Thank you. I'm again so delighted to be
with you again tonight. For some of you that were here
this morning, it was just a blessing to be invited.
I was thinking this afternoon I could come here twice a year.
I could suffer that flight for you anytime if you weren't here
this morning. I've got these little crosses
that I bought from Jerusalem. We want to be able to give you
1-2, take all you want. The only condition is if you
take this cross, you have to put it somewhere where and it says
Jerusalem on there that you will pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
That's our heart. They will pray for the peace of
Jerusalem. We also have a little prayer
card and basically if you're interested in knowing more about
our ministry, it has a little QR code in the back and we can give
you some more information. But so if we give a lot of books
away, a lot we, you know, books that we buy, a lot of books from
Israel that actually are not ISBN, books that published by
Israelis in the last 150 years. And we have quite a library.
We're actually trying to redo our web page to catalogue all
those books. But we make them available for
free for anybody We want them. We probably ship every week a
few books to people these days. Very rarely the people read
books. Most of my books are right here,
but some people are still into the printed word in book form.
Again, I wanted to say how deeply grateful for your prayers
and partnership we are. We're just so blessed with that
and hopefully the next couple of years we look to do to do some
more things with you here maybe in WA and also in Israel as you
go on your tour. We're just to tell you a little
bit about our ministry that we wanted to.
We didn't really go over this morning.
We're humbled, you know, we're really humbled these days with
every opportunity to minister. And we rejoice in the
fruitfulness that we see in so many of our ministries.
And I think it's a we've just, you know, moved on and moved on
and moved on. American European Bethel Mission
is one of the oldest messianic ministers in the world.
It was started by a rabbinical student in Odessa, Russia, and
the Doctor Rosenberg, Leon Rosenberg started it as a great
book about him, just a fabulous guy.
Just to tell you, he led so many people to the Lord in Odessa
that kicked him out. He moved from there to
Frankfurt. He led so many people to the
Lord and Frankfurt, they kicked him out.
I mean, during that time if you were a Jew, you lived in Jewish
communities, kind of ghetto like places.
But he was such an evangelist, it was unbelievable.
He moved from there to Lots Poland and then Lots Poland.
He felt that the Lord wanted him to kind of move out his tent
stakes a little bit. So he opened an orphanage for
pogrom children. And basically in 1939, when
Hitler went down the Polish corridor, there were 269
children at Bethel in Lots, Poland, who perished in the
Holocaust. And Leon Rosenberg was actually
at Wheaton College in America raising funds.
His wife Fanny was in Germany. They survived some, most of
their children survived. They moved to America.
They moved to Los Angeles and just kind of got their bearings.
So right after the war and then somebody bought them a home in
Santa Barbara and this is how they ended up have moving their
headquarters there. And then David Ben Gurion was
the 1st Prime Minister of Israel.
He had known about Doctor Rosenberg's work in Lots, Poland
and asked him, would you be willing to come to Israel and
open a orphanage for Holocaust surviving children, which he
did. And this is the property we
still have today. We actually have had, have
expanded quite a lot. But let me just tell you a
little Side Story about that, just as you want to know about
our ministry over COVID. We, I got a pass.
I, I have some connections. It's kind of my style.
And I got a pass from the Department of Health in
Washington DC that we could travel.
So we travelled to Israel. Myself and one of my board
members travelled to Israel about 6 times over COVID.
And we just wanted to go there and encourage people see what we
could do. COVID was crazy in Israel.
A lockdown was even crazier than it was for you.
And so we just went there and did.
I mean, it was so crazy. Let me tell you that the Israeli
government made me have a COVID test every day and they would
send some medical people to Bethel $150.00 every time we did
it. And it was just, it was
insanity. But that's my opinion of it
anyway. But anyway, during that time, I
was saying to Maxim Devadav, our director and Israel, I said, we
know, let's do something different.
Let's see if we can find anybody that was here in this orphanage,
which has stopped being an orphanage in about 1968.
Anybody that was here, their children, their grandchildren
and any relative. So we started kind of doing this
search around Israel and around the Middle East, and we found 68
people that were related to men. They were like ancient that had
been orphans there. And so we did this gathering
there. Not one of them was a believer,
not 0. But it was an incredible time we
had this whole afternoon. They let me speak for about two
hours of my whole story, my testimony, where I went.
They talked and talked and talked.
They left, we didn't have dinner for them, but they left after
dinner and we gave away 74 Bibles and everybody.
And we didn't like force it. We just had them there as people
were going out. And basically I, you know, me, I
said this is the word of God. This is the word of God.
And it was an incredible experience.
So that's a rich history of our ministry in Haifa.
And in Haifa we don't want to make money.
We have a 60 bed. Basically.
It's AI would say probably a class 2H2 star hotel.
It used to be a hostel, but we've been converting it more
and more. We have family rooms, we have
couples rooms, and then we have obviously some larger rooms for
10 or 12 kids. But you are welcome there
anytime. We don't want to make money
there. We charge $30 a day and
basically just takes care of our utilities and our expenses.
We charge $45.00 a day for dinner and breakfast.
So we get a lot of guests, a lot of Calvary chapels actually
using our the first second day of their trip to kind of bring
the overall cost of the tour down.
And hopefully you'll have those experiences.
But if you are travelling in Israel, please be our guest.
Just call me. I talk to your pastor, Pastor
Keith, the pastor Israel. And I would be very happy to
accommodate you. In Germany, our ministry, Kings
and Priests is doing really a tremendous work, a tremendous
impact. I just watched them yesterday.
They had a big outreach yesterday.
I mean, it brought me to tears to see these young people
responding to the Gospel with the worship that they do and the
basically the, the, the, the ministry that they have.
So again, if you're in Germany, please be our guest at our Kings
and Priests ministry. It's really good there in
Ukraine. We can continue to minister in
Kiev with a daily bread ministry that we partner with quite a
number of other ministries with to provide bread daily for the
people in Kiev. And then we also partner with an
abandoned baby refuge that we have been working with there in
Kiev. In Odessa, we have a partner
there. Oleg has been with me quite a
while though, probably about 20 years, and he continues to
impact the community with the gospel.
And it's been pretty, pretty forceful in the Middle East.
As I said, we continue with our many, many partners that we've
developed in my last 25 years at ABM and I recently returned from
Israel a month ago. And I would just say that this
is the situation in Israel grieves me.
That's that's all I can say. It's a grieves you.
You can tell the fear, the uncertainties have gripped the
entire region in a way I've not experienced in my 30 years going
to Israel. It is just an amazing, amazing
situation that demands our prayers.
So you can well imagine, the last 24 months have been
horrific, as I said this morning.
But again, the opportunities to proclaim the gospel of Jesus
Christ are endless. And I've never in my life seen
it this way. The way it is now.
There's a hopelessness. We have a lot, we have more
visitors at our congregation in Haifa than we've ever
experienced. People that we don't know the,
we don't know how they get there, how they come there.
And there's another congregation about two miles from us, An Arab
pastor has a congregation there. It's pretty mixed, some Jewish
people, some Arab people, some a lot of Slavic people, and he has
pretty big complication, about twice as large as ours.
And he's always telling me the same thing on Shabbat in Haifa.
Yeah. The congregation actually
continues to grow. We able to do more and more
things. And actually yesterday we had a
cowboy pastor teaching, a cowboy pastor pastor teaching there
with his group. And what a great encouragement.
We have weekly Bible studies now.
We have meetings. We finally, we just started some
home groups. And so it's moving along in a
way that we haven't seen in the entire time I was there.
When I was there last month, we had a baptism and some new young
believers that came to know Jesus and were baptised in the
Jordan River with just a wonderful experience.
And it what a blessing to the congregation, especially to the
older members to see young people making a profession of
faith to Christ in Jordan. We continue to support our
partners today and we look forward to another outreach in
Jordan and working with Syrian refugees in the Syrian refugee
camp, which we've developed a relationship over the last few
years. And for the next 18 months,
we'll be doing another that reach their God willing.
So as I said, you can imagine the tension in the Middle East
is at a level I've never seen desperate, desperate need for
one thing. Prayer, prayer, please pray.
And I think this is what is needed.
As I shared this morning, the word tells us that if my people
will humble themselves and pray, I will heal their land.
And I think this is the only hope that there is, is people
wouldn't pray. So now we see the greatest
evangelical opportunities in my 25 years.
We're developing plans right now to figure out how we can
capitalise on that. And you bring the gospel out,
invite people more people out. We plan for 2027 to have at
least 20 visiting pastors that we will invite to Haifa and
basically promote that in the community.
And we, we're looking at how can, how Lord, how can we
evangelise the best and and the most effective way.
Let me just tell you a little Side Story.
We have gotten so much favour in Israel, especially for the way
we've done our ministry for the last 20 years, that this last
week a school near Tel Aviv between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
called Maxim and said I'd like to bring my kids a Jewish
school, 0 Christian. I'd like to bring my kids, 40
kids, for three days to stay at Bethel.
And what I want you to do for two nights, I want you to tell
them what's it like being a Jew and a believer?
And, and you know, it is that's against the law.
But this teacher invited him. We went to our lawyer, made sure
everything was copacetic and kosher.
And Max did and he was so effective that he was basically
he's a high school students and he was, they basically asked him
to give his testimony. And Maxime told me he spoke
twice as long as it were they were planning to, to, to speak.
So this is just a little example of an openness that we just, we
haven't seen before. People that we've worked with in
hospitals and different places, they're really searching for for
something. And, and I think we've just been
a good example for them. You know, we haven't pushed
anything and we've just been there in the name of Jesus to,
to help, support, to love, and then to continue in our
ministry. So we're really encouraged and
we're really blessed and we will continue sharing this message.
For God's love of Israel is definitely my message and I will
continue to do that as long as I have the the ability.
This evening I want to share some thoughts from the word that
speaks to us about adoption. Adoption as children of God.
I think it's important that we really realise that we can, we
can address God as ABBA Father. You know, for me, I've been
praying about what to share with you and praying about this.
I've been really thinking a lot about this whole idea that we
live in a world today with many fatherless children, many
fatherless children, men, women, families with fathers that are
just absentee, alcoholism, drug addiction.
We have a world today within that experiences fatherlessness
in a way that I think is really something that needs to be
addressed in the Church of Christ.
It's significant, and it's significant to me personally.
So this message really spoke to me.
As you know, I have a father, but I don't have a father.
You know, my father was absent from day one and you know he
died quite a number of years ago after he smoked cigarettes from
the war on. He met my mother in the in the
resistance. And of course you can imagine
their mental health was not exactly kosher.
ABBA in Aramaic is the word that translate to father or daddy.
It conveys a sense of closeness, trust, affection, akin to a
child addressing a loving parent.
And this is the kind of relationship that we can have
with the Lord our God, our Father.
Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, thank
you today for your word, Lord. Thank you that your word will
speak to us, Lord. As as I have no ability, Lord,
but you do, Lord. Your word speaks to us, Lord.
So I pray, Father, that Lord, with the busyness of our minds,
the thoughts of tomorrow, the beginning of a week, Lord, I
just pray, Lord, let us put things aside and open our hearts
and our minds, Lord, to to what you have for us tonight.
Lord, I pray your Holy Spirit would be here ministering here.
And Lord, I pray you'd be with those that are here, those are
that are online tonight, Lord and Lord, that you would move
our hearts, Lord, change our hearts, change our minds.
Please Lord in Jesus name, Amen. I was born shortly after the
war. My mother as I said was a
Holocaust survivor and fortunately was able to get
away. She was became a resistance
firefighter for the French resistance for five years as and
my parents met during the resistance.
So you can imagine the emotional and mental challenges post war
were endless. My parents were married and
divorced to each other four times.
Seriously, my mother's very Jewish and very, if you
understand Judaism, you marry once, you don't get a second
chance. My mother just died a few months
ago at 104. Big, big hoots.
But I mean, this lady was a survivor and survived many, many
years. She was very, very with it until
she was about 102. And then she started slipping a
little bit. But I'll tell you how, how
focused this woman was. My mother always said she wanted
to live to be 100 and four. 104th birthday was in January.
On the 26th of January. She died on the 27th of January.
She had lunch, she took a nap and went to sleep and can never
came back. What a incredible woman.
She came. She professed faith in when she
was 86 because I badgered her with Bibles every single
Christmas. I gave this woman a Bible and
she's a Jew, so she kept them all.
And, and, and so she, she, she did make a profession of faith.
She lived in a Holocaust survivors, a condominium
programme in San Francisco. She lived with us for, I mean,
in Santa Barbara for 35 years and moved up there for the last
15 years of her life just to try to be with people that she had
things in common with. We were fortunate after the war,
we still had our family. My grandfather was a very wise
man. We had resources.
We were able to be sent away to school and we're young, five
years old. I was already a pretty angry
young man. I vividly recall one thing that
I want to share with you as I talk about this tonight.
I was in a school in Naples, Italy, and I didn't speak
Italian. I'd spoke French, but after the
war and even those first few years, I just weren't any
schools or private schools. And so my grandfather had worked
with a jeweller in Rome pre the war that we had survived.
And he'd called them and said, you know, I want to my kids, the
family home is a very problematic situation.
Can you recommend a school? And this friend of my
grandfather said, yeah, I know of this school in Naples, Italy,
and it's run by Sacred Heart nuns.
And it'll be a great place for them to get some care and
nurture in some early education. So we went there and and you can
imagine I was already not a happy boy and I met this nut in
there. And this is interesting because
I have to tell you, I remembered her name all my life.
Her name was Madhur de Musee, Sister de Musee.
And for some reason she took a liking to me.
And I know that's hard to believe, but she did.
And she told me I remember this and I say share this with people
all the time. She said, Jimmy, God loves you.
He's your father. He sent his Son to save you.
You may not understand the significance, but you will.
And you know, every day of my life, that little interaction
has spoken to me and I embrace God every day of my life.
I didn't become a believer till 1976 and I went, but I did go.
I was very Catholic, That's one time.
But as soon as I got old enough, I became a very nothing very
quickly. But the Lord had mercy on me and
I came back to him in the 76. But this little incident had
such an impact on me that basically that that lacking that
I had that we all need as a father was I had it there I was
I was there with God. I can't even remember situations
that I won't bore you with tonight, but I will remember
situations. I remember being in Vietnam and
in Vietnam. I, you know, my, one of my
hobbies was drinking. And that's what we did.
We, we worked hard and we drank hard.
And I remember that I, I was promoted.
And so now I had responsibilities for, for men.
I became a staff Sergeant. And I remember laying in bed and
thinking, I don't know what I'm going to do.
I got drunk every day. And so I got out of bed, I got
on my knees and I said, God help me.
And I never had another drink from that day until much, much
later after the war. What I want to say by telling
you these two stories that listen, believe one thing, God
always shows up. He always shows up.
And I think we, we are the ones that minimise that.
The Bible mentions God as our Father approximately 170 times.
Calling God our arbour father is also mentioned three times in
the word caring a profound significance.
Let's begin with today by examining 3 scriptures from the
Word and my message entitled as I said, Adopted children of God.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Galatians 4 and we're
going to be looking at 4 through 7.
Excuse me? Galatians 4, verse 4 through 7.
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of
a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that
we might receive adoption to sonship.
Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into
your hearts, the Spirit who calls out ABBA Father.
So you are no longer a slave, but but God's child.
And since you are his child, God has made you also His heir.
So in Galatians 4/6 it tells us because you are his sons, God
sent the Spirit of his Son into your heart and the Spirit who
calls out ABBA Father. The significance of this verse
is profound because it basically addressing 3 key doctrines such
as adoption, the Trinity, and the intimate relationship we can
have between believers and God. And let me just ask you tonight,
we're all coming from different places.
We all have our issues, all have our struggles.
When is the last time you cried out, ABBA?
Father, help me. You don't have to answer that,
but it's a question that I think we should all ask ourself.
The verse underscores the doctrine of adoption.
We believers are not merely servants, but we're granted the
status of sons and daughters or children of God through our
faith in Jesus Christ. It's so big and it's stated so
clearly in Galatians 4, four, and five.
The adoption signifies a legal and relational transformation,
elevating believers to be heirs of God's promises.
That is incredible as we read God's Word and we see who God
is, granting us us full rights and intimacy with God as God's
family. Furthermore, the role of the
Holy Spirit is evident here. God sends the Spirit of His Son
into believers hearts, affirming the work of the Spirit in
salvation. Do you realise that when you
confess Jesus Christ as Lord, the Spirit of God is in you.
And the only reason we're not, it's not part a big part of our
lives. We quench, we quench the Spirit.
One of the big things that Calvary Chapel does it,
especially in the early days, is ask people, do you want to
activate the work of the Spirit that's already in you?
And it was amazing in those days, the people that would come
up and the movement of God's Spirit that we saw.
But even but today I see again and again that people don't
really embrace the idea of God's Spirit inside them.
That Spirit that will guide you and direct you and take you
places that you've never dreamed about.
Like I said this morning in my message, God allows us to be
everything we could never be. That's my phrase.
God allows us to be everything. We could never be the Holy
Spirit in salvation. The Spirit's presence confirms
for us believers that we're God's children.
The Spirit enables us to have that personal and dynamic
relationship with God. And if that's an issue, listen
just in your quiet time, in your prayer time, as the Spirit of
God reveal to you that intimate relationship that you have with
the Father. The intimate relationship is
evident in the Spirit's cry. ABBA Father ABBA, as I said, is
an aromatic term, meaning a term of endearment akin to calling
somebody daddy or Papa. And it was used by Jesus in in
Mark 1436 when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane to God, He
cried out. ABBA Father, do you remember
those verses? And basically, we have the same
possibility. The inclusion highlights that
believers to the Spirit share Jesus familial relationship with
the Father, enabling us to approach God with boldness, love
and confidence that he will show up.
He will show up the spirits indwelling and cry provides for
us assurance of salvation. The internal testimony of the
Spirit confirms our status as God's children, countering
doubts, countering fear, countering worry, affirming
their eternal inheritance, and this is so evidence in Romans 8
verses 15 and 16. So the context of Galatians.
This verse contrast to freedom of sonship with legalism were
not under the law. Paul argues that believers are
no longer under the law and the law's teachings, but are free as
God's children empowered by the Spirit of grace.
The Spirit of God is all about grace.
I say Galatians 46 encapsulates the transformative reality of
the gospel through Christ for believers as adopted children of
God, indwelt by the Spirit, invited, invited into an
intimate, ushered relationship with God, our God, our loving
Father and I. I could never describe with you
accurately, properly in words what that has meant to me.
My siblings have lived their whole life without a father and
to see the effect, it's black and white, my friends, black and
white, because fatherlessness is impactful, it is problematic.
It is an issue. We would, we need to have
fathers. We need that, not only that
love, but we need that guidance, that counsel, that direction
that we can get. Embracing God is our Maker is
one thing, but embracing Him as our Father is an incredible
blessing. In Romans 15815 it says the
Spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in
fear again. Rather, the Spirit you received
brought you about your adoption to sonship, and by Him we cry.
ABBA Father, let me encourage you, if you need to cry ABBA
Father, for your situation, for your circumstance, do it.
Do it. And then, if it doesn't become
fruitful for you, my phone number is available.
Let's analyse the spiritual significance here in Romans 815,
noting his connection to Galatians 6 by highlighting its
unique contributions. Both Romans and Galatians
emphasise the doctrine of adoption and the role of the
Holy Spirit in our lives. That intimate relationship with
God, expressed through the idea of crying out ABBA, Father the
Spirit, affirms that believers through the Spirit are adopted
as God's children. As I said, sharing Christ's
familiar relationship. That's amazing that that's this
is our family. God is our family.
In Romans 815, we observe a unique message.
Romans explicitly contrast the spirit of slavery with the
spirit of adoption. This addresses our human
condition. We're being enslaved by so many
sins. We're enslaved by this.
My wife and I have this new thing now when we're together at
night, we're both busy. She does a lot, still does a lot
of work, helping people with special kids.
I work pretty much full time. We have this thing.
We get home, we're going to do our little business.
And then we say for two hours we're putting our phones down
and we're not going to touch them.
Nobody calls us, nobody anything.
We're just, we put them down and we don't.
Now the two hours has become three hours.
It's become four hours. And what we want it to become is
we come home, we get done and we put this thing away for the
night. And, you know, because this is
slavery and it, and I don't say that necessarily as a negative
thing, but The thing is it, it, it's basically controls us.
You know, I, I, I have 4000 friends on my phone and it's a
blessing for me because it saves me 3000 lunches.
But the point is this can take over us and basically it can
basically enslave us, but there's so many other things
that enslave us in our culture, in our world.
And we all know what they are. I know what they are for me.
And when you know what they are for you.
And so basically Romans is talking about that.
He's in 815. He's it's a contrast between the
spirit of freedom and the spirit of adoption in the spirit of
fear. The spirit liberates believers,
replacing fear with the assurance of God's bold love,
acceptance. No matter what, God is there for
you. No matter how dark part of the
place you may be in, how hopeless of a situation you
would think you're in, God is there.
And you know why I know He's there?
Because read this book and He was there for people far worse
and far more down than we will ever think about being.
The phrase adoption and sonship, It's a, it's a Greek word, who
is Thea? And it reinforces the legal,
rational status of believers in Christ.
You know, in the Roman culture of this time, adoption was a
formal act of granting full inheritance rights.
Theologically, it's basically the assurance that believers can
be secure in place of God's family.
Listen, when you adopt A child, it's your child.
You don't give them back. I adopted three children.
These are my children. These children will inherit from
us. Nobody dare ever say that
they're not our children. They're our children.
God gave them to us. Circumstances were that my wife
couldn't have children, but we said God makes a lot of children
and we took three and, and this is a perfect example of that.
When we are adopted into God's family, we are there forever.
No way that God is going to give you away.
The spiritual is enabling us to cry out ABBA Father, and it
serves as an internal witness confirming for us this reality.
And Romans 815 also reflects the cooperative work of the Trinity
in salvation. The Father adopts believers, the
Spirit indwells. Remember I said you become a
believer. The Spirit indwells and
testifies to their sonship and the Son's relationship with the
Father is a model for believers intimacy with God.
You know the question I ask myself often, how intimate am I
with God? There is nothing about this guy
that God doesn't know. But I think, well, you know, you
know what I'm saying. God intimately knows every
single detail about this grumpy little old Jew, and he knows
everything about you. And so I encourage you, I
encourage you to see that intimacy is so fruitful in the
things in our lives. Again, remember the ABBA Father
cries of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane?
It's a wonderful example. It's in Mark 1436 demonstrating
that believers participate in Christ's divine sonship through
the Spirit. So unlike Galatians, which
focuses on freedom from legalism, Romans is set in
context of suffering and escological hope.
The assurance of adoption sustains believers amidst
trials, reminding them that their presence suffering are
transient compared to the glory awaiting them as God's children.
A friend of mine died yesterday. Very close friend and hunting
buddy. Very close.
And you know, Jerry had cancer that he kind of didn't deal with
and it got him and he, I don't know why he didn't deal with it,
but he didn't. And they killed him.
But for the last two weeks, I actually was a little, I knew, I
knew in my heart he would die when I was here.
And I've been talking to him a little bit and talking to
Stephanie, his wife and stuff like this.
This guy could care less that he was going to die.
This is how close he was to the Lord.
He's he's younger than me. He's he's in his 60s.
And he was just saying, you know, I'm being with Jesus soon.
I'm with Jesus soon. He, he, his, his fear, his, his
concern was for his wife and his children and what he would tell
his wife and his children. The times that I visited him, he
said, you know, follow Jesus and you're going to have this peace
when that day comes for you. That's what basically God gives
us. This is what the Spirit of God
gives us. Jerry, He's a, he's, he's like
your pastor. He's a he was a cop, a really
bad dude, tough tough guy was basically a federal agent and
and really a tough guy Hunter strong tough and to see him like
that because of his faith in Christ is a perfect testimony of
what I'm trying to share with you tonight.
The spirit not only of firms believer status but also
empowers them to live like this fellow.
I just told you that died yesterday.
He lived by God's power and he died by God's power, not in fear
in any way. The cry ABBA father is a both a
declaration of identity and an act act of worship fostering
relational dynamic believers approach to God.
We trust him. We have to trust him.
And you know, it's amazing how we trust him when we're in
trouble or we go to him when we're in trouble or we go to him
when we need him. But listen, I encourage you, go
to him in the morning, cry to him in the morning.
I need you today, period. Go to him at night.
Forgive me for today show me my way, show me my heart, oh God,
the way you see it, you will see benefits from this kind of heart
that you have never dreamed about if that's not your heart
tonight. While Galatians 46 emphasises
the spiritual in confirming believing sonship in the context
of liberation from the law. As I said, Romans 815 broadens
this address of freedom from sin, slavery and fear,
particularly in the face of particularly in the face of
suffering. Roman 15 also explicitly ties a
spirit testimony to assurance, laying the confidence that
believers have for our future glory.
Do you ever think about future glory?
Do you ever think what it's going to be like?
I just think of my 70 plus years and all the drama.
Can you imagine 700 years, 7000 years worshipping God, free from
any fear, free from any anxiety, free from any tears and the
biggest thing, free from any drama?
Can you imagine? Both passages unite in
portraying the Spirit as the age agent that transforms believers
relationship with God into one of intimacy and freedom.
Let's go to the third verse tonight as we just finish up
here and it's from first John 3-1 and two, see what great love
the Father has lavished on us that we should be called
children of God and that is what we are.
The reason the world does not know us is that they did not
know Him. Dear friends, now we are
children of God, and what we will has not yet been been made
known, but we know that when Christ appears we shall be like
him, for we shall see him as He is.
What an incredible promise. We observe in first John 3-1 and
two, that now we are children of God, and what we will has not
yet been made known, but what a great hope for our hearts.
However, we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like
Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
And I hope what that means is that this body can have some
some stuff. I think it means we will be like
him. We will have his heart, we will
have the heart of God, but maybe we'll have a new body to look
at. I'm praying.
However, we know that when Christ appears we will be like
Him, so we shall see Him as He is.
What does that mean? We will see Him in all the
perfection that He is. I love to meditate on the Lord.
I love to meditate on the idea of his birth in Bethlehem where
we're some of you who haven't been to Israel can go there.
I love to meditate on the places where he walked.
I love to meditate on the idea that he went up in the temple
steps and stood at the Second Temple.
I love to meditate on the idea that Jesus walked around the
Galilee and every place that he walked.
Basically, we go through on these tours.
You go to Israel, folks. I'll tell you, this is not an
advertisement. You go to Israel, you will never
be the same. I have been to Israel over 100
times and I have been to come home from Israel more times than
I want to tell you. And I said to my wife, I'm done.
I've done my thing. I'm, you know, I'm as holy as I
could possibly be. Not really, but I'm done.
It's hard. We have friends here that have
been to Israel many times. Israel is hard.
It's it's a small country with a lot of people with a
infrastructure. It's hard, but you know when you
go with Jesus walked, will you go?
When some of the Old Testament took place, it's basically like
the pastor said to the group the other night, it's it's like the
Bible just came alive for you. All the things you've heard him
say all these years, all of a sudden you're there, you see it,
you're walking there. It is life changing.
It is just an incredible experience.
So we have observed in these three scriptures Galatians 46,
Romans 815 and 1st John 3-1 and two, which has the significance
of emphasising its connections to these passages by
highlighting some distinctive contributions.
Let me just share with you these things for a few moments.
Similar to Galatians 46, Romans 8:15, first John 3-1 and two
underscores the believers identity as children of God, a
status rooted in God's benevolent act of adoption.
I mean, I don't know where some of you were before you knew the
Lord, but I knew where I was. And I'll tell you something, I
am nothing, nothing like I was before I knew Him.
And this is God's benevolent act of adoption in me.
He changed my heart, He changed my mind, He changed my life.
I'm standing up here if you would have told me this. 38
years ago I would have told you you're out of your mind.
Not a chance. But look what God can do as we
open our hearts to him. We heard in Galatians 46
referred to the spirits enabling us to cry ABBA father Romans 815
contrast the spirit of adoption with slavery.
But in first John 31, it marvels at the love that is bestowed on
us as believer, believers with the title, here's our title,
Children of God. You are a child of God.
Don't ever doubt it. Don't ever, ever doubt it.
All three passages affirm the relational intimacy and
privilege of being God's family. You know, it's incredible when
you're with believers. I would believe is all over the
world. I mean, I've been to 164
countries in my life. I have travelled many, many
countries as a believer. And you know what, it is got to
be incredible when you come across another believer.
It is like your family. It's just like something just
breaks all the barriers down when you know that somebody else
is confessing Jesus Lord. See, this lady is like joy.
She is the sweetest lady. But listen, she doesn't know me
from Adam. I am like nobody to her, she
warns. She greets me warmly with
affection. You know why she's no St.
She's a Jesus person. This is something that happens
to us as we're believer. It's initiated.
This relationship, this familiar relationship is initiated by God
because we love him. We have a family that we never
ever dreamed that we could have. We're still how all have our
problems, but that one thing that we have that holds us
together is the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord and we believe
that God sent him to set us free and love us.
The three texts emphasise A transformative identity.
Galatians 4/6 and Romans 815, again I say focuses on the
Spirit's role in confirming that identity.
But first John 31 explains that is what we are emphasising the
press and reality of being God's children despite the opposition
from the world and the world opposes us.
We're crazy. My mother thought I was in a
cult for about 20 years. She did.
I gave a job up, job up as a head of a school to become a
pastor. She thought I was out of my
mind. But look how it all unfolded.
Here we are 36 years later. Once again we discern the unique
significance in John first, John 31.
It commences with the exclamation of awe at the
Father's great love in the Greek.
This is the agape love we spoke. We speak about implying this
extraordinary or astonishing love.
Agape love is not love that we can ever have for one another.
It's God love for us and extraordinary love and
astonishing love. This love serves as a foundation
for believers status as children of God, understanding God's
gracious and unmerited initiative.
So in contrast to Galatians and Romans, which emphasises the
spiritual, as I've said many times, First John 31 centres on
the Father's love and the source of adoption, aligning with
John's broader theme of God's love as we see in First John 48
through 10. So this Scripture uniquely
harmonises the present reality and the future hope of being
God's children. It affirms for us that we are
children of God, echoing the assurance of Galatians 4, Romans
8. However, verse 2 adds something.
What we has has not. What we will have has not been
made known. You ever think about that?
What will it be like? You know, here's what I'm
certain I told you that story of Jerry.
I am certain. I am certain that he had a
little vision of what it was going to be like when he passed.
I mean, this is the only way. I mean, who wants to leave their
wife and their family? He had.
He had a sense of what the future would look like for Him.
What great freedom you have when you really have this idea.
This indicates a future transformation distinct from
other passages which primarily focus on the present.
This Scripture spikes about the future, the promise that when
Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as He
is. It introduces the concept of
glorification. The believers will be conformed
to Christ likeness, a process, a process which will be completed
on His return. You know what my prayer is, and
my prayer has been for many years.
Oh Lord, let me be on the Mount of Olives a day.
You come back because I want to be the first in line.
But seriously, could you imagine being on the Mount of Olives on
a visual trip when the Lord came back?
The believers will be conformed to Christ's likeness, a process
that will be unbelievable. It will be something that,
beholding His glory, will transform believers.
We see that in 2nd Corinthians 318.
Neither Galatians nor women's explicitly address this this
future transformation, but we can see this clearly in first
John 3. And it knows that the world does
not know us. The world does, because it is
unaware of Christ. Why?
Because the world lives for today.
We live for today in Him. But we live with the hope of
tomorrow. If we don't live with the hope
of tomorrow, why are we believers?
If our hope is not for tomorrow, if our hope is not in heaven,
why are we believers? What's the point?
We're going to be good people.
We could be good people without being here.
Our hope is in tomorrow, our hope is in eternity.
Our hope is in the promises of God.
That tells us when you come back to the way I made you to be, you
will be in a place that you have can't even imagine.
The highlights of tension between believers and the world
will be all gone basically. But we have tension in this
world for those people who don't believe and they just see us as
interesting and strange and whatever.
But our hope is in Him and we need to hold that on, hold on to
that in our hearts. It frames believe the believers
identity and we will be misunderstood by the world.
We will be opposed by the world. God is opposed by the world.
But basically we need to reinforce together with each
other the distinctiveness as God's children.
You will never have better fellowship than you will have
with another believer. I have better fellowship with
Israel Carmody that I have with my own brother.
And it's not because we're just, we're coming from different
places. We have different priorities, We
have a different sense of who we are.
And I don't even know Israel Carmody that well.
While not explicitly stated in verses 1 and 2, the broader
context of John 3/3 as we finish implies that the aspiration to
become like Christ purifies believers, motivating us to
righteous living. When we think about becoming
like Christ, it's got to do something to us.
It's got to speak to us. I'd love to be convicted.
I love to be convicted. I love for the Lord to show me
you are a dummy and I, I, I, I, I wanted, I appreciate it.
And basically when we see this and we really understand that
God can inspire us to Russia's living.
The ethical dimension complements the relational
emphasis of Galatians and Romans where the Spirit empowers us to
have intimacy with God and does not directly address any
transformative or moral implications.
So as we finish up tonight, I just want to share with you ABBA
Father is a profoundly spiritual expression frequently employed
in Christian context to convey an intimate, trusting
relationship with God, akin to addressing your own mother or
your own father. And even better with that
because it doesn't come with all the complexities.
The reason I even thought about this message, I cannot tell you
how many people I speak to, I counsel, I work with who have
the most horrible relationship with their fathers, more so than
their mothers often. And it's it's it's
circumstantial. And I try to explain this,
unpack your Father's stuff, try to understand, you know, how did
he get from there to here? And basically it will allow you
to again address something of this world.
The Spirit of God's and his love in your heart will make will
change you in ways that you have never experienced.
If you haven't already, I trust these 3 verses who resonate with
your heart regarding God's extraordinary, extraordinary,
boundless love. We're obligated to love our
earthly fathers. You're obligated.
You know, I told pastor this week, I said, listen, when I was
going to become a pastor, it was a very big change for me.
But I had this pastor in my life, a friend of your pastor,
Ricky Ryan, who loved me for some reason.
I'm not a lovable guy, but he loved me and he encouraged me
and he brought me up into what I needed to be.
And so we were actually in Israel.
And I said, you know, Ricky, I'm not ready to be ordained.
I'm not good to go. I don't know.
I don't know what's going on. So there's a place in Israel is
my favourite place called Anghetti.
I was telling the group yesterday and in Anghetti's that
that teaching about Saul relieving himself in The Cave,
remember? And David is there with his men
and then Saul is out of The Cave back with his men.
And he basically says, Saul, hey, Saul, I had you in my
crosshairs. And if you're a military person
or 100% crosshairs, you know, it's kind of like dead centre.
I could have killed you dead centre.
But the words that moved me that day and have moved me ever since
is David's response. Saul, I will let the Lord decide
between you and I and that that spoke to me.
We went back to the hotel that night and I was broken.
And what it was, it was I despised my father.
And that's what stopped me. And thank God it stopped me
because I think it would have affected my ability to minister
all my life. I came home, call my father.
I hadn't talked to me over 20 years and said that's Jim, I
want to call you. I want to ask you forgiveness.
And it didn't turn out the way you would want it to turn out,
but I did it. You know, he didn't actually
care. And but I did it and it totally
was liberation. And I think what I'm trying to
point here is we are called biblically to love our mother
and father no matter what, no matter what.
And I have ministered to people whose fathers are in prison for
murder. And I said, you called to love
that man no matter what. God commanded it.
And it's in the word. Our sinful nature frequently,
frequently renders these relationships far more
challenging and dismissive for us.
And I encourage you tonight, don't let that happen because
there's freedom is freedom in making those things the way God
expects them to be today. It serves as an extra
extraordinary encouragement to recognise that God, our Father,
our Father gives us perfect, basically boundless love.
May God bless you tonight. Sincere gratitude for you, for
your attention, for your love. And I love to look at your faces
because I see that at least God's allowing me to minister to
you. God bless you and let me pray.
Father, thank you, Lord, thank you for your word.
Thank you for this these great 3 verses, Lord, that speaks to us
so directly, Lord of the kind of Father that you are, that that
provides us a salvation, that provides us your spirit.
Lord, that provides us an understanding.
Lord, Lord of this transformative love, Lord, that
that is beyond our understanding, beyond our even
our acceptance. Lord, Lord, let us accept this
love. Lord, that your love, Lord, the
love of God, which is endless. Lord, please Lord, speak to us
as you would speak to me. Lord, speak to those who would
you and speak to tonight. Father, Lord bless this
congregation, Lord bless Pastor Keith, Lord and his team.
Lord use them, empower them. And Lord, let your spirit reign
in this congregation and in this community in Jesus name, Amen.
Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jim.
I'm just going to get the apostles to come forward.
Stay there, man. Well, if you could come join us,
Marty, is Thomas here? Tom, I probably outside on
security. Tom, Marty, you could come if
you could stand and we just stand.
You've been sitting for a while. We just pray, just kind of pray
for Jim. He leaves at 3:00 in the
morning. I've told him he'd catch a bus.
So, and we're just going to pray over particularly the ministry
in Israel and our, our, our God can guide us in in this
partnership. So let's do that.
Gather around him. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for James being with us. We thank you for him sharing his
heart. We thank you for the work that
he does in Israel for your people.
We thank you, Lord, that He has been able to connect us as a
church where we can touch the ground of Israel, not only with
our hearts, but with our feet and with our resources.
And we can bless your people that you love, that you chose,
and that, Father, we owe so much to be with James as he travels.
Give him safe travel. Bless him and guide him.
Give him great wisdom for decisions on the future of the
missions and how it's to work, particularly with Ukraine and
other places that are war torn. We pray especially for that
outreach for the unwanted children, father, the abandoned
babies, father. Help us to to lift these little
kids up. Father, in some way that we can,
we can love them too. In Jesus name we pray.
And everyone said Amen. God bless you, God bless you.
Thank you, thank you, thank. You.
Thank you. Thank you.
Any questions?