Adoption

***Please note that we had some technical difficulties today. Sound begins around the 12 minute mark.***

Adoption Hebrews 2:10-13 Emmanuel Christian Church 3.2.25 INTRODUCTION: Bastard children. Conceived by fallen flesh. Abandoned to rebellion by our ancestral parents. Orphaned by the actions of our own sinful will. We might not like that description; we might deny that description, but one thing is certain- we cannot honestly disown that description! I miss our dear brother Bob Fisher. To me he was a patriarch of the faith and a man of seasoned wisdom. When he would pray at the Lord’s table on Sunday, he would often use a phrase that pricked my conscience: “Father, forgive us wherein we have stumbled…” Now, for the audience of God’s people, gathered around the memorial table of Christ’s sacrifice- that might have been a suitable request for sins committed by sincere Christians in a moment of spiritual weakness. But what percentage of human sins would such a request cover? Ten percent? One percent? One tenth of one percent?! The harsh reality of the human condition is this: When we “stumble” into the mudpit of sin, we thrash around in it until we are completely covered. THEN we open our mouths and swallow our sinful defilement until we relationally, emotionally, and spiritually VOMIT! PROPOSITION: Would any witness to such a scene want to intervene? And if one chose to intervene, what would he do? Call the authorities? Shuﬄe the debased bastard child oﬀ to some orphanage hidden from view? After all, what prospective adoptive parent would want to take into their home such a broken, defiled mess and call them his own? God would. Do you remember last week’s description of man? God says we were “crowned with glory”- that is to say, we were created in God’s image and given free will and granted dominion over all of the Creation that we might choose to love Him and have meaningful fellowship with Him. But we chose the path of rebellion. And when we did, we became the devil’s bastard children! Ugly! Ugly! Ugly! But that’s NOT what today’s Scripture is about. It IS about what God has done to change our “bastard” status. It’s about His desire to adopt us, cleanse us and place us in His family as dearly loved children. The “glory” we once had and defiled, He sought to restore. His plan and provision for that miracle restoration? It was to be the suﬀering of His One and only Begotten Son!Hebrews 2:10 In bringing many sons (back) to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suﬀering. 11 Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. 12 He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” 13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.” God’s Purpose: “bringing many sons to glory”

We can’t really appreciate God’s desire to restore us to His glory unless we really understand the depths to which sin had dragged us. Instead of being sons of God, we had become His enemies! Colossians 1:21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.
Instead of loathing our fallen state, we became comfortable in it!
Left to ourselves, we would have ridden that horse all the way to Hell itself!
But God took the first step in heading us oﬀ at the pass. The Apostle Paul put it this way: Romans 5:6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It was this gracious intervention in our defiled and rebellious condition that led the Apostle John to exclaim: 1 John 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! That’s the story of God’s story of “bringing many sons” back to Himself, but in the very next verse, John speaks to God’s restoration of our “glory”: 1 John 3:2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. APPLICATION: God’s purpose: “bringing many sons to glory”. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that God is your enemy! That thought may have been planted in your mind by THE enemy (the devil), BUT the evidence of God’s desire for you points in exactly the opposite direction! No matter your parentage, no matter your past, no matter your defilement, no matter your current state- God’s desire is your adoption, your cleansing, your restoration to His glory. His plan for making that happen is… God’s Plan: Jesus, made “perfect through suﬀering” Hebrews 2:10 In bringing many sons (back) to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suﬀering.
How could suﬀering make the sinless Son of God be any more perfect?
It was in Jesus’ suﬀering that our sins were atoned.
Isaiah 53, written over 700 years before Jesus came to earth as the baby born in Bethlehem, says this about Jesus’ sacrifice for us: Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suﬀering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and aﬄicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
But Jesus didn’t merely suﬀer to pay for our sins, He suﬀered to make possible our ADOPTION back into God’s family! Isaiah puts it this way:Isaiah 53:12 For he bore the sin of many, AND made intercession for the transgressors (REBELS). Look again at our text for today: Hebrews 2:11Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. APPLICATION: Jesus suﬀered to pay for our sin, AND to pay the court costs for our adoption back into the family of God. When God’s justice demanded our punishment, Jesus’ own suﬀering took its place. When the shame of our sin broke family ties with God, it was Jesus who embraced us as brothers and brought us back home! Two verses remain in our text for this morning: Hebrews 2:12 He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” 13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.” There are two interesting things to notice in these verses:
First, they are words placed in the mouth of Jesus Himself.
Second, they are words that Jesus first spoke over a millennia earlier through King David and then through Isaiah the prophet!
Verse 12 is a quote from: Psalm 22:22 I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you.
Why is this significant? Because of the content of ALL of Psalm 22!
Psalm 22 is a record of Jesus’ suﬀering and thoughts as He hung on the Cross- 1,000 years before He was even born!
When Paul tells us that Jesus was made perfect through suﬀering- all of Psalm 22 describes that suﬀering in anguishing detail! APPLICATION: Here’s the point- we can’t appreciate the grace of God in bringing us back into His glory unless we first understand the depths of our defiling estrangement from Him because of our personal sin. Furthermore, we can’t appreciate the suﬀering of Christ on our behalf unless we hear its horrifying description preserved in the words of Psalm 22! Those are two PAINFUL moments of soul shaking confrontation- but when rightly understood, they open the door to GRATITUDE toward God that leads us into a joyful surrender to his will for our lives!
Verse 13 is a quote from: Isaiah 8:17-18 “…I will put my trust in him. Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me.” CONCLUSION: So what’s remarkable about this? The prophet Isaiah ministered during a time when the people of God had turned their back on Him, wallowing in the filth of their sin. And yet, God refused to give up on bringing them back into His fold. Most of them refused His call and died in their sin. Some however, turned from their destructive path and found His grace and restoration. As it was in Isaiah’s day, so it was in Jesus’ day, and so it is to this very day. The only unanswered question that remains is this: “Who will take up God’s oﬀer for redemption from sin and adoption into His family?” Jesus makes the oﬀer, the decision remains with us.