Message Aim: Help us to understand that we are being pursued by a loving God.
Sermon Title: “Lost & Found”
Scripture: Luke 15:1-7
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 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.
Message Synopsis:
Lost and found. All of us have our own personal lost and found stories. You have yours and I have mine. I would like to begin the sermon today with a lost and found story from my own life. The lost ring!
It is with this mood of lost and found, of losing something precious and then finding it, that we approach the stories of Jesus for today. He tells a story about a lost sheep. It is precisely the setting, the context, which gives this story its essential meaning. The Pharisees sensed that this parable was directed at them. And the Pharisees didn’t like the idea that Jesus was implying that they were the ones who were lost. So what does this parable say to us today, some 2000 years later, to your life and mine?
First, our God is a God who comes after us when we are lost. That’s the way God is. And every so often, we think that maybe God has given up on us; that we are do persistently sinful that God has finally given up on us; that our character defects seem to be so inescapable, that God finally gives up on trying to get through to us. But this story tells us clearly of God’s forever wanting to find us.
I need your imagination. A four-year old child or grandchild who is playing in your back yard is gone. And what is your reaction? Panic? Fear? You love this child and this child loves you back. You are afraid that this child could be severely hurt if this child is lost. And so it is with God and us when we wander out from God. God has the same reaction as a loving parent. And God comes after us.
We were made for a relationship with God, a giving and sharing of love, a giving and sharing of conversation and companionship, and so when you or I become lost from God, this is deeply upsetting to God. We are so precious to God.
But there is more to this story of Jesus. The Pharisees thought that they were found when in reality, they were part of the lost. And this story for today is about us, when we are lost from God. And the story is God’s invitation for us to repent, to turn around, to come back to God and return to a loving and living relationship with God. Maybe it’s time for you and me to be found…again.
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