The Good Samaritan

SERMON: 2009-11-23--lk1009b--the-good-samaritan SOURCE DURATION: 00:51:29.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.90 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the main sermon exposition ([0] through [31]). The material at the end, including prayers and final declarations/songs ([537] onwards), constitutes the concluding elements (benediction/pastoral application) of the overall recorded message. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:49:03.700-00:51:28.180 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- I want to come back, as I said this morning, to the story of the Good Samaritan. It's recorded for us in Luke chapter 10, and that's a very interesting thing because Luke is the only gospel who tells us the parable of the Good Samaritan. Did you know that? And there's a reason for that. Because Luke was the sidekick to the Apostle Paul. And the Apostle Paul had a ministry to whom? To the Gentiles. And Paul's mandate was wherever he went, God had said to him, "You start with the Jews," that is the people who were brought up religiously, "when they reject your message, that is your clue to go to the Gentiles." And so if you read Luke's gospel through that perspective, then you will see that Luke hardly misses an opportunity, and that's a strange way of putting it, but he hardly misses an opportunity to shine the light on the hypocrisy of religious people in his day. Read Luke's gospel once with that in mind, and you'll see a fascinating pattern. For those of you not with us this morning and perhaps not familiar with the story, a quick reread of it in Luke chapter 10. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side, so too a Levite. When he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, took care of him, and the next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him, he said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. And then Jesus asked this question of the lawyer, who started this conversation by asking him, what must I do to be saved? Jesus says to him, which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? The expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy on him, and Jesus told him, go and do likewise. And as we take a few moments tonight then to again reflect on this story, there's just a couple of things that I want to point out that are very obvious in this very familiar story, but rather powerful. And the first is the attitude of the priest and the Levite. Notice how they pass by on the other side. Verse 31, a priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, that is the man lying on the side of the road, beat up by the robbers, he passed by on the other side. So too a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. Now remember, priests were servants of God in the temple, and the Levites were the assistants serving God in the temple. So here's the picture, they see this man lying there, and Jesus makes a deliberate point of mentioning, they passed him by, why? The text doesn't tell us, but it's not hard to speculate. Number one, they lacked compassion. Any human being confronted by another human being in desperate need of his life would want to stop by and help that person. As a matter of fact, the province of Quebec in this country has legislation that says, if you refuse to help somebody in that place of need, you can be held criminally liable. They pass by because they have no compassion, and because number two, they clearly don't want to get involved. Why don't they want to get involved? Well they don't want to get their hands dirty because they are afraid of being unclean. As you see, according to Old Testament regulation, if you touched a dead body or got yourself mixed up in somebody else's trouble, then of course ritually you were unclean. Now here's the interesting thing about this story. What direction are they traveling? They're traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho. Remember Jerusalem is elevated in Israel, and Jericho is much lower in elevation, and so the Bible always talks about going up to Jerusalem physically and going down to Jericho. Now here's the interesting thing. If they were on their way to Jerusalem, the argument could be made, "I'm on my way to church, I've got a job to do, I can't afford to get my hands dirty, and I've got to focus on the worship of God." But they were going the other way. Whatever they did in Jerusalem was already done, and they simply didn't want to get their hands dirty, they didn't want to take the risk of being involved in somebody's messy life. And what Jesus has to say about that, as you can appreciate, is not all that good, just in case you missed it. So contrast that now with the behavior of the good Samaritan. The text goes on to say, "But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him, he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense that you may have.'" Now who are the Samaritans? Well, the Jews didn't like the Samaritans very much, you will recall. And you can find a description of who the Samaritans are back in the Old Testament in Second Kings, Chapter 17, where you discover that the king of Assyria took a number of people from different countries and relocated them to Israel in this place called Samaria, which is sort of in the middle of the country. And the reason for that is that as you mix up a people and a population, you break their union and their will, and they're much easier to subjugate. So these people were pagans. And when they got to Samaria, they all worshiped their own gods, but they got into big trouble. And so God sent lions to them to kill them, and the king of Assyria, if you read that story in Second Kings, Chapter 17, hears about all of this, and he says, "We've got to send them a prophet who used to live in that country so they can be taught the ways of the God of the country." And so they do. And so the Samaritans become a people who, on the one hand, start worshiping the God of Israel, but on the other hand, they continue to worship all their own gods. And you can imagine how well that went over with Israel after the captivity. The one thing they had learned back then was that they could not afford to commit idolatry. And so you know from the Gospels, the tension between Jews and Samaritans was incredible. So here's the Samaritan, and he is traveling down the road, and here he finds this person by the side of the road, all beat up by the robbers. Notice clearly what Jesus says concerning the Samaritan. The first thing Jesus says, "As the Samaritan came where the man was, he saw him." Interesting, isn't it? Not just seeing him, I think, physically, not just turning your eye away and pretending you don't know. No, no. He saw him. Not only did he see him, but it goes on to say he had pity on him. So here you've got this person whose theology, at the very best, is terribly mixed up. This person whom the Jews really, just really dislike because they haven't got the doctrine too straight. He has pity on this dude. And then the Bible says he goes to him and he provides emergency aid. He went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and then it goes on to say he provides long-term care. He puts him on his donkey, takes him to the inn, pays the money, says, "Look after him, and when I come back, I'll reimburse you for any extra expense that he may have." And then, notice Jesus's reaction, "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" And the expert of the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." You can just feel the dude's resentment. Can't even call him a Samaritan because this is just offensive. And so here's Jesus, in the words of Luke, criticizing the priest and the Levite who are servants of God most high. And here is this half-breed Samaritan, and Jesus commends him. The Bible ends the story with the words, "Go, and do likewise." A very familiar story, not terribly complicated, but full of some very powerful lessons, and in the time that we have, let me try to just quickly run these by you. Number one, what do we learn from this story? Well, you know, sometimes pagans have more compassion than God's people. Did you know that? Sometimes pagans have more compassion than God's people. I'll never forget years ago, would have been what, Michelle, 1979 when we traveled across the country from Alberta to take up a pastoral charge in Nova Scotia. It was early spring, end of March, beginning of April. We thought we'd make a little detour to PEI to see the family on the way to the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. It was early evening, it was dark and misty, it was before the confederation, a bridge was built. We had just come off the ferry when we hit the mother of all potholes. I thought the whole Bloomen car was going to disappear. Our right wheel hit this pothole, the hubcap went flying off into the distance, the tire was shredded and the rim was ruined. So we pulled off the road, and to my pleasant amazement and surprise, there's a car behind us with two men in it, and they pulled over right behind us. One guy ran off to find the hubcap, the other guy took charge of unloading our trunk, getting the spare tire out, changed the tire, put us back on the road, and I said, "Thank you, God, I think we just saw two angels." Rolled the clock forward, it's now years later, we're living in Ontario. We are again traveling to PEI. We are half an hour this side of Frederick to New Brunswick. It's early evening, it's dark, and all of a sudden we come upon an accident scene that has just happened, and there is debris lying all over the road. So I'm trying to skirt around all the big pieces of this, and finally brought the car to a halt, and we got out to see if there was any damage because of all the pieces that we had gone over, and the car seemed to be okay, but as we listened carefully, we heard this hissing sound, as in, "Ssss." What does that remind you of? That is a tire that is having more than a little trouble. So we go checking out, and sure enough, the left rear tire has picked up this metal screw, and it's clearly leaking air. Now remember, when all these cross-country trips, you've got a trunk full of stuff, and this particular car only has one of these little donut tires, and we have hours to go before you go to P.I. Now we're studying the little book, and the little book says, "You can only drive the car this far, so what are we going to do? Go to all the effort of putting this thing on, knowing that we're not going to make it all the way anyway, or do we just keep on driving?" Half an hour to go. Well, we're brave, we get in the car, and we drive, and you know, you hear the thing clicking on the road, you hear the air hissing, and we're all very quiet, and just really tense, and just waiting for that tire to let go of the rim, right, and then you know that you're stuck. So anyway, we make it to the Irving Big Stop, close to Fredericton, but it's now eight o'clock or later, and everything is closed. What do we do? It's too far, according to the book, to drive to P.I. on the little donut tire. So you know, we're, Lord help, we're talking to the guy there who has a connection with a guy who runs a tire shop. So can you believe it? Calls this guy up at home and says, "We've got people here who have a problem." And so this dude gets into his truck, drives to his shop, invites us to meet him there, the tire is still holding out, getting very low now, but it hasn't let go of the rim yet. And he not only repairs the tire, but then when he's all done and we offer to pay him, he says, "It's free of charge, it's on the house, go your way in peace." And I'm not saying tonight that there aren't Christians who would be equally anxious and willing to serve, but you know just as well as I do that sometimes Christians are so caught up in the high and mighty realities of spiritual things, they're so spiritually minded that they're no earthly good. And it's a tragedy in this story that the priest and the Levite, who of all people have stood in the presence of God and who of all people should have been transformed by God's presence and by God's power, they pass by on the other side because they can't see the connection between having a relationship with God and having a relationship with her neighbor. And you know the verse from 1 John chapter 3 we quoted fairly often around here, "If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" And the implied answer is what? It doesn't. And so John goes on to say in the next verse, "Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in deed and truth. Sometimes to our shame, pagans have more compassion than God's people." Second lesson we learn I think from this story is that helping people means getting involved and it means getting your hands dirty. Verse 34 again, "The good Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds." He didn't just pass by on the other side, no, no, he saw him, he had pity on him, but then he took the risk of getting involved and getting involved means getting dirty with the world's crud, do you know that? And I wonder if you would allow me to just vent a little bit here while I'm on this topic because this is a sore point with me about many of God's people, hopefully not about this church, but sometimes we become so religiously pure and so high and mighty about living according to the law that when we are confronted by the ugliness of the world, we avert our eyes, we walk on by, we refuse to engage because we don't want to get our hands dirty. You know I've had a number of people come to me over the years every so often and one of the services will talk about sex and sexuality, right? And we do that I think in an honorable context and in a biblical setting, but sometimes I've had parents come to me and they are upset because they don't want their kids hearing these stories and they don't want their kids' minds to be polluted by the talk of sexuality. Now I respect parents and parents' right to know their children and to protect their children, but you know, and I'm a parent and so are many of you here, but I'll tell you something, I would rather have my kid learn about sex and sexuality in a church setting where there is a biblical value that is applied than out with their friends or out at some movie or watching some video or running around with their friends. Because fact of the matter is they're going to learn what there is to learn about the natural curiosities of life and you and I we need to be prepared to step into the nitty gritty of life. We don't have to, the genius of Jesus, listen to this, the genius of Jesus is that he can mix with sinners and publicans and he is so secure in his own relationship with God that he doesn't worry about getting dragged into sin with them. He felt more comfortable in the presence of Jesus than the worst of the worst of sinners and yet Jesus was able to maintain his own integrity and his own walk with God and yet involve himself in the messes of people's lives all around him. It takes getting your hands dirty. We were talking this morning as you know about the whole minister of healing and restoration and if we were to tell you stories of lives that some of us have had to invest ourselves in and messy places that we have gotten ourselves into, you would understand what it is that I'm talking about when I say it troubles me sometimes when we want to keep our hands so clean that we can't afford to invest in the struggles and the burdens and the messiness of other people's lives if God is really God and if he really lives in our heart and his compassion lives in our heart then with prudence and with wisdom as the Lord leads we can step into these kinds of situations and know that God's grace will keep us. The world needs a church that knows how to step into their places, take them by the hand and lead them to Jesus. Would you not agree? So sometimes the pagans have more compassion than God's people did. Having compassion stepping into people's situation means that sometimes we have to get our hands dirty and when we get our hands dirty then there is always a price to pay. Have you noticed in this story the cost borne by the good Samaritan? First of all it cost him his oil and his wine, it cost him his bandages and then it cost him two silver coins and then it cost him whatever extra expense the innkeeper was going to charge and that is not to mention his time and his effort. There is a cost at getting involved in ministry and there is a cost involved in investing your life in a neighbor whose marriage is falling apart or a friend who is struggling with an illness or a person who is deeply troubled and traumatized emotionally or somebody whose life is just off the rails because it means you are going to get caught up in their world and in their pain and in their brokenness and we were talking this morning about the difference between a community model of healing and ministry and a clinical model and had we more time we would have said more things about that. We respect the clinical model, we don't criticize the clinical model but we recognize its limitations. I sit in my office, you come see me, you pay me a hundred and some for an hour and you go on your way and that's okay, a lot of people get helped in that way but you know just as well as I do that crises seldom happen by the clock, do you know that? When people are freaking out they can't always wait until office hours, it doesn't always work to take an aspirin and come see me next Monday, no in fact most crises happen on the fly and most effective ministry takes place in those moments and one of the reasons we need a community that stands together in that is that it takes teams of people to walk things through. In one of my books I talk about sets, support empathy and truth, support somebody that comes alongside a broken person and takes care of the groceries or pays the bills or otherwise helps me in places where I'm crashing, I can't hold a job, empathy, somebody who can allow me to own my feelings, somebody who can tell me they hurt with me and they cry with me, so important and truth because at some point somebody's got to speak into my life and to say listen I can pay your bills forever and I can cry with you forever but sooner or later you're going to have to make some choices to get out of the place where you find yourself. The ministry that we have found incredibly effective over the years in this place and there are stories upon stories that I wish we had time to share with you but the ministry that we have found incredibly effective is a ministry where you can have teams of people standing side by side and somebody will do the practical work, they'll drive the person to the hospital for tests, they'll come into your home and they'll cook your food or they'll provide your needs or they'll hear your story and they weep with you so that you feel heard and understood maybe for the first time in your life and somebody who loves you enough to say listen all the pity in the world isn't going to change your situation, you've got to take responsibility what you can take responsibility for and then you'll get better for the glory of God. See there is a cost involved in investing yourself in somebody's life and then it also involves a risk because have you noticed that in stopping to tend to this dude lying by the side of the road this good Samaritan takes upon himself significant liability, how come that guy is lying there, the robbers beat him up, well how does he know the robbers aren't watching and ready to pounce on him, this is obviously a man of significant means, he'd be a good catch if they stripped the other guy naked imagine the benefit that they would have if they beat the tar out of him, not only that but you've got the liability of what if this guy dies on me, is this family going to sue me, maybe they will, maybe they will blame it on me and on and on the story goes in terms of the risk that is being taken besides that his journey is getting interrupted, now we don't know where his wife is but knowing what wives are like, spouses are like, listen the price that is paid for people engaging in ministry is not paid so much by the people that are doing the ministry I want you to understand that, it is paid by the spouses and by the family so here is his wife let's just paint the scenario a little bit, she's expecting this dude home for supper, she's cooked up the best roasted lamb that she could come up with, the table is lit with candles and she's got a romantic evening all figured out in her mind and there she sits and sits and sits and steams because this guy is not showing up and he's not keeping his promise, can you imagine what awaits him when he finally walks in the house, he's got a little crisis management of his own to take care of, you see there is a risk involved in investing yourself in ministry, every time you step out and you try to help somebody whether that's physically, emotionally or spiritually there is a whole series of risks that you're stepping out into, there is the risk of being taken advantage of, I don't know how many of you remember my story of a fellow by the name of Guy Beauchamp, we're in Nova Scotia, I'm always preaching to God's people for God's people to open up their hearts, I hate it when I get tested on this, it is a Tuesday night and again it is raining, I don't know what it is about rain, I get a phone call from a guy who is at a service station a couple of miles down the road, says he's from Regina, claims to have Christian reformed connections and is on his way to Newfoundland where his father is dying and could I please come and pick him up and help him along, well it's always a tug of war for those of us who are in that kind of ministry, you know you don't want to be taken advantage of but you don't want to turn a blind eye either, sometimes you entertain angels in a way or so, I get in my car and I go toodling out there and I pick him up and bring him over to my house, it's a Tuesday night, we're just about to have supper, we feed him, I remember he was incredibly hungry and not very well mannered in his eating but it was quite a sight to be old, but it's a Tuesday night and Tuesday night is Bible study night and I was not about to leave this dude home alone with my wife, so I take him along to the Bible study, whereupon he immediately, I kid you not, he immediately confesses Christian conversion and the rest of my Bible study group day were just ecstatic, oh God you're using us and look at how wonderful this is and I'm sitting there a little more sober, sceptically minded because I don't trust this guy any further than I can throw him, anyway we bring him back home, he spends the night at our place and by now of course he wants money, so I give him $20 out of my own pocket, make him sign an IOU just so you know. So I drop him off at the highway going east because remember where is he going, he's going to Newfoundland to be with his dying father, weeks pass by and I hear from one of the guys in our church, wouldn't you know it, they've picked this dude up hitchhiking, going you think in what direction, going west and so I knew then that my $20 was lost but roll the clock forward, I'm now in Belleville and we've been here for some years and on another stormy night I get a phone call from a guy in the, you know that service center across from the Ten Acre truck stop and it's the same song and dance, he's Christian Reformed and he has all these Christian Reformed connections and I'm saying to myself this voice sounds awfully familiar and I've got an IOU in my pocket, so I'm going to go find him. I go toodling out there and sure enough, wouldn't you know it, it's my good friend, Guy Beauchamp, he doesn't recognize me but I surely recognize him and I said to him, "Guy, I want my $20 back from you." Well he wants me to take him to the next service center on the 401 going east and I say, "No deal, I'll take you back to Belleville and I'll drop you off at the police station." I have no idea what's become of him since but I have no longer had any calls from Guy Beauchamp. Christians always run the risk of being taken advantage of. John and Henry were at the information center last week when in comes somebody that we know well around here because he often asks for handouts and John didn't know what to do and he pulled out a 20 from his wallet and I said to him, "John you should have made him sign an IOU." Not only that, but you know sometimes you get your love thrown back in your faces. You know what it's like with your kids? You know, you look after them and you feed them and you love them and every so often they'll get into one of these places where they hate you and they hate the whole world and they don't remember one good thing that you've done, they throw it back in your face. Julia tells me she was in conversation with somebody in this congregation the other day who said to her, "You know, I don't remember one good thing that you've done for me in the last 10 years." That's a person who had an intense investment of Julia's time and effort. If that doesn't hurt you, then you ain't got a heart and Valerie had a young couple that she has invested in for whom she repeatedly dropped everything to be there and to help them out and apart from her ministry to them, they would not be where they are today. She was in conversation with this couple the other day and you'll never believe what this woman said to her. She said to her, "Words to this effect, you know, you really should have observed better boundaries. When I called for you and you dropped everything to come over to me, what you should probably have done was told me just to pray about it, urge to kill, urge to kill. If you've ever had your love, imagine in this story about the Good Samaritan, the guys lying there bleeding all over the place. It sounds so blue and spiritual. Why don't you just pray about it and maybe God will help you? Well maybe I'm his hands and his feet and I can't expect God to do what he's called me to do and we don't ask for a lot of gratitude. You know, I think this is probably what hurts God the most with his creation. The way that he gives us life, the way that he pours himself into us and blesses us beyond imagination. And you and I and certainly all the rest of the world, what do we do? Thanks God but no thanks, I don't need you. I throw his love back in his face. We crucify the son of God afresh. And you have no idea how much pain there is in the heart of God about that. Until you've put yourself in a situation where with a child or with a friend or somebody that you've walked with, you have given them everything you know how to give. And at the moment when you would most expect at least the honesty of recognizing that in a fit of rage or pain, they throw it back in your face and you say to yourself what in the world am I doing this for? And the temptation and the tendency then is to close your heart off, to back off, and to play it safe and to say I'm never going to get my hands dirty, I'm never going to invest my life in anybody else's life, I will just live in an antiseptic world where I can make my own safety my highest priority. And church after church around the world I want you to know has chosen to live that way because they're scared to death of getting into trouble. I'm not a masochist. I don't like getting into trouble. I don't like exposing you to liabilities. The rest of our staff doesn't like exposing you to liabilities. And we spent a whole year reviewing what we have reviewed upside down backwards and frontwards so as to try to make sure that in as much as it depends on us, we're covered and we're wise and we're secure. But I'll tell you something, you can't write enough rules and you can't pass enough legislation that will ever guarantee that you won't get into trouble if you're going to have a heart that is open to the needs of the lost and the last and the least. And I made up my mind a long time ago, and you don't have to join me in this if you don't want to. I made up my mind a long time ago, there are some things that are worth dying for. Not a lot, but some things. And for me, one of the things that is worth dying for is to invest my life in those who are far from God, far from the kingdom, step into their messy world as the good Samaritan did, carry them off to the inn, pour wine and oil and bandage them all up, no matter the cost, no matter the price, why? Because at the end of the day, one life redeemed, one life restored is more than worth it all. And I want you to know there are people alive in this congregation today who humanly speaking would be dead if it wasn't for the fact that some of us, by God's grace, had the courage to step into their lives, stop what we were doing, poured on the wine and the oil and the bandage, loaded them on our donkey, took them to the inn and nurtured them until they came to life. And one such person is Sharon. Most of you know her. She's a Matthewsson now, raised in this congregation, outwardly perhaps looked like in many ways that she had it all together, but the broken people aren't just out there. I hope you know that. They are just as much in here as out there. Sometimes we just hide it a little better. And Sharon had the privilege of entering into our relationship with Valerie and with Valerie's family, and Sharon's going to come up and just tell you a bit about her journey so that we can share together in the delight of a life that has been transformed by God's grace and by God's power. So forgive me because I don't do public speaking very well, so I'm very nervous, but I do want to share what's on my heart tonight. So most of you may know me, but for those of you that don't, my name is Sharon Matthewsson, formerly an Inkelsman. I've been attending Maranatha since I was a year old and became a member in 2001. My family attended this church, and so I've grown up in this community, and it's no secret to most of you that our family has had its struggles. In fact, that was a shame for me for many years and maybe still now that some people had looked down on us because it felt like people knew about our messes and that things weren't always great for my parents and that my brothers and I were picked on at school and we just never really seemed to have it together. I always wanted to break out of that, but always felt trapped. How did a little girl create her own identity when her world around her was chaotic and unstable? But God was working in all of that, even in those early stages when I felt like God never heard my cries. My little girl prayers from the back fields of our property that God would send someone to help me, someone to show me that someone was bigger. Now I love my parents and I know that they love me. We've gone through so much together and apart, and God is making us new. He has done so much already and is continuing to do so, and it's amazing, and I look forward to what He has ahead for us. When I hit my teenage years, I so wanted to fit in, to be accepted. I tried to make friends that I thought were the right people to give me the status that I wanted. I made choices that weren't acceptable to my parents and had a desire to rebel against them because I felt like they didn't have the right to speak in my life anymore. I was so broken and so hurting and so desperate. I tried drugs, I drank at parties to try to numb my pain and overdosed and had two stays at the hospital. I'm not proud of that and am ashamed, but I don't wish for that circumstance to change because it was then that God sent Valerie into my life. Someone had recommended her to my mom, so we went to go see her at the center. I was embarrassed that I was seeing a counselor and tried to put up an "I don't care" attitude with her at the first meeting. I sat slouched like I didn't want to be there and wanted this over with, but underneath it all, I was hoping that maybe she would see deeper, that she would meet the huge aching that I had in my heart, and she did, and I can't explain it other than that it was a God thing. I fought the tears and tried to hold up my front, but when she hugged me on the way out the door, I knew that God was breaking me and bringing some comfort to my place of spiritual and emotional agony. It was such a relief, but scary at the same time because I knew I was being exposed. It was obvious that God was giving her eyes to see me. It was from there on that I began to see God's Father heart towards me. God used Valerie in such a major way. I lived with her since that last night at the hospital, which was my last year of high school, January of 2001. I secretly wanted to stay there forever, but thought that that would never last, that she'd get to know me and chuck me out the door. I remember sitting at the top of her stairs trying to listen to her conversations downstairs so that I could be sure that she didn't want me, that I was too much and too difficult to deal with, at which time I would reject her before she rejected me. But that never happened. I grew and she grew in the relationship. She challenged me at the right times to grow and become my own person, identified by God and nobody else. She encouraged me but never pushed. If I said I wasn't ready, we'd let it be for a time. When she knew I needed a boost to move forward, she gave me that encouragement. We fought and we argued and that allowed me to engage in difficult circumstances without crumbling all over again. She held me to the choices that I made and I faced the consequences. When I thought I'd surely get chucked, I wasn't. Even when I went out running late at night causing her to go out driving looking for me, I saw the pain in her eyes when I entered the front door. She said she loved me enough to fight for me and I was shocked that someone would want to fight for me. Or when I went to Niagara Falls late one night with an almost stranger and scared myself. A lot of things could have gone differently but by God's grace I was kept safe. I was so scared to come back home but what I received was her genuine love and concern for me. Those were certainly turning points in my life where God rewrote some of those messed up things I believed about myself and others. I later found that I was growing sensitive to others and to my family, that God was giving me new opportunities and that God was showing me a new journey that looked way better than the one that I was on. I lapped up everything I could from the beta groups I attended and delved into my personal healing journey and relationship with God. I took seriously the changes that needed to be made in my life, releasing my past and embracing my own future. I can hardly believe that God has brought me from rags to riches and that is honestly how I feel. I attended college and then university at Western and in my last year there I met Mike Matthewson. When I finally had the courage to tell him my story, he was not shocked or disgusted which is what I thought was the reaction I'd get. Instead he listened and thanked me for sharing and never seemed appalled by my choices, mistakes or shame. God certainly knew what I needed and Mike has been all of that and has blessed me so much. If Valerie hadn't taught me how to trust and to allow myself to be cared for, I would not be able to allow Mike to love me the way he should. He is certainly big enough for me and allows me to be whole and fully who I am. God has been so faithful and loving towards me and although I didn't see it before I now see that he has had his hand upon me. If it wasn't for Valerie's passion to see me through to new life and allowing God to use her in such a huge way, I would not be the woman I am today. I mean who invests themselves into someone's life as much as she has, who lets someone into their home and a part of their everyday life the way she has done for me. She had her own young daughter at home as well and what a sacrifice they have given in order to give me a place to be, to grow in a healthy relationship and a safe environment. I know that I can never repay her for what she has done for me, but I am forever thankful. I know that we are kindred spirits alike in so many ways and truly this path is paved by God himself because I would have never dreamed this. Thank you Valerie for your compassion and for so willingly offering me your heart and home. Thank you for believing in this ministry here because you and I both know I would be dead at the gutter somewhere if it hadn't been for someone to take me by the hand and show me God's father heart, God is so faithful. Pray with me, Father you so loved the world that you sent your only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life and Lord tonight I'm just so incredibly grateful that when we were lying by the side of the road, beat up, stripped naked, bereft of life itself almost, you came and you saw us and you not only saw us but you had pity on us and then you came to us in the person of Jesus and you got involved, you stepped into our world and at an incredibly great cost you secured our redemption and Lord what a risk you took and how often each of us has thrown your love back in your face and how we regret that and Lord how we thank you that once we have tasted your saving grace, your love living in us enables us to see the brokenness in the shadow of the steeple. Thank you for Sharon's story, thank you for Valerie and Jessica's investment in her life, thank you Lord for a community of new beginnings, a place where we don't have to pay forever for all the things that we have done wrong and the missteps we have taken because Jesus already paid it all and we pray that this will be such a place filled with grace, so filled with grace that Lord in the shadow of this building, the last and the lost and the least will not only be found, will not only be healed but will also be equipped and released and Lord I see Sharon standing up here today, radiant with her pregnancy, married to Michael who is fully committed to serving you in his ministry and Lord I can't do anything but just bow before you and say how great is our God, how great is our God. [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:49:03.700; remove through 00:51:29.000] So come Lord Jesus, just encourage and empower us for your glory, in Jesus [CUT] name, amen. We will cross every border, grow wide every door, joining our hands across the nations, we'll proclaim Jesus is Lord. We will pray sin's oppression, speak out for the poor, announce the coming of Christ's kingdom, from east to west and shore to shore, we will gather in the harvest and work while it's day, knowing they sow, with tears of sadness, we will reap with shouts of joy. Soon our eyes shall see his glory, the Lamb, our risen Lord, when he rescinds from every generation, his blood profite, his grave reward, then we'll proclaim Jesus is Lord. We shall proclaim Jesus is Lord. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:51:29.000; resume after this marked segment]