Father Peter F. Hansen

Sermon for the 8 th Sunday after Trinity

August 1, 2004

Sons of God

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. ”

    And if you will permit me, I am going to use the indefinite gender from here on today and call us all, both men and women, “sons.” It's just easier. Women are included in that word.

    There is a great assumption of our society that Americans are all Christians, or that almost all of us believe in God and are favorable to Christ and His teachings. Most of our citizenry will tell us in questionnaires that they believe in God or something . 86% vote for God, and another 8% for a higher power of some sort . That must be comforting to God. 80% of Americans brand themselves “Christian” and even name a church to which they feel they belong. About half of those actually attend the church. Almost 67% believe without a doubt that God is real. (What happened to the 21% who don't and yet voted for God, I don't know.)

    So, we ought to have heaven on earth here in this country. If the citizens of God's eternal kingdom are so concentrated on this soil as these statistics indicate, there should be no crime, no divorce, no illiteracy, no poverty, no drug or alcohol abuse, no sex crimes or spousal abuse, no incest, and no abortion. Why do we need police? Ah! The folly of youth. Let them be wild for a little time. They'll settle down. The rest of us are doing okay.

    The close of our last economic boom delivered a kind of a punch to the gut of American self-congratulation . “It's the economy stupid” lasted just long enough for a new class of capitalists to emerge and capture a lot of money, then lie about it, steal it, and make their accountants swear to it. The state of California is still reeling from the blow to our economy, just due to an underhanded conspiracy against our energy consumption. Martha Stewart is just getting ready to serve her time. The Enron bunch are still fighting the courts.

    And, Americans are getting grossly overweight , say magazines and other studies. Divorce is still likely to end every other marriage. Methadone clinics attempt to rescue a new wave of heroine addicts. Crime statistics are climbing again. The indicators of our society seem to give a different picture of us than church-going Bible thumpers, having lunch together at the A&W and praying over our Papa burgers. Our Norman Rockwell portrait of ourselves is getting dusty.

    In 1985, a large gathering of recording artists sang a song of the religion of popular America, hoping to bring the world together and stop bad stuff and make love and include everybody—fashioning it as a song from USA for Africa. They sang, “We are the world, we are the children…” They even instruct us that, “As God has shown us by turning stone to bread,” so that everybody might eat. It was a nice song. The idea of turning profits to the starving children of Africa was very good. But the lyrics of that song, written by Michael Jackson, display the assumptions of our society. We are the children means the children of god. If that is the same god who called for stones to be turned into bread, then that god is the one who tempted Jesus in the wilderness . And suddenly we have a very different picture.

    The overwhelming opinion of people I've met and talked to is that they are good people and they are children of God and they are going to heaven when they die. The Jews of Jesus' time had a very similar opinion of themselves. They were Abraham's children and so they were inheritors of Abraham's Covenant. Jesus argued that if they were Abraham's children, they would do as Abraham did, but instead they wanted to kill Him, the Son of God. John 8:39-44 He stated then a spiritual principle we can apply to ourselves. “Ye do the deeds of your father.” v. 41 When our Lord says that, he isn't saying that whatever our earthly fathers did in their lives, we are bound to do also. A criminal begets another criminal; a saint has saints for kids . The exceptions to that rule are many. Jesus explained: “If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God… Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning... When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” v. 42-44

    We were not created by Satan. The devil creates nothing. We become the sons of the devil by being like the devil, rebellious against the true God . We then make the devil into the god of this world, and ourselves his children, sons of Satan. In truth, every one of us has walked that road. If we are honest, we know just where that way can be found . Jesus knew that also, and shocked the people with His clear insight. But sons of the devil they didn't need to remain .

    Jesus explained clearly how we might make God our Father. “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5:44-45 So in the character of God the Father, loving and forgiving others, even those who have hurt and disgraced us, we may become the sons of God. St. John, in the glorious preamble to his Gospel account, said after the world and even the Jewish people had rejected the Word made flesh, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name…” John 1:12 St. Paul wrote the Romans: “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Romans 8:14 And, “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.” Romans 8:19 This is from a longer passage where St. Paul looks to this unveiling of sons to God. We are to be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” V. 21 And it is not out of our own feeble efforts that this transformation may take place, but “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” v. 28 If God knows us from the beginning, He has determined to conform us to the image of His Son, Jesus. He is sure to deliver us, therefore, from the family of the devil to His own divine family, sons of God.

    But how does God get to know us, then? He knows all things. Upon whom is grace fruitful? On whom is it a waste? He knows because we show Him . Is grace a waste on you, or are you ready to receive His grace to be made into a new and a holy person? He stands ready, as a royal servant in the dressing room, ready to put on you a wedding gown and fix your hair and make you over until you hardly know yourself. He stands ready as the finest trainer of an Olympic champion, to run you through your paces and help you leap and fly and be stronger than you ever knew you could be. Grace is ready, are you? That is how God knows His own children.

    St. John wrote: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:1-2 This is an exciting prospect. The image of God in us can be brought out again, even after being buried for years under the twisted image of another, lesser god.

    But we can't presume upon it. Most of our countrymen die in absolute ignorance of what God wanted of them. I see the faces in the obituary staring out at me, and I wonder: “Did she know the Lord? Is he in heaven or hell?” I read the testimonies, how they were devoted to fishing, water skiing, a service club, or antique cars and I have to think: that isn't it . Even a good natured and pleasant person, completely devoted to needlepoint has missed the goal of this life entirely. The devil doesn't have to make us into burglars or murders; just burger eaters devoted to murder mysteries on TV will do, just so long as we don't really encounter the Son of God.

    The Son of God, THE Son from eternity: there is only One such. But He doesn't claim that status for Himself alone. He came to earth, enmeshed Himself in our human flesh, and claimed victory over our sins to win back to God however many of us are willing to lay down our own lives, pick up our crosses, die daily, and follow Him. And so doing, we become sons of God by grace, by faith, adopted from a broken family, the family of man, into God's wonderful family. And He calls us “sons.” We are the children. So many are ‘children,' but children of another god.

    The teaching of a universal belief , a kind of vanilla Christianity where all are God's children and He makes every wicked thing come out right in the end is a trick of Satan and a lie from the father of lies. You don't get into heaven by just being an American . You don't get into heaven by saying you believe in God and by being a nice person. You don't get into heaven by saying the name “Jesus,” for He told such people who cry out, “Lord, lord,” “I never knew you.” This teaching comes from wolves dressed as shepherds, leading people to their doom. False prophets, nice men saying comforting things and deceiving themselves and others, making money from these words of comfort. Beware of them, said Jesus.

    The way to become a son of God is to be like God. Be like God. Don't know how? Follow Jesus. He is the Son of God. He'll show you how.

             PFH+