Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today.
Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. I'm going to read to you St. Luke chapter number 15, and I'll begin reading at verse number 1. Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured saying, This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. And that's the worst thing they could find about him was that he ate with sinners. Wow.
And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you have in a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness ago, after that which is lost, and until he findeth? Hold on just a moment. Let me get my glasses. These really aren't mine. These are my briefcase, and I didn't bring one of them, so I had to borrow Tony's glasses.
Do I look stately now? Now I can see what I'm reading. Verse number 5. And when he had found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he called together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, which was lost. And now we get the spiritual application in verse number 7.
And I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than ninety-nine, over ninety-nine just persons which need no repentance. That is the lost sheep. That is the lost story that he gives them in verse, beginning at verse number 8. Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace, which was lost. And when she had found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace, which was lost.
Which I had lost. And then, again, the spiritual application, verse number 10. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of angels over one sinner, over one sinner that repenteth. And if they're rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who's come home, how much more should you and I be rejoicing when we see it happen in front of us? May we never, ever, ever take for granted the privilege and the opportunity to see people being born into the family of God.
Last year, estimations are this. There were six thousand Baptist churches that did not baptize one single convert. Can you imagine that? Fifty-two Sundays and not one convert baptized. So when you're seeing people saved and you're seeing people baptized, you ought to be rejoicing or make you happy. You're in a church that is reaching the lost. Well, now it's bad enough that a person would lose sheep. A lady would lose a coin that meant so much to her.
Now there's something else that is far, far worse than a sheep or a coin. Let me begin in that verse, number 11. There arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And it would, fame would have filled his belly with the husk that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him. And when he had came to himself, when he came to himself, it's a good thing when you can wake up out of your sin and out of your mind.
You can wake up out of your misery and out of your drunkenness and out of your stupor, and you come to yourself. And when he came to himself, he said, how many hired servants of my fathers have bread enough and despair? And I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. I have been no more worthy to be called thy son.
Make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father, and when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy side am no more worthy to be called thy son. And he said unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy side am no more worthy to be called thy son.
And the son said unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy side am no more worthy to be called thy son. This is a heartbreaking story. Bad enough to lose your sheep, bad enough to lose a coin, but this is a horrible story.
This is a terrible story. The father lost his son. The son lost everything. And then his elder brother lost his joy. There's so much that is lost.
In this story, the prodigal son takes his inheritance and he goes to a far country, young people. The devil is a liar. The devil is a cheat.
The devil doesn't play fair. And all of the devil's apples have worms in them. They may look great on the outside. They may be bright red. They may be shiny. They may look wonderful, but every one of the devil's apples are filled with worms. He's a liar.
He doesn't play fair. The bright lights and the big city and the attraction, the beautiful women, all the great stuff that he throws at you comes at you from, when you think that you can't stay at home and follow the rules and obey your mom and dad anymore, so I'm going to go to the big city. I ran away from home when I was 15 years old. I ran away from St. Louis, East St. Louis the first night. Five rides it took me to get to East St. Louis. There was not an interstate highway system in those days.
It was in the process of being built. Five rides it took me. I was not very smart. I ended up that night staying in East St. Louis.
I didn't know anything about East St. Louis, but come find out, East St. Louis was the crime capital of America. It was horrible. There I was. The very first night, I was already homesick, and I called the house, and my mom answered the phone, and she said her first word out of her mouth. She didn't say hello. She said, Tim?
I called the phone. I was gone for two weeks. Broke my mom and dad's heart. Brought shame to my dad's ministry, a disgrace, but I thought St. Louis looked great, but I soon found out the $40 that I had with me didn't last very long. I was out of money. I had to get a job. I'm washing dishes at famous bars like a Dillard's today.
I don't know the difference. They have me more famous than bars in downtown St. Louis, a very, very popular store back in those days. I'm washing dishes in that little restaurant downstairs for a dollar an hour, and I'm living the great life of the big city washing dishes for a buck an hour. I lost it all.
I wasted it all. You don't know what they're doing. They're holding their arms out, and they're running to me. They're welcoming me back home. The way this boy goes back home is the right way you go home, people. This is how you go home.
You see a lot of people go out, and they live in sin. They just expect to come back and there's nothing ever to be said and nothing ever to be done, but friend, you don't come to the Lord back that way. You come back with brokenness. You come back with repentance. with tears, and you come back saying, God, I blew it.
I messed up. And this is the way that He comes back. You don't come back with demands. You come back with brokenness. You come back with a servant's heart. He wasn't coming back as a son. He's coming back now to serve. I'll just be one of my dad's servants, if he'll have me. And when you come back with that attitude and that spirit, God's going to do something in your life.
But when you come back arrogant and puffed up and full of pride, and you won't be broken, and you won't shed tears, and you won't confess your sin, you just expect everything automatically to be all right, that's not the way you come back to the Lord. His Father runs to Him. And to meet Him. And now His Father is willing to forgive His Father. He wants to throw a party. He's just glad that His Son is alive. He didn't know whether His Son was dead or not. And His Son is alive, and He's so happy, and He runs to meet Him.
And throws His arm around Him, and then He throws a great big party. Fatted calf. I was over in India preaching a few years ago, and they had to warn me, said, be careful about preaching about the fatted calf.
Because you see, over in India, the cows are sacred. They believe that's grandma and grandpa. And the evangelist that was there before me got up and preached on the fatted calf, and they literally ran him out of town. He's running for his life.
Well, I'm fast, but I'm not that fast, so I had a whole lot of other stuff to preach that I didn't have to preach on that. But then, there's this older brother in this story, and this is really what kind of makes this story even more interesting. It's very interesting the way it is, just the father and the son, but now there's another son thrown into the mix. So there's a party going on. They've killed the fatted calf. They brought out a robe, and they put shoes on his feet, and they put a ring on his finger, and it's party time. It's celebration. I'm not trying to be sacrilegious, but I think that's the way it is in the presence of angels. There's rejoicing in heaven, and it's party time. They're excited because the sinner has come home.
That's why we ought to get excited. But this older brother, he's got a problem. Did you realize that you could be lost away from the house, which the younger brother was, and you can also be lost in the house, which the elder brother was? Did you know that you can go down to the bright lights of the big city and waste it all in riotous living and your life a complete disaster and mess, and you're as backslidden as backslidden you can be, but that you can also be in church Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night and still be backslidden on God?
But the problem is that if there's not a spiritual temperature in life, you become like one of the Pharisees. The Pharisees didn't understand why Jesus is eaten with the sinners, and he begins to tell them. He tells them these stories about being lost.
This is the reason. This is why Jesus came to this earth. He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
That was Jesus' primary reason and purpose being on this earth. Ladies and gentlemen, we live around people today who are lost. We work with people who are lost. We go to school with people who are lost.
We shop with people who are lost. They're dying, and they're lost, and they're going to spend eternity separated from God in a horrible, horrible place called hell. They're lost. Somebody's got to talk to them.
Somebody's got to reach them. It's not enough to build a church. It's not enough to put a sign in front of the church.
You say, well, they know that we're here. That's not what the Bible says we're to do. The Bible says we're to go on the highways and the byways and the hedges and that we are to compel them to come. The Bible says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
I believe in confrontational so in it. I believe in knock on doors, and I believe in talking to people. What about Jesus? But I also believe that we are to live our lives so they can see Jesus in us. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. The lost people can see Jesus in your life and know that there's something different about you that they begin to come to the place that they say, what I've got isn't working, but what they've got sure seems to be working.
I want what they've got. This world needs Jesus. You can be lost away from the house. You can be lost in the house. The Father, this is an amazing Father. He runs to the younger brother, and then the elder brother won't come to the party. The Father goes to Him, and this is the way our Heavenly Father is. When I could not come to Him, He came to me.
He comes to us, and this morning He's come here to draw someone to Him, someone here without Jesus. This is the worst lost of all. This is the lost soul. It's bad to lose a sheep. It's bad to lose a coin. It's bad to lose things. You ever lost your car? Went to a cowboy football game one time, couldn't find my car.
I knew it had to be there, but there's thousands and thousands of other cars. I didn't remember where I lost my car. My wife is notorious for losing her keys and her phone. She used to lose her glasses, but she went to the doctor and got her eyes fixed, so she said, you can't use that in your preaching anymore ha-ha. She still loses her keys and her phone on a fairly regular basis. Being the bright person I am, I look at her and I say, where did you have them last? I always get the look.
She don't say it out loud, but I know what she's thinking. Hey, dummy, if I knew where I had them last, I'd know where they're at. It's horrible to lose a sheep or a coin.
It's even worse to lose a child. There was a couple on Bonanza. How many of you like to watch Bonanza? These are the old people right here.
Okay. Old Ben and Little Joe and Adam and Hoss. There's a couple on the show, a Dutch couple. They've lost their only son.
Hoss has been hit over the head. He's left on the side of the road and when he wakes up, he has amnesia. He doesn't know who he is.
This older couple comes along. This Dutch couple, they find him and they're missing their son, especially the woman. They realize he doesn't know who he is, so they tell him that he is their son. He believes him.
He doesn't know who he is. Of course, Ben and Little Joe and Adam, they're looking for Hoss and then one day after searching and searching, they found him living with this couple. They were so excited and so thrilled, but the couple, especially the wife, was so heartbroken and she looks at Ben and she said, well, you've got two other boys.
What kind of argument is that? It wouldn't have mattered if he had 10 boys. This was still his son. I was in a shopping mall. I agreed to go with Connie and Jan, our oldest daughter. We went to North Park Mall there in Dallas and I told them that I would watch Emma. Emma was at that time almost three years old, two and a half, three years old. I agreed that they were excited about that, so they went shopping and I got to watch my granddaughter.
You know what Papaw does? Especially when they're that age, you know where they go? They go to the toy store. I took her to the toy store and she's in this toy store and she's looking at all these toys. Her eyes are getting big. She's so excited about the toy store. For some reason, I got engrossed in looking at toys, too. All of a sudden, I realized that Emma was not beside me. Now, I don't know whether you've ever had this feeling or not, but it was a panicky feeling at that very moment. I looked around and my granddaughter is gone.
I'm talking regular right now. I'm saying, Emma, Emma, where are you? Emma, answer Papaw. Where are you at, Emma?
Not a word. Now, I'm getting desperate. I'm raising my voice and people are looking at me. Emma, Emma Nicole, where are you? I go three rows up and there's Emma looking at a toy. She hasn't heard a word I said.
She's looking at the toy. Oh, what a relief it was. In Utah, years ago, a little boy scout was separated from the other troop and he got lost. He was lost for 72 hours.
The 11-year-old boy in a big forest. Seventy-two hours he was lost. They said that over 20,000 people poured out to go look for this boy. Well, if it had been my son, if it had been my grandson, I would have had 120,000 people looking for him. The story had a happy ending.
They found him. He was cold. He was hungry. He was tired, but he was okay.
I wish I could tell you today that all stories have a happy ending like that, but they don't. In Brooklyn, New York, a little eight-year-old boy, mom, finally agreed that he could walk by himself the two and a half blocks home from the school to the apartment. In this large city of Brooklyn, New York, the boy got disoriented. He got turned around and he asked a strange man for help. The man was a bad man. The bad man was a mean man.
The man took him to his house and abused him and then killed him. I wish I could tell you all stories. I wish I could tell you this one, that all your friends and all your family and all your neighbors and everybody's going to get saved, but I'd be lying to you if I told you that. I don't know who's going to get saved and who's not, but I do know this, that our job is to tell them. Our job is to preach. Our job is to witness. Our job is to hand out a gospel tract.
Our job is to let this world know there's some good news in the midst of all the bad that's going on. Mark 8 and verse 36, for what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? It's bad to lose your health, bad to lose your sight, your hearing, bad to lose your legs, it's bad to lose your mind.
My friend, the worst thing is to lose your own soul. For what should it profit a man? What would it help you if you became the richest person in the state of North Carolina and you had more money than all of us put together? What good would it do you if you don't know Jesus and you die and you go to hell? What good would all that, those riches do you? You're not taking it with you. What good?
For what does it profit a man? There's nothing wrong with you having things. There's nothing wrong with you having a nice automobile or a nice home or a boat or a camper until those things come between you and God. Anything that comes between me and God is wrong. Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. We've got things messed up in America today. We've got things before God.
Things. We go down to the hotel on Sunday morning to get something to eat before going to church and there's ball teams. They don't even wait till the afternoon to play anymore. They're playing on Sunday morning at 10 o'clock church time. There was a time in America, there was a time I was born and raised in Illinois, which is a fairly liberal state, but in Illinois where I live they never even had ball games on Wednesday night.
You know why? Because the school board knew that was prayer meeting night. They respected the church. The world doesn't respect the church anymore because we can live in them reason not to respect the church.
We don't treat church attendance with an urgency, with being there when the doors were open. We give God a little lip service Sunday morning for an hour, hour and a half. Well I've done my service to the Lord today. Oh my.
What a shame. Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. First. Young adult parents, you raise your children today with God being number one in your home. The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know Him personally.
Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with a sin nature. Romans 3 23 says for all of sin and come short of the glory of God.
No matter how hard we try, we're not good enough to obtain God's glory or to get to heaven. Because of that sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6 23 says for the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin or the payment of our sin only equals death in separation from God. But it's only through God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept Him as our Savior.
Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5 8 but God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ by faith as your Savior. Romans 10 9 says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way and calling upon his name. The Bible says whosoever that's anyone can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your Savior? If you have any questions please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at KerwinBaptistChurch.com or visit us at person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you.
