A several summers ago Laura and I witnessed every parent’s nightmare. As we soaked up the sun at Myrtle Beach, enjoying our annual vacation, watching Drake and Anna Gray, who were then still young enough to enjoy just playing in the sand, we noticed a man acting rather strangely. A barely disguised look of terror was on his face as he walked the beach, scanning back and forth between umbrellas and beach chairs. We could see him talking nervously to various groups along the beach. When he was near enough to speak with a lifeguard we could discern that he’d lost his little girl. The family thought she was with relatives, but she had vanished.
I felt his fear in my own heart as I imagine my little ones alone and at the mercy of strangers on the beach. I empathized with the man and started praying for the safe return of his daughter.
All of the lifeguards were notified by radio and they began sweeping the beach for the little girl. The father was by far the most energetic searcher. Within a few minutes he disappeared down the beach. Much to our relief, the little lost girl was found about 20 minutes later. She was several block down, playing and completely clueless at the danger she was in and the search in progress.
As I reflect on that event, I find that God is a lot like that father. He yearns for his estranged creatures to enter into His family. He longs for the wanderers to come home. Your heavenly Father’s heart beats for lost people. If your heart beats like the Father’s, you’ll love lost people too.
I want to share this message with you because I fear that we have become complacent about the lost. We can get so busy trying to make a living or doing good things or even growing a church that we forget the heart of the matter: lost people matter intensely to God. Jesus explicitly said this was His purpose.
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Luke 19:10 (NIV)
As I begin full time here as your pastor I want this to be one of the core values of Antioch Baptist Church. Lost people should be a priority to us because they’re a priority to God. If lost people do not matter to this church or individuals here, that means something is terribly wrong in our relationship to God. As you’ll see shortly, the person who has not a care for lost people probably does not know the heavenly Father. His heart beats for lost people. If your heart beats like the Father’s, you’ll love lost people too.
In His day Jesus earned a reputation as a “friend of sinners.” He spent time with them. He dined with them. He healed them. He encouraged them. Not just the small time sinner. Jesus hung out with the worst of the worst. Look how the religious folks reacted to his love for lost people and their love for Him:
Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Luke 15:1-2 (NIV)
Jesus had the audacity to violate Jewish customs to seek and save the lost. He did not require them to come to Him. He went to the places where they could be found – the market places, street corners, and their homes. He made Himself ritualistically unclean by being in the presence of an unrepentant sinner.
Let’s give the Pharisees and teachers of the religious law some credit. They did believe that God mercifully forgave and accepted the sinner who repents and returns to Him. But they couldn’t stomach going to them, the unwashed masses, and leading them to life. They like it safe and sanitary.
I guess they a lot like us. We rejoice if the former sinners get their act together and come to church. But how many of us are going to them, on their turf? How many of us are willing to pray and build relationships with lost people and love them and speak the truth and share our faith as we have the opportunity?
If we are not doing that as a church or as individuals we do not have God’s perspective on lost people. To illustrate just how God feels about lost people and the lengths to which He’s willing to go to reach them, Jesus told three parables to make it clear. The first one paints a picture of a shepherd with his sheep.
Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not 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 neighbors 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 persons who do not need to repent.” Luke 15:3-7 (NIV)
I’m not going to bog down in a bunch of details here. This parable is extremely straight-forward. It tells us several things. First, what seems ordinary has great value. One sheep is not a big deal when you have 100. But to God each individual counts. Everyone, from the greatest to the least, has value. Second, the proper response is an all-out search. It takes time and effort to retrieve the lost sheep. Can you imagine the back ache of carrying even a lamb on your shoulders for very far. Yet this shepherd did it – happy the whole way home. Third, rejoicing is the outcome when the lost is found. There ought to be a party. The shepherd rejoices. God rejoices over each one who returns home.
Just to make this crystal clear, Jesus told a second parable with completely different circumstances.
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15:8-10 (NIV)
There are the same points again. The ordinary coin had great value to the woman. Do you value lost people. Are they even on your radar screen? By the way, you can tell what you value by looking at your checkbook and your date book. The woman in the parable also launches an all out search. She turns her house upside down to find that coin. Is Antioch going to the time and trouble to seek lost people? Are the members intentionally building relationships with lost people? Are we inviting them into our homes? Are we sharing a verbal witness with them? Are we inviting them to church and offering them a ride? Do you know how to share your faith? Do you know what methods work and what don’t? Have you gone to the time and trouble to be equipped for evangelism? The woman, like the shepherd, threw a little party just as God, it appears, throws a party right there in front of His angels.
How does this church respond when people say “yes” to Christ? I was pastor of one church where, after I announced that several kids had made decisions for Jesus, all I received from the congregation were polite smiles or blank stares. Where was the applause? Where was the rejoicing? Most were simply apathetic. They could care less.
There are also some church people who are hostile toward lost people. I haven’t encountered this yet, but a friend of mine was a part of a church where the pastor had a real heart to reach unbelievers in their community. He wanted to organize a contemporary worship service a part of a plan to accomplish this. Some of the leaders were downright opposed to this. One of actually said, “We don’t need a lot of new people here because they don’t tithe.” I have heard of churches where lost people actually started to attend in large numbers and it caused a church split. How do you account for that kind of attitude?
Jesus told a third parable to explain how religious people could people apathetic or hostile toward lost people.
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“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. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that 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 his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ 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 around him and kissed him.
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“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. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15:11-32 (NIV)
This parable is so well-known that I’m not going to cover old ground. I want to explain it so that you can understand it with a new point of view – this would have been the perspective of Jesus’ original hearers. We tend to focus on the younger brother. We write songs about the younger brother. Jesus wanted his listeners to consider the older brother in light of the father.
Let’s start with his hostility. Why was the brother angry that his Father threw a party for the prodigal son? Because he’d never had so much as a lousy goat feast. He’d worked slave-like hours with, so he says, no appreciation.
The father responded: “You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.” The fact is that the eldest son could have eaten a goat or a fatted calf or a cooked goose or anything else he wanted because the father had already divided up the estate. Verse 11 tells us this is true. As the first born, he’d receive 2/3s of everything. The accusation that he’d never received anything was a lie.
“You are always with me” is the equivalent of the father saying, you’ve got me, a relationship with your father. Isn’t that better than anything I could give you? What Jesus is pointing out here is that although the elder son had physically been with his father, he was never really with him. He didn’t really know him. He was as far away spiritually and emotionally from his father as the younger son in the pig sty.
Church people, and I’m not calling them Christians, who are hostile toward lost people real that they don’t really have a relationship with the heavenly Father. They don’t really know Him because if they did they’d celebrate the return of the prodigal. If they knew the Father they’d have the heart of the Father who said, we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.
I don’t think hostility toward the lost fits anyone here. I hope that’s because you all have a genuine saving relationship with the Father through faith in Jesus Christ. It is quite possible, however, that you’re just a product of Baptist culture and church life that says we’re supposed to welcome sinners.
What I want you to honest about is your apathy. If you really don’t care whether people die and are separated from the Father eternally it speaks volumes about your spiritual state. If you’re not actively doing anything to reach lost people for Christ it may also be an indication that you don’t really know the Father.
Jesus’ original hearers would have immediately picked up on something in the story that modern ears miss. When the youngest son requested that the father pretend he was dead and divide up the estate the elder brother should have stepped up. As the oldest male in the family it was his responsibility to act as mediator and attempt to bring reconciliation between father and son. Jews of Jesus’ day would have known something was up in the first verse of the parable. They would have seen the elder brothers angry response coming a mile a way because he had shirked his duty early on.
Early on, however, he was apathetic toward his father, his brother, their relationship, and his own. He viewed his father more as a banker distributing the goods than a person to be loved and honored. He was apathetic because he was receiving his cut and he could care less about the other two. It was only when it seemed that some of his property was being squandered that he showed any emotion at all.
If the elder brother had had a true relationship with the father he would have attempted to reconcile the situation. If he loved his father and brother he probably would have gone after the young man and searched for him, especially when the famine hit. At the very least he would have been waiting and praying with his father. If he truly knew the father he certainly would have celebrated the sinner’s repentance and return.
But the fact is he could care less. He had his inheritance. He had his slice of the family pie. Let the sinner rot in hell for all he cared.
Brothers and sisters of Antioch, if that’s your attitude I don’t care how many aisles you’ve walked down or how many sinner’s prayers you’ve prayed or the depth of the water you were baptized in, you don’t know the Father. He may be no more to you than your personal banker distributing salvation because you’ve repeated the correct words or done the honorable deeds, but you don’t know Him.
The fact is that your heavenly Father values lost people. He takes the time and effort to orchestrate all of history so that they find Him. He rejoices when they come home. If your heart beats like the Father’s, you’ll love lost people too.
