No greater privilege, no greater knowledge than to know who Jesus is. Thank you for that song tonight, children. That was wonderful. I'm glad I know who Jesus is. If you know Jesus, you should be glad about that same thing. I can't believe you all weren't a little more fired up about that. That was incredible. And so about three of you are glad you know who Jesus is. The rest of us, and we need to go to, let's just go to Romans 3.23. The Bible says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, okay? And then we go to Romans 5.8. But God, in that Christ died for us, alright? So we were sinners and Christ died for us. And now we should be glad that we know Him, okay? So, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. And if you've been saved, you should be happy, okay? I don't understand why you guys weren't a little more happy about that song. We might have to have a remix here in a minute, okay? So I don't think that's the word I'm looking for, a replay, a redo. Anyhow, all right, Luke chapter 15 tonight, Luke chapter 15. Turn there, I'm gonna move some of these in case I decide to go flailing about so I don't knock them over. One's probably good. I don't feel like I'm gonna be very animated tonight, but you never know. Luke chapter 15. We are going to study a message tonight simply called this, bringing joy to heaven, bringing joy to heaven. Stand with me, we're gonna read the first 10 verses of Luke in chapter 15 tonight. Luke chapter 15, verses one through 10. Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he laith it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner, that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. Either what woman, having ten 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 calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I have lost. Likewise I say unto you, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner, that repenteth. Let's pray. Father, I ask now that you would help us to take note of what your word is saying, Lord God. Help us to study it, to find out what you would have. Help me to articulate the truths you would have and help us to take them and learn from them and apply them to our lives in a way that would bring glory to your holy and precious name. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, this morning we looked at God's holiness. Tonight I want to, as we begin this message, think about God's love. And like God's holiness, I think his love is altogether unfathomable. We've recently focused on how undeserving we are of his love. We focused on that as we were studying through the book of Isaiah a few weeks back. But God's love is really unlike anything that we know or can comprehend. It's something that I don't think any of us can actually understand except for we see some concepts in the Bible and we see some illustrations in the Bible, but to truly get a hold of God's love is something that is pretty impossible for us because we don't live in a world where we see this or know this or live this. We think about God in 1 John 4 in two different places, it says God is love. Right, that's a very interesting statement. That moves it from a characteristic of God to an attribute of God. It is something like His holiness that He is. It's something that is inherently true of God. He is love. In 1 John 4 where it says He is love, the Greek word there is agape, and I'm sure many of you have heard sermons on this and have read about the Greek meanings of the word love, but there it says love, and Strong School Coordinates, and it says that is affection or benevolence, and then it says this, especially a love feast, a feast of charity, dear love. That's a very interesting way of saying it, a love feast, a perhaps buffet of love. And we think about God's love, and that would kind of be how we could best understand it, because when we think of love, we have all of these kind of ideas that go into love, and many of them come from the Bible, but at the same time, quantifying or qualifying love either way is a very hard thing to do. Define love. If you ask somebody to define love, what are they going to do? They're going to include the word love. Why? Because it's hard to define something like love. But when we think of God's word, it tells us many things about his love. It tells us that his love is demonstrative. We think about Romans 5a, as we quoted a moment ago, but God commendeth his love toward us, right? Committed to show, he expressed it to us, and that while we were, yes, sinners, Christ died for us. So we see a demonstrative love. We see a love that does what it is, right? So it's not just, I love you and that's nothing more, right? I can love my wife, but if I never express my love to her, then how does she know that? It's just words. And so we see that God's love is demonstrative. We know it's an inseparable love, Romans 8, 38, and 39. I used to have these memorized very well. I'll probably butcher it right now if I try to quote. I should just turn there because I'm going to mess it up. It's so hard to quote verses in front of you all, just so you know. But something like, for I am persuaded that neither height nor, no, I'm gonna start it off wrong. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. So we see an inseparable love, right? Not only does he love us in a demonstrative way, he loves us in a way that when we are his, he's never going to remove himself from us. We can think of more about it. It's a perfect love. You go to 1 Corinthians in chapter 13 and verses four through eight, there we find the kind of iconic definition of love. In those verses it says, charity suffereth long. When you start talking about marriage, this is the first thing that really demonstrates if you love someone, how you act when you're waiting on your wife, right? Come on woman, let's go. Versus waiting patiently, or learning to dwell with your wife according to knowledge, right? And so, helping her to get ready earlier perhaps, right? So, charity suffereth long, it is kind. Right, it's real easy for my children to say they love each other, but Daniel walked up and just kicked Peyton today. Doesn't look a lot like love, right? I mean, charity is kind. Love is kind. Charity envieth not, right? We're happy for other people when they have charity. Vaunteth not itself is not puffed up. There's not pride in there. We're humble. doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in truth. And it says, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. We know that Paul here is discussing charity and how that it is better than prophesying and speaking in tongues and other things, but in there he gives us a definition of love. And this is a definition of love that none of us have ever lived perfectly. Right, I mean, you have a husband or a wife perhaps, and you've probably snapped at them a time or two. You've been impatient with them, you've done various things to them. You have children, and though you may love your children more than anything, you have probably behaved yourself unseemly to them a time or two. Right, about the 50th time, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, right? And eventually we're like, what darling, what darling, what? Right? We've all been there. We don't have the ability like God does to live these all perfectly. So we see as a demonstrative love, an inseparable love, a perfect love, a sacrificial love. Think of Ephesians 5, 25, where it says, husband, love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. How did he show his love? By sacrificing himself for us. And then we think about God and his love contains every piece of what we would characterize as the parts of love, the buffet of love, the, what was the definition there? The love feast. He has it all and he maintains all of it at all times for all people and it never ceases. And it's incredible. but we really cannot fathom it in any way that is reality to us. We can partake of it as we accept Jesus Christ, but to truly understand that love is not really within our fallible, finite human minds, because none of us have ever seen it play out in an actual physical relationship. We know we have it with God, and we have his spirit bearing witness with our spirit, and we experience his love, but to say that we've seen it worked out in a physical way in front of us, I think would be a false statement, right? The greatest marriages on earth are still human marriages, right? That the greatest parent-child relationship are still tainted by sin. And so we love, but at best, our love is just a small picture of what God's love is, but God is love. He is all of this, all of the time for everyone. And I say that because in our text tonight, there's a group of people who have come together criticizing Jesus because he's continually surrounded by sinners. It says in verse two, and the Pharisees and scribes murmured saying, this man received sinners and eateth with him. This guy, right, this rabbi, all he ever does is eat with sinners and whenever they wanna talk to him, he's fine with it. And they're like disgusted by it. They're criticizing Jesus because he's constantly surrounded by sinners. But Jesus doesn't sound off on the offensive, right? He doesn't get defensive. He doesn't criticize those who are speaking of him, but in his usual manner, Jesus seeks to teach them more about who he is. And so we see two main points tonight. And the first one is this, God's love is deeper than we can comprehend. God's love is deeper than we can comprehend. You'll not find the word love in this passage, but we find two parables. And in the first parable, we find in verses four through seven, a man who owns sheep. This guy has a hundred sheep and we think about sheep back then and sheep were an important commodity. They were valuable in that they could be sold or bartered. They provided milk and wool and meat. The skins could be used for various things. There are certain breeds of sheep that have horns and those horns would be used for other things. But you think about a man owning a hundred sheep. You couldn't survive off that. I tried to see if you could survive off 100 sheep today. And you know how now you type into Google and the Google AI says something? It says, you cannot survive off 100 sheep. You would have to have part-time work. I don't know why it said that. That came up first thing. I thought that was very fascinating. And then I started reading other stuff. But today, you couldn't live off 100 sheep by yourself. and seemingly at the time of Christ it would have been somewhat difficult to have survived off a hundred sheep. But having a hundred sheep would mean or would indicate that this man, he is trying to survive off sheep, right? Because if he just had a couple sheep he would be able to you know do other things right you have your couple little lambs there right they're hanging out in the house they're eating your table scraps they're moseying around the yard your little son Daniel's trying to ride him like a horse like all of those things are going on like and so you could have this relationship with sheep and you raise them and maybe you love them too much to ever be able to eat them but you shave them once in a while and you use their wool for something or something like that but this guy has a hundred And 100 is enough to where it's too many just to have on your like little homestead, right? Because they would graze it raw. So it would require you to take the sheep out and do something with them. So this person seems to be a shepherd of his own little flock, but it's not a massive flock, right? It would be this family's main source of income because it would be taking the man's time. He would have to take them to grazing ground and provide them food and ensure their safety and take them to water and all the things he would have to do. but it was too big to be able to have another job, but it would be too small to be wealthy. It would have taken many more sheep to have been a wealthy operation. So a flock of 100 may have allowed them to survive. It would allow them perhaps to maintain an existence, but the size of the herd indicates that each sheep had a lot of value to the owner. He's got 100. And so if he's got 100, if he loses one, he loses 1% of his family's finances. And when it's just 100 of them, that can be a very, very big deal. This family's net worth decreases by 1% when that sheep runs off. But most of us know if we are kind of struggling to get by, if we're living paycheck to paycheck, if we're just barely living within our means, losing 1% is the difference between having perhaps a good meal and no meal for one night. It could make a big difference. It could be the difference between being able to pay your bills and not pay your bills. It could cause you to fall short. And so when one sheep disappears, that man will do whatever he can. He's gonna wander through the forest. He's gonna find a way to find that sheep. Then Jesus goes into a second parable. And this parable begins in verse eight. And there we have a woman who has 10 pieces of silver. And if she loses one, likewise, it matters. If she loses one, she loses 10% of what she has. This word for piece of silver here, I think is fascinating because it's drachma. So it gives us an inference. I think most of us know the word drachma, right? And that would be where we get this word from, a Roman piece of money that would be worth a typical day's wage. And so that seems to be what we're talking about here. So this woman has about 10 days worth of money. She's worked 10 days and that's what she has. She doesn't have enough to be wealthy, but it's enough to perhaps survive. Maybe 10 days is enough to pay rent, right? We work a month and a good portion of every month's wages goes to rent. Or maybe she already paid her rent and this next part of her money was for what she was going to eat in or whatever the case may have been. But she has it and she loses it. And it's very important to her. She loses a tenth of what she has. And so when she loses one, it's a really, really big deal. And if this were to happen, this woman we see would search until she found it. She would clear out the house. She would light the candle. She would sweep the floors, do whatever she could to find the money she needs to survive. We read these two things, and they're kind of perhaps archaic in our own parlance. We think about losing something, and there's We live in a society where it's hard to imagine losing something that would cause a lot of hurt, right? I mean, there are certainly things in our lives like that, right? I was at the store a while back with Daniel and Samuel, and I was on the automotive aisle, and I forget what I was looking for. I was trying to find something, and Samuel and Daniel are playing, and I'm reading, and I look, and Samuel and Daniel are playing, and I look, and I look back, and there's Samuel. No Daniel. Sam, where did Daniel go? I don't know. Sam, you were supposed to be watching him. Sam, where's he at? I don't know. So now, you know, alarms start going off. Where's my son? So, you know, like any good dad would do, I stop caring about anything else around me. You know, I'm in Walmart. Daniel! Yep, and people all around the store looking at you. Daniel, where you at, right? And I'm just, you know, trying to find him, walking up and down aisles. And then all of a sudden, I hear this little tiny Daniel laugh. Daniel had pulled like two boxes off the bottom shelf and created him an entire cave going behind everything else on the lower aisle and his army crawling back and forth, checking out stuff. And there's these little eyes looking up at me, laughing at me. I gotta say, I panicked for a moment. I thought I lost my boy, but he was just being Daniel. But I found him just like that. It's really hard to imagine us losing something that matters as much. I'd lose my cell phone. Is it really that big of a deal if you lose your cell phone? We live in a country where, okay, it would hurt, but we're not losing dinner over it, right? We think about, I can lose my car keys. Some people that happens to more frequently than others, right? And you're panicking all of a sudden. You lost your car keys and you're in a rage around your house looking. But again, you know you're eventually gonna find your car keys. Or you lose your car at the mall or wherever you're at. You know your car didn't go anywhere. It's still sitting right there and you're going to find it. So there's not this real deep fear. So I'm trying to think of a way to understand this as human beings living in a fairly wealthy and affluent country. And I think the only way to really understand this is if someone had their identity stolen. Somebody get your social security number, and they get your bank accounts, and they start just, you know, first they're opening credit cards in your name, and you get an email, like, did you open this credit card? And you're like, no. And you're like, what is that? And you kind of ignore it for a few days, and then you get another notice, and you're like, hmm, something seems funny here. But you kind of ignore it, because this is what we do, because we just assume we're safe and secure and everything, right? And all of a sudden, like, you check your bank account, and you're like, oh, that's got a lot less money in it than I thought it did. Now you're like, red flags are going off. And imagine that someone now, they have your credit card, they have credit cards in your name, they've taken your identity, they have your bank accounts, they're draining it little by little. That starts to hurt. You know, you feel violated. Somebody has inserted their life into yours and they're taking what is yours, those things you have worked very hard for. Someone is ruining your life. Perhaps you see your retirement accounts being drained, your life savings is disappearing, and it's devastating in every way. I mean, you think about how violated you would feel. Think about how desperate you would feel. Think about how you would, can I even survive? What am I gonna do? Nobody believes that I didn't buy all of these things. Nobody thinks that I didn't just waste my money. And we might start to lose hope of retiring when we wanted to and our life would feel completely turned upside down. I think that's pretty akin to what Jesus is illustrating here kind of in a modern terminology or modern parlance. There's a great loss. and you don't know what to do, but you know the loss that you are experiencing is major and you want something to fix it, you'll do anything you can because you know that this loss is going to cause you big problems. You think about maybe you're one of the fortunate ones. You call the police and they track down the guy who did it and they get your credit cards back and all the stereos they bought are still in the box and you can return them and you get your money back and he's prosecuted and everything's restored. Think about how happy you would be Right, I mean, to have had your life turned upside down for month after month after month, not even being sure how you were going to survive this. And now the weight is lifted from your shoulder. Imagine how happy you would be. Most of us would probably tell a person or two, right? We'd be very excited about it. We may actually throw a party if something like that happened. And you read that, and that seems to be the type of illustration that Jesus is giving. He's saying that God's love is so deep for all people, such that he continually seeks for them because they are a major part of him and what he desires and they are lost like a sheep that has gone astray. They are lost like a coin that has made its way into the cracks and crevices of a house and he is continually searching and searching and searching to an extreme extent because he loves us to a degree that we cannot comprehend. We can see it from a financial perspective and I have a hard time surviving. And so Christ uses these illustrations of a sheep or of a wage loss or of a physical thing, something that we know impacts us, it hurts us, we're devastated when we don't have it. And Christ says, this is how my father feels about you. He loves you. Just like you would feel that loss of money, that loss of wages, God feels that loss for each and every person who rejects him. And so he continually labors to bring the unbeliever to salvation. He has called to every lost individual. He offers a gift of salvation full and free. And he works and he labors and he pushes and he prods and he does everything he can to bring those stray sheep to him. Because he loves us. God never gives up on us. He never gives up on the loss. He continues to try to bring them to him. He pursues and he pursues and he pursues. You and I would have given up a long time ago, right? After so many years of being in such a loss, we'd be like, okay, let's get a new social security number. Let's start a new job. Let's do whatever we can. It's time to just cut bait and go. Let's just let our losses be what they are and we would move on. But God doesn't do that. God is love. And in such love, God continually seeks to bring the lost to him. Jesus Christ himself pursued us all the way to the cross. There was no price too high. He left heaven. He walked this earth. He gave up everything he deserved and to which he was entitled just to seek us. And if Jesus would do that in his life, imagine how much more in heaven the Father is continually seeking to draw people to him. And he does it because he's love. Each person was created by him. He knows us all by name, he knows all about us, he is perfect in love, and he desires us more than any shepherd seeking a lost sheep. He just wants the lost to come to him. And so the first thing we see is an incomprehensible love of God, but it leads to the second thought tonight, and that is this, God's love is demonstrated through actions. He has an incomprehensible love, but then he has a love that is demonstrated through actions. In these illustrations, Jesus was letting us know that he spent as much time as possible with those who were unbelievers and lost. The sinners, right? Those were the ones he was eating with. Those were the ones he was receiving. Those were the ones that other people noticed he was always spending his time with. Why? Because he would do whatever it took to get them to come to him. He did this so much that the Pharisees noticed, right? This is who he is with. This is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the one proclaiming to be the Messiah. And what does he do? He's just always with sinners. Why? Because he wants them. Jesus doesn't deny the accusation. He doesn't say, no, I'm not always with sinners. He says, let me tell you why. I'm always with them because I want them. Because I've lost something that's important to me. He offers these illustrations that indicates that he would search as though a shepherd searching through the forest for his sheep because one person is important to him. He would tear apart a house as one looking for a coin. Why? Because he loves us. Jesus goes still further. He indicates that God in heaven wants us so much that all of heaven knows and understands his great love for people. And so when just one person gets saved, all of heaven rejoices with him. All of heaven. The angels that are in God's presence, they know God's great love for humans. And so when a person gets saved, the angels rejoice. When just one person confesses sin, Jesus rejoices, heaven rejoices, God rejoices. In this text, then, Jesus teaches us how we can bring joy to heaven. Like, I wanna make God happy, and I do. I believe you want to. And we know, God says, if you love me, keep my commandments. But here, we're given a different type of understanding. We are told very plainly and very clearly that when one lost person comes to Christ, there's joy in heaven. So if you want to please God, if you want to bring joy to your Savior, Jesus Christ, what do you have to do? Just tell people about Him. What did Jesus do with His time? He went to sinners. He spent His time with them. He ate with them. He received them. He ministered to them. He pursued them. Those who were lost, not those who were lovely, not those who were good, not those who were proclaimed believers. No, He went to the lost and He spent His time with them. And as children of God, if you wanna please the Father, then we have to go to others. Look, we are to be what? Fishers of men. We are to preach the gospel into all the world. We are to tell people to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. We are to go into all the world and share the love of Jesus Christ. But the love of Jesus is only shared through an active and continual pursuit of unbelievers. It's very logical, right? I mean, if people need Jesus and they're not going to hear the truth except we tell them, we have to make a conscious effort to go and show them who he is. How do we do that? We gotta be with him. That's why we go out door knocking. Why? It's a good way to meet lost people. I mean, knock doors, open the door. Are you a sinner? No, we don't usually start off that way, but you certainly could probably get more doors shut in your face. But at least it allows you to get in communication with some people who are lost. Knock on the door. Hey, I'd like to tell you about our church and invite you to know just a little bit about Jesus Christ. A lot of people are like, I'm good. Okay, but some people aren't. Me and Brother Papke met a couple yesterday, I'm hoping they come, a Chinese couple that were very interested in coming to church. I'm hoping they do. Met another man who seemed fairly interested as well. And then we met a few who were, one guy just stood there and looked at me. I think I said a whole bunch and then he just said, he may have said thank you or something. He just shut the door basically and said, I'm not interested. Another lady, I'm an atheist, okay? And she was like afraid to touch the track, you know what I mean? She got the, oh, that's fire, I'm not doing to touch it. I wanted to tell her it wasn't fire, but it was okay. So, how are we gonna tell people about Jesus unless we go? We gotta find a way to be with sinners. And in his life, Jesus went to those who were unbelievers and he did all he could to influence them. Now, I wanna make one note right here. There are sinners all around us and they need Jesus, but our relationship with them is to be in a position of influence over them. We're never to invite sinners into our life to influence us, right? We got that verse, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship have righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness. Look, we don't. engage in relationships thinking, well, you know, if I'm with this person, I'm going to convince them to be a, no, no, no, no. My position is only to ever be influence for an unbeliever. We don't wanna get into work relationships, we don't wanna get into other types of relationships with the unbeliever, no. They are unequally yoked together. We're not to be in a close relationship with them, but we are to continue to try to influence them. So, with that understanding though, if we really want to bring joy to heaven, we gotta start making a conscious effort to reach people. We have to actively seek those who are lost so that they might accept the free gift of salvation. Look, God chose the foolishness of preaching to reach people. And that doesn't mean just the foolish preacher you have up here. That means we are to go and we are to individually take God's word to those people who are lost. It's a work, it's an effort, it takes time, it takes something. Sometimes we think about telling others about Christ and it's a daunting task. You don't know what they're gonna say or gonna do. We, I mean, threaten to have people have the cops caught on us. There was a girl in our bus route and her grandma got custody of her and all of a sudden she threatened us in all sorts of ways with all sorts of words we can't use, right? And you have those experiences and that makes you a little bit gun shy, so to speak. We have to give up some of our time. I don't wanna do that, I only have so much. It can be something that we find hard because we're uncomfortable speaking to others. We might be shy. We don't know what others will think of us. We feel judged. It may be inconvenient to get out and spend time on telling others. But what we find in this passage is that God's love for all people is incomprehensibly above what we understand. And that love has driven God to give his son for us. And that love drives God to pursue men through his spirit, but he uses us to reach them. And so practically, what he's telling us here is, if you really want to please God, if you want to bring joy to heaven, all you gotta do is tell people about Jesus. It's not a truth, this is nothing deep, this is nothing we don't know, this is nothing we don't understand. But the truth is, if you want to please God tonight, you gotta start telling people. Are you doing that? And it's not just something that's going to happen from time to time by accident. No, Jesus' time, like he was characterized by spending time with sinners, right? What did Aaron do today? He was out with those sinners, right? I hope he was. That's what we need to do. need to be reaching them. What did you do today? Did you just focus on you and your family or did you take time to invest in someone else? Because if you want to bring joy to heaven, if you want to bring joy to the God who gave his son for you, it comes through seeking those who are lost on his behalf. Simple truth tonight, I ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes for