Pastor Cal Lord's Recent Sermons
Reaching Out For God
Luke:15:1-10 September 19, 2004
I like the story told about a six-year old boy who restlessly struggled to listen to a rather
lengthy sermon. After the service, the little boy asked the question that sooner or later most
"church kids" ask. "Dad" he said, "what does the preacher do the rest of the week?" The dad
replied, "Son, he’s a very busy man. He takes care of church business, visits the sick, studies the
Bible. . . and he has to take time to rest up. You see, preaching is not an easy job."
The little boy thought about that and said, "Well, listening ain’t so easy either!"
The truth is that listening is not always easy, especially when a sermon challenges us to go
deeper in our faith than we have before. We want God to speak to us but sometimes he says
things we are not ready to hear. Last week we talked about the total commitment required to
follow Jesus.
This week I want to talk to you about the primary focus of the church. Now some people think
the church is here to serve them. You are thinking, don’t mess with what works. We like it here.
Attendance is good. We have friends here. Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing. You just keep
preaching the sermons we like. We need to put on a good show so all the members will enjoy
what’s happening and leave feeling satisfied.
I love to go to Ponderosa Steak House. The salad bar offers all kinds of goodies. Several years
ago I noticed that most people come out of there holding their stomachs. You see, when you go
to a buffet, you expect to eat your fill.
When I was doing real well on weight watchers, I had a hard time at Ponderosa. Instead of piling
it on, I took a little bit of everything and quit before I got my money’s worth. I never felt robbed
though. You see, I had a higher purpose. My focus was on losing weight rather than getting a
good value.
I think we need to do the same type of thing in the church. We need to put away the idea that the
church is here only to serve us. We need to return to the call of Christ to be a beacon, a
lighthouse a haven for those who are lost and in trouble.
The truth is that we have not been responding to people outside the church the way Jesus taught
that we should. As a church, our focus should be on them and finding ways to bring them in and
introduce them to Jesus. We should be reaching out and making new friends who will work side
by side with us for the sake of the kingdom.
Let me ask you a question. Do you ever think of your friends at work or school or in the
neighborhood and wonder about their relationship to God? Do any of them have troubles in their
life that threaten to overwhelm them? Are any of your friends struggling to find rhyme or reason
with the things that happen in their lives? Well, has your faith helped you? Has your relationship
to Christ been a blessing in your troubles? We need to think of that and then invite them to come
and be a part of God’s family.
I want you to think about this from God’s perspective for a few minutes. You see this is what
Jesus was trying to get at in telling the two stories he tells in our scripture this morning. In these
two parables something of value is lost. In the stories the thing that is lost, whether a sheep or a
coin, has monetary value. Nobody, including the religious leaders who valued material things,
would ignore such a loss; the truth is they would put every effort into finding it and would
rejoice when they did.
The seeker in these stories is God. Jesus tells us that God will not stop seeking until he finds
every lost soul. As his followers, his children, his disciples, shouldn’t we respond to people who
are lost in the same? Shouldn’t we exhibit the same efforts, and perseverance in searching for
them? Shouldn’t we be filled with joy at them being found? I believe that the point of this passage
is primarily to remind us of our primary task. They might not know they are lost. But we do!
They may think they are just mixed up. But we can help them by bringing them back into a
relationship with a loving God.
Jesus isn’t quite so mysterious after his resurrection. The disciples were like us, they were slow
to get it. They enjoyed having their relationship to Jesus. They loved to hear him talk. They
could sit in his presence forever. But after his atoning death, the event that opened the door to
God and bridged the chasm between life and death, he tells us straight out that we should go out
into all the world preaching and teaching and baptizing in his name. We are called to go out and
find the lost and bring them home and make them disciples. That is the work of the church.
The work of reaching those outside the church cannot begin until we have three things. The first
is compassion. Jesus had the "tax collectors and sinners" gathering around him. They were not
avoiding him, ignoring him, or even hostile towards him. Why were they so eager to listen to
Jesus? I believe the answer is Jesus loved them and showed that love with a compassionate
instead of condemning attitude.
The Bible says in verse 2 that Jesus "welcomes sinners and eats with them." One of the
definitions for the Greek word translated as "welcomes" in this verse is to "receive as a friend."
This was Jesus attitude toward those who were lost in sin. Jesus welcomed them despite their
sins and faults.
I heard a police officer share this story. Over the years, I responded to several traffic accidents,
some of them with very severe injuries. At the scene of these accidents there are three groups of
people, each with a different response toward those involved in the accident. The first group is
the bystanders and onlookers. They are curious and watch to see what happens but have little
active involvement. The second group is the police officers, of whom I was one. My response
was to investigate the cause of the accident, assign blame, and give out appropriate warnings and
punishments. The third group is the paramedics. They are the people usually most welcomed by
those involved in the accident. They could care less whose fault the accident was and they did
not engage in lecturing about bad driving habits. Their response was to help those who were
hurt. They bandaged wounds, freed trapped people, and gave words of encouragement. Three
groups - one is uninvolved, one is assigning blame and assessing punishment, and one is helping
the hurting.
When it comes to reaching the lost and hurting, we’re going to be in one of these three groups.
We will be uninvolved and let others do the work. Or we will condemn people for their foolish
behavior saying things like, "It’s your own fault that you’re in this mess. If you had been going
to church and doing like you should this never would have happened!" Or we will be
concentrating on helping those who are lost and hurting. I hope we will be those who are
showing compassion like those in the last group!
Much of the church is responding to the lost like the police officer instead of the paramedics.
This is what the Pharisees and teachers of the law did. They were more interested in condemning
and criticizing sinners than in showing compassion. The same attitude is sometimes seen in the
modern conservative church, of which we are a part. We’re rightfully upset about the current
state of moral values, abortion, the homosexual agenda, and the immoral entertainment in society
today, among other things. It is fine and appropriate to be concerned about these issues, but we
must be careful that our concern about these issues does not turn into condemnation and
consternation toward the lost. The lost have never flocked to hear those who were condemning
and they never will listen to us if we have that same attitude.
The second thing we need for reaching those outside the church is effort. In these two parables,
Jesus emphasizes the effort that went into finding the lost. In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus
said that the shepherd would "leave the ninety-nine sheep in the open country and go after the
lost sheep. . ." In the parable of the lost coin, the woman lights a lamp, sweeps the whole house,
and searches carefully for the lost coin according to verse 8.
In both cases the thing that was lost had to be sought after with great effort. The shepherd did
not wait for the lost sheep to wander home and the woman did not wait for the lost coin to turn
up. In our Christian lives and in the church it sometimes seems that we do the opposite. We tend
to wait for the world to come to us. We’re passive rather than active. We’re waiting for people
to come to Christ instead of putting effort into bringing them to Christ! This has to change if we’
re to reach people like Jesus did.
There are several things we can do. First, a significant part of our prayers should be for the
people we know who don’t know Jesus. Second, we should be making every effort to see that
part of our ministry is directed toward this end. That’s why I am talking to the deacons about
having the last Sunday of the month as a regular “friendship Sunday” with special music and a
more evangelical sermon with some type of opportunity for people to respond in faith. I want
you to be able to invite your friends to church to hear the gospel and what it can do for them.
That takes me to a third thing. While it is important that the church, as a group, makes every
effort to reach our friends on the outside, the most important thing you and I need to do in
reaching them is to do our best to share Jesus with all those we come into contact with. We need
to be ambassadors for Christ.
Finally, there is also a third thing necessary for reaching the lost found in these parables. The
third thing needed to reach the lost its persistence. In both these cases Jesus notes specifically
that the person continued seeking after the lost item until he or she found it. In other words,
Jesus seems to be pointing out that persistence was needed for success. After all, lost sheep
among spacious fields and hills, and lost coins in the dirt floor of the Jewish home would not
have been easily or quickly found.
It’s the same way with reaching those outside the church. It is not easy to reach people’s hearts
so that they receive Jesus. It is not usually the case there our first efforts meet with success.
Sometimes it takes years and years of persistence, but we should not be discouraged or give up.
If a sheep or coin was valuable enough to persistently search for, then people who are spiritually
lost are too valuable to give up on.
Following an exhilarating performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall, celebrated classical cellist
Yo-Yo Ma went home, slept, and awoke the next day exhausted and rushed. He called for a cab
to take him to a hotel on the other side of Manhattan and placed his cello—hand-crafted in Vienna
in 1733 and valued at $2.5 million—in the trunk of the taxi. When he reached his destination, he
paid the driver, but forgot to take his cello.
After the cab had disappeared, Ma realized what he had done. He began a desperate search for
the missing instrument. Fortunately he had the receipt with the cabby’s ID number. After
searching all day the taxi was located in a garage in Queens with the priceless cello still in the
trunk. Ma’s smile could not be contained as he spoke to reporters.
Here’s the point, Yo Yo Ma did not quit but persisted because what was lost was too valuable to
give up on. The spiritually lost are too valuable for us to quit trying to reach even though our
efforts do not pay off quickly.
Conclusion: In our text today Jesus pointed out that the one thing that matters most to God is
seeking those who are missing from his fold. They matter so much to God that when the lost are
found, even one of them, all heaven rejoices and throws a party! If people matter this much to
God, shouldn’t they matter this much to us? Shouldn’t we be willing to give everything needed in
order to reach the lost? My answer is "yes" and I hope yours is also.
Luke:15:1-10 September 19, 2004
I like the story told about a six-year old boy who restlessly struggled to listen to a rather
lengthy sermon. After the service, the little boy asked the question that sooner or later most
"church kids" ask. "Dad" he said, "what does the preacher do the rest of the week?" The dad
replied, "Son, he’s a very busy man. He takes care of church business, visits the sick, studies the
Bible. . . and he has to take time to rest up. You see, preaching is not an easy job."
The little boy thought about that and said, "Well, listening ain’t so easy either!"
The truth is that listening is not always easy, especially when a sermon challenges us to go
deeper in our faith than we have before. We want God to speak to us but sometimes he says
things we are not ready to hear. Last week we talked about the total commitment required to
follow Jesus.
This week I want to talk to you about the primary focus of the church. Now some people think
the church is here to serve them. You are thinking, don’t mess with what works. We like it here.
Attendance is good. We have friends here. Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing. You just keep
preaching the sermons we like. We need to put on a good show so all the members will enjoy
what’s happening and leave feeling satisfied.
I love to go to Ponderosa Steak House. The salad bar offers all kinds of goodies. Several years
ago I noticed that most people come out of there holding their stomachs. You see, when you go
to a buffet, you expect to eat your fill.
When I was doing real well on weight watchers, I had a hard time at Ponderosa. Instead of piling
it on, I took a little bit of everything and quit before I got my money’s worth. I never felt robbed
though. You see, I had a higher purpose. My focus was on losing weight rather than getting a
good value.
I think we need to do the same type of thing in the church. We need to put away the idea that the
church is here only to serve us. We need to return to the call of Christ to be a beacon, a
lighthouse a haven for those who are lost and in trouble.
The truth is that we have not been responding to people outside the church the way Jesus taught
that we should. As a church, our focus should be on them and finding ways to bring them in and
introduce them to Jesus. We should be reaching out and making new friends who will work side
by side with us for the sake of the kingdom.
Let me ask you a question. Do you ever think of your friends at work or school or in the
neighborhood and wonder about their relationship to God? Do any of them have troubles in their
life that threaten to overwhelm them? Are any of your friends struggling to find rhyme or reason
with the things that happen in their lives? Well, has your faith helped you? Has your relationship
to Christ been a blessing in your troubles? We need to think of that and then invite them to come
and be a part of God’s family.
I want you to think about this from God’s perspective for a few minutes. You see this is what
Jesus was trying to get at in telling the two stories he tells in our scripture this morning. In these
two parables something of value is lost. In the stories the thing that is lost, whether a sheep or a
coin, has monetary value. Nobody, including the religious leaders who valued material things,
would ignore such a loss; the truth is they would put every effort into finding it and would
rejoice when they did.
The seeker in these stories is God. Jesus tells us that God will not stop seeking until he finds
every lost soul. As his followers, his children, his disciples, shouldn’t we respond to people who
are lost in the same? Shouldn’t we exhibit the same efforts, and perseverance in searching for
them? Shouldn’t we be filled with joy at them being found? I believe that the point of this passage
is primarily to remind us of our primary task. They might not know they are lost. But we do!
They may think they are just mixed up. But we can help them by bringing them back into a
relationship with a loving God.
Jesus isn’t quite so mysterious after his resurrection. The disciples were like us, they were slow
to get it. They enjoyed having their relationship to Jesus. They loved to hear him talk. They
could sit in his presence forever. But after his atoning death, the event that opened the door to
God and bridged the chasm between life and death, he tells us straight out that we should go out
into all the world preaching and teaching and baptizing in his name. We are called to go out and
find the lost and bring them home and make them disciples. That is the work of the church.
The work of reaching those outside the church cannot begin until we have three things. The first
is compassion. Jesus had the "tax collectors and sinners" gathering around him. They were not
avoiding him, ignoring him, or even hostile towards him. Why were they so eager to listen to
Jesus? I believe the answer is Jesus loved them and showed that love with a compassionate
instead of condemning attitude.
The Bible says in verse 2 that Jesus "welcomes sinners and eats with them." One of the
definitions for the Greek word translated as "welcomes" in this verse is to "receive as a friend."
This was Jesus attitude toward those who were lost in sin. Jesus welcomed them despite their
sins and faults.
I heard a police officer share this story. Over the years, I responded to several traffic accidents,
some of them with very severe injuries. At the scene of these accidents there are three groups of
people, each with a different response toward those involved in the accident. The first group is
the bystanders and onlookers. They are curious and watch to see what happens but have little
active involvement. The second group is the police officers, of whom I was one. My response
was to investigate the cause of the accident, assign blame, and give out appropriate warnings and
punishments. The third group is the paramedics. They are the people usually most welcomed by
those involved in the accident. They could care less whose fault the accident was and they did
not engage in lecturing about bad driving habits. Their response was to help those who were
hurt. They bandaged wounds, freed trapped people, and gave words of encouragement. Three
groups - one is uninvolved, one is assigning blame and assessing punishment, and one is helping
the hurting.
When it comes to reaching the lost and hurting, we’re going to be in one of these three groups.
We will be uninvolved and let others do the work. Or we will condemn people for their foolish
behavior saying things like, "It’s your own fault that you’re in this mess. If you had been going
to church and doing like you should this never would have happened!" Or we will be
concentrating on helping those who are lost and hurting. I hope we will be those who are
showing compassion like those in the last group!
Much of the church is responding to the lost like the police officer instead of the paramedics.
This is what the Pharisees and teachers of the law did. They were more interested in condemning
and criticizing sinners than in showing compassion. The same attitude is sometimes seen in the
modern conservative church, of which we are a part. We’re rightfully upset about the current
state of moral values, abortion, the homosexual agenda, and the immoral entertainment in society
today, among other things. It is fine and appropriate to be concerned about these issues, but we
must be careful that our concern about these issues does not turn into condemnation and
consternation toward the lost. The lost have never flocked to hear those who were condemning
and they never will listen to us if we have that same attitude.
The second thing we need for reaching those outside the church is effort. In these two parables,
Jesus emphasizes the effort that went into finding the lost. In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus
said that the shepherd would "leave the ninety-nine sheep in the open country and go after the
lost sheep. . ." In the parable of the lost coin, the woman lights a lamp, sweeps the whole house,
and searches carefully for the lost coin according to verse 8.
In both cases the thing that was lost had to be sought after with great effort. The shepherd did
not wait for the lost sheep to wander home and the woman did not wait for the lost coin to turn
up. In our Christian lives and in the church it sometimes seems that we do the opposite. We tend
to wait for the world to come to us. We’re passive rather than active. We’re waiting for people
to come to Christ instead of putting effort into bringing them to Christ! This has to change if we’
re to reach people like Jesus did.
There are several things we can do. First, a significant part of our prayers should be for the
people we know who don’t know Jesus. Second, we should be making every effort to see that
part of our ministry is directed toward this end. That’s why I am talking to the deacons about
having the last Sunday of the month as a regular “friendship Sunday” with special music and a
more evangelical sermon with some type of opportunity for people to respond in faith. I want
you to be able to invite your friends to church to hear the gospel and what it can do for them.
That takes me to a third thing. While it is important that the church, as a group, makes every
effort to reach our friends on the outside, the most important thing you and I need to do in
reaching them is to do our best to share Jesus with all those we come into contact with. We need
to be ambassadors for Christ.
Finally, there is also a third thing necessary for reaching the lost found in these parables. The
third thing needed to reach the lost its persistence. In both these cases Jesus notes specifically
that the person continued seeking after the lost item until he or she found it. In other words,
Jesus seems to be pointing out that persistence was needed for success. After all, lost sheep
among spacious fields and hills, and lost coins in the dirt floor of the Jewish home would not
have been easily or quickly found.
It’s the same way with reaching those outside the church. It is not easy to reach people’s hearts
so that they receive Jesus. It is not usually the case there our first efforts meet with success.
Sometimes it takes years and years of persistence, but we should not be discouraged or give up.
If a sheep or coin was valuable enough to persistently search for, then people who are spiritually
lost are too valuable to give up on.
Following an exhilarating performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall, celebrated classical cellist
Yo-Yo Ma went home, slept, and awoke the next day exhausted and rushed. He called for a cab
to take him to a hotel on the other side of Manhattan and placed his cello—hand-crafted in Vienna
in 1733 and valued at $2.5 million—in the trunk of the taxi. When he reached his destination, he
paid the driver, but forgot to take his cello.
After the cab had disappeared, Ma realized what he had done. He began a desperate search for
the missing instrument. Fortunately he had the receipt with the cabby’s ID number. After
searching all day the taxi was located in a garage in Queens with the priceless cello still in the
trunk. Ma’s smile could not be contained as he spoke to reporters.
Here’s the point, Yo Yo Ma did not quit but persisted because what was lost was too valuable to
give up on. The spiritually lost are too valuable for us to quit trying to reach even though our
efforts do not pay off quickly.
Conclusion: In our text today Jesus pointed out that the one thing that matters most to God is
seeking those who are missing from his fold. They matter so much to God that when the lost are
found, even one of them, all heaven rejoices and throws a party! If people matter this much to
God, shouldn’t they matter this much to us? Shouldn’t we be willing to give everything needed in
order to reach the lost? My answer is "yes" and I hope yours is also.
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