Please turn to the New Testament and two short readings, the first one from Ephesians 1 and then turning back into Galatians. So, to begin with, Ephesians chapter 1, I'm reading from verse 3 down to 14. Ephesians 1, chapter 1 and verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. And then turning back to Galatians chapter 3, near the end of chapter 3, we'll take up the reading from verse 26 and then down into chapter 4. to verse 7. So Galatians chapter 3 and verse 26. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Amen. May the Lord bless to each and every one of us the reading and the hearing of his own word. Throughout history we find civilisations that are built on the backs of slaves 400 years ago, the United States was part of a slave trade, and I was amazed when I realised how many were involved in this slave trade. It involved an estimated 13 million Africans. Today, however, there are said to be more slaves in the world than at any other time in history. The worldwide estimate at the moment is that there are currently 27 million men, women and children in slavery and that number is continuing to grow because there is nearly as much money to be made from the slave trade as there is in drugs and arms. People trafficking is a modern day form of slavery and it involves the illegal trade and exploitation of people who are forced into labour by coercion, fraud, sales threat or deception. And slavery is something that is banned worldwide but it is said that it happens on every continent except Antarctica for obvious reasons. Of those 27 million slaves today, 80% are women and half of that number are children. The organisation UNICEF says that one child is trafficked every 30 seconds. So during the course of our service here this evening, approximately 120 more children will become slaves in brothels used for cheap labour or as child soldiers. There are many different forms of slave labour, sex slaves, domestic slaves, sweatshop slaves, They just become a thing, they become a commodity. They're disposable, they're reusable, they're expendable, they're threatened, they're beaten, when they're of no use, they're thrown away. And it happens throughout the world, and I'm sure you've seen recent reports in the news that reveal that it even happens here in Northern Ireland on our own doorstep. What a terrible and tragic reality for so many people in our world today, and even some here in our own province. And yet, all of that pales into insignificance in comparison to the absolute tyranny and the severe bondage that enslaves every man, woman, child on this planet. Because the Bible shows us that when we come into this world, we are born into this world under bondage, under service, under ownership, as slaves belonging to a cruel master. We are born into slavery, but because we don't know any different, we have no longing to escape the situation. We have absolutely no idea of the danger that we're in. We are born slaves, but we don't realise that we are slaves. And the Bible gives us the reality of our situation. We are born into this world in bondage to the devil and in his service. We are his captives. We are slaves to sin. And unless our eyes are opened to this situation by the power of God, by the power of God's word, we won't even see that there's a problem. We won't see our plight, we won't see that we are in desperate need. And the tragedy is that all the while that we are in this captivity is that we think we're free. and we think that we can do as we please. And it's only God who can change our view and our understanding of how things really are for us. And it's only Jesus who can set us free from this captivity. So when we come into this world, We come in as people needing to be rescued, needing to be set free, needing to be saved from our plight. And the wonderful, the good news is that God has a plan and God has made a way to rescue us from this captivity and from this awful situation. We read there in Galatians chapter 4 and verse 7 Paul says that somebody who is a believer, somebody who has come to trust in Jesus Christ is someone who is no longer a slave, no longer under captivity. The Christian is a person who has been set free, they have been adopted into God's family and the passage that we read in Ephesians and then again in Galatians, it's all about coming into God's family. And this is our theme for this evening, adoption, coming into God's family. To begin with, we come into this world, we are by nature followers, servants of the devil. We need to be rescued. We need to be adopted. We need to become no longer children of the devil, we need to become children of God. So we all need to be rescued from our natural condition. Somehow we need to become part of God's family. How can we become part of God's family? And just like anybody out there tonight who is a slave, They're completely helpless. They are in captivity. They're in bondage. There's no escape. We are under the devil. We are helpless. We are powerless to change the situation ourselves. The situation is completely beyond our control. So how can we ever escape that and become a child of God? So the first thing that we want to consider is the process of adoption. And this process of being adopted, of coming into God's family, it begins with God. And each person of the Trinity is involved in this process. We read there in Ephesians 1, verses 4 and 5, Paul tells us that God the Father began this process. And what's very interesting is that he began this process of adoption even before the creation of the world. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Verse 5, in love he predestined us, what for? For adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. Adoption is initiated by God. God begins it, not us. It begins with God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. Almighty God, by his grace and by his undeserved favour and mercy, he chose us to be sons, to be daughters. And Paul tells us it's because of his love and because of his sovereign will. So he chooses It's by his will, it's his purpose, and it's because of his love. He not only planned to choose a people for himself, to make them his children by adoption, he also planned the means by which he was going to make us his children, by which he was going to save us. Again in Ephesians 1 and verse 4 we're told, he chose us. But how did he choose us? He chose us in Him. Verse 5. Adoption as sons. But how does this adoption as sons come about? Paul said, Adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. He planned our adoption, our salvation, and it was to come about through His Son, Jesus Christ. To become his children there had to be a connection made between God and man and to make that connection God sends his son. He sends his son into the world to become a human being and to establish that connection. In Galatians we read there that he became a man. He was born of Mary. He was born under obligation to keep the law, to keep God's law, which we were told in Philippians 2 that he kept the law of God perfectly his whole life. The problem is that we don't keep God's law perfectly. We can't keep it perfectly. The Bible tells us that none of us are good enough. We're born with a corrupted sinful nature. We grow, we develop, but we grow and develop into sin. We commit sin. We add to that nature by our own sin. And God tells us that we fall short. And as a result of sinning against God and falling short of what he commands of us, We're told in the Word of God that the curse of the law that we've broken hangs over us, and the curse of the law is death. What is due for our breaking God's Word, God's commands, is death. God is angry with us, God is displeased with us because of our sins, so we are in a really difficult situation. And there's nothing that we can do to change that. But God has a solution for our dilemma. We didn't read it, but back in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. He has purchased us from the curse of the law. How? By becoming a curse for us. Christ redeemed us, who purchased our salvation at no cost to us, but at great cost to himself. He redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming the curse, by suffering the curse, the penalty for sin in our place. Titus chapter 2 and verse 14 says that he gave himself for us. He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. He gave himself to buy our salvation, to pay the price for every lawless deed that we had committed against God. Galatians 4 and verse 5 that we read, God sent his Son, why did he send him? To redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons. And the result of this redemption, of this salvation, is that we receive the full rights of sons, made full and permanent members of God's family through the Redeemer, through our Redeemer, through our Saviour Jesus Christ. He gave himself to set free all who put their trust in him. He willingly died to pay the price to redeem his people from their sins." Paul says there in Galatians that we come into God's family, we are adopted by faith. It's as we put our trust, our faith in this Redeemer, in this Saviour, in Jesus Christ and in all he has accomplished to save us. We are adopted by faith. We come into his family by faith. The Scriptures also talk about being justified by faith. It's quite interesting because both of these terms are legal terms. Justification and adoption are both legal terms. Justification has to do with the criminal court. Adoption takes place in the family court. Justification has to do with the criminal court. We are all criminals in God's sight. We have broken His law. And we're told that the punishment for breaking that law is his anger, is death. Adoption takes place in the family court. I don't know if any of you have been in the courts down in the centre of Belfast. I had to go there one time, not because I'd been caught doing anything and not because I was guilty of anything, but I actually had to do some drawings inside in the Great Hall. And what I noticed, as far as my memory serves me, When you go into the building there's a security place where you have to pass through and then as far as I remember on the right hand side there's a staircase leading up and it's to the family courts, they're upstairs. You go down into the main hall and then you've got the various courts down the side of the hall there, the criminal courts where all the other cases are heard, so the family court upstairs and the criminal courts down below. By God's grace, God the judge declares righteous, not guilty. He justifies. He makes right condemned sinners when they put their trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The righteous judge, the judge says not guilty. So in the criminal court, we're declared not guilty. But then also, by God's grace, in the family court, God the Father places into his family, he adopts all slaves of sin as they put their trust in the Redeemer, as they put their trust in his Son. And the Father in that court says, you belong to me, you are mine, and I now am your father. The Apostle John puts it this way in John 1 verse 12, as many as received him to them he gave the right to become the children of God, to be adopted. To those who believe in his name, who trust in the Lord Jesus and trust in everything that he has done to save sinners, adoption is received through faith. In the process of adoption God the Father, he plans, he chooses, he loves, he sends his Son. God the Son comes, he accomplishes salvation to redeem, to purchase salvation. He pays the price in our place. He purchases adoption by his perfect life and by his sacrificial death. The Holy Spirit is also involved in this process of adoption. The Holy Spirit performs many different ministries on behalf of believers, but his main work is to unite, is to join people to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, by one spirit we are all baptised into one body. All believers are made part of the church by the Holy Spirit. By the Holy Spirit we are spiritually joined to Christ so that everything that Christ has accomplished for salvation, it becomes ours because we are united to him by his Spirit. All the benefits of salvation come to us as we are united to him by the work of his Spirit. Regeneration, justification, sanctification, preservation and in the end, glorification. Each aspect of our salvation comes to us in this union with Christ, and it is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring this union about, including our adoption into the family. The two particular texts that highlight the Spirit's role in adoption, one of them we read, Galatians 4 and verse 6, God the Father sends the Spirit into the hearts of his children to confirm their adoption. When we come into God's family, God sends his Spirit into our hearts and part of that is to confirm to us that we belong now to his family. He gives his Spirit as a pledge to this. And how incredible is this? How incredible is this that he gives this pledge? Just think about it. What does God do to guarantee to you and me that we are now part of his family? He gives us God himself. He gives us the Holy Spirit to indwell us. And the Spirit within us calls out, So the Spirit assures us of our adoption and the Spirit enables us to address God as our Father. Another passage that we didn't read, and it just further confirms this, is in Romans 8, verses 15-16, this inner witness of the Holy Spirit, that this faith that we exercise in becoming God's children, trusting Christ, this faith is actually a gift of God. Most of us, if not all of us, were probably totally unaware that it was the Holy Spirit who was drawing us to Jesus Christ in the first place when we came to put our faith and our trust in him. Perhaps all that we understood at the time was we became conscious of our sin, we became conscious of God as our judge, of the judgment to come, and Christ is presented as our saviour from sin and we come to him, we trust him. The scriptures indicate that this is all the work of the Holy Spirit in drawing us to the saviour and bringing us into his family. It's the spirit of sonship who is at work in our hearts and it's by his grace that we call out in faith to God. We're adopted by faith. and this faith comes to us by the Holy Spirit enabling us to believe. So what must we do to be set free from the tyranny of the devil and of serving him? It's to throw ourselves entirely on the mercy of Jesus Christ and the scriptures promise that he will set you free, free indeed, and make you a child of God. The process of adoption Secondly, we have the benefits of adoption. We come into an amazing family. and amazing benefits in this family because of our adoption. I just want to think of a couple of matters. The first is that we have an intimate relationship now with the Father. We are entitled to address God as our Father. In Mark 14, verse 36, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane and he's pouring out his heart to God. And when he's pouring out his heart to God, what does he do? He cries out, Abba, Abba, Father. It's a very intimate term. It expresses an especially close relationship with the Father. It's a respectful, loving term of address. And it's absolutely amazing when you think about it. that rebels like us, those that came into this world with a corrupted nature, ready to serve the devil, to serve him, former children of the devil, can come to know God and know him in such an intimate way that we can now call him our Father. And we are given the right to address him as Father in exactly the same way as the Lord Jesus Christ did. Galatians 4 verse 6, Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying out, father. We are brought into an intimate relationship with God through adoption. He has welcomed us into his family and he has made us as close to him as his only beloved son. Another benefit of our adoption is that Our Father provides for us. He looks after us. He provides for our needs. We can come to Him at any time. He cares for us and He wants us to come to Him. He wants us to call out, Father, Abba, Father. That passage in Matthew 6, around the Sermon on the Mount, On two occasions in that passage in the Sermon, Jesus refers to God as the Heavenly Father, but he's not with reference to himself, he's talking about the relationship between God the Father and his disciples. And in this wider section of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, he's reminding them that our Heavenly Father takes care of his children. And again and again in that passage, he teaches us not to worry about the things that are beyond our control, that we have no power over. He says that our Father will see to those things. We can't knit black and white, we can't change many, many different things. He says, your Father knows all about these things and he will see to them. He knows our needs. and he will see to them. He says there's only one thing that we need to be worried about, only one thing that we need to be concerned about. In Matthew 6 and verse 33, it's doing the Father's will. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. As to be our only concern is doing the will of the Father and he will take care of all the rest. Intimacy with the Father, the care of the Father and another and perhaps unexpected benefit of our adoption is discipline. Discipline. The Father disciplines those that he loves as his children. And in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 7 the writer says, if you endure chastening, he's talking about discipline, if you endure chastening, God deals with you as sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? Because he loves his children, God disciplines every one of them. And when difficulties come into our lives and various situations that we encounter or have to face, when things get difficult or hard or troubling, we should remember verses like Hebrews 12 and verse 7. Endure hardship as discipline. Endure hardship as discipline, as training. It's an easy thing to say, but the writer gives us great encouragement why we should, because he says God is treating you as sons. God is training us in all of these hard things, in all of these difficult things. Fatherly discipline, fatherly training is assigned to us that we have been adopted. It's an assurance to us of being his children. The Father loves his children, he assures his children, and one way that he assures us that we are his is sometimes he takes us through deep and difficult matters. And his purpose in doing this, in this discipline, in this training, is to produce fruit in our lives. Hebrews 12 and verse 10, he chastens for our profit. The writer says that our earthly fathers train us as they think best. But our Heavenly Father really does know what is best and he uses difficulties in our lives for our profit, for our good, for our growth, for our development, to stretch our faith, to make us cling more tightly onto him. Hebrews 12 and verse 11 gives us great encouragement here, as the writer says, and we could all say, yes, we've got this t-shirt. Now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. and sometimes it can be really, really painful. Nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. When we are experiencing the pain of discipline, some difficult period of training in our life, we are to contrast it with the reward that will follow, that is promised to follow. We may suffer for a time, but God promises that later on this difficulty is going to produce a harvest for us, a harvest of righteousness and peace. Fruit produced by submitting unto the almighty hand of God, under his loving hand, and looking to him through our times of difficulty and trials. We will grow in righteousness. will grow in godly character. Can you see what he's doing? We have been brought into his family and through all of the things that happen to us in life, the good times and the hard times, he is making us to be more like him. to have more of his character, to be more like his son. We will grow in righteousness, we will grow in godly character. Further in Hebrews 12 verse 10 we are told that he designs the discipline so that we may be partakers in holiness. He wants us to be more and more like our father so that we are conformed to his character. We will grow in peace, says the writer. We'll learn contentment through our struggles and our troubles. We'll think, oh, we've been in a situation a bit like this before, and we saw how God brought us through and brought us out the other end, and how we learnt things, we learnt lessons through all of that. We'll learn contentment through our struggles and our troubles. We'll find satisfaction and hope as we put our trust in our Heavenly Father. the process of adoption, the benefits of adoption, and then finally the future of adoption. The Bible speaks about adoption in terms of the present, but it also speaks about adoption in terms of the future. In Romans 8, verses 14-17, Paul says, because of the spirit of sonship, we're no longer slaves to Satan. no longer slaves to sin, we're no longer living under fear of God's anger because we've been brought into a completely different situation. We now belong to him. We're now part of his family. We are his children. And Paul says, because we are his children, we are also his heirs. In the future, we will receive a glorious inheritance. And David mentioned this earlier on. 1 Peter 1.4 an inheritance imperishable, undefiled, unfailing, kept in heaven for you In verse 5 Peter says, so we are being kept by God's power and guarded for that day. And in Romans 8 verse 17 Paul tells us what this inheritance is. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Joint heirs with Christ. Joint heirs with Christ. We have the same Father. We have the same Father. we are in union with Jesus. His inheritance is to be our inheritance. Believers will also inherit the heavens, the new heavens and the new earth. At Christ's return, he is going to usher us into the fullness of his inheritance and our joint heirs with Christ. He is going to overwhelm us with his grace. And Paul had a glimpse of this. He understood this, and what he saw and what he understood had an impact here and now in this life. The eternal perspective gave him a view of things here on earth, the way he dealt with suffering, the way he dealt with hardship. In Romans 8 verse 18 he says, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 17, Think about all that Paul endured for the sake of Christ, and he says, he calls it a light affliction. Our light affliction, and it's but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal rate of glory. Our present struggles and difficulties, when we compare them to the glory that awaits for us, should all fade into insignificance. By comparison, they are light, they are temporary, compared to what is coming, which is worthy and eternal. Our adoption means glory and honour to come. And we ought to be asking God to help us to grasp this perspective more and more clearly, just like his servant Paul to allow us to Because so often we allow our problems and our temptations and our sins and all that stuff to just dominate the way we see things. We need God to teach us to look more and more upward and forward and to our final adoption and then to view the things that are happening here in the light of what we know is yet to come through that eternal perspective. Our future sonship also involves the adoption of our bodies. Again in Romans 8 verse 23 he says the adoption, the redemption of our body. He's talking about the resurrection from the dead. When Christ returns he's going to reunite our bodies and souls. He's going to fit them for eternal life so that we can enjoy God and enjoy the new heavens and the new earth. But I want to end on just one final thought about our future adoption. And again it's from Romans chapter 8. And that wonderful section, verses 28-30, our future sonship involves conformity to Jesus. Our future sonship, our adoption involves conformity to Jesus. Scriptures tell us that God's working out all things together for our good, including the difficulties, the sufferings, as well as the good things and the blessings. Paul in Romans 8 talks about the links in the chain of salvation. These links all follow one after the other, there's no break in the chain. He says, those whom God foreknew he predestined, those he predestined he called. Those he called, he justified. Those he justified, he also glorified. There's a link there, one between the other, and it goes from beginning to end, from being foreknown to being glorified. But in Romans 8 and verse 29, Paul, he highlights the purpose behind all of this, the purpose of being predestined. Why? Why did God predestinate somebody to become one of his, to be made part of his family? Why are you adopted? Why are you brought into the family at all? Romans 8 and verse 29. What's it all about? To be conformed to the likeness of his son. to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, to be like Jesus. At our final adoption, we will be conformed to the likeness of Jesus. And that's what's going on here. Whatever's going on in your life or in my life, God is using these things. to refine us and to change us because he's working on us to make us more and more like his Son and that will come to the climax in the end when we will be conformed to the Lord Jesus. The Apostle John puts it like this in 1 John 3 verse 2, Beloved, now we are children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when he is revealed, that is when he returns, we shall be like him. For we shall see him as he is. We shall see him. And in that moment that we see him, we shall be like him. We shall see him. We shall be like him. I am a child of God. God is my Father, and heaven is my home. And we ought to remind ourselves of these things every day, as much as we can. The process of our adoption It's all God's doing. It's all God's work. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. The benefits of adoption? We have every spiritual blessing in Christ. We have intimacy with God, we have the care of the Father, and we have His discipline and His training because we belong to Him. And the future of our adoption? the best is yet to come. Amen.