Adoption
Adoption.
It is at the heart of the gospel. God has not only erased our sins and given us
new life, but also he has adopted us as his sons and daughters. He has become
our loving and compassionate Father. Christian theologian J. I. Packer said, “Our
understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption… Of all the gifts of grace,
adoption is the highest.”[1] If we
want to understand who a Christian is, who we are, we need to appreciate divine
adoption. In verse 14 Paul says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” Particularly,
understanding adoption in the context of Roman society will be very helpful and
even necessary to understand who we really are. In the Roman world of the first
century adoption usually occurred when a wealthy adult had no heir for his
estate. The moment adoption occurred, several things were immediately effective
for the newly adopted son. First, his old debts and legal obligations were
paid; second, he got a new name and was instantly heir of all the father had;
third, his new father became instantly liable for all his actions; and fourth,
the new son also had new obligations to honor and please his father.[2] All this
are found in today’s passage here.
Costly and Free
First, adoption is costly for God and free for us. We know that there are
huge costs in adopting children. It varies, but in average it costs about
$40,000.[3] However,
financial cost is just part of it. There are costs in time and stress for the
rest of our life. We never stop being a parent until we die. God’s cost to
adopt us was far greater than any cost we may have to endure in adopting and
raising children. It did cost God the price of his Son’s life. In Galatians
4:4-5 Paul says, “But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a
woman, subject to the law. God sent him
to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children”
(NLT). Adoption is costly for God. But for us, it is a free gift. When a father
adopts a child. The child does nothing; the father does everything. Adoption is
a legal act on the part of the father— it is very costly only for him. There is
nothing the child does to win or earn the status. It is simply received. For
this reason, the Bible says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through
faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so
that no one can boast (Eph 2:8-9, NIV). We have been adopted by grace.
New Status (Justification)
Second, adoption changes the status of the child. In verse 15 Paul says, “For
you did not receive a spirit that makes you
a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship…” Divine adoption changes our status from slaves to
children of God. The image of adoption tells us that we were not naturally God’s children. There is a popular notion
that all human beings are God’s children because God created them all. It is
true that all human beings are God’s offspring by creation (Acts 17:29), but we
become his reconciled ‘children’ only by
adoption. In this sense, we could call Henry Ford the father of the
automobile. But we have no personal relationship with him. The Father-child
relationship with God is not automatic. Today’s scripture clearly tells us that
we receive our sonship (v. 15a). This
proves that there was a time when we were lost. We were spiritual orphans and
slaves, but now we are adopted children of God. Praise God!
New Identity (Regeneration, Conversion or Born Again)
Third, adoption gives us new identity as well as new status. In verse 15
Paul says, “By him (the Holy Spirit) we cry, “Abba, Father!” “Abba” means
“Daddy” in Aramaic – a term of the greatest intimacy. In Korean we say, “아빠.” It sounds quite similar.
My children always call me “아빠”
with confidence. There was a time when God was a distant Creator of the
universe, but now He is our Daddy. When he adopts us, he does not leave us with
no feelings of acceptance and love. Instead, he pours his Spirit into our
hearts to give us new identity, new family affection. His love is poured into
our hearts through his Holy Spirit to grant us to feel the affections of
belonging to the family of God. So we cry, “Abba, Father!” When we cry out to
God as “Abba,” the Spirit himself gives us assurance that we are forgiven, we
are accepted, we are beloved as his family. So we cry with deep conviction,
“Abba, Father! I am yours, and you are mine!” The picture in this slide (or
bulletin) is one of the famous photos of John F. Kenney with his son John Jr.
This small son could walk into the oval office at anytime! Others would have to
wait for their precisely scheduled moment or two. But little John could
boldly walk in anytime he pleased. Why? Because the man who was
“president” to everyone else was “daddy” to him. The same privilege is
true for us!
Transformation (Sanctification)
Last but not least, adoption brings transformation through suffering.
In verse 17 Paul says, “If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs
with Christ--if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified
with him” (NRSV). This verse tells us two great truths: one is that we are
going to receive an incredible inheritance, and the other is that we are going
to have to suffer in order to receive it. No
suffering, no inheritance. Jesus himself learned obedience through his
sufferings (Heb 5:8). The Bible says God disciplines all of his children so
that we might share his holiness (Heb 12:5-11). For the Israelites, although
they were delivered out of slavery in Egypt, the servile spirit still remained
a part of them for a long time. It took 40 years to live as God’s children.
Trials purify the dross from our lives. They sanctify us. They produce
perseverance, character, and hope. Through our sufferings, we become more and
more like Christ, our brother, co-heir, and Lord in our characters and
attitudes.
Adopting Stephanie Fast
I want to close by telling one
story introduced in Lee Strobel’s The
Case for Grace. Stephanie Fast was born around the time of Korean Civil
War. Her dad was an American soldier, and her mom was a Korean. Stephanie was
abandoned by her parents when she was four. She was wandering mountainsides and
villages. She had to eat locusts and field mice to survive. Then, she followed
a group of homeless children. They called Stephanie, “Toogee” which means
half-breed. But it’s more than that. It sort of means garbage, dust, bastard,
alien devil. She had no name, no identity, no family, no future, and no hope.
Over time, she began to hate herself. She was always in survival mode. When
Stephanie was following a gang of homeless children, she was seven. There, she
was raped. She ended up getting cholera. Then she was thrown into the garbage
heap. Then, a World Vision nurse from Sweden found her and brought her to the
clinic. When Stephanie regained her strength, she was transferred to the World
Vision orphanage. And she was there for about two years.
One day a young missionary couple,
David and Judy Merwin, came to adopt a young boy in the orphanage. But then,
they met Stephanie in the hallway. David greeted her and stroked her fact. She
felt love, but didn’t know how to respond. So she spat on him twice. And then
she ran away and hid in a closet. But they came back the next day and adopted
her as their daughter. But Stephanie thought she was going to become their bond
servant, because it was common at that time. They kept feeding her, buying her
new clothes, but never putting her to work. One day Stephanie talked to her
friend, “Those Americans are really funny. They haven’t put me to work yet.”
The friend said to her, “Stephanie, don’t you realize that you’re their
daughter?” She was astonished! Stephanie said to herself, “I’m their daughter!
Oh, that’s why I’ve been treated this way. That’s why no one’s beating me. I’m
their daughter!”
On the outside she seemed ok. But
on the inside she was scared to show her pain. She thought if her parents saw
her pain, they would bring her back to the orphanage. Every night she’d go to
bed scared to death I’d be discovered and lose her parents’ love. When she was
17, she met Jesus. All of sudden she realized that Jesus was actually sort of a
toogee. He slept in the straw as a
child. He was ridiculed and abused. They chased him and tried to kill him.
Stephanie cried out, “God, do something and do it right now!” Then, she started
crying. She hadn’t cried in years. Then, she started wailing. That night Jesus
healed her pain. Then, she has this assurance: “Jesus knows me — and he still
loves me! He knows all my shame, he knows all my guilt, he knows all my fears,
he knows all my loneliness — yet he still loves me!” And that changed her,
inside out! Now Stephanie counsels a lot of women with abuse in their past. And
she declares with confidence, “There is no event in my life that I am better
without. Why? Because everything in my life brought me to Jesus.”[4]
Adopted by God
Indeed, God’s grace goes far beyond
forgiveness. We are beyond forgiven. We are more than a servant. In fact, we
are adopted by a Father whose love is unconditional and never-ending. We are adopted
by a Father who is for us forever!
Do you have this Father? Do you have this
assurance? You don’t need to wait for a miracle or a whisper of the Holy
Spirit. Instead, look to Jesus! John 1:12 says, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right
to become children of God.” So look
to Christ, receive Christ as your Savior and Lord and Treasure, and you will
cry from a heart of deep conviction, “Abba, Father! I’m yours, and You are mine!”
[1]
J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity 1973), 182, 194.
[2]
Timothy Keller, Romans 8-16 For You
(The Good Book Company, 2014) 15.
[3]
http://www.americanadoptions.com/adopt/why_does_private_adoption_cost_so_much_money
[4]
Lee Strobel, The Case for Grace
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2015), 182-567 of 3611.
