Adopted!!
My wife and I had the joy and privilege to witness first hand the Lord’s provision. Our son Andrew didn’t arrive the natural way. Well he did arrive the natural way just not the normal way most parents welcome their children.
Instead of the beeps and chimes of medical equipment, we heard the horns of Taxi cabs and those silly transport vehicles in the airport. Instead of hearing nurses or doctors paged over the intercom, we heard final boarding calls for United Airlines. Instead of starring at newborn babies through a large glass window, we watched tired travelers waiting for their luggage.
Naturally somebody hearing this and not knowing our situation would be drawn to the conclusion that April gave birth to our son in the Airport.My wife and I just adopted our son from Korea. And since they don’t FedEx children, we went to the Airport to pick Him up.
Walking down the terminal to meet our son, I was just overcome with a sense of awe, amazement, and excitement. The day had finally come and in a few minutes I would be holding my son. We had finally come to the completion of the long adoption process. We would finally have a child that we had for so long dreamed and prayed about. The kind woman handed Andrew to me and as I took Him in my arms, and looked at him all cute and adorable and screaming his wonderful lungs out. Boy was he glad to see me, let me tell you.
Standing there, I finally caught a glimpse of God and his amazing love for us, and how very much like My wife and I adopting Andrew, He loves us and adopts us into His family.
So today I want to talk about adoption. About how we are adopted into the family of God
The Process of Adoption.
Romans 5:8; John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10
Over a year ago we started the official process of adopting Andrew trusting that the Lord was calling us to welcome an outsider into our lives and hearts. We first had to commit ourselves to following the Lord’s leading and also to commit ourselves to this child yet unborn and unknown to us. Out of our love for God and our love for this as yet unborn child we started the process. Now we have the result of that process.
Let me ask you a question. Did Andrew decide on who his parents were going to be? From the womb did he have a conference call with the Lord and with his biological mother about a prospective mommy and daddy? Did he go over resumes? Absolutely not, it’s absurd to even imagine that being possibility then or even know.
Paul teaches us that before we were dream, a cell, a baby he chose us. Think about that for a moment. I know that this concept runs counter to what some of us believe is the appropriate scheme of things. There are no doubt some who will look at this marvelous truth from a negative aspect. I mean come on. If God chose us to be His children. Negatively speaking then He chose or chose not to call some to be His children. I will admit it is as vexing as trying to figure out who came first the chicken or the egg.
I am not here to debate that point in fact I am going to ignore it completely.
Rather think about it this. Ponder and meditate on it this way. I am a sinner. You are a sinner. God knew that from the beginning of time. He knew and saw that through our sinfulness we were unable to come to Him. That’s right. Just like Andrew was unable to decide who his parents were going to be, and where he was going to live out his youth. We also could do nothing about our future. We were destined for Hell.
That was our situation: sinners bound for Hell without recourse or options to prevent that inevitable fate. But wait were still looking at the process of our being adopted into the family of God.
God wasn’t satisfied with the way things were going so he begins the process of adoption
“For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:8)
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:16-17)
Think about these verses in light of Ephesians. God loved us, and wanted us to be a part of His family. Sin destroyed that relationship. And God not wanting you to suffer eternal damnation, started the process of adoption that would come through the blood of Jesus. Jesus established on the cross the only way to restore a relationship with God. Often times we acknowledge that fact only once in our lives when we first come to accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior. The truth of the matter is that we need to meditate on that every day. Everyday we need to remind ourselves that it is only because God chose to adopt us that we have any hope. What might our lives truly look like if we were constantly reminding ourselves of what we deserve and what the Lord has given us. I believe that We would be more motivated and active in sharing Christ with others.Read Ephesians 1:7-8
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
Right now totally unaware of anything Andrew has had his future here on earth decided.My wife and I will raise Him, love him, care for Him. He didn’t decide and he didn’t have a choice in the matter. Maybe one day in the future He will struggle with that, but as Christians don’t need to. We don’t need to worry because we have been redeemed and forgiven, and adopted into the family of God. Where Andrew didn’t have a choice about who his paents would be, we do. God has established the process of adoption and has communicated it clearly. All we have to do is accept that call into God’s family.
“Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart on believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved…. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:9-10 & 13).
Andrew was unable to affect His being adopted by April and I. Likewise, God started and completed the process by which we can be welcomed into the family of God, into a relationship with Jesus Christ Himself. We didn’t have any part in it except this. We need to accept the invitation into God’s family. Andrew didn’t have a choice in becoming my son, but we have do have a choice as to whether we will accept that invitation or reject it.
The Result of Adoption
One of the hardest things We had to do through the adoption process was to discriminate between medical conditions that we would accept in our future child and which ones we accept. Some of the medical conditions were minor some were major medical problems. We stressed and suffered through a considerable amount of guilt when we said no to a particular condition. Just the thought that we were possibly rejecting a child due to a medical problem the child wasn’t even responsible for made us sad and miserable. I am so thankful that the Lord in full knowledge of our sinfulness and rebellion against Him, decided to love us and welcome us into His family regardless. Have you ever thought about that and praised God for His ceaseless love and care for us. I hope that everyone who reads this has accepted that call to be God’s beloved son or daughter, If you haven’t then I pray earnestly that the Holy Spirit does a blitzkrieg of conviction on you right now.
READ ROMANS 8:15 & GALATIANS 4:4-6
I don’t remember how old I was at the time, but I still remember the situation vividly. My brother and I had received for Christmas a fisher Price construction figurine in blue coveralls with a yellow hard hat. He probably went with a dump truck or something, but that isn’t important. Well one day we decided to make this figurine into a paratrooper. We tied string to His shoulders and the string to the four corners of a handkerchief, and we had a really cool looking parachutist. Well we spent the morning throwing this guy as high as we could and watch him sail gracefully to the ground. Well one time the strings got tangled and the chute didn’t open properly. This toy construction worker sailed high in the air and plummeted to his plastic demise right in the middle of the road. The second he hit the pavement he fragmented into a bunch of smaller pieces. With tears in my eyes I gathered up the pieces and ran to my father. I knew that he could fix anything. I burst through the door and flung myself at my father crying and upset that my toy was broken.
My father held me and comforted me and when I was calm enough he went with me to get some glue and see about saving the life of a little plastic toy. To my fathers credit he got the whole thing back together again, so that it looked like it did before the sky diving accident with one exception. The glue holding him together also made it impossible to move his arms or legs or head ever again. I didn’t care about that small detail, and the toy was off sky diving again.
I tell you this story because it illustrates an often overlooked aspect of being God’s child. It is an aspect that we frequently take for granted. I ran to my father looking to him to fix the problem. One day Andrew will run to me looking and trusting that I can do the same. Why? Because they know intimately that their father loves them and wants to make them happy.
How often do we run to God crying Daddy help me? Daddy I hurt and I know you can make it better.
That is what Paul is teaching us here. Because we are adopted we can run to our heavenly Daddy, and he will be there to comfort, help and guide us. ”Abba” in Aramaic is the most intimate and endearing terms for father. In fact it is very similar to calling God Daddy. Paul is telling us that we can approach the God of the universe and call Him Daddy.
How many of us pray that way? I know we all pray to the Lord of the universe; the supreme maker of all things; the Absolute ruler of all that is. I think most of us miss this point in our Christian walk. We focus on the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, but we miss the whole reason we are praying to God in the first place. He is our father, our daddy.
Maybe it is time we stopped praying to the Position of Creator of all that is, and start praying and even reveling in the fact that the creator of all things is our daddy. He wants us to come to him in such an intimate, loving, confident way. He wants us and we need to start seeing God for who he is and what he has done.
By being adopted you see that God as brought us into a close personal relationship with Him, but there are still more results to our being adopted. Not only are we brought close to Him, but we are made heirs. God not only welcomes us into His family, but he also gives us all the rights and privileges as children.
I could never accurately convey all the privileges we have as children of God or all the responsibilities God has assumed toward us by adopting us as His children.
There are five aspects of this Daddy relationship that I would like to briefly mention. Our loving Daddy in Heaven has promised to do these things for us.
1. Daddy provides for us (Phillipians 4:19)
2. Daddy protects us (Matthew 10:29-31)
3. Daddy encourages us (Psalm 10:17)
4. Daddy comforts us (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
5. Daddy disciplines us (Hebrews 12:10)
Instead of the beeps and chimes of medical equipment, we heard the horns of Taxi cabs and those silly transport vehicles in the airport. Instead of hearing nurses or doctors paged over the intercom, we heard final boarding calls for United Airlines. Instead of starring at newborn babies through a large glass window, we watched tired travelers waiting for their luggage.
Naturally somebody hearing this and not knowing our situation would be drawn to the conclusion that April gave birth to our son in the Airport.My wife and I just adopted our son from Korea. And since they don’t FedEx children, we went to the Airport to pick Him up.
Walking down the terminal to meet our son, I was just overcome with a sense of awe, amazement, and excitement. The day had finally come and in a few minutes I would be holding my son. We had finally come to the completion of the long adoption process. We would finally have a child that we had for so long dreamed and prayed about. The kind woman handed Andrew to me and as I took Him in my arms, and looked at him all cute and adorable and screaming his wonderful lungs out. Boy was he glad to see me, let me tell you.
Standing there, I finally caught a glimpse of God and his amazing love for us, and how very much like My wife and I adopting Andrew, He loves us and adopts us into His family.
So today I want to talk about adoption. About how we are adopted into the family of God
The Process of Adoption.
Romans 5:8; John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10
Over a year ago we started the official process of adopting Andrew trusting that the Lord was calling us to welcome an outsider into our lives and hearts. We first had to commit ourselves to following the Lord’s leading and also to commit ourselves to this child yet unborn and unknown to us. Out of our love for God and our love for this as yet unborn child we started the process. Now we have the result of that process.
Let me ask you a question. Did Andrew decide on who his parents were going to be? From the womb did he have a conference call with the Lord and with his biological mother about a prospective mommy and daddy? Did he go over resumes? Absolutely not, it’s absurd to even imagine that being possibility then or even know.
Paul teaches us that before we were dream, a cell, a baby he chose us. Think about that for a moment. I know that this concept runs counter to what some of us believe is the appropriate scheme of things. There are no doubt some who will look at this marvelous truth from a negative aspect. I mean come on. If God chose us to be His children. Negatively speaking then He chose or chose not to call some to be His children. I will admit it is as vexing as trying to figure out who came first the chicken or the egg.
I am not here to debate that point in fact I am going to ignore it completely.
Rather think about it this. Ponder and meditate on it this way. I am a sinner. You are a sinner. God knew that from the beginning of time. He knew and saw that through our sinfulness we were unable to come to Him. That’s right. Just like Andrew was unable to decide who his parents were going to be, and where he was going to live out his youth. We also could do nothing about our future. We were destined for Hell.
That was our situation: sinners bound for Hell without recourse or options to prevent that inevitable fate. But wait were still looking at the process of our being adopted into the family of God.
God wasn’t satisfied with the way things were going so he begins the process of adoption
“For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:8)
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:16-17)
Think about these verses in light of Ephesians. God loved us, and wanted us to be a part of His family. Sin destroyed that relationship. And God not wanting you to suffer eternal damnation, started the process of adoption that would come through the blood of Jesus. Jesus established on the cross the only way to restore a relationship with God. Often times we acknowledge that fact only once in our lives when we first come to accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior. The truth of the matter is that we need to meditate on that every day. Everyday we need to remind ourselves that it is only because God chose to adopt us that we have any hope. What might our lives truly look like if we were constantly reminding ourselves of what we deserve and what the Lord has given us. I believe that We would be more motivated and active in sharing Christ with others.Read Ephesians 1:7-8
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
Right now totally unaware of anything Andrew has had his future here on earth decided.My wife and I will raise Him, love him, care for Him. He didn’t decide and he didn’t have a choice in the matter. Maybe one day in the future He will struggle with that, but as Christians don’t need to. We don’t need to worry because we have been redeemed and forgiven, and adopted into the family of God. Where Andrew didn’t have a choice about who his paents would be, we do. God has established the process of adoption and has communicated it clearly. All we have to do is accept that call into God’s family.
“Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart on believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved…. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:9-10 & 13).
Andrew was unable to affect His being adopted by April and I. Likewise, God started and completed the process by which we can be welcomed into the family of God, into a relationship with Jesus Christ Himself. We didn’t have any part in it except this. We need to accept the invitation into God’s family. Andrew didn’t have a choice in becoming my son, but we have do have a choice as to whether we will accept that invitation or reject it.
The Result of Adoption
One of the hardest things We had to do through the adoption process was to discriminate between medical conditions that we would accept in our future child and which ones we accept. Some of the medical conditions were minor some were major medical problems. We stressed and suffered through a considerable amount of guilt when we said no to a particular condition. Just the thought that we were possibly rejecting a child due to a medical problem the child wasn’t even responsible for made us sad and miserable. I am so thankful that the Lord in full knowledge of our sinfulness and rebellion against Him, decided to love us and welcome us into His family regardless. Have you ever thought about that and praised God for His ceaseless love and care for us. I hope that everyone who reads this has accepted that call to be God’s beloved son or daughter, If you haven’t then I pray earnestly that the Holy Spirit does a blitzkrieg of conviction on you right now.
READ ROMANS 8:15 & GALATIANS 4:4-6
I don’t remember how old I was at the time, but I still remember the situation vividly. My brother and I had received for Christmas a fisher Price construction figurine in blue coveralls with a yellow hard hat. He probably went with a dump truck or something, but that isn’t important. Well one day we decided to make this figurine into a paratrooper. We tied string to His shoulders and the string to the four corners of a handkerchief, and we had a really cool looking parachutist. Well we spent the morning throwing this guy as high as we could and watch him sail gracefully to the ground. Well one time the strings got tangled and the chute didn’t open properly. This toy construction worker sailed high in the air and plummeted to his plastic demise right in the middle of the road. The second he hit the pavement he fragmented into a bunch of smaller pieces. With tears in my eyes I gathered up the pieces and ran to my father. I knew that he could fix anything. I burst through the door and flung myself at my father crying and upset that my toy was broken.
My father held me and comforted me and when I was calm enough he went with me to get some glue and see about saving the life of a little plastic toy. To my fathers credit he got the whole thing back together again, so that it looked like it did before the sky diving accident with one exception. The glue holding him together also made it impossible to move his arms or legs or head ever again. I didn’t care about that small detail, and the toy was off sky diving again.
I tell you this story because it illustrates an often overlooked aspect of being God’s child. It is an aspect that we frequently take for granted. I ran to my father looking to him to fix the problem. One day Andrew will run to me looking and trusting that I can do the same. Why? Because they know intimately that their father loves them and wants to make them happy.
How often do we run to God crying Daddy help me? Daddy I hurt and I know you can make it better.
That is what Paul is teaching us here. Because we are adopted we can run to our heavenly Daddy, and he will be there to comfort, help and guide us. ”Abba” in Aramaic is the most intimate and endearing terms for father. In fact it is very similar to calling God Daddy. Paul is telling us that we can approach the God of the universe and call Him Daddy.
How many of us pray that way? I know we all pray to the Lord of the universe; the supreme maker of all things; the Absolute ruler of all that is. I think most of us miss this point in our Christian walk. We focus on the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, but we miss the whole reason we are praying to God in the first place. He is our father, our daddy.
Maybe it is time we stopped praying to the Position of Creator of all that is, and start praying and even reveling in the fact that the creator of all things is our daddy. He wants us to come to him in such an intimate, loving, confident way. He wants us and we need to start seeing God for who he is and what he has done.
By being adopted you see that God as brought us into a close personal relationship with Him, but there are still more results to our being adopted. Not only are we brought close to Him, but we are made heirs. God not only welcomes us into His family, but he also gives us all the rights and privileges as children.
I could never accurately convey all the privileges we have as children of God or all the responsibilities God has assumed toward us by adopting us as His children.
There are five aspects of this Daddy relationship that I would like to briefly mention. Our loving Daddy in Heaven has promised to do these things for us.
1. Daddy provides for us (Phillipians 4:19)
2. Daddy protects us (Matthew 10:29-31)
3. Daddy encourages us (Psalm 10:17)
4. Daddy comforts us (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
5. Daddy disciplines us (Hebrews 12:10)
