>> Well, good morning. Greetings from the Saints at Lighthouse San Diego. Here is a dear friend and my mentor. And I remember those of you old school folks when we were like 30, 40 here and just to see what God has done. Huge encouragement to me. And so it's a great privilege and joy to be with you for many reasons, but especially because of this topic that I would like to address.

Even as His people, it's a subtle temptation to allow the wonder provoking, deeply personal truth of our adoption in Christ to become kind of like some mere fine print of our great salvation. It's to our contemporary joylessness and ineffectual pursuits and missionary complacency that we either forget or functionally fail to believe that God our Father by His unstoppable grace pursued us, forgave us, embraced us, loves us, cares for us.

See, it's not at all enough to have heard that Christ died for sinners. It's not salvation at all to merely give intellectual assent to the truth that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. Even demons and enemies of the cross of Christ know that, James 2.19. It is nowhere close to being born again to only say that we really, really respect Jesus and we're trying very hard to live a good life.

Such are grossly insufficient in of themselves and by themselves. So it's possible to believe even sincerely that one is going to heaven because of one's church attendance or one's moral performance or baptism or coming to the front or some past emotional experience or by one's friendly association with many Christians.

And yet sadly, still be as lost as lost can be. No instead because of Christ's love, God's children will believe and say with every fiber of their being, tears welling up in their eyes for sheer gratitude and for the elation of being in relationship with the Father. That His Son died for me.

Save me, is merciful to me, disciplines me, is transforming me, cares for me, is for me, me of all people, this most unworthy sinner. Adoption is doubly personal to me. First because my wife, Sandy, and I have three precious children, Tobias, Piper, and Kristen, whom we love with all our hearts.

I'm so proud of my children, especially my older two and how they have embraced our youngest. I am humbled by my wife, her compassion. She's really the force behind this. And a part of our family's story though is our youngest, of course, was adopted by us nearly eight years ago.

The day of our adoption concluded our joyful yet difficult journey of three and a half years as foster parents, actually with Olive Crest here in Orange County. Prior to her, we had the blessing of caring for four other children of varying ages and varying needs and trauma, Elena, Ignacio, Jose, and Isabella.

It was no romantic journey, at times extremely humbling and painful because of what we've seen these children go through, because of the way our own sins and weaknesses were exposed as a married couple, because of the frustrations and fallenness of our foster system, because of the way family, friends, and even church members criticized us or opposed us, let alone the plight of these kids coming out of the brokenness of our very own local communities.

So at times in the process, let me be honest, there are moments we felt abandoned like the ones that we were caring for. Then when those children were reunited with their birth families, we were simultaneously rejoicing as well as devastated that we had to let them go. However, we were more concerned what it would cost them to not be cared for than what it would cost us to care for them.

It was devastating to lose them, but it was totally worth it to have the opportunity to love them. We had Ignacio for almost six months, and we wept for days after he left our home. Even saying his name is emotional for me, even almost a decade later. I remember falling into a season of depression, but through that the Lord was working in our hearts and I was reminded of something I knew in my head but did not remember in my heart, that the pursuit of adoption, like all godly parenting, is not about me.

It is not about fulfilling the desires of dad and mom. It is about the glory of God and loving others, that Christ loves us. So we were happy to see their lives and homes become whole again. Therefore, it was a joy and is a joy to be a part of that.

Right now, Kristen, as our precious daughter, is grace, undeserved grace beyond words. Some have said to us, well-intentioned, Kristen is so blessed to have you, but we don't ever think or feel that way. No, we are the blessed ones. We get to be her parents and her family. I get to be daily confronted with the things that are disease-ridden in my own soul, thus with my own need for God, my Father.

I get to hold her in my arms as her daddy and point her to Jesus. We are the blessed ones. A second reason is super personal to me, is something that most people who meet me don't know, that I too was adopted. That might be a surprise to some, but it really shouldn't be.

The thing is, I wasn't an orphan in the way that most people think. No, I was in a condition far more serious, horrible, and desperate. I was a total stranger, a willful outsider, a slave of sin, an enemy of God, a zealous, rebellious blasphemer, an object of the just wrath of God.

I had no desire for Him. At times, I intentionally expressed my hatred for Him. At other times, I only mechanically conformed to people's expectations of what a good boy should be. But then, God mercifully, mercifully interfered, intervened. He intercepted me on the path that I had been on, and I heard the good news of God's grace in the gospel.

And as I listened, God regenerated my flat-lined, dead heart to believe. He convicted me of my sinfulness, my cosmic treason, my spiritual bankruptcy, my utter inability to save myself, and I stopped running away from God, and I ran to Him. Up until my conversion, I hadn't ever known happiness like that my entire life.

And so I wanted to tell people, I had to tell people what happened to me and for me and how God had loved me and how God still loves me, not because of me, but despite me. And so I did tell people, and though I was not conscious of it yet at the time, I was also welcomed to heaven's praises into a new family, where God the Creator, the righteous judge became instantly, eternally, and only my perfect Father.

It's precisely because of the privileges of God's adoption of us in Christ that my wife, Sandy, and I were strongly compelled to pray, ponder, plan, and pursue adoption, even in our dating fellowship time, in our engagement, and into our marriage. It has only served to deepen our understanding of the gospel, fueled our zeal to be salt and light, and allowed us to know more intimately God's great love for us and His church.

D. F. Packer in Knowing God wrote, "To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater." John Piper adds, "Adoption is not good news if it only puts us in God's family, but not also in His arms." Turn with me, if you would, to the eighth chapter of Romans, Romans chapter 8, Romans chapter 8, starting from verse 14, Romans chapter 8.

Due to time, of course, this is not all that could be said biblically about adoption, nor will it be a full exposition as might normally occur with me, but more of a doctrinal application for us on this Orphan Sunday. Romans chapter 8, starting from verse 14. This is the word of the Lord, "For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

For you have not received the spirit of slavery, leading to fear again, but you have received the 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.

Verse 18, "For I consider 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, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

Will you join with me in prayer? Let's pray. Father, this is your word, and so not a word of it fails, and every syllable of it is true. We need it more than our necessary food. For we do not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from you.

Let us know the pure gold of its truth, the sweetness of its application, the need of humility to penetrate the obvious cracks of our latent self-righteousness. Renew our minds with the matchless joy of freshly understanding your sovereign mercy that your kindness leads us to repentance. In your grace, do that life abundant and everlasting.

Give us eyes to see as your objective revelation bears on our hearts so that by the work of your Spirit we might submit ourselves exhaustively and exclusively to you, right now and not some tomorrow. Engrave in us that we are not our own, that we've been crucified with Christ and we no longer live, but Christ now lives in us.

Awaken us to the fact that this life is short, that we have no business worshipping the idol of convenience, the idol of natural children or no children, the false gods of our own plans. To repent of such spiritual adultery, that our new identity is reason to prioritize true priorities to lay our treasures in heaven and not in our stuff.

That we both ought to and that we now can walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. Overwhelm us by your greatness and grace into the white-hot affection of genuine worship and daily discipleship as we consider our own adoption. We give you homage. We bow beneath your good authority.

Encourage your people greatly this morning. We entrust ourselves into your perfect, timely, and fatherly care this Lord's Day. In Jesus' name, for Jesus' sake we pray, amen. Can I get my water bottle? I don't think I'm used to preaching two services, so. All the more props to your pastors.

Well three things today. Number one, I want us to see the gospel importance of our adoption. The gospel importance of our adoption. That we have been granted new freedom. We've been granted new freedom. The gospel importance of our adoption. Adoption is at the heart of the gospel. That we're saved by God, from God, to know God.

That though we deserve punishment as rebels, we experience the greatest joy of all possible joys. Receiving the right to become children of God. He redeems us from slavery to sin and Satan from the broad road that leads to destruction. And he frees us, again not because of us, but despite us.

Martin Lloyd-Jones once asked, "For some inexplicable reason, it is a doctrine, the doctrine of adoption, about which we very rarely hear about. When was the last time, if ever," he asked, "that you heard a sermon on the doctrine of adoption?" G.I. Packer went even further. I love what he wrote.

He says, "If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, he says it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all." Our adoption is vital, transforming truth.

Paul declares in our text, in verses 14 to 15, "For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God, for yet not received the spirit of slavery leading to fear again." Now, one of the distinguishing marks of true believers in this letter to the Romans is that the Spirit of God lives in them and leads them.

So a person is either controlled by the flesh or by the Spirit, Paul says, and he's a child of God or a child of Satan. Now we might not like to hear that, but the Bible says it's either one or the other. And by nature, the former is true and by grace alone, the latter becomes true.

Romans 1, we know, states that everyone believes that God exists. So there are really genuinely, the actuality is there's really, there are no true atheists or agnostics. Rather man in his, natural man in his prideful independence instead chooses to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Prefers to live in denial and lie to himself, trying to escape any notion of accountability, even while ironically holding everyone else but himself to account.

Giving God the hand, he questions God's greatness and goodness only to exalt his own supposed greatness and goodness. And that's what we are seeing all around us in our society. Romans 3, 23 says, "We've all sinned," past tense, "and fall short," present tense, "of the glory of God." Romans 5, 6 adds that the sinner is not needing help, but is absolutely helpless.

To be helpless apart from God is also to be hopeless apart from God. The late David Pallison said it well, "The core insanity of the human heart is that we violate the first great commandment." And he says this, "We will love anything except God unless our madness is checked by grace." But the good news is God has made a way in his love.

From the moment of the fall, God promised in Genesis 3, 15, the proto-evangelium, a future seed who would crush the head of the serpent. That seed was the promised Messiah. And over and over again in the redemptive saga, the human lineage of the Messiah was on the verge of extinction against all odds, humanly speaking.

But that line was sovereignly preserved all the way to our Lord Jesus. This sovereign rescue was no accident. This redemption was no plan B. Turn with me, if you will, to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1, looking at verse 4. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4. There it declares, Paul says, "He chose us in Him." Ephesians 1, verse 4, "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we will be holy and blameless before Him.

In love He predestined us to," speak to me, what does it say? Adoption, right? "He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ Himself according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." Interestingly, John Stott comments on this text.

He says, "He destined us for a higher dignity that even creation would bestow upon us. He intended to adopt us." We were loved long before we actually experienced God's love. Creation was loved in my family's heart long before she ever came into our lives physically. Romans 5, verse 8 says, "God demonstrates His own love for us in this, that while we are still sinners, Christ died for us." Galatians 4, verse 4-5 declares, "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that purpose, so that He might redeem those who are under the law, that purpose, we might receive the adoption as sons." In other words, our redemption rests not in our choosing Him, but in His choosing us.

Is that not a picture of what adoption looks like? Now not in a creeper way, but sometimes when my kids are asleep, I quietly go into their room and I watch them sleep peacefully and stare at them and admire them, right? And then I pray for them. My kids were here in the first service, so they're a little weird out when they heard that, but...

And each of them is different and special. When I look at my daughter, Kristen, and I don't think a week doesn't go by where I think this, I look at her and I wonder how different her life might have been and how different my life might have been. Perhaps she might have perpetuated a generational cycle of dysfunction, sin, and heartache, private things I will not share, but of course I cannot know for sure.

But her former heritage had been spiraling down long before she ever came into the world and it threatened to pull her underneath its waves. Today she is just our adorable daughter and Toby and Piper's younger sister, but like the rest of us, she is also a sinner. So sometimes she can be a very difficult person to live with, like her daddy.

That makes me pause and ponder with gratitude, where would I be right now if my father in heaven didn't adopt me? I don't know. I think I would be in prison or dead or trying to make it rich and find my happiness and possessions and probably be miserable or I'd be deceived about my supposed happiness, which would be much worse.

But I think of those possibilities as a man filled with deeply suppressed rage as a youth, momentarily erupting but always growing. I sometimes think apart from God's grace and intervention I would have eventually reaped the consequences of my violent heart and ended up dead or in prison. I didn't seek fights, but I welcomed them.

I'd be far from his blessing, but that wasn't God's will. Romans 8.1, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. My debt is fully paid in Christ. I am justified. I have no criminal record. I've been adopted as one of his children and the Holy Spirit lives in me." Romans 8.28, many of us know that text.

That is his totality. Let me remind us that it says, "All things are working together for," I'll put it personal for me, "my good. For I've been predestined, called, justified, and being sanctified will be glorified so that one day I will be as," the next verse says, verse 29, "be conformed to the image of his Son." So that as an adopted one, the last verse of this chapter, verse 39, "so that nothing will be able to separate me from the love of God." John MacArthur wrote, "The old life of the adopted person is completely obliterated.

It is as if he was born the day he was adopted. He is like a new person who just started his life." Thomas Watson, in contemplating our adoption, weeped, "God has a son of his own and such a son." How wonderful God's love in adopting us. And Watson says this, "We needed a father but he did not need sons." Number two, want us to see the glorious identification in our adoption.

The glorious identification in our adoption that we've been given new family. The glorious identification. We've been given new family. Romans 8, verse 15, "But you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Abba, Father.'" It's an affectionate term but it's a reverential one nevertheless.

I don't think daddy exactly captures it but there's a spirit of that. But there is affection, there is love. The spirit says, testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. Verse 16, "The humble request for forgiveness becomes the intimate confidence of belonging that we could affectionately say without any fear of rejection, 'Abba, Father.'" He approaches the throne of grace with confidence.

There's no spirit of fear, no spirit of slavery, but the spirit of sonship, the spirit of acceptance and assurance, the spirit of intimate access, of really belonging that he's my father. There's an old story of a boy who was the son of the town's judge and his friends, they wanted to do something awful, namely to steal something from the local store.

But he didn't want to do it. So his friends teased him saying, "You won't do it because you're afraid your father, the judge, will hurt you." Suddenly that devoted son responded, "I'm not afraid my father will hurt me, I'm afraid to hurt my father." See, that, that, that, beyond that response is the loving spirit of devoted sonship.

That's the heart of all of us as believers, is it not? As adoptive parents, my wife and I have received all kinds of strange looks, to be honest. You know, they double take, you know, when my wife comes and they see our child doesn't look as Asian. And we've been asked all kinds of insensitive questions.

I don't usually think it's out of any malice, which only reveals my own need for grace to respond with grace. It doesn't bother me now. But let me suggest it reveals a flawed understanding that many believers have about the gospel. Inevitably someone will say to us, "Oh, she's adopted?

I thought so. So are those your real children?" To which Sandy and I will respond, "They're all our real children." That is to say, Kristen isn't a second-class child. She's fully our child, truly our daughter, truly belongs, equally beloved as our birth children, so we're fine. We're happy to explain the reality that she's been adopted because it's a part of her past as much as mine.

But as Russell Moore wrote, "Adopted is a past tense verb, not an adjective." Let me repeat that. "Adopted is a past tense verb, not an adjective." See what we don't do or shouldn't do is go around introducing her as our adopted daughter. Mrs. Toby Piper and our adopted daughter Kristen as some kind of qualifier or acknowledgement of some ongoing difference, of some inequality or inferiority or lack of belonging.

That is anti-love, anti-family, anti-church, anti-gospel, anti-Christ. I mean we don't go around usually or shouldn't go around introducing people in our lives as, "Here's my short friend," or "My blonde cousin," or "My smartest child," or "My divorced parents," or "My Jewish or black or republic co-worker." You get the point.

I've had relatives and even two pastors tell me not to adopt foster kids because supposedly they are damaged beyond repair. Listen, knowing that's just wicked nonsense, I'm not minimizing the fact that there are very difficult situations and different callings. And this is not the only ministry that you and I may be called to.

I suggest that most of you might not. It was humbling to be a foster parent for many reasons. I mean there was a non-Christian couple in our classes. They adopted three Down syndrome children. So those two pastors told me not to adopt because they're damaged. What are they then saying about our gospel hope and God's power?

Come on now. The spiritual reality is that we're all damaged. We're all special needs children. We all need the same hope and anyone can be transformed by the power of God. Anyone. Anyone. Again, that doesn't mean it's easy. It's not. A couple in our church have adopted a child who they later discovered is on the spectrum.

And it's hard. It's hard. It's hard. But we all didn't belong but now we do. Let us never be ashamed to say that we've all been adopted. Past tense. For it is a very important, wonderful part of our testimony to celebrate. Right, brothers and sisters? Let us never think that it means any single one of us here are anything less than his children equal in Christ, equal in dignity, equal in salvation, equally loved by God even though we might have different roles within it.

Christians should know more than anyone there is no superiority or inferiority among us. The gospel of grace calls for reconciliation and not reparations. We know the power of the gospel. First Corinthians 12, 13 to 15 reads, "For by one spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one spirit, for the body is not one member but many.

If the foot says, 'Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,' it is not for this reason any less a part of the body." Ephesians chapter 2, 12 to 14, we remember that you all at the time were separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. Ephesians 4, 2 to 6 says, "There is one body and one spirit, just as you also you are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." Seven times he says one.

Meet any true Christian anywhere in the world, regardless of the language and cultural barriers, and you instantly know there is a bond with that person. Because in Christ, I not only have a new father, I have a new family. Listen y'all, family has never been about blood. It's always been about belonging.

Family is not about blood, but about belonging. Family is not about blood, but about belonging. Let me speak to those in Asian cultures who perpetuate a racist mindset otherwise. When Julius Caesar adopted Octavius as his son and his legal heir, it allowed him to succeed his father as Emperor Caesar Augustus.

There was no inferior status due to his past adoption. It is not that we are saved, that we get to live then outside in some doghouse on the outskirts of heaven so that at least we're not in hell. It's not that we merely get a safe place of refuge away from immediate harm, like some foster homes that are sometimes cold and loveless, where you will get food, clothing, shelter, and not get beaten by family members.

That's certainly better than being hungry, naked, or abused, but there are a lot of places you can receive those necessities and yet feel profoundly empty, abandoned, and without a sense of belonging. Not the least ounce of feeling loved and actually being loved. Our adoption, our adoption in Christ is much more than receiving legal forgiveness and justification which is already monumentally more than we deserve.

It is much more than just freedom and protection from our former father the devil. It is much, much more than getting our own bed to sleep in and not having to wonder where our next meal is coming from or even dreaming about what new toy we're going to get from the next charity that rolls into town.

No, it means we belong. It means a home, a forever family where we are loved. For some of us, perhaps, the church is the first family in which we experience love. Why? Because of the inherent goodness of man? No. Because his imperfect people are compelled by the love of Christ.

When the first Christians who were Jews asked, "Are the Gentile believers really one of us, part of us?" The answer, of course, from God was, "Yes, they are. Of course. They're brothers and sisters more so than your natural family." Sadly in churches today, brother or sister sometimes is just a metaphor for a friend or acquaintance or our consumeristic preferences about which church we'd rather go to.

What programs do I get? How eloquent the preaching is? How big the church or similar people are to me or what will I get or not get by going there? Life is not about you. Life is not about you or I. My friend John Kim, Pastor John Kim said, "Love is the litmus test of Christianity to show whether your claims to faith are genuine or not.

You live out the great commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus said it better, "By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." Remember, you and I do not just have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

We have a corporate relationship with Jesus Christ. When given a family, we're not just given privileges, but we're given responsibilities. And I pray that you are an active part of that as a member and not just a spectator from the seats. Your understanding about spiritual adoption has a lot to say about your pursuit of church unity, forgiveness, practicing to one another, sacrificial kingdom giving, not being divisive, about loyalty to your leaders and fellow members.

Here we must not be preferentially choosing who our friends will be. No, we are brothers and sisters with the same loving Father. Now I understand that a church this size, we may not know everyone well. That is okay. But we better look at each other as brothers and sisters, as family.

As new creations of Christ, we've been given a radically new life, new identity, new family, new direction, new hope. At Kristen's adoption hearing, the judge and attorneys on both sides, they asked us some very surprising questions, at least to us. For example, they asked, "Are you going to treat Kristen as your same as your birth children?" How could you ask that?

Right? Of course. "Are you going to give her a full inheritance and all the rights of your other children?" I mean, I can't imagine the cruelty of anything less. It was a foregone conclusion, in our hearts, we love her. John Calvin said about this text that the primary work of the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit is mentioned here, is to convince us of the gift of our sonship, ensuring and then testifying to our hearts that we do belong, that we are children.

Ancient Rome's adoption process actually requires seven witnesses in the transaction. The question is why? Well, what happens if, when the father dies, if the birth children are resenting the adopted son who is the heir and then try to accuse him of having an illegitimate claim? So in the Roman Empire, they required seven witnesses to protect the adopted son's rights.

But listen, we don't need seven witnesses. We just need one. Verse 16 says the Holy Spirit testifies, witnesses that we are children of God. As a Christian, I didn't belong, but now I do belong. Fully, really, truly, publicly, completely, joyfully, eternally, I belong and God is my father forever.

At Christian's adoption hearing, I never forgot how Sandy and I, we're pretty calm and excited but of all places to just start bawling like crazy, was when the lawyers and judge were exchanging all the legal verbiage that had just confirmed the permanent reality that we are not just her parents functionally, but also now legally.

I was born in California, code 94698.127, all this stuff. It's just like, look, weepy, right? That's when we lost it. And I remember, I remember, why, why at that point? You know, it's because I realized that she was no longer a ward of the state and trusted into our temporary care as her foster parents, but she became ours and we became hers.

After a year of caring for her as though she was our own, she was not legally ours until that point, so as her dad, I could finally say with joyful authority, she's mine. The legality of it is still very important. It is not some bureaucratic red tape. It is real and it's pictured in the gospel.

Our justification in Christ is not just a legal forensic positional righteousness. It is deeply and mutually personal. Kristen's birth certificate was permanently changed. Mom didn't actually get to name her. She fled. So baby, last name. New name, new identity, new inheritance, new father, new future, new trajectory. Isn't that similar to salvation?

Milton Vincent wrote, "When I see the cross, I see the premium that God places on the works that he has prepared for me to do. How valuable all of these works must be if Christ would die so that I might perform them." At least with Kristen, we're seeing by God's grace that the multi-generational cycle of neglect has now been broken, is still being broken by her adoption.

Not only is her life being changed, so is ours. And our prayer is her story of hope goes beyond her to her kids and their kids and their kids. And also we pray for their birth family. That God would reap joyous change through the glory of God. However, let me suggest all of that pales in comparison to our gospel stories.

When we've been redeemed, set apart into his omnipotently loving fatherhood, sovereignly adopted to a certain and glorious hope, many of us are still deeply scarred by a very painful past, especially in our home life. But they do not have to define us. Listen, though the gospel does not erase our past, it does redeem us where we are.

Jason Johnson said, "The gospel like adoption is a multi-generational story of love. It breaks our past cycles, forms our new realities, and offers us a future hope unburdened by the broken context from which we originated." Then he concludes, "He secures our futures and changes the trajectory of our lives forever." Which leads us into the final point.

Number three, the great inheritance of our adoption. The great inheritance of our adoption that we are guaranteed a new future. A new future. Romans 8 verse 17, "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 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 creation waits eagerly for what? The revealing of the sons of God." So in one sense, we are told here in our text that we are right now the children of God.

But in another sense, that sonship has not yet been fully consummated. Thus, we've yet to receive the full benefits of our present day adoption. See, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. So we, along with the rest of creation, eagerly await for it. For what?

The full revealing of the sons or the children of God. Our position in Christ is rock solid. Our hope is certain. It is not wishful thinking. We will arrive because Christ takes us there. We are fellow heirs with Christ. We will receive brand new resurrection bodies. We are now freed from the penalty of sin, being freed from the power of sin.

And one day we will be freed from the very presence of sin. First John 3, verse 1 says, "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God." And so we are. First Peter 1, 3 to 5 reads, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power, not ours, are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." Name one thing on earth that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

Probably three things that are eternal. God, His Word, and souls. That's where our priority should be. Our adoption in Christ ought to radically change our perspective. We should be living in a way that reflects our glorious, incredible future. Joyfully, obediently, courageously, faithfully. I mean, I think we tend to wonder if you're single, "When will I get married?

Where might we be ten years from now? How old will we be when we retire?" I don't know. But let me suggest that sadly many Christians, we think of the 50 to 80 years or so we live on this planet. But when was the last time you asked yourself, "What will I be doing 10,000 years from now?" We really don't have an eternal perspective as much as we desire.

Thomas Watson said, "The world is but a great inn where we are to stay a night or two and be gone. What madness is it so to set our heart upon the inn as to forget our home?" Jesus says it better in John 14, "In my Father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also." Adoption is an opportunity to see God's provision.

As a pastor of a small church at the time, we qualified, at least in the county's eyes, for very low income. So it was a stewardship of no retirement plan, cheap vacations, no music lessons, no martial arts, no sports teams for our kids, which there are times I felt guilty not able to provide like their peers.

But we never went hungry or into debt. We just adjusted our lifestyle. Jesus said, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." We don't need stuff or success. What we all need is more of Christ. More of Christ. I don't think my children are missing out on anything due to our choices.

Maybe dad's sinful choices, but not that. Adoption is a great opportunity to be sanctified and see our children and our church encouraged and have our joy multiplied. It's not the only way. I want to emphasize adoption is not the only way we glorify God. We will all be doing different ministries and God will lay on our hearts different things.

But I do want to speak to adoption in particular. Some will object, "Well, some adopted kids can be very difficult and sinful to deal with." Me too. You too, right? Grace of God is sufficient to deal with that powerfully. Watch Him. "Well, I don't know if I should or can adopt." Yeah, that very well be true.

But you can support those who do if God lays it on your heart. "Well, I won't know their medical history and potential health issues." You don't know that with your birth children. You're not God. Are you going to stop loving them if they do have health problems later on?

Are you going to disown them or pull the plug because they get paralyzed in a car accident or suffer from Lou Gehrig's disease one day? I hope not. I don't think so. Your maladies and mine, our radical depravity in the womb and out of the womb are far worse.

Yet God adopted you to Himself. Someone is to seek suffering just because. We're not masochists. Yet we must hate our sin more than our suffering. We must hate our sin more than our suffering. Over and over again in Israel's history, if you look at the Old Testament, the Father's heart is revealed repeatedly for orphans and widows, the fatherless, the broken, the poor.

And their open neglect was judged by God as the prophets spoke against the social injustice at the time as being perpetuated by His very people. In Rome they put unwanted babies on the city walls to either die or be taken away as slaves. And it was the early church who counter-culturally rescued them.

Speaking to foster adoption just for a moment, the statistic I heard is if less than half a percent of our nation's evangelical families adopted one child, then we would empty the foster system. Let me be clear though, this is not about the social cause of adoption. It's not about the cause of adoption.

I mean, there are many good causes. A lot of times those causes can devolve into something that has nothing to do with Christ and the gospel. Becomes an end in of itself. This is not about the social cause of adoption. Why? Because doing church and making disciples, they are not the same thing.

Doing church and making disciples are not the same thing. Are you making disciples? I'm not asking is the church making disciples, are you making disciples? Are you investing and pouring into someone else? Are you being invested in? We're seeking that out. We need each other. Many people can adopt, but not all do so for Christ's glory.

As much as I'm encouraging some of us to do so, it is ultimately about whether or not the love of Christ controls your entire life. That's the question. It's not, the question is not will you adopt? The question is does the love of Christ compel you? Does it control your entire life?

Every nook and cranny of your daily life and future. It's about self-denial. Jesus said, "Take up my cross daily and follow me." It's about self-denial, all that God might call you to. Jesus is our example for how we should then live our daily life in love of the Father.

John 10, 15, "Even as the Father knows me and I know the Father," Jesus says, "I lay down my life for the sheep." Luke 22, 42, "In that dark moment, Jesus prays, 'Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done.'" Our own adoption is the gospel at its most beautiful, most endearing, and most gripping.

Before I became a dad, I felt conviction of sin when I snapped at someone, but I never felt as bad as when I do that with my wife or kids. I feel compassion for kids who eat lunch alone at school, but thinking about that happening to any one of my kids makes me cry in private.

Yet that doesn't even come close to comparing to our Father's love. He's a perfect Father. I'm an imperfect one. He will never give into sinful anger or graceless condemnation. His love outclasses any other by his invincible power, infinite omniscience, eternal omnipresence, so that we should repent immediately forever, having been anxious or worried or having complained about anything.

And yet the good news is that He will never disown us, never forget us, never stop loving us, never lose us in a busy mall. Luke 15, familiar text reads, "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 'But,' the father said to his slaves, 'quickly bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fattened calf.

Fill it and let us eat and celebrate, for the son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and has been found.' And they began to celebrate." God's children more than any other people on this planet should both know and feel the desperate need and life-changing joy of adoption.

Dear brothers and sisters, do we not know the joy of adoption better than anyone on this planet? Amen? Let's pray. Father, we know that this is not adoption, the only issue or ministry that we can be engaged in. It is one of many that need to be saturated, not by legalistic moralism, not by self-righteous aims of justice.

We don't want justice, we want mercy. You are the judge, you will bring justice one day. But what this world needs is mercy, needs the gospel. Thank you for this wonderful church and all that you are doing here, so encouraged by this body. Pray that our hearts' focus would be that we are living sacrifices.

And as your adopted children, I pray that your people here, your children here, and all the children around the world of you will enjoy the warmth of the sunshine of thy smile this week and forevermore. In Christ's name we pray, amen.