Rev. David Holwick ZA
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
August 6, 2017
Luke 15:1-10
LOSTNESS
I. Everybody does it.
A. Kathryn Schulz's bad day.
She was house-sitting for a friend in Portland, Oregon.
Her first day in town, she left the keys to her friend's truck
at a coffee shop.
The next day, she left the keys to the house in the front door.
A few days after that, she left her wallet at a cafe.
Later that afternoon she went to a sporting goods store to buy
a lock for her bike and left her wallet there, too.
She got the wallet back, but the next day she lost the bike
lock.
Kathryn spent too much time looking for it, gave up, and drove
the truck to an event at a bookstore.
After it was over she went outside and couldn't find the truck.
It was a huge pickup with an extended cab and a bed big enough
to hold a whale.
She ended up at a police station, thinking it had been towed.
They didn't have it so she renewed her search.
Seventy-five minutes later, she found it legally parked on a
street that made no sense to her.
She got home only to find she had left her cell phone at the
bookstore. [1]
Celeste and I can relate to this - on Friday we could not find
the lone key to my Mazda, and her two sets of keys for her
Lincoln.
B. We all lose lots of stuff.
An insurance company did a study and estimated the average
person loses 200,000 things over their lifetime.
You usually find most of them eventually, but when you add it
all up you waste six months just looking for all that stuff.
[1]
C. Everyone loses, and everyone is lost.
1) The theme of losing runs deep in every one of us.
2) Fortunately, we have a God who is good at finding.
3) The frustrations of our life can give us insight into his
great love for us.
II. Some losses matter more than others.
A. Stuff can be replaced.
1) Have you ever lost a cellphone?
2) I have - I left a brand new one in a plane.
3) Others have as well, to the tune of $30 billion a year.
a) It is irritating but you just get another one.
b) There are some things that you can't replace as easily.
B. Losses that cut to the heart.
1) For Kathryn Schulz, the loss that affected her most was
the death of her father.
2) She writes, "Outside of an afterlife, for those who believe
in one, it leaves us with nothing to hope for and
nothing to do.
Death is loss without the possibility of being found."
a) It is apparent that she herself does not believe in
an afterlife.
b) Yet she found herself experiencing what psychologists
call "searching behavior."
She knew her father was dead, but when out looking
for him anyway. She never found him.
C.S. Lewis tried the same thing when his beloved wife,
Joy, died of cancer.
One evening he went outside and looked up at the night
sky, trying to glimpse a sign of her.
In his book "A Grief Observed" he wrote:
"Is anything more certain than that in all those
vast times and space, if I were allowed to search
them, I should nowhere find her face,
her voice, her touch?" [1]
3) Death is the kind of loss that moves us to search for
something more than what we can find in this life.
III. The greatest loss of all.
A. Losing our intimate relationship with God is the worst.
1) According to the Bible, every human experiences this
at some point.
2) Many do not realize it.
In 2012 it was reported that a tourist had gone missing
from an Icelandic bus tour.
They organized a frantic search by more than 50 rescuers
on foot and by air.
According to CBS News, it all started when a woman broke
off from her tourist group and changed clothes.
When she returned to the bus in a different outfit, the
rest of her tour group did not recognize her.
They called the authorities, gave a description of the
woman, and began to search.
The woman herself joined in.
Around 3 a.m. it dawned on them that the woman they were
looking for had been with them all along.
The chief of police said the woman simply didn't recognize
the description of herself, and 'had no idea that she
was missing.'"
That is our problem; the Bible describes us as spiritually
lost and separated from God.
We fail to recognize ourselves in the description.
The result is that we have no idea that we're lost.
#63739
B. "When did you experience lostness?"
1) This question was used by an evangelist for many years.
a) Lostness is that sense that there is a gulf between
you and God, and you can do nothing to fix it.
1> It is a fact, and a feeling.
2> You realize something is wrong in your life and
begin feeling guilt.
b) God puts this feeling inside you so you will seek him
and turn away from your sin.
1> The Bible calls this "godly sorrow."
2) Many churchgoers have not really experienced it.
a) The evangelist suggests that they may not be saved.
b) Could it be true of you?
IV. God cares for the lost.
A. Two parables focus not so much on losing stuff, but finding it.
1) The first parable involves a lost sheep.
a) This is equivalent to losing your car in a parking lot.
b) Note that the owner leaves the 99 safe sheep and
searches for the lost one.
c) He doesn't give up until he finds it.
2) The second parable involves a lost coin.
a) This is like loosing your keys.
b) She sweeps the whole house until she finds it.
B. Both parables focus on the joy of finding stuff.
1) The shepherd joyfully puts the sheep on his shoulder
and announces the good news to his neighbors.
2) The woman is also thrilled and tells her friends.
a) There is no discussion on how each thing go lost to
begin with.
b) There is no blame on how someone else may have been
at fault.
c) There is just happiness that what was lost is found.
C. The application is also the same for each.
1) The things which are lost are compared to sinners who
have wandered from God.
2) God is excited when a sinner repents and comes back to him.
a) It is like he has a party in heaven.
3) Christians should also seek the lost.
a) Often, we focus on trying to get the inactives and
disgruntled members back in church.
b) Pastor Daryl Cornett has noticed that as churches
progress over time, they turn inward.
They maintain the status quo and preserve the institution.
Church is seen as something that serves you.
The Bible wants us to get out there and seek the lost.
He says if the lost are running from God -- and they are --
then we have to be running in the same direction after
them.
We have to overtake them and confront them with the grace
of the Gospel.
#65860
c) Christians often treat non-believers as the enemy.
1> Our culture wars encourage an US vs. THEM mentality.
2> It is better to view non-believers as potential
brothers and sisters in Christ.
3> How many lost people have you found, and brought
back to God?
V. God never stops seeking you.
A. Even Christians can drift from God and get lost again.
When I was starting college, one of the hot Christian
authors was Ann Kiemel Anderson.
She wrote a best-selling book called, "I'm Out To Change
My World."
It was all about being a dynamic Christian and doing
something positive.
She was even invited to lead one of our spiritual emphasis
weekends, kind of like a college revival.
She ended up writing 17 books and received much fame and
fortune.
But toward the end of her life she confessed, "along the
journey, I got lost."
Her fame became addictive to her.
She was passionate about Jesus and wanted everybody to know
him, but she was also passionate that you loved her.
She got married to a handsome man, and conflict soon
popped up in their marriage.
With all her bravado about life, she was actually very
insecure.
She had multiple miscarriages.
After a kidney infection she became hooked on pain pills.
She later said everything in her books was honest, but
her lie was in what she didn't tell you.
Her addiction grew, her husband separated from her, and
a health crisis put her in a coma.
That is when God got her attention.
She signed herself into a secular drug treatment center.
It was the most nightmarish experience of her life.
The confrontational group therapy sessions were torture
for her.
But that is what it took for God to crack through down to
the core of her soul.
Ann realized it would take more than personal willpower
and brains to gain physical and spiritual healing.
She said there was only one thing that delivered her,
and that was the blood of Jesus.
In the end, she reunited with her husband.
They pledged to each other to start living the way God
wanted them to.
A few years later, her husband died of cancer.
In 2014, she followed him.
Reflecting on her spiritual pilgrimage, Ann said,
"I was lost, I was confused and Jesus pulled me together.
Jesus did for me what I could not do for myself.
When Jesus healed me, I never wanted any attention again."
#16369
B. Have you been found by God?
1) Perhaps you don't have a personal relationship with God.
a) You feel an emptiness in life, and wonder if it is
a message from God, but you don't know what to do.
b) Turn your life over to Jesus and experience something
new.
2) You may be a believer, but you have drifted.
a) The temptations of the world have been too strong
for you.
b) Is God speaking to your heart? Repent and come back
to him. It would make him, and us, very happy!
=========================================================================
SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
1. “When Things Go Missing: Reflections on two seasons of loss,” by
Kathryn Schulz, New Yorker magazine, February 13 & 20, 2017.
#16369 “Ann Kiemel Anderson's Pilgrimage From Addiction To Healing,” by
Trennis Henderson, Associated Baptist Press, April 8, 2003;
<http://www.abpnews.com/abpnews/>.
#63739 “Not Knowing You're Lost,” Illustration Exchange,
September 25, 2012; <www.IllustrationExchange.com>.
Primary source: "Missing woman 'finds herself' after intense
search" by Casey Glynn, CBS News, August 30, 2012.
#65860 “Lost People Come First,” by Daryl Cornett, Baptist Press,
June 12, 2017; <http://www.baptistpress.org>.
Rev. Daryl C. Cornett is pastor of First Baptist Church in
Hazard, Kentucky.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
=========================================================================
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
Created with the Freeware Edition of HelpNDoc: Easily create HTML Help documents