With the latest under cover video by the Center for Medical Progress, it remains clear that the world is desperately wicked beyond comprehension. That the world defies God and His creation and callously destroys the innocent to satisfy their own lusts. The world stands condemned under the Law… doomed… judged. When Christ returns, He will come in Power, in Might, and in Judgement. While the methods and means of depravity are new, the wickedness of man and the bondage of creation under sin and darkness is not new. While we urge our politicians and doctors to stop the murderous holocaust of unborn babies in this country, and pray for the Grace of God to put leaders in place to remove the government protection of this practice, we know that the only answer to sin, death, wickedness, judgement and eternal punishment is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Preaching the Gospel to the Lost

We are called to preach the Gospel to the lost. There are groups who preach to the homeless, to the migrants, and outside Abortion clinics. I’d like to see more groups doing it. Sadly, we see a growing sense of militancy in some of these programs that lost sight of the Gospel of Grace and Forgiveness. I’d like to see fewer of these. In our American culture, we’ve lost sight of the individual charge to preach the Gospel. We’ve allowed it to become the sole purpose of the weekly service in Church, where (again, as a culture) we’ve jettisoned the real purpose of the gathering of the Saints for “churching the unchurched” or “making unbelievers feel welcome” or “entertaining goats”. The visible church is in need of a reformation once more… away from post-modern nonsense of this current age, away from the CEO model of church leadership, away from treating the Gospel as a product to be sold in bookstores or memberships in the social club labeled the church. The weekly gathering of the saints is for the building up of the believers, equipping them for every good work, including the work of evangelism.

While street-preaching in general has been stigmatized by the anti-christs of Westboro Baptist, and counter-abortion demonstrations have been conducted under the banner of “social activism”, there is another area of ministry that bears an ugly stigma that doesn’t get as much attention these days, so I wanted to spend some time addressing it… the ministry of Adoption Services. There are a few adoption services out there, and the one that my wife and I support and volunteer for locally reaches out to birth mothers with the primary goal of preaching the Gospel to them. Yes, we want to save the baby they are unwilling or believe they are unable to keep, but we also know that lasting change for that woman can only come through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Adoption is a Gospel Theme

Evangelism isn’t about getting people to agree with you about God or to join your club or even to avoid going into certain buildings on a certain day. Evangelism is about preaching Law and Gospel so that the Holy Spirit can do the work of regeneration on dead hearts, bringing them out of darkness so that they might become adopted sons and daughters of the Living God, through faith in Jesus Christ. We are adopted into Heaven, by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Let’s begin reading in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.

Ephesians 1 (ESV)

Greeting

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

I struggled to understand the negative stigma associated with adoption, until I realized the biggest appeal of abortion was that it was being presented as a false gospel, a way of erasing sin so that ‘life could go on free from consequences’. Such a demonic false gospel. The truth is that the mankind, including the unborn, bear the image of God. We also bear the sin of Adam in our flesh. Because of Adam’s sin, we are all born spiritually dead… out-of-wedlock, so to speak, without hope, destined for destruction. A point Paul makes very clearly at the start of the next chapter.

Ephesians 2 (ESV)

By Grace Through Faith

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. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

One in Christ

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Amen. The message of the Gospel is that by the Blood of Jesus Christ, we have been adopted into the household of God, as sons and daughters of the Most High God in Christ Jesus. When it comes to countering the murderous sin of abortion, let us not quickly forget, that Christ died so that these birth mothers might be born-again and adopted into the Kingdom of Heaven, along with their unborn baby.

Our hearts break when a birthmother gives up on her baby and is led astray by the false-gospel of abortion. But we rejoice when a child is saved from destruction, and delivered into the world. Sometimes birth-mothers just need the loving support through the tough road of a pregnancy that was unplanned and even unwanted to see God’s redemption at work in it. Some of these birth mothers keep their babies, determined to love them and care for them. Some give their babies up for adoption into Christian families… and still some find themselves being adopted into the household of Faith, along with their babies. Such is the Church, the Body of Christ. We who are of the household of faith are brothers and sisters, heirs and joint heirs with Christ into the Promise of Heaven and into the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The body of Christ doesn’t grow by the will of man; rather, it grows by the Grace of God. Evangelism is an adoption ministry. The enemy knows this, and this is why he works so hard to stigmatize adoption in the natural. In closing, I’d like to share a few testimonial videos from the local adoption agency we support.

Covenant Care Adoption Services

A Conversation with Birthmothers

Adoption Testimonies: Lauren, Matt & Jamie

For more information on this ministry, visit: http://www.covenantcareadoptions.com/

Ephesians 3:14-21 (ESV) | Prayer for Spiritual Strength

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Amen, indeed.
In Christ Jesus,
Jorge