Pastor David Watson opens with a raw and unforgettable story — a missionary intern who falls through the floor of an outhouse in Kenya, Africa, and is left stranded for hours with no way out. He uses this image to ask a piercing question: when you are at your absolute worst, do you believe you are worth rescuing? The answer the gospel gives, he says, is a resounding yes. Jesus doesn't wait for us to clean ourselves up before he comes after us. He jumps into the hole with us, extends his hand, and asks if we'll let him rescue us.

From there, Pastor David anchors the sermon in Luke 15, a chapter he describes as containing the three greatest stories Jesus ever told. He focuses on the first — the Parable of the Lost Sheep — explaining that Jesus told these stories in direct response to the religious leaders' grumbling question: "Why does this man welcome sinners and eat with them?" (Luke 15:2). The tax collectors and sinners, the outcasts and the broken, felt the most seen and the most valued when they were around Jesus. And rather than apologize for it, Jesus answered with a story about a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to go after just one that is lost.

Pastor David draws out three crystal-clear truths about the heart of God from this parable. First, God still sees the lost as his — loss doesn't mean without value. Second, God seeks and saves the lost, just as the shepherd relentlessly pursues the wandering sheep. And third, God celebrates the finding of the lost, throwing a party when even one sinner repents. The closing challenge is deeply personal: stop trying to clean yourself up before coming to God, because the cleaning comes after the rescue, not before. Jesus is not waiting for you to get it together — he's already looking for you.