The Spirit of Sonship

We've been looking at the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, "the Lord and Giver of Life" (Nicene Creed).

In TODAY'S sermon we confront a difficulty facing us in the spiritual life. We may not know what to call this thing but these passages gives us the "spiritual vocabulary" we need (and, I might add, the relational vocabulary). So, NOW, when we see it in ourselves we'll know what to call it… BUT, of course, we rarely DO see it in ourselves, though we often see it in others.

So, now you can use this phrase on your spouse or your kids or roommate and then maybe we can start using it on ourselves. The difficulty is called here, the "slave mentality" actually "the spirit of slavery leading again to fear" (Rom 8.15).

I've sometimes heard it called the "orphan mentality" – today, we'll try to describe it and explore it a bit and then see how the gospel (core teaching of Christianity) replaces this slave-mentality with a new basis for living and relating and finally we'll end with ideas for practicing this new way.

So, #1 – The DIFFICULTY (the slave/orphan mentality)
#2 – The DOCTRINE of Adoption (the Spirit of Sonship) and
#3 – The DOING (how to live like a son not a slave)