I’ve been adopted and I’m glad about it. Find out who adopted me.

Jerry Parries: I’ve been adopted, and I’m glad about it. Find out who adopted me, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life, here to communicate the freeing truth that God’s not mad at His children. Steve invited our friend Jerry Parries to teach this week. Jerry is the pastor of Christian Family Worship Center House of Grace, and the author of Grace: The Real Good News of the Gospel.

Jerry Parries: Thank you Matthew. Jeremy, I am back. I’m back. I’m back. And guess what? They call this hump day. You know, this is Wednesday and I’ve been here on Key Life for the week. And if you’ve been waiting on Dr. Steve Brown and this man that’s full of wisdom and the holy man of God, we call him around here. He’s allowed me to sit in and take the wheel this week. And I am tremendously grateful for the opportunity to share with you today. My name is Pastor Jerry Q. Parries and I’m one of the voices of Key Life. And I’ve been here all week sharing a message that the Lord has given me, that’s entitled The Great Things God has Done for You. And I’ve been sharing this message and I definitely want to continue today and so call a friend, call a family member and say, if you ever wanted to know what Jesus have done for you, this is the week that I am sharing this information. Before I get started, I always like to make a confession over my life. And I think this confession is something that you should do every single day because Jesus says you shall have whatsoever you say. So, make this confession with me. Repeat after me. The favor of God is over my life. God is a hundred percent pleased with me because of Jesus Christ. God is able to make all the grace abound towards me. Wow. Repeat that every day and you will find out that great things will begin to happen in your life. Well, we took our text from Ephesians the first chapter, starting at the 14th verse. And I went to the very last verse that simply said.

He did this so that we would praise and glorify him.

So, all week we’ve been asking the question, what did he do? Because you cannot praise God authentically. Well, you cannot praise him with a pure heart. The Scriptures say.

He that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

You can’t worship him in truth if you don’t know what it is that he’s done for you. So, we’ve been sharing all week some of the things that God has done for you. And it’s found right here in Ephesians, the first chapter, starting from the third verse. And the first point I made on Monday is that he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Now, the second thing that he did for us is that you are chosen by God. And the third thing that he did is that he’s made us holy without fault in his eyes. So, today I want to talk about the fourth and fifth thing that he has done for us. Listen to what it says in Ephesians the first chapter starting in the fifth verse.

So God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure.

Wow. That is so exciting that you and I have been adopted into the family of God. What an amazing, an amazing privilege. I don’t really think that we fully understand how much access we have towards our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ because we are adopted into the family. I give this illustration when I’ve preached before in my church that I have three grandchildren. My first grandson, he’s been spoiled by me. You know, the first one is always spoiled, you know, he is just absolutely spoiled rotten. And so, he can get anything from me that he wants because I’m just absolutely crazy about it. And that’s the way God is about us. He’s just crazy about us. So, when he messed up in school, when he was in elementary school, he messed up and his report card wasn’t great. And I picked him up and I said, why is your report card is like this? What are you doing? Blah, blah, blah. He looked at me and said, Papa, I’m sorry. I said, okay. He said, now, can we go to McDonald’s? And it was like that, you know, I messed up but because I know you love me, your love for me is greater than my mess ups, you know. And so, he said, let’s go to McDonald’s. Let’s go. We took him to McDonald’s. Then I have another grandson who’s a little immature. He’s younger and he reminds me of James. The Bible says in James, the person that waivers get nothing. Y’all remember that Scripture? He that waivers get nothing. He comes to my pantry and I always have snacks in there for my grandkids. And he comes in there and he goes into the pantry and he says, Papa, he says, I want a snack, but I know you’re not going to give it to me. And then he’ll walk out and I say, well, what do you want? And he never answers me. And he just goes away and he comes back and say, Papa, I, I want something, but I know you’re not going to give it to me. And he does this about three times. And after a while, I look at him and say, don’t you come back in here and ask me for nothing else. Okay. And don’t, because you’re not asking me, stop doing this. And that reminds me of the way that, because we don’t know our position because he’s immature and he doesn’t know that he can get anything from me because I already love him. I’ve already forgiven him and for his past, his present. It doesn’t matter what it is. He doesn’t take the opportunity to take full advantage of his position in the family. He doubts whether or not I’m going to do it. And that’s what we do to the Lord. Is this making any sense to anybody, that’s what we do to the Lord. I have a fourth granddaughter actually that is kind of adopted into the family. And she comes into the house, she has all rights and privileges to go into the refrigerator to get anything that she wants. But because she is a bonus daughter, a granddaughter, she comes and asks me for water. She asked me, can she go into the refrigerator? She asked me for everything. And it’s almost like, honey, you’ve been adopted into the family. Everything that’s in this house belongs to you, go get it. And that’s the way that we treat the Lord. Sometimes we feel like that we have to, we don’t have the authority to ask for the blessings of God. We don’t have the authority to move and ask God for certain things in our lives. And we doubt whether he’s going to do it because we don’t realize our position, but Ephesians one in five declares to us that God has adopted us into his family. And not only has he adopted us, but he wanted to do it and it gave him great pleasure. And so, therefore you and I should rejoice that we are now in the family of God, we have all the rights, all the privileges, and everything that belonged to Jesus now belongs to us. Everything that Jesus had access to, so do we as his children, because we have been approved of God based upon the blood of Jesus over our lives. Listen to what verse six says.

So we praise God for his glorious grace he has poured out on us.

That’s the next thing that he has done for us. He has poured out his grace upon us. He didn’t trickle out his grace. He poured his grace upon us. We should have been disqualified, but God’s grace have covered us. We, some of us should have been in jail, but God’s grace have covered us. Some of us should have been dead and gone, but God’s grace has covered us and he is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with his blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has shown his kindness on us along with all wisdom and understanding. Wow. What an incredible God we serve. Here’s what he’s done for us. I told you on Monday that he’s blessed us with every spiritual blessing. I told you on Tuesday you have been chosen by God. He has made you holy without fault in his eyes. Today, I taught you, you have been adopted by God. All rights and privileges belongs to you. Everything that Jesus has access to, you have access to as well because you are a child of God. The fifth point that I shared with you today is that he has poured his grace on you. People of God, you are favored by God, man, that is good news. Listen, my grandson, let me give you another story about my grandson real quick. I had bought him all of these wrasslers, toy wrasslers. I mean, he had every wrassler that you can think about. And one day Christmas came and he came to me with the catalog and he said, Pawpaw, he says, I want these wrasslers. I said, I’m not buying you another wrassler. You have too many wrasslers. I mean, we had like 100 of them. I am not buying one more wrassler. He walked out of the room and he came back into the kitchen. He’s about seven or eight years old, he came back in the kitchen and he walked past me and said thank you for the wrasslers and he kept walking. I said, I’m not buying them. He come back the next day when I picked him up from school, he said, Pawpaw I just want to let you know how much I love you and thank you for the wrasslers. I just looked at him and smiled. I didn’t say nothing. Next day he came to me and said, Pawpaw, how you doing today? I said, I’m doing well. He was worshiping me. He was, he was thanking me, he was honoring me. And when he finished, he said, thank you for the wrasslers. Do I need to tell you what I did on Christmas Day? He had those wrasslers sitting under the Christmas tree. Why? Because he was favored by me. And when you declare that you are favored by God, when you speak that you are his child, when you know that you have every spiritual blessing, when he has made you holy, blameless, without a single fault in his eyes, you are able to go to daddy and say, daddy, thank you in advance for what you’re going to do for me. As Dr. Steve Brown would say, you think about that. And if that blessed you, we agree. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
We are adopted and accepted. So man, open up that fridge and enjoy. What a beautiful way of understanding our relationship with God thanks to Jesus. Thank you Jerry Parries. And we still have one more day with Jerry, that’s tomorrow, so be sure to join us for that. And by the way, if you’d like to re listen to any of this week’s broadcasts with Jerry, or maybe something encouraged you and you’d just like to share it with a friend. Well, great news. All of our shows, our podcasts, articles, videos can be found at keylife.org and while you’re there, take a look at the transcripts for each episode of Key Life. They’re there to help you study and to assist those who have challenges with hearing. Keylife.org is also where you can find books from Jerry Parries, Justin Holcomb, Pete Alwinson, Matt Heard, and Steve of course, along with so many others. Just head to keylife.org/store and as always all of our features on keylife.org are still free thanks to the generous support of listeners just like you. If you’d like to donate, just call 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. If you’d like to send your donation by mail go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada or e-mail [email protected]. You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. And of course now you can give safely and securely through text. Simply text Key Life to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.