A Second Opinion - Lost

Continuing on and looking at getting a second opinion on things that we're pretty certain we understand from the book of Luke, Luke the physician. I want to introduce this topic by telling you something about myself that will be of no shock if you know me or if you're part of my family or close friends. I lose things. I lose lots and lots of things.

I lose most things. Important things. I do it with such great regularity that calling things lost for me doesn't seem to actually sum up their actual status because most things I own, I'm uncertain of where I've left them. Car keys, wallets, credit cards, jackets.

There is something in my life right now. I can tell you what they are. There are things in my life that are in a perpetual state of lostness where I can't, I don't know where they are. And please don't ask me, well where's the last place you put them?

I mean I never understand that question. If I knew that, it wouldn't be lost. This is a running joke in our house. The joke is, and the word joke is not right because there's people that I love friends and family that take a lot of time to pick things out for me and they spend a lot of money looking for the right gift to get me, right?

And I lose them. I mean I lose winter jackets like they have a polarized magnetic force to my skin. I can't, most Christmases, if you have someone in my family and what they are buying me, they will say, I have to get them a winter jacket. Didn't you get them one last year?

Yes. Because I lose them all the time. My wife bought me a new winter jacket last year. One of those very cool thin down ones, you know, and she didn't want to get me the black one.

She said, I want to get you one that's a little different. She put some work into it and got me this nice gray jacket. Do you know where that jacket is? Neither do I.

If you find it, it's got to be here in this church somewhere. If one of your kids is wearing a very cool, nice thin down jacket, these little youth group punks, I know how they are. That could be where my jacket is. I do it all the time.

And I'll ask my wife, she'll say, I won't tell her, but you'll notice I don't have a jacket on. She'll go, where's your jacket? You lost it, didn't you? And I'm usually trying to be humble.

Yeah, I lost it. So she doesn't even ask me to go look for it anymore because she knows that that's useless. I could be staring right at it and not see it. So she'll start to look for it.

The only good news in this story is that in Jones all out search to find this year's jacket, she stumbled upon last year's lost jacket. So on an annual basis, I'm neutral. I'm cost neutral on winter jackets. Now, I share with you that this morning because it's an introduction for me to what is the most influential in my personal walk.

This is the most influential chapter in the entire Bible. For me in following Jesus, it's the thing that helps me understand God. Anytime I get confused by God, I go back to Luke 15. It is like sobriety in a world of craziness.

Luke 15. And really, if you're going to ask, why did you do this? Why do you do this? Why do you do this?

Why are you a pastor? You certainly don't seem like a pastor. I hear that with regularity. Why do you do this?

As I studied this, I think the answer is Luke 15. That's why I do this. It's an entire chapter. Maybe it resonates with me because it's an entire chapter on lost things.

It's just all about lost things. Some of you know my story. I came to understand who Jesus was. And to follow him when I was 18 or 19 years old, if I knew that that moment was going to change the rest of my life, I would have written it down at the time and the exact date.

I know it was on Christmas Eve. I know it was at the Roxbury diner on Route 10, probably around midnight. I was 18 or 19 years old. And the story of Jesus was explained to me by my soon-to-be future brother-in-law.

Now, I want you to understand, I grew up going to church regularly. Very regularly Christmas and Easter regularly. We never missed a Christmas or Easter. We were very regular.

And we'd be offended if somebody was sitting in our seats on Christmas Eve because we perceived that those were our seats. We sat there every Christmas and Easter. And so I understood that Jesus died from my sins, but I have to be honest with you. I didn't know what that mean.

And that night my brother-in-law, who had married into my wife's family, who were Christians, shared with me the gospel laws. Just kind of like we did over a community. How I was distant from God that my sin had separated me from God. It wasn't anything necessarily that I had done willfully.

It's just that I was born, broken. And as a result of that brokenness, I sin constantly. Even when I'm not-how we're listening, there's this inward pattern of sin. And that sin, because God's a God of justice, would need to be paid for.

That we all want justice. And so we were being separated from God because we had a punishment to us. And he explained to me for the first time I got it. That, oh, that's what it means that Jesus paid for my sins.

He shared that if I would turn, if I would repent, if I would change the way I'm thinking and change the way I'm living, and begin to acknowledge that Jesus is in charge of my life and not me, that I could be a term he used called Saved. I could walk with Christ now and on into eternity, that I wouldn't be separated from him temporarily here or eternally there. And so, you know, we sing amazing grace around here. I know that song has taken on almost like, I don't know, sometimes it takes on cultural silliness.

I heard Craig Carton on Boomer and Carton singing it this week as like a parody. That song resonates with me, because I can tell you, I'm telling you, maybe you grew up at Christian House, so you don't feel this, but I really was once lost. And I was looking for God and I was found. I really was blind.

I didn't get it. I couldn't see it, but now I see. And from that night in that diner, something happened to me. My heart just began to beat in a different way for Jesus.

Now listen, please understand, not perfectly, right? I've already confessed to you, right? I always want to lift another idol up. I always want to set my eyes on things that are, I'd set my heart towards things that aren't God.

So not perfectly, no, not completely. But things from that moment on, they were never in my life the same. Jesus, I was introduced to the living Jesus. He became not a distant religious figure, but a personal savior to me.

It was in many ways like finding a new love interest. I couldn't get him off of my mind. I was smitten. I remember I came home one day in my house, not too many weeks after, and I walked in.

I saw my mom, and I said, hey, mom, can I ask you a question? It's kind of weird. Do you find yourself thinking about Jesus like all the time? Is he all you think of?

To which my mom answered like any normal person would? No. And that's when I started realizing something was happening to me. I was thinking things differently.

Something had changed in me. I had become a found person. And now here's what I want you to understand. This created a big problem for me.

Maybe I never did you, but I'm just going to share with you my story why this created a big problem for me. Because I was this now found person with new eyes. I saw things differently like my sin and my shame and God's love. And Jesus's sacrifice.

I now knew what it meant that he had died for my sins. But my issue was this. I was a found person. I was a seeing person.

Surrounded in my life by people who I loved desperately that had not yet been found and could not yet see. And what I began to notice was now a person, what I became was a person with one foot planted deeply and lovingly in two very different cultures and two very different communities. I had my church family and I had my biological family. I had my friends and I had my quote unquote real friends and I had my church friends.

And it seemed pretty certain to me that neither of these sides was all too keen on hanging out with the other. Anybody ever have this happen? And so into this overtly religious culture which I was being in a sense metaphorically baptized into. I was finding myself, I was finding these people, my friends and family.

These people that I love, these people that I grew up with, this people that I lived with, walked with, my friends, my family. They were known by a term which this religious culture that I was moving towards, they were known, they used a term for these people I love. Not intentionally did they do this, but definitely somewhat derogatorily. They started to refer to just about everybody I loved as lost people.

In fact I can tell you where I was working on this talk and I can remember it specifically. I'd hear this term, lost people, lost people. And see now I was a saved person and so I was being told that there were lost people and there were saved people. And John, you now are a saved person.

And I remember we were at my wife's house and I was at a party going on him. My in-laws had a person from their church over her. She was kind of a, don't know remind me, I can't remember the person's name. She was a woman in her 40s, kind of an elegant woman and she was standing by the island that they had there and she had a sunbeam mixer and she was mixing something with my mother.

And she was talking about lost people. And there was a frustration in her voice over these lost people. And I don't know what it was, but it was something about the way she said it that was really taking me off inside. Because here's why.

People that, just about everybody I knew, people I loved very much. My mother, she would have been deemed one of these lost people. And while it was never stated explicitly, what soon became somewhat apparent to me was that found people, saved people, don't hang out with lost people. Because lost people are bad and they're far from God and their behaviors are poor to God.

And so we're saved people, we're found people, we're children of God. And so my problem was this, almost everybody I loved would have been deemed lost. Those ties, I was encouraged to sever in order to ensure my own righteousness, to make sure of my own salvation. And this aided me for a long time in some of the recesses and deep recesses of my heart for years because I loved the church.

But I loved the lost. They're much more fun to hang out with often, by the way. And it just seemed like there was this chasm between people I loved and the Church of Jesus that was really wide. And so Luke, this physician, Luke, this human being, Luke who wrote this letter to a guy named Theophilus to convince this guy, whoever Theophilus was, that Jesus is who he said he was.

I want to encourage you this morning to understand what Luke says about the value of people and how God sees people. Because he does not see people the way you think he does or the way that you and I almost always do. Luke gives us a second opinion on the value of people. And frankly when I first heard this guy named Bill Hybels, a pretty famous preacher, when I first heard Bill Hybels explain Luke chapter 15, it has provided for me a calling that has gone on in my own life for the last two decades.

I do what I do because of Luke 15. The story is about lost things. Now many of you are familiar with these stories. But some of you aren't.

So I'm going to read the chapter for you. I'm just going to read Luke chapter 1 or Luke 15, the first verse right to the end. I'm just going to read it. Just the way Jesus spoke it by the way.

He just spoke these three stories right out. He never interrupted him. He just kept going. So I'm going to do that for you.

Here's what I want you to do. I want you to look for the similarities in them. I think they're probably highlighted so that might give you a clue. I know it's early.

So let me set this up for you. Here's how the chapter starts. Luke says, the tax collectors and the sinners, the lost people, you know. They gathered around to hear Jesus.

But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, muttered. This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. So here's Jesus. He's teaching.

He's in the public square. And there's this large group of lost people, non-religious type people, gathering around him. And they're fascinating by what he's saying. Church, please understand you have to enter the story.

This is the clubbing crowd. This is the church going crowd. These are my people. They're secular people with all of their secular language and their secular values and their secular lifestyle issues, most of which they are not yielding over to God.

And while Jesus is having this conversation with the out crowd, with the unsaved people, all to the side is an religious leader, a group of found people, a group of saved people. And they're watching Jesus interact with the crowd. And the Pharisees begin to mutter to one another. That this man, Jesus, is welcoming the sinners.

And then they go a step further. They mutter. They're not only is he welcoming. He's not chasing them off.

He's not calling them abhorrent. He's eating dinner with them. In the first century, when you had dinner with someone, that said huge messages about your approval of them. You do not eat with people that you do not value.

A dinner in the first century was something that would go on over many courses, often three or four hours. So you'd be sitting with this person in their home for a whole evening. And they're muttering to each other, saying that this Jesus is not only talking to the unsaved people. He seems to like them.

And this bothers the religious crowd in a lot of different ways. And please don't think you're above this. Because I'm not. I understand this.

I can feel this. Now I got a footplant in both of these worlds. This violates their theology, their tradition, their cultural norms, their social etiquette. It just isn't the way the world was supposed to work.

Rabbis, they're supposed to keep distant from the riff-rath. People that say that a messiah should be vetting their dinner guests a little more carefully than this. Found people don't hang with lost people. I remember how Hybal set the scene when he gave the talk.

He said that theologically, the Pharisees believed, and we do this, Church, the Pharisees believed that God and Heaven can barely restrain himself any longer from wiping these sinful people off the face of the earth. Theologically, they believe that God was so disgusted with their actions, with these kinds of people, that he was just one provocation away from fire and brimstone and action. And this was deeply held. And that seemed to be true to me too, in my little religious-solved culture, until Jesus shows up.

Now, I'm going to read you the story. He just gives three stories and a run. The first story he's going to talk about sheep. Sheep have a bad habit of wandering off into dangerous places.

Sheep are not the brightest of animals. Try to get a sheep to play fetch. It doesn't work. How about this one?

You have this picture? Sheep have a habit of wandering off and getting themselves into danger. They have no way to protect themselves. There's no claws.

You've ever been in a bit by a sheep recently? And so to people who understood the character and the nature of sheep and the character and nature of shepherds, Jesus starts telling stories. Here's what he said. He said, suppose one of you, he hears the muttering.

He's hanging out with his friends. And he hears them muttering about his friends. And he looks at them and he says, suppose the one of you had a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 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 he calls his friends and his neighbors together and he says, rejoice with me. I found my lost sheep. I'm telling you. You have to hear Jesus saying this.

I'm telling you guys. In the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 religious people who do not need to repent. And then immediately without pause, Jesus tells another story. There's no explaining of this story.

He just rolls into another one. He goes, or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and she 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 their neighbors together and she says, rejoice with me.

I found my lost coin. In the same way, I'm telling you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. And then he tells a third story. And this is to the best of my knowledge.

This is the only time in Jesus' three year teaching ministry where he tells three parables back to back to back. That is not his usual pattern. Usually there's a problem. Jesus gives a parable.

He teaches them to apply it and they move on. But not this time. This time Jesus gives three stories. And I think it's because he is so exercised about this problem.

Jesus is having his son be mixer moment. He's hearing friends call things that are bothering him that are eating at him. Now, now, loss is a biblical term. I understand that.

But it can also be used derogatorily. So he's got this restlessness in his spirit about the discussion that these religious leaders are having in their little holy huddle about who matters to God and who doesn't matter to God. And so Jesus, I think, just goes, I need to make darn sure that this gets cleared up. Story, story, story.

Jesus continued. You see, there was a man. He had two sons. The younger one said to his father, father, give me my share of the estate.

And so he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together. All that he had. He set off for a distant country.

And he squandered his wealth and wildlife living. And after he spent everything. It was a severe famine in the whole country. And he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to the fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating. But no one gave him anything. Jesus says, 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. I'm going to set out and I'm going to go back to my father. I'm going to say to him, father, he's got this whole plan. Father, I sinned against you.

I'm not even worthy to be called your son. Just make me like one of your hired servants. So he got up and he went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him.

And he ran to his son. And he threw his arms around and made a kiss. His son had this plan about all these things he was going to say. Son said, father, I've sinned against heaven against you.

I'm not worthy to be called your son. Father doesn't even address it. Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and put sandals on his feet.

Bring the fat and calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and he's alive again. He was lost. And now he's found.

And so they began to celebrate. And I know that many of you know that these stories are in the Bible. I'm just not so certain about how many of us know or remember the way Jesus presented them. Right in a row.

Back to back to back without explanation. Because I think what Jesus was hoping for in that moment was the Pharisees and the religious people of the day that they would go home at night. And they'd wonder about these seemingly unrelated stories. There's a shepherd who with sheep and one was gone and a woman loses a coin.

And there's a story about a father and this kid that left. What did I have in common? I think Jesus' hope was that his religious audience would go home and wrestle with these stories. And start to see that there's something that connects each of them.

That's what I want you to see. Because each of these three stories, here's the first thing you need to understand. Something of value winds up missing. A sheep, a coin, a son.

One of the reasons Jesus tells the story, just the way he does, is that he wants the Pharisees. He wants them to figure out on their own that in each of these stories something ends up missing and that which is missing really matters to somebody. It really mattered to somebody a lot. Now you might say if you've got a hundred sheep and one wanders off, does that really matter to the shepherd?

Why would Jesus tell it like that? Why don't you say he only had two? In that culture, in that day, if shepherding was your profession, you're lively. You spent so much time with these sheep.

You likely had a name for them. You likely called them by a name. In fact Jesus would go on later to say, my sheep here, my voice, the shepherd's voice. That was the relationship between shepherd and sheep.

In some fashion they were like pets. Just break from this talk from a lot. Some of you people, you are way too into your pets. Some friends with you on Facebook.

I don't know when this happened. There are many things that have changed since I was a young boy. And this whole fascination with our pets. See, I have two dogs.

I only wanted one dog, but I have two dogs. Their names are Moose and Molly. I believe Moose is big and Molly is small. I believe I provide a rather nice existence for Moose and Molly.

They get kibble, not even on request. We just provide it for them. They have a nice fenced in backyard. We have a pool.

Moose takes laps in the pool. They have a... Molly has a more comfortable bed than I do. So she sleeps in her bed at night.

They have no problem sleeping on my couch with me every night. I was away all week. They slept in my bed on my side of the bed all week. These are well taken care of muts.

However, all anybody has to do is open a door in my house. And you would think that they are breaking free of Alcatraz or something, right? With the way these dogs take off out of this house. We cannot contain them.

It is if I'm torturing them back behind the walls and they can't wait to get out. For the first couple of years, I would chase after them. And you start to look rather silly when you're doing this. And they don't come.

And people are like, dude, is that really your dog? He's not listening to you? And you're running? What do you do to this dog at home?

It's very embarrassing. So I have to be honest with you. After a couple of years, I just said, well, they'll probably come back. And started checking out of the whole chase scene.

We live in a neighborhood called Nestling Woods in Long Valley. We have a Facebook page for Nestling Woods for the residents of Nestling Woods. And if you scroll back prior to us, you can see on the date and probably piece together when we got an electric fence. Because prior to the installation of the electric fence, about once a week you'd see some of the neighbors going, I was going, these dogs are out again.

Why do these people let their dogs run wild? Does anybody tell them their dogs are running wild? It was like, you know, Jones Fone would light up. And that's how we would know because the neighbors would be talking about us on the Nestling Woods site, right?

And I remember one day my neighbor Pat, you know, his good guy comes, he sees Molly out running through the neighborhood. So Pat, he's trying to be a good guy. You know, he's chasing my dog through the neighborhood. And Pat shows up at my door.

And he's sweating. And he's holding the dog. And he goes, dude, your dog was out. And he can't breathe, right?

And he's like, I got him for you. I'm like, oh, thanks. But he would have come back. And he's like, what?

What? He's like, you could have been hit by a car. I said, well, see, I really only wanted one of these dogs. And so I know I'm going to give an email about that comment.

I love these dogs. But I really only did want one of these dogs. And see, here's the deal. I'm not all that good a shepherd.

I'm not all that good a shepherd. But lost cheap really seemed to matter to this shepherd. And if that coin, the way the story reads, the way the story, legibly, this is a woman that is likely of a low means. She's likely a widow.

And this coin that she lost, it's a tenth of her entire estate. To that woman, I mean, if you guys, you know, many of you are 30, 40, 50 years old, you got $100,000 in your 401k. That's $10,000. And it mattered a lot to this woman.

She did everything she could. She had to find that coin. And fathers, what I have to say to you about, what happens when, have you had a son wander away? Have you lost a child?

And Jesus is trying to say to the Pharisees, listen, what do you think about God and the way he thinks about people? You've got to understand something. Look at these stories. What went missing really mattered to somebody.

You know me, I'm always trying to figure out a way to get us to enter the story. Because we hear these stories so many times, you're like, yeah, I've heard it many times. But it doesn't get through your defense mechanisms and penetrate your heart. So I was trying to figure out how could I penetrate people's hearts?

How could I get them to feel the love and the loss involved in these stories? So my first plan was that I was going to get some folks together that I know, people that I'm friends with. And I was going to yesterday go around with my kids and grab a couple of your dogs and keep them overnight. And then I was going to interview you today and let you speak of what it felt like to be missing your dog.

But then I thought that might get me fired. So I decided that probably wasn't the way to get you to enter the story. So I moved from the sheep story to the coin story. So here's what I've done.

Why you've been listening to me over the last few minutes. I've had a couple of our tougher guys here at Menon. People that are kind of good at this and maybe have a past in this and perhaps have served some time for it. So strategically, just because I know you ladies, you tend to put your purses down under your chairs.

I've had them while you've been listening. Strategically go and take, I told them, no more than ten. No more than ten purses from under your chair. So take a look, ladies.

See if your purse is there. Raise your hand if your purse is not there. Okay, see, I'm joking. I just wanted you to start to fear.

And I saw you all start looking long before I asked you to look. Which worries me that you actually think I might have done that. Like that was a possible thing. I did make you give your shoes up one day.

So anyway, I was at the beach last summer with my kids. I love the beach, man. But my grandmother put this fear of the beach in me. She always told this story.

Whenever we go, she'd say, Johnny, I had some relatives and they had two twin little kids and little kids were playing by the surf. And the last time they saw those two little kids was holding hands as the way it came in and took them out to sea. I know that story is true, but man, I saw it scared the crud out of me for almost my whole life. And so I love the ocean and I love the beach, but I have a healthy fear of it.

And here's another thing that's changed. I never remember hearing about a riptide until ten years ago. Growing up, there was never flags about a riptide. You just went in and were a man about it.

And same thing with suntan lotion. Who had suntan lotion? This is why I'm getting stuff carved off me like a turkey on a regular basis. Last summer I'm at the beach.

And I was in the water and the flags were up about riptides, blah blah blah. And the water was churning. It was one of those days where it looks like a mixing bowl almost. You know what I mean?

You see, going on, that's kind of dangerous. It's kind of fun. And usually I just like to sit on the beach and have my beverage in my book. Just let me sit.

And Caroline kept going, we're going to work, we're going to work, we're going to work. And we're out there a little while. And at first it's kind of fun because it's choppy and it's kind of cool and it's just her and I out there. But then all of a sudden I started to sense riptide, which I never really felt before.

But to the point where now I was in over my head and I couldn't touch the ground anymore, and it was so choppy that I was getting hit in the face with the waves over and over and I couldn't touch the ground. And what started to concern me even more was I couldn't see Caroline anymore. And I knew she was right in there with me too. And so I'm starting, you're ever kind of still trying to play cool though, right?

Because the last thing you want is for that lifeguard to come in and bail you out of that ocean because it's hard to recover your cool factor when that happens, right? So I'm looking at the lifeguard at that moment, just making sure he's cool, you know, because if he's cool I'm cool. And then it's getting worse and I'm starting to get a little scared and I look at Caroline and I can see, you know, the waves came up and we kind of met, or eyes kind of went up and down, you know. And I looked at her and you know what I can see in her eyes?

Fear. And you know what bothered me even more? I knew she looked in my eyes and you know what I knew she saw? This man is not saving me, right?

Like, I have to tell you, at that moment when I couldn't touch the ground and I was starting to take our water, a couple things happened. The first thing was, like, I started looking again for the lifeguard, this time like I'd longingly, like the cool factor's over, I'd be happy for you to come get me now and I'll get over my, you know, my ego get over it. The second thing I started to realize is that we have this sense, this inane thing, it's just natural for a parent to do anything to get his kid. Now here's what I realized at that moment, I would have always told you that's true and it is true, but I'll also tell you that my flesh wanted out of that water.

Like I had a thing going on in my mind, stay here and save your kid and I had another voice going, you better get out of your going to drown with her. And this whole thing was going on and, you know, it's probably lasted a minute, but it seemed like it was like a day and a half that this was going on out there and I'm getting tired and I wish I'd run more before I came down here. And finally, the rip current kind of pushed us out and pushed us back in and I got to a place where I could step again and I could see Caroline and so she was getting pushed back in and we both got out of the water and I was getting out of the water. And I said, look, there's no need to tell mom about any of this, you know, this will be fine.

And so here's what happened when that happened. I understood what it would be like to lose a son for a minute. I would have done anything to make sure that that kid was already at that minute. And so why does Jesus tell these stories?

Maybe I thought about it this way. What if I had gotten out and I couldn't see her and if I'd run to the first happy family on the blanket, the nearest folks and I said, guys, my little girl, I lost my little girl, I had a hold of her, but the current, it's choppy out there. Listen, would you get everybody in your group? Could you come back to the water's edge with me and could you help me look and find her?

And imagine it in my heart if my plea was sickly greeted with a lack of concern or maybe a judgmental comment about, well, maybe my daughter shouldn't have gone out there if she didn't know how to swim. Imagine what it would do to me as her father if I went to the lifeguard, the one who's supposed to care, the one who's paid to care, the one who says he cares, and what if he took one look at what was happened with my daughter and what if he just said, you know what, she shouldn't have gone that far off shore, she deserves what she's getting, why should I do anything to risk my neck for her? Why did Jesus string these stories together with no comment? Because at some point he wants the Pharisees and you and I to not just do the math, but to realize that it goes from 100 to 100, and to 10, and to 2, and then there's just one, there's a sheep and a coin and a son, something of value winds up missing, and that which is missing really mattered a lot to somebody.

It's the reason Jesus crafted the stories, the way he crafted them, because he wants us to understand that people that we might deem far from God were people, dirty people, bad people, pagan people, people that if we're honest oftentimes kind of discussed us, that they really mattered to God. Like the absence from a relationship with the Father causes him to ache and to grieve. Does God, can you imagine, these religious folks, maybe for the first time in their life starting to understand that God the Father actually feels towards way where people, the way the shepherd and the woman and the Father felt about these missing things in their life, because you have to understand something until this moment, until Luke 15, no one had ever thought of God, any God in this way, no one had understood the heart of a God this way, and I have to venture to say, there are some of us who never really thought about people far from God the way Jesus is describing it right now. Sometimes I still struggle with it.

I know, I know, I know, I know you don't like their language, I know you don't like their lifestyles, I know that they don't live the way you would have them or want them to live. You might be saying, I don't like their booze, I don't like their drugs, I don't like the people they sleep with, they disgust me. They're just, they're just, here's a some-be moment, there's some-be mixer moment for me, they're just lost people. And it's easy to find yourself thinking about people this way.

Oh, God must be so hacked off at him. When will, when will it be enough, Lord? Let's see, you're wrong, you're wrong. God's heart towards them is like the shepherd's heart towards the lost sheep, the sheep left, God goes after them.

The- God's heart towards his people is the same as the woman towards the lost coin, the coin did not magically jump off off of the floor back into the woman's purse, the woman went after the coin. God the father's heart is the same towards people far from God that might disgust you and I, that might look different, act different, beat different than you and I. It's the same heart that I had when I was looking for my little girl in the surf, and God runs up and down the beach and goes, does anybody care about my lost kid? Steve's going to gather with the kids tonight in youth group, they call it T24, some of you might know they pick that verse because it comes from Timothy to verse 4.

Timothy says, here's the truth about God, he wants all people to be saved to come to a knowledge of truth. He wants every kid to come home, every kid pulled from the waves. Jesus tells- Jesus tells the story and has this common theme, and he's just hoping that it will ambush somebody's heart, that somebody might get it. There's a second thing I want you to see.

Here's the second part of the story that's so important that you see. The thing that was lost in each of the stories had so much value that it was worth an all-out search. Look, it was inconvenient for the shepherd to go out all night looking for the sheep that wandered away. Some people have said over the years, well I don't understand the story because the 99 sheep, he left the 99 sheep, what about the 99 sheep, he went after the one?

I have to tell you, I have four children, three of them were back on the blanket that day, there was one lost in the turf, guess where my mind was? I've got to get that kid out of the surf. It's not fun to turn your house upside down trying to find a coin that's lost, but you do it because it's so valuable. The father, he didn't go out in the store, the prodigal searching for the sun, he needed to let the sun's rebellion quell and play itself out a bit, but the scripture says he searched the horizon every day.

So there's this searching that goes on. And Jesus tells these three stories exactly the way he does because in an unguarded moment he wants the Pharisees to go, wait a minute, not only do these people matter to God, these people that openly thumb their nose at God, they're being sought out by God, they're not just being invited, they're being sought, pursued at risk and danger by God. Lastly in these stories there's another thing common to all of them. And that's this, hopefully you caught it.

And we never preach on this, that just occurred to me as I wrote this, and we never preach on this topic. But, retrievals always bring about this incredible level of rejoicing. There's a party theme in every one of the stories, you see it when you read it back to back to back. The shepherd, when he finds the sheep, he doesn't beat the sheep, he scoops up the sheep, joyfully he takes it back on his shoulders to the flock.

The sheep is heavy, weighs about 100 pounds, he carries it back and one of the sheep might be saved. And Jesus the shepherd cross weighs about 100 pounds. And he carries it on his back. In order that the sheep might be saved.

When he gets back he sends word to his friends, oh my sheep is back, come and celebrate. The woman finds the coin, she calls her friends, she knows there's a reason for a party. And of course there's the famous celebration at the end of the Prodigal story, a huge festival over the sun who comes back. There's this party theme, nobody ever preaches how important the party theme is, the unprecedented joy.

Hibles help me understand this. It really resonated with me, I hope it will resonate with you as we get ready to close this up. At Christmas night in the 80s, that night from me in the Roxbury diner, and I know that many of you have had those moments, those points in your life, and maybe you haven't had that point in your life where you've decided, look I need to acknowledge that Jesus is who he said he was, the way, the truth in the life. I need to repent, I need to confess my lips, believe, I need to follow.

But when that happens I have to show you something that the scripture says is true. For me that night in the diner in the world, which we can't see yet, in the Kingdom of God, at that night on Christmas Eve, around midnight, in 1985 or 86, there were tens of thousands of heavenly beings at this huge festive celebration. You can picture it in your mind, there was an incredible party going on, of course there was Christmas Eve, but there was something else going on. Now, it turned out that wasn't what the party was for.

Hibles encouraged me to look above the table. He said, there's a head table and Christ is at the head table. And there's all these people in all this festivity, but look over Jesus's head, there's a banner. It's got a name on it.

It says John Henry Eisman Jr. And they sang. They all sang and danced and celebrated because some lost guy named John Henry Eisman Jr. got found.

Now I know each of these stories stands on its own, we could do the prodigal for weeks. Maybe for you today it's the first time that you've ever understood the heart of God for you, how he's been searching for you, looking for you, humbling himself in order just to reach you and to find you, how he longs to put you on his shoulders and carry you home. How the scriptures say there's a banner in the kingdom waiting for your name to be put on it. There's a party waiting to be thrown in your honor.

Maybe for others this morning in a country, in a culture that just so filled with a clash of values and discord and hatred and violence and intolerance. Maybe for some of us this is just a well needed reminder that the God we serve isn't looking to annihilate people or crush people. That's not who he is. He's a loving father and he understands what it's like to lose a son.

He's a father who wants kids found. He runs the shoreline and says, well you help, I've lost the hand of my little girl. So maybe for one or two of you this morning that understanding would like it did for me. Provide a calling for you.

Fans are going to come up. I'm going to close with just a five minute little video here. I need to show you this. I was at the CMA Christmas He's the president of the Christian Mission Airlines in Canada.

A guy named David Hearn, a very funny guy. He gave this talk about how the scripture describes the river of life flowing from the altar of God but then going into the Dead Sea. How God, the author of life flows life into the deadest of places. And it was a talk given to inspire the church to give up on no one.

No land, no religion, no people groups that there is no one outside the reaches of God's grace no matter how dead the sea might look. And in his conclusion he talks about his mother. He talks about his mother too. And what happens when someone is sold out to the heart of her father?

When someone values what and more importantly who God values and how lost people. Very lost people can be found and find their calling. Check this out. My mother is 89 years old.

She is the most missionally alive person that I've ever met. A few years ago she was in her ground level condo in Abbottsburg, British Columbia. Every day she talks to her friend Phyllis on the phone. Phyllis is deaf and my mother is deaf.

Can you imagine that conversation? They're screaming at each other over the phone. So one day as my mom is screaming at Phyllis and Phyllis is screaming at my mom. A young man high on drugs breaks into my mom's ground level condo.

She goes by the room where she's screaming at Phyllis, goes into her bedroom, steals all of her money, all of her jewelry and her car keys, goes into the underground parking, finds my mom's car, drives it through the big iron gate in the underground parking. There is a huge crash. Everybody in the condo hears that they accept my mother. 30 minutes later, please recall, they catch the thief, they get my mom's money back, her jewelry back, her car back.

My mother does not even know she's been robbed. So when the police officer shows up at the door, he says to my mom, it's okay Mrs. Sir, you've been robbed but don't worry. We've got your car back, we've got your jewelry back and here's your $35.

And my mom said, but I only had $25. And the police officer said, you keep it, tear you keep it. Fast forward three months. My mom finds out the young man is going to plead guilty and going to be sentenced to jail time.

She phones me and says, David, I want to be there. I said, Mom, why do you want to go? She said, I want to be able to say to that young man that I forgive him and that I'm praying for him. Said, okay, Mom, we'll go.

We arrived at the court. When I was once I was my mom, my middle daughter and me and on the other side was the mother of the young man. And as we were waiting for the judge to come in comes the young man's lawyer, he's a personal friend of mine. He's a part-time pastor, part-time lawyer.

Now that works out in the economy of God, I'm really not sure. But he's grided both. He said, David, what's your mom doing here? He said, it looks like your client robbed my mother.

He goes, oh no. He says, why does she want? I said, she wants your client to know that she forgives him and that she's praying for him. The judge comes in, all right, young man comes in, kind of glassing closure with a sheriff with him.

And immediately my friend, Daryl, coast of the podium and says, you're honored, I'd like to ask for a special privilege. He said, I've been a lawyer for years. And usually when the perpetrator is in the court, or I should say, when the victim is in the courtroom, they want to make sure the perpetrator gets the full extent of the law. But he said, Mrs.

Sern is here for a different reason. She wants my client to know that she forgives him and that she's praying for him. That judge afterwards went to the lawyer, Daryl, and said these words, I hate people of faith. They make my job so difficult.

They're that great. He points to the young man and says, you stand to your feet. He said, today in this courtroom, you have been offered a moment of mercy. These are powerful words.

I'm only going to stand at you half the amount of time that I originally was because of Mrs. Sern. Now, what do you need to say to her? And this 21-year-old kid looks at my mom and goes, I'm really sorry.

And my mother leaps to her feet and goes, it's all right. You're forgiven. It was such a cool moment. Court is dismissed.

My mother walks over and embraces the young man's mother and says, I'm going to pray for your boy. And you know what I said in my heart? That's a dead sea, Mom. Beyond.

Beyond. Beyond. You'll never come. My mom prayed for him for eight years.

Eight years. Last year I got a call from the lawyer. He said, you'll never believe about that young man that your mom prayed for. He's actually become a Christian.

And he's going to get baptized. Could your mom possibly come to his baptism? She was a little too frail to come to his baptism. But if you show the next slide, you'll see Clark and there he is at his, go back one slide.

There he is. That is baptism. And the lawyer wrote these words. He said, it was the most amazing baptism I've ever seen.

Clark had ten of his unsafe friends there. And not only was Clark baptized, but his mother was baptized because he had seen the change in Clark. And five weeks earlier had come to know Jesus Christ as a personal Lord and Savior. He said, thanks to your mom for the role she played in Clark's life.

And so I got the contact information for Clark. And a few months later I was out to visit my mom and I said, Clark, is there any way you could come and meet my mother? He said, I'd love to come. He sat in her living room, the very place of the crime.

And he said how he was in jail, how someone came and shared faith with him. And how he received Jesus Christ as a Lord and Savior. And God, how will you talk him through a one step program? Delivered him from drugs, delivered him from alcohol, and filled him with the Holy Spirit.

And then he said to my mom, he was so cute. He said to my mom, but Mrs. Hearn, I robbed a few other houses after yours. And he said, I probably need to go back and spend some more time in jail.

And then he said these profound words, but I do not go back as a prisoner. I go back as a preacher. And my mom says, if you go back as a preacher, then you better be commissioned. And this picture right here is my mother, commissioning Clark.

And she says in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, with you, commission Clark into the ministry you've now called him, Holy Spirit of the living God, anoint him, fill him, radically mobilize him for the sake of the king of the kingdom. My mom's fire. Friends, when the place of the crime becomes the place of commissioning, you know that where the river flows life abounds. Amen?

Amen.