Knowing The Father and The Son Through The Holy Spirit!

1 John 3:1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are!

Knowing the Father and The Son, is only possible THROUGH the Holy Spirit!

In our previous message, the Apostle John introduced us to The Anointing! We learned the Anointing is the Presence of God IN you;

and it is the Power of His Presence released THROUGH you!

1 John 2:20, 27 But YOU have an anointing (charisma) . . . as for YOU, the anointing (charisma) which you RECEIVED from Him, abides IN you!

In our message today, the Apostle John has something profound he wants us to pay close attention to and spend time reflecting upon:

John wants us to:

I. BEHOLD Our PRIVILEGES!

3:1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us!

The first word in our English translation is either SEE or BEHOLD and it is the word idete in the original language.

The word means “to spend time reflecting upon” and or “to meditate upon something.”

I want to draw your attention to at least two privileges we need to SEE or BEHOLD:

A. We are LOVED by the FATHER!

3:1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us!

John wants us to spend some time beholding, meditating, reflecting upon so great a love the Father has bestowed or lavished upon us!

This is the same thought we find in Matthew 8:27 and Mark 4:39 after Jesus calmed the mega storm by rebuking the winds and calming the sea. The disciples asked themselves What kind of man is this?

What is it the Apostle John wants us to SEE or BEHOLD? See, Behold how great a love the Father has bestowed (continually lavished), upon us!

The kind of love The Father has bestowed upon us is an out of this world dimension of love (agape).

This kind of love is a love of the WILL as opposed to a love of the EMOTIONS!

When people want to end a marriage through divorce, it is usually because they don’t feel love for each other any more.

When they lose the loving feeling, they also lose their WILL to love because their love was based upon feelings more than the will.

However, God’s love for you and for me has been bestowed or lavished upon us from before Creation, in fact, Creation occurred because of God’s choice to love you!

And this love John wants us to BEHOLD is a continuous demonstration of the will that never ends!

This kind of other worldly love results in something else too:

B. We are QUESTIONED by the WORLD!

3:1 For this reason, the world does not KNOW us!

We have a LOVE that is so foreign to anything the world has ever known or experienced that it causes them to look at us some kind of way!

When the Father’s love was lavished upon you in this life, you received an anointing from the Father!

This anointing is the Presence of God dwelling inside of you and being Released through you!

When this occurs, the world recognizes you have become different, your countenance is difference, you have love, joy, peace, gentleness, you have self-control

And they want to know what is different about you? And we need to be able to tell them about the love of the Father!

The religious world can really get torn up over Presence of God in you and the Power of God being released through you and the love of God being bestowed or lavished upon you!

They didn’t KNOW Jesus and rejected Him, and they don’t KNOW you and the world will often times reject you too!

John wants us to BEHOLD our PRIVILEGES and he also wants us to:

II. BELIEVE Our PROMISES!

3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God!

The moment you heard the Gospel, the Good News of how much the Father loves you . . .

. . . and the Jesus died on the Cross for your sins and was raised from the dead to remove your guilt from your eternal account, you became a Child of God!

Because these things are true, there are two promises we need to believe in our soul:

A. We need to ACKNOWLEDGE what we HAVE become!

3:2 Beloved, now we ARE children of God!

I am convinced one reason we live beneath our privileges and allow sin to destroy our testimony is because we do not comprehend the TRUTH that we ARE children of God!

We are ROYALTY, we are children of the King, we have royal blood flowing through our veins, no longer paupers but children of the King!

B. We need to ANTICIPATE what we WILL become!

3:2 And it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is!

Since we have already BECOME a Child of God, what is it that we need to anticipate about what we WILL become?

The Word of God reveals that we are going to end up just like Jesus! In fact, we are PREDESTINED to end up just like Jesus!

When will this transformation take place? We know that when He appears, we will be like Him . . .

What will trigger this transformation? . . . when He appears, we will be like Him, BECAUSE we will SEE Him just as He is!

**Listen to the way Paul described this great truth to the Philippians For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself (3: 20)

*Our citizenship is IN HEAVEN (Phil 3:20). What do you think about when you think about heaven? Heaven HAS streets of gold, gates of pearl, walls of precious stones but what IS heaven?

*Heaven is not only a PLACE that is PERFECT and Jesus is the manifestation of that PERFECTION. When we get one glimpse of the perfection and purity of heaven, we will understand that just getting inside the gate would be more than we ever deserved.

*However, we not only get inside the gate but we have a mansion, or dwelling place that is being prepared for our arrival!

All of that is more than we deserve but take another look at what John has said. John has said that when Jesus appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is!

*Glory to God, somebody ought to say AMEN! I am getting to know most of you well and you are getting to know me fairly well. Truthfully it is probably a stretch of the imagination for you to think of me in terms of being just like Jesus! While we are being honest with one another, it is a pretty good stretch for me to think of some of you becoming just like Jesus as well (smile)!

*Seriously this transformation is going to happen instantly and simultaneously, Paul told the Corinthians that “we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will all be changed to be just like Him!

Think about it with me for a moment. Take a look at the way you are right now. Think about how much unlike Christ you have been today, this weekend, last week.

As far from being like Christ as you presently are, when Christ appears, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye we will be changed from this corruptible body and be given an incorruptible body that will be just like Jesus resurrected body!

*Beloved that is what Heaven is all about for me. I get to become just like Jesus in my thoughts and in my actions and in my appearance, in my virtue, character, service and worship

*I don’t know about you but that makes me want to say WELL GLORY!

*Until then, John wants us to BEHOLD our PRIVILEGES to BELIEVE our PROMISES and finally:

John wants us to:

III. BEGIN OUR PREPARATION!

3:2 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him . . .

As part of our preparation to leave this world, there are at least two things we need to embrace:

A. The ATTITUDE of HOPEFULNESS!

3:3 And everyone who has this HOPE fixed on Him, purifies himself!

What is Biblical Hope? Biblical hope doesn’t have any aspect of uncertainty. It is a determined truth that is being embraced as fact!

What is OUR Hope? Everyone who has this HOPE fixed on Him, purifies himself!

Many people think of Heaven as a PLACE that has streets of gold, gates of pearl, glorified loved ones and eternal angels and those things are there!

But Heaven is also a PERSON, in fact it is three Persons in One, The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit!

Where is our HOPE fixed? And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him!

I don’t know about you, but my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ Blood and His Righteousness! I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

. . . but wholly lean on Jesus’ Name! On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand!

If our hope is truly fixed, established, locked on Jesus each day, we will be concerned with:

B. The ATTRIBUTE of HOLINESS in my life!

3:3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him, purifies himself, just as He is pure!

There are five great dimensions of Biblical Hope. It is . . .

1. SECURED by ABIDING(in Christ)

2:28 Now little children ABIDE in HIM, so that when He appears

2. MANIFEST by RIGHTEOUSNESS(from Christ)

2:29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him

3. ESTABLISHED by LOVE

3:1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God

4. FULFILLED in CHRIST-LIKENESS

3:2 . . . when He appears, we will be like Him

5. CHARACTERIZED by PURITY

3:3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him, purifies himself

*When we think about the love of God that is being shed abroad in our hearts, it manifests itself in us taking sin seriously and repenting of it and confessing it as soon as we are made aware of it!

*Are you a Child of God or do you need to become a Child of God today?

*Is there anything that you have done that you need to purify yourself over?

*Is your HOPE FIXED on CHRIST or someone or something else?

Do you need to become a member of TTOP today?