the bumper sticker said may you have exactly the God you deserve may you have exactly the God you deserve. I saw that in January such as our soundbite society with bumper sticker theology. You haven't seen it already. There are a couple other popular ones. One says coexist and it has lots of different faiths woven in to the letters. Another one says respect along the same lines in case you didn't notice and it should be pretty obvious. We have a very pluralistic society these days and a nation that is frequently claimed a legacy of Christian faith. It's obvious that that's not the case. I'm not going to say that's good or bad at the outset. I'm going to say have you noticed. What do you do when these faiths collide? That's the reason these bumper stickers exist. People are saying look bad things are happening because of you and your God. I mean how else do you put it may you get exactly the God you deserve. It might as well substitute prison in there maybe even will go to hell is what they're saying may your God be your hell if that's the way you live life. It's important. I'm saying that too because I'm not in the delusion that everybody here with it being mother's day is a Christian and I want to be very honest with you. I mean I'm not into that delusion any Sunday but where are you coming from what is your faith when God's collide why do you have the faith that you have some people would say well you already lost me pastor I don't believe in all that gobbledygook that's you know that's for people who need that kind of superstitious crutch I'm just here because I love mama maybe maybe let's unpack that a little bit if you if you believe that this is all there is there's nothing else beyond this then be honest enough to admit you can't say I'm special you can't say that people are unique and need to be loved if you do say that which most of our modern society does they say both of those things that takes a leap of faith then take a carved idol out of wood then take a God that you've erected and built with your hands you might make fun of those kinds of people but that's a faith an ultimate view of reality that you hold to if we're gonna talk about pluralism recognize there's no such thing as the absence of faith you believe in an ultimate reality that's your faith what are we gonna do when God's collide recognize when I see a bumper sticker that tells me and my God to coexist with two or three other faiths that say their gods says mutually exclusively go love those people enough to tell them they're wrong what vantage point are you coming from that bumper sticker is saying my God is more important than your gods my ultimate view of reality is more important than yours now everybody in that case is being arrogant but let's not pretend to be humble by saying well at least I'm not one of those arrogant people saying believe what I believe that's exactly what everybody is saying even people who say they're all inclusive the gods are colliding so wouldn't it be nice if there was a place we could go to talk about what to do in a pluralistic society about what the God of the Bible would do in a pluralistic society we're taking a break from John we finished it up since going through the end of it we're gonna start a new series and Elijah and Elijah first king 17s where we're going that's page 555 in your Pew Bible let me put it this way whether you believe the Bible is the word of God or it just happens to be the most read book in history and you want to have enough intellectual integrity to be aware of it let's ask the question what does the Bible say about ultimate reality what does the Bible say about how we should interact when the gods collide and we'll give you a little context as we're jumping in in the middle of a book of the Bible which is dangerous but Elijah arrives on the scene this unexpectedly so let's let's back up a little bit when Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt they wanted an desert for a long time they came into the land the promised land with Joshua and they pushed all the canonites out but they didn't push them all out and there was still pagan faith in this land even though Saul came David united the land David and Solomon then had a united kingdom well then it fractured it split into the north and the south and northern kingdom retain the name Israel the southern kingdom was Judah and there were kings of both now every king in the north and Israel every king in the north was regarded as evil bad but along comes a hab son of Omri and it says right before we get to our passage he did more evil on the side of God than all of his predecessors no if you believe in the Bible that's a pretty bad thing to have in there about yourself he was the worst one yet why well all of these other gods they're in they have a political of all these other kings in the northern end of Israel have a political reason not to want a worship in Jerusalem at the temple because they don't want to send all their people down to a religious place outside of their own country they have to defend their own country their territory so instead of doing that they set up other places of worship in the northern kingdom and encouraged people to go to those altars worship God there they begin to be very syncretistic and mix in these other religions and they welcome worship of bail and these other canonite gods so the God of the Bible is not real happy about that especially since the God of the Bible believes they're dead idols that are carved out of wood but they're still sort of open and syncretistic until Ahab marry somebody well you may have heard of Ahab from Moby Dick this is a different Ahab this is the one he's named after but you will have certainly heard of his wife Jezebel Ahab his dad Omri sets up a marriage with Jezebel who's from Siden why is that important because she brings with her when she comes 850 prophets of bail and ashera 450 of bail 400 of ashera and they come on the state payroll to institute the new state religion and exclude these prophets of Yahweh and she goes about trying to kill all of them they're chasing them down and killing them you got this context this is the this is the collision going on and all of a sudden Elijah from from Tishbite he's a Tishbite we don't know where Tishbite is he just kind of arrives out of nowhere we don't know his pedigree we don't know where he's coming from he shows up he's he's a weird character he comes in meets up with Ahab and he says there's gonna be no rain and surely is the God lives the God of Israel Yahweh lives there will be no rain until you get another word from our mouth on and beat that begins a drought that'll go on for three years now why he's doing that is because bail is the God of weather he's the God of life because as rain comes into the gray and society that's how you get food that's how you get water that's how you live no rain no food death
annually they believed that bail was killed by the God Mott the God of the underworld who had taken down into into their Hades their underworld and that's why you'd have winter and he came back every spring so bail already had an unusual story going on but here comes the God of Israel saying your God has no power there'll be no rain and not just in Israel but in the surrounding areas see because in those days each God had its own nation but that's the only place they had power but this God is different he lives let's hear from the Bible we're picking up after Elijah has oh I forgot to give it one detail Elijah has fled because they're trying to find him and kill him he's fled now into a valley where God tells him to go there's a brook that he drinks from and the ravens of the air drop him food God's providing for him an incredible way but now he's been there long enough the droughts taken effect the brook dries up now what beginning of verse seven here God's word sometime later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land then the word of the Lord came to him go at once to Zeraphat of side and then stay there I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food so he went to Zeraphat when he came to the town gate a widow was there gathering sticks he called to her and asked would you bring me a little water and a jar so I'm gonna have a drink as she was going to get it he called and bring me please a piece of bread as surely as the Lord your God lives she replied I don't have any bread only a handful of flour and a jar and a little oil and a jug I'm gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and die pitiful Elijah said to her don't be afraid go home and do as you have said but first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me and then make something for yourself and your son for this is what the Lord the God of Israel says the jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land incredible she went away and did as Elijah had told her so there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman in her family for the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry and keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill he grew worse and worse and finally stopped breathing she said to Elijah what did you what what do you have against me man of God did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son give me your son said Elijah he took him from her arms carried him to the upper room where he was stained and laid him on his bed then he cried out to the Lord oh Lord my God have you brought tragedy upon this widow I'm staying with my causing her son to die then he stressed himself out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord oh Lord my God let this boy's life return to him the Lord heard Elijah's cry and the boy's life returned to him and he lived Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house he gave him to his mother and said look your son is alive and the woman said to Elijah now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth as this God's word let's pray Lord remind us of our sin today but Lord also give us life restore us Jesus show us who you are in your name we pray amen the God of the Bible is a God who is four outsiders is a God who judges and is a God who covers over he's a God four outsiders who judges and who covers over first of all what do mean he's a God for outsiders when in 2006 a few of my senior boys in youth group and Chad and you go wanted to go to Uganda they'd seen a video some of you may have seen called invisible children they wanted to go there but I didn't want to just go be a part of a social movement we got connected with a professor from Covenant College he was going over there doing evangelism so I took these four students we went over and we were doing evangelism in this third world country in the middle of Africa I had never seen this kind of poverty we weren't just in the city we purposely went out in the rural areas and they drop us off when we'd walk all day on these dirt roads with mudhuts and just meet people and that kind of society you don't sit inside because it's just a mudhut you sit out front if you don't have a job and a lot of people didn't and so we'd wander up and have conversations you in here I've got changed my life well yeah white guy I don't see many of you in these parts but tell us long tell us how and great number of conversations happened that way but there were several cultural collisions they would fix lunch for us because we ate while we were out and it began the first day the Ugandan who were fixing lunch for us who worked for the professor he had a big house there where we were staying they fixed the peanut butter sandwiches it was a triple-decker peanut butter sandwich and a banana and a hard-boiled egg well as the time went on somewhere along the way I guess they ran out of peanut butter and they really didn't know these American ways the difference between peanut butter and butter so we started getting triple-decker butter sandwiches and and so we were just our subsistence during the day was a butter sandwich and banana I didn't like the hard-boiled eggs I let one of the other guys eat it but we're walking along we would joke about it at lunchtime and one day after meeting these folks who were incredibly impoverished we came across an old lady and it was clear she was sitting in ashes at the front of her yard and by ashes I mean she was where she had a little fire from when I got cold she was sitting in the ashes she was clearly injured she was emaciated she was she was the poorest of the poor and she was begging she was begging from her neighbors who were as poor as she is was for food and we come walking by and we start talking with her with our translators and as we get this conversation even the translator who's a Ugandan at one point I guess the cultural norms he got angry with her and started to strike her and I had to stop but we started talking and she welcomed us back to her hut in was her house she called it but it was no bigger than that bathroom in the back corner of the sanctuary and if you've ever been in there I'm not talking about the room I'm talking about the bathroom she could barely lay down inside this mud hut and so we start giving her our lunch and she's not complaining she's ecstatic to have food she was alone she was a widow no kids to take care of her she was begging to live destitute and God sends Elijah to a widow who was a bout to die with her last meal very similar circumstance what is God doing it says he commanded the widow to feed Elijah God sends Elijah to a widow who can't provide for him because Elijah is going to die if he doesn't get food and water the Brooks dried up what's God doing he puts in both in a position where they both know they can't survive and not just if they put their best team efforts together they can't survive if God doesn't do something we don't understand when we say God is for outsiders what it is we're saying because God sends Elijah not to somebody in Israel but outside Israel to sidon guess where sidon is that's where Jezebel is from he's sending Elijah into the heart of enemy territory to provide for a widow there now that would have shocked Elijah and it would have shocked a lot of the Israelites so much so well if God had been around in human form they might have tried to kill him you think I'm overstate in the case check out Luke 4 if you look at Luke 4 you can flip over there now or you can just look at it later but in Luke 4 Jesus comes to Nazareth his hometown and he starts saying a prophet has no honor in his hometown and as he preaches about it he he starts telling a story he picks a story now isn't it interesting that Jesus uses scripture he value scripture in this way even if you're not a Christian you respect Jesus as a teacher look at how he he thinks of the Bible he knows this story is obscure as it is in our thinking and he uses it to illustrate his point and he says Elijah in his day when there was a famine there was a drought in the land people were dying Israel like women and children were dying the chosen people of God but God didn't send him to one of them he sent he sent Elijah the representative the symbol of the word of God to the enemy to their widows to care for them I mean these are people that are standing there saying if you're really the Messiah if you're really a prophet show us do something prove it and Jesus tells him that story and then they they want to kill him they take him outside the city throw him off the cliff why why are they so shocked why are they so stunned because we are the Israelites we are the chosen people of God they've gotten arrogant about their position we are the insiders but they forgot the reason God chose him in the first place they weren't Egypt they weren't Samaria they weren't this big powerful country they were the backwards nobody's because God chooses the outsiders to bring in why because just like this woman in Elijah they know they can't do this by themselves he sends Elijah to a woman woman weren't respected in those days they were property and no rights to a poor woman to a pagan woman to a Gentile racial outsider he had offended them when Jesus told the story he'd heard years later they're angry at the thought that Jesus won't perform magic tricks for them right then because he came for Gentiles Jesus is telling Israel Israel the Jews he's coming for the outsider they used to be outsiders what happened see when we begin to think of our selves as insiders the problem that develops as we begin to think I've earned this I've accomplished something and when God comes in and says all your best efforts are squat we get angry if you went to lunch with me and we sat down and you unraveled your scroll of accomplishments no matter how nicely I said it no matter how we did it if I look across the table I said yeah that means jack squat to God you'd be mad we maybe be like well pastor should know better than that Elijah was not tactful he would say things straight up Jesus did the same thing if God comes to you and says all your best efforts are filthy rags as he says through Isaiah what does that do to you the Israelites said we are the special people we're God's chosen people we go to church we're church people of course we're good and deserve this see religious people hate this kind of talk when real grace is understood when we understand God comes to those who have nothing to offer him religious people get angry so let's lay this out because I'm talking about religion in a supposedly religious place as if it's a bad thing religion as when somebody says pull yourself together you can do this get you can fix yourself you can use God to fix yourself if you do what God asks if you follow the rules he'll bless you but the God of the Bible comes the gospel says oh no God comes to moral failures and saves people who can do nothing for themselves and unless you know you are a failure unless you know you're an outsider then you are going to be pushed outside that's the irony that God pushes out the insider and pulls in the outside that's the nature of grace now look when I was a youth pastor I remember we started talking about these things and people started to come to our youth ministry that church people didn't really it weren't really comfortable with there was a girl I'm in one of the first of this girl showed up and she had pier scenes and she was dressed inappropriately and she stood out in front of our youth building right across the street from the sanctuary where everybody could see and she purposefully just stood there and smoked and defied and she threw it down step on it rise everybody's coming in breathing their face just let you know I'm here and I remember I passed her now we're talking about it one day and he said you know I love that she is here and I'm like I do too I love that but then one day it hit me wait a minute wait a minute if God is the God of outsiders who might have he said I love that she is here what's wrong with me that I'm not looking in the mirror and going it is so cool that I get to be here do I not understand what he's done for me do I think he's done more for those kind of people than me and Ray Cortese said back when everything happened with Bill Clinton he had parents coming to him left and right saying pastor what are we going to do I mean what are we going to tell our parents about what president Clinton did and he looked at him he said that's not your problem that's not the issue what are you going to tell your kids about what you do that's what scares me no president no teacher in my son's life is going to matter nearly as much as what I do to mess up my son's life because he gets a nice big heavy dose of my issues of my sins of my mess and no matter how pretty and nice and dressed up I can look on a Sunday he sees right through that to the filth of every day do you understand that you're an outsider because I'll guarantee you that anybody that you let get close to you knows that God is a God for outsiders and if it offends you that he loves those people then you need to redraw the lines of your vocabulary because you might be on the wrong side of God's people if there are those people that God pushes out in your mind and it certainly looks like in scripture he's going after those then are you standing with God or you standing against him God loves to topple the idols of religious people a people who think they've got Jesus nailed maybe they do think about this with me if God is a God of grace if he is four outsiders then either my heart needs to be with the outsider because I know I'm one or I'm outside of God's grace do you know where you stand God is for the outsider then there's this really weird thing going on where he's also a God of justice look at look what's going on with this woman which he says she responds it's so weird you came and brought God's attention to my sin now I'm just going to admit something that I probably can't encourage you to do but I'm a big fan of the show lost and it's not that it's such a godly show that I should welcome it to your attention but I'm my life and I are kind of addicted to it and we've been watching it for these six seasons watching it develop it's a suspenseful show but these characters have emerged this sort of the center of the metaphysical realm behind everything the important people there's a Jesus character Jesus type character at least it seems named Jacob and there's a man in black who appears to be a satanic or if not Satan himself character and we're getting into the show and Jacob and the man in black are having a discussion one day they're kind of arguing and Jacob says you know I'm bringing these like why are you bringing all these people here and he says I'm bringing them here to prove to you that they're good and if you just give them a chance they'll prove it to you and the man in black black says no you're wrong and right in that moment I switch sides I couldn't help it I thought you know what the problem with Jacob is he doesn't have a biblical anthropology the Bible doesn't say people are inherently good it agrees with the Satan figure in lost that no they're they're inherently bad well that's not very popular in the modern world we say thing no no of course people are good I deserve I deserve a good life but that's not what a lie in this woman say this horrible thing happens and neither one of them say how dare you God how dare you do this the woman comes and says why don't you bring God's attention on me a sinner you exposed my sins killed my son and Elijah who's got the seminary degree who's the close one with God he runs upstairs she said did my sins kill him and he gathers the boy goes upstairs he's closer to God right he's got a better answer he has the exact same question is that what happened God now look there's three words here that I stress when I read it because to me it's very interesting in verse 17 some time later has my son died because of my wrongdoing why does she ask that question Elijah comes to her and gets a widow this is I mean this this should push on you in a lot of ways but he gets a widow who's about to die who's that pitiful to give him their last meal on the promise that God will provide and then he does and they're living off this miraculous situation where the flower should disappear every day and it doesn't and they have enough to eat and every day God's miraculous providence allows them to continue living now they don't have television what do you think Elijah living with this widow and her little boy he's obviously little because mama can carry him so I'm guessing under 10 what do you think they talk about it night they're not sitting around watching TV they got evenings with Elijah how does that go maybe that's why so you were like I don't know if I want the high towers over our house evenings with Elijah you know that's kind of awkward but they're doing life together which by the way is why we'd love to have come over and eat with you sometime you'll free there's a sign up online I mean to give you a commercial but there it is we'd love to come eat with you but that's the thing is she sitting there with Elijah what are you going to talk about we should be dead people around us are dying there's a drought what in the world and Elijah sitting there talking and from what she says and I'm speculating a little but from what she says it sounds like what they've been talking about is the living God Yahweh Elijah's God the Elijah says you know look at how God's providing for us so miraculously I would love to bring this kind of good news to everybody I would love to bring the promises of God to everybody but I got to go to people like Ahab and tell them horrible horrible things and watch people suffer I got to bring these warnings warning after warning I feel like King Midas everything I touch just dies and that's exactly how she responds when her boy dies what in the world I mean why would God provide for my family and then take him away why would he give life and then take it away and Elijah doesn't have a ready made answer but he knows this God is in need of one of them question God is utterly in control did this happen under God's sovereignty neither one of them say how dare you God maybe God was looking the other way they both say is it the sin and Elijah goes upstairs and ask God that question but he's also throwing himself on the hope that the same God who provided will do something else let me let me pull back a little bit on this I want to give you guys a sense of the the cross over here if God has a right to do this and it's sin that's brought this about mama saying is it my sin that killed my boy one pastor I listened to a lot said when his boy was eight years old he was in the ER he was in deep trouble he was it looked like they were going to lose him and he said I went to God I went after him I said I know I'm the biggest sinner in this house Jesus I know my sin is the biggest problem don't take my boy take me this is about me and my sins don't put that on my boy take me I think that's what's going on here with this mama I'm the biggest sinner in this house I'm the biggest problem now what's interesting is she knows somebody's got to pay for her sins as Romans tells us the wages of sin is death but who's going to pay she gets the boy back they're throwing themselves up to God to say please please but they know as we've already said they got nothing to bargain with so why in the world would they hope on that I mean either you've got a God of grace or you've got a God of justice but how can you have both either God wants the payment or nobody has to pay how do you have both and that's what's popular in our society people will say well got my God loves everybody I don't believe in one of those God doesn't love everybody it's seminary we got this conversation all the time and every time one name would come up what do you do with Hitler what are you going to do now if your God loves everybody you love Hitler because if you really want to say God loves everybody includes everybody that means God includes Hitler even as he's killing people is that really love is that all-inclusive love so beautiful that he's not going to do anything about the horrible atrocities Hitler was doing and it becomes pretty obvious quickly that that's not real love there's no cost to that love there's no definition that loves not even willing to say no for the sake of another but then you got the God of justice the severe God is a woman said to me once I don't believe in a God of fear and guilt why not because he's distant I have to be away from him there's no love in that
so we're saying God is gracious and he's just how you're going to put these two things together
that's what Elijah does here we have a God who has four outsiders we have a God who judges but we have a God who covers over look at this this little boy Elijah comes up and lays out on top of him what do you make of that it's just weird that Elijah would stretch himself out over the top of this boy and cry out for God first of all prayer is not real popular these days but if we're going to talk about what intercessory prayer is if these kinds of things would happen when we talked to thing up in the sky amorphous hazy being that I can't see a lot more people would pray Elijah's talking to a living God who does something he intercedes on behalf of this child do we believe in prayer and James tells us that if we pray like Elijah we can expect the living God to do things oh that's dangerous for us okay let's press it out what is Elijah doing when he lays down on top of this boy he's lived with this family for a while what happens when you live some place with somebody watch their day-to-day interactions if you don't go to hate them you enter in and Elijah may have been shocked at being with the pagans before but I'm sure he began to love this little boy and he was shocked by the loss of life but he lays himself out hand-to-hand face-to-face on top he stretches out now it just so happens that last week we preached on the end of John which references what stretching out is I don't want to be an agronistic this passage doesn't have crucifixion in mind directly but that's what it was for Peter to be stretched out and as we said last time to be if you stretch your arms out you're in a position of vulnerability at the very least Elijah is laying with himself over this child what's he saying to God I think he's saying the same thing the mom was saying God take me instead take me instead of this little boy the Hebrew word for a tone literally means to cover over and that's what Elijah had done he covered over this boy take me instead of him what does God tells us in Deuteronomy 24 you can't die for his sins you're a sinner every person's got to die for their own sins what's he asking and how does he get him back see in Luke 7 there was another widow and she was pushing along her grown boy and Jesus looked up and saw them and his heart went out to them he walked over and he put his hand on the coffin and they stopped and you know why they stopped when he put his hand on the coffin because you don't touch dead things if you're a Jew it makes you unclean you can't go to the temple it's inappropriate everybody freezes and watches what Jesus does here as he stands here and he says to her don't cry just like Elijah he entered in emotionally their situation but more than that he looks at him and he says get up now Elijah has to scream to God to make that phone call please God but Jesus doesn't have to scream he just says get up see Elijah is calling out to the one who has the power to raise the dead but Jesus is the one who has the power to raise the dead he doesn't have to make a phone call he just does it why I mean I can't help but think he was thinking of his own mom but even more than that he's thinking of the loss here the separation I mean this widow is going to be destitute this is her social security gone she has nothing to live off of but more than that he's thinking of what he's going to do see this mom is saying please let me die for my son and God says no you can't die for your son it has to be perfect only my son can die for your sins my son will die so that your son can live
when Amanda and I first moved to Chattanooga this couple named Bill and Ann Allen an elderly couple today were the first ones to take us out the lunch and we loved them they they were the last ones to take us out the lunch they from beginning to end of our time there they just loved on us and Bill had served in Marine Corps in World War II and actually had been on Iwo Jima with my grandfather they didn't know each other but because that I love to be with Bill and hear his stories about the war so I heard him tell many times I heard him tell it in front of a lot of people but there was one story he would always tell every time he shared about coming up on the island of Iwo and those of you who know your World War II history you know that was basically the Pacific theaters Normandy was horrible lots of loss of life and he was placed in the front of the boat coming up on the island but he was a translator for Japanese and so at the last moment his commander grabbed him pulled him back and said you're with me in case we run into enemy I want you to translate and put one of his buddies up in his spot they hit the beach the front went down his friends stepped off and immediately was shot and killed now every time Bill Allen tells that story I watch him tear up and cry and he says he took my place he died in my place like my savior did
now we've heard pretty stories like that before but the reason Bill would always cry when he told that story is because it was real to him he watched it happen he saw what Christ paid for him through another look at what this lady says in verse 24 now I know Jesus might have been a story you've heard before when you encounter that he did it and he did it for you that he covers over your sin and what you deserve that's what changes this I mean we said it two weeks ago during communion in the evening those of you weren't here when the tornado went through that Nikki Bradshaw Carpenter she covered over her children as the debris came in and killed her so that her kids would live that's what Jesus does he think those kids will ever think of mama the same way they had no idea the depth of her love they had no idea when you pass through the waters I will be with you the wind in the waves will not consume you when you pass through the fire you'll not be burned do not fear for I have redeemed you I have called you by name you are mine it's personal that he died for us now listen this mother's day and it is tough for people who have lost their mama or who've never been able to be a mother even though they wanted to over lost their kids and the objection jumps to mine why not my kid Russ what in the world is God doing that he gives back this widow her kid and not mine it's personal think with me Elijah had to leave there maybe a year or two later who knows what happens to this little boy maybe they had a couple more years together maybe a tragic accident happens maybe he lives out for a while but he still had to die what now
is it just the same old same old that death wins again like what happened before God brought Elijah there but then oh well he died again did Elijah lose out in the end so Jesus didn't come to give a temporary victory he came to give victory over death permanently and all these other stories in the Bible they're not that common there's only about 10 of them but all these other stories in the Bible they're just resuscitations we need to be careful as we talk about that it's a resurrection backward these people still have to die Lazarus still has to die this widow's son still has to die there's only been one resurrection where someone never had to die again it's a resurrection forward it's what Christ is up to if you have lost it's important not to hear oh well you missed yours what Christ does is to redeem all of creation all of creation so that I can't miss out so that your family and my family can't miss out and that God didn't come just to give mama back her little boy God's little boy died to give us back everything as it was meant to be and the reason that you love mama on mama's day is to the degree that she's a good mama she dies every day so that you would thrive and live and once you know that Christ has died to give you life that can't be lost then you're going to do what Elijah did and stretch yourself out another people identify with them and give yourself away and be able to die because you can't lose that's the calling of God's people that's the calling of mama's that's the calling of everyone who knows they're an outsider brought in who doesn't deserve it but is given life that widows racial outsiders gender outsiders money outsiders cultural outsiders are brought into God's family and they can't be lost and that's why we die I want to know that kind of life let's pray Jesus you died to bring us back we are under the delusion that these other things that we do that these other gods we clamor after these dead things will make us alive and they're just killing us bring us back to life Lord as we celebrate our moms as we celebrate the sacrifices they've made for us let it point us to you that even as you said Jerusalem Jerusalem how I long to gather you like a hen gathers her chicks that you covered over us Lord the you took the hit so that we would come up from the grave and be alive or help us to taste life so that we can give it away that we can be stretched out over others that we can see that this is not the end but you are fixing this world make us alive Lord in a way that we could die every day and people would look and praise who you are we pray in your name amen