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“I MUST TALK TO FATHER ABOUT THIS”

What would happen to you if you said the following to yourself every single day from now on: “I am a child of God. God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. My Savior is my brother; every Christian is my brother too’”? Is that a life-changing motto or what?

In his book, Living Faith, former President Jimmy Carter describes a man named Judge Elbert Tuttle, who was a jurist appointed five presidents earlier, by Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was a courageous man, making some visionary rulings on civil rights during the tough days of segregation in the South . . . especially in Carter’s home state of Georgia. And then Carter shares this interesting anecdote:

“When he retired, he was interviewed by Walter Cronkite, who said, ‘Judge Tuttle, I understand you’ve never drunk whiskey.’ And the judge said, ‘That’s right, I’ve never in my life tasted an alcoholic drink.’”

Now, I don’t know how impressed you are by that fact. There are all sorts of people who have never had a drink . . . but in Washington, D.C., where our 36th President spent four years, careers have often come crashing down because of alcohol. Carter himself had to endure scandals when key staffers of his were accused of intoxication or drug problems. He knew firsthand how much sorrow booze could cause. And here this judge, enjoying a sterling reputation, the respect of his peers, the gratitude of people who served under him, an honorable retirement, said it plainly: “I’ve never had a drink.” Now Carter finishes the story:

“Cronkite asked, ‘Why not?’, and the judge gave a simple reply: ‘Because my mama told me not to.’”

Isn’t that a fantastic story? Judge Tuttle never once in his life had a drink, never once experienced scandal and shame, never once had to defend a bad court decision tainted by a lack of sobriety . . . and why? Because he was privileged to be in a family where Mama had told him not to drink.

We’ve actually come to the final radio segment in our five-week journey through this Bible teaching called “adoption.” You and I, as sons and daughters of God, are in a pretty good family too. Aren’t we? That’s been our study for 25 successive days here on the Voice of Prophecy. And here at the close, after all our discussions about assurance, and sanctification, and adoption-through-propitiation, our final task is to simply put this reality before you one more time. If you have accepted Christ, then you are in God’s eternal family. A web site found at “faithalone.org” puts it this way:

“When we trust in Christ for salvation, by His grace at that very moment we become members of God’s forever family.”

One thing I can tell you for sure is that we are going to miss reading this faith-building book, Knowing God, by J. I. Packer. I certainly hope you have a copy by now, because this one chapter, “Sons of God,” has been a huge blessing to all of us involved in our radio project. Right at the end, Dr. Packer tells about a Methodist saint of years gone by named Billy Bray. His walk with the Lord was so close that friends called him “the King’s Son.” He had a unique way of coping with any spiritual challenges that came along. Very simply, he would say: “I must talk to Father about this.” That was all. Just as many of us, when times of difficulty loom large before us, take out our cell phones, speed-dial our way to an earthly dad and seek comfort and counsel, Billy Bray’s family connection with his Dad on heaven’s throne was just as real. “I must talk to Father about this.”

This brings to mind something that really must be included here in our last message on adoption. We’ve often gone to a special passage in C. S. Lewis’s radio essay, “Faith,” which you can find in his bestseller, Mere Christianity. Here it is:

“Faith . . . is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes.” Then he adds: “I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off,’ you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of faith.”

We would say here, in conjunction with our study, that one must train the habit of adoption, or one must settle into the reality of BEING adopted. Now, how is that done? Lewis adds just this bit more:

“The first step is to recognize the fact that your moods change. The next is to make sure that, if you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. This is why daily prayers and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life.” And let’s engrave this closing line on the family letterhead for all time: “WE HAVE TO BE CONTINUALLY REMINDED OF WHAT WE BELIEVE.”

And this is our final challenge. Beginning today, May 14, 2004, I invite you to put this FACT before your eyes: YOU ARE ADOPTED. You are a child of God.

Dr. Packer puts it like this in the closing of his chapter:

“Do I, as a Christian, understand myself? Do I know my own real identity? My own real destiny? I am a child of God. God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. My Savior is my brother; every Christian is my brother too. Say it over and over to yourself first thing in the morning, last thing at night, as you wait for the bus, any time when your mind is free, and ask that you may be enabled to live as one who knows it is all utterly and completely true. For this is the Christian’s secret of — a happy life? — yes, certainly, but we have something both higher and profounder to say. This is the Christian’s secret of a Christian life, and of a God-honoring life, and these are the aspects of the situation that really matter. May this secret become fully yours, and fully mine.”

Isn’t that beautiful? And scary? And life-changing? You know, I think here about people who spend years in a POW camp. Maybe John McCain, now a United States senator, who languished in a squalid camp in Vietnam for five-and-a-half years. Did he often “look at the flag,” so to speak? Picture his passport? Envision his home back in the U.S.? Did he do whatever he needed to do to remind himself that he was still an American citizen? That he had a home here? That the mud and the abuse and the hell of Hanoi were not his eternal destiny? You’ve heard stories of princes who are taken prisoner by an enemy, and every now and then, when the guards are distracted, they quietly take out a picture of Dad — their father and their king — and look at it. They are reminding themselves who they truly are.

I want to go back to that list, that daily recitation of the honor roll. I am a child of God. God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. What kind of hope does that give you if you think about it every single day of the year — and I’m talking here about 365 times? Heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. We were listening the other day to a ministry tape where a Christian lecturer was confessing that he watched less and less prime-time TV these days. He wasn’t smug about it; he wasn’t holier-than-thou. He just wasn’t tuning in all the NBC and Fox hits. And why? He quietly said, “You know, I just get the impression that most of the people on those sitcoms and crime dramas simply are not planning to go to heaven.” That was all. And he WAS planning to go. He WAS counting down the days, and knowing that one day soon he wanted to be with Dad. And those TV programs, with their no-such-place-as-heaven mindset, weren’t going to help him much to keep heaven on his mind.

Well, friend, our time is gone, but this wonderful invitation is for all of us — the high and the low, the famous and the quiet. We are God’s children; we’re all brothers and sisters, and we’re all heading home.

I imagine Jimmy Carter, enjoying as he is, a most successful post-Presidency, could make that his identity. He’s in this exclusive club of just 42 men. He’s an elder statesman, admired around the world. He’s written exceptional books; he’s led out in peace initiatives that have blessed millions. But a bit earlier in this same book, Living Faith, he shares this personal insight:

“We all must choose the ‘guiding lights’ that we want to follow.”

I invite you today to make adoption into God’s family THE light of your life. Think about it. Make it happen and let it happen. Dr. Packer reverently concludes — and may it be so for all of us:

“God humble us; God instruct us; God make us His own true children.”