Kingdom Instructions Pt 1

Chapter 18 Matthew chapter 18 We move into A new chapter in the Bible A new little section in the book of Matthew this morning Chapters 18 through 20 Kind of go together And each of them Each of these three chapters involves what I would call Instructions on the kingdom And so that's what this series is going to be entitled Instructions Or kingdom instructions, excuse me Because there will be questions that arise There will be incidents that arise That will involve what does it look like in this instance To be a person who is a part of the kingdom And Jesus instructs his disciples on that And so the first one that we come to today Is really a question by him By his disciples And it's called Who is the greatest

And so as we come to this section of scripture We'll see first of all the question that they ask We'll see a warning that Jesus gives And then we'll see just how much Jesus cares About every single person And so we pick up in chapter 18 verse 1 With the question It says at that time The disciples came to Jesus and said Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven And he called a child to himself And he set him before them And said Truly I say to you Unless you are converted And become like children You will not enter the kingdom of heaven Whoever then humbles himself as this child He is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven And whoever receives one such child in my name Receives me Now the disciples have this question for Jesus

And Matthew as he was in the last chapter Is decently gracious with the way that he handles the disciples Mark and Luke are not as gracious In the way that they handled the disciples on this Because Mark and Luke share with us The back conversation that had taken place You see the disciples had been discussing Amongst themselves an issue A truly spiritual issue Which of them was actually the greatest In the kingdom of heaven You can imagine how the conversation went John was like Well I'm the one whom he loves I'm probably the greatest in the kingdom of heaven And then Peter was like But wait remember that time He was like hey God spoke that through you It wasn't flesh and blood God actually The father actually spoke that through you

And then they said But remember the time right after that When Jesus called you Satan I don't think that's a good measuring stick to use Anyway they're all having this conversation Who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven And so as they're having this conversation They decide that they'll settle their dispute By bringing it to Jesus You see the disciples Had this desire To be the one that could lord the authority Over everybody else They had this desire to be able to say That they were the most spiritual They were the best They were the ones that everyone should look to For what an example of a member of the kingdom of God Was supposed to look like They wanted to be the greatest And of course we know that at the heart of the issue

That they were dealing with Is the sin that's at the heart of every other sin That we commit The heart of the issue was their pride They wanted everyone to look at them And you know what's kind of interesting While we give the disciples a hard time For some of the things that they do They're just like we are Because whether we like to admit it or not We're just like we are We're just like we are We all battle that same pride We all battle that same desire To be seen as the greatest in the kingdom of heaven We want to be the example that everybody looks at We want to be the one that has all of the advice to give We want to be the one who knows the most And that issue of pride That was deep down in the heart of the disciples

Is the same issue of pride that's deep down in our hearts And so Jesus is going to deal with this Issue of pride in their hearts By telling them exactly what it looks like To be a member of the kingdom of heaven And so they come to Jesus With this desire to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven With this desire to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus responds in a very interesting way Notice what it says in verse 2 It says And he called a child to himself And set him before them You can imagine what the disciples were waiting to hear They were waiting to hear the list of criteria Well in order to be a member of the kingdom of heaven You have to have performed a miracle

That can be validated by the other saints In order to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven You must have this amount of knowledge You must have memorized this much of the Torah These are the things that you must do But Jesus doesn't do that He does something very interesting He calls a child to just come and hang out with him for a second Remember Jesus was always surrounded by crowds Don't forget that Everywhere Jesus went Even when he tried to be by himself People were around So undoubtedly at that point in time With a lot of people around There were kids there too And so Jesus looked and said Hey little fella come here I want to talk to you for a minute Hey Hey young lady Can you come here for just a moment I want to talk to you

And you know what's amazing A kid just shows up Can you believe that Listen I've worked with kids for a really long time You know what I can't ever get kids to do Come when I call them Right It's like that scene in Bill Cosby I don't know if I'm allowed to reference Bill Cosby anymore or not But anyway there's a scene from the show Bill Cosby Where he's talking to his kids And he's like I want you to come here I want you to come here No no I want you to come here Like that's how it usually goes When I'm talking to children right Because I can't get them to listen to anything coming out of my mouth Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth Right that's how I feel This kid just shows up It's amazing because Jesus

Has the kind of heart that he's about to describe to his disciples Therefore all the kids Not intimidated by him All the kids not nervous around Jesus Because he's going to have The heart of what it looks like to be the greatest In the kingdom of heaven So as this little kid comes up to Jesus You can imagine maybe sits down next to him Maybe Jesus just kind of puts his arm around him He looks at his disciples and he says this He says truly I say to you Verse 3 Unless you are converted And become like children You will never enter The kingdom of heaven Now I want you to notice how much Jesus just drastically Changed their question with his statement They want to know who's the greatest In the kingdom of heaven

He says you should be more concerned as to whether or not you will enter The kingdom of heaven And so the first thing he tells them is He says you must first of all be Converted Now you would think these are disciples of Jesus right They've been following Jesus for a long time You would think the conversion point had happened In their lives and yet he tells them You must be converted I want to read to you the definition of the word Converted here The word converted means to reverse your present Trend of thought In other words Change the way that you think They were thinking about what it's like to be the greatest He said I'm going to show you what it's like To be a part of the kingdom He says if you want to be The greatest

If you want to be a part of the kingdom of heaven You must first of all change the way that you think And then You must become Like children Now let me first of all tell you what this does not mean What this does not mean Is it does not mean that you should become Childish I fear sometimes in the culture That we live in today too many people Especially men Live childish lives We're content to be childish We're content to be childish We're content to be childish We're content to not grow up We live in the Peter Pan generation That says I'm just going to keep having my fun And playing my video games And living my life And drinking my beer And smoking my pot And I don't ever have to actually grow up in life I got news for you You do

That's not what that means You are not supposed to be childish We can't say Oh I never really have to learn all that much Because after all Jesus said to be like children And children don't know that much I'll be content in my ignorance That's not what he said What he's not saying is be childish What he's saying is be childlike And that's what he's saying So what does that mean? Well first of all I want you to think about how Drastic of a statement this was That Jesus made How radical of a statement this was That Jesus made Because kids at this point in time Were not viewed with very high esteem They didn't have their own YouTube channels At this point in time, right? Ryan's world did not exist Praise Jesus, right? We can all be thankful for that

They were not making millions of dollars Kids were seen as property at this point in time Let me read a few things to you About the way that kids were viewed at this point Number one, children had no authority They couldn't tell anyone what to do Children had no rights Children had no wealth or prestige And may I say Even if they came from wealthy parents That wealth was not theirs As long as they were a child And last of all Children occupied The lowest place in culture Now I'm not saying that's right or wrong I'm saying that's how society was At that point in time So when Jesus calls a little child to himself And he says If you want to be a part of the kingdom of God You must change the way that you think And become like this

He wasn't telling them to be childish He was telling them to be childlike In other words Put yourself in the lowest place in society What does that mean for us? I think it means two things Number one To be childlike means complete humility Complete humility In other words The very opposite Of the way that they were acting Humility is seen in kids Not because they don't like to talk about themselves But humility is seen in kids Because there's no pretense with kids Have you ever noticed that? Listen If you don't really want to know how you look Don't ever ask a small child Right? Right?

Have you ever asked a kid Hey do I look fat? They're like Yep Everything makes you look fat You're fat Right? You're like That hurts my Hurts my feelings Right? Last night I was out at a swimming pool And there was a floaty out there And all I wanted to do in my life Was get on the stupid floaty And every time I got on the floaty I flipped off the floaty And fell into the water And my daughter goes It's because of your dad, bod I'm like I didn't even ask you for your opinion And you were honest with me Right?

There's no pretense with them They're very sincere They mean what they say There's a humility about them Because they're just desperately honest And they just are who they are They don't feel like they need to be something To achieve their goals To impress you There's a humility about them But not only that There's not only complete humility But there is complete dependence It's amazing to have a tiny child A small baby And realize that Literally there's nothing That that child could do apart from you And they know it Right? They know that there's nothing They can do apart from you And they're completely content To let you do everything for them You know I've never had to convince Either one of my daughters To stop doing

I've never had to convince them To stop paying the bills Right? I've never had to look at them And be like listen Stop buying groceries Okay? I've got it I'll take care of it You can depend on me I've never had to convince them To do that I've never been like Listen the car payment Stop I've got that Okay? Because they're 100% dependent upon me And they're content to be dependent upon me Because they're kids And there's no thought in their mind Of hey I've got to take care of this myself That's the way we're to be with God Sometimes we tell God Don't worry God I've got this one He's like no you don't And so if we're going to be childlike Like what Jesus is talking about here It means complete humility And it means complete dependence upon him

Jesus goes on to explain a little bit more When he says in verse 5 Or excuse me verse 4 Whoever then humbles himself As this little child He is the greatest In the kingdom of heaven I thought to myself Lord is this being redundant That I'm using humility In the first place In the first place In the first place In the first verse And then humble yourselves In this one I thought You can't really say that too much What does it mean to humble yourself? Well I think the great definition Of humbling yourself is To have a correct perspective Of who you really are To have the correct perspective Of who you really are You see sometimes we view humility As constantly putting ourselves down Oh well I'm just not very good at that Well I'm just not very smart

I'm not very good I'm not very athletic All those kinds of things That's not humility Actually that can almost Be pride in disguise Because you're looking For somebody to say Oh you are too Right you're looking For those compliments Humility is simply The understanding of This is who I am It's kind of interesting Because what Jesus does In a very real world way Is to explain The very first beatitude That he gave Do you remember The very first beatitude He gave back in Matthew chapter 5 He said blessed are the Poor in spirit For theirs is the kingdom of heaven Right And he said Right And so the understanding is this Jesus said it in words But now he illustrates it In a very real way Through this child He's like this is what I meant

By be poor in spirit Make yourself the least Completely humble And completely dependent Have the distinct understanding Of exactly who you are And then you'll be the greatest In the kingdom of heaven You know why? Because you won't care Who the greatest In the kingdom of heaven is Because if I'm honest with myself I know I don't deserve The kingdom of heaven If I'm honest with who I really am I have the distinct understanding I don't deserve to be up here I don't deserve God's grace I don't deserve God's forgiveness And that's exactly What makes it grace And that's exactly What makes it amazing And if I'm truly honest with myself About who I really am Then I have a humble way That I'm thinking And if I'm thinking in that way I no longer care

Who is the greatest In the kingdom of heaven I'm just glad we're all In the kingdom of heaven Because when it comes Right down to it It has nothing to do With who's the greatest Because there's only one That's the greatest And that's Jesus He says Whoever humbles himself As this child He's the greatest In the kingdom of heaven He goes on in verse 5 To say one last thing He says Whoever receives One such child In my name Receives me Isn't that a great statement? Jesus says Whoever just welcomes One of these little ones It's the same as If you're welcome You're welcoming me You know what's great about it Is that kids don't really Build your prestige All that much Do they? Kids don't Kids don't really build up Your bank account They kind of take away

From your bank account Kids don't give you street cred They sort of take away Your street cred a little bit Right? Like we were all cool Before we got a minivan Right? And then you had to get The minivan And it's like Well they're with The street cred Right? I mean most of us Lost it a long time ago But the minivan Just solidified it Right? And so kids don't do that

For us What do kids do? Kids cost us Kids are work And that's a wonderful thing And so Jesus says Whoever receives One of these little ones It's the same as If he's received me Because they don't Add anything to you They humble you He says Whoever welcomes One of these It's the same as If you're welcoming me Jesus loved kids so much And I love what If you do a quick survey Of the gospel You see some other things That Jesus says And I love some of the other things That he says about kids As a matter of fact There was one time When Jesus was again In a large group of people And there was a lot of moms there And they were like Man I'd love to have Jesus Just bless my kid And so a line forms A line forms of moms and kids It's like Santa Only he's real

And so they're bringing They're bringing their kids To Jesus And Jesus is laying hands on them Blessing them Praying with them You name it Whatever he does He's loving on these kids And the disciples are like Jesus You gotta get rid of the kids Man they're killing you There's a lot of other Really important things That you need to be doing The kids are sort of Distracting you from this Right now And he goes You guys don't get it You gotta get rid of them And welcome the little children Because this Is the kingdom Of heaven Here at Calvary Chapel Of Arc City We've seen a real Boost in the tiny people Here lately As a matter of fact We have our own church Growth program going on Right now It's called Have Your Own Kid Right And as you keep

Producing small children We keep growing the church I'm thinking Three more years We will have Three thousand people In the church If we keep going At the rate we're going Right now And it's great I told first I said If you're ever here For life After second service It's chaotic Like there's kids Running around The sanctuary There's a big tag game Going on Hey can I go outside And play Right all those questions Are going And it's the most Wonderful thing in the world You know why Because the church Has got a lot of kids And it's the church That's alive Because kids are not The church of the future They're the church of today They're just the smaller Part of the church That's today And the greatest thing And I will always say

The most important ministry We have at Calvary Chapel Of Arc City Is the children's ministry Because if you don't Have a strong Children's ministry You may as well Close the doors Of the church Because it will not survive That children's ministry Is so important Because we are laying The foundation Of godliness In the lives And the hearts Of kids And if we start Telling them now That they are fearfully And wonderfully made Then they will carry That knowledge Into the future And those of you That teach Sunday school Classes that are in here This Sunday morning Because somebody else Is teaching this month I just want to tell you How thankful I am For you Because what you do Is work that I cannot Put into words That has eternal value

That you won't necessarily See now But you will see In the future I promise I'm going to embarrass Somebody really quickly But one of my Sunday school Teachers is sitting here This morning Her name is Brenda And Brenda was one of my Favorite Sunday school Teachers growing up And I know Beyond a shadow of a doubt Part of the reason Why I'm here right now Is because of the work That she did In teaching that Little kid Sunday school class About heaven I still have the notebook That we made When we were in that Sunday school class Because whoever receives One of these little ones It's the same as If you receive me Right? And so he Gives them this instruction As they ask this question Who's the greatest? He goes You're asking the wrong question

The real question is Who can be the least? Look at this kid If you become like a child If you become childlike In your faith And humble yourself As this little one You'll be the greatest In the kingdom of heaven But he goes on from there To give a warning Because as tender as Jesus is He also holds firm To the truth The warning begins like this In verse six But whoever causes One of these little ones Who believes in me To stumble It would be better for him To have a heavy millstone Hung around his neck To be drowned In the depth of the sea Woe to the world Because of its stumbling blocks For it is inevitable That stumbling blocks come But woe to that man Through whom The stumbling block Comes If your hand or your foot Causes you to stumble Cut it off

And throw it away from you It's better for you To enter life Crippled or lame Than to have two hands Or two feet Be cast into the eternal fire If your eye causes you To stumble Pluck it out And throw it from you It's better for you To enter life With one eye Than to have two eyes And be cast Into the fiery hill So he begins to give This warning The first warning Is against stumbling One of the little ones And he's very graphic In what he says Should happen To somebody who stumbles One of these little ones He says Whoever causes One of them to stumble The word stumble Means to be Taken off course In other words To injure them Or their faith It would be better For him If a millstone Were hung around his neck And he were drowned In the depth of the sea

Now I believe That there's a question That should be answered here Who are the little ones? Are we still referring Just to kids? Or is it something deeper? And I think that there's A two-fold meaning To the little ones here I do think part of it Refers to kids I think it's speaking Of the things Of the fact that God Will hold accountable Those that harm kids And I'm here to tell you Right now The folks that are involved In the sex trade of kids The folks that are abusing kids The folks that are doing things To harm children They have a dangerous future Ahead of them In eternity And they may not get dealt with On top side of planet earth They may not get dealt with On this side of eternity But I assure you They will On the other side of eternity

Because God says In the old testament If one of these little ones Should cry out to me Then I will handle it swiftly It's a promise that he makes If you're here this morning You've been through something Horrific in your life That person's never been Brought to justice And you feel like justice Is never going to be served I want you to know God is going to deal with that You can rest assured That God will deal with that Individual But I think it's not only Dealing with kids I think it's dealing with those Who are of the faith Because if we become childlike In our faith Then we are the little ones And he says Whoever leads Causes one of these little ones To stumble And that brings up Another interesting point And that's that those of us

That handle the word of God Have a heavy responsibility About us Those of us that handle The word of God And give it out On a consistent basis Know That if we start to teach Things that aren't true We have great consequences To deal with And my heart hurts right now For the pastors That are teaching things like You can be a homosexual And a Christian at the same time You can be a Christian And pro-choice at the same time You can live in your sin And still be a Christian My heart hurts for those pastors Because they will be held Accountable for it And Jesus says here In an incredibly harsh way Because did you notice What Jesus said? Jesus says Jesus doesn't mince words When it comes to messing With his kids Jesus said It would be better for you Listen

It would be better for you If a millstone Were hung around your neck And you were drowned In the deepest ocean There's two different types Of millstones That were used At this point in time One was very small And it was used within the home And you could use it With your hand And you would grind up Some flour To do what you need to do The other one Was huge It weighed about 2,000 pounds And it could only be moved By a donkey Or a horse Or an ox The second one Is what he's talking about He said It would be better for you If that were hung Around your neck And you were drowned In the ocean It was just as shocking To the disciples' ears As it is to ours Because that's How much How overprotective God is of his kids But as he gives the warning

About not stumbling others Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself He goes on to say Woe to the world Because of its stumbling blocks For it's inevitable That you will die That stumbling blocks come Because in the world There are temptations Because the world Doesn't follow Jesus But woe to that man Through whom the stumbling block comes Woe to the individual Who is the one Leading people astray Well, after he's dealt With this aspect of Not stumbling the little ones He begins to warn us Against the stumbling blocks In our own lives Notice what he says He says If your hand or your foot Causes you to stumble Cut it off And throw it from you Verse 9 If your eye causes you to stumble Pluck it out And throw it from you Again, this is incredibly

Graphic language That Jesus uses And before I soften the language And bring about the spiritual truth I want you to think about The ears of the disciples When they're hearing this For the first time Because the ears of the disciples As they're hearing this Aren't necessarily starting off With applying it spiritually They will eventually understand that Because in the Old Testament The aspect of mutilation Is spoken about And spoken against But think about How radical this would have been In the ears of the disciples He says Listen, if your hand's Causing you to sin Cut it off And throw it away In other words If your hand is leading you To do things that you shouldn't do If you're stealing things If you're doing things If you're touching things

If you're doing stuff You shouldn't be doing And it's leading you to sin The best thing that you can do Is to get rid of your hand If your foot is leading you Into places where there's sin If it's leading you to sin If it's leading you to the bar If it's leading you to the strip club If it's leading you to the places Where sin is happening And you shouldn't be a part of it Cut off your foot If your eye is causing you to sin If you're viewing pornography If you're lusting after another woman If you are covening somebody else's goods The best thing you can do Is pluck your eye out Because it's a whole lot better To go into heaven To go into life With all of your faculty Or with missing some of your faculties Than to go into hell completely whole

Now we know That what Jesus here is saying Has nothing to do with Physically cutting off our limbs Because quite frankly If I cut off my left hand Or my right hand What do I still have? I still have my left hand If I cut off my right foot What do I still have? I still have my left foot If I pluck out my right eye You get where I'm going You can get rid of all of it But what do you still have? You still have your heart Which is where we entertain And begin all of those sins So if he's not talking about The actual physical removal of things What is he talking about?

Well I think there's two things That we need to understand Two things that are the main point Of what Jesus is getting to There will be things And people That will cause you to sin And you need to be aware of them You need to be aware Of the stumbling blocks in your life Some of those stumbling blocks Are inanimate objects Some of them are TVs or phones Some of them are substances And you need to be aware Of what those things are But do you know the other thing? Some of those stumbling blocks are people Do we know that? Some of those stumbling blocks in our lives Are people And we need to be aware of those And as we're aware of those We need to be willing to cut them off This is the second part We need to be willing to cut them off

Even if it costs you Because I'm here to tell you right now When those things cause you to stumble It will cost you to get rid of them If you're entertaining an affair at your job If you're flirting with someone You shouldn't be at your job You may have to get a new job You may have to quit that And move on And get a new job somewhere else You say, Ryan, how are my retirements there? What's more important? Huh? What's more important?

A little comfort on this side of eternity? Or the knowledge that there's nothing else you can do now Because you've walked down that path? For some of I've worked with people in the past That deal with substance addiction And eventually you just have to say, listen You have to change your friend group There was a young man that I worked with About 20 years ago None of you know him But he dealt with alcohol addiction And we met all the time And it finally hit a point where I just had to say Dude You've got to cut off all those friends Because all of those friends Are going to keep leading you down the wrong path Have you ever noticed that those two things go together? When you're with them This is what you do Those are my closest friends

Not anymore, they're not Because they're leading you down the wrong path And I definitely understand that in the community That we live in right now Drugs are a major issue that we have Somebody shared this with me one time And I thought it was kind of interesting I never thought of it this way My sensitivity level My sensitivity level My sensitivity level My sensitivity level My sensitivity level For people caught up in addiction Continues to grow Because I know how hard this is And I know that this isn't something That you snap your fingers and overcome Understand where I'm coming from here But I remember someone saying You know what the difference between being an alcoholic And a drug addict is And why it's so hard When you're an alcoholic

The liquor store owner doesn't show up at your house When you're a drug addict Your dealer does Because he wants to know where you've been And to that person I had to say Then you need to make sure that you're not Then you need to move somewhere else But that'll cost me everything Yes But you'll gain Everything I'm afraid that sometimes In the 21st century church We don't take this seriously enough We don't take getting away from the things That cause us to sin seriously enough Because we don't understand Just how much Jesus hates sin And we don't understand Just how much it damages our walk with him One of the wonderful things about My daughter becoming a teenager now Is that she has started asking me Why Dad why do we not do these things

I know what you're telling me But I want to know the why And I've been able to Have the conversation with her And hopefully begin to explain the why And I say Because you are loved by a savior You were created to know a savior The only thing that will keep you from knowing that savior Is sin Therefore If you want to know him You can't take part in sin Why do we not do these things Because it keeps us from the purpose of our life It keeps us from the purpose That we've been created for You have been created to know your savior The only thing that will keep that from happening Is sin Therefore I knock all of the sin out of my life Not because I live in a legalistic world Where Jesus will only accept me Unless I'm perfect

But because Jesus has saved me by his grace And I want to know him And I want to know him And I want to know him And the only way I can know him Is to walk away from sin Even if it costs me And so Jesus gives them this warning He says Hey It's a dangerous thing to stumble somebody else But it's also a dangerous thing to stumble yourself Take it seriously Cut off the things that might cause sin Well after he's answered the question And after he's given the warning He begins to speak to him about the great care That he has for him That he has for all of his kids Notice what it says in verse 10 See that you do not despise One of these little ones For I say to you That their angels In heaven Continually see the face Of my father who is in heaven

For the son of man has come to save That which was lost What do you think If any man has a hundred sheep And one of them has gone astray Does he not leave the other sheep And ninety-nine on the mountains And go and search for the one That is straying If it turns out that he finds it Truly I say to you He rejoices over it More than over the ninety-nine Which have not gone astray So it is not the will of your father Who is in heaven That one of these little ones Shall perish So now Jesus begins to talk to them About the great care that he has And he first of all gives the principle Notice what he says He says don't despise any of these little ones Don't despise any of these little ones Again who are the little ones

Well I think the little ones first of all are kids We should not despise kids I have to point this out Because we live in a world right now Where Kids don't know they're loved by anybody A lot of them And we see so many kids And a lot of them live in this neighborhood right here But they don't know from one day to the next Whether mom's going to be stoned Whether mom's going to be home Whether dad's going to be home Whether dad's going to be home They don't know any of those kinds of things And they live in a world Where they don't know that they're loved And they don't know that they're cared for And it's easy for us to look at those kids Because I'm here to tell you right now Those are the kids that will always cause the most problems You know why?

Because they've had no parameters set on their lives And the easy thing for us as the church to do Is to reject them and say Nope, we only want the kids That are going to follow all the rules There will be some kids here next week at VBS That will be what we call the high maintenance kids Because they'll need it They'll need somebody right alongside them To say Johnny, that's not what we do while we're at church But you know Some of those kids that have come in the past Come on Wednesday nights now And do you know what they do every Wednesday? They run up and give me a great big hug You know why? Because as a church We decided We're not going to despise the little ones We're not going to despise them We're going to welcome them

Even if they're the troublemakers Even if they're the ones who sometimes have to sit out And have a special little buddy with them all the time We don't despise them Because they are still created in the image of God He says don't despise any of these little ones But I think it goes even beyond that And it goes into anyone who is a child of God He says don't despise these little ones Why? I lost my place, that's why For I say to you, verse 10 That their angels in heaven Continually see the face of my Father Who is in heaven Now this is where we get the One of the places we get the most This is where we get the idea of a guardian angel from That kids have a guardian angel That we as believers have a guardian angel I have no problem believing that

I don't want to go too far with it I'm not going to start putting a bumper sticker on my car That says don't drive faster than your guardian angel can fly And if you have one on your car I probably made fun of you It's not on purpose It's a blanket statement Anyway, so I'm not willing to go quite that far with it But we definitely have some aspect of angelic beings That are caring for us The book of Hebrews calls them ministering spirits Right? And so it says here Why do we not despise them? Because they have an angel that's face to face with God We need to be aware of that And then he goes on from here to say For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost His care for kids His care for his kids is so great

That he came for the single purpose of saving that which was lost Now you may find that in your Bible that's bracketed That verse is bracketed You see that if you have New American Standard it's bracketed If you have the ESV they just left it out altogether So some people are like Some of the old manuscripts didn't have this verse in it Well if you go to Luke chapter 19 verse 10 it is there So I'm going to preach on it like it's there Because this is exactly what Jesus came to do His care for us is so great His care for us is so great that he says That's why I came to save that which was lost Because we were all lost And he came to save all of us He goes on from there to illustrate this point With the story of the one lost sheep Notice what he says

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep One of them's gone astray Does he not leave the 99 on the mountains And go and search for the one that is straying? He tells this wonderful story about a shepherd Who has a hundred sheep, right? 99 of them are doing exactly what they're supposed to do 99 of them are following him to the pasture like they're supposed to But there's that one renegade sheep, right?

Now from some of the things that we learn about shepherds And sheep herding We know that the sheep know the shepherd's voice And the shepherd knows the sheep by name, right? That's one of the things we know from scripture And so you can picture the scene, right? We have several players here First of all, you have the shepherd That's Jesus You have the 99 That's all the people that show up to church on a Sunday morning And they're doing the right thing And then you have the one renegade sheep That's the one that had a tendency to stray into the things of the world That found that the stumbling block was too great And now they're off playing in the things of the world They've been led astray We can't despise that little one

Because Jesus came to seek and to save that little one that's lost So you can picture it, right? He's looking at all of his sheep And he's going, one, two, three, four 99 Counts them two or three times And he goes, oh no, Ryan's missing Put your name in there Because you were probably the lost sheep at one point in time Ryan's missing Okay, kids If you stay here I've got to go find Ryan What does he do? He goes out and he searches And he searches desperately He searches relentlessly He searches tirelessly Until finally, there on the mountainside He sees, oh look, there's Ryan About to fall off a cliff Because he's clumsy And he's an idiot He goes and gathers up the sheep And carries them back home Why?

Because that sheep, I love the word that's used there Is straying In other words, getting off the path It has stumbled But we can't despise these little ones Because even though he's gone off the path Jesus came to seek And to save that which was lost And then notice what he says in verse 13 And if it turns out That he finds it Truly, I say to you He rejoices it He rejoices over it More than over the 99 Which have not gone astray He rejoices over it More than all the others He's like, I'm super glad they stayed But look who I found I found Ryan He was lost And now he's found It's a beautiful story that's told to us here Matter of fact, a song was written about it A controversial song That by the way, I like Called Reckless Love Because to the 99

It may seem kind of reckless But to the one It sure meant everything to him And so from this I think that we learn a couple of things About Jesus From this little story From this little story I think we learn first of all That Jesus has compassion for sinners Jesus has compassion for sinners He can't help it, man He just loves them He sees them lost And he just wants to go after them And save them So many people find themselves In the place where they are that sinner And Jesus still has compassion for them If that's you this morning If you've been the one That's been the one that's been Strang and for some dumb reason You showed up at church this morning Because you got drug here by your mom Or your dad Or you got drug here by your friend

Or you got drug here by the Holy Spirit I want you to know Jesus has great compassion for you And you're not here by accident You're here because Jesus Listen, he sought you out He's been pursuing you And he's not stopping Until he brings you home And so today needs to be the day That you're here to be a part of That you come home And if you're watching online And you just happen to get on the stupid YouTube machine Or the Facebook machine And you're watching Today's the day to come home Because Christ has great compassion for sinners But the other thing that we see Is that Jesus Cares about us each Individually No matter how small Isn't that great? Jesus cares about each one of us individually So that if you were the only one that had strayed

So that if you were the only one that was lost If you were the only one that had gone off on your own He still would have come and pursued you He still would have come here to save you Because that's how individually he loves you You were on his mind When he died on that cross Because he cares about us each individually No matter how small we are Listen, he cares about us each individually No matter how small we are Because I have the distinct belief That when we get to heaven There will be a multitude of people Who never came to full term Who never were able to be born They never had a birthday And they'll be all over the place Because Jesus loved them Individually Because Jesus loved them that much But do you know what?

Do you know who else Jesus loves individually? And I think that this is a really important thing to point out See, there's a lot of moms that live in our world That made a decision That they're going to regret for the rest of their lives They may not They may not They may not They may not They may not They may not Say it out loud But they think about it when they go to bed at night Do you know that Jesus loves them individually too? I pointed it out last week But I really, really feel the need to point it out again That if you're a person who's had an abortion Jesus still loves you He came to seek and to save you Because that's who he is If you're watching online and that's you He came to seek and to save you Because he loves you

He loves you individually But do you know that's not the only people that Jesus loves individually? There's a lot of abortion providers out there I know, it's true And do you know that Jesus came to seek and to save them? I think that's really, really, really important for us to point out Is that our enemy is not the abortion providers Our enemy is still Satan And Jesus loves each of them individually And he came to seek and to save them And he wants to work on their hearts To show them grace and forgiveness Do you know there's a lot of politicians out there That make laws that I massively disagree with And Jesus came to seek and to save them Do you know there's people that are going to probably not be happy with me

Because of all the things that I've just said And that's okay Because Jesus came to seek and to save them You see If I become like a little child Humbly dependent upon the Lord I'm going to be a little child I'm no longer worried about who's the best I'm no longer worried about who's first I'm only worried about who else is coming to the kingdom Because that's the mentality Of being a child of the kingdom Remember when you were a kid And you didn't care who it was that showed up and played You just wanted somebody to show up and play That's the way we're supposed to be As kids in the kingdom We don't care who they are Just as long as they show up Amen Jesus goes on to say Jesus goes on from there Let's conclude it with this Verse 14

So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven That one of these little ones perish Do you know that Ezekiel says The book of Ezekiel tells us that judgment is God's strange work It's his last thing to do Because he stays it as long as possible He puts it off as long as possible Because it's his desire that all would come to salvation Now listen That doesn't mean everybody's going to come to salvation Because not everybody will fall in line with the will of God But do you know that it's God's heart That everyone would come to salvation He didn't just die for the elect He died for everyone And he doesn't just want to see the elect come to know him He wants to see everyone come to know him Spurgeon said it best when he said

Lord save the elect and then elect some more Because it's God's will It's his desire to see all come to the knowledge of him Well this morning is communion Sunday And so I'm hoping that the church is going to be able to see that And I'm hoping that the church is going to be able to see that The ushers have been in the process of bringing All of these wonderful little kids That we will wait on until they get here I'm hoping that they're in the process of bringing them all this way I haven't seen any doors open yet So we can wait momentarily for them to get the kiddos in here So that they can know what we're doing with communion As well So while we're waiting for them I'll remind us that I need a little bit of help afterwards

So if you can help me out afterwards that would be great So hopefully we're about to see some ushers Come down the hallway here But I know that these teachers have lots of kids In these classes And getting them all lined up is a really hard thing to do Pop that door open and say it I can't read your lips They're coming In the meantime why don't I just invite the worship team on up They can get themselves all set up and ready to go So that when the kids get in here We'll be ready Okay they'll just have to wait on the explanation Alright so this morning is communion Sunday And of course we're going to be doing a little bit of prayer Of course we know that communion Is one of the things that Jesus told us to do

He said this was a command for us to continue to do And we're told in scripture that we're to do so In a worthy manner Now I've always said in the past That there's two things that we do to partake in this In a worthy manner But this morning I was thinking There's actually three things That we need to do in order to partake of communion In a worthy manner And the first is to understand exactly what we're doing Because what's sitting up here in these trays Is a couple of cups The bottom cup will have your crack Right? And the top cup will have your juice in it And those are representative Of exactly what Jesus did for us In and of themselves There's not much to it But what they represent is the important thing

Because we remember that on that last great night of the feast Jesus took the bread That bread that was so fascinating Because it was unleavened bread Remember because it spoke of the Passover Unleavened meaning it was completely pure from anything And that bread that was completely pure Also had two other distinctive aspects To it Number one it was pierced And number two it was striped And so as Jesus held up that bread That was pure and was pierced And was striped He took it and he broke it And in the same way that Jesus himself Was free of sin and was pierced and striped For us We're reminded when he says This is my body Which is broken for you As often as you do this Do this in remembrance of me And then he took that cup And they

Took the cup and said This is the cup of the new covenant of my blood Which is shed for you As often as you do it Do it in remembrance of me So as we partake of this It's simply juice and crackers for us But what it represents Is it declares the death of Jesus Christ To the world around us And says this is the one place that we have found That there is true peace for us So we have the distinct understanding Of what it is that we're doing The second way that we partake of this In a worthy manner Is that we understand That in order to partake of the table You've got to be a part of the family of God If you're not a part of the family of God This will mean nothing to you And so if you're here this morning And you've never been

Made a part of the family of God If you've never put your faith in Jesus Then today's the day for you Let's let kiddos come in And I'll explain the last point Come on in kiddos Right up here Rylan Oh here comes the sea of them now Oh they're all so cute In their little dresses Come on kiddos She's here Her mom and dad may be in the library Kate she's up here Come on See what I mean Kids everywhere I love it it's great Okay now So the last way that we partake in communion The way that we are supposed to In a worthy manner Is that we take time to search our hearts Because as we go through a week Or through a month We're well aware of the fact That we will stumble in some way So as we Sing this last song With the worship team

Allow the Lord to search your heart And allow him to show you the areas In your life that need confessed to the Lord Because the Bible tells us That if we confess our sins He's faithful and just To forgive us our sins And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness And so the worship team Is going to lead us in one last song The ushers are going to come down And they're going to begin To hand out the elements As you receive your elements If you would please stand And then we'll all partake together Oh the joy in me Oh the joy in me Joy to know it's when I decrease To fill up my soul What a joy to see Joy to hold it's when you decrease I want nothing more Humble my heart All that I have is your My prayers White in my eyes Wash me in glory Oh the joy in me

Joy to know it's when I decrease To fill up my soul What a joy to see Joy to hold it's when you decrease Bright oh my tongue Focus my heart to hear Settle my pains Purge me of pride Oh the joy in me Again and again you provide Oh the joy in me Joy to know it's when I decrease To fill up my soul What a joy to see Joy to hold it's when you decrease Joy to hold it's when you decrease My soul what a joy Joy to know it's when you decrease Bright in my eyes Wash me in glory it's alive My soul what a joy Joy to know it's when you decrease My soul what a joy Joy to show it has��� Joy Joy

Joy Joy Oh Oh Oh Oh Joy Joy Joy Would you bow with me Lord we come before you and I thank you I think if you are what this represents for us Lord I think you for your body that was broken for us Lord that you were willing to door the beatings Bear our stripes Lord the by your stripes we a healed Lord the by to your stripes we are healed Lord the by your stripes we are healed Lord, I thank you that in your own body on the tree, you bore all of our sin. And so, Lord, I just thank you for your body that was broken for us. Lord, I thank you for your blood that was shed for us. Lord, your blood that was not only enough to cover our sins, Lord, but enough to cleanse us from our sins and make us brand new in you.

Lord, that you wash us as white as snow, blameless in your sight. And so, Lord, I thank you for the cross of Jesus Christ, the cross that gives us unity with you, and the cross that causes us to be family with each other. Lord, we thank you and keep us ever in mind of the sacrifice that you've made, and keep us ever in mind of the purpose that you've created us for, to know you. And may all the things that keep us from that be abandoned on the wayside.

In Jesus' name, amen. Let's partake.

Would you bow with me one more time? Lord, you're so good to us. Thank you for allowing me not to choke on a cracker. Lord, I just pray that as we go out from here, that you would continue to do your work in our hearts, that your word would sink deep, draw us near to you. In Jesus' name, amen. Also, a quick reminder. VBS meeting right after church for the volunteers.

Lord bless.