Children of God

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We are in the middle of a sermon series where we are allowing Paul’s letter to the Romans to help us discover “How God can Change Us.” We have focused so far on our struggle against sin and how Jesus helps us make decisions that lead us closer to God and last week we looked at how true freedom comes through being a follower of Jesus.

You can find these sermons and all our sermons on our You Tube channel. This week we turn to us being “Children of God” and what that should mean to us. Our scripture comes from Romans 8:12-25.

12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Please pray with me…

I am sure that if you are on You Tube at all you have seen the videos of kids or young adults either asking someone to adopt them or a couple letting a child know that they are being adopted. These stories are stories of love and hope.

They are stories of love because they show someone desiring to be in a relationship with someone else that they are choosing to be in. A person doesn’t have to adopt someone or in the case of the child a person doesn’t have to ask to be adopted.

They are stories of hope because they create space for a different future. A future in which a child and a parent are united together out of love for a future that is different because a new connection is being born.

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We have a God who desires to adopt each person that walks this earth. A God that loves each one of us so much that he wants to be as close to us as we are willing to be to him. We have a God of love and hope.

You may be someone right now who doesn’t believe they are good enough to be adopted. You may have been beaten down by what has happened to you in the world and you are struggling to believe that anyone loves you.

You may have done things in your life that allow you to believe that you are unworthy of receiving the gift of being adopted by God. My answer to you is simple, there is nothing that could have happened to you, there is nothing that you have done or are doing that would prevent you from being able to be adopted by God.

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God came down to earth as a human to show humanity the love that God has for his creation. He originally created us in his image. God gave his creation the land and the sea to rule over and to protect.

There was only one simple rule that humanity was to follow, they couldn’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They had to trust God. They had to rely on God enough to believe that they didn’t need to know more than the knowledge that he was offering to them.

But as often happens when humans are involved, that wasn’t good enough. They sought to discover the next best thing. Adam and Eve allowed their curiosity to overtake them and with a little bit of help from Satan himself,  led them to decide to eat from the only tree they were told to leave alone.

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This decision tainted our image and changed humanities relationship with God. It is because of this decision that we need Jesus. We needed someone without sin, without blemish to enter into creation and to sacrifice himself for us.

Jesus made each person that walks the earth good enough. He created an opportunity for everyone that walks the earth to be able to be adopted by God. Jesus allows for each of us to be able to become a child of God.

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This adoption is more like the child or young adult asking to be adopted. God desires to be in a relationship with us but only if we would want to, do you want to be in a relationship with him? You get to make the decision if you want to become a part of the family of God.

God accepts us into the family after we ask. What happened in the Jewish culture was that once you were adopted you received the same rights as the other children besides the oldest. The oldest would receive more after the death of their parents., but a person would receive the same inheritance as all the rest of the children. That is why the scripture points out that we become co-heirs with Jesus.

This is why it doesn’t matter when you make the decision.  It doesn’t matter what point you are in life when you ask to be adopted. God accepts those that are children and those that are on their death bed. We even see from scripture that he accepts a robber hanging on a cross.

The robber next to Jesus says he believes. Jesus says to him “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” It was through the thiefs declaration of belief that this man became saved from death. He received eternal life. He became a child of God.

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What sometimes happens is that we are told that once a person makes the decision to follow Jesus that life will become all about rainbows and unicorns. Life will become easy and perfect because God will be with you.

I don’t know if you caught it or not, that is not the message that Paul is sharing with us today. He makes it very clear that first comes suffering. We will face trouble and turmoil in our lives. It would be my expectation that most of you here today and online as a part of our You Tube worship experience already know what I am speaking about.

Paul lived it out. He was beaten. He had been imprisoned. He had been kicked out of towns. He was a follower of Jesus that usually had trouble right around him. Life was not perfect for him, but it was filled with hope.

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Our text describes our hope as hope through faith. It is through a willingness to believe and trust in God that we are able to find hope in the troubles and turmoil of life. It is through faith that we are able to focus not on the turmoil of the world around us, but on the love that God offers to each one of us.

During our time on earth this love is expressed through the helper that Jesus left his disciples and each one of us, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit becomes the help in our times of trouble. The Holy Spirit becomes our hope during times of turmoil.

I mean let’s admit it when we see the adoption videos, we are often not privy to the rest of the story. It would be my expectation that the elation of adoption was at times followed by the troubles of life.

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Anyone who has been blessed to be a parent knows that life is not perfect. There will be ups and downs. There will be good and bad. We will sometimes find our relationship with our kids in the highest of highs, and the next moment unfortunately we may find ourselves lashing out at each other.

That can also be how we can find at times living out our relationship with God. We can have these moments; they are sometimes called mountain top moments when we feel as close to God as we believe that we can feel.

These can be followed by moments in which we cry out to God in our pain. We wonder if God is even there. We can have doubts rise up on if there is a God and if there is a God what have I done that have caused him to no longer speak to me.

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Our first reading begins with one of those low moments. We have Jesus speaking with his closest followers and he tells them, “I am only going to be with you for a little while longer.” They have been following and learning from Jesus for three years.

This is not a message they would want to receive. He follows that statement by adding that they can’t go with him. They can’t join him where he is going. This is not good news. This would be painful news.

So painful, that one of his disciples, Peter, responds and he states that he will be there for Jesus no matter what happens to him. “He is willing to lay down his life for him.” Jesus points out to Peter that not only will he not lay down his life for Jesus, but he will end up denying that he knows him.

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Scripture goes on to tell us that Jesus ends up getting arrested. Peter is hanging out with some people near where Jesus is being held. Someone says three times that they believe Peter is a follower of Jesus and each time Peter more vehemently denies that he knows Jesus.

It was at this point a rooster crows and Peter remembers what Jesus had told him. He runs away and weeps. He has failed Jesus. He not only didn’t protect Jesus, but he ended up refusing to admit that he even knew him.

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I don’t know if you have ever been there, I have faced those times when I could tell someone about Jesus. I could stand up and say that I am a follower of Jesus. What often happens instead is that I remain quiet and choose to keep my relationship with Jesus to myself.

It is at those times that I seem to not trust the Father. I don’t trust God. What if he had set up this conversation. What if God was giving me the chance to tell someone about him and how he can change their life. How God desires to be their good father. How God wants to adopt them into his family.

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Jesus next offers some good news. They may not be able to follow him, but they will end up being with him. He will return to them to allow them to go to a place that he has prepared for them.

Jesus may leave them, but he will not abandon them. This reminds me of the return of the parent often from deployment that we often see on You Tube. The child will often be speaking of missing the parent, and then the parent will make an appearance. Jesus left them but returned back to them.

We have the same message available to us. The way we word it here at The Church of the Good Shepherd is that God will never leave us or forget about us. We find this through the helper that Jesus has left each one of us.

The Holy Spirit can be our constant connection to God. The way that we can be as close to God as we are willing to be. We are blessed to have God desiring to be with us and speak to us. We get to be as close to God as we desire to be.

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Our first reading ends with a question from one of Jesus’ disciples. The question was “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

When I focus on what Jesus is saying it reminds me of when the child leaves the house and the parents say remember whose you are. Those that are followers of Jesus are representing Jesus out in the world. We represent him best when we remember that he is “the way, the truth, and the life.”

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What does it mean for Jesus to be the way, the truth and the life? Jesus is the way. Jesus came down to earth to live amongst humanity in order to help humanity understand how God desires for us to live.

He showed us right from wrong. He directed the Jewish people into a greater understanding of how to live as God desires for us to live. We are to live as people of love and compassion. We are to show the love of God to those we meet. We are to help those that God places before us.

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Jesus is the truth. It reminds me of the old commercial “When E.F. Hutton talks people listen.” There is no falsehood in Jesus. We need to be willing to listen and believe. He promises in our text that he will leave them, that he is preparing a place for them, and now he tells them how they should view him.

Scripture allows us to get a glimpse in to how we should view God and how we should treat those around us. We need to figure out how we can have the faith to believe that the words we find in scripture are the truth.

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And third, Jesus is the life. He became the way for us to live the best life possible. Through his actions upon the cross he allowed us to no longer have the power of sin direct our lives during our time on earth.

He gave us the ability to be able to conquer death. He died so that we could live. Our bodies may die but our spirit lives on. Jesus didn’t just prepare a place for his disciples. He prepared a place for anyone who is willing to believe that he is the Savior of the world.

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Our main scripture ends by telling us that our hope should lead us to be patient. Meaning, yes, you will have to deal with the struggles of the world. Yes, you will have to deal with the aches and pains of getting older. But you can have hope in something better.

We might not get rewarded for being willing to follow Jesus during our time on earth, but we will find our reward in Heaven. Those that are followers of Jesus have been adopted by God. We have been given the promise of the Holy Spirit and eternal life. We have a helper during our time on earth and something to look forward to after our time on earth has ended.

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And if you are here or watching our You Tube worship experience and you are not yet a follower of Jesus know that he wants to adopt you. God desires to be as close to you as you are willing to be to him.

It does not matter how old you are or what you have done. God wants to begin a relationship with you today. God wants you to become a child of God.

Let us pray…