Why are orphans so important to God

When you become a Christian you are automatically in God’s family. We were adopted by God through Christ. Even if our earthly father is not there, we can rest assure that in the Lord we have the perfect father.

God Almighty is the father of the fatherless. God comforts, encourages, and upholds orphans because He loves them.

In the same way He loves and helps orphans we are to imitate Him and do the same.

It’s truly amazing to see Christians going on mission trips to orphanages and it’s also amazing when Christians adopt orphans.

Serve Christ by serving others. Have empathy for the fatherless. God will not forget your kindness.

Quotes

• “Genuine faith shelters the orphan.” – Russell Moore
• “We care for orphans not because we are rescuers, but because we are the rescued.” -David Platt.

What does the Bible say?

1. John 14:18-20 No, I will not abandon you as orphans–I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

2. Psalm 68:3-5 But let the godly rejoice. Let them be glad in God’s presence. Let them be filled with joy. Sing praises to God and to his name! Sing loud praises to him who rides the clouds. His name is the Lord rejoice in his presence! Father to the fatherless, defender of widows— this is God, whose dwelling is holy.

God defends orphans.

3. Psalm 10:17-18 Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them.

4. Psalm 146:8-10 The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down. The Lord loves the godly. The Lord protects the foreigners among us. He cares for the orphans and widows, but he frustrates the plans of the wicked. The Lord will reign forever. He will be your God, O Jerusalem, throughout the generations. Praise the Lord!

5. Jeremiah 49:11 But I will protect the orphans who remain among you. Your widows, too, can depend on me for help. 

6. Deuteronomy 10:17-18 For the Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the great God, the mighty and awesome God, who shows no partiality and cannot be bribed. He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice. He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing.

7. Psalm 10:14 Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless.

8. Psalm 82:3-4 “Give justice to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. Rescue the poor and helpless; deliver them from the grasp of evil people.”

We are to help orphans.

9. James 1:27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

10. Exodus 22:22-23 “Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.”

11. Zechariah 7:9-10 Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.

12. Deuteronomy 24:17 Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge:

13. Matthew 7:12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

14. Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.

15. Deuteronomy 14:28-29 At the end of every third year, bring the entire tithe of that year’s harvest and store it in the nearest town. Give it to the Levites, who will receive no allotment of land among you, as well as to the foreigners living among you, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, so they can eat and be satisfied. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all your work.

God is serious when it comes to orphans.

16. Exodus 22:23-24 If you exploit them in any way and they cry out to me, then I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will blaze against you, and I will kill you with the sword. Then your wives will be widows and your children fatherless.

17. Deuteronomy 27:19 Cursed is anyone who denies justice to foreigners, orphans, or widows.’ And all the people will reply, ‘Amen.’

18. Isaiah 1:23-24 Your leaders are rebels, the companions of thieves. All of them love bribes and demand payoffs, but they refuse to defend the cause of orphans or fight for the rights of widows. Therefore, the Lord, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, the Mighty One of Israel, says, “I will take revenge on my enemies and pay back my foes!

God’s Love

19. Hosea 14:3 “Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount warhorses. We will never again say ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.”

20. Isaiah 43:4 Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.

21. Romans 8:38-39 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God will never forsake His children

22. Psalm 91:14 “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

23. Deuteronomy 31:8 The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Reminder

24. Matthew 25:40 “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!”

Example

25. Lamentations 5:3 We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.

Bonus

Matthew 18:5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.

This is why Scripture says He “executes justice for the fatherless" (Deuteronomy 10:18) and He assumes the role of "the father of the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5). This is the heart of God, a good, loving and gracious Father.

1) God Secures and Protects the Rights of the Helpless and Hopeless

If you were to read the Bible from the very beginning to the very end, several themes would surface that are consistent throughout the narrative of Scripture. Things like God’s power, God’s mercy and God’s faithfulness or man’s weakness and rebellion and ultimate need for redemption. These and many others fill the pages of both the Old and New Testaments, telling a beautiful story of God’s relentless pursuit of His people whom He loves.

Yet, of all the themes to be found within the pages of Scripture, one that shines with unparalleled clarity and stands with an unmatched prominence and stature is this: God secures and protects the rights of the helpless and hopeless. From the beginning of time to the very end, God intercedes on behalf of the needy and offers to them the abundance of His sufficiency. That which uniquely pains His heart unequivocally drives his actions. He sets His pursuit on filling the empty, embracing the marginalized and healing the broken and destitute in Jesus. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 8:9 articulates it this way:

“…you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

This is the Gospel, that while we were empty and impoverished in our sin, the riches of the grace of God in Jesus freely and fully filled us. We simply cannot escape this theme in Scripture, but it doesn’t end there…

2) What Pains God's Heart Must Pain Ours; What Drives His Hands Must Drive Ours

The Bible expects that what uniquely pains God’s heart would uniquely pain ours, and what uniquely drives His actions would unhesitatingly drive ours. The benefits of God’s abundance poured into us when we were empty and destitute do not terminate on us. Rather, they are to be extended into the lives of others who are marginalized and oppressed and orphaned. So now, following the pattern of how God consistently works, we are called to “give justice to the weak and fatherless” (Psalm 82:3) and to “seek justice, correct oppression [and] bring justice to the fatherless” (Isaiah 1:16-17).

As seekers of justice and correctors of oppression we care for abused, neglected and orphaned children because we have been cared for in Jesus; we fight for justice for them because justice has been won for us in Jesus; we seek to rescue them from their plights because we, in Jesus, have been rescued from ours; we adopt the orphan, because as the Apostle Paul writes, Jesus came “so that we might receive adoption” (Galatians 4:5). We were once empty in sin and orphaned from God, but…Jesus. His work on our behalf becomes the motivation behind our work on theirs. 

3) God Ranks the Care of Orphans Among the Highest Expressions of Our Faith

This leads us to the clarion call in the New Testament admonishing us to care for orphans, and provides some context as to why we should. In the Christian life we can demonstrate our faith in God in a variety of ways – i.e. prayer, giving, worship, serving, etc. The means by which our faith can express itself are seemingly endless and full of possibilities. Yet, in James 1:27 we are told that of all the measures by which our faith can be demonstrated, caring for orphans in their distress ranks among the highest and purest.

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

Why would God hold the care of orphans in such high regard? Why does He rank it among the highest expressions of our faith? Perhaps because caring for the marginalized, oppressed and orphaned is not only one of the clearest expressions of the heart of God but also one of the most tangible demonstrations of the Gospel this world will ever see. If the Gospel is ultimately the story of those who were empty and orphaned from God being adopted into His family by the work of Jesus, then our care for and adoption of vulnerable, neglected, abused, marginalized and orphaned children is a beautiful continuation of the redemption story of God and a vivid demonstration of the love of Jesus extended through us. Again, our care of orphans is rooted in God’s care of us through Jesus – it begins not with the orphan “out there” who needs a family but with the orphan in us that has been given one in Jesus. Our celebration of being counted among the family of God through our adoption in Jesus must never be separated from the reality that as long as there are orphans in this world that need a family, we have a job to do. 

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God's heart for the marginalized, our adoption in Jesus and the mandate for us to care for those whom God's heart is uniquely pained for are consistently communicated throughout the narrative of Scripture. There's no denying their prominence or escaping the implications of their presence.

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