Good morning. Good morning, everyone.
How are y'all doing this morning?
All right.
Well, I'm true.
I don't think we know each other, but I'm so happy to see you guys here.
Oh, come on in. Come on in.
All right. You can sit here. Great.
So I've got a few questions for you this morning.
The first question is when you came to church, I'm guessing you drove to church this morning.
Did any of you guys drive the car?
Raise your hand if you were the one that drove.
All right. Another question for you here.
When you go to school, are you the teacher in the classroom?
Does anybody stand up in the front and teach the lesson?
OK, well, one more question.
If there was a house that was on fire and they called the fire department, would you be one of the guys in the truck?
Would you be able to put on the big, heavy jacket and spray the fire with the hose?
None of you?
Now, that's a tough thing in life, right?
That for a lot of things in life, we always we need to grow up.
We need to learn more. We need to get a little taller.
And only after we do those things, only after you pass your test, can you be a driver.
Only after you pass the test can you be a teacher.
You have to wait a little, get older to be a firefighter.
That's just a tough thing in life.
Let me ask you a few more questions here, though.
Can anyone here say a prayer to God?
Raise your hand if you're able to say a prayer to God, right?
Just talking to Jesus?
Can anyone here come to worship and sing the songs and hear God's word?
Yeah, all of us, right?
OK, here's a question.
Are you guys, I know y'all are young.
Are you guys children of God?
You are, right?
That's an amazing thing.
You're children of God just as much as everyone else here.
God doesn't ask for you to get a little older, to take a test,
to learn a little bit more before he'll call you his children.
But when you were baptized, just like Tucker was baptized this morning,
just a little baby, God called you his child.
And God said, I love you for who you are right now.
You don't need to get older. You don't need to take a test.
I love you and you're my child.
What an amazing thing.
There's one other part to this, though.
When Jesus talks about his children,
one thing he likes to talk about is plants that grow up and bear fruit.
So you guys are already God's children,
but God also wants you to grow and mature.
And we're going to practice real quick.
Y'all got a little time to practice with me.
Let's line up on the wood floor here.
We're going to do a short activity here.
So I'm going to ask y'all to line up and sit down on the wood floor.
Can you all do that for me?
All right.
Is everybody going to sit down? All right.
So Jesus talks about, are his children like plants that grow up and mature?
Now, how do you grow a plant? What do you need to give it?
Anybody know? Water. That's right.
When we talk about faith, the water God gives us is his word.
So this is going to be, this is my Bible.
This is going to be my faith pitcher.
And I'm going to pour God's word on you.
And when it pours over you, I need you to spring up like a tree that grows, right?
Just like we're going to grow in our faith.
All right. So some different ways we hear God's word, right?
All right, Grace, you all right there? Okay.
So maybe we're reading the Bible at home with Mom and Dad.
I'm going to pour some water on you guys.
Are y'all going to spring up and grow? Can you jump up for me?
All right.
Or maybe we're talking with Mom and Dad about Jesus, and we spring up and grow.
Or maybe we're talking about Jesus with a friend, and we learn more,
and we spring up and we grow.
And so this is a wonderful thing, that already we are children of God,
but God also is going to mature us and grow us, because that's what he loves to do.
Sound good to y'all?
All right. Let's say a prayer together here. Can we gather around in the middle?
Y'all can pray after me. We'll sit down again.
Dear Jesus, thank you that you love me and call me your child.
Please grow me that I would bear fruit and love you all the days of my life.
Amen.
All right. Thank y'all for coming up.
Oh, my words fall short. I've got nothing new.
How could I express all my gratitude?
Oh, I could sing these songs as I often do.
Every song must end, and you never do.
So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again,
and all that I have is a hallelujah, hallelujah.
And I know it's not much, but I've nothing else fit for a key,
except for a heart singing hallelujah, hallelujah.
I've got one response.
I've got just one move.
With my arms stretched wide,
I will worship you, yeah.
So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again,
and all that I have is a hallelujah, hallelujah.
And I know it's not much, but I've nothing else fit for a key,
except for a heart singing hallelujah, hallelujah.
So come on, my soul.
Oh, don't you get shy on me.
Lift up your song,
because you've got a lion inside of those lungs.
Get up and praise the Lord.
Come on, my soul.
Oh, don't you get shy on me.
Lift up your song,
because you've got a lion inside of those lungs.
Get up and praise the Lord.
Come on, my soul.
Oh, don't you get shy on me.
Lift up your song,
because you've got a lion inside of those lungs.
Get up and praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again,
because all that I have is a hallelujah, hallelujah.
And I know it's not much, but I've nothing else fit for a key,
except for a heart singing hallelujah, hallelujah.
Thank you.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God, our Father, and Christ Jesus, our Lord.
I recently came across this motivational phrase.
Perhaps you've seen it online or on a T-shirt or a coffee mug.
It goes like this.
No one is coming to save you.
Now, there's some good, tough wisdom in that.
Stop waiting around.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Stop expecting somebody else to fix life for you.
Get up.
Get to work.
But sit with it a little longer, and it turns into something else.
It stops being motivating and starts being exhausting, haunting even.
Because if no one is coming to save you, then everything is on you.
Every problem you're facing, every relationship that's falling apart,
every fear that wakes you up at 2 a.m.
If no one is coming, you'd better be enough.
And most days, we sense that we might not be enough.
That's a heavy way to live.
And I guess most of us have felt that weight, perhaps in the last year, perhaps in the last week.
The Apostle Paul knows that weight.
And in Romans 8, he names it.
And then he does something better than a motivational slogan.
He reminds us of who we are.
Because it turns out the answer to no one is coming to save you isn't try harder.
It's someone already did.
So this morning, I want to look at just three things from this passage from Romans 8.
Who we are, the problem we still fall into even as children of God,
and the solution for when we find ourselves living as if all life depends upon us.
So we begin with who we are, our identity.
Paul, at this point in the book of Romans, has made the case that your sins have put you under the penalty of death.
And yet God, through Christ, has done something about that.
In fact, he has redeemed you from your sin.
He has granted you forgiveness for the sake of Christ.
And then Romans chapter 8 dawns, and we're told not only are you forgiven,
but God has placed his very Holy Spirit to live and impart life to you.
At this point, Paul wants to make clear who we are in light of all that God has done for us.
First, he states it negatively, who we are not.
He says you're no longer a debtor to your sin nature.
You're no longer a slave to fear.
Paul says before Christ, we were all debtors.
Debtors because of our immense sin.
We owed a bill we could not pay.
And if you've ever lived under a crushing debt that you knew you could not pay,
you know the fear that goes with that.
When the next bill arrives, when the bill collector calls, and you have no means to pay your debt.
It fills you with fear.
But Paul says you're no longer a debtor.
In fact, you don't have a spirit of fear.
You have the spirit of adoption.
Who are you? Paul states it positively now.
You are an adopted child of God.
You don't become a child of God simply by being born into this world.
You become a child of God as Tucker became a child of God this morning,
when you are born again through the waters of baptism.
And in the waters of baptism, God calls your name and gives you his name
as you are baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
granting you forgiveness and adopting you into his forever family.
So that now you cry out, Abba Father.
That's the prayer Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane
when he underwent a severe trial as he contemplated the cross that was soon to be his.
Jesus cries out, Abba Father, and you can be sure the Father in Heaven heard his prayer
in the same way you can be sure your Father in Heaven hears your prayer.
Because as a beloved child of God, you now pray, Abba Father.
You now have access to the Father in Heaven just as Jesus had access to his Father.
But it's not only that we're adopted, it's all that follows from that.
We are given a new family, a new leader, even a new future.
We're given a new family. Paul says we are children of God.
He begins the text by saying you are a child of God.
But halfway through he transitions to remind us, and not just you, but we.
We sit among other adopted brothers and sisters in the faith.
The person sitting next to you this morning is your brother and sister, adopted into the very same family.
You were never meant to walk this life alone, and you don't have to.
And yes, it's true, in God's family there are crazy uncles, there are goofy cousins,
but mostly there are brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers,
people who welcome you into the family and walk with you through the ups and downs of this life
and remind you from time to time that you truly are an adopted child of God.
You belong here. You belong here.
Not only are you given a new family, you're given a new leader.
Paul says, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
The sons of God are led by the Spirit of God.
As God's child, you have a new leader.
One who won't abandon you, who never gets tired, who will never change his mind about you.
The Spirit, as our leader, remains patient, guiding us each day, leading us, healing us, transforming us,
never taking a break, never giving up on you.
A new family, a new leader, and a new inheritance.
Paul says, if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.
Do you understand what that means?
When you get to heaven, you don't just get some kind of small welcoming gift.
You get the inheritance that Christ received.
You get the same inheritance.
You get the glory of God.
You get the resurrection body made new.
You get the full presence of God with no condemnation.
For you, too, have been made God's child, co-heirs with Christ.
We enter heaven at the proverbial pearly gates with St. Peter's standing guard,
and we simply say, I'm with him, as we point to Jesus.
And Jesus says, he's with me, she's with me.
And we enter in, in the name of Christ.
You're not a debtor anymore.
You're not a slave to sin.
You are an adopted child of God.
You have a new family, a new leader, a new inheritance.
That's who you are.
But we don't always live that way, do we?
There are times, if we're honest, that we don't live like a child of God.
We live more like an orphan.
Think about the life of an orphan.
Someone who's had to learn to survive on their own.
No mother, no father to guide them, to provide for them, to help them.
Orphans learn everything truly does depend upon them.
And even when an orphan is adopted into a good family,
it can be some time before that orphan is able to relax
and accept that they are accepted into the family.
In fact, they often will continue to strive and to earn
and to make sure they've merited their place in the family.
It's a life of never resting, never letting down, never exposing weakness.
And it can happen to us, spiritually, as children of God.
The orphan life is just the opposite of what we just described.
Even though we have a Father in Heaven, fear begins to creep back in.
We ask, am I really safe?
Is God really going to come through for me?
Am I enough?
Have I blown it too many times?
Where is God?
We live the life of self-reliance that an orphan must live.
We have a family surrounding us this morning,
but the orphan instinct is nobody's coming to help me.
I'll take care of myself.
I won't let the family of God, the people sitting in these very pews,
know of my need.
I'll take care of it myself.
The orphan treats prayer as a last-ditch 9-1-1 call.
When all the other people and things the orphan has used to prop themselves up
and find a little bit of security has let them down,
then they will pray, but only as a last resort.
Finally, an orphan has little hope in the future.
There's no inheritance coming for the orphan.
There's no family money being passed down.
The orphan lives as if this life is all there is.
And you see in the orphan life a schedule packed busy with activity and opportunities,
fearful that if we miss something in this life, we've really lost something important.
Every believer will be tempted to live an orphan life
because we still live in bodies that have not been made new.
We still live in a world that's been broken and shattered by sin
that's constantly calling us to walk in a different way, to follow a different leader.
Paul says in the next section of Romans that we live this life groaning.
Groaning as we long for the day when all will be made new,
when our inheritance will fully come to us.
And so of course, of course doubt creeps in from time to time.
Of course there are mornings you wonder, am I really God's child?
Can I really trust him with this?
If that's you some days, I want to assure you, you're not alone.
You're not alone and you're not failing.
You're just living between your adoption and your glory.
And Paul knows the stretch of time, this life we live is a hard life at times.
And that's why he told us what to do.
He reminds us of who we are and he tells us what to do
when we catch ourselves living like an orphan.
When you do catch yourself living like an orphan, you'll be tempted to try harder,
to have more faith, to believe with more feeling,
to work at being a better son or daughter,
to correct yourself for living an orphan life and trying better, trying harder.
But that just puts the weight right back on your shoulders to make life happen on your own effort.
The very thing that crushes the debtor, the very thing that crushes the orphan in the first place.
It's no one coming to save you all over again just with spiritual language.
The real solution isn't to try harder to live as an adopted child of God.
The real solution is to remember, you already are.
You already are that adopted child of God.
Think about a birth certificate or in this case an adoption certificate.
The name on the certificate does not change based on how you're feeling today,
based on how well you have lived up to the family name,
based on if it's been a good day or a bad day.
That name does not change.
It was secured the day that document was signed.
And your baptism is your certificate of adoption.
The name on it doesn't change.
Your name has been written in the blood of Christ.
You were sealed in his eternal family.
You were given the spirit to live within you as a promise of your new identity as an adopted child of God.
This is true.
Whatever doubts, whatever temptations you're fighting right now,
you remain an adopted child of God.
Now look, there's one thing Paul won't gloss over and pretend this is going to be easy.
He says we are fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him
in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Glory is coming.
But just as Christ suffered in this life, so we will too.
But suffering isn't the end of the story.
Suffering isn't the price you have to pay to earn your inheritance.
It's just what it looks like to walk the same road your brother in the faith Christ walked when he walked this earth.
It's the road we walk to obtain the glory that Christ now enjoys.
Until then, remember your baptism.
When the fear creeps back in, when you feel like you're on your own again,
when some other leader is calling for your attention, when the future seems uncertain, go back to the water.
Go back to the water of your baptism.
Go back to the name that God put on you in your baptism.
You are his adopted child.
No one is coming to save you is a decent line for a procrastinator,
but it's a terrible way to live life because someone already came.
And in your baptism, he didn't just save you.
He adopted you.
He named you.
He claimed you as family.
So this week, remember, you're not a debtor.
You're not a slave to fear.
You're not an orphan.
You're an adopted child of God, beloved by your father in heaven, co-heirs with Christ.
Your inheritance is guaranteed.
Your inheritance is coming, and it will be glorious.
Until that day, we simply remember.
Let's pray.
Father, we're reminded again that you are a generous God who has poured out upon us grace upon grace.
Your forgiveness washes away all sin.
Your spirit takes residence in our very hearts that we might know the life of Christ both now and forever.
Father, we confess we are forgetful people.
We confess that the things of this world distract and draw us away.
Father, always may your word echo in our hearts and our ears that we may be reminded of the work that you have done,
that you have accomplished for us.
We are indeed children of God.
We cry out, Abba, Father.
We do believe.
Help our unbelief.
In the name of Jesus, we pray.
Amen.