2022 H2O Series: Living Water
Sermon 3: Source
John 1:10-14 - Victory Fellowship
January 30, 2022 – Rev. Roderick Grabski
H2O SERIES: Living Water. Invitation. Polluted.
THE ORPHAN TRAIN
In the history of the westward migration in the United States, part of the story has been largely passed over. From 1850 to 1930, tens of thousands of those who populated the west were orphans--children from eastern cities who were without parents because of disease or the death of the parents, abandonment because of poverty, or simply because of shame.
The children were taken into children’s homes and later put on trains to take them out west where, it was hoped, someone would take them in.
Many of the children who rode the orphan train thought something was wrong with them. There was a stigma associated with their being an orphan. One little girl, Alice Ayler, often looked at her veins, to see if she could see her “bad blood.”
When the orphan train arrived at a town in the west, people gathered on the platform to see the children. Some were only looking for unpaid laborers but most, it seems, were hoping for a son or daughter to be a cherished part of their family.
The children would press their faces to the window of the train, watching the crowd, wondering if someone would choose them, and hoping they would be taken in by someone who would treat them with kindness. Sometimes when a child was chosen in a town, a brother or sister said goodbye and rode the train further west, never to be seen again.
Our hearts ache for the children. Every one of them needed loving, nurturing parents to calm their fears, dry their tears, share their joys, protect them from harm, and lead them in right ways. But the children had no legal claim to these things. Love and graciousness on the adopters’ part secured their placement, and indeed, many were taken into homes where they were loved and well cared for by adoring parents.
Aren’t those who are without God, having been alienated by sin, as pitiable as the westbound orphans, and as much in need of a Father and a home? And haven’t all of us been in those circumstances? John tells us that Jesus gives those who believe in his name the right to become children of God. The right is not conferred to comply with a legal requirement, but is a gift bestowed on those who believe. Though he does not owe us a place in his family, he desires it for us.
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2. The Source
It’s easy to feel alone, unloved, too bad or messed up to have value. It’s easy to think no one would ever want us. It’s easy to think that God has given up, that we’re too sinful. It’s easy to think that “that church would burn if I walked through the door.”
But God’s Word tells us something different. In John 1:10-14, we find the truth that God does want us, that He does accept us.
We find that the question is not whether or not we are wanted, the question is whether or not we’ll accept the invitation.
The Offer
-Jesus came to Earth. Even though He was God, He loved us all enough to come to Earth and live among humans.
But the Bible says that when He came, the world didn’t recognize that He was God, and they killed Him. They didn’t receive Him and didn’t accept His message.
But John 1:12 says, “Yet to all who received him…he gave the right to become children of God.” Most people missed it, but for those who did receive Him, He offered to adopt them as His own children.
He came freely, and He was so intent on saving us that He was willing to die to show how far He would go.
What He did was offer adoption, offer to save us. That offer has no strings attached and costs nothing.
The Choice
-So now the question is not whether God would accept you.
He proved it by humbly coming to Earth and dying on the cross.
As Jesus prepared the disciples for his departure from earthly life, he told them, “I will not leave you as orphans.” And Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will.” He doesn’t mean that some of us and not others were singled out beforehand for the opportunity to be adopted as sons, for opportunity is universal; but rather that those who come to him in faith receive the blessings of God’s children, to which the faithful are predestined.
The means by which believers are adopted into God’s family accomplishes such an absolute change in the believers’ condition it is described as rebirth. Being born again, we abandon the past direction of our lives, and in fact put it to death and bury it in baptism, to become alive--or resurrected--to a new life as a child of God, enjoying all the privileges and delights of being sons and daughters in his family.
The question now is whether or not you will accept His offer.
-Jesus didn’t force Himself on anyone, but always gave an invitation, and invitations need responses.
-John 1:12 says that in order to be adopted by Him, you have to receive Him, to believe in Him.
-The choice is yours. He’s done His part.
PRAYER
SONG: Children of God
John 1:10-14 NLT
10 He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. 14 So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
