Let us worship the God of possibility today; the God that makes the impossible possible, let’s give Him glory, let’s give Him praise, let’s give Him adoration; He alone is worthy of praise; the God of possibility, the One that makes the impossible possible, the One that turns our situation around, worship Him, bless His name, adore His name, glorify Him, our Maker, our Redeemer, our Sustainer, our King, the soon-coming King, let’s worship Him this morning, let’s glorify His name.
He’s worthy of our praise, He’s worthy of honor, He’s worthy of adoration, give God the glory, give God the praise; we are alive by His grace; it’s in Him we move, it’s in Him we live, it’s in Him we have our being, worship the Lord today, worship Him, bless His name, adore His name; we are alive by His grace, we are alive by His mercy, let’s give Him praise, let’s give Him honor, adoration; praise, thanks, honor, belong to God our Savior, in Jesus name we have worshipped.
Sovereign Lord, we worship You; King of glory, we adore Your name; who will not worship You? Father, we adore You; we ask oh Lord today, that You’ll speak to us Yourself, let Your children hear directly from You and not from any man; anoint their ears to hear Your word, anoint the lip that will speak oh Lord, we promise that I will be careful to return glory and praise back to Your name oh Lord, for in Jesus name we have worshipped.
We want to appreciate God for grace to be alive today; to the Pastor-in-charge of province for this opportunity, thank you sir; thank you pastorate for giving me this opportunity. Today is the grand finale of our Family Weekend; and also we have a mandate from the national to speak this month of November on the Explosive Growth Drive, so we’ll be looking at two topics today within the time we have for us here; so we’ll look at the topic “He Cares” and the Family Weekend, and then we are continuing with the vision 2032 message – the “Explosive Growth Drive” message, praise the Lord!
The theme for our Family Weekend for 2023 is “God Cares for the Family”, and we all belong to one family or the other; we are either children of somebody, father or mother of somebody or uncle of somebody, so we belong to a family – all of us, so we have gathered the warmth of God’s love to reflect to the topic of utmost significance His care for our family – God’s care for our family.
1st Peter 5: 7 is our main text and it says, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you”, who should we cast our care upon? The Lord, for He cares for you as individual and He cares for the family; God cares for the afflictions of every of His children, this truth is emphasized throughout the Bible.
Psalms 27: 10 says “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up”, praise God! Somebody commenting on the Bible says how do you preach this one when somebody’s father and mother are around? Aren’t you going to embarrass them? And the man explained that what he meant to say is that even if my father and mother are meant to help me and they cannot, God will not forsake me; so, we are not condemning any parent, where they want to help but they are unable to, God says ‘I will take you up’, praise God!
Psalms 37: 5 also says that “Commit thy way unto the LORD; Trust also in him; And he shall bring it to pass”. These are like Old Testament version of 1st Peter 5: 7 that we read – God caring for the family, praise the Lord! Also Psalms 55: 22 says “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved”; all talking (in the Bible) about care of God for us, how God cares for us – all our fears, all anxieties and concerns must be decisively given to God, that’s what those passages are saying – cast your care, whatever is worrying you, give it to God, He is able to handle it.
And in Philippians 4: 6 (that we are very familiar with) says ‘be careful for nothing’, (another version says ‘be anxious for nothing’, another one says ‘fret for nothing’), but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God’, all showing the care of God for us.
So today, we are going to look at six core areas of God’s care for us; they are not exhaustive but within the time we have, we are going to look at these areas. ‘God cares’, although the word is often marked by indifference and self- centeredness, our confidence is in the unwavering care of our heavenly Father, the depth of His love and profound impact caters on our lives. Jeremiah 29: 11 says “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end,” all showing the care of God for us, from the cradle to the grave, He cares for us.
So the first one we are going to look at today is God’s care in creation; while we were in the womb, straight from conception, God begins to care for us, that tiny nose and all, He cares for every little thing and that’s why we shouldn’t have any doubt (as believers) about the fact that life begins from conception, praise God! And anyone that wants to take life that’s already conceived is a killer, is a murderer, but that’s not what we are talking about today, praise the Lord!
What we are talking about is the fact that God cares for us in creation, so from the moment of our conception, we are cradled in the palm of God, our intricate designs of our bodies and delicate parts testify to the meticulous care of God, shows everything is carefully made by God while we were in the womb, praise the Lord! Bible says we are fearfully and wonderfully made, Psalms 139: 13 – 15, God made us in such a wonderful way, praise God! And His care is very evident in every breathe we take; some people are even in their homes or mostly in the hospitals using oxygen to breath now, you are here, breathing in and breathing out without any problem, that is part of God’s care, praise the Lord! Some people pay money to breath in and out, they need help, they need equipments to make them breath.
Jeremiah 1: 5 says “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations”; so you and I, God knows everyone of us right from even before conception, He knows about you, so don’t just look at yourself and say ‘ordinary me’, there is no ordinary person with God, He cares from the cradle to the grave, praise the Lord! So right from creation, He cares for us.
Number two: God’s care and design for the family – that’s what really should concern us most for this grand finale message, He cares for the family and He has a design for the family.
Thank God we are moving to the next one – the reincarnation of God, He came to a family, praise God! Do you know God can just send a voice instead of Jesus Christ? He can send a voice, He can come in the voice of an angel, He can come in the way He was coming in the Old Testament but He came as a person and He came into a family. The Bible historians tell us that Jesus Christ has other brothers and sisters, praise God! So He knows about families, He grew up in a family, He knows about sibling rivalry; Bible did not tell us that but I can imagine that even back then too, there would be preference in the family – maybe Mary would prefer Jesus to the other brothers and sisters, I don’t know, but He knows all about what we feel in our families today.
So after creating man, God in His infinite wisdom established the family, Genesis 2: 18 – 25. He created a wife, a companion for Adam; Adam was all alone, he had named animals, he had named man and God just felt this man is somebody like Him, then He created Eve, praise God! Genesis 2: 18 – 25, He gave Adam a companion and that is the way family started, right from Genesis.
Families are not merely a social construct but a divine institution, designed to nurture, support and love one another and that’s why it’s important that we (wherever we find ourselves, the families we find ourselves) should have impact especially as Christians, they should know us as children of God and we should bring the plan of God to our family, there should be love in families.
In Ephesians 5: 25 – 33, husbands are called to love their wives just the way Christ loved the church, emphasizing sacrificial and unconditional love as a foundation of family life, and the wife is expected (from that same passage) to reverence her husband. Husband to love, wife to reverence and the type of love is sacrificial, what is sacrificial love? The love that is willing to die for the other person, the love that is willing to forgo your dinner for the other person, praise God!
I don’t want to repeat what we all learnt yesterday at the Family Weekend, I know quite a number of us were not there, but one of the things we learnt was that you don’t have to believe or behave like our parents in the village; you don’t have to come back from work at 7pm and ask somebody who also came in (maybe) 5 minutes before you to go and cook your food and you sit watching Arsenal and whoever is playing, and expect the person that came also – maybe you came in your own car while she came in a bus and you say my food, and it must be pounded yam this night because I’m from Ekiti.
We are asked to be considerate, that is part of showing love, praise God! In fact, sacrificial love says you can even forgo that dinner because you see that this madam is not feeling very well, maybe let me just take cup of coffee or bournvita and let me go and sleep, let me forgo my dinner so that she can go and sleep.
So God cares for our family and it’s important that we respect and we love our wives and wives should reverence their husbands, and the same Bible verse tells us that parents also should be careful with the way they deal with their children, and children should respect their parents. God cares for the family, He has a good design for the family.
Number three: God’s care for unity. Psalms 133: 1 talks about unity within the family, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”! God wants unity, part of His care for us is that He wants us to work in unity, praise the Lord!
For those of us who are not the only children of our parents, we see a lot of sibling rivalries everywhere in the world; we see brothers and sisters that are not on talking term; we see twins that don’t talk, those that shared the same womb for nine months, today, at 30, at 40, whatever age, they are not on talking terms, they don’t talk to one another, praise God! That is not the way God wants it, God wants unity in our families, and again, we can’t force it; as parents, we cannot force it, we can only pray for our children to turn out the way God wants them to turn out.
In my family, second and third sons are just about two years and a few months apart from each other, so they are forced to do things together – play together, use the same toys, they even shared rooms growing up, but when it was time to appoint prefects in their school, (I think the older boy was in the final year at primary school that time and they were going to appoint prefects for the school), and they were going to choose, his brother did not vote for him, so when he got home, we said haha, why did you not vote for your brother, he said he thought the other guy was better than him. I can understand because they were always fighting, the older one was quiet, this younger one was a bit brash, he takes all the toys and we say well, leave him, let him play with it, but today, they are much older, one is 31 and one is 29, they have better understanding.
So later they will come round as they mature but that does not mean children cannot still fight and that’s where Pastor Akinyemi taught us yesterday, I’m not going to go over it – how parents should be careful so they don’t show their preference for their children, don’t let them know the one you prefer, praise the Lord!
I know families (especially polygamous fathers) where they show preference just like Jacob, so insensitive, they don’t care what you think, those of us who are friends of the families, immediately we enter, we’d know this is this man’s preferred and most of those fathers don’t care, because it causes friction and disunity in the family.
God wants us to be united, God’s care for unity in our families; through communication, forgiveness and empathy, families can navigate challenges together knowing that God’s love binds them together, praise the Lord!
1st John 4: 16 – 18 is talking about unity in the family, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love”, so God wants us to be united.
What am I saying to you today? I’m saying that go and call that your brother, that your sister that you have not talked to for so long, try and make peace, based on what you’ve heard today, praise God! Make peace with them, it doesn’t matter what they’ve done to you, it doesn’t matter the way they treated you growing up, try and make peace, God wants us to be united, He cares for unity in the family.
Number four: God’s care in our challenges; life is filled with trials and in those moments of darkness, we may wonder if God is truly there. Maybe you’ve been there before, maybe I’ve been there, moments when we say is God really here? Maybe sickness, maybe lack, maybe somebody is treating you badly, is God here? He cares in our challenges, praise God!
And we are reminded in our main text, 1st Peter 5: 7, to cast our anxieties on Him because He cares for us. In our moments of weakness, God’s strength is made perfect; Bible says He’s our refuge and strength, an ever present help in troubles, He’s always present, so cast the care upon Him; Bible says fret not, be anxious for nothing, be careful for nothing. Our challenges are opportunities for God to demonstrate His cares and turn our trials into testimonies and our mess to message, praise God!
So that challenge you are facing now is for God to show Himself strong in your behalf; so you went for that interview and they didn’t take you, so they sacked you from that job, so the husband is not behaving well, so the wife is irresponsible, take it as part of challenge from God to see you strong, praise God!
A lot of us pray all the time, ‘Lord, make me somebody that loves every other people, I want to love people’, and then when you get to the office the following day and you meet the most unlovable person in the world, and you say God, but I’m asking You to help me love people, and He says no, I want you to learn from that person; we meet a boss that is so impossible, a very nasty boss, maybe some of you are lucky not to have worked with somebody like that before, some of us have had the misfortune of working with nasty bosses that we know that this man does not just care about anybody.
I used to work with a boss who would go for lunch around 2⁰’closck (in those days when people still go for lunch), he would not come back until about 5pm and God helps you if you go home before him. You have been working for the three hours that he was away and he will now open his office door and then be waiting for the person who is brave enough to go home – 6:30, 7, they are there, young people, maybe just married, you want to go home, you have nothing to do, you have finished your work and you know he had wasted 3 – 4 hours over lunch, he’s now doing his own work and he opened his door to see whether you are going. It’s in those days when they have secretaries, I’m sure the secretaries would say ha, I can see Mr. Aderemi going home, call him; so you dare not go home, nasty, difficult to deal with and he would do the same thing the following day, he would not come back until like 5:30, 6⁰’clock and he would not allow you until he goes home.
So we have people like that, God says love them. He can save from trouble and He can save in trouble; a lot of us want to be saved from trouble, God says, go through the trouble, it’s part of your growing up process. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego would have preferred not to go into the fiery furnace, they would have preferred that God does something and keeps changing his mind and says these stubborn boys, leave them alone. Daniel would have preferred not to be thrown to the lion’s den but God saved them in their trouble, not from their trouble, praise God!
So at times, maybe you need to look at yourself that this trouble, God will still save me in the trouble, praise the Lord! Lazarus is another case; he died and we are talking about his case today because he died for four days; Jesus Christ as a friend of the family could have prayed the same way He prayed for the child of Cornelius when they told Him about Lazarus case, and said okay, send this prayer to him and Lazarus would have been well again, but we won’t have any testimony we are testifying about today, we are testifying about somebody that died for four days, whose body the sisters thought was already stinking and God brought from the dead; it wouldn’t have been such a strong testimony if he had not died.
So at times, the trouble you are going through and you are in at this moment, as it gets hotter, it’s because the testimony is going to be more pleasant, more glorious to the glory of God’s name in Jesus name and your testimony will come in Jesus name. So He can save from trouble and He can save in the trouble.
Number five: God’s care of protection and provision. He cares for us, He provides for us, He protects us; one can be in a daunting and dangerous place but God assures us of His protection over our families.
Psalms 91: 11 says He will command His angels concerning you to guide you in all your ways, lest you dash your foot against the stone. God’s angels surround us and protect our families, guiding us away from harm and leading us towards the path of righteousness, praise the Lord! So He guides us in the air, on the sea, wherever we are, He protects us, praise God!
Pastor Akinyemi was telling us yesterday about his fear in the plane when he had not written his will; that anytime he’s in the aeroplane, he’d just say hey, my children are…and that happens to a lot of us, praise God! For example, I don’t know about you, I hate travelling by air, I’ve always hated it and I will pray; before I became a Christian, I thought the solution was to be drunk so that you can sleep, so I would take brandy in the plane, oya give me brandy, I would take and would have headache and would not sleep for the six hours, it would be headache when I got back – when I land, and sometimes I would say well, let me read, I’ll be reading something and would say hmm, I’m not reading again, I’d put it down, because my mind is there and I read something about when he says what he does is that when he’s going to Abuja, he just sees himself at Abuja airport landing there, that right from Lagos, he sees himself landing, somebody welcoming him, so he sees himself landing, forget about the ministry and I tried that and it worked for me, but I still prefer to find myself where I’m going, just like that.
I love holidays abroad but I just wish somebody can create something that will just shoot me there within minutes or give me tranquilizer and I don’t know about the trip all through, praise God!
So God cares for us, He protects us … I don’t even like traveling at all; I told people I don’t sleep in the car no matter how long the journey is, the driver and I will drive for that five hours together, I may not talk for those five hours but I’m watching you, I’m watching the potholes, I’d say watch that place; I don’t sleep in the car, I don’t sleep on the plane, I don’t sleep in moving objects, I’m that tensed, it has to be stationary before I can sleep, praise God!
But He cares for us, even while we are anxious and all you should say to yourself is that 1st Peter 5: 7, just cast your care on Him because He cares for you.
Matthew 6: 26, Jesus reminds us of God’s abundant care, provision for the birds of the air. He feeds the raven; Bible says the lilies by the side are better arranged than Solomon in his splendor, it’s God that gives them that care, praise the Lord! So how much more will He care for every member of our family, He promised to extend our care beyond the physical, He provides emotional, spiritual and relational sustenance for us, we need to trust in His providence and it’s a family unit, He will continue to keep us secure and do this act of gratitude.
Psalms 115: 12 says God is mindful of us and it’s important that we note that all the time.
And then lastly, God’s care in redemption; like I said when we were starting out, He cares from cradle to the grave. We go to heaven by choice, not by chance, He cares for where we go to eventually; the ultimate maximization of God’s care is found in the redemptive work of Jesus; He willingly bore our sins on the cross, endured unimaginable suffering because He cares for us beyond measure – God cares for us beyond measures.
Through His sacrifice, we find forgiveness, healing and eternal life. You can imagine at the garden of Gethsemane when He was praying, all His twelve disciples were sleeping, praise God! This God as man was about to go and die for them, was going to sacrifice Himself, these people were sleeping; He woke them up about two or three times, won’t you just wait and pray along with me? The same way a lot of us are still sleeping today and I’m talking to myself as well; somebody went to the cross to die for us and here we have people sleeping, not only did they sleep, by the time they came to carry Him, they all ran away, they were like haha, the Messiah can be carried like that? Maybe this is not the Messiah, they ran away and they went into hiding – all of them, the Peter that was a bit brash denied Him when he finally got to the place when somebody recognized him.
God still cares for us, He’s concerned that we make heaven; we’ve been told times and times again that He doesn’t care about our comfort as much as He cares about our character; not that He doesn’t care about our comfort, He does, but He cares more about our character than our comfort, so when you find yourself in a situation where it looks like does God care about this thing? He’s more concerned about your making heaven than your comfort, praise God!
The evangelism team was at the Ikoyi prison two Saturdays ago and one of the things that were mentioned during the ministration to them is the fact that maybe God kept some of them in that prison to save them from themselves, praise God!
Maybe if they had been outside, some of them – we heard stories that day when we were doing counseling, pathetic stories of those who have been in remand from the court for more than two three years, who if they had been sentenced based on the crime they committed, would have sentenced to maximum of six to seven months and here they are in Ikoyi prison, three years, not tried, not taken to court, praise God!
For them, it could be that God kept them there to save them from themselves; and of course, a lot of them committed the crimes they committed, they stole, maybe some was rape, all sorts of cases, but some are there so that they can be kept from trouble outside, some of them are there so that they can meet with the Lord, and those of us who were there can testify, the worship there was glorious, I had to ask someone that are these people prisoners? The guitarists, the drummers, they were like beautiful musicians and they were singing from their hearts, real worship, praise God! And I can imagine what those guys were before they got to prison, maybe some of them got converted there.
There was a man they called ‘the G.O’ there, young man, probably in his late 30s, I don’t know if he was already a worker before they took him to prison, you will think he’s a real pastor; what I’m saying is that some of them are there so that God can meet with them like Onesimus in the Book of Philemon; Onesimus was brought to prison (so Paul told us) so that he can meet with God, so at times in our troubles, maybe it’s for God to meet with us, praise the Lord!
Romans 6: 5 – 8 says while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; so it’s important that we surrender to His care, He cares for where we are going to end up, so therefore, if we are here today, you have not given your life to Christ, it’s an opportunity to do so because His care is from cradle to the grave. He brought you here today to hear this message, to show that He cares for you, He cares for your wellbeing, He cares for your salvation, He cares for your redemption.
2nd Corinthians 6: 2 says this is the day of salvation for you hearing my voice today; He cares for your redemption, He went to the cross to die for our sin, and just like Pastor said last week, don’t let it be said concerning you that on the 19th of November, somebody spoke this message to you and you still refused to hear, let’s bow our heads to pray.
We’ve talked about God’s care for us from creation, and the family, He cares for our unity, He cares for us in our challenges and He cares for our redemption, He’s interested in our redemption, He died so that we can be forgiven while we were sinners, Bible says He died for us.
For those of us who wants to pray this morning, let’s just thank Him for salvation, let’s thank Him for redemption, let’s thank Him because He cares for us, let’s thank Him for putting us in a family, let’s thank Him for what He has allowed us to do in that family, the impact we are making, and where we are not making impact, let’s ask that He will make help us to make impact from today in the family and unlike the others, if you don’t know this God we are talking about, the caring God, this God of possibilities…
[Altar call]
As we leave this place today, let us carry the assurance that God deeply cares for our families; His love is a beacon of hope illuminating our homes with warmth and security, let us cherish and nurture the bonds of family.
So let’s just take this prayer in Exodus 23: 25 – 26, it’s a family prayer and we will use it to round up the session; when we choose to serve the Lord, it talks about God blessing our bread and water; He says He will take sickness away from our midst, (He says) we will not cast our young, (He says) none shall be barren in our midst and (He says) we shall live long and fulfill our days, shall we rise as we take this prayer.
Just repeat after me; Father, please bless my bread and water; Father, please take sickness away from our midst; Father, do not let us cast our young oh Lord; Father, let our old people fulfill their days; Father, let there be no barren in our midst, make us all fruitful – physically fruitful, spiritually fruitful, materially fruitful, let there be no barren in our midst; Father, let us fulfill our days. As a family, Father keep us in unity, give us joy, give us peace, give us blessing; uphold us oh Lord as a family, strengthen us, preserve us; oh Lord, You care for us, let the care continue in the years ahead; we’ve celebrated Family Week 2023, let us celebrate 2024 as well.
It’s a day of thanksgiving, Father, we thank You for putting us in a family, let us be here oh Lord in a better condition, stronger, for the 2024 edition in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank You eternal Father; Father, if there are souls here today that still need Your touch, touch them before they leave this place oh Lord; let there be no soul left untouched today in Jesus name, in Jesus name we prayed.
