[8:00 a.m.] The Real Blessings of Adoption (Ephesians 1:5-7)

As we look at our scripture here, you can remain standing,

but I want to say 1 brief thing while you're still standing.

Sam's prayer prompted me to say there's some amazing things

happening in this in this church and God is on the move globally

using many of you, but we need to hear your stories.

But Sam prayed about some of those things, but we just want

to say it is incredible little stories.

What people might think is just a little little thing turns out

to be something significant for the Kingdom.

So e-mail us your stories, tell us what God is doing in your

life. Let us know and we're going to

try to figure out 1000 different ways to let you know.

But it's happening and great things are happening and we need

that encouragement. So with that, we'll be

significantly encouraged by Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

We're looking at verses 5 through 7.

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.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God you may be

seated. Let us pray.

Holy Spirit, you have called us and awakened us and allowed us

to be here at this 8:00 AM service.

So will you let the messenger be seated and let the message go

forth by the power of your Holy Spirit, only you're an errant.

Holy Word matters. So will you do whatever it takes

to encourage our souls and to challenge us and to remind us

that we are your beloved adopted sons and daughters and we pray

this in your name, Jesus, Amen. There is a spectacular book and

I hope that many of you have read this.

This is called gentle and lowly. It is phenomenal and this book

has is has rich. It is it is got the word of God

and it just squeeze all into it and it is a powerful book.

Dane Orton has is the author of this book and he has this very

provocative chapter that fits perfectly.

He he reminds us there's two ways that you can live in a

Christian life. You can live for the heart of

Christ or from the heart of Christ.

You can live for the smile of God or from the smile of God.

You can live for a new identity or from your new identity in

Christ. The battle of our Christian life

is to bring our own hearts into the alignment by the power of

the Holy Spirit into Christ's heart.

So that means every morning we start over, we have to get up

and we have to take our orphan thinking our natural mindset

that's about earning and performing in order to gain love

and let it be baptized by a complete transformation of the

Holy Spirit to remind us of our full and free adoption in the

family of God through the work of Christ.

And it this becomes something we all deal with right?

Even on Sunday mornings. Then he uses a just a little

story to remind us of how this is still true and no matter how

long you've walked with the Lord.

He talks about a a little 12 year old boy that grew up in a

healthy, loving family with parents very attentive to him

and this this boy had a wonderful family.

But one year he decided I'm going to do all I can to earn my

place in this family. How can I guarantee that I will

not be removed from this family and stay in there?

So he works on a birth certificate and and documents he

makes in his room. He determines the next week to

scrub every single part of the kitchen and make it spotless and

and every dish and every aspect of that kitchen clean.

Then he says I'm going to do whatever I can do to imitate my

dad and help my dad. So he goes and does that for a

whole week. Finally the parents go, what is

going on? What are you doing?

This is way too much. What is happening son?

And the son replies, hey mom, hey dad, I'm just doing all I

can to secure my place in the family.

That's all I'm doing guys. And his parents were like, oh

stop, stop. You had nothing to do.

You could not have earned anything to come into our

family. And you can't not lose it,

period. You are ours.

And that settles it. And though it is interesting,

funny little story, it does kind of go to the heart of how we

often, as we live our lives in this tension of living in a

world where we're having to prove it all the time, earn it

in order to have our keep and constantly being tested.

And yet, and yet, as we drill down on this amazing passage in

Ephesians, we are stunned the fact that we cannot earn our

adoption in Christ, though we would love to.

We know it is impossible and that our tendency is to always

want to be working, always wanting to live in order to to

earn it and, and pursue it and and achieve it as if we could do

something we cannot, right. We know this, we all that the

etiquette crowd knows this and you know that we are in awe of

what the Lord is doing in all of our lives, especially in this.

We're going to focus specifically on our adoption.

And yet there are times when we act like that 12 year old boy

trying to continue to earn it. But this Scripture, these two

little verses is actually part of a larger profound passage,

verses 3 through 14. This is 1 long sentence in

Greek. It's one staggering, amazing

sentence. And in in this, there's no

periods, it's just runs straight through.

And there's 202 Greek words in this one sentence between verse

3 and verse 14. And it is like a firework show

of God's grace and glory. It rolls through things like

election, predestination, redemption, forgiveness, our

inheritance, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, lions and tigers

and bears. Oh my.

It is loaded with a profound insight and every one of the

words we could spend months on. That's why we're doing two weeks

on adoption. You notice that.

And so why are we doing that? Because we're trying to really

slow it down and really understand and metabolize the

these profound theological words that are real, that are true.

It's all pointing back to the Christ, to the beloved.

It is not a it's, it's way more than a logical flow.

It's a doxology flow. It is, it is all to praise and

it always leads to the praise of His glory that God gives us in

Ephesians 3 through 14, a spectacular run through of all

the privileges we have in Christ, given by God, secured by

Christ, applied by the Holy Spirit to you and to me who are

in Christ. And so as we look at adoption in

particular, we, we are amazed how this one little word can

stump us if we're not careful. Because everything in this, in

this passage here, particularly these two verses, all goes back

to the praise of his glory in Christ, in Christ.

In fact, that little phrase in Christ is 11 times in this one

passage, 11 times. That is how they looked at

themselves. You they did not use the word

Christian very rarely. Instead, they just view

themselves for those who are in Christ really speaking to our

union. And so as we look at this, we

see many things Here we go as the Father planned it, then the

Son accomplished it and the Spirit applied it.

And so when you think about this passage in Ephesians, do you

remember the very first sermon that Mark preached?

He asked a very a very challenging, provocative

question and he actually allowed us to have silence to answer.

It was it was from the Puritan legend himself, John Owen.

Here was the question he's he asked this John Owen made a

statement that our greatest hindrance in the Christian life

is what fill in the blank. And hopefully you had that

opportunity to kind of wrestle with that.

Maybe today, maybe you missed that, but when he did that, he

gave everyone silence and they had to fill in the bike.

What would you fill in? What would you say?

I'm going to read it again. Our greatest hindrance in the

Christian life is what? And so here is the answer.

Not our lack of effort, but our lack of acquaintance with all of

our privileges. These are the privileges we have

in Christ. And so that is what John Owen

says is our greatest hindrance in the Christian life.

And may we, as we study Ephesians, find it not so

hindering anymore as we marinate in the profound reality that and

as we we become acquainted with our privileges.

The privileges are staggering that we have here and it's just

overflowing in there. In fact, I want you to think

about this as we are in this, this first week of Lent.

What if you flip the script or a thought outside the box in

these, in this season of Lent as we prepare and go all the way to

Easter? And maybe instead of giving up

something or denying yourself something, you can do that if

you want to. But what if you marinated and

wrestled and studied with the privileges that you have in

Christ? What if you went on to the

positive side of things and let the Lord reveal the staggering

privileges to be well acquainted with those as you walk all the

way through Lent into Easter? Because our adoption and our

union with Christ is a profound, profound reality.

There's no better place really for us to kind of summarize that

we can't outdo the Westminster Confession of Faith.

This was actually our profession of faith last week, if you

remember, it says this. This is helping us define

adoption. All those who are justified, all

those who are justified, God graciously guarantees to make

partakers of the grace of adoption in and for His only

Son, Jesus Christ. By this act, they are taken into

the number of God's children and enjoy the liberties and

privileges of that relationship. We are given His name, we

receive the spirit of adoption, we have access to the throne of

grace with boldness, and we're enabled to cry out ABBA Father

like a Father. He has compassion on us to

protect, provide, and to chasten, and yet never, never,

never to be cast off. But we are sealed to the day of

redemption and will inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting

salvation. It is worth another look for

sure because each phrase is loaded with hundreds of of

passages of Scripture anchored to this and if you if we dare.

It's really challenging, but I I try to how would you define it?

How would you boil it down even even more specifically if you

could. One scholar said this adoption

is the act of God whereby he makes us members of his family

and if you think about how profound that is compared to

what we were. If you are in Christ now, then

we can rejoice that we are members of His family, but we

were not that we were actually children of wrath prior to that,

as Galatians 4 says that we were not members and actually doomed

to hell. Galatians 4 says we were in

slavery in the elemental, elemental spiritual forces of

the world, but when the time had come fully, God sent a son born

of a woman born under the law to redeem those under the law, that

we might receive adoption, sonship, because you are His

sons. God sent the Spirit into His Son

into our hearts. The Spirit cries out, ABBA

Father, so you are no longer slaves, but God's children, and

since you are His child, God has made you an heir.

The contrast is staggering, is it not?

It's so good for each of us to to think again what we were and

what we are. If you have trusted in Christ,

then you have been transformed from from a child of wrath into

an adopted beloved child. Amen and Amen.

It is, it is, it is staggering when you think about that.

I hope at times I do this and I think we all do this.

We kind of hear things, we kind of let them roll off.

But this is actually what is eternally true right now.

It happened the moment of salvation for us.

And so, you know, to really kind of help us kind of wrangle in it

and think through. And I really want you to think

at the end of this sermon or later, I want you to try to

communicate to someone that you love who's who slept in and

didn't come to church today. And, and have I want you to

think, how would I define it and help explain adoption to them?

Biblical adoption as the scripture has revealed it to us.

It's helped, it's helpful to see how adoption, union with Christ,

our regeneration and justification all come in.

This is the, the kind of confluence of all of these

profound theological realities. They're they are names that we

give to the profound work of God.

And all of these, particularly justification and regeneration,

all come together in adoption. Hang with me on this, OK.

And and I want you to think with me on this.

So the wonder of the gospel is in our new identity of Christ is

really revealed in how you kind of put all these two together.

This is what Wayne Grudem says in regeneration.

We are made spiritually alive, able to relate to God in prayer

and worship, and able to hear his word and receive it with

receptive hearts. But it is possible.

Just think about this. He's kind of thinking about what

if that God could have created creatures, men and women who are

spiritually alive and yet not members of his family, not

sharing in the family privileges as adopted children.

In other words, he could have justified us and regenerated us,

but not adopted us. And so there's a little bit of a

nuance. There's a splitting of that.

And that is basically what the angels are, right?

You know, they are not, they have not been adopted into the

family of God like we have. And so these created creatures

have a separate identity apart from that adoption.

And so it is possible then that you could, that the Lord and his

Providence could have regenerated us without adopting

us with their privileges. But he did not.

He did adopt us and he could have, he could have justified

us. He could have justified us and

set us and and wiped the slate clean and yet not making us

children as well. So just think about how all

those come together. They have all different aspects

of it. But notice it's like he did.

He justified us, regenerated us and adopted us.

All those things coming at us at the same time.

That is unbelievable when you think about that, because he

could have done it so many different ways.

He could have. You know, regeneration is how

God makes those who are spiritually dead come alive.

He makes dead men live. Justification has to do with our

standing before God, our legal declaration by the judge, our

God, that sinners are declared righteous not because they are,

but because He declares them righteous and credits or imputes

to them. But adoption is unique in the

relationship. That's right in the relationship

because it is that intimacy in that relationship.

He folds us into this family and and in our family, we have now

been a part at the minute of our salvation into adopted family

for all of eternity. And we don't deserve any of

this. So there's a lot of ways the

Lord and his prophets could have taken this, But instead he

bundles them together in a staggering in our union with

Christ and puts it all for us. And and Ephesians is reminding

us of this in this one incredibly long, spectacular

sentence. It's the longest sentence in the

New Testament. So as we look and understand our

adoptions, we think through how much he loves us as he we think

through we have been set free and given access to the throne

of grace, all because we have the past like we're with Christ,

we're we're with him. We have special access because

the blood of the covenant for us has been shed and therefore we

have peace with God and our beloved adopted.

And so as Romans 8 says, we did not receive the spirit of

slavery leading us back to fear, but we have received the spirit

of adoption as sons and daughters with crowd ABBA

Father, the spirit bears witness to to us with our spirit that we

are children of God and if we're children, heirs and if we're

heirs, fellow heirs, provided we suffer with him in order that we

may be glorified with him this week.

Think about you are Co heirs with Christ and receive an

inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled.

No one can touch it. That is a staggering gift.

I don't think there's any good comparison on earth.

No matter what you would say, nothing matters.

This far outweighs anything that earthly examples or comparisons.

And that's why Ji Packer says adoption is the crowning

blessing to which justification? Justification clears the way.

That is amazing. That's a lot better than being

adopted by Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or any rich mega

billionaire, right? They can't offer in it.

No human can offer this even if they pour all their billions on

us. No one could receive the

inheritance of Co heirs with Christ.

No one. This is spectacular.

But the Father plan the Son accomplished in the Spirit

applies and secures to us all for the praise of His glory.

So in the last few minutes here, I want you to be honest and

think through how is it this is true in my head that my heart

drifts. Prone to wander, prone to lead

the God we love, prone to start over every day and go.

My orphan mindset is creeped back in as we start our day.

It is a longest journey right from our head to our heart.

And we know this, if we're honest, and I hope you are, this

goes so deep into our identity as who we are and whose we are.

Again, we can either live for the heart of Christ or from the

heart of Christ. We can either live for the smile

of God or from it. How how do we do this?

How do we sort of beat it into our hearts?

This is true. This is true.

There's this an amazing archaeological find and all

throughout Israel and really all over the Middle East.

It's alive. They're finding new things every

day, sometimes in the middle of war.

And you may go there 10 years. You may have been Israel maybe

20 years ago. If you go there now, they'll be

stunning new discoveries and archaeological digs.

They found a fascinating place in northern Jordan near the

Syrian border several years ago. They found an underground church

underneath an existing church. And so it it's a Saint George's

church, dates about 2:30 AD And somehow they dug underneath that

and they found yet another church, what they think is an

original meeting spot, because it was hidden, it was in sort of

underground, submerged, and it would kept them from being

persecuted. And they found this mosaic in

there. And on the mosaic it was

written, it was the 70 beloved by God, that their identity was

encapsulated. And like, who am I?

I am 1, beloved by God. And that's who for all of us, I

hope we can say, yes, Lord, that is my new identity.

And I embrace it as an heir with you as one beloved by God.

So think about your how your identity is changed and how you

think about yourself and push it.

How do we push it down into our fickle hearts?

So what I would love to do I cannot do right now, which is I

would love after this worship service is over with or even

after communion is to have a a small group, OK, a little small

group study right. And it'd be very confidential.

Just a few of you. And then we could all do this

and we could all talk about honestly, do I really believe

that I'm adopted beloved Co heir with Christ?

And if I don't, how can sharing with one another, encouraging

when they're sharpening one another help us get to that

place because it is if we really embraced it, we might live very

differently. Now there might be several of

you and I wouldn't be surprised that you do embrace it and you

love it and you walk with the Lord and I say amazing Amen.

And now you can lead a small group to help the rest of us

understand and process. How is it sometimes these

profound truths can only be really pushed from our head down

to our heart by our awareness that we don't actually believe

it. We struggle with it and our

awareness to say I need help, I need, I need wisdom, I need time

and safety to admit the gap in my own heart.

Or is adoption and our struggle to embrace adoption actually

have something to do with something even more hidden or

nefarious, which is maybe there's something in our family

of origin or the way we relate to our father or the way in our

family brokenness. It's hard to build trust.

This is actually true. If you're like me, if you've had

a really kind of broken family situation, you did not have a

good father or something terrible happened, it's harder

to embrace these truths because you have fortified your own soul

to kind of guard against being hurt.

That's a very simplistic way to say this, but basically the

brokenness of our family of origins sometimes makes it very

difficult to embrace the truth of this gospel, especially in

familial ways, ways where God our Father and we're the adopted

son or daughter. And so if if that is happening,

that is worth going to counseling, that is worth going

to process where, why does the gap exist?

Like mind the gap. Think about where you really are

with the Lord. Be honest, name it and bring it

out. The Lord knows He's not shocked

about anything. The deepest worst part of you,

He knows he's just waiting for you to come bring it and name it

and reveal it to him and work with him in the power of the

Holy Spirit for healing. You might be thinking, if I'm

God's child, then why don't I feel like it?

If I'm adopted then why do does God seem so far away from me?

I, I believe God, I know he does, but I feel like he just

tolerates me or just like this is what he should do versus me

as an individual. The particularity of him

choosing each of us is no mistake.

It is His direct personal invitation to us for the

foundations of the world, says Ephesians.

And he designates and ordains us to be his children, adopted

children of God. Do not let anything, the world,

the flesh, the devil, Satan or shame or your broken families,

the origin, anything, get in the way of embracing all of it

because this is what we need. So until we have our small

group, until we process honestly, confidentially, will

you take up that challenge and go, OK, I'm just going to be

honest and I'm going to tell somebody and I'm going to work

on this. And I really want you to think

and and meditate on this passage, this three through 14,

memorize it, digest it, let it metabolize in your soul so that

when Easter comes along, you are embracing deeper the wonder of

being adopted by our Lord and Savior.

Let's pray, Father God, if we have nothing on our own, so

we're asking you to come and do something miraculous.

Oh, Lord, remind us again this free grace that has come to us,

where you put your name on us, that you give us the spirit of

adoption that cries out ABBA Father, and you make us heirs of

all these promises. How can it be?

Oh Lord, how can it be? Help us to understand it and

embrace it and fall in love with you.

Oh Father, have your way with us.

We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.