Understanding Adoption

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If you would open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 8, that is where we are in our study.
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Do you have a worksheet here? All together, having one.
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Do you need another one? So we are in Romans chapter 8.
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And what I wanted to do tonight, as an introduction to where we are, we're at verse 14.
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And we're going to look at verses 14 through 16.
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But as introduction to verse 14, I want to read verses 1 through 13 to remind us of the context that we are in.
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So Romans chapter 8, starting at verse 1, the Apostle Paul writes, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
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For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.
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By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.
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In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
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For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
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For those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
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To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
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For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
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Indeed, it cannot.
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Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
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You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
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If, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you.
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Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
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But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
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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.
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So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.
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For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
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But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
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And now tonight's verses 14 through 16, we'll read through 17.
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For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
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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.
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The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
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And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order also be glorified.
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May God add his blessings to the reading of his word.
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All right.
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So on your sheet, we are at we have looked at the fact that the spirit frees us.
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We have looked at the fact that the spirit changes us.
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That was our focus for last week, that it is required if we are to be believers, we are to be changed by the Holy Spirit.
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It says that we cannot obey the law of God in the flesh.
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That if we remain in the flesh, there is something within us that will keep us from obeying the law of God.
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However, if we are in the spirit, God's spirit gives life to our mortal flesh so that we will be able to obey his commands.
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So that is how the spirit changes us and why the spirit changes us.
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So tonight we're going to look at the subject and letter C of your outline that the spirit confirms our adoption.
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So the focus of tonight's lesson is the subject of adoption.
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If you're looking at your outline and you want to fill in the first blank, the first blank is the word administration.
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We are given administration by the spirit.
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Look at verse 14 with me.
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It says for all who are led by the spirit of God are the sons.
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Now that ties into what he had just said in verse 13.
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He says, if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
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But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
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And then in verse 14, he says, for all who are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God.
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That's just the natural progression of the idea of what has been said before.
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If you live according to the flesh, it is because you are of the flesh.
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If you live according to the spirit, it's because you're of the spirit.
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Understand? Very simple concept.
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If you live according to the flesh, it's because that's your nature.
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And if you live according to the spirit, it's because that's your nature.
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And if you live according to the flesh, your nature hasn't been changed.
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And if you live according to the spirit, your nature has been changed.
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So it's very simple.
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He says, all that are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God.
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You can't be led by the spirit of God and be an unbeliever.
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Do you agree with that? I mean, that's just simple dynamics of the situation.
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If you're led by the spirit of God, it's because you're the son of God.
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You're a son of God.
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But if you are not led by the spirit, it's because you're not a son of God.
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It's one works with the other.
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And as I said, if you are led by the spirit of God, it's testimony that you're God's child.
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Now, something I want to focus on tonight is the idea of becoming a child of God.
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This was something that as I was reading this text, I began to focus on.
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The concept of becoming a child of God.
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Because there are many people in the world that I've heard and people that I've talked to, people that I've had conversations with.
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And maybe even some of you have heard some of these people who would use this phrase.
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Well, we're all children of God.
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You probably heard it on television or heard your friend say it.
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You may even yourself have said it at one time or another.
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Well, everybody's a child of God.
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No, they're not.
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And that's not my opinion.
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Because if it were just my opinion, it'd be about as much as this thing here.
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Maybe not even.
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This has a purpose.
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My opinion is meaningless if it's not founded on the Word of God.
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And if it is founded on the Word of God, then it has extraordinary meaning.
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Because it's God's truth, not my truth.
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And the truth of the matter is, somebody might say we are all children of God, and if by that they mean we are all God's creatures, or God created us all, or even that we are all image bearers of God, which is something I'm going to talk about Sunday.
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I'm going to talk about how all people, even unbelievers, are image bearers of God because God has stamped humanity with His image.
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If that's what you mean when you say we're all children of God, well, that could be conceited.
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However, that is not the language that the Bible uses.
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The Bible says we're all God's creatures, but not that we're all God's children.
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You see, if they mean that we are God's children by relationship, then they are wrong.
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If someone is saying all people are God's children, and all people have God as their father in that relationship, then it is not true.
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Being a child of God is not something you are physically born into.
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Being a child of God is something you are born again into.
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You all know that phrase, I'm sure.
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Haven't you all heard the phrase, born again? Jimmy Carter didn't invent it.
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I know he said it back in the 70s.
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He made the case he was a born again Christian, even though he didn't really act that way.
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A lot of stuff, we won't go there now.
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But, the point of the matter is, he coined that phrase and that became unanimous, or synonymous rather, synonymous with the Christian movement.
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People began to use the phrase, born again Christian.
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Well, he didn't invent that phrase.
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That phrase comes from what book of the Bible? Anybody know? John, what chapter? John the third chapter, right? Where Jesus said to Nicodemus, unless a man be born again, he will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
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Unless a man be born again, he will not even see the kingdom of heaven, right? Jesus emphatically made the statement twice in John chapter 3, that unless a person is born again, that they are not going to go into the kingdom.
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Well, the reason why we must be born again is because in being born again, the regeneration, we are brought into the family of God.
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Whereas before, the Bible says, not only were we outside of the family of God, the Bible actually declares that we were rebellious people.
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That we were God's enemies.
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See, a lot of people don't like to think that way.
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And when I start talking about people being at enmity with God, that starts getting kind of the hackles.
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Well, I don't think I'm God's enemy.
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If you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, you are the enemy of God.
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According to the scripture, not according to me.
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The Bible says you are at enmity with God until such time as you are born again and brought into God's family.
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You are either a son of God or you are a son of the devil.
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So the Bible says, it says in John, actually that passage is a little further than, yeah, we're going to get there.
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Yeah, that's a little further in my notes.
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Yeah, here it is, 1 John chapter 3.
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Listen to this, 1 John chapter 3, verse 10.
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It says, By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.
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Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
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So who is a child of God? One who follows after Christ, who practices righteousness, who loves his brother.
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Who is a child of the devil? Everyone else.
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It's a natural statement.
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John chapter 1 tells us this.
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It says, Jesus came unto his own, and his own received him not.
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Remember that? But to as many as did receive him, to them he gave the power to become what? Children of God.
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Which means, what were they before? Not children of God.
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Christ can't give you the power to become something you already are.
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That would be a redundant, unnecessary thing.
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If he gave you the power to become a child of God and you already were the child of God, then the work of Christ is without efficacy because it doesn't do anything.
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You're already there.
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Right? Sorry, I'm in preaching mode.
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I've been studying all day.
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Not on this, but for Sunday, I've got a lot of notes for Sunday.
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We'll talk about that later.
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The point is this.
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If you were to look at John chapter 1.
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In fact, hold your place in Romans.
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I want to show you something about this becoming children of God thing.
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It's important.
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John chapter 1, go to verse 11.
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Not 1 John, but John.
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Gospel of John.
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John chapter 1, verse 11.
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I'll read it the way it's written.
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He asked me, I was quoting it from King James because that's how I have it memorized.
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But I'll read it as it is in the text that we're looking at.
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It says, he came to his own and his own people did not receive him.
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But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
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Now, it goes on to say this.
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Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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Now, what is all that saying? What's the focus there? The focus is this.
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This text tells us some very important things about the relationship between God and him.
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Number one, it says only those who receive Christ are truly children of God because it says to those who receive him become the children of God.
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That's number one.
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Number two, the act of becoming a child of God occurs because of a supernatural birth.
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It says right there, it says who were born, not of blood, not of the will of flesh, not of the will of man, but of God.
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So there's a supernatural birth that occurs.
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And then number three, this birth is the act of God, not of human volition.
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This is something God does.
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It says explicitly that it is not born of blood.
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What does that mean? It means not a genealogical birth.
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It's not something where you're not born into the family.
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You are not born into the family of God because your mom and dad were Christians.
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That's what it means is not of blood.
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It means not of a specific genealogy.
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You weren't born into the family of God because you're a Jew or a Greek or anything else.
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You weren't born into the family of God because you were brought up in a Christian home.
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So it wasn't of blood that you were born into the family of God.
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Likewise, it says not of the will of the flesh.
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That means there was no internal desire within you that brought about your being born into the family of God.
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You didn't will it to happen.
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You didn't say, hey, I want to become a Christian today, and you were born again.
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That's right.
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And it also says not of the will of man.
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That's the last one we see here.
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The will of man speaks of an external desire.
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You see, one thing when it says not of the will of the flesh, that's talking about the desire.
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It wasn't my desire that caused me to be born again.
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Neither was it your desire for me to be born again that caused me to be born again.
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Nobody coerced me into being born again.
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No one convinced me into being born again.
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It was a work of God that caused me to be born again.
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It's not of the will of the flesh and not of blood and not of the will of man.
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But of whom? Of God.
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It's a work fully and completely born again.
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That work is fully and completely of God.
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John is clear that until we are born again, we are not children of God.
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And again, in 1 John 3.10, he says those who are not children of God are children of the devil.
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Now, considering this, let's go back to Romans 8.
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You got your Bibles? Go back to Romans 8.
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Hopefully you held your thought.
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Just turn right there.
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When he says in verse 14, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
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He's saying that the sons of God have the leading of the Holy Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit works in our lives as an administrator of God's power.
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That's why I said we have the administration of the Holy Spirit.
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We are given the administration of the Holy Spirit.
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He works in our lives to guide us so that God's power flows in us.
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We are led by him.
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I like what J.F.B.'s commentary, James Closser Brown, says on this subject.
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It says, Up until this point, the apostle has spoken of the Spirit simply as a power through which believers mortify sin.
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Now he speaks of the Holy Spirit as a gracious, loving guide whose leading, enjoyed by all in whom is the Spirit of God's Son, shows that they are also God's son.
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You see, because we believe in Jesus, we are given the Holy Spirit and led by him.
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And we know that we are children of the devil.
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It is through this leading us that the administration of the Holy Spirit takes place.
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And it is through that that we have assurance that we are the sons of God.
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And really, in two weeks from now, on Sunday morning, I'm going to preach again on the subject of faith.
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I preached on Faith Sunday.
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Pay attention.
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I preached on Faith on Sunday.
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I'm going to readdress the subject of faith in two weeks to talk about the origin of faith.
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I'm also going to talk about the object of faith and the offense of false faith.
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But that's just the three of us.
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We'll give it to you now.
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But I had to alliterate it, just keep it, you know.
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You guys, you can smile.
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But yes, I do believe that the work of God precedes any work of mine, even my belief.
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I believe God is the one who inspires even my belief.
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Yes, it is our faith, but it is still a gift that God gives us.
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So, yes, I absolutely believe that.
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All right.
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We're given administration by the Spirit.
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Number two, little two.
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We are given my favorite word, adoption.
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We are given adoption by the Spirit.
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Now, you'll see as I talk about the subject why I say it's my favorite word in this text.
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Verse 15.
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It says, 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.
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The Holy Spirit inside the believer is not a spirit of slavery.
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This means that He has not given to us to keep us in the bondage that we were in before conversion.
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The bondage of ever knowing that we are sinners and are under God's wrath.
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The bondage of fear.
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That's what we had before coming to Christ.
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It's all we had was bondage.
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We were enslaved to sin, Romans 6 told us.
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We were unable to do anything about it, Romans 8 tells us.
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It tells us we could not submit to the law of God.
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So, we were enslaved to our sinful passions.
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We were slaves to it.
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And now the Holy Spirit has entered into us.
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And by virtue of that, we are not slaves anymore to fall back into fear.
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So that's what that first part means.
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He says, You do not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.
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The Christian life is not supposed to be a life lived in fear.
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Now, it's reverence and holy fear of God, but not fear of God's wrath.
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Because if you're a believer, God's wrath has already been paid for on your behalf.
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If you're a believer, Christ's death is paid for and taken God's wrath.
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So we no longer have to live in fear of the punishment of God.
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So, we don't have that bondage anymore.
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Instead, the Holy Spirit inside of us confirms to us an important reality.
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That reality is our adoption.
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The Greek word, coethesia, was originally, that's the word for adoption, was originally a legal, technical term for the adoption of a son who would receive the full rights of an inheritance.
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And as I said, that word has special significance for me.
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I think everybody knows why.
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Because of our children and their adoption.
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And as such, we have, Jennifer and I and the Taylors as well, because their child was adopted.
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We have an understanding of the idea of adoption that most people will never experience.
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In fact, Byron and I talked about this on the way home today.
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Or he was on his way home.
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He calls me sometimes when he's riding and we talk about the scripture and things like that.
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And we were talking today about the subject of what I was going to be preaching on tonight.
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It was the subject of adoption.
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And that was one of the things I said to him.
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I said, the thing is, if somebody's never experienced that, it's hard to explain the relationship and how it changes.
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On the day we adopted the child, the children, the judge made a very important point to us.
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He looked at us both, and I remember this.
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And the lady, our legal representative beforehand, she said, now he's going to ask you, are you ready for these children to become your legal heirs? And then when we went into the courtroom and we stood there, we were all dressed in purple.
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It was the funniest thing.
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Everybody wore purple.
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I looked like Grimace adopting a baby.
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And the judge asked if we were ready for these children to become our legal heirs.
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And he explained that they would inherit and they would have claim to all property upon our death.
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That they would have the right to all decisions concerning our well-being as we age.
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They were going to become our legal heirs.
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Thus, adoption carried with it privilege, and responsibility.
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Adoption carried for them our children and us.
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Privilege and responsibility.
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It was the same way in the Roman culture that Paul was writing in.
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When Paul wrote about adoption, the legal system was very similar to the legal system we have today.
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It says here in my notes, in Roman culture, the adopted person lost all rights in his old family and gained all the rights of a legitimate child in his new family.
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He became a full heir to his new father's estate.
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Likewise, when a person becomes a Christian, he or she gains all the privileges and responsibilities of a child in God's family.
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That's how Paul is making connection.
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He's saying that we have been brought in legally as God's children.
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We've received the privilege and the responsibility of being a child of God.
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And one of the things that we have tried to do, because I believe it's one of the most special parts of adoption, is we have stressed with our children.
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The concept, when we talk to our children about adoption, we stress the fact that they were chosen by us to be our children.
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This relationship we entered into, not because we had to or because we had gone into a physical situation where we were having a child.
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No, we went out and chose these two specific children to be our children.
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We wanted them specifically.
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And this same truth can be applied to the adoption that we receive from God.
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We are not God's children because we chose Him.
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We are God's children because He chose us.
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The fact is made more clear in Romans chapter 9 when he goes to the point of making, and when we get to Romans 9, hold on to your hard hats because the rocks are falling.
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Because Romans 9 will open your eyes to the truth of God's election and how God chooses.
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But just for tonight, I wanted to make the point of the fact that our adoption is based on the voluntary will of God who chose to take us out of our spiritual orphanage and bring us into His spiritual kingdom.
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It was God's choice to do so.
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He was not obligated to give us anything.
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What were we before? Enemies.
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Children of the devil.
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What are we now? Sons.
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Children of God.
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Why? Because we earned it? No.
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Because we deserved it? No.
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Because we were more spiritually sensitive than the person next to us and we were worthy of it? No.
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Because God made a choice to say it.
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Hey, what? That ought to make it bad to say amen there.
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I'm just saying.
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We're not bad.
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That's what I'm saying.
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I'm just, you know, if it makes them shout, make it, oh, that's a double shout.
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Anyway, I do want to add one other thought.
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And again, I know this is personal.
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I'm talking about the issue of adoption.
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It's very personal for me.
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So forgive me and indulge me for a moment as I go just a little deeper.
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Because this is, as I was writing the notes, these things were flowing out of my mind and heart.
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And I wrote this down.
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I've heard people say, some people very close to me have said, that an adopted child will never be loved as much as a born child.
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And my response to that is always this.
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How do you know? Because you ain't never adopted one.
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All they can say is how they feel about their children.
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They cannot talk about the love.
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And this is the thing.
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They say, well, they're not your blood children.
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I said, neither is my wife.
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My wife's not my blood.
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And I love her above any other relationship in the world.
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My wife and I are in a relationship that supersedes all other commitments.
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And my love for her supersedes all other love.
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And my children are a close second.
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And she's not my blood.
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And we're in the South.
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I know that happens.
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But she's not my blood.
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I don't know.
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But seriously, I don't know how I could love any children more than I love my children.
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I don't know how just the physical act of birth would make me love them anymore.
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But the reason I bring that up, because here's the thing that I always, I mirror this back to them.
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I'd say when God wanted to make the comparison of his love to his children, us, he didn't use physical birth.
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He used adoption as the analogy.
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So take that.
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No, seriously, he used that adoption because, one, it's analogous to what happened.
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We were born of sin and brought into the family of God.
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There's an analogy there.
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But also, it shows that that love relationship can exist to the highest degree.
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Because God loves us with a love that is far beyond any love that we'll ever understand, even as adopted children.
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People brought into his family by a legal declaration.
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So, all right.
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So that being said, let's look at another word, the word Abba.
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No, that's not a rock band.
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Isn't there a rock band called Abba? There was.
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Okay.
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Well, that's not what he's talking about.
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He says, By whom we cry, Abba.
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Now, real quick, just pointing this out.
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Sometimes people hear things wrong, and sometimes people hear this and they think that you say Allah.
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And Allah is not the word being used.
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What is Allah? Allah is the Muslim false god.
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Okay.
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The Muslim worship a god that they call Allah or Allah.
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And you see Abba.
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And we have a song that we sing.
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It's one of the old hymns that sing Abba's praise.
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And they think, Whoa, is he saying Abba or Allah? Abba is tantamount to the English phrase daddy.
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It is in the idiom.
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It's, I don't call my father, father.
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Neither do I have my son call me father.
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I've seen some families that do that.
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Father, mother, my god, you know, nobody, you know, we don't do that.
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We have that relationship where my son calls me dad.
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And he calls my dad papa.
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Right.
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And because, you know, I call him papa too, just because you get used to that.
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But that is a term of endearment.
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A term of love.
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A term of relationship.
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Thus what is being said here is that because of our adoption, we now have a special relationship with God, whereby we have superseded the strict role of father and son, and we have entered into the role of loving father and son.
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You see, that's the stress that's going here.
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The spirit comes to us.
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He applies Christ's work to us.
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He gives us the gift of faith.
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And as a result, we cry to God our father in a language of real, genuine relationship saying daddy.
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Did you have a question? Okay.
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Oh, I can see your finger like you were doing this.
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Wait a second.
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Okay.
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All right.
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We have time for one more in our outline.
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As it says, we're given the administration by the spirit.
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We are given adoption by the spirit.
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And finally, we are given assurance by the spirit.
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Assurance by the spirit.
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Now, verse 16 does go into verse 17, but we're not going to verse 17 tonight, because I'm going to break verse 17 down word by word next week.
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Because verse 17 says, If children than heirs, heirs of God, followers of Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we might be glorified.
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Each one of those words is broken down because we need to understand heirs, joint heirs, all those things.
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So not tonight.
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We're going to do that next week.
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But we are going to look at verse 16, which is the introduction to verse 17.
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It's the first half.
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Because in verse 16, he talks about the assurance of the spirit.
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He says the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
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Now, this phrase provides for us one of the most objective and subjective things that we have to consider as believers.
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Let me explain what I mean.
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It is objective because the Bible clearly tells us that if we are believers, that the Holy Spirit will bear witness with our spirit that we're our sons of God.
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It says that's going to happen.
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If you're a believer, the Holy Spirit will bear witness with your spirit that you are a son or daughter of God, that you're a child of God.
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The Holy Spirit is going to do that.
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That's an objective truth.
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It says it right here.
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However, it is subjective in that this is something that happens on the inside of us, not something that happens outside.
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It's not as if when we get saved, God comes and opens up our shirt and puts a big star on our chest so that every morning when we go to brush our teeth in the mirror, we can see our star and know, hey, I'm a child of God.
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It's not as if we have an external hand stamp.
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What's happening with my voice? And it's not as if we have all that substitute and shout at them kids.
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It's not as if I get a hand stamp.
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Jokingly, Charles Spurgeon used to talk about the elect.
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He says it's not like you can walk around and lift up somebody's shirt tail and see if they got a big E tattooed to their rear end to see if they're a member of the elect.
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You just can't do that.
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We don't have an external thing telling us that we're children of God.
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So if it's an internal reality, there is a sense in which it is subjective.
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What does that mean? What does subjective mean? It's based on a feeling or an understanding, an internal reality.
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It's not based on an objective, external reality.
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Now, the scary thing is that I know there are people who have been internally convinced, internally and not internally, but internally convinced that they are saved.
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And they were that scared.
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You might say, well, how do you know? Because the Bible says so.
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Jesus said, and I know you've heard me preach this verse.
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Let me tell you something, I'm going to preach this verse forever.
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Because this verse scares the daylights out of us.
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It should.
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Because the verse in Matthew 7 that says this, it says that not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven on that day.
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Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name? And I would declare to them, I never knew you.
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Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
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See, here's the thing.
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Who are the many in that passage? The people in that passage who are the many are those people that for whatever reason believe they were going to heaven.
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They thought they were worthy of heaven.
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When Jesus said he didn't know him, they said, hey, wait a minute.
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We did all the good stuff, prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, did a lot of good works in your name.
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Somebody might say, well, then they were really believing in the wrong thing.
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They were self-righteous.
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Well, yeah, but they still were pretty sure they were going to heaven.
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Sure.
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Casting out demons.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I think this is where it comes down to the reality that if we're holding on to anything as our righteousness other than Christ.
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It's like the old down south Florida, D.
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James Kennedy, remember him? Remember D.
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James Kennedy? He started the evangelism explosion movement and evangelism explosion.
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They went around witnessing for Christ and they had a pattern that they spoke and their pattern was it began.
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If you died and you faced Jesus.
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And he said, why should I let you into heaven? What would you say? Well, the answer is you.
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I trusted in you.
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It couldn't be that I did anything because none of my works are righteous enough to merit me heaven.
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And the thing is, when you ask people that if you ask somebody, you know, if heaven opened and Christ said, why should I let you into heaven? And most people say, well, I'm a good person or I did good things or I get money to church or I do this or I do that.
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Pretty much what these people here did.
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They said, I did mighty works in your name.
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And Jesus said that I never knew who you were.
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Yeah.
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That verse always got me, too, because the word never.
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People say sometimes I hear people say that you can get saved and lose your salvation and gain it and lose it and gain it and lose it.
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I say if you lost it, you never had it.
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Jesus said he never knew.
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He didn't say he knew you for a while.
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So getting back to the subject at hand, if the spirit inside of us is an objective reality, but it also has a subjective aspect, how can I have real assurance? If there's a subjective internal truth.
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But it's objectively, truly there.
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How will I know? Well, the answer is simple, yet at the same time somewhat complex.
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The answer is this.
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The reason I can have real assurance is when or how I can have real assurance is when that which is inside of me agrees with that which is outside.
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What I mean is that our outward desires show us that we are being led.
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The Bible declares over and over that our behavior displays where our heart is.
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Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart is also.
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He talked about the reality that what we do is a display of who we are, that a good tree bears good fruit and the bad tree bears bad fruit.
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1 John chapter 2 says this, and by this we know that we have come to know him.
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It's kind of an interesting phrase to use the word know twice.
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He says by this we know that we've come to know him if we keep his commandments.
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Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.
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By this we know that we are in him.
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Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
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Someone is bound to ask the question, does that mean I have to act perfect to have assurance? The only time I can have assurance is when I'm doing right? No.
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If that were the case, then assurance would be impossible because none of us live right all the time.
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None of us do the right thing all the time.
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We all fight a battle with sin every day.
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But what it means is that our internal conviction will be marked by an external obedience.
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Think about what Matthew 7 said.
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Matthew 7 said that those people said Lord, Lord and then still ended up in hell.
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Why? Because they never departed.
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They remained as sinful as the day they were converted.
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In the end, assurance is not based on our behavior, but our conviction should be marked by a desire to follow Christ.
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And if we have assurance but no change like, then we have a false assurance.
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And I know a lot of people like that.
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I know a lot of people who are holding their Bibles, walking into the House of Overview.
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People who are headed out to sin saying, well, I'm going to go sin so that grace can abound.
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I'm going to go and just live it up and sin, sin, sin.
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But I'll be in church on Sunday.
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To walk as He walked.
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And if that person has assurance of salvation, that's the most dangerous thing in the world.
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Because they have a false assurance.
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I remember one time, and this was part of my training as a minister.
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An evangelist came to teach.
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I think it was at my seminary.
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And he says, right after you share the gospel with someone and they receive Jesus, then the first responsibility you have is to convince them of the assurance of their salvation.
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That they don't ever question their salvation because now that they've been saved, they need to hold to that assurance.
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And you know what? At the time I was ignorant enough to say, yeah, that sounds good.
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But you know what the Bible teaches? The Bible teaches the Holy Spirit is who gives us our assurance.
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If I give someone assurance and they're not really converted, all I've done is give them a false conviction of a false conversion.
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That's why I really have a concern for crusade-style evangelism.
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And I think that Billy Graham and others have done a wonderful thing in the world, yet at the same time, thousands of people come forward and thousands of people do not truly receive Christ, but respond to an emotional appeal.
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And you know one thing I found out in one of those big conferences? I didn't work there, but I talked to a person who worked at one of those big rallies, crusades.
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And they said that they have people who sit, that work down there, that the workers go up and sit amongst the people so that when the evangelist gives the call to come forward, they're the first ones to stand up.
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And they convince themselves that that's good, because what they're doing is if somebody's sitting there wondering if they should get up, they'll see somebody else stand up and that will encourage them to get up.
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The first group of people that come is workers.
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Not many people know that.
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But you see what that is? That is a manipulation tactic to try to get as many people to come forward as possible.
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And what it produces is not genuine, blood-bought, born-again believers.
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What it produces is people who go home saying, Well, now I'm a Christian.
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Beloved, let the Holy Spirit be the one who gives you assurance of your salvation.
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Father God, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth of the Word.
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I thank You for this opportunity to speak.