Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, good morning! Well, I tell you, my dear friends, it might as well be Valentine's Day, because we're talking about love. We're talking about the deep, profound feeling of unconditional acceptance, which is rooted and grounded in the heart of God.

The Bible is filled with images of love – may I say, of adoptive love. The scriptures we heard read so beautifully this morning – "The Lord is my shepherd." I am a lamb adopted by the shepherd. Jesus, from the cross, said, "Son, behold your mother. Mother, behold your son." Adoptive love.

You remember that story when Jesus was getting in trouble, and His mother and His brothers and sisters came to get Him and bring Him on home? He said, "Who are my sisters and brothers?" And He pointed to those who were following Him, and He said, "These who hear the word of God, they are my sisters and my brothers." Examples of adoptive love are everywhere.

Let's think about this topic this morning. May I draw three pictures for you, pictures that may be active for you in your own life? Do you have anyone in your life that you might call a distant relative? What I mean by that is somebody you're related to by blood but you haven't seen them for five, ten, twenty, thirty years. But you're close, blood-wise. It would be the kind of person that, if you ran into him or her at the supermarket, you might do a double take and say, "Oh, yeah, Stan, how are you?"

"Anthony!"

"Yeah, how are you, Stan?"

"Fine. How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"Well, how's everything been going?"

"Okay. How about you?"

"Yeah, all right."

 "What's new?"

"Nothing. How about you?"

"Oh, same old thing, I guess."

"You know, Anthony, we've got to get together. Not just at weddings and funerals."

"Yeah, that would be good. We've got to get together sometime."

"By the way, I missed you at the funeral."

"Yeah, well, I've been busy. You know how it is."

"I understand."

"Well, we've got to get together."

"Yes."

 

Can you relate to that? I know I can. Distant relative, but strong blood ties.

Have you been blessed with a situation in your life where someone you've met ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, maybe through the church, with whom you have no blood ties and no marriage ties, but with whom you have the yes of the heart, and that person is like a brother or a sister to you? And even if a couple of months go by and you don't see them or talk to them, you know that if you call them at three in the morning with a heartbreak it will be no imposition. If you are blessed like that, you are fortunate indeed. That's the yes of the heart.

Maybe you have the third kind of relationship where you are somehow related, and you're still friends. One of the most beautiful things I ever hear is when a husband says of a wife, "Oh, she's my wife, but you know, she's my best friend." Oh, that's a blessing indeed.

Every relationship, my friends, whether there is a blood relationship or not, is essentially adoptive. It's when the heart says "Yes, I will care about you. I will be there for you. I will spend time with you. I will say yes when you need me." That's when the candle of love glows.

I just want to point out one more Bible verse to you. I'm not too good with Bible numbers, but will you remember this? John 1:11. If you have your Bible handy, look at the first chapter of John, the eleventh verse and the twelfth. "He came to that which was His own" – speaking of Jesus to His people – "but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right, He gave the power, to become children of God."

And so it is with you. Won't you carry this thought with you into the week? Not just an acquaintance, not just a distant relation, not just a friend, but a child of Almighty God, because you have asked for Jesus's friendship – that's you, adopted, embraced, and loved. God loves you. I do, too. Amen.