that we might receive the full rights of sons

This morning in church I heard one of the most enlightening sermons I have ever heard.

The theme was about our son ship in the kingdom of God. It was about our adoption which was made possible by Jesus' death on the cross. To set the foundation for all of this I present you with this verse:

John 14:18 - "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

This is the constant of the Christian life; this is the key that unlocks that heart of the Gospel. We are not orphans, we are not alone, we are not spiritual street children, but rather we have been adopted by the very Creator of the universe and have received the full rights of sons (Gal. 4:5). This is something we often acknowledge. In fact we mention it all the time. We refer to God as "Father" and when we talk to a new convert we welcome them into the "family" of God. Seldom though do we wrap our mind around what Jesus says to us in John 14:18. We are not left as orphans.

Our normal disposition ignores the "not" in that verse. We think that we have been left to fend for ourselves, to look out for ourselves, because surely no one else will. This is the attitude of a street child not of one that has been adopted into the family of the King of Kings. We are children of the Most High we do not need to fend for ourselves. This is the thrust of the Christian life. God did the fending for us. We are His sons. Our needs have been taken care of and we have a feast before us; why should we keep picking in the garbage dump of the flesh, and of self reliance.

Daily we are faced with numerous circumstances that we can face one of two ways: we can choose to pick through the dumpster and see the best we can come up with or we can sit down at the dinner table of the King (grace) and see what God has prepared for us.

This my friends is essence of son ship: God has plucked us from the highways and byways of our self sufficient failures, and placed us in palace of His grace. Our faith is a finished product we are freed from striving to win the approval of a cold hearted stepfather and welcomed into the loving arms of the good father who ran to his son as he saw him coming in the distance.

If that doesn’t wet your appetite for the grace of God maybe this will.

There is yet another aspect of son ship: it reveals how God actually feels about us. We commonly accept the fact the God loves us, but this, this shows us that God actually likes us. Many times when we are shackled down by the sins we can’t seem to shake we know that God loves or loved us enough to die for those sins, but for some reason we just don’t think he likes us very much and we tuck our tails between our legs and hide like a dog who just ruined His favorite sofa.

This attitude though is not the attitude of adoption that God demonstrates in scripture. The Bible tells us that we can’t do anything to make God favor us more or less. He is already at the pinnacle of affection regarding us. That is the point of adoption, it has nothing to do with the orphan it has everything to do with the heart of the father, and God’s heart towards us is this: God is not mad at us He is mad about us.

Let us delight in our adoption as sons, and live like the children of great father that is ready and willing to provide for our every need, not as abandon children that are constantly fending for themselves.