Orphan Sunday

This is what we shared at our church, Oasis Christian Center, for Orphan Sunday.

About 2 years ago God placed the burden for orphans in our hearts. As we prayed and studied God’s word He opened our eyes to the global orphan crisis. If the church is to be fully mobilized to address this crisis, what we need to see is not simply the face of an orphan but the face of Jesus.

God’s heart for the orphan is great. Throughout scripture God shows this. God calls Himself the father of the fatherless. He says He delights in setting the lonely in families, and He asks us to care for the orphans, the fatherless and those who don’t have a family. The greatest thing is we know God loves orphans because we know God loves us. While we were still worthless abandoned, hopeless orphans, God showed us His amazing love by adopting us into His family and giving us the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out “Abba, Father”. We have heard it said “Adoption is the visible gospel”. God desires that we show this love to the world by going out and in the same way caring for orphans in their distress. This is not about us fulfilling our responsibility. This is not, “you better do it or else.” God comes to us as a Father full of love. We are not His children because of what we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished, or because of any merit of our own. God clearly says that He predestined us to be adopted into His family, to become His children “according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise and glory of His grace.”

We are all sitting here today because at some point in our life God has revealed Himself to us and showed us our need for Him and now we are no longer orphans but fully adopted sons and daughters of God. What a sense of security that brings - knowing the God of all the universe loves us so much that he would send his only son to die for us that we would be called his children.

How do we show hope to a world that is so desperate and a world that is truly hopeless. In Matthew 25 Jesus said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Truly I say to you as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers you did it to me.”

Jesus words tell us that when we look into the face of the orphan or the face of the sick, oppressed, imprisoned or poor we are to see more than their faces we are to see His. We need to be melted by the face of the crucified and risen Jesus.

So how do we respond beyond what is comfortable and easy. If we will respond to the needs of orphans in the same way that God responded to the need of His orphans, by sacrificing His son, then imagine what could start happening. If we respond beyond our own ease and convenience with a focus on Jesus and Him crucified for us. If we responded like a people who have the greatest gift in the world, eternal life through the hardest sacrifice ever made, what would we do? Would we take the path of least resistance or would we throw ourselves before the Lord exulting His goodness and asking Him to show us what our role is. We all have a different part to play. Ask God to have His way with your life and you may be surprised at how He uses you. You may find yourself led to adopt or be a foster parent when you thought you could not. You may find yourself praying and being an advocate. You may find yourself serving in another country. You may find yourself giving beyond what you give now. Or you may find yourself involved with the fatherless children right here in Midland Beach who have been orphaned by divorce or death. We are inviting you to join us as we pray about what steps we can take as the local church to help the orphan crisis and bring hope and the love of Jesus to the least of the least.