 Please Pray for Our Troops and Missionaries Around the World.
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This past Sunday we noted that November is the ‘National Adoption Month’. Thousands of children are waiting for ‘forever-families’. The greatest gift a child can receive, besides life, is the love of a parent. For many children across the world, that parental love begins with a couple's choice to adopt. Through adoption, children with no home and a bleak future find security and stability in a welcoming, functional family — and grow up knowing they were chosen. Like I said Sunday, of all the people on the face of this planet, we Christians ought to be the first to consider caring for those who need a home. Two years ago, my family began the process for international adoption. I struggled with it until God spoke clearly to me from His word: For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me... (Matt. 25:35) From that point on, all my fears and apprehensions were taken away. I was amazed this past Sunday at how many of our own congregation stood when I asked how many are adopted or have adopted children. This encouraged me greatly to realize that MOBC has had and is cultivating a “culture open to adoption.” Did you know that the deepest and strongest foundation of adoption is located not in the act of humans adopting humans, but in God adopting humans? This act is at the heart of the gospel! Galatians 4:4-5 is a central gospel statement: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” God did not have to use the concept of adoption to explain how he saved us or even how we become part of his family. God chose to speak of us as adopted as well as being children by new birth. This is the most essential foundation of the practice of adoption.
This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for so much. For God’s forever family, which was been made possible because of God’s redemptive act and the spirit of adoption. I am also thankful for my own family. Our family was truly enriched by our own experience with adoption. On March 14, 2006, God above gave Joseph to the Cobb family here below. Our own little “Asian cowboy” has enriched our lives and been a source of great blessing since that day.
Here are eight similarities between what God did in adopting us and when a Christian considers adopting a child today. May God use these comparisons to heighten your confidence that He is graciously involved in the adoption process. God has done it himself. He knows what it costs. Moreover, he stands ready to support us all the way to the end.
When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4-5) To redeem means to obtain or to set free by paying a price. What was the price that God paid for our deliverance and adoption? It cost God the price of his Son’s life. (Galatians 3:13). There are huge costs in adopting children. Some are financial; some are emotional. There are costs in time and stress for the rest of your life. You never stop being a parent until you die. In addition, the stresses of caring about adult children can be as great, or greater, than the stresses of caring for young children. There is something very deep and right about the embrace of this cost for the life of a child! When people embrace the pain and joy of children rather than using abortion or birth control simply to keep children away, the worth of Christ shines more visibly. Adoption is diametrically opposite as possible from the mindset that rejects children as an intrusion. Praise God for people ready to embrace the suffering—known and unknown. God’s cost to adopt us was infinitely greater than any cost we will endure in adopting and raising children.
When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:4-6). There were legal realities God had to deal with. His own justice and law demanded that we be punished and excluded from his presence for our sins. Righteousness was required and punishment demanded. God had to satisfy his justice and his law in order to adopt sinners into his family. This he did by the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ. John Piper adds, “This means that the status of being a son legally preceded the experience of the Spirit coming to give us the affections of sons. We are legally sons before we experience the joy of sonship. The object work of our salvation (two thousand years ago at So it is with our adopting children today: The legal transactions precede and under gird the growth of family feelings. If the legal red tape seems long and hard, keep in mind that this tape is not yet red with your blood, but Jesus satisfied all the legal demands precisely by shedding his blood.
Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6). 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. (Romans 8:15-16) Therefore, in adopting us, God give us the very Spirit of his Son and grants us to feel the affections of belonging to the very family of God. In the mercy of God, in our families God works to awaken affections in adopted children for their parents that are far more than legal outcomes. They are deeply personal and spiritual bonds. Adopted children do not infer that they are our children by checking out the adoption papers. A spirit pervades our relationship that bears witness to this reality. Like the other children in the family, they all cry, “Daddy.” When Joseph sees a picture of me and says, ‘that’s my daddy’ it makes me smile. We should all GIVE THANKS to God that He gives us both legal standing as his children and the very Spirit of his Son so that we find ourselves saying from a heart of deep conviction, “Abba, Father” and hope that makes Him smile.
All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” (Romans 8:14) God does not leave his children without help to bear the moral image of the family. We may trust that his help will be there for our children as we bring them under the means of grace that God uses to awaken and transform his children. May they see enough of Jesus in us to be drawn to Him. Even adopted kids begin look like their parents because facial expressions are learned. Similarities are passed on. May my passion for God’s glory and His incredible gospel be passed on to transform my children and not the flaws of my flesh.
Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (Galatians 4:6-7). 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. (Romans 8:16-17) Soon, we need to update our wills. Why? Because with Joseph, a lot had changed since the last time we made out our wills. This was a reminder to us that he will inherit like Joshua and Joanna. He is not in a lesser child because he is adopted. All inherit together. That's the way God did it.
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 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. (Ephesians 1:4-6) Adoption in God’s mind was not Plan B. He predestined us for adoption before the creation of the world. Plan A was not lots of children who never sin and never need to be redeemed. Plan A was creation, fall, redemption, adoption so that the full range of God’s glory, mercy, and grace could be known by his adopted children. Adoption was not second best. It was planned from the beginning. In our lives, there is something uniquely precious about having children by birth. There is also something different, but also uniquely precious, about adopting children. Each has its own uniqueness. Your choice to adopt children may be in sequence second (like our family). However, that does not have to be secondary. It can be as precious and significant as having children by birth. God is able to make adoption and A+ plan in our lives. Those who couldn’t have kids but now through adoption do, understand this wonder.
We . . . were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:3). God did not find us like an abandoned bundle of cuteness lying on the front steps as the movies portray it. He found us dreadful, evil, and rebellious. We were not attractive. We would not be easy children to deal with. What’s worse, God himself was angry with us, for He hates sin and rebellion. We forget in all our ‘therapeutic’ Christianity the implications of original sin. The fact God would chose any of us is an act of Amazing Grace (
The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. Not only the creation, but also we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:22-23). It all will be worth it in the sweet forever family of heaven. For information and help for those considering adoption, check out our website at www.mobcknox.org One way we can Engage the Culture is by actively in presenting the gospel to ‘strangers’ of God… trusting that the miracle of redeeming love that we are so thankful for will be expressed towards them. Pray that they are captured by the love of Almighty God who stands ready to ‘Adopt all who respond in faith’ to His offer of eternal adoption--His forever love. “Oh, give thanks to the LORD; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!” (Ps. 105:1) Gratefully yours this thanksgiving, Pastor Deron and Family |
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