OPEN: I read the true story of a woman who explained that her favorite spot at the local zoo was the “House of Night”, where nocturnal creatures crawled and flew about.
She said “One very bright day, I stepped into the exhibit and was plunged into total darkness. Almost immediately, a small hand grabbed mine.”
“And who do you belong to?” she asked.
A little boy’s voice spoke in the darkness: “I’m yours till the lights come on.” (Connie Lavoie Readers Digest 3/09, p. 165)
APPLY: I’m yours till the lights come on.
I’ll belong to you til then.
(pause) Who do you belong to?
The Bible tells us we have a choice as to who we belong to.
You can either belong to God, or you can belong to … the other guy.
You have a choice.
But the Bible is also clear on a very specific point:
You didn’t choose God first, He chose you.
As 1 John 4:19 tells us “We love him, because he first loved us.”
And this is especially clear when we discuss this issue of adoption in Scripture.
God adopted YOU… you didn’t adopt Him.
When Paul uses the imagery of adoption he’s talking about how the Romans practiced it. In ancient Rome (just like today) the Roman family chose the child they wanted to adopt. As part of the adoption, there was a special ceremony where the adopting father went to one of the Roman judges and presented a legal case to justify his right to adopt the child into his own household.
This ceremony was called the “vindicatio”.
William Barclay says that when this ceremony was complete,
In the eyes of the law he was a new person. So new… that even all debts and obligations connected with his previous family were abolished as if they had never existed.”
In other words, once a person went thru this vindicatio ceremony - every debt he ever had was erased as if it never existed.
Now look at that word – “vindicatio”.
Does it look kind of like an English word you know?
What about “vindicate”, or “vindication”?
One of my dictionaries defines vindicate as “to clear of accusation… to absolve… to justify”
(The Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary)
And isn’t that what God did for us when we became Christians?
* He cleared us of any accusation of our guilt and shame
* And He absolved us/ forgave us all of our iniquities and failures.
* He justified us so that it was “just as if we’d never sinned”
o WE WERE VINDICATED by God who chose us to be adopted as His children.
But now, there was another part of this adoption process. It seems a simple thing, but it was required then, as it’s often required now. In order to adopt this child as his own, the adoptive father had to pay a price.
1 Corinthians 6:20 says God did that for us “you were bought at a price…”
Do you realize that if you adopt a child today, it can cost several 1000 dollars???
But I Peter 1:18-19 says “… it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”
(pause)
Who do you belong to?
If God has purchased you with the precious blood of Jesus, then you should belong to Him. And there are all kinds of wonderful things that come along with being His.
1st When you belong to God, you have something special inside you.
Romans 8:11 says that now that you’re adopted, His Spirit lives within you.
And the first beautiful thing about this is that - because God’s Spirit is INSIDE you - He’s always there.
He’ll never leave you or forsake you.
He’s right there with you… all the time.
He’ll be there when you’re so filled with joy you can’t contain it…
And He’ll be there when life has brought you down so low you can hardly lift your head.
And not only that, Romans 8:11 says “…he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”
With God’s Spirit resting inside you, you have access to God’s power when dealing with life’s difficulties. Its’ that power which gives us the edge on Satan.
As 1 John 4:4 tells us “… greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
ILLUS: A friend of mine compared this idea to 2 people about to take part in a race. One of those people is you, and you’re sitting there inside of a muscle car.
All kinds of power under the hood and all you have to do is start the engine and put your foot on the pedal.
The other person in the race is Satan… and he’s sitting there on a bicycle. Now on his bike, Satan is faster than you are on foot. But greater is He that’s in you (God), than he that’s in the world (Satan).
You’ve got the muscle car... he’s got the bike.
Of course, the problem for a lot of Christians is that they try to rely on their own strength to win the race. They may sit there in a muscle car, but somehow it seems unfair or irrational to start the engine and run the course… so they get out and push the car instead, because they believe that their success should depend entirely upon their own efforts.
But they’re never win the race that way… not if they don’t rely on God’s power. And that power is what we’ve received from God when He adopted us.
The 2nd thing you received when you were adopted was that you become an heir.
ILLUS: Bible Scholar F.F. Bruce pointed out that in ancient Rome, a son was “deliberately chosen by his adoptive father to perpetuate his name and inherit his estate.”
When God adopted you he did so to perpetuate His name.
What are we called?
Christians. That means we belong to Christ.
We bear His name.
And we’ve inherited His estate. We have fallen heir to all the blessings of God both on earth and in heaven.
Usually when you’re an heir, what has to happen in order for you to receive your inheritance?
That’s right, someone has to die.
And someone did die!
Jesus did.
And because Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave, you and I have access to all kinds of blessings from God.
Now, that includes our future in heaven… but it also blessings on this earth right now.
As one person put it: “Faith isn’t just pie in the sky when we die, but is also steak on the plate while we wait.”
Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all— how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
ILLUS: A man once described it this way.
Let’s say that a very rich man in town approaches you and says how much he admires you and he wants to give you a gift. He hands you a check for a $1 million. Of course, to cash this check you’ll need to endorse it – but you don’t have a pen. So you ask the rich man for a pen.
Do you suppose he’d give it to you?
Do you think a man who has just given you a check for a $1million would hesitate to give you a $3 pen?
How will he - who gave you such an enormous gift - not give you, along with that, any thing else you could possibly need?
That’s what Romans 8:32 says “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all— how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
You see, because you are an heir of God thru Jesus Christ, you now have access to ALL the promises of God.
Now, because God’s Spirit lives in us - and because we have been made heirs of God - we have a 3rd advantage. And it’s found in Romans 8:15. Look there with me.
“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, <"Abba,> Father.”
ILLUS: You remember the story about the little boy in the “House of Darkness” at the beginning of the sermon?
Why did he grab that woman’s hand?
Fear.
And his fear disappeared only when he was able to hold of the hand of that woman.
That’s what Romans 8:15 is saying: We can handle fear of our lives because we have the right (as adopted children) to grab hold of our Father’s hand.
Now, there ARE Christians who are fearful, but this passage says that the more we know about what God has given us, the less we fall prey to fear.
ILLUS: In fact, do you know what the most common command is in Scripture?
“Do not be afraid.”
That command is found 365 times in the Bible.
One for every day of the year.
You see, the reason we can face this world without fear is because:
Greater is He that within me than He that’s in this world.
AND, greater are the blessings He can give me than those that world can bestow.
Every time I remember the power of God inside me, and the blessings He’s promised to give
* I push back against the fear of the unknown – because God is with me.
* I push back against the fear of loss and failure – because He promised to take care of me.
* I push back against the fear of being rejected - because He’s always with me.
That’s one of the hallmarks of the power of Christianity: Our ability to overcome fear.
ILLUS: Last year, an atheist wrote an intriguing article in the London Times. (12/27/08, presented with some editing). He had gone to observe one of the charities for the Times in Malawi, Africa. But while he was there he observed something he said “confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.”
“I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
“I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It’s a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.
But this doesn’t fit the facts.
Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.
“…We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers.
(One of the problems in Africa he noted was:) “Anxiety - fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things - strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and - call it fear or respect - a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won’t take the initiative, won’t take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders
(by contrast) “The Christians were always different. Their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life.
They stood tall.”
(Matthew Parris, London TimesOnline 12/2708)
Why would they stand tall?
Why were they “liberated and relaxed?”
Why were they “lively and engaged in the world around them?”
Why? Because they believed in a God who was “in them” and greater than he that was in the world. They believed in a God who had promised to bless them and work in their lives.
Even an atheist can see this.
(pause) So who do you belong to?
Now, we mentioned earlier, that God first loved us. We didn’t adopt Him… He adopted us.
But from that truth, some have gotten the mistaken idea that since God has chosen us, we can’t do anything chose Him.
But that’s not true.
John 1:12-13 tells us “…to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—
children born not of natural descent (you can’t be born a Christian)
nor of human decision (you can’t just decide you’re good enough to be adopted)
or a husband’s will (no one else can make that decision for you), but born of God.
And Galatians 3:26-27 tells us
“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
So, he who believes and is baptized… shall be adopted
Or as Jesus said it in Mark 16:16 “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.”
CLOSE: So - who do you belong to?
God loved you first
He loved you so much that He gave His only begotten Son to die for you so that you could belong to Him.
ILLUS: Just last week I was talking with a young girl at McDonalds. She was struggling with the decision to become a Christian. So I asked a series of questions I ask everyone:
Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God?
* “Yes”, she said.
Do you accept that you’re a sinner?
* “Oh yeah,” she replied.
Do you believe that only Jesus can forgive that sin?
* “Yes”
Are you willing to confess Him as the Lord/Master of your life?
* “Yes”
So, now are you willing to sign the contract – to be buried in the waters of baptism and risen up a new creature?
He who believes and is baptized shall be adopted.
So, who do you belong to?
