1 John 3:1-3 - Unrecognized Royalty … For Now
/1 John 3:1-3
In love, God adopted us as His children, making us heirs of future glory.
1 See the kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are! The world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Dear friends, we are children of God now, but what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him, and we will see Him as He really is. 3 Everyone who has this hope purifies himself just as Jesus is pure. – EHV
Prayer of the Day:
Almighty God, You have knit Your people together into one holy Church, the body of Christ our Lord. Grant us grace to follow the example of Your blessed saints in lives of faith and willing service, and with them at last inherit the inexpressible joys that You have prepared for those who love You; through Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Verse of the Day:
Alleluia. They are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple. Alleluia. (Revelation 7:15)
Sermon Text:
I know it’s probably too early to think Christmas thoughts. But today's lesson got me thinking about one of those old traditional Christmas shows that will likely start popping up on our TVs pretty soon. Maybe even the fact that I know Hermey, Yukon Cornelius, and the Bumble make me older than I want to admit, but Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is one of those Christmas classics that, well, just maybe, we still all know. If you do, perhaps you recall the little ditty that Hermey and Rudolph sing, “We’re a couple of misfits?” At least one verse goes, “We're a couple of misfits. We're a couple of misfits. What's the matter with misfits? That's where we fit in! We're not daffy and dilly. Don't go 'round willy nilly. Seems to us kinda silly That we don't fit in. We may be different from the rest. Who decides the test Of what is really best? We're a couple of misfits. We're a couple of misfits. What's the matter with misfits?
That's where we fit in!”
Now John is way older than I am, so he predates the commercialization of Christmas and the television classics that it would produce. In many ways, Christianity came into the mainstream in ways the Twelve Apostles would have never imagined. Yet even with Christmas and Easter on the calendar, I wonder if we don’t all feel a bit like Hermey and Rudolph from time to time. We just don’t seem to really fit in with the world around us, which has even led to tension within the visible church at times because, well, the sinful flesh wants nothing more than to be accepted. It turns out, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And in our lesson today, as our eyes move beyond the confines of time into eternity, and we celebrate All Saints and the glories so many of our Christian compatriots and our loved ones now enjoy, John addresses the fact that we are misfits in the world around us but find belonging where it matters most. As children of God, we are Unrecognized Royalty … for now.
Before we talk about what we are in Christ, it is important for us to acknowledge that this wasn’t always the case. The Apostle Paul wrote, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. (Ephesians 2:1-3)”
Born sinners, we were not always misfits in the world around us. In fact, we fit in just fine. Sin reigned in our mortal bodies, and in truth we still struggle against that old man living within us. But then there was a huge problem with that. Not only was sin corrosive and poisonous to us as people, resulting in death both physically and spiritually. While we fit in with the world around us, we didn’t fit in with our God. An eternity of wrath was what each and every sin earned and deserved from a righteous God who still demands perfection as the key that unlocks the doors to heaven. We could answer Rudolph and Hermey pretty definitively as they ask their question: Who decides the test Of what is really best? God does, and we don’t make the cut.
Ah, but then that’s only the beginning. As I said, before we acknowledge what we are in Christ, we need to recall what we were, because when we do well, we see it. John announces, See the kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are! The Greek word there for “the kind of” can also be translated as “what glorious or splendid”. The NIV translates the phrase as “the love that God has lavished on us”. Even those translations don’t go far enough.
What kind of love indeed. When we deserved only wrath and punishment as enemies of our Father, He willingly sacrificed His only Son to pay our debt and free us from the bonds of sin, satan, and hell. He supplied the perfection that a righteous God demanded to unlock those heavenly gates. And in so doing, he claimed us as His own. Now I have two sons, four children, and I’m not so sure I could sacrifice any of them for a friend, let alone for an enemy. Yet God does that for you. Does that not speak to your importance to Him? This is unfathomable love, splendid, glorious, lavish love. Words just don’t do it justice as God goes to work for us to make us His children.
And note those words too. You are a child of God. He is your Father. This simply heightens that love and the relationship we have with our God. What parent wouldn’t do anything in their power for their child? What parent wants anything other than the very best for them? And our Father is God Himself, dear brothers and sisters. That means we are royalty.
Ah, but… it doesn’t always feel that way. So John repeats it even as he gives us the explanation for why that is the case. The world does not know us, because it did not know Him. The truth is we will always be misfits to one of the two. We can fit in with the world around us and sever our ties to our God, or we, as Children of God, will be despised by the unbelieving and sin-filled world that swirls around us. We can’t have both any more than Jesus could. Of course, to fit in with the one is an eternity of destruction, and the other well …
Dear friends, we are children of God now, but what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him, and we will see Him as He really is. The time will come. The time will come when the royalty that has been gifted to us will be evident to all. However, that in no way lessens the reality of it now. We are children of God, yes, right now! Even though it may feel like we don’t fit in and the hardships and trials outweigh that royal status. You are God’s child.
Oh, but my dear family members in Christ Jesus, the time will come. The time will come when the sin-filled realities of this world give way to the realities of eternity. Those realities are to great and to glorious for sinful human minds to even fully understand or contemplate: Perfection, free of the consequences of sin, glorious. We will need to see it to fully grasp it. For we will be like Christ. Not divine, that will always be something reserved for our God, but those qualities that we so long for that make heaven so glorious, no longer misfits in a fallen world but royalty realized in the realms of heaven itself. To be able to see God as He really is. It’s all so much more than I deserve, than anyone deserves. But that’s the point. Such love again … such love that it defies definition … God’s love for us that saves us and gives us a lasting, eternal home where we will always fit in.
So John says, this truth changes us. Everyone who has this hope purifies himself just as Jesus is pure. We cannot purify ourselves in the eyes of God. That is something we just talked at great length about. But knowing what God’s love has done for us, well, it is bound to change the way we live right now. It’s bound to change priorities and what matters to us. It’s bound to lift our eyes up from this fallen world and the fallen realities in which we live to those of our God and His lasting promises that You and I would live as His children even now just as we are is children even now. Living in His righteousness even as we long to see with our very own eyes.
All Saints is a time when we lift our eyes to that glorious home God has prepared for us. It’s a time when we rejoice with those who enjoy those realities at least partially, now as their souls are with Him there. It’s a time we remember who we are by grace and through faith and what the Scriptures tell us that ultimately means. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, that is what we are. You are not misfits. No, Because of God’s love for you, you are unrecognized royalty, but that’s only for now. Amen.