 Today we're in chapter 15 in the gospel of Luke. We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 10. So let's read verses 1 through 7, and we'll get into our study tonight. Luke chapter 15, beginning at verse one, reading to verse seven. Luke writes, then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to him to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying this man received sinners and eats with them. So I spoke this parable to them, saying what man of you having 100 sheep if he loses one of them does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, rejoice with me for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. One of the things I was thinking of and by way of introduction, a little story. This really is something that emphasizes God's desire, this story, the stories that we're gonna be looking at. God's desire for people who are lost to be found. And throughout the Bible, you see that God is the God who seeks those who are lost. He has a desire to reach out and to seek those who are lost. You see that from the very beginning? You see it in the book of Genesis when Adam falls. And you see that it is not Adam who is seeking out the Lord. It's not Adam that is searching for God at the fall. I would remind you that it is God who is seeking out Adam. Adam and his wife Eve actually are hiding themselves from the presence of God there in the Garden of Eden. They fashioned for themselves fig leaves and were hiding behind them their own works, if you will. When they heard the voice of the Lord God there in that garden. And the Bible tells us very clearly that Adam was called to by the Lord. For the word of God says that God called and said, Adam, where are you? And in that call, you see the heart of a father, a broken hearted father who has lost a child that is dear to him. That's the cry that you find in God. Right from the very beginning, Adam, where are you is not the voice of an arresting officer. Adam, where are you is the voice of a broken hearted father who has a child that has lost and he's calling out with a broken heart so that that child might be found. When my daughter Corrine, who is now 30 years old, when my daughter Corrine was about a year and a half Marie and I took her to the store, a store with us. And while we were there at the store we had placed her down for a moment so that I could look for something on one of the shelves and Marie and I looked together for something on one of the shelves and then I looked down for my baby and she was gone. It only takes a moment for a little baby to toddle off and she was gone and I have to tell you my heart was frozen in my chest and I had just an instant response and I began to just hunt through those aisles for this little one who wandered away from me and she was simply around the corner in another aisle there but I have to tell you for that instant, for that moment there was a tremendous fear in me and there was a cry in my heart and I began to call out for my baby and you know that's what God did when Adam wandered away. God was insane, oh you're wandering away, that's cool. I hope you fall over a cliff and break your neck it'll teach you a lesson. That's not what he was doing. What he was doing is he was crying out to him and you see that over and over and over again. The word of God reveals to us that it is God who calls to us and he does ask us where are you and I've always found it interesting since it was first pointed out to me how that when you read the Bible in the book of Genesis and you read not just the words but you read the punctuation how interesting it is to see that in chapters one and two you find a period here or a colon, a semicolon, a comma, whatever, you'll find punctuation but you never find a question mark in the first two chapters of the Bible. The first question that you find in scripture actually comes from the mouth of Satan himself when he asked the question of Eve, has God said? And I find it interesting to note that as he says that has God said, he's questioning God's love, God's compassion, God's keeping power, God's mercy, he's questioning God's word and he's doing so from the very beginning in the book of Genesis when he asked the question has God said? And the second question mark that you find is when God says, Adam where are you? The first question is Satan questioning God's word. The second question reflects on the fact that now that Adam has believed the lie where has that gotten you? And so the Bible makes it very clear to us that all have sin and fall short of the glory of God and we are lost in wandering aimlessly in this world and it's God who is the one who pursues us, it's God who seeks us out and the reason that God does that is because he loves us. It is God's desire to seek for, to find and then to restore those who have fallen and those who are lost. In Psalm 78 verse 37, speaking of Israel the psalmist says their heart was not steadfast with him nor were they faithful in his covenant but he being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. Yes many a time he turned his anger away and did not stir up his wrath. God's mercy and his compassion is revealed in the fact that he is long suffering and the Bible tells us in second Peter chapter three verse nine, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but is long suffering to us word. Not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and so God's word is very clear that he loves us and he's not willing to lose us and God's love, a love that seeks is most perfectly manifested in the ministry of Jesus Christ. You see Jesus is revealed in the New Testament as the one who seeks out the lost in order that he might find and in order that he might restore them. In Matthew 18 verse 11 Jesus said the son of man has come to save that which was lost and John in first John chapter four verses nine and 10 said this in this the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him in this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins not that we first loved him and we love him because he first loved us and so God first loved us we were lost he sought us out and so what we have in this chapter is a picture of the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ towards us. What we have is a parable that is given to us in three facets and we're gonna look tonight at the first two we're gonna be looking at the lost sheep and the lost coin and so what we have here in verses one and two is an audience notice the audience this is all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to him to hear him there was something about the Lord Jesus Christ that did not cause people who were who obviously were sinners and had no relationship with God did not cause them to be concerned about being in his presence there was something about Jesus that is incredibly attractive something about the Lord when he actually is present that causes even those hardened individual to find him to find something about him attractive and that's what's taking place here you have what are called tax collectors and you have sinners and they are drawing near now to listen to him now this is an audience that is deemed unworthy by the religious Pharisees you see the Pharisees verse two are complaining the Pharisees and their lawyers the lawyers being experts in the law of Moses or religious law they're beginning to complain they're saying this man received sinners and eats with them and so this audience is unworthy at least to the Pharisees they would never hang around with these kinds of people because they were the undesirables they were the outcasts now these are tax collectors and sinners tax collectors they used to be hated now everybody loves them right tax collectors tax collectors during the time of Christ could buy what we would call a franchise a tax collecting franchise and it would entitle them to levy taxes on citizens as well as travelers and often tax collectors were extortioners and there were people who could be bribed easily over time many of these tax collectors had gained great wealth and were very hated by the people because the Jews hated the fact that they were being governed by Rome which they knew to be a pagan country and so a tax collector who was working for these pagans were considered traders as well as apostates because they were serving pagans and they were making money off of their own people and so taxes as they were being levied actually had a set standard but the tax collectors were capable of saying I'm gonna add a little bit of that for myself and so they would give to Rome the accepted tax but any profit they would keep for themselves and the Jewish people hated them because these tax gatherers were actually gaining on the people's misery and they hated them for that now sinners were simply people of poor reputations these were those who did not live according to the law of Moses and again Pharisees would normally have nothing to do with them remember in chapter five here in the gospel of Luke verses 29 and 30 how it said Levi which is another name for Matthew that Levi gave Jesus a great feast in his own house and there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them and their scribes and the Pharisees complained against his disciples saying why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners this is an ongoing problem they can't stand the fact that Jesus actually hangs around with sinners these were the people though who were gathering together to listen to and speak and there was something about Jesus that made them very comfortable there was something about him that made them feel that they could listen to him there was something about him that made them realize that he wouldn't turn them away and so they would come and they would eat with him undoubtedly would ask him questions and a variety of other things now the Pharisees in verse two the Pharisees and scribes complained saying this man received sinners now earlier I just read to you they had found fault with the disciples for eating with them but now they're taking issue with Jesus himself now notice how it says he received sinners and eats with them the word receive means to accept into companionship to not reject to receive means to accept warmly and lovingly Jesus is being attacked because he's a friend of sinners and the neat thing about him is he still is he still is a friend of sinners he still is available if he were not a friend of sinners then we wouldn't be saved today but he is a friend to us and he is somebody who is accessible to us and so as Jesus is watching the Pharisees and the scribes complaining and all saying that this is a man who welcomed sinners and even eats with them Jesus begins to minister to them and so it says in verse three he spoke this parable to them saying what man of you having a hundred sheep if he loses one of them does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it now I want you to notice something with me here I want you to see that what you have is Luke saying he spoke this parable to them now I want you to note that because what you have in chapter 15 is actually a series that some have counted as three parables you have the parable of the lost sheep the parable of the lost coin and then you have the parable of the lost son in reality I want you to notice something and I find it interesting I want you to notice how Luke said he spoke this parable to them now if he's speaking this parable that tells me that this is one parable but it has three facets to it three dimensions and so what you're gonna gain by looking at chapter 15 is actually an insight into Christ from three different angles today we're gonna look at the first two we're gonna look at the lost sheep and the lost coin but next time we get together we're gonna look at the parable of the lost son it's been called the parable of the lost son but in reality it's a parable of the lost sons because there are two sons that are spoken of in that particular portion of this parable but that's what we're looking at we're looking at one parable given in three sections and so each one of these sections is intended to reveal something about Jesus Christ to the Pharisees you see the Pharisees are complaining that he's a friend of sinners the Pharisees are complaining that he actually receives them that he's warm to them that he doesn't reject them they have a real problem with this and so Jesus has to teach them something about the love of God the God who searches and seeks until he finds the lost and that's what he's doing here so it gives an illustration relating to a man who had 100 sheep and so what you have here is 100 sheep and he loses one of them but what does he do? Well Jesus says he leaves the 99 in the wilderness and goes after the one that's lost so what we have here in the first picture is a picture of a good shepherd a good shepherd who seeks after lost sheep now every good shepherd would search exhaustively until he found the sheep that is lost and interestingly enough the Lord Jesus Christ is being portrayed here as that good shepherd which is something he refers to himself later on in the Gospel of John as being but he is a shepherd in Ezekiel in chapter 34 verses 11 and 12 Ezekiel writes this is what the Lord says I myself will search for my sheep and look after them as a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them so will I look after my sheep I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness so God portrays himself as a one who seeks and searches out the lost that's why Psalm 23 is so powerful when he says the Lord is my shepherd so there's a sense of relationship that the sheep and the shepherd have a shepherd and sheep relationship is one when the shepherd is a righteous or a good shepherd is one of devotion and concern from the shepherd's part towards the sheep and so this sheep here is lost now obviously the lost sheep is a picture of a lost sinner this is somebody who is following their own heart and as they've been following after their own heart they've wandered away they're not considering their course of life they're simply wandering through life now that's an adequate picture I think of people without the Lord if you take notes Ephesians chapter two verses one and two goes along with this because when Paul was writing to the Ephesians in chapter two verses one and two he said to them you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience when he says in which you once walked that word walked there in Ephesians chapter two is where we actually would translate it you walked aimlessly or without purpose another way to say it is how you meander through life you just went from one thing to another is the point that Paul was making and that's what Jesus is speaking about he's speaking about a sheep that just is wandering aimlessly through life no purpose, no direction moving from one thing to another trying this for a while then moving to that moving on, moving on, moving on never settling on anything and the further they wander the further away they are from the shepherd and before you know it they are hopelessly lost this is one of those little sheep that was part of a group that wandered off from the group and the shepherd who knows them by name looks over his flock and tends it and notices that one of them has wandered away so he knows that that sheep is in danger because sheep cannot do anything to protect themselves I mean when's the last time you went by a guy's fence and it said beware of sheep I mean sheep are not something that you're afraid of they cannot defend themselves in all and so this is a helpless little animal that is out there wandering around and so it's a picture of somebody who wanders through life growing more and more lost and in more and more danger it's like we were before we came to Christ that's the whole picture here didn't even know you were lost thinking you were having a great time trying some of this for a little while and it didn't satisfy drinking from this well for a little while and it didn't satisfy moving on, moving further, further away and deeper into sin to the point that you got like me probably very lost and very hardened to the things of the Lord and yet the Bible says that even though the sheep is wandering away that the good shepherd, this shepherd chases after him to rescue him and so this is one of those passages that reveals to us the love and tend to concern a shepherd has for the lost it's a picture of Jesus Christ and what he's doing here is he's illustrating this to the Pharisees and he's making a point he's saying you religious individuals of all people should have an understanding of how painful it is to be lost and separated from God of all people you ought to have a soft heart towards these people whom you refer to as tax collectors and sinners when in reality you're no better than they are you're just as lost as they are and if you really had a relationship with God you wouldn't object to me ministering to this person you would rejoice that I am you would be glad that somebody is caring for these people we have members of our fellowship right now who go into Ontario on a weekly basis and they go to that area that is called the tent city and they do ministry there they minister to the people there they bring them food they bring them clothing they gather them together for Bible studies and they give the word of God to them and they do that every week these people in our fellowship who have a heart for the lost they're doing the work of ministry amongst people that some complain about because they're there or not not to be and what you end up with is people like the Pharisees who get so upset because this is going on even Christians and not realizing that this is a group of people that give to us great opportunity to reach and to talk to them about the love of God and to encourage them and help them and to serve them which is what the church is supposed to be doing anyway isn't it that's what we've been called to do you see and so Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and he's saying to them in this parable that he has come to seek and to save the lost and while you are so righteous he's saying to them and so separated you don't even have an understanding of what it means to reach into somebody's life and actually get dirtied up by it if you will in the sense of being there alongside of them and caring for them you don't understand it all so what is happening is he's portraying himself as the shepherd seeking for the lost undoubtedly as he's going through that wilderness he's calling out the sheep's name you see in John chapter 10 verse 3 Jesus speaking about sheep and shepherd and their relationship says that the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out he says in John 10, 27 my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me my sheep know my voice sheep actually get to know the voice of the shepherd because the shepherd when the sheep were born would oftentimes hold the sheep sometimes like just hovering over as the sheep was giving birth to her lamb and the shepherd very often would take that sheep that little sheep and would hold it and would bond with it would speak to that sheep and then the little sheep would begin to recognize his voice and he'd even name the sheep and he'd name it lamb chop no he'd name it barbecue no he'd name I'm just kidding of course but he might have I don't know but he would name that sheep and he would speak to that sheep and the sheep that little lamb would get to know the shepherd's voice and that's why that way when the shepherd would call like a dog would run to its master recognizing the voice that little sheep he could call the name and the sheep would come out of that flock and would come to the master would come to the shepherd and that's what he would do he would bond with his voice he would bond with his tenderness and his concern and all because very often when they were raising a sheep it was not for them to eat their meat it was so that they could harvest their wool and that's so that many of these became almost like if you will close to them in a way a family pet does but they're very dear they'd name them they'd care for them they'd love them and if one of them wandered away he'd be concerned enough to chase after them and that's exactly what Jesus is speaking about here and the little sheep would know his voice and so as it goes out he continues to search until as it says in verse four until he finds it in other words he doesn't give up and when he has found it he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing and so as he gathers this little sheep he places it on his shoulders because the sheep is exhausted and because the sheep needs to be carried away to safety now I find it interesting to note that the sheep is not looking for the shepherd and that's because the shepherd wasn't lost the shepherd is looking for the lost sheep and when he finds the lost sheep he gently comforts that sheep and carries it home sometimes when people give their testimony they'll say what their life was like and it can be very interesting to see how the Lord has worked in wonderful ways in their life to bring them to Christ but I find it interesting how so often I've heard people say and then I found the Lord fact is is the Lord wasn't lost you didn't find him it wasn't one of those cosmic hide-and-go-seek things where God says I'm hiding somewhere and you gotta find me no the Bible clearly portrays Jesus as the one who searches us out we're the one who's wandering away and it's Jesus who's coming after us and as he finds that little lost sheep he gently places it on his shoulders because that sheep is exhausted possibly injured and so he protects and cares for it and carries it home Isaiah 40 verse 11 says he will feed his flock like a shepherd he will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young this gives us a picture of the seeking savior this gives us a picture of a shepherd who loves his sheep and once he's found that sheep notice verse six he calls together his friends and neighbors and he says to them rejoice with me for I have found my sheep which was lost so he's filled with joy he wasn't concerned financially he's filled with joy because the sheep has been found in his safe and then he gives a party he gives a party because the sheep that was lost has now been found now the self-righteous Pharisees were not rejoicing that these lost people were coming to Jesus Christ when I first got saved ancient history 101 for you 37 years ago as a 20 year old long hair you know bushy sideburns round granny glasses you know tie-dyed t-shirt ripped Levi's before you bottom ripped ripped Levi's barefoot I would wear slacks and a dress shirt barefoot I never wore shoes to this day I wear shoes on Wednesdays and Sundays I have feet this wide it's amazing just never wore shoes I didn't like to wear shoes so I was always barefoot now I wear you know flip flops and that used to call them thongs but I won't say that anymore so flip flops can't say that that's true you get saved and people some Christians had a real problem because the church I went to allowed guitars and drums on the platform there and they were really upset over that and they would get angry and they would call my pastor Chuck Smith names and they just thought there's just no way there's no way that these hippies can actually be getting saved and they didn't believe our testimony and that's the truth they didn't believe us because we were not clean cut we were not clean cut at all we looked this I mean you get saved you know you come forward in an invitation and when we walked forward you know coming forward up the aisle didn't suddenly make us have shoes and suddenly our hair was being cut back further further further until we looked like a jock I mean that didn't happen and we came walking forward sometimes people who were just totally hung over because they had been partying the night before sometimes they had been loaded just before they got to church somebody had invited them they came the first time I went to Calvary Chapel I had a friend of mine say to me I want you to go to church with me and I kept saying I don't want to go with you to church he said I want you to go to church with me and I would argue with him and I'd say I don't want to go to your church and he said you got to come just at least one time you got to come to church with me and I said finally his name was Bill I said finally Bill okay one I'll go one time just to get you off my back I'll go with you one time he said great I'll be picking you up at such and such time 5.30 or whatever we have to go to Costa Mesa and this and that I went from my house across the street to a neighbor's house and while I was there I was drinking beer with them and while I was there I was smoking pot and I was sitting there getting loaded and drinking waiting to go to church the first time I went to Calvary Chapel I'd been smoking pot and I'd been drinking and I remember very well just going in with we used to call it with a buzz on I'd walked in and I was buzzed and I'm just going whoa you know and I'm sitting there with in a small church that was built to see two, three hundred people there were over five hundred kids in there and they were all up and down the aisles they were up on the platform I remember sitting on the left side of the church in the very back and it was so crowded that the person behind me would put they put their knees up so I could lean against them you know as I was sitting like that and I put my knees up and that's how we sat hippies didn't really care where you sat some of you old folk remember that we didn't care carpet no carpet doesn't matter to me and so as we're sitting I was loaded and I still remember and as I walked in they had these guys up there playing music and the first thing I remember about that as I walked in is I thought man you know this is different than what I'm used to I'm not used to hearing this I'm used to hearing something entirely different and it really caught me off guard and to see all of these young people they're 18, 19, 17, 21 all around my age to see all these young people was really kind of like revolutionary and then as I'm just there and they're playing this music I still remember one of the songs they sang which was at that time it was someone really loves you guess who you know that was a song that I was familiar with from being played on the radio during the 60s and all somebody and then they said in his name is Jesus and I remember that hearing that and I thought well that's kind of cool you know throw Jesus in there and I was not saved I just thought well that's creative that's cool it's not offensive to me I enjoyed it you know and then they give the invitation and then somebody asked me do you want to go forward and I at that point I said no no I'm already a Christian and there I was oh it's drinking and smoking pot and I'll tell you you know I was caught so off guard I mean I remember so well all these kids around me and I'm thinking this is weird you know I actually like it but because I thought that if I walked in there you know drinking and loaded I was sure they would kick me out of the church because the church that I used to go to they would definitely have kicked me out and so I figured that if I go in like this barefooted, long hair, buzzed I was sure that what was going to happen was somebody was going to walk me out and say don't come back again and I was going to be able to tell my friend who invited me see you're all a bunch of hypocrites you're all the same you guys just you know and I was waiting to do that you can't imagine what I felt like because I'm thinking they're going to see this hippie kid in their long hair and all of that when I saw the Bible study teacher his name was Lonnie he was freakier looking than I was and you can't imagine that how I looked at this freak and I said whoa you know I don't trust this place I like it I mean it was just too it was but that's what Jesus calls us to do you see now that was 37 years ago I'm 57 years old now I never want to forget what it was like at the age of 20 and that's why if you want to come in here with piercings up and down your face you set off middle detectors every time you walk through you know to get on a plane I don't really care I really really don't if you want to be tatted up and down all that's between you and the Lord I'm not going to make an issue over that you know we had a kid in our church who used to put he'd take eggs and he'd put them in his hair and then spike it out so it looked like a giant spider and you could see him from the back and his hair was like this long and it was just point after point you know and he wanted to freak us out and you can't freak me out you can't freak out a freak you know and I you know been there done that come on you know it doesn't do anything to me you know I wonder if it might hurt but other than that you see the Lord Jesus Christ is a fisherman and fishermen only clean the fish after they catch them and there's so many people who are trying to clean up fish you know Jesus cleans the fish up after he catches them and if and if he want if this person gets saved and they want to have their hair like that and they want to have those piercings that's between them and the Lord I don't get into those arguments I've had people who've who've asked me in the past you know pastor what about all those tattoos and aren't they demonic and this and that and I said man you know come on come on I have a friend of mine who's a pastor and he has a tattoo on his arm of a woman and he called me up and he said pastor he says you know because he's one of my sheep who's planted the church he said pastor he goes I just was thinking you know I'm trying to teach the word of God and I've got this naked woman on my arm what should I do I said draw a dress on her man I mean what else can you do put a dress on her I'm just serious I'm not kidding I can't put a dress on her man what else can you do let's not get let's not get trippy and weird let's not become self-righteous and you know what we have it you know we have it on occasion I have somebody who's new to the fellowship saying how come you know he got all the piercings and you know I asked them why ask me you know that's not something I'm concerned about you know because man looks at the outer appearance but the Lord looks at the heart and if this person who's all tatted up can speak to another kid who's all tatted up more power to him and if he can reach them for Jesus Christ bless God what am I supposed to say you know and get them all removed so you can be you know when I got saved there was a church this is the truth I could name the church I won't there was a church that had a barber on staff so when the hippies came forward they'd go forward to pray and they'd take them in the back and cut their hair off because everybody knows that Jesus had a crew cut and it just amazes me it amazes me how we turn people away because we just don't like how they look they just don't fit in to our idea of what a Christian is the self-righteous Pharisees were not rejoicing that these sinners were being saved and so Jesus speaks to them in John chapter 9 verses 40 and 41 Jesus said for judgment I have come into this world that those who do not see may see and that those who see may be made blind some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these words and said to him are we blind also Jesus said to them if you were blind you would have no sin but now you say we see therefore your sin remains you think you see when you don't and you are hardened in your blindness they would not rejoice that Jesus was actually bringing people like tax-gatherers and sinners into the kingdom of God he was the one who was gathering these sinners on his shoulders and rejoicing and inviting people to rejoice with him but they wouldn't and so he says in verse 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance there is joy in heaven and God rejoices when the lost are found there is joy and he wants to share it and who is the one who wants to share the joy the owner of the sheep now there are 99 whom he refers to as just persons who he says need no repentance now these are not truly righteous people these are 99 self-righteous people these were the people that society respected but they were still lost these were the Pharisees these were the ones who are well who didn't know that they needed a physician because I've discovered something as a lost sinner who has been found I can now rejoice with the Lord when another lost sinner is found and I do rejoice that's why when we have invitations and people come forward to say I need to be right with God that's why we as a church will applaud we applaud because we're rejoicing because along with God we are glad to see people getting right with God and anybody who's been saved can rejoice when you see somebody else saved and so he speaks here concerning a lost sheep and then in verse 80 he speaks of a lost coin he says or what woman having 10 silver coins if she loses one coin does not light a lamp sweep the house search carefully till she finds it and when she has found it she calls her friends and neighbors together saying rejoice with me for I have found the piece which I lost likewise I say to you there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents this is the second part of the parable of the woman and her lost coin he says this woman has 10 coins but notice she loses one instead of saying well I've got nine other coins she begins searching for the one that has been lost the reason why she does that is because its value to her is not necessarily monetary during this time married women had a headdress that was made of 10 silver coins that was linked by a silver chain and sometimes a woman would say for years to amass 10 coins her headdress was like her wedding ring and it could never be taken from her even to pay off a debt this headdress of 10 coins had tremendous value to her and so what we see here is how God values you the value that you have to him that he will search for you so in her dark home she lost her coin but she diligently searches for it and so this is a picture of Jesus searching for us until he finds us we're like a lost coin the longer that coin is lost it becomes covered with dust and it becomes useless as a matter of fact it is useless until it's found and the longer a coin is lost the less probability is there of it being found it's not real difficult to encourage a child to have faith in the Lord it really isn't that difficult you just everyday encourage them to pray and talk to them about Jesus and you impart to them to a receptive and innocent heart a realization of the God that had created that child it's not difficult to encourage a child to have a faith in God it really isn't but if that child is neglected and no encouragement to that child is given for that child to have a relationship with the Lord as they grow older they become harder and as they become harder and harder to the things of the Lord that as they grow older and older it becomes somewhat more and more miraculous if you will when they actually get saved it's been said there's no sinner like an old sinner and when people are hardened in sin they'll say well I used to believe but I don't anymore the longer a coin is lost the more dust accumulates it has no value and so what he does it shows the value he places on you by searching diligently for you because of the value he has placed on you until he finds you she even lights a lamp she sweeps the house she searches diligently until she finds it she's looking for something of value that has been lost and as a result when she finds it again there's great joy in verse nine it says when she found it she calls her friends and neighbors together saying rejoice with me I have found the peace which I lost this piece of great value to me that I cared about rejoice with me before I found it now I want you to see verse ten likewise I say to you there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents I find this interesting and I want to point something out to you I want you to see how he says there is joy in the presence of the angels of God in other words there's joy in front of or before the angels of heaven who is rejoicing sometimes I have heard people say the angels are rejoicing well interestingly enough salvation is something that angels desire according to first Peter chapter one verse 12 angels desire to look into in other words they exert themselves to gain a better perspective of salvation and the holy angels are actually struck with astonishment at the plan of human redemption you see angels cannot be saved once they fall I've had people ask in the past can Satan repent and the answer is he doesn't can fallen angels repent the answer is they never do they remain fallen for eternity so those that remain unfallen the unfallen angels don't understand salvation they want to peer into it they don't understand the plan of redemption but they don't understand it because they don't partake in it God who initiates salvation is the one who rejoices because he's the one who searched diligently for the lost and rejoices when he finds and thus the angels will see God rejoicing over the lost who was found which means that God rejoiced when you were found and that the angels were witnesses of God's joy when you said yes to Jesus Christ now the angels in that they don't experience salvation don't have that personal experiential knowledge of that they're aware that God is the savior they're aware that God saves they're aware that God sent his son Jesus to save but they never experienced that so God who's the one who initiates salvation and pursues until he finds rejoices and so do we because we have been found also so we can rejoice along with the Lord God now in what Jesus is saying it's very simply God rejoices over the lost being saved but self-righteous and self-satisfied people never do the Bible tells us in Psalm 47.1 clap your hands all you people shout to God with the voice of triumph and when people are saved that's what we're doing we're praising God and we're shouting with the voice of triumph because God has conquered God has worked through he reached somebody who had wandered away and was dead in sin and in trespasses he reached this person who was a walking dead dead man walking if you will somebody who was alive yet not spiritually alive somebody who was what the Bible calls a sinner somebody who was not pursuing God somebody who was lost who had missed the mark but through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit's activity when the message is preached and you heard the message in a personal way and you said that's me I'm a person like that sheep I've wandered away I don't have a relationship with God you mean God is pursuing me God is following after me God is looking for me you mean God will rejoice when he finds me and the answer is yes and when you say yes to Christ God forgive me a sinner I believe Jesus Christ is the son of God I believe he died on the cross for my sin I believe that he he was in a grave for three days and that you resurrected him I believe he ascended to heaven I believe that and I want to personally acknowledge that and when you do and you're born again when the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within you through faith in Christ and you are now a new creation old things pass away behold all things becoming new then we rejoice along with God who has saved you we didn't save you God saves you his word saves you his spirit drew you so ask yourself today if you're not a Christian or even if you're a backslidden or a Christian who is living a very carnal life ask yourself is this the best that life has to offer to you because right now for a person who doesn't know the Lord you may be complaining about how things are and you may be ready to vote for that person who's going to change everything for you but the bottom line is there's only one who can actually change you and that's the Lord Jesus Christ because he works from the inside and I thought I was a Christian I was raised by a mom who taught me that there is a God that there is a Bible by a mama who prayed who would pray for me who wanted me to go to catechism classes who encouraged me to have a faith in God and yet I didn't have that faith in God I was like you the lost a sheep wandering further and further and further away hurting and hurting and hurting others all along the way didn't even realize how bad off I was I was the blind who thought I could see and here comes the Lord slowly but surely pursuing until he finally with courts of love drew me to himself to the preaching of the gospel a message that says God loves the world so much that he gave his son now you could have told me all day long there is a hell I'm going to go there and my response at that time would have been and so are all of my friends so will parties so what I don't care I don't care that you say I'm going to hell and I did say that I don't care that you say I'm going to hell what does it matter to me who are you to tell me anything anyway you don't know me and I had this belligerent antagonistic angry attitude towards people don't tell me there's something wrong with me go look at yourself for a while the hypocrisy of this world that we're living in and you're coming and talking to me are you kidding me you know I haven't ever seen a real Christian in my life and you're telling me that you're one you know what it's fine for you but it's not fine for me that was my attitude but one day it finally all came to a head and finally one day I woke up to the reality of the fact that I was most miserable I had no joy I had nothing but guilt and I began to condemn myself for the things that I was doing and finally realized that I'm hurting my family hurting my mom hurting my dad that I'm hurting the girls that I'm dating that cared about me that I didn't care for and didn't treat right and it finally got to the point when I was going crazier and crazier and then almost dying of a drug and alcohol overdose that I finally said I'm lost I am absolutely lost now I might not have said I'm a sinner because I really didn't know what that meant but I did know what it means to be lost I was most definitely lost and during that time it's when I began to cry out to God and I started saying God you gotta help me God you gotta help me and I can still remember as a non-saved person and I wasn't a Christian I still remember that I started going through times where I was saying God I need your help God I need to change God I need your help I don't know what to do I went to see my parish priest I grew up in Norwalk I went to Santa Fe Springs to go to church I went to St. Pires the 10th church and one of my friends was telling me about Jesus and I went and spoke to my priest and I said I want to talk to you for a minute if I may I said one of my buddies is telling me that he's a Christian and that his life has changed I said and I'm a Catholic and I would just like to have some answers to give to him can you help me because I know the Catholic religion is the true religion but I don't know how to present it to somebody can you help me and I told him you know I haven't been living a good life I've been living away from God I do drugs I drink I steal I lie I'm an angry person but I need to I need truth can you help me I need truth and he said to me well I've tried the Oriental religions I tried Buddhism I tried Hinduism and I came back to Catholicism and so will you that was his answer to me I'll never forget it and I looked at him and he answered he said yeah you'll be okay and I walked out of that room at 20 years of age and I said to myself and this is the truth forgive me if it sounds judgmental but I thought to myself if this man knew truth he'd have given it to me if he knew what was true he'd have given it to me because I was asking him to and at the age of 20 I said he doesn't know what truth is and I went out and I went even further down and further down and further down until the shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep until the woman who finds lost coin finally caught up with me and grabbed me put me on his shoulders brought me back rejoicing and said let's party let's party and that's when I was 20 years old when I gave my heart to Jesus Christ and no looking back no turning back God has been faithful all along and he rejoices when he finds that one lost sinner he rejoiced over me and he'll rejoice over you