Fundamental Meaning/Significance

Introduction to the Wonder of Adoption and Prayer

0:04 Now may I urge you to follow as I read that portion of the Word of God, 1 John 3, and this morning I shall include the fourth verse in that reading. 1 John 3, verses 1 through 4. Remember the word behold is an imperative that calls us to stand back, concentrate our attention upon something that ought to fill us with wonder, with awe, with amazement, and it is precisely that which John is seeking to elicit from his readers.

0:46 Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us. That we should be called children of God, and we are. For this cause the world does not know us, because it did not know him. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be.

1:17 We know that if he shall be manifest, we shall be like him. For we shall see him even as he is. And every one that has this hope set on him continually purifies himself, even as he is pure. Let us again pray, asking God's blessing now upon the instruction of his word.

1:47 Holy Father, we desire that in the exercise of consideration, that we may be called children of God, that we may be called children of God, because all who are in Christ are just that, that you would so work in us that something of John's felt amazement would be contagious, and that we would be brought out of the doldrums of a whole-hum response to the fact of our adoption, that we may feel the thrill and the wonder

2:32 of being given so high a status from so low a position that was ours by nature. To this end, bless your servant as he seeks to open up this biblical truth. Bless those who sit beneath that instruction that the Holy Spirit will come with power opening our eyes and kindling our affections and we pray Lord for those who are not your children who are yet children of the devil heirs of hell and of judgment may the things they hear make them jealous exceedingly jealous to know the blessedness

3:16 of this transfer from that horrible family into which they were born by nature that they may thirst and yearn to come into that blessed family which alone can be entered by grace. Hear then our prayers we plead in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Centrality of Adoption in Christian Faith (J.I. Packer)

3:45 In the year 1973 InterVarsity Press published the first edition of a book by Dr. J. I. Packer with the title Knowing God.

4:00 This book is already regarded by many responsible Christian leaders as a classic within the Christian literature of the 20th century. And in it Dr. Packer has a chapter entitled Sons of God. This chapter has much to say on the subject of adoption that amazing provision and privilege of God's saving work on behalf of hell deserving sons and daughters of the devil which by God's grace gives them the status or status of the sons and daughters of God.

4:44 And in the early paragraphs of that particular chapter entitled Sons of God Dr. Packer seeks to elicit a serious interest in the subject of adoption by making some very arresting assertions of the devil. In this chapter Dr. Packer has a few assertions.

5:04 Please listen carefully as I read a few of those assertions. I quote now Dr. Packer speaking of his own writing some years ago I wrote the following and then he quotes himself. You sum up the whole teaching of the New Testament in a single phrase if you speak of it as a revelation of the fatherhood of the Holy Creator.

5:23 In the same way you sum up the whole teaching of the New Testament in a single phrase if you speak of it as a revelation of the fatherhood of the Holy Creator. In the same way you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one's Holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands the Christian faith 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 of the New Testament which prompts and controls his worship

6:07 and prayers and his whole outlook on life it means that he does not understand the Christian faith very well if at all. For everything Christ taught everything that makes the New Testament new and better from the old everything that is distinctively Christian Jewish is summed up in the knowledge of the fatherhood of God. Father is the Christian name for God. End quote of himself and then he goes on to write these words still seem to me wholly true

6:52 and very important. Our understanding of the Christian faith cannot be better than our grasp of adoption and it is to help us grasp it better that this chapter is being written end quote and I say it is to help us all here to grasp it better that today's message is the third in a series on this marvelous provision of God's grace in Christ called adoption. I want to remind you the fact that if we are to understand the biblical

Distinctions of Adoption in God's Fatherhood

7:36 teaching we must on the front end come to grips with three very crucial biblical distinctions regarding this matter of the fatherhood of God and I stated those crucial distinctions this way. Adoption is distinct but never separate from justification God deals with us as judge in the court of heaven in adoption he deals with us as father in the family court. Secondly adoption is distinct but never separate from regeneration. In adoption God sovereignly gives us

8:21 the title to sonship in regeneration he imparts a disposition of sonship. And thirdly the fatherhood of God in our adoption is distinct from and must never be confused with the other fatherhoods of God set forth in the scriptures. There is the fatherhood of God to his eternal son. God is again and again referred to as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ as God as his Father in a way that is

9:05 utterly and eternally distinct and unique. And then there is what we could call God's creative fatherhood. In Acts 17 we are called as human beings the offspring of God and there is a fatherhood of all men in the sense that God is the creator of all men. And then there is that distinct testament of the nation Israel.

9:33 God called the nation his son whom he brought out of Egypt. Some have called that by the bigger name theocratic fatherhood. God's fatherhood of the nation of Israel. And then there is fourthly new covenant fatherhood.

9:53 That fatherhood of the thing we are examining together that which God has commanded us to do and what God has commanded us to do is to have the right of God to do what God has commanded us to do

10:32 adoption, not allow this dimension of our relationship to God either to erode or to replace the other images by which our relationship to God is clearly taught. And some of them are not metaphors. They are straightforward assertions of our relationship to Him. God does not cease to be our judge when He becomes our Father. 1 Peter 1.17 puts the two together. We do not cease to be

11:08 the bond slaves of God and of Christ. God becomes our Father and makes us free men, in one sense, in Christ. We are free, yet we are still slaves. And it would grieve me no end if one of you, of the wonder of adoption, allowed this truth to erode, to replace, replace, to obscure the other aspects of our relationship to God in His grace on the basis of the work of His Son. Then, last Lord's Day, in our second message, what I sought to do is to

The Place of Adoption in the Plan of Salvation

11:48 back up with you and open our minds like a lens that has a wide-angle view as well as the zoom lens and open it up as wide as we could to view the place of adoption in the plan of salvation. Or, if you will, the scheme of redemption. What a marvelous privilege of adoption. In other words, how important is it to God that He have a people as His sons and daughters? And what we saw by the

12:26 examination of a number of key texts is that adoption has a central place in the plan of redemption. We saw the central place of adoption in redemption back in eternity. Ephesians 1.5. And then the central place of adoption in redemption accomplished in the life

12:49 history of our Lord Jesus. The special text was Galatians 4.4-6. And then the central place of adoption in redemption applied at the inception, continuance, and consummation of life in Christ.

13:06 Adoption is front and center. The conclusion, then, that we draw, was this. God has given so central a place to adoption in His purpose of saving grace. Surely, we who are the recipients of that grace ought to bend all of our faculties and all of our powers to grasp what was so important to God in order to raise us to so high a privilege.

Outline of the Sermon Series and Today's Focus

13:40 Now, then, we come this morning to begin to consider, from the Word of God, precisely what it means to be adopted by the living God. precisely what it means to be adopted by the living God. And let me state by way of preview, in the course of the remaining messages starting today, What I hope to do is to examine together this essence, the substance, the heart of this privilege of adoption along three major lines. Number 1, the fundamental meaning or significance of our adoption.

14:15 Be our study this morning, and then secondly, the fundamental provisions and privileges of our adoption, both the objective and the subjective, and that will take two or three messages, and then thirdly and finally, the fundamental obligations and responsibilities growing out of our adoption. So the meaning, the provisions, and the obligations. I want to teach you God's Word, and that's why I labor to bring it down into these things that I hope have some mental burrs and some stickability.

14:55 Surely you can remember that we've considered the place of adoption in the plan of redemption, the fundamental meaning of adoption, the privileges of adoption, and the obligations that go out of that privilege. So this morning, we take up this first heading. The fundamental meaning, or significance, of our adoption, this crowning blessing of salvation in Christ. And we'll seek to come to an understanding of the fundamental meaning of adoption as taught in the Scriptures by tracing out three categories of thought.

Understanding Adoption through Paul's Word 'Huiothesia'

15:34 Number one, let's seek to understand the meaning of adoption in the light of special words that were used by the Apostle Paul to designate. the nature of this privilege in Christ. Let's seek to understand it in the light of the special word used by the Apostle Paul to designate the nature of this privilege of salvation in Christ. The word used only by the Apostle Paul and used only five times

16:13 to bring together the standard word for son. If you were speaking the Greek of Paul's day and wanted to refer to someone as someone's son, you would say huios, or huios, quite sure. If it had been pronounced then, our Greek-speaking friends can tell us how it is spoken in modern Greek, but even pronunciation may have evolved. But it's that word on the front end, huios, which most likely is taken from the root of a verb, tithami, which,

16:55 which means to place or to put. And so etymologically, and that's not always true, meaning sometimes drift away from their etymology, but this is not. In the Greco-Roman culture,

17:11 the Hellenistic world, you're talking about the Greek-speaking world of the first century that was under Roman rule. So people speak of the Greco-Roman culture of the first century. If you were to describe what someone did when he took into his family from an alien family a son who was not his own child by natural generation, you would have said he huiosied him. He, in the places that were in the Testament, in order to bring before us

17:55 what our doctrine, our redemptive privilege of adoption. Now, Sinclair Ferguson has written a very helpful book on the matter, of being children of God. It is called Children of the Living God. And I quote what he says concerning this particular word.

18:18 We are brought into God's family by a decisive legal act on God's part. The Apostle Paul thought this latter dimension illuminated Christian experience, and so he used the concept of adoption, huiofessia, to be placed, placed as a son, to describe it. Biblical scholars have long researched the source of this idea in Paul's writings. Many of them have concluded that the Old Testament does not really employ the concept of adoption.

18:54 Old Testament family life was so structured that adoption was unnecessary. On the other hand, the Hellenistic world, the Greek world in which Paul moved, governed by Roman laws did have such a concept. So it has been argued that the background of what Paul means when he speaks about Christians as a God is to be found in the legal system of Rome. Now listen to this very careful qualification.

19:29 It's critical.

19:31 Gird up the loins of your mind and listen. Paul did not shape the gospel to suit the secular world of his time. It would be mistaken, therefore, to think that he took the Roman legal concept and molded the message of the gospel into it. He saw that the Roman concept of adoption provided a valuable way of describing the Christian sonship.

20:00 You see what he's saying? Paul did not say, well, there's something God's done in Christ in which were made his children. How can we explain it? And then he saw, oh, this is what the Romans did when they adopted a son.

20:14 Let's find all the details of that. Bring it over here and shape the biblical doctrine of adoption according to the Roman practice of adoption. No! That's why you want to beware of these books that say, you want to understand Psalm 23?

20:33 What does it mean to have the Lord as your shepherd? And they go live for six months in Palestine and they watch 20th century Middle Eastern shepherds shepherd their sheep and then they expound Psalm 23 according to the Bible. The Middle Eastern shepherds. No, no.

20:48 You expound Psalm 23 by the Bible's concept of a shepherd. You find echoes in Middle Eastern shepherds. You say, oh, this is what God says and God means. But there's an echo out here that helps to illustrate.

21:07 Then you bring it. Now that's what Paul did. Having been given by direct revelation from God what it means to be brought into God's family. By a legal act of God's adopted grace.

21:25 Paul saw in the Roman to describe what it is to be placed as a son under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He used the word qui office sia. This Roman background seems to be confirmed. I quote now from Dr. Ferguson again

21:51 by the fact that the only occasions on which Paul used the expression, this word, are in the letters he wrote to churches in Roman colonies. He uses it twice in Romans, once in Galatians, and then in Ephesians 1, 5. That leaves us one short, but nonetheless there are five uses.

22:18 What does it mean to be adopted? I'm saying in trying to help us to understand what it means, we must, seek to do so in the light of the special word used by the Apostle Paul to designate the nature of this provision of salvation in Christ. What then is the fundamental contribution to a biblically created understanding of adoption that is made by this word that means to be legally declared a son of one who was not one's natural father. And to be treated in all respects as a natural child.

23:03 In other words, it is a status or status conferred resulting in a father-son relationship. Another writer expressed it this way. This results, I'm sorry, has expressed it this way, the word huiephosia indicated generally the legal process by which a man might bring into his family and endow with the privileges and status of a son one who was not by nature his son or his kindred. In other words, it is becoming a father to someone by a legal transaction

23:48 and not by natural paternity. Another has stated it this way. It's an act of transfer from an alien family into a father. It's an act of transfer from an alien family into a father.

23:59 It's an act of transfer into a father. It's an act of transfer into a father. It's an act of transfer into the family of a son. So, that's the basic concept as a son by a legal transaction.

24:10 Now, very interestingly, generally, in the Greco-Roman world, someone who would adopt a son did not adopt a baby. He would adopt a young adult or a fully matured adult. Often, someone who did not have a son to be his heir or to be the executor of his estate, his affairs, when he stepped out of his sphere of ordinary labor. Therefore, he would look to the character, to the proven abilities.

24:41 He would look for someone worthy to become his son. Now, do you see why it's foolish to make these wooden parallels? God doesn't look for worthy people to make his sons. He takes the heirs of hell,

24:59 sunk in their sins and twits and wretchedness and wickedness and wickedness and determines to make such his sons to magnify as Ephesians 1 says the glory of his grace. So, go to our Bibles and begin to understand what adoption is. We first of all must reckon with this particular word that the Spirit of God guided the Apostle Paul and only Paul to use with its fundamental concept of a legal transaction which places one in the position of a son with all the privileges, responsibilities of that relationship.

Attendant Realities: Severed Old Ties, New Family, New Commitments

25:43 But now, secondly, if we're to build a biblical understanding, we must move from that point to this. We must understand adoption in the light of the attendant realities of this foundational concept embedded in the quiothesia. And Sinclair Ferguson has been most helpful to me in my preparation. He writes, in keeping with the Roman concept of adoption, Paul's teaching meant basically three things.

26:18 The old family ties were broken. New family was joined and new commitments were made on the part of that new family. These same elements are involved in our adoption into the family of God. And how do we know that?

26:40 We know that from the Scriptures. When we are adopted into God's family, the old family ties are broken, a new family is joined, and new mutual commitments are made. The adoptee to the father who has adopted and the father to the one who has been adopted. Now let's see the Scriptures that teach that.

27:07 First of all, the old family ties, I'm going to state it this way, are radically and permanently been adopted into God's family by God's grace on the basis of the work of Christ with the tap roots of your adoption in God's sovereign, eternal, predestinating choice. Then, the family ties of your old family have been radically and permanently severed. The Bible is not silent in answering that question. In 1 John 3

27:51 and verse 10, John writes, In this, the children of God are manifested and the children of the kinds of people in the whole world, from the South Pole to the North, West and West to East, children of the world. Here this morning, only two kinds of people. Yes, males and females. We don't have any androgynous people here.

28:36 But far more significant in male and female is this, children of God, children, devil.

28:46 Fully understood this when looking into the eyes of very religious people, very knowledgeable of the Bible, very active in God-ordained forms of worship and service in conjunction with the temple. He said to them in John 8, 44, You are of your father the devil desires of your father. It is your will to do. Ephesians chapter 2 describes not only our natural paternity, but our natural siblings.

29:22 Who's the father of our natural family? The devil. Who are our siblings? Look at the description of them in Ephesians chapter 2.

29:31 Who did he make alive who were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature, notice, children of wrath, even as the rest. Paul says by nature we were the lackeys of our native spiritual father, the devil. He actively worked in us,

30:13 framing our self-centered desires, growing out of the world's trinity, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, in the vain glory of life. And we were in company with our spiritual siblings called sons of disobedience and children of wrath. That was our family. Not a very attractive family, but that's what our family was.

30:44 The devil is our father, and all those under his sway as our spiritual siblings. But when God adopts us, blessed be His name, we have a new family, new family ties. God Himself becomes our Father. John 1.12,

31:04 As many as received Him, that is Christ, to them He, God the Father, gave the right, gave the right to become children of God. Even to them that believe on His name. Or Galatians 3.26, You are all the sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

31:28 Where any sinner in that native family in which the devil is father, sons of disobedience, children of wrath, the siblings, wherever that sinner of any age, in any place, at any time, by the operation of the Spirit, is brought to the self-despairing awareness, I have nothing I can do to extricate myself from this family, to cancel the debts against heaven that I've incurred as a son or daughter of disobedience. There's nothing I can do to turn away the wrath I deserve as a child of wrath. But I see in this gospel that's been preached to me,

32:13 that in Jesus Christ, my debts can be paid. The power of the enemy over me can be broken. I can be brought into a new family with a new father and new siblings. And there is the slightest motion of a looking away from oneself unto Christ as revealed in the gospel.

32:34 You are all the children of God by faith. It doesn't say by strong faith or by an assured faith. No qualifying adjectives. Wherever there is the inkling of that faith that goes out of self and into Christ, there you have a child of God.

32:53 You are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. And so the new family is one in which God Himself becomes our Father, and all His adopted children become our siblings. That's why one of the favorite terms for Christians, Questions in community in the New Testament is what? I beseech you, what?

33:21 Brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your body. Brothers, brethren, precious word, we pass over it, but what is it saying? This is your new company of siblings. And Paul underscores that in that very chapter where he spoke of our natural family in the early words of Ephesians 2.

33:45 Look at the latter words beginning at verse 17. And he, that is Christ, through his preachers came and preached peace to you that were afar off, and peace to them that were nigh. For through him, that is through Christ, we both have our access in one spirit unto the Father. The new family has a new family head, the Father.

34:11 So then, you are no more strangers. You are no more strangers and sojourners, but are fellow citizens with the saints. Now notice the next phrase. And of the household of God.

34:27 What's the household? It's the gathered family. And he says when you have access to God as your Father through Christ, you have a new family. You're in the household.

34:40 That which is called elsewhere in Scripture, the household. The household of faith. So then, when Dr. Ferguson says what we are to learn from the concept of hweophasia is rooted in this blessed reality revealed by God, but has echoes in Roman adoption, when the formal adoption process was completed, all ties to the family, former family, were severed as though they had all died.

35:14 And as though the person adopted had died to them. It was a radical, that is, going to the root and permanent severance from the former family. And the new ties are established. We not only are radically and permanently severed from our old father, but from our old family.

35:42 Really? You are not. You are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. John says in this first, third chapter of 1 John, the world knows us not because it knew him not.

35:58 One of the most certain indices of whether or not we have God as our Father is that we're at home with our new family and we're out of joint with the old family. If you're comfortable with worldlings, you've never, been adopted by God.

36:18 I chose my words carefully. You must be with worldlings, Paul says. When I told you this is not to keep company with fornicators and liars and adulterers, I didn't mean with those in the world. Us and else must you needs go out of the world.

36:33 We're in the world to be light and salt and a witness. But we're never comfortable in the world. We bear the discomfort for the good of the worldling. We're never, we're with him because of an affinity of interest and perspective and desires.

36:56 As those express themselves in our words, in our manners, in our entertainment, in our dress, in our ambitions, in the way we regard money and people and things. We are of a different order when we're brought into the family of God. There is a radical and permanent. Sad.

37:19 Sad. Labyrinths of the old family ties. Secondly, we've seen there is a new family established with the living God as our father and all of his children as our siblings. And thirdly, there are new commitments made by the members of the new family.

37:39 We're going to look under the heading of the privileges of adoption. All the commitments God makes to us as our father. I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to get through those things without a heart attack.

37:53 As I've just begun to meditate upon them and write them down in trying to see the overall direction of this series. The privileges, the commitments God makes as our father.

38:07 Likewise, the one adopted made commitments to the new household, both to the father and to the siblings. And there are serious, tremendously demanding responses and responsibilities laid upon us within that family. And as I said, that will come up in our final division. The responsibilities of adoption.

38:33 Suffice it to say that when Dr. Ferguson says in keeping with the Roman concept of adoption, Paul's teaching basically meant three things. He wasn't imposing that on the biblical concept of adoption from the Roman. He saw that by divine revelation, Paul did.

38:55 Dr. Ferguson extrapolated it from his Bible and with Paul said, Aha, but there are echoes of it in the Roman practice of adoption that help to clarify and underscore and highlight the wisdom of God in plenary verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. That when Paul would be the instrument to set forth the wonder of this grace of adoption, he would be moved to either say to his secretary or to write, Hweathosia, placed as a son.

Adoption Defined by the Shorter Catechism

39:36 So we've seen that the basic concept of adoption is to be understood, first of all, in the light of the special word used by the Apostle Paul. Second, in the light of the attendant realities of the foundational concept of adoption under Roman law. But thirdly and briefly, in the light of the helpful biblical-based definition of adoption given, you know where, in the shorter catechism.

40:11 Would we understand the basic concept of adoption? Then memorize what will be, an appended shorter catechism definition that I'm going to set before you. It's question 34 in the original shorter catechism. In our shorter catechism Baptist version, it's question 35.

40:33 And here's the question. What is adoption? The answer, Adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby all those who are justified, are received into the numbers, and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God. That's the substance of what it means to be adopted.

41:00 What is the source of adoption? God's free grace. Adoption is an act of God's free grace. Why did they write that?

41:10 Because they understood Ephesians 1, 5, and 6. I take you back there. Having predestined us unto adoption, as sons, through Jesus Christ, unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to what end? To the praise of the glory of His grace.

41:34 To the praise of the outshining of His grace. In what setting? In conferring this amazing status upon us, adopted sons and daughters of God. The word free, points to the fact, that it is without a cause in us.

41:54 Just as we are said in Romans 3, 24, to be justified freely, without a cause in us, by His grace. So likewise, we are adopted out of the taproots of the heart of God, that moves out in free grace, to hell-deserving wretches such as you, and such as those who pursue God. and such as those who pursue God. the whole bunch of us.

42:21 Its source, adoption, is an act of God's free grace. Unlike the Roman adoption where the father was looking for a worthy heir. If God were to look for worthy heirs, none of us would ever be adopted. What is its nature?

42:39 It is an act. Adoption is an act. It's not a process. Just like justification is a once-for-all declaration of the legal or criminal court of heaven telling us our sins are pardoned, we have a positive acceptance based on the perfect obedience of Christ.

43:01 So, adoption is an act of God in the family court. As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God. The right to be His child upon reception of Christ is not something that increases when God, through His regenerating grace, begins to give us the disposition and the character of the Son and we grow in likeness to Christ and we become more and more adopted. No, no, no.

43:32 We are adopted as an act. Thirdly, who are its recipients? Adoption is an act of God's free grace whereby all those who are justified in our initial message I tried to demonstrate, that justification is the foundation of adoption. How could God adopt, take into His fatherly affection, rebels whose sins were still crying for judgment?

43:59 Those whose record was such that He could not regard them as righteous in His sight. Justification is the foundation of adoption. And so our Baptist catechism adds that little phrase, which is not in the original, catechism. It is as its recipients all those who are justified and what is the substance of adoption?

44:29 Two things. Listen carefully. They are received into the number of the sons of God and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God. They are given an actual status of sonship with right conferred by God and with all the privileges determined by God.

44:53 And then I'm going to add a third dimension and a solemn duty to obey the duties. A solemn responsibility, I'm sorry, to obey the duties of the sons of God. So I would like it to be memorized this way. Adoption is an act of God's free grace whereby all those who are justified are received received into the number, have a right to all the privileges and a solemn responsibility to obey all the duties of the sons of God.

Grasping the Fundamental Meaning and Its Implications

45:30 That's it. That's the heart of what it means. Do you grasp that fundamental meaning? It is to be given by God on the basis of the work of Christ.

45:41 This legal status of a child and as such a right to all the privileges and places you under the solemn but blessed obligations to obey the duties of the sons of God. My concern in this study has not been to identify the privileges or the obligations. I've tried the best I know how as a teacher and preacher to make it as plain and clear and substantively biblical as I know how. I don't know how to do it any better.

46:17 Now, not that I can't, but I can. I can. I can. I can.

46:18 I can't do it better. The Lord lets me tarry, tarries and lets me live five years. I'll probably look at these notes and say, oh man, you blew it. But dear people, I've given it my all to give you what I gave this morning.

46:30 I hope you've given it enough to go out of here with something more than mere fuzzy, well, somehow or other, I've got my father. I hope you can say, I see from the Scriptures my status is that of one whose ties to my old father are not as good as my father's. And to my old family and to all that marked what I was in Adam have been radically and permanently separate. And I've been brought into a new family with a new father and new siblings.

47:02 And I have been given rights and responsibilities in that relationship. Just as I trust you have a clear understanding now of what it means to be justified, to have your sins forgiven, to have a perfect standing before the Lord, to have your law credited to you because of your union with Christ, that you can get up tomorrow morning and say with biblical intelligence when you look in the mirror, in spite of what I see in that mirror that ain't very pretty, in spite of what I know that's underneath the skin and face and stroogly hair, as the Pennsylvania Dutch would call what you have in the morning, and all of that,

47:45 knowing what's inside that thing I see that is also not very pretty, I'm a justified man. I'm a justified woman. Because of my union with Christ, all the penal demands of the law against my sins, past, present, future, have been swallowed up in the death of my Savior. I will never be condemned for any sin I have ever or yet shall commit because I'm a justified sinner through faith in Christ.

48:17 Furthermore, God can, God can accept me with favor because He's credited to me the perfect law-keeping of His Son. I hope you can say, when you say to yourself, I'm a justified person, you understand that. I want you to be able to say tomorrow morning, I'm an adopted son. I'm an adopted daughter.

48:38 A transaction has occurred in the family court of heaven in which I have been legally declared no longer associated with my old father. And my old family and my old siblings. I have been brought into a new family with a new father and new siblings. And I have been given marvelous, yet to be expounded, privileges and solemn responsibilities and duties.

Pastoral Application and Call to Unbelievers

49:09 Oh God, help me to live this day in the consciousness of what I am as a justified man, a justified woman, boy or girl, and oh God, help me to live as a child of my father. Help me to live out this day in the awareness of what it is to be your adopted child. And to you, who are yet in the old family, as I close, what do I say to you? Well, I've prayed, oh God, make them jealous.

49:48 Make them jealous. Make them jealous. To be taken out of a family with such a cruel father whose ultimate ambition is very single and simple. You know what the ambition of your native father is?

50:05 To have your companionship in hell forever.

50:14 Lovely ambition, isn't it? You come to a father and say, hey, what's your ambition for your kid? I want to see him miserable. Screaming and howling and gnashing his teeth forever.

50:27 You'd say, somebody ought to take that man out and shoot him. He's not worthy to be a father. You are of your father, the devil. And his only ambition is to make you his companion in hell forever.

50:44 He wants your voice to join his in the wailing and the terrors. Revelation 20 makes very plain. It's as sure as tomorrow morning's sunrise if you stay in that family. For Revelation 20.10 says,

51:01 the devil that deceived him, them was cast into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. And Revelation 20.15 says, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. And there's only one way to know that your name's been written in the Lamb's book of life.

51:22 And that's to flee to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and by faith to be united to Christ. And then the living God will say, you're out of that family with that cruel father who has no ambition but to damn you. While this father has as his ultimate ambition to bring you home to himself and so work in you and upon you that when he's done, you'll be a perfect replica of his own beautiful, delightful son with a sinless soul inhabiting the deathless body amidst the family of others who share

52:06 the same family likeness as they all gaze upon and worship and serve their elder brother, the Lord Jesus. Oh, I pray, I made you jealous to become one of us. Go to Christ, and in Christ, you'll be adopted. Let's pray.

Closing Prayer

52:35 Our Father,

52:38 our narrow little hearts can barely contain even the thought that you, in grace, would do all you've done to take rebel, foolish, stupid, self-destructive sinners and provide such marvelous, gracious things for us and then reveal them in the Scriptures and bring them near to us in preaching and for many of us by the Holy Spirit to open our eyes and to incline us to come. Oh, God, do that work in others today. Establish your people in the understanding of their heritage in Christ

53:22 and seal your word to our prophet, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.