Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Experience of Adoption

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

As a new Christian, I thought of salvation as taking things off of me: that my sins were taken off. But at the very same moment, there’s another part of that legal transaction: something is put on me. I’m adopted as God’s own son. Galatians tells us that because we’re legally adopted, we have an agent—it’s the Spirit. The Spirit is sent not into the world but into our hearts. And the Spirit comes to give not the objective status, which we already have, but the subjective experience of sonship. Let’s break it into three things: 1) what is promised, 2) what it’s like, and 3) how it comes. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 8, 1998. Series: Galatians: New Freedom, New Family. Scripture: Galatians 3:26-4:7. 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.

Are you seeking to change something in your life but find yourself falling into the same habits? Is there any hope for lasting change? This month, Tim Keller is preaching through the book of Galatians, which is all about how Christians can experience true transformation in Christ and how our issues are not solved by our good works, but by allowing the gospel to transform every area of our lives. After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelInLife.com and sign up for our email

updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our Life in the Gospel quarterly journal with articles that feature how the gospel is changing hearts, lives, and communities, as well as highlighting other gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at GospelInLife.com. We're looking at the book of Galatians this year. And this section, which Jeff looked at with you last week, and I'm going to pick up the last, actually just the last couple of verses, but to make sure we see the passage as a whole, let me read you all of it, Galatians 3, 26 to 4, verse 7.

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abram seed and heirs according to the promise What I'm saying is that as long as the heir is a child

He is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father So also when we were children we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world But when the time had fully come God sent his son Born of a woman born under law to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons Because you are sons God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts the spirit who calls out Abba father So you are no longer a slave, but a son.

And since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. This is God's word. Now, when you read all this, as I said, I wanted to look at the totality of it because there is a very, very remarkable parallel between two verses. In verse 5 it says, when the time had fully come, I'll start with verse 4, in verse 4, when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Verse 6, because you are sons, God sent his spirit. Now, you see the word sent twice? That's because we have two activities of the Trinity, of the triune God, going on here. And one of them we looked at last week. Now, I didn't listen to Jeff's tape and I didn't even ask him what he said, but I have been, because I've been traveling this week. However, this is what he probably said last week. And that is, we have an agent. God sent his son. Where

did the agent go? He sent his son into what? The world. For what was the son sent? The son was sent where? Into the world. For what? To redeem the world. And why? What was the desired results? That we might receive the full rights of sons. And this word, sons, full rights of sons, is a single word in the Greek. It's one word, and it literally means so that we might receive the sunness. Or, sometimes it's been translated,

so we might receive sonship. Now the NIV is right in pulling it out and calling it full rights. And the reason why the New International Version does that, it takes that one Greek word and it breaks it out into full rights of sons because we wouldn't understand this as well as the people who listened to Paul's letter did, and that is that in the Greco-Roman world there was a legal transaction that we, which is technically possible today, of course, but isn't usually done. And in that time, what this was, this giving of the sonship, was when a wealthy person who had no children got up in years, that wealthy person could adopt a son, adopt an heir.

And when the illegal papers went through, in a second, the status changed. And so now that person was an heir. And there's a guy here named Francis Lyle who wrote a book called Slave Citizens and Sons and he puts it perfectly well. He says, the profound truth of Roman adoption was that the adoptee was taken out of his previous state and placed in a new relationship of son to his new father. All his old debts were instantly canceled. And in effect, the adoptee started a new life as part of this new family. On the one hand, the new father owned all the new offspring's

property and controlled his personal relationships and had the rights of discipline. But on the other hand, the father was liable for the actions of the adoptee and each owed the other reciprocal duties of support and maintenance. Now that's wonderful. That is one of the greatest things the Bible tells us.

And we tend to miss it. As a new Christian, I think I was like most Christians and that is I thought of my salvation when I first became a Christian almost strictly in negative terms. I thought of salvation, Jesus died for me, so my sins are forgiven. I thought of myself only as having had things

taken off of me. That in the moment I became a Christian, I did have some understanding of a status change. I understood that my sins were taken off of me, my guilt was taken off of me. But I didn't understand what's said here, and that is, at the very same moment, there's another legal part of that transaction, and that is, something is put onto me. That means I don't just get a pardon, but rather I begin to be, I'm adopted, which means I now have this legal status. I'm a son of God, and I am seen legally by God as his own son, Jesus.

And I suddenly am accepted, and I'm adopted, and you see what Francis Lyell said, the father was liable for the actions of the adoptee. All the debts were canceled. It's not just that I was pardoned, but I received this new status. I am secure, I'm guaranteed my relationship with God and so on, and that's all extremely important. It's so staggering.

And therefore, the NIV says, full rights. Because what the son did was go where? Into the world for what? To redeem the world, why? To give us this legal status. But now in verse six, something else is happening. This is new, this is for us to look at tonight.

And there's a remarkable parallel, because if you look carefully, you'll see you have almost the same language. Because you are sons, verse six, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out Abba, father. Now we have the same outline. We have an agent.

This agent is sent someplace to do something and to bring out a result. But what's interesting about this is that this is something separate. First of all, the agent is not the son, it's the spirit. That's the first contrast. The second contrast is that the spirit is not sent into the world, but sent where?

Into our hearts. The spirit does not go to redeem redeem but goes to call out. And the result is not the legal and objective status of sonship but the subjective experience of sonship, Abba Father. Now let's go look at these things again. I mean this verse six is a marvelous verse and one of the most satisfying verses you'll ever see

and actually kind of like a treasure chest that frankly you could spend all the rest of your life digging into. Let's just see what this is teaching. Is this teaching us? Let's break it not into four but into three things. Let's see what is promised, okay? What is promised and secondly what its

characteristics are, what the marks are of it, and thirdly how it comes. What is promised, what it's like, how it comes. First of all, what is promised? An experience into our hearts. The spirit, now see this is additional, this is different, because look at verse 6 how it starts. Because you are sons, it's already over. I have the status, you have the status. You're a Christian now and you are a child of God. That transaction is over and therefore, this is something else.

Because you are sons, so the sonship in a sense is presumed, therefore, it's already there and this is something additional. And what is it? God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts. Now you see the difference? God sent the son into the world. God sends the spirit into the heart,

which means the son goes out there to procure something objective, something out there in the world, external. Through historical action, he procures full rights as sons. But the spirit is going to a whole different situation, a whole different realm. The spirit is going inside,

and the spirit's job is to give us an experience. It's the spirit's job to help us feel like sons. See, it's the son's job to help us feel like sons. See, it's the son's job to make us sons whether we feel like it or not. And it's the Spirit's job to help us appropriate that subjectively, to experience it, to understand it. In fact, you know, there's a couple ways to put this,

but one of the things is you can claim what the son does, but you can only experience what the Spirit does now what I mean by that well We'll get back to this actually but what I mean by this is you can claim what the son does What if you're feeling terribly? You're just feeling so bleak and you're feeling so abandoned you're feeling so isolated, but you're a Christian So what do you do you can claim what the son does? you can say, I know that I'm a child of God, I know this and I know that,

and I'm gonna remind myself of that, I'm gonna tell myself that I'm gonna act like that, I'm gonna go off in that direction, this is how I'm gonna act. What are you doing? You're claiming something, whether you believe it or not. I mean, whether you feel it or not, you're claiming it. But what we're talking about here in verse six

is not something you can claim. We're talking about something that happens to you. It's not something you claim at all. It's something you experience, very powerful, very powerful. So this is what is promised, an experience of sonship. We ought to, let me back a little bit and ask, why is this necessary? And we have, there's a couple of really good books on this

One that I you know, I really show his check with a book table before I mentioned this sort of thing So but anyway, there's a book by a friend of mine called sin Claire named Sinclair Ferguson He's not only called but he's also named Sinclair Ferguson and he's written a book called children of the living God and there's one chapter in the book called The Spirit of Adoption. And in there, he does something which actually is fascinating, it came up this morning in the question and answer time,

because in our morning services, back in the middle of January, we spent some time looking at the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. And one thing that's interesting that Sinclair Ferguson points out and that Henry Nowen, who's written a great book on the return of the prodigal, they point out is when the prodigal son comes back in Luke 15, it's very interesting as he's coming back in repentance. His repentance is very, very faulty, very, very ambiguous, very vague, because he comes back saying,

"'Father, I am not worthy to be called your son. Just let me live on the farm, just let me live on the estate as one of your hired servants.'" Now, St. Clair Ferguson does a very interesting job about this, and he comes and he says this, he says, "'Although the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is probably the best known and loved

"'of all Christ's parables, "'the lesson it teaches us is often overlooked. "'Jesus was underlining the fact "'that the reality of the love of God for us "'is the last thing in the world to dawn on us. "'As we fix our eyes upon ourselves, "'our past failures, our present guilt, "'it seems impossible that the Father should love us.

"'So, many Christians go through much of their life "' a prodigal suspicion. Their concentration is upon their sin and failure. All their thoughts are introspective. And that's why in the Greek text, John's statement about the Father's love begins, behold—now he's talking about 1 John 3, verse 1—behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called children of God. And St. Clair goes on, he says, like the prodigal, we have a native inability to believe that salvation is completely by grace and love. We are slow to realize the implications of this.

We have the status as sons, but we have the mindset of a hired servant. Let me pull away from this quote for a second. You see, what the prodigal does is what we all do, everybody, and that is we come in and we say, I don't feel, well we say, I don't feel worthy. I don't want a father-son relationship with God. I want a boss-employee relationship.

That's all I ask. Just give me a chance. Let me try to clean up my life. Let me try to say, he's coming from the pig chance. Let me try to clean up my life. Let me try to say he's coming from the pig style. Let me try to clean up my life. Let me try to do things right. And I'm not asking for a whole lot, just my daily bread.

Now see Sinclair says that in the parable we have a perfect picture of exactly what every person who first comes to Christ is doing. You may say in your head, oh, I believe I'm saved by grace. I believe I'm a child of God. You don't. You don't.

You don't relate to them that way. Why are you so sensitive to criticism? Why do you feel like such a failure? Why do you often feel that when you've done something wrong, why does it take so long for you to start to live a normal life again? Why is, whenever you have to ask for forgiveness or when you have to repent to somebody else,

why is there never any joy to it? Why does it seem like psychological death? Why are you, and we know this, why are you secretly comparing yourself to other people all the time, filled with jealousy, filled with bitterness, filled with self-doubts? Ah, yes, you say, but I believe in the doctrine of adoption.

I believe that when I become a Christian, I'm adopted, I'm accepted. Yeah. No you don't. You have the legal status and you don't have the experience of it. And see, what Sinclair's pointing out, what the parable of the prodigal son's pointing out,

and what we have right here, is that if all we had was the sonable of the prodigal son's pointing out, and what we have right here is that if all we had was the son going into the world and getting us the status that wouldn't be enough to change our lives. We don't believe it. When the prodigal comes to the father, what is going on? The prodigal, it seems so humble. Oh, I don't want, I'm not worthy.

Oh, it seems so humble. It is an utter insult. One of my favorite stories, I don't want I'm not worthy. I always seem so humble. It is an utter insult One of my favorite stories. I have no idea if it's true I don't even know where I got it. I got it so long ago and I've used it in so many different situations so the story about Alexander the great and that he had a general and the general at one point one of his generals came to him one day and said I have to marry my daughter off to somebody and I need money for a wedding and the Alexander says sure how much do you need you know you're

a good general I'd be loved to do and and the general asked for an enormous son you know astronomical and the people were watching and instead of his face getting really kind of dark and gloomy instead Alexander got this radiant look on his face and with this incredible delight, he said, oh, of course, go ahead, just go to my, you know, whatever. Did they write checks then? I don't know, but you know, go to my treasure, of course, get it all.

And the general walked away and the other people came up to him and said, why did you give him so much money and why were you give him so much money and why were you delighted? And he says, this man has done me a great honor by asking for such a ridiculous sum. He shows he believes I am fabulously wealthy and incredibly generous. Okay? Now, when the prodigal son comes to the father, and he says, I'm not worthy, what he really means is,

I can't believe, I cannot believe, that you're either wealthy enough or generous enough to make me your son. I don't believe it. This is an insult. This isn't good. This isn't humility. And you know what, there's other stuff going on.

First of all, it looks like humility when you refuse to live as a son and you live as a hired servant. It looks like humility, but first of all, it's an insult to God. You don't believe he's rich or generous. But secondly, I believe in my own heart, and my own heart shows me the way of everybody else's. In my own heart, I don't want to lose that much control.

I'm not sure I want to be that indebted to him either. You see, the more I'm willing to admit that he would give me everything, absolutely free. Me not earning it at all means that in a sense, I mean, I really, I've kind of lost control, you know? I owe him everything. There's all sorts of wickedness at the root of our low self-esteem.

Lots and lots and lots of it. sorts of wickedness at the root of our low self-esteem. Lots and lots and lots of it. So St. Clair goes on and he says, all right, now here's the problem. Here comes the young man. He will not believe in the Father's love. He will not believe in sonship. He's got it. I mean, the Father's willing to give it,

but he won't ask for it. He doesn't understand it. He doesn't expect it. And so what happens? Now get this. He says that is the reason why Paul, when he talks about the Holy Spirit here, and he's talking about Galatians 4, 6, and also Romans 8, 15, a parallel passage,

Paul is saying that if it's a fact that God has adopted us into his family, then the Spirit must come and assure us that this is true. The Spirit must enable us to live in the enjoyment of such a rich spiritual blessing, so he sends his Spirit into our hearts, bringing us, here it is, the deep spiritual and psychological security

that rests on the objective fact that our sins are forgiven and we completely belong to the Lord. Now in the parable though, it comes like this. The son is not believing in the father's grace and the father's benefit. So he gets in, he's just asking for very little and what happens, what does the father do?

Kisses him. See that is a metaphor for what the spirit's doing. The spirit comes and helps you experience all of God. In this experience, the Spirit coming into our hearts, crying, Abba Father, we'll get into that in just a second, but what the Spirit is doing, it's the Father's kiss. It's the Father embracing you. And so we are talking about something

that is in addition to the objective fact of our sonship and it can't you can be adopted and not experience your adoption. You can actually be completely accepted and not live that way, not experience it, not feel it. We're talking about a feeling. How can we best understand the freedom we have in Christ? What is the relationship between the law of the Bible and the grace that Jesus offers? In the book Galatians for You, Tim Keller takes you through a rich and deep study of Paul's letter as he reflects on the amazing grace we have in Christ. Galatians is a powerful book that shows how people can think they know the gospel but are actually losing touch with it.

In this study of the book of Galatians, Dr. Keller helps you understand how this short book in the New Testament can transform your life. Galatians for you is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the love of Christ with more people. Request your copy today at gospelinlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now I know for some of you, to hear a Presbyterian minister talk about feelings

is just astounding. But that is what's going on. When David Martin Lloyd-Jones tries to explain this spirit, this experience of adoption, which is different than the status of adoption. The subjective as opposed to just the objective, he says this, and this is great. He says, Thomas Goodwin, that old Puritan,

puts it this way. He says, picture a man walking along a road with his little boy, holding hands, father and son, son and father. The little boy knows that the man is his father and that his father loves him. But suddenly, the father stops, picks up the boy, lifts him up into his arms, embraces him and kisses him. Now, the boy is actually no more a son when he's being

embraced and kissed than he was before. The father's action has not changed the status of the boy, but oh, the difference in the enjoyment of the status. That is what is being described here. That's all it is. As simple as that. Now, when Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher, years ago, many years ago, preached a sermon on four verses, four words. He preached a sermon on Luke chapter 15, I forget what verse, in the middle of the prodigal son, he pulled out just these words. Okay, the father kissed him, and he preached on that.

Just took those four words. And what he did was, he basically preached on the spirit of adoption. He said, the son had the status waiting, the robe, the ring, the fatigaf, we were all back there, but he didn't believe it. And so the father kissed him. And in the middle of that sermon,

Spurgeon wrote these words down. And he says, now listen, oh dear, be careful, sin warps your emotions. This isn't what he said, I'm saying this. Sin warps your emotions. We must never base our acceptance of God on our feelings. But having said that, here's what Spurgeon says. He says, some of us have known what it is to be too happy to live. The love of God has been so overwhelmingly experienced by us on a few occasions that we almost had

to ask God to stop the delight for we could not endure anymore. If God had not shielded his love and glory a bit, I think we would have died for joy. Now, there's a danger in talking about this, because nowadays, you know, back when he was, back when Spurgeon was preaching in Victorian England, people were, they were experienced avoiders, they feared experience, they were experience avoiders. They feared experience. They feared the emotion.

Today, we're conflicts, we're experience hungry. We desperately wanted, I'm gonna get to that in a second as to how this comes. It doesn't come by asking for an experience, but it's dangerous to talk this way, but that's what's offered. It's dangerous to bring this, that's what's offered's offered. It's dangerous to bring this up, that's what's offered. Henry Nowan in his famous, in his book,

The Return of the Prodigal, he puts it this way. He says, what is the Father's Kiss? He says this, home, see the Father's Kiss is coming home, he calls it. He says, home is the center of my being where I can hear a voice say, you are my beloved and you am well pleased. Jesus Christ has made it clear that the same voice

that he heard in the Jordan River at his baptism and on Mount Tabor at his transfiguration, this is my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased. Jesus has made it clear that same voice he heard in Jordan and Tabor can be heard by us. He made it clear that as he has a home with the Father, when we trust in him, so do we. Yet over and over, we've left home.

Okay, that's what's promised, experience. Now, what's it made of? What does it feel like? What are its marks? Well, take a look at the next little section. Crying Abba Father. Now, let's take a look at those. There's really only two words there. Crying. Now you say, what does it say crying? Well, I'm a little disappointed with the NIV in doing this because the Greek word krasdondon, is a very strong word. And it's translated, it should be translated, crying, it could be translated,

it should be translated, crying out. It's a very strong word, and this is what we learn. First of all, we're talking about profound passion and feeling. We're talking about something that goes very, very deep. A cry is something you experience, not something you claim. You see, most of the time, and this is tell you what's a normal question in life, most of the time is you're claiming the objective of your sonship. You're claiming it. You're saying, I'm going to act

like a child of God here. I'm not going to be craven. I'm not going to be afraid. I'm not going to feel guilty. I'm not going to be, I'm going to remember I'm a son. See, that's the objective. That's good. that's what you do, you claim it. But when this is happening, when the Spirit is doing this work, you don't have to tell yourself this. You know it. It's intuitive. You don't have to work it out, it's not inferential,

it's intuitive. It's known immediately. Or, you might, when the Spirit is working, you may sit down to tell yourself this, and the minute you tell yourself this, suddenly your heart says, yes, it's true. Now most of the time your heart says, oh, are you kidding me?

I mean, that's what usually goes on. You know, you say, I know that in Christ, I'm accepted in the beloved. And ordinarily your heart says, right. But when the spirit's doing its job, the heart says, it's true. I know it. That's what it is. So first heart says, it's true, I know it. That's what it is.

So first of all, it's a passionate feeling. Secondly, the second mark of this, it's intimacy and prayer. Notice, it doesn't just say that the mark of this is that it gets your heart just to cry out, period. I mean, the work of the spirit here is not just to get you to scream, you know, or be emotional. The work of the spirit is to get you to scream, you know, or be emotional. What the work of the Spirit is to get you to

pray because you're crying to God and this means that when this is working your prayers are remarkably eloquent. Now, I mean in a sense sometimes that happens in public prayer. Have you ever had somebody pray with you or have you ever prayed out loud publicly? Could just be with a friend, could be in a group. And when it's all done everybody goes, wow. Could you write that down? You know, very often, and you're amazed at the freedom, you're amazed at the eloquence, you're amazed very often information comes. That's the spirit of sonship. There's this freedom, there's this sense of access, there's this sense of intimacy. And of course it happens in private too. So it's a feeling, it's access, it's a sense of intimacy. And of course it happens in private too. So it's a feeling, it's access,

it's a sense of intimacy in prayer, but most of all, it's a sense of assurance. What this is, is assurance. Every Christian has a certain amount of assurance. As long as you're living with some consistency, you say, well I know I'm saved, I know I'm a Christian, because, not because I live a great life, but because Jesus has died for me and I've trusted in him.

There's a certain level of assurance as long as you're living with some consistency. You can lose all assurance if you're living inconsistently with your profession, and you should. It's good to lose your assurance. It's an incentive, you want it back. Assurance is the main spring of the Christian life. Assurance is the one thing that nobody else

in any other religion can have. You're not allowed to have assurance. You never know if you're good enough. Christianity, assurance is the secret of the Christian life. It's the uniqueness of the Christian life. It's the experiential key to the Christian life. But you don't have control over the, so much over the level of assurance.

And this is a high assurance. This is a profound assurance. this is a high assurance there's a profound assurance this is an immediate assurance and what what what it does is it changes your understanding of your own significance did any of you I don't know if you've saw any of these things here did any of you read I forget what paper I have my problems I read too many papers and then I don't remember which paper I read it in. But almost for sure, this story was probably in the New York Post, it sounds like a Post story.

But I can't be sure. But do you realize there's a woman with a website, and this is what she did. In her apartment, she has a video camera in every room, so there's no spot in any room or any part of the house that she is not being that she can't be seen by the camera so wherever she goes the camera picks her up she's fixing breakfast she's sleeping bed evidently virtually everything now you know who knows but the point is everything well I'll tell you what this was was on a, it was on a,

yeah, it must have been the New York Post. It was an article on voyeurism in our high-tech age. So she had this, she had every single room, she was being filmed, she was on the video camera, and then she hooked these cameras up to her website, which means you can get onto a website and When you click on you watch everything she does Now you could call it voyeurism that's not voyeurism that is a desperate cry for significance That is somebody saying I want to know that what I'm doing counts. I want to know that what I'm doing is seen

I want to know That is somebody saying, I wanna know that what I'm doing counts. I wanna know that what I'm doing is seen. I wanna know. That is exactly what everybody wants to know, that the fact that I'm moving around and doing things, that it counts, that it's not insignificant, that I'm not just a wave on the sand. But how do you know that? You're not gonna get it by thinking without God. You're not gonna get it by thinking without God.

You're not gonna get it by going to science. You're not gonna go by getting to history. You're not gonna go anywhere. You can go to some very wonderful, loving friend, and their loving friend says, oh, you're important, you're significant. There's an interesting article by Annie Dillard in, gee, what month was this?

This is the Harper's, I guess it was in January, it was in January. And her article is called The Wreck of Time. Let me read you parts of it, okay? Just little pieces. What were you doing on April 30, 1991 when a series of waves drowned 138,000 people in Bangladesh? Where were you when you first heard the astounding heartbreaking news? Who told you? What seriatim were your sensations? Who did you tell? Did you weep? Did your anguish last for days or for weeks? A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic. Joseph Stalin, that connoisseur, gave words to

this disquieting and absolutely universal sentiment. Listen, who and of what import were the men whose bones bulked the Great Wall, the 30 million that Mao starved, or the 11 million children under five who die of starvation each year? Why, they are the insignificant others, of course. Living or dead, they are just some of the plentiful others. And you, who are you?

Are you different? How could you be? We who breathe air now will join the already dead layers of us who breathe air once. We arise from dirt and dwindle to dirt, and the might of the universe is arrayed against us. And then she says, Ted Bundy, the serial killer, after his arrest could not fathom the fuss. What was the big deal? David Fundrailey quotes a very exasperated Bundy who at one point said to a reporter,

I mean, I mean, but there are so many people. Now here's what Annie Diller is saying, You are absolutely insignificant, face up to it, unless there's a God. You are just the others. 138,000 people die in a flood in Bangladesh, and what? Did you weep? Of course not. They're insignificant, they're nothing.

11 million children under five starve every year. You know, it makes you feel bad. How long are you gonna feel bad? How long are you gonna feel bad? How long are you gonna feel bad tonight? Did that kind of get you a little bit like that? They're insignificant and so are you and so am I. And you can do something about it. There's always that interesting approach to the internet.

Or you can know that the eternal God of the universe thought it was so important that he would actually rip up his own triunity, rip up his own heart, rip up his own family rather than lose you. And the spirit comes and will tell you this. And I don't see there's any other way out and that's what it means to say you notice now I know you've probably heard over and over people trying to to parse the word ABBA ABBA is baby talk ABBA is dad dad but what is trying to say is a child doesn't doubt unless you teach the child to doubt that you love it the child just raises the hands the child just assumes that he is or she is so important, assumes that you certainly wanna come and do anything for it, right?

And children just cry out and they expect. They don't say, well now, if you don't mind, would it be too much trouble? Absolutely not. The children just know that you love them and know that you can be trusted and know that, and you see, this is what the Spirit will show you about God himself.

Do you believe it? You won't be defensive, you won't be upset about criticism, you won't be driven, you won't be obsessive, you won't be filled with compulsive behavior, you won't always be punishing yourself, you won't feel guilty all the time, you won't. Well now, last of all, how do you get it? And the answer is very important, very important. You notice, in the very

beginning of verse 6, because you are sons. Now, what that means is you cannot divorce verse six and seven from verses four and five. The Spirit comes on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ, and since the Spirit, put it this way, the Spirit of adoption's availability is because of the work of Christ, therefore the Spirit of God's experience will be on the basis of the work of Christ. What does that mean?

It means you meditate on what Jesus is and what he's done. You have to take the truth. See, verse six is based on verse four and five. You don't just go and say, hit me with an experience. You don't say, I'm waiting for an experience. You don't ask for an experience. What you do is you go and you meditate and you worship and you praise God for what he did through his son.

You look at the work of Jesus. And as you're doing that, as you're doing in a sense your duty, as you're reminding yourself, and as you're looking at him and as you're thinking about him, the spirit will come. Now somebody says, well I haven't experienced anything like that. Let me ask you something, do you pray?

Are you persistent? You see, you can cry out as you're reading the scripture and saying Lord show me yourself I need you without you I'm nothing see you can cry out but you but you go and you look at it and and see as you're doing this now we're into Jonathan Edwards territory here's what actually happens Edward says the difference between a real Christian and a moral person is that real Christians sometimes actually sense God's beauty.

You say, without the Holy Spirit, you can sense God's power. You can know, boy, I am a goner unless I obey him. You can have a sense of his power Or you can say he's holy I've got to do the right thing and you can even say I wish I would like his love I would like forgiveness. I'm guilty and I'm with forgiveness But he says the way, you know, you've broken through to actually experience the real God is you find him beautiful. What is that? Well, you know the the illustration one of the best illustrations is something is beautiful to you if it's an end in itself.

If you're not using it to get something else, you know, the illustration I've been using lately is that when I was in college, I had to listen to Mozart to get, you know, to get an A in my music appreciation class. I had to get an A so I could get my degree. I had to get a degree so I could get a white collar job. So I used Mozart to get money. But something happened over the years, now I use all my money to buy Mozart.

Why? Because when I listen to Mozart, I don't say, great, now I'll be able to pass my test. I don't even say, now I'll be able to use Mozart as an illustration in a sermon so I'll sound like I'm a cultured. I don't do it for that. Actually, this came in useful, but I don't do it for that.

Mozart is beautiful to me because when I listen to it, it is beautiful for itself. The music's beautiful for itself. It's there. To find God beautiful means I just want to adore him. I want to think of what he's done for me and I want to sit in the presence and I want to adore him for the beauty of who he is.

I'm not there to ask him for things that you can. I'm not there to ask for my sins to be forgiven, though of course you can. But you see, without the Holy Spirit, you can ask for your sins to be forgiven and you can ask for God to use his power to give you things. You can ask God to use his love to forgive you for things. But when the Spirit is working like this,

you're finding him beautiful for who he is. You're finding his holiness just beautiful, just the thought of it. His love and grace just beautiful, just the thought of it. And that's the reason why as you praise him on the basis of his word, if you go to the objective truth, that's verse four and five, praise him on the basis of his word. If you go to the objective truth,

that's verse four and five, and praise him as opposed to asking for things, and just giving him his due, the Spirit of God will come crying and helping you to cry. Abba, Father. Now we have to have this, and this is available. And the more we seek it, and the more we live our lives without grieving the Spirit, and the more we just

simply cry out to him, and the more we understand the doctrine of sonship, and the more we understand the doctrine of justification by faith, the more we will find him transforming us through the inner working of the Spirit. What an amazing faith. How different it is. Let's listen, there are a lot of other faiths, a lot of other faiths that make you feel good and make you do good. I mean, there's a lot of other religions

that can really make the world a good place to live. But none of the other religions even claim this. They don't even claim to give this. Go for it. Go to him. Okay? Aim at heaven, you get earth thrown in. Aim at earth, and you'll get neither.

Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for giving us such a remarkable, a remarkable offer. It is a tough one because we are hungry for experience. We're hungry for significance. Help us to see this fascinating balance. It's only as we seek your beauty, only as we seek to give you your due,

only as we seek to give you your worth, only as we seek you as opposed to us, that we find that you fill up our cup too. We pray that you would help us more and more to be a church that knows your salvation, knows the joy of your salvation, knows the spirit of sonship. Father, I pray that our relationships and our attitudes toward the world and our relationship toward our possessions and the way in which we greet people, I pray Lord that would all be affected by this because so many great things flow out of it. Now we just pray that you'd help us to apply these things to our lives through your Holy

Spirit, through Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching. We trust you were encouraged by it and that it gives you new insight into how you can apply God's Word to your life. You can find more resources from Tim Keller by subscribing to our quarterly journal at GospelInLife.com. When you subscribe, you'll receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other valuable resources.

We also invite you to stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's sermon was recorded in 1998. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Music