Introduction

Let’s start right in on one of my favourite verses in the whole Bible. 1 John 3:1 says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”

I prefer the old translations that instead of “see” use the word “behold.” It’s an exclamation and a command. The word has a sense of getting you to stop, in awe and wonder and try to ponder. Behold!

“What kind of love is this?” Do you know that praise song?

That gave itself for me

I am the guilty one

Yet I go free’[1]

John has the same sense of, “Where does this kind of love come from? What country or race does it come from?” Because it’s so, alien. Out of this world. Undeserved, unmatched, and he’ll go on to say unknown to the world, love of another kind, unlike any love here on earth and among the people of this planet.

Because as we have been seeing for two chapters and now we’re hitting the halfway point of this love letter, a letter about love. The love that the Apostle John knows and wants us all to know through Jesus Christ is the greatest love of all.

If you didn’t know the praise song, maybe you know that pop song, “The Greatest Love of All”? Whitney Houston sang it to the number one slot, but the tragedy of her life tell us though she grew up and started singing in church, perhaps she never found what the greatest love of all really is. And it’s certainly not there in the song because the last line ends, “learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”

How sweet, how sentimental, how untrue. That’s not the greatest love of all. Love of self.

You’ll never know how to truly love yourself without that becoming an empty pursuit of “How am I doing right now?” until you come to know this lavish love that God has for us.

Far greater love than self-love, to lose myself in the love of God shown to selfish sinners like me. ‘I am the guilty one, yet I go free…’

That old worship song goes on:

What kind of Man is this

That died in agony

He Who had done no wrong

Was crucified for me

What kind of Man is this

He laid aside His throne

That I may know

The love of God

What kind of Man is this

There are all pictures of love in the Bible that are far better and richer than the self-focused stories, songs, and sex acts the world in its confusion calls love. Not “falling in love” because of how they look to me or the way you make me feel. All the natural pictures of human love you can think of, even the best of them in friendship or family are surpassed by the supernatural love of God.

When Adam and Eve sin, God warned it will lead to the death penalty. So he sacrifices an animal to clothe them and protect them. That’s what the love of God is like.

After rescuing his people from slavery, they continually complain about him in the desert and so he provides for them miraculously for forty years. That’s what the love of God is like.

A prophet called Hosea marries a prostitute named Gomer. She goes back to the old ways, breaks her vows, breaking his heart, but he keeps on taking her back, to show people, that’s what the love of God is like.

Jesus tells us of a dad running to embrace a wasteful wayward son, wandering home in filthy rags after he’s squandered and scorned every privilege and possession he was ever given. But rather than scold him or wait for him to clean up his act the father throws a party and gives him a ring, a robe, and sandals. That’s what the love of God is like.

I tried to think whether I’d heard of a human love, that even if it couldn’t compete maybe would give a glimpse. Someone forgiving a criminal, like Bishop Miryal in Les Miserables. After welcoming the newly released convict into his home, assuring him “everything in it is yours,” “24601” knocked him down, stole the silver cutlery, and slipped away into the night, only to be arrested.

But when the gendarmes bring him back terrified, the cleric (who Victor Hugo modelled on a real-life Bishop) says, “So here you are! I’m delighted to see you. Had you forgotten that I gave you the candlesticks as well?” As the police leave, “The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice: ‘Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you … and I give it to God.”

He was no longer determined by what he had done in the past but by the love that had been shown to him. This amazing grace, this gift of undeserved love from someone who could have judged and condemned him, starts a spiritual crisis in Valjean’s heart that changes him forever.

What Kind of Love Is This?

“Behold, what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the sons of God?” As John writes, all these years on since he first met Jesus, he is still trying to get his head round it. This free gift of love that brings us out of guilt and condemnation to forgiveness and adoption.

As I was searching for human pictures that could help us understand, I read about a woman called Sharletta Evans.[2] She went into her niece’s house to collect a family member leaving her three-year-old son Casson (she nicknamed him ‘Biscuit’) asleep in the car. Shots rang out, a gangland shooting gone terribly wrong took the life of her little boy. The shooter, Raymond Johnson who was then 15, was sentenced to life in prison.

“My life became a whirlwind of grief and sorrow” she said. But she also had a spiritual encounter and heard a voice that night, after which she made a decision, to forgive, for the sake of her other son.

Years later that was put to the test when Raymond wrote to her from prison and asked not only meet with her to say how sorry he was, but also, “He asked if I would be his mother.” She remembered her promise and agreed to meet. At the end of many hours she said, "I left there hugging Raymond. I accepted him as my son, because he was absent of his parents."

Then, for ten years she talked with him every week, put money into his prison account and advocated for his release. After serving 26 years, Sharletta stood there at the gate with her older son, as Raymond joined her family.

A reporter asked, "How could you accept the killer of your son - as your son now?" She said, "I didn't want him to suffer anymore.” Behold! What manner of love?

However great any human love may be, God’s love is the greatest love of all, but for me that’s at least a picture, a glimpse. That’s what the love of God is like. The Father has given that kind of love to us. Have you received it? He wants to lavish it upon you.

I know what that love is like. Not because I have ever loved like that, but I have been loved like that. I know I have. Because I have received it.

When we ask “Why did Jesus die?’ in one sense the answer is clear. Acts 2:23 says “Wicked men put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” He died because the Jewish leaders did not believe he was the Christ, the Messiah. He died because Herod and Pilate, the powers of the state and the soldiers executed him.

But the Bible also says he died for me and for you, “the righteous for the unrighteous,” to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18). As Jesus promised, nobody took his life from him, but he voluntarily gave his life, as a ransom.

So there are many true and biblical reasons we can say he died. He died to defeat evil and the devil. He died to bring in a new covenant. He died to give us the ultimate example of self-sacrifice for anyone who ever wondered what true love is. But in the end, when I ask, “Why did Jesus die?,” the Cross, his blood answers: For you!

Why Did Jesus Die?

The Bible says in Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He himself bore my sin on the Cross. That means my sins killed Christ.

“Behold, what manner of love?” I’ll never get over it. I don’t want to!

I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene,

and wonder how he could love me, a sinner, condemned unclean …[3]

I stand amazed, before God, who is light and in whom there is no darkness as at, who could rightly judge me and send me to hell, asking the question that reporter asked: “How could you … accept … the killer of your son … as your son, now?”

How marvellous! How wonderful! God saw all my sin. He saw me mired and hopeless, bound and stuck in sin and simply because God is love, he loved me. He didn’t want me to suffer any more. He didn’t want me to suffer for my sin and be imprisoned by it, in solitary hell away from his presence forever!

This is the kind of love that gets you singing whether you can sing or not!

He took my sins and my sorrows,

he made them his very own;

he bore the burden to Calvary,

and suffered and died alone.

How marvellous! How wonderful

is my Saviour's love for me!

Why did Jesus die? On that cross he took the punishment, as he took my place. And rather than the Father judge me, in love he forgave me. Rather than cast me aside, in love he called me to himself. And then rather than accuse me forever, in love he adopted me into his family, as his son, with Jesus my older brother.

And it doesn’t stop there, wonderful as it is! That’s just the start because then, when I have had this love lavished on me, as I am adopted into this family, something starts to happen. Transformation. Everything this love touches changes. I take on the family likeness.

Family Likeness

(Read 1 John 3:1-2)

Notice, the kind of love John is describing here is a love only believers can ever know. The world knows nothing of it and has nothing like it. The word “know” really means “accept.” We may try and fit in with our culture, and we are not looking to be argumentative or unnecessarily offensive, but why would we expect that the world that rejected the Son of God would accept us when we become his sons and daughters too?

God loves us, he calls us his children. That is who we are. But the world that wouldn’t accept him, doesn’t accept us. The world says, “Who do you think you are?” They don’t see the Holy Spirit living inside you. The Spirit of adoption. They don’t see the angelic entourage accompanying you wherever you go. They don’t see your crown, as a royal priest. They don’t see that you’re anointed, just as they had no idea that Jesus was the Anointed One, the Christ! The crowds didn’t know him, or accept him. They executed him!

You walk the streets, you go and sit in a coffee shop. You walk around at work. People don’t say, “Hey look! There goes a son of God!” But that is who you are.

They don’t see you at school, point you out on the class photograph, when someone asks who you are, they don’t say, “Oh her on the second row? She’s God’s daughter.” But that is what you are!

Did you notice it says, “Now”? Now that’s what you are. Not in the future, not when I get to heaven, right here and now. We are God’s children right now. It shouldn’t make us proud, it’s humbling. “Now, we are not rejected, we are the royal children of God.”

We need to know that, and know that it is true, not because of how we feel, but because God says it. And the more you know it, the more knowing it will change you, so you’ll live out that truth, out of who you are, who God says you are now. No matter what happens and whatever anyone else says or thinks of you.

Don’t let the world label you. The world will never tell you how special you are. The world has never had so much of an identity crisis as it’s facing today. What a terrible mess. Don’t go looking for any other human to tell you who you are.

Go to your Dad instead. When he tells you today the most important thing is that you’re his child, no matter what, say, “Yes, that is who I am!”

They don’t see it now, but one day they will. All creation is groaning and waiting, but on the day the Lord comes again and sets up his kingdom, then the sons and daughters are revealed. And everyone will see the difference! The family likeness. Because those who are with Jesus, have supernaturally become just like Jesus.

St. Irenaeus said, “He became as we are, so we could become as he is.” Until then, if you let him, your Father will tell you, and show you and change you. That lavish love will transform you. Now you are in the family you will bear the family likeness. Because you become like whoever the most important person, the most important voice in your life, says you are.

That’s why your own voice and feelings are so unreliable to tell you who you are. They’ll tell you one day you’re amazing and the next day you’re a loser. Go to your heavenly Dad instead. Believe his word when he tells you, “I love you because I chose you, now you’re my child and I love you, like I love Jesus” Then say “Yes, that is who I am!”

The most important voice for you and me should never be social media. “Likes” don’t tell you what you’re like. You are not your profile or the photos on your phone. That’s not who you are.

The most important voice should not be your friends. How many friendships come and go? I think about who was at my 21st birthday. Mostly family and friends, workmates from the police, many long forgotten. Zoe wasn’t even there and I wasn’t a Christian. Drinking and dancing into the night to celebrate 21 years of sinful selfish me. 21 years earlier I’d been born the same as anyone, but I wasn’t born again until later that year. I’m embarrassed, ashamed to say they organised a “stripogram” for me! Trying to tell me who I was, singing “for he’s a jolly good fellow.” No, I was just a sinner. Doing what lost sinners do. I didn’t know my heavenly Dad.

I didn’t deserve a thing, but God had written my name in his book. He chose to lavish his love upon me and amazingly within a few months I saw my sin and met the Savior and gave my life back to him and came into his family.

My 30th birthday a totally different group, I was at theology college! What a change! Onto my 40th another different group of people. I do like a party! And next year it’s my 60th. However we celebrate I know lots of people who were at my 50th aren’t even going to be there.

Why would I let any of them define me? That’s not who I am. So can I ask, who is the most important voice in defining you?

The most important voice, the One who knows me best, loves me most, lavishes love on me no matter what , I want to amplify the voice of the Father more and more. I am who he says I am. He knows who I was, and who I am, and who I am becoming. He tells me what my potential and possibilities and privileges as his son are. Scripture says the world will never do that, it doesn’t know me, or you, it doesn’t know him!

Conclusion

Do you know who you are today? Do you know who your Dad is? Very important question for self-identity, “Do you know who your Father is?” Yes, it’s God! I’ve been adopted. By one who’s love is unchanging in every season of life.

In the time John wrote, to be adopted meant you were doubly loved, not defined by how you were born naturally, you were chosen. In law, now you became the firstborn, with all the rights and privileges. You were the heir. Not because of anything you did, just because the Father said it. That’s who you were. Because he said so.

The enemy, who can never understand this kind of love, comes in and asks the Father: “How could you take him, who killed your Son, and now make him your son instead?” And the Father says, “No Satan, not instead but as well! Because my Son rose again! To bring many sons to glory!”

Behold. What manner of love, the Father has given to us. Have you received it? Do you believe it? That we should be called, and become, the sons of God. “Not born of natural descent, or a husband’s will, but born of God.” The world doesn’t know it. It doesn’t know him. It can’t tell you about this love, it can’t help me know it, or who I am.

I know who I am. I am who he says I am. And when I know who I am, I can do what he says I can do, for I am becoming who he says I am.

[1] Bryn Haworth, 1983

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/sharletta-evans-casson-raymond-johnson/

[3] By Charles H. Gabriel

Anthony Delaney is a Leader at Ivy Church in Manchester. He is also the leader for New Thing and the LAUNCH conference. He is an author and hosts the television show “Transforming Life.”