…that was all pre-introduction, that was all free of charge, that’s not the real thing.

Today I am here to share my personal testimony, and I’ve titled it…I told Christina before, “Once Lost, Now Found,” but I changed it to “Lost and Found.” I like that a little better – “Lost and Found.”

And I have a couple of quotes here.

If you don’t mind, let’s begin with another prayer. Would you bow your heads with me?

Our Father in heaven, Father, we don’t ever want to enter into a study of Your Word without inviting Your Holy Spirit to teach us. Father, I know how weak and frail I am and that I can do nothing without You. And I know Father, that if it’s just me up here explaining Your Word, then Your message will not come across. I know I don’t have wisdom sufficient to teach, so Lord I ask for Your Holy Spirit to come into my heart. I give You permission to take possession of my mind and to fill my thoughts with a message straight from Your throne room. And I pray that this afternoon someone here will receive a blessing from what You have done in my life and what we look at in Your Word today. And I ask for these blessings in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Well, there’s two quotes I would like to read. Gilbert Keith Chesterton, who was a prolific English writer and poet and journalist and many other things, he wrote a quote. He wrote, “The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.” I thought that was interesting.

There’s another—a man by the name of Francis Rodman once said, “Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything that you had right now, and then got it all back again!” Think how happy you would be, right? I mean, it’s a good way to appreciate what you have right now, isn’t it? I like that one.

The idea of losing something, frantically searching for it, and then finding it again, is associated with a lot of feelings and emotions. Just to name a few, you think of worry, anxiety, distress, grief…then followed by joy, relief, rejoicing, peace. These are just a few of the emotions you go through when you lose something, you frantically search for it, and then you find it again.

This whole idea of losing something and then finding it again—we’re all very familiar with it. You think of the Sabbath hikes where you just hiked five miles, jumping over boulders, over streams, walking on logs, over the mountains, through the woods, and you get to your car and…your keys aren’t in your pocket. Oh mercy! We’ve had experiences like that. Or you’re late getting to the airport and you can’t find your wallet and you think, “Oh no!” These experiences—we’re all familiar with this.

There’s a couple that I’m very familiar with. I believe I’ve lost more phones in the past year than most people have lost in a lifetime. I think I’ve gone through five cell phones. I remember when we were young, our childhood dog chewed through its rope one night and ran off into the woods after the coyotes. And me and my sisters’ hearts were filled with a lot of anxiety and worry. We thought our dog was gone. And for the following days, as we searched through the woods calling our dog, searching frantically for it, we were very worried. But when we did find our dog, tangled up in some trees, still alive but very thirsty and hungry, we were very relieved.

And this whole idea of losing something very precious and then finding it again—we go through this over inanimate objects, over technological devices, over animals—but there’s nothing that quite reaches your heart and fills you with such anxiety as when you lose a loved one.

Maybe you’re in the zoo and your child gets lost in the crowd. Maybe you’re at Walmart. I remember when I was young and I thought I had lost my mother at Walmart and I went crying up to the front desk, you know, “Where’s my mom?” And they announced it and my mom came looking for me. There’s nothing that quite fills your heart with such anxiety as when you lose a loved one, are you with me here this afternoon?

This is an idea that Jesus is presenting to the people in several parables in Luke 15. And we’re going to look through this. If you would all begin to turn in your Bibles to Luke, chapter 15, we're going to look into this, at this idea of “lost and found,” as we go through these parables today.

We’ll spend the rest of our time—I’ll be sharing three stories that have had a particularly significant influence and impact on my life. And as I share these three stories, a sermon isn’t a sermon unless it comes from God’s Word so we’re going to begin in God’s Word and then I’m going to be sharing these stories as we go along.

Luke chapter 15, we’ll read the first three verses to start with. This gives us the context.

“¹ Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. ²And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. ³And he spake this parable unto them, saying, “Now just from those three verses alone, three things immediately jump out at you.

One: there’s something strangely attractive about what Jesus has to say to these sinner and publicans; they’re drawing close to hear what He has to say.

Two: you find that the Pharisees are diametrically opposed to the idea that Jesus is even allowing them to associate with Him, but much more than this, that Jesus is actually “receiving” them is what they’re grumbling about.

Then the third thing you find is that Jesus’ parable is coming immediately after this complaint. So Jesus’ three parables that He’s giving is a direct rebuttal to the Pharisees’ objection that the publicans and the sinners are drawing close to Jesus.

It’s important to have this context in mind—that these parables are given to address this complaint that Jesus is receiving sinners and publicans.

It’s interesting to look at the recent research study showing how your view of God shapes certain views you have in politics. It shapes certain views you have on actions that you commit yourself, moral decisions that you make. Your view of God shapes, ultimately, your entire lifestyle. It all depends on how you view God.

There’s a book by two professors at Baylor University; the book was titled, “America’s Four Gods,” and what it was showing was that there’s four different major views that people have of God, in the country. They did a survey of somewhere in the hundred-thousand range of people across America, and this survey was taking different views and categorizing them in their different views of God. The conclusion they came to was based on how you view God in one of these four ways. They could basically almost predict how you were going to respond to certain controversial subjects like gay rights, euthanasia, just to name a few. How you view God shapes the way you think, is what they were finding. It’s a very interesting study. Fascinating study. “America’s Four Gods,” is the book they wrote from that.

Jesus is dealing with a very similar situation here. Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees, who have a misconception of how God relates to sinners because they view God as austere and judgmental (“‘vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord”), the Pharisee stands in the synagogue or the temple and he says, “I thank God that I’m not like other men. I’m not like these sinners, these publicans.” And because he views God in such a way, it’s shaped the way he lives his life, where he’s fearful lest if he would come into contact with them, he would be ceremonially defiled. So you see how this is a problem Jesus is dealing with—their misconception and how it shaped the religious leaders’ view that day. Jesus’ parables are addressing this misconception.

Now let’s look into the first parable. We’re going to look at three things as we go through them. We’re going to look at (1) What was the crisis in the parable? (2) What is the response of the person in the parable? (In the case of parable number three, we’re looking at particularly the father of the prodigal son.) (3) What is the conclusion that Jesus comes to as He reaches the end of these parables? We’ll look at these three things.

Let’s begin in verse four now.

⁴What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? ⁵And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.

In Jesus’ first parable, He’s appealing to the heart of a shepherd’s love for his sheep. And He says in this parable the shepherd has a hundred sheep and only one of the sheep is missing. As he counts over them and he counts over them again, one sheep is missing. He’s filled with so much anxiety that one sheep is gone that he leaves the ninety and nine in the wilderness and he goes searching after that one lost sheep. The parable says he doesn’t stop until he finds him. And when he finds the sheep, he doesn’t drive it home, he doesn’t scold the sheep for being lost, he doesn’t even lead the sheep home, but he tenderly lays the lamb on his shoulders and carries this lamb home.

Now, even more than this, Jesus says that the shepherd isn’t satisfied with the joy that’s in his heart over his sheep that he found again. The shepherd isn’t satisfied just merely rejoicing at home that he’s found the sheep. But he comes all the way from Georgia to Montana to tell you the experience about the pastor that he found who’s now studying the Bible with him and he’s so excited he has to tell everyone else, “Rejoice with me, because I found the sheep that was lost!” Are you getting the picture here this morning? He’s so excited that…let’s read the next part and then we’ll go on.

Verse seven. The conclusion Jesus comes to is:

⁷I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

So the picture Jesus is giving you is that when one soul comes to repentance, God calls all of the angels together in heaven. He calls all of the unfallen worlds together, and He says, “Rejoice with Me! I’m not satisfied rejoicing alone because I found this one lost sinner who’s now come to repentance!” Are you getting the picture here this afternoon?

And this is the first parable Jesus gives. Now to illustrate this, I’ve chosen a story that’s very much affected my life.

This was back during the Vietnam War, from February of 1937 to July of 19—excuse me, from February of 1973 to July, 1975. There was a soldier stationed at the JUSMACC communication center in Bangkok, Thailand. JUSMACC meaning the Joint U.S. Military Assistance Command Center.

Through his childhood, he hadn’t grown up with anyone in his family really going to church. He hadn’t grown up attending church much regularly himself. They had always had a Bible in the house, but it was never really read. He went on growing up through the years like this, and now he’s in the military in Thailand. He has some spiritual questions that he needs to find answers to. So he begins to search in philosophical books and books about different religions. And as he’s looking for these answers, he doesn’t see it this way at the time, but this is what the situation is: he’s lost in the mountains. He doesn’t know how to get back to the shepherd’s fold. He’s been separated from God and he doesn’t know which way to turn to go back.

But something significant happens in his life at this time. It was July 2, 1975 that he went to work and he didn’t realize that the event that would take place this day—the news he would hear—would dramatically alter the course of the rest of his life. As he goes into work, his commanding officer tells him that his mother has been diagnosed with cancer, and that it’s terminal, that she’s been given three months to live. This news, I imagine, swept over him like a wave of emotion, of grief, as he’s filled with this news.

Now he thinks back over his life. How his mother had been really the only significant parent figure in his life. His father had come back from World War II and become an alcoholic and hadn’t been around the family much. So this is his very dear mother who is about to die.

The next day he’s on a plane flying home. Now as he gets back in Salinas, California, he begins to sedulously search for any information about remedies, cures for cancer. He begins to search through health food stores, through books, asking questions, anything he can find. He begins to search for answers. He comes across a book in his search by the name of, “Back to Eden,” and he’s very fascinated with what he discovers in this book. It basically covers that God in Genesis created the ideal diet, which was largely a plant-based diet, and how you can have optimal health by following this diet, and it also gave remedies for cancer in the back of it, natural remedies.

So he immediately implemented all these things that he was learning and him and his mother became practically totally vegetarians, they changed their diet, and he was fascinated with this connection between health and the Bible. So he began to search for more answers. It was shortly after this, in 1977 that a friend gave him a Bible and these two things together began to convict him that he needed to find a church. So he asked his friend at the health club that he was working with about the church that she went to, and she invited him with her, and after that he began attending the Seventh-day Adventist church there in Salinas, California.

Now it was shortly after this, it was in 1979 that he was at Salinas Campmeeting. As he sat on the edge of his seat hearing George Vandeman and H.M.S. Richards speak compelling messages about the nearness of Christ’s coming, he was convicted. That same month and year, he made a decision to be baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist church. And there was no looking back from this point on. The Shepherd had brought him back to the fold, and he was now going to go and find others to bring to the fold. So there was Bible studies, there was prison ministries, anything he could be a part of. He threw his life into this. He went to a short training course shortly after this, sort of like a condensed AFCOE Program. He began getting involved in as many ways as he could in his church. As time passed, he began to look, “How can I become more involved? How can I do more for the Lord?” and he went back to P.U.C. where he studied theology, later getting his Masters in Ministry from Andrews University and he spent the last twenty-one years of his life, being ordained in 1990 as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, working as a minister, preaching the good news of Christ, preaching the love of God for sinners, and preaching the nearness of Christ’s coming Himself.

Before his mother passed away—she lived 28 more years—he baptized her into the Seventh-day Adventist church as well. She made a miraculous recovery. And this is the story of how my father became a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. You can see how this would significantly impact my own life.

Now let’s look at the next parable in this chapter.

In Luke 15:8 is where we’ll be reading.

⁸Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? ⁹And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.

You see again, in the parable, the crisis is that there was a separation between the piece of money that this woman valued and herself. This was inside of her house. And you see her filled with anxiety, frantically searching her house for just this one piece of money that she’s lost, and she doesn’t give up until she finds it and the same thing happens when she finds it—she calls all of her friends together to say, “Rejoice with me because I found that which was lost!”

And Jesus goes on in verse ten to say the same thing virtually.

¹⁰Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

Now this parable, we’ve often heard it said before, this took place inside of the house. Whereas the parable of the lost sheep is referring to those outside of the church, the lost coin is referring to those who are inside of the church who are lost and they don’t realize that they’re lost and they’re not aware that they need help. Just like that piece of money wasn’t aware that it was lost; money can’t be aware. So you see that there’s a slight change on who this parable’s addressing, the group.

To illustrate this there’s another story I would like to share with you. This one took place in the 1980s, where there was, in the smallest and most densely populated of South American countries, Republic…let me try and say this right…Republica de El Salvador, literally means, “republic of the Savior,” that there was a young man born to a family whose parents named him Byron. As he grew up, it was before his earliest childhood memory that his father virtually abandoned the family—well, did abandon the family, never to return again. So as he grew up, there was hardships that he and his mother went through. But the Savior had not left them through all of these hardships.

As he grew up, at the age of four, his mother became a Seventh-day Adventist and they moved to Dallas, Texas where he grew in the church for the rest of that time til he was 17 years old, when he went to Ozark Adventist Academy in Arkansas. At Ozark he was very well-loved by the students and the staff alike. He was a very lovable young man. He had, I mean, he was like the other young kids; he was interested in video games, music, girls, sports, these types of things.

He’d grown up going to church, but there was something in Byron’s life that was missing. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He told others about this at times. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He didn’t realize it until later that it was the fact that, even though he had grown up in the church, he had never quite had a personal experience with Christ. He had never quite come to the place where this religion had become his religion, where his mother’s experience had become his experience.

As Byron was at Ozark Academy, it was halfway through his senior year that he too had an experience. He went home for Christmas break and he didn’t realize that this break would be a dramatic change and he would experience something that would very dramatically alter his future as well. Byron went home and he and his mother went out to McDonald’s to buy food, and they got their meal, they left, they pulled up to the stoplight, and as he’s at the stoplight, he looks out the window and he sees a man standing on the corner holding a sign saying, “Will Work For Food.” Now there was something about this man that strangely attracted Byron’s attention to him. As he looked at him he was just drawn to this man, there was something about him, as he looked at him, that he was compelled to get out of the car, go over to this man, and the man looked hungrier than he was, so he handed him his chicken sandwich and fries. The man looked thirstier than he was, so he handed him his Coke.

Now how many of you think maybe this wasn’t the healthiest food Byron could have given him? How many of you think Byron’s heading in the right direction here, right, amen?

So Byron gives him this food, and he turns to walk away, and this man puts his hand on his shoulder and says, “Wait!”

Byron turns back.

And this man is glowing, he’s smiling. This poor, humble beggar, he says to him as he’s smiling at him, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto Me.”

Bryon said later it was as if everything in downtown Dallas just went still in that moment. He said that this man, he saw transformed right in front of his eyes, he saw this man glowing and he had wings on his back. The man, this humble beggar, was now glowing and he said, “I am an angel.” He said, “God has a great purpose for your life. Study that passage and you’ll discover what that purpose is.”

Byron came back from that break a different young man. I was his roommate that year and I saw a front-row seat of what God had begun to do in Byron’s life. Studying the Bible became his favorite pastime, sharing what he was learning became his greatest joy, praying became a necessity to him. Everything he was learning, as he began to share this with other people in the class, it impacted the lives of so many young people. Revival took place in his life but it also spread to the lives of many other students that year.

Now, I’ll tell you a little more of that story another time, but this was a story of how Byron was in the church and he was lost, and he didn’t realize it. He hadn’t quite connected with a personal relationship with the Savior yet. But the Lord came down, and before Byron knew to seek Him out, the Lord sought him out, and He transformed Byron’s life and many other lives that year.

Now let’s look at the third parable, as we go on today. I’m going to come back another night and tell you the rest of that story, but let’s look on in Luke chapter 15.

We know this last parable well. We’re not going to read the whole parable. But what you can see happening in this parable is the father who had two sons, the younger one comes to him and he asks him, he says to him, “Give me my inheritance now; I want my inheritance now.” So he takes his inheritance, he goes to a faraway land, he wastes it on riotous living, on drunkenness, on harlots, and as the famine comes to the land, he’s lost everything and he goes to—you know the story—one of the people in the land, and he begins to feed his pigs to work for him, and he’s eating the food that the pigs have, when he finally comes to his senses and he says, “My father’s servants are taken better care of than this!” So he purposes in his heart, he’s going to return home. He’s been separated from his father, but now he’s going to return home and as he’s on his way home, he’s already come up with a little saying in his mind, he’s going to say he’s repented of what he’s done. He’s going to say to his father, “I’ve sinned against heaven and against you, and I’m no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your servants and I’ll be happy.”

We’re going to pick up the story right there. He’s making his way home, and in verse 21 of Luke 15, you can see that…I’m sorry, let’s start in verse 20.

²⁰And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. ²¹And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. ²²But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: ²³And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: ²⁴For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

And we’re going to stop right there. In this story, Jesus isn’t appealing to a shepherd’s love for his animal. He’s not appealing to someone’s love for the coin that’s been missing, or someone’s value of money. He’s appealing to a father’s love for his son. And as He’s telling this parable the father, just like the shepherd, and just like the woman, his heart is filled with anxiety the entire time that his son is gone. He stands at his gate every day looking for his son. When is he going to come home? And the day when his son finally does come home, his heart is so overjoyed, so relieved, he’s filled with so much peace, that he runs, literally, to meet his son, throws himself around his son, and embraces his son, welcoming him back.

Remember that Jesus is painting a picture of how God relates to sinful people in contrast to how the Pharisees viewed this.

Now, I grew up in the home of an Adventist pastor, as I’ve already mentioned. My parents, I can honestly say, that I’ve witnessed them their entire lives make a very strong effort to practice what they preached. As a result of this, my childhood memories are filled with family unity, with moments of peace, happiness, joy. I can honestly say that seeing the results of their sincere lifestyle was the strongest argument for the truth of what they taught, that I could have received. But there was a point in my life where…now, there’s no reason why this should have happened. If I could give you a reason for why this happened, that would make it reasonable, wouldn’t it? There’s no reason for why this should have happened, but I began to rebel against what they were saying and against the truth. I began to be enamored with things that I saw my friends doing out in the world, and desiring that this was what I wanted to do. So at a point where I graduated from Ozark Academy in 2007, I went to Walla Walla, and I quit attending church for the time that I was there. My philosophy became, “If it feels good, looks good, seems exciting,” I had to try it at least once. So if it was drugs, alcohol, girls, anything titillating that came across my path, I had to try it at least once. This is what my lifestyle became during that period of time.

Well, you can imagine that I would need a good job to pay for this expensive lifestyle. When I dropped out of the university, I applied and was hired at Washington State Penitentiary as a correctional officer.

Just a little history on Walla Walla, in case some of you don’t know, I’m sure most of you do, you’re in the same area. In the town, there’s… it’s more than a college, in case you didn’t know…the town is made up of three major groups of people. There’s prison guards’ families, there’s inmates’ families, and then there’s Adventists and college students who are in the town. So there’s these three groups of people, and if you’re not a college student, if you’re not an inmates’ family, the only really good job that you can get in the town is working at the penitentiary.

So I, because I needed a better job, I applied there. They were having a big hiring spree, I was hired, I began to work there, I made over $4000 a month during this time, bought a lot of nice things, threw big parties, had lots more friends who came over to my house…you know, this was just the life that I thought I had always wanted. But there was just a strange emptiness that I couldn't get rid of that was growing inside of me even more and more as I was getting more things, more money, more parties, more friends, there was just this strange emptiness. Why was I so disgusted and empty inside when I had everything that I thought I had wanted?

Well, just like in the story of the prodigal son, there was a famine that came in the land, where I lost my job. I had to move out of my house. I had to get rid of a lot of my things. Because there wasn’t the big parties at my house anymore, less and less people were coming over. I was also in a relationship at that time with a very beautiful young woman, and I began to have relationship problems. I ran out of money. And to top it all off, I got two tickets for my insurance and my tags being expired. I couldn’t get a new job, I didn’t have money, and this just threw me in a hole. I had nowhere to go and so I went home to visit my parents again.

There was something about this trip at home that was unusual. I had known my father was going on a mission trip to South America for some time, but it hadn’t really seemed that attractive to me. But when I went home on this trip, there was just this strange desire I had to go. I felt like I just had to go on this mission trip. I felt like I needed to get away from where I was at, and I needed to go or I may never get away from the things I was doing.

So I told this to my parents. There was a very, at least to me, a very miraculous sequence of events that happened in order for me to be able to go. So I went, in March of 2009. I wasn’t able to go for the actual mission trip because different events took place, but my sisters were down there for a longer period of time and I was able to go down there and work with them with what they were doing.

So I go to the heart of this massive jungle in the middle of Guyana. Most of the country’s jungle. We go to the heart of this big jungle, and it’s just beautiful. I mean, we were underneath this beautiful forest canopy. There’s colorful macaw’s that fly through the air in the mornings. There’s monkeys that are in the trees that will scream at you and throw little round things at you. There’s slithering vines, beautiful butterflies, beautiful flowers, little babbling streams, and beautiful lakes…I mean, this was a tropical paradise. Aside from the monkeys that throw things at you and the jaguars and the big pythons. But a beautiful place down there!

And I go to the heart of this forest and while I’m there I began to hear the still, small voice of the Savior whispering in my ear. And it was largely through David Gates, who was flying over one day, the village we were at, and he felt impressed that he needed to stop and talk at this village. He didn’t know why. But he landed his plane, and he came and he talked, and I came in near the end of what he was saying, but I heard enough of what he was saying that I really felt compelled and moved. There was a lot of events, little things, leading up to this, but when David Gates came and he spoke, it pushed me over the edge. And I went out from there, and I knelt down, and I literally just wept.

I said, “Lord…I feel like I’ve wasted everything that You’ve given me. I’ve known so much; I feel like You’ve given me so many opportunities and I’ve wasted it on drunkenness and on rioting.”

I said, “Lord, I’m not worthy to be called Your son anymore.”

I said, “Lord, just make me one of Your servants.”

You have to understand at this point I really felt like I had wasted the plan that God had had for my life. And as I was there under the trees, I felt the Savior closer to me than I’ve ever felt Him before. And I felt His arms come and wrap around me as I was there. And I felt peace. A strange but wonderful peace that I had never felt before.

As I was kneeling down there praying, I tried to resist it at first. I said, “Lord, not me. How could You love me? Look at what I’ve done; look at what I’ve become!”

But I felt Him closer still.

And as I felt Him next to me, with me, I felt a strange peace, and I surrendered to it and allowed it to just overwhelm me.

I felt as if He said to me, “Nathan, I love you more than you know. I died for you and everything you’ve done, while you were still a sinner.”

And it was from that experience that I surrendered everything to the Lord and I immediately…I didn’t want to go back. I detested the life that I had come from. I didn’t want to go back to doing the things that I was doing. And I made a decision that I wasn’t going to go back, that I was going to give the rest of my life to the Lord, that it was either going to be all or nothing that I wanted to experience.

So it was May 13^th, on my birthday, 2009 that I landed back in the United States. And you know most of the rest of the story. You know where I went after that. I became involved with Messiah’s Mansion. I’ve been working for that ever since.

But this afternoon, maybe someone here has had a misconception, like the Pharisees did, of how God relates to sinful people. Maybe it hasn’t been the way you treat others, but maybe, perhaps, it’s the way you feel that God feels towards you. Maybe you’ve had a misconception. Maybe you’ve said something like this, “When I overcome this sin, then I will surrender to the Lord.” But if you view it that way, friends, we have it all backwards.

So today, I pray that what the Lord has done in my life has touched somebody’s heart and is what someone here needed to hear. If today you have seen a glimpse of God’s love in a more clear way than perhaps you’ve seen it before, and if today you want to say, “Lord, over these next few days I want to be like those publicans and like those sinners and I want to draw nearer to You. I don’t just want to abstain from things that I know are sinful, and get rid of the sinful habits in my life, but Lord, I want You to come into my heart and I want to experience, not just an abstinence from these sinful things, but I want to experience Your power, Your love. Transform me! I want to do greater things than I have yet seen, for You, Lord.”

If there’s someone here today who wants to say, “Lord, show me more of this love over these next few days. Lord, I want to surrender to this love and I want this love to transform my life,” would you please stand with me as we close with a prayer? And would you please bow your heads as we offer a prayer to our Father?

Oh Father in heaven, what wondrous love is this that you have towards us? That while we were yet filthy and contaminated with sin, while we were loathsome to look upon, You died for us. You loved us. Before we ever thought to look for You, You came looking for us. Father, we don’t understand this love. This love goes against our human nature. Father, I want to surrender to this love yet more today. And You’ve witnessed, Your angels have seen this afternoon, these young people and these adults stand. You’ve witnessed this, Father. We want to see more of Your love, but more than this we want to experience it. So I ask, Father, that over these next few days, that You would give us grace to just be still and know that You are God. We pray all this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

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