Adoption

[00:00:02] Speaker A: All right, so today we're talking about adoption. So I thought it might be interesting because I don't necessarily know this about everybody, but could you raise your hand if you or someone in your family has been adopted? Yeah. Okay. So some of us have some at least relation to adoption if we aren't adopted ourselves. Yeah, there is. That doesn't need to be immediate family, like if you know anybody, is kind of what I'm asking. But for me, I think the closest relative is my aunt, so my father's sister. And the story of her adoption, I think, is pretty fascinating. It definitely shows when in history it happened and where it did, because we'll just put it this way, it's not quite as easy to adopt as it was at this time in Brazil, where my dad's family lived for a time. So my grandmother, she was out and about in Brazil. She was with her three sons. So they had three sons. And how was it then they moved to Brazil with their three sons. This is probably, I think in the 70s, probably late 70s. So you guys. You guys know all about the 70s, I'm sure. She came across a girl, a little girl, and she somehow was made aware that this girl is in trouble. Her parents were bad and not kind to her and neglectful. And my grandmother was compassionate. She always wanted a girl, and she got three boys. And so she adopted her and took her home that day. She didn't have a second thought. She just took her home. They added her to the family, and that was something that she could do. This was not a kidnapping. This was done the legal way. It's just much quicker. And given the circumstances, they wanted to get this girl into a good home. And so she loved her, she treated her well. Now, my grandfather, he was not. Again, he was not looped in. He wasn't with the family. He was out working. So eventually he came home to having a daughter. She didn't send him a text. You know, they couldn't have done that. And so he really was surprised when he came home. But he also loved her, treated her well. Not pretended. Treated her as if she is part of the family, because from that moment on, she was part of the family now. And because of this, when my grandparents eventually both died, she was. It was just clear to everyone that she had a special love for or her parents. She probably took most of the stuff from their house because she was so sentimentally attached to it all. Because she was not treated as a lesser member of the family. She was adopted into it completely and fully. And that's the beauty of adoption. You aren't just legally included into a group so you can have certain legal rights. The beauty of it is that you actually become part of the family, as if you were actually born into the family. There is no distinction there. That is the beautiful thing about adoption. And so, again, that is what we are talking about today. But let's review. What is theology, Asher? [00:03:30] Speaker B: It's the study of God and how. [00:03:31] Speaker A: To be more like Him. Very good. So we are going to study him, study His Word, delight in him, and seek to become like Christ. We've been studying what is the main. The big category. We've been under salvation, doctrine of salvation. That is the teaching about salvation. We started with common grace. What is common grace? How is it related to salvation? Anyone? Yes. [00:04:03] Speaker B: On grace is like the grace that. [00:04:05] Speaker A: Is given to both believers and unbelievers. [00:04:08] Speaker B: To kind of show that there is someone in control and there's a God. [00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Excuse to be. Like, there's no God. Yeah. They have no excuse to be. There's no God. There's evidence of the Creator. It's grace given to all of mankind. It reveals itself in numerous things, whether it's someone doing something inherently good, like someone being heroic in public, or whether it's someone making beautiful art. All of these are examples of common grace. But it's supposed to point people to the Lord. Then we talked about election. Does anyone remember? What does this mean? Election. [00:04:50] Speaker C: God's chosen people. [00:04:52] Speaker A: Yeah, God. How God has decided to choose people to be saved. This was not like a democratic vote, but it is God's divine choice. What then is union with Christ? If someone is elected, then eventually they become one with Christ. They are in union with him. So as a reminder, this is just exactly that. You become one with Christ. Union with Christ. Don't overthink this phrase, union with Christ. You are one with Christ. One in his death, one in his resurrection, one in his eternal life, one in the inheritance of eternal life. That is what union with Christ means. It's the heart of the gospel. But practically, to be made one with Christ, you must be regenerated. What does regeneration mean? Made new. Made into a new creation is the work of the Spirit. To give a sinful, broken dead heart. Take that out of a man or a woman and give them a new, living, holy heart. One that is able to choose Christ. One that is able to obey him and be faithful to the Lord, whereas the dead, sinful heart is unable to be faithful to the Lord, unable to choose Christ. And that happens because God has elected and chosen to become one with an individual. But when, after this, regeneration happens, of course, Christians debate which one comes first, but I argue that regeneration comes first. Once this has happened, there's a new heart. Conversion happens. What is conversion? Does anyone remember the formula for conversion? Yes, that is true. That it is turning to God. Yes, yes. Repentance plus faith equals conversion. That's right. So you repent, you turn from your sins, you trust in Christ. That is what conversion means. Because of this, when this happens, somebody becomes justified. What is justification? That's what we talked about last week. Sorry. [00:06:58] Speaker B: To be made right. [00:06:59] Speaker A: To be made right or to be declared righteous before God. That's right. And that's ultimately what we all need. The standard is righteousness. If you are not righteous, you. You do not go to heaven. You cannot dwell with God. You must be righteous. But we are not righteous. So we need righteousness credited to us. And that is Christ's perfect righteousness credited to people through faith. And therefore God can look upon a faithful one and say, you are righteous, though we have not earned it. And as another result of God's election and regeneration, we get to adoption. Now, the summary of adoption, that's basically just what adoption is at the top of your page. Adoption is the mighty act of God to take sinful people. Adoption is the mighty act of God to take sinful people, enemies who are alienated, alienated and separated from Him. So he's taking sinful people who are enemies, who are alienated and separated from him, and incorporate those sinful people as beloved children into his family forever. So he takes sinful people who are alienated, they are separated from him, and he makes them children in his family forever. That is what the doctrine of adoption is. Now, let's. We got four major affirmations. Number one is adoption is needed because we are alienated enemies of God. It's needed because we are alienated enemies of God. Now, to start looking in the Word for this, go to Ephesians. We'll start in chapter two. We're going to read a couple different verses. Can someone read Ephesians 2:12? Yeah. [00:09:08] Speaker B: Ephesians 2:12. That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the new world. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah. Good. Good. Yeah. So this is Paul reminding the Ephesians that they were exactly what I said. They were. Alienated, they were separated from, from Christ or without Christ. Strangers to the covenant on promise, the covenant of Promise is a way to say God's saving relationship with his people, they're strangers to that. They were not members of this saving covenant. They were aliens. You know, we think aliens out of this world or from another country. And that's exactly what Paul's communicating. You are not native to salvation. You are not native to righteousness. They are alienated. Look at Ephesians 4:18. Can someone read Ephesians 4:18? Anyone want to read? Yeah. [00:10:22] Speaker C: They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of. Because of their ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. [00:10:29] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. So again, Paul brings back this idea that they are separated, or my translation. And others say alienated from the life of God. So we see that this alienation, this separation, these words kind of are both used in translations because it's getting at the same idea. So what does it mean to be alienated? How would you define it? [00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, be like cast out. [00:10:52] Speaker A: Yeah, cast out. Separated, not included. You are now from somewhere else. You become foreign to whatever the place is. That is what it means to be alienated. If you don't truly believe that you are an alien, an enemy and a slave, then you're not ready for adoption. We need to know this first point, that adoption is needed because we are alienated enemies of God, because we are foreign to the covenant of promise. We are foreign to salvation. We are not native to it. We're not born good. We are born dead. We are born enemies of God. You need to come to grips with that first. The rest of these matter very little. The whole idea of adoption is not important until you recognize that you. You need it, that you are an orphan, that you need a heavenly father. So that's why we start here, that it is necessary because of our natural state. This is how we are born. We are born alienated enemies of God. And Paul says that as much in this. Famously in Ephesians 2:1, he says, you were dead in trespasses and sins. There's just this idea of utter deadness, foreign alienation from God's good blessings. Now, the second affirmation is this. So once we understand that we are alienated enemies of God, we are sinful, and therefore we need adoption. We see, number two, that adoption is both a legal and a relational act. So it is both a legal and a relational act. Now, let's see. Can anybody maybe guess what is the difference between those two? A legal act, the legal act of adoption, the relational act of adoption. Or maybe what might both entail? What's the difference. Yeah. [00:13:05] Speaker B: They are part of your family. [00:13:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's well put. Yeah. So there's the public recognition being in the family. Right. You know, if you're talking about adoption, as we usually think of it, you would say this person now so. And so is this person's guardian. Now they are now maybe a dependent on their taxes, all of this. So they're the legal things. But the relational is a step further. It's actually treating the adopted child as a member of the family, as an actual child of the family. Now, we'll unpack those even a little bit more with the next two affirmations. So, number three, adoption means Christians receive an inheritance. It means that Christians or those who have been adopted receive an inheritance. So on the legal side of adoption, there come practical things like receiving an inheritance as any child would, or especially at the time, as any son would. Look at Galatians. So Galatians is right before Ephesians. So it's Galatians 4, verse 5. Can someone read Galatians 4? 5? You can read. That's right. So being redeemed under the law so that we might receive adoption as. Now, this is a point I want to point out, because we see the Bible talk about it. Does anybody's translation say something other than sons? Now, does everybody say that? I think for the most part they do. Right. Nobody's as different. Okay. Now, almost all major translations use the word sons, but not all of them do. And we might see often in the Bibles, especially some translations like Christian Standard Bible. I think even the niv, we see rather than brothers, we see brothers and sisters. We see an incorporation understanding that a masculine word would be used for a general audience. However, I think a lot of translations intentionally keep this as sons rather than sons and daughters. Now, maybe none of you are asking this question, but now you don't have to. I'm going to answer the question anyway. Why wouldn't they say sons or daughters? Why would they restrict it to sons? I think it's because we want to remember theologically that what we all through faith are brought into is union with Christ. We are in union with the Son of God. There's supposed to be this relation between those who believe in the Lord. Is there something flying around? A wasp. What is it doing in here? Someone kill it. I know it's going too high, but it's just gonna be so distracting, isn't it? It's up there. It's actually gone now, everybody. So. Let's ignore it. But if it's in striking distance. Feel free to kill it. Remember, you are more powerful than the wasp. But they are scary. I'm not gonna deny that. Anyway, anyway, I do think this is important, what we're talking about. So union with Christ, that's important. We want to be one with Him. He is the Son. We see traditionally that the sons are receiving the inheritance, right? We have Abraham, and then we have Isaac and Jacob, and even his son Judah becomes the one through whom the Christ comes. So we see this kind of headship idea, and even all of us are born into sin. We read in the Bible through Adam. It is through the fatherly line. That is why Christ being born of a virgin is so crucial. He is not born with the sin nature. He has no earthly father. And so we see this idea of sonship being important. And so it's a theological reason that it's translated this way. Still to remember that the adoption as sons is supposed to remind us that you are being counted as one, as another son in the family of God. Just as the son, capital S is the Son of God, you are adopted as lowercase sons of God. And I think that is an amazing thing. So the sonship that the son enjoys is given to us through adoption. That doesn't mean, if you're a woman, you change into a son. It's just a theological thing. It's not changing who you actually are in your essence, in your being. But theologically, you become. You are treated with the same sort of sonship as God the Son. And I think that is something we don't want to overlook. So a little translation thing like this, I think, can be really encouraging for us to consider. Now let's go back to Ephesians, chapter 1. So Galatians, Ephesians, not flipping around too far today. And look at verse three. I'm going to read a section here. I want you to think, what are some of the blessings that we inherit through adoption? So Ephesians 1:3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which. Which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Okay, so according to this passage, what are some of the blessings that we inherit because of our adoption? Yes. Glorious grace. Yeah. Yeah. What'd you say? Yeah. The forgiveness of sins. Great. [00:20:13] Speaker C: Wisdom and understanding. [00:20:14] Speaker A: Wisdom and understanding. Yes. Yeah, Yeah. So being adopted, you are able to know the mystery of his will with greater clarity. Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Glorious grace. That's right. Yes, I said that. It's okay. It's still a correct answer. Yeah. And there are other things redeemed with his blood. So these blessings are listed here with adoption because they're relevant, right? These are blessings given to God's children. We are not born God's children. We are born alienated from God, and so we must be adopted to receive these blessings. That's the inheritance. This is the inheritance that the legal side of the adoption gives to believers. Salvation is way more than not going to hell. You know, that is a cheap way to consider it, and I think a lot of people teach it that way, or maybe we've had misunderstandings from when we were children and we thought of it that way. That's just not what it is. Salvation includes being adopted into the same status that God the Son has had for eternity. And that makes it a lot richer if it's just getting out of the fires of hell. I mean, you know, that's a big deal. But receiving and being treated as having the same status as God the Son, the status he has had for eternity, that is so much crazier, so much more unfathomable, incomprehensible for us to think. Think about, Right? You receive that status, the blessings that Christ should receive, that Christ has had eternally, cannot fathom that. But maybe we should consider it and think about how blessed we can be if we have faith in Christ. Now, number four. This is the other side of that adoption benefits we have. Adoption means that Christians are a family. So. So this is on the relational side of adoption. Christians through faith are a family. Go to Romans chapter 8, Romans 8. 29. Can someone read Romans 8. 29? Yeah, you can read. [00:22:47] Speaker B: For those whom he foreknew, he also. [00:22:49] Speaker C: Predestined to be. [00:22:52] Speaker B: Conformed to the image of his Son in order that he might be the firstborn, among many others. [00:22:59] Speaker A: Good. Okay, so why did God foreknow and predestined some to be conformed to the image of His Son. It tells us in the verse, hence, look for the. So that you know why you look for four or so that you might. [00:23:23] Speaker B: Be the firstborn among many brothers. [00:23:25] Speaker A: That's right. So that Christ would be the firstborn among many brothers. He would have many brothers. That's the purpose of God's foreknowledge and predestination. That's the purpose of election. That there would be many brothers sharing in the inheritance of Christ. God did this out of love. So he is not alone. Christ is not alone. But all who are adopted are brothers with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, theologically, brothers we could say brothers and sisters in another way. So remember, we're born aliens and enemies of God. But he will bring you into his own family and treat you as he does his only son, if you have faith in Him. You will be a brother of Christ if you have faith in Him. So the reality of this familial bond with Christ extends so far, and it extends to another domain. Go Back to Galatians 3. All right, Galatians 3. We're looking at verse 26. All right, Galatians 3. 26. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. Now, how does this describe a family? I'm making a point about a family. How does this describe a family? Yeah, you can kill it. Yeah. This wasp is. I think it's the form of the devil. I've always thought they were devilish, but never more than now. So irreverent. We got the Bible open and this thing is flying around. Let me help us a little bit. It's way up by the line. We're good guys. They typically don't just attack humans, but, you know, I understand it's a little freaky when it's flying by. Yeah, I'm realistic. The question was, how does that passage describe a family? We might be a little lost in the passage, so I'll just help us here. We're talking about Abraham's offspring, heirs, according to the promise. So if we remember from our study of Galatians, Paul is kind of helping them understand that you are justified through faith. That's the main idea. But what that faith does is it incorporates you into Abraham's spiritual family. So many of the Jews were still kind of misunderstanding and thinking, well, it's this blood relationship to Abraham that is what saves us. This is the covenant that saves us. These are the promises God has given us to the Jews that are physically descendants of Abraham. Paul saying, no, this salvation, the covenant promises go to all of his spiritual offspring, and you become spiritual offspring of Abraham through faith in Christ, who is a descendant of Abraham. So it's this faith, Right? We don't need to get into all of the argument of Galatians, but there's a faith family that God is forming. Now go over to Ephesians 2 real quick. Just one more verse. Can someone read Ephesians 2:19? Yes. [00:27:11] Speaker B: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Yeah. And I'll just read, you are no longer strangers and aliens is what I see. So these are, again, different translations are all great. So this verse is kind of rounding it out. We need adoption because we're strangers and aliens. And if you have faith, you are adopted and you become no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens. So you're not an alien, you're not a stranger, you're not a foreigner. You become a native, you become a citizen of. What do we see here? A citizen of the household of God. What is this verse about? The household of God. What's that about? Yeah, it's about the church. It's about the church. We know this because the saints and members. So saints are the holy ones, those who are made holy by Christ, members of the household of the body of Christ, where Christ dwells on earth is with the church. So this is the household of God. And household also typically isn't necessarily referring to a building. It's referring to the people. You know, when someone asks about my household, they're not asking about the building at my address. They're asking about the members of my family that is my household. And so the same here. It is the people. It is the church. Through adoption, through faith, you become members of the that household. Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of the family of God. That's what we must affirm about adoption. Let's go through the rest of this while we have time. So, errors to avoid. We must not confuse being children of God in the sense of creation and being his children in the sense of redemption. Does anyone have a guess on what I mean by that? Children in the sense of creation. What would that mean? What do you think? I mean, by that we're created as. [00:29:25] Speaker B: God's children without anything? [00:29:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And so what would be the opposite in the sense of redemption? What's that? Children in the sense of redemption. Is there a difference? There's a difference. Right. So you can even. I think we can even kind of pair this up with our conversations about common grace and saving grace. Right. Common grace. All human beings are, in a sense, children of God. We can't say that unequivocally. Right. It's just, in a sense, we're all children of God and that he is the creator. And so often we use that language of the creator being the father, the creation being the offspring. But we want to keep the distinction clear. Not everybody is a child of God in the sense of redemption. Only those who have been adopted through regeneration and faith and repentance are children of God in this sense can rightly be called the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. So these salvific verses we've been reading have been talking about in the sense of redemption. I think that's primarily the way the Bible uses the term children of God. Infrequently you'll see it used in the sense of creation, but typically we're talking in the sense of redemption. We just want to make sure we know what we're talking about when we use this term, to be clear. All right, number two, major error to avoid. We must not exaggerate the privileges of adoption to include present material blessings. How might someone do this? What do I mean by this? What's an example? [00:31:12] Speaker C: Yeah, Prosperity gospel. [00:31:13] Speaker A: Yeah, Prosperity Gospel. Prosperity theology. Believing that once you are adopted, well, that means part of your inheritance is being able to maybe do all of the miracles, the miraculous works that Christ did. You can cast out demons, you can heal people by. If you really have faith, then you can heal anyone in your family. If you really have faith, all the things that you need will be given to you always. This is not what adoption promises. We didn't read that anywhere. In fact, whenever we did read about inheritance, it specified about talking about redemption and forgiveness of sins. That is the inheritance, not physical blessings like money or physical wellness. Those are not the privileges of adoption. So we want to be careful to not promise things that Christ has not promised. That is a distortion of the gospel. All right, now let's talk about enacting the doctrine, some application ways that we can live out this theology. Number one, which. This is kind of the same wording as justification's first application last week. Embrace the assurance of salvation that flows from God's mighty act of adoption. So both justification and adoption naturally kind of logically help us see that there is an assurance to salvation. We can be sure the reason with. Or let me just ask, how does adoption aid assurance? How would the idea of adoption help us to understand and know assurance better? [00:32:45] Speaker C: Yeah, because we didn't have to do anything on our part. God did the adoption. We can't adopt ourselves into God's family. [00:32:52] Speaker A: Yeah, you can't adopt yourself into another family. God did that work. You know, thinking back to my aunt, my aunt Amy, she did not do any of that work. It was the compassion of my grandmother, her mother, one who became her mom in that instant. It was her work of compassion and love that brought her into the family. And because of that, and also combined with us knowing that God does not change, his promises are not going to change. He's not going to un adopt because of that. Because that would be a change in his election and predestination. But God doesn't change. We can have assurance because of that. He is steady. He's not going to divorce you from his family. That's not how that works. So though we may struggle, if you believe in Christ, if you've been adopted, you might at times struggle to feel assured that is okay and normal. But we should always know intellectually that the Bible does teach us that it is. Sure. Number two, walk in hope of our eternal inheritance. So again, these applications are mostly are completely for those who have recognized that first point. You are strangers and aliens. You are enemies of God. You need to be adopted and therefore you've repented of your sins and trusted in Christ. These things are not applicable if you haven't done that. You need to recognize where you're at and turn from your sins and trust in Christ. That is your application. But if you have done that, then you have the privilege of walking in hope, walking, living your life in hope, knowing that there is an eternal inheritance, that nothing that happens here is eternal. This is temporal. So anything that happens to you, good or bad, is not going to last forever. But the inheritance is if you're in Christ. And again, this point about how this is for those who believe is the same for number three, which is enjoy close personal relationships with brothers and sisters in the church. So you might and you should have friends here, whether you're actually a Christian or not. I hope that everybody is able to have friends here, but you do not have to have that. You do not have the deeper spirit wrought relationship that God Gives right. When you become a member of the church, when you become brothers and sisters in the church, there is something special that God does. He does bring us together, he does unite us around a common confession of faith. So this means, and I want you to think about this, that there is something divine about the people in your church. They're not necessarily the people that on a day to day level, maybe at school or at work, that you would gravitate towards and become friends with. Maybe some of them are, but probably not a lot of them. You know, there's plenty of people here that I don't like outside of church, have very much in common with. But there is something special. Church friends are special friends. So how can. I want you to think about these questions. How can you hate someone here? Is there hatred in your heart towards anyone? How could you dislike someone? How can you not show love to someone here? And you find it easy to hate someone or dislike or to not love somebody, then there is a problem. You need to remember. Or maybe you need to consider if you've been adopted, you can think about someone else in the church and say, did God adopt that person? Did God have compassion and love unconditionally for that person? Therefore, how can I not, how can I not love him or her if God did love him or her in such a way? So maybe think about that as you today, even as you talk to people and hear how they're doing, maybe discussing the sermon, any questions about anything we've talked about. Okay, well, I will, I mean I'll be at church on Sundays, but I'll see you in this context in two weeks. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. God, we pray that you would help us to not just study your word, but to delight in it. Not just know things, but to be changed by them. Lord, thank you for your gift of adoption. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.