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- Today on Crossroads,
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we're going to dive
into the Book of Luke
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and look at three parables
that may feel separate
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but are actually the same,
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and what we'll find is that
Jesus comes to look for us.
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- Hey. Welcome to
Crossroads. I'm Hannah.
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- I'm Kyle. Today
we're in this series
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talking about stuff
Jesus made up.
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- That's exactly right.
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In the Book of
Luke, Jesus gives us
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what He calls parables,
and He just made them up,
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but they actually have
some truth for our life.
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So what are you talking about?
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- Well, today I'm going
to teach you about
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one of His most famous ones
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about lost coins, lost
sheep and lost sons.
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It's going to be a blast.
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- It's going to be something
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and I'm going to
tell you I'm excited.
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- Before we get started,
I want to invite you
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into a spiritual discipline
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that we believe can
change the world.
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- And if you want to give,
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you can actually do so in
our app, it's super simple.
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You just click your
profile, the gear shift,
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and then you click give.
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So, Kyle, come on,
what are you teaching us?
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Get in there, it's
time for the message.
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- Actually going to start with
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our Senior Pastor, Brian
Tome, a quick message from him.
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- All right. Let's get into it.
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- Hey, I'm Brian.
Welcome to my garage.
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We're in the midst of a
series on the book of Luke.
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And one of the key things
going through the Book of Luke
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are these stories
that Jesus made up.
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These were things that
He was trying to create
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to help people understand
absolute truth about God,
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His Kingdom, and heaven.
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So He would just make things up.
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He would draw parallels
from what they would see
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in their day to
day life and say,
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"That's what God is like,
that's what heaven's like,
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that's what the
Kingdom of God is like."
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Now, why am I in
my garage right now?
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Well, part of why am I in garage
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instead of with you
right now is the story
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that Jesus made up is
going to be told by Kyle today,
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because I've talked
about these three stories
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a number of times
over the last 25 years.
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I just thought, we probably
need a fresh voice on this.
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You can't go into
the Book of Luke
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and not deal with the
thing that Jesus does
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back to back to back.
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There's no other story,
there's no other teaching
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that Jesus has where He
gives three different examples
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of the same thing,
boom, boom, boom.
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And that's what it is
today, we've got a lost coin,
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a lost sheep, and a lost son.
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As I've been restoring
this 1978 Jeep CJ7
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it's going to be a
long, long process.
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And here's the thing,
when I tear this down,
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there's this process
called tagging and bagging,
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where every single bolt
needs to be tagged and bagged.
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Like right here just
before I was getting ready
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for this video shoot,
I'm like, "Oh, my gosh,
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what is this?"
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And this was and
this thing right here,
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it was separated and
it was just sitting here
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and I thought, "Oh, my gosh,
I didn't tag it and bag it.
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What is that?"
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It's been probably two
weeks since I took this off
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and I already had started
to forget where it was.
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What I don't want to do is
have my whole jeep torn down
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and then I start putting
it back and I've lost parts,
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I don't know where they are.
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The amount of time
and energy I would spend
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scouring the garage,
trying to find it,
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and parts, by the
way, many of which
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don't exist anymore
for me to buy.
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I would be consumed.
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I wouldn't be going, "Oh, yeah.
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But look, I still got
a distributor cap.
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Oh, yeah, but look, I still
have a power steering pump."
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No, I'd be fixated over
that part. That's God.
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He enjoys everybody
who's with Him,
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but He has a part
of Him that fixates
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over people who are lost,
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people who are
disconnected from Him.
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It's like He puts
it out of His mind
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and just goes on a
massive seeking mission.
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That's part of what Kyle
is going to talk about today.
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He's going to do it
better than I could,
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and he's going to do
it fresher than I could.
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So let's go to Kyle.
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- So we're in Luke looking
at the teachings of Jesus
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and all of His
teachings had one goal:
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to help us know who
God is and what He's like.
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Today, we're going to look at
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the world famous lost parables:
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the lost sheep, the lost
coin, and the lost son,
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also known as the Prodigal Son.
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There are three back to
back parables that highlight
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not just the genius of Jesus,
but the most unique part
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about the Christian God
versus all the other ones,
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which is what He
does when we take
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the wrong path in
life and end up lost,
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which to me
happens all the time.
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I was in California
a few weeks ago,
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driving around
through Silicon Valley.
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If you've never been
there, you just have to know
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that their basic strategy
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for how to design
roads was spaghetti.
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Like, I think they just
took a picture of spaghetti
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and they went, "That, that is --
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let's just make the
roads exactly like that."
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So I got Google Maps out.
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I'm driving along
and I'm following
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the little blue line
that you follow.
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I'm trying to follow the
right spaghetti noodle,
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and every single time
I'd pick the wrong one,
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I just end up like way off,
had to turn around, come back.
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It was so frustrating.
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And so I did what you do
when you get frustrated,
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I called my person, which
in my case is my wife, Sarah.
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She goes, "Hey, babe,
have you ever noticed,
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in addition to the blue line,
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there's a giant box in green?
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It looks exactly
like the road signs.
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It tells you exactly
where to get off."
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And I was like, "I had not --
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I had not previously
noticed that.
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That seems -- that seems very --
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that seems very helpful.
Thank you so much."
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That's how I learned there are
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two types of
people in the world.
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There are the blue line people
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and there are green box people.
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I don't know which one you are.
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I'm just saying there's
a clear right answer --
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and I'm just kidding.
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The point is, everyone
ends up lost at some point.
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Not lost like on a map looking
for directions on a road,
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but lost in life.
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Like we thought we were
headed in a good direction.
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We took this path that
we thought would be
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the onramp to happiness
and satisfaction and success.
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But we took it, and
we've gone down it,
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and we ended up in
a place that's not that.
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There's no better
feeling for getting
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to the end of that
road, you just feel lost,
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nowhere to turn, you
don't know what to do.
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And I wonder about you
and your life right now.
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Are you lost in any place?
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Most people I
talked to would say,
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yes, lost in faith or
lost in career plans,
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lost in a relationship
that I thought
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was headed
towards this direction.
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And now it just
kind of broke apart,
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especially when
it comes to faith.
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What happens when
you end up lost in faith?
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What happens when
you get off the path
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you know that God wants you on?
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What happens when
you run down the road
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you thought would lead
to happiness, only it hasn't.
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The big question of the day is
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when you get lost,
how do you get found?
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Do you have to make
your own way back to God?
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Do you have to figure out
the Google map direction
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in blue or green or whatever?
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And if you do get back to God,
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what's His response
to you going to be?
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Those are the questions
that we're answering today.
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So it turns out there's
no Google Maps for life.
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Thankfully, Jesus knew that,
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and He gave the answers
to those critical questions
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most powerfully
and clearly through
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what have become
known around the world
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as the lost parables.
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And Jesus tells them
towards the end of His life,
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just before He started
walking towards Jerusalem,
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where He'd be crucified.
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In a way, the
parables act almost like
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a thesis of his entire mission.
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Now, the audience for this scene
is crucial to understand.
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Jesus wasn't telling these
parables to His disciples.
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There wasn't crowds
of average people,
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like the Sermon on the
Mount up around Galilee.
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It wasn't that at all.
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It was actually
two groups together
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who couldn't be further apart.
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One group is lost
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and the other group
thinks they're found.
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The first group are the
tax collectors and sinners.
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Sorry, IRS agents, I
understand you get lumped
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into sinners like PB
gets lumped into J,
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and I just want to
apologize for that.
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Now, these people are the people
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who know something critical.
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They know they're
lost, which means
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they're actually the best
kind of lost you can be.
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See, there's two
types of being lost.
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There's being
lost and knowing it,
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or much worse, you can
be lost and have no idea.
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It's better to be
lost and know it
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because when you
know it, you can stop,
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you can look around,
you can reassess.
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Where did I come from?
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Where did I maybe
get off the path?
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And critically, you
can listen for help.
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There's a story at
the end of last year
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about a hiker who
was hiking in Colorado.
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They get lost.
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You know, the nightmare
happens, the sun goes down.
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They can't find their way.
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They did have their
phone on, though.
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This is an advantage, right?
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The search party calls the phone
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and the hiker doesn't answer.
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Why? Because they
didn't recognize the number.
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Now, that's a problem.
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But tax collectors and
sinners, they don't do that.
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They actually recognize the
number. They recognized Jesus.
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They've seen what
He's done at this point.
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He's been around for a while.
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They've seen the
life change He brings.
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They've seen the way
that He's helped people.
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And they wonder, "Maybe
He could do that for me.
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Maybe as a lost person,
He could help me get found."
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And so they draw
near to Him to hear Him.
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See, the problem is, if
you don't know you're lost,
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if you don't understand
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that you've driven
the wrong way,
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it's a lot harder to be found.
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That's the most dangerous
place to be in all of life.
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And that's the second group,
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the Pharisees and the Scribes.
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Today, that would be the
pastors and the priests.
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It would be people like
me, the professionals
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who are so good
at religious stuff
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that they pay you for it.
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See. if they're lost,
they don't know it,
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so they don't drill near
to Him to hear Him.
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Instead, they
complain in his face.
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Let's pick up the story
in Luke 15:1. It says:
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The Pharisees and the
scribes, they complain to Jesus.
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And their complaint was
that Jesus receives sinner,
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and when sinners come to Him,
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He'll actually sit
down, He'll talk to them.
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This is wildly offensive to
the Pharisees and Scribes.
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See, in their view, God
wanted perfect people like them.
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People who had never messed up,
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people who were perfect,
people who had followed
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the letter of the
law without fail.
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See, their God turned
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and left lost people
when he saw them.
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He didn't -- he
didn't receive them.
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He didn't eat with them.
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As a response to that complaint,
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Jesus launches into
the three parables,
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all in a row that
now the same point,
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and they build on each other.
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Now, a quick overview
of them before we jump in.
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The first is about a shepherd
who loses one sheep.
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The second is about a
woman who loses one coin.
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And the third is about a
father who loses one son.
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Two important
things to understand.
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First, the character,
actions, and intentions
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in the parables
transfer one to the next,
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so what happens in the first one
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can carry over to the
second and to the third.
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Second, three in
a row of anything
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in Jewish literature
is very significant,
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and anything repeated
exactly in all three
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is highly significant.
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So pay attention to
what gets repeated.
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Let's start with the
parable of the lost sheep.
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Jesus said this:
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Right out of the gate.
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Jesus takes their accusation,
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that when sinners come
to Him, He receives them.
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And He's like, "When they
come to me, I receive them.
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That's not even the half of it.
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I don't wait for
them to come to me.
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I go after them."
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That's the first
good news today.
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See, when we're lost,
God comes looking for us.
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In fact, Jesus
says that's actually
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the very reason why
he came to the world
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was to seek and save the lost.
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Luke 19:10, Jesus said:
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For the Son of Man, (that's Him)
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Has come to seek and to
save that which was lost.
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Jesus knew that we'd get lost.
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He knew we'd hit
the midlife crisis,
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the quarter life crisis.
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He knew there was
no Google Maps for life.
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00:12:11
There's no app you can get.
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There's nothing to
tell you the path back,
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nothing, in fact, that
you could ever do
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would get you back to God.
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That's why He
comes looking for us.
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And this is radical.
This is absolutely radical.
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This is a moment
where that line you hear
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all the time that all
religions are the same.
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I'm sorry, they're just not.
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See in other religions,
when you get lost,
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the gods turn their back on you,
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and then it's up to you to
make your way back to them.
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Do a pilgrimage,
do the right things,
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work the formula to get back,
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and hope that when you
do get back to your god,
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they find you acceptable.
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But the God of the
Bible is radically better
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than all the other ones.
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And the way Jesus
makes that clear
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is by talking about
God first as a shepherd.
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I think He started with this one
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because God as a
shepherd was a concept
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that all of his listeners,
the scribes, the Pharisees,
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the tax collectors, the sinners,
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00:13:04
everybody in Jewish culture
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would have been
very, very familiar with.
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One of most famous
pieces of scripture was one
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that they would all
have known by heart,
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not just the Pharisees,
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but even the tax
collectors and the sinners.
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00:13:15
It was Psalm 23, which
says that God is a shepherd.
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It goes like this:
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Let me just say directly to you,
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if you've been
hanging back from God,
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I'm sure it would happen
if you showed up to church
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00:13:40
or if you tried to make
your way back to Him.
-
00:13:42
If you prayed after
how long it's been years,
-
00:13:44
maybe, I don't know.
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00:13:45
You worried about
what would happen
-
00:13:47
if you tried to
get close to God,
-
00:13:48
let me just blow up
the scenario for you.
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00:13:51
If you're worried
about Him being angry,
-
00:13:53
if you're worried about
Him being upset with you,
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that's not all that's
going to happen,
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that God's coming after you.
-
00:14:00
He's looking for you.
-
00:14:02
He's searching
for you carefully,
-
00:14:04
and He won't stop
until He finds you.
-
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Why?
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00:14:09
Because of what Jesus
makes clear in the next parable,
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you are His treasure.
-
00:14:15
Jesus goes on, said:
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00:14:38
Jesus says God is
searching carefully for you.
-
00:14:41
You're His treasure.
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00:14:43
And do you notice
how this one ended?
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00:14:44
It was the same
as the first parable
-
00:14:46
about how they lost the sheep.
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00:14:48
Both of them end with
angels celebrating in heaven
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over just one person repenting.
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00:14:54
And what does repent mean?
-
00:14:56
It's not about groveling.
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00:14:57
It's not about a
million apologies.
-
00:14:59
It's not about
words at all, actually.
-
00:15:01
See, repent just means
to stop and to turn around.
-
00:15:05
It just literally
looks like this.
-
00:15:06
You're walking and you stop.
-
00:15:09
You realize you're headed
in the wrong direction.
-
00:15:11
That's it.
-
00:15:12
The moment happens not because
-
00:15:13
the lost thing did
anything smart.
-
00:15:15
Did you notice that?
The sheep did nothing smart.
-
00:15:17
The sheep did not find its
way back to the right path.
-
00:15:20
Sheep didn't notice it was lost.
-
00:15:21
The coin didn't come out of
the couch cushions on its own.
-
00:15:24
It didn't earn a second chance.
-
00:15:26
It's not because
of anything it did.
-
00:15:28
It's because its owner
went looking for it.
-
00:15:31
And then Jesus
gets the culmination
-
00:15:32
of the three parables,
the parable of the lost son
-
00:15:35
or the Prodigal Son.
-
00:15:36
That idea and that phrase,
-
00:15:38
it's still huge in pop culture.
-
00:15:39
It actually comes
from this one scene.
-
00:15:41
Luke is the only one who
records it. It's right here.
-
00:15:44
Jesus starts by
talking about a son
-
00:15:46
who asks his father
for his inheritance early
-
00:15:49
so he could run
away and do this stuff
-
00:15:51
that he thought would
make him happy.
-
00:15:53
Let's pick it up in Luke 15:13:
-
00:16:42
The son makes a plan.
-
00:16:44
He figures his dad won't
just take him back as a son,
-
00:16:46
but maybe as a servant.
-
00:16:47
And here's what I want
-
00:16:48
you to pay really
close attention to,
-
00:16:50
because here's what
happens next. It says:
-
00:17:07
The father sees him when
he's a great way off. How?
-
00:17:11
Because the father
wasn't at home.
-
00:17:14
He wasn't sitting on the porch
-
00:17:16
hoping his son was returning.
-
00:17:17
Have you ever pictured
this story before,
-
00:17:18
heard it told about God
-
00:17:21
who's the father waiting
for you to come home?
-
00:17:24
He wasn't.
-
00:17:26
He was actively
hunting for his son.
-
00:17:28
He hadn't slept in his
bed for days, for weeks.
-
00:17:32
How do I know?
-
00:17:33
Because in the first
parable, Jesus said
-
00:17:35
that the shepherd,
who, by the way,
-
00:17:37
was the average shepherd.
-
00:17:38
You get the point
about the 100 sheep size
-
00:17:40
and the 100 flock.
-
00:17:42
That's an average
size of an average flock.
-
00:17:44
So the average shepherd
goes after his sheep
-
00:17:48
and only returns home
after he's found the lost one.
-
00:17:52
You know, Jesus isn't
the average shepherd.
-
00:17:54
In John 10 he says
He's the Good Shepherd.
-
00:17:57
But what does that mean?
-
00:17:59
It means the father wasn't
waiting for the son to return.
-
00:18:02
He wasn't just sipping
his coffee in the porch
-
00:18:03
and just hoping.
-
00:18:05
If that's your view of God,
-
00:18:06
that He's just waiting,
probably impatiently,
-
00:18:09
for you to shape up and
come groveling back to Him,
-
00:18:12
you're wrong.
-
00:18:14
He is in hot pursuit of
you. He is coming after you.
-
00:18:17
He is running and trying to
find you and get you home.
-
00:18:21
And the only reason He
hasn't brought you home yet
-
00:18:23
is because you've kept running.
-
00:18:26
He's coming after you.
-
00:18:28
This is the good news.
-
00:18:29
Not with anger,
not with vengeance,
-
00:18:33
not to give you what you
deserve, not to lecture you.
-
00:18:35
He wants to throw you a party
-
00:18:38
and celebrate your return home.
-
00:18:40
Here's how the parable ends.
-
00:19:08
The summary of the parables?
-
00:19:10
That God is a shepherd
-
00:19:12
looking for the thing He
treasures the most: you.
-
00:19:20
So a story that might
be unexpected to you.
-
00:19:23
When I was going into
my senior year of college,
-
00:19:26
I left the path I had been on.
-
00:19:28
I wanted to do
something different.
-
00:19:29
So I actually went
and I lived abroad
-
00:19:32
for a summer over
in Oxford, England.
-
00:19:35
And I didn't just leave the path
in terms of the college
-
00:19:37
and the place
that I'd been living
-
00:19:39
to go live somewhere else.
-
00:19:40
I also left the path that
I had been following
-
00:19:42
in college, following
the ways of Jesus.
-
00:19:45
I just wanted to try
something different.
-
00:19:48
So I went over to Europe
-
00:19:49
and I just kind of
pursued happiness,
-
00:19:51
the only way that I
could figure out how to do
-
00:19:54
over there, which was
anything I wanted, basically.
-
00:19:58
One weekend I ended up
traveling to Scotland by myself,
-
00:20:01
had an amazing time,
ended up in St Andrew's
-
00:20:03
by the old golf course.
-
00:20:04
Spectacular if you've
never been there.
-
00:20:07
I had this plan to get
back in time for class
-
00:20:09
the next day, which
required a train
-
00:20:12
that left at 3 p.m.
-
00:20:13
So I show up to the
train station at 2:45.
-
00:20:16
I go to buy my
ticket and I see a sign
-
00:20:19
that says the trip
back to Oxford,
-
00:20:22
that train is canceled,
which was a problem.
-
00:20:25
Now, if you've never
been to the train station
-
00:20:27
in St Andrew's,
you don't know that
-
00:20:29
it's very, very small.
-
00:20:30
There's only one other
person in this train station.
-
00:20:34
She was a young
woman about my age.
-
00:20:36
So we start talking
and she says,
-
00:20:37
"Hey, if you can't
get back to Oxford,
-
00:20:39
why don't you come
with me to Edinburgh?
-
00:20:40
Me and my friends
are going to go out.
-
00:20:42
You can come with.
It's going to be amazing."
-
00:20:44
I was like, "Great, I'm in."
-
00:20:45
I buy a train ticket,
go to Edinburgh.
-
00:20:47
We drop my stuff off at a hostel
-
00:20:49
and then we hit the town.
-
00:20:50
And then her friends, like,
-
00:20:51
they must have known
somebody because
-
00:20:53
we hit all the places
-
00:20:54
that you had to know
somebody to get into.
-
00:20:56
There's this old bank
that was amazing
-
00:20:58
that was a club,
and club after club.
-
00:21:00
We're traveling
all around the city.
-
00:21:01
I'm drinking everything
because it's free.
-
00:21:05
And I end up in this
bar upstairs of a building.
-
00:21:10
I have no idea
where in Edinburgh,
-
00:21:12
because we'd been going
left and right and up and down,
-
00:21:14
walking, taxis, whatever.
-
00:21:16
It's about three in the
morning and I realize
-
00:21:19
I'm very drunk and
I'm in a foreign city
-
00:21:24
and I don't actually
know these people.
-
00:21:27
Maybe this isn't
the smartest thing.
-
00:21:29
I should probably
stopped drinking.
-
00:21:31
And so I tell the
woman I'm with, I said,
-
00:21:32
"Hey, this has been super fun,
but like, I need to sober up.
-
00:21:35
I need to get back to my
hostel where we left my stuff
-
00:21:38
because I just --
this is bad idea."
-
00:21:41
And she's like, "No,
don't worry about it.
-
00:21:43
I'm going to get you a
Gatorade from the bar."
-
00:21:45
So she goes to the
bar, she comes back,
-
00:21:46
she hands me a red cup
-
00:21:48
full of what I thought
was red Gatorade.
-
00:21:50
But halfway through
drinking this cup,
-
00:21:52
I realize it's not Gatorade.
-
00:21:55
It's a vodka Red Bull with
some kind of something in it,
-
00:21:59
fruit juice or whatever.
-
00:22:00
I'm not sobering up,
I'm getting more drunk.
-
00:22:04
And then realized
something that made me feel
-
00:22:07
very, very dumb for
not realizing it before.
-
00:22:10
This young woman
didn't want to take me
-
00:22:12
back to my hostel at
the end of the night.
-
00:22:14
She wanted to sleep with me.
-
00:22:16
At this point in my life again,
-
00:22:17
I've been trying to
follow God for a while,
-
00:22:19
but I spend this summer in
England pursuing my own path,
-
00:22:23
and I realized I had
a decision to make
-
00:22:25
in this moment of
would I go my own way
-
00:22:27
and do something that I knew
is not what God wanted for me.
-
00:22:30
I knew the Bible said
that wasn't His best for me.
-
00:22:32
I knew all those things.
-
00:22:33
Would I go in that direction,
-
00:22:35
the direction I was already
running, or would I stop?
-
00:22:40
I just paused. I
thought about it.
-
00:22:43
God, this hasn't made me happy.
-
00:22:46
I'm drunk in a club in a
foreign city with strangers
-
00:22:49
and I'm not happy.
-
00:22:52
This is not the path
I wanted to be on.
-
00:22:56
I'm lost.
-
00:22:58
In that moment I
grabbed the drink
-
00:22:59
and I just shoved
it in her hand.
-
00:23:01
I said, "I have to go."
-
00:23:02
And I ran down the
steps, I'll never forget,
-
00:23:04
it was a second floor
bar, I ran down the steps,
-
00:23:06
ran out to the night
street in Edinburgh
-
00:23:08
and I just started walking.
-
00:23:11
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know where.
-
00:23:13
I didn't know if my hostel
was north, south, east, west.
-
00:23:16
No clue, no clue where I was.
-
00:23:19
So I just started
talking to God.
-
00:23:21
I say, "God, I know we
haven't talked in a while.
-
00:23:27
I know I've been doing
-
00:23:28
everything You
don't want me to do.
-
00:23:31
I know that's what's
been happening.
-
00:23:34
And I need You because I'm lost.
-
00:23:38
Would You help get me home?"
-
00:23:40
I just sort of
processing through
-
00:23:42
the things I'd been
doing, the ways I felt lost.
-
00:23:45
And God just
started talking to me.
-
00:23:47
And I get these little
nudges that were like,
-
00:23:49
turn left and I'd turn left,
-
00:23:51
turn right and I'd turn right.
-
00:23:53
And again, I was drunk.
-
00:23:54
I have no idea how
long this went on,
-
00:23:56
for 20 minutes, maybe.
-
00:23:58
It felt like forever. It was
probably about 20 minutes.
-
00:24:01
I end up walking on
the sidewalk and I stop
-
00:24:05
and I look up and
there's my hostel,
-
00:24:08
which interestingly
was an old church.
-
00:24:11
God had walked me home to Him.
-
00:24:15
See, it's that simple.
-
00:24:17
I just stopped running
away from God,
-
00:24:19
and the moment I
did, He was right there.
-
00:24:22
I didn't have to
run back to Him.
-
00:24:24
I didn't have to start
doing things the right way.
-
00:24:26
I didn't even have to sober up,
-
00:24:29
because God had been
running after me the whole time.
-
00:24:33
You might say while I
was still a long way off,
-
00:24:36
a long way off from
what He wanted for me,
-
00:24:39
a long way off for
the best path for life,
-
00:24:41
God, my Father saw me.
-
00:24:44
And like a shepherd,
He just scooped me up
-
00:24:47
and held me in His arms
-
00:24:49
like He just found
His favorite treasure.
-
00:24:51
And then He led me
home and took care of me
-
00:24:56
as a father, me like a son.
-
00:25:00
You know, I got lost
because I ran away,
-
00:25:05
not because God had left me.
-
00:25:07
Do you know that
God has never left you?
-
00:25:11
Never, like, not even once.
-
00:25:12
See, you're not lost
because God's left you.
-
00:25:15
He's not the God who
turns His back on you
-
00:25:18
and it runs away.
-
00:25:19
He's been running
after you this entire time.
-
00:25:23
There's a scene at
the end of Jesus's life
-
00:25:25
that I've started
to see differently
-
00:25:27
in light of these parables.
-
00:25:28
It's when Jesus is
hanging on the Cross.
-
00:25:31
Now, it's critical
to understand that
-
00:25:33
theologically speaking
this is the moment
-
00:25:35
when all of the sin, all
of my sin, all of your sin,
-
00:25:38
all the sin of everybody
who's ever lived
-
00:25:40
and ever would live was
transferred from us to Jesus.
-
00:25:44
It's when all of our
lost-ness went to Him.
-
00:25:48
Peter, one of the
disciples of Jesus,
-
00:25:50
who actually watched
it happen in person,
-
00:25:52
described it this way,
1 Peter 2:24 says:
-
00:26:04
Now all the sins of the world
-
00:26:06
was on Jesus in this moment.
-
00:26:08
Matthew specifically
says it was 3 hours long
-
00:26:11
that darkness
covered the entire land
-
00:26:13
from noon until 3:00 pm.
-
00:26:15
Matthew 27 says:
-
00:26:32
Now, the traditional
understanding of this moment
-
00:26:35
is that because Jesus bore
all of our sin on the Cross,
-
00:26:39
all of our lost-ness,
that God the Father
-
00:26:42
could not stand to
be with Him and left,
-
00:26:45
turned His back, which
is why Jesus cries out,
-
00:26:48
"Hey, where did you go?
Why did you leave me?"
-
00:26:53
But if any of the
parables we've just read
-
00:26:55
painted a picture
of God the Father
-
00:26:58
who sees someone lost
in sin and leaves them?
-
00:27:03
Did the father and the lost
son parable leave his son?
-
00:27:07
No, he went looking for him.
-
00:27:09
Did the woman who
had lost the thing that
-
00:27:11
she treasures the most
just decide to leave the coin?
-
00:27:14
What a bad coin.
Leave it there. No.
-
00:27:16
She went and she looked
for it until she found it.
-
00:27:19
And the shepherd
who lost the one sheep,
-
00:27:22
did he say, "99 is good enough.
-
00:27:24
That one is on it," and leave?
-
00:27:27
No. He went after
it and he found it.
-
00:27:30
One of the consequences of sin
-
00:27:32
is that it warps
our view of God.
-
00:27:33
And I wonder, was
it that God the Father
-
00:27:35
had actually left
Jesus in that moment,
-
00:27:38
or was it that sin did to Jesus
-
00:27:40
what it does to me, it
blinds me to God's true heart
-
00:27:45
and His presence.
-
00:27:47
Have you lost sight of God too?
-
00:27:48
I have good news for
you, if that's the case.
-
00:27:51
He's looking for you,
and He'll never stop.
-
00:27:54
He's the Shepherd
who's looking for the thing
-
00:27:57
He treasures, His child, you.
-
00:28:01
Psalm 23 says:
-
00:28:36
The Psalm says surely goodness
and mercy will follow me.
-
00:28:43
To follow in Hebrew,
the original language,
-
00:28:45
it's the word Radaph,
-
00:28:47
and it describes
an animal in pursuit,
-
00:28:50
this picture of relentlessly
running down its prey.
-
00:28:53
Hunting, chasing.
-
00:28:55
It's the most aggressive
form of pursuit possible.
-
00:28:59
God is in pursuit of
you and He'll never stop.
-
00:29:03
He's coming after you,
even if you're running,
-
00:29:05
even if you reject Him,
even if you're hiding,
-
00:29:07
even if you're still
hiding, He will never stop.
-
00:29:11
When He finds you, you
know what He's going to do?
-
00:29:14
He's going to give you
goodness and mercy.
-
00:29:18
That's what He's going to do.
-
00:29:20
All you have to
do is stop running
-
00:29:22
and start talking to Him.
-
00:29:23
You can do what
I did in Scotland.
-
00:29:26
You can just tell
Him you need Him.
-
00:29:29
I told you that story.
-
00:29:30
I know it might make
you think less of me,
-
00:29:32
but I told you
that story because
-
00:29:33
I can think of no better
moment, in my life anyway,
-
00:29:35
where I experienced exactly
-
00:29:37
what Jesus says in the parables,
-
00:29:39
that it's not about me
getting right with God,
-
00:29:41
and then Him helping me.
-
00:29:42
It's about me stopping
and saying, "God, I'm lost."
-
00:29:47
And the moment
you do that, God says,
-
00:29:49
"I'm running after you with
goodness and with mercy."
-
00:29:54
We're going to
play a song for you
-
00:29:56
that describes the
God who runs after you
-
00:29:59
with mercy and with goodness.
-
00:30:01
And while it plays, I
want you to just listen to it
-
00:30:04
and maybe try talking to God.
-
00:30:07
You can say, "God, I've
been lost. Would you find me?
-
00:30:12
Would you chase me down
with mercy and goodness?"
-
00:34:56
- Hey, Kyle, that
message, it was powerful.
-
00:34:59
- Thanks, I appreciate it.
I hope you enjoyed it, too.
-
00:35:01
I want you to know that
what you give allows us
-
00:35:03
to make messages and
videos just like this one.
-
00:35:06
The reality is that
under 10% of people
-
00:35:07
who watch this will
give to Crossroads.
-
00:35:09
- That's right.
-
00:35:10
And we don't actually use
that number to shame anyone.
-
00:35:12
- Not at all.
-
00:35:13
- It's simply to say
that if it was helpful
-
00:35:15
to hear that we have a
God who, when we're lost,
-
00:35:18
will come and get us,
-
00:35:19
and you want more people
to hear that message.
-
00:35:21
We'd love for you to
give and to support us.
-
00:35:24
And you can do that
at Crossroads.net/give.
-
00:35:27
- We hope you
enjoyed this message
-
00:35:29
and hope that you're
doing the Bible Challenge.
-
00:35:30
It's a thing we're
doing as a community,
-
00:35:32
digging into Scripture.
Here's more on that.
-
00:35:41
- There are bad ways to wake up.
-
00:35:49
And there are great
ways to wake up.
-
00:35:52
Start your day connecting
with God and your community.
-
00:35:55
Explore the app and
grow deeper daily
-
00:35:57
with the Bible challenge,
a great way to wake up.
-
00:36:05
- What I want to do
today is I want to go to
-
00:36:06
a story where
Jesus tells a parable
-
00:36:09
to a group of people,
specifically to one guy
-
00:36:11
who was asking a question.
-
00:36:13
But what this guy didn't realize
-
00:36:15
is he was asking
the wrong question.