Lost Treasure (And The Search Of God)
Series: Encountering Jesus (through the Gospel of Luke)
Brad Bailey – November 3, 2019
Series #45 / Luke 15:1-10
INTRO
There are two very different types of adjustments that exit. Some are adjustments within the same framework. Daylight savings is one of those. We have to adjust our bodies to the time that morning and evening come…but they are still morning and evening. But there is any very different type of adjustment…one which changes everything. It’s commonly referred to as a paradigm shift. At one time the entire human experience presumed that the world was flat… it made sense because of our limited perspective. Things appear flat. Even more significant was assuming that the sun revolved around the earth. It’s a change in how we see everything. Again… we had to understand that we had a limited perspective that did not see the true and larger reality.
And today as we continue in our extended focus on Encountering Jesus through the Gospel of Luke….we come to a point at which our human nature… our religious nature… cannot grasp what God is doing. Human nature must be enlightened by God’s nature.
What we encounter is the religious leaders bringing their nature …and Jesus explaining what is actually at hand by telling three stories.
The third is long and we will engage that more richly next week… but I will include a summary and a verse from it today…because it really allows us to hear the whole of this exchange by hearing what all three stories share in common.
This we hear as we pick up in the start of what is designated as the 15th chapter of this Gospel.
The Gospel is the living account of Jesus. The life of Jesus was not over… he said the life be brought had just begin. These whom he first called… would now carry forth this work and he would be working through them.
In this sense…what was… is. What he did and said…he does and says.
Luke 15:1-10 (NIV) ?1 Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. 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. Does he not 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. 8 "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
Now Jesus follows with a third story… more extensive… about a lost son… commonly known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We will unpack that next week…but I wanted to surmise that story today so that we can really hear the potency that lies in the common points that Jesus is bringing forth.
(Summarize the parable of the prodigal son…). When the son returns… Jesus describes the Father saying….
Luke 15:23-24 (NIV) ?23 Let's have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
Pray: As we come to this moment in which you challenged what people could understand…we open ourselves to you challenging what we understand.
This encounter begins with a moment of conflict. We are told…
1 Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."
What’s happening here?
This group of religious leaders find Jesus with these lives gathered around him… tax collectors … hated because they were collecting taxes for the oppressive Roman empire… and free to overcharge the people to keep the money for themselves. And many others who could be referred to as “sinners” …which commonly referred to the prostitutes and thieves. The point is, those who had most clearly failed morally came to Jesus and he welcomed them.
They come upon this scene and read it like any good religiously upright moral person might.
The Pharisees are good religious people… main street type.
From their way of seeing…their paradigm…the story they believed was God’s story… what they saw did not fit.
The story they try to live in…is one in which there are good and bad people. And part of being good people…is not to join in with bad people.
And religion can help you become a good person.
Throughout human history… this has been the basic story that people see themselves living out. …just different versions.
Ask any good conservative “How should people live in order to make the world a good place?” … and they will give you one version. Ask any good liberal and they will give you another…but they will see people as good or bad depending on their values. The standards are different. But the paradigm is the same. “There are good people and bad people, and the problem with the world is the bad people.” That’s a moralistic paradigm.
Jesus knows that human life has been telling a story in which there are simply good and bad people.
But the story is not the true story. It’s not seeing the whole story. It’s a closed story…. locking people into a futile process of self-righteousness and judgment.
So Jesus reframes what is at hand… using a story that reveals what is really at hand. In fact he uses three versions to explain these common truths.
The first story is the story of a lost sheep. The second story is the story of a lost coin. And the third story is the story of a lost son. Jesus has a common lesson that He wants us to learn from each of these three stories and so it's important for us to note the connection between each of them.
Jesus clarifies four central truths…
Jesus reveals the truth of what it means to be … Lost, Valued, Searched for, and
Celebrated.
1. We are lost… separated from our true source and center.
In each of these stories, the plot line is: something is lost. A sheep is lost, a coin is lost, a son has wandered away from home.
They are lost… not merely left somewhere the owner forgot about…but each has gone to a place…and become separated from it’s rightful source.
This is what God had said long ago…when he spoke of Christ coming into the world.
Isaiah 53:6 (NIV) ?We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. ?
The story Jesus is fulfilling is the story God had told…. We are like sheep who have gone astray.
Being compared to sheep requires that we embrace some humility. That may be the point.
How many have seen any trained sheep acts at the circus?
As many have noted… sheep were an easy way to speak of the disposition that has befallen us …because they follow their own path to satisfy their appetite.
They easily go their own way, eating a little grass here, then grazing over the next hill, then down by the pond, then through another meadow, until suddenly the sheep are separated from the flock and it’s shepherd. And they will never find their way back on their own.
We follow our own path. We are no longer located in relationship to the source of our belonging.
Like a child at the supermarket. When a store employee finds the child… they may ask: Are you lost? Now the child knows that they are at the supermarket … being lost is not about their location…but about being separated from the relationship that they belong to.
And there is one other thing about that child… they may not know they are lost …until they realize that separation. That is the nature of sheep.
And that is the nature of the religious leaders.
Who have gone astray? ALL of us.
Going astray helps us understand our plight.
We often associate the idea of sin with breaking rules. But at it’s root it is not simply about rules … it’s about relationship. We have gone OUR OWN WAY… “Going our own way” is not simply about defying rules…but relationship …declaring our independence.
When we “do our own thing”…we are essentially BEING our own thing. And we are no longer in relationship to the source.
This is why the religious leaders could not grasp their own plight.
They were good people… good rule keeping people… but Jesus says that the most fundamental problem is having gone astray….that wanting to do your own thing comes from wanting to be your own thing.
And that can include what good rule keeping people are doing.
The rebellious and religious can be more alike than they think.
“Breaking the rules is one way to escape God, but keeping them can be another.
You can as much escape God through morality and escape God through religion as you can escape God through immorality and escape God through irreligion.” (Tim Keller)
Until we identify with being lost…we will only see good and bad people.
This is what the writer of the Psalm concluded… in the final verse of Psalm 119…he confesses…
Psalm 119:176 (NLT2) ?“I have wandered away like a lost sheep; come and find me…”
It begins with that confession.
We go our own way, we do our own thing, we follow our own desires, until one day we discover we are far away from God. We have no clear idea how to find our way back to God.
Now many animals may be able to find their way back home…but sheep are not one of them.
Some birds have special attributes at finding their path…which is why we have homing pigeons.
We hear of dogs who find their way back home from miles away. [1]
But sheep appear clueless about how to find their own way back home.
And they have no natural defenses. Almost all animals have either claws, sharp teeth, quills, a hard shell, or speed to escape predators–but not a lamb–they have no defenses.
But Jesus reveal something vital…
2. We are valued by God… of great worth because we are His.
The very problem and issue …was Jesus living into their value - "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."
In the religious storyline… these are bad people and bad people have no value that one should choose them to eat with. Sharing a meal was the way one expressed a choice to share their life with another.
But Jesus says the true story that we are actually a part of… sees such people quite differently.
In every story… what is lost…is of great worth to the one to whom it belongs.
The shepherd puts all focus on finding that lost sheep.
The woman is intent on finding that lost coin.
The Father waits with longing… for that lost son.
What’s interesting is that each could arguably be seen as having limited value.
One dumb sheep among 100. From an economic point of view…why not just write off the lost sheep as part of the cost of doing business? After all, sheep get lost all the time.
One coin among 10.
One defiant son … who is notably the younger son who did not even have the first rights to inheritance…so defiant many would deem him worth to be killed.
But…
That one sheep can been seen as bound to that shepherds care.
That one coin… The word Jesus used was for a coin that didn’t have much monetary value at the time. However, most scholars believe this coin was part of a headdress brides wore. Jewish brides often wore a headdress of ten coins strung across their foreheads. So the coin had great personal value because it was part of her wedding vows. What may have seemed worthless to everyone else, was of extreme value to the woman.
That’s why she literally turned her house upside down to find it. [2]
That one son… is still his son.
That which is lost… every human life… holds great value. And it is not because of how good anyone is…but because of the value that is given to them by the one they belong to.
There is a natural, logical kind of loving that loves lovely things and lovely people. That's logical. But there is another kind of loving that doesn't look for value in what it loves, but that "creates" value in what it loves.
Like a child who has an endearing ragdoll. That inseparable companion may be hopelessly tattered and dirty. There may be other toys that are intrinsically far more valuable…. but none loved more than the rag doll.
There are some things that are loved because they are valuable…and some things that are valuable because they are loved. [3]
And Jesus could not be more clear in his use of numbers.
1 of 100… 1 of 10…1 of 2.
What is the point?
The value of the one.
The story that this world is telling… is one in which your worth depends on your success… on whether you bring value to others.
But to God, our value is if inestimable value.
For most of us, 99 out of 100 is good enough. But it’s not good enough for God. He cares about the ONE just as much as he does about the 99. That’s the kind of God he is. He doesn’t write anyone off.
No one is just part of the crowd.
As C.S. Lewis notes….” it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you - you, the individual…”… eternity has a place that each will fill. [4]
Consider the first parable… with arguably three numbers …100, 99 & 1. Out of those numbers, which is the most important in Jesus’ story?
The One.
(It really struck me… how common it is…especially among pastors.. to think: “How many people are a part of your church?”
I hear Jesus focused on the question: How many people are not? How many people are lost… and have not yet come home?)
3. God is seeking every lost life… bearing the disgrace… to bring them home.
In each story … the central figure…the hero… is the one to whom that which is lost belongs…and the central action…. is not just something they do…but something remarkable that they do.
Jesus is of course speaking of God as the central figure. In speaking of God… whose name is too holy to speak of…and here Jesus dares to refer to in images that reflect care… but even disgrace.
A shepherd leaves 99…and enters the very vulnerability that the sheep has foolishly entered into. A shepherd who could just let a sheep pay the price…but rather goes into the dangers himself. He had to expose himself to the same dangers of the wilderness and the weather. The same lions and wolves that were stalking his sheep might stalk him as well.
A women who faces the indignity of a lost coin… what most believe would have been understood to have been one of the ten coins that formed her dowry necklace… and as such… she is not afraid to make a public spectacle even when it represents her social poverty.
A Father whose son declares he wants him dead… and when one day returns… Jesus says the Father runs to him – something no Middle Eastern landowner would do, because to run in his robe meant he would have to lift the robe, and lifting the robe meant he would expose his ankles, and exposing his ankles was undignified. He would be lose face in front of the whole village for doing such a thing.
– A third time, we have a hero that no Pharisee would want to identify with.
> To declare that God is merciful… that may fit somewhere in our religious nature…but to come meet us with disgrace…is unthinkable.
That is the true story of that is at hand. God is so holy… so beyond our vanity…that he can embrace the disgrace … that love can bring.
And this is what Jesus was doing…and is doing. As Jesus said…
Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” - Luke 19:10
He is the Good Shepherd. He comes… into the dangers… bears our disgrace.
If he does not go, the sheep will not be found. He must go because you have to go where the sheep are—they won’t come to you. And when humanity faces what the power of this world did to him… stripped naked and crucified …bearing the consequences and shame of our separation… we will respond in one of two ways. We will look with the vanity of our human pride at what we perceive as such weakness…or we will bow that power of such love.
It is the nature of God to seek the lost. In the other religions of the world, man is seeking and searching for God, but in the Christian faith it is the God of the Universe who comes seeking and searching for you!
He leaves … he goes … he finds … he lifts … he carries … he calls his friends.
Finally… there is one more element that Jesus so clearly includes in every version…
4. There is joy that is shared throughout eternity when we return.
There is celebration that takes place throughout eternity when we return.
The climax of every story…is the celebration.
As Jesus describes when the shepherd finds the lost sheep…
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.
Every one of us may do well to take that in.
We may imagine our lives to be unseen.
We may wonder, “How insignificant my life must be in the big scope of things.”
But Jesus says the true story that is unfolding in him… holds a joy that is shared throughout eternity when EACH SINGLE ONE is found…and comes home.
It says the shepherd begins to rejoice… even before he gets them home. As he carries them along the way. Think about that. The sheep is still in the wilderness when the shepherd picks him up. There is a long journey ahead, and the shepherd must carry him every step of the way. But the shepherd rejoices even though the sheep is not home yet. He is safe in the shepherd’s arms and that’s all that matters.
The shepherd doesn’t say what many of us might say: “You stupid sheep. Look at all the trouble you caused me. If you ever do this again, I’ll sheer you bald.”
And the search hero of each story holds a celebration that is shared by the whole household…the whole community…they are all invited to rejoice.
It would be easy for the people to say, “What a waste of time and money for one lousy sheep. You put the whole herd at risk. You should have let him go!” Instead, they rejoice that one lost sheep has come home at last. [5]
Closing:
This captures the challenge that faces every religious leader and every life.
We have our own story… of good and bad people… of pride in being good… and disdain for those we deem bad.
But we’ll find that Jesus doesn’t join our story. We can try to make him fit… but the truth is that he is calling us to join the actual story that is unfolding.
With these stories… Jesus leads us to two central questions.
Will you let God find you?
Inside… do you sense that your life is not rooted in the larger source to which it belongs?
Do you sense that your own way may bear an independence that defies your life itself?
Will you open yourself to there being a true starting point… an original love beneath all love.
That is what it means to repent. Repenting is about turning around…coming home to the heart and home of God as the Father.
Will you join the search?
In Jesus story… we are all lost…and when found…we should join the story.
John 3:17 (NLT2) ?God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. ??John 20:21 (NLT2) ?As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.
He has called each of us to become one who knows what it means to come home…and can share that with others.
We may need to change the tendencies in our hearts.
To care more than to blame. We need to be honest. Jesus was called the friend of sinners (Luke 7:34). Would anyone say that about us?
It means we go out beyond the confines of our safe respectability.
It may be your family… with your co-workers… your school….with those at the local Irish Pub… in one of those conversations with a stranger you don’t plan on.
We might think…well I have shared what I have found with others…but they didn’t respond.
We need to hear what Jesus said …in these stories…. Jesus notes specifically that the person continued seeking after the lost item until he or she found it.
Closing Prayer
Closing / Responsive Worship: Reckless Love
Reckless Love (Official Lyric Video) - Cory Asbury | Reckless Love
Resources: Tim Keller (Lost Treasure (And The Search Of God, January 11, 1998), Ray Pritchard (Christ-Like Love in a World of Hate); Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III (“What Makes Angels Rejoice?”); Fr. Mike (When We are Good and Lost)
Notes:
1. There are many stories that can be found regarding dogs finding their way home. And just a few years ago (2012) a cat found it’s way home after a journey of 2 months and 200 miles. - From 2013 tale of the geolocating cat
2. John Hamby adds the following to the potential significance of this one coin: “In Jesus’ second parable, a woman had ten silver coins, each worth more than their monetary value of a day¡¦s wages. These coins were probably her dowry, worn on as a headdress. ¡§When a man took a wife, he would give to her a ribbon on which would be strung ten coins. She would wear this as a token of love on her head even as women do in the Middle East today. Like a wedding ring these coins represented the marital relationship. Often on each piece of silver the name of the husband would be engraved. If a woman was caught in adultery, if she had been unfaithful to her husband, one of the coins would be taken out leaving a gap to show she had disgraced her marriage vows.¡¨ We see why this woman was so frantically searching for the lost coin, her reputation and her marriage were at stake. [Adrian Rogers. “Lost and Found” Message to the American Festival of Evangelism. July 28,1981]
3. I recall hearing Ian Pitt-Watson share a story that became endearing to many.
There is a natural, logical kind of loving that loves lovely things and lovely people. That's logical. But there is another kind of loving that doesn't look for value in what it loves, but that "creates" value in what it loves. Like Rosemary's rag doll. When Rosemary, my youngest child, was three, she was given a little rag doll, which quickly became an inseparable companion. She had other toys that were intrinsically far more valuable, but none that she loved like she loved the rag doll. Soon the rag doll became more and more rag and less and less doll. It also became more and more dirty. If you tried to clean the rag doll, it became more ragged still. And if you didn't try to clean the rag doll, it became dirtier still. The sensible thing to do was to trash the rag doll. But that was unthinkable for anyone who loved my child. If you loved Rosemary, you loved the rag doll-it was part of the package. "If anyone says 'I love God' yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar," (1John 4:20). "Love me, love my rag dolls,; says God, "including the one you see when you look in the mirror. This is the finest and greatest commandment." - Ian Pitt-Watson adapted from A Primer for Preachers. Leadership-Vol. 8, #2.+
4. As C.S. Lewis once described… “Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you - you, the individual reader. . . Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it.” - C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Ch 10, p. 147-148
5. N.T. Wright says: In the stories of the sheep and the coin, the punch line in each case depends on the Jewish belief that the two halves of God’s creation, heaven and earth, were meant to fit together and be in harmony with each other. If you discover what’s going on in heaven, you’ll discover how things were meant to be on earth. That, after all, is the point of praying that God’s kingdom will come ‘on earth as in heaven’. As far as the legal experts and Pharisees were concerned, the closest you could get to heaven was in the Temple; the Temple required strict purity from the priests; and the closest that non-priests could get to copying heaven was to maintain a similarly strict purity in every aspect of life. But now Jesus was declaring that heaven was having a great, noisy party every time a single sinner saw the light and began to follow God’s way. If earth-dwellers wanted to copy the life of heaven, they’d have a party, too. That’s what Jesus was doing. - Wright, T. (2004). Luke For Everyone (Pp. 182–185). London: Society For Promoting Christian Knowledge
