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Lost Again
A sermon by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, VA
Sunday, May 1, 2005
Luke the 15th chapter has three parables. We’ll
touch on all three, but I want you to see who had open hearts to hear the
message. The chapter begins, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all
gathering round to hear him, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law
muttered, well this man eats with sinners.” (I wonder if he picked up the tab?)
You may remember the little incident that I told you about
when Leonard Sweet, distinguished writer and educator and the like spoke out at
BTSR, our seminary here in Richmond and he began his chapel the first day by
saying, Good morning students! And they said Good morning! And the next
morning, Good morning friends! They said Good morning! He said, the next one,
Good morning Christians! And they all said, Good morning! And the last day he
said, Good morning sinners! And they didn’t know what to say! We’re a little
squeamish about that. We shouldn’t be because it’s the sinner part of us that
has ears for the Savior. You see, it was the sinners, the rejects, the
marginally approved who hurt Him and the ones who were so meticulous with their
religious observance we might put it this way – so busy doing it the religious
way they forget God altogether.
Have you heard of the delightful little novels of Alexander
McCall Smith? He lives in Scotland and is professor of medical law at
Edinborough University. He was in Charlottesville recently, but I think he is
best known for his betrayal of Botswana, which is an African country and his
little novel, an easy read, full of humor as well enough intrigue to keep you
reading. The center of his imaginary characters is one named Precious Romatswe
and in that part of the world it isn’t Mrs., or Miss, or Ma’am, it’s Maa: Maa
Romatswe. Now, she has had a difficult time in her life because she fell in love
with an itinerant musician who treated her shabbily and then deserted her. Her
father left her some money so she decided that she would set up her own business
and the business she set up was to become a private detective and her business
was called ‘The Number One Ladies Detective Agency.’ She was right next door to
a motorcar garage – the best mechanic in town. His name was J.L.B. Mataconey
and he had two guys who were his apprentices, his helpers. They were both young
and to everybody’s viewpoint worthless. They were irresponsible and they
thought only about girls and then lo and behold an amazing event happened! One
of them found the Lord became a Christian. He was asked by his church to bring
a testimony and so invited everybody to come, including those that he worked
with. And on the Sunday that he was to speak, they all arrived and took their
place inside the little church. There was Maa Romatswe, there was J.L.B.
Mataconey and the secretary. When it came time for the service, the pastor came
in with a long blue flowing robe and then came the choir in their blue robes.
They prayed a while and they sang a while and then the preacher got up and the
preacher was very specific. He said there are sinners all around us. They are
wearing ordinary clothes and they look like ordinary people, but they are
sinners and their hearts are full of sin even as we speak they are thinking of
more sins. And then he looked at the three who were the guests and he says,
those who come into this church, they bring their sins in too; they bring sins
in the midst of God’s people, they are straight from Babylon.
Now all of the people from the congregation were looking at
the three guests. There are strangers here, said the minister, you are very
welcome, but you must first declare your sins before all of God’s people here
and then he looked right straight at the mechanic, Mataconey and he said, speak
my brother, tell us your sins! Can you imagine a man who probably couldn’t say
a sentence well all of the sudden challenged to speak his sins and he began, uh,
uh, uh, yes, I’m a sinner, but…and about this time Precious Romatswe stood up
and took control and she said, I am the sinner here. I am the one. I have
committed so many sins I cannot count them and I cannot bear all of these sins.
They are making me hot. I am burning with the fires of hell itself. Oh the
fire of hell is consuming me and she fell back into the pew and then fanning
herself with the bulletin she said, oh, oh, the fires are all about me. Take me
out before I ruin all of these people and she poked Mataconey in the side. He
finally caught on and he stood up and said, I better get her out of here and so
the three that were together left. When they got outside of the church and
walked quietly to the car, the mechanic said to Romatswe, “you are a very good
actor.” She looked at him and said, “what makes you think I was acting?”
Isn’t it interesting that we have to deal with sin and
lostness on three levels and at communion it is so important that we enter that
third level. The first level is cosmic and if you read the book of Revelation
you realize that there is a cosmic sense in which the powers of evil and the
powers of God are continually fighting against one another. The enemy is at
work.
The second level is the delineation level, the description
level. We talk about their being lost and saved. We talk about there being
sinners and forgiven, but you see, we don’t ever become perfect and some
Christians are just puzzled by the fact that after they come to know Christ,
everything isn’t brand new and they have it easy from then on. Well see, it’s
just the opposite. Boy the enemy, the devil, really zeroes in on you. Being a
sinner is just like being a saint for a Christian; its part of who you are and
the healthy Christian is one who is willing to look within and confess and to
lay it all out before the Lord.
In the three parables, Jesus talks about three kinds of
lostness and they are three kinds of lostness on that third level because
everyone belonged before the lost came. There is first of all a parable about a
lost sheep and then there is a parable about a lost coin and then there is a
parable about a lost boy. Let’s look at them in turn.
There is a childhood book and it’s called Madeleine. You
may have even seen some of the episodes of Madeline on TV. Well, Mrs. Clavell
is the mistress of the school at which Madeleine attends and it is a boarding
school so they are there all of the time and there is a line Mrs. Clavell has.
Something is not right in the middle of the night. Madeleine gets very sick and
it is the middle of the night and Mrs. Clavell says, something is not right in
the middle of the night. The shepherd in Jesus’ parable, which begins in verse
3 – the shepherd is bringing the sheep in for the night, maybe it was a foul
like they had many that were alongside the mountainside where the shepherds come
bring their sheep for the overnight, gather them all together, put them there,
but something was not right at the beginning of that night. One was missing.
In Jesus’ parable it is obvious that the shepherd, the shepherd represents who
He is for He said, “I am the good shepherd and I give myself for the sheep.”
Well, he goes out and he finds that sheep and he brings him back and there is a
very great celebration. How did that sheep get lost? Did that sheep get lost
because he planned it? Sat down at the beginning of his life and said on this
day I’m going to get lost? At the beginning of the week, at the beginning of
the day? No. I’ll tell you how that sheep got lost – that sheep got lost
because he quit paying attention, or she doing what sheep do – finding the good
grass and then finding the better grass, thinking how wonderful it all tastes
and finally, the sun was going down and nobody was around.
I wonder how many times we ignore the Lord God; we are
completely inattentive to the presence of the Lord? Lost. Now Jesus does a
remarkable thing right here. If you will look in that parable you will find
that when shepherd brings back the sheep in his arms and I love that picture and
artists have portrayed it – he brings back the sheep in his arms he says, the
angels in heaven celebrate, rejoice, anytime a sinner repents. Repent – you
don’t put repent on a wedding invitation, a Christmas card, a thank-you note, do
you? No, it’s a tough, sharp word, but I need for you for a minute to put the
word repent and all the images you have it on the shelf for just a minute, would
you do that? Let’s put the one sawdust trail repent and then let’s put high
pressure revival, put that on the shelf for a minute and put confessional booth
on the shelf for a minute? Will you do that? Okay you did that. Let me tell
you about the two words if you trace them back in the language of the New
Testament it means – as you look at those two words that you are rising above
the mind that you have. You have changed the way in which you not only think,
but the way you look at things. You go beyond the mind you have been given and
acquired. You go beyond the mind that the world is pushing you into every day
of your life. You go beyond the mind of your emotions. You go beyond the mind
of your habits; you go beyond the mind of your preferences and all of the sudden
you go to the mind of the Lord Jesus Himself. Repentance means to rise above or
to change the mind you’ve been living with.
The Lost Coin – something is not right in the middle of the
night as you look at your neighbor in that day for all of the neighborhood is
dark when it comes midnight, but on that night, the neighbor across the street,
all of the lights are on, the lamps are lit, the candles – something is not
right. The coin, the silver drachma, hard to know how to calculate it, but it
was somewhere between a week’s wages and a month’s wages and it has been lost
and the homemaker is looking frantically for it. What was it? Putting it up
for a rainy day? Their kind of social security? I don’t know. All I know
there used to be ten and now there are nine. Would you look all through the
night for a month’s wages? Sure you would. And the finds it and you know what
Jesus says? The angels in heaven celebrate anytime one repents. You want to
know how to give the angels the celebrative mood of New Year’s Eve? Repent –
that is, this very day let your mind rise above where you are. Did you come in
here just worried and fretting and all about the future? Did you come in here
with deep concern? Did you come in here with a good deal of hurt, because you
see somebody lost that coin, it’s a symbol. The first sheep just lack of
attention, the second the coin, somebody lost it. How many of us have been
wounded because of words said? Some of you here today in your own heart of
hearts, is it possible you could rise above the bitterness that you feel?
Maa Romatswe in another one of those little novels – she’s
in a moment of reverie and she is thinking about those terrible days when the
man she married abused her and deserted her and she says to herself, that’s
where forgiveness comes in. Why leave a wound open when you can close it with
forgiveness she says? A beautiful way of saying, it is possible that this day
you could rise above that which is so deep inside of you to the level of
forgiveness.
There is a lost son – the parable of the lost son, the
prodigal, is maybe the best known of the three. It begins in verse 11. You
know the story well perhaps. The son rebels against everything he has known,
everything his father honors. He demands that he be given his part of the
estate early and his father grants it. That was his way, the prodigal’s way of
saying, dad, I wish you were already dead. He leaves home, he squanders his
wealth. Because his friends are tied to his wealth he leaves and they leave
him. He finds himself on a pig farm wishing he got the same food that the pigs
got, but one day, one day…I wonder if it was at night? I wonder if in the
middle of the night he woke up and said this is dumb. My father takes care of
the ones who work for him better than I am taking care of myself. I’m going
home. He came to himself says one translation, he came to his sense, says
another translation, let me put it this way, he rose above the thinking that he
was doing and his apprehension of his situation lifted. He went home and his
father wasn’t rocking on the porch when he came. No, no, no, he saw him away
and like God does, he runs to meet him and I picture that man, older by now,
shuffling down the road and when he gets there, arms open wide as that young son
runs into them and what does the father say? Let’s celebrate!
Now he has an older brother and the older brother is
furious. Furious at the party, furious at the celebration, he says, you didn’t
ever do this for me, how Pharisaical! You see, there’s one thing that older
brother couldn’t do. He couldn’t admit that he too was flawed and he had the
flaw of hostility, anger, and jealousy. He did all the right things, but he was
not the right person. Repentance means that you’ve lifted yourself up out of
that. If this day, if this day, the elder brother has conquered inside of you,
I ask you to lift yourself up a little bit above that until you can celebrate
with the one who comes home.
Henry Nouwen before he died went to St. Petersburg,
Florida, to spend some time before that massive, incredible portrait of the
returning prodigal that Rembrandt did. He received permission to just spend
time after the tourists left, just looking, perceiving, studying, and he came to
the conclusion that every person in that painting he had been and maybe still
was. He was the prodigal on occasion; he was the elder brother on occasion, and
yes, to some people he was like a Father. As he prayed, as he examined himself,
in the picture of the portrait he found himself exactly where we find ourselves
today, in the presence of the Lord Jesus who on the night that He was betrayed
too bread and when He had blessed it He broke it. Only the broken clouds give
rain, only the broken fields grow crops and only the broken hearts find God.
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