Now, I know that some of you are interested in maybe some potential inheritance that you could receive someday. You know what they say: wherever there's a will, there's a relative, right? I mean, if you have a rich father or grandfather, Maybe you're interested in your inheritance. But what a pity it is. The children of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
are more interested in temporal inheritances that will fade away and eventually be destroyed. than with what God has given them. Welcome to Search the Scriptures, the Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Carl Broge. Senior Pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina.
Today is part three and the conclusion of Pastor Carl's sermon entitled, Adopted into God's family from the book of Romans chapter 8. verses fourteen through seventeen. We conclude today's message by remembering that as God's children, We are also heirs with Christ. This means we all share in His glory, but it also means sharing in his sufferings. Our present trials are not wasted.
as they are a part of God's process. shaping us for the future inheritance that He has prepared for us. The hardships we endure today are temporary. But the glory that is awaiting us in eternity. is far greater than anything we face now.
Let's join Pastor Carl. As he concludes, I was blessed and privileged to lead a couple to Christ recently, and they said, Pastor Carl, I. Everything's changed. I said, well, what's happening? I said, we just can't get enough.
We can't wait until Sunday comes. We can't wait to come here. That's what happens when you're born from above. Your environment, your association changes. And so, real Christians who are in fellowship with God.
They're led by the Spirit of God. You may be someone who has no real love for the church. It can only mean one of two things. You're either grossly out of fellowship with the Lord, and there will be huge implications at the judgment of the just, the judgment of believers in heaven. Or, very possibly, you've never met the Lord.
You have a fake profession. Because by this, we know we've passed out of darkness into light. We love the brethren. And so your life changes. That's verse 14.
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
So again, I want you to clearly understand what the Bible means by being led by the Spirit. He's not talking about having some mystical experience, some ability to write something special in the first person, or some weird feeling. That's Sarah Young and Jesus calling. And evangelical churches are gobbling it up, and they've even marketed it now for little kids. That's Beth Moore, where she has these direct text messages from heaven.
That's not But you see the average believer because they are so untaught They might even take offense at what I have said. They are so untaught they can't discern between good and evil. And so God tells us. And a farm's That his scripture is the final authority, sola scriptor. Every cult is built on some dream, some new book, some new revelation, some new vision that goes beyond scripture.
And the enemy knows that if he can get you to believe that the Bible is really not sufficient, that you're missing out on what Sarah Young is offering, you're missing out on what Beth Moore is offering you. then he's won a victory in your life. That's what he did all the way back in the beginning with Eve in the garden. For God knows in the day you eat. From it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
And so the first couple, they rebelled against God and they chose to learn good and evil, not God's way. But Satan's way. You see, God's word wasn't sufficient. He wanted them to have something else.
Now you can know good and evil in one of two ways, either by experimentation or by what God has written. And so they chose through experimentation. God wanted them to know good and evil simply on the basis of what he had said. God said, here's a tree. It's a tree of knowledge and good and evil.
And I don't want you to eat from it. Just leave it alone. And that should have been enough because God had said it.
So even today, Christians are no longer settled in their hearts and mind that the scripture is sufficient. And so they bought into the psycho-babble that has walked in the front door of the church. Christian, quote unquote, Psychology. As if the Bible was not enough. We should say what the psalmist said in Psalm 119: Establish my footsteps in your word, and do not let any iniquity have dominion over me.
So, biblically, to be led by the Spirit is to be led by the book that He wrote, because God's will never, ever, ever contradicts God's word. Jesus said this to the apostles: But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and will bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
Now, certainly, that is a unique promise given to the apostles in that they would have the divine ability. For recall to give us the New Testament. But in a broad sense, it applies to every believer because 1 John 2:27, John says, you don't have a need for a teacher. Because you have the anointing who teaches you. You say you just worked yourself out of a job.
No, John is teaching that as a pastor teacher to the church that he is shepherding. But his point is is that the ultimate teacher in your life is not Carl Brogie. It's the Spirit of God living in you. And if your heart is clean, when you hear truth preached, you'll be able to take a hold of it and grasp it as being true. And so the Spirit of God always leads us not through some mystical experience, but in conjunction with His Word.
I'm running out of time. Let's go to the second point. Adoption not only brings the Spirit's leading, it brings the Father's love. It brings the Father's love. Back here in Romans 8 and verse 15, we read: For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again.
But you've received the spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba, Father. In adoption, we have a close love relationship that causes us on the inside to cry out, Abba, Father. Those are two. different words. One Aramaic, Abba.
the other Greek father. Do you know what Abba is? When we go to Israel, we always love to go into the Jewish quarter, and you see all these children running around, and they're saying, Abba, Abba. It means daddy or emma, emma. meaning mommy.
The first term a child typically learns, at least we dads like to think so, is daddy. It's a tender term. And it's what God allows us to know as sons, we cry out, Abba, Father. That was a radical thought. To write in the first century for a Jewish reader.
Because the names of God more and more progressively. Were withheld from public speech and even from public prayers. In fact, when a scribe would write the name of God and he came to the name of God and the text he was copying, he would lay down the quill, he'd go through a ceremonial process where he washed his hands, he picked up a new quill never used before, and he'd write the name of God, he'd put it down, and then he would go back to the old quill. And so there is a reverence. For God, but what was missing was this intimacy.
There was a distance. But the Spirit of God through adoption changes that. He causes our heart to cry out, Abba, Father, Daddy, and He will if you're being led by the Spirit. You know, when my children were praying growing up, or even my grandchildren, occasionally they'd say, God or Lord, and I'd say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't you say, Lord.
Nothing wrong with that. But if you're saying that all the time, why don't you say father? Say father. Do you know Jesus? Oh, I met him, Daddy.
I met him, Granddaddy. Then call him father. That's the privileged term. And Jesus repeatedly used the term in his own prayer, Father. There's one exception, of course, in Matthew 27, where he says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Because for a period of time At midday, when it became like midnight and the world was darkened. The Father and the Spirit had turned against the Son. In the model prayer, the Lord's prayer, if you prefer, pray then in this way: our Father. Who art in heaven? Only A believer could truly take those words to his lips.
But a Jew in those days never thought of it. This was radical teaching. Even in Gethsemane, in Mark 14:16, when Jesus is sweating blood, he cried out, Abba. Father. And put together those two words, it's a word of intimacy and it is a word of respect.
Today, in modern English, we might say, my dear heavenly Father. And so the Spirit of God gives us this familial sense that we didn't have before. Where in essence we can say, I love you, Father, I love you. Daddy, Now I'm not suggesting that you should open your prayers, Daddy. Because again, there's a sense of reverence.
But when your heart cries out, Father, You know it's a reality. Don't give me this stuff.
Well, he grew up in a crummy home where his dad was a beast. And so he's projecting those truths on his heavenly father. That's psycho babble. In the body of Christ, you are a new creature. God changes you from the inside out.
And you can have a right view of God as your mind is renewed. But do you know God in that way? Or do you know God the way you know the President? You know, facts about the president, true facts about the president. But you may not know him personally.
And so, when God speaks of assurance of salvation in the New Testament, He gives it on several levels. Look at verse 16: the Spirit Himself testifies with our Spirit. That we are children of God. My human spirit on the inside testifies that I am saved. And although I think it would be wrong to standardize the experience, certainly in the context, one way in which you sense that is when you pray.
So, how do we know that we're saved? And we can know. John will write, and the testimony is this: that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life.
He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. You're either saved or you're not. You either have the Son or you don't. These things I've written to you who believe, not about, but in the name of the Son of God, so that you can know, not hope, wonder, think, but you can know. That you have eternal life.
So, one way I can know I'm saved is through the witness or the testimony of the Bible. God says, if I come in faith, I can't can know that I'm saved. I couldn't know that if it were not a finished work. But because it's a finished work, he didn't partially pay for my sin, but he fully paid for it. God gives all these promises that the moment you believe over 150 times.
that you're eternally secure. But a second way I can know that I'm saved is through my testimony before men. Jesus will say this in Matthew 10:32, without contradiction of what he had just taught of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone. Everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven.
So, how can I know I'm saved?
Well, number one, the testimony of Scripture, a finished work, and all the promises. But secondly, I'm not ashamed of Jesus. I'm willing to confess him before men.
Now, understand, people aren't saved by walking the aisle of this church. The man kingdom I just baptized in the last hour from Nigeria, he came down a few months ago. Oh, I'm saved. I want to baptize. I want to be a Christian.
He comes to meet the pastor. He's. 80% sure and gives the wrong answer. They got saved though, thank God for that. Walking in the aisle of a church has never saved you.
Christ saves you, but if you've been saved You're not ashamed of him, and really, the confession in the New Testament church was not walking denial. It was baptism. How else can I know I'm saved? I can know I'm saved through a changed life. Jesus said this, a good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
So then you will know them by their fruits. You're saved by grace alone through faith alone, but the grace that saves is never alone. Your life changes. It doesn't say you'll never sin. He's not speaking here of perfection, but he's speaking of a new direction.
How else can I know I'm saved? By the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit Himself testifies with my Spirit, not with my soul, not with my body, but with my Spirit that I've been saved and I am a child of God.
So there's a witness of the Word, there's a witness before men, there's a witness of a changed life, and there's a witness of God the Holy Spirit. Do you know that? You say, well, I want to know it.
Well, how does God know anything? Think about this for just a second. How does God know anything? Does God know something because someone instructed him? He's the omniscient God.
No one has ever instructed God. Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God? Does he know it because of some feeling? No, of course not.
Well, how do you know something?
Well, there's truth. And when you hear the word of God, it's alive, it's sharper than a two-edged sword. It's just like God, men may say they don't believe in a God, they're lying to themselves and others. Men may say, I don't believe that book is true. They're lying to themselves and to others and to God because it's a lie.
It's pricking the heart. They know it. They resist it. They kick against it sometimes. But they know it's true.
That's why you should use scripture when you share your faith. You can at least say, well, you may not agree with the Bible, but at least for no other reason, let me share with you. What the Bible, the most published book in history, teaches it for no other reason but for intellectual acumen and sharpness and. How else can I know? Because the Spirit bears witness with my Spirit.
I remember I was a new Christian. And again, I'm not trying to formalize how that happens. I think contextually it happens first and foremost in prayer. But I was walking through a cafeteria at Boston College, and there are hundreds of students there. And one of my friends, I could see what he was doing.
He was taking someone through a little booklet sharing the plan of salvation. And my heart reached out and I prayed for him, God, help him to make. If clear, help them to answer that person's questions. As I walked away because I had been studying this verse in my quiet time. I thought the spirit is bearing witness with my spirit.
I never would have prayed or asked that a year ago. I would have thought that person was a fanatic. But now the things of the Spirit. They were in concord with the things in my heart. We used to sing it, He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today.
He walks with me, He talks with me beyond life's narrow way. He lives, He lives, salvation to impart. You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.
So there is an experiential Dimension to our assurance. Then, quickly, finally, adoption brings the son's legacy. Adoption brings the son's legacy. And if children, verse 17 says, heirs also, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may be glorified with him.
Now, I know that some of you are interested in maybe some potential inheritance that you could receive someday. You know what they say: wherever there's a will, there's a relative, right? I mean, if you have a rich father or grandfather, Maybe you're interested in your inheritance. But what a pity it is. The children of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Are more interested in temporal inheritances that will fade away and eventually be destroyed. than with what God has given them. I was reading a hymn this week. I hadn't sung in a long time. It says, My father is rich in houses and lands.
He holdeth the wealth of the world in his hands, of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold. His coffers are full, his riches untold. And in that hymn it underscores that we are heirs of God. Share and share alike, but not only are we heirs, we're heirs of God. Not only do we receive the blessings of God now and in eternity future, we receive God Himself.
The psalmist said, The Lord is my portion. My inheritance and my cop. Psalm 73, Whom have I in heaven but you, and besides you I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. You read the Psalms and you discover that God is our portion.
Not only does he own everything and he's going to give it to you someday. You're able to enjoy him. And if children, verse 17, heirs also heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. What a promise.
Now we'll explore it more next time. But this passage has been showing us that when God adopts us, When the Spirit indwells us, we become fellow heirs with the King. Listen to these verses in Romans 1. How does this inheritance come? In three stages.
Number one, it comes through a pledge. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having believed, you are sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who's given us a pledge. as a down payment, as a guarantee, as an earnest. You know what earnest money is? With a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory.
And so the Spirit comes into our heart. He's there forever. He causes us to cry out, Abba, Father, and that's just the down payment. Of what is to come. Not only is there the initial pledge.
There's a daily supply, Paul will underscore, and my God will supply all of your needs according to his riches. In glory in Christ Jesus, God promises to meet your needs. I was in Greenville with my wife about ten days ago and I saw this young woman on the street. I don't know how old she was. 15, 16, at the most she couldn't have been 18.
And I started witnessing tour. I sent she was homeless. I said, where do you live? She said, on the street. And she had one little bag with all of her possessions.
You know, you get into their story and you find out. These are people who are being trafficked. They say there are 300,000 children that have come across the border, and nobody knows where they are. She looked Ethiopian to me, but she spoke good English. I said, you know.
If you are my daughter, You wouldn't be here. I would be taking care of you. I said, you're not my daughter. But there's someone who wants to adopt you. In his Jesus Christ.
And God will become your Father. And he will care for you. But you have to receive him first. And he'll supply all of your needs.
So there's the initial pledge. There's a daily supply. And then there's the ultimate inheritance we're coming to it. For I consider that the sufferings of this present age. Are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Now, how can we apply this? Let me share three applications as we close. Number one, If you are adopted, you should honor the one who adopted you. You know, when a father adopts a child, the father incurs certain responsibilities, but so does the child. It's not only true in an earthly sense, it's true in a heavenly sense.
Have you stopped to consider recently the cost of your adoption? You know, when we have the Lord's table, you should come. Have you thanked him with your lips? And with your life. Are you honoring him?
You should honor the one who has adopted you. Secondly, if you're adopted, you should love the other family members. You should love the other family members. What father would not be grieved who adopted a child who didn't love the other members of the family? There's nothing that makes my wife and I happier to see the way our children love each other as adults.
I know some will go home and they'll have roast preacher. And you can. You'll go home and talk to your wife, your husband, and everything is wrong with Pastor Carl Bergie, and that's fine. But you shouldn't do that. Want a model for your kids.
You wonder why they walk away from the church sometimes? And even within a fellowship, sometimes there's gossip and there's backbiting. Look, we're brothers and sisters. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples. If it's conditional, if you have love one for another.
By this, all men will know you're my disciples if you're fundamental in the faith. No, you should be fundamental in the faith. But it's not your doctrinal statement that the world looks at. They could care less whether you believe in the virgin conception, the substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection, or a host of other things. What they initially see is whether or not you love each other.
And I meet people almost weekly, at least monthly. Who tell me about the experiences of why they walked away from the church? Because these Christians who are at each other's throats. Third and finally, if you are adopted, you should be a responsible family member. Children in the family ought to take care of one another, serve one another.
And I'm going to take all the benefits and all the blessings of adoption. And we're going to Further elaborate on those in some future messages. But just knowing what you know: are you going to take these blessings of adoption? And then not serve others who've been adopted into the same family. A family is great when they share the load.
And God calls us to find a place of service.
Now maybe you're not a member of the family at all. You don't know that you know that you know that heaven is your home. You say, I hope it is. You need to know, and you can. Because Jesus Christ received sinful men.
Now, our Father, we love you and thank you. For your word being able to open it. and ponder its truths. I pray today for someone listening, they really don't know that heaven is their home. Maybe they know all the right words, but their life has never fundamentally changed.
They don't sense that you are indeed their father. The direction of their life is the same as it was last year and ten years before it. Father, I can preach truth, but only you can impart it. I pray you might speak to some tender heart today. Help them to see that Jesus paid for all of their sin.
That salvation is a gift paid in full with his precious blood. That if they will put their faith where you put their sin on Christ. You will immediately save them. I pray for that young woman in. Greenville.
That the booklet I left her. That you would be speaking to her heart. That she would be changed. Father, there are people here who need to be responsible family members. Oh, they're technically members.
But they don't really serve.
Some who don't consistently come to the worship service as your word commands them. Change that. Help someone who is looking for a church home. And if this is the place where they can grow and bring their friends and Lauren. and move on their hearts today.
We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. If you enjoyed today's message, you can order a CD or DVD copy by calling Search the Scriptures. At 877. 787 seven four seven eight and requesting program Our Identity in Christ 017.
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