Several weeks ago I was thinking about what to speak on for Father’s day, and suddenly realized that the scheduled passage highlighted "Abba, Father." The more I read this passage in that light, the more I realized how perfect it was for today’s thoughts. "Abba, Father" is the cry of a child to its father. It’s probably not far from the word, "Daddy."

We ended last week talking about why Paul was so excited. It was because he had found the elixir in life, the key to life. And the key is the power and energy of the Holy Spirit in our lives, who can encourage and direct us to do what we of ourselves can’t do. God has freed us from the old life, and the Holy Spirit can enable us to walk in the new life as we walk with Him. And the Holy Spirit can put to death the old life as 8:12-13 says, so that we can experience LIFE in its fullness!

That’s not the end of the Holy Spirit’s ministry. He is drawing us to and introducing us to our Father, as we learn today. Family life depends on knowing and enjoying life with Father. And what is He like?

I think I can see four characteristics of our Heavenly Father that make Him such an amazing Father.

A. The Spirit of ADOPTION – When you trusted Christ, the Father gave you the Spirit of adoption. This is the Holy Spirit. But it is the Holy Spirit doing one of His unique things. He is helping us become an integral part of the family. Being in the family and being an integral part of the family are two different things. You can be in a family and under the impression that you don’t belong, that you are not accepted, because you are not like the rest of the family members.

It would be easy for that to happen when we enter the family of God. We could say, "these people are all holy; how did I get in?" We could say, "this is God’s family; I’ve been so long a part of the devil’s family that I don’t feel at home here." The Holy Spirit was given to us to prevent all those thoughts from misleading us. He is the "Spirit of Adoption." Adoption in Roman times was a celebration where a child was made an official member of the family with specific family responsibilities. The Spirit of Adoption is saying to us in the name of the Father, "I want you to know that you belong. And My desire is to make a real son/daughter out of you. I am committed to making you my own." God wants us to know that we are children of God. He wants us to know it so clearly that we begin to call the Almighty God, the Creator of the universe – "Father!" The Spirit of Adoption is the One who says, "WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!" The Holy Spirit is the "Family Spirit."

It’s possible for parents to call their children, "sons," and "daughters," even though they don’t actually view them that way. They don’t treat them like sons and daughters. The way they talk them down, the way they hyper react, shows that other things are more real in their lives than children. Maybe their golf game is their baby and they lavish care on their clubs. Maybe their job is their baby. But not their children. So the statement "you are my son," is bogus. They say it but it doesn’t mean that. Like the statement on the new IHOP menu, "this is your IHOP." What does that mean? That I own it? That I spend my money there? It’s meaningless.

The other "spirit" that can come to us would be the "spirit of bondage." That’s the spirit that says, "I saved you because I want you to make you a slave." God sent us the Spirit that says, "I saved you because I want you to be MINE!" "You are My child!" And this isn’t just an outward change, where we are given a family name, we actually are changed inwardly. We are given a new Spirit of adoption which changes our inner nature, so that we have not only the status of sons, but the heart of sons. The change is seen in our cry – "Father, Father." The word "cry out" is a very strong word that denotes a loud irrepressible cry with which the consciousness of sonship breaks from the Christian heart in prayer (Denny, 648).

B. REAL sons and daughters experience PAIN. What does it mean to be a family member in the Family of God? You would initially think that since God is rich and over all, being a family member would make us rich and over all. But here’s the sticker shock. It means suffering! Suffering? Somehow that doesn’t seem to fit our picture of the family of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Why would the King of the universe have any desire for His children to suffer? Wouldn’t you think that His desire would be for them to enjoy His Glory? Yes! And that is the exact reason suffering is in the picture – pain is the only substance that prepares us to share His glory. God wants us to be glorified with His Firstborn Son – Who suffered for our sins. The path we walk is to be similar to His.

Paul talks about suffering as if it is automatic: "for to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake" (Phil. 1:29). There is no question about it. Paul was sure that was going to happen to him, and he took it for granted that all other children of God would likewise suffer. As Denny says in his commentary on this passage: "those who share Christ’s sufferings now will share His glory hereafter; and in order to share His glory hereafter it is necessary to begin by sharing His sufferings here" (Denny, 648).

All families suffer. They all possess their private forms of pain. And one of the reasons for family is to help us with the pain. There is nothing worse in life than to be a "person without a family." It’s worse than the "man without a country." Family membership helps you deal with your difficulties and pain. So you can imagine how difficult it is to grow up without any assurance you are part of a family. I’ve heard of parents who make membership in the family conditioned on the child’s behavior. "If you don’t behave, we won’t love or accept you." I know a father who said this to his teen age daughter: "if you do that I will kick you out of the family." That is brutal. The family is the one place we can go in life when nothing works, and everyone is against us, and life stinks.

The behavior of the Father has much to do with children feeling accepted in the family. He is the one who gives the assurance by His love and acceptance and interest in the details of his child’s life. We demonstrate to our children that they are a part of our family by our respect, by listening to them. You can discipline your child with respect. You can honor her as a human being even as you correct her.

How do we live as members of the family of the King of kings? How do we live, now that we possess the "firstfruits of the Spirit?" And the answer is that we live in tension. We have this fantastic future coupled somehow with a painful present. The description here is of rich heirs who are frustrated. They want, even long for, what their name implies – the "glorious liberty of the children of God." But they can’t find it. After a while they realize that it’s not down here; it’s up there. But they are not up there, they are down here. How should they live when they don’t have what their name implies? The key is in the twice-repeated word "eagerly." Father wants to teach us to live in HOPE.

Here’s the problem we have as children – do we accept our present, painful state as permanent, as descriptive of God’s attitude toward us, as our "lot" in life? Or do we see it as temporary, a small part of the loving Father’s plan, and only the front porch of a beautiful house, called "eternal life?"

A. Hope enjoys what is coming. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed. This means that what is coming is so totally opposite what we are now experiencing that there is no comparison.

If we believe that, if that is our hope, we will "eagerly wait for the adoption," the time when the family finally gets together. One day there will be a REVELATION (19), as in the book of Revelation. The unveiling of Jesus Christ will bring with it the unveiling of His other sons in His Glory. Along with that creation itself will be released from the curse of sin (20-22). As a result, Joel pictures the reaper almost catching up with the sower because the ground has become so fertile. Think of what that day will do to your garden!

And every son and daughter of Jesus Christ will receive an inheritance. It may be a possession, like a farm in the blue ridge mountains; it may be a privilege, like being assigned to be the major of Bowie during the Millennium; it may be an honor such as receiving an award of a crown for faithful service. But every son and daughter of God is to receive an inheritance that is worth far more than any lottery win down here. Our Father wants us to live in light of THAT DAY. It’s like living in light of Christmas.

B. Hope understands the present more clearly. What we are living in now is not the true picture of THAT DAY of revelation. Even creation, even the universe, is dissatisfied with the present situation. Creation was subjected to "futility." This is the word "frustration," the frustration that arises because things are not what you expect, that you can’t find what you hope to find. It’s the word of Ecclesiastes, "vanity of vanities, all is vanity," because of the resultlessness of life. Living in this fallen world tends to make us pessimistic.

Hope realizes that we can’t live on "early returns." You can’t base your hopes on what you can SEE; you base them on what God has PROMISED. You walk with God and go where He leads. It may not look like much. It may look like Abraham who followed God out of Ur of Chaldees because God was going to lead him to a city. Fifty years later, where was he living? In a tent, under a big tree, at the oaks of Mamre. Where was the city? He hadn’t found it? Why follow? After 50 years you would think that you would see RESULTS!!! Abraham was waiting. Creation is waiting, everybody is waiting for the results that God is going to bring out.

ILLUS – Let’s suppose that you receive the news that you are going to go to Hawaii on an all expense paid vacation for 3 weeks. You leave the first of August. How do you live for the next six weeks? Your expectation of the future would change the way you live today. On the other hand, let’s say that you have just received the news that you have terminal cancer and have less than six weeks to live. How would that news change your outlook on today? Actually the future events don’t have to change one’s attitude at all. You can be depressed for six weeks before you go to Hawaii, or you can be excited with terminal cancer because you know you can fight it.

My point is that our view of the future gives us the proper perspective on the present. The future tells you whether your glass is half full or half empty. Do you know what your future is in Jesus Christ? The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed.

Children need to grow up around adults who are excited about the future. You say, "aw, wait till you get to be an adult; it’s bad; bills, bills every day, discouragement, frustration, and you will probably die eaten by a great white shark, or getting run over by a tractor trailer truck. Children need adults who think that the greatest thing in the world is to be an adult, and to have responsibility, and to see God at work in their situations.

III. Father wants us to live by FAITH (26-34). You’ve heard the song that says "when you can’t see His hand you trust His heart?" That’s where this section is going. There’s not a big difference between "hope" and "faith." "Hope" is a word connected with "desire," and "expectation," and what is desired and expected. On the other hand, "faith" is a word connected with a "person" and His "promise." Hope connects with the object, the expectation, the future. Faith connects with the word that describes that future, that creates the expectation. Those who live "eagerly expecting" as in the previous section, are those who are trusting the Father’s description of what He is doing. The amazing thing about this section is that not only the Father, but also the Son and the Holy Spirit are all involved in helping us trust the Father’s description of what He is doing.

Verse 26, WE DON’T KNOW how to pray. Verse 28 but WE DO KNOW what He intends to make all this stuff GOOD, because we know that He KNEW all of this ahead of time (29), and in spite of everything He saw, in spite of His understanding of how weak we would be, He PREDESTINATED us to be conformed to the image of His Son. Why? Because His plan is for a large family, that His Son have many brothers and sisters. And His plan is that we believers become like His firstborn, so that Jesus Christ would be the firstborn among MANY BRETHREN (29).

A. The Holy Spirit helps us pray (26-27). Why bring up prayer here? Because the Christian life is only lived by prayer. "Prayer is the pre-eminent prerequisite of a successful Christian life" (Harrison, 81). Everything that we need in life, from information on how to live today, to encouragement, to understanding what God is doing – comes through prayer. How do we know what our Father is doing without talking to Him about it?

The problem is that we don’t know how to pray! "Lord I need a new car." Do I need a new car? or do I need contentment with my present car? "Lord would you remove my enemy." Do I need God to expunge my enemy or do I need His love for my enemy? Our view of our needs is so often distorted. We think we need physical things, when we need a heart with opened eyes, a spirit that is encouraged from above.

We sometimes pray like the florist who was a little confused: A man opened a new business and his best friend sent him a floral arrangement. The friend dropped in a few days later to visit his buddy and was pained to see that the flowers had a sign that read, "Rest in Peace." He called the florist to complain. The florist said, "I am very sorry, but it could be worse. Somewhere in this city is an arrangement in a cemetery that reads, ‘Congratulations on your new location’" (OTOT 386).

The unbelievable news is that the Holy Spirit is assigned to do the praying for us: "the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us" (26). This means two things: our prayers will be exactly what we need, since the Holy Spirit listens to our hearts, searches our hearts, is in sympathy, even agony with us and prays for us with our kind of groanings. And (2) secondly, our prayers will be in exact accordance with God’s will (27).

B. Our older Brother prays for us (33-34). The Son of God is praying for us. Our elder brother is not praying primarily for the world in general, as He says in John 17; He is praying us. He is in the throne-room, at the Throne, and represents us as our Attorney. I wonder how much pleading my sin causes Him to produce. I wonder how often is He arguing His righteousness on my behalf (I John 2:1). But now no one, not even Satan, can successfully charge us with anything (33a) since it was God who declared us righteous (33b) on the basis of the death of Christ, and He is the One who is now representing us and pleading our case (Harrison, 81).

How do I know that things will work out well? Well, Jesus Christ is at the Father’s right hand pleading our case. What does that say to you?

C. The Father is working out His genius in all our circumstances (28-32). The key word here is GOOD. That corresponds with the phrase, "predestined to be conformed to the image of His SON." That corresponds to these past tense verbs that make it sound like it is already done in the Father’s mind – "called," "justified," "glorified." What kind of GOOD is does He intend? Making us duplicates of Jesus Christ. Making us glorified, so that Christ will someday be married to a wife who is without spot or wrinkle.

The point is that salvation begins with God, begins in eternity; nothing is a surprise to Him and He is going to accomplish His plans and purposes. And He says, GOOD. If He says, GOOD, what’s our problem? OUR PROBLEM IS THAT WE DON’T LIKE THE IDEA THAT GOOD INCLUDES SUFFERING – THAT GOOD INCLUDES WAITING, EVEN WAITING IN FRUSTRATION! That, to us isn’t good, can’t be good. And He says, "you have got to re-evaluate your outlook on what I am doing."

Did you notice all the strong assurances God is giving us here? First, it was the purpose of His calling (28b). His lofty purposes include these steps: He ‘foreknew’ us (29a), and ‘foreordained’ us, not only for salvation but to be ‘conformed’ to the Son (29b). He also ‘called’ us (30a), ‘justified’ us (30b), and ‘glorified’ us (30c). Even the glorified part is spoken of in the past tense, as if His purpose having been established, is already accomplished. James Denny, in his commentary on Romans, says, "the tense in this last word is amazing. It is the most daring anticipation of faith that ... the NT contains" (652).

If the Father has all this in mind and has set it up in His "purpose" it is totally logical to conclude that "God is FOR us." Whatever He does, however He works, whatever happens to us, HE is FOR US! What does it mean to know that someone is FOR you? I know that my wife is FOR me. I know that my wife is FOR our children. She will support them to death. She is on their side. They are hers. And I don’t think that when it says that God is for us it intends any less than Martha displays for her family.

We are talking ALL THINGS! We are talking CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON! We are talking CALLED, JUSTIFIED, AND GLORIFIED IN THE PAST TENSE! We are talking, IF GOD IS FOR US, WHO CAN BE AGAINST US?

At times it is difficult to accept that the place where I am presently located is God’s perfect place for me. And that it is GOOD! It’s easier to accept the idea that God allows me to be here, or that God can use my present situation for good even though it is less than the best. But this is the best? Now? Here? In this state? NEVER! The poorest among us is richer than 95% of the world, and yet we are unhappy, frustrated, dis-content. And so many of our Christian brothers, living in mud huts, being attacked by rebel forces who want to annihilate them, are supremely happy. I was talking last Tuesday with an old friend who for the first time out of this country went with his wife to a blind orphanage in Ghana, west Africa. He said that one of the pictures that lingers in his mind is of the happiness of the people. He described a hydrocephalus little boy with a head so large he couldn’t hold it up for very long, in a wheel chair with his mother dancing as she pushed his wheelchair around in a circle on the dirt floor, singing praises to God, and the little boy laughing and enjoying every minute.

Have you really, honestly, genuinely, thanked God for your unbelievably, incredible blessings? Did you sing the praises of heaven today with joy from the bottom of your heart? Or did you sit or stand there saying, "this song is being sung too fast," or "some member of the praise team is singing flat," and miss the opportunity to join with others to collectively glory in the name of our phenomenal Lord?

IV. Father wants us to understand His LOVE (35-39). Here’s what children so often need, assurance of the love of their parents.

Where do we get the knowledge that He loves us? From feeling loved? From warm gushy moments? Does it come when we whip up emotional ecstasy and repeat that God loves us? It comes from holding these simple conclusions as you face life and watching your Father verify them.

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. The difficult strokes in life argue against that Biblical statement. God wants us to hold on to that statement and hold it out as we face the strokes.

You can’t shelter your children from the difficult strokes in life. No matter what you do, someone is going to laugh at them, cuss at them, talk down to them, insult them, try to mislead them and get them to do wrong. You can’t keep them from all that. And that’s not your job. Your job is to PREPARE them for that, and then help them deal with it after it comes.

How did Paul get prepared for all this suffering? How could he say, "we are more than conquerors in the next verse after "we are killed all the day long?" Answer? Because he knew that his Father loved him with an inseparable love!

Even being numbered like sheep are counted just before they are slaughtered, expecting at any time the knife to take our heads off, even with death staring us in the face, we are more than conquerors because we know that our Father LOVES US!

That we should suffer for our sin is understandable. We know that we deserve it all. And people suffer because of their sin. But for someone to suffer because they DON’T sin is rather unusual. People have a hard time with that concept. Job’s three friends couldn’t grasp it. They were positive that his suffering was caused by some secret sin. Why would anyone suffer for NOT SINNING? Why would anyone suffer for their FAITHFULNESS? Answer? To participate in the life of our older BROTHER! To suffer for Christ’s sake is to enter into fellowship with HIM, which is the location where His love is most REAL, most NEAR, most VISIBLE to us. Paul said, "that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death." This suffering and difficulty and trials do not cut us off from Christ’s love, instead they actually give us a more intimate and exciting experience of His Love.

That’s why we started with, "WE ARE REALLY GOD’S CHILDREN; and WE ARE REALLY GOING TO HAVE HARD TIMES!" But here’s Paul’s conclusion:

38 For I am persuaded that neither death (mentioned first because it is life’s most horrible enemy) nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers (everything in the invisible spiritual world, whether they are good or bad, however powerful they are), nor things present nor things to come (no person or event on earth, nothing coming to earth in the future), 39 nor height nor depth (no dimensions of space), nor any other created thing (of any different kind – werewolves, ghosts, demons), shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I think that more important than self esteem and some of these other popular psychological notions today is for a child to know that they are LOVED – that they are secure in their Father’s love.

Last Sunday night we had Cullen and Janet Rast here to speak. They have spent 37 years as missionaries in Brazil. Cullen and I entered the Washington Bible College together in 1959. And after the service they stayed at our house and a three or four of you came over and listened as we told stories about one another in the early days. There were things that we worried about then which we laugh about now. And of course there were things that we laughed about back then that we still laugh about.

I wonder if that is the way it will be in Heaven, reminiscing with God our Father on the details of our lives. And the Father will say to us, "do you remember when you did that? Do you know why I brought that guy into your life right then? To protect you from the effects of your choice to do what was wrong." "And do you remember that family that came into your life and really wanted to hurt you?" "I just laughed and had the Army transfer them to Alaska."

Do you think your discussion with God will be that intimate? Some people will say, "no, that’s impossible to know God that way." But think about what we have just read. The Holy Spirit searches our hearts so that He can help us pray, even voicing words that we can’t generate. And the Son of God intercedes for us, praying constantly for our specific needs. And the Father has chosen us, and is working events out for our good. Isn’t that a rather intimate picture of the Trinity crowding into your life? That’s a tremendous picture; that’s the kind of close relationship every one of us dreams of. And God wants us to live that way with Him – calling out "Abba, Father." Maybe we don’t know our Father the way we ought!

06/19/05, BBC am, Father’s day