Adopted by an Awesome Father

2016 JoAnne Thompson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/16/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6480-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6481-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6482-4 (e)

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Contents

Preface. Study Guide on the Theology of Adoption

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1. Our Father

Chapter 2. The Search for Truth

Chapter 3. Finding the Truth

Chapter 4. It’s All about Grace

Chapter 5. Life before Adoption?

Chapter 6. Living with the Truth

Chapter 7. Not wanting to Believe

Chapter 8. Knowing Where You Come From

Chapter 9. No Hesitation

Chapter 10. Be My Child

Chapter 11. A New Name

Chapter 12. Security

Chapter 13. Making Sense of It—Don’t Look Back

Chapter 14. Growing Up

Chapter 15. What a Future!

Chapter 16. The Joy and the Pain in Being Part of a Family

Chapter 17. Don’t Live as an Orphan

Chapter 18. Set Free to Be

Chapter 19. Thank You

Appendix 1. Adoption Assures the Believer of God’s Fatherly Electing Grace

Appendix 2. Ames’s Differences between Human and Divine Adoption

Appendix 3. People Who Were Adopted in the Bible

Appendix 4. Wesley’s Sermon No 9

Notes: Some Final Thoughts for Those Who Were Adopted

Bibliography

For my amazing family, especially my awesome dad, who showed me what a loving father is.

Preface

Study Guide on the Theology of Adoption

The purpose of this short study guide is to enable those who are studying to be local preachers within the Methodist Church, or preachers in other denominations, to more clearly understand the theology of adoption.

Personal stories, illustrations, and discussion questions are used in order to help those who have this privilege of preaching, teaching, and leading worship, to relate this foundational yet often overlooked subject to their own lives, congregations, and groups or individuals that they minister to or work alongside, that they in turn will enable others to hear, know, and accept the amazing and awesome love of God that this subject presents to us.

When I was asked to write this, the person asking didn’t know I was adopted, and my initial concern was that relating my own experiences would be emotionally difficult for many people involved in my story, including myself. However, it has been a privilege to relate this subject to my own experience. I have an amazingly supportive family who have been encouraging and honest with me about their feelings, and for this I am really grateful. It has also reinforced the assurance of God’s faithfulness and grace towards me.

My hope is that this book will help you understand how God’s desire for us all is to be adopted into his family and what that actually means for our lives. I hope what I’ve written will be helpful in your ministry to others who may struggle with understanding their spiritual adoption as a child of the living God

At the end of each section are questions that can be considered either individually or as a group. They are there to help you think about some of the points I raise. For some, these will not be helpful, but for others, they may help you examine more deeply your relationship with God thus enabling you to more effectively introduce people to God as their Father.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to those Methodist local preachers in training who have encouraged me to produce this short book and for those who have supported and encouraged me for thirty years as a Methodist local preacher and tutor.

Thanks to Jeff, Joel, and Laura for their encouragement, and thanks to my church family at New Life Church in Newcastle upon Tyne for their willingness to read and make suggestions about my book. I thank them for all their prayers and support over the last two years.

Introduction

I grew up in a very loving, very secure family, a family which, looking back, was probably something of a dying breed – a working-class urban family in Leeds, West Yorkshire. I was part of an extended family where aunties, uncles, and cousins were very important and everyone had a part to play and shared advice about raising each other’s children. We all lived close to each other, with the exception of the Otley cousins. When we were little, we thought they lived in a different country because they lived all of twelve miles away.

Christmas and family events were celebrated with family parties and visits to the aunties and uncles, and as I and my sister were the youngest of fourteen cousins, we were ‘looked after’ by our older cousins, who tried to impart their ‘wisdom’ to us!

It was a family that celebrated each other’s achievements and rallied round to help each other when needed. My grandma was very much the matriarch. Two of my uncles and my dad worked together in the same factory along with various other members of the family.

Holidays were shared together; weekends and days out were shared, and we even went on the Friday food shop together to the Gem, a supermarket where the mums met the dads after work on a Friday to get the money straight from their wage packets to do the weekly shop.

We all knew which aunties and uncles would give us sympathy if we were in trouble with our parents, and we knew which ones wouldn’t. We knew how we were expected to behave in each other’s houses and what we could and couldn’t get away with.

Like all families, ours had its ups and downs; people fell out with each other, and there were disagreements, but as a child, I considered our family normal. We were brought up with a clear idea of right and wrong and were made very aware if we overstepped the mark.

We shared common interests and passions. For instance, it wouldn’t have been proper if we supported any other football team than Leeds United (the greatest football team in all the land!).

The notion that family was important was always there, and it was encouraged and instilled in us. To this day that sense of family is still extremely important. Even our children and grandchildren are friends on Facebook, and we keep linked with our cousins this way, celebrating each other’s achievements and sharing in each other’s sadness and heartaches. We still have the occasional family parties and get-togethers.

It is with this background that I write this short book and study notes.

I realize that some of my friends and acquaintances, some of whom were adopted and some who were raised by biological parents, were not all blessed with a family like mine. I am therefore very thankful to God for the family he chose me to be part of and to the family who chose me to be part of them.

Chapter 1

Our Father

Jesus taught us when praying to address God as our Father.

I often hear people talk about how they find it difficult to relate to God as their Father because they didn’t have such a good earthly father, or perhaps their father died, or they never knew their father. I would contend that this has been the same throughout history – that parents have not always got it right but God has made a way for us all to have the perfect Father. God our Father will never let us down or leave us or give up on us. Our parents are given a massive responsibility to raise us, but our heavenly Father is the one Jesus points us to as the one in whom we should put our trust.

How can it be that such an awesome, amazing God, the God of the whole universe could possibly want a relationship with us? Is it actually possible?

The Bible says that if you have placed your trust in Jesus, then you have been adopted by the Father, the God of the whole universe. You are his child. He will give you his name, protection, provision, inheritance, and most importantly, his love. This is not to be taken lightly. It is an amazing gift, and one that many people find hard to grasp and accept.

The Bible tells us in Romans 8:14–16, ‘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 bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God’.

We are not God’s foster children. We are his children, and all the intimacy this suggests is ours if we want it.

Galatians 3:26 says, ‘For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus’.

Ephesians 1:5 tells us: ‘He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, in accordance with his pleasure and will’.

Additionally, there are familiar verses, such as John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him will not die but have eternal life’.

They remind us that those who trust Jesus are destined to live forever with God.

But however great that is, it’s not the whole story. We also enter into a Father-child relationship in the present, with all the benefits and privileges of being a child of the living God. We get him to love us, protect us,