Being God's Adopted Children.

Being God’s Adopted Children

Morning my name is Andrew. You may have seen me around here looking at work that has been done when the men have been in painting or fixing the bathrooms. I became a Christian when I was the same age as some of you sixteen I am now 53 years old, still a young man.

I understand today is family Sunday. Families can be strange things, mine has been pretty dysfunctional and messy at times. But the Bible tells me about how God has done a wonderful thing for all of us because of his son Jesus. It says this!

“Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.” ( From around Ephesians 1:3-10 Message).

This is an interesting thing that passage says is that we all would be in the thoughts of God. Sometimes I have wondered if anyone was thinking of me, God’s word tells me that long, long ago that he decided to adopt me into his family through Jesus. He planned this for all of us.

Jesus tells us that he came so that we could have life in all its fullness. (John 10:10)

The thing I have discovered since I became a Christian is that I have life in all it’s fullness. I don’t have all the material things I want, but I have all the things I need. I have this huge extended family of people that I know love me because Jesus loved them also. God in his goodness planned this, because he loved us, he made it possible through Jesus life and death and resurrection.

What I also know is that God’s Holy Spirit is my comforter, guide, helper and friend and that because of this I am never alone as I respond to his leading.

So I have been adopted into this family, and as such I have all these family members who also have Jesus as their brother, with our Heavenly Father as their Father, some people here are my sisters by adoption, they may not have realised it, Mrs, DeSilva, Major Vajira, even my Father and Mother in law are my brother and sister in Christ, funny that. Because of Jesus even old enemies become brothers. I have read stories about men who have been at war with one another who in finding Jesus as their saviour have become close friends, as sons of the living God. It is my hope for you also that you will find yourselves to be family with one another as you accept your adoption into God’s family.

In Christ we are new creations, children of God not because of something that human hands have done but because God the Father wants us to be his children, so that he can love us and prove his love for us. You are loved and cared for by God the creator, you can be his children.