Orphan Sunday: God's Heart for Orphans and the Vulnerable

So today is National Orphan Sunday.

Not sure if you're aware of that, but this is a Sunday that the church sets aside to remember and consider and pray for orphans in our community and around the world.

And so as I talk, I am asking the Holy Spirit to do a few things to open our hearts, open my heart, and open your heart.

And here are the things that I've been asking for and I'm asking for this morning.

Number one is this is that you would consider what does it mean for me to join God in caring for orphans?

Number two would be, and if you're on our community care team, about 35 of us in our church, there's a group of 35 that's on a community care team.

And if you're on that team that you would consider on behalf of our church during this message, what does it mean for our church to care for orphans?

And then lastly, would you be willing to not minimize your own pain and see perhaps you have experienced orphanhood in some way?

So I want to pray for those three things quickly before we get into the sermon.

God, we come before you and know that when it comes to caring for the vulnerable, it is the very thing that you do.

It is who you are.

God, would you help our hearts be opened up this morning to what it would mean for us to join you and care for orphans and the vulnerable?

Would you help our church this morning to discover what it might mean for our church to care for vulnerable children?

And would you help us to not minimize our own pain and our own journeys spiritually, maybe even physically, emotionally, that maybe we have experienced orphanhood in some way.

And we need to hear this morning that you are the father to the fatherless.

Holy Spirit, we ask for you to do that work in us and in our church this morning.

Amen.

If you were here last week, Jim Moon came up and he spoke for a few minutes before the sermon.

Jim is a missionary.

He helped our church be created.

He was a church planning coach for me in our little group eight years ago when we started our church.

And so before he came up, I introduced him.

If you remember this, I stood up here and I mentioned that, and then I mentioned what he does now because he's now he works for an organization called Church Multiplication Ministries, and he's a church planning coach, and he does this overseas in a few countries.

And so I introduced him, right?

That's what I did.

Like you've seen that done before.

Maybe you've done that where you've introduced someone.

And when you do that, you mention the thing that they spend the majority of their energy and time doing.

That's how you introduce somebody.

You lead in the main thing, right?

You lead in the main thing they spend their life doing.

Now they think about, they do other things, right?

They do other things with their life, but you lead with the main thing.

So think about this.

Over and over again in the scriptures, God is introduced as father to the fatherless.

So he wants to be known as the God to the vulnerable and the broken.

He can be introduced in any way and known for anything, and he picks compassion as one of the dominant ways that he wants to be known.

This is how author and Pastor Tim Keller explain that idea.

Realize then how significant it is that the biblical writers introduce God as a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows.

This is one of the main things he does in the world.

He identifies with the powerless.

He takes up their cause.

So just for us to get our minds around orphans and orphanhood, here's some statistics on orphans.

This is from the Christian Alliance for Orphans.

The total estimated number of orphans worldwide today is 140 million.

So that means that they've lost either their father or mother, so they could still have one of them.

So the definition, I even know these definitions before I got into it this week.

So the definition that if you've lost, if a child has lost both their father and the mother, that's called double orphan, that's the term.

And so there's 15.1 million double orphans.

They have no mom and they have no dad.

Now the estimated number of children on streets or in residential care is between two and eight million.

And then the number of U.S.

children, mostly school age and older, because that's where it becomes difficult for them to get adopted because most people go to adopt the younger ages.

101,000 children between school age and older needing care and awaiting adoption.

And so into that knowledge we read James 1.27.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

So that word visit means to look upon, to help or benefit.

To look upon, to help or benefit.

So it doesn't mean like just visit, right?

Like you go and visit and then you leave.

Like it doesn't mean just visit.

It also doesn't necessarily mean adopt.

It doesn't necessarily mean now it doesn't not mean adopt.

What it means is you are lovingly moving toward the orphan for their well-being.

You're lovingly moving towards part of the trajectory of your life, part of your life.

Point number one is this out of his heart of compassion, so where it begins, God calls his people, the church, to care for the vulnerable.

Out of his heart of compassion, God calls his people to care for the vulnerable.

The word religion here in this context for James, he's speaking of this as the inner truth and the outer expression, that these two things are connected of your spiritual relationship with God.

That's what that's what true religion is to James.

It's the inner truth and the outer expression, all that's connected.

So in the context here in the ancient Near East, three people groups had become dominantly vulnerable.

And that's why we hear these three people groups mentioned over and over and over again in the scriptures: orphans, widows, sojourners.

And a sojourner is a foreigner or an immigrant.

They had no clan, they had no family, they had no tribe, therefore they had no protection, they had no provision.

It would be like being in Tehran today with no passport, no money, no phone, no family, and the American embassy just closed down.

That's what it would be like.

You're totally exposed.

Suddenly you would become vulnerable to oppression.

You would become vulnerable to exportation.

That's what these people groups were like.

But God, rich in mercy, cares for the vulnerable and calls his church to do the same.

Psalm 82, verse 3 give justice to the weak and the fatherless, maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

Psalms 82:3

So I want to show you just very clearly in God's word, I want to systematically show this to you how clear this is.

So a little bit of a Bible study here for a few minutes.

Number one is this God cares for orphans as a father to the fatherless.

Psalm 68, 5 says that, gives God that title, Father of the Fatherless.

Hosea 14, verse 3.

Hosea 14:3

In him the orphan finds mercy.

Deuteronomy 16, 9 through 11, orphans were welcomed into worship.

Deuteronomy is this book where God's beginning to outlay what a community of faith would look like for the Jewish people.

Number two is this God provided strategic provision for orphans.

It was almost a, we can think of it as a systematic generosity.

Deuteronomy 14 and also chapter 26.

Every three years, very systematically, every three years, the tithe goes to the orphan, the widow, and the sojourner.

Almost like a charitable fun, systematic within the community to care for these people.

Deuteronomy 24, 19 through 21, give the remainder from your harvest, olive trees, and vineyards to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

Number three, God defends orphans.

Deuteronomy 10, 17 and 18.

God executes justice for the fatherless and the widow.

See, societal laws, communal laws, societal laws, legislation on behalf of orphans begins in the heart of God.

That's why we are for this legislation.

We are for that sort of community and society and those laws.

Number four, God prohibits oppression of orphans and demands just treatment.

Jeremiah 22, verse 3, do no wrong to the resident, foreigner, widow, orphan.

Jeremiah 22:3

Zechariah 7, 8, and 10.

Do not oppress the widow or sojourner.

So just over and over and over again, embedded in the story that we have of our faith, is a God introducing himself, revealing himself father to the fatherless, caring for the vulnerable.

There's a story in Matthew 19, Jesus is traveling through an area.

You probably remember the story, a group of children approach him.

And as soon as the children come up, you know, the disciples are like, oh, you know, get away.

Like, you know, Jesus has important people to deal with.

Because children, I mean, let me be honest.

I mean, children are messy.

I mean, they're gifts, right?

I mean, they're gifts, but they're they're like messy gifts.

And you know that because you were with your nephew or, you know, a neighbor's kid or your kid, and you took your two-year-old into Kroger, you had six minutes to get like bananas and dog food to serene wrap, and you know, and it's just like it was so hard, right?

They touch everything and they cry and then they yell, and then they laugh all in like 30 seconds, and they cry again, and then they laugh, and then you laugh with them the second time, and you think there's nothing better than this, right?

Like in the second time, then they cry again, and you think there's a lot better than this, right?

It's just like it's a messy gift that they bring to us.

But they do slow us down.

They like wonderfully slow us down, and they bring us into the present.

They reveal and remind us that we aren't perfect either.

It becomes painfully aware at times, and that we're still loved, just like they aren't perfect and they are loved.

The disciples just figured Jesus had more important people, like people who maybe had their acts together more or could do things for him.

That he couldn't bother with like expendable children.

And Jesus says, Let the little children come to me, do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

Now he's not speaking about the innocence of children.

The Bible doesn't teach about the innocence of children because the Bible says we're all sinners, and if you have a child, you know that as well.

Jesus is speaking about their weakness and need and vulnerability.

See, a child, an orphan, especially so, is incredibly vulnerable.

They're weak and dependent, they're horrible at hiding their flaws and their feelings.

We might say they're wonderfully good at not hiding their flaws and feelings, and something we should learn from.

They tend to trust and welcome being loved.

They long to be loved, haven't learned to hide from that yet.

And in this way, children have so much to teach us.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these, not just the children, but us.

And this is where we get point number two, just a two-point sermon this morning.

Point number two, we were spiritual orphans, all of us, yet God loves us as his beloved children.

Romans 8, 15 and 16, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, as sons, and we could say as sons and daughters, by whom we cry, Abba, Father, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Right?

Another reminder that the Christian life is not a ladder to climb, but it's actually an adoption of our heart by God.

God welcomed us to Himself.

We know it clearly in the cross.

Our sin is put upon Jesus, His righteousness is given to us.

We are fully his beloved children.

So we were moved from being an orphan spiritually to being an adopted child where you do have all the love and belonging and welcome that your heart wants?

Two contemplative questions for us.

Two contemplative questions is this.

Number one, in what ways do I still live as a spiritual orphan while truly being a child of God?

In what ways is that still going on for me?

In what ways am I still living as a spiritual orphan, even though I'm a child of God?

Number two, what would it mean for my heart to rest more deeply in my identity as the beloved child of the loving Papa?

That's what Abba means.

Our hearts, our spirits are crying out, Abba God, Papa, Papa.

Pastorally, I'd just like to say it's possible some of you, whether you're here, you're watching online, that you were you were an orphan.

You don't talk about it a lot.

Maybe you hadn't talked about it in years.

And that you're still healing from that journey that you've been through.

Incredibly painful.

And many of us were orphaned to some degree.

Because your mom took off and left.

Or your dad took off and left.

They did not stay in your life emotionally.

Or maybe they stayed in the house, but they left emotionally.

And there was neglect, or maybe there was abuse.

And that that is that is experiencing orphanhood.

And we don't have to minimize our pain in order to have compassion on someone who is an orphan with both of their parents who have deceased or left them.

We don't have to minimize our pain in order to create compassion towards somebody else.

Actually, the way in which to have compassion on someone else is to face any of the pain we do have and to realize that God is the father to the fatherless to us.

That out of his compassion to us, we can begin to heal and have compassion toward someone else.

A couple of years ago, I was on a short vacation to Florida with some friends of ours.

It was our family and their family.

Their family's a lot bigger.

That's a lot.

They win, that's pretty sure.

They have two white biological children, as they are both white, and then they have five African American adopted children.

We're out by the pool, they're all playing.

There's a lot of them.

There's a lot going on for me.

They're all there and they're running around.

And they're all over the place.

And I'm a curious person, so finally I asked my friend, I said, like, when you see your children, do you see their skin color?

Like, do you see your white children as white and your brown children as brown, or do you just see them as your children?

Like, how's that work?

How's that work for you?

I'll never forget what he said.

I see their skin color like you see hair color.

That's what he said.

It's part of who they are, and they are fully mine.

He said, I have chosen them.

See, this is what we have in the Father.

He fully sees us, He fully sees us, He loves us, He has chosen us.

J.I.

Packer, in his great book, Knowing God, he wrote this: you sum up the whole New Testament teaching in a single phrase.

If you speak of it as the revelation of the fatherhood of the Holy Creator, for everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new better than the old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God.

Father is the Christian name for God.

Church, we're going to close the sermon by praying.

We're going to pray for our hearts, and we're going to pray for vulnerable children and orphans.

On the screen, you're going to see 10 prayer points.

I'm going to pray our way through it.

There's two slides.

They'll flip halfway through the prayer.

You are welcome to keep your eyes open during this prayer if you want to follow along on the prayer points.

I didn't know if you're aware of that, but you can pray with your eyes open.

That will be okay.

We're very progressive here in that way.

And so as I pray, you can follow your way through these prayer points and pray with me.

You don't have to.

If you want to close your eyes and really focus in, you can do that as well.

But we're going to spend a few moments in praying for our hearts and for vulnerable children and our community around the world and people who are caring for them and spending their lives caring for them.

So let's pray together.

God, we begin by confession of our lack of love for the vulnerable and orphans by our absolute preoccupation with things that don't matter.

God, would you forgive us for being so off mission?

God, would you help us personally help me to grasp your heart for orphan care and adoption and protection and provision?

Would you help our church, Christ the Redeemer, to grasp that and what that might mean for us?

Would you help the church in the U.S.

as so many churches joined this morning?

Is what we're doing right here, they're doing the same.

Would you open our hearts?

Would you open our churches to what it would mean to be a part of your move for the care of orphans?

Would you help the global church in the same?

God, we invite the Holy Spirit to empower our hearts toward compassion and love.

God, we know there are children nearby that are in foster care.

And they are facing life without their father or their mother.

And they're wondering what it would mean or look like to be in a family to have a loving father or mother.

And would you comfort them in their quiet moments?

Would they hear from your Holy Spirit in the quiet of their hearts that you are not punishing them, but you are the father to the fatherless.

God, we pray for orphans worldwide, for physical provision, for protection through the church, through governments, through systems, and that they would experience love and belonging through loving people coming alongside them, and that they would know the love of God.

God, we pray for social workers and the ministries that they give through our systems.

Would you give them increased patience and compassion in those systems?

God, we pray for officials that make decisions on behalf of the vulnerable, on behalf of orphans and widows and foreigners.

And we pray for the ministries serving youth and creating places of safety.

God, we pray for families that have adopted, that mentor or foster.

God, we know that that is a hard calling.

And so, God, we pray that you would provide for them and their hearts through their finances and in spirit.

God, we need your personal guidance on your call for our hearts.

And what would it mean for us to join you in the care for orphans?

Would you help us in continued prayer, thoughtful action, and advocacy for orphans?

And God, would you this morning, for so many of us, we needed it, we needed to hear, you are the father to the fatherless.

So many of us carry in minimized pain and emotional wounds.

And we need to hear, you are the loving Abba.

Would you put in our hearts gratitude for your compassionate heart to all the vulnerable, all the broken, even to us?

Would you put in our hearts gratitude as we get to call you Abba Father?

We thank you that this is possible through the gift of Jesus.

That we have moved from orphanhood to your children.

In Jesus' name, we pray.