Messy Redemption

Last week, Pastor Frank painted a very beautiful picture of adoption. He used our family as an example, and it all sounded so perfect, and clean cut, and tied with a bow. The before and after pictures of adoption are always so powerful because it shows the power of love at work in a child’s life. But this morning, I want to unpack adoption a little more and talk about the process. I’m not going to use our story as much, but I want to begin to unfold how adoption plays out in the family of God and how He can make beauty come from ashes.

1. Before coming to Christ, every person has an orphan spirit.

You may think that sounds crazy, especially if you were raised in a loving home, but stick with me. We may have a family that we belong to, but there is something in us that is constantly searching to belong to something more, something greater. If you didn’t have a healthy family then you may see how this has played out over the course of your life. You have felt the void. You have tried to fill that void with other relationships, you have desperately sought approval from others, or you have felt the deep root of jealousy as you watch how other healthy families function. Those who have the orphan spirit often feel a sense of abandonment, loneliness, alienation and isolation. The orphan spirit leads to bondage and decay. People with this spirit will operate out of insecurity and jealousy. They will seek to earn favor from people. They view people as objects, and will use and abuse them until they don’t have a need for them anymore.

The state of our world right now is in utter despair and we see the orphan spirit all around us. In America:

“More than 20 million children live in a home without the physical presence of a father.  Millions more have dads who are physically present, but emotionally absent.  If it were classified as a disease, fatherlessness would be an epidemic worthy of attention as a national emergency. In short, fatherlessness is associated with almost every societal ill facing our country’s children.”

39% of kids in grades 1-12 live in a home without their biological father.

These numbers are devastating. The orphan spirit has taken hold in such a strong way that we see a generational pattern of fatherlessness.

But all hope is not lost.

This is where the family of God comes in. And this is where the Family of God can have the greatest impact.

Romans 8:19-21, “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”

All of creation is waiting for the children of God to be revealed in the second coming, but also right now, here in Douglas, Wyoming. People are looking for a place to heal, to be restored and redeemed. People long to be in a family, with a good father and loving brothers and sisters.

A beautifully symbol of this is found in Isaiah 61. A couple of weeks ago, I read the passage where Jesus announces his purpose for coming to earth. He read part of this passage in the Synagauge, where he quoted from Isaiah. Today we will look at the verses that follow.

Isaiah 61:1-3, “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,

because the LORD has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from darkness for the prisoners,

2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor

and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn,

3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—

to bestow on them a crown of beauty

instead of ashes,

the oil of joy

instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

instead of a spirit of despair.”

Just as any good father helps his children get dressed, Our Heavenly Father does the same thing spiritually. He begins at the head. Where ashes have been placed, which represents the visible evidence of grief.

2. All orphans have the visible evidence of grief.

It’s in their eyes. It’s in their mannerisms and in the way they speak. They are constantly grieving their loss. They know something is missing. Just envision a child, sitting amongst the ashes of a broken home, rolling around and covering themselves in what was. The ash and the soot cover every part of their bodies, and they grieve what has been lost. This is NOT what God wants for His creation, His beloved children.

God did not create us to have the spirit of an orphan, He created us for relationship.

3. God wants to replace the orphan spirit with the spirit of Sonship.

When we enter into a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, He dusts us off and places a crown of beauty upon our heads. The crown signifying that we are a child of the Most High King.

But I want to talk a little bit about the process of being dusted off. Ash is not easily removed. Especially from our hair.

Most people come into our church with an orphaned spirit and still covered in ash. Life has been hard, they have been devastated by circumstances, some they have created, others that have been out of their control. How we respond in those ash covered moments are extremely important.

The early church was confronted with this in a very real way. The disciples and many of those in the early church were from Jewish descent. This meant that they understood the Torah, they understood the commandments, they also had the physical and visible sign of circumcision which set them apart. Then came Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. To those who were unclean. Those who were not familiar with the Word of God and had probably unknowingly broken most of the commandments. They were also uncircumcised, which believe it or not, caused quite the commotion in Jerusalem.

So we have Peter, the leader of the Jerusalem church, and Paul who was planting churches all over creation. One lived amongst the clean and upright, while the other lived with those who were deemed unfit for the Kingdom of God. In all of this, God had to deal with Peter about his view of the Gentiles. We can read in Acts 10 that God did this by giving Peter a vision of “unclean” food coming down from heaven and God telling Him to kill and eat. Peter refused because it had been against his religion to do so, but God insisted and told him that he cannot call anything impure that God had made clean. This was in preparation for him to go to Cornelius’ house. Cornelius was a Roman centurion, a Gentile, not a Jew.

Acts 10:27-35, “Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”

30 Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”

34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.

Peter goes on to share Jesus with the household and…

“While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues o and praising God.

Then Peter said, 47 “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.

God showed up, in a Roman’s house, and showed that He wants ALL people to be saved and be a part of the Family of God.

Peter had a firsthand experience, witnessing the power of the Holy Spirit, the conversion of Gentiles, and he was excited about it. But then came the part of sanctification. The part of helping these orphans live as sons. And that’s where it got messy.

Paul addresses Peter at some point and writes about it in Galatians 2:11-13, “When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

Peter sat with the Gentiles, ate with them and enjoyed their fellowship until Jewish Christians arrived from Jerusalem. Then he changed tables.

How many of you remember your middle school cafeteria? Terrifying memory isn’t it? You get in line, receive your tray of food, then turn to look for a place to sit. Friendships are won and lost at that moment. If you are invited to sit with a friend or a group, you immediately breathe a sigh of relief. If you are rejected, you feel abandoned and ashamed.

Paul was angry with Peter because Peter had refused to sit with the Gentiles as they worked through the process of sanctification. He was more comfortable at the Jewish table. Where people looked like him, acted like him, and spoke like him.

When people come into our church, covered in the ash of life, we have to invite them to the table. They may not look like us, or speak like us, or act like us, but they are people who are desperate to belong. They need the healing power of Jesus in their lives, and they can experience His presence here in this place.

4. We have to be patient in the process.

It takes time for God to dust off the ash. The adoption edict is immediate at the moment of salvation. But the process of Sonship lasts a lifetime.

We only see in part who a person is and who they will become. But God sees it all. Every part of them. And He loves them so much that He wants to make them a son or daughter. He chose them for a reason, and we get to partner with Him by speaking their God given identity into them. Their edges may be really rough, they might drop some profanities, they might still dabble in sin. Gasp! Let us not judge who they are, but trust the process that God has started in their life.

We quickly judge people by the ash they’re covered in. But Jesus always looked past the ash and into the heart. He saw people for who they were and who they were going to become. He spoke in faith, knowing what their futures held before seeing it come to fruition.

Peter judged the Gentiles because they were uncircumcised. An outward symbol of an inward faith. But Paul tells the church, “For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Galatians 5:5-6

If faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see, then loving in faith means we won’t always see right away the effect our love has on others. We continue to love even when people struggle with sin. We continue to love even when people seem to be running away from God. We continue to love when people look more like the world and less like Christ because we have faith that Jesus is doing the work of sanctification while we love them through the process. We may never see the fruit of our love, but God does and it matters to Him.

“My friends, adoption is redemption. It's costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed him” Derek Loux.

Adoption into the Family of God is just as costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous as international adoption. Redemption is messy. It’s the process of the in between. It’s what takes place during the before and after picture.

In our family, here at the Gathering, we choose to go through the process together. There is no shame or condemnation. You are never alone. Nobody is an orphan. We are all being made into the image of Jesus, one messy step at a time.

And we will see that transformation right in front of our eyes. People will get dusted off, they will be anointed by God with joy instead of mourning, and as a family we will be clothed in the garments of praise as we step into our identities as the sons and daughters of God.

Welcome to the Family!

Pray-

Those dealing with an orphan spirit

Those judging others for their lack of growth/faith

Prayer of commitment to each other, that we won’t reject those are have come into the family.