In the last broadcast we looked at one of the great privileges that we have in Christ and that is that we are in the family of God. If we are Christians and have received Jesus Christ as our Savior and believed in Him according to John 1:12, we are the very children of God. In Romans we saw that as Christians we have been adopted into the family of God and therefore, we are His legitimate grown-up children with all the privileges that an adult child would have, as was true in the Roman system of adoption. That is true of the Christian as well. We are full grown children in the family of God.
There is a secondary part of that treasure we have in the family of God. We also have a family of others who have been saved by the Lord Jesus. So, we are in the family of God, but in that family, we have siblings, we might say. So, that is another wonderful privilege of ours that we have as we will see in 1 John 3.
As we think about how we need the family of God, we first find that we have a Father, a heavenly Father. It says in 1 John 3:1, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” This verse tells us that being in the family of God means that we have a Father. That Father, of course, is God Himself. He says here that this is a great love to be called the children of God. The world doesn’t understand that, or accept that, and they do not accept us in that sense because the world does not accept Him. It doesn’t understand what God has done for us . . .
