Brian Miller adopted Johnathan when Johnathan was seven years old. Johnathan suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome, and was a very difficult child. For the first two years, after he was adopted, he threw desks and pencils at school. At home, he ripped the telephones from the walls when the teacher called Brian about Johnathan’s behavior.
Johnathan was worried that Brian would give him back because he was bad.
But Brian kept telling Johnathan, “Adoption is final. I’m not giving you back.”
In the letter to the Ephesians, we hear the good news that we are God’s adopted children. Before the world was even created, God destined us for adoption through Jesus Christ—and God freely bestowed grace on us through Jesus. God lavishes us with the riches of God’s grace.
In an old book used for teaching back in the fifties and sixties called More than Words, the word grace is defined like this.
Grace is God’s saving power, freely given, at work in the world and in us.
Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, writing in the second century, said that grace is “a divine energy working in the soul.”
God’s grace is the energy that God pours out on us when we choose to live as God’s adopted children. God’s energy gives us the power to live with love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, the gifts of the Spirit, in spite of the ways of the world.
Some examples of these disgraceful ways of the world we’ve just heard about in our scriptures today.
Through the disgraceful actions of the people of Israel, the rich just kept getting richer and the poor kept getting poorer, so God sent Amos to prophesy to God’s adopted children—the people of Israel.
People living disgraceful lives brought about the death of John the Baptist, and the story of his death is one of the most disgraceful stories in the entire Bible.
Currently, we find examples of people living disgracefully every time we hear the news. For example, officials at Penn State chose to ignore the sexual abuse of children on university property for fear of damaging the reputation of the football team.
The bad news is that we are all guilty of disgraceful actions in our own lives because we are all sinners.
The good news is that we are adopted children of God.
We Christians believe that we are adopted, as Ephesians puts it, through the blood of Jesus and God’s forgiveness of our sins.
Jesus is a sacrifice for us—and the way this works has to do with the ancient understanding of sacrifice—that blood contained life, and that when blood was shed in a sacrifice to God, that blood then brought about new life for the people who had offered the sacrifice.
Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, brings us new life as the adopted children of God. We find that, through Jesus, grace is poured out on us abundantly, and that divine energy becomes ours to use for God’s glory during our time here on earth.
Many of you have heard the popular song that is often sung at funerals these days, but it certainly applies to the person who chooses to accept God’s offer of adoption and to become, literally, a child of God—full of new life, here and now–
Interspersed with the verses of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” we hear these words.
“My chains are gone, I’ve been set free, My God, My Savior has rescued me, and like a flood his mercy rains, unending love, amazing grace.”
No more chains holding us down in sin—instead, divine energy pulsating through our lives, bursting out in love and service to others. We’re full of divine energy –full of the grace and the power to accomplish faithfully and joyfully what God has given each one of us to do.
God’s adoption is final, and we are his children.
And so in thanksgiving for this freely given gift, let’s stand and lift our voices in praise and thanksgiving for God’s gracious love by singing the hymn that you’ll find on the insert in your bulletin.
(Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus our blessed redeemer!)
Amen.