in your Bibles this morning. It's wonderful to have a Bible today. It is. Luke chapter number 15. It was the way last week preaching for my friend, Brother Kirby Campbell up in Illinois. I was glad to get back to North Carolina. It was a blessing. And it's flat as it could be. You're talking about flat as a pancake. If you live there, you think the earth is flat. I can promise you that. And anyway, anybody here from Illinois, you're a member of our church? Yeah, I've got a couple. All right. I'm not prejudiced now. We still love you, okay? But I'm glad to be here. And they are too, by the way. They are too. Find, if you would please, Luke 15 verse 8. I love this story in the Bible. It's a long story. It begins in verse 1, goes all the way to the end of the chapter, but yet there's actually three stories in one. Look what he says. We're going to look at the second of the stories in this parable. Verse 8, "...either what woman, having ten pieces of silver..." Now there's a crowd there that day. No doubt there's women in the crowd. Every woman in the crowd. just perked up. Every woman in the crowd. Do you realize in that day women were relegated to second class status? You couldn't enter into the temple. You had what was called the court of the women. You had to stand on the outside. A Pharisee every day of his life would pray that he was glad that he wasn't born a woman. Yet Jesus, in the midst of those Pharisees, began to address women in that crowd. The Lord never mistreated or subjugated. Christianity never makes women second class. It doesn't do that. No, as a matter of fact, God loves each of us individually, doesn't He? Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, This is money. "...doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it. And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I had lost." There was distress there. lost a piece of coin, a silver coin that was very valuable to her. And now that she's found it after a diligent search, she's rejoicing and she's asking others to join in the celebration. Now look at verse 10. The Lord's going to drive a point home to us. Likewise, in the same manner of this woman, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God. The angels are in heaven, right? And I know they do His bidding, but that we would consider them being in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. Isn't that amazing? It's interesting that when I began to contemplate and meditate on these verses, something struck me. That in these verses, Jesus tells a story that teaches us how that everyone in this room, every person in this room this morning can make heaven happy. That's one thing to make somebody on earth happy, but it's something else to make heaven happy. Isn't that right? Matter of fact, here's what the Lord is saying, that we can do something on earth that leads to rejoicing in heaven. Now when you look at Luke chapter number 15, you understand that this is a parable. It's actually three stories, not three parables. It's three stories that are interwoven together that teach a tremendous truth. They reveal to us the heart of God towards sinners like you and me. Now see, Pharisees didn't like sinners. They didn't think God liked sinners. Matter of fact, they looked down on them. God never looks down on a sinner. He doesn't look down on anybody. He doesn't do that. Now you're going to find that Jesus is going to enlighten this crowd how God loves people. Now we go back to chapter 15 verse 1 and you're going to understand the setting. You see, to really understand the story, you need to understand why Jesus told the story. And he's in Bethany, the crowd has gathered, there's people in that crowd, and Luke, Dr. Luke, the inspired writer, is going to highlight some groups of people in that crowd. And he begins to talk about in verse 1 a group called publicans and sinners. And the Bible said, verse 1, "...they drew near unto him." Every publican, every center in that crowd began to draw near. They weren't standing on the outside of the crowd looking in. No, they were moving toward the Lord. They were on the edge of their seat. They were coming close to. They desired to hear what Jesus had to say. Nobody treated them the way Jesus did. And it drew them to Him like a magnet. They were social outcasts. They were looked down on. The publicans, we learned, were tax collectors. They were despised. They were looked on as traitors. They were spit at. They, as a matter of fact, were the lowest of the low. The sinners in our record here, in our Scripture, these are the common ordinary people like you and me. I mean, no doubt there were people that were notorious sinners in this crowd, but really they were just ordinary people like us, common folk. And if you weren't a Pharisee, then you really were a nobody in their eyes, and you were looked down on, and they thought God looked down on you. Because we find verse number 2, the Pharisees and scribes murmured, they mumbled and grumbled amongst themselves, and here's what they were grumbling about, this man, they were referring to Jesus, this man received his sinners, he doesn't just tolerate them, he welcomes them, and he doesn't just welcome, he fellowships with them, he eateth with them. That means he goes into their homes, he rubs shoulders with them, he's amongst the people. No Pharisee was amongst the people. They were separate from the people. If we're not careful, dear child of God, we can be saved long enough that we can have a little bit of heart of the Pharisee in us. That somehow we just think because we're saved that we're cut above. That God might just love us a little bit more. Can I tell you Jesus loves everybody equally. There's nobody that the Lord loves greater than another person. You see, the Pharisees were mumbling and they thought they were infuriated at Jesus. If He was really a prophet, if He has really come from God, He would know who these people were and He wouldn't associate with them. What they missed was this. He's not just come from God, He is God. And when you see Jesus interacting and working in the lives of people, that's how He interacts and works in my life and your life today. And Jesus sets the record straight. And He has to tell a story. We looked at the story of the lost sheep and we saw the world through Jesus' eyes. This morning, Jesus, as we look at the second story, and He talks about the woman and the lost coin, He begins to take them a step further and help them to understand that whether you're a publican, or a sinner, or a Pharisee, or a scribe, that there was the potential in your life to make heaven happy. And listen to me this morning. There's the potential in your life today to make heaven happy. I want to talk to you this morning about making heaven happy. Let's pray together. Lord, I sure love Your Word and I thank You for it. And Lord, I realize that we're not just learning the Word so that we can be Bible scholars or Bible teachers or Lord, have an encyclopedia memory of the Bible. That's not what this is about. It's about learning about You. Lord, You gave us the Bible so that we could know You. That we could understand the heart of God. That we would recognize how You work in people's lives. Lord, how You relate to us. I thank You for that. Teach us from Your Word this morning. Lord, help everyone in this room learn today how they individually can make heaven happy. And I'll sure thank You for it. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Well, let's begin to look at this story this morning and we think about making heaven happy. We need to realize that people without Christ are lost. People without Christ are lost. Look at verse number 8. The Bible said, "...Either what woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one, In each of these stories that Jesus tells in this parable, something is lost. We learn in the first story that there was a shepherd who had a lost sheep. You're going to find that here in our story we're preaching this morning, we have a woman that she has lost a coin. When you come to the next story, you find a father that had two sons. Now watch it. Shepherd had a hundred sheep. He lost one. Here's a woman. She had ten coins. She lost one. Now you're going to come to a father. We'll see that next week. Lord willing. And he's got two sons, and he loses one. He's wayward. He's estranged from his dad. He goes off into the far country. You see, this coin, this sheep, and this son, pictures to us the condition of a person without Jesus Christ. And the Bible says that when we're without Christ, that we're lost. Now, preacher, what does that mean? What does that mean? I mean, I knew how to get here today. I know how to plug directions into my GPS and get where I need to go. And listen, my wife, now she's okay with the GPS now. She is. But when it first started, she didn't like it. She still used the Atlas map, okay? And we'll still stick one in the car every once in a while. And she says, cut her down. I don't trust her. And she said, you don't need two women in your life telling you what to do. So we sort of cut it. But now, see, after the GPS has proved itself, okay, and I thought about changing the voice to a man, but I didn't want a man telling me what to do. You know how that goes? And so anyway, we'll just leave that where it's at. But anyway, somebody says, Preacher, I'm not lost. What does it mean to be spiritually lost? Well, Jesus is illustrating that in our story. The sheep who wandered away from the fold and is out in the wilderness, now watch this, catch it, is separated from the shepherd. Here is a woman. She has ten pieces of coin. We'll understand the significance of the coins in a moment. But she has ten pieces of money, of silver, of coin. Ten coins. One. I don't know how it happens. One falls to the floor. It rolls into the corner. It is separated. Now watch this. The coin is separated from its owner. Now we come to the Son, and we're going to see this next week. He's going to, of His own volition, out of a heart of rebellion, is going to leave the Father's house. He's going to go out into the world to do His own thing, to live His own way. What's happened, preacher? The Son is separated from His Dad. Did you catch that? So preacher, what does it mean to be lost? To be lost is to be separated from God. The separation is not God's fault. It's ours. Listen to Isaiah 59 and verse number 2. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God. Did you catch that? And we find that it's sin. It's sin that separates us from God. It's not God who is separated from man. It is man who is separated from God. And the issue is sin. Now watch it. It's not just what we do. It is what we are. That my very nature is sinful. That being born of Adam, we are born into this world lost. We're dead in our sins. We are separated from God. But God, out of a heart of love, as what we see in the story, is not going to stand for this separation. No, He created each one of us. We're special in His eyes. He loves you. God created every individual for Himself. And God desires to find that which is lost and bring it back into a relationship with Him. That's what it is. That is salvation in a nutshell. You see, when I look at this passage, I recognize that while there might be a sheep and a son and a coin, He's really talking about all of humanity. He's talking about every one of us. That we're lost in sin. We're born that way. We need to be saved. Nobody is born saved. Everybody needs to be saved. And God saves people individually. Just because mom and dad saved, just because grandma and grandpa might be saved, that doesn't make you saved. This sheep is lost in the wilderness. The lamb, the little sheep begins to go its own way, nibbling grass and straying away from the shepherd. It's lost out in the wilderness. It's bleeding. It's crying. It's out there knowing it's away from the shepherd. But now wait a minute, when you come to this coin, it's lost not in the wilderness, but in the darkness. It doesn't know it's lost. For 17 years of my life, I didn't know I was lost. I went to church every Sunday. I grew up in church. I could quote much of the Scriptures. I could give you the Romans' road to salvation, but I wasn't saved. If you had asked me, Kevin, will you go to heaven? I'd say, absolutely I'll go to heaven. but I wouldn't have went to heaven. If I had died before I was saved at the age of 17 in 1984, I would have spent eternity in hell. I would have thought I was going to heaven, but I would have woke up in hell. The coin didn't know that it was lost. Can I help you to understand? The vast majority of the world doesn't know they're lost. I didn't know I was lost until I was found. That's when I realized. When God failed me, I realized I was lost, and He saved me. Because I wasn't trusting what Jesus did, I was trusting what I could do to save me. Their location is different. One's in the wilderness, the other's in the darkness. Their situations are different, but they're equally lost. and needed to be found. Romans 3.23, For all have sinned, not some, not part, but all of humanity have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. There is no individual without sin. There is no individual that doesn't need to be saved. There is none righteous, none righteous, no, not one. There is none that doeth good. What God's saying, it doesn't mean that we can't do some good things, that we can't be a good neighbor. But what He's saying is that you and I as sinners can't do anything to be found. We can't do anything to cause God to love us. We can't do anything to save ourselves. That's what He's saying. I'm glad I don't have to merit God's love because I've come up short. I'm glad He loves me in spite of me. That's what we learned in the picture of that sheep, that He loves us in spite of our sin and failure, doesn't He? That means that no one is born right with God. They're without Christ. They need to be saved. Notice I didn't say they didn't have religion. Religion is throughout our world. Friend, it's a relationship that God desires. God draws us and brings us to Himself. And friend, listen. that God wants to save sinners today. Isn't that a blessing? Now I've given you the bad news. The good news is nobody has to stay lost. You know everything in Jesus' story that was lost is found? Isn't that amazing? The shepherd goes out in search of the sheep and he rejoices because he finds that little lost sheep and he lifts it up out of its condition and lays it on his shoulders and carries it back to the fold. Here's a woman that will, or let's go to the father, we're going to see it more next week, but we're going to see a father that every day after that son leaves home, he's going to go out on that porch looking for that son, longing, desiring for the son to return home. Hear this woman who loses this coin. She's going to light a lamp, a candle. She's going to grab a broom. Most of the time you had dirt floors in that day. And she's going to diligently sweep every corner, every nook, every cranny of the room in which that coin was lost, searching for the coin. Can I tell you, friend, God has went to great lengths that He might find us. Oh, you think about what Jesus done. He left the glories of heaven. He was the joy of the angels, but yet He willingly and lovingly and voluntarily took to Himself a human nature and a human body. God became man without ever ceasing to be God. He rubbed shoulders with those who hated Him and cursed Him and mocked Him and rejected Him and would nail Him to a tree. God would lay on Him the iniquity of every one of us. He would bear the guilt of all humanity, paying the price for our sin. He died. He was buried. Thank God He rose again. Amen? I thought about the tragedy. We all know the tragedy that's going on in the Middle East, in the nation of Israel right now. We ought to be praying for the peace of Jerusalem. By the way, I'm going to be preaching on a special psalm tonight. that's going to fall into this category. And so I hope you'll be back for tonight's message. And then we're going to embark on a series of messages that I'm entitling, What's Next? And we're going to talk about some major prophetic themes and we're going to deal with some of this stuff here in a couple weeks. But anyway, coming back to this story, I thought about this. Here's the Jewish people. I thought about, do you realize there are people that every day of their life drive by the empty tomb? Every day of their lives they drive by Golgotha or Mount Calvary where Jesus died. But they're blind to it and they don't even know they're lost. There are people that will sit in Baptist churches and hear the gospel preached Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and they'll die lost because they're unwilling to receive Jesus Christ as Savior. The father finds his son. The woman finds the coin. Can I tell you there's two kinds of people in our world? You say, preacher, who are they? There are those who have been found and those who are still waiting to be found. All around us are people waiting to be found. All around us are people who do not have a relationship with Christ and they're waiting to be found. We live in a world with 8 billion people. Half have never even heard the name Jesus and they have no access to the gospel. They're waiting to be found. You and I can make heaven happy when we join the search with God in finding sinners that need to be saved. Oh friend, number one, if you want to make heaven happy, realize that people without Christ are lost. Number two, remember that people without Christ are loved. I want you to pay special attention. Now we're going to hone in on our story. Here's the woman discovers that one of ten precious coins in her life are lost. One of them. What was it, preacher, that... I mean, it's just a coin. When I tell you the value, it was a silver drachma in that day. It was worth about a penny in Jesus' day. About a day's wage. This man worked about 8, 10, 12 hours and he'd be given a penny. It really was in itself a very valuable coin. What was it that moved this woman to light a lamp, grab a broom, sweep the room searching for the coin? By the way, a penny doesn't have much value in our day. Today, when you're going to get about two or three pennies back, you say, keep it. You throw it in the little take a penny thing, right? Because you don't want it jangling in your pocket. You see one in the parking lot, and unless there's a grandchild or a child with you, you don't even stop and pick it up. And if you drop it most of the time, you don't pick up a penny. Because it doesn't have much value to us. Now my grandma always told me pennies make dollars, but that's another thing, okay? It's not part of the message. But really, we don't think much of it, do we? What was it that made this coin valuable to this woman? It was actually ten... Look what the Bible says. Either what woman having ten pieces of silver. I began to do a deep dive into the ten pieces of silver. Here's what I found. This wasn't just ten separate coins. This wasn't ten days worth of work. These were ten coins that were connected by a piece of ribbon or a chain and it formed a frontlet or a headband. It was much like a wedding ring in our day. A Jewish woman would be given that headband when she was married. Her husband would give her that. She would wear it on her wedding day, special occasions. Whenever she would go out, she would put on this headband, these pieces of coin, and it would be a reminder. that she was married. It would be a picture of their commitment and their love for one another. It had great value to this woman. You see, you don't need to understand the Bible from a Western mindset. You need to go to where they lived and understand what it meant to them. Every woman in that crowd who was married understood the value of that coin. Oh, it might have been ten dollars. It might have been ten pennies. But what it was, it was priceless to this woman because it pictured something special in her lives. Listen, watch this. Let's move on from the picture now. And let's go from here. And let's think about something in our minds as we remember that people without Christ are loved. The sheep was valuable to the shepherd. It would move the heart of the shepherd to go and seek one sheep. The son would be valuable to the father where he longed for the son to come home. The coin is valuable and loved by this woman that when she lost it and realized it was gone, that she would search diligently in order to find it. And friend, here's what Jesus is saying to everybody in that crowd that day. You are valuable and are loved by God. You may not feel like God loves you, but I can promise you this this morning, God loves you. There's not anybody that God doesn't love. There's no one, J. Henry Jowett says, outside the love grip of the eternal. Hearing His love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation, the payment, the satisfaction for our sins. Friend, can I tell you, listen, when we look out around us, there's a world out there that Jesus loves. Don't ever forget it. When you get frustrated with the world because they're living like the world and doing what the world does, can I help us to understand they're still loved by God and they need to be loved by us? When you and I, dear child of God, we can make heaven happy by loving who Jesus loves. Next Sunday, there's going to be people come through those doors that you'll invite. There's going to be people that'll come through those doors that we didn't invite. What I mean by that is they came off of an invitation just left on their door. They weren't personally invited. They don't know anybody here that they know of. Every year we have people who are members of our church from Friend Day. People that come in these doors and they live in a world filled with hate and anger And they're looking for love and they need to come into a place like this and see the love of Christ in a group of people. And I'm going to tell you something. It'll make heaven happy when we love the people that come through those doors Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. Number three, you want to make heaven happy? Resolve to bring lost people to Christ. Look at verse number eight. The Bible said, Either what woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, but sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it. She begins to search for it. Now there's a parallel in our story. Something's lost and something's found. Notice in every instance this. God is the seeker. We talk about seeker-sensitive churches. We talk about people seeking God. You know what the Bible says? Nobody seeks after God. We seek after God because God's seeking after us. God is the seeker in our story. The shepherd searched sacrificially. He left the ninety and nine in the fold and he went out sacrificing himself to the dangers of the wilderness searching for that sheep. You're going to find the woman is going to search diligently. She's going to light the lamp. She's going to grab the broom. She's going to sweep the house. She's diligently. Oh listen friend, Jesus sacrificially sought us. Like this woman, He diligently seeks us. And like the father in this story who walks out on that porch day after day after day looking for a son who's lost to come home, He patiently waits for us and seeks us. Oh, how patient God is. Few people are ever saved the first time they hear the gospel. I had heard it all of my life before I received it. God is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Preacher, why is God putting up with our world? Why is God letting it go on? Why ain't God coming and judging this world? Why ain't He doing that? Because He's patient. He said, don't you think that God's slack as some men count slackness, that God's not acting because He can't act or won't act or is unwilling to act. He said, He's just long-suffering. not willing that any should perish. Oh, I thought about how this father searched lovingly. There's a little girl she has lost out in the woods. The people gathered from the community formed a search party to look for her. They was about ready to give up the search. And that distraught father said, well, I'm going to make one more search. And as he was going back through that area, the beam of his flashlight caught a patch of white clothing, and there was his little daughter shivering and whimpering in the cold. And she saw her daddy, and she jumped up and wrapped her little arms around him, and she said, Daddy, I'm so glad I found you. That's the way we are. We get thinking about what God... Oh Lord, I'm so glad You found me. But the reality of it is He found us. I didn't go to church seeking God. God was seeking me. I didn't find Him. He found me. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. By the way, if the Lord Jesus loved us enough to seek us out, we ought to love Him enough to seek others out. There's going to be another parable we'll look at, but I'm going to pull out something in the parable that Jesus said. And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, the out-of-the-way places, and compel them to come in, compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. You know, nobody ever comes when we just say, I sure would like for you to come to church. We've been handing these things out for any day. Hey, if you feel like it, why don't you come? Nobody ever comes like that. But when we go and say, you know what? Our church is having a friend day. I'd love for you to be my friend on friend day. I've been praying for somebody to be my one. Would you be my one? Lovingly, compel. I'm not talking about dragging them in, but if it works. We're about a week away from friend day. God's given us an opportunity to impact our community for Him. You know, we can fuss about our nation, and we can fuss about our communities, or we can do something about it. We can sit in front of a Fox News, or Newsmax, or whatever, I hope you don't watch the others, but anyway, any of the others, and you can sit there and you can watch all that, and you can get mad and fuss at the TV, and fuss at society, and fuss at how things are, or you can get busy and make a difference. Because the only thing that's going to change our nation is the gospel. That's it. Nothing else is going to change our nation but the gospel. That's it. Your ballot box isn't going to change the nation, but the gospel will. Oh, it might hold back stuff for a while. Can I encourage you to vote your one? You've got a week. When we resolve to bring lost people to Christ and we're busy about it, I can't make them be saved. You can't make them be saved. I can't even make them come. But you know what? I can do what Jesus did. He said, as the Father sent me, even so send I you. I can go to seek and to save. And when I do that, you know what I'm doing? I'm making heaven happy. And ask God to give us a burden. Can I give you the last thing and I'm done? You want to make heaven happy? Realize that people without Christ are lost. Keep that in your mind. Number two, remember that people without Christ are loved. Then make it your business to resolve to bring lost people to Christ. Somebody brought every one of us to the Lord. and then rejoice when lost people come to Christ. I like that one, don't you? Look at verse number 8 again. And she sweep the house and seek diligently till she find it. And when she hath found it, verse 9, she called her friends and neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I had lost. I've found it! I've found it! I've found it! Oh my, celebration! And she said, Listen, I want others to get on the celebration. Come and rejoice with me! Think about it. In each of these stories, something's lost, something's found, and someone's rejoicing. Isn't that something? The shepherd rejoices with the sheep. The father's going to kill the fatted calf and rejoice with the son. And here this woman who finds this precious coin, this valuable coin, is going to rejoice. And they're always going to invite somebody else to join in on the celebration. You know what? I don't want to be the Christian that when God's doing something, I'm just going to sit back and go, You know, I go in churches all the time. And I preach to them. And they're about half dead. And they're sitting here just like this when you're preaching. You know, and I know there's times we just fold our arms, but I mean, they're sitting here, you know. And then somebody comes to the altar, something happens. Huh. Well, they just don't care. Indifferent. Just the wrong attitude. Critical. That's what's the matter with our churches. We're not celebrating anything. We're not rejoicing. Listen, let me ask you a question. Why would God let a sinner get saved in a church where they're not going to rejoice over it? He's going to send them somewhere when they get saved that they will rejoice over it. We don't ever want to get used to what God's doing. We don't ever want to think we've arrived. We don't ever want to think, oh, we're just too full. No, when we get full, God makes room. And it's not about who can have the biggest number. If that's our goal, then we've missed the heart of God. If our motive is just to be bigger than the church down the road, listen, we have missed the heart of God. God said that we're to love people and to see people saved and make heaven happy. That needs to be our goal. The goal of Calvary Baptist Church is never growth. The goal of Calvary Baptist Church is God. Because it's God who brings the growth. Now, two occasions, I'm going to land the plane. I was preaching last week and I got to point number three real quick. You know, I'm a three-point preacher most of the time. I'm going to slip one in on you and I'm going to preach four points here for you. And you're saying, oh no, if it takes this long for three, I wonder what for. Well, this is four, isn't it? There we go, see? There we go. I've already slipped it in on you through the curve ball. I got to point three and I said, now listen, when I told you that this is the last point, I didn't say that for you to get excited. That just means the plane is making the descent. Now the good news is we're about ready to land it this morning, okay? But notice in the case of the sheep in verse 7 and the case of the coin in verse 10, Jesus is going to relate the joy on earth to joy in heaven. Look at verse 10 again. It's a mirror of verse 7. Likewise I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. In verse 7 he said, likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner. Not a hundred, not a thousand, not ten thousand, but the one that repenteth. Now, if God says something one time, I think that's important, don't you? When God doubles it. and says it a second time, I think we really ought to perk up and listen. And God says this, that every time that somebody comes to Him for salvation, all of heaven rejoices. So who's rejoicing? Well, I believe the saints are rejoicing. I believe that. Now notice he didn't say the angels were rejoicing. No doubt they do, but he said in the presence. There's in the presence of the angels of God. So I believe the saints of heaven. I don't believe that our loved ones can look over heaven and see earth. If they could, then heaven wouldn't be a really exciting place, would it? Wouldn't be a real happy place. But I do believe they get news. I believe that when I got saved, a great-grandmother that prayed for me when I was a little boy rejoiced. When you were saved, if you're saved this morning, someone in heaven and all of heaven rejoiced. But I'm going to take it a step further. God rejoices because He's the one in the picture. The shepherd and the woman and the father are a picture of the heart of God. And nothing rejoices the heart of God more than when a person places their faith in His Son and is saved. Do you realize that God has emotion? He feels. I find that throughout the Bible. And God experiences the emotion of joy. Jesus spoke about His joy becoming our joy. Heavenly happiness. It's okay to be happy. It's okay to have joy. This is God's joy. And I believe that the heart of God rejoices over every time a person receives Jesus Christ as Savior. Can you imagine that? And church, we ought to be rejoicing with our Father. Well, never stop celebrating what God's doing in our lives, in the lives of other people, in the lives of our church, and we ought to share it. Because we're testifying of what God's doing. We're rejoicing. Tonight we're going to baptize three people that's going to follow the Lord in believers. They're not going to be saved tonight. They're already saved. They're going to follow the Lord in baptism. They're identifying themselves with Him. You know what's happening in heaven? They're rejoicing. We ought to rejoice tonight. That's why I like it. I like it when all of a sudden, you know, I probably not have been in my life a big clapper in church, probably hadn't, but I'm getting to where I like it. I am. Now, other people are like, well, I don't like that. Well, that's okay. God likes it. Because He talks about it all through this. As I've been studying the Psalms, clap your hands. We're not applauding who's getting baptized. We're just sharing. I really struck home when I was in Guyana, South America. That's how they say amen. I'm preaching. I say something they like. Next thing I know, they're breaking out clapping. It's just who they are. It's their nature. I thought, hey, I like this. I'm getting fired up. We started talking about people coming, people getting saved. They started clapping. I started getting fired up. It was good. All of heaven rejoices. Do you know 10,000 hydrogen bombs? 10,000 hydrogen bombs could all detonate at one time. And do you realize the blast wouldn't even shake the nearest star? It wouldn't even make the sun shatter. But let one soul be saved. Just one. And there's rejoicing beyond the stars. Isn't that something? Isn't that something? Friend, listen. All of heaven rejoices and you can make heaven happy this morning. Maybe for the very first time in your life you sense the need to be saved. Maybe you've been sensing it for a while that you're not sure of your eternal destiny. You're not sure you're saved. You can make heaven happy and rejoice the heart of God this morning by coming to Him and being saved. You can. Could we bow our heads for just a moment in the quietness of this invitation?