[Read Romans 8:12-17]
How would you feel if the President of the United States called you up after church and wanted to stop by for a Sunday lunch? It doesn’t matter what you think of the guy, or even if you like him, you would be honored, wouldn’t you? You would be honored because one of the most powerful men in the world thought of you and wanted to have lunch with you. I guarantee you would talk about that experience for the rest of your life. You would probably look for opportunities to bring it up in conversation whenever you could. You would repeatedly tell your children and your grandchildren about the day when the president came over for Sunday lunch. It would be a nice addition to your life.
Now, what if it was your favorite president, the one you think has done the most good for our country? And he wanted to come over for Sunday lunch. You’d really be excited, wouldn’t you? You would be in the presence of greatness. Then imagine if, at some point during lunch, your favorite president said something like this, “I’m really grateful for your hospitality and the opportunity to have lunch with you. But I had ulterior motives for joining you for this meal. I want you to become my child. I want to adopt you into my family.”
Now, be honest, how would you respond to that request? I think some people think they would be honored by such a request. They would be excited at the opportunity. Yet, I think in reality they would think it was foolish. I think, in reality, your immediate reaction would be, “Wait. What? Why? How would that even work?” It would seem foolish because you would have to give up everything to become his child—you would have to give up your life, your family, your identity. Everything would have to change.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? We would be completely honored by a visit from the president but awkwardly bothered by a request to become his child. Why is that? Because a visit from the president is a nice addition to your present life. Nothing actually has to change. You can still keep your life, your family, and your identity. The visit from the president is like whipped cream added to the top that makes everything a little sweeter.
But the request to become part of his family is a little too much for us. That’s not just a nice addition to our current life. That requires us to give up everything. We would have to give up our current life. We would no longer do the things we’ve always done. In order to be a part of his family, we would have to live like a member of his family. We would have to give up our current family. You cannot become part of one family without leaving another family. It’s a big deal. You would have to leave parents and siblings behind to be part of his family. And along with all of this, your identity would change. You would no longer be “Joe Schmo” from Beaver Dam but a child of the president. You would be in the spotlight with everyone’s eyes on you. Everything about your life would change.
And that’s what this passage is talking about when it’s talking about our adoption by God—which is why some people hesitated to embrace that adoption. I think we sometimes are confused why people are uneasy about being part of God’s family—being adopted into his family. We think it’s an easy decision. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a child of the King—the King of Kings? Yet, we have to realize that being adopted into God’s family, becoming a child of God, means that we are leaving everything we once held dear. It means we will have to leave the life we know to enter into a different lifestyle. It means we will have to leave our current family—to some degree—to become part of a new family. It means we have to leave behind our old identity—who we are—to embrace a new identity as a child of the one true God. It means everything about your life is gonna change.
That’s why people hesitate. They would rather have an occasional visit from God that they can tell everyone about. They would rather have an occasional visit from God that acts like a little whipped cream on the top of their comfy cozy life—something that sweetens things up a bit. That sounds good enough for them. They don’t want everything to change. It sounds like a bit much, doesn’t it? It sounds a little crazy—a little foolish.
But the question is, what’s the alternative? Our passage this morning paints this picture in stark contrasts—in blacks and whites. We read, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”” (Romans 8:13–15, ESV). Here are the options laid out for us in this passage: You can either be a child of God, adopted into his family, and live OR You can be a slave to sin, live a fearful life, and die. Those are your options.
It’s a pretty stark picture, isn’t it? Everyone outside of Christ, is a slave to sin—an addict that cannot quit. Everyone is trapped in their own sinful habits and lifestyles and attitudes. And all of these sinful habits and lifestyles and attitudes are killing them—slowly destroying them and eating away at them. But they’re stuck. They’re trapped. They’re enslaved to this lifestyle. And they will keep living in this cycle of death until they destroy themself and die because they are trapped. And yet, they’re comfortable in this life and they’re afraid to see it change. At least they know this life. If it changes, they don’t know what will happen. That’s why they shrink back when the alternative is offered—when they are offered adoption through Jesus Christ. They’re afraid to give up everything to follow him. They’d rather just have the whipped cream on the top of their life, than have to embrace a new life, a new family, and a new identity.
Yet, there is no middle way. These are your options. You can continue down this path of slavery and destruction and death, or you can repent—turn away from it—grab hold of Jesus Christ by faith and receive the Holy Spirit.
Then, when you receive the Holy Spirit you receive a guide in life. Our passage says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” (Romans 8:14, ESV). So, when you receive the Holy Spirit, you receive a guide through life. You’re not left on your own. Instead, the Holy Spirit will lead you away from your old life and closer to Jesus Christ.
You will also have someone fighting for you. We read, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Romans 8:13, ESV). The Spirit helps you kill sin in your life. As the Spirit leads you away from your old life into your new life in Christ, he helps you kill the sin of your old life.
Then, the Holy spirit also reminds us who you really are—a child of God. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, 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 children of God,” (Romans 8:15–16, ESV). This is powerful because it reminds us that God sees us in a completely different light once we’re in Christ. Outside of Christ, when we were slaves to sin, we were enemies of God—that’s what the Bible says. But now that you’re in Christ, God no longer sees you as an enemy, but as a child. You’re part of his family, you’re adopted into his family. He is going to treat you like a son, not a slave. That’s a powerful reality and a massive shift.
As I’ve already mentioned a little bit, that adoption not only means that God sees you differently, but it means that everything changes—your life, your family, and your identity. You are not who you once were. You are now a child of God. You are now expected to live like a child of God and act like a child of God. You are not who you once were, your identity changes. Your core family identity is now the family of God—that takes precedent over your earthly family and national family. And with all of those changes, we’re expected to live into those realities. Now that we’ve been adopted into God’s family we are called to live like we’re part of God’s family.
But, that’s easier said than done isn’t it? We all know that we will never perfectly live into this adopted reality in this life. It’s what is sometimes called the already/not-yet reality of the Christian life. On the one hand, we are part of God’s family and are children of God—that’s the already. But then there’s the not-yet, the fact that we repeatedly fail to live into that reality on a daily basis. We repeatedly fall back into our old identities and lifestyles. We’re not-yet there.
The Christian life is all about living in that tension. We know that everything has changed but we know that much is still the same. Our sinful nature doesn’t die easily, which is why we need the Holy Spirit to continually guide us, fight for us, and remind us who we are in Christ—children of God. And this is a daily, every-single-moment type of struggle in the Christian life.
And there are some temptations we must fight in the midst of this struggle. We must fight the temptation to despair. Some look at how little progress they’ve made in this new life, and how far they are from truly living members of God’s family, and they throw their hands up in despair. They say something like, “I’m never gonna live that way. It’s never gonna happen. I’ll never be good enough. So, why even try?” We must also fight the temptation to frustration and accusation. Some look at how little progress they’ve made in this new life, and get frustrated and beat themselves up. They say something like, “I can’t believe how pathetic I am. I keep making the same mistake over and over again. How stupid am I? How can I even call myself a child of God in good conscience? I’m nothing.”
The response to both of these temptations is to daily walk by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. We don’t fall into the temptation to become frustrated and accusatory with ourselves because we’ve been forgiven by Jesus Christ and our sins have been paid for by Jesus Christ. So, beating ourselves up will accomplish nothing and is dishonoring to the one who paid for those sins and forgave those sins. By faith, we must refuse to beat ourselves up and accuse ourselves, but rest in our forgiveness. We fight the temptation to throw our hands up in despair and quit, by faith as well. We keep walking by faith, trusting the Spirit’s guidance and leading in our lives, even when we can’t see it. We never quit because we know we’ve got a long way to go, but just because we have a long way to go, doesn’t mean we beat ourselves up. We take each day and each step by faith and keep moving forward.
Now, there’s another aspect to our adoption that I haven’t covered yet. It’s the communal aspect of our adoption. When God adopts us into his family, which means we become part of a new family. Our adoption isn’t just about us and our relationship with God, it’s also about becoming part of the family of God and our relationship with other brothers and sisters in that family. We actually have no choice in this matter, if you have been adopted into God’s family, you’re not part of his family and you don’t get to choose who is and isn’t part of that family. They are your brothers and sisters whether you like it or not.
And there’s a beauty in this family of God—this new community in the world—because this family becomes a family for those without a family or those who are away from their family. Throughout this series, we’ve spent time talking about all of the brokenness in the world and the brokenness in our families and the brokenness in our own lives. And the redeemed family of God is one of the ways God meets the needs of all that brokenness in the world. For those who’ve been abandoned by their families, they can find a family in the family of God. For those who’ve felt lonely and on their own their whole life, they can find community and family in the family of God. For those who’ve had to move away from their families, they can find family in the family of God. And we can find that family wherever we go, throughout most of the world. When we spent 5 weeks in the poorest parts of the Dominican Republic, we found family there—fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s a beautiful thing.
I was reminded of this after I got out of the hospital and was talking to my dad. After I had been in the coma for a week, my mom and dad came out to check on my family and see how they could support them—that’s what families do, right? But my dad told me that after spending a couple days here, he left with a complete feeling of peace because he saw that we had a family here and this family was taking care of us in our time of need. That’s a beautiful thing.
And yet, we also know that we’re not there yet, are we? The corporate aspect of our adoption is no different than the personal part of our adoption. In our personal adoption, we have to live in the already/not-yet tension. We have to live in that same tension as a community as well. We are already the family of God—joined together through Jesus Christ, united by the Holy Spirit, adopted into God’s family. That’s already true of us. Yet, we also know, we’re not quite living that way, are we? We don’t quite live like the family of God. We don’t quite live as if we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. We’re not there yet and, to be honest, we’ve got a long way to go.
And we see the same temptations to despair, frustration, and accusation when we see how far short the family of God is falling, don’t we? We hear people who despair because the family of God is not what it should be, so they say, “Why even try?” and they walk away from the family of God. We hear people get frustrated because the family of God is not what it should be, and they spend their energy mumbling and grumbling about how far short the church has fallen saying, “I can’t believe these people call themselves a church. They don’t act like a family. They don’t do what they’re supposed to do.” Or they spend their time accusing the church, beating it up, for its shortfalls. Dietrich Bonhoeffer states this clearly, and with a sharp edge, “He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly…He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community…So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.” (Life Together, 27-28). Ouch.
The answer to these temptations is the same, walking and living by faith. We refuse to despair and give up on Christian community because, by faith, we know God has created this community and is restoring this community and working through this community (Also, by faith, we know that we’ve been adopted into this family and we don’t have the option of leaving it). We refuse to give into the temptations of frustration and accusation because those are traits of Satan himself, and not our Father in Heaven. By faith, we remember that these people, too, have been forgiven and cleansed by Jesus Christ and are being led by the same Holy Spirit—how is our grumbling and frustration going to help? By faith, we remember that WE, too, fall far short of God’s call on our life, and just as we request patience from others, we need to show patience to the family in which God has placed us.
Finally, by faith, we thank God for the family he has given us and trust that He is doing something bigger than we can imagine. I want to make this point by reading two more quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which there are for us all in Jesus Christ.” (Life Together, 29). By faith we look beyond the shortfalls of this family and thank God. Bonhoeffer also says, “Christian community is like the Christian’s sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.” (Life Together, 30).
By faith, we acknowledge that we may not be seeing things as accurately as we think, what may look like weak, terrible, pathetic fellowship in our eyes, could be powerful and glorious in God’s eyes. He is the one who creates this community. Don’t forget that. He is the one who saved us and is saving us. Don’t forget that. He is the one who adopted us into his family and gave us a new identity. Don’t forget that. And He is the one who repeatedly shows grace and mercy and patience toward us in our shortfalls. Don’t forget that either. So, by faith, we give thanks for the family of God that He has given us.
I want to wrap up by giving us a different response. Yes, I want us to give thanks for the family of God, but I also want us to respond in a different way. It’s easy for us to respond in despair, frustration, and accusation to the shortfalls of the family of God. However, I want you to respond differently when you see these shortfalls. I want you to respond with longing for what’s to come. The family of God will not always be broken and falling short—just like your life will not always be a struggle and falling short. One day, all will be made new. That’s the inheritance that is waiting for us. We read, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:16–17, ESV). Since we are children of God, we are his heirs—we have an inheritance waiting for us in eternity. And part of that inheritance is a perfected body and soul for us and a perfected family of God that is functioning the way it was designed to function. That’s waiting for us. And we have confidence that we’ll receive that inheritance because we are fellow heirs with Christ and he’s already received that inheritance as our older brother. It’s only a matter of time before we receive that same inheritance.
So, when you see the shortfalls and failings in your own life, don’t turn to the temptations of despair or frustration, rather, allow those shortfalls to create a longing in you for your eternal inheritance with Christ—a perfected body and soul. And, when you see the shortfalls and failings in the family of God, don’t turn to the temptations of despair and frustration and accusation, rather, allow those shortfalls and failings to create a longing in you for your eternal inheritance with Christ—the perfected family of God. Long for that day as we live by faith and the power of the Spirit on this day.