The Resolute Shepherd

Uh but with that said, uh, welcome, Fred.

If you don't mind, put your hands together.

Fred's great.

He's gonna come up now.

All right.

Um I said if you were here last week, you recognize that Fred's making fun of me right now, but it's all in good fun.

It's all in good fun.

I'm almost worried.

I have to cover up all the hair.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The one that my go-to hat is, it says Vintage 1953, limited edition.

And it's from my older sister.

And she's always kidding about how old I am.

I I don't get it.

But my granddaughters were on vacation with their parents, and they were in the West, and they decided pop-pop needed an upgrade.

Huh?

Huh?

You can just call me cowboy now.

No.

I I'm still learning how to preach or share a message in jeans.

I I can't wear hats, so but I had to I had to kid Justin.

We obviously have a close relationship.

We talk and pray about a lot of things.

Um he's asked me to come and and kind of continue the series we're in now.

Let me just remind you, and if you're new here, let me just bring you up today, we're covering most of a year on following Jesus.

And the way we're following Jesus is by following Jesus through the Gospel of Matthew.

And it's broken up into little mini-sections.

Every message is a standalone, but some of the messages are kind of connected together.

And we've we've looked at the map over the months.

We've uh he's up in the area of Capernaum now, has gone down a little bit, and he'll be working, he's working his way towards Jerusalem.

But um we just finished this kind of mini-series on VIPs.

Who's important in Jesus' uh perspective?

Today we shift to um a new section, which is people problems.

But as Justin and I were talking about it, I I thought it was important to first be very clear who are the VIPs in Jesus' heart.

You are.

And if we don't if we don't understand that, if we if we walk away from that, then we begin thinking we're all that important in ourselves.

No, we're we're VIPs because the one who created and redeemed us loves us and wants to journey with us in this life.

But we then move to who's the problem?

We are.

We are.

And there's a lot of reasons for that, uh, but he emphasizes one of those problems in the in the parable out of Matthew 18 that um Justin asked me to cover with us today.

It's Matthew chapter 18, verses just 12 through 14, the parable of the lost sheep.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do?

Won't he leave the 99 others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost?

And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than the other 99 that didn't wander away.

In the same way, it's not my heavenly father's will that even one of these little ones should perish.

What's the problem here?

Believers who wander away.

We all know what it is to wander away from the Lord, don't we?

Uh, we wander when we get too busy.

My favorite anachronym for busy is B-U-S-Y, buried under Satan's yoke.

And we get so busy we decide we don't have time for church.

We don't have time to say our prayers, we don't have time to because we're just too busy, which in turn means I don't feel like it.

And we wander away.

So I want to invite you to consider that we have a resolute shepherd named Jesus, and I use that word very carefully.

I love that word resolute.

I hadn't even thought of it until the Lord was waking me up during the night on this message.

Listen to the definition of resolute, because I believe it really fits for our Lord.

To be resolute is to be admirably purposeful, determined and unwavering.

That's the one we call Lord.

Admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering.

He will not give up until he gets us back.

How does he get us back?

Well, there's a lot of ways he gets us back as he comes looking for us in the Spirit.

Sometimes it's just to help us realize that we just desperately have to get back to a Christian community.

We desperately have to turn on some praise music.

We desperately have to start prayers because we've gotten too far away from the Lord.

We all do that, don't we?

There's something about being a disciple of the Lord means disciplined.

Have to be disciplined in order to stay the course and to stay with the shepherd.

And if we wander away, the resolute shepherd comes after us.

But the word resolute means more than just a definition.

I want to remind some of you who love U.S.

history might be already aware of this story, but it's a sweet and powerful one.

The Resolute was actually the name of a British ship, a wooden ship, the HMS Resolute, that was an Arctic-going wooden ship constructed in the mid-19th century.

And unfortunately, in one of their expeditions in the Arctic, the Resolute got trapped in the ice, and the crew had to depart to keep their lives.

Two years later, the U.S.

Army on an expedition in the Arctic found the Resolute and were able to get it free.

They brought it back to the states.

It was refurbished.

The president gave Queen Victoria the ship back as an act of goodwill.

I can't imagine that happening nowadays, but that's another story, I guess.

Fast forward 25 years, it's now 1880.

Queen Victoria has the ship decommissioned.

The resolute is broken up for its wood, and a beautiful desk is made.

That desk is presented to the president in gratitude for the goodwill and cooperation between the nations.

That is, of course, the desk that's in the Oval Office, one made famous by the National Treasure Series.

Resolute.

Resolute is all about the best, about goodwill, about desire to help.

See, that's the shepherd we have.

When we wander away, decide we're too busy, we gotta be preoccupied.

You know, our thoughts wander, don't they?

I don't know how many of you guys have thought about fantasy football today.

It's kind of sad, the things we get preoccupied with.

But the Lord keeps calling us back to him, calling us back to him because he loves us.

He knows what purpose he has for us.

He wants to fulfill all of that.

But um, let me remind you of a song you might be familiar with.

It's called Reckless Love by Bethel Music, Corey Ashbury.

Uh this is these are some of the lines in the song.

Before I spoke a word, you were singing over me.

That's a quote right out of Zephaniah, the prophet.

God sings over you in his love.

You have been so, so kind to me, the song goes on.

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God, it chases me down and leaves the 99.

This image of our Lord Himself being our shepherd, our with reckless love, the resolute shepherd, is woven into the fabric of the Christian faith.

An essential, it's a foundation upon which so many other things can be built.

I was shocked when I just went on YouTube to listen to the song yet another time.

It had 194 million downloads.

Seriously?

And that's just one of the.

See, there's something about that, that we're that important to the Lord, that even when we're wandering away, he's seeking to bring us back into his care, his loving care.

But that's not the only time that Jesus spoke about leaving the 99.

He did also, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, but it's a very different situation.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

In chapter 15, the tax collectors and notorious sinners who came to Jesus, and the Pharisees and teachers of the law are furious that Jesus is meeting with these outsiders.

He tells the story of the shepherd, but in a vastly different context.

Jesus told them this story.

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do?

Won't he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go search for the one that is lost until he finds it?

And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home upon his shoulders.

When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, because I found my lost sheep.

In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over 99 others who are righteous and haven't strayed away.

Here, he uses the same dynamic to talk about people who are, in a biblical understanding, lost.

This isn't those of us who are coming to church.

These are those who haven't come to faith.

They're out there.

They don't realize they're love, they don't realize they're forgiven.

They don't realize there's hope and there's peace and there's joy and their love in the world.

They're out there.

They're like some of our family members and some of our friends and neighbors, some of our coworkers who just think we're all crazy.

And Jesus tells the story of the shepherd here, this resolute shepherd who will leave the community in the spirit and go out and find all those as he seeks to bring the world to himself.

So he, when we wander away, he comes and gets us through his spirit through many different means.

But he's also doing the same thing for, well, let's admit, he did that for all of us, or at least the vast majority of us, who can remember a time when we didn't really believe all this, when we thought it was all about me, all about us, all about my feelings.

How sad.

But the Lord doesn't give up on us.

He keeps coming after us to say, Come home to me.

Or as he taught the disciples in the upper room, I'm the vine, you're the branches.

He's got life for us.

He's the one that we need to run to.

Our answers will not be found in our finances or in our in our work or in our figuring out all the relationships and the brokenness or all the pain and getting through all that on our own.

That's not it.

He wants us to come back to him, and he is resolute in getting us home, just like we parents are and grandparents are when our kids are out there.

But it's interesting that even in that same chapter, he reinforces this same story with a slightly different parable.

It's called the parable of the lost coin.

And it's the same reality, but a different context.

Jesus teaches, or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one, won't she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it?

And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, Rejoice with me, because I found my lost coin.

In the same way there is joy in the presence of God's angels when even one sinner repents.

So he reinforces it, but now it's slightly different.

The context is a woman who loses a coin, and she's so happy she throws a party.

What is going on?

Well, apparently the problem is that the coin wasn't where it belonged.

It just wasn't where she thought it would be.

Why would she throw a party?

Well, the best interpretation I've ever read about this parable is that it may have been, and it does say silver coins, so that's a denarius, that's a day's wages.

It's a instance, it's a valuable coin.

But many brides in that day would make a crown for their marriage with ten coins.

Ten denarius.

It's part of their offering to the to the husband in the new life.

If she didn't have the tenth coin, she wouldn't be getting married.

Her new life wouldn't begin.

So, needless to say, she she is so happy when she's found the that which wasn't where it belonged.

We get there too, don't we?

We end up in places and situations where we just don't belong.

And the resolute shepherd comes after us.

Who's the one searching now?

Well, he tells the story now, not using a shepherd, who's in the role of the resolute shepherd?

The woman who wants to get on with her life.

And she realizes getting that coin is a big part of that.

Just like the Lord wanting to accomplish his purposes includes all of us.

We are never people on the outside who are looking and saying, Oh, Jesus, you're doing your work over there.

No, he's always inviting us to be part of it.

The lost coin that finally comes back.

And it's where it belongs.

But then he doesn't even stop there.

He tells yet another story.

The same business of the resolute shepherd, but now it's in the role of a father.

And he tells a story that many of you may know well.

It's the story of the prodigal son.

It's a long paragopal.

I'm not going to read the whole thing to you.

Let me just remind you of that or introduce you to it if this passage is new.

A young man demands his father's inheritance long before the father passes.

And the father loves him so much, he calculates what his inheritance is and gives him the funds, and the young man goes off and squanders it.

He just wastes it all.

He's finally eating the food of the pigs, and he goes, What am I doing?

In fact, scripture says he came to his senses.

He finally woke up and said, I'm wasting my life.

I'm just going to go run back to my father and say, Father, I'm not worthy to be called your son, just treat me as one of your hired servants.

And he runs back, but the father sees him from the distance because the father is always waiting.

And the father, in fact, runs to the younger son and embraces him and orders that he be given a new robe and a ring and new sandals, and a big party is held for him.

So, what's this situation?

Well, it's when we choose to run away and make decisions that are all about ourselves.

We haven't prayed about it, we haven't asked God about it, we really don't care what God thinks.

We're going to do what we want to do.

Thank you very much.

And many of us here have done that.

I won't ask you to put up your hand.

I can go there.

And the Father loves us so much, this resolute shepherd, that he runs before we even get back to him to embrace us and bless us and welcome us back.

That's the nature of the one we serve.

That's the nature of our God.

And that's why when people around the world begin getting a glimpse of our God, they realize he's irresistible.

But interestingly, in the story that Jesus tells, there's somebody else.

It's the older son who is really upset that the younger son has come back and he's angry.

He wants nothing to do with his brother.

And here's another situation.

We're physically close to the shepherd, physically close to the father, like we are physically close to one another in the Lord here today, but our hearts aren't right.

We're really not there.

We're just going through the motions, the religious thing.

I've been to church.

Maybe some of you are dragged to church and can't wait to get back to something else.

Like the older brother who just upset at everybody else, wants to point the finger rather than point the finger itself.

And the father comforts him and says, Hey, it's okay.

Your brother was lost, but he's found.

He's back.

It's time to throw to rejoice.

You see, we have a resolute shepherd who is that good shepherd who always wants to keep getting us back to him.

For many of us, that requires more than giving him attention once a week, more than even once a day.

It's to continually pay attention and praying and seeing, Lord, is this what you desire?

Now, what's interesting is not only are these very important parables about how the Lord is always seeking to embrace us and come after us, but Jesus makes it very clear that it's important to him.

In John chapter 10, he's quoted as saying this My purpose is to give his sheep, them here, a rich and satisfying life.

John 10 · chapter mention

I am the good shepherd.

I'm here to give you a rich and satisfying life.

What did he tell the disciples in the upper room?

He said, I have come to complete your joy.

How'd you like Jesus' joy in your life?

Don't you think?

Hello?

Yeah?

I mean, we're not talking about just happy about circumstances.

I'm talking about Jesus' joy.

When you've tasted that, there's nothing that comes close.

And he says, I'm the good shepherd.

I want to do that in your life.

That's what's offered in the Christian faith.

It is not about rules and regulations, it's about a relationship of life itself.

And Jesus calls us out of the darkness to that light.

But it's not just there.

What's Jesus referring to?

Well, actually, he's really in some ways pointing, quoting the prophet Ezekiel.

He's not a guy that's quoted a lot.

It was a difficult time in life.

He was one of the refugees.

They believe he was probably driven out of Jerusalem with the rest of the leaders around age 25, had to go to Babylon when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in the year 586.

And he was called to be a prophet to people in Babylon, Jews in Babylon, but also his letters got back to Jerusalem.

And in chapter 34, he spends a lot of time talking about the fact that Jerusalem and Israel as a whole had some bad shepherds who were in it just for themselves.

We could point figures to some of our other leaders, we won't do that right now.

But we all know what it is to have a bad shepherd who's really in it for himself.

If you've ever had a bad boss like that, you know you just want to leave if they're just in it for themselves.

But what's interesting is he goes on and talks about what are the characteristics of a good shepherd.

And I invite you to just listen to the verb language, the active work of this resolute shepherd.

But this is what Ezekiel says in Ezekiel chapter 34.

Ezekiel 34 · chapter mention

This is what the sovereign Lord says.

I myself will search and find my sheep.

I will be like a shepherd looking for his scattered flock.

I will find my sheep and rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on that dark and cloudy day.

I will bring them back home to their own land of Israel from among the peoples and nations.

I will feed them on the mountains of Israel and by the rivers.

And in all the places where people live.

Yes, I will give them good pasture land on the high hills of Israel.

There they will lie down in pleasant places and feed in the lush pastures of the hills.

I myself will tend my sheep and give them a place to lie down in peace, says the sovereign Lord.

I will search for my lost ones who straight away, and I will bring them safely home again.

I will bandage the injured and strengthen the weak.

But I will destroy those who are fat and powerful.

I will feed them, yes, feed them with justice.

Do you hear he in the midst of their horrible difficulties, a nation that's destroyed, their refugees, and he's saying, God is still our shepherd.

He is going to care for us.

You can trust him, no matter what the circumstances of life are.

He's the shepherd.

And he wants us to know his care, his love, his grace.

There's a few other places we could go today, but I want to take you one more place.

A place that meant a whole lot to me.

And it comes out of my own story.

Some of you may have heard it.

I think I shared it here a few years ago when Justin first asked me to share a message.

It was years ago before I had a dramatic call to serve the Lord full-time.

I was in the Navy.

I was a backseater in carrier-braced aircraft, flying in the Pacific.

In fact, I thought about putting that hat on today.

That was my flight helmet.

I still have that, decided to save you from all that.

But we were tracking a Soviet missile submarine in those days.

It was really important to know where they all were.

And 300 miles out to sea, and the windshield cracked of the plane.

The first words I heard were the pilot, good friend, saying to me, Fred, if the if the glass implodes, get you and the sensor out.

See, if the pilot or co-pilot pulled the ejection harness, we all four would go out.

If they were already dead, which is what he's saying, if I pulled the sensor operator and I would go out.

All of a sudden, it doesn't really matter where the submarine is.

And I was the radio operator as well as the mission commander.

And um I started calling out, Mayday, Mayday, November Gulf, 706, Mayday, Mayday.

Nobody.

We were over the horizon.

That is, we didn't have communication with land.

It was a secret mission in the day.

We didn't, we hadn't filed a flight plan.

Nobody knew we were there.

I had the co-pilot look on radar.

There's no ships on the horizon.

We're over shark-infested waters, and I knew the survival rate of the ejection seat was rather limited in our plane.

Pucker power gets real.

And as I'm calling out May Day, May Day, November golfs, and nobody's responding, it hit me.

The next face I see may be Jesus.

I'd at least been raised in church to believe that.

But at that moment I realized I wasn't ready.

I'd lived my life for myself.

O'Jill and I were married, but I was still living for myself.

It was all about me, my career, my status.

Jesus.

Oh yeah.

Jesus.

Eventually, the um one of the operators in the LA Tower heard our call and said, November golf, what's your intentions?

I explained where we were.

He found us on radar.

And I remember saying, Sir, we just want to get home.

He gave us the vector.

We began heading back to San Diego.

My hands came off the primary harness and went to the secondary ejection harness.

Gave me a hand-free, and I slipped into my flight suit and pulled out a little book and realized I better read this.

Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I have all that I need.

My dear brothers and sisters, if you don't remember anything of this morning, please remember this.

You have a shepherd.

He is a resolute shepherd.

He will never give up on you.

He loves you.

He wants you to walk with him.

He doesn't want you feeling lost.

He doesn't want you wandering away.

He doesn't want you in the wrong places.

He wants to care for you.

He wants to feed you.

He wants to strengthen you.

He wants to guide you.

That's why this psalm is the most popular psalm on the planet.

Because we all need to know this reality.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I have all that I need.

He lets me rest in green meadows.

He leads me beside peaceful streams.

And I'm in a troubled place reading this.

I don't know if I'm going to live for the rest of the day.

And yet something within me began to stir.

Green meadows.

Peaceful pastures.

Quiet waters.

That's exactly what I needed.

There's nothing we can get anxious for that the Lord is anxious about.

He knows what the future is.

He knows why he's allowing that difficulty.

He's got you.

If you're willing to cling to him.

He guides me in right pathways, bringing honor to his name.

That was my wake-up call, to be honest.

I realized I wasn't living for myself anymore.

Not after that moment.

I just wanted to live for his name.

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid.

For you are close beside me, your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.

There's a lot of us here who are in dark places, and that's why we need to keep praying for each other.

I do lead the grief class that we started last week.

You can still join us if you want.

We're here Monday night.

We start at 6 30, right in the student center.

There's a lot of us in dark valleys.

But he's still the shepherd.

He's guiding us with his rod and his staff.

As I was sharing with the class this past Monday night, I said, you know, a rod and a staff doesn't sound very comforting.

But it means the shepherd is so close.

He's just keeping you going.

We don't stop when we're in the darkness because we're in a journey.

And he's going to get us up to the light again.

We need to keep walking until the light is clear.

And we're bathed in that light because he is the light.

You prepare a feast before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil.

My cup overflows with blessings.

It didn't feel like it up in that aircraft at that moment.

But I had a sneaking suspicion that if I got serious about Jesus, that that was going to be fulfilled.

Surely your goodness, unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life.

That's a powerful translation.

It's not, it doesn't often say that in other translations you may be more familiar with, but the New Living Translation, which we're using today, really nails that.

The Hebrew is very clear.

Goodness and love don't follow us, they pursue us.

Do you hear that from the from the resolute shepherd, the good shepherd?

He is pursuing us at every moment that he can bless us.

Now those blessings may come in packages we're unfamiliar with.

We didn't expect.

Why?

Because we need to go and encourage those who are there.

Jesus is Lord.

Goodness and mercy shall follow all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

If you know your destination.

Yeah, so what you have.

You know, I used to fly around a lot.

Yeah, okay, you get delayed, you spend a night in an airport on a chair.

Okay, so what?

You're gonna get home.

It's a game changer when you know one day we're all gonna be home, and we'll see him face to face and wipe away our eyes.

Hmm.

Pretty amazing, resolute shepherd, don't you think?

But one more story.

Thought of this morning.

Um I was in Haiti.

I was doing some pastor training at the Bible school.

I was uh helping train some orphans, um, and I was taken on a drive one day, and I was told we were going to go visit a refugee center.

I went, oh, okay, why is there a center here in Haiti?

Well, it was from the flood we had a few months ago, and they had no family, and they have um their their home and all their belongings are washed away.

The government doesn't care about them.

This is what I was told by my host pastor.

So um, they've been put in this section of the island that has no trees, just rocks, no water.

They put a wall around it, and little houses have been constructed, and that's where they're trying to eat out a living with their kids.

I went, oh, why are we going there?

And he said, uh, well, Fred, we're just we're just gonna encourage them.

There's a pastor there that I know, and we're just gonna encourage them.

We got pretty close and got a call when we got to the gate from the pastor.

And after conversation, my friend came back to me and said, Fred, uh, they actually heard we were coming, so they've gathered everybody for a big worship service.

And uh you're gonna be preaching.

What?

So we immediately the gates are open, and we are driving in the car, and I look, and my tool shed is more significant than these structures that they're living in.

There is no running water, there's no electricity, there's no bathrooms, there's no refrigerators, there's certainly no air conditioning, there's no stoves.

And I'm seeing hundreds and hundreds of people and all their children.

I'm in the back of the car.

I remember exactly where I was in the car.

And this is what I said to the Lord.

Oh God, I have nothing to share with these people.

I have nothing in common with them.

I've never known that kind of loss.

And the Lord spoke to me.

And yeah, for those of you who are still figuring out your walk with the Lord, that may scare you.

I've heard the Lord maybe speak to me in an audible voice a couple times in my life.

When believers say the Lord spoke to me, it's the thought that comes out of nowhere.

All of a sudden, this voice in your head, and you go, hmm, I wouldn't have had that thought.

And the Lord said to me, I'm still their shepherd, aren't I?

And I began to cry.

And I said, All right, Lord, I'll share Psalm 23.

Even though I've still got my watch on and I've got my my gold wedding band on, and and I I don't look anything like them.

I'm in my nice dress khakis that have been pressed, and in the nice dress shirt.

I'm gonna get up there and share with these people who have nothing that Jesus is their shepherd.

I finished and they erupted into applause.

I found everywhere I go, we all need to be reminded, and I do too.

We have a shepherd who loves us.

He'll leave the 99 at a moment's notice just to come and get us back to say yes to him again.

He wants to feed us, he wants to clothe us, he wants us to fill our lives with joy, he wants to bless us and fulfill all the plans and purposes he created and redeemed us to do.

And it's going to be such a surprising life we can't even keep track of it.

And it doesn't matter how old we are or how young we are, when we say yes to him on a regular basis, the world takes on a whole new perspective.

Who are the VIPs?

We are.

Who are the people problems?

We are.

Isn't it great?

We have a resolute shepherd.

And his name's Jesus.

And we can call him that, and we know that.

And when we proclaim that he is ours, as I understand five are going to be baptized today, then we become part of his flock, and he never will forsake us.

Thanks be to God.

Now I've I've got a couple pictures just to close.

I thought you might like to see something.

Here's uh here's a little sheep.

That's um that's actually Daisy.

That's the little lamb that was born earlier this year.

And in this case, um my granddaughter is feeding her.

Just off the side of the picture is Jill, my wife, who was there because she wasn't getting enough milk from her mother, so she needed a bottle.

So who is serving as the resolute shepherd in this picture?

Hmm, my granddaughter.

Under the care of her nana.

And yes, we're always sheep.

We're always wandering away, and he's always calling us back.

And he's using a whole lot of others, whether, as in this story, it's a woman, it's a dad, it's a brother, it's a shepherd.

It's Jesus who's behind the scenes, feeding us and getting us back.

But I thought I'd bring you an update of our border collie.

Also, that's the last picture.

She is always on duty.

And my brothers and sisters, if you've been walking with the Lord more than a day, you are too.

Got any moms here?

Got any dads here?

Got any grandparents here?

Got any teachers here?

Got any um firefighters or police here?

Any healthcare providers?

Medical folks?

Guess what?

We're all part of the sheepdog community.

And our job is to always be alert, seeing who might be straying away, who might be lost, who might have wandered in a wrong place, and doing whatever we can to feed and clothe and invite, to welcome, to hug, and bring them back.

Because the shepherd wants that relationship.

And it's always available in him.

So if we're seeking to walk by the Spirit, it's his spirit working through us.

It's not about what we do, it's what he does through us, right?

What a privilege we have.

We're VIPs for the Lord.

Because we're all sheepdogs.

Well, okay.

Thanks.

I didn't just do that for two applauses.

I actually wanted you to see the pictures.

Time for communion.

For the Lord's Supper.

Um, yeah, I've celebrated this for over 40 years now.

I still don't understand it.

It's one of those great mysteries of life.

Jesus said, This is my body.

This is my blood.

And for 2,000 years the church has tried to explain that.

I don't understand it.

But I know there's a lot of things I don't understand in faith that are true.

I understand, men, that you're my brothers.

I may not have met you yet, but you're my brother.

Ladies, you're you're my, well, for the most part, kid sister.

But it's a reality.

It's a reality.

I don't know how this is the body and blood of our Lord, but I know that after he shared this last meal, he went to the cross.

Because he's the resolute shepherd.

And he's gonna die for our sins that nothing gets in the way of our relationship with him.

So it's time now.

Let's take the bread.

Lord, we thank you for the bread of life.

Indeed, Jesus is the bread of life.

And we receive him now in gratitude.

In Jesus' name.

And now the cup.

For us to experience the new life in the Spirit.

We thank you for the blood of Christ.

We thank you for this juice.

And we do this in remembrance of Him.

Father, we thank you for this holy meal.

And we pray that now as this juice and bread goes through our body, that we would be that sacred offering to others.

Your sheepdogs, inviting the world to yourself.

And now I'm happy to say that we have baptism about to start.

And siblings Victor and Anastasia are being baptized by Dad Bran.

Take it away.

It is an awesome privilege this morning to baptize these two beautiful children that God gave their mother and I.

And I just want to praise his name that they have both accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Victor, have you accepted Jesus into your heart?

I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Son and the Holy Spirit.

This is Melissa.

Melissa has been a follower of Jesus her whole life, was actually baptized as a teenager.

But today is a rededication of that.

So Melissa, I'm so excited for you.

With that, have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

Yes.

Honored to baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.