I Was Predestined To Adoption — Tim Conway

Ephesians 1 and the Blessing of Adoption

Ephesians chapter 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now if you've ever read this before, I just want to point something out that once Paul announces these spiritual blessings, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, he then means to articulate what those blessings, at least some of them, some of the greatest of them, he begins to articulate what those blessings are.

And he continues this. Really, the first three chapters is heavily that reality. And then after that, he dives into the practical implication of the reality of all of these spiritual blessings. Verse 4, Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Now somebody along the way in dividing up the scriptures into verses and chapters, originally they left in love in verse 4. And in the Greek, it's difficult to know exactly where it should be because there isn't punctuation and capitalization.

And so that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. Or you can put a period after him as the ESV does and include this with verse 5. In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

Why Adoption Deserves Greater Attention

Now I have an agenda this afternoon. It's three o 'clock and it's already getting dark. That doesn't strike many of you probably as a strange thing, but it does me still even after being here two winters already.

My agenda this afternoon is this. I don't think we are gripped by and energized by the truth of our adoption as we ought to be. Probably in my estimation, probably. If I'm just looking at myself in the mirror and I'm evaluating where I'm at with regards to this, I suspect that the reality is that this truth of our adoption has not produced the kind of praise and worship that it obviously produced in Paul.

That's what verse 6 is, to the praise of his glorious grace. Actually, glorious in the original is not an adjective. It is a noun. It is the glory of his grace. There is a glory in adoption that is bringing forth praise from the lips of the apostle Paul, at least from the end of his pen.

And I just wonder, does it produce that kind of praise? I mean, you have to think about this. When he's talking about these spiritual blessings, he throws this real close to the beginning. Now listen to this.

Just listen. I'm not asking you to agree or disagree, and this is a man's opinion, or at least a man's observation. Listen to this. J .I. Packer says, It's a strange fact that the truth of adoption has been little regarded in Christian history.

Apart from two 19th century books, now scarcely known, one's called The Fatherhood of God, the other, The Reformed Doctrine of Adoption. Packer says, aside from those two that are virtually unknown, he says there's no evangelical writing on this subject, nor has there been, any time since the Reformation, any more than there was before the Reformation.

Luther's grasp of adoption was as strong and clear as his grasp of justification, but his disciples held to the former and made nothing of the latter. The Puritan teaching on the Christian life, so strong in other ways, was notably deficient here.

Question. Does the doctrine of adoption really matter? Maybe Christians haven't given it very much attention, precisely for the fact because it's not very important. But do you know what? If we start thinking that, that's not the prevalent thinking.

Adoption as the Highest Gospel Privilege

Now listen to this. I gathered these together, and I think this is amazing. John Murray. Here's a quote from John Murray. Do you all know him? When we visited Scotland, we were taken to his grave. Our brother Jeff Thomas sat under him when he was in seminary.

Listen to Murray. The apex, get that word, apex of redemptive grace and privilege. That's what he says about adoption. Here we have the ultimate source and the highest privilege brought together. That's John Murray.

How about this? J .I. Packer again. Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption. It is the highest privilege that the gospel offers. Higher even than the gift of justification.

Adoption is the crowning blessing. Of all the gifts of grace, adoption is the highest. The climax of the Bible. The Puritan Thomas Watson says, Extol and magnify God's mercy who has adopted you into his family.

Adoption is greater mercy than Adam had in paradise. You say, wow. The Puritan John Owen said of adoption, It's our fountain privilege. Don't you love that? Robert Raymond, my favorite author of a systematic theology.

This is what he says. Can Christians enjoy any blessedness or privilege higher than that access to God the Father through his Son and Spirit, which as members of his household they enjoy? What blessedness can possibly supersede the blessedness of simply being a child of the Holy God?

There is none. Not justification, not sanctification, however great those privileges are. Martin Lloyd Jones, The final and ultimate end of redemption. That's what he says adoption is. The ultimate or the final and ultimate end of redemption.

There is nothing, nothing, nada, higher than this. Our adoption is the highest expression even of God's love. And I speak carefully and with reverence when I assert that. What's he asserting? That the statements in Scripture concerning adoption are the highest expression of the love of Almighty God.

There is nothing higher than this. Now, brothers and sisters, if these guys are right, I'm afraid we're wrong. Most of us. Maybe you're an exception and I just don't know. But I have a feeling that I have to admit, I do not carry around with myself such a grasp of the glory, the glory of God's grace expressed in adoption that got Paul singing and praising.

I don't think I do. But see, the question is, these are just men. Are they correct? That's really the question. They're only men. They could be wrong. But are they wrong? That's the question of the hour.

And you know what it comes back to is this. Does God's Word give us reason to say what they're saying? Does it affirm that? Is adoption the highest blessing? Is it the crowning blessing? Is it the apex?

Is it that which is not to be superseded by any of the other blessings of God? Is it the highest expression of the love of Almighty God? And now let me ask you this. Does your mind go anywhere in the New Testament where you would probably go first if you were looking for a text that had to do maybe with one of the strongest assertions about God making us sons?

Where? Romans 8 is a good place to go. 1 John 3 is a tremendous place to go. Let's go to 1 John 3. Sorry, Sonny. No, but it is a fantastic place to go. But just the reason I choose 1 John over Romans 8 is simply because of the way John expresses himself.

The Love That Makes Us Children of God

Because 1 John 3, you'll see it for yourself. Now, I'm reading from the English Standard Version. See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God. Many of you are more familiar with behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.

The New American Standard says, see how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us. Now, you see, the reason that I wanted to go here is for this reason. Romans 8 does not stress this like it's stressed here.

Behold what manner. You know that word manner? ESV says kind. It's the class. It's the category. See what kind, what class of love this is. See. He's saying feel this. You need to get it. Understand it.

Fix your gaze here. Now, here's the thing. John isn't telling us to fix our gaze on adoption. He's not telling us to fix our gaze on the fact that we're children. You see what he's saying? He wants us to behold the sort of love that would do such a thing.

That's where he wants us taken up. What does it take for God to make somebody like us into His child? See how great that is. That's like the New American Standard. It's see what a great love. Behold that.

How great. How wonderful. How glorious. What kind of love? What class of love? What category of love would ever do this? Now, look, I think as much as my mind moving back and forth through Scripture, I can only think of two expressions in all of our Bible that like talk about God's love in doing something as though it's like way out of here.

It's in a class all by itself. One is when He gave His Son for sinners. God so loved. That little word S-O is massive there. What John is saying is that there's a category of love here that even surprises the writer.

And then you'll remember this, Romans 8. 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? You see, that's an expression there.

Even though that verse doesn't specifically call out His love, but what it's saying is this. Look, that obviously is the greatest expression of His love because if He'll do that, then He'll do every other thing.

So comparatively, give His Son versus giving you everything. Well, obviously it makes giving of the Son the greatest thing. He so loved. So the second expression is that which we just saw in John. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.

In both instances, we are confronted by that which the author is taken up with. He so loved. Behold what manner. It's so great. It's so special. Behold what kind of love would do this. That's the idea.

And you know what? The only way in both places that the author, the inspired author, would even try to tell you how great the love is, is just simply by telling you what He did in both of them. What did He do?

Well, God gave His Son for the sinner. That's the first thing. And then He makes that sinner a son. That's the second thing. And you know what? We're so used to it, brethren. It's pathetic. It's pathetic how used to this we are.

So it doesn't even strike us with the kind of, can you see what it did to Paul? The guy comes unglued. We don't come unglued. And if you're British, you're twice as likely not to come unglued. That's the reality.

Adoption and the Measure of Divine Love

Look, what the author is saying here is there's a category of, brethren, you understand this. There is a category of love that will give an apple to their child. And there's a category. There's a kind.

There's a class of love that moves up from that, where I would give an apple to a stranger. And then there's a kind of love that moves up from that, where I might give an apple to an enemy. But you see, there's a kind of love that moves up in the value of the gift.

Somebody might give a car. Somebody might actually let you move into their house and live with them. You see, we recognize that there are different levels, there are different strata, there are different classes of love.

That's the idea. But what class of love is it that would sacrifice your own son for somebody who doesn't deserve it, only to make the person that doesn't deserve it your child? I mean, that's the kind of thing that we have.

And I would just say this, what kind of love, what class would you put love into that God would have, that he would actually set his love on me, even in the same way that he sets his love on Christ? And listen, in Jesus' high priestly prayer, Jesus prays that the world may know that you, he's speaking to his Father, loved them, his disciples, even as you loved me.

And you know, if you begin to search, even as, it is a word of comparison. It's a word that has to do with to the same degree, to the same extent, in proportion to, just as. Brothers and sisters, you might want to meditate on that reality, like for the rest of eternity.

God intends his relationship with you, if you're a Christian, he intends his relationship with believers to be a very reflection, a very reproduction of Jesus' own fellowship with his Father. I mean, do you recognize what God has done?

Believers Brought Into Trinitarian Love

God has swept us right into Trinitarian love. You have to recognize this. To the praise of the glory of his grace. What you have is almighty God, who is wanting to come along and show you a glory of the grace of his love towards sinners.

And what God has done is he says, I'm not going to do anything halfway here. I am going to express such love that is absolutely going to stagger the universe and all of creation and all of the angels and everything that God ever creates are going to be totally staggered by how God would do this, who he would do it to, what the cost of it would be.

That's the kind of love that he's putting on display here. That's exactly it. Now, yes, look, there are realities about Jesus' sonship that can never be true of me. But a verse like John 17 .23, that the world may know that you love them even as you love me, a verse like that seems to suggest that in the same way God throws his whole being into doing good to the Son of God, Christ himself, so he throws his whole self into doing good to the adopted ones.

Listen, do you remember? We can cruise across this. Jesus said this. Remember when he was there with Mary in the garden after he rose? And he said, go tell my brothers. And that's interesting. He doesn't say disciples.

He doesn't say my followers, my servants, even my friends. He says, go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father. My God, your God. You see how he puts it on such an equal plane?

Do you recognize this? Think with me. Romans 8. If we are children of God, then we are what? Heirs. And fellow heirs, co-heirs. With who? What does that mean? That means that whatever he gets, we get.

Do you know what it says just a little ways later in Ephesians? It says in the coming ages that God is going to show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness to us in Christ Jesus. See, we're in him.

We're one with him. And what God is going to do, our Heavenly Father, do you recognize what that is even saying? He plans to constantly show us in ways that only he knows. I mean, because what do you do with words?

Immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness. I mean, what do you even do with that? What are the specifics there? Well, it doesn't say, but I'll tell you what, you don't want to miss out on that. In ways that only he knows, more and more and more, he is going to express his love upon those that he's redeemed, which is only, you know what that's going to do?

It's only going to increase our love back to him. All through eternity, the future prospect of all of us who call God our Father is what? It's this. It's an eternity of love. I mean, you know what Packer says?

He says this is like a fairy tale. He says in real life, kings don't adopt sons and daughters of a felon. A king might adopt a niece or a nephew, some extended relative of the royal family, but we aren't royalty.

We're sons of the traitor. No one in real life adopts the likes of us. No one in real life adopts a 25-year-old mass murder. Well, I'm not a mass murderer. You know what Scripture says we are? We're God murderers.

We would have cried out crucify him just as well as the rest left in our natural state. We're worse. I mean, you know what? Nobody that wants a dog goes to the Middle East and goes to a junkyard and finds the most foaming at the mouth rabid mongrel to take home as a lap dog.

That doesn't happen in real life. But Ephesians 1 .5 says hold it. This is no fairy tale. There actually is a king in real life that takes the wretched thing and says, I want you to be my son. I'm going to make you a prince.

And you know what we need? We just need the day of his power like we talked about from Psalm 110. That's what we need. We need an outpouring, some fresh revelation to our souls of this reality, the beauty, the glory of this doctrine.

The preciousness of what it means to be adopted into the household of God. In love. He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. Did you get that? He predestined us for adoption. Yes, that concept is actually in the Bible, folks.

Predestination and the Free Offer of Sonship

Predestination. God's choice of certain individuals to adoption. In our estimation, it may seem absolutely arbitrary. But you know what? It's not. Now God doesn't tell us the reason why He chooses one sinner over another to make into a son or a daughter.

He doesn't tell us that. But don't conclude that He's without His reasons. You don't want to come to that conclusion. Why? Because it says it's according to the purpose or the good pleasure of His will.

You see that? ESV says purpose. King James says good pleasure. But the fact is, God does it because it's His will to do it. It's His pleasure to do it. It's His purpose to do it. Don't conclude He's without His reasons.

He doesn't tell us why, but He has His reasons. He has a will behind all this. It's according to the purpose of His will. That's Paul's way of saying, look, God's under no obligation to explain Himself to us why He chooses one over another.

But let's all remember something in this. Though God doesn't make known to you and me the reason why one is chosen and another is passed over, we do know this. He offers sonship and adoption freely as a gift to all.

And on terms, actually, that in one sense couldn't be easier. It's presented as a free gift. Come to Christ, trust Him, and you'll receive the adoption as a free gift of grace. Isn't that what Scripture says?

Listen to it. You know this. To all who did receive Him, Christ, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. You ever read that? You receive Christ, but you've got to take Him in His entirety.

You've got to take Him with all of His commands, all of His authority, all of His lordship, not just the pardon of sin. You have to take Him as a full package. And if you'll receive Him, then you see.

And you know what? If people won't accept God's pardon and God's free offer of sonship, but rather they prefer their sins, rather they prefer to stay in the way of being a son of the devil, if they prefer that, if nothing can convince them to come and surrender, lay down their weapons to this Christ and receive Him and be saved and become a son, why should they complain about predestination?

Nobody should complain. If the doors of the banquet are thrown open and everybody's invited, if you're too busy with getting married and having oxen and just having bought new land, I mean, while others are willing and they go in, why in the world do you have a problem with God's predetermined adoption?

It's there to be had. I love this verse. I thought I'd just read it right here. Jeremiah 3 .19, I said, this is God speaking, how I would set you among my sons and daughters, I'm adding that, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations.

And I thought you would call me my father and would not turn from following me. I just find an appeal in that verse. God would have you to be His child. Now look, the concept of adoption, let's just talk about that for a second.

Roman Adoption and the Legal Standing of Believers

It's not found in the Old Testament. It's very interesting. You know, so much of the New Testament is built on the foundation of the Old Testament. But you know one of the things we don't find in the Old?

You know, under the Mosaic law, you don't really find any provision for adoption. Adoption is not a Mosaic concept. You know what it is? It's a Roman concept. It's basically the term adoption has to do with instating as a son.

And Paul, you know, this concept is only found in the New Testament. It's only found in Paul's writings. Paul's the only one that specifically mentions adoption. Yes, some of the other letters talk about being children of God or God being our father.

But the only place you're going to find the term adoption used is Pauline. And so under Roman law, basically what they did was they made provision for an adult. This typically happened among rich people.

You know, you get somebody rich and he has a lot of wealth. Where's the wealth going to go when he dies? He doesn't, well, obviously he's got his own children. That's where it's going to go. But this was a provision for rich Romans who, for whatever reason, they lost their children or they couldn't have children or whatever.

Never got married or who knows what the situation was. But basically Roman law made provision for an adult who didn't have any children who wanted an heir, somebody to carry on the family name, somebody that he could adopt as a son.

And some young man was typically selected who had shown himself somehow fit to carry on the family name in a worthy way. And you recognize this about adoption. Adoption is always the prerogative of the father, right?

Nobody under Roman law would come along who was the child and demand by law that some parent had to adopt them. Adoption is always the choice of the father or the mother, the father usually. The choice in adoption always rests with the one doing the adopting, not the one being adopted.

If you become a parent by way of adoption, you made the choice. You're the one who made that call. No one's legally bound to adopt somebody as their child. There's no duty at all. Roman law made provision for this.

Nobody was demanded to do this. No obligation. And you know what the fact is, if God had left us in our sins to perish, what could we say? What are you going to say to him? You owe me adoption. Well, you can't say that.

I have a right to be a son. No, you have no right. It's the prerogative of the father. And the concept of adoption is a legal term. Why do I bring that up? Because the fact is, it's got to do with legally, I have the right of becoming someone's son.

The emphasis on adoption is not the nature of the child. It's the legal standing of the child. You need to get that. When we speak of the child being adopted, we're at once implying that the child does not at all possess any sort of blood relationship to the parents.

Adoption does not form a blood relationship. There's no way an adopted child is ever going to get the 23 chromosomes from the mom and the 23 chromosomes from the dad. It's not going to happen. The same blood doesn't flow through their veins.

They may get adopted and imitate their adopted parents, but there's no blood connection. It's only a legal one. That's all it is. The fact is that in Christianity, we actually do get the nature of our father.

But that's got nothing to do with adoption. What does that have to do with? Regeneration. Right. So let me talk. Packer and Raymond both believe adoption is the highest privilege the gospel offers, higher even than justification.

Adoption Compared With Justification

So let's talk about that just for a second. Let's compare justification and adoption. Both are legal declarations, right? Adoption legally declares that I'm somebody's son. Justification legally declares that my sin is pardoned, declares me just.

So we think about this. Both adoption and justification are based on faith. Are they not? We're justified by faith to as many as received Him and believed on His name. That's what Scripture teaches. In Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

That's what Scripture teaches us. So both becoming a son of God and becoming justified in the courtroom of God, they're both by faith. But justification has to do with our relationship with God as a lawgiver and a judge.

Right? It's a courtroom term. It has to do with what? That the believer is not liable to the penalty deserved for the sins we've committed. We don't get death when we deserve death. That's what justification has to do with.

Because Christ is our substitute and sacrifice. He tasted death on our behalf. He stood on our place. He took our punishment upon Himself. My debt has been paid. Jesus paid it all. That's the idea. And so I'm pardoned in God's courtroom, and justification declares that I am legally acquitted.

I'm a free man. But you know what? Justification never guarantees me any intimacy with the judge afterwards. Right? I mean, I can walk away, but the judge may have nothing to do with me. The judge may hate me.

He may have acquitted me on legal terms, but he may not like me. He may not want anything to do with me. Certainly, there's nothing in justification that requires him to bring me into his family. You see how adoption's better?

Now, adoption presupposes justification. Because it presupposes that whatever barriers there were have been removed. But the fact is, yes, it presupposes pardon. Yes. But adoption lifts us higher. Where does it take us?

I mean, folks, to be right with God as a judge, yeah, that's great. To be taken into God's family, to be cared for by Him as a father, that's greater. That's greater, because there's intimacy. It's like God has not only broken down all the barriers, now God brings me right to where I'm His child.

He's my Father. One deals with a ruler and his subjects, but the other one has to do with a father and his children. Folks, we have to feel the privilege of adoption. I'm going to make one more effort here to try to get us to feel that.

The King Who Forgives and Makes Us His Children

Suppose I committed a fault against you by accident. So let me see your laptop, and I dropped it. I'm just being clumsy, and I dropped it. I'd be thankful if you forgave me. But what if I took your laptop, and I thought, I don't like him.

I smashed it. But later on, I felt, well, that was stupid, and I feel sorry, and you forgave me. Yeah, I'd be happy. But what if I committed crimes not against you, but suppose I committed them against a king, and I did things so bad that I actually deserve to be burned at the stake.

I deserve to be burned in a fire that's never quenched. Let me tell you something. If I committed crimes that deserve that, unquenchable flames forever, and God came along and said, I've got some good news for you.

I'm going to annihilate you. That would be good news. If it doesn't strike you as good news, all you have to do is think about the kind of good news that would be to everybody in hell right now who are faced with the prospect that this suffering is forever.

And if you could basically make it so that it was like they sleep forever, like before they were born, they would take it in a second to just make the pain stop. That'd be a tremendous mercy, tremendous.

But what if He forgives my defiance against Him, He pardons me, and then He sends me home? I'd jump for joy. I mean, I deserve that. And He's pardoned? What if I'm forgiven? And He tells me He's going to shower me with untold wealth?

I mean, I would hardly know how to answer. But if that king says, despite all the wickedness you've done against me, I pardon you, I love you, I give my only begotten Son for you, I'm going to bring you home to my house, to the royal family as my child.

I'm going to be a father to you. You're going to sit on my throne. You're going to wear a crown. What if God said that to you? He said, look, I want you to know that in all my omniscience, omnipotence, I am Almighty God.

As much as I have been able to stretch my mind and my thinking, I am going to make you an object of the greatest expression of grace that I can conceive of. Now, I'm not going to say I know what God can conceive of.

The very fact that we're even being put in the category of love, where he's loving us as he loves Christ. I mean, if God said there's no higher place my love can exalt you, it's like if we've just been good our whole lives.

If we've been faithful servants, in the end, all we've done is been faithful. We don't deserve anything. But after the things that we've done and what we deserve, God says, I'm not just making you a free man.

I'm not just making you a friend. You're to be my son. You see what John says? Behold, you've got to get the category of love that the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God.

And so we are. So we are. That's the climax. That's the apex. This is the crowning blessing of all. A blessing that can't be superseded, the ultimate end of redemption. Nothing higher among the expressions of God's love.

Adoption Calls Forth Praise and Sacrificial Discipleship

The highest privilege of the gospel. The apostle doesn't want us just to sit there emotionless and read it. Think of this. He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.

You know what God wants? He wants worship. If all I do is recognize my sonship and I stop short there, you know what God wants you to do? He wants you to shout. And why would you not want to shout? He wants you to get excited.

He wants you to jump up and down. He wants you to praise him for all the magnificent glory in this. The glory. He wants you to get excited. Yes, even if you live in Great Britain, he wants you to get excited.

What is his love that swallowed me up? To the praise of his glorious grace. There's glory in this. Adoption declares to us something about God, something about his grace. His glory has to do. You know, the glory of God is what makes God God.

And God means to put himself on display and he doesn't do things by halves. This is no trifle, folks, that we've been brought into the family. God wants us to gaze on this doctrine of adoption. He wants us to behold the glory in it.

And he wants us to fall down with praise. And so I just say this. You know what? When Jesus comes along and he says, unless you forsake all that you have, you can't be my disciples. You know what? You know what Jesus shows?

He shows us that in a parable, where the guy's walking along and he finds a treasure and he says, wow, this treasure. And you know what? He doesn't sulk all the way to going to sell all that he has so that he can buy that land and get that treasure.

You know what he says? He says, wow, that treasure is that. I can't believe it. And all I have to do is go get rid of all my stuff so that I can buy that land and then I get that treasure. Of course, this is a good deal.

He's not sulking. He's not moaning. He's not bemoaning the fact. You know what? He tells us to sell our possessions and give to the poor. He does. Luke 12, you better read that. He wants you to throw a feast.

He doesn't want you to invite friends and family. He does. Luke 14, you better read it again. He wants us to do. He wants us to give up our comforts and make sacrifice of our time and our money and our life.

He doesn't want us to be choked by the cares and the riches and the pleasures of life, but to follow him, to imitate him. And you know what? He does want us to give thought to people that are needy in the world.

He wants us to give thought to that. He wants us to take time out, to take the gospel, to go to the nations, including the prison right up the street or wherever we end up going. He does want us to do that.

He definitely is calling us. And you know what? If we walk around sulking like we're some great losers because what? Because you're being adopted into the family of God and you get the treasure of all treasures and immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness forever and love poured on you like he pours on Christ and you get to be fellow heirs with him.

And what are you going to do? Walk around sulking like, well, you know, this Christian thing, man, so much is demanded. Look at the guy who found that treasure buried in the field. Was he grumbling all the way?

None of that. Oh, what a sacrifice. Look how much I have to give up. Now the guy was coming out of his shoes. Really? I mean, all you're wanting of me is to turn my back on the things that I can't keep anyway, that are only fleeting pleasures that are going to be gone in a moment.

I'm going to die. I'm going to be out of this world. Seriously? You're just asking me to do that? I mean, all you have to do is look at a guy like Zacchaeus. I mean, he's up in the tree and here's Jesus.