Responsibilities of the Adopted Ones

Adoption and the Pattern of Gospel Obligation

0:02 In words that are familiar to many of us, the Apostle John exclaimed, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God. The Apostle was led to write that exclamation because he understood the fact that the blessing of adoption

0:30 constitutes the very zenith, the highest point of Christian privilege and standing. In the course of our examination of some of the cardinal blessings of salvation in Christ, we have been considering for a number of Lord's Day mornings this great blessing of adoption through Jesus Christ our Lord. In our examination of this doctrine, we We considered, first of all, its central place in the plan of salvation. We then sought to come to grips with the essence or the essential nature of adoption, and it is to be understood in terms of God's act in placing us as his sons and his daughters. And then we considered in some detail the privileges of adoption, both the legal and

1:28 and the experiential privileges of being constituted the children of God. Now, this morning, we conclude our studies in this doctrine of adoption by the consideration of the responsibilities or the obligations of the adopted ones. And as we stand on the threshold of this study, it is essential to remind ourselves again of the unique pattern which always forms the framework of Christian obligation, or the pattern that forms the structure of what we might call the ethical demands of the gospel. And this pattern can be briefly summed up in such words as these. We are to do because we have. We are to be because

2:27 We are. Now, does that sound like trouble talk? In other words, the pattern of the ethical demands of the gospel is not do in order to possess, but rather it is do because you possess. The order of the gospel is not that we are to perform in order to obtain, but

2:54 But having freely obtained, we are to perform that which is pleasing to God. And this structure of the obligations of the gospel is very clearly expressed in such familiar texts as Romans 12 and verse 1. I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice. He does not say, if you would obtain the mercies of God, present your body. He says, having freely received of His mercies, because you have, therefore do. Or in the language of Ephesians 4 in verse 1, having opened up many dimensions of our multifaceted salvation in Christ, the apostle says, I beseech you therefore to walk

3:49 worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called. Or Colossians 3, 1, Since ye have been raised together with Christ, therefore, and our obligation follows. Now this pattern of gracious obligation pertains with equal force to the doctrine of adoption. And no treatment of the doctrine of adoption would be complete if it did not sound this note of the obligations of the adopted. But the only proper place to put that emphasis is at the conclusion of such a study. Having examined the privileges, both legal and experiential, that are conferred upon every believing sinner who is adopted into the family of God, it is only in the believing acceptance of those privileges that we are in any position of the

The Pardoned Criminal Illustration

4:49 to understand and to fulfill the obligations which grow out of those privileges. Now try to consider with me, before we come to the specifics, an extended illustration to which we'll make reference throughout the study this morning. Imagine a man who is the very epitome of poverty. Furthermore, he is a guilty criminal who has rebelled against the laws of his sovereigns.

5:19 In addition to his poverty and his guilt, he is a man who has been deprived of all the privileges of an education. He is the essence of what we would call illiteracy and ignorance. Furthermore, his body is full of disease. And to add insult to all of that injury, he is an unclaimed orphan. Now that fellow is really in a bad mess. His sovereign becomes aware of him.

5:50 And as an act of sovereign mercy and grace, he lays hold of this man in all of his ignorance, in all of his guilt, in all of his filth and disease and poverty. And he makes an overture to this man that out of the fullness and freeness of his own gracious heart, he will freely pardon him. He will take him into his home. He will give him a tutor to instruct him in the elementary aspects of a common education. He will hand him over to his court physician to apply all of his skills to remedy his physical maladies. Furthermore, he will do everything necessary to see to it that he is constituted his very son and legal heir to his throne.

6:48 Now, once the king has done that, all of grace, not a bit of it deserved, not one dimension of it can be claimed as a right, does that man who has been so graciously treated by his sovereign, does he have anything that can be called an obligation to his sovereign? Why, I hope you're answering in your mind yes.

7:17 And he has obligations that rest upon two pillars. First of all, the obligations that are imposed by the gracious authority of the king, who is now his father and the head of the household, but who does not cease to be a king by making his subject one of his sons.

7:43 And every obligation that a subject of the kingdom has, that man has as a legally adopted son. And then he has those obligations that are constrained by the thankful appreciation in his heart for all of the privileges received from the hand of his sovereign who has now become his father.

8:12 You see the application, don't you? We have considered until on some occasions our hearts were well nigh bursting with the reality and the glory these privileges that are freely, graciously, and in that sense unconditionally bestowed upon the guilty, fallen, disinherited sons and daughters of Adam. We are freely forgiven.

8:39 We are taken into the very heart and home and brought to the very table of the living God who makes us His sons and daughters and gives us the warrant to call Him our Father who art in heaven. And yet growing out of all of those gracious privileges bestowed upon sinners for the sake of Christ and Christ alone, there are obligations.

9:08 Obligations that rest upon two great fundamental pillars. All of the obligations which our Father King imposes graciously and wisely in the exercise of His regal and paternal authority. And there is no discrepancy between what He has done in grace to make us His children, and what He does in the exercise of authority to govern us as His children. And anyone who sets up a dichotomy between free grace and strict house rules neither understands grace nor the rules of the house. And then there are the obligations that are constrained

10:02 by the thankful appreciation of the privileges received, that man who was once in abject poverty, that one who had no one upon the face of the earth he could call Father, he cannot reflect upon what he once was and then upon what he now is without feeling bound to render loving service to the gracious Sovereign who is now his Father. And there is no sinner, I say there is no sinner, who has ever understood the least measure of his sin and the least measure of adopting grace, who does not feel the weight of obligation to please and honor his gracious Father King. Well, with that introduction of the framework in which the obligations come to us,

Three Headings — Pleasing, Imitating, Glorifying

11:01 and then something of the twofold basis of the obligation, what then precisely are the obligations of the adopted? And here I am greatly indebted to a seed thought that was sown in my mind in that masterful treatment of the doctrine of adoption in Dr. Packer's book, Knowing God, and I, without embarrassment, confess that the basic framework, though the order is different and much of the substance is greatly enlarged, the seed thought was sown in

11:31 And the basic structure was so helpful to me that I'm using it for the structure of our study this morning. What are your obligations as a child of God? Let me suggest that they can be ranged under three simple headings. First of all, the obligations of the adopted are to be understood in terms of pleasing the Father, secondly, imitating the Father, and thirdly, glorifying the Father.

Obligation One: Pleasing the Father — Matthew 6

12:01 First of all, then, our obligation with respect to pleasing the Father. Will you turn, please, to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6, and our initial point of departure for each of these headings will be taken from the Sermon on the Mount. The very passage that so many shy away from as being too legal and not breathing of the Spirit of the Gospel is the very passage in which our Lord emphasizes with more concentration the obligations of the redeemed in terms of the father-son relationship. And here in Matthew chapter 6, the chapter in which our Lord deals with what we might call the practical expressions of the religious life of his own,

12:56 Notice the point of emphasis that he makes again and again. Verse 1 of chapter 6. Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men to be seen of them, else ye have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. Here is the negative injunction. We are not to be concerned with pleasing men, but our great concern should be pleasing our Father. Verses 3 and 4, But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall recompense thee. The same emphasis is given with regard to prayer. Verse 6, But thou, when thou prayest,

13:47 Enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall recompense thee. And then with regard to fasting, the same emphasis comes through again. We read in verse 18, that thou be not seen of men to fast, but of thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall recompense thee. Now what's the major thrust of our Lord's words? Well, it's this, that the great concern of the son or daughter of the king is that of pleasing the Father in all

14:31 his religious exercises as well as in every single facet of life, the great consuming passion of the heart should be, how may I bring pleasure to my Father, the one who took me from my state of poverty, my state of ignorance, my condition of guilt, from my state of being a disinherited member of the family of God, How can I please my Father? This is the great obligation which is laid upon the heart and upon the conscience of every single son and daughter of the kingdom. And this is not only the emphasis of the Sermon on the Mount, it is the emphasis of the remainder of the New Testament. Listen to the Apostle Paul as he expresses his

Paul and John on Pleasing the Father

15:26 How much this perspective had become a consuming passion in his own life. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. In this passage in which he expresses his longing to put on his glorified body. This passage in which he says, until that hour we walk by faith and not by sight.

15:52 He takes us, as it were, into the deepest recesses of his heart and of his motivation. And he says in verse 9, Wherefore also we make it our aim, or more literally translated as some margins render it, we are ambitious. Here's a man who confesses to being an ambitious person. But notice what the ambition is. Wherefore also we are ambitious.

16:20 whether at home or absent, to be well-pleasing unto him. You see, the great passion which motivated this apostle was that he might please his father, not doing that he might obtain, but having freely and graciously obtained, he seeks to do that he may bring pleasure to the heart of his gracious God.

16:49 In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 1, he tells us that it is this perspective which formed the framework of the practical ethical instructions which he gave the Thessalonians while he was in their midst as a public teacher. 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 1, Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that as ye received of us

17:18 How ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk, that ye should abound more and more. Paul says, when I was among you, this was the burden of my practical, ethical instruction. This was the great thrust of my detailed teaching on the Christian life. I taught you how you were under obligation to walk. The word ought is the word of obligation. He saw no contradiction between grace and obligation. But he says it was an oughtness that had reference to this singleness of motivation. How ye ought to walk and

18:08 pleased, not your elders, not your wife, not your husband, not your peers in the church, but how ye ought to walk and to please God. And then he says, I now exhort you to abound more and more in what? Not merely the details of the instruction, but the great of that instruction to abound more and more in this single-hearted passion to please their Father. Then we have John underscoring a similar perspective in his epistle, 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3, in a context in which we are given a wonderful promise regarding prayer and

19:02 We read verse 22, And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. Now you see again, the concept of obedience to commandments does not bring us into the realm of legalism.

19:29 I heard a well-known and tragically respected, in the light of what he has said, preacher recently say that love is self-interpreting. That we do not need commandment and precept to tell us what love ought to do. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. John said,

19:50 That we receive of Him because we are praying in the confidence of an uncondemned conscience because we keep His commandments and the motivation for the performance of those commandments is not to gain merit. It's not to earn some goodies. It's because we want to please our Father. We do the things that are pleasing in His sight. Now this motive...

20:19 powerfully operative in the heart is not self-directing. It needs the precepts to give it direction. That's why Paul could say, going back to the 1 Thessalonians 4 passage for a moment, he says, Ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, that ye abound more and more, for ye know what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus, for this is the will of God, and then He spells it out in precept. So you see, this matter of pleasing the Father as a consuming motivation of the adopted sons and daughters of God is not self-directing. It needs the precepts to give it direction and guidance. But my friends, with all the precepts spread before us,

21:18 we are not consumed with the motivation of pleasing the Father, we will either be very remiss and careless in our obedience, or our obedience will be a burden, and we will not know the meaning of the text which says, My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Go back to that man who once sat outside the gates of the city with his little cup begging for a pittance. And when he saw any of the king's army coming, had to run and hide because he was conscious of his guilt. And that man can sit in the very presence of his sovereign and call him father. Surely his heart beats with a longing to please the one who has conferred so much upon him. And as long as his heart beats with that longing, the king being just and gracious,

Precepts Within a Filial Framework

22:18 None of his commandments will be received as grievous or unreasonable, but they will be the very things suited to the longing of that pardoned criminal's heart. The precepts will show him the path in which he can fulfill the passion of his heart, namely, pleasing his Father. Now, we must never detach, you see, the precepts from the God who gave them.

22:50 I could not help but think of the rules that are posted on the back door of every motel in which I've been in. And the moment you shut the door after entering your motel room, there's a list of rules. When you're to check out, what you're to do and not to do, to keep the general framework of standards. But you see, those are a bunch of rules utterly detached from any affectionate bond between the person who's using the room and the person who owns the motel. They are house rules.

23:20 without any house affection. But oh, how different when the rules are the rules of a father who has graciously, freely, and wonderfully conferred so much upon us in Christ. And when we come to the Scriptures, God help us, if we merely treat the precepts as though they were rules pasted on the back of the motel door. We must come to them as the rules of our Father.

23:50 as the precepts of our gracious King who has taken us into His family. And with this desire to please Him, obedience will become sweet. Now the two great enemies to this motive of pleasing the Father are obviously the enemy of seeking to please self and seeking to please men. And the Bible reckons very honestly with them we don't have time to open those matters up this morning. Suffice it to say,

24:20 That our Lord Jesus Christ is the great pattern of one whose great passion was pleasing the Father in all things. Not pleasing himself, not pleasing men, but bringing pleasure to his Father. He could say in that classic text, John 8 and verse 29. John 8 and verse 29.

24:48 And he that hath sent me is with me. He hath not left me alone, for I do always the things. Now notice he could have said that he has commanded. That would have been true. But he expressed it in this filial form. I do always the things that are pleasing to him.

25:13 Now, if we are doing the things that are pleasing to Him, we will not knowingly do anything that contradicts one of His precepts. But you see, our Lord takes it out of the realm of detached precept and puts it into the dimension of intimate filial love and attachment. And in that sense, He is our great pattern of obedience. We, as the adopted sons and daughters,

Application: The Absence of This Motive Reveals the Unconverted

25:42 are to be driven with the motivation of pleasing the Father, and that is our obligation. Now, let me say briefly by way of application before we move on that perhaps few things will more incisively show the state of an unconverted man's heart than the absence of this motive. Now listen to me this morning as I ask a very simple question.

26:10 Do you get excited at the thought of pleasing God as Father? You say, come off it, man. I don't get excited about things like that. No, you don't. And you know why you don't? Because your heart is a sink of self-centeredness that has no concern but to please itself.

26:37 Paul describes the very essence of an unconverted man's great passion of heart. In 2 Corinthians 5.15 when he says that we should no longer henceforth live unto ourselves. My unconverted friend, man, woman, boy or girl, this shows you to be what God says you are. A creature who has turned inward.

27:03 upon a wicked form of idolatry in which you worship your own lusts, your own notions, your own ambitions, your own desires. May God fill you with a sense of shame. You were not made to be thus filled with yourself. You were made to please Him. And though this God in righteous anger could crush you with eternal judgment, for your daring to turn from the very purpose for which He made you, He comes in grace and mercy in the overtures of the gospel and says, Guilty criminal against whom I have a controversy, disinherited son who has no claim to my house and to my heart, ignorant, blind, diseased creature in my son

Obligation Two: Imitating the Father — Matthew 5:43-48

28:04 I offer you forgiveness, pardon, illumination, grace, acceptance. Oh, my sinner friend, how can you turn aside from such an overture of mercy? But then there is a second strand of the obligations of the adopted. That strand I am calling, in the words of Dr. Packer, imitating the Father.

28:34 Not only are we under solemn and gracious obligations to please the Father, but to imitate the Father. Turn back again, please, to Matthew's Gospel and chapter 5. The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5. Beginning in verse 43, in this section in which our Lord is scraping away

29:02 All of the barnacles that the Pharisees had allowed to attach themselves to the law of God to change the imagery. Our Lord is breaking off all of the mixed clay with which they had overlaid the pure teaching and intent of God's holy law. Our Lord says in verse 43, Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But

29:33 I say unto you, love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?

30:02 Do not even the Gentiles the same? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Now what is our Lord saying in this passage? Well, the essence of His command is that we are to love all men regardless of their treatment of us. That's what He's saying. The average Jew had so listened to the Pharisees as to interpret...

30:31 one element of the legislation to govern certain dimensions of civil life to mean that they were under no obligation to love anyone other than the person whom they could regard as their friend. And our Lord says, No. I say unto you, Love even your enemies. That's the great command in this passage. Regardless of how men treat you, you are to love them. Now, what's the reason?

30:59 He says, so that you may reflect the character of your Father, because that's exactly what He does. Love your enemies, pray for them that persecute you, that he may be. Not that you may therefore become, in the sense of earning, this status, but that you may be in your very appearance and attitude and in your very standing before the world, that you may be what you are, that you may be sons of God, bearing the likeness of your Father. What does he do? Well, you remember in the Exodus, it says that when darkness came over all of the houses of the Egyptians, it says there was light in the tents of the Israelites. God could so order the pattern of the clouds and of every raindrop that rain would only fall upon the fields of the just and not upon the unjust.

31:58 But he doesn't do that. The very fact of indiscriminate rain and sunshine is a revelation of God's heart. That's what Jesus is saying. God's heart goes out to all his creatures regardless of how they treat him. Those who curse him, those who live to themselves, those who ignore his gospel, those who trample underfoot his grace, he still sends his rain and his sun upon them.

32:27 He says, now you are to be like God. Your obligation as His children is to imitate your Father. And He summarizes it in verse 48. Therefore ye shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. And in the context, it is the perfection of love that is in God.

32:49 A love which though it has a discriminating and a particular dimension. And no one loves and holds more tenaciously to that truth than I do. Yet this passage says there is a genuine general love of God. To all of his creatures regardless of how they treat him. Now he says to all of his children. Imitate your father. Be like him.

Paul and Peter on Imitation and Holiness

33:18 Now again, this emphasis is found not just in the Sermon on the Mount, but notice how the Apostle Paul picks it up in Ephesians chapter 5. That the great obligation of the adopted is to imitate the Father. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 1. Be ye therefore imitators of God as beloved children. You see how he brings in the concept of adoption.

33:48 Be imitators of God as beloved children, that is, children beloved of your Father, and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell. What is the obligation of adoption? It is to imitate our Father. It is to be like God.

34:15 The one who is the head of the household. Peter emphasizes the same thing in his first epistle, chapter 1. 1 Peter, chapter 1. Notice the language. Beginning with verse 13. Wherefore, girding up the loins of your mind, be sober, and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Notice. Notice.

34:43 Here's that framework now. Because of this certain possession, that is grace that is to be brought at the coming of Christ when your redemption will be complete, in the confidence of that reality, he says, as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lust in the time of your ignorance, but like as He who called you is holy,

35:10 Be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living, because it is written, Ye shall be holy, for I am holy. Now notice, And if ye call on Him as Father. He puts this whole appeal to holiness in the context of an obligation of adoption.

The Elder Brother as Our Pattern

35:38 Since the Father is perfectly revealed in Christ, Christ could say, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. How do we, when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, where the rubber meets the road, how do we imitate the Father? We imitate the Father by walking as He walked. And that's why John could say, He that saith, He abideth in Him, ought himself so to walk even as He walked. 1 John 2.6 or 1 Peter 2.21

36:08 He hath left us an example that we should follow His steps. He has perfectly revealed the Father. Let me illustrate it this way. Suppose when that man, that criminal, that impoverished, ignorant, sick man that we described, who has been brought into the royal household, adopted into the family, and he has a whole new lifestyle to learn. Here he has lived the life of a cringing man, ignorant, diseased, outcast, criminal. Now, all of a sudden, he's adopted into the family and he must begin to live the life of a royal son of the king. And there's so many things he's got to learn. All new ways from how he dresses, how he comes to the table, how he cuts his food, how he holds a fork and knife, and how he fixes his hair, and everything. Everything.

37:04 And there are times when the directives of the father, he can't quite interpret how that works out in his real world. Well, suppose that king had a son already established in the household who was his own born son and who from birth was acclimated to all the rules of the house and to all of the patterns of that royal home.

37:33 Well, you see, when this newcomer had any questions, he could look up to his elder brother, and he'd watch him when he comes to the table. He'd say, well, I see what he does. He puts his napkin across this way, and I noticed that he uses his fork, and by looking to the patterns of the elder brother, he would know how to do the will of the Father. Now you see the point of the illustration, don't you?

38:02 This is what God has graciously done for us in Christ. For in the Lord Jesus we have a transcript of the character of our God. What does it mean? Be perfect as your Father is perfect. The perfections of the Father are revealed in the patterns of the Son. And now the Scripture says, He that saith he abideth in Him ought to walk as he walked.

38:31 And so we imitate the Father as we read through the Scriptures and we behold our Lord Jesus in all of the various relationships of a true humanity, in a true human situation, in a true sinful situation, though He Himself was without sin. We see Him reacting to misunderstanding. We see Him reacting to the insensitivity of others. We see Him reacting to human need.

Two Fathers: Imitating Either God or the Devil

39:00 And in that spectrum of our Lord's life is set before us what it is to be like the Father. Now here again, the infinite chasm between the children of God and the children of the devil is clearly seen. Listen to the words of the Lord Jesus in John chapter 8. He says to the Jews of His day, verse 38,

39:28 John 8, 38, I speak the things which I have seen with my father, and ye also do the things which ye heard from your father. They answered and said unto him, Our father is Abraham. Jesus said unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I heard from God. This did not Abraham.

39:58 Ye do the works of your Father. They said unto Him, We were not born of fornication. We have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love Me. For I came forth and have come from God, for neither have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Even because ye cannot hear My word, Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father it is your will to do. See the contrast? Jesus is the great pattern.

40:40 He came saying, I do the works and the will of my Father. But he says to these Jews, your concern is indeed to imitate a Father, but your Father is not God. You imitate your spiritual Father who is the devil, and the proof is you do his works. Now, my friend, everyone sitting here is imitating one of two fathers. You're imitating the Father revealed in Jesus Christ.

41:09 One who could say, I do always the things that please my Father. And in so doing, he walked in scrupulous obedience to every revelation of the will of his Father. Or you're doing the will of that other spiritual father, the devil.

41:34 And it is your will, Jesus said. The lust of your Father, it is your will to do. You imitate Him. And what is the pattern of His character? Jesus goes on to say. He is a murderer. He is a liar. He doesn't traffic in truth and reality or in life. He traffics in death and in lies. And that's the mark of some of you sitting here now. You traffic in death. You will not come to Christ for life

42:04 You seek life in your lusts and in the world and in its pleasures. You're doing the will of your Father. You're imitating Him. And you traffic in lies. You're like your spiritual father, the devil. The lie that life is truly to be understood in terms of what can be seen and touched and felt and tasted and enjoyed with the senses when the truth Life is only to be understood in terms of that unseen world of reality. That world in which the forgiveness of Christ becomes the sinner's possession. In which the Spirit of Christ becomes the transforming power of the heart and life. Oh, how this shows the chasm. The infinite chasm that exists in this very building this morning.

43:04 Let me press the question in your conscience sitting here. Do you know anything of a passion to imitate the Father? The Father who is revealed in Christ. I'm not asking you, do you claim to have made great progress? I'm not asking you, do you claim to have come to some great pinnacle of attainment? I'm simply asking, is it an inward spiritual obsession to be like

43:33 The God whom you claim is your Father. The child of God can answer. By the grace of God, it is. And if you cannot, my friend, then it is because you must answer in the affirmative to the second question. Is it your passion and yearning in life to imitate your father, the devil? And you must answer, yes!

Obligation Three: Glorifying the Father — Matthew 5:13-16

44:02 For there is no neutral ground. But then finally, the great obligation of the adopted is to be understood not only in terms of pleasing the Father, imitating the Father, but glorifying the Father. Now we go back to the Sermon on the Mount again. And here our Lord articulates this truth very clearly in the familiar words beginning in verse 13.

44:34 Speaking to his own who have been described in the Beatitudes, Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt hath lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden underfoot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men light a lamp and

45:10 You see, the great motivation our Lord lays before His people in these two great figures...

45:30 Of the people of God. They are salt in the midst of that which left to itself will putrefy and become rotten. And the people of God are in that kind of a situation what salt is in the presence of meat which if unsalted will putrefy and become stinking and unedible. And then he says the world is in darkness.

45:58 And in the midst of that darkness, you, my people, are the light you radiate in the midst of that darkness. Now, he says, in the light of that, your great concern should be functioning as light and salt to let your light so shine. To what end? That men, that is, those who have no love for the Father, those who have no affection for the Father, those who think wrong thoughts, and think ill of the Father, beholding your good works, may glorify your Father who is in heaven. In other words, that men who are ignorant and indifferent to the beauty of God may behold something of the outshining of that beauty in the lifestyle of the people of God. That's putting it in 20th century English or American East. He said, let your light so shine

46:57 that those in whose midst it does shine, seeing what you are as my people, may have their ignorance concerning me dispelled, their prejudices concerning me overcome. Let your light so shine that the result of it will be that men who are indifferent to me, who are unconcerned about me, may glorify me, that is,

47:24 that they may praise me for the perfections of what I am, as what I am is seen in you. And so our Lord assumes that the great concern of the adopted will be the glorifying of their Father. Go back to that man that we met in the beginning of our study this morning.

47:51 Suppose he knows that out there, outside the walls of his new home, outside the precincts of the affection and intimate filial access that he has to the king who is now his father. Suppose he knows from his former days that out there in his kingdom there are many people filled with prejudicial thoughts about the king.

48:17 Though the king's rule is just and right and good, they've got all these twisted notions that he's a mean tyrant, that he's a self-centered despot. And this man who's known of his grace and known the reality of the love and the justice and the kindness of the king who is now his father, what will be his great passion when he moves amongst these men? with misconception and prejudice and ignorance about the nature of his father, will it not be so to walk, so to manifest all the characteristics of the king who is his father, that the prejudice and the ignorance and the misconception will be utterly vaporized. And they will say, Oh, my friend, in the light of what we've seen in you,

49:13 the King is not the man we thought He was. He is one worthy of our love, of our respect, and of our homage. I tell you, that touches deep springs in the heart of a true Christian. One of the things that breaks the heart of everyone who at one time was that guilty, sick, diseased

49:43 ignorant, outcast, but who has been brought within the canopy of divine grace and pardon and forgiveness. The thing that breaks the heart of a child of God is the ignorance, the prejudice, and the misconception about His Father that obtains in the rank and file of men. Doesn't it break your heart? You go to work.

50:09 And people pity you that you're a Christian because they think your God is some kind of a tight-fisted Simon LeGree. And it breaks your heart that people entertain such misconceptions about your God. So what is one of the great passions of a true Christian? To glorify God. So to live that all of that misconception by the blessing of the Spirit of God

1 Corinthians 10:31 and the Pastoral Application

50:40 will be vaporized. Not only is that the perspective of the Sermon on the Mount, it carries right through the New Testament. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10.31, Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. And may I pause to give a very practical pastoral word.

51:05 That comes in the context of the doctrine of Christian liberty and its exercise or non-exercise. And if you read the context, eating and drinking to the glory of God means not only eating and drinking that for which I can give God thanks, but that concerning which I have reasonable confidence will not unnecessarily prejudice any mind against the gospel or cause anyone else to stumble into sin. And some of you desperately need that word. You've been floating at a sea of high tide in the enjoyment of your so-called Christian liberty that in some areas has led to insensitivity to weaker consciences and a callousness to an onlooking world.

52:05 the Christian, the great passion of his heart when he is consistent with himself is he longs to glorify the Father. Now again, the line of demarcation between the sinner and the saint is clear. You who are not converted, you could care less about glorifying God. Every day you live your self-centered life, you rob God of glory. You were made To bring glory to him. And yet God mercifully holds out. In Christ. Pardon. Forgiveness. Acceptance. If you will but repent. And believe. Well. We come around full circle to where we began. The very framework of New Testament ethical demands. And Old Testament as well. When God gave the law at Sinai. He said I am the Lord thy God.

Summary: The Framework of New Testament Ethics

53:04 who has been gracious to you. I've brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage. Don't let anyone tell you that the Ten Commandments, even in their mosaic form, are just a tight-fisted, unfeeling code to batter the people of God down. It simply will not stand the test of exegesis and of redemptive history. God says, in the light of what I've done for you,

53:34 This is what I require of you. Now granted, they couldn't keep it, and so the law was added to show them what they really were. That's what Paul means when he says it was added because of transgression. But there was nothing grievous in what he required. The law is spiritual and just and holy and good. The fault lay not with the grace of God or the demands of God, but with the wretchedness of their own hearts.

54:01 God comes to us now in the light of all the blessings of the new covenant and He says, to every believing sinner, I've adopted you into my family. I've made you my own. And now because you are mine and I've given you all the legal blessings of adoption and all the experiential blessings of adoption, here are your obligations. Please me. Imitate me. Glorify me.

54:30 Child of God, this is why you must resist with holy vengeance anything that robs you of the present enjoyment of your adoption. For to the extent that you revel in the privileges of your adoption, you will be motivated to fulfill the obligations of your adoption. That's why you must not grieve the Spirit by sinning, because when you grieve Him, then there is a diminution. of His concurrent testimony to your sonship. And when your title to sonship is blurred, your desire to please the Father is weakened. And so it's the person who lives in the fullest enjoyment of what he is in Christ that performs the most for Christ. Do you see it? It is said that in the days of Rome's glory, when Rome had a citizenry that was filled with

55:29 principle, at least in common grace, that if a foreigner were to come to a Roman and attempt to seduce him to dishonesty or thievery, that it was common practice for the Roman thus enticed to turn and say, as his only response to his would-be seducer, I, sir, am a Roman. And that answered

56:01 Child of God, we need to so live in the consciousness that we are the children of God. That when we are seduced by a bewitching world or by remaining corruption or a subtle devil to do anything contrary to the rules of the house, we will meet it with this affirmation. I am a child of God.

Closing Prayer

56:33 That would be reason enough as we seek to please Him, to imitate Him, and to glorify Him. Let us pray. Our Father,

57:02 Oh, blessed name, Father. We worship you this morning. We bless you forever opening your heart to us in Jesus Christ. Forever welcoming us to your table, to your house, to the gracious government of that house. We confess that we

57:32 dagger, we are confused and even baffled when we seek to focus our minds upon the magnitude of the grace that has been extended to us in all of our guilt and poverty and ignorance and soul disease. O God, will you not constrain some who have had wicked thoughts about you to see that you are a gracious God?

58:02 And in the name and through the righteousness of your Son, may they this day make their approach to you and be found in your household. We pray for those of us who are your children, that we may know, as we have never known before, what it is to be driven with a holy passion to please you, to imitate you, and to glorify you. Write these things upon our hearts.

58:33 Give us grace to work them out in our lives by the power of the Spirit. And then, Father, we cannot but plead again for those who are still the sons of their father the devil. O God, bring them to Yourself. Hear our prayer. Receive our praise for Your presence with us and for the preciousness of Your Word

59:04 Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.