Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Adoption (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

God moved heaven and earth to be our Father. Rather than just forgiving our sins through Jesus Christ, he invites us to sit at the family table with him as his very own sons and daughters. All too often, we live and act as slaves instead of cherished children, blown about by the emotional highs and lows of our circumstances and defensive about our standing in life. But the truth is that our adoption grants us a wonderful security in Jesus that we can call upon daily. Let’s look at 1) how God’s adoption of us is far more radical than it seems, and 2) how we can rest secure as sons instead of slaves. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on June 14, 1992. Series: Salvation From the Outside In. Scripture: Ephesians 1:4-8. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Many people say that what matters most is simply living a good and loving life. But the Bible says something very different, that the way we live flows directly from our beliefs about God. This summer and through the end of September, we're going through one of Tim Keller's most extensive sermon series, in which he teaches from the first three chapters of Ephesians, looking at how the Bible's central truths about salvation and grace will shape even the most practical parts of our everyday life. One, verses 4 through 8, as if you didn't know. We are looking for a couple of weeks at one idea, one key concept. It'll be especially appropriate tonight to go from this teaching into the Lord's

Supper. Because you always know that whenever somebody invites you into your home, unless you eat at their table, they're treating you to one degree or another as family. We're looking at the subject of our adoption through Christ so that we are children of the Father. Verse four, He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace,

which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we received redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. This is God's word. But we're looking here. He destined us to be adopted as his sons.

This is Father's Day. And I noticed that yesterday in the religion, one of the religion writers of the New York Time, Peter Steinfels, had an interesting statement to make. He said, with all the flap about family values, people don't seem to notice that it's not really the question of why there's so many single mothers. He said the real question is why there's so many absent fathers. and he comes right out in that little article, it's on page 11, no, page 9 of yesterday's paper, and he says, we need to ask a question. Now, I'm not going to answer this question, it's just a good question.

This isn't our basic purpose tonight. He says in 1960, one out of every 20 births was to a mother without a father living at home. And today it's one out of four. And he says, you know, that's a cultural earthquake. That's a cataclysm. That's a huge change. Why aren't we talking about it? And why can't we talk about it without immediately politicizing it?

All that, all I'm pointing out, the only reason I'm pointing it out is it proves that to be raised by a loving father is becoming a more and more rare experience. and the reason I don't like to talk that much about human fathers on Father's Day, first of all, I am a human father and I know how imperfect I am. We have human fathers and we know how imperfect they are. And even those of us who have the best human fathers know that they're imperfect because they die. You know, that's the worst thing that a really great father can do. But they do. See, no matter how great your father is, he's not perfect, he can't stay with you.

And then the ones who are imperfect, of course, are with you too much. The point is that on this Father's Day, the best thing to possibly think about is this, absolutely radical statement. This particular doctrine of Christianity ought to fall burst on our culture like a bombshell. No other religion makes the claim. We talked a little bit about it last week. This is Christianity that through Christ your creator can become your father. Through Christ, your creator can become your father.

Just because he is your creator doesn't mean he is your father. We talk about Henry Ford being the father of the Model T. That doesn't mean he had them all around his table every night. It didn't mean he tucked him into bed. He didn't get him little drinks of water at 4 a.m. when they asked for it. To be your creator is one thing, to be your father is another. And every other religion says, you can know the creator and you can be his servant or his

student or his citizen or his follower. But Christianity alone has the audacity to say, through Christ, your creator can become your father, that there is a perfect father, a perfect father, a father. a father that does not die, a father that loves you with absolute wisdom and absolute consistency and absolute love and compassion. The word adoption we said last week shows us, though, that we are not children of God by nature. Adoption takes a legal action on the part of the father. To say everyone is just naturally a child of God goes completely against what the scripture teaches. And we know from that maybe greatest of parables,

remember the parable of the prodigal son, that the only way that we can actually be welcomed by the father is at Christ's expense. You remember in the prodigal son, I'll just, I mean I refer to it so often, you must remember the features of it, but let me show you exactly how it bears on our subject for tonight. The prodigal son was one of two sons,

two children. The prodigal son took all of his inheritance when his father was still alive and went away and squandered it. That meant that everything the father had now belonged to the elder brother. Right? So that when the prodigal son came back and said, I'm penniless, I'm a fool, I'm stupid, just put me back into the estate by making me a servant. I'll work for my bed and my board. The father says, no, I'm going to welcome you back to my table, my table. I'm going to bring you back into my family. I'm going to bring you back into my love. I'm going to bring you back into my inheritance.

My son was dead and now he's alive. But you see, the elder brother looked and said to the father, wait, there is no way that you can welcome this son. There's no way you can welcome this, this, this, this, this, this, profligate. There's no way you can welcome this person without self-control. There's no way you can welcome this jerk. I forget the Hebrew for jerk. There's no way you can welcome this one back into your family except at my expense, because everything you have is mine. When you put a robe on him, when you put a ring on his finger, when you kill the fatted calf, the problem is father,

says the elder brother. The elder brother says, every robe is mine that you've got. Every ring is mine. Every fatted cap is mine. You can't bring him back in except at my expense. Now that's what the elder brother says in the parable. But don't you understand when the heavenly father says to you, I can adopt you as my children. I can put your sins behind you. I can make good all your debts. I want you at my table. The same dynamic is at work. The only way that you can possibly enter into your father's welcome, into your father's arms, into your father's inheritance at your father's table,

is at the expense of Jesus Christ, your elder brother. Except he's not like the false elder brother. He's the true elder brother who says, welcome, my little son, my little brother, welcome, my little sister. Come to the table. it's all at my expense, and I pay it out of my own pocket gladly. I died for you. I was torn to pieces for you.

Everything that you have now at the Father's table is at my expense. But that's all right, because I give myself for you. I want you here. Now there's a brother. The Father is our Father because the brother is our brother. Jesus, when he died on the cross, Jesus when he poured himself out, Jesus, when he opened not his mouth, even when he was slaughtered, he was brothering you. He was brothering you so that God could father you.

Adoption is not something that happens naturally. Adoption takes a choice. Adoption takes a legal activity. And that is the marvelous claim of Christianity, that through Christ, at Christ's expense, see, through the redemption of his blood, verse 7, you can be adopted. The reason you're in the family is because of the redemption of his blood. Now, what I wanted to show you tonight is, first of all, I'd like to make some general observations about the doctrine of adoption.

And then I would like to begin, something I will conclude next week, next Sunday night, I would begin to like to show you what it means to not just know what it means to be children of God, but live as if you're a child of God, as if you're a son or daughter of the king, kingdom. I want to just not only show you what it means, but what it means to live it out. So let me show you what it means. And then let's begin to talk about how to live it out, but I'll conclude it next week. Because tonight we won't take as long. I just want to set you up so you can embrace this perfect father over his table tonight, which you can do through faith. Look, the word adoption in Greek, the word adoption that Paul is using here is the

word huithesia. Thesia means to make something, and huios means son, to make you a son. Now, in the Hebrew culture, there was no such custom, but Paul was a Roman citizen, and he knew that in the Roman world, adoption was a very, very specific legal procedure. And it usually was not something that was done the way we do it. We adopt infants. The younger the better, That's the idea. But in the Roman world, adoption was usually done of an adult. This is the setting. A man who is the head of an estate has no heir.

He doesn't want to see his estate broken up. He sees another man, generally a young man, who he respects and admires. So he goes to him and says, I'll make you, my son, I want to adopt you. So then everything that I have will be yours. When the heir, you might say, when the rich man would adopt his heir, immediately several things happened.

Legally, number one, all of the new son's old obligations are canceled. All debts are canceled. All legal obligations are gone. No longer does he owe anybody anything but his new father. Secondly, this son becomes as wealthy as his father. He immediately gets the father's name and immediately becomes the air of everything the father has. Thirdly, the father becomes liable for everything the son does. If the son does something stupid, the father pays.

If the son does something ridiculous, the father makes up. But then lastly, the son, of course, now has the responsibilities of carrying on the name and has the responsibilities of honoring that name. So do you see that adoption is primarily not a change of nature, it's a change of status? It was a legal change, and it's the highest thing possible. When Paul talks about God adopting you, there's many other things that God gives you in Christ, but this is the highest. You have to see it as the highest.

Nothing can be higher than this. You see, some people understand that Jesus died on the cross to secure our forgiveness. That's great. It's true, but this is higher than that. Some of you know the Bible talks about justification by faith. That not only does Jesus, when he died on the cross, get rid and pardon our sins, but his perfect record is transferred into our account. So we're not only not liable for our sins, but we now are,

stand as if we had been righteous. We've talked about that before. In God's sight, you're righteous. In God's sight, you're a hero. You've accomplished all the things that Jesus accomplished. And we've talked about that, and that's amazing, but this is even higher. Do you understand why? It's one thing for the governor to pardon a criminal and to say you don't have to be executed. It's another thing for a governor to give that criminal a medal. and a great job in his administration. But it would be far greater for the governor to adopt this man into his family. Give him his name. The governor gives him his own name. The governor makes him an heir of all of his wealth. The governor brings him into his table, brings him into

his home, brings him into his living quarters. Don't you see that the highest possible thing that God could do for anyone would be to adopt? Now, here's a couple of observations about this. Before we give you some practical, practical implications. First of all, we must realize that the Bible insists that our adoption makes our sonship like and yet unlike Christ's sonship. Like, but unlike. Listen, real carefully, I'll be brief. First, it's like it.

Any of you who have been adopted, any of you who have seen people adopt, you'll know that the whole, whole purpose of adoption is to treat the child exactly as if the child was naturally, biologically, the parents. We don't always do it perfectly. Sometimes people struggle. But the purpose of adoption is to bring a child in and to be as intimate, to be as loving, to be as supportive as you would be if that child had sprung from your own bowels, your own wound, from your own body. Now, some human families do it perfectly. Some human families don't do it perfectly,

but God obviously does it perfectly, and that means that the Father cannot love us less than he loves the son. His only begotten son. You've probably heard me say this before. This is one of those places. When I say this, I feel like a bottle with a cork in it. I cannot get out what I want to.

I can't, I tried to yell it. matter because it, you know, it still doesn't help. I don't know how to put this, I don't know how to get this across. When Jesus says in John 17, Father, you have loved them even as you love me. When Jesus Christ says that, when you even see the word adoption, which means, to adopt somebody means to bring a child in and to love the child as if the child was your biological child, This must mean that he loves everybody in this room who's really received him as as Savior as much as he loves his own heavenly son, his only begotten son, with as much power, with as much constancy, with as much joy.

Nobody believes it. I know you don't believe, but we should at least think about this. Imagine the welcome that the father gave to his son when his son came back from having died on the cross, having been tortured, having accomplished this great work. Imagine how the father welcomed him. Imagine how wide his arms were. Imagine the power, the tidal wave of love that must have just surged out of the father's heart into the center of the son's soul. Imagine that.

Well, why am I saying imagine that? Because adoption means that he loves you no less that his sonship, Jesus Christ's sonship and the love he has cannot be anything less than the love the Father has for you. It's got to be. What is your real religion?

You know what your real religion is? Your real religion is what you turn to when the chips are down. Your real religion is what you turn to when things are going terribly. Your real religion is what you turn to when things look hopeless. That's what you really worship.

What is it? Is it this? When you're desperate, when things look bleak, is this what you turn to? If you don't, you really don't understand the riches you've got here. Why are you turning to the things that you do? Why are you turning to ambition? Why are you turning to sex? Why are you turning to bad habits? Why are you turning to fantasizing about what things might be like if only, if only, if only? this is not a fantasy. This is reality. Imagine the father's love for his son, even as, just think of those words, even as, even as, even as the father loves you, even as he loves me. Do you struggle to find the words to share your faith effectively with others? Most Christians, pastors included, have moments where we have trouble articulating what we believe and why our faith matters. In his book preaching, communicating faith in an age of skepticism, Tim Keller shows how to communicate the Christian message in a way that's clear, compassionate, and accessible, whether you're speaking to a group

or having a casual conversation with a friend. Drawing from his decades of experience connecting the gospel to real-life circumstances, Dr. Keller shows how the gospel message can speak even to the most skeptical or spiritually curious people. During the month of July, we'll send you a copy of preaching, as our thanks for your gift to help gospel and Life share the transforming love of Christ with more people. So request your copy today at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. But on the other hand, Jesus' sonship is different in this. There's a number of places where Jesus says, I'm ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God. Do you ever

notice how carefully Jesus in the Gospels does not say our father, except in the Lord's prayer when he's telling us how to pray. He doesn't say our Father, he says, my Father and your Father, my God and your God, to try to show you something he must be careful of. We're adopted into the family of God, but that doesn't mean we actually come into the Godhead. It doesn't mean we actually get absorbed and become God.

Eastern religions will tell you that. By the way, the course of miracles talks about sonship, and it bothers me quite a bit. talks about becoming a son of God, but it means merging in with the Godhead. It means the same thing that Shirley McLean means when she says, you are God. Create your own reality. You see, the difference between saying, I'm adopted into the family of God, and saying, I actually am merging into God, is rather different.

A son submits to the Father, obeys the Father. But if we talk about merging into God, the books, the New Age books and the books that always talk about becoming God, always say things like create your own reality, which is the exact opposite. It was the first sin in the garden. That's what the serpent told Adam and Eve to do. The serpent said to Adam and Eve, don't obey God. Be your own God. You shall be as gods. Create your own reality. And therefore, our sonship does not mean that we actually come into the God. head in the sense of becoming merged with God. But rather, God's nature does come into us and turns us into what we should have been all along. Sons and daughters who reflect him, just like sometimes you see the father's face, you know, the parent's face is seeing the children, in the genes, in the chromosomes. God certainly puts his nature in us, it's His Holy Spirit, but we do not get merged with him. So our sonship is like Christ. On the other hand, it's not. We don't merge in, but we really become sons loved even as he's loved. One more observation. A lot of people are a little bit

cagey or a little bit anxious and a little bit tense about the fact that Paul uses the term sons for both male and female. And some people are a little bit of say, well, wait a minute, that's not fair. Why does he always talk about our sonship, our sonship? Well, listen, Paul was being very subversive. In the Roman world, women were oppressed. They weren't allowed to be heirs. The men had the inheritance, and they could pass it on to other men. And sonship meant power, authority, inheritance. And so when Paul took a word that had a very specific legal meaning in the Roman world and turns around and puts it on all Christians, male and female. He's being radical. He's being subversive. He is saying when it comes to God,

God does not recognize gender differences when it comes to the power and inheritance that he gives. So when he calls everybody's sons, you know, female Christians shouldn't be any more upset than male Christians should be when he calls us all his bride. You know, I mean, that, That's odd too, isn't it? You see, the point is, the metaphor isn't the point, the truth behind the metaphor. Every one of us is feminine toward God, in some sense, when it comes to saying he's the father, no, he's the husband and we're the bride. Now, he's the father and we're the son.

Let's not get bent out of shape about metaphors, recognize the glorious reality behind it and inside it, the subversiveness of it. One more observation about this. doctrine of adoption. There's a place in Romans chapter 8 that says all of creation, all of nature, the trees and the canyons and the oceans are groaning under their decay and are yearning for the glorious liberty of the sons of God. And then Paul says, and we too grown inwardly awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our bodies. In Romans 8 it says all of creation is groaning and waiting for us to be liberated, to come into the glorious freedom of the sons of God,

and then Paul says, we too groan for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. This is one of the places where you see the Bible tends to sometimes talk about realities as if they already exist, and other times it talks about realities as if they're not ready already there. Paul says here we've been adopted, but Paul says in Romans 8 we haven't been adopted. What's he talking about? Just this. When I adopt a child, I can give that child everything but my actual chromosomes. I can't do that. I can't give her my DNA. But the Bible tells us that our heavenly father will do that. And there'll be a day coming in which the glory that we will get as his children. When our inheritance drops on us, we don't know what that means. When the glory

drops on us, when the power drops on us, when his nature drops on us, and we finally lose all of our flaws and we finally become people that look just like he does, with all of his integrity and his nobility and his wisdom and his power and his love and his greatness. Evidently, on the last day, the glory of our sonship is going to be so great that when it falls on us, it's going to transform the whole universe at the same time. The universe is longing for our liberation as children of God. That means that the glory that's going to fall on us is so great that it's going to subsume all of creation and glorify it.

All the decay will be gone. All the flaws will be gone. It's an astonishing statement. It means that there is nothing higher, there is nothing greater, than being admitted to the family of God, we have no idea what's in our inheritance. We have no idea what we're actually going to get when the inheritance falls on us as children.

But we know when it hits us, it's going to have such impact, such power and such glory, that it's going to change the entire universe. The mountains and the hills, the ocean and the trees, Romans 818 says, are standing on tiptoe in anticipation for our revelation as glorious sons and daughters of the king. I don't know what that means either, but it's tremendous.

I can't imagine all of what it means, but it's the sort of thing we're supposed to live off of. Now, just before we go to the table, I like to just to tease you with what it actually means to live as sons and daughters of the king. In Galatians chapter 4 and in Romans chapter 8 it says, The spirit has not given us a spirit of fear. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of sonship, whereby we cry to the Father, Abba Father. And when the Bible says in Galatians 4 and in Romans 8, that the spirit's job is to show us that we're his children and to get rid of our fear, I think we have got a key to the Christian life right there. If you have any fears, now, if you have any

anxieties, it's because you're not listening to the spirit who tells you you're his children. Think of this metaphor, and let me give you a couple of tests. The metaphor goes like this. In Galatians chapter 4, it says that there's two kinds of people living in the household. There's the servants, the slaves, and there's the son. Now, imagine, you have to remember, these big households had lots and lots of people in them, lots of people. You had all kinds of stewards, and you had all kinds of workers and you had all kinds of managers. Some of them were slaves. Some of them were servants.

Some of them were servants. Some of them were employees. So you had a whole house and there was lots to do. You can imagine a big plantation, you see. Lots and lots to do. But there was only one son in the household along with all the servants. Now, if you actually walked in there with a video camera and watched the servants and the sons working, it would be hard to tell the difference.

Very hard. Why? Because they were all diligently doing their jobs. And the son, depending how old the son was, the son might have a very menial task. You might have a lot of servants that are doing more important and more valuable things than the son. Paul says in Galatians 4, you do not relate to the father as a servant or as a slave.

You relate as a son. In the house, everybody's busy. The slaves know that if they don't do well, they can be cast out or they can be demoted. Therefore, they work under compulsion, and they also know they don't have authority in the house. The son, however, knows that the father loves him, knows that he is absolutely secure, and knows that the house is his. So in the same house, you've got people relating to the head as slaves and people relating to the head as sons. Which are you? The Bible says Paul insists that in this room, there are many of you who are relating to the father as a feudal lord, as an employer, as a boss, and many of you relating as his children.

And they're very different. Children relate with freedom. children experience freedom in life, a sense of authority, a sense of this is my father's world, a sense that I am accepted and I can't be condemned and the father loves me because of what Jesus has done. A slave is full of anxiety and full of fears, always afraid of being cast out, always working not out of love but out of a sense of compulsion and without any freedom, but rather just a slave. Sometimes it's not easy to tell the difference when you actually walk in with that video camera

because they're all running about, but they have two very different motives and dynamics inside. Now here let me suggest to you what this means. Are you, you're all here tonight, you're all listening to the preaching, you're all in a church building, but are you a slave or are you a son? The only two categories, it doesn't matter if you're a slave or a son. slaves are up and down emotionally. Why? Because when they perform well, they feel like they're worthwhile people. And when they perform poorly, they feel like failures. But sons are emotionally stable. You know why? Because a son knows when he does something well, that that's not the reason he's accepted.

He's glad he did something well. He's glad that he pleased his father. But that's not the reason he's in the house. he's in the house because of what his elder brother did for him. And therefore he doesn't get a big head when things go well. And also when things go poorly, he's not afraid of being rejected because he knows he's in the house because of what his elder brother did. And because the father has adopted him and his relationship with the father is strong. A father doesn't fire his son. A father fires a slave.

A father kicks him out. And so you see, which are you? do you find yourself emotionally going up and down depending on whether you're living up the standards or is there an emotional even keel in your life? Do you find that you really don't get a big head when things go well and you really don't get all discouraged and depressed when things go poorly and you perform poorly? A son, pardon me, a slave is emotionally up and down over his or her performance. A son is on an even keel. Let me give you another example.

slaves are critical, judgmental, and gossipy. You know why? Because you see a slave is someone who doesn't feel loved unless they feel superior. Gossip makes you feel superior to people. That's why you like it. If you find gossip great. If you find gossip irresistible to listen to and irresistible to pass along, it's because you need to believe that you're better than the people that you're talking about. if you're critical, if you're judgmental, if you're very, very quick to jump on people, if you control people or you control environments because you don't want anything, anything to go wrong and reflect on you, it's because you have a slave's mentality. The slave's mentality is if anything goes wrong, if I've done anything wrong, I can't be loved.

But a son, a son is someone who, who's got an affirming spirit, who's a good listener, who doesn't gossip. A son is someone who is affirming, someone who is extremely good at giving compliments and making people feel better, because the son knows that it's not his performance that makes him loved. It's what his brother did for him. Let me give you one more. I said, a slave is emotionally up and down over his or her performance. A slave is critical and judgmental. and gossipy and controlling. Also, a slave is somebody who can't take criticism and can't repent. Repentance is a destructive thing. Repentance is a terrible thing because repentance means admitting

that you haven't lived up to standards, and if you haven't left up to standards, you've got nothing to live for. You're going to be cast out. But a son is not defensive, not defensive at all. A son is easy to talk to. A son doesn't immediately jump down your throat with life. of excuses when you criticize. A son repents with joy. Which are you? Look, the Bible says the spirit's job is to get rid of your fear by telling you if you've received Christ as Savior. If you've really made Christ, you might say your elder brother. The spirit's job is to tell you that you're a son until the fear goes away. If you're emotionally up and down, if you're critical, if you're judgmental if you're defensive, if you're controlling, if you can't take criticism. You know why?

You're forgetting who you are. You're not listening to the spirit. You're slipping back into slavery. And seeing Galatians in Romans, it says we have not received a spirit of slavery again to fear, but we've been given their full rights as sons. You know, in real life adoption, sometimes the birth mother or the birth father will come back and try to grab their child back, try to put a wedge between the adopted child and the adopted parents. That doesn't happen a lot, but it happens sometimes. But I want you to know that if you are a son of the heavenly father, it will happen to you. Your old family, the family you were taken away from, the forces of darkness will definitely come to you constantly and say, are you really a son of God? When the father doesn't do things the way

you want him to do in your life, you'll hear a voice that says, what kind of father is this that would let this happen? That's the old family trying to stick a wedge between you and you're adopted, your real father in heaven. Or when you fail, you'll hear a voice that says, you call yourself a Christian. How could anybody, how could the father love you after you've done what you've done? That's the forces of darkness, the old family trying to stick a wedge in there. And my dear friends, if right now you're caught in an anxiety cycle, you're desperately afraid because you're not doing well, you're desperately anxious because you're not attractive to the opposite sex, you're desperately upset because you're not doing well in your career, you're ready, you're just, you're hopeless, you're in despair.

It's because if you're a Christian and you're in that connection, condition. If you're not affirming, if you're not, if you're a Christian and your self-conscious, if you're a Christian and you're destroyed by criticism, if you're a Christian and you're judgmental, if you're a Christian in controlling, it's because the old family is coming along and helping you to forget who your real father is. He moved heaven and earth to be your father. Treat him as your father. Live as his son. The stability, the non-mobiles. The non-e defensiveness, the lack of self-consciousness, the tremendous security that should be there. We're going to go to the table right now. And I just want to say this to everybody. We're going to

confess our sins, but I'm going to tell you who should come to the table right this minute. If you know that you're not saved because of being a good person and good works, but surely because your elder brother has brought you into the family at God's expense, at his own expense, so that your father now has adopted you. If you understand that, if you've received Christ's Savior and Lord, then you can come to the table. But most of you, I know, because I've struggled with this all the time, are not living as his children. What are you worried for when your father owns the universe? What are you defensive for when your father has said, I love you completely? Treat him as a father.

Grab him as a father. As you take the bread, as you take the cup, say, Lord, I want to live as a son. I want to live as a daughter. I want my full rights. You are the ones who should take the bread in the cup. You're the ones. The ones are willing to confess that you've been living as slaves instead of his sons. Let's pray.

Our father, we simply ask now, as we do come to the table, that you will enable us to take the cup and take the bread knowing that this means that we have been admitted into your very presence. We thank you that you are intimate with us. We would be intimate with you. We would confess to you our fears, and we would say, oh, Holy Spirit, come and remind us that we are your children, the children of the Father, until those fears subside. Father, I pray that my brothers and sisters here in this room as they take the bread and the cup, might have their fears removed by the knowledge of their adoption. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources.

Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1992. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 will Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.