I love being part of a family, in fact I am part of quite a few families. Of course there is my home family with my wonderful husband and best friend Kevin, I feel very much part of this Church Family, we are like a family at school and there is also our Emmaus and Kairos families. I love the fact that you can be yourself and have fun with all the different members of your various families. I very much love being a wife and I love being a mother. In fact as a very young person all I wanted to do with my life was to become a mother. Even as a child at Primary School I was fascinated with babies and my whole ambition was to have one of my own. I just couldn’t wait to grow up and be old enough to get one.
You can imagine my devastation at the tender age of 16 when I came home from school one night to find out that the doctor had rung with the results of some tests and I had been diagnosed with an hereditary hormone disorder which meant that none of my reproductive system had developed properly and I had to have an immediate complete hysterectomy. I just thought that I was a late developer but that definitely was not the case. A couple of days later I was put into Mooroopna Hospital under the guise of an appendix operation to protect my reputation and a full and complete hysterectomy was performed. I would never be able to have children, my life was over.
It didn’t seem to matter what anyone said to me I just didn’t care. I must have heard the words, “Well, you can always adopt!” from twenty different people. All I could think was I don’t want to adopt, I want to have my own children. I mean really when it is all said and done you just can’t love an adopted child as much as your own, can you? That was the mind of a 16 year old.
Well, I stand here today, some 43 years later with two of the most wonderful children a mother could ever have, Ruth aged 31 whom we adopted at 9 weeks old and Matthew aged 28 whom we adopted at 4½ months old. They are my children and heaven help anyone who says otherwise. I love them with all my heart and I can honestly say that I could not love a child that was my own flesh and blood any more than I do these two. Why am I telling you all this? Well because I want you to leave here today absolutely secure in the knowledge that God has this same love for each of us, you and me, and He wants us to be part of His family.
I want you to know without any doubt just how much God loves you. In fact He loves you and me so much that He sent his only Son to die on our behalf, to save us from sin and death. Ephesians 1:4-5 says, “For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.” How cool is that! God chose us before He even created the world and has adopted us as His sons and daughters and He did it in accordance with His pleasure and will, not because He had to. He wanted to. That’s love and I certainly want to be part of that.
Earlier we read from Romans and I just want to re read verses 15-17, “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba Father”. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” God has adopted all of us and we are, in God’s eyes, heirs of the Kingdom on the same standing as His own Son Jesus Christ.
Titus 3:4-7 tells us,
“But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”
I don’t know about you but I find that a lot to take in but when you really think about it, it is truly wonderful. Someone out there loves me that much that He wants, WANTS, not thinks, not wishes but WANTS me as part of His family despite the fact that I can never earn that status. He loves me in exactly the same way as He loves His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. I am important to Him. That is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard or experienced.
Now I never grew up in a Christian family and my mother only went to church on two occasions, a wedding and a funeral and usually I didn’t get invited to either. My father died when I was 9 and I wasn’t even allowed to go to his funeral. So the church to me was a very strange place where only the do-gooders went and I never wanted to be part of them. The High School I went to had a School Chaplain, very similar to James Brown here in Leeton. His name was Mr Wilf Poole. During my surgery and after I got home Mr Poole visited me and would talk to me about Jesus and His love and being heirs of the Kingdom. He invited me to the Shepparton Baptist Church Youth Group and the rest as they say is history. I came to realise that the Church isn’t just where the do-gooders go on Sunday morning but is in fact a family.
We sit here each Sunday morning listening to Richard’s absolutely excellent sermons and we praise God with our singing and we pray with all our heart and these things are truly wonderful. But you know Church is much more than that. Church is a family. I love sitting here listening to Richard, I love standing here singing and I love praying but I also love the bond that exists between us all. I love the smiling faces, the joyous greetings, the discussions around morning tea. Heck, I even love Doug’s sick jokes. I love the feeling of belonging. Now if I feel that here in Leeton Presbyterian Church, I can only imagine how wonderful Heaven is going to be. Imagine being in the company of Jesus and being able to talk to Him face to face, being able to ask all those questions that have eluded us for years. Personally for fifty years I have wanted to know the name of the lady who reached out and touched Jesus cloak and was healed.
We often hear people say things like how great Heaven will be because there won’t be any pain and suffering and that is true and the older I get the more I am looking forward to that side of it but there is just so much more. Everything that is good, everything that is perfect is in Heaven. Anything that is not good for us or is just bad or evil simply won’t exist in Heaven. This is what God’s totally unconditional love has done for us and has in store for us as part of his family. I can’t wait!
Hebrews 2:10-11 tell us,
“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy (Jesus) and those who are made holy (you and me) are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them (us) brothers and sisters.”
Roman’s 6:5 says,
“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”
If you look around you see that a lot of people today are obsessed with technology, economics, scientific discovery and political power for solving their problems and trying to bring themselves happiness, but these things are only transient and do not bring true happiness. There is only one source of true happiness. It can only be found in God and the grace of Jesus Christ. It is only through accepting the love and forgiveness that God offers us that we will find happiness. When we set our minds on what the Spirit desires, we will find happiness. It is this complete love for us that lead Jesus to the Cross of Calvary where He suffered and died to take away our sins and in doing so He bridged the gap of sin and death that separates people from God. The Cross of Calvary took us out of that miry pit and brought us into God’s family.
How’s that for an act of love. I think it’s pretty good. I think this is the very best family that you can belong to. There is absolutely no doubt about it….God loves you and God loves me. I know there are plenty of times when I grieve Him far more than I could ever know but He doesn’t leave me or forsake me. He loves me unconditionally and that is just the best feeling.
This is the Church. For many years I thought the church was that huge building on the corner with the tall steeple and that annoying bell that rang every Sunday morning and woke me up, but the truth is that is nothing more than a pile of bricks and mortar. The true church is the people. Yes we are the church, you and me. In the Kairos Prison Ministry program there is one of the talks that asks the question of the inmates, ‘Who is the Church’ and by the end of the 3½ day program they are very enthusiastic in shouting out ‘WE ARE THE CHURCH’, and that is true. As beautiful as it is, this building is merely a shell. The Leeton Presbyterian Church is you and me with Christ. Now I have attended Church regularly ever since that day I started Youth Group and my true friends, my church family, have helped me overcome many disasters in my life. I felt very alone and isolated when I found I couldn’t have children. I felt God had rejected me after all He knew that all I wanted was to be a mother and He took that away from me. How could He do that if He truly loved me. I also thought others would reject me for not being a ‘whole’ person because I couldn’t have kids. Fortunately for me God is far more in control than I am and He sent His angel Mr Poole and others in the Church to help bridge that gap between God and I. He never abandons us even though we may feel that we are completely alone at times. Remember the Footprints in the Sand where it says at the very lowest times in your life, when you see only one set of footprints, it is then that I carried you. God’s love for us is so strong and so perfect that He never leaves us, He carries us.
God has looked after me and nurtured me through many of life’s storms. He is an anchor for my soul that is sure and steadfast. Whatever storms we pass through, whatever uncharted seas we must sail, whatever misfortunes we may encounter, our life’s ship will never be wrecked, but will complete its journey till it finds safe harbour with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Now that is love in its purest form and it is real for you and for me.
God’s message for you today is that you have that anchor. Whether you are riding out the storm or experiencing a time of calm, whether you are safe at harbour or sailing uncharted seas, you have the anchor for your soul that is sure and steadfast. Even when you can’t feel it, even when you think it is slipping and you are drifting, it is, in fact, the only thing holding everything else together. Because this anchor, this hope, is not just a feeling, and does not rest on our feelings. It is a hope that we can be sure of. This is that unconditional love that Jesus has for each of us. He wants to holds us and guide us and that love is the very best thing that you will ever have.
Leeton Presbyterian Church 