Gods Heart For The Lost

Gods Heart For The Lost

Reading: Luke 15:1-24

The parable of the lost sheep

15 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.’ Then Jesus told them this parable: ‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.” I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.

The parable of the lost coin

‘Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbours together and says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.” 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’

The parable of the lost son

11 Jesus continued: ‘There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them. 13 ‘Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. 17 ‘When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” 20 So he got up and went to his father. ‘But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms round him and kissed him.21 ‘The son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”22 ‘But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate

Teaching:

So last week I began to unpack for us some of my thinking around why evangelism should be so important to us as the Church of God. And all of this is preparing us for a Year of Evangelism in 2025. You might remember that we looked at the ‘Why’ of evangelism – why do we need to share the Good News about Jesus Christ? Why does it matter?

If you were around, I asked you to take a page this week and to write down all the people that you know in your life. All the people that you connect with – whether family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, people in the town. And so with that list, here we can really think about the ‘Why’ of evangelism – because God loved the world so much that he sent Jesus to die for every one of those people on your list, so that if we and them believe in what Jesus has done for us – how he has redeemed them, then all of us won’t perish but have everlasting life.

Is that not a story of Good News or what?

And I asked you to keep that list of names handy, because we are going to journey with that list in the months ahead – to start seeing people through the lens of God, and how much he deeply wants to have a relationship with all of them.

And you see to have effective evangelism, it’s not going to happen by only running programmes, or services to invite people in through the door of our churches. No, it’s going to be effective through the individual relationships that you and I have with people that we know. In this room right now if I was to take everyone’s list of people they know, I’m guessing it won’t be too long before we would reach 1,000 names. Can you see how awesome that is – that the power and potential that is in this room right now, could actually reach out to 1,000 people telling them good news in a world that frankly is so broken. It’s all about personal relationships. So, here’s how Paul puts it when he’s writing to the Thessalonians – 1 Thessalonians 2:8 “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but our lives as well”.  You see the gospel wasn’t just handed to them through some wee track in the letterbox. It was received in a personal way, through relationships, through everyday living. That’s how this will happen best. We all can do it. But we have to care enough about the lost, to take the time to share life with them. “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but our lives as well

Are lost people on our radar? Now I don’t mean like some kind of target, but do we consider them as people who we can show the hope of Jesus Christ? Because I can guarantee you that lost people are all around your life every day, but that’s not the point. The point is what are you and I doing with them? And in order to understand what we are called to be with those around us, we have to understand God’s heart. Why is God so head over heels in love with people who don’t care an ounce about him? You see, if we want to know what’s on God’s heart, all we have to do is look at the life of Jesus. You see if we look at the life of Jesus, we see how he felt about lost people. And that was such a strange thing for the religious leaders to comprehend. They couldn’t understand why God would care about people that they themselves didn’t care about.  And that’s what brings us now to Luke 15, because if we have any doubt about the kind of love and concern that God has for lost people, it’s all covered in these 3 stories.

But before we get into those stories, let’s consider the first 2 verses. Because in these verses we have 2 very distinct groups of people. We have tax collectors and sinners, and then we have Pharisees and teachers of the Law – the divide could not be greater. The tax collectors were in partnership with the Roman authorities, and they collected taxes from their fellow Jews – often taking more than they needed to, so they are hated by many. And then you have got sinners – people who had no time for God, people with a Jewish heritage but that was all they had. They called themselves Jews, but they had no relationship with the God of their ancestors. A modern-day equivalent would be those people who call themselves protestants, but actually have no evidence of a reformed Christian faith.

So then we have got these religious groups – the pharisees, whose job it is to guard the boundaries between what is clearly right and what is wrong when it comes to a relationship with God. That’s why Jesus had so many run-ins with them, because they were the ones who made the decision on whether a person was in or whether they were out. And so, Jesus is in the midst of the sinners, and he’s even eating with them – that’s a real demonstration about acceptance for people. So now Jesus in the midst of all of these people tries to level things with parables.

So, here’s the first

We start with the story of the lost sheep. The sheep is a 1% loss, but the shepherd isn’t content to not have a 100% record. And so this shepherd literally takes the burden of the lost sheep onto himself, and when he finds it he carries it home to protect it and give it rest, and then he has a party back at home. And so Jesus says that’s what it’s like when one sinner turns their lives around, a life that’s going in the opposite direction from God and turns it completely around and moves towards God. There’s literally a party when one more lost person is found. So the question for us is this which we thought about last week – how do we view lost people? As you come in contact with people that you know are not following God, how do you view them – do you consider them as a bad influence, to be avoided, or people that you don’t think it’s really worth talking to about Jesus – that there’s no point.  But you see God hasn’t given up on them, he sees them as sheep that can be found so he can take their burden and bring them home. Folks we are living in mad times, when it comes to morality, decency and politics. But we live in this world. We’ve not been lifted up into eternity, so therefore we have an important job to do – to point people to a Shepherd who wants to carry them safely home.

So, let’s now think about the 2nd story.

It’s about a woman who loses one of her 10 coins. These coins represent her life savings, and so unlike the last story where a loss represented 1%, now this loss represents 10%. And so it’s much more significant. So, the woman frantically looks for the coin, and when she finds it, she calls her friends over and has a party – such is her joy. And so like the last parable, Jesus says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents”. The symbolism between the 2 parables is quite similar. So here’s what we learn from this second story – Jesus wants us to see lost people as something incredibly valuable, so much so that it deserves our all-out effort to point them back to him. It should be our highest priority.

I wonder have you ever lost something precious, and you’ve been sick to the core until you find it. I remember on holiday with the kids, we lost Josh’s toy dog – he was called Spot. We looked everywhere, tore the house down, because Spot was so important to Josh. We went back to the McDonalds we had been eating in, and it wasn’t there. And as it got late, knowing that Josh would have to go to sleep without Spot, we all with heads lying low went to bed. The next morning, Nathan who was very young came down, and behind the fridge he pulled out Spot. Now make of that whatever you will, but it wasn’t the time to interrogate Nathan. No, it was the time to rejoice.

So, here’s a statement to consider – the passion with which we search for something will demonstrate how much we value that object. So, here’s a question – what do you think our churches would be like if every day of our lives we dedicated it to searching for lost people because we understand how valuable they are to God? Remember that we were lost, and we are now found. Don’t take that for granted.

So now we are on to our 3rd story, probably the one that is most famous and familiar to all of us.  2 sons. In the ancient world, the son did the equivalent of telling his father, “I wish you were dead”.  In cultures today around the world, such an action would see a son being banished. But the Father in our story doesn’t do that – he gives the son what he asks for. The son blows everything, and he realises he’s made such a mistake, and so he travels back home not fully sure what his Father is going to do to him. He has disgraced his family name. He himself considers that he’s not even worthy to be called a son.  And yet as he gets closer to home, the Father runs to him in celebration. So again, like the other 2 stories, what do we learn? Well, the Father clearly represents God. But what we don’t maybe understand, is that in the context and culture, what the Father did by running towards his wayward son would have been considered as scandalous as what his son had done. But that makes sense with the heart of God for lost people seen in Jesus’ actions that makes Jesus so scandalous towards the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. When they heard Jesus tell that part of the story they would be appalled by such words. The son represents people that are lost. And so Jesus is spending time with all these tax collectors and sinners. He’s sharing life with. And although we didn’t read it, we know that the older brother is rather annoyed that the Father has been so loving towards his younger brother.  And maybe Jesus’ point was that it represented the attitude of the pharisees around him, indignant to Jesus being around these sinners. But here’s a question – is there a chance that maybe the older brother represents us? Is it possible that today we think to ourselves, I don’t think I’m cut out to deal with all those other people who are lost, is it not good enough anyway that I’m serving in church or that I’m even here? Why do we have to so focused now on lost people? But Jesus is inviting us to see lost people as family members who have run away from home.

I want you to think about your family for a moment – those people that are the closest to you. And I want to ask you a question – who in your family would you be ok with them running away and never coming home again? If they ran away today, who would you have no problem with if they never came back? You see that’s how God feels about lost people. His heart breaks for lost people who are not coming home to him. There are many people around us every day, who God breaks his heart over, and he wants you and me to feel that for them.

You see if we were to re-do this final story the way it would normally play out, it would be like this. When the son would come home, the Father would not even see him. The family name was spoilt, the Father’s reputation would be in the gutter. And so he would make the son sit out for days outside the village in public view of everyone. And that would happen so the son would feel the scorn from all the people in the way he had disgraced the family.  And then after weeks of this, if the Father chose to see the son, the son would have be bow low at his feet while the father would explain all the work that he would have to do to pay back for the disgrace he had brought to the family.

Do you read any of this in the story? No. In the most scandalous way, we see the Father running and smothering his lost son with kisses, who was dead but was now alive again; he was lost and now was found again.  That’s how God feels about lost people.

Jesus has made this so clear in these 3 stories. So, as I finish – if you didn’t make a list of all the people that you know, and who come in contact with you, make a list today.

But I want all of us to go the next step. Look at those names this week and know that God loves them more than anything else in all creation. And God loves them so much that he doesn’t want them to miss out on discovering his love for them. May God bless you as you become aware this week of God’s love for those people in your life.

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