Barriers To My Acceptance By God

1. Adopted Into The Family of God Barriers To My Acceptance By God What Christ Became To Remove the Barriers The Benefits I Receive Through Faith God’s Holy Character Romans 3:23 A Propitiation 1 John 2:2 Justification and Peace Romans 5:1 Forgiveness Colossians 2:13 Freedom Romans 6:5,8,11 Debt of My Sin Colossians 2:13,14 Redemption 1 Timothy 2:5,6 • Slavery to Satan • John 8:42-59 Substitutionary Death 1 John 3:4-10 Regeneration/New Life John 3:1-8 New Position “in Christ” Ephesians 2:4-6 Galatians 2:20 Spiritual Death Romans 5:12 Reconciliation 2 Corinthians 5:19

2. Gal.3:26-4:7 26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. 4 1What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.

3. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

4. John 1:12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— • 1John 3:1, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us. That we should be called children of God! And this is what we are!”

5. J.I. Packer wrote inEvangelical Magazine: • You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. …

6. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Fatherhood’ is the Christian name for God.

7. J.I. Packer, “Knowing God” • Fatherhood both in the Gospel of John and in the Epistles of John imply: • Authority • Affection • Fellowship • Honour

8. Adoption that we are given through faith in Christ is: • The highest privilege that the Gospel offers. • “Adoption is a family idea, conceived in love, and viewed in a family relationship. Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is even greater.” J.I. Packer

9. b. It shows us the greatness of God’s love. • 1 John 3:1a See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

10. c. It shows us the glory of the Christian Hope. • Romans 8:16, 17 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. • 1 John 3:2, 3 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

11. d. It gives us the key to understanding the Holy Spirit. • Romans 8:15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” • e. It gives us assurance that our salvation is eternal, we are heirs.

12. Romans 8:28-39 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 31What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

13. 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

14. 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.