ADOPTION: the story of salvation
Adoption is God's plan
We as a church family support adoption because we believe our Heavenly Father desires to display how we can be perfectly adopted into His family and saved from our own hopeless condition. We are orphans without Jesus because we are created with a longing for identity that only He can fulfill. Though you may not think of yourself as an orphan, the Bible speaks truth about a person's heart condition and state without God's grace:
Ephesians 2:3
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Galatians 4:4-8
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 sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a son, then an heir through God.
Titus 3:3-7
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Although the adoption of a child into a family is a beautiful picture of Christ's love, there is a much more miraculous and costly adoption of the children of God in Christ. Consider the words of Jesus when he spoke of spiritual adoption in John 14:18: "I will not leave you as orphans".
James 1:26-27
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.