1 John chapter 3. And let me read
to you the first three verses. 1 John chapter 3. If you have
a pew Bible, you'll find it on page 1329. Verse 1. Behold. Consider this. Think about this. Let this catch
your attention. Behold. Behold the Lamb of God. that taketh away the sin of the
world." What an important statement that was! Behold! Look! Get a glimpse of this. Let this
capture your attention. 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. And every man that
hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."
Well, we've heard a lot about hope, haven't we? Here we're
seeing it again. But here is what I want you to
think about with me for a few minutes, this little statement
that's made here in verse 2 of our text. Now are we the sons
of God. I think if we consider some of
the statements made in these verses here, they're so wonderful. They're just absolutely so amazing
that we can't comprehend them. We can't grasp them hardly at
all. I find myself just believing
them. And this is one of those statements. Now are we the sons of God. And the reason that's so astounding
to me, if you and I will consider who God is. He's not the God,
and I don't want to be negative, You and I know, brothers and
sisters, that He's not the God being represented to us by this
modern generation. He's not a little God that is
seated in heaven and sometimes praying and sometimes hoping
that things are going to turn out okay, that He set things
in motion at best and now He's left it up to man. This is not
God, is it? The God that we read about in
this Bible is the supreme, eternal being. We read of Him that He is from
everlasting to everlasting. He has no beginning of time and
no end of time. He is the eternal, everlasting
God. God is the Spirit. He is an eternal,
holy, sovereign, infinite, boundless, without any limit, Spirit. He says that I fill heaven and
I fill earth. He fills all space. There is no place that He is
not. And He fills all time. He fills
the eternities. He's amazing, isn't He? We could
try our best to describe Him, and those who can describe Him
best, and when we go to these verses in the Scripture where
God is set forth, and we study Him, yet we have to conclude
that so little is known of Him. Paul said, Oh, the depths. of
the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable
are His judgments and His ways they are past finding out. Oh, who can describe God in His
perfection, in His eternal Perfection. None of us can do it. He's beyond
us, is He not? And who would want a God? How
could we worship a God that we could grasp the fullness of His
eternal being? That's why we stand in awe of
Him, isn't it? We are the sons of God, of God. And then when you consider we,
When you compare us to God, who are we compared to God? If God cannot be known because
of His eternal and holy being, you and I cannot be known because
of the depths of our ruin and depravity. We are mystery too,
aren't we? But in a completely opposite
way. It can be said of us, oh, the
depths both of our sin and our depravity. How unsearchable is
our dark hearts and the paths that we have strayed in our past
finding out. And you know we have a Scripture
to prove that, don't we? The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can search
the darkness of our hearts, the sinfulness and depravity of our
hearts? Just as we cannot comprehend
the knowledge of the heights of God's eternal and holy being,
neither can we comprehend the knowledge of our ruin and depravity. Isn't this amazing then, that
He says, we are the sons of God? You say, yes, Bruce, but a believer
is not a sinner anymore. Now listen, John said if we say,
if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Have you found
yourself getting better? Have you found yourself to get
beyond the knowledge of your sinfulness? Is it not working
in you now more than ever? Oh, I hope we've all come to
trust the Lord better. I hope we all come to love Him
more and follow Him closer. But is any of us, in and of ourselves,
getting any better? This is a faithful saying that
Jesus Christ come into the world to save sinners of whom I am
chief. I am chief of sinners and yet
I am a child of God. Oh my goodness, what a statement
this is. When we look at this little word
now, we have to consider it in two ways. The first way, we consider
it in its present. And this is a wonderful thing.
At this very instant, John said, you are the children of God. At this very instant. And don't
this remind us of our very present dignity? There is a dignity about
you if you're a child of God. There's honor, there's nobleness,
there's elevation. Look how high you've been elevated. Right now you are a child of
the living God. What if you could be a child
of the richest man in the history of this world? That would be something, wouldn't
it? And what if your father was not
only the richest man in the history of this world, but what if he
was a noble person? What if he was an honorable person?
And everybody knew him to be so. He was a good man. Boy, and you, his son, wouldn't
that put some dignity upon you? But there is no such person.
There is no such father as that. But you're the children of God.
Look at the dignity placed upon you because you are at present
a child of God. Now are you the children of God. Isn't that wonderful just to
think about? I can't explain it. I can't explain it. It's just something that you
have to see by faith and grasp in your heart. A child of God. Now are we the sons of God. You're here this morning, and
you're sitting here under the sound of my voice, and you're
a child of God. Ain't that amazing? You'll leave
here, and you'll go to your homes, and you'll sit on your couch,
or you'll do something around the house, and you'll get up
in the morning, and you'll go about your work, and all the
time, you are a child of God. Right now. It's not that you're
going to be. Right now, you are a child of
God. You know one of the reasons you
and I live such low lives, and we don't have any more joy than
we have, and we don't live in this believing amazement any
more than we do? We just can't hardly believe
this. We can't grasp this, who our Father is. God is our Father. Now we are the sons of God. And we're allowed to live in
the reality of this, aren't we not? We sure are. We're told that the Holy Spirit
is so willing that we should live in the reality of this that
He Himself bears witness to that relationship. Now we are the
children of God, and does the Spirit bear witness to that?
He does, doesn't He? The Spirit bears witness to our
spirit that we are the children of God. It's real, brothers and
sisters. This is no myth. This is not
a fairy tale. We are the children of God. God
Himself has given the promise of it. Listen to 2 Corinthians
6.18. I will be a father unto you,
And you shall be my sons and my daughters, saith the Lord
God Almighty." He knows who He is. He's the Lord Almighty. And He's not ashamed to call
us His sons and His daughters. I will call you my sons and my
daughters, saith the Lord. And I tell you how further real
this is. You remember when the Lord Jesus
rose from the dead and He was ready to ascend back to heaven?
And those ladies were there holding His feet and worshiping Him? And He said, you go tell My disciples
that I ascend unto My Father and your Father, to My God and
your God. The Father is no more a Father
of Jesus Christ than He is to His earthly children. He is as
much a father to His earthly children as He is to His eternal
Son. And you know what the Scripture
says? This is what the Lord says, And
thou hast loved them as thou hast loved Me. No wonder He makes
this statement here, Behold. Behold. Stop and thinketh on
this and listen to this. But this word now implies something
else, doesn't it? It implies that we've not always
been sons of God. Now we're sons of God. But there
was a time in your past that you were not a child of God. Somebody said, when I was born
a baby, I was born a child of God. No. No. Here's what the Lord Jesus said
to the Jews. You remember this in John chapter
8? He said, You are of your father the devil, and the lust of your
father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning
and a bold man in the truth. Now He wasn't saying Satan can
beget children. But He was saying you bear such
an image of Him. You act like Him. You hate God
as He does. You're going to murder me. That's
what he wants to do. You resemble your Satan so much
that he could be called your father. They weren't children of God,
were they? And you remember what the Scripture says about us Gentiles? We're no better off by nature
of it. In Ephesians chapter 2, what does it say about us? You're
children of wrath by nature. When you and I are born into
this world, we're not children of God. Now, we're God's offspring,
aren't we? God gives us natural life. Our
mothers conceived us because God gave life in the womb. He's the God of natural life.
We're all His offsprings. But you have to be born again
to be a child of God. And that's what we're not by
our nature. Adam back there in the garden,
he was called the Son of God. Luke chapter 3, you trace the
lineage back to Adam, and Adam was the Son of God. And you know he had the right
to call God his Father, didn't he? Because he was created the
Son of God. That's why they had such sweet
communion one with another. But you know he lost that right.
When he sinned, he lost the right to address God as his Father. And I'll tell you something else
he lost. He lost that childlike spirit. He died spiritually. He had no right to address God
as his Father anymore. And he had no spirit of a child
to do it. But you know, those two things
have been restored to us. These two things. Now we have
a right to call God our Father. Listen to John chapter 1 where
he was talking about all who received Him. To them gave He
the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on His name, which were born, not of blood, not of the will
of the flesh, not of man, but born of God. Those who are born
of God now have the right to say God is my Father. He's my
Father. That right has been restored
through Jesus Christ our Lord. And I'll tell you something else
that's been restored. The Spirit of a son. The Spirit
of a child. Because you are sons, God has
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts. And what do you say? My Father! My Father! Have you ever gotten
down on your knees and you didn't even have words to pray? Maybe
you were sorely tempted, you tried, you were so heavy, and
it seemed like heaven itself was shut up against you, but
you said this, My Father! My Father! My Father! God is your Father! He has begotten
you by His Spirit, through His Gospel. By the Word of Truth,
He's regenerated you. And now you are a child of God. Something you weren't before.
In the place where it was said of them, you are not my sons. You are not my people. Now shall
they be called the children of the living God. And every one
of us here this morning that can rightfully say, God is my
Father, and have Him to bear witness to it, we can go back
just a few years back there in our life and say, I wasn't a
child of God then. Oh, but He saved me. He saved
me. He made me. He put me among the
children. That's what the prophet said.
He put me among the children. Now are we the sons of God. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that
a wonderful thought? Leave here this evening and try
to grasp better this dignity of what it is to be a child of
God. Live in the knowledge and the
faith of that child of God. Another statement here that's
wonderful is found here in verse 1 of our text of John chapter
3. What manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of
God. This statement here attributes
our sonship to the love of God in Christ, doesn't it? What manner of love? It's love
that called us to be sons. It's love that made us God's
son. Then what a wonderful thing this
love is. Behold, what manner of love is
this, though? It passeth knowledge, doesn't
it? Just like being a son of God, this love that made us sons,
it passeth knowledge. Paul said there was a hath to
it. and a depth to it, and a length
to it, and a breadth to it that passeth knowledge. Those who
know most of the love of Christ say this, it passeth knowledge.
I can't grasp it, it's too deep, it's too high, it's too wide,
it's too long. But let me try just for a minute
then to consider this love and the manner of it. And first of
all, think of this, it's free love. I remember when that first
came in through the hippies back in the 60s. Remember the hippies
come in, free love? We all remember that. Well, not
all of us, but some of the older ones remember that one. Free
love. Free love. Bless our hearts. We had no idea what we were talking
about, did we? Free love. But you know the Scripture talks
about free love? Listen to Hosea chapter 14 and
verse 4. I will heal their backsliding,
saith the Lord. I will love them freely. I will love them freely. And
that word freely has a wonderful meaning. It means without obligation,
without constraint, without being compelled, freely, freely. You and I have a strange sense
of the definition and nature of love. If somebody does us
wrong, We think, well, we've got to love them. We're children of God and we
should have character about us. We've got to love them. We've
got to love them. We've just got to do it. We feel obligated,
don't we? We do a lot of loving out of
obligation. But you know, that's not true
love, is it? That's not the way God loves.
He loves freely without being obligated to. M.G. Pierce said this. The love
of God does not proceed from any need in the divine nature. I will love them because I will
love them. I will love them because. Not
out of any obligation, not out of any need on His part. I love
them because I love them. Neither is God moved to love
us Because of our desperate need, our need draws out His love.
But our need is not the cause of His loving us. His love supplies our need. It supplied us a Savior to redeem
us. But He loved us before we even
fell and had a need. And look at all the people that's
perishing, brothers and sisters, that's got the same need that
you had. They never knew it, but they
had the same need that you had. And He never delivered them,
did He? We're talking about a special
love here, aren't we? We're talking about a peculiar,
everlasting covenant love. What manner of love! What's the
nature of this love? What kind of love is it that
would make you a hell-deserving sinner, a child of the King? What manner of love is this? Without any obligation, without
any constraints to love you, what manner of love? Think of this, about this love,
and this is wonderful. It's a righteous love. M. G. Pierce made also this statement. He said, God's love may yearn
to deliver and restore us, but one thing it cannot do, it cannot
pass by our sins. It can never look lightly upon
that. And he said this, and who could
trust such love if he did? If there was a love that says,
I love them, irrespectable, irrespective of their sins. That cannot be, can it? This
is a righteous love. Then how can He love us? He has
provided a way that this love can flow to us and meet our need
as poor sinners without approving of our sins. Look at chapter 3 and verse 16.
1 John chapter 3 and look in verse 16. Hereby perceive we the love of
God. Hereby we understand it. We grasp
it. Hereby perceive we the love of
God because He laid down His life for us. Now look at chapter
4 and look in verse 9. And this was manifested, the
love of God towards us. Because that God sent His only
begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein
is love. Not that we love God, but that
He loved us, and look at this, and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. See what He did? He atoned for
our sins. Christ was punished for our sins.
He put away our sins with the sacrifice of Himself. Now this
love can flow freely to us without God compromising that love and
without approving of our sins. This is why the Bible says the
love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. It can never
be known apart from Christ. The love of God can never be
grasped. It is never revealed by the Holy Spirit except it's
revealed through Christ the Savior. Couldn't we say this, and I think
this would be Scripture, that God cannot love us in this covenant
love except He loves us through Christ. It's in Christ, isn't
it? It's all in Him. God has nothing
for us outside of His Son. Not even His love. Not even His
love. It's known. What manner of fruit
is this? It's known. What manner of love
is this? It's known by its fruit, isn't
it? It's known by its fruit. How
do I know that I'm an object of this love? You can know that
you're an object of this love because it's never dormant. It works upon the objects of
this love. What has the love of God did
for us? What's it did for me? How can I know it? It's made
me a child of God. It's called me out of my sins. It's given me the life of Christ
in my heart. It's washed me from my iniquities. He loved us and washed us from
our sins. Do you love Jesus Christ this
morning? I mean, do you really love Him?
I know that's sometimes hard to answer, isn't it? Because
it's such a serious question. But do you love Him? Isn't that
the fruit of Him loving you first? We love Him because... And a man that says, well, I'm
not saved. I don't know the Lord. I don't
live for Him. I'm not His son in the sense
that you're talking about Him. Listen, don't be presumptuous
as to go around saying, but I believe God loves me. I believe God loves me. This
love is known by His actions toward you. I have loved you
with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn you to Myself." See that? See that? What manner of love is this?
It is known by its fruits. And think of this about this
love. What manner of love is it? It is a love that has no
beginning and has no ending. God is love. He cannot begin
to love. He is love. And having loved,
he'll never cease to love. You're here this morning and
God has given you the assurance in Christ that He loves you,
then He'll never cease to love you. You may have times that
you doubt it. You may have times that you get
on these long, dark valleys, you'll wonder, does He really
love me? When you're tried sore, does He love me? Yes, He loves
you. We look at this love and there's
no such thing as God loving us yesterday and ceasing to love
us today. He loves everlasting, doesn't
He? Everlasting, He loves us. More
secure is no one ever than the loved ones of the Savior. Not yon star on high abiding,
nor the bird in home nest hiding. What He takes or what He gives
us shows the Father's love so precious. We may trust His purpose
wholly, tis His children's welfare solely. He'll never cease to
love His children. Never cease to love His children.
He don't have the kind of love that these people have out west in New York
City. Oh, you see these movie stars
marrying one another, and oh, they love each other with all
their hearts. And six months later, they're divorced, hating
each other. And you know what they always say? Oh, I still
love her. I still love her. I just can't
stand her. I can't stand to be around her.
I want a divorce. I've got somebody else, but I
love her. God's love is not that way, is it? Oh, what manner of
love. that He has made us sons of God. And quickly, quickly, notice
something else. Secondly, notice this about this. Notice something else about our
being sons of God. And He tells us here in verse
1, though we're called sons of God, the world doeth not know
us. Ain't that what He said in chapter
3 and verse 1? 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." The world does not discern
our sonship. You know, even our friends. What
did your friends say about you when the Lord saved you? I tell
you what most people say about their friends when the Lord saves
them. Well, he got religion. Whatever happened to old Greg,
he got religion. He'll be back pretty soon. He
got in church. Why do they say things like that?
Because they don't know what happened. They don't know what
the Lord has done for Greg in his heart. You can't see it.
It's spiritualism. It's within. They can't see the
righteousness. that God has clothed Greg in. They can't see that. The King's
daughter is all glorious. You ever read that verse? Psalms
45. But where is that glorious? Within. Within. He's clothed me with the garments
of salvation. He's put on the robe of His righteousness. But where's that at? It's within,
isn't it? The world can't see that. I was talking with David Pledger. He's Cody's father-in-law, Winna's
dad. And I was talking to him Saturday.
And he would just tell, bless his heart, if you don't know
David Pledger, he has the best character of any man that I know
in my life. Just the type of guy he is. And
then him sit on the phone and he wept. He'd have to stop talking
to me. He'd weep and weep and weep.
And he said that when Cody died and she took him over to the
funeral home, she took his best suit and put it on him because
she knew he was going to be sending him back to the United States,
back to the States to be buried there in Houston. But they had
a service for him there in the church he pastored there in Mérida. And she said when those Mexicans
came around, the pastors and the people there that he pastored,
the first time they ever saw him in a suit. And David said
they were just gawking on him and said, Oh, how handsome he
is! How eloquent he is! And then one of them said, That's
nothing compared to the dress of the righteousness of Jesus
Christ. Isn't that wonderful? But the
world can't see that, can they? Because it's all glorious within. The world cannot discern the
comforts we have and the peace that we have because it's in
our minds. Sometimes the child of God, you
can look at Him and you can tell He is so birthed. But in His
heart, He is so peaceful. Be anxious for nothing, but in
everything, by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known
to God, and the peace of God, which passeth all knowledge,
shall keep your hearts and your mind." Peace. Peace. The world cannot see that because
it is enjoyed within your heart and your mind. Thirdly, the world
cannot see this about our relationship with the Father. That every child
of God has this sweet and unseen providence that guides him. The steps of a good man are ordered
of the Lord. And though he fall, he'll not
be utterly cast down. The Lord upholds him. Didn't
Brother David preach last week on Romans 8.28? Did some of you
rascals that didn't tape that tell me that, that he preached
on that? I'll have to take your word for it. Didn't he preach
on Romans 8.28? All things work for good to them
that love God. Isn't that a secret providence?
God in them? It guides them secretly. The
world does not know that. They think you are getting by
just like they are, just haphazard by the seat of your pants. No,
we are not. There is a secret providence
guiding us. Listen to this verse. Thou shalt
hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of men. Thou shalt keep them secretly
in a pavilion from the strife of tongue." Thou shalt keep them,
guide them, uphold them, direct them. Who's doing all of this?
Their Father. But He's doing it so secretly
the world can't see it, you see. They know us not. The world cannot discern. our
relationship to God because that life itself is hid. It's hid. Colossians 3, you are
dead and your life is hid with Christ in God when Christ who
is our life shall appear. The world can't see that life,
can they? And our sonship is veiled behind
flesh. The world sees these bodies,
and that's all they can see. The life that I now live in the
flesh, and that's all the world can see. It can't see that life
that's going on within, the life I live by faith. This relationship
with God as our Father is hid behind persecutions and reproaches. Marvel not, my brethren, if the
world hate you. You know what Paul said about
his life. He said, the Spirit witnesses
that in every city bonds and afflictions abide me. I tell
you, if there's anybody this world should have loved, it's
those apostles and those preachers of the early church. What harm
did they do people? They had the gifts of God, and
they went about giving it to everybody, preaching life. And
how were they treated? Paul said, they about beat me
to death. They stoned me, put me in prison, and finally cut
His head off. And they looked at those men
and said, how can they be the sons of God and suffer like they're
suffering? Surely this world wouldn't hate
them if they were really children of God. But they were sons of
God, weren't they? But the world didn't know them,
you see. I'm going a little bit long,
but we're not going to have an evening of service, Forgive me
and give me another minute or two, okay? This blessed relationship is
also hid behind our infirmities and our failings and our fallings. Sometimes, brothers and sisters,
we give this world reason to doubt our sonship, don't we? You ever lost your temper? Right
in front of lost people? He ever done anything to really
make them say, if that's the way a child of God acts, I don't
want to be one of them. You remember when David had committed
his awful sin with Bathsheba and murdering her husband? And
the Lord said, the sword will never leave your house. And David
went up, maloling, barefooted, crying. with his head covered,
and Shimei was up on the mountain throwing rocks at him, saying,
Go up, you old bloody man! God's found you out, you old
bloody man! And David said, God has put it in his heart to curse
me, because he's telling the truth. I am a bloody man. Sometimes, sometimes if we're
not careful, we give the world a reason to doubt our sonship.
Do we not? Poor Lot lost all of his influence,
didn't he? They laughed at him when he tried
to warn them from the wrath to come because of the choices he
made in his life. Lastly, consider this with me. You and I, as children of God,
we comprehend so little of the reality of this relationship. They know nothing of our life
in Christ. And you and I know very little
of it. Those who know best know little
of it. God hasn't let us know very much
of it, has He? And there's a reason. There's
a reason for it. There's a reason we know so little
about the glory that we have as children of God now. And let
me give you two or three reasons for it. Now is the time of testing. I tell you, the cross comes before
the crown, doesn't it? This is always God's way of doing
things. He puts you through the fire.
He'll put you through the fire. He'll test you. He'll try you
before He brings you out as pure gold. Now is that time. Now is not the time for glory.
Now is not the time to wear a crown. Now is the time to suffer. Now
is the time to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow
Him. That is why He lets us see no
more than He lets us see. Now is the time to live by faith
and not by sight or sense. You know if the Lord revealed
this glory to us now, it would kill our faith wouldn't it? Now
we walk by faith. The Lord said, Abraham, you get
out from your father's house and come to a land that I'll
show you. If He'd have showed Abraham that
land, he wouldn't have had to walk by faith to get there. But
he walked by faith to the promised land. And now is the time to
live by faith, not by sight and not by sin. The Lord don't let us see the
full glory of this now and our relationship to Him Because now
is the time to be inwardly conformed to Jesus Christ. And that's a
slow process, isn't it? We're being conformed to the
image of Jesus Christ. And that's got a lot to do with
our hope. A lot to do with our hope. Hope purifies the heart,
doesn't it not? Every man that hath this hope
in him purified himself. Hope makes not ashamed. If we
hope for that we see not, then do we with patience. See how
hope works in us? Now is the time to be conformed
inwardly to Christ. Later is going to be perfect
conformity, body and soul. And think of this, fourthly,
God don't let us see very much of this glory in this relationship
with Him, because He'll have us trusted and dependent upon
Him daily for all our supply. If we'd seen
everything that God has in store for us, if we'd seen everything
right now, I don't know if we'd come to the Lord and humbly seek
anything at His hand. We'd have everything. would have
everything. He will have us utterly dependent
upon Him every day. Give us this day our daily bread. He didn't give the children of
Israel a year's supply of manna. They had to go out every morning
and seek it, didn't they? My dad, I used to get so aggravated
at him. A lot of kids, their parents
bought a little And their lunch, when they were in grade school,
they bought a little lunch card. And they would pay for it a whole
week. And the kids could have their lunch card at their school. And they'd punch out Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And they'd pay for the whole
week. My dad, every morning, I had to go get lunch money from
him. I had to have lunch money. If you don't, I can't eat if
you don't give me my money. He had me coming to him every
day. That's the way the Father treats
us. Every day He gives us just enough to get through that day. And the next day we have to come
to Him and say, Father, Father, give me today my daily bread.
Give me grace to believe. Give me faith to walk. Give me
love. Give me my daily supply. We don't know very much about
this relationship at present. And this is the last point. This
is my last point. We know very little, very little
about the future glory that's coming. We ain't talking about
it there in Romans chapter 8, but we know so little about it.
He said here in verse 2, "...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." We shall see Him. You know there's
something about seeing the Lord that will absolutely change a
person. When you got a glimpse of Him
by faith, when you got a glimpse of Him by faith, didn't that
change you? I am God, He said. I am a just
God and a Savior. Besides Me there's none else.
Look unto Me. and thee is saved. I tell you
a sight of Jesus Christ by faith will save you. When you are tired
of trying to save yourself, when you are tired of going to God
in your own merits, when you are burdened with sin upon your
conscience and you want Him to save you bad enough, you will
look out of yourself to Jesus Christ. And the minute you see
Him by the eye of faith, you are saved. You're saved. We got into this mess by a look,
didn't we? She saw that fruit, and she said, Man, that's a good-looking
fruit, and what a mess. We're going to get out of this
mess by a look. Look unto Me and be saved. Greg read it to
us this morning, 2 Corinthians 3, about when we look, we look
at His glory, and we're changed. As we look to Him, we're changed. That's why I don't tell you to
look to Moses. You look to Moses, you'll just
be condemned. You look to Jesus Christ every day, and you'll
be changed in His image. You'll be changed. And you know
something John said? John said there's coming a time
when the Lord comes again. We're going to see Him. And you
know something? That'll be a change, boy. That'll
be a change. I show you a mystery. We shall
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. Our conversation
is in heaven from which we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus,
who shall change our vile bodies and fashion it like unto His
glorious body. It does not yet appear though,
does it? I can't look at you and you can't look at me and
say, Bruce, I know just how you're going to look, boy. I know just
how it's going to be. No, none of us do. It's too glorious,
isn't it? But it's so glorious that some
of those in Corinthians said, How can this be? How are the
dead raised? You're talking about a change.
How can it be? I was watching a video the other
day on the Internet, and this little cattypillow Are those
reptiles, those little caterpillars? Somebody said there's reptiles.
I don't know if they're reptiles. You know the little worm, the
fuzzy worm, caterpillars? And he was crawling across the
ground and got up on this little limb and was eating leaves like
crazy. And they speeded up the video
so many times. And I'm telling you, I sat there
about 10 seconds. And that little caterpillar that
had been crawling across the dirt in the mire, and eating
out of those limbs was suddenly flying up in the air. I thought,
what a change! What a change! It's that way
with us, brothers and sisters. Look how low we are now, living in this vileness and corruption
and depravity. But there's going to be a change.
It's not going to be a process. It's going to be immediately.
In the twinkling of an eye, this vile body is going to be changed. And we're going to look back
down on this lower earth where we grubbed and graveled around,
and we're going to say, my, look at me now. Look at me now. I'm in His image. I'm in His
likeness. What manner of love the Father
has bestowed upon us. Are you a child of God? Oh, if
you're not, I hope He makes you a child of God. I hope He makes
you His child. I hope He puts you among the
children. I hope He reveals Christ to you and puts this good hope
in your heart. And you'll leave here today utterly
amazed. Utterly amazed. Oh, Father, gracious Father in
Heaven, holy and good and wise and loving and tender and just. There is no God else like you.
There is no God besides you. Thank you for revealing your
mercies. Thank you for revealing such
great love upon the cross of Calvary and burying our sins
in the wrath of God. Thank you Lord Jesus for burying
our shame And we know it hurts you. We know it hurts you. You would never have groaned
and moaned like you did if it hadn't hurt you. Oh, what manner
of love, how you must have loved us to endear such as you endeared
the shame and nakedness for our miserable and wretched rebellion.
Thank you for loving us. Thank You for calling us. Thank
You for giving us Your Holy Spirit. Oh, what You taught us this morning. If we didn't have hope, our hearts
would break. We would despair. But we know
what's coming. Oh, give us grace to live in
the reality and the faith of this hope. Bless this dear people
this morning. Bless them to go home and seek
Your face. Those that you've saved, I pray
they'll go home and give thanks unto your name. And those who
are lost, I pray they'll go home and seek you. Cry out to you
for mercy. Thank you, Lord, for your people. Oh, remember dear Cody's family.
Comfort them as only you're able to do. Remember poor Barb in
her darkness. Be near her, Lord. Be gracious
to her. We ask these things for Christ's
glory, for His namesake. Amen. We'll have service Wednesday
night. I hope you all have a good Thanksgiving. I know some of you are planning
to go places and have your family over and such. Good to meet Colleen's
sister. Did you all recognize who that
was? It's good to have her with us.
The Lord bless you and keep you. See you next Sunday morning,
okay?