Thank you. Thank you. Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost. Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.
So, raise your hand if you've ever lost something of extreme value. Raise your hand. Alright, that's a lot of us. And so, you probably experienced the four S's of losing something. I mean, the first S is shock. Automatically, you just cannot believe that you lost the thing that you really valued.
And then comes the sweating. You know what I'm talking about? Most guys, we get it right up here, right? Right on our foreheads, and like right here on your lip, right? So, you start having like, it just starts sweating, and then your stomach begins to turn, right? You get that feeling deep down. Maybe it's a pit. I don't know if you've experienced that. It kind of travels up and gets into your throat, and then the frantic searching, right? You start tearing things up. You start looking in places that you've never even been before, but you're like, maybe somehow this thing that I lost traveled to a place that, you know, maybe someone took it, someone put it somewhere, and you start freaking out.
There's a movie that this reminds me of, called The Sandlot. How many of you have seen The Sandlot? Okay, many of you. So, for those of you that have not seen The Sandlot, the movie's about a group of boys playing baseball in a little field in their neighborhood. And so, they would go to this field, and it was just kind of this dirt patch, and they would play these pickup baseball games.
And on the back of that field, there was a house that had a fence, and that was kind of the home run fence, if you will. But they believed that there was a little old man that had this dog that they called The Beast. And that, when anything went into this yard, including their baseballs, that The Beast would eat the baseballs along with little children that went in after them.
And so, they would be playing these games, and if someone would hit a home run, they would just count that ball as lost. And so, they were playing one day, this pickup game of baseball, and one of the kids tanks a home run over this fence. And it was the last ball that they had to play with, and it, like, kind of ruined and ended the game.
And so, they ended the game. Well, one of the kids had this bright idea that he had seen a baseball in his dad's study. And so, he was like, I'll just go run home, grab the baseball. This kid was new in town. He was trying to, like, you know, make friends, and he wanted to be the hero. So, he runs home, grabs this baseball off of his dad's shelf that was on display, and then ran to the field, and they continued their game of baseball.
Well, after some time, guess what happened? They had a baseball. They had a baseball. They had a baseball. They had a baseball. What happens? One of the kids tanks the ball over that same fence and the beast eats it and gets it. And the kid starts freaking out. And they're like, wow, what's the big deal? It's just a baseball. He's like, no, no, you don't understand. It was my dad's baseball. I'm like, yeah, it's okay. Like, we'll get some money together and go buy it. He's like, no, no, you don't understand. It was signed by someone named Babe Ruth. A ball that was seemingly just a ball. Something worth thousands of dollars.
So the rest of the movie is them trying to get this baseball back from the beast. And so, we will go through, just like these kids did, these extreme measures to find what we have lost if we believe it has value. And then once we find what we're looking for, I mean, that's followed by celebration and joy and excitement.
And so during Advent, we are walking this journey remembering the arrival of a king who came to rescue what was lost. And then we are anticipating the second coming of that king so he will make all things new, and his arrival should and does bring us joy.
So that's where we jump into in Luke 15. So let me pray for us, and then we're going to dive in.
Father, I pray more than anything, Lord, that our minds, our hearts would be able to sit here and focus on your great love. God, that you are for us, that you are with us. God, I pray that each and every person here, including myself, would enter deeper into your presence and that we would enjoy, find joy at your feet right now. God, even just singing, there's so many distractions that the enemy can just insert into our minds in this moment. And so God, I pray against those things. I pray your Holy Spirit stirs in us new affections for you so we may grow closer to you and anticipate you coming back for us with greater joy than before. We love you. It's in your name we pray. Amen.
So let me give you some context. So let's look at verses 1 through 3. Jesus is giving three different analogies. Today we're going to talk about two and next week we'll talk about one. But he gives three analogies in response to the Pharisees because they make this statement. Look at verse 1.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him. So do we understand and know who tax collectors and sinners were in context of that day? So a tax collector would be in many ways a modern-day terrorist. So what happened in that day is that the Romans were oppressing the Israelites, the Jews. And they would hire Jewish people to collect taxes from the Israelites, the Jews.
And so the Romans would hire an Israelite to collect taxes from their own people. And not only were they taxing the Jews and oppressing the Jews through those taxes, but then those same tax collectors were actually skimming off the top. So the tax collectors were becoming rich off the backs of their own people who could barely make ends meet, and they were seen as scum. People did not like the tax collectors in that day and age.
And then sinners. I don't know if I need to define that, but it was the most vile people that probably you and I can think of in context of our world. People who were murderers and drunkards and gluttons. People who were not looked at highly in their society. So much so that they called them sinners. Like, we're a group of people that I don't think we would bump into each other at Publix and be like, oh wow, that's a sinner. They were the people that their community saw as people who were sinners.
But yet, the tax collectors and the sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them?"
So there's something in the Pharisees and the scribes. The Pharisees were the religious leaders of that day. They were the ones teaching the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. They were the ones that were talking about God and his kingdom and following the law. And then the scribes were experts in the law. They knew the law back and forth.
And so the religious leaders and the experts of the law were grumbling at the fact that Jesus was receiving and eating with sinners. He was growing in relationship with sinners and tax collectors. And so they grumbled. And so to that context, Jesus tells them these stories. These are analogies that Jesus is trying to portray to this group of people what the kingdom of God is like and what he is like.
And so then we see and notice that there's two different responses right here in the first couple of verses. Notice what the religious leaders and the scribes are doing in this moment. What are they doing? Grumbling. They're grumbling and all throughout the New Testament we actually see them moving away from God. People that are supposed to know the Torah, know the law, know the book of Isaiah, that there's going to be a coming Messiah. But yet, their response to Jesus was to push away from him.
See, they thought that they could earn God's favor by living out the law. So they weren't looking for someone to come and save them because they feel like in a lot of ways they saved themselves. But yet, the response of the tax collectors and the sinners was to draw near. To move closer. Closer to Jesus.
And so before we even dive into these two stories, I want to ask you the question, which one are you going to be today? Who will you be today? Are you going to be like the religious leaders and the experts in the law where you think for some reason that you don't need Jesus? Oh, I'm a good person. I've done good things. And so, like pastors talking about this stuff, but it's not applicable to me.
Or will you be like a sinner and a tax collector who's going to draw near to the feet of Jesus and receive his salvation and his forgiveness? Who will you be today?
So I'm going to talk about two things today. I'm going to talk about the lost and their value. And then I want to talk about the seeker and his search.
So let's look at the lost and their value. Now, each parable emphasizes the value of what was lost. But I do think that sometimes parables can be confusing. As you're reading them, especially at face value, sometimes we read it a certain way, or maybe you saw a poster of it somewhere with a picture, or you heard it taught sometime maybe in your childhood a certain way, and then that's always kind of shaped your view of what is being said.
And I want to help us understand what the actual meaning of this is, because at face value, it seems like it could say that God rejoices more over new believers than old believers, or new believers versus seasoned believers, or people that have been walking with God for a long time. That's actually not what it's saying.
Look at verse 7 with me for a second. He says, "Just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than the other." Circle that. A sinner who repents, then over 99 righteous persons who what? Need no repentance.
How many humans do you know, including yourself, need no repentance? None. There is not one human in the entire world that needs no repentance. So God is rejoicing over a sinner repenting than 99 righteous people who don't think they need to repent.
He's talking to the scribes and the Pharisees. He's helping them understand that it's not their scales of weights and measures that's causing their goodness or their status before God. I mean, you know what a scale and a measure is? Like, you're supposed to balance it out. You're supposed to, on one side, put a product, and on the other side, put some weights, and it measures cost, and it measures value. And you try to balance out the scales.
That's how we approach life often. We approach life in such a way where we think that we just have to outweigh the bad stuff that we do by the good stuff that we do in order to earn God's favor, and that's not the gospel. There's no amount of good work that you or I can do that will balance the scales of our sin.
It's kind of like the old joke that, like, if you ever go hiking with your friends, you're supposed to balance out the scales of your friend, and a bear shows up. You don't need to outrun the bear. You just need to outrun your friend. We have that perspective when it comes to sin.
Listen, I've been doing this for 20 years, and the people that I engage with every day, I work a secular job, and the people that I encounter and that I talk to about the gospel are always trying to measure and weigh themselves up against everybody else. I don't have to be perfect. I just have to be better than Andrew. If I'm better than him, if I'm better than you, then I'm going to be okay in the eyes of the Lord. That's not the gospel.
The Bible says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We are all lost. No one in this room is included in the 99. We are all that one lost sinner who needs to repent.
So our understanding of the loss is completely skewed. Because we think we just got to measure and weigh out the balance, but any good work that we can put towards our salvation is like air on the other side of the scale. It's meaningless. It's nothing. It holds no weight.
What we need is a Savior because we are lost. And that's what Jesus is trying to help them see and understand that we're not in this scale of weights and measures. I mean, this is what C.S. Lewis, for most of his ministry, if you know he's a pastor and author and writer, he's trying to get people to understand that the enemy is out to make every believer think and believe and understand that they could somehow in some way earn God's favor.
That the enemy's number one priority is to render believers useless, believing that they could earn their salvation. And that's not what Jesus is saying here. He's saying you're lost and you need to be found. That's why the Bible says, all have sinned and fall short. That's why the Bible says no one is righteous.
And then Paul, who wrote that through the power of the Holy Spirit, wanted to clarify because automatically an inner lawyer comes to your defense. As I'm talking, I'm sure that there are people here because I engage it every single day that I'm saying all have sinned and I'm saying no one is righteous. And for some reason, the enemy in your mind or you are thinking, yeah, that doesn't apply to me.
Paul doubles down when he says no one is righteous. And then he clarifies, no, not one. You're a part of that. No, not one. And so we look towards Jesus because our world is plagued by mask-wearing actors and actresses. And these inner defense attorneys wage war in our mind.
I mean, maybe not you, but for me, I have a whole entire like defense attorney system in my life that's constantly trying to justify me. I don't know if you've ever watched the show Suits, but that whole Suits cast is defending me every time I think that I'm a sinner. And if you got that reference, you're a sinner as well.
We can't do it on our own. We can't balance our own scales, but here's the beauty of this. Even though all humans are lost, this is a major part of Jesus's parable is that the lost are infinitely valuable. All those that are lost are infinitely valuable.
Why does something have value? Well, it's because whoever is purchasing or getting that product or that thing. They attribute value to that thing. And so just going back to the baseball idea. Like I could go right now on Amazon and buy a major league baseball in a glass case for $20. That's how much that costs. And if I sign my name to it, chances are it's probably worth less than the $20 I originally bought it for.
But somewhere, in some way, in this world, there is somebody that would actually pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for that baseball if the name on it was signed by Babe Ruth. Right now. Like, there are baseballs selling that are signed by Babe Ruth for between $100,000 and $350,000, depending on its condition. Someone, somewhere, has attributed value to that name on that baseball.
So the person purchasing that product attributes the value. And what we see here, and what Jesus is trying to get us to understand, is that he has attributed infinite value to you. To you. To you. And there's not one person in this entire room that's exempt, or watching online, that's exempt from that story. That God of the cosmos has attributed infinite value to you.
And so now, we look at the seeker and his search to see how far someone would go to reclaim what was lost. Now, the first thing that we're going to do is, the first example that Jesus gives the people was that of a shepherd. In verse 4, So he's talking to a person that with a hundred sheep would be a shepherd.
What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he had lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, telling them, "Rejoice, for I have found my sheep that was lost."
A shepherd cares for his sheep. A shepherd tends his sheep. A shepherd loves his sheep. And he will do whatever is necessary to save his sheep. In this analogy, Jesus is talking about himself, and he's trying to get all of the people around him, the sinners that are drawing near, and the Pharisees that are grumbling, to understand that the shepherd loves his sheep.
And he will do what is necessary to save his sheep. That's why in John 6:39, Jesus actually says, "I will not lose one that the Father has given me." And he will do whatever is necessary to save his sheep.
A lost sheep in the wilderness, there are predators, there is messy terrain that they can't navigate, they can't navigate themselves. They lack provision and the ability to fight for themselves, to get provision for them to eat and to survive in the wilderness.
And so when the lost sheep, who is experiencing this horrific moment of being lost in the midst of the wilderness, sees the shepherd and enters the presence of the shepherd, what do they do? They draw near to the shepherd. And what does the shepherd do? The shepherd picks up that sheep and places them on his shoulders, where the sheep's head would hang close down by the shepherd's heart.
So the sheep would feel the comfort and the warmth and the safety and the protection of the shepherd as he carries him home. And so we see here that Jesus is trying to help us understand the beauty of the shepherd placing all of his children like lost sheep on his shoulders.
But we also have to understand that the shepherd is all-powerful. I think, culturally, that we have a very weak perception of Jesus. I think when it comes to God and when it comes to Jesus, I think that we just think that he's all about love and he's all about grace and he's all about mercy. And it's a very weak mode or form of who Jesus actually is.
We see in Scripture that Jesus is all-powerful. In fact, as a sheep, you are loved and cared for and been given grace and mercy and all those things. But any predator doesn't receive those same things. In fact, the shepherd will go through great lengths to destroy the predators coming in.
I mean, that's where King David, when he was a little boy and he's protecting his sheep, he says, when he was about to face Goliath, he says, "A bear came to try to steal my sheep and I killed the bear. A lion came and I grabbed him by his mane and killed the lion." Talk about a man's man. Like, that's a small little glimpse. The glimpse of the God that we serve who will go through great lengths to destroy whatever comes in our way that's going to try to take us out.
He is going to protect us from those things. We serve a strong God, a mighty God. I mean, we're saying, "Wonderful counselor, mighty God, prince of peace." Like, he is for us. The shepherd will do whatever is necessary to save us, even if he has to save us from ourselves.
You know, the shepherd carries a staff in his hand. Yes, the staff is used. The staff is used to help fight off predators. More often than not, it was actually used to help correct the sheep. If they were going off course, he would pull them back. He would correct the sheep with that staff. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
God wants to protect his sheep, but he does so in power. And so Jesus is articulating this to the people that are sitting around him and the sinners are drawing near. The same shepherd that was with him, the one that loves and cares, he also defends his sheep.
You know, sometimes I think we forget that that great shepherd left eternity. He left eternity where he was worshipped day and night. If anything, we could see the 99 righteous as the angels in the heavens who exist in perfect unity with the Father worshiping the Father day and night. He left that so that he can be wrapped in flesh, born as a baby, so that he can come and find you, and you, and you.
That's why Jesus came, was for all of the lost people of the world. And so then he goes into this analogy from the shepherd into a woman. Now, look at verses 8 through 10.
Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost."
Now, in the Greek, the word here used for woman is g-u-n-e. And often in the New Testament, it refers to a female individual, but more often than not, actually a wife. So let me talk to the wives here for a second. Have you ever lost something or done something that you were afraid that your husband was going to be mad at you about? Yes or no? Yes. You can admit it. This is a safe place for you.
Recently, so when I went up to visit my dad, right before I left, our pool was losing water. You know how sometimes you need to fill up? So I threw the hose in the pool, and I turned it on, and I went to Alexa and told Alexa to set a timer for 30 minutes. And then I walked over to my wife and to her defense, she was on the phone, but I said, "Hey, can you shut off the pool hose in 30 minutes?" And she kind of nodded, and I left.
And a couple days into my trip, I was texting her, and I just said, "Hey, I want you to know how much I miss you." She's like, "I hope you miss me a lot because I forgot to turn the pool hose off." Like three days later. I don't even know when my water bill's going to be this month.
The woman in this story, she's not approaching, she's not approaching this lost coin with that timid, afraid, like I messed up, boo-hoo mindset. She takes full ownership of what was lost. Why? Because she had attributed value to that thing, and she turned over the house to find it.
This is not a woman that is fearful and scared. This is a woman who is strong and will go through great lengths to find what is found, what needs to be found. Because he's talking about Jesus himself again. Like he is going to do whatever is necessary, search wherever is necessary, but not out of fear. The search flowed from value. Because you are infinitely valuable to God.
So who is this seeker? Well, he is the one that will never stop searching. And this is the good news of the gospel. He is the one who in verse 4, it says he goes after the one that is lost until what? He finds it. This is the one who in verse 8 sweeps and seeks diligently until he finds what he is looking for.
The seeker leaving eternity and angels and perfection for you. And his name is Jesus. The wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the prince of peace, the everlasting father, who came for you. And the proof that you have value flows from the manger all the way to the cross and beyond. To when he rose again, defeating death, hell, and the grave so that you may have life and have it abundantly.
So how do we respond to this? How do we respond to this seeker on his search? Well, I think the response is joy. It should be joy. It is joy. Joy. When the lost is found, there is joy. But first I want to start with the joy of God.
Because often I don't believe that we understand and fathom how much delight and joy God takes in his children. In Psalm 147, it says that the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. Our joy starts with understanding his joy, that there is joy in us.
That when he takes us with his loving arms and hands, that there is joy forevermore in the heart of God and the heart of Jesus for you. And that should cause us understanding God's delight in us. I mean, have you ever just stopped and thought God delights in me?
Again, I think there are some people here that have done some stuff because automatically I think the enemy will say, well, pastor doesn't know what you did last night. Well, he doesn't know what just happened in your life. I don't, but he does. And he still left eternity for you. He came for you because you are infinitely valuable to him. He delights in you.
It's out of that overflow that we respond in joy. And I think that there are three ways we see that we respond in joy. The first is the joy in repentance. The joy in repentance. What does this look like? Well, there is an admission of our guilt. An admission that we can't balance the scales. An admission that we are lost. And an admission that we need a savior.
It's joy in repentance. It's surrendering our ability to earn any kind of favor because we can't. And it's an obedience to his will. We have to recognize I am lost. And so what we see in repentance, it's a 180. That's what it means. To repent means to turn around.
So I'm pursuing the things of this world. I'm pursuing the things that give me some kind of temporary satisfaction. And we turn from those things to Jesus. Knowing that he is the only way, the only truth, and the only life. He's the only thing that's going to bring real joy. The things over here are temporary joy.
These things will only bring us satisfaction for a millisecond. But truly, our joy is found in God and God alone. The fullness of joy. So we find joy in repentance. But it's more than that. There's joy in worship.
And after doing this for more than 20 years and talking to so many people. I have a secular job. And I'm meeting with people constantly in the real world. Not in the church world. That are actually way more honest than people that I find. And they're talking about how they believe that they are beyond saving.
They would repent and say, yeah, I do believe I'm a sinner. But they don't worship God. They don't fall at his feet and enter into a personal, interactive, real relationship with God. That's what worship is. Worship is not just songs that we sing. That's part of it. Worship is our life. That we grow in relationship with God.
If you don't have a personal, intimate, interactive relationship with Jesus, then I want you to know that that's something that you really need to consider. Because this isn't a get out of hell free card. You're not playing Monopoly here. Like this isn't a one-time, like hey, I'm just going to confess I'm lost. And then go on living my life. And I have nothing to do with anything that God has.
I mean, I engage men specifically. So many men. Men in my life that don't spend any time in the Bible. They don't read the Bible. They don't pray. They don't really go to church. That's a thing for their wife to do. Their kids, you know, they don't disciple them in Jesus. Like they are just existing thinking that God saved me and then I'm done.
That's not what we see in scripture. God has invited us into a relationship with him. If my wife, I'm going to point down here because she usually sits there. She's not there right now. But if I... If I never talked to her, we would not have a good marriage.
If we did not interact, if we did not, if I did not hear her voice, if I did not cultivate intimacy in a relationship with her, we would have a bad marriage. It's the same with our relationship with God. If we don't open this, how could we hear his voice?
So we think we listen to moody radio or something and we think that that's all we need. Just some feel-good, you know, quotes from different people every now and again. I mean, you don't like the commercial. So maybe you have XM. Maybe you pay for it. Maybe you pay for XM so you could listen to the message so there's less commercials.
That's not what God invites us into. He invites us into a relationship where we open up his word, where we hear his voice. And if we get to the point where we're like, well, we just don't understand it. Man, there are so many tools at our disposal to learn and grow and understand, not only within this church but all over, that we can really learn and go deeper in his word.
We just don't take the initiative. We're not intentional with it. Worship is us pursuing Jesus to be in a personal relationship with him. If you've been one of those churchgoers that have just been kind of coming and going and just living, you know, maybe a 51% better life than you were before, I want you to know that Jesus' invitation to you is to be in relationship with him.
He wants you to know him and he wants to know you. So enter into that relationship in worship. And that takes participation, our joy in participation. We use these phrases, live, give, serve. That's not just quippy phrases for us to just say because it's catchy or any of those things.
It's not a way for us to get you to participate in events that we do. Those are biblical concepts that God invites each and every believer to participate in. Live in biblical community. Men, we do a terrible job of this. We somehow think that we can do it on our own and that we're, you know, self-made men and that if we have a problem, we'll just figure it out.
That's not what God invites us into. Men, God calls us to as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. I need men in my life that are going to call me out on my junk when I'm not walking in the way that the Lord has me walk.
And so if I'm doing something that I shouldn't be doing, I'm not going to be doing it. I need Seth to come up to me and be like, "Bro, listen, man, I'm seeing how you engage with your family. I'm seeing you do this in your life. Man, you're on a bad path. You need to continue to go back to Jesus."
Or I'm complaining or I'm gossiping or whatever it may be. I need people in my life that will stop me from living that way. That's biblical community. We believe here at FMCC that you will grow and be discipled in your life. Your biblical community. You will be discipled in community groups. You will be discipled on discipleship nights.
But that's because we are in relationship with one another. That's how God has created his family, to be in relationship with one another. And then we throw out, again, that a defense attorney comes out and says, well, I've been hurt. People have hurt me. And so we just decide not to do it. That's not going to be a good excuse.
God invites us to be and live in biblical community. And then to give. To give generously and steward what God has given us for the Lord. But often we think that just doing a couple of helps outreach things is giving.
Listen, I struggled with giving most of my life. So I grew up in New York and my parents would give me a dollar or two to put in the basket when it came by in Sunday school. And then I went off to college and I started working when I was 14. So I got a job. I got a job. I got a job. I got a job at 14. I was doing different odd-edged jobs.
And when you work hard for your money, you don't like giving it away. And so I just started hoarding all of my stuff. And then every now and again, when the button on the thing was like, give a dollar to, you know, this charity, it was like, ah, I'm being generous. I feel generous today.
And it wasn't until I met my wife that I really learned and understood what generosity and stewardship was. I was on staff at a church, and I was not giving to that church at all. Because I looked at the leadership, and I looked at what they were doing, and I was just making all of these assumptions. I was making assumptions of what they were doing and how they were doing it, and I didn't trust my leadership, and so I just wasn't giving.
And then I got a job at Summit Church in Estero, and I loved being on staff there. And I remember the first initiative they did, and they were like, "Hey, we're going to all come together and do this one thing." And right after the service, my wife looked at me, and she goes, "How much are we going to give?" Not if, how much?
I was like, whoa, shouldn't we talk about if first? Like, really, should we be giving to this? That wasn't her heart. But God had done a work in her life that gently walked me through what it meant to be a generous giver, what it meant to steward what God had given me.
And then all of a sudden, I started looking at the Word of God and seeing what biblical tithing was, and what does it look like to participate in the life of a local body. And then as God started doing that work, I'm telling you from my own testimony that God does as He was going to do through His Word in Malachi, where He opened up the floodgates of blessing into my family.
And it wasn't financial, by the way. A lot of churches will get up and say, if you give, God's going to give back to you. Nope. He will bless you, though, in ways that you can never even dream or imagine when you live out your lives in obedience to what He has.
So when we talk about living in biblical community, giving generously, and then serving, these are not, again, taglines. This is us participating in joy. Now, yes, that means participating, serving in this body, right? So there's door greeters and ushers and people that help set up chairs, and there's people that are serving in kids ministry, and that's awesome, and we need everybody to participate in that.
But it's more than that. It's serving the people around you, serving your neighbors, serving your co-workers, serving your family, because how we love one another is how the world may know the goodness of God. And so we serve unto the Lord, not unto men.
And so I think often what we see in the life of a church is that a very small percentage gives, a very small percentage serves, a very small percentage lives in biblical community, and the challenge is that we in joy would all participate in the life of the family so that we can grow and learn what it means to be disciples of Jesus and experience the fullness of joy together. Amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
His life, his death, and his resurrection. Would you pray with me?
Father, I'm just thinking about all those that are here that have been walking with you for most of their life, and maybe they're in a season where they're just not experiencing your presence, maybe as they once did.
So God, for those people, I don't pray that you replicate what they experienced before. What I pray is that you create something new in them right now, starting right now through the power of your Holy Spirit that would reignite the flame that they once had for you.
That they would go deeper, that they would pursue you in personal relationship, that if they open up the Bible and they're not understanding it, they would pursue people to help disciple them in the ways of the Lord.
God, I thank you for what you're doing in our Oasis Young Professional Ministry with the young people of our church. God, there are so many people that are growing in their relationship with you, that are getting Bibles, that are engaging in your word. I pray, Lord, that you continue to do that work throughout our entire church.
God, I thank you for our community groups that are discipling one another and helping fuel one another towards Jesus. And I pray for more and more people to plug in and get discipled in biblical community.
God, if there's anybody here today that doesn't have a personal relationship with you or maybe someone that's just been going through the motions, someone that hasn't seen you as their great shepherd who is pursuing them and wants to know them and be in a relationship with them, I pray that today would be their day of salvation.
That the Holy Spirit through your power would cultivate something in them that would cause them to fall at your feet and surrender their lives to you, that they would repent, that they would worship, that they would participate.
As you guys are continuing to keep your heads bowed, I just want to ask the question, is there anybody here that does not feel like they are living in a personal, intimate, interactive relationship with God? Maybe for the first time or maybe they've just been going through the motion. Is that anybody here? If you would raise your hands just so I could be praying for you.
Amen. Amen. My prayer for you is that God would ignite something beautiful in you that would cause you to know how good He is and how loved you are.
If this is the first time you're hearing about God's love for you, my prayer is that you would talk to somebody, that you would talk to someone that brought you or that you would come up. There are going to be some people up here for prayer. There's going to be people in the back for prayer. You would talk to somebody before you leave this place today so that they may help walk you in understanding what it means to know and love Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
God, thank you. We lift all of this up in your name. Amen. Amen. Amen.
on Dec 15, 2024
