Christ's Object Lessons - Chapter 15: This Man Receives Sinners

Pastor David Asscherick is joined by Tanya Sandoval to discuss Chapter 15 of Ellen White's Christ's Object Lessons, which examines the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin from Luke 15. David and Tanya explore how these parables reveal God's relentless search and rescue mission for every lost soul. They emphasize that each person has infinite value in God's eyes—whether they recognize their lost condition like the bleating sheep, or remain oblivious like the silent coin. The discussion highlights how Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them, demonstrating that salvation comes not through our seeking after God, but through God's seeking after us. David and Tanya encourage listeners to participate in God's rescue operation by staying close to wandering family members and extending grace to those who may seem unpromising or unattractive, remembering that Christ would have died for even one.

Guest: Tanya Sandoval
Scripture References: Luke 15:1-10
Covers: Chapter 15: This Man Receives Sinners
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBRbdELHflE
Light Bearers

Transcript

Greeting and Announcements

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Hey everybody and welcome to With DA and this time with DA and T S. What is your name, young lady? I am Tanya Sandoval. I can call you young lady because you're younger than me. That's right. I am. Yeah, you're like still in your 30s.

unknown 0:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Or is in the 40s. Uh Tanya, so great to have you here. This is what it looks like when people are signing on, so we can greet some people. You'll be familiar with some of these people. Yes. Uh we will introduce Tanya in just a little bit. She is a with DA regular. Yes. A regular. We'll get to meet you in just a moment. From the beginning. Yep. Uh let's see. Uh 303 Syzygy says hello, David and Tanya. Stefan says, hello, good evening. Happy Sabbath. Victor Mills design says, yo, happy Sabbath from New York. Hey, we had some good pizza tonight. Oh, we have amazing pizza. It was good pizza. I'm not sure if it was New York good, but it was good. It's Colorado good. Bless Chuck Seven. Hello. Brent says, hi, Tanya. Hi. Good to see you. Hi, Brent. Dashalicious says hi. Cassandra says good evening. I said Deb too. Hi, Deb. Pastor Stewart. Love you, brother. I just followed you today on Instagram because I didn't know you were on there. So as soon as it came up and recommended you, I followed you tonight. So let's see. Stefan says, sorry I missed last night. Franktown in the house. Happy Sabbath. Happy Sabbath. Deb is there. Hello, Deb. Says hello to Michelle. Hello, Adi Suarez. Love you. Stefan says he wants pizza. Well, here's an idea, Stefan. Why don't you come out here to Colorado? Why don't you do a with DA with me and eat some of my pizza? How about that? How about that's a standing invitation? Wannabe Tomato Farmer says pizza sounds good now? It was good. Oh, amazing. Give it a what? How about one to ten?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Ten. Ten out of ten. You're going straight to 10. 15. Whoa. Whoa. Yeah. And the crust was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

The crust is the dough is perfect, right? Like the violet has got the down. I'm telling you, we're locked and loaded over here. All right. Greetings, everybody. We are so glad that you are here. Sprinter Nash Nation and the Imitation. Sprinter Nation and the Imitation. Do a poll of how many people you have influenced to crave pizza in the last two weeks. Sorry about that. Nicholas Smith says, I want some pineapple pizza, David. We haven't done any pineapple pizza yet. I know that in some people's minds. Oh, look, Evan Sandoval. Hey, babe. That is Tanya's boyfriend. Yes. AKA husband.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

I know that some people say no to pineapple pizza, but I'm not too. I mean, I don't know. I'm open to it.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I've never tried it.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Never tried it?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yes, I've I'm adventurous enough. We'll try it. We'll try it. We had pear and fig tonight.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

That was that was really good. Hello, Christian. Hello, New Zealand in the house. Oh, yeah. We have a number of people asking about the the dough recipe. And Tanya can testify. I said to Violeta today, Violetta, you need to come on, even if it's just for five minutes, and explain the dough recipe and how you do, because there's a couple little tricks.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

And what did Violetta say? Nope. She said she wasn't excited about it. No, I think I can talk her into it. I think you can. I think I can talk her into it. All right. Welcome everybody. We are so glad that you are here. Lots of people signing on. Happy Sabbath. Gabby Abbey says hello, all happy Sabbath. CJCPD says hello. I missed it. Happy Sabbath, I think it was. Nicholas Smith says, it's amazing. I'm a fanatic for pineapple pizza. Pineapple pizza is very good, says Flory Lynn. Cassandra says pineapple is a yes. Perrin fig. Let's go. We had that tonight, Stefan. It was out of this world. Pizza without pineapple isn't pizza. Whoa. Little did we know. I think we need to try it. Well, we're going to have to try it. All right. Welcome everybody. We are super duper glad that you are here. Welcome to those of you that are tuning in on YouTube and those of you, of course, live on Instagram. I'm going to let you know right now, we are going to be two hours early tomorrow. Two hours early. So we're normally 7 p.m. or 7 p.m. Mountain Time, which is our local time here, 9 p.m. Eastern Time. Tomorrow we're going to be two hours early. So 7 p.m. Eastern Time. I'll put this up on my Instagram as well. I know that some people are going to say and they didn't hear me say it. I'm going to say it again at the end. Okay. So two hours early tomorrow, 7 p.m. Eastern time. Tanya, welcome to with DA. Thank you. Not that I really need to welcome you. You're like a regular. That's right. But you're normally on the other side of the camera. And now what does it feel like to be on this side of the camera?

SPEAKER_00 4:32

A little nervous. But uh we're friends. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

You've been in this house many times before. Yes. So you don't have to worry about this. No nervousness. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about uh you when did you start the with DA?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

When you started with uh DA would take it.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

So you've been with us since 2021.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

Um have you done all of them? All of them. But have you followed along live most of the time? Do you want to do this?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

No, most of the time, Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

That is so awesome. I am so happy. It's so great to have you're hooked. I'm hooked. Right there. It's so great to have Tanya because she's a regular and she has a very cool husband. His name is Evan. He was just on here a moment ago. And Tanya, where do you live? Because you drove here today.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yes. I live in Nebraska.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

You live in Nebraska? Yeah. Um, kind of over on the eastern side of the state, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Kind of in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Okay, so central Nebraska. Yeah. Is that where you're from?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

No. I I'm from everywhere. You're from everywhere. Okay. I was born in Africa and we were missionaries and you're French, right? Yeah. Lived in France and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

You speak French. I do. You love it. So how did a French girl born in Africa end up in Nebraska? There's the question.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

That's a very good question. Um when my parents ended up in Michigan, and my best friend and I decided that we wanted to see the world.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

And somehow Nebraska felt like the world.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

The only person to ever say that in the history of the universe. Nebraska felt like the world.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

I never had never been, went to Union College. Oh, you went to Union? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Is that where you met Evan?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Yep. That's where I met Evan.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

And was it love at first sight?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Um no, it wasn't, but it was friendship and that's what matters anyway.

SPEAKER_03 6:16

That's what really matters.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

We had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 6:18

Um and you have children?

SPEAKER_00 6:19

We have two children, Isabella and James. And I think Isabella was going to try to sign off.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Okay. Hello, Isabella. Hope you're here. Um and how old are your kids? Twenties?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Twenty-six and twenty four.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Okay, so you're younger than me, but your kids are older than me. Yeah. So you got started a little earlier.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

And professionally you are a I'm a nurse. You're a nurse.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

I'm a nurse educator.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Oh, a nurse educator. What does a nurse educator do?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Well, I work in a hospital and so I teach um other nurses. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Um you're literally teaching nurses how to nurse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

On all the floors or just some of the floors?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

My background is more labor and delivery. Oh, good for you. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's great. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Have you have you been present for a thousand births?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

No, not quite.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Five hundred.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Yeah, I'm not. That five hundred. I had two friends that were OBGYNs toward the end of their life, and I asked them how many births they'd been present for, and I think one of them said he he knew. It was like 9,800.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

They usually count them, right? I stopped counting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Tanya, we are super duper glad that you are here. Uh welcome to with DA. Now you've prepared for chapter 16, right? Yes. No, chapter 15. I was at two. I was hoping you were going to have a little panic there. Let's say, no, no, we're on six and five.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

I did actually prepare for 16 and then switched to the channel.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Oh, so you would have been fine.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Yeah. Okay. So we're in chapter 15 tonight. This is going to be the first uh because tomorrow night we'll be in chapter 16, which is the parable of the prodigal son. And tonight we're going to be looking at the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin. And I think that's what is the chapter called? It's called This Man Receives Sinners. Sinners, yeah. And it's going to be great. You told me you have four pages of notes. Yeah, I hope I don't get one of the things. How about this, Tanya? Would you just like to lead out and I'll just I'm I'm happy to just hear what the Lord has given to you. Uh nope, nope. I'm following your notes. Let me see your notes. So there's pay Wow. Wow. Okay. We're we've got a lot to cover tonight. Tanya, thank you so much for coming. Yes, thank you. And I'm super happy you're here. And if you don't mind, you can have opening prayer for us. Okay. Okay.

Prayer

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Arnhem Father, thank you so much for for the Sabbath day and this opportunity to meet together and to worship together and learn more about you, your love for us, and and um and tonight we are learning about how you are in the business of search and rescue. Yeah, there we go. So excited to learn more about your deep, incredible, amazing love for us. And please guide our thoughts and our minds and be with those who have uh been able to join us tonight and uh help uh bless our hearts and and give us the wisdom and understanding that you intended for us to research. Amen.

Discussion

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Amen. Beautiful, beautiful. So, what's your nervous level one to ten?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

It's gone down. It's like a two, right? Yeah, it's gone down. Yeah, you're yeah, you make me feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna start as we often do by just reading through the two parables. Okay. So this is Luke chapter 15. We'll begin in verse 1. If you don't mind, you can read in the NIV, and then I'll read in uh NT Rights Translation.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Okay, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. Then Jesus told them this parable. Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, Rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not repent. Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one, doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, Rejoice with me. I have found my lost coin. In the same way I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

You're a really good reader.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Oh, thank you. Oh, it's great.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

Yeah, really confident. Good reader. Okay. All right, now in uh NT Wright's translation, let's see what it says. Uh Luke chapter 15, beginning in verse 1. All the tax collectors and sinners were coming close to listen to Jesus. The Pharisees and the legal experts were grumbling. This fellow welcomes sinners, they said. He even eats with them. So Jesus told them this parable. Supposing one of you has a hundred sheep, he said, and you lose one of them, what will you do? Why, you'll leave the ninety-night out in the countryside, and you'll go off looking for the lost one until you find it. And when you find it, you'll be so happy, you'll put it on your shoulders and go home. And you'll call your friends and neighbors in. Come and have a party, you'll say, Celebrate with me. I found my lost sheep. Well, let me tell you, that's how glad they will be in heaven over one sinner who repents. Amen? Amen. Oh, come on. More than over 99 righteous people who don't need repentance. Or supposing a woman has ten drachmas and loses one of them, what will she do? Why she'll light a lamp and sweep the house and hunt carefully until she finds it. And when she finds it, she'll call her friends and neighbors in. Come and have a party, she'll say, Celebrate with me, I have found my lost coin. Well, let me tell you, that's how glad God's angels feel when a single sinner repents. It's thrilling. That's awesome. It's a little bit like the parable that we had a couple nights ago, uh, the the Pharisee and the tax collector, how they go to the temple to pray. And at one level, you don't even need to say anything. Right? It's like no comment needed, but then at another level, you just want to dig in.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Right? And obviously you've done that. You've got pages and pages of notes.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah, we'll see how much I get through.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

And I loved what you said in your prayer, by the way, the search and rescue operation. That's what I titled this um this chapter, Search and Rescue Mission. Search and Rescue Mission. I really like that. All right, I'm gonna open my computer here. Search and Rescue Mission, and we're in, just for everybody there, we're in chapter 15, This Man Receives Sinners. We're gonna start, as we often do. Um, let's just read through a few paragraphs here because the this breaks up really easily into really two parts the parable of the lost sheep and then the parable of the lost coin. And she spends most of the time on the parable of the lost sheep. Yes. Is there one or the other uh that kind of speaks to you, or did you find them equally sort of interesting and appealing?

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Um, the lost sheep seem to speak to me more. I have a lot more uh research and notes on the lost sheep.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Okay. Um I felt the same.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

I like the way you mark. Looks great. You have nice handwriting. Okay. Um so let's do this. Let's um I'll just start by reading a little bit, and then if you have any comments, that'll be great. In fact, why don't I read that short little paragraph and then you read the second longer paragraph? Okay. It says as the tax collectors and sinners gathered around Christ, the rabbis expressed their displeasure. This man receives sinners, they said, and eats with them. Okay? Next paragraph.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

By this accusation, they insinuated that Christ liked to associate with the sinful and vile and was insensible to their wickedness. The rabbis had been disappointed in Jesus. Why was it that one claimed so lofty a character did not mingle with them and follow their methods of teaching? Why did he go around so unpretendingly working among all classes? If he were a true prophet, they said, he would harmonize with them and would treat the publicans and sinners with the indifference they deserved. It angered these guardians of society that he with whom they were continually in controversy, yet whose purity of life awed and condemned them, should meet in such apparent sympathy with social outcasts. They did not approve of his methods. They regarded themselves as educated, refined, and preeminently religious. But Christ's example laid bare their selfishness.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

Okay, there's already a lot here. Yes. Um let me just make a couple observations, and I'm really keen to see if you've got anything in these first two paragraphs here. First of all, I love the fact that she once again uses this adjective to describe Jesus unpretendingly. Right. She's done this several times, and I think we would say today, like unpretentious. Right. Like there's no airs about Jesus. There's no like, hey, this is the cool kids' table, this is the cool kids club, you're not really welcome here. He's totally accessible. We would say today he's real.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Real He's real.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

He's genuine. Like it just felt like he was the kind of person that even if you were sinful, you could go into his presence and you wouldn't be condemned. And then I'm I don't want to get into this, but in the next paragraph, she says something absolutely amazing. So I love the unpretendingly. And then I also really liked this idea that Jesus is inviting the seemingly, you know, she calls them here social outcasts, the undesirables, to the table. And this, especially in first as first century context, this like table fellowship was, you know, to eat with somebody like we ate together today. We eat together today, and and Violet was there. And to do that is kind of like you're you're sharing, there's a level playing field, there's a level table, you're sharing food, you're laughing, it's very intimate, it's very social. And there's a kind of a fundamental equality in sharing a meal like that. Nobody's above, nobody's below. And so the idea here is that they are angered, they're incensed, they're confused, they're mystified. Why is this guy happily apparently going right into the presence of these social outcasts, and they seem to get along pretty well?

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

I just think it's such a beautiful picture.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

It is. And and because you can see the contrast, I mean, they feel like he should be up here with them and not down there with those lowly people and unclean. You got it. They don't even want to associate themselves with it. Um, when I was researching some of the stuff, they weren't even allowing them into the synagogues. Right. But it said that sometimes they didn't even want to preach the gospel or preach the word to them because they didn't feel that they were important enough. And then a rabbi who, you know, is is um supposed to be a man of of the law, a man of the word, right, you know, is totally going against what they have been doing.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

You got it. And I think they almost feel like in the first century there's this whole notion of like social contamination and like ritual contamination, so that if you are in proximity to an undesirable, ungodly person who's not following Torah or practicing Torah, then you could get some residual condemnation or contamination rather on you. And so, but Jesus never gives any there's not even the slightest notion that Jesus pays any attention to this notion of social contamination, because he touches a leper, he sits with a Sumerian woman at the well, he affirms a Roman centurion, and then here all the wrong people are Jesus, and he's totally happy to mingle with them.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

And don't you think that they're coming to him to mingle because they feel like he sees them?

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

They feel like I I am worthy in his eyes. I mean, I can imagine being around Jesus, you would just be attracted naturally to him, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:03

I'm so glad you said that because Tanya, if we're reading this book or the Bible, and our sense is Jesus is attractive, and anybody and everybody would feel comfortable in his presence, like then we're reading it right. Right. Because even the children were drawn to him. People flocked to him, to use Ellen White's word. She they thronged him because he was interesting, he was curious, and he was so different than the religious leaders of the day. And I love that last line there, uh, the last sentence there. They regarded themselves as educated, refined, and preeminently religious. But Christ's example laid bare their selfishness. Well, his example of what? Of freely mingling with the so-called outcasts of society. And when they say, you know, why isn't that one that claims so lofty a character and why would he behave so unpretendingly? They literally are mystified by his actions because, and I've said it this way before, they're mystified by his movements because they don't understand his motivations.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

If they knew what his motivations were to seek and to save the lost, they would have better understood his actions. So when they say, why, why, why, they're genuinely mystified that a religious man would behave in such a magnanimous and welcoming way toward social outcasts.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Right. Exactly. They don't under I mean they did that when he was with uh Matthew, they did that when he was with Zach.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

You got it. You got it.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

I mean, they they still don't get it. Um they just want to be seen as the elite.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

You got it.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

And um they don't they don't understand why people are more interested in what Jesus has to say.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

No, your point is such a great one. They literally don't get it. It's it's it's it's not even that they're bad people, they are captive to their human traditions and to their raminical ways of viewing reality, and they literally are mystified by Jesus' actions. They don't get it. This is like a man riding a unicycle with a big, you know, uh, you know, red uh clown nose on and a you know toirly cap or something. They're like, what they're like, what are you doing? Yeah like they just they can't make sense of it, but again, they don't understand his movements because they don't understand his motivations.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

No.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Right? Okay, now I love uh paragraph three and angered them. Uh why don't you read that for us?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

It angered them also that those who showed only contempt for the rabbis and who were never seen in the synagogues should flock around Jesus and listen with rapt attention. I love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Rapt attention. You made the point there that they didn't go to the synagogues. Right. And we could say, well, they didn't go to the synagogues because they're bad people and they're not interested. Or they were not allowed to go in the synagogues. They were unwelcome in the synagogues. Okay, yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

The scribes and Pharisees felt only condemnation in that pure presence. How was it then that publicans and sinners were drawn to Jesus?

SPEAKER_03 20:51

To me, that that little section there is the whole, in a way, it's the whole relationship that Jesus had with first century Judaism. There's this paradox that the unclean and the ungodly feel totally comfortable in his presence. She asked, how was it then that the publicans and sinners were drawn to Jesus, but the religious people felt condemned in his presence? I mean, this is this is very much the parable that we just had two chapters ago, chapter 13, about the two worshippers. Right. Right? Like one is responding out of self-sufficiency, the other out of self-doubt. And what happens is when these preeminently religious people get into the presence of Jesus, they see what a real religious person looks like, and they're like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

And I think it makes them more aware of their heart posture.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

And you nailed it 100%. Yeah. And one of the things that that she actually teases out in this chapter, and we should probably say this right early on. Let me just change something here. Yeah, okay, I did that. Um one of the things that she that she teases out here is that this idea of a Shepherd and sheep is not a novel idea or a new idea. We find this in the Old Testament. We see it, she quotes it in Ezekiel 34, also obviously Psalm 23. So if they really are religious leaders, they should be sensitive to the wayfaring, wandering, washed sheep. But they're not. And that's really the sad thing. And so when they see Jesus doing it, I can just imagine the inner voice of conscience is saying to them, He's right about this. Yeah. Like this is what you should be doing.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Moses was a shepherd.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

You gotta.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Abraham was a shepherd. Jacob was a shepherd. David, I mean you would think that they would see.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

You think it would register.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

No.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Okay, look at the next one here. They did not know that the explanation lay in the very words they had uttered as a scornful charge. This man receives sinners, right? They're telling, they're saying the very good news, but they think it's they think it's a bad accusation. An accusation. The soul who comes to Jesus felt in his presence that even for them there was escape from the pit of sin. I love that. The Pharisees had only scorn and condemnation for them, but Christ greeted them as children of God. And I love this. This is one of my favorite lines in the whole paragraph, and the whole chapter, excuse me, estranged indeed from the Father's house, but not forgotten by the Father's heart. I mean, that first of all, that's great writing.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

And second of all, that's incredible theology.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Right? Like they're not coming to the synagogue. They're not, you know, people like the Samaritans, the tax collectors, these people here, the sinners. They're not in the religious circles, but that doesn't mean that they are estranged from the heart of God. Woo!

SPEAKER_00 23:40

It's powerful.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

It's just so good. And it really captures how religion can be quite a religion can be quite a tricky thing because it can actually be something that insulates us from God. One of my favorite things that Ty says often is that religion is one of the best places to hide from God. And, you know, the religious leaders here, now Papua, let's just make this point, and she's going to make this point herself. Many of these religious leaders, some significant percentage, actually end up becoming believers in Jesus after the resurrection. But at this point, they're so blinded by their traditions and by their sort of sense of hierarchy that they just can't see it. They're mystified by Jesus movements.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

They have a sense of pride that they just cannot see beyond themselves.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

You got it right. And they see the world hierarchically, where Jesus sees the world, as you said, and I love it, as a rescue mission. Right? They're seeing like their strata here, like we're at the top, and then and you're always trying to move up. Right? That's this honor-based society, this shame-based, honor-based, shame-based culture that Jesus is living in in first century. Judaism is one in which you never want to go down the sort of social strata. You always want to try to go up. So this is mystifying to them what Jesus is doing because he's a rabbi. He has this beautiful pure affect and way about him, but then he's mingling with the undesirables. And it looks like it's a bad PR move.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Right, Leo? What's he doing now with the wrong people? Doesn't he know he's supposed to be going upward, not downward?

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Yeah. And do you think there was some somebody mentioned in the comments that there was some jealousy, you know? Oh. I mean, people weren't flocking to Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Go ahead and keep going.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

And but they weren't flocking to the Pharisees. They were flock flocking to them. And to listen to their wisdom and everything, they were actually relating more to Jesus than they were.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

No, this is a great point.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

To the Pharisees. Yeah, this is a great point. To the leaders of the religion.

SPEAKER_03 25:41

Some of what's going on there is what we would just call today like professional jealousy.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Right? Like all these people are because large crowds had been following John, and then now large crowds are following Jesus. And they all are like, what is going on here? What's the attraction? And the attraction was, just to put it very simply, Jesus was attractive. Exactly. The attraction was he was attractive, he was accessible. Um, okay, so I'm gonna turn the page unless you've got anything more on 219. You got anything there? You're happy? Okay, so then now, this is our last paragraph where she sort of sets up the telling of the parable. Why don't you read that for us? All this, the teachers of Israel. So it starts actually on the previous page, bottom page two nineteen.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Through the end?

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

All this the teachers of Israel might have learned from the sacred scrolls, of which it was their pride to be the keepers and expounders. Had not David written, David, who had fallen into deadly sin, I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek your servant. Psalms 119, 176. Had not Micah revealed God's love to the sinner, saying, Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in mercy. Micah 718. I love that. Delights in mercy.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

Yeah. Yeah, God doesn't just reluctantly make us the beneficiaries of his mercy, it brings him joy. Yeah. And joy is one of the major themes of this whole both of these parables, the whole chapter, rejoicing, joy, happiness. I found the sheep, I found the coin, and God here takes delight or joy in bestowing mercy on those that are undeserving. Right? And this is totally a foreign idea to, and and it's really kind of important to bear in mind that the Jesus, numerous times in the Gospels, Jesus will critique the religious leaders for not knowing their own scriptures. And that's the point she's making here in this paragraph, right? Like, for example, in in I think it's Matthew chapter 9, Jesus says at the feast of Levi Matthew, he says to the religious leaders, go learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Well, he's quoting here from the Old Testament, right? Go learn what this means. He's inviting them to go back and read their own text. And this happens numerous times in the Gospels, where Jesus invites them to consider their own sacred text and ask themselves, are you really understanding what you're reading?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

And what you're preaching, because what they're reading is what what they're preaching to. What they're preaching to others. You've got exactly right. Paul, the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2 will later say that he had to die. Through the law, I died to the law that I might live to God. In other words, Paul is saying here, I had to go unlearn my own ancestral faith and traditions in order to have my eyes open. Right. That's this Christ-centered understanding of Torah and the Old Testament and the prophets. A total switch for that. A total switch. And and they're unprepared for that. Now, again, after the resurrection, as we're going to see, many will become believers, but at this point, what they see, and I love your point, is just kind of a jealousy. They're like, hey, why is this guy getting the crowds? He's not even saying things that are really interesting. He's hanging out with the wrong people. They're mystified by it all. Okay, then he actually tells the parable. And uh Ellen White makes a really cool point here that he doesn't like berape them with their scriptures and with their lack of knowledge about their scriptures. He just appeals to them. He gives them kind of an existential question: like, hey, here's a scenario, a very common scenario, lots of shepherds. This was a subsistence, agrarian society and culture. And he then appeals to them in a way that every one of them is now kind of on, you know, it's it's up to them to make the decision how they would relate to the circumstance. And he tells the parable of the 100 sheep and the one that is lost. Which, by the way, we should say that that these numbers, 100 and 99, these were like proverbial numbers in the days of Jesus. They were often used to sort of say it doesn't have to be exactly 100, but a large number, right? And for Jesus to say there was a man that had 100 sheep, he's probably a reasonably wealthy shepherd, maybe not like Abraham level wealthy, but he has a flock, a large flock. And it kind of doesn't make a lot of economic sense, but a shepherd is endeared to his sheep. We're going to talk more about this a little bit. So let's get into the parable itself, um, which we've already read. So if you don't mind, just read us that paragraph on the uh sort of middle of page 220.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Okay. Christ did not at this time remind his hearers of the words of scripture. He appealed to the witness of their own experience. The widespreading table lands on the east of Jordan afforded abundant pasture, pasturage for flocks, and through the gorges and over the wooded hills, and had wandered many a lost sheep to be searched for and brought back by the shepherds' care. In the company around Jesus, there were shepherds, there you go, and also men who had money invested in flocks and herds, and all could appreciate his illustration.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Yeah, so it's a common thing.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

They all can relate to the earth.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Right, just like just like follow me and I'll make you fishes of men. The kingdom of heaven is like a sower that went forth to sow. These are all accessible things. And I love what she highlights here. What man of you? Mm-hmm. So he's literally putting the question right to the religious leaders that are critiquing him. Right. He's like, what man of you having a hundred sheep if he loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one, which is lost until he finds it.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

So, so the pointed question here is designed to get them thinking in ways that are consistent with the way that Jesus is thinking about reality.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:35

That there's lost people and they're not going to be able to do it. What are you doing about it? You're the shepherds, you're the religious leaders, you view yourselves, as she says, as preeminently religious. What would you do? Well, the obvious comparison is you would do this for your sheep, but what about these sheep? Yeah. It's really beautiful and it's very strategic, smart, right? Just to put it right to them. Okay, let me read the next paragraph. These souls whom you despise, said Jesus, are the property of God. By creation and by redemption, they are his. They are of value in his sight. As the shepherd loves his sheep and cannot rest, if even one be missing, so in an infinitely higher degree does God love every outcast soul. Men may lay main men may deny the claim of his love, they may wander from him, they may choose another master. Yet they are gods. And he longs to recover his own. He says, as a shepherd, and how she quotes from one of the best known shepherd passages in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 34, quoting there, it says, As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day. All right, so the the parable again, Tanya, it doesn't require a lot of thinking because it's so straightforward and obvious the point. But what I love about this paragraph, and I'm sure you saw it as well, is four times, four times in this paragraph, she alludes or she says that the sinner, the wayward sinner, is God's property. Yeah. Okay, so number one, they are the property of God, right at the top, first sentence. And then number two, look at this. This is the second sentence. By creation and redemption, they are his. Then she says, they may choose another master, number three, yet they are God's. And then finally, and he longs to recover his own. So four times she makes it very clear that even though they are wayward, even though in some sense they are rebellious, they are estranged from the father's house, though not from his heart, God still sees them as his property. These are if if a shepherd loses one of his sheep, it doesn't cease to be his property. Right. He wants to go recover it because it belongs to him. Yes. He has a he's a stakeholder, he wants that sheep back. Right? Yes, I agree. And one thing that I really like to think about too is I mean, my father-in-law, Violet's dad, was a shepherd when he was very young, like eight to twelve years old, wandering around the the hills of Romania as a shepherd boy, didn't even have shoes on his feet. And I should ask him sometime how large his flocks were. It'd be interesting to know. But I was thinking about this as somebody who's not a shepherd myself. I I guess you would know every one of your sheep. Have you seen the the David movie? No, not yet. Oh, yeah, yeah. We we just uh bought it the other day. And one of the really cute things, if you haven't seen it, it is quite endearing. But one of the really cute things in the film is that they paint David as knowing every single one of his sheep. And he has names for all of them, which I guess kind of makes sense because I imagine if you're looking out at a group of sheep, 99 looks a lot like a hundred.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

So the only way you would know if one was missing is if you knew your sheep individually. Yeah. Right. And so to me, this is already strongly suggestive of the attention that God has to every soul. Because 99 is gonna look a lot like a hundred, and a negligent shepherd or an inattentive shepherd is just gonna look like you've got everybody. But if you're missing one, right, that little sheep, little marigold or whatever it is, right? You're missing that one sheep, you're like, wait a minute, where's marigold? And then all of a sudden, and she uses this word a couple times, anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Yes, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:30

You get this like anxiety, like where is I need to find my little marigold? Yep. Right? Okay, you got anything else there in any of those paragraphs? Um anything that jumped out at you? Or anything in your notes?

SPEAKER_00 35:43

I've been uh no, it's on the next one that I have.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

Okay, on the next paragraph? Yeah. Okay, let me read it. In the parable, the shepherd goes out to search for one sheep, the very least that can be numbered. So if there had been but one lost soul, Christ would have died for that one. Incredible. Yeah. She makes that point again at the end of the chapter. Okay, so you got something there?

SPEAKER_00 36:04

So it it just it just points out kind of like going off of what you were saying with knowing that one sheep, knowing Marigold, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

It's it's personal. Oh it's a personal relationship. Thank you. And when you have a personal relationship with God, he sees you and only you. Yeah. Even though he's there for everyone, you feel that intimacy with him.

SPEAKER_03 36:26

Extremely well said.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

And and so if there had been only one, if it had only been me, only someone else, he would have died.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

Your little marigold. Yeah, they would have saved me. It's just one of the great things that C.S. Lewis says is he makes this really great point where he says that and I might have made this point when Jennifer was here, that that God did not just die for every man in some kind of amorphous general sense. Lewis says God died for each man.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

For each woman. So it's not just like the mass of humanity, like you can imagine like a like a concert or something where there's a large group of people or some event, and you look out and you just see thousands of people, or we call this like a sea of people. Yeah. But God sees every person. Yeah. Not just people. We see people, God sees each person.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Well, Psalms 139. You know, you you you knit me in my mother's room. You know everything. There's nowhere that I can go that you don't see me.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

Beautiful. Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

And I loved your point there to personalize it. It's very important that we do this when we're reading, to say, God loves me. Right? Because it's very easy for me, Tanya, to say, God loves Tanya. Right? We it's very easy to externalize the love of God. We say, God loves him, God loves her, God loves them. But for some, it can be a much harder thing to say, God loves me. Yeah. Right? To really take on board that God knows Tanya. He knows her perfectly. He's been there since she was knit in her mother's womb. And Tanya, the little sheet marigold, right, is so profoundly valuable to God. And that's another word that comes up a lot in this chapter. Value. And I want to say something about value. Because economically speaking, strictly economically speaking, it might be hard to make the case that going after the one is worth it. Yeah. Like let's just imagine that you have a hundred sheep, or let's just say that again, a hundred is a proverbial number for a large flock. So let's say you have not just one hundred, but one thousand sheep, right? Or five hundred sheep or two hundred sheep, whatever it is. You'd have to sort of, at some point, the economics would be like, hmm, do I leave all of these sheep and get the one? Is it worth it? Exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

And if the sheep are just sheep, right? Like writ large, like a massive amorpho amorphous sheep, well, then it's like, mmm, maybe not. Maybe you say, you know what, we're just gonna counter cut our losses and keep the 99 or the 199 or whatever it is. But if you know each sheep, now it's not just sheep, generic sheep missing, or one of the sheep missing. Now it's Mirabal is missing, David is missing, Tanya is missing. No, I I can't go on. And so I love the fact here that the parable is not because she talks here about, you know, there were people there that were um, she says some of them were shepherds themselves, and others in the company around Jesus were there were shepherds, and also men who had money invested in flocks and herds, right? So this is like a currency in those days, right? Like today we might have stocks or we might have Bitcoin or we might have real estate. Like sheep was a was a currency, livestock was a currency. Yeah. And so for some they'd be like, ah, you know, you cut your losses.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

It's not worth it. Spending the time to go do that.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

You got it. But this is not about economics, this is about grace.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

It's about grace, sheer grace. Absolutely. And I love that Jesus appeals to them. He's like, What would you do? And then he kind of, as it were, Tony, he kind of puts them on the stage and he's saying to them, Okay, what would you do? And I imagine some would say, Well, we'd cut our losses and we wouldn't go after the one, but other others would say, No, no, no, you gotta go after the one. The shepherds who have a real heart for the sheep, they would say, No, you've you've got to go get the one.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

Because what kind of a shepherd would you be? Because if it's one today and then it's one a week from now, and then it's one two weeks from now, and then it's one another week from then, well, now you're down to 90 sheep.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah.

unknown 40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

The one matters. Exactly. And for her to say that Jesus would have died for the one, it's because Jesus doesn't just see the mass of humanity. He sees Tanya Sandoval, he sees David Ashrich, he sees Violetta Ashrich, he sees every one of us and the unique and wonderful person that we are and the contribution that we can bring to the kingdom. The eternal contribution that we can bring.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Absolutely. And that's probably why these outcasts, these sinners, felt so drawn to him. He saw each one of them instead of the Pharisees seeing him and the outcast, the sinners.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

Right. You know, one of my favorite things about the you mentioned Zacchaeus earlier, the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19, is that Jesus, when he comes to the tree, he uses his name. Yes. It's very important when you use people's names. When you I do this all the time. I go to a grocery store, it's I immediately spot the name tag. If I if I see the name tag and it says, you know, Maggie or Kenneth, I'm always like, hey Kenneth, hey Maggie, how's your day going today? And I imagine that when Jesus is here and all these sinners are gathering around them and he's gotten to know them, oh, what's your name? Okay, yeah, you're Judah. Oh, what's your name? Okay, you're Eli. So then in the course of eating and past the hummus and shearing Jesus, it's like, Eli, I love that point. Exactly. Or as soon as you use a person's name, you have now humanized them. Yes, you have valued them. And I, in my mind's eye, Jesus, we know this because he did it with Zacchaeus. He used their name. Yes. Remember, even after the resurrection, it was when Jesus said Mary. The way he said her name, even though he looked like a gardener. The way he said her name, he's like, wait a minute, only Jesus says my name is. Exactly. Exactly. So beautiful. Um, okay. Uh let's see, the next paragraph there, the sheep that has strayed. Why don't you read that for us?

SPEAKER_00 42:20

The sheep that has strayed from the fold is the most helpless of all creatures. It must be sought for by the shepherd, for it cannot find its way back. So with the soul that has wandered away from God, he is as helpless as the lost sheep. And unless divine love had come to his rescue, he could never find his way to God.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

Thank you, Jesus. Yeah. That's it. That's it. If God wasn't looking for us, that's it. That's really all you have to say. Divine love goes searching. Yeah. Divine love goes searching. Next paragraph. The shepherd who discovers that one of his sheep is missing does not look carelessly upon the flock that is safely housed and say, Ah, I got 99. And it will cost me too much trouble. See, it's economics. This is not merely economics, this is grace. It will cost me too much trouble to go in search of the straying one. Let him come back. And I will open the door of the sheepfold and let him in. And then I love this. She just says, No. No, that's not the way it is. No. No sooner does the sheep go astray than the shepherd is filled with grief and anxiety. He counts and recounts the flock. When he is sure that one sheep is lost, he slumbers not. And this reminded me of Psalm 121, verse 4, that says, The Lord, the keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. Right? He does not sleep. We all know what it's like to have something so on your mind that you can't sleep.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

Right? Where your mind is racing, you can't stop thinking about something. This happened to me just a couple nights ago. And I was just like, I could not stop thinking about big things in my life, and I couldn't sleep. Well, that's the way the shepherd is. When the one is missing, he can't sleep. He leaves the 99 within the fold and goes in search of the strange sheep. Darker and more tempestuous the night, and the more perilous the way, the greater is the shepherd's anxiety. And the more earnest his his search, he makes every effort to find that one lost sheep. I love it. I love the fact that she uses the word anxiety there because it really shows it it's very humanizing, right? And and it helps us to see that that God is anxious, not in the sense of wondering what's going to happen because he knows the future, but he's he's so strongly desirous for the salvation of any and all that the word that she grabs twice to describe this, in the case of the shepherd, is anxious.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

That's all he can think about. Right, restless.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

It's on his mind, it's on his heart. And I like that it says, the darker and more tempestuous the night, the more perilous the way, the greater is his anxiety.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

I mean, he knows that this sheep is headed into pretty much chaos and danger. Danger. Yeah, danger, exactly. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

I mean, because a sheep is a herd animal, right? If you if you spend any time around sheep at all, they they totally panic when they get separated from the herd because they're herd animals. They they want to stay together. So if one gets separated, I mean they just bleat and bleat and bleat and bleat, and they'll bleat themselves into exhaustion, and they they're literally useless without the shepherd. I mean, they just struggle. They absolutely struggle without their flock, without their shepherd. And so this is a great point that that if God doesn't go looking for them, yeah, they're not going to go find the flock. They're doomed. They're doomed. They are absolutely doomed. Okay, now I really love the next paragraph as well. Why don't you read that for us? With what relief? This is middle of page 222, 188, for those of you in the original pagination.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

With what relief he hears in the distance its first faint cry. Following the sounds, he climbs the steepest heights. He goes to the very edge of the precipice at the risk of his own life. Thus he searches while the cry, growing fainter, tells him that his sheep is ready to die. At last his effort is rewarded. The lost is found. Then he does not scold it because it has caused so much trouble. He does not drive it with a whip, he does not even try to lead it home. In his joy, he takes the trembling creature upon his shoulders. If it is bruised and wounded, he gathers it in his arms, pressing it close to his bosom, that the warmth of his own heart may give it life. That's a beautiful picture. Oh, it is. With gratitude that his search has not been in vain, he bears it back to the fold.

SPEAKER_03 46:41

I love it. My favorite lines here are when he first discovers the sheep, is ready to die, and he gets to the sheep. He does not scold, he does not drive it with a whip, he does not even try to lead it home, he bears it, he puts it on him. And I think I've told this story before, but a few years ago, um, Jennifer and I we got caught in a riptide. Jennifer was in Australia speaking, and I was there speaking. And um, well, I was actually invited her to be a speaker there, and we got caught on a riptide, and we were both whisked out to see scary. Oh, it's extremely scary. And we'd already been sort of bodysurfing for about 45 minutes, and it was a very, very bad situation. And we 100% were going to die. I mean, it's not even a question. We were in a bad way, we were like a thousand to fifteen hundred, you know, yards out to sea. We were a long way, like like half a mile out to sea. And we got rescued. Oh, wow. Fortunately, the surf lifesaver saw us. Some people on the beach saw us, just these two little heads bobbing up and down. Jennifer was like, 'cause you're just little heads, tiny little. And Jennifer was completely, she was in total shock. She was nonverbal, non-responsive, and she was shaking like this. She was cold. And we'd already been, as I said, swimming for like 45 minutes. Violetta had been on the beach because she didn't swim with us, but she had already gone in and others saw us get taken out in the rip. And I stayed with Jennifer holding onto her hand, and I was like, we're gonna die. I was 100% sure we were going to die. And we 100% sure would have died if we hadn't been rescued. Well, here's the point. When the Surf Lifesavers came out on their little paddleboards, they got Jennifer exhausted, pulled her up onto the paddleboard. I hopped onto the paddleboard, and then they we caught a wave and they took us right back in. It was just amazing how we went from being absolutely sure we were gonna die to back on the shore in like from the time they got to us until the time we were back on the shore was like a minute and a half. Just happened so quick. And what I'll never forget this. While we were riding the wave back in on these surf skis, the lady, there was uh a guy and a girl that were the surf lifesavers, and thank God, because they literally saved our lives, she was totally yelling at us. She's like, You should be swimming inside the flags. What are you doing out here? Don't you know how to recognize a rip? What are you doing? You've got two people white. And Jennifer was swimming in like uh in like cotton shorts and like a cotton t-shirt. She's like, You're swimming in cotton, you're in the ripped. What are you doing? And I was just, and I literally said to her, I was like, ma'am, we're so sorry. Thank you for rescuing us. Can we just get back to shore before you yell at us? And she was like, I think she was a little taken back. But I mean, she was like, the moment she rescued us. It's like, how could you have gotten yourself in this situation? What are you doing? You did this wrong, you did this wrong, you did this wrong, you did this wrong. And Jesus doesn't do that.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

No.

SPEAKER_03 49:34

Jesus is like, doesn't scold, doesn't whip, doesn't drive, puts the sheep on his shoulder, and starts walking back to the flock. Woo! Come on, Zoom. Beautiful. Isn't that such a beautiful picture? Beautiful. Um, I love the next paragraph. Thank God he has presented. Why don't you read that? Right here.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

Thank God he has presented to our imagination no picture of a sorrowful shepherd returning without the sheep. Amen. Man, absolutely. The parable does not speak of failure, but of success and joy in the recovery. Here is the divine guarantee that not even one of the strange sheep of God's fold is overlooked. Not one is left unsuccored. Everyone that will submit to be ransomed, Christ will rescue from the pit of corruption and from the briars of sin.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

The briars of sin. I just love that line there, and I see you've got it too.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:26

The divine guarantee. Right. Isn't it great? Imagine if Jesus tells a parable where the sheep is lost and dies. No, she's like, no, the sheep is lost and rescued. The sheep is lost and recovered. And this is the divine guarantee that not even one of the strange sheep of God's fold is to be overlooked. No. So here Jesus is sitting, again, get into your get the scene in your mind's eye. He's eating with all the social outcasts, all the wrong people, calling them by name, right? Hey, Simeon passed through that. Hey, Judah, thank you so much. Talking to them by names. And not one of them is to be overlooked. Jesus is in that moment of table fellowship. He is the shepherd, leaving the safety of the preeminently religious people to go and find the wandering sheep. And you you have to believe, Tony, I have to believe that the people to whom Jesus is speaking at some level get it.

SPEAKER_00 51:23

I would hope so.

SPEAKER_03 51:24

Like, in other words, I think that they're like, you know what? He's right.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:29

Maybe not at that point, they could not concede it and admit it. But how can your heart strings not be plucked and stirred by this story? Absolutely. Absolutely. I just have to believe it. I just think that there were seeds planted here that were watered after the resurrection. Oh, yeah. And then they were like, you know what? He was right.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

Yeah. They probably saw the the the chain of events, and then it all just kind of came flooding back, you know, some of these stories.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

Yeah, exactly right. So then she does a paragraph there where she addresses the desponding soul, which is kind of cool. And she basically in this paragraph, she talks about how uh, and we can read it if you want, but I just love her point is that that God takes the initiative, divine initiative. And then in the next paragraph, she basically says, uh, it's not the human that initiates their rescue, it's God that initiates the rescue. And let me just read that second paragraph there. It was taught by the Jews. It was taught by the Jews that before God's love is extended to the sinner, he must first repent, return, come back. In their view, repentance is a work by which men earn the favor of heaven. And it was this thought that led the Pharisees to exclaim in astonishment and anger, this man receives sinners. According to their ideas, he should permit none to approach him but those who have repented. But in the parable of the lost sheep, Christ teaches that salvation does not come through our seeking after God, but through God seeking after us. And what I wrote here on my margin was bad theology leads to bad behavior. Absolutely. Their theology was bad. The idea that I have to what, get my act together before I come back to God to save me? It pushed people away. Exactly right. And when it pushes people away, no wonder they don't want to come to synagogue. They don't want to come to you because they feel that there is this judgmentalism, this hierarchy, this distance. And so the notion that you have to kind of get your act together before you come back to God is such bad theology. But then that bad theology informed their bad ideas and bad behavior. But then Jesus comes along, just totally breaks apart this bad theology, and he says, to quote Romans 2, 4, it's the goodness of God that leads sinners to repentance. Right? So we've got to come close to those that we want to save, close to those that we want to rescue and bless. And the kind of the view of the religious leaders of the day was to keep them at arm's length until they got their act together. Well, they're not going to get their act together because they need God to get their act together. So they'll never come. Exactly right. Bad theory. I mean, all they had to do was think about who went looking for who in the Garden of Eden after sin. Right. Did Adam and Eve go looking for God to be able to get away from the other thing? No, God was looking for them.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Yep. I I just love that that image of God. I love that that that definition basically of who God is. He's a God who will not let you go. He's just gonna search. Um I put an exclamation point here. My um one of my brothers, um oh, maybe in the last 20 years or so, um, just walked away from from the faith and is an atheist. Okay. And how many brothers do you have? I have three. I have three older brothers. Okay. And um, you know, I I know that I think I don't know exactly why we've had a lot of conversations, but um, you know, there are some some factors that played into it, into like the works, right? Yeah, and and not feeling good enough, and and so just kind of walked away from it. But this gives me hope.

SPEAKER_03 55:00

Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

I will continue to minister to him as much as I can. But it's not up to me. It's up to God. God is seeking after him.

SPEAKER_03 55:10

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

God is drawing to him. Is he your oldest brother? No, he's my the youngest one next to me.

SPEAKER_03 55:15

Oh, next to you. And do you think he understood the gospel or do you think he wrestled with religion as kind of just a bunch of rules?

SPEAKER_00 55:22

I think towards the end, he saw it as a bunch of rules, but he knew he knew the Bible better than I did.

SPEAKER_03 55:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

He knows the Bible. I mean, he could quote me, he knew the stories, he knew You need to stay close to it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

It's really important. Because in the next parable, one of the points that Ellen White makes about the coin is that the coin is found in the house, and then she makes this really interesting point about family. You know, that within a family, we don't want to be we don't want to travel to the far distant lands to save, you know, the tribesmen and then be neglectful of the people in our own families that are struggling.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 55:58

So you gotta stay close to him. Yes. What's his name?

SPEAKER_01 56:00

John.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

We'll have to remember John. Yes. The closest one to you. I'm so glad that you pointed that out because it can happen. You know, people can just get disoriented, they can get poisoned by bad ideas, they can get in a toxic church relationship, and they walk away. Then what happens is is that you miss church one week, and then it's so much easier to miss it two, then three, then four, then you haven't gone for half a year, then a year, and before you know it, you're just out of the habit of surrounding yourself with a community of people, and then you take on a new identity. So you need to stay close to them, and I know you're doing that. Um Okay, do you have anything on pages 224 or 225 or anything in your notes that you're like, I really like this.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Well, this kind of goes along with it. We do not repent. That's at the top of 224.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

We do not repent in order that God may love us, but he reveals to us his love in order that we may repent.

SPEAKER_03 56:57

Exactly right. That's good theology.

SPEAKER_00 56:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:59

That's good theology that will lead to good behavior, good actions, good thinking. And again, the reason that the religious leaders were so mystified by Jesus' movements is that they didn't understand his motivations. They didn't understand his motivations because their theology was bad. Their understanding of God was bad. But as soon as they got their, if they would have understood Jesus is God, this is how God thinks and acts toward the estranged, toward the disenfranchised, toward the social outcast, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Many of them, even though they're wrapped in a cocoon of religious traditionalism, they would have gone, wait a minute, this is how God is? No. And many of them, fortunately, this did happen, but not until after the resurrection.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

No. They had to experience, they just didn't want to get close enough to experience Jesus' love. You know, I think that that it begins here. He reveals to us his love, and then repentance comes.

SPEAKER_02 57:50

Exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

We we we feel safe, we feel, you know, cared for, loved for. Yeah. You can't help but but realize your sinfulness and and know that God can can help um forgive.

SPEAKER_03 58:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

And and you're transformed.

SPEAKER_03 58:07

In the chapter uh repentance in in the book Steps to Christ, she makes this point repeatedly that repentance is not something that we do before God loves us. Right. Otherwise, how would that even work? It's the love of God that leads us to change our mind, that leads us to repentance. And surprise, surprise, this is the reason that the sinners and tax collectors were so drawn to Jesus. We because they felt, like you said earlier, that that he saw them.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:36

That they were people that mattered. They weren't just social outcasts, people to be avoided. They felt seen, they felt loved, and they probably thought something like this, many of them. If God is like this, I'm interested. Exactly. If God is like that, I'm not interested.

SPEAKER_01 58:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:52

Right? And that's a tale as old as time. Right. Okay, do you have anything else on 224, 225 that you really like?

SPEAKER_00 59:00

I just noticed I've been I've been circling the strain, wandering, found. But I always noticed there's when there's strain and wandering, there's found and there's rejoicing. Yeah. They all kind of go together. That's on the same going.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

Yeah. Um I love it. I love the emphasis on the rejoicing. Rejoicing. Yeah, very good. Okay. Anything on the next page, 225, that he liked?

SPEAKER_00 59:25

Talks about the restoration. Yeah.

unknown 59:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Oh, yes. On the last paragraph on the bottom of the rabbis understood.

SPEAKER_03 59:34

Yes. Bottom of page 225, 190 paragraph begins, the rabbis understood Christ's parable.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

It says, by the lost sheep, Christ represents not only the individual sinner, but the one world that has apostatized and has been ruined by sin.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

Yeah. So now she globalizes. It's not just the one person, it's the one world. And she does this really interesting thing here. In that very moment, in that very paragraph, she says, the world is but an atom. And then earlier, did you pick up this? I don't know if I made this point. All the way back on 210, page 210, she says this here. Let's see, page 210. She says, in this speck of the world. Yeah. So it's quite interesting that she uses the word speck on page 210, 176 of the original. And then here she uses the word atom to make the point that in the vast universe that exists, and now we know that the universe consists of many hundreds of billions and trillions of stars and even galaxies, that there's just this one speck, this one atom, right? This little pale blue dot suspended uh you know in space, that this we are the lost sheep collectively, as a race. Yep. Not just individuals, Tanya, David, and others, but we are the lost sheep. She says this world is but an atom and the vast dominions over which God presides. Yet this little fallen world, this one lost sheep, is more precious in his sight than are the 99 that went us that went not astray from the fold.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

He stooped from his high estate. Lay aside the glory that he had with the Father in order to save the one last world. I love that. He stooped from high estate.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:19

Yeah, I love it. She then goes on uh page 226, 227, this is 191, 192 of the original, to start saying that she kind of makes this appeal and she says, Look, if we're going to have the heart of God, the heart of Jesus, we should take an interest in the social outcast as well. She makes this appeal. How many of the wandering ones have you, reader, sought for and brought back to the fold when you turn from those who seem unpromising and unattractive, which is really interesting language, right? Uh and she goes on to say at the top of the next page that many of these might be one for Christ. They may, uh, next paragraph, appear hard and reckless, but Jesus sees in them the potential, not just what they are, but what they could become. And then this line here, I thought it was really interesting, middle of page 227, the Pharisees understood Christ as a rebuke to them. In other words, they got it. Yeah. But it's a fairly straightforward parable. Like How could you miss it? They they get it. And I think, again, my imagination tells me, and the fact that many of them were later converted, according to Acts 6, that that many of them, at least they have the beginnings of an openness to the truthfulness, because truth bears witness to itself. They would have been like, you know what? He's got a point. Yeah. Right? Because we're just kind of a social club now. We're in an echo chamber of people that look like us, dress like us, act like us, eat like us, behave like us, keep Torah like us. And Jesus is oriented to those people out there who are also Jews, descendants of Abraham, but we are giving them no attention. We have, to use her earlier word, indifference toward them. And I imagine that not only they understood it, but that the spirit was convicting their conscience. Yeah. I just think it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

Absolutely beautiful. Okay, do you have anything more on the parable? I'm sure you've got more on the parable of the sheep. By the way, I want to read this section at the top of page 228, right at the end of that last paragraph, she says, Um, uh, I'll read here, the refusal to do this had proved their claims of piety to be false. Now many rejected Christ's reproof, yet to some his words brought conviction.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

Some of them he got rid of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:44

Upon these, after Christ's ascension to heaven, the Holy Spirit came, and they united with his disciples in the very work outlined in the parable of the lost sheep. And you can write on your margin there, Acts chapter 6, verse 7. Acts chapter 6, verse 7, because Acts chapter 6, verse 7 says that many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

unknown 1:04:05

Right?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:05

So there were religious leaders, scribes, Pharisees, priests, and others, that came around. Yeah. And it was because these little tiny mustard seeds were being planted in their hearts that were then watered by the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost and the resurrection. And they woke up and they would have had these moments, like you were saying, they would have gone, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:27

And they I remember he said this, and then he did that, and then that healing, and they would have been putting all the pieces together. The disciples are doing it in real time, but these others aren't doing it until later. They retrospectively are like, you know what? This is, we are the shepherds in Israel. We are the religious, this is our duty and responsibility. And then they would have begun to share in the heart of the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:47

Yes. Pay it for pay it for it.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:50

Okay, do you got anything more on the sheep? Anything in your notes, your copious notes that you're like, I want to make this point.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:01

No, I think you covered you're happy with that? I I I liked the part about uh the rejoicing um that heaven was rejoicing with Jesus. You know, he brings them basically into the kingdom of God, right? Yeah. And that that heaven was rejoicing.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:18

The angels also rejoice.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:19

The angels, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:21

Yeah. This is a major theme in Luke 15 because because the lost sheep is found and there's rejoicing. The coin is found and there's rejoicing. The sun comes back and there's a parting. We'll see that tomorrow, right? Like it's always that you don't have this like stoic you know, refusal to no, like God is happy, he's thrilled, he can't believe because again, it's not just some nameless, faceless, generic person. It's Tom, it's Mark, it's Samantha, it's Kathy. People with histories and stories and dreams and hopes and wants and desires, actual individuals. People and God sees, and this is one of the most important words in the whole chapter. God sees value in each one of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:08

And I think heaven does. I think the angels do.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:11

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:11

I mean, I I I I imagine them just on the edge of their seat, you know, looking down. It's like, yes, as soon as that that that sinner is found, they're rejoicing. There's a celebration in heaven of the reason.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:24

Because they play such an active role in salvation as well. So they have an active role.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

Right? Like back to your search and rescue operation. Um, when someone is found or someone is rescued, everybody, not just the person that found, right, or the party that found, but everybody that was participating in the operation rejoices.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:51

Okay, you want to talk about the coin? Yep. Okay, let's talk about the lost piece of silver. And uh here again, a lot of similarities, a lot of similarities, but a few differences. And let's jump over to page 229. Paragraph begins this parable. This parable, this is page 194. And uh, Tanya, why don't you read that for us?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:15

This parable, like the preceding, sets forth the loss of something with which which with proper search may be recovered, and that with great joy. But the two parables represent different classes. The lost sheep knows that it is lost. Yep. It has left the shepherd and the flock, and it cannot recover itself.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:34

It represents those who realize that they are separated from God and who are in a cloud of perplexity and humiliation and sorely tempted. The lost coin represents those who are lost in trespasses and sins, but who have no sense of their condition. Right. They are estranged from God, but they know it not. Their souls are in peril, but they are unconscious and unconcerned. In this parable, Christ teaches that even those who are indifferent to the claims of God are the objects of his pitying love. They are to be sought for that they may be brought back to God.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:10

Beautiful. So the coin is oblivious. Right. The coin doesn't know that it's lost, the sheep knows that it's lost. It's bleating, bleating, bleating. No one's coming, no one's coming until finally the shepherd comes, throws it on his shoulders. The coin is not bleeding, the coin is not calling out, the coin doesn't even know it's lost. And there are a class of people in the world that are just oblivious. They're oblivious to God, they're oblivious to morality, it might have been their raising, it might have been that they've seared their conscience. For a variety of reasons, people can just turn into shells of what God intended them to be. But even though they might look, to use Ellen White's language here, even though they might look, what's this fascinating language that she used? Unpromising and unattractive. She says, unpromising and unattractive. We have to go looking for the coins as well. Right. Right? The oblivious, the totally religiously disinterested. We've got to go looking for them too. In other words, we've got to look for everybody, all kinds of people. Right? All kinds of people. What's that? The sheep knows that it's lost, but doesn't know how to get back. The coin doesn't even know that it's lost. The sun that we'll see tomorrow knows that it's lost and knows how to get back. These are all different classes.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

When I was looking at the coin, I was thinking about the Apostle Paul.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:26

Okay. Unpack it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:27

Well, he was, he didn't realize that he was headed in the doc in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:33

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:34

He was he was going thinking he was doing the work of God.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

You know, he was upholding the law and he was persecuting the Christians. Right. I mean, he was totally headed in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:44

But he thought he was going in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:45

But he thought he was going in the right direction. He had no idea that he was lost.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:49

That's a great point. That's a great illustration.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:51

And Jesus went and found him. And Jesus, I mean, in a dramatic way, went and said, What are you doing? Right?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:59

He he caused him to be blind so he could see. Woo!

SPEAKER_03 1:10:02

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:02

You reach? Exactly. I mean, and then I was thinking of Ananias. So once he was aware of his lost condition and totally started realizing what have I done, he sends him to Ananias. And Ananias reminds me of the instructions that were given in the the lost uh sheep that we are to help those. Yeah. You know, once we've been rescued, we need to go and help those who are are rescued or or need to be rescued. And when Ananias first was told by Jesus to go help him, what was his response? No. Yes. I mean his reputation was horrible. Yeah, he got the wrong guy. Yeah. Yeah. And so it made me think, you know, we God might send us to go help somebody that we're like, not him.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:58

Not her.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:59

Not her. But we need to follow that call. We need to work with Christ in the search and rescue business. I love it. And just trust him because he is finding these lost coins. Beautiful. And bringing them to us.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:12

I love that. Yeah, this is such a great point that we play a role. We don't want to get the idea that we are the primary agent in the rescue of any lost soul, sheep, or sinner. God is the primary agent, but we get the opportunity and the privilege to play some large or in some cases just a small role in. And it can be like a new member's come to church and you give them a smile and you walk across the sanctuary and say, Hey, my name's Tanya. Are you new here? Or hey, I'm Tanya. How long have you been coming to church here? Like sometimes you it takes a village, right? Sometimes it's the evangelist that preaches the fiery sermon, and the people come to Jesus because they're so persuaded by the goodness of God. And then some and then but you have to have a church community that does their part. Ananias did his part. Barnabas did his part. The Spirit did his part. Like everybody's doing their part. And that's why I love your point about how it's a rescue operation. The angels are involved. The church is involved. Prayer is involved. It's a it God is working collaboratively and collectively to get as many as possible back into the fold. That we get to work with him. We get to. It's a privilege. It's a privilege. And I love her point here about the families. Right? She says here in that next paragraph after the one you just read, or maybe it was two after the one you read, she says this parable has a lesson to families. And she plays off the, you know, this was lost in the house. In the household, there is often great carelessness concerning the souls of its members. And I hate to say, but I've seen this myself. I've seen this in missionary families, pastoral families, ministry families, where sometimes people get so busy, quote, saving the world or saving the church that they neglect their own kids. That's why we have kind of a proverbial thing, you know, in the church, like a PK, preacher's kid, or pastor's kid, or an MK, a missionary kid. And very often, not always, but too often, let me say it that way, too often, these kids were neglected in their own homes because the pastoral impulse was primarily being uh uh given to and showered upon the church. And this does happen. It's one of the things that Violetta and I made a real point to not do with our kids was to prioritize everybody else over them. But we we were teaching them and we were having worship with them and we were answering their questions and we were making Sabbath fun and we were invested. We were invested.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:44

And it's a very good idea to just look at your family and think, is there anybody I can reach out to? I mean, one of the great joys of my life last year was to do the wedding of my sister. My sister. My sister and uh her amazing husband now, fiance at the time, Ben. Um, and Ben is a beautiful soul. He's uh uh uh Jewish. And Elizabeth is, I think she would call herself, she definitely believes in God. I think she'd call herself a Christian at some level. But you know, they're not like strong going to church, certainly not Ben every week. But you know what they did? When it came time for them to get married, they asked me if I would quit. And I was so honored to do so, and I saw it as a ministry to them, as a blessing to them. I pray for my brothers. I pray for my I have two brothers and two sisters. You have three brothers. Yeah, so I pray for my siblings all the time. I pray for my parents all the time. And if I get opportunities to be a blessing, like my brother had his 50th birthday this year. So I was like, come out here to Colorado, you can stay at our house, I'm gonna buy a ticket for us to go to a Broncos game. Like, like I'm investing in my family. I want them to know I love them, I'm here for them, I'll do anything for them. And while we're busy ministering to those out there, we can't forget those that are right here close to us.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:11

You're still making them a priority.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:13

You have to.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:13

Yeah. And I and they feel it. Totally. You know, when you feel that you're important to somebody, that speaks volumes.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:20

I mean, I married my now that I'm thinking about it, I married my brother and his fiance too. Right? So my brother got married and he asked me to do the wedding, and my sister got married and they asked me to do the wedding. And I I think that this is a an indication that they know that I love them, they know that I care for them, they see me as a man of God, even though they're not maybe actively practicing as I am, that's fine. They're God's property, they're God's sheep, God's got what's going on. Whether or not my whole family ever comes to be in a saving relationship with Jesus, which I hope it happens, if that doesn't happen, it's not gonna be because I was not a victim.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:56

Right. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:57

Right? I I want to be actively ministering to the people that are closest to me, not just those that are on the other side of the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:05

And ministering can be viewed in so many different ways. Exactly right. You know, it doesn't have to be preach, preach, preach.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:09

You got it.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:10

It's it's just being in a relationship and spending time and and giving time.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:15

You got it, and just I mean, inviting my brother to come out here for his 50th birthday to go to a Broncos game with me that I paid the ticket for is expensive too, by the way. I mean, he knows he makes a heck of a lot more money than I make, but it was a gift. I wanted to tell my brother, I love you, I value you. He knows I'm busy as a bee. And it's his 50th birthday, and we have the same mom, and and he's my only blood relative, right? Uh, as a sibling. And it's it's he's too important to me. I love him, and I tell him I love him, and I give him hugs, and he doesn't always love it, but he's he's gonna get loved on by me, and he knows that he's getting loved on in the name of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:54

And he still loves it.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:56

Exactly. Whether he likes it or not, he's gonna love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:00

I mean, it's there you go. I saw my kids pop that. What my son was on there and my my daughter, hi, Isabelle and James. Love it. Beautiful. Love it, love it, love it. You saw them go by. Yeah, I saw them go by. That was really cool. Your mom's doing a great job, and she's amazing. She's super cool. And that's what I tell my kids, you know, if they'll say, you know, what do you want for your birthday? Are we all for Christmas? I just want to spend time with you. I just want that time to just hang out and I mean I love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:25

And a pizza oven.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:26

And a pizza oven.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:27

I just want to spend time with you kids, and a pizza oven. Here's the one I want. Here's the link. Talk to David. Here's the link. This is the one I want. No, I love the point there that we have to stay close to those that we love.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:40

Even if, like your brother John, that is kind of doing his wandering thing, we don't want to draw back.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:46

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:46

We want to be like Jesus, we want to come close. We want to be a vehicle, a conduit for people to come to Christ. Yeah. Or in some cases back to Christ. I love this paragraph here. Page 230, the coin. Read that for Stanley. It is so that this is fake. I have exclamation. You got exclamation? Yes. 195 of the original.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:08

The coin, though lying among dust and rubbish, is a piece of silver still. Its owner seeks it because it is a value. Value. So every soul, however degraded by sin, is in God's sight accounted precious. Precious. As the coin bears the image and superscription of the reigning power, I love this point. So man at his creation bore the image and superscription of God.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:33

Thank you, Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:34

And though now marred and dimmed through the influence of sin, the traces of this inscription remain upon every soul.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:42

Thank you, Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:43

God desires to recover that soul and to retrace upon it his own image in righteousness and holiness.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:50

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:50

Amen.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:51

That is such great writing, such great theology. It's so beautiful that they still bear the image of God. But what he wants to do is he wants to capture it and he wants to refine and purify and make that image, as she says, in righteousness and in holiness. And here again she makes the point about property, right? They belong to God and about value. They are valuable. Just and the point she makes here about how look, even though the the drachma or the silver coin is in the dirt, it's still silver. Yeah. It's still silver. Still precious. Still precious. Um I love, love, love this. Uh I just I think it's very good. Now I want to jump over to 232, but if you've got anything there, you speak up. Anything you got there? Okay, 232. This is one of my favorite sections here. Um right in the middle of that page, this is 196, and God intends.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:48

And God intends that all this shall fit us to labor for still others. As our sympathies shall broaden and our love increase, we shall find everywhere a work to do. God's great human household embraces the world, and none of its members are to be passed by with neglect.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:06

That line there, God's great human household embraces the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:13

Amen. I just love it. She's such a good writer. Right? That God's great human household embraces the world. I mean, remember that really cool thing she did yesterday and yesterday's chapter, where at the end of the chapter, I'll just read it for you. You'll remember this. She says, from India, from Africa, from China, from the islands of the sea, for the downtrodden millions of so-called Christian lands, the cry of human woe is ascending to God. That cry will not be long unanswered. I mean, it's just like Ellen White had a burden and a passion for the world, and she saw the God of Scripture as having an interest in the world, not just her world, not just America, but and she's from New England, right? She's from the Northeast there. But the world, and for her to hear say, God's great human household embraces the world, I just love it. It's John 3.16. For God so love the world. For God so love the world. Thank you, Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:12

Um, okay, then jump down two paragraphs. The value of a soul. I love this section. And here's our word value again. The value of a soul, who can estimate? Well, there's only one. There's only one that can truly estimate the value of a soul. Right? The value of a sheep, we can estimate, the value of a drachma or a coin we can estimate. But the value of a soul, what's a soul worth? I'll tell you what it's worth. The life of God.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:35

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:35

That's the point she makes. Would you know it's worth? You want to know what it's worth? Go to Gethsemane. And there watch with Christ through those hours of anguish when he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. Look upon the Savior uplifted on the cross. Hear that despairing cry, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Look upon the wounded head, the pierced side, the marred feet. Remember that Christ risked all. For our redemption, heaven itself was imperiled. At the foot of the cross, remembering that for one sinner Christ would have laid down his life, you may estimate the value of a soul. If you are in communion with Christ, you will place his estimate upon every human being. You will feel for others the same deep love that Christ has felt for you. What's a soul worth? The life of God. Life. I mean, that is the only we have to see. Sometimes it can be difficult to talk to somebody about Jesus. Okay, I'll give you a good example. I was just hiking the other day in the woods. Rock climbing, actually. Rock climbing with uh in the woods with my new friend Henry that I just met. And uh there was a uh volunteer in the state park that I climb at right near me here. It's called Castlewood Canyon State Park, just up the road. And uh we'd seen this volunteer guy walk by earlier when we were bouldering in this little area called the Font. And uh we were on the hike out and he walked up. And he was he was an older gentleman, and um his name was Skip. I said, Hey, how are you doing today? And I saw he had a little volunteer cap on, and I said, Oh, we're just out doing some rock climbing. I said, What are you up to? And he said, Oh, I'm just checking out this trail. And I said, Man, great to see you out. He had this big walking stick, got to chatting to him, and I said, Man, you're in good health. And then he started to talk about his health. I said, Man, you're out here, you're doing great. How old are you? He said, I'm 85. I said, Well, you're in good health. He said, Actually, I have cancer. And I said, Oh, what kind of cancer do you have? And he pulled out his wallet and he went digging through his wallet to try to find all he had this little piece of paper with all of his medications and stuff on it, and the cancer. And he told me what the cancer was. It was a blood cancer, and he'd been on chemotherapy for two years. And uh he talked to me about his wife, and it's just it just immediately started opening up. So it's me, this 19-year-old young man that I just met and took rock climbing, and now Skip. And I felt so impressed to say to Skip, and so I said to Skip, I said, Hey Skip, I'm gonna be praying for you that you can feel okay with this cancer and this chemotherapy, because I'm a man of prayer. I said, I'm a man of prayer, and I'm gonna be praying for your cancer and for your wife and for your health. And I use that often as a gauge to see how they respond. Like if he goes, Oh, I'm also a person of prayer, well then I know I'm dealing with a brother in Christ. Right? But I could tell just by the way that he responded, he was like, Oh, okay. I knew I was dealing with a lost sheet. I could just tell I was dealing with a lost sheet. So then I just made my point even stronger. I'm like, well, listen, when we finally parted ways, and I'm sure I'll see him out there again because they're working on that trail and he's a volunteer. I was like, okay, Skip, God bless you, great hanging out with you. Um, I'll be praying for your cancer. And listen, I want some I want him to know there's a person out there, some random climber guy that I just met on the trail, and he's praying for me. Yeah. And God can take that tiny little seed, and the next time I see Skip, which I'm gonna see him again, I know Jesus is gonna arrange it, or I suspect he is. Um, I'm gonna say, Hey Skip, how are you doing? I've been praying for you. And it's true, I'm praying for him.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:08

I'm praying for him right now in my mind. It's like, Father in heaven, please be with Skip, be with his wife, put your spirit upon him. May he recover from this cancer. May this cancer be an opportunity for him and his wife to turn totally to you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So just tiny little things like this. God has his sheep everywhere, and we don't have to know everything. We can literally just say to somebody, hey, I'll pray for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:30

That's so funny you're saying that. Go ahead. On the drive here, we stopped at a I stopped at a gas station, and um it was just this little gas station. And when I walked in, you have to pre-pay, and there was this man there, and and as soon as I walked in, I I wanted to to pay um so I could pump my gas because I had to get here in time to get the pizza, right? And so it's always about the pizza, ladies and gentlemen. You gotta be at four. You gotta be here for the pizza. Um, so right off the bat, he's like, Well, I'm not gonna get my gun. And I said, What? He says, I'm not gonna get my gun. And I said, Okay, um, I'm sorry. Do you know? And then I talked about pre-paying. He's like, Yeah. So I said, So what's going on with your gun? He's like, Well, my father-in-law just had a uh hypoglycemic episode. He should be going to the hospital, but he doesn't want to. And so he starts telling me this whole story. That's exactly what they're skip.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:27

Just like instantly talking as soon as you show the inference. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:32

And he just was so frustrated with his, and he just started telling me about his daughter and everything. And I just felt impressed, just you know, why don't you pray for him?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:40

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:41

And and so I went and got gas and and I thought, you know, I just need I'm gonna see. I've never done this. Just this gas station attendant.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:50

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:51

And so I go back in, um and he's telling me, guys, so tell me about your about your dad. And and so he was telling me his frustrations and how he's trying to help him and stuff. And that so finally, when when he took a breath that I could speak, yeah, I said, I would like to pray pray for your dad. Would you be okay with that? And it stopped him, and he just looked at me and he's just and I I I just couldn't believe I was doing that. And he's just looked at me and he says, uh okay. And I said, Okay, I said, You don't mind? He says, Well, I I don't really, I mean, but what okay. And so, and I said, I want to pray for him right now. I said, Are you okay if we pray together? And he's it you saw this, this, this little smile on his face. He's like, sure. And so I just sat there and agreed with him. Come on now, right in the gas station, just the two of us. And you could see him soften.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:48

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:49

I mean, I thought when I left That's a Jesus thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:52

Oh my goodness. By the way, did you ask the father's name?

unknown 1:27:56

I don't remember.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:56

Okay, so this is a really good thing. My memory is not. A really great technique. Good little good little piece of pastoral advice here. If somebody says, Oh, my mother, my sister, my friend, and um, and you do what you just did that, hey, could I pray for them? I'd like to pray for them right now if that's all right. Can we pray right now? And they're like, uh, and then I'll say, What's what's his name? Yeah, I think he says and then he says, Oh, his name is Mark. And I say, Let's pray for Mark.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:23

And I cannot tell you how many times I've prayed either for the individual person or for some member of their family by name. And I've had people crying, tears coming down their eyes, and I've had people say to me, No one has ever prayed for me by my name. Or prayed for my family by name. So God bless you, Tani, for doing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:43

Yeah. We just, you know, I prayed for him and his family. Exactly right. And that's the I I thanked God when I got back in the car. I'm like, thank you for allowing me to be part of it. And he gave you the courage to do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:55

And it's just like, did you hear the story I told you today about how God told me to give my chalk bag to that young kid? Yes. It was just it was a total Jesus thing. Yeah. Like sometimes Jesus tells you to do something and you gotta do it. Yeah. And then when you do it, you're like, you're so exhilarating.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:08

Oh man, I was like, if I planted just one seed,

Rubric

SPEAKER_00 1:29:11

you know. Should we do the rubric? Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:14

All right, let's do the rubric. The morning, the person, the prayer, the practice, and the promise. Um, let's see. First of all, Tanya, thank you so much for doing this. You are such a sweetheart. Thanks for having me. So good. And uh, what was your point in this chapter? I saw a lot of scribbles over there. I changed my changed it.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:33

There is there is joy and celebration in heaven over one sinner who repents, then over 99 who need no repentance.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:40

Beautiful. I put God as the good shepherd. He ventures out in search of the one. It's not about economics, but grace. Your grace. 100%. Oh, the person. What do we learn about the person in these parables?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:54

If there had been but one lost soul, Christ would have died for me. He loves me that much.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:59

Thank you, Jesus. Jesus welcomed sinners, he entered into fellowship, conversation, and joy with them. We made the point earlier about how Jesus was almost certainly calling them by their name. Yeah. And we need to remember to do the same thing. Absolutely. Um, the prayer, how do we pray this chapter?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:16

Search me, Lord, and know my heart. Help me not to wander and re and to remain close to you. Retrace upon me your image and righteousness and holiness.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:26

Yeah, just like the coin. Just like the coin. Father, give me the divine heart and the longing for the one. You know, she talks about there how when we start to respond in this way, if you are in commun. And let me see, is this it here? She's got this great line here where she basically says, if we start paying attention to others, that God will give us a burden for souls. I I don't know. I didn't put the oh, is this here?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:51

I think that's a good one.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:52

No, anyway. I want that burden, that that desire, that passion, that longing for the one to see a value in every person, no matter how unattractive or unpro unpromising, as she says, we just believe. Yeah. Infinite value in this one person. Okay, how do we practice this chapter?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:09

I said pay it forward. I have been rescued and restored. Um, I need to share my story with others, point them to Christ, be hospitable, share a meal, share the gospel.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:20

Share some pizza. Share some pizza. Get that pizza oven. Evan, I understand if you're still on here, I understand that uh Tanya has a birthday coming up. Her 41st birthday. That's right. Is that right? That's right. 41st birthday, and she wants a pizza oven. Reach out to me and I'll tell you which one to get. Um, I put here the practice. Think in terms of grace, not in terms of mere economics. See the possibility of see the possibility of each one and the the opportunity to rescue, to recover each one. Um this idea of value just really. Okay, and then what do you got for the promise?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:02

Um, not one strange sheep of God's fold is overlooked, not one is left without help. Our salvation is not through our seeking after God, but through God's seeking after us.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:15

Yes. Uh mine's on page uh 233. I just read it a moment ago. If you are in communion with Christ, oh, this is what I was looking for earlier. You will place his estimate upon every human being. You will feel for others the same deep love that Christ has felt for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:34

So good.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:35

Okay, before we do our word, do you have anything, Tanya, that we didn't anything that you really wanted to say that we forgot? Uh did we get everything in your notes, or do you have a uh no?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:47

I think we covered it up.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:49

You got it? You're happy. I'm happy. Okay, let's do our word. Let's do our word. Seeing potential impossibility, says Stefan. Um I'd like the link for the best pizza oven. Okay, it's called the Uni Karu 16. O-O-N-I, Unikaru 16. That's the one you want. Okay, here we go. Retrace, precious, ransomed, value. Other word is one, one center, one savior, one god. Uh, sought, valued, value, value, recover, value, value. Wow, a lot of values. That's my word, as you might have guessed. Value, value. Wow, value, value. First word is seek. Second word, value. Cassandra says rescue. Robert Raffrey says value. Deb says stooped. We need to get Deb on something. Yeah, she'd be great. Can she come over here? Yeah, I think she might come. She's awesome for me. A lot of wisdom. A lot of wisdom. Hound of Heaven, but solidarity, magnanimous, unpretentious. Love it. Thank you, Stefan. Value found, one, one, one. Oh, by the way, Randall Family 4. I had that same idea. One and one. Very good. Um, found, superscription. Ooh, I know what that's zero in, so good. Recover. Celebrations. Flock, says Della. Shine, shine. Inscription, one and one. Oh, Sandy Pattafree. You had the same idea. That's such a good one. Searcher, search. I have two words, says Arlene. Um, seeking and rescue, like yours, rescue mission. Invested pizza and prayer, says Tennessee Quell Bug. I love it. Found, rescued, accounted, says Dashi Dash 707. Very good. Uh Ecad. I might have missed that one. Rejoice. Mingle. So many words to choose from. Personal felt so beautiful too. Yeah, agree. I really liked the two words that I really liked. I settled on value, but I liked the word one as well. Because one sheep, one lord, one savior. But I just, I just the value to me, especially when she asks the question, what is the value? What is the value of a soul who can estimate? And then she goes straight to the cross. Um, search, personal. You had that as well, you know, that it's person with each one of us that God knows us by name. So good. Well, thank you all so much. I like personal says. I do too. Kelly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:26

I might have to change my well. What was your work? I have four. Can I have four? Four.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:31

Yes, go. What are they?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:32

Well, with uh rejoice was was mine. Rejoice, yeah. And then I added stooped and of course search and rescue.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:39

Stooped, rejoice, search and rescue. Oh, we got a bunch more that just went by here, too. Valuable, reunited, advanced. Tanya needs to come back tomorrow. Okay, well, maybe. This chapter is fire, lost, uh, sheep, sheep savior, says Roland. Search, rescue, recovery says, Evan. Oh, there's your boy, Evan. That's him. Uh, is pizza oven one word? No, that's two words. Um Stefan says, I had four words too. Thank you, Stefan. Yeah, he's backing you up there. Shear. Because the sheer thought of a sheered one being lost is enough to move the heart of God. Oh, very and sheep are sheared. Uh, we'll be in Colorado next week. I'll stop by for pizza. Okay, wanna thank tomato farmer. Welcome to come by. Um, loved you, Tana. Tanya, excuse me. Thank you. Second word was win. Yes, dashy dash 707, as in to win others. Thank you, David and Tanya says Matt Morgan 324. Love you, brother. Bloodhound, loyal, says Smiller. Yeah, because they've got seeking, searching. Yes, I like that. Well, listen, we love you guys so much. Um, Tanya, you won't be with us tomorrow, sadly. Um, but we have another guest. No hints on who that might be. Do you have any idea who it is? You're clueless. No. Well, you're gonna wait to find out. You're gonna find out. Guest tomorrow, and then another guest Sunday, then another guest Monday. We got a train of guests. And remember, two hours earlier tomorrow, I'll put it on the Instagram, 7 p.m. Eastern time, tomorrow night. I think you had the opening prayer.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:19

I did.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:20

Okay, I'll have the closing prayer. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we are super thankful that Jesus went looking for the one. The one, each one, each individual one. He knows us by name, he knows our situation, he knows our story, he knows our circumstances, he knows everything about us, and yet he went looking for us. Father, we want to be like those sinners and tax collectors and social outcasts. We draw near to Jesus. But Father, when we come into the presence of Jesus, we don't want to stay the way we were when we came there. We want to be changed, we want to be transformed, we want the superscription, as she says, of our owner, our creator and redeemer to be on us. And so, Father, we are the lost sheep now rescued, we are the lost coin now found. Do with us what you will, and Lord, help us to be agents, as Tanya mentioned, in bringing other lost sheep and lost coins back into the fold. This is our prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Boom, boom. Done.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:27

You did it. That was so fun. And so easy. So fun. Right? You know, as soon as we started. I know, because you thought you were a little bit nervous. Yeah, but you were nervous, it just went away.