OUR GOD AND FATHER
(Adoption Sunday)
1 Thess 3: 11-13 (p 836) Nov. 4, 2012
INTRODUCTION:
How do you get to the place where you genuinely consider someone who is not your Biological Mom or Dad…your mother or father..? I know there are cliché’s and quotes…like “Any Man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Dad”
Well, the first step is probably you have a Man or a Woman who makes the decision to adopt you as their son or daughter…A couple who decides that they will, become parents to a child that is biologically not theirs…some because they could not have children, and others because they want to love and reassure a child, or a million different reasons..
We’ve had many couples associated with Fern Creek Christian Church, who have done this or desire to do this… (You heard from Brian and Jennifer Clark at our communion meditation) David & Suzanne Kiser, Fred and Delores Woosley, Jeff and Jessica Hale, Steve and LuAnn Johnson…Mike & Jill Hook. All will tell you that one of the finest most important and special days of their lives were when the adoption papers for their children were signed. Some were already parents, some became parents for the very first time…Regardless, this day was life changing for both their child and the parents..
One of the instructions we received before my trip to Haiti the first time was…”Be very cautious about holding or touching the children! Where we were on the streets of Port An Prince it seems like thousands surrounded us…we were “Blanka” White…If your white and you’re in Haiti…Port An Prince…Uhhh…you are easy to Find…in a city of 6 million…the children come from the garbage dumps and the slums…and many wanted candy, but all of them wanted love…and if you were there and didn’t hold them and love them because you were afraid…If you were putting on purell after only contact...you shouldn’t be there representing God…
David Platt says in Radical “We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces…It is easier to pretend they’re not real before you hold them in your arms…But once you do…everything changes!”
In our text the apostle Paul says, “May Our God and Father clear a way for us to come to you”
Paul constantly reminds the Thessalonians, who are undergoing severe persecutions and trails…God is our Father…Our Father sees the work you produced of faith…Paul even refers to himself as someone who loves them like a parent…”We were gently among you like a Mother caring for her little child”…”We dealt with you as a Father deals with his own children…encouraging you….comforting you…urging you to live godly lives!!!”
When Paul could not get back to the Thessalonians he sent Timothy…his son in the faith to encourage them to stay strong in the midst of persecution…
You see once you’ve learned someone’s name, once you seen their faces…their smiles, their tears once you’ve held them in your arms…everything changes…it did for Paul, and it will for us…because
I OUR FATHER WILL MAKE A WAY
That’s what Paul earnestly believed…
He says, we were torn away from you too quickly…We made every effort we could to see you again…We wanted to come back…we even sent Timothy when we ourselves couldn’t return…Satan stopped us! ( 1 Thess 2:17, 18)
But God our Father and Jesus our Lord will clear a way for us to come to you!”
Paul never forgot his purpose…Make disciples! Help them understand what Jesus taught…the Apostles understood they’re commission…”As you are going make disciples of all nations.”
Our purpose now…our commission as disciples of Jesus hasn’t changed…Paul wanted to get back to these new Christians in Thessalonians because they needed more discipling…and as they share with their family and friends new converts were made…All in the midst of being severely persecuted by the Jewish leaders who wanted to keep the door shut…from gentiles being saved.
Why didn’t God open a way when Paul tired to return again and again? When Satan stopped them, why didn’t God unstop Satan?
I don’t know…”His ways are higher than our ways…His knowledge is perfect…mine is shadowy and minute in comparison.
Sometimes God says “No” and sometimes He says “Wait”…and sometimes he says “Go”…or he sends someone else who may be better fitted for the situation and timing…
Paul believed that….I believe that….
It’s a view of God as our Father…the giver of all good gifts…and the one who knows what I need above what I want.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says this about of Father….in
Matt 7: 7 – 11 (p 685)
I’m a sinner…I live in a body that wants its own way…I’m sold as a slave to its desires…but even so…if Ricky, Tyler, Cyndi, or Karissa ask me for something they need….I long to provide it…I want to give them good gifts…I know what a good gift is!
As all of us have…I’ve been asked for things that I thought might hurt them…Tyler ask me for a Machete’ when he was about 11…I said, “what do you want a machete for?” He said, “To cut things” I did not give him a Machete. He wasn’t ready for it…At 19 our government gave him an M14, and a 50 Cal machine gun…because he’d become a soldier…what a difference 8 years can make, huh?
No matter how bad I want something God will not give it to me if it’s outside His will and outside His purpose…but
Here’s a lesson we’d want all our children to learn before they make the mistake…God will not stop us from stepping outside His will and plan.
If you want to marry an ungodly mate or one that does not share the same purpose…you can…many have…and there is a consequence…God will not stop you from slandering another person…you can gossip all you want…but remember this about “turning aside” about taking a path outside the purpose and will of God…
James 4: 1-5 (p 855)
Paul was willing to trust God’s timing, he was willing to wait for God to make the way, and He trusted the discernment of God’s Holy Spirit to make it clear.
[I asked Steve & LuAnn Johnson this question…How come Peyton? They have fostered over 25 children…little babies like Del Rico to older children like____________, why adopt Peyton? And both their responses were…”she was the only one that God impressed on our hearts that we couldn’t image life without her.”
Is that a feeling, “Yes…but you and I know it’s much more than a feeling...both Steve and LuAnn would tell you it was God’s Spirit intensely revealing their Father’s will…Their Father’s plan…]
No we cannot adopt all 210 million orphans in this world…and it would be easy to think that with such a need…who can make a difference? But when I think about changing one child’s life and showing at least one child God’s love, there is no question about whether or not I should help. If God can create this entire universe He can constantly make a way for those of us who are willing to further His Kingdom and show this world His unfailing love…and true undefiled religion.
Kari and I are praying about God’s timing for this in our lives…currently we have become life Partners with “A woman’s Choice Resource Center and Nicole’s place” because last year 700 children were saved and families we supported and ministered to…instead of choosing abortion…did it make a difference when 1,000 children are aborted each day…for those lives it did.
If you seek God’s will and surrender to His purpose He will make a way for you to do just that in your life…
Prov. 31: 8 says “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.”
Paul did that…I want to do that…and if you do too…God, our Father will make a way…
The 2nd part of Paul’s desire for the Thessalonians and us is
II LET YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER’S LOVE INCREASE AND OVERFLOW
“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other…and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” (V 12)
Love cannot be done at a distance...it can e communicated, but it can’t be practiced…that’s why Paul aches to get back with these Thessalonians so intensely.
True leadership can only be done by individuals who understand this truth…you can make decisions for a company in a meeting, but you cannot force the love for a brother or sister unless you live as a family…God, our Father makes this love increase and overflow…It’s the place where healthy churches live…It’s where God’s purpose is accomplished even in severe trials. But Satan attacks this place of unity constantly and intensely…because if we get mad at each other because of the color of the carpet, or style of worship, we’ll forget about the Peyton’s of this world…and the Love that proves we our Jesus followers. Instead of it overflowing to everyone…it stagnates in the bottom of the cup.
[People are just numbers on Sunday morning until you see their faces…Learn their names, hear their stories…some would prefer it remain that way…there’s less pain if I’m less connected, there’s less difficulty in my life if I keep others at a safe distance. Orphans are just statistics…or pictures on my T.V. until I hold them, hear their stories, open my heart…God would have our love increase and overflow for our church family and everyone else…but many of us build a Dam…. We know we can put in an appearance or two and still feel like we’ve done our duty…Kept our ticket to heaven safe…but please remember those in Matt 7 that are sent away…not because they didn’t work hard enough, but because they refused to have an intimate relationship…with Jesus and if you read Matt 25….they also refused to open their hearts to people as well…
Matt 25: 41- 46 (p702)
It’s not the act of caring for “the least of these” that saves you!!! It’s the relationship with the King that makes you love needy and hurting people and that overflows from your heart…without really thinking about it…without keeping score.
“That’s what “strengthens our hearts so that we can be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all His Holy ones.” (v 13)]
[There was a time I dreaded being in my Father’s presence…I was living a life that made me feel guilty, afraid and defensive when we were together…for the better part of six years I chose this separation…I had rejected Him….He never rejected me…I wasn’t an orphan because my father and mother were dead…I chose to be a spiritual orphan because of my rebellion and sin to both my earthly father and my heavenly father.
I think it’s absolutely the definition of Grace…that I receive what I don’t deserve…Mercy is not getting what you deserve, grace is getting something you don’t deserve…A gift…
My earthly father gave me that gift….and my heavenly creator…chose to adopt me as a son…]
[A couple of weeks ago I shared with you my favorite trophy…A trophy I won with my father after getting out of the hospital from being burned…3rd degree over 50% of my body…skin grafts taken from my legs…I could barely move forward, but Dad and I won 1st place in Horseshoes together at the 1971 K.V. Picnic.
After I got through that Sunday the Holy Spirit began to nag me…the stories not through yet…I gave my life to Christ in January of 1978 and for the next year Dad and I restored our relationship, He always deserved it, I refused ….He rejoiced at the opportunity that His prodigal son, who had been dead and lost was now alive and found…that next year, my last ever before leaving home was special, Dad and I became best friends again…and just before I left for Johnson Bible College we went to the K.V. picnic and this time I was 19….and the memory the Holy Spirit kept nagging me about was another trophy…It’s even smaller (cheaper) it simply says…K.V. picnic-79 – 1st place…Dad and I won again…once again as father and Son…strengthened in a Love that overflowed out of our relationship.]
I didn’t feel guilty one time after that afternoon.
