Dan Cruver on 'Seeing Jesus' and the Global Orphan Crisis

I came across the article below at Zach Nielson's blog. This was originally posted at Together for Adoption by Dan Cruver. I rejoice in this kind of thinking and agree wholeheartedly.


"Seeing Much More than Statistics"

We’ve all seen the statistics. There are more than 143,000,000 orphaned and vulnerable children in our world. I remind myself of that number every day.

All of us agree that we need more than statistics to awaken the church to address the global orphan crisis. We rightly say, “We need to see faces, images of these easily forgotten children. If the church is to be mobilized to care for these children, we must seem them as much more than statistics. We must see them as living, breathing image bearers.”

But I’m convinced we would also all agree that we need to see more than actual pictures and video clips of the orphaned and vulnerable children of our world, as important as those images are. If the church is to be fully mobilized to address the global orphan crisis, what we most need to see is not simply the face of an orphan but the face of Jesus.

We are all very familiar with these words of Jesus: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me . . . Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:35-40).
Jesus’ words tell us that when we look into the face of the orphan or the face of the sick and oppressed, we are to see more than their faces. We are to see his.

But as critically important as it is for us to see the face of Jesus when we look into the face of an orphan, if Jesus’ face is all we see, we have not looked nearly carefully enough.

Jesus spoke the words of Matthew 25 just two days before he was “delivered up to be crucified” (see Matthew 26:1-2). When Jesus made the profound statement that we give him drink when we give water to the thirsty, he was about to thirst like no man has ever thirst before or since (John 19:28).

When Jesus said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” he was soon to become the outcast of all outcasts (Hebrews 13:12). Jesus was crucified among “strangers, the afflicted, and prisoners, who live outside the mainstream of urban life” (Craig Koester, Hebrews, 571).

When Jesus said,“I was naked and you clothed me,” he knew that he would first have to be left to die in nakedness at the cross before those words could become a reality for us.

The only way Jesus could say, “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me,” is if he first suffered an unquenchable thirst, an unsatisfiable hunger, an unspeakable forsakenness at the cross for us. Jesus suffered these things so that he could deliver us from our self-satisfied, self-focused, self-indulgent, orphan-neglecting, needy-ignoring lives.

Only when we see the crucified and risen face of Jesus in the Gospel will we be fully mobilized to address the global orphan crisis.

Yes, when we look into the face of an orphan, we need to see Jesus. But before we look into the face of an orphan, we need to be melted by the face of the crucified and risen Jesus as displayed for us in the Gospel. Only then will we really be able to move beyond statistics to care for the children they represent.

Another Great Site and Church 'Doing' Adoption

For more great resources on things relating to adoption, from links to frequently asked questions and answers, click here.

Go here to see what Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, TX is doing. http://www.hopefor100.org/gabc/index.htm.

Great Site for Adoption/Orphan Care

Researching about how to create a "Culture of Adoption" at our church, I came across this page at www.abbafund.com.

Click here to go directly to their "Resources" page. Tons of information!

Russell Moore on Sesame Street and the Church

Below is an article posted by Dr. Russell Moore at his blog. I was struck by his insight and thoughts on what the church can learn from Sesame Street. Very intriguing read for sure:

Sesame Street turns forty this week. And, if you’re under forty, I’ll bet just seeing those words in type means a theme song is now running through your head. That’s because the children’s educational television show has worked itself through an entire generation of American popular culture. There’s something here I think the church can learn from the Children’s Television Workshop.

Now, as I soon as I mention Sesame Street, I know some of you will balk about its educational value. You’ll point me to studies suggesting that learning the alphabet from singing puppets actually shortens kids’ attention spans. No argument here. But simply learning facts was never the primary goal of the program.

As the New York Times puts it, this was a “messianic show,” with a “mission” to remake the way children envisioned the world.

Yes, Big Bird and Bert and Ernie and Grover and Oscar the Grouch and their human co-stars would teach you about letters and numbers and safety tips. But, more than that, they would show you, by the characters they featured and the plotlines they put forward, a new way of seeing things on issues ranging from racial equality to obesity prevention to the global fight against AIDS.

I know that some immediately will conclude that I’m saying simply that churches should contextualize in their teaching and mission.

Yes, Sesame Street did contextualize. The writers and producers picked up on familiar themes such as advertising commercials (”This broadcast is brought to you by the letter ‘C.’”). They built their segments around a typical child’s attention span. They featured songs that were easy-to-sing and memorable (pop quiz: can you hum the tune of Ernie’s “Rubber Ducky” song? Of course you can).

And, yes, of course, churches should contextualize the gospel, addressing people in a language that can be heard and understood. But contextualization itself is not enough. Some of the most self-consciously contextualized churches are faddish and hyper-consumerist. They’re more like the mass-marketed latter years of Sesame Street, and less like the early, innovative, culture-shaping times. And we’ve got all the “Tickle Me Elmo” kinds of Christian ministries we can stand.

Sesame Street was effective because the program didn’t just contexutalize to the present; it contextualized to the future.

Remember, after all, when the show started. It was in 1969, the era of George Wallace and the Black Panther Party and campus race riots and the Richard Nixon “Southern Strategy.” From the very start, the program showed kids what few of them had ever seen before: a racially integrated neighborhood.

Now, Sesame Street could have done this with preachy didactic dialogue (kind of like Norman Lear’s Maude series). But instead, they showed kids racial equality, and made it normal for them, without ever saying much about it in the process.

As I read that, it struck me that, years before my Mississippi elementary school was integrated via busing, I’d seen African-American and Latino characters (such as “Gordon” and “Maria”) functioning as equal members of a society, on the television screen of my home.

“It’s almost too perfect that the first African-American president of the United States was elected in time for the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street,” the New York Times says. “The world is finally beginning to look the way that PBS show always made it out to be.”

What would happen if, whenever our culture saw love or reconciliation or peace, our neighbors said, “This is exactly the way that church always made life out to be?”

I wonder what would happen if our churches were to recognize our role in showing people the future, not just in our teaching and in our going but in our being? What kind of witness could we be to our communities, as fragmented as they are by race and class and economics and politics, if the very makeup of our congregations signaled the “manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:10) in which “here there is no Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Schythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11)?

What if our children were accustomed to seeing black pastors of majority white churches, and vice-versa? What if a hotel janitor were named chairman of deacons in a wealthy suburban megachurch, because all recognized his spiritual maturity and nothing else mattered? What if our churches pioneered tort reform, not by arbitration alone, but by Christians agreeing cheerfully to be defrauded (1 Cor. 6)?

And what if all that started to seem normal to us?

The New York Times speaks of the “messianic mission” of Sesame Street and that’s, of course, tongue-in-cheek. But we really do, as the Body of Christ, have a mission that is, quite literally, messianic.

We’d still offend a lot of people. Jesus always does. But we’d offend them the way he did, with them peering over their shoulder in wonder on the way.

And some would come back, even if by cover of night, to ask us what we’re up to. Some of them would love our songs and listen to our teaching even before they believe it’s true, just because they would hope it would be true. They’d see a picture of the universe as it could be. As deeply as their sinful natures would draw back, the image of God within them would resonate with the beauty of a cosmos at peace.

It seems to me if this were the case, we’d have less abstract theology and fewer “faddish” principles to teach. We’d be announcing to the outside culture and to those who’ve taken refuge with us in Christ, “Welcome to the future, to the kingdom of Christ in miniature.”

Mission will always be difficult, as long as we’re fallen and there are demonic powers out there. Still, we can wonder what we might be able to get across to our neighbors if we market-tested the future (by faith), and not just the present (by sight).

The Sesame Street idea was a product of its time, a Great Society-era utopian project rooted in an understanding of history as “progressive.” The people of Christ know better. If our congregations are workshops of kingdom righteousness, we’ll have to make it clear that this isn’t natural, and it isn’t due to history or to progress or to us. We’ll have to say something like, ”This church has been brought to you by the letters ‘Alpha’ and ‘Omega.’”

Mike Huckabee Interviews FORMER Planned Parenthood Director

Justin Taylor posted this interview between Mike Huckabee and a former director for Planned Parenthood. After watching an ultrasound of an abortion, Abby Johnson is not an advocate for Life! Fascinating stuff.

Click here to go to his post and to watch the interview.

Gospel Music Channel Showing "Cry of the Orphan" Simulcast

If you missed the simulcast yesterday of "The Cry of the Orphan," the Gospel Music Channel web-site will be offering it for viewing purposes for the next few months.

Click here to find out more.

AM Sermon Outline from Yesterday

For those who attended the morning worship service at WBC yesterday, you will know that I flew through tons of material and verses from the book of Proverbs relating to money.

The sermon should be up on our web-site today or tomorrow. The outline will be there as well. Below I am posting the outline, with the Scripture references, and some extra quotes. Some of the quotes I gave during the message, some I had to leave out for the sake of time.

“God Or Money: No One Can Serve Two Masters” Series

“A Godward View of Money According to Proverbs”
Various Scriptures from the Book of Proverbs


I. The Diverse Angles Proverbs Has on Wealth and Poverty

A. Wealth is understood as a wonderful blessing from the LORD.

Proverbs 10:22
Proverbs 15:6
Proverbs 22:4

B. Wealth is understood as a horrible and worthless thing.

Proverbs 1:10-19
Proverbs 11:7, 16
Proverbs 28:8, 20, 22

C. Poverty is understood as a good and better thing.

Proverbs 15:16-17
Proverbs 16:8
Proverbs 17:1
Proverbs 19:1
Proverbs 22:22-23

D. Poverty is understood as a sinful and evil thing.

Proverbs 10:4-5
Proverbs 13:4
Proverbs 14:23
Proverbs 19:15
Proverbs 20:4, 13
Proverbs 24:30-34


II. Saving is Encouraged If and ONLY If…

A. Proverbs pointing to saving for the future as NOT being a sin.

Proverbs 6:6-8
Proverbs 13:11, 22
Proverbs 20:21
Proverbs 21:20
Proverbs 27:23-27

B. Proverbs pointing to riches being worthless to hope in.

Proverbs 13:8
Proverbs 23:4-5

C. Proverbs pointing the wisdom of one’s security being in the LORD, not money.

Proverbs 10:3, 16
Proverbs 11:4, 28
Proverbs 19:23


Saving is encouraged and wise, if and only if your purpose in saving is for the ultimate good of others and the exaltation of God’s name.



III. Giving is ALWAYS an EXPECTATION for God’s people; Taking is ALWAYS CONDEMNED.

A. Honor the LORD with your wealth – Proverbs 3:10-11
B. Giving increases wealth, hoarding brings suffering – Proverbs 11:24
C. Giving generously to the poor brings blessing from the LORD – Proverbs 14:20-21; Proverbs 22:9
D. Giving generously to the poor is like lending to the LORD Himself – Proverbs 19:17
E. Not heeding the cry of the poor will prevent God heeding your cry – Proverbs 21:13
F. A characteristic of those who are righteous is that of giving – Proverbs 21:25-26
G. Oppressing the poor or giving gifts to those who are rich will bring poverty – Proverbs 22:16
H. Giving to the poor will ensure all your needs being met – Proverbs 28:27



Implications:

1. If the wealth you currently have is due to righteousness, integrity, and hard work, save wisely and give both generously and sacrificially.


2. For those who are thinking there is no way you can give generously and sacrificially as well as save for the future, be radically intentional and ask hard questions.


3. Seek after wisdom like you would $10 million.

Proverbs 2:1-7


4. Pray for a Godward balance in your everyday lifestyle.

Proverbs 30:7-9

5. Jesus, the wisdom of God Himself, is the only way for a life to be transformed to operate this way joyfully.

Quotes:

Richard Halverson said: “Jesus Christ said more about money than about any other single thing because, when it comes to a man’s real nature, money is of first importance. Money is an exact index to a man’s true character. All through Scripture there is an intimate correlation between the development of a man’s character and how he handles his money.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected. Hoarding is idolatry.”

Randy Alcorn says, “The distinction between financial responsibility and financial foolishness is this: Saving becomes hoarding when it is exercising our own sovereignty and financial independence so that God doesn’t have to come through for us.”

Larry Burkett, while he was still alive, said this about saving for retirement:
“Retirement planning so dominates the thinking of Christians who have sizable incomes that they overkill in this area enormously. The fear of doing without in the future causes many Christians to rob God’s work of the very funds He has provided. These monies are tucked away in retirement accounts for twenty or forty years. God’s Word does not prohibit but rather encourages saving for the future, including retirement, but the example of the rich fool, given in Luke 12:16-20, should be a clear direction that God’s balance is ‘when in doubt-give; don’t hoard.’”

John Wesley said, “Make as much as you can, save as much as you can, and give as much as you can.”

William MacDonald said:
“Reserves are crutches and props which become a substitute for trust in the Lord. We can’t trust when we can see. Once we decide to provide for our future, we run into these problems. How much will be enough? How long will we live? Will there be a depression? Will there be inflation? Will we have medical bills?
It is impossible to know how much will be enough. Therefore we spend our lives amassing wealth to provide for a few short years of retirement. In the meantime, God has been robbed and our own life has been spent seeking security where it cannot be found.
How much better it is to work diligently for our current necessities, serve the Lord to the maximum extent, put everything above present needs into the work of the Lord, and trust Him for the future?”

Bruce Ware's 10 Reasons to Focus on the Wonder of the Trinity

In preparation for Sunday night's message (of which I will be focusing on Romans 8:9-11), I came across these from Bruce Ware's book Father, Son, & Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles and Relevance. You can order it from Amazon here.

In the first chapter he offers ten reasons on why to focus on the wonder of the Trinity.

Consider:

1. The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most important distinguishing doctrines of the Christian faith and therefore is deserving of our careful study, passionate embrace, and thoughtful application.

2. The doctrine of the Trinity is both central and necessary for the Christian faith to be what it is. Remove the Trinity, and the whole Christian faith disintegrates.

3. Worship of the true and living God consciously acknowledges the relationship and roles of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

4. The Christian's life of prayer must rightly acknowledge the roles of Father, Son, and Spirit as we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Spirit.

5. The Christian's growth in Christlikeness or sanctification is rightly understood and enriched when seen as the work of the triune God.

6. The triune relationships of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cause us to marvel at the unity of the triune God.

7. The triune relationships of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cause us to marvel at the diversity within the triune God.

8. The triune relationships of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cause us to wonder at the social relationality of the triune God.

9. The triune relationships of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cause us to marvel at the authority-submission structure that exists eternally in the three Persons in the Godhead, each of whom is equally and fully God.

10. The doctrine of the Trinity -- on God existing in three Persons in the ways we have described -- provides one of the most important and neglected patterns for how human life and relationships are to be conducted.

Consider and Compare These Two 'Needs'

Consider First.....


(I found this at Zach Nielson's Blog...)

What Would It Take For Every Child In the US To Be Adopted?

Turns out, not as much as you might think.

Jason Kovacs, The Abba Fund:

Did you know that there are roughly 130,000 children that are waiting for adoption in the United States today? These children have had their parental rights terminated and living in temporary situation (either a temporary foster family or group home). Legally they are wards of the State with no parents but the government. You can adopt these children at no cost! In fact, in most States, you will receive a monthly stipend.

Every child in America (in the world) should have a permanent family. There is no excuse for this! So, what would it take to find each of these kids a family? To start off, I broke down the numbers by Southern Baptist Churches (they were the easiest to find figures for – as I have time I will add up all the other evangelical denominations – my initial count is roughly 170,213).

But, just counting Southern Baptist churches the results and ratios are very powerful. There are roughly 40,000 Southern Baptist Churches in the US. If every church committed to 3 children, every child would be cared for. In 11 States all it would take is 1 church committing to 1 child. Again, that is just counting the SBC!

Will you please 1) Look at the numbers below, and 2) pray with me that God would move in an unprecendented way among His church to see that every one of these children (every number is a child!) have a permanent home. And in the case of the children represented below who are 16-17 years old and about to age out of the system, pray that they would have a family who would commit to care for them when they are left on their own in a couple months or a year.
For the full chart with all 50 States click here to download in pdf.


To go directly to this link where it was found click here.



Now Consider These...

Be sure to read the descriptions why and what motivated those behind these projects...

http://ascendio.com/fbd/ - $130 million campaign

http://www.letsbuildabridge.com/ - $5 million campaign

God help us.

Orphan Sunday THIS Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Click here for a post/video at Zach Nielson's blog.

This Sunday afternoon, from 4-6 pm in the youth room at WBC, we will be hosting a live simulcast of "The Cry of the Orphan" from Nashville, TN.

Click here for more details. Hope to see you there!

Nine Ways to Know the Gospel is True by John Piper

Great Meditation. I got it here.

1. Jesus Christ, as he is presented to us in the New Testament, and as he stands forth from all its writings, is too single and too great to have been invented so uniformly by all these writers.
The force of Jesus Christ unleashed these writings; the writings did not create the force. Jesus is far bigger and more compelling than any of his witnesses. His reality stands behind these writings as a great, global event stands behind a thousand newscasters. Something stupendous unleashed these diverse witnesses to tell these stunning and varied, yet unified, stories of Jesus Christ.

2. Nobody has ever explained the empty tomb of Jesus in the hostile environment of Jerusalem where the enemies of Jesus would have given anything to produce the corpse, but could not.
The earliest attempts to cover the scandal of resurrection were manifestly contradictory to all human experience—disciples do not steal a body (Matthew 28:13) and then sacrifice their lives to preach a glorious gospel of grace on the basis of the deception. Modern theories that Jesus didn't die but swooned, and then awoke in the tomb and moved the stone and tricked his skeptical disciples into believing he was risen as the Lord of the universe don't persuade.

3. Cynical opponents of Christianity abounded where claims were made that many eyewitnesses were available to consult concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
"After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:6). Such claims would be exposed as immediate falsehood if they could. But we know of no exposure. Eyewitnesses of the risen Lord abounded when the crucial claims were being made.

4. The early church was an indomitable force of faith and love and sacrifice on the basis of the reality of Jesus Christ.
The character of this church, and the nature of the gospel of grace and forgiveness, and the undaunted courage of men and women—even unto death—do not fit the hypothesis of mass hysteria. They simply were not like that. Something utterly real and magnificent had happened in the world and they were close enough to know it, and be assured of it, and be gripped by its power. That something was Jesus Christ, as all of them testified, even as they died singing.

5. The prophesies of the Old Testament find stunning fulfillment in the history of Jesus Christ.
The witness to these fulfillments are too many, too diverse, too subtle and too interwoven into the history of the New Testament church and its many writings to be fabricated by some great conspiracy. Down to the details, Jesus Christ fulfilled dozens of Old Testament prophecies that vindicate his truth.

6. The witnesses to Jesus Christ who wrote the New Testament gospels and letters are not gullible or deceitful or demented.
This is manifest from the writings themselves. The books bear the marks of intelligence and clear-headedness and maturity and a moral vision that is compelling. They win our trust as witnesses, especially when all taken together with one great unifying, but distinctively told, message about Jesus Christ.

7. The worldview that emerges from the writings of the New Testament makes more sense out of more reality than any other worldview.
It not only fits the human heart, but also the cosmos and history and God as he reveals himself in nature and conscience. Some may come to this conclusion after much reflection, others may arrive at this conviction by a pre-reflective, intuitive sense of the deep suitability of Christ and his message to the world that they know.

8. When one sees Christ as he is portrayed truly in the gospel, there shines forth a spiritual light that is a self-authenticating.
This is "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God" (2 Corinthians 4:6), and it is as immediately perceived by the Spirit-awakened heart as light is perceived by the open eye. The eye does not argue that there is light. It sees light.

9. When we see and believe the glory of God in the gospel, the Holy Spirit is given to us so that the love of God might be "poured out in our hearts" (Romans 5:5).
This experience of the love of God known in the heart through the gospel of Him who died for us while we were yet ungodly assures us that the hope awakened by all the evidences we have seen will not disappoint us.

Was Jesus Adopted?

Russell Moore, in his incredible book Adopted for Life, takes a very unique and eye-opening look at Joseph and his relationship to Jesus, his son. Consider these words written by Moore in chapter 3 entitled: "Joseph of Nazareth vs. Planned Parenthood."

"And perhaps most significantly, if Joseph is not 'really' the father of Jesus, you and I are going to hell. Jesus' identity as the Christ, after all, is tied to his identity as the ancestor of David, the legitimate heir to David's throne. Jesus saves us as David's son, the offspring of Abraham, the Christ. That human identity came to Jesus through adoption. Matthew and Luke trace Jesus' roots in Abraham and David through the line of Joseph. As the Presbyterian scholar J. Gresham Machen put it, Joseph's adoption of Jesus means Jesus belongs 'to the house of David just as truly as if he were in a physical sense the son of Joseph. He was a gift of God to the Davidic house, not less truly, but on the contrary in a more wonderful way than if he had been descended from David by ordinary generation.' It is through Joseph that Jesus finds his identity as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise. It is through Joseph's legal fatherhood of Jesus that 'the hopes and fears of all the years' find their realization in the final son of Abraham, son of David, and son of Israel. Joseph's fatherhood is significant for us precisely because of the way the gospel anchors it to the fatherhood of God himself." (pages 67-68)

"How to Adopt" Guide

For anyone who is interested, I found this "How to Adopt" Guide through Shaohannah's Hope web-site (Steven Curtis Chapman).
Click here to go straight to it. Looks helpful. The web-site home looked very helpful as well. You can go there by clicking here.

Free Books About Adoption

At the Together for Adoption web-site, they have a free E-book for anyone to download. Click here to read a quote from the book and a link that takes you straight to the free download.

They also have a post on their blog today that walks you through how to enter a drawing for another free book on how to help your adopted child. Click here to go directly there.

Desiring God For Free!

All this month, Christianaudio.com is offering John Piper's Desiring God free for download.

As you can probably tell by the web-site, it is the free AUDIO version of the book. But if you have the capability and listen to books, sermons, podcasts, etc. I strongly encourage you to download this book while it is available for free.

Click here and follow the instructions. Thanks Christianaudio.com!

By the way, you can also download the hard copy for free from the Desiring God website.

Click here if you are interested in downloading the hard copy.

Or, of course, you can order the paperback bound copy here.