Matthew 1:18-21; Ephesians 1:4-5
When Larry and Melinda came to me in 1990 wanting to get married, I was a little skeptical at first. For one thing, Larry had come to me in 1988 with another young lady wanting to get married because she was pregnant. After counseling them that her pregnancy was not enough reason to get married, I was relieved to learn that they had decided to wait. I didn’t hear from Larry again until he called, wanting to come in with this new bride-to-be. I have to tell you, my first question to them was, “Is she pregnant?” She wasn’t. For another thing, they were both very young, just twenty years old. That in itself meant that making marriage work would be challenging. But, after about five counseling sessions, in which we are all quite honest with each other, I told them I would marry them.
That was in August. They called me again at the first of the year. They wanted to come and talk to me. I was afraid that their marriage might be in trouble. But I was surprised by what they told me. Larry’s former girlfriend had moved in with a much older man, and left her son with her mother, who did not want to raise the child. Larry and Melinda were going to file for custody and wanted to know if I would be willing to be a witness for them in court if necessary. We talked for a long time, especially about what it would mean for Melinda to take in and mother this child who was not her own. I was convinced that she was ready for this responsibility, and would not only be able to be a mature parent, but also a loving one. So I put my name on the list. After several months of legal maneuvering, they were able to take in little Justin. Melinda subsequently adopted him. And for years, I got Christmas cards with pictures of this happy, loved little boy.
Loving a child who is not your own takes intentional willingness to love unconditionally someone who is not your biological child. It means making a conscious decision to take on some degree of responsibility for someone who is not related to you. And it can take many forms.
Matthew Willett was between his junior and senior years in high school when he was part of a church youth group that I took to Youth 2003 in Knoxville, Tennessee. In the display area outside the arena, he noticed a booth for a child-sponsorship organization and went over to take a closer look. Before the week was out, he had chosen a little boy in Indonesia that he wanted to sponsor. He took on the responsibility of paying $35 a month and writing letters to this child in need on the other side of the planet. And he kept up his sponsorship all through his years in college and graduate school. A couple of years ago, he went with a group from that organization to Indonesia and met the young man he continued to support, who is now a teenager. It was a powerful, deeply moving experience for them both.
The story of Joseph is a story of loving a child who was not his own. Can you even imagine the day when Mary came to tell him that she was pregnant? Can you picture the look on his face when he realized what that meant? After all, he was quite sure that he wasn’t the father! That could only mean one thing, logically: Mary had betrayed his trust and committed adultery. (In those days, being unfaithful to your fiancé was considered adultery, and the woman could be stoned to death for that crime.) Joseph, however, did not want to see Mary punished, or even embarrassed, by her circumstance. So he was simply going to break their engagement privately.
But Joseph had a visitor in his dreams, an angel of the Lord. And that angel, that messenger, brought an even more incredible story. The baby that Mary carried had been conceived by the Holy Spirit; he was the child of God. And Joseph had been chosen by God to be the earthly father of Jesus. The angel told him not to be afraid to go ahead and marry Mary and form a family with her and her baby. Not be afraid! Wow! That would take some kind of courage! To agree to be the one to raise the Son of God, that was brave. He was going to be the father of this child who was not his own.
There are lots of ways that we can be involved in the lives of children who are not our own, and many of us take advantage of some of them through church connections. We might give money for coats and boots for children who need them. Or you may have taken gift tags from giving trees in the community.
Then there are those who have gone a step further. There are people like my brother and his wife, who adopted six girls out of the foster care system, at different times. They opened their homes to perfect strangers, and committed to love them and bring them up as their own, even though they were not. They experienced heart-warming and heartbreaking times with these children, just as parents of their own biological children do. And those children were so very, very fortunate to find a loving home with parents who were good Christians, to bring them up in a faith that could help them overcome their rough beginnings.
Those of us who are part of a church family have an impact on children who are our own. Some of the most influential people in my life were the Sunday School teachers, Vacation Bible School leaders, youth group volunteers, and other adults in my church who took time to be with the children and love them. Charlie Walls, the man who was youth director when I was in high school, has a lot to do with my being in the ministry, and I felt as at home with his family as I did with my own. Each one of you is part of the lives of our children, and they need your love and support and time and energy. You are making a difference in their lives!
As I was thinking about loving children not our own, I remembered this passage I read earlier from the Book of Ephesians. I remembered that God loves each of us as children who are not his own, but who are his adopted children. God chose to be our Father; he chose us to be his children. That is so powerful! We are loved by someone who wanted to be our parent, who made that commitment to us before we were even born, before the world came into existence. We have been in God’s heart from the beginning of time. Just think about that for a moment.
I want to close with the video of a song by Steven Curtis Chapman, called “When Love Takes You In.” He and his wife, Mary Beth, adopted three little girls from China (at different times), and this song comes out of that experience. But it also has to do with our adoption as the children of God. I pray that its words might be meaningful to you this morning.
