Today I want to talk about the pain of
being lost and the joy of being found, from the perspective of experience and the truth of Scripture. It was
just about this time of year in 1976. I was living with a friend because Sherry
had finally grown weary of my antics. My friend went to watch the Cornhuskers
and I went out for a pizza and a beer. Nothing unusual about any of that, but
suddenly a wave of emptiness came over me, deeper than anything I had ever felt,
and my eyes were opened to the fact that I was terribly lost. I felt like a “nothing
in a nowhere,” to borrow a phrase from Walter Wangerin. I had been more than a
little lost for some time. I didn’t know where I had been (most of the past was
blank to me), and I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know what I stood
for, what I believed in, what I was dreaming of. I could see that I was morally
corrupt, spiritually bankrupt, and deeply- perhaps irretrievably- lost! So I
set my beer down, paid the bill, and stopped by home on the way to a treatment
center- where I assumed I would be in a straight-jacket, and I didn’t even care.
Have you ever been lost? Have you taken
the wrong path, chased after the wrong things, invested in the wrong
priorities, lost track of the community you belonged to, drifted away from the
only person in the world who really cared about you? Have you ever lost your
sense of identity, your sense of being? Have you ever lost your resolve, your
anchor, your soul? Have you ever lost your sense of tomorrow and your awareness
of now?
Have you ever found yourself believing
that no one cares whether you are lost or found! I suspect that some of you may
have but this is NOT the case… because everyone
is someone in God’s eyes. It is God’s nature to save and no one is
disposable in God’s view, which brings me to our passage, Luke 15:1-10. Verses
2-7 make it clear that a) 1 is a valuable number, b) God will go to any length
to find and save just one of His flock, and 3) heaven stands and applauds when
a single lost sheep is found and carried home! The “one” is worth saving, the
lost are worth finding, no matter how long they’ve been lost, no matter why they
got lost, no matter how badly lost they are! As our shepherd, God will find us
when we’re lost and carry us home (period).
It is God’s nature to search and save and
God will spare no effort to find anyone of us who is lost. If you are a woman (vs.
8-10) who has 10 coins and one of them falls to your dirt floor, you will light
your lantern, sweep your floor, and sift through the dirt with your bare hands,
if necessary, to find your valuable coin. You would leave nothing unturned and,
when you found your coin, your would break into a mile-wide smile and throw a
party to celebrate the coin that was found. This is the nature of God’s
household- sinners who are lost will be found, restored, and celebrated in joy!
Friends, we get lost! We wander off the road.
We chase after shiny objects. We fall in love with lesser gods and we lose
ourselves in the process. Or the pressures of life, the struggles we’ve known,
the little deaths we’ve died- crush our innocence and our faith at the same
time. Our hope disappears. Our sense of purpose and even self slips away Van
Gogh notably said, “What preys on my mind is this question: what am I good for?
Could I not be of service in some way?” Well, I know the service and the Way.
So do you, but I also know the feelings that Van Gogh is giving voicing.
After I had been in “treatment” for 2-3 weeks,
Pastor Lu came to visit me on 6th floor west. I was not a church member
myself, but he and Sherry had been praying for me for a year or so, praying
that God would find me. So, after a brief conversation, Lu asked me if I was
tired of being lost. He asked if I wanted to find a peace that I had never
known. He asked me if I wanted to accept the Living God as my God and also to
realize a greater purpose in serving Him. “Yes, yes, yes,” I said. Then join
me, he replied, and we prayed a prayer that went something like this: “Dear God, I’ve learned that the lesser gods
of this world will only use me and toss me away. I’ve seen the power of sin and
I have reveled in it. I am a lost sinner, Lord, and I can’t make it without
you. Be my strength, Lord. Be my hope. I accept and trust in you as my Lord and
Savior. And with your help, I will stay the course of faithfulness and nurture
the wondrous truth… that you love me and would’ve died for me alone. In Christ’s
name, amen!”
Friends, there are demons in our lostness…
but there are angels too. God is searching for you if you are lost, and He will not grow weary in the search. When God finds you, and He surely will, God will
carry you home as heaven stands in applause. Amen!
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