Adopting a child doesn’t go without risks. There are risks. We might take in a child that has disabilities, mental or physical. There might be severe needs. There might be issues that as an infant won’t be caught and as the child grows will be discovered. It might cause us to change living locations, jobs, countries, our way of life. So then why? Why risk ruining a good thing?
I was sitting in Hong Kong a year and a half ago reading a book by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. It was a collection of sermons he preached at Westminster on Sunday nights through the course of his ministry there. One chapter in particular moved me. He wasn’t talking about adoption at all but about the Lord’s Supper. He started with our part in the new covenant, the very thing that the Lord’s Supper is supposed to symbolize. How are we apart of the new covenant? Basically Ephesians 1:3-14 tells us:
3 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,
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
5 he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ
10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
11 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,
12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
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,
14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Not only does the Lord’s Supper remind us what Christ did for us, but what we receive from the cross. We receive not only salvation but an inheritance, His Name becomes ours, we become His children, we partake in His family. We received so much more than forgiveness for our sins, if that weren’t enough. His mercy and grace extend far beyond that, to a restored place as God’s children, co-heirs with Christ! As Lloyd-Jones says it, “Here God is telling me that I am in the new covenant, that I am a child of His, that He has adopted me, that all the blessings and the benefits of the new covenant in Christ belong to me and are coming to me and I thanks God for them at this point. In other words, you should always feel thankful at that service.”
If we are to be people who live and breath the gospel, to live it out, to be transformed by it then we must understand the nature of our being grafted or adopted into God’s family. We receive promises that were not formally ours. We received blessings when we really deserve Hell. We deserve disaster and judgment instead of peace and the Holy Spirit.
So now back to the question, why do we adopt? We adopt because we too have been adopted. We take in little ones into our families because they have no family of their own, no promises, and no blessings. We take in these risks, special needs, and problems, because we do like Christ and accept those who follow him into the churches. We take up the needs of the orphans and widows because He too cares for the needy, the depraved, and the helpless. We too were depraved and helpless in our spiritual state, but nonetheless Christ according to the purpose of His will and to the praise of his glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved, adopted us in Christ. We then follow Him and show the world a vivid picture of what the gospel looks like, a reflection or shadow of what is a reality in the spiritual realm. We accept those that aren’t our own as our own based on no merit of their own. We also adopt because as an act of worship and missions. We bring the nations into our living room and out of gratefulness for what He's done we proclaim the gospel to those children. Therefore adopt, as Christ has adopted you.Spencer
