Doctrine of Adoption - part i
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Introduction:
Introduction:
If I were to ask you,
“What is one key to becoming more like Jesus Christ?”
Many of us would immediately admit that we must listen to and obey the word of God. But when we take in the word of God, there are particular truths that must be received.
For example: If I were to ask you what is one key to becoming bigger and stronger, you might say that you need to eat. But when you arrive at the restaurant the menu has many things from which to choose. Once you identify your meal, you receive it, chew it, savor it, and digest it.
Such is the case with the doctrine which is key/fundamental in this passage.
Galatians 4:1-7
Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Paul shows how the doctrine of adoption tethers us back to the true gospel and is central/fundamental to our sanctification - the formation of Christ in us.
Kid’s Pause:
Statement: Adoption is a teaching that is about all God’s children and that is found in the Bible.
The doctrine of adoption is fundamental to becoming more like Jesus Christ.
Galatians 4:19
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
The doctrine of adoption is often overlooked or taken for granted.
The doctrine of adoption is like the foundation of a house that needs a greater inspection than the rest of the house but often gets less attention than the more appealing and evident parts of the house.
Proposition:
Proposition:
So, I am explicitly saying that if you want to see Christ formed in you more fully, then you must understand more fully, believe more deeply, and practice more readily the doctrine of adoption.
Why?
Why?
A misunderstanding of adoption or an underestimation of adoption leads us to proud, self-confident, external religious living that does not glorify God and does not produce genuine love for one another.
Galatians 5:13-15
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
So, how can we more fully understand, believe, and practice the doctrine of adoption so that we might become more like Jesus Christ?
To answer this question, I will give a response involve three thoughts on how we consider adoption: Estimate, Value, & Ethics.
(1) Estimate: Do NOT underestimate our pre-adoption condition (v. 1-2)
(1) Estimate: Do NOT underestimate our pre-adoption condition (v. 1-2)
Paul gives a pre-adoption illustration...
Galatians 4:1-2
Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
Paul uses an illustration that they would have understood in the Greco-Roman world.
A Roman child became an adult at the sacred family festival known as the Liberalia, held annually on the seventeenth of March. At this time the child was formally adopted by the father as his acknowledged son and heir and received the toga virilis in place of the toga praetexta which he had previously worn. 1
1 Boice, J. M. (1976). Galatians. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Romans through Galatians (Vol. 10, p. 471). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
No matter how old you were when you heard and received the gospel, we should take a long hard look at the reality that we were under an impossible schoolteacher, and it was not the schoolteacher’s fault. We were like kindergarteners with senior class level expectations. Our ignorance and immaturity left us only hoping we could be inheritors but we were not really inheritors of God.
Application:
Application:
Our pre-adopted condition was one in which we were trying to live up to a standard, hoping that we could be accepted by God. We were in bondage trying to live up to laws and rules. There are still people today who have such a misunderstanding of adoption, that they say they are Christians but they live like they are worried they won’t be accepted.
Our pre-adoption condition was one where we were no more inheritors than an employee at your business or a stranger in your house.
Illustration:
Walking into someone house for Richardson’s grad party. This is a good story to remind me of the awkwardness of not being part of the families’ house in which we had entered. Everything was strange. Nothing was really recognizable. In one sense, you feel homeless.
There are those who, because they do underestimate their pre-adoption condition, consider themselves to have been more worthy of adoption than others. This is dangerously proud.
Kid’s Pause:
Kid’s Statement: The Law is like a classroom teacher that reminds us that we need rules because we are sinful orphans who have rebelled against our Heavenly Creator, and we need to be adopted.
Christ-likeness requires that we not underestimate our pre-adoption condition.
(2) Value: We must continually evaluate the Adoption Costs
(2) Value: We must continually evaluate the Adoption Costs
Paul now gives an application (v. 3-5)
Galatians 4:3-5
Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Here Paul applies the illustration which he just gave in the prior versus. His application is by way of a
(a) clear transition from illustration to personal application,
(b) the activity of the timeless God to adopt through redemption by
(i) sending His son
(ii) under two subjugations -- woman/law
Quote: R. Moore “When we were still orphans, Christ became a substitute orphan for us. Though he was a son, he took on the humiliation of a slave and the horror of death.” [Adopted for Life, p. 40]
It is more than redemption. There is an intimacy assumed in this that redemption alone does not assume.
Maybe your wondering why I have not taken time to define adoption, but it is here where the versus help us to define adoption:
Biblical adoption is the real transaction initiated and accomplished by God so that Jesus could have many brethren.
Biblical adoption is the real transaction whereby God fully pays for and seals children into his family.
Biblical adoption is the transaction where by God pays the costliest price for the most intimate, eternal family.
Application:
Application:
An implicit result of this application by Paul should be humility. As we consider the high cost of adoption — a cost fully paid by God — we should be humbled. This humility should lead us to repent of any self-confident efforts. What do I mean:
Self-confident efforts result in Christians who are insecure about their obedience to God.
Self-confident efforts result in Christians who devour each other with their words.
Self-confident efforts result in joyless Christians who separate over secondary issues. (Galatians 4:15)
Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.
Why do I say this? It is because when you have lost site of your true adoption identity and the cost paid for it, you will constantly be trying to pay to attain an identity, and that means you will be insecure, because you never know if you have done enough and you will destroy others whom you may see as not meeting your self-imposed expectations.
The only remedy for this kind of pride is to revisit the cost of your adoption and see how the price that God has paid makes you secure in your identity and frees you to love others in spite of secondary issues.
Kid’s Pause
Kid’s Statement:
In order to adopt us into His family, God had to pay a high price. This price was His Son Jesus Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection. Only those who receive the Son of God are adopted.
Christ-likeness requires that we rightly evaluate adoption costs.
(3) Ethics: We must remain ethical about adoptive Christianity (v. 6-7)
(3) Ethics: We must remain ethical about adoptive Christianity (v. 6-7)
Galatians 4:6-7
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Paul now gives the results of this adoption, which shows that their sanctification is in no way dependent upon self-effort; but just as they are inheritors through Christ, they have inherited the Spirit - God Himself. [Adoption is Trinitarian]
Thus, they have maturated out of a life which is proud, self-confident living. They did not grow in Christ likeness before, and they cannot grow in Christ-likeness by self-confident effort.
Rather, as real, adopted sons of God, holy because they have inherited the Spirit of God and their ongoing confidence is rooted in the humbling, undeserved reality of their adoption.
It is dishonest or unethical to believe and attempt to live our lives as adopted children by confidence in our good works.
Kid’s Pause
Kid’s Statement:
Adopted Children of God receive the Holy Spirit of God so that they can live Christians lives in a non-Christian world.
To live ethically as adopted children means that we live by the faith of the Son of God and not by the faith of self.
Conclusion:
So what do we learn about about believing and practicing adoption?
(1) Real: Adoption is true and not merely a type.
God delights in adopting orphans. Be saved today.
(2) Humbling: Adoption is started and sealed by God.
Let the truth of God’s word regularly humble you through your exalted adoption in Christ.
(3) Theological: Adoption is theologically Trinitarian.
Do not glory in your separation over secondary issues. Glory in the cross of Christ.
(4) Primary: Adoption is not a second rate option.
Even as a parent of your own children, you are an adopted child seeking to have your children adopted by God.
In one sense, you have children so you can give them up for adoption.
(5) Practical: Adoption is to be prayed about, participated in, and prestiged.
Adopt or foster to adopt
Celebrate adoption: do not pity adopted children as if they have lost something.
Rather celebrate adopted children because they have found something.
Give designated funds to help families to adopt.
Begin by speaking to a family who has adopted.
What is the key to Christlikeness?
If our church will be more like Jesus Christ, then we must more deeply understand, believe, and practice the doctrine of adoption.
“As we become Christlike, we become godly. As we become godly, we grow in holiness — differentness from the age around us. This God-imaging holiness means, therefore, and imaging of God’s affections, including his love for orphans.” - Moore [Adopted for Life, p. 63]