Luke 15:1-35

So this morning we have the great honor of hearing Jeremiah McCarthy preach for us.

And here at Skyline, we believe we have a high value and a reverence of preaching God's Word.

And we believe that's the main responsibility, one of the main responsibilities of the elders, which is Adam and I here at Skyline.

And yet we also have a category for non-elders preaching as well.

And the reason why we have a category for that is we believe that the elders have been called to that and they can delegate that responsibility to other men who are called to preach.

Jeremiah is aspires to be an elder one day, but he's not right now.

And yet we still love to have him come and preach and others to come up and preach.

And so that's the main our main vision for that and why that works.

So with that, I'd like to ask Jeremiah to come up and I'll pray to intro his time and then he's going to open the word for us.

Lord, I just pray for Jeremiah this morning.

I ask that you would bless his preparation, that you would calm his soul, that you would just ready all of our hearts to hear your word preached, and that your Holy Spirit would send it into our hearts and minds to affect us as as only it can.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Thanks, Justin.

Sweet good morning.

If I haven't met you yet, my name is Jeremiah.

I have the privilege of directing the college ministry here.

Would love to meet you afterwards if we haven't connected yet.

But uh we've been walking through the Gospel of Luke.

We're gonna keep walking through the Gospel of Luke.

Um this morning we're gonna be in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

So if you can get a Bible from under your chair or pull it up on your phone, or if you brought your own Bible, we're gonna be in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Um and while you're turning there, I just want to say that I wish I could spend three weeks in this chapter.

Um there's so much that could be said, and there's genuinely more here than we have time for today.

Um so I would highly recommend digging into Luke chapter 15 on your own time.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Um but for today, uh for the next half hour or so, I'm gonna do my best and we're gonna do our best to focus on the heartbeat of this passage.

We're gonna try and laser in on the main point of the passage, which means we're not gonna spend a ton of time talking about tax collectors and signet rings and all these kinds of things.

We're gonna kind of bypass a lot of details that we could dig in on, but we're gonna try and focus in on the on the main idea.

If you want more uh on this specific chapter in the Bible, there's a book called The Prodigal God that many of you have probably heard of by Timothy Keller.

Would highly recommend it.

It's a short book, does a great job of unpacking kind of the basic heart of the Christian faith.

Um today, so I said we're we're not gonna talk a ton about every single nitty-gritty detail of this passage, but we are gonna focus on the heartbeat of this passage, and so today we're gonna talk about God's grace.

Um and in studying our passage today, I've I've run into uh an ocean of God's grace, and in this text, the the generous, loving, kind, gracious heart of God is laid bare.

Um, this passage is like a mighty rushing river of grace straight from the source of God's own heart that barrels down through the channel of God's word, and those of us gathered here today are like a dry and parched land desperately in need of that river flooding into our lives and soaking our sin-beaten souls.

Um, this text ought to bring us into close contact with the very heart of God.

Um, but I'm unable to communicate the excessive generosity of God's grace to our hearts.

So I've been asking for God's help uh in prayer.

I'm asking that by his spirit he would bring us deep into his love and grace because I'm unable to do that, you're unable to do that.

So I'm gonna pray for us one more time, just asking that God would speak to us this morning.

God, um, we're aware of what we're able to do, and we're also aware of what we're unable to do.

So I ask that you would give us those things which we lack, um, that you would open up our hearts and flood them with your grace and your love this morning, and I ask them in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Okay, here is the question for us this morning that Luke chapter 15 is designed to answer.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

What is the basis for your acceptance with God?

What is your relationship with God based on?

Is it based on your service to him or his grace toward you?

Is the basis for God's acceptance of you, your service to him, or his grace toward you?

Luke chapter 15, verses 1 and 2 raise the issue for our passage today.

Luke 15:1

It says, now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus.

And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

So there's two groups of people in Luke 15, the tax collectors and the sinners, and the scribes and the Pharisees, and then there's Jesus.

And these two groups are relating to Jesus differently.

The tax collectors and the sinners are drawing near to hear him, but the scribes and the Pharisees are grumbling and complaining about him.

What is their complaint about Jesus?

This man receives sinners and eats with them.

For those of us this morning who are sinners, that sounds like good news, but for some reason, this is bad news to the Pharisees and the scribes.

But why does it upset them that Jesus receives sinners?

This is not a clean or unclean issue.

We've seen this multiple times in the Gospel of Luke, that there's issues of ritual purity.

When Jesus touched the man who had leprosy, that was a clean and unclean issue.

When the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus, that was a clean or unclean issue.

An issue of ritual purity.

When Jesus touched the coffin containing the dead body of a widow's son, that was a clean or unclean issue, but this is different.

This is a sinner issue, which means this is a moral issue.

Lines have been drawn between morally acceptable people and morally unacceptable people.

And sinners have fallen on the wrong side of that line.

Sinners are morally unacceptable people.

They're morally compromised, morally corrupt.

And Jesus receives sinners and eats with them.

The Pharisees and the scribes think they fall on the right side of that line.

And therefore Jesus' actions are unacceptable to them.

For Jesus, morally unacceptable people are welcome.

But the Pharisees and scribes grumble and complain, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

So Jesus begins a response to them, to the Pharisees and scribes who are complaining about him.

And his response begins in verse 3.

It says, So Jesus told them this parable.

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it.

And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.

Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it.

And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.

Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

The first parable is about a man who has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.

The second is about a woman who has ten coins and loses one of them.

The one sheep and the one silver coin are things of value to the people who have them.

And they're valuable enough to the people who lost them that they're willing to engage in a serious search in order to find them.

The man leaves the 99 in the open country and goes after the one.

The woman lights a lamp, sweeps the house, searches diligently until she finds it.

Both are said to search for the thing of value that they had lost until they find it.

And both, when they find it, rejoice and call their friends and neighbors together to rejoice with them.

The refrain of these many parables is found in verses six and nine.

Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep or my coin that was lost.

Jesus gives these two many parables, first to illustrate what is happening between him and the sinners who are drawing near to him.

Jesus compares his pursuit of sinners to a man's pursuit of his lost sheep, to a woman's pursuit of her lost coin, and he compares a sinner who comes to repentance to a sheep or a coin being found, leading to joy.

And all of this serves the main point of these parables in verses 7 and 10.

There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

The heavenly joy of verse 7 and the angelic joy of verse 10 are intended to be pointers to divine joy.

This means that all of heaven and angels rejoicing over a repentant sinner are reflections of God rejoicing over a repentant sinner.

God rejoices when a sinner repents of his or her sin.

If you have earned the label sinner because of your immorality or your sinful life, you have not lost your value to God.

In fact, if you turn from your sin, God will rejoice over you.

If you acknowledge that you have fallen short of God's righteous standard for humanity, and if you recognize your desperate need for his forgiveness and grace, and if you turn to Jesus as the one through whom God dispenses his grace, you will be forgiven of your sins and welcomed into God's family, and a party will take place in heaven over you.

He rejoices over those who were lost but have been found.

We heard Zephaniah 3 this morning, Kira read it for us, that God will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will quiet you by his love, he will exult over you with loud singing.

God loves to show mercy.

He rejoices at drowning sinners in rivers of grace.

He is not hesitant or indecisive or tentative in his desires to do good to repentant sinners.

His love is effusive, and he will receive you and have fellowship with you if you draw near to him in humble repentance.

But remember who Jesus is telling these parables to.

Jesus is saying these things to people who are grumbling that he receives sinners and eats with them.

This is why in verse seven Jesus mentions another group called righteous persons who need no repentance.

Raise your hand this morning if you are a righteous person who does not need repentance.

Earlier in Luke chapter 7, Jesus said, Those who are well or healthy have no need of a physician but those who are sick.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

So in that instance, Jesus compares himself to a doctor, a physician, who has come for sick people.

Sin is compared to a sickness in need of the doctor's attention, and therefore, if you're righteous, you don't need Jesus because he came for the sinner, sick with sin.

But the problem is that all of us draw our moral lines so that we fall on the right side of that line, on the righteous side of that line.

But in doing so, we have excluded ourselves from fellowship with Jesus because a prerequisite to fellowship with Jesus is acknowledging that you have sinned, that you have fallen on the wrong side of the moral line, that you are a real sinner in need of real grace and forgiveness through him.

Jesus celebrates the repentance of sinners, not the self-patting yourself on the back of the righteous.

Jesus tells this to the Pharisees and the scribes to invite them to lay down their self-righteousness, to acknowledge that they also have fallen short, that they also fall on the wrong side of the line, and to join the party of forgiven sinners.

The refrain of these many parables turns out to be Jesus' invitation, rejoice with me.

I have found those who were lost.

But Jesus knows that these two parables aren't enough for the grace and love of God toward sinners to work their way into the hearts of his hearers and into our own hearts, and so he tells a third parable.

Luke chapter 13, verses 11 through 32 have famously been called the parable of the prodigal son.

Luke 13:11–32

This parable can be broken up into three scenes.

In the first scene of this parable, Jesus will pull us into close contact with the ugliness of real sin, just in case we thought that sinner was a sweet word.

Verse eleven.

And he said, There was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.

And he divided his property between them.

Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country.

And there he squandered his property in reckless living.

And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

Okay, if someone designates something for you in their last will and testament, when do you get the thing that has been designated to you?

When they die.

So if someone comes to you and asks for the thing that has been pledged to them, pledged to them in your will while you're still alive, it's equivalent to saying, whether you're alive or dead is irrelevant to me, I just want your stuff.

This is what the younger son's actions communicate to his father.

I just want your stuff, I don't care about you.

The younger son does not love his father.

He asked for his inheritance while his father is still alive, and his indifference to a relationship with his father is put on display after his father gives him the thing that he asks for, he gathers all that he has and he leaves home to go to a far country.

He has effectively spat in his father's face and left.

And he had no noble intentions in doing any of this because when he got to his destination, he squandered his property in reckless living.

He took his dad's property, liquidated all of it, went far from home, and wasted everything on pleasure seeking.

There are many people who do things exactly like this or very similar to this.

God has given you many good things, and you have wasted them on selfish pleasure seeking, and in doing so, you have broken your relationship with God, and probably with others as well.

Verse 14 tells us that this son goes broke.

His reckless living has ended in his poverty.

And then a famine comes and he begins to lack basic needs like food.

And it's his fault.

He earned his empty stomach.

Verse 15 tells us he sells himself into a kind of servitude to a stranger in a foreign country who makes him into a servant of pigs, which for a Jew is about as low as you could get.

And then verse 16 tells us that he was so hungry that he would have been content with pig food, but no one gives him anything.

Nobody in this country cares about him at all.

They don't care about him, and his lifestyle in their country probably didn't help.

He's made a mess in their country and now he's getting what he deserves.

This is what a sinner looks like in detail.

This is someone who has lived their life entirely for their own pleasure at others' expense, and who is now experiencing the consequences of that kind of lifestyle.

Broke, hungry, alone, rejected, despised, filthy, serving pigs.

Sin will bring you lower than you ever thought.

I believe it was Adrian Rogers who first said, sin will take you farther than you want to go, it will keep you longer than you want to stay, and it will cost you more than you want to pay.

And I don't know how far your sin has taken you this morning.

And I don't know how long it has kept you, and I don't know how much it has cost you.

But I do know that there's some really good news for you.

Scene 2 starts in verse 17.

But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger?

I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

Treat me as one of your hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father.

The beginning of this son's turnaround is described as a Moment when he came to himself.

In describing his turnaround this way, Jesus depicts sin as a kind of insanity.

I had a professor in Bible college who said, sin makes you stupid.

The Bible, cover to cover, shows that sin makes you do irrational things.

When you're living in sin, when you're a slave to sin, you do things that when you step back don't make any sense.

But if sin is this thing that makes us stupid, if sin is a kind of insanity, then repentance is a kind of return to sanity.

It's a kind of awakening to the reality of what you've been living in, the reality of what's been going on around you.

So this younger son comes to himself and remembers that his father has hired servants, or like employed servants who at least have food to eat.

And his father's hired servants, his father's employees, are better off than he is.

But he can't just waltz back into his father's house and ask for dinner.

The way he left home was equivalent to spitting in his dad's face, giving him the middle finger, and leaving.

So how can he come back now?

So he comes up with a rehearsed speech to give his dad.

This speech includes the acknowledgement that he has sinned against God and before his father.

And the speech acknowledges that because of his sin, he has forfeited his right to be called a son of his father.

He's probably certain that his father's love for him has been extinguished by his sin.

He's probably certain that because of his sin, his father has no interest in having him as a son.

And I wonder if any of you feel that way this morning.

I wonder whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian.

I wonder if you feel this morning that your sin has extinguished God's love for you.

I wonder if you feel that because of your sin, God has no interest in calling you his son or his daughter.

A plea to enter into employed servitude in exchange for food and shelter.

After rehearsing this speech, he gets up and begins the long walk home.

Verse 20 ends this way But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, for this my son, was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found.

And they began to celebrate.

The son begins his rehearsed speech.

But before he can finish his speech, his father interrupts him and makes sure that he is clothed, welcomed as a son, and has a feast put on so that the son can have food to eat and a celebration in his honor.

He has a family ring put on his hand, shoes for his wounded feet, a fattened calf killed so they can celebrate.

And he says, This my son was dead and is alive.

He was lost and is found.

Here's a question for you.

Did the son deserve this?

Did he earn this?

No, this is called grace.

Grace is God's kindness and favor given in love to those who do not deserve his kindness and favor.

Do you deserve God's kindness and favor?

If the answer is no, that means you are able to be a recipient of grace.

You are qualified to receive grace by the fact that you don't deserve it.

Here's another question for you.

Which is more excessive?

Your sin or God's grace?

Which is greater?

Your sin or God's grace?

Your sin and God's grace are not equal and opposite forces.

God's grace is greater than all of our sin.

God's grace is more excessive than all of our sin.

When your sin enters into competition with God's grace, it loses every time.

And the only reason this is possible is because in Christ, in Jesus Christ, God has removed every obstacle in between you and his boundless love, goodness, and grace.

That God has come looking for those who are lost, and he went on a search that resulted in an entering into human history in the person of his son Jesus Christ.

Isaiah chapter 53, verse 6 says, We all, like sheep, have gone astray.

Isaiah 53:6

We have turned every one to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Though we have all turned away from God and wandered astray like sheep.

At the cross of Jesus Christ, God laid our iniquity on him.

He was pierced for our transgressions, and he was crushed for our iniquities, and upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by his wounds we are healed.

Jesus Christ bore the condemnation for our sin that stood like a dam between the desert valley of our lives and the bottomless, cool, clear, deep, freshwater reservoir of God's goodness.

Then he rose from the grave, but our sin, but he left our sin dead and buried forever.

And now he offers new life to all who will humble themselves and come to him in contrite repentance, asking for forgiveness and grace.

And he will rejoice over every sinner who repents.

He stands eager and ready to welcome you home and will rejoice that you have been found after being gone from home so long.

But there is a final scene, starting in verse 25.

Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.

And he said to him, Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.

But he was angry and refused to go in.

His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, Look, these many years I've served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.

And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive, he was lost and is found.

So remember there were two sons.

The older son stayed home when the younger son left, and he has been at work in his father's field.

He draws near to the house and he hears music and dancing from the party that his father has thrown for the younger son who returned.

And when he hears that his younger brother has returned, and that his father has slaughtered the fattened calf in celebration, he is very upset and he refuses to go in.

So remember, who is Jesus telling this parable to?

Now listen to the older brother's words in response, and I want you to ask, does this sound more like a son's talk to his father, or a servant's talk to his master?

Is this how a son speaks to his father, or how a servant speaks to his master?

Verse 29.

Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command.

Does that sound like the way a son talks to his father, or the way a servant talks to his master?

The older son never left home, but that doesn't mean that he was close to his father.

It doesn't mean that he loved his father, and it doesn't mean that he had received the goodness of his father.

He says, All these years I've served you, I'd never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours came who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed a fattened calf for him.

This guy doesn't deserve the celebration that you're throwing.

I deserve a celebration.

I've been here.

I've been working, I never left, I never broke your command.

He doesn't deserve this.

I deserve this.

Where is my reward for my obedient service?

This is the heart of the issue here.

There is a sinner having a party throne that he didn't deserve.

And then there's an obedient servant demanding that he gets his reward for what he's done.

The older son is relating to his father as a servant, not a son.

He thinks that if he does the right stuff and doesn't do the wrong stuff, then his father will reward him accordingly.

So when the younger brother does all the wrong stuff and then gets drowned in goodness that he didn't deserve, the older brother's world gets blown up and he's furious.

But look at the father's reply to the older brother in verse 31.

When I was like 19, my dad, this was like after high school, my dad wanted to give me a generous financial gift.

He wanted to give me money.

And I was hesitant and I resisted, and I pushed back and I said, Um, I don't think that you're gonna get the kind of ROI on this that you're looking for.

At that time I was a brand new Christian and I was like a part of some sketch gap year program in a basement in Minnesota, and I had no dreams, I had no five-year plan.

Um and so my dad was saying, I want to give you some, so I want to give you a financial gift.

And I said, I I I just like this is not gonna pay the dividends for you in 30 years that you're hoping it does.

Um and my dad was offended by that.

He got hurt, and he was like, I'm not giving, I'm not, I'm not trying to get a return on investment here.

He said, I love you.

Um I'm excited about you, and I wanted to bless you, I wanted to give you a gift.

I'm not expecting you to bring me dividends on on this in the long run.

And I I think that that's a good picture of the father's heart in this story.

His son says, I've I've obeyed you, I've never broken your command, I've served you all these years, where's my reward?

And and the and the father says, Son, you're you're always with me.

All everything that's mine is yours.

You're my son, not my slave.

Why are you talking like that?

This is how an employee talks to a boss, not how a son talks to his father.

You're my son.

You're always with me, and everything that's mine is yours.

You don't earn a relationship with me, you don't earn participation in my goodness, you're my son.

I delight to have you here and for you to share in what's mine.

So God doesn't evaluate our daily obedience and servitude and then dispense love proportionate to us based on our performance.

Um, in his enormous love, he showers goodness on all of us despite our failures, because he loves us.

And this is called grace.

That's true for the rampant sinner and for the pretentious, arrogant, self-righteous older brother.

And this brings us back to our original question: what is the basis for your acceptance with God?

What is your relationship with God based on?

Your service to Him or His grace towards you.

The father says it is right that we should celebrate, and then the story just ends.

At the end of the story, the older brother is still on the outside of the party, and we're left wondering what he'll do.

And we're also left wondering, what are we going to do?

Will I live believing in God's grace?

Or will I keep myself on the outside, continuing to relate to him as a servant trying to obey a master in order to get a reward?

The question is: will you remain in a merit-based relationship with God where all you have is a transaction of your services for his goods that you better not mess up?

Jesus says to the Pharisees and the scribes that their minds, their hearts, and attitudes and lives have not been penetrated by the goodness of God.

And Jesus tells these three conjoint parables not to condemn them, but to try and work the goodness of God into their hearts and minds and lives so that they accept the invitation to join the celebration.

Stop pouting on the porch and come inside and join the party.

To close, self-righteousness is not a religious people problem.

It's a people problem.

Moral superiority is not a church people problem, it's a human problem, whether you go to church or not.

This parable doesn't just speak to the church person, it also speaks to the non-Christian or non-religious or secular person.

Those of us who are believers in Jesus ought to be the ones who understand the grace of God, who are living according to the grace of God.

And it's funny that the non-Christians in my life are the ones who are most offended by the gospel of God's grace.

I'm currently having a conversation with a, an ongoing conversation with one college student who is seriously wrestling through where she's at with Jesus.

And we sat down a couple months ago, and I just wanted to check in with her, and I said, Where are you at in this journey?

She said, Well, I've been having conversations with my Muslim friend.

And my Muslim friend says that in Islam, when you die, God takes all of your good stuff and all of your bad stuff and he puts it on a balance, like a scale, and he weighs them.

And whichever one is heavier determines where you end up eternally.

And she said, That makes sense.

That's fair.

She said, if that's what happens, I'm done for.

I don't stand a chance.

I've done some bad things in my life.

But it at least makes sense.

She said, What doesn't make sense is that God would condescend and become a human being and go to a cross to take the punishment for my sin on him.

And she said, that doesn't make any sense.

And she says, why would he do that?

She literally asked that, why would he do that?

And the Christian has an answer that the Muslim doesn't.

And the answer is this, because he loves you.

Because he loves you.

Because he loves you.

But this doesn't make sense to the self-righteous mind.

The second story.

My barber, I was having a conversation with my barber, and she was saying how she hates how self-righteous church people are.

I was like, look, I'm in the same boat.

I also don't like how self-righteous church people are.

And I said, Jesus would be on the same page as you, like based off of what we what we see in this parable right here.

He doesn't like self-righteous people.

And I said, The Bible says that we've all sinned and that we all need forgiveness.

And then she said, Yeah, but some people don't deserve forgiveness.

So, okay, do you see what just happened there?

You said, I don't like where these people have drawn the line.

Here's the good people, here's the bad people.

You said, they're so self-righteous because they do that.

And all you did was redraw the line in your own spot.

So that's what self-righteousness is not a church people problem, it's a human problem.

And the only hope that we have for being a recipient of God's grace and mercy is to realize where Jesus has drawn the line.

And when Jesus draws the line of perfect righteousness before God his Father, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And all are in need of his forgiveness by grace.

And all are welcome to join the party of forgiven sinners.

There is no distinction between the person on your right and left and you.

We are all in the same boat, and the Christian is the person who has said, I have fallen on the wrong side of that line, and I desperately need the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ.

I have like so many more stories here, but we don't have time for them.

The last thing that I'll say, and then I'll read the words of a hymn, and then we'll close, is this.

I don't know if you guys have ever heard somebody say this, I don't want charity.

I've heard this so many times in gospel conversations.

I don't want charity.

I don't want to go to heaven on the back of somebody else's blood, sweat, and tears.

The answer to that is then you won't go to heaven.

Um, you don't stand a chance to earn your way into God's house forever.

Um, the only hope you have is to receive his grace, his charity, his gift for free.

Um there's a there's a hymn called Rock of Ages, um, not by Leonard Skinnard, but by Augustus Toplady.

Um and in this hymn, there's a uh there's a couple of verses in this hymn that say, Not the labors of my hands can fulfill your law's demands.

Could my zeal no respite know?

Could my tears forever flow?

All for sin could not atone.

You must save and you alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.

Naked come to you for dress, helpless look to you for grace, foul I to the fountain fly.

Wash me, Savior, or I die.

I'm gonna close this in prayer and then uh Justin will come up and lead us in baptism.

God, our Father, thank you that you have extended love and grace to us in the person of your Son Jesus.

God, I pray for every man and woman here.

I pray for those of us who are here who are believers in Jesus, that we would be reminded of your love and your grace towards us despite our sin, and that you desire us to relate to you on the basis of your grace, not on the basis of our performance.

God, I pray for those of us in this room who are not believers, that you would um so work on their minds and hearts that they would sense your call to them personally, that they would uh hear your voice calling their name this morning, that you are beckoning them to uh humble themselves and return to you in humble repentance in order to receive your grace and mercy and love and to be welcomed into the Father's house and to be drowned in his goodness and grace.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.