The Gift of Adoption

A Story of Grace

On the 11th of September 2018—if I remember rightly—Josella and I hopped in a car and we drove to Greenlane. We pulled off the Greenlane motorway and went to McDonald’s. And there we met Mia for the first time. We sat and talked with the godly Christian woman from the Reformed Church in Avondale who was looking after her. Then she went back, and about a week later, Mia came and lived with us. For the last 7 years, we’ve had the privilege of having her as a daughter. She is officially our daughter. We have a court-sealed document that stipulates she is ours. And you know what’s really striking about this—and no offense intended to my daughter whatsoever—but Mia had no right to enter our family. She had no reason to expect that we would take her in and care for her. We had no reason to. We had our own children. We weren’t lacking anything. And yet, we showed grace to her by welcoming her into our home and into our family. You see, grace, if you want to define grace—grace is love extended to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Mia didn’t deserve our welcoming her into our family. She hadn’t done anything to earn it, right? And yet she was. Purely out of a gracious act of two human beings, she was given a family and a home. And I tell this story because it’s a shadow—a weak illustration—of what God has done for us. You see, God, in His grace, has extended to sinners something far more glorious than a temporary physical family and home. God, in His grace and mercy and love, has adopted children of God. And I want us to think about that mystery—that glorious reality—as it’s detailed here in John 1:12–13.

The Incredible Right of Adoption

The first thing we need to see here is the incredible right of adoption given to people. John says that He—being Christ—gave the right to become children of God. What does he mean by the right? We can use right in lots of different ways. My right hand. Someone has now righted their problem. English being right. Greek is quite similar. The word here can be translated a number of different ways. But the word denotes the idea of authority. It’s an authority-type word. He hasn’t just given them a blessing or a privilege—though adoption is that. He’s given them a legal and authoritative right, a privilege, a guarantee that they might become children of the living God. You might think about it this way. We’ve had Stephanie staying with us for the last week or so, and she’ll be with us through to Saturday. We love her to bits, and we always enjoy her coming and staying with us. But there’s something quite different about Steph and Mia—not just because one’s way taller. One of the differences, of course, is that when I die, Stephanie’s not getting any of my money. It makes no difference how much I love her. Makes no difference how much I enjoy her being around our family. She’s not in my inheritance. And I can tell her off to a certain extent, but I don’t have the authority like her father does to discipline her. But Mia’s very different. Mia’s come into my family in such a way that she has every legal right to expect love, kindness, inheritance, discipline, education. And so there’s a huge difference here between these two people. And this helps us understand the difference between what it means to have a right to be a child of God, and just a vague hope. See, Stephanie might live in our house long enough that she hopes she’ll be included in our inheritance—but she’ll never have a guarantee. But my children know that they might get $5 at the end of my life. Christ, in His goodness, John tells us, gives us a heavenly court document. Now we’ve got one of these for Mia. As I said, it sits in our cupboard. It’s got an official Court of New Zealand seal on it. It’s got the judge’s signature. And if a social worker turned up at our house and said, “We’re taking Mia away,” we’d hold up the document and say: “Too bad. You’re not. Get out of my house and never come back here again.” Christ comes and He gives us a court document from the heavenly courtroom of God. And it’s signed—not with ink—but signed with the precious blood of Christ. And then it’s got a big wax seal upon it—but that seal is sealed by the Spirit of the living God. And He gives it to us, and we have it in our hands by faith. And we see that no one can deny us the right to be children of the living God. The devil may yell in a believer’s ear: “You’re a sinner and you have no part with God.” And a believer can hold up a heavenly document and say: “Away from me, liar, because I have a court-sealed document that says I’m a child of God.” This is the right He gives us—the right to adoption.

This is why, brothers and sisters, John, later writing in his first epistle, will say in 1 John 3:1: “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us.” I mean, brothers and sisters, think about it for a second. The Father had the perfect Son, in whom He was completely satisfied and delighted in and lacked nothing. Now normally, when people have their own children, they don’t adopt, do they? Normally speaking, if you have children, you don’t feel the need to adopt because you can just have more children if you want more children. But see, God had everything He needed. And though He had a beloved Son and perfect fellowship in the Godhead, yet He took wretches and made them His children. I think—He took you. If you’re a believer, He took you, though you were completely undeserving in every way. What had you done to deserve the love of God the Father? Nothing. And yet He said: “You are my son.” So that a 17th-century preacher, Thomas Manton, would say: “Behold that it can be said, ‘a son of God.’” Isn’t that a profound thought? Every believer you meet, you can proclaim: “A son or a daughter of the living God.” Now that’s a great encouragement, isn’t it? Some of you have heritages you’re not proud of. You have parents you’re not proud of. Some of you don’t know your parents. Some of you struggle to love or like your parents. You have been given a Father who loves you perfectly. Come on. You have been given a Father who never wrongs. And some of you have wonderful parents, wonderful fathers in whom you delight—and God has given you an even better one. Some of your parents have gone to glory and you no longer see them face-to-face—and yet you have a Father who lives and smiles over you every day of your life, the fellowship of a Father that never ends. And so He gives this right—this right of adoption to become children of God.

How Do We Receive This Right?

However, it’s important for us to recognize how that comes to us. In what way do we receive adoption? How do people receive this gift, this privilege, this right? John tells us in the text: “All who did receive him, who believed in his name he gave the right.” How does one receive this gift, this legal right? Well, you receive it by receiving Christ. You receive it by believing in his name. You see, you can’t sneak into the family of God—just like you can’t sneak into my inheritance. (It’s probably not worth sneaking into, but you can’t do it if you wanted to.) You know, you can sneak into my house. Some of my teenager’s friends do this—and eat my food. (We talked about that at Diana’s birthday.) Some people sneak into my house and eat my food—but you cannot sneak into my inheritance. You cannot sneak into my legal family. And the same is with the family of God, the same is with adoption. You can’t jump over a back fence and find your way in the path, like in Pilgrim’s Progress. There is only one way to receive the right—and that’s by this twofold reality of receiving Him and believing in Him.

So, what does it mean to receive Him and believe Him? We throw these words out a lot, right? They’re very easy for us to throw out—but what does it mean? Well, to receive Christ is to recognize your dependence and desperate need for a Savior. Why did Jesus come? Well, Jesus told us why He came, right? Do you remember those words? “I came to seek and save the lost.” So Jesus comes and He says: “I’ve come to seek and save.” Now, in order to be sought and saved, you must be what? Lost and damned. And so to receive Christ is to recognize that I am a sinner without hope, saved in the sovereign mercy of God alone, that without Christ who is seeking and saving, I am damned to an eternity of hell away from Christ. And so we must begin by recognizing—as the Savior comes—that we desperately need Him. And then, recognizing our desperate emptiness and hollowness, we look to Christ and believe in His name. We look to Him and recognize: I am needy—and this One provides everything I need. You see, it’s not enough to recognize that you’re spiritually bankrupt—because if you do nothing about it, guess what? You’re still spiritually bankrupt. The only hope is that you recognize your bankruptcy and then go to One who is rich in righteousness and mercy, and plead with Him for salvation. And so we believe in Him, we believe in His name.

You might wonder: Why does it say name? Why not just believe in Jesus? Why does it say believe in His name? Well, your name represents everything about you, doesn’t it? I mean, granted, we’ve got lots of people with the same names. But when you hear the name Logan, an image and a characteristic—and for me, a ministry—comes into your head. And it’s the same for all of us. When you think of someone’s name, you don’t just think of some letters, do you? You think of the person, and all that they do, and all that they are. And the same is true—and this is why in Exodus, when Moses says (Exodus 4): “Lord, when I go to Israel and Egypt, who am I gonna tell them? What do I say to them?” He doesn’t just say God, right? He doesn’t say God’s coming, the God of Abraham. He says, He gives them His name. “My name is Yahweh. Tell them Yahweh sent you.” Why? Because Yahweh is a Savior. And so when it gets to the Aaronic blessing, the Lord says: “Put my name upon them.” In other words: Put everything that I am, all of my blessings, all of my character—put it upon them. And then when you get to the baptism formula of Matthew 28, what does Jesus say? “Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Because all of the privileges and the blessings of God are bound up in His name, and so we put our trust in everything that His name represents. And so all who receive Him and all who believe Him—because there’s no condition on that, is there? One of the brothers here and I were having a conversation this week about things like conditions. You know, there was a period of time when the church would put conditions on salvation. You have to reach a certain level of holiness before you can be saved. You have to scrub up your life. You have to be obedient if you want to be saved. But John doesn’t put any conditions, does he? And God doesn’t put any conditions. He says: “Receive and believe.” And then what? It’s done. You receive the right to become a child of God.

Who Are the Recipients?

But there’s one more thing we have to recognize—and that is, who are the recipients? You see, we recognize there’s a right, we recognize there’s a way to receive that, but it’s very important that we understand who these recipients are. Who are these people that receive and believe in Christ? John gives us a negative and a positive. He says in verse 13, they’re those who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. This is really important in light of the fact that we had a baptism today. You see, one of the chief accusations constantly laid at the feet of people that baptize children is people will say: “Oh, you’re one of those people that believes that you save your children when you baptize them. You’re the ones that believe in saving children by sprinkling some water on them.” And we say: “No.” Who get to become children of God according to John? Well, it’s not those born of flesh. It’s not by being born into a Christian family, I hope you know. It’s not by effort, will, exertion. It’s not by your bloodline. But it’s by being born again. No amount of being a Jew or a Gentile, no amount of being a Baptist, a Presbyterian, or even a Free Presbyterian or Reformed or anything else will gain you access to the family of God. It makes no difference who your forebearers were, how godly your family is. There’s only one thing that matters. It’s that you’re born from above, that you’re born from God.

And so John will record for us the words of Jesus in John 3. I’m sure you know that moment when Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, comes to Jesus in John 3 and Jesus says to him, in verse 3 of chapter 3: “Truly, truly—” which is Christ’s way of saying, this is definite—“Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” There is only one way to enter the kingdom of God—and it’s by being born again. So, who gets to be born again? You know what? Nicodemus understands the problem. “Can I go back into my mother’s womb and be born again? That can’t happen.” No, you must be born of the Spirit. To which you say: “Well, how do I get to be born of the Spirit?” To which I say: It’s nothing but an act of God, a free act of God’s grace to those whom He loves. You know, there’s this story told of George Whitefield who constantly preached: “You must be born again. You must be born again. You must be born again,” over and over and over again. And one day a lady came up to him and said: “Why do you always preach on the fact that we must be born again?” And he said to her: “Because you must be born again, because there is no salvation or hope without being born of the Spirit of God.” And so brothers and sisters, people, visitors, family, friends—if you are not born of God, your only hope is to cry out to God and say: “God, make me new. Please save me. Restore me. Make me a new creation in Christ.” And here’s the wonderful thing—the Scriptures tell us over and over and over again that God delights to save the lost. He does not delight in the death of the wicked, but He delights to save any who would call upon His name. And so if you’re here today and you are not born again, with all of the solemnity and authority that I have in Christ: Be born again. If you’re not being born again, it’s not because God’s not willing—it’s because you’re unwilling to come. That’s the way it works, because He freely gives the gift to any that would call upon Him. You can’t do it yourself, but He will gladly do it for you. Cry out to Him.

And so it’s a reminder for Mia and for every baptized person that has not professed their faith, that they can’t rely just on their baptism, but they must come by faith to Christ, and they must be born again, spiritually, of the Spirit, so that they might be made new, and they might receive Christ, and they might believe in Him, and in doing so, receive the right of being children of God. It’s everything that their baptism points to. You see, the whole point of a baptism, brothers and sisters, is not as a reminder of your faith. It’s a seal of the promise of God upon your life—a promise that says: “Any who would come to me will live,” a promise to wash you clean of all unrighteousness. And so this promise is given freely to all within the covenantal community, and they grow and they learn to claim it for themselves. And you, if you’re an unbaptized, unconverted soul, then you will be baptized having acknowledged the promise already, and the promise of God will be sealed upon your heart.

Six Practical Applications

Well, I had a whole list of different practical uses from this, but time is of the essence, so let me just very quickly run through 6 very practical applications. Firstly, you must be born again. I say it again, you must be born again. Don’t you leave here without it. Don’t end this day without obtaining it. Secondly, you must receive and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only hope for eternal life. Thirdly, know what God has done for you. And fourthly, know what you have become in adoption. You’re a child of the blessed one. What a privilege. I mean, that should draw us to worship for all of eternity, right? I tell you what, I finished writing this point, and I just had to stop and sit there and just in awe that God would make His Son out of someone like me. I don’t deserve that. And neither do you. And yet, He does it. Such is the love of God.

And then fifthly, live as befits a child of God. Nothing delights a parent more than to see their child going well in the way that they’ve set before them, right? I remember my son—of whom I only have one—my son, very little, sitting at the table with me. And I did the exact same thing to my father, I’ll tell you. Eating correctly with his fork and knife in the right hand. You know, there’s a proper way to hold your fork and knife. And he looked across the table and he saw his father eating incorrectly, with his cutlery in the wrong hand. And you know what he did, don’t you? He changed hands—and to this day, he eats with the wrong hands, to my joy. And I did the exact same thing with my father. And as a parent, it’s like: “Cool! My kid loves me, and he wants to walk like me and act like me and follow my example.” Now, that’s dangerous for us, because we’re sinners. But for God, what a delight to see the children of God walking in the paths of their Father. So let us do so.

And then lastly, since this is truly the greatest privilege bestowed upon saved people—greater than justification, greater than glorification—the world deserves to be told. How many people in this world don’t know that they can be children of God? Can you think about it? Millions of people die. Millions and millions of people die every year, and they never hear that they can be children of God. No one tells them. Now, yes, that’s true across there in the Amazonian jungle, but it’s equally true of our neighbors and our work colleagues. And isn’t it true that so often we can be like the man in the parable Jesus tells, where we take the lamp and then stick it under a cover, just like stick a little basket over the top? What does Jesus say? “Take the basket off so that the whole room can be illuminated. Light the whole thing up.” We’ve been given the greatest privilege that could ever be bestowed upon a human being. Let us declare it to the ends of the earth, so that we might see many children coming to God.

Closing with Thomas Manton

And so let me finish with the words of Thomas Manton that I paraphrased before. Thomas Manton, the 17th-century preacher says: “In all other cases, if men have children of their own, they do not adopt. God had a Son of His own, in whom His soul found full delight and complacency. Yet, He would adopt and take us wretched creatures. He would invest us with the titles of sons. And shall it be said of this and that believer, ‘Here is a son of God.’” Amen.