Adoption

The Authority of Adoption
John 1:9-13

Introduction

Ask someone near you who is a parent to tell you about their kids...What did you notice about the way people talked about their kids? People adore their kids. Mothers and Fathers love to talk about their kids. And the funny thing is they assume you like to talk about them too. Because they like to talk about their kids they assume that you do to.

While as any father, I’m going to do the same thing right now. I have two kids, a 6 year old and a 2 year old. My son Isaac, is the apple of my eye. He is just this very peculiar and very smart little boy. He loves to read and play with his animals. He will literally sit and read the Bible by himself for 30 minutes. But more than almost anything he likes to spend time with his dad. I can remember driving down to Disney World last summer and he and I talking at 2am as I drive. Just talking and talking while Jess and Sophie slept.

My daughter Sophie is the sweetest and most sensitive little thing in the world. She cries if you look at her funny. She’s the apple of my other eye. She is the slowest eater on the planet. We’ll sit down for lunch together and it will be dinner time before she finishes what’s on her plate. But she loves to dance, she loves to laugh, and she loves to cry.

There is no relationship like a mother or father has with their kids, right? Imagine if we could be like that to God. Imagine if we could have the right to be called children of God. Turn to John 1:9-13 where we are told that those who receive Jesus are given the right to be called children of God.

Read Passage

This passage is right at the prologue of John’s gospel. He is describing who Jesus is and what his purpose was. And he is saying that those who have been reconciled to God, those who have been justified in the court of God, have been given the right of sons and daughters. God has adopted us. The Greek word for ‘right’ literally means the ‘authority’. We have been given the authority of adoption, the right of sons and daughters

Just two points this morning. They are really two sides to the same coin.


First side, the Authority of Adoption means God is our Father (heads side)

As a Father God provides for you

Now one thing that must be said is not all people are God’s children. Notice in our passage, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” Most people have not recognized Christ to be Lord, they have not received him as Savior. What percentage of human beings are genuine Christians, there really is no sure way to tell. I hope it is growing percentage.

Sometimes you’ll hear someone say, “We are all God’s children.” Or “God is the Father of everyone.” Well in a very limited sense this is true, the Bible says “We are all his offspring” or in Ephesians God’s fatherhood is described as extending towards those in heaven and earth. God is the Creator to all, so in one sense yes he is the father of all. But this is not the normal understanding of God as Father. Sadly most people reject God. Most people do not receive Christ. And yet he is the provider even of them. God’s Fatherhood is much more specific. God adopts as his own those who receive Christ, those who believe in his name.

To them he gives the right to be called children of God. To them there is a re-birth. Born not of physical bodily birth, but of God, spiritually. To them is given the authority of adoption. To them God provides in a unique way.

Just like any good Father, God looks at his adopted children as his own. He treats us as his very own children. It is the highest privilege of a Christian. J I Packer says, “Adoption is…the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification” (Packer, Knowing God)

God could have justified us and saved us and not made us his children. But God does even more than that: he adopts us as his very own.

As a father God provides for his children. Father’s feel the need to provide for their kids. Every good father I know wants to provide for their children. How many fathers do we have here today? Let’s say you take your child hiking in the woods. You get lost and stranded. A few days go by and you have almost no water left. In fact dehydration is starting to set in. All you have is a sip left in your canteen. What do you do? You give it to your child. You provide even if you have to die for it.


God is a father that loves to provide for his children. Jesus tells us “…do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” God provides for his children as a Father.

Think about the prayer Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread. As a father God provides for us

As a Father God disciplines us

Even as children of God we will face hardships. They are seen as a discipline to endure that God as a loving Father allows to happen. In Hebrews 12 we read:
7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.
Discipline is never fun to receive, but it is evidence of our adoption. When we know that it comes from a loving Father who really cares and has our good in mind, it’s easier to take. One more story about my kids. I promise this will be the last one for this sermon. I can remember one time specifically Isaac didn’t want to brush his teeth. But I told him, “Isaac you have to brush your teeth.” So he has the toothbrush in his mouth. He’s standing there in the bathroom looking at the mirror. But he’s not brushing. So I told him again “Isaac brush your teeth” and he said “I don’t know how” So we went back and forth a few times, same answer “I don’t know how” Finally I gave him a swat in the gluts, and instantly he remembered how to brush his teeth!

Friends when God disciplines us, that’s what it is. It is not a wrathful vengeance upon us. It is the loving discipline of a father. It is the careful swat in the gluts that gets us back on track.

One of the worst things a parent can do to a kid. One of the meanest, most hurtful, most devastating things a parent can do to their child: nothing. Apathy. Ignorance. Just to not care either way. “Whatever you do, son or daughter, go to college get arrested, I just don’t care.” That is wicked. And God is not wicked. He disciplines us and he cares for us. This is not one to one, as if every time we do something wrong we are going to a get a little swat. I think there are times when God uses blessings to discipline us as if to say, “See how much I love you even when you’re disobedient.” Nor does it mean that when something bad happens, if we get cancer, God is somehow punishing us. If we learn anything from the book of Job we learn that. But God does discipline us. He uses hardship to draw us to himself.

As a Father God loves us


This is something that it would be so easy to assume that Christians know, but is so deadly to overlook. Did you know that God loves you? If you have received Christ, if you have believed in his name, God loves you. Not just the person next to you, you. How much? like a son, like a daughter.

Jesus said, 27the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

Don’t make the heretical mistake of thinking, Jesus loves me, the Father doesn’t. The Father is angry with me, so it is a good thing I have Jesus. No, the heavenly Father loves you. He cares about you. He looks out for you. He knows you. He knows everything about you, and he still loves you. That’s a hard thing to do.

This is the difference the gospel makes. In the Old Testament it was common to see God as the Father of Israel, of the whole nation. But in Christ God is the Father of each of us individually. In fact I have an Israeli friend whom I was talking to. We were talking about how in Hebrew the word for father is abba. Do you call God abba? He said no, we call God abinu “our Father” but not abba. Friends, as Christians we call God not just our Father (the father of a people) but also abba, Father as in me individually. God has adopted you personally. God loves you.

Mac Anderson and Lance Wubbels tell the story about an old man who while searching through his attic finds two journals. His own journal from years passed, and his sons.

he sat down at his desk and placed the two journals beside each other. His was leather-bound and engraved neatly with his name in gold, while his son's was tattered and the name "Jimmy" had been nearly scuffed from its surface…
As he opened his journal, the old man's eyes fell upon an inscription that stood out because it was so brief in comparison to other days. In his own neat handwriting were these words: Wasted the whole day fishing with Jimmy. Didn't catch a thing. With a deep sigh and a shaking hand, he took Jimmy's journal and found the boy's entry for the same day, June 4. Large scrawling letters, pressed deeply into the paper, read: Went fishing with my dad. Best day of my life.

Friends God is not that type of father. He is not a father who sees you as a waste of time. He doesn’t see time with you as a day lesser spent. In fact it is us who so often neglect time with him. God delights in you as his very own.

God loves you. God adopted you.


Second side, the Authority of Adoption means we are children (tails side)

Children are supposed to adore their Father

Now, of course it is true that not all children adore their father. There are bad fathers. There are fathers who abuse their children. There are fathers who walk out on their children. There are fathers who spend so much time at work that they mine as well have walked out on them. Chances are that some here have had a really hard time with their fathers. Seeing God as Father for you is going to take a little work, going to take some time and patience and rethinking.

So we must understand that God is a good Father. In fact he is a perfect Father. He never ever acts evilly. He may do things we don’t understand that may hurt for the time being, but He never acts sinfully. With a good father, children adore their Father.

Often, this just happens instinctually. Oftentimes you don’t have to tell a kid to honor his father, he just does. You walk in the door, and the kids come running. But this is commanded in Scripture too. It is one of the 10 commandments “Honor your mother and father”. This is repeated in the New Testament in Eph 6 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother’ –which is the first commandment with a promise—‘that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” There is a Scriptural precedent for honoring your father.

For those who have been adopted by God, this is the type of relationship we are to have with God. For God, one of the ways this respect or honor is expressed is worship.

Now, there is a certain worship that comes with knowing God as God. Even if God were not our Father, we would worship him. God is King, God is Judge, God is God. But, there is something even more worshipful knowing God is Father.

Because God is also your Father, this doesn’t make you worship him less but more. Subjects in a kingdom will respect a king as king, but the son or daughter of the king will respect him even more than the subjects, not less.

Let us adore God as father!

Children are to feel safe from their Father’s wrath

Now, this doesn’t mean children don’t need good old-fashioned punishment every once in a while. We’ve talked about that already. I mean children are safe from their father’s wrath: A guy breaks in the back door in the middle of the night when the wife and kids are sleeping, dad jumps out of bed and grabs a baseball bat and runs after him. That type of wrath. Full-out, no-holds-bar, you can run but you can’t hide, wrath. A father doesn’t use that kind of wrath on his children. If he does, he’s abusive, and he’s a bad father. That wrath is meant for an intruder, not a son or daughter.

The wrath of God is not meant for his children, those who have been adopted. There is a wrath of God in Scripture, and it is meant as judgment for sin. Don’t misunderstand God, adoption does not mean that the eternal Almighty God has turned into a big teddy bear. God is a consuming fire, who maintains a terrible wrath upon evil. Read Revelation. But it is not for God’s children. No we have received Christ and have believed in his name. We are justified and reconciled to God. We are adopted as his own. Just like your kids should never have to fear your wrath (a spank on the bum yes, wrath no), so we do not have to fear the wrath of God.

We read in Romans 8:15, 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." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

Children are supposed to model their father

My dad is an airline mechanic. My brother Mike is an airline mechanic. I have no idea how to fix an airplane, but my dad loves sports and I love sports. A son or daughter begins to model their parents. This is true of work and this is true of godliness.
Al Sanders writes in his book Crisis in Morality of the descendents of two men, one an atheist and the other a studious Christian minister Jonathan Edwards.
"Max Jukes, the atheist, lived a godless life. He married an ungodly girl, and from the union there were 310 who died as paupers, 150 were criminals, 7 were murderers, 100 were drunkards, and more than half of the women were prostitutes. His 540 descendants cost the State one and a quarter million dollars.
"But, praise the Lord, it works both ways! There is a record of a great American man of God, Jonathan Edwards. He lived at the same time as Max Jukes, but he married a godly girl. An investigation was made of 1,394 known descendants of Jonathan Edwards of which 13 became college presidents, 65 college professors, 3 United States senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, 75 army and navy officers, 100 preachers and missionaries, 60 authors of prominence, one a vice-president of the United States, 80 became public officials in other capacities, 295 college graduates, among whom were governors of states and ministers to foreign countries. His descendants did not cost the state a single penny. 'The memory of the just is blessed' (Prov. 10:7)."
Children model their parents. Again this isn’t always true. If you had parents who weren’t Godly, it doesn’t mean you will be ungodly. But oftentimes we do model our parents. I like to read books, my kids like to read books. Jessica likes to do arts and crafts, our kids like to do arts and crafts.

In Scripture we are called to model our heavenly Father. Of course this is a pretty high calling when it comes to God. Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:48). Some people complain, ‘I will never be as good as my dad.’ While as a Christian friend, you can be absolutely certain, you will never be as good as your Heavenly Father. Nevertheless it is something we strive for, we pursue as sons and daughters. To model your earthly father is to honor him. It honors God as father that we strive to be like him.

The Authority of Adoption means we are God’s children.


Conclusion

I hope friends, that the reality of adoption will become more and more larger in our thinking. God as Father and we as children will begin to be central in how we view God.

God adopted you. He took you as his very own. I’m not sure if anyone here has ever adopted a child or who here is adopted. But let’s imagine an adoption. You finish all the extensive paperwork. You finish making all the payments. Adoption is expensive these days, easily costing in the tens of thousands. You travel far to go and find your child. Many adoptions nowadays are in Russia or China or Vietnam. You have to go there and pick up your child. So you travel halfway across the globe to your child.

You finally find the place and walk into the adoption agency. It is probably a dirty dingy place. It’s loud and smelly, with more babies than the workers can handle. You walk past all the different babies. You finally stop at one particular place. You turn towards one particular little crib. You see your particular little child. Alone, helpless, crying. You reach in and you grab hold of your child. The one you adopted. You pick him up. You hold him high above your head. And you say “This is my son, my very own. You will come home with me. Everything I have is yours. I’ll protect you and take care of you and love you.”

That is what God did to you. God adopted you. He paid for you. At the price of Christ’s death and resurrection in our behalf. He traveled a great distance to get you. He went into the dingy and dirty sinful world for you. He saw you helpless. He reached down and grabbed hold of you. He lifted you up and held you high and said “This one is my very own.” “My son or my daughter” “you will come home with me.” “All that I have is yours” God loves you. God chose you. God adopted you.

Men we have the rights of sons. Women you have the rights of daughters. To have a Father who provides, and disciplines, and loves you. To be children who adore, and feel safe, and model our Father. Let’s use these rights as children of God.