What It Means to Be God's Children

Well, one of the consequences of our lovely COVID pandemic situation is that many of us have found ourselves in the situation of having to work from home. This is perhaps most metaphorically symbolised by the dreaded Zoom call. Who's had to do a Skype meeting from home and tried to fix and deal with the bugs and the issues and the people logging on and not knowing how to turn their mic on or off or whatever. Needless to say, there has been plenty of shenanigans having to deal with this phenomenon. I've heard, perhaps you have as well, of people having very formal meetings with a tie and a jacket on while wearing bodies and thongs.

Because you just need to be seen from the top, the bottom up. Other stories of people displaying themselves on the screen with a picture while they've had a nap, or they've gone to make a lunch, or something like that, and it's just being displayed as if they're sitting in on the meeting. But one of the most hilarious and probably the most iconic is that moment when parents are interrupted by one of their children while they're on a call. There's a famous video from a few years ago now, which did actually happen before the pandemic, but I think it summarises that dreaded moment very well of a BBC interviewer who had his children burst in on him while he was having a very serious interview with the BBC. Professor Robert Kelly was in the midst, in the middle of giving his thoughts on the state of politics between North Korea and South Korea, a very serious interview, when two of his kids decided to make an appearance.

My favourite part of the video is seeing the mum rush in with wide eyes, trying to quietly remove these two kids, thinking she's out of the shot when she is very much in the shot. And it just makes the whole thing even more awkward. That's a classic. That is really, really good. This morning, we're going to be talking about the idea that God is a father, and that we have access to God as our father in a similar way to that little girl thought she had to her dad at any point in the day.

We're going to have a read this morning from Galatians chapter three on this concept of being adopted as children into the father love of God. Let's turn to Galatians chapter three. Galatians 3:23. Paul writes, now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. I mean, that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything.

But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of His son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son.

And if a son, then an heir through God. This is God's word. Well, you often hear people speaking of humanity being children of God. And in a way, that is true because we say collectively that God is our creator as human beings. But it may interest you to know that more specifically, the title child of God is only ever given to those who have come to God through Jesus Christ.

And so it's not technically correct to say that every human being is a child of God. Biblically, this coming to the family of God happens through a moment in the process of salvation, the ordo salutis, the order of salvation, known as adoption. The doctrine of adoption is a field of theology all by itself because it forms such a large part of Christian theology. And this morning, we're going to look at exactly this, the theology of adoption, the moment where God brings individuals into His family. The Greek word that we see this morning talk about, this idea of adoption used throughout our passage, literally means to be placed as a son.

Adoption means to be placed as a son. Now, for us twenty-first century Christians, that term seems strange. It seems one-sided, not gender inclusive. But the terminology applies equally to all of us. All of us have received this sonship when we are adopted into the family of God, whether male or female.

And despite the unpolitical correctness, at least the sound of it, the idea of sonship is a very important concept for us to grasp. When Paul writes about sonship, he is referring to the traditional culture in which he grew up, had the idea that a son, typically the firstborn son, would be the inheritor of the family's fortunes. And not only did they receive the assets and the wealth to build the legacy of the family upon, they received the burden of the responsibility as well. They were the sons who had to carry on the family name. They were the heirs of what their parents had built.

And while some will argue about the semantics of this term sonship, you know, some will say, shouldn't we translate it these days into childship or son and daughtership? This is missing the forest for the trees, however. Because if we understand that idea of sonship from Paul's time, the amazing truth that Paul is communicating here when he refers to Christians as being adopted as sons, he is making the statement that all of us have received a place of prominence, that no Christian can ever be a second class citizen in the kingdom of God. While there may have been second class family members in that culture where the second or the third son didn't receive anything, or if you're a daughter, you didn't receive any of the inheritance, the revolutionary claim here is that we all receive the equal inheritance in Christ Jesus. And so, in contrast to many traditional cultures, when you give your life to Christ, when you become a Christian, you receive all the benefits that the oldest son would receive.

Whether you are a male or female, Paul says in that passage, whether you are slave or free, whether you are the oldest or the youngest, we receive this same status of heir. According to Paul, sonship to God is a gift of grace. It is not a natural, but an adoptive sonship. We have been made sons. We have been made sons.

We've been transformed into sons through the unique work of Christ Jesus. As we read in verse five, He comes to redeem those who have been born under the law as well, so that we might receive the adoption of sons. Gerald Bray, the author of God's Love, writes that the image of adoption is particularly well chosen because it illustrates in a way nothing else can, the nature of our relationship to God in Christ. He says, as an adopted child is not the natural offspring of his adopted parents, neither is his or her presence in the household an accident. There's deliberation behind it.

His parents have deliberately chosen them and made them a member in the family. Therefore, that child is brought into the family by an act of will that is sealed in love and in self sacrifice. So from this passage this morning, I want to point out three things that we need to understand, and I'm sure we will be encouraged by in understanding our Christian life, not simply as forgiven people, but as adopted people. First, our adoption means intimacy with the Father. Many theologians will claim that the doctrine of adoption is the pinnacle of the gospel.

It is the gospel's greatest joy to claim that we have been adopted into the family as children of God. Now, there are a lot of people who think that Christianity's main message is that we go to heaven when we die. Being adopted, however, is the assurance that you have received something that applies to you right now. The aspect of adoption being part of your salvation story means that the minute you became a Christian, you and I received an intimacy with the Father that is comparable to the intimacy the son Jesus Christ has with the Father. This is essentially what verse six in Galatians four is getting at.

That through repentance and faith in Christ, our present existence has been transformed by the presence of the Holy Spirit, who now unites us in such a way to God that we are able to see ourselves as family. J. I. Packer, therefore, in his book Knowing God, makes this claim about the significance of understanding that we have been adopted. He writes, if you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his father.

If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers, and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. In verse six, we are told that the Holy Spirit, who has now come to live in us through the work of Christ, cries out about this new status that we have. The verb used here to cry out refers to a loud and an earnest cry. It's an uncontrollable cry. Based on the Greek sentence here, the construction of it, it is saying that the Spirit cries out to God the Father on behalf of the believer.

Or better yet, that the Spirit through the believer cries out to God as our Father. In other words, the indwelling Spirit of God causes the believer to come to know God as Abba, Father. This sets up an incredible intimacy with God. Some of us may have heard this in previous sermons, but the word Abba is an Aramaic word which was a Hebrew dialect of the New Testament times. It is speculated that the word Abba comes from the first syllables that a baby could utter when referring to their dad.

Just like in our culture and other cultures, where dads are called Dada or Papa or Abba or Baba. Here, the baby is uttering something of the first and initial noises that it can make in referring to the one that they see first, or the one that they know is the closest to them as their nurturer. We cannot overlook the point that there is something amazingly intimate when Scripture tells us that this is the primary way that our hearts interact with God. Think about it. We can say Papa to the majestic maker of heaven and earth, the supreme being who the Bible says lives in unapproachable light.

We can invoke His attention just like that little girl assumed that she could when she burst into her dad's office. And she strutted up to him like she knew that He needed to give her the attention. That is the confidence that we have through the Holy Spirit. It is a staggering thought. This is further underlined when we remember that having a heart that says, Abba, Father, is having a heart similar to the one that Jesus, the unique son of God had when He showed that relationship in His ministry on earth.

He prayed to God as Abba. In other words, because the Holy Spirit lives in us and because of His ministry, we share a relationship with God that is as personal, as real as the Son of God had with His eternal Father. So that's the first point, that our adoption means that there is an intimacy that is unparalleled that we have access to in our relationship with God. This brings us to the next point. Our adoption was instigated by the Son's work, and we see that at the beginning of our passage, specifically verses twenty five and twenty six.

We read that we have been made heirs, that we have been made sons, meaning that at one time, we weren't sons. At one time, we weren't heirs. And it means that something dramatic must have happened to have changed that status. Just like adoption today is a process, a legal process of transitioning a little boy or girl's fate from one state of existence as an orphan or a foster child over to the existence of a family member, so dramatic is the transition that happened for us after this event Paul calls justification by faith. This is another massive part of Christian theology, the doctrine of justification.

In essence, it's referring to that moment where our sins were erased by having placed our trust in Jesus Christ and His specific act of dying on the cross, and our receiving of life through His resurrection. Justification refers to that legal status that has changed for us when God, as judge, placed our penalty of eternal death onto His son, Jesus. And through justification, He labels us, the unrighteous ones, as being righteous. We see this being explained when Paul talks about our existence outside of Christ as having lived under a guardianship. Verse 24, so then he says, the law was our guardian until Christ came.

Metaphorically, again, it is like an orphan living under the care of nuns, or social workers, or foster parents. In a similar way, we lived under a type of legal guardianship, which was the law of God. The question is why is the law referred to as a guardian? Well, as a guardian, the law offered some protection. The law offered some security, but it never made you a son.

It never offered you grace. It never offered you acceptance wholeheartedly. In fact, Paul says in verse 23 that the protection of the law was more like a prison. You can argue that you are safe in prison, but you're not free. You can live in a prison.

You have some form of life, but it's an existence of living under the weight of pleasing a perfectly holy God. This existence is akin to being imprisoned, Paul says. And Paul's great heartache, as he's writing to the Galatians, is that they are being tempted to go back to striving for obedience to the law as a way to earn God's love. His great heartache comes from him saying, don't you realise the chance of you living out this life sentence perfectly is so impossible that it is a futile task. It is impossible.

You and I can never be holy enough. You and I can never be faithful enough. You and I can never be pure enough. And so a dramatic intervention was needed. The judge has come into our jail cells, and He has paid the penalty for us.

So on the one hand, that's a wonderful truth. Our penalty has been paid. That's the sort of statement that we're probably used to hearing as Christians. You've been forgiven. Your penalty is paid.

But here is the staggering thought about not just the justification that we receive, but the adoption. In a courtroom setting, a person may be acquitted by the judge of all the charges against them, but this acquittal does not make the person a member of the judge's family. Justification, forgiveness has removed the guilty verdict, but the full gospel message says that God's love has gone further than forgiveness. We haven't come to know God as simply a very kind judge. Christianity knows God as Father.

And so when, through Christ, God justified us, He went so far as giving us the identity of being His child as well. Verse 25 sums it up beautifully. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. We enter into this adoption through faith in the justifying work of Christ. Therefore, Paul will argue, faith is greater than works.

Grace is greater than the law because by grace, through faith, we've received both our justification and our adoption by God. And so the full gospel message says, yes, we've been acquitted for our sin through Christ, but now we don't serve a distant God. We've come to love a loving Father through the work of His faithful Son. And we enter into a sonship that He has enabled, a sonship which He has exemplified, and which we now live in. And so it's because of this, our adoption, that in my opinion, we have the sole basis for our Christian worship.

The sole reason that we can worship God, pray to Him, love Him, is not because of justification. It's because of our adoption. Let me explain. Our adoption is the cause of our worship. Preacher and author David Platt tells a story of when he and his wife adopted a little boy from Kazakhstan into the family.

And they experienced the significance of God's adoption through that process. This is what he writes. He says, that one day when Caleb was placed in the arms of his new mum and dad, he had no idea all that had been done, completely apart from any initiative in him, to bring him to that point. This precious ten-year-old boy did not invite us to come in to come to him in Kazakhstan to bring him into our family. He didn't even know to ask for such a thing.

No, this orphan child became our cherished son because of a love that was entirely beyond his imagination and completely outside of his control. He did not pursue us, for he was utterly unable to do so. Instead, we pursued him. This is the heart of our worship. God has pursued us.

He chose us. He knew us. He loved us. He came to us, and then He paid the price for us. And it's because He has been so gracious to have done all these things that we cannot help but respond in thankfulness, that we can't be moved to just going, wow.

It is the only thing that we can do. It is the only response that we have left. How can we ever say thank you enough? So on the one hand, it is because our legal status has been changed in God's eyes, from being unrighteous to righteous through the justification that was won for us. That legal status, that change has enabled us to approach a holy God.

But on the other hand, our hearts have been so moved by His love that we cannot help but bring our heart's affections to Him now. Our worship is therefore enabled, not simply by the justification that took place, but because we've been adopted. To put it this way, it's only because the Father is now always accessible to us, His children, that we approach Him through prayer and worship. It's because of the personal nature of our relationship, knowing that He is never too preoccupied, knowing that He's never too distant to listen to what we have to say. This is the reason we worship Him.

Therefore, prayer can be free. Therefore, we can come to God in boldness in our worship. Our worship can be honest. Our worship is unapologetic. When children come to speak to their parents, they don't come with prepared speeches.

They don't come to them with well constructed arguments. They come like that girl. They approach dad because he's dad and he loves them. There's a spontaneity to express themselves freely and honestly as children. Why?

Because they are secure in their parents' love and acceptance. Just like a little girl can call out instinctively to their daddy when there's a problem, so can we. Just as a child does not question the openness of daddy's arms, so do we. And so, Christians, I want to leave us with this final thought. It is to our great loss to remain distant to this Father.

It is to a sad, lonely, empty faith if you limit your Christian life to keeping this Father at an arm's length. Far too often, we stand at a distance with cold formality to live out our faith as though God was a guardian like the law. Meanwhile, Scripture tells us today that the child of God is free to burst into daddy's office even when He's working to ask, to demand His attention. And we wait expectantly for His love to respond. That is the level of access we have.

And so this is the most profound and distinguishing mark of the Christian gospel. And so for us, let it be the driver for deep and transformative worship. So in summary, what is the doctrine of adoption all about? Adoption is a work of God by His grace, by which He receives us as His very own children through Christ and our faith in Him. There is no greater joy.

There is no more liberating thought than knowing that no matter what we have done, God regards us as His precious children. We are the object of His greatest love. Even the best dads in the world will not compare to the protection, the provision, and the care that God alone provides for those He loves. And so we can remember that, and we can rejoice in that. Let's pray.

Lord, we hear these comforting words again, that at one time, we lived under a guardian, we lived under rulers and authorities that bound us to a status and a life that we could never live out. And we found, and we tried to find identity, and authority, and self acceptance, and reason for living through those things. And Lord, even now as Christians, our hearts are drawn sometimes to think of our life as that. That we can merit Your love, we can merit Your attention, we can merit Your blessing through being pure enough, holy enough in our eyes, or at least in the eyes of those around us, that if we can tick enough boxes, that we have somehow earned a second look from You. Forgive us, Lord, for so deluding ourselves and muddying the gospel news.

And Lord, help us to be moved into a deeper relationship with You. Help us to be moved into a greater depth of worship and love through the knowledge that we have received sonship. We are heirs of all that is good, of all that is tied up with the kingdom. We thank You, Lord, that we now have access to You, that we may approach You unapologetically, boldly, expectantly. Forgive us, Lord, of our inability to grasp the enormity of this.

And I pray, Lord, that You continue to refresh and remind us that we are children of the living God, born not of the natural will of a father, but born of God. Born before the foundations of the earth were laid in the mind of our God. Born through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. And so finally, Lord, through the Holy Spirit, we pray that You'll conform us into sons and daughters of God, and that the Holy Spirit can remind us when we are not acting in the way that one ought to act in Your family. As street kids, as those that have been ravaged by life outside the kingdom, graciously remind us, God, that the things we have done and the things that we wrestle with, that is not our identity anymore.

We don't belong to the streets anymore. Thank You for this great love. All we can do now is to worship You because of it, and we give You our love. We give You our life. In Jesus' name. Amen.