Seeking the Lost

Introduction

If you’re a member here at South Bumby, you know that we have this year engaged in a theme, and that theme is simply we are family. We’ve tried to emphasize the blessings, the privileges, but also the responsibilities of what that means that we are a family. It means that we are connected to our Father. Ultimately, that’s the most important thing about this family is who our Father is and our relationship to our Father and what that means. But then secondarily, it also means that we have brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters who are our family and give us blessings and in turn give us responsibilities to one another. The elders have asked me to fashion some sermons throughout the year to address this theme. And I hope that this year that we, as we emphasize this theme, that you’ll come to a greater, if not understanding, a greater appreciation for what it means to be a family.

Overwhelmingly, our relationship to God and one another is described in familial terms. It’s spoken of as being a kingdom. It’s spoken of as being a body, but more than any other, it’s not even close. More than any other is spoken of being a family. We refer to one another’s and brothers and sisters, and that’s not just a throwaway line, but that has some significance and that has some meaning. And I hope, as we’ve emphasized this year, that you’re growing in your appreciation for that. We’ve divided the quarters of this year up into different aspects that we want to emphasize about this family relationship. In our first quarter, we talked about how our family praises God. That’s really the primary purpose for us being Christians. The primary purpose for us being Christians is not so that we can go to church.

It’s not even so that we can go to heaven, as important as those two things are.

And we emphasized in that quarter that it doesn’t matter which kind of family you came from, if you’re blessed like I am, to have come from a good Christian family, of a mother and a father who loved us and sacrificed and gave and taught us, or whether you were unfortunate and you came from the most dysfunctional of families, where there wasn’t security, there wasn’t love, there wasn’t the training and the admonition of the Lord, that you can experience as close to the ideal here upon earth in God’s family. That you can have that family that maybe you had before, or the family that you’ve never had. You can have that in Christ. You can have a perfect Father who does love and sacrifice for you. And you can have brothers and sisters in Christ that, as flawed as we may be, give to one another and love and support one another and encourage one another.

And so we talked about the importance of loving like family and what that means and what that looks like. Now, in the third quarter of the year, first let’s just pause and just be amazed that we’re already in the third quarter of this year. Time is flying by, but we are in the third quarter. In our third quarter, we’re still talking about family. We are family, but we’re looking at maybe a little bit more of the mechanics, the concrete actions of what it means to be a family and even what it means to love, is that we’re going to seek to restore our brothers and sisters. Maybe up until this time, when you’ve thought about this spiritual family, you’ve thought about people who are here, who are active and who are part of this family.

Well, this quarter we want to talk about those who aren’t here, who aren’t active, who aren’t participating as a family member should. What’s our obligation? What’s our feelings about them? First of all, how do we feel about those who are a part of our family, but they’re not acting like they’re part of our family? They’re not fulfilling the responsibilities God has given them, and maybe just as important, they’re not enjoying the blessings that God intended for them to have in our family. How do we feel about those people? And then, secondly, and just if not more importantly, what do we do about those members of our family? And so we want to emphasize, and I want to point out, and I’m sure the elders would echo this.

This isn’t just an activity that we’re going to be engaged in this quarter. Loving our brothers and sisters and restoring our brothers and sisters. It’s not something that’s isolated to these three months of the year, but we want to emphasize that, and so hopefully it becomes a better part of our actions and a better part of our family as we seek to restore, we seek to help those who are not here. Now, I think it behooves us, maybe at this point to really kind of identify who we’re talking about here. Now, don’t worry, I’m not calling any names. We’re not putting pictures up from the directory of people who fall into this category, but let’s talk about who is in this category. Instantly and easily, we talk about those people who just aren’t here in the most literal physical sense of the word.

People who just don’t attend the assemblies. Not talking about those who are shut in, those who are undergoing cancer treatments and can’t be with us because not talking about people who are out of town on a summer vacation, but we’re talking about people who have just chosen not to be here. Maybe haven’t been here in a month of Sundays. Maybe haven’t been here in a year of Sundays. It’s easy for us to identify those people are people who are missing, people who have fallen away, people who need to return. And by the way, let’s emphasize this, and I think you know, I know you know this, but let’s make sure we’re clear in our language. We’re not asking that they come back to us, that they come back to church.

Our greater plea is that they come back to the Lord, because that’s where the salvation resides. And so we just wandered away. But much harder to identify, but maybe just as lost, are people who are still here. Can we admit that it’s possible to be absent from the Lord, but still be present in the assemblies? Now it’s much harder to identify that even among ourselves and among others, but it is possible that you could have a hundred percent attendance and still not be in a right relationship with God. I didn’t miss an exorbitant number of days of school. Now, I missed as many as I was allowed to miss. But I was there enough to be considered enrolled and not miss a grade. But there probably weren’t many days of school that I didn’t wish I was somewhere else.

I wasn’t the best student. You can take a poll of all of my teachers. I wasn’t the best student. I was there, but I really wasn’t there. And so it’s possible that there are those, even in our assembly this morning. And I’m not trying to put a guilt trip on anybody. I don’t have anybody in particular in mind this morning, but it’s possible that you’re here this morning, but you’re not really here. And that this would apply to you as well. And so as we identify as family, as we love as family, we seek those who are astray. And so let’s talk about this that this morning as how we love as a family and how we restore those as a family. Would you go back to that passage that Jonah last read for us in Luke chapter 15?

It’s a familiar text. Your Bible will probably very easily just open up to that text because it’s one that we study so frequently. Jesus tells three stories in Luke chapter 15. You know these stories well. But they’re not just stories. Because you can tell a story for different reasons. You might tell a scary story. You might tell a story that’s humorous to evoke laughter. But Jesus told these stories, what we call parables, to teach something. That they were lessons wrapped up in stories that were to illustrate a truth and to teach a truth that might otherwise not be understood. And many of these parables, in fact, I would argue most of these parables weren’t told in a vacuum. It’s not that Jesus just said, I think I’ll talk about this today, and came up with a parable relating to it.

They were often told, most often told, in response to something that was done or said. Someone had a question. And so Jesus tells a parable to answer that question. Or something was happening. And Jesus tells a parable to deal with that something. That’s the case here. Jesus is associating with tax collectors and notable sinners. And as often is the case, the scribes and the Pharisees didn’t like that. They wouldn’t have anything to do with those dirty, filthy sinners. And Jesus shouldn’t either. And so Jesus, knowing their heart, tells these three stories, these three parables. And these three parables illustrate God’s attitude toward those dirty people. God’s attitude toward those who are lost. And then that third story is going to illustrate those Pharisees and scribes’ attitude, the wrong attitude toward those people.

Would you bear with me just a little while as we retell those stories? The first story is maybe one of the most well known. It tells about a shepherd who has a hundred sheep. And he takes the count of those sheep one day and he comes up one short. He counts to 99, one of them has wandered away. And it says that he leaves those ninety and nine and goes out into the wilderness to find just one sheep. Now, at first glance, it might seem ridiculous to leave 90 and nine to just go find one sheep. And that does seem ridiculous unless you’re that one sheep.

And he calls all of his friends and neighbors and says, Rejoice with me. I found my sheep that was lost. The second story is much like it, but it’s about a woman. And this time she’s lost a coin. She has ten silver coins. She loses one of them. And we’d say in modern day vernacular, she turns the house upside down looking for that one coin. She sweeps and moves the furniture and looks everywhere, and finally she finds that coin. And just like the shepherd, she calls her friends and neighbors and says, Rejoice with me. I lost a silver coin and I found it. In both of those first two stories, we have something of value that is lost. Something of value that is lost. And the search that ensues for that.

That illustrates God’s attitude toward the lost, toward those who are fallen. The third story is the longest by far and the most well known of the three stories. This is a story not of a dumb animal, a sheep, not of an inanimate object, a coin, but this is a story about a human being. And not just a human being, but a family member, a son. A son that comes to his wealthy father and says, Father, I don’t want to wait till you die. I want my inheritance now. And so the father gives to his two sons what is due to them at his death. And the one son takes his inheritance and leaves home. Doesn’t just leave home physically, he leaves home in the most extreme sense of the world.

Word. It says that he wasted, that’s what the word prodigal means. It’s an extravagant, wasteful expense. He wasted that inheritance in riotous living. Let your imagination run with that one. The older brother would. He waste all that money, and as bad timing often comes with wasteful spending, a famine comes, and he’s in dire straits. So dire that this boy, who we assume is a Jew, is now feeding swine, unclean animals. And I’m going to tell you, swine are unclean in more than the moral spiritual sins. They’re just nasty animals. They taste good, but they’re nasty animals to be around. If you’ve ever been around, if you’ve ever had to feed or slop the hogs. If you’ve ever fed or slopped the hogs, you know how disgusting that this next part of the story was.

He was so hungry that he envied what the hogs were eating. And then the story says he came to himself. And he thought how foolish it is that here I am feeding unclean swine, and I’m worse off than they are because they’ve got something to eat. When the servants in my father’s house have food to eat and to spare.

Him and comes out to him and hugs him and kisses his neck, and the son says, Father, I’m not worthy to be your son anymore, but can I just be a servant in your house? And the father will have no hear of that. He tells his servants to bring a robe and a ring and sandals and put them on his feet and kill the fatted calf. For my son who was lost is now found, who is dead, is now alive again. And up until this point, the three stories mirror themselves largely. Something of value was lost, but now it’s been restored. And rejoicing ensues.

And he asks one of the servants what’s going on, and the servant says, Oh, it’s good news. Haven’t you heard? Your brother is back home. And so your father has killed the fatted calf, and we’re having a party for him. Come on in and celebrate. But the older brother pouts. And he won’t even go in the house. And so the father does what he did for the younger son. He goes out to him and says, Son, what’s wrong? And he says, Father, I’m offended. I’ve been with you this whole time and tells what maybe is more than a little white lie. And I’ve never broken one of your commandments. What son could ever say that to his father? But I’ve never broken one of your commandments, and you never even gave me a goat to have a party.

1. Christ and the Father’s Deep Care for the Lost

But this son of yours who’s wasted your money with harlots has come back and you’ve killed the fatted calf. And the father says, Yes. You’ve been with me, and all that I’ve had has always been yours. It was right. It was right for us to celebrate when your brother came back home. He was lost, he was dead, now he’s found and he is alive. It was right to celebrate. Those three stories illustrate God’s attitude towards something that’s lost. The third story illustrated the scribes and the Pharisees’ attitude towards something that is lost. Let’s see if there’s at least three lessons that we can learn. There’s so many more, but three that we’ll emphasize this morning. First of all, these parables illustrate Christ and the Father’s deep, deep care and love and concern for the lost.

All three of these items are animals, our people in these stories were of value, of so much value that the shepherd would leave and go and find it, that the woman would tear her house apart to find it, that the father would welcome him back in loving arms. All three stories show God’s and heaven’s concern and love for the lost. Because God views us as valuable. Now don’t let that go to your head. We should always be left shaking our head as to why. Why God would see me of such value. Why God would see me as valuable enough to go seek and to search, to look for and to welcome back home. But he does.

We’ve talked about we are family. We’ve emphasized the mutual relationship of the family, but we’ve also tried to emphasize our connection to the Father. Understand this, when the scripture speaks of family, particularly when it speaks of us being children of God, that’s much more than just a relationship. Oh, it is a relationship. And there’s a blessing in that language. But when the scriptures emphasize that we are his children, it is also emphasizing that we are, at least we should be, if we’re truly his children, that we are like him. You ever see somebody’s children, maybe for the first time, maybe they’re adult children, and you make this comment: oh, you can’t deny whose kid you are. You can’t deny your father, you can’t deny your mother.

You look just just that part of family is emphasized when we’re talked about as being children of God, that we are to be like him. A child is to be like their parent. We’re to be like our father. And so he emphasizes the love and the care, not only that God, our father, has for the lost, but if we’re his children, we’ll have that same care as well. That was the point of that third story. That brother should have had the same attitude of the Father. He would not have illustrated the attitude of the scribes and the Pharisees if he did, but he should have. Remember in that exchange with the elder pouting brother and his father, when he says, I don’t want to go in and party and rejoice with my brother.

2. Heaven’s Exuberant Joy Over One Lost Soul

He says, your son. But God says, the father said, your brother. Emphasizing that relationship that we should emulate. All three of these parables, and this cannot be missed by its sheer repetition. All three of these parables show the exuberant joy that heaven, that God, Jesus Christ, and the angels have over the salvation of one lost soul. Look at those. Do you have your scriptures open to Luke 15? Look at verse 7 after the point of the parable of the sheep says, I say to you, Luke 15 7, I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. After the story of the lost coin, verse 10 says, likewise I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

The last verse of chapter 15, after the story of the lost son, the Father says, who is illustrates illustrative of our Father, the Father says in verse 32, it was right. It was right that we should make merry and be glad. For your brother was dead and is alive again and is lost, was lost and is found. Over and over and over again in these three stories, we see rejoicing. That’s what happens when one lost person is brought back to the fold. Don’t you wish you could hear that? Don’t you wish that when one lost soul returns to God, that you could hear even from a distance the rejoicing that’s taking place in heaven.

3. The Contrast Between God’s Attitude and the Pharisees’

But if you really think about it, that’s mind boggling. You know how big this planet is? And this planet’s just a speck in this galaxy that’s just a dot in this universe. And that when one person, one flea on a speck of dust in a dot, catches the attention of heaven. And heaven stops whatever it’s doing and breaks out into song and celebration and joy. Is that not mind boggling? When we talk about restoring, loving our fallen brothers and restoring them, there should be no need for greater motivation. I want to have some small part in heaven doing that. I want heaven to stop what it’s doing and rejoice and celebrate. That should be part of our motivation, at least. The third lesson that we can draw from this is that this third story, which again stands out somewhat as unique from the others, it highlights the contrast between God’s attitude.

What was God’s attitude is deep love and care for the lost. Heaven celebrates when that lost soul comes back. It contrasts that attitude, the attitude of the Father, the attitude of the shepherd, the attitude of the woman in these stories, and the attitude of the Pharisees, who were illustrated by the pouting older brother, who, by the way, was just as lost, if not more so, than the brother who went and wasted his inheritance in riotous living. And so when it comes to our brothers and sisters who’ve fallen, in whatever way, to whatever degree they have fallen. Which side will I find myself on? What’s my attitude toward those who were erring? You know, we talk about family, and that’s what’s illustrated in this last story. That’s been our theme this whole year.

And I can’t help but think about my family. I’ve shared with you so many stories, y’all find them funny. I don’t know why, of me and my family. I had two older brothers. I was the youngest, maybe this is inherent in being the baby of the family, but I can remember pointing out when my brothers did something wrong. I rarely missed that opportunity.

Was it because I loved my brothers and I wanted them to do right?

If I’m honest, that wasn’t the motivation. My motivation was I wanted to see them get in trouble. Because if mom and dad were whooping on them, they were leaving me alone for a chance. Or it’s because I wanted to feel better than them.

I’m the good son. Or maybe this was there was this.

When your brothers and sisters do wrong, you ever have those feelings? You ever just want to see it, get them told? Show them how wrong they are.

So that’s my motivation in correcting. Or do you ever be honest? Do you ever just get mad because they’re doing something bad that you don’t get to do? And that’s not fair. And if we want anything in this life, we want it to be fair. The elder brother demonstrates the absolute wrong attitude that the scribes and the Pharisees had. And the father goes to him and says, Your brother was lost. Your brother was dead. But he’s back home. You ought to be happy about that. All three of these stories speak not of adding someone to the fold that was never in the fold. All three of these stories talk about restoring someone back to the fold. Back to the collection, back to the family. Now that can be true of the lost, even the lost were at some point in their life in fellowship with God, even if just as children.

But that’s certainly true of our brothers and sisters, who in whatever way may be gone or may be leaving us. What should be my attitude toward my brother who is lost, who is spiritually dead. The Apostle Paul would say in Galatians chapter 6, my brethren, if any man be overtaken in a trespass, you who are spiritual, don’t lose the connection in Galatians 6 to Galatians 5, who talks about those who walk after the Spirit and bear the fruit of the Spirit as opposed to walking after the flesh and exhibiting the works of the flesh. He says, if you’re spiritual, if you bear the fruit of the Spirit, if you walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh, you restore such a one. In a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.

Conclusion

There are sheep, their coins. There’s brothers who need our love and our care. Who need to have within us the attitude the Father has toward his children who are gone.

Or you’re watching us online and you’re that sister who has wandered away. Why not come back today? The Father is waiting, waiting to embrace you and to welcome you back, not as a hired servant, but as a child of God.

Most of us, at least, if not all of us, will join in the celebration, and we’ll help kill the fatted calf and rejoice with heaven at your return. Can we help you in any way this morning? And why not let it be known right now as together we stand and as we sing?