Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Announcer (Female): Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. When Christians are born into God's family, they find God very approachable. From Romans 8, we learn that the Holy Spirit births in them the desire for intimacy with God, in fact, even the desire to call him Daddy. Can you call God Papa? If not, stay tuned.

Dave McAllister: From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Today, we continue a series from Romans 8 on the blessings we've been given as children of an awesome God. One key blessing is this: you will sit next to the King.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: "But you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." And what the Holy Spirit does is to give us not only the permission but the desire to call God Father, and to even call him Papa. Abba, Aramaic for Daddy, Dada. It's what a baby would say as he's growing up, and to us he might say Papa or Daddy; in Aramaic he'd say Abba, Daddy.

And we can call him that. This Spirit enables us to speak that. If you've ever led a person to faith in Jesus Christ, you know that almost immediately after their conversion, when they pray, they call God Father, inspired and led and spoken in the Spirit.

I know of a woman who struggles greatly with alcoholism, and she keeps falling into it again and again, though she is trying to put to death the deeds of the body. She's having a hard time. But every time she confesses her sin, she always begins with, "Father, you know how much I love you, and you know that I know that this is sinful and it grieved you." Isn't that interesting? That's what comes out of her mouth is "Father." And Father, we can even say Dada.

Now, if during the prayer this morning I had said, "Now Daddy, we're here together as a congregation and we need your help," I can imagine that I'd get some letters. People would say, "Pastor Lutzer has become far too familiar with God. He's becoming too intimate and this seems a little disrespectful to me." But I could have done that. I could have done that. And in your private prayer, you can look into his eyes by faith, so to speak, and say Papa, Daddy.

Jews, when they copied the Old Testament, they were so concerned about reverence for the name of God that they would stop and they'd take and they'd clean out their pen, they'd put clean ink into it, they'd wash their hands, and then they would continue. That has an upside; it's wonderful to be reverent in the presence of God. But it has a downside. God was so distant, he was so impersonal that in the Old Testament they'd have never thought of calling God Father. Indeed, in the Muslim community, you cannot call God Father. Abba, Father, is the witness of the Holy Spirit that we belong to God and we can say, "I love you, Daddy."

Now notice that the Spirit helps us not only in our battle with sin, he helps us not only with our struggle with assurance, he gives us permission to say Dada, and also with the knowledge that we belong to God, our identity. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now, very important, other religions think they are right. They are just as convinced that they are right as we are. The difference is they do not have individual assurance.

If you ask any one of them, "Do you know that you belong to God and that you belong to him forever, and that God's children never forsake, and God is your Father?" they'll say no. No one can have that assurance. Why? It is only given by the Spirit, the sense of certainty that with the purity of the Holy Spirit, I've been cleansed and I belong to God. What a way to live.

As you know, 45,000 runners passed Moody Church this morning. We didn't count them all, but they were there, believe me, a river of humanity. I was out there for three-quarters of an hour and it showed no sign of stopping. It must have been two and a half to three hours by the time they all got past. I noticed one T-shirt, a T-shirt worn by a man running who said, "For my Father." That's what was on his T-shirt.

I thought to myself, probably his father has passed on, and very likely what he's saying is, "I'm doing this for you, Dad," hoping that his dad was watching. For my father. And I thought of all the training that this man went through and all of the hardship that must be necessary in order to run the marathon. I still think it'd be much easier for me to drive it than to run it.

What is there in your life that's hard? What discipline do you have? What sin do you have to put away? Would you do it for my Father? I'm doing it for my Daddy. If he loves me that much and cares about me, I'll do it for him. And we know for sure that Daddy is watching.

The Holy Spirit of God leads us. But you'll notice that the Father adopts us. The whole Trinity is involved. It's verse 15. We have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" It's the spirit of adoption. The Father says that you are mine.

Now, you'll notice that there are two different expressions that are used here for us. One is that we are the children of God, and the other is that we are the sons of God, or the sons and daughters of God, and you hear about adoption. So let me clarify all that for you very quickly. We get into the Christian life by being born into it. That makes us a child of God. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So we get into the Christian life by being born into it, but as soon as we are born into it, God adopts us. And the reason that he does that, and Paul argues this in Galatians, is that a baby can't enter into its inheritance. If you have a child, he could inherit, you know, $100 million and he can't enjoy it. He just needs to get through his day and not drive his parents crazy in the process. That's his agenda.

You need to be a son or a daughter, an adult son or daughter to enjoy your inheritance. Now this is what the Bible teaches. It teaches that we are born again and we become God's children, and immediately God adopts us so that we can begin to enter into our inheritance right away. And the new Christian who's never trusted Christ before but now trusts him as Savior has the very same inheritance as the believer who's lived with God and known God for many years. Now that new believer is going to have to grow into that inheritance, but it will be his possession.

There's no doubt in my mind that when the Apostle Paul talks about God adopting us, he speaks about the Roman method of adoption, which was very complicated. But it involved two very important things that I will mention briefly. One is that all ties to previous parents had to be severed. That meant that all debts were canceled. It meant all obligations to the previous family were negated. They no longer existed.

That's why, by the way, the Apostle Paul says, "So we are obligated now as God's children no longer to live according to the flesh." When God adopts us into our family, we have no obligation to obey the impact that Adam had in our lives. We're in another sphere here. So that's one thing. It was to cut off, to sever yourself from parents who previously owned you, or you were theirs.

But the second had to do with the bonding, the bonding that had to take place between the Father and the son, the new son. And this involved giving him a new name. You had to be have a new name and a new status. He would now inherit all of the blessings of the father, a new sense of security, because all of the wealth now of the father would be shared. And that adopted son, because of this very solemn ceremony, would belong to that man forever—till the father died, of course. And our Heavenly Father never dies. So we're secure all the way to the pearly gates.

So what Paul is talking about is here is the fact that God adopts us, and he says to us, "You are mine. You are my sons and as daughters of mine with all rights, privileges, joys, and happiness associated with those privileges and with that honor." We receive the Father's name, we receive the Father's friendship, we receive the Father's wealth.

You remember that song that we used to sing when we were younger? "My Father is rich in houses and lands, he holdeth the wealth of the world in his hands. Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold, his wealth untold. I'm a child of the King." Yeah, we really do inherit everything that God has. I'm not making this up. I'll give you some verses in a moment that will show you that this is true.

And we inherit, of course, also the Father's sense of security. It says when we get to the holy city, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and walk with them, and God himself shall be their God and they shall dwell with him forever and ever." We know a little bit about that on earth, but our relationship with God is oftentimes clouded, it's often unclear. Sin gets in the mix. Just imagine the total clarity, the complete clarity of our consciences and our hearts purified by God in his presence enjoying him. So, what we really have is the Father who adopts us, who says to us, "You are mine. You are mine."

Dave McAllister: Well you know, my friend, because we do belong to God, because the Father says to us, "You are mine," that means that as his children we should pursue the holy life. But how do we do that?

I'm holding in my hands a book entitled "The Pursuit of Holiness" by Jerry Bridges. Some of the chapters have to do with the battle for holiness, help in the daily battle, obedience, putting sin to death, the place of personal discipline, holiness in relationship to our bodies. What this book does is it takes us from where we are, it takes us by the hand and leads us into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ, which on the one hand accesses the promises of God, but also recognizes our part in intentional discipline so that we might indeed become all that God wants us to be.

For a gift of any amount, we're making this book available for you. Remember the title, "The Pursuit of Holiness" by Jerry Bridges. I know that it'll be a blessing to you and to all who read it.

Dave McAllister: Pastor Erwin Lutzer with more of "You Will Sit Next To The King," the second in an eight-part series of messages on children of an awesome God. Many of us are facing hard times. Next time on Running to Win, why enduring those times now will mean unending joy in the limitless life to come.

What did God mean when he said, "Be ye holy as I am holy"? And what is holiness, anyway? These are questions Jerry Bridges answers in his book, "The Pursuit of Holiness." This book is our gift to you when you give a gift of any amount to support Running to Win. Just call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's 1-800-215-5001. Online, go to offerrtw.com. That's offerrtw.com. Or write to Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Ask about "The Pursuit of Holiness." This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is a ministry of the Moody Church.