Why your soul feels off (and how God restores you) | Season 9 Ep 10

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SHOW NOTES:

A story so short it fits in your pocket, yet it turns our sense of value upside down. We open Luke 15:1–7 and sit with the scandalous love of a Shepherd who leaves ninety-nine to find one, who lifts the weary onto his shoulders, and who turns recovery into a neighborhood celebration. No scolding, no ledger, just relentless pursuit and shared joy that sounds a lot like heaven.

If you’ve wandered for days or decades, hear this: the search does not stop. If you feel secure among the ninety-nine, you’re safe enough to cheer the rescue. Together, we learn why heaven throws a party when the lost are found and why our communities should echo that music. Press play to be reminded that every soul is worth the search, that strength is available when yours is gone, and that joy is the native language of God’s people. I

If this moved you, follow the show, share it with someone who needs hope, and leave a review so others can find their way here, too.

Transcript

Welcome And Final Study Setup

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Hey all, thank you for joining us here at Grab the Faith, where we try to grab the faith and run with it. Join us as we try to learn a little more, grow a little more, and live a lot more. I'm your host, Bobby Gentry Goodwin. Stay tuned for this week's episode. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Here is Bobby. Back again for our final dun dun dun, our last Bible study of the year, the last live stream. And it has been so much fun to be with you guys every Wednesday morning at 6 a.m. for the last couple of months. I have enjoyed myself and I hope you have enjoyed yourself too. And God gets all the glory. Glory to God this morning. Are you up this morning to give God a little glory? I hope that you are glory to your name, Lord. We're up this morning just giving you a little glory, giving you a little praise, and giving you a little honor. Just doing our part to magnify your name. And I am glad to be with you. Can you tell it's six o'clock? But I am glad to be with you. And let me tell you, next week at 6 a.m., I'm gonna still be in bed. I don't get up until 8 something, okay? So I'm gonna still be in bed next week. But I'm here to give you, give God glory this morning as we store, as we study the word of the Lord. And I want to tell you, it's been fun, but I'm gonna be happy to be in that bed because I am comfortable there. I am comfortable in the bed and getting up early is just not my thing. I'm not a morning person, okay? But this week, you know, it's not about my comfortability, right? It's about edifying the word of the Lord. And as I studied this text this morning, as I studied this text this week, not this morning, but studied this text this week that I'm bringing to you this morning, it made me a little uncomfortable. Because as you know, I am the type of person that likes to become anybody know that know that about me. But I really like to be comfortable. I know I like to know where everything is. I like to know that things are predictable. I schedule my day out. Things are very predictable in my life. But

Prayer Of Gratitude And Framing

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this text is the exact opposite of that. It's frantic, it's unsettling, it's not comfortable at all. This week we're gonna be couching in a familiar parable that is a little bit chaotic, okay? So we're gonna be couching in the book of Luke. So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and join with me in Luke chapter 15, verses 1 through 7. Luke chapter 15, verses 1 through 7. So let's go to the Lord in prayer, but before we read his holy word. Father, we thank you for this morning. This morning was not promised to us, Lord God, but you gave it to us anyway. This morning was not promised, but you gave it anyway. And that we are grateful. Surely there are some that did not wake from their sleep and slumber this morning. But you woke us up to start a new day, Father, to do a new thing in us. And for that we are grateful. We're grateful for the breath that you gave us this morning. We're grateful for the use and activity of our limbs. We're grateful that we are clothing in our right mind. We're grateful that we have food to eat, Lord, some of us. We have a place to stay, some of us. We're grateful for our family and friends. But most of all, we are grateful for you, Father, for we wouldn't be in this place unless you called us to it. We thank you for everything that you have called us to, that you have written our name on. We thank you for, Lord God, for the plans that you have for us that are good, Father God, because your goodness and your mercy follows us all the days of our life. Lord, we're grateful, Lord God, that you love us. You love us so much so that we're gonna see in this Bible study just how much that the good shepherd loves to shepherd those that he loves. Lord, we thank you this morning, Lord God, for you are mighty good. Even when we're not good, you are good. And for that we give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. So let's go to Luke chapter 15, verses 1 through 7,

Reading Luke 15:1–7

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which says this. I'm gonna take off these glasses here. Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to him to hear him. The tax collectors and the sinners drew near to him to hear him. I'm not even gonna stop there, but you get you. If you if you love the Lord, you hear what I'm saying, you hear what this word is saying. That the tax collect even the tax collectors and the sinners draw near to him to hear him. Do we draw near? But that's a whole nother Bible study. It's picking up in verse 2. And the Pharisees and the scribes complain, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. So he spoke this parable to them, saying, What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it. Oh, I spilled the spirit of the Lord. It he doesn't leave the 99. Which one of them does not leave the 99 in the wilder wilderness to go after the one which 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 all his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, which was lost. I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. May the Lord add a blessing to the reader reading of his holy word. I'm crying already. This is some unsettling text. It's unsettling to me because I know what it is to lose things. I know what it is when I'm just not comfortable. I'm frantic. I'm trying to find what I have lost. This week, you saw me take off my glasses. This week I lost my glasses. And yes, I'm wearing these glasses, but these weren't

Feeling Lost And The Value Of What’s Missing

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the glasses that I'm looking for. I have several pairs, I mean several pairs of glasses around here. Some are readers, some are for fashion, some are for the sun, some are progressive, some are square, some are round, some are pointed. But the pair I was looking for, I couldn't find. I tore my house up looking for these glasses because they're glasses that I need. They're glasses that I need and I want. I want to use them. So they're important to me. My husband may look and find the glasses. My kids may find the glass, but they don't know the value in my glasses. They don't know how important they are to me. They don't know what they're supposed to do. They don't know if they're readers, progressives, they don't know what they're supposed to do, but I do. So I look for them desperately. So when I studied this text this morning, I mean this weekend, as I looked for my glasses all last week, I said, Lord, what an example of what it feels like when something of value to you is lost. Have you ever lost something important? Lost your keys, lost your glasses like me, lost your phone. What does it feel like when you lose your phone, honey? You are frantic, you are unsettled, you are tearing things up because it's value. It may have a cold to even get in it, but it ain't a value to nobody else. It's a value to you. Your wallet, searching, looking for something that is a value to you. Then if you have, you know just how hard it is when you lose something that's important. May not be value to nobody else, but so valuable to you. What are the lengths that you will go to when you lose your phone? Searching under your car seat, searching through every drawer, every jacket, every single thing, every room in your house just to find a phone. You may even retrace your steps looking for it because it's valuable. Listen, we pick up in this text this morning, something is lost to the shepherd. Something valuable is lost to him, something he highly values. In this text, Jesus highlights some beautiful things that jumped out of the page of this scripture text for me. And I want you to consider them as we study this word of God together. This is a parable that Jesus is presenting. Now, what is a parable, y'all? A parable is just a simple story used to illustrate a moral or a spiritual lesson as told by Jesus in the Gentiles. Jesus is telling stories all over the place in this book of Luke. This book

What A Parable Is And Why It Matters

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of Luke is said to have more parables than any other book of the any other gospels. It has approximately more than 20 parables. Jesus is telling stories all over the place to sinners, to Pharisees, and to his people. They are valuable stories. This is story time with Jesus, okay? And he's telling stories just so you and I could get it. Have you ever told a story to your child just so they can understand what exactly it means? You lay out an illustration just so your child can get what you are trying to say. That's what Jesus is doing in this parable, the parable of the lost sheep. Now, some parables are well known, like the Good Samaritan. That didn't come from people, that came from the Word of God. And it is well known throughout the world, this parable, the parable of the Good Samaritan. But the parable of the lost sheep is also well known. But there's some things that jump out to me that I want to share with you. Sometimes when you dissect the word of God, something new just pops out to you, something you hadn't heard before, or something that just really resonates in your spirit. And one of the things that popped out to me in this parable is there's several protagonists. It's not just one main character like the Good Samaritan. There's several protagonists in this story. And one of the protagonists in this story is the lost sheep. One of the protagonists in this story is the shepherd. And another protagonist in this story is the neighbors, the people that the shepherd calls, right? Now, as I read that this this parable, something that jumped out to me right from the beginning is this is nonsensical. This don't make no sense. Just on face value, it don't make no sense. The parable, the good shepherd, has uh a hundred sheep, and he still has 99 of them, but one gets lost. He got a lot of sheep, and one gets lost. And listen, as I've been shopping on Black Friday, I mean I thought of this in terms of shopping. It's 99% off. Who goes for the 1%? You're gonna go for the 99, not the one. So as I read this paper, I thought, gosh, this is just doesn't make any sense. It's it could sound foolish at face value, leaving 99 in the wilderness just to go and get the one. But as I sat with it, so much joy, so much understanding, and so much rejoicing was brought to me. Stay with me as we dissect this

Protagonists: Sheep, Shepherd, Neighbors

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parable. In this season of joy, I like to share some of those things with you. See, Jesus wants the Pharisees that he's talking to and the sinners that are present and the saints that are present in that assembly to know something. He wants us to know the value he places on his sheep. See, when we look at this text, we know something about this first protagonist, the sheep. See, the sheep has gotten lost, and it is out of the care of the shepherd that he extends this, he extends this knowledge of this value of the lost sheep, this one sheep. We see in this text that the sheep belongs to him. The sheep is so valuable, it belongs, it is just not out there by itself, it belongs somewhere. It doesn't belong out there, it belongs to the shepherd. It doesn't belong out there by himself, it doesn't belong out there in the wilderness by itself, it belongs to the shepherd, it has a home. Somehow or another, it's strayed away. But just because it's strayed away doesn't mean it doesn't belong. It's lost. The very idea of being lost is that means it belongs somewhere. That's the beauty in this text. It doesn't show us how long it was lost, it doesn't talk about where it went, it doesn't even talk about what the sheep was doing, how dirty it was, that it's been lost for weeks, months, even years. It doesn't tell how far it's strayed away, five miles, ten miles, fifty miles. But what it does tell us that the shepherd

The “Nonsense” Of Leaving Ninety-Nine

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will look until it's found. Listen, Saint, that's something to rejoice about because it doesn't matter how far the sheep is, it doesn't matter how long it's been lost, it doesn't matter what it's been doing. All that it matters is that the shepherd will look and look and look and look. It will go how far the shepherd will go how far he needs to go to find it. The shepherd will go years and years and years until it finds this one. She did you see that in this text? What a mighty good word that the shepherd is gonna keep looking, he's gonna keep searching, he's gonna keep after this one until he finds it. Don't matter how far, don't matter how long, don't matter what was being done. It speaks to how much and how valuable this shepherd is. I lost those glasses, honey, and I lived for a few days and I said, forget it. Have you lost something and just said, forget it? I just can't find it. You go out and buy a new set of keys, but not this shepherd. It's gonna look until it's found, until it's it won't rest until it is safe in his arms. And so much so he's willing to leave 99 that's safe and secure to look for this one. Oh, does that tell us about the shepherd? Oh, how I love the shepherd. Does it tell us about the shepherd? Do you love the shepherd this morning? Because listen, I don't know about you, but I was lost one day. I needed that shepherd to come look for me. I needed that shepherd to come find me. Whatever I was doing, I needed him to come. And he came. He's gonna come for you, he's gonna search for you. He won't rest until he finds you. That's some good news. It don't matter what you've done. He's looking. This shepherd, he loves his sheep, honey. Y'all you getting it? He loves his sheep so very much. It don't even make sense to me why he's gonna leave at 99 and go for the one. But it makes sense to him. And this reminds me, each person has value to him. Each person has value to this shepherd. He places so much value on each one of us. Martin Luther King, how great a life

The Sheep Belongs: Value And Belonging

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he lived, and all the wonderful things he's done. Martin Luther King ain't no greater than you. Martin Luther King ain't no greater than your cousin that's out there on the street. Martin Luther King ain't no greater than where you were. To the shepherd. We place who's worthy and who's not. We saw that with the Pharisees. But listen, the shepherd says everybody's worthy. Everybody belongs to me. Listen, this shepherd is good. And the second thing that still the shepherd, stay with me now, is that he when he finds this lost sheep, he doesn't take the sheep and put something around his neck and say, You walk back. The shepherd picks it up and puts it on his own shoulders. He picks it up and he carries it home. It's not for the shepherd to, it's not for the sheep to carry himself home. The shepherd loves the sheep so much he picks it up and he places it on his shoulders and he takes it home. He doesn't make it walk on his own, he doesn't make the sheep find its way back home. He doesn't even chastise the sheep. He wraps it in his arms and says, Come on, let's go. I got you. And I'm happy to have you, and I'm taking you on home. He uses his own strength to lift him up, he uses his own security to make it safe. He takes it to his home. I'm yelling, I'm trying to calm down. But that makes me want to shout this morning. Because I didn't do it in my own strength. I didn't do it in my own strength. I couldn't do it on my own. He picked out, listen, when you in the wilderness, sometimes you get tired. You don't have strength enough to make it home. But the Lord will lift you up. And bring you, he does the heavy lifting. Just talk about Calvary. I ain't even going there. But he did all the heavy lifting. I'm reminded of how when I was a kid, my daddy would lift me in his arms. And he, when I'm too sleepy or I'm too tired to make it into the house, or if I have been sick and at the dentist or at the doctor, and I've been, you know, I talked last week about being in the hospital sick so many times. I was very sick in my childhood, very sick child.

The Relentless Search Of The Shepherd

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And my daddy would just wrap me in his arms and take me to wherever I had to go. And it was nothing like the safety that I felt in those moments when I was discharged from the hospital. And he picked me up from that wheelchair. Oh, I could cry thinking about. He picked me up for that wheelchair and wrapped me in his loving arms. And I said, I'm finally, I'm safe. I'm going home. I don't have to be in this place anymore. I am safe in his arms. Oh, I'm going home. But lastly, let's get to the end, okay? Um, lastly, because the shepherd had so much joy when he did it, he called his neighbors. That's the third people in this paragraph uh parable. He called his neighbors. He didn't have no regret. He didn't call to say, oh, look at them. They done been out there. They dirty. They done lived a life. He didn't call him to just chastise him and put him on display about how he was lost. The word of the Lord says, He rejoiced when he found him. And he called the people, the neighbors, to say, rejoice with me. Not rejoice for me, but rejoice with me. That means to take part in the rejoicing. See, we can be happy for somebody, but it's different when we rejoicing with them. When we're so happy with them, we're rejoicing with them. See, this community of rejoicing that the shepherd have brought together is just to say, oh my God, we all should be happy that the sheep is back into the fold. If you read on in this chapter, you will read about, you will read another parable about the son, the prodigal son, and how much the rejoicing comes, right? Not like Jonah in the Bible in the Old Testament that was not happy when people were saved. When the Lord said, Hey, you set out to tell those people. Jonah wasn't happy. He's calling these neighbors to be happy. Won't you be happy, saints? When somebody homeless walk into your church, won't you be happy, saints? When somebody that don't look like you walk in your church, well, that's a whole nother lesson, but listen, rejoice with the Lord that the sheep has been found. So I'm ending. And I just want to say this as we were as we approach Christmas and we rejoice on the birth of the Lord Jesus, who wrapped it in flesh, just so that he might come and give a talk about an example. Oh my God. Oh, I could go on. He gives a real life. He walked in the flesh. What an example. That's how serious he is, okay? But he is the good shepherd. But let us remember

Carried On His Shoulders: Grace Not Grind

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that he was born for all of us. Not the ones who look like it, not the ones who talk like it, and not the ones who just act like it. He was born for all of us. And he rejoices over all of us when we find the 99 belong to him, and so does that one. So don't you look with a critical eye at someone you feel like, oh, they doing this, they doing that, they doing this. Here they come in the house acting this way. Listen, Jesus rejoices over us all, and we should too. That's why he calls the neighbors. But if you don't know him, if you've been lost, if you stray so far away, when you come into the house of the Lord, you feel uncomfortable. Remember this parable that Jesus will not stop searching for you, that he wants you home with him. It don't matter where you've been, what you've done, or how long you've been lost, he's still looking. He's not looking for them, he's looking for you. So what's the Wednesday word of the week, y'all? Rejoice. If you in the fold or you outside of it, rejoice. Because he loves us all. And that is something I don't know about you, but I am grateful for this Wednesday. May God bless you, may He keep you. Happy holidays. I won't be with you until next year. So happy holidays. But if you have a chance, go before him. Get to know him, whether you're the 99 or the one. Because each day with the Savior, as the old folks say, is sweeter and sweeter. God bless you. Have a good week.