Are You a Child of God?

10/22/11

Scripture:

I want to ask you if you would to follow along with me as I read our scripture this morning from the Book of Galatians beginning in chapter 3.  The verses will be up on the screen if you would like to see it as well as hear the word being read.  This is Paul’s letter to the Galatians.  We are looking at this letter studying it from start to finish as part of a sermon series called Getting Our Gospel Right.  Our goal here is to really understand the good news of Jesus Christ, how it impacts us, and then how we live and share that good news with others.  Here Paul is talking about God's promises in the Old Testament to Abraham and how they have become truth to us through Jesus Christ, so hear these words as I read them for you this morning.

¹⁵ To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified.  ¹⁶ Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ.  ¹⁷ This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.  ¹⁸ For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.  ¹⁹ Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.  ²⁰ Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.  ²¹ Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.  ²² But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.  ²³ Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.  ²⁴ So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.  ²⁵ But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, ²⁶ for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.  ²⁷ For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  ²⁹ And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.   4:1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything,  ² but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.  ³ In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.  ⁴ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,  ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"  ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

That ends the reading of God’s word. 

I want to ask you this morning to just begin with me thinking about a possible scenario for you.  It’s going to be a beautiful day this afternoon, kind of mild for an October day, so let’s pretend that you’re out in the yard playing around in your yard...maybe working on some flowers...and your neighbor is out in the yard.  And so you decide to strike up a conversation about the great ballgame last night and how the Cardinals are definitely on their way to winning the World Series and how awesome Albert Pujols was to hit three homeruns in the game.  And as you’re talking about the game and you start planning your big block party that you’re going to have when they win—notice I didn’t say if they win but when they win, right?  Do you have confidence Linda or you’re not so sure?  We’ll see (Linda).  We’ll see—that's right.  So let’s pretend that you and your neighbors are planning who’s going to bring the guacamole, who’s going to bring out the nachos and the cheese, and you’re going to have a get together assuming things go the Cardinals’ way.  And as you’re talking, your neighbor says, “You know, I want to ask you a question.  You’re one of those people that go to church, right?  Last week I was at a funeral for my uncle and the minister was talking about my uncle and he mentioned that he was a son of God in his message, and I thought really?  I never thought of my uncle in that way.  I always thought about him as a good husband for my aunt, a good father to my cousins.  He worked hard.  He was a pretty upstanding guy.  What does that mean—he’s a son of God?  That got me thinking.  Am I a son of God?”  What would you tell your neighbor?  I want you to think about that for a moment.  What would your answer be if your neighbor said do you think I'm a son of God?

My guess is that it would be easy for us to say, “Well, of course, sure you’re a son of God.  We all are sons of God whether you live on this side of the world or in Ecuador or China.  We all by human nature are brothers and sisters as humans and we all belong to God as God's children.”  That's an argument that’s thrown out quite a bit.  It became very popular in the late 19^th century, especially in certain parts of the church that basically said it doesn’t matter what religion you believe—just because you’re a human you belong to God and you’re his child.  It’s pretty popular, so that might be something that you are familiar with if you’ve watched television shows that made reference to God or made reference to faith.  You get this idea that we’re all children of God, but is that right?  Or maybe you might tell your neighbor, “No, you’re not a child of God.  Nobody is.  That’s just a crazy metaphor that doesn’t mean anything.”  In fact, there are authors, there are atheist authors today that would say for you and me to refer to ourselves as children of God is simply we’re afraid of the inevitable nothingness that will become of our life, and we use terms like God is Father or we’re a child of God as a way of maybe having some meaning to the fact that I'm dying of cancer or that my kids are no longer around and I'm going to live in solitude.  And they would say, you know, saying that you’re a child of God is about as ridiculous as me saying, “This is my son, this pulpit,” because we all know that’s an empty statement.  There’s no way this thing can be a son, it’s an inanimate object.  So what would you say to your neighbor who says, “Am I a child of God?”  What would you say if I asked you “Are you a child of God?  Well, what does the Bible say? 

The Bible’s answer would be it depends.  It depends on you and where you are in life.  Let me elaborate on this.  I'm not making this up.  I'm pulling it right out of the text that I read to you from the Book of Galatians where Paul teaches about this issue of being a child of God, and he says a few things here that are worth noting and if I can for the moments that we have together before we leave get you to hear these. 

The first one is verse 26 when he says, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God or daughters of God, through faith.”  In Christ Jesus you’re all sons of God through faith.  Paul goes on to say in chapter 4, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth  his Son,” (that’s Jesus), “born of woman,” (reference there to the virgin birth), “born under the law,” (a reference there to him being Jewish and under the commandments of the law).  So it says, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.”  Do you hear that reference there?  Adoption—so the issue about whether or not you are a child of God comes back to the issue of whether or not you have been adopted into God's family.   I want you to think about that for a moment.

We understand what adoption is.  There are members of our church family or perhaps our biological family that themselves have been adopted.  An adopted child is a child that’s not mine by nature but I choose to take it legally, to take her legally into my home and bestow upon her all the benefits and the privileges that I would give to my own children.  We all understand that concept, right?  We see it happen every day.  People adopt children from all around the world and bring them into their home and now they say, “You are my son, you are my daughter.  I'm going to treat you as if you were my own flesh and blood.”  Well, what we’re talking about here with adoption is the very same thing that God looks into us and says, “You’re not my natural child but for your benefit I'm going to bring you into my family, I'm going to bestow my privileges upon you and I'm going to make you my daughter.  I'm going to make you my son.  I'm going to make you my child.”  It’s the exact same concept.  So the question then is have you been adopted into God's family?

Hear again what Paul says.  “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.”  That’s a business transaction.  We talked about that last week.  It’s his dying on the cross, paying our penalty so that we might receive adoption as sons.  “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, ‘Abba! Father!’  So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”  Here in this text where Paul is laying out the comparison of the law that God gave to the promises that God gave, there’s a promise here that you, by your faith in Jesus Christ, become a son of God or a daughter of God with all of the benefits and the privileges of that bestowed upon you when you believe in Jesus as your redeemer, the one who died for your sin.  Do you see that?  That’s the idea.  That is how the Bible says you and I are children of God.  It’s not something that happens just because we’re born.  It’s not something that happens because we happen to live in a certain country.  It happens when we are reborn, when we are by faith received into God's family by putting our trust in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for us. 

Now, big whoop...what does it mean that Cory is a son of God or that Linda is a daughter of God?  What does it mean for you that you are a child of God?  There are some very significant things here, two very significant things I want you to think about as you leave here today.  I want this to stick with you.  The one has to do with your security and the second has to do with your significance.  Let’s talk about your security first.

You know, I don’t know what you’re going through in life.  You may be here today and this may have been your Hell week.  You may have just found out you’ve lost your job.  You may just have found out that your cancer’s come back.  This may be, you know, your son’s gone away again.  You thought he would straighten up his life and how he’s back on the street.  You have no idea where he is and you’re going, “Oh my gosh, what’s going on with me?”  But I want you to know when God adopts you into his family, there’s great security.  In verse 7 he says, “You are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”  An heir, someone who is   going to inherit something of value.  We all understand that.  You know, when our parents die they leave us an inheritance.  Well, the privilege of son-ship, of daughter-ship, is that God has a very precious gift for you, and the gift is you have the right to inherit his kingdom.  Jesus told his disciples in the Gospel of Luke “Fear not, little flock, for it’s your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  God’s going to bestow the blessings of his kingdom upon your life.  That’s the richest treasure that you can ever have, and if you really believe that, if you really understand that you are a child of God, then you’re going to have a great sense of security no matter what happens in your life. 

There’s this Christian preacher and author named Watchman Nee.  He tells a story about a new Christian who came to him one day in great distress and he said, “Sir, no matter how much I pray, no matter how hard I try, I simply feel like I can’t be faithful to my Lord.  I think I'm losing my salvation.”  And Watchman Nee said to him, “Do you see this dog here?”  (He had a dog in the room with him).  “He is my dog.  He’s housetrained.  He never makes a mess.  He’s obedient.  He is a pure delight to me.  Over in the kitchen I have a son, a baby son.  He makes a mess.  He throws his food all around, he fouls his clothes.  He is a total mess.  But who is going to inherit my kingdom?  Not my dog.  My son is my heir.  And you are Jesus Christ’s heir because it’s for you that he died.”  Friends, you and I are Christ’s heirs.  We receive the kingdom of God, and it’s not based on our perfection or our performance but our inclusion by grace in the family of God.  What that means for you and me is that no matter what comes into your life, what storm blows along your way, you don’t have to feel like it’s going to destroy you.  You can have confidence that God is going to be with you, he’s going to give you what you need, and in the end he’s going to reward you with his everlasting kingdom.  This truth is what motivated men like the author of this text, Paul, to put himself in harm’s way over and over again and literally to have his head chopped off for his Christian faith because he knew you can take my life, you can take my health, you can take all of my possessions, but you can’t take the greatest treasure which I have, which is belonging as a son to the living God and being a recipient of his kingdom.   And that is yours whether your life is going great or whether nothing is going right.  If you’re a child of God, you can be secure. 

The second thing I want you to see here is being a child of God, a son of the creator, a daughter of the maker, is an issue of significance.  You are important...you are important.  We all long to be people who are significant, who are recognized, who other people consider as valuable, and I want you to know because God adopts you, you are incredibly valuable to the Lord.  Paul says this in verse 6, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”  Here Paul talks about one of the privileges of being a child of God is that God's own Spirit lives in our heart, but notice how he describes the Spirit of Jesus.  He says, “It’s the Spirit crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”  Abba is an Aramaic word for father, but it doesn’t mean father like, “Hello father, welcome home from work.”  It’s “Daddy!”  You ever see little kids run up to you, they’re so happy to see you?  Oh, I love it when my kids run up to me and hug me when I come home from work.  You know what?  They have a privilege to come right up to me and embrace me intimately because I'm their dad.  Now some of you, you know, you might need to call and make an appointment.  I’ll still hug you, but, you know, you don’t have the same intimacy that my own children have with me.  And that’s the intimacy that the creator of the universe has with you.  I want to impress this on you.  Do you understand God wants to spend time with you?  Prayer’s not a drudgery to God, it’s a delight because his child comes and says, “Daddy, I want to spend time with you.”  That’s significance.  Your significance, friends, is wrapped up in the fact that the creator of the universe calls you his son, calls you his daughter. It doesn’t matter if everybody in school rejects you.  It doesn’t matter if your boyfriend dumps you.   What matters is that you belong to a God who loves you and has chosen you to be in his family. 

Significance and security are yours because by faith, by faith in Jesus Christ, you are a son and a daughter of the living God.  God wanted me to remind you about that this morning and God wanted me to tell you live as if you are child of God.  Go out the door and by faith live as if you are truly a son, a daughter, of the king.  Let’s pray together. 

Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for the privilege that you let us by grace, by faith alone in your son, be your sons and daughters.  You have promised to not reject us.  You’ve promised not to disown us.  No matter how bad we get, we are yours because you’ve redeemed us, and I thank you for that truth.  Lord, I pray for this church family.  I pray for those here today that we would truly let this concept that we’re your children get into the warp and woof of who we are and that we would think differently about ourselves and our circumstances and our life and our calling because we belong to God.  We thank you that we may call you father, we may call you daddy, and you accept us.  You delight in us.  Help that truth, Lord, not to be crowded out by the busyness of our schedules or by the doubts that loom in our mind, but help us to leave here today knowing we are adopted children of the king.  For we ask this prayer in Jesus’ name.  Amen.