Living Half-Saved?

[0:00] Father, many of us who are Christians, we forget who we are. We sort of remember it when we're in church, but then we forget who we are.

[0:11] And Father, in fact, many of us who are Christians live our lives as if we are only half saved, not fully saved. Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would move very powerfully in our lives and open your word to us and bring your word home to us, Father, so that we might be disciples of Jesus who are gripped by the gospel and learning to live day by day for your glory.

[0:36] And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. I guess because I'm in Canada and because I'm white, I don't often think of race.

[0:50] But when I was in Angola, my race was very powerfully evident to me in different ways.

[1:00] And I saw in very powerful ways how race can affect how you're perceived and what you're able to do. So when I was in Angola this summer, I was in a poorer part of, like most of Angola is poor.

[1:14] So that doesn't really narrow it down. I was in Lubangu, as many of you know, and it's like a lot of poor people in that city. And, you know, in fact, I was just thinking as I was trying to the 8 o'clock service, the house that I was staying at, like on a sort of very busy road, just about, like from your point of view, if you're looking out at the road, about 20 yards that way, there was a pothole.

[1:40] And listen, if you think there's potholes in Ottawa, you have never been to a place like Lubangu. When I say there was a pothole, it was probably about, I don't know, like about, you know, from here to that table.

[1:56] And it was probably from about this chair to the edge of the stage. And it must have been about two feet deep. Now that's a pothole, okay? So it dawned on me that it actually was very convenient for Norm and Audrey, whose house I was staying in, because all the cars coming this way had to basically go into the other lane of traffic to get around the pothole, which always meant that it was easy for them to back out of their driveway and go to where they were going.

[2:25] I don't know if they picked the house because of that. They probably didn't. But anyway, it's a very poor city. And I had decided I was going to go for a walk to buy some milk. And so I go.

[2:36] It's about a 10-minute walk. You know, there's sewage on the streets, garbage everywhere. You know, all the sidewalks are broken. The road is broken. It's dry. It's dusty. It's very poor. And I hadn't quite realized what I was about to see because I go through a lot of beggars, a fair number of children in particular who are begging, and I step past them.

[2:57] And all of a sudden, the pavement is perfect. And I look, and I realize that the building is perfect, and it's almost as if I'm in a first-world mall. And in fact, that's what it was.

[3:08] It was a mall made by Brazilian and Portuguese and rich Angolans, and it had a multiplex movie theater. I could have watched the summer's edition of Spider-Man there and other hit Hollywood movies.

[3:20] There was electronics stores, sporting goods stores, and a very, very good, like you would have thought that you were in a really nice, clean grocery store here in Canada. But here's the thing.

[3:32] There are lots and lots and lots of security guards, like lots of security guards. And they're everywhere, and they're giving everybody the look, but they just glance at me, and I go in.

[3:47] Why? I'm white. I'm white. I'm treated differently. And it was actually sort of very odd for me to realize that all the other people would get a close look, but I could just walk in because I'm white.

[4:11] There were certain assumptions about me. And I mean, in many ways, they were correct assumptions, but they were still assumptions just because I was white. The text that Ken read just a few minutes ago actually has a virus in it that after it has been written, and in much of the world it's been separated from the root, but there's a virus text that Ken just read a few minutes ago in Galatians that has gone on to slowly infiltrate and affect much of the thinking throughout the world, even though people might not realize that it ultimately came from a text explaining the implications of the gospel.

[4:54] And so for many people, it's separate from the gospel. It's just this idea that's become a bit of a virus throughout the entire world that something's wrong about a whole range of things that go on in the world, and it starts off in this letter to Galatians.

[5:06] So if you have your Bibles, it would be very helpful if you looked at it with me. It's one of the implications of the gospel, and it's in Galatians chapter 3, and we're going to begin reading at verse 26, which is where our text begins.

[5:18] Galatians 3, 26, and here's how it goes. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

[5:35] There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. You can see that virus?

[5:47] Like it's separated from the gospel. It's all one of the implications of the gospel, that if you are in Christ Jesus, there is no Jew or pagan. There is no slave or free.

[5:59] There is no male and female if you're in Christ Jesus, if you've received the gospel. It's an implication of the gospel, but this is a tale of radical equality.

[6:11] Radical equality. That a slave should be treated the same way that a free man. That a male should be treated the same way as a female and vice versa.

[6:21] That Jew and Gentile, we should be treated the same. It is an idea that has gone throughout the world, even though it's maybe been separated from the gospel. It's one of those implications of the gospel that changed the world.

[6:35] Now, some of you might say, you know, George, that's actually, like, that's interesting. I'd heard of that text before, and that's a very interesting idea. I hadn't sort of thought about how that has, in fact, you know, like in ancient Greek thought, in a much pagan society, where you are was where you deserve.

[6:50] The king was a god. The king was a god. And where you were was where you were deserved. In Hindu creation myths, the caste system is part of the Hindu creation myth, the creation system.

[7:05] So you deserve to be there. And here we have an implication of the gospel that human beings are, that these differences, that you're still going to have differences, but there's a basic type of dignity and way I've been treated.

[7:18] And some of you might say, George, that's a very interesting idea. I hadn't really thought of it. But, George, you know, isn't the text unbelievably hypocritical? Like, because they go ahead and say that, but, George, all the way through, if I remember correctly, Ken was reading that text.

[7:31] He kept saying sons, sons, sons, sons. Like, isn't that sexist? Like, isn't that just typical of Christians?

[7:42] You have this high-finding idea, but it's just covering a bit of a rot underneath, something which is fundamentally wrong. Actually, the fact that all the way through, the word sons is used, and not child, is unbelievably good news.

[8:07] Unbelievably, powerfully good news. Listen to it again, and then I'll explain. Listen to verse, begin at verse 26. Just listen to how it goes. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God.

[8:20] And if your version says child of God, it's a bad translation. The word sons should be there, as I'll explain in a moment. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

[8:31] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

[8:43] And if you could put up the first point, Andrew, that would be great, and I'll explain it, why this is actually very, very powerfully good news. It'll be there in a second. Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female, when we put our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we become God's adopted son and full heir.

[9:09] So, my wife is from a family of five kids. There were four girls, and I don't know, like five years and a bit. And then there was like a five-year gap or something like that, and then Richard comes along.

[9:20] In the ancient world, at the time that this was written, when Louise's dad died, 95% of the estate would not have gone to the oldest girl. The estate would not have been divided equally amongst 20% each.

[9:32] 95% of the estate would have gone to Richard. the oldest son. For most of the ancient world, and in many parts of the world, even today, primogeniture, that's what it's called, where you want to keep, people who are wealthy want to keep their wealth, so they give it to the oldest son.

[9:53] That's, for many parts of the world, that's just common sense. That's just like, why would you do it any other way? You know, with any luck, Louise's dad would have married the four daughters off to people who could look after them.

[10:07] He probably would have, I know he was always disappointed in me, but that's the topic of another sermon, and maybe therapy for me. No, not, no, no therapy. He didn't like me when I think I, I asked her to marry me, and I don't think he ever liked me, but there you go.

[10:21] That's another topic, right? So, he wouldn't have given me, that Louise to me, as a next, you know, as a good thing. But, so just think about it. So throughout most, so what's so radical about this text?

[10:33] What is so radical about this text, and why all the way through the text, it says son, and in fact, you can see it in the text, but in the original language, it's a technical legal word for the son who inherits the estate.

[10:47] So what is this saying? If you are a slave, and you have become a Christian, who are you now? In terms of God's eyes, you are the son who will inherit the entire estate.

[10:59] If you are a woman, who will not inherit anything, when you receive Jesus as your savior and Lord, God has adopted you, and your status in his eyes, is the son who will inherit the entire estate.

[11:12] If you are a female slave, the bottom of the bottom, when you put your faith and trust in Jesus, how does God now view you? You are the son who will inherit the entire estate.

[11:28] That's why in good translations of the Bible, the word son is there all the way through, and not the word child, because it's trying to communicate this unbelievable idea that God does not weigh our merits, that the normal order of how things work the normal way that people think of as being natural, that is being overturned, underturned, upside down, and that all of the things that might make a person say, well, I'm a male, and I'm rich, and I'm, you know, whatever, therefore, obviously, God's going to love me more.

[12:03] No, that's not the case. He doesn't love you more because of that. He loves all human beings, and when we put our faith and trust in Jesus, we become God's son by adoption.

[12:20] See, in the ancient world as well, it was possible. It couldn't happen now. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe there's somebody here that's in their 70s, and God didn't bless you with children, and in the ancient world, you could adopt me, even though I'm, I'm not going to tell you how old I am, but even though I'm not like a cute little baby, you could adopt me so that I would get the whole thing, and that's what it's saying, that God has adopted you.

[12:50] When you put your faith and trust in Jesus, you put your hand out to him, he takes you, and, you know, maybe at first when you become a Christian, who knows? You just, you want some hope. You, you may want to have some guilt removed.

[13:01] You want something more. You don't understand it, and what the Bible starts to explain, who you are in Christ, and who you are in Christ, is you are now treated by God the Father as if you are the Son who will inherit everything, and you have the rights and privileges of that new status.

[13:24] male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free. It's a very, very, very, very powerful text.

[13:36] Now, some of you might say, whoa, George, okay, that's, that sounds really quite amazing, but George, you Christians have sure sucked getting that out. Just the other day, I was talking to a woman who grew up in South Africa, so the mic keeps going in and out.

[13:53] Is that me, or what's happening? You're checking it out. Okay. If all of a sudden, I can't hear, you can't hear me, just wave, and I'll, I'll just speak louder. So, I was just talking the other day to a woman who grew up in, in South Africa.

[14:08] She's white, grew up in South Africa under apartheid, and one of the things we chatted about was, in fact, there were a lot of churches that white people went to in South Africa that specifically, in their sermons, would legitimize racism from the Bible.

[14:23] And, and that's just, I mean, this isn't just talking now about, you know, the South or anything like that, United States. I mean, this is, in the lived memories, many of you were alive when there were still churches in South Africa, and as we all know, there's a continuing problem where somehow or another people can read the Bible and see texts like this and still somehow or another justify racism.

[14:45] And so, the pushback can be, well, George, how on earth does this happen? Well, actually, if you keep reading in chapter four, Paul explains how it can happen. Some of it is, in fact, sort of all right news and some of it, in fact, is, it can be a little bit, it's one of that hard parts of Christianity where, well, let's read chapter four, verses one, to three.

[15:06] Here's how it goes. I mean, okay, that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.

[15:23] What about us? Or in the same way, or what about us? We also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. Now, that's a bit of a, you know, I have to confess, I kept telling my wife all week, I slaved over that text trying to figure it out, but there's two different, two different ideas that are at work here.

[15:42] And the first idea is this, it is possible for us to be the son, but live like we are a slave. That's what the point of the analogy is in the first two verses, that, you know, on one level, he just said, you look at a rich estate and you see slaves and you see, like a young child, but the young child is under guardians and tutors and in those days, you know, the tutor or the guardian could, you know, whack the kid on their behind with a stick or their hand.

[16:12] It could be very tough, very demanding because in the Roman world, they wanted their kids, their boys, to grow up to be men who were going to be leaders, so they could be very tough on them. And in some ways, it would look, you might not even be able to tell on one level, at a behavioral level, whether the person was a slave or in fact the heir.

[16:34] And the point of this is that we all know, and we're going to think about this more in a moment, but it's possible for us to have one status but live as if we're something else. I mean, that's just part of the tragedy of many of our lives.

[16:48] And Paul's going to, to develop this more in a moment, I'm going to talk more about in a moment. But here's the other thing, which is verse 3. If you could put up the next point. Part of the hard part about the Bible for many of us in Canada that teaches positive self-esteem all of the time is that the Bible is unbelievably frank about our human condition.

[17:10] And verse 3 is based, and it comes in a technical word for child. The technical word for child in the text means somebody who's immature, incompetent, dispossessed, and then he adds something else.

[17:24] So here it is. In my natural state, I am immature, incompetent, dispossessed, and a slave to elemental powers and spirits.

[17:37] In other words, I serve elemental powers and spirits as if I have no choice. Now this, see, here's part of the thing about the Christian faith. So the question began, George, how on earth is it that you can account for the fact that Christians have this wonderful text in Galatians chapter 3, 28, and then you can have churches in South Africa back in the day, not that long ago, opening the Bible and somehow justifying apartheid and racism and terrible things that went on in that culture all from the Bible.

[18:08] And so Paul says, well, I'm going to give you an answer, but you're not going to like it. A lot of you Canadians aren't going to like it. Part of it you sort of might like, which is the fact that, you know, it is possible to be a Christian and live as if you're not a Christian.

[18:19] And I guess what I'd have to say is to the extent that a church in South Africa was preaching apartheid, they were not living as Christians. Not saying they weren't, but they weren't living as it. They weren't teaching as if they were.

[18:31] They were in serious error. They were my brothers and sisters in Christ in serious error. Serious error. But why is it that that could go on? Because you have to know something about human beings.

[18:43] Human beings are immature, incompetent, dispossessed, and a slave to elemental powers and spirits. Elemental powers, the fact of the matter is that there are powers of money, there are powers of class, there are powers of sex and gender, of religion, there are powers of ideology, and we Christians, and not just, sorry, not just Christians, now just as a general rule for human beings, we easily start to serve these things.

[19:14] If you go back and read Genesis 3 once again, it's a very, very powerful text. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve thought that they were beginning when they rebelled against God and they said, we are going to be like God.

[19:27] And they thought they were ushering in the age of the human who rules. But the irony and the tragedy is is that what they ushered in was not the human who rules, but the human who dies.

[19:45] And the human who will serve created things. We serve our phones. Many of you do. Many of you do.

[19:58] Imagine, for those of you who are university students, I don't know if many professors do it, if they said, before you come into this class, I'm taking all of your tablets, phones, and computers. Many people, their anxiety level would go through the roof because we serve it.

[20:18] We serve race. We serve sex. We serve ideologies. And elemental, those are elemental powers. There's also elemental spirits. There are evil spirits that we willingly serve.

[20:30] And we are dispossessed. We might not feel like we're dispossessed right now, but you know, as I get older, time just slips through my hands.

[20:42] And the children who once were just so cute and tiny and I could hold them and now they're bigger than me. And they have children of their own. And one day I will die and when I die, when Bill Gates and I die on the same day, his 89.3 billion, oops, nope, sorry, 89.4, oops, sorry, 89.5, no, oops, sorry, 89.6, oops, sorry, 89.7.

[21:09] Every time I tell the number, the number's gone up in that few seconds. When you're that rich, that's how it works. But he and I will have the same number of possessions one second after we die. For the record, I'm not close to 89.3 billion.

[21:23] I tell people I'm half a millionaire. I have the air, not the million. And so this, you know, it seems very stark, but that's the stuff that God works with.

[21:37] You see, in one level, the Bible tells us our condition is vastly worse than we know. But the text is just telling us about how Jesus willingly, in a second, it's going to go right into it, how God willingly sent his son to die for immature, incompetent, dispossessed slaves to elemental powers and spirits.

[22:04] He willingly loved you and me so much that he would leave the glories of heaven to come and die for you and me.

[22:15] That I might be redeemed from slavery and I might have the status of God's adopted son who inherits everything.

[22:27] The gospel both tells us we are far more broken than we realize, but we are far more loved than we could ever imagine.

[22:37] our minds, even the most narcissistic amongst us, our minds can't really grasp the depth and the extent and the purity of God's love for us that we see as God, the Son of God, dies upon the cross for you and me.

[23:07] Just the other day I was asked by somebody about why I became a Christian. I became a Christian when I was in grade 12 and he asked a little bit about the process that led to me becoming a Christian and I said that I started to go on a bit of a quest.

[23:28] I all of a sudden became, I had grown up in a Christian home and I found Christianity boring, I found it irrelevant, I was far more interested in the counterculture, I was far more interested in countercultural music, countercultural politics, countercultural lifestyles, countercultural dress.

[23:47] That's what I found interesting, that's what I found as if it would be meaningful and Christianity was boring and it was irrelevant and I really didn't even think about whether or not it was true and I don't want to go into it all but basically something one day it was something that happened to me while I was on Elgin Street here in Ottawa all of a sudden made me think that maybe something there was something more to Christianity and at the end of the year, at the end of the year of a spiritual quest I became a Christian and he said to me, the person who asked me this question said, well why would you go on a spiritual quest?

[24:21] What a great question, eh? And I, and this is one of those times you know where somebody must have been praying for me. It's really important church to pray for each other because I don't think I'd ever been asked that question before and I paused and I said to him because I came to the conclusion there must be something more.

[24:48] There must be something more. And you know when you hear this talk and what's going on here in the biblical text, if you, if you, if you, you think you're a master of the universe, it feels like you're a master of the universe, you have sexual conquests, you have the money pouring into the bank and it's hard for you to imagine that there's something more.

[25:13] The gospel is going to make very little sense to you. But for many people who have all of those things, they realize I can have all of these things and there must be something more.

[25:26] And for others of us who are very broken by elemental powers or by the elemental spiritual forces of the world and maybe we're broken by shame or we're broken by drug addiction or we're broken by abuse or we're broken by failure or we're broken by poverty, it maybe is very easy for us to hope and believe that maybe there is something more.

[25:50] And the Bible says there is something more. That's what it talks about. Listen to how just after Paul in verse 3 gives us this unbelievably bad news.

[26:02] Remember verse 3, we'll read it again. In the same way we also, when we were children, and that's a technical word in Greek, meaning one who is immature, incompetent, and dispossessed.

[26:16] We're enslaved to the elementary principles of the world, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

[26:37] And when it says here adoption as sons, it doesn't mean adoption as one who will inherit everything but has to live under a guardian. It means that when I have put my faith and trust in Jesus, when you put your faith and trust in Jesus, and he takes you, he doesn't say, he doesn't, he just, when you put your trust in him, he takes you.

[27:00] He takes you. He takes you. And when he takes you, not only are you redeemed, but you automatically, you're not adopted as a child who maybe in 50 years will be old enough to inherit.

[27:13] No, the word son there means right now you are of maturity to live and to receive the inheritance.

[27:26] Could you put up the next point, Andrew, please? The gospel is the good news that when I put my faith in the person and work of Jesus, I am redeemed from slavery and I am adopted as God's son and heir.

[27:45] And I could add there, ready to inherit. That's what these two verses say. Listen to it again, verses 4 and 5. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, in other words, fully human, born under the law, born into this world where the moral law exists.

[28:06] Why did he come? to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. And the word redeem is the word that's used to free someone from slavery at the payment of a price, at the price that was borne by God himself in the person of his son.

[28:28] Everyone who puts their faith and trust in Jesus are redeemed from slavery and adopted as the sons of God. It's very, very, very, very powerful news.

[28:51] But here's a searching question and I know this is a mix-up of an analogy. If you could put the next point up, Andrew, sorry. It's a bit of a mix-up of analogy. Really, my point originally was just the second half but I realized the first, I just sort of felt I had to add it.

[29:04] I know, am I living like Cinderella with amnesia? Or am I living as if I, in other words, am I living as if I am a slave and not the son who inherits fully?

[29:18] Christian, that's the question for you and me. I know the Cinderella analogy breaks down. She was, you know, but she's, you know, because she married Prince Charming and all that but I just, this idea, imagine in that story as if Cinderella, after she becomes the queen, went back to living as if she was the slave serving her stepmother and her sisters.

[29:50] She wasn't living like who she was. And it's easy for us to maybe look and say, how on earth could those people in South Africa misread the Bible?

[30:01] But what about you and me? Is our relationship to God, is my relationship to God as if somehow God gives me these commands and I need to do them and I have a bit of anxiety and I have a bit of a depression about the state of my life as if I'm just a slave and it's just drudgery and it's just brokenness and it's just order and it's just rules and maybe some days I feel like it's, like I'm doing all those things very well so I feel very, very good.

[30:35] I can show myself at church because, you know, my marriage is going well, my kids are going well, my finances are going well and, you know, maybe I'm not reading the Bible very often but nobody can see that but things seem to be going well at a very superficial level and then some of the bottom falls out of some of these things and maybe your marriage isn't going as well or your romantic relationships aren't going as well or your finances aren't going as well or your job's in trouble and all of a sudden it's not even as if we want to be around other Christians and why is that?

[31:08] Because, you see, at our bottom line we do not understand or not really believe that God adopted us as his son with full rights of inheritance but I am living as if my relationship with God depends upon my ability to fulfill his orders to me and if I can't fulfill his orders to me in a satisfactory way I am a bad slave.

[31:30] I'm a bad slave. My church doesn't become a mega church I am a bad pastor. Bill Hybels tells a famous joke go big or go to Canada.

[31:42] You know, and I think it's just so funny go big or go to Canada. You know, like if I was a really successful pastor I'd be snapped up by some American church and I'd have thousands of people coming. You know, it's, that's the question.

[31:57] Look, look at verses 4 and 5 again. But when the fullness of time had come God sent forth his son born of woman born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

[32:13] Could you put up the next point please, Andrew? God's adoption of me as his son with all of the rights and privileges of being his son is just as certain as the fact that I am pardoned and redeemed.

[32:32] It is just as certain. It says redeemed and adopted. It doesn't just say redeemed. In other words, I've taken you out of slavery but George, you've taken out of slavery but now you better perform very well if I'm going to really love you because all I've done is just taken away the bad stuff but you need to add good stuff to your life so you better make sure you do this and you better make sure you're successful in that and you better make sure you perform well that way and you better make sure this and you better make sure that because all that I've done, George, is I've just taken away the bad stuff.

[33:05] You've got to sort out the good stuff yourself and a lot of times that's how we live the Christian life and a lot of times that's all the way that the gospel is presented that when Jesus died on the cross he took away your sins you're pardoned you're delivered from slavery and it's all just presented only and almost exclusively as if the bad things have been taken away but the good things by implication in the soul in our soul that I have to perform those but in this text both are just as certain.

[33:35] both are just as certain. When Jesus took me as his own everything that I had ever done that was wrong from the moment of my conception to the moment of my death was dealt with on the cross.

[33:55] All of the shame from the moment of my conception to the moment of my death was dealt with on the cross. All of the slavery that I have experienced experience to how people think about me or how this works or whatever is all taken away but at the same time right to the moment of my death even though God knows my successes and failures in the future all the way my status is as an adopted son of God because of what Jesus has done for me with the full rights I do not get a better inheritance if I grow a megachurch I do not get a better inheritance if I can memorize more Bible verses I can have more successful relations I do not I can add nothing to what God has done for me in the person of Jesus.

[34:55] Could you put up the next point please Andrew? Listen to the text again as it goes up But when the fullness of time had come God sent forth his son born of woman born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons Am I living like I am half saved only pardoned not adopted?

[35:17] Am I living as if I am only pardoned not adopted? You know brothers and sisters this is one of these things that we need to pray into our lives for ourselves and we need to pray it into each other's lives like if you are trying to figure out how to pray for the church one of the things you can do is just say you know Lord help George to understand that he is God's adopted son help the wardens help Shirley help Daniel and Jonathan know that they are not just redeemed but God has adopted them as his son with the full rights of inheritance and not just the leaders but help the people who come on Sunday when you are trying to figure out how to pray for people as they come to church and you get here maybe a bit early and you have a moment to pray just pray God may you work in people's lives today so that they will not only know that their sins are pardoned but they'll also know that

[36:23] God adopted them when they put their faith in Jesus we need to pray that over us could you put up the next point please listen again to verse 4 and 5 as the point goes up but when the fullness of time had come God sent forth his son born of woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons being God's son by adoption and grace is not a goal for a Christian but a present and eternal reality it is a present and eternal reality listen if you're sitting here right now and you're thinking you know I just came here I know because my friends dragged me my folks dragged me my mom's been bugging me from somewhere else and I just thought I'd go take a bulletin take a picture of it you know get her off my back or whatever and if the Holy Spirit is touching you in any way and if you're thinking that's all very good for George he seems like he's a good guy or that's already that's alright for the people around me but if God knew how bad I was if God knew how much what I had done if God knew the things going on in my heart then these things would not apply to me but I want to tell you right now that he does know and the offer is for you he does know he knows everything about you and still his son came to die upon the cross to redeem you from slavery and make you his adopted son by grace just in closing there's a there's a a great the text goes on in such a great way listen one final time of reading verses 4 and 5 and then we'll go to verses 6 and 7 because it's such a wonderful promise but listen again but when the fullness of time had come

[38:20] God sent forth his son born of woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons and because you are sons God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying Abba father so you are no longer a slave but a son that's why I spent so many times on that one point you are no longer a slave you are a son and if a son then an heir through God you put up the point Andrew this is a very precious thing it's not just that we've been redeemed and pardoned it's not just that we've been adopted but God sends the Holy Spirit when it says hearts in most of the time in the New Testament when it says the word heart it doesn't mean emotions you know think starship enterprise and Jean-Luc Picard and he comes and he sits sorry in the chair of command that's the heart the command center of your lives and God sends the

[39:35] Holy Spirit into the command center of our lives and what is he one of the things that he does there the Bible has lots of things that says about what the Holy Spirit does but what does the Holy Spirit do while he's there while he's in our hearts he says Abba father Abba father he wants to train me and Abba is the intimate word that a child would use of his or her own father father and if for you maybe you had a bad dad and he had to call him sir but in your heart you know what you wished you had a dad like and what you could call your dad maybe it's daddy maybe it's pops maybe it's dad I don't know whatever it is but whatever that word is the Holy Spirit is in you as a believer saying that word and training and encouraging you to call that out to God in intimacy to understand who you are intimate with God please stand

[40:43] Andrew the final point it's from an old hymn you know all we can say is this it's used at ordination but it's such a brilliant line come Holy Ghost my soul inspire and light and with celestial fire come Holy Ghost my soul inspire and light and with celestial fire father let's pray let's pray come Holy Ghost our souls inspire and light and with celestial fire father pour out your Holy Spirit upon us for those of us here father who are Christians you know how easy it is to live as if we have amnesia and as if we are slaves in a slave relationship with you a performance based relationship with you father may you bring these truths of scripture home to our lives deeply father may your Holy Spirit move and work and speak ever more loudly in the command center of our lives Abba father teaching us and forming us to call out to you as our father as our father as our dad and father if there are any here who have not yet given their lives to Jesus may your

[41:53] Holy Spirit bring them to saving faith help them father to form those words to call out to Jesus that he will be their savior and lord and all these things we ask in the name of Jesus your son and our savior amen