Heirs by Grace: Understanding Your Spiritual Adoption

• Earthly vs. Heavenly Fatherhood [00:05:17 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts his own father's discipline and love with the superior example of God, using personal anecdotes to bridge the gap to theological concepts.
• The Name 'Abba' [00:11:08 ▶️ 📄]
  > An exegesis of the Aramaic word 'Abba' used by Jesus in Gethsemane, explaining it as a term combining deep intimacy with serious respect and obedience, not just casual affection.
• Roman Adoption Law [00:14:51 ▶️ 📄]
  > A historical illustration of Roman adoption practices to explain the legal weight of spiritual adoption, including debt cancellation, new names, and full heir status.
• Spiritual Adoption and Identity [00:13:11 ▶️ 📄]
  > Theological explanation of Romans 8, defining the 'spirit of adoption' as the mechanism that frees believers from fear and grants them co-heir status with Christ.
• Intimacy with God [00:17:37 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor urges the congregation to approach prayer with the intimacy of a child saying 'daddy' and crying out 'Abba Father'.
• Identity as Adopted Children [00:18:13 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines the believer's identity as children created for relationship and adopted to share in the inheritance of Christ.
• Daily Celebration of God's Fatherhood [00:18:28 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the single annual celebration of earthly fathers with the call to celebrate God as Father every day.

• Sermon Illustration [00:05:37 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal story about his father, Phil Danner, describing him as a simple, dedicated man who prioritized education and instilled discipline, but also had quirks like chewing tobacco (Levi Garrett) and taking long road trips to national parks.
• Sermon Illustration [00:07:03 ▶️ 📄]
  > An anecdote about his father falling asleep with a large chunk of chewing tobacco in his mouth, only to suddenly run to the bathroom, providing a moment of family amusement.
• Sermon Illustration [00:14:51 ▶️ 📄]
  > A historical explanation of Roman adoption laws, detailing how a man could adopt a worthy son, cancel all debts, grant a new name, and provide full legal inheritance rights, used as an analogy for spiritual adoption.

• Pastoral Charge [00:17:55 ▶️ 📄]
  > To cry out to God with intimacy, obedience, and submission to His will, mirroring Jesus in Gethsemane.
• Pastoral Charge [00:18:28 ▶️ 📄]
  > To celebrate their status as adopted children of God every day, rather than just on the specific holiday.
• Pastoral Charge [00:19:01 ▶️ 📄]
  > To discern God's voice and follow His lead willingly

[00:00:09] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:00:09] Let's go to God in prayer. Holy God, who gives nourishment and life and strength to all creation, we thank you for the community of faith that you have built for your servants, who have held fast to you through centuries. We thank you for the teachings and the witness of those who have gone before us, for the gospel welcoming to all in need and the healing that comes from your watchfulness. Bless these gifts and all that it nurtures in truth.
[00:03:56] Amen. Please be seated. If you have your Bibles with you, please turn in them to our scripture for the day. It's Romans 8, 14 through 17. If you did not bring your Bible, you can look in our
[00:04:17] few Bibles, page 158 in the New Testament. Please follow along with me. For all those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back
[00:04:31] into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, Abba, Father, it is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs,
[00:04:45] heirs of a God and joint heirs with Christ. If in fact we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. This is the word of God for the people of God. Let us pray. Gracious heavenly
[00:05:02] Father, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight.
[00:05:08] O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen. So once again, happy Father's Day.
[00:05:17] On this day, we honor our fathers, those who are with us and those who have gone on before us.
[00:05:25] This is a time to reflect on what they meant to us, and it makes me think of my own father. And I Thank you, Kathy, for sharing about your father.
[00:05:33] I think many of us probably have stories like that of our own experiences.
[00:05:37] But my father, Phil Danner, was a great father.
[00:05:42] He was a simple man with a good heart and an extraordinary dedication for his kids.
[00:05:48] When I was young, my parents divorced, and my father was given custody of a young 6-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl.
[00:05:56] Although the love word wasn't bandied around too much in our household, you could see the evidence of his love through the care and sacrifices he made for his two small children. Like a good father, he instilled discipline in us and the importance of getting
[00:06:12] a good education. He made sure we prioritized school above all extracurricular activities.
[00:06:20] Band and sports were okay, but as long as it didn't interfere with our main job, school.
[00:06:24] he also instilled in us a sense of adventure when each summer we would take a long road vacation across the country to see wonderful wonders of creation of god's creation like niagara falls and the grand canyon but phil danner wasn't perfect he could be a little bit stubborn
[00:06:46] and thank goodness i didn't inherit that trait from him but he also it was rare that you ever saw him without that little bulge of Levi Garrett in his cheek and it reminds me of like one of the
[00:07:03] most disgusting things you could ever imagine is that spit cup as we travel across the country to the Grand Canyon but it wasn't all that bad so our my sister and I did have some times of amusement
[00:07:14] when dad would fall asleep on the couch with a big chunk of chaw in his in his mouth and then all of a sudden you would hear and he would go run into the bathroom. So we got a lot of enjoyment
[00:07:25] out of that. But the most important act of being a good father, a great father, was that he made sure we grew up in a Christian home and learned about our heavenly father. He served as our Sunday
[00:07:40] school teacher when we were young and he made sure we knew that God guarded and guided our path.
[00:07:46] years later I became a father myself and I've tried to be the best father I can instilling love discipline and adventure and a sense of humor in my boys peppered with just the right a number of dad jokes
[00:08:01] which is always received with an awful eye roll of not again most importantly though with a ton of help from their mom we've tried to provide them a safe and loving home demonstrating to them
[00:08:15] what it means to love their Heavenly Father.
[00:08:19] I'm very proud of the men that they've become, and I like to think I had a little bit to do with that.
[00:08:24] I've had a pretty good example in my earthly father, but I've had a better example from my Heavenly Father.
[00:08:33] When we look through the Bible, specifically in the Old Testament, we see there's lots of names for God, our Father.
[00:08:40] And some of these examples you probably recognize, like Elohim, meaning God, Creator, Mighty and Strong, Adonai, meaning Lord and Master.
[00:08:51] El Shaddai, God Almighty, the Mighty One of Jacob.
[00:08:55] Yahweh, just simply Lord.
[00:08:58] Emmanuel, God is with us.
[00:09:01] And my personal favorite, Jehovah, the Unchangeable One, the Great I Am.
[00:09:06] You can see all these names and terms are terms of amazement with great respect, but none of them are the very intimate, intimate in a way that we know God today.
[00:09:18] It was Jesus that taught us how to speak of God in a different way.
[00:09:24] It was Jesus who almost always referred to God as the Father.
[00:09:29] We see a most prime example in Matthew, where he teaches his disciples and us how to pray.
[00:09:36] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[00:09:40] He advised them to pray, not like the hypocrites who pray to be seen by others, but to pray quietly alone in your room to your father who sees you and knows you.
[00:09:54] Later he tells them not to worry in vain about the simple needs of life but to rely on God saying, look at the birds of the air.
[00:10:02] They do not sow or reap or store away in barns yet your heavenly father feeds them.
[00:10:09] Are you not much more valuable than they?
[00:10:12] This was a big deviation in how people were used to thinking of God.
[00:10:18] While there were names that reflect honor and respect and God's providence, no one before referred to God in such a personal nature.
[00:10:27] You can imagine how strange this would have been for the normal Jewish person of the time.
[00:10:33] This would have seemed very disrespectful, too informal, not giving God the honor he deserved, basically bringing him down to our level.
[00:10:44] He would have almost been approaching blasphemy to think, what do you mean of calling God your father?
[00:10:49] Are you elevating yourself to the equivalent of God?
[00:10:53] Who are you claiming to be yourself?
[00:10:57] We saw Jesus referring to God in an even more drastic deviation from this norm when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, the night of his betrayal.
[00:11:08] As he left Peter, John, and James to go further into the garden, we hear, as Mark records, going a little farther in the garden he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour
[00:11:24] might pass from him Abba father he said everything is possible to you take this cup from me yet not that I will but what you will this word Abba is an Aramaic word which is frequently associated
[00:11:47] by many scholars to mean the modern-day equivalent of daddy, but more recent thought is that it carries a much deeper meaning than this cozy, casual term of affection. While it does convey deep love and adoration, it also carries the meaning of extreme respect for a father as a
[00:12:08] provider and a protector. This is a term that a son would have spoken to his father with seriousness and respect, honoring his father's authority. When Jesus is in the garden, he pleads to the father
[00:12:23] to take away his destiny on the cross, but ultimately he bows to the father's will.
[00:12:31] Jesus in the garden uses this term not only in intimacy, but as a son who knows exactly what his father is asking for him, and he is obedient. This word Abba is only used two other times in
[00:12:45] the Bible, both in letters from Paul. One is to the found in Galatians, where he's writing to people he knew very well. But the other is in Romans, in our scripture for today, where Paul
[00:12:57] is writing to followers of Christ that he'd never met. Please follow along with me and let's look at the scripture a little bit more closely. This is verses 14 through 15. For all who are led by
[00:13:11] the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. We cry Abba, Father. What Paul's talking
[00:13:26] about here is that when we believe and we accept God's gift of grace, our lives are transformed and the Holy Spirit comes to live in our being. It's through this spirit that we are freed from
[00:13:41] a world of fear doubt and uncertainty it's that spirit that enables us to cry Abba Father I hear you I love you I trust you I owe all that I am to you show me your will and I will follow have we
[00:14:08] ever actually addressed God in that manner looking further into verses 16 and 17 we see that it's also through the Spirit that we receive our adoption into sonship, 16 through 17. It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs,
[00:14:35] heirs of a God and joint heirs with Christ. If in fact we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. In those times, adoption was not a common Jewish world and was not common
[00:14:51] in the Jewish world, standing in inheritance was based solely on a person's birth. If a man died and his brother was supposed to marry the widow and the firstborn of the new marriage would legally
[00:15:05] become the son of the dead brother and continue with the inheritance. But in the Roman world, to which Paul is writing, adoption was a common practice. In the Roman world, a man had to pass
[00:15:19] on his wealth to his son. But if a man had no sons or felt that his sons were not capable of handling his wealth, he could adopt someone that would make a worthy son. When the adoption was
[00:15:33] legal, legally approved, the adoption would have full legal standing, all his debts would be canceled, and he would receive a new name. He had all the rights of a biological son.
[00:15:45] It was public, permanent, and legally binding.
[00:15:51] When we cry Abba, we recognize that as adopted children of God, we are legally his.
[00:15:59] We are given a new name.
[00:16:02] We receive all the rights of an heir in the kingdom.
[00:16:06] And as such, our debts are canceled.
[00:16:09] Our sins are forgiven.
[00:16:11] We no longer are slaves to the principles of this world, but the spirit but we are free to enjoy all the benefits of a more intimate relationship with God the cry of the spirit from within us is not just an emotional cry of intimacy
[00:16:28] with the father but it's a legal testimony of an heir who knows his status has been secure and cannot be reversed most importantly we are co-heirs with Christ let that sink in a bit As Christians, we share in his sufferings.
[00:16:49] Nobody ever said it was going to be easy.
[00:16:52] But the reward that we share is in his glory.
[00:16:55] We will share the same kinship with God as the Son, Jesus.
[00:16:59] Let me say that again.
[00:17:02] We will share the same kinship with God as the Son, Jesus.
[00:17:07] I don't know about you, but that makes me feel pretty good.
[00:17:13] Can you imagine what it will be like knowing the Almighty God, creator of the universe just as the son jesus knows him as we close just a few final thoughts when we say the words the lord's prayer saying our father who art in heaven do we realize what
[00:17:37] we're really saying do we let that sink in do we say it with the intimacy of a child saying daddy do we cry out as jesus did in the garden abba father i love you i need you i will obey
[00:17:55] let your will be done through me do we recognize it as a declaration of our identity children of a heavenly father the one who created you just so you could have a relationship with him just to
[00:18:13] adopt you as his own forever and to share with you the inheritance of christ the son every year we single out a special day his father's day to celebrate those men who've cared and loved us
[00:18:28] but as adopted children of our most loving Heavenly Father, let us celebrate that every day is the Father's Day.
[00:18:38] Let us pray.
[00:18:43] Most gracious Heavenly Father, Abba, we come to you with a grateful heart.
[00:18:49] We thank you for loving us to the end to send their son so that we may also experience the joy of becoming your children and inherit an eternal life in your presence.
[00:19:01] Help us to discern your voice and guidance in our lives and help us to follow willingly where you lead.
[00:19:07] In your son's holy name, amen.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:19:10] Now let us rise to sing our closing worship song, number 141 in your red hymnal, Children of the Heavenly Father.
[00:19:28] Please rise.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:19:34] Brothers and sisters, as we leave here today,

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:21:11] go knowing you are a precious child of the almighty God.
[00:21:16] Rejoice and allow the spirit to shout from the mountaintops, declaring that you are heirs of the Most Holy Father.
[00:21:26] Amen.