Adoption
Eph. 1:5
Ted and Dawn Spencer lived with stares their entire life.
a. They are dwarfs.
b. Adopted children with greater physical problems than their own (Four orphaned South Koreans).
c. Both believe that children – especially those nobody else wants – will blossom if someone believe in them and loves them.
d. Teacher Debbie Moon's first grade class was discussing a picture of a family. The little boy in the photo had a different hair color than the other family members. One child suggested that was so because the boy was adopted. A girl in the class responded that she knew all about adoption because she had been adopted. Another girl asked what it meant to be adopted. Her classmate answered, "Adoption means that you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy."
I think we would be surprised if we knew even the number here that were adopted.
I am adopted! You are too, if you are a Christian because the only way you can become a part of God’s family is by adoption (human race/ adopted).
Eph. 1:5(Rom. 8:15)
Only when we come to grips with the fact that we are adopted sons and daughters, will we truly understand and appreciate Christianity.
It will have an impact on our prayers, or worship, our entire outlook on life. Adoption into God’s family is the greatest of all spiritual blessings offered to man.
Adoption: Its:
Meaning
Why did Paul use this term?
He wanted us to understand who we are and what God has done for us.
He was drawing on something his readers understood from their world.
a. Under Roman law when someone was adopted they became an entirely new person. Even his previous debts and obligations were abolished as if they never existed.
b. Some were even slaves but became sons.
This is what Paul says God has done for us. We were spiritual slaves but God has made us sons. We were horribly in debt, sold to sin, doomed to die but God made us sons.
Gal. 4:4-7
Jn. 1:12
So what does adoption mean?
Deliverance from the past.
God claims me as a child.
As sinful as we have been, it would be wonderful if God would allow us just to scrub the floors of heaven. But God, in love, let us be sons and daughters.
Privileges
Fatherly love
Normally fathers love their children (I would die for mine).
"In love" (vs. 4)
The New Testament gives us two yardsticks to measure God’s love.
a. Rom. 5:8 (Do you want to know how much God loves you? Look at the cross!)
b. I Jn. 3:1 (There was no reason to save us, forgive us or adopt us. It was all because of love.)
Adoption requires a special kind of love.
Sustaining hope
In God’s family the best is always yet to come
Story of lady who wanted to be buried with fork.
I Jn. 3:2-3
2. As God’s children we hope for the greatest family reunion of all (I Thess. 4:17).
3. Song – "God’s Family"
"Sometimes we laugh together,
Sometimes we cry;
Sometimes we share together.
Heartaches and sighs;
Sometimes we dream together
Of how it will be
When we all get to heaven,
God’s family.
(We can sing this song because we have been adopted by God.)
Responsibilities
Jesus in His "Sermon on the Mount" taught the responsibility of being a son of God (Mt. 5:16, 43-45; 6:1, 9, 32-33)
Adoption has its privileges and its responsibilities (Most of us recall when our parents sat down with us and encouraged us to honor the family name).
Jesus lived as He lived because He knew who He was – the Son of God.
The knowledge that God is our Father and that we are His children should shape the way we live our lives.
We need to quit living with a slave mentality and start living with a son mentality.
We are not part of a spiritual chain gang but a part of a family.
As we leave here, leave as sons of God. Your family is meeting Wednesday night. Will you be with your family?
If you have not been adopted … (Old movies – orphan waiting to be adopted).
James David Pharr
Lenoir, NC