Adopted as Children of God

Adopted as Children of God

It’s a delight to bring God’s word to you this morning. In preparation of reading his word, let us pray for this. This comes out of Psalm 119, the section titled Lamed. Let us pray. Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens, and your faithfulness endures to all generations. You have established the earth, and it stands fast. Lord, by your appointment, they stand this day, for all things are your servants. Father, if your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I ask that I would never forget your precepts, for by them you have given us life. We are yours, save us, for we seek your law. Lord, at times it seems the wicked lie in wait to destroy us. Bring us, bring your testimonies rather to mind. Father, we ask, even this morning, that you would open our eyes and ears to hear your word, and that you would use it in our lives to show forth your perfection as our Abba Father. We pray this through Christ our Lord. Amen. This morning on this sanctity of Life Sunday, we’re going to look at Romans 8:14-17, as well as touch on some other scriptures.

Romans 8:14-17 reads as follows, For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. The word of our Lord. You may be seated. Let me pray for the preaching of God’s word. Father, as my words are true to your word, may they be taken to heart. But if my word should stray from your word, may they be quickly forgotten. I pray this in the name and in the power of Jesus Christ. Amen. It is likely that whenever we hear the theological concept of adoption, we may then think, if we think about it at all, as a quaint idea that we are part of God’s family in some theoretical or sentimental way. Most of us don’t think very much about adoption as a doctrinal truth and belief or as a practical and beautiful way of growing your immediate family.

Now, I say most of us because the truth of the matter is, if you’re one of the dozens of people in this church that have been adopted, or if you are one of the adoptive families, it is likely you think about adoption all the time. What I submit to the rest of us is that if we think rightly about the theological doctrine of adoption, we will find that it is as life-changing and as all-impacting as our adopted children and adopting families already know with respect to their legal adoption. To that end, I want to look at the biblical doctrine of adoption and explore what privileges this reality carries. Technically speaking, if the topic of adoption is included in a work of systematic theology, and many of them ignore it, it is most generally considered as one of the many works of the Holy spirit. When it is listed in the Ordo Salutus, that order of salvation, it is often listed along with justification. Recently, many conservative and contemporary scholars are beginning to put it into their systematic theologies, and they lament that as a theological topic, it’s been long ignored or only briefly considered. Now, when they put it in their work, many of them are finding it to be, well, in the words of John Frame, the height of our privilege, or in John Murray’s word, the apex of grace and privilege.

Listen to a couple of familiar biblical passages which teach this life-changing doctrine. Children. Ephesians 1:3-6 declare, ‘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 shows 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. So often does Paul speak of adoption that New Testament scholar, Robert Raymond, mentions, Just as Romans is Paul’s special treaty on justification, Ephesians is in a special sense, his treaty on the fatherhood of God and the doctrine of adoption. Adoption. Indeed, Raymond notes that God as Father is the subject of most of the verbs that deal with any divine activity at all, and that Ephesians develops the Christians walk in terms of a child before their father. Consider as well Ephesians, or rather Galatians 4:4-7. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, mother, so you are no longer a slave but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. In the Older Testament, while the term adoption doesn’t occur explicitly, Exodus 4:22 Isaiah 1:2, Hoseia 11:1, just to name a few, they all speak of Israel as sons of God. They provide the background for Paul’s declaration in Romans 9:4, where he as they are the Israelis, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenant, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. These passages taken together with our passage in Romans 8 shows us a few things about adoption. It shows us that, one, adoption was part of God’s plan, God’s will, before the foundations of the world. But two, our adoption in Christ moves us from our relationship to the law as one of a tutor to servants into that of words of life to a son, to an heir. Three, that God has given us a spirit, a spirit who enables us to enter into this new relationship and the genuine experience and ability to call out to God as our Abba, as our Father.

As well as with that change of status, God has given us a renewed future hope of enjoying the new heavens and the new Earths as co-heirs with Christ. I know that when you begin to summarize the biblical teaching of adoption, you automatically begin to discuss some of the benefits and the privileges. But before I move fully into that discussion, perhaps a theological definition based on these biblical passages will help. Here I think we can do no better than turn to our own confessional standards. If you look at the Westminster Larger Confession, a question rather, 74, asks the simple question, what is adoption? It’s followed by the helpful answer. Adoption is an act of the free grace of God in and only for his son, Jesus Christ, whereby all those that are justified and received into the number of his children have his name put upon them and the spirit of his son given to them and are under his fatherly care and dispensations, admitted to all the liberties and privileges of sons of God, and made heir of all the promises and fellow heirs with Christ in glory. Like justification, adoption is also an act of God’s grace.

It is a one-time event and carries with it a legal declaration and a permanent change of legal status. In justification, we are legally declared righteous by God, and therefore pardoned of our sins because and only because of Christ’s righteousness, which is imputed to or rather covers us. The work of justification pardons us and relieves us from the eternal curse and consequence of the fall, generally, and our own sin, particularly. And therefore, we can stand righteous before God. But if we were only justified, we would stand as forgiven servants. In adoption, the heavenly Father acts in our case and then places his name on us and transfers us from being children of rath under the Father of Lies into the family of God with our Father as the heavenly Father himself. It’s different than justification. You can compare it with regeneration as well. It is true that in regeneration, we’re given a new heart, one that is tender to God’s word. Because of that new nature that we are given when we are born again by the spirit. But once again, because this new creation, while life-giving in its change for us, it doesn’t necessarily move us into God’s family unless it is accompanied by God’s adopting us into his family, which, of course, God has chosen to do for all those whom he justifies and regenerates.

One of the startling ideas that I was confronted with and honestly hadn’t really thought about prior to this preparation was when New Testament scholar Wayne Gruden wrote, It is possible that God could have creatures who are spiritually alive and yet not members of his family and do not share in the special status and special privileges of family members. Then he says, Angels, for example, apparently fall into that category. He notes then it would be possible for God to decide to regenerate us or to justify us without giving us the privileges of adoption. When I thought about the fact that God could have forgiven us, he could have made us spiritually alive without inviting us into his family, I began to realize what an extraordinary gift adoption is. It’s like the difference only greater of a judge choosing to pay the fines of some young abandoned guilty orphan and then sending them back into the cold streets and one who pays the fine and then adopts them into his family, where his entire life is radically changed. In adoption, God has given us in Grutem’s words, Many of the greatest blessings that we will know for all of eternity.

It seems that when we begin to realize the genuine excellence, the true privilege, the lavish gift of adoption, in light of the recognition that God was under no obligation to give us this gift of the entrance into his own family. Then we can rejoice with the apostle John when he says, See what love the Father has given to us, that We should be called children of God, and so we are. What then are some of these blessings and privileges? Well, John Frame in his excellent and accessible work, Concise systematic theology, declares that, The privileges of adoption can be summed up in one word, inheritance. It seems that our text in Romans 8 highlights this very blessing. In verse 17, we read, And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. This is an incredible concept that God will share with us all of his infinite blessings because he truly sees us as his children. Notice how Paul is building this line of thinking in Romans 8. At first, he contrasts our new nature with our old in verses 14 and 15. He says, All who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God.

This is because, as verse 15 states, we did not receive the spirit of slavery, but of sonship. Galatians 4:7 makes the same point, no longer slaves, but sons. And Romans builds on this. Instead of slavery, which leads to fear, and at this point, we might think a little bit of what life would be like as a slave, even if you were a slave in a decent household. Every day you would live under the fear of punishment for failures in a purely performance-driven life of a slave to a master, where a successful slave must ever endeavor to win and keep his or her master’s favor. Think of that and then contrast that with what Paul notes in the second half of verse 15, Instead of that, what we have received is the spirit of adoption as sons, whereby we may call out Abba, Father. That expression Abba or Father, you’ve likely heard, is a deeply intimate way of referring to one’s dad. Abba is so simple to say, even infants could say it, and did and do even today. Dada, papa, Abba, Nana. They’re all different ways, different languages of saying Abba, Father. It’s short, it’s simple, it’s endearing.

Mark Chapter 14 shows us that in the garden, Jesus cried out this way in anguish. Abba, Father, all things are possible for you remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. It’s a prayer of Jesus to his Abba. Now, Paul, both here in our Romans text as well as in Galatians 4:6, uses that same phrase of the spirit and the relationship relationship that we have with our heavenly Abba, our heavenly Father, the relationship that he has given to us. And he invites us to call out to him, both in our victories and in our moments of anguish. This gift of adoption means that as children of God, we are encouraged to speak to God and to interact with him, to know that he is a good and loving father. Being a child of a loving father also also means that we will benefit from his loving discipline. But recognizing that God’s goodness, or recognizing rather that God is good, that helps us to see that even as a father shows his compassion on his children, so the Lord shows his compassion on those who fear him. Here, fear means irreverent awe.

I think it was Jerry Bridges who tells the story of a sergeant driving a general around near the front lines in World War II when the Jeep was hit by an artillery blast. The general was thrown from the Jeep. The Jeep flipped and pinned the sergeant and caught on fire. The general, with little regard for his own safety, craws back to the Jeep, digs out the sergeant, and gets him the medical care he needs. It doesn’t seem like much of a surprise when the sergeant signed up to be that general’s permanent driver. He feared the general, and his days were full of, Yes, sir, general, sir. But He had personally experienced the transforming grace of sacrificial and compassionate love. And add to that the capstone that in Christ, we are not just saved by a compassionate and sacrificial general. He has adopted us into his family. And now we are given access to all that he has. This relationship with God as our Father becomes the foundation of the many blessings that we will enjoy from God. We’ve already briefly mentioned a few, the faithful discipline of a loving Father. Hebrews 12:5-6, which quotes from Proverbs 3, reminds us that God is treating you as sons.

For what son is there whom the Father does not discipline? He disciplines us for our good that we may share in his Holiness. This is a A related lesson for many in our generation today who have dismissed the very notion of discipline in all of its forms, calling it antiquated and abusive. And so to both parents and grandparents here, be a loving, compassionate counter-example to our culture as you carefully and thoughtfully discipline your children and grandchildren for their growth in grace. You may not know how to parent well You may lack wisdom in other areas as well. When you do, bring your concerns to the Lord in prayer. Call out to your heavenly Father, and you’ll notice that he gives to all wisdom generously and without reproach. It’s another blessing of adoption. You have the empowering of the Holy spirit, enabling you to speak intimately with your Father. Our Lord Jesus taught his disciples to pray Daily, our Father, who art in heaven. Prayer is significant, but is it a significant part of your daily routine? Your heavenly Father would delight in conversing with you as his beloved sons and daughters. There are many other benefits to our adoption, both in the present time and in the age to come.

In the present in the present, just briefly, as we experience a new vertical relationship with God, John Frame points out we also have a new horizontal relationship with one another. The New Testament refers to brothers and sisters in Christ in dozens of places. Many translators use the term brothers or breatherin, but generally, unless the context shows otherwise, that term always refers to the whole of a congregation, the men, the women, and the children in that congregation. Agrudum notes, It is so common in the epistles, that it is the predominant way in which New Testament authors refer to other Christians to whom they are writing, end quote. We are family, truly, not just sentimentally, but truly, brothers and sisters. Having such a large family, maybe awkward around Christmas, it can be both a blessing to us and yet provide opportunities for us as well to care for one another. Which is a really good thing because verse 17 of our text tells us that we are called to suffer with Christ, and we are called to bear one another’s burdens as we suffer for him. And we will if we firmly believe that we are in fact each other’s brothers and sisters.

We are helped with caring for and being cared by the Brethren. That’s another one of the privileges of adoption is that with that, with this gift of our heavenly Father, we are assured that he will take care of our needs. We see that over and over again throughout the scripture. He uses us as ordinary means in the care of each other’s lives, but he also gives us good gifts himself. We hear in Matthew 7:11, If then you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good gifts to those who ask? The list could go on and on, and my time run short. And I’ve only briefly alluded to the joy of the future that is to come, where we, as heirs with Christ, get to enjoy all of the blessings and the wonders that our heavenly Father has in store for us in Christ as we rejoice in the new heavens and the new Earth as heirs together. It seems then, to say this again, that when we begin to realize the genuine excellence, the true privilege, the lavish gift of adoption, in light of the fact that God was under no obligation to give us this gift of entrance into his own family, then we we can rejoice with the apostle Paul when he says, See what love the Father has for us, that we should be called children of God?

And so we are. Let us pray. Father, I thank you for opening my eyes in these last couple of weeks to the glory of adoption. Father, that you could have indeed forgiven us our sins. You could have declared us righteous. And we could simply remain as obedient servants, enjoying that status of striving to bring you glory and to minister to you as the glorious and holy one. But you’ve done more. You’ve placed your name upon us, and you have invited us into your family. And so, Father, we love you as daughters and as sons. Work the beauty of that relationship deep into our lives and help us to understand that glorious truth. And then, Father, give us conviction to live as if that was true, to understand well the beauty of adoption. We pray this in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen.

Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.