Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians, welcome to Q and A podcast. Pastor Brian Wolfmuller Here, pastor of St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran Churches in Austin, Texas, together with Pastor Andy Packer, who Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you that you're at your church there, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois, that your shoulders are so broad that one time when you were just wearing your alb and facing the altar, someone was complaining that you put up a screen in the church.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think that's ever happened.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: What do you got for us today?
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Well, we've got a question here on adoption and I'll ask it and also mention why I think it's come up a few times with some questions, but I'll read this first. I want to express how much we, the Canadians, enjoyed our brief visit to St. Paul yesterday. We hope to have the opportunity to do it again soon. So apparently they're just at your church not too long ago. I also wanted to add that I said yesterday about how important your tireless catechetical work has been for me and my family. I've especially benefited from your ability to speak about the sacraments in a way that dismantles the preconceptions held by people coming from evangelicalism. Pray that God would strengthen you to continue the vital work you do. And finally, I have a whatnot podcast related question request. My family is in the process of adopting a sibling group of five boys and girls from Bulgaria. Coming from evangelicalism, we would have always recognized this as being a good thing to do. But since becoming Lutheran, we have come to understand adoption as central to what God does for the believers. I have many thoughts on this, but I would love to hear you and Pastor Packer speak about earthly adoption and its connections to the way that the scriptures speak about our spiritual adoption. And in addition to that, because we've had some questions, I'll let you address it. In relationship to this, you made a joke, I don't know, probably a few months ago now that had something related to telling. Telling a sibling or something they were adopted. And a number of people took offense at that. And we're curious with your stance on adoption because of that joke. And so we can kill two birds with one stone. Yeah, yeah, I'll take over.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: So. So I must have been lying to my brother. Is that what it was? I mean, I was just.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you. It had to do with. Yeah. Something you told your brother, I think, when you were kids or whatever.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I, the.
I. I did a lot of bad things to My brother. And that was included in one of the bad things that I did to my brother.
I. I used to beat my brother up. I used to.
I.
You know, we used to sit on each other and like, dangle spit over each other's face. So telling him that he was adopted is one of those wicked things that I did to my brother. Not a nice thing.
And it's the reason. So look, adoption is.
There's so many ways that adoption is given to us in the Scripture as a good and holy work that we ought to treasure this fantastic gift. So I've got two cousins who are adopted. It's a marvelous thing. In fact, I think it's really important against that childhood is not just an organic but also a legal reality. Just like marriage is not simply an organic but a legal reality. It is key to our understanding of the doctrine of justification.
So let me say with absolute clarity that adoption is good and godly and wonderful, and that the fact that the Lord has not only approved adoption with the law, but also made adoption one of the most beautiful pictures of the Gospel should be enough to support our understanding and our practice of adoption.
Some of the key verses that come up well, so the way to think about adoption theologically is to maybe start with John 3:16, this most famous verse. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life. And we say, so from that question. From that verse, we can ask the question, how many sons does God have? And the answer is, well, he's got only one begotten son.
And so we'd say, well, that means he can only have one son.
But the Bible says no, he can have innumerable numbers of sons and daughters and children, not by begottenness, but by adoption. And so this is the beautiful promise of Romans 8 especially.
You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, abba, Father, so that we are the children of God.
By the Lord claiming us as his children, we're begotten of our parents. We're begotten, as Paul says, as children of wrath.
We are, like Jesus says in John 8, children of the devil.
And yet when the Lord redeems us, he also adopts us, and he puts his name on us. It's one of the things that's happening at the font when we're baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That the Lord is giving us a new name and it is our name. I mentioned I have two adopted cousins. Their last name is Wolf Mueller. That's their name. It's their true name. It's what was given to them in their adoption. And we thank the Lord for that. Great gift. So if anything that I said would lead people to say that there's somehow a despising of the gift of adoption, I apologize sincerely and especially for those families who have adopted children. God be praised. I mean, that kind of open heart and open family, open home and family that's open to receive people like that is a picture of what the church is. And it's absolutely beautiful and absolutely tremendous and should be commended and supported. In fact, we're thinking about a couple people here.
There's a movie that a couple of people at church have talked about and have indicated that there was a church that was basically growing because everybody in the church was like, let's foster care, let's adopt children, let's do this thing. And this is really commendable, not only in the sight of God, but in the sight of man and certainly in my sight as well.
You have thoughts on that?
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot. I actually just had a meeting with two ladies from this ministry here in town called fam Family Advocacy Ministry. I hope I got that right.
And they're doing a lot of great work here in town. They've, they're creating, they call them wraparound groups that support foster care families and adoptive families with people who commit to a year for doing things for them. At least once a month they get a team of people that help that family to make sure that they can support them in their foster care and adoption efforts. And then they've even started reaching out to and ministering to the child caseworkers here in town where they show up like once a month with gifts for them and gift cards and various things for them to help them out with what they're doing. And it's going so well that these, this government run agency here locally has reached out to this church to host their Christmas party because they've, for three years now have been loving and blessing and trying to support those people because they knew that was a key component in all of this too, in the area. And so Pastor Gray and I met with them for about an hour this morning to hear how we could possibly help. I often, I tell people all the time, I do think as Christians, every single Christian household should at least consider, note the language there. Should at least consider foster care and Adoption, you may not be able to do it for various reasons. Like, I know for my family we've been prohibited often because we don't have enough square footage per person because of the size of my family. And they have got some various states have strict rules on that. The time we got to do foster care was because the girls were from an Indian reservation. So we, we weren't under the state laws for doing that that time. But it's an amazing, wonderful thing. And if you can't do it, I think really think our churches should be places where we are encouraging this and supporting. So even if you can't take in kids, but you can probably help those who have taken in kids. And we should be able. I think we should be actively doing those things. Brad Littlejohn, who's an author, reform guy who writes a lot for World magazine, some other places, just had an article this morning about.
He called it the new pro family movement and how the pro life movement was kind of shifting in some ways and that he saw some of these things as good. And part of that is we really need to be out there building up and strengthening the local family. And that happens in all kinds of ways. And not just those who are doing foster care and adoption, but that is part of it. That's a big part of that picture. As you said, it's a beautiful picture of the gospel. And so we should be working hard to see that in our churches, in our communities, something that's supported those families that are doing it, that they get the help and support they need because it is very difficult and hard. So we should be on the forefront of that. That should be something.
As you said, if it's a picture of the gospel, then it seemed to be a natural thing for us to be on the forefront of those things.
And maybe we can put in the comments. I have a I did an interview during COVID with one of our favorite pastors, Pastor Jared Melius, who, as you know, has done a ton of great work with foster care and adoption and speaks very eloquently on these issues. And I talked to him about pro life issues and these things for about an hour in 2020. So maybe I can share the link with that. And if you want to see how, I know a lot of people worry about their kids, maybe we can include a link. This is a selfish promotion on my part, but my daughter Allie wrote essay that won the Lutherans for Life state and national contest for eighth graders. And she wrote about her experience with foster care kids. And she's very honest in it. She says she hated it when we brought them into our house. She despised it. She was mad at us for doing it.
But then when they left, she was heartbroken and she wanted us to immediately do it again. So, you know, and she talks about this, and it's a very brief, short essay, but it's very helpful in seeing that we worry about what's going to do to our kids. But what it ended up doing, like, for her, was teaching her how to love others, how to share that, you know, show the gospel in the flesh with others. And it changed her perspective on the entire thing just from having those girls in our home. So, yeah, something we should definitely care about and pray about and be active trying to do for our neighbor. Because it's a.
If. I mean, think about if even just the families of Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, if all of us were very active in this.
I mean, a lot of these various crises probably in our country could. With, you know, the foster care and adoption, all these other problems related to these things, how much better would the country be if we were all actively participating in this kind of stuff? So it's great.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah. It reminds me of the. You remember this accusation that the early Christians were cannibals. And there was two reasons that they thought this, and one was because they talked about the Lord's Supper eating the body and blood of Jesus. And the other is because the Christian families would go and pick up the babies that were left out and they would adopt them because the Romans, if they had a baby they didn't want, they would just leave exposure and they'd leave the baby out there for the wolves or whatever. And the Christians would go and gather up the babies and raise them as their own because they love the children. And it comes from. So here's maybe the key verse Galatians 4, 4, 5. 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, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
So we are all adopted children into the family of God. And for that we give him great thanks and praise.
Yeah. Let's put those links to those interviews. I didn't. I haven't. I need to watch that interview that you did with Jared. That'd be great. And we'll put that below.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: So that's an audio only. I was, I did some interviews during 2020 on some random topics. I was doing like a daily devotion for my people, you know, during the height of COVID and recorded some books and just some other stuff since I had, you know, a little more time during that. And then I interviewed a few people and I had wanted to interview Jared about that topic, Pastor Emilius. And so he was gracious enough to talk about that. And as you can imagine, it was excellent. Not because I was interviewing him, but because he's just fantastic and was really great on that topic in particular.
So it was a. It was a real blessing to be able to interview him on those things.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Cool.
Very good.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Next. Ready for one more?
[00:13:30] Speaker A: Yep, Yep.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: This one's on the guilt of sin.
I'm struggling with the earthly consequences of sin. I believe my girlfriend broke up with me unexpectedly after she got a feeling because I intentionally viewed explicit material two weeks before the end of our relationship. After being clean for years, but sadly succumbing, I was going to confess, but she broke up with me before I did. I have complete confidence in my forgiveness by the work of Christ, my baptism, and in the Eucharist. Yet the pain and sadness of this failure is agonizing, especially because I had every intention of marrying her. I feel no guilt or worry about my eternity or salvation because of Christ. But the guilt I feel for the pain caused to her and the feeling that's all my fault is crushing me. It's pain and sorrow and guilt. Like I caused a divorce and it's eating me alive. What is the Christian response to this? Another way to phrase this for your Q and A sessions. How do we Christians wrestle with the earthly guilt and consequences of sin and then respond properly to God's discipline? As a. As a start, I haven't. Will continue to be attending private confession with my pastor, a practice I'm extremely thankful for.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: It's an interesting thing that. So thank you for the question. And it's A. And, and I think already the end is the most important part. That there's a helpful conversation happening with your pastor that's going to be key.
What's interesting to me, I would be interested, and I don't know if it'll be possible to find this out, is if the reason for the break off of the relationship is not actually connected with the viewing of pornography. It could be. But what happens when our conscience is guilty is that it tries to connect all the bad things that are happening to the particular sin that we've committed. And so you, you know, you do something wrong and then you get five red lights in a row and you're. And you're like, ah, God is punishing me for that thing that I said or for the thing that I did or for whatever it was. And the, and that the guilty conscience, it provides it. It obscures our capacity to see what's really going on. So I would not be surprised if there was some other things that were happening in the breakup and that.
But it's hard for. To see it because the, of the kind of. The guilt of what's going on there.
And so if there's a I. And again, the breakups are very difficult situations.
I don't know if you guys were. I didn't catch that. There was an engagement that was there, but it was kind of headed that way.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Headed that way. Yeah.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: If there. I don't know if it's. If there's a way to kind of circle back around.
But one of the things that we. So one of the things we want to be careful of is that we do not have this prophetic insight into the bad things that happen to us and the bad things that we do that we can't see the line one to the other.
So we are always. We don't always, but we sometimes will want to connect the dots between our wrong doings and the Lord's affliction of us.
The, the problem is those lines are sometimes a lot more subtle than we can see. And again, we don't have the Spirit, which is what the, the Lord gave to the prophets to be able to see these things. We don't have that spiritual insight that the prophets have. We trust in the Lord's word. We do. I mean, we have the Holy Spirit to confess the Lord and to have wisdom, but it was the counsel of God that the prophets saw that said, I'm bringing this Babylonian affliction because of these sins, and I'm going to. I'm going to send you to destroy Moab and set their city on fire because of these sins that they're doing. And we, we just don't have that prophetic insight. We do have the general wisdom of repentance. So Jesus brings it up like this. He says those guys that were crushed when the Tower of Siloam fell, were they worse sinners than everybody else? No. But unless you repent, the same thing's going to happen to you. So every disaster, both and tragedy, personal and in the world is a reminder that we too should repent. And when we go to repent, it's always those sins that are boiling on the surface of our conscience that we repent of first. But we recognize there's a lot of other things that are happening that we're not even aware of, and we're doing all sorts of stupid, sinful nonsense that we don't even recognize. And so it has to be brought. It has to be brought up to the surface.
And so anyway, I would just maybe offer some of those cautions on the particular situation. Now I think the question is maybe more in abstract of what do we do with the temporal effects of our sin?
And that's the general idea. And number one, it's good to recognize that there simply are temporal effects of sin and that the forgiveness of sins does not take them away. Way, like if I steal a car and then I repent of stealing the car, I still have the stolen car, and it's on me to then try to do what I can, what I'm able to do, to try to restore the damage that's done by my particular sin. And that does not take away the grace of God, the kindness of God, the forgiveness of God. Rather, it grows out of it. And one of the dangers is that we.
We repent of our sins in order to avoid the temporal consequence of them. But that's not repentance. That's actually abusing the gospel. So if I go and repent because I want to, somehow I need help getting away with it, then that is an abuse of Christ and an abuse of the gospel and not a right use of it. So that true repentance wants to make amends insofar as it's possible to the people that we've sinned against, recognizing that God himself does not require amends of us. In other words, we can't make things up with God, but we can at least do some things to try to make things up for the people that we've hurt and harmed around us. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm talking in a circle and not hitting the point, but does that. You want to help me out?
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Yeah, No, I think that's helpful. It's just like it's a problem in our circles, right? Like we. We've seen this time and time again where a pastor gets removed for adultery and he's told, you can't be a pastor anymore. And someone will say, but, but they're forgiven. And so therefore, because they're forgiven, they must be a pastor again. It's like, no, that's actually not the way that works. Like, there's consequences that. That may last far longer than, you know, than the immediate impact of the sin that you just have to deal with. And one of the things I Try to point out sometimes when this comes up is like, look, the fact that you're forgiven before God and that he is going to bring you into his heavenly kingdom forever and ever, like, that should be enough, right? Like, okay, I lost these things and that was awful. And that's crushing. And it's hard, it's difficult because of my sin. I've blown these things and I've ruined these things, and that's awful. But we should be able to take comfort in the fact that, well, I actually am forgiven, though. And, and I think maybe in this case, like, you know, if he did find out that she's like, yeah, it's because you won't stop looking at pornography. That's why I broke it off. And that's crushing. That's hard.
But, you know, he mentioned he sells confidence in his baptism and the Lord's Supper to, To deal with his sin. And then he asked forgiveness. And so. And he's working with his pastor. So I think, you know, the initial shock and pain of that will eventually go away because he's grounding himself in the things that are gonna give him everlasting comfort and hope and peace over time, even while he realizes, man, I really screwed this up and this is the consequence for that. And he's so. I think he's approaching at least the right way, even as he wrestles with the fallout of possibly, as you said, we don't know for sure, but possibly the effects of the sin on the relationship. And that's something we all have to deal with all the time, right? We all do things and we realize that relationship can't be the same because I really screwed that up with them and they've forgiven me, but, you know, they wanting to do with me now or whatever it may be, we all go through that. So I think he's dealing with it in the right way, though. I was impressed. You know, he's like, I'm. I trust my baptism. I'm trusting forgiveness. Lord Supper. I'm going to private confession. Absolution. So I read it and I think, well, you. You feel the guilt, but you're. You're dealing with it all the right way. So I look at it and say, well, he's going to be okay because he's, you know, he's putting himself in. Under pastoral care and he's putting himself under word and sacrament. And so even as he suffers and feels the pain and affliction of these things, he's. He's doing it exactly how a Christian should handle it. So thanks be to God for that.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: There's this. Remember this prayer that we pray after the Lord's Supper, that by this gift we would live in faith toward God and fervent love toward one another. And those two directions in life is probably what we're talking about. So when it comes to our sins against God, we are made right with God by his initiative, by his sacrifice on the cross, and we have that by faith. It's not by works, it's by faith. We are dealing with each other by love. And so when we sin against someone, then what kicks in is love. That I want to do everything I can to make amends for the wrong that I've done and to not burden people with my own sins. I want to bless people and not burden them. Sometimes you just can't undo what you've done. Sometimes you can't fix what you've wrecked. Sometimes the people that you've harmed won't even let you near them and all that stuff. So, okay, but you're trying to do your best to make amends as much as you can. And that does not take away from grace alone. That's just what our life is here below. And there's also a really profound way that we are not only living with the temporal consequences of our own sins, but we're also living with the temporal consequences of the sins of everyone around us.
And in some ways, as a Christian, I'm called to bear the burden and the affliction of the sins of people around me as well.
So what does that mean? I mean, that means that. I mean, just like, do you think as a parent, I'm helping my children work through the consequences of what they've done wrong?
I'm suffering also people's sins against me, and I'm enduring those, not defending myself, but actually trying to sort out how can I bless them. So we're living in this life, which is. I mean, is mostly trying to manage or somehow steward the consequences of sin.
I mean, as a pastor, it seems like that's every conversation.
How are we going to take this disastrous thing and try to move it a half step towards sanctification so that we're called to live with faith toward God and fervent love toward one another?
[00:24:53] Speaker B: No, I think it's exactly right. It's.
And the more we're striving, as I mentioned, with that young man, like towards faith in God, then the love for others will start flowing through that, even when we screw it up and mess up those things and suffer the consequences of sin. But if our faith in God is there still, we can at least have hope and confidence that even if that particular relationship is messed up, it doesn't mean everything, which goes back to the point you made earlier that we try to connect. Well, this sin damaged this thing. Therefore, now all of these things are because I committed this sin. Like everything is connected. Every bad thing that's happened in my life now is because of this one thing. We have faith in God that we can realize, okay, I may have messed that up and that may not be fixable in this life, but it doesn't mean everything and every relationship or everything is going to be messed up because of that particular sin that messed up this other relationship. We can still trust in God to be with us and to bless us and to not. Not everything in our life is going to turn into a consequence for that particular sin, which is comforting. I think it gives us hope that. Because it's no way to live to think, as you were pointing out, that you're, you know, this sin. And particularly it's probably the sins. Right. That we haven't confessed or that are burning our conscience that we think, oh, man, everybody knows about this and that's why they're treating me this way. Or God's out to get me. And so everything that's bad that happened this week is because I did this thing. And so God's out to get me and punish all those around me, my family, my life, because. Because of this thing I did. And it's usually all made up in our minds because of a guilty conscience. And it's not happening that way.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Where does John say to the unclean. All things are unclean in first John. That's the idea there is that you just can't. When your conscience is troubled, the whole world is after you.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: When you have a good conscience now, you can start to see things how they really are.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Right. And that's the problems. Right. The wicked flees even after like the rustling of a leaf. Right. You're always living in fear. That and that. Waiting for that other shoe to drop because of your sin.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Awesome. Thanks for listening to the Q and A podcast for watching. Thanks Pastor Packet for being along. If you want to send questions, wolfmother, co/contact. I think it's working now. Started to get some.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: It is working now.
I think I went from being on top of everything to being buried under a deluge of questions now. So be patient with me.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. But send some more deluge. Pastor Packer. That's what he's looking forward to this Advent season.
But keep the questions coming. They're so great. And God be praised for you for listening.
Happy Thanksgiving. This next week. Remember that thanks is always first. The Lord calls us to give thanks in all circumstances. And in fact, Paul says that a lack of recognition of God as creator and thanks is the root of all of our cultural idolatry and rot in Romans Chapter one. So let's give thanks to God for all of his benefits and rejoice in him and we'll see you soon. God's peace be with.
