Welcoming Little Ones

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Well, good morning, everybody.

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We're going to go ahead and get started. So if you can come on in here and grab a seat, that would be great, because I have a little bit after 11 already.

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So welcome, everybody. It is a great thing that we're able to get back together again, even in this strange circumstance to be outdoors.

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It has been a weird several weeks. Anybody in agreement on that? You're kind of agreeing that it's been a pretty strange time.

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But I cannot express in words how glad I am that we can get together and see each other face to face again, even though we're outside.

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God has granted us great weather. I have to say that don't let this lull you. The temperature,

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I think, is keeping the mosquitoes at bay, but you must bring some bug spray the next time that you come, just in case the weather.

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The bugs almost carried us away last week when it was overcast and there was no breeze. And so make sure you do that next week.

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But I encourage you, while we're here together during this time, to as much as possible practice physical distance.

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I don't like the word social distance, because we want to be social. We want to interact with one another. We want to talk to each other.

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We want to circle up after the service and have conversations and check in with each other and see how everybody's doing and all of that.

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But we do want to, as much as possible, respect each other's physical distance right now. Respect one another during these first few services.

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How many of you know that our goal is to get back to normal? Anybody with me on that? You want to get back to normal?

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And at the same time, this is not a service that's normal. You already noticed that. We're outside. We're keeping things spread out a little bit.

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Normal will be something that is going to happen down the road, and I'm looking forward to that. And I'm looking forward to it not just being the new normal, but the regular normal, where we hug each other, we greet each other, we shake hands with one another, and I really do think that that time is coming back for us.

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But one thing that I want to just point out is, how many of you have had this conversation with somebody? Are you okay if we don't stay six feet apart?

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Have you guys had those conversations where it's like you're talking with a friend and it's like, we're okay, aren't we? I'd like you to avoid those conversations this morning, and here's why.

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When you're the one that initiates that conversation, what you're doing is you're putting that other person in an awkward spot where they have to say, no,

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I want you to stay far away. I don't want you to keep your distance, or whatever. So at the end of the day, just try to respect distance for one another as much as possible, and like I said, we're going to get back to the real normal.

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This is the new normal right now, but we're going to get back to the real normal here soon. So this morning, we're going to turn our attention to a parable in Matthew 18.

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It is a parable about God's love and care for those who follow him. Raise your hand if you would call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ.

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If you feel comfortable with that title over your life, you'd say, yeah, I follow Jesus. Then this is a parable about you.

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This is a parable for us, and the content of this message is for those who primarily see themselves as followers of Christ.

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Jesus is talking here in this passage about the church and about those who are in the faith already, and the question kind of that we're answering this morning is how much does

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God love those who have come to him already with a childlike faith? How far would he go to pursue you now that you're in the family of God?

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And I would suggest to you that God has a fierce protection for his own against those who would attack us from the outside, and even from our own wandering hearts and our own tendencies to go our own way and go astray, he still desires to win us back.

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And so anyone who would despise or push down or even bring temptations before one of his little ones, all throughout chapter 18,

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Jesus is referring to the church and individuals in the church as little ones. He's talking about us having that childlike faith and coming in that way.

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Anybody who would push down his disciples, anybody who would despise those who are his, well they will find that they in the end have been opposing

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God all along. And how many of you know that it's not a good thing, it's never a good thing to be found in opposition to God?

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Did you know that? I think we knew that. So in our text, Jesus gives two further reasons we ought not to despise other children of God.

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And the first is in verse 10, and it causes a lot of speculation, it's a confusing verse, and we'll walk through that.

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The second is in story form in verses 12 through 14, and it shows us the protective nature and high value that God places on us and on every single little one who comes to him with a humble and independent faith.

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And so let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, you can navigate in a device, if you got an app or whatever, if you brought a

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Bible, great. But to Matthew chapter 18 verses 10 through 14, and while I'm reading it, see if you can identify the two reasons we ought to welcome one another and not despise each other that are found in this text.

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So again, it's Matthew chapter 18 verses 10 through 14, and recast, this is

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God's precious and holy word. This is a word to us, a word that is meant to change us, and a word that is powerful.

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If we believe it and trust it and live it, we will be transformed. And so Matthew 18, 10 through 14, see that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my

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Father who is in heaven. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountain and go in search of the one that went astray?

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And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray.

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So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in some time of singing. Father, I thank you for the opportunity that we have to gather together.

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It is a privilege and a joy that we have of regathering again here.

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We have been separated for long, for far too long. So we're grateful for the means to be able to get together, for the beautiful weather that you've given us that makes this possible, and I even just thank you for a little bit cooler temperatures this morning, and Father, just the way that you care for us in the simple ways.

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But Father, I thank you that you are a God who continues to win our hearts day by day. You're a God who continues to pursue even the lost one, even the one who wanders away from you.

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You are faithful to pursue those who belong to you. And so, Father, I pray that you would help us to rejoice in that.

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I pray that you would protect us, that we would not be a source of outbreak, that you would protect our congregation and the individuals that are here from COVID -19.

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And Father, that as we think about all the turmoil that's going on, it's not just the virus, and it's not just the quarantine that we've just been through, but then there's so many racial tensions that are going on in our culture and swirling around us.

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So Father, I pray that you would bring healing to our nation, that you would bring healing to our hearts, as we consider and genuinely look inside and see what prejudices lie within us.

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That we would deal with our own hearts, the places that we have some control, the places that we have something to say about what goes on, and that you would convict us where we need conviction and encourage us where we need encouragement, that you would help us to be a people who listen to one another, a people who love one another, a people who are united together in faith, and we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

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Amen. Yeah, you can go ahead and be seated, and a big thanks to Dave and the band for leading us.

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They say everything has a silver lining, right, Dave? And Dave, the silver lining for COVID is

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Dave's beard. So everybody give Dave's beard a clap there, how about that beard?

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Pretty sweet. All right, so there's a few other beards that I see hanging out out there that weren't there before this whole quarantine thing, so I encourage you to get comfortable as much as possible.

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If you want to get out in the sun, you can feel free to do that. It would be kind of weird if I was the only one under the tent, but hey, if that's the way it is, that's the way it is.

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Or just stay where you're at, whatever you need to do. And then keep your Bibles open or your devices open to Matthew 18, 10 through 14, that passage that I read earlier is what we're going to walk through.

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And let's just jump into it because we don't have a lot of time here. So Jesus starts with his main teaching point, and then he's going to give two reasons for it.

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So his main command to us is found right there at the beginning, and it is to see to it that we do not despise even a single one of these little ones.

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Even a single one of these little ones. And I want to point out that some have confused the illustration with the point.

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So they think that Jesus is only talking about literal little children in this passage.

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Every time he talks about little ones, he's talking about children. But it comes in the context of the disciples asking, who's greatest in the kingdom?

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And Jesus pulled up a child as an illustration. So the child serves as an illustration of a member of the kingdom of God.

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And then every time that he mentions little ones all throughout chapter 18, he's talking about us. He's talking about disciples.

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He's talking about followers of him. And so that's what's going on here. Way back in verse 2,

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Jesus introduced a child as an illustration for his own purposes. And then he continues to talk about his followers as little ones, emphasizing how those who are in the kingdom are humble like a child and are dependent like a child.

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That's what he wants to point out about us. If you raised your hand earlier and said, I'm a follower of Jesus, then you had to come in as humble under him as your king, as your master, as your

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Lord, and you had to come in as dependent upon him. I can't do it on my own. I need you,

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Jesus. And that's the attitude of anybody who is in the kingdom. And so he says, who's greatest? Well, even a little child is greatest because of the way that they come.

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And so regardless of how you feel about being called a little one, by the way, how many of you love being called a little one? Is that what you really, that's where you're at right now, a little one?

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Regardless of how you feel about that, regardless of how you would feel about being called weak or inconsequential or dependent or needy or small,

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I am confident that the 12 disciples were getting the point. I'm confident that every time in this dialogue and really monologue of Jesus, every time he says little ones, it's like a wave crashing up against their preconceived notions of greatness.

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He keeps saying little ones, little ones, little ones. What was our first question in chapter 18? Who is greatest?

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Who's greatest? And he keeps going, little ones, little ones, oh, you little ones. And he's really emphasizing, you see, because when they asked who's greatest, who do you think they hoped was the answer?

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Me. Pick me, pick me, I'm, am I not the greatest? I mean, even the person who probably voiced the question, probably

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Peter, but whoever voiced that question to him was probably hoping that his name was the answer.

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Who's the, who, Jesus, who's the greatest? Who's the greatest in your kingdom? He pulls in a child standing, a bystander, and says this one.

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But now after hammering home the humble, meek, and dependent nature of those that are in the kingdom, he basically said, remember how you got here?

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By humbling yourself, by being dependent upon God. Now Jesus wants to make sure that we do not despise people who come in in this manner.

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Well why would he do that? And I believe that Jesus understands the sinful patterns of the human heart. Have you ever tried to enter a meeting or enter a context as the humble one?

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As the meek one? As the one who is quiet and doesn't really, you know, is dependent upon others and all of that?

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How many of you know that that's a recipe for getting rolled over? In the corporate world, is that a recipe for getting rolled over?

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You better believe it. You come in strong, you come in hard, you come in with your agenda and you come in and you push and you push and you get your way, right?

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Isn't that the human way? Jesus knew that. He knew that if you come into the church with a humble and contrite attitude of dependence upon God, that it's easy, even within the church, we could roll over one another.

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He knows our tendency for the strong to walk all over the weak. He understands our tendency towards terrible things like racism or classism or toward a hunger for power, a hunger for authority, and even, yes, so far as the ability to abuse one another.

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And so he says, when you see a weak little one come into your circle of disciples, recast, when you see a weak little one, read, another disciple, when you see somebody who loves

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Jesus come into your midst, do not, he says, do not despise them.

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Now, I was talking with Spencer this week about this because that's a really hard word, despise. It's probably not one that you use very often, but we were talking about it, we were saying,

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I think that despise sounds harsher than hate, does it not? If I told you,

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I hate broccoli, okay, which isn't true, but if I said,

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I hate broccoli, you'd be like, oh man, dude doesn't like broccoli, right? But what if I said to you, you know what, I despise broccoli?

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You'd be like, this is personal, right? Like, I mean, what kind of, who has that kind of attitude towards a vegetable? Like at the end of the day, whoa, bro, like take a chill pill, it's not out for you.

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It's not going to get you, okay, it just sits there. You don't have to touch it. So, you know what

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I mean, despise is a really harsh word, isn't it? And he's saying, don't despise somebody like this, but what we need to understand is in the

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Greek language, the way that the word that's translated despise here is a little bit different and it requires some understanding.

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The word despise is the opposite. It's an antonym, the opposite of a Greek word for welcome.

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So in the ancient world, hospitality was a big deal. When somebody showed up, it was a shame -based culture and it still is in many places in the

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Middle East. And so a shame -based culture is, it's a shame if you show up to my house and I don't provide you good hospitality.

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And so the word welcome, the opposite of this word despise, is what happens in the first 15 to 30 seconds of somebody showing up at your house.

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It's the greeting that happens on the doorstep is what you're looking at here. And what are we to do for little ones?

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What do we do for those who come and gather into our midst? It is a welcome, not a despise.

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Despise is, there's all different kinds of ways you could despise somebody on your front door, right? What we do most often now, how many of you do this?

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I confess to it. Somebody knocks on my door and I don't know who it is. What do you do? Quick, shut the curtains, nobody's home, right?

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How many of you have ever done that? Like, you know what I'm talking about, salesman, he's got his clipboard or whatever and it's like, nope, not today.

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Not breaking through this barrier. That's despising. Like in a sense, I mean, that's this Greek word.

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That's an unwelcomed attitude towards another. And so that's what we are to avoid in the body of Christ.

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Do not treat one another that way. And in one way, when you think about it, despising somebody in this context, this

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Greek word, it doesn't require violence. To despise someone according to this Greek word doesn't mean that you even have to offer harsh words or overtly reject them.

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It only means that you need not welcome them. So in other words, you could accidentally be despising others.

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You don't invite them into your circle. You're satisfied to leave them as outsiders. You're satisfied with your clique or your group of friends.

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This can happen within the church. And in this sense, even ignoring someone in our gathering could be to despise them.

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And Jesus says in the church, there are no second -rate disciples. Nobody who belongs to Jesus should be left out. And so now he gives in verse 10, the first reason to joyfully welcome all the humble and dependent little ones.

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The reason to not despise them. And it's a weird reason. It is that their angels in heaven always see the face of their father.

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Anybody confused yet? That's a weird verse. This one verse has caused so much, created so much speculation, but we need to be careful to not go further than the text goes.

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This passage is the one that is used to give forward an idea of guardian angels.

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How many of you ever heard that phrase together, those two words together, guardian angels? Okay, so this is an idea or a notion that comes from this one verse.

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It's the idea that there were angels working overtime to make sure you made it through your teenage years, right?

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There's one angel who was assigned to you that kept the car from speeding out, you know, or spinning out, or kept that deer from running into your car or whatever, you know.

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So it's like the idea that you have a assigned angel who follows you around everywhere. And the

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Greek in this text does not bear that idea up. That is not what this text is going on about, that everybody has a personal angel who follows you.

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The text speaks of the angels in heaven before the face of God, not following you everywhere that you go, but rather there in some representative form before the very presence of the

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Almighty God. So Jesus says that the church, that is, the humble disciples made up of these little ones, has a group.

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So the church at large has a group of angels in heaven who have unparalleled access to the Father.

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In other words, there is some, in some sense that we don't fully understand, there's a group of angels that's responsible for the church.

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And they are constantly and perpetually before the presence of God, a pretty cool thing.

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This is both a warning and an encouragement. You see, every follower of Jesus you have ever met has angelic support in the throne room of God.

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What they're actually doing is unclear. Are they tattling on everyone who despises us? Are they messengers going back and forth between the throne room and us?

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There are many questions produced by this one verse, but God was satisfied and Jesus was satisfied to leave it very generic for us.

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And I hope you find, but really at the end of the day, the purpose of this is to find encouragement in it. And I hope you do, as you realize that the church has significant angelic support that has direct and permanent access to the

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Heavenly Father. And I want to be clear about something, just to clear up some fuzzy pop theology kind of notions about angels.

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The idea that a person who dies becomes an angel, give that up. Don't speak that. That's not accurate.

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Angels are a separate created order of being that were created separate from humanity. I believe that they genuinely exist.

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They serve God in a different kind of way. The fallen ones we call demons, the ones that stuck loyal to God are angels and they serve in ways throughout scripture that you'll see they are not synonymous with humans who have died or anything like that.

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Don't get this notion or this idea that, you know, a grandma went on and she got her wings and now she's an angel or something like that.

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She's in the presence of God if she was a follower of Christ and that's a cool thing, but not that whole notion that we become angels.

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So don't despise even a single one who has support like that.

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Even if it's just one member or one person who's connected in that way to God, it would be like saying here what

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Jesus is saying, welcome into your ranks and be eager to greet anybody who has direct access to the

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Pentagon. You want somebody like that on your side and I recommend that you don't despise someone who has a direct line to the president or you could end up, you know, in the morning on a tweet storm with your name on it, right?

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Be careful. But the second reason we should not despise God's little ones is found in story form.

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So the first is that they have some kind of unprecedented access to the Father in heaven, but Jesus wants his audience to think.

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And so look with me at verse 11 real quick. Verse 11, I'm sorry, verse 12, what do you think?

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What do you think, Jesus starts off. He wants to engage our minds. He wants to engage our thoughts here.

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So what do you think? Imagine if you had 100 sheep and one of them wandered off, what would you do?

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And the phrase, what do you think, implies that he wants you to think about the answer to this question.

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He wants you to answer it. So what would you do? You're responsible, you're a shepherd and you're responsible for 100 sheep and one of them wanders away, what would you do, he says.

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What would you do? Well I want you to think about it for a second. Because where I come from, 99 % is a really strong A.

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Do you know what I'm talking about? Like I was pretty happy if on a, my goodness, if I had got a 99 on a chemistry test,

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I would have been over the moon. Like I would have been like yes, it's my payday, right, this is awesome.

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Some of you might be a different subject, but it was like what if I got a 99, I would be like dancing, you know.

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So would you actually leave the 99 and go pursue the one?

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And I think some of this, some of the misunderstanding in our mind, because I think some of you are probably rattling around, how many of you would just say probably not?

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In reality, I just probably honestly wouldn't. Nobody wants to say that, so I'll raise my hand, because I'm not sure that I would.

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I mean 99, you know, that's a pretty good percentage, I'm pretty happy to retain 99. But some of it is a misunderstanding about what it meant to be a shepherd in that time.

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You see, people didn't watch their own sheep. You were serving someone else. You were working for somebody. And again, in a shame -based culture, to show back up to your master with a lost sheep, you're in trouble.

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There was harsh treatment for the loss of a single sheep to a shepherd. And by the way, shepherds were in one of the lowliest positions in their culture at that time.

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As you see, the young people doing that, right? You see David as a youth out in the fields, spending the night with the sheep and that kind of stuff.

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So in their culture, yes, the implied answer that Jesus expects, what

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He expects from everybody that's there listening to His teaching is an unqualified, of course you go after the one.

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You know, your neck is on the line. Of course you're going to do all that you can to bring the 100 back to your master, for sure, without question.

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But look at verse 13. The joy of a good shepherd is enhanced by the lost and found dynamic.

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How many of our literary plots and movie plots involve something that's lost that then is later found?

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Or, you know, we even think in terms of somebody that's lost and then is found. We thought that Gandalf was dead and then poof, he's back.

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Chewie was on the other shuttle, right? How many of you are glad to find out that Chewie was on the... Some of you are like, what?

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What is this guy? Michael Scott comes back for the final episode, right? You thought he was gone and then he's back for the wedding.

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How many of you... Okay. All right. Some of you know what

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I'm talking about. So we serve a God, hear me carefully church, we serve a God who comes back for the one.

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He's talking about God's character. What is our God like? Our standard might be 99%, but not our

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Father's. He pursues the one. Oh, praise God. How many of you are glad that you serve a

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God who pursues the one? He's concerned with you if you wander away. He's going to keep pursuing you.

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And I want to point out that this is not about God pursuing the lost people out there in the world who do not know Him, who don't have a relationship with Him.

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In Luke, it's interesting because Jesus tells the same parable -ish to two different groups in two different times.

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Luke records one, Matthew records the other, and He does so with different intentions. So in Luke, He talks about the lost sheep, the lost sheep, the lost sheep.

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A sheep is lost and then is found. It's a wild sheep that's not part of the flock and it's brought in in Luke.

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He's talking about evangelism. He's talking about going out and sharing this message and bringing more in, but not here.

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He is talking about God pursuing His own people who wander away. You see that phrase, it depends on your translation, but the phrase went astray or wander away in the

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NIV occurs three times showing the initiative is on the part of the little one to bolt. He's not taken by a lion.

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He's not taken by a bear. He's not taken by a wolf. He just kind of wanders out of the protective care of the shepherd.

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That's the picture that we have here. And the sheep is missing because it chose to go its own way.

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Some of you maybe can already start to relate that to your own life. How many of you would say that there are seasons in your life where you wandered away out of the sheepfold?

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You wandered away outside of the protective care of your father? I think all of us at some point, and I'm not talking about, you know, there's the way that He won us in the first place, right?

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He drew us in and brought us into His flock, right? But then as a member of His flock, you've strayed and He had to come and pursue you.

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So how much joy is brought to the shepherd when he finds the lost sheep? Well, it says, he rejoices over the recovered one more than he rejoices over the 99 who ever went astray.

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And before you get uncomfortable, too uncomfortable with that, because how many of you at the end of the day, you're like, well, these 99, they just hung in there.

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They just stayed with Him. What's the deal about the bozo who wanders off and what's the deal with him getting more attention?

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Why does she get more attention? Why does she get more rejoicing? Well, please note that the shepherd rejoices over all 100 of his sheep, but he rejoices more over the one that he thought was gone forever, the one that wandered away.

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You see, the fact of the matter is, just like us, there's something about God. He enjoys the challenge. The power of a story comes through conflict and rising action.

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Imagine if the parable goes like this. Imagine if this is a story that Jesus tells. A shepherd cared for his flock.

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He gave them food, led them to good streams. They all hung out together.

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The end. Kind of a lame story, really, at the end of the day. Like where's this going?

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There's no plot. There's no rising action. There's no resolution. There's nothing to resolve. It's just all hunky -dory and everything's going great, right?

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But you see, the intrigue comes in the stress of the story. It's like the shepherd wakes up with a start and the sky is still dark as the stars wheel above his head.

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He thought he heard something that startled him awake. So have you ever had that happen where you're like, I think something just woke me up?

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You know that in the middle of the night? He's like, something just woke me up. What's going on here? And so what does he instinctively do as a shepherd?

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Counts his sheep. It's the first thing that he does. And he pulls up on one elbow as he's been asleep there and he starts to count.

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And he has to take a second count. Why? Because he only got 99 and he knows he's got 100 sheep. So he takes a second count because he's like, maybe

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I missed one. Second count, 99. And then he sees it. Well, in the middle of the night, he must have rolled over while he was asleep and left a little bit of a gap in the gate.

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Because you see, a shepherd in those times was the gate. There was no gate or hinges or anything like that.

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So literally, the sheepfold was a carved out piece of rock with built up rock walls around it and a gap where the sheep would go in and out.

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Nothing covered that gap except the shepherd. So the shepherd would sleep in that gap, putting himself in harm's way between himself and the sheep.

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And he sees a little bit of a gap there where it must be that the lamb was able to just slip out and wander off into the darkness.

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And so now the shepherd grabs his sling as he leaves his flock and wanders into the night, wondering what gruesome scene awaits him.

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Is it a lion now that got this little lamb? Is it a wolf? Are they still alive?

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And so can you imagine in that scenario the delight? I imagine that as he's wandering off into the night, he's wondering, what's my master going to do to me?

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How's this going to go for me? So can you imagine just the, oh my goodness, when he finds that sheep just stuck in some brambles, slings it up on his shoulder, and goes back to the 99.

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Can you imagine that joy? Can you imagine that gladness? Can you imagine that relief on the part of the shepherd?

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Verse 14 brings this parable to its final point. It is not the will of the

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Father in heaven that a single one of His little ones should perish. It is not

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His desire that any who belong to His flock should perish.

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And so we are to welcome and accept His little ones. We are not to put any stumbling blocks in front of other disciples of Jesus because their heavenly

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Father is like a good shepherd who pursues them. No one who belongs to the flock of God will be lost.

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So welcome in the humble, welcome in the lowly, welcome in all who depend upon their heavenly

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Father. And if God provides angelic support for His church, and if the God we serve is the kind of God who pursues even one of His who wander off, how much more should we pursue accountability with one another?

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How much more should we also, like the shepherd, be counting who's missing?

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Who's missing? Who's missing from your friend circle? Who's missing from your connection here at church?

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Who are we leaving out? Who are we despising by our lack of welcome?

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And I want to suggest to you this goes beyond race. This goes deeper than mere greetings on Sunday mornings.

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This goes to the deeper connections of our hearts. God forbid that we would become a place where people can get lost in the shuffle, or even worse a place where people feel unwelcomed.

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And so let's land the plane with three applications, this will be short. The first is simply this, reach out to someone new.

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Reach out to someone new. And it might not be someone who's new here in terms of this is their first time, or it might not be a visitor.

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New might be just someone who has been attending here for a while that you have never talked to. New to you. And what a joy that even with physical distancing right now, we can now actually stand even if it's just a few feet away and introduce ourselves to someone we've never talked to before.

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Welcome one another. Do not allow anyone in our gathering to feel despised here,

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Recast. The second thing is a weird one, rejoice in the angels, something I've never done before this week.

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But angels it says in the text, not in this text but in the Bible, that angels are ministering spirits who are messengers between heaven and earth.

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They're shrouded in a lot of mystery and at the same time Jesus calls them into a discussion here about the church as a cause for warning and a cause for encouragement.

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The church, Recast, has direct face -to -face perpetual representation before the

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Father in heaven. Praise God for all things he is doing for his church, including things we don't fully understand, like representing us through the angels.

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The third and last thing, praise God that he pursues us. Again are you glad that you serve a

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God who pursues you? Where would we be without his pursuit? I am so thankful for a

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God that has consistently pursued me. I prayed for years that God would keep me on a short leash.

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I pray that I would never wander far from him, that he would keep my heart soft to my own sin, that I would find it easy to repent when

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I'm confronted with my own sin. And I would encourage you all to pray the same things.

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God is the kind of shepherd who is lovingly committed to his flock. And I think it would be appropriate for us to end this talk about sheep with the comfort from the words of Jesus recorded for us in the

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Gospel of John. Thinking of sheep, John writes this, and really is recording the words of Jesus Christ our

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Lord. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

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My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

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If you belong to the good shepherd, thank him for pursuing you today. If you do not have that type of relationship with God, if you lack the hope of eternal life, please come up here and talk with me.

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I'll be hanging around at the end of the service, and I would love to pray with you and talk with you about how you can be brought into the protective flock of God through Jesus Christ.

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And you guys, honestly, we're about to do what I've missed the most in these weeks.

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We have a chance to take communion together. This is a gift that God has given us to remember together.

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This is a communion is for the church. This is why I have discouraged people from doing this alone in your homes.

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It is a together thing. And so we come to remember together the sacrifice of Jesus Christ where he paid the penalty for our sins.

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We take a cracker to remember his body broken for us, we take a cup of juice to remember his blood shed for us, and if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ for your salvation based on the cross, and you've asked him to be your master and king, then feel free to participate in communion during this next song.

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If you didn't get a bag of communion supplies, those are available over there for you for your family. You can go get those from the table during the song, but let's take communion together in the gathering of his people once again.

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We serve the Good Shepherd. He is our Father in heaven, and he is the protector of his little ones.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much that you have pursued us, that you don't just pursue us, bring us into your flock, and then just leave us, but even as we are so prone to stray, you are so gracious to even understand us in our weakness and to follow us in our weakness, to pursue us where we would wander off into all different kinds of things that would destroy us.

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You are faithful to keep bringing your wandering ones back. So Father, I pray that you would work in all of our hearts to be a welcoming church, a church that welcomes and does not despise, does not put off, but just has an open door to any and all who would want to come in that honor you and love you.

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Father, I thank you for the cross of Jesus Christ that we celebrate and remember through the juice and the cracker, remind us of his blood and his body broken for us.