Celebrating Our Real Father

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Today, as we celebrate both Father's Day and Communion, it seemed to me that there was no better way to do that than reflecting on what it means when we say that God is our Father. I invite you to turn with me, for our study this morning, to Romans 8. Romans 8 - one of my favorite chapters in all of Scripture. And the three verses that we'll examine together this morning are three of my favorite verses.

Romans 8, and I'll begin reading in verse 15. Paul writes, "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him."

When we speak of our spiritual rescue, we normally use the expression "salvation". We speak of being saved, that is, delivered, rescued. Salvation is a general word. It's a word that's used to describe both the entire sweep of what God has done to redeem us, beginning with our election in eternity passed, sweeping through our lives, and into our glorification in eternity future. So, we use the word salvation to describe all of that. At the same time, we use the word salvation to describe what happened to us at the moment in time when we were transferred out of darkness into light - that moment when we came to know God.

But it's important to remember that, although we use that overarching term salvation, at that moment it wasn't just one thing that occurred, there were a number of spiritual events and transactions that occurred. They have no chronological order because they all happened instantaneously, at the moment of salvation. But when you piece the biblical data together, there is a logical order in which those events occurred. Theologians call that logical order the ordo salutis, Latin for the order of salvation - the logical order of all of those spiritual transactions that occur at the moment of salvation.

If you want to study this in more detail, I invite you to listen to a message that I preached a number of years ago, now. We were studying systematic theology on Sunday night. I had preached a message entitled "The Ordo Salutis" - looking at, from a biblical standpoint, what is the order of those events, what all happens at that moment, and what's the logical order of those events.

At the moment you were redeemed, these events occurred. There was the effectual call, that is, God was in the gospel you heard, drawing you to Himself irresistibly, compellingly, drawing you to Him. There was regeneration, that is, at that moment you were given new spiritual life. You who were once dead, were brought to life. As a result of that new life, you were then able to respond to God in faith and repentance. Faith and repentance are followed logically by justification, that is, you were forgiven your sins but more than forgiven, you were declared to be as righteous as Jesus Christ because His righteousness was credited to your account. And definitive sanctification, as theologians call it. All that means is that the moment of your salvation, God sets you apart from sin unto Himself. He made you His special possession.

Romans 8, the passage I just read for you this morning, focuses on the last great transaction that occurred in that moment of salvation. It is the transaction of adoption. At the moment of your salvation, you were adopted by God. Leon Morris, the great theologian, writes, "Adoption is being granted the full rights and privileges of sonship in a family to which one does not belong by nature." By nature, we were the children of wrath. Or better, we were the children of the devil, according to Jesus in John 8. But at that moment, we were adopted by God into His family. We've studied this in Ephesians. You remember in Ephesians 2:19, Paul writes, "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are ... of God's household..." You're a member of God's family. You've been adopted.

Now, think about this for a moment. God could have rescued us from the penalty of our sins without adopting us. We would have remained merely His creatures. We would have remained His slaves. But, instead, He has also made us His sons and daughters. Incredible privilege! The apostle John writes of this privilege and he puts it like this. He says, "[Beloved] See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us..." You want to understand God's love, think of this: "that we would be called children of God." You were chosen. If you're a Christian, you were chosen to be adopted in eternity past. Ephesians 1:5 says He predestined us. He predetermined our destiny to adoption as sons. At the moment of salvation, in time, you were actually adopted. And our adoption will be fully complete at our glorification, when we are made completely new. Later, in this very same chapter, down in verse 23, Paul says, we all eagerly wait for our adoption, that is, the redemption of our bodies. So, we have been adopted, but all the privileges that come with that adoption have not yet been completed and will not be until we're with our Lord in glory.

Why did God adopt us? Why did He take this step? He didn't have to. He could have rescued us without adopting us. Why? It's not because you were brighter or more intelligent. It's not because you were somehow winsome to God. It's not because you had the intelligence to believe, and God saw that you would believe, and therefore He chose to adopt you. No. He adopted you solely because of His grace. Because God, by nature, delights in doing good to those who deserve exactly the opposite. That's why He adopted you. Ephesians 1 puts it like this: "He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself ... to the praise of the glory of His grace..."

We received that adoption (the adoption of God's... that comes to us from God's grace) through what theologians call the instrumental cause of faith. We receive our adoption through the exercise of faith. John 1 puts it like this (you remember the verse in John 1:12): "But as many as received Him [that's a picture of faith - as many as received Him], to them He gave the right to become [what?] children of God." So, then understand that salvation means that God has become our Father by a gracious act of adoption.

Why does it matter? Why should it matter to you this morning? Because with our adoption, come some amazing benefits. As we prepare our hearts for communion this morning, I want us to briefly examine the three great benefits of our adoption that Paul lists here in these three verses in Romans 8. Three great benefits of our adoption.

The first benefit is in verse 15. It's intimacy. Intimacy. Look at verse 15: "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!' Now, to fully appreciate this verse, you have to understand what the circumstances were like for believers before Jesus came. If you go back to Old Testament times, you will discover that adoption was not common in Israel. It was common in the nations around Israel - Egypt and Persia, for example. But in the Old Testament there are no laws concerning adoption. And there are only four examples of adoption, the two most famous being Moses and Esther. But what's remarkable about those adoptions is that all four of them happened outside the boundaries of the nation of Israel.

However, the idea of adoption still is present in the Old Testament. In Romans 9, Paul tells us that at the exodus, God adopted Israel. And the Old Testament states, again and again, that Israel is God's son and that He is their Father. So, there was this sort of corporate sense in which God adopted Israel and they thought, as a nation, of Him as their Father. But understand this. This was not the primary way Old Testament believers thought of God - individually, personally. Sinclair Ferguson writes, "Even at their highest, the saints in the Old Testament never rose to a settled personal relationship to God defined and enjoyed in terms of individual sonship and personal fatherhood." Wayne Grudem, in his systematic theology, writes, "Even though there was a consciousness of God as Father, to the people of Israel, the full benefits and privileges of membership in God's family and the full realization of that membership did not come until Christ came, and the Spirit of the Son of God was poured out into our hearts, bearing witness with our spirit, that we were God's children. So, understand then, that an Old Testament believer thought only (in adoption) in terms of God adopting the people of Israel as a whole, not individually and personally. That's the context then into which the words of Romans 8:15 come.

Look at verse 15 again: "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons..." Now, there's great debate about who or what these spirits are here - spirit of slavery and the spirit of adoption. The Greek word "spirit" is used three primary ways in the New Testament. It's used of an attitude or a disposition - a kind of state of mind, like you would say a "spirit of envy". So, it can be used of a state of mind. Secondly, it's used of the human spirit - the immaterial part of every human being. You have a body, and you have a spirit or soul. And, thirdly, this Greek word spirit is used of a spiritual being like demons, for example. But most often, it's used of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

So, the question is: which of those three primary meetings of spirit does Paul have in mind in verse 15? Let me walk you through it. Look first at a spirit of slavery. I think that's best understood as a state of mind. We have not received the state of mind that a slave has. There was a time when we had that state of mind. There was a time when we were slaves. We were slaves to our sin; the New Testament tells us. And our slavery to sin produced in us the state of mind of a slave. And what is the state of mind of a slave? Abject fear. You are utterly in the control of someone else. In our case, we were afraid of God's wrath and God's judgment. We knew what we deserved. We were slaves to sin and that produced fear - fear of what would happen when we one day stood before God.

You see this in Hebrews 2. The writer of Hebrews comments on this very reality. Verse 14 of Hebrews 2: "Therefore, since the children [that's us] share in flesh and blood, He Himself [that is Christ] likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil [and watch verse 15], and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives." We were slaves to sin. We feared death and its outcome - eventual judgment and standing before God. And we lived in slavery to that our entire lives.

Now, go back to Romans 8. Now that we are Christians, Paul says, the spirit has not produced in us the state of mind or the attitude of slaves of sin, like we used to be, because that would just produce more fear again and again - fear of God's judgment. Instead, verse 15 says, we have received a spirit of adoption as sons.

Now, I think with this second phrase, the second use of the word spirit (spirit of adoption), Paul is making a play on words. I really think he means two things at the same time. I think he's contrasting the state of mind of a slave with this new state of mind of a son. That's one thing he's doing. But I think it's also a play on words with the Holy Spirit. That adoption, that new state of mind as a son, was made possible by the Spirit (capital S) of adoption. Some translations even capitalize S and the New American Standard I think puts a marginal reading to that effect. I think Paul here is talking about the Holy Spirit in this second expression. He calls the Holy Spirit the "spirit of adoption". The spirit that bestowed our adoption confirmed our adoption as sons. So, understand this then. When we became Christians, we no longer had the state of mind of a slave, living in a constant state of fear of God's judgment. Instead, Paul says, I want you to know this. By the work of the Spirit, the Spirit (capital S) of adoption, we have received the spirit (small s) or state of mind of sons.

And all that brings us to the main point Paul wants to make. All of that is set up to the main point Paul wants to make in verse 15. By the work of the Holy Spirit securing our adoption (watch this), "we cry out, 'Abba! Father!'". That is an incredible, incredible expression!

The word father is the normal Greek word for father - the word any Greek child, growing up in a Greek home, would have used for father. But Paul adds another word which adds an entirely different dimension to it. It's the word "Abba". This word occurs only three times in the New Testament - here in Romans 8, in the parallel passage in Galatians 4, and in Mark's gospel. In Mark's gospel, Jesus uses this word. In Mark 14:36 Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. He's praying the night before His crucifixion. The soldiers are about to come, and this is what he says, "Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will."

Understand that Jesus grew up speaking three languages. He spoke Hebrew. He read the Hebrew Old Testament. He knew Greek and spoke Greek at times in the New Testament. Greek was sort of the market language, the international language much as English is in our day. And He also spoke primarily, most often, Aramaic. Aramaic was the language of Palestine in the first century.

So, the times when Jesus refers to God as His Father, He would have used this Aramaic word, "Abba", just as He does here in the garden. And what I want you to understand is that this would have been absolutely shocking to the Jews. You see "Abba" comes from a Hebrew word, but it's actually an Aramaic word.

Last century, a German scholar named Jeremias, did extensive research on this word. And he discovered that the word Abba was a very common first century word. It was used many times, every day, in every Jewish home. But in all the written documents of Judaism that this scholar Jeremias could find, all of the written documents of Judaism - not one time did one Jewish writer ever refer to God as Abba. This was new with Jesus. He comes along and, as a matter of course, refers to God as Abba.

Now, why is this significant? Well, Jeremias discovered that three of the church fathers, including John Chrysostom, grew up in homes where Aramaic was still spoken. And all three of those church fathers unanimously agreed that Abba was originally how a small child addressed his father. In fact, even the Jewish writings confirmed this - the Talmud. Listen to this quote from the Talmud. I love this. The Talmud says this: "When a child experiences the taste of wheat [in other words, when a child is weaned. The child is old enough, now, to be weaned from its mother's milk, going to begin eating real food. When a child experiences the taste of wheat] it learns to say 'Abba' and 'Emma'." In other words, Abba and Emma were the first words that a child babbled to refer to his parents in Aramaic. They're like - it's like our terms "Daddy" or "Papa". And eventually, Abba was no longer limited to small children; it became the way grown children would refer to their fathers as well. It was a term of both endearment and respect. Very important that you understand that. It's spoke of intimacy on the one hand, but respect on the other.

When I was in Mobile, just a couple of weeks ago to visit with my family there, it was fascinating. My oldest sister just turned 70. And as we discussed our family, it was interesting to hear her still refer to my father as "Daddy". That's how it was with the word Abba. Even though my sister is 70, and if my father were still living (he'd be nearly 100), she still refers to him as Daddy, because that's how she grew up knowing him, and it's still how she knows him.

That's how it was, I should say, with the word Abba. And that's how Jesus always referred to God. Abba is like our terms "Daddy" or "Papa" whichever one has the most respect in it for you. That's the idea, though. That was how it was used - Abba and Emma. Jesus referred to God as Abba. But here's the really amazing thing. He taught us to think of God like this as well. Look at verse 15. The Holy Spirit who applied our adoption has taught us to cry and to respond to God the same way Jesus Himself did - "Abba! Father!" Papa!

Both here and in Galatians 4:6, this word for cry - "we cry out, 'Abba! Father!'" - it's not a pleasant word. It's a loud kind of cry. It's used of Christ on the cross, crying out. It's used of a woman in labor. Sinclair Ferguson writes, "The picture is not that of the believer resting quietly in his Father's arms, in childlike faith, but of the child who has tripped and fallen crying out in pain, 'Daddy! Daddy!' That cry is the mark of the presence of the spirit of adoption, not least, because it shows that in time of need, it is towards our Father in heaven that we look." The picture is us finding ourselves in the midst of trouble and difficulty in trials. And our natural response is to turn to the One we know loves us, to turn to Him and cry out, "Papa! Abba! Father!"

Is that how you think of God? If you're a Christian, if you have the spirit of adoption, that's how you should think. It's one of the great benefits of your adoption. You now have a totally different relationship with the God of the universe. There was a time when He was only your Creator, and your King, and your Judge. You had no intimate relationship, no right to approach Him. But Paul says, in Christ, what has happened to your relationship with God can best be compared to the earthly process of adoption. You now know God, not only as your Creator and King, but also as Papa. You really are truly His son or His daughter. So, the first great benefit of our adoption is intimacy.

The second is assurance. Assurance. Look at verse 16: "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God..." We receive the Holy Spirit. Earlier in this chapter, we've been told that if you're a Christian, you have the Spirit; if you don't have the Spirit, you're not a Christian. So, we receive the Holy Spirit, the spirit who accomplished our adoption, and that same Spirit gives us assurance of our adoption. He not only is involved in securing our adoption, but in assuring us of our adoption. "The Spirit Himself testifies", that is, gives confirming testimony "with our spirit". Here's the third use, by the way, of the word spirit. And here he's talking about the immaterial part of us, not a state of mind, not the Holy Spirit. He's talking about the immaterial part of each of us. The Holy Spirit testifies with our spirit or, perhaps better, to our spirit. And what is His testimony? - "that we are the children of God".

So, how exactly does the Spirit do this? How does the Spirit give confirming witness to our spirit, that we are the children of God? Let me, first of all, tell you what it's not. It is not an inner, mystical voice by which the Holy Spirit says, "You're a Christian. You're a Christian. You're a Christian." Why do I know that? Because that's no assurance at all.

You know, I meet people who are living and have lived for most of their lives like absolute pagans and they say to me, "I'm a Christian". How do you know you're a Christian? "Well, I just know. I just... I feel... I know I'm a Christian." Well, how? "Well, I just, I just know. Listen, folks, there will be people, according to Jesus Christ, who will get to the judgment thinking and believing and feeling that they are Christians and will stand before God and say, "I'm here!" And Jesus will say, "I never knew you. Depart from Me!" It's not about the Holy Spirit whispering in your ear saying you're a Christian. You don't know who's telling you that - maybe your own heart deceiving you.

So, how does the Spirit testify to my spirit? Well, you have to look in the context. How, in this passage, does the Spirit testify that we are really God's children. Look back in verse 12: "So then, brethren..." He's been talking now about sanctification (the process of becoming holy) and he says, "So then, brethren, we are under obligation [that is, we are debtors], not to the flesh [that unredeemed part of us], to live according to the flesh [we're not going to... we're not debtors to live out the desires of our fallenness] - for [verse 13] if you are living according to the flesh [if your life is devoted to satisfying the fallen urges of your sin], you must die [in other words, you're not a Christian at all. If that's how you live, forget it. You're not a Christian]; but [verse 13] if by the Spirit you are [in the process] ..." The putting to death, here, is in the present tense in the Greek text. This doesn't happen once for all. This is a slow process. "...but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live..." It's not that you're earning your salvation. It's that gradual process and progress in sanctification proves that you are, in fact, having eternal life - that you are, notice the next verse], "led by the Spirit of God".

How is God leading you? How's the Spirit of God leading you? He's leading you into holiness. He's leading you into sanctification. You are, step by step, day by day, making progress in putting to death the deeds of the body. Listen! You want to know whether or not you're a Christian, the Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you're a child of God if, day after day, you are fighting your fallenness, if day after day, you are battling and battling and battling and never giving in. And when you do give in - confessing and repenting and turning again and battling that sin. And, slowly, you are putting to death - maybe small, minute progress, but you're seeing progress in the pursuit of sanctification, holiness. When you see that, the Spirit is bearing witness with your spirit that you are a child of God.

Galatians 5, you remember, talks about the fruit of the Spirit. Listen, Jesus said in John 3 to Nicodemus, you can't see the Spirit. He's like the wind. But you can see the effects of the Spirit's presence. That's how the Spirit testifies to our spirit that we are the sons of God - by the effects He produces.

Ask yourself this question: do you see a growth in your life of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, and the rest of the list that's there? Do you see the work of the Spirit of God producing those things. That's the Spirit bearing witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. And if there is no sign of those things, if instead your life is characterized by the works of the flesh that thought that precedes that passage in Galatians 5, then guess what? The Spirit isn't there. He's not testifying with your spirit that you are a child of God.

There's another, sort of way, the Spirit testifies here in Romans 8. Not only by our progress in sanctification does He testify to us, but He also testifies to us by our response to the Father - verse 15. One of the ways that we can be sure we're God's, is what happens to us when we find ourselves in trouble and difficulty. Do we enjoy God? Do we turn to God? Do we cry out to God? Do we delight and enjoy God as "Abba, Father" - our tender response to God as Papa because we understand that God now loves us and He's our loving Father, we're drawn to Him? That is the Spirit testifying that we are, in fact, the child of God.

Those two are here in this passage. There are a number of other passages in the New Testament that tell us how the Spirit testifies with our spirit. Let me just give you two more examples. Look back over in Romans 5 - Romans 5:5. Paul is talking about the results of our justification. And he says in verse 5: "... the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." That's not our love for God. That's a knowledge of God's love for us. The Holy Spirit comes into our hearts, and He gives us an increasing sense of the love of God, that God loves us, and has set His love upon us.

One other, sort of way, the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, is our love for and understanding of the Scripture - our love for and understanding of the Scripture. You remember 1 Corinthians 2, we're told the natural man, what? He doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God; they're foolishness to him. But the believer, on the other hand, the Spirit is in his life and heart, doing what? 1 Peter 2:2 - creating in him a desire for the sincere "milk of the word".

Turn to a passage that may not be as familiar to you - 1 John 2. As John the apostle deals with all the false teaching that these people were being subjected to, he makes the startling statement. 1 John 2:20: "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it..." You have this anointing from the Holy One that enables you to know the truth. Look down in verse 27: "As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you..." This isn't disparaging of teachers. Teachers are given to the church for their good. He's saying, though, that believers, because of the work of the Spirit, have a desire for and an understanding of the truth that unbelievers don't. Listen! If you hear the word of God and you don't really care, if you can go home and throw that Bible that's in your lap right now on the shelf and ignore it week after week after week and have no desire, no appetite, no interest, then the Spirit isn't testifying with your spirit that you're a child of God. If on the other hand, you love the Scripture and you want to understand it and you do understand it (not perfectly, but more than you did before you came to Christ), and it's words have begun to open up to you, and you begin to understand it, it's evidence that the Spirit is there. He's bearing witness with your spirit that you are a child God. And He's doing all of this to give us assurance that we have been adopted.

Why is assurance so important? Because being legally adopted and understanding that we're really a member of the family and feeling that we're really a member of the family are two different things. And God wants us to know. He not only adopted us. He wants us to know that we were adopted. And He wants us to enjoy the reality of this new relationship that we have with Him, to grasp His love for us. If you've turned from your sins to Christ, God the Father wants you to have assurance that you have been adopted into His family.

There's a third great benefit of our adoption. Not only intimacy and assurance, but also (verse 17) inheritance. Inheritance. "...and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ..." Listen. Understand that you do not yet enjoy all the privileges that come with your adoption. As good as salvation is in this life, it's not all there is. We have the promise that we will receive an eternal inheritance. Galatians 4:7: "Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir..." 1 Peter 1: "... God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ... has caused us ... to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you..."

Notice, we are God's heirs. Everything that word heir means to us, God thought that was the very best way to explain the reality of what we have. You are God's heir. And verse 17 goes on to say: "and [joint heirs or] fellow heirs with Christ..." That's because, now that God is our Father, guess what? Christ is our older brother. We are fellow heirs with Christ.

But what exactly is it we inherit? We inherit eternal life. Titus 3:7: "so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." We inherit, not only eternal life, but - are you ready for this? Everything in the universe. Remember? We are fellow heirs with Christ? What does Christ get? Hebrews 1:2: "in these last days [God] has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things..." Everything God has ever made is ours.

But here's the wonderful part: our inheritance is God Himself. There's so many places where this is mentioned. I like Lamentations 3:24 where Jeremiah says, "'The Lord is my portion [He's my part of the inheritance],' says my soul, / 'Therefore I have hope in Him.'" I get God!

I'm the youngest of 10 children. So, I grew up always wearing hand-me-down clothes from older brothers and from neighbors. When I got to go off to school, to college, there was no money left in the college fund. It had all been used up. So, for nine years, working my way through college and graduate school, I paid my own way. But just before my Mom's death, the house had been sold - our childhood home had been sold. And it wasn't worth much - it was a 900-square foot home on a couple of acres in south Alabama. And she sold it and, just before her death, she wanted to go ahead and divide it up. And so, she divided it up 10 ways - the little appreciation that they had accumulated from that home. And she gave me my inheritance - little less than $2000. And I was thrilled! I was a poor college student. That was more than I ever expected. Wasn't much of an inheritance.

I love my dad and I look forward to seeing him again in heaven. And Father's Day brings those memories back to me. But my adoptive father, my real father, will never die. And everything in the universe is His. And He has promised that someday He will give me, and every other true son and daughter of His, an inheritance - eternal life, everything in the universe that He's made, and Himself and His presence for all eternity. Thank God for our adoption!

How does God prepare us to receive that? Look at the end of verse 17: "if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him." Listen! Christian, the troubles of this life - they're not to punish you. The troubles of this life are to prepare you to receive the inheritance that awaits you. Charles Hodge, the great American theologian, writes, "The design of God and the affliction of His people is to prepare them to participate in His glory. It is the refining process through which they must pass." As you deal with the troubles of this life, remember, this isn't all there is. This is merely preparation for what's really living - when we are with our Father and we get the inheritance.

Fathers, since this is Father's Day and since God has assigned us the role of portraying to our children what He's like, let me ask you a couple of questions as a result of this text. Do your children experience these same benefits from you? Remember, to some extent, our children get their conception of God from us. How's the picture you're drawing? Do you enjoy a true relationship with your children? Do they have the confidence and assurance of your love and commitment to them? Maybe you can't give him a huge inheritance, but will they know - do they know that, as long as you live, you will always be looking out for their best interest and their good? Or have you skewed your children's perspective of God by sins like utter selfishness, fits of anger, a manifest lack of loyalty to them, or a failure to keep your word, or a failure to assure them of your love? Or maybe you're just simply not around - uninvolved. Listen! I have found, unfortunately, on too many occasions that when I fail my kids, they are always quick to forgive if I'm willing to seek their forgiveness. There's no better day than Father's Day to make things right with your kids - whether there are only minor issues or whether there's a lifetime of sin and hurt.

But the point of this passage isn't the kind of fathers we should be. The main point of this passage is to give Christians a sense of security in the Spirit. If you have been adopted by God (and you have if you're a Christian), you have received the amazing benefits of intimacy with God, assurance of that relationship, and the promise of a future inheritance.

If you're thinking person, you ought to be thinking: how did I get in on all of this? The answer is in one last passage I want you to see - Galatians 4. Galatians 4, the parallel passage. Here's how you got it. It wasn't easy. Galatians 4:4: "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son [His unique son, His only begotten son, His only genuine son], born of a woman, born under the Law [why? Verse 5], so that He might redeem those who were under the Law [watch this], that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" Listen, the reason you can call the God of the universe "Papa", is because Jesus, His only true Son, laid down His life. That's what we celebrate in the Lord's table.

Let's bow our heads together.

Father, we thank You for the truth we have just looked at together. Give us hearts to receive it. Father, help us to live with the awareness of what You have done for us in adoption. Father, help us to think about that, to meditate on it. And Lord, most of all, help us to live in a way that reflects well on our Father - on You, our God and Abba. We pray in Jesus' name and for His sake, Amen!