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Today’s Sermon is titled Characteristics of the Father’s Children, and my challenge to us is to Live Like a Child of the Father!

Instead of beginning at verse 28 of chapter 2, we will actually begin with what jumps off the page at us - the Father’s love.

And as we look through today’s text, we will look at it through the lens of being a child of the Father and how our characteristics and actions will change as we experiencing the Father’s love.

And I would challenge you to have a pen and paper ready to write down at least one take away for yourself this week that will remind you of what the Lord spoke to you today.

So, based on 1 John 3:1, the Father’s children are:

Loved

1 John 3:1 (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.

Unfortunately, in many of the translations today we do not get the same sense, or emphasis, of the phrase that begins chapter 3. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us”.

This is a sort of pause in John’s letter, a parenthetical side thought that seems to capture John’s attention as he considers his last phrase in verse 29, “born of him.”.

It’s almost a burst of praise, a doxology from the Apostle - SEE, BEHOLD, PAY ATTENTION to the love that the Father has lavished on us!

John breaks from his line of thinking and redirects our attention to remember the love of God (one of his favorite themes!).

So, let’s do that together this morning.

What manner of love is the Father’s love?

His love is his divine disposition to be for his creatures and to act on behalf of their good, even at great cost to himself.

The Father’s love is great, massive, sacrificial, limitless, affectionate, compassionate, free, covenantal, loyal, faithful, demonstrative, and the list could continue on and on - but you will never fully define it because it is incomprehensible!

God holds nothing back when it comes to love.

He doesn’t just say He loves us, He demonstrates it!

Rom 5:8 tells us that;

And Paul tells us in Eph 3:17-19 that his prayer for us is that we would be rooted and established in the love of God!

Read

The Father’s love gives life, meaning, direction, and joy to His children!

Lexham Survey of Theology (God’s Love)

God’s love is a communicable attribute in that it is to be imitated by humanity.

As recipients of divine love, believers return love—albeit in a limited human fashion—both to God and to others.

By his own actions, God teaches the world to love actively and sacrificially,..

So, the Father’s love, although incomprehensible, to the extent that we are able to comprehend it we are to replicate it!

We are to extend it to others!

Especially those within our family!

Transition (Father’s Day)

So Fathers, what manner of love are you expressing to your children?

We need to be able to see the love of the Father and to use it as a guide for us to love and lead our families in the same way!

He is our example!

The Scripture is clear that a Father needs to be careful and attentive to being sure his family is loved - and secure in his love!

It is not a good thing for our children to be embittered, or provoked to anger, whenever they think of us!

As Father’s, we are to display a level of righteous integrity to our family that will communicate to our children that we are safe, and they are secure in our love.

That nothing they ever do will remove them from our loving protection!

This is exactly what God the Father does for His children.

As it says in Romans 8:38-39;

See, our world is experiencing the disastrous effects of absent Fathers, and the wounds created by this reality!

It breaks my heart for children all over the world who do not have the love of an earthly father to help them to feel secure and loved.

I am so blessed and proud of the men we have in this Church who are excellent providers and protectors of their family!

I see you leading and loving your families, and it blesses me very much!

We need Father’s who will express and lavish love upon their children in our culture!

We don’t need apathetic and distant fathers who are only concerned with building an empire for themselves, but fathers who will follow the example of God the Father and sacrificially lead and love their family!

When we do this as fathers, we reflect the love of God the Father to our family, and that will produce children who feel secure and loved!

And when children feel this way, they will be able to make wise decisions from a place of security!

One of the main reasons for the identity crisis in our world today (in my opinion) is because there has been a departure from good, Godly, manhood!

The type that embraces and operates within the expectations of God’s Word to love, teach, protect, provide for, lead, and serve our family!

We need men who have the heart of the Father for their family.

We need men to stand up in this day and lead their family right into the loving embrace of the true Father of all of us - God Himself!

This culture needs Godly men who will reject the worlds standards of manhood and embrace the standards set out for us from the Word of God!

Let’s set the example in our community of what a loving father looks like.

Let’s be men who protect our families, who will go on the offensive whenever someone or something threatens to destroy our children!

Let’s be men who take up the call to be prayer warriors and for our family!

Do we have that type of man in this place today?

C’mon, is there a man in this place today, ready to love and lead his family as God instructs him to?

Well then, I submit to you today that if you accept this challenge you must learn how to embrace sonship!

The main problem (in my opinion) is not that we cannot grasp the love of the Father, it is more so that we have a problem embracing and living out Biblical sonship!

There are many who if asked will say that they know that God loves them, but are walking around with an orphaned spirit that refuses to live as though they are loved and accepted in Him.

For the remainder of this message I will be speaking of the need for us to embrace sonship, which I believe to be John’s main point in this passage.

Now, when I say sonship, please do not think that this is only referring to males.

Sonship is inclusive of male and female, and it means to operate as a child of the Father.

So what are the characteristics listed in this section of Scripture that define the Child of God?

As I list these out, they are not going to be in any specific order, but since we are discussing the Father’s love in chapter 3 verse 1, we have to understand that the only way to truly experience this love is to become His child.

So, the Father’s children are:

Secure in Their Identity

In 1 John 3:1-2 we see a couple of key phrases that emphasize this point!

1 John 3:1–2 (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,...

J.I. Packer says in his book called, Knowing God,

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father.

If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.

In order to fully embrace our sonship, we must first realize that this is a privilege that has been granted to us by grace through the love of the Father.

Yes it is true that every human being is God’s child in the sense that God created us and we bear His image, it is not true however to say that all have sonship in the Father!

Without Christ as our personal Savior, we are not His children.

We are not a part of His family.

We are the children of the father of lies - Satan himself (as we’ll see later in this Sermon series).

We need to be born again!

“Born of him” as it says in chapter 2 verse 29.

See, Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3

Born again into a new family, because we were born into a world of sin and separate from God.

So something needs to happen to get us reconciled to God again.

John 1:12-13 gives us the picture of what we must do to join God’s family, to become born again, and to become a child of the Father.

John 1:12–13 (NIV)

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

Once we receive Jesus as our personal Savior, we are reconciled to God through Him!

He adopts us into His eternal family!

I am about to speak of something now that is very near and dear to my heart - Adoption!

It is so comforting, assuring, and amazing to consider that God would adopt us into His family - by His choice!

To illustrate this, let me just say that I have observed a few families that I am very close to, and adoption is one of the hardest, messiest, grueling ministries I’ve ever seen.

But it is also one the best and most rewarding expressions of God’s love that I have ever seen too.

These children come out of some of the most difficult situations that you could imagine.