Lost and Found | The Book Of Luke Week 2

What happens when you take the wrong path in life? Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a “Google Maps” for life? The good news is, when we get lost God isn’t just waiting for us, He’s looking for us.

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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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    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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    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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    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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    or if you tried to make your way back to Him.
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    If you prayed after how long it's been years,
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    maybe, I don't know.
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    You worried about what would happen
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    if you tried to get close to God,
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    let me just blow up the scenario for you.
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    If you're worried about Him being angry,
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    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.
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    He's looking for you.
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    He's searching for you carefully,
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    and He won't stop until He finds you.
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    Why?
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    Because of what Jesus makes clear in the next parable,
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    you are His treasure.
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    Jesus goes on, said:
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    Jesus says God is searching carefully for you.
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    You're His treasure.
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    And do you notice how this one ended?
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    It was the same as the first parable
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    about how they lost the sheep.
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    Both of them end with angels celebrating in heaven
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    over just one person repenting.
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    And what does repent mean?
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    It's not about groveling.
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    It's not about a million apologies.
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    It's not about words at all, actually.
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    See, repent just means to stop and to turn around.
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    It just literally looks like this.
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    You're walking and you stop.
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    You realize you're headed in the wrong direction.
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    That's it.
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    The moment happens not because
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    the lost thing did anything smart.
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    Did you notice that? The sheep did nothing smart.
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    The sheep did not find its way back to the right path.
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    Sheep didn't notice it was lost.
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    The coin didn't come out of the couch cushions on its own.
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    It didn't earn a second chance.
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    It's not because of anything it did.
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    It's because its owner went looking for it.
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    And then Jesus gets the culmination
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    of the three parables, the parable of the lost son
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    or the Prodigal Son.
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    That idea and that phrase,
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    it's still huge in pop culture.
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    It actually comes from this one scene.
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    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.

Process, journal or discuss the themes of this article - here's a few questions to get the ball rolling...

Welcome to the Weekend-Follow Up This is the group part of the Bible Challenge, so your questions are based on specific Bible passages from the weekend message. Each week, your group will discover what God might be saying to you, and how you can respond through a group discussion.

  1. When you’re lost on the road, do you use google maps or rely on road signs?

  2. What’s your go-to response when you feel lost, both literally and spiritually?

  3. Read Luke 15:1-7. What stands out most to you from this passage?

  4. When you feel lost, how does that impact your views of God?

  5. What area of life are you feeling the most “lost” in right now (faith, career plans, relationships, etc.)? Share a little bit of why you feel lost there. Each person has 2 minutes to share.

  6. What does the word “repentance” mean to you? How does it make you feel?

  7. From this story, how might God’s view of repentance differ from ours?

  8. How might God be asking you to make that turn back to him in the place you feel lost? What is one way you can do that this week?

  9. If you’re ready to jump in right now, we can walk through a simple repentance prayer to start our turn. We don’t have to make it weird. You’ll say “I’m turning away from ___ and choosing to turn to God for ____ (usually the opposite of what you’re turning away from.” And then the person to their left will say a quick blessing. Something like “God, I think you that _____ is choosing you today in (that area of their life). Bless them in (the thing they’re choosing) and help them continue to choose you. Amen.”

More from the Weekend

__Bonus Questions __ Check these out if you’re on a roll and want to go a little deeper.

  • What does it mean to be spiritually lost?
  • How could your life change tomorrow if you stopped running away from God, and turned around to look at Him?

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May 23, 2022 36 mins 24 sec

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