"Adopted Children of God" | Guest Speaker Ps. Jim Stretchberry | American European BETHEL Mission

Thank you. I'm again so delighted to be

with you again tonight. For some of you that were here

this morning, it was just a blessing to be invited.

I was thinking this afternoon I could come here twice a year.

I could suffer that flight for you anytime if you weren't here

this morning. I've got these little crosses

that I bought from Jerusalem. We want to be able to give you

1-2, take all you want. The only condition is if you

take this cross, you have to put it somewhere where and it says

Jerusalem on there that you will pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

That's our heart. They will pray for the peace of

Jerusalem. We also have a little prayer

card and basically if you're interested in knowing more about

our ministry, it has a little QR code in the back and we can give

you some more information. But so if we give a lot of books

away, a lot we, you know, books that we buy, a lot of books from

Israel that actually are not ISBN, books that published by

Israelis in the last 150 years. And we have quite a library.

We're actually trying to redo our web page to catalogue all

those books. But we make them available for

free for anybody We want them. We probably ship every week a

few books to people these days. Very rarely the people read

books. Most of my books are right here,

but some people are still into the printed word in book form.

Again, I wanted to say how deeply grateful for your prayers

and partnership we are. We're just so blessed with that

and hopefully the next couple of years we look to do to do some

more things with you here maybe in WA and also in Israel as you

go on your tour. We're just to tell you a little

bit about our ministry that we wanted to.

We didn't really go over this morning.

We're humbled, you know, we're really humbled these days with

every opportunity to minister. And we rejoice in the

fruitfulness that we see in so many of our ministries.

And I think it's a we've just, you know, moved on and moved on

and moved on. American European Bethel Mission

is one of the oldest messianic ministers in the world.

It was started by a rabbinical student in Odessa, Russia, and

the Doctor Rosenberg, Leon Rosenberg started it as a great

book about him, just a fabulous guy.

Just to tell you, he led so many people to the Lord in Odessa

that kicked him out. He moved from there to

Frankfurt. He led so many people to the

Lord and Frankfurt, they kicked him out.

I mean, during that time if you were a Jew, you lived in Jewish

communities, kind of ghetto like places.

But he was such an evangelist, it was unbelievable.

He moved from there to Lots Poland and then Lots Poland.

He felt that the Lord wanted him to kind of move out his tent

stakes a little bit. So he opened an orphanage for

pogrom children. And basically in 1939, when

Hitler went down the Polish corridor, there were 269

children at Bethel in Lots, Poland, who perished in the

Holocaust. And Leon Rosenberg was actually

at Wheaton College in America raising funds.

His wife Fanny was in Germany. They survived some, most of

their children survived. They moved to America.

They moved to Los Angeles and just kind of got their bearings.

So right after the war and then somebody bought them a home in

Santa Barbara and this is how they ended up have moving their

headquarters there. And then David Ben Gurion was

the 1st Prime Minister of Israel.

He had known about Doctor Rosenberg's work in Lots, Poland

and asked him, would you be willing to come to Israel and

open a orphanage for Holocaust surviving children, which he

did. And this is the property we

still have today. We actually have had, have

expanded quite a lot. But let me just tell you a

little Side Story about that, just as you want to know about

our ministry over COVID. We, I got a pass.

I, I have some connections. It's kind of my style.

And I got a pass from the Department of Health in

Washington DC that we could travel.

So we travelled to Israel. Myself and one of my board

members travelled to Israel about 6 times over COVID.

And we just wanted to go there and encourage people see what we

could do. COVID was crazy in Israel.

A lockdown was even crazier than it was for you.

And so we just went there and did.

I mean, it was so crazy. Let me tell you that the Israeli

government made me have a COVID test every day and they would

send some medical people to Bethel $150.00 every time we did

it. And it was just, it was

insanity. But that's my opinion of it

anyway. But anyway, during that time, I

was saying to Maxim Devadav, our director and Israel, I said, we

know, let's do something different.

Let's see if we can find anybody that was here in this orphanage,

which has stopped being an orphanage in about 1968.

Anybody that was here, their children, their grandchildren

and any relative. So we started kind of doing this

search around Israel and around the Middle East, and we found 68

people that were related to men. They were like ancient that had

been orphans there. And so we did this gathering

there. Not one of them was a believer,

not 0. But it was an incredible time we

had this whole afternoon. They let me speak for about two

hours of my whole story, my testimony, where I went.

They talked and talked and talked.

They left, we didn't have dinner for them, but they left after

dinner and we gave away 74 Bibles and everybody.

And we didn't like force it. We just had them there as people

were going out. And basically I, you know, me, I

said this is the word of God. This is the word of God.

And it was an incredible experience.

So that's a rich history of our ministry in Haifa.

And in Haifa we don't want to make money.

We have a 60 bed. Basically.

It's AI would say probably a class 2H2 star hotel.

It used to be a hostel, but we've been converting it more

and more. We have family rooms, we have

couples rooms, and then we have obviously some larger rooms for

10 or 12 kids. But you are welcome there

anytime. We don't want to make money

there. We charge $30 a day and

basically just takes care of our utilities and our expenses.

We charge $45.00 a day for dinner and breakfast.

So we get a lot of guests, a lot of Calvary chapels actually

using our the first second day of their trip to kind of bring

the overall cost of the tour down.

And hopefully you'll have those experiences.

But if you are travelling in Israel, please be our guest.

Just call me. I talk to your pastor, Pastor

Keith, the pastor Israel. And I would be very happy to

accommodate you. In Germany, our ministry, Kings

and Priests is doing really a tremendous work, a tremendous

impact. I just watched them yesterday.

They had a big outreach yesterday.

I mean, it brought me to tears to see these young people

responding to the Gospel with the worship that they do and the

basically the, the, the, the ministry that they have.

So again, if you're in Germany, please be our guest at our Kings

and Priests ministry. It's really good there in

Ukraine. We can continue to minister in

Kiev with a daily bread ministry that we partner with quite a

number of other ministries with to provide bread daily for the

people in Kiev. And then we also partner with an

abandoned baby refuge that we have been working with there in

Kiev. In Odessa, we have a partner

there. Oleg has been with me quite a

while though, probably about 20 years, and he continues to

impact the community with the gospel.

And it's been pretty, pretty forceful in the Middle East.

As I said, we continue with our many, many partners that we've

developed in my last 25 years at ABM and I recently returned from

Israel a month ago. And I would just say that this

is the situation in Israel grieves me.

That's that's all I can say. It's a grieves you.

You can tell the fear, the uncertainties have gripped the

entire region in a way I've not experienced in my 30 years going

to Israel. It is just an amazing, amazing

situation that demands our prayers.

So you can well imagine, the last 24 months have been

horrific, as I said this morning.

But again, the opportunities to proclaim the gospel of Jesus

Christ are endless. And I've never in my life seen

it this way. The way it is now.

There's a hopelessness. We have a lot, we have more

visitors at our congregation in Haifa than we've ever

experienced. People that we don't know the,

we don't know how they get there, how they come there.

And there's another congregation about two miles from us, An Arab

pastor has a congregation there. It's pretty mixed, some Jewish

people, some Arab people, some a lot of Slavic people, and he has

pretty big complication, about twice as large as ours.

And he's always telling me the same thing on Shabbat in Haifa.

Yeah. The congregation actually

continues to grow. We able to do more and more

things. And actually yesterday we had a

cowboy pastor teaching, a cowboy pastor pastor teaching there

with his group. And what a great encouragement.

We have weekly Bible studies now.

We have meetings. We finally, we just started some

home groups. And so it's moving along in a

way that we haven't seen in the entire time I was there.

When I was there last month, we had a baptism and some new young

believers that came to know Jesus and were baptised in the

Jordan River with just a wonderful experience.

And it what a blessing to the congregation, especially to the

older members to see young people making a profession of

faith to Christ in Jordan. We continue to support our

partners today and we look forward to another outreach in

Jordan and working with Syrian refugees in the Syrian refugee

camp, which we've developed a relationship over the last few

years. And for the next 18 months,

we'll be doing another that reach their God willing.

So as I said, you can imagine the tension in the Middle East

is at a level I've never seen desperate, desperate need for

one thing. Prayer, prayer, please pray.

And I think this is what is needed.

As I shared this morning, the word tells us that if my people

will humble themselves and pray, I will heal their land.

And I think this is the only hope that there is, is people

wouldn't pray. So now we see the greatest

evangelical opportunities in my 25 years.

We're developing plans right now to figure out how we can

capitalise on that. And you bring the gospel out,

invite people more people out. We plan for 2027 to have at

least 20 visiting pastors that we will invite to Haifa and

basically promote that in the community.

And we, we're looking at how can, how Lord, how can we

evangelise the best and and the most effective way.

Let me just tell you a little Side Story.

We have gotten so much favour in Israel, especially for the way

we've done our ministry for the last 20 years, that this last

week a school near Tel Aviv between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

called Maxim and said I'd like to bring my kids a Jewish

school, 0 Christian. I'd like to bring my kids, 40

kids, for three days to stay at Bethel.

And what I want you to do for two nights, I want you to tell

them what's it like being a Jew and a believer?

And, and you know, it is that's against the law.

But this teacher invited him. We went to our lawyer, made sure

everything was copacetic and kosher.

And Max did and he was so effective that he was basically

he's a high school students and he was, they basically asked him

to give his testimony. And Maxime told me he spoke

twice as long as it were they were planning to, to, to speak.

So this is just a little example of an openness that we just, we

haven't seen before. People that we've worked with in

hospitals and different places, they're really searching for for

something. And, and I think we've just been

a good example for them. You know, we haven't pushed

anything and we've just been there in the name of Jesus to,

to help, support, to love, and then to continue in our

ministry. So we're really encouraged and

we're really blessed and we will continue sharing this message.

For God's love of Israel is definitely my message and I will

continue to do that as long as I have the the ability.

This evening I want to share some thoughts from the word that

speaks to us about adoption. Adoption as children of God.

I think it's important that we really realise that we can, we

can address God as ABBA Father. You know, for me, I've been

praying about what to share with you and praying about this.

I've been really thinking a lot about this whole idea that we

live in a world today with many fatherless children, many

fatherless children, men, women, families with fathers that are

just absentee, alcoholism, drug addiction.

We have a world today within that experiences fatherlessness

in a way that I think is really something that needs to be

addressed in the Church of Christ.

It's significant, and it's significant to me personally.

So this message really spoke to me.

As you know, I have a father, but I don't have a father.

You know, my father was absent from day one and you know he

died quite a number of years ago after he smoked cigarettes from

the war on. He met my mother in the in the

resistance. And of course you can imagine

their mental health was not exactly kosher.

ABBA in Aramaic is the word that translate to father or daddy.

It conveys a sense of closeness, trust, affection, akin to a

child addressing a loving parent.

And this is the kind of relationship that we can have

with the Lord our God, our Father.

Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, thank

you today for your word, Lord. Thank you that your word will

speak to us, Lord. As as I have no ability, Lord,

but you do, Lord. Your word speaks to us, Lord.

So I pray, Father, that Lord, with the busyness of our minds,

the thoughts of tomorrow, the beginning of a week, Lord, I

just pray, Lord, let us put things aside and open our hearts

and our minds, Lord, to to what you have for us tonight.

Lord, I pray your Holy Spirit would be here ministering here.

And Lord, I pray you'd be with those that are here, those are

that are online tonight, Lord and Lord, that you would move

our hearts, Lord, change our hearts, change our minds.

Please Lord in Jesus name, Amen. I was born shortly after the

war. My mother as I said was a

Holocaust survivor and fortunately was able to get

away. She was became a resistance

firefighter for the French resistance for five years as and

my parents met during the resistance.

So you can imagine the emotional and mental challenges post war

were endless. My parents were married and

divorced to each other four times.

Seriously, my mother's very Jewish and very, if you

understand Judaism, you marry once, you don't get a second

chance. My mother just died a few months

ago at 104. Big, big hoots.

But I mean, this lady was a survivor and survived many, many

years. She was very, very with it until

she was about 102. And then she started slipping a

little bit. But I'll tell you how, how

focused this woman was. My mother always said she wanted

to live to be 100 and four. 104th birthday was in January.

On the 26th of January. She died on the 27th of January.

She had lunch, she took a nap and went to sleep and can never

came back. What a incredible woman.

She came. She professed faith in when she

was 86 because I badgered her with Bibles every single

Christmas. I gave this woman a Bible and

she's a Jew, so she kept them all.

And, and, and so she, she, she did make a profession of faith.

She lived in a Holocaust survivors, a condominium

programme in San Francisco. She lived with us for, I mean,

in Santa Barbara for 35 years and moved up there for the last

15 years of her life just to try to be with people that she had

things in common with. We were fortunate after the war,

we still had our family. My grandfather was a very wise

man. We had resources.

We were able to be sent away to school and we're young, five

years old. I was already a pretty angry

young man. I vividly recall one thing that

I want to share with you as I talk about this tonight.

I was in a school in Naples, Italy, and I didn't speak

Italian. I'd spoke French, but after the

war and even those first few years, I just weren't any

schools or private schools. And so my grandfather had worked

with a jeweller in Rome pre the war that we had survived.

And he'd called them and said, you know, I want to my kids, the

family home is a very problematic situation.

Can you recommend a school? And this friend of my

grandfather said, yeah, I know of this school in Naples, Italy,

and it's run by Sacred Heart nuns.

And it'll be a great place for them to get some care and

nurture in some early education. So we went there and and you can

imagine I was already not a happy boy and I met this nut in

there. And this is interesting because

I have to tell you, I remembered her name all my life.

Her name was Madhur de Musee, Sister de Musee.

And for some reason she took a liking to me.

And I know that's hard to believe, but she did.

And she told me I remember this and I say share this with people

all the time. She said, Jimmy, God loves you.

He's your father. He sent his Son to save you.

You may not understand the significance, but you will.

And you know, every day of my life, that little interaction

has spoken to me and I embrace God every day of my life.

I didn't become a believer till 1976 and I went, but I did go.

I was very Catholic, That's one time.

But as soon as I got old enough, I became a very nothing very

quickly. But the Lord had mercy on me and

I came back to him in the 76. But this little incident had

such an impact on me that basically that that lacking that

I had that we all need as a father was I had it there I was

I was there with God. I can't even remember situations

that I won't bore you with tonight, but I will remember

situations. I remember being in Vietnam and

in Vietnam. I, you know, my, one of my

hobbies was drinking. And that's what we did.

We, we worked hard and we drank hard.

And I remember that I, I was promoted.

And so now I had responsibilities for, for men.

I became a staff Sergeant. And I remember laying in bed and

thinking, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I got drunk every day. And so I got out of bed, I got

on my knees and I said, God help me.

And I never had another drink from that day until much, much

later after the war. What I want to say by telling

you these two stories that listen, believe one thing, God

always shows up. He always shows up.

And I think we, we are the ones that minimise that.

The Bible mentions God as our Father approximately 170 times.

Calling God our arbour father is also mentioned three times in

the word caring a profound significance.

Let's begin with today by examining 3 scriptures from the

Word and my message entitled as I said, Adopted children of God.

If you have your Bibles, please turn to Galatians 4 and we're

going to be looking at 4 through 7.

Excuse me? Galatians 4, verse 4 through 7.

Galatians 4:4–7

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of

a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that

we might receive adoption to sonship.

Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into

your hearts, the Spirit who calls out ABBA Father.

So you are no longer a slave, but but God's child.

And since you are his child, God has made you also His heir.

So in Galatians 4/6 it tells us because you are his sons, God

sent the Spirit of his Son into your heart and the Spirit who

calls out ABBA Father. The significance of this verse

is profound because it basically addressing 3 key doctrines such

as adoption, the Trinity, and the intimate relationship we can

have between believers and God. And let me just ask you tonight,

we're all coming from different places.

We all have our issues, all have our struggles.

When is the last time you cried out, ABBA?

Father, help me. You don't have to answer that,

but it's a question that I think we should all ask ourself.

The verse underscores the doctrine of adoption.

We believers are not merely servants, but we're granted the

status of sons and daughters or children of God through our

faith in Jesus Christ. It's so big and it's stated so

clearly in Galatians 4, four, and five.

The adoption signifies a legal and relational transformation,

elevating believers to be heirs of God's promises.

That is incredible as we read God's Word and we see who God

is, granting us us full rights and intimacy with God as God's

family. Furthermore, the role of the

Holy Spirit is evident here. God sends the Spirit of His Son

into believers hearts, affirming the work of the Spirit in

salvation. Do you realise that when you

confess Jesus Christ as Lord, the Spirit of God is in you.

And the only reason we're not, it's not part a big part of our

lives. We quench, we quench the Spirit.

One of the big things that Calvary Chapel does it,

especially in the early days, is ask people, do you want to

activate the work of the Spirit that's already in you?

And it was amazing in those days, the people that would come

up and the movement of God's Spirit that we saw.

But even but today I see again and again that people don't

really embrace the idea of God's Spirit inside them.

That Spirit that will guide you and direct you and take you

places that you've never dreamed about.

Like I said this morning in my message, God allows us to be

everything we could never be. That's my phrase.

God allows us to be everything. We could never be the Holy

Spirit in salvation. The Spirit's presence confirms

for us believers that we're God's children.

The Spirit enables us to have that personal and dynamic

relationship with God. And if that's an issue, listen

just in your quiet time, in your prayer time, as the Spirit of

God reveal to you that intimate relationship that you have with

the Father. The intimate relationship is

evident in the Spirit's cry. ABBA Father ABBA, as I said, is

an aromatic term, meaning a term of endearment akin to calling

somebody daddy or Papa. And it was used by Jesus in in

Mark 1436 when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane to God, He

cried out. ABBA Father, do you remember

those verses? And basically, we have the same

possibility. The inclusion highlights that

believers to the Spirit share Jesus familial relationship with

the Father, enabling us to approach God with boldness, love

and confidence that he will show up.

He will show up the spirits indwelling and cry provides for

us assurance of salvation. The internal testimony of the

Spirit confirms our status as God's children, countering

doubts, countering fear, countering worry, affirming

their eternal inheritance, and this is so evidence in Romans 8

Romans 8:15

verses 15 and 16. So the context of Galatians.

This verse contrast to freedom of sonship with legalism were

not under the law. Paul argues that believers are

no longer under the law and the law's teachings, but are free as

God's children empowered by the Spirit of grace.

The Spirit of God is all about grace.

I say Galatians 46 encapsulates the transformative reality of

the gospel through Christ for believers as adopted children of

God, indwelt by the Spirit, invited, invited into an

intimate, ushered relationship with God, our God, our loving

Father and I. I could never describe with you

accurately, properly in words what that has meant to me.

My siblings have lived their whole life without a father and

to see the effect, it's black and white, my friends, black and

white, because fatherlessness is impactful, it is problematic.

It is an issue. We would, we need to have

fathers. We need that, not only that

love, but we need that guidance, that counsel, that direction

that we can get. Embracing God is our Maker is

one thing, but embracing Him as our Father is an incredible

blessing. In Romans 15815 it says the

Spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in

fear again. Rather, the Spirit you received

brought you about your adoption to sonship, and by Him we cry.

ABBA Father, let me encourage you, if you need to cry ABBA

Father, for your situation, for your circumstance, do it.

Do it. And then, if it doesn't become

fruitful for you, my phone number is available.

Let's analyse the spiritual significance here in Romans 815,

noting his connection to Galatians 6 by highlighting its

unique contributions. Both Romans and Galatians

emphasise the doctrine of adoption and the role of the

Holy Spirit in our lives. That intimate relationship with

God, expressed through the idea of crying out ABBA, Father the

Spirit, affirms that believers through the Spirit are adopted

as God's children. As I said, sharing Christ's

familiar relationship. That's amazing that that's this

is our family. God is our family.

In Romans 815, we observe a unique message.

Romans explicitly contrast the spirit of slavery with the

spirit of adoption. This addresses our human

condition. We're being enslaved by so many

sins. We're enslaved by this.

My wife and I have this new thing now when we're together at

night, we're both busy. She does a lot, still does a lot

of work, helping people with special kids.

I work pretty much full time. We have this thing.

We get home, we're going to do our little business.

And then we say for two hours we're putting our phones down

and we're not going to touch them.

Nobody calls us, nobody anything.

We're just, we put them down and we don't.

Now the two hours has become three hours.

It's become four hours. And what we want it to become is

we come home, we get done and we put this thing away for the

night. And, you know, because this is

slavery and it, and I don't say that necessarily as a negative

thing, but The thing is it, it, it's basically controls us.

You know, I, I, I have 4000 friends on my phone and it's a

blessing for me because it saves me 3000 lunches.

But the point is this can take over us and basically it can

basically enslave us, but there's so many other things

that enslave us in our culture, in our world.

And we all know what they are. I know what they are for me.

And when you know what they are for you.

And so basically Romans is talking about that.

He's in 815. He's it's a contrast between the

spirit of freedom and the spirit of adoption in the spirit of

fear. The spirit liberates believers,

replacing fear with the assurance of God's bold love,

acceptance. No matter what, God is there for

you. No matter how dark part of the

place you may be in, how hopeless of a situation you

would think you're in, God is there.

And you know why I know He's there?

Because read this book and He was there for people far worse

and far more down than we will ever think about being.

The phrase adoption and sonship, It's a, it's a Greek word, who

is Thea? And it reinforces the legal,

rational status of believers in Christ.

You know, in the Roman culture of this time, adoption was a

formal act of granting full inheritance rights.

Theologically, it's basically the assurance that believers can

be secure in place of God's family.

Listen, when you adopt A child, it's your child.

You don't give them back. I adopted three children.

These are my children. These children will inherit from

us. Nobody dare ever say that

they're not our children. They're our children.

God gave them to us. Circumstances were that my wife

couldn't have children, but we said God makes a lot of children

and we took three and, and this is a perfect example of that.

When we are adopted into God's family, we are there forever.

No way that God is going to give you away.

The spiritual is enabling us to cry out ABBA Father, and it

serves as an internal witness confirming for us this reality.

And Romans 815 also reflects the cooperative work of the Trinity

in salvation. The Father adopts believers, the

Spirit indwells. Remember I said you become a

believer. The Spirit indwells and

testifies to their sonship and the Son's relationship with the

Father is a model for believers intimacy with God.

You know the question I ask myself often, how intimate am I

with God? There is nothing about this guy

that God doesn't know. But I think, well, you know, you

know what I'm saying. God intimately knows every

single detail about this grumpy little old Jew, and he knows

everything about you. And so I encourage you, I

encourage you to see that intimacy is so fruitful in the

things in our lives. Again, remember the ABBA Father

cries of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane?

It's a wonderful example. It's in Mark 1436 demonstrating

that believers participate in Christ's divine sonship through

the Spirit. So unlike Galatians, which

focuses on freedom from legalism, Romans is set in

context of suffering and escological hope.

The assurance of adoption sustains believers amidst

trials, reminding them that their presence suffering are

transient compared to the glory awaiting them as God's children.

A friend of mine died yesterday. Very close friend and hunting

buddy. Very close.

And you know, Jerry had cancer that he kind of didn't deal with

and it got him and he, I don't know why he didn't deal with it,

but he didn't. And they killed him.

But for the last two weeks, I actually was a little, I knew, I

knew in my heart he would die when I was here.

And I've been talking to him a little bit and talking to

Stephanie, his wife and stuff like this.

This guy could care less that he was going to die.

This is how close he was to the Lord.

He's he's younger than me. He's he's in his 60s.

And he was just saying, you know, I'm being with Jesus soon.

I'm with Jesus soon. He, he, his, his fear, his, his

concern was for his wife and his children and what he would tell

his wife and his children. The times that I visited him, he

said, you know, follow Jesus and you're going to have this peace

when that day comes for you. That's what basically God gives

us. This is what the Spirit of God

gives us. Jerry, He's a, he's, he's like

your pastor. He's a he was a cop, a really

bad dude, tough tough guy was basically a federal agent and

and really a tough guy Hunter strong tough and to see him like

that because of his faith in Christ is a perfect testimony of

what I'm trying to share with you tonight.

The spirit not only of firms believer status but also

empowers them to live like this fellow.

I just told you that died yesterday.

He lived by God's power and he died by God's power, not in fear

in any way. The cry ABBA father is a both a

declaration of identity and an act act of worship fostering

relational dynamic believers approach to God.

We trust him. We have to trust him.

And you know, it's amazing how we trust him when we're in

trouble or we go to him when we're in trouble or we go to him

when we need him. But listen, I encourage you, go

to him in the morning, cry to him in the morning.

I need you today, period. Go to him at night.

Forgive me for today show me my way, show me my heart, oh God,

the way you see it, you will see benefits from this kind of heart

that you have never dreamed about if that's not your heart

tonight. While Galatians 46 emphasises

the spiritual in confirming believing sonship in the context

of liberation from the law. As I said, Romans 815 broadens

this address of freedom from sin, slavery and fear,

particularly in the face of particularly in the face of

suffering. Roman 15 also explicitly ties a

spirit testimony to assurance, laying the confidence that

believers have for our future glory.

Do you ever think about future glory?

Do you ever think what it's going to be like?

I just think of my 70 plus years and all the drama.

Can you imagine 700 years, 7000 years worshipping God, free from

any fear, free from any anxiety, free from any tears and the

biggest thing, free from any drama?

Can you imagine? Both passages unite in

portraying the Spirit as the age agent that transforms believers

relationship with God into one of intimacy and freedom.

Let's go to the third verse tonight as we just finish up

here and it's from first John 3-1 and two, see what great love

the Father has lavished on us that we should be called

children of God and that is what we are.

The reason the world does not know us is that they did not

know Him. Dear friends, now we are

children of God, and what we will has not yet been been made

known, but we know that when Christ appears we shall be like

him, for we shall see him as He is.

What an incredible promise. We observe in first John 3-1 and

two, that now we are children of God, and what we will has not

yet been made known, but what a great hope for our hearts.

However, we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like

Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

And I hope what that means is that this body can have some

some stuff. I think it means we will be like

him. We will have his heart, we will

have the heart of God, but maybe we'll have a new body to look

at. I'm praying.

However, we know that when Christ appears we will be like

Him, so we shall see Him as He is.

What does that mean? We will see Him in all the

perfection that He is. I love to meditate on the Lord.

I love to meditate on the idea of his birth in Bethlehem where

we're some of you who haven't been to Israel can go there.

I love to meditate on the places where he walked.

I love to meditate on the idea that he went up in the temple

steps and stood at the Second Temple.

I love to meditate on the idea that Jesus walked around the

Galilee and every place that he walked.

Basically, we go through on these tours.

You go to Israel, folks. I'll tell you, this is not an

advertisement. You go to Israel, you will never

be the same. I have been to Israel over 100

times and I have been to come home from Israel more times than

I want to tell you. And I said to my wife, I'm done.

I've done my thing. I'm, you know, I'm as holy as I

could possibly be. Not really, but I'm done.

It's hard. We have friends here that have

been to Israel many times. Israel is hard.

It's it's a small country with a lot of people with a

infrastructure. It's hard, but you know when you

go with Jesus walked, will you go?

When some of the Old Testament took place, it's basically like

the pastor said to the group the other night, it's it's like the

Bible just came alive for you. All the things you've heard him

say all these years, all of a sudden you're there, you see it,

you're walking there. It is life changing.

It is just an incredible experience.

So we have observed in these three scriptures Galatians 46,

Romans 815 and 1st John 3-1 and two, which has the significance

of emphasising its connections to these passages by

highlighting some distinctive contributions.

Let me just share with you these things for a few moments.

Similar to Galatians 46, Romans 8:15, first John 3-1 and two

Romans 8:15

underscores the believers identity as children of God, a

status rooted in God's benevolent act of adoption.

I mean, I don't know where some of you were before you knew the

Lord, but I knew where I was. And I'll tell you something, I

am nothing, nothing like I was before I knew Him.

And this is God's benevolent act of adoption in me.

He changed my heart, He changed my mind, He changed my life.

I'm standing up here if you would have told me this. 38

years ago I would have told you you're out of your mind.

Not a chance. But look what God can do as we

open our hearts to him. We heard in Galatians 46

referred to the spirits enabling us to cry ABBA father Romans 815

contrast the spirit of adoption with slavery.

But in first John 31, it marvels at the love that is bestowed on

us as believer, believers with the title, here's our title,

Children of God. You are a child of God.

Don't ever doubt it. Don't ever, ever doubt it.

All three passages affirm the relational intimacy and

privilege of being God's family. You know, it's incredible when

you're with believers. I would believe is all over the

world. I mean, I've been to 164

countries in my life. I have travelled many, many

countries as a believer. And you know what, it is got to

be incredible when you come across another believer.

It is like your family. It's just like something just

breaks all the barriers down when you know that somebody else

is confessing Jesus Lord. See, this lady is like joy.

She is the sweetest lady. But listen, she doesn't know me

from Adam. I am like nobody to her, she

warns. She greets me warmly with

affection. You know why she's no St.

She's a Jesus person. This is something that happens

to us as we're believer. It's initiated.

This relationship, this familiar relationship is initiated by God

because we love him. We have a family that we never

ever dreamed that we could have. We're still how all have our

problems, but that one thing that we have that holds us

together is the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord and we believe

that God sent him to set us free and love us.

The three texts emphasise A transformative identity.

Galatians 4/6 and Romans 815, again I say focuses on the

Spirit's role in confirming that identity.

But first John 31 explains that is what we are emphasising the

press and reality of being God's children despite the opposition

from the world and the world opposes us.

We're crazy. My mother thought I was in a

cult for about 20 years. She did.

I gave a job up, job up as a head of a school to become a

pastor. She thought I was out of my

mind. But look how it all unfolded.

Here we are 36 years later. Once again we discern the unique

significance in John first, John 31.

It commences with the exclamation of awe at the

Father's great love in the Greek.

This is the agape love we spoke. We speak about implying this

extraordinary or astonishing love.

Agape love is not love that we can ever have for one another.

It's God love for us and extraordinary love and

astonishing love. This love serves as a foundation

for believers status as children of God, understanding God's

gracious and unmerited initiative.

So in contrast to Galatians and Romans, which emphasises the

spiritual, as I've said many times, First John 31 centres on

the Father's love and the source of adoption, aligning with

John's broader theme of God's love as we see in First John 48

through 10. So this Scripture uniquely

harmonises the present reality and the future hope of being

God's children. It affirms for us that we are

children of God, echoing the assurance of Galatians 4, Romans

8. However, verse 2 adds something.

What we has has not. What we will have has not been

made known. You ever think about that?

What will it be like? You know, here's what I'm

certain I told you that story of Jerry.

I am certain. I am certain that he had a

little vision of what it was going to be like when he passed.

I mean, this is the only way. I mean, who wants to leave their

wife and their family? He had.

He had a sense of what the future would look like for Him.

What great freedom you have when you really have this idea.

This indicates a future transformation distinct from

other passages which primarily focus on the present.

This Scripture spikes about the future, the promise that when

Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as He

is. It introduces the concept of

glorification. The believers will be conformed

to Christ likeness, a process, a process which will be completed

on His return. You know what my prayer is, and

my prayer has been for many years.

Oh Lord, let me be on the Mount of Olives a day.

You come back because I want to be the first in line.

But seriously, could you imagine being on the Mount of Olives on

a visual trip when the Lord came back?

The believers will be conformed to Christ's likeness, a process

that will be unbelievable. It will be something that,

beholding His glory, will transform believers.

We see that in 2nd Corinthians 318.

Neither Galatians nor women's explicitly address this this

future transformation, but we can see this clearly in first

John 3. And it knows that the world does

not know us. The world does, because it is

unaware of Christ. Why?

Because the world lives for today.

We live for today in Him. But we live with the hope of

tomorrow. If we don't live with the hope

of tomorrow, why are we believers?

If our hope is not for tomorrow, if our hope is not in heaven,

why are we believers? What's the point?

What's the point? We're going to be good people.

We could be good people without being here.

Our hope is in tomorrow, our hope is in eternity.

Our hope is in the promises of God.

That tells us when you come back to the way I made you to be, you

will be in a place that you have can't even imagine.

The highlights of tension between believers and the world

will be all gone basically. But we have tension in this

world for those people who don't believe and they just see us as

interesting and strange and whatever.

But our hope is in Him and we need to hold that on, hold on to

that in our hearts. It frames believe the believers

identity and we will be misunderstood by the world.

We will be opposed by the world. God is opposed by the world.

But basically we need to reinforce together with each

other the distinctiveness as God's children.

You will never have better fellowship than you will have

with another believer. I have better fellowship with

Israel Carmody that I have with my own brother.

And it's not because we're just, we're coming from different

places. We have different priorities, We

have a different sense of who we are.

And I don't even know Israel Carmody that well.

While not explicitly stated in verses 1 and 2, the broader

context of John 3/3 as we finish implies that the aspiration to

become like Christ purifies believers, motivating us to

righteous living. When we think about becoming

like Christ, it's got to do something to us.

It's got to speak to us. I'd love to be convicted.

I love to be convicted. I love for the Lord to show me

you are a dummy and I, I, I, I, I wanted, I appreciate it.

And basically when we see this and we really understand that

God can inspire us to Russia's living.

The ethical dimension complements the relational

emphasis of Galatians and Romans where the Spirit empowers us to

have intimacy with God and does not directly address any

transformative or moral implications.

So as we finish up tonight, I just want to share with you ABBA

Father is a profoundly spiritual expression frequently employed

in Christian context to convey an intimate, trusting

relationship with God, akin to addressing your own mother or

your own father. And even better with that

because it doesn't come with all the complexities.

The reason I even thought about this message, I cannot tell you

how many people I speak to, I counsel, I work with who have

the most horrible relationship with their fathers, more so than

their mothers often. And it's it's it's

circumstantial. And I try to explain this,

unpack your Father's stuff, try to understand, you know, how did

he get from there to here? And basically it will allow you

to again address something of this world.

The Spirit of God's and his love in your heart will make will

change you in ways that you have never experienced.

If you haven't already, I trust these 3 verses who resonate with

your heart regarding God's extraordinary, extraordinary,

boundless love. We're obligated to love our

earthly fathers. You're obligated.

You know, I told pastor this week, I said, listen, when I was

going to become a pastor, it was a very big change for me.

But I had this pastor in my life, a friend of your pastor,

Ricky Ryan, who loved me for some reason.

I'm not a lovable guy, but he loved me and he encouraged me

and he brought me up into what I needed to be.

And so we were actually in Israel.

And I said, you know, Ricky, I'm not ready to be ordained.

I'm not good to go. I don't know.

I don't know what's going on. So there's a place in Israel is

my favourite place called Anghetti.

I was telling the group yesterday and in Anghetti's that

that teaching about Saul relieving himself in The Cave,

remember? And David is there with his men

and then Saul is out of The Cave back with his men.

And he basically says, Saul, hey, Saul, I had you in my

crosshairs. And if you're a military person

or 100% crosshairs, you know, it's kind of like dead centre.

I could have killed you dead centre.

But the words that moved me that day and have moved me ever since

is David's response. Saul, I will let the Lord decide

between you and I and that that spoke to me.

We went back to the hotel that night and I was broken.

And what it was, it was I despised my father.

And that's what stopped me. And thank God it stopped me

because I think it would have affected my ability to minister

all my life. I came home, call my father.

I hadn't talked to me over 20 years and said that's Jim, I

want to call you. I want to ask you forgiveness.

And it didn't turn out the way you would want it to turn out,

but I did it. You know, he didn't actually

care. And but I did it and it totally

was liberation. And I think what I'm trying to

point here is we are called biblically to love our mother

and father no matter what, no matter what.

And I have ministered to people whose fathers are in prison for

murder. And I said, you called to love

that man no matter what. God commanded it.

And it's in the word. Our sinful nature frequently,

frequently renders these relationships far more

challenging and dismissive for us.

And I encourage you tonight, don't let that happen because

there's freedom is freedom in making those things the way God

expects them to be today. It serves as an extra

extraordinary encouragement to recognise that God, our Father,

our Father gives us perfect, basically boundless love.

May God bless you tonight. Sincere gratitude for you, for

your attention, for your love. And I love to look at your faces

because I see that at least God's allowing me to minister to

you. God bless you and let me pray.

Father, thank you, Lord, thank you for your word.

Thank you for this these great 3 verses, Lord, that speaks to us

so directly, Lord of the kind of Father that you are, that that

provides us a salvation, that provides us your spirit.

Lord, that provides us an understanding.

Lord, Lord of this transformative love, Lord, that

that is beyond our understanding, beyond our even

our acceptance. Lord, Lord, let us accept this

love. Lord, that your love, Lord, the

love of God, which is endless. Lord, please Lord, speak to us

as you would speak to me. Lord, speak to those who would

you and speak to tonight. Father, Lord bless this

congregation, Lord bless Pastor Keith, Lord and his team.

Lord use them, empower them. And Lord, let your spirit reign

in this congregation and in this community in Jesus name, Amen.

Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jim.

I'm just going to get the apostles to come forward.

Stay there, man. Well, if you could come join us,

Marty, is Thomas here? Tom, I probably outside on

security. Tom, Marty, you could come if

you could stand and we just stand.

You've been sitting for a while. We just pray, just kind of pray

for Jim. He leaves at 3:00 in the

morning. I've told him he'd catch a bus.

So, and we're just going to pray over particularly the ministry

in Israel and our, our, our God can guide us in in this

partnership. So let's do that.

Gather around him. Heavenly Father, we thank you

for James being with us. We thank you for him sharing his

heart. We thank you for the work that

he does in Israel for your people.

We thank you, Lord, that He has been able to connect us as a

church where we can touch the ground of Israel, not only with

our hearts, but with our feet and with our resources.

And we can bless your people that you love, that you chose,

and that, Father, we owe so much to be with James as he travels.

Give him safe travel. Bless him and guide him.

Give him great wisdom for decisions on the future of the

missions and how it's to work, particularly with Ukraine and

other places that are war torn. We pray especially for that

outreach for the unwanted children, father, the abandoned

babies, father. Help us to to lift these little

kids up. Father, in some way that we can,

we can love them too. In Jesus name we pray.

And everyone said Amen. God bless you, God bless you.

Thank you, thank you, thank. You.

Thank you. Thank you.

Any questions?