1 John 3:1-3

RECORD

As I approach the end of my time as the Pastor here at FGt, I have been thinking about what I wanted to say in my final few messages

And what I decided to do is to finish off with a series I’m calling, A Few of My Favourite Things based on a few of my favourite Bible passages

I’m going to begin this morning with a passage that you have heard me quote hundreds of times, but for the sake of this message we are going to expand the text to include verses 2 and 3

So if you would open up your Bible or Bible app to 1 John

The passage begins with the portion you have heard me quote so often, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us”

Other versions say the love the Father has “given” us and of course King Jimmy said, the “love the Father has ‘bestowed’ upon us” but I don’t think any of them quite capture it like the NIV with its use of the word “lavished”

The dictionary defines lavished as “to bestow something in generous or extravagant quantities”

‘See what great love the Father has poured out on us in such extravagant quantities”

But I digress, let’s continue on with the rest of our text

1 John 3:1–3 NIV

See what great 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 Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

This morning as we look at this text I want us to consider 3 things, What We Are, What We Will Be, and What We Should Be

As I mentioned our first point this morning is What We Are and just in case you haven’t already guessed what that is, We are children of God

Do you understand the implication of such a thing this morning?

The first word in verse one is the Greek word “idou” and what it means is “to sense and to see something (in this case a concept) with an awakened understanding”

In this sense the KJV gives a better translation than the NIV when it begins the passage with “Behold”

This word “behold calls us to stop and to ponder this amazing truth, to understand in awe and to marvel at the fact that God loves us so much, so extravagantly, that He would make us His children

And make no mistake that this phenomenon is totally of His doing

tells us that we were dead in our sin and trespasses, and tells us that while we were in this state of sin induced death, we were enemies of God, but tells us

Romans 5:8

Romans 5:8 NIV

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Yes it’s true that we must accept and respond to gift of salvation that God offers but please don’t ever think that you are somehow doing God a favour, don’t ever take for granted this incredible thing that God has done

By His love He has offered us new birth through the death of His Son so that through Christ we may call Him Abba Father

May the realization of this once again impact us in such a way that it astounds us and leaves us gobsmacked

That’s right I said “gobsmacked”, a word I am not sure I have ever used before because I never had the context to

But in this context it fits

You see John goes on to explain that this concept of our relationship with God is completely foreign to the world

They don’t get it, they CAN’T get it because they have no real knowledge of God

But you and I, well that’s a different story

Perhaps that’s why Peter calls believers a “Peculiar people”! 1 Peter 2:9

“And that is what we are!” Children of God

Now for What We Will Be

Let me read verse 2 again but this time from the Message Bible for the full effect

(The Message)

2 But friends, that’s exactly who we are: children of God. And that’s only the beginning. Who knows how we’ll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we’ll see him—and in seeing him, become like him.

says this, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus”

When John says that, “what we will be has not yet been made known”, (NIV) the word “what” in the Greek is what is known as an interrogative pronoun

That means that the “What” that John is talking about is something inexplicable, something that transcends our current comprehension

Something so great that if God revealed it to us our heads would probably explode

But He DOES give us a hint as to what it is, WE WILL BE LIKE CHRIST!

says this, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus”

By God’s amazing grace I am not who I once was, I once was dead in sin but now I am alive in Christ, I once was lost but now I’m found, I once was blind but now I see

But even though I am not who I once was, I still am not who I will one day become, for in that moment, in that flash, in that twinkling of an eye, the trumpet will sound and I will be changed

Whether I am alive or dead at that moment matters not, either way I will be changed, quicker than I can snap my fingers God will complete what He started in me when I gave my life over to Him and I shall be made like Christ

If someone doesn’t shout “hallelujah” soon I am going to burst

The predominant and preeminent goal, the supreme and surpassing aim, the unequaled and unparalleled desire of every Christian is to be like Christ

It’s in the name! Christian “Christ-like”

And God is going to complete that in us!

Absolutely and altogether, fully and finally, comprehensively and conclusively

But that still leaves us with one more point for our sermon, What We Are, What We Will Be, and What We SHOULD Be

In verse 3 John tells us that because we have this hope in us that one day we will see Him, and in that day God will finish what He started in us, we should use that as motivation to purify ourselves here and now

The word “purify” is from the Greek word “hagnos” which means “cleanliness of heart, soul, and spirit; of thought, word, and action

And it is in the present tense which means that this is a continuing process, not a once and done

To purify something is to rid that thing (in this case us) of contamination (in this case the world)

To remove the contamination of this world so that we become pure

And here’s the important part, the standard of purity to which we will be compared is not other Christians but Christ Himself

Stop comparing if you are doing better or worse than others in the church and look at the Golden Standard, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith”

Hebrews 12:

So there you have it

This is one of my favourite passages, where in the first 3 verses John teaches 3 important lessons, Who We Are, Who We Will Be, and Who We Should Be

Let’s Pray