Matthew 18:7-20 | Kingdom Now: The Wandering Sheep

In the chair backs in front of you.

There are these cards on these chairs that they're sitting there.

Please take one of these out.

Everybody get one of these.

Should be on the tables as well.

This is to help us understand

the process of what we call spiritual formation.

Spiritual formation is the the the discipline,

the opportunity to be formed spiritually, to be able to fulfill.

What a life that Jesus said, hey, follow me this way.

And so we've come up with this spiritual formation pathway

to help us understand the steps we take to do that.

We use four words here called belong,

become, give and go to help us walk this pathway of discipleship

and forming ourselves biblically in the image of Christ.

And so you're going to see this little infographic everywhere.

You're going to see it everywhere, because I want you to know

what your next step is. We say it all the time.

Take your next step.

What's my next step?

Well, this is will help you understand that so you can grow and form yourself

spiritually through these four steps of belonging, becoming, giving and going

and then just living in this process of being formed spiritually.

And so if you'll just look at this, we start here in the life of this church

by belonging to the local, to the Body of Christ

through the expression of the local church flipside.

And that happens a couple of different ways.

One, take the one on one class, and David

White is going to lead all of this whole process.

So in a couple of weeks is going to teach the one on one class.

It'll help you understand the basics of our church, our faith,

our doctrine, our purpose, our mission, our vision, all of that.

And it will introduce you to the foundations

of doctrine that we think are really, really biblically important.

And then part of that is just showing up weekly.

And if getting baptized,

haven't been baptized by immersion, getting baptized by immersion,

and then the become part as you grow and the way you

you become the image of Christ is one of the ways that will help.

That is, go to the 201 class, where you'll learn about

the spiritual disciplines necessarily necessary to form yourself spiritually.

Learn how to flip journal, how to read the Bible,

and then get involved with some type of smaller community group, either

what we call a rooted class or a huddle

in context of community to form us.

And then we take this next step of our formation

and giving back to God what he has given us.

And part of that process for us is the 301 class

that will walk us through your spiritual gifts.

If you if you have a relationship with Jesus, you've been given at least

one spiritual gift by God Himself, and they'll help you discover that

so you can give that energy back to God in ministry

and serving, people will be invited to serve on a team

and for some, the Financial Peace University,

so that you can understand how do I get my financial life in order

and live a life of generosity and giving back to God what he's given me?

And then the go part of

that is the 401 class, which is the class to teach you how to share your faith.

There are six ways, biblically that we can share our faith.

One of them fit you perfectly.

We want to teach you what that is so you can share your faith

as a follower of Jesus, and then join us in not just serving a ministry,

but ministry ownership and really leading in that and the work

that we do in missions work at locally and abroad.

So this is the four main spiritual formation pathway.

You should know by looking at this what your next step is.

Follow that.

Now there are some people have been here for 21 years,

and they've never taken the second step

to becoming really

in, in, in the image of Christ.

They show up a lot, which is great.

But there's some other things we need to do to form a spiritually.

And so this this will help you know what your next step is.

So when we say take a next step here, this if you have any questions

about any of this, how to get involved, how to get in the pipeline of this,

see Dave, Pastor David, this is his job to oversee all of this.

Okay. You got it.

You're going to see that everywhere. We're going to talk about that a lot.

So just get used to hearing those words right.

Hey we're in chapter 18 of Matthew.

Jeff did a great job last week introducing us in the first six verses.

We're going to go through verses seven through 20 today.

Okay.

So there's a lot there's a lot to get through.

And I'm going to do my best.

I'm going to do my best to get us through that.

I want us to understand something about

about Matthew 18.

The conversation started with who's the greatest?

And Jeff did a great job

teaching about that last week that I want to know who's the greatest.

The reason they're asking that question is twofold.

One, because only three of them got invited up on the mountain in Matthew

17 Peter, James and John.

They got this special invitation with Jesus up on the mountain where Jesus

was transfigured into all of his glory, his heavenly glory, only three of them.

So obviously they're walking around thinking.

We're the best.

The other nine are down waiting for them to come down the mountain.

And they have this opportunity to do this incredible ministry.

And they failed.

So, you know, there was conversation going on.

Hey, how'd you guys do?

We were with Jesus.

You guys blew it.

And so, you know, there's this a right, like you

get 12 fellows around, they're going to start talking.

And so so the natural quest who's the greatest decide for us

because we were up there. They were down here. They failed.

We got to see some pretty cool stuff.

And Jesus response is, none of you are.

None of you are the greatest.

You can't do a thing without me.

And so you need to humble yourself and be childlike.

You didn't say childish. It's a childlike.

But he knew that we're going to drop the ball and it says,

because you won't humble yourself, because you will be self-serving.

I'm self-absorbed.

I'm going to walk you through my expectation

of how you deal with each other, when each other

let you down, when each other sins against you,

when each other walk away from you or walk against you.

And I'm going to show you, I'm going to tell you what my expectation is.

And that's all.

That's all the rest of Matthew 18.

Now, underlying this whole thing,

all of Jesus's

teaching, the backbone of it all is this thing called generosity.

And here's what I mean.

Jesus is going to talk about in Matthew 18 being merciful.

And he says, when you're merciful, don't be stingy with your mercy.

Be generous.

It's going to talk about forgiveness.

And he's going to say, when you forgive, I wasn't stingy with forgiveness

with you, so don't you dare be stingy and forgiving other people.

Be generous.

Do you follow this generosity?

Backbone runs through everything.

Jesus taught everything and and actually,

even when Jesus talked about resources and finances,

he always talked about it with this backbone of generosity running through it.

I don't know if you knew this

in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John one verse

out of every ten talks about resources, finances, and being generous with them.

Did you know that one out of every ten verses in the Gospels,

Jesus talked more about resources than being generous

with our finances and being just for the resources.

He taught more about that than he talked about heaven or hell combined.

Do you follow?

So this idea of generosity

in every area of our life is the kind of

the backbone of Jesus teaching, and we're going to see it in this.

And so this question, who's the greatest?

None of you know, Jesus says, you've got to be dependent on me.

You're not great at all.

Matter of fact, this was such an issue for them.

Who the greatest that James and and and James

and John's mom is going to get involved this conversation in Matthew 2020.

She's going to come to you and say, hey, Jesus,

make sure that my two sons are at the front of the line.

Like, this was so rampant in them.

They want to be the greatest. They want to be upfront.

They want to be honored.

And just like you got to get over yourself, man.

Humble yourself.

So because you're going to blow it, I need

I need to help you know how to live with each other.

And so here's the big idea for verses seven through 20 of Matthew 18.

Jesus's kingdom is not casual about sin

nor stingy with mercy, and his must be the same.

We're not

casual about sin, nor are we stingy with mercy.

And so he's going to deal with these two things.

And so right up front, let me read verses seven, eight and nine.

Jesus says,

woe to the world for temptations.

Woe to the world for temptations to sin, for it is necessary that temptations come,

but woe to the one by whom the temptations come.

And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

It's better for you to enter life, crippled or lame, down with two hands

or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.

It's better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes

to be thrown into the hell of fire.

Those are some pretty strong words, wouldn't you agree?

Yes, pretty strong words.

He says.

Temptation is going to come. It's part of this world order.

This world is broken, fallen, and it's coming apart.

There's no that's no surprise to anybody.

My kingdom is coming. But it's not here and still yet.

So we live in a broken, fallen, sinful world.

And it's going to perpetuate

broken, fallen us and sinful people and mindsets and lifestyles.

He said that's a given.

But don't you be the one through whom this stuff comes.

Don't you be the one through

whom comes the propensity for materialism,

for greed, for bitterness, for lust,

for hatred, for anger.

What are you saying is

this sin is too dangerous to tolerate.

And so he uses really strong language.

Your eye, your hand, your foot causes you to sin. Cut it out.

Get rid of it. Can you imagine?

Now he's not talking about self-mutilation.

What is that word?

Mutilation. He's not talking about that.

I want to be very clear about that. And here's why.

He's not talking about self-mutilation.

Because self-mutilation doesn't go far enough.

It's not extreme enough.

When you cut your hand off

and still sin, right, you poke your eye out and still sin.

The problem is, it doesn't go far enough.

The problem is it's a deeper issue.

And when he says, you're right, I your right hand or right foot?

Back in those days, the right was the was the favored position.

So the right hand, the right hand was the favored strong position, not the lefties.

So sorry lefties.

Any of you left handed.

Yeah.

So my dad tells me that when my grandma when his mom was little coming

up in school, she was left handed way back in the day and it was so

looked down upon they had to retrain her how to write with her right

hand on our left hand, because it was just bad.

Lefties were bad, and it was back in the good old days

when teachers had a ruler and they could whack you with it.

So every time she used her left hand, they'd whack it.

That's pretty brutal.

So, lefties, sorry you're out of luck.

This was back in that culture.

So what Jesus is saying is this listen, even that what you consider

to be good and strong, if it leads you away from me, get rid of it.

Even that which you can sort of be a blessing if a lead you away from me.

Get rid of it.

See if we can walk away from Jesus not just in sin, but in the good stuff

God's given us, just cause us to neglect Him in His Kingdom.

Neglect risky for him to be in generous.

Get rid of it now.

As as as tough as that language is.

Let me put it in, in in our language.

Let's not talk about our eye or hand or our foot.

Let's talk about this.

If this in our life

causes us to go further away from Christ

rather than closer to him.

Get rid of it.

Anybody?

Some of you are like, oh no,

now you're just meddling.

That hits.

I'd rather poke my eye out than live without my phone.

It's what he's saying is this too is to.

Sin is too dangerous to tolerate.

Do whatever you got to do, but separate yourself from it.

Nothing is worth it.

That's what he's saying.

Sin is not a pet to coddle.

It's a predator to kill.

That's how we have to approach it.

Some of us have grown so because of mercy and grace.

And I get it is profound and it's beautiful.

And it is there because of sin.

Fantastic. But.

Sin is deadly.

And some of us have been so enamored by mercy and grace, which we should be.

We treat sin as an optional thing, like it's okay.

When we fall into sin.

We rely on God's grace 100%.

But please understand this, my friends, that grace does not make sense.

Safe.

It makes repentance possible.

It's grace that says your sin is deadly,

but it doesn't have to destroy you.

Repent of it and experience the undeserved and unmerited favor

and blessing of Almighty God.

When you repent.

There will always be things in this world that will cause people to stumble.

Jesus says, don't you dare be the one through whom other people stumble.

Cut away sin in your life.

Jesus says, don't

negotiate with that which is destroying you.

He's talking about radical discipleship.

Radical discipleship requires radical action.

He's not talking about casual Christianity.

Radical discipleship cuts off what casual

Christianity excuses.

He's saying it's that serious.

And he says, listen, if we don't deal with this sin

issue and it's not by being religious, it's not by working ourselves up

into doing everything right, it's by confessing sin.

It's by relying on God's mercy and grace to forgive us our sin,

cleanse us from all unrighteousness by what Jesus did on the cross.

If we don't do that, sin is so deadly.

He says, why would you?

Why would you live in sin and

suffer the consequences of hellfire?

Strong language.

I want you to understand something.

Hell, biblically is never spoken of as allegory or folklore.

Never.

It's always spoken of as a real place, just like heaven.

Heaven is never spoken about in Scripture as allegory or folklore.

Heaven's always talks about as a real place.

So if we're going to talk about

the reality of heaven, we have to talk about the reality of hell.

Now, I agree that biblical imagery is fascinating

and grandiose and uses some powerful imagery to communicate

the reality of heaven and hell, but they're both real places.

And the results of a lifestyle of sin

without repentance is the reality of hell.

That's how deadly.

It's how deadly sin is and how beautiful grace is.

Charles Spurgeon said this if I think lightly of hell,

I will also think lightly of the cross.

And so Jesus says, this is too deadly and dangerous to flirt with man.

Get rid of it.

And then look at what he says.

Verses ten through 14 see that you do not despise one of these little ones.

For I tell you that in heaven there angels always see the face of my father

who is in heaven.

What do you think?

If a man has 100 sheep and one of them has gone astray.

Does he not leave the 99 on the mountains

and go in search of the one that went astray?

And if he finds it truly I say

he Joyces over it more than the 99 that never went astray.

So it is not the will of my father who is in

heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

He said, listen.

He introduced his idea of angels here.

He says, listen, even for my kids who go astray,

they still have representation before the father, though, they're getting dumb.

The angel is still representing the before the father.

Did you know that every Christ

follower has representation in heaven,

not just of Christ to the father, but of angels?

Now, I don't believe

that every person has a guardian angel, but I do believe

that every Christ follower has angels ministering to them.

And the reason I believe that is because the Bible says that Hebrews chapter one.

Are not all angels ministering spirits

sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

Those have a relationship with Jesus.

God employs angels to serve us.

Realize that.

Now, I don't believe we all have a guardian angel

because some of us have a lot of guardian angels.

He's just like, oh no, we need a lot more than one.

Please.

And so he's saying, listen, people will get dumb.

They're going to walk.

But they still have representation before my father him.

So be careful about how you treat each other.

This passage of the

wandering sheep is different for you Bible students.

This is different than Luke 15.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells us similar parable says A shepherd has 100 sheep.

One of them

gets lost and he leaves and angles find the one that's lost.

That's different than what he's saying here.

Here's how it's different.

The one in Luke 15 got lost.

They just have ever been there.

Like spiritually, you just got turned around.

I'm sorry, I just.

That's different than it. Here.

The sheep isn't lost. Here.

What does the sheep do?

Went astray.

He knows this.

He knows where the shepherd is and this sheep chooses.

This is Isaiah 53 six.

All of us, like sheep, have gone astray.

Each of us has turned our own way.

This is the sheep that hasn't become.

This is the sheep that was once a part of gospel

that has purposefully chosen to walk away.

That's some of us in this place right now.

And I love the fact that even when we wander

of our own volition, where's the shepherd?

Do pursues.

He pursues.

I love the fact that this is not a frustrated shepherd.

Now, when my boys were little, we had three beagles.

And you ever had a beagle?

Okay. Little beagle.

They're great dogs, but they are infuriating because they're.

They're the Houdini's of the dog world.

They will find a way to escape whatever enclosure you put them

in, and their nose takes over, and they know where home is.

They know where their food is.

They know where their safety is.

But the nose takes over and they wander off into who knows where.

And I cannot tell you how many times are little beagles

and little peanut would get out and just be gone.

And as the dad gets his responsibility, it was to go find this

Cupid dog.

I would leave everything else at home and get on my truck

and drive all around the ranchos, because who knows where this dog is?

And I'm rolling my window down.

Peanut.

It's about as loud as, like a whistle.

He's not going to hear me, but I had to do something out.

I would spend and there were times when those dogs would be gone for days on end.

My boys are upset.

They're worried if peanuts going to come home or not.

I'm just frustrated.

I'm like, stupid.

Like,

that's not the shepherd.

We get Chase on all kinds of stuff, sniffing everywhere,

and this shepherd just pursues. Why?

Because he knows the peril of hell.

And by his mercy and his grace wants to rescue us from it.

Even when we get stupid and walk away.

You understand?

And if that's true for me, it's true for you.

And Jesus says, don't you dare despise

one of those wayward beagles

because they have representation before the father.

I care about them. Listen.

Wandering beagles matter.

And you may be a wandering beagle.

And you matter.

Didn't stand.

So come home.

If a wandering beagle gets offensive.

Don't be offended.

Sometimes wandering beagles

cause a whole bunch of heartache and pain.

Sometimes beagles wander

because they're just immature.

Sometimes if beagles wander

because they have wounds they're running away from.

And we don't understand their wounds.

Sometimes beagles wander

just because they're selfish.

Sometimes beagles wander

just because they're narcissistic.

No matter.

We don't have to be offended by

offensive beagles.

See, I can take sin

seriously without taking every offense personally.

Do you follow?

Now, it doesn't mean I have to have

a relationship with a wandering beagle.

It doesn't mean I have to try to be their best friend.

But it doesn't mean

I have to take their offense personally all the time, either.

And so here's what you're saying.

Don't cause someone to stumble.

Don't despise one who does stumble.

Don't tolerate sin and destruction

that's going to create in your life, nor be the reason for in someone else's life.

And go after the wandering beagles.

Wandering beagles are important enough for us to pursue,

and every pursuit of a wandering beagle is going to be costly.

It's going to cost us time, energy, emotions, finances.

But every time we pursue a wandering beagle is a radical act of discipleship

by his church. You understand that?

See, at the end of the day, what Jesus is saying is

that sin is too dangerous to tolerate and people are too valuable to abandon.

And so if you're a wandering beagle,

you got a place here.

I'm not going to be soft with what

the Bible says about sin and repentance,

but you're too valuable to be abandoned.

You got a place here.

But every time you're here as a wandering beagle, I'm going to call.

I'm going to call you back home.

The Bible is going to call you back home.

Do you follow?

Verses 15 through 20?

If your brother sins against you,

go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you and your brother.

But if he does not listen.

Take 1 or 2 others along with you,

that every charge may be established by the evidence of 2 or 3 witnesses.

If it refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if it refuses

to listen to the church, let them be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Truly, I say to you, whatever you abide on, or shall be bound in heaven,

and whatever you loose on, or shall be loosed in heaven.

Again I say to you, if 2

or 3 of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for them.

By my father in heaven.

For 2 or 3 are gathered in my name.

There I am among them.

Let me just say this real quick about verse 20.

The size of the prayer meeting doesn't matter.

2 or 3 people together in prayer

can move heaven and shake earth.

Do you understand that?

We do a First Tuesday prayer meeting here.

The first Tuesday of every month.

There's a few very faithful people that are moving heaven and shaking earth.

I'm thankful that God doesn't judge the

the the validity of the ministry based on the size of the prayers.

But having said this, let me say this also.

Some of you need to show up on the first Tuesdays and pray.

Jesus says, listen.

God offers immeasurable

forgiveness and mercy, and his disciples have to do the same thing.

That's what he's saying here.

It says when your brother sins against you,

let me help you understand this.

This is not an instruction of how to deal with

everybody in your life who offends you or sins against you.

This is directed to your brother sister in the church.

So those in the church that you have relationship with,

that have a relationship with you, a relationship with the body

in the church when they're offensive and they offend you.

The instruction of, of of Jesus here is go to them one on one.

But but let me let me just unpack this a little bit.

This doesn't mean that you confront every offense that's offered.

It doesn't mean that you're friends with everybody who offends you.

There are some of them. You just.

They're not part of my world.

This is talking about those brothers and sisters in the church.

Do you follow?

If you're if he says this.

But let me tell you an overarching principle

before we get into the one on one, one on two to church deal.

The overarching principle of this whole thing is Proverbs 1911.

Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory.

To what?

To overlook an offense, that word to his glory.

It means it's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

Just to. Oh, I know they offended.

I know they sinned against

overlook it.

That's what he's saying.

And again, this is to those who are in the your brother, your sister,

because we have a relationship with each other,

because we're close to each other in the church,

sometimes you just gotta overlook how offensive we are to each other.

Do you follow?

This isn't directed to the culture out there.

There's too much offense in the culture out there.

There's too much offense by people that were not friends with, let alone

the ones we are.

Let them be.

And even with each other, just.

But there are times when their confrontation has to happen, certainly.

And in this relationship, if we're going to keep a relationship with each other.

There are sometimes we got to go one on one to each other.

And the Bible says here, when it sins against you, that's the Greek word

harm to you had missed the mark here, buddy.

I thought we were.

I need to just tell you.

Look, that one stung.

That hurt I was.

And the Bible says be listens to you. Great.

You want your brother?

The goal is restoration, not winning.

Do you follow?

And you know the quickest way to restore your relationship.

You know what it is.

You just say sorry.

Just say sorry.

You don't have to believe that you were wrong.

You say, you know what?

I'm sorry.

Forgive me.

And the moment you say I'm sorry. Forgive me.

By God's word, they have to forgive you and be done with it.

They have to.

Then that's what I like.

People like. Pastor. You were like.

I'm sorry.

Forgive me. My bad.

And now I put it right back on them.

All right, now you've got to forget about it.

You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just. See?

We're done. We're done.

I want to be best friends anymore, but we're just, you know, we're done.

So good.

But the Bible says if he doesn't let you take 2

or 3 witnesses and go show him what you think his fault was.

Now, listen, those 2 or 3 witnesses, they're not 2 or 3 supporters.

You don't get people to a three.

That's already going to say

what you want them to say to, you know, level against this guy.

You say you to judge between us

and we will both abide by what you to say.

So if you tell me that I'm overly sensitive

and I just need to forgive them all, abide by that.

If you tell that person they're gaslighting

and they're playing the victim card they got, agree to that.

But you to be the judge between us, that's what it's saying.

You got it.

It's not getting people to gang up on them.

And if they still like, you know,

take it to the church.

It doesn't mean we have a church meeting and everybody's dirty laundry.

It means if they are in their in sin and they're unrepentant,

you take it to church leadership.

And church leadership says, listen,

this whole mercy and grace repentance thing is profound.

I get it.

If, if, if you're a wandering beagle, but if you admit you're wandering

and you come back on repentance, we're all good.

You don't got to be perfect. You just got to repent.

If they say, I'm a wandering beagle and I love being a wandering beagle

and I never want to come back,

then you say, listen, as a church, we're going to ask you to go wander.

But don't wander.

In the context of this community.

You're unrepentant.

You want to wander, go wander.

And Jesus says that whatever you as a church

bind on earth will be bound in heaven,

where the loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

In other words, what you saying is, heaven will give the stamp of approval on

whatever the church leadership has decided, as long as it's done biblically.

None of you

know this, but we have done this a few different times in this church

because it's not something you publish.

It's something you live.

And most of those times those wandering beagles

have come back.

You follow.

Let me give you this.

The context of this in job. Job.

No fault of job,

but his life was being torn apart

by the work of the evil one, completely torn apart.

And they had these three friends that came to him and they said, job,

let me tell you what's wrong with you.

This is what's wrong with you, and this is where you're wrong,

and this is when you're in error and this is where you're sitting

and bop bop bop bop bop.

And they were so offensive and so horrible to job horrible.

And job never defended himself.

And he never chastised them.

He prayed and he said, God, I'm going

to leave it to you to correct those people.

They were so offensive to me.

And at the end of this account and my

this is this is God talking, and my servant job shall pray for you.

Three wandering beagles who are offensive.

For I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly.

For you have not spoken of me.

What is right as my servant job has so eliphaz

the bill, dad, the Shiite, and so far the name on sight

went and did what the Lord had told them, and the Lord accepted jobs.

Prayer. He didn't get offended at them.

He let them run their mouths.

He said, God, you take care of them.

I don't need to be close to them, but I'm going to pray for them.

God, you handle your business.

And he prayed for those who were so offensive

and God honored his prayer.

This is who God is.

And God says if they're that offensive and they just refuse to agree.

What does he say?

Treat them as what?

Was what a gentile and tax collector.

Let me close with this.

Who's writing these words?

Matthew Levite?

What was his former job?

Now you're starting to see it.

Treat him as a tax collector.

That doesn't mean go wander somewhere else.

Idiot.

You know, welcome.

Here it means, listen, we realize you're walking away,

but I'm going to pursue you in gentleness

and in call because God has a purpose for your life.

And I want to call you back.

Come on.

Treat them like Jesus treated me.

He didn't pitch a fit.

He didn't hunt me down.

He pursued me because his

mercy and his grace are so beautiful.

That's what we do with offensive beagles.

You got it.

Because that's exactly

what God has done for us.

Don't you pray with me.

Father.

Thank you

that you pursued

this wandering beagle.

Thank you

that you are slow to anger and abounding in love,

not willing that I should perish.

And father, I pray that you would help me respond

to wandering beagles in my life with the same mercy and grace.

I pray to help our church

be a church for and of wandering peoples.

You're a good God.

There's nothing better that we can do

to give our lives to you.

Save us for the torment of separation from you.

Save us from hell. Save us from our sin.

They'll be ushered into eternal life. God.

Thank you.

Friends, I want to invite you in this moment.

If you've never given your life to Christ

because of what Jesus did on the cross, because he was raised from the grave,

I want to invite you in this moment. Say God, I admit it.

I am a wandering beagle running away,

living life on my own terms.

Jesus, I believe that you died and were raised from the grave.

Save me and I commit to turn from my sin.

And I dedicate my life

and my allegiance to you and you alone.

Did you just make that commitment and then discover

what it means to follow him and enter that spiritual formation pathway?

All of us.

I wouldn't encourage us to say, look, we cannot live this type

of radical discipleship apart from the power of God.

And I would encourage

all of us in this moment, say God and empower me

by the power of your spirit to love you with my whole heart and soul

and mind and strength, without delay and without hesitation.

Whatever I've got is sacrifice and cut out of my life.

God, give me the strength to do it

and fill me with your spirit

and the power of your spirit to live a holy life

because you're worthy of it.

Jesus, we love you.

Help us love you more.

In your name I pray. Amen.

Listen, I love you, church.

You're doing a good job going through the book of Matthew.

We haven't even gotten the tough stuff of Matthew 18 yet.

Next week we're going to wrap up Matthew 18.

And Jesus is going to keep putting the throttle down.

So so here's my read, Matthew 18 over and over and over again this week.

Let it live inside and come to life within you.

Read it over and over and let's meet next week and really impact the

the heart and the meat of this thing in the last part of Matthew 18.

The good.

All right, stand up church, let's sing one more song.