highest fulfilment of affection
and protection and provision and inheritance. And it is all
freely given by God to his people. God calls us family and he bestows
upon us the rights and the privileges of being his very own children. in fact and in reality. We are not like the sons of God. We're not in the process of becoming
the sons of God. We are, right now, God's children
according to his predestinating purpose. John says, beloved,
now are we the sons of God. And Paul tells the Ephesians
that this union through adoption is what the elect are predestinated
to, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will.
And again, it was for this reason, this adopting purpose, this bringing
the family together. After the fall, after the separation,
it was for this purpose that the Lord Jesus Christ came into
the world. Christ's coming was purposeful
and targeted to these that God loved and these that God would
save. Galatians 1 verse 4 says, God
sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption
of sons. So you see how this is all hanging
together, how this love and this new relationship is part of God's
plan and purpose for his people. By adoption, the children of
God in Christ are brought out of the spirit of bondage that
we have in this world because of our fallen nature into the
glorious liberty of the sons of God. We are translated from
the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son. we're regenerated, we're illuminated,
we're justified, we're sanctified, we're made partakers of grace
here upon earth, and we shall certainly be made partakers of
glory hereafter. This isn't aspirational. This
is it. This is what we are. This is
how God sees us. This is how God looks upon us
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know that we all feel the
weight of this body and the weight of our flesh and the frustrations
of sin in our lives. If you didn't feel that, I would
have some question, I would have some uncertainty about your spiritual
awareness and condition. Christ has made unto us wisdom. in order that we might see the
difference, we might see the aspects of our nature which are
both His being a partaker of the divine nature and that which
is of the flesh and the old nature. And there's a contention, there's
a war goes on in the heart and in the soul of every individual.
But we do not let The flesh take the victory. As the Lord enables,
we go back again and again and again to the gospel. We go back
again and again to remind ourselves of what Jesus Christ has done.
And we go back again to the efficacious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
that cleanses us from all sin. And we lay hold upon that by
faith. And that is where our comfort
and our encouragement is to be had in this life. Romans 8, verse
16 says this, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit
that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If so be that we
suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. So let me just briefly recap
here. We are loved of God, and we are
the sons of God. And consequently, says John,
we're an enigma to the world. You are a puzzle. Now I know
that sometimes a wife will say of her husband that he's a puzzle,
or a husband might say that of his wife. I can't understand
her sometimes. That's how the world thinks about
us. It can't understand us. We are an enigma to the world. The world looks at us and it
thinks, what are those people all about? Why are they going
into that little building? What do they do in there? That
sort of question has arisen in the minds of a lot of superstitious
religious people over the years. And the Lord's people have found
themselves persecuted as a result of the ignorance of the world
outside. But the world knows us not. God the Father knows
us. He has known us and ordained
our salvation from before the foundation of the world. God
the Son knows us. He calls us his sheep. I am the
good shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine. I laid
down my life for the sheep. Christ died for his people and
he knows every single one that he purchased. You know, I sometimes
think about that as well. If you go to the supermarket
or down to the bookstore and you pick half a dozen titles
off of the shelf and you put them in a bag and you take them
home and you think to yourself, wait a minute, I'm a book missing. Wait a minute, I bought those
two cartons of milk. Where are they? They must be
left at the end of the conveyor belt. They must be left on the
shelf at the shop. You know what you've bought.
And that people tell us that the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't
know what he's bought. The one who knows everything
doesn't know what he's bought. Of course he does. The Lord Jesus
Christ knows us, and the Holy Spirit knows us too, because
into the hands of the Holy Spirit, our comfort and well-being in
this world, our protection in this world has been committed. He beareth witness with our spirit
that we are the children of God. But the world doesn't know us.
The world knoweth us not. The men and women of this world,
whose eyes are darkened to the truth, whose senses are bereft
of spiritual understanding, and whose passions and preoccupations
are confined to this world, do not recognize the Lord's people
for what or who they are. And that's not to say that they
don't know we're different. I'm sure they do. But they put
that down to our strange ideas. They put that down to our peculiarities. But the difference disturbs them.
The difference disturbs them. It makes them uneasy. They know
there's something that they're missing. And rather than ask
us what it is, they get angry that they don't have what we
have. They're looking for pleasure. They're looking for satisfaction.
They're looking for peace in the world. They're looking for
prosperity and riches. They're looking for all the things
that they think are going to satisfy their souls. And here
are a people who are at peace with God, and that gets under
their skin, because the world knows us not. It is good that
we have so many young people here today. Let me warn you about
something. Let me warn you about seeking
a partner in life. Look for your husband and look
for your wife amongst the Lord's people. If you're a believer,
look for your partner amongst the Lord's people. You will not
find a soulmate amongst the men and women of this world. You
just won't because they don't know you. They don't understand
you. They cannot understand you. They
cannot love the Savior you love nor desire the life that you
desire. Now we should live and endeavour
to live as peaceably with all men and women in this world as
we can. I am no advocate of the macho
style Christianity that is advocated in some quarters by people who
imagine that we as believers should impose our will and our
values upon the people of this world. We can't do that. We cannot impose Christianity
on natural men and women. The very, very best that we will
be able to produce is hypocrites. It is our privilege rather to
serve the Lord to love our neighbor as much as they will let us,
and to preach Christ, because it is through preaching that
the Lord has promised to gather those He loves and He will save. The Lord says to his people,
behold, I send you, he said it to his disciples, but it applies
to us all. Behold, I send you forth as sheep
in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents
and harmless as doves. The people that you work with
don't understand you. The people that you go to school
with don't understand you. Not if you're a believer. Not
if you're a believer, not if you have faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, not if you love the Lord, they don't understand you. And
we need to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves as we deal
with this world around about us. And be under no misapprehension
regarding acceptance by this world. We are in it, but we are
not of it. The church is Christ's kingdom
and he has said, my kingdom is not of this world. The world
knows us not. Why? Why does the world know
us not? Because it knew him not. That's
what John tells us. This world knows neither the
father nor the son. And the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. The world does not know
God's will. The world does not know God's
ways. It's in rebellion against Him,
at enmity with Him. It remains in ignorance of Him
for this simple reason. that the men and women of this
world have no faith in him. They don't trust him. They don't
love him. They don't trust him. They have
no desire for him. They have neither eyes to see
nor ears to hear. And in their ignorance, the truth
leaves them under condemnation of sin and without hope in this
world. Let me just say something about
that. I'm not going to go on too much longer. Let me say something
about that. We need to be realistic about
persecution as well. I hear sometimes people saying,
you know, the church is being persecuted these days. Okay. But we're not. In very many ways,
we are not persecuted in the way that the church has been
persecuted in the past. And we should be realistic about
that. We live in days when there is a general oppression, but
we have freedom to meet. We have freedom to worship. We
have freedom to publish our books and to preach ourselves. We have
the means to send the message of the gospel right around the
world in live time to be heard by whoever it is that God the
Holy Spirit brings to hear this message of truth. So yes, there
is a general reluctance, because the world knows us not, to oppress
and suppress this gospel. But to the extent that we're
not behind bars, to the extent that we're not in the ground,
let us take the opportunity of the freedoms that we have to
preach this gospel as clearly and as widely as we can. But
let's make sure it's the gospel that we preach. And let me come back to my little
application that I mentioned earlier. Those to whom the apostle
John was speaking, and to whom he says, behold, what manner
of love, behold. Those people that he was addressing
in his letter, to whom he said, behold, They must have faith. We must have faith to be able
to see and to know the Lord, and to see and to know his love,
and to see and to know its manner in redemption, in adoption, and
in salvation. And faith is the key to understanding
spiritual things. Faith is the sole means of apprehending
Christ and perceiving what he has accomplished on the cross.
Only by faith can we behold the manner of love that the Father
has bestowed upon us. Faith is the gift of God to all
that he has loved before time and in time and to all eternity. He has embraced us in the covenant
of grace. He has redeemed us at the cross. He has delivered us from this
present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. Our Lord gives the gift of faith
so that we might see, so that we might know, so that we might
understand, that we might behold what he has accomplished in the
work of salvation, so that all of the glory will go to God and
none of it will come to us. It can't be anything of us or
we would take the glory for it, and deservedly so. Let's give
people their dues. But salvation is all of God,
all of Christ, so that he will receive all of the praise. And faith is spiritual understanding. It comes with the gift of life.
It comes with the new birth. The new birth to dead sinners,
by which they are enabled to see and understand what God has
done in Christ. It's not in the power of men
and women to create faith within themselves, nor can they, by
their own free will, bring it into existence, and without it,
they shall never behold, they shall never know, they shall
never believe in God, whom to know is life eternal. But if we have faith, if we have
faith, how blessed we are to discover all that the Lord has
done for us and to understand something of the manner of what
he has done because of that love. Ephesians 3 verse 18 says, to
be able by faith to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth,
and the length, and the depth, and the height, and to know the
love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled
with all the fullness of God. May the Lord grant us this faith,
that we might know his love, and love him in return, who first
loved us. Amen.