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DOES GOD HAVE FOSTER CHILDREN?

There’s a face-reddening experience I think every schoolteacher has been through many times — and preachers encounter it too. You have a kid in your third-grade class; let’s say her name is Susie Jones. You get to know her fairly well, and when it comes time for the first “Home and School” meeting, or the first PTA luncheon, or the annual “meet the parents” night, Susie introduces you to her mom. So you juggle your punch and cookies, shake the lady’s hand, and say: “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Jones.” The only problem is: the woman’s name isn’t Mrs. Jones. It’s Mrs. Brown. And she explains to you: “Oh, Susie is my husband’s daughter from his first marriage. Bill and I just got married eight months ago and I have two sons from previously.”

“Oh,” you say, and you try to file it all away. Sometimes a family will come to church, and the children in the clan will come from three different combinations of parents. No two children have the same last name.

We’ve occasionally drawn anecdotes from a shattering book by David Blankenhorn, published back in 1995, entitled Fatherless America. It’s full of painful statistics regarding children who grow up in a fragile step-child situation, where they can never know for sure that there’s going to be a roof over their heads and a dad in their life. He quotes from sociologist and author Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., who points out that:

“Most studies show that children in stepfamilies do not do better than children in single-parent families; indeed, many indicate that on average children in remarriages do worse.”

Another step-family expert, Harold Bloomfield, hones in on the “what is my last name?” dilemma. Listen to this:

“Stepchildren who keep their father’s name ‘often feel embarrassed, particularly at school or church where the difference becomes conspicuous. The child suddenly finds himself or herself having to explain why he or she has a different name than his or her own mother.’”

Well, friend, this isn’t exactly our topic for the week, and I want to pause right here and give a huge Voice of Prophecy salute to the wonderful step-dads, step-moms, and step-children who are going the second and third mile to create a new haven of safety and love. That’s really a divine miracle when it happens, and hats off to those who work so hard on it. But the subject WE’RE studying is the family of God, and a very similar sense of insecurity many of heaven’s sons and daughters seem to feel as well. A person who accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior joins the family. They get a new name, as it were: “Christian.” They enjoy the privileges and benefits of belonging. But then the question must be asked: is this situation going to be permanent? Is this child permanently adopted or is he just a foster kid? If he’s picked up for some misdemeanor and hauled off to juvy, will he then forfeit the name and the mansion?

Speaking of “adoption” versus “foster care,” we did a radio series not so long ago on the very topic of spiritual adoption, so we got rather familiar with the hallmark verse found in Ephesians 1. Here’s the passage again:

“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. For He CHOSE us in Him BEFORE the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be ADOPTED as His sons [and daughters, we might add] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.”

Romans 8 uses the exact same metaphor, especially in the King James:

“For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of ADOPTION, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Then Paul adds: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we ARE the children of God.”

Let’s notice several things here. First of all, the Bible says we’re adopted. It’s not supposed to be temporary; it’s not supposed to be a shuttling from one home to the next one. Secondly, it’s the kind of adoption that should take away our fear. “NOT the spirit of bondage again to fear,” Paul writes. The children of God should know that they are in the family, that they carry with them that “new name written down in glory,” as the gospel song says. AND that they can keep the name. And the family ring. And the mansion. And the eternity.

Thirdly, we should be aware that the Holy Spirit is present to always remind us of our safe position in God’s family, that we ARE — and always WILL be — sons and daughters. We don’t have to continually worry or be anxious about it.

Immediately some very real — and hard — questions come into our minds. What if I fall into apostasy? Or serious sin? Can a person just join God’s family and then blatantly do as he or she pleases, and still stay? Those are fair, biblically responsible questions, and we’ll prayerfully try to find answers for them in the 66 inspired books of the Bible. But we have to BEGIN with the things that we plainly know. Two of them are right here. First of all, Jesus Himself tells us this about those who come into His family — and this is in John 5:24:

“Truly, truly, I say to you,” He says, “he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, HAS eternal life, and DOES NOT COME INTO JUDGMENT, but has passed out of death into life.” “He has CROSSED OVER from death to life,” says the NIV.

The Message paraphrase puts it like this:

“Anyone here who believes what I am saying right now and aligns himself with the Father, who has in fact put Me in charge, HAS AT THIS VERY MOMENT the real, lasting life and is no longer condemned to be an outsider.”

In not one of these versions does it say: “You have crossed over and have eternal life as long as you . . . A, B, C, D, and E.”

One pastor who has done a lot of ministering in this very area of Bible study goes back to our “foster child” motif, and has this to say:

“I have met and worked with teenagers and young adults who, because of unfortunate circumstances, were passed around from foster home to foster home. The emotional and mental damage is devastating. Self-esteem is almost non-existent. Their environment has bred into them a deep sense of insecurity. The only thing I have seen really work for kids with this background is overpowering love, the kind that takes them from wherever they are and sticks with them through all the necessary stages of recovery.”

Now, friend, does a kid who’s adopted into a new home need to live in a new way? Of course he does. Does the new home have rules? Certainly. No loving parent would set things up otherwise. But BEFORE obedience can happen, the child has to feel safe. The permanency of his new family needs to settle in. Let’s notice that both Paul and John, who write about adoption and security, are also extremely voluminous, shall we say, about obedience and good works! They both emphasize sanctification and a changed life. But obedience and growth will never happen in a fragile, fearful, spiritually insecure person.

Finally, let’s rejoice in the news that “adoption” is a biblical model, a teaching model that was inspired by heaven itself. Paul didn’t have to say “adoption.” If salvation and our position as Christians depended on what we do or on how we perform or on how correct our theology is or how strong our faith is at all moments in time, God could just as easily have inspired Paul and John to present the gospel message more as a conditional contract, points out Dr. Charles Stanley in his 1990 book on the subject, Eternal Security. But very clearly, God wants for His sons and His daughters to think of themselves as exactly that, and to also have in their hearts at all times these ideas: permanence. No fear. Confidence. Security. Trust. Safety.

In closing, let’s accept what the Bible plainly tells us about when God first planned to have us in His family. Not when we were baptized. Not when we were born again or even born. Not when the news first came from the doctor’s office and your mom began to pick out names and a bassinet. No, Paul writes, God chose you from before the foundation of the world. Yes, you have free will — and always have and always will. You finalized the adoption when you accepted Jesus. But God could look down in time, through His infinite, unlimited foreknowledge, and see that you WOULD accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. And so your adoption has its roots in the loving mind of God long before He cleared His throat in Genesis one, verse three, and said “Let there be light.” We need to remember the perfect foreknowledge of God whenever we entertain a picture of God writing our name in His book, then erasing it, then writing it in again, then taking it out, back and forth, using up a gallon of white-out or floppy disks keeping track of your revolving-door status. Friend, it doesn’t happen that way and doesn’t HAVE to happen that way because God knows the end from the beginning.

“You have crossed over,” He says with great joy. And as far as He is concerned, it’s a one-way bridge.