Our Sonship in Christ - By Apst. Dr. Shawn Smith

I would like to speak to you this morning about our sonship in Christ part 2 can we please turn to Paul's epistle to the Ephesians chapter number 1 and I'll be reading from verse 3 to 6 Paul was sent with a specific mandate to disclose the revelation of the mystery and throughout his epistles he presents a system of truth the form of doctrine which he summed up in two words a phrase which he uses 164 times which in itself is the theological shorthand of the gospel and this phrase these two words are the term in Christ the greatest thing that can be said of us is that we are in Christ it is a consummate declaration it describes who we are what we are where we are and what we now have you and I are to understand ourselves in terms of another and as we understand what we are in him we will rise up with a greater efficacy many of Paul's epistles were written to address various administrative and doctrinal issues throughout the first century world but there is a great distinction when it comes to his epistle to the Ephesians because in this epistle he wants to lay out things that have been given specifically to him by the Lord Jesus Christ gregory of nazianzus was one of the champions of Orthodoxy who presided over the council of constantinople and he was able to disprove a Christological heresy which rose up in the early church he says that the book of Ephesians gives us the content that he he Paul described in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 when he said he was caught up into the third heaven into the paradise of God where he heard things which were unlawful to speak amongst men he says those things could not be laid down to the carnal Corinthians but later while he was imprisoned in Rome and I've had the privilege to see the stone table where this very epistle was penned these things are what are contained in his epistle called epistle to the Ephesians which is also called the queen of the epistles so we're about to read from the queen of the epistles blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Thank You father according as he had chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved what we have just read contains the some of what Paul had laid forth in his entire corpus in Ephesians chapter 1 when you go to Ephesians chapter 3 he tells you that when you read are for referring to what he wrote in what we now call chapter 1 you may understand my knowledge into the mystery of Christ thank you Lord Jesus and what is it that he presents to us about being in that we are blessed with all blessings many times we think of us receiving from God install mentally we think of our relation with God and our faith as being transactional that by my faith I act on my part and then God has to act on his part but Paul takes us before the foundation of the world in other words he's taking us too before we even came on the scene and it is an illustration for this very interesting is my I'm married to dr. Annie Smith and I believe the next time I come to your wonderful country she will be with us and we are blessed with five children so you can know from that that African blood is somewhere in my veins when I speak of five children my son came across a photograph that I took with his mother before he was born and it was so strange to him he said so dad this is what you look like before I was born I answered him I said did you not know I had a life before you came many times as we go through the entire Bible we have such a mindset where we only think of God in terms of his relation to us little do we know that there's a portrait of God that few of us have reckoned of what God was like himself before anything was made this is what Paul refers to as before the foundation of the world when we were planned pre-arranged we were predestinated marked and set forth in advance by his love and what is it that he set forth about us that we would be blessed with all blessings located in Christ let me say something about that god is love and God being love implies he cannot be a solidary monad he cannot be in isolation God being loved requires a plurality of persons this is why the revelation of God as love shows us that the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit this intra Trinitarian community of persons is the father loving his son the beloved in the bond of love the holy spirit from all eternity so the father being the lover the son being the beloved the holy spirit being the bond of love has planned before the foundation of the world that we would be complete blessed with all blessings in Christ Jesus thank you lord faith is acknowledging every good thing every advantageous thing which is in you in Christ Jesus as we recognize what we have been made in Christ we are truly walking in faith so instead of seeing that faith is what we do on our part followed by what God does on his part we should settle to acknowledge what has already been done in Christ and it was done before the foundation of the world God made up his mind about you even before anything could have happened in this world do you understand that he accommodated that we should be part of his family he accommodated that we should be come to him what his son is to him thank you Father and when we think of our identity on these terms we recognize that sonship is not by any means a title that is empty it is a position of grandeur par excellence many times we focus on what we are saved from he saved us from sin he saved us from the effects of sin but what he saved us for far exceeds it supersedes what he saved us from he saved us for sonship that is why there are many terms on which Paul explains salvation he explained salvation in the terms of justification in terms of redemption in terms of reconciliation but the jewel that crowns all of the sociological explanations is that he has appointed us to become the sons of God thank you Lord Jesus the word sin has a very important basis that we are not to ignore there is many times the the aspects of sin that we recognize are the offenses committed but there's also sin by omission there's also sin by association but the root of all sin it's basic definition means to miss the mark hamartia to miss the mark of what to miss the mark of identity when Satan came to tempt the Christ in the wilderness he brought to him on three occasions a temptation concerning the lusts of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life but on each occasion he prefaced his temptation with the following statement if you be the Son of God I submit to you that the essence of every temptation that has come to men is to cause you to simply see yourself as a common man is for you not to reckon your sonship is for you not to reckon that you are beloved of God he's anyone with me here this morning can we say our Father we are sons of God what that means is we've been brought into a relation of God's obligation towards us God has responsibilities towards you and many times when you do not live in the awareness of the fact that you are accepted in the beloved you begin to seek by your own means to say I want to see how I can make myself accept it and the result of that is you fall into the great futile cycle of works thank you Lord Jesus we are called to obedience we are called to be pleasing to him but the fact that we are pleasing to him first of all relies on the fact that we acknowledge what he has said of us we are accepted in the beloved we are the certo the word cerita is used only twice in the New Testament it is used on the Annunciation of Gabriel to Mary that she has been blessed and highly favored and is used here in Ephesians chapter one and verse six we are the charity of Christ before the foundation of the world we are described as being chosen in the end the word chosen is quite a Greek term excel éxito meaning you do this all the time when you do your Christmas shopping when you want to pick up a gift for your spouse you choose an item with your spouse in mind Christ the eternal son of the Father was chosen with us in mind he appointed him and in appointing him he pre-selected us and he made up his mind about you before anything else could happen in this world that we would be in him holy blameless he reprehensible before the gaze of his love before the gaze of love beautiful it's a turn cotton opion cotton or pure on simply means that in Christ we would be scanned continually with this penetrating gaze there is nothing within you which he is not aware of if it matters to you it matters to God because you matter to God no matter how detailed it or little it may seem it is not insignificant to him you're being scanned with the penetrating gaze of his love and as he looks at you this morning he wants you to be aware that he has chosen you to be his son to be brought into that filial relation with him the very status that Christ has as the son of the Father thank you Lord Paul describes that we have become conformed to the image of the firstborn son in Romans chapter 8 and verse 29 what does that mean it means we were jointly formed together with him which is a term that describes union with Christ they made in dishonourably one with him at regeneration what does the father think of you is what he thinks of him during his high priest prayer before his crucifixion in John chapter 17 from verse 23 and following he said I pray not only for these referring to his disciples but for those who believe on the world through their testimony for you have loved them even as you have loved me and I have shared with them the glory which thou has given me even before the foundation of the world religion many times influences our minds to reject such glorious notions that Christ has shared his glory with us we'd love to sing the song and I hope you don't you are the Lord that is your name you will never share your glory with anyone you will never share your glory with anybody Almighty God that is your name he said he will never share his glory with idols you are not a substandard imitation of him you are his son you are birth with the genetic imprint of his life the same glory that he gave to Jesus Christ is shared in common with you when we see Jesus Christ we see the accurate opinion of God and that is why he made up his mind about you even before the fall of the world because a term foundation interestingly the word foundation is the word felony familiars but this is not the word used here it's a word catabolic the overthrow the reversal before the reversal of the world before there was an Adam before there was in we were chosen in Christ and before there was a temporarily a temporary loss you were eternally found in him that's why he establishes the end from the beginning that is why there are many issues in this world and we have questions concerning the tragedies we witness every day we need to trust him and say you are the father who chose me in Christ that I should belong to you that I should be placed not in a master servant relation but place in the father-son relation I do not live from a do to be paradigm I live from an I am paradigm thank you Lord Jesus and I'm able to say because of what you have made me I have the boldness and the confidence to confess the same of myself so before the overthrow of the world we were eternally found chosen pre-selected in Christ thank you Lord Jesus what does that do to your mind what does that do to how you perceive yourself what does that do to how you perceive your position in this world because remember every trial every temptation every pressure which would rise against you is for one purpose for you to forget your accurate sonship what was Adam's sin it was a sin against origins original sin against his origins he did not acknowledge that he was a delegated son of God he wanted to do something in order to become himself what God had already made him how tragic does the cycle repeat itself that we want to make our own selves into what we have already been made in Christ Jesus can I say something I've been saying throughout my journey in East Africa I've noticed something that here in East Africa you're so hospitable and smiling everywhere except in church so the East African hospitality and culture of joy and happiness you know we're in the land of Hakuna Matata and when we come to church everyone is so serious and serious according to human seriousness but I want to quote something that 20th century apologist CS Louise said that joy is the serious business of heaven so when you're serious in the kingdom you are serious in joy and laughter our Father now are we the sons of God no we are scanned continually by his penetrating gaze there's not one thing that the Father has ignored I'm speaking to you this morning who think in the midst of all that you may have been going through that you are forgotten of God you who have been tempted and gone through all forms of pressure for one purpose for you to forget that you're the beloved son of the Father I want to remind you of that right now remind you of that today thank you Father thank you Lord Jesus Gary please stand to our feet you've been placed as a Sun in the Sun it's time for you to acknowledge what he has made you can we lift up our hands together and let's make some strong affirmations from the New Testament it shows a Christ before the foundation of the world marked out in advance in the father's love I am accepted in the beloved son this morning I cast all my cares all my worries to him because he cares affectionately for me Thank You father in the name of Jesus Christ amen can you shall our father our Father thank you lord please with our hands still lifted I want to trust the father with you for every one who is sick here this morning every one who may have been diagnosed with any ailment anyone who is suffering in their body just lift your holy hands and I'm going to pray with you we're trusting the father for the manifestation of what has already happened you are not the sick who is about to get healed you are those who have been made a whole that are about to experience that wholeness father in the name that's above every other name by the authority of Jesus Christ I thank you that every infirmity and affliction has been completely crushed by the finished work of your son Jesus Christ and today I speak a release of your life to quicken to vitalize to energize every single person here who may be in need of your healing and virtue from the top of their head to the soles of their feet I thank you Father that every form of diagnosis whatsoever it may be will be contradicted by your power we declare wholeness from the top of a head to the soles of our feet in Jesus name cardiovascular disease this morning is being healed thank you Father people who have problem with respiration and your lungs God's touching that in the name of Allah Jesus thank you lord thank you lord lift your holy hands thank you father we thank you for making us whole for we are in Christ we are accepted and we have all our needs met now in Jesus name and we say amen let's go blessings thank you very [Music]

Channel: AIC Milimani, Nairobi KE

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Keywords: touching lives, Who is Jesus, Rev Mwalwa, preaching, preach, Power God, AIC, Who is God, AIC Nairobi Church, nairobi kenya aic kenya, nairobi, sermon, Jesus, Preaching, praise, Good Sermon, AIC Milimani, worhip, gospel, AIC Milimani Nairobi, AIC KENYA, nairobi church

Id: Y6SlV64vtVY

Length: 23min 25sec (1405 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 14 2018