Rabbi Schneider - Discover Your Identity in Christ
You know the Bible tells us in the Book of Romans, that when we received Jesus that we received, get it now, the spirit of sonship. The spirit of adoption, by which we cry out, Abba Father. Daddy Father. The Hebrew word Abba is a very affectionate, intimate term that speaks of having a relationship with our Father in such a way that we actually know him as Daddy. Not just a sharp disciplinarian, which is actually one of the main functions of a father. But beyond that, we know him intimately in the sense that we know how much we love him, and that we're safe in his love. I want you to know today, Father God wants you and I to know him as Daddy. He wants us to feel safe and secure in his love. He wants you and I to understand that we're the children, that we're the sons and daughters of his own loin.
Hear me when I say to you, the most central relationship in all spheres of reality, is the relationship between the Father and the Son. The Bible tells us in John Chapter One, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word, get it now, was God. And who is the Word? The Word is Jesus. John 1:14, the Word became flesh. We called him Jesus, Yeshua. And so in the very beginning was the Father and the Son. Eternally together, the Father, the Son and the Spirit. The Son will never stop needing a Father. And the Father will always have a Son. And all other relationships stem from the relationship between the Father and the Son, and the Son and his Father. The most central relationship in all of reality is the relationship between the Father and the Son, and the Son and his Father. The Father will always have a Son, God will always have his Son. And the Son, Jesus, will always have need of a Father. He'll always have need of Daddy.
When we look at Jesus's life in the Gospel of John, we see see that Jesus's entire life was focused on his relationship with his Father. Jesus said the Father is looking for those that will worship him in spirit and in truth. We'll always, get it now church, we'll always need a Father. We'll always need a Daddy. Here's the problem. The problem is as we age in life, we start to put up these independent walls around us to protect us from being hurt. We begin to think that we need to make it on the world alone. And we develop a spirit of independence and unfortunately what happens in this process is we lose our connection to our Father. We lose a connection from understanding that we still need a Father. Beyond that, that God himself wants to be a Father to us.
We lose the heart of a child. But Jesus said, unless we become as children again, we cannot see the kingdom of God. The Father wants to bring to you and I today the revelation that he is our Father. And this is what Jesus came to bring us. He came to die for our sins. And to bring us into a relationship with Father God, that we can know Father's love, and know him as Daddy. So I'm gonna continue now where I picked up last week, where I left off last week. We're going to the Book of Ephesians, Chapter number One, beginning in Verse number Three. Again, continuing on from where I Left off last week. Very important, hear the Word of God. Ephesians One, three through seven. Blessed be the God and Father.
I said on last week's broadcast, every one of Paul's letters begins the same way. Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. He begins by saying grace and peace to you, Paul says, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice Paul is so focused on the Father. Is Jesus his savior? Yes. Is Jesus Lord? Yes. Does he owe his life to Jesus? Yes. But Paul sees beyond Jesus. He sees to the Father, who originated it all. So in all of Paul's letters, he always begins by praising the Father. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you, Paul says, over and over again, in his epistles. Grace and peace to you from God our Father. From God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's continue on. I'm just making the point, stressing, how centrally the Father was in Paul's heart. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
So, if the origin of all the blessings stems from the Father, why do so many Christians never talk about the Father, they only talk about Jesus? But it's because of the Father's love that Jesus came. So this revelation, beloved, is meant to give us a spiritual tune-up to get our identities back and to enter into a relationship with the Godhead in the way that we're called to. Let's continue on. Verse Four. Just as he chose us in him. Who chose us? Who's the he there? Once again, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, Paul said, in the heavenly places, get it now. Just as he chose us in him. Who's the he, and who's the him? The he is the Father. The Father chose us in him. Who's the him? He chose us in Jesus. Jesus is the him.
So the Father is he, and Jesus is the him. Just as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. Who's the him here? The him here, beloved one, get it now, is the Father. The Father chose us in Jesus. That we could stand holy and blameless before him. In other words, the Father sent Jesus to die on the cross for you and I. Taking our sin into his own body, thereby removing our sin. Because Jesus took our sin into himself, and then died in our place. In other words, the death that we should have had to die, Jesus died because he took our sin into himself. And the wages of sin is death. So then, Jesus died because our sin was in him. he died for you and I. And now that Jesus took our sin in his own body, and died in our behalf, you and I now are without sin, and Paul continues here. And we stand before the Father as a result of what Jesus did for us, as a result of him dying for us, now we stand before the Father, get it now, holy and blameless in love.
So the Father loves you. And because he loves you, he sent Jesus to died in your place, thereby removing your sin. So that sin would not be a barrier. Because sin separates us from the Father. So the Father, because he loves you, sent his son to take your sin in himself. Then die the death that you should have had to die. So that you now can stand before the Father, get it now, sinless, holy and blameless before him in love. Now, hear me when I say this. When Jesus died in your place, for the Father. Because the Father wanted to bring you to himself. The Father wanted to remove the sin factor, so the Father could lavish his love on you. So he sent Jesus to remove your sin. When Jesus died on the cross 2,000 years ago, for you he removed your sin, get it now, he removed sin. His death was the penalty for sin. Get it now, past, present and future. In other words, a lot of times people come to Jesus and they think that Jesus forgives them for all the sin that they committed before they came to Jesus.
But I want you to know, when Jesus died on the cross for you all your sins were future sins, 'cause you had not yet even been born. You see Jesus died for the sins of the elect, past, present and future. You now and forever stand before the Father, get it now, holy and blameless in love. Because Jesus has taken your sin away. With that being said, I want to go back to the Book of Ephesians, Chapter One and pick up. I'm gonna start from the beginning. Verse Three, just to put it all in context. Hear the Word of God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as he, the Father, chose us in him before the foundation of the world, get it now, why did he choose us? For what purpose did the Father choose us? Get it church, hear it. That we should be holy and blameless before him in love. Jesus took away our sin so we could stand before the Father, who sent Jesus for us, holy and blameless in love.
Now, notice the next verse, Verse Five, He, who's he here? It's the Father. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself. Who's the himself? The Father. According to the kind intention of his will. So the Father predestined his elect, remember Jesus said in John 10, he said to those that were not believing, he said you believe not because you're not my sheep. Jesus said, I know my sheep. My Father has given them to me. They hear my voice, and none of them shall ever perish for no one can pluck them, Jesus said, out of the Father's hand. This is the same thing I was sharing with you last week, beloved church, when I was sharing from John Chapter Six when Jesus was speaking to those that didn't believe. And he said, don't grumble among yourself, no one comes to me unless the Father draws them. Jesus said, all the Father gives me will come to me.
So the Father sent Jesus to die for his own. And in dying for you, that belong to him, Jesus has taken away your sin, past, present and future. So that you now, beloved child of God, forever stand before the Father, holy and blameless in love. Now, does this mean that experientially there are not sin issues that we're still working out? No, there are still things that we're overcoming. And the Father will still discipline us. Daddy will still discipline his children, and correct his children. But not because he's mad at them, and not because it's wrath. But because he loves them and every father disciplines his child. The sin though, the barrier that separates man from God, has been removed by Daddy, through Jesus. For the sake of Daddy's elect. So once again, he predestined us.
Now, I know some that are listening may not like this word predestined. So if you don't like the word predestined, what you need to do, just go to Ephesians Chapter One, Verse Five, and you can just take a pen and you can cross the word predestined out of your Bible. Okay. So, it's not a question of whether you like the word or not, it's in the Scripture. So if we're gonna receive the word of God, we need to receive what God tells us here. What Father tells us. That he predestined us to himself to be his children through Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to notice also in Verse number Five, he predestined us to adoption it says, get it now, as sons. Now, I want to just speak to this word son. Because when we think of a son, we think of a male. We think of, you know, the male gender. But when the Scripture uses the word son here, it's not speaking of sonship in terms of gender.
Sons refer to daughters too. We find in the Book of First Corinthians that the Lord has called us to himself to be, listen now, his sons and daughters. And so, you that are female today, I want you to know, this applies to you. You may think of yourself as a daughter, rather than a son, but when the Scripture says that we've been predestined to the Father as sons, he's speaking to you daughter. He's speaking to you, beautiful daughter. You're in the Son. As a daughter. So again, son is a general word and it includes both his daughters and his sons. We've been predestined as sons, in Verse number Five, through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us, get it now, in the Beloved. Who's the Beloved? The Beloved is the Son. The Beloved is Jesus.
And it says in him, who's the him in Verse Seven? The in him is Jesus. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. And so from the very beginning, the whole plan of God was to adopt you and I to himself through Jesus. That he would become our Father. That Father God would become our Father. He adopted us in his only begotten Son, in Jesus. So that we're now in Jesus. And even as Jesus knows God as Father, now that you and I are adopted to the Father in Jesus, the call of God on our life is that you and I would know him as Father. This is the aim, beloved church, of the Gospel. The final call of the Gospel is that you and I would come to know God as our Daddy and as our Father. And knowing this, beloved, our hearts should melt and be humbled, become child-like again. That we would begin to cry out as the Book of Romans tells us, Abba Daddy. We begin to call out to God as our Father.
I want to encourage you to humble your heart. To begin to call out to God like a child would. God, thank you for being my Daddy. Thank you God for being my Father. Thank you for being my Daddy. Help me to soften my heart, Abba. Help me to begin to relate to you like a child again. Help me know you as Daddy. Help me to know you as Abba God. This beloved one, is the goal of Father for your life. And if you and I can move out of self-dependence, and out of pride, into this posture of being a child, so that we can begin to know God as Daddy. Trust in his love. See God for who he is. He is the glorious, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. If we can see God in his glory, and understand that we're the children of his own loins, then we would know that he's, his DNA is in us.
I'm telling you, that will solve every identity issue that you have. I'm gonna pick up on this further, but let me say this to you. When you look in the Scriptures, and you see how people are identified. You look, for example, at the genealogies throughout the Word of God, everybody is known by their Father. In other words, even in the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke when we see the genealogies, what we read is so and so, get it now, is the son of so and so. And so and so is the son of so and so.
I'm gonna show you this again in the weeks ahead, we'll actually go there. But the question is, why is a person not just referred to as, you know, who they are? In other words, if your name is Jill or if your name is Ken, and your last name is Wallace, why does the Scripture not just refer to you as Jill Wallace or Ken Wallace, instead of saying Jill the son of so and so, or the daughter of so and so, of course, I spoke about the gender issue. Or Ken, the son of so and so. In the Scripture, people are always identified by who their father is. Why? Because we can only find our identity, beloved one, when we know who our Father is. And when you and I come to know God as our Father, we're gonna, beloved one, discover who we are.
So, with this being said, understanding how imperative, and how we need to begin to focus on this. How we need to shift our prayer language. How we need to make this an intense focus of our prayer life and our walk with God. That we begin to call out to God, God reveal yourself to me as Abba. Father, let me know your love. This can only come, by the way, through revelation. I can't reveal God to you as Father. God can use me. But only the Holy Spirit, only Jesus, can reveal God to you as Father. In fact, Jesus said this. He said no one knows the Son except the Father. And then Jesus said, get it now, Jesus said, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and whomever the Son chooses to reveal him to.
And so, Jesus is the way. We should be saying Father reveal yourself to me through Jesus. Jesus, reveal Father to me. And if you'll make this a focus in your life that you'll work at. In other words, you need to work at this. Sometimes this revelation will come in an instant. I know that even as I'm preaching through the course of this series, knowing Father as God. Knowing who Father is. I know that many of you are going to be encountered by Father, by Jesus through the Holy Spirit. And the Father's gonna reveal his love to you. You're gonna know God as Father. It's gonna happen just like that. But for others of you, what's gonna happen beloved one, is that it's gonna happen little by little. Either way it's the same. What makes a difference is that you get the revelation.
So I want to encourage you. Don't just let this be a series of sermons to you. I want you to focus on this. I want you to pray about this. I want you to begin to call out to God as your Daddy. I want you to begin to cry out to him from the depths of your heart, saying Father God, please reveal your love to me. Father let me know you as my Daddy. Jesus reveal the love of Father to me. Church, when we get this, beloved child of God, when you get this I'm telling you, it will change everything for you. All your relationships will change. I look forward to being with you next week. I encourage you to get this entire series. In Jesus name, God bless you. And I love you. Shalom.