Adopted into God's Family

27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise. 4 Now I say that as long as the heir is a child, he differs in no way from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. 2 Instead, he is under guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world. 4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God 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 God has made you an heir.

INTRODUCTION

What comes to your mind when you think about Family? For the most part, our family is important to us. Whether your mind thinks of the family that raised you, whether you had a mom or a dad, and siblings. Or your mind goes to the family that you may be starting now. We know that family is important.

· The thought of family can bring back sweet memories of you and your parents when you were young. It may be family trips and camping, or going to the drive-in theaters, or family dinners. Thinking about family may make you recall of the love and faithfulness that your family has exhibited to you throughout the years, whether it be the bond that was built through hard times; whether that be a family loss, or a family struggle. It may be the continued love that you receive now as you guys continue to be a part of each other’s lives even though you may not necessarily live inside your parent’s homes anymore. Thinking about family can be sweet, joyful, and a treasured memory that a lot of us have.

· But thinking about family isn’t always as joyful or as sweet. You may have had a childhood where your family was tumultuous and chaotic. Whether it be marred with marital arguments between mom and dad. Or just strife between you and your siblings. Some of you may have had abusive parents who physically abused, emotionally abused, sexually abused, in the past. You may have compared your family life to your peer’s family life and wondered why my family couldn’t be like that.

· But there are also some of us here, who might be saying “well at least you had a family”. We know people who didn’t grow up with siblings, or parents due to some reason in their lives and have had to live their lives trying to figure out life without the family structure. You may have desired a place to really call home, or a people to call a family, or a place to really belong, but that was just a reality that didn’t happen.

For many of us here, our ideals of what a family is, is why we have found solace and joy in having a church family we are able to call our family. We have people that we can call our brothers and sisters, a place where we can gather, and hopefully a place that we can be the people who God created us to be. But I know, that it is easier said than done, and the ideal or thought of family may seem better than how your earthly families or even church families treat each other.

I say all this so that today we would heed the encouragement that Paul has for us in . However you feel about what a family is supposed to be, and whether you have good or bad memories of family, I want to encourage us to look at how God views His people and His family, and the implications that it has for us as CBF church members. Paul in our text today, speaks to the believer’s adoption into God’s family. My hope and goal for us today that we would be encouraged to know that we have been adopted into God’s family and how we can encourage each other us brothers and sisters in God’s family.

So, if you are taking notes, the title of the sermon is

ADOPTED INTO GOD’S FAMILY

Conditions of Adopting

The right timing

the right circumstances and requirements

Blessings of being Adopted

We are ‘One’ in God’s Family

We have God as Father

We become Sons of God

RECAP/BACKGROUND

Before we look into Point #1, lets recap on what has gone down so far in the book of Galatians.

Lately we’ve seen Paul discussing the relationship that the two covenants [Abrahamic/promise covenant & the Mosaic/Law Covenant] had with each other. Paul was wanting to point out that the Law did not replace the Promise and that the Promise was now fulfilled in Christ. We talked about how there was still a purpose for the law in that it was to reveal us of our sinful nature, it added to our transgressions, and the law served us like a guardian watching over us until Christ came similarly to a guardian watching over a child until he was of age. We’ve discussed the importance of the doctrine of justification in Christ alone especially knowing that Paul is dealing with Judaizers who are trying to convince the churches of Galatia that salvation can be found in works and becoming like a Jew. We’ve been discussing justification but now we will transition into the doctrine of adoption. A very important doctrine that we need to understand as Christians. Adoption brings about the picture of a family, conceived in terms of love. The doctrine of Adoption views God as Father and God takes us into his family and makes us His.

This doctrine is so great that J.I. Packer in his classic book Knowing God says that the doctrine of adoption should be seen higher in than the doctrine of justification. Remember justification is seen as us being ‘not guilty’ before the judge. We stand before a judge, who makes a pronouncement that you are not guilty.

Packer says that “in adoption, the judge not only declares you ‘not guilty’ but he also gets up off the bench, comes down to where you are, takes your chains off of you, and He says ‘come home with me as my son”

· Packer later states that “to be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater thing.

· In justification we are declared righteous and justified giving us a new status, but we not only have a new status, we become sons.

· With God your status with Him was settled when you were declared righteous through faith in Christ. But it didn’t mean that your life was finished. We now get to live out that new identity as ‘sons’ and all that comes with it.

· This past weekend Alyssa and I were able to celebrate with two dear friends of ours John and Linda Park. They were the couple who encouraged us to pursue foster-adopting. This past Friday, John and Linda finalized their adoption of their three daughters [Mariah, Giada, and Angelica] they went before a judge who finalized their adoption. This milestone in John and Linda’s life has been accomplished. The children they have loved as their own were finally legally their own. But the journey doesn’t end for Mariah, Giada, and Angelica now that they have been adopted, they get to now be a part of their family and live out all the blessings of being a part of that family. Similarly, when we come to Christ we are justified positionally and made righteous, this is our greatest need. But what comes along side that is that we are adopted then into God’s family, and this brings a blessing in its own.

In our text today Paul wants to share to us and the churches in Galatia, the great blessings that one has in being adopted into God’s family and receiving the promise that was promised to the seed of Abraham. He talks about how heirs when they were children are not that different from the way slaves are treated, because even though they are heirs they haven’t reached maturity yet and have not received the inheritance. He’s bringing back the imagery of the law being our guardian before Christ came. But now that Christ has come we through our faith in Christ can now receive the inheritance that we have in being adopted into God’s family.

But when one considers the blessings adoption we sometimes fail to see the lengths that one would take in adoption, and as we see in our text there had to be some things in the plan of God that had to happen for us to be adopted into God’s family. This leads us into our 1st point of the Conditions of Adopting that we see in

(CSB)

4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

In God’s adoption in v.4 we see that Christ came to adopt us when “the time came to completion”, thus letting us know that Christ’s coming came at the perfect time that God wanted it to.

When I think about Alyssa and I’s foster-adoption story I think how even though we do not have children yet, the idea of adoption didn’t come out of nowhere. For one, it isn’t just the fact that we desire to have kids and have had some complications in having biological children of our own. God has put in us a desire to adopt children even before we got married. For us, it was seeing God’s love for us in saving us. For me, it was reading Russell Moore’s Adopted for Life, it was going to C.J. Mahaney’s workshop on Adoption at TGC several years ago, it was also writing a term paper on adoption in my undergrad. But all these things had to happen in my life, and other things had to happen in Alyssa’s life that God has orchestrated to give us this desire to adopt. We then had to take the initiative then to go through the adoption process.

Similarly, as a parent takes the initiative takes the initiative to seek out and adopt a child, so it was God’s pleasure and will before the creation of the world to set His affections on us. When we think of Christ’s timing in coming to save mankind, we shouldn’t imagine God sitting in heaven saying well “now seems like the right time to send Jesus, hasn’t been that bad of a year, yeah let’s send Jesus now” No, God in His great sovereignty was designing all of history for this moment. Everything prior was orchestrated by God for Christ’s coming. The fall of Adam and Eve, the promise of Abraham, the slavery of Israel, the coming of Moses, the giving of the Law, the Judges, the Kings, the establishment of David, the prophets, the establishment of empires that would come and reign: the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire. All these things were established by God to prepare for Christ’s coming.

· Just as a human father back in that day would set the age for when a boy became a man so too with God in the sending of His Son Jesus to redeem mankind. It was in the fullness of the time that Jesus Christ came, exactly when the Father wanted it established. Jesus was sent when the law had fully accomplished its purpose as the guardian and showing man its utter sinfulness and incapability to be righteous before God. There were also other factors that John McArthur alludes to in his commentary of Galatians in it being the perfect time of sending Jesus:

o Right time religiously – Israel had just returned from a period of captivity of Babylon, thus it would be a good time to send Christ after people returned from their idolatry.

o Right time culturally – Alexander the Great just had established Greek Culture and thus established Greek as the language known throughout the known world.

o Right time politically – Rome had just instilled Pax Romana [Roman Peace] This provided economic and political stability for the people. The apostles at the time could travel freely and safely throughout the Roman Empire, even though they did end up dying for their faith.

o Right time to travel – Roman Empire had established a system of roads that made travel easier for the people.

All this to say that in God’s adoption of us He chose and established the right time for Christ to come. Not only does he establish the right time for Christ, but Christ had to fulfill certain requirements for Him to be adopted.

If the Lord wills for us to adopt children, we know that it took a good amount of effort and preparation for us get these children. Not only that we also had to meet certain qualifications for us to adopt. Anyone who has ever gone thought the adoption process knows the grueling pain of waiting, and waiting, and right now Alyssa and I are waiting. You would think it would be an easy process of getting an orphan to a set of parents, but we had hours of training that needed to be done, trips to the DMV, doctor visits, forms for our jobs to fill out, background checks, more paperwork that we had to fill out, visits from our social worker, getting the house certified and up to safety standards. All this to be foster-certified. We should see that our adoption into God’s family is similar. Paul brings up several things that are important for Christ to fulfill and needed to qualify for in order to adopt us.

· Born of a woman - Jesus was born of a woman, thus revealing to us that Jesus had to be fully God and fully human. It was man who sinned, it was man who was under the curse, and man was condemned before God. Thus, Christ had to come in the likeness of man to save man.

· Born under the law – Jesus had to obey the law perfectly. The law wasn’t what saves us, and no one obeyed God’s law perfectly. Thus, Christ had to obey the law perfectly to usher in the new age of redemption.

o Those who live under the law, live under the dominion and tyranny of sin, and Jesus needed to come under these circumstances to redeem those under the law.

· To redeem those under the law. – Not only did Jesus have to be fully God and fully human and be perfectly obedient to the law, but we need Jesus to redeem those under the law through perfect obedience that leads to His death on the cross.

o Paul wants to show the Galatians that not only did Christ remove the curse, he redeemed us similarly us from slavery to sin and made us alive in Christ.

o He also needed to be raised from the death to complete the redemption process for believers.

Church family, I hope you see that in God’s adoption of us, it wasn’t a simple act. It was God working all-throughout history to orchestrate His great plan of salvation that includes saving believers from their sin, and justifying them, and adopting them. Jesus came at the perfect time and was the only one how had the perfect qualifications to redeem and adopt.

What application can we take from this?

· Do not get discouraged in lack of salvation in family and friends. – We can get disheartened when we share our faith to friends and family and seemingly no fruit comes out of it. But as we have seen in God’s saving of us, it can happen at any time and all these little things had to have happened before we came to Christ, and it may be the same for our family and friends. So, keep being faithful to sharing of the Gospel.

· Take time to appreciate the work that God has done in other people’s lives by hearing their stories. God has done a great work in saving us and we all have different stories on how we came to faith. Appreciate God’s timing and faithfulness in the saving of our brothers and sisters in Christ of this church and take the time to hear their stories and share your stories. I believe we would all be encouraged in hearing and sharing our stories with our church family.

Now that we have understood the conditions of our Adoption, lets focus now for the rest of our time on the Blessing we receive in being adopted.

2. Blessings of being Adopted

We are one in God’s family “28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus”

In talking to friends who have adopted, they share some of the tougher remarks that they receive from others when they talk about adoption.

· When talking to people of their adoption of children, they may get the question “Oh that’s nice, now do you also have children of your own?”

· Or the remark, “I don’t know if I can love an adopted child like a biological child”

Church family, these remarks can be tough for people who have adopted, but it also points to a bigger issue in that we do not seem to understand what it means to be a part of God’s family. Paul wants us to change our mindset in that being one in Christ means that we are all equal in God’s family, whether one is considered ‘biological’ or adopted.

So, in being adopted into God’s family we are all one in Christ. Paul in v. 28 is arguing that one’s ethnic background, one’s social class, and one’s gender are irrelevant in determining whether one is a child of God or not.

· In Christ, there is a fundamental unity that we share in being God’s children. This is big for the churches in Galatia. This says that Jews are not superior to gentiles, those who are free are not superior to those who are slaves, and men are not superior to women.

· There are obvious racial, social, and sexual differences among people. But Paul is saying there is no spiritual differences in Christ, no difference in standing before the Lord, no difference in spiritual value, no difference in privilege.

o All those United to Christ are united in God’s family equally. Church family this is good news for us. As human being we tend to long for something that makes us feel superior to others that’s why we take comfort when we are better than others in sports, or intellect, or that’s why we tend to gravitate to our own culture. But in Christ we are equally united together in Christ. That is why our goal here at CBF is to be a church that would love all believers regardless of ethnic backgrounds, social class, and gender. This is important for us to understand church family, to be one in Christ means that we put our identity in Christ before anyone or anything else. It means that all barriers that separate people that we believe must come down when we put faith in Christ.

· Question for CBF: is this bond that we have in Christ, this relationship that bonds us, is this the greatest bond that you have with people of this world. Do you consider this bond that you have with the church members here greater than the bonds that you have with your unbelieving friends? Or even your unbelieving family? Because the Bible says that this bond is greater than those bonds.

o If it is the greatest bond that you have: does it reflect the time that you put into the life of the members of this church? Does it reflect your attitude in service of sharing your life with other members of this church? Does it reflect in your giving for Gospel effort into this church?

· CBF, I would really challenge you to consider these bonds you have with your church family, do you see each other as ONE and belonging together in the family of God where these bonds you have with the members here are the strongest relationships you have. CBF if it is not, let us get on our knees and pray, and see how that can change in our lives.

The next benefit of our Adoption is that we receive God as Father. We see this in v. 6 6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”

I understand that understanding that God is Father might not resonate as well with some people than others. I know for myself I had a strained relationship with my father. I never really knew what it was like to feel the love of a father and maybe that’s some of you here. But this is why for someone like me, this is an encouragement. Even though my earthly father failed in loving me in how a father ought to, I have a heavenly father who is greater and one who never fails.

· In God’s adoption of us, we receive Him as Father. J.I. Packer says that in God being the Father that He is the reality behind all reality. He is the underlying cause of all causes and all events. His name being ‘Yahweh’ shows us that He is self-existent, sovereign, and wholly free from constraint by or dependence on anything outside himself. -And we are able to call this God, Abba Father.

· Friends, if our earthly fathers have marred us, we can take solace in the fact that God the Father is our perfect parent. He is faithful in his love and care of us. He is generous and thoughtful and desires our good. He respects us, desires to grow us, He is wise, He is always available, he shows us the right path, and desires to love us all the rest of our days. This truth can have meaning for all people.

o The fact that we can call out to Him, Abba Father expresses a type of approval and confidence of assurance that we get. Abba means Daddy, it’s a groaning and longing for a Father. Similarly, to a young child simply assuming that his father loves him and is there for him. In us, being able to cry out Abba Father shows us that we have access to God, something that we take for granted. We are able to call out to God the Father and cry out to Him for help.

· Growing up, I tried to gain my earthly father’s affection through trying to obey and make him happy by making him proud of me. But thankfully our heavenly Father loves us not out of anything we ever do. But out of his abundance of love for us. We can have full assurance that we don’t need to go to God the Father and try to gain

· His approval but He already loves us, and the proof of that is the giving of the Spirit to us in our adoption.

o No matter what the world brings we can approach God our Father for help. And this Father loves us, even when we fall, even when we mess up, even when we sin, He is still our Father.

· Consider when people adopt. They adopt not because they must, but because they choose to. In the same way, God adopts us because he chooses to. God didn’t have a duty to save us or call us into His family, He looked into the world and saw orphans, he saw people without a Father, he saw people who didn’t belong, he called children who didn’t have a home, children who didn’t have a family, and He calls them into His family, and we can call this God, Abba Father.

Application for us:

· I understand that some of our earthy fathers have been great examples of God’s character. Some of these dads are members of this church. But even the best earthly fathers should point us to the fact that we have a heavenly father who loves us tremendously. So, draw near to our heavenly Father.

· Fathers here in this church, I encourage you to love your family in a manner that desires to love them how God the Father loves us.

o Even if you have failed in the past. Repent, ask for forgiveness, receive mercy, and start a new in loving your children how they ought to.

· Church family, let us be encouraged that God the Father has adopted us into His family, making us brothers and sisters and giving us access to Himself. We can come to him for anything, similarly to a scared child calling out to his earthly father for help, we can trust that God the Father will be there for us.

Lastly, the third benefit we see in Adoption is that we become Sons of God: 7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.

In our last verse of our text, Paul mentions our former identity with our new identity which is that we were former slaves but now we are sons of God, and more importantly an heir.

· In our adoption we receive Sonship through faith in Christ.

· I know that some of you might be confused at why the passage doesn’t say that we aren’t ‘sons and daughters’ but just says we are sons and may be thinking that maybe a little unfair to women.

o But Paul isn’t saying this to exclude women, but to include women. We need to remember that it is him who said earlier that there is neither male, nor female, but that we are one in Christ.

o But the reason that Paul uses the word Son is because the word Son meant ‘legal heir’. In ancient culture, it was the firstborn son who was entitled to receive the inheritance of the family. Paul saying that in Christ we are sons, is saying that WE [men or women] are all heirs to the inheritance that God has provided, the promises of eternal salvation and adoption into God’s family. We are all now Heirs of Christ.

Not only are we Heirs, but we are Co-heirs with Christ, meaning that when we are adopted into God’s family, God loves us in the same way that God the Father loves the Son.

(CSB)

26 I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.”

· In God receiving us as heirs. He loves us with the same love and affection with which he loved Jesus. We are all loved just as fully as Jesus was loved by the Father. What a great and encouraging truth for us to cling to church family!

· As co-heirs with Christ we have the same right as Jesus to come to God as Father. We have legally inherited the rights of Jesus himself.

· To make it simple, Tim Keller says this, he says that “Sonship is that God now treats us as if we have done everything that Jesus has done. We are treated as if we are ‘only sons’ like Jesus.” [Tim Keller – Galatians For You]

Church family, do you understand the depths of God’s love for us in adopting us? Do you see how great of an act this is by God to do this for us? Or does this truth just hit you and doesn’t affect you or cause you to love God in a greater way?

Maybe we don’t really understand our adoption as we ought to. Consider earthly adoption, we tend to romanticize adoption and see it as this process where people who are needing of children find the perfect child with the great smile who just needs a home and people to welcome the child into their family. But our adoption by God is not like that. God doesn’t adopt people who are desiring the love of a father, God adopts people who hate the Father, people who are wrathful towards God.

Consider what Russell Moore says in Adopted for Life:

Imagine for a moment that you’re adopting a child. As you meet with the social worker in the last stage of the process, you’re told that this 12-year-old has been in and out of psychotherapy since he was three. He persists in burning things, and attempting repeatedly to skin animals alive. He ‘acts out sexually,’ the social worker says, although she doesn’t really fill you in on what that means. She continues with a little family history. This boy’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all had histories of violence, ranging from spousal abuse to serial murder. Each of them ended their own lives. Think for a minute. Would you want this child? If you did adopt him, wouldn’t you watch nervously as he looks at the knife on the kitchen table? Would you leave the room as he watched a movie on TV with your daughter, with the lights out? Well, he’s you. And he’s me. That’s what the Gospel is telling us.

GOSPEL: In God’s adoption of us, there was nothing in us that God found lovely to want to adopt us. In fact, we were hateful people who hated God. Yet God didn’t punish us, he adopted us. Therefore, our adoption is so great, those who were enemies of God, were brought near to God and brought into His family because of what Christ has done for us. In the Gospel, God send His son Jesus, fully God and fully man, to live on the earth and He perfectly obeyed the law throughout his earthly life. He is the only one able to redeem us and redeem us He did by dying on the cross for our sins. In dying for our sins, he takes on the full wrath of God and the righteousness that Jesus had is transferred over to those who would believe in Him. Jesus triumphantly rose from the dead and provides our justification and adoption into God’s family. In adoption, God calls us who are orphans and gives us a Father, a Family, and a place in heaven we can call home.

If you are Not a Christian here today, as we have talked about adoption and being a part of God’s family and the blessings that come with it. These blessings only apply to those who have put their trust and faith in Jesus, but you too can receive the adoption by God by repenting of your sins and trusting in Christ alone. I encourage you to stop trying to find a place to belong in other things, it wont last, but in Jesus you would find the one your soul longs for and in God’s adoption of you you would find a place where you would truly belong.

CBF: take encouragement in God’s adoption of us, and the great lengths that God went in adopting us. Take joy in the blessings that come with adoption: We have God as Father, We are One in Christ, and we are heirs.

Practical Applications for us:

· Make disciples: desire for others to be welcomed and adopted into God’s family. Share the Gospel and the great news of Christ’s saving of us.

· Encourage each other with the love of the Father. Church family, we have access to a loving Father who wants us to come to Him like a child running to the arms of His father. Cry out to Him in your darkest moments, cry out to Him in suffering, Come to Him in times of rejoicing. Let us be a church, that points each other to the open arms of God the Father.

· Consider adoption: Church family, as you guys have walked with us and are going to continue to walk with our family in adopting. I want to encourage you that earthly adoption is great in that it points to the Gospel. It takes children who may have come from broken homes and provides for them a permanent family and a permanent home where they feel loved and belong. I would encourage some families here, to consider adopting. It’s going to be hard, and difficult, but it is rewarding. Maybe for most of us here adoption is not something we would do, but I want to challenge us here, to at least consider it, pray and seek God’s will in maybe adopting in the future.

CBF as we close, let us take encouragement that we have been adopted into God’s family, where have full access to our Father. We were enemies of God, we were spiritual orphans, whose path would lead to eternal hell, and God has called us now into His family and given us a Home and a place where we are loved and a place that we belong.

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