Father, we thank you for this time together as we're winding our time down. We do ask that you give us mental and physical strength and energy, that we would be able to hear you speaking to us, O Lord. We thank you for that. Father, be with me now as I unfold this glorious topic, fathers and sons in redemptive history, as we now look at the new covenant. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. Last time we looked at fathers and sons in the Old Testament, and really to be honest with you, it's a long story of failure in the father-son relationship. It really is of sinful fathers giving birth to sinful sons, of them violating that relationship, of the Jews being evicted from the promised land. It's really a story of failure. And how glorious is it then for us to turn now to the New Covenant and the story of the fruits of a perfect son's complete obedience to his Father, and that is Jesus.

And we find our salvation in the obedience of the Son to the Father. And I want to begin by just as best we can, probing into the mysteries of the nature of that obedience. Take a minute and look in Hebrews chapter 5. And we're going to be looking briefly at verses 7 and following. But I want to take you...

You're going to be looking at Hebrews 5, but I want to take in your mind to the Garden of Gethsemane. In Mark chapter 14, Jesus enters that garden and it says in an amazing way, if you look at the King James Version in Mark 14-33, it says that Jesus was amazed and troubled. None of the other English translations pick up on this, but it is an accurate translation as so often happens with the King James, that Jesus was astonished or amazed in Gethsemane. Now it's the same word used concerning the crowd's reactions to His miracles or to some surprising action on His part. A sense of wonder and amazement on the part of the crowds as they would see Jesus do these miracles.

And you can imagine, they'd never seen anything like that before. But now this is speaking of Jesus, the Son of God, being amazed. Now I told you we're looking into mystery, infinite mystery here, but in some mysterious way, it seems that Jesus, while being God and not laying aside any of his attributes in one sense, still didn't know some things while here on earth. The Passage in Hebrews 5 speaks of him learning obedience. It's an interesting thing there.

He didn't know the exact day or hour of his return, et cetera. So I think in his humanness, there was a sense in which something was revealed to him or opened up to him in the Garden of Gethsemane that he had not seen to that degree before. Now clearly Jesus knew why he had entered the world. There was no doubt in his mind he had come to die. The Son of Man came to give his life, he says, as a ransom for many.

He knew he would die. There was no doubt about that. And all the more as the time went on, he spoke more and more frequently about his death. This woman who anointed Him was preparing Him for His burial. There was no doubt about it.

He wasn't surprised by that. No, that's not it. Instead, I think what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane is the heavenly Father opened up within the mind and personality of Jesus what it would be like to drink the cup of His wrath on the cross. And I think it literally knocked Him to the ground. I think it was so overwhelming that drops of blood were flowing from the capillaries just below the pores in his face and he was just dripping blood with the intensity of what it would be like to drink the cup of the fury of God's wrath on the cross.

No one can stand that for long. And So while he knew that he would die, he didn't know it to that level. And the father revealed it. And he didn't say, why did he do it? Why did the father reveal it?

It was so that the son could make a decision about it with more full information. This is what it will be like to drink my wrath, will you still do it? And that's incredible isn't it? It's deep and rich and powerful. It's the best I can make of this word amazed I don't know how else to do it I have to accept the word as it is And so Jesus was amazed at what it would be like.

And yet, He did it anyway. Oh, the courage and the love of Christ. It is the most courageous act in history. There's never been anything like it. Never be another thing like it.

I find my salvation in it. This is why I don't fear the wrath of God because Jesus has drunk it to the bottom for me. And there he is. He says, Abba Father, if it is possible for this cup to be taken away, may it be removed from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will be done.

That is the perfect obedience of the Son of God on my behalf and yours. I find my salvation there." And He carried it through, right on through His arrest, through all of His trials, all the way through to His death. He laid down His life. No one took it from Him, but He laid it down freely of himself. And this was the moment where the Father showed him more fully than he had ever done before what it would be like.

And so the author to Hebrews says here in Hebrews 5, 7 and following, during the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence of mission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and once made perfect, became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated by God to be High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. So much mystery in that passage, but what it teaches me is that Jesus in some infinitely mysterious way learned obedience through the suffering and by his obedience he saved my soul. He became the source of my eternal salvation. And so this is the perfect father-son relationship, isn't it?

Abba Father, he said, all things are possible for you. You can do anything. If it's possible, take this cup from me. But not what I will, what you will. And this, if you're a son, this is how you should think of obedience towards your father.

And if you're a father, this is what you should be seeking to train in your son, but no human relationship will ever touch this. This is an infinite pattern, far beyond anything we can imagine, and frankly there'll never be another like it. All I'm saying is in its uniqueness, I find the source of my salvation there. This is the fountain head of it. This is where we drink for all eternity.

Right here, the Son's obedience. Now, what I'm going to do in this talk is I'm going to trace out Christ's incarnation. I'm going to talk about the fruit of a perfect father-son relationship put on display. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk secondly about how sonship itself is transformed in the new covenant by the fact that we have been adopted by God.

And we're going to talk about that, how Sonship is transformed. We're going to talk about how fatherhood is transformed in the New Covenant. And we're going to talk briefly about the Great Commission. I don't need to do as much because Vody did such a good job with it. But I'm going to touch briefly on how the Great Commission relates to the father-son relationship and families in general.

I'm going to finish briefly touching on our eternal hope that we will be in the presence of our Heavenly Father forever and ever in the New Jerusalem and what that's going to be like. And then I'll apply it briefly. So that's what we're doing in our time today. Let's start with Christ's incarnation. That is a perfect father-son relationship put on display.

Now, it's interesting how the New Covenant begins. We might not have started this way. We don't really grab them. You know, they tell you in preaching, you've got to grab them at the beginning, you know? Catch their attention.

And so the Lord in his sovereignty grabs our attention at the beginning of the New Covenant with a genealogy right at the beginning, just so that we can just be drawn into the story of Jesus. We get a genealogy right from the start, A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Very brief genealogy. That one you can memorize. If you want to memorize the genealogy, that's the best one to memorize.

Okay? It skips a lot of names. Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham. But then it goes into more detail, etc. And what this teaches me is that Jesus is the perfect fruit of a lineage of sinful fathers and sons.

In a mysterious way through the virgin birth, Jesus was protected from original sin and from the defilement that comes from it. But yet, both in Mark and in Luke, we have these genealogies, and they're important in the historical record. And so Jesus' body, His physical body, came as a result of this lineage. In Luke 3, there are 76 generations from Christ to Adam and Jesus is clearly therefore both the Son of God and the Son of Man. It's the doctrine of the Incarnation and you get it through the genealogy.

In Luke 1, The angel, verse 30 through 33, the angel said to her, Mary, do not be afraid. You have found favor with God. You will be with child and will give birth to a son. And you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

The Lord God will give Him the throne of His Father David. Well, is He the Son of the Most High or is He the Son of David? Yes and yes. He is both the Son of God and He is the Son of David. He is the Son of Man.

And He will reign, said the angel, over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end. So the incarnation is established in this angelic announcement to Mary. But Jesus mysteriously is a son greater than His Father. Now, I'm not referring to his Heavenly Father.

Jesus in fact said, The Father is greater than I.� But he asked his enemies a difficult question one time. Jesus, there's never been a question asker like Jesus. Remember when He was a little boy, 12, and they were astonished at the questions He asked. But there was a time when they were testing Jesus, you know, the question about paying taxes to Caesar and the question about resurrection. That's my favorite word.

This one woman is married to seven brothers one after the other? How would you like to be the seventh brother? Maybe the most courageous man, other than Jesus, the most courageous man in history. I mean, what's up with this woman? Man after man, suddenly dying.

And then you're the seventh brother going through that wedding ceremony with that same interesting woman. And then he dies. And then finally she dies. And they're all there. What a concoction.

It never happened. But at any rate, Jesus dispenses with it, dealing with it. But then he says, you know, I have a question for you. What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?

The son of David, they answered. Just knee jerk. That's the right answer. Was Jesus, in fact, The Son of David? Was he?

People sometimes look at me as a tricky teacher, because I show them things they hadn't seen before. This isn't tricky. We just covered this, okay? A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. There you go, okay?

Matthew 1-1. Was Jesus the son of David? Yes. But their understanding was inadequate. What do you think about the Christ?

Whose son is he? The son of David. Well, how is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord? For he says, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. If then David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?

Is that in there? They're probably checking to see. And sure enough, it's right there in the Hebrew, Adonai, my Lord. They'd never noticed that before. And they had no answer for Jesus.

As a matter of fact, it said no one could say a word in reply and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. Jesus was playing at a much higher intellectual level than they were, but he's bringing up an issue. Jesus was greater than his father humanly. He was greater than his human father. He's greater than Joseph.

He was greater than all of those 76 names and any of those men that are in heaven, they're there because Jesus shed his blood for them, including David. I will build a house for you, God said, and I'll do it through the blood of my own son. You're a physical descendant, but I will do it through your son." And so therefore, Jesus is the son who is greater than his human father. He is also a perfect example of sonship. It says in Hebrews 1-3, the son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

And after he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. The Son is the radiance of God's glory. He shines forth with the glory of the Father. John 1.18, No one has ever seen God. The only begotten God who's at the Father's side has made him known.

So Jesus comes out of that eternal relationship to reveal the Father. He says, talk about mystery. You're always dealing with mystery with this. You remember how he's talking to his disciples the night before he dies in John 14. He's telling them in my father's house or many rooms, you know the way to the place where I'm going.

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Telling them all of these things. And then Philip says, Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough for us. Do you remember what Jesus said?

Don't you know me, Philip? After all this time? You could spend the rest of your life trying to figure out that response. Just that one response. Don't you know me?

Show us the Father. Don't you know me? After all this time, anyone who's seen me has seen the Father. So there's a perfect revelation of the nature of the Father and the Son, just a perfect unity there. And if you want to know what the Father is like, you look at the Son and you see Him.

You see His attributes, His glory. The intimacy of that perfect relationship, the Father and the Son opened up for us so that we could enter into it and understand it and find salvation there. Matthew 11, Jesus said, All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Thank God for that and.

Could have been no one knows the Father except the Son and no one knows the Son except the Father. End of story. But instead, the Father and the Son together decided to open up the intimacy of their relationship and draw us into it so that we might know them. And the Son was sent into the world to reveal his Father to us. And as I've said, Christ's perfect obedience was the source of our salvation.

All of Jesus' work on Earth comes from his obedience to his Father, All of it. He entered the world in obedience to his Father's command. He said this in John chapter 6, I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." The whole saving work of the Son was done in obedience to the Father.

He came, sent by the Father. How many times does Jesus refer in John's gospel as the one who sent me, he who sent me, or the Father sent the Son, or I've come into the world in obedience? John 10, he said, no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. This command I received from my father." You see, it's all got to do with obedience, everything.

And so in all of the work that the Father, that the Son was doing. He was doing it in obedience to his Heavenly Father. After healing a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, Jesus said, remember they came to criticize him for working on the Sabbath? I think Jesus purposely did half of his work on the Sabbath just to kind of tweak them and get into a helpful dialogue on the Sabbath to challenge them. So He did it on purpose.

Everything Jesus did, He did it on purpose. You remember they come to criticize Him? And you know, it's a fascinating thing to watch Jesus put out a fire with kerosene. You know, they come, and he's a Sabbath-breaker. By the time it's done, he's a blasphemer.

I mean, he just turns it up. They've come because he's broken the Sabbath, and this is what he says, my father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working. My father's working, and we're both working here, is what's happening, even on the Sabbath. By the way, if the father and the son stop working on the Sabbath, we stop existing. We do, because they hold the universe together by their energy and by their work.

So we cannot exist except that they continue doing the work. So he says, my father is always working, and I too am working. It says, for this reason, the Jews tried all the harder to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he's even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer, I tell you the truth, the son can do nothing by himself.

He can only do what he sees his father doing. Because whatever the father does, the son also does. For The father loves the son and shows him all the things that he does. Yes, to your amazement, he'll show him even greater things than these. What a sweet insight into the relationship between the father and the son.

At a much lower level, I think it's a pattern for fathers and sons now. I wouldn't say necessarily that you have to have your son as an apprentice in your line of work. It's not so much that. Some do that. I was riding my bike recently in Pennsylvania.

We have some relatives in Amish country there. And it was amazing, all the father-son businesses I saw as I was riding down the street. Sensonegan's son carpentry shop. Or Martin and son plumbing. I mean, there's a lot of that in that community.

And it's a sweet thing to see. But that's not all of it. It's just that the father opens up his world to the son and shows him what he's doing. Says, come along with me and observe me and watch what I do and let's work together. Well, that's perfected in the father son relationship here eternally.

He says, I don't do anything on my own. I'm not independent. I just do what the Father shows me to do. And so that's that extends to every aspect of Jesus's redemptive work, His life of sinless obedience. John 8 29 it says, the one who sent me is with me, he's not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.

What a statement. I always do what pleases him. So in other words, he is living a life of obedience, sinless obedience to the Father. That's the foundation of our righteousness. We must be perfectly righteous to go to heaven.

There it is. I always do what pleases my Father. That's what I get draped in at the moment of justification, that perfect righteousness. And I'll stand in it the rest of my life. And on into eternity, I will survive judgment day in that perfect obedience.

Isn't that sweet? That's what he says. His teaching ministry was done in total dependence on the Father. John 8.28, Jesus says, when you have lifted up the Son of Man you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I Do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. I don't say anything except what the Father told me to say So I only speak the words my father taught me to say John 14 10 don't you believe that I'm in the Father and the Father's in me?

The words I say to you are not just my own, rather it is the Father living in me who is doing his work. I don't speak anything, I don't do any teaching except the Father told me to say it. John 14 24, these words you hear are not my own. They belong to the Father who sent me. His miracles were not done on his own power or by his own initiative or by his own authority, but they were done in submission to the Father.

John 5, 36, The very work the Father has given me to finish and which I am doing testifies that the Father has sent me. Or later in John 10, again for blasphemy, they pick up stones and they're ready to kill Him. After Jesus had said, I and the Father are one, they pick up stones, they want to kill Him. And Jesus said, I've shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these are you stoning me?

We're not stoning you for any of these, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, call yourself God. But you see, what Jesus is saying is, the works that I've done, I did from the Father. His miracles were from the Father. And it was the Father who gave him that work. And obviously supremely, Jesus died on the cross as an act of obedience to his Heavenly Father as we have already seen.

And Jesus' resurrection from the dead was a display of his eternal sonship. It was when the Father raised the Son from the dead that he was declaring to the world, this is my beloved Son. Now you might think, I don't see that connection. Well, it's in there. It's in Acts 13.

Paul preaches it in Pisidian Antioch. And he brings the Davidic covenant and connects it with the Resurrection. And also Psalm 110, I think it is, Acts 13, it says, We tell you the good news, what God promised our fathers, He has fulfilled for us their children by raising up Jesus. I'm sorry, it's the second Psalm. As it is written in the second Psalm, you are my son, today I have become your father.

That's profound. By raising up Jesus, he's saying to Jesus, you are my son, today I have begotten you. And you're saying, I don't understand that. I don't get it either. He is eternally begotten of the Father, but yet this language is used.

I think it has to do with proclaiming to the world, Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal son of the living God by his resurrection. It's the greatest evidence of his deity. And he was declared that way by His resurrection. And so it says in Romans 1, 3 and 4, the gospel of the Son who as to His human nature was a descendant of David, He was a son of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ our Lord.

So by Jesus' resurrection, God the Father was saying to the world, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him. Find your salvation in Him. Don't fear death anymore because of Him. Focus on Him.

He is my Son. So all of His work from His incarnation through His sinless obedience, through His teaching, His miracles, His death on the cross and His resurrection, all of it done in obedience to the Father and by the power of the Father. All of it. So that is the perfect father-son relationship and nothing else touches it. Nothing else comes close.

So it's almost, you know, you can hear the clunking of the changing of gears now as I talk about you fathers and your relationship with your sons. There's nothing like it. This is a perfect relationship and we find our salvation in it. We get fruit from it. We stand in this perfect righteousness.

But yet, it is an example to us of how fathers and sons should relate. So let's talk about how sonship is therefore transformed in the new covenant. We go here, as we go from the old covenant to the new covenant, from a focus on physical procreation, you know, having physical sons through marital relations to a spiritual sonship, From being born to being born again. From being a physical descendant of Abraham to being a spiritual son of Abraham. That's what's going on in the new covenant.

Sonship itself is transformed. Now, the Old Testament was important. It was essential for there to be a physical nation of the Jews, that Jesus would be born from a physical lineage, the genealogies are important, all of that had to happen. The physical descendants of Abraham were direct fulfillments of the promise God made to him. But God had more in mind just than that he would have physical descendants, great-great-great-great grandchildren and all that.

His descendants are numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the dust of the earth. I think actually those are the two categories of the sons of Abraham. They are those that are like the stars of the sky. And they are those that are like the dust of the earth. And it all has to do with faith in Christ.

Those that believe are like... They shine like the Stars in the sky, it says in Philippians. And those who do not, they're earthy. And so just being physically descended from Abraham is not enough. So there's a movement there from physical descendancy, having a son, a grandson, great grandson, to spiritual relationship, a spiritual sonship.

And so it says in John 1, 12 and 13, to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. And I actually want to go back a verse. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." Who were his own? Those were the Jews. They didn't receive him.

Those are the physical descendants of Abraham who did not receive Jesus. Yet to all who did receive him, Jew or Gentile, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God. What is that saying? It's not a physical procreation. It's not by marital relations that these sons of God are made.

It's by a direct act of the living God. If you're sitting here today, listen to me, you are born again, it was something God did in you, in your soul. He spoke into the darkness and the emptiness of your soul, into black nothingness. He spoke into that, let there be light, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ and you were born again. Nothing can extinguish that light.

That's something only God can do. A human father can't do that for you. So these are sons of God born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man but of God. Jesus said in John 3 to Nicodemus, I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh but The Spirit gives birth to Spirit.

You must be born by the Spirit, or you cannot be a son of God. This is the very point I think that Paul's making in Romans 9. You know, the whole issue with Romans 9 through 11, if you want to understand those difficult chapters, I think it's very important to understand what topic, what question is Paul seeking to answer? What topic is he addressing? The question he's seeking to answer in Romans 9-11 is, why are the Jews rejecting Christ?

That's the question he's seeking to answer. And The initial answer that he gives is it is not as though God's word has failed. For not all who are descended from Abraham, he says, not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. In other words, it's not enough to be physically related to Abraham and Israel or Jacob.

That's not enough. On the contrary, he says it is through Isaac, not Ishmael, that your offspring will be reckoned. In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring. This is vital. Just because you're physically related to a believer doesn't make you a believer.

I think you know that. Do you not feel the urgency of that? I've said it to my children so many times, I can't bring you to heaven. I can't give you my faith. I can teach you.

I can preach the gospel to you. I must do that. I can live it out in front of you as best I can. I can do those things, but I cannot bring you to heaven. And I cannot make you born again.

I can't make you a child of God. This is something that must happen in your heart, something that must happen to you by the power of God. Therefore the church of Jesus Christ is made up of people who are born again into that spiritual family, not merely born into it. Thus did Jesus very significantly emphasize spiritual relationship over physical. Matthew 8, another disciple said to him, Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Remember that one?

And Jesus said, follow me and let the dead bury their own dead. Now Jesus knew very well and he taught in Matthew 15 the need to honor your father and mother. But there's a priority structure here and the first and greatest priority is to Jesus. It's to God. He says in Matthew 10, Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth, I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to turn a man against his father. Stop right there. Now that proves the very thing I'm trying to say right now. It happens within a father and the son. If one of them is born again and the other is not, there is a division, there's a sword between the two and that cannot be united.

There's no way to get it together unless the one who needs to be born again is also born again. And that has happened tragically again and again in history. I've come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, man's enemies will be the members of his own household. And that happens, Jesus in Matthew 12. His mother and brothers were there to see him.

Remember, I think if you put the evidence together, they were there to take charge of him because he was seemingly insane. Jesus made them wait. I'll get to them by and by. He didn't dishonor his mother, it wasn't that, But he took it as a teaching moment. He said, who is my mother and who are my brothers?

Pointing to his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For everyone who does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. He doesn't say my father, obviously there's only one. He has a father, his heavenly father. But I think a believer could say, you want to know who my father is?

Who is my mother? Who are my brothers and my sisters? They're believers. Really. So the most significant relationships, therefore, have to do with other believers.

It changes everything. Sonship is redefined here in one sense. Now I'm not in any way minimizing the biological side. That's been established in the Old Covenant. It's still important.

We have a very significant opportunity. We'll talk about that in a minute, but that relationship is significant. It's just not all significant. It's important. It's just not all important.

The most significant has to do with the gospel, how they respond through faith in Jesus Christ. And so we have become sons of God in the pattern of Christ. We are saved into a father-son relationship with Almighty God in the pattern of Christ. Romans 8.15, you did not receive a spirit of slavery but a spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba Father. Isn't that delightful?

We are adopted children of God. It's so wonderful. As we already mentioned in Romans 8 29, those God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." So I was telling Scott, I was just sitting here and just thinking. And there just seemed to be something missing from the talk. And so what I feel like the Lord was leading me is, what are the privileges of that sonship?

Can I take a minute and just listen? Do you know what we get as adopted sons of God? You know what we get? Just listen to this. You get his name.

His name is now on you. It says in Revelation 22, 4, His name will be on their foreheads. We're adopted into the name. Jesus says in John 17, 11, Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name. That name you gave me.

What name did the Father give him? Son, right? Protect them by the name Son. So you get protection. You also get the love of a father for a son.

1 John 3, 1, Behold what manner of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. Can you measure that kind of love? How wide and long and high and deep is that love? You can't measure it.

But you have the love of a Father for you. And you have a permanent position in the family. Jesus says a slave in John 8 has no permanent place in the family. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family.

But a son belongs to it forever. There is your security. A permanent place in the family. You are sons and daughters of the living God. How secure is that?

And you have access to the Father. I remember my dad. My dad, as far as I know, is not a believer, but he said this. I'll never forget this. He said, if you ever need me, middle of the day, whatever, call me and I'll drop whatever, I'll be there.

And that always made me feel good. I was always afraid to use it. It was like a chip that I could lay down. I never wanted to use it. But just to know that he would welcome me and that I was more important than any business he was doing, we have access to our eternal Father.

In Romans 5, 1 and 2, therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. We have an introduction and access to get into the presence of God. And we have an inheritance. We are heirs of God. Now if we are children, Romans 8 17, then we are heirs.

Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings that we may also share in His glory. We are heirs. We're going to inherit the meek, we'll inherit the earth. We've got some heavenly real estate coming our way. And it's going to be ours.

Who will give you possessions of your own, Jesus spoke of. We'll get our own stuff. We are heirs of the world through Abraham by being children of Abraham. How about authority? We have authority as sons of God.

Think about what happened with the prodigal son. Remember, he comes back and he says, put a ring on his finger. What's that ring? It's a symbol of authority. He's an heir.

He's a son. He's not a slave. Put a ring on his finger, he says. Revelation 3.21, he who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. John Piper put it this way, lap in lap in lap.

So we're just sitting in Jesus' lap while He sits in His Father's lap, and that is authority. He's on the throne and we sit in His lap. We will reign on the earth, it says. Revelation 22, 5, and they will reign forevermore. We will reign, that's authority.

What about provision? He will care for all of our needs. Matthew 7, 9. Which of your fathers, if a son asks for fish, will give him a stone? Or if he after bread will give him a snake?

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him? He will provide for all of your needs because you are a child of the living God. How about protection? We've already covered that. But he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.

He will put a hedge around you. He will keep you safe. And Satan will not be able to touch you beyond what his sovereign plan, God's sovereign plan calls for the trials that are necessary to bring you to maturity. But you have protection. He will also discipline you, right?

Hebrews 12, don't forget that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons. My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline and do not lose heart when he rebukes you. He's treating you as a son when he disciplines you for sin. He's not going to give you over to it. He will discipline you.

He will chastise you as needed and very wisely. We get work also. We get to do the works of the Father. We get to be involved in that work. John 5.17, my Father is always at His work to this very day.

And Jesus says, as the Father has sent me, now I'm sending you. We get to join the Father in the work that He's doing. And then how about wisdom? Do you need any wisdom from your Father? Do you need to get some insights?

If any of you lacks wisdom, let Him ask God who gives generously to all. It says later in that same chapter, every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights. He chose to give us birth so that we might be a first fruits of all He created. Father, Son, we're birth, so therefore come and ask me for wisdom. If you need some insight, I'm your father.

I'll give it to you. I'll give you advice. Then I looked at that list and I said, that's a good pattern for fathers with their earthly sons. Remind them that they bear your name. Your reputation goes with them.

Oh, yes, it does. So son, you bear my name. Behave yourself, that kind of thing. Lavish your love on them. Pour out your love.

Let them know how much you love them. Let them know how secure they are and that they have a permanent position in the family. Give them access to you above your employment and your business associates and all that. Let them have full access to you. Let them know that they are your heirs.

And let that inheritance be more than just money or stock portfolio. Let it be a spiritual inheritance more than anything else, a heritage of faithfulness to God, heirs. Authority, Give them increasing responsibilities. Put a ring on his finger. Give him a job to do.

Responsibility. And let him be accountable for what he's done. And provision. Make sure that you meet his needs. As it says in 1 Timothy, if anyone does not provide for his family, is denied the faith and is worse than unbeliever.

Protect them, keep them safe, don't let them get in over their heads. Don't be a passive father. Just saying, well, whatever, he's responsible. Protect him, protect him especially spiritually. Discipline him.

Younger age, you use corporal punishment as a scripture mandates. Later, it's more challenging, more difficult, more psychological, more conversational. But there's still discipline involved. Give them work to do and give them your wisdom. All of these things.

We get to be sons of the living God and how sweet is that. But not only is sonship transformed, so also is fatherhood transformed. You've already heard how I've talked about that. Old covenant patterns are still in place. We should talk about these things when we sit at home, when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up.

We have a better topic now. We have a better topic than Deuteronomy 6. Better. Why is it better? Because the New Covenant is better.

Hebrews gives us permission to speak like that. It's a better covenant with a better mediator and better promises. It's better in every way. So we have even more things to talk to our sons about along the road as we sit and lie and walk along. Deuteronomy 6 is about laws and covenants and Mosaic and it's good, it's important.

But how much better then is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the promises of God. Oh, have those rich conversations. So the Old Testament patterns of give me your heart, my son, is still there. But the topic is elevated now. It's much better.

Talk about the things of God. Talk about loving God with all of your heart. And say, you know, in the old covenant we couldn't do it. But guess what? In the new covenant, you get that heart of stone taken out, and you get a heart of flesh put in so that you can love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Have that conversation with them. Oh, make the gospel sweet and attractive to your sons. And clearly, this is commanded in Ephesians 6. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.

Fathers do not exasperate your children. Instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Pidea is that sense of training, of getting positive instruction. Neuthasia from which we get newthetic like the Nancus National Association of Neuthetic counseling. It has to do with reproof or rebuke or warning, saying, Son, I see these sin patterns in you.

Let me warn you what will happen if you follow that approach. It could be the way of a sluggard. It could be problems with lust. It could be problems with covetousness. Who knows?

But then you're warning them as a father does his sons. And that's commanded. Jesus did all of these things with his disciples. And thus in Christ, the father-son relationship has become one essentially of evangelism and discipleship. Did you hear that?

The father-son relationship has been transformed. And now a father is to be an evangelist to his son and then a discipler. When he satisfied you that he has made that commitment to Christ, you disciple him and train him in the faith. Bring him up in the training and instruction of the Lord. And you do that with the two patterns.

Scott talked about that very beautifully in his first message, the two posts, the striking. Remember how Jesus said, show me a coin. Whose portrait is this and whose inscription? Well, as a mechanical engineer, former mechanical engineer, I asked, how did it get there? Alright, how did Caesar's portrait get there on that blank piece of metal?

It's just the image, alright? And that two-post, that pattern, there's two of them, pattern of sound teaching, pattern of right living. That's what a father must do. Right doctrine and right example, the two of them together. Now I tell you as a pastor, it's hard for us to do the role modeling.

We can hold our breath and look really good on Sunday morning and Wednesday evenings and all that, but there's not a lot of role modeling going on. The best place for role modeling is in the family where the Father carries on his life of faith in front of his watching sons. And boy do they watch. They see what's going on. And so there's a pattern of doctrine and the pattern of right living.

That's the very thing that a father entrusts to his sons. There's also in the gospel a new breed of father-son relationship, and it's not biological at all. It's not. It's spiritual, And it has to do with similarly the relationship between Paul and Timothy. They didn't have a biological relationship.

But didn't Paul become a father to Timothy? Didn't he call him my true son in the faith? Wasn't Timothy's father apparently of no account spiritually? Don't even know if he's alive. He was just not even on the scene.

He was a Greek and we don't know anything about him. He was just a no-show. He might have been dead. I don't know. We have no idea.

But in Acts 16, the brothers in the community spoke well of him. His mother and grandmother, his mother, Lois, grandmother, Eunice were godly women but the father is nowhere. Paul comes along as a role model and takes this young man under his wings, he trains him up in the faith, he disciples him, and that's a father-son kind of relationship, discipleship. And I think a godly elder, a godly father, can do that for non-biological sons. And I tell you, this may be the answer, not only to inner-city ministries, some of the things that you talk about, age integration, is these kind of relationships coming along where godly men take young men under their wings and say, come in and watch my family, and live with me, and be involved in my life.

So sweet, but that's what Paul did with Timothy. Paul's a great example of this and uses this language again and again. 1 Corinthians 14, he speaks to a whole church this way. He said, even though you have 10, 000 guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel so a godly pastor church planner and elder can be like a father to a group of people to a congregation I like Philemon Philemon 10 Paul says this I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become while I was in prison. He led him to Christ.

He became his spiritual father. That's a valid New Covenant father-son relationship through being born again and discipling a young man in the faith. And then you give them a pattern, whether biological or not biological, of daily discipleship, practical issues, how to pray with fervency and with biblical knowledge, how to study the Bible and rightly divide it, how to win the loss to Christ, how to have an evangelistic conversation, how to behave in the church, worshiping in spirit and truth, how to glorify God in everything you do while cleaning the bathroom, mowing the lawn, fixing a broken window, doesn't matter. Whatever you're doing you can glorify God. Whatever you do show them how to do it.

How to discipline yourself for godliness. How to live together as a Christian family. How to do a dinner together as a Christian family. How a man should treat his wife as Christ does the church. So much of this has to be displayed, put on display, not just words on a page, this is what it looks like.

How a man should train his children up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, how to handle money as a steward, how to bridle your tongue, putting that filter on. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but Only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs. That's the mouth filter in Ephesians. Only what's helpful, how to guard your tongue, bridle your tongue, how to handle lust and worldly temptations, how to live a disciplined life in eating and in earthly lawful pleasures. How to work hard with your own hands and provide for your family.

How to maintain a good reputation with outsiders. How to care for the poor and needy. How to suffer persecution with eternal joy. Perhaps, perhaps even how to die with dignity as a martyr for Christ. Who knows?

But all of these things are put on display. They're not primarily learned from reading about them in the Scripture. The context is set, but then they're lived out in front by example, by the father in front of the son, biological or not. Fourth, the Great Commission. We've already covered some of this to every family on Earth.

Thank you, Vody. We can cut through this quickly. Let me just say there are two wonderful examples of the strategy. Now, Vody said, he said, get the man. You get the man.

And then you get everybody around him. Well, for me I'm always thinking, alright, prove it by scripture. How do I prove it by... It's not hard to do. What happened in Acts 10 with Cornelius?

Right? When Peter went with his entourage, what did he find there? Cornelius sitting alone? No, a house full of people. Who were the people?

Well Acts 11 14 tells us. The angel had told Cornelius, he will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved. Did you hear that? A message through which you and all your household will be saved. Cornelius took it seriously and got all of his household together.

Plus, neighbors and friends and they're all there to hear Peter. What an incredible thing that was. That's Cornelius. How about the Philippian jailer? Same thing.

Paul and Silas arrested for their faith, midnight singing praise to God. Oh, how sweet is that? Would you do it? I don't know how I would do it. I'd be thinking, Lord, what did I do?

I was just trying to serve you. I'd be kind of tempted toward complaining. Paul and Silas, they aren't complaining. They're singing praise to God. And God is motivated to give the most astonishing surgical strike earthquake in history.

I mean, there's never been another earthquake like it in which all these walls fall down and chains fall out but nobody's hurt and none of the prisoners escape it's really quite remarkable and the jailer runs out and he's trembling he's about to fall on his sword because his prisoners are all gone and Paul calls out and saves him from eternity in hell don't harm yourself we are all here Calls for lights, rushes in, brings them out, falls down trembling and asks that question. What must I do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. So they went inside and... I'm a Baptist.

Alright? This is not evidence of pedobaptism. I'm sorry it is not. Because they preached the gospel to everyone in the household. And everyone in the household heard the message.

And everyone in the household believed the message. And everyone in the household was then baptized. I'm not trying to be offensive. I mean, if those of you that like to persuade me, come and try and we can talk afterwards, we can do that. But I think it's great evidence of Credo baptism.

But there it is, It's a whole family. They got the man. They got the Philippian jailer like earlier. They had gotten Cornelius and look at the ripple effects Strategy to the ends of the earth says in Acts 325 You were the sons of the prophets as Peter speaking You were the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers saying to Abraham, and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And again in Psalm 22 verse 27, Psalm 22 begins, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

1 Peter gives us a beautiful two-part outline of Psalm 22. The Spirit of Christ in them was predicting the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. That's a two-part outline of Psalm 22. The sufferings of Christ, they have pierced my hands and my feet, but then comes the glories. And what is the glory?

It's the gospel spread to the ends of the earth. And this is what it says, Psalm 22, 27, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations will worship before you. And so you go get the man the family follows. I could give you lots of examples from missionary history of missionaries that went and got the tribal chief with a key man in the village and then the whole village follows. It's happened again and again.

And what is our final eternal hope? It is the consummation of that Father-Son relationship, the consummation of it in heaven. Revelation 21, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. By the way, for all of you, you sisters in Christ, you've had to listen to all this sun language.

You're probably used to it by now because it's all over the Bible. But this is where the men get to be feminine a bit. We are the bride of Christ and so we have to kind of get our brains around that. So I don't worry too much about all these gender things. We are children of God and we are all somehow part of the bride of Christ.

And there we are, all of us, prepared for our eternal relationship with the bridegroom, with Christ. Prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now, The dwelling of God is with men and He will live with them. And they will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. For the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. And then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. He said to me, it is done.

I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. Revelation 21, 7. He who overcomes will inherit all this and I will be his God and he will be my son. And we spend eternity in that relationship, gazing at the face of our Heavenly Father eternally in His family as adopted children of God, basking in that relationship.

So we have gone in two sessions from eternity past to eternity future, tracing out this one theme of fathers and sons through 66 books of the Bible, through the Old Covenant and through the New Covenant. What application? First of all, just thank God for the obedience of Christ. Thank Him. Praise Him that He took your sin on Himself and drank that cup, That he was willing to be obedient to his heavenly Father.

Thank God for all the privileges of sonship. All of those things that I listed. Did you get them all? There's more than the 11 I've listed. I just keep working on them.

But you are so rich in Christ as sons and daughters of the living God. Thank God for it. Be heavenly minded. Set your hearts on things above. On the future eternity as a son of the living God.

And practically speaking, fathers, be New Testament fathers with your sons and with your daughters. Evangelize them. Disciple them. Give them the pattern of sound doctrine and the pattern of right living. Show them what a Christian man looks like.

And then extend it out in that discipleship relationship. Find people in the church, young men, who can be a Timothy to you. And then keep your eyes on the families of the nations. Try to be involved in unreached people group ministry. Bode was so right.

This is not all we do is this age integration. We are concerned in being involved in what Jesus was doing He said anyone who does not gather with me scatters. I don't want to scatter. I want to gather with Jesus We are sons and daughters of the Living God. Praise him for his grace close with me in prayer Father I thank you for the time that we spent in these two sessions on fathers and sons in redemptive history.

We thank you for the cohesiveness of the scripture, for the unity of this testimony. We thank you for all of it. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are willing courageously to drink our cup for us, to suffer the wrath of God, something we cannot calculate what it was like. Thank you for your mercy. Now I pray especially for fathers to be faithful to evangelize and disciple their sons.

I pray for sons to show honor and respect to their fathers. I pray for all parents and all children to gain insight from this relationship and act accordingly. Father, I pray that you'd help us to be fruitful in evangelism and lead many to Christ so that you ultimately, our Heavenly Father, would be the Father to the fatherless. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.