Adopted

Sermon for 3/1/2009

Ephesians 1:3-5

Adopted

Introduction:

A. Some other friends of ours, Matt and Jenny Moser, who have adopted 3 children. They were not able to have children of their own so they got involved in foster care. Through foster care, they have adopted Zi, Luke and Abbey. Luke is the most normal of the group. Zi is the oldest but he has problems with anger management. Abbey is the most challenged. She has to go to therapy 3 times a week. She was a crack baby. They had just adopted Abbey when Jenny was diagnosed with breast cancer. Many people from their church and community helped out with the 3 children while Jenny had surgery and many weeks of chemotherapy. These friends of ours have chosen to adopt children.

B. I wanted to get far away from home when I went to college. The Lord was directing my steps. The Christmas of my freshman year, my parents filed for divorce. I left home and never came back. Went to visit but home for me was no more. My college was my home. After graduation, I went to a church and ministered there. I was adopted by the Webb family.

WBTU:

A. We would probably be surprised if we knew how many people in the local congregation or at the office have family members by adoption. Some of us have brothers and sisters through adoption. Some of us have adopted children. Some of us are adopted children.

B. The only way to come into God’s family is by adoption. 3 times in the NT it talks about the subject of adoption into God’s family. All three times it is in the writings of Paul. Ephesians 1:5

C. Every Christian has God as Father. We have been adopted. We are now God’s sons and daughters. I think that one of the greatest challenges in life is to come to grips with this fact and let it work itself out in our lives.

D. Adoption into God’s f family defines the greatest of all spiritual blessings offered to mankind.

Thesis: This morning let’s talk about adoption into God’s family

For instances:

I. Adoption: It’s Meaning

A. In Ephesians 1:5 Paul uses the word adoption. Paul was drawing on something his readers understood from their world. Adoption proceedings were impressive events. The elaborate details of the ceremony taught the seriousness of the action.

B. In the early church it was a common practice to adopt children. In that society if a child was unwanted, they would just abandon the baby. Many babies died, others were raised by slave traders to be slaves. The church saw this and many times Christians would raise them and adopt them into their home.

C. William Barclay says, “When the adoption was complete it was complete indeed. The person who had been adopted had all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family and completely lost all rights in his old family. In the eyes of the law he was a new person. So new was he that even all debts and obligations connected with his previous family were abolished as if they had never existed.”

D. Before adoption we were nothing but spiritual slaves. We were horribly in debt- sold to sin, doomed to die, without hope and without God in the world. God loves us enough to free us, to save us, and to adopt us!

E. God did this for us through His Son. (John 1:12) Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--

F. (Gal 4:4 NIV) But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, (Gal 4:5 NIV) to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

G. Adoption is deliverance from the past. Adoption is being claimed by God to be His child. Adoption is something that God does for us.

H. Abraham Lincoln once passed a slave block and saw a young girl being sold. His heart melted. He put up a bid, and eventually she belonged to him. After he paid the money, he told her, “You are now free.” “What does that mean?” she asked. “It means that you’re free,” Lincoln answered. “Does that mean I can be anything I want to be?” “Yes, you can be anything you want to be.” “Does that mean I can go anywhere I want to go?” “Yes, you can go anywhere you want to go.” With tears in her eyes, the young girl looked up at Lincoln and said, “Then I’ll go with you.” God did that you. He set us free. More than that, God adopted us and made us His own child.