The Spirit of Adoption

Today on Renewing Your Mind. Yahweh was a name that they felt was so holy that they forgot how to spell the words from you step into the pages of the New Testament. This great sovereign holy God becomes your father and you belong to his family a lot of uncertainty in the world today many of our friends and neighbors were unsettled by this pandemic.

Even fearful. Maybe you are as well today were pleased to bring you a message of comfort for the pages of Romans. It's the comfortable loving father and the assurance of ultimate safety bus and back to studies on Romans eight and we are in the section verses 14 to 17. In this study first 14 for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. This is section that dominates on the Holy Spirit. One of the great passages in the Bible where the principal theme on focus is the Holy Spirit, and in particular the Holy Spirit of adoption of a friend who adopted a little girl and he was telling me that the day when she came and said to him, daddy, would you help me with my shoelaces was the day he realized that she really was his daughter and his daughter really did think of him like a father, I have another story about adoption shall share with you in a few minutes, but I want us to think about what Paul has to say here about the Holy Spirit and the first thing was 14 for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God and we see that would lead so the spirit of holiness is what is to the four here we see that would lead and we might think of guidance. The Holy Spirit is the one who guides us and directs us and how do I know whether I should be a doctor or a plumber or mechanic or a long-distance truck driver and I need guidance and I need the Holy Spirit that's not what Paul is talking about here by leading he's not talking about the leading of guidance is started by deleting into holiness, it follows the previous verses about mortification, the spirit leads by leading us into acts of mortification, the spirit leads by leading us into contours of holiness and godliness. It's not guidance but sanctification.

The Paul is thinking about here. Maybe the Holy Spirit's leading you or me right now to consider a particular sin that needs to be put to death in our life.

Verse 13 if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Mortification is something that we do. It's not something passive. It's not something that takes place over our heads. We must kill sin but we do so by the spirit, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Every act that we engage in. By way of progressive sanctification must always be in participation with led by the Holy Spirit. So is the spirit of holiness number one, and secondly is the spirit of grace. Verse 15 for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba father. You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear the spirit of slavery and look at the translation that's before you I'm using the ESV translation and now you notice that spirit.

Here is a small S and mother S that so translators decision you understand the Greek will not tell you whether it should be lowercase or uppercase that there is a case to be made that this should be a S that is not talking about the spirit of slavery in the lowercase but is actually talking about the Holy Spirit, who leads into slavery. Not all commentators agree, but it is possible that what Paul is referring to is that at the point of your conversion and think for example of Saul who is writing this and think of him as a template here that was a period when the Holy Spirit rolls him into conviction that drove him to a sensibility of his enslavement as a Greek word that is translated here and it's the word pollen in Greek meaning again you did not receive the spirit of slavery again to fall back into fear. The man approach it from a different point of view. There was a question that was asked and possibly is still Austin.

Some Scottish Presbyterian circles and it was asked at the time when somebody was becoming a communicative member will joining the church and the question was put in this form. Have you been to Sinai item and having gone to Sinai, the geographical location for the 10 Commandments was given to Moses and knowing that Sinai and doing that sign. I mean have you been to Sinai.

Have you felt Sinai's power in your life have you been convicted by the law's demands.

Have you been convicted that you're a sinner, having been shown your need you struggled with sin, so that the reason why you're coming to the gospel is not for bad reasons or false motives, but because you want rid of your sin. Enough coming to Jesus because you think Jesus can offer you a better life for coming to Jesus because you're a sinner who needs forgiveness underneath cleansing and who needs the Holy Spirit. When we receive the Holy Spirit. We received him not as a spirit that leads us into slavery. We may it's possible the text can be read this way and live really is that it can be. It may be that that's how you first experienced the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit of conviction is the Holy Spirit that shows you your need to use the Holy Spirit who shows you that you have no strength and power in yourself that your wills found that you were dead in trespasses and in sins, and you cry to God for mercy for unless he saves you. You are lost on without hope in this world, but you can experience that even as a Christian. Think of the parable of the prodigal son. Think of the older brother remember how angry he got from the father to the fetid coffin gave him the robe in the ring and makes a fuss of his brother that had come home, and lived a terrible life and live the life of a prodigal, and now the father is making such a fuss of him and to report the older brother said all these years I've been slaving for you. That's the word uses all these years I've been slaving for you and the father says, but you've always been my son is perception. The older brother's perception of his some ship slavery, the God didn't really love him or God loved others better than him. God is giving to others something more than he was giving to him to feel that sometimes God loves other Christians more than he loves you and you go through this he loves me he loves me not to illustrate who loves me not to have this kind of insecurity about our relationship.

So Paul is saying when you receive the Holy Spirit. It doesn't lead you into slavery may have done that initially but then he brought her to Jesus and he set you free. He's he's a look at the text you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption and now it's the S together, so translators choice the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, father is the spirit of holiness is the spirit of grace, slavery is the spirit of adoption so I told her I tell another story.

I was in Jerusalem was leading her party of 50 or 60 people. It was so back to is the onset of Shabbat and there we were in the old Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall was done here and proceeded to with all the gear is coming dressed in black and his good little boy and the boy looked about three or maybe four years old and he's airborne for every every three or four steps he would sell the land on the ground but the father was late to get to the Wailing Wall by sundown and and he was running and he had on our shoes.

I think with metal tips to them so you could hear the stinking thinking think Pincus is running low on the little boy is saying Abba Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba, now I know what Abba means because I went to seminary actually did a course in Aramaic and the previous century and it means father. This Aramaic word for father verse 15 you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, father God is our father time we sometimes see an emphasis on Christ centered. This will Christ centered that Jesus centered. This Jesus · and sometimes it offends the doctrine of the Trinity. Sometimes that we can become so Jesus focused on Jesus. Jesus centric. The father and the Holy Spirit of almost disappeared. Sometimes your prayers will mean one of prayers. It's perfectly okay okay to pray to Jesus, but I'm talking about the pastoral prayer. On the Sunday morning in public worship that often. Some ways to be a paradigm of prayer, and it begins with Jesus and ends with Jesus and this seems to be no consciousness of the father, and my relationship to him as his son is a child and let me say something here because I know it's PC to say sons and daughters, but that makes no sense in the first century because sons are the only ones who inherit daughters didn't inherit so it would make no sense for Paul to say sons and daughters enforcing means mainland women, but he says sons because he is writing a Roman context and a role in context only sounds inherit this the inheritance part that he wants to bring out when he talks about adoption when Jesus taught his disciples to pray with you to say our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven. Father and yes there are those who have had really bad relationships with earthly fathers really really bad relationships with the earthly fathers and find that concept of fatherhood.

Perhaps difficult and therefore mistral contrasts rather than the comparison is my father of this child.

I call them Abba: Abba: by that name. That is an intimate name and the sweet name gained so much in the gospel that we belong in a family that we are children in a family.

My study is a place where I really want to be left undisturbed.

I sometimes say to my executive assistant. In closing the door and she understands when I close the door.

I need 30 minutes, an hour of uninterrupted time because I'm up against a deadline.

The knife I need to study, but if my wife comes to something to say to my wife become be disturbed if my children and my children live abroad and and and the other one. 2000 miles away, so it's unlikely to happen.

But if they were to appear. She was still going on, nor would I be in the least bit offended because that my family grumpy so-and-so were to come. My secretary has all the right will decide to make an appointment for maybe an hour later.

This family, and when family comes, you drop everything and some of us have the joys and privileges of a very close family and many southern families have very close bonds where Thanksgiving 100 people will gather and mother's day everyone comes home, and so on. And that's that's not always typical in some families but Paul is saying is the spirit of holiness is the spirit of grace is the spirit of adoption that enables us to cry, Abba, father, he's the one who witnesses to our adoption.

The doctrine of adoption in the New Testament. It's one of the great differences I think between the old covenant and the new covenant. Why is the new covenant new, that's a great question to ask when Jeremiah and Ezekiel is speaking about the new covenant.

Why is it new in what ways is it different from the Old Testament of one of the ways is this.

Yes, there are occasions in the Old Testament when Old Testament believers referred to God as father but they were rare occasions. Indeed, the divine name. The name Yahweh.

What we used to say Jehovah was a name that they felt was so holy that they forgot how to spell it. They never wrote tips they never uttered the words still today. Scholars argue as to how to pronounce it from you step into the pages of the New Testament is great sovereign holy omnipotent God becomes your father heavenly father who loves you and you belong to his family and where he is that you will be your family home. His home is your home. So is the spirit of holiness, the spirit of grace. The spirit of adoption and he's the spirit of witness and in verse 16 the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God not want to go back to the closing words of verse 15, by whom we cry, Abba, father and the word for cry. In verse 15 is a word that suggests not intimacy and nearness, but actually it's a word that suggests pain and almost dereliction. It's the word that was used of Jesus is crying in Gethsemane in the moment of our deepest distress. This is easy when things are going well and we have this wonderful relationship with our heavenly father and we want to thank him for Paul is saying here the spirit witnesses to your adoption interest in the good times but in the really bad times when you're crying when you're desperate when you're hurting when you lost a loved one.

When children are in distress trouble when sickness comes when that call comes from the doctor and it's it's terrible news. You find yourself in a marriage that's falling apart in those moments, moments of grief moment of pain moment of dereliction of this that instinctive cry father father you understand your near you sent your son who's been tempted like as we are yet without sin.

He knows our frame the wheel – he's been here to you understand this in the spirit. Witnesses he witnesses the Holy Spirit knew he indwells us fear the temple of the Holy Spirit is the spirit of the Lord Jesus went to mind the things of the spirit. So what does the Holy Spirit do the Holy Spirit witnesses he witnesses. In those times when we are tempted to become legalistic in those times when we are tempted to think what if I do this and that and that and that God love me then in the garden of Eden. Satan knew that tendency, and Adam and Eve were sons in the sense they were under probation, but there were sons, God put them in the garden. He gave a lavish provision. He put them in a provision that suggested they were part of God's family and Satan said has God said, you shall not touch of any tree in the garden and Eve said yes.

I think he did, Carter said no such thing.

The prohibition was that they want to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but the time the tree they could put term one of those little little beds. Those little swimming beds in the tree.

I think there just weren't allowed to eat of the fruit of that tree they could smell it could take pictures of it, but they began to interpret God is a God who didn't love them that much that there was something not easily about the provision that God has made.

That's a legalistic spirit.

That's a legalistic tendency when that happens, and it does happen that happens to us as Christians more often than we think the Holy Spirit comes witnesses says you're a child of the King dinner that him I once was an outcast stranger unearth the center by choice and alien by birth, but I been adopted by names written down an heir to a man showing the robe of the crown. I'm the child of the King, the child of a king with Jesus my Savior on the child of the King attend to her cottage. Why should I care that building a palace for me over there though exiled from home yet still may I sing all glory to God. I'm the child of the King and the child of the King.

The child of the King with Jesus my Savior on the child's of the King. This is a little section in the middle of Romans eight. The best chapter in the Bible is all about the Holy Spirit, who leads us into holiness, who reminds us of grace, who convicts us of our adoption witnesses. This child came. That's great news, visited Wimmer facing uncertainty when were fearful, remembering that were a child of the King brings comfort referred for modular teaching fellow Dr. Derek Thomas today and you're listening to Renewing Your Mind featuring this new teaching series this week on Romans chapter 8, and it's available to you today. There are 12 messages onto DVDs. Call us with your gift of any amount to the regular ministries at 800-435-4343 will be glad to send it your way. You can also make a request to give your gift online and Renewing Your Mind.org in 1971.

Dr. RC Sproul and his wife Vesta open the regular Valley study center in western Pennsylvania. RC's desire was to awaken people to the holiness of God. He did so in that small study center environment there, but that mission has not changed after all these years. Early on in the ministry. In the early 70s Dr. Spruill began producing teaching series.

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Some of fabrication that's not something that I just made up.

I consider something else. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing Lori that is to be revealed. We hope you'll join us Wednesday for a message titled hope in the midst of futility right here on Renewing Your Mind