Parables: Part 1 | Lost and Found | Pastor Alex Himaya

Come on, church, let's celebrate what God is doing in our student ministry, and we pray through our student ministry, and that's what I've been praying, that what God began this weekend in the hearts of students, he would overflow out of their lives and to the whole church, and that this passion would run like a river, 1,250 middle school and high schoolers gathered this weekend on this campus, and 58 of them gave their lives to Jesus Christ this weekend, 69 other decisions for Christ, eight baptisms last night, another 20-something at all the campuses today, and we just give God glory for what he's doing in this place for sure. If you weren't here last Sunday, then you missed an announcement that I made, because last Saturday, we launched our sixth Battle Creek campus at Allen Gamble Correctional Facility. Would you welcome those guys today? We're so glad you're joining us, and you're the newest part of Battle Creek Church. On first week, last Saturday night, we had 24 men give their life to Christ, and last night, we had three more men give their life to Christ at Allen Gamble, so we're excited about what the Lord is going to do through Pastor Skip and the ministry of Battle Creek Church there with you. I want to begin today with this question, just show of hands, how many of you are like me, and you can't stand to lose something? Anybody in that same camp like me, like you can't stand it, like it bothers you, right? You lose your wallet, your keys, your phone. By the way, this offering of phones to the Lord that we're going to sell after the service is amazing, and missions, we'll do missions with it, but you lose your wallet, your key, your cell phone, right, and you go looking for it, and then you have to decide which is more important. I don't know if any of you parents have ever left a kid behind somewhere, and then you decide which is more important, right, in that moment, but how many of you, when you lose something, you're able to just let it go, like it's like water on a duck's back, no big deal, okay? How many of you, it drives you crazy, like it bothers you.

For me, it bothers me. Here's the truth. When I was a teenager, I had a Mickey Mouse ball cap that I kept for years, and years, and years. It went in lakes where I was water skiing, and swimming pools all over the country. I lost it at some point. This is 35 years ago. It still bothers me, and every once in a while, I still look for it, actually, and it bothers me, right? I hate to lose things. My most recent loss was my golf range finder, which they're not cheap. These things are not cheap, but it tells you the distance, and I had a push cart, and this push cart had a magnet thing on the side, which you could magnetize your little range finder onto it. I didn't know that magnet was there. I'd never even seen it. Like, I just drop it in the bucket, you know, in the bag, and it's hard to get every time, but I thought, cool, there's a magnet. I turned the card in, and I turned the range finder in with it, and that was three months ago, and I call them every third day at the golf course. I have it in my Outlook, every third day to call and ask about the range finder to remind me, so I'm driving the people at the golf course crazy, like, did anybody turn it in? Did anybody find it? One of the guys just said, Pastor Alex, I'll buy you a new one, man. Just don't call me again, and I have another one, and the issue is not that I need one. I have one. It's that it drives me crazy that I lost one because my personality hates to lose things, and here's the truth. I actually love finding them.

I love it. And today, we're gonna read a story, three of them, actually, three stories in one parable about a shepherd, about a king who loves to find lost things, and when Jesus was here on earth with skin on, he told stories, parables, and we're gonna look at some of them over the next several weeks, and they weren't just stories. They were made up stories with a point, to point something out, to point out a blind spot, to teach something, to show us something about the father, and these stories, these three stories in this one parable that we're gonna read today are about a heavenly father who loves to find lost things. We'll see a shepherd who went looking for a lost sheep. We're gonna see a woman who tore up the house looking for a lost coin, and a father who longed to see his lost son again. You got your Bible. Open it to Luke 15 or the Battle Creek app. Open it to today's sermon, and before we jump in and read the text today, would you just take your hands like this, hold them in your lap as if you're about to receive something from heaven, and would you just pray and say, Holy Spirit, I need a word from you today. I need a fresh word, a living word in my life today, and if you'll speak it, I'll heed it. If you speak it, I'll obey it. If you speak it, I'll receive it. In Jesus name we pray and together we all say, Amen. Let's pick up Luke chapter 15 in verse four. Jesus tells the story. If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won't he leave the 99 others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? This is the way Jesus taught. He taught with stories, he taught in pictures, he taught in parables because the Eastern mindset,

the Middle Eastern mindset, the Hebrew mindset, the Jewish people learned through pictures, not words. In the West, we were more likely to learn words in school, to learn vocabulary in school. And we piece all these definitions and words together and somehow we're able to make sense of it. But when you see a picture, it's worth, well, a thousand words, right? And so it's valuable. In fact, in this story, you and I can't see the whole story because in our mindset, it seems very straightforward, but I wanna point out the culture in which it was spoken into. We read a guy has a hundred sheep and it doesn't catch our attention because we just see a hundred sheep in our mind. But in that day, only the richest of the richest of the richest of the richest would have a hundred sheep. A normal family would have two sheep. A wealthy family would have five to eight sheep. The whole village combined might have a hundred sheep. So when Jesus says a guy has a hundred sheep, people take notice and pay attention. And then he says, and what if one of them gets lost? In that culture, it would be like, well, what kind of a shepherd loses a sheep? Shepherds don't lose sheep ever. You don't lose the wealth of the family. You're a shepherd. You have one job, watch the sheep.

What kind of a shepherd would lose the sheep? And then he says, and won't he leave the 99 out in the wilderness? It makes sense to us because we don't really know anything about it. But to them, they're saying, what do you mean? That you would leave the 99 in danger for the one? Now the context matters. Look at verse five. And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. Again, a picture, you've likely seen a picture of a shepherd with a sheep over his shoulders where his legs are hanging down and he's holding the legs of the sheep while the shepherd carries it. And the picture is of a shepherd carrying the sheep, but it also brings to our minds the picture of a cross with his arms outstretched over a sheep. The shepherd who wouldn't just find the sheep, but would die for the sheep. Now let's put all this together because Jesus is gonna tie it together. Look at what he says. When he arrives, he will call together his friends. Say friends. Neighbors, say neighbors. Saying rejoice, say rejoice. Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep. He finds the sheep and Jesus says

the shepherd throws a party. Question, do you know what they serve at a first century shepherd party? Sheep. See, in the West, we get all caught up in the quantity, right, that he had 100, he lost one, he searched, searched, searched, searched, found the one, he's back to flush. Now he's back to 100. That's not really what happened. He had 100, he lost one, searched, searched, searched, searched, found it, he's back to 99 because they ate it. The point is not the sheep. The point is the shepherd who loves to find lost things. When Catherine, my oldest, was about four or five years old, I used to pick her up from school and take her to the mall and we would go into the food court and grab something to eat and she always picked. In fact, I took great pride in the fact that I had two of my children when they were little that loved Middle Eastern food at a very early age and had mature palates. She wanted It's Greek to Me all the time. Probably been 20 years since I've been to the mall. I have no idea if this place is still there, but people tell me It's Greek to Me is still there. This Middle Eastern family owned it and they would serve gyros. Remember that?

You know what a gyro is? The lamb that they smash onto that roaster and it spins and they slice it off into the pita bread. She loved it and I had to tell her at four years old, honey, you can't go up to the counter. I always made my children order their own food. Never did I order for them. You have to order your own or you won't eat. They would stand at the front and I would say, Catherine, you cannot say, give me the sheep. And she would say, you told me it's sheep. And I'm like, I know, honey, say the lamb. And she said, but that sounds worse, like we're eating. the baby. That's the context of what's happening in this story. Look at verse 7. In the same way, there's more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and turns to God than over the 99 others who are righteous and haven't strayed away. In other words, this story is not about the little lost sheep. The story is about the lost sheep of Israel. It's about lost people in the world who need Jesus. And when Jesus finds the lost, there is rejoicing. Now watch, Jesus turns the corner and is going to tell a second story. Or, he says, suppose a woman has 10 silver coins. And if you're paying attention, it went from 100 to 10, right? 10 silver coins and she loses one. Won't she light a lamp, sweep the entire house, and search carefully until she finds it? Again, let me give you some background and culture here. Because it almost seems like this lady has lost a dime and she's so obsessed with it, she flips her house upside down and tears it all up looking for the dime. But I want to show you something. This word coin in the Greek is the word drachma. Say drachma. Drachma. It's worth about a day's wage. In other words, she had 10, she lost one, so she's lost 10% of her entire wealth, right? And the picture Jesus is most likely painting here is of a wife whose husband is going to go away on business. And before he left, he gave her 10 drachma. And he said, I'm going to be gone. Here's enough for 30 days. I'll be gone the whole month,

but this is enough to take care of you for the whole month. And she takes those 10 coins, she puts them into a woven satchel and ties it around her neck so that she will not lose them. And over the course of that month, the coins rubbed against that satchel and wore a hole in the satchel. One of them slips out from that hole. And this woman takes every piece of furniture out of the house, sweeps the house carefully, is probably crawling around on her hands and knees, trying to find this one coin. Just like the shepherd who went back out into the wilderness at night when it's the hardest to see, climbing up rocks, peering into caves, risking his own life to find the one sheep. Do you see the picture that Jesus is painting here? Now look, let's keep reading verse nine. And when she finds it, she will call her friends and neighbors. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? And she will say, rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin. Again, they have a party that costs what? Money or coins. The point is not the sheep or the coins. The point is the shepherd who loves to find lost things. Now look at verse 10. In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels when even one sinner repents. So the woman stayed up all night looking for that coin. The shepherd left the 99 in danger to find that one sheep. Why? Because the lost are important to them. And to Jesus, the lost are very important. And he's saying to us who are followers of Jesus, they should be important to us as well. Now look at this phrase. There is joy in the presence of God's angels. Let me ask you something. Who is in the presence of God's angels? God. He's the one rejoicing. It's not the angels who start to rejoice and God's just standing there. He's the one throwing the party. He's the one is excited. And he wants us to get excited too, because the alternative is to have an attitude towards the loss that is religious or legalistic. In fact, let's just back up a few verses and set the context that I skipped at the beginning of this chapter. Cause I just went to the beginning of the story, but it's actually important for you to see the context of the story. Cause Luke tells us who Jesus was talking to and what the subject matter was that caused him to tell this story to begin with. Go back to verse one, tax collectors and other notorious sinners. You could write in your Bible. The lost often came to Jesus, the shepherd to hear him teach. You see the picture, the sinners, the lost are coming to the shepherd to hear him teach. This made the Pharisees, the religious people, church people, and the teachers of the religious law complain. Some of your Bibles probably say grumble.

That he was associating with such sinful people even eating with them so Jesus tells this story this one story through one parable with three stories, right? Do you follow what's happening here? This sounds the exact opposite of partying That the lost are coming to the shepherd. They're not partying. They're grumbling and they're Complaining it's the opposite of partying and at the end of each of the stories that Jesus tells there's a party remember that but Jesus is going to teach them with a story not a speech and The point is is that Jesus hung around with people who needed him and the religious people did not like that They did not like the so-called Sinners now, let me explain this to you and use the same terms that Jesus used How many of you lose your phone and blame your phone Or you lose your keys and you blame your keys or you lose your remote and you blame the remote Of course not you blame your husband, right? And what Jesus is saying here is why are you blaming the lost? for being lost Being lost simply means you're not where you need to be and Theologically, we know the truth because we read the Bible we all need Jesus We all need to join the family of God and when we're not in the family of God, we are lost That's the definition of lost but the Pharisees they didn't like it. They called them Sinners right and another passage is very similar to this one. They called them scum and what Jesus is saying is Why are you blaming the lost for being lost? Instead you should rejoice that they're coming to the Shepherd and when we look down on the lost or think of them as sinners, that's religion and legalism in fact When Jesus is telling this story to this crowd of people and he says the 99 righteous ones who never strayed I think he's pointing right at him the Pharisees and the teachers of the law and he's pointing at them not because they are righteous He's being sarcastic Because Isaiah 53 says we all say all We all like sheep have strayed away And you see there were really two groups of lost people in the audience two groups of lost people

The first group is the tax collectors and the notorious sinners who knew they were lost The second group of lost people is the Pharisees who were lost without knowing they were lost and the same thing is true today We're all lost before Jesus the Shepherd finds us and we either know it and repent or we don't know it and the point of The stories is not even to show us what it means to be lost The point is to show us the love of God in Jesus Christ and every story that Jesus told every parable that Jesus told He told it as a picture of God In fact many times we'll see in the parables We're gonna look at over the next several weeks is that Jesus would begin the parable by saying the kingdom of heaven is like And he would start the story He was trying to illustrate what it's like to be with God in other words This parable is a way for you to understand the father a bit better. And that's the point of the third story Let's go look at Jesus third story To illustrate this same point that he's already made twice further He told them this story a man had two sons and if you're doing the math we went from a hundred to ten to two The younger son told his father I want my share of your estate now Before you die, so the father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons Now again, you don't understand this because you don't know the culture. I Understand this because I have a Middle Eastern father and here's what I'm here to tell you today This would never ever ever happen in the Middle East In fact, I could say with almost assurance it has never happened in the Middle East This culture behind this story means that he's saying dad I wish you were dead and he told his dad I'm afraid you're gonna live too long and the dad According to the story of Jesus agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. It's interesting that this word is translated wealth in English It's the Greek word bios, which means life. He divided his life Between his sons if this happened in the Middle East the father would beat the boy Beating The whole town would spank the boy the whole town would gather together and take turns Spanking him and they would say you are a naughty naughty

Immature boy that needs the food Spanked out of him and Jesus is telling the story and Luke is pinning it and he's saying and the dad Willingly divided his life between them. This story is affectionately called the story of the prodigal son That word prodigal that word means wasteful My opinion the story should be called the story of the prodigal dad Because he's the one who's wasteful In the Middle Eastern mind, he's the one who gives his son all that he wants in the Middle Eastern culture He's the one who's wasteful in the Middle Eastern culture No one would understand this story and what Jesus is saying is, you know, what's even crazier? My dad God is like that and in the story the son takes what's his and goes off to the big city and Places he's never been before. He finds an apartment some new clothes. He's spending his money and he is living it up and in verse 13 it says he wasted all of his money in wild living and it tells us where he did that it says in a faraway land far away land is Code in the Hebrew culture to mean a Gentile land a pagan land really what it means is that the Capitalist which is the ten Roman cities on the other side of the Sea of Galilee where pagans live in other words It's one thing to be wasteful It's another thing to take your daddy's Jewish money and blow it and surrender it to pagan Gentiles, but one day it all comes crashing down. He spent everything. It's all gone He goes to pay for his double skinny soy latte and he swipes his card and The barista at Starbucks says, I'm sorry. Can you swipe it again? You ever been in that spot, you know, you can swipe it again, but you know, it ain't gonna work And you look at the card as if there's something wrong with it Maybe it's the magnetic strip on the back. I'll call the bank right and but but he goes back to his apartment He's been evicted and now he's got no money. No home. No job And he is desperate and he looks through the wan ads looking for a job

But all the good jobs require a college degree He finally finds one employer who would take him a pig farmer again. I'm not changing one detail of the story I'm just reading it in the context in which it was written pigs in the Jewish mind are bad And Jesus says the boy hired himself To that Gentile pagan man that word hired literally means glued himself to him Which is very telling and the farmer says to him you can feed the pigs Which is actually in the Middle East the polite way of saying I don't want to hire you Jewish boy But in the Middle East they never say an outright. No, they can't do that in their culture So he said I'll give him the most despicable of all despicable jobs, and he won't take it But the boy says sure I'll do it That's how desperate this Jewish boy is hear me church sin will take you further than you want to go It will cost you more than you want to pay and it will keep you longer than you want to stay And before we go any further, I want you to get this one thing straight. This is the boys fault This is not the dad's fault, it's not the younger brother's fault. It was his fault He's responsible for putting himself in this desperate situation Let's keep reading jump to verse 17 when he finally came to his senses He said to himself at home even the hired servants. This is an interesting phrase Okay, we'll come back to it have enough food to spare and here I am dying of hunger I will go home to my father and I will say now he's rehearsing what he's gonna say I don't know if you ever do that or not The boys rehearsing what he's going to say before he ever says it father I've sinned against both heaven and you I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on Here's the phrase again as a hired Servant now, I've taught you this many times about a Hebrew teaching technique called Ramez How many of you remember what Ramez is show me your hands as if I'm a good Bible teacher Ramez Listen and next time I ask this I want you to raise your hand Ramez is a Hebrew teaching technique where you quote one verse of scripture and You expect them to know the verses before or the verses after or if that verse is quoted somewhere else

You follow this only works by the way in an audience that is familiar with the Bible. And they know all of the verses. And the Pharisees and the religious teachers had the whole Old Testament memorized. Memorized. So the technique is gonna work with them. So when Jesus says what he says, he's quoting somebody else in the Old Testament. In this case, he's taking them back all the way to the Old Testament to the Exodus. Watch this. This phrase, I have sinned against both heaven and you. Straight from the lips of Pharaoh, who was being plagued by God's wrath. We read it this week in the One Year Bible on the app. In the eighth plague, exactly word for word, he said, I have sinned against both heaven and you. But question, was Pharaoh repentance? No. He just wanted the plagues to end. And Jesus, watch this, the master storyteller, puts Pharaoh's words word for word in the son's mouth. And the connect he's trying to make for his audience is that this kid's repentance is a lot like Pharaoh's repentance. And Pharaoh is not the model of repentance. So what Jesus is giving us a clue to is this son is not repentant, he just wants to change his situation.

He wants to get out of the mess that he has made. So he comes up with a plan. I will go back home on my hands and knees. I will beg to become a hired servant. To grovel is what the Bible says. Now look at verse 20. But while he was still a long way off, you should underline these words, his father saw him. Do you know that to be true of you? Even when you feel like you're a long way off, your heavenly father sees you. And he was watching for him to come. And it says, filled with love and compassion. This word compassion in the Greek, it is the Greek word splachna, which is actually fun to say, splachna. Splachna means guts. Meaning he's sick to his stomach. And Jesus doesn't make it clear what's making the dad sick to his stomach. Is it his son's decisions, or what his son's decisions are doing to his son. But either way, the picture is clear. He's doubled over in stomach pain. And every time that word, splachna, appears in the Bible, filled with that kind of compassion, it leads to a saving action. And look to the saving action this leads to. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.

Again, this is the place in the parable where the audience would go, oh. They would gasp at this story. You and I read this, and it makes sense to us, because every Hallmark movie we've ever seen ends with this scene. We've seen it in dramas, we've seen it on movie theaters, but you gotta get a Middle Eastern mindset. This is crazy to a Middle Eastern mindset. What do Middle Eastern fathers do? They don't run, ever. They sit. You don't expect your father to come to you in that culture. You go to your father. And they never get up and come to you. Now, why is the father running? They never, ever, ever, ever, never, ever, ever run. They sit. Running is for children. It's undignified. They don't do it. That's what small children do. Why is he running? He's running to save his son. From who? From the community. These weren't big cities. These were small, rural villages. The rest of the town would come and get him

and stone him to death. This daddy ran to save his son from the community, to reinstate him as a son before they would kill him for how he treated his father. And a lot of times, we think that we need to be saved from God. That he's so upset with us and his wrath is so great. But hear me, the point of this story is God is actually the proactive one. He's the one who saves us from the effects of our sin. And I've read this story for years and years and years, thinking this story is about me. That when I get to the end of some sin or some shameful moment, that when I finally come to my senses and repent, then and only then will God respond. But that's not the point of the story. In fact, in the story, the father doesn't even let the son get a sentence out in his rehearsed sentences. And what Jesus is trying to say is God, the father, who loves to find lost things, will make the first step. Every time and he has when he sent his son Jesus to die for us When the father got up and ran it shows urgency Just like when the shepherd immediately got up and left the 99 and the woman frantically swept the whole house There's an immediacy an urgency to God's forgiveness And what Jesus again this master storyteller is trying to say is God's forgiveness reaches far beyond your mess-ups and

The mistakes that you make in life In fact, they reach well beyond your sins all of them and the temptation is to think I messed up So I am a mess up But that's not the point of the story the point of the story is Jesus is the shepherd who loves to find lost things And let me ask you this question. If you don't know Jesus today, what's keeping you from accepting him? What's holding you back? Maybe it's guilt or shame You feel like the prodigal son a little bit unworthy Or maybe you're like the prodigal son a few chapters earlier in the story where he's still having fun in his sin Either way God is ready for you He's ready for you and he's waiting for you and once you're through with yourself and your sin and your shame He's ready with arms open to accept you into his family The son said I'll go back home crawling on my hands and knees and I will beg my dad to make me be a hired Servant which means he would not live in the house and he would not be relationally connected back to the father In Fact maybe he could earn it back and somehow pay his dad back But he never said that line to his dad go back and look at what he rehearsed and what he said to his dad He didn't say that So interesting Why didn't he say that let me be a hired servant my opinion is Because he no longer wants to live outside of the house. He actually wants to live in the house again What transforms us? According to Scripture, it's the kindness of God Paul says it's the kindness of God that leads us to Repentance and here's the point Jesus is making at the end of the rope. God's already there Look at verse 22 His father said to the servants quick bring the finest robe in the house Put it on him get a ring for his fingers sandals for his feet kill the calf We have been fattening

We must celebrate with a feast for this son of mine was dead and is now returned to life He was lost but now he is found. So the party began in other words. He's not just somebody This is my son. He thought he was too far gone He thought it was all over for him, but the father wrapped him in garments of a son not of a servant He put sandals on his feet because he was bare feet. He put a ring on his finger the ring of Sonship the dad was saying no matter what you're still my son and when God gives you identity You need to see it This kid thought he was only good enough to be a servant The father said you will always be my son And if you allow God to give you your identity, you will never be lost again And Jesus loves finding lives that are lost and bringing them back home and Jesus loves taking dead things and bringing them back to Life and when he does he celebrates with all the angels in heaven Watching let's pray together every campus heads bowed eyes closed hearts open. And the reason that I asked you to bow your heads and close your eyes is because I Don't want to embarrass anyone. Nobody brought you here this weekend to embarrass you, but I want to ask you a private question How many of you under the sound of my voice at all of our campuses today Would say pastor Alex, I know that Jesus is my Lord my Savior my forgiver He walks with me and he talks with me if that's you would you just raise your hand at every campus Thank you. You can put them down Thousands of hands just went up And you know what that means it means a man who died 2,000 years ago is still changing lives today. How could he do that? Because he's no longer dead. He beat death, hell, and the grave. And he's changing lives today. Some of you did not raise your hand and I want to thank you for being honest. And can I just say two things to you? Number one, we're so glad you're here.

And number two, we've been praying for this very moment for you. And with nobody looking, except for me and the campus pastors, if you're here today and you'd say, Pastor Alex, I don't know that Jesus is my Lord, my Savior, my forgiver. If that's you, would you just raise your hand at every campus? Pastor, pray for me. I don't know. Okay? Okay? Anybody else? Raise it high so that I can see it all across the room. Okay? Okay? Just raise it high. If I were to die today, I'm not sure that I'm going to heaven. If that's you, would you raise your hand at every campus? At Midtown, would you just raise your hand? At South Tulsa, Owasso, at Jenks, at Allen Gamble, in the chapel today, here in Broken Arrow. Anybody else? Just raise your hand. If Jesus comes back tomorrow, I'm not sure he's coming for me, but I would like to know, Pastor Alex, would you include me in that prayer? If that's you, just raise your hand at every campus. Raise it high so that I can see you, or the campus pastors can see you. Raise it high. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. At every campus, just raise it high. Okay? Raise it high. Now, here's what I want to ask you to do. If your hand just went up on that question, and you've put it back down, raise it again and hold it up, and with your hand up in the air, here's what I want you to do. I want you to look up at me or look up at your campus, Pastor. Okay? Just, if your hand went up, leave your hand up so that we can find you. These lights are really bright, and I just want to look at you. Sir, right here. You don't know. Okay? Ma'am, right here. You don't know. Anybody else? Ma'am, right here. You don't know. Sir, right here. Ma'am, you don't know. Ma'am, you don't know. Anybody else? Okay, over here. I see you back here. At every campus, I just want you right here. Sweetheart, I see you. I see you right here. The young one right here. Now, here's what I want to do. I want to lead you in a prayer. Okay? And I want to help you give your life to Jesus Christ and receive his gift of salvation. And so, I want you to pray this prayer. I'm going to pray it one phrase at a time so that you can repeat it after me, but I want you to pray it to God in heaven, not in a rote fashion. And I want you to pray it out loud. The Bible says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So, I want to help you do that. You're going to hear men and

women and boys and girls praying all around you. But if that's you, would you pray with me and say, dear God, I know I'm a sinner. Today, I ask you to forgive me for all of my sin. Jesus, come into my life to be my Lord, my savior, my forgiver. In the best way that I know how, I turn my back on my sin and I trust you alone, Jesus, to save me. Thank you for saving me. Before we say amen and before we look up, you just prayed that prayer and you meant it with all of your heart. You're trusting Jesus as your Lord and savior. You prayed it and you meant it. Would you again raise your hand to say, pastor, I prayed that prayer and I meant it with all of my heart. Raise it high to say, I prayed it and I meant it. Okay, ma'am. Okay, sir. Okay, ma'am. Okay, ma'am. Okay, ma'am. Okay, right here. Anybody else? I prayed that prayer. Wave at me so that I can find you. Wave at your campus pastor so that he can find you. Right here. I see this child right here. Ma'am back here. Anybody else? Raise your hand so that I can see you in the very back row. At Midtown, would you just raise your hand so that your campus pastor can see you? At Owasso, raise your hand right now. At Owasso, at South Tulsa, lift your hand. At Jenks, lift your hand. At Allen Gamble, lift your hand. Now, here's what I want you to do. If you just raised your hand, look up at me. The rest of you, keep your heads bowed and eyes closed. You raised your hand, you meant it. Sir, right here, you meant it. Let me find you. Okay, right here, ma'am. Right here, ma'am. Right here. Right back here in the back. I see you. Okay, let me do this. Okay, let me do this. Let me do this. At every campus, if your hand just went up to say you just prayed that prayer and you meant it, would you just stand to your feet? I want to talk to you for 60 seconds. Just stand up. Just stand up. You don't need to look and see who else is standing. Just stand up all across the room. Just stand up. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am. Just stand up, if you will. If you prayed that prayer and you meant it, just stand up, okay? And I want you to look at me and let me just say to you, congratulations. Wisest decision you could ever make. Say standing, say standing, say standing, say standing, say standing. Here's what I want you to do. If you just stood up, okay, I want somebody to pray with you before you leave, okay? If somebody came with you or somebody's sitting next to you and you know them at all, just look over them and go, stand with me right now.

Just stand with me. Stand up. If somebody's standing beside you, whether you know them or not, stand up beside them just to encourage them. Anybody else, just stand to your feet, okay? And if you're standing, here's what I want you to do. Just grab your Bible, grab your purse, grab your friend, step out into these aisles and make your way to this pastor right here. Right outside that door is a room. He wants to pray with you real quick. So just say, excuse me. Just step out and come on. Just step out and come on. And we just want somebody to pray with you before you leave the campus today, okay? So just come on this way. Just step out. Say, excuse me, and come on. You don't need to look, but you can celebrate with the angels and God Almighty in heaven. They're still coming. They're still coming. Come on, come on. They're still coming. Anybody else, just stand and come. We'd love to pray with all of you about your new relationship with Jesus Christ.

Anybody else? Come on, come on, come on, come on. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Congratulations. Anybody else? They're still coming. They're still coming. They're still coming. Come on, sweetheart. We'll wait on you. We'll wait on you. Come on. That's smart parents to get up and go with that girl. I hope this never gets old to you because we serve a God who loves to find lost things. Would you celebrate one more time with all that God has given you?