SERMON SPOTLIGHT * 7/5/26
As God’s adopted children we’ve been given privileged access that we didn’t earn, and certainty don’t deserve. And yet because of God’s gracious work to save us and adopt us, it is ours anyway. As we will see it is wonderful access. It’s life changing access that gives us strength for today and hope for our future. And it’s given to us when God adopts us. Below is an outline summary of the sermon for your further study and deeper reflection.
SERIES: Romans: The Power of God in the Gospel of Christ
TEXT: Romans 8:14-17
TITLE: The Privilege of Our Adoption
PREACHER: Brett Overstreet
BIG IDEA: Our adoption into God’s family grants us privileged access to God forever.
POINTS:
I. God Makes Us His Children
II. God Makes Us Heirs
SERMON EXCERPTS:
All quotes and text emphasis are taken directly from the pastor’s notes.
ILLUSTRATION: “Take your child to work day”
“…not just any kid could just walk in there and sit at my dad’s computer or flip through his notebook or attend a meeting with him. I was given this privileged access for one reason: I was his son. I didn’t earn it, I didn’t work for it was simply granted to me because of who I was. That meant I didn’t have to fear what would happen if my dad turned corner down the hallway and saw me sitting in his office chair. No other kid in that building was given access to my dad’s private office, that privilege was reserved for me because of who I was.”
“This privileged access is exactly what we find in our text today. As God’s adopted children we’ve been given privileged access that we didn’t earn, and certainty don’t deserve. And yet because of God’s gracious work to save us and adopt us, it is ours anyway. As we will see it is wonderful access. It’s life changing access that gives us strength for today and hope for our future. And it’s given to us when God adopts us. Here’s the big idea from our text: Our adoption into God’s family grants us privileged access to God forever.”
“As Paul writes to the church in Rome, he knows how easy it for the believer to lose sight of this. The same is true for us today. We can walk through the Christian life like nothing’s changed when in reality everything has changed because we’ve privileged access to God. Romans 8 prepares us to treasure this new reality. My prayer for today has been that this truth, as we unpack it from God’s word, would fall on us as if it were the first time and that it would consume us and stir our affections for God.”
“Romans 8 offers us two claims about what God has done for us that gives us this privileged access. He makes us his children and he makes us heirs.”
“We begin in verse 14 where we find Paul connecting us to what we read in the first 13 verses when he identifies “all who are led by the Spirit” in VS 14. In just a few words, Paul is summarizing the new life of the believer that we saw last week. If you remember, Tim defined it as a Spirit-powered, transformed life. But then Paul says something shocking next. He says that all of those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. This is significant, church. We have been called many things in the book of Romans so far, but this is first time we’re called sons of God. Paul is making an identity statement about these believers in Rome. It speaks to their new status before God. But it’s also a statement about us and it means if you have believed in Jesus and received him as your Savior, then you are a child of God.”
“ I don’t know how verse 14 lands on you, but let it take affect. This is a divine declaration from God about us. His eternal, authoritative word declares that you have been granted sonship. Not just some of us. Not just the most mature among us. Not just those who stand up on stage but all who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. That means the moment God saved you, he gave you His Spirit and made you His child. As I prepared this sermon, I found myself unable to get out of verse 14. I just wanted to linger and let the word of God speak this truth over me.”
RUNNING APPLICATION: As Christians we can struggle with our identity, can’t we? There are countless voices telling us what we should be and who we are. We’re too easily tempted to find our identity in our career, in our success, in our parenting in our performance. We run to social media and the internet to find ourselves when it is right here in front us in God’s word. You are sons of God. I know we just started, but don’t rush out of verse 14.
ILLUSTRATION: Alan Jackson song, “We Are All God's Children”
“We are all created by God but nowhere does scripture teach that we are all by nature, children of God. In fact, the reason verse 14 should stop us in our tracks and overwhelm us is that scripture teaches the opposite. We saw in Romans 5 we are enemies of God and Ephesians 2:3 tells us we are by nature children of wrath. But now according to verse 14 something has changed.”
“We weren’t born into the family of God, but when God saved us by grace through faith, he adopted us into the family. This is what we read in the very next verse [look at the 2nd half of 15]; Paul tells us that we’ve received the Spirit of adoption. Here we find that wonderful biblical doctrine of adoption. We love doctrine around here. We love to sit and talk about election, or justification or sanctification – all worthy of our attention and vital to our faith – but how often to you dwell on the doctrine of adoption. Spend some time studying this doctrine church, it will fuel your love for God.”
“I love [Wayne Grudem’s] simple definition because the emphasis is on God acting toward us; God initiating toward us. This is how adoption works. The child does not wake up one morning and decide, “I want to be adopted.” It is the loving disposition of the parent to move toward that child. We see the same thing in our adoption into God's family. In fact, this is what we see throughout all redemptive history. God is moving towards sinners like you and me. God is the initiator of our adoption.”
“In our legal system today (and this would have been true for Paul in his day), when someone is adopted, two things happen. First, the relationship between the child and the former parents is completely severed from a legal standpoint. All of the rights, privileges and obligations cease to exist. Second, by decree of adoption the child is welcomed into the new family and granted all legal rights, privileges and obligations as though they were a biological child. All of this is consummated with the child being given a new name.”
“This is what God does for us: When He adopts us into his family our old relationship to sin and the law, which Paul has already defined as enslavement, is severed and we are now welcomed into this new relationship with God as His children. In this new relationship we are granted all of the rights, privileges and obligations that come from being His child. It’s a wonderful new reality.”
“Adoption was common in ancient Rome, particularly among wealthy and political families. These families would initiate toward the child and deliberately choose them so that they would become their heirs and successors. To be adopted into an elite Roman family was an incredible privilege. It came with the blessings, rights, protections simply because you had been adopted into their family. So, the image being put forth here was not some destitute widow adopting a young child into a difficult situation. To be adopted and given a new name was a tremendous privilege that would have filled their thoughts with the benefits that come as a result of their new status.”
“And if this is true for someone adopted into a Roman family, how much more for those who are adopted by God himself? As God's adopted children, we now share in the privileges and benefits of being children of God. We’re even given a new name. No longer are we called children of wrath, but the beloved of God. No longer are we called enemies of God, but His precious daughters and sons. Everything changes for us.”
“Imagine we’re back in that in the courtroom scene. We learned a few chapters ago about our justification. That term is a legal term. It's the legal act by which God declares us not guilty of our sin and credits us with the righteousness of Christ, and so our legal standing before God the judge changes. We are declared righteous by the judge. Let's play this scene out. If you go to the courts in downtown Tucson tomorrow and witness this, what happens after that legal declaration is made? The newly justified person leaves the courtroom to go on with his life, the judge leaves his bench and retires to his private chambers, and there is no relationship between the judge and the justified.”
“And so theoretically, you could be justified in the eyes of God but share no fellowship or relationship with God. Our adoption into God's family changes that. It brings us into an intimate relationship with God. It's as if the judge declares us righteous and then instead of retiring to his private chambers, he initiates toward the justified and says come with me to my home, come sit in my family room, I want to have a relationship with you. I am adopting you into my family and giving you all of the benefits and privileges that come from being my very son.”
“Church see the manifold wisdom of God on display here. He doesn’t stop at our justification, he adopts us, and our adoption brings us into an intimate relationship with Him, and it changes how we relate to him.”
“This is what Paul is showing us in verse 15. Read it with me. In so many words, Paul is saying don’t be confused about what it is that you’ve received. We didn’t receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Before Christ we lived under the condemnation of our sin and this reality leads to fear. Fear of eternal punishment. But our text reminds us that now as God’s children that’s no longer who you are – we don’t go back to that. At one time you were under the law, you were enslaved to sin and you had every reason to fear God’s judgement.”
“But Paul reminds us that Christ’s work on the cross was a fear-shattering work; it was a condemnation-destroying work. And in his own way Paul is saying stop trying to sneak back into the courtroom. That’s a place of judgement and fear. You are my child and you don’t belong there anymore. Our adoption is proof of what we heard in Romans 8:1.”
RUNNING APPLICATION: But isn’t that easy for us to forget that? We live in fear that God will not accept us or that He doesn’t truly love us because I got angry with my wife again. Or I gave in to sexual temptation, again. I lied, again. Functionally we sneak back into the courtroom don’t’ we? We view our relationship to God as a judge who is watching, just waiting for us to slip up and sin again so he can strike the gavel and condemn us. To do this is to go back and to live like we are still under the law and set to receive eternal punishment for our sins from God the judge. This only results in fear. Here’s the good news: this is not what we’ve received, church.”
“It's no small thing what Paul says here. He says we’ve received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry Abba, Father. He uses the Aramaic term Abba for father. To use this term to address God would have been uncommon, perhaps even revolutionary. It was a common family term in Judaism that communicated love, endearment and close intimacy. Essentially there was no word that could describe a closer relationship between a father and a son. But in Jewish culture, it was common to use this name to refer to your earthly father, but very few would address God in this way.”
“This is not some stoic description of God. This is a term of deep affection and intimacy that communicates the realities of our new relationship with God. If you're a parent, then you'll probably understand this well. When I get home oftentimes my son Jack will hear the garage door open and as I come through the door, he comes running down the hallway and yells out with joy running in every fiber of his body, “dad” and jumps into my arms. Or if he's scared or hurt, he cries out in genuine terror, “dad!” because he knows I will comfort him and protect him as his father. These are the deep, raw emotional groanings of a child to their father. That's what Paul is describing here: the deeply felt, affection filled, childlike groan of our hearts.”
“Church, this is what we’ve received. The freedom and boldness to approach God as our Father. Not fearing that He will condemn us for our sin. Not wondering if he even cares or listens. But knowing we have a father that we can cry out to from the depths of our soul who loves us, because, who adopted He adopted you despite the utter ugliness of your sin and your unwillingness to acknowledge him as God. You can cry out to God like a child cries out to his father, knowing you won’t be forsaken.”
“This cry of Abba, Father didn’t begin with us. This was the very cry of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane on the night before he would go to cross. And if you’ll remember that night with me for a moment, we find Jesus lying face down on the ground in absolute agony as he confronts the cup of God’s unmitigated wrath meant as punishment for our sins. No one had ever experienced the terror that our Savior experienced in this moment. And in this intimate scene between the God the Father and God the Son we find Jesus praying over and over and over again crying out to His Abba Father, asking him to remove the cup. This was not theatre; this was the deep groaning of a child to His Father. This was real for Jesus. And with blood dripping out his pores from the sheer anguish of what he was experiencing, He cries out to His Father.”
“The very next day Jesus would willingly go to cross and he would drink every last drop from that cup. And if you remember Jesus’s words from the cross as He cries out “Why have you forsaken me?” But this time He doesn’t cry out Abba Father, He cries out “My God, My God” because in that moment Jesus is in the courtroom, standing in our place, facing God the judge for our sins. And the God the Father forsakes God the Son so that you and I could become children who will never be forsaken by their Father. The deep, deep groanings of our Savior to his Abba father, give way to our deep groanings to our father.”
“Don’t miss this church. The great privilege of our adoption is that we now call God by the very same name that Jesus calls Him. We can cry out to God just like our Savior, knowing he was forsaken by the Father so that we would never be forsaken. We’ve been given this privileged access to God through our adoption.”
RUNNING APPLICATION: This transforms everything about the Christian life, doesn’t it? Consider the hope and comfort we have as we walk through this fallen world knowing that we cry out to God as our Father. According to verse 15 one of the greatest privileges of our adoption is that by the Spirit we have access to cry out to God as Father. One of the primary ways we do this was modeled for us by Jesus in the garden: prayer. When we pray, we are crying out. But who we are crying out to makes all the difference. An unbeliever can pray, but they can’t pray to their Father. Consider what this means for us:
We can go to God like a child goes to his father needing counsel, knowing he will give us true wisdom.
We can cast our anxieties on Him knowing He cares for us.
We can confess our sin knowing that He will forgive us and loves us unconditionally.
We can run to him when we are afraid knowing He is our protector.
We can call out to him in our suffering knowing he will comfort us.
We can pray together in community group knowing that God delights in the prayers of his children (Prov. 15:8)
We can gather on Sunday morning for pre-service prayer and cry out in Thanksgiving together as God’s family
“We can do all of these things and more knowing that God’s ear is bent toward us, like a loving Father who bends to hear the cries of his child. What good, loving father doesn’t listen too or care about the cries of his children?”
"Perhaps you struggle with this. Perhaps you find it difficult to pray. Be reminded of who you are praying too. The very one who made you the object of his eternal love and affection and adopted you as His child.”
“This reality that we have been made children of God is real and it should humble us. This alone is worthy of an eternity of our worship and gratitude. But scripture tells us there’s more. What we see next should blow us away. Full disclosure: What we are about to see is so unimageable, so extraordinary that everything I’m about to say only scratches the surface.”
“When God saved us and sealed us with His Spirit (Who bears witness to this reality), He not only made us children, but heirs. Did you know that you are an heir? It's quite possible to be a child but not an heir. In fact, in the Old Testament being a child in the family didn’t automatically make you an heir. The true heir who would receive the true inheritance was the first-born son. This is why it was such a big deal that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for some vegetable soup. It mattered where you were born in the family order.”
ILLUSTRATION: Royal lineage being fraught with chaos, murder, and deception - “It was one thing to be a royal child, it was a completely different thing to be the royal heir.”
“Paul says when God adopted us as His children, he didn’t just make us His sons and daughters, He made us heirs. Think about that. It’s one thing to be a child in the family of God – which we don’t deserve and is only because of God’s amazing grace. But it’s a completely different thing to be an heir in the family of God – it’s unimaginable.”
“To be an heir means you are someone who is set to receive or inherit something. So, to be an heir is only as good as the inheritance that you're set to receive.”
“…we have been united to Christ in a such a way that we are fellow heirs with Him. That is, co-heirs, equal heirs with Christ. The one whom scripture tells us is the only son of God, the firstborn of all creation – we are fellow heirs with Him. This is one of the many benefits of our union with Christ. And here’s what it means for us: What He inherits, we inherit. What he receives from the Father, we receive from the Father. And what Christ is set to inherit is wealth far beyond our imagination.”
“When God adopted us as His children, He made us equal, fellow heirs with His firstborn son, now our brother Jesus, who is set to inherit all things. All things. Everything in all of the cosmos. All land, all water, all resources, every star, every planet, every galaxy. Everything seen and unseen. He inherits it all which means we inherit it all! Not just some parts that have been parceled out for the lesser heirs. No, as fellow heirs with Christ we share in His full inheritance of all things. That means you are a wealthy heir. If you can’t wrap your head around that, it’s okay, I can’t either. But I know it’s true because the bible tells us.”
“But here’s what I do know; this is not some inheritance that can be squandered away like the kingdoms of England or the fortunes of this life. No, 1 Peter 1 tells us there is an inheritance waiting for us in heaven that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading. Meaning it is an eternal inheritance that will never grow stale, it will never show signs of decay, it will never be squandered away. There has never been an inheritance like this in all of history because there has never been an heir like Christ in all of history, and it is being kept in heaven for you and it is yours because it is Christ’s and God your Father has made you fellow heirs with Him. From children of wrath to heirs of all things – isn’t the Gospel amazing?”
“You and I could spend eternity naming the stars that we’ve inherited but here’s the problem, none of it would satisfy us. All of the things that we are set to inherit as co-heirs with Christ will never satisfy us. Paul knows this, and he reminds us in verse 17 that we are not only fellow heirs with Christ, but heirs of God Himself. This is everything church.”
“What makes our inheritance so unfathomable, so amazing is not all of the things that we are set to receive but that we get to be with our Father in heaven forever.”
“Perhaps you didn’t come today expecting to be told that you are the wealthiest heir in all of human history set to inherit all things. But as mind blowing as that is, the profound reality of our inheritance is not found in what we receive, but who we receive.”
“When the John was given a glimpse into the new heavens and new earth in Revelation 21 it wasn’t all of the “things” we’re set to inherit that captured his attention. It was the presence of God among His people.”
“Church, there is a day coming when this verse won’t simply be read in a church service or that we share to encourage someone at community group but it will be lived and experienced by us in its fullness because a day is coming when God will gather all of His sons and daughters into presence and we will get to enjoy Him forever.”
”As we leave here; whatever burdens you, whatever discontentment is in your life, whatever sin weighs you down, this can be our response today even in the midst of those things: because we have a Father in heaven who saved us, who adopted us as His own, made us co-heirs with Christ and will one day bring us safely home to be with him.”
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE:
Hebrews 4:16
Hebrews 1:1-2a
Psalm 73:25-26
Revelation 21:3
John 1:12
APPLICATION:
Q - Examine your prayer life this week and ask yourself this question. Do my prayers reflect the privileged access I’ve been given as a child of God?
In Christ we have this freedom to approach God with a boldness and confidence knowing that our Father will never turn us away, never abandon us in our time of need, never retrain his mercy because when He saved us, by grace and through faith, he adopted us as His own.
Maybe it’s hard to see beyond today because today’s just not that great. We’re all tempted to become discontent with this life. But this reality that God has made us children and heirs lifts us above that struggle. It doesn’t take our struggles away, but it reminds us that no matter bad it gets here; no matter how little you have in this life; this unimaginable inheritance awaits you and it can never be taken away. However bad it gets or however good it gets in this life; nothing compares to what awaits us in heaven. Because when God saved you, He sealed you with His Spirit and He is proof that this is your future. If you are suffering, remember that you have a Father in heaven who you can cry out too and He will listen. In your suffering remember you have a brother in Jesus who suffered beyond anything we will experience so that we could become part of the family. He was the ultimate sufferer and He suffered the cross so that sinners like us could share in His inheritance forever.
QUOTES:
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology - “Adoption is an act of God whereby he makes us members of his family.”
Martin Luther - ”’Abba’ is only a little word, and yet contains everything. It is not the mouth but the heart’s affection which speaks like this. Even if I am oppressed with anguish and terror on every side, and seem to be forsaken and utterly cast away from Your presence, yet am I Your child, and You are my Father… This matter is not expressed with words, but with groanings, and these groanings cannot be uttered with any words of eloquence, for no tongue can express them.”
Randy Alcorn - “Heaven would be hell without God.”
Richard Phillips - “What do we have to look forward to as Christians? This is the question that adoption answers. We are heirs of God's glory and all his goods; we will enter into them eternally with Jesus. We will not experience all the blessings of adoption in this life, but we have our Father's promise that we will enter into his glory.”
SCRIPTURE MEMORIZATION:
Romans 8 (entire chapter)
SONGS FROM THIS SUNDAY:
Oh How Good It Is
You Made Us Your Own
We Are Thankful
The Father's Love
We Are Yours Forever
NEXT WEEK’S PASSAGE:
Romans 8:18-27
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