Applying the Adoption of God | Clip from Salvation in Full Color: Adoption

Yeah. Wonderful picture. Well, let's come down to the last couple of applications.

What if you are a child of God, but you lack assurance? That's a common theme for pastors.

Well, I think I'm a Christian, but sometimes I just, I look at my life and could a Christian think that thought?

Could a Christian have had that response? So maybe I'm not a Christian at all. And Tennant gives a number of very practical suggestions.

So let me just read through these. First, he says, as to the things that you should avoid during these kinds of times of doubt, number one, beware of gross sins against the light in your minds.

For God is engaged to correct his wandering children. Those sins grieve the spirit and hinder his sealing work.

Those sins bring spiritual desertions and cause us to mourn with David, like we see in Psalm 51.

So that's an old style way of saying, if you're struggling with doubt, do not allow that period of doubt to attempt you to go into willful sin, where you sin against your conscience.

You sin against the light that God has given you. That will just make things worse. You know, it clouds, it just clouds the issue of your relationship with God.

It grieves the spirit. There's that loss of the sense that you might have had even then of God's pleasure.

And you know, and you know, in a sense, it just drives you further from the source of assurance.

Yeah. A second one, beware of the neglect of secret prayer.

Now, I think the reason that this is a helpful list, because these are the exact things that we feel tempted to do.

If I'm not sure that God loves me as a father would love a child, if he's a perfect father, do

I really want to risk getting close to him and just laying my heart open to him in prayer?

What if he doesn't even hear me? You know, I mean, so all those, I personally, I mean,

I found, I find doubt to be a very prayer killing disease. You know, why even try?

Third, beware of sloth, of laziness. This is not a time for despair to paralyze your activity as a

Christian. So press on. Number four, beware of pride. And I wonder why he puts that in the list, and I wonder if it's because, you know, there is a sense of entitlement that we have as sinful people.

And if God doesn't seem to be giving me what I feel I deserve,

I should have assurance. You know, I shouldn't have to even ask this question. You know, why do

I have the kind of personality that tends toward this melancholy? Why is this my problem? Other people don't have it.

And it is easy then, in a false sense of entitlement, to kind of, in arrogance, become embittered and feel like God isn't treating you right.

And self -despair is a kind of pride. Yeah, it really is. It's pride turned on its head, you know.

Well, the things he says next, these are things that you should do. The exercise of faith in Christ, that being united to Him, by the help of union with Him, we may obtain sonship.

And to this end, we must use all the means that increased faith, such as the Word, prayer, sacraments, and spiritual fellowship.

In other words, if a living connection with Jesus, the only begotten, is the source of our spiritual adoption, then when you are weak in your awareness of your spiritual adoption, make use of every tool

God has put in your hands to cling all the more closer to Christ, you know, to get those facts into your head, to get the heart melted again.

Next he says, make sure that you exercise repentance for sins of infirmity.

What do you think that means, Chuck? Exercise repentance for sins of infirmity.

Well, by infirmity, I would think weakness. So sins that you're particularly susceptible to and become habitual, maybe?

Yeah, maybe not sins that you've like, you say, okay, fine, and you willingly go and do, but sins that, you know, yeah, like because of...

So let's say a person has a melancholy temperament. So they are going to be more naturally tempted to despair and lack of assurance might accompany that.

So bring that to the Lord and repent that I allow a temperament to produce this kind of response in me.

So God, even though this isn't a sin where I'm saying, I want all that sin offers, you know, but a lack of trust, that's a sin, a coldness, a willingness to doubt him so quickly, you know, those are all sinful responses.

And don't forget that those need to be turned away from. And finally, do nothing to lessen the work of the

Spirit within you, but be thankful for the smallest discoveries of your Father's face.

Keep your heart responsive and tender toward God and be grateful for even the smallest, you know, in a sense, expressions of God's familial love.

Well, the last application is he says, this is a good tool to examine yourself if to tell, am

I really a Christian or not? So Chuck, my question would be, why do you think he says that all this stuff about adoption can be used to examine our spiritual state before the

Lord? Because the things that he's saying should be true of those who are adopted.

If they're not true of you, then you would have reason to question if you're adopted or not.

You know, is there a growing family resemblance? Do you own

God as your Father? Is he making you a willing child? Yeah, I think that is exactly what he's saying.

When the Bible gives us a list of privileges that we can expect through divine adoption, we want to ask ourselves, which of these privileges do we see in our life?

Am I living on these privileges? Are these life to me or are these just like nice theological concepts that I hear about in church?

So let's take your boys again, all right? So if we see them in at church or, you know, at, you know, on the soccer field and they don't have anything that I would expect that Chuck Baggett's children would have, that your other children that, you know, we grew up as friends and, you know, we knew each other before we were married to our wives and had children.

So I see these things that, okay, Chuck's other kids had this and then

I see these two boys. What if they don't have anything? I would ask myself, are these really Chuck's kids?

Are they just kids that he's been nice to occasionally? But when I look and I see, okay, so they have all the physical things they need.

They also have the comfort they need. They have the occasional, you know, rebuke they need. They have your involvement in their life.

And when I see these evidences in them, I think these are Chuck's kids, you know.

But if we claim to be children of a living God by glorious adoption, as well as by a new birth, we ought to be able to point out, not because we're such great kids, but because he's such a great father.

Here are some of the ways that you can see, I really am who I say I am. See the

Father's work in me. So great test for us. And really quite a sweet test to give, you know, it's definitely not a bitter test.

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