Live Like a Champion – Week 26

The Promise of Adoption!

Romans 8:14-25 (NAS95)

 

The play of the week is “The Promise of Adoption!” The memory verse for this promise is Romans 8:15,
 
“For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’”

 

Adoption is the Holy Spirit’s ministry of the Father’s grace towards His lost children. Allow me to share an illustration of what grace is; I’ve shared this with you before, but it has been years since I have:

 

If a young man is killed through some random act of violence, and his father tracks down the guilty person and kills him, we would call that vengeance. If, however, the father calls the police and the murderer is arrested, tried, convicted, and executed, we’d call that justice. If, at the trials, the father pleads for the guilty man’s life to be spared and the judge and jury consent, we’d call that mercy.  Now imagine this: in addition to pleading for the guilty one to be spared, the father appeals to the judge to release the offender into his custody and care.  Miraculously gaining approval, the father takes the young man into his heart and home, adopts him, and raises him and loves him as his own son…that would be grace! (DeMoss & Grissom, Seeking Him, 86) 

 

That is a beautiful image, but God’s grace goes one step further!

 

This adoption by the Father is made possible because God, our Heavenly Father, gave His only son Jesus Christ to take our death for us so that justice was satisfied through Jesus’ propitiation of God’s wrath. Jesus came so that all the sons and daughters could be bought back from the penalty of sin, for the wages of sin is death, and brought Home to God’s forever family through the shed blood of Jesus Christ!

 

This is a legal transaction! We move from alienation and estrangement from God to welcomed and cherished members of God’s large, forever family. Listen to John teach us this in 1 John 2:2, “[Jesus] Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the provision of the Father’s love that makes the Holy Spirit’s promise of adoption possible!

 

As John further explains in 1 John 4:9-10,
 
“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

 

The Holy Spirit assures you of God’s grace in your life, forever. Because of the plan of the Father, the provision of the Son, and the promise of the Holy Spirit, you do not get what you deserve, but rather you receive grace upon grace through the ministry of adoption. Rather than being cast aside because of the sin that separates us from our heavenly Father, we are welcomed into a large, forever family. Adoption not only gives us a new heavenly Father, but it also gives us a large, forever family of brothers and sisters.

 

I am a child of God, forever, because I have been adopted into His forever family! I love this truth from 1 John 3:1a,
 
“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.”

 

Helping us better understand this is Zach & Natasha Hamilton and their family, including their newly official son—John Luke! 
 
(7–10-minute testimony from the Hamilton family, to include the dedication of John Luke and family prayer. Then, Hamilton family children to read Romans 8:14-25)

 

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

 

Listen to the theological definition of adoption;
 
“Adoption is the divine work wherein God declares regenerated believers to be his beloved sons and daughters and welcomes them into his eternal family.”[1]

 

Adoption is a part of God’s plan of salvation to redeem all things back to His rightful rule, what the Bible calls the Kingdom of God, which is often taught through the imagery of a family (“familial imagery”). While we are not yet in God’s eternal Kingdom, which will be in the New Heaven and New Earth (Revelation 21-22), we are in the age of God’s grace when it is through the promises of the Holy Spirit that the Church, the adopted people of God who have been grafted into Israel, to declare and make known the Kingdom of God through the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in word and deed.

 

Until the Lord returns, this is our purpose as the children of God—the sons and daughters of the King of kings—with rights of inheritance to His presence, His power, and His promises! Amen!

 

Therefore, there is no reason to fear because you are no longer a slave to fear, but a son of God; you are a child of God with legal rights of inheritance to Jesus’ Victory! Paul proclaims in Galatians 4:4-7,

 

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

 

You are legally and forever adopted as a member of God’s household because of the plan of the Father, the provision of the Son, and the promise of the Holy Spirit! You are secured by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God! God lives in you—He has sealed you for the day of redemption, He has anointed you as His chosen possession, and He has given you power from the heavenlies to be His witnesses to all the wayward children of the nations.

 

What is our witness to the world as the family of God? Jesus says in John 13:34-35,
 
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

 

Our witness as the children of God is how we live our lives with God and with one another, as His family. Our lives are the signs and wonders of the Kingdom of God! This is the promise of adoption for all to see and to know that there is a God who loves all the little children.
 

You can listen to the message here:

 

You can watch this message by clicking HERE.

 
 

FOOTNOTES:

 
[1] Susanne Calhoun, “Adoption,” in Lexham Survey of Theology, ed. Mark Ward et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).
 
 

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