Together: Adopted into God's family (Session 2)

When we come to faith in Jesus, we are adopted by God into His family.

Galatians 4:4–5 CSB

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

Romans 8:14–17 CSB

For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. 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!” The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

My middle child, Eden, is adopted. So, in some ways we live this out in our home on a daily basis.

One of the things that adoption teaches us is that God wants us as His children.

No one is forced into being an adoptive parent. When we signed up to adopt, we did it with the full intention of granting to our adopted child everything our biological children would have.

We committed the same love, the same provision, the same goals, and the same benefits.

God willfully adopts each one of us into His family. Everyone who belongs to God by faith in Jesus receives the same love, provision, protection, discipline, and benefits.

When we are saved by faith and adopted into the family of God we get a new birth certificate.

I hadn’t thought of this before until we adopted Eden. We lived in the state of TN at the time, and when we finalized our adoption process, the state of TN issued a new birth certificate for her with our names as the parents, and the got rid of the old one.

This same thing happens with us.

Jesus says we must be born again...

John 3:1–8 CSB

There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.” Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Being born again is a spiritual work that God performs in the lives of those who put their faith in Christ.

This is what it means to born of the water and the Spirit. God isn’t saying that baptism saves you… though I would tell that those who are saved have desire to obey the Lord, and that includes baptism.

Jesus is saying that there is a real spiritual transformation that happens and it’s like being born again. But, this time you are born into the family of God. And, with your new birth and adoption into His family he gets rid of the old record of debt that your sin owes.

Colossians 2:14 (CSB)

14 He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

You were born with a sin debt that Jesus cancels through His death on the cross. Sin deserves death, that’s what it owes. Jesus paid your debt with His death to give you the life that His righteousness deserves.

In Psalm 51 David prays for God to blot out his rebellion and completely wash away his guilt and cleanse him from his sin. He cries out to God to turn His face from his sin and take away his guiltiness.

Jesus is the full and final answer to that prayer. Because Jesus died on the cross, your sins are forgiven when you trust in Him, repent of your sins, and confess Him as Lord.

Jesus did not deserve death, His actions deserve life and all the riches of glory. Your sin deserves death, and the wages that your sin deserves is death. This is true of everyone...

Romans 3:23 (CSB)

23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

And everyone who falls short has earned the same consequence.

Romans 6:23 (CSB)

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But, like Romans 6:23 says, sin earns death, but God’s undeserved gift to all who believe is life. And the life that God gives you is the life that Jesus’ righteousness deserves and it comes with the inheritance that He deserves as well. YOu receive His inheritance because you now share in the blessings of the family of God.

(Regarding children- we know and trust that God is gracious to children, because we know that all everyone is saved by grace, and that is is through faith. Therefore, through David’s loss of a child in Scripture we see that God is gracious to save them.)

When you are saved by faith in Christ you are adopted by God into a relationship with Him, and into His family- The church.

We are joined together with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

1 Timothy 5:1 CSB

Don’t rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers,

Matthew 12:49–50 CSB

Stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

The church isn’t like a family, it is a family.

When I was in Morocco for a few months after college I met a young man who had just accepted Christ. Morocco is a muslim country, and its illegal to convert to Christianity there. Not only is it illegal its disgraceful.

The young man we met had lost everything when he gave his life to Christ. His father disowned him and took his name away. The guy literally had no name and no family. He was living with a missionary and they were praying about what his new name would be.

But, when God saved him it was to Him as his heavenly father and into a new family of Christians.

My wife’s dad died of cancer when she was 15. We met right after I graduated from MC. And when I met her God was more than her heavenly Father, He was her only father. When it came time to talk to her family about marriage I found myself talking to God and asking Him if I could marry His daughter. I talked with her mom… but because of we are adopted into God’s family I asked Him too.

What does this really mean and/or change for us?

Being together as a family means showing love to each other as we would our own family

In your small groups you talked about how our love for one another demonstrates that we are truly His disciples.

John 13:34 CSB

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.

In my breakout group today we talked about how Jesus said everyone who loves God with all that they are will also love others with everything they have.

This sounds amazing, but it still feels kind of abstract and hard to nail down what it looks like.

In addition, many of us struggle to be like a family at church because of the way our families are at home.

So, what does love look like in the family of God?

It’s Sacrificial.

1 John 3:16–18 CSB

This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.

Jesus is our example

God’s family is characterized by a sacrificial love demonstrated by our “older brother” Jesus.

You can’t speak sacrifice, you have to do it.

Practical ways to sacrifice for one another:

1. Be here for them and not for you.

This is just humility 101. God first, others second, yourself last. But, too often our relationships are about us and not others. But, Jesus has called us to love God with all that we are and to love others the same way we love ourselves. This involves trust. You have to trust that in the same way God uses to be here for them, He will give you someone to be here for you. In fact, this is the way marriage is supposed to work too. Both the church and Christian marriage should be reinforcing one another in the fact that sacrificial love is the way of Jesus)

2. Prioritize one another over the others.

This might sound like it contradicts the call from God to share the gospel and love all people, but it doesn’t. We see this throughout the NT in the way the church works. The early church was willing to sell their own possessions to help take care of one another. Family takes priority. Remember how my middle daughter is adopted… well my other two daughters don’t have a different relationship with her than they do with one another. They are all sisters and they are all our daughters. This is the way of the church.

3. Pray for one another.

So much of our prayer life is centered on ourselves. I know that often pray for sicknesses and such at church stuff. But, I am talking about when you pray at home. And, I am talking about praying for more than health or financial issues.

If we love one another we will pray for one another. And, if we are going to pray for one another we have to know what is going on with one another.

4. Get to know one another.

This might seem somewhat shallow at first glance. But, consider that God knows everything is to know about you, but He still talks and listens with you.

If God knows everything about us and still listens and talks with us, then how much more should we take the time and make the effort to know one another.

Do you know the life direction your friends are chasing after?

Do you know what encourages your friends?

Do you know what discourages your friends?

If you are focused on yourself then you will only worry about other people knowing you. But, if you are living for Christ, and following HIs example then you will live to know others and put them ahead of yourself.

These are the rules in God’s family:

God First

Others Second

Yourself Last

This is the example of what Jesus has done for us.

Philippians 2:5–11 (CSB)

5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Ultimately our goal as a family of God is to accomplish the goal of Jesus Christ, and that is to bring glory to God the Father.

When we follow the example of Jesus in our faith family, we take steps toward accomplishing the goal of bringing God glory together.