The Heart for the Orphan - James 1:22-27 - Make And Multiply

Hey, can we praise God together for these families?

And for many like them. They're special. These families are special in our congregation and God is raising up many more of them. And so we're excited to see what he is doing. Hey, we're going to be in James chapter one this morning, and I'm excited to continue our make and multiply sermon series. Let me just kind of orient you to where we are to what we have going on. All right, so we are at the end of a two year discipleship initiative, asking God, are you the deepest desire of my heart? This really prompted a lot of ministry that we wanted to see flow out of this particular question.

When when when God gets deep into us, man, we end up kind of going wide for the mission. And what we're doing now right on the back end of this is talking about if we were to finish the deeper initiative really well, what is it going to set us up to do we feel like there are five areas that God has given us a really unique influence salvation stories, college students, the chosen ministry, and and ministry to families like children and marriages and that kind of stuff. We feel like those are five areas that God has really given us a lot of influence in today, we're going to tackle the chosen side of that. All right, chosen is our name for any of the ministries that really come out of that lane of adoption, foster care, the pregnancy network, stuff that we do around around pregnancy and abortion, anything that we're doing with rope holding.

All right, giving to those things. So that's what we're going to be getting into. today in James chapter one, the gospel gives us a heart for adoption and a heart for foster care.

That is the that is the big idea this weekend. Now, I am at risk here of saying, hey, we're doing adoption, foster care, rope holding and giving. And that's going to be the sermon.

And I'm at risk here of a lot of people say, man, that doesn't apply to me. And this is going to be kind of a waste of time. And I want you to stop and just sort of short circuit that thought and say no, no, there is a place for us to all be involved.

What do we see from Psalm 82 defend the fatherless, James one, visit the orphan and the widow? Well, we're going to talk about today is not if we are to be involved, but how are we to be involved. And we're going to realize that there's a place for everyone here. I want you to take a take a breath and relax and make sure you understand this. We're not going to guilt and shame everybody in here.

It's adopting a kid or fostering a kid. Okay. When you leave today, I don't have a bunch of little kids lined up out there in that lobby out there. Okay.

Actually, that's what we're going to do next week. Okay, so you can get ready for it. No, but in all seriousness, it's not about guilting and shaming anyone.

It's about everyone seeing that we all have a place and a part that we can play. And here's the deal. Christians I know not everybody's a Christian here in this we're going to cross five campuses right now all over the triad in this room filled room overflow venue. I don't there are people in here that are not believers yet.

And what I'm about to say is not true of you. Okay. But for Christians, we understand what it means to be spiritually adopted. Spiritually restored. And that changes the conversation in the way that we want to help other people who are physically needing adoption or physically needing a restoration. We want to build families in this church the way that God builds his and God builds his family through adoption. And God restores family through foster care and we want to be involved in that and finishing the deeper initiative. Well, guys, I've been very upfront with this. I don't know what God's going to do.

I've seen him do incredible things in the past mind blowing things in these areas. But the fact is that we're going to be doing it right now and my own human wisdom we're probably going to be two or $3 million short of what we had set out to do what we're hoping to see it. And if that happens we're going to adjust. We're going to figure it out.

We're going to keep moving. God can do you know anything I've seen him do this crazy stuff. And there's people in our church that can move the needle with these things. Okay. And if all the shrimp in who knows what God is going to do. But here's what I want to tell you, if we finish out the deeper initiative incredibly well and strong like I pray that we will it's going to speed up some things that we want to do. Okay, let me tell you two of them. The first one is had a dream for the last two years of really stepping in with Guilford County DSS and helping them on some major major renovations with some of their facilities that are very uh intimate facilities for the reconciliation of families where people are meeting together when when uh you know a child is meeting back with their biological family because we want to see families restored and we feel like it's a big need it'd probably be the most significant gift I would think that a non-profit is sold back into an agency like that we want to see that happen the other thing I'll tell you is this at Mercy Hill if you step forward and are a member of our church to adopt we become your first um your first kind of partner in terms of financially I don't know if you remember this uh but four years ago our church gave a quarter of a million dollars for that specific reason so that we would be designated money so that we would be able uh to to throw in with families that are stepping up to adopt and become their first supporter in a major way probably their biggest supporter uh in terms of financially well people have done it and that money is you know that that we've kind of been charging that account we want to refund that kind of stuff so we can keep doing that those are just two of a lot of reasons but it's important that we finish well I want to call us to adopt foster hold the rope or give all right now all of this comes out of James one but listen adoption foster care or upholding and giving that is the application we got to sit in the deep truth of not being a hearer of the word only but being doers of the word and that's what we're going to talk about really for the majority of our time James one says this but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer he is like a man who looks intently in his natural face in a mirror for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like but the one who looks into this important the perfect law the law of liberty we're going to get into what that means and perseveres being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts he will be blessed in his doing y'all the book of James is something that I don't know if you've been studying or we didn't end up studying this I think last year the year before and but here's the thing about book of James the book of James is a handbook for your Christian life it's like wisdom literature but in the new testament okay it's very much a book that tries to connect yes there are big truths that we learn in our our head and our heart but it never is disconnected to our hands and our feet what James wants us to see is that truly when the implanted word of God begins to affect us and and change our affections and change what we love and it begins to take hold of us and we begin to submit to the word of God that our lives look different here's the point that I think James wants to make and if you've been around church for a while I know not everybody has but if you've been around you probably heard this from the book of James famous line faith without works is dead you guys have heard that before probably okay here's what I think James wants us to see that a true faith is one that has a way of walking around in the world it looks a certain way people's lives are changed and that happens at an everyday level now our salvation is all bound up in what Christ has done for us on the cross and we earn none of our salvation but saved people live sent lives and sent lives are changed lives and that's the point that he wants to make that's the difference between a hearer and a doer a hearer hears the things of God and is maybe entertained by them but they're not changed at a heart level by them and I think what what James wants us to see here is this accepting God's words accepting God's word means acting on God's word if we're not acting on God's word in what real way did we accept it was it actually planted deep in our heart or is it just something that we hear that we know we go to church we hear sermons whatever but it's actually not moving things around in our life look at verse 22 again but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves now what does this mean about deception he says hearers only are deceived well what are they deceived by listen they are deceived because they think that hearing a sermon going to church reading the Bible and hearing the words of God is the same thing as being changed by them and they're not the same thing they're deceived into thinking man I'm a Christian I'm walking with God I'm pursuing the Lord passionately why well I go to church and I hear a sermon and I read the Bible some and and I hear the word of God no no what he's saying is this is really the point of James one I can't go through the whole thing the implanted word the word that is actually taking root is a word that will change your life there will be things different in your life because you are acting on what God is telling you to do acting and responding to who he is and this is the difference in a hearer and a doer you know you got to ask yourself what does God really want from us when we read his word you know I mean even the great commission is that we would go out and you know yeah yeah share the gospel see people from every tribe tongue nation baptized but then teach them to obey the commands of Christ we are to conform and to come underneath the lordship of Christ by hearing his word and submitting to it not just endlessly studying it and breaking it down if it doesn't change us you know that's the difference hearing doing not just hearing I don't know if you guys ever thought about this but if you had an experience where you told your child to go up and clean their room what are you expecting from from them in about 30 minutes or two hours or whatever okay you're expecting what you're expecting a clean room that's that's the fruit of what of their obedience that's what you're expecting word goes out they hear it they act on it accepting the word is acting on the word what you don't want from them is what many of us do in studying the bible at times I mean how many of us have done this or you've had this experience it'd be like a father saying to his child hey go clean your room and they look back at the father and they say dad that's the most beautiful poetic way I've ever heard somebody say that sentence I mean so much so that I've written it down and now I'm breaking it down by syllable and I'm figuring out what did the grammar and syntax mean of this word what are the grammar and syntax mean of this word actually you know what dad I'm gonna get all my friends together and we're gonna sit in a circle on Tuesday nights okay and we're gonna study your words we're gonna figure out exactly what this Florida man grammar that you have is and we're gonna make sure that we break down and we get to the very bottom of the meaning of all of these words and of course what we all actually want from them is a clean room you kind of understand what I'm getting at whenever we decide to study the bible but it's not about hearing and duty doing that's all that it is it's interesting we're charming see listen many people are charmed by the bible but they're not changed by the bible they're interested in it man let's let's sit around talk about it let's get in groups and and do that but are they changed by it that's what we want to see here and that's what I think James is trying to get us to see and the adoption foster rope hold give conversation almost doesn't matter if we're not already in a posture of wanting to hear and to do I mean what did Jesus say Peter do you love me of course I love you okay then feed my sheep what did Samuel say to Saul the Lord obey the Lord desires obedience more than he desires sacrifice there is an idea here of hearing and doing you could say it like this y'all conviction on Sunday should lead to obedience on Monday and if it doesn't then it wasn't conviction we were charmed but we were not changed and I'll go I'll go a step further and say this okay and this is where people will email me or whatever they get hot and bothered when I say this so let me say it as clearly as I possibly can okay when we want to have a bunch of theological debates about things that actually we acknowledge on the front end don't change your life at all what are we doing where's the unity in that you know this was this was the seminary campus and I and this can bleed right into the church where you got people that are studying seminary and it's like man we're gonna study and debate and even get mad at each other about these different tertiary issues in the church when on the front end I could say what practically does it change about the way you live your life and relate to the Lord and they'll say well the answer to that is nothing but we're still going to debate it and I'm like man I don't see the value in that I think about like this um one of our one of our student director uh Justin Lucas he went to Liberty University and he said man at Liberty they have this really cool thing they would do where a lot of times the students you know a couple times a semester would go out and serve the poor the broken the needy in their community and one night before they were going to wake up the next morning and go serve in the the poorest of the poor areas what happened was he goes into his dorm room and there are two guys debating something called Calvinism now you may know what Calvinism is it's like predestination God's sovereignty and our freedom and and uh you know it's certainly one of those things that biblically speaking belongs in that category of Deuteronomy 29 29 that the deep things belong to the Lord and people have debated that for 2,000 years but these two 19 year old college students were going to solve it that night okay and so they're going to solve it and so they debated all night long he goes to bed they're debating it he wakes up they're still debating it but guess what they were too tired to actually do from staying up all night they didn't go serve they stayed up all night debating theology but they don't get up and go serve in the poorest of the poor areas the next morning you know many of us can do that we can do that we can stumble over some of these things and I would just say to us no we want to be hearers and and doers we want to be ones who have the great truths of scripture that are pouring into our life and then they are pouring out of our life now why is it you know what's the real difference in a here and a and a here and a doer okay here it is let me tell you then we're going to read it the hearer looks in the mirror and forgets the doer looks in the mirror that is the perfect law of liberty gazes into the gospel and he sees a new identity for his life now that's a little complex we're going to break it down okay for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like but the one who looks into the perfect law the law of liberty and perseveres being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts he will be blessed in his doing i think the best way to understand this is to think about two different people looking in two different mirrors okay and seeing their posture toward it let's talk about the hearer first the hearer is like the person who sees themselves in a mirror but the second they turn from the mirror they forgot what they saw now let me ask you this what's the point of looking in the mirror you look in the mirror right before right before you go leave for the morning or many of us here you know today before you left for church this morning or whatever you right you look in the mirror you just want to make sure everything's generally okay right i don't have anything crazy my teeth right i don't have i mean i'm just sort of generally making sure everything's now here's the hearer the hearer looks at the mirror sees something that's not right turns and has already forgotten what it was and they don't make any adjustments the mirror is like the word of god bouncing back what our life is supposed to be so you if you've ever wondered what is the bible supposed to do in my life okay it's not supposed to uh you know it's not supposed to just be intriguing to you it's supposed to change you here let me give you let me give you four things okay this is what the bible is supposed to do in your life directly from a very important passage in second timothy 3 16 the the bible is supposed to be there for teaching reproof correction and training all right now let's let's apply that to the mirror okay the teaching is like showing you what god wants out of your life you're kind of looking back at it the second thing is reproof reproof means i see the teaching in the bible that doesn't square up with my life and now it stings that's the reproof there's a conviction in my life right because i see what i'm supposed to be and then i see what i'm not the third point is so important in second timothy 3 16 you teach you reprove and then you what make the correction through repentance and faith we we repent of our sin and we make the correction so it's like the guy looking at the mirror see something in his teeth okay it's not supposed to be there i see it in my teeth and now i'm gonna correct it i'm actually gonna but that's not what the here does the here sees what it is and doesn't take that next step to look at their life and actually look at the correction and make those changes that they might further honor the lord with their life now here's the deal what does it say here but the one who looks in the perfect law or the law of liberty perseveres now that's a different thing looking into the law of liberty is a different thing the hearer sees what the truth is but isn't actually going to go there but the here and doer looks into that mirror okay use the same example i know this is a little bit complex but looks into a mirror but they see a different image the image they see is something bouncing back at them that they get from the gospel of jesus christ let me explain exactly what this is let me go back to the here okay here here's a good example of the here the here is one who sees what it is but it's not actually going to go to make any change you know what that's like there was a a story came out where the travel channel was using different pictures of places that weren't the actual place so they would do a story on a real haunted place that you could go travel to and experience the haunting and all that stuff but the house didn't look scary enough so they just spliced a creepier looking house in and made that one look like it was the house that was the haunted house to which somebody said well what happens if people actually try to go and they see that it's not the same house and the ceo said well they're not going to do that because people who watch the travel channel don't actually travel and it's funny you know they want to see the thing they just don't actually want to go to the thing and i thought about that for the here that's the hearer i want to see the truth but i'm not going to take the steps of reproof and correction we're not actually going to go there remember what i said earlier many people are charmed by the bible but they're not changed that's a quote from a pastor in raleigh named tony marita and and that idea is so important they're interested in seeing what it is but they're not actually changed by it that's the hearer but again what i said about the here and doer is they're looking at a mirror but they see a different reflection let me tell let me tell you this if you're thinking to yourself right now how do i change i want to be a doer man i don't want to just hear this i want to hear and put it into practice how do i do that well i'm gonna tell you what a lot of people do they try to guilt and shame their way into doing they read the bible find out everything they're not and then they just keep shame and guilt on themselves thinking that's going to motivate them and it will for about that long it'll take you a little ways for a little while and then it'll flame out fear is the same way well i'm going to look at the bible and i'm going to see what god wants me to do and if i my life doesn't match up to that then i'm going to live in a perpetual state of fear that maybe i'll lose my salvation he'll kick me out of heaven that kind of you know what that'll help help you for a while it'll take you a little ways for a little while and then you'll flame out if you want to see lasting change in your life you got to think about looking in the word looking in that mirror and seeing a different vision of your life reflected back to you you got to have something positively influencing you to live into and that's what the perfect law of liberty does look what it says but the one who looks into the perfect law remember he was talking about a mirror before so think about it like that okay you look instead it's that perfect law of liberty uh and perseveres being no here who forgets but a doer who acts he will be blessed in his doing i'm going to tell you the difference in the one who who sees and doesn't act or sees and then wants to act it is it's this i'm not just seeing problems in my life i'm not just seeing places that i don't measure up what i'm actually seeing is yes there are places that i don't measure up but what's looking back at me is a big grand vision for the life that god wants for me what's looking back at me actually is the righteousness of christ because that's who i am if i has accepted the gospel see when you are a christian you look into that perfect law and what you see in the gospel is yes there's a lot of things that aren't right about me but i also understand that god sent jesus christ to die on the cross to wash those things away from my life and the way that god sees me ain't really the way that i see me what i see is a bunch of sin and messed up that's true we're all that way but what god sees is the righteousness of his son that covers me when that's the reflection looking back at me you better believe there's going to come change in my life you know why because now i have an identity that i want to live into jesus christ came to this earth lived the life that we didn't live and died the death that we deserved he he kept every law perfectly he never sinned one time and then at the end of his life he died on a cross that's a a fate that you and i deserved but then three days later he burst forth from the grave in resurrected glory and he gives us the chance to join him in the newness of life and the bible says that we can be united with him and you know what that means when we are united or found in him it means that we are no longer defined by our greatest failures in sin but what god sees when he looks upon us is the righteousness of christ this let me let me give you the christian experience you guys ever heard of a two-way mirror okay you look in the mirror from one side and it's a reflection but on the other side it passes right through like a window okay if you've ever seen an episode of like a law and order or something okay you've seen you know you're in the little room and they're looking and they all know somebody's looking at them but all they see is a mirror right okay so that's the idea i want you to think about this this is what god has done for you in the gospel okay when when jesus looks at the mirror okay he doesn't pass through and see all of our wickedness brokenness and sin instead you know what he sees it's like his image bounces right back man he's all over us we're found in him however righteous he is that's how he sees us he looks at us but what he sees is himself but you know what this is the beauty of it we're like the ones on the other side of that mirror where when we look into the mirror what doesn't bounce back is a reflection of all of our brokenness and sin what happens in our life is we look straight through the mirror and we see the righteousness of christ we get to see him and he sees us in the way that he sees him and listen this matters so much okay because you're like i thought this was a sermon where you're trying to guilt us into fostering kids okay i know that's what you're thinking all right but here's the deal none of that matters until we understand what he has done in our life because i'm going to tell you something and i know this and my wife is sitting right here it takes more than a sad story and a bunch of statistics to give you what you need to adopt a kid i promise you that okay it's going to take more than a sad story to give you what you need in a heart posture to foster a child i promise you that i know it okay what it's going to need it what we're going to need is if we want that motivation we're going to have to see who we are we're going to have to see what god has done in our life and when we see what he's done in our life all of a sudden we want to go out and do that for others when you look into the perfect law of liberty when you look at the gospel you know the image is bouncing back at you you have been adopted into the family of god it was not your choice it was it was not your you know you didn't earn it god has done something and i know there's deep things here and i've said this earlier about sovereignty and choice and human responsibility and i'm going to tell you some of that stuff is so mysterious to me i don't know but here's what i do know we are adopted into the family if we are a christian and adopted people want to adopt people chosen people choose people healed people want to heal people and that is what we get a chance to do this is my daughter she came to us through adoption okay there's a recent picture of her you guys can pray for faith and she's doing great um she is i know this is crazy if you're newer she's almost eight years old okay in that picture you would think she was two or three she's very small we're praying for weight and words that's our big prayers for her but she is really doing awesome okay but here's the picture that i wanted to show you this is years ago in her forever hopper day okay this is the day when she became a forever hopper now this ain't the day we got her we had we had her in our in our um you know custody or whatever i mean the day her first day she was born pretty much the day after she was born but this day was her forever a hopper day when anna gets in the mail the decree from the judge in raleigh that says she is a hopper forever everything that it means to be a hopper that girl is now and it will be that way forever she is legally changed okay and here's the thing that i want you to know if you are a christian look into that perfect law of liberty you know what's bouncing back at you you know what it means to go from orphan to child from outsider to insider you know what it means to be adopted because this is what happened to you in the gospel and when we understand that man it changes the conversation for us because now we can think okay look at look at this if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart this person's religion is worthless i can preach a whole sermon on that we can talk about controlling your tongue okay but this is what we're going to zero in on here religion that is pure and undefiled before god the father is this to visit orphans and widows and their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world the focus that we're getting into today is this idea you look into the perfect law you see the gospel what's bouncing back at you is an image of christ and you did not deserve it you had a forever day somebody adopted you into their family and adopted people adopt people chosen people chose people choose people healed people heal people okay we become a people who run against the grain of current of the cultural climate and we say man we're going to run toward the most vulnerable we're going to run to them and you can't get and two thousand years ago you do not get more vulnerable than the orphan and the widow and i want you to know this this is not an isolated verse randy alcorn counted them out over 2 300 verses in the scripture where god reveals his heart for people that are just like this and calls his church and his people to be involved the immigrant the prisoner the outsider okay the the orphan the widow the poor the needy the broken god's people always are to have a heart for people in these situations why because that was us spiritually speaking that was us why does our heart break over the millions of street kids in brazil because we know what it's like to be orphaned we should if we remember what it was like before christ came and rescued us y'all there's a million abortions happening in our country right now i think some of us were naive enough to think that fixing roe v wade was going to fix the problem and we're realizing the problem is still a heart problem it's a soul of the nation problem we live in a culture of death this is where we live and and it's like man we why do christians run so hard because what could be more vulnerable than these children who are being aborted and i think about the hundreds of kids y'all 14 000 children in north carolina foster systems and you know what there are 20 less foster homes now than there were before the pandemic happened a few years ago people have gotten out of the game it's too hard got too much going on in my life 20 less homes and the kids the numbers of kids are growing what do we do about these things well the first thing we got to understand is i mean my heart is for them when we run toward them why because we remember what it was like because that was us spiritually speaking all right so here's the application for this weekend man make a decision adopt foster hold the rope i'm gonna explain what that is if you're new hold the rope and give okay let's do these things let's make some decisions today maybe you're single maybe you're a high school student college student make a decision one day this is going to be part of my life anna and i certainly had made the decision that we were going to try to adopt or foster before we ever had biological kids all right i mean think about that i know some of you might be saying well yeah we use it as a second option you got to understand adoption is about theology not biology it is about what god has done for you it's not just about what your body can or can't do maybe you make some decisions around that today maybe some of you decide hey we've been talking about giving in a way that was going to move the needle and today's the day that we decided to do it maybe some of you will think about stepping in respite care foster you're like man i'm single can i foster did you see courtney's story courtney fostered those three girls and now has adopted them and they're in a christian home being raised in a christian church and all of us can hold the rope all of us can give so let's be involved with this stuff let's don't forget who we are okay you know the story is i want you to think about this i want you to think about going to adopt the child and you're going to the agency and today's the day today's going to be the big day today's going to be the big day gotcha forever hopper whatever this is the day and you go when you get there they say hey there was a mix up in the paperwork and the child you think you're getting is there's some differences in what's actually going on here number one the child is much older than what you thought number two the child has exhibited a lot of bad behaviors i mean they're this is very typical in the foster and adoption situations they've got a lot of trauma in their life they start fires they abuse because they've been abused they're very violent hey once you know this kid's got a history of mental problems i want you to this kid's got a history of of generational alcoholism and that's probably something that's going to surface in his life and they give you a list of a hundred other things that are wrong and then they say hey you know what uh you just stay right here we're gonna go get everything buttoned up and we'll bring um the child out you guys can be on your way and here's what i want you to think about for a second many of us in our mind just thought man i don't know if i could do that that's tough man i mean older all these problems and all this stuff and here's what you got to understand in that analogy you and i are not the parents we're the child we're the kid we're the one that was broken and beat up and had all types of generational problems and sin in our life and you know what man god didn't make a different decision about us and he decided to step forward in adoption he signed that decree with the blood of his son that's our salvation that's who we are from that place let us extend to others okay so here i gave you four i'm going to go through them pretty quickly the first one is this would you consider adoption would you consider it then we have big goal in this church raise up 200 adopted and foster families by the end of 2025 we set that goal in 2020 by god's grace i think we're on track pretty close to being able to get there but another year but maybe you need to step forward and i would say this today it's let's don't waffle let's don't have more conversations let's decide you know let's let's go for it if that's what god is calling you to do then there's nothing else to talk about let's go okay i think about you know some of you guys are sitting there today and you're like man the problem is there's not reconciliation in the home about what to do here on adoption or something and maybe one of you is excited about it one of you is not i was thinking about this um man some friends some friends of ours needed a place for their horse uh to come and stay for a while and so we said man come on put him in the pasture he can come out our house so the horse is at our house now and he had been in a stall for months okay so when he got on that pasture he went nuts i mean he was running and kicking and it was so fun to watch and then he sees my cows out in the pasture and he's like friends okay so he goes running over now they're running in a huge herd and i mean they're storming around the pasture running and this dude is he is so happy you can just tell of course he's running thinking this is great i'm running with my friends the cows have never seen a horse they're thinking run for your life okay there's an alien from the space who's trying to eat us all right if you can just see there the difference like he's he's having the time of his life and they are scared absolutely slapped to death and they're all running together and i thought about that because that's where some of us are today some of you i start talking about adoption and you're like man let's go let's run this is awesome we need another mountain to climb this is going to be great when we enter into this whole new subset of community here at mercy hill and we're going to go for it and others of you are like this is threatening and scary it scares me you know and i don't i don't the security of it and all of that okay great why don't you come forward and let's pray that god's going to bring some reconciliation here about the steps forward that's awesome that's a good place to be at least you can acknowledge it let's pray through that consider adoption secondly i want you to think about considering fostering whether you're single maybe you just want to do respite care we can throw guardian adelatim in here too just be involved with the system right um i want to talk to you about fostering for just a second these are just the raw numbers y'all the raw just think about gilford county only 698 kids in gilford 696 kids in gilford county that are uh foster kids and many of them are not in homes there's not why there's not enough homes there's only 423 families that are foster families in gilford county so you see the discrepancy that is there now here's here's the thing this is what's so hard about this whole issue you got different organizations and nobody kind of has the same numbers and all of that we went to three different organizations this week and we said look give us your best shot at telling us how many families needed to are needed to be in the system in gilford county for this thing to run really well whether or not kids are having to be in group homes where uh where families can get a rest if they need it i don't know how many families need to get a rest if they need it i mean i'm not an expert but i would think if there's 696 kids that are in the foster system in gilford county you need at least a thousand families i would think right i mean i would think you need at least double how many kids there are because you know somebody if one goes out you might need to rest a little bit before another kid comes in or you might need respite care or whatever but that's just my thought okay the organizations came back and they said on average we think you're going to need 720 homes to make this thing run in the way that it needs to run that is a discrepancy between what we have in this county of what we need in this county of 297 homes y'all there are 595 churches in this county we don't need every church to step up and have one foster family we really only need every other church to do that and then we would be there now i'm passionate about this and we want to galvanize other churches all right and i think about our church y'all one church right here we have between 40 and 50 licensed foster families in one church in this church and we praise god for that we need more i think about other churches in our community they're doing awesome work in this i think about life community church i think about first abbot summerfield i think about other churches that have stepped into this and we want to see other churches stepping in but i'm also coming to that place where i'm like mercy hill we may just end up having to shoulder more of the burden and so i want to ask you to consider it think about what it means for your family to step into foster care and then the last thing i would say is this consider holding the rope all right you say what is holding the rope holding the rope means i i'm not going to go into the whole mission story but the idea is if we have people that are going to go to the absolute front lines of spiritual war in adoption of foster care let me tell you something satan hates kids you just read the bible and you'll understand how much he hates kids how many times you see in scripture how he went after and tried to just kill all the babies hates kids what's the first thing he wants to convince a culture to do when they start sacrificing the false gods put your children on the altar kill them we're doing that as a society right now in our own culture in a different way satan hates kids and he loves families torn apart so what do you think he thinks when a church wants to step into adoption of foster care ministry you understand all right this is my point the people that are stepping into this they need somebody in their corner they need somebody there to help them they need somebody to hold the rope for them now some people need it different ways than others all right we got a lot of families that are transplants here imagine stepping into adoption or foster care when you don't have any biological family around for hours and hours and hours like what we need is a church family to come if you want to be involved in any of these ministries i want to call you to think about this mercyhillchurch.com mercyhillchurch.com slash adoption foster care afc or you can go we're going to put this up leave this up for a little bit here this qr code the qr code takes you exactly to the cognito form that you need that will send directly to our chosen director and help you get involved in these areas i want to close by talking about giving listen man we're i told you we're off the mark here man a little bit i don't know what god's going to do i just want to encourage you if you have been part of deeper initiative let's finish strong if you're newer man let's jump all the way in there are things that we can do i'm telling you we're going to see a day man in our in our culture there's going to come a day in our area where there are more families that are willing to foster and license than there are kids that need it that's where we gotta get we can be the county that does that we can get there it's going to take a lot of resourcing and i say well exactly how does it work you give to the church and you end up with all these foster care families this is the part people have to understand okay it may not feel like the most uh you know energetic thing or may not feel like the most exciting thing but the church is the engine that produces the disciples that end up going and doing the stuff whether you're given and that given goes to a light bill or it goes to a building or it goes to a salary doesn't seem very exciting but at the same time you got one church in this county that's like there's 420 family 420 in the whole county you got one church that's got 40 or 50 of them how does that happen right it's the engine god is using the church to produce the people who are stepping into ministries like this so give things that we want to do in terms of partnering with dss give and i pray that you guys will will step forward one day it's the two goals one day more families that are ready than our kids waiting we also want to see a day when one of four kids at mercy hill has chosen to be here adopted or fostered we can get there i pray that you'll give generously to this effort let's pray father we come before you and lord i pray right now god that you would move mightily this weekend move mightily convince hundreds of people in our church to go off the sideline and onto the front line when it comes to adoption foster care rope holding and giving and lord i pray that the fruit of such uh giving and rope holding and foster care and adoption would be evident i pray that we would be able to see shockwave sent through our county god do something in us in this place that reverberates throughout the entire state god do it for your name your glory you're the one that is looking after defending these father listen and it's for your sake that we do these things in christ's name amen