Orphan Sunday Message
What can Jesus’ first miracle teach us about orphan care?
Friends of TOUCH Director Kay Helm spoke at Lighthouse Worship Center on Orphan Sunday. Here is the complete message:
We are often left with that difficult moment when we are faced with a need so great, & so complex that we want to help, but we don’t really know what to do or how to go about doing it.
And it can paralyze us. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the scope of the orphan crisis, and by the many questions that we have. I believe that today, God wants to break through those barriers in our lives.
Those orphan statistics? They will never be greater than our God. I believe that the church is God’s answer for the orphan crisis and for broken and hurting families both around the world and here locally.
- No one else is positioned as well as the church
- No one else has the mandate from God
- No one else carries the message of hope and life in Jesus Christ
I think the answer is in Jesus’ very first miracle. I believe that God has shown us something here in John chapter 2 that we can take and use to change the world:
John 2
1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” 4 “Woman,why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”
They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
Mary brought the need to Jesus. Then she told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Then Jesus gives the servants some simple instructions. These instructions don’t seem to make sense at the time, but the servants are obedient.
In the end, the servants saw (and knew) something others did not. In other words . . . the servants saw the miracle, while others missed it.
I believe that if the people of God respond, then no child will be without a family. Children would be quickly rescued and they wouldn’t just survive – they would thrive. They would know that God loves them and He has a plan for their lives.
When you are disturbed by the sight of a child begging or hungry. When your heart is heavy for orphans, when the weight of the sheer numbers of 145 million orphans feels like it will crush you – you are part of God’s plan to rescue them. Even when we see these great needs in the world today, and we know that God has called us to respond in love – to be His answer to the cries of the fatherless. How?
- Bring the need to Jesus.
- Do whatever he tells you to do
- Give God the glory
