Joy of Being Found | Joy with Jesus - Luke 15:1-10 | Tony Walliser

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Silverdale exists to lead people into an authentic relationship with Christ so they will worship God, grow in their faith, and serve the Lord in our community and world.

Silverdale's Lead Pastor is Tony Walliser.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning. It's so great to see all of you here worshiping with us today. Um, I'd like to welcome all of you at this campus, but I want to welcome all the campuses and all the venues and those of you that are worshiping with us online. If I haven't a chance to meet you personally, I'm Tony Walliser, I'm one of the pastors here at Silverdale, and I have the privilege today to share with you God's word. So this one encourage you to do go and take your Bibles, open up in the New Testament to the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 15. And you got a smartphone, you can open your Bible app to Luke 15 as well. And then do this. Take out these Bible study outlines that we provide for you. We give you these outlines so you can follow along and take notes as we study God's word together. As a church, we're in a series called Joy with Jesus. And what we're doing is we're looking in the Gospel of Luke. There's several passages where Jesus talks about how we can experience his joy. And so now here we are in Luke chapter 15, and today we're going to learn about the joy of being found. Have you ever been lost before? Right? I mean, I have. I've been lost in trips before. I've been lost, you know, hiking before. I've been lost shopping before. I've been lost in busyness. I've been lost in confusion. I've been lost in hurt. And sometimes when you're lost, it's hard to find your way back, right? Today we're going to find out how God seeks us out and finds us. Recently read a story that in 2021 there was a man who decided he was going to hike Mount Ilbert, which is the highest peak in Colorado. He started off in the hike and everything's great, but then he got off the trail, and the next thing you know, he got lost, disoriented, and he couldn't find his way back to the trail. Well, he didn't make it home at the scheduled time, so his family got really worried. They called the authorities, and so immediately the Lake County search and rescue sprang into action. They sent a team looking for him, went to his last known location, and they start um calling him. They're calling his cell phone, leaving messages, and he was receiving the calls, but he ghosted them. And the reason why is because it said unknown caller. So he just assumed it's got to be a robocall or something. I don't need that busyness right now. It's probably spam. So he ignored them, okay? And so that night he he spent the night on the mountain, nearly froze to death. He was rescued the next day. Then that's when he discovered there were people actually looking for him. And they go, Why didn't you answer your phone? And he's like, Well, I thought it was a robocall, you know? And so they actually posted on social media first relief that he was found, but then they said, If you're lost and somebody's calling you, answer your phone, right? Well, today we're gonna see that we get lost, but God has a way of finding us. In Luke chapter 15, it's God's lost and found department. And we get to find out really the heart of God that He has for each one of us. Now we're gonna be looking at two stories, the first two stories in Luke 15, and these are very familiar stories that you've probably heard before, but we want to grab them and learn a little bit more about them, but because we're really gonna see the heart of God in these two stories. Let's notice how the passage begins. Luke chapter 15, beginning verse 1. Notice what God's word says. All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching to listen to him. That's Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were complaining. This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. So what do you have? You got the crowds, you got the clergy, and you have the Christ. The crowds are made up of tax collectors and sinners. These are sort of the outsiders, these are those that are non-religious, these are the people that basically are immoral, and yet they want to hear Jesus. They're coming to Christ. And then you have the clergy. They're the scribes and the Pharisees, they're the religious elite, they're the varsity team, they're the guys that basically are looking down on all the other people because they're not as religious as they are. And they are complaining that Jesus is hanging out with these people. And so, how does Jesus respond? He responds by telling a story, a parable. Look at it in verse 3. So he, Jesus, told them this parable. You may go, what's a parable? A parable is simply a story, it's a earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Whenever I teach the Bible, I often use stories or illustrations or visuals. Why do I do that? Because that's what Jesus did. Jesus taught was stories. Why? Because they're memorable. They connect to people. People can relate to them and understand the word of God. In fact, long after we forget a principle, we still will remember a story. That's the way that we're hardwired. And so Jesus tells these two stories. And so let me just overview them real quick. The very first one is the story of the lost sheep. The story of this lost sheep. You have a shepherd who loses a sheep. Check it out. Look at the passage in verse 4. What man among you who has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open field and go after the one lost, the lost one, until he finds it. When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders. And coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep. That's the earthly story. What's the heavenly meaning? Verse 7. I tell you, in heaven, I mean in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the 99 righteous people who don't need repentance. And so what do you have there? You have a shepherd, he loses one of his sheep. He's got a hundred, he loses one. Now, a lot of us we go, okay, big deal. So he loses one. We think in business kind of terms, right? Okay, that's just the cost of doing business, just one percent loss. Hey, move on. That's not that big a deal. That's the way we think. That's not the way a shepherd thinks. Because a shepherd, whenever he sees a lost sheep, he thinks that's a dead sheep, right? Because, you know, sheep are the hunted, not the hunters. Sheep are defenseless, right? You've never seen a warning on a fence that says, beware of the sheep, right? You've never seen that before. Why? Because sheep are defenseless. If you have a lost sheep, well, what you're going to find is a wild animal is have it killed it and eaten it, you're going to find its carcass. And so, what does he do? He goes on this search, looking for this lost sheep, finds it, joyfully puts it on his shoulders, brings it home, and then grabs his friends together and says, Hey, celebrate with me. I found my lost sheep. Okay? That's the story of the lost sheep. The story, the next story, in case we miss the idea, Jesus tells a second parable, and it's this it's the lost coin. It's a lost coin. You have this woman who has these ten silver coins and she loses one. Notice what it says, verse 8. Or what woman who has ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, search carefully until she finds it. When she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, because I have found the silver coin I lost. That's the earthly story. Here's the heavenly meaning. Verse 10. I tell you, in the same way, there will be joy in the presence of God's angels over one sinner who repents. Now most scholars believe that these ten silver coins are part of her dowry. And so, you know, her dad would have given her this dowry, part of her marriage pledge. And in that culture, in that day, what they would often do is they'd take these coins and they would weave them together into this beautiful headpiece. And so she would wear it, and it would represent her fidelity in the marriage and her her loyalty in the marriage and value in the marriage. And so probably she took it off at night and she, you know, sort of tossed it on the ground. And when she did, it jostled one of the um the coins loose from its setting and it rolled into a dark corner. And then the next morning she discovers she's missing a coin. What does she do? She gets a light and a broom. She cleans the whole house. Nobody likes cleaning. She's cleaning the whole house, right? Why? Because she has to find that lost coin. And when she finds it, what does she do? She calls her friends, said, Hey, celebrate with me. I found my lost coin. Now, those are two simple stories. You go, big deal. What does that have to do with me? Everything. Because from those two simple stories, we learn God's heart for you. And so I want us to look at these four principles, what we learn from these stories. And I tell you, this just will soften your heart toward God and his love for you when you get the depth of what Jesus is saying here. Okay? First thing that we learn from this story, jot this on your outline. Number one, every person matters to God. Every person matters to God. You are valuable to Almighty God. You matter. In fact, do this. Everybody turn to the person next to you and say, you matter to God. Say that right now. You matter to God. You matter to God. Right? Why in the world would the shepherd leave the 99 to go after the one because that one sheep was valuable? Right? Why would the woman, you know, sweep the whole house looking for that one coin because that one coin was valuable to her? How do we determine value? How do we determine the value of something? Well, the value is determined based on what somebody's willing to pay for it, right? So let's just say I want to sell my car and I think it's worth $20,000, but I can only sell it for $10,000, then what's its value? It is $10,000, right? We determine value based on what someone's willing to pay for it, right? How valuable are you to God? Well, God emptied out his pockets, he bankrupt heaven, he sent his most precious gift, his son, Jesus Christ. Jesus steps down the starry stairs of eternity into time and place. Why? To rescue you, to live the perfect life you couldn't live, to die the death you deserve to die. He bore the crown of thorns that belonged on my head for my sin. He carried our cross that we should have died on because we're the sinners. He's the sinless one. Do you understand how valuable you are to God? That God would give his most precious gift, the Son of God Himself? Jesus is the good shepherd who leaves the 99 and comes after the one. Jesus is the woman who searches in all the dark corners for you. You are valuable. Now you are valuable not because of anything you've accomplished. You're valuable not because of your name or your reputation or your skin color. You're valuable not because of the car you drive or the house you live in or the number of zeros in your bank account. You're valuable because you're created in the image of Almighty God, and you have a soul that's going to last forever somewhere. God sees your value. In fact, Jesus put it like this He talks about the value of one soul. Check it out. Look what he says in Mark chapter 8, verse 36. Jesus goes, For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Think of it like this, okay? Imagine you have, you know, some scales up here, and on the other side, you can take all the wealth of this world, all the possessions, all the gold and silver, everything of this world, all this world can offer you on one side of the scale. And then on the other side of the scale, you put one person's soul, and Jesus says it outweighs it all. That's amazing. That's how valuable you are to Almighty God. Now, if people matter that much to God, shouldn't they matter that much to us? Yeah. I mean, why is it as a church that we go to all the effort we do to try to reach people for Christ? I mean, why are we going to the effort and the expense to launch a new campus in North Georgia? Because people matter to God. I mean, why don't we send missionaries around the world? Because there's billions of people there and they matter to God. Why do we do so many local ministry outreach to our community? Because they matter to God. Why did we start the Oaks Coffee House and its prophets all go to, you know, our community to reach them and feed the and house the homeless. Why do we do all of that? Because people matter to God. And if people are that valuable to God, they ought to be that valuable to us. Amen? You are that valuable to God. That's what this story's telling us. Second thing we learn from these stories is this. Jot this down. Every person gets lost. Every person gets lost. You may be valuable, yes, but we all get lost. And we all get lost in different ways. Some of us are like the sheep. And how did the sheep get lost? I mean, I don't think the sheep knew it was getting lost. It just did a little nibble nibble here, a nibble nibble grass there, a little nibble nibble grass there. And next thing you know, it looks up and it's a mile away from the sheepfold and from the shepherd, right? And that's what we do. It's many times we drift away from God. It's not intentional, but we do. Notice how the prophet Isaiah puts it in Isaiah 53. He says this all we like sheep have gone astray. We have all turned to our own way. And so we are the lost sheep in this story. We're the ones who drift away from God. How do we do that? We have a little nibble nibble of the world here, a little nibble nibble of the world there, a little nibble the more, and what are all we're doing is we're just trying to gratify our flesh, right, and our appetites. And next thing you know, we look up and we go, I'm so far from God. I'm in this in this broken place of my life. Listen to me. Sin will first fascinate you and then it will assassinate you. It will first thrill you, then it will kill you. Satan plays for keeps. Sin will always take you further than you ever intended to go. It'll keep you longer than you ever intended to stay. It'll cost you more than you ever intended to pay. And so that's what happens to every one of us. We are like these lost sheep that drift away from God. But what about the lost coin? Okay, how did it get lost? Well, it was mishandled, right? Somebody didn't take care of it like they should have. And some of you may be that way. You're away from God, you're lost because of some hurt in your life. Maybe it was a parent that didn't care, or a family member that abused you, or maybe a church that didn't accept you, and now you're hurt and you're a long way from God. I don't know how we may have drifted away. We all do. And what this passage is telling us is simply this apart from Jesus Christ, we're all lost. Apart from Jesus Christ, we're all lost. No matter how it happened, we all are lost apart from Jesus Christ. So we're all valuable. We all get lost. But there's a third truth, and this is when it gets exciting. Jot this down. God relentlessly pursues us. God relentlessly pursues us. This is the heart of Almighty God. He comes after his lost creation. Look at how Jesus put this. In Luke chapter 19, Jesus said this for the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost. That's Jesus' mission statement. Jesus is saying, I came to earth on a search and rescue mission. That's the reason why I came to earth. Now that's good news for you and me. If you're here today and you feel like, golly, you know, I'm just I'm just one person among the billions on this planet, and I feel pretty insignificant, right? Got a big crowd, big church, big world. God's got his big business going on. He ain't got time for me. Let me remind you of something. God's big business, you know what it is? It's you. God's big business is you. He has a heart for you. He knows you. He knows your name. He knit you together inside your mother's womb. He knows everything about you. You're you're rising up and you're lying down. And so what did he do? He is that good shepherd. Jesus is the good shepherd that comes looking for his lost sheep to rescue us. Now what I find interesting in this passage is there's no indication that the lost sheep comes looking for the shepherd. Right? Because sheep don't do that. Look, I'm a lost sheep. I'm lost. I don't find anything except my own pleasure, right? That's what we do. We're lost sheep. I mean, you don't see the sheep the sheep going, find another lost sheep, going, hey, we need to find the shepherd. Hey, could you give me directions back to the shepherd? No, of course not. All that sheep is doing is trying to gratify its appetite. Now, if that's true, and we're like lost sheep, then here's the good news. If you're now a follower of Jesus Christ, you know what that means? That means that Almighty God, Jesus Christ Himself, came looking for you. And he found you and He brought you back to Himself. And when He found you, He joyfully rescued you. Look at how this is described in verse 5. When He has found it, He joyfully puts His shoulder, put, puts it on His shoulders and comes home. And so here's the good shepherd. Finds the lost sheep, picks it up, puts it on His shoulders, carries it home. Now, I don't know about you. If that was me, if I'm the shepherd, I probably have found the lost sheep after searching, searching, searching for it, I'm going, oh, there you are, you stupid idiot. Okay, get up, come on, follow me back home. You walked out here, you can walk your way back. Right? Jesus doesn't do that. He knows we are weary, we're worn out, we're a wreck. So what does he do? He joyfully picks us up and puts us on his shoulders and brings us home. That's what Jesus does for us. And that wouldn't have been a light thing. This is not a story of a little lamb. This is a full-grown sheep here, right? Over a hundred pounds, puts it on his shoulders, joyfully comes back. That's what God does to you and me. So we're valuable to God. But we all get lost. Jesus comes on a search and rescue mission for us. Thank you, Jesus. But then here's really the main point of these stories. Number four, jot this down. You are wildly celebrated. You are wildly celebrated. God Almighty celebrates when we return to Him. Almighty God celebrates when we repent and return to Him. That's what this is all about. Now, church, don't you think we should celebrate what God celebrates? If God gets excited about something, don't you think that's what we should get excited about as well? I love the way that C.S. Lewis once put it. He said this: Joy is the serious business of heaven. You see, joy is one of those attributes that we don't really think God has. I mean, you ask the average person, hey, describe what you think God is like, and they're like, okay, he's just got a big frown on his face and disappointed, his arms, you know, crossed in heaven, looking down just with, you know, disappointment, right? I mean, no, that's not how God is described. Jesus is overcoming people's wrong theology and belief about God. No, God is celebrating, God is joyful. The most joyful being in the universe is Almighty God. I mean, think about it. Look at his character. Look at the fruit of the Spirit, right? We know we've heard the fruit of the Spirit. That's characteristics of God. What are they? Love, joy, peace. Those are descriptions of God, folks. We can have those in our lives. Look what it says in Psalm. Psalm 16 says this in the presence of the Lord there is fullness of joy. You want some fullness of joy, you better get into the presence of God because he's the most joyful being in the universe. You see it in his character, you see it in creation. The Bible says that the heavens are declaring the glory of God. I love the way that Isaiah puts it. Isaiah 55 says this the mountains and the hills break forth into shouts of joy. You go, why is God's creation so happy? Because it's created by a joyful God. And listen, if you have any joy in your life, it's because it's been hardwired there by your creator, Almighty God. God is joyful. And so what do we have here? At the end of each one of the stories, we have the same thing repeated. They find what is lost and they celebrate. Check it out. Look at the lost sheep. He calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep. And that's what happens in heaven. Look at it, verse 7. I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the 99 righteous people. People who don't need repentance. Heaven is breaking loose with joy every time a sinner repents. Same ending in the lost coin. Look at it, verse 9. When she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, because I have found the silver coin I lost. I tell you, in the same way, there's joy in the presence of God's angels over one sinner who repents. One sinner repents, boom, all heaven breaks loose. Now, here's the follow the logic. I do not want you to miss this. Okay, here's the point. Whenever the shepherd and the girl find what is lost, what do they do? They rejoice. In the same way, when God finds what's lost, he in heaven rejoices. But what else? They then invite their friends to join them in the celebration. God invites his friends in heaven itself to join in his celebration. Make sense? Now remember how this whole story started? People are coming to Jesus and getting saved. The religious leaders are griping and complaining about it. Jesus is saying this the friends of God celebrate with God. You Pharisees obviously are not friends of God. Tracking with me? The problem with a lot of us, we think more like Pharisees than we do like friends of God. Friends of God celebrate what God celebrates. Friends of God rejoice in the things that God rejoices in. And so if all heaven is breaking loose with joy, if in the halls of heaven they are shouting and screaming and celebrating with joy, then how in the world can we not enter into that as well? Because we think more like Pharisees than we do like friends of God. Think about it. We become complacent in the work of God. God does something in somebody's life, right? And we go, well, you know, only one person came to faith last weekend. Oh hum, right? Heaven's breaking loose. And we're like, whatever, right? Somebody confesses their faith in Jesus Christ as Jesus' Lord. They get baptized. Heaven is going crazy. And we give it a little um, you know, golf clap. That's interesting. Very good. Good for you, right? What's going on? We think more like Pharisees than the friends of God. Now, how is it that we can get all excited about other things? Right? We got our sports team and we can shout and scream for them, and yet we can't seem to lift our voice and worship to Almighty God for what he's done for us. Right? We can get all excited about that promotion at work or that new purchase for the home, and yet we can't get excited about what God has done in somebody's life. We're thinking more like Pharisees than we are friends of God. Folks, we need to celebrate what God celebrates. We need to get excited about things God is excited about, right? We need to join him in that. Again, why? Why are we planting this North Georgia campus? I mean, all of our other campuses are full. We knew we needed a new campus. We had 800 people that drive from North Georgia. But really, why did we do that? There's only one reason. There are hundreds of lost people around that campus that need Jesus Christ. That's the only reason we're doing it. And so, as a church, what have we done? We've purchased that 10 acres and that building. We're renovating it, getting it ready so that we can open it this fall and thank God. And I appreciate each of you and your generosity. We're able to do that completely debt-free, okay? Praise the Lord for that. Yeah. Now that facility will hold 750 people in two worship services, and um, so we're getting ready for this fall. Now we like every time we plant a church, we were like, okay, we need to have some gifted staff to lead that. And so we literally went on a search around this country. We got resumes from London for people to help pastor that place. And then we discovered after all these interviews that we had people on our staff that were more gifted than the people we were interviewing. And so we're sending two of our top pastors down there. We're sending Pastor Carlos Sartis, gonna be the campus pastor, and Pastor Sam Rogers is gonna oversee students and small groups and guest services. I call them the dynamic duo. I mean, these guys are amazing. And they're gonna help lead that staff, and we're gonna be hiring other staff members to join them, whether it be worship or kids or other stuff. It's just gonna be, you know, an amazing team. And again, so we have the facilities ready, we got the staff ready, we just need a launch team. And that's where you come in. We need about 300 adults that are willing to leave their present campus and go down to North Georgia and be part of that launch team, at least for one year. Say, I'm gonna make a commitment to one year to be down there, be part of that launch team. Why? Because we need people that will volunteer in kids' ministry and student ministry and small groups and guest services and all those things, audio, video, all those things are needed at this new campus. We have about half that many that have already committed. We we need many of you to step up and say, hey, I feel like that's something God's calling me to do. And so this is what I encourage you to do. At the very bottom of your, I mean, in the middle of your worship guide there, you have a QR code. If you feel any leading at all to be a part of that North Georgia launch team, would you scan that QR code? Just fill out a little bit of information. Somebody, the leadership of our launch team, will reach out to you and they'll invite you to um to fellowships, to some training, to tour the church. I mean, all the kind of things. They'll equip you so that you will be ready this fall to be part of the launch of our North Georgia campus. Now, why are we doing that? Because here's what we've always discovered every time we start a new campus, that campus reaches more people for Christ than all the other campuses. It's always happened. It's gonna happen again. That's why we're doing this. Because we know God celebrates people coming home. And if Jesus Christ can leave the 99 to find the one, then you and I, we can leave our comfort and our familiar surroundings and say, you know what, I can I can do this in order to reach more people for Christ. And guess what's gonna happen? When people start coming to faith, you're gonna celebrate. And so God is inviting you to the joy zone to join him in what he's doing around the world, but specifically in North Georgia. What do we've learned today? People matter to God, that we all get lost, that Christ comes on a search and rescue mission, and when we repent and return, all heaven breaks loose and celebrates. And as friends of God, we should celebrate as well. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for your word. I thank you, Lord Jesus, that you didn't leave us in the darkness and in our lostness. I thank you for coming and rescuing us and bringing us home. Lord, we want to celebrate that now. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.