DEEPLY LOVED, FULLY ADOPTED

The last Sunday I was here we ended with the idea of bearing fruit as a result of believing the truth that Jesus is the only way to the Father. He is our Savior. The fruit we produce as believers is directly related to the root of the vine we belong to—and that vine is Jesus!

The fruit of doing what is right reveals the roots that are in our hearts—that we have been born again. The new birth precedes new behavior. Paul writes in Corinthians that “if any person be in Christ the old is passed away and behold all things become new.”

Being born of God has definite and abiding results. The present idea is that children of God will grow to look like God their Father. As your children would grow, they would often mimic you and learn from you—that can be kinda scary—but as children of God we are to learn from our Heavenly Parent. Our practice is proof of our parentage. The righteous Savior produces righteous saints!

But now, John takes us another step—he explains how the love of God the Father is the source of our privilege to be His children. Listen to this verse again, “Look at how great a love the Father has given us!” It can be paraphrased this way, “The love of the Father is out of this world and it is a love that will never be taken away. It is an amazing love that awes and astonishes, and it has been given for us to enjoy forever and ever and ever.” Hebrews 13:5 is really true—I will never leave you or forsake you!

The whole wonderful plan of salvation begins and ends in God!

The Father’s love is a forever love and its results are two-fold:

1.     We are now called the children of God

2.     This is truly who we are!

That we are called His children means that we bear His name. That we are His children means we have His nature. Once I was a slave to sin but now, I am a child of God. What an amazing truth to grasp and meditate on. What a beautiful balance this brings to my self-awareness. There is no place for either an inferiority or superiority complex. I am who I am by gracious adoption and regeneration. That fosters humility. I am who I am as God’s child. That fosters both security and certainty.

It is important for us to understand this because it really should impact our relationships with one another. If you are God’s child and I am God’s child, then how we treat one another should bring an awareness that God is interested in how I treat His children! That awareness should affect the way we love and serve one another!

Almost in passing John makes the comment that the world doesn’t understand this remarkable relationship. It says the world “didn’t know him.” Because of that, the world also will not know or understand, or appreciate those who know Christ and increasingly are becoming more like him.

Jesus said in John 15:18-19 “If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.”

The world hated Jesus over 2000 years ago so we shouldn’t be surprised when the world does not really understand us today. We cannot expect the world to understand this thrilling relationship, because it does not even understand God and definitely do not understand the cross. Paul says in Corinthians that the cross is foolishness to those who do not believe but to those of us who do—it is the power of God!

Only a person who knows God through Christ can fully appreciate what it means to be called a child of God.

Being a child of God, according to our Scripture today is also the incentive for holy living. God’s love is to permeate our very being until the time Christ comes again and then after that, we will fully understand everything. To me that is an amazing thought!

We know that Christ appeared to take away our sins! That God is love does not mean He has no rules and regulations for His family. We understand that we are to love the Lord our God with everything in us and to love one another as we love ourselves. We know that we are to do those things that please the Lord is our lives.

Sin—the root of it, is basically a matter of the will. For us to assert our will against God’s will is rebellion and Scripture tells us that rebellion is the root of sin. It is an inward attitude that oftentimes nobody else can see.

A little boy kept standing up in the pew at church and the dad told him to sit down. The little boy didn’t listen and finally the father said, if you don’t sit down, I am going to take you out and spank you. Finally, the little boy sat down but said to his father, “Daddy, I’m still standing up inside.”

John tells us that after we are born again in Christ, we know longer are slaves to sin and that our new nature desires to please God and not our sinful nature. Whoever abides in Christ DOES NOT practice sin—or in the Greek, means to sin habitually. It isn’t that we don’t make mistakes here and there—it means we do not deliberately do that which results is sinful behavior.

John goes so far to say that the person who deliberately and habitually sins is proving that he does not know Christ and therefore cannot be abiding in Him.

Christ appeared to destroy the work of the Devil. This enemy has many names in Scripture—Satan, devil, dragon, Abaddon (destroyer), Prince of this World, etc. Whatever name you would call him, keep in mind that his chief activity is to oppose Christ and God’s people. But we can rest in the fact that Satan is a defeated enemy and that he has absolutely no power over the believer…Scripture tells us that “greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” We are victors because of the power of God indwelling us through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ and the end result of that is that we are more than conquerors because of that amazing love!

God the Holy Spirit dwells in us! When a person receives Christ as Savior, tremendous spiritual changes take place. We are given a new standing before God, being accepted as righteous in God’s sight. This new standing is called justification. It never changes and is never lost.

The Christian is also given a new position. He or she is set apart for God’s own purposes to live for His glory. This is called sanctification. The Westminster Confession asks “What is the duty of man?—the answer—to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

The Heidelberg Catechism asks this question: What is your only comfort, in life and in death? “That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.”

The most dramatic change that happens in us is the idea of regeneration. It is a re-birth. We become a part of God’s family.

Justification means a new standing before God, sanctification means being set apart to God, and regeneration means a new nature—God’s nature in me!

The truth that God is our heavenly Father and we are his children is one of the greatest revelations in the New Testament.

1.     Being a child of God is the highest privilege of our salvation.

2.     Being a child of God is the basis of our faith and trust in God.

3.     God’s wants us to be increasingly made aware of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us that produces the cry in us, Abba Father. This leads to the desire to be led by the Spirit of God.

4.     Being a child of God is the basis of our being disciplined by our Heavenly Father and the very reason why we live to please God.

God’s ultimate Goal is to save us forever and for us to conform to the likeness of Jesus. What a privilege—what a joy—what an awesome life Christ provides for each of us.

A very familiar and well-loved hymn was written by Fanny Crosby. She was an American rescue mission worker and songwriter who penned more than 8000 hymns. She was also blind. That is why one of her most popular songs is all the more remarkable. In the context of our Scripture today, these words are powerful:

          Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

          Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine.

          Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

          Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

          Perfect submission, all is at rest,

          I in my Savior am happy and blest:

          Watching and waiting, looking above

          Filled with His goodness, love is His love.

Just as Fanny Crosby was, in her blindness, “watching and waiting,” we must likewise set our eyes on the hope we have, that we will one day see His face and be like Him. These are just some of the blessings of abiding in Christ.

If this is so—why would you want to abide anywhere else but in Jesus!