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. This is a really beautiful verse
in the word of God. and it ought to gladden our hearts
that it is in the Bible for us to read. We should be grateful
to the Holy Spirit that he inspired and revealed these words to John
the Apostle and grateful indeed to John that he wrote them down. They are truly beautiful words
and sentiments. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. So we're not going to move too
quickly past these verses today, but I just want to pause, as
it were, and enjoy the vista that they supply and the sweetness
that they contain. Some of you tell me that you
like hiking in the mountains, and I was thinking about that
as I was preparing these thoughts. And I see this opening verse
of 1 John 3 a little bit like hiking in the mountains. And
these words, these verses, are like an opening in the trees,
an opening off the trail that allows us to walk out on a ledge
there on the hillside, on the mountainside and look up and
down the valley to see where we have come from and to get
a glimpse of where we are going to. to survey all the surrounding
peaks of God's graces and his mercies and his goodness to his
people. So when John says to us, behold,
we ought to see this as a special privilege, like when a mountain
guide says to us, come and see this. It's a little off the trail. but I think you'll appreciate
the view if you'll just come with me and we press through
and I show you what I want you to see. Behold, behold, what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should
be called the sons of God. What manner of love is this? 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is a
passage which speaks much about the love of God, the nature of
love, the qualities of God. Romans 8, towards the end of
the chapter, again, speaks about the different dimensions and
extensiveness and the power of the love of God. And both these
passages and others in the New Testament supply a fine description
of love, God's love. its nature, its qualities, its
properties. And it's certain, of course,
that the love of God the Father manifests all of these things. But in essence, at its heart,
I want to draw your attention to just four things right now
in this first part of my thoughts today with respect to the love
of God. The first one is this, that the
love of God is eternal. When John says to us, behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we
should be called the sons of God. This is the love, it's an
eternal love that the Father has for his people. There never
was a time when the Father began to love his people. Think about
that. There never was a time when the
Father began to love his people, and there will never be a time
when he ceases to love us. "'Yea, I have loved thee with
an everlasting love,' says the Lord in Jeremiah 31.3. Whom God
loves today, he always has loved and he always will love. His love has no beginning and
it has no end. And this love depicts and defines
God. And John will later say in chapter
four, verse eight and chapter four, verse 16 of this little
letter, God is love. It is so essential, so much depicts
and defines our God that in the very everlastingness, the very
eternality of God, his love is constant and sure. Another aspect of God's love
is this, that it is immense, it is vast, it is infinite. The love of God is greater than
we can comprehend. Let us never imagine that we
can get our head around this gospel, that we can plumb the
depths of the grace of God, or in some way take a measuring
rod and work out the dimensions of the love of God. As God is
infinite, so his attributes are infinite, so his love is infinite,
and it is all that we can do to enjoy the sweetness of that
which is revealed to us and know that there is much, much more
that can never truly be grasped. Paul tells us of the height and
the depth and the length and the breadth of the love of God
and he says that it passes all knowledge. Now we can feel the love of God
We can enjoy the love of God. We can see the love of God evidenced
in, for example, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we
will never fathom it. We will never bottom it. We will
never encompass its breadth or reach its height. Such It is
the love of God that it will fill us with amazement for all
of eternity and we will always be learning more of the glory
of the nature and love and grace and goodness of our God. So the
love of God is eternal and the love of God is immense and infinite. And thirdly, the love of God
does not change. I guess if we think about it
as being eternal and infinite, then how could it possibly change? But let us just pause upon this
for a moment too. God's love is perfect. And as
God is perfect and unalterable and unchangeable, so his love
is perfect, unalterable and unchangeable. He does not love today and hate
tomorrow. He does not hate one time and
then love another time. His love towards us does not
vary. It is immutable, unchangeable. It doesn't rise or fall based
on our obedience, based on how good we are or how bad we are.
It doesn't depend upon our works. It is free, it is unconditional,
and it is constant at all times and in all places. And fourthly,
the love of God is personal. It is personal and particular
and it is purposeful. It isn't love if it isn't personal. People talk about general love,
about loving everyone and loving everything and God loving everyone
and everything. It's not love if it isn't personal. And God's love is personal if
it is anything. The Father's love is the motivating
passion of all the grace that he gives to his people. It is the reason for our election. We were elected because God loves
us. We were not loved because we
were chosen. The choice was based on his eternal
love for us. Our justification flows from
the Father's love towards us, that he makes us right to enter
his presence and commune with him and have union with him in
the person of his Son Jesus Christ. The redemption of the Lord Jesus
Christ was had its impetus in the love of God for us. Jesus Christ bore what he bore
because he loves us. because he's always loved us
and because he desires to have us as his body, as his bride,
as his people and to share that covenant union with us and we
with him. It is the love of God, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. This love is the cradle of God's
covenant purpose, the basis then of a believer's hope. Let me
ask you a question. What grounds have you, where
you're sitting today, where you're sitting right now, what grounds
do you have to hope that you will go to heaven someday? That
when you die, you will enter into the possession and the enjoyment
of eternal life, of everlasting life with the Lord Jesus Christ.
What are your grounds for that hope? Let me tell you what the answer
to that question is. God's love and the salvation
and deliverance that that love has secured and ensured for sinners
like you and me who are brought to faith in him. John 3, verse 16 says, for God
so loved the world. See, when we use that verse,
there are many people who use it and misuse it, but when we
use that verse, let us put some emphasis on that little word,
so. It's in there for a reason. It
doesn't say, for God loved the world. It says, for God so loved
the world. God loved the world with an everlasting
love. God loved the world with an immense
and infinite love. God loves the world with a love
that does not change. And God loves the world with
a personal, particular, and purposeful love. This is all speaking about
the love of God for his people. And he loves us so much that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. If we believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, this is our hope. This is our portion. God commendeth
his love towards us, says Paul in Romans 5, 8. In that, while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. General love is as impotent
and as empty as universal atonement or common grace. These are phrases
without scriptural substance or any semblance of Bible truth
and we will not have them and we will not stand upon them and
we will not believe in them for we have a gospel that saves because
it comes from a love that is particular and it has an atonement
behind it that secured the salvation of God's people and bestowed
particular grace to them. So when John says, behold what
manner of love, this is the love that the Father has bestowed
upon us. Everlasting, infinite, unchangeable,
personal, and purposeful love. The Father's love, says John. And the Father's love leads to
this. that we should be called the
sons of God. This goes under the Bible term
adoption. This is the love that we have
from God, a love which adopts us into the family of God and
brings us to be called the sons of God. Now, do you know why
we are called the sons of God, because we are the sons of God. The name fits who we are and
what we are. God doesn't pretend to make us
his own. He really has made us his sons. We are called his sons because
we are his sons. And that's the reason why the
words sons is used in its masculine form. John has talked from the
very beginning of this little epistle about little children. So why does he now say sons of
God and not children of God? For this simple reason. In those
days, the sons carried the family name, and the family rights,
and the family inheritance. It fell upon the son. And so
what John is telling us here is that we, the children of God,
have all the name of God, the rights of God's family, and the
inheritance of the family of God. laid upon us, given to us,
bestowed upon us. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should have all of these
privileges, all of these rights, all of this inheritance laid
upon us as the sons of God. We're all the sons because we
all have the rights and the privileges of the sons of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Son of God and we share together with Him in all of these privileges
and rights. Adoption is a wonderful Bible
doctrine. And it describes the public state
into which we are brought by our covenant union with the Lord
Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter 1 and verse
4 and 5 speaks about this. It says there, according as he
has chosen us in him, that's our election, before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. And I want to make a little application
here, which I hope will be a blessing to your heart. But I need you
to put on your thinking hats for a minute. Not because it's
complicated, but just because you need to stay with me as I'm
trying to make this application. So listen carefully, if you will. When we think about adoption,
if we think about adoption in this world, If a child is adopted,
he's brought into a new family, and he's given family rights. He used to be someone else's
child, but now he's adopted into a new family, or she's adopted
into a new family. But it's slightly different in
the covenant of grace. In the covenant, we always were
the children of God. We always were God's people. We always were his children. But in the covenant, we are God's
children in a secret and in a hidden way. It's our adoption that reveals
who we are. and as it were publicly and evidently
declares us to be the children of God by endowing us with the
rights of the sons of God. Do you see what I'm saying there?
While we always were the children of God in covenant purpose, by
adoption we are publicly and evidently called the sons of
God. Because we are given the rights
and inheritance of sons, we are made heirs in time, in this world,
through the preaching of the gospel and the conversion of
us from our sins, and we are joined with the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what we discover when
we read together in Galatians chapter four. If you have your
Bibles there handy, just open them briefly at Galatians chapter
four. I have a couple of verses that
I would like to read to you. Galatians chapter four, and... Just look at verse one for me.
This is the little section that's speaking about us being sons
and heirs together with the Lord Jesus Christ. In Galatians chapter
four, verse one says, Now I say that the heir, as long as he
is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be
lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time
appointed of the father. Even so, we, when we were children,
were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness
of time was come, 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. And because ye are sons,
God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a
servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. So you see here there is a picture
being shown to us of how, though we always were secretly, by election
and by sanctification and by union together with Christ in
the covenant, the children of God, Yet because of adoption
into the family of God, because of the revelation of our conversion,
we are given the rights of our family inheritance here in this
world. And this is important because
Here we're being told that there is an evidence granted, there
is a token given, there is an earnest bestowed upon the children,
that we see something of the way of entering into the blessings
of God's grace towards us here in this life. The purpose of
our adoption is declarative. It's to reveal personally to
us that we are the children of God or the sons of God and it
is to enable us to say Abba, Father, and feel the blessings
and the privileges of family life. It is to enter into that
affectionate relationship with our God, whereby we find Him
to be faithful and patient and trusting and forgiving, and the
blessings that flow to us in Christ come as part of our experience
of grace. because we have been brought
into the family and revealed to be heirs and joint heirs of
the privileges of grace. Adoption is the Holy Spirit enabled
experience and spiritual knowledge of our interest in Christ by
faith and it is adoption that allows us to know our privileges. That word there that Paul uses
in Galatians with reference to Abba, Abba Father. It has a special
and a peculiar tenderness in it. And it is intended to intimate
the nearness and dearness of our relationship with God. the nearness and closeness of
a relationship between Christ and his church, God and his people. So what I'm saying here is that
God loves his children so much that he publicly declares it
to us by adopting us to show us by the gospel how much he
loves us and to have us in turn through that knowledge love him
back. with a deep intimacy by which
we can declare Abba, Father. There's a tenderness about this
relationship that our conversion and adoption into the experience
of the love of God and Him laying these privileges of sons of God
upon us in our conversion that is before us here at this point. Now two quick things that I want
to say and then we're done. There is a distinction made in
these verses also that needs to be recognised because the
Apostle John goes on to say Yes, behold what manner of love
the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
children of God. But the world knoweth us not
because it knew him not. There is a distinction being
made between those who are the sons of God and those who are
not. The sons and the world are different. And of course this dovetails
with the distinguishing nature of the love of God where we said
it was personal and particular. earlier, we know that the world does not know us because the
world will have nothing to do with the things that we desire. Now we have a knowledge of the
world because we are in the world and we know something of its
highs and its lows and its attractions and its temptations. We know
something of its vanity. But the world doesn't know the
church. It cannot know the elect and
it cannot know the rights and the privileges of the sons of
God. It can never experience these things. because it doesn't
know Christ. If it doesn't know Christ, it
can't know the body of Christ, it can't know the children of
God, it can't know the sons of God, and it can't know the benefits
of adoption. Now the world might know a Larry,
or a Harry, or a Carrie, but they don't know and they
don't care to know. about election and about justification
by grace or about adoption. They don't know and they don't
care to know about the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't know and they
don't care to know about the glorious things that are spoken
by Zion that we were thinking about earlier. They don't know
and they don't care to know the gospel because the world knoweth
us not. We're an enigma. We're a puzzle.
We can't be understood. And if we ask, why is it so? Why do I know something about
these things? And why do I long to know more? And why do I long to taste and
feel more of the Lord Jesus Christ in my soul? While the world is
content in its ignorance, it is because of this love. wholly
because of the Father's love towards us and the manner of
that love being discriminating and particular. and purposeful,
resolved that we should be called the sons of God while many, many
more hate Him as we once did, oppose Him as we once did, despise
the only way of salvation as we once did. Does that not shine
an even more glorious light upon God's love for us in the gospel? Matthew 13 verse 11 says, Lord
Jesus Christ is speaking. He answered them and said, it
is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,
but to them it is not given. Final point is this. The world
does not know us, though we are the sons of God. This is verse
two that I'm looking at now in the passage. The world does not
know us, even although we are the sons of God. Even so, though we see a little
of this light in our souls, we are told here that it doth not
yet appear what we shall be. So the world doesn't comprehend
us, And yet we see something of this in the gospel. But yet
John is telling us there's more to come. There's much more, much
more to come that we don't yet know. Much more that we shall
yet know because glory awaits us. John says, we shall be like
him. When he shall appear, there's
that little phrase again, we spoke about it last week. When
he shall appear, the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back and when
he does, we shall be like him. I think this is a beautiful little
phrase. I don't want to go back over what we said last week about
the Lord appearing and us being like him because we will be without
our sin and we will see him as he is. That was the verses last
week. But I want to use this little
phrase for our comfort today. It doth not yet appear, says
John. Do you still have problems? Do you still have troubles? Do
you still have doubts? John is telling us, he is saying
to you and he's saying to me, it doesn't yet appear. Don't
be distracted by this. This is what the essence of faith
is about. It's about stepping out, not
fully knowing where we're going to. It doth not yet appear to
ourselves. It doesn't appear to the world.
It doesn't appear even to our fellow believers. Do you ever
wonder why you are not more like Christ? It is because it doth
not yet appear. Do you worry that you're too
bound in this earth and in this flesh? It's because it doth not
yet appear what we shall be. Do you feel a constant contradiction
in your soul? a battle, a fighting, a war going
on between the flesh and its weakness and the spirit and the
new man. That contradiction is because
it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But when he appears,
we will be like him. You are still earthbound. You're still too earthbound to
see yourself as God sees you in Christ. And how does God see
us in Christ? Ephesians 1 verse 4 says, You
feel your sin. You feel your shame. You feel
your guilt. But God sees you washed in Christ's
blood. the blood that cleanses from
all unrighteousness. You wonder whether this conflict
means that you're not really saved at all and you cannot see
that God holds you in his hand from whence you shall not be
plucked. You can't see those everlasting
arms that are underneath you. You don't see your mediator interceding
for you in heaven. You don't see the face of your
beloved or the nail prints in his hand. You don't see the mansions,
the throne, the glory, or hear the heavenly choirs. Why is that?
Because it doth not yet appear. But we know that when he shall
appear. when our dearly beloved, when
our precious Redeemer, when our great High Priest, when our Saviour
and Lord, when our Friend, when our Prophet, when our Priest,
when our King, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is. We shall have a body like unto
His glorious body. We shall be holy as He is holy. We shall share glorious air and
joint airs with the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is. Amen. May God bless to us these thoughts.