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)
One of the commonest and most damaging criticisms of Christianity is the charge that Christians do not live up to their faith. Even though the world has a limited and often distorted idea of what the gospel is, they know enough about the teachings of Christ and the life of Christ to realize that most people who go by His name do not do all that He commanded and do not live as He lived.
Please turn to Galatians 4
Even a person who has never heard of Christ or the teachings of the New Testament would suspect there is divine power behind a life that loves and cares even to the point of loving enemies-simply because such a life is so utterly uncharacteristic of human nature. A life of self-giving love gives evidence of sonship of the Father who is in heaven. That phrase emphasizes the heavenly realm in which the Lord dwells, the realm that is the source of this kind of love.
Galatians 4:3-7 [3]In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. [4]But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, [5]to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. [6]And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" [7]So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (ESV)
Please turn to Heb. 12
In the Church, Baptism is a family ordinance in the sense that it is a sign of identification for those in God’s family. The Lord’s table is the family meal. Those who are not Christians are not to participate in either for they would be foolishness to them. Our examination of Church disciple last week is the corporate correction in the family. Individually:
Hebrews 12:4-11 [4]In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. [5]And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. [6]For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." [7]It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? [8]If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. [9]Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? [10]For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. [11]For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (ESV)
A presentation of the nature of adoption is a great summary of the gospel itself. It declares 1) Our need, in being in bondage to sin (Gal. 4:3). It shows 2) God’s provision (Gal. 4:4-5) and 3) Our response in trusting Christ as savior:
Galatians 3:26 [26]for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (ESV)
God the father through His love adopted us with the responsibilities and privileges as sons:
Romans 8:15-16 [15]For 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!" [16]The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, (ESV)
• The Holy Spirit Himself testifies to us a being God’s children.
• Not merely a positional benefit, this was a most tender acceptance into His family. Yet it is not complete:
Romans 8:23 [23]And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (ESV)
Those who are God’s children should show impartial love and care similar to what God shows. He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust
Those blessings are given without respect to merit or deserving. If they were, no one would receive them. In what theologians traditionally have called common grace, God is indiscriminate in His benevolence. His divine love and providence in some forms benefit everyone, even those who rebel against Him or deny His existence.
Illustration: How does adoption change things? Here’s a secular example:
In 1952 a probation officer in New York City tried to find an organization that would assist in the adoption of a twelve-year-old boy. Although the child had a religious background, none of the major denominations would assist in his adoption. Said the officer later, “His case had been reported to me because he had been truant. I tried for a year to find an agency that would care for this needy youngster. Neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jewish institutions would take him because he came from a denomination they did not recognize. I could do nothing constructive for him.”
If the principles of Christian love had prevailed in the Bronx in 1952, perhaps a good home could have been found for that young, mixed-up lad. In fact, providing a better environment in which to grow up might have changed history. For, you see, the boy was Lee Harvey Oswald: The man who assionated John F. Kennedy(Green, M. P. (1989). Illustrations for Biblical Preaching : Over 1500 sermon illustrations arranged by topic and indexed exhaustively (Revised edition of: The expositor’s illustration file). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.)
Jesus calls us to 1) RECOGNIZE YOUR SONSHIP (Matthew 5:45)
2) EXCEED THEIR SONSHIP (Matthew 5:46-47)
Matthew 5:46-47 [46]For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? [47]And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (ESV)
If the scribes and Pharisees were certain of any one thing it was that they were far better than everyone else.
But Jesus again cuts through their blind hypocrisy and shows that their type of love is nothing more than the ordinary self-centered love that was common even to tax-gatherers and Gentiles-to whom the scribes and Pharisees thought they were most undeniably superior.
Those were probably the most devastating and insulting words these religious leaders had ever heard, and they must have been enraged. Tax-gatherers were traitorous extortioners, and almost by definition were dishonest, heartless, and irreligious. In the eyes of most Jews, Gentiles were outside the pale of God’s concern and mercy, fit only for destruction as His enemies and the enemies of those who thought they were His people.
This is a rhetorical question. Jesus is not asking what the reward is, but is rather pointing out forcefully that loving those who love you will not bring a reward. (Newman, B. M., & Stine, P. C. (1992). A handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. Originally published: A translator’s handbook on the Gospel of Matthew, c1988. UBS helps for translators; UBS handbook series (154). New York: United Bible Societies)
If you love those who love you, and that is the same type of love that even the tax-gatherers and the Gentiles exhibit. “Your righteousness,” He charged, “is therefore no better than theirs.”
It is important to note that in the Jewish context the greeting is more than a gesture of hello; it expresses a desire for the peace and welfare of the one greeted. (Newman, B. M., & Stine, P. C. (1992). A handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. Originally published: A translator’s handbook on the Gospel of Matthew, c1988. UBS helps for translators; UBS handbook series (155). New York: United Bible Societies.)
The citizens of God’s kingdom are to have a much higher standard of love, and of every other aspect of righteousness, than does the rest of the world. Christians should be noticed on the job because they are more honest and more considerate. Christians should be noticed in their communities because they are more helpful and caring. Christians should be noticed anywhere in society they happen to be because the love they exhibit is a divine love. “Let your light shine before men,” Jesus had already said, “in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).
• This is the reflection of the Sermon on the Mount. The natural man thinks that he is not guilty before God if he is just a little better than another or if he does not commit the physical offence. Yet he is never poor in spirit, he never mourns because of his sinfulness. He never sees the depravity that needs redemption.
• Unless one sees the nature of depravity, there is no need understood for salvation
Quote: As J. Oswald Sanders comments, “The Master expects from His disciples such conduct as can be explained only in terms of the supernatural.”
Please turn to Romans 3
People often use the declaration “No one’s perfect” as their basis for self-justification: “No one’s perfect, and God must know I’m doing the best I can.” In reality, “No one’s perfect, and no one does the best they can either” (see Romans 3:9–20). As long as we give credibility to our own feeble efforts at righteousness, we will never recognize our desperate need for a Savior.(Barton, B. B. (1996). Matthew. Life application Bible commentary (107). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.)
Romans 3:9-20 [9]What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, [10]as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; [11]no one understands; no one seeks for God. [12]All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." [13]"Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." [14]"Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."[15]"Their feet are swift to shed blood; [16]in their paths are ruin and misery, [17]and the way of peace they have not known." [18]"There is no fear of God before their eyes." [19]Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [20]For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (ESV)
Please turn to 1 Jn. 3
Our study with Mt. 23, Lk. 23 over the past few weeks has shown us that our Righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees. It must not be a moralism of just external action but internal righteousness. On that standard, we must realize our sinfulness and need of a savior.
• It is not an infused or externally achieved righteousness that we need.
• It is an imputed positional righteousness credited to our account that we need.
1 John 3:8-10 [8]Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. [9]No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. [10]By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (ESV)
What happens when we pattern our Sonship on those around us?
Illustration: 4276 Imitating Each Other Or Christ
In the British Museum a Greek writing tablet, earlier than the Christian era, is shown. It is the classical equivalent of a child’s copybook. The headline has been written by the master. The scholar has traced the second with his eye upon the first; but afterwards each line is a reproduction, not of the first writing, but of the last. Consequently, each line shows a wider divergence from the pattern than the one before.
Is not this one cause of the broken character of our holiness—that we imitate one another, or reproduce our familiar inperfections, instead of portraying the fair likeness of Jesus Christ? (Tan, P. L. (1996, c1979). Encyclopedia of 7700 illustrations : A treasury of illustrations, anecdotes, facts and quotations for pastors, teachers and Christian workers. Garland TX: Bible Communications.)
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)
Matthew 5:48 [48]You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (ESV)
Once we recognize our total depravity or radical corruption, we come to a realization:
Philippians 3:12-14 [12]Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. [13]Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, [14]I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. [15]Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. (ESV)
The sum of all that Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount-in fact, the sum of all He teaches in Scripture-is in those words. The great purpose of salvation, the goal of the gospel, and the great yearning of the heart of God is for all men to become like Him.
Teleios (perfect) basically means to reach an intended end or a completion and is often translated “mature” (1 Cor. 2:6; 14:20; Eph. 4:13; etc.). But the meaning here is obviously that of perfection, because the heavenly Father is the standard. The “sons of [the] Father” (v. 45) are to be perfect, as [their] heavenly Father is perfect. That perfection is absolute perfection.
• Perfect in the Greek has the meaning of having come to completion or wholeness; it can refer to maturity or to moral and ethical integrity, that is, to being flawless. (Newman, B. M., & Stine, P. C. (1992). A handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. Originally published: A translator’s handbook on the Gospel of Matthew, c1988. UBS helps for translators; UBS handbook series (156). New York: United Bible Societies.)
Jesus wants us to understand that perfection is also utterly impossible in man’s own power. How Jesus can demand the impossible? He later says:
Matthew 19:26 [26]But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (ESV)
That which God demands, He provides the power to accomplish. Man’s own righteousness is possible, but is so imperfect that it is worthless; God’s righteousness is impossible for the very reason that it is perfect. But the impossible righteousness becomes possible for those who trust in Jesus Christ, because He gives them His righteousness. Echoing Lev. 19:2:
1 Peter 1:15 [15]but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, (ESV)
Deuteronomy 18:13 [13]You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, (ESV)
Ephesians 5:1 [5:1]Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. (ESV)
That is precisely our Lord’s point in all these illustrations and in the whole sermon-to lead His audience to an overpowering sense of spiritual bankruptcy, to a “beatitude attitude” that shows them their need of a Savior, an enabler who alone can empower them to meet God’s standard of perfection.
Considering all that Jesus had said in this chapter, the perfection Jesus required of his followers did not include strict and flawless obedience to minute laws. It called instead for an understanding of how the law pointed to the heavenly Father who is himself perfect. The law itself was not the standard of perfection, God was. Those who loved God and desired to follow him would keep his law as he required. But they did this not on their own strength or to put themselves above others. They did this not because they were already perfect, but because they were striving to be perfect, to reflect their Father’s character.
As followers of Jesus Christ, how can we be perfect?
• In character. In this life we cannot be flawless, but we can aspire to be as much like Christ as possible.
• In holiness. Like the Pharisees, we are to separate ourselves from the world’s sinful values. Unlike the Pharisees, we are to devote ourselves to God’s desires rather than our own and carry his love and mercy into the world.
• In maturity. We can’t achieve Christlike character and holy living all at once, but we must grow toward maturity and wholeness. Just as we expect different behavior from a baby, a child, a teenager, and an adult, so God expects different behavior from us, depending on our stage of spiritual development.
• In love. We can seek to love others as completely as God loves us.
(Barton, B. B. (1996). Matthew. Life application Bible commentary (106). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.)
Please turn to Hebrews 5
We are not to wallow in frustration in spiritual bankruptcy. We are to strive for holiness. The same work for perfection, is translated as maturity here:
Ephesians 4:11-13 [11]And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, [12]to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, [13]until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, (ESV)
Hebrews 5:11-6:1 [11]About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. [12]For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, [13] for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. [14]But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. [6:1]Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (ESV)
Our tendency to sin must never deter us from striving to be more like Christ. The message of the Sermon on the Mount is that Christ calls all of his disciples to excel, to rise above mediocrity, and to mature in every area, becoming like him. The Christian’s High Calling cannot be met by those who attempt to do so on their own strength—only through the Holy Spirit. Those who strive to become like Christ will ultimately experience sinless perfection, even as Christ is perfect
1 John 3:2-3 [2]Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. [3]And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (ESV)).
