Is Everyone a Child of God?

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles with me.
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We're going to be turning now to the 8th chapter of the book of Romans.
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We want to welcome you all on this Father's Day.
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In the years past, I was looking over the sermons that I had done over the past four or five years on Father's Day, and I had spent a lot of time focusing on the role of the father in the home, on the role of men in the world and masculinity versus femininity and the different types of important roles and aspects of what it meant to be a man and a father and a husband and all of those things.
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And I noticed that I had not focused on the fatherhood of God in all those years of preaching.
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Not that I had not focused on that at different times of the year, but I hadn't focused on that in a Father's Day message.
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So this morning I have decided to do just that.
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We're going to be focusing on the subject of our adoption into the family of God.
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Most Christians address God very confidently by the term father or heavenly father.
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In fact, it is the most common expression of address to God that is used among Christians.
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And it makes sense because as Jesus told us in his model prayer, when we address God, we are to address God as our father who art in heaven.
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And while this may be common among us as Christians and believers, and really not seem like that important a reality, the thing that we need to understand is that really is a radical idea.
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There was a noted New Testament scholar from Germany named Jehoiakim Ermaus who concluded after a very long time of study that prior to the time of Jesus Christ, the term father to identify God in a personal sense was not used among the Jewish people.
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Now, God was called father in the sense of being creator, but not in the sense of the personal relationship that Jesus spoke of when Jesus talked about God literally being his father.
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It just wasn't done until that time.
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Jesus is the first.
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People would speak of God in Israel as being the creator, they would speak of him being the sovereign, they would speak of him being the provider, and all of these things, but none of them spoke to him directly as father.
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The one notable exception again was Jesus of Nazareth.
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He referred to God as father.
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And all of his prayers except one of them actually addresses God as father.
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So this morning what I want us to do is I want to explore the power of that concept.
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What made it such a grandiose idea? What was the difference that Christ brought in his explanation of the father, in his exposition of God? And what I want us to see is that through being born again, we do have a relationship with God which is powerful and unique.
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We become his children and he is our heavenly father.
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So we're going to read from Romans 8.
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We're going to read verses 14-17.
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So if you have your Bibles I'll invite you to stand.
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As we give honor and reverence to the Word of God.
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It says in Romans 8 and verse 14, 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.
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Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.
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Provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
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Father God, as we seek to have a better understanding this morning of your fatherhood and the relationship that we have with you.
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I pray primarily and first and foremost that you would Father, keep me from error as I seek to give exposition of your text.
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And I pray also that you would open up the hearts of the people to hear and understand the Word.
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And that it would not just be an intellectual exercise wherein we take in information.
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But Lord, that this message would move on our hearts and change us and give us application whereby to live.
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And we thank you for your text.
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We thank you for your word.
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We pray now that you would glorify yourself in the preaching of it.
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In Jesus name we pray.
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Amen.
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Romans chapter 8 is one of the more powerful texts in all the Bible.
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In fact, there are those in the scholarly community who have written that in their estimation Romans chapter 8 is the greatest of the scriptural passages.
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Now it might seem foolish to ascribe that any text is greater than another since all of the Bible comes to us by God.
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But yet it hasn't stopped certain commentary writers like F.
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Godet and others to say that this text just has a greatness about it.
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German theologian Spiner said that if the Bible was a ring Romans would be the precious jewel of the ring and that chapter 8 would be the sparkling point of that jewel.
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And the reality is that it does make sense because Romans 8 is replete with powerful expressions of the blessings of the believer in his or her relationship to God.
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It is a treasure of comfort which begins with the idea that for the believer there is no condemnation and it ends with the idea that for the believer there is no separation.
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So really it's filled with the blessings that come with being a believer.
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There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and neither death nor life nor angels or anything else in all creation will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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So this is powerful treasure of blessings which is found in the 8th chapter of Romans.
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And in the midst of these powerful proclamations lies the text which we have come to this morning.
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A text which focuses our attention on our relationship with God as His children.
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What we're going to do is as we always do, we're going to look at the text and break it down and seek to make understanding and application.
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So we will begin in verse 14.
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And it says very simply, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
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Any time a verse begins with the word for or therefore, it indicates that this text is reliant upon what came before it.
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Paul had been recounting the difference between being in the flesh and being in the Spirit.
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If you read through Romans 8 in the first part, he's talking about the difference between someone who is in the flesh and in the Spirit.
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He said those who are in the flesh cannot please God, and those who are in the Spirit can.
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And he makes this differentiation between those people who are still dead in their sins and those who have been made alive in Christ.
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That is the context of Romans 8.
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He said 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 is because you are of the Spirit.
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Likewise, if you are led by the Spirit of God, that is testimony that you are a child of God.
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That's where we come to in verse 14.
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He says in verse 14, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
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Now I want to consider for a moment the issue of becoming a son of God.
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Becoming a child of God.
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The gender reference here to sonship is generic.
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Don't take for a second that he's leaving out daughters at some night.
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It's generic.
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The term sons is child here.
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And I've heard many people use phrases over the years, especially as I listen to people outside of the Christian community.
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People who believe in more of a liberal view of God, more of a liberal view of the Scriptures, more of a liberal view of Jesus.
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And many of them say, we are all children of God.
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And if by that they simply mean that we're all created by God, well, that's true as far as it goes.
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But for many, that's not what they mean.
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For many, when they say we're all children of God, they're saying that we are all spiritually connected to God as His children.
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In fact, there are some that even go as far as using the phrase, there is a universal fatherhood of God and a universal brotherhood of man.
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I don't know how many of you ever heard that phrase before.
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It's actually proposed and put out most by the Universalist church.
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If you've ever heard of the Unitarian Universalist movement, they believe that God is the father of everyone and that everyone is brothers.
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Everyone are brothers, rather.
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And here's the problem.
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If a person believes that they have a fatherly relationship with God simply by virtue of being born, simply by virtue of being created, they are wrong.
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Being a child of God is not something that we are physically born into.
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Being a child of God is something we are born again into.
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Let me say that again.
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Being a child of God is not something we are physically born into.
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Being a child of God is something we are born again into.
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How do I know that to be correct? Well, as the old saying goes, the Bible tells me so.
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Go to John chapter 1 again.
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It says in John chapter 1 where we began this morning in our call to worship.
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I want you to hold your place in Romans because we will be back.
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But just go over to John chapter 1.
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Look at verse 11.
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This is talking about the Jews who rejected Christ.
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It says in chapter 1, verse 11, He came to His own and His own people did not receive Him.
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That's actually one of the saddest verses in the Bible.
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The fact that Jesus came to His own people.
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He came to the Jews.
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They rejected Him.
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They 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 what? Children of God.
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You see, that's the key.
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The idea that we are somehow born as children of God is an inappropriate understanding because this text tells us that the person who made it possible for us to become children of God was Christ.
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The person who made it possible for us to go from being children of the devil to children of God was Christ.
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And it goes on to say, they were not born of blood, nor were they born of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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This new birth which has happened, which has brought us into the family of God, has been wrought in us by God.
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God is the one who has birthed us into His family.
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He is the one who has opened up our heart to believe in His Son, and as such, He has regenerated our spirit, and we now no longer have a spirit which is dead in sin, but we have a spirit which is alive in Christ.
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And now we are His children by that relationship.
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We are God's children through our relationship with Christ.
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We were not born into this family.
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We were born again into this family.
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In 1 John 3, verse 10, it says this, 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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You see, that's key.
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Because it says there something very important.
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It says that those people who God regenerates, those people who God changes, they actually have a life change.
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When they come into the family of God, it actually affects their life.
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They become children of God.
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It affects how they live and how they love.
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The whole idea that everyone is a child of God simply by being born is false.
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Only believers in Christ, only the truly repentant, only the truly regenerated can be called the sons and daughters of God.
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That's not popular.
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That doesn't make a lot of people happy.
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It certainly does not fit into modern ecumenism.
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But it doesn't matter.
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Because the truth will stand forever.
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The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God will last forever.
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Only believers can rightfully be called the sons of God.
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So back in Romans 8, in verse 14, when it says, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God, this is speaking of a very distinct group.
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It's speaking of those who have been born again.
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It's speaking of those who are led by the Spirit of God who are no longer in the flesh, but are in the Spirit.
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This is talking about believers.
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We are the sons of God.
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And then he goes on in verse 15.
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He 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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You see, the Holy Spirit inside the believer is not a spirit of slavery.
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That means He was not given to us to keep us in bondage.
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The same bondage that we were in before we became believers.
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The bondage of knowing that we are sinners under God's condemnation.
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That's where we were.
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But the Spirit has come in to take away that bondage.
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The Spirit has come in to take away that fear.
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Because I don't know about you, but when I first realized I was a sinner, when I first came to the conclusion that I was a sinner that was under the condemnation of God, there was fear in that.
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There was a holy fear of God.
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The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
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And when the Holy Spirit comes into our heart, He confirms to us that we have nothing more to fear.
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Because God has gone from being our condemner to being our Father.
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He's gone from being our judge to being our Father in heaven, hallowed be His name.
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So that spirit of fear which we rightfully had when we recognized our sins, is then given over to a spirit that allows us to cry out, Abba! And that's not a rock band.
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And it's also, let me be very clear, it is not the term that the Muslims use for God.
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The term Allah is Arabic.
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It's a generic term for God similar to where we use the word God.
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They have elevated it to a special term, Allah being the name of God.
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But it's not the term that is being used here in this text.
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When it says that we call God Abba, it is a term of endearment in a similar way, and many of you have heard me say this before, but I like to remind everyone, it's a term of endearment similar to when a child calls his father by the term Daddy.
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It's a loving term.
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It's a term of relationship.
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And I know there are some children who do.
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But very rarely do I see children who call their father and mother Father and Mother.
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Normally it's Mama and Papa or Daddy and Mommy, because it's no longer about that level of particularity.
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It's no longer about that level of...
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I guess the idea is being very ritualistic and formal.
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You don't say, Father, may I have the biscuits? No, you say, Dad, pass the biscuits.
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And maybe some of you do, and if you do, hey, that's cool.
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You've got a very different way of doing it, but that's alright, that's cool.
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But a lot of times, what do you hear? When we're talking to Hope and we're saying, what do we say? Say, Daddy.
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Say, Dada.
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And she's, Dada, Dada.
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And we're hanging, she said, Daddy.
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I heard her.
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But that's what we want to hear.
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We want that term of relationship, that term of closeness.
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We want to hear Dada, Mama.
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Well, in this text, that's the special thing that it says here.
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It says that we've received the spirit of adoption so that we can say to God, Dad! And have that relationship.
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Is He still sovereign? Is He still the King? Is He still God? Do we still bow down and worship Him? Yes.
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But it's a different relationship.
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It's not servant to master.
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It's son to father.
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That's the relationship that God has established for us to have with Him.
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He has chosen us in Christ for a very special relationship that we might identify Him as Abba, Father.
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And there's another word in verse 15 that I think is very important and I hope we never miss it.
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And that's the word adoption.
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I entitled the sermon today Adopted because I think that in this text that part stands out to me so very powerfully.
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The Greek term that is used here for the term adoption is a legal term.
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It is a technical term of adoption for a son who would receive full rights of inheritance.
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That's what the term adoption means.
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It's a son who is brought into a family who would receive the full right of inheritance.
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And that word has special significance for me.
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I think most of you know why.
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Because we have two children who are adopted.
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So as such, our family, Jennifer and I, as some of you also have a very unique understanding that a lot of people will never experience.
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Understanding what adoption is like.
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I remember the adoption day we still celebrate it every year.
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But I remember the adoption day when we all dressed up and went down to the courthouse and the judge looked at us and he very specifically asked Jennifer and I, he said, Are you prepared to make these children your legal heirs? That they, upon your death, will be the inheritors of your property.
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That they will be responsible for decisions about your medical treatment in your old age.
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That these children are going to be yours in every legal sense.
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And we were so excited the day that the birth certificate came for Ashley and Cody because it took a few weeks but when the birth certificate came and I'd never been to either place they were born.
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But it still said, Father, Medford Keith Foskey, Mother, Jennifer Hildreth Foskey and the names were on the birth certificate and if I never told anyone I'd never been to where they had been born they wouldn't know.
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Because in every legal sense they are ours.
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This is the term which God used to describe our relationship with Him.
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We were born in sin.
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We were wrought in sin.
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We were born again into His family and He has adopted us and made us His legal heirs.
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It's just an amazing idea.
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It's an amazing idea.
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It's just so powerful because God doesn't use natural birth as His way to describe His relationship with us.
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He uses adoption.
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And in adoption there are some special things that people often overlook.
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One is the idea of choice.
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You know, when I looked at Ashley and I looked at Cody there's one difference between them and hope is we made a choice.
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We want these two.
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When God chose you He made a choice.
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He made a choice to adopt you.
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That's just a powerful idea that we see in the Scripture.
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What does it say? We chose Him because He first what? Chose us.
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I've heard people say an adopted child can't be loved as much as a born child.
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That's a lie.
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Number one, I know that because I have two and I've got three and all three of them are the same.
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I love them all the same.
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But the other thing people who say that normally have never adopted a child so they speak from ignorance anyway.
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But here's the thing.
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When God wanted to describe His love for His children He described it through the term adopted as sons.
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It is a real and genuine love that God has for us.
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He chose us in Christ that we would be His sons.
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And the text goes on to say in verse 16 and 17 the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, then heirs.
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Again, this legal idea.
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We are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with Him in order that we might be glorified with Him.
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In this text, we see the blessings of being called the children of God.
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The first blessing is there's a confidence in our relationship.
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It says in verse 16, the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God.
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You see, there's a witness in the spirit of a saved person regarding their relationship with God.
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It is the Spirit of God bearing witness with their spirit that the relationship is real.
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This is a blessing that God gives to us as believers.
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The Spirit comes and He makes His abode within us.
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And through this, we not only have the external promise that comes from the Word, but we have an internal confidence that comes with having God as our Father.
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We also have a promise of inheritance.
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Because God is our Father, we have an inheritance which is amazing.
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As Jesus said, let not your hearts be troubled.
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If you believe in God, believe also in Me.
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In My Father's house, there are many rooms.
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If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come and I will take you to Myself.
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That where I am, you will be also.
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You see, that's the inheritance.
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Christ is preparing for every one of us.
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So we see we have a confidence in our relationship.
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We have the promise of an inheritance.
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And we have a solidarity with our Savior.
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Because it says here that we are fellow heirs provided we suffer with Him.
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And that may seem difficult to understand, but it's not.
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We suffer with Christ when we take up our cross daily and we follow after Him.
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We suffer with Christ when we live for Him and the world hates us because He says the world hated Me first and will hate you.
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And we suffer with Him when we give up positions, when we give up people, when we give up property, because of our commitment to Him.
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And through this suffering, we have an external witness which bears witness with our internal witness that we are indeed the children of God.
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So what should we glean from this text? Well, we need to understand the powerful privilege we have to call God our Father.
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It is a privilege which prior to Christ was not understood.
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And it is a blessing which many Christians often do not ponder.
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For some, it's hard to understand.
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The fatherhood of God is hard for some people to understand because some people do not have or did not have an active father in their life.
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And thus, the analogy is difficult to connect.
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Because they didn't have that person in their life.
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Or maybe they did have Him and He didn't treat them like a father should treat a child.
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And for them to make the analogy of God being father is difficult.
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But for those who suffer such, I want to remind you that you should never count yourself, whether you had a father in the home or not, whether He treated you well or not, you should never count yourself as a believer as a person who is fatherless.
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For no one in Christ is fatherless.
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If we be in Christ, God is our Father.
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And for those who do have an earthly father, who exemplified love and protection, that same love and protection we receive from God, I want to remind you on this day that we call Father's Day to thank Him, one, for being a godly and loving Father, but also for giving you the example of love whereby you can better understand the love of God.
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I remember as a child, I remember why I was...
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You ever think about things in your childhood and you remember the moment you were and where you were when it happened? It could have been 30 years ago, 40 years ago.
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I won't go any further than that.
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But you were a child and you remember something specific.
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Well, I remember one specific thing.
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My dad and I were on 95 and we were going past the old...
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It used to be a chemical plant over near Lynn Turner over there.
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And there's always a sulfuric smell when you drive by.
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I think that that's probably what connects the memory in my brain because they say the olfactory sense is one that's closely connected to memory.
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Smells trigger memories.
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And I remember driving there.
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Dad was driving.
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I remember looking at Dad and I remember saying in my heart...
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And this sounds kind of weird, but I remember saying...
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And I had gone through very difficult...
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My dad and mom got divorced when I was young.
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It was a very difficult time in my life.
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And I ended up living with my dad after the divorce.
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And I remember saying these words in my heart.
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I remember saying that no matter what I did, no matter where I went, no matter what in my life was wrong, Daddy loves me.
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And I remember that term.
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I remember just saying, no matter what goes bad, my Daddy loves me.
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And beloved, that is the way that we should feel about the love of God.
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That the love of God the Father is a love that is committed.
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It is a love that is everlasting.
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And it is a love that is powerful.
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And today, if you are in Christ, you have a Father who loves you very, very much.
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Our Father God, we are amazed that You allow us to call You Father, that You have adopted us into Your family, that You have created for us a relationship whereby we can love You the way You deserve to be loved.
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And we do pray, O Lord, that today on Father's Day that we would draw closer to You, that we would shout unto You, Abba, Father, and that we would understand that relationship whereby we have been adopted into Your family.
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We praise You, Father, for all Your many blessings.
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And we pray, Lord, if there is a person here today who does not know You as Father, perhaps they only know You as a God who condemns, that today they have heard about Your love.
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And Lord, that through that proclamation of that truth, that they would be drawn to You, that they would have a desire to repent, that You have given them that desire, and that they would draw to You in faith.
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We love You.
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We thank You.
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We praise You.
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And all glory be unto You.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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Let's stand together.
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If you have a need for prayer, please come as we sing.