Stories of God's Love

For those of you who are not able to normally be with us, let me give you some context as to where we are. We're studying the life of Christ on Wednesday nights. We're doing basically a composite of the Gospels and putting together the events of the life of Christ chronologically as we move through the Gospels. You can see that we are on Study Number 7, they say we're not moving real, real fast, but that's okay because we're looking at probably the most important topic in Scriptures, and that's the life of our Lord. The one who came to die for us, but also who came to live the life of a model, human being, perfect human life, and the example of what we as believers should be. And so we don't want to go too quickly through that. We are, however, in Luke chapter 15 to 9, we are nearing the end of our Lord's life. Actually, we are in the last three months of his life. He has been ministering for three months in and around Jerusalem, but because of the intensity of the opposition on the part of the Pharisees and religious leaders, he has moved away from there, knowing it is not time yet for him to die, and they are using any opportunity they can to try to kill him. He moves out of Jerusalem and across the Jordan River, 17 to 20 miles away, to Korea. And there he is ministering to huge crowds. The Bible says they're just huge crowds that swarmed around him. And we've already seen that there are also some Pharisees. We'll see them again tonight in this story. You say, wait a second, I thought he wasn't in Jerusalem anymore. Well, they have followed him. There are some who are trailing him. Remember, they're trying to trap him in his words, trying to get him to say something that would either be religiously or politically unpopular, so that they can have him arrested, so that they can have grounds to charge him. And so they're following him. There are some who are following him and we'll see them in the mixture of the crowd tonight as well. Jesus has been teaching the multitudes, but he's also been warning the Pharisees and also instructing his disciples in this time as well. We're in Luke 15 tonight and I want to introduce it by talking about the crowd on a TV program that some of you will remember trying to scan my audience here. Do you remember the program cheers? Some of you do. Okay. I never saw it. I'm going to read compositive the characters here. I've talked to you a little bit about my viewing habits on TV if it's not ESPN or the golf channel or my favorite channel. Do you remember what it is? The weather channel, the weather channel, my favorite channel. Then you can't get any better than weather caught on camera. I mean, that's the most exciting thing in the world. I mean, it's just and that local forecast every 10 minutes because I forget it within five minutes. It's just great. And so I love it. That's my favorite channel. But if it's not there, I use that. I typically don't see it. But someone has written this this summary of the characters on the program cheers. It's an older, older sitcom. Sam is a corousing X baseball player who has had his day in the big leagues, but boozed away any hopes of stardom. Diane serves cocktails, but dreams of living in a world of literature and fine art. Carla is a single mom, muscling her way through life on a waitresses salary. Rebecca's one goal was to marry a rich man, but in the end she settles for a plumber in a chance at love. Then there's big norm who would rather be swinging beers with the boys than going home to his wife. His buddy Cliff is a male carrier who delivers little more than talk and Frazier is a troubled psychiatrist in a rocky marriage with few real answers. For life's problems, those are the characters on the program cheers. Some of you will remember them. And there are lots of people like that in our lives or at least in life. To be honest, most of us as believers don't have much contact with those people, those kind of people. Their lifestyles great against our biblical convictions. And we may even feel like at least some Christians feel like that separation would demand that we not even be around people like that. Not Jesus. Not Jesus. Jesus was exactly the opposite. Jesus loved those kind of people. He spent a lot of time with those kind of people. Jesus rubbed shoulders with those kind of people. He talked with those kind of people. He had a win some way about him that attracted those kind of people. He had an easy way of relating to those kind of people. Those are the kind of people who came swarming to hear him teach. They loved hearing him teach. Jesus went against the standards, the style of the Pharisees of the day refused to play by their rules. The Pharisees would not associate with people like that. Less they contaminate themselves. And Jesus criticized them for their self righteousness. And said those are the very kind of people I came to minister to. Those are the very kind of people I came to minister to. That's what Jesus said. He reached out to them in love. Accused the Pharisees of being pious, self righteous, hypocrites because they had nothing to do with those lowly sinners of the world. Well, we're going to get a picture of that in Luke chapter 15 where we find Jesus telling some stories called parables or illustrations, stories of God's compassion and grit. Let's talk about those tonight. The stories Jesus told were going to take the first two of them. You're familiar with these stories. The first two of them first and then we'll take the third one itself because it's typically seen as something that is self contained. Although these are three parts of one story with one purpose. Notice if we will first of all the setting versus one and two. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered. This man welcomed sinners and eats with them. Now you can see who it is that's swarming around Jesus wanting to hear him teach tax collectors. Tell me a little bit about tax collectors. Who were they? Why were they so despised? Took money from their own people. Who did they work for? Roman government. And what did they typically do? What were they known for? They kept some for themselves. Yeah, imagine that. What else about tax collectors? What do you know about tax collectors? Don't get too personal. But what do you know about New Testament tax collectors? Pardon me? They were hated. They were hated. Why were they hated? What were they considered? Traitors? Yeah. They were considered traitors. Yes. Thieves. Yeah. Okay. Now you're getting a picture when you put all this together as to why they were so despised. They were considered traitors because they worked for the Roman government. The Roman government had set up the system so that a tax collector had a certain quota that he had to send in the Rome. But he could charge whatever he wanted. He could collect whatever he wanted by way of taxes and he got to pocket the rest. It was a great way to get rich but you pretty much had to sell out your conscience. You know and say I'm not going to love my people or I'm working for the people, the Roman people who have them under their thumb and are oppressing them. So because both of their thievery and their lack of conscience and the fact that they were seen as traitors they were the most despised people on the social ladder in Israel. I mean you couldn't get any lower than a tax collector. And so these people however are coming to hear Jesus teach. And then the sinners were coming. Who do you think that's referring to? Gentiles in some places in Korea there would be some yes. Lower class. Anybody who didn't believe in Jesus? prostitutes. Yeah. When the Bible uses this word centers it's not talking about you know all of us are centers right. I mean we know that all of us are centers. But when the Bible talks about them as a category of people in Jesus' day it's talking about people who were known centers. People who were known for their immoral lifestyle like prostitutes or people who were swindlers. People who were deceitful business men. You know people who were just known for being centers the outcasts of society. So you got the lowest people on the social ladder and you got religious and social outcasts. These people are coming to hear Jesus teach. Now if you're a good religious person how are you going to view that? Well you know I mean you read it in verse two the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered. You can see you can always hear the disgust in their voice. They muttered this man welcomes centers and eats with them. What are they saying more than just what you're reading? What are they saying by that? We knew couldn't trust him. Okay what else? If you like you're doing the wrong thing for sure. Uh okay yeah I think they were saying that. I think they were saying he's on their level. He's not like he didn't like us respectable people. Us religious people who are concerned about the Old Testament law. He'd rather be with those people. And in a sense they are probably implying he's like them. If that's the kind of crowd he runs with he must be like them. Now it wasn't that Jesus ran with that crowd in the sense of living like they do and doing the same kinds of things that this crowd did. But he had a love about him and reached out to them that had no social or religious barriers that would reach out to anybody and realized he saw beneath everything that they were they were living to their heart and to their need. We're going to see in a few moments he uses three illustrations sheep coin, son, three illustrations all of which indicate three different kinds of lost people. And they're the kinds of lost people that we we encounter every day. And they're the kinds of lost people that we might look down on because of the way they exhibit their lostness. Jesus knew that people do sinful stuff because they got a simple heart and you need to address the heart issue. You know I love I love one of the phrases in a casting crowns song where we need the church needs to wake up and realize that God's got to change her heart before he changes her shirt. Okay God's got to get her heart right before she addresses other issues you know that either what's written on the shirt or the kind of shirt it is. Get get the heart right first and too many times we as we as Christians focus on the external stuff and we don't want to associate with people because of the way they look. Because the way they act or the places they go or the things they do or their lifestyle and Jesus saw beyond all of that to the heart need. Okay now that's what these stories are all about. Jesus verse three says told them this parable that's the setting of the stories. And then Jesus is going to tell them a threefold story really one story in three chapters but the three parts of this story are all designed to address the criticism of the Pharisees. And the criticism of the Pharisees is you shouldn't be around people like that. And Jesus is going to say those are the very people God loves God loves lost people. And regardless of how they exhibit it whether they're a sheep a coin or a son and we'll see again how all three of those exhibit different kinds of lost people. Whatever kind of lost person they are and however they live it out no matter where their life takes them and where they end up. And we're going to see the sun really demonstrates a lot of what we see is where sin will take you today no matter what you look like when you come out of the hog pin. Those are the people God loves. Okay so let's look at the three stories. The first one is the lost sheep look at verse three. Then Jesus told them this parable. Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says rejoice with me I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one center who repents than over ninety nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. Now the story of the lost sheep would appeal to the men and the boys in the crowd. Jesus is going to take us out to the craggy hillsides of Palestine with deeper ravines cutting through them where shepherds would be leading their flocks and where it would be. It would be easy for a sheep to wander off and get in danger. So this is a guy story. This is a story that would appeal to the guys in the audience. And he appeals to their agrarian culture and their knowledge of what a shepherd's heart would be like. Okay, a shepherd's heart you've got a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off. A shepherd who really loves his sheep is not going to say well you know one's not bad out of ninety nine. I got ninety nine. I'm okay with that. Let the one go who cares about the one that has a tendency to wander off. No. If you're a shepherd you care about every one of those sheep. Every one of them is special to you. Even the one that has a tendency to wander off all the time. Even the one that is always taking off from the rest of the flock. If that sheep is lost it's in danger. It is easy prey for wild animals. And so you lead the ninety nine who are safe and you go and search of them. And the one that's lost that's what you do. You don't say bad sheep, terrible sheep you don't deserve to be a part of the fold. Look at the way you act. No, you go look for the lost one. That's what you do. And the search here he goes after the lost one till he finds it. And this is not just a five minute search. The idea in this search here is that he tracks this sheep diligently. This is an aggressive search. This is a relentless search. This is not a token search. This is looking everywhere you can. Looking until you find that sheep and then notice when he finds it. He puts it on his shoulders and goes home, calls his friends and neighbors. Says rejoice with me. I found my lost sheep. Here's a picture of what it might look like in Palestine today. This shepherd is carrying actually a goat. But notice the hands around the legs, the goat around the shoulders. This is very familiar to Palestinian shepherds. That's how they would carry an injured or a strange sheep back to the fold. And so he puts it on his shoulders and carries it home. Notice there's no scolding, there's no complaining. There's no, look at the trouble you caused. You shouldn't have done that. I told you not to wander off. Not like us parents sometimes do with our kids. I told you, you're bad, you know, whatever. There's none of that. There's none of that scolding and criticism. He throws a party. Because he's found the lost sheep, rejoices. And then Jesus drives home the point in verse 7. Here it is. I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. Who's the one person that needs to repent? In the setting now of who Jesus is ministering to and who he's talking to, who's the one person that needs to be repent? Who's the lost sheep? Lost people? Well, Pharisees are lost, but they don't know it. Who's he talking about here? Publicans and sinners, exactly. That's who he's talking about. Over the 99 just persons or righteous persons that do not need to repent, this is a proverbial way of speaking. And you have to understand, remember in parables, you don't press every detail of a parable. You don't try to assign everything in a parable to something that Jesus is trying to make. So Jesus is in a sense being gracious and giving them the benefit of the doubt. Really the 99 are people who do not need repentance. They don't necessarily stand for the Pharisees. The Pharisees need repentance. They just don't know it. There's a sense in which Jesus may be giving the benefit of the doubt and saying, you feel like you're okay, you're in the fold, and in a sense they were in the fold in Israel under God's covenant people. But it's the guy who wonders off. It's the person who has a nature to go after sin. That's the person I'm going to search for. So Jesus is saying, I'm going after the sinners and the tax collectors. That's who I'm going after. Okay, any comments or questions about the lost sheep? Okay, let's look at the story of the lost coin. Or suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one. Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me. I found my lost coin in the same way. I tell you there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Now this is a girl story. This is a story for the gals and the crowd. This is for the young ladies and the girls. Because it has to do with something that would happen on your wedding day. On your wedding day, you would receive a band of 10 silver coins that would be worn around your forehead, around your head. Much like a wedding band is worn on our finger. This was the sign of marriage for you. And every woman who got married would receive one of these bands of 10 coins. So this was very precious to a Jewish woman. This is like your wedding band. This is like your wedding dress. This is not something. If you lose, you are just going to say, oh well, I got plenty of dresses. I got a couple of other rings. No, this is something you are going to hunt for. This is something that is very precious to you. She has lost one of these coins which makes the set incomplete, which damages the symbolism of the head band. So you can almost see this woman with her heart racing looking and you again notice the diligence of the search. She lights a lamp. You can just see her lighting a lamp so she can look under the bed or look in the corners where it might be dark or behind furniture. And she is sweeping the house. She is getting under a refrigerator. And she is searching carefully, it says, till she finds it. So again, this is not just a token search. This is not just, well, I didn't leave it on the table. It will show up. No, this is moving the furniture around. This is checking all your pockets and all your clothes. This is making sure you find that lost coin. This is a village and search. And again, it is impressing on the people. The urgency that Jesus has to reach out to those that are lost. And then he makes the point, you know, when she finds it rejoices, celebrates. And then there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God, a one center who repents. So by now, the Pharisees are probably starting to get the point, even before he gets to the third part of the story. By now, they are probably starting to get the point. Jesus is talking about lost things. And the owner of these lost things is very concerned that they are lost and will do anything to get them back. And I think they are beginning to get the point that he is talking about the people we are murmuring about. Now that will become very clear in the third story. But before we get there, let's talk about a few lessons that Jesus intended with these first two stories. The first lesson I think we need to be impressed with here is that we should love lost people. We should love lost people. Jesus did and we should too. What do you think of when you think of the word lost? Being in the dark, okay? Without hope? Helplessness? Desperate? Okay? Out of the fold? Yeah? All right? Good descriptions. If you lose something, it is separated from you, right? In each of these cases, shepherd has lost a sheep, woman has lost coin, something has gotten separated from him or her. It is absent. It is a way. You can't find it. And it is something that is very special to you and because it is not where it should be, it is not fulfilling the purpose that it was intended for. So something that is lost fits all of those descriptions you gave and it is away from the owner and not fulfilling its intended purpose. Jesus is using these illustrations to talk about lost people. Lost people are separated from the God who made them. And they are because of that, living life without purpose. They are not fulfilling the purpose that God intended them for them because every person who is born into this world is an image bearer of God. We are born in the image of God. God made man in his own image and although that image is marred by sin, it is not eradicated. It is not completely gone. James 3 talks about with the tongue we sometimes bless God and we curse men who are made in the image of God. We still bear God's image. Part of that image is the capacity to have a relationship with God. So the image is not completely gone although it is marred by sin. So everyone who is lost is separated from God and not fulfilling the purpose that God intended for them because they are not reflecting God's image as God made them to. And God cares about that. God cares about those people and he loves them. He loves lost people. I mentioned earlier that there are three kinds of lost people reflected in these stories. Jesus uses three different stories and I think there is intention here to indicate some different kinds of lost people. Let's think about that for a minute. A lost sheep. What kind of lost person does that represent? Someone out on his own. Innocent. Timid. Why does a sheep tend to get lost? What is there about a sheep's nature that causes it's dumb? No sense of direction. Stubborn. Curious. All right. Wow. Put all those descriptions together and you've got a picture of a person who makes foolish choices in life. A person who because of stubbornness, because they're naive, because of all those things you mentioned makes foolish choices in life. A sheep will wander away because it chooses to see this clump of grass over here and go this direction because that's what it wants. Doesn't care about where it's supposed to be and it begins to make a series of foolish choices that eventually get it separated from the flock. Some people are lost because of foolish choices. Stubbornness. Yes. Innocence or might use the word naive. Ignorant. Yeah, all of those things make calls a person to make foolish choices. Isaiah. Remember what Isaiah said? All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And whenever we say, I want my own way, I want my own way. I'm going to live life my way. Whenever we sing Frank Sinatra's song, I did it my way. Okay. Okay. Just live life that way. Do it your way. See where it gets you. You'll begin to make foolish choices. Choices of friends. Choices of places to be. Choices of paths in life. And those foolish choices will take you far away from God. Okay. So some people are lost because of foolish choices. At least that's how their lostness demonstrates itself. Let me back up theologically, we are all lost because we're born with a simple nature. We come into this world lost. Okay. What we're really talking about is how people demonstrate their lostness, their separation from God. Some people it's because of foolish choices. Okay, what about a coin? Why does a coin get lost? Carelessness? Okay. Yes. Insecurity? Okay. Someone puts it somewhere. All right. Are you getting close to what I'm thinking? Does a coin have any volition of itself? It doesn't, obviously. A coin gets lost because someone else has misplaced it or it's gotten dropped and rolled into a corner or something like that. There's a sense in which a lost coin, it didn't walk off on its own. It demonstrates its lostness because of the action of someone else, because of the carelessness of someone else, because of whatever. Someone else may have done, misplaced it or whatever. There are a lot of people in life who demonstrate their lostness, who we call it act out, their sinfulness, because of the influence of other people. Either negative influences from friends and associations or tragic influences like abuse or adultery or abandonment or something like that. And so, bad childhood influences, something that someone has done to them, causes them to react in ways that they pull away from God. And you see it all the time. You see it with people who are flaunting anti-establishment, anti-authority. I don't want anything to do with anyone else. I want to look different. I want to act different. I want to, and really they're identifying with just another crowd is all it is. But reacting against what someone has done to them or people who go far from God because they are angry and bitter at God because of what happened to them. Because of what someone did to them, because of the way someone failed them, because of the way someone treated them. And so, they're like a lost coin. Because of the action of someone else, they're living out their lostness in reaction to that. And then we haven't gotten to it yet, but the lost son. What is the lost son represent about someone, what kind of spirit and attitude? Self-centeredness. Yes. Pride. Rebellious. Disobedience. Rambunctions. Yeah, yeah, a lot of that. Rebellion is the word I was thinking about. Some people demonstrate their lostness in simply choosing to go against the Council of God. And if God says it, I'm going to do the opposite. If that's what you say, the Bible says, I don't want to have anything to do with that. And choose to go far from God. Now, we all know how all of those kinds of people look and live and act. What we often forget is that every one of them is valuable to God. Every person. Every person who has been damaged by someone else and is acting out against that in whatever lifestyle that may be. God loves them. They're lost. They're far from their owner. God wants them back. Every person who has wondered away, maybe a little by little choice, my choice, because of foolish choices. God loves them. God wants them back. Every person who has shaken their fist in God's face and said, I hate you. I don't want anything to do with you. I don't want anything to do with that book that's called the Bible in its way of life. And I'm going as far away from it as fast as I can. God loves them and wants them back. They were designed to be image bearers of God. God wants them to fulfill that purpose. God loves them. They're valuable. They matter to God. Now, when the Pharisees are starting to get that message, if they got it at all, it must have taken their breath away. Because those are the very people the Pharisees didn't want to have anything to do with. Stay as far away from those people as possible. Those people are the lowest of the lowest. We don't want anything to do with them. They'll spoil us. They'll stain us. They will contaminate us. And Jesus is saying, those are the very people I came to save. Those are the people I love. And I want them to be saved. If Jesus ministry and these stories are really an illustration of Jesus ministry and his heart for people, if Jesus ministry ought to teach us anything, it ought to teach us to look at people differently. Not what they're wearing, not the piercings and tattoos, not the hair color, not the kinds of clothes, goth, whatever, not that. It ought to teach us to look at people from the inside out. Look at their hearts. To be able to see that crude guy at work that cusses you out all the time, to be able to see what's behind that. Maybe he's a lost coin. Maybe he's the result of a lost sheep that's taken many, many choices and wandered far away. Maybe he's just rebellious. What about that neighbor with a drinking problem? What about the person with an immoral lifestyle? I was talking to someone in the hospital yesterday and they were telling me that they had come out of a store, family dollar or some store in Mercer Street and saw one of the women down there that is known for being a street woman. I started talking with her and told her that she could do better with her wife than that, that she needed to come to know Jesus and Jesus loved her. Now, I wonder how many of us, if we ever encounter a person like that, move away as quickly as possible, try to keep our distance. See, those are the people Jesus loved. Those are the people that Jesus is talking about. Those are the people the Pharisees said, oh, I don't want to eat with those people. They want to be with those people. And those are the people that Jesus came to die for. If anything, we should love lost people because Jesus did. Second lesson, let me just mention these other two quickly and then we'll take the parable to lost son that part of the parable later. Second lesson, we must learn from what Jesus is teaching us here is that we should make every effort to reach lost people. Jesus did. And that part of what he's saying in the story, there is a careful search made and every effort is taken, whether it's the shepherd looking for that lost sheep or whether it's the woman scouring her house to find that one coin, lighting a candle and looking in every dark corner, sweeping under every bed and every piece of furniture and looking everywhere she can. The idea is that it was important enough to Jesus that these people come to know him. It was important enough to warrant an all out search. Go all out to find these people. Do everything you can in any number of ways to reach these people with the gospel. Think about how Jesus did it. Jesus spent time with them. He went nating their homes. He gravitated toward them. He goes to Jericho. Who is it he wants to stay with? Zacchaeus. The spies tax collector. And again, people murmured when they saw him go into Zacchaeus's house. Jesus spent time with them associated with them. Listen to their hurts. Help with their needs. That's lifestyle evangelism. That's living our lives among people who need Christ and listening to them. Knowing their hurts, Jesus did that. Jesus reached out to meet their physical needs too. Jesus met the emotional needs. Just look through the gospels again. We've been doing that at all the people that came to Jesus with hurts, with damaged lives. And Jesus compassion reached out to them. Target ministries do that. I'll never forget when Bob, when years ago, how many years ago was it you started divorce care? It's been 16 years ago. And we started that as what we called in a summer Wednesday workshop. We were going to do it for like 12 weeks. And at the end, I think Bob came and said, you know, I think we need to do this again. And we offered it again. We've been offering ever since for 16 years. I remember when we first started that, we received some criticism from people. You mean you want divorced people in your church? You really need to move in the circle of pastors sometimes. You hear some really crazy stuff about the kind of people I don't want in my church. Well, Jesus, Jesus reached out to meet the needs of hurting people. And he touched them, lepers, people who came crying to him about their children. You know, Jesus reached out to people like that. And so, you know, if we learn anything from Jesus, we must learn to make every effort to reach out to lost and hurting people. At their point of need, wherever their need is, that's where we need to reach them. And then Jesus preached and taught to didn't he made very clear the way of salvation. So it wasn't just reaching out to meet people's needs. That's important. But he also preached and taught it wasn't just spending time with them and listening to them and hearing them. But it was preaching and teaching too. And so the ministry of the word has to carry a strong evangelistic emphasis. The heart of ministry is the gospel. That's what we're on this planet for is to reach people. And then third lesson we must learn from Jesus and these stories is that we should rejoice at the salvation of lost people. Jesus did that too. And then that's the way he ends the story. There's not criticism on the heart of God for these people. These people live the way they do because they're lost. We need to get them saved. And when they get saved, then there's rejoicing. You know, there's rejoicing on the part of the person that saved. There's rejoicing on the part of the person who found them. There's rejoicing on the part of others. Remember they called their friends and neighbors. It's the celebrate. Let's have a party. Let's rejoice. And then Jesus said there's rejoicing in heaven too. People in heaven and angels in heaven. And the third one will really get to the heart of the story. There's rejoicing among the father also the father rejoices when when lost people get saved. So Jesus, what Jesus is teaching here in summary is the value of every lost person to God. Every single lost person, no matter how far away from God they've gotten, no matter how bad and how rough and how damaged they are. Every lost person is a sheep that's wondered a way that God wants back in the fold. Every lost person is a coin that has been abused, hurt, damaged in some way. It's lost. It's separated from its owner and God wants it close to him. And we'll see that every lost person is like the sun who rebels against the father and goes his own way, waits his life ends up broken. And God welcomes him with open arms. That's how God feels about lost people. And Jesus' point is, you Pharisees don't understand anything about the heart of God. You don't understand anything about the heart of God. God loves lost people. God will make every effort to reach lost people. And He rejoices when lost people come to Him. That's the heart we should have to. Let's pray. Father, thank you for helping us to see through these stories what it means to love lost people, even if they are tax collectors and centers. Lord, help us to reach out to the lowest, to the least, to the farthest from you. Help us never to feel that we're better than other people. We are all lost without you. I pray, Father, that we would always be willing to open our arms, our hearts, and our church to anyone who needs Jesus. And love them to Him. It's in His name we pray. Amen.