In his sermon titled 'Behold the Love of God,' Steve Hopkins explores the profound nature of God's love as depicted in 1 John 3:1-3. He emphasizes the extraordinary and incomprehensible nature of this love, urging believers to contemplate and be amazed by it. The sermon contrasts the children of God with the children of the world, illustrating the assurance and hope believers have in their eternal state. Hopkins outlines six characteristics of God's love: it is sovereign, paternal, adopting, gracious, unchanging, and everlasting. He highlights that God's love was set upon believers before they were born, and through adoption, they are brought into the family of God. This love is rooted in grace, with Christ taking the punishment of sin on behalf of believers. The sermon encourages believers to focus on Jesus for assurance and to live in the joy of being God's children. Hopkins concludes by emphasizing the hope of believers in becoming like Christ upon His return, highlighting the transformative power of God's love.

Good afternoon again. What a wonderful Lord's Day. If you would, turn with me in your Bibles to the book of 1 John, where we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 3 of chapter 3. So 1st John chapter 3 verses 1 through 3 the title of the message today is, Behold the Love of God. If you would Stand with me for the reading of the Word of the Lord.

Follow along as I read. Than we should be called the children of God. Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him. Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as He is pure.

Let's pray. Father, we come into Your presence once again with thanksgiving and praise for Your goodness, O God, for Your kindness, for your mercy, for your compassion, and for the love wherewith you loved us in Christ Jesus before time began. Oh Lord, we want to know more of this love. Your people want to know more of this love, this love that made us your children. And so we humbly ask that you might be pleased to give the Spirit and power to open the eyes of our understanding and to minister grace to every soul.

And oh Lord, to disperse any dark clouds of doubt hanging over your children in this hour and to drive out every fear and cause our hearts Lord to leap with joy as we ponder the wonder of your paternal love for us in Christ Jesus for we ask it in His most holy and blessed name. Amen. Let's be seated. Throughout this letter, John has been presenting his readers with a picture, with a picture of genuine, authentic Christianity. He's been contrasting the children of God with the children of the world.

John wants believers to have assurance of their eternal state. He says further on in chapter 5 and verse 13, the reason that I've written these things to you is so that you who believe on the name of Jesus can be assured that you have eternal life. And so John provides them with this, with a number of contrasts leading up to chapter three by which they can have assurance that they're saved. It's similar to Jesus when he talks about a tree being known by his fruit. As we lead up to our opening text here in chapter 3 verse 1, John contrasts those who walk in the light with those who walk in the darkness, Those who claim that they don't have any sin with those who confess their sins to God.

He contrasts those who, as a style of life, are keepers of the commandments of God with those who live a habitual, unrepentant life of sin. He contrasts those who love their brothers with those who hate their brothers. He contrasts those who love the world with those who don't, and those who practice righteousness with those who practice sin. And it's one contrast after another. But he's not, look at the text, he's not preaching perfectionism.

But he is saying that even as there is a resemblance between children and their earthly fathers, so there is a resemblance between the children of God and their heavenly father. Those who are born of God bear the family likeness of the Father and of the Son. And this is what John comes to in verses 28 and 29 of chapter 2, just before chapter 3 opens. And then when he gets to chapter three, before John has even finished drawing these distinctions between the children of God and the children of the world, he pauses. Look at chapter three in verse one.

John just kind of pauses. And the sense is that he is overcome with wonder and astonishment at the thought that has come into his mind. The Greek word here translated at least in the NKJV and KJV and several others is behold, it's an imperative. An imperative is a command or a call, and here it's a call, and a call that should cause every one of us to pause and to stand in awe, if only for a moment. It's a call to set our minds eye on what follows with amazement.

Look at the text. John says, behold this and wonder. Behold what manner of love. John could have just said, see the love, but he doesn't. He says, see what kind of love this is.

He says, behold what manner of love this is. Behold it. Set your gaze upon it. Meditate on this. What manner of love is this?

There's no tab in the filing cabinet to file it under. There's no place in quick books to find a place to shuffle it off and put it in there and relegate it to that section. There's no category on earth to place it in. It's otherworldly. It's beyond extraordinary.

It's supernatural. And the sense is that John is awestruck at the thought of it, and he just pauses. Behold, what matter of love The Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God. It's beyond amazing. It's astounding.

It's breathtaking. Oh, what manner of love is this that the Father has bestowed on us, some versions render it lavished on us? What kind of love is this that has been lavished on us that we should be called the sons and daughters of the living God, that we should be made God's children. It's too big, It's too grand to fully grasp the wonder of it with our finite minds, but we need to try. But we need to try.

What is this love that takes the likes of us and permits us to be named and called and actually become children of God. John is astonished at the thought of it, And we should be astonished at the thought of it as well. He says, behold it, behold this love. Try to get your mind around it. Try to get your mind wrapped around it.

Let it saturate your thinking. Look at it. Behold it. Fix your gaze on it. Focus on it.

Meditate on it with wonder and amazement. Be overwhelmed by the thought of it. This astounding, this immense, this immeasurable, this incomprehensible love of God that made us His children. Oh Lord God, I pray that you would bless everyone under this roof today this afternoon with a greater sense of your love for them. Brothers and sisters, if something belongs to you, You should know it belongs to you.

And this belongs to you. If you're a believer in Christ, this belongs to you. The love of the Father that made you His child, This love is yours. It is upon you, underneath you, all around you, and you need to swim in the current of it and bask in the light of it and live in the joy of it. Oh, that the contemplation of our Father's love for us in Christ Jesus would flood every one of our hearts with joy, unspeakable and full of glory, disperse every dark cloud of doubt hanging over our heads and drive away all fear.

Six things I want you to understand concerning God's love for you personally as a child. Number one, God's love for you is a sovereign love. Two, it is a paternal love. Three, it is an adopting love. Four, it is a gracious love.

Number five, it is an unchanging love. And sixth and final, it is a love that is yours now and forever. First, God's love for you is a sovereign love, which simply means that it is a love that was set on you before you were born. It's hard to take it in. It is a love that was set upon you before you were ever born, before the world was ever created, before time.

Ephesians 1, 3 through 4 says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. On account of the Father's great love for you before time began, He chose you in Christ. And You have now been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus, the vaults of heaven can hold. Brothers and sisters, You can't buy that. It isn't on Amazon.

And you can't earn it. It is sovereign, free, unmerited, unearned, undeserved. And all you can do is say thank you and then live your whole life, give your whole self or your whole life back in grateful, joyful praise. Second, God's love for you in Christ is a paternal love. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon you.

That you should be called a child of God. God's rich, paternal love for you made you His child, but it didn't begin with you. The redemptive love of God for His people flows out from the Father's eternal love for the Son. That's a scroll quote. The redemptive love of God for his people flows out from the Father's eternal love for his Son.

John 17, 23 tells us that we are loved by the Father just as the Father loves His Son. Quote, that the world may know that you have sent Me and have loved them, Jesus speaking of the Father, even as you have loved me. Bask in that. Think on that. Meditate on that.

Drink that in. Let that flow over you. The Father loves you with the same perfect eternal love with which he loved his son eternally. He loves you in Christ. Behold the eternal love of God in Christ for you.

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on you, who were born not of blood, John 1.13, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, born of God. Thirdly, it is an adopting love. Ephesians 1.5 says, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself. We're the children of God by adoption. And note in my Bible here says adoption by God is an astonishing gift from the extraordinary love of the Father.

By adoption we were brought into a new family. By adoption, you were brought into a new family, the family of God. Adoption, John Owen in a 1600s kind of really heavy theological statement on this, adoption is the authoritative translation of a believer by Jesus Christ from the family of the world and Satan into the family of God. Think of the wonder of that. Transferred from the family of the world and of Satan into the family of God.

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon you that you should be called a child of God. Owen uses that phrase, authoritative translation. When he uses that, he's using a legal definition or he's legal terminology. And he's basing it on John chapter one of verse 12 where we read that as many as has came to him, to Jesus, gave He power, that is authority, legal right to become the children of God. Our adoption was a legal adoption bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus.

Behold, it John says, by the love of adoption, we were taken into the number of the children of God. But not because we were the most obedient children in the catalog of those available. Everyone hear that? By adoption, we were taken into the number of the family of God, into the number of the children of God, but not because we were the most obedient children in the catalog of those available in the world. Not because we were the most lovable children on the adoption website.

Human adoption, when parents are considering adoption, they look through a portfolio many times and they read the histories of children available and they see their pictures. I've read of families who sought out the children that everyone else was passing by, the most neglected. Even the children with the worst records. That's love, That's love. None of us were adopted because of anything appealing God saw in us.

We were adopted because our Father in heaven chose to set His love on us in Christ, in Christ. His love given us in Christ. We will never fully understand it. We will spend an eternity trying to understand it, to comprehend it, trying to understand this manner of love that the Father has bestowed upon us, that we were taken into the number of the children of God. Which brings me to number four, It is a gracious love.

Behold what manner of love the Father has given us. It's all of grace. Grace is the free, unearned, undeserved, unmerited love and favor of God. We are the children of God by grace, and all that we have been given, all we have, we've been given by grace, by the grace that is in Christ. Grace means that we can walk on the earth with the smiles of heaven above us when all we deserve is frowns.

I know I've probably told the story probably maybe three or four times, I don't know, in my 30 years pastoring this church. Any five-year-olds here? Any six-year-olds? Pals are out. Got a few there.

Our former elder passed away in 2021 when he was five years old. He disobeyed his mom, right? And she says, you're gonna spank him. You're gonna get a spanking, Don. And Don didn't take his spanking.

He ran out of the house, runs down the steps, and went into the bushes and hid in the bushes. And his mother came out on the porch and she calls him, Don. Don wouldn't come. Don was hiding. He didn't want to get his spanking.

And then an hour later, hiding in the bushes for an hour, he hears his father's car pulled into the driveway and he knew it was all over for him. He knew it was all over. He knew he was gonna get the licking of his life and his mother comes down the porch and says, Don, he calls for Don and Don sulks, walks up the steps with his head down, his eyes to the ground and into the house to face his father and take his spanking and he opens the door and his father says, Don, I bought you a new train set. I bought you a new train set. I bought you a new train set.

Here it is. He deserved to be punished, but he got a gift instead. And of course, the difference is that we got the train, we got the train but someone else got the spanking. By grace God gave His Son and punished Him in our place. All the wrath, the woe that we did merit, as the hymn says, Jesus inherited on a cross outside of Jerusalem.

John Newton said that it was grace that taught his heart to fear and grace that relieved his fears. Think about that from Amazing Grace. It's grace that gives us sight of our sin and ears to hear and fear the dreadful sentence of divine justice that's hanging over us like a sword, and it's grace that relieves all our fears when we look on a bleeding Jesus, and come to trust in the sure mercies of God in Christ. You know, we're never gonna stop talking about God's grace and love, even when we get to heaven. I can see myself in the presence of our Lord in glory, turning to one child of God after another and whispering, you know it's a miracle that I'm here.

It's a miracle that any one of us will be there. A miracle of grace. One can't understand the love of God and Christ unless they understand grace. Grace means that we deserve to be punished, but instead we got the train and someone else got the spanking. Grace means we deserve to be punished eternally, but instead we got the greatest gift ever given, Christ.

John Newton, oh, I love John Newton, reading through his only hymns and just are so encouraging. If in condemnation, here's his rhyme, if in condemnation strict justice takes place, it shines in salvation more glorious through grace. What? What's he talking about? He says, if strict justice takes place in the condemnation of sinners, how much more glorious does the strict justice of God shine forth in the salvation of sinners through grace?

The strict justice of God demands that every one of us be punished in hell eternally. But Newton is saying how glorious, what praise to the glory of the grace of God is it that his strict justice was meted out on his son on a cross in our place. Wow. We were by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2, 3, through 5, We all once conducted ourselves with the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of our mind We were by nature children of wrath just like everyone else but God But God who was rich in mercy Listen to this because of His great love, wherewith He loved us, He made us alive in Christ, in Christ. We are all, we are the children of God because of the great love with which the Father loved us in Christ.

How astonishing is the love of God lavished on us in Christ, that we who are children by nature should be made the sons and daughters of the living God, admitted into God's family and destined to glory. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God. Spurgeon once said, you know, that any man or woman of mortal race should become a child of God might astound us, but that we ourselves should be such should amaze us beyond degree. He's talking about me. Fifth, it is an unchanging love.

God's love for us is unchanging. Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Jeremiah 31.3. Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Romans 8, 35 through 39.

But regrettably, guess what? We still sin, right? We still sin. But even though we still sin, amazingly, His love for us remains and it remains undiminished. Think on that.

Behold what matter of love the Father has bestowed upon us, His children. His love, even while we are sinning against Him, is not diminished. He doesn't love us less when we're walking through the low valleys of our life or the low valleys of a particular day in our Christian walk. And He doesn't love us more when we're walking on the hills. In greater obedience.

His love for us never changes and His love is never diminished. His love is immutable, unchanging, constant, steadfast, immovable. Newton, again, there is a natural proneness to pour over our past sins. How many have that natural proneness? You get out, there's a time, maybe it hasn't happened for a while, but you get someplace and you're sitting there and all of a sudden past sins start to just go through your mind.

It may be when you were 15 or 5 years old or 25 or 65, they start to go through your mind. You start to pour over them and you pour over them and you wonder, how could God love someone like me? You think about that thing that you said, that thing that you did, that thing that you thought. How could God love someone like me? He says there's this natural proneness to pour over our past sins, but we have to look away from self.

See, that's self-focus, right? We have to look away from self. If we don't, we'll become anxious, doubting and downcast. God doesn't want His children to live that way. He says we must Run the race, not looking at our imperfections and shortcomings and failures, but looking unto Jesus.

Robert Murray McShane, for everyone look at ourselves, We need to look 10 times at Christ. Pour over your sins no longer. I couldn't find the hymn. He has these words in there and I tried to find it this morning, couldn't find it. Pour over your sins no longer.

But Brothers and sisters, taking the whip to your back isn't God's plan of salvation and it isn't His remedy for your restoration. Looking in the mirror isn't the answer. Looking to Jesus is the answer to Christ who dealt with all your sin and all your failure once for all time on a cross of wood. Look, Revelation 1-5 says, to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. You can't add anything to that.

And you shouldn't try. You can't add anything to that. Brothers and sisters, listen to me. You can't add anything to what Jesus has done for you. Not for the sins of your past, not for the sins that you committed last week, not even for the sins that you may have committed on the way to church today.

You can't add to what Christ has done, what Jesus did for you. Jesus died is our only plea and that He died is all the plea we need. He died for us. This is love, John says, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation, the sacrifice of atonement to make satisfaction for our sins. Number six and final, it's a love that is yours now and it is a love that is yours forever.

We are the children of God right now who are in Christ by faith. Beloved, " John says, beloved, he's talking to Fellow believers, beloved, we are now the children of God. We have the promise sealed with blood that once a child of God, Always a child of God. Oh yes, our Father in heaven may chasten us on earth. We read from the writer of Hebrews, he continually chastens and rebukes the sons that he loves and that for our good.

But even his chastening is an act of love. And He never stops being our Father, and we as children. He never stops loving us. Sometimes we need to just pause and reflect on His love. Sometimes we need to just find a place to get alone with God and to just ask our Father for a fuller and deeper sense of His love for us in Christ.

Oh God that you would do that. His love for us in Christ. The love of the Father is revealed to us in His Son. The love of God is manifested to us in Jesus Christ. Beloved, now are we the children of God.

And it's not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is." Here's the hope as we close, the certain hope. John started off by contrasting the lives of those who are the children of God with the lives of those who are not. We have the hope that when Christ returns, we're going to be made like Him. He starts by contrasting the lives of the children of God and those who are not the children of God. The children of God have the hope, the certain hope, that when Christ returns, we're going to be made like Him.

It's right here on the board that Eric talked about earlier. Number four, no longer able to sin against God. No longer able, we'll not be in bodies that are corruptible any longer. No longer able to sin against God. No longer able, will not be in bodies that are corruptible any longer.

No longer able to sin against God. Perfectly conformed to Him, to Christ in every way. Now the world doesn't know us. It doesn't recognize us as the children of God because the world doesn't know Him, but we know Him. And we know what He has done for us.

And so we want to be like Him as much as we can on our way to that perfect conformity that we will surely realize when we see Him face to face. When listen to this brothers and sisters, when He who came for us comes back for us and takes us to be with Him forever, to the praise of the glory of His grace. Let's pray. Oh, Father, on this Father's Day, Lord, we thank You that we are Your children by divine, paternal, and eternal love. We thank You, God, that we are Your children.

We know it's by adoption, And we praise and thank You for bringing us into the number of the children of God, not because of anything You saw in us. We thank You, God, that we are the children of Your children by grace, by grace. And we know that we are your children by grace in Christ and only because of Christ and what Christ has done for us. We thank you God that we can be assured that we are your children right now. We are the children of God who are in Christ in union with Jesus by faith.

And we thank you God that we are your children forever. Oh Lord, let us wonder and adore for your grace, oh God, is all divine. Oh God, turn night to day for Indi who are under dark clouds of doubt this afternoon. Drive every fear away. Drive every fear away, Lord, as we consider what manner of love you you you