#9: The Spirit of Adoption

I. Introduction
A. I’ve told you that we have some very wonderful things coming up in our study of the Holy Spirit (HS). Today we come to one of those things.
B. After talking about who the Holy Spirit is and what His coming at Pentecost was all about, we have begun to talk about the ministry of the Spirit in the lives of believers today.
C. Today we talk about the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of adoption.
II. Romans 8:15-16 “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!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
A. The Spirit of adoption
1. Last week we talked about the Spirit’s work in regenerating our hearts and causing us to be reborn, turning us from spiritual death to spiritual life. We looked at the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3, when Jesus said to him, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
2. I would suggest that when Jesus spoke about being born of the Spirit, part of what He was speaking about was making us the children of God. You see, we’re not just given new life, we’re given new birth. And birth implies parenthood. The Spirit of regeneration is the Spirit of adoption.
B. “Abba Father”
1. God is referred to as Father only rarely in the OT.
a. (I’ve only found 11 times: Exod. 4:22; Deut 32:6; Ps 103:13; Is. 1:2; 63:16; Jer 3:4, 19; 31:9, 20; Hos. 11:1; Mal 1:6).
b. In fact, in Gal.4:1-7 — the only other passage that talks about us being moved by the Spirit to cry out “Abba, Father” to God — Paul says that before Christ, though believers were actually sons, they related to God as if they were slaves, much as a very young child is treated like a slave, in being disciplined and told everything he is supposed to do, etc.
2. When Jesus went to Gethsemane, carrying burdens so heavy that it made Him sweat blood, He cried out to His Father in Mark 14:36, saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.”
a. At the time this way of addressing God was unheard of. No one had ever prayed like this before. Not only does He pray to God as His father, but He uses this child-like intimate term “Abba” in order to do so, something that had never been done in the OT or in any of the ancient Hebrew Rabbinic writings.
b. ABBA was an expression of intimacy used by children toward their fathers. The typical, more formal way of addressing one’s father was the word ABI. But ABBA is the more intimate, affectionate way that a young child would address his father, not dissimilar to “Daddy” in our language.
c. This intimate language used by Jesus was remarkable, but it gives us a glimpse of the intimate relationship which existed between the Son and His Father.
3. But then an even more remarkable thing happens. When Christ departs and sends His Holy Spirit upon His people at Pentecost, He invites His people to use the same language that He used to communicate with the Father.
a. But it’s not just a matter of language. In giving His disciples the authorization to address God in this “Abba Father” way, Jesus was giving them a share in His relationship of intimacy with His heavenly Father.
b. In sending the Holy Spirit, Jesus was saying to His people, “You can call My Daddy ‘Daddy.’”
c. And He not only invites His people to use this intimate term to call out to God, but also moves them by His Spirit more and more to come to God in this spirit of a child, stirring up and enhancing this intimacy with God the Father.
d. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6)
e. This kind of relationship to God can only come through Jesus. It is on the basis of His Sonship that we can enjoy this kind of sonship with God. We call God Father only through His Son, because we have received the Spirit of His Son.
f. Adoption means sharing in the love that God has for His only begotten Son.
g. It is by faith that we become united to Christ and receive His benefits. And one of the primary benefits is to share in the love that God has for His Son.
4. What is involved in this cry of “Abba Father”?
a. It is a cry of need, a cry of confidence in His help, a cry of love, an expression of intimacy.
b. It is the Spirit that produces in us a child-like love for God our Father.
c. It is the Spirit that works in us the confidence that God looks with tender compassionate love upon us as His beloved children.
d. It’s the Spirit that moves us, in confidence of His love, to cast our cares upon Him (1Pet.5:7).
5. It is such a deeply ingrained impulse for a child to look to parents for help and comfort, sometimes children call out “Daddy” or “Mommy” even when they are asleep.
a. Well, the Spirit works to produce this kind of deep impulse in us, this impulse of thinking of God as our Daddy, inclining us to run to Him for safety, to call to Him in trouble, to think of Him as our security.
b. It is as if Jesus, through the Spirit, comes down and leads us in prayer to His Father.
6. When “Abba, Father” is our cry, we’re right where we’re supposed to be. And more and more the Holy Spirit moves us to yearn for the consummation of our adoption, when Christ returns again in glory. “We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:23).
7. The fact that God has invited us, through the Spirit of His Son, to address Him in this intimate way, tells us a lot about His intentions for His children.
a. It is a sign and demonstration of His great love and of His desire to have an intimate personal relationship with each one of His children.
b. It is a promise of fatherly care.
c. It is a foretaste of the glory that is to come, when we shall receive the full measure of all that God has prepared for His children, the inheritance we shall receive as His sons.
8. Now someone might ask, “Isn’t it from the Scriptures that we know of God’s fatherly love?”
a. That is absolutely true. But that truth can’t actually get into our hearts apart from the Holy Spirit doing His work in us, opening, softening, changing, rearranging.
b. It isn’t information which comes from the Spirit into our hearts. It is the assurance of, and the embracing of that information which the Spirit accomplishes in us.
c. Remember, it is not natural for man to reach out to God. That is something only the Holy Spirit can produce in a person’s heart.
9. This Abba-cry must be distinguished from a natural yearning that many non-believers have to think that there is someone bigger and stronger than them that is favorably disposed toward them. This is something that does not come from within us, but from without us. It is a gift given to us by God. It is His Holy Spirit. And it is only through Christ that it can come.
C. Crying out
1. One more thing. Notice that the idea here is not praying “Abba Father” or addressing God as “Abba Father.” It says, “we cry out, "Abba! Father!"”
2. When you do a Bible word study on this word, the thing which stands out is how frequently it is used in the book of Psalms, which contains so many instances of “crying out” to God.
3. This ABBA Father is not the cry of a spoiled child pestering his father for more privileges.
4. ABBA Father is a cry of humility, of longing to be held, of longing to know the comforting, assuring presence of the One who cares about me more than any other.
5. There is a song I’ve known since childhood, which many of you probably know too: Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child. Here are the words as I remember them:
a. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child (3x) A long way from home (2x)
b. Sometimes I feel like I got no friend, A long way from home
c. Sometimes I feel like I’m almost gone, A long way from home
6. This song expresses well a feeling that we get at times. We feel lost. We feel like no one really cares about us. We feel alone and isolated.
a. These words about the Spirit’s ministry in our hearts to stir us up to cry out, “Abba, Father” is God’s answer to this human experience of aloneness and homelessness. When we begin to feel this way, we have a place to go. We can go to our Daddy in heaven, the One who knows us best and loves us most.
b. I think this is what the original idea of the song was. The oldest wording we have (1899) is:
(1) O sometimes I feel like a motherless child
(2) Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
(3) O my Lord, sometimes I feel like a motherless child
(4) Then I get down on my knees and pray. (I.e. then I cry out Abba Father.)
7. Before leaving His disciples, Jesus said told them, “I will not leave you as orphans.” (John 14:18)
a. If you are in Christ, you are not an orphan! You have a gracious heavenly Father who loves you!
b. 1John 3:1 “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”
c. What a privilege “Abba Father” is! How we see God’s love in it! How we receive God’s help by it!
d. How else could we survive? When the load gets heavy, when it is painful to keep pouring out our lives, when we taste the grief of dying to ourselves, what would we do if we could not cry out to our Father in heaven?
e. When we begin to feel overwhelmed with anxieties, when pressures mount, when we feel threatened, this is where we run.
f. Giving us the Holy Spirit was a better gift than if He had given us the whole world! (Though He actually did give us the whole world as well, but that’s a subject for another day.)