Good morning. Wow. You look and sound great. I like this service. If you’ve got a Bible, go ahead and go with me to Romans chapter eight. If you’re new, I like you whatever service you come to I just like to tell you that. Romans chapter eight, again, as we’re going through this chapter, the theme of the chapter has to be reiterated every single week. It is the assurance of the believer. It’s not written for pie in the sky platitudes for people who aren’t in Christ, but they want to pull like verse 28 out and claim it for themselves. These are facts. They’re indicative in nature. And they are descriptives of what a child of God is and has been given freely in what Jesus has done. That is so that you’ll have assurance to approach the throne of grace on your best day or your worst day and have intimate friendship with Jesus by nature of the Holy Spirit. So that’s what this is about. As we progress into verse 17, the title of this message, delivered right from the text, is “Fellow Heirs” part 1 (Romans 8:17). And I want you to notice this is part one. There’s no way to do it in one message, and we won’t accomplish it in the other one as well. We can’t do it exhaustively but what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at the totality, kind of in a compact version of what it means to be an heir in Christ. And so, the end of this message is not the end. I’m just going to stop. There’s no ending to it. I couldn’t wrap it up. I basically wrote the message and then cut it somewhere near a third and two thirds, and that’s the way it’s going to be. So, at the end of it, I’m sorry it’s not a cliffhanger. We just don’t have time to finish it.
So, let’s look at our text, Romans 8:15-17a. I’m going to start in verse 15, talking about those that are in Christ. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.” What “fear” is it? This is be the fear of death and condemnation, right? Verse one of this chapter says there’s no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus, right? “But you (that is believers in Christ) have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” An endearing term in Hebrew. It means a “Dear Papa”. It’s kind of the simile of a child, a young child in our nomenclature, that would say, what? “Daddy!” Run and run to the door and “Daddy”. That’s the same thing. We’ve been given this much. And if you think about where you’ve been, if you’ve been in the whole series with Romans, wasn’t it enough that you’re not going to face condemnation in hell, right? What if that was the only deal? You don’t go there. Where are you going to be? Yeah, you’re going to live forever. You’re gonna work at Walmart, which is not bad. I don’t know if you work at Walmart. I love you. I don’t know why I said Walmart. It’s better than hell, right? So, it’s like, “Yes, I’ll work at Walmart.” You’d be like, “I’m excited. What Jesus paid for me to not go to hell and I get to work at Walmart?” Man, you’d be the most effervescent, happy greeter. No, it wasn’t that. It was that He bought your redemption and then gave you His righteousness into your account, so that now, when God sees you, He sees the righteousness of Jesus, because the sin and the wrath for that sin went on Him. That’s the exchange. So, it’s not just an escape, it’s an identity. Oh, but if that wasn’t enough, wouldn’t it be great if all you got to do was just go near heaven? What if you were tasked with, listen, you’re going to stand outside the gate, outside that single that gate made of a single pearl, and you’re going to greet people as they come in. That’s all you’re going to do. You’re like, “Hello, welcome to heaven.” You can hold the gate for them. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” It’s good. Wouldn’t that be enough? Wouldn’t it be enough? But what if He says this? “No, you can come in. The gate’s open for you. You can come in.” Wouldn’t that be enough? You’re not in hell or Walmart, you’re in heaven. And that’s not enough. He says, “No, come to the palace. You can come to the palace. The door to the palace is open, not only that, but you can come into the throne room, and you can come right up here where I am, not only that, but you can come to the table. I’ve prepared a feast, and you can come and eat at My table. And it’s not just any feast, it’s the wedding feast, and you’re going to be the bride in this scenario, and you are going to be joined permanently to the Son. So not only that, but I’m going to bring you into the family. I’m adopting you as My very child, with all the rights and all the privileges you’re adopted and by which you can call Me the most familiar of names, ‘Abba Father.’ You can call Me what generations before you would never dreamed of.” Wouldn’t that be enough? It would be enough, family. It gets gooder. Abba Father.
Verse 16, “The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” “With our spirit,” it says, together, not two, He does that, but it’s also with who you really are, born again, and the Spirit that dwells in you witnesses to that how? By the fruit of love, covered that last week. If that weren’t enough, there’s more. Look at verse 17. “And if children (since you are children, those that are regenerate here) then heirs.” Heirs. What heir to what? Well, we’ll get to that. But what is an heir? It’s someone who inherits something that has been given to them by someone else. And usually, we think in terms of what? Well, land, money, possessions, title, right? Those things are inherited. And those usually happen when someone why? When someone dies. Well, someone did die and covered the inheritance on this that we are heir to something from who? “Heirs of God.” Heirs of God. Okay, so all of this that’s been leading up to this, it’s still not the fullest assurance that the Holy Spirit wants you to have, but that not just that you are all the way to the center of it in His family, but that you are owed something in the sense of it, something’s been bought for you. You have something coming that you’ve not received yet. You’ve not. You’ve not received the full inheritance yet, even those who are in heaven have not yet received the full inheritance. You are heirs, heirs of God. And watch, here’s the term, “Fellow heirs with Christ.” Not “from” but “with” Christ. What does that mean? You’re a fellow heir. Let me say it to you this way, I know this can be hard. What He gets you get. What? Now that sounds a little dangerous. Does that mean you’ll ever be God? No, because divinity is not Christ’s because of what He did on Earth. Divinity is God’s from eternity past. His inheritance is based on His accomplished work, His person and His work, thus He inherits things, and we, being in Him, also inherit these things. Yes, it did. It just got better.
And so, there’s ways we have to cut this up to understand this, and we have to do it carefully. We’re going to cover two things here before, and then next week, we’ll cover the rest, but we need to see this very carefully, because here’s the thing, if we use our imaginations to imagine what their inheritance is, we’re going to end up in heresy. You’re going to get it wrong. You’re going to come up with something fanciful and well, it’s going to be dangerous. So, we have to be very careful. We need to be very careful to say, “Look, there are some things we’re not going to know yet, and there are some things that we do know now, and we focus on those things.” There is a text that says this really explicitly. It’s what we call a flag verse in our systematic course, Men’s theology, and it’s Deuteronomy 29:29 you should know this verse. Anytime somebody asks you questions and you’re like, “I just don’t know. I don’t think that’s even knowable.” Deuteronomy 29:29 it says this, look, “The secret things belong to who the Lord.” There are secret things. They belong only to the Lord. That means you don’t know them. That means you and I as Christians, we don’t have to have all the answers if the Bible doesn’t say anything about it, or if it says something only partially, we get to rest in that, because those are secret things. Like, I’ve had scoffers who thought they were clever, who would ask me questions, like, here I’m going to play stump the theologian or stump the pastor, whatever. “Oh, did Adam have a belly button?” Y’all ever heard that stupid question? You know what the answer to that question is? Did Adam have a belly button? Here’s the answer to the question, “Repent”. Because what you’re doing is you’re playing games with Almighty God. You think you’re making Him a fool, but He sees your heart. “Can God make a rock big enough where He can’t move it?” Which is probably you try to juxtapose His omniscience against Himself, right? His omnipotence rather. Well, the answer to that is the same answer, “Repent.” Because the secret things belong to the Lord. I’ll tell you one, what day and what hour is Jesus Christ returning to Earth? I don’t know. And anybody who claims they do, they’re lying, right? Those are secret things, so we leave those with Him, but watch the next statement. “But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law, they belong to us.” They’re ours. We are to know. What’s knowable in the revelation of Scripture, within the confines of the 66 books of the Old and New Testament and all the other we entrust unto God, and you can give your one and only life, and it will not be a wasted life trying to become a master of the book that masters you. Yes, you won’t exhaust it. You don’t need to worry about the secret thing. So therefore, we’re not going to get into conjecture. I’m not going to make things up. I’m not going to try and suppose what the inheritance will look like in any aspect that the Word of God does not explicitly state it as. There, get that out of the way. So, if I start doing something creative, you should be warned. I’m not going to. We need to stick to the text, because that’s what’s actually being given to us.
That’s why Ephesians 1:16-18 applies here. Here’s an apostolic prayer for the church. “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. (Here’s the prayer) That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of (what?) wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.” That means you’re seeing things through the Spirit’s help. “Having (verse 18) the eyes of your hearts enlighten that you may know (look) what is the hope to which He has called you, and what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.” We need the Spirit’s help for this. We’re going to be dependent upon it. So, if you’re just here for an intellectual pursuit, feel you’ll be let down. But if you will, in a humble heart attitude, say, “Holy Spirit, don’t leave me out. Show me, I want to see it.” Why? Because the gospel is such good news that we need the Spirit’s help to be able to understand it, to grasp it in a spiritual sense of the goodness of the news. The gospel is not just Jesus died for your sins. It’s why did He do it? How did He do it? Who did He do it for? What are its implications? And they get deeper and deeper and deeper, and the deeper your assurance goes of what He accomplished, the more intimacy you’ll have with Him, whether your days are really good or whether your days are really bad, and whether you’re getting a raise at work or it’s your turn to go through a trial. This is very important. We need it.
So, here’s what we want to do. We want to understand this from a theological standpoint. That just simply means Theos, logos, Theologian, right? It is Theos, which is God, logos, which is words. What are the words that God has said about what we’re talking about? We’ll take the first two overarching topics this morning.
Here’s 1. One Heir – Divine Right
There is one heir only and His heirship is by divine right. The one heir is who? Jesus. But we would say, perhaps, “Wait a minute, I thought you were saying, we’re fellow heirs.” We’ll get to that. But what you have to understand, there’s only one heir in your Bible, one, not two, not 10,000 not 10 million. There’s one who deserves it. Thus, by divine right. Galatians 3:16, says this, “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring.” Now we use that word “offspring” as plural. It’s not so in the Greek, right? It’s not talking about many. It’s talking about one. How do we know? Well, we read ahead. Keep going. “It does not say and to offsprings like plural, referring to many (no) but referring to one (who is that?) and to your offspring (who is) Christ.” He is the only heir anything that is paid out, if you will, in this heir. To this heir is owed that by divine right, not because of who He is, based upon what He did. Right? He’s not owed something because of His Godness. He’s owed that because of His accomplishment as the God man. That’s His heir, that’s what He gets. Let’s look at it this way. Hebrews 1:1-2, “long ago”. Let’s talk about the Old Testament. This first verse, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.” Talking about the Old Testament. That’s the way it was. We heard through the prophets. But look at verse two, “But in these last days, He (that is God) has spoken to us (this is the church) by (who? By) His Son.” So now He’s going to describe Him, “Whom He appointed heir of (how many things?) all things through whom also He created the world.” Who created the world? Who created the universe? Jesus did. The Son did. He spoke it into creation, and He holds it all together by the Word of His power, Hebrews 1:3 says, right, He is the one. So, when you read your Old Testament and you start in Genesis 1:1 in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Jesus the Son is the active agent there, right? And God said, “Let there be light.” Who is that speaking? It’s Jesus. He spoke it into being, and He holds it together by the Word of His power. Get this, right, guys, Jesus doesn’t come on the scene when the baby’s born. That’s the incarnation. Jesus is on the scene because He is preexistent. He’s eternally the Son of God. God the Son, second person of the Trinity. And He’s the heir of all things.
Colossians 1:15-18. “He (that’s Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation.” That doesn’t mean He’s been created. That means He’s the preeminent one. It keeps going. Verse 16. “For by Him, all things were created (really? Where? Well) in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.” You could easily say this, “It’s all about Jesus.” Because it is. How do we know? We can read. Right? Some people get really consumed with Greek and Hebrew, and it’s good to know. But I mean, you’d do well if you just understood English. This says it, it’s for Him. All of it goes on verse 17 and 18. “He is before all things. And in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body the church.” That’s the church universal, every Christian who will ever be saved. “He is the beginning, the first born from the dead.” He’s called that term because He was the first one not to be resuscitated, but to be resurrected, because He would never die. “That in everything (that’s everything including what He’s heir to) He might be preeminent.” That means He is first. He is in first place of everything for all time. That’s what it’s referring to. How many heirs are there? There’s one heir. And why is He the heir? By divine right. He deserves it because He earned it. Having understood that and seeing Christ in His righteous place.
We can look at
2. Fellow Heirs – Divine Grace
Fellow heirs by what? By divine grace. What does “grace” mean? Grace is God’s unearned or unmerited favor. It is unearned. It’s unmerited. It’s empowering favor, and it is given freely. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be grace. So, there’s one heir by divine right, but then there’s fellow heirs who are in Christ, who get an inheritance, who are heirs because of God’s grace freely given to them. Okay, so let’s don’t get this messed up. If you are in Christ, you are an heir in Christ, but you’re not getting what’s owed to you. You’re going to receive what’s rightly owed to Him. This is a tremendous help because I don’t know if you got the memo, humans tend toward pride, and at the end of this two weeks, it would be easy to do if you don’t rightly understand it, for you to be able to go, “I’m an heir. I’m a fellow heir in Christ. I guess I’m kind of a big deal.” I can’t think back to more than two. There’s two people I know that in my lifetime, I’ve known who were heirs. They were given a big inheritance. Oh, a third one. I possibly but one thing those other two had in common, they had been given a big inheritance, and they were, how do I describe them? Hard to love and impossible to like, because they were arrogant and they were entitled, and they acted like all this. In these two cases, they got money and they acted like they had earned that money. They acted like they had bought those cars. Have you ever seen that? And y’all have never, probably seen this, but there are arrogant teenagers. Did you know that? The worst of which would be a spoiled, arrogant teenager. It’s the 17 year old driving around in the Ferrari that daddy bought him, and he’s looking down at you because you’re in your work pickup right now. Do you like that? No, that’s the wrong attitude. “Dude, quit acting like you hit a home run. You were born on third base. Stop it.” See? Why am I saying this? Because that is not to be the attitude of the believer. We’re not to have our nose in the air. “Oh, I’m I guess I’m a King’s child.” Yeah, you should have your head down in reverence and gratitude. So, we need to understand we get this because of what He did.
Look at 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know, (here’s the theme, you know) the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake, He became poor, so that you, by His poverty, might become rich.” Now, false teachers love this verse, and this is what they teach. “Well, Jesus was a wealthy man.” I’ve literally heard somebody with their lying ugly mouth open, open their mouth and say this same mouth that they kiss their mother with, yeah, that’s funny. “Jesus was a rich man. Maybe you didn’t know that He was wealthy. He had a garment with no seam that was very expensive.” Okay? He had no place to lay His head either, but let’s assume that they’re wrong. “Okay, He’s rich, but then He becomes poor. Oh, He lost all His money. He lost that so that someday you could have a big house and a Mercedes Benz.” This is not talking about that. This is talking about the condescension of the Son to earth and the salvation which He purchased by the blood of His cross that was given to you. He in heaven rich. He condescends. He takes the form of a servant, humbling Himself, even to the point of death. That is that poverty, so that what? Through His poverty, you’d become rich. Rich in what? In an inheritance that you did not deserve nor did you earn. And it’s by what? It’s by grace. It’s by divine grace. Ephesians 1:11 says this, “In Him (very important, in Him) we have obtained an inheritance.” “In Him, we’ve obtained an inheritance.” Now this word “obtained” could be taken incorrectly, that somehow you did the work and therefore you earned it. “Well, I obtained it. I mean, He laid it out there, but I reached up and I grabbed it.” Really, okay. Well, you know, the problem with that is you were predestined to have it. Now, probably someone in this service, or maybe the others too, watching online or on kten. Hello. “I can’t believe he’s teaching predestination.” I’m not teaching predestination. I’m teaching that we were predestined because that’s what the Bible says and if you don’t like it, tough, too bad. He made a choice that you’d have an inheritance, and it would be in Christ, therefore you did not earn it. How could you have? “He predetermined it and He did it according to the purpose of Him (that’s of His own will) who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” He chose it. This is His choice, that you would have this, and it would be in Christ. There’s no room to boast. How could that puff me up? How could I possibly go out and brag about that? Why do we need to know that? Well, when we watch the wicked become more and more wicked, and we watch the descent of the world, we’re to tell them the truth. We’re to tell people judgment is coming, the wrath of God is on you, and the only escape is in Christ, the Ark has been built, you better flee to it, repent of your sin, trust in the Savior. And if they mock God, if they scoff at God, if they chase their own lust, if they blaspheme His name, yes, that grieves us. Yes, we can be indignant about that, but we can’t look down our nose at people. Why? Because we’re no better in ourselves. We only have what we have because He gifted it to us by His grace. Please, please, if you are in Christ, don’t walk around with your nose in the air and you can look someone in the eye and tell them the truth, and they’ll call it hate speech, but it can’t be hate speech if you’re saying it when you love them. It’s just not possible. If you were driving your car toward a cliff, and I knew the cliff was there, and let’s say you drive a little Yugo, right? Remember what Yugos are? It’s Spanish for no go, or it was Yugoslavia or something. And while you’re driving your happy little way down over toward the cliff, I get my pickup, and out of love for you, I pull in front of you, and it inconveniences you. You have to slam on your brakes because it’s a Yugo. You don’t know if you’ll ever get it running again. And I get out of my truck, and I come to your window and I say, “Hey, listen, I stopped you, because where you’re headed is damnation. You’re going to go. You can’t see it yet, but there’s a cliff there. And I’m telling you, if you’ll turn around now, you can be spared to that.” And you go, “How dare you tell me how to drive? Oh, so you’re the only one who knows how to avoid a cliff?” That’s why I get in the pickup and I back it up, and I go, “Okay, go your way.” And they can say, “Oh, what hate speech he gave me.” There’ll be a day where they won’t think it was hate speech. But if we’re arrogant about it, it can turn into that. This is why this is so foundationally important. We’re going to cover a tiny bit this morning. I’m not trying to cliffhanger you. It’s just the way it is. There’s too much for one message next week. It’s so grand, it’s hard to believe the goodness of it and the grandeur of it, and we have to have it embedded in us that it’s because of what Christ has done, not because of what we’ve done. Matthew 25:34 Jesus says it this way, “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come you who are blessed of My Father (look) inherit the kingdom prepared for you (from the what?) from the foundation of the world.” That is a synonymous description of predestination by God’s own choosing and His own will. It’s not because of you. Hebrews 9:15 says, “Therefore He (that is Jesus) is the mediator.” Right? 1 Timothy 2:15, He’s one God, one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. He’s the “Mediator of a New Covenant so that those who are called may receive (what?) the promised eternal inheritance.” Why? Well, because the death has occurred. I thought somebody had to die for an inheritance to kick in. Someone did. Jesus did, and He rose from the dead. So, He laid His life down to deserve it, then He took His life back up to keep it and to share it with you and me. Wow, it gets gooder. I’m running out of er-s. A death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant, which was what? The law. That was the law, and what was its inheritance? What did you get? You got death. Congratulations. That’s behind door number one, two and three. But in the New Covenant, the inheritance is what? It is eternal life. Hence, we are fellow heirs by divine grace. Look at Titus 3:5-7, “He saved us. (Got to get that straight) Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy.” Same. Mercy and grace go together. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve. Right? So we have both in Christ, “But by His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by grace, we might become heirs (heirs what? watch closely) according to the hope of eternal life.” This is why it’s so important for you to hear this. This is intended to up your assurance deeper and deeper and deeper. Remember, we went through the progression? Wouldn’t it be enough? Wouldn’t it be enough? Wouldn’t it be enough? But you’re also an heir and there’s a hope of that heirship, because, by the way, no one has yet inherited or received the full inheritance. No one, even those who are with the Lord right now, those have gone before us. You don’t get it until the consummation of the ages. We’ll see it next week in its awesomeness, if the Lord gives us eyes to see. Colossians 1:12. “Giving thanks to the Father who has done (what? the Father has) qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” What does that mean? There’s two kingdoms. There’s the kingdom of darkness. There’s the kingdom of light. There’s the kingdom of Satan. There’s the kingdom of God. There’s one or the other. He’s bought us. He’s delivered us out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Is that part of the inheritance? Yes. What all does that entail? Deuteronomy 29:29, can’t tell you all of it, because we don’t know all of it. We want to know the parts that He’s given to us. But here again, God is the one that has qualified us to have this. Galatians 3:29, “And if you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s offspring (spiritually, right?) and heirs according to the promise.” It’s not a novel concept. It’s all throughout when what’s promised to Abraham ends up with you. That takes its roots back to Genesis. In fact, the promise is that the Messiah would come. Go back to Genesis early in chapter three, right? And we see it typified. But the inheritance builds is not a novel idea.
Paul wasn’t writing to Rome, just going, you know, “Okay, here I got verse 17. I got to fill it with something. All right, you’re heirs.” No, no. He was revealing the mystery that had already been there in the mind of God, predestined and foreordained in the divine decree. And so, when he says that to us, he’s talking about things that predated him and predated us, and that we did not earn, but God qualified us. When it says that He did that, that means He accomplished it. Thus, we are “Heirs according to promise,” not according to works. Remember, there were two children, right? There was Ishmael from Hagar and there was Isaac from Sarah. And what does the Bible say? Cast out the bond woman, because her seed will not be sharing the inheritance with the seed of the promise. If you’re in Christ, your child of promise you’ve heard His Word and you’ve been given faith to believe it. This is fellow heirs by divine grace, Galatians 4:6-7. “And because you are sons (that sounds familiar, right?) God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, (what? Dear Daddy) ‘Abba Father,’ (dear Papa). So, you are no longer a slave, but you are a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.” “Through God,” that’s incredibly good news. I know it’s a lot to take in, because we tend to think in terms of where we are right now is we’re on the outside, we’re in our sanctification, and we know we still stumble, struggle in sin, and we know that God knows it. And then sometimes our hearts condemn us. Sometimes we shrink back, sometimes we make new vows, which never work. But then there are those sweet times, and maybe today is your turn, where we humble ourselves and we say, “God, I can’t do it, but You did. You never said I could, but You promised You would, and You did it. And we humble ourselves, and we come before His throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in time of need.” We don’t vow. We don’t shrink back. We humble ourselves. We confess. We repent. And then we trust our Savior. This is the Christian walk, but we get focused so temporal that we can lose focus on the fact that there’s more coming. There’s more ahead, and that’s why it keeps moving outward. In Romans chapter eight, thus the psalm. You could probably resonate with this sentiment of Psalm 16:5-6. “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup. You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” That’s worth your meditation, isn’t it? It is. You have a beautiful inheritance. Y’all ever seen those? I don’t know. Maybe you have. Kelly and I, we’ve done some RVing through the years. We started doing it when the kids were really little. And by RV, I mean, like a $6,000 trailer we named hoopty, that we would pull all over the place, Disney World, to Colorado, you name it. You know, people saw it. People would see that. They’d be like, “Those poor kids.” You know. But we had a ball in it, and we would often see bumper stickers. So, we would read bumper stickers, because back in the day, there were such thing as bumper stickers, and there was one that we’d see at a lot of the RV parks. We’d stop at these places as we were getting to our destination, maybe spend the night. Maybe you’ve seen the sticker back of those motor coaches or whatever, and it says something like, “We’re spending our children’s inheritance.” Do you ever see that? Which is awesome if you’re the grandparent, and terrible if you’re the kid, like man, and you think, “Well, right now, they’ve got a lot, but over that next, however, many years, it could become a little,” because that’s a really nice motor home.
Your inheritance is not subject to that mutability. How do we know? Because the Spirit wanted us to know this is 1 Peter 1:3-5, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, according to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope.” It’s very important. “Born again to a living hope.” It’s vital in your sanctification as you walk. “Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance (look at that) That is (what?) imperishable (right? Means it will never go away, it will never become something that is depleting). It is undefiled.” It can’t be tainted, it can’t be dirtied, it can’t be soiled. Let me say it to you this way, you can’t mess it up. Because if you could, you would, how do I know? Because I know me, and I know some of you, some of you really, we would. But it’s undefiled, and it’s also “Unfading.” It’s not losing its value and the best news ever, it’s “Kept in heaven (not by you) but for you.” That’s the inheritance. Is it in the future? Yes, it is. And that is to give you what? That is to give you a living hope, not pie in the sky, because we have to focus on what? Who is Jesus? What has He accomplished? And what is His inheritance? What does He get? Well, He’s inherited all things, and we’ll see that next week, because what we’re looking at here is basically what we would call, I don’t have room to write “relational”. This is a relational aspect of it. Next week will be the governmental aspect of your inheritance, you’ll understand why those two words are used. Let me just say it to you this way, being in a relationship is wonderful especially when you do things together. That’s pretty safe to say, isn’t it? Right? That’s what it’s just better. Now, some of you girls, you like to get together and have tea and crumpets. I don’t even know what a crumpet is and look at each other’s eyes. Guys, we typically want to go do something. Let’s play golf. Let’s hunt something. Let’s do something, right? There’s something about the activity together that is the fruit of the relationship. We’ll see that next week, but we want to land the plane here and know this, the inheritance could be everything, but without Jesus, it’s nothing. Heaven isn’t heaven unless He’s there. The kingdom of God’s not the kingdom of God unless the King’s there, right? How could you say you have a world of love if love is missing? In other words, He is love. God is love. And so, it’s very important we get it, but that we see the relational side of it.
And some of these, again, these are going to be mysterious to you, but I’m going to read you these passages. I’m going to pray and we’re going to stop. Again it’s not going to end, because I don’t have an ending yet. Tune in next week. See how I cliffhangered you? Look at John 17:20-24. Here’s the thing. This is the last time Jesus is going to pray as the High Priest in front of His disciples on Earth. Okay, they’re in the upper room. Judas is already gone. And Jesus is praying to the Father, and we get to listen as He prays for us, for the whole church. Verse 20, He says this, “I do not ask for these only now.” Who are the “these” here? These are the eleven men that are with Him in the room. The eleven disciples that are left, right? Because Judas is gone. He was the twelve. He was son of perdition. He went to betray Christ. He says, “I do not ask for these only (look) but also for those.” So, you got these, and you got those. Who are “those”? What’s? It’s us. It’s all who would ever believe. “For those who will believe in Me through their word.” And that would be what? That would be the writings of the apostles, right? The recording of Jesus’ words, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and then the inclusion of some of His words, but then basically the doctrine of what He said, breathed out by the Spirit, synonymous with those written in red, Acts and Revelation. So, He’s talking about you, talking about me. I’m talking about all of them. “Father, (here’s what He’s asking) that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me and I in you, that they also may be in us. So that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” Now, when it says that “the world may believe”, when is that talking about? Is that talking about today and now? No, actually, it’s this is speaking more in ecclesiology. I’m sorry, eschatology, eschatological. In other words, the End Times, the consummation of the age. Now, can people see unity in the church and look at our oneness in Christ, and say, “Okay, they’re Christians because they love.” That’s more of the identifier. But this is talking about something that people will one day see. You’ll see this as He progresses. Go to verse 22 this is heavy. This takes what I’m saying is spiritual strength to comprehend it. “The glory that You have given Me (the glory that You have given Me) I have given to them.” Who’s the “them”? The church. What? Now you might say, “Well, I thought it wasn’t about our glory.” It’s not about our glory, it’s not our glory, it’s His glory, but He gave it to us. So that does not sound like a fat baby angel with a harp on a cloud? Right? Your little cartoon pictures of heaven. I mean, when I was a kid, I’d see that it’d be like, “Oh, can I see what Hell’s like maybe? Wait it out.” This is the glory that you’ve given to me. “I have given to them that they may be one, even as we are one.” This is what’s called relational. This is the relational side of being an heir. What will you inherit? Better question, who? That’s who you’ll inherit. God. Wow, that’s a good inheritance. I don’t know if you’re aware of that. Maybe one even as we are one. And then He gives this description, “I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one (that hasn’t happened yet) so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me.” The inheritance Jesus gets, we get. It’s not divinity, but we’re one in that. That’s the inheritance we’re looking forward to. Now we’ll cover rewards and what those are specific to individuals. We’ll talk about that in the greater economy of that because that will be next week. That’s the governmental aspect of being an heir. We’ll talk about that. If you think this is good, it gets gooder, er, er, and then He ends it with this, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me may be with Me there (it is relational) where I am (to what?) to see My glory that You have given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” We’re going to be able to see the full weightiness, the full glory of Jesus Christ, that He has, not only had from eternity past, but His inheritance in the saints, in light which He earned and purposed to do what? To make you a co heir. This is an overwhelming thought. Again, I always like to be to finish a sermon. I can’t so I’m going to stop.
KEYWORDS
Assurance Of Believer, Fellow Heirs, Offspring, Romans Chapter Eight, Holy Spirit, Adoption, Abba Father, Inheritance, Divine Right, Divine Grace, Grace, Mercy, Heir, Predestination, Eternal Life, Kingdom Of God, Relational Inheritance, Unity In Christ, Gospel, Theos, Logos, Relational, Non Denomination Churches In Texas, Non-Denomination Church Sherman TX, Audio Sermon, Churches Sherman TX, Bible Church
Speaker
Steve LeBlanc