Rock Star Dad: How the Church Answers Joseph’s Call

Good to see you Summit Church. It is great to be back with you.

My name is Trevor Atwood. I'm the pastor of City Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. My wife and I adopted our oldest son Micah from Russia in 2004, and then in 2006, the three of us moved here to the Triangle to go to seminary, and I thank God often that we found the Summit Church because the next five years of our life were going to be some of the hardest that we ever faced. We adopted in that time our second son from Ethiopia, and you all, the Summit Church, you were with us through that journey. Then when our marriage fell apart in the middle of that five years, you didn't let us down. The grace and challenge that we received from this church and this church's leadership was a huge part of the way that the Lord put us and our family back together again. And when our next son, Kai, was born and died the next day, the people of the Summit loved us well. And then you kicked us out to go plant a city church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, just south of Nashville. Five years ago, 30 people landed in Middle Tennessee, and it would take way too long for me to tell you all of the beautiful, wonderful things that have happened in Middle Tennessee since that time. But I do want you to know that it was only ever possible because of the way this church loved my broken and hurting family and then confidently sent us out with more confidence than we had in ourselves. You sent us out with people, you sent us out with your prayer, and you sent us out with money. You never quit on me.

So on behalf of my family, on behalf of my church family at City Church worshiping this morning in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, I want to personally say to you all, thank you Summit Church. If you were listening to new music in the 90s, you've heard the Stone Temple Pilots about 10,000 times. They were one of the most influential bands of the alternative rock movement, whatever that means. If you don't know who they are, maybe this will jog your memory.

You remember that song? I was not in a grunge band, but I wanted to be. The Stone Temple Pilots' lead singer, Scott Weiland, led the stereotypical life of a rock star. It was full of sex and drugs and alcohol addiction, but as long as Scott and the Stone Temple Pilots kept producing good music, his fans didn't really care about that.

They also didn't care about his responsibilities as a father, and apparently neither did he. Last year, December 3rd, Scott Weiland died and his ex-wife, Mary, wrote a letter to Scott's fans that was published in Rolling Stone magazine. I'd like to share what she said about Scott's relationship to his son, Noah, and his daughter, Lucy, who were 15 and 13 at the time that he died.

I'm going to read a bit of this letter to you today. She says, the outpouring of condolences and prayers offered for our children, Noah and Lucy, has been overwhelming, appreciated and even comforting. But the truth is, like so many other kids, they lost their father years ago. What they truly lost on December 3rd was hope. I knew Noah and Lucy would one day see and feel everything that I'd been trying to shield them from, and that they'd eventually be brave enough to say that mess was our father.

We loved him, but a deep-rooted mix of love and disappointment made up the majority of our relationship with him. They've never set foot in his house, and they can't remember the last time they saw him on a father's day. I don't share this with you to cast judgment. I do so because you most likely know at least one child in the same shoes. If you do, please acknowledge them in their experience.

Offer to accompany them to the father-daughter dance or teach them to throw a football. You know, this is the final step in our long goodbye to Scott. And I won't say he can rest now or that he's in a better place.

He belongs with his children, barbecuing in the backyard and waiting for a football game to come on. We are angry and sad about this loss, but we are most devastated that he chose to give up. Noah and Lucy never sought perfection from their dad. They just kept hoping for a little effort. If you're a parent not giving your best effort, all anyone asks is that you try just a little harder and don't give up.

Progress, not perfection, is what your children are praying for. Our hope for Scott has died, but there is still hope for others. So skip the depressing t-shirt that glorifies Scott's life and use the money to take a kid to a ball game or out for ice cream. I cried when I read that letter. I cried because in it I could feel the longing of his kids for a dad. See, they didn't need their dad to be a celebrity. They didn't need him to win over the crowds. They needed him at a barbecue. They wanted him sober at their school play. I cried because I realized that my kids don't care how many people listen to me preach.

They just want to know that I'm ready to listen to them. And I cried because in this letter, I knew everywhere that Scott Weiland failed his kids that God was ready to fill in the gap. I cried because I heard from Mary Weiland the call of God to care for the orphan and the widow, to take a fatherless child to a daddy-daughter dance, to take a kid without a dad out for ice cream or to a ball game.

And I felt that compassion lacking in my own life and so I mourned it. Let me tell you where we're going today. I'm here today to highlight what I know is a major part of the vision of this church. Seven years ago, I was privileged to play a small part in the beginning of a movement for orphan care among the Summit Church that I know, and this video was testimony to, that is exploding through the families of this congregation, and it is a beautiful thing to watch. But the need is still great.

The need is still great. So today, I want to give you a vision for loving this city by loving her precious children. If you've got your Bible, you can open up to Matthew chapter one. We'll be in Matthew chapter one and Matthew chapter two as well. And then we're going to take a verse also from the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah chapter nine.

Here we go, Matthew chapter one, starting in verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife. For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Now all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from the sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. And then in Matthew chapter two, in verse 13, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream again and said, rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt, I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem. Down in verse 19, but when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead. And he rose and took the child and his mother, and he went to the land of Israel. And then from the prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter nine, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and his name shall be called Everlasting Father.

That's the word of the Lord from Matthew and from Isaiah. Today, I want you to see what it means that Jesus is called Everlasting Father. I want you to know that in all the ways that your parents have failed you, and parents, in all the ways that we have failed our children, that Jesus is ready to step in and make it right. And he's using his church to do that. And church, listen, I want you to walk away knowing that every act of protecting and caring for the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, specifically fatherless children, is a cosmic announcement of how God is saving the world.

See, dads are God's placeholders. When you think about the story of Jesus' birth, Joseph, probably in your mind, plays one of the smallest, most overlooked roles in the whole scene, right? In fact, most of us emphasize who Joseph wasn't, rather than who Joseph actually was.

We emphasize that he wasn't Jesus' biological dad to preserve the virgin birth. Instead of talking about who Joseph actually was to Jesus, which Matthew spends a lot of time on in the first two chapters. I mean, look, Joseph is no rock star, right?

He's no celebrity. He's a blue-collar carpenter from Nazareth who just kind of stands in the background of our Christmas cantatas and pageants with Mary and, you know, virgin and child up front and Joseph just kind of kicking it in the background, being quiet with the staff. But Joseph plays a crucial role in Jesus' life, both in the womb and as Jesus grows up as a pre-teen. Did you notice that when we read Matthew's account of Jesus' birth, did you notice how many times Joseph's simple obedience to God's clear commands is what God used to bring about his will spoken by the prophets so long ago? First, Joseph sticks around in Mary's life to care for her and protect her when she gets pregnant and Joseph knows that he's not the father.

And then, instead of what the tradition would be to name the baby Joseph, the firstborn son, he goes off chart, which again is a humiliating thing for a father, and he obeys the angel and he names the baby Jesus. And that fulfills Scripture. Then when he's told to flee Israel for Egypt, he does it and that fulfills Scripture.

God's plan to save the whole world. Joseph in his simple obedience is making it happen. And then when he's told to go back to Israel after Herod is dead, he obeys again and that fulfills Scripture. And the only thing that caused Joseph to stick with Mary when she became pregnant was the call of God on his life. He could have gone on with his life, right? No one would have blamed Joseph for breaking off his engagement with Mary. In fact, they would have considered him a very kind man just for not having her stoned, right? He could have maintained his reputation. He could have married a virtuous Jewish woman who didn't come with the baggage of a child. I mean, Joseph could have had his so-called own kids. And it's no easy thing to pick up and move to Egypt.

I don't know if you know this or not, but Southwest didn't have $49 fares one way in this time. And then moved back to Nazareth. You know what this meant?

This meant twice likely losing a neighborhood business. The first one that had probably been passed down for generations and the second one that he tried to scrap together while they were in Egypt, he had to leave it all behind. And let's not forget that in all this, suddenly Joseph and his family, he becomes an enemy of the state. Herod is looking for them.

So for what? Why take all the risk? Because he got an unmistakable call from a God that he loved. And he saw this call to fatherhood as more important than his own self-interested plans. So he humbly stepped into a role of protecting and providing for the son of God.

Now some news for you. Joseph in a thousand ways was Jesus's real father. He may have not shared a strand of DNA with him, but he adopted Jesus. And in so doing, somehow in the crazy, nutty, mind blowing way that God works, God put the one through whom the entire universe was created into the splinter ridden hands of a backwoods carpenter. He chose to use Joseph to protect Jesus from a murderous King Herod. He didn't surround Jesus with an army with swords and shields. He gave him to a carpenter in a little beat neck town. He gave him to a carpenter to put food on his table, to teach him a trade and to train up Jesus in the scriptures to learn and understand who his father was and what his mission was. Joseph in a thousand ways was Jesus's real dad. Joseph didn't have many fans and still doesn't today, but he did have a family.

And that's a million times better. Just ask Scott Weiland's kids. Dads listen up. You may not be called to father the son of God, but you better believe God has given you a clear call to father his children. Look at Ephesians 6. The apostle Paul instructed children to obey their parents in the Lord and then told fathers to bring kids up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord to not provoke them to anger.

Dads, you know what that means? That means that you are holding God's place for your kids, right? You are like training wheels on a bicycle that are eventually supposed to fall off as they learn to follow Jesus. Your kids are going to learn loving obedience to an authority that loves them. They're going to learn that from you as you protect and provide for your kids emotionally, spiritually and physically. As you do that, you are teaching your kids to love and obey God. So listen, parents, this means, this means, and I know this is important at the Summit Church. This means that when your kids grow up and say, I want to go spend two years overseas to take the Gospel to the nations that you don't freak out, you rejoice.

That is the fruit of your investment. Do not fear. This father loves and protects.

Don't hold them back, send them. In Ephesians 6, Paul tells his father to not provoke their children to anger. Do you want to know what that means? Just read Noah and Lucy Weiland's letter to their dad.

That's exactly what it means. See, when Scott stepped out of the role of caring for his kids, they ended up in their own words with a deep-rooted disappointment, this mix of love for their father but at the same time an utter sadness. Provoking your kids to anger is to remove yourself as a placeholder for God and redefine what a father is and insert your own interpretation into that role.

It is to reject your role as a protector and a provider and abandon your kids to protect and provide for themselves emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Now look, I know that many of you feel like that you could have written that letter to your dad. I know many of you have had dads that didn't help you see God more clearly but instead they distorted his image like a circus hall of mirrors.

So maybe one of these descriptions fits your dad. Maybe you had an absent father who abandoned your family or you had a passive father who never really engaged with you but instead just kind of came home from work and chilled out in front of the TV. Maybe you had a demanding father who expected you to be perfect and got angry when you didn't live up to his expectations. Or maybe you had an enabling father who simply gave you everything that you ever asked for who always bailed you out of trouble and now you realize that it ruined you because you never felt the consequences of living in the real world and you never learned to take care of yourself or anybody else. Maybe you had an abusive or an angry father who was always hurting you, screaming at you, coming up with creative ways that he could communicate to you once again that you are worthless. And maybe you come in here on Father's Day and you hear this idea that God is a father and it makes your stomach turn a little bit. Listen, maybe you are rejecting God as father because the one who was supposed to be a placeholder for him left that place empty or filled it with something ugly. I understand but listen, I have good news. I have gospel for you and that changes everything.

See, dads are made to be replaced. When you go to a concert, right, there's always an opening act at a concert and the opening act that comes out before the headliner, they are a placeholder. They go out and they occupy the stage before the band that you came to see comes out. Now, sometimes you have a really good experience with an opening act. You find a new band, you download their music, you share it with their friends, you're excited about it but sometimes the opening act stinks. They're terrible but you don't walk out of the concert until you've heard the headliner.

That's who you came for. Dads, we are just an opening act for the headliner, God himself. And so if you're like me, I often feel like I'm not a very good opening act and that makes me really thankful that Jesus is going to come out and rock the show in my kid's life after I've blown it. And if you have had a bad experience with your dad, you need to remember the headliner is still taking the stage.

Don't leave the building because your opening act was awful. He's coming. You see in the passage that we read in Isaiah that Jesus is referred to as the everlasting father. That means Jesus is the protector and the provider that we've all longed for. Not only that, the prophet Malachi says that he came to heal the relationships between fathers and their children. Do you know why healing the relationship between fathers and their children, you know why that's important to Jesus? Because Jesus was born, the scripture says, to fight the shadow of death. Jesus was born to fight back the deep darkness. This child is born to go to war with sin and brokenness in the world and nothing is a better predictor of darkness in a person's life than the role a child's father played. You want to know? You want a good experiment to understand how that's true?

Look at our prison system. See Jesus cares about the presence of a father because he cares about shining light into darkness. But even when dad is gone, even when he's not at the barbecue or the baseball game or the father daughter dance, even when father's day is painful, Jesus brings the presence and the protection and the provision of an everlasting father because every dad, even good dads like Joseph, are just place holder.

We're just opening acts to the headliner. So let me show you how Jesus steps in as an everlasting father. Let me show you how he steps in everywhere that your dad may have failed you. First, in Jesus, God is better than your demanding father. See this Messiah salvation, Isaiah says, it comes as a gift unto us a son is given. The child has been given.

You know what? The gospel is the announcement of a gift. It's not a demand for you to prove yourself to a heavenly father who's tapping his toe waiting to see if you live up.

It is the news that Jesus Christ has lived the life that you were supposed to live that you failed at and died the death of condemnation in your place on a cross so that you can immediately by the father be forgiven and fully accepted by God. Jesus does not say to you like your demanding father, you prove that you're worthy of my love and then I'll love you. No, he says, I love you.

I forgive you. And out of that certainty of my love, you'll change and become exactly who I've called you to be. Listen, I know kids and I counsel especially men who grew up and no matter what they did on sports teams in a classroom or on a stage, their dad always came back to them with here's the six things you did wrong. Not this everlasting father.

He says you come to me with your worst and you will leave with my best. Jesus is also better than your angry father. Instead of walking on eggshells around them praying that he's not going to flip out and hurt you, you can come close to him and trust him. Look at the psalmist wrote in Psalm 103, Jesus is not an easily offended alpha male ready to throw his fist at anyone that gets in his way. He is slow to anger. He is full of compassion and grace and mercy.

He is abounding in love that doesn't quit. See, Jesus is also better than your enabling or your passive dad. Look at Hebrews 12, 10 and 11.

In Hebrews, we're told that God is disciplining us not out of anger, but out of a desire for our peace. Here's the way this protector and provider, this everlasting father works. He's always thinking about your good, always thinking about what's best for you. He doesn't just sit back uninvolved and watch things happen to you. Listen, neither does he swoop in and send angels to rescue you from all of sin's consequences. He is actually actively thinking about how to bring the right things into your life at the right time with the right people. Listen, sometimes the hard things, I'm not here today if it didn't all fall apart from me seven years ago when I was here before, but the Lord knew how to bring the right discipline into my life to grow me and change me.

And I'm going to tell you this right now, when that's happening, you are not for a minute alone. See, unlike the absent father or the passive father who was emotionally checked out of your life, the everlasting father is ridiculously engaged with you. Look at Romans 8. Through Jesus' death and resurrection, we not only get forgiveness, we get another gift. We get the gift of the Holy Spirit, third person of the Trinity. And while the Holy Spirit certainly moves us outward to love people outside, he is also constantly at work on the inside, renewing day by day. And he is the voice of the father in your life. And when it is all crashing and burning around you and you are tempted to doubt the goodness of the father, the Spirit comes to us in our weakness, in our pain, in the brokenness of creation and says, He loves you. You are a child. You were adopted. He will not leave you as an orphan.

Don't you believe you're alone? To the Holy Spirit, the everlasting father is emotionally engaged with your heart. See, he's not just putting food on the table. He's not just protecting you. He's pulling you close into him, sitting you on his lap, and he's whispering to you, I love you to the cross and back, kid. In fact, on the cross, Jesus Christ felt the absence of his father so we could forever have his presence. This father is emotionally involved. If you had a father that was distant from you or abused you or was always angry or was emotionally checked out, I want you to know something today. Listen very close. This everlasting father is not that dad.

That was just a lousy opening act. This daddy doesn't just love you from a distance. He is minute by minute, deeply intimately involved with you, always thinking about your good. Listen to me, I know some of you, you hear this today, you're a little bit angry with me right now, and that's okay. I know some of you don't feel this today. No matter how emotional or charged up I get up here, you don't feel this today. Listen, I know from personal experience, I know that years of abuse and neglect are not overcome in a sermon and they're not overcome when you open up your Bible and read a few verses.

And I'm not suggesting that to you today. My wife grew up in a broken home with an absent dad and an alcoholic mom. She was abused and neglected. And you know what, 10 years into our marriage, we were still feeling the effects of that.

My two oldest boys that are adopted from Russia and Ethiopia were neglected and abandoned for a year and a half. But as much as I wish it were true, we can't overcome all of that neglect and abandonment with just a hug and putting dinner on the table every night. It takes time.

It takes a long time. And for some of the neglected and fatherless kids in the world, that hurt is not going to be fully healed until Jesus comes back and makes all things new. See, the darkness of abuse and abandonment and neglect buries itself deep inside the heart and it takes long-term promise-keeping and sacrificial love to shine light down in that deep darkness. And that's why I am so thankful that's exactly what Jesus Christ does.

You want some good news on Father's Day weekend? Even though Herod was a king with power, seemingly unending power to command armies to kill the Christ child through the simple, tiny, fatherly obedience of Joseph, Jesus won and Herod lost. Herod is dead and Jesus is alive. The darkness cannot overcome the light. And at the end of all things, the Scripture tells us that there will be no more night because God the Father in all of His light will dwell with His children as His children dwell with Him forever, everlasting Father.

And that means that there is not an orphan, there is not a teenage kid about to age out of the system in Russia, there is not a little Ethiopian starving girl begging for food on the streets of Addis Ababa or a kid right now being abused in a bedroom in North Durham because of Jesus Christ, because of His promise to make all things new. There is not a single child who has been betrayed or hurt or neglected or abandoned by their father that you and I can't with all the sincerity and sureness in the universe look into their eyes with deep conviction and say, it's going to be okay. It's going to be better than okay.

It's going to be perfect. I love you and I want to show you who a loving father is. Trust this Father. Trust this everlasting Father because He's a better dad than the one that failed you and I promise you as you learn to walk with Him, you will grow more and more sure of His love for you as the Spirit testifies to you and His word testifies to you that He's a good Father. And as you see it in the church and the people that come around you, even if it doesn't happen right now in an instant, stick with this church. Stick with the Bible that tells you of this Father and His love.

Don't quit. I can promise you this church is not going to quit on you and I know this God won't. Listen to me, Summit Church, it's up to you to make that message clear to every hurting family in the triangle. See, the church should be answering the call of Joseph. You know, in some of the most climactic moments of the Bible, here's the way the plot goes. Evil feels threatened by children, so evil slaughters children. Meanwhile, God through His people is rescuing and preserving the children as they overcome evil and every time it's telling us about how Jesus will save us. See, where the culture of death and destruction feels threatened, you know what it does?

It kills the weak. It happened in Egypt when Pharaoh wanted to get rid of the Hebrew children. It happened in Jesus' day with Herod and it is happening today. And that's right where God steps in to provide salvation. See, God's adoption of us is only possible if Joseph adopted Jesus. And now, church, as the body of Christ, it's time for us to step into our culture of death and realize that Joseph's call is ours too. That we are here to play a role in the salvation story that God is telling by answering Joseph's call to care for God's kids.

I'm going to give you three ways that we need to do this. First, we've got to answer Joseph's call in our homes. Dads, listen to me. If you're putting food on the table but not having real actual conversations with your kids, ones where you actually listen to them so that you hear what's going on in their heart, so that you can apply the truth of the gospel to it, then you are provoking your kids to anger.

If you provided a roof over your kid's head and food on the table to protect them from weather and starvation but you aren't washing them in the word to protect them from the serpent's lie, you are provoking them to anger. Dads, if you know today you're failing in this area, listen to me, don't despair. This is not a guilt trip. Your kids aren't looking for perfection, they're just looking for a little effort. And because of Jesus in all the ways that you're failing as a father, you are already forgiven.

You just have to look at the cross to know that. So now you can move forward in faith into being the placeholder that you're supposed to be. Look, you need help, ask somebody in your small group. You know a dad around here that you think, man, that dad seems to be doing it right.

Ask that dad. You're not in a small group, you don't know anybody, come see your campus pastor, one of our prayer team afterwards. Let's get that ball rolling on Father's Day. Second, we gotta answer Joseph's call in our neighborhoods. I know that this church is deeply committed to caring for the fatherless in the triangle. The question is, are you just going to attend a church that's doing that in this city?

Are you actually gonna do it in your neighborhood? Are you going to watch it happen or are you going to make it happen? Can you imagine if Joseph looked at the angel that he saw in a dream and said, oh, Jesus needs a dad, fantastic. I know some great people that will really take care of marrying this baby.

I'll introduce you. The call of Joseph is not get somebody else to do it. The call of Joseph is to love the orphan and trust God to provide and protect you as you do it. He's your father.

He'll do it. And I'll tell you what that might mean in your neighborhood. It might mean getting to know your neighbors until you find a single mom and then maybe you find out that little Johnny has baseball every Tuesday and mom struggles just to get dinner on the table. So every Tuesday you show up with Bojangles. It might mean taking her kids out for ice cream on Father's Day or taking that girl to a daddy-daughter dance. It might mean this is going to be scary for you. When the college kids come back in August, this is unheard of, that you get up and walk across the room and introduce yourself and say, hey, you want to go to lunch?

I'll pay. I guarantee you they will say, okay, because I'll tell you about this college kids, these generation coming up, I'll tell you right now, chances are three out of four of them have a fatherless story and then you start to speak into that. You start to minister that. Then you start having them over your house for dinner and then they get to see what a godly family is and then you get to show them a picture because if they grow up and they never saw it, they're going to have no idea how to imitate it. They need somebody to step in and just because you're afraid that college kids are going to think you're goofy.

I'm going to tell you right now, I'm goofy. Some of the best ministry that my wife and I have ever done is just opening up our home to college kids and being our goofy, terrible people selves right in front of them. Maybe that's the call for you today or it might mean that the Lord is calling you to open your home to a foster kid and listen, it might not be a cute little six month old or three year old. It might be a busted up, hurt, abandoned, confused 15 year old who yes, has a chip on his shoulder and is your reference and mean and hateful, but haven't you treated your heavenly father that way and what did he do for you? He took on the hurt. He took on the abuse. He took on the hate so you could know a good father.

How can suffering stop us from obeying the God who suffered in our place? Listen to love your neighbor in this way. It's going to mean you stop thinking of fatherless kids as somebody else's problems. In fact, you stop thinking of kids as problems at all and it's time to start thinking of them as precious little people in the image of God and we begin to see them as the children that God loves. You know, Herod saw children as problems, so he slaughtered them.

Jesus sees children as precious, so he died for them. That's the call of the church. Somebody, if you, if you aren't going to do this in your neighborhood, who is, who are you going to push this responsibility off on as the body of Christ? We have to step into their darkness and bring light and finally we've got to answer the call of Joseph to the world. There is nothing that is a more powerful statement of life and a culture of death than adopting a child. I was honored to be a part of the movement that started here about seven years ago and it's beautiful to watch this happen over and over in this church now, but I'm telling you, don't sit by and watch this happen.

Get in the game. I realize that doesn't mean that everybody's going to adopt a child, but there are lots of ways that you can support that here and I'll give you one easy step. This Thursday night, the Lord would have it, there's an orphan care meeting.

You show up and get started. Your campus pastor will tell you more about that. Listen, Jesus doesn't live past the age of two. If a backwoods North Galilean carpenter who had no obligation to raise him other than the call of God doesn't step up and say, he's my child, I'll take responsibility and God couldn't adopt you if Joseph didn't adopt Jesus.

See, there are some pretty high stakes in caring for kids who are missing one or both parents and as the body of Christ, we are going to answer Joseph's call. You know, it's fitting that we're taking the Lord's supper today. See, the beautiful thing about this meal is that as you take it, you're always sitting next to somebody new and here when you take it, God's family is growing.

It's multiplying. There's always another kid at God's table. So my question is, what about you? Do you have room at your table for one of God's kids? Let me pray for you. Heavenly Father, how beautiful it is the way that you show your love and your kindness through your people to kids who have been hurt, abused, neglected, left. Right now, Father, I want to thank you for Jesus Christ. I want to thank you for being the headliner, the good father, the everlasting father, and I want to pray that you by your spirit work through this church to go out into Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, all over the triangle to love and care for these children that you call precious and then out into the world to bring healing and relief and most importantly, the gospel of Jesus Christ that says, hold on, the headliner's coming. Thank you for the hope that we have of all things new and every broken thing that our fathers ever did to us will be totally healed in the everlasting father. Thank you for that hope. Thank you that darkness cannot overcome the light and that we will be healed and we will celebrate at a huge table where all God's children will say, blessed be the name of the Lord, the lamb that was slain in our place. Praise God. Move in this church in Durham and to the nations on behalf of the fatherless in Jesus name. Amen.