And So We Really Are Beloved :: 1 John 3:1-3
See what type of love the Father has given to us: (It has the purpose) that we will be called children of God. And we are. On account of this (kind of love), the world does not know us because it does not know him. Beloved, we are now God’s children, and it has not yet been revealed what we will be. We know that when he appears, we will be like him. And all the ones having this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure (1 Jn 3:1-3).
Every Sunday when we don’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper, your pastor repeats an incredible promise. He says, To those who believe on His name, He gives the power to become children of God and has promised them His Holy Spirit. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.
Most of us have heard this promise from page 185 in the Lutheran Service Book for most of our lives. Our service book pulls these two quotes from John 1 and Mark 16. I know there have been weeks and maybe even years when you didn’t hear this declaration of grace. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an entire generation here that had never heard it before this past year. But all of you generational Lutherans should remember this as a staple of Page 5 in The Lutheran Hymnal ... the red book. It also appeared in the even older Evangelical Lutheran Hymn-Book adopted by this congregation as early as 1927. It was even used in Luther’s Mass, which can be found on Page 214. These words remind us of God’s eternal purpose for us all.
So today, in light of our readings for All-Saints Day, I hope you will take a moment to consider what a powerful Word it really is. Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who has given his only son to die for you, is declaring to you again that he forgives all your sins. And to those who believe this ...
HE CALLS YOU HIS CHILD AND HAS MADE YOU HIS BELOVED
I. It may not yet appear as such, but we are his beloved (v. 1)!
That makes this declaration of grace all the more incredible. We ... Are ... His ... Saints!
Has this ever really occurred to you before?
Or did that Gospel proclamation bounce off your ears like it does the world’s?
God loves you in this way: He sent his only son to die for you (Jn 3:16). You couldn’t go to God on your own. That’s because no one seeks God; no one understands (Rm 3:11). We have been separated from God by our sin. Sinners have no standing with God (2 Cor 6:14). Sin is darkness and God is light. They have nothing to do with each other. More than that, your sin will result in death. But God doesn’t desire the death of any sinner (Eze 18:23). He loves you. You are his beloved.
So he became one with us. He united himself with you. Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for you (2 Cor 5:20). Perfect in every way, he is wholly righteous. He lived blamelessly (Lk 23:22) so that God could show his love for us in this way: Jesus bore all of God’s wrath on the cross for your sin. He was innocent, but was crucified in your place. He died for you. He took your sin to the grave for you. He then was raised in glory for your justification (Rm 4:25), so that you who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God, will indeed have eternal life in his name (Jn 20:31).
In exchange for his life and death, his righteousness is now yours. He counts you among the saints. Through the baptism he has poured out upon you, he has given you a new birth from above (Jn 3:3) and made you alive in Christ and sealed you with the name above all names. You are beloved. Through baptism he is now giving you eternal life (Rm 6:4). He is in you and you are in him (Col 2:9). This is fully realized in the baptism he poured out upon you to prepare us for the eternal feast of the Lamb in his kingdom. You are beloved. You are now saints before God on account of what he has done for you. Your hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied.
What an awesome scene playing out before our eyes! Now we begin to understand some of what Jesus is telling his disciples on the mountain. As saints, we can rejoice and be glad because the kingdom of the heavens is yours (Mt 5:12) ... Now you will be comforted ... Now you will inherit the earth ... Now you will be satisfied ... Now you will receive mercy ... Today you will see God at the altar ... and will be reminded that we are indeed sons of God (Mt 5:4-9). Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the love the Father has given and continues to give to us!
II. He has reformed our fellowship with God and all the saints.
It hasn’t always been this way. Our fellowship has been under siege ever since the fall in the garden. We have been under attack by worldly, sinful, and satanic lies. No matter how hard we try to cling to the promises of God and the hope such promises bring, we continue to find ourselves questioning whether such promises could really be for us. But you, the beloved, should know what I am saying. We ask ourselves all too often ... How can God really forgive what I’ve thought, said, or done. How can I be a saint? Don’t you know how much of a sinner I am?
If you recognize this within yourself, you can see a dim reflection of our sinful nature. And that’s good news. Too often we hide from our sin, ashamed of our sin. We don’t want to acknowledge our sin, or admit it. Too often, we act like our sin doesn’t exist. Too often, we say we confess it, but deceptively we are crossing our fingers behind our backs, refusing to surrender. Some of us are prone to fits of anger or love for ourselves. Some of us are heartless. Some of us are Gossips. There are others among us who are reckless and swollen with conceit. Too often we refuse to forgive. We hold our grudges. We don’t accept forgiveness. We don’t seek forgiveness. We are continually tempted to rationalize and excuse away our actions. But these sins ... and so many more ... are causing our pain and suffering ... and are killing us. They are destroying our fellowship with each other. If we have no forgiveness we have no fellowship. If we have no fellowship, we are still in sin.
So, in the name of Jesus, repent. And see what kind of love the Father has given to us!
Our Lord Jesus Christ lived for you, died for you, rose from the dead for you, ascended into the heavens for you to prepare a place for you. He has prepared an imperishable, incorruptible inheritance for you. Your God has given you “eyes of faith” to see and to hear and to have faith in this eternal truth that Jesus has given his body and blood to you for the forgiveness of your sins. You, the baptized children of God, who have been raised with Christ (Rm 6:4), can now see and hear and believe God’s word that is in and with the water, and bread and wine ... knowing that in these means of grace, Christ delivers to you eternal peace ... the forgiveness of your sins.
This is but one more thing about our faith the world doesn’t understand. They think they have to rely on themselves for this peace. But Christians are not just named children of God. We are reborn as such. We are God's beloved. We recognize our sin nailed with Christ to his cross, and thank God that he loved us in this way: giving his only son to destroy sin and death through his crucifixion and resurrection.
We are therefore fathered by God now. He has remade us. He has called us, blessed us, chosen us. He lavishes us with his abundant grace (Eph 1:3-14). This isn’t a metaphor, a word game. We are now a new creation (2 Cor 5:17) who love because he first loved us (1 Jn 4:9).
III. Beloved, now that we know we are God’s children, we know that when he appears, we will be like him. (v 2).
And what a hope to have! Beyond this life, we shall be like Jesus ... perfect in every way. Free from sin. Free from pain and sorrow. Free in peace. Soon, Jesus will appear again in glory to deliver our eternal inheritance. For now we can thank him in the supper he delivers to use, a feast of forgiveness to remind us who we are in him.
We don’t know everything about that day or what life will be like afterward. But we do know that our bodies will be raised ... our own real, human bodies ... and all who are in Christ ... will be glorified, like his glorious body. And we do have a foretaste of the feast to come. This is certain, because our hope is founded on the reality of Jesus’ incarnation and divinity and on the fact that he completed everything that was incomplete within us.
The promise of Scripture is for all of God’s children. These are the ones before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and the one sitting upon the throne shelters them. They will not hunger again, nor thirst again; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them upon fountains of living water, and God will wipe away every tear out of their eyes (Rev 7:15–17).
Beloved ... Let us go forth today and every day knowing that our salvation, forgiveness, and hope are built on this promise that will never fail us. Let us receive his sacraments with joy now and forever. For we are in Jesus, and he is in us. Death has been defeated in his death and resurrection, and we are incorporated into this promise ... in Jesus’ name. Amen.