Ben Young Daily Podcast - Defined By The Father

0:00On today's program with Ben Young, if Galatians is a explosion, if you would, of the grace of God, the free grace of God, the free grace of God has a tell us. It has a purpose. Why did God come down to us? Why did God come down to us and his son? Why did the infinite enter into the finite? Why did he die and rise again on the cross? Why do we sing about the blood because Christ came to connect us to the Father? Hey Houston, my name is Ben Young and I'm senior pastor of Second Baptist Church. You know, for over 30 years, Second Baptist has been broadcasting every week on Houston radio.

1:01During that time, I met so many people whose lives have been changed by the simple truth of the grace of God. I don't believe you're here today by accident. It is my hope and prayer that this message will meet you right where you are. One of my closest friends who does not live in this city was adopted. It was adopted. His mom was pregnant. Mom's boyfriend didn't know that she was pregnant. She went to a different city, had my friend, and my friend was adopted by a very wealthy and influential family. He grew up, he went to the very best schools, he went to the very best college, he had the very best things in life, he launched a career and is a very successful guy. Loved his mom, loved his dad. At the same time, like a lot of kids that have been adopted, in his late 20s, he wanted to search out to try to find his dad,

2:06his biological dad. So he went on a journey of searching and researching and trying to find out, first of all, who his dad's name was to find out if he was alive, to find him, and after a 20-year odyssey, he finally found his biological dad. It's an amazing store. There's much more details I'm skipping over. And again, his father, his adopted father was his father. There was no doubt. But the reunion he had to get to know his biological dad was a very significant moment in my friend's life. And when I think about that story, and I've thought about it so much, I thought about this need that we all have, whether you're adopted or not, but we have this deep need to have a connection with our father. I love my mom. I'm proud to be called a mama's boy.

3:09My mom was one of the greatest ladies who happened to walk this planet. And she just happened to be my mom. Yes, I will clap. Great lady. At the same time, we get our definition, our identity, if you would, from our fathers. Our fathers give us our identity. Our fathers, in a sense, name us. And we can talk a lot about the problems that we have in our culture, in our country today. There are a lot of problems. A lot of problems. Yet I would argue that the number one problem in the United States today is fatherlessness.

4:0940% of all households in our country will grow up without a dad, without a father. So what happens when you don't have a father? You go out looking for someone or something to name you, to identify you, to give you that sense of affirmation. We are who our fathers say that we are. And regardless of your family of origin, God desires to speak to us in that place of a fatherly connection. And as we open God's Word right now, it's my prayer and my deep desire that you would absorb the reality that you would absorb the truth of this Word, not my Word, God's Word, deep in your soul today.

5:12Open your Bibles. If you have them with you to the book of Galatians, Galatians chapter number four. Galatians four. Paul is writing to us. Now, I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although he is the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. We too, and we were children, were held in bondage under the elementary principles of the world. Let's pause right here. What is he saying? He is saying, if you have a wealthy child who is going up in a prominent home and they are servants in that home, basically the son or daughter are same as the servants. They are really in a sense on the same level because they have guardians.

6:12They are under supervision. But when that time comes, maybe when they are 18 or when they are 25 years of age, a date set by their father, bam, all of a sudden that son or daughter comes into their inheritance, comes into their trust fund, and they start living out the full right of what it means to be an heir in that particular family. Now, I want to about to read to you after this, we will take all of us here a lifetime to understand, and as someone said, an eternity to enjoy. But here we go. And I think when we start processing this, this is the kind of, I think it's the type of theological and existential, personal reality that has to go through a process of what I call crisis, breakthrough, and process. So there has to be a crisis when we realize, wow, this is broken or I am broken

7:14or I don't really grasp that, then there is a breakthrough. You've heard a breakthrough, it's like an aha moment. And I think if you are a Christ, follow it for a while, you have several aha moments as you look back over your life. You are like, oh, now, finally I get it, right? There is that breakthrough. But after a breakthrough, there has to be a follow-through or a follow-up and that's the process of living it out. So we are about to read what we are about to try to understand is something that is a breakthrough, a crisis, and also a process. Look at verse four. He writes, but when the fullness of the time came, you could put the date set by the father, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law. So that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the spirit, that we might receive this adoption as sons and daughters. Verse six, because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts,

8:14crying, aba, father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, or no longer a servant, but a son or a daughter, and if a son, you are an heir through God. If Galatians is an explosion, if you would, of the grace of God, the free grace of God, the free grace of God has a tell us. It has a purpose. Why did God come down to us? Why did God come down to us and his son? Why did the infinite enter into the finite? Why did he die and rise again on the cross? Why do we sing about the blood because Christ came to connect us to the father? The result of the amazing grace of God is that now you and I,

9:17garden variety, plain old, old-fashioned centers, can be forgiven, declared righteous, and accepted by God, and we can know our heavenly father. And he names us. Through getting to know our father, he gives us that sense of identity, that sense of isness. Christ, Jesus, came to connect us to the father. One of my top three favorite movies of all time is Ben Hurr, starring Charlton Heston. Young people, trust me. Do yourself a favor. Put down the tick-tack and the ants the shame and watch Ben Hurr this week. Watch it. Ben Hurr is amazing. It is epic. I will give you a brief summary, but I will not give you spoilers at all, young folks,

10:18because it is too great of a moment. Ben Hurr is basically about a Jewish slave that gets adopted into a Roman royal family. That's Ben Hurr. And if you have trusted in Christ, if you receive the free gift of God in Christ, you have moved from a slave and a servant to a son or a daughter of the living God. So much that God allows you through Christ to cry out to God and say, Abba, father, which means daddy, Abba, like when you are trying to get your baby to talk for the first time, that's what Jewish families would do. They would say, Abba, say Abba, Abba, daddy, daddy. What a radical transforming reality Christ brought down to earth. We can call the great I am Abba, father. We can receive our identity from Abba, father.

11:20It's amazing, isn't it? Lord, teach us how to pray. How should we pray, Jesus said, pray like this, our father. We go back and we look at the church, fathers. We go back in our country and we look at the founding fathers. We say the apostles creed and we say, we believe in God, the father, all mighty. Christ came to show us the father. Christ came to connect us to God, the father, all mighty. We're no longer under the law. We're no longer under the law. Under the law means that we are lawbreakers. We have broken God's law. We're under that curse. Under the law means that we cannot perform perfectly obey God's law.

12:20Christ paid the pendly for us on the cross. Death, condemnation in our place. Christ perfectly followed the law of God for us. So now we're credited with his righteousness. All that was promised to Abraham was fulfilled in Christ. Therefore we can be adopted through Christ. We can become heirs through Christ. We're legally adopted, like Ben Hur was. It was a legal transfer. But also there's that experiential element of being able to say, not only am I legally a child of God because of the blood of Christ, the life of Christ, but I'm a son or daughter of God. And I can say, God, I'm a father, father, guide me, father, affirm me, father, I need your help in this moment. Who am I? I am who God says I am. I am who the father says I am. Who am I?

13:20I am you are a child of the living God. I'm Abbas, John. You're Abbas, John. That's who we are. John put it this way, first John 3. How great is the love of the father that he's lavished on us that we should be called Children of God, Paul's, and that is what we are. He said in the chapter what, that we're clothed, clothed with Christ. Think about your clothes. Think about your clothes for a second. Your clothes covering you from head to toe. Your clothes keep you warm or your clothes can cool you off. Your clothes also identify who you are and what you're doing in that particular moment.

14:23Your clothes also cover you physically. Your clothes are always with you. It's one of the most valuable possessions and things that we own. We are all clothed. And now we're so close to God that we're clothed with Christ. I'm clothed with Christ. I'm clothed with his forgiveness. I'm clothed with his righteousness. I'm clothed with his humility. I'm clothed with his power. I'm clothed. And I'm covered by the living Son of God. That's what the Father says. It doesn't matter how you feel. It doesn't matter how I feel. It doesn't matter what I think. How you think, no, no, it doesn't matter. The Father defines you.

15:23The Father defines me. You are who your Father says you are. Only God the Father ultimately can name you and affirm you. The Father says, I am accepted. The Father says I am forgiven. The Father says I am love. Who am I? I am who God says I am. I am who the Father says I am. Christ has came to bring us close to the God who made us. I am connected. You are connected to the one who made the universe.

16:27It's so difficult to describe it. It's so difficult, isn't it, to receive that level of love that God has for us? To begin to know God as Abba Father. When you wake up in the morning and you are trying to find your way to school or trying to find your way to work and you want God to bless your life, you just cry out. Abba Father help. Abba Father lead me. You're alone with God and you're reading God's Word. You're reading Galatians, reading Ephesians. Abba, show me who I am. Show me what it means to be a son or a daughter of God. Abba Father help me. It's a crisis, then there's a breakthrough, and then it's a process. Isn't it, it's a process of living out to be Abba's child?

17:28To know God as God, the Father Almighty, Abba's child. Now, if you're someone who asks questions, happen to be one of those people that ask questions. I can be a little skeptical at times, sometimes a little cynical and sarcastic, sometimes. If God desires to be your father, if God desires you to understand Abba Father and what it means to be Abba's child, why are so many of us inside of the church and outside of the church missing it? Missing it was difficult. Difficult childbirth. She was struggling in this birth, which would be her last son.

18:33And as she was giving birth to her baby boy, Rachel was about to pass away. And her nurse made, said, it's going to be okay, Rachel. It's a boy. You're going to have a baby boy. What do you want to name him? Rachel said, name him Bonona, son of my sorrows, and she passed away. The father, Jacob, jumped in the tent, saw the baby boy in the hands of the nursemate, saw that his wife, Rachel, had passed away, and said, what did she name him? What did she name the boy? And the nursemate said, she named him Bonona, son of my sorrows.

19:39Jacob said, he will not be called that. He will be called Benjamin, son of my strength. The nurse threw the tribe of Benjamin. He came, the skilled warriors, the very first king of Israel, and centuries later, a man for the name of Paul. Because the boy became who the father says he was. You go, you run faster, you do better. When your father is in the stands cheering you on. That's my boy, that's my daughter. You go, you go.

20:42We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses. We are in the presence of God, the father almighty, who can name you, who can name you, who can name you, and tell you who you are. Abbas child, Abbas child, but the free grace of God in Christ. On our next broadcast. So the question, a massive issue that I've seen for people rejecting God outright, or for people living with a relationship with God that's much more transactional, is that they take those negative, destructive attributes of their earthly debt and they project them onto the heavenly father.

21:43So when they come to church and they say, hey, God wants to be your father, God wants to be your father, there's something inside of that man or that woman that says, if God is like my father, I want nothing to do with it. So I have to ask you a question this morning. What was your father like? What was your dad like? What was your father like? Did he accept you? Did he affirm you? Did he give you a sense that you are protected, that you are secure? Did you know in your heart and your mind that your father truly loved you? As fathers, we either reflect or distort the character of God to our children. That's just how it is. Now, I was fortunate to grow up in a wonderful hung. I had a wonderful mom, I had a very strong dad who was always present, always at our games, and he always pointed us to God's word and to the church to find answers to life's problems.

23:02At the same time, no dad, no father, can perfectly reflect the character and the nature of God. We're all defective. I am, as a dad, you are as a dad in some way. So it all takes a breakthrough of God's grace, a breakthrough of the Father, the heart of God, the ultimate father to show us who God really is, that we can enter into this Abba-Father relationship. So someone said the same son that milks wax also hardens clay. So it doesn't mean that, well, I grew up in a home where my dad was abusive or my dad wasn't there, my dad was left. Therefore I can't connect with God as Abba-Father. That's not true. Some of the people I know who have the most awesome intimate relationship with God, the father grew up in a home where they had no dad or the dad was always absent, they never met their father. On the same hand, you may have a great dad. Maybe it's a, you know, a leave it to be for a situation. I don't know, or the writing bunch, and it doesn't necessarily mean, oh, that person is going to believe.

24:03Thanks so much for joining us today. Maybe you have some questions about the Christian life, what it's all about, or perhaps you're looking for a church home, a place where you can learn more about God's word and find a sense of community. Second has six campuses all over the city of Houston, and there's probably one not too far from where you live. We would love to have you as a guest next weekend. To find out more about worship times and locations, go to our website, second.org. Thanks for joining us. This has been a production of second Baptist Church Houston. Be sure and join us live every Sunday morning at 9.30am, right here on KHCB.