Week 17: 1 John 3
v. 1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,
that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
I remember years ago a video went viral in China after a drunk young man from a wealthy, politically connected family was responsible for a terrible car accident on a Chinese university campus and his loud response to immediate calls for accountability was a defiant: “My dad is Li Gang!” (a powerful political figure of that time and place). As heartless as it was in context—and the young man did receive notoriety and public condemnation for his words, in addition to legal punishment for his actions—the sentiment behind this viciously entitled response has always stuck with me: this child felt completely untouchable because of who his father was.
One of the truths behind 1 John 3 is that WE are powerfully connected. We are children of the creator of the universe. When Paul writes that death has no sting or who can be against us there are echoes of this simple yet profound, reality-shaking truth. We are children of God. You can almost feel John—the author himself—struggling with the magnitude of this truth as he immediately reaffirms his own words—really that is what we are! This truth has the power to lend us a life-changing brand of confidence as we wake up and walk into each new day. It should empower us to try great things, to dare greatly, to live without fear, and to go where we are called. We are powerfully connected.
There are, though, storms of life that do not respond to the defiant posturing of "My dad is Li Gang!" There are times when it seems that we are vulnerable, alone and abandoned in a cruel, chaotic, and uncaring world. Many of us may be in the middle of one of those stormy seasons right now. So what does it mean in these times that we are called children of God? It means we are not alone. We have resources. These storms of life ask us not to rage defiantly but rather to intone this truth quietly and meditate on what it means that God himself, creator and sustainer of the universe, is like a father to us in these times. It means he loves us, he is with us, he is for us. He is a feeling, empathetic resource for us to draw strength from and he is ahead of us, meaning it is not his first rodeo (first car accident, job loss, divorce, or pandemic) and he knows what lies ahead. What lies ahead for us, his children, is transformation.
v.2 "...what we will be has not yet been made known.
But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him..."
We can live with confidence. We can live with hope of transformation in times of struggle. We also live with a family resemblance that transforms us and the world we live in.
v.10-14 "This is how we know who the children of God are...
anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God;
nor is anyone who does not love his brother...
We know that we have passed from death to life,
because we love our brothers."
Love is the family resemblance. We go about loving because we are loved. We go about cherishing because we are cherished. We go about spreading hope of transformation because we are being transformed. We go about living into the life we see in our family, exhibiting the family resemblance. Except when we can’t. Which may be much of the time. It might be right now. For many of us, too much of our lives is spent struggling to see and feel that family resemblance. 1 John 3 recognizes the truth that our hearts struggle with the truth.
v. 19-20 "This then is how we know that we belong to the truth,
and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence
whenever our hearts condemn us.
For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
v. 24 "We know it by the Spirit he gave us."
God is greater than our hearts. His word overrules how we feel in those moments. We go on being his children despite what our hearts might tell us. This assurance that God is greater than our hearts lets us know that even when we cannot muster the confidence of My dad is Li Gang! nor the belief that he is with us in our suffering there is a Spirit in us that cries out when we can't or do not know how (Rom. 8:26). To be a child of God does not mean all will be fixed but it does mean we are never alone and never without an advocate fighting for us, never without hope for transformation, never without the truth of resurrection. A truth that says: this, yes, this—even death—can lead to abundant life.
—Andy Kelley