Love Your Enemies To Show That You Are Children Of God Series

Celebrity Adoption is all the rage — the more exotic the setting the better. Angelina Jolie became the poster child for international adoption, traveling the world to rescue babies from tough places. Mohawked son Maddox was first, adopted from Cambodia in 2002. After Brad Pitt signed on as dad, the couple added Ethiopian daughter Zahara and one of their own making, Shiloh. In early 2007, the Jolie-Pitt clan grew again, this time with three-year-old Pax from Vietnam. Many thought Madonna went a step too far when she whisked into the African nation of Malawi — where there are no set adoption laws — and walked off with a baby boy. After a professed epiphany in India, Meg Ryan deemed herself "destined to adopt a baby." Ten years and a trip across the globe later, it finally happened. Like so many adopting parents, Ryan headed to China when domestic proceedings lagged. The child, who Ryan originally named Charlotte, is now called Daisy. Rocker Sheryl Crow decided she didn’t need a man to be a mom. After a series of failed relationships -- Eric Clapton, Kid Rock and Lance Armstrong -- the rocker announced in May 2007 that she adopted a two-week old baby boy. "(From http://slideshow.ivillage.com/entertainment/celebrity_adoptions/family_ties.html)

Our view of adoption is so skewed by our culture. Let me show you with one example. How many here are doing the exact same work as their father. In the history that preceded us, in an agrarian and craftsman society, people adopted into or were naturally born into the family business. If your father was a baker, you became a baker and if there were no kids, an appretence was accepted into the family. The appretence took on the family name, was taught the family trade, and was expected to uphold the family honor.

We are born into this world into the family of Adam. We inherit a legacy of sin. God though his grace adopts people into His family. They take on the name of the family, are given the family knowledge, are protected, fed and expected to uphold the family honor.

What difference can this concept make in peoples lives today. How do we deal with bigotry, loneliness, insecurity and the fundamental needs of the human heart? How do we get beyond our own failings as fathers or not having a father that was Godly? How do we deal with a society where fathers are optional and families are fractured? For those who God has granted faith, we do so by recognizing our adoption into His family. As with any adoption, there are privileges and responsibilities. Through our election (Eph. 1:4-5) we were adopted into the family of God.

When Jesus taught His followers to pray (Mt. 6), He told them to address God as father. What difference can understanding God as father, Christ as brother, and His Church as brothers and sisters, make in your life? Understanding Kingdom Love and who are ultimate father is, can change every relationship and your fundamental understanding of who you are, what is expected of you, and what awesome resources and privileges you have.

In Matthew 5:45-48 Jesus talks about a kind of Love in a new family:

Jesus calls us to:1) RECOGNIZE YOUR SONSHIP (Matthew 5:45) 2) EXCEED THEIR SONSHIP (Matthew 5:46-47) 3) MANIFEST PERFECT SONSHIP (Matthew 5:48)

1) RECOGNIZE YOUR SONSHIP (Matthew 5:45)

Matthew 5:45 [45]so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (ESV)

To love our enemies and to pray for our persecutors shows that we are sons of [our] Father who is in heaven.

• Sonship indicated inheritance rights, privileges, benefits and obligations.

The aorist tense of gençsthe (may be) indicates a once and for all established fact. God Himself is love, and the greatest evidence of our divine sonship through Jesus Christ is our love. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). In fact, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (v. 20).

Loving as God loves does not make us sons of the Father, but gives evidence that we already are His children. When a life reflects God’s nature it proves that life now possesses His nature by the new birth. Jesus described this reality earlier:

Matthew 5:9 [9]"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (ESV)