God initiates, he finds the sinner before the sinner finds him and he runs the gauntlet

and takes the shame.

His love is lavish.

God finds his joy in the salvation of one lost sinner.

Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson.

After we took a break last week for some timely messages for the Thanksgiving holiday. Today we returned to a brand new series. It's one that came together in a unique way. We asked our staff

this question, what is your single favorite sermon by John MacArthur? And now when you're

talking about more than 3,600 sermons, it's not easy to narrow it down to just one,

but many of our staff members did, and from their selections, we put together this series of

ten sermons that we call John MacArthur's most memorable sermon. And it turns out that

more than one staff member chose the message that you're going to be hearing in a

couple of minutes. And one of those people is Don Carr, who's joining me today in the studio.

Thanks for being here, Don. Thank you, Phil. It's great to be here.

Don is a faithful member of our development team, and he's also an elder and pastor at Grace

Church, and the sermon he chose is the tale of two sons.

Don, why did that sermon stand out for you?

What stood out was how the historical background that John brought out really changed how I viewed,

and I think a lot of people viewed, the tale itself and most dramatically

the last seven minutes of the message.

Right.

And I've listened to a number of different versions of it, and I think the Shepard's

...