God's Adoption

Family. Few words in the English language stir up the same kind of power and emotion as the word family. For some people, this is a sacred word. The family has a sacred place as God designed it. And it's a word that excites and thrills and leads us to a sense of wanting to protect and care. For others, this is a very sad word. It reminds them of the disappointment. It reminds them of a family they wish they had that they do not. It reminds them of a family they do have and they regret. The interesting thing is we look at God's Word, He creates us to be in community. We are meant to depend upon others and have others depend upon us. That's family. God has designed us all to be part of a family. We see this by the very way we come into being. Family is important throughout Scripture and God has clearly created us to know where we stand with the people and who we stand with. My childhood was fairly blessed because my parents, they're married, they love one another. I knew they loved me. I knew where I stood. I was the black sheep. Everyone has to have a role. My father was the director of a children's home. It was Mills Home in Thomasville, North Carolina. And well, most of my summers, I actually spent working there, spending time with the children of the children's home. It didn't take long to realize, why are all these kids here? Well, a lot of them were there from court orders. They had broken the law and their penalty, instead of going to jail because they were too young, they were sent to this children's home. Sadly, most of them were there because they were abused by their parents. That sacred people who were supposed to protect these children, love them, give them a sense of belonging and acceptance, abused them. They came from things that really weren't families at all. That design that God has created for us to be a great blessing became a great curse for them. It was a very sad reality to see how sin can twist us, not only to do damage to ourselves, but to do damage to those who are supposed to be closest to us. This is a season to think about what does it mean to be a family? How do you know you belong to a family? Because we're, well, a lot of us just spent time with family at Thanksgiving. We're about to think about the different family events we're gonna have at Christmas. It's interesting, as we gather with the extended family, we all know the different kinds of folks are gonna be there, right? Everyone has that one relative who says things that are inappropriate and you wanna cover your children's ears the whole time. The other member who's extremely successful and all you hear about is their great adventures or how well they're doing. Another family member, they're gossiping, they're telling you about all the other people's business. Other members, they just sit there and they complain about everything that's going on without helping. Family gathering's a little awkward. You're supposed to be with these people who you have so much in common with, the relatives that you share that blood with, that DNA, they can sometimes feel like they're the most distant. Because everyone's coming in with their own agenda, their own intention. It's hard sometimes to feel like you've got this common cause. This is the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because we're all longing for these people that we can feel like we belong with, We're accepted by, we have the same cause for, and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the one and only thing that gives us that kind of family. Because we're all united in Christ, none of us deserving to be united in a family. We're all accepted now to be God's own children, to have a purpose. This is the real meaning of friendship, the real meaning of family, to walk side by side with the same goal. The Gospel of Jesus Christ. It gives us the fulfillment of what God has intended for us. The thing we long for. It's not the blood relatives. It's the spirit relatives. This is what God is up to. When we gather, it's not supposed to be an awkward time. It's supposed to be a time where we're all gathered with the same understanding of God's truth. The same expectations from God's truth. Friends, we're in Romans 8. We're thinking about God's adoption today. If you weren't with us last week, we've been going through the book of Romans, and just give you a very quick glimpse of what Romans 8 is about. It begins with no condemnation. It then moves to no defeat, and then no separation. This is a victorious chapter of God's power to redeem us, and God's love for us. Let me read Romans 8. I'll begin in verse one. Our text this morning, I'm gonna go back and do, start in verse 11. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us. Who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not of the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness, if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you've received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs. Heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him, in order that we may also be glorified with Him. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank You that You have, You've loved us. You've chosen not to leave us in our condemnation. You've chosen not to leave us in our hostility towards You, against You. But You've delivered us. You have sent Your Son, to suffer, to suffer in our place for the sins that we've committed. You've sent your Son to die in our place and rise again to give us new life. You've sent your Spirit to dwell within us so that we can now glory and see you in your glory, to live according to your ways, to worship. Father, we thank you that you've called us into your life, and you've given us your power to live that life. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Our text this morning begins in 11. We are given new life in Christ by the Spirit of life. The first point we'll see is we are called to live in the power of the resurrection. Live in the power of the resurrection. That's verse 11. Second point, verses 12 to 13, live by killing sin. Live by killing sin. And third, live as children of God, verses 15 through 17. Live in the power of the resurrection. Live by killing sin. Live as children of God. I want to begin by going back to verse 11. Live in the power of the resurrection. Notice here, Him who raised Jesus. That's the Father. That the Father raised His Son, whom He sent to die for us, and now the Spirit of that Son dwells within us. Again, we see all of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all of God is directed towards saving us. The entire power of all of God He's committed to saving us, to keeping us. That's why our salvation is so sure. God is committed to doing it. The father, he sent his son to obey because we disobeyed. The father sent his son to die for the sins that we committed when we disobeyed. The father raised him up to life so that we would again have new life. If you read a Christian this morning, as you heard in the reading, We cannot please God. We are all sinners. There's nothing that any of us can do to boast before God and say, look what I did. Aren't you pleased, God? Our only hope is to stand before God and say, I believe in Jesus. He pleased you. He did everything that you asked him to do. He was the righteous one, and he died in my place. I bring nothing before you, because all I have is sin. When we stand before God, all we have is sin, nothing that pleases God. We can point to Christ, or rather, he points to us. And he says, Father, I died for this child. I have paid the penalty for his sins. He gets to come in with me. If you're not a Christian this morning, your only hope is that Christ will claim you. And the only way Christ will claim you is if you believe you're a sinner, that Christ died for the penalty of your sin and He rose again. You must believe. Please do not leave here without talking to somebody about what it means to believe in the Savior who dies for sinners. Not only did that Father send His Son to obey and to die for us and to be risen for us, The beautiful thing about this passage is that it shows that the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit that dwells within us, is the same Spirit of God. The power of the resurrection lives within the Christian. That's fairly phenomenal because now we can see from Romans 7, we left discouraged. I cannot do what I want in my flesh. But now, The power of God that's able to raise the dead, it lives inside of you. That's victorious. That gives us great hope to say, when I'm tempted, yes, I can't do it if I'm relying on my strengths, but I rely upon the power of the Spirit. The Spirit of truth, the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of adoption. There's just many ways the Spirit's qualified. The Spirit that lives inside of us, it's the power of life. He's bringing life to us. The Spirit is the power over sin. He's untangling that web of sin that we've created. The Spirit is the power over death. Death is conquered in Christ, and now we have that victory living within us. The first of Romans kept talking about how we have no excuse. We have no excuse. When we stand before God apart from Christ, there's no excuse. Our sin is evident. We don't have an excuse for sin anymore if we are in Christ. The power of God has freed you from the enslavement of sin. The power of God resides in us. We don't have to sin. That's the beautiful message of the gospel. We actually can say no to sin. We only do this in as much as we have confidence in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Confidence in what Christ has done for us, confidence that that power resides within us in the Holy Spirit is the only way we can live that victorious life. It's all about Christ. Now let's look to see what this actually looks like. Paul continues this same thought in verses 12 to 13. And this is really one of the most powerful sections. Live by killing sin. So then, brothers, he's speaking to Christians here, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. We will live if we kill sin. If in Christ we are alive, we are expected to be killing sin. It's just so clear. If you play with sin, you will die. If you kill sin, you will live. It's just that simple. If you play with sin, you will die because that's what sin does. It kills. If you kill sin, you will live. And that's the reason Romans 8-11 is so important. You now have the power to kill sin. You can crush it. I want you to notice something. Brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh. The flesh is Paul's way of usually referring to our sin nature, our sinful desires. When you have a debt to someone, you have an obligation. We are not debtors to sin. That's what sin's constantly lying about. Oh, you want this. You deserve this. Don't you owe it to yourself to have a little fun now and then? Sin tries to convince you that you owe something, that you're under obligation to fulfill that sinful passion. Paul's saying, no. You have been set free. Look at verse 13. You're not a debtor to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. Paul has just said before, if you set your mind on the things of the flesh, you will die. Now he's saying here again, if you live according to the flesh, you will die. If you live in sin, death is your natural end. Now this is very much like the warning. If you touch the stove, you will be burned. If you touch the stove, you will be burned. If you play with sin, you will die. Sin only has one outcome. What Paul is trying to make clear for the Christian is that what God chooses to do is always effective. The Father sent His Son so that we would once again be able to worship. The Father and the Son sent the Spirit so that we would again walk according to His ways and worship. Christian, We can now choose not to sin and to worship. Paul makes it clear, if you're regularly choosing to sin, you should reconsider where you are. As John said in commenting on 1 John, and as, more importantly, what John said in 1 John 3, those who are habitually pursuing sin and not repenting and not being convicted and not turning to Christ should be free. The Christian pursues righteousness. Now, if you wrestle with assurance, I want to be very sensitive here, because I want to hold two truths together. We have to hold two truths together. Let's go all the way back to Romans 8. One. This is important for us all to hear, because we all sin. Everybody in this room sinned this week. I haven't been watching you. It's just the way we are. There's no condemnation in Christ. For those who are in Christ, there is no condemnation. That's the first truth we have to hold to. Because of what Christ accomplished for us, there is no condemnation. We are set free from the judgment of God if we believe in Jesus Christ. That's truth one that we always have to be coming back to. Truth two is this. If we are set free in Christ, we will live according to Christ. The Christian who is not condemned doesn't keep always, forever, keep going back to those sins. No, God moves us. He's effective. If we're going to claim to not be condemned, we have to also claim, I am pursuing Christ. Not perfectly, because I'm a sinner. You see, too often we want to hang our assurance on one decision we made a long time ago and don't even remember what actually happened. Your assurance is based on two things. What Christ accomplished and how it continues to work in you. What Christ accomplished for you and how it continues to work in you. Our position and our perseverance. Look at verse 13. But If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. There's two ways to treat sin. Like a friend or an enemy. Treat it like a friend and it kills you. Treat it like an enemy and you kill it. This comes to the great phrase, the mortification of sin. The mortification of sin. We must kill it. Because it is seeking to kill us. Sin is always crouching at our door seeking to devour us. And what we like to do is crack the door out of curiosity. What's sin up to? We think we can play it safe by just getting like maybe a little peek, a little taste. I'll just crack the door and see what happens. Or when that happens, usually sin comes in. We consume it and it conquers us. It's very important to see that the Holy Spirit is the means by which we put sin to death. Four things here. One, the Holy Spirit shows us sin as it is. It shows us that every time we crack that door, it destroys us. The Holy Spirit helps us to see that sin is dangerous and destructive. It helps us to see what sin is, because sin is masquerading as something that we want. It's masquerading as something that we need, but the Holy Spirit lets us see it for what it truly is. It destroys us. Secondly, the Holy Spirit allows us to see sin in light of the cross. When we're tempted, we should think about the words of Christ on the cross. When you're tempted, think about these words. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And notice that what that sin is that's crashing at your door, that's why Jesus was forsaken. He was forsaken because of the sins we committed. because of the sin that we want to crack the door and let in. That's why Jesus was crushed. That shows us what sin does. It crushes us. It destroys us. When tempted, look to the cross. And here, sin leaves us forsaken. But also here, Christ was forsaken for our sin. He has freed us from the wrath of God. He has freed us from its power. Friends, when temptation starts luring, when sin feels like it's got a hold on you, pray, God, let me hear the words of Christ. Let me see what He did on the cross so that I forsake that sin. The third thing. The Holy Spirit shows sin as it is. The Holy Spirit lets us see sin in light of the cross. The Holy Spirit gives us confidence in Christ's forgiveness. He was forsaken for our sin. His sacrifice was perfect. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That doesn't mean we're supposed to live habitually as opening the door. That pattern of, I'm going to be curious, I'm going to sin, I'm going to have shame, I'm going to go to the cross, that's not something that's supposed to be a cycle. God desires to break that cycle so that that same sin doesn't keep entangling you. That entangling stops when we see Christ in His work perfect. We're forgiven. Finally, we see the Holy Spirit gives us the power to resist and run. We have to actually believe that truth. Christ has sent His Spirit so that we can resist sin. We don't have to sin. We have to believe that truth so that we can put it to death. That means we crush it. We don't let it whisper. We don't let it tempt us. We don't play with it. We kill it. We shut the door, we lock the door, we run away from the door. I want you to see something here that's interesting is that in verse 12, Paul says we're debtors, and he simply just says not to the flesh. The logical assumption, the obvious assumption should be he's gonna then say, well, we're not debtors to the flesh, but we're debtors to the spirit. I think it's interesting that Paul doesn't actually make that other claim. It's blaringly absent. And I wonder if it's because of this. When you're debtors, you feel a sense of obligation. When you're debtors, it actually feels like you're a slave. And God doesn't invite us to be with Him as slaves. He invites us to be with Him as children. I wonder if the reason the other side of that isn't emphasized is because he would then have to go back and explain more, as verse 14 begins, we're sons of God. Yes, we're debtors. Everything we have, we owe to God. Everything we could possibly boast of, it's Christ. Yes, we are great debtors, but God doesn't want our obedience so that we get grace. God doesn't want us to think we have to be obliged to obey so that He accepts us. No. He wants us to obey because of grace. We don't obey because of fear. We obey because of grace. When sin tempts, realize it destroys you. What God is doing with this Holy Spirit in your heart, He's reconstructing. Our hearts have been twisted and corrupted. God's rebuilding a heart. He's rewiring your affections so that they're proper, so that they're led to worship. When we let sin in, you know what it does? It just goes crazy, ripping out the wires. It destroys. It's a lot easier to destroy something than build it. When we let sin in, when we choose to let sin come in, it destroys what God is seeking to build. That's why it's so important that we kill it, because it is going to destroy us. Third, we're called to live as children of God. Live as children of God. Look at verse 14. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. That is very bold. If you remember in John, when Jesus claims to be God's son, he's almost stoned. to claim to be a son of God in the Gospels, when Jesus said, God is my father, they understood him to be making a very bold claim for which they wanted to pick up stones and kill him. Because what he was saying is I am equal with God. The Father and I are one God. It was changing the categories. It was making a bold and great claim that would have led to death. Of course, we know that God is one, and that one is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. And here in Romans 8, we see Paul being able to see the beauty of what that sonship is, the Father and the Son language. You see, we don't become God, but we get to share in that very unique, special, loving relationship. The Father and the Son, they have loved perfectly for all eternity. We now get to enjoy that specific love, that kind of relationship with the Father. That's what it means to be a son of God. Just like the Son's righteousness, Jesus' righteousness is counted towards us, the Father now sees us as righteous because of what Christ has done. He now sees us as perfectly loved. He puts all of his love on us because he sees us in Christ. So it's a bold claim to be called a child of God, a son of God. And it all comes from Christ who was the true Son. But notice what else he says here. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. The clear way that Jesus demonstrated that He was the Son of God is that He did what He saw the Father do, and He said what He heard the Father say. John's Gospel makes it very clear, John chapter 5. The way you know someone is related as a son is by what they do. You demonstrate sonship by action. You knew Jesus was a son because He did what the Father did. His actions revealed and demonstrated His sonship. As 1 John said, our actions reveal who our Father is. The Bible is clear. If we lie, our Father is the devil. If we murder, our Father is the devil. Being a child of God means we begin to reflect the Father. We begin to live according to His righteousness. We begin to change the way we talk, the way we act. That's why the church's family reunion isn't awkward, because we're all supposed to be learning to walk and talk and act according to the Father, together. If we're going to claim to be sons of God, we're supposed to be led by the Spirit of God. That changes our behavior. Look at verse 15. You do not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you receive the spirit of adoption as sons. Now, I think what Paul is doing here is something very similar to Hebrews. The Old Testament worship, it was fearful. They couldn't go near to God. They couldn't feel that close to God. Paul is saying it's not like that. You've received the spirit of adoption. a new identity of love. The spirit of adoption is giving us sonship rights. It's giving us the right to be loved, to be a belonging, to have assurance. I asked Matt to share his testimony of adoption because I don't have a testimony of adoption. I do have an in-law testimony though. When I first visited Lisa's home, I wasn't warmly accepted quickly. It goes without saying, I wasn't good enough for Lisa. That wasn't a wrong sentiment. I wasn't good enough for Lisa, so therefore, they were suspicious. I was walking on eggshells. It was terrifying. The first time you meet that family of the one you want to pursue, it's absolutely terrifying. It was an awkward visit. It only got more awkward with the numerous events that I won't share, but one of the weird things I remember is that I was at Lisa's mercy for anything. If I were thirsty, I'd ask, Lisa, would you get me a glass of water? If I was hungry, Lisa, would you find me? I didn't have any rights. I was afraid of being in the home of doing something wrong. Now I'm a son of the Schubert's. I'm accepting that home. I go to that pantry and I stick my hand in the potato chip bag like it's mine. I go to the fridge and I make myself a sandwich. See, I was once afraid of being in the home. I was afraid of how I could function. I was afraid of doing anything wrong. But now that I'm accepted, I know I belong. I act like I belong. I take full liberty of the privileges of being in the home. My brother-in-law in Lynchburg, a few years ago, they invited a young lady to come stay with them so they could go to school there at LCA. They had two teenage children already. This girl was one year older. When she first got there, she was very quiet. She was very suspicious. It took her a long time to kind of warm up to them. But eventually it became a very sweet union as she now calls my brother and sister-in-law mom and dad. Only a couple years in the home, she went from being suspicious to calling the parents mom and dad. One of the most interesting aspects of how you see this relationship change is Matt has a rule for his oldest daughter that if anyone wants to come and get to know her, if anybody's interested in her, that young man, he has to come and sit down with Matt. They have to talk. This young lady went to Matt and said, Dad, would you be willing to do the same thing for me? She wanted to live as a daughter in that home, to have the same expectations in that home, and have the same requirements, have the same restrictions. She wanted to fit in fully as a daughter with all the rights and privileges, and that's a right and a privilege, to have a father who's protecting you. What many children would say, that's horrible, that's too restrictive. She's saying, no, I long for that kind of loving father. Friends, that's what it's like to come into the family as God. It takes some while to learn how to function like a child of God. Once we see God's law, we delight in it. We see that the restrictions He puts on us, they're good. We see the things that He's trying to protect us from, they're right, and they're helpful, and those things are dangerous. When we become a child of God, we glory in what God has for us. See, being adopted means there's provision. It means there's expectation. We must learn to live in this new home. God doesn't want us home because we feel under obligation to obey His rules, even though we'd really rather be going out and partying with our friends. No, He wants us to see there actually is no better place than home. There is no better place than the loving home that God has provided by His Son. And just like every home, everybody contributes. Everybody has an expectation. You have to realize this, when you're part of a family, you represent a name. When we're invited into the family of God, you now represent the name above all names, Christ Jesus. We have expectations. We are to be led by the Spirit of God if we're going to be sons of God. Now look again, verse 15. By whom we cry, Abba Father. Now, I want to affirm something very clearly. This is sweet language. This is us being able to speak to God very intimately. I asked Brian to pray from the Lord's Prayer because it's very unique for Christians to be able to call God Father. But there's something very specific going on in this verse that we need to see. Every child has a different cry. And every loving parent is able to identify their child and how they're crying. You know when the child is just upset and you let him cool off. You also know that shriek of pain. You know the shriek that your child makes when they're truly in danger, when they're truly hurt, when they're scared to death, and you jump up and you go running after that child. The word cry here, that's what it's representing. That shriek, that cry for help. I'm a father! And he comes running. By the Holy Spirit, we cry out. And I believe the context here is still killing sin. When sin is crouching, when we're in danger, we cry out and the Father helps. That is the beauty of being an adopted child. The Father helps. He hears us crying out. Verse 16. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Now, this can be somewhat subjective. I want to make it very clear that what I believe this passage is saying is that the Holy Spirit, as Jesus said in John 15, is about the work of convicting and convincing. The testifying work of the Holy Spirit is constantly convincing that what God says is true. When we hear the Word of God proclaimed, the Holy Spirit testifies to our spirit, this is true, believe. It gives us the grace to believe. When we're reading the Bible, the Holy Spirit gives us convincing, this is true. When we're in fellowship with other believers and they're speaking the truth, the Holy Spirit convinces us, this is true. When we're about to play with sin, the Holy Spirit convicts us, this is wrong. The Spirit testifies to our spirit. I want you to hear something. If you want to hear that testimony, submit yourself fully to the word of God. This is where you're going to hear that testimony over and over again. The spirit who inspired these words is seeking to make testimony, this is true, this is true, this is true. Take and read. Heirs, verse 17. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, always convincing us this is true of us. We are now a new people. We've been called to a new purpose. Verse 17, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. A child acts like a parent. A child feels like they belong to the parents. A child represents those parents. And a child has an inheritance. Paul is using adoption language. It's interesting. He uses it here in Galatians, and these are two Roman civilizations. In Rome, adoption was something that the parents did for their well-being. You rarely adopted for the adopted child's well-being. Normally, when somebody adopted, it was to get money. If there's a wealthy orphan, you adopt that orphan to get the wealth. You would make adoption to get new land. Usually adoption was something that was seen as benefiting the adopters. For God, this is the exact opposite. We receive every benefit. It's all for us. When we are adopted, it's all about our inheritance. We have life. We now have true life. We have purpose. It's to worship. We have power to live for God. We have love. Love that never separates from us. We have sonship. We have a place at the table. The Spirit Himself bears witness. If children and heirs, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, notice there that everything we have is from Christ because we're fellow heirs with Him. He has let us share in His inheritance. that great love with God, this next verse is challenging. Provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Now when it comes to inheritance, we all long for that future glorification. We all long for that day when sin will be removed and we no longer have to fight against sin. That's that great glorified inheritance. But Paul's saying something very precise here. Provided we suffer with Christ, who purchased our inheritance by suffering, in order that we may also be glorified with Him. He's making a fairly strong argument that suffering is necessary for the glorification. So what does suffering look like? What does suffering look like? We'll actually look at it more next week, because I want to make sure we pull out what suffering means from the context we're in. So first we could say, looking ahead, Paul is going to say creation is crying out. Creation is longing for redemption. This world was created good and we corrupted it. Now there's decaying. There's death. We all suffer because we are all physical, and those who are physical, we decay, and we die. That's one clear way we suffer. We suffer by worrying about death. We suffer by worrying about our health. We suffer because this world is not the way it's supposed to be. But I think more we can actually look back for context for suffering. Or Romans 7, something I want you to always remember in Romans 7, the world is not a playground, it's a battlefield. The world is a battlefield. And when there's a battle, there's suffering. Sin is constantly waging war against us, and it gets hard. We grow weary, we grow tired, we suffer. Because we're always constantly looking to go back into our own strength. We're always constantly tempted to actually take a taste just to relieve the burden. We're in a battle, and when there's a battle, there's suffering. There's a constant fight that wears us down unless we cry out, Abba, Father, give me the grace to persevere. I have just a few brief applications. this truth that we are now called by the Father, saved by the Son, and dwelt by the Spirit, the Spirit of adoption, who identifies us in the love of the Son, so the Father loves us like a son. It changes the way we think about our relationships. One of the most dangerous lies is that God is the universal Father of all people. and that there's a universal brotherhood among all men. There's a dangerous lie that God is the universal father of all people and that there's a universal brotherhood of all men. Now, let me make sure you understand what I'm saying. There's a universal truth that we're all neighbors. There's a universal truth that every human being has dignity and worth and we're supposed to treat them with respect. There's a universal neighbor We are supposed to see each other as neighbors, but we've got to avoid this universal fatherhood language and this universal brotherhood language. Because this is a very uniquely and special language reserved only for Christians. Because God is uniquely father to his unique son, his only begotten son. That one son only shares his inheritance with those he died for and those he sends his spirit into to cry out of a father. We have to make sure we realize how special that position and status is. When we level it out as if everybody has God as a father, we lose that unique special relationship we have together. Here's my two fears as to why I think it's especially dangerous. One, I believe it's going to make us less eager to share the gospel. If we think God is the father of everybody, then everybody must be okay, then we're not going to go out and see, as John said earlier, we're actually hostile to God unless He calls us to children. To see that only those who are believing in Christ are children of God is to recognize that those who are not are hostile. They need to hear the gospel. Here's my other fear about universalizing the fatherhood. It loosens the expectations of everybody that claims to be a son of God in Christ Jesus. Think about it. If everybody's a son the same, then those in the church, we're gonna lower expectations of those who actually claim to be sons. Those who claim to be sons are supposed to be led by the Spirit. There's a high expectation for the household of God. This is a sacred identity. Secondly, that sacred identity gives us one of the greatest opportunities. We get to go to God and say, Father, who art in heaven, the glorious, almighty, all-powerful God, Father, Father, will you hear me? Father, in the name of your son, I come to you as a child. Will you hear me? It's a unique opportunity that we do not take advantage of. Prayer is the great opportunity because we get to go to him as the loving father. Third, the church is a family. It's not made up of the physical relatives. It's a family of all different kinds of people, but all united in Christ with all the same expectation. What's supposed to bind us is not blood, but the Holy Spirit. What's supposed to bind a church together is Christ, His sacrifice, His resurrection, and the Holy Spirit. Here is where we're supposed to feel like we belong. We're accepted. Our sin is not. We hold high expectations because the name of Christ is at stake. But the church, we're all brought in undeserving. We're all loved the same, undeserving. We're all called to be watchful for another according to Christ's word for His glory. We're all called to help one another. Remember that new identity we have. the new power we have in the Holy Spirit, the new call to kill sin, and the great inheritance we wait upon. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you. We praise you because you are the God of love who has loved us, and nothing separates us from your love because you have sealed that love in your Holy Spirit. You have demonstrated that love in your son's death for us. I pray that we would learn to walk in that new power, that new life, that we would love you because you first loved us, that we would love one another because you love all of us together as a church, that we would proclaim you to those who don't know you as a loving Father who will judge sinners unless they believe in Jesus Christ. Help us to be your people, that new humanity in Christ, We thank you, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.