AF-S127-061806 Dad's
Alêtheia Christian Fellowship
William Smart - Civil War – single dad - six children - Spokane, 1910, 1972.
More collect telephone calls on Father's Day than on any other day.
14-21=7 Mark Twain.
Most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
There’s lots advice about fatherhood, but our understanding is only Christian to the extent that it is based upon the Bible.
Feminists want complete homogeneity h -m -j - n - -t except for plumbing.
God creates a family where various members have different roles, no member is more valuable as each are integral and essential to the whole – the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Like the Body of Christ.
Within the Biblical Christian community the role of stand-in father is played by the shepherd, overseer, elder, pastor. In order to hear God effectively He has given us a council of elders or overseers. These shepherds must be willing to lay down their life for the sheep. In a family setting they function as the father for the group not by being served, but by serving.
Christian homes are to be led by Christian Fathers.
Breast feeding – offended and angry – hurt because of guilt
Not only do I not want to know I don’t want others to benefit
Jesus teaches Christians to call God, Abba. The word Abba is transliterated into Greek and then followed by the Greek word Patêr; literally, Abba Patêr.
It is a misnomer that Abba is the affectionate childlike daddy or papa. However, The Father encompasses that meaning as well as a host of other nuances. We are little children crawling up onto His lap as well as disobedient teens sheepishly apologizing as well as adults humbly and respectfully acknowledging the wisdom of our father.
We know that by definition, our Creator could only create out of complete agapê. He desires to share Himself with you as an individual, yet because His love is pure He must not persuade you to love Him; that’s the proof of free will. God establishes a plan, which must be accepted by way of faith – trust is essential. Our capacity to accept or reject can be expressed very simply as the surrender of our control to God’s control or the rejection of God’s control in favor of our own.
God is God or He is not, and if He is not God by your determination that means you are god. As I said everyone has a god that they serve.
Trust in God is built over time as relationship grows and that is the essence of the Christian walk. Accept God’s plan by admitting you need Him by accepting the gift of Jesus and being filled with God’s Spirit. Now, trust can grow in proportion to relationship growing and all of this by God’s work not ours. We bring nothing to the table except our acceptance.
Acceptance and surrender are active choices made moment by moment.
God repeatedly tells us to obey His commands, Jesus says if you love me you’ll obey me and I have pointed out that on the Day of Judgment, those whom Jesus doesn’t know are those who don’t love Him. How is it all related?
Obedience proves trust
Trust proves relationship
Relationship prove God’s Spirit is real
People obey me to exactly that degree to which they trust me and they trust me to exactly that degree to which they know me.
I recognize that people obey me precisely to the degree that my instruction is in conformity to what they are willing to do. We act the same with our earthly fathers and also with our Heavenly Father.
Romans 8:13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you(ye) are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received 2a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
according to the flesh & deeds of the body = the sinful nature
What does it all mean?
Sinful Nature means that we sin by our nature – the fox and scorpion
So what is sin? Sin is a religious word that is the opposite of another religious word; righteousness. Righteousness is, “Right-ness,” with God. According to the Bible it is by faith and only faith, but real faith, that produces an effect.
We are right with God when we Trust God. To trust means to submit to His plan and purposes – to accept Jesus as both Savior and Lord. Again, it is relationship built upon God’s free gift accepted and it ultimately produces OBEDIENCE! If you love me you will obey my commands.
Breast feeding – offended and angry – hurt because of guilt
Not only do I not want to know I don’t want others to benefit
Verse 12 - So then, brethren, we are under obligation….
Paul gives his readers no specific commands. Instead, he speaks of the Christian’s obligations. Why does he apply his teaching by speaking to his reader in terms of obligations? Why not duty? Why not obedience? We feel obligated to another only when we believe they have done something for us.
This is why Paul must remind us that we have no obligation to the flesh. The flesh has done us no favors. It has acted independently of our minds, causing us to sin and to fear divine condemnation. The flesh is instrumental in our doing things of which we are now ashamed; we owe the flesh nothing.
Why then do we feel obligated? Why is it necessary for Paul to tell us we are not obligated to the flesh? The reason, is simple: even though it is not true, we feel that the flesh has performed some beneficial service for us.
The false assumption is that the pleasures of sin and the lusts of the flesh are really good.
The legalist may sincerely believe he is avoiding sin and practicing righteousness, but he is doing so through the flesh trying to fulfill God’s Law by means of human effort and not by walking in the Spirit. Satisfying the lust to feel good about ones self.
Whether the flesh produces self-indulgence or self-righteousness, it cannot please God.
There is no peaceful co-existence with the flesh. We will either walk according to the Spirit or according to the flesh. We must take this struggle seriously. We must choose sides. We dare not choose the flesh.
There is yet another reason for our obligation to the Spirit—our son-ship as those who have been justified by faith. This son-ship has both a present and a future dimension.
What Is a Son of God?
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12-13).
It is to this son-ship that the Holy Spirit, who indwells every Christian, bears testimony:
How different this is from the way of walking in the flesh. Walking according to the flesh is slavery, and its motivation is fear (verse 15). Walking according to the Spirit is not serving a slave master but obeying our Father as He leads us by His Spirit. It is not a matter of slavery but of obedience, rooted in a deep sense of love, gratitude, and thus, obligation.
How different are these two ways of walking. When we walk according to the flesh, we serve as slaves motivated by fear. We are overpowered and overrun by it. When we walk according to the Spirit, we are led. We serve our Father out of a deep sense of obligation, not fear. We owe the flesh nothing. We owe our Father everything.
The Christian’s walk according to the Spirit is a walk of obedience, based upon our obligation to God, based upon His goodness and grace to us. There are no harsh words, no dictatorial commands. Paul is not a sergeant here addressing new recruits but a brother reminding us of the goodness of our Father. God’s Spirit is a gift from the Father to every Christian. He reminds us that we are sons. He leads us and empowers us so that we may act like sons to the glory of the Father.
(1) The Christian life is possible because our sins have been forgiven, our guilt has been removed, and God’s Spirit has been given.
(2) The Christian life is impossible in the power of the flesh; it is possible only in the strength of the Holy Spirit.
(4) There is no middle ground between walking in the Spirit and walking in the flesh.
(5) The flesh and the Spirit share nothing in common.
(6) The distinction between the Spirit and the flesh is fundamental and foundational. Consider this principle: IT IS NOT WHAT WE DO THAT MAKES SOMETHING SPIRITUAL OR FLESHLY, BUT HOW AND WHY WE DO IT.
Whether we work at preaching, painting houses, or washing dishes the issue is whether we are doing it by means of God’s Spirit or by means of the flesh.
Some of the activities which appear most spiritual are those which can be, and often are, done in the flesh. For example, prayer can be accomplished in the flesh, or in the Spirit:
The great danger faced by the church today is not that of “secular humanism” but that of “religious humanism”—seeking to serve God and to please Him in the power of our own flesh, rather than “according to His Spirit.”
The liberating message of Romans 8 is that God never intended man to live the Christian life by his own efforts and in his own strength. Provision for Christian living is in the Person of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of Life and Liberty
The Spirit of Adoption
In justification, we are declared innocent of sin and righteous through the work of Christ. In adoption we are constituted sons of God.
Let me illustrate it in this way. Suppose that I was an incorrigible criminal, standing guilty before a judge. It would be one thing for the judge to pronounce me innocent in the eyes of the law on the basis that my wrong doings had been paid for. But it would be something far greater for the judge to make me his own son and take me home to be a part of his family. The Holy Spirit is the source of our sanctification in that He is the Spirit of Adoption. This is the thrust of verses 12-17.
Paul informs us that we have absolutely no obligation to relapse into a walk according to the flesh; rather our obligation is to walk in the Spirit. Walking in the flesh produces death; walking in the Spirit, life (v. 13).
More than this, the Holy Spirit gives us the disposition of a son and not a slave: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15).
In the first century AD an adopted son was a son deliberately chosen by his adoptive father to perpetuate his name and inherit his estate;
The force of Paul’s words here is that the Holy Spirit not only joins us to the family of God, but that He continually assures us and reminds us of this relationship.
The Spirit of Hope
(8:18-25)
To be a son of God is also to be an heir.
Revelation 21:6-8 ~ Then He (GOD) said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Revelation 22:11-13 ~ “Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy.” “Behold, I (JESUS) am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”