Thought we were done last week, but then this fit so well.

All summer, 9 weeks now, we’ve been looking at how to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

Mark 12:30

But all of that is predicated on understanding and living in the Father’s love for us.

What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father.

J.I. Packer, Knowing God

Are you a child of God? Then you have been adopted into His family.

The entire Christian life has to be understood in terms of adoption.

J.I. Packer, Knowing God

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.

Ephesians 1:5–6, NLT

God the Father was always God the Father.

It’s a fundamental way that he has revealed himself to us.

The fact that Jesus is “the Son” really says it all. Being a Son means he has a Father… That is who God has revealed himself to be: not first and foremost Creator or Ruler, but Father… He is Father. All the way down. Thus all that he does he does as Father. That is who he is. He creates as a Father and he rules as a Father.

Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity

When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God 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 God has made you an heir.

Galatians 4:4–7

Same words Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane!

Comparison

• v4, Agent sent into the world to give us the objective status of adoption.
• v6, agent sent into our hjorts to do something, give us subjective experience.

We are joined with Christ—if you are in him, God sees you in Him.

Why is this so important?

Think of the story of the Prodigal Sons…

• Father is just waiting, younger son came to his senses.
• Comes crawling back to the father, not worthy to be your son.

But, inevitably, the guilt-ridden son was calculating on the basis of his sin, rather than on the basis of his father’s character.

Jesus was underlining the fact that the reality of the love of God for us is often the last thing in the world to dawn upon us. As we fix our eyes upon ourselves, our past failures, our present guilt, it seems impossible to us that the Father could love us.

Many Christians go through much of their life with the prodigal’s suspicion. Their concentration is upon their sin and failure; all their thoughts are introspective.

Sinclair Ferguson, Children of the Living God

Twice Paul uses this same thought.

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs— heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Romans 8:15–17

• “spirit of slavery”, opposite is freedom. Instead, he says adoption.
• “back into fear”, opposite is confidence. Instead, “Abba, Father”.

The Spirit is given to Christians as “the Spirit of adoption,” and in all his ministry to Christians he acts as the Spirit of adoption. As such, his task and purpose throughout is to make Christians realize with increasing clarity the meaning of their filial relationship with God in Christ, and to lead them into an ever deeper response to Abba, Father

J.I. Packer, Knowing God

It is interesting to notice that Paul speaks of believers as having “the firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23). He does not mean that we have only part (the first part) of the Spirit, but that the Spirit himself is the firstfruits of our inheritance. The word he uses (aparche) was also used to describe the birth certificate of a free man!

Perhaps this nuance was present in Paul’s mind here, too… So, the Spirit serves as our birth certificate, actively engaging in our lives to assure us that we belong to the Father!

Sinclair Ferguson, Children of the Living God

• The Father’s kiss is an illustration of what the Spirit’s doing in us, calling out “Abba, Father!”

Implication & Application

We will spend a lifetime, an eternity, enjoying them. But for now…

1. Your Father will always do what’s best for you.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?

Matthew 7:11

We knew the boys had acclimated to our home, that they trusted us, when they stopped hiding food in their high chairs. They knew there would be another meal coming, and they wouldn’t have to fight for the scraps. This was the new normal.

Russell Moore, Adopted for Life

2. Your Father will always be there,
always want to hear from you.

Our adoption is the basis for our prayer. “Our Father…”

What if you don’t feel it?

• Ask the Spirit
• Ask the Son
• Ask the Father
• Ask a bro/sis

3. Your Father will always love you.

The Lord your God has chosen you to be his own
possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

The Lord had his heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors, he brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery

Deuteronomy 7:6–8

The most beautiful circular reasoning.

New Testament Christianity is a religion of hope, a faith that
looks forward. For the Christian, the best is always yet to be.

J.I. Packer, Knowing God

See what great love the Father has given us that
we should be called God’s children—and we are!

1 John 3:1