God’s Love, Joy, and Search For Sinners

0:33If you'd remain standing and grab your Bible and turn to Luke 15, I'll be reading the first ten verses, if you'd follow along with me. Luke 15, verse 1. 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. So he told them 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? 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 neighbors, 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. One sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

1:37Or what woman, having 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost. Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. This is God's word. You may be seated.

2:09My first year in seminary, I had a job. I know you don't think that preachers work, but I had a job as a, I worked in a hotel in North Carolina, and I worked the front desk. And it was a great job for going to school. For being in grad school, it was a great job because you could work nights and there wasn't anyone there, and you could simply just study and what have you and just lament all of the work that you had and all that other kind of stuff. But one of the best parts of this job, honestly, was that we had a lost and found box.

2:50And the reason why it was a great, the job was great for that is because you could get yelled at all day long because people's room temperatures were. Weren't just right, even though they were in charge of that, or because they didn't get the right room that they ordered, or whatever it was. But, man, when you have the lost in found box, and someone figures out that they lost, that they left something in their hotel room, and they call you from Virginia, or Tennessee, or Alabama, or Florida. This all happened, by the way. All these states were where people called me from.

3:33And they would say, Do you have such and such? And I would say, Let me check the lost and found box. And I would go to the lost in found box, and I would pick it up. Here's the cool thing about it: depending on how valuable it was, that would dictate their response. Because sometimes, if it really wasn't that valuable, they would say, Oh, you know, if you could just throw that in the mail, like I would just literally just throw it out into a mailbox and see if it lands in their house.

4:05But if they really cared about it, they would say something like, Look, I'm going to give you my credit card number, and I want you to FedEx this thing overnight. Or sometimes, if they were really smart and wouldn't give their credit card number to a stranger, they would even drive back three states to North Carolina to come and get what they thought they had lost. And here's the thing. I think that is just a wonderful way of understanding, just a little bit, in our incomplete way, of understanding God's heart for the lost. God's heart for the lost. God's desire to gather to himself that which belongs to him. God's heart for the lost. When we get to Luke chapter 15, and over the next three weeks, and I'm going to speak to you very briefly for a little while this morning, and then Mark Stone and Cody Groves are going to come, and they're going to preach through this particular text. Not the text exactly that I'm going to do today, but we're going to see something that I think is very profound. And it's going to be God revealing his heart for the lost. His heart for the lost. And what he's going to do here for us this morning is he's going to share two parables with us. Jesus is going to share two parables that are linked. They're connected to the third great parable, which is the prodigal son. But all three of these parables, the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the prodigal son, are all linked together because they are all revealing God's heart for the lost. They all involve roughly the same things. Something is lost.

6:02Something is sought out. Something is found and recovered. And then there's a party. Amen. I love stories that end with a party. How about you? Did you know that the Bible ends with a party? If you don't think that it does, I would just encourage you to read the book of Revelation. It absolutely ends in a party that never, ever, ever ends. This is great stuff. So let's just look with me really quickly, really briefly. Let's walk through this text, these first 10 verses in Luke chapter 15, and let's see God's love, His joy, and His intense search for sinners. Verse 15, beginning in verses 1 and 2, we see God's love for lowly sinners. We see God's love for lowly sinners. Now, the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

7:07Now, who's the audience that's here? Verse 1, Luke tells us that it's tax collectors and sinners. Tax collectors and sinners. Now, the end of the year is nigh, and that can mean several different things to a lot of you, depending on if you own a business, if you're employed in a business. What is your stake in that business? Because there's something really important that's about to happen. The fiscal year is about to end for the federal government, and the IRS is going to come and get from you with force, by the way, if you don't voluntarily give it, what you owe and what I owe them, the federal government.

7:53Tax collecting, right? Well, we think about tax collecting. I don't know that it's such an ignoble thing to go and work for the IRS, as if you do and you're sinking down in your pew right now. I want to encourage you to sit back up. We're not going to come and get you. I think that your role is an important role. Someone has to collect those taxes. But the role of a tax collector in the first century in Israel is something far different.

8:21This is a low job. Tax collectors were traitors to their country. These are fellow Jews. They paid taxes in advance out of their own pocket for their own citizens. Oh, that's so sweet, right? That they paid taxes for them. They did do that. And then they would go and extract that money and then whatever they could get on top of that. Because whatever they got on top of that, they could keep. So they're going to do whatever it is that they have to do to get as much money from you as possible. They're not just going to get the money. That you owe to the Roman government, they're going to try to squeeze more money on top of that because that's money that they get to keep. This is not the IRS. This is the mafia.

9:11Even though we may conflate the two often, this is the mafia. They're traitors to their own kind. They sold themselves out to the Roman government to go and inflict pain upon their fellow Jews to take from them. These are lowly people. Did you know that the witness of a tax collector was no good in court? It was no good. Didn't count because they were men that were of such low character in the eyes of the Jewish people. It's terrible.

9:53They had to have someone else go and make sacrifice for them at the temple because they weren't allowed in. They were dirty. They were unclean. These are the people that Jesus is meeting with. It says tax collectors and sinners. Well, that seems very general. But in the first century, if you were a first-century Jew, you understood what sinner meant. A sinner was a prostitute. A sinner was someone who had some sort of physical abnormality or abnormality because they obviously had done something sinful in their life. And God was getting them back. They were unclean. These were not people that we are to hang out with, that we are to associate with, and yet these are exactly the people that Jesus chose to spend time with. God has demonstrated His love for these people in the way that Jesus interacts with them. How is Jesus interacting with them? Well, in these first two verses, just follow the verbs when it comes to tax collectors and sinners. Look at the three action verbs that are used. In verse 1, Dr. Luke says that these tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. That sounds innocent enough, but there's actually a lot more to that phrase. The idea of drawing near is not just that they're hanging out with him, that they're close to him. It's actually in the imperfect in the Greek, which means that it's a continual act. It means that this was habitual. It means that Jesus was known for drawing near to sinners and tax collectors. That there's a reason why one of the names, one of the scriptures of our Savior in the New Testament is one who is a friend of sinners.

11:48Jesus himself was perfect and did not sin. But he associated with sinners, he made relationships with sinners. He was known. For spending time with sinners. Jesus, by the way, did not look at righteousness as something where to sort of keep score as to how far away you can keep yourself from the world. Remember that Jesus' very life is a condescension of God to man. That he came and he met in the world with sinners. He drew them near. He was always around them. Look at the next verse. The next two verbs that are going to be used are actually going to be used by the Pharisees and the scribes in describing what they saw in the relationship that Jesus had with sinners. He says that the Pharisees and the scribes, they grumbled, they complained. And they said, this man, he receives sinners and eats with them. Scandalous. It is. It says that he receives them. Prostekemai, it means to eagerly await. It means to expect, to look for. It's actually a verb that's used six times in Luke, and it's not passive. It's active. It's looking for. Luke describes Simeon, that old man that hung around the temple, that he actively looked for the Messiah. That Anna, the prophetess, she actually was actively looking for the message. Looking for the new king of Israel. It's active. It's all in the context of actively looking. This is activity, not passivity. Jesus is seeking out sinners. And the Pharisees and the scribes, they saw that. They recognized it. He received sinners. And then the last verb that we see there in verse 2, it says that he eats with them. Now, this isn't just eats with them. When we think about eat, eating is not just a mechanical event. It's not. As you can see, I'm one who would know something about that. It's not just a mechanical event. It's not just something that is done to consume calories. To eat with someone denotes fellowship. You don't think so? Okay. How many of you married men here would go and share a meal in public with a woman you weren't related to? Anybody? Why? Because it's not just about consuming calories. It's fellowship. It says something. To share a meal is to share life with someone. Folks, there is a reason why. Jesus chose for his people to commemorate his death on the cross in a meal, in the bread broken, in the fruit of the vine. Consumed. A meal means something. It means communion. Jesus shared his life with sinners. How about that? He shared his life. He didn't keep the world at a distance, at an arm's length, as a stiff arm, if you will. But he entered in.

15:22He entered into this world of sin to meet with sinners. And this demonstrates his great love for them. Now contrast that attitude, that love for sinners with Pharisees. The Pharisees, they grumbled. They complained. They talked behind his back. I mean, just simply stating for them. This man receives sinners and eats with them. They're not just stating a fact. They're expressing contempt. How dare they? The attitude of the Pharisees towards the lost, towards those that are cut off in their access to God. It's really, Dwight Pentecost in his commentary on this very passage, he said their attitude was like this. There is no joy before God when those who provoke him, there is joy before God when those who provoke him perish from the world.

16:30You see the picture there? In the mind of the Pharisee and the scribe, God can't wait to inflict all kinds of punishment onto the lost. He can't wait to inflict all sorts of pain onto them, that God is cheering for their destruction. And yet, that's not how the Bible describes God's heart for the lost. In Ezekiel chapter 33, listen to what God says: Ezekiel 33:11. He says, Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

17:12God's heart, God's heart is not to see the pain inflicted upon the wicked, but his heart is to turn the heart of the wicked. And he will even use pain and use destruction and use sadness and brokenness in this world to get back what is his. Amen. Why would they think this way then? Why would the Pharisees and tax collectors not share in Jesus' obvious love for lowly sinners? Why wouldn't he share in this? It's very simple, and Jesus actually diagnoses it for us in John chapter 8. I speak of what I have seen. Is Jesus speaking with my father. And you, speaking to the Pharisees, do what you have heard from your father. They answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. They said to him, We weren't born of sexual immorality, an obvious jab, by the way, at Jesus.

18:37We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil. And your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is not. That you are not of God.

19:35I think Jesus diagnoses the problem pretty clearly, and he doesn't mince words. He simply says, the reason why you don't do what I say, the reason why you don't believe me when I tell you that I'm from God, is because you're not of God. Why don't the Pharisees and scribes share in Jesus' obvious love for tax collectors and sinners? Because they are not of God. Those who are of God will love the things of God and will love the people that God loves.

20:22I'm a big Astros fan. I don't know if you've noticed that. I wear the hat, I wear the shirts. I've done it. I did it, folks, when they were losing 112 games, and that wasn't a long time ago. My wife's an Astros fan. She's a big Astros fan. She would not even say, like I do, that she has affection for the Astros. Here's the thing: my wife is not, in general, a baseball fan. She grew up in Dallas. She didn't grow up watching the Astros. She didn't get in trouble and get grounded for kicking over her family TV in 1986 when the Astros lost the NLCS.

21:03She didn't cry and throw her cell phone whenever Albert Pujols hit a game-winning home run against the Astros in game five of the NLCS in 2005. She didn't weep for joy watching her sons dogpile after game seven a little over a month ago, almost two months ago. It's me. It was me. I have the natural affection for the Astros. But my wife loves the Astros. Why? She's not a baseball fan. That's not why. She loves me. She loves what I love. She goes to games with me. Baseball is great, by the way, for date night because it's a slower pace. It's a different rhythm. Football is gladiatorial. It is, you're watching death happen out on the field. It's not date night. Baseball is date night. Baseball has a rhythm to it. You can talk. You can share stuff. It's great stuff. Baseball's awesome. My wife loves date night, the Astros games. She loves it. But she doesn't love the Astros. But she would say, we love the Astros. Why? Because she loves me, and she loves what I love.

22:24If we say we love God and we belong to Him, then we will love what He loves. And we will love the lost. And we will spend time with the lost. And we will share meals with the lost. And we will intentionally build relationships with the lost. And we will build a love for the lost because our daddy loves the lost. We'll go on mission to go and seek the lost because that's Christ's mission. Luke 5:31 and 32, Jesus said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. God has great love for sinners. Not only does he have great love for sinners, God has great joy for repentant sinners. Great joy for repentant sinners. So now it says there in verse 3, it says, So he told them this parable. And he's not just going to tell them one parable, he's going to tell them three parables. But all three parables communicate one message: God seeks, God saves, God rejoices. So look at this first parable.

23:47Verse 4, what man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country or the desert and go after the one that is lost? Until he finds it. Now, this is something that even those Pharisees and scribes could relate to. You saw sheep in first century Israel. You saw them everywhere. Sheep were good to have around. Sheep gave you wool. Sheep gave you meat. I like wool. I like meat. These are good things. These are necessary things in the first century. Amen?

24:26So they're used to seeing that. Now, Jesus tells this parable, and he says, Imagine someone has a hundred sheep. Well, they know that unless you were just one very rich person, you're not going to have a hundred sheep. But probably what's going to happen is several families in a poor village like this will have a couple sheep to each family, and they end up getting them all together, and then you have someone who watches over them. Well, they're not going to go and hire somebody because Jesus has another parable about hirelings, right? Hirelings don't really care about the sheep. Hirelings just kind of do what they want to do, and they'll take off, and they don't care about the sheep, and they'll take off and do what they want to do, and they'll leave them to. That's not who you hire. No, you got to get people that are there, that are in the town. You got to get the fellow villagers. The problem is, is that being a shepherd, it's almost like being a tax collector. That's way down on the totem pole. I mean, it's actually a respectable profession in first century Israel, unlike tax collecting, but it's still way down, way down because you're dealing with sheep. Sheep are dirty. They're unclean. Spending time with them makes you ceremonially unclean. That's a problem if you're a Jew.

25:41They're dumb, by the way. Stupid. So dumb. Sheep are so dumb. If you've ever spent any time with sheep, you know how dumb they are. Sheep will eat until you drive them away with a stick to stop eating. They will eat themselves sick. They will eat, by the way, whatever's in front of them. They're not as bad as their cousins, the billy goat, but they're pretty bad. They'll eat anything. And they'll wander off and not know that they're lost. They have no, none, no internal GPS. None. Not at all. They have no eye. You have to go and get sheep. Now, you guys know how frustrating it is, right, to go and get an animal. We have a dog. His name's Rascal. He is aptly named.

26:32He gets out daily. And when my kids or my wife try to go and call him, I can see he laughs at them because their voices are higher pitched. Rascal! I'm doing my impersonation. Rascal! Would you come to that? I would because I love my wife and kids. But he's a stupid dog. And he just looks with contempt. Them and just goes and does this thing. When I go out there, I holler. I'm not going to do that right now because I don't want to make you deaf, but I holler at him. Rascal.

27:11Rascal. And I have this look that I'm going to inflict pain upon him. And he sees that look and then he comes sprinting my way, right? Now, I only use that to say that that is nothing like a sheep, okay? A rascal comes to me because he knows that I will threaten him with pain, and it will happen. And it will happen swiftly if he doesn't come. Sheep are not that way. You know why? Rascal knows he's in trouble. Sheep don't know they're in trouble. They're dumb. They didn't know they're lost. They don't know they're lost.

27:49There aren't people in the world busting down our door to get into our church to hear the gospel because they don't know they're lost. Romans chapter 3, Paul ends his wonderful sermon on how the entire world is lost by quoting Psalm in the book of Isaiah and saying, There are none that seeks after God. No, not one. They're lost. And in that lostness, they don't really understand their predicament. And so Jesus. Describes the shepherd as going out and seeking the sheep.

28:37He leaves the 99 in the open country. He goes after the one that is lost until he finds it. He will do whatever it takes to find that sheep. And when he's found it, look what he does. He doesn't just simply guide the sheep back. He doesn't just simply whisper in the sheep's ear to say, if you'll follow me, this will be good for you. You can have your best life now if you'll follow me right here. Follow me back to the village. No, it says that when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. He picks the sheep up because the sheep can't do anything for himself. He picks the sheep up because the sheep doesn't know the way home. The sheep doesn't even know that it's lost. He picks the sheep up because he cares for the sheep and he wants the sheep back. And he knows left to himself that sheep will never rejoin the herd. That's us in our lostness. That's us before Christ finds us. He seeks us out and he finds us. And the sheep can do nothing to save himself, just as man can do nothing to save himself. But acknowledge. That he is in need of a shepherd and a savior. He picks the sheep up and he lays it on his shoulder and he brings it back. And it says that he does that rejoicing. In verse 6, it says that when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, everybody that's in the village, and he says, Rejoice with me. He picks the sheep up rejoicing. He comes back and he wants to have a party. He says, Rejoice with me because I found my sheep that was lost. Verse 7 says, Just so, or in the same way, I tell you that there will be more, there's that word again, more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Now, who doesn't need repentance? Essentially, what Jesus is saying is that there's more rejoicing over this one sinner who repents, who turns from his wickedness and receives Jesus than all of you religious people who think you don't need atonement, who think you don't need Christ, who think you can do it on your own, who think you can keep the law good enough.

31:24No, the joy is not for the one who is lost and doesn't know they're lost. Keeps trying to be good enough and good enough and good enough. The joy is for the one that the shepherd finds and turns his heart to Jesus. That's the joy. And they're missing it. He says, he lays it on his shoulder, rejoicing. He says, rejoice with me. There will be more joy in heaven. The proper response for the saving of lost sinners is joy. It's exclamation. It's a party.

32:04Because that's what's happening in heaven. This is the consternation of Jesus towards the tax collectors and towards the excuse me, towards the Pharisees and towards the scribes, is that they have no joy in what Christ is doing. Their response is to grumble. Their response is to complain. Robert Stein, in his commentary, in the New American commentary on this chapter of Luke, he says, returning, he rejoices that the lost sheep is found, i.e., return to safety in the other sheep. The picture part of the parable clearly refers to Jesus' ministering to Israel's outcasts and to their entering God's kingdom. Through the parable, Jesus both censured and appealed to his opponents. The lost of Israel are finding forgiveness. Sinners are finding salvation. It is time to rejoice. In heaven, God rejoices over this. Why won't you enter into this joy?

33:17Are we joyful for what God is doing in saving sinners? Are we joyful that that person, that neighbor, that co-worker that has for so many years blasphemed God with their very lives, God has saved them? God is doing a new work in their heart. Are we rejoicing with God in this, even if they don't look like us? Even if they don't live in the same neighborhood that we live in, are we rejoicing with God in this? We should, because that's God's joy for repentant sinners. And then in the last parable, we'll see God's search for lost sinners. Read with me in verse 8. Or what woman, having 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, seek diligently until she finds it. And when she's found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost. Just so, or in the same way, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. In verse 8, he begins with, or what woman. Woman. I mean, no offense, ladies, but this again is a term of condescension in first-century Israel. There is no women's liberation movement here. The Pharisees and the scribes would wake up in the morning and they would pray and thank God for two things: one, that they weren't a Gentile, and secondly, that they weren't a woman. Don't look at me like I wrote it. That's terrible. That's awful. It's horrible. That's why Jesus was so radical because of his ministry to women and how women took a lead in his ministry. And they were prominent. They were the ones who first discovered Jesus had risen from the dead. Amen? This is awesome.

35:14But he's trying to needle these Pharisees and scribes. He says, now imagine that you're a shepherd. Ugh. Now imagine that you're a woman. Ugh. Terrible. I love it that he's putting it in their face, just their sin and their inability to see the world and see people the way God sees them. He says, imagine if you're a woman. And having 10 silver coins, she loses one. Now, we don't know necessarily that Jesus doesn't tell us all of the details about this. This could be savings. The people in the first century, they didn't really spend money like currency the way you and I would every day. They usually bartered for things. I've got something, I'll give it to you. I'll work for this if you can give it to me. But they did use currency. Currency was very valuable, and usually it was sort of their savings. It was something that they would put back. Oftentimes, women would receive, they would have a dowry that their family had saved for them on their behalf. And when they got married, they would give them that dowry. And so, in case anything happened to that husband, if he divorced her, if he died, whatever it was, she wouldn't simply be out. She would have something. These coins, whatever they are, they're valuable to her and they represent security. And so, to lose one of these is a big deal.

36:40So, it's understandable. That's why Jesus says, if you were this woman and you lost one of these coins, wouldn't you flip over your little house to try to find it? And when he talks about it, look at the way he describes how she looks for it. It says that she lights a lamp, she sweeps the house. Now, she probably has a dirt floor. You are desperate if you are sweeping the dirt on a dirt floor. Amen? You are desperate. You are seeking diligently. That word to seek diligently literally means in the Greek to search in every corner. If she has any furniture in that house, she has flipped it up already. She is looking. Perhaps it's under dirt. Perhaps it's in a crack in the floor. Perhaps it is under a piece of furniture. I don't know where. It is, but she is looking and she's not going to stop. She's not going to stop until she recovers what is hers.

37:44And praise God that he seeks us out with the same diligence. Praise God that he sought us and he would not be deterred from finding us in our sin, from turning our wretched hearts for finding us and giving us new life. Amen. That is what God did for us. That's what this woman does as she goes and she looks. And then it says that when she finds it, she calls together her friends and her neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I lost. She says, Rejoice with me. If you know me, if you love me, you'll be happy that I found this coin. When I lost this coin and I hurt, you hurt with me. When I went looking for this coin, you looked with me. Amen. You went with me and you looked with me. Church, listen. This is God's heart for us, for his people, as he goes and he seeks out sinners. His call to us is to go and seek with our father. Amen? To seek with our father.

39:00And look, to look in every corner, to not be deterred by the location, to not be deterred by the environment, to not be deterred by their sin, but to go and to enter in. Amen. This is God's heart. In Ezekiel 34, at the end of that passage that I just read, He says, I will seek the lost. I will bring back the strayed. I will bind up the injured. I will strengthen the weak. And the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in injustice. The end of Jesus' story about his encounter with Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19, verse 10. For the Son of Man, he came to seek and to save the lost. And I love in the book of Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 62, as the prophet is speaking to Israel, and God is telling Israel, first of all, that they're going to go back into exile, but also that he's going to come and redeem them. And it's really a Christological passage because he's talking about Jesus coming, the Messiah coming, and saving the people, his people. And he ends that passage in Isaiah 62. 62 in verse 12 by saying, and they shall be called the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord, and you shall be called sought out, a city not forsaken. Cody, we could change the name of New Life Baptist Church to the sought out. Isn't that awesome? I think that's freaking great. We are the sought out of God. God sought you out. He looked for you in love. And he sought you out and he saved you. And this morning, if you do not know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, if you've never professed faith in him, if you've never turned from your sin and place your faith and trust on Jesus' finished work on the cross on your behalf, this morning you can know him by yielding yourself to him and trusting in Jesus.

41:29You don't have to be lost anymore. Joseph Stoll was the president of Moody Bible College for many years. And he tells a story in the late 70s, early 80s, he was pastoring a church in Indiana. And a big deal for them, a tradition that they would do at Christmas is they would take their children and they would go meet grandma and grandpa in Chicago, the big city. And they would go shopping for Christmas. And they would go through the stores and look through all. These things and just was just a really fun time for them as a family. Well, at the end of one of these shopping days before Christmas, they looked down and noticed that their three and a half-year-old son, Matt, was not amongst them.

42:13And they freaked out, as many of you would freak out. I'm not going to say you have, because I know no one in here has ever lost a child at the mall, but they freaked out. They've really freaked out. He's three and a half years old. All of a sudden, when you lose, your child's missing, just all of the horse, the worst things that could possibly happen that you would never think about instantly flood your mind. And they start thinking about what kind of danger he could be in. And so immediately, grandma, grandpa, mom, and dad, brothers and sisters are all going through. They're scouring the mall. They're going through every single store trying to find little Matt.

42:52And Joseph Stoll found him. He was in the candy store. And he was like this. And he was just looking at the candy in front of him. His eyes were just, they do that on purpose, by the way. They build those little candy stalls where they can just eye level with a three and a half year old. And he's looking around. And Joseph Stoll says that whenever he walked into this, he would walk into the store and he saw his son. And all the panic that was there, it just fell because he had found him. Now, here's the thing.

43:24He said, I knew what danger he was in. I knew what danger he was in. I mean, he didn't have his mom and dad. His mom and dad didn't know where he was. But he didn't know. He didn't know he was lost. The guy behind the counter, he didn't know he was lost. He thought he was about to make some money. The people that were there around him, they didn't know he was lost. But his father did.

43:56And when his father saw him, he took him and grabbed him. And he loved him. Because that's God's heart for sinners. He loves lowly sinners. He does. He rejoices at repentant sinners that come home. And he seeks sinners. He seeks them. And he invites us to come with him, church, on his mission. We pray. Lord, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for your word, God. Thank you, God, for revealing to us, Father, your heart for sinners.

44:42Thank God, you didn't just leave us in our sin to face judgment, even though, Lord, that is absolutely exactly what we deserve. But, Lord, in your great love, in your grace, you saw. Us and you bought us by the blood of your Son and you brought us close to you and you made us your children. We thank you, Father. Give us that heart. Give us your heart. Give us the eyes to see. The heart to really feel.

45:28Give us the mission. We love you and we bless you. In Jesus' name, amen.