Children and Heirs Galatians 3:23–4:7; Isaiah 65:1–9; Luke 8:26–39

Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

On this Father’s Day, we’re going to talk about being Children of our Heavenly Father, and Heirs of Salvation, based on our Epistle.

Late Thursday afternoon, I finished up my sermon. I came up here to get things ready for Sunday morning, and I was reading through the lessons, and I thought, “Either these are the wrong readings, or…” I had written the sermon based on next Sunday’s readings. 

The good news is next Sunday’s sermon is done. 

The bad news, with all that’s been happening lately, this is the 5th sermon I’ve written in 10 days; so you’d think this one would be short, wouldn’t you? We’ll see.   

Thanks be to God for godly fathers. 

As a father, I’m far from perfect; no father is perfect.

My father wasn’t perfect, but I’m so thankful that, by the grace of God, he was a good father and an honorable and godly man.

Thanks be to God for fathers, who in spite of their weaknesses and short-comings, with the help of God, raise their children in the Word and the love of the Lord.

Paul talks about this in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6: 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Of all the responsibilities we have in life, our family responsibilities are among the most challenging, and the most important, especially raising our children in their Baptism, as the dear children of God, that they might live and rejoice in His love and many blessings; and learn and love and believe and strive to obey His Word.

Abdicating this responsibility, failing, or not trying to raise our children in the ways and the love of the Lord, can have such a devastating effect on them; it can greatly harm their relationships; it can ruin their lives and their souls.

Our children are way to dear to us, and even more, way to dear to their Heavenly Father, for us to neglect their souls and leave them without the knowledge and grace of Christ in their lives.

To physically or emotionally neglect children is a horrible, terrible thing; something we shudder at.

To neglect them spiritually is also a terrible thing… with not just temporary, earthly consequences, but with eternal consequences as well. 

Children, who stubbornly refuse to accept their parents’ efforts to raise them in the Word of God, and in the love and salvation of Christ, who resist the Holy Spirit, bring destruction on themselves.

And they cause such grief and heartache for their parents, who love them dearly, and only want what’s good for them, a blessing to them.

The answer for both parents and children, is to, with the help and power of the Holy Spirit, trust and follow the instructions and guidance God gives us in His Word for our personal relationships and responsibilities.

Since, to some extent, we’ve all failed to do that, so together, as parents and  children and family, we need to repent and each other, and receive God’s and each other’s forgiveness.

And His grace will help us to restore our relationships, and our love for each other.

And we need the Holy Spirit’s help to better live as a faithful and godly father or mother, or son or daughter, or brother or sister, or husband or wife, or aunt or uncle, or grandfather or grandmother, or grandchild, or godfather or godmother.

These key relationships, especially the relationship between parent and child, is foundational to our lives, and to all the other relationships we’ll ever have in this life. 

But even more foundational is the relationship we have with our Heavenly Father, the kind of relationship that Paul describes in our Epistle,  where he says that from our hearts we cry, “Abba! Father!”. Abba meaning something like Dad, or Daddy.

Through Christ, our Heavenly Father has become Abba to us, our dear Dad. 

As Martin Luther says, we pray and talk and relate to Him as dear children to a dear father. 

A godly father relates best to his dear children, as he understands and experiences how his Heavenly Father relates to him.

And, our family relationships become more godly and loving as, through Scripture, we understand how our Heavenly Father relates to His dear Son, Jesus, loving and raising Him in glory, and exalting His Son to His right hand in heavenly power and glory; and how as Jesus relates to His dear Father, loving, trusting, honoring and obeying Him; so let us regard our godly fathers.

In that perfect love and harmony between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that unity of Holy Trinity, as we talked about last Sunday, we have an example of how to love and relate to each other; and more than that, we have the grace and power to do so.

Everything good thing comes from and through the love and unity of the Holy Trinity, including good and godly relationships, blessed relationships.

Through His Son, who has won our salvation, and His Spirit who came to us in Baptism and lives in us by faith, God has transformed us to have better relationships, more godly, loving, Christ-like relationships, patterned after and empowered by the harmony and love that exists between God and His Son and His Spirit.

From the unity of the holy Trinity comes the fellowship we have with the Holy Spirit abiding in us. 

And the relationship of faith we have with Jesus, His Son, our Friend and Savior.

And the family we have, as the adopted children of God, His royal heirs, inheritors in His Kingdom of Glory.

Our Epistle tells us that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, being baptized into faith by the Holy Spirit, God has taken us from slave to son to heir. 

What an increase in status; not for us to impress others with, but to be saved, and to better serve others.

Paul says, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, (and daughters, children) through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  29 And if you are Christ's, then … heirs according to promise… 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

He has taken us from slaves to sin and death, to being the blessed and forgiven children of God, to being inheritors of Heavenly glory.

As loving parents, we want to leave something for our children, after we leave this life and enter the glory of the next.

With everything getting to be so expensive, it’s getting harder to pass on any wealth to our children. 

You may or may not have earthly wealth to pass onto your children, but if you’ve loved them with a true and godly love, then you’ve left a legacy for them.

If you’ve shared the love and Word of Christ with them, then in spite of your sins and shortcomings, you’ve left them a fortune, the wealth that never becomes obsolete. 

As 1 Peter 1:4 says, an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you. 

Through His Son, God has given His faithful, baptized children an eternal fortune; an abundance of grace, love, mercy, peace, joy, and every heavenly blessing.

All put together, they equal, everlasting glory for you and me and all God’s children. 

May the eternal treasures of the Gospel, be the greatest, most impacting and life-changing inheritance that we give to our children.

And may knowing Christ and making Him known, be the treasure we share with all.

And as we do, may God’s peace, which passes understanding, guard our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, who has made us the dear children of our Heavenly Father. Amen.