Some of you may be wondering what I'm going to say today, in light of our becoming grandparents, and my obvious obsession with it.  So it probably doesn't surprise you I chose a text that refers to adoption.  Some may even be wondering why I didn't choose the Old Testament lesson from the prophet Micah, but I think I've already overdone it.  It has been a wild and wonderful week in receiving the gift of a wee little 4 1/2 lb. grandson.

          I don't know about you, but I am terrible about giving gifts.  I have little imagination for choosing them, and those close to me will be the first to agree.  I just don't have the knack.  One rare exception was a Christmas gift I gave Carol shortly after we were married.  A local hotel had a holiday special, and I decided to get us a special night away by ourselves.  So I gave her a card telling her something special was coming.  That morning I checked in, and in two trips took in the wine, candy, flowers and music to the room.  That afternoon I told her we were going out for supper and took her to the hotel as the surprise.  The funny thing was that during all those trips I kept passing a certain bellhop who was a member of our church.  I was so absorbed that I didn't recognize him.  That evening when Carol and I came through the doors, he said, "Hi Pastor."  I was stunned and asked if he'd been there all afternoon.  He said with tongue in cheek, "Yes, and I've been wondering who you were going to bring here tonight."  That was a memorable evening, mostly because I had planned it carefully and so far in advance.

          In today's Bible text St. Paul shows us the love and planning God has put into our gift of salvation.  He has richly blessed all of us, and far in advance planned to give us heaven and every spiritual blessing.  There is not one thing we lack in God's gift.  That's why we need to join Paul in saying, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." (Ephesians 1:3)

          Did you know that not one person has ever chosen to become a follower of Jesus Christ?  Not one!  By nature we all lack the wisdom to make such a decision.  So how, then, did we become Christians, people of God?  Jesus says in John 15:16, "You did not choose me, but I chose you."  He chose us - that's how.  We are followers of Christ, not by our own choosing or even by chance.  God chose us to be His people; He wanted us as His people, and so, as Paul says in our text: "He chose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight" (Ephesians 1:4).  Before the world ever took shape, before the first beams of light ever graced the newly created sky, God had it in His mind to have you and me and all believers with Him forever.  For that to happen, you and I needed to be made holy and blameless, just like God, without even a trace of sin in our lives.

          But we're not holy and blameless, and that's a fact!  Sin spoils everything about us.  If our thoughts were rated like movies, the censors would run out of R's and X's to stamp on the garbage that fills our minds.  And pity the poor person who would be responsible for bleeping out the awful things we go around saying.  His task would never end.  You and I are not holy and blameless people, not even close.  We can't live up to God's standards.  Our sins should have earned us an eternity of misery in hell.

          So, what was God thinking when He chose us?  Paul tells us, God was thinking "in Christ."  God chose us not because of who we are or what we'd become.  He chose us because Christ became our holy substitute.  Long before Adam ever drew his first breath of air, God knew of the sin and death that would come to us all.  But already then, there in the Garden of Eden, God had a plan to save us, a plan involving Jesus who would later become, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."  (John 1:29)

          Praise be to God for choosing us in Christ!  From the moment this world was created, God considered His Son as payment for all the world's sin yet to come, from all the people yet to be born.  So Paul tells us in our text, "In love God predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in [Jesus,] the One He loves." (Ephesians 1:4-6)   We are chosen to be God's people.

          The word "adoption" says it all here.  We're all adopted, every believer in Christ.  By our birth and human nature, we are children of sin and wrath, destined to spend an eternity of separation from God.  Without God's intervention, we have no hope.  But God sent us a Savior.  Jesus earned us a place in God's family by keeping God's law for us.  He stopped at nothing to redeem us - to buy us back - from the curse and power of sin.  In our day some people travel to the far side of the world to adopt a child.  We stand in awe of such kindness.  But even greater is the love of our Savior who went all the way to hell and back so that you and I could be His brothers and sisters.

          God's plan to rescue us came at just the right moment in time.  St. Paul says in Galatians 4:4-5, "When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons."  In Paul's day, sons did all the inheriting, but in Christ's family we all inherit, we are all heirs of heaven.  But here's the important thought:  Heirs do nothing to get the inheritance.  Someone else gathers the fortune.  Someone else saves and invests the wealth.  And finally that person must die to pass the estate on to the heirs.  That person for us is Jesus.

          He gave us a place in God's family.  He did all the living and all the dying.  He did all the saving so that we might inherit the riches of heaven.  Our Lord's "Last Will and Testament" went into effect the moment He died.  It was finished.  God's eternal plan had been carried out.

          Our son and his wife had planned for me to baptize little Micah, but due to his size, I advised them to have him baptized as soon as they wanted.  Who does it is not as important as getting it done.  That's good advice for all new parents.  When we're baptized, we're born again as heirs of Jesus Christ and of the forgiveness.  We are born again as God's sons and daughters, with all the rights and privileges.  Praise be to God for adopting us into His family through our Lord Jesus Christ!

          In the Bible, God shares the truths about His eternal plans, so that we might find comfort and confidence in His everlasting love.  We must be so careful, then, not to misuse these blessed truths.  Some think that since God has chosen us to be saved, He must have chosen others to perish.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  God's gift is for the whole world.  He died to pay for the sins of all.  2 Peter 3:9 says "The Lord does not want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."  Again Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:4 that, "God our Savior wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."  We are chosen to be God's people.  It's just sad that some refuse to be adopted.

          Today is Reformation Sunday.  Each year we recall with gratitude the blessings God has given us through the faith, dedication, and biblical scholarship of the men and women of the Reformation.  They discovered in the Bible we are saved by God's grace alone - SOLA GRATIA, they called it.  They discovered that we can come to God by faith alone - SOLA FIDE - and they taught that we can know God's truth by the Scriptures alone - SOLA SCRIPTURA.  Their courage and faith led them to challenge church tradition, to hold out for the truth, as today's Gospel says, "The truth shall set you free." (John 8:32)   That truth says God adopts us into His family through Baptism and gives us a place in heaven.  We're chosen to be God's people.

          Tomorrow is October 31, All Saints' Eve, Halloween, also the anniversary of the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg.  Reformation means needed change, and the church today still needs reforming.  Oct. 31 also means Christmas is getting closer with all its shopping and gift-giving.  The best gifts we get are those that have been lovingly and thoughtfully planned out, like God's gift in Jesus.  It was no last minute purchase, no afterthought.  God planned to give us Jesus already in eternity.  In time He brought His gift to our world and then to our hearts.  His plans never fail, and so the time is coming soon when God will make His gift complete, and bring us to eternal life.  This is our sure hope and our wonderful inheritance - not because of anything we have done, but because of what God has done for us.  We're chosen to be God's people.  All praise and thanks to God, through Christ our Lord and Savior!  Amen.

Copyright © 2005 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.