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We are glad you are here today. We begin a brand new sermon series entitled You Are. And the

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sermon series that we begin is only three weeks long, and it's all about God and how God views

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you. You are seen, you are valued, you are loved. Have you ever lost something? Have you ever lost

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something and you could not find it? Now it's fascinating to think that that's just a normal

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human experience, but when you study this passage you're going to see in Luke chapter 15 that God

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describes himself as the one who has lost something. And in the passage we're going to see that God

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describes himself as one who has lost sheep, who has lost a coin, and who has lost a son. Those are

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the three stories of Luke chapter 15, lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son. And in this three-week

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sermon series we're going to study all three. The first one is all about a lost sheep, and it's

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found in Luke chapter number 15 verses 1 and following. It says, then all the tax collectors

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in the sinners drew near to him, to hear him. And the Pharisee scribes complaining said,

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this man receives sinners and eats with them. So Jesus spoke a parable into them. What man of

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you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness

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and go after the one? Let us pray. Father in heaven, our prayer today as we study this passage is you

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would give us great insight into what it has. Lord, you spoke this parable to a group of Pharisees as

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well as tax collectors to opposing groups who did not like one another, but that you loved both.

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Father, what they learned from this passage is what we desire to learn today. I pray that every

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lost sheep that hears this sermon would come back to the shepherd. And I pray, Father, that every

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shepherd, Father, every sheep in this room today that hears this passage would understand the love

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that the shepherd has for them. God, I pray that you would do for me today once again what I cannot do

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and that is teach your people your word. In your name we ask these things and pray. Amen.

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You are seen. You are valued. You are loved. Okay, let's begin with that first one. You are seen.

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Today's sermon is entitled, You Are Seen. What if I were to tell you you had a fan

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audience? You individually have an audience, people that are watching you. You say, well,

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I'm not famous. I mean, I don't have a lot of people following me on social media. It's not

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like I'm a celebrity. I walk outside of a restaurant and people are taking pictures. What do you mean?

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I have an audience. Well, the audience that you have can be understood if you understand the theology

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of heaven. How many of you in this room believe in heaven if you do say amen? Amen. Oh, that makes

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sense. You're a church. You know, you're like, hopefully, that's why I'm here. You know, we want

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to believe in heaven. We do believe in heaven. And the primary reason I believe in heaven is because

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the Bible teaches us that after life there is another realm that we refer to as heaven, the

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afterlife. Yet did you know that the Bible refers to heaven in two ways? Yes, there is the city of

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heaven. We call it the eternal kingdom of God. And in that eternal kingdom of God, there's the city,

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we call it the New Jerusalem. And in that city, we talk about streets of gold. We talk about

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mansions. We talk about angels singing and fruit trees. And there's a river of life. How many of

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you, when I say heaven, that's kind of what comes to mind. Amen. How many of you right? So this is

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heaven, but that is only one aspect of heaven. It's what we call the eternal kingdom of God,

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which is not yet there or finished or concluded. Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room,

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I go and prepare a place for you. And where I go and prepare, I will come again and receive you

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unto myself that where I am there, you may be also. Jesus is in the midst of preparing the

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eternal kingdom of heaven. There's another, for lack of a better term, heaven. Say, what do you

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mean another heaven? We call it the temporal heaven. Paul called it the great cloud of witnesses.

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And in this great cloud of witnesses, it's where Christians who are in Christ, people who have been

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born again, when they die, they are in the presence of God. And in the presence of God, they are

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surrounded by God and by the people of God. But the focus of that great cloud of witnesses

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is still upon what is happening here on earth. It's like a great stadium that is filled up

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as people look down and watch the continuing story of Jesus and his disciples and planet earth.

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That's what the Bible refers to. It has, I'm not the only theologian, of course, that believes this

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and pastor. Pastors and churches and Christians and artists throughout history have believed this

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concept of the great cloud of witnesses and you can see it in their writings as well as their artwork.

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In fact, here's a few pieces of art throughout history that have described the great cloud of

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witnesses, Christians and saints who have gone on before us, who look down in a great cloud upon

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what is still happening here on earth. This is one of those beautiful paintings. Here's another,

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a picture of all of the Christians who have gathered around this one from the 11th century.

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They're surrounding Christ in a great cloud, but what are they focused upon? They're focused down

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upon what Christ is focused upon and that is the story of what's playing here on earth.

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There are other more modern alliterations or illustrations of this concept of the great

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cloud of witnesses. And here's another, yet another after this one, go to the next one,

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of a great cloud of witnesses that are standing around and watching what's happening here on

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earth. This visual helps us understand when we die, yes, eventually there's the eternal kingdom

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of heaven that you think of, but initially there is a pit stop, let's call it, in this

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temporal place called the great cloud of witnesses where we as Christians surround with other

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Christians and with Christ watch the playing out of the human drama here on earth.

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We would understand it more in the terms of a stadium. There are observers and there are players.

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The players eventually get too old to play and so that they're eventually graduated into the

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stands to be among the observers. Do you understand that this is how the world works spiritually

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speaking? That you are still on the field playing, that's your life and all those who have died before

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are in these great stands, this great cloud of witnesses and what are they doing? They are

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watching and waiting, waiting for the eternal kingdom of heaven and watching us. It's watching

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what God is doing in your life. Now, why do I tell that theology prior to telling the story of the

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lost sheep? You're going to see it in just a moment, but first I want you to understand that you are

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seen by the great cloud of witnesses, but that you are also seen by Jesus Christ himself. I asked

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you if you believed in heaven, but do you also believe in Jesus if you do say amen? Now, what do

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we know about Jesus who sees us? The Bible tells us several things in this passage. Number one,

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what do we know about Jesus? Number one, he loves the outcast. According to verses one and two,

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he loves the outcast. Let's say that together. He loves the outcast. Point number one,

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he loves the outcast. Say it with me. I'm going to say point number one. You say it with me.

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Point number one, he loves the outcast. What does the Bible say? It says in verses one and two,

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then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Jesus to hear him. Notice it begins by

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telling us that Jesus was drawing to himself tax collectors and sinners. Well, how many of you

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in this room are a sinner? If you are, say amen. Okay. How many of you are a tax collector? Don't

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say anything. All right. We don't want to know. We don't want to know. Now, why does the Bible

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compare tax collector and sinner here together? Well, you say pastor because all tax collectors

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are sinners. That's true. All right. But all people are sinners. We're talking about the day

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after taxes. Wasn't it yesterday, April 16th, 15th? I just realized that. Well, good luck. Hopefully,

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you file in time if not get an extension. Now, why exactly does he pair tax collectors and sinners?

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And the answer is historical. You see, during this day, this was written in the Palestinian region,

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modern day Israel, where the folks that were there were, well, they were oppressed by an outside

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regime. The Romans had taken over the entire land and the people not only had to pay taxes or tithes

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to their own religious government, they also had to pay extra taxes to the Romans outside. And they

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were oppressive taxes. So oppressive that many people had to shut down their businesses. So

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oppressive that their families could not actually gain or get ahead. And so these oppressive taxes

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based upon their nation and an outside nation that was, that was overpowering them was a terrible

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situation. Now, the only way they could get somebody to pay their taxes was instead of sending a

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Roman to your house, they found Rome found it was a lot cheaper to find somebody else that lived in

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your community who already knew you to come and get the taxes for them. So if I'm Rome, what I would

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do is I would hire James and I would say, James, I want you to go, I made you the tax collector

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and sinner today. Everybody look at James and go, boo. They hate you, James. It's all right,

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God loves you. All right, all right, that's right. And you're going to have to come and you're going

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to have to take away Jordan's money and give it to me. Now, James doesn't like to do this because

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he's a good guy, but deep down James really wants to do this. And here's why. Because as James now

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turns his back on the community, he's going to come and take Jordan's taxes. But even though

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Jordan only owes five shekels, he's going to tell Jordan he owes 10 shekels. He's going to take the

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five shekels and send it to Rome. He's going to take the other five shekels and put it in his

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pocket. And James is not going to only do that to Jordan. He's going to do that to every other

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person in this room. So the trip you are planning, you don't get to go on. The new carpet you want

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to get, you don't get to get it. You got to upgrade those tires on your car. Too bad. James

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stole your money. Everybody go, boo. James, how could you turn your back on us? And the answer is

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because he loves the Romans. Not only does he love the Romans, he loves Grecian lifestyle. Not only

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does he love Grecian lifestyle, he loves money. He's turned his back on God and he loves, say, boo,

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boo. Some of these people really feel bad for you, James. They don't know we're friends, right?

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All right. So this is the concept. Now, these tax collectors were compared with sinners. And now

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the tax collectors and sinners, they wanted to spend time with Jesus. There was another group

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of people. They were the religious Pharisees. They were not only religious leaders, they were

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political leaders. And they hated the tax collectors. And according to this passage, the Bible says in

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verse one, all of the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Jesus to hear him. Let me ask you

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this question. Do you think everybody should have equal access to Jesus, yes or no? Yes.

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Let me ask it another way. Do you believe anybody, no matter who they are or what their sin,

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should be able to come to Jesus and worship him, yes or no?

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Yes. Are you sure? What about the people you don't like? What about the people you disagree with?

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What about the people like, you know, other people don't like? Do they have access? Now,

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notice this about Jesus. Jesus attracts sinners. He's the light of the world. And as the light of

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the world, he attracts those who need his light the most. Can I just stop and ask this question?

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Are you a Jesus follower if you are, say amen? Do you attract sinners to yourself?

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Like sinners in your home, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your community.

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Saying, I don't know pastor, I mean, I'm a religious person and you know, people who stand for

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truth, they repel sinners. Well, Jesus stood for truth, but he attracted sinners.

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How many sinners in your life are attracted to you? Say, well pastor, I don't have a lot of

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sinners coming after me, but I have tax collectors. Does that count? No, that doesn't, that's, that's

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not what we're talking about. But we as Christians ought to have that question. But notice this in

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verse number two as it goes on, the Pharisees and the scribes complained to saying, this man receives

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sinners and eats with them. Why were they so offended by this? Why were they so angry? Well,

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they were angry because not only of who these Pharisees or these, these tax collectors and

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sinners were, they were offended because they also spent time with Jesus. And religious people

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always think in terms of separation and contamination. That's how religious people think.

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They think in terms of, well, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second, hold on.

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If you spend time with those people and then you spend time with me, then you're going to be

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contaminated by those people and you might contaminate me. That's how religious people think.

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This is why religious people are constantly separating from everybody.

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Always. And if you don't separate from everybody that they separate from, then suddenly you might

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be contaminated so we have to separate from you as well. In fact, the word Pharisee literally means

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to separate. They were known for being better than everybody else, higher than everybody else,

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and all alone at the top of their, their heaping self-righteousness.

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But Jesus was different. Jesus attracted sinners. Now, my big question today is as the

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Christian church is wrestling with how to attract sinners, my question is how did Jesus attract

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sinners? Now, there are two theories that are going out in the Christian church right now about this.

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Some believe that the way you attract sinners and some in this church, if you're not careful,

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might think this. The way you attract sinners is to cater to the sinner,

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placate the sinner, tell the sinner whatever they need to hear. Everything you've ever thought is

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true. Everything you've ever felt is right. What do you like? I like that too. Whatever you are,

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whatever you think, whatever you feel, you're 100% perfect. And the way to attract sinners is to

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cater to them. Jesus did not attract sinners by catering to them. He attracted sinners by caring

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about them. People can tell the difference. Listen to me, listen to me. I'm not talking about the

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broader church of the world. I'm talking about you as the member of the church of God. The way you

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can attract the sinner the way Jesus did is not to cater to them, but to care for them. Jesus

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actually liked sinners. Let me say that again. He actually liked them. You ever think about that?

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Jesus doesn't just love you. How many of you in this room, by the way, we're talking about sinners in the third

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plural person, and it's like, I'm one of those. How many of you are a sinner here today? Would you say,

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man, how many made it, Mr. Yeah, okay. Jesus doesn't just love you. He likes you, which to me is so

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much more important because as an American with modern English, I know that Jesus loves me, right?

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Jesus loves me. That's on a bumper sticker, right? It's on giant billboards as you drive through

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Oklahoma. Jesus loves you, right? We know Jesus loves, but to think that Jesus likes me,

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here's the thing about Jesus. He sees you. He knows all about you, and he honestly really likes you.

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He's not putting on. He doesn't like your potential. He doesn't like what you're going to become. He likes

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you. And what's fascinating is that there are other people in this world who like you, but they don't

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know everything about you. He knows everything about you, and he actually likes you. He likes you,

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and he loves you, and he loves you, and he likes you, and he cares about you, and that's how he

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attracts you. When somebody realizes that about Jesus, they're like, I want to get to know Jesus

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more. And so that's exactly what's going on in this passage. Man, I love that Jesus cared so much

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about his followers that he likes them, and he loved them. He cared enough to be honest with them.

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Does somebody really love you and like you if you have horrible breath and they never tell you?

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Say, Pastor, this is a good point. I'm glad you're bringing it up.

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But when your spouse who loves you and likes you and has to smell you all of the time

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looks over and says, here's a lifesaver, pal, because you're killing us. You're killing us all.

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You know they don't just like you and love you. They love you enough to tell you the truth.

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Jesus, the way he did it, not only not cater to the sinner, he cared for the sinner, and then he

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lovingly confronted the sinner. He said to the woman who was taken in adultery, he said, I love you,

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wear your accusers, they're gone, neither do I accuse you. But then he said, go and sin no more.

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Why? Because Jesus knew the sin was destroying this woman.

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He said to the tax collector, Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19,

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Zacchaeus was doing exactly what James was doing. He was stealing from people.

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And Jesus, when he confronted Zacchaeus, he liked Zacchaeus, he loved Zacchaeus, and then he said

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to Zacchaeus, you must be saved. And Zacchaeus said, okay, I'm going to give away half of my money,

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and anybody I've stolen money from, I'm going to give them back fourfold. And then Jesus says,

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in verse 10 of chapter 19, he says, today salvation has finally come to this house.

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Do you see? Jesus cared for them, he confronted them, kindly after building a relationship with them.

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That's what's beautiful about Jesus Christ, because he cares about you, he loves you, he likes you.

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See, Pharisees simply don't like sinners. They don't understand them politically,

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they don't understand them morally, they don't understand them practically, they're polar opposites.

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And Pharisees criticize them, and then keep their distance from them.

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Do you want to know why the Christian church in America is not reaching the United States of America?

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Is because we criticize sinners, and then we keep our distance from them.

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So instead of doing this, we must follow the pattern of Jesus Christ, we must care for them,

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attract them, spend time with them, and then kindly confront them, and be willing for them

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to confront you back, because you're human.

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He knows you, he likes you. And I remember to have, I remember the feeling of having to fit in.

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Do you remember that? How many of you remember being a teenager? Let me ask you this question.

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How many are 40 years old or above? Would you raise your hand? How many of you are 40 years old or above?

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God bless us. Some of you are like too tired to raise your hand, you're like, oh, that's not good.

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I'm 42, and I can remember being a teenager. And you know, people talk about youth and how great it was.

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I don't want to go back. Dear God, I do not want to go back to being a teenager. No, Lord, please help me.

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And, but I remember, I remember turning 13 years old, when I was 13 years old, a big movie came out called Jurassic Park.

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And I remember, I remember turning 13 years old, when I was 13 years old, a big movie came out called Jurassic Park.

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This is a great movie. Dinosaurs Eating Humans, it's wonderful. It's good times.

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Steven Spielberg, classic. And I remember, I was so excited about this movie.

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And we were also, that summer, going to go to camp for the summer, which is something our youth group does.

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Our church youth group was going to go to camp for the, and so my mom was going to take us to Target.

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My brother and I, he's 15, I'm 13, and buys a t-shirt. And so I ran over to the section where the teen t-shirts were,

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and I'm in middle school, we called it Junior High, and I picked out a t-shirt. I saw it was a Jurassic Park t-shirt.

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And I'm like, oh, it's got a treasure, it tops it everything. Like, this is so cool.

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And I grabbed that t-shirt, and I started walking out, and my brother came to me, he walked around the corner,

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and he had a Chicago Bulls t-shirt. Now, in 1993, if you were a teenage boy, there was only two things that mattered,

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the Jurassic Park and Chicago Bulls. There you go. And he walked around the corner carrying a Chicago Bulls t-shirt,

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and I had my Jurassic Park, he said, what are you doing? I said, I found my t-shirt. He said, I don't think you did.

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I said, why not? Now, my brother loved me. He kind of liked me, right? But he confronted me.

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And he said to me, he said, Josh, if you wear, this was before being a nerd was cool. How many of you remember those days?

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You know what I mean? He said, if you wear that t-shirt, you're going to get, you know, you're going to get bullied, and people aren't going to like you.

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I'm like, so what should I get? He said, get a Chicago Bulls t-shirt. I said, but I don't like the Chicago Bulls. He said, it doesn't matter.

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You wear that and people will leave you alone. I'm like, all right. So I put down the Jurassic Park t-shirt, went over and got a Chicago Bulls t-shirt.

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He made me memorize the names Dennis Rodman and Scotty Pippin, and I already knew about Michael Jordan because he was on my video game.

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So like I already knew about him. Do you remember as a teenager what it was like to try to fit in with your personality to make sure people liked you?

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And then the longer you did it, the more you had to put on a perception so that you were accepted. You don't have to do this with Jesus.

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He accepts your particular personality, though he wants to help you reject your preferential sin.

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Why? Because he loves you and he likes you and he doesn't want your sin to hurt you.

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So what we see about Jesus in this passage, first and foremost, is he loves the outcast even when everybody else does not.

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Number two, he looks for the loss. Number two, he looks for the loss. Number two, he looks for the loss.

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I'm going to say number two. You say he looks for the loss. Number two, he looks for the loss.

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Look what he says in verses three through five. So Jesus spoke a parable into them saying, what man of you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them,

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does not leave the ninety and nine sheep in the wilderness and go after the one who is lost until he finds it?

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And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. So Jesus gives a story to demonstrate this concept that he's talking about.

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Now, he actually gives three stories and today I'm going to cover one next week, the following story and the third week, the following story.

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Jesus tells us stories of a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son.

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But all three of these stories are related to the main conversation that you just saw.

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Jesus was spending time with sinners and tax collectors. The Pharisees didn't like it and they yelled at Jesus,

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we don't think you should be spending time with them. And so Jesus tells the story, okay, you don't think I should spend time with the sinner who is lost?

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Let me tell you a story. What kind of a shepherd has a hundred sheep?

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And at the end of the day, puts all of his sheep inside of a sheepfold and as the sheep come in, the good shepherd will count the sheep.

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One, two, three, four, five. By the way, I always thought, how did the shepherd not fall asleep counting sheep? You know what I mean?

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Like, because that's a thing. Thank you. Thank you. This is a stupid joke.

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So he counts the sheep, he's all the way up to 99. Where's the last sheep?

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So he closes the pen, he gets up on the ridge and he counts them all again and again and again, 99. Where's the one? He lost the one.

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There's no lost sheep. So now the Bible says the good shepherd will always leave the 99 sheep and will go out search for the one sheep that has been lost.

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Why? Because God cares about the lost sheep.

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Now hear me. Hear this voice because some of you have been hearing the wrong voice for too long.

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You're a wandering lost sheep and you're convinced that nobody cares. And Jesus is here to say, He's been searching for you. He loves you and he likes you and he cares about you.

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And he wants to bring you home. And when he finds you, he doesn't scold you, he doesn't smack you, he picks you up and he places you on his shoulders and he comes back rejoicing.

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That's how he feels about you. Notice the sheep is so exhausted from wandering in the midst of the wilderness that they can't even walk back to the sheepfold itself.

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They're almost probably starved to death. They're out there wandering. And that's who some lost sheep are even in this room perhaps.

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You've been wandering in the world trying to feast on the goodness of this world and you find it not fulfilling. And you say, what am I going to do? Will he ever have me back? He'll never have me back now.

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And the answer is he's been searching for you. Notice this. He's not an angry shepherd with a big staff ready to come. Hit the sheep when he finds him.

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He's thrilled when he finds you and he doesn't mind the extra burden of 40 to 80 pounds of adult sheep. What that would weigh upon the back of the shepherd.

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He doesn't mind it. It's heavy. But he's thrilled. He found you. He's been looking for you.

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Some of you, God is just bringing back into the fold. Some of you, God is just bringing into the fold for the first time.

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And there's this overwhelming feeling that has been given to you by religious people that somehow God is angrily looking to get you.

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He's not trying to get you. He's trying to find you. He's trying to save you. And he can't wait to bring you back to the fold.

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Do you see? And can I just stop and say this about our church? If you're new to Southern Hills. Southern Hills, this church particularly, we are not here to collect religious people.

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We are here to seek and to save that which is lost. So if you're here with some sort of religious perspective and some sort of a paradigm that you're like, man, now that I'm at this church, I better get this church in line.

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I got to tell you, there's a lot of other churches you can fix. And I can give you their addresses, amen. So it's okay with us if you go there.

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We are here to seek and to save that which is lost, amen. That's what we're here to do.

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So what we see first and foremost is that he loves the outcast. He looks for the lost. And number three, number three, he rejoices, number three, he rejoices over repentance.

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That one's hard to get your mind around. So I want you to say it with me. He rejoices over repentance. Say it again, say it again. He rejoices over repentance.

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What is it that thrills the heart of God? Here's what thrills the heart of God, repentance.

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Those of us who are raised in religious homes think that what thrills the heart of God is righteousness. Righteousness does not thrill the heart of God.

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Repentance thrills the heart of God. Yeah, prove it. Okay, I will. Here we go. Look at what the Bible says in verse six.

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And he, and the Bible says, when Jesus comes or excuse me, when the shepherd comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying to them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.

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So he's so thrilled he gets home with his lost sheep. He puts his sheep in the pen. He runs to his neighbors. He's like, hey, hey, everybody, hey, check it out. Come here, come here, come here.

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Hey, everybody, guess what? I lost a sheep. I went out. I've been looking for days. I found the sheep. Come on over. We've got to celebrate.

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Jesus is so thrilled about finding the lost sheep. He throws a party. Here's the question. How did the sheep get lost?

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That's a good question. Was the shepherd careless? I mean, in this analogy, Jesus is saying God is the shepherd and we are the sheep.

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So do you think Jesus is saying that God is careless and he loses his sheep all the time? Do you think that's what Jesus' point is? Yes or no? No.

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So how did the sheep get lost? Well, the answer to that question is the sheep ran away.

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The sheep ran away. Isn't that what the prophet Isaiah said 700 years before in Isaiah chapter 53 on the screen? In Isaiah chapter 53 on the screen.

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There it is. It says, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

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Jesus' story about the lost sheep is not out of the blue. It's built upon 700 years of tradition in that community saying that we as humans,

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we're like sheep who have a tendency to run from the shepherd. All of us. All we like sheep. I'm going to say how many sheep run from the shepherd.

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You say all. How many sheep run from the shepherd? All. See, if you approach this passage and you're like, man, some of these sheep run from the shepherd,

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but not me, then you disagree with the Bible. All sheep have run from the shepherd. Your self-righteousness, according to Scripture,

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is more of a stench in the nostrils of God than the outright sin of the tax collector. And your self-righteousness needs to be repented of in the same way their sin needs to be repented of.

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Same thing. All we like sheep have gone astray. The difference between a saved person and a damned person is not that the saved person is perfect and the damned person is sinned.

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It's that the saved person admits they've sinned. The damned person can't do it. And so often Jesus is teaching that it's the sinner who understands they are a sinner and needing of a savior that can be saved.

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It's the self-righteous who think, I don't really need a savior. I mean, I'm so glad he's there for those people. That's the person who will be shocked when they stand before God and are damned in their soul.

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All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. This is how we get lost as sheep.

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So what must I do to return to the shepherd? Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. That's the point. What does a sheep need to do to get back to the shepherd?

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And the answer is found in verse seven. The answer is one word. The answer is, repent. The way we get back to the shepherd is to repent.

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That's what he says. Look at what he says in verse seven. I say to you, this is Jesus saying, I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who what? What's the word?

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Repent. Repents. More than 99 just persons who need no repentance.

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Jesus is saying very clearly, with so much irony and sarcasm we'll see in a moment, Jesus is saying both the sinner and the self-righteous need to repent.

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The sinner needs to repent of the outward sins that are obvious to everybody. The self-righteous need to repent of the inward sins that they quietly heeding the heart.

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Every single sinner or self-righteous person needs to repent. Oftentimes a sinner needs to repent of their own religion.

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The religion that has taught them that they are so much more superior than everybody else. They have to turn their back on it.

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And that's what Jesus is saying to these Pharisees. Don't you understand the thing that you think is getting you close to God is the thing that's keeping you from God?

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Repent. And what is repentance? Repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of action.

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If you want to repent, you have to change your mind about who you are, who he is, and what your life is about. That's what means to repent.

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Change your mind, that'll lead to a change of life. You have to start admitting in your mind, I was wrong, he's right.

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If you're like, no, I'm right! Okay, you've not repented.

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Have you ever changed your mind about something and then it changed your life? For example, I can remember when my parents brought home guacamole.

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And there was guacamole, and they wanted me to dip a chip inside of some green ooze. They're like, it's delicious, it's so good. Doesn't look like food.

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Looks like later, it doesn't look like food. But I'm going to dip a chip in the stuff and then I'm going to consume it.

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And then the first time you try it, it's salty and then it has this texture and you're like, ah!

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And then I repented. I had a change of mind that led to a change of direction.

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And then I got married. And one of the first things that happened when we got married, literally, Heather and I started going out.

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And I went to a Mexican restaurant and I'm like, chips and guacamole? And she would say, oh, I'm like, have you tried it?

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I don't think I like it. You need to repent.

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Now it's true. Now she's at the place where she makes some of the best guacamole. I'm telling you some of the best guacamole.

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Why? Because she tasted it and she realized her husband was right. Can I get an amen right there? It's happened. It's happened.

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I've got three times. I'll tell you about the other two some other time. Three times in 20 years. I've been correct. I keep track. It's in a notebook.

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What you must do is have a change of mind about who you are and a change of, that leads to a change of direction about who you'll be.

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Repentance is realizing you're the lost lamb and you need to come back to the Savior and say, forget what's being lost. I want to be found.

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My old life is gone. My new life has begun. Look at verse 7. I say to you, now notice this, not only do we see repentance, we see rejoicing.

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We see rejoicing. I said it a moment ago, what is it that brings God joy? What brings God joy is not self-righteousness. What brings God joy is repentance.

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I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance.

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Anybody here a fan of sarcasm? You would love Jesus. There are several times in his teachings he is deeply sarcastic and this is one of those moments.

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Jesus is standing, remember between the sinners and the Pharisees and Jesus tells him at the end of the story. He says, don't worry, fellas.

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God is so much happier about one person who needs repentance more than 99 people who would never need to repent of anything.

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And he lets it land. And every single one of those self-righteous people know deep down they have sin in their own hearts.

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That sin of pride and arrogance and better than everybody and prejudice and raging inside of their own heart.

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You see what he's doing? Wow.

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What is it that's happening? Joy in heaven? Joy. You say, what does that mean?

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Do you know what heaven looks like? When somebody gets saved, do you know what heaven, when somebody repents and receives Jesus as saviour?

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When a sinner runs away from God and comes back to God, this is what heaven looks like.

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That is the greatest theological picture that the apostle Paul tries to give to the Christian.

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Don't you see we are comforted about with such great cloud of witnesses encompassed about by such a great cloud of witnesses?

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So let us lay aside every weight and sin that easily besets us so we can run the race that is set before us.

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This great cloud of witnesses are watching us. And do you know what they're watching us do?

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They're watching us as we choose to repent and receive Christ. Do you know what they're doing?

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They're on the edge of their seats the moment you repented and received Jesus Christ as saviour.

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They're waiting to see what happens next. Some of you right now, they're at the edge of their seats.

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What do you believe? You know what we're on the edge of our seat about? We're at the edge of our seat of what's going to happen in the next election?

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We're at the edge of our seat. You know what they're watching the whole thing. They don't care.

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We're on the edge of our seat. How's the stock market going to open tomorrow? They don't care.

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They're on the edge of their seat on Sunday morning as a sinner is wrestling with,

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will I repent and receive Jesus saviour? And the moment they do, crowds start shouting. Joy in heaven.

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Joshua and Alicia go to our church. When I first met with them at Starbucks, they had been coming to the church I think for about a year or so.

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And most would have classified Joshua and Alicia as Christian. Admittedly, they too would have claimed Christianity as their religion of choice

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if they were asked in a form or in casual conversation. Sure, we're Christian. That's what they would have said. However, they were not saved.

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Ashley told me in our conversation as a teenager, I remember being religious meeting, a big religious meeting where something like 99% of the kids all went forward to the front of the room and became Christian.

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But I just went forward because I didn't want to be the only one left in an empty audience.

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Josh told me a few years ago, a bunch of our friends were getting baptized at this huge mega church. We wanted a fresh start, so we did it too, but nothing really changed for us.

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So I asked them to describe their relationship with God. With great sincerity and trembling in His voice, Josh said, I don't think I have a relationship with God.

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He said these words, like an empty, like I'm empty inside and I'm dead in my heart.

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Ashley admitted, we've done all the things we've been told to do in every church we've ever attended, but we still have no peace for our souls.

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So I told them the story of Nicodemus and what it means to truly be born again. In detail, I explained the gospel of Jesus Christ and I watched the light of the truth awaken in their eyes.

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I could see them literally, spiritually come awake.

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I asked them bluntly, do you understand and believe these truths? Would you like to receive Jesus as your savior?

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Both with tears welling up in their eyes and spilling out, they said, yes, that's exactly what we want.

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And once again, in Starbucks, we witnessed the humble prayers of two new believers who put their faith in Jesus Christ they were saved.

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That was six months ago. The reason I tell the story now is because of what happened last Saturday night.

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Last Saturday night, we had Easter. By the way, Easter was an amazing service. Amen. It wasn't amazing. Man, it was great.

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It was incredible. There were like 2300 people here for the services. It was wild. People getting saved and wonderful decisions.

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And that Saturday night at six o'clock, which was our smallest service of all six,

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Josh and Alicia sat right over here, I believe, with their daughter London, who is 12 years old.

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And after the service, everybody was leaving and London came up with her father, Josh. I said, hey man, I immediately dressed the adult as I typically would do.

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And I said, what's up? And he's like, no, no, no, she wasn't talking to you. I'm like, oh, oh, I said, hey London, how are you? What's going on?

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And she was very serious. She said, I saw my parents' picture up there. I said, oh yeah, you know the story.

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Because in the Easter service, remember I showed all those pictures of the people that had been getting saved and stuff?

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She said, yeah. I said, yeah, that's yeah, because they got saved. She said, I think I want one of those meetings.

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And I said, you know, you don't have to get saved at Starbucks. You know, you can get saved right here.

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And she said, when can we meet? And I said, well, do you want to talk now? And her parents had time. It was the last service.

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So Josh, Alicia and I sat right over here with London, 12 years old, and little cash, their boy, little cash, four years old.

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He sat very obedient the whole time. And I walked through the gospel with London that God loves us, but we're sinners.

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Have you ever sinned? Oh yes. Do you believe Jesus died for your sins? Yes. Do you believe he rose from the grave? Yes.

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Would you like to ask Jesus to save you and give him your life? Yes. Very serious. I said, okay. I did this when I was about your age too.

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I'll never forget. I said, why don't we pray right now and you can give your life to Jesus and ask Jesus to save you.

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She said, okay, we all held hands together, even cash, you know. And she right there with the sweetest words prayed and asked Jesus to save her.

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She's excited. She's getting baptized on May 7th in just a couple of weeks right up here. It's really exciting.

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You say, why would you tell us this? Here's why. Because in a realm not too far from here, there are billions of souls that were sitting at the edge of their seat

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watching this go on. Waiting to see, is she going to believe?

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Some of you are in exactly the same scenario. Those who have gone on before you are ready and waiting to see if you will repent and receive Christ.

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Or if you'll repent and come back to God. My question to you is this. Are you ready?

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There will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents more than 99 just people who don't need to repent. Why?

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Because you are seen, yes by them and most importantly by Jesus himself. Let's pray.

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Father, thank you for your word and the truths you've given us today. Our desire is to break through this modern world, this physical, metaphysical place.

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Father, so that we can get deeper and understand the spiritual reality of the world that we're actually in. That there is a person who loves us, named Jesus, and a great cloud of witnesses who are watching that can lead us to the truth.

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And oh God, I pray that if we need to repent even today, you'd break our hearts to do so. Thank you Lord as we've studied this passage today. Keep it in our hearts and our minds as we leave. In Jesus' name we pray.