That We Might Receive The Adoption As Sons

So this is the final week of Advent. And as we learned earlier, it's the Christ candle. It's the week that we study Jesus' birth is front and center, and it's what we're going to be studying this morning. I'm going to take a little different approach this morning than I have in weeks past. In weeks past, we've taken the topic of the Advent candle and talked about that. So we've talked about the angels, and we've talked about the shepherds. And we've talked about the prophets. And in each of those sermons, we've gotten into the details of the prophecy or of the shepherds and what they were doing and what they were like. The same would be true of the angels last week with David when he preached. And this morning, I want to take a little bit of a different approach. I don't want to be down in the valley looking at the details. I want to move up onto the top of the hill and address Christ's birth.

And so the question that I want to answer this morning, that I want us to interact with, is why did Jesus come to earth? Why was he born? Why did he have to be born? Now, there isn't one perfect or right answer to this question. In fact, there are lots of answers to this question, and many of them are good. And so I don't want you thinking there's this magic answer and all the rest of the answers are wrong. That's not the case. When you read scripture, you find out that Jesus came to earth for many reasons. Many, many reasons. Jesus came to this earth because his father sent him. He came to save us from our sins. He came to conquer death. He came to crush the head of the serpent. He came to lead a host of captives out of slavery. And this is just the beginning of some of the things that Christ came to do. Our text this morning touches on a couple of these things I've mentioned, but it highlights one that I don't think we take much notice of. And that is that Jesus came to earth that we might receive adoption.

as sons into God's family. This morning, I want us to grow in our understanding of what it means to be adopted by God and what the implications are for us as sons. What does it mean to be adopted by God and what does, you know, what's that look like and what's that require of us? That's what we're going to be studying this morning. And we're going to be, we're going to be, our text this morning is Galatians chapter 4, verses 4 through 7. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, I want you to understand sort of the structure of this text. To begin with, we need to understand how it's written. And what's going on is Paul is moving from a, you know, he's starting at the bottom of a hill and he's walking up to the mountaintop, to the apex, and saying, this is the purpose, this is the point. And so he's starting and he's giving some descriptions that build on top of each other. that are given to set us up to provide context for the point. And then after that point, he explains the implications of that point. And so the things that build up to the apex are, first, that when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, that he was born of a woman.

And so the thing that we're aiming at, the thing that's at the top of the mountain, the apex of this text, is that we might receive adoption as sons. That's what everything builds towards and flows from. And so the first thing that builds towards our adoption is that Jesus was sent from his father in heaven to earth to be born of a woman. So why was it significant that Jesus was born of a woman? Why did that matter? Why would Paul put that in there? Well, Jesus had to take on our flesh for his death to be efficacious, for his death to work, for it to be able to be applied to our account. We learn in Hebrews 10, chapter 10, verse 4, that it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. And so if there's to be forgiveness, if there's to be restitution made, it has to be made in the right currency.

And the blood of bulls and goats isn't the right currency. I've said before, it's as if you had a debt in dollars and you said, well, I'm going to pay it back in pesos. And would any of you accept that? If someone owed you $100 and they said, well, I'm going to pay you back in pesos, you'd say, no, that's not the right money. Go get dollars. And then I'm glad to take it, but you need to pay me in the right currency. And the currency... is not the blood of bulls and the blood of goats, but rather the blood of men. And so Jesus, if his death was to be sufficient to secure our salvation, he had to be a man. He had to have our blood. He couldn't be something else. Now, it's obvious that it should go without saying that he had to be born of a woman because he couldn't be born of a man, right? But there's another reason that he was born of a woman.

He was born of a woman because it's through the head, it's through the man that sin is passed down. We understand this with regard to Adam and his federal headship and that in Adam's sin, we all were corrupted and stand condemned because of his sin. It wasn't because of Eve's sin, it was because of Adam's sin. God came on the scene in the garden after Adam ate the fruit, not after Eve ate the fruit. And he says, because you have done this. And so he realized that Jesus couldn't have a man for a father because if he had a man for a father, he would be like us in every way with sin. He would have been a sinner and his blood wouldn't have been, it would have been counterfeit. It wouldn't have been real dollar bills. They would have been fake dollars. They wouldn't have been pesos, but it would have been fake money, broken money, not real value, with no real value. And so he was born of a woman because he needed to be made in our likeness for his...

for his death to be able to be applied to us. He also had to be born of a woman because if he had had an earthly man for a father, he would have been a sinner. Not only do we inherit Adam's sin generally, I think that we're more inclined to accept that reality. Well, I'm a sinner because of Adam. But we're not nearly as comfortable talking about it with our actual flesh and blood. I was talking to Vanessa last night. We were talking about our kids and about the desire that we have to... You sort of see this idea of generational sin in your family. And when a man and a woman get married, it's like two trains of generational sin just kind of, they meet at the station, and they kind of crash into, there's a mess. And then the kids come. And the kids are born in that, and they live in that mess where they've got mom and they've got dad. And I said to her, you know, I understand wanting to,

just stop the train short of it and say, no generational sin, none of my sin is going to be passed into my children. She's talking about our boys and some of the things that they're struggling with. And the things she was talking about were things that they've learned from me. And I say, I understand. I don't like the fact that my kids demonstrate my sin. That doesn't mean they don't demonstrate their mother's sin as well. They do. But we were talking about how they demonstrate my sin. And it's reasonable for her to say, I wish we could just stop this generations long from Adam on down to me. I wish we could stop that train just short of the station where the people after it wouldn't be affected. It's gone from...

from great-grandparents to grandparents to parents to you, but then when it gets to your kids, then it's going to stop. And what we see is that Adam's sin is passed down right on down through us, and it's going to be passed down to our children, to our grandchildren, to our great-grandchildren, and that that reality doesn't mean that we're without hope. But sin is passed down through the Father. I read an article recently about church attendance in children. And it was just an informative statistics, and it said, you know, when are children most likely to go to church as adults? And so you've got different family makeups. So you've got a married couple. And a married couple that have had children and have brought them up going to church, those kids are the most likely to grow up.

And continue to go to church. But then there's the question of broken homes, where you've got a mom and you've got a dad. And generally speaking, do more women or more men go to church? More women go to church. So in what scenario are the children more likely to go to church? It's if the father goes to church. More women go to church. If you think in churches here or in other churches, are there more single moms or are there more single dads? There's more single moms. But the children of the father are much more likely to go to church if the father did. And what I want you to see is that what fathers do has a particular impact on their children. And it's not to say that mothers have no impact, but they don't have as much of an impact as their fathers do, as the fathers do.

And in this situation, if Jesus had been not born of a woman but born of a man, he would have been sinful. And he couldn't have been our Savior. He just would have been like us. There's no other way that it could have been. So Jesus had to be born of a woman. Jesus was also, the next phrase says that he was born under the law, which is a strange thing. What does it mean for him to be born under the law? Does that mean that the law is superior to Jesus Christ? No, the law is not superior to Jesus Christ. Jesus tells us in the Gospels that he came to fulfill the law. But the law is a representation of his character as the second member of the Trinity, as a part of the Godhead. The law demonstrates to us, reveals to us the very nature of God. And so what's real? The person standing in front of the mirror or the reflection?

in the mirror. It's the person who stands there. And the law is the reflection. It's what we see. It's what God's given to us to show us what he is like. And so the law is not above Jesus Christ. And yet he had to come and he had to submit himself to the law. He had to be born under the law. Why did he have to be born under the law? Well, he had to be born under the law because the law is what stands in front of you and in front of me and condemns us. The Apostle James tells us that if you've kept the law at every point, perfectly obedient, and yet you fail at one point, you're guilty of the whole law. The law was given to increase our sin, to reveal it. It's a spotlight into the depths of our soul to show us the corruptions that are there. This is what the law does. And when it exposes the corruptions that are in our hearts, it then says, because of these things, you must die.

you must die. If you keep the law perfectly, you can live. But if you falter, if you fail, if you stumble at any one point, death. And this is the situation that you find yourself in, that I find myself in, that every man, woman, and child that's ever been created finds themselves in. Whether they acknowledge it or not, they live under the death sentence of the law. Because when God gave his law to his people, It was set up to be, if you do it, you'll live, and if you don't, you'll die. This is the covenant of works. This is what he said to Adam before the law was fleshed out at Mount Sinai. This is what he said to Adam. If you do this, if you obey me, if you do what I say, you'll live. But in the day that you eat of the tree, in the day that you do the thing that I said not to do, death for you. And that's fleshed out more in the Mosaic law. And so the law condemns us to death.

the covenant of works that God established in the garden that he fleshed out at Mount Sinai is still intact today. There's no other way to receive life from God except through the law being perfectly kept. There is no other way. If life is the end that we seek, it only comes through law obedience. And so Jesus had to be born under that law, submit to that law, and fulfill that law. perfectly for life to be available. He couldn't just come in and say, I'm going to snatch up my people and these people that I want because they're good people or they're worth it or they're worthy or they've earned it or anything like that. I'm just going to come swipe them up and we're not going to worry about whether they're sinners or not. No, God couldn't do that because he would have contradicted himself. He would have changed. The Psalms tell us that God doesn't ever change.

And if Jesus had come in and he hadn't submitted himself to the law of God, he would have changed. His character would have mutated, changed. He wouldn't have been immutable. And so if we were to receive salvation, the only way that it could come was through obedience to the law. Jesus had to come and be born under the law, submit to the law, fulfill the law, because we live under that law. It says that he came and he was born under the law so that he might redeem those who were under the law. That's you and me. We live under the law. He can't come into the prison that we live in and just say, well, you're free because I said so. No, he had to come in through the proper channels that he himself set up to redeem us. He had to be born under the law. He had to obey the law perfectly so that we could receive redemption.

so that our sins could be forgiven and washed away. And so that brings us to the fruit of Jesus being born of the woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law. It says, all of this has happened. God sent forth his sons. He was born of a woman. He was born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. Now, I want to talk about adoption a little bit, just our working knowledge of adoption. When you think of a child, that's put up for adoption, what do you think of as being true of that child? Why is that child up for adoption? What do you think? Why are children put up for adoption? Somebody doesn't want them, okay? Daniel, what did you say? There are no parents, okay? Yep. I think that what Diane said is the most basic reality of adoption. There's a child that no one wants.

Now, it may be that their parents were, we want to immediately start thinking about, well, sometimes things happen, something could happen to their parents where both of their parents died, or mom got pregnant and dad went away to war and he got killed and then mom died in childbirth, and how can you say that that child wasn't wanted? And that's the exception. The vast majority of children who are orphans, who are without parents, are without parents because They're not wanted. They think, well, we can't provide for this child. We don't want them. The orphans and the fatherless, there's no one who wants to care for them. In Ezekiel chapter 16, we read that the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, saying, Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, and say, Thus says the Lord God of Jerusalem, Your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite.

Your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite. And so what's that mean? That means that they weren't pleasant people, desirable people. They were bastard children. Their lineage was of no benefit to them. As for your birth, on the day that you were born, your navel cord was not cut. Nor were you washed with water for cleansing. You were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in clothes. No eye looked with pity on you. to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field for you were abhorred on the day you were born. And so the prophet Ezekiel is to go to Jerusalem and he's to tell them, you were an orphan. Nobody wanted you. No one cared for you from the time that you were born. You were left for dead. When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you, while you were in your blood, live.

Yes, I said to you while you were in your blood, live. And so what did God is describing the nation of Israel? He's describing where they came from. Where did they come from? They came from nowhere. They weren't a people. They were abandoned. They were small. They were insignificant. They were weak. They were pathetic. No one cared for them as a nation. And what did God do? He came to those people and he said, live. And if you carry on in this text, He goes on to describe how he cared for them, how he cleaned them up and how he protected them and how he dressed them and how he loved them and also how they turned away from him. But you need to see first that nobody wanted them. They were undesirable. They were left for dead. Rather, you were thrown out into the field because no one cared about you. This is the reality of abortion, or of orphans.

which leads to the necessity of adoption. What did God do in that text? He adopted the nation of Israel. He made them his own. I will establish my covenant with you forever. You will be my people and I will be your God. He adopted them because no one else wanted them. They were undesirable. And this reality, this thing in the nature of God, that he cares for the orphan and the fatherless, and the have-nots, and the nobodies, and the poor, and the wretched, and the weak. This is still true today. The nation of Israel was the church of the Old Testament. They were the people of God. And they were nobody. They were nothing. They were despised. And he made them his people. And he still does that now, today, with that same group of people, with the poor, with the weak, with the wretched, with the nobodies.

those who are left for dead, he brings them in and says, no, I will make you my child. He still adopts those kind of people, the orphan and the widow, the needy and the weak, those who have no means of their own and no one to turn to. And so this is the, you know, from the get-go, out of the gate with regard to adoption, you're dealing with a child that nobody wants. And it's really an unpleasant thing for us to think about or to look at, that there are children, babies, This is how the nation is described, squirming in their blood, just born. No one even cleaned them up. Undesirable. And we have in our hearts this thing that says, that's not right. Somebody should care for them. Someone should love them. Someone should take them in. Now, when you add to that weakness and that vulnerability and that sort of uselessness of a baby, when you add to them, or into that situation, when you put into that sin, it compounds the problem even further. You think about adoption in terms of when are children most likely to get adopted? Babies are most likely to get adopted up to about two, maybe three years old. After that point, it's like it goes up from zero to two, and then after three, it just starts going down. Kids get older than 10 years old.

The chances of them being adopted are next to none. Nobody wants them. And we're not nearly so, if we're honest, you're not nearly so calloused about that. You're like, well, that really does stink. But if I was ever going to adopt a child, I wouldn't want to adopt a 10-year-old. I'd want to adopt a baby. Now, why? Think about it for a minute. Why would you rather adopt a baby? There are good reasons and there are bad reasons. Part of the reasons you want to adopt a baby is because of the bonding issues. A child that's without parents, that's lived in an orphanage, has real and lasting difficulties in their life. And the sooner they're brought out of that situation, the more likely that they will live a normal life, that they'll be well-adjusted, that they'll actually call you mom and dad, they'll actually love you. But every year that goes by, that becomes less and less likely. And those children who are undesirable from birth become less desirable as they get older. And that's a very real thing regarding adoption. But why else don't people want older kids that have been unwanted for years? In part, those kids are bad. If we're honest, that's the reality.

The fact that they don't have anyone to love them and to care for them and to make them their child, those children develop self-destructive behaviors. And they become a danger to themselves and to other people. They become even less desirable because they start to develop sin. And they don't have the most basic provision of a mother and a father who love them to provide for them. So we need to take what we've... what we see about adoption and about the realities around us and say, okay, so where do I fit into this? Who am I that the Lord should take notice of me? The reason we have to understand where we fit is if you don't understand and if you don't identify with the baby who no one has cared for, no one has loved, who's been left for dead, in addition to that, sinful, corrupt, destructive, this is you and me, then you don't understand, you won't ever understand what adoption is. You won't ever understand what a blessing it is, what a kindness it is, that it is salvation, that to be adopted is to be saved, to be taken off the streets and out of the fields from sure death and to be brought into a home.

And to be cared for and loved and protected is life. What you did not have, you now have. And so when God describes the nation of Israel in Ezekiel, I didn't go on in reading it, but if you want to read one of the most intense, painful, uncomfortable things to read, just read Ezekiel 16, Ezekiel 17. Go on and read how he describes how ungrateful those people were. and the sorts of things that they did. Remember at the beginning, he says, go to them, go to Jerusalem and make known to her her abominations. Let her know how wicked she is, how much she's despised my tenderness and my care for her. Go tell her how she's turned away from and refused to be my child. And we have to begin to understand, if we want to grow in our love for Jesus Christ, our love for God. And we want to grow in holiness. We have to grow in our understanding of who we are, whether we're desirable or whether we're not, whether what we deserve and what we don't. And so many of us, we don't want to do it because if we look at who we are, what we are, what we're like, what we do, what we think, you think there's no hope for me. There's no hope. I don't want to think about that because there's no hope. And I say, don't you think that's what the orphan in the orphanage thinks?

there's no hope. There's no hope. Here I am and there's no hope. I'm condemned to this life and then to die at the end of it. This is my lot. And yet what we see when we begin to look into our own hearts and we see our corruptions and we see who we are, God sees that too. And he chose with that knowledge of you and of me, in that light, he chose to send his son into this world. so that he could adopt people like you and like me, bring us into his family, to bear his name, to be called by his name, and to receive an inheritance as an heir, as a son of God. And so we don't come to God all covered up in makeup and dressed up and trying to present ourselves well to him. We come to him, or rather he comes to us as squirming, helpless babies in this world that are left for dead.

And he comes and he cares for us from that state forward. And we receive the adoption as sons. And as sons, you move from verse 5 where we're received, where we're adopted, you move into verse 6 and he says, well, this is what happened with sons. Because you're sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. And what does that mean? What does it mean? So we have this thing. inside of us that orphans don't ever understand. Those without fathers don't understand what it means to have something inside of you that cries out, Abba, Father, Daddy. You don't understand it until you have children. And what every father wants is for when he gets home at night, he wants his children to come with their arms up, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. That's what sons do. Orphans don't know how to do that.

fatherless, they don't have anyone to call father. They don't have anyone that comes home at night. They don't have anyone who provides for them. And so they don't have the spirit of God in their heart crying out, Abba, Father. And the thing that an adopted child has to learn is they have to learn that you were without a father, but now you have a father. And since you have a father, that means you're a son. And you have to behave like a son. Because you're a son of God, he gives you his spirit that enables you to respond as a son should. Abba, Father. Daddy, Father. But so often when we think of sonship, becoming sons of God, it's not attended in our hearts with this sort of joy. Coming into the family of God is often thought of as...

The Christian life is something that's difficult, it's burdensome, it's hard, it's tough. And that's not how sons think about being welcomed into a home. That's how a slave thinks about being welcomed into a home. We need to think now about the difference between the master-slave relationship and a father-son relationship, and we need to compare them. Being a son is completely different than being a slave. And yet there are some similarities. Both a slave and an adopted son are brought from without. They're brought into a household. You buy a slave. You can contract with a slave for them to come and to serve in your home. And in that arrangement, they're provided room and board. They have shelter. They have food. They're provided clothing. They're provided the necessities of life. And in exchange for those things, For them and their family, they work. But they don't live in the master's house, and they don't eat at the master's table. And yet they're considered a part of the household. And their relationship to their master is contractual, or it's businesslike, or it's cold. And that's the best-case scenario for a slave. Slavery can degenerate into much worse...

between a master and a slave, but at its best, it's contractual, it's businesslike, it's cold, it's you are providing me with this and I'm going to do this other thing and we both agree that that'll work. And yet, what's a father-son relationship like? What's it like when a father brings a son into his home? Well, for one, he brings him into his home, not just his household. He brings him into his house and he eats at his table. And that relationship between a father and a son is tender and it's loving. And yet they're not peers. The father still is the authority, right? It's still an authoritative relationship. The son still has obligations to his father, now has obligations to his father to honor him, to obey him, to seek his good. And yet when we're brought into God's family, we're not simply brought into his household and given a corner to live in as slaves. We're brought into his household. We're brought to his table. We're no longer slaves.

But we're heirs. We're sons. Why is it significant that they're sons? Why not daughters? Why not children? Because sons receive the inheritances. Sons receive the inheritance. They were the ones that carried on the name that would continue their father's business. And they received the wealth of their father. They also received the responsibility of fulfilling that work, that calling of a son. This is a son's job. A son's job is to honor his father, to carry on his father's work, to be a blessing to his father's name. That's the work of a son. And there are privileges that come along with it. And so when we receive adoption, we don't receive welcome into a household. We don't receive adoption as just one of the children. We receive adoption as sons.

as the firstborn son. That's what Jesus Christ was. He is the firstborn of all creation. And we receive adoption into his place. We receive the promises, the inheritance, the things that God rightly would give to his son, he gives now to us through his son. That's what we receive when we're adopted into his home. We're not welcomed into his house to do his bidding and to do... the things he says because he said to do them, and I suppose this is better than living on the street. No, we're brought into his home. We're brought into his house. We're brought to his table. We're brought into his bosom. I want to get at this point a little differently. I want to ask you a question about slaves. Do slaves seek their master's good? Daniel says yes. Slaves, why? They have to. Do you agree with David?

Do slaves seek their masters good because they have to? I think in large part that's what we think, that they seek their masters good because they don't have a choice in the matter. And part of the reason we think about this, and I'm not going to go way down this rabbit trail, but you have to realize that living in this country and having slavery in our past, our understanding of slavery is it is always and in every situation categorically wrong, bad. And the relationship between a master and a slave is adversarial. It can't ever be good. Because that's the blight on our nation's history. That's what you've been taught your whole life if you're Americans. Your baseline understanding is slavery's bad. There shouldn't be masters and there shouldn't be slaves. And yet when you come to Scripture, you realize there are masters and slaves. And it's not...

it's not spoken of the way we think of masters and slaves. And we have to, our thinking and our convictions have to be formed by the word of God, not by our country's past. And if you want to talk more about American slavery or slavery in Bible times, I'm glad to talk to you about it. It's an interesting topic. I'm not going to go into it more. But I want you to realize that you're... base assumption is that slavery is bad. It's an adversary relationship. Slaves should get away from their masters. And if they do seek their master's good, it's only because they have to. And what I want you to know, if we limit our biblical study to just the parable of the talents, you see two different kinds of slaves. You see faithful slaves and you see unfaithful slaves. You see a slave who took his master's wealth and he multiplied it.

And having been given a blessing as a slave, a blessing, a responsibility of multiplying his master's wealth, you see that his faithfulness led to greater blessing. And yet the slave that was unfaithful and said, I knew you to be a hard taxing man harvesting where you didn't plant. I just went and buried your money. And here you go, you have back what's yours. That's an unfaithful slave. And he's cast out of the household. And so often, Our conception of sonship is really slavery. We think of it in terms of a slave-master relationship and not a father-son relationship. And that's not right. God is our master. He's our creator. But primarily and uniquely and preeminently, he's our father. And if he's our father, then we're his son.

And so we don't relate to God. We may not relate to God. We can't conceive of God as a cold, hard, distant taskmaster who has welcomed us into his house because he chose to and has given us a place to live so long as we do what's required of us. That is not how fathers relate to their sons. Verse 7 says, You're no longer a slave, but you're a son, and if a son, then an heir of God. You're brought into his home. You're given all of the privileges and all of the blessings of his son, Jesus Christ. You have an intimate relationship with your heavenly father. That's what sons have. If a son has a distant, cold, contractual, obligatory relationship with his father, then they have a bad relationship. They have a relationship that doesn't demonstrate the fatherhood of God and the sonship of Jesus Christ. And so consider, When you think of God, do you think of him as a father? Do you think of yourself as a son? Do you realize who you are and what you're like? Do you identify with Ezekiel's description of the nation of Israel? Because when you do, and you see who you are, and you see that God came and plucked you up out of that pit of hell and brought you into his house and made you his son and gave you all of the privileges of a son, then you begin to understand.

what it means to behave like a son who's been given so much that was undeserved. When God sent his son into this earth, born of a woman, born under the law, born as a baby, this is what he had in mind. This is the reality of adoption. He takes the unwanted, the unworthy, the unloved, and he owns them. He makes them his own. And to do it, he gave up his son. He sent his son away from his side in heaven. His son willingly went, wanted his family to increase, the family of God, wanted it to grow, wanted to see it blossom into a kingdom that shall have no end. And so he came. He was sent to secure our adoption as sons. And if we're sons, then we have to behave like sons.

You can't be an ungrateful son. You have to be a faithful son. A faithful son seeks his father's good. Remember I asked you, do slaves seek their father's good? And you said, yes, because they have to. And now I want to know, do sons seek their father's good? And the answer is yes, because they get to. It's their privilege. It's their right. It's their honor to seek their father's glory, to seek his increase. And that is our lot. That is our place as sons of God. That's what we're to do. We're to seek our Father's glory, his increase, his praise. We want to see that, the earth filled with the glory of the Lord. And we can only do that. We would only want to do that because he sent his son into this earth to redeem us, to save us, to adopt us, to make us sons. If God doesn't adopt us, then we're...

without hope. We're without any benefit. And yet, that's not where God's left us. And if that's not where God has left us, then we ought not act like that. This is not the sort of thing that you downplay. It's not the sort of thing where you go, oh, I have this really good, cool thing. It's so good and it's so cool and it's so awesome. I'm not going to tell anybody about it. It's just for me. Because if God wanted a small family, he could have kept his son in heaven and he could have stuck with the nation of Israel. But he expanded his his search, his reach, his desire. He sent his son into this world to secure our salvation, but not only ours, for you and your children and for all those who are far off. And so as you go home from here and you go to celebrate Christmas and to rejoice in God's provision of his son, however you do that, consider what it means for you to be a faithful son. You wouldn't have anything to do today

if it wasn't for God's mercy to us. You wouldn't have anything to do. It would just be another day. You'd sit around and watch football all day or do something useless. You wouldn't even be here. And so consider the fact that in this upcoming week, consider, am I a faithful son? Do I behave like a thankful child who's been adopted, plucked out of poverty and death, and given a name and a life? Secondly, and finally, To you fathers, you want your children to understand this, don't you? You fathers will teach your children to honor God as you teach them to honor you. And honor means love, adore, cherish you. We don't live in an honor society. We don't live in a society like in other cultures. Asian culture, they trade on honor and shame.

The same is true of Middle Eastern cultures. It's an honor system. That's how life is lived. Children are expected to honor their parents, to honor their father. But it's not cold. Jesus honored his father, and yet do you think honor, in your conception of honoring your father, does it mean I do what my father says because if I don't do what my father says, then... He'll be dishonored, and I don't want him to be dishonored because I don't want the consequences of him being dishonored. Is it cold and sterile? Is that what honor is? That's not what honor is. A son honoring his father is him eagerly, zealously giving himself to his father's pursuits. He doesn't do it because he can feel his dad's thumb on his back. You've got to, you know.

That's not what leads to sons honoring their father. And so you fathers, if you want your sons to honor them, then you treat them well. And you teach them to love you. And you teach them to come to you when they have problems. When your kid falls down and skins their knee, do they come to you fathers? Or do they go to their mother only? They should go to their moms. That's perfectly fine. The question is, do they ever come to you when they're hurt? Do they come to you when they're weak? Or don't they? I'll tell you, if they don't come to you when they're weak, it's because they don't think that they can bring weakness in your presence. They don't think it, but that's why they don't come. Daddy doesn't like that. Daddy doesn't approve of that. Daddy wants strength. And I say, if God wanted strength in his sons, you wouldn't be his sons. And so you fathers, if you want your children to honor you, if you want them to forget you, if you want them to honor God, you need to learn to love their weakness and be tender with them.

and tender with their mothers. You be sure to love your children and your wives with the same tender love that our Heavenly Father has shown to you. Our society says that that's weak. Men can't be that way. Men can't be soft. They can't be tender. They can't be compassionate. And that's not true. A godly Christian man is tender, and he's careful, and he protects the people who are under his care, and he provides for them. And he doesn't despise their weakness. And he does all of that and more because that's how God's dealt with him. So if you're a father, this is especially true of you. If you're not a father, you want to be a father someday, so you have to learn how to deal with it. God's given children to you in your church, in your extended family. You've got nieces and nephews and cousins and whatever. You're around kids. Learn not to despise their weakness. Learn to love them.

And you'll be honoring your father in heaven because he doesn't despise weakness. His power is made perfect in our weakness. And so we ought to reflect that in our lives, in our homes, with our children, in our workplaces. We ought to reflect that, the love of our heavenly father, to a fatherless nation, to a fatherless world. There is a father in heaven who's provided his son for you and for them. And it's your privilege as a son, with all of the benefits that come with being the Son of God. It's your privilege to show that, proclaim that, live that to everyone around you. Let's pray. Father in heaven, it's a privilege to be called by your name, to be able to call you our Father, to be named in your family, and to receive an inheritance as your sons. Father, we pray that you would soften us, to your word, that you would equip us by your word to do your will. We pray that you would increase in our hearts love for you, love for the lost, love for our own children and our wives and our husbands. Father, would you fill us with your Holy Spirit? Would you make us attentive to his leading? And Father, would you make us faithful sons? Help us to grow in our

our understanding of what it means to be a son of God, what we have and what we're able to do now. Father, would you help us not to forget that? Help us not to trade that in for status in the world or for our comforts that are fleeting. But Father, help us to act as faithful sons, called by your name, saved by your grace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.