You Have Received the Spirit of Adoption
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Pastoral Reminder: Head Heart Hands
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
This morning we witnessed a young woman take a step forward in her life towards God and to further align her life with God’s will. The symbolism of being united with Jesus in his death burial and resurrection is a reminder to us today of why we gather this morning. The commission to the disciples to go and make disciples. The spread the gospel to the lost and teach the found.
18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Spread throughout the nations by those that have been lead by the Spirit so that today we have heard the same message of God and believed.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Each baptism is a symbol that God’s plan of salvation is still as active as it has always been. That lost are still saved and that God is still at work in the hearts and minds of his people.
As we continue today in the book of Romans Chapter 8. Paul is speaking specifically on the new life of the Christian by the work of the Holy Spirit. He has been comparing the work of the flesh with the work of the Spirit.
We left off in Romans 8 12 and 13.
12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, 13 because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
And you will live. ζήσεσθε. This is a future fact for those who have the Spirit dwelling in them. This is the only place in the New Testament this word is used. It is hope of eternal life. Being held until the day of redemption and glorification. It is life in Christ and through the Spirit.
In verse 14 Paul develops why a person with the Spirit will live.
14 For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, 17 and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
In Verse 14 Paul gives the reason that those that are actively putting the deeds of the flesh to death will live is because the Children of God are Led by the Spirit of God.
The Children of God Are Led By The Spirit of God
The Children of God Are Led By The Spirit of God
14 For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.
As Paul has worked though the gospel in this letter, he has gone from wrath of God on the unbeliever, to redemption through Christ, to the renewal of Life through the Spirit and now introduces for the first time that those who have heard the message of the gospel and by faith believed Jesus as their hope of salvation, are now sons of God. A work of God’s will.
12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God. 14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
This work of God, is one of the most precious truths of the scriptures.
The fallen man has an identity crisis. I cannot remember a time where people were not asking the question? Who am I? What is my purpose?
Seeking to find the identity that fits. Looking to find that perfect group that validates me. In my life time it used to be trying to answer questions of:
Do I go to collage or the trades? Am I white collar or blue collar? Am I republican, democrat, or part of the green party? What religion am I?
Over the years it has devolved into What gender am I? Am I male or female or something different? What species am I? Am I a human, cat, dog, or dragon? What race am I? Where do I belong?
When I look back on my life I can see how much of my life was motivated to find that place where I felt like I belonged. Especially as a teen and a young adult, I wanted nothing more than to find that place where I would fit.
The fallen man seeks and seeks, longs to find what he has lost in the garden. Looking but never finding. And in the flesh, what is produced are works of sin. Those that have their minds set on the things of this world, trying to find what they are looking for, pursue with wild ambition, what they cannot find or earn on their own.
But for the Christian who has faith in Jesus we find what we have always been looking and longing for. A place where we belong. And here Paul says it is the household of God as the sons of God.
19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.
Why do we wander through life? Discontent will all of our achievements and riches? Why are we never content with all that I have and done? It is because the fallen man is in a foreign land looking for somewhere he cannot walk to drive to or fly too. It is a place that one enters through faith.
25 But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.
There is no other way into the household of God than through Jesus as the firstborn among us.
29 For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
As Jesus will never leave us or forsake us. As he is over the household of God.
6 But Christ was faithful as a Son over his household. And we are that household if we hold on to our confidence and the hope in which we boast.
This is such a precious promise that we would do well to seek to believe.
But how do you know? How can you be sure that you are a son or daughter of God. Paul’s says that those that are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.
I think we have to be careful that we don’t a quick interpretation of this verse, and come to the conclusion that this is all about works. That it is simply that a person is a son of God by proving it by being moral. What we think, say, and do is definitely important to our life as a Christian as we are called to work.
10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.
But here Paul speaks of a person who is passive in being led presently. It is a fact that those that are God’s sons are those, who today are being led by God’s own Spirit. It is a fact that if God’s Spirit is leading you then you can be assured that you are a child of God.
The Spirit gives new desires, new understanding, new strength, new guidance, new wisdom, new understanding, and a new nature to follow where God directs us.
This isn’t a compulsive leading that we have no role in. It is one that the Christian participates. This is why the bible is filled with warnings and exhortations to go in the direction of God. To deny self and pick up the cross and follow me.
Some of you are dog walkers. You go out and you have set a direction for the dog to go. You have a plan that the dog doesn’t fully comprehend. And once you set out we see a great image of what it looks like to be led. The master of the dog has one single desire, for the dog to follow him. That is the expectation. Follow me.
I always am amazed at the connection between a good bird dog and their master. No leash, few words. The dog sits patiently fixed on it’s master waiting to go and serve him. The dog has no restrictions upon him but he still follows and obeys. The dog is in step with the master.
On the other hand you leave the house with the typical dog and what is the experience. You hold the leash and the dog continually pulls on the leash to do its own things. it lays down and says not today, sees another dog and bolts that direction, leans in and pulls for all their worth trying to take you in the direction that he wants you to go.
God’s children are led by the Spirit being directed and guided in the direction that the Lord wants them to go. We are still able to follow our own desires and plans but we are now able to follow the Spirit.
One of the ways we know that we are a child of God is that we see that he is leading us and we are following. This is a work of the Spirit in our lives. And what does it look like to be led by the Spirit. Paul has already given many examples in Romans so far.
It is living by faith:
Worshipping the creator instead of creation. Seeking the truth and accepting it.
Seeing the lusts of the heart, dishonorable passions, acknowledging God, seeing sin for what it is and turning from it.
Practicing righteousness instead of ungodliness. Rom 2:6-10
Doing what is not natural to the flesh (contrast the opposite of these verses)
9 What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, 10 as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. 11 There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. 13 Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips. 14 Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, 17 and the path of peace they have not known. 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes. 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. 20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.
Presenting the parts of our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness.
Having minds set on the things of God and killing the deeds of the flesh.
The one who is a child of God can take comfort in what is happening in their lives that is against the flesh and for God. These do not come from ourselves but from the Spirit that dwells in each of his sons and daughters. Conducting ourselves in the way that God has written so that as children of God we are his household.
15 But if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
God’s household is filled with his sons and daughters. We are that household. The church of the living God. Jesus leads the way for God’s children to be united into a single household.
18 He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
The members of his body with Jesus as the firstborn from the dead. The first to conquer death because he has no sin. He stands at the head of the body the church. The children of God are his household and his people. The church exists where his children exist. The church gather where his children gather. This is why the church is not a business or a place. It is not an enterprise or a club. It is the children of God gathering to do the will of God, through the leading of God, by the Spirit of God, for the son of God, who is over God’s household.
This is why when we gather we gather in his name. We worship in his name. We honor his truth. We seek his face and his guidance for our lives. We perform the works that he has laid out in advance for us. The church is God’s household and as such we honor it and protect it from those that would turn it to anything but what it really is.
How do we enter into the household of God you ask? By the Spirit of Adoption.
The Children of God Have Assurance
The Children of God Have Assurance
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, ...
In the bible the Holy Spirit is described in many ways.
He is the Spirit of God described as the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the Lord.
He is the Spirit of God’s character as the the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Holiness, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Grace, and the Spirit of Glory.
He is the Spirit of God’s work as the Spirit of Life, and here the Spirit of Adoption.
A Christian is one who is being led by God’s Spirit. By receiving the Spirit of God we enter into a new home and a new family. The Spirit of Christ who is not a Spirit of slavery but of adoption.
If we are being led by the God’s own Spirit it reveals God’s own will and choice. for Each of us to be brought into the home.
4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. 5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ 10 as a plan for the right time—to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him. 11 In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will, 12 so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory. 13 In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. 14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.
This is secured because God has done the work to make is so. There are only two fathers described in the bible that all are under. You are born into one and adopted into the other.
44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
How one lives speak and testifies to the household they belong too.
8 The one who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s works. 9 Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister.
We have recieved the Spirit of adoption to be taken from the corrupted, evil, slums of the world. It is a place that promises freedom and pleasure but is a place of bondage and pain. The world is the home of the enemy of God. Where all who are lost reside in bondage and slavery to the Spirit of the Air the one at work in the disobedient, the fallen angel, the devil.
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.
Men and women are born into the household of Satan by natural decent and the fallen nature of Adam. Whoever, receives the Spirit of adoption is taken from world into the household of God. Not as a slave transferring from one home to the next like a barter between masters but though a payment where Jesus purchases himself a people for his own possession, by paying the ransom of sin, and buying the captives their freedom and then brings them into his own home.
God’s Spirit did not bring men into the household as slaves but as sons. The slave lives in fear. Fear of being cast aside no longer needed or wanted. Old and unneeded. Fear of being set out of the home. Even if it is a good home, a slave knows that they are not secure, but a son is different.
A legally adopted son receives all of the benefits of the natural born sons. He can be secure in his place in the family because his father has given him all that is needed to be in the home forever.
35 A slave does not remain in the household forever, but a son does remain forever.
The Children of God have New Access to God
The Children of God have New Access to God
15 … Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”
We have recieved the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. To cry out is a Greek word meaning to exclaim and it is by the Spirit that are able to cry out to God in this way.
6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
Paul tells both the church in Rome and in Galatia that because they are children of God and that the Spirit of the Son has been sent into their hearts that they can come to God crying Abba, Father. Abba is the Aramaic word for father or daddy which is followed by the Greek word for father as well.
If you look up the name of God in Jewish writers you will find that many of them do not have Father as one of them. One list has over 100 names of God that I looked at and it did not have father on it.
It would have been unthinkable for the Jews to approach God in such an informal manner. It would have been seen as dishonoring to God. Father’s can be approached with honor and respect or they can be approached like a like child coming to daddy. Our example it Jesus himself.
36 And he said, “Abba, Father! All things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.”
To be given the privilege by the Spirit come to God and use the most intimate title that Jesus the Son of God used, should be a sweet image in our minds. The Jews knew the sacrificial system where only the High Priest could enter into the presence of God and only on one day of the year and only with certain ceremony and actions, otherwise he could be put to death.
But through Jesus, the child of God can come into the sanctuary with confidence that they may enter.
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—20 he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)—21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.
Let us draw near into the presence of God. Assured that we are welcomed and wanted. We have a great high priest that was the sacrifice that we may enter into the inner sanctuary.
We can also go before the king of kings with great boldness in our requests and petitions.
16 Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.
This is all possible because we have been justified by faith and have peace with God.
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
To stand before the Most High, the Creator, the King, the Lord of Armies, the exulted one is an honor we should not take lightly. But one that we should embrace and rejoice in. As we can come to him, like Christ did, in prayer and petition, in obedience and joy. We should never treat God in a way that is not reflected in Jesus but we also have the privilege to be as informal with God as Jesus was, as our example of how to live as one led by the Spirit of adoption and one who can cry out Abba Father.
We can have confidence in our Father in Heaven.
18 And I will be a Father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.
Conclusions
Conclusions
When we truly sit and ponder the mystery of why God would do what he has done. Why would he take me a sinner, a selfish man, and give his life for me. To pay the penalty that I deserved. Why would the Son empty himself and take on flesh to save his enemies? To not only save us but to make us citizens of his kingdom, to bring us before his height priest, and finally into his own household as sons and daughters? Every sphere of our lives has been changed by the love of God that he demonstrated on the cross.
Do we live in the assurance that we have been adopted and nothing can change that for us?
Do we see our life through the reality that we are in God’s household and that Jesus is over the house. Do we live in a way that the Father has commanded? Or do we still live as if we are in the house of the evil, the world. Acting as if we are free to do want we want without consequence or discipline.
We are God’s household? Along with every other child of God who has recieved the Spirit of adoption. God’s house is not divided as there is only one church and one head and that is Christ. Are we confident that we can go to the Father as little children without fear.
Are we an active part of the household of God or do we just show up for the events that we want to participate in? God has called us together to be his people and to be his church. Let us be reminded of the identity that we have in Christ Jesus. That we are sons and daughter so God.
An Can it Be
1 And can it be that I should gain
An int'rest in the Savior's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?
2 'Tis mystery all! Th'Immortal dies!
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine!
'Tis mercy all! let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more. [Refrain]
3 He left His Father's throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace;
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race;
'Tis mercy all, immense and free;
For, O my God, it found out me. [Refrain]
4 Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth and followed Thee. [Refrain]
5 No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him is mine!
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th'eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own. [Refrain]
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me!
Amen.
16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
Church let us be alive for God as he works in us according to his good pleasure.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Blessing/Benediction
20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
