So why do I feel that this message about being adopted by God is so foundational to the normal Christian life? Because Jesus came to bring us back to the Father. Jesus came to show us the Father. If you’re a Christian and you don’t know the Father, you’re missing one of the main reasons that Jesus came to earth. His death on the cross was just the means to enable us to know the Father and be the adopted as his children. Video of this message at https://tinyurl.com/yar3t5j4

1. My story of being adopted by God when I was about 8.
Why Do We Need to Be Adopted?
-The Cosmos exists because God wanted a family of humans who were a lot like Him (imago
Dei) who would love Him freely even though they had never seen Him—as the angels did
continuously. Apparently, God wanted to be loved freely by people who had a real choice not to
love Him. Angels could not do that because they saw him face-to-face from the moment of their
creation. How could they not love such glorious beings as God when they live continually in his
presence?
God always knew all humanity would reject Him at some point. So, before God made the world,
He knew He would have to send Jesus to rescue humanity and bring them back to Him.
All humanity is born in a spiritual state apart from God. They have no spiritual Father.
Galatians chapter 4:3 says that all humanity belonged to the elemental things of the world before
Jesus came
---With the exception of children of Christians, all children, from the time that they reach the age
of accountability, are under the authority of the devil to some degree or another. innocent babies
and toddlers go straight to heaven even if they die at that age by miscarriage or the like
---Some people are so influenced by the devil that Jesus said in John 8:44 that their Father was
the Devil
---So, before the world existed, God decided to choose untold numbers of people to adopt to
make sure heaven would be filled with these special creatures called humans. Eph.1:3-5 . Gal.
4:4-6 also. Many churches do not mention this because of the predestination and election
theology involved. I love that God chose us!
---God’s first children were not adopted. They belonged only to Him: Adam & Eve. He walked
and talked with them in the Garden. Gen. 3—sin ruined that. Sin separated mankind from any
close relationship with God.
---The rest of human and biblical history is the story of a tender, loving, grieving Father trying to
get His kids back to the close relationship He had with them in the Garden!
---God made the Jews the “children of Israel” or the people of God” but He is referred to as their
Father only twice in the OT. In Is 63 and 64
---In the NT, in the “fullness of time”, God sent Jesus to show us the Father. Jesus only did and
said what the Father did and said. Jesus did nothing on His own accord—only what the Father
showed Him to do.

2. ---Jesus solved mankind’s sin problem by paying God’s requirement that sin has to be paid by
death. Jesus’ death took the place of all humanity for their sins. Incredible!
---By being our substitute on the cross, Jesus made it possible for all humanity to have a close
relationship again with the Father. Jesus is the Way, but the Father is the destination.
---We get to the Father by becoming wholehearted followers of Jesus. When we are born-again
through a full surrender of our lives to Jesus as our Savior and Lord, God sends His Holy Spirit
into us to make us His adopted son or daughter.
---Those who have the Holy Spirit and are led by the Spirit are the sons and daughters of God.
---One day, in a place much like the Garden of Eden, God’s adopted children will be with Him.
We shall see Him and be like Him! We shall even marry Jesus as His Bride. God’s Family will
the be together forever and ever!
---MY Story: after my mom told my dad she wanted a divorce, my dad came home from Korea
and drove my brother and I to Philadelphia to live with his dad and stepmom. I attended Catholic
school and Catholic church called Saint Gabriel’s in South Philly ( Philadelphia). It was there
that I first began to learn about God.
---I was very religious because I wanted to help from any source to help me deal with the grief
and confusion of my parents' divorce. So I prayed to everybody. I pray to God, to Mary and the
saints. I gave my lunch money to buy flowers for the altar but I still did not really know God. I
was just religious and desperate
---One day, as I walked my nun teachers back to their convent, I mentioned that I really missed
my dad, who was now stationed overseas again.
--- I loved my dad and I missed his love. I have never said that to anyone before. Immediately
one of the nuns smiled and said, “ Don’t you know that God is a Father”. I don’t think I said
anything in return because it seemed like such an odd statement that God could actually be a real
Father. But that statement changed the rest of my life
---Shortly after that, I remember having conversations with God and feeling loved by him. His
love felt like a Father‘s love—Only better. He was always there and I never felt that I was being
corrected or anything. It seemed like he just listened to me and liked me. I suddenly had an
invisible best friend. I did not tell anyone, not even that wonderful nun!
---I did not know anyone who had ever had such an experience. God just revealed himself to me
and I felt loved by a Father. I still prayed to all of the dead people that the Catholic Church told
me to pray to but I didn’t really love them. I had found God’s love so good and so free, I didn’t
feel a need to communicate with dead saints anymore. The Bible actually says that is not allowed
---I still prayed to Mary, I guess because she was related to Jesus. Sometimes I thought she heard
my prayers and helped me but I never really got to know her like I knew God

3. ---This went on for many weeks. One day I was walking to School On my street called Sears
Street in South Philadelphia. I looked up to the sky I spoke to God and said, you love me so
much it feels like you have adopted me. I remember it felt good to say it. Since I did not own a
Bible until I went to Catholic seminary 12 years later, I did not ever know what Romans 8:15
said until then. When I read it it blew my mind. What I had experienced was in the Bible!!
---As the years went on and I moved to South Jersey to continue with Catholic school, I never
told anyone about this amazing secret relationship with God the Father. Even though I believed
in Jesus as God’s Son, all my attention was on the Father because I had bonded with him.
---So I spent the rest of my growing up years and adulthood relating to God the Father much
more than to Jesus. I often felt it was odd that people talked about Jesus and never talked about
the Father. I felt like I was different in some ways because of that focus I had on the Father
---Fast forward to somewhere in the 1990s, people began to talk about the Father’s love and
about gather Father. People like Jack Winter and James Jordan and John Arnott helped people
understand the necessity of benefits of knowing God as your heavenly Father
---I felt vindicated. Finally, people were understanding how I related to God and why the Father
was so important
---Somewhere in the 90s I also had encounters with Jesus and the Holy Spirit that helped me to
bond with them and sort of even out my bonding to the Trinity.
---Hardly a day goes by that I don’t thank God that I am his son. That reality is the foundation of
my entire life, not just my faith. I can never fully comprehend who I am without thinking of
God’s love for me as a Father. I still am amazed that it all happened when I was a kid. I shudder
to think who I would be today if I have not met God is my Father. I’m pretty sure I would be a
bad person
---So whenever I run across people who did not have a good relationship with their earthly
father, I know that they need to know God as their Father. God’s Father-love for me more than
made up for the lack of love from my dad who was not able to be there because he was stationed
other places in the Army.
---God’s love made up to me for the lack of love from my grandfather who just didn’t know how
to love a boy like me
---My grandfather had a very tender heart for children. He gave money to Father Flanagan’s
Home for Boys and he loved being around toddlers and young kids but as his grandson, he was
never able to give me the joyful affirmation that I saw him give to toddlers.
---He was unable to ever say that he loved me. He was unable to say that he was proud of me. He
wasn’t able to touch me affectionately in the 30 years that I knew him. But God the Father was
able to do all of it for me over and over in ways I can’t totally describe.

4. ---So why do I feel that this message about being adopted by God is so foundational to the
normal Christian life?
---Because Jesus came to bring us back to the Father. Jesus came so that we could know the
Father. If you’re a Christian and you don’t know the Father, you’re missing one of the main
reasons that Jesus came to earth. His death on the cross was just the means to enable us to know
the Father and be the adopted as his children.
---You can be an adopted child of God and not really experience it but that is a great loss. If we
are followers of Jesus we have to notice that Jesus had a very close and intimate relationship
with her Father. To be a Christian is to be like Jesus. To be a Christian just to have a close
relationship with the Father
---So today if you do have a close relationship with God as your Father, I hope that you will be
more grateful that you have experienced what Jesus came to make possible.
---I hope that you’ll be grateful that you have a foundation for your Christian life that is deeper
and stronger than anything else you could have
---If you are a Christian and do not have a close relationship with God as your heavenly Father
it’s often because you have problems relating to your earthly father
---Or perhaps that you’re angry at God for something you think He did or didn’t do. I hope this
short message encourages you to get fully reconciled to God your Father
---It may mean that you need to forgive for your earthly or your heavenly Father. Ask God what
you should do.
---Ask help from someone who has a good relationship with God the Father. Don’t settle for a
Christian life that is less than normal. The normal Christian life is based on a strong, close
relationship with God as your Father and you as his son or daughter
---Let’s pray