Adoption

God’s Adopted Children Are Loved & Led

5.26.24 [Romans 8:12-17] River of Life (1st Sunday after Pentecost)

Babe Ruth. Marilyn Monroe. Edgar Allen Poe. What do these three significant individuals have in common? They’re iconic individuals. You can’t tell the story of baseball without Babe Ruth. It’s hard to capture the glitz & glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age without Marilyn Monroe. Edgar Allen Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart, Raven, and macabre-take on mystery thrilled and inspired so many.

But each of them were also separated from their biological parents at a young age. Babe Ruth was six or seven when his parents sent him to live in an orphanage. Even though her mother outlived her, Monroe grew up in foster care and became a ward of the state at eight. Poe’s dad left when he was around two and his mom died the next year.

Despite their difficult childhoods, Ruth, Monroe, & Poe’s stars burned brightly. But despite career successes, their adult lives were also filled with turbulence, addictions, & self-destructive behavior. Few people who know their life stories well would aspire to live as they did.

Even if you are incredibly gifted, growing up without your parents is incredibly difficult. Children need to know that there is someone who cares for them, who will hold them accountable, who will encourage them—in short, who loves them unconditionally, not just adores them for what they can do. When kids don’t have that, they struggle.

Because we all know that, we have a great deal of pity for orphans. Even when they’re fictional characters. How many Disney movies start out with one or more parents dying or being dead? It tugs at our heart strings. We’re instantly filled with care, compassion, and sympathy.

Up to a point. It’s easy to be gentle and patient with a young orphan. Most people are kind and caring even to a teenager who loses a parents. It’s not even strange to sympathize with a young adult who loses their parents. But there’s a point where we draw a line in the sand.

It’s not about age—though we think that’s a factor. It’s more about attitude. When we sense that someone has grown selfish, bitter, nasty, vindictive, destructive, hostile, and especially violent, we no longer give them a pass just because their parents aren’t around. You might not think that’s true. But do you pity Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, or Saddam Hussein when you find out that they were also orphans?

Without being loved, it’s hard to live for anyone but yourself. It’s hard to care about your future when no one seems to care about your present.

In some cases, their behavior becomes short-sighted, undisciplined, and more often than not, self-destructive. In other situations, they cope by only caring about themselves. Self-absorption quickly callouses a person’s heart. They struggle to care about anyone else. It doesn’t take long before a hard-hearted person because heartless, ruthless, brutal, and cold-blooded.

The ugly truth is, that you don’t have to even be an orphan to have this kind of attitude. Our community suffers because of the I’m living for me attitude. Stores are run by people who can’t be bothered to work, patronized by customers who can’t be bothered to put away shopping carts, put on decent clothes, get off their phones, or show basic courtesy to anyone around them. Our roads are filled with impatient, inattentive, irresponsible, and unhinged motorists. Too many of our classrooms have students, parents, and even teachers demanding accountability from everyone but themselves. Gov’t, too.

Today, it’s popular to call this attitude entitlement. But the Bible has a different diagnosis. It’s called (Rom. 8:13) living according to the flesh. This way of living includes all kinds of unrighteousness that we tend to think is not such a big deal. Sins of the tongue like gossip, deceit, obscenity, & slander. Sins of a lack of self-restraint like rage, gluttony, sexual immorality, and drunkenness. Sins of conceit like envy, covetousness, arrogance, impatience, pride and greed.

Part of the reason we transgress in these ways—and we all do—is because we believe that these behaviors will do something for us. Most often it’s some concoction of both power and pleasure. We think living for ourselves will make us happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. For a moment, it might make us feel happy, satisfied, or fulfilled. But that faux sensation quickly passes. And then, we chase that feeling by giving ourselves over to ever-increasing wickedness. But we never get what we crave.

In Romans 6 Paul asks a probing rhetorical question: What benefit did you reap from living according to the flesh? Was life better? Were your relationships more satisfying? Did you wake up energized? Did you fall asleep and feel fulfilled? No. (Rom. 8:13) If you live according to the flesh, you will die. That’s the wages it earns.

Gossip, deceit, and slander destroy relationships. Gluttony, sexual immorality, and drunkenness deaden your senses & mind. Envy, impatience, & pride diminish your ability to enjoy life in this world.

Yet, even when we come to grips with the short & long term damage living according to the flesh does to us and to others, we cannot leave that life behind. Fear is not a powerful enough motivator. We cannot and will not decide to follow the Spirit instead of the flesh.

We must be led. We must be loved. We must be adopted. And that is the work of our Triune God. Our Triune God knew us inside out. He saw that by nature we were rotten to the core. Yet, he loved us because he is love, not because we are lovely. That love prompted him to adopt wretched orphans like us as his beloved children.

When you are adopted your present legal status is changed. When God adopted us he changed our past, present, and future. That change means everything.

Anyone familiar with the process of adoption recognizes it takes planning, persistence, patience, & perseverance. It’s not done in a declaration. You don’t get a son like you get the front seat by shouting shotgun. You don’t get a daughter by calling dibs. Adoption is a big deal, so it takes a big part of your time, energy, and resources.

Our spiritual adoption was no different. God the Father planned it from before the creation of the world. He sought it fervently. God was patient with sinners. Persistent in his promises. Perseverant even when people caused him grief and heartaches. He did not revise his plan when people rebelled against him or committed revolting acts of wickedness.

God gave his best to make us his own children. The second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, became flesh and blood. He shared in our humanity. And even though he didn’t share in our wickedness, he chose to take on the punishment we deserved as his very own. He suffered in his flesh for the times we lived according to the flesh. He stood in as our Substitute and died for our self-destructive wickedness. He ransomed us from our wretchedness. Our adoption was costly.

You would think the Father loving us and planning our adoption, the Son loving us and dying for our sins would be enough. But our Triune God did more. He also sent his Spirit to create in us through Word and Sacrament a deep trust, an abiding love, and even a healthy sense of respect or fear in God. That is the Spirit that testifies that we are God’s children. That is the Spirit that leads us day by day—not by our intuition, not by our logic or reason—but by the good news of God’s love and by the wisdom of his Word.

We love because we have been loved. We serve because we have seen the Son serve us even when we were wretched sinners. We put to death the misdeeds of the body because we know what they do to us and others and where they ultimately lead. We want to be with our new family, not estranged by our sin. We fight the good fight, we run the race marked out for us, we press on because we have been encouraged by the Spirit day after day. We pray with confidence because we know our Father hears & cares. We are even willing to suffer and make sacrifices because we know we are a part of this wonderful new family. We are confident that our adoption means our glory. God has made us his heirs. Christ has come that we might share in his glory. He is happy to share his home with us for eternity and even prepare a place for us to be with him forever.

Knowing all that God invested in our adoption, we are changed people. It is not just our spiritual status that has changed but our outlook on life. It’s not just that we try to avoid sin. We pursue God’s way. We seek out opportunities to demonstrate we are his own kids.

Our adoption is not just formal, it’s also formative. Just like it was for Dave Thomas. Before Dave Thomas could eat solid food, his parents decided to put him up for adoption. And it changed his life. Dave Thomas didn’t have Babe Ruth’s athletic prowess. Despite spending some time on screen, Dave Thomas didn’t have Monroe’s acting chops or good looks. Dave Thomas wasn’t a man of many words like Edgar Allen Poe. Dave Thomas was a regular guy, really. But what Dave Thomas’ adoptive family provided him with had a profound impact. Growing up Dave got his MBA. Not a masters in business administration—actually he didn’t even graduate high school. Dave Thomas had a mop bucket attitude. He was always willing to roll up his sleeves and get to work. No task was beneath him. Every person around him, from his customers to his employees, was someone he was going to serve with the best of his abilities. He refused to take short-cuts. He refused to cut corners. That’s why his restaurant Wendy’s burgers are square, not round like his competitors.

Dave Thomas lived like this because a family chose to love him and adopt him and lead him down the right path. They weren’t perfect. They faced challenges and hardships. And Dave made plenty of mistakes along the way. But that mop bucket attitude impressed upon him changed how he led his life and made all the difference.

Should we who are led by the Spirit shoot for anything less? We have been loved and adopted. Our eternal status and our earthly purpose have been changed by the Triune God. We are here to love and serve God and our neighbor. We are here to learn what the Spirit has revealed through the Word. We are here to help grow God’s family. One soul at a time. We will share in the family suffering, but also in the glory. Amen.