The Spirit of Sonship (Part 2 of 2)

As parents we often have people tell us, our children will just like us but the truth is they grow up to act just like us as well. Today, untruthful life weekend Alastair beg describes how we as children of God ought to mimic the qualities we see in our heavenly father Alistair's teaching from Romans eight verses 12 through 17. The enabling power of the spirit is at work to ensure that we as individual believers come up with a strategy for the eradication of sin come up with a strategy for the eradication of sin. John Owen in an earlier generation, said let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the valleys of his own lasts is a graphic picture the valleys of his own lasts.

How we supposed to handle this well.

He says there is a new obligation that attaches to this is not a call for self transformation.

This is a call to do what the Spirit of God enables us to do.

It is essentially a call to become what you are you are this therefore drawing on the resources that are provided for you. You can deal with it. If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body you will lead if you don't you won't.

And what kind of life. The life that is truly life this is the great challenges in speaking to young people as beaded teenagers and being a university student because there is everything it says hey we can show you how to live will show you how to live is owned by the Bible this. It was not hard to live as a form of death as a form of restriction as a form of spoiling everything now I say is actually not if you want to really live live by the power of God and live in obedience to the word of other responsibilities of life in the spirit are then representative of the relationship which is enjoyed by the Christian and he goes on to say in verse 14, because those who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. We are God's children. Therefore, we would want to go in the direction that God intends this little phrase here being led by the spirit of God. I don't think she be thought of in terms of subjective guidance. People say this all the time I had somebody tell me this week. I asked him I said, I believe you're moving to New York and the fellow said oh yes were moving to New York. I said them and is that because of your job and he said no he said I just a God told us to go to New York I was at the end of a meal. It was late at night and I was leaving, arrest, and I didn't have time to engage in the hello but I went away and I said I wonder how that works.

I know that God never once told me to go to New York. I wonder how you are when you get that then I thought maybe garden telling to go to New York and if he did.

I wonder how he did Luther. Speaking of this notion of the leading of the Spirit of God says such leading excludes all fanaticism, all autosuggestion, all hearing of fictitious imaginary inward voices always sounds very spiritual and we will tell you that God told him to go somewhere. I'm not denying the Gardendale people to do whatever he chooses to do.

I'm just telling you that he never told me that I suppose.

Ultimately he told me to come to Cleveland. Otherwise I wouldn't be here, but I never had any audible voice. If I listen to the voice in my head, I guarantee I would be in Cleveland. I don't mean to dishearten you in any way, but if I listened during the week to the voice in my head of a number of seemingly so I'm really afraid of the voices in my head. My head is full of whistle so I do not want to be paying attention that no actually I think when he says here because those who are led by the spirit of guards are sons of God. Verse 14 we are to understand in terms of verse 13. If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live because explanation those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. In other words, they are the ones who do what they're supposed to do in the round of obligation on the live as opposed to those who don't and therefore they die. We are sensible people.

You can figure it out.

Verse 15 builds on verses 13 and 14 for you didn't receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, no you actually have received the spirit of son ship your sons and daughters are not slaves. Paul is reminding them of what is happened in conversion you didn't receive the spirit is a spirit of slavery by the spirit of adoption is what you said elsewhere bike in Galatians and in chapter 4.

You can read that on your own later on. But what he's making here is a very important point for us as Christians, we didn't find ourselves caught up with the servile fear of which the reformers used to speak the servile fear that lives in dread of punishment and makes us question whether we belong. Rather, we have received the Spirit of adoption, thereby producing what the reformers referred to as filial fear.

The filial fear making is wonder that we belong. Servile fear makes me wonder whether I belong filial fear makes me wonder at the fact that I do belong servile fear lives in the dread of a God who will punish me. Justifiably, for my sins, filial fear, lives in the reverential law of God, who has taken the punishment of my sins deserve and he has placed that upon his son creating therefore a sense of obligation to his mercy, and to his goodness and his grace.

This notion of adoption is a wonderful thing.

Spirit of son ship, and by him we cry, Abba, father to be adopted in the Roman context was a radical thing because the father of the Roman father had the power over his sons. The trio protest us was the name and when someone was adopted there was a whole ceremony that was going through that took place in the public arena that involved scales and it involved copper and then there was a fee that was paid to the father and poetry of protesters and just when the transfer was about to take place. He said no I am not giving him up and then the sermon he was engaged in a second time and just before the transaction was completed. He said no I'm not giving him a and then on the third occasion, when the fee was paid in the symbolic gesture followed then the child, the son was relieved of his obligations to his father and was adopted into the new obligatory world of his adoptive father. All of the debts that may have been part of his previous family were canceled and in all all of the responsibilities that were there were now dealt with all of the benefits of the inheritance that was part and parcel of his new life were now to become his and even the arrival of children by natural generation would not alter the status of this adopted son, you see the picture that Paul is using. You were once slaves of the flash you were once bound by these things. You were once controlled by these things. There were debts that attach to you, there were unpaid balances. There was all that was part and parcel of that which held you in absolute power in the preclear protesters the Roman father had actually in the early days the power of life and dad, Paul. Understanding the Roman culture and understanding theology melds these things he says to the phone.

She says you realize what is happened to you.

Nobody can take you back over here into that realm of slavery. Nobody can drag up before you again all these dance because they have been canceled. They have been. They have been subsumed.

They have been wiped clean in Christ and know the thing that defines you, is the fact that you are a member of this family and that you can address God in such an intimate way and that's the significance of the Aramaic word Abba. It's the word that Jesus used in addressing his father, is the word that he used when the disciples came to him and said will you teach us to pray and he said then pray this, our father who art in heaven. See when you think in these terms. When we think in these terms, we realize how radically different genuine Christianity is from formalize religion, I haven't met many formalized religionists who actually refer to God as father. I certainly have not met many of my secular and unbelieving colleagues referring to God as father, especially not when things go wrong, will refer to him as God, God or if there is a God, what is it what is it that causes eyes when the wheels fall off when the circumstances change when the wind is in our face when it appears somehow or another we lost control of the entire plot. What is it that causes us to kneel beside our bed and simply say that's all we can get out. We can even get a speech out. We can get a prayer out. We can even articulate what is going on in our hearts we just got nothing to say. All we are able to say is the why is that hits and evidence of your son ship is an indication that you are his daughter that you are a daughter of the king.

You are an heir that all the inheritance that is Christ your elder brother is your inheritance to. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills the wealth in every mine he is sovereign over all the affairs of time and in Christ we find ourselves here. All that doesn't mean that it turns everything over and tomorrow morning. The pile that we left on our desk for the challenges that we face in decision-making is somehow eradicated by that not by the distinguishing feature of the child of God is that they take all of that whatever is represented in that big bundle and when they lay it down able to come and say father father. This is not an expression of triumph. I don't think so often when you have this taught me was and then we cry, Abba father, as if it was some kind of which special spiritual experience. You know that now that we've entered into the great glory of everything we: father no. No, that's not when your children call your father is your father fight when you have a son-in-law when you get sons and lost one of the question is what are they going to call you when I supposed to call you. I said call me the right Rev. Dr. Alastair back something along those lines. It fit nicely. I said call me dad call me that part of my family sit on my carriage wash my TV drive my car really you I do it I just really Gary comes over to my house somebody come over to my house and started call me dad that would be presumptuous, but given the relationship. There's no need for hesitation and the intimacy that is conveyed here in the wonder that is conveyed here. And with this. We will start this is normal Christian living.

This is not a special dimension of Christian life you should must fight against those who try and send you in that direction. The context demands us understanding that it is the normal Christian life, allowing the Scripture to adjudicate on your experience, do not bring your expedience to adjudicate on Scripture. This is what is true of us and when we cry out to God in this way, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are God's children in this Roman sermon, he there were seven witnesses.

These seven witnesses were called to account yes on that day. This transaction took place in this person was adopted into this family.

Paul understands that this had to be witnessed and he says I know many of you will be thinking of the witness in this process.

Let me tell you the witnesses. It is the spirit of God himself testifies with our spirit shooting nice that we are God's children and since we enjoy the sense of intimacy. We are assured of this inheritance and ultimately our inheritance is Christ himself.

Remember, when your children were small, I used to come home perhaps get picked up at the airport and your wife would be driving and they would be in the back and they were hopefully glad to see you but they'd be getting Moving forward in the back seat closer to you. Their little heads out over the over the seat before all these regulations, we had to virtually strangle your kids in the back, but at an end. Their little faces would be there and then trying to be so oblique about things, but eventually one of them can contain hidden and eventually says daddy did you bring me say yeah yeah I have something for you when you get home is fantastic. I'm nostalgic for those days.

But you know when my daughter pick me up from the airport Friday scene and ask my brother anything. I hope she was just glad to have me.

I think he wants, and progress in the Christian life is his progress into understanding that when I have Christ I have ever without them. I've got nothing within my have everything I maybe absent a relationship I want. I may be absent something that I think would add to the sum of my total happiness when I have Christ I have all that I need and when that begins to dawn when I realized that I have been adopted into this family that he is my Christ is my elder brother and that he is granted to me not only the prospective privilege of life and glory, but also the peculiar privilege of suffering with an interesting heavy says that and if we this is true of us. If we suffer with him in order that we might be glorified with him. Julie's house selective.

Our Western Christianity is in this kind of terminology if were not careful will skip the suffering bit going immediately to the glory bit a significant number of our brothers and sisters in Christ today are suffering for their faith physically, materially, the loss of life, loss of home. The loss of family, I get here consistently leadership in American Christianity tries to convince us that will really get this right when we triumph when were in control when we could everything button down. That has never been true of the history of the church, the cultural Revolution in China under mode C tone sought to eradicate once and for all Christianity from mainland China and in seeking to do so by persecution by all forms of punishment by the breaking down of churches by the dismantling of assembled religion 14 years on the church in China is far more vibrant than it ever was when the persecution began what is that to say that we are to invite persecution, no.

But I think it is for us to take seriously what he says if we suffer with white. Why do we think it is that Christians in North America should get home to heaven scot-free. If there is going to be 1/3 great awakening. I'm pretty dead certain, is not going to come about as a result of Glenn Beck and Fox news, but it may come about as a result of what he saying here in Romans chapter 8 actually coming to fruition. Those who being led by the spirit of God as sons and daughters of God put to death the deeds of the flesh refused to submit to the alien authorities and as a result find themselves walking with Christ, not simply in the triumph of his resurrection but in the very fellowship of his suffering. I'm not a prophet I'm not the son of but I think it would be good for us to think along these lines to pray along these lines from not convince that things will remain as they are for the foreseeable future and what we most desperately want which is triumph may be the last thing that we actually need self, a perspective shifting message from Alistair Begg in our series called life in the spirit. This is Truth for Life weekend. Alastair will close today's program with prayer in just a minute, so please keep listening. Before we get to that this weekend is the last opportunity I have to remind you about a book we been offering that tackles a very relevant and yet rarely discussed subject the impossibility of living up to God's standards. The book is called impossible commands. We lived in a can-do culture were told regularly. There's no such thing as the word impossible. With enough determination and effort we can accomplish anything. Of course we know that's not true.

There are many things we tried the are simply beyond our grasp, and when it comes to living in full obedience to God's command.

We discovered the same thing. We can't love God with all our heart and soul, at least not in our own power. The book impossible commands navigates us through the reality of our weakness and gives us for vital steps for understanding what obedience to God, looks like even as we routinely stumble. If you find yourself discouraged in your Christian walk. You'll gain a new perspective and a new pattern for satisfying joy full obedience. Would love to send you a copy of this book, so be sure to request it. When you visit Truth for Life.org again this weekend is the last time.

It's available so don't wait.

Learn how to request your copy when you go to Truth for Life.org while you're online, you can easily find the radio station in your area that carries Truth for Life or if you have a friend who lives in another city and you'd like to introduce them to Alistair's teaching. You can find the station that errors Truth for Life in their hometown along with the broadcast time.

Simply enter their ZIP Code. This visit Truth for Life.org/station finder now hears Alastair to conclude with prayer father, thank you that your word shines is a lamp to my feet and a light to our path.

It it opens things up in a way that is sometimes distinctly uncomfortable to us. It forces us to think outside of the box that is routinely fed to us by our soul March secular and religious thought. We don't want to be crazy, except to be crazy in the way that your word calls us to be and I pray today that you will help us to become people of your book. I pray that all that is true in all of yourself may find a restingplace in our minds.

Anything that is untrue or unkind or unclear.

Help us to step away from me the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with all who believe. Today and forever more about the peen. Join us again next weekend will continue our study in Romans chapter 8 study called life in the spirit will be learning how to endure suffering in this present age.

In light of eternity.

This program, the Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life for the Learning is for Living