Let us turn in our Bibles to Luke chapter 15, the Gospel of Luke chapter 15. I'm hoping to commence a series in the book of James, but before we get there, I'd just like to look at Luke 15:1-7 this morning. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Him. And the Pharisees and 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 that 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." Let us pray. Lord God, help us to have a heart that beats like Yours for the lost. I pray that You would send Your Holy Spirit to revive us, to refocus our mind's eye upon the great purposes of our great God. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, have you ever walked into a person's house, maybe something you're picking up on Facebook Marketplace, or a friend's place, or the first time perhaps you've gone to visit someone, and you've noticed as you've walked into the front door and perhaps down the hallway, or you look over in someone's room—I don't know, maybe that's wrong you should be looking straight down the hallway—but the point is you notice a large collection of something. Maybe albums, maybe you peeked in the garage and saw a large collection of cars, coins, maybe seashells, or paintings. And upon leaving the house, you perhaps you think or say to yourself, perhaps even while you're in the house, these words: "Wow, this person really loves dot, dot, dot." And sometimes then we begin to respond to ourselves saying, I wonder why? I don't see the value of those things. Sometimes like, "Are they serious? They really like that?" But whatever it is, what you know by their collection is that they are loving those things that they're gathering. They mean something to them. And in order for them to collect those things, they must go on a process of searching and gathering that which is precious and valuable to them in order to have them. And sometimes they do that at great cost. Any serious collector of any goods at great cost, you know, lays out expenditure in order to find that thing that they love and are looking for. In many ways, their collection makes them happy. It's something that they celebrate in, and even though each item in their collection is valuable to them, even the collection as a whole has its own unique value. Well, this passage in the Gospel of Luke speaks to us of something similar to that. God is gathering. Collection's probably not the nice word, best word for it, but He's gathering. Jesus is gathering sheep. He has, as it were, a collection. There is a hundred sheep. One is lost. He goes on the search, seeking to find it and bring the sheep back. And the central theme of the entire chapter, actually, is that God actively seeks and rejoices in seeking out the lost. Some people say these are three parables. I think it's one parable. And even though a parable is a story, a parable has a main lesson. Each one of these stories has one same main lesson, and that is the lesson that God actively seeks and rejoices in saving the lost. You see the shepherd leaves the 99, goes after the one. The woman in the next parable or story, she sweeps the house because she lost one coin out of her 10 coins, and she searches diligently and sweeps the house every corner so that she can find that one coin and obviously put it back with her collection of the 10. And then you see this father who has two sons, and one of the sons runs away from the household and goes out into a faraway country, leaving the father's house. And the father is patiently waiting and looking over the hills when his son comes over, he bolts to him and runs to him and embraces him and rejoices in the fact that his son returns home. Each story communicates that same main truth that God is actively engaged in gathering sinners to Himself because He loves to save souls. You see, the shepherd leaves the 99, goes after the one. The woman in the next parable or story, she sweeps the house because she lost one coin out of her 10 coins, and she searches diligently and sweeps the house every corner so that she can find that one coin. And obviously, put it back with her collection of the 10. And then you see this father who has two sons, and one of the sons runs away from the household and goes out into a faraway country, leaving the father's house. And the father is patiently waiting and looking over the hills when his son comes over. He bolts to him and runs to him and embraces him and rejoices in the fact that his son returns home. Each story communicates that same main truth that God is actively engaged in gathering sinners to Himself because He loves to save souls. You see, the shepherd leaves the 99, goes after the one. The woman in the next parable or story, she sweeps the house because she lost one coin out of her 10 coins, and she searches diligently and sweeps the house every corner so that she can find that one coin and obviously put it back with her collection of the 10. And then you see this father who has two sons, and one of the sons runs away from the household and goes out into a faraway country, leaving the father's house. And the father is patiently waiting and looking over the hills when his son comes over. He bolts to him and runs to him and embraces him and rejoices in the fact that his son returns home. Each story communicates that same main truth that God is actively engaged in gathering sinners to Himself because He loves to save souls. And this is not inconsistent with how we live our ordinary lives with things that we love. That's why Jesus can say in verse number four, it's almost like a rhetoric question here. "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?" He's like, "This is ordinary. You know this. You're a shepherd. You look after your sheep. You love your sheep, and you have your, you love them all collectively. Uh, but the, the, the hundred are safe in the pasture and they're, they're okay and everything's fine, but one of them goes out. You don't just like, 'Oh yeah, no worries, let that one go. We lost one. We've still got 99.' You leave the 99, you go after the one and bring that one back into the fold because you care for that sheep." Like you know that, that's how you live your life. That's how it is when you lose something precious to you in your house, your keys in the couch or something, you know? And you're on this big search. And even more than that, when you find what you love that you've lost and you finally find it, guess what? You're happy. You're rejoicing. You know? You go up to your wife and say, "Hey, I finally found the keys." Right? You rejoice, because the thing that you love and the thing that you desire, you finally obtain. And this parable is all about the God who gathers sinners to Himself. Now, in this passage specifically, He does that. Remember what it says in, in, in chapter number 15 verse one? It says, "Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him and the Pharisees and scribes grumbled, saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them.'" You see, receive sinners followed by and eats with them exactly tells us what Jesus is doing, doesn't it? He is gathering sinners. He's gathering sinners to Himself that they might know Him and that they might taste of His great salvation and they might be found, those that are lost. And so, what we find here is that the Pharisees are grumbling because Jesus is gathering sinners around Himself. The Pharisees would like to throw a bone to the sinner but don't come and eat on my table. They wouldn't go after them. They wouldn't sacrifice for them. Especially the down-and-outcasts of the society. I could imagine the Pharisees, you know, as the, as the Bible says, they travel land and sea to make one proselyte. So yeah, they're, they're had all that, but they would select who they wanted to be a, to, to, to have as their proselytes or not. Don't take me to the tax collectors and the sinners. They're too unclean. I might get dirty when I'm, when I'm trying to, you know, share with them or if they come around me, I might become unclean. But this parable is quite different. Jesus is moving towards sinners, saving sinners, gathering sinners to Himself, eating with sinners, showing that God is a God that gathers. And in verse number four, we see that he has a hundred sheep, which means he has a gathered flock of his people. And he retrieves the lost one to bring it back. And so, this parable specifically shows us that God is a God who gathers. But God is a God who gathers, and we can see this even more broadly as it relates to God's great purposes. Think about what it is that we are doing this morning. We, you have gathered. You have gathered. The church is God's gathering. God has saved us from the world. God has saved us from darkness, and He has brought us into His kingdom. He has brought us into His light. He has brought us together as a church that we might show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. God gathers. The whole church is a witness to the fact that God gathers. We who were not His people are now the people of God because Jesus, the good Shepherd, has gathered us together. And we are God's flock. We are a product of the gospel. As Luther said, the church is the, the creature of the word. The word creates the church. The gospel has gone out, and it has gathered together sinners like you and I, and we have believed in Jesus and we are part of His body. We are the product of the gospel, a called-out assembly, an assembly gathered in heaven, seated with Christ Jesus in heavenly places, but also gathered here locally as Canon Valley Baptist Church. Either way that we look at it, we were once not gathered under God's rule, but now we are gathered together through the gospel of Jesus Christ under the rule of God, and we have a shepherd of our souls who feeds and nurtures us in His flock. And God does not only call us out of, but He calls us into. He doesn't just say, "Come out of the world and then go wander and find your way." He gathers us. He calls us out of and He calls us together. And at the return of Jesus Christ, when this gospel that is preached throughout all the world as a witness to all nations, and God has gathered His people together for the great preaching of the gospel, the Bible teaches that he will send his angels from the four winds of the earth and he will gather his elect. And we will be gathered together as the one people of God in heaven forever, singing the praises of the lamb. And I hope you can see just from what's happening specifically in this parable, that Jesus is gathering one sinner at a time, one sinner at a time, bringing them into a larger flock is exactly what God's great purpose is in with regards to what God is doing universally. Meaning that when it's all said and done, and we arrive in heaven, we are not going to be there alone. We're going to be there with each other as God's gathered people because God is a gathering God, and He has gathered us lost sheep into His fold, and He will gather us all up in glory. And therefore, this parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd is a story about God's heart towards sinners as a gathering God. And I want us to think about that just for a moment because as the church, we are the trophy of God's grace. We are like the showcase, the, the, the, the, the great masterpiece of His gathering work. And it's important for us to think about this as we think about our mission to the world as the church of God. Because it's easy for us to forget that we were once lost sheep that have been gathered by God into the church of Jesus Christ, and now we enjoy the pastures. But God hasn't finished gathering. There are still lost sheep out in the world. Right? And Jesus, even though He's ascended up into heaven, He has not finished His work of gathering. So this becomes a very significant passage for us with relationship to how we view ourselves as the church in relationship to the world. What is the significance of all this? Well, this parable shows us what God loves. God loves to save sinners. It's an amazing truth. It is a glorious thing to even behold. I'm talking about a holy, thrice holy God who created the heavens and the earth. His great purpose in the world and desire is to gather sinners to Himself. That's what He loves doing. What, what I'm saying is you walk into God's house, which we are in God's house today as a very visible expression of that, and you see God's collection, and you know what God loves. He loves people. You walk in these doors, you see people. What does that mean? God has decided to save people, and He loves people. And each one of you are a trophy of God's grace, demonstrating the fact that God is so bent and desirous on saving sinners. And it shows us what God loves. He leaves the 99. He sacrifices to go and save sinners. I mean, if the parable is not enough, let John 3:16 be enough. For God so loved the world that He gave His only son that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have eternal life. God loves sinners, so He sends His Son for sinners, because He wants sinners to be gathered to Himself. This shows us in this parable what God loves and the lengths to which God will go in order to save one lost sheep. Each one of those sheep are important to Him. Think about this. Lost coin, lost son, lost sheep. Why mention one when there are many lost sheep? Why one coin? Why one son? Why one sheep? To show us that each one is important to the shepherd. The great lengths God will go to save one. An amazing truth. So not only does this passage show us what God loves, it lets us into the heart of God, but it also challenges us. And the way in which it challenges us is that it reveals to us what God loves, and then it reveals to us what God's great purposes are, and the parable calls us to the same. You see, this parable is written in response to grumbling and complaining Pharisees that don't like the fact that Jesus is gathering sinners to Himself. You know, we can get lost in the details of the parables and the stories here, but you need to read it in light of verse one and verse number two, and that tells us that there are tax collectors and sinners that were drawing near to Jesus. You see, they were gathering around Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes, they grumbled saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." So, sinners come around Jesus. Jesus eats with them and receives them, seeking to save them, and the Pharisees and the don't like the fact, and they're grumbling at that. What the Pharisees have a problem with is the fact that Jesus loves sinners. And they don't share in the great purposes of God. You see? For them, they're worried about other things. They're, their minds are fixated on their own glory and their own praise and their and their own comforts and their minds are fixated on their own goals and their own ends, not the ends of God, not the purposes of God. They're not consuming the lives of the Pharisees. What's consuming the lives of the Pharisees is, how can this man eat with sinners? And they miss the great purpose of God, that God gathers sinners. And so what we're seeing in this parable is God not only showing us where His heart is, but calling us to the same heart. This, these, this parable is basically saying, "Pharisees, love what God loves. Don't lose sight of the gospel, don't lose sight of the great call, don't lose sight of the great mission and the great commission to which the church has been called. God is gathering sinners. Are you gathering sinners? God loves sinners. Do you love sinners?" It challenges us. Are we those who grumble or glory in God's gathering work? And in this parable, in verse number six, when the shepherd brings this sheep home, and he calls his friends and neighbors together, and he says to them, "Rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost," is God's way of saying to you and I, and even to the Pharisees, "Hey, listen, rejoice with me. Be a true friend. Be a true neighbor. Rejoice with me. I'm rejoicing in the great purposes of God fulfilled that there is one sinner that is turning to to me and and being brought back into the fold. Will you rejoice with me? Would you be thankful with me? Would you praise with me and rejoice in God's goodness? Or you're going to sit there and grumble because you don't like the guy, the guy that's come in to the church as it were, and he's cramping your style? Or he's a little bit smelly? Or he's had a really rough past? Maybe he's not safe around, we're not safe around him." Could you ever imagine Jesus thinking like this? Oh, they're sick. You know, some people they're just more work, more trouble, more heartache. Could you ever imagine Jesus thinking like that? If He thought like that, most of us will not be saved today. In fact, all of us will not be saved today. But that's not the heart of God. Maybe the heart of the Pharisees, but not the heart of God. God is saying, "Here's my heart. My heart is for sheep. My heart is for their salvation. I want to seek and save the lost. Will you rejoice with me when I just have this one sinner that comes through repentance?" And for us practically as a church, as we continue to grow, we might actually find this quite challenging. You know, as the church grows and more and more people come to gather together, God gathers more people together, as we are a growing church, you know, often we can grumble. Thinking to ourselves, "Man, I don't get the same attention that I used to get. I've lost a sense of power and control. There's a lot, a loss of a sense of influence." And we can be tempted to grumble. We can have a posture towards God gathering sinners to Himself that is unhelpful and unbiblical and contrary to the great purposes of God. Why should you feed in this pasture and not someone else? You're happy to get the gospel week in and week out. You're happy to be told what God's word says. You see how, how we can get this way when it comes even to a growing church? But the heart of Jesus is more sinners under the sound of the voice of the shepherd. What does that mean? Praise God. More gathered together under the authority of the shepherd. More sinners converted, more rejoicing. What do you think happens when more sinners are converted? The gathering grows. And you can see how it is so easy for us to, to fall into traps like this when we should be rejoicing when God's rejoicing. We should have the heart of Wesley that says, "Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise." "Oh Lord, for the advancement of Your kingdom. Oh Lord, for the expansion of the gospel. Oh Lord, that Your word would go out and that sinners will be converted to You. Oh Lord, that more people will be gathered together to praise You because You are worthy of praise and adoration and glory. May there be more tongues in this place to sing Your praises. May our hearts rejoice that we bring people together to hear the gospel that they might be converted. May we have a heart like God that beats and cries and goes out to reach the lost." You see, the fields are white for harvest, and that means that we are called as God's people together. And what Jesus is trying to tell us here, even in this parable, is when you rejoice with me, what he's saying to you is get on mission with me. You see, my gathering work's not done. I'm going after the sheep, and and I'm, and I'm wanting to save them. Rejoice with me. Share in my passion, share in my joy. And more than that, as you know from the rest of scripture, come and join hands with me, co-labor with me, so we might gather these lost sheep together. The great commission is the people, is basically to us, the people of the Shepherd, that we might be co-laborers with the Shepherd in spreading the word of the Shepherd. The Great Commission is God's recruitment of you as His ambassadors. And an ambassador is a representative of Christ. Read 2 Corinthians chapter 5 when you get a chance and read it all the way to the bottom, and you will see that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation, and you and I have been given the word of reconciliation. And God has saved us that we might be His ambassadors and representatives on earth. What that simply means is, you are the hands and feet of Jesus on earth. When it comes to gathering sheep together, God wants the shepherd's word to go out through the, through the mouths of His people. He wants our hands and our feet to be His hands and His feet as we gather sinners together for the sake of the gospel and the proclamation of His name. That means we should ask ourselves, what is Jesus doing with His feet in this parable? He's moving towards sinners. What is Jesus doing with His hands in this parable? He's carrying lost sheep and bringing them home. And what Jesus is saying to us, "Do you share my great purposes? Do you share God's great heart for gathering sinners together? Well you be my hands and my feet and move towards those that are lost and carry them to Jesus through the word of the gospel." Christ's final word to His people was, "Go therefore and make disciples of the nations." He wanted them to be intentional. He wanted them to be thoughtful. He wanted them to be deliberate and to ensure that every single person that is born into this world knows that Jesus Christ is Lord. That He died and that He rose again, and that He is the shepherd of lost sheep, and He will save sinners who come and trust in Him. And He's given that to us. And therefore we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing to point people to Jesus? If this whole parable is about winning sinners to Christ and loving those that are lost and and Jesus saving them and He wants us to see His heart and share in that, well what are we doing to win people to Christ? We all have friends. We all have family members. We all have neighbors. We all have colleagues that are lost sheep. Are you praying for their salvation? Are you crying out to God saying, "God, have mercy on them and save them, Lord? Give me an opportunity to share Jesus with them." Are we thinking of ways to share Christ with them? Or we're hoping that God's message would fall out of the sky and land in their ears. He's given you a tongue and a mouth to proclaim His word. He's given you the commission to be His mouth, His hands and His feet, and to go and tell others of the savior. You might say, "I don't know how to do this," and I'm, I'm just unsure about that. Look, if it's as simple as, "Come see a man that told me all that I ever did, is this not the Christ?" I tell you, that will be good enough. As you learn to understand how to articulate the gospel more clearly, and you work through all those things, it's okay if you don't have answers for everything, but it's not okay not to tell anybody anything. Do you understand? You don't have answers to say, "I'll go and get the answers and I'll come back to you." But begin the conversation. And and you don't know, "Well, well, come to church because I know the word of God's proclaimed here," or "Come to Christianity explored" or somewhere where we can explain the gospel to you, or "Hey, here's the gospel of Mark and hear it from God's mouth Himself, and let's read it together and discuss together if you have any questions." The gospel's not for professionals. Okay, it's for all God's people to proclaim. And God help us to to just have that freedom, to have that joy, to have that overwhelming sense of love that God has that says, "I don't care if I fumble this ball, and I don't care if I trip over. It's Jesus who ultimately saves. But let me just be Your mouthpiece in some way, oh Lord." You and I pursue the things that we celebrate most. It was for the joy that was set before Him, which was the salvation of your souls, Jesus Christ endured the cross, despising the shame, and He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. It's because God loves sinners that He leaves the 99 in pursuit of the one. God celebrates the salvation of sinners. That's what "rejoice with me" means. He's celebrating it. And you can see that that's what he celebrates because his heart and activity is toward the thing that he celebrates and loves. What do you celebrate? What makes you most happy? What fills your heart with extreme joy and praise? It should be that we get so excited to know that one sheep that was lost has been brought into the fold of God. One soul that was on its way to destruction now brought into the family of God. The most joyous thing that ever happened in your life is that you came to know Jesus Christ as your savior, and it should be the most joyous thing in your life to see others come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior. And as a church, then, corporately, we need to think in ways that are toward the gospel. Not be thinking in our own little insulated way, but be thinking in ways that promote the gospel, that share the gospel and thinking ways that we can get the gospel out to the world around us that people might know. Everything that the church does should be done because of the gospel and for the gospel. We should share in God's great purposes. I know you think, "What does that look like?" Look, I tell you, you can even set up morning tea for the sake of the gospel, and did you know you can even welcome someone for the sake of the gospel? You know, think about it this way. When you welcome someone into Canon Valley Baptist Church, you are welcoming someone into the house of God. You are welcoming someone into the place where they will hear the gospel of God. When you make morning tea, it's not just about biscuits out there or whatever it may be out there, but when you're making morning tea or serving morning tea, you know what you're doing? You're creating spaces for sinners to eat with their Shepherd, as it were, and hear the word of the gospel. When you set up chairs in the morning, you work for the sake of the gospel because every chair will be occupied by one, and maybe by one who does not know Christ and they'll be converted in the very seat that you set up because you did it for the sake of the gospel. We can do what we do prayerfully. We can do what we do passionately, knowing that all that we're doing in God's gathering purposes is for gathering sinners to Himself. Do you believe that Christ is our only hope? I think sometimes we forget that heaven and hell are real. That Jesus is coming again, that there is a judgment. I think sometimes we forget that Jesus came to make the way to the Father. That He came to give His life in order to save. And let me ask you this morning, do you know the way to the Father? Have you heard the voice of the shepherd? Or are you lost outside of His fold? Do you know the way to heaven? Are you sure of your eternal destiny? Or are you a wandering sheep that is lost in sin and shame and helplessness? Just because one is in the church, it doesn't mean that they're part of the church or of the church or believers in Jesus Christ. Do you know Him? Do you know what it's like to be, as it were, brought back to the fold and carried on the shoulders of a savior who loved you and gave Himself for you and brings you into the family of God? Do you know that? The good news is, if you don't know that, you are in the stream of God's great purposes. God's heart is towards you. You say, "I'm lost. I don't know the way of salvation. I don't know how it is that I can come to know Jesus." Look, you can know one thing for sure, as a good starting point, that God is after your soul. He loves saving lost sheep. He desires to save them. He leaves the 99 to bring you back home. And you can be sure and certain that God is for saving sinners. And you can be sure, "I'm a sinner." Our God is wanting to save you. His gospel goes out so that you might believe on Him and trust in Him. You say, "But I'm weak. How will God save someone like me?" Well yes, you are weak, but God is strong. You see in the parable, He carries, the shepherd carries you back to the fold. "I don't have the strength to get to heaven." None of us have the strength to get to heaven. While we were weak and without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It's when we're lost that we've been found by the shepherd. Salvation is not our work. God saves, and you can be sure of that. So you don't have to kind of pick yourself up and dust yourself off and find out how to get to the kingdom of heaven. Listen, just hear the voice of the shepherd that says, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened down, and I will give you rest." You say, "I'm lost." Yes, but Jesus says, "I'm the way." The shepherd is the way. You say, "I don't know what to believe and I'm confused." Well, trust in Jesus who is the truth. You say, "I feel dead inside." Well, Jesus is the life, the one who makes dead sons live, as the last parable shows us. Jesus gathers you through His word. The one who lays down the life for the sheep also says, "My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me and I give unto them eternal life and they will never perish." Are you hearing the voice of the Shepherd in the gospel? I mean, when you look at your life, perhaps as an utter failure and full of sin and guilt and shame, do you hear the voice of mercy calling to you, Jesus Christ the Lord, the good shepherd, saying, "Come, my lost soul. I will carry you to the Father's house." Will you come to Him and follow Him? He promises to give you eternal life. He takes your sin. He carries you on His shoulders, and He ensures to bring you home. You say, "I don't want to bother God." Bother God? Look at the parable. This is His great joy. Bother God what, with your sin? The sin which He came to die for? Bother God with what? God's great purpose is to save sinners like you. It's not a bother for God. It's a joy for God. It's a rejoicing thing for Him. All the excuses that Satan lodges within our hearts and our flesh raises as objections to the great mercy of God, they get broken down by the death of His son, and we see the call of Jesus Christ to us. So at the end of the day, when you reject the shepherd's call, this is what you're doing. You're refusing Him who is a gracious savior. Whatever excuse you'd like to put on the back of that, "Oh, I'm not, I'm not going to be good enough for God," and all these things, what you are simply saying is, "I refuse a gracious savior." "I neglect so great a salvation." See, God has broken down every single barrier that keeps us from coming to Him, and He calls us through the gospel to come, and we have zero, zero excuses for why we will not come to Jesus. So that whatever excuse we raise is essentially saying to God, "I refuse your gracious call." It's a clever way in which our masterful flesh tries to to keep itself from the kingdom of heaven, to keep itself from submission to God's rule, to keep itself from repentance. It could put it in a kind of false humility, "Why would God want someone like me?" But what you're simply saying is, "Jesus, why did you even die for?" Don't refuse Him who is a gracious savior. You see, the end of the passage says, "Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 persons who need no repentance." Dear lost soul, your shepherd calls you now. Stop looking at yourself. Just enough with the excuses. Lift up your eyes. See Jesus running over the hills, running over the mountains, running into the valleys, seeking by the streams, looking for that sheep that is lost. And instead of fleeing from Him, come to Him, broken, wounded, crippled, full of sin, and say, "Jesus, save me. Jesus, I'm done with my sin. I want you. Save me, Lord God. I repent and turn to you." As the song says, "Out of my bondage, sorrow and night, Jesus I come. Jesus I come. Into Thy freedom, gladness and light, Jesus I come to Thee. Out of my shameful failure and loss, Jesus I come. Jesus I come. Into the glorious gain of Thy cross, Jesus I come to Thee. Out of unrest and arrogant pride, Jesus I come. Jesus I come. Into Thy blessed will to abide, Jesus I come to Thee. Out of the depths of ruin untold, into the flock that Thy love does enfold, ever Thy glorious face to behold, Jesus I come to You." Let's bow for prayer. And I encourage you this morning, if you don't know Christ as your savior, that you will not leave this place without seeking help for your soul. We would love to help you. Come and see us. We'd love to show you where you can find the gracious love of a good shepherd. Let's pray. Father, we thank You that Your great purposes are the salvation of lost sheep. May our heart beat like Yours, and may we ever thank You that you went through great lengths, as it were, to save us. I pray, Lord God, that You would revive and restore our hearts. And I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.