Heirs with Christ: Sermon on Romans 8:12-17

I think I've probably known the story for years and years. I couldn't for the life of me tell you where I first came to know it, it's been so long. But had I seen it with my own eyes? Not until last month. Because last month, I took my seat in an auditorium in New Holland, at the high school. And for their fiftieth anniversary, Garden Spot Performing Arts, using a cast of middle school and high school students, showed me the story. I was wowed by their orchestra, captivated by the young actors, singers, dancers. I don't think I can even imagine in my mind a better performance of the classic 1977 musical Annie than the one they staged for us. The plot just burst off the script and into life!

Maybe you were there, too, at one of the six shows. I hope you were – it's good to support our community, after all; that's why I put it in the April newsletter. Whether you were there or not, do you remember the story, the plot of Annie? Based only loosely on Harold Gray's classic comic strip Little Orphan Annie, the musical opens in 1933, the throes of the Great Depression, at the New York City Municipal Orphanage, where an eleven-year-old girl named Annie is convinced, by a note left with her when she was dropped off as an infant, that her parents are out there and coming back for her. But the orphans all languish under the stern, disgruntled, alcoholic caretaker, Agatha Hannigan, who uses them for sweatshop labor and pockets their profits. Things change when Grace Farrell, secretary to acclaimed billionaire Oliver Warbucks, arrives, looking for an orphan to spend the Christmas holiday with Oliver at the Warbucks Mansion – and chooses Annie. In spite of her own ambivalence, in spite of the Hannigans' scheming, in the end all obstacles are cleared away and Annie can be adopted on Christmas morning.

With catchy songs and an uplifting message, it's no surprise Broadway couldn't keep this one contained. It's hardly a wonder it's become a cultural phenomenon. But more than that, it's a story that hits home. Or, at least, it should. The musical Annie should hit home for each and every one of us in a special way. It's far from an unrelatable story, least of all to those of us who've been there ourselves. You see, Paul and other biblical writers remind us what our lives were like before Jesus, before the Holy Spirit. Slaves – we were “slaves to sin,” Paul tells us (Romans 6:20). Fear – we “through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:15; cf. Romans 8:15). “We have become orphans, fatherless,” the prophet wrote (Lamentations 5:3). In Roman adoption procedures, the adoptee first had to be thrice sold into slavery to release him from his birth father's authority. Slavery, which could enact legal orphanhood, was a prerequisite for Roman adoption. And Paul paints an ugly picture of what that's been like for our lives: the inner ambivalence, the inward strife, the shockingly irreversible trajectory in a downward spiral through death by indwelling sin (Romans 7:7-24).

This musical hits home because we, too, if we're conscious of our spiritual state, know what it's like to be in her shoes – to be orphaned, forlorn, abandoned to slavery and fear. The one thing that keeps Annie going is that note, telling her she won't be left an orphan forever. And just the same, Jesus during his earthly ministry left us with a note: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18). Just so, Paul wants us to know that, when we were justified, that wasn't just God ruling on our case as a judge, giving us a favorable verdict, and then releasing us back into the world. Nor did God simply haul us from the ditch and then drive off. No, God did more than that. The psalmist long before had praised “God in his holy habitation” as the “Father of the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5). And so this same God, this same Father, chose to become our Father – chose to pour out his “Spirit of adoption” on us (Romans 8:15). The Father had and has one perfect eternal Son – and yet he chose to “bring many sons to glory” and to give his Son “brothers” (Hebrews 2:10-11), making Jesus “the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). We have been adopted into God's family.

How'd that happen? Well, we just said it, didn't we? Through “the Spirit of adoption” (Romans 8:15). When we received the Holy Spirit, that was an adoption ceremony, taking place right under our noses. The adoption went through. That's made clear because, like Paul says, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14). Paul wants us to remember here the story of the exodus. Israel used to be a slave in Egypt, if you remember. But that wasn't Israel's destiny forever. God said to Egypt's pharaoh, “Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, 'Let my son go that he may serve me'” (Exodus 4:22). And the proof that that was true was when “the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light” (Exodus 13:21). In this way, Moses wrote that the LORD was “seen face to face” (Numbers 14:14) by those he chose as “his children” (Deuteronomy 32:5). And this fiery, cloudy pillar never led them on a retreat to their starting point. The pillar never led them back to Egyptian slavery, to where they had to fear every tragic misfire in the pharaoh's sick brain, did it? Paul says that, just like the fiery, cloudy pillar, the Spirit leads God's children onward – not backward – through a desert that has an end.

Still, how do we know that's our story? And how can we know that's what it means? After all, the desert can be a confusing place. The Israelites constantly doubted that God had chosen them for anything but a disaster (cf. Exodus 14:11; Numbers 21:5). Well, maybe we turn our memory back to the day of our conversion, if we can remember it. Maybe we reason through what the Bible tells us. Maybe. But that's hard to stay focused on, hard to see ourselves in. The Law says that “only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be established” (Deuteronomy 19:15). Our own opinion isn't enough. Our own memory isn't enough. When our doubts arise, when our forgetfulness arises, our own witness isn't enough to prove who we are – not even to ourselves, much less to a world so critical. What's worse, in a Roman court, adoption was taken so seriously, it took seven witnesses to establish its truth, which is way beyond traditional Jewish law. Our own spirit needs to testify, but its testimony ain't enough! My spirit, your spirit – it can't meet the burden of proof for our adoption!

But here's the thing. Over and over again in the Bible's last book, the Holy Spirit is described in a perplexing way. “The seven spirits who are before his throne” (Revelation 1:4), “the seven spirits of God” (Revelation 3:1; 4:5), “the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth” (Revelation 5:6). That's the Holy Spirit – not one among seven, he is the whole seven. This sevenfold Spirit who bears a ninefold fruit comes down and, as “the Spirit of adoption,” he adds a sufficient testimony that, coupled with our own spirit's testimony, can triumph over any test. Neither Jewish nor Gentile law set a burden of proof high enough that our spirit plus God's Spirit, both bearing witness, couldn't clear it. The Spirit was present to ratify the adoption, so the Spirit is qualified to attest to its validity – and so “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16).

So then there's the question: How does the Spirit bear witness, or how do we know that the Spirit bears witness? In times of trouble, in times of doubt or distress, in times when we see the high burden of proof and see clearly that our own spirit isn't making a convincing enough case for us, how is it that we can know that we're children of God? How do we know that, when life falls apart? And Paul tells us: “You have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'” (Romans 8:15). There's that word: 'Abba.' Maybe you've heard it before. It shows up in the Gospels. Paul was writing in Greek, but it's not a Greek word. Certainly isn't an English word. It's Aramaic – the language Joseph and Mary taught Jesus. And so when he was in deep distress in the garden, he prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you” (Mark 14:36). 'Abba' isn't a distant and clinical term. It's tender; it's personal; it's intimate. It's the word that Jesus characteristically used to talk to God – the God who sent him, the God he knew as his Father. In his time of deepest distress, that's the word that spilled out of Jesus' mouth: 'Abba.'

And the same is true for us. Being led by the Spirit means internalizing a new way of thinking and praying. To be led by the Spirit means to cultivate a radical sense of God's tenderness, his intimate closeness, his personal connection and commitment, his very real fatherly care. That's not so much a feeling we have – well, maybe we feel it on our good days. But Paul's talking about a relationship, a deep awareness of a relationship, so deep that even when we're dried up and dried out, damaged and demolished, the Spirit screams in the wreckage, 'Abba!' When we pray in those darkest moments, when we put aside all pretense, when the fancy elocution drops to the dirt and we get real and vulnerable, the sign we're looking for is this: the language that blurts out is the way a hurting child cries out for daddy. Because of this “Spirit of adoption” at work in us, the testimony is seen and heard in that 'Abba'-cry, that desperate whimper or attention-grabbing shout of prayer to a Father we need. And it tells us all we need to know about where we are. By the end of the musical, there was no more “Mr. Warbucks” – he's suddenly Annie's dear father, “Daddy Warbucks.” Once the adoption's gone through, it's not “Mr. Almighty” to us – it's 'Abba.'

So what does that mean for your life? What does it mean to us if we've been adopted by God? What does it mean to have God for our Abba? I think Paul has four things to tell us on that front. First, to be adopted by God is to go through a position shift, an identity shift. Paul can say outright, “We are children of God” (Romans 8:16). Whoever you used to be, close the book. You are not who or what you were before. You have a new family, a new tribe. There's a new allegiance that has to come first now, before any flag, before any country, before any friends, before any clan, before any ideology or faction. You have a new identity: 'Child of God.' And you know that because the Spirit pokes and prods, stews and stirs, 'til you call God 'Abba.' So you can't look at God the same old way, and you can't look at you the same old way. You aren't that same old you. The network of allegiances that used to be yours – a new family has taken their place.

Second, to be adopted by God means that there should be an attitude shift. Paul makes it clear, “You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear” (Romans 8:15). The Spirit is not leading you back where you came from. The Spirit is not beating a retreat to Egypt. The Spirit is not rolling dice with you. The Spirit is not drafting contingency plans. Before the adoption went through, yeah, Annie dreaded, Annie feared the prospect of her impending return to her old slave-like status in Miss Hannigan's orphanage. That was where she'd come from, and her holiday was just that: a vacation, a break, before once more falling back into slavery and fear. Legally, that was where she belonged. Until she was adopted. And then she didn't have to fear being sent back. She didn't have to have the dread of the orphanage hanging over her. I'm sure any real-life Annie would have the occasional nightmare about being back there – but when she wakes up, she could remind herself it was just a dream, and that she's secure.

Being adopted is a secure thing. Annie could choose to keep living in fear, could choose to believe she's at great risk of being disowned, could choose to keep thinking of herself as an outsider – but wouldn't that be such an insult to Daddy Warbucks and his generosity if she did? Far better for her, and far better for us, to leave fear and dread in the past! Fear and dread of returning to the past, that is; fear and dread of being abandoned to our B.C. status as orphans forlorn; fear and dread of being left on our own, to our own devices, to make it through a cruel world. Far better, then, for Annie – and far better for us – to accept a new life, the adopted life. That doesn't mean deserting her quest for answers, unraveling the mystery of how and why she ended up where she was; but it does mean accepting and receiving the gift of a new life in full, which puts every question and every answer in its rightfully smaller place. Far better to learn to just enjoy our Abba and his welcoming grace.

Third, to be adopted by God means that there is an obligation shift. Annie would've gotten that. For over a decade, really all her living memory, Annie had lived under Miss Hannigan's rule. Annie, like a slave to a harsh master, was used to having to obey Miss Hannigan. She was conditioned to it, habituated to it. Obeying like a slave was just what little orphan Annie was used to. She'd never before had a choice; she was bound to it, at the very least by the petty law of might making right, for whatever that's worth. But then Oliver Warbucks adopts her, and Agatha Hannigan and her scheming brother are under arrest, at the musical's closing scene. Suddenly, because of her adoption, Annie has no more obligations to Miss Hannigan, no debts to repay. She's under a new authority that cuts away those former chains. So if, after that final scene, Miss Hannigan made a jailbreak, if she accosted Annie in the street and ordered her to go scrub the orphanage floors and start sewing in the sweatshop, Annie might well be tempted – not because it's desirable, but because it's reflex. But while Annie might be conditioned to do it, she's got no reason to do it, no obligation to do it! She has no debts to repay there and no obligations to fulfill there.

And the same, Paul writes, holds true in our case. He tells us, “So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to walk according to the flesh – for if you walk according to the flesh, you'll die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you'll live” (Romans 8:12-13). Just like Annie Warbucks and Agatha Hannigan after the musical's done, we have no obligation to gratify the flesh, no obligation to cater to the flesh, no obligation to kowtow to the flesh, no obligation to let the flesh push us around and bully us. Resuming our own orphan lifestyle of poverty and slavery out of habit isn't healthy for adopted children. It's bad for us – lethally so, mortally so, Paul says. To go back and toil like an orphan, acting like our adoption's null and void, will do a number on our health and make us miss out on all our Father's big plans. That's what we're doing when we opt to “walk according to the flesh.”

But there's an alternative. It's being led by the Spirit, who breaks us away from all those things we used to have to do. Letting the Spirit guide us, prompt us, direct us, and actually following the Spirit through this present wilderness – that opens up a whole new world of life on the horizon, Paul wants us to know. As we journey with the Spirit, he brings out our growing family resemblance to our Abba and his Firstborn. We are not under the slightest obligation to do otherwise. No one has a right to tell you otherwise. There is no power in this world or outside of it that will ever have the right to tell you to be less like your Abba. There is no power that has the right to treat you as a poor little orphan any more. Nor is there any power with the right to boss you around like that – only the Spirit, whose power is to lead you into slaying all that held your spirit down.

And finally, speaking of our Abba and his Firstborn, one more thing: Being adopted by God means even more than just an identity shift, an attitude shift, an obligation shift. It also means a destiny shift. It doesn't just matter that we're adopted; it matters by whom. When Annie was adopted, she wasn't taken in by a pig farmer, a mechanic, a clergyman, a con man, or any of the myriad possibilities. She was taken in by Oliver Warbucks, billionaire tycoon. When Annie was adopted, she didn't just gain a family; she gained a fortune and a future. No more Annie, last name unknown. No more Annie Bennett. Annie, daughter of Oliver Warbucks. She lived a new lifestyle. She hobnobbed with President Roosevelt, played with all the rich toys, befriended and was ministered to by Warbucks' staff. When she was adopted, she became heir to the Warbucks estate. She became entitled to the respect and honor due a Warbucks, she enjoyed all the tangible benefits of being a Warbucks. She gained a future so radically unlike her past.

And so do we. Annie got to hobnob with a president, but we get the King of the Universe for family. Annie got to share in the Warbucks fortune, but “our Lord Jesus Christ … for your sake became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). That's why Paul can write that his calling was to “preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). And the “unsearchable riches of Christ” are so much better treasure than the Warbucks fortune! Annie got to be ministered to by Oliver Warbucks' large and well-coordinated staff. But the Bible describes angels as “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14).

You see, in olden days, Israel was chosen as God's son. Israel was brought from slavery, led by the fiery, cloudy pillar – but what was Israel hoping for? If Israel was God's son, would Israel get anything, inherit anything? Yes! God told the patriarchs long beforehand, “All this land that I have promised, I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever” (Exodus 32:13). And so God said to Israel, “You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Leviticus 20:24). Big chunks of Numbers are obsessed with the proper division of Israel's inheritance, the promised land (cf. Numbers 26:56). The land was their inheritance.

National Israel, as it turns out, wasn't exactly successful as God's son – the wilderness generation to whom God said those things found that out, which is why Moses announced, “They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation” (Deuteronomy 32:5). But then we meet Jesus, the Messiah, the Truest Israelite who gets called God's Son. What promised land is left for Jesus the Son to inherit? The psalmist tells us that the Father said to him, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, and the ends of the earth your possession” (Psalm 2:7-8). 'All nations,' even to 'the ends of the earth' – the entire planet, nay, more than a planet, a whole new creation – that's what Jesus the Son of God will rule as his inheritance!

Where does that leave us? Does it leave us outside? Does it leave us second-class in God's household – given room and board, and told to shut up and be happy? That's not how the Spirit sees it. Because, speaking by the Apostle Paul, the Spirit tells us “that we are children of God; and, if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17). See, if we children share Jesus' prayer as the Son, then why should we children not share Jesus' rule as the Son, Jesus' inheritance as the Son? We aren't just there in the house – we get to be his joint heirs! We co-inherit all his inheritance, which is bigger than all the world! Each one of you, if you've received the Spirit of adoption, is destined to share a fortune bigger than you can wrap your mind around – a fortune that includes, at minimum, the entire world and everything in it, to “reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:12; cf. Revelation 20:6). And not just the broken world as we know it, but a new world, a world of glory! (More on that in two weeks.)

That is what God has in store for you: to stand tall as his very own child, adopted into his family, and given full rights to share Jesus Christ's world-dwarfing inheritance of glory and dominion. That is so much bigger and better than the Warbucks estate. That is so much bigger and better than a few plots of Middle Eastern real estate – even if it flows with milk and honey.

How's this all to happen? How do we get there? Well, look back to Israel again. How did they reach the land of promise they were to inherit? They had to follow the Spirit's leading as the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night – we already know that. But follow the pillar through what? The wilderness. That “dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1). Israel, as God's son, could only inherit through the trials and tribulations of their wilderness journey. And since they buckled under, they never fully saw what God had in mind for them (cf. Hebrews 3:7—4:11).

So Paul can then write to us that we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17). Israel had to inherit through the wilderness. Jesus inherited through the cross. And we inherit through taking up a cross and following him (Mark 8:34), and so “suffering with him” with the aim of then, when we receive our inheritance, being “glorified with him.”  We carry a cross through this dry and weary land, but our inheritance of glory with Jesus is just across the border.

Hard to believe all that was packed into this morning's passage! But what a tremendous vision, what a radical reality! Adopted by God, given family warmth and legal standing, made the Father's heir alongside Jesus the Son himself, led by the Spirit who attests to the truth of what we thought was too good to be true, even in our darkest hours.

What difference would it make this week if you really got it? if you really understood it, accepted it, believed it, trusted it? What difference would it make in your week if you really knew God as your Abba, if you dreamt where the Spirit is leading you, if you heard the witness loud and clear, if you glimpsed the adoption certificate in its permanent ink of indelible grace? What difference would that make? Meditate on that. Listen for the Spirit who tells you who your Father is. Follow him. May the plot burst off this script... and into your life.