Adopted By God

Good afternoon, everyone. Nice to be back with you after being gone for a few weeks. I apologize we'll be gone again next week as we're taking advantage of some time off during the summer, but it's good to be here with everyone in between. Welcome to our visitors who are here in the room. Hello to everyone who's on Zoom. I can't see you, but you could probably see me. Works out better for me than you, maybe.

Well, as we read through the Bible, the Bible is filled with different kinds of analogies, and a lot of different analogies are used to describe our Christian lives. What changes from the time before we know Jesus Christ and we receive his Holy Spirit to after. And we're probably familiar with a lot of these analogies. We hear talk of being reborn in popular Christianity.

We hear, and read in the Bible a lot, of the idea of being buried and resurrected to a new life. We think about that often at the Days of Unleavened Bread. We talk about being buried. We see the comparison of baptism with burial and coming out of a symbolic burial. We also see analogies about being redeemed. Being redeemed from sin and the debt that we had for sin and how we're redeemed from that through the blood of Jesus Christ. Those are all probably pretty familiar analogies to all of us, and ones that I won't talk about today, except I just did for a few moments.

All of these analogies are a little bit different. They call to mind different elements of what it is that changes in our life and how it is that God is working with us. There's an additional analogy that's not talked about so much, and I'd like to focus on that one today.

I was actually having a conversation about this with a couple of people three or four weeks ago, so if you don't like the sermon, I can give you a name afterwards of who to blame for it.

If you did like it, you can just let me know. But there's an analogy that's used in the Bible, specifically in Paul's writings, that I'd like to focus on today, and it's the analogy of adoption. Now, that might seem like an odd one to focus on in our relationship with God, but it's actually one that Paul uses five times in his writings. We won't look at every single one of those today, but we'll look at several of them. Why is it that this analogy was used, and what is it that it tells us about our calling and our relationship with God? So the title for today is Adopted by God.

I'd like to examine some of the elements of adoption during the time of Jesus Christ and Paul, the Roman times. What did adoption mean in Roman culture? What does that teach us about our calling? And then we'll also touch briefly at the end on a few ways that Paul showed how God's calling far surpasses that custom of adoption that existed in the Roman world. So first, let's start with adoption of what it meant in the Roman world. There's the word that's used five times in the New Testament for adoption is a Greek word that's pronounced something like heiotasia or heiothesia.

And it's not a word that Paul made up. He used a word that was common in the language of his time, in the Greek of his time, because in Roman culture and in fact in Roman law, there were statutes that specifically governed adoption. What it was, how it worked, and how one went through it.

It referred to sonship being granted to someone who is not naturally born as a son.

It was certainly possible to adopt a female child or female in general, but just because of the way the culture worked at that time, it was not something that was as commonly done. It was a legal process in Rome that was used for a particular purpose. We'll delve into that purpose a little more in detail here in a few minutes, and like I mentioned, used five times in the New Testament. Now, we all know how adoption functions within our society. It's a very noble act. It's a way that people provide a home for many children who might not otherwise have it, a way that some people might have a family if they're not otherwise able to. What I found interesting, though, and I think we all generally see in society around us, is our experience with adoption is that most children who are adopted are adopted at a very young age. I took a quick look on the internet and this search came across a site called Statista.com. It showed graphically that the most common age for adoption is age two, and by a large margin, anyone who's adopted would tend to be adopted at age three or earlier. So as a society, Western culture, we typically will adopt younger children. We might hear sometimes as well out there about the challenge that there is to find foster homes or adoptive homes for older children who need those. Now, we can't place that same template on the Roman world because even though the word adoption is the same, the purpose for it, the way it functioned, everything about it really, as we'll see, is quite different. How so?

Well, in the Roman world, the real purpose for adoption, really the sole purpose for adoption, was to ensure family name and identity. To ensure family name and identity. And it happened primarily among families that were in the top layer of society. If a family, for example, didn't have a son, or in those times, the possibility of a son either dying of natural causes or being killed in battle or in an accident of some sort would be a whole lot higher than it is in our civilization today. And so you would have families of the higher classes of society, families that had assets, families that had a family name that went with it, maybe land holdings and things that went along with it. And there might not be a male heir, which again was what was required within Roman society at that time to inherit that. And so if a family didn't have a son or a surviving son, or if the existing heir might have been just incompetent or otherwise incapable of taking over, then that family would adopt. And what I found interesting is that adoption in the Roman world was usually of older men, men who were of age. So the typical adoption in the Roman world would happen anywhere between age 20 and age 30, which seems pretty unusual when we compare it to what we'd be used to. And in looking things up and reading up before this sermon, there are even incidents that are shown in Roman culture where someone would adopt a person who was actually older than them. So if you can imagine adopting a son who's actually older than you. And in our modern sort of construct of all this, that makes absolutely no sense. But the reason again for it was not to try to provide a home and to rear a child. It was to perpetuate a family line, an inheritance, a name that meant something within society. It was almost unheard of in those times to adopt more than one person, due to the fact, again, that it was meant to pass on the family name. Because again, for example, a family might have multiple children, and in the way that society worked at that time, inheritance was through the oldest male heir. And if there were multiple children, the younger ones would typically not receive an inheritance. So if you were going to adopt somebody in order to pass along an inheritance, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to adopt more than one person, because that second person would not come to receive those things. The other thing I found really interesting is adoption in Roman culture in many ways had a higher status than natural birth. And that seems really odd to us, I think, as well in our construct. We're very focused, and I was reading some articles and talked about the focus in the Western world that we have on bloodline. A lot of that comes through European society and how natural-born children and legitimately born natural children were the most important thing. In Roman society, that wasn't the case. There was an interesting law, actually, in Rome, that you could disown a son three times.

So I guess if you got mad at your son, you could disown him, you could take him back, you could disown him again, you could three times over, you could disown a son. However, if you adopted a son, you could not disown that son. So it actually carried a status with it in terms of the certainty of what was conferred on that child that was much higher than being a natural-born son. It was also considered to be an esteemed position. It was a chosen position that was specifically made to carry on the prestige and the purpose of a family and to carry on that name. The adopted son took on the full status of the new family, was viewed with prestige because this was a family that was known that selected someone specifically to carry on that family name. A Roman father could even adopt an illegitimate child and name him as the heir. Again, something you'd never see in European society. We see plenty of stories out there about things that would happen in the Middle Ages among the kings and concubines and all the rest. In Roman society, a man could take an illegitimate born son and actually legally adopt that son to place that son as his heir. So it was a coveted status and not considered secondary in any way. Let me read a short couple of blurbs from a few articles that I pulled up in reading up on this. One was from Table Talk magazine. It's called Adoption in the Roman World by John Song. And he writes, one of the most well-known cases of adoption is found in the figure of Caesar Augustus during whose reign Jesus was born. Caesar Augustus, originally known as Octavian, was the grand nephew of Julius Caesar. After attaining victory over the Roman general Pompey, Julius Caesar was able to secure his reign over Rome. After Caesar's assassination, however, Octavian discovered in Julius Caesar's will that his grand uncle had made him heir. This was secured through the posthumous act of adoption. Octavian's father quelled a slave rebellion once led by Spartacus. His mother was related to Julius Caesar, yet it was not his genetic lineage that gave him the right to rule Rome, but the legal act of adoption. New Testament historian Robert Lewis states that there could be no higher claim than to have been adopted by the ruler of Rome. And adoption continued to be used. The Roman emperor Nero, who church tradition tells us beheaded the Apostle Paul, came to power by adoption. Adoption was well known throughout the empire. So at the time that Jesus Christ lived, the time that Paul lived, a reference to adoption would be something very well known and associated with the very ruler of Rome. From another article called Adoption in the Roman Empire by Carol Ashby, she writes, during the first 200 years of the empire, adoption became a common practice when the emperor had no suitable son to succeed him. An emperor approaching the end of his life adopted a man whom he expected would rule well. This pattern was initiated by Nerva and continued by Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. It's not surprising that these men, who were selected based on merit instead of bloodline, are regarded as four of the best emperors. So this gives us a very different view, culturally speaking, in terms of what people would have understood when Paul wrote to the Romans. We'll turn there in a moment in Romans 8, when Paul wrote to the Romans and mentioned the idea of adoption.

Something entirely different than what we might think during our frame of reference living life today. Let's turn to Romans 8. We'll start in verse 14. Romans 8, starting in verse 14.

Here Paul writes to the Romans, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption. By whom we cry out, Abba, Father, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, chosen, brought on, adopted, so that we can receive something through the family. That's what heirs refers to. If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.

Skipping down to verse 22, for we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also have the first truths of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

So the background that we have from Roman society, understanding the privilege and the power and the purpose of what adoption meant to them, it shows us a whole different viewpoint of what these scriptures mean in terms of God having adopted us. It's not a second-class sort of status because we're not of the bloodline. It's a purposeful act done with a reason in order to pass something valuable along to those who have been adopted. It gives us a familiar familial relationship.

We see that phrase that we've probably all seen in the Bible, whereby we cry out, Abba, Father, and it's talking about the fact that there's a big difference between the relationship that that son would have with the person before and after adoption. It's talking about the fact that as soon as that adoption is sealed, there's that familiar familial relationship. Abba is like saying, Daddy, this familiar term. You don't just walk up to everybody and say it. But that act of adoption, which God likens or Paul likens to us being called and receiving the Holy Spirit, gives us that. 1 John 3 verse 2, we won't turn there, but we've probably all read that scripture that says, now we are the children of God. And it's because of this idea of adoption that Paul is bringing out that we can say, now we are the children of God. We have a purpose of carrying on God's name and family identity, as well as full rights of inheritance through that adoption. There's also an element of present and an element of future that's involved here. If we look back in verse 15, we read in verse 15 that we have received the spirit of adoption. But then we read further down in verse 23 that we wait for the adoption. And this is talking about the same sort of thing that we might see in other parts of the Bible. There's actually a theologian who I read occasionally, a guy named Michael Heiser, and he has a line that he likes to use in talking about a lot of different concepts in the Bible, and that's already but not yet.

And he talks about the fact that so many things in the Bible are displayed as already but not yet.

Now we are the children of God, but not yet. We're not fully there. We haven't been changed into spirit like we will be. We are taken from our sins. We're deemed sinless. But at the same time, we're still human beings who are fallible, and we do sin, but we can be forgiven for that sin. It's not until we're fully changed into spirit that we will be unable to sin. It's this idea of already but not yet, and this is a concept that's worth thinking about. But adoption here is used in both ways. We are already adopted. We are the children of God. We are heirs, but we also wait for the complete fulfillment of that adoption, the complete inheritance that's coming.

Turn with me, if you will, to 2 Peter 1. We'll read a little more about the purposefulness of this and the reason that it's given.

2 Peter 1. We'll start in verse 2. Here Peter writes, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as his divine power is given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Remember, we talk about purpose to adoption, a strategic reason. That's what's being pointed out here by Peter.

We are given these promises. We're drawn to God in verse 4, so that through those, we might be partakers of the divine nature as children of God, full-fledged children of his.

Turn with me, if you will, to 1 Thessalonians 2, which introduces another concept that we'll delve into a little more deeply in the balance of the sermon as well. 1 Thessalonians 2, which talks about what happens as a result, how our lives change, the identities that we have to take on. 1 Thessalonians 2 will start in verse 10. 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 10 says, You are witnesses in God also of how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe. As you know, how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children. 2 In verse 12, that you would walk worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. It's the calling that adoption is into God's kingdom and into his glory, and it carries with it a need to walk worthy of that calling. And we always have to remember that we get those things in the right order, don't we?

And that's how they're placed here. That we are called into his kingdom. We walk worthy of that calling that we've been given. It's not a matter of we walk a certain way so that we can earn from God his favor. But we're given God's grace. He's chosen and selected us. He's adopted us in the analogy that Paul uses, and as a result of that, we make every effort to walk worthy of that calling, that adoption, that we've been given. So as we go into the balance of this sermon, I'd like to dig just a little bit deeper into these two areas. One, the purpose and the prestige of adoption and how that ties to our Christian lives. And secondly, the fact that this was done deliberately with choice and forethought in order for God to carry on his family name. So let's look more deeply at the first of those two elements, purpose. The purpose with which God acted. We'll turn now to Ephesians 1. This is another section where Paul again uses the same Greek word related to adoption.

Ephesians 1, and we'll start in verse 3.

Again, focusing here on purpose. There's a reason for this. It's not an accident.

Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, that he who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. So look at how many times this comes through in this passage. Verse 4, he chose us. Verse 5, he predestined us according to the good pleasure of his will. Verse 11, according to the purpose of him who works to the counsel of his will. And I didn't let you know that I skipped from verse 5 to verse 11. Hopefully you figured that out.

But there's a lot of... there's purpose just completely thrown through this passage, isn't there? Making it clear that God thought this through. God did it for a reason. It talks about inheritance. This is not an accident. God is working with a direction, with a clear purpose that he's trying to work out, and that is to create an inheritance, to pass on his family name to specific people and to work out his will through them. Turn with me, if you will, back to Romans 8.

We'll read just one verse, again, from the passage that we read earlier, again talking about inheritance. Romans 8 and verse 17. Here Paul writes to the Romans, If children then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may be glorified together. So again, what's coming through here is purpose.

God has called us, he's adopted us, so that we can become heirs, so we can receive this inheritance that he has waiting for us. And again, if you knew the Caesar at the time, if you knew the customs of the world that was going on at that time, if you were reading this original letter that was written, as soon as you saw that word, you would have thought, wow, it's just like Caesar adopted Octavian. He gave him an inheritance, he gave him a name that was above everything else, and he inherited this entire Roman empire that rules the world. That's the association that would have come into the purpose here. So let's pause for a moment and just think about the clarity of what it is that's expressed here. Clarity that God calls us with a specific purpose. It's not an accident. It wasn't that we were just walking down the street, and God said, well, you know, I need somebody today, and he's walking by, let's just grab him.

Let's grab her. There's purpose here. It's thought through. For reasons only he can know, through his grace, he wanted each and every one of us to understand his way and give us the opportunity to be reconciled to him. And the purpose is very clear, and that's one of inheritance.

Just like an emperor, somebody who had wealthy land holdings and a title would want somebody suitable to pass that along to, to make sure that that name was preserved and carried on, that those assets were cared for, protected, and grown, he's called us and given us inheritance that we will receive. You know, purpose is a popular topic these days. I don't know if any of you see it. I see it a lot in the workplace. We might read about it in the popular press at times. We've probably heard the phrase, living a purpose-filled life. Maybe you've heard that phrase before. Companies these days adopt a statement of purpose, believing it helps employees if they can, to stay employed, if they can link their personal purpose to the purpose of the company and build a coherence there. An article that bears this out that I found is something called, an article called employee retention through sense of purpose. This was published by a group called Able Personnel back in December of 2021. They write, according to a recent article by McKinsey & Company, 70 percent of employees said that their sense of purpose is defined by their work, and over 60 percent indicated that they wanted to get more purpose from their work.

Digging deeper into the data, those who are finding no connection or not enough connection between their work and their purpose in life are 50 percent of the staff and frontline supervisors. And yes, many of these are millennials who found who were found to be three times more likely than others to say they were reevaluating work. Unsurprisingly, 85 percent of middle and upper management view their work as a manifestation of their purpose in life. Overall, 62 percent of all employees surveyed said that while they get some purpose from work, they want to get even more.

The implications of the purpose in life gap, whether no connection or just some connection, can be seen in the wave of resignations now occurring among those frontline staff and supervisors. Given time to reflect, they realize that what they're doing for a job is not having the positive impact on the world as they had once envisioned and the reason that they pursued the career in the first place. When the job is just a way to pay the bills at home, the studies found that this resulted in lower levels of production and innovation. Such employees are more ready to jump to a new job that offers the same or likely better pay and offers that sense of purpose, particularly in a hot, lower-risk job market where they're less likely to be the last in, first out, in the next economic slowdown. Now, this isn't really a revelation of any sort. In fact, most meaningful management principles, if not all, that you find, if you dig back, you'll find very similar, if not the same, points in the Bible. We'll look at that in a moment. What can you think of in the Bible that talks about purpose? The Bible talks about the Christian calling as a vocation, which means a job. And if we take that for a moment, we think about what we just read about purpose. Now, closely, purpose is connected to staying on a job and finding meaning in it. What about our job as Christians, our vocation, as the Bible refers to as Christians?

Do we have that sense of purpose in living our Christian lives? Do we have that understanding of that we were called for a purpose and that we are working out that purpose as we continue on week by week, not only coming to services but in our day-to-day lives, seeking to turn our minds and our hearts to God, to learn more about His will for us, and to work out, use His Spirit, in our everyday lives? Turn with me, if you will, to Hebrews 2.

Purpose. Having our experience as Christians focused on that purpose. We're probably all aware of somebody, if not more than one person, who might have lost their sense of purpose for their Christian calling. What do we see happen with those people? They tend to drift away, don't they? It's not just a matter of not attending church services. It's drifting away from God, which then carries all kinds of downstream impacts.

And that's something that we have to focus on is, do we understand our purpose as Christians? Are we focused on it? And are we continuing to build it? Do we understand the purpose that God had in calling us? Hebrews 2, let's start in verse 1. Therefore, we have to give the more earnest heed to the things we've heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, if we lose that sense of purpose, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him? God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will.

For he's not put the world to come, of which we speak, in subjection to angels. But one testified in a certain place, referring here to David, saying, What is man that you are mindful of him, or the Son of man that you take care of him? You've made him a little lower than the angels, you've crowned him with glory and honor, and you've set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.

For in that he put all in subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. So what is it that's being laid out here?

It's a focus on purpose. The passage starts with the idea of not drifting away, the importance of being focused and dialed in on this purpose of our calling, talking about the fact that we know that angels are out there, very powerful beings, but created for one purpose, as messengers of God, to care for us, to carry out the duties that God gives them. And then it lays out the purpose for mankind, which is so much higher.

It's to inherit everything, to be actually a part of God's family, to be the inheritors of everything that God has created. And how Jesus Christ and what happened with him and how he was glorified helps us to understand that purpose being worked out and what it will mean for us. So as we wrap up this idea of purpose that's built in this concept of adoption, God shows us with forethought. There was a purpose there, even the word of predestination. Really thinking it ahead and purposing it ahead of time is key and brought out to us in what we see in the Bible.

Like a Roman head of family who needed someone to carry on his family name and his assets, God has purposed us to be called so that we can inherit him, everything that he has for us, everything that he owns. And we have to have a clear sense of that purpose in order to stay true to our calling. So let's pivot now to the last element of identity. Identity. Turn with me, if you will, to Galatians 4. This is a third section where this idea of adoption is used by Paul in his writings.

In Roman adoption, the adopted person gave up name, they gave up family status, they gave up the associations that came with the family that they came from, and they took on not only the name but all of the connections and associations of the adopted family. Even debts of that individual were released. They were entitled to all of the assets of the adopted family, and like I mentioned earlier, could not be undone.

Let's see what's written in Galatians 4 starting in verse 1. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all. But he is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. So very similar to what we read in Hebrews in terms of the function of angels versus us as human beings.

Even so, when we were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father, giving us that change in identity, God being someone that we can know personally and cry out to and come before through Jesus Christ.

And therefore, you're no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Jesus Christ. We see these same themes coming through here. A new identity that comes because of adoption as sons. Turn with me to your will to 2 Corinthians 5.

2 Corinthians 5. We'll read verse 17.

Here we're told in a similar manner in terms of new identity, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new. So just like if you were adopted out of one family and into another one, all things became new. You had a new name, you had a whole new estate or group of assets that you were dealing with, you had a new position in society. Everything that you had became new with the stroke of a pen as that ceremony was completed. Now, something else I find very meaningful here is what comes before Galatians 4 verse 1. So we think back to when Paul was writing these manuscripts. He didn't, with every paragraph that he wrote, write a little number. Okay, I'm writing a new chapter here, and here's a new verse. He simply wrote a letter.

And for ease of navigating the Bible, over time chapter breaks and verses were put in so that we could all understand what we were talking about when we were reading about something. Imagine a book like Psalms and trying to literally get on the same page within Psalms without the numbering system that we have. But in the flow here, what I find incredibly meaningful is Galatians 3 verses 26 through 29. This is immediately in the flow of talking about being adopted and a new identity. In verse 26, Paul writes, you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. As many of you, as we're baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is not Jew or Greek. There's not slavery free. There's not male nor female, because you are all one in Christ. And if you are Christ, you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. So what that's telling us is this adoption, exactly like they would have seen in Roman society, takes away everything that applied to that old name. And the identity becomes new. It becomes an heir of God. No matter where you came from, no matter what you came from, if that adoption was valid, you came into all these things. And to me, this adds a whole new light to this passage when we think about it. I can recall a debate going back a few years ago with someone reading this passage and someone had talked with him about the passage. It was somebody of a different race. And he said, you know, this person came up to me and said, your race doesn't matter. He said, my race matters. And I said, you know what? It does matter. But it's not the primary thing. And that's what this passage is pointing out. We can't change, if you look at these attributes, you can't change if you're male or female. You continue, even after you're called by God, to be a male or a female. And that matters. And it's important. And it's a good thing. It's a right thing that God purposes. At the same time, though, the way he treats us, what he gives us, how he values us, is not differentiated on those physical attributes.

And so that changes the way that we approach life. It changes the way that we think about our relationship with God. It changes the way we think of how God relates to other people, just because they don't look like us. They don't come from the same place as we are. They have different cultural norms. It doesn't mean God looks at them differently if he's called them. Those are all secondary things because they've been called by God. And forgive me if I'm overreaching here, but I'm going to read another section from one of these articles that I found really interesting in terms of how naming worked when somebody was adopted in Roman society. I'll I'll bring out the point on this after we read it. The name of a male Roman citizen had three parts. The first part was the given name. The second part was the clan or or gens, so the broader group that they came from. And third, the family name. It was customary for an adopted male to replace his original clan and family names with those of his adoptive father. His original clan name was added after the last name with an ending, which was changed from in Latin from an ending of U.S. to an ending of A.N.U.S. For example, let me give this example. If Gaius Cornelius Lentulus was adopted, and he was adopted by someone named Titus Livius Drusus, he would become Gaius. He kept his first name, Livius Drusus. He took the middle name and the last name of the person who adopted him. But then his last name, which had been Cornelius, I'm sorry, his second name, which had been Cornelius, would be appended to the end of that as Cornelianus. And so there was still a shadow of what that person was before in terms of where they came from that could still be determined in their name after adoption. Because that name of their broader clan would still be added on to the end, and there'd be like this shadow of this is what that person was, even though it's not what they are today, because they're known by their new family name. I find that just kind of an interesting analogy to, you know, what we are. We can't, again, change our physical attributes. We can't change where we came from. We can't change our sex. But those things become secondary. It's like they're appended onto the end of what it means to be part of God's family. And that's something we have to remember in everything that we do. And I think it's important also to think about in the way that we act in the world. Turn with me, if you will, to Matthew 5, 16. Keeping on this idea of taking on the name of God as sons of His, and that being the primary attribute, and anything else that we had before in our physical identity being an afterthought and appendage onto the end of that. Matthew 5, verse 16. Just a short verse. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. So that's telling us that the things that we do, as we act as Christians, should lead people to say, wow, she's got God's name, and isn't God great? Because look at the way that she acts as a Christian. That's the results that should be driven, the identity that should be driven, as we live our lives day to day. As our lights shine in whatever it is that we do in our communities and the people that we come into contact with, what name gets associated with that? What do people see? Is it the name of the Father who adopted us? Or is it some other identity that we've carried with us and somehow put out front, too far forward in our name rather than way back at the end where it belongs, after our identity as Christians?

So to wrap up this section, a few things to think about. First of all, what shines through most strongly the people associate with each of us? Our identity as a child of God, through displaying the fruit of His Spirit, or some different identity that's rooted in a physical attribute, whatever that attribute might be, and the beliefs or opinions or assertions that come along with those attributes. Remember how the Roman names worked. The name of the adopted family was taken.

The name of that clan where a person came from went all the way to the end, sometimes even dropped off, where it wouldn't even be mentioned. Because by then it's the fourth name. And who can remember four Latin names, right? So before we wrap up, I'm going to blast through a really brief section here for those who want to accept a bit of homework. So I'm not going to turn any of these verses, but for those who are interested in looking at it a little further, I'd encourage you to go back to these verses and think about these concepts in the upcoming week. And what I want to do is touch on, just very quickly, three areas where Paul actually took what Roman adoption was and stretched it way beyond anything that people understood at that day and time. First of all, the idea of going from slaves to being adopted. Romans 8 verses 12 through 17, Romans 8 verses 12 through 17, and Galatians 4 verses 1 through 7. Galatians 4 verses 1 through 7. You can read these later. Now in Roman society, slavery was just simply a way of life. It was not based on ethnicity, it was not based on race, it was based on conquering people. When the Roman Empire rolled in and took over a nation, they would take slaves of conquered people and they would serve in households. And there were rules that went around how that would work. And it was actually not possible under Roman law to adopt a slave. Now the way some people got around it was that they would actually free their slave and then adopt that person as a freed person. And so the ability was there to do that. But even so, we won't go through all the details of it, but even so, somebody who had been a freed slave and then adopted still didn't have quite all of the full rights to pass along that inheritance to others afterwards. But Paul talks very differently in Romans 8 and Galatians 4, because he draws in both of those passages a parallel about having been slaves to sin and now being adopted and being heirs of God. And so what he's saying is this adoption that we have from God through Jesus Christ is so much more powerful even than what they experienced in that world. You can read more about that in those verses, those passages, if you'd like. Secondly, multiple adoptions.

Romans 8 verses 16 and 17. Ephesians 1 verses 11 and 12. Romans 8 verses 16 and 17. Ephesians 1 verses 11 and 12. If you remember, I mentioned earlier in Roman society, there really wasn't a reason to adopt more than one child. The whole purpose for adoption was to pass along your estate, your name, your title, your holdings to another person, and it went to the firstborn. So once you'd adopted that one person, anybody after that was extraneous, and it was extremely unusual to adopt more than one child in Roman culture. But in these passages, if you look at those, it clearly uses the plural. And we know from looking around the room there's more than one person in this room.

God is calling many children. And so Paul, in using this analogy, went way beyond and said, look guys, it's more than just what we see here in Rome. This isn't God calling one person that they're going to give everything to. In fact, you're saying Jesus Christ was the firstborn among many brethren. He was not and is not the sole heir. Because if you read in those verses, you'll see how it talks about us being joint heirs with Christ and through him.

So an incredible possibility being opened up there, something that they wouldn't have been able to comprehend just in the rules of adoption in their society. And Paul is saying this is much more.

It's not just one person. This is about everybody who's called, having the ability to have their share of that inheritance. And then lastly, sons and daughters. Some of you might have cringed. I cringed a few times saying it myself over and over again. Only sons were adopted, simply the way it was in that society. But read Romans 8, 16, and 17. And what I find interesting is someone even writing Paul at that time to that society says, he doesn't say in the end, sons, he says, if children then heirs. If children then heirs. That would have been a foreign concept to a Roman. Because in Roman society, inheritance went to the son. If you only had daughters, you were probably going to adopt a son to pass along your estate to that son. Not to your daughters. Paul, again, stretching the analogy, telling the Romans, this goes much further.

This is about children. And just as we read in Galatians as well, man or woman doesn't matter to God. Our calling is the same. We might have different roles. We might function differently within the body. But our worth to God and our future with God is exactly the same.

So in conclusion, understanding the custom of adoption as it functioned in Paul's time is a meaningful analogy that adds depth to our understanding of our calling. Hopefully, taking a few minutes and thinking through this has been expanding as we think about it and brought a few new ideas to your mind as well in terms of your relationship with God and why he called you. There is a purpose. God called us deliberately by his grace to give us an inheritance.

There is a new identity. We have to reflect the values and the ideals of God's name far beyond any physical identity or heritage that we have. And as we saw briefly at the end, and hopefully you'll take a little time to think more about it, Paul expanded the analogy far beyond the fact of what Roman adoption was in order to show that what God was doing was much greater than any human society, a much greater calling and purpose that he had. So, may we all live our lives worthy of the precious adoption that we've received from God.