We’re starting a new series today, called Jesus: The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Jesus has been called all kinds of things, and has done all kinds of things.  They are not coincidental, nor disconnected.  They’re all part of one person.

What kind of man can be a shepherd, a revolutionary, a prophet, a king, a teacher, and more?

Interesting people usually bridge a few different disciplines, have a few titles, and otherwise enjoy a life of diverse experiences, but we’ll be studying 14 characteristics of Jesus, far more than most people could ever possess.  They all make him interesting, fascinating, in fact.

But the last one in our list will be the most important, as it’s the one makes all the difference, and makes sense of all the characteristics that came before.

But that’s a long way away.  This week, we’ll start with his identity as The Shepherd, particularly in the way he acts when he loses someone he cares about.

What’s the last item you lost?  A Presto card?  Your cell phone?  Your
keys, wallet, or something else?

I lost my wedding ring yesterday.  I was about to go out, wanted my rings.  I put down our baby, and searched the top of my bedside table, where it would normally have been.  I found my watch, my engineering ring, but no wedding ring.  I thought, “maybe it fell off”.  I looked down, and a little baby was peeking up at me…a little baby who likes to eat everything he sees.  Oh dear.

When we lose something important we go through all kinds of emotions.

For me – it was fear.  First, fear that I lost the ring, then fear my baby ate it, then fear I will find it in a diaper and always be grossed out by my ring.  Finally I felt relief when I found it had fallen off the table and into the drawer below, and not into my son’s mouth!

On America’s Got Talent this past season, a couple magic acts have asked one of the judges, Mel B from the Spice Girls, if she’d hand over her cell phone.  When they pretend to break it or lose it, the look of horror on her face is palpable.

Now some poeple want to criticize our obsession with these devices, and it isn’t always healthy.  But it’s not trivial either – these devices do everything now.  The have our banking, our contacts, our private messages.  As we’ve seen in the news lately, sometimes intimate photos are on our phones.  Mobile phones are replacing landlines, and are now our link to emergency services, kids daycare providers, babysitters and work, not just friends.

When we have it, we can take it for granted, but the minute it’s lost, we panic.  But when we find it again, we rejoice.  The look on Mel B’s face when she got it back was priceless.  She wasn’t acting – she was genuinely recovering from some real distress!

Question: What is so important to you, that if you lost it and found it again, you’d actually throw a party?

Meeting with a Group?  Your discussion questions are in this week’s Group Study Guide

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