-Transcript-
00:25 Welcome to the program, welcome to the cafe, Pastor Clark Covington, here with another episode of KJV Cafe. Hopefully, you’re having a great day, a great week. I am ready to dive into the Word today.
00:38 I hope you are too. Look, God’s Word is like medicine. We take it and we ingest it and it helps us.
00:46 It has a healing power to it that no other medicine has. It has a staying power to it that is not like any other book there is, and God’s Word is so great. That’s why we love diving in, studying God’s Word here at the cafe.
01:05 Today we’re looking at 1 John 3:1, how deep the Father’s love really is. 1 John 3:1, 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 not, because it knew him not.1 John 3:1, is telling us two things.
01:29 God loves us because we’re His children, and They won’t know you, and they may not like you too much. Now let’s start our focus here.
01:40 This is part two of a five-part series on looking at how deep God’s love is through the context of our Heavenly Father. Let’s start here by picking up where we left off, this idea of who are the sons of God. The idea of a son, right? In the previous episode, I spoke about how we become sons and daughters of God.
02:05 As I say son of God, just assume son or daughter, okay? If you’re a woman and you’re listening, you’re not excluded.
02:14 Those that are included are those that have accepted Jesus Christ’s free gift of salvation, those that have been saved, those are the ones that are included. Those are the ones that the Bible calls being born again.
02:25 And when we’re born again, we’re no longer under sin’s rule. We’re no longer under the bondage of sin. And so it’s not politically correct.
02:36 In a politically correct world, everything is acceptable, and if you were to say anything is not acceptable, then you become unacceptable, right? We’re not being politically correct, we’re being biblically correct.
02:48 And the Bible is very exclusionary. Jesus himself says, I came to bring a sword to divide father from son, mother from daughter, on and on.
03:01 And what he was saying is that I’m going to tell you how it is, and I’m going to tell you how it is not just from me, but from the Father, because I always obey the will of the Father.
03:11 And then you can choose whether you want to accept it or not. But I won’t change the truth, I won’t compromise the truth based upon how you feel about it.
03:20 And 1 John 3:1 tells us that it is a love from the Father that is bestowed upon us when we are called the sons of God.
03:30 And we’re talking about the context of God’s love in that relationship. The idea of a son, we talked last episode about how a son is related to the Father.
03:44 Amen. So if you have a son and you have a father, they’re related, okay? They carry some of the same characteristics. They don’t even have to try to carry some of those same characteristics, they just do.
03:57 The Father is a caretaker to the son. And so we carry the characteristics of God, we’re image bearers of God. When we’re born again, we have the Holy Spirit living within us.
04:07 We’re told to depart from sin and to keep ourself chaste and blameless before the Lord until He returns again. No we’re not going to be perfect, but we’re told to separate from the world and from the sinful things so that we can go and live as God wants us to live and be more like Him. So we’re going to relate to Him in that level.
04:30 That’s a great love of God to allow us to become more like Him and to see how different it is from the world. And again, God being the caretaker, what’s He going to do? He’s going to care for us. That means that He’s going to be there for us when we need Him.
04:48 And I keep using my kids as examples and I’m not like a narcissist, the world revolves around my kids. I just wouldn’t want to throw any other kid’s private business on the radio or the podcast or wherever you may be listening. So I’ll just use our kids as an example.
05:04 They’re very willing participants, I think. I can tell that they love the Lord and they don’t mind when daddy tells stories about what they’re doing. But my son woke up very early this morning and he just said, ow, ow.
05:21 And I could hear him and I went and checked on him and his knees were hurting. He was sitting upright and so he just had to lay back down. I said, okay, lay down.
05:30 I put the covers over him. I told him that his toy, his toy Mario was sleeping, so he should go back to sleep. And he seemed fine and he went back to sleep for a little bit.
05:42 As the caretaker, now I wasn’t in the same room, thank goodness I wasn’t in the same bed, Amen. We’re done with that phase, but I was nearby. Now God being so much greater than man, is he not nearby his own, Amen.
05:57 That when we say, father, ow, oh, ah, help us, ow, we’re in pain, that he isn’t right there. Oh, he is, Amen. He is, whether you know it or not, He’s near.
06:13 The Bible says, whether you know it or not, God is near. And when we say father, that is that term of love, uh, like ABBA father, Jesus himself says ABBA father in the Bible. It’s this childlike trust, uh, got questions.org describes it as daddy, right? As daddy.
06:29 And again, it’s like when my son’s hurting, Oh daddy, help me. That’s an earnest plea. There’s nothing behind that.
06:39 He’s not playing games. He hurts. He needs, he needs his dad to help.
06:43 He’s counting on his dad to help. And God’s love is so deep that he’s bestowed upon us the title of son and daughter. Okay.
06:49 So that when we call upon him, he’ll care for us in like manner, but so much more so because he’s perfect and he’s God. And you know, you could take that example and apply it in so many different ways to our relationship with God,
07:05 that He is near, that He cares, that He loves us, that He’s the healer, that he is the great physician, that he has all wisdom and discernment that sometimes he may let us sit for a season in pain to teach us something. The Bible speaks at length about the suffering of Jesus.
07:23 Amen. And so we understand that a relationship with God is a beautiful thing. You know, if you’re related to someone, technically, I think you become an heir.
07:34 Now, I know in this day and age of wills and will of the last Testament and legalese, you can be disowned I’m sure, but you are an heir when you’re related, you know, just by virtue of your relationship.
07:50 You know, I like sports a lot and sometimes I’ll wonder, Oh, who owns this team? I think it was the Colts, you know, and they were writing an article about the Colts. The Colts had a rough season.
08:00 I’m not a big Colts fan, but I was curious. They had a rough season and this owner is the son of the other, the original owner or whatever it was. Okay.
08:12 The previous owner. Well, that makes sense. The son inherited this huge team must be worth billions, right? Well, we are heirs to what our father has, but think of this,
08:25 you know, the son inherited it, presumably when the dad retired or died on earth, but us, we are heirs in heaven to a treasure that never passes away.
08:35 The Bible tells us and with a God that has always been and will always be. So that’s why the Bible says we are co-heirs because he’s not going anywhere. He’s not going to say, here’s my treasure.
08:49 I’m out of here. He’ll be there with us. We’re co-heirs.
08:53 It’s beautiful. That’s a relationship. That’s a, that’s, that’s a, again, if in, in such a materialistic world, and we are in, I think peak materialism, I think at this point where people have fully put their hope and trust in the idol of materialism, that their heart’s desire is money.
09:09 I have watched these documentaries lately and I don’t know why, and they’re, I mean, I don’t watch all of them. I’ll watch some of them, but these individuals will be really down on their luck and on my heart will go out to them and
09:21 I’ll be able to relate to their circumstances so greatly and always the answer in these documentaries is if they just had more money, look, that is a materialist point of view and, you know, you want to scream at the TV. No, if they just had Jesus, no, their life wouldn’t be perfect in the world’s eyes, but they’ll have that perfect peace.
09:42 They’ll have eternal security with God and they will then be a son of God or daughter of God and have all of these traits. But even in the materialist sense, does the Bible not say our father owns cattle on a thousand Hills? How about this? He made everything. Think of the most beautiful place you’ve ever been.
10:00 He made that. He made everything. He made the mountains.
10:03 He made the ocean. He made all the cattle. He made all of us.
10:07 He made everything. My kids will say, Oh, look at that. Um, Jeep, you know, did God make the Jeep? Well, God made the person that made the Jeep and God made the,
10:20 go all the way back to the person that made the factory line that helped make the Jeep or the engineering professor that taught the person that learned to make the factory line, you know, that’s all God.
10:31 It’s all God. And so from any standpoint you want to take God’s rich love towards us includes us being co-heirs. But truly when you love the Lord, you know, that stuff is kind of pales compared to just being around Him, just being around the Lord.
10:47 I believe that is the blessing of heaven is being like, Oh, Hey Jesus, I want to ask you a question. Oh, Hey Jesus. I just want to tell you, you’re awesome.
10:57 I love you so much. Hey Jesus, you, you just changed my entire life. You’re so great.
11:02 I can tell you that today. And guess what? I can tell you that tomorrow. Cause in heaven, there is no night just goes on forever.
11:08 So I believe the blessing is going to the Lord and praising him and being near him. And in hell, yes, there’s fire and yes, there’s torment. Yes.
11:18 There’s gnashing of teeth. It is a real place. And it is a awful, awful, awful place, but is not the worst part of hell distance from God separation from God.
11:27 I think that is going to be the hardest part because I think in hell, this is just my opinion. And I don’t obviously know a lot. Ask my wife.
11:36 She knows. I don’t know a lot, but my opinion is in hell, we’ll have a realization, a true picture of our need for God that has been kind of masked here on earth. And it’ll just crush us that we won’t be close to God.
11:49 Now God speaking of being the father, what does he do? He teaches. Does he not, you know, a good father teaches their children. And I take it very serious.
12:05 I grew up in a home, an absentee home. Dad wasn’t around that much. My dad is a very smart man and was, I would say smartest man I’ve ever known, but he wasn’t around a whole lot.
12:19 I was a child of divorce. My mom had primary custody. He lived far away, et cetera, et cetera.
12:26 So knowing that I try to teach my children as much as I can, amen. We have homeschool. We have Bible lesson at homeschool.
12:36 We have Proverbs, not as much as we should, but we try to do it most nights. We don’t have church teaching the kids. Now this is not from me as a natural man.
12:48 This is the pastor. This is someone studying the Bible and the Holy spirit has convicted me to do this. Amen.
12:57 This is something that could be deemed as sacrificial. Sometimes honestly it’s hard for me to do, but God’s called me to do it. Now if the natural man will teach their children, the father will teach their children.
13:03 Maybe you work a job and you just, you know, you’re, you’re on the factory line, you’re out in the field, whatever it may be. You’re in the office. But Hey, when you’re off of work, you’re teaching your kids how to fish.
13:12 You’re teaching your kids how to hunt. You’re teaching your kids how to hike. God bless you for that.
13:17 Amen. You’re teaching your kids. That’s, that’s nothing better than that.
13:21 Right? And they desire it. They crave it. How much more so does our heavenly father teach us as sons and daughters of God? How much more so does our heavenly father not instruct us and guide us? And you say, brother Clark, how does he do that? Through his Holy word, through his Holy word.
13:35 Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. When we get into the word of God, we are edified by the word of God. We’re taught by the word of God.
13:43 There’s so much in the word of God that teaches us how we should live. Our heavenly father does that as well as the working of the Holy spirit for those that have been saved. Amen.
13:50 And this is all applying to those that have been saved. The Holy spirit teaching us and a father will discipline us. I, again, I disciplined my kids all the time and I know I say that I tell myself, the Bible says if you love them, you’ll discipline them.
14:03 They need discipline. They crave discipline. If you can believe it as they’re disciplined, amen.
14:11 They grow and they learn right and wrong. God does that to us and we’re saved. You’re the Holy spirit living within you and you sin, you’ll be taken to the woodshed over and over.
14:20 And I wish I had time to go on and on, but here we are at the end of this episode, tune in next time as we get the more traits of God’s love through the lens of him being our heavenly father. Thank you so much. Take care.
14:30 God bless. Amen.