Imitation of God

Pastor Martin concludes his series on adoption by setting forth the responsibilities that flow from it, framing every obligation with the gospel pattern 'do because you have.' Following a thread he credits to J. I. Packer's Knowing God, he unfolds three great obligations of the adopted: pleasing the Father (drawn from Matthew 6 and 2 Corinthians 5:9), imitating the Father (from Matthew 5:43-48 and Ephesians 5:1-2), and glorifying the Father (from Matthew 5:13-16 and 1 Corinthians 10:31). He illustrates throughout with the pardoned criminal brought into the king's household and closes by urging believers to meet every temptation with 'I am a child of God.'

Pastor Martin turns from the agency of sanctification to the pattern of sanctification, asking by what standard the believer is to evaluate growth in grace. He unfolds the first three strands of the biblical fourfold pattern: God Himself (Be ye holy for I am holy), the moral law of God epitomized in the Decalogue (Romans 7:12 — holy, righteous, and good), and the entire spectrum of God's revealed will in Scripture, including the apostolic instructions, Old Testament biography, and even the principles woven into the civil and ceremonial law (1 Corinthians 9, 10; 2 Timothy 3:16). The fourth strand — Christ as the law incarnate — is held over for the next message.