We are going to spend another week together going through the riches of Christ. It has been such a joy going through the many ways Christ has gifted and blessed us and we are going to look at five more this week. Romans 8 tells us that we are the heirs of God. We are going to look at that blessing today.
First, when it talks about us being His children, it says in Romans 8:14, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” When it says that we are being led by the Spirit of God, it doesn’t mean some mystical feeling in which the Lord leads us. He is speaking in the context of Romans 6, 7, & 8, that the Holy Spirit leads us into godliness, sanctification, and living for the Lord. If the Holy Spirit is leading us, we know that by the direction that God is taking us in our lives to become more and more like Him. If the Holy Spirit is leading us, then we have the evidence here that we are the sons of God, the children of God. That is a great blessing in and of itself, but we have already looked at that one previously.
In Romans 8:15 it says, “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!’” There are a couple of things here that are very insightful. First, the new spirit that we have now, that which the way the Holy Spirit leads us, doesn’t lead us into slavery again. Most likely he is speaking here of the law. The law was righteous and good and perfect, but it bound us in the sense that it put a straight jacket on the lives of people, and they could not keep the law as the law was given. We are not given that kind of spirit however, instead we are given a spirit not of fear or slavery, but the spirit of adoption. So, we have the adoption. We have already discussed that blessing. The idea then, is that we have been brought into the family of God. He has chosen us to be His. We are adopted into that family, so much so, that we cry out “Abba! Father!” Many of you probably know that this is a term for father. A term of endearment. A child would call his father “Papa” or “Abba”. It would be a child-like calling out to a father that a child loves and the father loves and adores that child as well. When we have this kind of spirt as the adopted sons of God, we not only have a legal situation in which we are legally, rightly the sons of God on paper, but we also have a relationship with Almighty God of such a nature that it is emotional, enjoyable, family-oriented, and we can call out to Him as our father . . .
