Celebrity babies have been in the news
lately. Tom and Katie’s. Angelie and Brad’s. This year babies
were born to Donald Trump and not Ivana. Brooke Shield. Gweneth
Paltrow. And Dom and Jen Casey. And Heather Young.
That’s quite a range of families,
isn’t it? And then, every day, there are thousands of babies born
in poverty-stricken countries in Africa and Asia and South and
Central America. Some even in the Wealthy West may not have such a
plush family environment to come into the world. There are as many
different kinds of families as there are different kinds of people
and places and times.
But there’s one family where nobody
is at a disadvantage. There’s one family where things have always
stayed the same—excellent! There is one family which can boast all
its young are headed for a bright forever. This is the family whose
young are
Children of the Triune God
-
Confident to approach God the
Father (15-16)
-
Heirs together with God the Son
(17)
-
Led by God the Holy Spirit (14)
Children of the Triune God are
confident to approach God their Father. Paul wrote, “For you did
not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you
received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s
children (15-16).”
This confidence is the mark of faith.
It is the essence of faith. Without confidence, there is no faith.
But that confidence is exactly what sin destroys.
Take King Saul, the first king of
Israel. He had been selected by God, anointed by God’s prophet,
Samuel. He had enjoyed victory after victory guided by the Lord’s
hand. But he fell away from God. After years of mayhem, his
mistakes catch up to him. He faces his nation’s rivals, the
Philistines, on the battlefield. The night before the battle, who
does he go to to find comfort and strength? The High Priest who can
predict the future for him with the Urim and Thummim? No! He
doesn’t believe in God anymore. He goes to the witch at Endor to
summon the ghost of the prophet Samuel. Is it any wonder he kills
himself the next day as the battle is lost and his nation is about to
be cut in half?
Or take Judas, after he betrayed Jesus.
He is not a believer, because what is he trusting in? His own
actions to make amends! The plotting, murderous priests to make
things better! He tries to return the blood money he received for
betraying Jesus, but they won’t take it—“That’s your
business! See to it yourself!” And when he can’t remove that
load of guilt and shame over Jesus’ condemnation, he goes out and
hangs himself.
And we are just as bad as they when we
are cultivating our sins, pursuing our devious ways. We don’t want
to come clean with God when we are fighting with the spouse.
Confession is the last thing we want to do when we are weaving lies
to cover our drinking or drug use. Hearing about God’s love in the
sermon is the last thing we want when we are nursing that grudge! We
have no confidence that God will make our lives better.
Only when the Holy Spirit moves us to
believe do we trust in, do we confide in our heavenly Father. We
call him “Our Father,” and that’s what “Abba” means. I am
sure Paul is making reference to the address of the Lord’s Prayer.
We go before our God on the basis of his being our Father. He is not
a God to fear, but a God to love for his forgiveness to us is new
every morning. Oh to be in a family with such resources that
whatever trouble you got in to could be fixed, could be set aright!
Oh to have such a parent or parents that they would always know what
is best for you!
But we do have just such a heavenly
parent in our God the Father. We are eager and confident to approach
him in good times and bad, when we’ve been trying our best and when
we’ve been trying not at all. His grace will receive us.
Children of the Triune God, Paul says,
are heirs together with God the Son.
“Now if we are children, then we are
heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in
his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (17).”
In most families, children stick
together because they have gone through the same things. They all
suffered with Mom’s diets. They all bowed their heads when Daddy
started his “back in my day” stories. Maybe if they were close
enough in age, they all drove the beat-up, old family station wagon!
If we are children of the Triune God, then we should be going through
some of the same things God the Son went through. If we are to share
in his glory, we will be sharing in his sufferings.
Those sufferings aren’t stigmata,
crucifixion-like marks on the hands and feet, like the supposed
sufferings of saints of old. Jesus learned obedience through
suffering, the writer to the Hebrews tells us. Well, obedience isn’t
our strong point. It is hard to obey, especially if that obedience
is going to cost us. It is hard to come home from a date when you
say you are going to come home. It is hard to break off playing with
your friends long enough to call mom and let her know where you are
going to be next. It is hard to do what the boss says when the boss
is out of town and everybody else in the office is acting like he’s
never coming back. That’s the suffering Paul is talking
about—suffering for doing good. The suffering of denying our
sinful human nature all the goodies it is clamoring for.
In this way we are very much like
Jesus, aren’t we? And that proves that we are co-heirs with God
the Son. As we share in his life of suffering on earth, we are going
to share in his glory in heaven.
And what glory that will be! In an
earthly family, the heirs have to experience the sadness of father or
mother passing away before they come into their inheritance. No
matter how much that inheritance is, they would certainly give it all
away or spend it completely to bring back mom or have dad rise from
the grave. Children of the Triune God experience no such separation
and bereavement. The death that sealed God’s last will and
testament for us was the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, on
the cross. That put God’s plan of salvation, his new covenant,
irrevocably into effect. We don’t have to die to enter into that
inheritance, because Jesus has died to make that inheritance ours.
We experience that inheritance already here on earth through our
clean conscience before God and our joy in his salvation. But Paul
is talking about the glory that will be ours in this inheritance when
we enter eternal heaven.
That’s something Tom and Katie can’t
give their little one! Donald Trump can’t build a skyscraper high
enough and lasting enough to boost his newest addition into eternal
heaven. What a great family we children of the Triune God belong to!
We are led by God the Holy Spirit.
Sad to say, sometimes children from the
most privileged families don’t make it. I think of Marlon Brando’s
kids or that perfume heir who was extradited from Mexico for murder,
or even the tough go of it the fabulously wealthy Olson twins
(remember Full House?) have had.
Is that going to happen to us? Born by
the Holy Spirit on third base with a silver spoon in our mouth, only
to get picked off because we fell asleep on the job? No. Our Triune
God has taken care of our every need, so the Holy Spirit is
constantly there as our guide. Paul simply says, “Those who are
led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (14).” The sons of God
are led by the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit leads us into a deeper
faith through our contact with God’s Word. So every time we come
to church, every time we attend a Bible class, every time we read the
Bible to ourselves on our own, every time we think about those
stories of Jesus, that’s the Holy Spirit leading us in our life.
Without that, no other leading of the Holy Spirit is possible. He
works through the Word. Without the Word, well, it’s like trying
to drive a car without a steering wheel. I think a lot of people who
call themselves Christians and fully expect to be Christians get
themselves into all sorts of trouble, from fender benders to totaling
their life, because they fail to make time for God’s Word and
expect the Holy Spirit to lead them by other means of their own
choosing.
But for those in the Word, we children
of God have the assurance that the Holy Spirit will lead us not into
temptation. He will give us the discipline to say no to temptation,
to avoid it where possible, to bear up under it where necessary. And
any of us who have had nose in the air relatives back east ask us,
“How can you POSSIBLY raise a respectable family in LAS VEGAS????”
know very well how wonderfully the Holy Spirit can help us get
through unhelpful situations.
And I’m running out of time here, but
I’ve just got to get this last point in, else I will insult our God
the Holy Spirit. He keeps our faith burning brightly. When the fire
inside our body is going out, when taste and speech forsake us and
sight is dimming in death, when all that is left is hearing and a
feeble grip on our loved ones, oh, the mighty Holy Spirit still leads
us, keeping our faith rock solid, as strong and vibrant as ever that
we may make it through the valley of the shadow of death. What is
impossible for man, that’s what the Holy Spirit does every day when
another child of the Triune God enters into eternal heaven.
Children of the Triune God
-
Confident to approach God the
Father (15-16).
-
Heirs together with God the Son
(17).
-
Led by God the Holy Spirit (14).
I’ll admit it. When growing up,
there were times when I wished I had been a celebrity baby, with the
best of everything at my feet, instead of being born to parents who
had to work hard for everything they had and raised their kids to be
industrious and conscientious. But now I know better. All along
I’ve belonged to a family whose heavenly parents give me more than
the richest father on earth could give.
Rev. Don Pieper is a minister in the
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. He has devoted his life to
sharing the Gospel of Christ to all of Gods people. For more
information about the Green Valley Evangelical Lutheran Church visit
us at www.gvelc.com
or call 702-454-8979 .
Ask for Pastor Don or Pastor Matt.
