Becoming What We Are
Preaching
Distinctively Different
Shell--shocked soldiers presented a perplexing problem for the French Army following the conclusion of World War I. So shell--shocked were such soldiers, over 100 in number, that they had amnesia. They could not remember their own names. They were healthy in every other way, ready to return home to their families, but they could not remember their own identity. The French Army, due to a faulty record--keeping system, did not know who they were either. Perplexing problem!
It was suggested that the French Army hold an identification rally in an effort to name these homeless heros. After invitations to would--be families had been sent, interested parties were gathered in a large plaza in Paris. One by one these amnesia--ridden victims made their way to the microphone and pleaded, "Can anyone out there please tell me who I am? Can you please tell me my name?" Reporters gathered for the rally stated that few events in the entire war rivaled this one for its sheer drama.
What is your name? Who are you? Who are you now and who or what are you becoming? These are questions to which John is addressing himself in our text. John says that we are children of God. "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (v. 1a). John paradoxically states that we both are and are becoming children of God.
Just think! We are children of God! How lucky! How blessed we are to be God's children! How blessed we are to be born into a world where God created everything "good." How blessed we are that God created us in his own image. How blessed we are that God himself breathed into our mouths the very breath of life. And how very blessed we are that through the love he "lavished" upon us and our small, childlike faith, itself a gift from God, now we are called children of God. How blessed we are! And it is totally and completely his unmerited gift to us. We have done nothing to deserve our new name nor our favored status. They are ours purely through his marvelous love and grace. How blessed we are that the Father should love us so!
As I think of how blessed we are, I cannot help but think of those children who have never heard of the love of our heavenly Parent. I think of those who have never known the love of an earthly parent or worse, have suffered abuse at the hand of an unloving one. I think of those who live lives of self--destruction which stems largely from never knowing such love. I think of those who walk a painful path living lives warped because they only mimic the hatred and violence in which they have been reared. How blessed are we who have not had to endure such.
On a lighter note, I must confess to something. When I cannot avoid it, when there is no other alternative, when I cannot get out of it, when I am forced to do so, I play with my fifteen--month--old grandson! Talk about God's gift of pure, unadulterated joy! We have our little games we play. Our newest one is where we turn together the handle on our old ring--type wall telephone and I speak into the mouthpiece, "Hello!" And then I hold him up to the mouthpiece and he says, "Huh--uh!" I think he enjoys it almost as much as I do. Then I thought, he is doing exactly what I do! He is saying exactly what I say! That is the most frightening thing in the world to me. Well, almost! The most frightening thing is to observe words and behavior that I instilled long ago in my three sons. I think about all those without God's love who only do and say what they perceive all around them. It makes us feel all the more grateful of our status as children of God, especially when we remember that we have done nothing to deserve it.
It would be hard to imagine anyone receiving more honors and accolades. He was Wisemen of America's number one high school quarterback. He was the Associated Press' number one high school football and basketball player in America, 1961. He signed a college football scholarship to play for the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant at the University of Alabama, where he was the starting quarterback in three major bowl games. He was chosen All--American, the "Most Valuable Player" in the 1966 Orange Bowl, Atlanta Touchdown Club's Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference, 1965, and winner of the Sammy Baugh Trophy presented by the Columbus, Ohio, Touchdown Club, 1965. These are only a sampling of his many honors. But, Steve Sloan later stated that the greatest honor he ever received was from a less--than--friendly student who pushed him aside while passing him on his college campus and said, "Get out of the way, Christian!" The greatest honor he ever received was to be called Christian - a child of God.
We will never receive a greater honor than to be called Christian nor one that we deserve less! John 1:12--13 says: "Yet to all who received 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."
How blessed we are to be named children of God! But often this present reality is called into question by an unbelieving world. "The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him" (v. 1b). Our status as God's child is sometimes called into question by an unbelieving world. Often our status is called into question because we are different from an unbelieving world that does not understand us, especially as Christians become more and more a minority. The unbelievers scratch their heads and say, "Those folks are different!" They think we dress funny with robes and sashes. Our buildings sometimes intimidate and our language seems "coded." What is it with all these "thee's and thou's" and terms like redemption, reconciliation, and rapture? They watch religious entertainers on television and wonder what this has to do with everyday life. They criticize those who always seem to be begging for money. Our music, mode of dress, and morality are foreign to them, and they remark, "Are these guys weird or what?" We are sometimes perceived as being different.
On the other hand, our status as children of God is sometimes called into question because we are no different from the unbelieving world. They put their thumbs behind their suspenders and remark, "I'm just as good as that Christian. He is no different than I am." They observe our denominational political fusses and say, "They're no different!" They chide us because of fallen leaders and ask, "Are you unique?" Often in our morality we are no different than the unbelieving world around us and give to them the excuse they have been looking for to remain in disbelief. They echo the sentiment of the Nihilistic philosopher Fred--erick Nietzsche, "If you want me to believe in your Redeemer, you first have to show me that you have been redeemed." They say, "You are no different at all!" And, too often, they are right! Yes, Virginia, there are hypocrites in the church! But I cannot think of a better place for a hypocrite to be than in the church. Better to be a hypocrite in the church than out!
Don Harbuck quoted an old George W. Truett story. It seemed that a man once came to Dr. Truett and demanded that his name be removed from the church roll. He did not want to be a Christian any more. Truett responded, "I will, but I am behind in my work now. If you will visit Mrs. So--and--So who just lost her husband, read some scripture, and have prayer with her, I will honor the request." The man refused. "Okay, but that's the only way I can do what you ask since I am so far behind." The man reluctantly agreed. He visited the widow, read scripture, and prayed with her and never again asked to have his name removed. His Christian action reminded him of his nature bestowed upon him by God's grace. He could not deny who he was. He was a child of God.
Because of the Father's love we are the children of God whether we are perceived to be by an unbelieving world or not. John continues by saying that we also are becoming what we are. "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (v. 2). We are children of God and we are becoming children of God. There is to our status a "now and not yet." We inherit eternal life now which is completed when we die or Christ comes again. We share Christ's life today as we become more and more like him, a process to be completed in heaven. The fancy theological term is "realized eschatology" made prominent by the great theologian, C. H. Dodd.
We are a child and are becoming a child. But to become more of what we are, we must make a response. The dynamic is similar to the experience of the younger son in Jesus' greatest story, sometimes called the parable of the Loving Father. After wasting his inheritance, the son found himself destitute in the mire of the pigpen. He was still a "son," but he initiated the process of becoming what he was when he "came to himself" and started the journey back to the Father. And, of course, the prodigal's Father received him joyfully as a full "son" in the Father's house. We are and we are becoming.
I saw a sign in the hospital which read, "God loves me just the way I am and too much to let me stay that way." Possibly that means that every child of God is an unfinished product. Perhaps it means that God "ain't through with us yet." Perhaps it means that God is still at work in our lives. There is a legend which has an individual asking the great artist Michelangelo, "How are you able to take a simple, formless block of stone and from it produce a beautiful angel?" The sculptor replied, "It is simple. I just chisel away everything that does not look like an angel." Perhaps this means that every day God sculpts, chisels, and chips away everything in us that does not look like Jesus. God still is at work to make us distinctively different.
But we have work to do as well. The process of becoming more and more like Christ demands our response. "We know we shall be like him ... Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure" (vv. 2b--3). We must cooperate with God as he molds us into the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). I am not sure that I know what John means by "purify," but maybe it is similar to an experience I had as a young man. For three summers I worked at the Republic Steel Mill to earn money for college. Nine thousand employees worked there, and they were supervised by 550 foremen, one of whom was my father. Of those 550 foremen, my father was ranked number two in their work--simplification rating system. Everyone knew him. The first week I was there, the labor foreman painted "CARVER" across my hard hat which I wore at all times. Countless persons would see my hat and remark, "So, you're Carver's kid!" Then, they would watch. They watched to see how hard I worked, how well I listened, how fast I learned. They watched to see if I lived up to my name. We all have work to do to live up to our name Christian - "Little Christ." We are in process of becoming what we are - a process that will con--tinue throughout all eternity.
I was privileged to study in seminary under the great preacher and Old Testament scholar, Clyde Francisco. Dr. Francisco used to say, "Oh, we will continue to grow in heaven because we will continue to have problems. The only difference between heaven and here is that there will be some answers in heaven. There are no answers to the problems we face here!" How true! How blessed we are to be able to look forward to an eternity in which to grow in Christ--likeness.
You may have heard the story going around of two caterpillars crawling around in the grit, grass, and dirt of the ground. Overhead was flying gracefully a beautiful multi--colored butterfly. Looking up, one caterpillar said to the other, "I know one thing. You'll never get me up there in one of those contraptions!" There is just no telling what God is going to do in our lives - in this world and the next.
As Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, said, "The root of sin is the refusal to be what God has created us to be." Why don't we let God do all he wants to do with us?
If ever I knew a child of God it was she. Over fifty women filed into her Bible study class each Sunday. She stood at the door and hugged each one. She had forgotten more Bible than I have ever known. She knew the literary classics and could quote poetry endlessly without flaw. She had given herself tirelessly to multiple mission projects. She was a saint.
She lived alone and very modestly, her husband and son long deceased. When she died, she did not own an automobile. Yet, she gave annually to our church budget an amount near $125,000. She once gave $100,000 to the scholarship fund at the seminary from which I graduated because I remarked once in a sermon that I could not have made it through seminary without scholarships. During the pledging portion for a recent building campaign, she approached me to say that she was going to give her Coca--Cola stock at that time because she "did not want me to get in trouble over the building campaign." Over 33,000 shares netted over $1,750,000. She literally saved my pastorate. When she died, she left to the church the rest of her estate which totaled another $1,500,000. I was her pastor. She was my "Rufus mother" (Romans 16:13). I loved Bess Hill.
She was so alive and vibrant, it was easy to forget that she was almost ninety and very nearly blind. On Sunday morning she greeted and hugged everyone as usual. On Tuesday morning, she fell. I saw her in the hospital around noon and she seemed to be fine. I returned around 4:00 p.m. and her condition had markedly changed. "Oh, hello, darling," she said as she always did. But I knew she was much worse. After a few moments, I asked, "Bess, are you all right?" She looked at me with a gaze still embedded in my mind. "No," she said, "but I will be soon." She knew. Six hours later, I held her hand as she went on to be with her Lord - as she went on to become more and more of what she so beautifully was.
It was suggested that the French Army hold an identification rally in an effort to name these homeless heros. After invitations to would--be families had been sent, interested parties were gathered in a large plaza in Paris. One by one these amnesia--ridden victims made their way to the microphone and pleaded, "Can anyone out there please tell me who I am? Can you please tell me my name?" Reporters gathered for the rally stated that few events in the entire war rivaled this one for its sheer drama.
What is your name? Who are you? Who are you now and who or what are you becoming? These are questions to which John is addressing himself in our text. John says that we are children of God. "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (v. 1a). John paradoxically states that we both are and are becoming children of God.
Just think! We are children of God! How lucky! How blessed we are to be God's children! How blessed we are to be born into a world where God created everything "good." How blessed we are that God created us in his own image. How blessed we are that God himself breathed into our mouths the very breath of life. And how very blessed we are that through the love he "lavished" upon us and our small, childlike faith, itself a gift from God, now we are called children of God. How blessed we are! And it is totally and completely his unmerited gift to us. We have done nothing to deserve our new name nor our favored status. They are ours purely through his marvelous love and grace. How blessed we are that the Father should love us so!
As I think of how blessed we are, I cannot help but think of those children who have never heard of the love of our heavenly Parent. I think of those who have never known the love of an earthly parent or worse, have suffered abuse at the hand of an unloving one. I think of those who live lives of self--destruction which stems largely from never knowing such love. I think of those who walk a painful path living lives warped because they only mimic the hatred and violence in which they have been reared. How blessed are we who have not had to endure such.
On a lighter note, I must confess to something. When I cannot avoid it, when there is no other alternative, when I cannot get out of it, when I am forced to do so, I play with my fifteen--month--old grandson! Talk about God's gift of pure, unadulterated joy! We have our little games we play. Our newest one is where we turn together the handle on our old ring--type wall telephone and I speak into the mouthpiece, "Hello!" And then I hold him up to the mouthpiece and he says, "Huh--uh!" I think he enjoys it almost as much as I do. Then I thought, he is doing exactly what I do! He is saying exactly what I say! That is the most frightening thing in the world to me. Well, almost! The most frightening thing is to observe words and behavior that I instilled long ago in my three sons. I think about all those without God's love who only do and say what they perceive all around them. It makes us feel all the more grateful of our status as children of God, especially when we remember that we have done nothing to deserve it.
It would be hard to imagine anyone receiving more honors and accolades. He was Wisemen of America's number one high school quarterback. He was the Associated Press' number one high school football and basketball player in America, 1961. He signed a college football scholarship to play for the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant at the University of Alabama, where he was the starting quarterback in three major bowl games. He was chosen All--American, the "Most Valuable Player" in the 1966 Orange Bowl, Atlanta Touchdown Club's Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference, 1965, and winner of the Sammy Baugh Trophy presented by the Columbus, Ohio, Touchdown Club, 1965. These are only a sampling of his many honors. But, Steve Sloan later stated that the greatest honor he ever received was from a less--than--friendly student who pushed him aside while passing him on his college campus and said, "Get out of the way, Christian!" The greatest honor he ever received was to be called Christian - a child of God.
We will never receive a greater honor than to be called Christian nor one that we deserve less! John 1:12--13 says: "Yet to all who received 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."
How blessed we are to be named children of God! But often this present reality is called into question by an unbelieving world. "The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him" (v. 1b). Our status as God's child is sometimes called into question by an unbelieving world. Often our status is called into question because we are different from an unbelieving world that does not understand us, especially as Christians become more and more a minority. The unbelievers scratch their heads and say, "Those folks are different!" They think we dress funny with robes and sashes. Our buildings sometimes intimidate and our language seems "coded." What is it with all these "thee's and thou's" and terms like redemption, reconciliation, and rapture? They watch religious entertainers on television and wonder what this has to do with everyday life. They criticize those who always seem to be begging for money. Our music, mode of dress, and morality are foreign to them, and they remark, "Are these guys weird or what?" We are sometimes perceived as being different.
On the other hand, our status as children of God is sometimes called into question because we are no different from the unbelieving world. They put their thumbs behind their suspenders and remark, "I'm just as good as that Christian. He is no different than I am." They observe our denominational political fusses and say, "They're no different!" They chide us because of fallen leaders and ask, "Are you unique?" Often in our morality we are no different than the unbelieving world around us and give to them the excuse they have been looking for to remain in disbelief. They echo the sentiment of the Nihilistic philosopher Fred--erick Nietzsche, "If you want me to believe in your Redeemer, you first have to show me that you have been redeemed." They say, "You are no different at all!" And, too often, they are right! Yes, Virginia, there are hypocrites in the church! But I cannot think of a better place for a hypocrite to be than in the church. Better to be a hypocrite in the church than out!
Don Harbuck quoted an old George W. Truett story. It seemed that a man once came to Dr. Truett and demanded that his name be removed from the church roll. He did not want to be a Christian any more. Truett responded, "I will, but I am behind in my work now. If you will visit Mrs. So--and--So who just lost her husband, read some scripture, and have prayer with her, I will honor the request." The man refused. "Okay, but that's the only way I can do what you ask since I am so far behind." The man reluctantly agreed. He visited the widow, read scripture, and prayed with her and never again asked to have his name removed. His Christian action reminded him of his nature bestowed upon him by God's grace. He could not deny who he was. He was a child of God.
Because of the Father's love we are the children of God whether we are perceived to be by an unbelieving world or not. John continues by saying that we also are becoming what we are. "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (v. 2). We are children of God and we are becoming children of God. There is to our status a "now and not yet." We inherit eternal life now which is completed when we die or Christ comes again. We share Christ's life today as we become more and more like him, a process to be completed in heaven. The fancy theological term is "realized eschatology" made prominent by the great theologian, C. H. Dodd.
We are a child and are becoming a child. But to become more of what we are, we must make a response. The dynamic is similar to the experience of the younger son in Jesus' greatest story, sometimes called the parable of the Loving Father. After wasting his inheritance, the son found himself destitute in the mire of the pigpen. He was still a "son," but he initiated the process of becoming what he was when he "came to himself" and started the journey back to the Father. And, of course, the prodigal's Father received him joyfully as a full "son" in the Father's house. We are and we are becoming.
I saw a sign in the hospital which read, "God loves me just the way I am and too much to let me stay that way." Possibly that means that every child of God is an unfinished product. Perhaps it means that God "ain't through with us yet." Perhaps it means that God is still at work in our lives. There is a legend which has an individual asking the great artist Michelangelo, "How are you able to take a simple, formless block of stone and from it produce a beautiful angel?" The sculptor replied, "It is simple. I just chisel away everything that does not look like an angel." Perhaps this means that every day God sculpts, chisels, and chips away everything in us that does not look like Jesus. God still is at work to make us distinctively different.
But we have work to do as well. The process of becoming more and more like Christ demands our response. "We know we shall be like him ... Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure" (vv. 2b--3). We must cooperate with God as he molds us into the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). I am not sure that I know what John means by "purify," but maybe it is similar to an experience I had as a young man. For three summers I worked at the Republic Steel Mill to earn money for college. Nine thousand employees worked there, and they were supervised by 550 foremen, one of whom was my father. Of those 550 foremen, my father was ranked number two in their work--simplification rating system. Everyone knew him. The first week I was there, the labor foreman painted "CARVER" across my hard hat which I wore at all times. Countless persons would see my hat and remark, "So, you're Carver's kid!" Then, they would watch. They watched to see how hard I worked, how well I listened, how fast I learned. They watched to see if I lived up to my name. We all have work to do to live up to our name Christian - "Little Christ." We are in process of becoming what we are - a process that will con--tinue throughout all eternity.
I was privileged to study in seminary under the great preacher and Old Testament scholar, Clyde Francisco. Dr. Francisco used to say, "Oh, we will continue to grow in heaven because we will continue to have problems. The only difference between heaven and here is that there will be some answers in heaven. There are no answers to the problems we face here!" How true! How blessed we are to be able to look forward to an eternity in which to grow in Christ--likeness.
You may have heard the story going around of two caterpillars crawling around in the grit, grass, and dirt of the ground. Overhead was flying gracefully a beautiful multi--colored butterfly. Looking up, one caterpillar said to the other, "I know one thing. You'll never get me up there in one of those contraptions!" There is just no telling what God is going to do in our lives - in this world and the next.
As Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, said, "The root of sin is the refusal to be what God has created us to be." Why don't we let God do all he wants to do with us?
If ever I knew a child of God it was she. Over fifty women filed into her Bible study class each Sunday. She stood at the door and hugged each one. She had forgotten more Bible than I have ever known. She knew the literary classics and could quote poetry endlessly without flaw. She had given herself tirelessly to multiple mission projects. She was a saint.
She lived alone and very modestly, her husband and son long deceased. When she died, she did not own an automobile. Yet, she gave annually to our church budget an amount near $125,000. She once gave $100,000 to the scholarship fund at the seminary from which I graduated because I remarked once in a sermon that I could not have made it through seminary without scholarships. During the pledging portion for a recent building campaign, she approached me to say that she was going to give her Coca--Cola stock at that time because she "did not want me to get in trouble over the building campaign." Over 33,000 shares netted over $1,750,000. She literally saved my pastorate. When she died, she left to the church the rest of her estate which totaled another $1,500,000. I was her pastor. She was my "Rufus mother" (Romans 16:13). I loved Bess Hill.
She was so alive and vibrant, it was easy to forget that she was almost ninety and very nearly blind. On Sunday morning she greeted and hugged everyone as usual. On Tuesday morning, she fell. I saw her in the hospital around noon and she seemed to be fine. I returned around 4:00 p.m. and her condition had markedly changed. "Oh, hello, darling," she said as she always did. But I knew she was much worse. After a few moments, I asked, "Bess, are you all right?" She looked at me with a gaze still embedded in my mind. "No," she said, "but I will be soon." She knew. Six hours later, I held her hand as she went on to be with her Lord - as she went on to become more and more of what she so beautifully was.
