I am 49 year old father of three and husband of one (for life)

Sunday, July 12, 2009

July 12, 2009 sermon

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. 11In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

In its original language of Greek, the scripture I just read is one long sentence. In fact, it is one of the longest sentences in the New Testament and it is not just a bunch of words that got thrown together randomly. It is a veritable theological smorgasbord.

One commentator said it well: “The entire passage is so highly compact that it is a challenge for both the preacher and the hearer. It has to do with a broad range of theological concepts, such as election, revelation, and more broadly, atonement. It even makes use of specific theological terms, such as "redemption" (1:7, 14) and "salvation" (1:13).

A sermon on this passage will have to be limited to a very few of these concepts at best. Moreover, in most parts of the country this text will be read on a rather warm, perhaps hot, day near the middle of July when hearers may not be very receptive to heavy theological terms.”
So, it is with that in mind and the fact that we would like be out of here before next Tuesday, I have chosen to focus on a single issue- a single word from our text - adoption.
Now, when I hear the word adoption, my mind automatically thinks of what I’ll call “conventional” adoption, where a husband and wife seek to adopt a child that they did not give birth to. Their reasoning may be that they were unable to have children or have already had theirs and now wish to adopt, adding to their family. I’m sure there are numerous heart- rending stories on this subject and worthy to be brought to our attention, but today/ tonight I want us to think about adoption in a different light. I found a really good definition of what adoption means in these terms:
Adoption (the new Geneva Study Bible)
Justification is the basic blessing on which adoption is founded; adoption is the crowning blessing for which justification clears the way. Adopted status belongs to all who receive Christ (John 1:12). In and through Christ God loves His adopted children as he loves His only begotten Son, and will share with them the glory that is Christ’s now (Romans 8:17, 38, 39).

Adoption and regeneration accompany each other as two aspects of the salvation that Christ brings (John 1:12-13) but they should be distinguished. Adoption results in a new relationship, while regeneration is a change of our moral nature. Yet the connection is clear. God wants His children whom He loves to have his character, and he takes action accordingly.


2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

God said, “I’ll take him or I’ll take her” God chose each and every one of us to be his child- we are children of the King and we were chosen before the foundations of the world! Can you just stop and think on that for a moment? The creator of the universe chose you- chose me for this purpose to be His child! How can life be more than one big doxology? “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” I mean, how can we keep from just saying “Thanks be to God” all the time? If we could just turn our focus from our temporal, dysfunctional, sinful lives for just a moment, seeing that God has chosen us!
We may not be able to understand why God chose me and you for adoption. Some may say, “OK, that’s all well and good for you, but you don’t know where I’ve been in my life. You don’t know what I’ve done, you don’t know the kind of upbringing I had. I mean, I’ve been through some rough stuff, some difficult times.” My reply to those statements is very simple, “It doesn’t matter”. I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter where you came from- it does and there are likely some very important and deep emotional issues that may need to be dealt with in some way. What I mean is that God took all of your emotional and spiritual wounds and said, “It doesn’t matter, I still want you to be my son or daughter. I mean, who, after all, had a normal childhood- anyone? Who hasn’t done things in his or her life that they aren’t proud of? But, you see, that’s not the point! The point is that we were chosen before all of that stuff happened! God was not surprised when you made a bad choice. God was not surprised when your family of origin turned out to be dysfunctional in some way. The question is- can you accept the adoption? Can you receive the adoption into God’s family? As I was thinking about this issue of receiving or accepting I was reminded of a situation that took place many times when I was younger. My parents and my brother and sister used to go out for dinner every now and then with my grandparents- my mom’s parents and when the time came for us to settle up with the server and the bill would get left at the table, there would be some spirited discussions between my dad and my grandpa as to who would pay the bill. Two grown men; stubborn and hard headed men- fought over who would pay the bill. The imagery of two bowling balls banging off of the other comes to mind, reminding me of the thickness of their heads! Neither of these men knew what it meant to accept someone doing something for someone else. My guess is that neither of them felt worthy of acceptance. Do you know people that have a hard time accepting a gracious favor from someone else?
The next step as I see it is learning how to live in the adoption as a child of God? What are we to do in response to what God has done for us?
We may not have “His eyes” or “His nose”, “His smile” or any other physical characteristics of our heavenly Father, but when we accept our adoption as God’s children we may not look like God from the outside (though we are commended to pursue righteousness as he is righteous) rather, we are to begin the process of looking like His son on the inside. Because you know, as they say, looks are only skin deep, but ugly is to the bone. I don’t think that’s in the scripture anyway. Remember back a month or so ago, when we committed our hands to the work of ministry? What did you say you would do? Have you done it? If so, has it drawn you closer to God? If you haven’t done anything yet, what are you waiting for? Do you remember the New Year’s resolution you made to spend more time in the Word? As Dr. Phil says, “How’s that working for ya?” Do you remember the last time you and your teenager didn’t quite see eye to eye on a few subjects and everyone stormed out of the room; maybe there were some slammed doors and some words said that you wish you could take back? These are real life situations that we find ourselves in on a regular basis.
The earthly journey that started when we came to Christ and will end when we go to be with Him is one filled with opportunities.
For growth- sometimes growth is painful.
For development of character-
For change- change can be scary
For depth- growing deeper in our knowledge of Jesus and what it means to live the Christian life
For service- to others and for others.
I heard one person say “Jesus did not suffer on the cross so we wouldn’t have to. He suffered on the cross so we could join him there.”
John 1:12 “But as many as received Him to them He gave the right to become children of God , to those who believe in his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” NKJV

What God wants from us is holiness and blamelessness, which is spelled out not in terms of sterile morality, but love. We have not been abandoned; instead, we have been taken into the divine family through Christ (1:5). This is still the language of caring and nurture. Again we hear it is what God wanted and its goal was that we should be lovers of love, the love shown in Christ (1:6). This is all about ultimate values and the focus of our spirituality: appreciating love.
God’s goal for us is that we would become more like His Son.
Romans 8:29 “For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
We are not Jesus and we never will be Jesus nor do what he did. However, one person defined discipleship as: “Living my life as Jesus would live my life, if he were I.”
True children of God will bear the family likeness, both now, as our hope lends our lives a focused purity resembling His, and at the end, when “We shall be like Him.” Only then will our knowledge of Him be complete, but even now our knowledge that “he is righteous” will bring increasing righteousness to our own lives.
Where have you heard this scripture before? “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God” - baptism- the place where we symbolically display one’s belonging to the family of God. Whether you have been baptized or not is not the central issue. The issue is that if and when we make a decision that we cannot be the rulers of our own lives anymore and we need to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God through Jesus Christ- we’re in! What is left for us to do is to live our lives in such a way that others will see who’s family we belong to- to which family do we bear a striking resemblance? Let people say when they see our lives- I can see a family likeness.
Romans 8: 12-17- The Message
“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a child-like “What’s next Papa?” God’s spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us- an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!”