The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
James 1:12-13God blesses those who patiently endure testing; God never tempts anyone
12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him.
13 Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.
do not just listen to God's word but do what it says; mirror illustration
22 But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror;
24 for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
25 But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.
pure religion means caring for orphans and widows and refusing worldly corruption
26 If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless.
27 Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Paul considers his earthly credentials worthless because of what Christ has done
1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not tiresome, but for you it is safe.
2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision.
3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh;
4 though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If any other man thinks that he has confidence in the flesh, I yet more:
5 circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee;
6 concerning zeal, persecuting the assembly; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.
7 However, I consider those things that were gain to me as a loss for Christ.
8 Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
10 that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death;
11 if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
13 Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. If in anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you.
16 Nevertheless, to the extent that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us be of the same mind.
17 Brothers, be imitators together of me, and note those who walk this way, even as you have us for an example.
18 For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, as the enemies of the cross of Christ,
19 whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who think about earthly things.
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
21 who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Glenn Owings, a long-time member of First Baptist Jackson, shared his family's adoption story as a way of talking about what it looks like to say yes to God when He calls you to something hard. Pastor Ray and Carl were away on a trip, so Glenn stepped in with a message that was more personal testimony than formal sermon. The thread running through everything was the passage from James about faith being tested and endurance growing through it.
What was said
Glenn and his wife Liz met about fifteen years ago at a point in both their lives when, as he put it, they both just truly wanted to do whatever God wanted them to do. They married quickly and early on attended a church with a strong culture of adoption, which shaped how they thought about family and obedience. That background, more than any single decision, set them on the path toward eventually adopting their youngest daughter, Sealy, from India.
The process took years and ran into repeated obstacles. Their first agency went bankrupt. Ethiopia, the country they had been matched to, closed its doors to international adoption. Their finances cleared the income threshold for India by exactly $56. Glenn read from James that troubles coming your way are an opportunity for great joy because faith being tested gives endurance a chance to grow, and he described that verse as something they held onto through each setback.
He was careful to say he was not holding up his family as an example to be impressed by. His point was the opposite: they did not have enough money, enough patience, or enough strength. They just said yes, and then God sent other people alongside them, including friends, family members, and people from this church, who said yes with them. Whatever good came out of it, he attributed to God's provision rather than to anything the family did on its own.
Glenn spent time describing what he saw at the orphanage in India, including the caregivers who clearly loved the children, the kids sleeping in shifts because there were not enough beds, and the range of physical conditions among the children there. He said what haunts him a little is imagining an alternate path where they had made the safer financial decision and said no. Sealy would still exist, still be who she is, the little girl downstairs who loves animals and loves Jesus. She just would have been somewhere else.
He drew the idea outward from there, saying that saying yes looks different for different people. For one person it might mean accepting Jesus as Lord for the first time. For another it might mean reaching out to a neighbor who is struggling. He was clear that he was not talking about doing good things to earn God's favor, but about the love God has shown overflowing outward because it is so great.
Glenn closed by acknowledging that saying yes does not make everything perfect, circling back to James on endurance, and asking God in his closing prayer to open everyone's eyes to see people and circumstances the way God sees them and to keep looking for the next opportunity to say yes.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Glenn described the early years of his marriage as a season of genuinely wanting to do whatever God wanted, and said that posture set the direction for everything that followed. What has it looked like in your own life when you have been most open to God's leading, and what conditions seem to make that easier or harder?
When the first adoption agency went bankrupt, Glenn said it was a gut-check moment of wondering whether the whole thing was a sign from God to stop. Have you ever hit a setback in something you believed God called you to, and how did you decide whether to keep going or change course?
Blake is the mic on. Yes. Will you please stand and let's worship the Lord? Let's make this time that we have here together special because we know that God is present in his house. Amen?
Sing like a minute. Sing like Jesus right here. Praise the Lord. You guys sing beautiful. It's good to be in God's house.
Amen? It is so sweet to trust in Jesus. Oh, thank you, dear Jesus.
Thank you so much. Hello, everyone. Thanks for coming. Have a seat. We got some announcements for you.
Lots going on as always. And as always, everything's on the website, so feel free to check it out if you forget something. Tomorrow is the Monday night service. Brad Yates is gonna be sharing with us. There's a meal, music, and a message, and the Iwana goes on at the same time.
So all you Iwana volunteers, thank you for all you do. And bring your kids at 05:45 to sign up. We'll have pizza down the hall for everybody, so it should be a great time. There'll be music as well. Right, Florine?
Is that you tomorrow? Carl's back tomorrow? Oh, great. Carl and Ray are away on a retreat. I didn't realize they'd be back already.
That's kinda cool. The connect hours between services, so come on a little bit early, on a not daylight savings time weekend. I know it's hard to get out of bed, but next week, come a little early. Meet the folks from the first service since we're one body with two services. It's nice to connect with each other.
The ladies fellowship meets Thursdays down the hall at 6PM. Even if you're coming in the middle of the thing, just just show up. Just just come anyway. They usually have a little bit of food, and it's it's a fun time. So feel free to bring people to that as well.
The ladies one day retreat is coming up. Nancy, come on up, and, she'll let us know about that.
Thank you. Good morning. Are we all awake now that it's eleven and not ten? I just wanted to take a moment to personally extend an invitation to our one day ladies retreat coming up this Saturday. Even though the venue has changed from the lodge to the fellowship hall, the content remains the same.
Amy Litzelman will be graciously teaching us from God's word, the way of love. KC and Christine will be leading us in worship through song. And I know that many of us have busy lives. We have full plates, full schedules, but if you can take the time to come for either the morning session after breakfast or the afternoon session after lunch, As Pastor Ray said, when you invest the time, it will benefit you as well as the others around you. We will have some activities between the morning and afternoon session including a silent auction which will benefit missions specifically the ION family, Monique Ibarra, and Chris Starin's truce podcast.
So if you do any early spring cleaning this week and have donations, feel free to drop them off in the foyer this week. And it will also help women's ministries to have these events more often. We hope to have one event a month so that you can come and connect with other ladies in the church and the community. And other activities might include a clothes swap and Monique has actually offered to do fifteen minute massages. So if you're interested in that, let me know.
I'll be in the foyer afterwards. So I just wanna encourage you to come, bring your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, your sister, your cousin, your mother. It'll be a good time for all. We look forward to it. Thank you.
And during the week too, we'll have some slips over here. You can leave them in the, office as well. And then I think oh, I forgot to oh, yes. Sunday school volunteers are needed. We're trying to do a cycle so that you only have to do one week a month, if possible, just to give the people who do it over and over again a little rest.
Please consider, donating just one one week a month, and they provide all the materials for you that are needed. And then finally, this is the thing that I'm in charge of, the look up tour for the Will Graham event is gonna be over in Idaho Falls on September twenty third and twenty fourth. Please put it on your calendars. Be praying for people you can bring. But leading up to that, we're actually having classes here that help teach you how to witness to people and help you brush up on, being able to evangelize to folks.
I have really loved these folks. They're here to serve us, and they're pouring, time as much time as we're we're willing to to take from them. Like, they're they're just they're giving and giving and giving, but we haven't really participated much. And it'd be nice to be able to, to be a part of this. So May fourth, eleventh, and eighteenth from seven to 9PM, classes are free.
You don't have to sign up in advance. Those are here at First Baptist Church, and we want all the churches in the area to come and participate with us. And we have these little prayer cards in the back of the seats. These are for you to take home, for you to remind you about the event, and also to write some names on the back of people to pray for that maybe you can witness to in the next few months or take to the event. And I've been challenging people to put one name on there of somebody that seems impossible, that they'll never come to the Lord, and and really earnestly pray for them.
Put this on your mirror, in your house, on your refrigerator, and and and take some time to to really pray for those people around you that you have an influence with, that you can invite, that, you know, maybe the Lord will open up a door for. So I encourage you to take that home, be praying for that, and and pray for the church too as we we try to try to embrace the opportunity that we have here to to to unite the churches together in the area. So I think that is the last, announcement, unless anybody has anything else. No. We'll bring our wonderful singers back up.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Nick. I love how you when you are on the stage, you're on the stage. Yes. You speak with passion. May the Lord bless you.
And thank you, Emily, for being here and helping with worship. It's it's a privilege to worship the Lord together. Would you please stand and let's continue singing? Holy, holy, holy. I love this song very much because it talks about the cross.
And that's where we come down to the cross, to what Jesus did for us. Amen. There are times when Florina walks up and snocking, metaphorically speaking. And there are times when I'm down. But at the end of the day, I looked out.
I looked at the cross and that's where I found rest in Jesus name. Amen? Amen. Please take a seat. I just want to share a few words before the operatory.
In light of giving, and I wanna say thank you for giving to the Lord. As pastor Ray always says in his prayer, it might be a financial way, or it might be your gifts, your time for the Lord. So one time, a gentleman came at Smith's crying. And I got to see Nick at work, and it was beautiful. He brought tears to my eyes.
It was so beautiful. So that's why I wanna share it with you. So this gentleman came to Smith's crying that he needs work so bad. I need work. I need work.
I came all the way from Colorado, and I don't have no money. I don't have I don't have a place to stay. So the manager felt compelled about that, and he said, yes. I wanna hire you, but the process is not gonna happen like this. So you need to be in Jackson for a week.
And then the manager came to me and said, can your church help with this gentleman with something? And I was thankful that he they asked me that. I said, you know what? Let me talk to my pastor, and we'll go from there. Pastor Ray immediately connected me with Nick.
So I came all the way from from Smith here, and Nick did miracles with the computer, as he's so good with that. Got him a room at the hotel, and then he was able to to stay over there. In the meantime, his fingerprints were taken, and he was waiting for the job. He works now at Smith's overnight, and every single time he passed by me. And if he happens to pass by me for five times, he would always shake my hands and say, thank you for helping me.
And and I'm sharing this to say that thank you for giving to the Lord. Because whatever we do, in Jesus' name, it has an impact on people's life. Amen. Claire, please.
Let's just pray before we collect the offering, if you would. Lord Jesus, we came here today to worship you. You're
the
lamb of God, and you've given us everything, and we're so grateful. Thank you for allowing us to give a little bit back now. And we'd ask, like, kinda like Feline was just saying, you've invited us to share in your work here. Please bless what we put in these plates and help us to put our lives in these plates too, to do whatever we can to bring people to know you. We praise you for who you are, God.
Amen.
Good morning. How are doing on sound, Blake? Sounds okay. Okay. I think we're doing good.
We're going start today, by doing a little reading out of, James one, which is something that we'll kind of bounce around back and forth on, but we're gonna start with a chunk of that scripture. God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. And remember, when you're being tempted, do not say, God is tempting me. God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else.
Temptation comes from our own desires which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions, and when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you're fooling yourselves.
For if you listen to the word and don't obey, it's like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you're fooling yourself and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God, the father, means you're caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
All right. Let's see here. There we go. Well, my name is Glenn, Glenn Owings. I know many of you in this room, but certainly not all.
If you're not a regular attendee, I've been a member here for a number of years, but I'm definitely not a pastor. I love our pastoral staff. We miss them and I know they'll be back shortly from their trip. The way they teach the Bible is great and really valuable to me, and I know this church and to the community as well. So my wife, Liz, and I have four children, Logan, Caleb, Tember, and Sealy.
We've been in this area since we moved to Bondurant from Montana about eleven years ago. We've been attending First Baptist since 2015, and Liz has been doing the children's ministry here for the last number of years. We're often downstairs with the kids, at the first service and then zipping around doing other things. So on Sundays, sometimes I'm always in this room, but I see many of you in passing if, those of you have kids either downstairs or elsewhere, maybe in the hall or around town. So Ray and Carl had this upcoming trip this weekend and asked that I fill in with a message.
I tend to be somewhat academic in how I approach things, and, that's not really what God was asking me to do today. So this can be a little different. It's kind of a stretch for me, but I'm just going to share what God put on my heart, and, I hope He speaks to you. So as I was praying about today, I felt pretty clear direction that I was supposed to talk about our adoption story, which is really not just a standalone thing, it's really part of our testimony, and it's a living thing. Some of you know that we adopted our youngest child, Sealy, from India a little over five years ago.
There are a couple of things that immediately brought some doubt and insecurity to my mind, just to be honest. They're both probably a little delicate, maybe hard to articulate. So I hope I get the point across that I'm trying. But the first is that I don't want anybody to think that I think that I'm impressed with myself that we did this or that we are as a family. This is not that's not what it's about.
God asked us all to do things. And sometimes we say yes in obedience and sometimes we don't. And, I know that I've wasted time and opportunities to serve Christ at times. And this one particular thing was saying yes to God, and He absolutely did the rest. We just were there to say yes, and he used us.
And he used other people who said yes along with us, our families, our friends, church members, the church body, and they said yes with us as well. Really, any good thing that we do is just a reflection of God's goodness to us. And second, this is Sealy's story too. And in a way, it's hers more than, anybody else's. She'll have her own complete story someday and I hope that God is in the very middle of that.
But I try to be thoughtful about what details to share and some things that we just kind of keep to ourselves. So I hope I landed in a good balance there. So with that, I'll begin. I'm hoping this won't tip over. Think we're good.
The further I drink down, the better it balances. So the beginning of our adoption story is really the beginning of our marriage in a lot of ways. Liz and I met about fifteen years ago. At that point in our lives, we both just truly want to do whatever God wanted us to do. And that's probably the thing that we remember most about each other at that time during that season of life.
It was a short season because we met in August and got engaged in September and got married in November and then had Logan nine months later. So, that's not a recommended time line for the future. But it was the right thing for us, and I honestly believe that. Starting off on that foot of just being really in tune with what God was telling us to do, was a benefit. When we first got married, we attended a church where there was a strong, what I would call like a culture of adoption, guess, I'm not sure how else to explain it.
But many of the staff and attendees there either had adopted themselves or were heavily involved in the process and helping people do that. And that felt right to us. It felt biblical, and it definitely had an impact on our worldview. And as I thought of this till just this moment, probably not I don't know, few, if any, folks who are involved in that church even know that it impacted us that much now. But that concept of just being open to God's plan and asking him what he would have for our lives is really what brought us together and kind of set us off on this path.
So we moved to Bondurant in 2012 with our two boys, at that time and began our adult life, so to speak. I don't know exactly when we started talking about adoption more from theoretical sense to more of a literal sense, but not long after that. So here we are, we're 25, 26 years old, two kids, school debt, not making a lot of money. I was working as a range ecologist for Sublette County. Liz was doing some tutoring and then was also homeschooling our kids.
And we were also caretaking at a property in Bondurant at the time. So we were both praying about it and just kind of came to the conclusion individually that it was time to jump in. So with international adoptions, there are kind of multiple concurrent processes that are taking place, depending on a variety of things, but including the country that you might be adopting from. So we would need to focus on a country where the age limits for adoption for prospective parents were relatively low. There are many countries that require you even to begin the process, have to be 30 years old or 35 years old, this is quite common just to start.
And so it couldn't be that. It also couldn't be a country where we had to be there for months. We couldn't go for six months at a time to stay in country because we had younger kids at home. And finally, and a big hurdle for us was just that you had to demonstrate a certain level of income and savings and financial capability, essentially. Once we got started, I remember saying, basically, I don't care how much this costs.
I don't care if we have to borrow every dollar. We're going to figure out how to see this through. So started working with a domestic agency who does our home study. So that's on the ground here, that does that piece of the puzzle and then an international agency that works on placement, the logistics of travel and things like that and safety traveling outside the country. So at that time, based on our criteria, Ethiopia was one of the only countries that we qualified for.
So we began praying for a little person that we did not know, who would be our child. So things are humming along. After about eight months, we learned that our agency was going bankrupt. And so thankfully, we didn't lose a tremendous amount of money. We just hadn't put that much into the program yet.
There are a lot of people who did. But it was an emotional setback for sure. It was kind of a gut check moment of like, are we really supposed to do this? Can we really do this? Like, is this a sign from God or is this like what does this mean?
But James says, When troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So we kind of we just held on to that promise. So we moved to another adoption agency at that time. Just kind of looking behind the curtain of how it works, many countries do not adopt out children who are without physical challenges.
So as part of the process, you tell the agency and ultimately, the foreign government what kinds of physical or medical conditions you can consider, what you can handle and those that you wouldn't. And it's a really difficult process. It's heart wrenching because you know that every one of those boxes that you don't check represents a real person and probably lots of real people, who need a place and need a home. So that part is difficult. Because we lived especially that time we lived in Bondurant, far from emergency care, and just difficult in terms of accessibility, we didn't want something where we needed to provide emergency medical care because we just couldn't, or something where we needed this child to be able to be mobile.
So fast forward to 2016, and we got word that Ethiopia was going to be closing their doors to international adoption. And that remains the case to this day that they do not do that. At that point, we had put quite a lot of money into the program. So So remaining with the same agency, but the country is not working out. So they offer the agency to transfer all the money that they could to a different country's program, which was maybe about half of what we had paid up to that point.
So, we did that. India, which was previously we hadn't qualified for because we weren't old enough. Well, at this point, enough time had gone by that we were. So that's what we did. We said, yes, absolutely.
And we started praying for a little Indian girl that we didn't know. By October 2016, we were notified that we'd been matched to Sealy. And those are a couple of the first pictures that we got of her. We periodically get, a new photo maybe every couple of months. We didn't really ever know when they were taken or how old they were.
We'd also sometimes get kind of like a one page like health update. So it was great. I mean it was beautiful and special to see those pictures and see kind of her development and growth, but also really hard because here's this person on the other side of the country that her health of the world, pardon me, that is going to be in our family, but we can't there's nothing we can do but wait. But it's exciting and it was faith building to get to that point. And during that time, you know, many of our close family members, our friends, and this church specifically, they never stopped praying and giving and helping us fundraise and stepped alongside us to make that happen.
And God used that to keep our faith strong when we didn't feel strong. And I think if the theme today is kind of saying yes to God and just accepting the challenges that, that might take us through, there were many brothers and sisters in Christ who are right there with us and saying yes with us and responding to God in that way. So sometimes in our journey, there are God ordained people, that He uses to hold one another up. So as the country did its final review of our finances before we could kind of move forward with the final steps of the adoption, we made the cutoff for annual income by $56 So we were good, by just a little. All right.
So this is not a dramatic reenactment. That's really the spot that I was sitting at, when we got the message that we were going to go to India. So it was 09/16/2017, I was hunting, I was backpacked and alone, just sitting up on this knob glassing for mule deer. And I got a text from Liz that we'd be leaving in less than a week to go, pick up Sealy. And I don't really even remember if I I don't remember what the I've been back here many times and the service isn't good.
I don't remember if we texted back further, whatever. But I got the picture and so kind of started mentally preparing. I actually ended up killing a deer right after that. I was like, all right, we better get this done. We got to go to India.
I got to be home by tomorrow morning. And I was able to make it happen and came out heavy. So that's a special place and a special memory, that's one reason I like going back there because, just to kind of relive that moment. We hopped on a plane to Pennsylvania to leave our other three kids at that time. Then we had Timber during this interim.
So we left them with Liz's parents, and we flew, from there to London and then from London to Bangalore. We spent just one night in Bangalore, then we drove about a half day to her orphanage. Without going into lots of detail, I'll mention a couple of things, just that I remember specifically to kind of help paint the picture. That is the orphanage on the was it your left? Yes, it is.
The caregivers there love the kids a lot, and that was really a blessing to see. They were close with all of the children, and they really cared for them and they were loved. There were two main rooms, each with roughly like 15 to 20 kids. One was for older children, maybe five to 12 years old, and then one for younger kids, babies all the way up to maybe four or five years old in that one. Many had physical handicaps, not all seemingly, but many did, kind of ranging from fairly minor to obviously life threatening.
And then there was off of the younger kids' room, there was kind of a little side room where the smallest babies were. Otherwise, just big open room. Kids would take turns sleeping on the ground on a mat or like a rug, and in the beds because they didn't have enough beds. Pretty much immediately, Sealy was with us. And, I'd say probably less than an hour, I don't know, who knows, the time was a little shaky at that point.
But we were on our way to a local court. And to help finalize this process, one of the many steps. And it was one of those moments where I just recognized how reliant we were on everything and everyone. I mean we knew nothing about where we were, how to navigate. I mean we couldn't have told you how to get around the block, let alone get to where we needed to go next.
And it was just kind of surreal. We're still relying on our in country help and just all the steps that had kind of taken place up to that point. So the court was this big cement structure. It had big banks of open windows, open like there's no there wasn't glass. It was kind of open air feel.
It was really, really cool. I mean it kind of you can really tell where the building ended and the jungle started. It was kind of just this open feel. A lot of attorney's offices, we met our attorney who had been working on our behalf all this time and we didn't know one another from anybody, but it was pretty neat. We stood before the judge and we kind of set our peace, which was basically, we're thankful to be there.
We are looking forward to adding to our family. Most of the court officials spoke English, so it was kind of neat to have that interaction. So we were I guess one detail is kind of it. So even though Tamil is the official language of that state. And so even just going from Bangalore to that city, the language changed and the signs changed.
And so anyway, it's pretty fascinating. So at that point, we were again whisked away by car back to Bangalore. The next day, we boarded a plane to New Delhi. We were in Delhi for about another week while we did more doctor appointments and more court appointments and then a meeting at the U. S.
Embassy. Truly, by the grace of God, we made it out of on a flight before the country shut down for a holiday weekend. So we were able to get back to everybody relatively quickly. It was about ten days from start to finish in country. And then the first time the other kids saw Seeley was, here at the airport in Jackson.
So after that, a lot of just kind of day to day survival followed, including getting ready for surgeries to start repairing her cleft lip and palate. And the first was just over a month after we got home. We had found out once we got home that, she had recently recovered from hepatitis and also had giardia currently. And so it took a while to kind of build up her strength until she was ready for surgery. So most kids that are born with cleft lip and palate have, just kind of start their surgery process, within a couple of months of birth.
And obviously, that was not an option for us. She was about 16 old at that time, probably 18 by the time she had a surgery. So it really changed kind of the plan of care. But they did an amazing job. They continue to do an amazing job at Salt Lake Children's.
They've been really outstanding. We've been really impressed. And she's now had quite a number of major surgeries to graft bone and skin, in a variety of ways to make it easier for her to breathe and to chew and to swallow. Excuse me, that was loud. So that will be ongoing until she's an adult.
We're kind of we've been in a lull here now for a little bit, which is a nice break. So, there we go. So here we are. So, that's kind of our story. And I think the message that God really laid on my heart is is that the life is a series of choices.
And we make we make little mundane choices like what to eat for breakfast or what to wear, and we make big choices like, like where we're gonna live, and if we'll get married, and what we do for work, and who we surround ourselves with, as friends. We decide if Jesus is real to us, and we decide if we're gonna accept him as our savior. And my my challenge to you today is is to sincerely seek God for what he might be asking of you. And not vaguely, but specifically. Something that maybe he said upon your heart, maybe even years ago, that seems right and purposeful and fulfilling.
And it might also be scary and it might be hard. And, we're never done ever. There's never a moment at which we've finished our work until God's work is done in us and we're finished on earth. And just kind of ask yourself, what does failure look like in stepping out in faith and saying yes to God? And that as children of God, we don't measure success and failure the same way that the world does.
In Philippians, Paul is talking about his earthly credentials and he comes to the conclusion in chapter three that I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. So there's this constant push and pull. Our human nature craves comfort and ease, but our lives are filled with joy and purpose by surrendering to God's better plan at the cost of our comfort and maybe even short term happiness. And I struggle with this temptation all the time to pursue comfortable circumstances. And honestly, I feel like a fraud sometimes.
And I have to go back to God's promise of who I am in him and what he's called me to and, that it's his righteousness and not me trying to do enough. So what if I step out in faith and I get embarrassed? What if I'm not skilled enough and I'm not strong enough? What if I'm not old enough? What if I'm not young enough or wise enough?
What if I'm not righteous enough? But the truth is that none of us are enough of any of those things. And we could admit it or we cannot admit it, but the fact remains. And and we do have gifts that God has given us for his glory. We do have the Holy Spirit as born again believers, and we have the promise of heaven.
So but but we're strong in his righteousness, and we're wise in his guidance and his truth. And we're supported, but it's his provision and not how hard we work. And I say this not as somebody who has everything figured out or probably much of anything figured out, But today's testimony is kind of that. It's like we're just this regular family who, you know, we don't have enough time, we didn't have enough strength, we didn't have enough money, we didn't have enough patience, but without knowing the answers to those things, we just said, yes, God, when he asked us to take that step of faith. And then he sent others to walk along with us when we're weak to help us in the ways that he asked them to.
And when it all is put together, it's this vivid living picture, of what God can do. So right now, you know, there are still little boys and girls around the world in that very orphanage who, they won't know the unconditional love of a mom and dad. And they'll never hear the name of Jesus. And that's tough. I mean, we don't know their names, but they have names and they have faces and, they have joys and sorrows.
They have passions, things they love to do. They have talents that God gave them. They have struggles just like we do. They have temptations and they have souls. And they represent just one of lots of opportunities that we have to obey God and to step out by saying yes to Him.
Something that haunts me a little bit is to imagine like an alternate path where we chose not to do this. Maybe we made a safer financial decision, or decided to put too much stress on our family, which are totally reasonable concerns, those are not unreasonable at all. But Sealy would still exist and she would still be she'd still have circumstances and, you know, occupy space and time, and she still would be who she is. You know, the the little girl downstairs with a big, sometimes mischievous personality who loves animals and loves Jesus would would still be here somewhere. And I think for for us, you know, saying yes looks different in different circumstances.
Maybe for maybe for one person saying yes to what God is asking and what is placed on their heart is just taking that step of faith to say, yes, Jesus, I believe that you're the son of God. I believe that you're Lord and would you be Lord in my life? Maybe it's starting a business that gives you the flexibility to lead some short term missions trips. Maybe it's saying yes to fostering or adopting a child even though you don't have the time or the money or the grace in your own power. Maybe it's reaching out to your neighbor or a coworker who you know is depressed and struggling to find any joy in their life and taking that initiative.
And just to be clear, I'm not talking about doing good things to earn God's favor. We know that that's not what it's about. It's just extending the grace and the love that he has shown to us because it is so great and it is so good. And from there, it overflows. And is everything going to be perfect when we say yes in obedience?
Absolutely not. No way. In the first part of James, it says, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you'll be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. Many members of of this church and the greater local church model this love in action that we're talking about and and serve those in need. And, Florian gave great great example this morning. And that encourages me to be continuing to listen for that next whisper from God and to be looking for his guidance and that next opportunity that he has orchestrated.
So with that, we'll say a prayer. And then Florian will come back up. Okay. Perfect. God, we thank you for this time to meet together.
We're so thankful for your grace and for your love and for your salvation. We pray for guidance in our lives that you would open our eyes to see people how you see them, to see our circumstances at work and in recreation and with our families the way that you would, that you would have us and look for opportunities to say yes to you. We're so thankful for all of your guidance and your forgiveness when we make mistakes and that we don't take those opportunities. We love you, Lord. Amen.
Thank you, Glenn, so much. Thank you for blessing us this morning. Oh, what a beautiful, powerful story of transformation. Silly has a better life right now, and your heart is full of love. It makes me think of the missionaries that came to Romania.
I have no idea how my life would have been without them. They came to Romania with such a beautiful smile on their face, sharing the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. And because we're building some churches, they offered me a job. I had no idea how to do construction. Nothing.
I think they give me the job just to keep me close to them. And I have lots of stories like that. So thank you. What is it that God is calling us to do today? May we listen to that whisper and and say, Lord, use me today.
Amen? I think this song is perfect. I need you everywhere every hour. I need Jesus in my life. Amen.
Blake, is there a Bible verse that you would like to share? Okay. God decided in advance to adopt us. Amen to that. Into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure. Hallelujah. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear son. Amen. May the Lord bless you.
Have a good week, and share Jesus Jesus with someone. May the Lord bless you. Thank you.
