1-3 John - 1st John 2:29 - 3:1-3 Marks of the Child of God - part 1

Alright, well this morning we get to break the rules of chapter and verse. As Roger mentioned two weeks ago. Wait a minute, was it Roger? No, it was Bob two weeks ago. Roger taught last week. I get my weeks mixed up easily. Bob mentioned that we're doing this, and then Roger taught last week, and we're splitting this along non-traditional chapter and verse lines, but thematically and contextually it makes sense.

And the other side of it is that I've often found that the chapters and verses cause us mentally, as readers, to draw distinctions we probably don't need to draw. If you read a letter from somebody, imagine you get an email, because nobody sends letters anymore sadly, but you get an email, not too sadly, I'd have to make a living with email, but you get an email and there's chapters and verses in it. How would your How would your perception of that be? You know, if you got an email from Randy and it said chapter one and I had each sentence was in a number and then I broke a sentence in half and I put another verse or chapter and verse in there, you'd be like, oh, he must have meant these are different thoughts. And you would just kind of either consciously or subconsciously kind of break those parts out. But when John wrote this letter, there were no chapters and verses.

So we're just going to plow right through this and know that we're continuing on with this thought that he was trying to convey to his audience. So this morning, let's take a look at verses 229-34. I'll be teaching again next week on 2 and 3. And then Roger gets to teach on 3-4. That part I do know is actually accurate, so that's good.

And actually, we didn't pray for him, but Bob is doing He's got to work at the hospitals. There's a name for what they're doing. He's on call or he's something. He actually has to be a doctor, a practicing doctor, which is crazy, right? But Bob isn't here this morning for that reason. So that's good though. I'm glad that we have professionals out there who are as skilled and knowledgeable as Bob. Continuing on back to the passage, which is where we should be focusing. 1 John 2, verse 29.

If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him. See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God, and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. And I want to confess, Tom. This will be quick and current.

Heidi and Helmut to look at their Luther Bible and found that I could still make a melody out of that verse in chapter 3. I too, I was going to sing it to you, but not yet. I won't sing it to you in German. Okay, thank you. I will sing it to you in English later.

I'm really, really looking forward to next week. That isn't to say that this week isn't good, but I was studying at my daughter's swimming lessons. I was not in the pool with my computer, but I was studying, and I got to verse 2, and I had to fight back the tears a little bit. I was just so excited about it. But you can't cry at a swimming pool because people find that strange, so I held it back.

But he starts out this passage, or this section, "...if you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of him." And this is definitely not the simplest verse on the surface to cover, but hopefully we'll tackle it. And no one will be disappointed with the coverage.

And if all goes well, this clicker will click. You know, I do this every time. Power on. Helps. There we go. Now it's going to work. I'm a software developer. It's totally different. I always pull that out whenever it goes wrong. If it worked right, then I'd be the professional. If it didn't work, then that's not what I do for a living.

So what I wanted to do was actually start with the questions and then kind of go over the exposition. Because I found that one of my problems is that when I end with the questions, I've already answered all of them. And so there's not a lot of discussion that comes from that. So hopefully, theoretically, if you don't read the paragraph underneath the questions, you won't have any idea. Or we'll just discuss it, and then we'll dig in.

So 1 John 2.29, I've split up the different phrases into sections, and we'll go through this. Depending on the translation, the if is not there, so you'll see the if is in parentheses, but it is definitely there in the Greek.

If you know he is righteous, so he says, if you know he is righteous, why do you know, and he is capitalized, so it's God, why do you know that God is righteous? Because he says so. Okay, he says so, that's good. Because what? We know that He's His Son. Okay, Christ is God's Son. He's divine. He's divine. Alright, that's good.

How could you know that God is righteous without having some kind of relationship with Him? With the Word. The Word is direct revelation. But John is talking about about God's character and so we'd have to the word know here in the next question is what type of knowledge is this this is the Greek is not the Gnosko by familiar relational knowledge this is and I wrote it down here Aido and that is that is the knowledge by perception okay external fellowship it was not no Gnosko is the fellowship And Edo is the external, observational kind of knowledge. I think it's called factual sometimes. It's factual knowledge.

Wouldn't it also be because he's talking to believers? Well, he's talking to believers, but it is important to recognize that he's saying that you have this knowledge on a factual level that God is righteous. Now, clearly, by fact of relationship, you're going to also explore nuances of that. and that's a total rabbit trail where my brain gets all excited to think about how God's going to show His grace to us for all of eternity from Ephesians 2-7. But again, that's a rabbit trail, so we're not going to follow that.

Also, at the beginning of 1 John, it says, you know, that which was from the beginning which we have heard. Yeah. So, I think just going back to what the whole first chapter is about, which is You know this. You saw it. And there's a knowledge of who it is. But he's saying that factually you know, or if you know, and of course I think it's an implied yes. If you know, he is righteous. Why do we know? We know because his word is revealed to us and that's confirmed through relationship. It is a factual knowledge. He says, if you know he is righteous.

And so then the next question is, what is righteousness? And this for me, I have a hard time finding a use for this in modern culture. The word righteous. How many times do you run into people and say, oh, President Obama is a righteous man. And I'm not saying that politically, I'm just saying no one describes them in that way. Everything is relative. Righteousness goes out the door. That's the standard. Moral relativity removes that. Tom?

From the totality of God's word, and you put that against what each one of us is without the Lord in our lives, it just becomes like a ton of bricks. It's just plain as anything. More plain than just about anything else in life once you've gotten a good hold of God. that he is and we ain't.

What makes God's righteousness unique in comparison to all other beings in the universe? I would say everyone on earth. I want to go global because he's distinct or beyond universal even in the heavenlies. What is his righteousness? I should have said the universe and the heavenlies. What makes his righteousness unique?

It's absolute. It's absolute? Without sin. Okay, well definitely it's without sin. It's unchanging. It's unchanging. What's the difference between God and everything else in the universe? What separates them? Yeah, he's uncreated. Some would say the uncaused cause. So we have a creator-creation distinction that comes out here where we can observe something that we cannot fully comprehend but that we can understand in a finite way. So his righteousness is unique in that it's infinitely righteous. Again, there's no modern earthly context for that. No one ever describes a human or earthly thing as infinitely righteous.

And in fact, how many of you have ever looked at jewelry before? I think most of us have had some exposure to that. When you get to certain qualities of gems and metals, there are characteristics of the purity of those things. For example, gold. The more pure it is, the more soft it is. Of course, when you buy it, this is silver because I lost the gold one. There's a story behind that, I won't share it. I'm seeing smiles. Oh, you lost it? How did you lose it? You'll have to ask me after class. But the quality of the metal, they blend in certain other minerals or metals in with the gold, or in this case the silver, because the strength isn't there on the super pure metals. But in the case of God, His strength is in His purity, or is part of what it is there. So there's a uniqueness in God's righteousness.

And then how can you observe and identify righteousness? How do you do that? reference material. When I was thinking about this question, part of what I wanted to bring for your thought is when you look for righteousness, when you look at your friends or family and your politicians or anyone else and you're looking for how righteous is this person, do you look at them from an earthly perspective or do you compare them to the heavenly benchmark? I don't find myself bringing the heavenly benchmark into earthly comparison. But you might if they're a believer. I mean, a believer you have higher expectation. Okay, you might. But then I always continue to think of it in the context of grace. just going over a few highlights from the notes there.

The Greek word is Aido, so it isn't the Gnosko knowledge. So it's knowledge gained by perception or observation. John is drawing on the concepts that he gave earlier, where he was talking about, where he has fundamental assumptions about relationship, and that there's a presupposition of fellowship and relationship with the believers that are there. I drew these pictures on the board because I like chalk, but I drew these pictures on the board also as a teaching illustration. One of the problems with relativism, and this is a very terrible Venn diagram, is that we tend to try to look for overlapping characteristics between certain groups of people.

So we might say, well, these are Christians that are abiding, and these are Christians that are carnal, and these are Christians, or these are not Christians, these are unbelievers. But we want often to have some kind of overlap, or some kind of, well, this person, I'm not sure if they're a believer or not, and so they're kind of in this middle group here. And this person's carnal, but they're pretty good.

And this person is abiding most of the time. But we make these overlapping distinctions. that we want to draw out from this is when John is talking about fellowship and relationship, the unbeliever is separated. And that's the first important thing. And then as believers, we need to recognize the distinction between fellowship and relationship, whereas the abiding believer has a relationship and is walking in fellowship. And the carnal believer is not walking in fellowship, but does have the relationship. This is not a beautiful diagram, ignore the actual structure of it, because I didn't want to get too complex. But the idea is that we draw a distinction between someone who's abiding and someone who's being carnal.

Earlier this week, again, I mentioned my children telling me that I'm tired and a little bit grumpy. When I was walking in the flesh, my relationship, and I was angry at my daughter for having messed with the fire, for good reason, but I didn't respond to it well. My relationship with the Lord was not in question, but my fellowship was most distinctly not right on. And the Lord had to draw me back into fellowship.

But John, as he's talking about, if you know he's righteous, there is an implication that we can know this via relationship. And the fellowship is an aspect of what we're going to get into. a little bit persnickety, but it doesn't mean we are dealing, of course, with the infinite God. There's no upper bound to your abiding with the Lord.

You're there, and he's there with you. So if you got rid of that line or had it extended just as far as God's arms are reaching. Well, these are simply categorical and not spatial. Ignore the spatial element of it and view it categorically. But you're right. He's infinite. So that changes the direction of things. So John is drawing on that.

And the other thing is that righteousness as a concept is defined in and by God. And we're going to keep running into principles in 1 John where here is a topic and that topic is defined in and by God. If you define righteousness outside of God, that's where you get all kinds of things like relativism, like postmodernism.

Are people familiar with postmodernism as a philosophical concept? just in case someone's not because I'm not getting a lot of head nodding. I'll give you the quick version. Postmodernism is a philosophical concept that says that you can't know what I know and I can't know what you know and so when we try to communicate it's really a futile attempt at communication and so When I try to describe things, I'm doing it from the bias of being a 33-year-old white male who grew up in a Christian household. And when you try to describe something, you might describe it from whatever your subcategory of person is. And so we can never really fully understand one another. So if I start to describe righteousness to you, and I'm excited about it as the 33-year-old white, grew up in a Christian household guy, and I'm like, oh, you're just going, I don't understand you. put it in terms I understand, but I don't use your vernacular, so we can't communicate. So this is postmodernism as a philosophy. It's really terrible and it's destroying our culture. But it's a rabbit trail, so we won't go into it too far.

But the idea is that righteousness is defined in and by God, and that's important. He says, hey, you know that God is righteous. And you know what righteousness is. He's not worried about whether or not you know what righteousness is. And you know what it is and it's identifiable and it gets its definition in God. And we can comprehend it and we can understand it because morality is inherently gifted to us by being made in the image of God. There is a sense of ought in human beings that comes from being made in the image of God.

Now we can suppress that, which is what Romans 1.18 tells us, but there is a moral sense of ought that comes from being made in the image of God. Scripture tells us about the downward spiral of mankind when you go through the Old Testament. They suppress their knowledge of God. What does Genesis 6 tell us that mankind was doing? What was right in his own eyes, over and over again. My standard for righteousness is myself. That's what it is. Let me tell you, that is not the standard anyone needs to be living down to. But how can you observe and identify the righteousness?

Well, you can because you're created in God's image. You have the faculties to do that. You may suppress it, you may walk away from it, and God may give you over to the luster of flesh like Romans tells us. But we can do that. We have a moral moral compass that is inherently part of being made in God's image. Donna? I was thinking of Romans 1, you referenced 18, and you go on, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. It's condemning that they have that moral compass and they reject it.

John, when he's speaking to us in this context, he's confident of his audience having a relationship with God and having a deeper fellowship with Him. That's the focus of the letter. So he says, you know He is righteous. And then he continues on Everyone who practices righteousness is born of him.

And this, of course, is where this gets, at least initially, sticky. Roy, did you have a comment? Well, the thought that enters my mind in Ephesians, chapter 6, we're told to take up the full armor of God. And part of that armor is a breastplate of righteousness.

I look at that and I say, wow. given us his righteousness. Absolutely. To be able to stand. Yeah. It's his righteousness, don't get me wrong, but it's part of the armor that we have. I think when I read through the armor, the righteousness part of it, well all of it is awesome, but it's amazing that we're coated in it. It's in this context, yeah. Steve, Well, it seems to relate back to what Christ accomplished on that cross.

In Galatians 2.21 it says, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. So it seems to connect with what Christ accomplished on the cross. At least as far as a source that is hooked into how that righteousness is accomplished in our lives. Absolutely. And that's what we have to get into in the second half of this verse.

He says, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him. And so then when we read that, no one goes, I'm righteous, good thing I got that covered. Everyone in the room goes, oh no. That's where at least, maybe not everyone in the room. it can't be from you. I mean that's the most wonderful thing that it's not our righteousness because we know ours doesn't. It doesn't come anywhere close. It's His righteousness that's gifted to us.

Now, John is speaking of, because if we look at the language, you can't worm your way out of a sense of responsibility. He's speaking of things on a conditional level. Our positional righteousness is given. But on a conditional level, the practice is present active. it's singular that you are that you are practicing righteousness now that on the surface at least for me was like panic you have to teach this oh no right he's gonna get into legalism here it comes get ready no Tom you're looking working in you. Sure. Well, and that's the thing is that the righteousness cannot come of our own accord. He's not saying, okay, now, you know, now your father is righteous. You be righteous. Be like your dad. I've heard that before. Do we believe that we are His righteousness by His work? In Him. In Him. I mean, do we really believe that?

Well, and the thing, The principle of reckoning is fundamental to what John is talking about here, because we have reckoning or abiding that's going on here. And those are not necessarily synonyms, but they're definitely related. John uses abiding as his vocabulary. But with the principle of abiding being fundamental to this, what is abiding? Okay, being at home in the Lord. It's believing what the Lord has revealed, which is who you are.

And the thing is, I think of growing up in my parents' household, there were certain things that I would never imagine doing in my father's household. We don't do that. That's not how, and my neighbors would have been shocked if You know, I started up a meth lab or something in my parents' household. It just wouldn't happen. That doesn't happen in the household of Vern Peterman.

But John is speaking of believers. These things should be, in our minds, abnormal. Why is sin normal? Why is that okay? And the thing that I keep coming back to in my own walk Paul writes again and again and again in his epistles, do not appropriate energy towards these simple things. Do not, don't, well let's go to scripture, I won't repeat it off my memory, because my memory isn't where it used to be today.

Colossians 3, in verse 4, And this actually is a very good parallel passage to where we're going to be going over the next couple verses. When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Okay, so that's what we'll be getting into next week. Verse 5, Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

And I could keep going, but we're not going to exposit Colossians 3, although it's a lovely passage. I wouldn't mind doing that. So we have this thing where he says, hey, don't consider them as alive and active. Don't appropriate energy and time for these things, because that's not the way that we're called to be walking. In verse 7, actually 3.7c, I told you I could keep going.

But he says, in them you also once walked when you were living in them. Are you living in those things now? And as Roy asked, are you walking in faith that these things are true? For me, when I was younger, the idea that I could walk in these things as though they were true was just flabbergasting. I didn't understand that my position was sealed in Christ and my condition was being conformed into the image of Christ. But I can.

And now I understand that, but that is a massive change in your perspective. For me, basically it was as though my train had been switched to a different track. It wasn't a gradual... It was kind of like... The Lord rocketed me from one track to another. It wasn't by slow, gradual, or I'll switch over here. It was just like BAM!

Oh my gosh, these are different tracks. It's not my track that we had. It's like the Wile E. Coyote cliff. The flesh can't do it. It's covered. Instead, I moved on to... I had to recognize that I had been moved on to this new life in Christ. So we have... I didn't even get to the questions first, which is terrible.

He says, everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him. Who is everyone? It means all, but it's all within a conditional subset. And that was the thing that it's believers. And that was the thing that was interesting is that the word is all, the Greek word under everyone is pas, it's all, but then it's conditional on those who practice righteousness.

And what we really need to ask ourselves is, what does it mean to practice or do righteousness in this context? I think we've covered that generally well. It has to do with abiding and walking and not appropriating time for the sin nature. How can we practice?

Again, it's His life lived through us and we covered that. What are some of the theological implications of being born of Him? And we're going to get into that in the next verse, but I just wanted to preemptively ask that. What are some theological implications of being born of God? Okay, growth is definitely important. It's not the old, there's newness. The implications are actually very broad because it's an entirely new life and it's an entirely new fatherhood. It's a new heritage.

Culturally, we don't care about heritage in the United States like other cultures. that's a bit of a broad sweeping statement, so I'm going to be careful with that. I know individuals who are concerned with heritage on a certain level. But if your father is so-and-so, in some cultures that's a big deal. In the Indian culture, if they're going to... by Indian I mean the country India. Can I explain that? Because that's a heritage issue in the United States. Let's say I went to go to speak in India someone would introduce me and they would start speaking about the qualities of my father.

Culturally, that's what they would do. This is the son of Verne Peterman, and Verne Peterman is an honored man. And this is Verne Peterman, and he does teach God's Word carefully. And so they would begin to say, this is the father of the person who's about to speak. This is his heritage.

You need to respect that. And they might go on and on. If we look at the lineage of Christ at the beginning of the Gospels, that's not accidental. That was heritage that was there. So for believers, being born of Him or being children of God is a really big deal. But for us, we kind of tend to just say, I don't know.

I don't care. Because in America, you're supposed to go out and separate yourself from your parents and be the next better generation. There's your manifest destiny and American dream stuff coming out. I've got to go be better and bigger and make more money and have more toys and be more successful than the generation that went before me.

But that's not biblical heritage. There's no value in our mothers and fathers in our culture. of the wealth that is before you, in that they think this way. Yeah, well and you know what's funny is that in seminary the Lord really hit me, this is one of the good things, I know I've had some negative comments about seminary, the Lord really hit me that without those who had gone before me, I would have a lot more learning to do the harder way. in certain respects. So we have a heritage as believers, we have a wealth of believers that have gone before us and can teach us, and that's partially why we have elders in scriptures, that they have a heritage of knowledge that they're passing on, on an earthly, conditional sense. But being born of Him, we have a heavenly heritage, and that is a huge deal.

So we'll use that as a transition to go into John 3.1, where he's going to be more explicit about us being children of God. So he says, See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, or bestowed on us, that we would be called the children of God, and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. And if I had put in the verse markers, I would have made, For this reason the world does not know us, as a second verse, but they didn't ask me.

So, see how great a love the Father has bestowed on us. I loved the song as a kid. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we would be called the sons of God. And it's a round, and I love rounds. It's a wonderful song, but I had no idea as a young child that it was actually a scripture. I just thought it was a great song.

He says, see how, and that immediately actually made me think of John 1.1, or 1st John 1.1, where he says, we're telling you what we have seen. And now he's saying, hey you readers, you see also. See this.

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us. Now, how many of you have King James? Could somebody read 3.1 and King James, just the first half of it without the verse that I think, I mean the second half of the verse there. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

Therefore the world knoweth us. That's funny, okay. But you got the part we needed, so that's good. That's funny. We'll have to take it but corrections. See if we can't get you a new Bible. But you got the first half, which is the part that I was concerned.

He says, behold what manner. Okay, and so what's strange is that my translation here in the New American Standard says, see how great a love. And the King James says, behold what manner. And the Greek word underneath that has to do with the quality of of love that it is. So behold what quality. So behold how great is this modern numerical translation in 1611, roughly. Behold what manner of love.

But I think that's important. The funny thing is that the word has to do with the etymology of the word is actually from where did these people come? Which is really derivative to get to see what the quality of this is. apparently where you came from had some to do with your quality. Roy? I was just thinking about what you just said a few moments ago.

That the world thinks of, in general, their family as being their background. Yeah. Well, if we apply that here, that God has given us a family that includes John, that includes, you know, not just the apostles, but those that believed through their But we all inherited that from the Lord. We're going to, in just a few moments, read Ephesians 3, 14-21. If I were to have to exposit this in a terse way, I would just say that. This is our family.

And the cool thing about that, I'm an extrovert and I love people a lot. Some of you may like have lots of quiet alone time. I would like to be with people until I'm exhausted and just crash and fall asleep because that's how I'm wired. Working at home by myself in my basement has definitely been a challenge because it's like the un-extrovert location.

But you're my family. And that's really cool. That's exciting for me. Like coming to church, it's like, woo! I get to go see people, and they're my family. So it's much more exciting than going to the grocery store where I see people, and I'm like, wow, I'm glad I'm not related to that person. And I'm kidding, of course. It's just for humorous effect. The Lord gives me opportunities wherever I am, even in the grocery store, to share the gospel. All right, rabbit trail.

But what we have here is we have this sense of family. So how great is great? Great has to do with the quality of things. And so great isn't actually the literal translation of the word, but the concept is that we have a... John's saying, look at the quality of this, this love that the Lord has given us.

And what type of love is it? How many of you, just without looking, could just guess what type of love that is? Because it's God's love. It's agape. Almost always, but not exclusively, agape is the way that God's love is described. It's a total unconditional. It's unconditional, it's benevolent love, it's selfless, and it's a gift. And so that is a tremendous element of this.

What does it mean to bestow? The word bestow here, we don't use that. Again, that's a word we don't use commonly in our vocabulary. Another translation of this word throughout the New Testament is to give or gift. But the New American, no, the New International is lavish. Lavish, which I think is a great word to describe this. But it's the gift of God and it's what? Slather. Slather? No, no. Lather. Lavish. Slather. I just, yeah, that makes me think of food and excessive amounts of condiments.

But bestowing has to do with it being a gift. And so Paul in 2 Corinthians, he uses the word, the same Greek word, multiple times and he describes in 2 Corinthians 1, 22 and 5, 5 that the Holy Spirit is a gift to us. Again, it's that same word. as well as in 518 where he says, we've been given the gift of the ministry of reconciliation. So the concept is that it's a gift and it's something that the Lord has presented to us. He's bestowed, the love led him to bestow us with this gift. But the question then, of course, is what's the gift? And so he's going to tell us, which is good.

But it's that we would be called the children of God. And I actually have been looking at Romans chapter 8 where he talks about, Paul, he talks about where we've been made children of God in Romans 8 as well. And so when I got to this as a parent, I like children of God because I've already looked into this. But if you think about being called the child of God, and we asked this with the last half of the last verse, being called a child of God is a change of family.

It's a change of who you are. Your history, your heritage, all of those things are now renewed. My friends Mike and Luann in Texas have two daughters from China. The first one they adopted several years ago and then they came home and before too long they decided we'd like to adopt another one. This is really cool. We like being parents. They adopted a second daughter, which they went and picked up in February.

So she's been home now for a couple months. And what's amazing about that adoption is that as they've been going through the adoption process, do you know what strange things people say to you when you tell them you're going to adopt? Kids they've talked about some of the things people said to them and I'm mostly shocked if you thought these things keep them to yourselves in case somebody Actually says I'm adopting but people say how could you love a child that that didn't come from your own loins? How could you really love that kid because they're not of your descendancy And that just like oh that blew my mind because first of all it just seems like a harsh thing to say but secondly it We're adopted. We are adopted and we are now children of God.

Done deal. Would you say that God's love for us is mediocre? Do you think he gives us like 75%? He's like, Jesus gets 100% of my love, 75% for you guys. No. We get the fullness of His benevolent, selfless love. And as a parent, you get to be selflessly loving your children, sometimes more selflessly than others. But that's the response that we have as believers, is that He's bestowed upon us this gift of being called or named the children of God.

And with that in mind, let's turn to Ephesians chapter 3. For those of you who might have actually been in the Ephesians class, I got to teach this passage. And I was super excited to teach it then and I'm just even excited to just read it with you now because I think it's a tremendous passage. So Ephesians 3, 14 through 21, so it's 14 through the end of the passage, chapter.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. Again, it's the same word or concept as being called the children of God, the word called is used there. that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

And I don't know about you, but I just think that's a really cool passage because that's our family. That's your family tree. That's what you've been called a child of God and you've been grafted into this family. so that he could say, and such we are, we're the children of God. We are called the children of God. And that called is an important thing. We think of called in our, you know, I'm called Randy.

Again, this has to do with the principle of heritage and lineage. And if you come from a Jewish background, like most of these readers did, then which family you're from matters. I have some friends in Texas who swear up and down that they're from, they're believers but they're of Jewish descent, that they're from the family of Levi. And that's important to them for some reason. Our family is so mixed up genetically.

I'm something. I'm like the equivalent of a mutt of genetics. I don't care. But I do care about this. I'm called the son of God. That matters. Whether or not I'm Norwegian or German or Jewish or whatever else. Who cares? That stuff gets muddled. And when I die, it's not going to matter.

But this is. I'm called the child of God. So being called, having been named a child of God is a big deal. So he continues on, and this is the downer part, so I apologize. We're going to close with the downer part, but it's going to get exciting next week, so it'll be that cliffhanger ending. For this reason, the world does not know us, because it did not know him. And as is important, it's always good to ask, what type of know is this?

Previously, it was the Aido. This is the Gnosko. Okay? And so, what's the difference between you know factually and perceptionally that God is righteous and the world cannot know, or agnosco, us? That's a pretty strong distinction. It's familiar. It's relational. And definitely tying in with family or household love. It's definitely that kind of a thing where for this reason the world does not know us familiarly. Your father is not their father. And that's a big deal.

At first, it's kind of like, well, can't we be friends? Can't we be friends? But I think of this, at least in my own household, how I'm concerned with whom my children are playing. Who are you playing with? Who is that person? What words are they saying? What concepts are they speaking about out loud? When you walk in and your child is hearing their friend talk about Barbie sleeping with Ken, you know, eyes get all big. Okay, let's go redirect this conversation, which we had to happen once, which was pretty shocking. But it was like, okay, I care about with whom my child is getting to know. Who are you familiar with and what are they familiar with and why are you learning those things?

So the Father, this Gnosko with the world, I perceive this on a positive side. It's not just separation for the sake of we're better than you. It's not like family feud. This is for the preservation of who we are in Christ. And that's important. Now that obviously means we have to ask questions about evangelism.

I'm watching Brian. He's going to push that button any second now. Quick! Say everything! But the Lord has given us these things. so that we can be separate unto himself, not that we should have hatred. Okay? That's different. He says, for this reason, what is the logical foundation for this lack of knowledge? For this reason. Tom?

It's not just that they don't know, but they don't know and they don't care. Well, they don't have the capacity. Yeah, they don't. They don't have the capacity. They're only in the sin nature in the old man. So, when you're in the old man, you don't know Christ.

Yeah, well and later on he's going to get to, later on in this passage as we go on, that they could have known him. They have this opportunity. Those who don't know him, but could have known him, all they have to do to reverse that is to know him. Would you like to know him? Yes, let me introduce you. I've been given this ministry of reconciliation. Let me reconcile you to the Savior of the universe. Let me bring you here. So, there's this, they don't know it. And then later on in this verse, like I just said, he says, because it did not know him, the world did not know him. Again, it's Gnosko.

They did not have a relationship with him. The fellowship, they can't even have the fellowship because they don't have the relationship. Once I know you, I would be more than glad to have you over to my house and we will have fellowship." That's way different from, if I don't know you, I can't have fellowship. And so he's saying they don't know him. They need to have this relationship. The world could establish that relationship.

And that's the hardest thing. When you run into people and they say, well what about all the people that are going to hell? The problem with your gospel is everybody's going to die. They've been given the opportunity. But they don't want him. I don't say it with a hard heart that somebody's going to go to hell. It's not a, I'm better than you, somebody's going to go to hell. It's the, oh my gosh, they have a chance to know him, I need to share the gospel.

I have so many co-workers that I've shared the gospel with. where they just are offended by the principle of someone else going to hell. Well, if I believe that means that that person's going to hell. If you don't believe, does that mean they're not going to hell? Did you suddenly become the pivot of all the universe's salvation? I think not.

But they're offended by that principle. And that's difficult. But it's a principle of relationship. Fortunately, God is extroverted, so He likes people. He wants to know us. So the cool thing, continuing on with this passage, is next week we get to see, now that we're children of God, we have something very exciting to look forward to.

It just got me super excited. Like I said, I was fighting back tears of the pool. I was just full of joy. I can't believe this is talking about me. So next week we get to talk about the fullness of who Christ is. He's going to come and He's going to come in His fullness. And we don't know what that looks like yet, but it's really exciting. So we get to talk about that next week.

So let's close in prayer and then if there's more questions, I guess we can keep discussing, but Brian's rung the bell. Heavenly Father, we ask that you just continue to draw to our hearts and minds this week that we're the children of God. Thank you that we do have the opportunity to share the good news with those around us. And we pray that we would encourage one another as a family and that we would just continue to draw various folks. Well, let me rephrase that. Lord, we pray your spirit would draw folks to you through our lives that we may be lights for you. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.