| Lost…and Found
January 15, 2006 - Arty Hart
One of the most popular show on TV right now is about a group of people lost on an island.
Have you ever lost anything important to you, and then found it? …car keys, wallet, 2 year old? How did you feel when you got it back…relief, joy?
God is not at all unfamiliar with that feeling. Bill Cosby says parents shouldn't feel too bad when their kids don't listen. When God had only two kids they went through some pretty major rebellion. When there were four one was a murderer and one a murder victim. The other two were parents of a murderer and a murder victim. Things haven't improved a whole lot. God still has to deal with lost kids.
In chapter fifteen of Luke Jesus did something that Scripture only records one time. He told three different stories, all teaching us the same things about God. God is relieved and overjoyed when someone who is lost returns home to Him. Let's read… (MSG)
1 By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently.
Note that Jesus LET them hang around!
2 The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, "He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends."
This is more true than they imagined!
3 Their grumbling triggered this story…
4 "Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness (open country – safe place) and go after the lost one until you found it?
5 When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing,
6 and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, 'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!'
7 Count on it-- there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.
8 "Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? Represents 1/10 of wealth
9 And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!'
10 Count on it-- that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God."
Before I move on to the last story let me point out a few things about the three stories:
- They have nothing to do with sheep or coins.
- They are not just about evangelism (lost things – they are about the heart of God).
- The next one has little to do with prodigal/older sons, but the heart of a Father.
- They all have to do with the heart of God, and how it rejoices when someone He loves returns to Him.
Let's read… This is the story of an exultant Father!
11 Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons.
12 The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.' "So the father divided the property between them.
13 It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, (unrestrained by convention or morality; preoccupied with the pursuit of pleasure) he wasted everything he had.
14 After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt.
15 He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. This was as low as you could go – feeding pigs and dependency upon Gentiles.
16 He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.
17 "That brought him to his senses. God is in the business of bringing people to their senses. He said, 'All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death.
18 I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; Good idea so far.
19 I don't deserve to be called your son. This is a lie the devil works day and night trying to get us to believe, because it will keep us from experiencing the life we were made for. Take me on as a hired hand.'
20 He got right up and went home to his father. "When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.
21 The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.' I love what happens next, the Father cuts him off when he starts to recite the devil's assessment of him!
22 "But the father wasn't listening. This is Eugene Peterson's assessment, but I believe he is dead on. God doesn't listen to us reciting that line, because it is patently untrue! He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23 Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time!
24 My son is here--given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time.
25 "All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day's work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing.
26 Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on.
27 He told him, 'Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast--barbecued beef!--because he has him home safe and sound.'
28 "The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen.
29 The son said, 'Look how many years I've stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends?
30 Then this son of yours OUCH who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!'
31 "His father said, 'Son, you don't understand. You're with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours--
32 but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he's alive! He was lost, and he's found!'"
I have shared on this passage dozens of times. It is my favorite of Jesus' parables. I am sure Jack Frost will address it when he arrives and teaches us about moving From Slavery to Sonship . But I want to make a few observations today as we prepare our hearts for what God wants to do in us over the next few weeks.
1. People matter to God. You matter to God.
Lost people matter to God. Sinners matter to God. Self righteous religious older brothers matter to God. Christians who are not experiencing all that God has made them for matter to God! You matter to God.
These three stories are not intended to tell us all about people. They are intended to tell us all about God. God cares intensely for the crown of His creation – you. And He searches for you, enlists help to find you, waits for you, rejoices over you, welcomes you home, and throws a party when you get there. Because that is the kind of God and Father He is!
Tony Campolo tells the story of meeting a group of prostitutes in an all night café. One was having a birthday the next evening, so he organized a party for her, because she mattered to God.
2. You still matter to God.
I know that the primary application of these two stories is that people who are not yet Christians matter to God. We need to know that and keep it in mind when we don't think or feel about people the way that God does.
But somewhere along the way a lot of Christians started getting the idea that once they gave their lives to Jesus He puts them in the sheep pen and goes out looking for other lost sheep – that they don't matter so much anymore.
Remember, the heroes of these three stories are not the coin, the sheep or the son. The hero in all three stories is the one doing the seeking and finding.
These stories are intended to tell us more about the Father heart of God than to define degrees of lostness, or to warn against not getting lost. The point of these stories is that the Father loves all who are His, and He never stops seeking, reaching, embracing, and including.
There's a story of a Spanish father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: “ Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father.” On Saturday 800 young men named Paco showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers.
That is what people are looking for, and our Father is far greater than the one who took out that ad.
3. God intends to bless you (not beat you) when you turn to Him.
The Father in the story gave a robe, a ring and shoes to the son who had messed up so badly. These things symbolize full acceptance. He also told the older brother, “Everything I have is yours.” The sons are as different as they can be. But the Father is the same, and His heart is to give all that He is to both His sons.
It is the nature of the Father to seek for His children when they are lost, heal them when they are sick, forgive them when they are wrong, and bless them when they allow Him to.
It is the nature of people to explain all the reasons that this isn't true.
Conclusion – This one time Jesus told three parables to illustrate one truth. Things get lost, people understand that. People get lost. God understands that.
God loves His children. He devotes the resources of heaven, and the resources of the Church to finding and loving those who are lost.
When those who already know they are His children lose their way, He has no less love and no less drive to restore them too.
Today there are some here who have been putting off returning to God. It may be that you have never really given your life to Jesus. It may be that you gave your life to Jesus a long time ago, but have drifted, and have been reluctant to return.
Jesus is awaiting your return right now. Return to God right now. Don't make Him a bunch of promises. Just come back, admit your sins and failures, and ask Him to let you come home. PRAY
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