Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the
saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithfulin Christ Jesus:
²Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. ³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴even as he chose us in
him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
blameless before him. In love ⁵he predestined usfor
adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his
will, ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace, with which
he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Adoption is one of the most profound realities in the universe.
I say “universe” and not “world” because
adoption goes beyond the world. It is greater than the world, and
it is before the world in the plan of God, and it will outlast the
world as we know it. Indeed it is greater than the
“universe” and is rooted in God’s own nature.

I have three aims this morning: 1) that all of us would consider
and embrace the wonder of our adoption into God’s family
through Jesus Christ, and 2) that all of us would support the
ministry of adoption through the Micah and Lydia Funds financially,
and 3) that many of you married couples would consider adopting
children into your family as an overflow of the inheritance that
you have in Christ from God, your Father. My assumption is that we
need to understand and enjoy our own adoption by God before we can
properly understand and enjoy what it should mean to adopt a child
into our family.

Adoption is mentioned in Ephesians 1:5. “In love
⁵he predestined us for adoption through Jesus
Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ⁶to the
praise of his glorious grace.” There are three things I want
to point out from this passage about God’s adopting us. These
three things are just what you would expect if you completed Romans
11 with us, or if you read Romans 11:36 which closes the first
section of the book, “From him and through him and to him are
all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” All things,
including adoption, are from God and through God and to God. That
is what I see in Ephesians 1:5-6.

Let’s read it again: “In love ⁵he
predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ,
according to the purpose of his will, ⁶to the praise of
his glorious grace.”

1. Adoption Is From God

First adoption is “from him”—from God.
“In love he predestined us for adoption.” So adoption
was part of a God’s plan. It was his idea, his purpose. It
was not an afterthought. He didn’t discover one day that
against his plan and foreknowledge humans had sinned and orphaned
themselves in the world, and then come up with the idea of adopting
them into his family. No, Paul says, he predestined adoption. He
planned it.

And if we ask when this predestination happened, verse 4 makes
that plain: “He chose us in him [Christ] before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless
before him.” Before the creation of the world, and before we
existed, God looked on us in our need, and he looked upon his Son
crucified and risen as the all sufficient atonement for our sin,
and because of that he chose us to be holy and blameless. And to
that end he “predestined us for adoption.” It happened
before the creation of the world.

So the first thing you need to know about your adoption into
God’s family through Christ is that God chose you and
predestined you in love for adoption before the foundation of the
world. God’s love for you and its expression in your adoption
into his eternal family of joy did not start in this world. It
reaches back to eternity. So when Paul says, “From him are
all things” (Romans 11:36), he includes our adoption, and
means that before the foundation of the world he predestined you to
be his child.

Therefore your adoption is not based on your fitness, your
worth, or your distinctives. It is rooted in God’s eternal
purpose and grace. And that means that your adoption is not fragile
or tenuous or uncertain. God will not adopt and then find out that
you are not worthy and unadopt. He knows we are unworthy. And he
chose us and predestined us for adoption. This is firm and sure and
unshakable.

2. Adoption Is Through Jesus Christ

Second, “All things are from him and through
him.” This is true of adoption and you can see it in
Ephesians 1:5. “In love ⁵he predestined us for
adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of
his will, ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace.”
We are adopted through Jesus Christ. What does that mean?
It means that to be adopted by God we had to be died for. Verse 7:
“In him [Christ] we have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the
riches of his grace.”

Before the foundation of the world God saw that we would be
sinners and planned the death of his Son so that our sins could be
forgiven and God’s wrath removed. Through that we were
adopted. Note two clear implications of this.

1) Not all people are God’s adopted
children.

The blood of Christ covers the sins of all who believe (Romans
3:25). Therefore believers in Jesus are adopted, and no others. If
we talk about God being the Father of all mankind, we speak very
loosely and are not talking truly about those who are saved.

The second implication of being adopted through Jesus
Christ:

2) We were not cute little orphans that God was
attracted to; we enemies in rebellion against God.

That is who God decided before the foundation of the world to
adopt. Romans 5:6, “For while we were still weak, at the
right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Romans
5:10, “While we were enemies we were reconciled to
God by the death of his Son.”

So our adoption is not based on our being worthy or cute or
attractive. It is based on the free and sovereign grace of God
planned before the world and bought for us by the blood of
Christ.

3. Adoption Is for God’s Glory

Third, “All things are from him and through him and to
him.” Adoption, therefore, is “to him.” That
is, it is for his glory. You see that in Ephesians 1:5-6. “He
predestined usfor adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the
purpose of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious
grace.” The goal of your adoption is that the glory of
God’s grace would be praised.

God adopted us in our unworthiness to make his grace look great.
You were adopted for the praise of the glory of his grace.
God’s action in adopting us is radically God-centered and
God-exalting. I know that many hear this and think it is not
loving. How can God’s seeking to exalt himself be loving? The
answer is that the glory of God is what we were made to see and
enjoy for all eternity. Nothing else will satisfy our souls.
Therefore if God does not exalt himself for us to admire and enjoy,
then he is unloving. That is, he does not give us what we need.

We are adopted by God so that we will rejoice that God made much
of us. We are adopted by God so that we will enjoy making much of
God’s grace as our Father forever. We are adopted so that in
this family the Father and the unique elder Son, Jesus Christ, will
be the source and focus of all our joy. We are adopted “to
the praise of the glory of his grace.” It will take an
eternity for the glory of that grace to be fully displayed for
finite people. Therefore, we will be increasingly happy in God for
ever and ever. That is the final meaning of adoption.

Five Implications

Now, consider five implications of this for adopting children
and for supporting those who adopt by contributing to the Micah
Fund and the Lydia Fund.

1. We adopt a child not for our own glory but for
God’s glory.

God adopted us for the praise of the glory of his grace.
Therefore we adopt for the praise of the glory of his grace. The
questions you ask as you ponder adopting a child who needs a family
are not first questions of feasibility or affordability. The
questions you ask first are: Is my heart fixed on glorifying the
grace of God? Is my aim in this to make the grace of God look
glorious? Is Christ the center and goal of this decision? Are all
the factors being weighed in relation to Christ? We adopt a child
not for our own glory but for the glory of God’s grace.

2. In adopting and rearing a child our goal is not to
make much of the child, but rather to live and teach and lead in
such a
way that the child grows up to enjoy making much of
God.

Our aim is not to take a child’s low views of self and
replace them with high views of self. Rather our aim is to take a
child’s low views of God and replace them with high views of
God. Our aim is not take a child with little sense of worth and
fill him with a great sense of worth. Rather our aim is to take a
child who by nature makes himself the center of the universe and
show him that he was made to put God at the center of the universe
and get joy not from seeing his own tiny worth, but from knowing
Christ who is of infinite worth. We adopt to lead a child to the
everlasting joy of making much of the glory of the grace of
God.

3. In adopting we model for children and others the
mercy and the justice of God.

We model mercy because we freely choose to love this child, no
matter what. Many adoptions happen sight unseen. The child passes
no test. He is loved freely without meeting conditions. We
don’t base our choice on what we see. We love because we have
been loved. This is mercy.

And when the child comes, chosen freely by mercy, we now fold
that child into a pattern of firm and sweet discipline. We fold him
into the mercy of justice. From the very beginning, within weeks,
there are expectations and consequences when these expectations are
not met. We raise the child in “the discipline and
instruction of the Lord” (paideia kai nouthesia
kuriou). And we know from Hebrews 12 that the discipline of
the Lord is often painful because without discipline there will be
no “peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11).
So we see in adoption the mercy and the justice of God mingled in
wise and loving proportion.

4. Adopting will almost certainly bring heartache and
stress and suffering, just like adoption cost God the life of his
Son.

We are adopted “through Jesus Christ”—through
his suffering. I have letters from parents in my files describing
the agony of adoptions that didn’t work or almost
didn’t work. Cases of mental illness and profound physical
disability and bizarre and inexplicable behavior. Of course this is
not unique to adoption. It can happen—it does
happen—with our biological children. The implication is this:
we adopt with our eyes wide open. This will bring pain. And this
may bring tragedy. We embraced it. And, if we are faithful, in the
end, it will certainly bring joy. Because of implication #5:

5. We dare only adopt children if we have a firm faith
in the all-sufficiency of God’s future grace.

The pain of adopting and rearing children is sure. It will come
in one form or the other. Should that stop us from having children
or adopting children? No. The self-centered world “cuts their
losses” by having few or no children. (And there is way too
much of that thinking in the church.) In one sense we may be very
glad that such people don’t tend to have children or at least
not many children. Because it means that breed of selfish person
will die out more quickly since they don’t replace
themselves. But on the other hand, we grieve, hoping that they will
see that the grace of God is sufficient for every new day no matter
how difficult, and that there is more true joy in walking with God
through fire, than walking on beaches without him.

Letter to Noël

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this role of faith in future
grace would be to read some of the letter I wrote to Noël on
November 6, 1995 at 11:12 PM when God had brought me to the place
of saying yes, at age 50, to the adoption of Talitha.

Dear Noël,

With confidence in the all-sufficient future grace of God, I am
ready and eager to move ahead with the adoption of Talitha Ruth. I
want to thank you that during these years, when your heart has
yearned to adopt a daughter, you have not badgered me or coerced
me. You have been wonderfully patient. You have modeled faith in
the sufficiency of prayer. You have always expressed support of me
and my ministry even if we should never adopt. You have been
reasonable in all our discussions and have come forth with your
rationale only when asked. You have honored my misgivings as worthy
of serious consideration. . . .

. . . To my perspective it seems to be the path that will
“spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for
the joy of all peoples.” . . . I believe it is the path of
greatest love . . . And therefore I have confidence that God is
pleased with it.

. . . I believe our eyes are open. . . . We have come through
enough to believe that God’s future grace will be sufficient.
His mercies are new every morning and there will be mercies for
every weight and wonder on this new path of our lives.

I thank God for you. I enter with you gladly on this path.
Whether we live to see our daughter grown or not, we will have done
well to take her in. Life is very short, whether 12 hours, like
Ashley Hope, or 50 years like me, or 76 years like my father, or 94
years like Crystal Anderson. What matters is not that we do all we
might have done or all we dreamed of doing, but that, while we
live, we live by faith in future grace and walk in the path of
love. The times are in God’s hands, not ours.

With this common conviction we will, God willing, embrace our
new daughter and give ourselves, with all the might that God
inspires in us, to love her into the kingdom. May the Lord
establish the plans of our hearts, and bring Talitha Ruth (and the
future husband God already knows) into deep and lasting fellowship
with Christ. May she be an ebony broach of beauty around your aging
neck, and a crown of purity and joy on your graying head.

I love you,

Johnny

Three Closing Exhortations

• Consider and embrace the wonder of our adoption into
  God’s family through Jesus Christ.
• Support financially the ministry of adoption through the Micah
  Fund and Lydia Fund.
• Married couples: consider adopting children into your family as
  an overflow of the inheritance that you have in Christ from God,
  your Father.