See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God... - 1 John 3:1

This Sunday we have the privilege of hearing from the Watt family who have been ministering in Nepal with an organization called Tiny Hands to fight human trafficking. In addition to the work they do with Tiny Hands, the Watt family has been in the process of receiving a child into their family through adoption. Though this has been a long and arduous process, they have now been united to their new daughter, praise God!

When children are adopted, it is a tangible expression of the gospel in that the adoptive parents, motivated by love, chose their child and give their child through adoption all the rights and privileges of all their other children as heirs. Paul wrote in Galatians 4:4-7: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his 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."

One of the most precious truths in all the world is that God is a Father who has loved his Son for all eternity (John 17:24). What is even more amazing is that we who are united to Jesus by faith have come to share in all the rights and privileges he has as the Son of God. Wow! Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:3, 5: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places...he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved."

Adopted,

Pastor Andrew
Jn. 17.