We want to look at 1 John chapter
3. And we started off, actually
we closed out in 1 John chapter 2. If we were being technical
and critical about the letters, we would know that there are
no chapter divisions, there's no such thing as chapter 1, chapter
2, chapter 3. They are letters like any formal
or informal letter was written to a person or a group of people. So when you look at verse 1 of
chapter 3, it's really not a new thought. It actually is taking
up from the previous thought. But let's look at verse 1 because
this is where we're going to start to contemplate our study
for tonight. Behold what manner of love The
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. Therefore, the world does not
know us because it did not know him." What John does in chapter
3, verse 1, is call the saints' attention to consider some things
but they are to consider some things in light of the same conversation
he has had with them in the previous chapter. So when he uses this
word, behold, behold, behold, in your outline, we have behold,
pay attention, highly regard, take what I am about to say with
the utmost seriousness. Now, he's calling our attention
to observe something, but it is not based upon nothing. It's
really based upon his previous statements, and I want you to
think them through over in verse 28 and 29. And now, little children,
that's our term of endearment, is the Phileo term of brotherly
kindness and charity among the people of God and now little
children Abide in him. This is the imperative that he's
giving the command the exhortation that he's giving to the church
in order to help the church Not fall prey to the apostasy that
we've been talking about in verses 18 following and now little children
Abide in him that when he shall appear you see that line there
when he shall appear He's combining two things. He's combining instructions
to the church to do something and that's something that he's
calling the church to do is simply remain a Abide, stand still,
do not move, don't go anywhere, stay on point. And then the next
thing he says is, till Jesus comes. Abide, remain, don't move
little children, don't move, don't be moved, don't be tempted
to move, minnow, remain, abide, stay, stand still. You know,
if you have a really good watchdog and you tell that dog to sit,
you expect that dog to stay there until you give him the next command.
Well, 2000 years ago, God gave his church the command to sit. That's the word abide. And he hasn't changed that command
yet. Now, faithful dogs will remain
sitting, won't they? I remember seeing this one time
years ago, just fascinated me to no end. I don't know where
I was. I was in a city metropolitan
area and a man has such great command over his dog. I like
that. I like when people actually have
control over their dogs. I don't like when people pretend
that they have control over their dogs, but really don't. I like
it when a man can say, sit, stop, and they do exactly what he says.
I don't like it when people say stop and the dog keeps doing
whatever the dog wants to do. This man said to his dog, sit. That dog sat right away and the
man kept walking and he disappeared. It was so fascinating to me that
I stopped and I watched that dog. The dog sat there and did
not budge. You know what that's called?
Obedience. You know what? That's rooted
in faith. You know what? That's grounded
by love. It's the obedience that's rooted
in faith. That's grounded in love. That knows that it's master
is never going to tell him to do anything that would harm him.
Our Lord says, abide, abide in him. Whatever you do, abide in
him and abide in him until Jesus comes. So these are the two bookends
of what we are about to deal with now. That's not really hard
to do. Just stand still ain't that hard.
See, we got a gospel for dummies like us, don't we? Stand still
until he appears that we may have confidence and not be ashamed
before him that is coming. Now, if you know that he is righteous,
You know also that everyone that doeth righteousness is what?
Born of God. This is the premise of what John
is about to get into in chapter three. He stops with the phrase
born of God that halts him in his place. See, you and I use
the phraseology born of God, born again, born from above,
all this terminology as if it's just common nomenclature all
over the place. But I would have you to think
for a moment how profound it is for a person to actually be
born of God. How profound it is. John says,
if you know that he is righteous, then you know that everyone that
doeth righteousness is born of God. Now what gets John is the
very fact that he could even contemplate the idea of being
born of God. What blows John away is the idea
that we human beings, I'm talking you and me, I'm talking us sinful
people, I'm talking us weak people, us flawed people, can even contained
within the vocabulary of our speech, the concept of being
born of God. Now, if I gave you the assignment
to study, exegete, develop, work through, build a thesis out of
the phrase born of God, you'd have your work cut out for you.
John, who walked with Jesus for three and a half years, and at
this point has been doing ministry for over 20, 30 years now, he
hears himself, ladies and gentlemen, use the phrase, born of God. And immediately he halts. He's arrested. He's frozen. He's petrified, not in a fearful
sense. He's made to wonder. at the very
prospects that human beings like you and I could dare to be called
sons of God. That's where he is. This is what
changes chapter two to chapter three. Stay with me for a moment. When he said, behold, behold,
regard, pay attention to, Take this into the utmost consideration. John is saying you and I need
to think through this proposition, brothers and sisters. Because
you don't meet people every day that's born of God. Are you hearing
me? You don't meet people all over
planet Earth that can say they are born of God. Now, John is
just excited and elated to know that he knows something about
what it means to be born of God. But what he's not going to do
with the church right now because of the important subject matter
in chapters 3 and 4 and 5 is to overlook or quickly gloss
over the concept of being born of God. So here's what he says. Behold what manner of love God
hath bestowed upon us. Highly regard with me. Take the
moment to think this through. I want you to investigate. I want you to interrogate with
me. I want you to query. I want you to consider. I want
you to think through. I want you to peruse. I want
you to examine the manner. The manner. See the word manner?
You know, every now and then we use that term, and it has
a number of connotations. A manner often is a phrase that
we use with reference to customs, how we act. We will say with
children who behave really well that they have good what? Manners. And what we are talking about
is the way in which they conduct themselves. It becomes appealing
to us. We pay attention to it. We notice
it, right? We're watching a lot of children
and some children are not real prodigious or interesting or
worth paying attention to. Then on the other hand, other
children are, they get our notice, they gain our attention. It's
the way they carry themselves. is the way they don't act in
particular like every other child. They become distinguishable by
how they act. Now, what John is saying for
you and I to do, and we're going to take our time to gradually
unpack verse 1 tonight, is this. Brothers and sisters, I want
you to think through with me the nature and the character
and the kind and sort of the love God the Father that he has
given to us. I want you to think it through.
I don't want you to I don't want you to ever again pass over the
nature of the love of God. I don't want you to from here
on out use the term the love of God like secular people use
the term the love of God. No more make the love of God
a common thing. First and foremost, understand
the love of God as a very, very unique thing. It's a holy thing. The love of God is a holy thing.
Highly regard God's love. Because of the manner of it,
the nature of it, the quality of it, the content of it, the
character of it, the consequence of it, the benefits of it. I
want you to think with me through the love of God, because you're
going to meet all kinds of religious folk who talk about the love
of God. But I want you to be able to actually appropriately
assess and evaluate God's love. I want you to be able to tell
somebody something specific, unique, particular, deep, profound
and comprehensive about the love of God. I want you to be able
to say when somebody says, can you tell me about the love of
God? I sure can. And you begin to talk about the
love of God and you talk so extensively, you put them to sleep. Are you
make them salivate with wanting to experientially know the love
of God? You and I ought to be able to
talk about the love of God. To be able to go there with people
and open up, as it were, venues of perspectives and aspects of
the love of God that would cause people to think, is this person
lying to me? Could it be that the nature and
character of God's love is as these people are talking about?
Is it possible that God's love could encompass all this? This is what John wants us to
think through. And this is what I want us to
think through too. Because if we don't start with
John's imperative, with his call, with his beckoning, with his
warning, with his admonition to pause for a moment and think
through the manner of God's love, we're not going to be blessed
as we ought to with the rest of the chapter. Are you with
me so far? So for the next week, I want you to think about the
love of God. as being larger and more profound
and more comprehensive and more richly, richly important to you
than you ever have imagined. I want you to think through the
love of God for you as becoming the term, the phrase, the concept,
The love of God, I want you to think this through with me that
when you think about the love of God for the next several weeks,
I want you to think about the love of God as all that God could
do. All that he could do, not simply
all that he did do. But all that God could do. In
order to have a people for himself. When we talk about the love of
God, therefore, we are not merely talking about how God feels. We're not talking about a mere
emotional disposition on God. You know how this secular world
likes to talk about God in terms of a God that feels, you know,
God loves you, right? This is far, far, far from that. See, what John wants you and
I to think through is the fact that when you use the term love
with God, what you are doing is beginning to describe everything
that God has done, could do to have a people for himself. See,
so if somebody asks you about the love of God, here's what
you want to be able to do. Brother, where you want me to
start? You want me to start with creation? Do you want me to start
with God's predestinating purposes? Do you want me to start with
God's providence? How about God's patience? How about God's wisdom? How about God's understanding
and knowledge? How about God's strength? How
about God's purpose and will and determination? How about
his objectives, his goals? What about his plans? What about
his purposes? See, we got a lot of categories
to consider when we think about the love of God, a lot of categories. And might I say this with regards
to the person who is the object of God's love. If you are the
object of God's love, everything you know about God flows from
God's love. Everything that, you know, good,
bad and ugly for you is an aspect and derivative of his love. For
you, I'm talking about all the ugly stuff. I'm talking about
everything. See, because what we're talking
about is when we talk about the love of God, we are not merely
talking about what God did. We're talking about what God
had to do, what only God could do, what only God must do and
all that he did. When we talk about the love of
God, when we talk about the love of God for us, we are asking
ourselves to consider Everything that God has revealed in the
scriptures now in your outline. I just give a brief brief statement
about The manner of God's love this little phrase manner. There
is really a word that can only be translated Sort Or kind in
that in the context watch this now of wonder and Let me put
it like this if I talk about the love of God, you know what
I'm saying? His love is wonderful The love of God is wonderful
And what we mean by wonderful we're using the word wonderful
in the transcendent mythical sense in the sense in which I
Synapses are blown. Your mind goes into territory
and regions that you have never contemplated before. You know
when the Bible uses the word wonderful as a nomenclature for
the name of God? My name is wonderful. He shall
be called wonderful. What we are talking about is
the manner in which God acts being so superb, so profound,
so magnificent, so grand, So large so huge that every time
you get a glimpse of how God Moves in love towards you it
lays you low and wipes you out And until that occurs we haven't
begun to even get a slight handle on the love of God This is what
John is saying. He said, I want you guys to consider
before we go into the practical aspects of God's relationship. I want you to consider the manner
of his love, the sort and kind and the wonderful nature. Maybe I can use that to help
you begin to put a handle on it. I want you to consider the
wonderful nature of God's love and what makes it that way in
your outline, the character of love. Does everybody have an
outline? Good. The character of love. It's first personal. You see that? God's love is personal. Personal. Well, what do you mean
by personal? I mean that God's love flows
from himself. God's love flows from himself. It proceeds from God. It's not just something that
God does. You know how somebody can give
you something and you appreciate what they did, but have no connection
with who they are? Like the government can give
you something, but it does not increase your appreciation necessarily
of the government. Well, some people treat God like
a government, like an ATM machine. But what they failed to realize
is that if God is actually loving you in any way, what he is doing
is dispensing an aspect of himself to you. Are you with me? Don't
go anywhere. So when we talk about the love
of God, what we are talking about is God being personal with you. That's huge. So now when I try
to interpret what God has given me in light of the knowledge
of God's love being personal, I want to think about it as an
act of personal relationship to me. What do you mean, pastor? I believe that God gave me this
day for me personally. Y'all just get to get in on it.
That's all. But this day was given to me
by God personally as a gift where all of his benefits and blessings
and it actually serves as a precursor for tomorrow's gifts, which comes
from God too. And they lay a foundation in
the relationship that God has chosen to have with me before
the world began by which gift upon gift upon gift upon gift
of just the days which proceed from God. Since God is the beginning
and the end, and He is the Alpha and the Omega, and He is the
first and the last, and all things are made by Him, and all things
are upheld by Him, and by Him all things consist, and we all
live, move, and have our being in God. So that there's a sense
in which everything that is happening is proceeding from God. because
it's rooted in God's love for me it is God himself in the manifestation
of his providence giving it to me personal and y'all just get
to get in on this okay it's every morning when I wake up God smiles
and says this is what I want to give you my son it's personal
so the love of God when you have an accurate redemptive understanding
of the love of God you tell people Well, the love of God is personal. It means that when I contemplate
God's love, I am contemplating a one-to-one, face-to-face, position
number one relationship between me and God, where God is doing
something for me that proceeds from God, not just flows out
of his hand. It comes from his being for me. And the rest of y'all just get
to get in on it. Did I say that already? This is the way the
child of God is to think about the love of God. This is just
going to begin to help you understand the wonderment. See, every day
God blesses us with the gift of his love, which flows from
himself to us to let us know that we have every reason to
marvel and wonder in amazement at this God. Am I telling the
truth? Boy, we're jacked up, aren't
we? Here God bestows upon us undeserved blessings by giving
us the rain, and the seasons, and the days, and the nights,
and the good weather. And we accurately prayed, didn't we,
as we opened up, thanking God for how good He's been to us
today, because we weren't the ones that checked out today.
Are we didn't get into a catastrophic accident today? Are we didn't
lose our mind today? Right? We didn't lose our mind.
Are we didn't go apostate today? Right? Somebody did. Somebody
walked away from God today. But do you know the day I didn't
walk away from God? That's a gift from God. You know,
the day I thought about God a few times, it's a gift of God. The
mind that God gave me, He gave me to think about His goodness,
His mercy, His love, the extension of His self to me in just the
providential things of life. That's the purpose for which
God gives us a day. I don't know about you, but David
used to talk like this. You read the Psalms, O Lord,
our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. Who hath
made the heavens and the stars and in all the galaxies? How
wonderful, how magnificent, how glorious are you in all your
ways? This is how David thought. It
blew David away to contemplate the fact that God loved him continuously
in the unfolding of himself to David on a personal, face-to-face
level, and I'm laying a foundation so that we can appreciate where
this is going. So in your outline, the manner
of the sort of the kind, the nature, the species, the quality,
the character of God's love is first, personal. Secondly, it's
sacrificial. Sacrificial. Well, isn't it true in the Christian
concept of love that greater love hath no man than this, than
that he laid down his life for his friend. So you know what
I contemplate when I think about the love of God? I think about
the fact that God sacrificed something of himself in order
to sustain this relationship between me and him that has been
perpetuated now for 52 years on my part and eternity on his
part. God sacrificed something to sustain
this relationship. Is that okay? His love is personal.
His love is sacrificial. Sacrificial. We're going to see
that unpacked here in a moment. His love is also what? Saving. Saving. Has God saved you? He saved you
by his love. It was only the love of God.
It was only the love of God which flows from himself. by which
he determined in his own prerogative before there was anything, when
it was justified the Son and Holy Ghost in eternity past,
watch this now, to rescue you. That flowed from his love. That
flowed from his being. That flowed from his essence.
Are you hearing me? You know what God did in his
love for me? He decided to make a galaxy. that is so large that
even with the Hubble telescope and this other brand new telescope
we're getting ready to build now, we're getting ready to build
some bifocals that's so wide that they can't even carry part
of the lenses on the freeway without shutting the whole freeway
down. They're getting ready to carve out a part of a mountain
like in Arizona where they do all that crazy stuff and they're
getting ready to build a big old set of bifocals so big, bigger
than our building, bigger than our building. to shoot out into
the far regions of the galaxy so we could see as far out there
as we possibly could. How come? So we can blow our
minds. Right. No, see, we like we all
like getting high. I don't care what you say. We
all like getting high. And some people get high on knowledge. They get high on astronomy. Have
you ever met those brothers? Those are the geeks. I mean,
they just get jazzed on the possibility of having their mind blown by
the prospects of looking out into this ever-expanding galaxy. And it just wipes them out. I
mean, wipes them out. And then when they recover, they
do it again. Isn't that an addiction? God did that for me. He did that
for me. And if he loves you, he did that
for you too. Just to let you know how enormous this God who
loves you is and how there are multitudes of the things of God
and purposes of God for which you and I would spend an eternity
investigating if he gave us time to do it. It's like parents that
provide gifts for their children I'm actually talking about a
portion of our text I need to hold up, of which as you provide
for them, you know that they could never exhaust the resources
of those gifts all the days of their life. But it's not so much
about exhausting all the gifts. It's about you enjoying the process
of the unfolding of the gifts. And the greatest are the central
gift of which God gives us in his love. for us is his son. Are you hearing me? Now see,
ain't no God like that in the universe. See, John is stuck
because the born again concept, which we take so lightly, born
of God, he knows is part of the love gift that flows from God's
person that sacrificially took his son and lay him down in order
to secure my eternity. See, that's the sacrificial nature
of God's love. I haven't even penetrated the
depths of that. See, right there I'm wiped out
with that, aren't you? The idea that God would so deem that I
would be secured in a relationship with him in spite of all my wickedness
and errors and sins, to so secure his relationship with me that
he and his son would agree to terms of which only God could
accomplish to sustain that relationship. Told you this is what I'm saying.
It's not so much what God did. It was what God had to do in
order to keep me. This is the profound nature of
his love. It was not only personal, it
was sacrificial, but it's not only sacrificial, it's saving. Saving how do I know God loves
me because he saved me Did you get that Well, how you know God
loves he saved me He rescued me He delivered me He redeemed
me. He called me. He got a hold of
me. He preserved me He kept me. He changed me. He laid his hands
on me Are you hearing what I'm saying? See, this is what we're
talking about. So stay there for a moment. Very
important for you to know this. When you contemplate the love
of God, don't sell God's love out as cheap. God's love is personal. It encompasses everything that's
made, everything that's seen and everything that's unseen.
Do you know God made the angels for you if you're his elect?
Yeah, he made the angels for me. Just for me those fellas
buzz around my head all the time Watching over me because of the
unseen forces that would love to destroy me God made the angels
for me greater in power in might They are ministers Created on
the behalf of those who are heirs of salvation. They are at the
sentry and watch of Jehovah El Shaddai to protect me everywhere
I go Did you get that? See, the reason why I'm here
right now is because a legion of angels watched over me to
get me to this moment. I was God's love. You know, he
made them before the world began. They were flying around in glory
when there was no conflict, no warfare, no battle, saying, Lord,
what what are we doing? I mean, we got all this power.
Don't worry. I'm getting ready to bring my son into the world.
He going to act a fool and I need you to watch over. That's why
I made you. You got that. He made the angels to watch over
his people. He made the angels to serve the
cause of Christ and the saving of our souls. And get this, I
want you to get this last one. And this doesn't even scratch
the surface. I just, you know, eight and a half by 11 paper,
that's as far as you could go. The love of God for us is eternal.
Do you know what eternal means? Never ending. Never ending. There's a sense in which you
can say this. God has always loved me. Are you hearing me? God has always loved me. Well,
Pastor, how can you substantiate that? The top of our outline
says love is of God. Isn't that what it says? Now,
I didn't say I didn't say God is of love. I said love is of
God. I didn't even say Love is God. I said, love is of God. And when
I use that phrase, here's what I'm saying. True love proceeds
from the nature of God. And if that's true, that's a
true proposition. As first John five says, God
is what if true love proceeds from the nature of God, how long
has the nature of God been in existence for eternity? Love is an attribute and characteristic
of God. And love always has an object
upon which it terminates. You know what that means? For
all eternity, God has loved me. That blows me away. You know
what it also means? That for all eternity, God will
love me. Because his love doesn't change.
Isn't that powerful? His love is personal. His love
is sacrificial. His love is saving. His love
is eternal. Now watch this. Watch this, Saints. Just stay with me for a moment.
If I was like Einstein, I'd have one of those long boards that's
about 20, 25, and start putting up my formulas up there. Just
stay with me for a moment. He tells us to pay attention.
That's what we've been doing now for the first 20 minutes,
paying attention to the love of God, haven't we? All we're
talking about is the love that proceeds from the nature of God,
and it has manifested itself scantily in four characteristics. His person. God doesn't just
give you something without giving you himself. That's not the nature
of God. It's God's nature to give you himself. If it's going
to be in love, he's giving you himself. It's personal, it's
sacrificial, it's saving, it's eternal. And here's what John
wants you and I to start thinking through now. And that's line
number two, line number two. But I should say this before
I get into line number two of part eight. Behold, what manner
of love? The father. Do you see it? The father. See, that takes us back to verse
29. When a man or a woman is born of God, you know what that
means? God is your father. Do you get that? So John prefaces
this moment of contemplating the deep impenetrable nature
of the love of God that's personal, that's sacrificial, that's saving,
that's eternal on this essential reality. That if you say that
you are a person who has experienced the love of God, then you must
also say that God who loves you is your father. Do you get that? He's your father. Patia. It's the classical term
for padre, a Latin and a Spanish language. You break it down,
we're talking papa. Right? So when we talk about
this transcendent, immutable, unchangeable, unchangeable, glorious
being called God, making us born again, we'll be dealing with
that down the line, what it means to be born again. If, in fact,
you are the object of his love, you are destined to that. It's because God has always been
your father. So God pours his love out on
us according to 1 John 3, verse 1, in order that he might bestow. What's the next term? Senior
outline. He has bestowed. You guys see
that? It's not one of those English terms. When was the last time
you used the word bestowed? Except for when you were trying
to be religious. You know how religious folk love to use the
King James language? Bestowed. When was the last time
you said, honey, I want to bestow something on you. Man, I got
something I want to bestow on you. We don't use that language anymore.
John uses a word here that I want us to contemplate now. And it
actually serves as the major verb, the major verb in this
portion of the text. Now, let me say this, and I think
you already know this, but affirm this with me. Affirm this with
me. Love is a verb. Affirm that with me now. Love
is a verb. I mean, you know, I know some
of us name our children love. But love is a verb. This is why
I tell people, when you talk about saying that God loves you,
what you're doing is talking about what God does for you. Are you hearing me? Not just
how he feels. You know, a feeling is not a
verb. A feeling is a disposition. It's
an attitude. It's a frame of mind. It's a
thought, it's a contemplation. Maybe pleasurable, maybe not.
You know, a person can feel angry with you, have nothing to do
with love. If God loves you, that means God is acting, right? For God to love is for God to
act. All love is a verb. And so the verb form in which
we are contemplating it now is bestowed upon us. So John says, consider and probe
into, investigate, analyze, critique, be blown away by, be exhausted
over, be dismantled, unfrazzled, come apart over the character,
nature, sort of the love of the Father and the fact that he hath
bestowed upon us. Now, what's important about this
term, he hath bestowed upon us, is that if you were to read it
in the original language, it would say something like this.
God has laid upon us. He has placed upon us. He has
granted us. He has given us. He has appointed
us. He has gifted us. He has qualified
us. He has empowered us. He has lavished
on us completely in such a way that he couldn't do any more
than what he did. That's the way that verb form
would be used. When John says, behold what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, He wants you to understand
that God has acted fully and completely and perfectly in love
towards you. You guys got that? So all I need
to do now is think through what that act constitutes. Knowing this, God cannot act
anymore than he did when he bestowed. The word bestowed there is a
Greek word, didoken, which has as its roots the word dunate,
from which we get the term to empower. Dynamite is the word
we have. And it's generally given in the
context of what we call the power of the gospel. But dunate is
also a verb that underscores the impartation of authority. the impartation of privileges,
the impartation of rights, the endowment of gifts. In fact, a very good way to translate
this word is this way. God has loved me in this manner. He has endowed me. He has endowed
me. and He has endowed me so fully
that there is nothing else to endow me with. I am completely
and perfectly endowed by God. I am completely and totally and
thoroughly and completely and perfectly, sufficiently, adequately,
without room for any other kind of bestowment, furnished by God. Are you with me so far? I'm just
going to mess with your mind today on this part of the verse.
I want you to think this through. If what I have said in terms
of the emphasis of the verb form, that if somebody were to watch
God come to your house with a big old truck full of gifts, what
they would watch happen is God unload on you. Just unload, unload,
unload. Unload unload and and they would
have to back up because the unloading would clear out all their space
They thought they could watch it from a distance But what they
didn't realize is that the truck had eternal gifts in them that
moved the person way down the street until he ultimately have
to disappear himself and Now he gets to contemplate the fact
that God is unloaded on you, but there's no room for him in
the process because that's how pervasive the unloading is. And once God stopped, the truck
drove off and there was nothing else for God to give. That's
what the text means. Now, if it's true that God has
perfectly and fully endowed us, granted us, given us, bestowed
upon us, laid upon us, appointed us, established us, gifted us
with everything. The only thing that's required
now is the discovery process of what we have. Are you following
me? Mother banks, ain't that what
we've been saying in prayer for the longest? I wish my people
would understand what they got at Calvary. I'm talking about
what God did one time. So child of God, don't wake up
with the funky attitude that we have when we look at this
silly world with all of his problems and ask the question, does God
love me? You know how we do. Really what
you are doing is failing to realize that all you need to do is remember
that you have been endowed and go find one of those gifts with
which you have been endowed and open that thing up and see what
that gift is adequate for that need. Are you hearing what I'm
saying? See, this is called a love relationship
between a husband and a wife. I'm going to talk about this
on Sunday when it comes to being members of his body. One of the
defaults and fraudulent nature of the relationship between the
husband and the wife is that the husband and the wife, when
they come together in holy matrimony, assume things without working
through the process of discovery. Both persons come to the relationship
with gifts. Are you hearing me? But what
often occurs is we fail to unpack the gifts so that we can enjoy
the bestowment that was bestowed upon us in the relationship.
And we get frazzled and we get attitudes and we get all disjointed
at our spouse when we ain't even unpacked all the gifts that comes
with that spouse. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And then we want to throw the whole thing away, failing to
realize that there are enormous gifts that come with that spouse. See, now that's your fault. That's
not God's fault, that's your fault. Because you know what
God has said? He has given us everything necessary
for life and godliness through a knowledge of Christ. Everything. Now he's already told us, he
has given us in the perfect tense, everything. It's my job to discover
what that everything is. Isn't that right? That's my job
to discover. It's my job to unpack. It's my
job to investigate. It's my job to explore. It's
my job to unravel. It's my job to discover, to know,
to penetrate into the depths of what God gave us. Now, I'm
not going to stay there. All I want you to know is with
that statement, he hath bestowed upon us fully and finally, it's
in what we call the perfect tense, Perfect tense is when an act
is committed It's committed and once it's committed it's done
There's no insufficiency. No inadequacy. Nothing left.
It's all done God hath bestowed upon us His love Now the next question we want
to ask is why This is the thing that blows John away. Now you,
who are a child of God, I'm just going to tell you, you spend
the rest of your time plumbing the depths of the gifts. Ask
your father to help you discover the gifts. And then ask him to
give you grace to unpack the gifts. And then ask him to give
you further grace to apply the gifts. And then ask him to give
you further grace to bless him when you apply the gifts. Are
you hearing what I'm saying? Because that's what the gifts
are for. His glory. Your good. His glory. Now, remember now, he has said,
I have given them everything necessary for life in godliness. But he also said through a knowledge
of him. That means if you lazy, you'll
do like a lot of people who have inherited everything. You'll
die broke. And somebody else will get your
gifts. No, I'm kidding. That won't happen. But my point
is this. What the text says is our problem
is the lack of knowledge. A lack of knowledge that impedes
our capacity to pursue God deep enough to know what God has given
us. And I know this is true. I know
that I know that you and I have a we are impotent when it comes
to pursuing God. Isn't that right? We even know
intuitively God has, He's bestowed upon me so many riches, so many
blessings, so many resources, an endowment that I can't even,
but I haven't even begun to plumb into it. Now what you need to
do, and I'm getting ready to get into my last point before
I open the floor for questions and close. What you need to do
is ask God in prayer to give you grace to penetrate into the
depths of the blessings of God that He has given you. You have
to do that. Because if you don't do it, you
will fail to glorify God for which He gave you those gifts.
Are you hearing me? Now watch what John said was
the ultimate purpose for which the Father Bestowed upon us in
an act of perfect endowment Full sufficiency and adequacy
giving and granting and placing and positioning and appointing
us everything necessary Notice what it says for he hath bestowed
upon us this manner of love that the father hath bestowed upon
us and You see that little word, that? Do y'all see that? That. It's a clause in the Greek. I want you to appreciate that.
Generally, the way this little clause is used, it's a hint of
clause, it's used as a purpose clause. Stay with me for a moment. It's generally preceded by the
little term, in order, that. Are you following me? Now watch
how the language speaks. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us in order that we should be called
the sons of God. Are you there? He's bestowed upon us His love
in order that He might call us sons of God. Stay with me now, because what
John has just revealed is the purpose for which I have developed
this whole message. Why did you do what you did in
order for me to call you My son. Are you with me so far? Stay
with me now. So then how does a person become
a son of God? He becomes a son of God when
God bestows upon him the fullness and sufficiency of his love to
appoint, to give, to grant, to bestow, endow everything necessary
Watch this. For God to be able to claim you
as His Son. Are you hearing me? To claim
us as His Son. Now why this is evading us is
because this part that I have just shared with you is not about
you. It's about God. What I've just
stated is the purpose of God. God did all that in order that
he might say, that's my son. Got it? That's my boy. See him? That's my boy. That's my son. He did all that just to be able
to say, that's my son. Huge. Huge. You know how when the only begotten
son of God, that Mono Gnaeus, that unique, particular, exclusive
son of God came into the world and God was so happy, the father
was so happy when he came into the world, he split the heavens
twice. Remember that? And in baptism,
When Jesus manifested his glory, that's where we're going. I'm
not gonna unpack that now, but that's verse 2 When Jesus came
up out of the water the heavens opened up and hey That's my boy
right there him. That's mine And this is exactly
what John is saying You need to deeply think through God's
enormous transcendent unending ineffable love to you, having
bestowed upon you everything for this one purpose, that he
might call you his son. Are you hearing me? In order
that God may be your father. That's what this is about. So
I want you to mark with me just one more thing tonight. God did all that He did in order
that you might be called the Son of God. Did you get that? That you might be called the
Son of God. Look at the text. Behold what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon... Who? Us! That in order that The purpose
for that, we should be, what's the word? Called. Stay right
there. It's in your outline. There are
two Greek terms that dominate the New Testament around the
word called. One of those Greek words is the
Greek word kleises. And it has to do with the beckon,
the summons, the decree, the call. He called us out of darkness
into his marvelous light. God called the disciples and
they followed him. The gospel is a call. The hour
is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of
the son of God and they that hear shall what? Come. God called
you by his grace. He said, Lazarus, right? Now God did all that he did in
the first two parts of verse one in order to call you. Are
you hearing me? He called you as the good shepherd
in John chapter 10. The good shepherd calleth his
sheep and they follow him. They hear his voice and they
follow him. Are you hearing me? Listen, now
watch this. This is profound. God did all that we talked about
in order to call you. Do you remember when God called
you? Do you know what it took for
God to call you? Everything that we read in verse
1 part A and B. Did you get that? In order for
God to call you, he had to bestow his love upon you personally,
sacrificially, savingly, and eternally. So that when he called
you, you could hear him. Had God not done all that he
did, he would have called you and it would have been like this. And you'd have went to hell.
Because in God's bestowment, in the endowment, in the gifting,
having loved you with himself, in the sacrifice of his son,
in a saving way, eternally, he was able to give you ears, ears
to hear his voice. Did you hear that? And he also
gave you a mind to be able to respond to his voice. When he
called, are you hearing me? God did all he did. So when he
called you, he could call you. Are you ready by name? That's our term. Kaleo. Kaleo. Now follow this. He bestowed
his love and the outpouring of himself personally, sacrificially,
savingly, eternally. in the most perfect way, most
magnanimous way, in order that he could say to you, you are
my son. You are my daughter. You are
my child. Are you ready? Hey, that one,
that one's mine. Did you get that? That was mine.
Now this is crazy because what John is saying is this was God's
Pleasure Are you hearing me? It was just pleasure It was God's
pleasure. Go with me in your Bible to Romans
chapter 8. I just want to read one verse
We'll come back and we'll play with this a little bit more next
week. I just want you to think about this You remember the time
when you weren't hearing God's voice? Our pastor I was always
hearing God's voice. No, you weren't you were hearing
the law and you were hearing the devil and you were hearing
conscience and and you were hearing Bible verses, but you weren't
hearing God's voice. So long as you were going that
way, you weren't hearing God's voice. Because see, the call
that we are talking about is a call of adoption. It's a call of ownership. It's
a call of purchase and possession with the purpose of designating
you as his. See, in the marketplace of the
Roman Empire, they had very much like what goes on in our present
generation. You know what that is? Orphans everywhere. Orphans everywhere. People like
to say that we're getting more civilized. No, we're not. We're
getting more barbaric. We're regressing instead of progressing. We're having more aborted babies,
more orphaned babies, more abandoned children every day. In the Roman
Empire, they used to be abandoned all over the place. And because
they weren't cared for very frequently, the kids were left to die. But
sometimes you have some very benevolent and altruistic people
who would gather them up into orphanages, filthy places. And from time to time, someone
cared about one of the children enough to look upon him and go
to the courts and go through all of the legal process of adopting
that child. Are you hearing me? Now follow
it now. The child is in the orphanage
fighting like hell just to survive. Because in the orphanage, it's
dog eat dog. I ain't nothing but a cage. You know, it's not
like a whole lot of love going on. I mean, I guess it's better,
you know, hustling for your meal with thugs than being by yourself. But you know, you get tired of
them too, don't you? But the deep, profound pain that's in
your heart from not having someone own you or love you has you feeling
less than human. Because you're just struggling
every day. Am I telling the truth? Now watch this. But what you
don't know is that somebody passed by a month ago and looked at
you and went to the courts and went through all of the due process
to purchase you. And they successfully paid the
price to make you their child. Guess what? When they paid the
courts the money, filled out all the paperwork, met all of
the requirements necessary to adopt you, and the court stamped
the papers with the approval of adoption, you were adopted.
Only you didn't know it. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And the person who set his eyes on you looked for the day when
he could come to you and call you by your name and say to you, hey, I'm your
father. Come on, you go with me. Do you
understand what kind of day that is for that boy? That was the
day of revelation. That was a day of revelation. For you and me, that's the day
when the gospel comes in power and God reveals himself to us
as a redeeming father. The day before that, you and
I was wrestling to survive. In our own mind, we were orphans.
In our own mind, we were just battling with the rest of the
thugs in the street. But God had purchased you long
ago with every intent to call you by name. What a day that
was. What a day that was. Listen to
it. Romans chapter 8, verse 28 through
30. And we know that all things,
how many things? All things work together for
good to them that what? Ah, stop now. You see what he
does? He qualifies the outworking of
every evil thing, every bad thing, every wicked thing, every difficult
thing, every mysterious thing, every complex thing, all of the
stuff that goes on that wants to blow our mind. He qualifies
that by saying it all works together for good to those who have come
to love God. Did you get that? In other words,
we can't claim the outworking of all the evil that went on
the day before he called me as being good until I experienced
the love of God that he bestows upon me by which I love him back.
Are you hearing me? See, if I love him back, I can
say it all worked together for good. Are you hearing what I'm
saying? See, now watch this now. This
is what I'm saying. If you understand what he did,
When he bestowed his love upon you you can look back at all
that bad stuff In love for God and say it all worked for good
Man didn't didn't you weren't you tired of that that that orphanage?
Yeah, but I'll tell you what it worked for good Could God
had me stuck in that one place all that time. I was you know
what I was thinking about making a run for it But I got stuck
until my father came and set his eyes upon me and purchased
me. Yeah, it worked for good. All
the pain and all the trouble and all the difficulty. Yeah,
it worked for good. All of the hurt and all of the
suffering. Yeah, it worked for good. I'll
tell you why. Cause now I'm his son. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Yeah, it worked for good. I mean, it was bad in itself
and I was complaining. But now that I've experienced
sonship, it worked for good. It worked for good. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? It worked for good. Listen to
the text. It worked for good to them that love God, to them
that are the what call. Do you see it? According to his
purpose. Now, what was God's purpose when
he called you simply to call you his son? That's crazy. God gave everything to call you
his son. That's huge. Isn't that huge? God did all that to call you
his son just so he could say, it's my son. It's my daughter. It's my child. You and I know to be called a
son or a daughter or a child of God. Huge in itself. Huge in itself. And to the degree that I can
get a handle on the largeness of the God who saved me and the
magnificence and magnanimous nature of the bestowment that
he endowed me with, To that degree, I can begin to get a handle on
this thing of me being his son. So it's incumbent upon me not
to, watch this now, belittle my sonship or his fatherhood
or his love because it's huge. It's huge. All the rest of my
days, my job is to discover What he did when he backed that truck
up and unloaded on me all of the gifts and blessings and grants
that constituted my sonship. That's my job. That's my job. And you know what else is beautiful
about this concept? Listen to me. I didn't do anything
to earn it. I didn't even know about it.
I was busy acting a fool, being the fool that I was, the sinful
creature that I was, the ungodly man that I was, while God was
purposing to call me his son. All I know is one day, 32 years
ago, I heard his voice. You know what I'm talking about?
I heard his voice when he spoke to me, when he spoke to me, when
he spoke to me in my darkness. He said, hey, Jesse, you're my
son. You got that. Now listen to it. He called me according to his
purpose for, purpose clause, whom he did foreknow. Told you,
he created the whole universe for me. He also did predestinate. You see that? That means he had
a plan that I should be conformed to
the image of his son. Do you see that? See that phrase?
That's the same thing as him being able to, because it was
his purpose, to call me his son. Remember? His love was bestowed
upon me in order that he might call me his what? And in order
for him to call me his son, he had to make it possible for me
to be made in his image. I mean, I can't be a son if I
don't look like him. See what I'm getting at? That's
what he did for me. Now watch it. That he might be the first born
among many brethren, Moreover whom he did predestinate who
was the predestinated ones me You if you believe watch this
them he also what? called and Whom he what? That word right there is the
word that translates name Those he called those he named
those he called and are those he named. Those God calls are
those that God names. Now when you name something,
you are owning that thing. When you name something, you
are identifying that thing. When you name something, you
are purposing that thing. What a God, not only to call
me, but to name me. See, the fact that he has named
us sons of God puts us in a position by which now we could be something
that we could never be apart from him calling us and naming
us. Are you hearing what I'm saying
now? Now you got to get a handle on this. I'm just cracking the
shell. You got to get a handle on what
it means to be a son of God. That's your job. It's your job
to investigate and explore your inheritance, your rights, your
privileges, your responsibilities, your blessings, your grants.
It's your job. Now that he has called you and
now that he has named you, it's your job. And we'll come back
and unpack that a little bit more. It's late. Let's stand
for prayer. Father, we do thank you for this
Friday study. My brothers and sisters are tired
and weary, but just like you told your disciples, the spirit
is willing, but the flesh is weak. We thank you for your word.
It penetrates anyway. takes us to places we could never
go, gives us revelations that we could never contemplate, gives
us hopes and purposes and strengthens our soul and encourages us in
a way that nothing else could. What wondrous love of this. Oh,
my soul. Oh, my soul. What wondrous love
of this. Oh, my soul. May we always marvel
at your goodness and your grace to us as we go our way. Give
us traveling mercies. May the quietness of our retirement
tonight be such that we sleep sweet and soundly and be prepared
to worship you on Sunday as you are worthy to be worshiped. You
who are called our father and we who are called your sons in
Jesus name. Amen. God bless you.