Gospel in Life

Guest (Male): Many people say that what matters most is simply living a good and loving life. But the Bible says something very different. That the way we live flows directly from our beliefs about God. This summer and through the end of September, we're going through one of Tim Keller's most extensive sermon series in which he teaches from the first three chapters of Ephesians, looking at how the Bible's central truths about salvation and grace will shape even the most practical parts of our everyday life.

Tim Keller: As if you didn't know. We are looking for a couple of weeks at one idea, one key concept. It will be especially appropriate tonight to go from this teaching into the Lord's Supper because you always know that whenever somebody invites you into their home and lets you eat at their table, they're treating you to one degree or another as family. We're looking at the subject of our adoption through Christ so that we are children of the Father.

Verse four: "He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him, we receive redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding."

This is God's Word. But we're looking here; He destined us to be adopted as His sons. This is Father's Day. And I noticed yesterday in one of the religion writers for the New York Times, Peter Steinfels had an interesting statement to make. He said with all the flap about family values, people don't seem to notice that it's not really the question of why there are so many single mothers. He said the real question is why there are so many absent fathers.

He comes right out in that little article, and he says we need to ask a question. Now, I'm not going to answer this question; it's just a good question. This isn't our basic purpose tonight. He says in 1960, one out of every 20 births was to a mother without a father living at home. And today it's one out of four. And he says, "That is a cultural earthquake. That's a cataclysm. That's a huge change. Why aren't we talking about it? And why can't we talk about it without immediately politicizing it?"

All I'm pointing out, the only reason I'm pointing it out, is it proves that to be raised by a loving father is becoming a more and more rare experience. And the reason I don't like to talk that much about human fathers on Father's Day: first of all, I am a human father, and I know how imperfect I am. We have human fathers, and we know how imperfect they are. And even those of us who have the best human fathers know that they're imperfect because they die.

That is the worst thing that a really great father can do, but they do. No matter how great your father is, he's not perfect; he can't stay with you. And then the ones who are imperfect, of course, are with you too much. The point is that on this Father's Day, the best thing to possibly think about is this absolutely radical statement. This particular doctrine of Christianity ought to burst on our culture like a bombshell. No other religion makes the claim.

We talked a little bit about it last week. This is Christianity: that through Christ, your Creator can become your Father. Just because He is your Creator doesn't mean He is your Father. We talk about Henry Ford being the father of the Model T. That doesn't mean he had them all around his table every night; it didn't mean he tucked them in the bed. He didn't get them little drinks of water at 4:00 AM when they asked for it.

To be your Creator is one thing; to be your Father is another. Every other religion says you can know the Creator, and you can be His servant, or His student, or His citizen, or His follower. But Christianity alone has the audacity to say through Christ, your Creator can become your Father. That there is a perfect Father. A father that does not die. A father that loves you with absolute wisdom and absolute consistency and absolute love and compassion.

The word "adoption" we said last week shows us, though, that we are not children of God by nature. Adoption takes a legal action on the part of the Father. To say everyone is just naturally a child of God goes completely against what the Scripture teaches. And we know from maybe the greatest of parables... remember the parable of the Prodigal Son? That the only way that we can actually be welcomed by the Father is at Christ's expense.

I refer to it so often, you must remember the features of it, but let me show you exactly how it bears on our subject for tonight. The Prodigal Son was one of two sons. The Prodigal Son took all of his inheritance when his father was still alive and went away and squandered it. That meant that everything the father had now belonged to the elder brother. So that when the Prodigal Son came back and said, "I'm penniless, I'm a fool, I'm stupid. Just put me back into the estate by making me a servant. I'll work for my bed and my board."

The father says, "No, I'm going to welcome you back into my family. I'm going to bring you back into my love. I'm going to bring you back into my inheritance. My son was dead and now he's alive." But you see, the elder brother looked and said to the father, "Wait. There is no way that you can welcome this son. There is no way you can welcome this profligate jerk. There is no way you can welcome this one back into your family except at my expense because everything you have is mine."

"When you put a robe on him, when you put a ring on his finger, when you kill the fatted calf, the problem is, Father," says the elder brother, "Every robe you have is mine. Every ring is mine. Every fatted calf is mine. You can't bring him back in except at my expense." Now, that's what the elder brother says in the parable. But don't you understand when the Heavenly Father says to you, "I can adopt you as my children. I can put your sins behind you. I want you at my table."

The same dynamic is at work. The only way that you can possibly enter into your Father's arms and into your Father's inheritance is at the expense of Jesus Christ, your elder brother. Except He's not like the false elder brother; He's the true elder brother who says, "Welcome, my little brother. Welcome, my little sister. Come to the table. It's all at my expense, and I pay it out of my own pocket gladly. I died for you. Everything that you have now at the Father's table is at my expense."

"But that's all right because I give myself for you. I want you here." Now, there's a brother. The Father is our Father because the brother is our brother. Jesus, when He died on the cross, He was brothering you so that God could father you. Adoption is not something that happens naturally. Adoption takes a choice; adoption takes a legal activity. And that is the marvelous claim of Christianity: that through Christ, at Christ's expense, you can be adopted.

The reason you're in the family is because of the redemption of His blood. What I want to show you tonight is, first of all, I'd like to make some general observations about the doctrine of adoption, and then I would like to begin something I will conclude next week. I would like to show you what it means to not just know what it means to be children of God but live as if you're a child of God, as if you're a son or daughter of the kingdom.

I want to not only show you what it means but what it means to live it out. So tonight, I just want to set you up so you can embrace this perfect Father over His table, which you can do through faith. The word "adoption" in Greek, the word adoption that Paul is using here is the word *huiothesia*. *Thesia* means to make something, and *huios* means son. To make you a son.

In the Hebrew culture, there was no such custom, but Paul was a Roman citizen, and he knew that in the Roman world, adoption was a very specific legal procedure. It usually was not something that was done the way we do it. We adopt infants. But in the Roman world, adoption was usually done of an adult. This is the setting: a man who is the head of an estate has no heir. He doesn't want to see his estate broken up.

He sees a young man whom he respects and admires. So he goes to him and says, "I want to adopt you so then everything that I have will be yours." When the rich man would adopt his heir, immediately several things happened legally. Number one, all of the new son's old obligations are canceled. All debts are canceled; all legal obligations are gone. No longer does he owe anybody anything but his new father.

Secondly, this son becomes as wealthy as his father. He immediately gets the father's name and immediately becomes the heir of everything the father has. Thirdly, the father becomes liable for everything the son does. If the son does something stupid, the father pays. If the son does something ridiculous, the father makes up. But then lastly, the son, of course, now has the responsibilities of carrying on the name and honoring that name.

So do you see that adoption is primarily not a change of nature? It's a change of status. It was a legal change and it's the highest thing possible. When Paul talks about God adopting you, there's many other things that God gives you in Christ, but this is the highest. You have to see it as the highest. Nothing can be higher than this. Some people understand that Jesus died on the cross to secure our forgiveness. That is great, it's true, but this is higher than that.

Some of you know the Bible talks about justification by faith, that not only does Jesus when He died on the cross get rid of and pardon our sins, but His perfect record is transferred into our account. So we're not only not liable for our sins, but we now stand as if we had been righteous. In God's sight, you're righteous. In God's sight, you're a hero. You've accomplished all the things that Jesus accomplished.

That is amazing, but this is even higher. It's one thing for the governor to pardon a criminal and to say you don't have to be executed. It's another thing for a governor to give that criminal a medal and a great job in his administration. But it would be far greater for the governor to adopt this man into his family, give him his own name, and make him an heir of all of his wealth. The governor brings him into his home.

Don't you see that the highest possible thing that God could do for anyone would be to adopt? Now here's a couple of observations about this before we give you some practical implications. First of all, we must realize that the Bible insists that our adoption makes our sonship like and yet unlike Christ's sonship. First, it's like it. Any of you who have been adopted or have seen people adopt will know that the whole purpose of adoption is to treat the child exactly as if the child was naturally the parents'.

We don't always do it perfectly, but the purpose of adoption is to bring a child in and to be as intimate, as loving, and as supportive as you would be if that child had sprung from your own body. God obviously does it perfectly, and that means that the Father cannot love us less than He loves the Son, His only begotten Son. I feel like a bottle with a cork in it; I cannot get out what I want to.

I don't know how to get this across. When Jesus says in John 17, "Father, You have loved them even as You love Me." When Jesus Christ says that, when you see the word adoption, which means to bring a child in and to love the child as if the child was your biological child, this must mean that He loves everybody in this room who's really received Him as Savior as much as He loves His only begotten Son.

With as much power, with as much constancy, and with as much joy. Nobody believes it; I know you don't believe it, but we should at least think about this. Imagine the welcome that the Father gave to His Son when His Son came back from having died on the cross, having accomplished this great work. Imagine how the Father welcomed Him. Imagine the tidal wave of love that must have surged out of the Father's heart into the center of the Son's soul.

Well, why am I saying imagine that? Because adoption means that He loves you no less. That the love the Father has for you cannot be anything less than the love He has for Jesus. What is your real religion? Your real religion is what you turn to when the chips are down. Your real religion is what you turn to when things are going terribly. Your real religion is what you turn to when things look hopeless. That's what you really worship. What is it?

When you're desperate, when things look bleak, is this what you turn to? If you don't, you really don't understand the riches you've got here. Why are you turning to ambition? Why are you turning to sex? Why are you turning to bad habits? Why are you turning to fantasizing about what things might be like if only? This is not a fantasy; this is reality. Imagine the Father's love for His Son. The Father loves you even as He loves Jesus.

But on the other hand, Jesus's sonship is different. There are a number of places where Jesus says, "I'm ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God." Do you ever notice how carefully Jesus in the Gospels does not say "our Father" except in the Lord's Prayer when He's telling us how to pray? He says, "My Father and your Father, My God and your God," to try to show you something you must be careful of.

We're adopted into the family of God, but that doesn't mean we actually come into the Godhead; it doesn't mean we actually get absorbed and become God. Eastern religions will tell you that. The Course in Miracles talks about sonship, but it means merging in with the Godhead. It means the same thing Shirley MacLaine means when she says, "You are God. Create your own reality." The difference between saying "I'm adopted into the family of God" and saying "I actually am merging into God" is rather different.

A son submits to the father and obeys the father. But if we talk about merging into God, the new-age books always say things like "create your own reality," which is the exact opposite. It was the first sin in the garden. That's what the serpent told Adam and Eve to do. The serpent said, "Don't obey God; be your own God. You shall be as gods; create your own reality." Therefore, our sonship does not mean that we actually become merged with God.

Rather, God's nature does come into us and turns us into what we should have been all along: sons and daughters who reflect Him. Just like sometimes the parents' face is seen in the children. God certainly puts His nature in us—it's His Holy Spirit—but we do not get merged with Him. So our sonship is like Christ's; on the other hand, it's not. We don't merge in, but we really become sons, loved even as He is loved.

One more observation. There's a place in Romans chapter eight that says all of nature, the trees and the canyons and the oceans, are groaning under their decay and are yearning for the glorious liberty of the sons of God. And then Paul says, "And we too groan inwardly awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our bodies." In Romans 8, it says all creation is waiting for us to come into the glorious freedom of the sons of God.

This is one of the places where you see the Bible tends to sometimes talk about realities as if they already exist and other times as if they're not already there. Paul says here we've been adopted, but in Romans 8, he says we're awaiting our adoption. What is he talking about? Just this: when I adopt a child, I can give that child everything but my actual DNA. I can't do that. But the Bible tells us that our Heavenly Father will do that.

There'll be a day coming in which the glory that we will get as His children, when our inheritance drops on us, when the power drops on us, when His nature drops on us, and we finally lose all of our flaws and we finally become people that look just like He does, with all of His integrity and His nobility and His wisdom and His power and His love. Evidently, on the last day, the glory of our sonship is going to be so great that it's going to transform the whole universe.

The universe is longing for our liberation as children of God. That means the glory that's going to fall on us is so great that it's going to subsume all of creation and glorify it. All the decay will be gone, all the flaws will be gone. It's an astonishing statement. It means there is nothing higher than being admitted to the family of God. We have no idea what's in our inheritance. We have no idea what we're actually going to get.

But we know when it hits us, it's going to have such impact, such power, and such glory that it's going to change the entire universe. The mountains and the hills, the ocean and the trees, are standing on tiptoe in anticipation of our revelation as glorious sons and daughters of the King. I don't know what that means either, but it's tremendous. It's the sort of thing we're supposed to live off of.

Now, just before we go to the table, I'd like to tease you with what it actually means to live as sons and daughters of the King. In Galatians chapter four and in Romans chapter eight, it says the Spirit has not given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of sonship, whereby we cry to the Father, "Abba, Father." When the Bible says the Spirit's job is to show us that we're His children and to get rid of our fear, I think we have got a key to the Christian life right there.

If you have any fears or any anxieties, it's because you're not listening to the Spirit who tells you you're His child. Think of this metaphor: in Galatians chapter 4, it says that there are two kinds of people living in the household. There are the servants, the slaves, and there is the son. Imagine these big households had lots and lots of people in them. You had all kinds of stewards and workers and managers. Some of them were slaves, some were indentured servants, some were employees.

So you had a whole house and there was lots to do. But there was only one son in the household along with all the servants. Now, if you actually walked in there with a video camera and watched the servants and the son working, it would be hard to tell the difference. Very hard. Why? Because they were all diligently doing their jobs. And the son, depending on how old he was, might have a very menial task.

You might have a lot of servants that are doing more important and more valuable things than the son. But Paul says in Galatians 4, you do not relate to the Father as a servant or as a slave; you relate as a son. In the house, everyone's busy. The slaves know that if they don't do well, they can be cast out, or they can be demoted. Therefore, they work under compulsion, and they also know they don't have authority in the house.

The son, however, knows that the father loves him, knows that he is absolutely secure, and knows that the house is his. So in the same house, you've got people relating to the head as slaves and people relating to the head as sons. Which are you? Paul insists that in this room, there are many of you who are relating to the Father as a boss, and many of you are relating as His children. And they're very different.

Children relate with freedom. Children experience freedom in life, a sense of authority, a sense that "this is my Father's world." A sense that I'm accepted and I can't be condemned, and the Father loves me because of what Jesus has done. A slave is full of anxiety and full of fears, always afraid of being cast out. Always working not out of love but out of a sense of compulsion and without any freedom.

Sometimes it's not easy to tell the difference when you actually walk in with that video camera because they're all running about, but they have two very different motives and dynamics inside. Are you a slave or are you a son? Slaves are up and down emotionally. When they perform well, they feel like they're worthwhile people, and when they perform poorly, they feel like failures. But sons are emotionally stable.

A son knows when he does something well that that's not the reason he's accepted. He's glad he pleased his father, but that's not the reason he's in the house. He's in the house because of what his elder brother did for him. Therefore, he doesn't get a big head when things go well. And also, when things go poorly, he's not afraid of being rejected because he knows his relationship with the Father is strong. A father doesn't fire his son; a father fires a slave.

Do you find yourself emotionally going up and down depending on whether you're living up to standards, or is there an emotional even keel in your life? Do you find that you really don't get a big head when things go well and you really don't get all discouraged and depressed when things go poorly? A slave is critical, judgmental, and gossipy. Because a slave is someone who doesn't feel loved unless they feel superior.

Gossip makes you feel superior to people; that's why you like it. If you find gossip irresistible to listen to and irresistible to pass along, it's because you need to believe that you're better than the people that you're talking about. If you're critical, if you're judgmental, if you're very quick to jump on people. If you control people or you control environments because you don't want anything to go wrong and reflect on you, it's because you have a slave's mentality.

The slave's mentality is: "If anything goes wrong, I can't be loved." But a son is someone who's got an affirming spirit, who's a good listener, who doesn't gossip. A son is someone who is extremely good at giving compliments and making people feel better because the son knows that it's not his performance that makes him loved; it's what his brother did for him.

One more. A slave is somebody who can't take criticism and can't repent. Repentance is a destructive thing for a slave because repentance means admitting that you haven't lived up to standards. And if you haven't lived up to standards, you've got nothing to live for; you're going to be cast out. But a son is not defensive at all. A son is easy to talk to. A son doesn't immediately jump down your throat with lots of excuses. A son repents with joy. Which are you?

The Bible says the Spirit's job is to get rid of your fear by telling you, if you've received Christ as Savior, that you're a son until the fear goes away. If you're emotionally up and down, if you're critical, judgmental, or defensive, it's because you're forgetting who you are. You're not listening to the Spirit. You're slipping back into slavery. In Galatians and Romans, it says we have not received a spirit of slavery again to fear, but we've been given the full rights as sons.

In real life, adoption, sometimes the birth parent will come back and try to grab their child back, try to put a wedge between the adopted child and the parent. That doesn't happen a lot, but it happens sometimes. But if you are a son of the Heavenly Father, it will happen to you. Your old family, the forces of darkness, will definitely come to you constantly and say, "Are you really a son of God?"

When the Father doesn't do things the way you want him to do in your life, you'll hear a voice that says, "What kind of father is this that would let this happen?" That's the old family trying to stick a wedge between you and your real Father in heaven. Or when you fail, you'll hear a voice that says, "You call yourself a Christian? How could the Father love you after you've done what you've done?"

If right now you're caught in an anxiety cycle, you're desperately afraid because you're not doing well, you're hopelessly in despair, it's because the old family is coming along and helping you to forget who your real Father is. He moved heaven and earth to be your Father. Treat Him as a Father. Live as His son. The stability, the non-defensiveness, the tremendous security that should be there.

We're going to go to the table right now. We're going to confess our sins, but I'm going to tell you who should come to the table. If you know that you're not saved because of being a good person but surely because your elder brother has brought you into the family at His own expense so that your Father now has adopted you, then you can come to the table. Most of you, I know, because I struggle with this all the time, are not living as His children.

What are you worried for when your Father owns the universe? What are you defensive for when your Father has said, "I love you completely"? Treat Him as a Father. Grab Him as a Father. As you take the bread and take the cup, say, "Lord, I want to live as a son. I want to live as a daughter. I want my full rights." You are the ones who should take the bread and the cup, the ones who are willing to confess that you've been living as slaves instead of sons.

Let's pray. Our Father, we simply ask now as we do come to the table that You will enable us to take the cup and take the bread, knowing that this means that we have been admitted into Your very presence. We thank You that You are intimate with us; we would be intimate with You. We would confess to You our fears, and we would say, "O Holy Spirit, come and remind us that we are Your children, the children of the Father, until those fears subside."

Father, I pray that my brothers and sisters here in this room, as they take the bread and the cup, might have their fears removed by the knowledge of their adoption. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): Do you struggle to find the words to share your faith effectively with others? Most Christians, pastors included, have moments where we have trouble articulating what we believe and why our faith matters. In his book, *Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism*, Tim Keller shows how to communicate the Christian message in a way that's clear, compassionate, and accessible, whether you're speaking to a group or having a casual conversation with a friend.

Drawing from his decades of experience connecting the gospel to real-life circumstances, Dr. Keller shows how the gospel message can speak even to the most skeptical or spiritually curious people. During the month of July, we'll send you a copy of *Preaching* as our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the transforming love of Christ with more people. So request your copy today at gospelinlife.com/give. That's gospelinlife.com/give.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelinlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel quarterly journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources.

Again, it's all at gospelinlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1992. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.