You may be seated. What wonderful singing this morning. I just love our time of worship. I really hope that it has blessed your heart this morning and prepared you now for the message of the word of God. That's what music does. It prepares our heart and it's a form of worship, a form that I love, but I also love hearing the word of God being taught and preached and every week we wanna do our very best to do that. If you were here last month, you will remember our missionary, Ethan Shields. He's a missionary to the country of Panama. And when he was here last month, he told us a little bit of an update of what's going on there in the ministry of Panama. But he's back this month. We asked him if he could go and just get his better half, all right, so that we could have them with us. So now his wife Beth and his kids are here, Elena and Noah are in the service. And then he's got Sophia and Julia, I was gonna call her Jules, but Julia is back in the class, in the kids' classes back there. And I'm so excited for him to be back with us. It's rare. He went two years without being, until last month, being here in our services, and now he's been here twice. In about six weeks, and so I'm really excited for him to be here and for the whole family to be here And so brother Ethan if you would come and share with us what the Lord has laid on your heart this morning Let's welcome him to Bethany Baptist Church Amen it is good to be here this morning. Thank you so much That's for Jeremy for the privilege to be able to be here and speak this morning And trust me, I'm with you. I think she's my better half, and I would much rather have her with me than not. I missed her terribly when I was traveling without her. I don't know how I got anything done or anywhere on time. She is very needful to me. Of course, I miss the kids, too. But we're on the same page with that one. I would like to give you a really quick update. So last time I was here I told you guys about two needs. I told you that we needed a tractor. We were raising money for a tractor. And we were trying to raise $26,000 for a tractor. We had $13,000. And I also told you that we needed $10,000 to do the runway modification on the runway. that the inspectors came, they inspected it, they said, everything looks good, but we need these things done, blah, blah, blah, it's gonna be about $10,000 to do what they asked. And so we were praying about those things. And just six weeks ago, that was the report. And before I got home, both of those pro requests were completely met in full and then some. I don't have time to tell you the whole story, but the short version is one of the men from my sending church said, yes, brother, you do need a tractor, but not the one you want. That's too small. You're going to spend too much time in the seat. You need a bigger tractor, and I'm going to pay for it. I'm like, really? You kidding me? And then God took his generosity. When I got to Panama and I said, all right, you know, we need this tractor. It's a larger Kubota. And the salesman was shocked. The salesman was shocked. He goes, I don't understand this, but I can't give you the tractor that you want. I'm gonna give you this bigger tractor, the biggest one we have for the same price. And he's like, I don't know how this makes sense, but you need this tractor. And I'm like, I called the guy in Louisiana who helped me. I'm like, well, what do you think? And he's like, yeah, yeah, you need to do that. So God just took his generosity and did what we cannot. Further, far above and beyond what we could think or ask. I mean, I didn't even have the faith to ask for that size of tractor. and God gave us a 95 horsepower Kubota with the front end loader and a box blade with hydraulic scarifiers and an eight foot brush hog. I'm just thrilled to pieces. Can't thank the Lord enough for providing in such an amazing way. Like he answered our prayer, but our prayer was this, and God's like, yeah, okay. Here you go. And I was just amazed at what the Lord's done. So happy to be in His service, and I'm so glad to be here today. I'd like to talk to you today about the subject of, or the title of the message is, Have You Lost Something? Now there's a lot of things in our lives and some of them I'm so grateful to the Lord that we can't lose. There's some things we can't lose and we'll talk about those very briefly and go through a couple points. But there's a couple things in our life and our Christian walk that we can lose and I'd like to talk about those very briefly and then I'd like to help you. I'm going to try to help you through the Word of God here how to get those things back, okay? So let's start off with our text Luke Luke chapter 15 verse 8 through 10 Turning your Bibles if you would Luke You would help if I turn to the right book because my text didn't say what I wanted it to say Or what it said last night But if I'm in the right book, I'm sure that'll be resolved. There we go All right, Luke chapter 15 verse 8 And I'm gonna read through verse 10. It says, either what woman having a piece, having 10 pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle and sweep the house and seek diligently till she find it. And when she hath found it, She called her friends and her neighbors together saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repented. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for the privilege that it is to have your word this morning. Thank you, Lord, for the privilege that it is to be able to read it. to be able to study it, and that we can trust it, that we know that it's true, that our hope is based in you and what you have done, not in us and what we can do, but in you and what you have already done for us. You've done what we cannot. You have paid the price. And I thank you, Lord, for that this morning. I thank you, Lord, for the truth that you have shown me in your word. I pray that you'd help me to be faithful to it today, to deliver it to your people. Thank you for what you've done in this church in the past. Thank you for what you're doing today. Lord, I thank you in faith for what you're gonna do in it and through it in this community. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray, amen. So, like I said, the title of the message is, Have You Lost Something? Have you ever lost something? Like an item? I don't know, ladies, have you lost an earring? I'm sure you have. They're notorious for getting lost. I know Elena has. We look for that thing forever, especially if it's a special one that her mamaw gave us, oh my word. Well, I don't have earrings or stuff. I never take off my rings, and so I've not lost those, but I like pocket knives. And my favorite kind of pocket knife is one with a clip. Right, it's right here, right? One day, I'm cleaning in the house, doing just everyday things, and I go to get my knife and it's gone. And immediately, I like my knives, okay? If you know, you know, okay? I like my knives. And I mean, when it's missing, I'm like, what in the world? It's always right here. I never go without one and it just feels weird to not have it right there. And so when it wasn't there, I immediately, I did what this lady did in this passage. I started to diligently search and look and I could not find it anywhere. Finally, I found it. I had taken out a trash bag and Don't ask me how, I was praying and asking God to help me find it, right? But when I took the trash bag out and put it in the dumpster, when I picked it up, the trash bag just grazed my leg like this and the clip went into the plastic and it went on the trash bag and it went into the trash. Just like a skilled thief, the trash bag, scalped my knife like a skilled thief, just went right under the hook, hooked it on there, and it went into the trash bag. And I went out and searched, and there it was on the side of the trash bag. I'm like, what in the world? And I found it. I was so happy to find it. When I was about 15, I lost another one picking up hay bales in a field. I never found that one, hay bales in a field. That one was lost forever. But the one that I did find, I was extremely happy about because It was special to me, but also, the more effort I put into searching for it and seeking it, when I found it, the joy was that much greater. Fortunately, like I said, there's several things in our life that we can't lose, and I'm so grateful for that. Very quickly, we're not gonna study these things. Just gonna mention three things, and this is not an exhaustive list, but in our Christian life, we can't lose our salvation. if you're here this morning and you don't know that for sure let me tell you I'm just going to mention these references if you'd like to write them down if you're not sure you can't lose your salvation here's a bunch of references we're not even going to read the passages but there's a bunch of references that all say we can't lose your salvation okay here we go Hebrews 725 Psalm 37 Colossians 3.3, Ephesians 1.13, 1 Peter 1.5, 2 Timothy 1.22, and John 3.16. There's many, many more, but that's just a starter list for how we cannot lose our salvation. So I'm grateful this morning that I cannot lose my salvation. My salvation doesn't depend on me. It never did, okay? I couldn't earn it, and I can't keep it. God is who keeps me. I'm so grateful today that I can tell you for sure that I can't lose my salvation, and if you are saved today, you can't lose your salvation. There's another thing we can't lose. We can't lose our sonship. What I mean is the fact that we are the son the daughter of God. We're joint heirs with Christ. Very quickly, Galatians 4.7 says, Wherefore thou art no more servant but a son, and if a son, then an heir with God through Christ. okay that is one of the reasons you can't lose your salvation because you are not just clean look if salvation just cleaned us if that's all salvation was then you could lose that because you can get dirty again if all salvation was was cleaning it's not just cleaning it is cleaning but it's not just cleaning god cleanses us but then he does something irrevocable he does something super special he adopts us He makes us joint heirs with Christ. That is why salvation is permanent. You can't lose that sonship, that fact that you become adopted by the King of Kings. That is amazing, and you can't lose that. Another thing you can't lose is your destiny. You can't lose your inheritance. What you inherit through Christ, being a child of God, John 14 says, in my Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so. I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you. God has prepared a place for his children and that you cannot lose. It's not something you deserve. Okay, just be clear. It's not something you deserve. It's not something I deserve something we have by grace and and that being the case. We can't lose that. It's not something we have to work to maintain. It is something that is with an inheritance. No one deserves the inheritance that their parents leave them. Okay, it is something you get by virtue of being their child. Okay, it is an inheritance. All right, so there are some things in our Christian walk we can lose. That was not an exhaustive list, just a couple things there. But now we're gonna look at a couple things we can lose. If you've lost one of these this morning, don't despair. There's a next part of the message is how to get that back. Matthew 5.13 says, ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thencefore good for nothing. Ouch. Good for nothing. But to be cast down and trotted under the foot of men. What is a Christian that doesn't taste like a Christian good for? They're good for a doormat. Good for nothing. It says that It should be cast out and trodden underfoot by men. What is that? That is a Christian that doesn't taste like a Christian. A Christian that doesn't look, act, talk, be like a Christian. That is a Christian who has lost his savor. You can lose the flavor of Christian. Look, the difference is what sets us free. What is the difference between you and any other person on the planet? If you're saved, the difference is Christ. And that needs to have an impact, a difference on your life. For example, if I showed up this morning right now, what if I just walked in the door right now, Pastor Jeremy, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry I'm late. I know it's totally unacceptable, I'm so sorry. But on the way here, I had a flat tire, right? Pastor Jeremy is starting to understand why I'm late. And Jeremy, so I had to change the tire. I was out there, and I had to change the tire, and one of the lug nuts, it rolled into the highway, and I went into the highway to pick it up, and when I picked it up, I looked up, there was a semi. It was going 80 miles an hour. It hit me head on, and then, so then after that, I got up, and I brushed all the gravel and tire marks off, and I came over, and I finished changing the tire, and that's why we're late. Now, do you think for one second, Pastor Jeremy believes my story if I look like this? Why doesn't he believe the story? Because if I'd had an encounter with a semi going 80 miles an hour, I would have marks to show, right? Now, if I was in a full body cast in ICU, he'd be like, okay, his story is real. But if I look, you know, sort of decent, like I hope I do right now, then, You'd be like no you don't have a mark on you that story can't be real that story can't be true That's the same thing. It's it's even it's a small example of a person that says yes, I'm a Christian But yet they live like an unbeliever they talk like an unbeliever they do the things an unbeliever does Their life has no marks. No no evidence of Christ and they say I have had an encounter with the creator of the universe and The one who changes hearts, the one who changes souls, the one who's given me an eternal destiny, I've had an encounter with that God. But there is no evidence in my life, there's no evidence on me whatsoever, would you believe that story? You see what I'm saying? If an encounter with a tractor trailer going 80 miles an hour would leave a mark in your life. much more would an encounter with the creator of the universe leave an imprint on every part of your life. That is a Christian who's lost his savor. That is a Christian who needs to get back to scripture, back to the basics. Second thing you can lose, you can lose your joy. You can be saved and have no joy. 2 Peter 1.9 says, Let's just turn there, because what I pasted there is not 2 Peter. All right, 2 Peter. 2 Peter 1.9 says, Receiving the end of your faith even the salvation of your souls That's first Peter so sorry second Peter 1 9 says But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins and Have you forgotten that you've been purged from your old sins? Look, when a person that has lived a life of sin and is convicted of their sins comes forward and gets just the original, the real salvation that God offers and that weight, that guilt is taken off, there is an unspeakable joy. But then life happens, years pass, and this happens. You've forgotten that those old sins have been taken away. That is losing your joy. Losing the joy of your salvation. If you've lost the joy of your salvation this morning, despair not. You can have it back. Another thing that you can lose, be a Christian, and have lost is compassion. compassion 1st John 3 17 says but whosoever hath this world's good and seeth his brother have need and shut it up his bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him it's a it's a logical question if you have goods of this world and you see somebody in need and you shut up your bowels of compassion. How can you say, it's a logical question, because you can't say that God dwells in you if you do that. You can lose your compassion. So if you've lost your savor of salt, if you've lost your joy, if you've lost compassion, again, that's not an exhaustive list, but if you've lost something this morning, I'd like to try to help you get it back. And in order to do that, let's go back to the original text, Luke, Luke chapter 15. Luke chapter 15 and there in verse eight. First of all, we see, in verse eight it says, either what woman having 10 pieces of silver, if she lose one, doth light a candle. First thing you need to do if you've lost something is turn on the lights, okay? Have you ever been looking for something? whether it be in your car and you can't see quite well underneath the seat, or you've been looking for something in your house under the couch or something like that, and then all of a sudden you realize, oh, I should use the flashlight on my phone. And you get that light out and you shine it in the dark place, and oh, there it is, I just couldn't see it. That happens all the time, right? Because it's obscured by the darkness. Or been looking on the floor, patting around, looking for something, and somebody walks in, turns a light on, and it's right in front of your face, okay? That is like the savor of salt, the joy, and the compassion. It's not lost. You just don't have the lights on, okay? Psalm 119, 105 says, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Look, I wanted to recommend to you this morning, if you've lost one of these things or something else in your Christian walk, turn on the lights. Open God's Word. Read it. If you've gotten away and you've lost something, it's right here. This is the light. It is a light into our path. No, it doesn't light like, you know, it'd be cool if it worked like this, right? It doesn't quite work like that, right? It's not a physical light that you can see like your flashlight. It is spiritual. To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. We need to really understand and get that God's word is a spiritual light in our life. It illuminates what needs to be cleaned up. And that leads us to our second point. After she turns on the light, look at what she does. She lights a candle and then, what does she do there? Sweeps. She sweeps the house. I know this sounds ridiculous and redundant, but when you sweep, what do you gather up? You gather up dust, which is dirt, which is earth. You gather up part of the world. You gather part of the world. When you sleep in your house, when you sweep in your house, when you spiritually sweep in your house, what you're going to gather, is part of the world. No one comes into your house, it seems like it, it seems like it, but no one comes into your house with a little bucket of dirt and pours it out. Okay, so if you have a three-year-old, that might happen, okay? But generally speaking, no one comes into your house with a bucket of dirt and pours it out, even though it seems that way. It just, because you walk outside and then you come inside, a little bit sticks to you. That's the same thing that happens spiritually. We live in the world and we're not of the world. And when we watch things and when we listen to things and when we live and we have fellowship with the world, which is things that we should do, we should have impact, we should have contact with those people. Some things stick on to us and we need to constantly do maintenance. We need to constantly do maintenance, just like you do in your house, same things spiritually. How do you do it? First, you turn on the light. What is the light? God's word. It shows you what needs to go. It shows you what needs to stay. And then you start sweeping up, sweeping up those things. James 4.4 says, ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. The world has no place in your Christian home. It has no place. you need to clean it up, and you need to get it out. And if you do it right now, next week, next month, you need to do it again. It just happens. We live in this world, and it creeps into our house. If you send your kids to a public school, you need to dust them off every day. Dust off the world of your kids every day. They're indoctrinating your kids. I just heard Pastor Noah Mendoza, and... Some other people at supper yesterday talking about the indoctrination that's going on with kids and, oh, boys are gonna be girls today and the girls are gonna be boys today. Things of this nature going on in school. Despicable, disgusting. But that is the world creeping into our life. And how do we do that? First, we turn on the lights. This is what shows us what needs to go and what needs to stay. I know that we want to be friends with the world. Jesus was the friend of sinners, and that is totally great and appropriate and wonderful. But the question you need to ask yourself when you're being a friend with someone in the world, and that's fine, we should do that. Ask yourself, who is influencing who? Okay? If you are being a friend with them, and you are being the influence, great, awesome. But if you are being passive, and you are not being the influence, and you are being influenced, and you need to be honest with yourself, and ask yourself if that friendship, if that relationship is going Godward, or if it's taking you hellward, okay? Because it's going one of the two directions. Those friendships, those relationships need to be going Godward. The conversations need to be going Godward. Every single conversation always about God, brother? No, no. You can talk about golf, that's fine. You can talk about hunting, that's fine. You can talk about sports, yuck, but okay, that's fine. It's not like that, but God should be in your life and he should be a very evident part of your life to that unsafe person. He needs to be the reason you live, he needs to be the purpose that you live, the purpose that you have those relationships, that needs to be evident to them. Okay? So who's influencing who? That's a good litmus test to ask yourself which way this relationship is going. Okay? So first, you turn on the light. Second, you sweep the house. And third, there the last part of verse 8 says, so after she turns on the candle, lights the candle, and she sweeps the house, then she seeks diligently till she finds it. So I don't know if you guys have seen this. I don't even know if it's a meme or not. I don't see these things, but Beth told me about this. And it's, I don't know if it's a video or not or what, but when a guy actually finds something, they say he used his wife's body wash, right? So some of you are laughing, so some of you might know what's going on, okay? So Noah the other day was looking for something in the freezer, and I asked him to look for these salmon steaks. And he's like, dad, there's just no salmon steaks in the freezer. I go and open the freezer drawer, and right there, on top of everything, right there, Granted, there was only one, but there was the salmon steak right there, like not covered, not obscured by anything. It was right there. And he said, I looked, I searched, and I moved things. Probably did, he probably grabbed it, went like this, looked, and put it down. Probably what happened, I don't know. I wasn't there when he looked, but he didn't diligently seek. I don't know why, but guys have a hard time looking for things, okay? Don't use your husband's body wash when you seek for things in scripture, okay? A lot of times we're like, Lord, give me a word. Literally we pray that fast and we go and we read a verse. He didn't give me a word. Well, that's not diligently seeking, okay? Don't be like Noah looking in the freezer when you look into God's word. Diligently seek. Men, if you need to go and you lost something and you're gonna go to God's word and you're gonna seek and you're gonna look and see what needs to be cleaned from your life, first go take a shower, use your wife's body wash, then come back and seek. Maybe it'll help, I don't know. I don't know if there's any truth to that or not. But my point is what scripture says here is diligently seek, diligently seek. And notice she didn't just diligently seek. She diligently sought until she found it. When was she done seeking? When she found it. So when are you done seeking for what you've lost? You've lost your joy? Well, open the word of God, start cleaning out the things in your life that God doesn't want in your life. That's where your convictions come in. And when you're done seeking, you'll know because you will have found your joy. Diligently seek what you're looking for until you find it. I know it sounds so simple. It's not quite that easy, but it is that simple. Turn on the lights, open God's word. Clean out the things in your life that don't belong there. I'm not gonna show you what those are. I'm not here to tell you, hey, these are my convictions, you need to copy those. No, no, no, no, no. The Holy Spirit, that's the Holy Spirit's job. And how you're gonna know is through God's word. And then when you clean those things out, you diligently seek what you've lost. And I believe, based on what I see in scripture, I believe you'll find it. Diligently seek until you find it. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for what you've done this morning. Thank you, Lord, for your word. I pray, God, that you would use it to bless and encourage your people. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray.