DATE: Sunday, 27 March 2011
TEXTS: John 1:1 - 5, 9 -14 & 16 - 18; Romans 8:12 - 17 & Hebrews 2:5 - 18 [ESV]
TITLE: “ Brothers & Sisters of God’s Only Son ? ”
Pastor: Let us hear the Word of God!
JOHN 1:1 - 5, 9 - 14 & 16 - 18
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. . . .
. . . 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. 12 But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . .
... 16 And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, Who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known.
ROMANS 8:12 - 17
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
HEBREWS 2:5 - 18
5 Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the Son of Man, that you care for Him? 7 You made Him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned Him with glory and honor, 8 putting everything in subjection under His feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside His control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. 9 But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
10 For it was fitting that He, for Whom and by Whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the Founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For He Who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying, “I will tell of Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.”
13 And again, “I will put My trust in Him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given Me.”
14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that He helps, but He helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.
RESPONSE:
Pastor: This is the Word of the Lord!
People: Thanks be to God.
SERMON: “ Brothers & Sisters of God’s Only Son ? ” Pastor Stuart
Brothers & Sisters.
Popular wisdom tells us that adoption is a terrible, though sometimes necessary, practice that rips children away from their natural parents and leaves them forever bruised and scarred emotionally, socially and spiritually.
We've heard the horror stories about adoption on TV magazines, seen it portrayed in numerous made-for-TV movies and mini-series, and read more of the same in news magazines. Usually, these stories tell us of the tragic emotional tug-of-war felt by adoptees who search for long-lost biological parents, of the trials and tribulations of adult adoptees who feel worthless because they don't possess their own family histories, or of those made to feel inferior or second-class to natural children born into the same family.
And even when we hear positive stories about happy adoptive families with normal well-adjusted children, we must face the fact that adoption and adoptive children still face a certain social stigma. The practice makes people feel funny and the children are often told verbally, or in practice, that they are “damaged goods,” unwanted and unworthy of real families.
Statistics and biographies of individual kids provided by social service agencies, adoption services and national foundations all indicate that it is quite difficult to place orphans with prospective families and that the working definition of “hard-to-place and special needs” children is basically: “any non-white child over two years old or any orphan with siblings.”
Many of us have probably seen TV interviews and appeals with Wendy's's Restaurant founder and adoptee Dave Thomas. Thomas, who founded and leads one of the nation's foremost adoption foundations, regularly promotes that cause on the morning and afternoon talk-show circuits and spends incredible amounts of time every year actively seeking willing adoptive families for some of these “hard-to-place” or “special needs’ kids.”
According to Thomas and others, adoption is apparently as thorny an issue among Christian families as it is among non-Christian and utterly unchurched families. We, as a community of believers, seem unwilling to take in orphans and give them love, nurture and shelter.
This fact is both odd and sad.
It is odd because we, as a community and body of believers, are called by our Lord and Head to take in and care for the widow and the orphan. It is sad because it shows our community’s refusal to return the favorable treatment we have all received as a body and as individuals.
You see, all Christians are adopted into a new family other than the ones into which we were born. God the Father, who has only one true-born Son, adopts all of us as His own children and invites us to partake of life in a large and loving family.
This is the great truth and mournful irony presented by our opening illustration, our Scripture Lessons and Heidelberg Catechism Questions for this morning.
Those two questions clearly present the issue as they ask us:
[1] Why is Jesus called God's "only son" when we also are God's Children?
[2] Why do we call Jesus "our Lord"?
All three of these lessons show us the absolutely essential understandings of who we are in Christ, what this identity means for us and what it must mean for the community around us if we really believe its truth. And these understandings are especially important for us during this Lenten season as we examine and meditate upon Christ's work, ministry, death and Resurrection and their meaning in our lives.
In our first lesson, we find John's classic words describing the creation of the universe, the place of Jesus Christ within that creation and the meaning of His life for humanity. John opens his gospel by giving us a five-verse summary of the Genesis 1 creation account by telling his readers that the Messiah and Savior Whom he is about to introduce to them is no less than God, the Creator and Sustainer of all that exists.
The first references and introduction we receive of Jesus are the mentions of Him as the “Word of God” Who is Himself God and the life and light animating and sustaining all people. And as we search more deeply into the meaning of these words, we find John saying that Jesus “the Word of God” is both present and active in the spoken words of command and creation uttered in Genesis 1 by God the Father. He possesses the full power, light, life and meaning of God and supplies these qualities in varying measure to the things He creates.
Christ, the Son and Word of God, is the exact essence and substance of His Father and radiates the same glory, power and majesty onto the creation. The universe, and its creatures all bear the unmistakable stamp and authorship of the Messiah who created all things.
These verses also give us a clear, if incomplete, impression of the Trinity. They describe for us the Son’s integral, abiding and unbreakable relationship to the Father while also showing us that the Father and the Son are — and always have been — separate persons of the God head, but that they are united in substance, purpose and will.
We then discover in Vv . 9-18 that this eternal “Word of God” becomes fully human and lives in order to share with us the joys, pains, trials, and temptations that populate human existence. He became like us in all things except sinfulness so He could share our human-ness and deliver to us the light and new life that are give to us when we live lives of faith in obedience to Him and to His Father.
This Light and New Life are the justification and sanctification we receive from Christ when, through God's grace, we have faith in Him. These are themes we've seen played-out in the last several weeks as we reviewed Jesus' life, ministry and work as prophet, priest and king.
Unfortunately these scripture lessons, and our lessons and catechism questions for today all show us that we humans, the very ones Christ came to seek and save, have largely rejected Him, His work and His message.
There is Good News, though. Those who receive Him, His grace and His work through the gift of faith do receive acceptance, joy and forgiveness from God. But beyond this, there is still something else that we receive through Christ's sacrificial death and Resurrection that we haven't discussed yet. It is something equally fundamental, but more amazing than the knowledge that God forgives and transforms us.
John tells us that in addition to the other things God provides for us, He also gives us the right to claim a relationship to God and call Him our Father. We receive this right because we have been re-born through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit at work in us and have become new creatures in Christ through faith.
And it is this new and right relationship with God that Paul tells us about in his letter to the Church at Rome. Paul affirms and strengthens John's assertions and doctrine by plainly and boldly telling us that we are no longer mere physical creatures born of the flesh, blood and the desire of our parents.
Rather, through our faith in Christ we are given the gift and strength of the Holy Spirit Who enables us to “put to death” our old behavior as He so heals and transforms our lives and character that we are re-made as new creations who live and work as integral parts in Christ's Body.
As these new creatures, we are a people redeemed through the pain of Jesus Christ, the Suffering Servant, Who died and was resurrected to make us free from sin and death and acceptable to God. He became one with us in our humanity. He is our Older Brother Who shares our trials, perfects our nature and adopts us as His own brothers and sisters.
He then insures that we are equipped with and clothed in those qualities of truth, life, light and righteousness we need to sit in God's presence as His children.
In V. 15, Paul tells us of our release from slavery and captivity to sin and death and of the adoption that we receive through Christ. He loudly proclaims that Christ doesn't buy us from our slavery only to make us slaves again to fear and death. When He releases us, we are indeed released.
The apostle is refers to the ancient Jewish concept and practice of kinsman redemption in which one bought relatives out of their slavery in debtor’s prison at great personal expense so that his relatives' good standing in the community is restored. Paul then carries the symbolism a step further by describing the Roman practice of adoption in which one was adopted, generally by a wealthy or aristocratic family, and became the Heir to all of the family's titles, honors and possessions. This person's past life and family were gone to him and he would become the fully accepted legal heir.
Christ is our Kinsman Redeemer. He paid the incalculably high cost of our freedom from sin and death through His suffering and death of the cross. The Resurrected Christ then announces to His Father that He has not only bought our freedom, but has adopted us as His own siblings and co-heirs with Him in the Father's Kingdom.
Because of His work as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer and the transforming presence and action of the Holy Spirit in our lives we are enabled to call God “Abba - Father” just as naturally as Jesus does, or as we do when speaking with our biological parents.
There is no second-class relationship here. We aren't unwanted or damaged goods that God is reluctant to take as His own. He planned from eternity to redeem and re-claim us — even at such a high personal cost — because He loves us so intensely. We are the chosen and very much loved adopted children of the Eternal Parent.
This is also the clear and abiding message of our lesson from Hebrews. Here, we find that our “adoption records” refined and sharpened and take on a fuller and more personal clarity than what we find in even the preceding two passages.
Here we see that God makes us in His own image, crowns us with incredible glory and honor as His image-bearers and places all things under our control and for our use as His good gifts. He then commissions us to be the stewards over that creation and honors us with rights, duties and privileges unlike those given even to angels.
What's more, He places such high value upon the image of Himself resident in human beings that He willingly sends His own beloved Son and Heir to us as a the perfect human redeemer, king and priest who makes the perfect self-sacrifice needed to atone for our sin and evil and to settle our accounts and make us whole, sin-free and righteous.
This passage tells us that it had to be this way. Christ had to share our human nature fully so He could justify and sanctify us through His priestly atoning sacrifice of Himself. And it is as our human brother that Christ sympathizes with us in our pain, trials and temptations and is able to help and heal us.
And in sending His Only-begotten Son and Word to become the perfect human and eternal high priest, God makes certain that sin and death are overcome and uprooted by Christ's Resurrection from death. In this way, humanity gains victory and Lordship over sin and death.
This means that our Older Brother is the Lord over creation who became Man in order to make us righteous before His Father in order that we may also claim God as our Father, and thus, be proclaimed openly and publicly by Christ as “His brothers and Sisters.”
We have become God's own children because Christ, God's only-begotten Son and the Lord of Creation, has made us righteous before His Father and brings us to the foot of the Father's throne, in effect saying, “Father, these people whom you have given to me, I now claim as My own kin. They are My siblings and Your Children.”
This means that we, as those who have been adopted into another person's family, must value and honor the great gift we are given. We must, therefore, always be willing and ready to take up the “family chores” assigned to us by our Father through our Older Brother.
He commands us to mind after our human brothers and sisters, taking care of them and sharing the incredible news of our adoption with them. We are then commanded to tell them that they too may share our good fortune and be adopted by God the Father through faith in Christ and His completed work.
For us, here at the corner of Franklin Street and Highland Avenue, this means we continue to be good neighbors, friends and relatives to those around us. We must continue to offer aid, comfort and healing as we received them through Christ. We will continue to work with the Feed My Sheep Food Cupboard. We will keep demonstrating love and leadership in and through the borough and townships. We will continue to engage both local and wider-church mission projects and to work with our own kids and those in the community who are spiritually rootless and confused.
But our adoption also means that we continue sharing our faith with all the "hard-to-place" kids around us because they are our own brothers and sisters. We will carry the message that Jesus Christ sacrificed His own life to redeem us from slavery to sin, death and the constant power and temptation of Satan so He may present us before His Father as much-loved brothers and sisters. In all of these things we are faithful and we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and enable us to live as the much-loved and quite-loving and well-adjusted children safely lodged at home in the Body of Christ, Who is our Older Brother and our Lord.
Amen.
This sermon covers Question & Answer 33 & 34 From the Heidelberg Catechism for Lord's Day # 13. The Heidelberg Catechism was originally designed and written as Reformational preaching catechism.
Q33] Why is He called God's “only Son” when we also are God's children?
A33] Because Christ alone is the eternal, natural Son of God. We, however, are adopted children of God adopted by
grace through Christ.
Q34] Why do you call Him “our Lord”?
A34] Because not with gold or silver, but with His precious blood He has set us free from sin and from the tyranny of
the devil, and has bought us, body and soul, to be His very own.
