I invite you to turn with me tonight to 1 John chapter 2, the last few verses there and a few verses in 1 John chapter 3, considering particularly verse 1 of chapter 3. John opens his epistle talking about the fellowship that he and his fellow disciples, apostles, had with God the Father and God the Son. And that was his desire as well for those who would read this epistle, for those to whom he was speaking. Fellowship with the Father and with his Son in order that their joy together might be made complete. We begin in verse 28 of chapter 2 as we consider the Word of God. And now, dear children, continue in Him so that when He appears, we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of Him. 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. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. 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. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, tonight we gather, as it were, at the foot of the cross of Jesus. And we do so indeed to remember in a specific way His crucifixion, His suffering, and His death. And as we do so, we cannot and we must not forget the scorn and the shame and the brutality that Jesus suffered at the hands of men and even more so, the full weight of the wrath and justice of God poured out in all of its fury upon Jesus. We are not to forget that, beloved, because that should have been ours. That is what we have deserved. Yet as we remember those things, we are to see and to understand and to believe that all of that is included in Calvary's love. Now, there are some who would say, well, none of that looks very loving at all. Yet we know, don't we, that the cross is where the justice of God against sin and the mercy of God for His people came together. And we know that God's love is seen in that amazing relationship that He has brought His believers into with Himself. John's entire epistle is about that new relationship. If you read through countless times, he refers to God as Father. He talks about, again and again, the children of the Father. He talks about brothers. In other words, brothers and sisters who are brothers and sisters of each other in Christ. Throughout his epistle, he talks about that new relationship and he talks about how that relationship is practiced through righteousness and how it is demonstrated through love for one another. Yet in these verses that we read together, and especially chapter 3, verse 1, it is as if right in the very middle of his epistle, he says, Stop. Think about. Meditate on the love of God and on its result for you and for me. 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. That great love of the Father that He is talking about, He is talking about Calvary's love. He is talking about what was accomplished there by Jesus. Calvary's love, first of all, expressed through anguish. Now that may seem like a contradiction. Love and anguish. But we know it's not a contradiction. God's love poured out upon us even as our Savior endured anguish. Now, we can only imagine the physical torture that Jesus suffered. Probably most, if not all of us at some time, have heard read from a doctor's perspective of the excruciating physical pain and torture of the body from crucifixion. It includes things like horrendous muscle spasms. It includes literally drowning as the lungs fill up with fluid. It includes the piercing agony for our Lord as His nail-pierced feet tried to push His body upward in order to take even a little bit of a breath. But even worse than the physical torture was His being forsaken by His Father's love and favor and instead to endure the hellish torment of God's anger against sin. Dear people of God, just think that eternal bond that had always existed between the Father and the Son was broken on the cross for you and for me. And that is why we can say that Calvary's love expressed through Christ's anguish was experienced unexpectedly. John begins, how great is the love the Father has lavished on us. How great. John would have a stop and behold that. In fact, the NIV overlooks an important command that is found in the Greek text which is translated in many Bibles as behold or in some with the word see. And the idea is stop, John is saying. Look, see, consider, think through and try to comprehend its greatness. The greatness of the Father's love. Bountiful to be sure. But it's also translated, behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. What manner. And John is pointing there to the glorious and the admirable character of God's love, which is unlike human love. It is unearthly love, we might say. The idea here is that it is amazing. It is astonishing. That's why we can say it's unexpected. It's astonishing because we would never think of loving like that. As Paul says in Romans 5, of men, very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. And then he turns his attention to God. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. His love is astonishing because it's completely unlike ours. And John supports this when he says in verse 16, this is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And in chapter 4, verse 10, John says, this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin. And that's astonishing in and of itself, isn't it? Our sins are atoned. That debt, beloved, which was unpayable for you and me because our burden of sin is so very enormous, so very great, so much sin, that debt unpayable for you and me is paid in full by the blood of Jesus Christ which He suffered in His anguish. And again, some might say, well, how could the Father subject His Son to something like that? That's not love. Yet it is, isn't it? You see, when Jesus was hanging on the cross suffering the wrath of God, the Father was not showing hatred for His Son. Hatred for sin, to be sure, but not hatred for His Son. But indeed, He was showing love because His Son was the only one the Father could trust to accomplish our salvation. The only one who is able to atone for your sins and mine. Calvary's love expressed through Christ's anguish unexpectedly in an astonishing way, but also then graciously. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, poured out upon us, given to us. and we are to understand once again, it is an unearned, undeserved gift to those who didn't think they needed it. To those who didn't even want it. To those who didn't ask for it. Yet given so freely. Given freely, beloved, in spite of our sin. In spite of our hardness of heart. In spite of our defiance and resistance and unworthiness and hatred in spite of our spiritual deadness freely given to you and me. Jesus Christ endured complete anguish for and in the place of those who deserve to be discarded forever as trash. That's how unworthy we are. That's what we deserve. But instead, those who put their faith in Him by the grace of God through His anguish are freely given Calvary's love not only unexpectedly and graciously but also abidingly never to be taken away. The Father sent His one and only Son freely and graciously. He took our place freely and graciously and its result to you and to me is free and gracious. That atonement will never be reversed. God will never require double payment for your sins and mine. Because the payment of Jesus is complete. It is sufficient. And beloved, that is a promise that you and I are called to believe. Sometimes we become downcast because of our sin. Rightly so, we recognize the sin that we still struggle with. And we might become downcast because of that. We ask for forgiveness. Our God says, well then, believe it. Believe God's promise of forgiveness. And that we will forever be objects of God's amazing love as Calvary's love is in the second place applied through adoption. Now we understand the beauty of adoption in our society. When a family, when parents take a child into their home, a child that was not born into their home, take that child in from outside and give that child their name and give that child their love and give that child all that they need. We understand the beauty of adoption in Christ Jesus. Believers are adopted children of God and adopted according to God's purpose. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that or so that, in order that, or for the purpose of that we should be called children of God. That's why He has poured out His love upon us. To make us His children. From enemies to family. The purpose of Christ's sacrifice was not only that we might be saved from sin and its eternal curse. Not only that we might be saved from suffering and loss. No less than that. Oh, how we need that! But it's more than that. It's not like you or I picking up a small child that has fallen down, brushing them off and sending them on their way. But God's purpose through Jesus Christ was to restore His people to Himself, to take them in, to make them His very own, so that the danger from which we have been rescued, so that that danger would never be a threat to you and me again. And we are effectually called, effectively, actually named and claimed by God as His children. We enjoy that in a legal sense. We enjoy a legal relationship just as the state or the country recognizes that our children belong in the family of my wife and myself and that they have the family name and that we as parents are responsible for them and that they enjoy the privileges of the family, of our family, care and protection and provision. In the very same way, beloved, when God calls believers His children, when He says of you and me, My child, the beauty in those words is that He takes responsibility for us. The beauty in those words is His love, His protection, His provision, His care, His discipline, if needed, for our good. Yet this love applied through adoption is also for a new relationship. A new relationship not only in the sense of a legal standing, but it includes a new nature. A new nature, a transformation. That is what we are, John says. Not only are we called children of God, but we are internally as well. Our adoption reminds us that we are not worthy of this. Our adoption reminds us that by nature we are heirs of sin and guilt and the curse of God. And by practice, we are children of corruption and disobedience and ingratitude. But God's love lavished upon you and me includes His love being put into, implanted into His people. As John says in verse 24 of chapter 3, those who obey His commands live in Him and He in them. And this is how we know that He lives in us. We know it by the Spirit He gave us. And in verse 13 of chapter 4, we know that we live in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit. The very life of God is in His children like the branch drawing that life-giving nourishment from the vine. The very life of God is in His redeemed people. As through the Holy Spirit, He gives new birth. He gives faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives love for the Father, recognizing Him as our Heavenly Father and giving love for Him. The Holy Spirit is the one by whom, as Paul says in Romans 8, we cry, Abba, Father. God, through the Holy Spirit, because of the work of Jesus Christ, brought us from outside into His family and by the grace of sanctification, by the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit, more and more children take on the family resemblance. Jesus says in chapter 2, verse 29, or John says, If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of Him. Over and over again, John talks about those who are born of God throughout this epistle. And some of the things he says of them are this. He says those who are born of God do not live in sin any longer. They do not continue in sin. No longer slaves to sin. Why? Because God's seed is in them. He says those who are born of God love. They love God and their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Why? Because the love of God is in them. He says those who are born of God believe that Jesus is the Christ. That He is the Messiah. That He is the only Savior. More and more God's children take on the family resemblance and less and less by the work of the Holy Spirit do they look like soldiers of the serpent which we once were. Peter says in 2 Peter chapter 1, His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. That new nature of transformation. Changed. Loving what God loves. Hating what God hates. But as children of God, also enjoying a glorious inheritance. Paul says in Romans 8, verse 17, Now if we are children, then we are heirs. heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. When we think of inheritance, we think of property passed on from parents to children. As children of God, beloved, our inheritance is the property of heaven with eternal provision. An inheritance that will never perish, spoil, or fade. our inheritance is God Himself in all of His glory and abiding in His presence forever. Beloved, Calvary's love for believers expressed through anguish, applied through adoption, means being children of God. That is what we are. But at the very same time, it means Satan's defeat. It means that he no longer has any claim on those purchased and paid for by Jesus Christ. His grasp has been loosed. No longer are God's people slaves of sin. It means that he himself is conquered by the risen Lord Jesus Christ so that Satan and all who reject Jesus Christ and the salvation that he has secured, they will be forever cast away to suffer eternal torment and anguish. That is what's left. for those who reject Jesus. But for all who turn to and trust in Jesus Christ alone by faith, for you and for me, we have the confidence of Calvary's love. We have the confidence of God's love. That God's love is for us. That God's love is real. That He really sent His Son for you and me. That He really took our place on the cross. That He really earned our forgiveness. And that we really are forgiven in Christ Jesus. Sometimes in our sinful weakness, again, we may still worry that we will get what we deserve. But on the day of judgment, for those who are in Christ Jesus, they will stand secure. And even then, God will not be like a stern judge who pounds the gavel and simply says, not guilty, next. Instead, He is our loving Father who will give a robe and a ring and the fatted calf to His children as He brings them into the eternal feast prepared. And of course, that's not only for me, it's not only for you, it's for all of our fellow believers. And that's John's burden here in this epistle that we love one another because of what we have in Christ Jesus, is because He has made us to be sons and daughters of God, children of God. So rich, so undeserved. Yet that ought to produce a humility in each one of us. It ought to produce a love and a charity for one another instead of tearing each other down, building each other up in Christ Jesus. God's love is real, and God's love is unchangeable for you and me. It's not like a junior high school crush. He does not love us now, but He'll move on when someone comes along who is more lovable. Not at all. God's love for His children is unchangeable and it is eternal. Beloved, how much does God love His children? Behold, look, see the cross of Jesus. See how great is the love the Father has lavished. on us jesus sacrifice was perfect jesus payment was perfect and all of it is perfectly applied and given to you and me and god the father perfectly and completely makes us his children which is what we are right now and which is what we will be forever that is the result of calvary's love and this table prepared before us tonight beloved is a visible picture of that love and this table is for God's family and as we partake we can be confident that we won't get what was coming to us the justice and judgment of God against our sin we won't get that because Jesus Christ took it all instead we receive all that he has earned for us sins atoned for each and every one and heaven gained in all of its glory in all of its eternity Amen