Beforehand: Be sure to check out Pastor Ben’s message online if you were not able to catch it on Sunday morning.

Below is the outline of Pastor Ben's message.

The Deep Six Study follows.

A Sheep … A Coin … A Boy - “Looking”

1 – Worth It – Luke 15:8A

2 – Grace Not Good Works – Luke 15:8B

3 – Don’t Be Ugly – Luke 15:9-10

 

Deep Six Study

Introduction

It says this in Luke 18:11, “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”

Everyone wants to be “alright.” The usual course for achieving this involves pursing personal merit which we think will produce a sense of personal worth which in turn we think will produce a sense of personal well being. This is an exercise in futility and self deception. Having a sense of personal well being that is properly hinged to a sense of personal worth is appropriate. However, if the pursuit of personal merit is in the equation these things will never be what we think they are or want them to be.

There isn’t a person who will ever walk the face of the earth who is not absolutely sinful, absolutely cut off from God, and therefore absolutely lost. This is our condition and when God’s provision in Christ for reversing this condition is made known and we believe, the degree to which we truly grasp our condition makes all the difference going forward in both our relationship to God and to the lost. To whatever degree our grasp of our condition is not complete, to that degree personal merit will taint both our view of ourselves before God and our need for absolute dependence on Him and our view of ourselves before the lost and our need for compete humility. Our struggle with a spirit of independence in relationship to God and a spirit of superiority in relationship to the lost will be an ongoing dilemma for us.

God looks out over the whole of His creation with a heart of love that is devoted to restoring us to Himself. Looking out and seeing that which is lost in the way God does is essential and this is the focus of this week’s Deep Six Study.

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Part 1 - Corresponds to the first point of the message

Luke 15:8A - “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one.”

Psalm 33:13-15, 18-22 – “The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; from His dwelling place He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works …. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope for His lovingkindness, to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him, because we trust in His holy name. Let Your lovingkindness, O LORD, be upon us, according as we have hoped in You.”

John 4:23-24 – “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Comment – We are valuable to God but there is nothing we have done or can do to merit our being valuable to Him. If a human parent valued his child only because he or she merited it we would be aghast. If our value to God was based on merit, then or value to Him would be reduced or would cease if we failed in any way to merit it. How wonderful it is to know that God loves us unconditionally and values us completely apart from all merit. He will never stop loving us or valuing us. How freeing it is to know we can be honest about our condition without fear of becoming less loved or valued by God. Similarly we are free to appropriate for ourselves God’s redemptive provision in Christ in a more full and complete way. In all actuality, it is this freedom that draws us more and more deeply into the wonderful experience of being loved and valued by God and makes it possible for us to increasingly relate to the lost in genuine humility and without a superior sense of ourselves.

Question # 1 – Why do think the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him?

Question # 2 – How would you describe those the Father seeks to be His worshipers?

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Part 2 - Corresponds to the second point of the message

Luke 15:8B – “Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it?

Romans 5:5-8 – “And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Titus 2:11-12, 3:4-6 – “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age …. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”

Comment – Our being lost is totally the result of the fact that we are trapped in the condition of having a sinful nature that cuts us off from God and makes us helpless to do anything about it. We may be less practiced than some in the sins of the flesh or even in the sins of the spirit, but that does not reduce the reality of our sinful condition and standing before God apart from the redemption provision of Christ. This is where grace comes into play. By grace God finds us, redeems us, and restores us. The amazing love and value God bestows on each of us apart from all merit is what grace is all about.

Question # 3 – What is your definition of a sinner?

Question # 4 – Why does Titus speak of grace and salvation in terms denying wrong living and pursuing right living, but then go on to speak of God saving us not on the basis of deeds which we have done but by His mercy?

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Part 3 – Corresponds to the third point of the message

Luke 15:9-10 – “And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

Ephesians 2:1-5 – “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).”

Jonah 1:1-3A, 3:1-3A, 5, 10, 4:1 – “The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.’ But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD …. Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.’ So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD …. Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them …. When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it …. But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.”

Comment – Seeing ourselves properly is the key to viewing the lost properly. How readily we slip into a wrong view of ourselves and a wrong view of the lost. Every person must be viewed as someone that God is seeking to find, redeem, and restore. We must not view anyone as beyond the reach of God’s grace nor must we ever believe that in some way we merited our having been reached by the grace of God. What an oxymoron! And yet, we do allow ourselves to have these tainted views and often they lead to ugly attitudes and behaviors that alienate us from the very ones God desires to reach by His grace. We must forsake the path Jonah took and let God fill our hearts with love and mercy for the lost.

Question # 5 – What are some ways you have struggled with personal merit in your life as a Christian?

Question # 6 – What are some ways you have struggled with a sense of superiority in your relationships with the lost?

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Conclusion

The message is clear concerning our need to “look” at the lost the way God does. How to have it truly come about is another matter. Please meditate on the following verse and ask God to transform your life according to the realities that are contained within this wonderful statement. May our transformation translate into lost people experiencing the true grace of God who otherwise might not.

Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Under “comments” in the Deep Six section of the church website post your thoughts, applications, and questions on anything from this week’s Deep Six Study.