Let's do for the orphan physically what God has done for us spiritually. Originally posted to pastors.com, Pastor Rick Warren outlines the Biblical perspective on why and how we are to define our faith by our care for the orphan.
You were an orphan once. You may have grown up
with a father and a mother. Physically, you may not be an orphan.
But you were a spiritual orphan. You were a
spiritual orphan until you were adopted by God. The Bible says in Ephesians
1:5, “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to
himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him
great pleasure.” (NLT)
God loves you so much that He adopted you into
His family. And He doesn’t do so begrudgingly. He takes great pleasure in doing
it.
The Bible also says, “To show that you
are his children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the
Spirit who cries out, Father, my Father. So then, you are no longer a
slave but a child. And since you are his child, God will give you all that he
has for his children.” (Galatians 4:6-7. GNT)
God gives you all He has because you are now
His child. We should show the same generosity toward physical orphans – those
without parents – on our planet.
All throughout Scripture, God tells us that
He’ll be a father to the fatherless. In the book of Proverbs, God tells us that
we’re to speak up for those who have no voice.
God cares about orphans in a very special way.
And so should we.
Many people in your community wonder what true religion
really is. The Bible leaves no doubt. James 1:27 says, “Pure, unstained
religion, according to God our Father, is to take care of orphans and widows
when they suffer and to remain uncorrupted by this world.” (GWT)
Once we become believers in Jesus, we walk in
our faith by caring for widows and orphans and keeping ourselves unstained by
the world around us. James summarizes the Christian life as being about private
purity and public charity. Jesus gives basically the same summary in the Great
Commandment, Matthew 22:37-40.
Once we realize how much God loves us and what
He went through to adopt us into His family, we really have only two responses.
· First, it’ll clarify with
you how much your life matters.
· Second, it should make us
sensitive to the plight of orphans around the world.
How does the Bible say we should take care of
orphans?
1.
We are to defend their rights. (Psalm 82:3)
2.
We are to speak up for them as advocates. (Proverbs 31:8)
3.
We’re to feed them. (Matthew 25)
4.
We’re to clothe them. (Matthew 25)
5.
We’re to protect them from those who mistreat them. (Isaiah
1:17)
6.
We’re to ensure justice for them. (Deuteronomy 24:17)
7.
We’re to share our resources with them. (Luke 3:11, Romans
12:13)
8.
We’re to find families for them. (Psalm 68:5-6)
You and I have preached many sermons on the
private purity spoken of in James 1:27. How many sermons have we preached on
the public charity of caring for widows and orphans?
At Saddleback orphan care is one of our
signature issues. We have a goal of 1,000 families from our church adopting
orphans – 500 from overseas and 500 from the United States. We’re already
halfway to this goal! Some of those Saddleback families have even adopted two
or three kids.
We have more than 163 million orphans in the
world. We have 113,000 orphans in America. If just one family from every four
churches in America adopted a child, we’d have no more orphans in United
States.
You don’t have to be a big church to make a
big difference with orphans. Your church can do something for orphans and
widows right now.
What will it be? How will you help?
If your church will make a commitment to help
orphans, let us know about it. E-mail us at orphans@saddleback.com.
If you are interested in becoming the family an orphan needs, we hope you will join us this Wednesday, October 5 at 6:30pm in Ministry Office 2 for our informational seminar, Exploring Adoption or Foster Care for my Family. Register here or email orphans@saddleback.com to receive more information.