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00:00:00 Good morning church. Today's scripture reading is taken from Galatians chapter 4:es 1-7. Galatians chapter 4:es 1-7. Let's focus on the word of God. Verse one. What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave. Although he owns the whole estate, the heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent
00:00:45 his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sunship. Because you are his sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts. The spirit who calls out, "Aba, father." So you're no longer a slave, but God's child. And since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. This is the word of God. Thank you. Okay. Good morning, FBC. Good to see everybody here. Uh so next week, Ian will be here to speak to us. He's actually a very excellent preacher.
00:01:35 He's been in Malaysia for the last 30 over years and I remember one of our earlier church camps, he was also our speaker. So, we're very glad to have him. Uh William Yao will uh bail us out on that day when we're all in camp and there's nobody to preach. I actually forgotten to put a preacher on that day. So he I I was a total panic last week, you know, and then and then William said, "Okay, you know, I'll he'll take the bullpit and then follow up with the assigned topic, idolatry, legalism, the
00:02:06 week after next." So don't worry, next week there'll still be a preacher here. Let's pray. Father Lord, we we enter into a topic that's so important today where the whole trajectory of scripture actually barrels down to this one conclusion that we are the adopted sons of the living God. We pray as we unravel this bit of scripture that you open up the hearts to understand what it means to be your son. We ask for Jesus sake. Amen. Right. So, uh thank you for the Bible reading. We're we're going halfway
00:02:49 through the book of Galatians and um the uh we're in the second part where Galatians 3:4 which includes the which is basically the inclusive gospel a true gospel inclusive gospel and lastly the liberating gospel. So today the three parts to this sermon number one the slavery of the law. I think uh brother Brandon did an excellent job last week explaining about the law. Then we've got the price of sunship. Then the blessing of sunship and verses 6 to 7. Now the slavery of the law I mean that the heir
00:03:28 as long as he is a child is no different from a slave though he is the owner of everything but is under the guardians and managers until the date set by his father. So he's trying to differentiate uh between a son and and a slave. And we all start off as slaves. All right. So the metaphor here is guardianship and slavery. They're not exactly the same, but there's one aspect which they are the same. The aspect of external control. They're not like they're not free. Okay? So they're controlled. And he's trying to tell the
00:04:09 Galatians that that's what you're like under the Mosaic law. You are not free. Going back to last week's passage. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian. So the law was our guardian in the sense that it held us captive. That is the thought that Paul wants to bring forward right now until the coming faith to be revealed. The purpose of the law is hold us captive so that we would be propelled
00:04:44 forward until the coming faith. Right? That is what it's for until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. That is the whole trajectory of his argument. So the role of the law in the two metaphors in prison or as guardian is that you look forward outside. It's temporary. You're in prison. Hopefully you'll be temporary like Najib. Hopefully he's temporary looking forward to go back home to his mansion. Uh but it makes him look outside. He doesn't when you're in prison you you don't look at the toilet at the corner.
00:05:20 You're always looking at the window. All right? That's why if you don't behave, they put you in solitary confinement. No window. All right? And you look forward as a guardian looking after a child. The child looks forward from the day that he has no guardian. Now looking backwards to a couple of sermons ago. So we have got food laws, we've got circumcision, we got ceremonial laws, we got the ten commandments. All these things are basically showing us the truth that we are unclean. It's impossible to make
00:05:52 ourselves acceptable to God on our own. And all the ceremonial sacrifices actually point to Jesus who one day will fulfill them. And so therefore, but the trouble is that people forget this part and they focus on the actual doing. If I can avoid certain foods, kosher foods I can eat, I will be clean by myself. Right? We can make ourselves acceptable to God if we got circumcised. All the ceremonies actually point to the fact that we can actually make ourselves acceptable to God. That's a lie. Right? So in the same way we also
00:06:30 when we were children were enslaved to elemental principles of the world. A new word being introduced here. This is somewhat controversial. There are three possible transl uh uh interpretations. One is the old mosaic law. Uh number two, the present world order and three demonic powers. But they all revolve around the same thing because let's say the the the people at that time believe in the elemental principles of the world. The Chinese have the same the ying and yang earth, water, air, fire. But there are demonic forces behind
00:07:07 these and they worship these. Right? So if you look further down in um the next in verse eight onwards there is a repeat. But now you have come to know God or rather be known by God. How can you turn back to the weak and worthless elemental principles of the world which is basically the gods or idols behind the wind water power and all that. And how they do that? Well, you observe days and months and seasons and years, right? So this is even even during the mosaic time there were Israelites who were
00:07:42 worshiping idols and for the people at that time in Galatia the Greek uh and Roman they've got all these gods and all the gods stand behind these elemental principles if you wanted to do a a voyage across the sea you'd have to go for and pray to Poseidon who's in charge of the sea as it were so whether it's a Jew or the Gentile they are not free they were slaves Right? The Jew to the Mosaic law, the Gentile to their own gods, right? So you have the for the Jew, Sabbath day, fasting days, Passover. You've got the
00:08:19 months, Sabbath month, Nissan, the first month of the Jewish year. You got seasons of prayer and fasting prescribed by the law, the sabbatical year. If you've got the same thing can happen to us. We could go back to religion where it's Sunday, I got to be there and if you're not there on Sunday, oh, God is going to punish me. Or maybe gamma days or Lent, Christmas, Easter, seasons of fasting. People will not come to church every Sunday, but they must come on on on Christmas or Easter. Why do people do that? Because
00:08:51 they are enslaved to this sort of idea. There is slavery. Now if you are in slavery in religion if if the faith to you is religion then the vocabulary that you will use every day is God is your master I'm the slave duty and wages if I do this God will do this there's always a correlation and conditional and you got obligations that's the language that the people in Israel used that is language that we sitting in this church could also use. But Isaiah says, if you look at Hezekiah, an excellent king actually, he
00:09:33 fell ill one day, a huge abscess. Uh it was a double whmy. He was going to die from this abscess as well as the Assyrians were knocking the door of Jerusalem to to basically conquer him. And then the first thing he heard when he got this and and and was and the prophet told him that you will die. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord and said, "Please, oh Lord, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart and have done what is in your sight." Why does he say
00:10:05 that? So God do the right thing. Because I have been good. I have been faithful. That's what I means. For him, Hezekiah was somewhat of a religion because I've done this. So therefore, you do that. Now that's slavery of the law, right? Next is the price of sunship. When the fullness of time had come, God sent his forth his son born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. Right? There is a timeline, right? Uh what is this hospital? Oh god. Uh, can you
00:10:51 answer for me and talk to them? I'm I'm busy. Sometimes is a very bad emergency. So I got no choice. Someone has to answer the call. All right. Sorry. So fullness of time had come. Okay. So there is a timeline under the old covenant. The whole focus on what you do. You need to listen to the word of God. You need to look towards him. You need to bring your sacrifices. You need to follow, you need to pay attention, you make, you have to make something, you have to obey. And if you disobey, this will happen to you. All
00:11:26 right? That's the old covenant. But in the fullness of time, the Old Testament looks forward in the fullness of time. Jeremiah declares, "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord." Nobody's dying. Okay, good. Sometime they call you for MC or so you know I mean I I will put my law within them and I will write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people. So there's the days are coming. So therefore the old covenant
00:11:59 even in old covenant the Jeremiah tells them yes this is what you do but there's a day when in the fullness of time something will happen and they forgot this part and so they focus on the dirt. Is it clean food, unclean food? What's the difference between a crab and a chicken? I mean, both made by God, right? But it's done because dirt is an object lesson for sin. So, if you are avoiding dirt all the time and and you're avoiding certain foods all the time, it's telling you that certain things make you dirty and and and you
00:12:38 can't escape. Everywhere you turn it, it's it's it's dirt. So dirt is an object lesson for the fact that we are thoroughly wholly sinful. All right. Now in the new covenant time, God sent forth his son born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law. Jesus came and he shocked everyone. Instead of cleaning themselves, looking at kosher food, fussing about all those things, he confronted the Pharisees and only he could do it. He says uh you can eat whatever you want to eat. And he
00:13:14 said to them, you know why there then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes in a person from outside cannot defile him? So whether you eat chicken or crab, no difference since it enters not his heart but his stomach and his poo poo. That's what it means. So therefore he declared all foods clean. Mosaic law says certain food can eat, certain food cannot eat. But the point Jesus is making say he is the son of God. He comes and say look it's not what you go in that come that
00:13:49 that is clean because it all comes out like All tell me anything that you eat comes out like including gold. Some people put gold b uh uh leaflets into burger know very expensive $250 thou uh $250 US. it comes out like You know, you have to s it to catch the gold if you're really interested in keeping the gold. That's what Jesus is saying. So you guys, what what's the point? And Jesus therefore declared all foods clean. Then there's a vision given to Zechariah and God showed him Joshua the high priest standing
00:14:29 before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing right at hand and accusing him. So wondering why we got this vision of the high priest. If you understand high priest, he's the top dog of all the Levitical priests. And once a year at Yum Kipur, okay, that that's something that every Israelite will know. He has to prepare to go into the holy of holies. He said one whole week at home studying the Torah, memorizing what to do. And not only that, it's like a basketball. You have substitute high priest three of
00:15:04 them stand in the corner in case he cannot make it he messes up they will substitute then on that day itself he will clean himself instead of the golden garments he wears he wears pure white linen to look good right clean and he goes into the midv which is basically a bath he doesn't go one time and shower He goes five times. Five times he cleans himself in in basically view of everybody. They hold a thin white linen cloth to hide him so he's not naked. And he in front of everybody else, he cleans himself
00:15:46 five times, taking a bath five times, singing there probably five times because he's actually bathing on behalf of the people. He washes his hands 10 times. although he takes a bath five times. All this to show that he's absolutely totally clean before God. And then he enters the holy of holies. And you know what the vision showed? Now Joshua was standing before the angel clothed in filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, remove the filthy garment. The translation of filthy garments is
00:16:26 clothes covered with That's what the translation is. So no matter five times you go and clean, 10 times you wash your hands, you prepare for one week, you're the best among the best, and before God, it looks like So what does it tell you about your best efforts? To God, it all looks like It's a fact, right? That's why Satan stands next to the high priest and keep accusing him all the time because he can't make himself clean. Here now, Joshua, the high priest, and your friends who sit before you or these are
00:17:08 the men who are assigned, behold, I will bring you my servant, the branch. Guess who the branch is? Jesus. The branch of Jesse. It's a it's a it's a prophecy from Isaiah. Behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave this inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. You know how important this prophecy is, which means in a single day I will take all that rubbish and away. And so whatever you guys have been doing and
00:17:44 the best of the best, it's still before God, not enough. And so what happened is that in the new covenant we are forgiven. We are healed. We are blessed. We are righteous. We are holy. We are mighty. We are accepted. We are loved. Why? In a single day accomplished by Jesus. So that we might receive adoption as sons. The whole purpose of Jesus coming doing this. The ultimate trajectory of scripture is that one day we men and women, boys and girls will be accepted adoption as sons. And how are we
00:18:22 adopted? We're adopted by the Holy Spirit. See the spirit of his son and you are sons because God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts. The spirit confirms, authenticates, ratifies our sunship. So therefore, what the argument Paul has with the Galatians is that you are adopted sons of God. You are free. You obey out of love. You are the progression and fulfillment of the covenant. This is the final revelation. You have an inheritance. You don't go back to bondage and slavery. Obeying out
00:18:57 of fear becoming spiritually immature. This is not the final revelation. It's only 1.0 not 2.0. Right. So the price of sunship uh the uh the blessing of sunship. Now now there was a story told of a Matthew Caps who is basically a southern southeastern seminary in the US uh one of the lecturers there. He actually went to Adis Ababa to adopt a child and uh child's name is Solomon. went there with his wife Laura and they after a long flight went to the orphanage and then they handed him this young African boy whom he renamed as
00:19:45 Solomon. The moment he put the child in his arms of the wife, the child say wow mommy no scream shouted. Why? because you are putting him in a new environment with new people, white color people whom we never see everybody is black and this is white. It's really weird for the child and he was screaming and the point Matthew was trying to make was that yes this is my adopted son but it be a long time before the adopted son really becomes adopted son. There is a period of adjustment because you're taking him
00:20:24 from everything that he knows to something that he did not know. And that is something like us when we first come to know Christ. We're we're always going back to what we know religion. God is the master. I'm the slave. I do this our obligation. And we need to understand God's love in order to be fully his son. And this is the language that we use. to a master. Instead of master we learn to use father instead of servant we used to call family duty we got delight relational instead of transactional
00:21:01 inheritance instead of uh wages unconditional instead of conditional obligations instead of that we have privilege. So the first thing, what are the blessings of sunship? Number one, purpose. Sons have a purpose. We're hes inherit who God is because God has a purpose. And if you are the son, it's like a father's business. If the father is an architect like Arnold, then the son should be an architect, right? In those days. So basically, it's a family business. there is purpose. One of the this is one of the most expensive
00:21:43 uh painting in the world. Okay, it's it's uh called the scream and it the scream is there because it symbolizes existential meaningless. A lot of people in the world express meaninglessness and the three factors in meaninglessness. Number one is the lack of coherence which mean something bad happens to you. You don't understand it. It doesn't fit into your narrative where your parents taught you. You work hard, you study, you get married, have 15 children, then you got 25 grandchildren. Most of us Chinese
00:22:21 brought up, we'll have that kind of narrative, right? And something breaks that narrative, then your whole world falls apart. It's not supposed to be like this, isn't it? Right? So there's a lack of coherence and then they they crumble or lack of purpose or lack of purpose you you don't know why you're here and the last thing is that lack of significance whatever you do in the end you die what happened it's for nothing isn't it so that's the whole problem the world struggles with when we are giving a purpose because we are sons
00:22:53 that goes away I remember uh one of the bestsellers Christian books is Rick Warren and he wrote the book purpose purposedriven life. It actually has a lot of resonance among people. You know why? Because a lot of people are lost. They don't have a purpose. And that's why when they read this book, they were very much encouraged. But if you look at his own life, his son is called Matthew Warren. And his son has struggled with addiction and depression for all his life. In fact, his son told his father
00:23:27 one day, "Why don't I die and I go to heaven and then sort the whole matter out, you know, and you know what? They went to see the best doctors, prayer meetings. Whatever happened, Matthew took his own life and that left his father stunned and he went on CNN with Piers Morgan and Pierce Morgan. Ah, opportunity to thorough Christians, right? Is has this shaken your faith in any way? Right? Warren actually said these words. No, it never did. But I doubted his wisdom. And that is a situation that only the sons of God can say because you
00:24:18 know he said my kids have never doubted that they have father and that I love them but they often doubted my wisdom. Especially a teenager you always doubt your father's advice. same old advice, but you never doubted the fact he loved you and walked with you. And if you are a son of God, you have that relationship. You have that purpose. So when life falls apart where it doesn't make sense with a son you loved and prayed for for 27 years of his life takes his own life, your life will fall apart because there's no coherence. God
00:24:56 is supposed to have your back. God is supposed to protect you. God is supposed to love you and sacrifice himself for you and yet you take my son and so people will fall apart unless they understand that there is a purpose in God. There was a study done uh published in the journal American Journal of uh association that looked at 7,000 men and women the association between life purpose and mortality. That means whether you've got life purpose and if you have, do you live longer or shorter? So take a note here. We have the
00:25:34 results. The graph on the top is those who have got the highest purpose in life and the ones at the bottom is the lowest purpose in life. And who lives longer? The ones who've got the highest purpose in life. So purpose in life is very very important. And what is our purpose? Ephesians tell us he's predestined us for adoption to yourselves as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will. So the praise of his glorious grace which he has blessed us in the beloved. So when you're born and you're sitting
00:26:10 here, you have a purpose and that purpose was determined before the foundation of the world. And every event in your life, God cobbles together to push you to that particular purpose. Right? That is what makes your life reasonable and powerful. Significance. The cleverest man in the world at that time. The richest man in the world. Solomon. He had the the most number of concubines. So sexual pleasure was there, most amount of money, castles and palaces and all of that. And he said these words, "When I
00:26:56 consider all that my hands had done, actually not his hands, all the slaves hands, okay? That and toil I expended in doing it and behold all was vanity and striving after the wind and there was nothing to be gained under the sun." You boil it all down, what's what's the big deal? You can build the tallest building in the world and so what? It doesn't last for eternity. So, so the basic point is that a rich man born into privilege sits next to a poor man born into poverty. What makes sense? Coherence, purpose, and
00:27:40 significance. That is the thing that most human beings want. Why am I here? The poor man says, you know, how come God's so unfair? I was born in KL and the other fellow born in New York City. You know, it doesn't make sense unless you understand God's purpose, significance in your life. The old woman must be wondering, "All my life I've been poor, and one day I put my last two coins into the treasury." And Jesus then says, "Look at her. She gave more than everybody else." And that is immortalized in scripture.
00:28:28 2,000 years later, we all read about it and we're wondering, my goodness, that woman, that narrative all her life, she's been poor. And that that one moment, her call to fame was she put the last two coins there. And Jesus saw it and Jesus tells you about it. And Jesus encourages us to give the same. All her life, the only thing she's significant for were the two coins. All his life, the other man on the right was blind. They asked question, why am I born blind? Did my parents sin or did I sin? And Jesus
00:29:06 said, "No, you were born blind so that my glory would be seen." And he was healed. And he testified for Jesus. his whole life purpose came together at that moment. You know before that the last 30 years he's wondering why am I born in this shitty life. I'm blind. I can't do anything. I'm no good. Other people there are doctors and nurses and accountants and architects but I can't do anything because I'm blind. Why is God like that? And one day when Jesus opened up his eyes, he knew. He knew. And many of us are like that. We're
00:29:49 never going to be famous. We're never going to be that person which your mother and father wanted you to be. But one day that event comes and that event is you being adopted as God's son to give you purpose. These two men cannot be more apart. One is the richest man in the world, arguably the most powerful. The other one born without arms and legs and I tell you the guy born without arms and legs will be asking life is not worth living because I can't see any sense in it there's no significance and there's no purpose
00:30:34 because what can I do with no arms and no legs right and yet the at 10 years old Nick Vuchek tried to drown himself and then he found Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ got purpose significance into his life and it all made sense. He was not a loser. He's not useless. He's not somebody to be pied. In fact, you look at his wife pretty and he's got four children more than you guys. Most of you only got one or two. And he's got a wonderful ministry where he's actually preaching and reaching hundreds and thousands of
00:31:20 people. And it reminds me of what Paul says. When I am weak, what did he say? Then I am strong. When I am weak, then I am strong. When I'm strong, look at Elon Musk. Then he's the most man to be most pied in the world. There was a story told of a nursing mother who basically was uh uh helping uh sorry a nurse in the hospital who were helping a lady deliver. They went through ceserian and then bring that bring the child to the uh nursery and he called the the father in and the father came and saw the child and scooped the child
00:32:11 into his arms and then the pediatrician came and congratulate him. Then he pointed out a doctor. Hey doctor, doctor. Oh my baby ear very big. You know like those elephant trunk elephant ears very big. you know there's going to be a problem one day when he goes to school they're going to call him after the cartoon Dumbo so he's very upset then he tells the pediatrician you know I don't know how to break the news to my wife the pediatrician said no problem we can do plastic surgery when he get older so
00:32:46 that we can cut that down then he felt happy but so he brought the baby well the nurse brought the baby into the room and the wife had woken up from the general anesthetic with the husband by her side and she'd scoop the baby up with a great shriek of joy. Look, darling, he looks just like you. So, so sunship has this issue of identity. All right, we are like our father. We we always think identity is based on DNA. So, we used our DNA. We try to look for our long lost relatives. But Jesus says because you are sons
00:33:28 which means men and women not just the male gender. God sent his spirit in of his son into our hearts. That means our DNA is overridden by the spiritual DNA. Maybe you got crappy DNA got diseases but the Holy Spirit comes in and that's a new DNA. The biblical concept of sunship is this. You do what your father did, what his grandfather did, everybody did. It is about behavior. It is about behavior. Right? He calls the uh the uh Galatians, you are Christ, then you are Abraham's son. You also God's son. How come you can be
00:34:11 Abraham's son and God's son at the same time? It's about behavior. You know, we want we all want to be like our father like this one and wanting to Henry and and Richard Hawking wanting to be like his father and one day they actually became well together they flew from London Gatwick to Cancun, Mexico because the son finally became a captain in his own right. Gospel holiness and ambition where the son wants you sunship means you want to be like your father. You do what he does. In the Old Testament,
00:34:47 sunship is a vocation. The fa if your father's a farmer, you are a farmer. So God's son, Abraham, sorry, Adam, Israel, David, Jesus, the father defines your work. So therefore, the whole focus of sunship is being like your father. Matthew 13, is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? Blessed are the peacemakers for because they will be called sons of God. Why? If you make peace, you are like God. Then you're expressing that sunship. Matthew uh five, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
00:35:28 you. I mean, are you are you kidding? This is what we call an impossible command. How many f people here find it easy to love your enemies? They insult you. You never look at them anymore. You walk away. But why do we do that? We do that because you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. He makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. So now we know we're not loving our enemies and praying for this simply because we are so good. We're doing it because we are
00:36:00 emulating. We are sons because God loves everyone and he provides for everyone. He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, you are basically expressing that love as well. Now, so you look back back in the Old Testament, okay, when you translate these words, sons of singers means musicians, sons of malice means the wicked, sons of flame sparks, sons of might a fighter. So, so basically sunship expresses your behavior. So this evident that the children of God and who are children of the devil. What's the
00:36:40 difference? Well, whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God nor is the one who does not love his brother. So sunship is about identity. It's about you being like God. And righteousness and love are characteristic of sunship. And the final sunship is in heaven. Revelation 21, the one who conquers will have this heritage and I will be his God and he will be my son. So not only you are his son but you will also be mean. How come there's an already and a not yet right? Finally one day every sin will be taken away and
00:37:18 even your own behavior will be perfectly righteous and you will finally express fully your sunship when you're in heaven. So sunship is you're adopted. You have the righteousness, legal righteousness of Jesus, but there's a personal ethical righteousness that grows on you as you bring holiness to completion. Uh this is the cornerstone of the new covenant as expressed in 2 Corinthians 6:16. I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. That's what the covenant
00:37:54 is about. But so therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them which is non-Christians as it were uh uh who who are unbelievers says the Lord and touch no unclean thing then I will welcome you and I will be a father to you. You shall be sons and daughters to me says the Lord Almighty. Since we have these promises let's cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit bringing holiness to completion the fear of the Lord. So although we are sons, we are moving towards that final uh
00:38:30 situation where we ethically we perfectly reflect God. So there is a deficit. If you look at the deficit of where we are now or where we should be, every child will stand in every house and you got one of these. How many of you have one of these in the house when you were growing up where you put a mark every day and see how tall you are? You know very strange people you don't have right we we draw and the reason why we draw where we are you know why because we're looking for where we will be one
00:39:01 day right that's the anticipation right rather than like spoiled kids nowadays you know there's this uh uh prosperity gospel and the whole thing focuses on not where you want to be and be like God it focuses that God now must now come and serve you are sad he will cheer you up. You lost your job, he'll give you another job. You give money to him, he will pour prosperity into you. It's it's focused around you. We have forgotten that we as sons need to approximate our father. That should be a driving addition. And
00:39:40 the difference between some people's holiness, other people's holiness is is a way of which we can compare, we can criticize, we can judge, and we can fight about it in church. Right. So how do you over overcome the the deficit? We overcome the deficit by desiring wanting to be like Jesus. It drives your ambition, drives the direction of your life. And when times come when you are actually disciplined by God, God disciplines everyone whom he loves. If he doesn't discipline you, he doesn't love you. Everybody has that. And it
00:40:16 brings grief. And that grief brings true repentance. And repentance gives you hope and this awe that God is actually working in your life. Is there's a very nice movie called Instant Family starring Mark Wahberg and Rose Burton. It's actually taken from a true story uh of his director called the Anders family. And he and and this is strange because you they he adopted Lizzy, a a teenager, 15 years old, totally rebellious, and they're just going to adopt one. If you look at the movie, which is actually reflected
00:40:53 in true life, and she's got rebellion. She hates authority. She doesn't trust people. She's been in the system for a long time. And when they had to adop wanted to adopt her, she came with baggage. The baggage is the other two sis uh Lizzy uh uh the brother and the sister. You instead of getting one, you get three. And all of them got issues. The boy has low self-esteem. Everything you say to him, he falls down in tears. He he he melts away. The youngest child is totally stubborn and only eats chips every
00:41:32 single day. You give her the best steak in the world, it doesn't matter. She only eats chips and she's always worried that she will not have food. Each one has their issues. And I guess it's like God who basically adopts us and we are like one. We are like Lizzy. We all have our issues. But you know what actually kept this family together? This family is kept together because of the commitment and love of the mother and father with that commitment love and every time they failed the mother and father stood by them and gradually they
00:42:11 became the true sons and daughters of their parents and the same thing is with us. You see I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me says the lord almighty. Since we have these promises, is it the basis of us being really sons and daughters? Is the promise? How are we going to overcome the deficit? The promise is I will make my dwelling place among them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. No matter how far you are from what the reflection what
00:42:43 true God is, you are going to make it. You know why? God is committed to you. I will dwell among them. I will walk among them. I will be their God and they will be my people. We need to hold on to this promise. It is in holding on to this promise that we approximate sunship and overcome the deficit. Second, third thing is that and because you are sons, God sent his spirit of his son into our hearts crying. The word cron crying aba father. It is not excuse me God you got time. Can I have a word? The word is
00:43:22 cron is crying. The same word used when a woman is screaming when the baby is coming out between her legs. Same word used where the demoniac scream what have you got to do with me? Jesus son of the most high. Or when Peter was falling was drowning falling into the sea. Lord save me. You think he got time say excuse me Lord. Uh can I ask this favor? I'm drowning. Not so good to die drowning. You remember I'm your apostle. Can you help me, please? Thank you so much. He just screams and imagine that that you have a
00:44:02 relationship with God that intermittently you know I was practicing this yesterday having about 5 hours surgery and in the middle there were difficult bits and I'm screaming to the Lord in my heart because I don't want to say excuse me God I've got this bad surgery and I'm doing this and it's bleeding like hell and I don't know what to do. I I just scream in my heart to the Lord. I know God hears me and he made everything okay at that particular time. And so we need to have that kind of ability to see true sunship means you
00:44:36 can scream. It's not mechanical and formal. You come before God with a with with with your best Sunday suit and you feel that you're good enough to address him. Sometimes when we sin, I find this problem and I sin. I don't feel that I'm good enough because I let God down. I lied. I did that and I need to prepare myself already. So confess, you know, go and fast yourself and do something or beat yourself up and then I'm okay. Then I stand before God like this boy. Okay. Then I can say, "Dear God, now that
00:45:12 we're on a level playing field, right? I can then ask you for something and then you won't brush me aside. But the fact that you cry aba means whatever you are, God knows that we are all like Joshua piece of right? He knows. He can see. But we're covered with the blood of the lamb. So we come with great spontaneity, warmth, passion, and freedom. That's what sunship is about. When you enter your father's room, you don't knock knock. Papa, can I come in? If your father does that to you, I think something wrong with you or something
00:45:48 wrong with the father. You just come right in. No matter who he is, and he will receive you. So we have a sense of God's presence in our lives. So aba father is the same word Jesus uses. It expresses the accuration that God is a father and there's a kind of intimacy. There's a special name that you call your father and your father calls you. That's kind of intimacy and for him it's abba father. So we have a sense of god's presence. You've got intimacy, confidence, assurance that you won't be turned away. That's the difference
00:46:25 between a son and a slave. However, it's a little bit different with God and your father. Hebrews says, "Let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for God is our consuming fire." This is the hardest part in my life to reconcile. It's very easy to think about your I don't know what kind of dad you have. Maybe you got those nice dads. Whatever you ask also, he gives you. He's always smiling. He never punishes you. Or you've got one like my dad in the past where every time I must have a
00:47:04 otherwise the cane comes out and I got fear and trembling all the time and I'm conflicted. I lost my father when I was 8 years old and I actually grew up without a father. So this is a part of my life that the metaphor doesn't quite work right because my idea of God is an allconsuming fire. Your idea of God could be your nice dad that you had. So, so we as human beings need to reconcile the fact that we have a father. The amazing thing is that he is the God, the creator of the universe, an all-consuming fire who will not tolerate
00:47:40 sin and will punish sin to the third and fourth generation. And yet, and yet he loves you with a passion that put his son on the cross. That's something that I find difficult to reconcile. And we need to reconcile that in our lives in order to really understand how serious he is. You know, holiness is always taken in most churches as an optional extra. Yeah. Everything else is more important. We go to missions, we do this and that, but holiness is an optional extra. But holiness is the real deal.
00:48:17 You are standing in front of God who is an allconsuming fire. And yet he loves you. And that's something that we need to learn to reconcile in our lives. And lastly, we have not only identity, purpose, intimacy, access, we have inheritance. You are heirs through God. Adoption is very important in the uh time when Paul wrote this daughters are almost never adopted. So he uses a metaphor adoption means it implies to sons and means all daughters are sons. 8% of magistrates are adopted and they only adopt usually
00:48:54 adults. These are emperors, you know. They're all adopted. I know when I was growing up, Chinese always look down on adopted. My mother would say, "Ah, when you're naughty, I pick you up from garbage bin." Yeah. And how many of you had parents did that? I think it's a common Chinese threat. I pick you up from garbage bin. You're nothing like me. All right. So uh but in in the Greek idea, Roman idea is completely different. You you you you are adopted and you are given that heritage. You lose all rights
00:49:26 to your old family. You're an heir to a new family. All past life is wiped out. You're absolute child, new father. Do you know that you can not be disowned? As a natural son, you can be disowned as adopted son. Cannot be disowned. Salvation for us is absolutely certain. So let me conclude the challenge. Jiper wrote these words. Find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God in his father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his
00:50:05 whole outlook in life, it means he does not understand Christianity very well at all. Your understanding of your faith revolves around one thing. That God is your father. That animates you, that propels you, that excites you, that comforts you, that puts you in awe how you live your Christian life. We have a God who receives us, who runs towards you because you never deserved it. You're a prodigal son. And the key is to find this God beautiful. Beloved, we are God's children. And what we will be has not
00:50:51 yet appeared. But we will know that when he appears, we will be like him. We will see him as he is. And everyone who hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. This is the motivating factor. As we move our lives towards being like him, we purify ourselves. That is our direction. This is a young lady who was years ago because China has a one child policy and uh they don't like girls in China because they don't carry the Chinese name. In fact, Israel was telling me some families even here today
00:51:31 when they actually give inheritance the the girls don't get you know only the boys get. So therefore if you have one child then the the the the female child is either aborted, killed or given away in a box. And this young lady was adopted by Canadian family doctors I think. and she grew up in Canada and she grew up to become an Olympic champion in the 100 meter butterfly at Tokyo. Her name is Maggie McNeel. And they asked her, you know, uh, you're Chinese. Oh, Chinese very good, huh? Faster than
00:52:15 Americans. They tried to capitalize on her DNA, right? You know what she said? I was born in China. I was adopted. you really young that just as far as my Chinese heritage goes. The gold medalist said I'm Canadian. I've always been grown up Canadian. So that's a very small part of my journey to where I am today. It's a kind of irrelevant when it comes to swimming and how far my swimming has come. You see the fact that she's Chinese is actually irrelevant to her. The point is she was adopted where she was nobody
00:52:53 unwanted. The family came and adopted her and everything she is today is because that family adopted her and she grew up in their likeness and represent their country. We make a big deal about our heritage, isn't it? Everyone is proud of being something. I remember this chap Lim Kitsang said to Muin, "Hey, when did your Malay first stop becoming your priority?" Muin used to say, "I'm Malay first, Malaysian second last." And then recently he changed, "I'm Malaysian first and I'm Malay second." And then you got this
00:53:32 young Amno upstart. And he says, "I am still Malay first, unlike power- hungry Muidin who basically became Malaysian first for expediency." Brothers and sisters in Christ, the only thing that matters, there is neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave nor free. There's no male and female. You are all one in Christ. I am adopted son of the living God. first, not Chinese first, not Malaysian first. I am the son of the living God. And that's what he I deserve nothing. So that is the thought that we need to go home and understand. We have
00:54:22 purpose, we have identity, we have an inheritance, and we have intimacy with God. Let us rise up to that. Father Lord, we these are such amazing words. We come before you right now. We're totally unworthy. And because of what your son has done, we are your children. We are your sons. [Music] We can just cry before you abba papa father anytime we want. We have access in the throne of the living God creator of the entire universe. Father Lord we pray every day you just impress upon our hearts what a tremendous privilege this
00:55:23 is. How awesome you are. How small we are but yet how blessed we are. Fill our hearts with hope, aspirations to be like you. May that be the driving force of our lives. Not the other petty ambitions in our life, but to be like you to truly reflect and glorify you and make you proud of us whom you are in Christ. We ask all this for Jesus' sake. I'm sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, or depths, or anything else in all creation will be
00:56:11 able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. You know what? You ask your mother and father, that's exactly how they feel about you. Nothing will separate you from your child and nothing will separate us from the love of Christ. May God bless you as you live this week forward as his sons. Amen.
