Good to see you all here this morning. Got a good number this morning. That's good. We're on lesson 12. Everybody got an outline? Everybody have an outline this morning? Sheila, you need an outline? She's getting it. All right. All right, a child of the Heavenly Father. Our verse for this lesson, or verses for this lesson, Galatians 4, 5 through 7. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all. but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the Father. Even so, we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. I guess I added the first three verses there, didn't I? Now verse four. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son made of a woman made under law. Why do I have those verses there? I don't know. What verse is, how does Galatians 4 or 5 start? I might have got something wrong in here. To redeem them, okay. That's where we are. To redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoptions of sons. And because of your sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. You know, the sweetest relationship that we have with God is that we are a child of God. And that's one of the things that we need to remember, that we are a child of God. Children are very precious, and their relationship with a parent is one of sacrificial and unending love. And if you've had the opportunity to be a parent, you know what that is. God's love and protection of his children is also unending, of infinite proportions. Somewhere in the salutation of nearly all Paul's epistles, he mentions God our Father. No matter what may have been the main subject of the letter, Paul wanted the believers that he was writing to, to know and to remember, first of all, God was their Father. Living in light of that relationship with the Lord allows everything else to fall into place. And we know that life can be hard to handle at times. Some days, everything just comes to you all at once. Everything's going good, and all of a sudden this happens, that happens, the other happens, and you have all these problems, and we all deal with most of what's up, I've got on this list, and sometimes it seems to get overbearing, but every time you think that you've got it straightened out, you look at it, and it just comes right back at you, and you still have to deal with it, and then you try and try, and then you think you got it again, and here it is, it still comes back to you. But when we remember, first of all, that God is our Father, we still have problems, but everything starts to line up. We have the same problems, but when we remember that He's our Father, we get them in line, and then we can let our problems go. But if we don't have the, in our mind and in our hearts, remember that God's our Father, we start trying to take care of all these things on our own. And we do just like that other screen, so we go over here and try to do that, we try to put that fire out, we go over here and try to do that. And then we got these three things in our mind, we go try to do that. And we're not really accomplishing anything. But when we get things lined up, realizing that God is our Father, we can handle it. We must strive to be the right kind of children in order to be the fulfilled Christians God wants us to be. Now, if you go to most any Christian church this morning, let's just put it that way, that say they worship Christ. I'm not saying they don't, I'm just saying that's what kind of church it is. And you ask them about the promises of God. I believe all the promises of God. Well, do you believe the conditions that God places on these promises? See, salvation is free. Everything else that God promises you is a condition on it. That you've got to live for Him. We do not deserve to escape hell. We do not deserve to go to heaven. But God freely gives that. We somehow mistakenly begin to think because God loves us enough to take us to heaven, all these other promises come automatic, but they don't. He puts conditions and He asks us to do certain things and live certain ways and follow Him and then the promises are promises. They're not really promises until we follow His commands. And the lesson objectives, at the conclusion of the lesson, each student should know how to become a child of God by being born again. Number two, understand benefits of being a child of God. And number three, commit themselves to be obedient and faithful to the Heavenly Father. So I'll read Galatians 4, 5 through 7 again. to redeem them that are under the law, that we might receive the adoptions of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Because we have received Christ as Savior, God has sent us the Holy Spirit, and he has empowered us to become the sons of God. Of all the various relationships that we have with God, the sweetest of all is being a child of God. As I said, if you're fortunate enough to be a parent, you know what kind of relationship that can be. Their joy is our joy, their pain is our pain, and yet we cannot even touch the loving care and concern that God has for us. You see parents, you see the relationship they have with their children, it's good, you say, well, they love their child, but then that doesn't compare to God's love for us. Psalm 127, 3, Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. In Old Testament days, they thought themselves blessed to have many children, many sons and many daughters. God promised Abram, which means high father, whose name he changed to Abraham that he would make of him a great nation. The name Abraham actually means father of many nations. In Genesis 17 and 5, And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. of the Bible's many genealogies, the most important is the earthly genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you ever thought about what a miracle it was in itself for the genealogy to go from Abraham to Christ? Of course, the Bible also traces it further back than that. But to go that long, thousands of years, when you consider how many know how many descendants there are of Abraham Lincoln? Zero. Now you would think there would be a thousand, right? There's none. Now he was a great man but he had no descendants. So it's not an automatic thing that every man will have descendants on down through time. But God promised this to Abraham and of course once he said it would happen, it's going to happen. It's extremely vital for the Jew to be able to trace his lineage. An established lineage was a matter of legality as well as family pride. The Apostle John expressed his high regard for a man named Gaius who seems to have been one of his converts. John put it this way in 3 John 1, 1-4 The elder unto the well beloved Gaius whom I love in the truth. Beloved I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health even as thy soul prospers. So if you're saved and your health is as good a shape as your soul is that's pretty good health. For I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee. Even as thou walkest in the truth, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." And what a great privilege it is to be able to lead somebody to the Lord. But another great thing is to lead somebody to the Lord and 20 years later seeing them live for the Lord. And you just thank God all over again for being able to have part in that, that He gives you that great privilege. Now the Apostle John lived a long, prosperous life for the Lord and he found that his greatest happiness was when his spiritual children lived in obedience to the Word of God. When you think of all that God allowed John to do and all that he went through in his life, he said, that my children live in truth. We can make our Heavenly Father happy and give Him joy when we walk in His truth and live our lives in obedience to Him. And again, that is when the promises come through is when we live in obedience. We cannot say, God, okay, now God, You saved me and You said You were going to give me all these things. I'm waiting for them. Pour them out to me. No, He says, You're saved. Live for Him. And as He sees in His sovereignty to bless you, He will. And He will bless you. So number one, of course, is becoming a child of God. The first step is becoming a child of God. So how do you become a child of God? So we're going to get pretty basic in this for most of you, but we're going to spend some time here on this. If you are a child of God, you know how you became a child of God. If you don't know how you became a child of God, you can turn that sentence all around. If you don't know how you became a child of God, you are not a child of God. That's not something that you forget. God does not let you forget that. Now, I know there's people with dementia, and honestly, everyone I've ever seen, that'll be the last thing they forget, but it can go to that point where they don't even remember that. Technically, if you're a child of God and you therefore know how you became a child of God, you know how to lead someone else to accept Christ as Savior. When you look at the woman at the well that was saved by Christ, all she knew was what Christ had done for her. Immediately after she became a child of God, she passionately led others to become a child of God. A little knowledge and a lot of passion can go a long way. Now, if you've been saved for a while and you've never attempted to lead somebody to Christ, that passion will probably no longer compel you to go out and win somebody to the Lord. You know, you were filled with the same spirit as everybody else when you got saved. But if you don't use that spirit and you basically abuse that spirit, then that passion goes away. We leak. We have to stay filled. It's our obligation to learn more and more about the Lord to stay filled with the Spirit of God. So because that passion is gone, you need to move beyond technically knowing to confidently knowing how to lead someone to Christ. Yes, again, technically you were saved. That's enough information to tell somebody else how to be saved. But you haven't done it in 2, 5, 10, 15 years, you're not going to do it. Almost for sure you're not going to do it. It's just the way it is. The title of our lesson is A Child of the Heavenly Father. As a member of the heavenly family, we have a responsibility to grow the family. God put in the Old Testament the importance again of the genealogy of Israel. And then we compare that to the church. We have an important job to keep the genealogy of Christianity flowing by seeing people born again. Now, God has far more right to expect us to produce children than a grandfather has of his son to produce grandchildren. I mean, it's not, every son does not produce grandchildren, every daughter does not produce grandchildren, but it sort of, you figure that's what's going to happen, right? And you want that to happen, but it might not happen, and that's okay. But God has not only an expectation, but he deserves for us to produce children, spiritual children, and lead others to Christ. Now, I want to insert into our lesson 12 the following lesson, soul winning 101. Now, some of you have been through soul winning classes before. Some of you have studied it yourself before. You've heard it preached before. We're going to do a simple lesson on soul winning. In John 1-3, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said to him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now these are very good verses to begin to use with somebody to try to lead them to the Lord. Now, if you use these three verses, of course, you need to understand them, but you also need to learn verses 4 through 15. Now, we're not going to read those verses, but you need to use those and you know those. You may not verbally use verses 4 through 15, but you need to know what they mean, so you need to study them. Remember, the people that you're talking to are lost. You will need to explain verse 3 to them. And again verse 3, As Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And of course Nicodemus didn't understand that and Jesus had to explain that to him. So we can't just give somebody that verse and expect him to... We have to know more. We have to be able to explain that verse. So remember their loss and you need to explain it to them, you can say something like this. We become a child of our parents through physical birth and we become a child of God through a spiritual birth. By receiving God's gift of salvation, we are born again into the family of God. So when you tell them that, then you can give them the next verse, John 3, 16. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now when you're giving them the gospel, you don't have to turn the switch on for them. When you give them the gospel, the Holy Spirit will begin working in their heart. That doesn't mean they're going to get saved right then. But you cannot give the gospel to somebody without the Holy Spirit working. There's nothing else you have to do to boost the Holy Spirit into working. He's not dead battery, okay? You give the gospel, the Holy Spirit starts working. That doesn't mean that person's ever going to get saved. But that means the Holy Spirit will work on the heart of that person. They might get mad and cuss you out, but the Holy Spirit's still working. Depending on the person, you may need to explain part or all this verse. Maybe they don't know anything about the Bible, okay? So you may need to explain the whole verse, John 3, 16. For God. Well, who's God? God's the creator of the world. And you can expand upon that till you feel comfortable that they understand who you mean God is. Then it says, God so loved the world. Well, who's the world? Everyone. Everyone. They need to understand that world here means everyone. So God, for God, the creator of the universe, loves everyone that he gave. It means he sent his son to the world. He sent Jesus. I know you could expound upon that, but generally speaking it means that he sent Jesus to us. is only begotten son. Now begotten son is different than son. You can have adopted sons. You can have God's son, so to speak. You could have people that you are mentors to. You can call them son. So son can mean most anything. But begotten son means A begotten son is part of the father. It means it came from the father. You cannot have a begotten son without a father. He is the only begotten son. Therefore, the begotten son of God is God as well. Just like my father, I'm the begotten son of my father. And he is a money, so therefore I am a money. There's no other way about it. You can do anything you want to, that can never be changed. It says, whosoever believeth. In the context that God loves everyone in the world, whosoever means anyone in the world can be saved. So, we want them to understand that God loves everyone and anyone can be saved. It's not that everyone is saved because God loves anyone. It's the opposite. He loves everyone and anyone can be saved. Should not perish. A lot of people don't like this verse so they'll explain it away. I'm talking about people in Christian churches right now. Perish here means eternal punishment. It may be necessary to refer to verses like Mark 9, 45. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter halt into life than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. So they need to understand that perish means eternal punishment. and then everlasting life. Well, what is everlasting life? It is in total contrast to the word perish in this verse. It means to be with God in heaven for eternity. Luke 23, 43, And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Of course, you would need to explain that that was the thief on the cross and that he was about to die. And he asked Jesus to remember him, and he did. And he said, you'll be with me in paradise today. To be born again, one must understand the following. All of us are sinners and are condemned before God. Romans 3.23 For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And, of course, that's simple enough explained that all means all, just what it says. And sin is sin. You may need to explain to them what sin is. That it is breaking God's Word, going against what God says. Verse 310, and it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. And they need to understand this because if they think they're righteous, they can't be saved. If they're not lost, they can't be saved. Romans 5.12, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sin. Again, you may be dealing with somebody that does not know anything about the Bible. So you need to, you know it, but you need to be able to relay it to them who this one man that sin entered into the world is. So Genesis 3.17, And then to Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I command thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. And that verse makes it very simple that sin is not a great, big, terrible thing. It's simply going against the commandment of God. He said, Don't eat, they ate, they sinned. Verse 18, thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. And the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return into the ground, for out of it was thou taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Revelation 2.11, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. So, to perish is eternal death, but if we listen to the Spirit and hearken to the Spirit, we shall not be hurt of the second death. Revelation 20,14, And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Hopefully, by now, you go through these verses, you've explained to them what death is, what the Bible means by death, and then you can give them Romans 6, 23. For the wages of sin is death. That's what we've been telling them, right? That's what we've been trying to get across. The wages of sin is death. Because of sin, we have all earned death. Then the last part of that verse, But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So eternal life comes through way of a gift. So that means you can't go get it. Now I know I've heard of people buying themselves a birthday present, alright? But that's not a gift, is it? Because nobody gave it to them. They went out and got it. You can't go out and buy salvation for yourself. It must be given by Jesus Christ. Through sin we have earned death, but God is at all times ready to give us eternal life if we will put our faith in him. Romans 5, 17, For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, so we already give him the verse that sin and death come in by Adam. For if by one man's defense death reign by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. So Adam brought death, Jesus Christ brings eternal life. need to tell them that Christ died for our sins, Romans 5, 8. But God commended his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. You need to be very well acquainted with the crucifixion so you can explain Christ's death on the cross. You need to explain what Christ went through for them. For everybody, for anyone, for whosoever will. And then we need to explain to them that we must trust Christ for salvation. It's not just saying a certain set of words. It's not living by a certain creed. But it is entrusting in the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Romans 10, 9, 10, and 13. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. Now we've already explained who so ever is, anyone. Anyone that calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now back in verse 9, to confess the Lord Jesus means you believe everything God's word says about him. Not that you believe his name was Jesus, not that you believe he actually lived, but you believe what God says about him in his word. In other words, you believe all the verses we just read. You must believe it with all your heart. Not think it might be true, but believe it with all your heart. Verse 10, true belief will bring about a confession. If you really believe something, you will tell it. You will tell that that's what you believe. There's never been a Christian that is saved and they don't want to tell it. Verse 13, this confession and belief puts us in right standing with God and anyone in right standing with God will have their request for salvation granted. When you put yourself as a sinner and you put Jesus Christ as Lord of all and see Him as dying for your sins and shedding His blood for your sins, being buried and resurrected, so you see Him where He's supposed to be, you see you where you're supposed to be, that puts you in the right place to have your request for salvation granted. You elevate yourself a little bit, you're not going to get saved. You bring Christ down a little bit, you're not going to get saved. He is all in all and you are nothing and nothing, then you can get saved. Alright, so Eddie has the verses that I just went over, the lesson on soul winning 101 I just went over. I believe we've got enough for everybody. You're going to have to give husband and wife one copy. Then if you have any left over you can hand them out. Fortunately, we have a very good number. We have just slightly over 40. That's good this morning. But I want you to, now then, I was going to take some time, but we have no time left, so I'm going to give these out. But what I want you to do, don't have time to do it now. I was going to give you about five minutes, but we're done. Out of time. I want you to, once you get this, you look at it, you begin to read over it. And later on today or tomorrow, make it a point to take some private time to read over this. And as you read it, if you're saved, ask God to give you the desire that you ought to have to see somebody else saved. Now, if you're here, happen to be here, as far as I know everybody here is saved, but if you happen to be here not saved, This is the scriptures that I put are the word of God. Now, there's other things in there that I said. Of course, not everything I said is in there. But this will tell you how to be saved. Now then, there are many different scriptures you can use, many different approaches you can use. I've led people to the Lord, and honestly, and I wanted to do it this way on purpose, I have never used these exact scriptures. A lot of people do. But I want to do it to show you that you don't have to use these exact scriptures because there's many more scriptures on how to do it in the Word of God. But what we have to do, we have to have a plan in our hearts and in our minds. And the Word of God will give us that passion back. Now I said that A little knowledge and a lot of passion will go a long way. What will bring that passion back after it's gone is more knowledge. We need to know the Word of God. And we need to ask God to work in our hearts that we would help to bring people to Christ. Everybody got one? If you are husband and wife and you only got one, there's some more over, Eddie, you can just put them down there. If y'all want another copy, you can pick one up. That'd be fine. You can put them on that table over there. We're gonna pray. Lord, we thank you for this day that you've given us, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for seeing us, Lord, as we were lost, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for sending the word of God our way that we may understand our lost condition, that we may understand the excellency of Christ and what he did for us, and that we saw that we needed to be saved, and we ask you, Lord, and as we put our position, recognize Christ as his position, Lord, you joyfully granted our request of salvation. In Jesus' name we pray.