See what kind of love the father has given to us so that we are called children of God and that is what we are.
Russian orphanages can be despicable places. They are overcrowded. They are underfunded. And they are understaffed. Unwanted and unloved children are deposited in the orphanages where the attendants offer only the minimum of care. Infants are often diapered and fed twice daily and spend the rest of the day confined to a crib with no one to hold them when they cry, to cuddle them when they are afraid, to nurture them and care for them.
Victoria was born to a Russian alcoholic mother. Her mother could not keep her, did not want her and so gave her up as a ward of the state. The state deposited her in one such orphanage. Victoria's hopes for her life were abysmal. No one to love her, no one to care for her, only her most basic needs were met and once she turned 18 she would be turned out on the street, on her own with a minimum of education, no support, no career, no future and likely to follow in her mother's footsteps.
But Victoria's story was destined to take dramatic change. A young couple came one day to the orphanage where Victoria was housed. The warden at the orphanage directed the hopeful man and wife over to Victoria's crib. They picked her up, they held her, the cuddled her, they brought her into a room where they played with her, put her on their lap, passed her between them with loving embraces. They fell in love with little Victoria. They couldn't leave her in this horrible place. They were not able to take little Victoria home with them at that time. The left the orphanage and returned home to Indiana. But a month or so later they returned to Russia, came back to the orphanage, signed all the necessary papers and claimed little Victoria as their own child. Victoria's life had suddenly changed. She was someone's child, a daughter, beloved, cared for, fed and nourished, loved and nurtured, someone to hold her when she cried, someone to laugh when she smiled, someone to take pride in her, someone to find joy in her.
“My Children, do you see what Love the Father has for you so that we are called children of God. And that is what we are!” says the apostle John about you and me.
For just like little Victoria we were born to be orphans – without a home, without a Father who would love us and care for us and provide for us. Without an inheritance and a future. Without a family. That is not to say that God has not placed us in our earthly homes and communities with relationships and friends and neighbors and relatives and reunions and parties and get-togethers and all of these are good things, things that God has given. Yet they are not enough.
We are sinners. Through and through, right down to the very core, through to the heart. It is not just that we have committed sins. It is not just that every once in a while we have done something wrong, like your own children who disobey you from time to time but still get live in your house and eat at your table. We are out and out slaves to the devil and sin. Spiritual orphans without hope. We are turned in on ourselves so that our self is our “number one”.
But we are loved by God. So much that he calls us His children. Born under sin, born under the law and condemned to His judgment. But he came to us in our sin. He found us in our hopelessness and wretchedness and he adopted us to be his own dear children. So that he could be our own dear Father. So that we could live under him in His eternal household.
Brothers and Sisters in the household of our Heavenly Father, your adoption was not cheap. If you were to travel to Russia or some other country to adopt a child and bring her home as your own it would cost you. You would accumulate thousands of dollars in adoption fees not to mention travel expenses. Adopting a child is costly.
How much more so, then, did your Heavenly Father pay for you. How much more did you cost him? If you were dead in tresspasses and sin. If you were guilty beyond measure, if you were turned away from the one who would love you, if you were guilty of sins against him that demanded punishment, then the only recourse for Him if He were to truly adopt you would be for Him to send His only Son, Jesus, who would be our brother. Jesus came at the command of His Father to suffer your punishment so that you could go free.
Imagine demanding that of one of your children – the youngest gets in trouble and you command the oldest to pay the penalty. How well would that go over. It wouldn't. It wouldn't be fair. Your oldest would argue and complain, Your oldest would resent you for your favoritism. Your oldest would hate the youngest. Dr Phil would think you to be a dysfunctional parent. Yet this is what your spiritual family has done so that you might be included.
While you were yet a sinner, Your Heavenly Father to be sent His only Son to pay the price for your sin so that you could be His child and live in his eternal mansion for all eternity. While you were his enemy. While you hated him and despised him and wanted nothing to do with him he loved you and sent Jesus whom He loved more than anything to be the sacrifice for your sin. Can we even begin to imagine such a love?
And that Jesus would do it. Remember Jesus in the garden on the night he was betrayed, sweating great drops of blood, pleading with His Father that there would be found another way, yet willing to acknowledge the will of His Father. Can you imagine the love of Jesus to share His heavenly inheritance with those who would kill him, with those who hated him and spit upon him and despised him? Can you imagine Jesus loving even you and even me? It is too great, too deep, too far to conceive. Yet this is what our Brother Jesus has done to obey the will of His Father and to make you His brother.
“Do you see what sort of love the Father has given to us so that we might be called children of God and that is what we are.”
Could you imagine if little Victoria were to one day go up to her new mother and father, who had given up so much to have her and who had fallen so deeply in love with her, could you imagine that this little girl, whose life changed so drastically and completely for the good were to say to her new mother and father, “Mom, Dad, it's really nice of you to rescue me from that orphanage where I sat in my own filth and never had enough to eat and where no one cared if I lived or died, but I have decided that your house, your love, your care and provision for me is just not my cup of tea. If you don't mind, I'm gong back to Russia to strap on my dirty diaper and climb back into my old crib in my old crowded, cold institution. I am going to go back to being an orphan.”
That would never happen, you say. Once a child has been saved from such hopelessness she would never go back, never even think of going back. To go back would be senseless. You are right. It would be. So then why do you?
John explains, “You know that Jesus appeared to take away sins and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or knows him.”
If you have been rescued from your hopeless life of sin, then why do you continue to go back to it? Why do you choose your filth over his purity? Who do you choose your lawlessness over His righteousness? Who do you choose your poverty over his wealth? Why do you choose your loneliness and isolation over his love and nurture? Is it anything other than absurdity? Foolishness? Why do we continue to insist on our own sin?
Brothers and sisters we ought not. We have been rescued from such things. We have been purchased and won from such things. We have been set free from such things. We do not need them. We have no use for them. They pull us away from our Father and they forfeit the inheritance that He has set aside for us. Let us not be so foolish.
A week ago, the epistle from the John the disciple of Jesus reminded us that we have only lied to ourselves and denied God's truth when we claim that we are without sin. But that God in his faithfulness and in His love for us has promised to wash away that sin and cleanse us from our unrighteousness, to cleanse us from our filth through his pronouncement of forgiveness. He promises that each time we confess that we have soiled ourselves he will clean us without exception, without limit. Unconditionally restored as children and heirs in His heavenly House.
My Brothers and My Sisters, the love of God our Father and our brother Jesus is great. We are children of the Father and Jesus is truly our brother. We are called children of God, but that is only the beginning. As wonderful and as great and as unbelievable as that is, the fullness of God's gifts to us has not yet even been revealed. As much as you have already received he has more to give. As much as you already enjoy, you have yet to even tap the bare surface of His blessings. If this is the introduction, if this is the foyer of God's mansion, imagine the treasures that will lie ahead once we have experienced the Resurrection of the Dead, once we are allowed inside the Father's Mansion once and for all with the freedom to run throughout and explore. Untold glories of Heaven await us.
God has set those things aside to be given on the last day. They are yours now, yet incomplete. Let us lay aside those sins that would distract us and entangle us and would move us to surrender our inheritance. And let us live as children of our Father. For that is what we are.
Amen.
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