"...God hath sent forth the Spirit (the Holy Spirit of promise) of his Son into your hearts, (notice
it's in the heart, and not the denomination or church building. In
other words, you don't pick up the Spirit when you walk through the door
on Sunday morning, but rather the Spirit is in the heart of every
believer) crying, `Abba, Father.'"
Now
we have that full privilege of approaching God as our Heavenly Father.
The unsaved world can't do that. In fact most of those attending a
church and all of those who practice Judaism have no right to the
Spirit or the alter of Christ. Oh they can but they won't accomplish
anything by it. But we as believers can come to His alter and right into
the throne room now and call Him Father. As Paul teaches we can come
with all of our petitions, and requests. Nothing withheld, not on our
merit, but because of the Last Supper of our LORD and the finished work
of the Cross. So here we have our position as divinely born ones because
of our redemption, NO but having passed through to that which brings us
to salvation and then immediately God does the doing, the working, by
sending forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts (Peter tells us that
we wait for the day star to be revealed within us the image and
likeness of Christ, the illumination that confirms us a son) and in
response to that, through the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit, we
have every right in the world to call Him, Abba Father. Now look at
verse 7 -
Galatians 4:7
"Wherefore thou art no more a servant, (slave under a tutor) but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."
Remember how many times Paul likes to use that word, "wherefore."
We don't think you ever find that word in Peter's writing, or even in
the Lord's ministry. But Paul uses it over and over. Why? Because Paul's
is a progressive revelation kind of guy. He is constantly building and
so when he's covered this ground he says "wherefore" or "therefore." And
he'll go a little further and he'll stop and will say, "wherefore" or
"therefore." Well, here's another one. Now then he says "wherefore,"
because of all he's unveiled in these previous chapters. He says you're
not even a little child that's under tutors, but a what? A Son. A
full-blown son in full partnership with the Father.How and why? Because
of our receiving the illumination of the meal with which we share and
our subsequent death, burial, resurrection and ascension in Christ.
When we where in Southeast Asia there was a little jewelry shop
in the town near the base. On this day, we were the only ones in the
shop.And there was the little 12 or 13 year old boy behind the counter
and the guy that took us had all of his stuff collected and so they
started adding it up. And he begins to bargain. And let me tell you he
was the world's best! And he kept bringing that kid down and down and
finally he just put his hand on the counter and said, "That's it." we
could tell that the father was sitting over there in a little room, just
off the sales floor watching through a door. And so he was seeing all
of this go on and he was being amused. So we went back to the old
gentleman and asked, "Do you speak English?" And he said, "Oh yes." We
said, "Are you going to let that little fella do that?" And you know
what his answer was? He said, "He's never lost a dime yet!"
He
knew what he was doing. He had become a full partner in the business
and the father just let him go, even though he was up against a pretty
good bargainer. And so here it is. We're no more a little kid under a
tutor, we're no longer within the restraints of the corral now as
believers, for we have learn how to sit under God listening. Though
we're in a full-blown position as a finally tutored son of our parent.
We are a full heir. But we are still in need of guidance (aid) or
training (help) if you will, and that's what the Holy Spirit does, until
the day star appears in our heart. And if you're in that place of
maturity that this adoption has placed you, then you're an heir. Can you
imagine how many young people just almost revel at the fact that they
are an heir of some wealthy rich grandfather and they are almost
sub-consciously waiting for the old gentleman to pass on, so that they
can cash in on all of his wealth because they know they are an heir.
But listen, we've got something far better! We
don't have a rich uncle or anybody that we can wait for them to die. But
listen, we can be anticipating this one. Because we're a joint heir. We
as a believer, are a joint heir with God Himself. Now let's go
back to Romans chapter 8, and this isn't a slip of Paul's pen. He says
it over and over that this is part and parcel of Pauline doctrine. Here
it is in Romans. You see, we like to use more than one portion because
we've accused people sometimes of building all their doctrine on one or
two portions of verses. There isn't any thinner ice anywhere in the
world than to do something like that. That's why we try to use as much
Scripture as possible. This wasn't just a unique point in Paul's
writing. It's everything else that he's written.
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