Luke 15:1-10
Crystal Lake, Wisconsin … I was eight-years old … my brother teaching me to swim.
From the dock out to a barrel-flotation raft, and back to the dock again.
Late morning; time for lunch. My brother, on the dock, waiting for me.
I jumped off the raft feet first, surfaced, put my head down, and began to swim to the dock.
I put my legs down by the dock …
Found only a steep slope and gravel at the tip of my toes.
I began to slip backward … arms flailing.
“Put your head down” my brother shouted.
But I was panic-stricken.
My brother jumped in, swam around behind me, with a shove of his hands in the hollow of my back, pushed me to shallow water.
We went in for lunch.
He doesn’t remember – I do!
I was saved that day!
Who hasn’t been saved a time or two?
A school teacher gives you a break on grades.
A loan saves your business.
Your big-time mess-up everyone lovingly forgets.
The promotion you didn’t deserve.
Your spouse forgives and forgets.
Friends & family put up with your idiosyncrasies.
Who knows how many other times the hand of God has stayed heartache and disaster … brought us through, and we didn’t even know it.
I was waiting at a busy rail crossing – forth car back. The train cleared and the cars moved. I was not but 20 feet on the other side of the crossing, when a freight train thundered through from the other direction.
Salvation IS our story.
A man had been in business for many years, doing well, and now the business is going down the drain.
He goes to his pastor to seek advice.
The pastor says "Take a beach chair and a Bible and put them in your car and drive down to the edge of the ocean.
Go to the water's edge. Take the beach chair out of the car, sit on it and take the Bible out and open it up.
The wind will riffle the pages for a while and eventually the Bible will stay open at a particular page. Read the first words your eyes fall upon, and you’ll know what to do.
The man does as he is told.
He settles into his chair on the beach, opens the Bible; the wind riffles the pages and then settles.
The man looks down at the Bible – his eyes fall upon the words – and he knows instantly what he needs to do.
Three months later the man comes back to see the pastor.
The man is wearing a fine suit, a broad smile on his face.
He hands the pastor a thick envelope full of cash for the church – just to say thanks.
The pastor is delighted. He asks, “What words in the Bible brought this good fortune to you?”
The man replies: "Chapter 11"
Who hasn’t been saved a time or two?
Jesus makes it clear – everyone is important, no one is left behind … the great God Almighty thinks small, one person at a time.
Our reading this morning covers two parables … there’s a third parable part of this sequence - the Prodigal Son.
Each parable ups the ante, driving home the point: everyone counts – no one is left behind … God thinks small, one person at a time.
One sheep out of a hundred … one coin out of ten … one son out of two …
The shepherd has plenty of sheep, but every sheep counts.
The shepherd sets out to search for the lost … “until he finds it” says the text.
I love the confidence of the text, not if, not maybe … the search continues until the lost is found.
God is successful …
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be, that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
The lost are found … the wayward rescued … the lonely comforted … in the end, God prevails, goodness overcomes … all is made new.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth … I saw the Holy City … death no more … grief, tears and pain, no more … all things made new.”
The second parable – one coin out of ten … the woman is likely a widow – her ten coins, ten days wages – even one coin lost is a serious matter … so she begins to search for it: she lights a lamp, sweeps the earthen floor, sifts the dirt and dust, “until she finds it.”
The prodigal son … one son out of two … there’s no searching here … a different strategy: waiting … does the Father trust the inherent character of the boy?
Does the Father know deep down that it’s going to be okay?
Was it hard to wait?
Did the Father know where the boy was? Was there any news from the far-away land that gave him hope?
What binds all three stories together – joy.
Joy in the finding, joy in the restoring, joy in heaven.
Party time – yippee and yahoo … set the table, bring out the wine, kill the fatted calf; we’re havin’ a barbeque.
Because everyone counts; no one is left behind. God’s purpose prevails … the lost are found!
It all comes down to one … one sheep, one coin, one boy!
Heaven thinks small!
Some might have said to the shepherd: “Why bother?” – one sheep out of a hundred is an acceptable loss …
Maybe the widow should have written it off, and spent her time more productively.
Maybe the Father should have disinherited the boy, quit wasting his time going on in the morning to scan the road.
But not God … no acceptable loss … no one written off … no one disinherited.
God’s passion, God’s delight, God’s purpose – to find the lost and restore them … bring them home where they belong.
God seeks the lost sheep.
God lights a lamp, sweeps the floor – goes through the dust and the dirt until the lost coin is found.
God waits, longer then the boy can wait – God outwaits all of us … until hunger overcomes pride, need overwhelms resistance … until we can’t stand it any longer, and we turn our way back home.
“I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.”
For me, one of the more powerful passages of the Bible – Philippians 2
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air…. … following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath…. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved…. … and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God!.
God be praised … “the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want … he maketh me to lie down in green pastures … he leadeth me beside still waters … he restoreth my soul.”
In these three parables, it all comes down to one … God thinks small … God seeks; God sweeps; God waits.
Comfort, consolation, encouragement …
“I am confident that the One who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”
God never gives up … God never calls off the search … God seeks and finds … God sweeps and reclaims … God outwaits the boy … until the boy comes home.
Sooner or later, by hook or by crook, in this life or in the life to come … in ways known and ways beyond our grasp, the mighty grace of God prevails … we all come home where we belong … yippee and yahoo!
Throughout the years of ministry, my greatest joy: watching people enter into the love of God … lay their burdens down at the foot of the cross … peace at last … strangers no more to the gospel; no longer lost and alone … no longer aliens to the love of God … from wilderness to Promised Land … from bondage to freedom … from the darkened cave of self to the enlightened world of Christ.
No greater joy …
I think of two men …
One signed up for the Bethel Bible Series … a two-year commitment to study the Bible, Genesis to Revelation … he knew nothing about God’s Word.
One day, he stood in the doorway of my office, tears welling up in his eyes, his voice choked - “I never knew how much God loved me. How I have come to love God’s Word.”
The other man signed up for a mission trip to Haiti – just to do something, a good work, a good deed – he was a crude man … tough and not religious.
During the course of ten days in Haiti, he saw children with spinal tuberculosis, eye-tumors, infants dying of dehydration … he waded across filthy rivers to deliver medical supplies to remote villages … he watched people struggle to make a living in the toughest of places … he worked with doctors in the wards … he listened to impoverished Christians joyfully tell of God’s goodness and love … something happened deep inside that man.
He came to know Christ personally … church had only been a custom, a family tradition – a low-level Sunday morning option … but Christ took hold of him, changed his life, re-arranged his priorities.
What joy in heaven … it all comes down to one!
Don’t every stop praying for the lost … because God never gives up.
Don’t every think for a moment that you’re unimportant … that you can’t go back home again … you can; the Father waits … and will greet you with joy!
Amen!
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