Kennystix's podcast
Adoption: The Heart of the Gospel
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. One of the most moving moments, some of you will remember it, was it last year, we had a Sunday focus on adoption and during was it the Offertory, they started showing the pictures of the families who've adopted at this church and it went on and on and on and on. I think it must have been 40 or so during the, it's all we had time for and I was absolutely blown away by the accumulated visual effect. And then I was told by the committee, I think that's about half of them. So I don't know the number, I would like to know the number just in our church, I know this is not just about the seminar of what the total is, but I think the reason it moved me is because God has created here and we would love to see it spread a culture of adoption. One of the strongest statements that you can make against a culture of abortion or culture of death or a culture that just uses birth control to say these kids are just in the way is to go out of your way to add children to your life. I mean, kids can show up unexpectedly and kids can show up by a great effort. If you make a great effort to add a child to your life, you are making an unbelievably counter-cultural statement in a world that just wants to use every means possible to get them out of the way. I mean, and even when they're born, let's get them out of the way so we can be about our lives. So it means a great deal to me that this church, God has for reasons way beyond me, part of it owing to Rod, thanks for sitting back there Rod, created a culture of adoption where it's just the thing to do. If you don't adopt them, why aren't you thinking about it? If you have a Bible or want to reach for one under the pew in front of you, I'm going to read two passages of Scripture, tell you where I'm going, then pray, and go there. Go to Galatians chapter 4 and then we're going to go to Romans 8. The title of this message is "Adoption the Heart of the Gospel," and I think you'll see why as we move through these texts. This 4 will read verses 4 through 8 and Romans 8 and we'll read 14 through 17. So if you have a finger to stick in Romans 8 so that you can go there after we read Galatians 4. Okay, listen to the heart of the Gospel now, Galatians 4, 4 through 8. "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons." And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father, so you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God." Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. I'll turn over to Romans 8, 14 to 17. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, the sons, by whom we cry, "Abba, Father, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him." Let's pray. Father, as we look into the heart of the gospel and its relationship to adoption, both yours and ours, ours being adopted by you and ours adopting children, I pray for your help. That this would be illuminated faithfully. That what is really here would be really seen and really felt and really applied, that no error would be made, no misapplication of your holy word would be performed, but rather that everything would be led by your Spirit, and that what happens here would glorify your Son and glorify your name and issue in an effect of adopting, a Spirit of adoption, both in this church, the churches represented in this room, and then out through our city and our land and to the ends of the earth, Lord. We would love to see cultures where adopting into families is not done. Children are stacked up in orphanages. I pray, oh God, that you would cause there to be a global awakening to a spirit of adopting into families. Your hands, I commit myself and these friends in this moment, in Jesus' name, amen. Let me just get out of the way, a possible misunderstanding concerning the relentless masculine sons. I wonder if some of you women stumble over that. Here is one reason why we should not translate this sons and daughters, and it isn't what you think it is, in the culture of the time, the adoption of daughters did not have the same legal rights as the adoption of sons, therefore had the translation been for women and men, sons and daughters, it would not have had nearly the impact for the women in the church that it has when the women are called sons. You see the point? It's an analogy to a reality that's in the culture, that when a son goes from slavery into the family, he has rights in that culture, not necessarily the right culture, in that culture, rights and standings that a daughter brought in wouldn't have had, therefore had they tried to be feminist, kind of inappropriate by saying, let's all use the right language. You wouldn't have meant that the daughters, you women, have the same spiritual standing in the divine family as if it were translated your son. So when you hear your son, hear your bumped up, not your bumped down, oh, I got to be a man to be, that's just the way it was. Today, I'm happy to talk about daughters of God and daughters having equal spiritual standing in the family, but just know that's an honor to you in that analogy to be included in sons. And you know it is, because if you go back to chapter 3, it says there's neither male nor female, and then refers to both of sons. So close that parenthesis, I just wanted to make sure you know that is an upping of standing, not the opposite. The biblical foundation of adopting children is primarily not found in the Old Testament, but in the New, there are three adoptions in the Old Testament, Moses, Esther, and Genubath. Anybody know who Genubath is? Some of you adopted, people probably looked up this, and you don't need to know, it's 1 Kings 11, 20, and it's totally out of the way and irrelevant. But just know that when it comes to seeing adoption in action and to providing a biblical foundation for it, we're going to the New Testament, and we're going not to the general providence of God in the way He works in the world, but we're going straight to the gospel, straight to the center of the Bible. So you can't get a better foundation for something than going to the center, namely to the gospel itself. It is true that in the Old Testament Israel, the people are called the son of God. Out of Egypt I have called my son. However, interestingly, that is never called adoption until the New Testament calls it that in Romans 9 and 4. So the focus of our founding reflection for adopting children will be not just on the New Testament, but on the center of the New Testament, namely the gospel. So let me read again these two verses to show you what I mean by saying we're going to base our delight in and our doing of adoption on the gospel, Galatians 4, 4, and 5. When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. God did not have to use that word. Adoption, we offer sia in Greek, it's a rare word, never used in the Old Testament, hard to find outside the New Testament before Paul. Some think Paul created the word. Out of the two words, we asked for son and tithymi for put, put as sons. Maybe not, maybe we don't know. But it's a rare word. He didn't have to use it. Why did he reach or create this word? Why did God move him to do that? He could have stayed. Think of this. He could have stayed with new birth language. We all know that's a very common biblical doctrine, regeneration, or new birth. John 1, 12, to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become children of God, who were born not of the flesh, nor the will of man, nor the will of the flesh, but of God. That's all he would have needed to say to talk about people coming into his family. New birth puts you in my family. Every child I have is a child by birth, and he didn't leave it at that. He went beyond the birth analogy to the adoption analogy. That's really significant, is it not? That God would choose not simply to describe his children, all of them as born of the Spirit, but all of them as legally adopted out of conditions like slavery. And so right at the center of the gospel, you have God ordaining that language be chosen to describe what he's doing to save people, bring them into his family, in terms of birth and in terms of adoption. So what I want to do is probe the connections between God's doing it at the center of the gospel and our doing it in the 21st century, our adopting children. I want to probe the connections, and there are eight of them. So the subtitle I put under this message is eight similarities between God's adopting of us and our adopting of children, eight similarities, which I hope will help you. I have in mind people here who have adopted children and need encouragement and strength and wisdom and insight as to what it means and what resources in God and in the gospel are there for that. I have in mind people who are thinking about adoption and need to think through its centrality, its importance, its how it's understood and viewed by God. And I have in mind people like the leaders here who are engaged in encouraging and helping with the whole process of adoption, and I hope all of us will learn now that God has done it himself. God knows what it costs. God stands ready to support us in it all the way to the end of our lives. And those of you who are old enough to know, and those of you who aren't will soon learn that if you become a parent you are always a parent, more pain in the heart of parents of adult children than in the hearts of parents of little children. You never cease. If you think you're doing this for 18 years, don't do it. You will always own a relationship with this child that is unique and painful and glorious. All right? So here's number one. We're going to walk through these, eight of these similarities between God's adopting and our adopting. Number one, it is, was for Him, is for us, costly, and I'll give you a verse for each of these or several. Galatians 4, 4, and 5 again, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born unto the law, to redeem, redeem those who were under the law, purchase out, buy out, pay something to have. What's that? Galatians 3, 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us as it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. So it cost God His life, His Son's life, to have an adopted child. The cost, financially, as you're discovering, is seemingly prohibitive, but not prohibitive, God as a way. The cost emotionally, the cost in stress, the cost in all kinds of things you never dreamed of is large, and God did it. Adoption is costly, financially, emotionally. There is something very deep, very right about embracing this cost. I cannot tell you how deeply it satisfies me as a pastor to see people embracing this cost, because it is so clearly evidential that your treasure is in heaven. It costs you hundreds of thousand dollars to bring a child up and into adulthood. It costs you laying down your life. You cannot any longer set your own agenda. It's a magnificent way of displaying Christ is my life. My treasure is in heaven. My life on earth is not about maximizing my comforts, so giving my life away, seeing my life invested in people, these are the ones and others. That's what life is about. That is a beautiful thing for a pastor to see working its way out into life. I praise God for people who are ready to embrace the cost, known and unknown, oh, how you need to ponder the unknowns, it's like when you marry, you think you know, you don't know. When you have a child, you think you know, you don't know. God knows and God is sufficient. Number two, adoption did for God and does for us involve a legal, the legal status of the child. Legal issues are at stake here. Same verses. Hear them another way, Galatians 4, 4, "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying Abba Father." Now, notice the connection of the two halves of verse six, because you are sons, you are. That's your status. A legal transaction has happened with this redemption. A price has been paid, law has been satisfied, you are our sons. Now, experience begins to happen. A spirit is poured into the child to bring the child's heart into conformity to the legal reality. Don't miss this, this is your life, this is how you got saved. You have a legal problem with God. His law says you deserve to be punished and perish. His love says I would save them. The way the legal demands and the love can both be satisfied is the redemption in Christ, where he bears the punishment for us, provides the righteousness we don't have, legal demands are satisfied, and we're in the family. And we're not fit for the family yet, we don't have the marks of the family, we're rebellious and we're attitude stink and we don't treat each other the way we should, we are totally out of sync with this family, but the legal realities are settled 2,000 years ago, and the price has been paid, and we are by faith alone in the family. Amazing. So implication for you, if the legal red tape seems long, hard, complicated, just remember it's not red with your blood like it was for Jesus. To cut the red tape between God and us, Jesus soaked it with his blood. You haven't yet suffered untold blood for your hoped for child, just a lot of hassle. That's all. Can you handle hassle? If Jesus gave his life to cut through the legal red tape? Number three, adoption was blessed and is blessed with God's pouring out a spirit of sonship, drawing out the other half of verse six, adoption was blessed and is blessed with God's pouring out a spirit of sonship, verse six of Galatians 4. As you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, "Abba Father." Now that same phrase, "Abba Father," a spirit in us, crying, "Abba Father," is in chapter eight of Romans, we read it, verses 15 and 16, listen to this. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba Father," the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now what's going on here? This is the other part of salvation. We must know this, salvation has an objective legal dimension, which is the foundation of a subjective experiential dimension. The legal dimension is a price must be paid, righteousness must be provided, punishment must be born, and all of that happened totally outside of you. You had nothing to do with it, it happened 2,000 years ago, in the cross with the Son of God, dying in your place. Now, when by simple faith you get united to that, so that it becomes your foundation? Now what does God do? Just leave you as a kind of the same character you had when you lived in slavery to sin? No. He now pours a spirit of adoption. This is now you get adopted. You were adopted legally by faith in Christ, but this spirit that gets poured into your life begins to cause you to say things like, "Daddy, if you have a relationship with God right now through Christ that says, "Daddy, I need you today. You got the spirit of adoption, spirit's in you." Now here's something beautiful. Abba is an Aramaic word, it's not a Greek word, and it's quoted in Galatians and Romans, which are written in Greek. Why? Why did Paul use an Aramaic word when writing to Greek audiences who wouldn't know the word? I mean, that's bad communication, right? Here's the reason. Mark 14, 36, Jesus is in Gethsemane. It wasn't the first time the disciples had heard, overheard Jesus praying with words like this, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not I will, what I will but what you will." They had never heard anybody pray like this. There's an old New Testament scholar who's deceased now that I read when I was in seminary 30 years ago, Joachim Yeremius, and he focused all of his energies in his life on the parables of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus and tried to argue there were uniquenesses about Jesus teaching that authenticate them, because so many scholars think he didn't say what the New Testament says he said. And one of his arguments was this term, "Abba," there is no extra biblical talk like this. The Jews did not pray, "Abba, Father." They might have occasionally prayed, "Father, but not Abba, Father." Jesus created that relationship. They heard him talking to God like they'd never heard anybody talk, "It's like daddy." It's like daddy. It's offensive. It's a little familiar. Never used, blithely, cavalierly, but he's in Gethsemane here, "Abba, Father, if it's possible." They hear this. It's a colossal impact. And now that phrase goes right through the early church as he is. No changes, Aramaic and all. You don't throw away the word "Abba," that was Jesus. That was the Aramaic. It was a very word he used. Jesus said that very word to show us the kind of spirit now that he has and that we may have. When it says that God, having legally, put us in the place of adoption, he now pours a spirit. The spirit rises up in our hearts and says to God, "You're not just distant. You're not just far away. You're not just sovereign. You're not just creator. You are my "Abba," my daddy, I believe, therefore, the implication is that God, once all the legal work is done and you have the child in your arms, we'll do that for you. He'll help you. This little child will grow up, or if you adopt that child at nine, this child will be granted by God on the analogy of this. I'm not saying it's the same. I'm saying it's analogy. On the analogy, God's heart would be for your family, but this child began to grow up and say, "Mommy," and daddy, and feel it. Let's just know it, our children, our adopted children, do not discern their status as children by asking if they can see their papers. They discern their status as children by a spirit rising up inside that they didn't plan. They just say, "They could say in daddy ever since they could remember." They've been saying, "Mommy, they know they're a child. They know you love them that way. They know it's inside to love you that way." They don't ask for the papers. Number four. Adoption was for God and is for us marked by moral transformation through the spirit. It's marked by moral transformation into conformity with the family through the spirit. Romans 8, 14. People who are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God. In other words, one of the ways we know that we are a child of God is that the spirit is leading us, leading us where in the paths of the Father, the way the Father is. The chips off the old block. The spirit is leading us to love like he loves and forgive like he forgives and suffer like he suffered. That's the mark of the family. So God will, I believe, grant to your children as they grow up. These adoptive children grant to them the marks of the family. I want Talatha to be a piper, not the flaws of the piper's, the virtues of the piper's. I want her to be marked by the values that we have tried to instill in the five children that we have. She doesn't have our genetic makeup, but the spirit of the family, all who are led by the spirit are the children, all who have the marks of the piper's are the piper's. That God can do. We have confidence that God will work that. Number five. Adoption brought us and brings our children the rights of being heirs of the Father. Adoption brought us and brings our children the rights of being heirs of the Father. Interesting. Two different ways of saying it. One in Galatians, one in Romans, Galatians 6, "Because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father, so you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir, through God." That's an odd phrase. Don't you mean of God? Ears through God. What does that mean? Well, get the chapter division out of the way, go back and read the flow. It means heir of Abraham, heir of the promise, through God's adopting work. You are adopted into the family so that now you're an heir of Abrahamic promise and according to Romans 4, 13, he's an heir of the world. Now if you say, "Oh, but doesn't it say somewhere, heir of God does?" So let's go to Romans and read that section, Romans 8, 16. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children then heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him. So if Abraham is called an heir of the world and we are now inheritors of the promise of Abraham we will inherit the world and clearly God owns the universe and we come into our inheritance and own everything. You believe that about yourself? First Corinthians 3.20 Paul says, "When they're starting to boast one over the other, I'm of Peter, I'm of Apollos," he says, "What are you doing?" And then he argues like this. All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or things present or things to come or life or death, all are yours and you are Christ's and Christ's gods. In other words, Christian, you are the heir of the universe. Why would you boast about, "I've got to be a house or I've got a nice car or I have a neat teacher or why would you boast at all?" You're sniffling if you start boasting in man. You own the universe by inheritance. Blessed are the meat for they shall inherit the, say it louder, earth. Not just Palestine. Don't get too worked up about who's going to have Palestine. I got the earth and includes Palestine and Mars and whatever number star galaxies there are will be our playground. When we last February prepared to leave to go in a five-month sabbatical to England knowing that we had a lot of travel in the process, we went to the 40th floor of the IDS tower to a recommended lawyer and spent hours doing what? Preparing wheels. We had wheels ever since we were married, but wheels started to get out of date and we were looking, thinking, "Now, tell us it's this old and the boys are all married and things are really different than we had our will." So we better give some thought to this and what a wonderful thing to say is no difference here between Talatha and these boys in terms of airship she is in the family. There's no thought that adoptive kids get treated this way and born kids get treated this way. That's just, that's not the way God does it, so it's not the way we're going to do it. What a lesson and what a beautiful thing it was to just work through. Now, in fact, given life situations, she may be favored instead of the other way around. Know your own position as heirs and then apply it appropriately to your family. Number six, adoption was for God and is for us seriously planned. Seriously planned. I think this is what I talked about last year, so let me just mention it. Ephesians 1, 4 through 6. I know I haven't read Ephesians, but here it, Ephesians 1, 4 through 6. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love. In love He predestined us for adoption. He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, according to the purpose, the plan of His will to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has blessed us in the beloved, with which He has blessed us in the beloved. This is absolutely breathtaking, very controversial, theologically. Before you were born, before there was a planet, before there was a universe, God predestined some for adoption. He was the plan. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless in love. He predestined us for adoption as sons. The reason it's controversial is not just what you think it is, namely the doctrine of election is that He chose some and not others, but that this is adoption, He says, through Jesus Christ, meaning the death of Christ, meaning the death was planned, meaning sin was planned, or you don't need the death. That's what's controversial. God never, ever is taken off guard by anything, including the fall of man into sin. Therefore, if He sees it coming, He can either create and let it happen, or not create. And when He creates, He creates not willy-nilly, but knowing and designing how He will manage all that's coming. Now, this is heavy. It simply implies that this adoption thing was not plan B, for God. Don't need to be plan B for you. I know it is sweet and uniquely precious to have children by birth, and that if you can't, you look sometimes to adoption so that it can feel like this is plan B. God did not save you that way. He didn't say not, and a plan A is to have lots of kids this way, but they blew that into the garden. So plan B, I have to save them from slavery by adoption. That's exactly not what happened if Ephesians 4, 1, 4, and 6 is before the foundation of the world, He predestined us for adoption. His plan A was, I will save them at the cost of my son, that they might understand how much I love them. Which means, I believe, our own experience that we should think in terms of two uniquely precious realities. One is having children by birth. It's unique. Nothing is like it. And having children by adoption is unique. Nothing is like it. You don't need to weigh these off against each other as though one is better or worse. There are unique things that are precious and beautiful about this. And there are unique things that are precious and beautiful about this. God uses both terminology to describe how we become His children. We can think of both. And if we are moving toward adoption as our first choice or a second choice, they don't need to be ranked like one is better or one is worse than the other. God is able to give you the grace to embrace adoption as equal to plan A. Even if it wasn't sequentially plan A, it can now rank as a plan A equal to plan A. Number seven, we're almost finished. Religion was for God and often is for us from very bad situations. I didn't mention Ephesians 2, 3 is the setting. We were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. So when God undertook to adopt us, He did not find us like a foundling on the steps. So cute, He could hardly resist us. He found us wicked and rebellious against Him and died for us. We were by nature children of wrath. The distance between what we are and what God is and requires is infinitely greater than any distance between you and a child you might adopt, culturally and morally, physically. Just know that when God adopted, He crossed a huge cultural chasm, the biggest that can be conceived between divine and human. And He crossed a huge moral chasm, picture a nine-year-old street kid who's got nothing but immorality in his bones. And He found us hating Him, get out of my life, children of wrath. And He was angry at that wrath and in spite of all that distance, all that cultural, all that moral, all that legal distance, He overcame it. And He's dealing with us to this day as we backslide. I mean, how are you doing as a child of God in terms of family standards? Finally, number eight. Adoption meant for all Christians and means for parents that we suffer now and experience glory later. All Christians, parents, adoptive children in particular, suffer now and experience the glory later. Here's where I'm getting that. Romans 8, 22 and 23. The whole creation has been groaning together in pains of childbirth until now, as treating the creation as though the upheavals of disease and flooding tsunami, hurricane, is childbirth bringing forth a new creation. Not only the creation is groaning, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, namely the redemption of our bodies. Now, that kind of jars us because we thought, well, wait a minute, we're already adopted. That's true. Romans 8, verses 14 to 16, Galatians 4, adoption happened when, by faith, we were united with the Redeemer who paid the price for our adoption. Yes. However, adoption in God's heart includes not simply changing our legal standing and changing our spirit by pouring a spirit of, yes, I'm your child, but changing the physical, painful, dying, diseased bodies that we have into bodies like his sons, glorious bodies. But there's not going to be any, Jesus gets a nice new resurrection body, and we have to labor with these things the rest of eternity. No. We're children now, and as children, we are waiting for our adoption, comma, the redemption of our bodies. Our spirits are redeemed. We are forgiven. We have peace with God. We are his children, but our bodies aren't there yet. Jesus is, according to Philippians 3, 21, he's going to receive, we're going to receive a body like his glorious body with the power with which he is able to subdue all things to himself. This is especially relevant, not merely because all children have physical difficulties. I tell you, a little anecdote, we were concerned about Talatha that for the first five years, she seemed unbelievably fearful, especially of men, and in a public place, like at an airport, we're sitting there and she's saved five, and from here to you is a waste can, and she has a wrapper, and we say, "Go throw it in the waste can," and she would go. Well, what is this? It's one of the totally unexpected things. Well, about six years old, I was walking with her home from church across the bridge, and now she's learning her letters, she's been learning, and this big green sign down on the freeway, and I said, "Can you tell me any letters?" Well, she couldn't even see the sign, it was totally hazy, I swear, you're kidding, we're really dense, she couldn't see, we took her to Steve Christensen, he said, "Without glasses, she's almost legally blind." So here we're racing a little girl who's living in a fishbowl. That's what she's seeing. She's going to cling, right? She's not a psychological issue, she can't see. So he gave her glasses the next Sunday here, she bolted from us. She was off and running. Now, that's a small disability. It scared the Lewin, daylight's out of us, I mean, to this day I'm concerned for her eyes, but I just want to say this point about we groan inwardly, waiting eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies, is especially relevant for adopting children with disabilities, or having children by birth with disabilities. First parents know groaning more than the rest, and it's so wonderful to me that the Bible describes that groaning in terms of moving into the full experience of our adoption. We are adopted, we will one day completely own and enjoy our adoption because our bodies will be conformed to our older brother, Jesus, by the power that enables him to subdue all things to himself. What I'd like to do to close is to read for you the letter that I wrote to Noel when we decided to move forward with Teletha in 1995, and then I'll stop and see what Mary Day wants to do. Dear Noel, this is November 6, 1995, 11.12 p.m. You got to understand, I was 50 years old. I have only raised sons, and she's an African American. So there's three unusual challenges for me, for us, right? Different culture, girl, and I'm old. With confidence in the all-sufficient future, grace of God, I am ready and eager to move ahead with the adoption of Teletha 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. God was good to put it in Phoebe's heart to call about this child when she did and not before we were ready. I realize more than ever that the mind of man plans his way but the Lord directs his steps. This decision is not merely a tabulation of pros and cons. I would be deceiving myself to think that. Yet I am persuaded that this decision to adopt honors God more than not adopting. 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 will bless Bethlehem and not hinder our work there. I believe it is the path of the greatest love for the greatest number and I therefore have confidence that God is pleased with it. I choose it not under constraint or with any reservation of commitment. I relinquish every thought that because you initiated this idea you will bear the blame for the burdens it will bring. As for our choice to have children in the first place and with our choice to go to Germany and our choice to leave Bethel and enter the pastorate there is a common and united commitment to all that God will be for us in this path including any frowning providence that he plans to sanctify us. I believe our eyes are open though we have learned that the toothache expected and the toothache experienced are not the same. 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 tell of the Ruth and the future husband God already knows into deep and lasting fellowship with Christ. May she be an ebony brooch of beauty around your aging neck and a crown of purity and joy on your grating head I love you. Father may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart now have an effect for good for the glory of Christ the beauty of our salvation and the adoption of children here and around the world for their good and for your glory in Jesus name we pray amen. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis Minnesota feel free to make copies of this message to give you to others but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit desiring God online at www.desiringGod.org there you'll find hundreds of sermons articles radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of pastor John's books audio and video resources you can also stay up to date on what's new at desiring God again our website is www.desiringGod.org or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700 our mailing address is desiring God 2601 East Franklin Avenue Minneapolis Minnesota 55406 desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. [BLANK_AUDIO]
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