Luke 15:1–32

Have you misplaced your joy? Has it become easier to complain than to laugh? Do you wake up, hoping only to make it through another day? Good News, we have found your joy! Today we gather for God’s glory and our good.

We live in an unhappy world. I hear a politician say the other day, that if we win we will be angry any more, we will be civil and happy. So I guess she was saying her party’e happiness depends on getting their way. Dr. Logon Carson says there is a greek word for that Line of reason: “BOLOGNA.”

Good news you can all be happy. The election is over. Jesus Won. If you are here, you have been elected for redemption. And tonight Jesus wants you to know how to find your lost joy.

We can share God’s Joy, when He Receives Glory. God receives Glory, when we trust His plan of restoring our lives to His design. Repentance is a change of live, resulting from a change of mind and attitude concerning God’s design for our lives.

Jerry Vines says, “If Jesus isn’t enough, you will become a bitter old Christian!”

John 15:11 NASB95

“These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

We can find our lost joy, when we celebrate with God over those who repent.

john 15:

When we lose something, we look for it. When we find it we rejoice. When we lose our joy, we should search for it, and when we find it we should rejoice.

Jesus, in teaches us that when we lose our joy, in the christian life, we should seek for it, restore it, and then enjoy it. God’s rejoices, when he receives glory. God receives glory, when sinners repent. Jesus combines three parables together to reveal the secret to finding our lost joy. First:

teaches us that when we lose our joy in the christian life we should seek for it, restore it, and enjoy it. God’s celebrates joy when he receives glory. God receives glory when sinners repent.

Jesus Warns Us that Complacency and Complaining prevents Finding Lost Joy.

Complacency produces Complaining, Complaining prevents you from sharing God’s joy, over sinners repenting.

The easiest way not to fix a problem is to complain about it. If you have lost your joy you must look for it. When you find it share your joy with others. Joy is not to be enjoyed in a vacuum. God desires that we share His joy, when He receives glory.

Our true happiness, depends on how we enjoy God’s goodness. Our Joy is only complete when we share God’s joy. When we come to hear form God, we will find our Joy (15:1).

God rejoices more over the one repentant sinner, than the 99 complacent believers, sitting in the pews.

Losing a $1 when you have a $100 does not seem like a big lost. But to God losing one soul, He created, is a big deal.

You were so valuable, that God himself came to seek and find you, in your lostness.

Jesus personally came to seek and save you.

You are important to God. You are valuable to God. God created you in His image. God desires to restore His image in you no matter how marred you are.

When Jesus finds you, He restores you, and invites all His friends to rejoice with him.

Friends, God is not forgetting about you when the attention shines on someone, whom He has just redeemed and restored. He is inviting you to celebrate with Him, in His joy.

Finding your lost joy, may sometimes require cost you the spotlight; and other times it may require you step into the spotlight.

Your Salvation cost Jesus everything, shouldn’t someone else’s salvation cost you a little something. It may cost you the spotlight for a little while, as Jesus rejoices over finding a lost soul.

God’s progressive plan of salvation will sometimes cost you to step into the spotlight. Finding joy may cost you your comfort, and move you out of complacency.

We should repent if we have failed to realize that God desires we celebrate His victories. God’s glory should bring us joy. God receives Glory, when one sinner repents.

We find true joy in a reconciled relationship with God, which we are willing to maintain. Repentance maintains a our relationship with God, through Christ Jesus.

You may not know God values you so much that He gave up everything to redeem you (15:4).

You may need to repent, if you are not here to hear from God (15:1). If you came to complain, you may need to repent.

You may have forgotten the cost of your redemption (15:5). Repentance may put us in the spotlight. Repentance may call us out of complacency and cost us some humility. Christ humbled Himself, by coming to earth and walking upon sinners to save save the lost.

Ephesians 2:14–16 NASB95

For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

ephesians 2:14–16

The pharisees and scribes couldn’t image God’s Christ bringing pagans into their kingdom. If you are not happy, maybe it is because you are not satisfied with God’s progressive plan of salvation.

God will stop everything to bring repentance and accomplish redemption.

The shepherd lost 1% but Jesus tells of a lady who lost 10% of her joy. This lady lost a day’s pay. If you make $12.50 per hour, It would be like cashing you two week pay check, and misplacing a days pay. Losing $100 would matter to you. You would trash your car, turn house upside down, retrace all your steps looking for your $100. So, when we lose our joy in the Christian life, why don’t we look for it?

What would you do? I would stop everything, until I find my $100.

We sometimes fail to find our joy, because we are so independent. We suffer in silence or complain and blame everyone and everything else, for our unhappiness.

We must stop complaining and get on our knees and look for the joy found only in a reconciled relationship with God, through Christ.

This women looks for her coin alone, but when she finds it she has a public celebration. The Christian life is meant to be shared with God and God’s people. We find our joy, by sharing in the wins and recovered loses with others.

You may feel like you have falling through the cracks and no one cares. You may think you are alone and on your own. But Jesus is on a rescue mission. Jesus may find you in the darkness and loneliness of despair, but he invites you to celebrate your redemption in the presence of others—the church.

God stops at nothing to restore your joy in a relationship with Him. Sometimes you may not have found happiness, because your haven’t repented of the sin that broke your intimate relationship with God.

Application: Jesus says reconciliation, resulting from repentance, causes rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner, who repents. Give God credit for the joys of recovered losses.

Pride by me the very hinderance to finding your joy.

Galatians 6:14 NASB95

But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

God’s Compassion Calls for celebration

Finally, Jesus, asks, if you lost 50% of everything you hold near and dear, and then found it, how much would you rejoice? The story of the prodigal son is a parable of a man who has only two sons and he loses one.

Charles Swindoll reminds us that Sheep wander off, coins roll away, they can be replaced at the stockyard or the bank. However, a Son not so.

The Father not only waits and searches, but He celebrates when He can restore the lost son.

We can’t buy happiness, because true joy is the gift of God.

How often do we try to buy our way back into the joy of God? In the movie “Legends of the Fall,” the Hollywood culture teaches us that we are restored to a Father’s grace, when we restore what we have taken.

The Bible teaches that God’s grace restores us, because we have lost everything He has given us.

You cannot buy something that God’s freely gives. Jesus paid the cost of our redemption. God freely gives us all that is Jesus’.

Ephesians 2:8–10 NASB95

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Ephesians 2:

God Restores Our Joy, when We rejoice and Celebrate with Him.

We lose our joy, when don’t don’t realize, where it has always been.

You are important to God. You are valuable to God. God created you in His image. God desires to restore His image in you no matter how marred you are.

You were so valuable, that God himself came to seek and find you, in your lostness.

When Jesus finds you, He restores you, and invites all His friends to rejoice with him.

Friends God is not forgetting about you when the attention shines on someone He has just saved and restored. He is inviting you to celebrate with Him, in His joy.

Your Salvation cost Jesus everything, shouldn’t someone else’s salvation cost you a little something. It may cost you the spotlight for a little while, as Jesus rejoices over finding a lost soul.

God’s progressive plan of salvation will sometimes cost you the spotlight, your comfort, and move you out of complacency.

We should repent if we have failed to realize that God desires we celebrate His victories. God’s glory brings us our joy. GOD receives Glory when one sinner repents.

John 15:8–11 NASB95

“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

God’s glory brings us our joy.

Because we are so independent. We suffer in silence or Complain and blame everyone and everything else, for our unhappiness. This women looks for her coin alone, but when she finds it she has a public celebration. The Christian life is meant to be shared with God and God’s people. Our joy is found by sharing in the wins and recovered loses of others.

John 15:8

We lose our joy, when don’t don’t realize where it has always been.

We lose our joy, when don’t don’t realize where it has always been.

Joy may costs us the spotlight, or put us in the spot light.

Joy must be shared, to be fully enjoyed.

Joy is recovered in God’s victories.

God says we have to celebrate, when a brother or sister is restored to life, through repentance and trust in Jesus’ search and rescue mission.

Jesus paid it all, so we can enjoy it all.

My repentance, leading someone to Christ, for the first time. Dustin and the wrong number.