Spiritual Paternity Test

John 8:33-47
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, June 19, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gregory Broderick

Today is Father’s Day, and we are blessed in this church to have many excellent fathers:  men who do the hard work of investing time and effort into their sons and daughters, into young men and women, both for their benefit and to raise up a future generation that can know and serve the Lord.  It is a great blessing to have a godly father.  It is a rare thing in our era, and it seems ever rarer.

It is a rare blessing to have a father in the home at all in our day and age, and it is getting rarer by the day.  In 1960, 89 percent of children lived with a father in the home.  By 2010, that number was down to 73 percent.  There are more than twenty million children being raised with no father of any kind in the home—not their biological father, not a stepfather, no kind of father.  Today, only half of children are raised with married parents in the home.  Lest you doubt the importance of these statistics, children without any father in the home are at much greater risk for many things.  They are four times more likely to live in poverty.  They are seven times more likely to become pregnant as a teenager, twice as likely to be obese or drop out of school as children growing up with a father in the home.  They are more likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, go to prison, or be abused themselves.  So having a father is very important.  We say in my home, “Dad Lives Matter.”

Now, we know this statistically, but we know it on an individual level as well.  Who taught you how to drive a car, or to load a dishwasher in the only right way, or to change a tire, or unwound your twisted chain necklace when you were having a mental breakdown, or taught you to speak the truth, even when it hurts, or helped you bravely face a difficult situation when you wanted to run and hide?  So we know from statistics and experience that it is a great blessing to have a father, and more so, a Christian father.

We, as believers in Jesus Christ, have an even greater blessing than this.  We have God Himself as our Father.  It is a special relationship and special blessing.  It is so vast that we cannot even fully comprehend it.  We certainly cannot articulate it.  Perhaps in heaven, we will get a full comprehension of it, although I think even there we will fail to grasp the entirety of it.  And we are here this morning not to worship our earthly fathers, great as they might be, but to worship our heavenly Father, the triune God.  May we each hear from Him and know Him and know that we know Him—know that He, indeed, is our true Father.  For as we see in our text this morning, many people are deceived about who their father is.  They go through life thinking and declaring that God is their Father, only to be sorely disappointed and shocked on the last day to find out that they were badly mistaken.  It was not so.  They were deceived—deceived by themselves, deceived by the devil, and in the end, as our Pastor has preached, they are surprised by hell.  So we must take care that we do not end up like them.  So I want to speak this morning about “Spiritual Paternity Test.”  How do you know who is your father?

1. God Is Our Father

It is true, in a sense, that God is the God of everyone.  He created all.  He gave life to all.  Christian, Jew, atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, and all—whether they believe in Him or not, He is still their Creator and still God.  On the last day, in fact, all will confess Christ.  All will confess God.  “Every knee should bow .  .  .  and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11).  God stands in relation to all people as God.  He governs them as God.  He punishes and commends them as God.  He offers salvation to all as God.  And He will judge all men as God.

But to a few, an elect few, a precious few, chosen by Him before all time, to those precious few, He is more than a god.  He is more than God.  He is their God.  They are His people.  He is their Father.  He declares it in His Holy Scriptures: “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:18).  We are familiar with these verses.  It is easy to breeze past them.  Stop and think about it:  “I will be a Father to you.”  Not generally, but “to you,” and “You will be my sons and daughters.”  It is clear from context, however, that this does not mean everybody.  It is a few, those who come out and are separated, the ekklēsia, the called-out ones, the church.  Now, this is not some obscure verse that I went and cherry-picked for Father’s Day.  This idea is found all over the Bible.  Jesus taught his disciples to pray.  We just prayed it.  He taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father”—not “the Father,” not “a Father.”  Not even “God the Father,” but “our Father” (Matt. 6:9).

Speaking to believers, to those who are in Christ Jesus, Paul writes that we have received a spirit of sonship by whom we cry, “Abba, Father,” and who testifies that we are God’s children and heirs (Rom. 8:15–16).  And that “Abba, Father” especially indicates a close and familial relationship.  It is not a distant thing.  In 1 John 3:1 we read that God the Father lavishes His love upon us and calls us the children of God.

So He is not just God; He is our God.  He is not just the Father; He is our Father.  It is a fundamental change in relationship for each of us.  After all, everyone began not with God as our Father but with God as our enemy and the devil as our father (Rom. 5:10).  Due to the original sin of our representative Adam, we all had a sin nature and we all sinned, each one of us.  We rejected God, we rebelled against His authority, and we violated His commands.  In other words, we refused His fatherhood.  Our sin and rebellion against infinite God had an infinite penalty of eternal hell (Daniel 12; Matthew 25; 2 Thessalonians 1).  And yet now He is our Father.  How can this be?  We rejected Him, we opposed Him, we rebelled against Him, and He was not our Father.  But now He says over and over and over again that He is our Father, our intimate Father.

The truth is, we know that God Himself solved the problem.  When we were still His enemies, when we were dead in transgressions and sins, when we were by nature objects of wrath, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8–10).  In His atoning death and resurrection, He reconciled us to the Father, restoring that relationship that should have been but which was destroyed by our sin and rebellion.  And this Jesus is a unique being.  He Himself was very God, part of the Triunity or the Godhead.  He was self-existing and eternal, we are told in John 1:1–2.  So He was infinite God, and as infinite God He could suffer the infinite punishment and pay the infinite debt that we owed.  And He became a man, lowering Himself so that He could live the life we should have lived in perfect obedience, and so that He could die the death that we deserved.  He stood in our place as our representative, which He could do as a man.  But death could not keep a hold on him because He never sinned.  So He rose from the grave in great glory and is now seated in the highest place at God’s right hand, far above all rule and authority.  And what is He doing at God’s right hand?  Is He sitting there doing nothing?  No, He is interceding on our behalf.  What a change Jesus Christ has brought about for us!  From God’s enemies to God’s precious sons and daughters, from the fatherless to having God as our heavenly Father, from being objects of wrath to being precious jewels and treasured possessions.

So that is what we are—God is our Father and we are His children—and that is how we got there.  But why did any of that happen?  The answer is: because He loved us.  Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for our sins.”  You see, His love is the motivation.  We did not earn His love.  We did not earn our salvation.  We did not deserve our salvation, nor did we deserve His love.  There was not some inherently attractive quality in us that drew God to us.  No, God’s love for us drew us to Him.  Ephesians 2:4 explains it even clearer:  “Because of His great love for us”—you see, that is the reason—“Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions and sins.”  It is because of His love—God the Father’s electing love for undeserving sinners in eternity past, God the Son’s sacrificial love in agreeing to and carrying out the Father’s just and merciful salvation plan, and God the Holy Spirit’s love in applying this great redemption to us in time by convicting us of sin, by moving us to confess Christ as Lord, by causing us to fear God and love His commands, and by causing us to obey them in a life of thanksgiving to God—all by God’s electing and sacrificial and incredible love for us.  We preach these fundamental doctrines here all the time, and our familiarity with them can breed contempt, or it can breed a certain, “Well, we are just used to it.”  But stop and consider how great the Father’s love for us is.  With God as our Father, we have a special relationship with God.

1. Relationship with God as Father

First, note that we have a relationship.  We are restored to a relationship with God the Father.  We are no longer estranged from Him as rebels, but we are considered His sons and daughters.  So the fact that we have any relationship with Him apart from Him as our Judge is an incredible benefit.  But there is more than that.

2. Communication with God Our Father

Second, we can communicate with God our Father.  He speaks to us, “This is the way; walk in it” (Isa. 30:21).  In Job 33:14 He says to go one way, then another.  He speaks to us.  He tells us what we should do for our good and for His glory.

We speak to Him.  Psalm 145:18–19 says, “The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.”  In 2 Chronicles 7:14 He promises, “I will hear.”  So we can speak to God, and He will hear from us.

Fathers and children communicate.  They share information and needs.  A father once said, “My daughter,” who was about two or three years old, “spent the night praying.”  Well, she was not praying so much in words, but in cries and tears all night long.  And what did the good father do?  He got up and attended to her needs.  He answered those prayers.  That is how God is with us, in fact, even greater.  He hears our prayers, and He comes to us.  So we can communicate.

3. Access to God as Father

Third, we have access to the Father.  It is no surprise that as God’s children, we have special access to God.  You would not be likely to come to my house, stroll back into my master bedroom, and strike up a conversation with me.  But my children do it all the time.  Even at nighttime, little kids have bad dreams, or need reassurance—what do they do?  They come in and they climb into bed with you.  You may be familiar with the famous picture of John F.  Kennedy Jr.  as a young child playing beneath the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.  To everyone else who sees it, it is the Oval Office.  It is the seat of power, the symbol of the power of the presidency.  But to him, it is just hanging out with his dad.

Children have special access to their fathers, and so it is with God’s children.  Ephesians 3:12 says, “In Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”  Now, there is a sense in which anyone can approach God and cry out, “Have mercy on me, a sinner!” That is a prayer that God will hear.  But as God’s children, we can do more than that.  We can go to the throne, and go with confidence, approaching God and seeking help in our time of need.  Ephesians 2:18 says that we have access to the Father through His Christ.  Hebrews 10:19 says that we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.  Hebrews 4:16 says we may approach the throne of grace with confidence.  Ephesians 2:13 says we were far off, but now we have been brought near to God, near by the blood of Christ.  You see, due to our special status as children, as sons and daughters of God the Father, we have special access to God our Father.  Special status means special access.  What a privilege to have access to God!

4. We Can Commune with God

The fourth aspect of this special relationship is that we commune with God.  It is not mere communication, but communion, a dwelling together.  In John 14:23 Jesus says, “If anyone loves me, he will obey My teaching.  My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”  That is a close, intimate, ongoing relationship.  It is not the same as just communicating once in a while.  It is one thing to know someone to talk to them or even to have a close relationship with someone so they will take your phone call in a time of trouble.  But it is far more intimate to dwell with someone, to live with someone, and to truly know them closely.  It is another level.  It is an intimate closeness to dwell together.  And it is more so with God than even in our own interpersonal relationships.

You see, God does not just dwell with us; He dwells in us as our heavenly Father.  It is the closest possible relationship that we can experience (1 Cor. 3:16).  We cannot fully know God.  He is infinite.  We can know enough, but we cannot know everything about God.  We are finite; He is infinite.  It is beyond our capacity.  We cannot fully know Him, but we can be fully known by Him.  And we can know Him to the maximum extent of our capacity.

This will, of course, will be given its fullest expression in eternal glory, in eternal heaven, when all God’s children will dwell with the heavenly Father in His presence forever, worshiping and glorifying and praising Him.  It will be a whole other level of communion with God of which we only get a foretaste in this life.  It will be a form of ecstasy, of joy unspeakable and full of glory.  But just because it will be greater then does not mean that it is not great now.  We have a foretaste of that relationship now.  In the reading of God’s word, we can commune with him.  He speaks to us.  In prayer, we can commune with Him.  In our private worship, our family worship, our corporate worship, and our public worship, we can commune with God the Father.  In the indwelling Holy Spirit’s co-testimony and assurance to us that we are the children of God, we can commune with God the Father.  In experiencing God’s blessed approval, His countenance shining upon us as we do what pleases Him, we can commune with God the Father as our Father.  It is beyond our capacity to articulate.  We can commune with God.  All we can say is, “Praise the Lord.”

5. God Provides for Us as His Children

The fifth aspect of this relationship with God as our Father is that we enjoy His fatherly provision.  First, for our salvation—that is our greatest need and He provided it.  We have already spoken about it—but for many other things as well.  God our Father is Jehovah Jireh, the God who sees me, who sees me to meet my need.  He promises food and clothing (Matt. 6:31).  He gives good gifts to His children (Matt. 7:11).  He gives us every good thing (Ps. 34:10; Ps. 84:11).  He gives us healing to the extent it is eternally good for us (Jas. 5:15).  He provides a way out in a time of temptation (1 Cor. 10:13).  He makes all grace abound to us (2 Cor. 9:8).  He gives us prosperity and a hope and a future (Jer. 29:11).  He gives rest for our souls (Matt. 11:29).  And He will give us a new heaven and a new earth, where dwells righteousness (2 Pet. 3:13).

Now, I like to think that I am a pretty good father, and as part of that, and in obedience to 1 Timothy 5:8, I provide for my family.  They have a home.  They have an education.  They have food and clothing, and perhaps even a car.  They have a college fund.  I am thinking ahead for them.  There is money to get married, should anyone dare.  Even we think ahead to how will I help my children to afford a house.  It didn’t used to be a need, but it is a need that we must consider as parents.  And, of course, non-material things also—spiritual teaching and training, preparation for the real world, and history lessons about things that will not even be on the test.  But whatever I am and give, it is functional zero compared to God’s great and perfect provision for us.  Sometimes, as a fallible person, I am well-intentioned but wrong, or I make a good plan but lack the wisdom or skills to carry it out.  God has no such limitations.  His knowledge is perfect.  His power is absolute.  Therefore, He ensures that everything He gives us and everything He withholds from us are designed perfectly to work together for the good of His beloved children whom He called and saved.  Our provision may be worth something, but God’s provision is perfect.

6. God Disciplines Us as a Father

The sixth aspect of this fatherly relationship is that He disciplines us as a father.  The discipline of a father is a great gift to a child.  It is not a pleasant gift, but it is a great gift nonetheless.  God certainly disciplines us.  Hebrews 12:5 speaks of “the Lord’s discipline.”   Hebrews 12:7 says that we must endure hardship—hardship is from God—as discipline.  God’s discipline is an act of God’s great love to us.  Hebrews 12:6 says, “because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”  And Hebrews 12:9 makes clear that in His discipline, He is treating us as sons and daughters.

Of course, this discipline is for our own good.  It is axiomatic that anything from God is for our own good.  God needs nothing from us.  But this discipline is obviously for our own good.  It keeps us from disgracing our God and ourselves (Prov. 29:15).  It seems unpleasant to us at the time, but later on it produces a harvest of righteousness for our good and for God’s greater glory (Heb. 12:11).  Proverbs 23:13–14 says that discipline and punishment, if heeded, will save us from death.  Now, we are all going to die, so it cannot mean it saves us only from death in this life.  No, it saves us from eternal death.  Revelation 3:19 sums it up:  “Those I love, I rebuke and discipline.”

We know from our own experience as parents—those of you who are parents or in some authoritative role—that it takes a lot of love to discipline people and to keep disciplining them until they learn the lesson.  It takes a lot of love to discipline; therefore, God our Father loves us very much as His sons and daughters, for He disciplines us all of our lives until we go to Him in glory.  The illegitimate child, which is also covered in Hebrews 12 also, is not disciplined.  No one cares about the illegitimate child.  He is left to his own devices.  (GTB)  No one cares for him.  But God greatly loves His royal children whom He makes into His royal priesthood and His holy nation and therefore He disciplines us.

As His children, our old sin nature is replaced with a new nature which desires to please our God.  Romans 8 covers this in detail.  But sin is still in us in this life, and therefore, for our good, our heavenly Father disciplines us when we sin to drive out folly, to drive out evil, to purge and to cleanse evil, and to drive in good things, to drive in wisdom.

7. God Gives Us an Inheritance

The seventh aspect of this relationship to God our Father is that He provides an inheritance for His children.  Good fathers do not spend it all.  We save up an inheritance for our children and for our children’s children (Prov. 13:22).  We look at our biblical examples.  In Genesis 48, Israel left a ridge of land to his grandchildren, which he took with his own bow.  So it is good and right to leave an inheritance to your children, circumstances permitting.

But, as usual, whatever we do well, God does better.  God Himself is our inheritance.  Psalm 119:57 says, “You are my portion, O Lord.”  We inherit God.  And we may pass Him on to our children, to our friends, to our families, to our neighbors, to strangers, and to everyone who will receive Him by faith.  We inherit Him and we can pass Him on so that we can go to Him and experience this relationship, experience our God, forever.  What glory and what special relationship, what special privileges we have as the children of God, as the special objects of God’s electing love!

So God is our Father.  But I want to ask the more important question for this morning.  Point number two: Who is your Father?

2. Who Is Your Father?

God is the Father of all who trust in Him, who trust in His Son Jesus Christ by faith alone for salvation.  So far in this sermon, this has been quite a cheery message.  God is our Father and loves us, and we get all kinds of stuff.  I tell you, even as time is going, there is a temptation to leave it at that and to walk away, and everyone will say, “I like that guy and what he preaches.”  But there is just one little problem with that approach.  How do you know if God is your Father?  God makes His fatherhood available to everyone (John 3:16; Rom. 10:9).  It is a free offer of salvation; it is available to all.  He makes it available to all, but not all receive it.  Not even a few receive it.  Many—most—reject it.  Matthew 22:14 says, “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  John 1:11 says, “He came to His own, but His own received Him not.”  Matthew 7:14 says, “Narrow is the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  Few, few, few.

So the question for us is, “Am I among the many, or am I among the few, and how do I know for sure?”  Let us look at some possible answers to that question.  How do you know?

1. Not through Natural Birth

Perhaps it is by natural birth.  That is a good way to determine who your father is, at least as far as the county government is concerned.  But I want to say in God’s kingdom, biology will not help you, nor will race or geography.  Galatians 3:28 says that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek.  So your race or nationality is not sufficient proof.  Don’t rely on that for whether you are a child of God.  Jacob and Esau were both children of Isaac; they were twins.  Same father, same mother, same time born.  Yet God says, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom. 9:13).  So don’t think that your family name is the thing to rely upon.

It is true—it is very true—that children of true believers have special advantage and that God shows His special love to them for a thousand generations (Deut. 5:10).  You have a godly heritage.  You have access or exposure to the gospel and to the things of God from a very young age.  It is a great opportunity.  There are some people out there who know almost nothing of God beyond natural revelation; who know almost nothing of the free offer of salvation in Jesus Christ.  If you are born and raised in a godly family, you are going to hear about that.  It is a great privilege.  It is a great benefit.

But it is not enough by itself, and it is certainly not the proof you want to rely upon.  “Well, my parents are Christians, so I must be a Christian too.”  Look at all the examples in the Bible:  Ishmael, Esau, the wicked sons of Eli or Samuel, the faithless sons of David.  God has many children of every tribe and nation, but God has no grandchildren.  Our own experience, while not the measure, is consistent with this.  Just look around at this church where we preach the gospel and where we strive with all God’s energy to work out what God is working in us.  In some families, all children are serving the Lord, whether here or elsewhere.  In other families, all children have abandoned the faith and rejected the true gospel.  And in still others, some walk with God and some have walked away.

The point is, you must take action.  You must take hold of your godly inheritance if you are lucky enough to have it available.  You must make your faith your own.  Do not rely on the accidence of birth, surname, or geography as your proof.  You see, the truth is, there is no VIP entrance into heaven for those named Spencer or Perry or Buddingh’ or Guedes or even Mathew.  You must enter through the one and only way, the narrow way, the way of faith in Jesus Christ.  I promise you, when you get to heaven, there is not going to be a special Grace Valley Christian Center door for people to go through.  We are all going to have to go through the one way.

2. Not by Being Part of a Biblical Church

So birth is no good.  How about church?  I just gave the answer away, but how about church?  Surely, as a member of a biblical church like Grace Valley Christian Center, I am saved; or at least, if I am one of those lucky people who have a twenty-, thirty-, or forty-year membership certificate, unlike some.  Well, I am sorry to say that even in a church like this, there are people who are not born again.  Right now, sitting here today, listening to me, there are people who are not born again.

Every church is a mixed multitude and that includes this church too.  Look at Jesus’ day.  The proud Pharisees and Sadducees and priests and Levites and rabbis and even the high priest himself—these were people who were in the church and who held high positions in the church, and yet they were deceived.  They were not born again.  They were so deceived and so twisted and so confused that they killed the very God they claimed to serve.  They killed the very Messiah that they claimed to be waiting for.  They killed Him in violation of the Holy Scriptures of God that they claimed to study.   Our capacity for confusion and delusion is great.

Church membership, of course, is vital.  It is an important help to every Christian.  It is required for real Christian life.  It is very necessary for a believer to be a member of a Bible-preaching, Bible-living church like this.  It is very necessary, but it is not sufficient to save you.  And it is certainly not the proof you want to rely upon.  “Oh, I go to Grace Valley Christian Center or Cristo Church; therefore, I must be a true believer.”  Don’t deceive yourself.  Certainly, don’t trust in the church.  Trust in what the true church preaches:  Jesus Christ and salvation by faith alone.

3. Not by Past Experience or Position

If church membership and birth are no good, how about my past experience or my position?  Once again, not good enough.  Saul was a king in Israel, but he forsook the faith and went to hell.  Judas was a disciple of Jesus Christ.  He walked around with Jesus for three years, teaching and learning, and yet he sold Jesus for a few coins, he stole money, and then he threw it all away into the temple, hanged himself, and went to hell.  So position is no proof.

What about our experiences?  Again, we look to the Scriptures.  We can be deceived by our experiences.  Millions of Israelites came out of Egypt by God’s mighty miracles.  They saw it all.  They crossed over the Red Sea.  They participated in the miracle on dry ground.  They saw Pharaoh.  They saw his army drowned by God.  They ate the manna in the desert.  They heard God at the mountain.  They saw the radiant face of Moses after he met with God face to face.  And out of that group, only two made it into the Promised Land.  Now, that does not mean that none of the rest of them were saved.  Moses didn’t make it into the Promised Land, but Moses is certainly in heaven.  I am sure they all thought, “We came out.  We crossed the Red Sea.  We saw all these great things God did.  Of course, we are saved.  Of course, we are born again.  But only two went into the Promised Land.

Look at Saul, the king.  He prophesied.  It was a great experience, but it did not help him.  Judas cast out demons and performed miracles.  Gehazi was a close servant and worker with Elisha.  Eli’s sons were priests and carried the ark before the army into battle.  Achan crossed the Jordan at flood stage and saw God take down the mighty walls of Jericho with a mere shout.  All these people held great position or saw and even participated in mighty things by God in front of their eyes.  And yet none of those people I mentioned were saved.  All abandoned the faith.  We have seen it, of course, in our church history too.  So again, our experience is consistent with what the Bible teaches.  No surprise there.

The point is, no position or past experience is a substitute.  No position or past experience is conclusive proof.  If you are relying on some position you held or even hold today, or some past experience you had, you may be deceived.  We must remain faithful to the end to be saved (Matt. 24:13).  And position, title, or spiritual experience is no guarantee that we will.

4. Not by Religious Observance

How about my church attendance or religious observance?  Does that prove who my Father is?  The answer is no.  Just look at the rich young ruler.  “All these I have kept since I was a boy” (Mark 10:20).  Now, he was probably overly optimistic about his perfection in keeping those things, but my reading is that he was, on the whole, an observant man of the outward commands that he was supposed to follow.  Yet what does it say about him?  “He went away sad” (Mark 10:22).  All his great effort in law-keeping was not sufficient and it was not the proof.

Look at Saul, who became Paul.  Conformed to the strictest sect as a Pharisee (Acts 26:5).  Educated at the feet of Gamaliel, the Pastor Mathew of his day (Acts 22).  Highly interested in ritualistic purity, circumcised on the eighth day, a Hebrew of Hebrews, faultless under the law, utterly convinced of his own righteousness, persecuting the church, killing Stephen in the name of God.  This was as zealous and observant of a man as ever walked the earth.  And what does he say, looking back later in his life?  He saw the truth.  In 1 Timothy 1:13 he says, “I was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, acting in ignorance and unbelief.”  That is what Paul says about Saul.  But what would Saul have said about himself?  He thought he was the perfect observant worshiper of God in his time.

We have experienced this too.  A person who appears faithful and in the center of the church suddenly leaves the faith and hurls invectives at God’s church.  He was relying on external things.  Now, we preach that holy living is critical, and it is.  It is the outward sign of the inward change.  But don’t become confused.  Don’t let that outward religious observance become the measure.  It is meaningless without the real thing at the heart of it, without the true faith.  It is like almond blanks.  They look like an almond, they look all the way perfectly indistinguishable until you go to harvest it and you take it and there is no fruit in the middle.  It is just dust, and it collapses.  We don’t want to be like that.

5. Not by Self-Declaration

Next measure: What about my self-declaration?  I have called upon the name of the Lord.  I claim the name of Christian.  Romans 10:9–13 says that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, so I am in.  I am sorry to say that your self-declaration is not enough either.  Don’t trust in that as your only proof.  Just look at our text this morning.  In verse 33 the Jews said, “We are Abraham’s descendants.  .  .  .  [We] have never been slaves of anyone.”  And in verse 39 they said, “Abraham is our father.”  In verse 41 they declared, “The only Father we have is God Himself.”  That is a lot of self-declaration, and you can bet that they said it with great confidence and great certainty.   But what does God the Son say about these confident, certain people?  “You belong to your father, the devil” (v. 44).  He says, “God is not your father.”  You see that their confident claim, their self-declaration, is worth nothing.  So also the “Lord, Lord” people that we see in Matthew 7.  Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 7:21).  He says, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’” And what will He say to them?  “I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matt. 7:22–23).  You are self-deceived.  You will go to hell.  “Lord, Lord!” It doesn’t do you any good if it doesn’t reflect an inward reality.  Their confident self-declaration was insufficient and so will ours be.

3. The Accurate Spiritual Paternity Test

None of these things that I have mentioned show who your true father is.  So what does?  What is the accurate spiritual paternity test?  Jesus gives a clear answer in our text.  Now, do all these things that I mentioned, but present obedience is the key issue, is the key measure.  It is the key proof that you want to lean upon.  Yes, we are saved by the person and work of Jesus Christ alone.  Don’t mix up your present obedience with the person and work of Jesus Christ alone.  But your present obedience is the best evidence you have that your declaration is true.

Verse 44 of our text tells us that the devil is “a liar and the father of lies.”  He is the father of those who lie.  He is the father of all those who sin and keep on sinning.  If you live like him, he is your father.  It doesn’t matter what you say.  It doesn’t matter what church you go to.  It doesn’t matter what experience you have.  If you live like the devil, then the devil is your father.  “Whom you obey is your master,” our Pastor always says.  So we can modify it a little bit this morning:  Whom you obey is your father.

In verse 42 Jesus tells us, “If God were your Father, you would love Me.”  He is speaking about regeneration, the monergistic miraculous work of the Holy Spirit which causes a radical change in us.  It causes us to be born again.  It gives us a new heart that loves Jesus Christ, that loves and serves God, and that obeys Him.

Verse 47 in our text tells us that you hear what God says if He is your Father.  Verse 32 says that you see that the words of God, the Bible, the word preached to you, is true and you believe it.  Scripture, the preached word, and biblical counsel—all of that—you hear it, you understand it  as truth, you believe it, and you do it.

Verses 35 and 36 of our text say that if God is your Father, you are set free from your slavery to sin and adopted into God’s family.  You don’t have to obey Master Sin anymore.  You are enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit to obey your new Father, God.

Verse 39 says if you are Abraham’s children, you will do the things that Abraham did.  What does that mean?  It means that if you are God’s children by faith, like Abraham, you will obey God by faith like Abraham.  Abraham, though imperfect, loved and obeyed God by faith.  He believed God by faith.  He left his home and his family to go where God would lead by faith.  He believed God’s promises by faith, and it was credited to him as righteousness.  He was even willing to sacrifice his only son at God’s command by faith.

We are saved by faith alone, but we show our faith, our new life of God, by our actions.  James 2:18 says, “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.”  You say that all that is required is faith in Jesus Christ—that is the only thing that is required to be saved, that you entrust yourself to Christ alone?  I say you are correct.  But how do I know that my faith is real or if I am self-deceived, like these men?  It is my present obedience, my joyful obedience, my ongoing obedience to God.  That is the test.  Do you want to know if you truly love the Lord?  Then do what He said.  He is the one who said, “If you love Me, keep my commands” (John 14:15).

Conclusion

It is an extraordinary privilege to have God as our protecting, providing, loving, and disciplining Father.  He is a father to the fatherless.  He is the best father we could ever have, beyond anything we could ask or imagine.  It is the highest honor to be the sons and daughters of God, the princes and princesses of the King of kings and Lord of lords, to be His royal priesthood and His holy nation.

Let us make sure that it is truly true of each of us: that we have confessed with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, that we have believed in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, and that we are proving our words by our deeds today and tomorrow and forever.  Then we can know with assurance, with great assurance, who is our Father, and we can walk under His care and government together until we go to be with Him.