Well, here are the two things, congregation, that we need to learn this morning. The first one is, why is Jesus called the only begotten Son of God when we also are called God's children? And second, why do we call Him who believe in Him? Why do we call Him? our Lord, or my Lord. Those are two things that we need to learn this morning. So let's begin, we'll start with the first question there. Why is he called God's only begotten son, we're also God's children? Now, notice what's implied in the question. That Jesus is God's son, yeah, but also that we are God's sons, right? God's children, Christians, believers in Christ, baptized into his name. Just so you know, sons here means also daughters. It means the women amongst us. In the ancient world, generally sons were the heirs. They had the rights to the property and rule. So in that sense, ladies, you want to be sons in Christ and you are. It means that you, along with the rest of us men, are heirs of the world to come. So it's good to be called sons in that sense. But the thing that we need to learn here is that you and I, two things, you and I, one, share in a great sonship with our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the son of God, we're sons of God. But the other thing is that though we share in this status as sons of God with him, his sonship remains unique. So we share in that sonship, but His Sonship remains unique. So let's first look at His unique Sonship, and then we'll look at our shared Sonship. So His unique Sonship as the only begotten Son of God, and then our shared Sonship with Him. Jesus' unique Sonship, as the Catechism succinctly, clearly puts it here, is that He is the eternal and natural Son of God. I'll read a few passages. I know they're familiar to you. John 1, right? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, eternal, natural Son of God. He was in the beginning with Him. All things were made through Him. Why? Because He's God. Without Him was not anything made that was made. also in Hebrews chapter one. But in these last days, God has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God. There you go, distinct, but yet God. The exact imprint of his person, distinct and yet exactly God. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. So scripture says great things about us as sons of God, but only these things are said about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that He's the eternal and natural Son of God. Now if we had time, here would be a good place for a second sermon on the eternal generation of the Son. Eternal generation is the church's way of saying that the son and the father are distinct, that the father communicated to his son the divine essence that he has, yet that generation is eternal and therefore Jesus is divine. He's always been there and always had that, but he's distinct, right? Jesus is God. Now, I know that seems like Christianity 101, or if there's more basic than that, then it's that, and it is. But here's the short answer of why we need to know it and stand here. Because there is simply no gospel without it. Jesus is not the eternal Son of God. There's no good news, because all men have sinned, and all men have died in Adam, our first covenant head. Apart from a special act of recreation in the incarnation of the Son of God to give us a gracious new covenant head without sin, we would be lost forever. The point is, there's no man who is not implied in Adam's guilt, not under his headship and has not fallen. The only way we have a man not is a new promised one, Jesus, the new man, the second Adam, the head of the covenant of grace. Sinful man simply cannot atone for sinful man's sins. Only the righteous, only begotten Son of God, Jesus, can and did. But we should also be strong on eternal generation and congregation, which means strong on the deity of Christ, Because there are many, even still today, who deny it, and yet call themselves Christian. I know my job is to equip me, and I feel almost slightly negligent not to do it here. There's just not enough time. Trust me, the sermon's long enough. So I think maybe this week in my pastor's study, I'll send out maybe a little primer on it. And I say this because though there's many, here's one group, the Mormons. They are continuing to make disciples, Mormon disciples, right here in St. Mary's County. Go to their website, I did, and check it. They confess that Jesus is the Savior of the world. And you would say, so do we. They confess Him to be the Son of God. So do we. It's written right there. They confess God to be a trinity. So do we. What gives? What's the difference? Well, if you read further in their statement of faith, their doctrine of the Trinity is that God only exists in a union of really mind and purpose. They're just united in that they agree together. They're not united in that they're one essence, one being. That's the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, that Jesus is one and the same being with the Father, so is the Spirit. I say this to you This is, again, why you should be catechizing children as you are, bringing them to it. Because I read a frightful article in World Magazine last year about a man who was taken in by a cult here in the United States that originates in North Korea, I think, or South Korea, though it's spreading over the world. He was taken in by this because he wanted to meet somebody. And some pretty girl met him and said, I am a Christian. He's like, great. She wasn't a Christian in name Finally, by God's grace, he came out of that cult. And now he's working against it. But you know what he said? As he would go around and evangelize in his gospel and make disciples, you know what he said? He said, the easiest people to make converts of were Christians, uneducated Christians. Because they thought, oh, they'll just know the answers. They'll never be duped and taken in. And then someone appears to show them their Bible, appears to show them what it means, professes to say the same things, and they're utterly taken. They don't know how to defend the truth. and they're made converts of. He said they're the easiest people, uneducated Christians. I sadly had an experience of it this year. A man I'd met through my rounding chaplaincy in the hospital, young man. I run into him by accident out in town. I'm going to be very vague here because I say vague, but I run into this person. And he says to me, Pastor Young, I'm getting baptized! I'm thinking, Hallelujah! Yes! And then he says, at the Latter-day Saints church. And I died inside. You can see my face drop. I awkwardly excused myself from it and went on to the head where I was headed. And I'm praying fervently to the Lord, what do I do, Lord, what do I do? And I said afterwards, I found him back, I said, I'm going to be here all afternoon. If you want to come talk to me, please do. I pleaded with him not to join that church. You know what he talked about? He said, well, they're so friendly. They love me. I get that. But friendship by Christians doesn't save you. Truth does. But let us be a people that have the truth and people say, I want to be with them because they're so lovely. Man, terrible. But right here in the county, proselytizing and teaching a Christ that can't save. They don't think he's the Son of God. So Jesus' unique sonship is that he is the eternal and natural Son of God. But our shared sonship with him, as the Catechism says and Scripture makes plain, that happens by grace, God's gift, It takes place through an act of adoption, as he takes us as his children. And it happens for the sake of Jesus, our Redeemer, who laid his life down for us. Our sonship is by grace and through adoption because, well, we forfeited by our sin. We were made sons of God in creation through our forefather, Adam. And in that sense, you might say sonship was natural to us. It was a created right given to us as God made us His image bearers, His children. But we send our inheritance away when we believe the lie. And it's our adoption, excuse me, our sonship is for Christ's sake because God graciously restored it to Adam and all who believed that gospel promise, right? Right there in the garden. After the Tower of Babel, where it was lost again after the flood, God gave that same mandate to Noah and his sons to bless and be fulfilled, earth as his children, spread his kingdom. Well, they send that away at Babylon. But after that, God called Abraham and in him Israel to be his sons and constituted them as his sons by grace through adoption for the sake of Christ. And in the fullness of time, as we just read this morning in Galatians, God sent forth his son, the Messiah, Jesus, that through his obedience unto death, he has redeemed us and all who believe that we might become God's adopted children. So that our sonship to us now in Christ, it's a redemptive right bestowed upon all who receive Jesus, believe in his name. Now let me briefly point out to us, because it was very encouraging to me this week in study, four ways that we share in Jesus' Sonship. As the question makes clear, we share in Christ's Sonship, and as I made clear to you, and as I know you know, His remains unique, but yet we still share. And here's sonship. Well, we share in it in four ways. Let me briefly tell you those four ways and apply it and tell you why it matters. Well, the first way we share in Jesus's sonship is by generation. We read of Jesus, we read it a few weeks ago or last week, I can't remember, in Matthew 1. in the virgin birth narrative, that the angel came and said, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's God. The incarnate Christ has been begotten of God and therefore he is the son of God to be acknowledged by us and by the world as God's son. But also you and I have been begotten by God in John 1, verses 12 and 13. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave them the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. It's in a few chapters later, right? Jesus talking to Nicodemus will explain. That takes place in the spiritual rebirth. So Jesus, born of God, born of the Spirit, Son of God. Christians, born of God, born of the Spirit, sharing in that same sonship that we are the children of God. And what that means is this. We have the same spiritual father as Jesus. We all have very different earthly fathers. We all have the same spiritual father, God. No longer are we children of the devil doing his works, the children of God doing the father's works. Now here's one way you can apply this truth to your life, and here's the way Paul does it, and I think Paul wrote Hebrews, whoever you think wrote Hebrews. In Hebrews chapter 2, Paul writes, For he who sanctifies, that's Jesus, those who are sanctified, that's you and Christ, all have one source, that source being God the Father. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers. Jesus is not ashamed to call his church brothers. And I think, beloved, that that should raise the self-esteem of us all who call Jesus Lord. And He is not ashamed to call you His brother. And I think then that for us, that means that we should not be ashamed to act like we're His brothers by our holy living in this world as He lived. He's not ashamed to call us brethren. Let's not be ashamed also to live like his brethren, and live like he did, and confess him who he is. Here's the second way we share in his sonship, by commission. It means being commissioned, being sent, given a task, a purpose. In John 10, I hear Jesus debating about him calling himself the Son of God. He says, Jesus answered him, is it not written in your law, I said you are gods? If you call them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him who the Father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I said I'm the Son of God? Jesus is saying, but by the commission and consecration that he received being sent into this world by the Father, he is therefore constituted the Son of God, and so we must receive him as the one sent by the Father, as Son of God. But did you know, you and I also, as sons of God, share in His commission, or have a commission. Jesus says to His disciples on Resurrection Sunday, after doing the act of redemption, He says, peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. When He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. In the context, as I said, our risen Lord Jesus on Resurrection Day was commissioning and sending his disciples into all the world to go make peace by preaching the gospel of peace. The act of reconciliation had been accomplished. Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Resurrection Sunday. Now they have a word of reconciliation, Christ crucified, and now he sends them out, go preach, be ye reconciled to God through Christ. What does that mean for us? Also, remind you to remember what Jesus says in the Beatitudes, who are the ones called sons of God? Blessed are the peacemakers. So what does it mean for us? Well, the best way you and I can fulfill our commissioned sonship in Christ to make peace is to preach the gospel of peace, to preach the good news of God's redeeming and reconciling love to every person we meet, and also seek to live at peace with all men, as much as is in our power to do, because we have been sent into this world to be sons of God, peacemakers. If we do that, congregation, we will truly be called, right, the son of God. Let me add this real quick. I was going to do it later, but I had it now. I think it fits better now, actually. I looked up every usage of the word child in Scripture. It was like 360. I looked up every usage of the word son in Scripture. It was like another 360. It was like 99. I can't remember. give me a wonderful vision of, and brother, give me a wonderful vision of the Bible's, and that's just the New Testament, sorry, I didn't even look at the Old Testament, kind of understanding of the brotherhood of Christ and redemption and how that works. What really stood out to me is this. You don't read an apostle addressing non-Christians or Christians without calling them brothers. You're going, wait, but they're non-Christians and Christians. It's because we have two families. We have our earthly natural family, our national family, our Adamic family, and our Christian family. And yet, they're both our family, both legitimate in this age, and we should call them brethren and seek to win them to Christ. Yes, God has given you a new family in Christ, but let us go to our first family and tell them about this new family and tell them how they too can become Christians and go and say, brother, not go and say, you're my enemy. No, you're not. You're my brother. Come believe in Jesus. Come be a part of God's family. Anyways, there's that. That I would encourage you in the right mindset and attitude as we go across the street to our neighbors and all people we meet. Every time an apostle stands up in scriptures and wants them to hear the good news, he says, men, brothers, hear this message. He preaches to them this family that he wants to bring into Christ. Thirdly, we have this sonship shared with Christ by resurrection. We read in Peter's sermon in Acts 2 on Pentecost, preaching to the crowd, he says, God has fulfilled the same, excuse me, got it wrong. This is Paul in Acts 13, preaching at Antioch years later, but this is Paul preaching to Jews in the synagogue. God has fulfilled the same to us, their children, and that he has raised up Jesus again, as it is written in the second Psalm, thou art my son, this day I begotten thee, the new creation. By our Lord's resurrection from the dead, He is declared to be the Son of God in power, and must be confessed by all because it's true. But we also, right, will share, and even do in the spiritual resurrection, share in this Sonship. Paul says in Romans 8.23, and not only the creation, But we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we await eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. What's Paul saying here? Well, he's saying that our sonship, like Jesus's, includes bodily resurrection from the dead. Your son's now redeemed in Christ having the Spirit, and yet your sonship will only be completed at the resurrection, your redemption will only be completed when you're bodily raised from the dead. And you'll know fully what God means by calling you son, when you share in that glory. You know, Paul will apply this truth to the church in that letter, or in 1 Corinthians, by telling the church, don't live like there's no tomorrow, because there is. And keep on laboring, though Christian labor is tiring and wearisome, because you know that nothing you do in the Lord is in vain, because he's going to raise you and reward you richly for it. So I don't know what today looks like you, for beloved. I don't know what you're going through, all of you, but I know that your tomorrow, or I know what your tomorrow looks like. Very bright, indeed. But let that light shine of what is yours in Christ and will be yours, resurrection light, into whatever darkness, difficulties you're having today, because you are God's son now. I love that, I think it's Bill Gates, right? Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Fourth, and finally, we share in Christ's sonship by an actual possession of that. Here we get into a little bit more of what does that mean, and the ideal here is heirship, the ownership of everything. After his resurrection from the dead, we read these words in Hebrews 1. After making purification for sins, Christ sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much a peer to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Christ is the heir of all things. The name that he inherited as the firstborn from the dead is heir. of all things. Everything belongs to Jesus. Everything. This world is his. The world to come is his. He's the heir. God's put him in possession of it as the son. Well, listen what the son says to the church in Revelation. It's right at the end of it. It's verse seven, I think it's 22. He that overcometh shall inherit all things. And I will be his God and he shall be my son. Again, that idea that already, not yet. Your sonship includes heirship. And if you overcome, You will inherit the whole world and have it as your inheritance as a co-heir with Christ. And so the application here is, brothers and sisters, overcome. Maintain your stance in this world as the followers of Christ and live as God's children by faith, believing the good news. even if your earthly possessions are taken away from you, because you know you have a better inheritance than anything here in the world to come. So we truly do, congregations, share in a very great sonship with Christ, the same Father God, begotten of Him. It's the same commission being sent in the world to make peace. The same glorious hope of resurrection to be raised from the dead and made glorious and put in charge and possession of all things as the heirs of the world. I don't think it gets any better than that, does it? I think we should all learn the lesson of Esau. Don't sell your birthright. Hold on to Christ. It will be worth it in the end. And I dare say now, hold on to him. Let's look at the second question, the second part, which deals with why we call Jesus our Lord. Why do we say our Lord? Now, the catechism here is focusing on the Christian response, so it doesn't deal with the fact that Jesus is Lord of everything, whether you acknowledge that or not, but is trying to distinguish, since the evil one knows that, All men are going to know that if they don't know now. Eventually, when they go before the Lord's judgment seat, what's the difference between unbelievers and believers when they say, Lord? So this question is getting at the Christian response and confession to the universal and eternal lordship of Christ. And lordship means the rule and authority over everything. Well, the answer is very wonderful. because not with gold or silver, but with His precious blood, He has delivered and purchased us, body and soul, from sin and from the tyranny of the devil, to be His very own." And the language here of by delivering and purchasing is the language of redemption. And the great truth being taught to us in this question is that we now as believers in Christ call Him our Lord because we belong to Him. He has rights of possession over us since He has purchased us, ransomed us by His blood. We simply are His. At one time we weren't, but now we are. At one time, because of our sinful rebellion against God, we were held in Satan's house, as we read there in Matthew 12 this morning. His kingdom is tyranny. Through sin, we came under Satan's power. Only through sin. Only because we sinned that we came under his power. And through the fear of death, and here I'm sort of paraphrasing Paul in Hebrews 2, through the fear of death, Satan, who has the power of death, kept us in bondage all our life long, but not any longer. Because as we read, right, the stronger man, Jesus, he's bound the strong man, Satan, and he's ransacked his house. Isn't that a wonderful picture? of Satan tied up, unable to do anything, and all those people he held in the fear of death, because he was going to go accuse them before God, are like, nothing to fear here anymore. Tied up. I'm out of here. I'm going free. I'm going to live forever in Jesus. Wonderful. Well, how did this take place, this ransacking? Well, it takes place right through that gospel of forgiveness, of grace. The word Satan just means accuser in Hebrew. The Satan, the accuser. It's a legal term. He loves to accuse guilty men to God. And that's how he holds his power over us. Do you know how blackmail works? Someone knows some dirty secret about you, they hold you in bondage to their will, threatening to tell everyone if you don't do what they want. We've probably all read books about this scene, stories, and you know that if the truth ever comes out, that blackmailing person, he loses all his power over you, right? Nothing there to be afraid of anymore. It's out. His threats become idle. Well, it's like that with Satan, because what can he accuse us of? We're clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Through His redeeming death, dying for our sins, we have been forgiven our debt. What charges are there to bring? You know, the best way to reward off, John Bunyan gets this in the valley of humiliation in Pilgrim's Progress. Martin Luther was big on this. And Satan comes accusing. Don't be denying. Yep, I'm that sinful and more so. But I know my Savior, Jesus. His righteousness is mine, and where he's at, I'll be there too. You're more sinful than you know. Don't worry about it. The gospel is not about how sinful you are, but how gracious God is. You have a righteousness that is impeachable. Trust in it. Go free. Don't fear death, because you're deathless in Christ. There's no sentence of condemnation against you. Jesus is raised because you're forgiven. He's raised. Where He's at, you'll be in glory forever. There's no death looming over you. There's no death for your future in Christ. There should be no fear of death by any child of God. That's how He keeps you under it. preaching it hard to you because you live in a world where Satan's gonna want to accuse you. He's gonna want to threaten you if you stand out and speak for Christ. He's gonna want to cancel you. But so what if you're harmed or possibly have your earthly life taken away? You're not going to a place of punishment and torment. You're going to a place where you'll be loved, rewarded, received, and glorified. Let us live like he's bound. Let us live as redeemed children of God, and no fear of Him. Let us give Christ the glory He's due, and live as bounteous, redeemed people of Him. Jesus reigns, and Jesus is Lord, and God will soon cross Satan under our feet. This is so good, I've got to stay here longer, because again, consider the gospel. Though Satan can stir us up to do our worst, against Christ, crucify Him. That is the most horrible way man has ever invented to kill somebody else. Yet, our Lord cries out from the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. How can Satan compete with that kind of forgiving love? What is there to fear from God who's forgiven you in Christ? How can Satan compete? He can't. What can that tyrant do to keep us any longer in his bondage of fear when the very giver of the law himself substitutes himself in the place of the breakers of the law and dies for them? He cannot compete with God's love. He is powerless. And we have gained a victory over him and all the powers as God's children through our Lord's redeeming death on the cross. It is through penal substitution, our being forgiven, reconciled to God, that we then gain the victory over the accuser and no longer live under his lies, threats, or fears. Victory comes through Christ's cross for his were bought for, were paid. Let me give you four things that that means, and that will be the ending of my sermon. Let me give you four applications here, what it means that you belong to Jesus and that you are a child of God. And I guess before I do that, I just want to briefly point out to you the connection before redemption and sonship, the connection between these two. We saw it in our epistle reading this morning there in Galatians 4, that when the fullness of time had come, God had sent forth his Son, the Redeemer, born of a woman, born under law, to do what? To redeem those who are under the law. But why? For what purpose? So that we might receive adoption as Son. Notice what it says next, because you are sons, being redeemed by Christ's blood, God has sent His Spirit into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. The Spirit does not so much make us sons as it seals to us and identifies us as son. You were made a son when you were redeemed by Christ. It's a redemptive right. You are no longer a slave but a son, if a son in an heir. What this is saying is the relationship between redemption, which we've been looking at in the second question, and sonship, which we've been looking at in the first question, is this. its means to an end. God's goal for us in Christ is to be his children, and the way that God accomplishes that goal, the means, is through redemption in Christ. That's how they're related. You are redeemed to be a child of God. Through redemption, now and tomorrow, as we already saw, we're waiting for that adoption, waiting for that sonship when we're raised bodily. You have become a child of God. What does this mean for us? First, it talks to you about your worth and your value as an individual and as a person. Notice what price was put on your life. Not with gold or silver. Those are the most precious things men come up with. But with His precious, costly blood. During our Christian education night this spring, we've been singing the song, I Am Not My Own. It's based off of the Heidelberg Catechism. And there is a wonderful line in it. It goes like this. And if He has redeemed me, I am not my own. The measure of my worth is His love alone. I say to you, congregation, with everything in me, I think you could conquer the world by those words alone. The measure of my worth is His love alone. Because the world says, if you don't go to this school, you're not worth anything. And then we spend all our time and money getting into some school. not serving God. If you don't wear these clothes, you're not worth anything. If you don't shop here, if you don't look like this, if you don't have this many likes on your post, if you don't talk to these people, run in these circles, work at this place, have this level of income, these initials after your name, these kinds of kids, this kind of spouse, and all that is trash and lie. because you are worth everything to Christ. I read this weeks ago, and I was too scared to share, and I'm half too scared to shout now, because it's so unbelievable, but I was reading somebody commenting on God, the gospel, and God giving up his son, and he says this, God loves us more than himself. God and Christ both sacrificed everything for you. Is your worth it? Leave. Do not find your worth anywhere else but in Jesus's redeeming love for you alone. Let that be sufficient for all of us because it is. You do not need anything else than you already have in Jesus to matter. You matter to him, period. And since our Lord who gave himself a ransom for us, all, puts that same worth upon all of us equally, then let us treat one another with that same dignity. Second, why does it matter that you've been redeemed to be a child of God, that you belong to Jesus? It means you're free. Sonship and liberty go together. The whole context in Galatians 4, in the Galatian letter, is that it's written to a church who's taken back on herself the yoke of slavery. Paul, in Romans 8, talks about the creation itself waits for the liberties of the sons of God. They go together. Sonship and liberty. I can't say it better to you than Our Own Confession says in its chapter on the liberty in Christ. It says this, the liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law, And they're being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, dominion of sin, from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation. As also in their free access to God, they're yielding obedience to Him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love, a willing mind. all which were common also to believers under the old covenant, the law, but under the new, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law to which the Jewish church was subjected, and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace and fuller communications of the Spirit of God than they had." Now, I know that was a lot, and you're probably like, whew! Just go read it and take it in, but let me point out a few things, what it means for you. You are free, congregation, to call God Daddy. In fact, he wants you to. You are free to love him freely because you're forgiven. He has set your heart free. when He gives you His undeserving grace and takes away that horrible future that your sins deserve. He's freed you from all that slavish fear. You may freely now start serving Him. Now, right as you are now, not tomorrow when you think you'll be perfect. Now, right now, you can serve. You're also free, congregation, to say to your sin, no, because you're not under its dominion. It doesn't have power over you. Do you speak to your sin that way? You don't go away. No! I'm dead to sin, I'm alive to God. You're free to tell it no. And all you dear older saints and sicker saints, hold on because your bodies too will be free from the bondage of corruption. which I'm sure is like a bondage as you grow older and you can't do what you want to do. Go where you want to go. Tied to a bed. I get it. But you will be free. Third, what does it mean? It means, or it tells you about your meaning and purpose in life. The Bible, as I alluded to earlier, begins with the story of creation in Edom, right? Genesis 1. Well, it ends with the promising picture of the new creation in Eden in Revelations 21 and 22. Eden was always meant to be populated with God's children. Your creational, now redemptive, purpose in Christ is to live as a child of God. Simply put, you were created for this and you were redeemed for this, to live as a child of God. Now, I, being redeemed now, I don't do it as much as I should, but I thank Christ, as I know you do, that in Him we have been restored to being men again. And what I mean by that is that we have been restored to be what it means to be human again, not in bondage to our passions and lusts and desires and selfish, egocentric kinds of living, but are truly becoming God's children again. living like what it means to be a human being and alive. Once more, we are bearing that image of God. Once more, we are kind like God is kind. We are loving like Him, sacrificially. We forgive others and we forget. We humble ourselves. We deny ourselves. We live as the light. We spread the truth and not lies. We love, we don't hate, we lead by serving, we put others first, we don't serve ourselves, we don't waste our lives, but we give them to God in His service to glorify Him, because we're His children. You know, as I said, I looked up all the usages for son and child in the Bible, wonderful things to learn there, but at the heart of it, it just means imitating God. following Christ, being conformed to him because he is sonship. Conformity to Christ is sonship. So keep living as God's children congregation, keep shining in the world as a light. Finally, and fourthly, what does it mean? It means you're all family. One thing is clear as you read the scriptures, Christians are family. Jews were families too. God's people are family. Christians in the Bible call one another brother and sister and mother and father even. They treat one another accordingly. In Paul's letters, in all his admonitions to the church, his exhortations to the churches, even when the churches really seriously sin against him, like in 1 Corinthians, and say nasty, mean, salacious things about him, he prefaces all his comments to them with the words, brethren and brothers. And I think what that means for us congregation, is that in this evil day of online communication, let us pause before we text and email, write, or even speak, and remind ourselves that the one we're speaking to on the other side of that screen, or maybe face, is our brother, if they call themselves a Christian. And they're our brother in Adam, too. You may disagree. You can have a grievance. But you cannot treat anybody unbrotherly in Christ's church. Scriptures see the church as one big connected family. There's no place in it for divisions. I think the very simplest way then to apply this idea that we're all children of God is just to call each other brother and sister. We could also imply it by giving each other the holy kiss, right? You're like, oh man, is Pastor Young going to require us to kiss each other when we meet in church? No. But they did at one point. And you'll say, oh, well, that was the culture. Well, shame on us. It's not our culture today, I guess. I was in Edinburgh years ago with my brother at a fish and chip shop. When I saw two teenage girls walk in, apparently they were the children of the owners there. I think they looked to be from South America. They all started kissing and hugging. I thought to myself, wow, that is wonderful. That's how families should greet each other when they come together. I know many still do, but we're family in Christ. Whether we like it or not, Christ has welcomed us all to be his brothers and sisters. So let us keep loving each other dearly. Let us settle our disputes. Let us cross the aisles. Let us pray for each other. And let us share the good news with all. Congregation, you have been redeemed to be God's children. You share in Christ's natural and eternal sonship, not by grace and through adoption. I mean, am I clear on what I mean by that? You share in what's his naturally and eternally by being adopted into him through adoption by grace. You belong to him. So I'm going to leave you with Paul's words. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Amen.