Certain Eternity Part 26 – Children of God
1 John 3:1-2 April 27, 2025
Introduction
· As an inheritance attorney….important to name your heirs so that your estate goes to exactly who you want it to.
· Over the next two decades, an estimated $80 to $90 trillion in wealth is expected to pass from baby boomers to younger generations, including millennials and Gen Z. This significant transfer of wealth is often referred to as the “Great Wealth Transfer”. While the exact figure varies, it’s anticipated that this wealth transfer will reshape the financial landscape and influence spending patterns in America.
· 1 John 3:1-2 “1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
· Ordo salutis (Latin for order of salvation): foreknown/predestined/elected, evangelistically called, regenerated, converted with faith and repentance, justified (declared righteous), adopted and glorified/sanctified positionally, empowered by the Spirit, as we persevere we are sanctified practically until fully sanctified and glorified one day when we are with Christ (either He returns or we die and go to Him)
· 4 parts: Identity, unity, certainty, eternity
Identity (v1b)
· “children” (GK. teknon) – literally, the born ones, filial descendants of someone
· “Called children of God”
o Not children of the world/satan
§ See V10 (next sermon)
· 2 Corinthians 6:18 “I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”
· CH Spurgeon “Consider who we were, and who we are now; ay, and what we feel ourselves to be even when divine grace is powerful in us. And yet, beloved, we are called “the sons (children) of God.” It is said that when one of the learned heathens was translating this, he stopped and said, No; it cannot be; let it be written ‘Subjects,’ not ‘Sons,’ for it is impossible we should be called ‘the sons of God.’ What a high relationship is that of a son to his father! What privileges a son has from his father! What liberties a son may take with his father! and oh! what obedience the son owes to his father, and what love the father feels towards the son! But all that, and more than that, we now have through Christ. “Behold!” ye angels! stop, ye seraphs! here is a thing more wonderful than heaven with its walls of jasper. Behold, universe! open thine eyes, O world. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God”
· Satan loves to put doubts into our mind about whether we are actually children of God
o Matthew 4:3, 6 “3 If you are the Son of God….6…if you are the Son of God”
· “and so we are”
o Not just children in name/title….actually made children of God through adoption – this is our true position in God’s family
o John 1:12-13 “12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
o Ephesians 1:4-5 “4 … In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will”
o Galatians 4:4-6 “4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!””
o Romans 8:14-15 “14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
o FF Bruce “The term adoption may have a somewhat artificial sound in our ears; but in the Roman world of the first century A.D. an adopted son was a son deliberately chosen by his adoptive father to perpetuate his name and inherit his estate; he was no whit inferior in status to a son born in the ordinary course of nature, and might well enjoy the father’s affection more fully and reproduce the father’ character more worthily.”
§ Roman adoption was legally binding and permanent (no takebacks). Roman adoption specifically had identity (your name) and inheritance (your future) in view….you were adopted in order to receive a name and inheritance….the further a family line.
· Fostering children was actually more common because there was no impact to your name or estate.
o Voddie Baucham “The doctrine of adoption says this: your salvation does not just consist in you having been on your way to hell and God superimposing the person and work of Christ on the cross so that you are now going in a different direction to just end up in heaven. … God has actually adopted you as His own child. God loves you.”
§ “See what kind of love the Father has given to us…”
· Some of us have had some terrible parents – and that experience may shape our view of what it means to be a child of God. If that is the case, the Lord wants to show you what a true, loving, godly, parent is. But perhaps you have had good parents – or perhaps you are a parent now and though you fail, you do your best to lavish love on your children – would you ever stop loving them?
o If you understand the doctrine of adoption, you know that the love of our heavenly father is unconditional, He has made us His children, He loves us as His own and He will always seek to draw us closer to Himself and help us to be a more mature reflection of what it means to be one who is loved and one who loves others. This only happens because we are adopted as God’s children….He loves us to the same degree and extent that He loves Jesus.
o I have not had the privilege to adopt a child…but I have had the privilege to see one of my children marry. I do not view Lauren as my daughter-in-law. She is my daughter…she is my family. I love her like I love my other children and I will do everything within my power to help her succeed just like I would any of my other children. By God’s grace, I will parent her like my own and I will love her like my own. And I hope to do the same with each of my other children’s spouses, Lord willing – except Mercy. She doesn’t need to marry anyone…I have enough sons.
o We are God’s children…we do not need to earn God’s love, He lavishes it upon us as His children, even when we fail, even when we disappoint Him, He still loves us.
o This kind of love doesn’t make sense to the world, because it does not know who God is.
· “The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”
o Kenneth Wuest “From their experience with us, the people of the world, while recognizing us as Christians, children of God, do not come to an understanding and appreciation of the nature of person we are, since unsaved people never have had a saving relationship with and knowledge of God. Intimate understanding and knowledge of another person is based upon fellowship (koinonia) with him. Since the people of the world have nothing in common with the children of God, they have no fellowship with them, and therefore have no intelligent appreciation and understanding of them. The foreign kind of love produced in us by the Holy Spirit constitutes us a foreign kind of person to the people of this world, and since they do not understand foreigners, people of a different race from themselves, they simply do not understand Christians. Children of God could just as well have come to earth from a strange planet so far as the people of the world are concerned.”
§ Philippians 3:20 “…our citizenship is in heaven…”
§ 1 Peter 2:9-12 “9 But you are a chosen [adopted] race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession [God’s family], that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”
Unity (v2a)
· “We are God’s children now…”
o We – collectively
§ It is our adoption that makes us a family…we have unity in the Holy Spirit because we have been adopted by the Lord to be His collective children
o Calling someone brother or sister is not just a term of endearment—spiritually, we actually are one family in the Lord.
o Now – this is the present reality, though “what we will be has not yet appeared”
§ Already, not yet.
§ Again, Satan will seek to get us to doubt by pointing out how much we fall short of God’s standard
· CH Spurgeon “”Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” That is easy to read, but it is not so easy to feel. How is it with your heart this morning? Are you in the lowest depths of sorrow? Does corruption rise within your spirit, and grace seem like a poor spark trampled under foot? Does your faith almost fail you? Fear not, it is neither your graces nor feelings on which you are to live: you must live simply by faith on Christ. With all these things against us, now-in the very depths of our sorrow, wherever we may be-now, as much in the valley as on the mountain, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” “Ah, but,” you say, “see how I am arrayed! my graces are not bright; my righteousness does not shine with apparent glory. ” But read the next: “It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him. ” The Holy Spirit shall purify our minds, and divine power shall refine our bodies, then shall we see Him as He is.”
o Praise God that He will accomplish the work. We need but continue to trust in Him as He does it through His Spirit.
Certainty (v2b)
· but we know that when he appears we shall be like him
o “know” (Gk. eidō) – to have intuitive or innate knowledge [as opposed to experiential knowledge (Gk. ginōskō) which we have previously studied], which is given by the Holy Spirit.
§ eidō is knowledge which is absolute and without a doubt…because the Spirit confirms and strengthens it within us.
o Not if, “when”, not may, “shall”
§ From Our Daily Bread on 1 John 3:2:
· “Sculptors have a term for the artist’s ability to look at a rough piece of stone and see it in its final, perfected form. It is called “hyperseeing.”
· Gutzon Borglum (1867–1941) is the sculptor who created many well-known public works of art. Probably the most famous is Mt. Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. Borglum’s housekeeper captured the concept of hyperseeing when she gazed up at the massive faces of the four US presidents on Mt. Rushmore for the first time. “Mr. Borglum,” she gasped, “how did you know Mr. Lincoln was in that rock?”
· God will complete the work He started in us Phil. 1:6, yet he already sees us as we will be at the day of completion. Because of that promise of completion, we can have complete and utter confidence in our future, even if we don’t quite see it clearly. We may not have “hyperseeing” but God does, and He is going to accomplish it.
· No fear in love (1 John 4:18)
· Warren Wiersbe “An unbeliever who sins is a creature sinning against his Creator. A Christian who sins is a child sinning against his Father. The unbeliever sins against law; the believer sins against love.”
o Romans 8:35-39 “35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
· Hebrews 2:14-15 “14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”
Eternity (v2c)
· “because we shall see him as he is.”
· Perhaps one of the greatest things to look forward to in eternity, is the promise that we will be able to see Jesus just as He is. Hoe full majesty will be on display for us to behold, appreciate, and worship.
· This is part of our inheritance as children of God
· Inheritance
o Know God – see Him as He is
o Share in His glorious reign
§ Romans 8:16-17 “16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
o Remain in His presence and enjoy His blessing forever
§ Revelation 21:3-5 “3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Conclusion
· As an attorney I am used to helping people deal with their earthly inheritance. But let me encourage you to think upon and appreciate the eternal inheritance that our heavenly father has waiting for us.
· We may think that the great wealth transfer where nearly 100 trillion dollars changes hands is an unfathomably great inheritance….but that pales in comparison to the inheritance that our heavenly Father has promised to His children.