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00:24 Welcome to KJV Cafe. So good to be here. Thank you for joining me so much.
00:29 It’s just great to have you here as we dive into God’s Word. And we’re so fortunate to get into His Word because as we study His Word, we’re blessed. And hopefully you’ll be blessed by studying His Word.
00:40 I am blessed simply by having the opportunity and I truly view it as an opportunity to share the Word with you. And a lot of times, what am I doing? You know, I’m just simply slowing things down a little bit and really looking at the details of God’s Word specifically.
00:58 You know, the Bible says to study to show yourself approved unto God, you know, and I think the idea is we should really not be rushing through the Bible, right? We should be studying it.
01:12 And I think some people get so excited to read through it, there’s nothing wrong with reading through it. That’s great. I heard a New Age preacher one time quote, say, what are you talking about us not studying the Bible? We went through the whole Bible this year.
01:27 I started laughing and I’m like, man, I mean, you could spend a whole year on a verse. And I think that’s the attitude.2 Timothy 2:15 says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.
01:41 We shouldn’t be ashamed and we should rightly divide, which Paul writing to Timothy here is saying that some people won’t rightly divide, like they’ll take scripture out of context, which is very easy to do.
01:53 You could have a church following false doctrine and they could take scripture completely out of context. They look at us, look what we’re doing.
02:00 So that’s what we’re trying to do here is just clearly, you know, look at the scriptures. This one is a very simple one. 1 John 3: 1, behold, what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.
02:15 Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. So two parts here to 1 John 3:1, one is that it is a great act of love for God, the father to call us sons, okay?
02:29 Us being those that are saved. Secondly, the world won’t know you and we’re going to get to the world not knowing you primarily in the next and final episode.
02:38 But here on this episode, this is the fourth part in a five part series. Looking at this verse, we’re just looking at what it means to be a son of God and kind of the progression that we see through being a son of God. So in 1 John 3, there’s this theme of God’s love and adopting us into his great and holy family.
02:59 You know, and also in first John three, there are signs that we’re God’s holy family because we’re not trying to sin.
03:07 We’re loving our brothers and sisters, his spirits living within us because it’s not, not everyone is saved. You know, there’s a song, oh, we’re all God’s children.
03:16 That’s not true. We’re not all God’s children. If we were all God’s children, there’d be no need to be saved because we’d all then fit and apply.
03:25 You know, we’d all be, you know, ready for heaven would be approved. We’re not all God’s children. Jesus himself says he came to bring a sword to divide mother from father, brother from sister.
03:35 And what he meant by that is that we must choose to be a child of God, that God has given us free will.
03:44 And that free will, we exercise to either accept his free gift of salvation or reject it. And that’s why the great commission is important because as we evangelize and tell people what Jesus did, they’re given an opportunity.
03:58 They may not know. I’m sure, you know, we’ve done, you know, soul wedding, we’ll go door to door. Say we’ve done because since COVID it’s been a little, it’s a little different, Amen.
04:19 But in the past, we’d go door to door, knock on the door, hey, um, uh, would you like to come to church? No. Oh, uh, you know, do you know where you’re going when you die? No. You know, uh, now they may think, okay, there, I want to get back to my football game or whatever my yard work.
04:31 But what they don’t know is if a witness is to take place and say, Hey, this is what Jesus did for you on the cross. And you go through the gospel account, amen, Romans road and so forth.
04:37 And if they choose to reject it, then that actually, I believe is brought up at the judgment as a testimony against them because they’ll say, God, when did I hear, you know, and he’ll say, okay, hold on a minute, brother, so-and-so knocked on your door on March 3rd of 1989 and told you this and you said, no, now, uh, again, I don’t know all the details about the judgment.
05:00 I haven’t been there, but I know enough to know that I’ve been saved. My place is secure in heaven because I have placed my faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone. And I simply believe, and I understand that we are justified simply by believing.
05:12 So here we understand that when we’re saved, we become a son of God and a son or daughter of God. You can, if you’re a female, it still applies to you too, a son or daughter of God.
05:20 There’s all these characteristics, right? I mean, as a parent of young children, it’s, it’s not hard for me to go through and say, okay, uh, you’re related to these kids, you know, you’re their caretaker.
05:35 Like they’re sick. You take care of them. Uh, you’re, you know, they, they need food.
05:41 You feed them, right? They need to get cleaned. You clean them. I mean, it’s not that complicated, right? You’re a caretaker.
05:46 How about you’re responsible for, you know, gave the example, went to the library for the kids to get some books. The lady that, uh, works at the library, not, I don’t think she’s a librarian, more like an administrator. I’ll call her boss lady.
05:57 I don’t think that’s her title, but she seemed like she was in a good, in an authority position, out and she looked at the kids and looked at me and walked towards me and said, I’m sorry. The library is closed. Our heater went out.
06:10 Now, the reason why she didn’t go to the kids is because they’re not responsible for themselves or just children. She went to the father, right? And so she understands that I am responsible for these children. Amen.
06:21 They are my responsibility. And I take that very seriously. Well, if I, as being a flawed, sinful human, take it seriously, how much more so does God take it seriously that when we’re born again, we are his amen.
06:36 And that’s very serious. That’s why we’re disciplined by him. That’s why we can be rebuked by him.
06:39 Look at Job. Everyone talks about, oh, how Job was blessed in the end. We’ll read about the rebuke that Job took from God.
06:45 He was proud to be humble. If that makes sense. He’s proud of his humility and he was rebuked big time.
06:50 It’s scathing rebuke. God asked Job if he knows how the ocean came into the sea and the snow on the mountains and the sky and all this, and Job just shut his mouth because he didn’t, Amen. And this is someone that was perfect before God, as the Bible says, imagine us.
07:04 So God takes us to the woodshed here and there. But he loves us and he cares for us and he’s steadfast with us. And we grow close to God when we’re brokenhearted and downtrodden and people have left us and forsaken us.
07:20 I just got through preaching last night that God will never forsake us. And that’s such a simple one, but so important to think about and to meditate on. And we see that God taking on this role is what? It’s a great act of love.
07:33 You know, the Bible here says, going back to our text verse, behold, what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.
07:43 Why is it love? It’s love because he didn’t have to. So, you know, if I’m a dad, you know, if, I mean, we’re adopted in.
07:54 So if I’m going to, if I am a potential foster parent, my wife and I have gone through foster training twice. So we’re like doubly certified and Lord willing, one day he’ll allow us to get to that point to bring some children in when things settle down here, Amen.
08:09 But for now I can say this, as an adoptive parent, if the child needs a parent, I can go in there and I can say, okay, I’m going to adopt this child, right? But if the child, if I don’t, right, I’m still going to be provided for and everything because I’m an adult and I’m working and God’s providing for me and so on, but that child loses out.
08:33 Amen. And when God chooses to adopt us into the heavenly family by allowing us to be saved, I mean, who opens our eyes, who convicts us? Amen. I remember being a teenager standing up for godly things.
08:42 I have no idea why I did. I wasn’t saved at that point. I wonder who had put that in my DNA.
08:48 Oh, God did. Amen. And so when God takes us on as children, that’s a great love because he’s becoming that caretaker.
08:55 He’s becoming that disciplinarian. He’s becoming that one that deals with the disappointments of parenting as well as the joys. He’s becoming that one that’s sharing all that’s his as a co-heir.
09:05 Amen. So that’s a great love of God to do that. And we become dependent upon God.
09:11 Amen. And we’re led by the spirit of God. That’s how we grow.
09:15 Romans 8:14, for as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Right? And if think about children, I don’t know if you ever thought about this verse in this light, but thinking about a child of God, right?
09:25 If that we are children of God, think of this fact as we go through the verse, Ephesians6:1-3, children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth.
09:41 Well, it says, of course, honor thy father and thy mother. But imagine this saying, honor God, the father, and it’ll be well with you and you’ll live a long time on earth.
09:51 Right? And that is biblical that if we honor God, he will, he will help us and prosper us.
09:56 And I know there’s, there’s all kinds of different ways that that can be translated out. Some people live longer than others, but I, I am a living proof. Amen.
10:04 If I hadn’t been saved, Lord hadn’t just done a work in me, I don’t know that I would be anywhere near to where I am today, living a happy, healthy life. For the most part. I’ve been so blessed.
10:15 I’ve been so blessed period. And for the most part, happy and healthy, still dealing with some allergies and stuff, but God is so good. Amen.
10:22 And he has preserved me. Amen. And God did this because as a child of God, I became a child when I was born again.
10:30 And then I got close to God as I chose to obey God. What is a backslider called rebellious? They are not obeying God. They know better.
10:39 Like the prodigal son out there, uh, living the riotous lifestyle. He knows better, right now, if we’re defined as the sons of God, what are the, what are the consequences? Right?
10:51 What are the consequences? And, and we see here, this is where the world comes into the picture and we’ll talk about it for a little bit here. And then on the next episode, as we wrap up, but guess what? The world won’t get us.
11:05 They won’t get us. We will be foreign to them. Amen.
11:08 I’ve only been overseas, overseas, like I’ve been to the Caribbean a few times, so forth on different random trips, but I’ve only been to Europe, like overseas, that place, that area there, like a far place one time in the early two thousands, it was there for two weeks. And when I went there, he was so different. Now this was a long time ago.
11:33 I know globalization and yada, yada, yada, but everything was different. You know, number one, I couldn’t find a can of soda anywhere. And as a 20, 20 year old or whatever, I was craving, I didn’t know how much I enjoyed drinking soda back.
11:51 This is before, before soda became like an evil thing. This is back when people just drank it like water. But man, I was, I can’t find soda over here.
11:57 People over there have very different hygiene routines. Some of the hotels we stayed at just didn’t have any showers in them. There was a very different languages.
12:07 People ate a lot later at night and then they would like take a nap in the afternoon. It was called siesta or something. I mean, it was just so different.
12:17 And again, I know things have changed probably in 20 years since I’ve been over there, but I couldn’t relate very well over there. I couldn’t get over to some of the things that I was seeing, not in a bad way. It was just very different.
12:33 And I know some people go over to Europe, fall in love with it and live there. And I found it to be very beautiful place and I was struck by how old some of the buildings were compared to America is incredible. I think the oldest school in the world’s over there.
12:47 That’s like 400 years old, something crazy. So it’s beautiful. It’s great for history, blah, blah, blah.
12:51 And at the same time, it’s very different. Now why am I saying all that? Well, think about this. You know, as a foreigner, right? As a foreigner, we don’t understand, you know, or relate to the culture.
13:03 And when we are saved and we become children of God and we have that relationship with God and we have that dependency upon God and we become separate from the world and we start living differently for God and for the things of God.
13:14 And we forsake this materialistic world. We forsake the pleasures of this life and the sin and all of these things.
13:22 We forsake all those things. We get set apart. Right? Some of our relationships may end.
13:27 The world won’t get us. They won’t understand us. And guess what? They won’t like us.
13:31 They won’t like you. They’ll look for something to point out in you. I think that’s why as Christians, we have to uphold a high level of integrity and good behavior because the world is just looking to call you out on something.
13:42 Oh, they would love that. They desire to call you out on something because they don’t like you and they don’t like the God you worship. Now that is a hard truth.
13:53 And there are many people that go to church that call themselves Christian that are in this group that cannot stand a holy God, a righteous God, an exclusive God that requires us to accept that free gift of salvation or face a real literal hell.
14:17 In a world full of inclusion and all of these other buzzwords, we are left out. We are foreigners and we cannot be related to.
14:21 And that’s what the Bible is telling us here, that there is a correlation between becoming a child of God and being loved by God and what the world will think with us and do with us. Tune in next time as we wrap up this series. Thank you so much for listening.
14:29 Take care. God bless and Amen.