This sermon was delivered to Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 11th September 2016; Holy Trinity is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.
The readings for today are:
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 Psalm 14 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15:1-10
“Please join me in a short prayer from Psalms 19:14, and ” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. Amen.
Introduction
Away back in February this year, I asked Andrew to take me off all rotas due to my health and by increasing workload at school; I was simply not coping, however I did suggest that I was available to help out where I could, and I was delighted last week when I was asked to do today’s sermon, … delighted that is, until I took a look at today’s readings, … because you don’t need to be a genius to realise that today’s readings are all about evangelism, and reaching the lost. …
But unlike Andrew, my first thoughts were, “I do not do evangelism”, … that is the job for the Pentecostals, .. they just love all kind of stuff, and I just love them for it, … but as it is me who has agreed to deliver today’s sermon, I have spent a very troubled week putting it together, but in doing so, I have really had to make myself think, because, I find this evangelism a very difficult calling to relate to, and … yes, we have all heard sermons on evangelism before, and yes we all know that we all are called to spread the gospel, but I have discovered some truths that I find very uncomfortable, … so I warn you before hand that I am going to be rather blunt in places in order to get this message across. I will apologise for this before hand, but the word of God can be very brutal, … so please don’t shoot the messenger, but let us examine his word first, and you will see what I mean.
To make a start, look at Ephesians 4:11 which tells us that the Lord, “gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and some teachers”. So we ask, why would he do this, and verse 12 tells us why, “For the perfecting of the saints, … for the work of the ministry, and … for the edifying of the body of Christ”.
Ok, so the next question to ask, has actually been asked in 1Corinthians 12:29 which says, and I quote, “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? “Are all evangelists”? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?” And the answer to these questions is clearly NO. Italics mine.
So we can conclude from these verses of Paul, that many of us in this church today, like me, just do not have that evangelical calling. So don’t feel condemned, and don’t let anyone else condemn you either, … because the bibles tells us clearly that we all have different gifts, different strengths and different abilities that we aught to use.
So relax, and I am not on your case; I will not be telling you to stand on street corners and try and convert someone, I will not be telling you to chap on doors either, … because I am sure you have all heard all that Evangelical talk before, … and I am sure you agree it is a difficult calling, I mean: we have a pastoral group, we have a choir, we have worship leaders and servers, and we have many other groups within the church, but do we have an Evangelical outreach group dedicated to spreading the word and reaching the lost? No.
Yet Ephesians 4:11 & 12 tells us that he did give us “gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and some teachers”; so from this list, clearly, some of us here today are called to be evangelists, and it is to them that I would like address this sermon, even though, this may interest us all. Now the bible is clear, there are two types of people in this world, … those who are saved and those who are lost.
Those who are saved can confidently say that Jesus is their Lord, and they have no doubt in believing this at all. In fact, the book of Revelations, Revelation 21:27 tells us that that our names are already written in the “Lamb's book of life”, and that our place in heaven is already secured, and awaiting on us.
How great is that, eh!, that is what the bible tells us, … but what about those who are not saved, … well the bible is even clearer on what happens to them: Matthew 13:42 for example, tells us that they “shall be cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth”. … Now, I can’t imagine what this furnace of fire will look like, nor the gnashing of teeth, but I will tell you something, … I do not want to know, … but whatever the alternative is, I will take it.
It is at this point that some people may show compassion for those who are lost, … and this may be their motivation to evangelise, so that they can save some of the lost from this horrible fire, which is good.
And there are others, others who see this Evangelism completely differently, … they just want to communicate their love for the Lord, … they just want to tell people that they do not have to follow this world and it evil ways in order to survive, … that there is another way to live, … and that is in communion with the Lord Jesus Christ, … and in doing so, to let him guide us through life’s trials and tribulations, and … and … at the end of it, whether they mess it up or not, they too, will not be thrown into the lake of fire.
I like that, and the Bible also offers us many other reasons why we should evangelise to the lost, for example, … think about the reasons why Jesus came to this earth in the first place? … He came too “heal and restore a lost world", because there is nothing like the power of Jesus to restore a broken world and broken lives to what God originally intended. John 3:17 tells us that “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved”.
But now that some of us are saved, Jesus urges us to encourage others into receiving that same salvation, … I mean, do we keep this great gift of salvation to ourselves, … and hide it from everybody else, … I would think not, because Jesus commands, and commissions us into letting others know the meaning of his life, death, and resurrection. … And we know this through the Great Commission, where just before Jesus ascended to heaven, he said in Matthew 28:19, “Go, and make disciples of all nations”, …. and at that time in history, all nations were the “lost”.
Our God has made it clear, that he desires a close and personal relationship with every single human being on this planet, … and that is why Jesus told story after story of God’s great love for the lost: after all, he is our great shepherd, … searching for his lost sheep.
II Peter 3:9 tells us that “he is patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”. Evangelism then is joining God’s search to see everyone come to repentance, and have a relationship with him. Romans 10:15 simply puts it this way, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good news”!
Somewhere deep down, we need to have compassion for the lost, we need to demonstrate the same efforts shown in these passages, … and we too should be filled with joy at the lost being found, because … if that is the way God responds to the lost, … then it is obvious that we, as brothers and sisters of Christ, should follow his example.
In today’s passage, we see Jesus with the "tax collectors and sinners", … these were lost people yet, they were not running away from Jesus but they were running too Jesus. They were not avoiding him or even being hostile towards him, because verse 1 tells us they were "gathering around to hear him", meaning they genuinely want to learn.
Yet to them, Jesus was a religious man, … not like the Pharisees ready to condemn them for their sin and debauched living? No, they were sinners wanting to hear Jesus, because Jesus without not condemning them was giving them a message that they wanted to hear. … And don’t get me wrong, we all know that Jesus never compromised on sin or on their evil ways, but he had a message without condemnation that took them completely out of themselves; … giving them something to hope for in the future, something other than religious condemnation.
And by the way, they weren’t gathering around Jesus because he was putting on some kind of show either, because at this point in Luke’s gospel, the emphasis was on the gospel, and not on healing or on miracles.
So why did the "lost" here seek Jesus, well I believe the answer is because Jesus could relate to them, he was human after all, he could understand and help them with their troubles, … he could show them a compassion that we could only dream off.
Jesus is therefore our, perfect example, of someone who is compassionate and understanding, because Jesus always welcomed the sinners and downtrodden despite their faults; … he was their friend and not their enemy, and that is the way we as individuals and a church should be, … but through friendly strength and character, as this can never be achieved in weakness.
To reach the lost, we need strength and compassion, and I will give you an example of this: … consider a road accident for a moment, … (I know you would rather not as it disturbs), but think, who are in attendance at the scene of a road accident? …
Well there are basically three groups of people, … the first group are the bystanders, the onlookers, the rubber neckers; and they are only there to watch to see what is going on so they can tell others that they were there. … In reality, they are of little use to anyone.
The second group of people are the police officers, whose duty is to investigate the cause of the accident: they assign blame, and give out warnings and punishments, and possible dealing with the rubber neckers.
But the third group are the paramedics, … they are the people most welcomed by those involved in the accident. They couldn’t care less whose fault the accident was, and they do not start lecturing about bad driving habits, and what they should have done; their primary response is to help those who are hurt. … They bandaged wounds, they free people trapped in cars, and they gave words of encouragement. …
Three groups of people, … one is uninvolved but busy, and a nuicance, … one is assigning blame and condemnation, … and one is helping those who are hurting. Question: which group are you in?
Seriously, when it comes to reaching the lost and the hurting, we are in one of these three groups. Please let it be the ones genuinely seeking help. Please remember this illustration when our time comes, and we are in a position to help.
… And another thing we lack is motivation, or effort or persistence, as we read in these parables of just how hard the shepherd and the widow searched for their lost lamb and coin. They persisted until they were found, and persistence takes a lot effort and energy, and we need a lot of that, to reach the lost.
In our Christian lives and in the church, we tend to wait for the lost to come to us; … we are passive rather than active, and we are all guilty of this to a certain extent. However, the least we could do is dedicate a part of our prayer life for those who are lost, and make preparations to receive them, … and this takes us onto the final and most important part that is necessary in reaching the lost, and that is, … are we prepared to receive them.
For example, what would we do if someone turned up here and said, … “I need to know more about the Lord, I need his help, I need your help”!. … Question: how many of us would pass them onto somebody else? … because I do not know if we were the right person to help someone like that, … and as we have a good pastoral team, the tendency would be to pass them on to them.
But could you imagine someone genuine, someone vulnerable, turning up to our church like that, ... with many problems, with issues, … asking nay demanding for our help! … These lost but found people are not easy to deal with, yet the bible tells us to get on with it just like the good Samaritans that we are supposed to be.
And are we, … because I know that we may automatically consider things like, (deep down of course), … will they fit in to our Episcopal ways, … will they listen to what we tell them, … will they ask questions that we cannot answer, … do I want to be seen beside them, … … will they rock the boat? … … Of course they will, … they are just be recovering from being lost, … and worse, … could you image there was two of them? Or three of them, or five of them or even ten, could we cope?
… Now, I know some of you will be saying, yes we will cope somehow, and sure you will, but I am just giving everyone an example of what is involved. Receiving the lost is hard work, so are we prepared to receive them? … I don’t think I need to labour this point any further, but it is of little wonder that people shy away from Evangelism in there droves.
Finally, … and I leave the biggest bombshell to the end, … … Jesus uses these two parables to illustrate how wrong the response of the Pharisees was by emphasising how joyful two people became after finding a lost coin and a lost sheep, … and then he related that to the joy his father felt when Jesus was reveal to the lost souls of this world.
Here it is: Verse 7 of today’s read says, ”I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repent, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance”.
That is strong, … because Jesus is pointing out that reaching the lost the lost mean more to him, than reaching us who are saved. … I do not like it when we read verses like that, … but can see how much God is wanting us to share his message, … and that way all heaven can rejoice and throw a party. I will finish at that and say, amen and may God bless us for listening to his word, Let us pray.
Father we thank you for Jesus, and we thank you that he came to this earth to set us free, and we thank that we are free to worship and commune with you; giving us hope for the future.
Father we thank you that your word says that our eternal home is already complete, and that you are patiently awaiting for us to come and join you in heaven.
Today Father, we read on just how much you want others, the lost, to join you in heaven also, and that you need our help to do this. So Father we ask that you anoint us into helping you, with whatever gifts you have given us as we are all here to help you in the work of your ministry.
Father you also know that we can be weak, but we know that you are strong, so Father teach us, and equip us to draw upon your strength, so that you will be proud to call us sons and daughters of yours.
Father we ask in Jesus name, Amen.
