Adoption in Christ

To the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it. The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy.

Christ is king. You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

The Ruled Church Podcast. Sometimes on the Ruled Church Podcast, we let you listen to sermons, either preached by us or someone else. This week, you get to hear a sermon from the one and only Eddie Ragsdale.

I know you'll be blessed.

Here we go, Eddie. Good morning. Well, if you're turned already to Judges, then you need to turn over to the New Testament, to Ephesians. We'll take a little break from Judges this week in honor of Harper family, thinking about adoption.

And I want us to think about how that we have been adopted into the family of God. So we're gonna be in Ephesians chapter one, and some also in chapter two this morning. But before we go to the Lord in prayer, or before we go to the Lord's word, let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we come to you. We thank you, Lord, that you're merciful and gracious. Lord Jesus, you have come our sovereign King or to rescue us and to save us, to bring us into the family of God. Holy Spirit, you transformed our hearts.

You are a triune God, have done amazing things for us. And Lord, we're thankful, Lord, that you have made so many of us your people. Lord, I pray that we would come to you right now with completely humbled hearts.

Lord, without you, we can do nothing. And Lord, we are completely dependent upon your spirit to work in our hearts. Father, for us who have believed, Lord, that we would celebrate the fact that you have brought us into your family, Lord.

And Lord, even this morning, for those who have not believed that you would draw them into genuine faith and true conversion. Lord, we wanna celebrate all the great and awesome things, Lord, that you have done.

So bless us now as we come to your word. We pray, Lord, that you would cause it to have power to accomplish all your will. We ask, Lord, that you do all these things in the name of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen. We'll begin in verse three. 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 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 to him, things in heaven and things on earth.

And we're not gonna look at this whole passage. We're actually gonna look only at verses five and six, which you'll notice probably in your translation, it has the last two words of verse four start a new sentence.

And why the people that put the chapters and verses in there did that, who knows? But we're gonna start there where it says in love. So notice, it says in love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.

He says that he chose us in him in love. He predestined us for adoption 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.

So this morning, we're gonna talk about adoption, but we're not gonna talk necessarily about physical adoption like we're celebrating today with the Harper family, but we're gonna talk about spiritual adoption, how we're adopted into God's family.

And so Wayne Grudel, a theologian, he's given this definition to the word adoption. Adoption is an act of God whereby he makes us members of his family. Isn't that a beautiful reality? That adoption is this act of God.

It's not something that we could do, not something that we could bring about, not something that we could earn, but it's this act of God whereby he makes us members of his family. So this morning, I wanna look at in this passage three things about adoption.

One, I want us to see why do we need to be adopted? Why do we need to be adopted into God's family? Secondly, I want us to see what is the source of adoption? Why did God institute this? Why does God bring us into his family?

And then finally, we're gonna see the purpose of adoption. What is the end to which God is bringing us when he brings us into his family? So let's start with the idea of the need for adoption. Notice in this passage that he says in love, he predestined us for adoption as sons.

And we need to first start with we need to be adopted into God's family because we are not naturally a part of God's family. There is a pervasive lie in our culture. I think it's especially true in American culture, maybe especially true in Western culture, but it is just true probably all around the world.

I think if you went to some Eastern mystic religions, they would probably have some sense that everybody belongs to the one truth, right? Probably if you went to Eastern mysticism, they would have some idea that everyone belongs to this one idea or the mystic knowledge or whatever they might say.

But the reality is that we are not by nature children of God. And you'll hear this a lot of times. You'll hear people say, well, we're all children of God. We're not. As a matter of fact, it's just the opposite.

By nature, we are all, every single one of us, not a child of God. And if we were left to ourselves, we would get exactly what our heritage has earned. And so I just wanted to show you here in the text of scripture, listen, you shouldn't believe that this is a lie of culture because Eddie says so, but you should believe that it's a lie in our culture if the Bible says so.

So I want you to notice right here in the same context, the same letter, the same place, Paul is gonna tell us explicitly that people without Christ are not by nature children of God. So drop down with me to the first three verses of chapter two.

Paul goes on to write, and you were dead in trespasses and in sins. Now I can't rush past this. I'll try not to camp out on you were dead. But here's the reality. You weren't sick, right? You weren't hurt.

You weren't even hurt real bad. You were dead. Now what can a dead person do? Dead person can't do anything. A dead person is completely lifeless without ability. And so notice he says, and you, you, meaning the Ephesians, these people who are now Christians, they're now believers.

They've been converted. They love Jesus. But he says, you were, you, these actual Christians once were dead. He says, and you were dead in trespasses and in sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

So the first point that we want to see is we need adoption because by nature, we are not sons of God. We are sons of disobedience. Every one of us. Listen, Myla doesn't have to learn to be disobedient.

It's first nature to her. You know what? And so is it to us. You know, we don't have to learn how to lie. We don't have to be taught how to sin. Sin comes just like that because disobedience, rebellion is bound up in our heart.

That's what it says in Proverbs because we are by nature, children, sons and daughters of disobedience. Notice what Paul goes on to write in verse three. He says, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.

And we're by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. So I want you to notice two things here. He says that we are naturally children of wrath. We are naturally children that do not belong to heaven.

We are naturally children who belong to hell. And I want to state this. So we need to be clear. Hell is actual, physical, conscious, eternal torment. It's not something that's going to be cut off. It's not like, well, you're going to do your time.

It's not something that is just a place separated from God. You know, a lot of times people say, well, hell is just separation from God. No, it's not. It is the presence of all of God's justice, all of God's wrath, all of God's hatred for sin and sinners.

That's what hell is. And so we must understand that by nature, we are sons of disobedience. By nature, we are children of wrath. That is what we belong to, wrath. Hell is our natural abode. If left to ourselves, hell's not only where we should go, it's what we're made for.

In fallenness, it's what we're made for. So we come to this passage and we realize we're sons of disobedience, we're naturally children of wrath because our nature is not to be like our father, God. Our nature is to be like our father, Adam.

By nature, every one of us is born into Adam's line, Adam's line of disobedience, Adam's line of sin. Adam is our federal head. Everyone who is in Adam dies, Paul says to the Romans. We need to understand our Adamic nature is a nature prone to sin, prone to wonder.

Lord, I feel it, the old hymn says. But the third thing I want us to note is it actually gets worse than that. It gets worse than the fact that we are sons of disobedience. It gets worse than the fact that we are sons of Adam because we might look around and go, well, Adam, I like Adam.

I got a buddy named Adam. So maybe the Adam way back there wasn't that bad. And so maybe we might think that's not that bad, but it actually does get worse. We were listening here to what Paul's teaching us, but I would encourage you, turn over with me to John chapter eight, and let's listen to what Jesus said.

What Jesus says, I'm gonna argue, to the most holy, the most devout people of his day. Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees. He speaks to the teachers. He's speaking to the people who would have fashioned themselves the best Jewish people of the day.

And listen to what Jesus says to them here in John chapter eight. I'll start reading in verse 39. They answered him. This is the Pharisees answered Jesus. Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did.

But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. And I might just note, Jesus knows what Abraham did. You know how he knows it? Because he spoke to Abraham, right?

Jesus was there. And notice what he says here. You are doing the works of your father, that your father did. And they said to him, we are not born of sexual immorality. Remember, they're still thinking physical descent.

They're thinking we can trace our heritage back to the patriarchs, back to Jacob, back to Isaac, back to Abraham. That's the way they're thinking. We are not children of sexual immorality. And then notice what they even do.

It's blasphemous what they do. But notice what they then do. Not only do they claim to be Abraham's children, but they say we have one father, even God. And Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love Me.

For I came from God. And I am here. And I came not of My own accord, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear My Word. He's telling them, you don't have ears to hear.

We sang about that just a moment ago. Having eyes that see Him. Blessed are the eyes that see Him. Blessed are the ears that hear His voice. They don't have ears to hear or eyes to see. But then I want you to notice what He says in verse 44.

He says, you are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. Reality is, this is our natural state. In our natural state, we are sons of disobedience, children of wrath. And the reality is, we are the very sons and daughters of Satan.

In and of ourselves. We are born in sin. David says, in sin did my mother conceive me. We are born wicked, depraved, and apart from God. And because we are born not naturally a part of God's family, it is imperative that we are adopted into His family.

Listen, I don't need to be adopted into the Ragsdale family. I'm a Ragsdale. Just a reality. But if I was gonna become part of another family, I'd have to be adopted to enter into that family. In the same way, we are not naturally called Christians.

We are naturally called by our earthly father, Adam. We're naturally called by the one that we followed, Satan. We're naturally called by what we do, sin and disobedience. We need to be adopted because we need to be brought into God's family.

We'll return with me to Ephesians chapter one. Because first of all, we see that we need adoption. We need it because we're separated from the family of God. But secondly, we also need to see what the source of adoption is.

Why? Why did God adopt us? Why did God give redemption? We sang about it earlier, right? We sang about our Redeemer. We sang about the redemption that we have in Christ. We sang about His mercy and His grace.

Why would God extend these things to us? Why would He redeem us? Why would He extend mercy and grace to us? And it all is bound up in this one little four letter word, love. Notice, in love, He predestined us.

In love. Listen, it is not because we are worthy. We're not worthy. That's the point. We're not worthy. We're not good enough. We're no prize. But rather it is because in and of God, He loves. He's a lover.

He's a lover who loves. And He's a lover who loves so much that He takes to Himself a people, that He redeems for Himself people who have no value in and of themselves, but because He loves them. He put His love on them.

And He draws them to Himself and He saves them. In love He predestined us. It was nothing to do with us. So the source of our adoption begins with sovereign love. It begins with sovereign love. Notice what it says.

In love He predestined us. Now some people would want to argue here, well, this is just like a corporate predestination. This isn't like He's predestining individual people. And sometimes they'll say, well, actually what God predestined was He predestined Christ.

So if you become in Christ, then you're predestined. But it wasn't like God was picking between people. But I would ask you, just read those words. He predestined who? Us. Paul's saying with the Ephesians, you know who was predestined?

Paul was. Jesus didn't give Paul a lot of choices on the road to Damascus. He knocks him off his horse. I can't imagine Paul saying, Lord, I'm not following You. No, no. He chose Paul. And He chose the Ephesian elders.

And He chose Timothy, who's probably there when Paul writes this letter. And He chose the other brothers and sisters that make up not just one church, but there were a lot of churches around Ephesus that would have been reading this letter.

And as all those different Christians read this letter, Paul's saying to them, you were chosen. In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons. Our adoption wasn't a chance. It wasn't a maybe if we're good enough, maybe if we're smart enough, maybe if we're pretty enough, God will come and pick us.

No, no, no. Before there was ever a us in eternity past, He looked forward not to learn, but to set His love and His grace on His creatures and to save us. That's the doctrine of predestination. That God set His love, His relational love on all the people that He would ever save in eternity past.

Before God ever created the first thing, He said, this is my people whom I love. The Lord Jesus says, this is my people whom I love all the way to the cross. Holy Spirit says, this is my people whom I love that I'm going to regenerate and save and adopt into the family of God.

Listen, we see it in sovereign love. Not only in those words predestined us, but then look at what He says at the end of that verse. It says, for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will.

It's God working out the purpose of His will. Listen, we are making real choices. Don't hear me saying that we're not choosing anything. We're making real choices. We're making real choices within the world where God's will is being perfectly, sovereignly worked out in everything that happens.

Listen, our God is in control. Why? Because our God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases. So we see the source of adoption is in God's sovereign love. Then we see the source of God's adoption in His salvific love.

He takes this sovereign desire for us and He brings it to us in saving love. Salvific love. He's going to save His people from their sins. Notice what it says there even in verse 7. It says, "...in Him," that is in Christ, in the Beloved, "...we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us.".

God is saving us. And you know why He's saving us? Because He wants to. You know God didn't need to save you or me. The Word is a saiety. He is completely sufficient. He doesn't need anything. You know why He saves you?

Because He wants to. He doesn't need to. We need Him to. He doesn't need to. He's perfect. He's got all the love in the world. Father, Son, Holy Spirit loving one another perfectly in this one being, three person, Trinity.

But because He has so much love, He just pours it out on people. Bringing us to Himself and saving us. We see a salvific love. We even see it in the most famous verse in the Bible. John 3, 16. For God so loved the world.

Why does He save anybody in the world? Because God loves the world. For God so loved the world. And often we think about this verse and we think about it saying this is how much God loved the world. We'll get to that in just a moment.

Hold the thought how much God loved the world. This is actually telling us how God loved the world. What is the mechanism? What was the game plan? What was the play called on how God was going to love the world?

That's this verse. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. And I feel that I must make this point. Only Son. Remember? Who are we sons of by nature? Disobedience. Wrath. Satan. There's only one Son of God.

There's only one begotten of God. There's only one who is God's Son in all eternity past who has always been the Son and will always be the Son. And He alone is the only begotten Son of God. And that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. It's all about believing in Him. He's the one that God loves and He loves us in Christ.

And so we look at this text and we see in verse 17,. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. God's desire was to save people out of the world.

When it says world here, it's not saying God's going to save every single person. But you know what it is saying? You are eligible. Are you in the world? You're eligible. You can be one of these people that God is saving.

Because He's going to save people from every tribe, every language. There is no color barrier. There is no cultural barrier. There is no religious barrier. Everyone who turns to Christ and believes in Him is going to be saved.

Every single one. Christ is going to deny no people who come to Him. No one is ever going to lift up their eyes in hell and say, I wanted Christ but He didn't want me. Never going to be the case. He came into the world to save sinners and He's going to save them through the work of Jesus Christ.

It's His salvific love. So I would extend to you right now. Are you trusting in Christ? Your only hope of salvation is trusting in Christ. If you're trusting 1 in what you can do, it's not going to be enough.

You must trust in Christ. Third, the source of adoption is His sufficient love. Suppose for a moment that God's sovereign love, this love that predestines and chooses us, came to us. And suppose that it was salvific, desiring to save us.

But man, there's a lot of us. I mean, we're not a big church, so I'm not saying in this room. There's 8 billion people on the planet. And there's been many billions that have lived before us. So maybe it's just not enough.

Maybe God's love is just not enough. But brothers and sisters, the reality is God's love is enough. It's actually more than enough. He's an infinite God, so His love is infinite and it is able to save to the uttermost.

Here in Ephesians, in the verses that we're looking at, notice it says, "...in love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.". The only way that God's love to save us wouldn't be sufficient, wouldn't be enough, is if Jesus isn't enough.

But the reality is, Jesus is God. He's infinite. He's not just a man, but He's the God-man. And because of that, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who will believe in Him. Or listen to the way that Paul says it to the Romans in Romans 5.

I mentioned a while ago that John 3 .16 is not about how much God loved us. Well, this verse is about how much God loved us. Listen to what he says. This is verse 6. "...For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God chose His love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.".

Listen, God doesn't say, clean yourself up. Right? Dust yourself off. Here's 15 rules. Go do those. And then, come back, and if you look good enough, then maybe. Maybe we can work out the salvation thing.

No, no, no. God, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. His election of us is eternity past. And His salvation comes to us before we do anything. He gives us new hearts. With those new hearts, we exercise faith to receive grace.

Not the other way around. The reality is, God saves us because He's a God who saves sinners. So let's return to Ephesians. So we've seen the need for adoption. We've seen the source of adoption. What's the purpose?

What is adoption going to actually accomplish? And this is what it's going to accomplish. The doctrine of adoption, so theological concept of adoption, glorifies God's grace and His graciousness in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice again what it says there in verse 6. It says that all of this predestination and adoption as sons that is through Jesus Christ, that is according to the purpose of His will, all of it is to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.

Notice it says it's to the praise. It's to the worship. It's to the exaltation of His glorious grace. So often I think we think it's about us. We thought, we think salvation's about us, Chuck. And it's not.

It's about His glory. That's what it's about. He loves us, and He saves us for His glory. He gives grace for His glory. So notice it says to the praise of His glorious grace. And what is grace? Grace is God coming and redeeming us and doing it all.

All. 100%. Listen, we need to understand, God does both things. He cancels our debt. That was another thing we sang about earlier. We sang about our debt's been paid. But listen, if you think for one moment that grace merely gets you to zero, that grace merely brings you to I'm even with God.

Debt's paid. Listen, brothers and sisters, that would get no one to heaven. Because innocent people don't go to heaven. Righteous people go to heaven. And we don't have any of that. You don't have any of that.

I don't have any of that in and of myself. We don't have righteousness. The Bible says all of our works are filthy rags. Even the best things that we do, when we do them apart from faith, they're sin.

Every cup of cold water not given in faith, the cup of cold water is sin. Like when we go and do what the world says, that's good. That's nice. But it's not righteous if it's done apart from Jesus Christ.

It's not righteous. So grace not only brings us back to zero, grace actually gives us all the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It credits us with all of Jesus' righteousness. So you know how much righteousness I need to earn?

None. I don't want to earn any. Because it would be tainted. It would be as dirty as my hands. But the reality is, in Christ, man, I've got everything. I've got all the righteousness I could ever need.

And so do you if you're in Christ. Because His righteousness is not only sufficient to pay our debt, but it fills the account. We are the wealthiest people in righteousness that there could ever be. Right now.

Not if I'm good. Not if I have a good week this week. Not if I pray like I should and read the Bible like I should and do whatever things that we might think I should. Not when I do those will I be righteous.

But right now, by faith in Christ, we have all of His righteousness. That's grace. But not only that, it's not only that it's to the praise of God's grace, but notice it's to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the beloved.

It's not only His grace, but it's also His graciousness. It's the fact that He would give us His grace. So maybe we need to look a little further down to pick up on what Paul's saying here. Paul's going to explain it a little more in chapter 2.

We read verses 1 -3 earlier. Pick up with me in Ephesians 2 -4. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us. So Paul's explaining now in chapter 2 what he already said in chapter 1.

Notice what he says. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places. He made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved.

He raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. It is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God. Not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Listen, there's going to be no boasting. There's going to be no boasting.

I think of Tom Hanks and that softball movie 30 years ago. Man. Anybody else feel old? So long ago. There's no crying in baseball. Listen, there will be no gloating in heaven. All the glory goes one way.

There's one recipient. There's one who's worthy. And it all goes to Jesus. It all goes to our God. He gets all of it. Notice it says here, what are we? Well, why did God save us? He saved us so that we could be trophies of His grace.

Notice the way that He says it in verse 7. That we have received this grace so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. We're going to spend all eternity and it's going to be, how gracious is God?

He saved Jason. Whoa. Can you believe it? We're over good. No way. That's what it's going to be. We're going to be these trophies that show this is what God did. The trophy case is going to be us. But it's not going to be, you know the actual trophy?

You know what, man?

After last year, I want the boys to win so much.

But let's be real. If they win next Saturday, they're going to win this trophy. And it's made out of stuff, right? It'll sit in a trophy case. And listen, 20 years from now, when we're walking like this,.

We'll walk by and we'll go,. I remember when they wanted them boys.

When they all got bodies like us now. We'll remember when they could all jump so high and shoot so good. It'll be amazing. But here's the reality. The trophy won't really be where the honor goes, will it?

No, it's not the trophy. It'll be Peyton and Jesse, Cole, and I don't want to name all of them, but it'll be those guys. That'll be who we remember. Not the trophy. The trophy points to who did it. Listen, brothers and sisters, our eternity is going to be, we're shining the glory and the praise back on Jesus.

Back on the Holy Spirit. Back on Almighty God who saved us. He's going to get all the glory because we were saved. That's the point. So I just want you to notice what it says in verses 8 and 9. Verses 8 and 9 say, For by grace you have been saved through faith.

Paul's speaking here to Christians. Listen, if you're here this morning and you have truly turned from your sin, you put your trust in Christ, you're not trusting yourself. You're trusting in Christ. And listen, I'm telling you, by grace you have been saved.

And by grace alone. Listen, if you're here and you're not, you haven't trusted Christ. Maybe you've trusted Christ for 80%. If you've trusted Him for 80%, you've not trusted Him. If you've trusted Him for 99%, you've not trusted Him.

You're not saved. God won't share His glory, He tells Isaiah. So I would urge you this morning. Repent. Turn from your sin. Put your trust in Christ. Listen, there's no work to do. God will accomplish all the transforming of your life.

God does that. You need to turn and come to Christ. Place all of your faith in Him because He saves by grace. You're saved by grace through faith. Notice what He says. It is not your own doing. It is the gift of God.

I would urge you this morning. If you've never received the gift of God, receive it. It's nothing for you to do. It's just receive it. And He tells us in John 1 that to all who received Him, He gave the right to become children of God.

Adopted into His family. Amen?

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing. This is His work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God.