Easter Sunday - Adopted into the Family of God
Notes
Transcript
Handout
CHILD DEDICATION
CHILD DEDICATION
HAVE PARENTS/CHILDREN COME FORWARD
Good morning guys!
Thank you guys so much for sharing your story with us today.
I read a quote this week from an adult that was adopted. She said, “I wasn’t born in my mom’s belly, I was born in her heart.”
It has been a long hard road to get to today and you aren’t at the end of the road. Not even close.
God has given you the responsibility to:
o Train up your children in the ways of God.
o Be an example of Christian living both inside and outside the home.
o Provide for, protect, and nurture your children.
o Make them a part of your family, sharing with them your love, your time, and your life.
o Teach them to love the same Jesus that you love … and to serve, obey and honor Him with all their heart.
I want to remind you that you are not alone in this responsibility.
God, your Heavenly Father, is always with you to provide you with the strength, encouragement, love, and wisdom you need.
All you have to do is go to Him, and He will provide all that you need.
This morning, we are not dedicating Elijah, as much as we are dedicating Russ and Brittany.
You are here today to publicly say that you, want to raise your Elijah in a Christ-honoring home … and are asking God’s blessing on your ministry as Christian parents.
LISTEN, as I ask you some questions.
In answering these questions, you are making promises to GOD.
NOT to me … NOT to Elijah … BUT … to GOD.
If you are willing then reply by saying “I do” to the following promises:
Do you pledge, as followers of Christ, that you will raise Elijah in a home that emphasizes the importance of a personal, growing relationship with God?
Do you promise to teach him the truth of the gospel and pray for the day that he chooses to believe that truth for himself?
Do you promise to show him God’s love to the best of your ability?
Normally, this is where we would ask similar questions of the church as well so that they can dedicate themselves to helping you.
However, because God is moving you guys to Idaho, I am asking you for one more promise.
Do you promise that you will find a church there that will assist you in helping Elijah discover the love of God?
TGP, will you pledge to pray that God would direct them in raising Elijah and in finding the new church home that He has prepared for them?
Normally we would have your LG come huddle around you as we pray, but we can’t do that right now, so all that are in their LG please stand and pray with us today.
Let’s pray together.
God, as we stand before you today, we are promising you, Elijah, Brittany, and Russ, that we will do all that we can in providing an environment in which Elijah can know you. I am so thankful for this sweet family and I’m so thankful for Russ and Brittany. They have done such a great job of trusting you through this process. God as they move from one stage of life to the next, we ask that you would give them wisdom and compassion as they raise three incredible little boys. God show them your love daily and give them the tools they need to share that same love with their boys. Father, bless this family as they walk in obedience to move to Idaho and help them to find the perfect church body for them. We love them so much and we know you do too. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
Sermon
Sermon
Me
I have a friend that reuses coffee grounds… He is a monster.
If you are a coffee lover, you know, as I do, that coffee is only meant to be brewed once.
However, its usefulness is not gone. If you take those coffee grounds and other organic rubbish and mix it with other carbon-based items, over time, it becomes wonderful soil.
I am aware of this fact and yet, when I make coffee, rather than getting the compost bowl out of the fridge or starting a new one, I often dump them in the trash can.
We have spent the last few weeks talking about facts. They can’t be ignored and they have great impacts on our lives.
I don’t know about you, but even in the little things like composting, I find myself giving up something great, I guess because of laziness, convenience, or simply lack of care.
We were planting some bushes in the yard yesterday and were using wheelbarrow loads of compost to fill a new flower bed and God spoke as I was loading that wheelbarrow.
We
Most people find this same pattern in their own lives.
They may have different reasons, but the reality is that sometimes we ignore certain areas of their lives.
We choose to not do something and then have to deal with it later.
Doing the dishes vs waiting a few days...
Mowing the yard vs waiting a few weeks and needing a tractor...
Laundry - turning a molehill into a mountain.
God
The reality is that there are also areas of our lives that are much more significant than dishes, yards, or laundry.
There is an issue that all of us share that is more important than anything else.
All of us are born in sin and have no hope of getting ourselves out of it.
We started off this part of the service this morning with Brittany and Russ promising God that they would help Elijah to discover who He is.
They lovingly took a child into their home and not only cared for him but have given their all to love him.
When we think about adoption, we think about little boys and girls that are in a place without hope.
They are in need of rescue.
All of us are in need of rescue.
We see Paul use the idea of adoption many times to help us understand the goodness of what God did through Jesus.
In their book, Reclaiming Adoption, the authors make the following point.
From God’s perspective, adoption is not essentially about orphans at all. It is essentially about estrangement. Adoption is about God taking into his home those who have rebelled against him.
Our sin is a rebellion against God.
This all began in the garden with Adam and Eve believing the lie that there was something better for them than the perfect life and relationship that they shared with God.
The problem that all of us have is that we are born believing that same lie.
We need to not only be rescued, but we also need love, acceptance, and family of God.
God provided all of those things for us through the work of Jesus on the cross.
Look with me at Romans 8:12-16
12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh,
13 because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”
16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children,
I want to call your attention to a few things that Paul is saying in this passage.
If we live according to the flesh (sin), we will be eternally separated from God.
If we believe and allow the spirit into our lives, we will live in a perfect relationship with God.
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
In choosing to believe, we are adopted into the family of God.
Because God loves us, He allows us to come to him, just as we are.
There is no correction that needs to be made in advance.
Jesus has done all that was needed, we just have to accept it.
You may not be aware of this, but when you adopt a child and become their legal guardian, that child is given a new birth certificate.
In the place on that legal document for the birth mother and father are the adoptive parent’s names.
This is incredible imagery of what happens for us when we choose to believe that Jesus died and raised himself from the grave on our behalf.
When God declares a person a son or daughter, their status changes!
We were once estranged and alienated and are now the beloved heirs of God.
You
How do you respond to this good news that God wants you?
God wants to adopt you into his family so that you can know Him.
But where do you start or what if you don’t feel like you are good enough?
You begin by just talking to God, which we call prayer.
Paul laid out the framework of that prayer for is in Romans 10:9.
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
All that you need to do is to confess and believe and you will be adopted into God’s forever family.
Listen, you heard testimony today that adoption is hard.
It was hard for God too.
It was hard for him to be separated from his beloved creation.
It was hard for him to send Jesus to live a perfect life and then die as our sacrifice.
There is always a cost when it comes to adoption and God willingly and lovingly paid that cost on your behalf.
He didn’t do it because he had to, He did it because he loves you.
For many, this is the part where there is a desire to avoid.
Just like the dishes and the laundry, we usually just put it off until later.
Don’t miss out on the joy of being adopted into the family of God.
If you have never asked Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you are going to have an opportunity to do that in just a minute when we close in prayer.
We
I want you to know that it may seem difficult or scary to do this, but I want to encourage you that most of the people in this room made the same decision.
We hear testimony week after week of the goodness of God as we choose to believe and walk with him.
Don’t put this off. There is nothing that will bring you more peace in life than to know Jesus.
As believers, we get to celebrate today knowing just how much God loves us.
We have an opportunity, every day, to share this message with the people that God places in our lives.
We are the adopted sons and daughters of God.
Not because we earned it, but because it was given to us.
Today as we spend time with our friends and family, remember that you have been redeemed and adopted into the family of God.
Pray:
Thank Jesus for the gift of adoption through salvation.
Prayer of salvation.
Ask God to help us see ourselves as He sees us.