Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Almighty God.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: You welcome you.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: Hey there. If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to. So we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church and click on Contact. With all that said, we, we hope you enjoy the message.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Good morning, church. Hope everyone's doing well today.
For those of you that I don't know, my name is Mike. I'm one of the elders here and I get the privilege of sharing God's word with you this morning.
Yeah, we've been in a series called the King in His Kingdom. Looking through the book of Matthew and seeing King Jesus and what he's doing and what it looks like to live under his rule and reign his kingdom here now, actually.
And so this morning I'm going to be sharing out of Matthew 18.
Before we get started though, I want to pray for us. So if you guys wouldn't mind joining me, that'd be great.
Yeah. King Jesus, we thank you.
We thank you that you are amazing. You are the best king, that your way is the way of life, and that we this morning get to just glean from your words what is it you have to say about what it looks like to live in your kingdom under your rule and reign.
And so, yeah, I thank you for each person here.
I thank you for the privilege of being able to share your word.
And I pray, spirit, that you would just move amongst your people, that you would do the work that only you can do in this place, and that we would make much of Jesus, we thank you. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.
All right.
Yeah. So it's about three years ago right now, my family of six had the privilege of going with my in laws to Disney World for a year, a week.
Yeah, pretty awesome. I mean, we got to go to four parks over the course of a week. And it just so happened the second park we went to was Epcot.
I think some of you have been to Epcot before, others maybe not. But Epcot's this like this place where you walk into this Disney park and it's like you get a tour around the world. And that day was actually the food and Wine festival there, which was pretty awesome because we got to tour through all these different essentially villages. But going from country to country and tasting their food and trying their drink. And, you know, beforehand we had been pretty deliberate about talking to the kids about every kid stays with an adult because we weren't outnumbered at this point. We had four adults and four kids. And so we're like, stay with the adults.
And well, it didn't really work out.
We were on our way from Germany to Africa and like many parents that have multiple kids, I went, one, two.
Oh no, where's Riley?
Yeah. And those of you that know Riley, know that this isn't the first time this has happened.
Some of you mothers in the room that have been with Marla have experienced Riley disappearing when you guys are all together.
So in that moment, of course I'm like, oh my goodness, what am I going to do? My stomach drops. I look at everyone, I go, stay here. I'm going to go back to Germany right now.
And I'm thinking, she's a little brown haired girl running around. And I see all these brown haired kids running around and I'm like, what am I gonna do? And it's a sea of children and adults. And then I look up and I see a security guard over there.
And there's Riley right next to the security guard and she's talking to the security guard. And I walk up and she goes, oh, hi dad.
Unfazed, no big deal.
For me though, I was like, okay, we're good. It's relief, gratitude.
My little girl who was with thousands and thousands and thousands of people on her own had been found in that moment.
Maybe you too have had a moment like that where you lost a child.
Or maybe it was a pet or a friend that had drifted away and all that you really wanted was for them to be back home with you in that moment.
You know, this is the picture that we get this morning of the father's heart in Matthew 18 that we're going to be going through a father who can't rest until his children are safe.
So would you guys turn with me to Matthew 18, verses 10 through 14?
I'm going to be reading from the CSB and it's going to be up on the screen as well.
Okay, here we go.
Verse 10.
See to it that you do not despise one of these little ones, because I tell you that in heaven their angels continually view the face of my Father in heaven.
What do you think?
If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, won't he leave the 99 on the hillside and go in search of the stray? And if he Finds it truly, I tell you, he rejoices over that sheep more than over the 99 that did not go astray in the same way. It is not the will of our Father, of your Father in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
Last week, we talked about who the children were. Anyone remember? We talked about, like, with Jesus, when he's talking about the children, who he's referring to.
The least of these. Yeah. Okay. The least of these. Yeah. So he's talking about his children, God's children. Christians is who he's speaking of here. But the least of these. Absolutely. The vulnerable. Those that are vulnerable.
And so my first point for you this morning is the father loves and watches over his children.
You know, I have a confession.
I've assumed I knew about sheep and shepherds for all these years, probably informed a little bit by just living in the suburbs and listening to punk rock and having album covers that had sheep on it and stuff like that, and a black sheep that runs the other way. But I've always assumed that sheep are sort of stupid. They're all the same.
And so I was challenged, though. I'm like, man, Jesus talks. The Bible talks a lot about sheep and shepherd, a whole lot about it. What's up with the sheep imagery that it's giving?
And so I did a little digging. I tried to get ahold of Paul first, and we weren't able to connect, which is all right. But then I did some digging on YouTube because I'm like, I gotta figure out what this sheep thing is all about, because I felt like Jesus has got to have some deeper symbolism that would touch the heart of the people that he speaks, speaking to there.
And what I found was that sheep, though, they aren't that smart. They are not mindless.
They recognize faces. They make bonds with one another.
They show emotion.
And, you know, it's interesting. Like, they have a connection there with the shepherd or with one another and then. But with all that, they're still extremely vulnerable.
They're prone to wander.
They can't find food or water for themselves.
They go to unsafe places. I heard this story about sheep falling off cliffs over in Ireland. I'm like, wow, that's interesting.
And then they're also really stubborn, which was interesting. I was like, oh, they're stubborn. Okay, well, that makes sense. They wander.
But with all that, I think, you know, none of us really want to be called sheep, even though it's in the Bible, it's referring to us as sheep. But I think there's a Reality that is being illustrated here of, like, spiritually, we're in need of a shepherd that's going to shepherd our hearts.
And so this morning I want to look at the Father and how he loves his children and he shepherds our hearts. He. He guides us and protects us, restores us, personally cares for us and speaks to his children. You don't have to write those down yet. I'll get back to that in a second. We'll run through each one of them.
Yeah. So guides, at this point, Jesus had been walking from.
He was up in Galilee and he's coming down the Jordan and he's heading to Jerusalem over here. And over here on the east side is probably where he was at today. It's modern day Jordan.
In that area to the north was a little bit more, had a little bit more rain. And as you got south, it became a lot more arid. But the area overall is pretty rocky. There's a lot of hills. It's coming out of a very low area where the Jordan is going up the hills. And so this is the place in which these shepherds would be guiding their sheep that weren't able to find food for themselves or water for themselves. And they were guiding them to those areas to be able to guide them and provide for them.
And so just as the shepherd would guide a sheep to pasture and water, God guides us through rocky times as well. Rocky terrain.
Isaiah 58, 11, it says, the Lord always lead you, satisfy you in a parched land and strengthen your bones. You will be like a watered garden and like a spring whose water never runs dry.
See, he's faithful. That's who he is. That's what he does.
Many of you probably, if you're in eat and speak journals this week on Friday, read through Psalm 78. I was actually pleasantly surprised when I saw this because it was illustrating so much of what I wanted to talk about today.
It's a journey that the psalmist Asaph takes the people through in the psalm of how God has been faithful and led them through the guided them through times that were hard for them.
And he says at the very beginning of it, sort of like a prefaces it before, we will not hide them from their children, but will tell a future generation the praiseworthy acts of God, his might, and his wondrous works he has performed.
So I want to ask you this morning, how have you experienced the Father's love?
Like, if you're remembering, like Asaph is telling them, to remember these things and to be able to share these things, how have you experienced the Father's love? Because I think remembrance is a really important thing when we're considering the love of God. So often we see like 2020 in hindsight, but in the moment of it, we don't.
Yeah. And with that, like, I guess the other thing is that I was thinking about here was to be guided, you have to be willing to follow.
And so are you willing to follow him and be led by him in those hard seasons?
You know, the shepherd, he leads us, but he also stands with us in those moments of danger.
And sheep out at pasture.
It was funny, Paul and I were talking just a minute ago and he was saying, yeah, we're a little bit more of a control environment at the farm with the sheep. But when you're out at pasture and they're just on the hillsides, if a sheep wanders off, guess what happens to it? Anyone?
What's that?
Wolves. Wolves? Yeah, wolves will come beyond that. They might just not find water or food. I mean, might just die at that point. But yeah, there's definitely. There's predators that are after them. So that the shepherd.
This is such a cool thing. I didn't realize this because I've always watched too many movies that have wolves attacking people.
But this isn't the reality. This isn't the reality.
The wolves are actually afraid of people. They don't like humans. They want to keep their distance. So what is the protection of the sheep?
It's just the presence of the shepherd. Yeah, it's an amazing thing. And so it's his presence that actually protects them from the wolves. Those things that would hurt them, that guides them to sustenance, but also protects them from the dangers.
Psalm 28:7. It says, the Lord is my strength and my shield.
My heart trusts in him and I'm helped. Therefore my heart celebrates and I give thanks to him with song.
I was thinking about one of the.
One of the stories from this last birthday.
The youngquist here right now. They're back there. Yeah, they're back there. Okay. I was thinking about Ethan.
For those of you that haven't heard the story, Ethan was on a trip down in Mexico with some friends with school and he was on his way back up. They end up getting pulled over. Some weird things happen.
Him and his friends and one of their dads got arrested.
And then there was this fear that Ethan was actually going to get given off in to go into the cartel, like against his will. But during that time, God brought this wonderful group of people around to rally and to pray and it wasn't just like he was protected physically, but he was protected mentally and spiritually in that moment.
I think this is a beautiful picture of how, you know, God protects his children. Now, it could have gone a whole bunch of different ways, but I think of specifically the physical is great. We love it. We're so grateful for that. But even just the kindness of God to protect him spiritually and mentally in that moment is absolutely amazing. Let me ask you, when's the last time that you experienced God's protection over you? Remember this. These are good things to remember here.
But even if he does watch over us and protect us and care for us, there's times where, guess what? We fall.
We do fall.
And it's his love that comes around us and restores us.
So how many people in here knew that sheep had flat backs? Anyone?
Oh, okay. Okay, we got one. Cool. I'm not alone. Sweet.
This was new news to me. So a sheep that's walking along a little, I guess a lot of them are a little bit top heavy and all that stuff, and they fall over. They fall over and they get on their back. They literally are. They fall and they can't get up at that point.
Yeah, they can't get up. But here's the dangerous part is you think, oh, well, they fell and they can't get up. But what happens is their blood and everything sort of pools back in their body. And what can happen is the gases build up and they. Their heart stops. This is all, like, new news. I was like, oh, my goodness. And it can happen over the course of a couple hours.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Wild.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: So a shepherd, what they have to do is they have to come over and they turn the sheep on its side. They massage it, and the sheep is in excruciating pain because all this stuff is going on inside of its body. That's not good. And then it's losing all the. Have you ever had your arm or your leg fall asleep? Pins and needles. It's horrible. So it's going through all this pain, and the shepherd's sitting there massaging, caring for this sheep, maybe turn it to its other side, and eventually it gets it onto its belly and the sheep tries to get up, and then it falls over again.
It's got to help it up again.
Reality is, is like we too get knocked down and we need help to get up.
Yeah. And it's beautiful. The shepherd sees.
Sees each of us when we fall over.
He knows the things that are ailing us. He knows the areas that we're hurting.
But If I'm honest, there's moments where I've fallen over, and it feels like a really long time.
Feels like a really long time. Like, oh, God, just come, please. I don't know what's going on here. This is tough.
Peter talks about in Second Peter. He says, the Lord does not delay his promises, as some would understand delay, but is patient with you, not willing. Any would perish, but all would come to repentance.
Think about these times where the story of David, a man that was a man after God's own heart, he would walk into these moments.
He was being persecuted in moments. And other times he had sinned pretty horribly. I think the kids are reading about that today, actually.
But the reality is he was a man that always came back to God. He always looked to him. He saw him as being his good shepherd. And in Psalm 23, he says, he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
So when we stray, he's faithful to seek us out.
His desire is to restore us.
And I, too, have experienced that restoration in my life in deep and personal ways.
I was thinking about this.
You know, Marla and I, we had. When we got married, we were a part of a small church, really small church. Like, we'd call it a gospel community.
And during that time, we're. About a year into our marriage, some stuff went south. There was some things that took place, and I was a little bit immature, probably a little bit arrogant, too.
But at the same time, I desired for this church to stay together.
And the leaders at the time were like, we're over it.
And we were left without leaders. And so our church disappeared.
And so we started to wander a little bit.
I wasn't leading well, in that moment, if I was in the right spot, I would have said, hey, we should probably go become a part of another fellowship. But I was like, I'm hurt. I don't want anything to do with this.
And it was probably about a year or two later, after chasing the American dream and drinking a little too much, I was walking through our living room one morning, and I heard this voice in my head.
I said, what are you doing?
And instantaneously, I was like, oh, I know who that is.
What are you doing?
And then I turned to my left on the bookshelf, there was my dusty Bible.
And I'm like, oh, man.
Lord, I've gone astray.
And on top of it, I'm newly married. And I've taken my wife with me in that.
And I Had this deep conviction. But the kindness of God was. It wasn't like this.
You're so bad.
It was like, I want you back.
I want you back.
And so I started opening up the scripture, and he was so kind. He spoke to me through it. And then here's the reality, guys. If it wasn't for that moment, my family wouldn't be here right now.
I'm pretty darn sure. Because it was in that moment that actually there's a series of events that took place for us to actually be out here.
And if I would have delayed in that and just been like, oh, well, I'm just gonna go chase that American dream still, which has let me down to this point, but I'm still gonna do it.
We wouldn't be here.
And so, yeah, he was personally caring for me. He was speaking to me and actually spoke to Marla as well. And that's how we ended up out here.
Interesting enough, Jesus says in John 10:27, he says, My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.
I always thought that was just sort of like a cool thing that he said.
Interesting enough, fat tail sheep, which are pretty much. That's the kind of sheep they have over in Israel. The way the shepherds lead them is by talking to them, making noises.
The sheep literally do know the shepherd's voice, and they follow them.
When I was thinking about this, it took me to an old hymn from probably like a hundred and something years ago.
It goes like this. And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I'm his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.
This is the intimacy that the Father loves His children with and desires to have a relationship with them.
And it's from this deep love that we can have security in who we are and how he loves us.
And we can actually share that with others.
We can be patient and intentional, personal with them.
You know, we looked at the first nine verses last week of Matthew, and it was pretty intense. I gotta say, Jesus had some strong words, but I think that was these words were.
They were there for a reason.
Because he desires for us to experience that love.
And he desires for us to know how the way that we sin, intentionally or unintentionally, by not dealing with the stuff that's going on in our hearts, affects other people.
He's calling us into something deeper, to experience his love in ways that transforms us so that we can be people that love on others and press into them, being Transformed as well by pointing them to the good shepherd.
Yeah. When we do that deep work, it's actually something that's for us, but it's also for the community around us.
And God cares for each one of us. He cares for his whole flock, too. That's the thing.
And he surrounds us with ministering angels and human shepherds to watch and guide us so that we can be equipped and we can flourish. So my second point for you this morning is the Father loves and pursues.
The Father loves and pursues the one who wanders.
Verse 10.
It says, I tell you that in heaven their angels continually view the face of my Father in heaven.
God has angels in heaven that are viewing his face and are ready to be dispatched to serve his children. At a moment. Oh, my goodness, I can't speak right now. At a moment's notice.
Hebrews 1:14 says, Are they not all ministering spirits sent to serve those who are going to inherit salvation?
We see this throughout Scripture.
If you were to go to Acts 12, Peter's put in prison. James has just been killed.
The church is praying for Peter because there's like, all kinds of soldiers that have been assigned to watch after him. And it's in the middle of the night, and all of a sudden an angel comes in and touches Peter and he wakes him up and his shackles fall off and he walks out of this place.
The angels responded. The Father responded by sending the angels to fulfill that prayer right there.
Protection.
Psalm 91:11. Angels protect.
For he will give his angels orders concerning you, to protect you in all your ways.
Who remembers Daniel with the lions in the lion's den? Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Next morning, Daniel's down there with the lions, and what is he?
They open it up and they're like, is he still alive? And Daniel goes, my God sent his angels to shut the lion's mouth.
And they haven't harmed me.
This reminded me of a story I heard from.
It's probably. It's a missionary from 100 or 200 years ago.
His name was John Patton.
Him and his wife were over in the South Pacific on an island called the New Hebrides, and they were ministering over there. And one night, the tribal chief and his tribe were outside their house and they wanted to kill them.
Pretty intense moment. And so what did John and his wife do? They started praying. They prayed through the whole night.
And in the morning, they're like, wait, we're still alive.
What happened here?
Fast forward a year. This tribal chief is now a Christian.
And John says, hey, what happened that night? What was going on?
And this is what he says. The tribal chief says he explained that he saw hundreds of large men in shining armor with drawn swords surrounding the missionary's home, and they were too afraid to attack it.
Think about that. God sent hundreds of angels to protect them. Just, like, posted up, not gonna mess with this dude and his wife. And then they become Christians.
It's amazing. And then beyond that, like, I think of how the angels encourage. You have Jesus 40 days in the wilderness. What do the angels do? They come and minister to him.
Jesus in the garden. Angel comes and ministers to him. It's amazing. These angels are servants sent by God to be able to minister to his children. This is how much his children mean to him. But he doesn't just go. It isn't just angels.
See, he's gifted many people in this room as shepherds.
Yeah, we have shepherds in this room that have been gifted by the Holy Spirit to be able to minister to the flock.
Ephesians 4 speaks of this, and it says that he gave apostles and prophets and evangelists and shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. So all these different gifted people are to equip and build up so that people become mature. But I think specifically of the shepherds, and Peter talks about this in First Peter. He says that these shepherds are to be willing and eager. And here's the thing, is to be an example to the flock. So if they're going to be an example, they have to be with the flock. So if you were to see.
So interesting. You can see the shepherds, because where are they? Usually they're with the people.
And he's gifted us with these beautiful shepherds in this body.
I'm so grateful for the shepherds in this church. Honestly.
Minister to me, minister to my family. Minister to people I love. It's beautiful.
I had an experience with a shepherd from another church recently.
I was at a conference, and it was the last day. They were having a time of praise and prayer. And I was sitting there and I was just praying. I was like, lord, there was a lot of stuff that was in my heart that I wasn't prepared for.
I didn't know how. I need wisdom for how to move forward in some of this stuff.
And I just felt, like, overwhelmed. Have you guys ever had one of those moments where you're just like, I Don't even know what to do right now.
And it wasn't even like I needed an answer.
But this shepherd, he's a trusted. We trust this church. And he was a pastor. He came over and he tapped me on the shoulder and honestly scared me out of my mind in that moment. I was like this. And I scared him at that point.
But what happened was, is I was about to unload all that was going on.
And before I could even do that, he goes, I feel like the Lord gave me a word for you. I was like, oh, okay, all right, I'm ready to listen. And he shared it with me. And it was actually a word that another shepherd in this church had shared with me at another time.
And then he went on to almost, like, systematically tell me everything that was going on in my head and praying for me and those things. And then it wasn't even just that. It was like, other stuff that's going on in my life. And he just started praying over all that stuff in detail. And I was like, oh, my gosh. God just spoke through him in this crazy way. And I felt so seen.
God used a human shepherd to give me a message that I was seen by the Father in that moment. And it impacted me in a crazy way where I was just like, whoa.
I was overwhelmed and able to praise him because he's so good. He guides. And he doesn't just guide. He also personally attends to your heart.
So how has God met you in those rocky moments through his community, whether it be angelic or human. And here's one of the cool things, guys, I've heard these crazy. I'm not even calling crazy not crazy. I've heard stories from within this church of how angels have actually ministered to you guys.
I've heard multiple stories, and it's beautiful.
And so, yeah, so the thing is, why does God go to such great lengths?
Here's the thing. He rejoices.
He. He rejoices over when what was lost is found and his children come home.
He has a desire for each of you to have abundant life in Christ, to flourish in his love, and to invite others into that.
And so when I'm thinking about this, I'm like, okay. For each of us individually, and we all make up the church, how we receive his love and love one another is going to be a picture of how we operate as church, as a family.
John 13:34 says, I give you a new command. Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.
And this is My last point for the morning here.
The Father loves and rejoices in every restoration.
Some of you probably, many of you probably have heard this parable before.
It happens in Matthew, actually takes place in Luke as well. In Matthew, what we're speaking about right now, it speaks to the church, those that are followers of Jesus, and he desires that those that are wounded and wandering, we'd be able to come back.
And then in Luke, it actually speaks to a different group of people.
So let's look at it real quick.
It says Luke 15, verses 1 through 7. It'll be up on the screen for you.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: Now.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.
And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them.
So who's he hanging out with right now?
Those that are away from Jesus, that don't know Jesus, they're curious about Jesus.
And then we'll just go down towards the end because we've heard the other part. Rejoice with me. This is what Jesus is saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.
Yeah, this other Luke 15 is speaking of those that are exploring, those that don't know Jesus, those that are wondering. So we have the wounded and wandering, and we have the wondering, and he's speaking to all of them. Two different parables, two different contexts.
So whether we are a son or a daughter already, or we are someone that is just wondering who he is and exploring what it looks like to follow him.
He still rejoices over every restoration, guys.
And so I want to go back to Matthew real quick though, because I haven't addressed this point yet.
Did you guys notice the warning at the beginning of it?
It's the first part of it. Do not despise these little ones.
John MacArthur says about this. He goes, it is extremely serious to treat any fellow believer with contempt, since God and the holy angels are so concerned with their well being.
Let that sink in for a second.
I have a friend in all humility. He shared something with me this week and I was, I was like, preach it, brother, let's go. But it was this right here.
He'd been struggling with another friend.
Things were going on. He's like, I don't, I don't know how to deal with this.
And he felt like the Father told him, why don't you look on him with my eyes.
Why don't you look at him with my eyes?
Essentially change your perspective to my perspective of him.
He was calling him to humble himself and to adopt a different perspective of this person. And guess what happened when he did that. Guess what happened.
Say it again.
They were restored.
Yeah. There was peace, there was harmony. They were able to share with one another.
There was understanding, there was humility that came into that moment.
And here's why I think all this. Let's wrap it all together here. This is what I think Jesus is up to.
He's talking about his family and how we operate as a family, how we have to start with what's going on in our heart first. We did that last week. Right now he's given us this picture of, like, I don't want any of them to go away. I don't want any of them to perish. I don't want any of them wander. I want them to be able to be a part of the house. Cause he cares so deeply. He loves his children so desperately that he wants them to be with him.
Okay. And then there's these other people that don't know him yet, but he's like, I want them, too. I want them to be a part of the family.
But what happens to a house when it's divided?
It's not a safe place.
It's not a safe place for anyone. The people that are there or the people that are coming in.
And he's like, I want a safe house.
I want a safe house for my children to be at, for them to experience my love and to love one another and for everyone to see how loved this family is.
And he's calling us to this.
Like, I think of man. I'm so blessed by the families that foster in this church.
The sacrifice you guys make, the way that you reorient your life to these children, that they need a place to be.
They need a place to be.
They're vulnerable.
If you just leave them out there, what's gonna happen? And you take them in, right? They take them in.
They go out to Target. They buy all kinds of stuff.
What do we need? We don't have all the stuff right now. They get it. Then the community around them. I've seen the community rally around these families, too. And they provide and they care and they pray.
This is the kind, like, that we reorient our lives around what God and his kingdom looks like, doing that deep work. And I realize not all foster families are awesome. Like, there's all Kinds of stuff that happens there. But these families in our church, I know that they've done a lot of this deep work. They've received the gospel and now they're living it out and they're sharing it with other people in this beautiful way.
And they want people to experience that. They want the world to see how wonderful King Jesus is. We're not doing this. Cause we're great doing it because he's great. That's the reality.
So I'm going to call the band up right now.
Call the band up.
So we have this great shepherd, the good Shepherd.
Jesus is his name.
If you're exploring and wondering who he is, that's his name.
And he wants to bring you into the flock, too. He wants you to know how much he loves you.
John 10, 7, 11 says, so Jesus again said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
All who came before me are thieves and robbers.
But the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door.
You guys know what that means?
So contextually, sheep pens, in that day, they were like rock structures, yay high. I think they still are, actually.
There was no door.
The shepherd would lay in the door.
The sheep only came in and out because the shepherd let them. No wolves would go in because the shepherd was there.
He's saying, I'm the door. The way in is me. Jesus.
If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief only comes to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Not just. Not just mediocre life, abundant life in him. That's what he came for.
I am the good Shepherd.
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
As much as there are wonderful shepherds in this room, we're all sheep.
No one's as good as him.
And the good shepherd, the Father loved us so much that he sent Jesus, the good shepherd, to die a brutal death.
To live the life that we never could, to die the death that we deserve, so that we can be united to our Father in heaven. What we are always intended to be is united to him, to experience the love of our Father.
I think about right now.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: The last.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Couple months have been sort of wild. I'm sure, you guys. I think we talked about it a couple weeks ago.
More people have come to churches in like, the last month or two than they have in 20, 20 years before that.
People are curious.
They're seeing, hey, this American dream, not what we thought it was going to be. It's subpar, suboptimal. It doesn't pay out the way we thought.
They're like the news man. A lot of talking heads out there, a lot of opinions.
It seems to just stir things up, and it doesn't really solve anything.
I've been striving so hard to run things down and to make things just right, but it seems keep on going wrong. People are hungry for something that's true, something that transcends this.
They know inherently there's something more to life than what is presented here.
They're searching for something real.
What the reality is, is who's the one? It's Jesus. That's who we're all searching for.
The good news of the gospel. It's the solution.
That's the reality. And so I think that the reality is God is looking at this scripture. God has called us to do that hard work that we talked about last week, experience the love of the Father, and to shine that to the world around us, to be a safe home. Because there's lots of people in this valley that don't know Jesus. They don't know him.
They don't know him, but they. I think deep down they're like, hey, I want to know who this is. Even if I don't really want him, I think I want him. You know, it's confusing. Let him work that out. He's beautiful. He's compelling. He's amazing.
It's actually this book, Matthew is the book that I read and I met Jesus in. So it's really personal to me.
Like, he's amazing.
But in that, doing that work so we can be a safe home, a place where people are loved by the Father.
We're able to love one another, to work through things, to do that heart work so that the world can see Jesus.
They can see Jesus and how beautiful he is.
Yeah.
And if, say, by chance, you're one of those people that's like, I'm wondering. I'm exploring who this Jesus guy is.
I'd love to talk to you more about it, be able to join along with you.
Or you're like, I want to know him. Well, let's have that conversation, too.
Because today could be that day that you meet him and things are transformed in your life, and it's beautiful.
So, yeah, I'm gonna pray for us and I'm gonna call Tom up to facilitate a time of response.
Yeah. Jesus, thank you.
Thank you for being the good shepherd, the one that loves us, the one that laid down his Life, so that we could have life, to experience the Father's love, to be able to look back and remember all the ways that God. You've guided each one of us, even maybe to this point right here.
I've just showed up here, and I don't know. And I want to know more about you, to experience your love and your grace and your mercy.
Thank you, Lord, for these people in this time.
Yeah, you're wonderful. Pray this in your name. Amen.
[00:44:02] Speaker B: Outstanding, Mikey.
Okay, we have plenty of time. I want to give everybody in the room an opportunity to respond to God's word, hopefully provoking you in some good ways, because I think he wants to shepherd, he wants to guide. Right. So a handful of things stand out to my spirit that I want to bring to your attention. Maybe you're here this morning and you just need guidance.
You're faced with forks in the road. There's decisions that you feel like you need to make. There's opportunities that are in front of you. There's struggles that you're facing, and you're like, I'm not totally sure what to do. Or maybe your pride is just bubbling up big time, and you're like, I know exactly what I need to do. And maybe you don't know exactly what.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: You need to do.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: So maybe you're here and you genuinely just need some guidance.
I think I want to invite you this morning to. In our time of response, we're going to praise him. We're going to have people available for prayer. Actually, if you're on the prayer team, would you actually start to make your way forward?
I think for you, if that's you this morning, I think there's power in you, bringing your need to the great shepherd Jesus.
[00:45:10] Speaker C: I need guidance.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: I need you to help me.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: I need you to lead me.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: I need you to show me the way I ought to go. Because I actually don't know as much as I think I do.
And I think God wants to guide some of you this morning. Some of you. You're lost.
Mike reads that scripture about the sheep that has wandered off. And if you're anything like me, there's something about wandering that's kind of funny.
It happens. It doesn't happen, like, really quickly where you realize, like, whoa, I'm really far gone. It's like that gradual drift, that gradual wander where the next thing you know, it kind of hits you like a ton of bricks where you're like, oh, man, I'm off.
Mike, I love his story about how he described that in his own life of how, you know, he had this fairly traumatic thing happen in the life of a church, and then from that point, it was catalytic, and it kind of caused him to drift. And as an early husband, even leading his wife that way, and it just. Oh, man. All of a sudden, things. I know things aren't the way they're supposed to be. I know I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I know I'm operating in ways that I'm not meant to operate. If you're here this morning, and you can, if you're honest, you're like, man, I'm lost. I want to encourage you with the truth that Mike shared. God wants you back.
Not so he can punish you, rub it in your face, tell you you were wrong.
He wants you back so you can flourish again in his flock. You hear me?
And maybe you're here and you know that.
You know it with your head. But like I talked about earlier this morning, you don't feel it in your heart.
I know God's good. I know he loves me, but I don't fully feel that.
And so I kind of keep running.
I'm here to tell you I want to echo what Mike said earlier.
He will chase you down.
He will chase you down.
You can only run for so long. You know who you're not faster than? Other than Usain Bolt.
You're not faster than Jesus.
He's gonna catch you, and he's gonna love you. So you can keep running if you want, or. And just delay things, or you can stop and let him restore you to who you really are, who you're made to be.
And finally, maybe none of that applies to you this morning, but you know people in your life that you love, and they're lost.
They've wandered, they're running. You see it, you know it, and you want something better for them. Can I just remind you of something that we all were taught in, like, kindergarten? Kindergarten.
And that is this.
Sharing is caring.
Maybe, just maybe, the good shepherd wants to challenge you to share the greatest news in the history of the world with the people that you know are running and they're lost and they're in danger, and they're in darkness, and they don't want to be there because they know deep in their spirit, they're not made for that.
They're made for the flock of God, where all of their needs are met.
They're totally surrounded in love that's eternal, guided by the shepherd, who's taking them someplace, eternity with him.
And so what I'm going to ask you to do is stand with me if you're able.
We have about 20 minutes, 15 minutes or so to respond. I want to give everybody in the room an opportunity to respond. You can come forward for prayer. If anything, that Mike said in his message. Feels like you need God to touch you. You want God to touch your life. You want him to guide you. You want him to shape you. You want him to encourage you. You need something from the Lord. There's trusted men and women, trained men and women who are up here who love to pray for you. Come forward at any time, and we're gonna fill this room with praise. And. And the reason we're gonna do it, one, God is worthy. And two, because something spectacular and I'd say, dare I say mysterious, happens when we do that.
God through spirit breakthrough happens when we do that.
The blockages in our brain that keep the truth of who we are and who God is from migrating into our heart so we can feel it. Breakthrough happens in those spaces. So if you're having a difficult time this morning, feeling God's love, can I challenge you? Praise him and watch what happens.
And if you're struggling to praise him, don't be distracted. Listen to your brothers and your sisters in the room who are filling this room with praise, and allow God's spirit to break through not just your brain, but into your heart.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: You with me?
[00:49:54] Speaker B: All right, let's praise him.
