Good morning. Class this morning, Adoption, the Privilege of Covenant Sons and Daughters. Adoption, the Privilege of Covenant Sons and Daughters. Let's open with a word of prayer and then we'll talk through what we're doing here. Father God, we just thank you for this opportunity to gather together, Lord, and this great truth that I had the privilege of studying all week and looking at and being reminded of the greatness of what you have done for us for me in my redemption, in my adoption, Lord, changing my legal state, changing my relational state to you. That is a kindness that is undeserved to me. It is a kindness that is undeserved to all of us. Lord, help us to understand our vertical adoption, the way you have worked in us and in your creation, and help us to know and understand how to apply this and how to work this out in our horizontal adoptions. So, Lord, we thank you for this time and this opportunity. Be glorified by all of it, please. In Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, so, hopefully you're not sitting there going, it looks like a lot of theology stuff. I thought we were going to talk about the real adoption, because sometimes people think that way. One of the big ideas is we cannot do horizontal adoption. We cannot do orphan care if we do not understand our adoption as sons and daughters. So that's why I have organized this and ordered this this way today. There's some papers you have and stuff in front of you that we can be referencing. You can keep the ordo salutis if you would like. Again, this is a classroom, so jump in. We're going to leave some time at the end and introduce you to the Turning family and let them share their story and so on and so forth. So let's get started. So adoption, the privilege of covenant sons and daughters. The verse is John 14, 18. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Powerful verse, as we will see. I'm going to start with an extended quote from Russell Moore sharing about The adoption of his two sons from Russia So, this is Russell Moore I'm sharing at a conference or an interview It's in the stories in some form in his book as well Adopted for life if you've read it when Maria and I first walked into the orphanage where we had led I'm sorry where we were led and to the boys the Russian court had picked out for us to adopt, we almost threw up in reaction to the stench and squalor of the place. The boys were in cribs, in the dark, lying in their own waste. Leaving them at the end of each day was painful, but leaving them the final day before going home to wait for the paper through was the hardest thing either of us had ever done. Walking out of the room to prepare for the plane ride home, Maria and I could hear Maxim crying out for us and falling down in his crib, convulsing in tears. Maria shook with tears, and I turned around to walk back in their room just for a minute. I placed my hand on both their heads and said, knowing that they couldn't understand a word of my English, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. I don't think I consciously intended to cite Jesus' words to his disciples in John 14, 18. It just seemed like the only thing worth saying at the time. That was the most beautiful sound I ever heard." Hmm. I screwed up this quote somehow. So, as he said that, his son screamed. For the first time. in an orphanage where it was only silence, where the children had never seen daylight, natural light, his son screamed. And he knew, Russell Moore said, that was the most beautiful sound I ever heard. He knew he had parents. He knew someone was going to hear. When Maria and I at long last received the calls that the legal process was over and we returned to Russia to pick up our new sons, we found that their transition from orphanage to family was more difficult than we had supposed. We dressed the boys in outfits our parents had bought them. My mother-in-law gathered some wildflowers growing between cracks in the pavement outside the orphanage. We nodded our thanks to the orphanage workers and walked out into the sunlight, to the terror of the two boys. They had never seen the sun and they'd never felt the wind. They'd never heard the sound of a car door slamming or had the sensation of being carried along at 100 miles an hour down a Russian road. I noticed that they were shaking and reaching back to the orphanage in the distance. I whispered to Timothy, that place is a pit. If only you knew what's waiting for you. A home with a mommy and a daddy who loved you, grandparents and great-grandparents, cousins and playmates, and McDonald's Happy Meals. But all they knew was the orphanage. It was squalid, but they had no other reference point. It was home. We knew the boys had acclimated to our home and that they trusted us when they stopped hiding food in their highchairs. They knew there would be another meal coming and they would not have to fight for the scraps. This was the new normal. They are now thoroughly Americanized, perhaps too much so, able to recognize the sound of a microwave ding from 40 yards away. I still remember, though, those little hands reaching out for the orphanage, and I see myself there. I made it through. I think that's a very emotional story and maybe I was struggling more because I know the power of it and I hope you guys hear the depth of what he's saying in that story because it's an excellent picture of what has happened to us and how we live. So, when I tell you, when I ask you to think about adoption, what comes to mind first? Is it the face of a child you've seen on a commercial for orphan care? Do you think of a friend's child who they adopted? And why during a Sunday school class series titled Sowing in Grace, Trusting God in Our Parenting, during a class that we are focusing on covenantal parenting, would we set aside time, a whole class, to look at adoption? This is because a vertical understanding must precede any horizontal understanding and application of what we do. We must understand in every case what God has done that is the more real thing before we apply things on the horizontal. The vertical practice of adoption is the type, and horizontal adoption is the shadow. If we turn that around, we will enter into covenant with our adopted children improperly. And following up on last week's class on practical implications for godly discipline, right thinking about our condition and status before God will inform and then direct the way in which we deliver discipline and instruction in our homes. So I think everybody knows here Dana and I have three biological children and one adopted child. I'm not going to give time to share our story here. I think most of you have heard it. If not, we'd love to share it. Ours is a unique story. It's atypical and that's why I invited the Turnings to come and share because they have been a part of the process twice and probably a more normal part of the process than we did. But if you want to hear Dana's and my story, we'd love to share it with you. In this time, we only have time really to address this whole thing at about 30,000 feet, 50,000 feet. We're going to be moving fast and high through this, but we'd be happy to give you, the turnings, I'll volunteer and Dana and I as well, a boots on the ground view of adoption and the process if anyone's interested. So our big idea this morning is meant to help us remember that as we look at horizontal adoption, we recognize the greater reality, where we all here have experienced adoption and becoming God's children. And it's that picture that informs the shadow of what we do here. So our big idea, I believe, is on the paperwork in front of you. The big idea is this, that we have nothing in us that would move God to adopt us, yet he has done so to the praise of his glorious grace. You are an adopted son or daughter of God because he has decided it. That's it. That is good news and that is the good news. Adoption is one of the most, if not the most, overlooked elements of the gospel in my opinion. And I hope we all understand by the end of our time what it is he has done for us in it. To the praise of his glorious grace in adopting us vertically. The Puritans regarded adoption as the climax of the Ordo Salutis, which is the paperwork most of you should have in front of you. I kind of printed that off so you guys could see it. And this is the Order of Salvation, the Reformed Order of Salvation, or the Biblical Order of Salvation. And I think it's just helpful to look at and see, and I'll be referencing some things as we go through. as we go through our time. So that's what I'm talking about right there. So the Puritans, as I said, believe that adoption was the climax. So of the things happening here, you can see the transition. It is the greatest thing that has occurred. Some of these things are happening simultaneously. Some of them are happening in eternity past. But they are all happening to us if we are in God. So, I'm going to stop and circle back and briefly answer the question of why do this during a class on covenantal parenting. So, that's because adoption is another way to understand or even say the idea that Josh expressed in his first two classes. Adoption is the way that we see our covenantal relationship to God. Adoption, like the idea of covenants, expressed in the family, speaks of the relationship not the legal status. So on this chart, justification deals with our legal status. Adoption deals with our relationship status. There is a legal event that occurs, as I said, that occurs in horizontal adoption as well. And they are both necessary, whether it's here for the transfer of ownership, so to speak, so the child can become an heir legally and enjoy those rights and privileges. And the same thing happens in our salvation. So Packer says this in his book, Knowing God, where I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be adoption through propitiation. And I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that. You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase if you speak of it as a revelation of the fatherhood of the Holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one's Holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayer and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new and better than the old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the fatherhood of God. So, Father, we know, is the Christian name for God. where the Jews called him Jehovah or Yahweh, we say Father. And I'm afraid we suffer with a familiarity to the use of the word in referencing God as Father. In that we've allowed the meaning to escape our grasp. We use it as a title, but we don't always understand that there are ideas behind it like Calling someone father is a privilege reserved for those who have been made children, whether it's a birth father, adoptive father, or a heavenly father. That is why he has that title. And that's why there is an idea behind the title. The Apostle John reminds us of this in 1 John 3, 1 through 3. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. The Father has shown us love by grafting us into His family and calling us His children. So, Packard goes on to say this, our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption. And it is the highest blessing of the gospel, higher even than the gift of justification, because of the richer relationship with God that it involves. Justification is a forensic idea, conceived in terms of law and viewing God as judge. Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into his family and fellowship and establishes us as children and heirs. Closeness, affection, and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater. So, that's why our big idea reminds us that we have nothing in us that would move God to adopt us, yet he has done so to the praise of his glorious grace. So, if the reason that Jesus came into the world was simply to die for our sins and to preserve a group of people that can be before God, the process would end here. But Jesus came and did those things so that we might be adopted as sons and daughters. We might become children of God. That's why the Puritans said that this was the climax of our salvation. A legal status change is the horizontal equivalent of legal guardianship, which is different than adoption because it gives somebody temporary guardianship care over a child, but it doesn't speak of the relationship aspect there. To guard and protect, there's a duty that goes along with it. They're not brought, they're not made heirs at that point. Adoption is to become an heir. to enjoy the rights and privileges of sonship, to be in relationship with someone. So the two parts to our time today I've got on that paperwork in front of you. Vertical adoption or theology of adoption. What does the Bible say about our adoption? And then the second part is horizontal adoption or covenantal adoption. And then we'll look briefly at horizontal adoption in the Bible and the church historically. and modern horizontal adoption. So let's define our terms beginning with biblical or vertical adoption. Question 74 from the Westminster Larger Catechism asks this, what is adoption? Adoption is an act of the free grace of God in and for His only Son, Jesus Christ, whereby all those that are justified are received into the number of His children, have His name put upon them, the spirit of His Son given to them, and are under His fatherly care and dispensations, admitted to all liberties and privileges of the sons of God, made heirs of all the promises, and fellow heirs with Christ in glory. So one of the things I just wanted to say, and I hope if you have a problem with it, if you've struggled with this, you know, in our area there is another religion that really takes this idea of the brotherhood with Jesus Christ too literally. And the Mormon religion does this. And so when I've talked with Christians about this in the past, they react to the picture that they're aware of there. And so we are still different than God. We are different than Jesus But he is the Bible clearly says he is our big brother He is the firstborn and we'll see some more on that So I just throw that out there in case you're struggling with that in your mind right now. We can talk about it later And then there's some there is some debate even among the Puritans whether or not this idea of adoption is one part of the process or if it is the way to view the whole process and I don't think it needs to be an either-or, I think it's a both-and, because it is, because these things are moving to that end. The end for which God came into the world was to adopt a people group for Him, to make sons and daughters, and we'll see that. So, as we look at vertical adoption, remember that we are looking to inform our understanding and practice of horizontal adoption. the vertical reality to inform the horizontal. So, we begin with God's work of adoption breaking vertically into human history. So, love moved vertically before it moved horizontally. We cannot love horizontally if we are not first loved vertically. The horizontal love, I'm just saying the same thing over and over again, the horizontal love that occurs from one to another is the result of us being loved. My evidence for that is 1 John 4.19. We love because He first loved us. Love moves vertically before we can move horizontally. Whether it's my affections for you, for my wife, for my children, I can only do that because I was loved first. So, adoption is only mentioned five times in four different passages in the Bible, all in the New Testament, and all by Paul. Now, what establishes the importance of adoption is not how many times it's used, but how it is used. Adoption marks the timeline of the story of redemption. We are walked along the timeline of redemptive history as we look at the four passages in which it's referenced. So the story of our redemption and our adoption begins with Ephesians 1, 3-6. And I think that's on the paperwork in front of you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place, 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 and to the praise of his glorious grace. So this is where we are shown that adoption moves vertically before it moves horizontally. Adoption was in the mind of God long before there was the opportunity for horizontal adoption. This is what prompted Piper to make this statement. It's a great statement. Adoption is greater than the universe. Adoption is greater than the universe is what Piper said. That's a big statement. Adoption is bigger than the universe. He says it because this verse says that. before the foundation of the world He predestined us. Adoption is bigger than the universe because it is before the universe and because it is the purpose of the universe. Sound good? The universe was created to display His glorious grace to His creation through vertical adoption. The only thing bigger than adoption is God and His triune love. Adoption was no divine afterthought. It is the purpose of the universe. We were adopted before the world was created. That is remarkable. Tying that to our big idea, because I took it from this passage, the big idea is that we have nothing in us to adopt us, yet He has done so to the praise of His glorious grace. So, let's listen to this passage again and see the glory of God displayed in it, and obey the command to praise and glorify Him. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ, not in us, not in our works, but in Christ, with every spiritual blessing. So this isn't just a legal change. This is the sonship and the heirs. We have every blessing afforded to us. In the heavenly places, even as He, God, chose us in Him, that's Christ, before the foundation of the world. So before anything was created, before time began, we were adopted by God the Father. And He did this that we should be holy and blameless before Him because we were chosen in Christ, not us. And in love He, God our Father, predestined us before we could have earned it or shown love to Him or done good or evil. He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace. So it is done, the universe is, so that God may receive glory by the lives of His children. Here's how the Apostle John says it in John 1, 12-13, But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So, we were adopted before God had created stuff. We were adopted before Genesis 1-1. We love because He first loved us. Love moved vertically before it moved horizontally. So, having established that adoption is greater than the universe because it's before the universe and because it is the purpose of the universe, we go now to our next passage, which is Romans 9.4. And I'm not going to read the whole thing, but in this passage there's a list of about six things about what belongs to the Israelites. And the first thing on that list is adoption. Paul says, they are Israelites and to them belong the adoption. Theologians historically have placed the formal adoption events of the Jewish people at Mount Sinai about three months after their delivery from Egypt. Here he declared them a nation and he said that they were his, so he redeemed them first and then he adopted them. Ordo salutis, we are redeemed, justified, justification, excuse me, so by his death, our legal status changed, and the end of that was not just a legal status change, the end of that is our relationship to God. So, we go to the Gospel of Luke and look at chapter 23, verse 3, and we see the lineage of Christ laid through the people of Israel, from Christ going backwards. We see all the names of these saints, these flawed men and women that fill the landscapes of Scripture, the sons and daughters of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and then we see this. The lineage of Christ begins, as it moves backwards, with Adam, the son of God. So here's the thing, if not for the fall of Adam as the son of God, we would not know the adoption of God. So if not for the fall of Adam, there would be no adoption as sons. That is a great and glorious thing. This is not because of the amazing things that Adam did or Abraham did. It's because, like us, Abraham and Adam and his children were adopted before the foundation of the world. They were brought into the family of God and called the children of God. Next we move to Galatians 4, 4-7. But when the fullness of time has 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 the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of a 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. So what time is the fullness of time? It is the time ordained by God before the founding of the earth in which he will invade history and reveal his plan to all who would hope in a savior. Christ comes so that we might receive our adoptions as sons. This passage could not be clearer. Christ comes into the world to fulfill the plan from before the founding of the world. So, Tolkien calls this, he's got it in a couple of different books, the eucatastrophe. He makes up this word eucatastrophe, so eulogy, good word, and catastrophe, which we all know is a catechismic event, something. So, eucatastrophe is where the good breaks in and interrupts the catastrophic, and that is the coming of Christ to this world, when love moves vertically into this world. So, when this vertical adoption event happens, this eucatastrophe happens, what is it that a son cries? God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. Well, it cries, Mark 14, 36a, we see Jesus, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. So Russell Moore, going back to that story, he's not saying it, but it's in the picture. The scream from his sons in the orphanage, it was a scream of identity. When Christ can cry out, Abba, Father, somebody will listen. We can now cry out, Abba, Father, because we have been made sons and daughters. Somebody will listen. Somebody will hear us. Prior to that event, there is no one that we could cry out to. We had no sonship. There is no one who cared. Without these things happening, without justification occurring, without our legal status changing, and us being brought into the family of God, there is no one to cry out to. So the invasion of love by adoption breaks into this fallen world in the eucatastrophe. Moving to after Christ's resurrection, we see in John 20, 15-17, Jesus says to her, there in the garden, Mary is going to care for him. Jesus says to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to him in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, do not cling to me for I have not yet ascended to the father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God. This is why adoption is the eucatastrophe of history. God invaded the sinful and fallen world and brought good where there was none. We are made sons. when we should have burned for all eternity for our wickedness. And then finally, Paul looks to the future in Romans 8, 15 through 23. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. We can do that now. The spirit of self-fear is 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 might also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God." Creation waits. Why? Because it's the purpose of the universe. Creation was made so that adoption can be displayed and the glory of God can be seen. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and to obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. There is so much here. So, we saw creation subjected to futility, groaning, awaiting its purpose to be revealed. It waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. It was subjected to futility because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from bondage. Creation knows that, Paul says, and it waits. I think that earthquake, and I now think after studying this deeper, that earthquake that occurs when Jesus dies on the cross and our justification is made clear and obvious to creation and we are adopted as sons, the process is finalized inside time, that's this happening, that's the world announcing the coming of our Savior, that we now have a Father, that we are now sons of God. Darkness covered the Earth. Other things happened. You going to say something, Garrett? They estimate that's when the crater of the moon happened about 2,000 or so odd years ago. I've already lost that. Yeah. You see the things that happened in that time and you tie it with this passage and you see the universe. The announcement must have been worldwide, global. We know the Earth gave up its dead. Darkness covered the Earth. Tectonic plates moved. Mountain ranges were formed. Creation is groaning, it's been waiting, and it's released at that moment because it's finished, it's done. Our justification is made complete and we are adopted as sons of God. Everything up to it. It is. That's the other thing that's going on. It's looking for, because it says in the passage, our glorification. So this is the process of going on here. And this is when we are with him and we are given our new bodies and we get to live with him. So, Paul goes on to say, not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruit of the Spirit, grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. Do we think of this world the way that Russell Morris' children did when they were, they had no idea what awaited them as they got taken out of that orphanage, right? And they were reaching back to never see daylight, to never feel the wind. When we treat the world like this is it, We miss that. We are acting like that. And he was lovingly taking them away, and they were scared and shaking, fearful, having been touched and loved and held for some of the first times in their lives. It's an amazing picture. So Beaky says, our spiritual adoption is the excellency and apex of God's salvation. We have nothing in us. that moves God to adopt us, yet he has done so to the praise of his glorious grace." So, there's a brief overview, which would probably be like a good six-week class on adoption to do another time, but we needed to see our vertical adoption so we could understand horizontal adoption. We cannot do orphan care if we don't understand what God has done for us. Briefly, horizontal adoption or covenantal adoption. A few examples in the Bible you can go read about. Moses, he was adopted. Daughter of Pharaoh. There is an event that occurs with Solomon. and the women with the dead child and the one woman willing to give up her child to the other one to save its life. So Solomon sought, there's not a lot here, so I had to really dig, but I think those are good pictures that show what's going on, the love that that mother shows in giving that over. Esther, Queen Esther was adopted. Mordecai, her uncle cared for her and raised her and trained her up. I think he made some bad decisions, I'd be unhappy if I left him in my care, but God used it, God redeemed it. And then I think the greatest example and one of the best things to think about is Jesus Christ, earthly adopted father in Joseph, who must have been a remarkable man as well as Mary, and loving, training, taking responsibility to train up Jesus in the way he should go. So, one thing I do want to say, I don't know if it's for you guys here, but maybe for people listening online, scripture does not command everyone here to adopt a child, okay? So that's not what I'm saying. But here's what we are commanded in James 1.27. It says, religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. So what that means is in our Christian walk, every one of us will need to come into contact with orphans and widows and care for them. And in the church, we have the opportunity to care for one another, families that have brought in orphans, children without, to serve them and come into contact. If you're sitting here at 40 years old going, boy, that's never happened. I don't know if I'm ever going to come into contact with an orphan or a widow. You're in sin, and you need to go find orphans and widows and care for them. That's the command. In the first century church, when martyrdom was happening, when Christians were being killed left and right, it was the common thing that happened is the church simply added children into their families. Adopting, your parents were taken away and fed to the lions, and other families grew. Those children were joined to them. It's the way the church has always dealt with this. It might be something to think about for the future. And then there's also the making of spiritual sons and daughters and 1st Corinthians 4 15 Paul says for though you have countless guys in Christ You do not have many fathers for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel So there is a spiritual adoption Paul talks about this a lot in other places. The church is in need is in need So there is an idea not just orphans Physically, but there are there are men and women who were not raised up and trained up in the way we've been talking about for these last couple of months in caring for one another. So think about that. You might have the opportunity to help disciple someone, shepherd someone, and become a spiritual parent to them. And now on to modern horizontal adoption. So here we go. The ultimate purpose of horizontal adoption is not to give orphans parents. The ultimate purpose of horizontal adoption is not to give orphans parents. Instead, it is to place orphans in Christian homes where they can hear and respond to the gospel and be reconciled to and adopted by God. They will have far greater parents than we could ever be. So, all right, and God will display His glorious grace through your family maybe doing that, through our family doing that. But that is the ultimate purpose of horizontal adoption. It's not just to give them a parent. It's to give them a Christian home. That's why the church, we should be the most motivated to do this. And I think we are. I'm not lecturing you guys. I think, unfortunately, like so many other things, the limitation is financially the government impeding that process and that happening. That is the ultimate purpose of horizontal adoption. Here's what I want to say. If if you are doing data and I, since we are our adoption process, we weren't looking at becoming a mixed race family by the state of Idaho and adopting Robert, we became a mixed race family. And then after we adopted, we had to go take a weekend's worth of classes. And I went to those classes. and was shocked at the savior complex present on the videos we watched and the children. So a lot of the videos had adult children. Oftentimes it was black, black children, black adult children, 20, 30 year olds talking about being adopted by white parents. And they knew that they weren't adopted because they were loved, that they would literally say we were adopted because my parents wanted other people to think they're really great and have a black baby. and stuff like that and that is horrific. That is so sad because you see that those children never felt loved and that's why I gave the time to talk about our vertical adoption because that is the only thing, this is the only thing, if we do not understand this, we cannot love horizontally properly. So, having an ultimate purpose in mind in adoption that is bigger than adding numbers to your family, Certainly, hopefully not having savior complexes, those type of things. Think about those things. And I'd be happy to talk to you more about them. Last of all, and I'll bring up Brett and Jen. Yeah. Would it be appropriate to take the adoption section of the parenting class to discuss the provision of our children in which we Yeah. Go ahead. That is good. So one of the things I do, I hope I do it well, I've felt this burden for many years, is talk to men in particular about posthumously, after death, preparing their family for their impending death and being prepared so if they go before their wife goes, which will more than likely be the case in my household, and before the children that they are prepared, they're cared for, you have a plan, you have trained, you've instructed and done those type of things. So Dana and I have a list of people. I think actually it's whittling down more than going up now. But there was quite a few families who we had that we would go and fight for legally, whatever part of the process, to adopt those children and care for them. I think that is an important thing to think about is our children becoming orphans at some point. There is a very few downtown offices that can offer these services to school families, which is significant. Barry Peters is a Christian lawyer in town and he does, yeah, if you need a lawyer for anything, he's really good at homeschooling. He's the director or head of, what's the legal defense, Idaho legal defense? Yeah, HS, there we go. Well, that's the, yeah, that's the national one. He's the Idaho one. Anyway, yeah, so Barry Peters if you're interested, you can look that up. I would encourage you to think about that if you have not, making sure that there is a plan in place so that your children do not end up in a godless home, being taught godless things, because that would make you really unhappy. I put this together and then one of the books I got just this week off of Amazon was this and Piper kind of the same thing in the back. So then I co-opted some of his language. But compare and contrast horizontal adoption. So a human being adopting another human being with vertical adoption, God adopting a human being. Think about those things. Those are the type of things that are going on. Adoption is seriously planned. Adoption is costly. It rescues us from terrible situations. Adoption is passive for the adoptee. Adoption is preceded by a legal change. And adoption makes us an heir. And there's more things I'm sure we could think about. Right now, I just want to invite the turnings on up to just share for the last 15 minutes of class or whatever and do questions and answers or whatever the Lord's done with them. So, I guess our adoption story started out with Levi, as most of you know, and it would have been nice to have heard Aaron's talk on this beforehand because we didn't necessarily Well, we didn't consider the vertical implications of adoption before going into adoption. And I think if you do, it would just help. A lot of the frustrations we had is because we hadn't considered that. It was just one way to, well, it was the way for us to grow our family and have kids. So I think that was the main impetus behind us adopting. And I mean, I think subconsciously some of those were there, but it wasn't, you know, planned and thought. So our advice for anybody considering that is, I mean, yeah, take these points that Aaron has laid out today seriously, and I think it'll help quite a bit. And then we've got Asher, too, which is the second boy. So our adoptions, I would say, are probably kind of like Aaron and Dana's. They went pretty fast, so we haven't had to sit around and wait like friends have for years for a child. So I think God has blessed us. In that regard, once we finally got all our paperwork submitted in, it was a matter of months before we had children. What else do you want to add? You guys are a mixed-race family as well. We don't live super mixed race, but Dana's gotten some really awkward comments made. What would you say about being a mixed race family? Any pros, cons, difficulty, unanticipated? I don't know, probably maybe just the comments. Especially with Levi, people would always say to me, where'd you get his curly hair? How do you answer that question? Who was that, you know? It's just like, what do you... From his daddy. Yeah, from his daddy. I don't know. So, it's just some of those awkward... And I think not having really, like he said, thought about adoption and thought about really what it meant, it terrified me. Like, how do I answer these people? It's like, it's none of your business. This is my child, right? That was kind of a surprise to us. I think it would be neat to see the body of Christ with mixed race, to say, it doesn't matter what your skin color is, the world looks at it, especially the people here in the U.S. You know, oh, the first person of this race to do this. It's like, why do you even have to do that? Why can't you just say we love you because we love you? And it doesn't matter. I would love to see that more. He already knows. It won't be like the movie The Church. But Steve Martin, when he realized he was adopted, it made me laugh. What has been an unanticipated, two things, difficulty in adoption, unanticipated, and then blessing, unanticipated, in your guys' adoption journey? I think it's just generally harder than I think we anticipated it would be. I don't know if that's generally the case with natural born kids. There's just a lot of things you have to deal with. Adoption agencies, social workers that are atypical. Yeah, I think that's the right way to say it. But, just 180 out, typically, to the way scriptures, you know, lays out, you know, how things should be done, everything. And even though you may have social workers that would say they're Christian, they are still heavily influenced by the world's way of solving problems. So with the whole psychology bent Um, you know, it's not your fault, typically, you know. It's the environment you're in. So, which, yeah, that makes it hard. So that's, I think, for me, I deal with those type of people. Um, I have to hold my tongue a lot and, and not, uh... Were there questions that you guys were asked that you didn't know how to answer as far as, um, how you would raise your children? Yeah, so typically when they ask that, they want to know if you're going to spank your children. And that is, yeah, a big hot button, actually. When we first started looking into adoption, we were thinking of maybe going over to Russia because it was like the, well, the quickest way to get a child. So at that point in time, and then we were talking with a gal at the adoption agency and she was, You know, some, I forget what happened, but she found out that we were going to spank and she's like, you're never, you can't ever let a lawyer know that you're going to do that or you're, you know, you're just not going to be able to adopt. And she went off on us and we never called them back. So. So I have a question on this as well. Could you share about, um, with after the spankings came up, correct? With the mother? Yeah. So I picked my words, I said, we're not going to take spanking off the table. I mean, because every kid truly is different and we didn't know how it was going to be, but he happens to be a kid that needs it a lot. So anyway, I said, we're not going to take that off the table and see what works and what doesn't work, but I'm not going to. take that off the table is what I told them, that's how I left it with them. Implying that I would spank should it come down to it. That's probably maybe where you just need to trust God too because you don't want to lie and bear false witness in the process either. So going from Levi to Ashton, because you adopted two kids, I mean, so we were all, as you were adopting Ashton, we were kind of aware of that process. Did you guys, based on what we talked about today, did you view the adoptions differently? Do you understand what I'm saying? I said the first one was kind of not necessarily the wrong one. Do you understand the question I'm asking? Did it have more weight to it? I don't know. I don't think for me, because I feel like even more just in the past couple months has this actually affected me and the things with Asher in many ways have been harder. kind of believing some things that the social workers in Good Intention tell us, like, the way that the child has a good identity is to have an open adoption and they know their birth parents. Well, that's not true. The way they have their identity is through Christ. We all have to find our identity that way. And so I think we kind of got sucked into some of that stuff with Asher and have caused a lot of pain and heartache over this last year. But Did I answer your question? So I think that in just thinking about it, even just Aaron so graciously giving us his notes, even just thinking about it recently, like, oh yeah, if we would have had our minds in the right mindset, it would have not necessarily physically changed how we you know, where we put the crib or how we change the diaper as much as our minds focused in on what this all means. And I would say for Levi, in some ways, like he is rescued from a bad situation. And it's pretty obvious. While his birth mom is amazing and we love having contact with her, it, you know, seeing Asher, his is not so much rescuing him from a terrible situation. Just knowing that somehow, at the end of the story, God is going to come through with both of our boys. With Levi, it's obvious, but with Asher, we are still looking for that. We're still looking for that story and that end. I don't know where it is. Yeah, so, and tying on to that, just, you know, with Jen's reading, Adopted for Life, I haven't started that yet, but, just how, you know, you are grafted into our family, so ours is kind of changing with Asher, it's a kind of open adoption, so I'm not, I'm sure really on how obviously he's going to know who his birth parents are a lot more so than Levi is because we see them more often, well a lot more. But yeah, so I'm still kind of struggling how that, you know, to work that out. I want to go back to what you said about spending, and just encourage everyone. We chose to, in our very abbreviated process, be very clear. I got agitated quickly with the solo murder as Fred did, and I may have been less sanctified at the time, and spoke. straight a lot of times, and we put in our plan that we were spanking them. But we put it in the book that the mama was going to read, and they told us, well, you're probably not going to, nobody's going to paint a parent that's going to spank their kid. It's not true. So trusting God, being honest and trusting God was the point I wanted to make is that God is sovereignly working in the same way, in a different way, but the same way just like a child would come through through other ways into a family. He is following our day, and that shall come in. It's the exact same kind of adoption. So you cannot afford that. The best laid plans of man cannot afford that. So be faithful to God, and it'll be taken care of. And I would say that too. As I was thinking about this today, just the plan that God had sovereignly to bring Levi and our family. I mean, we started off doing Russia. We were going that way, and then When that didn't work out, we started doing domestic, and then we were on this list. There was a gal that was going to give birth, and then it turned into a preemie situation. Literally the same week that we were considering this preemie situation, our agency called us for Levi, and we're like, well, did we say okay to the agency because we got this other one? Could we have two newborns, one a preemie? that the situation wasn't ours and God chose a woman in Mississippi to conceive a baby that came to Utah. It's amazing God's sovereignty that brought him to us. I don't know, it just stuns me sometimes that he does that and I couldn't imagine our life Stick to what you know. With Asher, I think we got pushed into more visits than we wanted to. Things kind of changed on us. Well, after the baby was born, so I would say just don't be afraid. You know, if you did agree to, you know, like, X visits a year, and then birth mom is getting emotional after she gives birth to the child, you know, just say, hey, this isn't what was ever talked about, and just have your decisions made so that you don't have to think about it when you're in the hospital and they're, you know, saying, well, things could go differently, you know, if you don't sign this paper. And I think that caused us some heartache. You get emotionally attached to the process. Not a process, but about a two-week process. Yeah. I mean, it was so, we were shocked at how It's just that you couldn't imagine the world without having daughter, and all of a sudden it's like that. It's like one of those decisions. You have to choose the same cure before you're married, long before you ever get close. Because if you don't, like you say, emotions take over. It was a lesson for us. So I wanted them to, so they have lots more stories and they have lots of experience and I would encourage you to spend time with them and hear from Brett and Jane. Jane and I would be happy to share our story as well and difficulties and what not, but thanks guys for that time. I'm happy to share that and I'm very glad you're with us.