I Woke Up in a Stranger's House | My Story

TRANSCRIPT

I wanna tell you a story of a little boy. He's around five years old and he wakes up one morning and it's different to normal. He finds himself hanging on the fence, watching horses and trainers go around the track and the air is so cold, he can see his breath and he says, this is not my usual place.

I'm not in my bedroom. He looks around and he sees his brother. His brother's name's Eric and Eric is, uh, a little bit older than him, but there's also another family close by with another dad and his mom, and he's getting this sense of things are about to change. He didn't know that his mom and dad had just split up.

And that what was happening was the removal of him from his dad's home to become part of another family where he now was the, the bottom instead of two kids of six kids. So that's my story. When I woke up to the fact that I wasn't anymore with my dad, it was a whole new beginning of a whole new story for me.

So I got to understand a little bit, very early in life what blended family looks like, what it feels like to be somebody other than your normal family unit. And what that did for me was initially confused me terribly. I really got to a point in my life where I was miserable. By the time I was 10, I now didn't have three stepbrothers and a stepsister and an og.

I also had two other half brothers as well, and things were really getting outta control for me. I didn't really feel right or at home, and I had no knowledge of God. I had no anchor, no hope, no reason to believe for something better or something different. So when we begin to talk today about vulnerable children, children in the, in the change of life, you know, we're not just talking about figures and statistics.

We're talking about kids that once were with a family and now are separated, they don't know where their sister and brother are living. Now we're talking about those who are cared for by lovely grandparents instead of mom and dad. We're talking about those whose dad is in prison and he can't be there for them like he wanted to be because of other choices he's made.

So I want you to think about that experience of a child and I've got an a little thing we wanna look at here and read through. It could be the point of view of a child in this situation and they think this.

I am an orphan and unloved. I believe I am never and will be a child of the most high God, one who is loved and adopted into God's family. Instead, my life has no meaning. I can never say that my life has a hope and a purpose. This is a sigh of modern day life, isn't it? We have varying degrees of that happening in our midst right now.

We don't pretend to all be the perfect family in it. We all know someone close to us is going through difficult times in their family, but being fostered, I wanna say is or adopted, can also be a potentially beautiful thing because every time that. Foster parents says a yes to a child. In this situation, the circumstances are changing.

Every time that child who felt unwanted has found a safe place. Now, every time they opened their door, they were saying to that child, you matter. You belong. You are not alone. Somebody. Someone cares about you see the yes of others didn't just change their circumstances. It changed their lives. It gave them value and purpose.

It is not just a human thing either. It's a reflection of God's and his heart for us, and that's what we wanna focus on today. Maybe you've never fostered a child, but you have had moments when somebody who's gone outta their way to welcome you into a group or a party or a situation where you felt totally at odds with everything and somebody just took that moment of courage to say, hi, how are you?

How's it going for you? And you suddenly, you felt in there, you felt welcomed, and that's a little reflection of what we're talking about today. You may have felt totally adrift and out of place, but you needed to know that somebody saw you for who you really were. Now imagine what it feels like for a child to not have that Yes in their life, to not know that they really do better

to others and to God. Right now on the Gold Coast, children are growing up without stability, without safety, without a family. Some are separated from the only family they've ever had. Sadly, some are moving from one home to another home to another home. And the system that's trying to help them is broken enough that it won't always find a way to meet their needs.

Other children being raised in the system and trying to protect them, but it cannot replace the love of a genuine parent. The hard truth is this, the world often looks away vulnerable. Children are not headline news, they're not trending on social media. They are easily forgotten. So we'll just end the message there and make you feel real good for Christmas.

Ah. But you feel it, don't you? Like we can just put it all aside and sing Carols and be all happy and joyful. And happy. Happy. Joy. Joy. But it's not the reality that many of us have seen or experienced ourselves. And if someone does nothing else, sorry. If someone does nothing, no one else is there to ask.

Why not? It's like it doesn't really matter. Why? Because we are the, we are the. Difference here, God's people. There's something in our DNA that's different that wants to care and wants to make people know they matter. That wants to reach out and say, I see you. I see you, I hear you. And that's the difference that God makes in our life.

We are the church. What's the church? Well, we're the ones that cannot look away. We cannot unsee what we see. Why? Because we are the people of Jesus. The greatest lover of all. You know, if we're not like him. If you call yourself a Christian and can't love others, I'm mean there are difficult people I know.

Sorry, dot, I do my best. But you know what? It's so easy for us to think that's the norm, even for Christian living. We need to know that God has called us to this high place of being loving like he is because he loves us so deeply, and so we can say with him, I see you. We see you. Our eyes must turn toward those who the world ignores.

It's part of the message of our savior to to true faith for us is not just words on our lips. It's love in action. What a great title for us, a sermon series. That's a reality for us. What did Jesus say? Well, love God first. But then he said, love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. You know when you get that family photo, who do you look for first?

Ah, come on. Be honest. The dog. Oh, after the dog. You look for yourself. I do. It's natural human nature. Love them as much as you love yourself. Look for them in the last photo. And do for others. He said what you would want them to do for you. It's wisdom that we just resonate with, doesn't it? So welcome to Radical Christmas.

Do you know what radical means comes from the Latin root called radicals? Which means a root. In other words, the very basic meaning of all things is radical and radical. Christmas means a Christmas that reflects the very heart of God. That's why we call it Radical Christmas. It's, it's goes against the trend and goes straight to the heart of God.

Now Ruth, thank you. Ruth quoted for us, Christine Kane, the founder of an organization, organization which deals with the young human trafficking. And she said this, you can look and look away, but when you see you can't unsee

Kev last week. When we're thinking about this, he says, when you're thinking about donating or donating time or serving this way, just remember it's not about the food. It's not about clothing. It's not about all the things. It's about the dignity that comes. That's what we're giving people dignity. You are helping them to see the God, the God that loves them deeply.

The God that's sacrificed everything for them. He's for them. He is for them. Thanks, pastor Kiev and keeping us focused on what's really important. Now, the Christmas story itself is a love story. You knew that didn't you? Way before there was Adam and Eve. There was God, the father, and the Son, and the spirit, this beautiful spiritual family that's eternal.

They got together and conspired to love others. They created them and made them worthy by their effort in their joy to enter into family with him. It's not a perfect family, but it's a chosen family. We will talk more about choosing a family later. His name was Joseph. He was the Trae of Nazareth. You know, the chippy, and he had hopes and purpose.

He thought one day I'm gonna find that woman. That God is handpicked for me and I'm gonna woo her and I'm gonna entice her and, and she's gonna say yes to me and I'm gonna visit the parents and we're gonna sit down and do the contract of marriage. And all that seemed to be coming together for him.

Until it wasn't in a very picturesque way. The Old Testament, what the old, uh, king James says, and Mary was found to be with child, very picturesque way of saying she was pregnant. She shouldn't have been, but she was. This is embarrassing. This is going to kill her. Literally, if he takes a certain direction, if he sort of starts to publicly accuse her of infidelity.

People will take up stones to cast them and take her life. It's all legal. It's in the book. You love the Old Testament Lord, don't you? Well, you know, there's reasons for that. But the thing being, he didn't do what he could have done. He made choices and they were aided by the angel of God coming to speak to him.

How often we need to wait and listen for God. And take a different pathway. And so Joseph, the one who could have been angry and bitter for his life, the whole life. Instead was told and he listened to what the angel said. He said Joseph did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him to do, and he took Mary home as his wife.

She wasn't a surrogate, it wasn't a sort of wife. She was his and her child would become. His child. What a beautiful picture right there of what God was doing for us. The same way that Joseph had to open his heart to take in Jesus the unborn child, into his heart, into his family, the same way God does that for us.

Just take a moment to think about that.

I don't normally get dry in the mouth, but that's good. Well, by choosing to be with Mary, he was choosing to raise a child that was not his own. Joseph became the earthly father of Jesus and he exemplified the very heart of the Heavenly Father in doing that. And one messenger of Christ named Paul. Some call him the apostles, some call him the Saint.

Paul just said, I'm Paul. And he said this to all those who would listen, here is the heartbeat of the father to those who lived in glacier, a region of, uh, Asia Minor. He said, but when the set time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who are under judgment, under the law that we might receive.

Listen for it. Adoption. To sonship. That includes women too, by the way. He would include us in his family when the time came and it was the right time. Now, this is good news, isn't it? God saw us not only as vulnerable and lost, but spiritually often, but he chose us to be in his family. I hope you feel that choosing right now that he's chosen you.

He welcomed us into his home. He gave us his name. Ah. He called us. His children we're called Christian. Wow. What a privilege to be included with the Christ. Paul continues his letter and says this in the next verse six. He says, because you are his sons and daughters, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts.

There's this communion that happens and the Spirit who calls out Abba. Father. The father part is the translation of the other part. They mean the same thing. Daddy. Intimately. It's interesting to me that Paul would throw back to an another language I make to reflect the importance of this relationship.

And then he goes on to say, so we're no longer, listen, we're no longer a slave. But God's child, and since you are his child guide, has made you also an heir, an heir of God. I mean, I'm feeling pretty privileged right now. I've gone from being an orphan a nobody to being a someone because of him. Do you feel it?

I hope so. If you're not sure about it yet, don't worry. There's plenty of room for you to come in. Listen to that. You and I are no longer slaves, but God's child, and since we are his child, God has made also an heir. We've all got a story. We've all got a past. We've all got a reason why we would say, I don't deserve to be there with him.

If you can't feel that yet, let God speak to your heart again. You gotta be humbled before you can be risen up. You know, God exalts the humble He. You know, Jesus said it this way. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. And I thought about that recently. What does that mean?

Well, I often feel like I'm hungry to be better than I am. I'm hungry to be a better person. I'm hungry to have more of what God wants for me, and that is the flip side of blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and I feel that I'm not qualified. And he says, great, you're right in the place where I need you to be, where I can exalt you.

I can lift you up. Amen. So we've all got that story, but Paul says, our dignity comes from being his sons and daughters, not about what we've achieved and what we think we're attaining. Keep pressing on. Keep going higher. But it's not about that. You are a son, a daughter of the most high God. He has elevated you.

He's lifting you up. He's glorifying you even by the adoption to his name. This is great. We bear his name, we bear his image. You are his family. God is represented in the world today by us. By you. By you, by you, by you, by you, and you. He's represented by you. So here I wanna say the father's plan is to take us from being an orphan to being an heir.

A little bit more about my story, so I went from being the youngest of two boys to being the youngest of six kids and three stepbrothers, one stepsister, and my OG Eric, and, and then added two half brothers, and then it all got changed again. What could happen? Well, I got to live with my real dad. Oh, because I was so miserable with this family, God, mum wrote and said, you gotta do something about Lenny.

He's terrible. He's so miserable. Would you take Eric and Len back again? He said, yeah, they're my kids. And so I went to live with my real dad and we were just the boys in the family. Then the three of us. That was an exciting time, and later he found. A friend whose husband had passed away. They'd been family friends and, and she was a nice lady.

Her name was Rita and she had a son named Tom and Tom was 10 and they got married and he came to live in our new family unit. And so now, yeah, it gets interesting. I got another stepbrother. And then they had a girl got another half sibling, which it's a wonderful story, really, and all that to say, Tom, I wanna tell you about Tom.

Tom's real name is Tom Fallon after his father, but after he lived with us for a little while, he said, you know what? I want to be a Bradley. I really want to be part of this family, and he asked for his name to be changed legally from Tom Fallon to Tom Bradley. So you know, when our family passed away, our mom and dad passed away.

He joined in the inheritance with us. He got the same rights and privileges that we had, and that was his choice to do that. So get this. The foster child receives many blessings and privileges in their foster family situation, but ultimately they don't share in the inheritance of the foster parents. If they have other children, those kids get the inheritance unless something else happens, unless the foster parents adopt.

That child and suddenly they become a part of their family with every privilege, every right and responsibility that goes with that. What sort of a God does that? Our God has adopted you and I into his family and said, everything's yours. Just like the older brother in this story, you know, everything I have is yours.

Enjoy it. Sit there and enjoy it. Keep loving me back and I'll love you. What a story, eh? I love Christmas because Christmas was a love story in the beginning. Jesus has a blended family as well. He had a half brother named James, and James was the most critical member of his family. One time. Thought he was crazy, man, don't go and listen to him.

Please don't go to Jerusalem. Please don't tell people what you want to tell him. He was so embarrassed by Jesus. My older brother is weird. And then one day Jesus died and. James saw him again living and arisen and thought, oh my goodness. He really, he really is who he said he was. I was the fool, not him.

And so he worshiped his brother now as his Lord, and he wrote some things, and I believe the scholars say this is some of the earliest Bible written. What James had to write one of the first letters ever, and he said this about what's good religion look like? Gonna get me some of that religion, you know?

Well, religion and God, our father accepts as pure and faultless as this to look after orphans and widows in their distress. He's saying, if you want to be like the father, let your heart be drawn to what moves him. Eh. What a change. So here's the heartbeat of the new agreement with God that he is made with his people.

True worship isn't just singing songs of praise. We love that it's not devotion to some far away. God long before the first, Adam knew his wife, God was in that family business. He conspired and predetermined that we would be part of his family, and he did everything to make that happen. So he took the first step of love for us.

The father's plan is, and always was to take us from being an orphan to being an heir. Just think about that for a minute.

This sun is getting longer all the time. We are nearly there. We're gonna land this baby. So what does this mean for us? If you are here today and you don't know Jesus, my I can remember what that was like when I didn't have a hope. Literally, my family situation I've described to you left me so mixed up.

Praise the Lord. But spiritually speaking, all of us were orphans until God stepped in. At Christmas, God was making the first move and he is, he and his family in heaven reached out to us. He came up close, sending his own son, not just to forgive you, not just to forgive you, but to adopt you, to make you his child, his own, with all the security rights and privileges that that entails.

And no matter your past, no matter your mistakes, no matter how unwanted you may feel, God is saying, you belong to me. Alright? If you've never known about this relationship, God offers open your heart. Be willing to take him in 'cause he's already taking you in to himself. God is saying, do you see what I see?

Could sing the song, but I won't. If you're here today and you do follow Jesus, this is your mission. Should you choose to accept it, to reflect the father's heart. By caring for the vulnerable, you may not be able to foster a child, but you can support those who do. You can give towards placement packs and help provide vouchers and pray.

Faithfully or offer encouragement to families who do open their homes, and it's not about the money, the money, money. It's about reflecting the heartbeat of God. Our father. Honestly, if you don't give, I want you to hear this. If you don't give, God will sort it out. He's a generous God, but we're giving you the privilege and the opportunity to join together.

To do what he wants us to do, be his hands and feet in his pocket, his wallet,

radical Christmas. Finally, can you imagine what this would be with me every child in the foster care on the Gold Coast, knowing that,

sorry.

Who needs notes? Every child on the Gold Coast knowing that they're cared for by you and by God, every child having a chance to be reached out to and loved in a way they haven't felt before. Every one of them, knowing that it's not hopeless, it's going to be okay because somebody is starting to pray them into a better relationship.

Can you imagine what that would be like? We are part of the answer to that. Now, I'm gonna challenge you to think about what you can do. You can pray, definitely you can give, if God has provided for you to give, be as generous as he's enabled you to be. Or also, this is a challenge. Consider fostering a child.

Take it on. If God has put that on your heart and you say, you know what? I think there's room for us. To take somebody else in, let God move you. And wow. What about adopting? It's not a really popular thing to talk about, but what about adopting? It's difficult. It's expensive, I can't believe, but think about that too, as saying to you, it's time for you to open your heart and adopt someone into your family.

Maybe you already know someone in your circle of life that would need. That kind of love and care. So what, what we're gonna do at the end here is to say a little prayer. Are you ready for it? Oh, there's one thing I wanna do before, remember that statement we looked at earlier? I'm an orphan, unloved. Let's look at it again, but we're gonna do it in reverse.

And it says this from the bottom. My life has a hope and a purpose. I can never say that my life has no meaning. One who is loved and adopted in God's family, a child, the most high God I believe I am, and never will be an orphan and unloved. Wow, what a turnaround. Hey, it's all about point of view, isn't it?

Can we take that point of view that God has already changed the statement, he's already reversed in the future. Not only about our future, but for every child that we meet. There's so many children ready for you to love them that way, and show them a hope and a future. Let's pray. Father, thank you that when we were lost, you found us that you.

Will take us into from being an orphan to being an he. When we were like spiritual, orphaned, you adopted us into your family through Jesus. Thank you Lord. Give us your heartbeat for the vulnerable. Help us to see every child, every carer, every family. Through your eyes. May our love reflect your love this Christmas.

May our love reflect your love, and may your family grow as people, young and old rediscover that they belong. With you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.