What "Lost" Really Means to God

[0:00] All right, good morning. You're rather wet. Good morning, but I'll take that.! Great. Should we open God's Word together?

[0:18] ! So we're in Luke chapter 15, and we are going to do something we don't normally do, we haven't done for a while, and that's to walk through just one chapter of Luke, and we're going to spend probably the next three or four weeks in this chapter, and it's a great, great chapter of the Bible, and I know that you will know it.

[0:48] It's a famous chapter, so let's read it together, and this morning the intention is just to look at verses one and two, but let's just get it in context.

[1:01] So verse one of Luke 15 says this, Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him, and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

[1:16] And so he told him this parable. What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has 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?

[1:28] And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing, and when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbours, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, and over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

[1:46] 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 up her neighbours and her friends and her neighbours, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that was lost.

[2:02] Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. And he said there was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.

[2:19] And he divided his property between them, and not many days later, the younger son gathered all that he had, took on a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.

[2:35] And so he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into the fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything to eat.

[2:49] And so when he had come to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread? But I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

[3:02] I am no longer worthy to be called your son. And treat me like one of your hired servants. And he arose and he came to his father. But while he was still afar off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

[3:14] And his son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to the servants, Bring quickly the best robe. And put on him the best ring, or the ring on his finger, and shoes on his feet.

[3:30] And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this, my son, was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate. And now his older son was in the field.

[3:43] And as he came near to the house, he heard the music and the dancing. And he called one of the servants, and he asked what these things meant. And he said, Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.

[3:57] But he was angry, and he refused to go in. And his father came out and treated him, but he answered his father, Look, these many years I have served you, and I have never disobeyed your command.

[4:13] Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours has come, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.

[4:27] And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.

[4:39] Let's pray together. Father, help us, we pray, to understand these things, and help us, Lord, to see, Lord, the beauty of your grace.

[4:49] Lord, the father who comes after us, the shepherd who seeks us, the woman who sweeps the whole house, that we may be found. Lord, we pray, Lord, that we would make more of you and less of us this morning.

[5:01] Lord, give us eyes to see and ears to hear what your spirit might say to us today. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So, look, I want to set up this morning.

[5:15] And what I want to do is confront us, confront us where we are in this story. Where are you in this story?

[5:27] So, we've just read the opening. And if you would just be kind enough just to go back to verse 1, because Luke lays out for us, he says, the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Jesus, and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled.

[5:47] And many of us instinctively think, like, here, we have some tax collectors and sinners who have previously potentially made lots of really bad choices.

[6:01] They are people who are far from church, and they are people who are living the wrong kind of life. And what Jesus is doing with this chapter is really, really challenging us as to who is lost.

[6:14] What does lost mean? And he repeats that phrase twice, doesn't he? He was lost and now is found.

[6:25] And the concept of being lost is found in the sheep, the coin, the younger son and the older son. And they're all lost, and they're lost in different ways, and their restoration comes in different ways.

[6:36] It comes through the same means, but there's a lostness that's going on. And so, we find these two groups of people. Would you notice that explicitly, there's not three groups mentioned.

[6:52] Luke doesn't mention there's three groups, only two groups. He says that the first group is this tax collectors and sinners. There is a group of people who knew that they were lost.

[7:06] In Jesus' day, the tax collector wasn't someone who worked for HMRC, right? The Jews regarded the tax collector as a collaborator with the oppressive Roman occupation.

[7:19] Okay? So, the tax collectors were responsible for raising money so that the army of the Roman Empire, which numbered about a million people at this time, could be fed and clothed.

[7:30] Right? So, you can imagine being a tax collector, raising money from the people that were being oppressed to help the oppression. Like, you're not the most popular person in town.

[7:42] Right? And so, the way then that if you refuse to give your tax, well, those penalties were often dealt with by those Roman soldiers in fairly brutal ways.

[8:00] And any Jew could purchase the right to become a fundraiser for the Roman Empire. And they would then, you know, put a percentage on top and they would collect that as their fee from the people.

[8:21] And you remember Levi, who, you know, the writer of our Gospel of Matthew, was a tax collector. And he had gone through that process of purchasing the right from the Romans to get money from his own people to pay for his own people's oppression.

[8:43] And so, you can kind of see how tax collectors were despised. How tax collectors might fall into that category of being lost. Right? But what's significant is that we're told in the opening verse is that Jesus attracted those kind of people.

[9:00] He attracted sinners, which was a collective term for anyone who was outcast. So, within that category of outcast is the homeless person, the diseased person, the alcoholic person, the prostitute, potentially the teen mom, the mentally ill, and the refugee.

[9:20] All of them fall into that category of sinner. And Luke is quick to tell us that within that category, within that group, that tax collector and sinner group, they are the ones drawing near to Jesus.

[9:35] However, there is another group that I've gathered. Luke calls them Pharisees and the scribes. So, you have a group of people who are convinced they are lost and you have a group of people that are convinced they aren't lost.

[9:51] Now, we don't see that polarization in society today, do we? Yeah, of course we do, right? Of course we do. So, these are the people, if you want to, if you're a spectrum kind of person, you've got your tax collectors and sinners all the way over to that end and then your Pharisees and scribes all the way over to that end.

[10:14] Luke doesn't describe anyone sat in the middle. He just says there's two groups of people. One who know that they are lost and the other group they're convinced that they aren't.

[10:27] These are the super religious guys. But the problem isn't that they're religious. It's that, that they don't love God's people, excuse me, they don't love the people that God loves.

[10:44] There's a difference there, isn't there? They believe that the good things that they are doing had won a kind of special favor with God that wasn't extended to other people.

[10:59] I do these things, therefore God shows his favor on me and clearly God's love isn't extended to anyone else apart from those people who do these things.

[11:14] And so verse 2 says that those people, group 2, and I know this is hard for you to believe, they grumbled. Now we don't know what grumbling means in the church, do we?

[11:30] This is to speak ill against them. All right? So they are grumbling saying, verse 2, this man receives sinners and he eats with them.

[11:42] Now look, two words I want to highlight in that verse. The first one is receives. It means to admit in. All right? Quick plug, we've got a conference coming up in June, you need a ticket. If you don't have a ticket, you're not going to be received in.

[11:54] It's exactly the same idea, right? So you go to an event, you get a ticket, you show your ticket, you're received in, you're admitted in. That's the same idea. And so Luke is saying, look, there are these group of people that Jesus is receiving, he's admitting to himself.

[12:16] That's what they're grumbling about. Now look, that wasn't so much the issue. the big issue for them was that who he was receiving, who he was admitting.

[12:32] It says that this man received sinners. Now look, I mean, quite frankly, if Jesus received sinners, then sign me up, right? That's the qualification to come to him.

[12:46] Is that I'm a sinner that qualifies me to be saved. Now look, the second word is eats. So if you've circled the word received, now circle the word eats.

[12:57] So Jesus not only admits in, but he also eats with them. And to you and I, not a big deal, right? But in Jesus' culture, that is huge. You don't eat with anyone.

[13:09] That is a sign of friendship. When you take, you know, you tear off a bit of bread from the loaf and everyone in the table does the same thing.

[13:21] You are signifying our oneness with that person. And look, so we see this, we've talked about this previously.

[13:33] Just as the very first act of rebellion in the Garden of Eden was an act of eating, it shouldn't be a surprise to find out that food then becomes essential in our redemption by God.

[13:49] Even if you think about the rescue from Egypt, from slavery in Egypt, it itself has commemorated a meal, the meal of the Passover. It's why David would say that the Lord, and you can reference this to our study in Luke 15 as well, David would say the Lord is my shepherd.

[14:11] What does he do? He makes me lay down, he feeds me on green pastures, he brings back the strait, he prepares a what? A table. It's why Jesus soon after his resurrection one morning meets the disciples on the shore of Galilee after they had betrayed him and acknowledged like they don't know him, they'd run away from him.

[14:34] And we understand that God's mercies are new every morning, the psalmist says, and to show it, to prove it, Jesus sits down on the beach and cooks breakfast for his disciples. It's not because they were hungry.

[14:45] They may have been hungry. It's why the prophets talk about a future meal on a mountain as they describe a feast. And so look, the point is, the issue is that the Pharisees and the scribes don't understand this about God.

[15:00] And so because they don't understand this about God, verse 3 says, so Luke verse 3 says, so he told them this parable. And so this is the response to the Pharisees and the scribes, this whole parable.

[15:15] It's one parable. Instead of simply telling them that they are just as lost as the tax collectors and sinners, which would have gone down like a treat, he gives them a story.

[15:30] And it's a story in four parts. It's one story. But it's a story in four parts. And we traditionally call it, you know, the parable of the lost sheep or the parable of the lost coin or the parable of the prodigal son.

[15:43] But actually, it's one parable aimed at explaining four different types of lost people. So four stories, not just who is lost, but to define for us who we are talking about when we are talking about lost people.

[16:04] Previously, he had said to the same group of people, right? So the same group of people are listed. Jesus says that the Son of Man came to seek and save the...

[16:16] Right. Okay, so what has Jesus done? He's come to seek and save these kind of people that he is going to outline in this chapter. And so, in many ways, the parables that are in this chapter are all about the Son of Man who has come seeking the lost, seeking after them.

[16:32] And so, before we can help anyone out, before we can help the lost, before we go and see the lost, we've got to see them and us as, at least, partially lost.

[16:50] We have to have hearts humble enough to go, I was once lost and now I'm found. I was once lost. Most instinctively, most of us place ourselves as the ones found.

[17:06] And if you're a Christian this morning, that is absolutely true. And that's something to be celebrated. Right? But look, we could have been like the lost sheep or the lost coin or the lost son.

[17:18] That's true. But if we're honest, most of the time, we're not... we don't place ourselves with the sinners in verse 1. We're standing with the Pharisees in verse 2.

[17:33] We're looking out there. We're watching. We're observing. We're quietly thinking, why are they like that? And the problem isn't that these Pharisees and scribes are religious.

[17:45] It's that they've forgotten that they were ever lost. They were not when you've forgotten your own lostness.

[17:59] Like, lots change, right? You start comparing instead of empathizing. You start judging instead of pursuing. You keep yourself at a distance instead of moving closer. And lost people become problems instead of people.

[18:13] And that's what's happened to these Pharisees and scribes. And if we're honest, when was the last time we spent time with anyone far from God? This is exactly what we see across Scripture.

[18:28] These Pharisees and scribes, they epitomize for us the state of religious Israel at the time of Jesus. I mean, you think about it in Ezekiel 34, which is probably your classic go-to chapter.

[18:46] God speaks directly to the leaders of His people. And His rebuke is not primarily about doctrine. It's not primarily about personal sin. It's about what they failed to do.

[18:59] Listen to this. Ezekiel 34, verse 4. God says to the leaders of Israel, He says, That's an indictment on Israel.

[19:18] God's issue isn't that they're just doing the wrong things. It's that they didn't go after the lost. They were present, but they weren't pursuing. They were leading, but they weren't loving.

[19:32] They were responsible for Israel, but they were no longer relational. Because of that, verse 6, Ezekiel 34, He says, My sheep, My sheep.

[19:44] He doesn't say the sheep, my sheep. Like, let's not forget, we belong to God. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth with none to search or seek for them.

[19:57] And then God says something powerful in verse 11. He says, For thus says the Lord God, Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.

[20:10] And that's exactly what's happening here as we catch up to Luke 15. Jesus steps onto the scene. What is He doing? He's eating with sinners.

[20:22] He's welcoming the lost. He's doing everything that He's indicted the leaders of Israel against. He's now stepped in and is doing. So, that's the intro.

[20:33] What I'd like to do this morning is think about how the Bible defines lostness. What does it mean to be lost?

[20:44] What does that look like? And so, the first point is, and I failed to put them on the screen, so I'm going to repeat them two or three times just so for you note takers you can take notes.

[20:57] So, the first thing is that lostness begins as separation from God. Lostness begins as separation from God.

[21:10] So, going all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, the first lost moment you might say, there you go, Adam and Eve are walking with God, then sin enters the picture, what happens?

[21:22] They hide, they feel shame, they are removed from the garden. Lostness begins as separation from God. It begins here. And the key thing is that lostness is not primarily about what you do.

[21:39] Lostness is the effect of something. It's the result of something most commonly. It's this disconnection, this separation. And it shouldn't be a surprise that the chapter that follows, Genesis 3, is Genesis 4.

[21:59] That's not the surprising bit. what I mean is that when you read chapter 4, you read about a parallel with Cain and Abel and the two brothers that are in Luke 15.

[22:19] Do you get that? So the story of Cain and Abel is a shadow of these two brothers that are now at odds in Luke 15. And you know, Cain resents that Abel is accepted.

[22:35] The older brother resents that the younger brother is restored, right? Don't you get that all the way through the Bible? Right? Ishmael and Isaac, Isaac and Esau, Reuben and Joseph, all the time the younger brother is the one that is honored and grace is poured out and the older brother goes, I don't get it.

[22:54] Jesus is just retelling the stories of the Old Testament because they're the stories that the Pharisees and scribes would get. And even to the point in the Cain and Abel story, God says to Cain, why are you angry?

[23:10] Right? Why are you angry? The father says to the older son in Luke 15, my son, everything I have is yours. Why are you angry? me? The only real difference, and it is a real difference, is that Cain's story ends in violence and exile and becomes the wandering sheep himself.

[23:32] But the older brother's story ends with an invitation as Jesus rewrites the story. And so in the four stories in this chapter in Luke 15, we see separation.

[23:50] The sheep is separated from the shepherd. shepherd. The queen is separated from the woman who owns it. The two sons are both separated from the father.

[24:03] Interestingly, the older son is still there, but he is separated nonetheless. They're separated from the father, and look, they're also separated from each other, but in different ways.

[24:18] And so what stems from Genesis is that this understanding that we are all lost, like humanity is lost. Isaiah 53 says, all we like sheep have done what?

[24:34] Every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all, every single one of us. And so look, lostness is not a category for them, it's a condition for us.

[24:51] And so that causes us a problem, doesn't it? Like, even in, and I don't even know whether this is a word, but you'll be patient with me, I know, even in our foundness, there is an element of our lostness.

[25:10] We still feel that struggle, don't we? We still feel that tension. And so maybe the question is, what is it that we are hiding from God right now?

[25:21] And then this week, name that, don't just manage it, bring it to him. What is lost in our lives? What element of lostness is still there? And so that's about separation.

[25:35] Lostness is about separation first and foremost. But look, the second point is that lostness isn't just about behavior, it's a way of life. So lostness isn't just about behavior, lostness is a way of life.

[25:51] As you read what happened as the aftermath of the fall, so we got to about Genesis 4, didn't we? Right? And if you read Genesis 5 and onwards, the situation doesn't get better, does it?

[26:05] Right? Like things don't improve. And so God says, well, I'm just going to judge the world, I'm going to flood the world, I'm going to start again. And then by the time we get to Judges, what do we see about the human condition?

[26:20] Well, the human condition is laid out for us in Judges 17, that in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

[26:32] That's the human condition. Don't need a king, don't want a king, thank you very much, I'll just do whatever is right in my own eyes. And people aren't necessarily rejecting God outright, they're just living however they think is best.

[26:46] The Proverbs actually 14 puts it like this, there is a way that seems right to a man, but in its end is a way of death. If you've ever taken the time to read the book of Lamentations, I know that doesn't sound exciting, but you would benefit from it.

[27:08] in the book of Lamentations, lostness is defined as a lost place. Right? And think about that.

[27:20] You know, the children of Israel go off into slavery into Egypt, they go off into slavery with the Assyrians into Babylon, you know, and then eventually the Romans. It's a lost place, and Lamentations actually describes it that way.

[27:35] Like, if you want to take an example of lost coins, then read it next to the book of Lamentations. What does it mean to be a lost coin? Read Lamentations.

[27:49] It's almost like Jesus retelling the events of Lamentations in this story. The context is that Jerusalem has fallen. The people of God have been taken into exile and lost.

[28:04] Everything familiar is gone. And the people are no longer where they belong. They are where? Hidden and out of sight. Lamentations 1 verse 1 says, how lonely sits the city that was full of people.

[28:22] They haven't just made mistakes. They've lost their home. The people feel unseen, unheard, overlooked. Lamentations chapter 3 verse 8, though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.

[28:39] Lamentations verse 5 verse 1, chapter 5 verse 1, remember oh Lord, what has befallen us, look and see our disgrace. It's almost like they're saying, can you see me down here?

[28:54] So the people in exile are no longer, and this is key and we'll get into this when we explore the rest of the chapter, the people in exile are no longer living out the purpose for which they've been made for.

[29:10] Their value has been diminished, their purpose has been lost. And what we see and what we learn is that lostness isn't just about location, it's about losing the purpose for which you've been created for.

[29:24] And so as you'd expect, Lamentations comments on that too. And it says in Lamentations 3 verse 22 that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercy never comes to an end, that new every morning great is your faithfulness.

[29:40] And so Ephesians, in Ephesians Paul echoes this by telling us that Jesus saved us so that the good works prepared long ago for us would be restored to us that we would walk in them. Which means it's possible to be found by God and not yet fully living in the purpose that you would call for.

[29:58] And so the call for many of us is to recognize lostness in ourselves. And for some who have not been found, lostness looks like sitting in ruins of your life you never thought you'd be living in.

[30:13] And look, this matters because some people aren't far from God because they've run. They're far because they've been displaced by others. And we'll look at this when we get to this, to the lost coin.

[30:27] But look, here's the point. By the time we reach Luke 15 and Jesus has to spell out to the Pharisees and scribe what lost means, we see that lostness isn't just a problem, it's a human condition.

[30:46] That even affects those who think they are near to God. And he's going to highlight that in the case of the older son. The older son was how far from God, from his father?

[30:59] He was close to his father. He lived with his father, he worked with his father, and yet he was still lost. And so then the third way, the third point is this, there's four ways that lostness shows up in this chapter.

[31:18] four ways that, evidences you might argue, but four ways that lostness shows up. And over the next three or four weeks, we'll look at this individually.

[31:32] We're going to see four expressions of lostness as we go through this chapter. And so just to quickly summarize, you see the sheep who has lost belonging.

[31:45] there is drift for whatever reason, there is entanglement with the world for whatever reason, but certainly what we see that there is separation from the shepherd.

[32:00] And what restoration looks like is that the shepherd goes after the sheep and restores it back to the flock. And for us, what does that look like?

[32:15] What does that mean? Well, it means for us, if you like, is to start noticing those people who are missing. Who is missing? And then to reach out to one person or a group of people that you haven't seen for a while.

[32:36] And I don't want this to be like, oh, you know, I'll make a note of that in my sermon notes. because maybe like at the end of the service before we close in a song, you whip out your phone and you text someone.

[32:51] Because it can be that easy. Right, Mike? So text them today, not tomorrow. Text them today. So the sheep we see lost belonging.

[33:05] They've wandered from the flock and they've gone unnoticed. Nobody else has gone after them apart from one who is Jesus. That's born back to the flock.

[33:16] Second thing that we see, how does lostness show up? It shows up in the coin, of course, in lost purpose. The lost purpose and perceived value.

[33:31] I mean, this is probably one of the most striking for me personally. in what I do every day and speak to people every day.

[33:42] There is a whole generation of people who feel no value in and of themselves. There's a whole generation asking, what am I here for?

[33:56] What is my purpose? And no one seems to be able to give them an answer. restoration looks like being useful and being valued.

[34:13] Like you see the woman, what does she do? She sweeps, she clears out her whole house for one coin. Why? Because that one coin does have value. But it only has value if you can get it out from underneath the floorboards, otherwise it has no value, right?

[34:27] Right? Like if your pound coin is down the side of the sofa, my friends, it's not helpful. And so what does that look like?

[34:40] Well, maybe it means encouraging one person this week who feels invisible. Maybe it means encouraging one people, noticing one people to say that I see you, I've heard you.

[34:58] And calling out what you see in them, what value you see in them. And particularly if they're a Christian, they have value because the Holy Spirit lives in them.

[35:10] Call it out, name it for what it is. And so we see lostness not only in a lost belonging but also in a lost purpose.

[35:22] And then the younger son, which is arguably the most famous of these four stories, right? Where he goes off and he squanders in his inheritance and there he's there on a pig farm, which is the land of the Gadarenes, if you want to put in your kind of biblical history.

[35:47] Here is a lost son who has a lost identity. We talked a lot about identity in the recent weeks, haven't we? Here's a son who squanders his inheritance and he ends up on a pig farm.

[36:05] For a Jew on a pig farm? That's a shock to the Pharisees and the scribes. Where he then determines actually to return home.

[36:22] But did you notice subtly the story? It's not just to return home. It's to return home as a servant and not a son. That speaks of identity, doesn't it?

[36:35] He says to his father, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. I will be your servant. Identity lost. And so restoration looks like identity restored.

[36:53] The father comes along, puts a ring on his finger and a robe around his shoulders and he declares in verse 24. This is my son. Who was lost, but now is found.

[37:12] And so this beautiful declaration over the son, like he's both beautiful and powerful. Thank you.

[37:23] God said to you know, because we needed that. The top result is Jesus.

[37:34] Amen. Right. So look, this, this, he, he, he, he, he pronounces this over his son.

[37:44] You are not a servant. You are my son. You were lost, but now something has changed. And what has changed is that you have now been found.

[37:57] And so for many of us this morning, the most easy thing for us to do is that we negotiate our identity based on our past. We declare our current identity based on who we were, not who God says we are.

[38:15] And so maybe you this morning come home as a son or a daughter, not a servant. And then fourthly, and I know we're rushing these, but we're going to unpack them over the next three or four weeks.

[38:32] The fourth one, which is the one which is most overlooked, is the older son. And tragically, the older son is the one that we find ourselves actually most readily without even knowing it.

[38:43] And this is the older son who has lost security. So we have lost belonging, lost purpose, lost identity, lost security. Here we have an older son who is full of pride, full of performance, full of self-reliance.

[39:00] He is all upset that his father could just restore his brother just like that. Right? And so he has a little bit of a security issue.

[39:11] What does he say? He says, look, look, these many years, not just these years, these many years. Father, I want you to know it's been for many years. I have served you and I have never disobeyed your command.

[39:30] My security was found in good behavior. I have never, I have never disobeyed your command, not even once. But and he, my brother, he has never obeyed your command even once.

[39:51] And yet, verse 30, when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, who killed, you killed the fattened calf for him.

[40:01] You see, all of his life, this brother believed that he could secure, and he was secure because of what he did, because of his good works, until he's confronted with grace, which cannot reward on the basis of good works.

[40:24] And all of a sudden he's undone. You see, the story under the story is the older brother is saying, if good works can't save me, then what can?

[40:35] Where do I stand now? Are my good works for nothing? is he's speaking right into the heart of the Pharisees and scribes, and I dare say he's speaking right into the heart of us too, right?

[40:50] Until he is confronted with grace, which cannot reward on the basis of good works, this sign is completely undone.

[41:02] If your relationship with God is based on, your security with God is based on how well you perform, grace is always going to offend you.

[41:15] So maybe this week for you, you don't stop doing good works. We're called to good works, aren't we? But we stop using good works as the basis on how we get rewarded.

[41:33] So let's come back to where we started. Some of you are the lost in verse one, and today Jesus is inviting you in.

[41:45] That's great news, isn't it? We need to celebrate that, like we need to praise God for that, that he's invited us in, he's received us. Some of you, however, are the lost in verse two.

[42:01] But guess what? Jesus is also inviting you to. God's love. And so the question is not how are you going to do that?

[42:12] The question is will you come to him or will you go with him? Before the boys come up and lead us in a song, let's bow our heads, let's pray, let's ask God to help us.

[42:26] And if you whip out your phone and you feel called to send a sneaky text while we're praying, that will be okay. Father, thank you that you have included this story for our help and for our benefit.

[42:43] Thank you, Lord, that you pull back and you're not afraid to pull back some of the layers of our heart. Thank you, Lord, that you are the God who goes after the lost. Thank you that you've come after us.

[42:54] Thank you that we can say that we were once lost and now we're found. thank you that you not only save us but you restore to us belonging and purpose and value.

[43:10] Thank you, Lord, that you restore to us an identity that doesn't belong to us but you've given it to us anyway. And thank you, Lord, that we can never leave your presence because of our badness or our goodness because grace has been poured out on us.

[43:25] Thank you, And so, Lord, we just want to say thank you for that and words sometimes just don't do that. They're just not adequate.

[43:38] And so, Lord, we pray just in the stillness of this room you would just receive the praises of our heart and the gratitude of our heart. Thank you, Lord, that you allow us to see and you allow us to feel our lostness so that we might also feel and understand our foundness.

[44:00] And as we sing this morning, we just want to praise you that you have sought us out and found us. And even more than that, you've placed a ring on our finger, a robe on our back, and you've killed the fattened calf for us.

[44:16] You celebrate along with us. Thank you for that. Lord, would you just fill us again, Lord, with that gratitude for what you've done. Lord, we pray, Lord, that we wouldn't turn into the older brother.

[44:32] Lord, we pray, Lord, that we would be people who not just come to you, but go out with you. Lord, as we are instructed also, as you said, as the Father has sent me, so I'm sending you.

[44:45] And so we go as people looking for the lost, that they might be found. Help us to do that, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.

[44:55] Amen.