Anticipation

"He would hide at recess and lunchtime from other students. He would avoid going into stores because that question hurt him so badly. ‘When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church. He always would go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, ‘Who's your daddy?' 

"One day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast that he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd. Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher, not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, ‘Son, who's your daddy?'

"The whole church got deathly quiet. He could feel every eye in the church looking at him. Now everyone finally would know the answer to the question, ‘Who's your daddy?' Before he could answer, the preacher said, ‘Wait a minute!  I know who you are! I see the family resemblance now. You are a child of God.' With that, he patted the boy on his shoulder and said, ‘Boy, you've got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.'

"With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person. He never was the same again. Whenever anybody asked him, ‘Who's your Daddy?' he'd just tell them, ‘I'm a child of God.'

"As the distinguished gentleman got up from the table he said, ‘You know, if that new preacher hadn't told me that I was one of God's children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!' and he walked away.

Craddock called the waitress over and asked her, "Do you know who that man was—the one who just left who was sitting at our table?" The waitress grinned and said, "Of course I do. Everybody here knows him. That's Ben Hooper; he's the governor of Tennessee!"

When God shows up in our lives through His Spirit, we can now truthfully say, "I'm a child of God." We can, with confidence, turn to the Father and say, "Abba." We may or may not know our earthly origins, but we know our spiritual biography, our spiritual genealogy. It sounds something like, "And God begat…"

III. We receive a new promise; we become heirs of God (v. 17).

Once in a while you read of someone dying without heirs and leaving a large estate. It's enough to make you want to volunteer for adoption. Maybe you've considered volunteering to become some rich friend's sibling. We'd love to be on the receiving end of a large trust.

It pays to be related to someone with wealthy ancestors if you are interested in receiving wealth. However, we have something far better. We are siblings of Jesus Christ; as such, we receive His inheritance. What did He get? He received the opportunity to return to the presence of God. He received a renewed relationship with the Father that would last forever.

When the Spirit of Christ lives in us, we are family. Just as the Father, Son and Spirit share an eternal relationship and a continuous experience of presence, so shall we. We don't become deity, but we do live forever in the presence of God. Not only do we experience Him in this life on a daily basis, but we look forward to the promise of ascending into His eternal presence where there will be nothing separating us from Him.

The consequences of the Holy Spirit's presence are beyond imagination. We are adopted into God's family as His children. We are given new identities and privileged to call Him "Abba." As if that were not enough, we have the promise of receiving all that Jesus received when He returned to the Father.