Title: ADOPTED BY GOD

Focus: Christians must live with the mystery and tension related to the Scriptures’ teaching that God adopts us as his children.

Function: To encourage the people to use the tension to magnify God’s sovereignty, greatness and love; to exalt God’s mysterious and incomprehensible works in Christ; and to respond with joy, gratitude and humility for being drawn into God’s family.

Text: John 6:25-51

With the church of all ages, we speak today again the language of faith—the faith that says: Salvation belongs to God! As a Reformed community of faith, however, Calvary Church speaks that language of faith with an accent. We place our accent on God’s grace, on God’s electing love in Christ Jesus, and on God’s divine initiative to make us alive in Christ. We do not say: “I decided to become a Christian;” rather, we emphasize that God’s Spirit has worked within us the faith and power whereby we become Christians. God has adopted us as his children.

When my brother Henry and his wife Sandra pursued the route of adopting children, they received instructions and a lot of materials to prepare them for potential difficulties and struggles down the road. Those of us who have adopted children and those who are adopted by loving parents know far better than I do what some of these struggles may be. This is not the place or time, however, to explore some of these struggles.

But here’s what I find so striking: the Bible teaches that God, in Christ Jesus, adopts us as sons and daughters into his family—Christ’s body, the church. All Christians are adopted. And just as adopted children may, at times, struggle with their adoption into a caring family, so all serious and thoughtful Christians, at times, struggle with being adopted by God.

In fact, we find ourselves struggling with a tension related to the Scriptures’ teaching that God elects or adopts us as his children into his family. For some Christians that tension peaks sky-high when they hear the term “election,” or “predestination.” And some become apoplectic or angry when they hear the term “unconditional election.” Let’s admit it: there’s mystery and tension related to the Scriptures’ teaching that God adopts us as his children.

In light of Scripture, I will encourage all of us today to use that tension to magnify God’s sovereignty, greatness and love; to exalt God’s mysterious and incomprehensible works in Christ; and to respond with joy, gratitude and humility for being drawn into the family of God.

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Let’s begin by defining the Bible’s teaching that we are adopted by God. It means that God has chosen us, in Christ Jesus, before the creation of the world, to be part of his family—the church. Listen to this key text found in Ephesians 1:3-5: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus….”

If we are Christians, it’s because God has done a work in us. And that work of adoption is in Christ Jesus, and took place already before the foundations of the world. We are dealing with divine mystery.

That work of God has nothing to do with our looks, our gifts, our goodness or any other excellent quality we may bring to the table. Reading Ephesians 1, for example, we learn that God’s election or work of adoption is purely based on God’s “love,” God’s “good pleasure,” God’s “will,” the “riches of God’s grace,” and “according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” Christians, then, are adopted by God. Period.

The Lord Jesus brings out this truth in his encounters with the people of his day. The Jewish leaders are disturbed by Jesus’ teachings, for Jesus seems to claim that he is divine, that he is the Son of God. And such a claim is blasphemy in their ears. So, in John 6, we find them confronting Jesus. Drawn by and puzzled by Jesus’ miracles, the Jewish leaders question Jesus’ claims about himself and they tested him saying: “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

I want to make three observations from the text: #1. Jesus reveals himself as divine, as the Son of God. Listen: “I am the bread of life.” And says Jesus in vs. 33 “…the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” To make sure that his listeners understand him correctly, Jesus says in vs. 38 “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but the will of him who sent me.”

The Jews clearly understood Jesus’ claim to divinity. They grumbled at Jesus’ claims and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I came down from heaven?” Jesus, however, does not back off. He drives home the truth of his divine origin, saying: “…here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Clearly, Jesus reveals himself as the divine Son of the living God.

#2. Jesus emphasizes God the Father’s divine work of saving people, of giving them eternal life. Listen: “(Vs. 37) “All that the Father gives me will come to me….” (Vs. 39) “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.” (Vs. 44) “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” Surely, this language is unmistakably clear: God the Father is the one who adopts us or draws us into his family.

#3. Anyone who encounters the Lord Jesus Christ and who senses a divine awareness of Jesus’ identity and claims about himself—is called upon to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen: (Vs. 35) “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” To come to Jesus and to believe in Jesus is similar to “eating of this bread” or to “looking to the Son.” Listen: (Vs. 40) “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.” (And vs. 51) “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Clearly, Christ asks for a response of faith. As God encounters us in Christ, we are called to respond in faith. God looks for that faith response. But beware: just in case I may be tempted to emphasize that there is something that I can bring to the table of salvation—something that will give me credit with God, I hear Jesus say: (Vs. 29) “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” In other words, even the act of believing is a divine work or gift to us.

It’s a biblical truth as large as a cow: Christians are adopted by God into his family. Coming to faith, experiencing salvation, living in the resurrection hope and power of Christ Jesus, being part of the church as the family of God—all these are divine gifts and works.

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Now we must zero into that mysterious tension that comes to us with this teaching of divine election or adoption. On the one hand, there are texts that focus clearly upon God’s divine work. But there are also texts that emphasize our response when confronted with Christ and the gospel. Texts that emphasize God’s divine initiative and work are found in, for example, Ephesians 1, Romans 8:28-30; Romans 9-11. There are other texts that stress our response to God’s divine work. They are, for example, found in today’s gospel passage (John 6) where Jesus calls for the response of faith, of “eating the bread of life.” But there are other passages as well, such as Matthew 12:25 where Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

One text in particular (Phil. 2:12) helps us see these two poles and makes us sense the tension. Listen: “…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” Clearly, those two poles—God’s work of adoption and the required work—our work—of responding by faith and faithfulness create tension.

Reformed Christians are inclined to lay the accent on God’s divine work.

To be sure, Reformed Christians also struggle with the tension so many others feel as well. And we are keenly aware of the objections some Christians will make, because we ourselves must also deal with these objections which rise from our finite minds and keen logic.

For example, it’s logically incoherent to say that God deserves all the credit for our salvation while we also must respond with faith. And who has not heard or even made the argument here that predestination or divine election leaves us with an unjust, unloving God. “For,” so goes the argument, “what loving God would choose some to eternal life and bypass others? What just God will blame unbelievers for their sins and unbelief and punish them eternally—if their salvation depends entirely upon God’s work of election or adoption?”

Surely, logically the Bible’s teaching on election presents us with problems and tension. We either get rid of this tension by denying or ignoring or soft-pedaling the Biblical texts, or we leave the matter in God’s hand.

The tension we face goes beyond our finite mind or comprehension. It also goes against our fallen human nature. By nature we are inclined to resist the notion that we cannot save ourselves by the bootstraps of some good works of kindness and care, or by some good characteristics and virtues, such as showing love to people. Deep within us, there is resistance to God’s grace.

In fact, we sometimes fear God’s grace, for if our salvation is truly God’s work—from the beginning to the end—then we have to admit to ourselves that we don’t have any power or means to save ourselves, or our children or neighbors. Then we are forced to completely rely upon God’s initiative and timing and purposes.

My grandfather had 10 children; 5 of them learned to love the Lord, participated in the life of the church, and served the Lord all their lives; 5 of them “hooked off,” disregarded a life of service and worship, and died in unbelief. How do you explain this faith and unbelief in one family? You can try. But the answer lies hidden in eternity, in God’s eternal council, in God’s hand. All you do is live with the mysterious tension when it comes to God’s work of adoption. And you trust or lean upon God’s grace, praying for his saving power to extend to all close to you and to all far off.

So, here’s what I declare with confidence Christians should do:

#1. (Negatively). Christians must refrain from sitting in judgment over God, questioning his judgment, love or sovereign grace and mercy. We shall take to heart Paul’s warning to the church in Rome when he said: (Romans 9:14ff) “What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy…God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”

We must refrain from sitting in judgment over God. And we must take to heart these words: (vs.20ff) “But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?”

Here’s what we should do positively: #2. We must acknowledge and embrace the tension. The tension is not in God’s mind; it’s in ours. The tension does not conflict with God’s character; it only conflicts with our sense of justice and fairness and logic. The tension does not violate God’s holy, majestic and all-sovereign nature; it goes against our own fallen nature.

But when we acknowledge the tension and embrace the biblical texts as they come to us, we will discover a place of rest, a place where we leave these mysterious, incomprehensible matters in God’s hand. We are finite; God is infinite. We are the clay; God is the Potter. Thus we embrace the tension. And let it be.

#3. We lay the accent upon God’s grace. That’s the Reformed accent here at Calvary Church. And that makes sense, for just as we emphasize our fallen human nature apart from God’s saving work in Christ, so we emphasize our inability to save ourselves. Apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, we are spiritually as “dead as a doornail.” Only when God initiates rebirth within us, can we say, “I’m alive, I’m saved in Christ.” That’s where we lay the emphasis—upon God’s grace. However,

#4. We will also respond to God’s work of adoption. We will do good works, which God has prepared for us in advance. We will engage in missions and evangelism; we will witness to God’s Word and we’ll lead people to Christ and to a committed relationship with Christ and his church. For this is the task of the church and God’s call to all Christians—to witness and declare good news to the world.

We will exhibit and exercise trust or faith in the works of Christ. We do embrace and receive with gratitude and great joy the gifts of forgiveness, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of eternal life. By living a life of repentance, dying to sin and rising to a life of faith, and love and obedience, we will respond to God’s work of divine election.

So, magnify God’s sovereignty, greatness and love. Exalt God’s mysterious and incomprehensible works in Christ. And respond with joy, gratitude and humility for being drawn into God’s family, the church. Now and always. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.