4. Adoption: You are a Son of God

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1 4. Adoption: You are a Son of God If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian and not merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. Father is the Christian name for God. 1 (J.I. Packer) Adoption is the pinnacle joy of redemption and should form the bulk of our thinking about our own identity. (IMO) Galatians 4 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father! 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. ( 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods ) Galatians 4:6 7 teaches us that when we believe the gospel, we not only become God s children legally, but we receive the Spirit in order to experience our sonship. The Spirit leads us to call out passionately to God as our tender and loving Father. The Spirit calls out Abba (4:7). In the very next verse Paul refers to this experience as knowing God (4:8). We do not just know and believe that God is holy and loving, but we actually experience contact with his holiness and his love in personal communion with him. (Tim Keller) 1. We received adoption in union with Jesus. Ephesians 1 In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Sons = inheritance rights) Jesus experience of Sonship: Holy Spirit was poured out on Jesus to affirm his Sonship and prepare him for ministry. Mark 1 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. 12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. 1

2 2. The Desire of God the Father & work of Holy Spirit is for us to experience our Sonship in Jesus. Increasing grasp of our identity as a Son of God Romans 8 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 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. Abba! intimacy Bears Witness We cry out with Holy Spirit, We grasp spiritual benefits by faith (See Eph 1) John I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as (kathos lit: just as ) you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. The affection of God the Father toward you is the same (kathos / just as ) it is toward Jesus. If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will? 2 (John Owen) It is when released from the spirit of bondage with which love cannot dwell, and when admitted into the number of God s children through the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the spirit of adoption is poured upon us it is then that the heart, brought under the mastery of one great and predominant affection, is delivered from the tyranny of its former desires, in the only way in which deliverance is possible. 3 (Thomas Chalmers) A man and his little child [are] walking down the road and they are walking hand in hand, and the child knows that he is the child of his father, and he knows that his father loves him, and he rejoices in that, and he is happy in it. There is no uncertainty about it all, but suddenly the father, moved by some impulse, takes hold of the child and picks him up, cradles him in his arms, kisses him, embraces him, showers his love upon him, and then he puts him down again and they go on walking together. That is it! The child knew before that his father loved him, and he knew that he was his child. But oh! the loving embrace, this extra outpouring of love, this unusual manifestation of it that is the kind of thing. The Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. (Thomas Goodwin) 2

3 3. Grasping identity as a son changes the landscape of our life. A. Suffering Romans 8 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Suffering is purposeful and creating space for holy longing to be filled with future delight in the Father. Bulletproof Hebrews 12 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. 7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Loving fatherly discipline (and coaching) is real. We can respond to suffering instead of react to it. 3

4 Prayer Romans 8 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Matthew 7 7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Jesus invites the content and attitude of our prayer to be shaped by the relational reality of Sonship. Luke 11 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. 2 And he said to them, When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread, 4 and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation. 5 And he said to them, Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him ; 7 and he will answer from within, Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence (shameless persistence) he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Shameless persistence that depends on the absolute goodness of God! 4

5 Discipleship Romans 8 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. Here is where God is taking you. This is his plan and intention toward you right where you are. I am learning from Jesus how he would live my life if he were I. I am not doing all the things he did, but I am learning form him how to do the things I do in the manner he did all that he did. (My take on Dallas Willard) Confidence Romans 8 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that, who was raised who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 4. You are no Longer and orphan What do you need to grasp by faith? (see attached) 1 J. I. Packer Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1993), John Owen, Communion with God (1683?) p Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection 5