How You Can Know You’re a Child of God

Before I pray and ask for God's help, and before we read the text, which is going to be from Romans 8, if you want to go there already, let me tell you where we're going, what my aims are, why I'm talking about what I'm talking about, and then we'll get into it in Romans 8. My goal is to help you who are born of God know that you are children of God. Know it. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, feel it in your bones, and thus walk in confidence and boldness. I am a child of God. To be able to say that to yourself, to God, and to others with confidence, and not say when somebody says, you're a Christian, I hope so, that's where we're going. I want from the Word, by the Spirit, to be an instrument in giving you the assurance of your salvation. That's the aim. Why would you talk about that? And I wrote down two reasons this morning, about 7.30. One, in my experience of 33 years at Bethlehem, it probably was the most common thing I prayed with people about after church. I would stand at the front for an hour or so after the second service, for as long as I could after the first service, same thing on Sunday evening, Saturday night I mean, and that would be the people, they would be unsure, and they wanted to be sure. So that's the first reason, it's been my experience, that that's been the most common thing I've had to wrestle with people about. And the second thing is, I tried to picture you, I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, Southern Baptist Church, and it was marked, I would say, by a vague handling of the Word of God. Vague in the sense that I felt like mainly I was hearing generalizations about texts, rather than specificities about texts, not details about texts. And what I've come to see is that where a church is fed on generalizations, and non-specificities, that the pastor kind of hovers over the text, and you never kind of land on words and phrases and how they connect. This hovering above the text creates uncertainty. It creates vague faith, it creates generalized faith, it creates weak faith. People talk in generalities, nothing's ever quite rooted where you can say, There it is! There it is! Beyond the shadow of a doubt, it's right there! I do not want to do that this morning. I don't want to treat this doctrine and this hugely emotional, critical, existential issue of am I going to heaven or not with generalizations. So my aim is to show you words, phrases, and logic from the inspired apostle from which you can draw out solid conviction concerning how the Holy Spirit witnesses that you are the child of God. So that's another reason. In other words, my experience in Southern Baptist Church from 40 years ago, which may be totally not true for you, is another reason why I am doing what I'm doing here. They mainly emphasize getting people saved, not helping people know what it means to be saved. And not how to appropriate the glorious riches that are here for knowing and feeling and enjoying God. That was very sad. And I'm so thankful that your pastor, and I pray your future pastor, didn't do that. Then in the text, if you're confident that you're a child of God, you have an inheritance. And I want to talk about the inheritance because I think that is included here to buttress and give incentive to the thrill of being a child of God. If children, then heirs. If children, then heirs. And I think he wants to open the inheritance to you so that your confidence and your thrill and your boldness as a child of God would be deepened and heightened. And then he adds, and this is going to be the last point, if you suffer with him in order that you may be glorified with him. If you are taught, which you haven't been, but if you somewhere have been taught that to be a child of God is to have a great inheritance and that you don't have to walk through sufferings to get there, you're going to come into crisis. Because the text says you only get there through suffering. That's what the text says. Okay, now I'm ready. Are you ready? Romans chapter 8, verses 12 through 18. Okay? These are specific verses. With specific words and specific logical connectors, then you need to see them. Let's just read it, then I'm going to pray, and then I'm just going to turn to it. I'm going to read it. So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for, gives a reason, if you live according to the flesh you will die. Now that death means perish. That's more than physical death, because everybody dies physically. This is a special kind of group. People that don't put to death the deeds of the body. 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. That's a big live. Live with a capital L forever. For, another argument, for all who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God. That's going to be the main thing we wrestle with right there. For, all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. For, we must give an account for every because clause in order to profit spiritually from the preciousness of inspired logic. 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 which we cry, Abba, Father, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. How does he do that is the question. Right now, could you testify how he does that for you? Could you talk about that experience? What is that? Did it happen yesterday? This morning? Did it happen in your life? Or, is that just a vague thing? It's just kind of vague. There's no specificity in your life. You can't point to anything in your life that corresponds to that. You don't know what that's talking about. That's the issue, right? This is glorious. My guess is there's hundreds of you in this room that could not right now point to anything in your life you're sure corresponds to that. And, I'd like that to be different in 40 minutes or whatever I have. Be done at 10, 15 at the latest. That's what they told me. And, I will obey. Verse 16, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And, if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Provided if we suffer with him. No inheritance without suffering. None. Provided we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him. Let's pray. Father, the work of the Spirit in granting the assurance that we are the children of God is a supernatural work that I cannot make happen. But, you did not put these verses in the Bible for nothing. They are meant to be instruments in the hands of the Holy Spirit to give to this people the sweetness of this experience. And, I pray that it would. The text by the Spirit would work assurance for the children of God. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Verse 16, the Holy Spirit himself testifies, bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Look back at verse 9. You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. So, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that everyone in this room who belongs to Jesus has the Holy Spirit. That's what verse 9 says. So, I know what I'm talking to. I want to talk to those people. Now, those of you who don't have the Holy Spirit, that is, who do not yet belong to Jesus, should listen. Because the way God saves people and draws them into Christ and puts the Holy Spirit in them is by hearing the gospel. Faith comes by hearing. And so, I'm eager for everybody to listen. My aim is to talk to those who have the Holy Spirit, and thus belong to Jesus, and open for you what he does in verse 16. Let's read again. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Clearly, he wants you to know. Woe to those religions that keep their people off balance to manipulate them with fear. He wants you to know. A congregation full of people rock solid and ready to die for Jesus because they know. That's what he's doing. That's why you have the Holy Spirit. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And my question is, how does he do it? My guess is that the how of the Holy Spirit's working and assuring the children of God that they are his own is richer, fuller, deeper than we can imagine. But, my job is not to just imagine. My job is to point to the text's answer to how he does it. And I see two things in this text that explain how he does it. And as I show you those, you should be asking, are those happening in my life? Number one is seen in the connection between verses 13 and 14. Verse 13, if you live according to the flesh, if your life is keying off of the non-Spirit, the non-God, just the impulses that come naturally, apart from the Holy Spirit, apart from the Word of God, just flesh, meaning human minus God. If you live according to the flesh, you will die, you will perish, you will go to hell. But, alternative way to live, if by the Spirit, not by you alone, but by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. So it's got two halves now. You've got the Holy Spirit enabling you to make war on your sinful impulses. And if you are making war on them and sending death blows at your sinful impulses by the Spirit, not legalistically, by the Spirit, then the other half is you're going to live. And then he gives a reason. See the four at the beginning of verse 14? Four, all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. Now, there's how the Holy Spirit shows me I'm a child of God. It says, everybody who's led by the Spirit is a child of God. Okay, good, now I know how I can know if I'm a child of God. Am I being led by the Spirit? If I'm being led by the Spirit, I'm a child of God. That's what it says. Verse 14. Now, does it mean being led to marry the right person? Being led to go to the right school? Being led to have the right job? Being led to witness to somebody this afternoon? No, it doesn't mean that. How do I know that? Because the four at the beginning of the verse connects it to the preceding verse and makes it a ground of, if you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, you will live because if you're led by the Spirit, you're a child of God. That's not readily obvious how that works. Wasn't to me anyway. How does that because or that for at the beginning of 14 work to support verse 13? How does that work? That's the essence of Bible reading. I was saying to John Knight on the way over here, I'm so thankful for Mrs. Adams in the seventh grade. All we did was diagram sentences. I learned everything I know about the English language in the seventh grade. That's an overstatement. But I feel deep gratitude that I'm now enjoying the assurance of my salvation partly because of Mrs. Adams' sentence diagram. I totally mean that. And we'll write a book next February to support it. That's the plan anyway. Because if I don't understand how the four at the beginning of verse 14 works, I won't know what it means to be led by the Spirit and thus enjoy the assurance that I'm a child of God. See if I can help you see what I see. If you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, you will live because all who are led by the Spirit are the children of God. Now for that to work as an argument for verse 13, it must mean, well, the reason you will live is because you're being led and if you're led you're a child of God and the children of God don't die and go to hell. They go to heaven. They live. It's complicated. There's no other way in here without doing this. If you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, you'll live because those who are led by the Spirit are children of God and they don't die, they live and therefore what does leading mean? It means led into war with sin. You with me? I just made a huge conclusion. It shapes everything about how I understand this. Let me say it again. Listen carefully. If you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, by the Spirit, you will live because those who are led into war on their sin by the Spirit are children and children live. That's how the logic works. So now I know, now I know what leading means in verse 14. It's not about who you marry. It's not about, like, I can know I'm a Christian if I marry the right person. That's crazy. That's nowhere near the context here. The context is, if you are led by the Spirit to do verse 13, make war, very simply, let me paraphrase it like this. One of the beautiful, deep, rich, wonderful evidences of the work of the Holy Spirit that you are a child of God is that you hate your sin and make war on it. And notice how I'm saying it. I am not telling you any particular level of success. I checked again in the Greek this morning. These are present tenses in verse 13, meaning ongoing, continuous action. If you live according to the flesh, you'll die, meaning if you keep on, just settle in there, make peace with your flesh, live according to the devil, you're going to go to hell. But if by the Spirit you are continually putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live forever because those who are led to do that are the children of God. That's the argument. So my first answer to the question, how does the Holy Spirit testify to you? You know what witnessing, bear witness in a courtroom, what does a witness do? He gives evidence. He might have been there at the crime scene, as I saw it, or he might have been some expert in DNA, and he's just testifying in the courtroom that if this is that and this is that, then this is that, and the jury is supposed to put all that together. Well, the Holy Spirit is giving evidences that you are the child of God. And the first evidence I'm pointing to is you make war on your sin. Notice I'm not saying you make war on other people's sin. Like, what's happened to America? I hate all this liberal stuff that's going on in America, and I know I'm a Christian because I've got my backup about this. Well, not necessarily. You better get your backup about your attitude towards your wife. You better get your backup about your sloth as a dad. You better get your backup about your lust and your pornography and about your lying and about your cheating. You better be your issue. The mark of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life showing you're a child of God is that you hate your sin more than you hate other people's sin. How are you doing? I mean, this is not hard. John Piper looks in the mirror, and I know I'm a sinner. Praise God I hate that sight. Praise God I hate that sight. I'm a Christian. Isn't that horrible and wonderful? To know you're a Christian, you have to know how bad you are and hate it and turn and, by the Spirit, make war on your sin. That's evidence or testimony number one. The Spirit bears witness that we are the children of God by leading us, that's verse 14, into war, killing on our sin, our own sin, verse 13, and thus a clear mark that rises up in my heart and testifies to me, you're saved. You hate your sin and are taking steps to kill it. That's sweetness to me. Of course, if you love your sin and have no intention of making war on it, you don't have any assurance. I'm not going to make this easy. This is reality. We're talking about reality here. In a sense, that's the easiest thing in the world, to know I'm a crappy person. Sorry about that. My wife will scold me now. It's easy to know how horrible you are, if you are willing. Okay, that's number one. Here's number two, the second way the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit. Now we're in verse 15. Four, that is, if you're led by the Spirit, you're the children of God. Four, 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, that whom is the Spirit, by whom we cry, Abba, Father, the Spirit Himself bears witness. And I take that cry, Abba, Father, to be what verse 16 is referring to when it says, the Spirit Himself bears witness. So this is the second thing that verse 16 means. First, it means that we are shown to be by the Spirit, the children of God, because He leads us, and the context shows He leads us into hatred for and killing of our sin. And the second is, He leads us to cry, Abba, Father. So now I'm going to ask, do you find daily, regularly, welling up from deep in your soul a cry, Abba, Father, you're a Christ? That's the Holy Spirit talking. Now, to which skeptics should respond, and I'm one, you can program a computer to say, Abba, Father. What kind of evidence is that? Don't mock the Bible, Piper, but do ask serious questions. If you don't understand it, ask. And I come to this saying, anybody who says, Abba, Father, is a Christian? Well, no, that's not what it says. Not quite. There are two clues for me here why it's not that cheap. Clue number one is the word Abba. Don't you think Paul's intention, he could have just said Father. Why put that Aramaic, tender, intimate, sweet, daddy-like word at the front of the word Father? Why do that? Because that's what he means for you to know in your heart. Do you know that? In other words, is that what's coming up? Daddy? Daddy? And the second clue is the word cry. He could have said say, program the computer to say. You can't program a computer to cry. I think the word cry, krodzomai, is intended to carry an emotional authenticity and depth and sincerity and earnestness. So now I'm asking the question again. Does there rise up from within you an earnest, sincere, intense, longing, expression, not just to some vague father figure, but to Daddy? I need you. I love you. Help me. I pictured this morning, say you have a 30-year-old son. Dad, it's you, Dad, Dad, and you have a 30-year-old son who's left the home, left the faith, left everything prodigal-like, and he's dying of cancer in the hospital. You haven't seen him for 10 years. And you're here, and you go to see him, and you walk in the hospital room, and he opens his eyes and says, Daddy, I'm sorry. That's who we're talking about. That's the Holy Spirit. Has that ever happened to you? I need a father. You, through Jesus Christ, have opened your heart to me, and I am finding everything in me rising up and saying, I'm a father. Only Christians experience that. Here's another illustration to show you that that's the way Paul's thinking. Do you know the verse 3 of 1 Corinthians 12? It goes like this. No one speaking by the Spirit of God says, Jesus is cursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now, that's just another example of the very same kind of witness of the Holy Spirit. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And you, of course, say a computer can say Jesus is Lord. And so, no one can say earnestly, intensely, authentically, from the heart, Jesus is my Lord. It's the same as saying, I hate my sin. Join me in war, Master Jesus. So, those are my two answers. How does the Holy Spirit, verse 16, bear witness in your life that you are the child of God? Answer number one, he leads you. All who are led by the Spirit are the children of God. Contextually, what is the leadership referring to? It's referring to verse 13 because of the connector for. And the thing that is referred to in the Spirit in verse 13 is by the Spirit we are making war. We're putting to death the deeds of the body. Therefore, you can know you're a child of God if you hate your sin and make war on it. Number two, the Spirit testifies with our spirit we're the children of God by welling up and crying, Abba, Father, you're my Father. I need you, I love you, I depend on you. What would I do without you? That's how we know we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. So, children of God, what are you going to inherit? You got a clear sense of your inheritance? Let me tell you three things you're going to inherit. And as you hear them, let them entice you out of sin and out of indifference to the fatherhood of God into hatred of sin and an intense cry to God as your Father. Let them entice you. Number one, you are going to inherit the world. Romans 4.13, the promise to Abraham and to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the law but through the righteousness of faith. Heir of the world. Now, you say, but that's a promise made to Abraham, right? You've been well taught. You know that there are verses in the Bible like this, Galatians 3.29. If you are Christ's, you are Abraham's offspring and heirs according to the promise. This is called putting the pieces together, right? If you belong to Jesus, you are Abraham's offspring because you're united to Christ who is the offspring and therefore you get the inheritance Abraham gets and it's the world. One of the reasons I don't like the prosperity gospel is because it just gets the timing wrong. They say you should get the world now. And I say later, your best life later. Suffering now, the world at the resurrection. Listen to this stunning. I mean, they're all over the place, but 1 Corinthians 3.21. All things belong to you, Christians, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death, the present, the things to come, all things are yours and you are Christ and Christ is God's. Christians need to take a deep breath and believe the impossible. You walk through life here in Alabama and everything feels so absolutely ordinary. I mean, you feel really ordinary, and you are. But ordinary people indwelt by the Spirit and united to Christ are going to be heirs, are heirs of everything. You own Alabama! Russia, Australia, where would you like to go? Name it, it's yours in just a short time, which means you don't need to grasp and crave and claw to have and have and have. You know that message in this church. But oh, that you would feel the unspeakable wonder of this inheritance because it will make you enjoy being a child of God and it will heighten and deepen your boldness and your readiness to speak and suffer anytime, here or anywhere that you need to. That's the first meaning, world. Second meaning of the inheritance is God is your inheritance. God is your inheritance. Romans chapter 5 verse 2, we exult in the hope of the glory of God. If you want to have an inheritance that is minus all tears, minus all disease, and minus all frustrations, and minus God, you're not a Christian. God will be in this world making the world what it is and the world will be a means of enjoying God and God will make the world enjoyable without idolatry. He's the key to everything. And so it says in 5.2, we exult in the hope of the glory of God. And if you say, well, maybe the glory of God and God are different things and so it's really glory and not God that is our inheritance, I just say keep reading down to verse 11, chapter 5, and not only this, but we exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation 21.3, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. Psalm 73.25, Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever. So first aspect of the inheritance with Christ is the world, everything, blessed are the meat, they will inherit the earth. And the second aspect is God himself will be there as the capstone of all our pleasures. I mean, you know, don't you, that even though sin tells you that you find most pleasure in stuff, you don't. You don't. People, persons, you are a personal soul and persons and relationships are where you find most deep satisfaction. And God is that person for which we are made to enjoy. And the third and last thing I'll mention about the inheritance is that you will have, as part of your inheritance, a glorified body. I say that because contextually here, I'm looking around Romans for all my answers to this, and just a few verses down, you read verse 23, not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. That's why I'm not a health, wealth, and prosperity person. I'm waiting for that. I'm waiting. At 69 years old, the waiting gets more intense, right? You lose and you lose and you lose. It's just physically downhill from here. It doesn't matter how much I jog, how far I bike, how many of these I do. I'm not bulking up. It's downhill. And John, I read again this morning, the body is sown in weakness. It is raised in glory, power. And that's... I mean, visit a nursing home if you're naive, all right? It's sown in weakness. It's sown in dishonor. Catheters everywhere, diapers curled up. You want to say, God, these are your children. He said, I know they're my children. And just a few days out, glory! With a new body. A new body that according to Jesus will shine so bright like the sun we will be tempted to worship those old ladies in the nursing home. Yes, we will. They will shine with such queen-like brightness in the kingdom with their new bodies someday that we will marvel. And by the way, they will remember your visits. And thank you. So those are my three descriptions of the inheritance. You're going to get the world. You're going to get God. And you're going to get a body. And when I say it's glorified, like it says there in verse 17, that we may be glorified with him, I mean that it is made of spiritual body and a glorious body so that God can be fully enjoyed and the world can be fully enjoyed without compromising God being fully enjoyed. Right now, every enjoyment I have on the earth tempts me to be an idolater. Right? Prefer sex over God, money over God, pizza over God, Diet Coke over God. Everything is a threatening idol. That won't be true anymore. Eat up! There's no idolatry in the kingdom, not even the slightest temptation toward it. Every bite you take will be worship. But you need a new body for that. New brains, new eyes, new ears, new everything. You're going to be remade for that. And you will be. So that is the inheritance. Last question. Verse 17, And if children, then heirs... So now we've seen best I can do with what the inheritance of the heirs is. Heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, provided if we suffer with him. What does that mean? I'll read you a few passages that you're familiar with. Luke 9, 23, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. So if you want to follow Jesus, it involves cross-bearing. 2 Timothy 3, 12, Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Hebrews 12, 6 The Lord disciplines those whom he loves and chastises every son that he receives. Chastises every son that he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. 1 Peter 4, 13 To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of his glory you may rejoice. Here's the question I ask. So, Paul, are you saying I've got to get some persecution to go to heaven? And so I should say now to you, when you leave here, just make sure you go find somebody to treat you badly. And if you get treated badly this afternoon, you sleep well tonight because you can know you're a Christian. I don't think that's the way Paul's thinking. I don't. In other words, I don't think a strategy for assurance is to seek out persecution. The text might look like that. If you suffer with him, you will be glorified with him. And if the suffering means persecution, you've got to get some or you can't be glorified. Here's why I don't think he's thinking that way. Because the next verse says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time hmm, hmm, are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed. So the question is, what's that? Because that's the same suffering as verse 17, right? He didn't just start over again. If you, provided you suffer with him, in verse 17, you'll be glorified, because I consider that the sufferings of the present time. What are those? Well, to get that answer, you just read the paragraph. Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself might be set free from its bondage to decay. That's not persecution. That's the rotten of John Piper's body. That's kidney failure. That's loss of eyesight. That's loss of hearing. That's the degradation of the glorious creation because of the fall. And then you get to the part about we're groaning in our bodies, verse 23, waiting for our adoption, the sons. So my answer is, what Paul is saying in verse 17 when he says, provided we suffer with him, you know, the emphasis falls on with him, because everybody's going to suffer. In other words, are you willing to stay with him through all your suffering? You're going to suffer, folks. Period. I don't care how rich you are. You can't run from it. You're going to suffer. The question is, will you do it with him? Will all your suffering be sanctified by the conscious confidence, this for me is discipline from my Father to knock all the props of self-reliance out from under my life so that I lean wholly on him. That was my answer to the question, why would he do this? Why would he make suffering the necessary path to the inheritance? And here's the reason. Because if we fallen people were not brought into trial after trial after trial, I would fall ever more deeply in love with the eases and comforts and prosperity and delights physically of my life and forget God. That's why. He knows us. He's a Father. He disciplines all of his children. He knows a therapy that you need in order to make it to the inheritance. And the therapy is different for everybody. John Piper's suffering regimen is different from yours. I don't like mine, but I do not get angry at my God. I have a doctor who must break my leg to save me or amputate it because it's got cancer. And I love my surgeon. I love him because he loves me far more than I love myself. So yes, if we suffer with him, if we don't kick our fist in his face and say, I'm out of here if this is the way you treat your children, I'm out of here. If you say that, you're gone. It's over. If you say, Father, Daddy, I hate my sin more than I hate losing these pleasures, have at me, Daddy, surgeon Daddy, then you can know. Father in heaven, grant, I pray, that there would fall upon this people a great hatred for their own sin that humbles them deeply and sweetens their experience of the Holy Spirit without which they could not hate their sin. And then grant, I pray, O God, grant that they would rise up within every born-again heart in this room an affectionate cry, Daddy, thank you for Christ. Thank you for my regimen. I love you. I need you, Father. And assure us of our inheritance, the world, yourself, a new body. And thus...