Be, therefore, followers of God. In today's episode of All of Life for God, Pastor Hensworth Jonas reminds us of the radical all-encompassing nature of Christian discipleship. Do you want to know more about what it means to be a follower of Christ? Visit heritagebooks.org/radical to order Pastor Jonas's newest book, Radical Discipleship.

I'm pleased to bring you a sermon entitled Essentials for Discipleship. My text is Ephesians 5:1, just one verse, Ephesians 5:1. Please stand with me in honor of the infallible and inerrant word of Almighty God. Let us read the text together. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. Again, therefore, the imitators of God as beloved children. One more time. Therefore, the imitators of God as beloved children. Father, speak now for your servants are listening, use your word to transform us, conforming us to the image of your dear son Jesus, in whose precious and matchless name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Essentials for discipleship.

Brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, the Christians' walk with God is always going to seem impossible and unappealing if time is not taken to understand the essence and application of the faith with some semblance of exegetical integrity. Ignorance of the scriptural revelation concerning how a person becomes a genuine disciple of Christ or how a person grows in the same is at the heart of a lot of misunderstanding and confusion about Christianity. It behooves us to regularly clarify these matters as we introduce others to the faith and as we vet our own understanding of the same. From time to time, we can get off and miss the point.

This simple yet profound verse of Holy Scripture will serve us very well in clearing out much of the nonsense about what Christianity is all about. There are at least two principles in this single verse that are indispensable to Christian discipleship. So, it's all in there. It seems like I should read some more, doesn't it seem so? No, we don't need any more than that for now. You'll not possess or develop an authentic relationship with God if you do not appreciate and apply the two principles that I will raise from this verse. So, let's get right with it. Principle one, mimicry is essential to maturity. Mimicry is essential to maturity. The verse begins therefore be what? Imitators of God. The word translated from the original Greek as followers or imitators is very interesting.

The English word mimic comes directly from the Greek word, [inaudible 00:04:40]. We are told here to mimic God. What's mimicry? It means to model another, to behave like another. Now, you must think that this is an audacious thing when the Lord God Almighty is the object of mimicry. It doesn't seem so. One of the things that Christian discipleship will force you to discover is that human beings have to model themselves after somebody. We have to imitate somebody. To grow as a human being requires that you have good models. Now, that is true on all sorts of levels. However, ultimately, fulfillment requires that the human models that are before you actually put you on a vector, on a trajectory towards the ultimate model, which is the Lord God Almighty Himself.

It is crucial that you understand that the imitation of God is ultimately what it means to be a Biblical Christian. Christians are not trying to be good for the sake of being good. The Christian's mandate is to be like Christ, to be like God. We are aiming to be like Him. It is written in Ephesians 4:23 and 24. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that he puts on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Also, Paul reminds us that we were built in the image of God, created in the very image of God in true righteousness and holiness. So, imitation, mimicry is very important work. We have all heard of the imago Dei in Genesis 1:27, that we are created in the image of God. What does that mean? What does it mean?

It means that we are built to reflect God. An image is a reflection of something else. That's what an image is. Now, on the one hand, everything that God has created reflects Him on the one hand. We all know Psalm 19:1, right? The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork, okay? The natural world reflects the grand and beauty of God. However, the imago Dei is a special reference to a unique phenomenon. That's different. When the Bible says that we are made in the image of God, it is speaking about something that is quite unlike what is reflected in the natural world. God has made human beings with some limited ability to reflect his own nature uniquely and clearly. Like a mirror, we'll resemble whatever we are facing.

I need to say that again. I said like a mirror, we'll resemble whatever we are facing. By faith, we are to be facing and in the presence of our maker continually, Coram Deo. We are to be facing and reflecting our maker. Now, this is not an easy thing to understand. Many have suggested that what is involved in the imago Dei is human beings reflecting God in the sense that they are created in His image, in that we are personal and rational, that we have a conscience and a moral sense, and that we are creative. We are not animals. Of course, all of this certainly has something to do with it, but we must be careful not to be too narrow here. We know that animals are generally controlled by instinct. The human beings are controlled by modeling those around them, by their imitation apparatus.

Some of you may not have thought about it much, because you like to think that you're so rational and so logical. We are all imitators. This is particularly clear in how children develop. Listen, you are not going to be a very good parent or educator if you do not grasp this pedagogical principle. Children need good role models before them for they were designed by God to be mirrors, mirrors. A mirror must imitate. It must reflect whatever it is facing. Of course, there's a big difference between reflecting something and actually becoming what you should be reflecting. Our mandate is to reflect God, not become God. We are to be godly, not divine. The essence of sin is to want to be God, instead of just being the image of God.

When we look at the attributes of God, we can break them down into two broad categories. You know these, the communicable and the incommunicable attributes of God. Now, these words should not intimidate anybody for they're not just used theologically but in other disciplines. For example, we use these words when we speak about diseases, don't we? Generally speaking, a communicable disease is one that you can catch and an incommunicable disease is one that you don't catch. Theologically, we speak of divine attributes that we can experience in some finite measure on the one hand and those divine attributes that will never enter our experience on the other hand. The incommunicable attributes of God include omnipotence.

This refers to God being completely powerful, all powerful, able to do anything He wants do and to have all power. Now, it does not merely refer to God being more powerful than any other power. It means all power belongs to God. It means anything that has any power has it on loan. It's from God. All power is derived from God. Another example of an incommunicable attributes is His omniscience. God not only knows everything, but He knows everything immediately. So, He never learns. His knowledge is not quiet or learned. He does not recall anything. All knowledge is always right before Him, incommunicable. Another example of an incommunicable attribute is the aseity as of God. Aseity refers to God's self-sufficiency, His self-existence.

God has no beginning. God has no ending. Why? If God had a beginning, something would've had to bring Him into being. He's self-existent. He needs nothing. He cannot change, because what is it that could change Him? He's already and always perfect, so change is not only impossible, it is unnecessary. He has no beginning. He has no ending. Nothing could bring an end to Him. Nothing could possibly bring about His beginning. For an entity to be self-sufficient, He actually needs nothing, so God is self-existent. He's omnipotent. He's omniscient. We may also bring in His omnipresence. He's always everywhere at once. We cannot ever become like any of these things I'm talking about. These are incommunicable.

Okay? Is there anything left that we can reflect, that we can mirror? Oh, yes, we ought to mimic God's communicable attributes. These include His love, His joy, His wisdom, His patience, His mercy, His compassion, His faithfulness, His integrity, His forgiveness, I like that one, His goodness, His holiness. These are communicable attributes. These are some of the attributes of God that we can reflect, we can mirror, we can mimic. Whenever we attempt to become divine rather than reflected, we become less than human. This is what sin is all about. In doing so, we actually pass our place. We are never to attempt or pretend to have the incommunicable attributes of God. There is only room for one God on the throne.

However, when we reflect the communicable attributes of God, we honor the true and living God. That's how we honor Him. When we reflect these communicable attributes, now self-righteousness happens when a person refuses to reflect or mimic God's holiness. This person doesn't believe that He needs to put on the righteousness of Christ for He's convinced that He's already covered. Thus, there is no need for this person to boast in the marriage of another in Christ for he is already boasting in himself. This is what self-righteousness is all about. The image of God is our capacity to mimic. We must reflect something. The Bible teaches us that Christian discipleship is actually a process by which we are ever increasingly becoming the image of God.

We have been turned away in sin to face other objects than our God. Yes, that's what happens with sin. We are facing other objects. Discipleship occurs when the Holy Spirit turns us away from other things that sets us towards God again. Because of our sin, we have been modeling ourselves after other things. We have been facing other things. We have been seeking other gods. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to stop looking at our idols and start facing God again, reflecting him again. If you keep looking at things you have idolized, you will reflect those things, but when you repent and look again at the beauty of our God who is all together lovely, you'll begin to reflect Him. The process of justification is such a marvelous doctrine, isn't it?

The process of justification turns us toward God and the process of sanctification turns us into a more beautiful, clearer, more polished, a more smooth mirror. We are both sanctified and justified by faith. This faith involves taking God at His word concerning who He says we are. You heard that? We take him at His word concerning who He says we are and how we are to behave, even if we cannot see it or feel it immediately. We let Him interpret reality for us. This is why our faith must be childlike. Will somebody say childlike? I wanted you to say that out loud because I'm going to distinguish it from childish. Our faith must be childlike. We're children. Get it? As we grow old, we get a little bit more cynical and prefer to rely on our senses. Children generally do not have this problem.

Please note that I said childlike, not childish. The latter is what we want the children to grow out of. We want them to grow out of childishness, but we want them to keep the childlikeness. Mimicry is a childlike quality. Children can spend all day pretending. During playtime, they can be anyone. They can be anything. They learn by mimicry, by imitation. A child grows only by pretending he or she is something that he or she is not. They grow by pretending. A little boy becomes a man by pretending that he's a man, by watching and imitating what real men do. A little girl becomes a woman by seeing what real women do and by pretending that she's a woman. This childlike pretense is not hypocrisy. It's pedagogy. They learn by mimicking. The child is being trained by modeling.

Children who do not get the opportunity to mimic worthy models, models who are pointing them to the ultimate model are the ones who become the social problems of our society if they don't get the opportunity to mimic worthy models. It is written in Romans 13:14, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. What does this mean? It means that you will grow in Christ when you actually dress up like Christ. Come on, man.

When you actually imitate Him, you have to dress up like Christ. Put Him on. You will say, "I know that I am not like Christ, but I'm determined to mimic Him. I will imitate Him. I will dress up like Him, just like a little boy dresses up in His father's clothes in order to become a man in the same way we're supposed to be imitating Christ." Problems abound when we dress up in the wrong [inaudible 00:20:56] clothes. Lord have mercy. I'm not going there, by the way.

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When I have a grown man in a dress in the girl's restroom, Lord have mercy. That's an important issue for White House directives. ISIS is trying to kill everybody, but you're concerned about... Anyway, let me get this. All right. My point, problems abound when we dress up in the wrong [inaudible 00:22:21] clothes. When little boys are only around women, even those who really mean well, when little boys are only around women and are not encouraged to admire and mimic worthy men, they will not become true men. They'll become auntie men. By the way, that's actually a real term in the Caribbean. You got a Caribbean. Somebody calls you an auntie man, please be offended. That's a homosexual. Auntie men, that's what you'll get.

A wise mother will make sure her boys hang out with real and godly men. They need someone to mimic. Don't buy the lie of the enemy of your soul that homosexuality is not learned behavior. Oh, boy. The mythology of our modern times trying to push nonsense on us to the point right now that they would charge me with a hate crime right in the pulpit. Foolishness, it's learned behavior. It is sin that creates such provision and confusion. It is sin that strips a woman of her femininity and tells her to be a feminist. It is sin that makes you despise your creative design and turn into a Bruce Jenner disaster. The question that bothers the homosexual is this and we need to be compassionate and help them.

The question that bothers the homosexual is why then does this apparent orientation have such a hold on me? Why does it seem impossible to shake it? I think I'll embrace it. That's what they say. This is answered in Romans 1, you have been judged by God with a [inaudible 00:24:23] mind because of your heart pursuit, of your idolatrous perversion. You have made an idol out of this saying, this yoke of bondage can only be broken by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Beg God to change you. He's able to change the vilest of sinners. They're supposed to call himself the chief of sinners, the chief. He thought he was more sinful than anybody else, but we would have to have an argument about that. God could change him, so much so that the church was still suspicious.

That is just a little undercover operation. The Holy Spirit had to tell Barnabas to tell them it's okay. He's okay. Let's get back to our text. The message here is put on Christ. We are supposed to be dressing up. This is very important, by the way, because if you see it this way, you'll have a much more organic and wholesome understanding of Christianity. Put on Christ. Dress up. It is not merely a catalog of rules or a cold code. Dress up, put on the Lord Christ. Imitate Him. Do what He would do, mirror His holiness. Now, while you are doing this mimicry, you'll be cognizant of the fact that you are not yet what you desire to be. You are a work in progress. How many are glad that God is not finished with us yet? Hallelujah. However, it is very important that you understand God's side of all of this.

When God justifies you, it is clear that you are not instantly perfect in holiness in this life. That's clear to all of us. However, the beauty of this is that God does not wait for you to be perfect in your character and conduct before He perfectly plants you in the family. God deals with the legal issues first, even though He sees there's a lot of work to be done. He adopts you with all your imperfections and justification. God declares you righteous instantly. Your legal status is established even though you have quite a few things of need to be changed. How many are glad about that? Hallelujah. I don't care what perversion you have made an idol of. God can change you today. You can be changed right now.

He will legally adopt you right away in justification and in sanctification begin the job, the commitment to perfect you according to the image of His son. Oh, I love it. The doctrine of justification by faith is that when you receive Christ as Lord and Savior, God now transfers all of Christ's record of perfect righteousness into your account. Hallelujah. He treats you just as He treats Jesus. In other words, even though you are not exactly conformed fully to the image of Christ, God does not wait on that. He begins to treat you like a joint ear of Christ immediately. The Father honors you like He honors His son. That's justification. However, He's not finished in sanctification. God challenges you every day to put on Christ, to dress up every day. Begin to mimic.

Now, how can this be? Well, that is exactly how good parents raise a child when you think about it. They don't wait for their children to speak perfectly before they speak to them with proper language. Are you hearing me? Good parents do not speak back the child's gibberish to the child. If the child says, "Goo goo goo goo gaga," don't say, "Goo goo goo goo gaga." Don't do that. You're not helping the situation. I don't care how young they are. If they say, "Goo goo goo goo gaga," I say, "Yes, you are going to college." If they say, "Goo goo goo goo," don't say that. Say yes, you are right. You are Jonas. The kids that progress the fastest with the language are the kids with people around them who treat them as if they can already speak it. Oh Lord, help us.

Good parents embrace the child and pretend that they didn't even hear the nonsense. The child will never grow if you come down to the child's language. You have to speak normally and with great proficiency and watch that vocabulary expand and that child grow. Even when the child does not understand everything, they speak properly. Parents speak properly and wait for the child to gradually come up to the standard. By the way, that's why we catechize them, make them learn the answers. We know they don't get it. We're not fools, but you better do it. You better do it. Speak properly to them standard English. Let them learn the catechism. You'll be surprised what you have raised compared to children who are not exposed to the same.

I'm an educator. I know it. The children who struggle with the language are the ones who are not spoken to consistently on a high standard. Our God does not wait for us to be perfect. He justifies us instantly. He settles the issue of the legal standing immediately. He treats you as a member of the family with all rights and privileges immediately. He instantly has high expectations of you. Then He holds the standard before you to mimic Him and to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Him. Embrace your legal status in Christ and then get on with the business of a holy mimicry.

Imitate the one who is all together lovely and beautiful beyond description. Imitate the one who is all the fullness of the godhead bodily. Imitate the one who is the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, the bright and morning star. Imitate the one who is the fairest of 10,000 to our souls. Imitate the one who is the righteousness of God whom to know is life eternal. What's the principle? Mimicry is essential to maturity. Let me hear you.

Mimicry is essential to maturity.

Number two, paternity is essential to peace. Paternity is essential to peace. You will never be at peace if there's a question about your paternity. See, my goodness. What are we doing now? We're looking at the last part of the verse. He says, "As beloved children." The first part talks about what? You ought to be what? Imitators, and we said mimicry is essential to maturity. Now we're looking at as beloved children. What are we saying? Paternity is essential to peace. What exactly does the Apostle Paul mean when he talks about believers being beloved children? What is clear is that true believers must believe that they are beloved if they are to grow in the faith. You have to know you are loved by your father. It has to be a settled matter for you.

If you are in doubt on this question, you'll never live a peaceful life. You'll be always all over the place, lost as can be. You have to know that your Heavenly Father really loves you. It is axiomatic that Christ has designed that His disciples be always surrounded and protected by family love. This love originates in the Father and it permeates into the life of the church dominating the spiritual and emotional paradigm of each disciple's life. True believers are built for it. Until they come to grips with this, they cannot live a life of imitation of God.

It may take some adjustments, but we must come to grips with the notion that one who has been made a true disciple of Christ in spite of his or her sinful record and habits is now the object of God's loving attention, God's loving provision, and God's loving protection. The doctrine that the apostle alludes to here is the doctrine of adoption. We spoke much about this already in the previous messages. Adopted children need to know that the new family arrangement is not temporary. If they're old enough, you know that's on their mind that I'm going to mess up and they're not going to want me anymore. That's why it's important to settle the legal question so we can hold him to some semblance of responsibility. It's the question of the justification. Listen to me.

The adopted child needs to know that they are not going to be threatened with expulsion every time or as soon as there is a problem. They need to know that the love is real and that the love is permanent. All Christians are adopted. I don't see how you could have peace and be an Armenian. We need to know that we are not going to get kicked out as soon as there is a problem. Well, God doesn't create problems. We do. We sin. How many are glad that we are kept by the grace of God? Hallelujah. So, adopted children need that. You're not going to be expelled every time there's a problem. They need to know that the love is real and it is permanent. Please keep in mind that in the ancient Roman world, adoption was a very, very important and formal kind of process.

Ordinarily, the people who were adopted in the ancient Roman world were usually already adults. Yes, adults. The normal adoption did not involve the raising of young children as it often is today. It was usually a legal transaction to solve the problem of a man who found himself in the position at an advanced age of having no ears and who did not want his estate to be broken up and disposed of by strangers. Thus, he would find a younger person that he admired and loved and he would go to him and say, "I would like to adopt you as my son." That's usually how it's done. If the adoption is actually completed legally, the newly adopted son would get the family name immediately, all the privileges of sonship, and would inherit the estate when the owner died. It was a legal status.

Why is this important to Biblical Christianity? Why? Why is the concept of adoption a fundamental and indispensable matter? Listen, folks, there are many descriptions of the Christian's relationship to his or her God in the Bible. For instance, we are called sheep and God is our shepherd. We are the vine and God is the vinedresser. We are soldiers in His army and our Lord is our captain. We can go on and on like this. However, when the Lord taught His disciples to pray, when they had requested self-instruction, our Lord did not advise them to address God as creator or judge or king or any other appropriate role that the Lord plays in the scripture.

Praying disciples were instructed by our Lord Jesus to address God as Father and that is extremely significant and we made the point earlier as well. The most fundamental way that we are to think of ourselves as disciples of Christ is as beloved children, beloved children, that you're loved. Failure to think in this particular paradigm will cause you to miss and mistake too many crucial things in the relationship with God. For instance, for you to be an adopted child of God means so much more than the fact that you are born again and forgiven. Now, please don't misunderstand me. Forgiveness is a big deal. We do not want to diminish that in any way. The new birth is a big deal. Regeneration is.

However, there is much more. There's a crucial question that must be asked. Why are you born again and forgiven? Why? By the way, you really don't want to start that with little kids. They'll keep you going forever. Everything you say, they'll say, "But why?" You're thinking, "How can I get off this treadmill?" Why were you born again and forgiven? Why? The answer is that you'll be beloved children. You see, adoption does not merely deal with the removal of your sins by the blood of Christ, which is absolutely crucial. Adoption also means that you now have all the tremendous privileges and the enormous inheritance of a dearly beloved child of God. What are these privileges? Well, there's so many of them, so I'm going to select four of them to make my point.

You may use them to examine yourself. Am I behaving like an adopted children or am I behaving like an orphan? You say, "Why am I not growing?" Because your head's messed up. Maybe you are really saved, but you are not focused and you're missing the point. You ought to stop behaving like an orphan and behave like dearly beloved children, behave like you're loved, like you really believe He loves you. So, what's the question? Do I see myself as an orphan or as a legally adopted child of the living God? I'm going to sit down in a minute, but before I do, I'll give you A, B, C, and D quickly. I want you to use this to examine yourself. Am I behaving like an orphan and stunting my growth, or am I behaving like a daily beloved child of God? A, confirmation of position. What is A?

Confirmation of position.

Beloved, we are speaking here about the privilege of acceptance. You see, an employer may fire an employee, but the true parental bond is permanent. One of the things about parental love is that it is fiercely loyal. I know you know what I'm talking about. When you think of your kids and your grandkids, man, you are fiercely loyal. Other people see flaws in them, but even if you see it, you don't see it. You see it. Oh, you see it as an advantage. Fiercely loyal, yes, we are. Only a worthless person would throw their own child under the bus. The abandonment of a child is not normal behavior. Such perversion is rooted in the most sinister narcissism. Parental love is so well established that we make jokes about it. We make jokes about it.

Someone will say for instance, "That boy has a face that only a mother could love." Now that's just cruel. That's cruel stuff. It's nasty thing to say and we should never say, even if we think it, but you have to admit it's funny. Why is it funny? Why is it funny? It's funny because very often it's true. Now, stay with me. I said it's funny because it's true. Sometimes it's a face. Oh, well, you know that. Real parents will sometimes have to admit that their children may have some real problems, even embarrassing problems, but parental loyalty causes them to embrace the child with the problems. Generally, the last people in the world to give up on somebody is their parents. It's a fierce loyalty. Beloved, this fact reflects the heavenly parental love.

What does it mean to be a son or daughter of God? What does it mean? It means that you are accepted. Hallelujah. It means that you can't be fired. It means that you can't be condemned. Romans 8:1, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not according to the flesh but after the spirit. Hallelujah. Do you see what the test here is? The test here is for you to ask, "Do I live in emotional freedom or am I constantly up and down, up and down, emotionally depending on what I feel like I'm living up to God's standards?" You are loved. Are you being whipped about emotional depending on whether you feel like a success or a failure? If you are, you're acting like an orphan.

If you keep saying, "Oh, no, oh no, oh no, I did it again. He's going to get me. I know God's going to get me. Things are going to be awful now. He's probably given up on me. Oh, I know he's going to ruin me. I can't believe I did that," if that's how you operate, you're living like an orphan. By the way, there's another side to this. If you are self-righteously saying, "Aha, I know He has to bless me because I've been a good boy," you are also living like an orphan. You clearly do not understand your sonship. You can never imitate God as dearly beloved children with that kind of thinking. You are not thinking of yourself as a dearly beloved child. You are not living out your adoption. Listen to me. It is written in Romans 5:1. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have what?

Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. If you are in Christ, you are in. Oh, I need you to hear this. If you are in Christ, you are in. How many of you have truly repented of your sins and placed your faith in Christ? If you are, you are in. Don't live a life of condemnation. Use 1 John 1:9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from what? All unrighteousness. Oh boy, I need to move faster than that. Okay, I'm wrapping up this up. B, communication with privilege. What's B?

Communication with privilege.

Another great privilege is access to your Heavenly Father. I'm talking about access to God. Let us once again think of the difference between how an employer treats his employee and how he treats his own child. We earlier mentioned that he would probably fire his employee over perceived infraction at work, but he's not likely to disown his child over a grievance at home. But there is something more here and this is the point. While an employer may limit or restrict the access of his employee to himself, he's not likely to do that with his son. He may take a call from his son or daughter at any time, even 2:00 in the morning, but an employee calling him at that time is walking on very thin ice. So, an employee's access is restricted.

You may have a very good relationship with your boss, but please don't call him at 2:00 AM because you can't sleep. You had a nightmare. Listen, your boss may respond, "Who do you think you are? You think you're my child?" Look, beloved, you are not an employee or an orphan with your God. You'll have unlimited access to the Father. You may call upon Him at any time. The Father's invitation to His children, Jeremiah 33:3 is call upon me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not have. It's also written in Hebrews 4:16. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. You have access. You're not alone. You can go to the Lord in prayer. C, I'm doing well.

C, courage of prospects. A, confirmation of position. B, communication with privilege. C, courage of prospects. I'm talking about protection here. As many of you know, parents have a lot of trouble avoiding protecting and guiding their children even when they are adults. A lot of you know that even though you are now adults, it's very hard for your parents to remember your new status. Come on, every family has to work this out. My son tapping me on the shoulder, "Hey dad, I got this. I got this." I said, "Oh, man." I told him the other day, "It seemed like just five minutes ago you were just coming into this world. I was right there standing, and I blinked two times, you are married." Times just flies like that, doesn't it?

You have to cut us some slack, parents. We sometimes forget, but we mean well, most of us. Many parents have a great difficulty backing off. The habits of parenting process is very hard. One of the habits is the visceral reaction in any perceived danger to your child to rush to the aid whether or not it's requested. No real parent can be happy when their children aren't happy. If anyone can do that, that's a confirmed pervert. No parent can handle that. Real parents cannot bear to see their children suffer even when they must discipline themselves to back off and respect their child's adult status. Emotionally, they're still the same as when you were little. Yes, yes, because they can't stand their children hurting.

Listen, folks, God is the same. He has to protect His children and to guide them. Real parents do. As a matter of fact, if you study Hebrews 12 carefully, you'll see He has to protect you. He has to love you. That's why He chases you, disciplines you. You think all hell is breaking loose, but He's just setting you up for success. If He didn't care, He would leave you. Haven't you wondered why God allows certain people to continue with wickedness? It's because He's going to deal with them on the judgment day. They're not in the will. You better be happy when God throws up all kinds of impediments and roadblocks that are very uncomfortable but are designed to keep you where you need to be.

You look crazy, so you may not need to whisper it sometimes, but say, "Thank you for this trouble, Lord." What is that? Thanks for trouble, because you know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. Okay, I could see some more, but I will move on. Finally, D, claim of patrimony, claim of patrimony. What are we talking about here? The fourth privilege is inheritance. Do you really believe that this world is going to be yours in Christ? This is why sometimes you can sit back and laugh at those who think they're getting everything. They don't know. You see, you read the back of the book, right? You know how this story ends. If you are behaving like a nonbeliever, then you actually believe the wicked are going to win.

Folks, this world belongs to us. In the final announcement, we win. Do you believe it? If you feel like a poor and powerless person because of the ascendancy of evil around you, if you live a life of unending obligation, always feeling so inferior, always feeling so obligated to everybody, always feeling like I'm not someone of significance, I must bow to the social and political establishment and defer to them in all matters of policy and principle, I owe everybody so much and I'm just on this crushing load of debts and obligation, you are living like an orphan when you talk like that. You're a child of the King. If you are legally adopted child of the King, you are not powerless. You're not. You are an heir. Your name's in the will.

According to Romans 8:17, true believers are children of the living God. If children, then heirs of God and join the heirs of Christ. If so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. You have an inheritance. You are no longer crushed on the obligation, the ball and chain of indebtedness. You are rich in Christ and you can now live with confidence. As I close, brothers and sisters, if things go south in my life and you hear of it, please don't feel sorry for me. I may not be what I ought to be, but I thank God I'm not what I used to be. But the best part is 1 Corinthians 2:9, I have not seen nor heard, neither have it entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.

So, please don't feel sorry for me for the best is yet to come. I may seem to be struggling sometimes, but please don't look at my checking account. Look at the will. I'm confident about this because of who my Father is. I could call Him Almighty God. I could call Him Jehovah-nissi, the Lord, my banner. I could call Him the only potentate king of kings and lord of lords, but He has invited me to address Him as Abba Father. My confidence in wrapped up in who my father is. Listen, I could tell you more, but let me summarize it like this. My father is rich in houses and lands. He holdeth the wealth of the world in His hands. Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold, His coffers are full. He has riches untold. I could tell you more.

My Father's own son, the savior of men, once wondered on earth as the poorest of them, but now He's pleading my pardon on high that we may be His when he comes by and by. I could tell you more. I once was an outcast, a stranger on earth, a sinner by choice, and an alien by birth, but I've been adopted. My name's written down. I'm an heir to a mansion, a hope, and a crown. I'm a child of the King. I'm a child of the King with Jesus, my savior. I'm a child of the King. Hold on to these truths. They're essential to discipleship. Mimicry is essential to maturity. Paternity is essential to peace. Be therefore imitators of God as dear children. Amen.

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