Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2010 :October 31, 2010
Theme: Amazed at Christ’s Love -- God Calls Me His Child
Text: 1 John 3:1-2
Church year occasion: End Time 1
Long ago in England, according to legend, there once lived a boy who didn't know who his real parents were because he was adopted. He was rather scrawny and a bit timid -- frankly, he wasn't very impressive-looking at all. One day it was time for his older foster-brother to fight in his first tournament in London as a knight. But halfway there, he realized that he had forgotten his sword, so the younger brother was sent back to get it. When he got back home, the doors were locked because everyone had gone to the tournament, but as he passed the church courtyard he happened upon a sword that was stuck in a big rock. Little did he know that no one had been able to pull the sword from the stone for many years, but when the boy pulled on the sword, it came out like a knife cutting through butter. He was just happy he had found a sword as he rode back to his brother. His brother looked at it closely and asked him where he got it. "I pulled it out of a big rock," the younger brother said. Then his brother said, "Then you should know what it says on the sword." Written in letters of gold, were these words: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone is the rightwise born king of all England." The younger boy's name was Arthur, and he had just become the king of all England, even though it took a while for people to accept him.
Now, the sword in the stone is just a legend. In fact, historians aren't sure if Arthur even existed. But isn't it fun to think what you'd do if you were king or queen of England, or some other country (I'm sure you're not picky)?
Well, this morning the Apostle John tells us something that's even more amazing than that. It's the amazing fact that because of Christ's love for you, God calls you his child -- and it's absolutely true! Let's see what we can learn from 1 John 3:1-2.
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."
When John wrote this letter, Christians were struggling to hold on to the truth of God's Word that Jesus had revealed and had committed to his apostles. Christians were under a constant barrage of persecution and false doctrine. The particular false doctrine that John was writing about was an early form of Gnosticism. Gnostics tried to blend their previous pagan religion with the message of Jesus. That would have been difficult since the message of Jesus was totally different from their pagan, worldly religions, but they did it anyway. As a result, they ended up looking at Jesus not as their Savior from sin, but as someone who gave us a good example to follow because he had discovered secret knowledge that anyone who wanted to be saved needed to know, or that in addition to faith in Jesus you needed this other secret knowledge. What was that secret knowledge? Well that's just the point -- if it's secret, it could be anything. But if you mix "anything" with the truth, you end up with something that isn't the truth, but it might look like the truth. In other words, the message of Christ crucified and risen wasn't enough for the Gnostics -- they needed to find some other secret knowledge so they could be saved. It was too easy, so they thought, to be saved simply by believing that Jesus' death paid for all your sins and his resurrection assures us that fact. It makes me think today of the Mormon church or Christian Scientists or the Masons, or dabbling with the occult. People love to get into those religions because there's something mysterious about it, something that needs to be discovered, something tantalizing and tempting. But mixing that idea with Christianity could only lead away from Jesus. He, and what he's done for us, is all we need to know and believe.
So the Apostle John reassures his readers how amazing the simple gospel is -- and that message itself should blow them away so they wouldn't need to go seeking after any other knowledge. He says, "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" The believers at John's time, as well as you and I, can call ourselves children of God. Can you pick up on John's excitement here? He is amazed when he thinks about what he is -- not because of who he is by nature, but because of what God made him -- his own dear child.
Why was John amazed at that? John had heard Jesus' own words from his own mouth, yet he had still been obsessed by who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God. It took him a long time to finally understand what the kingdom of God was all about -- it wasn't about who was the greatest, but about who could serve. He must have looked back on those times when he had been so blind and just felt like crawling under a rock because of his shame. Then he would have thought about all the other times he had sinned against his Lord in everything he had done and left undone, and it must have made him cringe to think about it.
Is it any different for you and me? Just think of the many ways we have shown how unworthy we are to be called God's children. Like the Gnostics, we have been lured into this idea that the message of Christ crucified and risen is, well, boring. We need something else. How often would we rather curl up in front of the fire with a good novel instead of the Bible? How often haven't we come up with an excuse -- any excuse -- for why we aren't in God's house regularly or going to Bible studies? More often that we'd like to admit. The kids are involved in too much on Sunday morning -- can't go to church this Sunday, and the rest of the week is busy with work and school. What is the harm if I miss one worship service or one Bible class? But missing one time when I can come to the house of God and gather with fellow Christians to get away from the world can easily become two or three. Before we know it, we haven't been in worship for a month or a year or ten years.
It's almost as if we're embarrassed to be called Christians by how often we neglect our relationship with our heavenly Father by not coming to his house and growing in his Word. How does God treat us, even though we are so quick to neglect our relationship with him? A story might help to show us. A person was traveling on an airplane and noticed a mother with a one-year-old boy. Actually, it would have been hard not to notice the two because the boy was crying the whole trip. The mother did everything she could to calm the boy down, giving him small pieces of food and orange juice, but it was no use. Everything she gave him, he threw up. After the two-hour flight, the boy was covered with it, and the mother wasn't much better. Everyone in the plane was irritated because of the crying, but they would have been ready to tar and feather the father of the child, who knew nothing of what the two had gone through, if he had a problem with how they looked when he met them at the airport. When they got off the plane, they all saw the father -- he was wearing white pants and a white shirt -- and they were expecting a look of revulsion on his face when he saw his boy covered with vomit. But the father walked right up to his son, took him from his exasperated mother with a smile, and gave him a huge hug, getting half-digested Cheerios and orange juice all over his white clothes. It didn't matter to him -- he was just happy to be holding his child.
That is how our heavenly Father treats us. We are covered with all kinds of sins, including the sin of not being all that excited about hearing and studying his Word, but he still loves us. But it wasn't just embarrassment at having Cheerios on us that should have kept him away from us -- our sins against God made us revolting in God's sight. Yes he still loved us. Paul says: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) And because Christ died and rose for us, clothing us in his righteousness after taking off our dirty, sin-soaked clothes, God no longer sees us as having any sins. Paul said it best in Galatians 3:26-27: "So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." He sees us as loving to hear his Word, always putting him first, even going out of our way to be in a closer relationship with him because that's what Jesus did, and we have Jesus' righteousness credited to our account through faith.
What a joy to know that God loves us -- in spite of all we've done. John's excitement at that message is the same as ours. "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" Is there anything else in all the world that we need to know? Not at all! When we know Christ, we have everything we need.
John goes on: "The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him." The world doesn't get that. Jesus did everything for your salvation. There is nothing else anyone needs to know. And since they don't want to see that Christ is all we need and all we need to know, they won't know us who believe that. It shouldn't surprise us when others go after other knowledge, maybe even more mysterious knowledge. But we know that Christ is all we need. Even if the world doesn't get it and schedules all kinds of things instead of worshiping God, we get it, and when we really get it, we'll want nothing more than to get to know our God more.
So John continues: "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." God says that if we think we know all about God's love for us, then we have another thing coming -- another thing that is so great and so grand that we can't even imagine how wonderful it will be. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard" what God has prepared for those who love him. Only when God reveals it to us on the Last Day will we finally see and understand just how amazing God's love for us is. We can't even begin to imagine what it will be like when we are body and soul in heaven, where we'll be with the Lord our Savior forever.
Again, what more do we need to know? If you want to hold on to a mystery, think about how glorious heaven will be. There are so many aspects of it that we just can't even imagine this side of heaven. But it is ours through Christ. It's just a matter of time before we get there. All in good time. All in God's time. But until then, we continue to be amazed at Christ's love for us -- all so we could be called children of God.
Do you sometimes find yourself struggling through this life, unhappy because you see how often you've failed your Savior after all he's done for you? Every Christian is in that same boat. According to legend, it took a while for everyone to accept Arthur as the rightful king. He didn't look like much, and he still had much to learn in how to be king of all England. He still had many battles to fight. But after many battles, everyone eventually saw him for who he was, the rightful king who proved it by what he did. We, too, will face many battles in this world in which we'll have to make the choice to live as a child of God and not as a child of this world. Some we'll win, and some we'll lose, but we'll still be God's child through faith in Jesus. Let that beautiful Reformation truth be your comfort, because it is the comfort of the gospel, until that day when you will see Jesus as he is -- our Lord and our King. Amen.
