The Spirit of Adoption

Objective sentence and Aim: Everyone should walk in God’s power because of the blessings that the Holy Spirit bestows on us. Aim:

Introduction: After 21 one years of full time ministry is there was one thing I could undo it would be to go back and focus a majority of my time upon a more and intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ.

Initial Invitation

#1. Liberation (Romans 8:15 not the spirit of bondage)

A. Pastor Dan: Sin did not change God’s attitude towards us—it changed our attitude towards Him.

1. Power to become (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)
a. E. Stanley Jones: You are made into the image of that on which you habitually concentrate your attention—beholding the glory of the Lord. If you focus on your inability you will be a slave to can’t instead of can, to weakness instead of strength to defeat instead of victory.
b. John 1:12 as many as received Him to them He gave power
c. Pastor Dan: We are free today through Christ to walk in the Spirit, the power and the Word of God.
d. John 8:30-32
e. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 new creatures, ambassadors, righteousness
f. Pastor Dan: There is something about me that is attractive to God

2. A right to act (Mark 16:17 in my name)
a. Genesis 1:27-28 Psalms 8 Pastor Dan: In the name of Jesus we have dominion over everything God has given us the right to rule— demons (cast out devils), inability to communicate with God (speak with new tongues), circumstances and accidents hindering us from doing God’s will (deadly drink or serpent bites) and sickness (lay hands on the sick).
b. Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me because …

#2. Affirmation (Romans 8:16 The Spirit bears witness)

A. Johann Tauler: If you keep watch over your hearts, and listen for the voice of God and learn of him, in one short hour you can learn more from him than you could learn from man in a thousand years (C. 1300-1361)

1. Listen
a. Pastor Dan: One of our big problems is that we don’t take time to listen to what is going on inside of us. We are receivers for the transmission of the word of God (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7-13)
b. Isaiah 50:4 tongue of the wise…he awakens my ear to hear as the learned.
c. Revelation 2:7 He that has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Seven different churches, seven different pastors, seven different cities, seven different challenges and one message—let him or her hear—each person hearing individually and practicing collectively the Word of the Lord.
d. Daniel Brevint: It never frightened a Puritan when you bade him stand still and listen to the speech of God. His closet and his church were full of reverberations of the awful, gracious, beautiful voice for which he listened (1616-1695)
e. Frederick William Faber: There is hardly ever a complete silence in our soul. God is whispering to us well nigh incessantly. Whenever the sounds of the world die out in the soul, or sink low, then we hear these whisperings of God. He is always whispering to us, only we do not always hear because of the noise, hurry, and distraction which life causes as it rushes on (1814-1863)

Middle Invitation

#3. Revelation (Romans 8:16 we are children of God)

A. C. S. Lewis: God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that he may love and perfect them.

1. Love (John 3:16)
a. A. W. Tozer: God is love and God is sovereign. His love disposes him to desire our everlasting welfare, and his sovereignty enables him to secure it (1897-1963)
b. Oswald Chambers: God is love, not, God is loving. God and love are synonymous. Love is not an attribute of God, it is God; whatever God is, love is. If your conception of love does not agree with justice and judgment and purity and holiness, then your idea of love is wrong (1874-1917)
c. Mark 12:30 Brother Lawrence: Loving God is our only duty

#4. Glorification (Romans 8:17 if we suffer…glorified together)

A. C. S. Lewis: A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next (1898-1963)

1. Land (1 Thessalonians 4:12-5:1)
a. Thomas Boston: Heaven is not a resting place, where men may sleep out an eternity; there they rest not day nor night, but their work is their rest and continual recreation, and toil and weariness have no place there. They rest there in God, who is the center of their souls. Here they find the completion or satisfaction of all their desires, having the full enjoyment of God and uninterrupted communion with him (1676-1732)
b. Author Unknown: Hell is God's justice; heaven is his love; earth, his long-suffering
c. Pastor Dan: Heaven is not our goal, neither good works, nor power or supernatural manifestations—our goal is God and relationship with Him Matthew 7:21-23

Closing and invitation: Walking in the Spirit causes the greatest part of our lives to be ahead of us, no matter how wonderful or not so wonderful things may be at the present time. John walked with Christ for three and one half years, He received the Holy Spirit after on the Day of Pentecost after the resurrection of Christ, he was one of the twelve who fathered the modern church and he received his greatest revelation when he was almost a hundred years old.