©2000 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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7/23/00
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The Kid Next Door
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Romans 3:22-24
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7/23/00 The Kid Next Door
We return this morning
to our study of the book of Romans,
and to the eleven verses
at the end of chapter 3
that form the turning point of the
entire book.
If you have been with us in past weeks
you know that the book of Romans
was written by Paul
to answer 4 crucial questions about the
message of Christ -
1. Why was Christ needed?
2. What is a Christian?
3. What happens to the nation of Israel now that God
has established the church?
4. How does the church operate?
The first of those four questions
was answered by Paul
in Romans 1:18-3:20.
In that passage he painted for us
a portrait of the human race without Christ.
He showed us what it means for us
to attempt to approach God
on the basis of our performance
as measured by the moral law of God.
His final statement in that section
presented the truth the human race
has tried so hard to hide from:
Rom. 3:19 ¶ Now we know that whatever
the Law says, it speaks to those who are
under the Law, that every mouth may be
closed, and all the world may become
accountable to God;
Rom. 3:20 because by the works of the Law
no flesh will be justified in His sight; for
through the Law comes the knowledge of
sin.
On the basis of the moral law of God
every one of us stands justifiably condemned
and without hope.
And then the next six words he writes
changes everything forever -
Rom. 3:21 But now apart from the Law...
With those six words
Paul begins his second section of the book,
the section in which he reveals to us
what it means for a person to live in the
presence of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
His presentation of this truth
begins with verse 3:21
and runs through 3:31.
We are walking through these 11 verses in 6 steps,
and so far we've taken the first two steps
together.
The first was found in 3:21
where we saw Paul call on two witnesses
to testify to the nature of the righteousness
God offers each of us through Christ.
He called upon the Moral law of God
and upon the Old Testament prophets,
both of which affirmed
that the righteousness God offers us
through Jesus Christ
is the real thing.
Then, in 3:22-24 we took the second step
in which we saw that
what God gives us through Christ
is a new heart,
a new, pure, holy inner spirit.
He doesn't just forgive our past sins
and offer us a chance to try again.
He literally recreates us
at the deepest level of our existence.
He gives us
a new center of our being
that loves God
and longs to please Him.
If we were able to allow that heart
to exercise unhindered leadership over our lives
we would live lives of absolute moral
perfection.
And we ended our study two weeks ago
by recognizing that
it is that new heart within us
that our God now recognizes as being the
true us.
He sees us as His holy ones
because at the heart level
we truly are His holy ones.
I know, of course,
that these truths have a way
of making us feel uncomfortable
because we are so keenly aware
of how unholy our attitudes and actions still are at
times.
And Paul talks with us clearly about why that is
and what we can do about it
a little later in this letter.
But we are not ready for that discussion
until we first recognize and accept the truth of the
eternal holiness
our God has already created within each of
His children
at the core of our being.
Before we come to Christ
we think we should be good -
that is the natural guilt-based response
of the unredeemed spirit
knowing we are all ultimately accountable to
God for our lives.
But after we come to Christ
we wish we could be good.
Our God creates within us
a longing deep within us
for a life that glorifies our Lord.
It isn't fear-based.
It isn't guilt-motivated.
It is what Christ called a "hunger and thirst for
righteousness".
It exists within us
because it is who we truly are,
recreated by our God
into His eternal holy ones.
I know I have stated,
and restated,
and then restated again
this truth about God's recreation of our true identity
through Christ.
And I think perhaps
some of you are wondering if maybe,
after three decades of teaching Scripture,
I might be running out of material
and am now destined to simply
repeat again and again
whatever it is I said the week before.
Well, I want to assure you
that I'm not stuck,
I'm just very hesitant to move on
until I know I've done everything I can
do to help us see this truth.
Every lasting change God will ever bring about in
our lives
will be preceded by His bringing about
a transformation in our thinking.
He begins by teaching us the truth,
and then once we have been able to embrace the
truth
in a way that allows it to become a part of
us,
that truth then brings about
the changes in our behavior
that could never have taken place
any other way.
Let me try once again to illustrate
what I want us to see
in this truth I refuse to let go of.
For the next few minutes
I want you to picture yourself
as a 10 year old child.
You are in the 5th grade,
at the very bottom of your class
in your school work,
your conduct,
and your social standing.
You are a product
of the very worst aspects
of the foster care system.
You never knew your father at all,
and early in your life
your mom's alcohol and drug abuse
and repeated run-ins with the law
resulted in you being permanently removed from her
and dropped into an unending series of foster
care situations
in which you knew from day one
that your only value to those taking care
of you
was directly linked to the government check they
received for your care each month.
In your ten years of life
you've been in eight different homes.
Some of them ignored you.
Some of them beat you.
Some of them abused you terribly.
And the only constant among the lot
was that not one adult
in your ten terrible years of life
gave any evidence that they cared about
you as a person.
Then something happens
that alters the course of your life forever.
The house next door to your current foster care
residence is sold
and a new family moves into it.
Almost from the day they move in
you find yourself fascinated by them.
They have two children of their own,
a boy a year older than you,
and a girl a year younger.
Never in your life have you seen a family like this
before.
The first thing you notice about them
is that they laugh,
not the course, ugly laughter you're use to hearing
when someone tells a dirty story
or gets the best of someone else in the house.
These people laugh with one another,
not at one another.
They enjoy each other in a way you've never seen
before.
You often see the father out in the yard with his son
and daughter
after he comes home from work,
playing tag, or catch,
or dodge-ball.
They laugh,
and run around screaming,
and wrestling,
and just enjoying one another.
And as you watch them
there grows within you an ache,
a longing deep inside you to know that kind
of happiness and love.
And then one hot Saturday afternoon
the most amazing thing happens.
The dad is out in the yard washing the car.
His children come out to help him,
and the dad suddenly looks over at you
watching them,
calls you by name,
and asks if you want to help too.
You go on over,
not at all sure about how to act in this new
world,
pick up a rag and begin to wash a section of
the car.
The neighbor's son has the responsibility
of rinsing off each section
as the others wash it,
but hoses on hot summer days
are very tricky things.
All of the sudden the boy
sort of misses the car
and blasts his dad right in the chest
with the hose wide open.
Your first response is to wait for the blast
of rage and profanity
you've come to expect from the adult males
in your life,
but instead the father howls with laughter,
charges his son and wrestles the hose from
him, soaking both of them in the process.
Then he turns and sees you and his daughter
watching from the other side of the car.
Before you realize what's happening
the dad suddenly charges around the car
and hits you with a blast of water.
Then he takes off after his daughter
who is squealing with delight
as she tries to avoid the attack.
You're standing next to the bucket of soapy water
and while the dad is charging after his daughter
you come up behind him
and dump the whole thing onto him.
The water fight that follows
is the most fun you've ever had in your entire
life.
And it doesn't end there.
When everyone is completely soaked
they invite you into the house,
find some dry clothes for you from their
children's wardrobes,
and invite you to stay for dinner.
After dinner
the five of you play games until bed time,
and when you finally head home
you know you've just lived the most
wonderful eight hours
you'll ever live in your life.
That day begins a friendship with the family
that continues to grow
until several months later
the dad calls you over to his front yard
and says he wants to talk with you
about something very important.
He talks with you about the friendship
that has been growing between you
and each member of his family.
He tells you all four of them
have come to feel as though
the family is just not complete
if you are not with them.
And then he says this:
"We want you to know
that each of us have grown
to love you very much.
We have been talking a great deal recently
about you and your relationship with us,
and we are all in strong agreement
that we want you to become
a permanent part of our family forever.
If it's alright with you, we would like to take the
legal steps necessary to adopt you as our child."
He makes it clear that he is not talking about another
foster care situation.
They want to legally, permanently adopt you.
You would take their last name
and become their child forever.
When he asks you if you are interested in such an
arrangement
all you can do is stand there
with tears streaming down your cheeks,
nodding your head "yes".
As he wraps his arms around you
and gives you a big hug
you hear him saying,
"From now on you can call me 'Dad'."
The first few weeks following the adoption go
great.
You move into the house
and find yourself fitting into the family
remarkably well.
But then, toward the end of the school year
something happens that scares you to death.
Your 5th grade teacher
catches you stealing a $5.00 bill
out of the student's desk next to you.
There is no question about your being guilty.
Stealing stuff has always been part of your life.
It's one of the things you do best.
You are hauled down to the principal's office
and made to wait while the principal calls your
dad and asks him to come pick you up.
You'll be suspended for three days.
That's no big deal,
but you find yourself terrified
about how your dad will respond.
Probably he'll beat you
like the others use to do.
Maybe he'll use a stick or a belt.
Maybe he'll be so ticked
that he'll unadopt you
and kick you out of the family.
When he first arrives at the school
he says nothing at all.
He puts his hand on your shoulder
as the two of you walk together out to the car,
but he doesn't say a word
until you get home.
In your mind
you keep running through
all the possible things
he might be planning to do to you.
He might beat you.
He might just yell and scream.
He might make you stay in your room for the
next three days.
He might even call off the whole adoption thing.
But never in your wildest imagination
could you ever have anticipated
what really takes place.
Once the two of you get home
he takes you to the couch
in front of the big picture window in the
living room.
He has you sit down on the couch
and then he sits down next to you.
Then he turns toward you,
places his hands on your shoulders,
and begins to speak.
"You have only been my child
for a very short time.
I know that.
I know, too, that before I became your daddy
stealing was a way of life with you.
You took whatever you could get
whenever you had the chance.
But when I adopted you into my family
you became a different person.
You are now
and will forever more be my child.
Your last name and my last name are the same,
and I want more than anything else in the world
for you to know the truth
about who you really are.
My children are people of great integrity.
They are honest,
and trustworthy.
They don't have to steal
because they have me as their father.
I want you to know
that I will be your father forever
and I will always meet your needs in
abundance.
You did what you did today
most of all because you do not yet know
the truth about who you really are.
Together you and I are going to help you discover
that truth.
I love you.
I love you now,
and I always will."
We have been talking at length
about the way our God
does not just forgive our sins
when we come to Him in faith,
but that He also recreates our lives,
giving us not just a new start,
but a totally new identity.
We become His children,
with His name,
and His holiness at the core of our being.
I have taken the time this morning
to share this illustration with you
with the hope that it will be of value
in helping us to relate emotionally
to some of the intellectual truths we've been
studying.
Every child of God who has ever lived
has had times in our lives
when, in our own way,
we too have been caught stealing from
the desk next to us.
There are always natural consequences
to our actions,
and sometimes we, too, are kicked out of
school for a while.
But the far greater issue,
the one the matters the most,
the one upon which our whole healing and
rebuilding process rests
is the question of what happens
between us and our Heavenly Father.
Will He unadopt us
and kick us out of His family?
Will He explode in righteous rage
and pour out His wrath upon us?
Certainly He will work within our lives
to free us from those sin patterns in our lives
that will destroy us if they are allowed to
continue unhindered.
But as we study our way through Paul's letter to the
Romans
we are going to see that
His intervention begins
very much as it began
in the life of this child in our story.
It begins with our Heavenly Father
sitting down with us
and talking with us about who we really are.
We are no longer the emotional foster children of the
world,
kicked from one house to another,
with our value limited to whatever those
around us get out of us.
Whether we realize it or not,
we are now, in truth and reality,
at the deepest level of our being,
sons and daughters of God Himself,
people with tremendous value,
and great integrity.
And the beginning of God's healing process in our
lives
is His fervent commitment and determination
to tell us the truth about ourselves,
and to keep telling us
until that truth becomes the basis upon
which we make the daily choices in our lives.
This child in our story
will find freedom from those destructive
impulses from the past
when a sure and certain inner voice within
says,
"I know who I am.
I know who my father and mother are.
I know my brother and my sister.
And I know that the people in my family
don't act that way.
We are people of honesty,
and integrity,
with a family name of honor,
and great purpose in life."
And it works the same way
for those of us in the family of God.