Advent is actually not Christmas, and if you know that, we don't talk about that a lot here. We're not a high church church that talks about the church calendar very much. We do church calendar light, or as I like to call it, church calendar red neck. So we have basically Christmas and Easter, and that's pretty much it. But if we were church calendar people, then you would know that Advent is the season of longing. It's the season of waiting. It's the season of yearning for Jesus to come back and to take us home. And honestly, I think I can say for all of us, this might be the most adventy advent we've ever invented. This might be just of all the seasons of yearning. This might be the yearningest. This is the year when we gather together and say, it's not supposed to be like this. And that's okay, and it's important that we remember that. That the advent is the season of anticipation of waiting. And that waiting does something to us. That waiting says to us, we're longing for something we've not yet experienced. That waiting says to us, it's going to be better. And we're waiting for something specific. We're waiting for something that we've been designed for. It's an interesting thought to wait for something that you're incomplete without. I have a friend who did that. I have a friend who did that. His name is Bobby. When Bobby was two years old, his father and an act of violence killed his mom. Bobby's father then went to jail for a long time. And he was put into one foster home after another. 14 foster homes at all. And he was kicked out of all of them. He was terribly traumatized, emotionally and physically abused. And by the time he was eight years old, the stamp had been put upon him. And he would be institutionalized forever. He was never going to be able to function in normal society. But what Bobby didn't know is that there was a couple in town, the Seattle area. A couple had never had children. The husband unapologetically did not want children. He had made a lot of money and he wanted to retire on his boat. But his wife had gotten converted and she'd gotten muggly in her later years. She wanted a baby. She was too old to have a baby. So she wanted to adopt. And the official told her she was too old to adopt a baby. So she had to adopt an older child. And all of her friends came to her and said, don't do it. You don't want to adopt an older kid. They're broken, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. And she went to an adoption agency and opened up a huge book and saw Bobby's face. He said, I want this one. So Bobby waited. They told him he had one more chance. And he waited for his parents. He waited for his adoption. And the Apostle Paul tells us, that's what we're like. In Romans 8, he says, we have the spirit of adoption. The spirit of Christ is in us crying out, the Father, and yet we earnestly wait. We earnestly long for the hour adoption, which is the redemption of our bodies. That's us. That's our advent. That's what we're waiting upon. We are waiting for the fullness of our adoption. It's done. The spirit is there. It is legally finished. But we haven't seen our Father yet face to face. And that longing to see Him transforms. Please stand as we read from 1 John, starting with chapter 2 verses 28 through 3, as we read about how this expectation, this longing for this new family, changes us. Here's the word of the Lord. And now little children abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him. See what kind of love the Father has given to us? That we should be called children of God and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now. And yet what we will be is not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who does hopes in Him purifies Himself and knows that He is pure. And then from chapter 4, so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him. By this love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love, we love because He first loved us. As far as the reading of God's Word, all men like grass and all of our glories like the flowers in the field and the grass withers and the flowers fall. But not God's Word. God's Word stands forever. You may be seated.
We've been adopted, but we don't feel complete and we won't feel complete until we see our Father face to face. The first thing I want you to see is this shocking nature of adopting love. It's shocking what the text actually says. I told you I translated this text. What the text actually says is behold, look, look at this. What kind of love is this? What kind of love is that? It's shocking, it's unexpected. You would never, ever expect this. Think about justification. Think about the whole picture of going before the great judge and being judged whether we've been just or not, whether we've been holy or not, receiving what was do us in our bodies from art, receiving the punishment for our sins, or justification for our holiness, and we're shocked to see that Jesus has paid for all of our sins or before that throne of judgment, and Jesus, our advocate, says all of his sins have been paid for and the great judge slams down his gaveling and says, I declare you innocent. You wouldn't expect that, but you would never in a million years expect for the judge to go, not only are you innocent, but you're my child now. And everything that I have is yours. You would never expect that. What, what? I think what Ferguson says this, this is the summit of spiritual experience. It's never dreamt of in the Old Testament. Imagine the creator of the end of the earth being your father, your oba father. It defies comprehension or calculation. It's shocking, it's unexpected, it's intimate. It penetrates to our very souls that we could call him father. Look at the call to worship. In verse 6 it says, because your son's got to sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, oba father, this intimacy. Yeah, intimacy with God. The all powerful creator and sustainer of the universe of space time and dimension, and he knows you. I'm always struck by the scene in the King's speech when the King has just been anointed. He's just been made king of England and he comes back home for the first time and his daughter sees him and she wants to run to him. But first she bows and says, my king. And then he throws open his arms and she runs into his arms. That's us. He's not just our king. You see, it's important that you get this and I want to be labored, I don't want to run by it. When Jesus is talking to his disciples in John chapter 14 and he's trying to explain to them what they just can't understand that he's going to be taken away from them. He says, I won't leave you as orphans. I'm not going to leave you as orphans. I want to send my spirit. I'm actually going to be better for you to have this spirit than it would be to have me in front of your face. And when the spirit comes, the Apostle Paul receives it and he tells us that is the spirit of adoption that God is putting his spirit in us. He's conforming us to his image so that when we are in pain, when we are in sorrow, when we are in absolute brokenness, when we are near despair, our hearts cry out, not, why have you done this to me? Our hearts cry out, not, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Our hearts cry out, Abba Father, do you see me? Will you come and heal me? It's a shocking, unexpected, intimate love. It's a lavish love. It's completely just poured out upon us. When I was in college, I used to go to church called Christ Community and I was singing this song over and over and over, drilling it into our heads. Pastor, I just loved this verse. Scotty Smith loved this verse so much that they just sing it over and over. They hold what manner of love the Father has lavished upon us. And that's an important verb. He's lavished upon us. He wasn't earned. You don't hold auditions for adoptions. Adoptive children don't look at their parents and go, now what was it about me when I was wallowing around in my diapers that you saw that made you want to adopt me? You know, back before I was potty trained and I was just a nasty mess who didn't know the difference between you and a telephone pole. What was it that I did to make you want to adopt me? That's not how it works. God just lavishes. He just gives it with complete freedom. The only thing that attracted God to us was our need. It's completely free. Unirred, which is a frightening thing. Since there's nothing that we did to earn God's love, there's nothing God owes us. And our giving of ourself to him is just as free as his grace was given to us. It is a shocking love because it's unexpected, because it's intimate, because it is lavish, and because it is absolutely secure. Adopting love is absolutely secure. It is something that you did not earn and you cannot lose. And I love this. I love the way God and His providence worked this out. He was preparing people for this revelation of what His love was like. And in doing that, he put into the Roman loss that an adopted child could never be forsaken. And it's a Roman law that has been passed down through cultures and nations all the way till today. You can disinherit your natural children. I threaten them with it daily. But you cannot disinherit or disown an adopted child. And that is a law that is written in God's heart. And it comes down from us that this love is permanent. My wife's adopted. And her mom was very lavish with that knowledge and letting her know how special that made her. And she would tell her stories. And every time the phrase unwanted pregnancy or unexpected pregnancy would come up in the news or in life, her mom would never miss an opportunity to grab her and say, you never have to worry about whether or not we wanted you. Nobody made us take it. You are wanted. You are secure. You are loved because you're adopted. And that's what the Father is telling us. You are secure. It will not be taken away. It cannot be taken away. It is yours forever and ever. Adopting love is a shocking love. John is overwhelmed by it. Look at what this type, this kind of love that the Father is poured upon us, that we would be called children of God. It's lavish and it's shocking and it's expensive. It is expensive. Children have a blissful ignorance to them, don't they? Children have no idea how much they cost us. They know that. That's what it should be. They should never know how much sacrifice has been made on their behalf or they wouldn't have children. You're no child and you need to know. When I was a, when I was a, our UFN turning Knoxville, I went to a missions conference of in Johnson City. And Johnson City is at the jump and all point of Tennessee, right there in the finger of Tennessee. It's right there. You went any further. You'd be in North Carolina and you don't want to be there. So we were in Johnson City and at this small church and it was missionaries, it was mission conference. And the missionaries were furthest away from money for a camp. It was an older guy. And it was interesting. I couldn't kind of figure out this whole thing. It just bought a camp. And so he tells the story. He tells the testimony. He says, well, I didn't mean to buy a camp. But, well, we were getting near retirement and all our children were out of the house. And I was about to go out and buy a basketball and quit my job and we were going to buy an RV and a basketball and go around the country and fish and just camp and enjoy our retirement. But my wife. My wife and those years right before my retirement, she started hanging out at this orphanage. She fell in love with this girl. It's a 15 year old girl. And she came home one day and she said, do you think there's any way we could bring this girl home? And I said, I'm only a year from retirement. She said, well, just get two more years. She'll be out of the house when she's 18. And so, of course, she gets her way and she goes back to the orphanage and then she comes home and she's upset. She goes, well, I said, what happened? She said, the girl said, no, I can't leave without my best friend. Her best friend was 14. Her best friend's sister was 10.
Her best friend's brother was six. So they adopted them all. Brought them home. And this man took all the money that he'd been saving for his retirement and all the money in his house. And he realized his house was a big enough for this many kids. And so, he went and bought a camp. He said, well, I guess I'll just let my kids grow up in camp. And I went and talked to those six year old boys. Sweet. Gosh, he just had his, you know, his pearl snap buttoned down shirt and his hair partied with a razor blade just, you know. Not a hair out of place and I looked at him and I said, well, I bet it's fun to live in a camp. And he looked at me with that perfect East Tennessee accent, the language of heaven. And he said, it's better than an orphanage. I could tell you that for sure. He had no idea. He had no inkling of what had been sacrificed for him. And that's exactly the way it's supposed to be. Do you know? Do you know that the father in heaven didn't just say, okay, come in. But he adopted us at the cost of his own son. That the adoption price was the price of his own son. That his son, when we're celebrating Christmas, it's not quaint and it's not cute. It's an enormous sacrifice of the eternal second person of the Trinity, the Son of God becoming man, becoming limited to adding all that stuff onto him so that he could feel pain, so that he could feel sorrow, so that he could feel brokenness, so that he could heal everything he touches. It's an expensive love. It's an expensive love. And it's a transformational love. It's an expectation that transforms. John says what? He says, what we shall be is not yet arrived. All the privileges of our adoption, the spirit of our adoption, the trust of our father, the assurances of our adoption, they're all already here. They are as present and they will ever be, will never be more secure than we are today. But we don't feel it yet and you need to know that. Good heavens, I hope you know that. Because if you don't know that, then you're going to be overwhelmed with this cynicism that just cries out, is this as good as it's going to get? And the answer is heavens, no, this is not as good as it gets. This is as bad as it gets for us. This orphanage that we're still waiting in, we're waiting for our fathers to show up and when he shows up, it's interesting, the limitation that John says, we don't know what we're going to be. We're going to be like Jesus though. We're going to look like him. It's an expectation that transforms. When I lived in Cleveland, Mississippi, I was friends with a former Major League pitcher named Blue Ferris. He still has the second lowest ERA of any Major League pitcher who's thrown 50 games or more. And I got to walk with him through his trophy room. It was amazing. If you like baseball at all, and he had Babe Ruth's bat and Ted, we had tons of stuff in Ted Williams. They were very close friends. And he had the picture, and he started the cover of the baseball, the baseball weekly, I think it was called, got changed to the sporting news, but I think it was called the baseball weekly back in the 40s. And he was on the cover. And his last name was Ferris, and they turned his arm into a Ferris wheel, and then had the name of every American League team on a different car of that Ferris wheel. And the catcher said they've all taken a ride. Because in that year, his rookie season, he had beaten every team in the American League. It was fascinating. It was really interesting to just walk with him and hear those stories. And there was a sadness in his eyes. There was a little bit of a, a little bit of a conciliation. He's basically saying, look, I know. I'm 80 years old. I know the arthritis has taken over. I know it takes me too long to tell a story, and it takes too long for me to walk across a room, and I know I'm not impressive to look at, but there was a day when I was one of the best athletes in the world, and nobody beat me. And I couldn't help but think what would be like, if I could change that around. And instead of him going through and showing me what he used to be, if I could show him what he's going to be. And that's what John is doing here. He's saying, this is what you're going to be. You're going to be glorious. All those emotional scars are going to be healed. You're going to be able to love without any fear of rejection. All those physical scars are going to be healed. And you're going to be able to run forever without growing tired. All of it. It's going to be healed. That day is coming. And the knowledge of that day, John says, it makes us purify ourselves as he is pure. Because we know that day is coming. What do we do? We cleanse ourselves as we wait. We cleanse ourselves as we wait. We're like Bobby, y'all know the story by now, but I won't tell you again. Sitting in the orphanage, a man and woman come pick him up, take him bowling. Bobby, honestly in his mind, thinks he needs to roll his stride if he wants to be adopted. He throws the bowling ball so hard and went into the wrong at lane. And he just stood there and cried and cried. And he came and picked him up and said, I don't like the bowl anyway. Let's go eat lunch and take him out for lunch. You know, I've been wearing two restaurants in his whole life and I never eat in Chinese food. And saw these sticks and saw this bowl of soup and he took a chopstick in each hand and jabbed him into the bowl and turned the bowl over. And went all over the man across the table from him and he just cried and cried. The man that told his wife, I don't want to bathe a son. I want a boat. So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to bring this model boat with us. And if I hand the model boat to this boy, that means I'm ready to adopt him and you can tell him he's coming home with us. And his Bobby sat there with soup all over him crying. The man put the boat in front of him and said, would you like to be my little boy? Take him home. They put him in clean pajamas and they put him on a bed and his bed had broiled Roger Sheets, he told me. He said, I've never seen broiled Roger Sheets. I'm so excited but I was scared and I looked at the girl woman and I already called her mom. I said, mom, I wet my bed every night. I'm going to ruin these sheets and she said to him, if you soil these sheets and you and I will get up in the morning and clean them. But you're always going to be my little boy. He said, he never let his bed again. Little boy understood electing love, adopting love became a PCA pastor. It was the first PCA pastor in this town. A planted tricepress material. We've had him come back and preach for us. That's what love does. In John says, that's what our adopting love does for us. It transforms us. Even as we wait to see him face to face, it changes us. It frees us from the things that shame us the most. And the question is, have you experienced that? Are you ready for that? Will you receive that? Please pray with me now. The whole what manner of love the Father is lavished upon us that we should be called sons of God. And that's what we are. Father, we just stand amazed by that declaration. We don't understand it. But we long for it. We long to see you face to face. We long to know you. We long to experience the full joy of hearing you say, you are my daughter, you are my son. And you always will be. Jesus name we pray. Amen.