A Heart for the Lost
Rev. Sean Lester
December 7, 2003 morning service
Text: Luke 15:1-24
Introduction
A. There was an attitude of disdain among the religious faithful toward those who were crowding around Jesus in the city of Jerusalem. An attitude not unlike how people who have been faithful to the Lord for many years tend to feel about those who have walked away from the faith.
1. The tax collectors who were crowding around Jesus were Jews who were working for the occupation government. They were viewed as traitors, worldly, and to be shunned by holy people.
2. The sinners were those who were raised as Jews, but for whatever reason were not committed to the practice of the faith. They were backsliders. They were people who knew better. They were not to be welcomed or justified by people who were of the faith.
3. I experienced something like this when I was in college. I had transferred to a small religious liberal arts college where I was urged by the choir director to try out for the choir. I was loaded up with classes, but thought I would give it a try. I didn’t enjoy the experience, and I found out that the choir planned to take a trip to California on a promotional trip. Because of commitments I had planned for the time away, and because I wasn’t willing to raise money for a trip to California, I informed the director that I wouldn’t be able to go. Then, he informed me that this was the purpose for inviting me to join the choir. Obviously, I was humiliated to think that this educator had made me feel valuable as a musician for no other reason than to promote his choir on the west coast. I dropped the choir from my schedule. However, I was further humiliated when the members of the choir shunned me around campus. When I greeted the director or choir members around campus, they wouldn’t return my hello. It was behavior unbefitting an evangelical college. I was the sinner. I was the one who wasn’t loyal to their society.
4. The sinners were held in the same kind of contempt by the Pharisees and the scribes. The sinners broke the rules. They diminished the religious society. Can you imagine how the “sinners” and the tax collectors felt? Would you be inclined to return to this kind of church?
B. But Jesus doesn’t share the same attitude toward people who have left the practice of the faith.
1. Jesus didn’t call them “sinners.” He referred to them as lost people. They were lost because they had been raised in the faith, but now were apart from it. But he didn’t justify their behavior. They were under the law, and their disobedience to the faith was sin. But Jesus doesn’t shun people, he loves people.
2. Also, Jesus didn’t use the occasion to criticize the Pharisees and the Scribes.
They were indeed faithful to God’s law. And they were indeed worthy of praise for it.
3. Rather, Jesus told three stories intended to change how these religious leaders regarded the lost people.
Proposition: The Lord takes joy in restoring people who have become lost to the faith, and we as believers should take joy in restoring lost people, too.
Interrogative: Is it even possible for a believer to have the same heart for the lost as Jesus has?
Transition: Of course it is possible! It begins when we stop judging the spiritual fitness of lost people so that we can understand why they became lost in the first place.
I. Three Reasons why people become lost from the faith.
A. Some people get lost in their faith when they try to do better for themselves, but in so doing they wander off from the spiritual protection of the church.
1. Adam and Eve didn’t have a bit of sin in them. But, when it was pointed out to them that the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would make their lives much easier, they took the fruit. In so doing, they disobeyed God. They introduced sin into the human race. And, what’s worse, they became separated from God.
2. It is understandable that people would want their lives to be just a little easier. But in so pursuing, they take short cuts from God. In order to get just a little bit ahead, they cut out a bit of the ministry to have time for more work. Or, perhaps, for more relaxation. But it is the same sin Adam and Eve committed. Life apart from the flock is not easier. In fact, it is wrought with peril. The family of God provides protection from the attacks of the devil. Apart from the family of God, you are vulnerable to the whims of the world. The Lord may not always lead the church to the greenest pasture, because he knows what danger lurks in the tall grass. And, when some people head for the sweet pasture on their own, they are in danger of being ambushed by the god of this world.
B. Some people aren’t actually lost to the church, they are there, but they have become neglected or overlooked.
1. Jim had attended church faithfully every Sunday and Wednesday for over a year before anyone really attempted to get to know him. As far as anyone knew, he never married and had no children. Since he was a quiet man, it was easy for the folks in the church to overlook any gifts or talents the Lord had given him. But, he did volunteer to cut the church and parsonage grass. And, he did this faithfully for several years; all the time paying for the gas out of his own pocket. However, it seems that he slipped out the back door one day never to return to the church. For a few years, no one knew why.
2. In the passage, the woman swept her house and turned on all of the lights. Why? Apparently there was some clutter in the house. People have lives to pursue. They get busy. They forget where they placed their keys or where they put their wallets. It isn’t as if they don’t consider them valuable, in fact, when you need them they become urgently valuable.
2. But the clutter of life also causes you to forget what God has placed in your care. People are valuable to God. But when the concerns of life crowd out your time and attention, people remain lost even though they are sitting right next to you in church.
C. Some people don’t appreciate the love of God until they come to appreciate their own sinfulness
1. The prodigal son has a good family name. He has wealth for which he didn’t have to labor. One would have to ask what his problem was that he wanted to take what was his and go out on his own. If I were his father, I imagine that I would be intensely angry with the ungrateful malcontent. Doesn’t he know what I sacrificed so he could have all this? Doesn’t he appreciate what I have done for him?
2. But Jesus doesn’t let us get too hard on him. This son only knows who his father is. Experience leads to self discovery. That is why so many of the children who are raised in the church leave the church. They know the faith of their parents. They know their testimony of salvation. But it isn’t their story. So, they take the blessings of God and set out to prove that they can make it on their own. Many times, they discover that they can’t make it on their own. They come to the conclusion that they don’t have the good character necessary t o have a full and peaceful life. And, they conclude that what their parents had was better. In short, they really do discover who they are: They are sinners alone and in need of salvation. Transition: And no matter how the person became lost, Jesus says that the Father wants them to be found.
Transition: Jesus didn’t relieve the faithful from responsibility for those who had become lost, instead he shows us our responsibility for recovering them.
II. Three Ways Lost People Are Found
A. Look for them, and bring them back.
1. Leo Keeler was the most faithful member of Hastings Assembly of God. When I first met him, he was the fifty-ish man who sat stooped forward on the very first row. Only the simple people sit on that row. He wore a disheveled polyester suit without a tie. His hair was usually close-cut and dirty. He was a bit taller than me and walked with a shuffle, back stooped over. When he sat, and it was always by himself, he would pass the time during the sermon by picking at scabs on the back of his hands and forearms.
At first, I thought he was the town drunk. But then it was obvious by his Frankenstein-ish manner of speech that he was mentally impaired. But despite his impairments, he always made it to church. He lived in town, in a duplex apartment adjacent to his nephew who was his legal guardian. Every week someone from the church, usually a 40ish year old woman named Donna, would pick him up for church. And someone had to pick him up or else he would start shuffling the three mile distance from his home to the church.
Once, I remember that Leo wasn’t home when his ride went to pick him up. Concerned about where he might be, since he never missed church, she went on to church. She found him just a few yards from the church’s driveway, shuffling along. You see, Leo couldn’t tell time. And when daylight savings time began, the sun came up an hour earlier. He thought his ride forgot him, so he shuffled his way to church. Here’s my point: Leo had no tangible value to the church. He had no money, so he didn’t tithe. He had no understanding, so he couldn’t teach. He couldn’t reason, so he couldn’t really pray. But no one would let him be forgotten for church. If nothing else, I suppose, he added one more number to the Sunday School count (he was always in the adult class). The church knew that God wanted him in the family of God, and took that responsibility very seriously.
2. Some people need to be gently picked up and carried into the family of God. Some have been neglected in life, without understanding or health. God expects his people to get them. Some have been emotionally damaged by abuse, or deprived of education. God expects us to gently get them and bring them into the family of God. It is his will.
B. Put the things of your life in proper order so that you can see who God has placed near you.
1. As I mentioned earlier, Jim just disappeared after attending the church for several years and even being the volunteer groundskeeper. No one knew why he stopped coming to church. However, one former deacon would see him regularly at a automobile repair shop that Jim’s brother owned. The deacon would ask Jim why he stopped coming, but Jim wouldn’t talk about it. Finally, after a couple of years passed, Jim told the deacon what happened.
Jim had been paying for the gas himself over the years. But his social security check didn’t go as far, and he needed help with gas. When he asked the church to help him pay for the gas for the mower, he was turned down. He was told that it was the least he could do because he didn’t do anything else for the church. His feelings being hurt, he said that he could no longer take care of the lawn. He didn’t leave immediately, though. The church hired another member of the congregation to take care of the lawn. This man, a landscaper at one time, was paid $12 an hour for his services. That is when Jim left. Ironically, his presence in the congregation was barely noticed, but his absence was quickly noticed.
2. Many people are sent by the Lord. Many people don’t understand what we sing. They don’t understand the way we talk. They even have a basic understanding of what the Bible says. They come with a need for God’s love, expressed through God’s people. How is it possible that people can go unnoticed? It happens because the lives of the people who follow Christ clutter their lives with so much stuff that they haven’t the time or the energy to devote to anyone else.
3. How do we find the lost people we neglected? First, turn on the light!
Stop what you are doing, and really ask yourself what you are really trying to accomplish. Is it producing disciples in the church? What good is it to God? (don’t say it is a financial blessing to Him, you can’t give him what He already has.) Face the truth about why people are being neglected. Second, get rid of the clutter in your life. I was recently asked why I didn’t participate in some of the activities of the denomination, and even in the community. It was surmised that I was withdrawing from society because I was angry. It was nothing of the kind. I have had to unclutter my life and concentrate on what is really important. Raising two children who love the Lord is number one, and leading a congregation in worship of the Lord and raising them up to be committed disciples is number two. As for everything else, if it does not offer an opportunity to glorify Jesus in a direct and tangible way, I’m not doing it.
C. Anticipate the return of those who have come to realize the goodness of God.
1.The father was watching for the son to appear on the horizon. When the son
returned, he restored him to the family.
2. I had a period of a few years in my life when I went out to discover who I was apart from the church. I needed to find out what part of my life was really my own brilliance and talent, and what part was really God. In a heap of failure and disappointment I discovered one enduring truth, I am nothing apart from God. Soon after, and I mean it was about 10 minutes, I went to my pastor and apologized for my arrogance and confessed to him my sin. Despite my failure, he accepted my apology, and then asked when I would get back to pursuing the ministry. I am grateful for the grace of God.
3. Don’t ever give up on those who have walked away from the faith. Don’t ever stop praying for them and longing for them. You can’t bring people back who have willfully left, but you can be ready for them when they do. Don’t nag at them. Don’t offer advice that hasn’t been asked. Wait. They want to find out who they are, so let them.
Transition: Jesus said that all of heaven rejoices when one lost person is recovered. Here is why.
III. Three Reasons to Rejoice
A. Because the one for whom you have a godly affection is returned to the flock, safe and sound. They are out of immediate danger from the demons that lurk in the tall grass in the world.
B. Because the one with whom the church is to minister is growing and contributing to the work. The church now has more to offer and is able to do more to build up the kingdom of God.
C. Because the one who finally appreciates the love of God returns with humility, zeal, and loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is exactly the kind of person the Lord uses to build His church.
Transition: It is a terrific thing for the lost to be recovered.
Conclusion:
A. The truth is, some people do believe the Gospel the first time they hear it, and never depart from it. I suspect that this is not the usual case, but it does happen. Let me say that God sees your faithfulness, and has an awesome reward for you in heaven.
B. Bur for many, the road to salvation has not been smooth. You may have failed to keep the commandments of God that you were taught. Your sins may have totally messed up your life. But God does not reject you. He is willing and happy to restore you and to forgive anyone who comes to him in repentance.
C. And I know two things to be true, God accepts you, and so do those who love the Lord.
