“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” —Luke 15:1–10 ESV

We serve a compassionate God who seeks out the

and the

Reveal Answer

to bring them back

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I. THE LOST

“The Bible does not describe an eternal struggle between good and evil. Sin is not an eternal principle, a necessary or structural element of either the universe or human beings, or the product of God’s creative intent. Nor does Genesis seek to make sense of sin, to make rational room for it in our cognitive universe. Sin remains ever a riddle, ever absurd, ever irrational.” —Michael D. Williams, Far as the Curse is Found

Sin is man’s flight from God and flight from God is flight into lostness

II. THE SEEKER

God

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the wandering and the lost

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. —Phil. 2:5-8 ESV

You are not what you have

or what has been done

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you. You are found in what has been done

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you.

III. THE RECONCILIATION

Your Heavenly Father is more willing to

Reveal Answer

you, than you are to ask Him to

Reveal Answer

you.

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Further Reading
Holiness by J.C. Ryle
The Cost of Discipleship by Deitrich Bonhoeffer
Luke: That You May Know the Truth by R. Kent Hughes