93-13 – Do You Know Your Spiritual Birth Line? – Have You Been Legally Adopted? Part 1

In this scripture-packed series, Dr. Betters discusses regeneration, effectual calling, conversion, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance and glorification. Come along on this journey and find great joy in discovering many treasures in your journey along your spiritual birthline. Peter’s spiritual journey is a clear picture of a man intrigued by the Messiah, but not converted. In this message we watch as God removes Peter’s spiritual blindness. Peter’s journey helps us see our own spiritual birthlines unfold.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to In His Grip with Dr. Chuck F. Betters, produced by Marking Ministries. Each in his grip message is designed to help turn your hearts toward Jesus and equip you to walk by faith. Let's join Dr. Betters as he preaches the series: Do you know your spiritual birthline?

SPEAKER_02 0:29

I have a question for you. Now you don't have to answer this question if you're embarrassed to do so. How many of you are yourselves adoptive children or adoptive parents? Would you raise your hand if you feel like doing it? If you don't feel like doing it, if you're either an adoptive parent or an adopted child, would you raise your hand? All right, we've got people kind of scattered all over the place here. How many of you have somebody in your immediate family who is adopted? Look at that. Well, question I have for you is how many of you are spiritually adopted? Let's take a look at that. Spiritually adopted. You know, we're gonna revisit this birth line, and we're gonna revisit it in another way. I've included something in your bulletin for you to try to highlight for you exactly how this process of salvation happens. And that's the key word. The word is process. We've been tuned and trained to believe that salvation has to be some sort of a climactic, dramatic point X. And although there does indeed have to be a birth of the baby, that dramatic experience is not necessarily the case for everybody. Now we've been talking as we've been developing this series, trying to explain to you the process of salvation from beginning to end. We're spending a lot of time on some of these things because when we get into the doctrines of how we live as a Christian, the doctrine of sanctification, how then do we live? How do we conduct ourselves? What happens when we sin? What happens when we fall? How is it that we take two steps forward and a step backward? Why is it that inside of us the war is raging concerning doing the right things and the wrong things? Even as Christians, we struggle with this. We cannot really appreciate and understand the doctrine of sanctification, which is on the right side of that non-dramatic point X, unless we understand what happens before the conversion occurs. Now let me review for you something that's not on your chart is what happens before regeneration. Something that happens before regeneration. All the way back in eternity past, God elected to himself a people. For purposes and reasons known only to him, God chose to himself a people. He knows what they are, he knows where they are. From all eternity past to all eternity future, God has elected and ordained to himself a peculiar people. Now you say, well, why did he do that? Is it because he saw that I was going to believe, and therefore, based on my choice to believe, God chose me? Absolutely not. That would be salvation by works. God chose you for reasons known only to him. That's one of the first questions I am going to ask when I get to heaven. Why did you choose me? I don't understand that. I can't possibly comprehend that great love because I know what kind of a sinner I am. I don't know why God chose me. It certainly wasn't on the basis of merit, because I haven't merited anything. It certainly wasn't on the basis of faith, because I haven't always believed. It wasn't because I'm not as sinful as somebody else, because compared to the holiness of God, I am a sinner, and I always will be a sinner, and God will always be holy, and I will always be sinful. So then, God, why did you make that choice? I don't know. But now God has to take what He does in eternity and bring it into time, and that's where the birth line is. Now, in the scriptures, our spiritual birth is paralleled with our physical birth. God uses the illustration of the physical birth to help us to understand a spiritual birth and what takes place spiritually in our lives. The beginning point in time, if you will, where the Holy Spirit begins to apply what God ordained before the foundation of the world is that moment of regeneration. That is when we are born again. That's when God plants into our spirits a new nature. He unites us to Christ, implants within us the faculty of faith. We are totally passive in that process. We do not know in whom God has done that work of regeneration. It can happen as early as in the womb. It can happen as a baby, it can happen as a young person, it can happen as an adult. But at some given point in your life, your nature has to be changed because your nature of death cannot respond to the things of life until that nature is supernaturally changed. Something dead has to come to life. And so when the baby is conceived, when the egg and the sperm physically come together, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Man likewise come together. At some given point, we are regenerated. Now there are some who place regeneration later in the process. I want to explain something to you. Listen carefully. All of these terms happen all the way through the process. In its widest sense, regeneration happens all the time. It happens while we're being sanctified, it happens when we're being converted. It happens when we're glorified. But I'm speaking of regeneration in its limited sense. That is when the Spirit of God changes my nature, gives me the faith to believe, implants that nature inside of me so that one day at my conversion I may choose Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. Unless He does that, I'll never be converted. That's step one. It's being prepared, if you will, for the coming out party. It's being prepared for the actual birth. Spiritually speaking, we call that the effectual calling. God begins to change the way you think, convict you of sin, enable you to believe, and he begins to fertilize and cultivate that faculty of faith that was implanted when you were regenerated. He uses circumstances, crises, pain, suffering, joyful experiences, religious experiences, camp meetings, altar calls, worship services. The creativity of God is unlimited in this regard. He can use a thousand different ways and means to bring you to an understanding that A, you are a sinner, and B, you need a savior, and that Christ is that provision. I'm often asked, you know, can a young child who's three or four years old who prays, quote, the sinner's prayer actually be converted? And the answer to that is yes and no. Yes and no. The Holy Spirit is a very creative spirit. I read an article of a young person seven years of age who lived during the revivals in New England. And the account that that young child made her conversion, she should have been teaching in a seminary somewhere. I mean, she had these doctrines right down past, she knew exactly what transpired in her. But that's not always the case. But sometimes God may use that effectual calling, that early conversion, if you will, that early decision as a part of the process to bring a person to Christ. You know, one of the most freeing and liberating thoughts that you can have. If you're sitting here this morning and you say to yourself, Well, I'm not sure that I'm a Christian, I'm not sure that I've ever trusted Christ as my Savior and Lord. One of the most liberating thoughts that you could have is that you may very well be in the process of salvation. God isn't finished with you yet. And even as a believer, as you sit here this morning as a believer and you look across that birth line and you realize that even after your conversion, God has much work to do. He has to bring you to a point of holiness where the remnants of sin in your life are put away, and he is preparing you for glory where there is no sin. You see. So the process is still there. So during that effectual calling, God prepares us to be converted. It is the Spirit then who enables, who draws, who convicts, and who calls. But now you come to the point X. You come to the point X, and it may or may not be a dramatic point. It may or may not be a point that you can actually remember. But you will find evidences of your conversion in two things. Number one, you believe, and number two, you repent. I believe the gospel. I repent of my sins, and I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for me, and I trust in him and him alone for my salvation. The fruit or the evidence of conversion is faith and repentance. Without those two, there is no genuine conversion. You're still in process. Faith comes by hearing the word of God, Romans 10, 17. And the message is heard through the word of Christ. Faith is assent to my sinful condition and the fact that under the law I am a guilty sinner and deserving of hell. Faith is trust in God's provision for my sins. Faith cannot stop short of commitment to Christ. I must transfer my reliance upon myself for my salvation to reliance upon Christ for my salvation. Faith must ascend to that, and there must be with that faith repentance. It is not simply believing him, it is believing in him and upon him. It is not faith that saves. It is faith in Christ that saves. Buddhists have faith. Hindus have faith. The cultists have faith. It is not faith that saves, it is faith in Christ that saves. It is union with Christ that saves, and that must be accompanied by repentance. Now, when that happens, two legal transactions take place. Legally speaking, God measures us up against the standard of the law. He measures us up against the backdrop of law. And what do we see in the law? Holiness. The thou shalt not of the Ten Commandments become the be ye therefore perfect of Matthew 5.48. The standard of law is perfection, and God measures me up against the standard of perfection, and I am found in my justification guiltless. I am acquitted. Now I do not become righteous. I am infused with the righteousness of Christ. Why? Because I've broken every law there is. It is not my righteousness, but Christ's righteousness in me by which I am judged. And that is the doctrine of justification. That happens simultaneously with conversion. You can put it all at the same point X. Simultaneous with your conversion. When you have faith and when you believe and when you repent of your sins, simultaneously, God executes a legal act. He becomes our judge. And he judges our sins not through us, but through Christ in us, who stands perfect and holy before the law and guiltless. And our sins are transferred off of our heads and onto his head. Now, does that mean you become perfect? Absolutely not. The perfection of Christ is the basis of our salvation, not my perfection. Thank God that's the case. Well, now that's review. Something else happens at conversion, which I believe, by the way, is one of the most exciting concepts you can ever imagine. As a Christian sitting here this morning, I want you to listen very carefully to this doctrine explained. When you are converted, that is, when you repent of your sins and receive Christ as your Savior and Lord, not only are you morally justified against the backdrop of law, but you are legally adopted by God the Father, who is the creator of the universe. Let that sink in a little bit. Adoption. The redeemed become the sons and daughters of the Father. And with that, we are granted all of the rights, all of the privileges, and all of the inheritance that a son or a daughter rightfully can claim. All of it. Adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby we are received into the number and have the right to all the privileges of the sons of God. Sonship. Daughtership. Think about that. Let that roll around a little bit. A child of God. A son of God. A daughter of God. With all the rights and privileges and inheritances that God can give to sons and daughters. Sonship. You know, I did a little study. I actually did a lot of study on the word child. You know when somebody is called a child or a son of God in Scripture? You may want to jot these things down because you're going to see some interesting things that happen that you won't pick up in your English Bibles. There are three words in the New Testament used to describe a child. Now, the first word is the word technon. It's the most basic word. Now, that word is most commonly used to describe a biological relationship between a parent and a child. For example, I have four children. That means that I have begotten four children. Biologically speaking, Sharon and I have begotten four children. Those children can be described as our technon. Our children in the sense of biology. They are our children. Now that word technon, I found interesting, is never used, never used to describe the relationship that Jesus has with his father. And it stands to reason why not. Because Jesus was not biologically begotten of the Father. Jesus is the Father. He is the very image of the Father. Contrary to what the cults teach, Jesus could not be posterior and inferior to the Father. Jesus and the Father are one. That's why the word technon is never used of Jesus in relationship to his father. Now there's a second word. It's the word houthion. Interesting word. Now my children begin to develop a relationship with their father. The word houthion is commonly used, adopted children, to adoptive parents. It's a word that describes a new relationship that transcends biology. It's also used of a relationship that develops as your children get older. You see, when that baby is born and you're holding that new infant in your hands, you never hear that child say, You're my daddy. You're my mommy. I have a great need in my life for you at this point to relate to me. The child's not going to say that. Why? Because that's a process that that baby develops. Now there's a biological bonding that becomes an emotional bonding and a spiritual bonding that's part of the process of a baby getting older, you see. So now that child begins to form a relationship with you so that that child begins to see you as my dad. You ask my four children, tell us about your dad. They probably will not say he is the one who biologically conceived us. They probably will refer to me in either some positive or negative way, perhaps as they see it, they will refer to me in terms of my relationship to them. That's the word Huthaision. That's the second word. Relationship. That's the word that most commonly is used of adopted children. You see, a child can have a biological parent, but never really have in that biological parent fatherhood or motherhood. That's different, isn't it? Anyone can conceive a child. But we're talking about conceiving a child and developing an intimacy with that child. That's what fathering is all about. That's what mothering is all about. But ask any adoptive parent whether or not when they receive that baby, that adopted child, ask them whether or not there isn't an immediate bonding and an immediate relationship that no court in the country could ever break. Why? Because there's something beyond a biological relationship and that is an intimate relationship. That's the word Huthaision. That's the word used to describe our relationship with the Father. But there's a third word. It's rooted in this word Huthhacyon. It's the word hujas. Same form, same root word, but it goes one step beyond Huthaisia. It's not just biological, not just relational, but it goes one step further. This is the word that is always used in speaking of the relationship that Jesus has with his father. The first two words are never used. When it talks about Jesus as the Son of God, it's the huios of God. When he speaks of my father, the terms used interchangeably speak of a deeper nature, more intimate than even an adoptive parent or a biological parent or the relationship that you have with your children, it stresses something much deeper: character and dignity and essence. When Jesus is spoken of as the Son of God, the Wihos of God, it is speaking of Jesus as the very image, the very essence, the very character of God. It denotes that the Son acts like the Father, the Father acts like the Son. Their essential makeup is one and the same. Over in your Bibles to 1 John chapter. Three. Sonship. Are you a son? Are you a daughter of God? First John chapter three, verse one. Please let this sink in. It'll be the most exciting thing you ever learn about your faith when you come to understand sonship. First John three, verse one. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us. Little Greek lesson for you there. The verb lavish is in the perfect tense, which means that it's an action that was completed in the past, but with continuing results. In other words, Jesus dies on the cross. The Father delivers him onto the cross. That is an act or a point in history, and he loved us by giving his son, but that's not the end of it. That's why it's in the perfect tense. He didn't just love us then. That love he demonstrated then is active now and it will be for all eternity. It keeps on lavishing, it keeps on pouring out, it keeps on using itself into us. How great is the love. By the way, you feel unloved this morning? Some of you folks have been really beaten up. Your family has beaten you up, your job has beaten you up, your neighbors have beaten you up. And if all of those don't get in their licks, you beat yourself up. And you're hurting this morning, and you don't feel very loved. And you haven't grasped sonship. You don't know sonship. It hasn't sunk in yet. You see, God loves you in your lostness. In spite of your lostness. He has loved you who are his elect with an everlasting love. And he doesn't just love you, he lavishes it on you. It's an indicative mood, by the way, to show the certainty of this love. It's not an iffy love, it's not a conditional love. Past act, continuing results, certain, certain for all eternity. That's the love of the Father. Notice what he says. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God. That's the second word, Huthhasia. That's not the technon or the biological conceived child. That's not the wijos, the child in the sense that Jesus is the Son of God. That relationship is reserved for Jesus and the Father only. He is the natural image of the Father. We are the adopted children. That we should be called the children of God. By the way, again, in the Greek it's a passive verb, which means you don't have anything to do with it. Babies who are adopted really don't have anything to do with it, do they? The adoption takes place because the Father adopts. That we should be called the children of God. Legally adopted. And the payment for that adoption is the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the transaction. He gives his blood and legally adopts us as his sons and his daughters. You go over to Ephesians chapter 1, and you're gonna see how this adoption is linked up with what he did before eternity began. All the way back in eternity, Ephesians 1, 5 and 6. Look what it says there. He predestined us to be what? Ephesians 1 5, he predestined us to be what? Adopted as his Huthacia, as his sons through Jesus Christ. And why did he do that? Because you were so good, because you were adoptable. No, he did that in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. Because of Jesus and his blood on that cross, you have been legally adopted by the Father who is the creator of the universe. Now, friends, go over to Romans chapter 8. I want to show you something. Romans chapter 8, and you're gonna need to put a finger in John 1. Romans 8, John 1. Let's start with Romans 8. I want to state something first negatively, and then I'm gonna state it positively. Listen to me. Negatively speaking, every man is not a son of God. Did you hear that? Every man is not a son of God. Romans 8 14 says, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Now you know what I found interesting here? Underline that word, sons. That word is not technon, the biological word, and guess what? That word is not Huthhasia, the adoptive word. That word is the word that is used almost exclusively to describe the relationship that Jesus has with his father, and now it's being used to describe the relationship that those who are led by the Spirit of God have with their father. What's he saying to you here? What is he promising you? Your adoptive status is not going to be enough. He is going to move you even to a higher level of intimacy. The same level of intimacy that he has with his son, he's going to give to you. Do you hear what I just said? You ought to be on the floor or on the ceiling. The same intimacy with the Son that God the Father has, he wants to give to you. Notice it says in verse 14, those who are led by the Spirit of God. That's why I stated it negatively, because the Greek word is an emphatic word here, because it means those only. Those only. What's that say to you, negatively speaking? Not all men are the sons of God. There is no universal brotherhood of man. There is no universal fatherhood of God. We cannot go and enter into the Coca-Cola commercials and raise our hands and talk about the brotherhood of man. We're not all brothers. There's a great divide in Scripture. There is a distinctiveness to being a child of God that the rest of the world doesn't know and never will. John 1.12 says, to all who received him, to those only who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God. At point X, when you're converted, you're legally adopted once and for all. He doesn't give you back. You, Jesus says, you belong to your father the devil. He said that to the people who were opposing his message. And you want to carry out your father's desire. Why? It's natural. If you're in love with your father, if you're in love with your parents, you want to live and behave like they do. So if you're of your father the devil, you're going to behave like your father the devil. He says, You're of your father the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. And he says to you who are lost, to you who have rejected Christ, to you who are opposed to the Christian message, you are of your father, the devil. No universal brotherhood of man there, is there? No universal fatherhood of God, there's a great divide. If you love Christ, he is your father. If you don't love Christ, Satan is your father. There's no middle ground. Great divide, John 17, 9. You don't have to look it up. The great priestly prayer of Jesus. He says, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them that you have given me out of the world. For they are yours, and I am yours, and they are mine. The great divide. I pray not for the world. So, negatively speaking, when we talk about sonship, not all men are sons of God. But back to that Romans passage. Do you have it? Romans 8. Look at verse 14. Because those who are led by the Spirit of God, now, if you're really interested in following how he uses words here to show the point I've just made, you might want to put these words in there. Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons, weos. That's the highest level word of God. Now go to verse 15. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship. Hothasia, the second word, the one that speaks of adoption. And by him we cry Abba Father. Verse 16. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Technon. How'd that word get in there? That's the biological word. That's the word of the lowest level of intimacy. I'll explain in a minute. Verse 17. Now, if we are children, technon, then we are heirs. Heirs of God. Co-heirs with Christ. You listening to this stuff? If indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory, you see where your sonship is tied to? You are an heir with Christ, an offspring of the Father, to glory. All the way to glory. And that's when the inheritance comes due in glory. Verse 18, there's a means to that inheritance. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Verse 19, the creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God, Chios, the highest level word, to be revealed. Now he's in glory, and he's talking about the end times, and he's talking about the final consummation of the age. Notice what we're called there. We're called the same thing that Jesus is called in his relationship to the Father. Verse 20 for the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. This great passage describing sonship uses all three words to describe you. All three words are used to describe you. You know what that tells me? That the whole idea of sonship is a process. It's a process. When my children are born to me from their perspective, they are my technon. There is no intimacy, at least at that point. Not from them to me, certainly from me to them, but not from them to me. They haven't grown to understand that yet. I believe that's the word that describes us at our point of regeneration. If you go back to the birth line, when God unites us with Jesus through his spirit, he changes our nature. That's when we are born in the tech non sense, we become the sons and the daughters of God in that very limited sense. Certainly not in its legal sense, not yet. But then he begins to develop his relationship to us, converts us, and then brings us to holiness and ultimately to glory. What happens, as you see in the Romans passage, he uses all the words to describe us. So our level of understanding and our level of maturity, that process of appreciating our sonship in Christ, is a growing, developing, maturing thing. And the more you understand it, the more you comprehend it, the more freedom in Christ you enjoy. Go over to Galatians chapter 4, another key passage. Galatians chapter 4. And look with me beginning at verse 4. The difference, by the way, is not one of relationship, but one of appreciation of that position of sonship. At any given point along the way. Now we've had children, our oldest now is 22, I think. Yeah, 22. Our youngest is 15. Now I remember when every single one of those children were born, I was there. I know when they were born. My wife was there, she knows when they were born. And at that point of birth, those children became our children. And at any given point along the 22 years down to 15 years of development that they have had, at no point along the way did they ever cease to be our children. Their appreciation of their sonship and daughtership, their appreciation and maturity and understanding of their relationship to us matured in the process. But at no given point were they not our sons and daughters. Now there were some times where we wanted them not to be. I mean, you all know what that's about, but uh at no given point along the way did our children ever cease to be our children. So at the point of regeneration, in fact, in its wider sense, even before that, in all eternity, you were a child, a daughter, a son of God. But at your point of regeneration, you became his technon. At the point of conversion, you become his euthasia, his adopted child, with all the rights and the privileges that come with that. But now go to Galatians 4 and look with me at verse 4. But when the time had fully come, God sent his son. That's the word huos, that's the word used almost exclusively for the relationship of Jesus to the Father. Born of a woman. Notice he doesn't say born of a woman and a man. Notice he doesn't speak of him as his offspring. He can't do that because Jesus is not an offspring of the Father. He was born of a virgin. The reason he had to be born of a virgin is so that he could not be stained with the sin nature of man. Fully God, fully man, incarnate, in the womb of a woman, born under law, that's the Ten Commandments, to redeem those under law. Here it is, that we might receive the what? Full, how many? Full rights of sons. Huthhasia. Adoption. Because you are sons, God sent his spirit, the spirit of his son, into your heart. The spirit who calls out, Abba, the father. That's the most intimate term of father in the Bible. Abba, the father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And since you are a son, God has made you also what? An heir. The entire grammatical flavor of these verses is surrounded by the heiress subjunctive, which means a past action that is vitally related to the future. When Jesus dies on the cross and then secures your salvation at your conversion, justifies and adopts you, you can't separate it from what's going to happen in the future. When you're adopted, you're given legal status. And when you're given legal status, you're given an inheritance. You become an heir with all the rights and privileges that come with it. We're called euthasia to show that our relationship is much more than one of just an offspring, but intimacy, standing, privilege, honor. And your children, whether they're infants or little children or teenagers or even as adults, are not more or less the actual child of the parent at any one stage. They're always your children. He, the child, simply grows in a more mature and larger sense of his own sonship, so that he calls his father Abba. Abba. You know, if you had a slave in these days and your slave committed a sin against you, and that slave came and confessed that sin, you could say to the slave, I forgive your sin. But then he returns as a slave. Now that's one thing. But suppose you were a slave and you sin against your master, and your master says, I don't only forgive you, but I set you free. And not only do I set you free, but now that you're an orphan and you're alone, I am not only going to set you free, but I'm going to take you, you who have sinned against me, you who have no rights to the throne. I am going to not only forgive you, but I'm going to set you free, and then I'm going to adopt you, and then I'm going to give you the same inheritance that I give to my other children. Is that person still a slave? Oh no. That person becomes a child, an heir, a son, a daughter who's been given a promise. That's the beauty of the story of the prodigal son. When the kid went off and came back, the father not only forgave him, not only set him free, not only gave him his inheritance, but killed the fatted lamb and celebrated the return of his child. You see, the psalmist says, In sin did my mother conceive me. By nature, Paul tells us that we are children of Adam. We are fallen creatures, born with the original sin, in the loins of Adam, fully lost. And our father is Satan, who is a liar from the beginning, and our nature is depraved. And we become dead, dead in our trespasses, and orphaned as the result of our sins, and slaves and in bondage to our natures of evil. And it is from that fallen condition that we are snatched by the Spirit of God, grafted into his family, and given all the rights and privileges and yes, responsibilities of sonship and daughtership in Jesus Christ. Can there be any higher privilege than that? By nature we are Adam's children. By nature, in our sins, we die. And our spirits are orphaned. And that's why Paul can say, For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear. I don't return you to slavery. Romans 8, 15, but you receive the spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, Abba Father. There it is. The spirit of sonship, the spirit of adoption, a legally binding act whereby an orphan sinner who is not related by nature is adopted by a holy God, taken into his family, given a new standing as a son with all of the rights, honors, and privileges and responsibilities that come with it. So the question is, have you been legally adopted? Another question becomes, how can you be sure of your sonship? How can you be sure that you've been adopted? Stick around next week, we'll talk about that. Father, thank you for what a sacred privilege this is. Oh God, how can we ever begin to thank you for what you have given to us in Christ Jesus? Morally impure, totally bankrupt sinners, slaves in bondage to our own natures, set free. Set free. And grafted into the very family of God with all of the rights, inheritances, privileges, and responsibilities that come with it. Lord help us to grow to appreciate that sonship that we have in Christ Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Now may the grace of God, the love of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus the Christ, the very presence, person, and power of his Holy Spirit abide with each of you now until Christ comes again and forevermore.