Man a Child of God

Well, tonight we're going to be doing, like Jimmy was saying, lesson two, Man, a Child of God. And what a wonderful topic this is. I learned a lot when I was preparing for it. But what this is going to do — kind of get our heads wrapped around and our hearts wrapped around — when we get our minds wrapped around this is really the structure, the structure and how we're set up between who God is and who we are. And looking at that from the doctrinal truth of man being a child of God and what that means and what that looks like. As you look on your sheet here, we're going to go through six sections and we're going to get these one at a time.

But to kind of get our head wrapped around it first, being a man, being a child of God — thinking about it from an illustrative point of view — is like a, from a business term. In a business term, you would have a subsidiary. You have a daughter company. You have your parent company, your holding company. You have your subsidiary. You have your daughter company. And that daughter company is legally and financially controlled by the parent company. And so everything that that daughter company brings in, there are contractual terms that define that relationship where that daughter company is legally and financially controlled by the parent company. There are other business terms that would help describe the relationship between one entity — things like divisions, associate company, programs, tiers.

If you're in a corporate environment like myself, these buzzwords are all over the place and they're unique, right, to the industries and different things like that where it helps us define clearly what the relationship is. And so we see that in the Bible actually, right? We see all over the Bible where it's described — where terms are being used to help us understand our relationship as human beings with our Creator.

We talked about last week about man being created by God. And so this is kind of like that next follow-on to help unpack this and to understand this. For one thing, in a business, there's a joint venture — and that is absolutely not the relationship between man and God. What is often interpreted as — as we think about God being our co-pilot, right? And we think about this as this joint venture. So we have an incorrect, very unbiblical view of our relationship with God. And so on the front of your handout, I want you to write on the top — on the top left, I want you to write the word "universal."

And on the right side, I want you to write the word "particular." And this will kind of help you narrow down some of these categories in our minds as we kind of go through them one at a time. We're going to look at these two broad categories: man as a child of God universally, and we're also going to unpack it in a way where how it means particularly — universal on the left and particular on the right.

So in, maybe, next to the word "universal," you can write the word "natural" — in a natural sense. In the "particular," you can write the word "spiritual."

So section one — read with me here and fill in the blanks. God is the Father of all men.

God is the Father of all men in that He originates them.

Fatherhood in this basic sense implies origination, origination.

In impartation of life to mankind, God as Father underlines the history of creation. On the front there, you have Malachi 2:10. Read that with me here.

"Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we, why do we deal treacherously with one another by profaning the covenant of the fathers?"

And to help us understand this relationship, just initially, just off the bat here, I really love that phrase, "covenant of the fathers." And when we think about how God revealed Himself throughout the Old Testament, it was through these covenants. And in Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, it was kind of looking back as the people of Israel were looking at their relationship with God through these covenants. And some were conditional, some were unconditional. We're not going to get into a covenant discussion tonight. But it helped us understand that this was a sacred relationship, that this was something that was very precious, that there is like an inner circle between God and His people.

And this originally came to all — not with the covenants — but in this particular one, it was in relationship to the nation of Israel. And so when we see Israel break these covenants, we see them do it in a way where it was very heinous and very vulgar, where they intermarried with other nations and they brought foreign gods into a circumcised group of people. And that was a blatant violation of this relationship that Israel had with God.

And so that is what describes our relationship as an individual with God when we violate His law. When we violate His law, it's like God sitting there watching while you heinously break His commandments. And we kind of see that happening. Going back to business terms, it's like if a daughter company in relationship with the parent company makes an agreement — makes another contract with another company without the authorization of the parent company — and the parent company is sitting there like, "What?" So the parent company, in this case, the rank of authority is held without any sort of moral debt or compromise of breaking the covenant, but the daughter company — or the child, or the entity that's underneath — is in complete violation of what was originally agreed upon and contractually agreed.

And so even still, all men originate from God. Therefore God is the ruling authority over all men. That's a very key thing as we get to this point where the fatherhood in the basic sense implies origination. And so in that basic sense, all men originate from God. Therefore God is the ruling authority over all men.

The next verse is in Acts 17. We're going to hit this verse and then a few verses after that later on. But in Acts 17, this is the part where Paul is addressing the men of Athens. And so he's describing a secular group. Read with me here as he's in the middle of his address. It says, "For in him" — this is Acts 17 verse 28 — "For in him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, for we are also His offspring."

And if you're looking at it in context, he actually is referring to all mankind. When he's addressing the men of Athens in the public square there, when it says "us," he's referring to all mankind. And the word "offspring" here at the end of this verse — there is a Greek term that was used here: "genos." And "genos" is another word for children, or a kind, or in the terms of a family. And so when we think about that, it's very important to understand that this is the Apostle Paul making it very clear about how all mankind is under the offspring of God. And so therefore God is the ruling authority over all men.

The next verse on the back, 1 Corinthians 8 verse 6, it says, "Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we exist."

The application for this first section is: how do we as fathers witness about God?

How do we as fathers witness about God? In other words, when other people see us, how do people see us as an example of who God is? When people hear our words, when they see our actions, are they learning more about God by just watching you and listening to you and understanding you more? As you are able to proclaim God's word, you're able to make Him known by who you are and what you say.

And so many can be spiritual fathers as well. So we've talked about in our spiritual maturity how we grow to be fathers of the faith — that we reproduce by making disciples. And so that's another sense. I know when I was at a pregnancy center a year and a half ago — I was serving there for a couple of years — I would get into a little room with a boyfriend, maybe even a guy who was with the pregnant gal, just to escort her to the center for whatever reason. And I remember being able to get in there and to listen and to be a sounding board for this young man who is most likely afraid about what's next ahead. And so this was something that I think about — these men that I would come across: how are they going to get to know God by what I say or what I do? It could be a two-minute conversation. It could be an hour conversation.

I really don't know when I was serving in that capacity what was going to take place. And there were some times where I wanted to kind of reach across and pound this into the guy's mind. And I was just like, "You know, all your girlfriend or your baby want to hear is for you to look at them and to say, 'You're mine. I love you.'" That's all they want. And so I would want to try to communicate that in a way where this man can go off to his family and demonstrate the heart of God — the heart of God — as we all desire for God to be able to look at us and say, "You are mine. I love you."

And that's something that I think we can always aspire to do better in. And we're all fallible creatures. But that's something to kind of help us get started here — to be able to understand this relationship between God and mankind. It gets very personal really quick. And thankfully we have a God who is always there and He is holy and righteous, and nobody needs to jumpstart God, right? We are totally like what we said — like we are the daughter company that has made the agreement with another company. And God is right there observing that, and He will hold us accountable, as we'll get into here in a little bit.

This next section — read with me here in section two. "God is the Father of all men in that He created them as personal beings."

First blank is "personal."

"He created them as personal beings with a likeness — a likeness in nature to Himself."

Fatherhood in this natural sense implies a similarity of faculties and powers. God as Father underlines the doctrine of humanity.

So to kind of help us understand this likeness that we have with God, there are two different ways where we can look at our attributes and God's attributes, as we've kind of unpacked God's attributes in this theology lesson. We can go back into another series and understand God's attributes. The two different types of attributes are communicable — I've always had trouble saying that — communicable attributes and incommunicable attributes. We've said this before: the word "comm," or communicable — the word "comm" comes from the Latin word meaning with, or together, or jointly. And so the communicable attributes are ones that we share with God. These are ones like we share a sense of love, a sense of justice, a sense of truthfulness, rational thought, and relational capacity.

And as we grow to be more like Christ in our sanctification, we show the fruit of the Spirit. However, God is holy and He's set apart. He's other. His nature is alien to our spiritual corruption. And so we do share these communicable attributes, but they're finite and they're fallible. Right. And that's when we get into the incommunicable attributes, where they are exclusive only to God. He's omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, infallible, sovereign, self-existent, transcendent — transcendent as He is over all His creation. He is immanent in that He is close by. He is Emmanuel. He is immanent. He's immutable and He's eternal. So you can see how those are often misunderstood or often neglected. We sometimes feel like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah — I want to dwell on these communicable attributes of God. I want to put God in a box and different things. But He is high and lifted up in these incommunicable attributes.

We see titles in the Hebrew — or in the Old Testament — where the Jewish people call God El Shaddai, Adonai, and YHWH.

Read with me on the front here in James chapter 3, verse 9.

"With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God." And in the NASB, the word "similitude" is "likeness." So "who have been made in the likeness of God."

So the application for this section is: we are to be holy, therefore, therefore, as God is holy. We are to be holy, therefore, as God is holy.

I was thinking about leaving out some movie quotes tonight, but I can't help it. I think the one movie quote I have tonight is from a movie — I wouldn't recommend it. It's a Stephen King knockoff that he wrote. It's called The Gunslinger. But there's a phrase in there that helps us understand this. The gunslinger says to these two girls he sees — they're dressed in scandalous clothes on the subway — and he just looks at them and says, "You have forgotten the face of your father."

"You have forgotten the face of your father." And I feel like we as mankind have forgotten what it means to be set apart. We have forgotten what it means to live in the sacred. We have forgotten what it means to be in Christ. And so we go about and we live a life where our back is turned. And we have this agreement that is in violation of God's law. And we find others that are okay with that, and we live in that.

There are three different ways — and I'll go through these pretty quickly. They're not on your sheet, but if you have a side piece of paper, you can write them down or go back to the video and watch these. I got these from Ravi Zacharias. I know — Ravi Zacharias — this is probably one of the one or two things that I got from him that were good. The truth doesn't change. But these are three different ways where we as men and mankind repel God's holiness. Right. The application is that we ought to be holy. But these are three ways where we as individuals — perhaps you do these as well as I do at certain times — where we repel God's holiness.

The first one is secularization.

Secularization is the process by which religious ideas, institutions, and interpretations are considered to have lost their social significance.

Secularization is a way where you live a life — or an organization or your family lives a life — where you are extracting yourself away from religious ideas and basically the sacred, and you're pulling yourself out of that and secularizing. And so in doing so, the church and the sacred have lost their significance. And the result of that is that you — or the society — has lost its sense of shame.

Because when you don't have the sacred, what is there to be shameful about? I can parade around however I like. I can do this. I can do that. Because I have secularized myself from the sacred. I have secularized myself from God. And so that's the first way where we try to repel God's holiness.

A second way where we do this is pluralization — pluralization — different from diversity. I think we as Americans embrace and love our diversity and cultures. But this is a way where in pluralization there is a competing number of worldviews available to its members and no worldview is dominant. This leads to relativism.

So when you have pluralization and there's no worldview that's dominant, you can argue yourself out of anything. You can point here and point there and justify any kind of actions that you have, because we live in a pluralistic society where all worldviews are held at a very similar level of authority. You see this happening when organizations are being flattened, where the sacred is dismissed. Organizations or families are flattened. You see the demasculinization of the family. You see that there's more competing authority in the world across this pluralization type of society. So that's the second way where we try to repel God's holiness. The first one is secularization and then pluralization. Pluralization results in no reason and irrationality.

We live in a place where there's no reason and there's irrationality when there's pluralization and no dominant worldview above that provides answers to life's problems.

The third way is privatization. Privatization. Now, I'm more of an introvert myself. This is more of a temptation for me — to want to live a life that is private, and even to make it a privatization that goes against the mandate we talked about last week in Genesis 1, where man is to fill the earth. It's to go out and get into the world. And so privatization is keeping your deepest responses to the most important things in life personal.

The deepest responses to the most important things in life personal. And the result of privatization is a breakdown of meaning and there's nothing that is sacred. And so you can live a life that is private and then when you go out, anything goes. So you can kind of see how these three ways reveal our tendency to repel God's holiness.

So we should not forget the face of God. We should live our life — the Latin phrase is Coram Deo. Hope I'm pronouncing that right. Coram Deo. And we are to live a life as if God in all His holiness and all His sacredness is right there — where He is immanent. And not only is that a "what if," but He is. And that's when we go back to the truth of His incommunicable attributes where what separates Him from mankind is that He is immanent and He is right there in whatever you and I may be doing.

And so this often naturally repels us — we want to do away with God. We don't want anything to do with God. We want God out the door. I want to live my life. I want to agree with whoever I want to agree with.

So flip over on the back and go to Romans.

And hopefully after that setup, these verses here will hit home for you as they have done for me — in Deuteronomy 32 verses 4 through 6.

"The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He. They have dealt corruptly with Him. They are no longer His children because they are blemished. They are a crooked and twisted generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is it not He, your Father, who created you, who made you and established you?"

So when we sin and we break this agreement, God is still our originator. He is still the one. He is still our Creator. We're going to get into what this means when we do violate. And so that's going to be in a couple of sections from now.

Section three. Let me read section three. "God is the Father of all men in that He sustains, governs, cares for, and loves all men. God is the Father of all men in that He sustains, governs, cares for, and loves all men."

God as Father underlines His preservation and providence.

I love these next couple of verses coming from Matthew, because Matthew wrote his gospel to the Jews. And when you look at the Old Testament — in the Jews' Bible in Jesus's time — nowhere in the Old Testament do you see the Jewish people refer to God by the name "Father."

And so these verses in Matthew stick out tremendously. It would have spoken volumes the way Matthew's gospel, addressing the Jews, was very to the point. And it was often considered — when Jesus referred to God as Father — it was borderline, if not blasphemous. It was too casual to be used as a name for God. And so, anyway, that's another thing. But these verses in Matthew here on the front — read with me. Matthew 6 verse 26, where Jesus was saying, "Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them."

"And yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"

And then in Matthew 10:29, "Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will."

God is not a stoic watchmaker sitting upstairs. God is immanent. He is close by. He is interactive with His creation. And it says so here — that He takes care of them. He sustains them. And Jesus is pointing out that He's taking care of His creation. So how much more value would He take care of you?

This love described here in these verses is in a natural sense. It's in a natural sense as a universal action — getting back to that word "universal" at the top. This is still kind of under that category where the rain — the rain that God sends — falls on the just and the unjust. All people born into this world are breathing God's air and drinking God's water and eating God's food, etc. This is where we are in our Father's world. Are we not?

So the application for number three is: depend on God as He is the perfect Father. Depend on God as He is the perfect Father.

I'll give you another personal example. I was in the Army, and when we were training — when I was just learning as a cadet — I had upperclassmen who were training alongside me. And sometimes they would show by example how to advance on an objective. And so me, not knowing anything — I just came from running cross country in high school, and I'm here in my younger twenties trying to learn how to shoot a rifle and all these kinds of things about advancing and bounding and switching your selector level from safe to semi. Whenever I had an upperclassman who I trusted and who I knew cared for me, I would follow him wherever he went, and I would almost want to use him like a human shield. I would be that close by, watching him and looking at everything that he's doing. I want to do the same thing and I want to be right behind him so the bullets would hit him first before they got to me. And so there was this utter dependence — this utter dependence — as a young soldier that I would have with someone who was technically and competently sound in the ways of staying alive and fighting as a soldier. And so this is kind of what it is in a spiritual sense, is it not? When we go into this world, who better to follow than God, where we keep going back to His attributes and we keep being reinforced in who God is and that we must depend on Him because He cares for us.

The enemy is prowling around and seeking whom he may devour, and so we need to be depending on God.

Section four is: God's fatherhood of all men is evidenced by His fatherly treatment of all men and His universal claim — first blank is "universal claim" — by His fatherly treatment of all men and His universal claim on men for filial love and trust. Another word — "filial" — I believe means family love. And trust is the next word. So "universal claim" and "love and trust" are the blanks.

So the last sentence is: God as Father underlines the history of the fall of man and qualifies the doctrine of sin.

So this kind of starts the transition that we have from the universal to the particular. This goes to where there's this universal claim — where you could say a circle of trust is now being defined in this relationship. When you're in the circle, it is particular. When you're outside the circle, you're still universally God's — He owns you. He has His universal ruling authority that is over you. And so I want you to understand this concept of the circle of trust in the context of family. And biblically we see this relationship very well explained in the Prodigal Son in Luke chapter 15. We're not going to spend the time reading that, but make note there in Luke 15. I know it's one of my wife's favorite, favorite passages. And it was the son who left the father — was it not? Remember that.

So it is that with you and me who break God's law — it is like we would be the prodigal son that has left. And what's amazing about this truth that we're studying here is that even while the prodigal son has left — this is outside of what the parable is saying, but the truth in this section here is that even while the prodigal son is gone, the father is taking care of his own son. That's the power of God in that — and that's the universal claim that God has made to all men in this. But we also have to be careful: there is this circle of trust that has been broken. And so there's another sense where our relationship has changed because — praise God for His goodness — but we are cursed because of His goodness, are we not?

Do you see that? That we often want to blame God, don't we? Even though we're the ones that left, we're going to turn back around and say, "But God, You didn't do this for me or You didn't do that for me," or whatever the case is. We're going to find some way to try to get our authority on the same level as God and act like God and look up to God. But we are cursed because of His goodness. And so we left God's circle of trust, where now it presents this idea of salvation, and only God can redeem us. That's what the Bible was written for. If you need a quick definition of the Bible — if someone asks you — I like to say that it is God's plan of redemption for man. It is God's plan of redemption for man.

The application for this fourth section is: our fatherhood and accountability are related.

Our fatherhood and accountability are related.

This is where the rubber meets the road, right?

This is one of the reasons why societies have historically — and I think even recently — demasculinized. It's because there is a decreasing number of fathers out there who want to, or who have any sort of meaningful accountability for their families, or men who will stand up and be accountable for what goes on in our churches or organizations. And so we want to find ways to deflect. We want to accept carelessness. We want to be around people who are fine with that. When I was at West Point, I would often hear a saying — when I was pushing — I was younger, but I would kind of jokingly, half-jokingly say it to underclassmen. When a new cadet would make a mistake or would do something carelessly, I would say, "You know what, you just killed your platoon." And so it kind of became like a running joke because it was meant to be rung into our heads during training — that as we are being trained to be accountable as leaders, when we make mistakes as leaders, it has consequences, right? And so this question here is: are fatherhood and accountability related? Absolutely. Absolutely. Fatherhood — whether you like it or not — you are the spiritual leader of your family.

Right.

And so when — for me, as a platoon leader — when a soldier broke regulations, as the ranking officer for that soldier I was obligated to respond, and if I didn't respond, there would be consequences, right? What if a soldier broke regulations? Well, it won't be long before a second soldier breaks regulations, and so on and so forth. But those consequences wouldn't be carried out and enforced just for the sake of preventing the spread — it was simply the right thing to do, right? And so that's one of the things that we pride ourselves on. They say we pray to do the harder right instead of the easier wrong. And that's often when it is done right. So we as fathers — I have all the respect in the world for fathers — and we try to nurture them here at our church. We come around our fathers and we try to elevate and provide resources. And we come around to encourage, encourage one another in that.

So when it comes to this accountability as fatherhood in our relationship with God — flip over on the back, and we get back to Acts 17. If you look under the top right of your sheet, let me continue reading verses 29 through 31. "Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone — something shaped by art or man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."

And so Paul is in essence just bringing back this original concept, right? All men are accountable to God. And so it's not like this separation — we are His creatures, and so God commands — right, it's not an invitation. Can you imagine as a platoon leader saying, "I would like to cordially invite a young soldier — if you would please follow Article 1..." No. These are commands, right? That's a ranking authority officer. And how much more important is God and His authority that He commands us to repent? And repentance is to be able to turn — to turn away from your sin and turn to Him. So if you get back to repentance, it's like if the daughter company made an agreement with another company outside the approval of the holding company. It is cutting off — turning away from that other company — and coming back to God, to that parent company, and shutting out, turning away from all other agreements from any other companies except the parent company. Does that make sense? It's very simple, right? This is not rocket science. But it's very enlightening, is it not, when we think about how simple it is to be a child of God?

And so in this respect, when we talk about God — He is accountable for His creation. He is not a careless, careless God.

He came down hard on His own Son. Like Voddie says — Voddie Baucham. He says God came down on His own Son, and you think He's going to let you slide?

So when we think about that, it is very simple but very extreme. It is very extreme. Our destination is either going to be extremely good or our destination is going to be extremely bad.

Very, very urgently important truth — to get this understanding of our relationship with God here.

Section 5. I'll go back over on the back. "All men are" — and this is where it gets into the particular. "All men are sons of God only in this natural sense. All men are not" — first blank is "not" — "all men are not truly sons of God in the spiritual sense." Second blank is "spiritual."

"All men are not truly sons of God in the spiritual sense."

God is naturally the Father of all men as Creator. God is spiritually and morally the Father only of those who have been united with His Son through faith by the Holy Spirit.

"The natural fatherhood of God prepares" — the blank is "prepares" — "the natural fatherhood of God prepares the way for God's special fatherhood toward all who are in Christ." God as Father underlines union with Christ.

So the reason — like we said here — the reason for distinguishing these two, universal and particular, is very important in our culture. God's grace is so great and widespread that we often don't even see the difference. You know, right there in our natural sense. God's wonder and His splendor — the things that we are able to enjoy here in our culture and in this great United States.

We see the greatness of God. We have a history we can go back to — the Puritans, the Mayflower. I mean, we just have so much to be blessed by. We have a part of this heritage in our culture where we do see the greatness of God. But we often see the exact opposite when we see the wicked prosper and the righteous suffering, right? So in one sense we can see the greatness of God, and in another sense we see the exact opposite. I don't have time to read it, but in Psalm 73 — that is the heart of the Psalmist. If you feel like you're being isolated for your righteousness and you see others around you who are prospering while blatantly disobeying God's law, Psalm 73 is a psalm for you. I often refer to that sometimes.

When I was reading the Psalms and the Proverbs — my perspective on the biblical wisdom literature — I've often kind of read through those pretty quickly. Recently, in recent years, I now see myself originally as part of the wicked, and I see that the righteous is only Christ, and anything that comes from righteousness comes from Christ. And so it's very convicting. You know, not many people are trained, when you're reading the Bible, to be able to read it and always, always, always — do you not think the other person is the wicked? No matter what you're doing, the other person is the wicked and you're always the righteous one, right?

I would challenge you to read it the other way. When you're looking at the righteous, think about Christ. When you're reading those others — there on the front in Ephesians 2:1 through 3, where you see this — listen to these words. When you read this again — and I know we just heard this preached a few Sundays ago — but the phrases "sons of disobedience" and "children of wrath," in this particular part of theology, in Ephesians 2:1 through 3:

"And you were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all previously lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest."

That is heavy, isn't it?

We all once were — and if you have not come to Christ, you still are — and that is the truth. And so when we think about the truth here, especially if you still are — if you're still thinking about this God thing, is this for me — this application question will, we pray, help you out. How are children of wrath redeemed?

How are children of wrath redeemed? The word "redeemed" means to be bought back.

When you're in the grocery store, how many times do you see something on the shelf jump out and get into your cart by itself? You don't see that. You don't, you don't, you don't see that. It takes the purchaser to grab it and have the intention of buying it. So that's the concept of redeeming. And so that's a very simple concept, but a lot of us don't understand what it means to be redeemed — that we have been bought back, that God has redeemed us as a child of wrath, and in all the heinousness of that wrath that we store up in our hearts, that God bought us back. And He didn't buy us back by just writing a check.

It cost Him His Son.

It cost Him His only Son to go after the lost.

And that's why Jesus came — to seek and to save that which was lost.

And He didn't have to, but He poured out His wrath on Him. He poured out His wrath on His own Son. And knowing that truth, I'd like to continue in Ephesians — on the back, Ephesians chapter 2, starting with verse 4. And these are the most wonderful two words, knowing all that about where we are as children of wrath and reading this with the question in mind: how are children of wrath redeemed?

"But God" — but God — "being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him."

And in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the boundless riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift — it is the gift of God — not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." That speaks for itself. If you want any more of that, we have a couple of sermons that talk about that.

Section six here — look back on your front, read with me in section six. "God's fatherhood makes incarnation possible."

Now read that again a little slower. "God's fatherhood makes incarnation possible." This isn't "God makes atonement possible," right?

This is the incarnation.

We have other words to describe the atonement. Here in this section, "God's fatherhood makes incarnation possible, for this implies" — first point is "nature" — "oneness of nature between God and man. The atoning death of Christ could only be effective upon the ground of a common nature in Christ and humanity."

"Even the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit is intelligible only as the restoration of a filial relation — or family relation — which was native to man but which sin had disrupted."

And the last sentence: "God as Father underlines the history of His redemptive work."

So this basically means that we would not be able to be saved if Jesus the Christ was not the God-man, right? There was a very unique and only way for God to provide salvation. It was only by His Son. The only way for us to be saved is if the Son of God became man — where He was truly God, truly man, fully God, fully man. That means the same thing if you define it in the right way. But it is absolutely critical for this. And I think other religions lead others astray by saying that Jesus was just a man, He wasn't God, and all these types of things. No — for the atoning death of Christ to be effective, there had to be a union of the incarnation of God becoming flesh.

And this is — I am so happy and joyful that we as a culture still celebrate Christmas and that we still honor the incarnation. What a wonderful thing this is, to help us understand this. I want to turn our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 2.

I'm going to read several verses here and God's word is going to speak for itself.

We'll spend a few more minutes after this, but in Hebrews chapter 2, I'm going to be starting in verse 11.

"For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father."

Let me read that again. "For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father." I'm going to pause here for a second. Do you see the uniqueness and the critical nature of Christ — because of the Son of God coming from the Father?

There had to be Someone that comes from the Trinity.

"For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying" — and your name being God — "I will proclaim Your name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise." And again, here's the position of Christ. And the next one is the position of those in Christ. Verse 13: "And again, I will put My trust in Him, and again, behold, I and the children whom God has given Me."

"Therefore" — there's so much impact in there, but we're just going to continue reading — verse 14: "Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death — that is, the devil." Amen. I could read that verse over and over again. It is the power of Christ that overcame death. Verse 15: "And might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives." It's another example of total depravity, if you're looking at that — that all people are subject to slavery from the time they're born — that their whole life we have been subject — we are children of wrath.

"We are subject to slavery all our lives." Verse 16: "For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendants of Abraham."

"Therefore He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able — He is able — to come to the aid of those who are tempted."

He is God, and He overcame death.

1 Corinthians 15: "O death, where is your sting?"

And in the passage here, you see on the front Romans 8. It reads:

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did."

"By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

If you have your Bibles, flip over to Romans 8, because the point here in verses 3 through 4 — the word "condemned" screams at the reader. Because we know Romans 8 verse 1 says that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. And then in verse 3 here, "He condemned sin in the flesh." And so this demands an either/or: are we going to be eternally saved, or are we not?

Thanks be to God for His qualified atonement, where the sacrifice could only be the God-man.

And the application for this last part is: how can you reconcile others to God? How can you reconcile others to God?

My simple definition of the word "reconcile" is to make right. And two people cannot reconcile if there is not an intermediary absolute.

You're either going to reconcile to the one, or the one is going to reconcile to the other. There needs to be an absolute intermediary in order to make things right. And what more of an absolute intermediary is there than Christ, and the name of Christ? And so when we read on the back, the last verse here — 2 Corinthians 5:18.

"Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation."

I understand reconciliation because I often use it at work when I run weekly reports and we have to reconcile our weekly reports to our monthly reports. Our monthly reports are what's reported to the corporation, and the monthly reports are what is absolute. And so what could have errors and could have missed the mark gets reconciled to what is absolute.

And so we cannot reconcile on our own. We cannot reconcile ourselves apart from God's work in us. And so He reconciles us by redeeming us — by Him pulling us off the shelf, putting us in the circle of trust. And now we are in this particular arrangement of an unconditional covenant — the new covenant — that God has made through Christ.

And so how can we reconcile others? First, you must understand the message of reconciliation. And then you go out and go. And so, to proclaim — to continue in God's word, as the end of our next steps book calls. I believe in John 8:31 is the verse that talks about continuing in His word. And so this means to be able to preach Christ crucified, to stay true to the Scriptures. And when you do that, you are going to reveal in others how they are off. And that means pointing out sin, because you can't call someone to be reconciled if they don't know they're off. Think of it like a bullseye target. In order to get right with God and into that bullseye, you need to point out, "Hey, you're off the target." And so there's a ministry there of reconciliation, where those who are in Christ — those who are on target — need to go out and wrap around those who are not reconciled, and to bring them to Christ. And so we can do that in a way that is loving — in a way that applies the lesson from section one of being a witness of who God is, making Him known to others. And in all that, we need to call others to look to Christ, to believe in Him as their Lord and their Savior.

That He accomplished the work required to get back to God — to get back to His family, His original intended family, the circle of trust — to be reconciled.

So pray with me. Lord, we thank You for this time, and I do pray that there is understanding here. I know in our culture, this is one of the most misunderstood. We have been a fallible, fallible people. We have gone astray, and it is difficult for us to look around and to see others who are reconciled and who are not in Christ — who are not in Your redeemed, regenerated church. And so help us to be able to go out and to minister in this reconciliation that You call us to do. But dear Lord, we do ask You to help us. We ask for You to help us when we go out and we see the wicked prospering, that You would give each and every one of us a sense of blessing and joy of Your salvation that You have given to us. We do praise Your name as we look around here in this church, and we are encouraged by those who are reconciled. What an encouragement it is to be around such a redeemed people here. And just continue to be with us. Be with us tonight and as we move forward. In Jesus' name. Amen.