The Jesus Family Series (6 Parts)

October 23, 2007 8:23 pm admin Sermon-Series, Chapter 8, Romans

A six part sermon series addressing the theme of being in Jesus family. The sermons are an exegetical treatment of Romans 8:12-17. The sermons address things like spiritual warfare, how you become a Christian, how Christians are led by God’s Spirit, the gospel picture of adoption, the greatness God as Father, and the inheritance Christians receive. These sermons were originally preached in September and October of 2007 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.

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:: The Resolved Church :: September 9th, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets

The Jesus Family Series
Part I - “Jesus Family Does Not Lose the Battles Which Count”

Romans 8:12-17
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 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!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Introduction
I. Thanatao: Life on Earth is War
A. The Deeds of the Body
B. Who We are Killing
II. Jesus’ Spirit Fights for Us
A. Why We Do Not Wield The Spirit
B. The Strength of a Good Family
Conclusion

Introduction

Good Morning The Resolved Church. Let’s read the text and pray. Precious, tender and loving Father of the Universe. Father of Jesus Christ. Open our eyes in the coming weeks to see and to know the greatness of being in Jesus’ family in all the priviledges and provisions you provide for your children. Today, teach us and help us to know the power and reality of sin and how being part of your family gives us a decisive hand in slaying all that stands against us. Stir up vigor today and direct that vigor into a God-exalting, Christ-loving, gospel wielding passion I pray. Amen.

Today we enter into a study of some of the most precious and amazing verses in the whole Bible. Verses which open up the truth and the rality for Christians that we are part of Jesus’ family. And being part of Jesus family is an awesome awesome thing in which there are all kinds of great privileges and spiritual blessings. These verses have a soft and tender voice to them and they also have an air of excitement and wonder about them…that God allows and makes a way for us to become part of his intimate family through Jesus. We are going to spend several weeks on these verses and we will try to answer several questions. Questions like what it is to put something to death? Are we to be killers? How does being in Jesus family relate to that? If doing something like that is necessary for life, then are we earning it? What is the role of work in the Christian life? How do you know you are a Christian or how do you truly become a Christian? How are Christians led by God’s Spirit? How are we to relate to God as Father?

Today we begin with the first great theological truth that these verses open up to us, that “Jesus Family Does Not Lose the Battles Which Count.” You will notice I have included verses 12-13 in our series even though we already kind of talked about them in the last series. There is a reason for that. In verses 14-17 each verse designates God’s people as either God’s children, or as God’s sons (which also includes daughters). Look at them. Verse 14, those led by God’s Spirit are “sons of God.” Verse 15, believers in Jesus receive a “Spirit of adoption as sons” and are enabled to cry out to God as “Abba Father.” Verse 16, the Spirit gives believers a testimony that they are “children of God.” And verse 17, the children of God are fellow heirs with their brother, Jesus Christ. These verses are clearly about God’s family and not just generally, like all human beings are God’s children, but specifically the unique family of those who belong to Jesus.

Okay, so what about verse 12 and 13? Here is the deal with them, they don’t really fit by themselves, but the don’t really totally belong to either theme. We are beginning a new theme, Jesus family. The last theme was Jesus’ resurrection. And verses 12-13 are sandwiched in-between those two themes and have something to say about each of them. Verse 11 ended talking about the future resurrection guaranteed to believers because Jesus really rose and verse 12 begins, “so then…” and starts talking about battling with sin in the Christian life. And then verse 14 concludes and connects those thoughts to this new family theme because it starts out, “For all who are led…” by God’s Spirit are his children.

Now when I preached on the resurrection this is all I said about verses 12-13. I said, “The theology of this verse, getting a hold of the resurrection of Jesus, what is in store for you in the future if you are a Christian, becomes an empowerment for your life in the Spirit here and now.” That is a wonderful truth and vision for our lives. What I didn’t say was anything specifically about the words of verse 12-13, so we deal with them today as an introduction to the theme of Jesus family which takes the same concept and says, not only does knowing your future resurrection, guaranteed in Jesus’ resurrection empower your life now, but also knowing that you are part of God’s intimate family empowers you to live in joy and triumph and everlasting life. In the coming weeks we will talk much about what is to be a son or daughter or child of God’s or brother of Chirst but this week I want to deal mainly with verses 12-13 and try to answer the questions of what a misdeed of the body is and how you are supposed to put it death and what it means to do it by the Spirit?

I. Thanatao: Life on Earth is War

I only have two main points today. The first point is, life on earth is war. Let me draw your attention to one particular word. In verse 13 we read “if by the Spirit you are putting to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Now in English it looks like three particular words. But in Greek it is one word, Thanatao. Thanatos means death, but this is the verb form, so it means deathing or killing as an action. Some of you comic book fans might know this because I am told there is a Marvel comic book villan, I think he is a bad guy, named Thanos, the Titan of Death, who goes around killing things and people. So the comic book dudes got it right. Thanos means death. And Thanatao means killing. And that is striking! When I translated this passage at the beginning of the week, I did a double take at this word, does it really say that?! That Christians are to be killers? Ones who put things to death?

It does. Thanatao here is a militant word, calling for action. It calls attention to the spiritual reality of life that we are in a battle against sin. This is the biblical perspective for Chrisitans. As Ephesians 6:10 says, ” We wrestle…against the spiritual forces of evil.” This is the reality. We have an enemy in this life and it is war. You cannot escape it. You don’t have the option of being a passivist. You can’t be someone who says that just isn’t my personality. If you lie down and don’t fight you lose. There is a war with sin. We don’t like to think about it. We don’t like to talk about it. We don’t like church or churches that talk about sin. But it is true. And we are in great danger if we only want to think of church or think of things in terms of what we like or what is easy. As a church plant it doesn’t seem like the smartest thing to talk about sin when you are trying to start a church, that will just drive people away. But here is the thing, if we don’t what are we drawing people to? We cannot afford to think of church like a consumer in terms of what we want, like or think we need. Then we will only be led by the whim of our sinful, selfish enemy to the very things and places which will lead us astray.

Listen, we are a church plant. Some of you are considering whether or not to be a part of this church. We are a church committed to expounding the truth of our human sinfulness and exalting the greatness of the salvation our Lord Jesus Christ provides for us all for the glory of God the Father who rules and reigns over all. Hearing and being taught that is our greatest human need.

A. The Deeds of the Body

So let’s just get real. We love reality TV. Not really. We like drama. But you know what I mean, being real or authentic is the new virtue. So let’s get real today, get authentic, and talk about sin. What is it and how do we deal with it? What is a deed of the body you give into by living according to the flesh or paying a debt to the flesh?

If you have been here for some of our past sermons in Romans you will remember that flesh isn’t just skin and bones or our animal appetites like food, drink or sex…it is the power or characterstic of life that rebels against God, it is the power or reign of sin. And if you were here two weeks ago, you will remember that we learned the body is important God made and intends you to enjoy him and him through his world by what you do with your body…your body is made to eat and drink to his glory and God will resurrect our bodies to uncontaminatble bodies one day.

In light of that, the overall context surrounding these words, I think a deed of the body is this, a deed work through the body under the influence of the flesh. Once you are a Christian, you become sober. The Wild Turkey wears off, the headache goes away, you can see straight again and the power of sin is broken in your life…but you can still come under the influence of the old way, the old power, the old self and you can act and think and react and make decisions and do things with your body that are not glorifying to God, that are not loving and serving the people around you, that are not cherishing Jesus and his gospel and his church. And you ask why? Why do we still do that?

Verse 12 answers, when we do we are trying to pay a debt. Verse 12 says, we are debtors, for sure. We owe God our very life but we could never pay him back an infinite gift. So what we have is a continual debt of love toward him and toward one another. So yes, we are debtors, but not to the flesh. We are no longer under an obligation as it were to act, to make decisions, to do things for the old master. You see, the point is that you are always serving someone. You are either serving God or you are serving yourself and if you are serving yourself you are trying to make yourself money. The problem is that it does not pay off and only puts you in deeper and ends up in death. So serve God. He is life and liberty and love.

B. Who We are Killing

How do you do that? You get violent. You become a killer. You thanatao! Jesus understood this. He understood the connection between what you do with your body and how it relates to your heart and your soul. That is why he said, “If you hand causes you to sin cut it off! If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out! For it is better to have no hands and no eyes than to end up in hell! (paraphrase of Mark 9:43-47)” You got to get violent with that old rebellious, insubordinate self-suffient nature in us…we owe it nothing but all out war.

I am serious. There are good reasons not to like war. But we are not talking about killing other people, we are talking about killing ourselves. Our old sinful selves. Think about yourself, your own sins. Not about others or how they may have wronged you. I am talking about going to war with yourself. I have a plaque I made four years ago. It hangs on the wall in the front of my desk. If some of you have been to my house you may have seen it. It has five resolutions I made which I strive to live my life by. I try to read it once each day. My third resolution says this, “I Resolve to Consider Life on Earth War.”

Unless you believe that life is war, unless you believe that your soul is at stake each day, unless you believe God is real and that you are a sinner in need of salvation, you will most likely just mess around and play Christianity and it will be lifeless. There will be no passion, no thirsting for righteousness, no drive for the glory of God…you will simply make and pretend there is peace when there is not and you will fall asleep and your soul will be consumed by the enemy and you will die. You must put sin to death or sin will put you to death. In Matthew 11:12 Jesus said that those who enter the kingdom of heaven, must get violent and take it by force. I think this is what he was talking about…going to war with your sin.

Pastor John Piper from Betheleham church in Minnesota discovered a quote from Ed Welch a professor at Westminter. He said this,

“. there is a mean streak to authentic self-control. . . Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin. . . . The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desire is a declaration of all-out war. . . . There is something about war that sharpens the senses . . . You hear a twig snap or the rustling of leaves and you are in attack mode. Someone coughs and you are ready to pull the trigger. Even after days of little of no sleep, war keeps us vigilant.

There is a mean, violent streak in the true Christian life! But violence against whom, or what? Not other people. It’s a violence against all the impulses in us that would be violent to other people. It’s a violence against all the impulses in our own selves that would make peace with our own sin and settle in with a peacetime mentality. It’s a violence against all lust in ourselves, and enslaving desires for food or caffeine or sugar or chocolate or alcohol or pornography or money or the praise of men and the approval of others or power or fame. It’s violence against the impulses in our own soul toward racism and sluggish indifference to injustice and poverty and abortion.

Christianity is not a settle-in-and-live-at-peace-with-this-world-the-way-it-is kind of religion. If by the Spirit you kill the deeds of your own body, you will live. Christianity is war. On our own sinful impulses.”

Listen my friends, you’ve got to go to war or you will die.

II. Jesus’ Spirit Fights for Us

A. Why We Do Not Wield The Spirit

My second main point for today is that “Jesus’ Spirit Fights for Us.” I get that because verse 13 says it is “by the Spirit” that we put to death the deeds of the body. So what I want to talk about for a few minutes is that little word, “by.” Because what it means is very important to how we war. If “by” means the way we fight is by taking the Spirit and using him how we want in order to improve ourselves then we have a big problem, because then being a Christian has been reduced to being just a fancy self-help, moral improvement, program.

You see there is a problem with taking the word “by” and thinking it means the Spirit is a tool or weapon because the Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is God. You do not take God and use him as a weapon to fight. Let me try and make it a little clearer. We are told we must kill, we must put to death the misdeeds of the body. We must do it. It is a volitional action on our part. But we are to do it “by God’s Spirit.” And since God’s Spirit is a person and not a weapon we wield in our hand, what the word “by” is signifying is that the Spirit is the one who is the decisive killer, not us. So what we are saying is that we do it but we do it in such a way that it is the Spirit who does it. That sounds weird, I know. What we are talking about is God getting his glory. If we do it then we get the credit and we improve ourselves and we don’t need Jesus and we deserve to be praised for our accomplishment. If God’s Spirit does it, he gets the glory and the praise, and we get joy and give thanks.

Here is how Paul, the author of Romans said it about himself, in his personal life. He said it in a few different places. Toward the end of Romans, chapter 15, he says, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me (Rom 15:18).” In 1 Corinthians he says, “I buffet my body and make it my slave…(and) I labored…yet not I , but the grace of God in me (1 Cor 9:27, 15:10).” One more place, in Philippians he says we “work out (our) salvation…for it is God who works in (us) both to do and to will his good pleasure (Phil 2:12-13).” Do you get it? Be killing sin but in a away where you rely on the strength and power of God’s Holy Spirit so that God gets the glory and so that you actually succeed.

B. The Strength of a Good Family

We’ll talk more next week about how the Spirit lead, empowers, and assures us. But for this week our final point is, “The Strength of a Good Family.” Verse 14, essentially let’s us know that if we are killing sin by God’s Spirit, if that is happening, then that is a sign that we are in God’s family. So if we take that truth and work it backwards, being in God’s family greatly empowers us, makes us extremely strong, in our ability to do battle.

God’s family has certain tastes, certain traditions, certain values and joys and if you are in God’s family then you cherish those things and begin to pass them on. You begin to reflect your family. This is how close families work. Some of you may not have grown up in good families. On Thursdays and Fridays, many of you know I work at a group home for teenagers. Nearly every single one of these comes from a messed up family. Either the dad was abusive, or the mom was a coke addict, or the mom or dad or boyfriend molested them…you name it. Here in this room, I am sure, we come from all different types of families. Good families and bad families.

Here is how a good family works. Close families, families that really love and care for each other…they stay together, they spend time together, and they express love for each other. When that is happening, it provides a protection. It provides it in this way. When a family member goes out from the family out on their own, there is a natural restraint that arises when a decision is put before the person that could compromise something the people who love you do not approve of. You know that if you make this decision it will hurt and disappoint them. And so you are empowered to resist.

It is the same thing with God’s family. His family is the best. If you came from a bad family, you can be part of his. And if you came from a good family, the reason is probably because your family was built upon Jesus and was a reflection of God’s family. In God’s good family, debt to the flesh, the misdeeds of the body, sin and unrighteousness, rebellion against God, and self-centeredness…they are not things we love and value. And the Bible tells us that we we fall and fail we “greive the Holy Spirit of God (Eph 4:30).” Having those things in place makes us strong.

Conclusion

Let’s conclude. If you don’t know what it is like to be in a loving family, you can. Jesus opens his arms to you and welcomes you into his family. It is a family of peace and joy and love. For parent, being led by God’s Spirit, by cherishing and upholding his family values, will enable you to have a good and strong and healthy family. For us as a church family, we need to be strong together, we need to love each other and help each other fight the sin in our lives. Sometimes that may mean calling a person out, but doing it in love. Sometimes it means we need to hold fast so we can be a good example. Sometimes it means fighting sin by drawing from the reality that we are a family and we don’t want to hurt our family but love and serve them.

Let us be careful in our motivations church. We do not wield God’s Spirit, so let us beware of thining that if we go to church, or if we do good things, and we do it by giving God attention, we will get what we want. That is not what this verse is saying, it is teaching us that sin is a deep spiritual issue inside us and it gets dealt with by our laying down of our rights and privileges and surrending to God’s Spirit.

There are many struggles, many challenges, many diappointments, many failures, many battles….the ones that count are the ones that happen in our head and in our hearts…the spiritual battles. And we do not have the option of not fighting. If we do not fight we will be defeated and we will suffer eternally for it. We must fight. We must consider life on earth war. We must put to death the deeds of the body. The paradox is that we do it with love. We kill by loving God, by loving his Son Jesus Christ, and by loving the people of this world. We kill sin in us by being the most loving people we can by the empowerment of Jesus’ Spirit.

The old King James version of the Bible translated the word, thanatao, as “mortify” and a man named John Owen wrote a book titled, “The Mortification of Sin.” I have recommended it to you before as the best thing I have ever read on battling sin in the Christian life. I want to conclude with some words from John Owen and let him paint a picture for us of what it looks like to war with your soul,

“The Holy Spirit is our only sufficiency for the work of mortification. All ways and means apart from him have no true effect. He only is the great power behind it and He works in us as He pleases. How does the Holy Spirit mortify sin? By the effective destruction of the root and habit of sin, to weaken, destroy, and take it away. He is called a Spirit of judgement and of burning (Is. 4:4). He takes away the stony heart by an almighty work. He is the fire that burns up the very root of lust. He brings the cross of Christ into the heart of a sinner by faith and gives communion with Christ in His death and fellowship in His sufferings…

(So) bring your lust to the gospel. Not for relief, but for further conviction of your guilt. Look on Him whom you have pierced and let it trouble you. Say to your soul, ‘What have I done? What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on! Is this how I pay back the Father for His love? Is this how I thank the Son for His blood? Is this how I respond to the Holy Spirit for His grace? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, and the Holy Spirit has chosen to dwell in? How can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before Him? Do I count fellowship with Him of so little value that, for this vile lust’s sake, I have hardly left Him any room in my heart? How shall I escape if I neglect so great a salvation? What shall I say to the Lord? His love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation - I have despised all of them! I have considered them as nothing, that I might harbour lust in my heart. Have I seen God as my Father, that I might provoke Him to His face? Was my soul washed that there might be room for new defilements? Shall I seek to disappoint the purpose of the death of Christ? Shall I grieve the Holy Spirit, who has sealed me unto the day of redemption?’ Allow your conscience to consider these things every day.”

Let us together turn to the gospel in repentence and in love and adoration of our savior Jesus Christ our Lord. Let’s pray.

:: The Resolved Church :: September 16th, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets

The Jesus Family Series
Part II - “Jesus Family Welcomes New Members and Leads Them”

Introduction
I. Who are the Members? “as many as”
II. What do the Members Receive? “led by the Spirit”
Conclusion

Introduction

Read Text and pray. Lord God you are our great and heavenly Father. Among your creatures you gather together a special spiritual family where there is love, grace and support. You welcome new members through your Son Jesus, and you lead and provide for your members by your Spirit. Do that for us today. Receive us, give us your son Jesus. May He shine with brilliant brightness into our hearts. Lead us today. Help make your Word clear and may it strengthen and invigorate us as a family of believers today. Amen.

Good morning The Resolved Church. If you are just joining us we started a new series called, “The Jesus Family Series” last week. Nearly ever verse of this passage we are studying makes some reference or connection to God’s family, the one you get into through Jesus. You get adopted in, God becomes your Father, you become a son or a daughter, Jesus becomes your brother, and you receive his Spirit to lead you and help you.

Family is important. Everything is connected to family. Everyone here has a family, whether it has been a good one or a bad one, whether you are close with your family or whether your are distant. Family is not always easy. I’m not too much a statistics guy but last year the U.S. Census Bereau said that 33% of children lived in split homes, where the parents were either divorced, serparated, or just never got together. That means every 1 in 3 children to day come from divided families. And that is not to mention all the families who are together, but the mom or dad is a drug, alcohol, or porn additct, or beats their kids or cheats on their spouse or is just a workaholic who neglects their kids and pays a nanny to raise them.

And I’m not a big psychology dude either, no offense to you psych majors…but I do think it is true that it is probably impossible not think of who God is as Father, or what it means to be in Jesus family, without thinking about your own family and what kind of family you grew up in. Life is about family. You can’t not have a family. Family is important. And the Bible agrees. The Bible’s perspective is that every family is intended to reflect the spiritual reality that God is the ultimate Father that all earthly fathers are to emulate. And Jesus is the ultimate child whose example all of us as children are to follow. Having and being in God’s family meets the longing of our hearts and mends any family wounds from our earthly families.

In our passage last week we dealt mainly with verses 12-13 whose words tell us that one way you know you are in the family is by loving and cherishing the things Jesus’ family does and hating the things Jesus’ family hates. And in order to do that you must consider life on eath war. Because sin is a reality and death will surely succomb those who do not fight. This week I want to mainly deal with part of verse 14 and part of verse 15. I want to try and answer the question of who is in the family? Or how you get in? Verse 14, says all, who are led. So who are the “all”? I want to try and answer the question of what is that members receive? Verse 15 says, there is a receiving of a Spirit? What is that? How does that happen and what is the result?

I. Who are the Members? “as many as”

It may seem like a given that if there is a God and he actually created humans then we are all his children or at least all people who say they believe in Jesus, surely they are members of God’s family. That may seem obvious. But one of the ways you handle the Bible right, so you don’t just take something it says and then go running away with it and make it say whatever you want it to say, is to ask questions. Especially because sometimes it seems very clear that the authors are trying to answer some specific question that could potentially be in his reader’s heads. I think that is something like what we have here. Who are the members of Jesus’ family?

Verse 14 says, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” And verse 15 says, “you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption.” So there is this receiving of God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus. And who does the receiving? “All” or more literally from the Greek text behind the English translation, “as many as” are led. And how do you know you are led? That was last week’s sermon…you know you are led because there is a fight in you, you actually care about sin and right and wrong and you feel bad when you hurt people and mess up and you know you are a sinner and need a savior…and you make it your life resolve to fight sin by embracing Jesus.

Last week we focused on our need, every Christian’s need to fight. You may be a passivist politically but you cannot be a passivist spiritually. If you don’t fight you lose because whether you like or not there is a war for your soul. But this week, I want us to notice first of all that fighting is not what get’s you into the family. Just struggling and trying to be a better person does not save you or end up actually making you better. So what does? Verse 15 answers by saying that it has something to do with this receiving of the Spirit. That is the beginning. You receive the Spirit and then you are led and because you are led you fight. But receiving is the beginning. So who receives and how do they do that?

To answer the question of who receives the Spirit I want to go to book called “The Gospel According to John” and then hopefully that will help us answer the question of how. John was one Jesus closest followers from the beginning and after Jesus died and rose and comssioned his followers to start His church, one of the ways John helped to do that was by writing a book about what he had seen and heard from Jesus. In the very first chapter, speaking about Jesus, he writes this, “(He was) the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (Jn 1:9-12).”

So John says, all, or as many as, did receive Jesus become children of God. And Romans 8 agrees that becoming a child of God belongs to all, or as many as, receive Jesus’ Spirit. So I think what we have here is two different passages of Scripture that clearly say the same thing.

Now at this point, we haven’t really got much new information to our question of who receives and how. We’ve got a little more to the story in how it happens. A person comes in contact with a Jesus, or a teaching about him, and based on that they either believe he is who he claimed to be the son of God and the one who can save our souls or he is liar or some quasi off-base spritual lunatic. But those who do believe, they become children of God. [As a side-note, I don’t think the word “right” in the verse means it is something God owes us, like it is our right! No, I think it means privilege (but we don’t have time for that right now…fill out a doubt card and put it in the doubt box if you want to know more about it).]

So John says that someone encounters Jesus and his teaching and based on that at some point believes and in that believing there is a receiving. How does that happen? The receiving? There are some weird ideas out there and then there are a lot of faint attempts to grasp at what it is.

Probably one of the wierdest I have ever seen was when I was a youth pastor, almost 10 years ago now, I took my youth group kids up to a summer camp. There was a preacher there and he was talking about Jesus and encourage kids to receive Jesus and his spirit. And then he invited all kids who wanted to receive Jesus to stand up and walk forward to the front and so there were a bunch of kids sort of gathered around the stage, kind of like at a concert. I was sitting in my seat and wondering what was going to happen next, to be honest a little wierded out…but I started to really freak out when I saw these people wheeling these carts toward the front and on these carts were these pitchers full of water. I sort of just put my head down in my lap and started praying, “oh no God!” The preacher then took these pitchers of water and started throwing the water on the kids and telling them that once the water hit them they would receive Jesus. So I thought I would try that today, anybody want to get doused? J That was weird and I don’t think that is what the either the text in Romans or the one in John means.

I think what it means is something deep in the heart which happens when one realizes their deep spiritual need and come to believe that Jesus can actually meet that need. And one of the reasons I wanted to go to the book of “The Gospel of John” is because there are a couple passages in it which I think further describe how this receiving happens. The first verse, is John 6:35-44, “35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”

Now there is a lot there I know, but we essentially have the same story. There is Jesus, he is saying that he is more than just a man, and that people need to believe in him. In verse 40 Jesus says those who get God as their father “looks on the Son and believes in him.” How do you look on the Son? I think that is the question the dudes who don’t get it are asking. We know this Jesus guy, I’m looking at him right now. What do you mean look? How do you look? How do you receive? I think look and receive here are the same thing. Jesus answer to how that happens comes in verse 44, the Father draws you. Hmmm…the Father draws. How Jesus?

Four chapters later in John’s gospel Jesus tells us. John 10:8,12, “when (the Holy Spirit) comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment…(and) he will guide you into all the truth.”

Jesus answer is that the way we receive is by being drawn by God, who draws by convicting us of sin and then guiding us to truth (repeat). Conviction has to deal with conscience. When you feel and know that things are not right, that you are not right and that you cannot make yourself right. And that is a humbling experience. To be broken down, shown that you don’t have it all together, and then to be built back up by God’s truth. Our souls must be taught that everything is about God. Everything begins with God’s initiative. He sends his son Jesus into the world. He draws us unto himself. He convicts us by his Spirit. And his Spirit guides us to truth. Everything from the beginning and all the way through is because of God’s doing.

In the coming weeks we will talk about the security of our spiritual family, that we become permanent sons and daughter apopted forever into his family and we experience the reality of that. But even here we notice that the receiving is something that God ensures. He ensures the offer of his Son and he ensures the follow through by his Spirit. So if you have ever wondered about whether someone who is a Christian can become not a Christian later…without even talking about a host of other Scriptures, we can say assuredly from these texts, that once you are in Jesus’ family, you are in. Once you receive God’s Spirit it is for good. You cannot be ousted from God’s family. He doesn’t change his mind and do all that work just to abandon us. Jesus family is stable and secure and you can count on it. Your real family may fail you at times but Jesus family comes with a God who says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

So I think the answer to the question to how you receive God’s Spirit is you recognize that you don’t have what it takes and that you on your own, by yourself are a failure, and you respond to God’s drawing. This is the life of the believer. This is how you fight. By becoming more and more dependent upon God and the help of his Spirit. And the more that happens the more you know you are His and He is yours. Which brings us the question of what we receive when we receive Jesus’ Spirit?

II. What do the Members Receive? “led by the Spirit”

So we get into God’s family by humbling ourselves and embracing Jesus. What is the benefit? Why would anyone want that? What is it that members receive? Let’s go back to Romans. Romans 8:14 says, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” and verse 15 says that the sons received Jesus’ Spirit. So if we follow that backwards (we’ll look forwards next week and talk about fear), receiving Jesus’ Spirit results in being led, the answer is leadership.

In life we are repeatedly faced with big decisions. Where should I live? Where should I go to school? Who should I marry? What church should I be a part of? What job should I work at? What should my major be? Should we have kids? How many? How long am I going to work? What do I do when I’ve been working my whole life and don’t want to work? At every stage of life there are different questions and decsions that naturally arise. Not to mention the decisions that take you by surprise and you have to act fast. And it is interesting to me that it is often when we faced with those kinds of things or decisions that then we turn to God. Then he matters and is a big deal. I call it being a crisis Christian. That when crisis hits then you are all about praying and trying to figure out what God wants. But there is an inherent question in there of how you figure stuff out. If you do turn to God how does he lead you?

I think we all have a natural desire to be lead. If you haven’t figured it out yet, if you are going to actually live and walk and try and do something with your life you are going to have to do it alone. Or else you will be a follower your entire life and never do anything or become anything meaningful. When it comes down to it in life, you are always alone. Whether you are married or not, have a close family or not, when it comes down to it you are alone. And in that aloneness when you realize that it comes down to you, you will find yourself groping and longing for leadership…groping and longing for answers…groping and longing for God.

And it is funny to me how that works itself out sometimes. One time I was in Ogden, Utah speaking at a camp. And Amy and I were staying at the Pastor’s house. And we got up for breakfast one of the mornings and found out that her husband had just been in a car accident late the night before and was in the hospital that morning. She had been there most of the night to see him but had come back and made breakfast for us. There was bacon and eggs and fruit and all kinds of stuff. And before we ate she prayed for the meal and after she was done we started eating. I was taking a bite of fruit, I think it was a piece of pineapple, and just as I was biting it off my fork, this woman screamed out, “he didn’t see him!” I almost fell off my chair and was said, “What? What do you mean? What are you talking about?” She said, “He didn’t see him! God just told me, the guy who hit my husband didn’t see him!” It was the craziest thing. Does this woman think she has God’s cell phone number or she hearing voices in her head or what? We have a name for that, its called schizophrenia. J

I bring that story up because I think that is what we are sometimes longing for when we pray and ask God for leadership. We are wanting to hear voices or something and what we actually end up with often is us taking what we want to do and sort of sanctifying it because we prayed about it and think that God is in it and that is what he wants. It’s like you know what you want to do…but you know you shouldn’t really do it…so you pray about it and like a letter you put your prayer stamp on it and then think it is okay. But you really know it isn’t.

I don’t think that is how God’s Spirit leads. Next week we will talk more about how God’s Spirit leads and how it is not out of fear but out of love in being part of a close knit family. And we’ll look at the Old Testament story of how God’s Spirit led back then and still does now. But how I want to conclude the general question today is about how God’s Spirit leads us is by looking at the tangible provision God’s Spirit has given us.

If you look back at Romans 8 in our passage and continue working backwards…verse 15 says we receive Jesus’ Spirit, verse 14 says those who receive are led, and versees 12-13 says those who are led fight. So then, my last question for today is does the Bible have anything to say about how the Spirit helps us fight? If we are not supposed to listen for voices in our head then how does God’s lead his family members by his Spirit? Does the Bible have anything to say about that?

Yes. In Ephesians chapter 6, the Bible uses this analogy of life on earth being a war and considers the Christian in terms of armor of solider. There is belt arounds ones waist, which is God’s truth, there is a breastplate, which is God’s righteousness, there are steel toed shoes, which are God’s peace, there is a shield, which is faith, there is a helmet, which is salvation, and lastly, there is a sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, the Bible. In is interesting that every single piece of armor which is mentioned is defensive, except one, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

So I think the answer to the question of how God leads us, is by the Bible getting a hold of us. God leads in much more practical ways then voices in our head. He leads through imparted wisdom. Written instruction that will enable us to make smart decisions, that will enable us to fight well, that will enable us to be strong and know the love with surpasses all love, wisdom that will enable us to build good families. There is an old saying, which says, “This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.”

The Bible is God’s gift to us. That is the means God uses to tell us about his family. That is how we first hear about Jesus and come into the family. That is how His Spirit guides us into truth and tells us how to live. That is how he leads us and teaches us so that we make wise decisions and have solid lives and families. By giving us a book to lead us and instruct us.

Conclusion

Okay, let’s conclude this sermon. As I was studying and working on today’s message and I came to this point I could not help but feel like a good majority of everything I have said so far is just sort of out there. The main two questions I have tried to deal with is who is in God’s family and what good is it, why do you even want to be in it?

I believe the desire to be in Jesus’ family is not just a desire for those who, in your life, family has been hard. I don’t think Paul here is teaching us that the gospel of Jesus’ family is that if your family sucks then you can have Jesus’ family, though that is true and it is true that no family is perfect but is made beautiful and close and loving by having Christ be the center of it. But I believe the desire to be in Jesus’ family goes much deeper. Family is blood. You can’t change it. It is who you are. It is woven within the fabric of our beings and our place in this world and I believe God designed it that way so that we would know and long for him.

The theology here, if you will, is that life is about family…family is so important and all families are inseperably connected to God. God is the fabric of family. Families are intended to be centers of love and care and protection and support. And that is who God is…God is the great Father who provides and protects and pours out grace and love toward us through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Everything is connected to family. So my plea today…if you are disconnected, if you are separated from the life of God and his loving and tender care, my plea is behold God’s Son, Jesus. Look on him. Receive him. Turn to him in faith and trust and be welcomed into his family. He came into this world to seek and to save those who are lost. He seeks you out today and bids you to come. Whatever things may have happened, whether they happened to you or whether they are things you have done…there is nothing that would keep Jesus from wanting you. There is no blot too dark, no stain too red, no blemish too ugly. Jesus welcomes all. As many as will receive him, he grants the blessing of becoming beloved children of God. Don’t walk in this world, don’t go through this life alone, walk with Jesus. There is a unlimited supply of love and grace and forgiveness to be had from Jesus.

My plea for those who do belong to Jesus’ family is to cherish it. Don’t neglect your family. Don’t miss the dinners. Come and eat and be filled. Come and dine and let us share life together. Let us each week come and be satisfied at his table. Let us learn and grow and be led. Let us not be too proud and too rebellious where we have to do it all on our own. Instead of being independent let us become dependent upon God and the bountiful blessings he provides for his own. May we be lead and taught by his Spirit who so wisely instructs and equips us with His written Word. Let us learn and know and live by this book.

For parents, teach your children the Bible. Teach them to love. Teach them the stories in it. Tell them about Jesus and how God loves them and that is why you love them. Dad’s learn how to be a good dad from how God leads and instructs you. Mom’s learn how to be a good mom from how God nurtures and cares for you. Kid’s love wisdom. In order to become who God made you to be, it takes learning and being taught a lot of things, so be patient and let your parents lead you so that you can know how to make good decisions on your own and not just do whatever you feel like.

As a church, let us be a family that welcomes new people into our community. If you are new here today, we are glad you are here and hope we might be a church you can call home.

Let’s pray. God bless our time of communion with you now as we come to your table to pray and give thanks and to focus on Jesus and his great provision for us on the cross, so that we might truly become your children. Bless the offering of our hearts in this act. Bless the money we give as a token of our worship. Bless your people. Amen.

:: The Resolved Church :: September 23rd, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets

The Jesus Family Series
Part III - “The Family of Old”

Introduction
I. The Exodus Story
II. The Pillar of Fire and Cloud
III. God’s Spirit Leads His Family
Conclusion

Today we are going into sermon three of our Jesus Family Series. This morning I’m dealing with just a few words, “led by the Spirit of God” in vs.14. Last week we began talking about these words but we didn’t really get into them a whole lot. I brought up the point that all of us want leadership in our life. There are times and decisions which come up in every person’s life, whether you are following Jesus or not, and you just wish someone would tell you what to do. It would be a lot easier that way.

At that point, when you really got to make a decision, a lot of people get super Christian all of a sudden and they are praying and trying to figure out what to do real hard. That’s how half the people who now live in San Diego ended up here! They were praying and praying and the result was that God told them to come here. Don’t get me wrong. But I think our beaches and and our sun the girls that go along with that often have a lot more to do with that than God.

So I made a point that God isn’t stupid and he doesn’t just expect us to make decisions based on some voice we hear in our head which we make up to be him. Instead he gave us a book, the Bible written by men who knew God, the real God, and they wrote down the things he told them to in their own way and style. 2 Timothy 3:16 says the Bible is Spirit-breathed, so the main author of the Bible is God and the main way God expects us to make decisions, to be led by the Spirit is to get to know the Bible so that we can make wise informed decisions. The danger of following voices in our head is that what we like, or experience, or what is comfortable becomes the driving force behind our decisions and we are just putting a God tag on that and he is calling us here and then there and then over here and our God starts to look real schitzophrenic.

That’s the kind of Christianity I grew up with. So when I was in college I went out to pray on these clifffs that overlooked the ocean and I kept waiting for some bush or rock to catch on fire and start speaking to me to tell me what to do with my life. I should have just kept reading my Bible and figuring out my gifts, which is what I ultimately ended up doing anyway.

Today we are going to be looking at a story in the Old Testament. The whole Bible is about Jesus and the Bible is divided two parts, just as history is divided into two parts…the time before Jesus came to earth and died on the cross and the time afterward. Everything is about Jesus, he is the center focal point of history and of the whole Bible.

The Exodus Story

The reason I want to go to the Old Testament today is because we are not into using the Bible to make up our own meaning and interpretation…we want to get in the author’s head and the human author of Romans, Paul, he was a Jew. He was a really really good Jew, sort of like the valedictorian of Judaism…circumcised on the 8th day, of the trible of Benjamin, trained in Jewish law, before coming to believe in Jesus a very prominent and well respected professional Jewish lawyer. He, undoubtedly had the Jewish law, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, memorized word for word. Even mediocre Jewish boys in his day had the Torah memorized by age 13. So Paul, in this verse of Romans says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Those are his words, and I cannot conceive that there is any way he could have written that without thinking of a certain passage in the Old Testament.

Let me read it for you, this is Exodus 13:17-22. ” 17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” 18 But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. 19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.” 20 And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. 21 And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. 22 The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.”

Here is what is going on…I’ll set up the story for you. The first five books of the Bible and really the whole Bible itself, follow this theme of God gathering a people for himself…creating a spritual family of worshippers who come to know him and love him and care for each other and the world around them. God is big on having an intimate and special family. He starts out with Adam and Eve, they botch things up pretty good because they lose it and start talking to snakes, one of their sons ends up killing the other one, the family falls apart. Noah comes along and he’s able to do some good stuff for awhile but he ends up drunk and naked in his tent and his sons are trying to get him to have sex with his daughters.

Then God comes to Abraham, who lives in ancient Mesopotamia and tells him that he is going to take him out of his land and create a people from his descendents who will be God’s people, his family. Abraham believes God and his belief is credited to him because as righteousness. And Abraham needed it because he tries to pimp out his wife to the local king in order to try and find favor with him. Abraham’s son, Isaac, like father like son, he ends up doing the same thing and trying to pimp out his wife to a guy named Abimelech. Isaac’s son Jacob ends up this lying swindling theif, who robs his brother and everyone else he knows and is always lying about it. He and O.J. were good friends.

Isaac has several sons and one day they take the youngest son Joseph and beat him up and sell him to these Egyptian guys traveling through. While in Egypt Joseph ends up making friends with the Pharaoh and before you know it he is running the place, literally. So all his family ends up moving out there and they stay there for a few hundred years and their family just grows and grows.

Somewhere along the way things took a turn for the worst and the whole Israelite family, the ones who were supposed to be God’s people, end up at the bottom of society as slaves and are no longer getting invited to the kings mansion in La Jolla for the good meals and instead they are scrubbing toliets in National City and making bricks. It’s no fun. Life sucks. They are all on meds and freaking out. And what do you do when life sucks? Then you start praying and become super Christian right? J

But God is a God of grace and compassion and so he listens to their cries and says okay, I’ll deliver you out of Egypt and when I do I going to show you what kind of God I am. There is this great line in Exodus 9 where God says why he did all this and he says it is so, “My power …(and) my name might be proclaimed in all the earth (Ex. 9:16).” Life is about God and his glory. There is only one true God and only one who is worthy of worship and praise. That is the God we serve.

Egypt was much like San Diego, where you got a lot of different gods, a lot of different religions. And each person was just sort of free to pick which God and religion you like and worship them. That didn’t make the real God to happy, so when he delivers Israel out of Egypt he attacks all their gods. The goddess of the Nile was Hapi, so in the first plague God, Yahweh, the real God, turns her river blood red. In the second plague God, Yahweh, goes after the god of the crops, a statue they worshipped named Heqt who had the head of a frog, so God sends a swarm of frogs into the land to kill all the crops. In the third and fourth plagues Yahweh goes after the god Kheper, a bettle who was supposed to be the insect god of the life and creation, so Yahweh sends gnats and flies all over the land covering it like dust. Apis, was the god of the cattle, so in the fifth plague God kills all the livestock. Imhotep, was the god of medicine, so in the sixth plague, Yahweh sends incurable boils to break out on man and beast. The god, Nut, was to control the weather in order to protect the crops, so God sends this gnarly hail strom to ruin all the fields in the seventh plague. The god, Seth was the god of the harvest, so in the eighth plague Yahweh sends in locusts to eat up any remaining food not yet damaged. In the ninth plague, Yahweh goes after the god of the sun, Ra, and causes an unheard of visible and internal darkness to cover the land. And in the tenth and final plague Yahweh goes after Pharoah himself, who was considered to be the people’s divine ruler, and Yahweh strikes down his family.

The lesson is don’t piss God off. I worry about some of you guys sometimes and the decisions you make, and the other functional saviors other than Jesus you turn to. God is a good God and he cares and he will judge. He is slow to anger, but he does have a limit to how much he will take from us.

The lesson really isn’t don’t piss God off, although that is there. The lesson is God is gathering a people for himself and showing them that he is the true God and he is a God worthy to be worshipped. So finally, after all the plagues, the Pharoah let’s God’s people go and God leads them. Verse 21 & 22 of Exodus 13, “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.”

The Pillar of Fire and a Cloud

This story gets ingrained in Jewish history and identity. This pillar of fire and cloud is going before them and it stays with them for years and shows up in several places even after that. We hear about it in Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Nehemiah, in the Psalms, and we see it again in at the end of the Bible in the book of Revelation. A pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. What is that all about?

The Rastafarians and all the potheads love this story. They think the pilar of cloud and fire is Moses and Aarron way up in front of everybody, smoking this giant peace pipe. I love talking to those guys. All you got to do is walk down Newport Ave. in OB and strike up a conversation with one of the many guys smoking a blunt. They love talking about God! They’re always like, “yeah man, I read the Bible, it says God made the herb…”

So if that’s what you were thinking I’m sorry, it doesn’t mean that. In the Bible whenver the presence of God is mentioned, it is often accompanied by one of these two things. Either fire or a cloud or both. It is called a theophany. Where God manifests his presence in a particular way. And these two things symbolize some important things about God. He is a powerful God and he is to be feared. He can smoke you if he wants. There is only one God and I’m not him. I may not agree or understand sometimes but I have a small brain. God is holy and none can defeat him.

The fire of God often represents God’s purity. God is a good God. In the ocean of his existence there is not a single drop of impurity, not a single crack or error. All his ways are perfect and all his judgments are true. When he strikes it is usually long-over due. He sees and understands things in correct proportion and knows the true heart of man. Fire has this purifying power. If you boil something it rids it of germs or pestilences. If you have an open wound on your arm and you burn it with hot metal it will heal. So fire represents not only God’s power but also his purity.

What about the cloud? Clouds or smoke show up several times in the Bible. A cloud fills the temple after it is first build and the priest is exposed to the glory of God inside the temple. After that they started putting a rope around the priests ankle in case when he went in the glory of God overwhelmed and he died, they could pull him and without having to go in. In the New Testament, God speaks to the people when Jesus starts his ministry and says, “This is my son, listen to him.” And then toward the end of his ministry, Jesus goes up on a mountain and the glory of God descends in a cloud and Jesus face turns as bright of the sun and some of the disciples see it. And after Jesus dies on a cross, he returns to heaven, levitating on a cloud.

Clouds, throughout the Bible, often represent God’s presence and with them a sense of mystery and awe. There is a sense of God being overwhelming and transcendedent…that he is greater than this whole world and greater than all that we can conceive. He is the one true and awesome God! And he concsends and makes himself known to us. He is a present God. Who who cares and takes care of his people. He protects and provides for his family.

God’s Spirit Leads His Family

Okay. So what’s the point? How does all this jive together? Romans is saying God leads his by his Spirit and those who leads are the ones in his family. And I’ve been saying that he doesn’t do that mainly by leaving us to the whim of our subjective individual experiences but more through his written Word which is sure and reliable. But in this Exodus story, which says almost the exact same thing, that God leads his people by His Spirit, there it is by some experience where his people see and feel the effects of having a pillar of fire and a cloud in front of them. I’m guessing it was off in the distance, like you couldn’t go touch it and talk to it or anything. But it was visible. So what is going on here? Don’t those seem to be two different things?

I think this is what was up. I believe God was teaching his people to trust his Word. God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…that the Lord would make them into God’s people. And when Israel was back in Egypt and crying out to God for deliverance, God responded and verse 24 of chapter two says it was because God “remembered his covenant.” God remembered his covenant and want to demonstrate to his people that they could trust him. His word is sure and true. Now they didn’t have the written Bible yet, but their story became the written Bible when God asked Moses to record it, and it became the source for rememberence and for trusting God. God wanted to uniquely reveal himself, not as a god who could be pictured in statue form but as a God who acts and makes himself known in written accounts of his actions. And that is exactly what this story became.

When I get up in the morning I read my Bible every day. That is what God’s word says his people are to do. So I do that, whether I feel like it or not. But the other day as I was working on this sermon I just happened to be reading Psalm 78. I’ve been reading through the Psalms for awhile and it was just the next Psalm. And Psalm 78 recounts the whole exodus story and about a quarter of the way into the story mentions how God led his people by a cloud by day and a fiery light at night (Ps. 78:14).” That story had become the Psalmist’s story, even though those events had happened so many years before him. And in the same way, the exodus story becomes our story…the story of our God and what he is like and that he leads and guides us.

Have you ever wondered why sometimes you read the Bible and all these crazy things seem to happen and you are like, “Well, I’ve never seen that.” I think it is because God doesn’t do that stuff very often. It’s not like he needs to do it for each and every generation because he already did it and its recorded. And even if we did experience that, it is no guarantee it would even help us.

Exodus says that God was leading them. He was leading them to the promised land…the place where they would build a city and a house to worship God in. But several of those people did not enter the promised land, in fact hardly any did. It is because seeing something, or having something proven to you, does not make you love God. Love doesn’t work like that. You can put a beautiful woman before me and tell me all about how great her features are, but that doesn’t make me love her. It is something that happens in the heart. I love my wife, and she is very beautiful, but that is not the thing which drives my love for her.

Something has to happen in our hearts because our hearts do not naturally love God. Which is why Jesus came. In exodus they were on a journey to the promised land. And in the journey God showed his people how much they needed him, how they needed a savior. Today, we are all on a journey as well. Our last sermon series was all about that, the walk we walk while on earth and how when Jesus came, he became the promised land. The exodus journey to the promised land was all a set up for the time when Jesus would come, when he becomes the center of worship. In John 4 Jesus said a time was to come and had then come in him, when true worshippers would no longer worship in a distinct geographical location but would worship in Spirit and in truth.

That is Jesus. He comes and lives a perfect life and then dies on a cross for our sin, for our broken, messed up, disbelieving, hard hearts and then he gives us a new heart and starts to redeem and change us. He gives us his Spirit and as we get to know him through God’s word he leads and guides and direcets the course of our lives. He makes us wise and strong. Just as God was teaching his people of old to trust him and his word is is trying to teach us that today. To trust him and to follow him and to believe his word is true and that his son Jesus did actually come and die and rise again so that we can have new life.

Conclusion

This is the great exchange. Humanity is broken and continually broken. The whole Old Testament goes through story after story to show us that. God is to be worshipped and adored and we don’t do that, which deserves death and destruction and judgment. But God is a great and a good God and sends his son to die in our place, to satisfy the wrathful judgment of God. He takes it on himself and in so doing becomes our savior. He stands in front of us and saves us.

Jesus changes our heart and from that point on he continually gives himself to us. We spend a life of seeing how much our hearts have been contaminated…how much and how often we continually turn to other Jesuses, other saviors, and Jesus continually offers himself to us and saves us and spares us.

What Jesuses you ask? You know them better than I do. The things you are most afraid of and where you turn for help. When you are down, how you try and find comfort. It’s how you deal with the things you complain about and make you angry and bother you. Do you turn to some functional messiah like the arms of a boy, or the kiss of a girl? Do you turn to some stimulatant like a pill or ten beers so you don’t feel a thing? Do you turn to work and try and save yourself by building a big bank account? What do you live for? There are a ton of answers and we all turn to other saviors and need Jesus again and again to apply his gospel to our hearts. Take away our sin and pour in himself.

God is all about his family. He has done everything to gather together a people for himself. He created us and He died for us. He has been patient with us as we have all failed him and continually do. Jesus came into this world for us. So don’t turn to any other savior’s but Jesus. Let him, by his Spirit, lead you. Make your life all about Jesus and being part of his family.

:: The Resolved Church :: September 30th, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets

The Jesus Family Series
Part IV - “Adopted Forever”

Introduction
I. The Old Family of Fear
II. The New Family by Adoption
III. The Father of the Family
Conclusion

Introduction

Good morning The Resolved Church. It is a beautiful day here in San Diego. Of course there is probably only like one Sunday a year when it isn’t beautiful outside. That is why it is so difficult to start a church here. Surfing, the Beach, the Zoo, Sea World, one of 20 outdoor malls…there’s just a lot of stuff to do. But we’ve been starting a church here in San Diego, the 8th largest city in the U.S. So I’m glad you’re here. A recent article from a local magazine said that San Diego, the second largest city in California, is the fifth fastest growing city because “(It is a) cauldron of creativity where the most important ideas and the organizations of tomorrow are centered. (It) attract(s) the best and the brightest. There are great places to work and live.” If paying $500,000 dollars for a 2-bedroom condo, means it’s the best, then he is right!

I love San Diego. I spent summers staying at my grandparents house from when I was a little kid. That’s where I learned to surf. Then I moved down here permanently to go to college and it was in those first couple of years when I really came to believe in the gospel, that I was a sinner and that Jesus died for my sin and became a Chrisitian. The next year I met my beautiful wife and fell madly in love with her. I wanted to marry her only after a year of dating but my friends convinced me that was crazy so I waited another two and half years. That was 1997 when we met and here we are 10 years later having our first baby and starting a church. San Diego is a city that greatly needs the gospel. Only about 6% of the people here claim to be Christians. And it is expected that our city will have another million people move here within the next 20 years. So we have some work to do and we need you.

Since the task is so great we are trying to lay a good foundation here at The Resolved Church by going through the book of Romans, the clearest and most precise presentation of the gospel in the entire Bible. Right now we are in chapter 8 and we are in a series called “The Jesus Family” series where we are studying Romans 8:12-17. This is now the fourth sermon in this text so let me quickly talke you through what we have talked about so far.

The first sermon was about fighting sin, “putting to death” the misdeeds of the body as verse 13 says. So we talked about how being a Christian is not easy and you must consider life on earth war. When you first come to believe Jesus, that is just the beginning, when the gospel first starts working in you and after that it continues. The gospel becomes your life-blood. And being in Jesus’ family becomes a great aid in warring against your sin because there are certain things Jesus’ family values and cares about and you don’t want to disappoint your family.

Then in our second sermon we talked mainly about the first part of verse 14, that the evidence of being in the family is not only that you put up a fight, but that you become teachable and willing to follow God’s leadership in your life. A core trait of our sin is that it is rebellious…we want to do what we want. But when we enter Jesus’ family he shows us we don’t know as much as we think we do and we need his help and guidance and so follow him. And in that sermon I took on this foolish practice that has arisen in some Christian circles that when you need to make a decision about something all you need to do is pray about it and whatever you feel or sense God’s Spirit is telling you is what he want you to do. That is not the main way God wants to direct our lives, instead he has given us a book, the Bible, and by knowing it we can make wise informed decisions. Prayer is to help us be obedient.

That was sermon number two. Then last week we went to the Old Testament to study a story that had become permanently branded in Jewish minds and identity about a time when God led his people with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Paul, our human author of Romans was a stellar Jew and surely would have had that story in mind when he wrote in Romans that as Chrisitans we are to be led by God’s Spirit. We learned from that story that God’s leadership of his family is one where he provides his presence (he doesn’t leave or abandon us), he protects his family, and he purifies them.

So here we are in our fourth sermon and today we are going to get deep into verses 15 & 16. But before we do let’s read the whole passage and then pray over it. Read text and pray.

Father God. You are the God of this book, the God of your Son Jesus, the God of the gospel. Help us as we study these words today. Through them would you draw us close to yourself. May we come to believe in the gospel. Save our souls. Open us the great wonder of who you are and what you have done for us by having Jesus die on the cross so that we could be adopted into your family. May these words become building blocks in our life as we come to know and realize who we are and what kind of family we are in with you. Amen.

I. The Old Family of Fear

I want to pick up the text this morning at the end of verse 14 where we read that those “who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” And the first thing I want to do is dispell a couple wrong impressions you could get from these words. I don’t want you to get tripped up over them and a lot of times we get tripped up over the Bible and almost always the problem isn’t that the Bible is teaching something hard or outlandish, but the problem is us, and our historical and spiritual distance from the text.

Our theme, is that if your heart has been humbled and changed by the gospel and you start to care about sin and are willing to be led instead of being your own leader, that’s a sign you are a son of God. Now it would be easy, especially in our day, when we are hyper sensitive to any distinguishing between gender roles, it would be easy to say…”see look, there goes Paul again, he’s so anti-women in his writings…all he cares about is sons.” What about the daughters?!!!

So let me just dispell that notion real quick. What Paul is saying here actually gives women a higher standing and role in context to Paul’s day and culture. You see, in the first century, when this was written, the adopton of daughters did not have the same legal right as an adoption of sons. Only sons could receive the whole rights and legal privieges of becoming part of a family. Paul is talking about adoption here and is using the cultural analogy. So by saying “all” who are led enter the place of “sons” in adoption, that means women actually move up in their status and value in the divine family, not down. This isn’t a text like the “Gospel of Thomas” that the Da Vinchi Code wants to include in the Bible, a text that says women must become men in order to for God to love them. The Bible doesn’t say that, it says women can receive the blessings that are given to adopted sons.

So don’t stumble over that. We shouldn’t translate it “sons and daughters” because the word daughter isn’t there and if we added it we would lose the cultural value and significance of these words. But daughters know that you here in these words are welcomed and honored and privileged in the divine family.

That’s the first false notion I want to dispell, the second has to do with the whole idea of being children of God, of being sons or daughters of God…and this will lead us into our first main point for today as we look at “The Old Family of Fear.” The second potential stumbling point for us today over these words is to think we are merely talking about a realization that we are all children of God, that God is universally the Father of all mankind because he created everything.

There is a great thrust not only in theological circles today, but also in various cultural ideas, that all we need is “realization.” That our problem is just that we don’t “realize” who we are. I disagree. From pop cultural psychology of self-betterment to the theology known as “The New Perspective” this idea of realization runs rampad. I think the problem is much deeper than just the need to realize some things. I think we have a heart problem and we need to be changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. My problem is not just that I’m dumb and don’t realize things. My problem is my heart, I don’t think and feel and love the way I should.

But let us just entertain this idea of the universal fatherhood of God for a moment. If we are saying these words teach us that we are God’s children and he is our father simply because he created us, then by that line of thinking every living thing is his child from Charles Manson to the birds and the trees and dogs people pretend are kids, and the spiders that will not leave my office…they are sons of God and cry Abba Father and are adpoted into the family. You see, that is not what is here. This passage of Scripture is telling us that there is an intimate relationship with God as Father to be had that comes through putting your faith in the person and work of Jesus and being adopted into the family. And that is whole different thing.

What this tells us is that not all God’s children are God’s children. Yes, God is the creator and we are the creatures. But not all people are God’s children. Some are as Jesus said, children of the devil! I know you’re not supposed to talk about the devil. But I’m not kidding. Jesus said that, he is gnarly. Listen to his words, John 8:42 & 44 “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here…You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.” That’s Jesus saying that, not me. He was pretty hell-fire and brimstone at times. I have no idea what that means, brimstone? I just know you are not supposed to talk about hell in church these days, it’s not kosher. But I’m a rebel.

The teaching of the Bible is that we all, all of us are born into sin. From our youth to our adulthood we are demanding and unsatisfied and worship and seek and serve other gods and our hearts are led astray by the false promises these false gods make. We pay these gods homage and time and energy to follow and try and get what they promise and they never come through. This is what Paul is bringing up here when he says Christians did not “receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.” He is talking about the old master, the old father, the old family, we lived and served in before becoming a Christian…it’s the same family and father and master we are continually tempted to fall back into and sometimes we do.

So let’s talk a little about this spirit of slavery and fear and the old family. First, slavery. Slavery is a loaded word, especially here in America which has such a blotted history of racial discrimination and slavery. Almost immediately the worst connotations can start coming into many people’s minds, and its especially hard to talk about because I am a white guy standing here talking about Jesus and all the imaginary paintings we see of Jesus are of this nice white dude with a beard. That slavery has even happened in history is sometimes a huge barrier for many regarding the Bible and God and Christianity itself.

So some stuff about slavery. Slavery was intense in the first century, especially for the Jew, who had experienced slavery in Egypt…it was imprinted into their racial consciousness much like the black community’s slavery here in America is inseperable to every black person’s idenity today. And so Paul goes after this word “slavery” to say something radical about Jesus and the gospel.

Slaves in the 1st century were big business. It is estimated that 35-40% of all of Rome was slaves. Sometimes being a slave wasn’t so bad. If people had a hard run at things they could sell themselves into slavery to avoid a ruinous debt, they could give up themselves for food and housing. If you did that it was a willing offering or presenting of yourself to a master. You would go to the master of your choosing and present yourself and offer to be their slave. Or sometimes this would happen when a master would free a slave making him a “freedman” who could own land and everything…about 5% of Rome was made up of freedmen. But some freedman would in turn give themselves back to their master because they had grown to love and respect them so much.

So that’s some stuff about slavery but Paul takes the negative side of slavery, the brutal kind, the one of whips and deprivation of meals and an overbearing load and recognizes it as being one that operates out of fear, a spirit of slavery and fear. He says this is what we are and how we live before Jesus. Everyone serves someone or something. You cannot help but worship or serve. You serve what you love and what or who you love becomes your master and you serve it as a slave. And when we do that we serve out of fear. Fear that if we do not appease the demands put before us, things will not go well for us and we will be miserable.

And this can happen for irreligious people and religious people alike when it comes to God. For irreligious people it goes like this. If God is a big bad God who is going to set up rules for what is right and wrong and punish me if I don’t follow them then forget God, I’m going to do what I want. And so you embark on a path of self-discovery and experimentation and trying to create your own religion. That is very popular to do these days. What we don’t realize is that we are still following someone and some teaching. A teaching that says God is wrong and you can decide eternal truths yourself and the person whose teaching you are listening to, though it may come from a friend or a movie or whatever…Jesus says that teaching is ultimately comes from the devil. This is moral independence and you end up becoming your own God because you have been motivated by a fear of unhappiness rather than a fearful love of God.

But it works with religious people too. Religious people, say okay there is a God and I’m going to serve him, so I’m going to do everything just right and God will reward me for it. So you’ve got these kids who have never done anything “bad.” They listen to all the crappy Christian music, go to church 20 times a week, and read the Bible from cover to cover every day. And then you call God to account. You become proud. You get mad easily. You think you deserve something for your efforts. You develop this us versus them mentality. You are a Christian and everyone else isn’t and too bad for them. This is moral conformity and you end up becoming your own God because you have been motivated by fear of punishment rather than a fearful love for God.

Notice that in both cases (moral freedom and moral conformity) I said, “a fearful love of God.” I say that because being afraid of God is not bad. We should be afraid of God, he is a big God, he doesn’t even allow the full array of his glory to shine because we couldn’t take it he is so massive in his greatness. And he is a judge. There is no such thing as right or wrong for anyone if there is not a good source who determines it and upholds it. God is judge and there is punishment…but there is a difference between being motived by a fearful respect and acknowledgement of God versus being motivated by a spirit of fear, which disconnects the heart from who God is and just resorts to action. That is why Paul says in one of his other books that God has not given us a “Spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind (2 Tim 1:7).”

This is the difference, this the transfer, where God changes for you from being a judge to being your father. John Calvin said it this way, “fear…will harass and torment souls with miserable disquietness as long as it exercises its dominion. There is no other remedy for quieting them except God forgives us our sin and deals kindly with us as a father with his children.” It is where we change and where our main relationship with God becomes no longer one with enmity and strife, where I have a problem with God, but it changes into one where he becomes our loving Father who we run to and depend on…we are not scared and contentious any longer but we love him.

II. The New Family of Adoption

How does this happen you ask? The answer is through Jesus we get adopted into God’s chosen family. So let’s get into it. I’ve been just holding back and holding back, anxiously awaiting this day and time when we could get into adoption and what it is to be a child of God and calling him Abba Father. These are rich and precious truths.

Verse 15 says we, receive “the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” And verse 16, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Judaism, God’s people as Israel, were sometimes collectively called the “sons of God (Ex. 4:22; Deut. 32:6).” But here, something huge happens…being God’s people (not meaning deity like Jesus), in God’s family, no longer is a right or a privilege you are born into by blood but only through adoption. Paul borrows this thing from Greco-Roman culture and says, “That is the gospel! Adoption! That who Jesus is and what he has done for us.”

So let me tell you about adoption and then we’ll unpack what that is for us in regards to God and how it so vividly describes the gospel. Adoption was a big deal. It was a legal institution where a person could adopt a child into their family and confer on that child all the legal rights and priveleges that would normally belong to child born into the family. This could happen at a young age or older one. Sometime men in their marriages could only seem to make girls and the man would want a son to carry on his name. Like today, there were orphans who had either been abaondoned or their father had been killed in the war, they would often be poor and have a lot of debt. And a family could come to them, in adopting them, pay off their debts and then grant them a full standing so that their full inheritance would be imparted to them. In every way they would become a son.

I was not adopted so I had no idea what that is like so I talked to a friend this week who was adopted when he was very young. He said his dad has been his dad his entire life. From the time he was little, the first time his dad picked him up, he looked at him in the eye and said, “you are my son.” And my friend said that is the clearest piciture of the gospel for him. That this man and woman came to where he was, abandoned by his natural family, there were several other kids, and this man came and picked him up, when he didn’t deserve it, no reason they should pick him and said, “you are my son.” He started choking up just telling me about it.

There was a very famous adoption in the first century. Julius Cesear was Emperor of Rome and he adopted. It was a big deal, he adopted a son named Octavian. And when Julius Cesear died, Octavian became the Emporer who we know as Casear Augustus. Paul saw that and thought of that and said, “That’s the gospel. God adopts us and through Jesus gives us the kingdom!”

Let me break that down for you. Jesus is God’s son. Truly God’s son. He is divine, fully God and fully man at the same time. He comes to earth and goes through everything we go through as human from birth on up, but he’s God. He is humanly adopted himself. His father is not Joseph, Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb. Joseph adopts him. Jesus lives a perfect life never sinning. Never following another father but the one true Father. He is not born a child of the devil and following the devils lies who poses as a father and makes promises he cannot keep. Jesus consistenly throughout his life as you listen to him pray and talk about God…he is always calling God his father.

And then Jesus dies a death he didn’t deserve, because he was innocent…death is for sin and wrongdoing, Jesus did none, but he willing offers himself up in our place. He offers to die the death we deserve for following the false father, the devil, and pays the penalty to God for us. Justice must be served and Jesus bears it in our place.

Then he resurrects, conquers death and comes back to life and then says believe in me. I am the son of God and if you believe in me you will be a son too and God will become your father. He has not been your father but through me you can be adopted into his family. The special intimate relationship I have with God can be yours. This is what the Bible teaches. Galatians 3:26 “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” Through Jesus God truly becomes our Father.

This adoption for us plays out in two directions. It makes known God’s fatherly love toward us while maintaining his good justice and two, it stirs up childlike affections for God. It let’s us know God is father and it causes us to adore him and willingly follow and love him. The last point for today deals with this phrase, “Abba Father.” But before we go there let me say this final thing about the spirit of adoption versus the spirit of slavery and why God does things this way, by adoption.

You can get a lot of compliance with a gun or with a lot of money. If I put a gun to your head I could make you do a lot of things. Or if I paid you a large sum of money and put the cash in your hand I could get you to do a lot. But let me ask you this question, would it be heartfelt? No. It would merely be external compliance and God is not after external compliance but real, deep, adoring love from our hearts. God could force us to do what is right if he wanted but he does not use force, he uses the irresistable compelling grace that comes to us in knowing that he sent his son to die for us so that we might be adopted into his family. Do you know God like that today? Have you or are you embracing Jesus and living your life for him with God as your Father? If not, who or what are you living for?

III. The Father of the Family

The last point of my sermon today deals with this phrase “Abba Father” and how it’s cry is the witness of the Spirit that you are a child of God. So let’s talk about the Father of the Family. If you are fading on me…stay with me. I got a lot to say today so hold on. We are always wanting to get out. But you need this. We spend so many hours every week listening to other people’s words, whether it is TV, music, movies, friends…all kinds of stuff. Let’s listen and learn from the word of God. It is what feeds our souls. I’m afraid we just get too fat on unspiritual things and there is no room left and that is why we get bored so easily. Either that or I just really suck at preaching.

Let’s re-read the text. “…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!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

Let’s begin at witness and work backward. There is a witness here. You would have to have two witnesses to establish something in a court. Witness here is like a signature. An example, each week two people count the money that you give and both people sign a document after they count it. That second signature is a witness. Same thing here. There is our spirit, each individual’s our human spirit and there is God’s Holy Spirit who testifies or witnesses to our Spirit. So in case you thought when I was saying the main way God direct our life is by getting to know the Bible, in case you thought that meant there is no such thing as experiencing God as a Christian, you are wrong. There is experience. And this is where it comes. The witness of the Spirit. There is an experience of knowing you are a child of God that isn’t an external rational consideration but a deeply felt one. The rational is the foundation. What we think, our doctrine, is the root…our experience and joy and love is the fruit.

Have you ever wondered, how do I know I am a Christian? This is the answer…God Spirit experientially makes it known to you. So what is that experience? How can you have assurance you are a Christian?

There are several ways but here in this text there is a specific way and it is wrapped up in these words, “we cry Abba Father.” Next week we will talk about who God is as Father, what his attributes are, the kind of God he is…but here there is a single trait the text is pointing out about God as father. I say single trait because of this word, “Abba.” That word Abba is not Greek. In the original writing we translate into English from it switches right there to Aramaic, “Abba” because they did not have a word like it in Greek. The closest thing we can come to in English is “Daddy.” It is an intimate term, the way a child who was very close with his or her Father would address them, Daddy.

Notice a couple things with me. Notice the word cry. How or when does a child cry? Think about it. A baby cries when they are either, hungry, the pooped their pants or because they want to be held. A child, one who can say “daddy” cries either when they get hurt or when they are overwhelmed with love.

And that is what this text is saying. It is saying that when life is hard and we hurt and we break down and God does not seem a distant and frightful judge to us that we are mad at because we hurt but is rather a Father, who we have been brought near to because of Jesus…then we cry out “Abba! Help!” I’ve had those moments. I was running about a few weeks ago. And feeling the weight of being a pastor, the weight of many of your lives, the weight of becoming a dad, and I broke down, while running, with tears running down my face, literally crying with a combination of emotion…a desire for help…an overwhelming sense of God’s love…a sensation of grace that I don’t deserve this kind of God…a special sense that God is my Father.

That is the witness of the Spirit! That is God letting us know that we are his and he is ours. How do you know you are a Chrisitan? Because Jesus gives you confidence to go to God, before his great and powerful throne and cry out…and on the basis of Jesus he accepts us and loves us and pours out his Spirit into our hearts. Abba Father!

Conclusion

Let’s conclude. There is all kinds of application in this text. This is a rich rich rich passage of Scripture. First, be fearful of God, revere him, his is glorious and ought to be honored but don’t have fear where you perform for him and think you are good enough and deserve and demand blessing! Or, if you are the other type of person, don’t have a fear where you are just afraid of what he will do to you if you don’t obey so you do whatever you want! Know God’s perfect love which drives out all fear and plants inside your heart a deep love, where you come to know him as father and you cry out in adoration and love and need. Know today that almighty God can be your daddy.

If you’ve come from a good home with a good daddy that’s probably because your daddy knew the heavenly daddy, Abba. Or you may have come from a good home, had wealth, a dad that provided but there was no closeness or satisfaction because he wasn’t a man marked by knowing God intimately as Father. If that is you, know today there is a sweet calm, a mystery that can be opened to you, where you gain an affection for God through faith in Jesus. That affection is like the audible voice of God though it makes no sound and it resonates in your soul. The knowledge of God.

Perhaps you came from the worst of homes. Know that adoption is real. That is what your heart longs for. To be loved and to be strengthened by being part of the true family of God. All of us have been lead astray. Jesus says we have been like sheep without a shepherd, wandering away on our own. We have folllowed the voice of a different father. We have been born into a spiritual family of sin and destruction. But Jesus came and he lived and he died and he gave his life so that we might be permanently adopted into his family.

Know Jesus family is for sure. God doesn’t adopt you in and then take you out. Once you are in the family you are in the family forever. Adoption is permanent. God becomes your father, Jesus your brother, and all these people become your extended relatives. And we care for each other.

We are a family church. The family of God. God’s chosen and dearly loved ones whom he cares for with an infinite care. Jesus is our adoption papers. We have no right and no privilege but we have Jesus. He is the gospel. He is our hope. He is our pathway and our life. So put your faith in Jesus church. Embrace him with all that you have. Let the truth, that you were bought with a price, the price of Jesus blood, let that sink into your soul. God paid for your happiness. The adoption papers have been signed. They were signed in blood two-thousand years ago. And the stamp of approval from God says, “not guilty, welcome home.”

Hear me today, you were made for more than the silly pleasures that this world has to offer. They fade, are weak and cannot give you what Christ can provide. Turn to Jesus today. Look to him with the eyes of faith. Take the bread and drink the wine and be fed. Feed on Jesus. We owe him everything and we could never pay him back, so we just feast and dine with him at his table and enjoy his grace.

Part of coming from a messed up famly and being adopted into Jesus’ family is that we have a lot of baggage, left in us that we have learned and carried over. The good thing is Jesus is a forgiving famly. His family is one where repentance happens often and when we repent and say we are sorry we are embraced.

Some of you need to repent of some things today. Know God loves you and gave you Jesus. We come to the table each week to celebrate Jesus and in our celebration we always come to him in need. In need of forgiveness, in need of help, in need of guidance…we come with our needs a thank him, our need to confess sin, our need to lay down our lives.

Let me pray for us.

:: The Resolved Church :: October 7th, 2007 :: Pastor Duane M. Smets

Part V - The Jesus Family Series
“Our Great Father We Call Abba”

Introduction
I. The Magnitude of God the Father
II. The Nearness of God the Abba
Conclusion

If you are just joing us we are studying the book of Romans and are in a part of it where we are are working with a series called “The Jesus Family.” Last week we taked about several things, like fear and adoption, and we concluded with studying verse 15 and the phrase “Abba Father.” Paul the author here says that through giving your life to Jesus, that’s continually trusting in his person and work, the unsettledness of your mind is met, your heart is healed and you begin to live the life you were intended to live. God becomes important and more than just important, he becomes your Father.

In San Diego there are not a lot of fathers around. The San Diego child abuse hotline receives around 75,000 calls a year. And of those kids, about 40% end up homeless, incarcerated or in public assistance by the time they are 18 years old. And much of these abuse and neglect cases come down to fathers. The results of fathers not being there, fathers not providing, fathers not protecting…or they are fathers who may be there but they are drunk, high, angry or combination of all three and end up abusing their kids either physically or sexually. We are on a mission to change that here in San Diego by starting a church full of godly men who will lovingly lead their wives and their families because they are submitted to Christ and the community of His church.

There was a time when the norm of a father was that he was a strong man, who took care of the family, taught them, provided for them and had God as the source center of his home. Today, the norm of a father is that he is the one who is “missing” because he was not faithful to mom. Some of you have experienced fathers who only demonstrated fear and punishment and abuse and detachment. Otheres may have experienced fathers who were weak, let you do whatever you wanted and just appeased you with gifts but he never taught or trained you. And then perhaps a few of your fathers looked to the Bible and built their fatherhood on the fatherhood of God.

That is what we want to do in this church. We want our women and our children to be loved and cared for and it begins with what kind of father you will be. For you single guys it begins with what kind of man you will be as you prepare to become a husband and a father. We want our girls to have good godly dads and husbands. You want that don’t you girls? A good guy who willl love you forever and never mistreat you? A guy you can trust who will take care of you?

In large, the reason why the feminist movement is so strong these days is because dad’s have sucked. And when dad’s don’t do their job, the women have risen up to fill the gap. I don’t believe feminism is all bad, I think it is God, in his providence, rebuking the men and calling the men back to be who he made them to be.

I’m having a daughter in just a few weeks according to her due date, so I’m glad we’ve got this text to deal with to help me figure out how to be a dad because I don’t want to look anywhere else. Everyone has their expert opinion about how to be a good dad. Today, we go straight straight to the source, the father of all, God himself.

The main reason we are doing another week on God as Father is because last week that was really just one point last week and I wanted to give a full sermon on it because it is reallly really important. And most, if not all, of what I thnk makes this text so astounding…what makes “abba Father” so significant is when you have a better picture of how God the Father is mainly seen in Scripture and how not Abba Father that way is, until Jesus. Jesus changes everything.

So this is how this will go. We are going to talk about the magnitude of God in Scripture for awhile, how strong and other and perfect and unlike us and out there God really is. And then we will turn to our text and how different this idea of Abba is and how Jesus is the one who makes that possible.

I. The Magnitude of God

As I was preparing for this sermon, knowing for a few weeks now that I would be preaching on this, I wrestled with where to begin. There are many attributes and characterstics of God and many ways of looking at them and we only have a short time in the period of a single sermon. Talking about the magnititude of God is not an easy task, especially in our day and culture where it seems the idea of God, even within Christian circles, has shrunk down to where our idea of God is very small. He is only as big as our little human minds can conceive and we think that is okay when it is in fact a foolish notion. J.B. Philips wrote a book a few years back titled, “Your God is Too Small.” I think he was right, so the first thing I want to do today is try and enlarge your view of who God is.

It is interesting that Scripture never argues for the existence of God. It just assumes that he is. The Bible begins with this statement, “In the beginning God created…” It just assumes that from the beginning God is. There are no proofs or reasons given for God’s existence. It is just assumed. Psalm 14:1 says “The fool says in his heart there is no God.” The evidence of God is “innate” as the great reformed theologian William G.T. Shedd stated. It is interesting that even atheists have an idea of God they cannot get rid of but only argue (unsuccessfully) that He doesn’t exist. Every culture and people throughout time have been found to have an idea of God. God is. When Moses, in the Bible, first encounters God in a real way and asks God what his name is, God simply says, “I AM.” So who is this “I AM?” What is he like?

Eternal

Since Scripture begins by simply assuming God is. Let me start there. God is. God is eternal. There was never a time when God was not. All things come from other things and had a time when they began to exist, but not God! He is unique and all things have come from him and his is far greater than anything he has made. He is completely limitless in all regards. We like to talk about free will but God is the only one with a will that is completely free in every regard! As Acts 17:24-26 says, “God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.”

God stands outside of space and time, God is the one being never made, the uncaused cause of all things, at once eternal and infinte and acquanted with all that is his instantaneously. As Jonathan Edwards says, “The eternity of God’s existence is nothing else but his immediate, perfect, and invariable possession fo the whole of his unlimited life, together and at once. It is equally imporoper to talk of months and years of divine existence as miles squares of deity.” All things depend on God but He depends on no one. He is not a poor God who needs us, he needs nothing. He is not fortunate to have us but it is we who are fortunate to have him, who as Hebrews 1:3 says “upholds the universe by the word of his power.”

God is an eternal greatness. Have you ever tried to think of how long forever is? When I was little I remember laying on my bed and trying to think of how long forever is. My head would start to hurt and I would get scared because you can’t do it. I felt like my bed was going to swallow me. God is eternal.

All-knowing and All-powerful

Not only is God eternal and Lord of space and time, but he is all-knowing and all-powerful. In regards to his knowledge it is unending and all knowledge begins and ends with him. He knows vast and complex things like the workings of his world and all the complexities involved in causing a plantet to exist and to spin at a rate of 1,000 mph that rotates around the sun at a speed of 6,000 mph. That is some high tech calculus. Psalm 104:24 says “O LORD how many are your works in wisdom.”

And God knows not just the construction of his world but all the little details in it. Matthew 10:29 says that God knows the number of hairs on each individual’s head. The average person has about 100,000 hairs on their head. There are about 6.5 billion people on the planet. That is a lot of heads of hair God has counted. Unless you are losing your hair then it might be a little less. J

And not just the great things and not just the specific things but God still knows more. He knows the thoughts and the attitudes of our hearts. Hebrews 4:13 says no one is “hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” God knows every single thought you ever think. The times when you feel sad, when you feel angry, when you feel happy…he knows them all. He knows what you are thinking right now. God’s knowledge is great!

He knows everthing that has happened before this day and he knows everything that has yet to happen and he knows it in an instant, perfectly. He does not learn or forget or stumble in his thought but knowledge is who he is. Romans 11:33 says, “Oh the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

And God does not just know all things but is the power over and behind and above all things…he is all-powerful. There is nothing he cannot do and in deed does not. Jeremiah 32:17 says, “Ah Lord God, Thou has made the heavens and the earth and by thy great power and outstretched arm, nothing is too hard for thee.” Have you ever thought much about the power of God?

We use power everyday. You think of the cars we drive and all the engines that power them to run along the roads. You think of the power of a jet airplane. When Michael and I went up to seattle we had to sit in the very back seat right near the engine, and even inside the cab that powerful engine is just loud. You think of the power beind an earthquake or that is set in motion when land moves, like in La Jolla a few days ago when a big chunk of land just collapsed into a huge sink hole. You think of the power of the sun. If you take all that power and combine it together all that power throughout history and it is equlivalent to about 1 second of the power the sun generates. The sun is massively powerful. It is like a million atomic explosions going off every second. And God made the sun.

And the is just one star. There are about 5,000 stars that you can see with the visible eye. So when David wrote in Psalm 19:1 that the “heavens declare the glory of the LORD, the sky above proclaims his handiwork” he could see about 5,000 stars. But with big powerful telescopes, we can see more. There is an observatory out near Alpine in the woods I’ve been to and these telescopes are like a small building…they are circular in shape and you walk into them and walk up a spiral staircase and look into this massive sized telescope and can see way more than 5,000 stars…about 400 billion.

But that is just one galaxy, our galaxy the milky way. Even bigger telescopes can look out and see that there are about 10 billion galaxies. And God made them all. he is that powerful. Isaiah 40:25-27,29 God says, “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing…Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.”

One of God’s name is Scripture is correcly, “The Almighty.” His might is great. He just creates by fiat, ex nihilo…that means out of nothing but his own instantaneous energy. It does not matter whether evolution is true or not. Even if it is, there must be a big, strong powerful cause behind this big bang and there must be someone there upholding the laws of nature to carry it through. I happen to think God didn’t do it that way because I don’t think the Bible teaches that and I don’t think the scientific evidence is strong enough.

But either way, it shows his power. Like two-weeks ago when we read about the story of a time when God lead his people through a desert by causing there to be a moving cynlinder of fire by night and a moving pillar of cloud in the day. You have to be powerful to make such things happen. God is an all powerful God, power to the infinite degree.

Holiness

There are many attributes of God. There is no way we could talk about all of them today. There is just one more I want to emphasize and then we’ll talk about him as father in Romans 8. I want to talk about God’s holiness. God’s goodness is part of his holiness but that ins’t the main thing I want to point about about his holiness. The aspect of holiness i want us to ponder for just a moment is God’s moral perfection. This is God’s complete purity. We know it best by our imperfection. You hear the phrase all the time, “Nobody’s perfect!” Not so, God is!

Holiness is God’s utter righteousness in all that he is and does. There is not one act or thought or intention of his heart toward inustice or evil, he is wholly good and true. And his perfect morality is not just something he prescribes to or follows that it outside of him like some law…but rather it flows out of him. It is who he is. All morality meets its end in God’s existence as a holy God. It constantly pours out of his being.

Holy means purity or without spot or blemish, perfect in quality and the Bible says in Isaiah 6 that God is seated on a throne and angels fly around the throne and call out before the LORD, holy, holy, holy. This is the theme of much of the Old Testament. In the book Leviticus 11:44 God says, “Be holy for I am holy.” People are not holy, so God sets us this whole sacrificial system to show how holy he is. You ever want to have some fun. Sit down and read through the book of Leviticus. J Our God is hoiy and if there is any hope for us he must have mercy on us for he is a holy God.

Again, there are many attributes of God but I wanted to talk of a few today that woud help you get a sense of the greatness or magnitude of God the Father. He is the King of heaven who has existed for all eternity from whom all things have come from and are all upheld by. He knows all things in a supreme knowledge, has power over all things because he is the power and he is pure in the highest degree. I hope you feel small when you think of that. My goal so far in this sermon has been to make God seem very distant to you by showing you what kind of God our God is as the Father over all.

II. The Nearness of God the Abba

But as I said last week God is not the father of all. He may be the father over all but he is not the father of all, not all children are children of God the father. In fact God is rarely called father in the whole of the Old Testament and the only times he is, it is reference to him being the father of his people, Israel.

God is the father who swooped down like an eagle, as Exodus 19 says, and he carried his people out of Egypt on his wings. He is the model for fathers who were to be the head of their house and feed and protect and educate and priest their family but God is only called father twice in the Old Testament. He is simply too distant, too other, too powerful, too holy to be called father. But all that changes with Jesus.

Jesus comes on the scene and in everyone starts calling God “father” all over the place, somewhere around 140 times in the gospels. He says things like “no one knows the Father except the son (Mt 11:27)” and “fear not little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Lk 12:32)” and “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand (Jn 4:35)” and “Father forgive them for they no not what they do (Lk 23:34).” And he doesn’t just call him father but we hear him call God this word we read in Romans, “Abba.” No one spoke about God the way Jesus did.

Last week when we worked with verse 15 of Romans 8, I told you guys that this word “abba” is not in Greek, the language the New Testament is written in. It is in Aramaic because there is not a word like this in Greek. Abba is an intimate term for a child who is very close with their dad, the word is something like “daddy.”

Jesus, shows up on the scene and starts preaching and teaching for three years. And almost from day one he says he is God and he is sent from the father and he has come to die for the sins of the people and rise again. Jesus does several miracles and healing demonstrating his diety and that he is in fact the savior and can do what he said he came to do. And he steadily drives his ministry toward the cross. People tried to stop him telling Jesus, “dude don’t go to Jerusalem because if you do they’ll kill ya Jesus.” And Luke 9 says Jesus says “The son of Man must suffer…be rejected…be killed…and on the third day be raised…” and if anyone wants to save their life to follow him, and then it says in verse 53, that he “set his face to Jerusalem.”

Jesus gets to Jersusalem and it is the night before he is to go die on the cross and he is in a garden and he is praying to his father and he is considering all he is about to do and he is feeling the weight of truly being fully God and fully human at the same time and to show us he really knows what we feel and go through he prays this, ““Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will (Mk 14:36).” He calls God his “abba”…his daddy.

It is the only time Jesus uses this word and calls God, abba. Paul here in our passage of Romans picks up on it. Paul is reading his Bible and h