Will you rejoice with me?
Notes
Transcript
Record.
Pray
We’re launching a year of renewed evangelism as a church Family.
We’re calling it ‘making Jesus Known.
We’re not doing this becasue none of us are trying to tell others about Jesus - although some of us aren’t I’m sure.
We’re not doing it becasue none of us think it’s important - although, some of us probably don’t.
We’re not doing it becasue this is a one-off, 1 year idea or focus - this is what we must always be about.
We’re doing it To remind ourselves that - telling others about the good news of salvation - is central to who a Christian ought to be.
Why - because it is central to who Jesus was.
In fact - we can go so far as to say it is the only reason God became man in the person of Jesus.
And when the lost are saved there is great rejoicing in heaven.
Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
To make the good news known.
His very death for our sin on the cross, was the Good news of freedom from God’s jdugement,
And so he literaly came to bring and be the good news of salavtion.
The Jews of Jesus’ days misunderstood this - and perhaps we forget this even today.
They had
1 - An Attitude problem v1-2
1 - An Attitude problem v1-2
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.’
We read this and think how nieve of the those Phariseas - of course JEsus came for the sinners (even those betraying tax vcollectors who collected money for the Roman occupation).
But I wonder how different we would be.
Jesus would not just be joining us on Sunday and eating at our homes and keeping ‘good company’ - like us.
He’d be spending time and effort with those we tend to look down on! Perhaps those of a different economic situation to us, the poor, or the super rich.
He’d make friends with those we’d rather not.
He’d be having dinner at those houses we’ve never even tired to befreind or get to know.
Perhaps we wouldn’t question him in the same disgusted way the Pariseses did,
the teachers of God’s law in Jesus’ time -
but I’ve no doubt he’d make us see how judgemental and or indifferent we are to the destiny of those who have not found faith in Jesus.
I’ve no doubt he’d show me to have an attitude problem, towards those who I think, are unworthy of the Gospel,
or at least towards those who are worthy of my time, effort, attention and sacrifice.
So Jesus
responds with 3 parrables - 3 stories - that contain a rebuke - but I think much more contain a wonderful invitation.
An invitiation to think as the Heavenly Father thinks.
An invitation that asks,
Will you rejoice with me when the lost are found?
Evangelism is in fact a search for joy.
It may be hard, it might be a challenge, it might often be fruitless
- but it is a search to bring joy to our heavenly Father and to us his people.
So let’s dig into these parables
2 - The Lost...
2 - The Lost...
a - are Utterly Lost
a - are Utterly Lost
Think about each story with me.
There is a lost sheep. A sheep clearly has no hope of finding it’s way home - otherwise why go and look for it. It’s lost.
In 3 years of working with shepherds in Lesotho I heard many a story about sheep!
They were never vary favourable towards the sheep, but none of them involved a sheep finding it’s own way back to the flock or the shepherd post.
In the parable, even once the shepherd finds the sheep he has to put it on his shoulders to carry it home.
It’s not going to just plod along happily, it needs picking up, or forceful direction to get it home.
Utterly lost.
Or consider the coin that the woman looses in her house.
It’s not going to jump back into her money bag on it’s own, or even roll itself back into an easy place to find.
It’s Utterly lost.
Ahh, you’re thinking - but the lost son, he comes back all by himself - he’s not utterly lost - he can save himself...
well no - his lostness is nothing todo with his location but everything todo with his relationship with His Father.
When he takes his share of the inheritance and squanders it in wild living, he ends up working as a starving pig servant!
When he goes back to His Father he does so in repentance, but he does not expect to go back as a son, but as a servant.
‘When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.”
Utterly lost relationally with his Father, unless - His Father chose to ‘find him’ and restore him - just as the shepherd and the woman did.
he had no rights, no worth of his own, no hope.
In fact his Father calls Him as good as dead until he is restored to sonship.
Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate.
The lost before God the Father are as utterly lost and incapable of salvation as a lost sheep,
a dead coin and perhaps more easily compared -
a lost son who has deliberately turned their back on God and thought they could do life in their own way.
The lost have no rights before a heavenly Father to demand salvation,
no reason he would give it to them,
no ability to save themselves and make themselves right with the creator God of the world.
All people belong to God the Father, but all have run away.
And all are utterly lost.
They will rightly face an eternity of utter lostness, under God’s terrible but just judgement.
A lost sheep, stuck in a rocky crevis, unable to free itself, getting hungrier everyday.
A lost coin that’s rolled into the crack in the floor, never to be found, the house one day demolished and built on, pushing the coin forever further into the ground.
A lost child of God, given everything and every chance to know the Father, but ignorant, proud, and too stubborn to realise until it’s far too late.
These are the people the Phariseas don’t think Jesus shoud be eating and talking with.
These are the people we don’t think are worth our sacrifices and energy to get the gospel to.
pause
But these are also who you are I were or would be unless Jesus had found us.
Christians are not better people, they are just a ‘found people’.
They, we, without the Gospel are, utterly lost,
but we are also deeply loved.
b - are Deeply Loved
b - are Deeply Loved
Jesus is very clear in the 3 parables that being lost is not only a terrible thing for the individual who is lost, but for God the Father as well.
The shepherd, the woman and the Father all make every effort to restore the lost.
‘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?
It is well worth the small risk of leaving 99 together as they will be easy to find again and will be safe in great number - the shepherd will go and look and search.
‘Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?
She lights her lamp - we’re to imagine a poor woman in a windowless house, she sweeps every corner, she searchers carefully.
No stone will be left unturned - such is the value of the lost.
Of course the sheep and the coin are of economic value rather than an object of great love,
but the point is clarified when we get to the parable of the lost son!
Where in fact the Father has taken a huge economic loss in giving away a atleadt a 1/3rd of his whole estate to the lost son, which would be about right for a younger son of those times.
but the debt, the loss, is completely ignored when he returns!
The Father sees the son in the distance, perhaps he was even waiting and watching each day...
So he got up and went to his father. ‘But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms round him and kissed him.
The sheep is deeply valuable, the coin is deeply valuable, the son is deeply valuable.
The lost chidlren of God - you, I, and those who are still lost are deeply valuable.
We are deeply loved.
IN our lostness a diffcult, careful search or sacrifice is made to find and restore the lost item.
Jesus died on the cross for you and me To raise us to new life from death.
That’s how deeply loved utterly lost sinners are,
And when one is found,
No wonder
There is great rejoicing in heaven.
And that is The solution for the pharisees (and our) attitude problems about Evangelism.
3 - An Attitude Solution - Rejoice with the Father
3 - An Attitude Solution - Rejoice with the Father
The whole point of these parables is to ask the Pharisees if then will rejoice at the lost being saved,
or continue in their self-fish judgemental attitudes towards the lost.
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 people who do not need to repent.
In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’
And it is why the older brother reappears at the end of the last parable.
When he hears the music and hears that a fattened calf has been slaughterd to celebrate his wayward brothers return he’s not happy.
But he answered his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
He’s actually as selfish as the son who was lost.
He also wants parties and economic gain and status - when all the while he’s missed what being found, being ‘home’ really means.
But God’s repsponce...
‘ “My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.
The antidote to our indifference to evangelism, or even our refusal to want others to be saved, is to recognise all we have and rejoice with our Father in Heaven.
We too were once lost sheep - perhaps you here today are still a lost sheep.
But in accepting the death and resurection of Jesus in our place,
we can be forgiven, found, raised to new life.
We don’t get economic gain, or popularity,
Rather we get to go home - were we belong, to the loving arms of our heavenly Father.
Who gave us his own son to be the shepherd who finds and saves us.
As God promised in the OT before Jesus came in Ezekiel.
‘ “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.
I myself will tend my sheep and make them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord.
You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.” ’
When we revel in the love of the Father, and rejoice at our own salvation, and enjoying our eternal status as lands sons of the Loving God, and when we hear of his great rejoicing when others are ‘found’ and saved.
Well then, we want to join that celebration.
The eldest son has a choice to make.
We have a choice to make.
But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” ’
The invitation is to join the party - the celebration, to look for the lost, who are just like we once were,
and to call them home.
We don’t know what the eldest son decided,
But we do know what we will decide.
we will
4 - Find the Lost and Rejoice
4 - Find the Lost and Rejoice
This year, is a chance for each of us to renew our desire to see the lost saved from death and judgement, and be found, to be brought home, to become our brothers and sisters.
It is a chance to have a year where we truly rejoice and celebrate as the lost are found, baptisms take place, the gospel is declared.
this is the year to invite your neighbours to church,
to speak unashamedly of our faith.
We will have more training, and evangelistic events this year,
But it really isn’t about waiting for those things.
It’s about telling people at work or school that you went to church on Sunday - so a conversation can start.
It’s about inviting existing friends to church or youth group on any given Sunday. or to a social with your Home group - or Friday youth events.
It’s about making an effort to befriend and eat with and talk with new people as Jesus did.
Offer to read the bible with 1-2-1 with people - you might be surprised they say yes - we have material for you to use - there are a couple on the table,
but we’ll also interview someone in the next coiuyplke of weeks who has used it and get more to give out,
Invite your neighbours over,
talk at the school gate,
play sport with a colleague or school friend,
chat at the sideline of whatever sport your child is playing.
Or if you are playing the sport - make frineds.
Make an effort to get to know the lost, to love them, and to be confident in your faith.
And this is a year to Pray!
Pray at every home group for those you want to see saved.
Pray everyday.
Pray fro oppertunutes to talk.
Pray for new friends to meet.
Pray for God to move by His Spirit and change the lost’s hearts.
come to prayer meetings - there is one this Wednesday.
pray with us before the services for the lost to repsond to the gospel.
Pray that Jesus will seek and find the lost through us his sheep, his church.
Why?
Because Jesus has found you, we now have everything - he wants to find them,
And we as a church want to join all of heaven in rejoicing as the lost are found this and every year moving forwards.
Pray that we, with God’s help, will make Jesus known.
Let’s pray now!