Children of a Greater God

1 John 3:1-3

It takes a special kind of love to bring someone else’s child, someone you probably don’t know, into your home and care for him, nurture him, love him, share your life with him and leave your possessions to him.

Adoption is a miracle of love and devotion that not everyone is capable of giving; but all are able to receive.

That is the privilege that has been granted to those who believe in and follow Jesus Christ; adoption into the kingdom of God, and all the benefits that come with that adoption. 

In our lesson today, St. John asks us to see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.

For some, adoption comes with great cost.  Americans travel all over the world to find a child to adopt and pay large amounts of money to lawyers, and even countries to bring children back to their homes.  It is not uncommon these days to pay someone to have a child for you, and then the mother hands the baby over to the new parents at birth.

When I was adopted, I didn’t know that I was about to “obtain and inheritance”, and that the Holy Spirit would guarantee that inheritance until I could acquire it.

I didn’t know that following Christ was going to be such hard work.  Christianity is not for wimps.

We have been adopted into a body and given much responsibility.  We have been given a standard, an example if you will, of how we are to live our lives.  That standard was set by the one who hung on the cross, so that you and I could have access to the grace of the Almighty God.

St. John said that the world does not know us, because it does not know God, but how can it know God if we don’t share what has been entrusted to us, with them?

By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul tells us that God has…”raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

I am a living testimony to that truth.  I grew up in the Anglican Church in Canada.  My earliest recollections of attending church were with my grandmother and my great grandmother in a little church that might have held forty people.  In fact that building is still being used today.  I eventually got confirmed and became an acolyte in the Cathedral under Dean Lundy.  He even spoke a prophetic word over me once; he said I was going to be a priest one day.  He died at a young age of cancer before he could see the fruit of his labors.

When I was seventeen I discovered that it was a lot more fun being in the world than staying in church.  For twenty five years I lived for myself, playing as hard as I could, drinking as hard as I could, and running as hard as I could, away from God.

When God did catch up to me, I still didn’t want to be caught, but he had other plans.  I didn’t know that, “In love, He predestined [me] for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.”

God also paid a great price, that we may become His children; in fact, it cost Him the life of His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” 

That is the kind of love St. John is referring to.  The kind of love that would require the death of ones own son to save the life of a stranger.  The kind of love that can only have one source, the Triune God.

When we adopt, we are given choices.  We may specify that we are looking for a Caucasian child, African American, Chinese, Hispanic or Indian.  We can choose between a boy or a girl.  We can choose the age of the child or what country he or she is from. 

God also chooses whom He will adopt, but He only has one source to draw from.  That source is full of sinful, disobedient children of wrath.  They want nothing to do with Him and are dead in their trespasses and sins.  In fact, St. Paul tells us that they would rather follow Satan, the prince of the power of the air, than follow their creator.

When someone is adopted they are taken from one home and placed in another.  When God adopts us, we can no longer call this world our home.  We now belong to God and are to be where He is.

St. John elsewhere commands us; “do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him.” 

When we received Christ and believed in His name, we were given the right to become children of God.   Being adopted as a child of God is a great privilege indeed, one that has been gifted by the Father; paid for by the Son; and confirmed by the Holy Spirit.  As children of God, we have been given much responsibility; and also the grace to carry out that responsibility.

You were purchased at a great price………….

Live a life worthy of a child of the Great God………….