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Kalamazoo SDA Church

Jermaine Gayle

One Sheep

Father, we are so grateful for the privilege you have given to us to participate in this great, grand effort that heaven is pouring out in saving people like me.

Dear Father, we pray that as we work our way through the text of Scripture, dear Lord, that you convict our hearts and draw us closer to you, our God, who loves us dearly.

We pray that whatever it is that is resting on our hearts, that you may alleviate those pressures, lift those heavy burdens, and we pray dear Lord that we may be free today as a result of coming in contact with you, the 1 who really wants to save us eternally.

Amen The good news is that we sold our home yesterday And margie mentioned that to you And we had such a wonderful experience In fact, this was quite a witnessing opportunity because we were able to pray with the young couple who bought our house.

We, them, and their mother and father held hands together in a circle in my dining room, well no longer my dining room.

We prayed together and passed on this house to this new couple, and they felt that God providentially led them there, and we felt that God answered our prayers in bringing them to this house.

So we are in Kalamazoo, but we are not out of the woods yet.

We are squeezing in a 1 bed, 1 bath apartment with all of our stuff.

So we're trying to make it work, but pray for us.

If you are a Spanish speaking person, you might have heard that word before, but I'm gonna tell you what that word is, excluible.

Now, this happened in the year 1980 when a group of Cubans braved the elements of a stormy sea to traverse the vast ocean from Cuba in an attempt to make it to the United States and they landed in Key West Florida.

Fidel Castro had announced that all Cubans were free to immigrate to the United States at the time in 1980, as Cuba was in the grips of communism.

And I cannot imagine, friends, what it would be like to travel on the ocean in a small boat.

I'm not going to ask how many of us can swim, because that might be quite the response.

This is a lot of miles across the vast ocean to arrive on the shores of the United States of America as Fidel Castro finally gave them to go ahead you may leave.

And how many would have taken advantage of such an opportunity?

And so a group made their way from Cuba to the United States.

Men, women, and children, whole families looking for freedom made their way and landed in Key West.

They thought that this was finally an opportunity for them to live a better life in America, specifically Florida.

Now imagine these small boats through a severe storm on the sea, all making an attempt to escape Cuba to obtain freedom.

Now it makes us think of the pilgrims when they made their way from Europe and landed at Plymouth Rock to find freedom here.

And some of us, I know, we can trace our roots.

Not me, I'm Jamaican, so I don't have ancestors on the Mayflower.

But I'm always fascinated by those stories, aren't you?

They made their way, and there they landed in the Straits of Florida, and as soon as they arrived, they were arrested.

They were put in prison for 6 years before they were finally deported back to Cuba, never ever experiencing freedom in America, what they were looking for.

But you see, that was not the most difficult part of their experience.

The most difficult part of their experiences was not only that they were excluded from the American society, they were also excluded in the Cuban society because Fidel Castro actually had set a trap.

The trap was if you, even though he gave permission for you to leave Cuba, if you took advantage of that opportunity, he would say you have betrayed your country and so you don't deserve to be in Cuba either.

And so imagine being these people, coming to the US, being rejected here, and then going back to Cuba to only be excluded there too.

So they were now homeless in their own country of origin.

And they were known as the excluibles or the excludable of society.

Now I know as a child, growing up sometimes you feel that.

I remember watching the kids play games and there were times when I felt I was not gifted and talented enough to join them.

And there are moments where I was excluded from the circle.

So there they were, rejected by America, rejected by Cuba, and it was a horrible feeling.

I remember the time of my dad had traveled.

My dad, I was about 11, he was on his way to the United Kingdom and he got his visa.

We watched him leave at the airport and he flew from Jamaica all the way to England.

And as soon as he landed, they told him, go back.

And he was on the next flight back to Jamaica and there's 1 thing when you return from coming to the going overseas in Jamaica everybody knows your business like oh he didn't make it My dad had to deal with that.

No, my dad was quite, he was quite an exuberant kind of guy, and he was wearing his gold chain, and he was dressed up quite nicely when he left.

When he came back, he just had this sad look on his face.

But what's important and what's most profound about God is that He actually takes on that experience to let you know that even if and when you are excluded, He too feels the same way you do.

Oh friends, you know that text in the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah 53 and verse 3, The Bible tells us, speaking of Jesus, Isaiah 53 and verse 3, if you'll turn there with me.

Excluible, Jesus experienced his own kind of excluible.

When he came down to this planet, took the trek from heaven, giving up all of his glory and honor and all of his privileges, he came down as a baby born in Bethlehem.

And the Bible says in Isaiah 53 and verse 3, he is what everybody?

I mean we've all gone through The loss of a loved 1, the loss of a job, the transitions in life, the change even of a pastor.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him.

He was despised and we did not esteem him.

In other words, we placed no honor on the 1 who was despised.

In fact, there was very little, very little.

The only thing the soldier had to offer him on the cross when he cried out, I thirst, was an opiate to try to help ease the pain and he rejected that too.

Jesus was so committed to the health message that he would not take that sponge.

Friends, our Lord knows what it's like to be rejected.

But just imagine the society in which Jesus grew up because we all have to be grounded somewhere.

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One Sheep

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