- Well, everybody, man, isn't that incredible? You guys were awesome, all week long. I got to go to several events during Love Week. I was telling somebody yesterday, "I always hate to see this week end." And the person who was there said, "Well, it doesn't have to, Pastor Allen. We can continue to love on our neighbors and our friends and our community every day." And I thought, "You're so right." You know, it's awesome. So thanks for the tech team, putting that video together. I know those guys were up half the night last night, so that we could see all that you guys have been doing all week long. Love Week is just an awesome, awesome week. I absolutely love it. And we celebrate all that God has done in and through the hearts and lives of people all across our community, all across Southwest Virginia. It's pretty awesome. You guys in Bluefield, I saw all the things you were doing. Down in Bristol, the community lunch, what a hit, you know? Here in Abingdon, we were out right on the corner of Abingdon, and hundreds and hundreds of people got a free lunch. And we were at schools. I mean, it was pretty awesome. And then up in Marion, you guys, man, you never disappoint. You're down there, I tell you what, winning the whole town. So that's pretty awesome. So thanks for all you do, and thanks for loving on our communities. Now, as we celebrate all God's done this past week, I sorta wanna wrap up what we've been talking about on Loving One today. And I wanna ask you this question. What causes God to celebrate? Have you ever thought about that? What does He celebrate? What does our God, what is in His heart? What causes God to celebrate? And I want us to look at that today, because I want us to think about, what can we do that would get the heart of the God we love beating fast and passionate? So I was telling Brenda about what I was doing and she and the nursing world. And so she said, "Well, you know, really, if you were to take a stethoscope and put it to the heart of God, and you could find what causes God's heart to beat fast, what does God get passionate about? What is it that we might be able to join Him in doing that would cause God to celebrate?" I began to think about that, and I thought, "I wonder what kind of party God would throw. And I wonder who would be on God's guest list," you know? So let's look at that today. And I think if we can give a grasp of this, it could change everything. So when we think about this idea, I begin to look at Scripture and see where God gets excited, right? And I found this passage, a familiar passage over in Luke chapter 15. But before I get to the story, just a little background on this passage, so we can sorta see the scene that we're getting ready to walk into. In Luke 15, Jesus, He's already out, He's already begun His ministry, and He's going from town to town. And He is actually telling people what God is like. And as He goes from town to town and city to city, Jesus is healing people. Jesus is doing miracles among the people, and all these things are taking place, but because of the way He is doing these things, and because of the teachings that He is sharing, you know what begins to take place? Friction, tension starts developing around the person of Jesus. And it's all because of the way He's teaching, and the things that He's doing. But the big one that we're gonna see, is there are a lotta problems with who He's associating with. You know, they could sort of, the religious crowd today, they could sorta take some of the miracles. They could sorta take some of the teaching, but when they saw who Jesus was actually hanging with, they just could not take it. There were some people that Jesus is attending and hanging out with, and going to the wrong parties, in their mind, and they were like, "What in the world is He doing?" And they're trying to shut the party down, before it ever gets started. So that's what we walk into, here in Luke chapter 15. So let's look at this, here's the story. "Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach." Now here's something I want you to understand. Right at the beginning of this passage, he talks about tax collectors. And then he says, "and other notorious sinners." So you have to understand this, that he puts tax collectors in a bracket all by themselves. And actually, they are considered worse than notorious sinners, okay? We gotta see that in this passage. And it says, "This made the Pharisees and the teachers of religious law complain that Jesus was associating with such sinful people." Jesus is even eating with these hated tax collectors and quote, "notorious sinners." And I sorta laugh about that every time I read this passage. You can just sorta see this religious crew, this group of Pharisees and Sadducees, back in the back in their little huddle, and they're watching Jesus, and they've, hey guys, they've had the bar as far as religiosity in the culture. And Jesus is changing that. And all of a sudden, they're not as valued from the community as they once were, because they don't really care about these people, right? I mean, they care about themselves and how they look. And they're getting so worked up, and they're getting so mad that Jesus is hanging out with these people, and they're like saying to each other, "Man, do you believe what He's doing? Do you see, did you see who Jesus was with last week? Did you see who He was hanging out with and what He was doing? He was associating with sinful people, and that's not all of it. The next week He came back and He ate with them. He attended their parties, and sat down and had fellowship and ate with them." This is really a big deal, and sometimes we may not understand what's happening here among the religious crowd. But the reason it was a big deal is because in the ancient Near East, to actually set down and to share a meal with someone was a token of acceptance. It meant that you accepted this person. And so what these religious people know, the Pharisees, Sadducees, they know what Jesus is doing here, that in the name of God, He is actually setting down with these "notorious sinners and tax collectors," and basically Jesus is saying to them, "I value you. You matter to Me." Notorious sinners, tax collectors, and everyone in between, Jesus is saying, "My Father sees great value in you." Now, nobody ever told them that, all right? They had never heard that. They had heard a lotta cussing, and they had heard a lotta people who tell 'em how horrible they were, and how they were gonna bust tail wide open. They had never heard anybody say, "You're valued by God," and so no wonder the notorious sinners and the tax collectors went to hear Jesus teach, right? They found some hope in what He was teaching, but this doesn't go over well. I mean, the religious crowd today, they just could not stand it. And to understand who He is extending this value to, you sorta have to understand who these tax collectors and notorious sinners were. When we think about tax collectors today, and we think, "All right, before April the 15th, we gotta go down to H&R Block, and there are some kind people there who are gonna look at what we made, and help us figure out what we owe the government." But they're not looked at as cheats or scum or bad people. We look at these folks that help us get our taxes, so we don't go to prison, right? I mean, we are actually looking forward, some of us, to the day where we can go and get our taxes done with people that we trust. Well, these tax collectors in this story are not those guys, okay. They're anything from that. These people were the most hated and despised people in the entire land. I mean, I just can't describe to you enough, how they hated the tax collectors. Tax collectors all worked for the Roman government, and the Roman government really represented a regime that would brutally kill anybody who got in their way. There was no accountability to the regime of the Roman government. If you didn't do what they asked you to do, they'd just kill you and move on. And they would send out the tax collectors to get money, to grow the regime, to make the empire even bigger. And these guys were just crazy, you know? A lotta times, these tax collectors were extremely crooked. And they would go house to house. They would inflate the taxes, and then what they would do is they would take an extra cut off the top for themselves, before they returned what the government had asked them to collect from your family. So you can imagine, they were hated. They were despised. They were considered, among the clientele of the day, the lowest of the low. And then, this separate group, notorious sinners. They would've been the people who had no money. They were the marginalized. They were the prostitutes. They were the people who had disabilities, who couldn't work and be productive for the regime. They were people with diseases. And Jesus was actually associating with the lowest of the low, the tax collectors. And who else really enjoyed coming to hear Jesus teach? Notorious sinners. More than that, Jesus is saying to these people, "I not only associate with you, I value you. My Father, God, values you." And in the background, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they're so upset about it, 'cause they're hurt, right? Now, before we get too hard on these guys, I can almost sympathize with them in some way. I mean, sorta, can't you? I mean, here they are. They've been taught their whole life to keep the religious law. Obviously they're arrogant. It's about who they are and their position. They got a lot of flaws, okay? But they look around and they see Jesus not having anything to do with them. And they see Jesus, with all the titles that they hold, and all the things they're trying to do, in their mind, that's right, and Jesus is actually treating the tax collectors and notorious sinners more valuable than He is the Sadducees and the Pharisees. And they think in their mind, "We're worth so much more than these tax collectors and notorious sinners. And Jesus never hangs out with us." And it just caused so many issues. Jesus hears all this, and it prompts Him to tell this story that I wanna read to you. It's an amazing story. Starts in verse eight. Let's look at it. It's what Jesus, this is Jesus, and He's talking. "Suppose a woman has 10 silver coins, and she loses one. Won't she light a lamp and sweep the entire house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, 'Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost coin.'" And then catch this last verse in the story. "In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels, when even one sinner repents." Now, some of you who may not be believers in Jesus or are watching online today or on TV, you said, "Wait, you're gonna talk about what kinda party God throws, what kinda party Jesus throws? And this is it? You're telling me that Jesus is throwing parties over coins, over a coin collection? And you would say to us, that's the reason we don't ever want you Christian folks to throw parties. We're not interested in antique coins. What are you gonna do next? Bring your stamp collection out, and try to throw a party over the stamp collection? You guys are so boring. " If that's how you think, you sorta missed the whole point here. The important thing to see, the big thing we gotta note, is that God is actually sharing through the Son, Jesus, His heart. He wants us to see the heart of God here. And what He is saying is the lost coin actually is representative of lost people. It's really the translation. That's what Jesus is trying to teach that day, and for us this day. This is about lost people, and He wants the religious folks to understand, "Your mission is not focused on yourself. Your mission, what I came to do, is I want you to go and I want you to reach lost people." That's what the mission is all about. So He says, "Hey, this woman's got 10 coins. If she loses one of these coins, it's like one person is lost. And she drops everything, and she starts searching for the one coin or the one person that's lost." So here's the first thing I want you to get from the story. We notice the coin was lost, but it's not forgotten. It wasn't forgotten. And we gotta pay close attention to this, because we've got things in our life that we've lost, but here's the deal. They're lost because we've forgotten about 'em, right? I mean, we don't think about 'em, and all of a sudden they become lost. Let me give you an example here so you can relate. For example, if you came up to me after the service today and you said, "Hey, Pastor Allen, can I borrow some of your workout equipment? Like, can I borrow that chin-up bar you used to have when you were in high school, and maybe a few of those dumbbells that you used to use, can I borrow those?" I couldn't let you do that. Well, I have no idea where those are. They've been lost. They're forgotten about. I haven't used them in years and years and years. If you couldn't notice, I've fallen off the workout train. But the important thing we see here is that this is not the way God views you. Whether you're here, whether you believe, whether you don't believe, whether you're somewhere in the middle and you're unsure, you gotta see that you are so worth to God that He drops everything for us. And He searches for us right in the moment. You know, it says she had 10, but the moment she realized that one coin was gone, that that one missing coin was worth so much that she dropped everything else. And this is what I want you to understand. To God, you're worth everything to Him. You individually are worth everything to Him. I mean, just, you know, isn't that cool? And turn to the person next to you and just say, "Hey, you're worth it. In God's eyes you're worth it. You are valuable." This is the story that Jesus shows us. It's the heart of God. You aren't forgotten. You are searched after. You know, the word that is used here in the story, that Jesus is associating with notorious sinners and tax collectors, the word that we get, in the English word, in the translation it's association. That's really not a very good translation here, but the picture that Jesus is trying to show us that we get for this association, is we get this picture of Jesus. The real translation is that He is so anxious to find the lost, that He is standing on the tiptoes, the balls of His feet, or if He was seated, He is seated on the edge of His seat, waiting, anticipating, searching for people who are lost. He's scouting them out. He's searching for 'em, looking left and right, trying to find everybody who is lost, because they are that valuable to Him. You're valuable to God. You are not forgotten. And He searches for us, right and left, back and forth, 'cause He wants to find us, so we can experience life with Jesus. You're valuable. Now, I know as we go through life, that sometimes that truth is hard for us to hold onto. I mean, it truly is. And I think in the culture in which we live today, that our value, often we treat it almost like the stock market. You know, some days we feel like our value goes up, and other days we feel like our value goes down. We have some good days here and there and we feel great about it. And then we have some bad days, and we don't feel very good about where we are. And we could have a stretch of several bad days, where maybe we even fall back into that addiction, or something happens where our anxiety and stress rises, ramps up. And you begin to think, "Oh my goodness, I am broken. Huh, I am really messed up here." And the thought that the enemy whispers into your mind is, "If there is a God, there's no way He hasn't walked away from you. Come on, God doesn't care anything about you." If you look at your life and you look at the things you're involved in and the things you're doing, especially on your bad days, right, there's no way God wants to have anything to do with you. He's walked away from you. He's forgotten about you. But guys, the beauty of this story is that God hasn't walked away from you. He's walking toward you. And here's the thing about God. He doesn't see you the same way we see ourselves. God's already said your value is set, right? I mean, it's set. Jesus determined our value when He went to the cross. And when God decided that we were actually worth sending His Son to die for us, when He sent Jesus to die for me and you, our worth was set in God's eyes, and nothing in this world can ever change how valuable God sees you, no amount of bad days, no amount of darkness, no matter how lost you feel. I wanna tell you, God is searching for you. He's not forgotten about you, and He loves you. You have not been forgotten. Rather, He's searching after you. And man, I want us to live in that for just a little bit, because in the culture in which we live, what a stress relief to know that the God who created us sees us as worthy, that He would send His Son to die on our behalf. And He's searching for us. If we're lost, if you're lost today, He's searching for you. Here's the second thing I want you to get from this story. He was willing to search for us, and He wants us to understand, we've not been forgotten. And I don't know how many times I'll say that to you today, but I just want you to get this, 'cause this is exactly what we see in the story. I mean, the moment the coin was recognized as being lost, you know what happens? A search starts, and it's an all-out effort to find this thing. Now, if the coin would've fallen in our house, just so you can put yourself in the perspective, the time that Jesus shares this, the coin would've probably fallen on our hardwood floors, or our granite countertop, or Formica, or whatever you have in your house. Or it would've fallen on our memory foam carpet. And we could probably look down and easily find the coin. And you might dismiss this story. You know, "I don't understand why it's so hard to find the coin." But you gotta understand, in that day, that coin from this lady would've fallen on a dirt floor, that had a lotta dust around it. It would've really been hard work to find it. I mean, she would have to sweep the floor. She would have to light a lamp. She would have to search every nook and cranny to find this thing, because the coin was worth so much to her. The coin hadn't been forgotten. It was worth the search. And she would do everything in her power to find it. Now here's the parallel in this story. The parallel of this woman searching for the coin in darkness, in the dirt, is the same thing is true when God comes searching for us. That's how much He values in this search for us. That's what Jesus did, when He came. And if you're unsure about what the ministry of Jesus looked like when He came to planet Earth, this is exactly what Jesus did, over and over and over. Just like this woman swept the floors and lit a lamp and looked for the lost coin. That is what Jesus did His entire ministry. Jesus went from town to town, city to city, sweeping the streets, going from house to house, letting everyone know there was a truth that they had not been forgotten, that they could be found, and they could experience life with Jesus. You know, they were actually being searched for all the time. They were being valued by Him. Now here's the last thing I want you to get from this story. When God was going into the darkness, okay, God was looking for the people who said, "We have no value." God was actually looking through the person of Jesus, the people who felt like they were at the bottom of society. When you look at who Jesus hung with most of the time, it was the marginalized people. It was really the broken people. It was the people who were the notorious sinners, right? And matter of fact, God says, "I'm gonna come to live within the margins." That's where Jesus comes. He wanted to erase the margins altogether. "I'm gonna erase these margins," because with Jesus, there are no longer titles. There's no longer good and bad. With Jesus, they're just simply lost and found. That's the way it is in the kingdom of Jesus. And thank Jesus He sent a search party for me, right? This is awesome. And thank Jesus, if you know Him. He sent a search party for you, that God was willing to go into all of that for me and for you. We haven't been forgotten. You gotta hear that, church. We have not been forgotten by our God. And I want to go there for a second with this picture of a search party. I mean, it's something we can all relate to, right? That's when we see this image of people who are searching. When you think about God, searching from house to house and looking for those who are lost, this idea of a search party and a lotta you know what that picture represents. Maybe at some point in your past, you've actually been a part of a search party. If you haven't been a part of one, you've definitely seen search parties on the news, right? I mean, when something goes missing and all of a sudden the whole community rallies, and there's a search party that forms, because someone has been lost that is of great value, and something has gone horribly wrong. Maybe when a little child gets lost, and what do communities do? They send out a search party. And you know how search party, I mean, man, they go through hay fields. They go through deep woods and thickets and briars. They sweep every piece of the ground. When nighttime comes, they light lamps and they hold those lights in the middle of the night, and they don't stop when the sun goes down, because what is missing is too valuable to forget. They sweep the landscape. They go look over and over and over again. That is what a search party is all about. Everybody's sorta holding their breath until they find the person who's missing. And when we get to what this story represents, you know, it's not just a woman looking for a lost coin. It is people. And it is people that God is searching for. It is the heart of God. He is searching for those that are lost. It's just sorta what we see, that God actually is leading the search party. God's out there on the front lines, leading the search party. He would be the Light. God's the One who's going into the darkness. He's going to the places of brokenness. God would go and sweep the streets from town to town, letting everybody know that they were valuable to Him, just as they were. And He wouldn't stop there. Jesus would go into the darkest place that we have created for our own selves, our one enemy that we cannot conquer. It is death. And yet Jesus walks into the face of death, and defeats death. I think when we see what He's able to do and how He overcame death, it's pretty incredible that even in our darkest season of death, Jesus Christ brings hope and light. Now here's the deal. Thank Jesus that a search party was sent for me and sent for you. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever actually thanked God that He searched for you, and if you know Him, that He found you? And now that we're there, can you picture what God wants us to do? He now wants us to be the search party, 'cause people scoured through the thickets, and all the briars and all the craziness that we might have allowed ourselves to get into. But Jesus persisted, and people searched, and through their love for us, we were able to be found and follow Jesus. You know, the Scripture tells us exactly the response of God. Notice what the Scripture says here when she finds the coin, says, "And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and her neighbors and say, 'Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost coin.'" And catch this. "In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels, even when one sinner repents." You know, think about a block party that Jesus throws. This is what Heaven's all about, right? When one lost person is found, that causes Jesus to throw a party. So I can only imagine what Heaven is like, because people are coming into His kingdom day after day, moment after moment. And it's like one party after another party. All Heaven rejoices. And what causes Heaven to rejoice is when one lost person comes to faith in Jesus Christ. Man, you know? So who's the search party today? Here's really the question. What does God celebrate? What brings God to the point of throwing a party? God celebrates you. He celebrates you. And here's the deal, church. Now we're the search party, it's us. He has left this awesome privilege for us to go into the towns and the cities and the thickets and the briar patches and into the darkness and the brokenness of where people are living today, with no hope, and feel like they've been forgotten. And yet we're the search party, because we found light in the midst of our darkness. If you wanna make Jesus throw a party, you help Him on the mission to help others experience life with Jesus. It's what we're about at Highlands, man. We're on a search party. It's not about us. If we're in the party and we're already found, then now our job is to get outside of these walls and go to those places where Jesus went, where the tax collectors and the notorious sinners are, and value these people. That is the mission of Jesus. So church, here's the deal. "You," Jesus says, "You go, you go, you go." And then when you go, just trust that He's gonna allow you to be a part of His search party, to find those who need His hope and His light. There is nothing better than to share the hope and the light of Jesus. You know, it was interesting. I was down at a school groundbreaking ceremony, and I was talking to the principal at Van Pelt, Jared Rader. And he said, "You know, this morning," he said, "the governor's coming." He said, "It's a big deal. New school, 50 years." And he said, "You know, I, trying to get everything ready so that we could be great hosts for all of our guests." And he said, "All of a sudden, as I'm getting everything ready, a lady comes up, drives up. And she said, 'Hey, you know, I remember you, and you were, you came to my neighborhood, and you shared, when your church was doing a Love Week, you shared a meal with us, and you shared hope with us. And man, you guys served us in this little community.' And she said, 'You know, I actually attended church after that a few times.' And she said, 'You know, I hadn't seen you, and COVID,'" and all this kinda stuff. And so Jared's saying, "Man, I'm going around trying to get everything ready. And you know, I'm on a mission." And he said, "I happened to think, 'You know what? God has sent somebody right in my path today, that is asking me about the hope and the light of Jesus.'" And he said, "I stopped everything. I thought, 'Hey, the governor's gotta wait. The governor's gotta wait.'" And he said, "I shared the hope of Jesus." And he said, "I shared the light of Jesus with this lady." And he said, "We prayed together, and cried together a little bit." And he said, "It was probably my most important meeting of the day, to be able to share the hope of Jesus." Guys, we're all on a search party. And when God brings people our way, don't dismiss it. But trust, and God's gonna use you to be His hope and His light in the lives of people He brings to us. I trust you'll do that. Let's go search in God's party, and let's cause Him to celebrate. Would you pray with me? Lord, thank You so much for all that You're doing in and through our church. God, I'm grateful that a search party was sent for me, and in my sinfulness and brokenness and darkness, I was found. And Lord, You did that. Your grace, You saved me. And Lord, I'm thankful for people to use. It's pretty incredible, but God, at the same time now, as a saved part of the family of God, I'm in Your search party. And God, if I wanna make You throw a party, then I have been commissioned to go out and share the hope and the light of Jesus to the brokenness and to the darkness, and to all the things that are in our world that have bound people from knowing You. And so God, help us as a church just to understand we're on a mission from You. We're part of a search team, and God, may we be relentless just like You. May we be standing on the balls of our feet, on the edge of our seat, because we're looking to and fro, of the people that You're giving us the ability to earn some trust with, and we could eventually share Your hope and light. If you're here today, and you're lost, you're watching on TV, or you're listening online, you're one of our other locations, I would just say, it's not coincidence that you're here, that you're listening. You've been a part of people who have been searching for you and praying for you. And I want you to understand, God sees you not forgotten. He sees you valuable today. And I just wonder right now, right now, that you might invite Jesus into your life and experience His hope and His joy. He can take your darkness and exchange it for His light. And if that's you, would you just simply say, "Jesus, I wanna trade this. I wanna trade this life I've been living. And God, I wanna ask You to come into my heart today, and save me from my sin. Today I repent, and I ask You, God, to cover me and to heal me and to cleanse me. And I surrender my life to you." And hey, if you made that prayer today yours, I pray that right there as you listen online, just touch that little raised hand button, click on it, and we'll celebrate with you. You've just caused all Heaven to throw a party on your behalf. If you're at one of our locations, grab somebody on your way out today, and we all rejoice with you. Man, we love you, and we look forward to what God's gonna do with you in the days ahead. Lord, I thank You again for just all the things that happened during Love Week. May we continue to live in Love Week every day as a child of Yours, and in Your name we pray, amen.