What Does It Mean to Cry, ‘Abba, Father’?

00:00:00.000 | We're going to close out the week with a question from me, Pastor John, about one of Paul's

00:00:07.840 | most profound statements of applied theology, and it's too often overlooked, I think.

00:00:13.960 | It's on my mind because I heard you recently explain it off air.

00:00:18.340 | You were leading us in a devotional at a Desiring God leadership team meeting, something that

00:00:22.880 | we do to open up every meeting together.

00:00:25.460 | We gather together and begin with a brief devotional and pray together to kind of focus

00:00:29.600 | our minds and our hearts before we go on to plan and dream and make decisions.

00:00:36.080 | Last time we met as a leadership team, you led us in the study of Galatians 4, verses

00:00:40.240 | 4-7.

00:00:41.240 | It was a great little devotional.

00:00:43.160 | The guys in the room were all met pretty powerfully there as you explained this cry, "Abba, Father,

00:00:50.040 | Abba, Father."

00:00:52.200 | And as soon as you were done, I was like, "Wow, I want to record and share this with

00:00:57.120 | the APJ audience."

00:00:58.120 | So here we are now on record, this "Abba, Father" cry.

00:01:02.000 | What exactly is this experience?

00:01:03.920 | What's happening to us and in us?

00:01:07.900 | Is this "Abba, Father" cry my own cry?

00:01:12.480 | Is it the Holy Spirit crying in and through me?

00:01:17.240 | Explain all this, and then does this text apply to struggling believers?

00:01:21.640 | Does this cry "Abba, Father" apply to Christians when they're struggling?

00:01:25.840 | How so if it does?

00:01:28.000 | Explain all of this for us on the podcast today, if you would.

00:01:31.720 | What I have found, Tony, over the years is that being a Christian hedonist, that is,

00:01:39.320 | being a person who believes that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied

00:01:47.360 | in him, what this has done to me is make me hungry for experiential theology.

00:01:55.720 | In other words, I have a discontent with theology that floats in the air above my life with

00:02:05.640 | no connection to my living now or living forever.

00:02:10.500 | So I am on high alert when I read the Bible for statements that are intensely theological

00:02:20.440 | and intensely experiential.

00:02:23.600 | And one of those texts that took hold of me months ago is Galatians 4, 4-6.

00:02:32.920 | So let me read the text and break it into four parts, and then I'll address some of

00:02:39.000 | those things you asked.

00:02:41.080 | The first part, "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of

00:02:48.560 | woman, born under the law."

00:02:51.560 | Stop.

00:02:52.680 | So there's the incarnation, and the life of Jesus lived perfectly under the law in

00:02:58.120 | fulfillment of the law.

00:03:00.240 | And then the text goes on, part two.

00:03:02.640 | He came to redeem those who were under the law.

00:03:09.200 | Stop.

00:03:10.260 | So when Jesus died, a redemption price was paid to set free slaves of sin and death,

00:03:19.320 | slaves of law-keeping.

00:03:21.440 | A kind of legal transaction happened by which the Father satisfied all the demands of his

00:03:29.920 | own justice and purchased for himself a people.

00:03:35.360 | Third, the text goes on.

00:03:39.840 | So he redeemed those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

00:03:47.960 | Stop.

00:03:48.960 | Now, the effect of that legal redemption, that price that was paid, was that God now

00:03:56.560 | legally possesses a people for himself.

00:03:59.160 | He bought them.

00:04:00.300 | They are legally his, his children.

00:04:03.480 | He's adopted them, paid the necessary price for them.

00:04:06.900 | They are sons of God.

00:04:09.240 | Now, last part, verse six.

00:04:12.560 | And because you are sons, so the legal transaction has taken place at the cross, because you

00:04:20.400 | are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father."

00:04:33.720 | Now, this is where that magnificent, glorious theology in the first three parts of those

00:04:42.600 | verses becomes intensely experiential.

00:04:46.840 | Up till now, we have incarnation, we have redemption, we have legal transactions on

00:04:53.640 | the cross securing our adoption.

00:04:56.440 | All of that is historical outside of us.

00:04:59.520 | That's not inside of us.

00:05:02.440 | This is different.

00:05:04.320 | Now he says, our hearts are in view, our hearts, the place of spiritual experience, the experience

00:05:12.600 | of perceptions and experience of affections.

00:05:18.960 | Because we are legally sons, God gives us the experience of sons.

00:05:25.900 | The Spirit of the Son of God is sent into our hearts, and he cries in our hearts, "Abba,

00:05:36.520 | Father."

00:05:38.200 | Now, that should shake everybody up and make every Christian say, "Oh, okay, have I experienced

00:05:48.280 | that?

00:05:49.280 | Yeah.

00:05:50.280 | Am I real?"

00:05:51.500 | Now, Paul had already said just a few verses earlier, chapter 3, verse 26, that we are

00:05:57.600 | sons of God through faith.

00:06:00.940 | So there are at least three ways that we can talk about becoming sons of God.

00:06:06.080 | One, Ephesians 1.5 says we're predestined before the foundation of the world for adoption

00:06:12.700 | as sons.

00:06:14.260 | Number two, Galatians 4.5, we just read it, says we are redeemed so that we might become

00:06:21.800 | sons.

00:06:22.800 | And third, now Galatians 3.26 says we are sons of God through faith.

00:06:29.520 | Predestination is not an experience in the heart.

00:06:32.860 | Redemption is not an experience in the heart.

00:06:35.400 | It's on the cross.

00:06:37.200 | But faith is an experience in the heart.

00:06:41.940 | And that's what Paul is describing when he says that God sent the Spirit of his Son into

00:06:49.400 | our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father."

00:06:52.440 | So let's think.

00:06:53.440 | Let's think about this experience for just a moment.

00:06:56.980 | Every Christian has experienced this.

00:06:59.900 | And if that shakes you up and you say, "I can't remember when I got the Spirit crying,

00:07:03.660 | 'Abba, Father.'"

00:07:04.660 | Well, just listen carefully.

00:07:06.760 | Every Christian has experienced this, at least in some measure.

00:07:12.080 | Some of us have been so badly taught, so badly taught or not taught at all, that we experienced

00:07:22.640 | this.

00:07:23.900 | We really did.

00:07:24.900 | And we had no idea what was happening to us.

00:07:28.760 | No one ever explained it to us.

00:07:31.320 | Oh, how keenly interested we should be in understanding what has happened to us to make

00:07:39.040 | us Christians and how we should understand our experiences as Christians.

00:07:46.760 | Paul is not saying that God sent the Spirit of his Son into a few special Christians,

00:07:53.720 | crying, "Abba, Father," like pastors.

00:07:57.720 | That's what he does to all the redeemed sons of God.

00:08:03.080 | So what is it like?

00:08:04.420 | What is this experience of the Spirit of the Son of God crying in our hearts, "Abba, Father"?

00:08:11.600 | So to answer that question, let's bring in the really close parallel from Romans 8, 15

00:08:18.960 | and 16, which goes like this.

00:08:21.360 | You did not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received

00:08:26.160 | the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba, Father," the Spirit himself

00:08:35.840 | bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

00:08:41.040 | So in Galatians 4, 5, Paul says the Spirit is poured into our hearts, he himself crying,

00:08:50.720 | "Abba, Father."

00:08:52.480 | But in Romans 8, 15, he says we have received the Spirit and we cry, "Abba, Father."

00:09:00.560 | So is this an experience of us crying, "Abba, Father," from our heart or the Spirit crying,

00:09:09.280 | "Abba, Father," in our heart?

00:09:11.720 | And then verse 16 of Romans 8, the next verse, gives us the answer.

00:09:17.640 | The Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

00:09:26.480 | We don't hear a voice inside of us saying, "Abba, Father, Abba, Father," as though

00:09:33.920 | we were separate from the experience, watching it happen and then deciding whether we like

00:09:38.760 | it or not.

00:09:39.760 | That's not at all what's happening here.

00:09:42.560 | This is the Spirit of the Son of God taking possession of God's child and giving voice.

00:09:51.120 | He's giving voice to the child, his spirit witnessing with our spirit, a voice, our voice

00:10:00.320 | inside our heart, a voice of recognition, a voice of affection, a voice of joy.

00:10:07.600 | It says something like this.

00:10:09.200 | "I have God as my Father.

00:10:12.200 | He has paid for me.

00:10:14.320 | He has adopted me.

00:10:15.960 | He cares for me.

00:10:17.580 | He wants me.

00:10:18.580 | He loves me.

00:10:19.780 | He protects me.

00:10:21.080 | He provides for me.

00:10:22.760 | He has made me an heir of all that he owns.

00:10:26.280 | God is my Father."

00:10:29.600 | Now the word "crying," "crying, Abba, Father," doesn't mean lament.

00:10:35.080 | I mean, in English, the word "cry" is so often connected with "weep."

00:10:40.000 | That's not the meaning here.

00:10:42.160 | This is a cry of joy, unspeakable joy.

00:10:46.560 | It's the same word used when the children back in the gospels said, "Hosanna, Hosanna

00:10:52.000 | to the Son of David."

00:10:53.000 | They were crying that.

00:10:54.480 | And that's the way we should hear the word "crying" here, not "weeping," but "crying."

00:10:58.600 | "Hosanna, Father, Abba, I can't believe I'm a child."

00:11:03.200 | That's the spirit of this cry.

00:11:05.520 | And the word "Abba" is the Aramaic word used by Jesus himself in speaking to his Father

00:11:14.960 | in Mark 14:36.

00:11:17.240 | When Paul chooses to use this Aramaic word taken over into Greek—it isn't a Greek

00:11:24.040 | word, he takes it straight over and transliterates it in Greek as "Abba"—when he does that,

00:11:31.140 | he makes clear that we are being drawn into the very experience of the Son of God.

00:11:40.320 | The Son of God called his Father "Abba," Father, and that word stuck with the early

00:11:46.500 | church because the Holy Spirit creates the very experience of the Son of God towards

00:11:53.140 | his Father in our hearts so that we are sensing the same kinship with God that the Son of

00:11:59.800 | God has as our elder brother in the family.

00:12:03.420 | So this experience is the inner voice of the Spirit-indwelt Child of God.

00:12:12.340 | It's the experience of God's Spirit causing to rise up in us a spiritual sight of God's

00:12:22.020 | blood-bought fatherly care and a spiritual taste of the sweetness of Christ's own love

00:12:30.020 | for his Father.

00:12:31.980 | It's the Spirit of the Son crying "Abba, Father" in and with our spirit.

00:12:39.300 | Now let me make one more connection that I had never seen before when I was thinking

00:12:44.440 | about this a while back.

00:12:46.780 | In John 7, 37, Jesus stood up and it says he cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him

00:12:55.860 | come to me and drink.

00:12:59.220 | Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of

00:13:06.480 | living water."

00:13:08.340 | And then he adds this, "Now this he said about the Spirit."

00:13:14.620 | So believing is described as the thirsty soul coming to Jesus to drink.

00:13:23.120 | And the effect of that drinking, that believing, Jesus says in John 4, 14, is that we will

00:13:30.540 | never be thirsty again.

00:13:32.820 | The water will become a spring, a spring of water, ever self-replenishing.

00:13:38.700 | And then he says in 7, 38, John 7, 38, "No, more than a spring, a river, a river."

00:13:48.460 | And then he adds, "This is the Spirit.

00:13:52.020 | This is the experience of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Son of God, the Spirit of

00:13:57.580 | the risen Son of God, the sight and the taste of God becoming our all-satisfying Father

00:14:06.500 | through Christ."

00:14:09.180 | So you ask, Tony, how this applies to a struggling believer.

00:14:14.580 | So may I put it like this?

00:14:16.700 | When Jesus was trying to help his disciples experience the loving provision of God as

00:14:23.300 | their Father in Matthew 6, remember, where he said, "Don't be anxious about anything,"

00:14:29.740 | Matthew 6, 25 to 33, your Heavenly Father feeds them.

00:14:34.880 | Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

00:14:38.100 | He's trying to persuade these disciples, "If you follow me, come to me, trust me, God Almighty

00:14:44.180 | will be your all-providing Father."

00:14:48.800 | And then he says, "Oh, ye of little faith."

00:14:53.900 | So I take that to be the struggler.

00:14:56.220 | I mean, what else is struggle, except I hear John Piper talk about this, "I don't know

00:15:04.420 | if my faith reflects what he's just described."

00:15:08.900 | That's who I'm talking to right now.

00:15:11.280 | So what did Jesus say when he said, "Oh, ye of little faith, get out of here, I'm done

00:15:15.220 | with you."

00:15:16.220 | Thank God he doesn't do that.

00:15:19.780 | Instead, he gave them eight reasons to trust their Heavenly Father.

00:15:26.500 | He didn't throw them out.

00:15:27.960 | He named them as little faith strugglers, and then he kept on pleading with them, "Listen

00:15:32.420 | to me, listen to me.

00:15:33.420 | I'm talking about the birds, I'm talking about the lilies, I'm talking."

00:15:36.820 | There are eight reasons to trust him as our Father.

00:15:39.780 | So I would say to all strugglers, and I'll stop with this, get to know what has happened

00:15:48.020 | to you.

00:15:49.980 | Get to know it.

00:15:50.980 | You've got to learn it from the Bible.

00:15:51.980 | You can't learn it any other way.

00:15:55.180 | We can't interpret what has happened to us if we don't read our Bibles through and through.

00:16:00.780 | Get a biblical understanding of how you came to faith, because you probably don't know

00:16:05.620 | how you came to faith if nobody's taught you truly.

00:16:09.180 | Get a biblical understanding of all those motions in your heart.

00:16:14.260 | You can't even name them.

00:16:15.340 | You can't describe them.

00:16:16.340 | You don't know what's going on inside of you when the Holy Spirit is stirring you up from

00:16:21.340 | within.

00:16:22.700 | God is very patient with his children as they grow up into the wonders of what their

00:16:30.860 | adoption really means.

00:16:33.460 | That is experiential theology at its finest.

00:16:35.620 | Thank you, Pastor John, for committing that to the podcast.

00:16:38.460 | Appreciate it.

00:16:39.460 | Glorious.

00:16:40.460 | It is.

00:16:41.460 | Amen.

00:16:42.460 | It really is.

00:16:43.460 | The more I think about it, the more precious it is.

00:16:44.460 | Amen.

00:16:45.460 | And the more I think, "Pastors, come on.

00:16:48.460 | Come on.

00:16:50.140 | What is this silly stuff you're doing on the weekends trying to help people make money

00:16:54.540 | or get along and not telling people the riches of what's happened to them?"

00:16:59.220 | There's an urgency in these truths, an incredible experience being explained by Paul.

00:17:04.220 | Thank you for recording this for us, Pastor John.

00:17:05.940 | I appreciate it.

00:17:06.940 | And thank you all for joining us today.

00:17:08.780 | You can ask a question of your own.

00:17:10.020 | You can search our growing archive or subscribe to the podcast all at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:17:16.700 | Well, can we speak to angels?

00:17:22.300 | We see angels speaking to all sorts of people in the Bible.

00:17:26.140 | But can Christians today carry ongoing conversations with angels?

00:17:31.500 | One man says yes, and he claims to be having such an experience, an ongoing conversation

00:17:36.320 | with an angel right now.

00:17:38.300 | Wow.

00:17:39.300 | We're going to open our Bibles and look at the phenomena from Scripture next time.

00:17:43.940 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we will see you back here on Monday for that.

00:17:47.580 | Have a great weekend.

00:17:48.340 | [End]

00:17:51.340 | Thank you.

00:17:52.620 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

What Does It Mean to Cry, ‘Abba, Father’?

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