Embracing Our Spiritual Adoption

G'day, thanks for joining the Heights Church podcast today. We hope you enjoy our message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Gorsham

Road, Hornsley Heights, Sydney, Australia.

The theme today is from Romans 8, 1-15. Therefore, there is now no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the

Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,

God did by sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, to be a sin offering.

And so He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement

of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh,

but according to the Spirit.

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh

desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set

on what the Spirit desires.

The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

However, you, however, are not in the realm of flesh, but are in the realm of the Spirit.

If indeed the Spirit of God lives in you, and if anyone does not have the Spirit

of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.

But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because

of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.

And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you,

he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies

because of his spirit who lives in you.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but it is not to the

flesh to live according to it.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of your body, you will live.

For those who are led by the spirit of God are the children of God.

The spirit you received does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again.

Rather, the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.

And by him we cry, Abba, Father.

Stuff, Keno. You're looking forward to state youth camp, Keno?

Looking forward to your exams this week? Less so? That's okay.

I've got a lot to feast on tonight, whether your week ahead is exams or just

a regular week of work or something different altogether.

And part of that feast includes we're going to be having some burgers later

for dinner, which I think are going to be fantastic.

There's a small donation that you can offer as you do that, as we go and continue.

New part of church isn't just in here.

It's the community that we have as we eat food, share time together.

But I'm hoping tonight as I preach, as I bring this message on the text that

Keno so eloquently read for us in Romans chapter 8,

Romans 8 · chapter mention

I'm hoping that there might be a little morsel here for you to feed on as you go into the week ahead.

The rough title of this sermon is basically, specifically you are adopted.

You are adopted, which I feel like I've had to change as I will have meditated

on and reflected on time with a family who remain unnamed,

whose siblings seem to think that you are adopted is the best go-to thing to hurt each other,

which I just think is terrible for that unnamed family. They can note that down.

So what I'm going with instead tonight is father figures.

Tonight, I want to preach on this idea of father figures through the idea of of adoption.

So we're going to be looking at Romans 8, particularly in verse 15,

and I hope there's some transformational truth here for you tonight. Let me pray again for us.

Lord, we thank you so much that you still speak truths into our life.

Lord, we're sorry for the times that we have either neglected to listen to you,

for the times that we have forgotten

what you've said to us and and about us, or even the times, Lord,

when we have diminished or not appreciated the truths that your word has to say about us.

And I pray tonight that you would help us to not be guilty of any of those mistakes,

but that you would open our hearts, soften our whole beings right now to just

hear what you've got to say to us and about us.

And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

So as I said, we're looking at verse 15, particularly of Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Found in this chapter, Romans 8 is a really good chapter to read.

It begins with the powerful truth that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

And it ends with the equally powerful truth that there is absolutely nothing

in this world that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And right here in the middle is an equally interesting and powerful verse that

says that the Spirit, talking about the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that you received

does not make you slaves.

It doesn't make you slaves so you don't have to live in fear again.

Rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.

The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.

And there's a few things going on there. The first thing is the Bible tells

tells us that Christians,

when they put their faith in Jesus, something that goes alongside of that is

a receiving of the Holy Spirit, having the Holy Spirit in your life as a force

that is personal and powerful,

that guides us, that fills us, that inspires us, that gives us gifts and also

improves our character.

And Paul is saying here in Romans that one of the things that it does not do

is that it does not make us slaves.

You see, that's how some people view Christianity.

That's how some people view following Jesus, that it's sort of just like,

oh, you become one of those people that have in your life a whole bunch of have-tos,

a whole bunch of shoulds, a whole bunch of, I would love to do that fun thing, but I can't.

I am a slave to this other thing, this faith in my life I've got going on.

And Paul here is eager to say that is not what's going on at all.

When you receive the Holy Spirit, you aren't brought into slavery,

but no, rather you are promoted to something that he calls sonship.

And so what we find here is that Paul is telling us that when we put our faith

in Jesus, that we aren't being demoted, that we aren't missing out,

that we aren't losing out, but rather we are given more,

that we are given privileges that we otherwise did not yet have.

And he talks about slavery as well, because the audience would have thought

straight away to the most famous story of slavery in the Old Testament,

the slavery that God's people had in the Exodus.

And he's saying that just as God brought you out of slavery,

that's what happens now in a spiritual sense as well.

And someone who God brings out of slavery, He does not send back into slavery,

but no, he promotes them to something that he calls sonship.

Let's explore, at least in terms of what the scripture means here,

because adoption is a loaded concept,

but let's explore what this idea of adoption means for us, because the privileges

that come with being God's adopted children really are truly astounding if you stack them up.

First and foremost, and it's a really interesting one, is it says that we are

given the privilege of approaching God and referring to Him as Father.

More specifically, the word that was was written originally was the word Abba.

Some people will say that it's sort of like the ability to call your dad,

dad, that you don't have to say father, or you don't have to say sir,

but you can call your dad.

And I presume many of us have had the experience of calling your dad, dad.

Reflecting again, I hope not for everybody, but reflecting a close personalized relationship,

The sort of close and personalized relationship that may be imperfect in a lot

of our relationships that we have had with our dads,

but in God found perfect.

That we, in coming to faith in Jesus, get the privilege of having God as our

good and perfect heavenly father.

The next privilege that we're told we're given is we're given an inheritance.

If you weren't here this morning, I'd encourage you to listen to Mark's sermon

on the prodigal son, a famous story about a father and a son and inheritance.

And we're told here that by coming to faith in Jesus, that we become heirs of

God and a bit that we can't miss here, co-heirs with Christ.

That we receive an inheritance that in some ways,

definitely not in all the ways, but in some ways gives us an equal inheritance

to what Jesus has with his Father and has from his Father.

Mother. An inheritance isn't something that we earn.

It's something that for us is given freely as a gift,

just like for the context that the original audience of this text would have

read this in, just like a first century Roman firstborn son was entitled to a legal inheritance.

In in adopting us, God has not taken any half measures.

We are not adopted into probationary status.

That is how we sometimes feel with God, I think.

That is like, we can believe, okay, maybe I've been adopted by God,

but also I'm probably a little bit on probation.

We think that God adopts us and says, well, okay, I'll adopt you,

but let's just see how this works out.

Let's see how this is. Let's come back in a few months, in a few years and see

if this is working out for both of us.

I'm going to come back after a little bit of time, and what I'm going to do

to see if you can keep the adoption I've given you is I'm going to measure your

performance, see how many times you've been to church, see how good you've been,

see how many bad things you've opted not to be in.

If you've been good enough, we'll upgrade your probationary status.

But that is not how it works.

We who have come to faith in Jesus, we are told, are adopted by the Spirit.

We are told that we have become, in that instant, full members of God's family.

And that's available to everybody, but there's no hierarchy.

It's not something that you slowly work yourself up.

And hopefully if you've been a Christian for long enough, you'll become one

of those mega Christians, super Christians, the ones that have got their lives all together.

Please tell me when you meet one of those. But no, in an instant,

you are given the full privilege of being an adopted son of God,

just like an adopted son in the first century Roman Empire would have had.

A Bible commentator by the name of Douglas Moo, and that is his real name,

says on this, Paul could hardly have chosen a better term than adoption to characterize

this peace and security.

The word denoted in the original Greek, and particularly about this Roman legal institution,

says that when conferred on that child all the legal rights and privileges that

adoption would have, that in that moment, those legal rights and privileges

are that person's for life, for life.

So we can be assured, we can be confident that we can approach God as a father,

a good father, that he is in the closest sense that we can understand to us, a dad,

but also that he gives us in that moment an inheritance that we cannot ever lose.

That the ancient of days, the king of kings, the all-consuming fire who is holy

and righteous also sits there as dad and says to you, welcome home.

And so that for the Christian is what they're invited into.

For those who have put their faith in Jesus, that's what they're invited into.

Yet, as an adopted child of God, Paul is very eager to make sure we don't think

that it's just now smooth sailing. exhaling, because as adopted children of

God, we live in a kind of tension.

And understanding this tension, I think, is crucial for our walk in Christ,

and I think also crucial for being able to walk with Christ,

not just on that first day, but for every day of our life.

That is, we are to be aware that on one hand, that this world that we live in

is broken and painful and sinful and has stuff going wrong, that we are aware

that things are not as they should be.

But also, on the other hand, we're aware that we aren't blameless in that.

We are aware that we aren't just victims in a world that is broken,

but we are also, in our own unique ways, contributors.

And so by being contributors, we live a life that invites natural consequence that is often negative.

But he says to us, and this is where the good news becomes like,

oh, okay, I don't know if I fully want that.

We actually have a second reason to suffer as Christians, because by just having

a faith in Jesus, by putting a flag in the ground and saying,

you know what, this is what I stand for, this is what I believe,

we then invite a second amount of negative things into our life.

We might invite criticism or resistance, persecution.

We might be ridiculed. We might be held to a higher standard.

We might be told constantly, are you sure that you're a Christian because I

noticed X, Y, and Z seem to be apparent in your life?

That not only do we as Christians get to live with the natural consequences

of living in a broken world, by becoming co-heirs with Christ,

we also become, we're told, co-heirs with his suffering.

Suffering that isn't to punish us, we're told, but suffering that God uses us

to prepare us for something more.

And so what that should do in the life of a Christian, and if it's not,

it perhaps should be a challenge of how comfortable we've become in this world.

But what it should do is that it should fan that little flame in our heart that

yearns for something more, that yearns for something better,

that yearns for redemption,

that yearns for that moment when there'll be no more sin or pain or suffering.

The tension of living in this world should, in us, sort of create an eagerness for what comes next.

And so we then are given the profound responsibilities as God's sons.

And I use the word son in the legal first century Roman sense.

So allow me from now on to say children.

But what I'm saying is we are invited to live as God's children in a way that

a child is given responsibility by their parent to carry their name in times

gone by to carry the family business,

to live and be a legacy for the parent.

We are to be stewards of God's message of hope, that we don't just sit passively

going, oh, I can't wait for dad to give me all those presents.

But no, dad says, I'm inviting you to carry on my mission.

We are called to be agents of the renewal that we hope for, that we look forward

to something that isn't here right now, but not Not passively,

but we go, that's what it's going to be like one day.

No sin, no pain, no suffering. Justice fully fulfilled.

But we're not there yet. We're here now. So a part of being a Christian is trying

to bring a little glimpse of that into the unique and specific areas that only

you and your life can impact on.

Just little glimpses, just little moments, many of which will be unseen and

unrewarded, at least in this life.

But yet, that's what God invites you into if you want to walk as his child.

Which if you, like me, it feels weighty.

It can make you feel like, okay, sure, but I'm not sure that I am the right

person to start doing that either because maybe I don't feel good enough.

I don't feel talented enough.

The people in my life already know how much of a mess up I am.

So if I start trying to like do good things, they're just going to think I've

gone crazy or I'm a full hypocrite now. Now, somebody else, God,

yet God, and I tell you right now, he still says to you as your dad, I don't care.

I'm inviting you to start doing those things now, finding those moments now,

capturing those opportunities to reflect the world and the life that we hope for and look for.

As Romans 8 says, inwardly grown for, we are given the opportunity and the nudge

to go and create little glimpses of what that will be like in our lives now.

And the best thing about this is I can't even tell you what examples you need to fulfill in your life.

The best thing about it is that your life is a unique thing given to you by God.

And so really, your responsibility is to go to your dad in heaven and say,

okay, in my life, on my Monday, on my Tuesday,

on my Wednesday, in the moments that I have God, what can I do? What can I give?

And let me tell you about one of the things that you can give,

because just as, and this next bit particularly applicable to the man in our

church, but just as God adopts us in,

one of the things that can happen in the church is that men can step in and

play the role of spiritual father figure in the younger people in their world.

Ezekiel chapter 22, 30 speaks of God seeking somebody to stand in the gap,

Ezekiel 22 · chapter mention

to stand in the gap between somebody and the peril that is on the other side.

And I really think that in our church, one of the things that God is calling

us to is to look at the young people in our community and to have a numerous

amount of people willing to put their hand up and say, I will stand in the gap.

I will be somebody in that young person's life.

I will be an uncle figure, a father figure. I will be a mother figure,

a grandmother figure in a young person in the church and in my community's life.

The importance of such spiritual parenting role cannot be overstated.

And too many of us think, again, this is something for somebody else.

But I, in my faith journey, I personally could never, ever overstate the impact

that spiritual true father figures had on me when my faith was in its early

days and when I was a teenager.

And it's still true today that many young people lack positive father or parent figures.

Each of us, and to be honest, even if you're a teenager, you're,

oh, well, that's not for me. What about the eight-year-olds in your life?

There'll be some people here that think, oh, well, you know, maybe I'm the other end.

There are people in your life that are desperate for you to have a positive impact on.

By stepping into the role that God provides, and particularly tonight I want

to focus on the role that men in our church can play as spiritual and otherwise father figures,

what they offer is a tangible representation of what God's love is like.

And I'll tell you what else they offer. As the youth pastor saying this,

men in the church offer and can show a variety of ways of what it means to be a Christian.

Because if you're just depending on the youth pastor to do that,

let me tell you, I am one specific version of what it means to be a man and a Christian.

And there are a lot of parts of my personality that young men might not totally gravitate towards.

And this is why we need a variety.

On one version, but not every young person is wanting, as much as it hurts my

ego, not every young person is wanting to be like me.

But what about those stories of young Christians that go to church,

go to youth, go to church, go to youth, go to church, go to youth.

And then they meet an older Christian male role model who builds stuff,

who fixes stuff, who works on cars.

And all of a sudden, through having an interaction with a different type of

Christian male role model in their life,

they experience a representation of God's love and also a representation of

a different way to be a a male Christian in this world.

For those who have experienced absent or abusive or neglectful fathers in their

life, a godly father figure can be truly healing and transformative.

Young people, all of them, need wisdom and direction and experienced believers to provide this.

You should not underestimate the voice that you have to help young people navigate life's challenges.

So how, perhaps you might be thinking, okay, how can I be a spiritual father

and even a spiritual mother or otherwise in your world.

The first is to take the young people who you already know and invest just a

little bit more time than what you are. Make yourself available.

Give advice. Sometimes give less advice. Be present.

Even in your busy life, by making the time to give your attention,

to give your wisdom, to give the lessons that you have to offer,

the spiritual insights that you've gained over years by offering encouragement

and affirmation from respected leaders and for many people from respected men.

These things, I cannot tell you how powerful they can be.

All of us should be looking for opportunities to look to those younger than

us to affirm and support them,

to be specific in our praise for them, encouraging them, highlighting their

unique gifts, not pigeonholing them into something that we think they should

look like, but rather encouraging the qualities that we see in them.

One of the ways that we can live out what it means to have a hope for something

better is to provide something better.

And one of the ways that we can do that is taking on the role of spiritual parents.

And again, if you're 15, you're not off the hook on this.

If you're 75, you are not off the hook of this. is for every single person,

you have a role to speak life into young people's lives.

But what about just generally on the other side of things, living out the life

of an adopted child spiritually?

Well, first and foremost, what we need to do is embrace our identity,

regularly reminding ourselves of the truths that are told to us of who we are

in Christ, that we are not a spiritual orphan, that we are not alone,

that we are not a slave, that we are not an outcast, but that you are a beloved child of God.

God that every day you should remind yourself, I am a loved,

precious, unique child of God.

I have no doubt that there are plenty of other words that swirl around in your mind every single day.

If you give them less oxygen and give more oxygen to the truth that you are

a loved child of God, it will blow you away how transformed your day-to-day

will be as you walk with God.

We should also live in hope, remembering that when life gets tough,

when we go through hard times, that the hard time isn't the end of the story,

that we have an incomparable inheritance available to us and especially awaiting us at the end.

And we should remind ourselves, as I've said tonight,

to not just be passive waiters of that, but to be stewards of that hope,

looking for ways to care for and restore the environment and the people around us.

So as I close, let me leave you with these truths. You have a perfect father

in heaven who loves you unconditionally.

That the adoption that's available to us isn't just a nice idea.

It's a life-changing reality that should and can

inform and change every aspect of how

you live and how you relate to others so i'm

going to pray now and pray specifically for each of us that we would embrace

that identity as his children let's pray lord i pray god to you right now that

you help us to remember who we are help us lord to to know that truth not just

for a moment in our mind tonight.

But Lord, may that truth seep deep down into our hearts, into our very being.

Remind us again and again and again, Lord, that we are your children and that you love us.

Help us, Lord, not to just hear that, but to embrace that.

And help us, Lord, also to never underestimate the impact we can have in being

a steward of the hope of the inheritance that you have awaiting for us.

I pray all this in Jesus' mighty and precious name. Amen. Thank you.