The Savior Who Sees Us

we'll do exactly what he just said would you turn with me to Luke chapter 19 we're going to be looking at verses 1 through1 and um when Dwayne asked me if I would be able to come at some point and it looked like that it worked out that I would I asked him what he wanted me to preach he said that he goes you can preach whatever God leads you to preach or you can um you know you can preach wherever we are next in Luke and so I looked up Luke 19 and I saw that you were coming up on the story of zakus

and I saidoh I'm preaching that um I have preached through the Gospel of John I preached through the gospel of Mark through my years of ministry I've never on a Sunday morning preached through the Gospel of Luke and so this story in this uh this gospel I've never actually preached a sermon on it which is hard to believe I grew up hearing the story everybody knows the story of zakus if you grew up in church and in fact you probably even know the song about the we little man in the tree and Jesus said what zakiss you come down you even got to do that

when you sing the song right for I'm going to your house today so I heard it growing up I probably taught it in a Bible club or vacation bible school at some point or maybe even as a youth pastor but I had never written a sermon and so I said man let me preach that passage that would be great so um let's read our passage Luke 19 starting in verse one he entered Jericho and that he is Jesus was passing through and behold there was a man named zakus he was a chief tax collector and was rich and he was seeking to see who Jesus

was but on account of the crowd he could not because he was so small in stature so he ran out on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him for he was about to pass that way and when Jesus came to the place he looked up and said to him zakus hurry and come down for I must not stay at your house today so he hurried and came down and received him joyfully when they saw it they all grumbled he has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner and zachus stood and said to the Lord behold

Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor and if I have defrauded anyone of anything I restore it fourfold and Jesus said to him today salvation has come to this house since he also is a son of Abraham for the son of man came to seek and to save the lost the title of my sermon today is the savior who sees us and again we all maybe if you grew up in church you know this story um I'm going to try not to pick on Dwayne too much in this sermon um it's really hard for me not to to do like a

little Live skit here and bring Dwayne up and let him be zakiss um you can figure out why I would let him do that um but but I'll pick on him a little bit as we go along but uh really as I was praying through and preparing a story from from Dwayne's life in in our friendship did come to mind and I want to share that and then we're going to really break down this passage and it was Dwayne's call to Ministry and I remember very uh very well the night that Dwayne felt called to be a pastor called in the ministry it was very

similar to my story that when I was I was actually in college and and felt God tugging on my heart to to go and to to give my life to Ministry and so I called my youth pastor I called my pastor well Dwayne did the exact same thing you were a senior in high school and you were at a football banquet you called me and you're like man I need to talk to you like tonight and we met at our senior Pastor's house at that point and Dwayne said that God was was moving in his heart and was calling him Ministry and he was trying

to figure out what that meant and we we cried we prayed and that was the beginning of Dwayne's journey in Ministry there was that undoubtable undeniable call God saying Dwayne this is what I want you to do with with your life and you know what you all obviously may not be called to Ministry in the pastorate but if you are here and you are a Christian you were called out by God to Salvation and it might not happen while you're up in a tree or on the road to Damascus but God will call you you know another story Dwayne I was thinking I remember teaching

a Bible study when you were a teenager and you were already a leader in the youth group you were I don't know 16 years old and so even as an early Christian Dwayne just had a personality that brought people in and he was a leader in the youth group and I taught a Bible sto study on Paul who wrote a Damascus and his call and or maybe I just mentioned it and after the Bible study Dwayne came up to me and here he is like one of the main leaders in our youth group and Dwayne's like so tell me about this Paul guy I'm like

what he goes I've never heard this story about Paul on the road to Damascus and it blew my mind here is like the leader in our youth group Dwayne hadn't grown up in church he didn't know that story and so I talked to him about it and as he said discipled him and began to teach him and I thought that was uh very insightful because you know you don't have to know all the inss and outs of theology you don't have to know the the Bible backwards and forwards you read recognize the call of the holy spirit in your life and that's what we're going

to talk about and this happens because there is a savior who sees us he sees us and because he sees us he sees our sin the state of our lives and our hearts and our need for a savior he seeks us and he saves so I'm going to go through the passage but I want to begin where I am going to end up the main purpose in verse 10 of our 10 verses Jesus gives us the low down the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost in the midst of the story of this we little man in a sycamore tree

is the reason behind it all the mystery unlocked the purpose the hope the way the truth of the life standing before us telling us why he is here telling us where we can find forgiveness and eternal life and everlasting peace in a world where everyone is trying to seek out their own way their own peace their own life Jesus is really clear in this story I I love it sometimes there's passages that's like okay maybe that's why I picked this one because it it wasn't going to be hard you know maybe I made it easy on myself sorry you could have really preached easy sermon

but I wanted the easy one all right I love it when God makes his his purpose clear like there's no unlocking what this passage is about Jesus Jesus clearly said the son of man came to seek and to save the Lost why did Jesus come what is his purpose to seek and to save the lost and that really is the question that that anyone who wrestles with faith they might ask why why Jesus what what was his purpose why did he come what makes Jesus or following Jesus different from any other religion in the world that I might seek after so in a lot of

ways this great passage is a great apologetic passage if you ever get into a discussion with someone well what separates Christianity from any other religion in the world go to Luke 19:10 and you have the answer to that question the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost he came seeking not us seeking him and so I'll I'll break that down here in just a moment give you a little cross reference on this idea if you're taking notes Romans chapter 3 here Paul is quoting some Old Testament texts and in verse 10 he says None is righteous know not one no

one understands no one seeks after God all have turned aside together they have become worthless no one does good not even one their throat is an open grave they use their tongues to deceive the vinum Act asps the Venom of asps is under their lips their mouth is full of curses and bitterness their feet are Swift to shed blood and their pasts are ruin and misery in the way of peace they have not known there's no fear of God Before Their Eyes Romans 3:10 through 18 God seeks us it's not a matter of us trying to get to him it's a matter of what he

did not what we do and so so we need to also realize on what we read today it is not enough just to know who Jesus is the demons know who Jesus is they know a lot about Jesus they believe in Jesus there are lots of people who claim to be Christians who know who Jesus is there are a lot of people in the Evangelical political realm that know who Jesus is there are a lot of my lost friends who I pray for who know who Jesus is a lot of people on planet Earth they know a great deal what Christians believe about Jesus or

at least some semblance of it often the world wants to know this if he did come why does it matter for them for you for me and there's a lot of answers to that question that or a lot of answers can be given to that question some people will focus on the love of God and that's definitely part of the answer Jesus came to be an example of God's love that's part of it we know John 3:16 maybe the most famous scripture that probably everyone in here has memorized for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son God's vision statement his

vision was the world because he loved the world he sent his son to die for us we love because he first loved us Greater Love is no man than this that he would lay his life down for his friends so no doubt Jesus is the embodiment of love and then some people will see his love just more as a maybe a social justice example a moralistic idea he's our example so we should do things as he did and certainly he is our example and we should do as he did but they would say it's more about he was a great moral person and teacher and

he wants you to love as he loved well Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus and Jews they can they can teach that you know all right so so here but before I get to verses 1 through four I'm going to do one more little story to really pick on Dwayne one time when Dwayne was the youth pastor under me he was maybe making the same kind of point and I had let him preach on a Sunday morning and he preached I don't know a handful of times a year and I would try to be there uh if I could sometimes I was on vacation but one

time he was talking about the different religions and Dwayne was really I mean he was on fire he was preaching and he was getting all fired up and he and he goes and he was trying to say in Buddhism and he goes and in budhism and I looked at my wife and I'm like did he just say budhism and then he doubled down and said it again he kept saying budhism and I don't know and he wasn't trying to be funny so it's hard for me not to see the word Buddhist and think of Dwayne mispronouncing it Buddhism I don't know what that is so

y'all can have fun with that however you want to Jesus said love God love your neighbor as yourself but he is not just an example he's not just a great prophet who lived an upstanding life he's not just the perfect man to give us an example he is not just the greatest teacher of all time and no he did not come to establish a new religion I would contend that Jesus came to do away with what many considered Rel religion he didn't come to give us a new way he came because he was the way the way the truth and the life we have all

these theories of what was the main purpose of Jesus coming this passage answers our question when zakus meet when Jesus meets zakus what does he say for the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost there's our purpose that's why Jesus came so I want to to start there I'm going to end there now let's let's break down our story a little bit let's look at verses 1-4 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through and behold there was a man named zakus he was the chief tax collector and was rich he was seeking to see who Jesus was but on account

of the crowd he could not because he was small in stature so he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him for he was about to pass that way got two points to the sermon today here's the first one we can be seeking but never see Jesus and I I'll break down what I mean by that because that can be kind of confusing we can be seeking but never see Jesus we can be seeking but not seeing there's a lot of ways that people seek here is zakus seeking to see who Jesus was trying his best to see him and

now some people and here's where my mind goes When I Was preparing this sermon because you know I I'm I'm like all right I'm going to preach a point but then all of a sudden I start in my mind coming up with well what could be all the questions that would maybe say well I don't really see it that way because there's scripture that say ask knock and the door will be open seek and you will find and so so that's not what we're talking about like I think when it comes to like prayer we are to ask we are we are to to knock

we are to seek and we'll find when we know Jesus personally we seek him in his will and we seek intimacy and we ask and pray in the provision of God's presence in our lives and we will not be disappointed so for the Christian there's definitely some seeking that takes place that will always lead to Jesus if you seek to grow close to God and spend time in his word you will certainly see Jesus when not say seeking I want you to think of it maybe this way some people are seeking God on a spiritual journey they're seeking to know if God is real to

know if religion is real and that's not a bad thing it could be an apologetic Journey which is a good thing but the seeking may be more about an intellectual knowledge thing to to scratch an itch and it might not lead to Faith right now we've got a man coming going to our church actually a couple they've been at our church in First Baptist White House for a year and a half they have not joined and they're a young couple maybe 30 years old and and they've showed up to do some Ministry stuff like if we're going to to chainsaw trees or like a church

work day just kind of that stuff that's good stuff but but they haven't really got involved in a Sunday school class or and so so I haven't got to have a lot of spiritual conver conversations with them they haven't joined the church but they're there every week and they're both anesthesiologists all right a husband and wife and they moved to our town from New York City everyone in Nashville now is coming they've all moved from California or New York um you can guess why um but but that's kind of what's going on even in White House Tennessee and so and so he told me a

couple months ago that he wanted to meet with me I'm like man I'd love to meet with you so we got together and uh and he said I wanted you to know that you know I've been going to your church for over a year and I just thought I needed to lay this out there that I'm an atheist said oh okay my wife's a Christian this is important to her I want to believe I'm here every week I'm here to everything you have to say I'm reading books I'm trying to figure this all out but I A A practicing Buddhist or as Dwayne might say

budhist um and um and so that's kind of who I am and I'll be here every Sunday but I don't believe any of this but I'm just trying to really study he is one of these people that are too smart for their own good like you know he's an anesthesiologist he's a lot smarter than I am so so we got in an apologetic discussion about the Bible he had questions about suffering about the Bible about stories in the Bible he is seeking a bunch of intellectual knowledge but he not really looking for Jesus you can seek peace with the world through one of these sweat

tents people seek a lot of things people seek religion they seek Church they seek stained glass and Relics and tradition you can seek a lot of things and never seek Jesus and the reality is his seeking of us is what makes all the difference which I'll get into in a moment so here in verse verse one Jesus enters Jericho which is closely tied to where you just were in chapter 18 Jericho during this time was much different than the Old Testament City that we think about with Joshua and the children of Israel's her Herod the Great had obtained Jericho from Caesar Augustus and he built

all kinds of stuff there was a fortress and there's aqueducts and palaces it was this incredible sight to see and in the midst of this bustling place is the chief tax collector zakus the title chief tax collector is found nowhere else in the New Testament I'm sure lots of of goods passed through Jericho and as they were taxed people like zakus well they got rich well in verse three he is trying to zakus is trying to see or seeking to see who Jesus was that's interesting I really thought about that tried to to research that Jesus was probably with a big entourage who were traveling

Jerusalem for Passover but the crowd apparently refers to people in Jericho who line the streets who just wanted to see him pass through I bet word was getting around about this Jesus who recently resurrected Lazarus just 15 miles away the word was spreading about this healer teacher and there seemed to be a a stirring in the city we have no idea how much zakus knew I mean maybe he had heard all the stories maybe he was spiritually seeking or maybe there was just a big crowd and he kind of had just heard about Jesus and he's like oh I need to I don't know a

lot about this guy but I want to try to get a glimpse of him I mean we've all been somewhere where where someone maybe famous I could be in the streets of Nashville and everyone's looking you know maybe maybe Keith Urban is out on Broadway oh look you got you know go check out oh I want to see him um it could be a famous person or sometimes it's just trying to get a view unfortunately of all right there's a car accident you know everyone's got to look you got I want to see what's going on what's all the stir what's the talk about something

is causing everyone else to look I want to look maybe that is all there is to zakus seeking to try to see but he was too short crowd was so big he was vertically challenged so he found a tree to try and check this Jesus guy out yesterday I got into town and I actually texted Dwayne earlier this week I knew I was coming into Indianapolis and um my 11-year-old daughter has got into the whole Caitlyn Clark craze all right I've never watched a WNBA basketball game in my life all right well now on Sunday afternoons after we're resting she's on TV and we're like

watching it we watched the college games and we watched her break the records and she is enjoying this and I was like man I wonder if the fever are in town Saturday when I get to Indianapolis and they were and I texted Dwayne I'm like hey I mean you want to go I want to see what this is all about and we got there and everybody at gamebridge Arena is there for pretty much one reason to see her and so we got nose bed tickets for real cheap we didn't spend the the, or $1,200 for resale down in the front um but uh and it

was a great game one of her best games ever and they beat the number one team but everyone just wants to see her all right that's what's going on zakus I just want to I want to see what this is all about zakus was seeking to see Jesus we can seek Jesus even know some things about him learn about his miracles about how others lives have been changed we can seek to know more about him we can do all of that and still never see it you can seek to find out all the stuff you want about Jesus and still never really see it 2

Corinthians Chapter 4 verses 1- six Paul talks about how we don't see therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God we do not lose heart but we have renounced thisg graceful under handed ways we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God and even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing in their case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory

of Christ who is the image of God for what we Proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as servants for Jesus's sake for God who said let light shine out of Darkness has Shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ I I really appreciate what Kelsey said as she was leading worship and and encouraged you guys and so apparently you had some kind of Evangelistic thing a few weeks ago and he said you're thinking about the faces of the people that you talk to and I mean this

is every Ministry every Church like where are the people all right when I learned that God is the one that opens people's eyes up to his glory in Christ it really did take the weight of what God had called me to do off my shoulders because Kelsey and Dwayne and the district Church can't save anybody but you pray you you look at Luke 19:10 and know that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost and you pray that God would open people's eyes up to the glory of Christ and the salvation and that's what you keep praying for and you keep sharing and you

keep sharing and you keep praying and as Kelsey said God will build his church the reality is we are blinded until we are enlightened by the glory of God shown in Christ that's a particular theme in the Gospel of John that I just preached through there are people who seek God who seek religion who seek Heaven who seek morality but they never really if they don't ever see Jesus none of it matters which is where the blessing of the next verses come into play zakus is trying to see we can be seeking but never see Jesus but look as we look in verses 5-10 who

sees him who's the one that sees him let's read together verse five when Jesus came to the place he looked up and said to him zakus you come down right I'm going to your house today so zakus hurried and came down and received him joyfully and when they saw it they all grumbled he has gone to be the guest of a man who's a sinner zakus stood and said to the Lord behold Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor if I've defrauded anyone of anything I restore it fourfold and Jesus said to him today salvation has come to this house since

he is a son of Abraham for the son of man came to seek and to save the lost the second point today is Jesus can see us and chooses to seek after us Jesus can see us and chooses to seek after us we all know the story Jesus calls him to come down he says he's going to zaki's house this shows the necessity of bringing salvation to zakus house I love it how Jesus will come and and make his home with us definitely something we could talk about there he Tabernacles Among Us he comes that our relationship with God goes from head knowledge and wondering

to intimacy to making his home with us in verse six says that zakus hurries down comes down and receives Jesus joyfully when you realize Jesus is Calling You it is like this weight that is lifted wait he's calling me it it's not about my atheist friend that's just trying to find answers to questions when he realized that Jesus is Alive and seeks out after him and loves him and ultimately died for him and God's Grace has been shown to my atheist friend well when God helps him see that truth he's going to be at the end of his journey he's going to say oh I

see it the the weight is lifted the questioning the seeking are all answered in hearing the voice of the one calling you come down and look what happens well this ticks everybody off everybody's mad they're grumbling Jesus going to the house of a sinner that made him mad it should make us hopeful brings us joy such were we and then of course of course we have the full circle or cycle of repentance um in his willingness to give back okay so so now he is he knows Jesus he says I want to give back four times as much to anybody I've cheated I want to

give half of what I own to the poor well I would say that that's gospel fruit it's showing us that his salvation was genuine and if there is any doubt of where zakus is spiritually verse 9 is very clear salvation has come to this house and then he addresses something really interesting zakus with this term son of Abraham that that's particularly important son of Abraham you think about Abraham All Nations will be blessed through his bloodline and of course through Abraham's bloodline we have the Jews through there we have is Israel God's chosen people and I mean we could go into all that and the

12 tribes and and Jacob's name change and all that but basically you need to know Abraham the Jews Israel God's chosen people what are they chosen to do chosen to usher in the Messiah All Nations will be blessed because through that Seed of Abraham Jesus would come and we are all Jews and Greeks God's chosen people sons of Abraham if we have trusted in Jesus here's probably the best New Testament cross reference to understand that Galatians chapter 3 verses 7-9 now when that it is of those of Faith who know who are the sons of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the

Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying in you shall all the nations be blessed here's the key verse n so then those who are of Faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith that was zakus and that is us when he says son of Abraham you think about God's chosen people that Israel coming from the Seed of Abraham well if you have trusted in Jesus you are a son of Abraham one of God's chosen people God's salvation included zakus if you trust in Jesus it includes you so back to where we started verse 10 what do we have in this

simple statement the son of man came to seek and to save the Lost first of all we have an incredible historical fact the son of man came the son of man came the Christmas message right we could look at the great christological passages in the New Testament those are some of my favorite to study where you learn a lot about Jesus Christ there's four big ones in the New Testament Colossians 1 Philippians 2 John 1 Hebrews 1 and and all of those they tell a lot about Jesus but each of them talk about how God the Son of God entered our realm it's crazy we

hear it so much we forget about how magnificent and amazing it is like we we live as a Christian and we go to church our whole lives and we forget to be amazed by God became one of us there was a song when I was in college in the 90s by a singer named uh Joon Osborne what if God was one of us that may be the stupidest song I've ever heard in my entire life you might remember it what if God was one of us and just a stranger on the bus a slob like one of us like all right we don't have to

ask whether God was one of us he was all right that that's the purpose that's the big idea God was one of us the Son of God Jesus came entered our realm he was he came why did it have to be that way well he lived the life we couldn't live and died the death we deserve in the New Testament there's a couple of phrases that that I used to be real confused about sometimes Jesus is addressed as the son of man sometimes he's addressed as the Son of God y'all heard both of those all right what's the difference why why why is sometimes he

called the son of man and other times he's called the Son of God well there's two very very important theological ideas that we should learn from both of those the Son of God explains his divinity fully God the son of man explains his Humanity fully human so when Jesus came he there there's this big word all right here's your big theological word of the day um if maybe Dwayne's taught this to you but you can really impress somebody hypostatic Union that's a big big Christian theology word hypostatic Union that means that that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man at the exact same time he

was not 50% man 50% God you're like well well how does that work I have no idea I'm not even going to try to tell you how that works you know I told Dwayne when he said what do you want me to preach on you know I said you want me to preach on some crazy um theological idea like hypostatic Union and I didn't even realize that was in this passage all right so so son of man he is fully human Son of God he is fully God do you know why Jesus at Christmas had to be born of a virgin to be born without

sin as us all right so he was immaculately conceived in Mary's womb he wasn't inheriting the seed of Adam like we all receive and are born into sin so so he didn't get Adam seed like you and I and every other human being who has ever lived we're born into we we inherit that seed but yet he was born of Mary's womb of a human he was 100% man as well as being 100% Divine so that he could be the last Adam with the first Adam messed up Jesus the last Adam fixes it all he lives a perfect life because he is the Son of

God 100% God but he is our representative before God because he is the son of man also 100% man so this incredible Plan of Salvation that God has made for us almighty God entered our world the infinite became finite the Eternal stepped out of Eternity and stepped into a place that keeps up with time yes Incarnation God and human flesh Emmanuel God With Us Jesus came according to the plan of God Galatians 4:4 when the time had fully come God sent forth his son God had a plan and Jesus is telling us in Luke 19 that the plan was in full effect I just preached

through John in my church as I've already mentioned and John 114 clearly states that the word became flesh and dwelt Among Us he tabernacled among us more specifically he came in his tent of Flesh that was our only hope and and at the heart of this of Christianity is this incredible truth God has come down to us in the person of Jesus now we know what God is like for the son of man has made him plain to us we can know God personally and have a relationship with him through his son and we see his mission here he came to seek and to save

Jesus came looking for something or rather should I say looking for someone what's our Lord like he's like the the woman who lost a coin and searched her house until she found it he's like the man who lost one sheep and went out into the Wilderness until he found it he sought people up in trees people caught in adultery blind people wild people Untouchable people religious people poor people lost people Sinners and such were you and I and we weren't just lost we weren't just sick needing well I preached several years ago and I kept talking about how um you know Jesus came we were

sick and we needed to be made well and a friend of mine in our church Dwayne knows him well and he is he's a theologian and he very respectfully uh he pulled me aside after church and he said pastor Ashley I'm really struggling with what you said today and this is Mr Greg Baron uh Dwayne you know Greg he goes Jesus didn't just he didn't come to make the sick well he came to make dead people alive I was like thank you Greg I need to be reminded of that incredible truth we think about church being a hospital for the sick and I there's no

problem with that but church is a place it's a funeral home where dead people are coming but they're made alive that's the message of the Gospel we were dead in our sin not just sick Jesus didn't come to make bad people good he came to make dead people alive he came to seek and save us not just from our lostness but from our deadness spiritually dead we were dead in our sin and yes lost the word lost you know it's not as invogue as it used to be you know we don't like to offend anyone so we don't say well you're you're lost when I

was growing up in the 80s and church you heard that a lot it was common for a preacher or Christian to say people are lost I'm not I'm not sure what happened maybe people people are trying to be careful not to offend someone you know it's kind of like we don't say someone needs to get saved or we don't use the term born again that was so like you just you need to be born again but now it's like well you just need to have peace with God and well no born again is a pretty good phrase because that's the one that Jesus used okay

like he came so that we would have Abundant Life and he makes us New Creations he says You must be born again and and that offends some people I got to do a couple of mission trips in Ireland if you've ever been to Europe or Ireland anywhere out there there's a lot of very religious people and in Ireland particularly everyone is either Protestant or Catholic but hardly anyone is a Christian because they are Protestant or Catholic based on the way that they've been raised if Mom and Daddy was Catholic then I'm a Catholic if Mom and Daddy was Protestant then I'm Protestant and they might

go to church they probably send a little money they you know but but they show up every now and then and so I was on the streets of a little Irish town and I was talking to this man that's a leader in the town and he was Catholic and so I said are you a Christian yes yes and I'm Catholic and and I said are you born again and he goes don't start getting all crazy on me now like he was like you know don't then born again then now you're some cult or some crazy I'm like well no that's that's what the gospel is

it's not about being Catholic or Protestant has Jesus rebirthed your soul and now you know him intimately look at Jesus's words he came to seek and to save the lost if you read the Bible and see men and women spiritually Dead trying to seek their way through life without God it's clear they're lost if you watch the news or read the newspaper or spend about five minutes on Facebook or Twitter or ex or whatever they call it um there will be no denying people are lost without God spiritually dead lost without God what what does it mean to be lost you know I bet all

of us as kidss at some point had a had a experience maybe you're in Kroger or Walmart you lose your parents and you're saying where are my parents and you kind of freak out and you know you're lost here's the difference the world doesn't understand it's lost they're just living lost we got to pray for God to open their eyes to see their lostness their deadness Isaiah 536 reminds us we've all strayed like sheep each one of us is turn to his own way we all by Nature go our own way remember Jesus didn't inherit that nature that we all have nobody has to teach

us how to run from God we are born running away from God we're born lost doing our own thing going our own way and the blessing of seeing his savior who sees and seeks us is realizing this incredible reality that if he doesn't come looking for us we would never come to him in our lostness we aren't seeking God we are without hope until the hope is provided for us we find Hope in the words of Jesus who came to seek and to save what was lost he did not come to provide a way for us to better our lives he is the way he

sees us he seeks us and finds us and when we are found our entire perspective changes we're overwhelmed and thankful because we have been saved from hell we don't live for God to try to be found we live for God because we have been found we're so moved and changed we desire him and we seek to live for him it's like the per that person with a near-death experience it could be cancer or a car wreck all of a sudden they live differently because they've been saved and once we've been found we see and know God on an intimate level because of Jesus we now

know God in him we see God's love in him we see God's kindness in him we see God's mercy in him we see God's justice in him we see God's holiness and we should desire him right now I'm preaching through the Book of Ecclesiastes I'm about my fourth week in it and I think Dwayne at some point you said you preach through Ecclesiastes and it's so interesting that the the preacher Solomon he's seeking all these things all right you know all his vanity but he's all right well I'm I'm like through my work or through my wealth or through my riches or through you know

all these things to try to try to find peace Under the Sun well he's got to be above the sun to look to the son s o n it's not about what he can do to find peace in life he can only find that as God has put eternity in our hearts a place that only he can f nothing else Works he is our pleasure he is our everything what we need Jesus came to provide when God gave his only son to hang on a tree like a common criminal he gave the very best he had here is a life-changing thought as I Was preparing

the sermon I found this quote God has more grace than you have sin in your life very much like that last song y'all first time I'd heard that song and this is made clear he seeks you and saves you and overwhelms You by his grace even though you don't deserve it because he loves you he gives it to you and by the way another incredible thought no matter how how bad somebody thinks they they are the worst of the worst they may be saved because the gospel is the power of God and God is able to rescue anyone no matter their sin no matter their

past no matter their their struggle we all have skeletons in our closet things that would embarrass us things that would make us ashamed and you know that you can't hide anything from God and he knows all that stuff and loves you and seeks you and died on the cross for you because of those things to rescue you from sin he seeks us while we were still sinners Christ died for us he knows who we are in our need and extends Grace to us and makes relationship with him possible Jesus wants to come to our houses he desires to dwell with us so let us with

joyful Hearts proclaim the good news of the Gospel that Jesus Christ came to save Sinners I know you'reall going to do communion in just a minute and you get to reflect on Jesus came and sought me and saved me L Luke 19:10 puts no limits on the grace of God Cy tin Boon like to say there is no pit so deep that the love of God is Not deeper still you know you may be watching this online you may be in this room I have no idea where the people in this room are spiritually and you might come to church without Jesus you don't have

to leave here without him you may have come guilty you can leave forgiven you may have come dirty but you can go home clean that's the true power of the Gospel to create a miracle conversion inside of the human heart I also read this statement preparing for the sermon Jesus is a better savior than you are a sinner man I grew up singing hymns in an Old Country Church and there was a A Hymn that some of you may know if you grew up in a country church singing from a hym book like I I did and there was a hymn that we used to

sing to God be the glory and it had this line in it the vest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives we have been pardoned by God through Jesus dying on the cross as he seeks and Saves The Lost if you are a Lo if you are lost you're a perfect candidate to be found by Jesus you may say well but you know are there other ways no look at Jesus's words he came to seek and save the lost when I was in college this was not Seminary this was not preparing to be a pastor this was just undergrad I was

a music major in college and I had to have a literature class and I found there's a class I could that I could take instead of having to like read read big books and then that was before I was a reader and it was comparative world religions and I knew I was going to Ministry I'm like o I'm going to take that class so this was a secular University um Austin PE State University in Clarksville Tennessee let's go PE um sorry talk about our fight song um but uh so so I took this class and the professor first day and I thought I'm going to

learn all these religions and I'm going to get in there and debate and I'm going to show them that Christianity is the right one and that was my mindset and the professor from day one he said if you are a Christian and you have taken this class and you want to debate and prove that you're right and all the other religions are wrong you just either need to drop this class right now or keep your mouth shut and I said okay well I'll just keep my mouth shut respectfully but as I went through the class still in my heart I was I was trying to

learn and as we would go through every religion we would go through Hinduism we would go through Buddhism we would go through Judaism we would go through Zoar asianism we would go through Confucianism we would go through Mormonism we would go through fill in the blank and we did go through Christianity God helped me realize something that I needed to see every one of these religions we had to answer the question how are people saved in their religion so we have to ask ask the qu answer the questions what are we saved from how are we saved why are we saved saved and and so

some it was for Nirvana some it was for heaven some and you know and and some it was to not go to hell some it's not to just to be eternally dead whatever but the answer for how are we saved by Christianity was different than all the rest of them because it was obvious that they were trying to get to God all right they're trying to live a life that gets them to God and Christianity says you can't get to God that's why Jesus came came he came we don't get up the ladder to to God Jesus is the ladder he came to us I

was like okay and of course I didn't start debating and KCK everybody off in the class but I'm like th this is the difference Jesus came to seek and to save it's not about me getting to him he came to me Christianity Jesus comes to us he seeks us while doing that he lives the life we couldn't live and dies the death we deserve he seeks us he came as one of us to save us by his grace not by what we do if you qualify as lost then you're an excellent candidate for salvation if you're a sinner Christ came seeking you when Charles Spurgeon

preached on this text he quaintly imagined a sinner longing for salvation waiting for the Lord to find him maybe like zakus you're seeking after something or someone listen to spurgeon's words do not give up in despair because Jesus seems so long in coming to find you he has a piercing eye to see you in a swift foot to leap over the mountains after you and a ready hand to grasp you and strong shoulders on which to bear his wandering Sheep Home to the fold above there is hope for every person hearing this sermon for Christ has come to seek and to save the Lost would

you pray with me Jesus you alone have the power to say save and Lord if there is anyone that that hears these words I pray that they would talk to someone come to Jesus and when you come to Jesus Lord we find that you have already come to us Christianity is not about achieving it's about receiving and I pray that Lord as we receive you in your grace Lord we call on your name name and we know you and we are found by you it is an overwhelming blessing to live desire to pursue and Love and Enjoy you and this is possible because you pursue

and love us Lord speak to our hearts as we communion with you in Christ's name amen