Children, Lost Sheep, and Forgiveness in the Church

This morning is the second sermon in our series on Your Changing Body. Last week we saw the need for maturity from Ephesians 4. There we looked at the two things God has given us — knowledge and community, and how both bring us to maturity. This week, I want to continue looking at community. Jesus' fourth discourse in Matthew specifically addresses our life in the church, telling us what sort of community we ought to build. The community that grows us up to maturity has three major characteristics according to Jesus. In one sense, this is just an elaboration of Paul's quick summary: the Church community speaks the truth in love and connects with one another. This discourse of Jesus explains more of what it looks like to speak the truth in love, and how to stay connected in the face of sin within the community. It takes up all of ch. 18, and it leads us through the place of children in the church, why and how to go after the lost one in the church, and forgiveness in the church. Obviously we are going to have skim over this text; I'm not going to attempt to address every facet of our text this morning. But I hope to show you that we need to love children, seek our lost brother, and forgive those who sin against us, because all of these things reflect our Father's love for children, His mission to seek the lost, and His forgiveness for us.