The Glory of God in Adoption

What if the key to understanding God's love is realizing you've been adopted into His family?

In this powerful Father's Day message, Pastor Greg Sukert walks through Ephesians 1 and reveals the breathtaking reality of spiritual adoption. No matter your past, your family background, or your current circumstances, God offers redemption, inheritance, and security through Jesus Christ.

Drawing from his own personal journey through infertility and adoption, Pastor Greg shows how the doctrine of adoption transforms the way we view suffering, identity, and our relationship with God.

You'll Discover:

•  Why adoption is at the heart of the Gospel 
•  What Ephesians 1 teaches about God's love for His children 
•  How God redeems us from spiritual orphanhood 
•  The inheritance every believer receives in Christ 
•  Why your identity is secure in God's family 
•  How the Father's love sustains us through life's hardest seasons 

No matter what you're facing today, you are not undesired by God. Through Christ, you can become a son or daughter of the Most High God.

Scripture: Ephesians 1:1-14

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning, Central Church. My name is Greg Sugar. I'm one of the pastors here, and it's a blessing to be here with you on Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to all of your fathers. And uh I really mean fathers of all kinds, because I know we have many kinds of fathers in this room. We've got uh fathers who have biological children, adopted children, and spiritual children because you are making disciples in the gospel. And what we want to tell you is that you matter, you are a gift from God to this world, and as you submit yourself to your heavenly father, you are God's instrument to transform the home, your family, and culture and the world with the gospel. So you are a blessing. And as we think about what it means to be a father, there's really no better place to look than to our Heavenly Father, and we're gonna look at an amazing passage this morning that points to our Heavenly Father. So if you've got your Bible, go ahead and open up to Ephesians chapter 1. We're gonna be in Ephesians chapter 1. And the subject of fatherhood is really deeply personal to me because my wife and I, we've been trying to have kids now seeking the Lord for children for seven years. And uh it's been a really, it's been a hard journey. I'm not gonna lie, it's been difficult. Uh there are some things in life that become massive pain points that you never dream will become pain points in your life. This was not something I could have ever imagined would have been a part of my story. You know, I I live in this very idealistic world. I don't know if anyone else lives in this very idealistic world, but you know, when I got saved, I had my whole life planned out. You know, I'm gonna learn how to share the gospel, I'm gonna start a media ministry that shares the gospel with the world. I'm gonna marry a godly woman, we're gonna have godly children. Uh, these children are gonna respond quickly to the gospel, they're gonna love evangelism, they're gonna love doing our chores. And I'm even gonna have a son who knows how to work with tools. Because the Lord knows that I sure don't. But sadly, that's really not how life has been the last seven years. Instead, the last seven years has been seven years of tears, seven years of confusion. Lord, what are you doing? And seven years of not having a man in the home who knows how to use tools. Well, what has carried us through these painful seven years? What's gotten us through? Looking at the character of God, looking at our heavenly father, because in Scripture, we do not behold a God who is a distant uncle, twice removed. No, we have a heavenly father who intimately loves us and he displays his love for us in Scripture. And because we have a heavenly father who loves us, no matter how undesirable our present circumstances may be, we can know that we are not undesired by God. We are greatly desired by God. He is our heavenly father. And though Brianna and I have despaired over these last seven years, we know that our life has not spiraled out of control. We have a heavenly father who's a good storyteller. He's in charge of it all. Our story is in his hands, and he does not write bad stories. Throughout these seven years, we may have lacked children, but we have not lacked a heavenly father, and that has been our hope. Though we have had bedrooms that are empty, our hearts have been full. Our hearts have been full of worship, deeply satisfied in God because we have a heavenly father and we love him. We've been adopted by God. Our names are written in heaven, we are his and he is yours. And this is why we need this passage this morning, because we will never have immovable satisfaction in the Lord. We will never have deep comfort and joy and worship in our hearts unless we anchor ourselves in this truth that we have a heavenly Father who adopted us, who loves us, who has great love for us. His love is so demonstrated for us in Scripture that Scripture actually tells us that God adopted us, that we were actually born into a spiritual household of sin. We were orphans, rebellious orphans, and God as a heavenly father sent his son to die for us, to live for us, to pull us out of that orphanage of sin, and he plucked us out of the household of Satan, and he put us in his household as our heavenly Father. And because of that, all the riches of his grace are ours in Christ Jesus. So though you may have undesirable circumstances, you are not undesired by God. Now, the glory of God in adoption, it's not something that we think about often. It's not something we talk about often, but you need to think about this, you need to talk about this, because if you are saved, the scriptures say that to be saved is to be adopted. So let's gaze upon the glory of God and adoption. And we're going to be in Ephesians 1, starting with verse 1. Let's stand for the reading of God's word. Ephesians 1, verse 1. It reads, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. This is God's word. You may be seated. The title of the sermon is The Glory of God in Adoption. And really, here's the whole sermon in a sentence. Here is the main idea. You will never understand the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of the Father's great love for you until you realize you have been adopted. You will never understand the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of God's, the Father, His great love for you until you realize you have been adopted. This passage is really a declaration of praise. In fact, verses 3 through 14 are one sentence in the Greek, a giant exclamation of praise, praising God for his glory, specifically his glory in adoption. It's my prayer that no matter what you're walking through right now, that you would so grasp the love of God for you in adoption that you would never have a valid argument against his love ever again. It's my prayer that by the power of the Holy Spirit, that when the lies of Satan assail you, telling you you don't matter, telling you that you're worthless, that you would speak those lies away with the truth. I have a heavenly father who has adopted me. I am a son, I am a daughter of the Most High God. Period. Some things you need to know as we jump into this text is that Paul is writing to believers in Ephesus. Now, Paul spent a couple of years in Ephesus. Ephesus was the third largest city in the empire of Rome, and it was a very pagan city. It was about a quarter of a million people. Paul did ministry there for about two years. It's been about seven years since he left. Paul is now in prison and he's writing to the church in Ephesus. And what is he writing to the church in Ephesus about? Well, he's writing really centering this letter on the doctrine of unity in Christ. And that was so important for Paul to write about because the church in Ephesus was really two parties come together. He did ministry that reached the Jewish people, and he did ministry that reached the Gentile people. Now, we don't really stop and think about that, but there would be a lot of conflict that happens when believing Jews and believing Gentiles come together in the body of Christ. Think about the backstory of a believing Jew. They had the scriptures, they had the story of God's redemption, the Exodus, the temple sacrifices, circumcision. They had an understanding that there is only one God. They had an understanding against sexual immorality and against idolatry and against sorcery and against witchcraft. They had this moral ethic that was rooted in their story of redemption, rooted in their scriptures. On the other hand, you've got these Gentile believers whose background was, to say the least, not the scriptures. These were pagans. They worshipped idols. There were over 50 gods represented in Ephesus, the chief god being Artemis. And Artemis was so prominent in Ephesus that selling idols of Artemis was actually a cultural and economic staple of the city. And Gentiles, they didn't have any sex ethics. They would go, if they wanted to go to a temple to participate in prostitution, temple worship, they could go do that. It was sexual immorality. There was no scriptures, there was no story of redemption. And now these two people have believed upon the same Messiah, and they're united in the same gospel. And Paul is trying to unify these two parties with two very different backstories. And how does he do it? How does he unite these believers? Well, he unites them with the doctrine of adoption. You may think, Jews and Gentiles, that you have two different backgrounds. You guys have a background in the scriptures, you guys have a background in no scriptures, but really you have the same background. Both parties were dead in their sin. Both parties were in desperate need of redemption. Both parties have believed upon redemption that comes through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone. Both of you were adopted out of darkness into light. And this is so important for us to understand. There's so much application for us in this epistle today, because it doesn't really matter what your background is. Whether you were born into a house of churchgoers or you were born into a house of clubgoers, we have the same background. Whether you were taught to pursue God or to pursue yourself, we have the same background of being born into sin. Whether you grew up in a home with veggie tails, or you grew up in a home where you watched Rugrats, that depraved show that taught everyone to be a bully. Fun fact, my wife was not allowed to watch that show as a child. I watched it every single day. It explains a lot, doesn't it? Doesn't matter what your background is, a background in the scriptures, a background and not in the scriptures. We have the same backstory. In our sin, we are rebellious, spiritually dead orphans in the household of Satan, and we desperately need God to make us alive and to adopt us into his household. So today we're asking the question: what's so amazing about adoption? What's so amazing about adoption? And our passage answers this. Number one, if you're taking notes, in adoption, you have the Father's redemption. In adoption, you have the Father's redemption. In Ephesians chapter 1, we arrive at a passage that many Christians struggle with, because twice in this passage it uses this word predestination, which is talking about God's interaction with the universe. And the Greek word there for predestination means to decide beforehand. What is the beforehand? The scriptures tell us, before the foundation of the world. Furthermore, verse 10 talks about God having a plan for all of history, that history is not chaos, it's not random, that God is actually working history together for a plan. And what is that plan? Well, Ephesians tells us in verse 10 to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. There's also a very strong declaration in verse 11 that describes God as working all things according to the counsel of his will. Now, what are these verses talking about? Well, they're talking about God's relationship with the world. He is in charge of history. And this brings up so many questions like, well, what about human choices? What about responsibility? Don't our decisions matter? And Scripture answers, yes. Yes, they do. When we look to Scripture, we see the simple answer is that God's word teaches both sides. He is in charge of the story from beginning to end, and we are morally responsible creatures. On the one hand, Scripture teaches us that God actively rules over the entire universe. Scripture actually tells us that he upholds the universe by the word of his power. In Isaiah 46, 9 through 10, God says this: I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose. Just as God is the author of all physical life, he is also the author of all spiritual life. Look at how Ephesians 1 praises our Heavenly Father. In verse 3, this is telling us what God does in time and space. In verse 3, God blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. In verse 4, God chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Verse 5, in love, God predestined us for adoption unto himself. Verse 8, in redemption, God lavished upon us the riches of his grace. I love that phrasing, by the way. God in salvation lavishes upon us the riches of his grace. In verse 9, it says that God makes known to us the mystery of his will. In verse 11, it says that God works all things according to the counsel of his will. In verse 13, it says that God seals believers with the promised spirit. What are these verses talking about? Well, they're talking about God's sovereignty, God's rule over history. God is the initiator of all of our spiritual blessings. On the other hand, the Bible is very clear. We are morally responsible creatures. We are called to respond to God when truth confronts us head on. And there are many ways that truth confronts us head on every day. Scripture tells us that creation itself is truth that confronts us head on every day. That by creation we know there is a creator God. The heavens declare his glory so that man is without excuse. That confronts us every day, that there is a creator God. We didn't come out of some random place. We have a creator God who made us. Truth also confronts us head on every day in our conscience. Romans chapter 2 talks about that God has written his law on our hearts. So that reason why you feel guilt, or that reason why you feel this intuition of right and wrong, that didn't come from nowhere, friends. That is God writing his moral law on your heart, testifying that there is a real right and wrong, and there is a real moral lawgiver and ruler over the universe. And truth confronts us head on in Scripture, that ultimately Jesus Christ is the truth. There's only one way to salvation, and it's through him. And friends, we're all responsible for how we respond to the truth that confronts us each and every day. Now we can get into lots of arguments over what does Scripture emphasize more? The moral responsibility of man or the sovereignty of God, that he's in charge of everything. But that's not really the point of Ephesians. Good and godly Christians differ on how those two things intersect, but that's not the point of Ephesians. You know what the point of Ephesians is as a whole? The point of Ephesians is adoption. It's adoption. Does Ephesians present a God who's in charge? Yes, absolutely. What is he in charge of? Adoption. Adoption. All throughout Ephesians, Paul is trying to get people with a scriptural background and a non-scriptural background to see that they have the same shared backstory, a shared pre-adopted life. Ephesians 2 talks about that we were dead in our sins, that we followed the prince of the power of the air, that we were children of wrath, deserving God's wrath for our sin. And then it says, like the rest of mankind, that all of us are born in sin. Later in Ephesians 2, it says that we were at one time separated from Christ, that we were at one time strangers and aliens to the promises of God, having no hope and without God in the world, and being, because of our sin, in hostility with God. In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul describes our pre-adopted life as walking in darkness, alienated from the life of God because of our hardness of hearts. Ephesians chapter 5 emphasizes again that we were at one time in darkness. Friends, don't miss this. Don't miss this. What is Paul writing about in Ephesians? Yes, God is in charge. What is he in charge of? Adoption. He adopts us out of the kingdom of darkness by the riches of his grace into the kingdom of light. And this, friends, is the gospel. And Paul tells us in Ephesians that this was once a mystery. You know, Ephesians talks a lot about a mystery being revealed in Christ. And what was that mystery? Well, in the Old Testament, the Jewish people knew that a Messiah would come from among them, and they knew to some degree that through that Messiah, Israel would be a blessing to the nations. But they had no idea to what degree. You see, because it wasn't just that the Gentiles, those outside the Jewish people, were going to enjoy the blessings of the Messiah from the afar from afar. No, actually, the mystery revealed is that those Gentiles who knew nothing of the Scriptures, that when they trust in the Jewish Messiah, that they're actually adopted into the same household as those who were taught the scriptures. That's the mystery revealed in Christ. Doesn't matter what your background is. If you trust in Jesus, you are in Christ. You are in his household. You are an adopted son or an adopted daughter of the Most High God. Which has great application for us today. Whether you are the church kid with the hidden sins of self-righteousness and pride, which by the way, pride is an abomination to God. Whether you are the church kid who looks down on other people because they don't follow the rules as good as you do, or whether you struggled with the outward sins of drunkenness and sexual immorality, it doesn't matter. Both kinds of people have sinned, both have broken God's law, both deserve judgment, and both need Christ, the only one who faces judgment for us. And because the hatred that God has for your sin was poured out on Christ, it doesn't have to be poured out on you, because He has adopt has absorbed every ounce of the wrath of God. And he said, It is finished. And because of Christ, the wall of hostility between us and God is torn down. Because of Christ, every one of our sins, past, present, and future, can be forgiven. And because of Christ, we can run. Him and we can become an adopted child of God and a member of his glorious household. You know, for families here on earth, there are two ways that you can build a family. You can build a family biologically, you can have children biologically through biological means, or you can build a family through adoption. You can build a home on earth in two ways. But did you know that the home of heaven, the household of God, is only built by one way? That's adoption. That's adoption. You're not born into the household of God. You're born into the household of sin. You have sinned against God. And your only way out is you need to be adopted. You know what your adoption papers are? The gospel. The gospel. Grab hold of the gospel, your adoption papers, by which when we believe in Christ, we are adopted out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. God's home is only filled by adoption, and it's only by the blood of Jesus that we are forgiven of all our sins. I want to tell you the story of Brianna and I in our journey. We decided to pursue adoption. And the way we got there was after many years seeking the Lord for children, our physicians were pushing us towards a path known as in vitro fertilization, which means IBF. And for those of you who aren't familiar, that's when they cultivate embryos outside of the womb. They fertilize human life outside of the womb. And as we got into looking into that, we we discovered a bunch and we learned a lot that we didn't know before. One thing we learned is that a lot of fertility centers, they're really concerned about their birth rates. And so what that means is you fertilize, typically on average, nine to thirteen embryos outside the womb as a couple, and those embryos are then graded on their health. They're graded by A, B, C, D. Now, typically, because fertility centers are concerned about their birth rates, they don't want to implant the C and D embryos, the lesser health embryos. So they just discard them, which is the ending of human life. We would call that murder. And then the A and B embryos, whatever does not get implanted, those embryos just end up going into cryostorage, which is just they're left indefinitely into in freezers, essentially. Or those embryos are discarded, which is the ending of a human life, or they're donated to science, which is the ending of a human life. And when we saw this, we looked into it some more and we wondered how many of these frozen people, the size of a grain of sand, how many of them are in cryo storage right now? And friends, it's it's not good. Right now in the United States, there's over a million of these embryos, people the size of a grain of sand, frozen in the United States. The highest estimate is 10 million, the lowest conservative estimate is one million. It's probably somewhere in between. So when Brianna and I saw that, we're our hearts were just moved. We're like, we gotta do something. And by God's grace, we found this Christian adoption adoption agency called the National Embryo Donation Center, NEDC, and it's an amazing ministry. What they do is they they adopt out these embryos, people the size of a grain of sand. They adopt them out to other couples so that these embryos can be transferred and given a shot at implantation, uh, pregnancy, development, birth, and living their life. And so that's that's the route that Brianna and I decided to pursue for adoption. Now it's a bit sci-fi-y. Um, this is a bit of uh a bit of new territory for the church, but it's it's a massive humans uh human rights issue that we've got to be concerned about as a church. Uh just this past year, just to give you an idea of of the sci-fi nature of embryo adoption, which is also called snowflake adoption, just this past July, there was a child who was born who had been frozen for 31 years. So this July, next month, this this child will be how old? One year old, 32 years old? It's crazy. It's a crazy form of adoption, but this is what Brianna and I decided we were gonna do because it's there's a huge need there. And so we adopted embryos from a family that that uh couldn't implant them, and we were told, you know, you've got a 50% success rate of implantation of having a pregnancy at best. And so we were we were terrified, but we just thought, you know, let's just keep we'll keep trusting God because of who he is. He is our adopted father who loves us, who gave us redemption. And if he gave us redemption in his son, if he adopted us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, he'll take care of us through this situation no matter where it goes. You will never understand the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of God's great love for you until you realize you have been adopted. In adoption, you have the father's redemption. Next, number two, if you're taking notes, in adoption, you have the father's riches. You have the father's riches. One of the most amazing things about adoption is that we not only become sons and daughters of the true and living God, but we also become heirs of his kingdom. That's what verses 11 and 12 say, that in him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. Ephesians is interesting because it's talking about an inheritance that we have, being adopted into God's kingdom. And Ephesians talks about our inheritance in two senses. In one sense, it's an inheritance that we have already obtained. We've already obtained. What have we already obtained? We've obtained adoption. And friends, that's amazing. If you've been adopted into the household of God, if you're in Christ, everything has changed for you. You have God's name written on you, first of all, according to Revelation 22. You have God's house, the body of Christ, and you've got God's resources that all that God has, He deploys for your good and his glory. And Scripture says, but that's not it. There's more. Because you already have an inheritance, but there's also an inheritance that is coming. Look where history is going. Everything in heaven on earth will be subjected to Christ. This is an amazing hope. This is an amazing hope. We live in a fallen world. What is God doing? He's taking all the forces of darkness and he's subjecting them under Christ, and he is accomplishing a story of redemption that will one day end with Christ returning, casting the wicked into hell and ushering in the new heavens and the new earth, a place of perfect joy, perfect peace, perfect worship, infinite riches. Infinite riches. That's the destiny for those who are in Christ. You know, on earth, fathers may not have much to give their kids by way of an inheritance because life is hard, life is difficult. Other fathers may have a lot to give in terms of an inheritance, but it's fought over by nasty family affairs, and by the time you get it, it's already been spoiled. But you know what I love about the inheritance that we have from our father? It's an inheritance of infinite riches, infinitely for every single one of God's children. In the new heavens and the new earth, there will be no fighting over family heirlooms. No one is going to be fighting over who gets the gnome collection and who gets the quilts in heaven. We infinitely have all the riches of God's grace, and we will be deeply satisfied. And that satisfaction meets us by God's grace, this side of heaven. And it just deepens and it just deepens and it deepens all the way into eternity. Why does God do all of this? Why does God promise a world that is united in Christ? That is to the praise of his glory. That's what Ephesians says. That's a major theme. Why does God adopt to the praise of his glory? This past December, my my wife and I, we um over the holidays went in to do an embryo transfer of our adopted children. We had transferred two embryos, and uh we were so optimistic that this would be the year, that this would be the year where we're gonna be mom and dad. We were just feeling so optimistic. We took a blood test afterwards, we went to Disneyland, and uh it was at Disneyland we got the the horrific news that uh the embryos did not transfer, and it was it was hard. It was really hard. It was the first time in our in our journey that we had experienced a loss of life in this whole process of seeking the Lord and adoption, and uh and just to make it you know more ironic, uh Brianna and I were in Toontown when we found out. Now, if you know anything about Disneyland, Toontown is the most cartoony looking place that you've ever been. It's just it's it's the kid, it's like the little kids section of Disneyland. And here my wife and I are weeping in Toontown, going, This is our life. This is our life. And we're just weeping, and we're just surrendering, surrendering it to the Lord, and we're just feeling, God, we trust you in this. This is hard, this is difficult, but we trust you. We trust you. So after that, I did what any normal man would do in his grieving pain. I adopted three kitties. Some of you asked about that, and I told you, you know, these kitties, they were for Brianna to help her with her pain. I lied. They weren't for Brianna. They were for me. I love these kitties. I love them. But you know, February and March, February, January, March, I'm thinking, God, is this our life? Is this our life? Are we just are we just destined to be the kitty couple? Is this who we're gonna be? We just continue to surrender ourselves to Him. What carries you through something like that? What gets you through? What gets you through the pain of life? It's passages like Ephesians 1. We have to preach this to ourselves every day, friends. This isn't just something that we come up and we say to you on Sunday morning and we go home. No, this is the truth that you've got to preach to your heart every single day in the lowest moments of life. That this is hard, but we have an adopted heavenly Father who took us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, and though we may not have children, we have Christ, and he is enough. We have his promised Holy Spirit, and he is enough. God gives us his Holy Spirit as a guarantee of the life that is to come in Christ. And this is a precious down payment, by the way. You know, the only thing I I know of doing a down payment for something that I'm promising to buy, uh, other than our house, this was the one that came to mind at GameStop. Um you know, when you're when you're in high school and you want to reserve a game at GameStop, you could go into GameStop and you could reserve a game for one dollar. And that when the game came out, you could go and you could pay the rest and you could go get your game. But if the game came out and it got bad reviews, you know, you don't have to go pick it up. It's just you lose a dollar, you know. It's not it's not a precious down payment that guarantees that I'm gonna fulfill my intent to buy this game. But friends, that's not the down payment that we get in the gospel. When we're adopted into God's heavenly family, we get we get the gift, we get the down payment of the Holy Spirit. We get life in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit who comforts you every day and tells you it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay. Your Heavenly Father loves you, and there's coming a day where pain will no longer be a part of your reality. That's the down payment, that's the guarantee that we get in Christ to the praise of the Father's glorious grace. You will never understand the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of the Father's great love for you until you realize you have been adopted. In adoption, you've got the father's redemption. In adoption, you've got the father's riches. And lastly, in adoption, you've got the father's reliability. You've got the father's reliability. One of the saddest things about fathers and children this side of heaven is that family conflicts can bring terrible, terrible pain. You'll have children who will disown their fathers. You'll have fathers who will disinherit their children. But friends, that is not who our heavenly father is. Our heavenly father will never do that. He will never disinherit us. Look at verse 13. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. A precious down payment that we have because the Father loves us. One thing I love about our Heavenly Father is that He invites all who hear His word to become His adopted children. He puts out adoption papers in the gospel and says, Be mine. And God invites all, it doesn't matter who you are, rich or poor, great or not so great. God is adopting a family, putting together a family from every tongue, every tribe, and every nation. And here in Ephesians, you see the other side of that coin. What is our response to this gospel invitation to become a son or a daughter of the Most High God? Well, we see in this passage that as the word of truth goes forth, every person has two responsibilities. They're to hear and they're to believe. That's it. That's our responsibility when the gospel goes forth. We are to hear and we are to believe. Now, to hear doesn't just mean to have the sound waves rumble through your ears. No, to hear means to hear at the heart level. You've got to hear this at the heart level. That your backstory is not awesome. That you are in sin. You have a creator, God, who made you to worship him, but you have rejected him as your heavenly father. Instead, you have run off into the orphanage of sin and Satan, and you have chosen to be there, rebelling against your heavenly father. But your heavenly father wasn't done because in love he sent his son, God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, to live the life of perfect sonship. Jesus lived the life of perfect worship to his father, perfect love towards his father and towards others. He lived as the ideal son in comparison with us who lived as the not ideal sons and not ideal daughters, rebelling against the God who made us. And in love, the son gave his blood for us. He died on the cross, taking the punishment we deserve for our rebellion. He rose from the dead, forever proclaiming the price of sin has been paid. Here are your adoption papers. Come into the household of God. We've got to process this at the heart level. I need this. I need this. I am an orphan in my sin. I need to get out of this place. This place is going straight to destruction, straight to everlasting hell. I need to get out of this place, and I need to run into the arms of the Father, whose arms are wide open for you. All of those who are still in the orphanage of spiritual death, right now, the Father sends out this message to you. Repent of your sin, trust in his son, and become his adopted child. That's God's message to you. And this inheritance that we have in the gospel, this inheritance of being an adopted son or an adopted daughter, of having God's name written on you, of having God's household, of having God's stuff, all of his resources deployed for your good and your glory, it will never go away. The Father will never disinherit his children. How do we know this? Because this passage tells us that God is unchanging in his reliability. When he adopts us, God seals us with the promised Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our promised inheritance to come. We will obtain this because God has given us his Holy Spirit as a guarantee. What will carry you through your pain? What will carry you through the undesirable circumstances of life? It's knowing that you are not undesired in heaven. You have a heavenly Father who loves you. You have the Holy Spirit who gives you life in him, who comforts you every day and reminds you of the Father's great love for you. You will never understand the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of the Father's great love for you until you realize you have been adopted. In adoption, you have the Father's redemption. In adoption, you have the Father's riches. And in adoption, you have the Father's reliability. And fathers, this becomes a paradigm of how we are to be fathers. And notice what I just said there. I said, I said we. I said we, because this past March, uh Brianna and I, we went in for another embryo transfer of our adopted child, and um, friends, by God's grace, it was a success. About time. We've wanted this for so long. As of yesterday, uh Brianna is 15 weeks pregnant, which means that the baby is uh just starting to develop their ears, uh, which means this is their first sermon. Praise the Lord. You know, this is uh this has been a crazy story for us because uh these uh this embryo that we adopted was fertilized in Colorado in 2017. And uh Brianna and I were married in 2018, uh, which I looked at her and I said, Brianna, does this mean we had a child out of wedlock? I don't know, but it's just it's it's crazy to me that that God has held this little child uh since 2017 to come into our home, and now she's 15 weeks pregnant, and uh the anchor of this whole journey for us has been this truth that we have been adopted in Christ by our Heavenly Father, and this is a truth that we cannot wait to pass down to our little boy. That's right. He's a boy. Pray for me. Being a musical theater kid myself, I'm uh terrified that he will like sports, and I won't know how to relate to him. So pray for me there. Also pray for me and Brianna in deciding upon a name because apparently Aragorn does not work for her. And I know, I know that uh that adoption brings its own challenges, and uh, I'm already preparing my heart, you know, I'm already preparing my heart. Talking with other parents who have walked through adoption, I'm preparing my heart for those dreaded words that may come out in his anger. That he may look at me and say, You're not my real father. But you know, because of uh Ephesians 1, because of what our Heavenly Father has done for us in adoption, I already have my answer. Son, you are my son. And you will always be my son, and I will always love you. That's what the Heavenly Father says to us. Even when we sin as believers, even when we go astray, even when we try to disown the Father, the Father says, I will never disown you. What I have started, I will finish. You will always be my son, you will always be my daughter, and I will never disinherit you. As the team comes up, how does Ephesians 1 call us to live in light of our adoption? Well, first, all I can say is if you are not in the household of God, get in here. Get in here, grab hold. Amen. Grab hold of those adoption papers in the gospel. Grab hold of the son and become a son. Become a son, become a daughter of the most high God who gave himself for you. Get in the family. All are welcome into the family. And for those who are in the family, here's what you must do: you must praise God. That's what Ephesians 1 is. It's a giant declaration of praise for his glory in adoption. You have been adopted out of the orphanage of sin into the household of salvation for the praise of the Father's glory. And when you feel hopeless, you've got to preach this to yourself. When the enemy tries to tell you that you're worthless, that you don't matter, that God is not with you in your circumstances, you've got to beat this truth like a drum. No, I am an adopted son. I am an adopted daughter of the Most High God, and I have a wonderful inheritance in him that is mine, both in this life and in the life to come. And lastly, in response to what God has done for us in adoption, Ephesians 5 tells us that as beloved children, we are to imitate our heavenly Father. We must imitate him. He has given us the paradigm of what love looks like, and we are to imitate that. Fathers, especially, submit yourself to your heavenly father. Love him, trust him, point your family to him, and honor him with the life that he has given you. You will never know, you will never understand the breadth and the length and the height and the depths of the Father's great love for you until you realize you have been adopted. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this beautiful truth that Father, we are we are yours in the gospel. God, we thank you that though we we ran headfirst into sin, that we ran headfirst into wickedness, that Father, you adopted us out. God, that you sent your son and you say, Cling to my son and get out of that orphanage. Run into the household of God. And Father, that's just an amazing truth that we that never gets old. It never gets old. God, I pray for anyone who has not run into your household through faith, that Father, today would be the day where they stop looking to themselves and they start looking to Christ. And that, Father, they would be born again, adopted into your household, and that they would know the riches of your love, the riches of your grace that is given to us in Christ Jesus. And Father, for those of us who are in your kingdom, God, I pray that our response would be one of praise, one of awe, and one of worship. Because you are always with us. You will never disinherit us. And we will be yours into the ages. God, we thank you for this truth. It's in the precious name of Jesus we pray. Amen.