When the Lost are Found - Luke 15 then and now

This morning I want to talk to you again vicariously about my trip to Kenya. I want to talk about something that happened there that led me to a greater understanding of a passage of Scripture. When I went over to Kenya, the reason why I went over there was for two reasons. The first one was that they'd asked me to come and run a week of prayer, a revival series for the children in two different communities. One was a school and And one was a bunch of school kids that actually lived on a property during the holidays. So they came to Joseph's house during the holidays, and then they went back to their schools. So I was going to be doing a week of prayer for one group of kids at home, so to speak, even though they were rescued children. And then the other week of prayer went for a group of kids at a school that's a year-round orphan school. And when I got there, to the first one, because it was in a community, it was in a Maasai community, and because the people knew, I started getting messages about a week before I came. Carol said, Dave, there's a lot more people coming than just the children. And I said, oh, that's okay. And she said, but, she said, in Kenya, anything can happen in Kenya. So she said, just wait and find out when you get here. So when we got there, they had hired a tent and they'd set it up and there was enough room in the tent for about 4 rows of 5 chairs. So maybe you might get 20, maybe 6, so you might get 25 people in there. And I thought, okay, so this is what to expect. But then the morning that it started, I heard banging and I looked out and Joseph and a couple of the boys were building benches. Really long benches. And Joseph was taking— this is— I love the way they think over there. He decides to build benches. I need wood. Oh, there's a retaining wall with big pieces of wood. I'll just take those. And so he goes and he's taking these bits of long wood and making seats. And they made seats for a lot more people. And 10 o'clock was the start time. They only set the times to start with numbers for the white people who were there because we like to go, "So what time does it start?" But nobody there took any notice of what 10 o'clock meant. And Kenyan time is, you say 10 o'clock, that means before lunch. So they go, "Well, what time will I be hungry?" "Hmm, I guess I'll come about then." Just in time for the food. So the first day 10 o'clock was 10:30 that we started. The second day was at about 10:45. By the end of the week, it was at about 12:30 that we were doing our 10 o'clock morning meeting. And then we had an after-lunch meeting as well. So I started calling it before lunch and after lunch, because that was a divider that was working. But I had all these ideas of what I was going to say, and then when I got there, in the evenings each night I was talking just to the children, and we were meeting in the mud hut where we were staying, and we were sitting in the dark with these little spotlights, solar lights, lighting up the room, and I said— and I had to speak through a translator— so I said to Leon Platt, who brought us over there, "What should I talk about?" And he'd been doing the worships until then, and he said, "I tell them the same thing every night." He said, "But I tell them in different ways with different stories." He said, "I tell them that God loves them very much." Because these kids have not been shown God's love, and they need to hear it here a lot, so when they go back to school, they go to Christian schools and they see Christians, but to hear these stories, hopefully they take this with them and it lasts with them. So I started thinking about what to talk about. And we got there at about 7 o'clock and the kids started coming in. It was already dark when we got there, and the kids started coming in about 7:30. And I hadn't decided what to talk about. I had all these talks in my head and written down and stuff, but they were wrong. The Spirit was just speaking to me and saying, "That stuff is not going to work. That's for your meeting tomorrow when the parents come and the grandparents come and the aunts and the uncles come. But tonight, just tell them that God loves them." And I thought, "Oh, Luke 15." And so that night I told them the 3 stories from Luke 15. And basically what Luke 15 does, it's Jesus telling stories and he tells He tells these 3 stories. So I told the kids, the way that I would tell these stories to children is that when God finds something He's lost, He throws a party. And that's what happens in all 3 stories. A shepherd has 100 sheep and he loses 1 sheep and he puts the 100 in a pen and he goes out and he finds the 1 sheep and he puts it across his shoulders and he comes home and he puts it in the pen and then he calls all of his friends, "Come together, we have to have a party because I've found my lost sheep." 'And everything's good now. Come and have a party with me.' A woman has 10 coins, and she loses one of them, and she searches the whole house, and she looks underneath the couch, she looks everywhere, and she sweeps, and she finds the coin. And when she finds the coin, she calls all of her friends, and she says, 'Come and rejoice with me,' and her family members. 'We must celebrate because I found the coin that I've lost.' And then Jesus said, 'And there was a father who had two sons.' And it's interesting because it starts 100, one lost. 10, one lost. 2, one lost. But we find out in the story that actually both are lost. So everything. This father has lost everything, in a sense. But Jesus doesn't tell them that at the beginning. But because he has done this boom boom boom, the listeners of the day are saying, okay, this is about— this one's really important because not only is it 50%, but it's also son. And so people lean forward and they listen carefully. And so then I told the children the story of the prodigal son, and I finished with— and guess what? And I built up the whole idea of being scared of what dad was gonna say and practicing your speech while you're walking home. Father, I'm so sorry. I sinned against you, and I've sinned against God, and I don't deserve to be called your son. Can you please forgive me? And I repeated that over. And when you read it, it is repeated multiple times in the passage because Because Jesus, in telling it, wants the hearers to feel the angst of this young man when he's headed home. And when the children are listening, and Joseph is translating for me, and he looks at me when I said it again for the third time, he's like, "Say it again?" I said, "Yes, say it again." So he says it all again. And then I said to the kids, "And when that boy came home, his father came running at him with a stick in his hand." And Joseph translates, and he looks at me like, "Really?" And I said, "But then he throws his arms out and he hugs his son." And Joseph says that. And I said, "And he squeezes him tight, and the son's trying to say his speech, but the air is squeezed out of his lungs. 'Father, please forgive me. I've sinned against you, and I've sinned against heaven.'" And he just puts his hand over his son's mouth. "Shh, shh, shh. I'm trying to talk to my servants. Hey, go and get the sandals for his feet." He doesn't have any shoes on. "Get a nice robe for him. Get a ring for his finger. My son has come home." He was dead and he's alive. He was lost and he's found. Let's have a party. Go kill the fatted calf. Let's celebrate. And I told them, every single one of you, when God found you— and that meant a lot more to them than it does to us when I say, when God found you. Those kids were being abused. They were in child marriages. They were— I told you the story of the little boy Angelo who was living under a bush, looking after someone else's sheep. Told you that story a month ago. They— these kids were really suffering, and they were found. They were lost and they were found. And I said, when God found you, all of the angels in heaven had a party, and they celebrated that you were found, because God loves you very much. And I thought that I understood Luke 15, but then I actually lived in the middle of Luke 15 in Kibune when I was there. This is some of the kids. The boy leaning over the Bible is little Angelo, the one who ate the grasshopper and lived under the bush. The next one with her face in her hand, that's Michelle. And Michelle was a child bride and was rescued. When Joseph rescued her, he said, "Do you want to be rescued? Do you want to go to school?" And she said, "I love school." And if you rescue me, I will be the best student in my class every year. And that was 5 years ago, and she's still been the best student in her class every year. She truly does love studying. And she's going on to university to study law. You wonder why? She wants to help save children from the system that's around them. And then this little picture down in the corner is how they do church on a sunny day in Gugume. They have a building back there, and there's pews. There's everything you need to have church in that building, but why would you go in there when it's so beautiful outside? And so they all sit outside on the grass and they sing. Singing is a huge part of their worship. And there's multiple items, just like this morning. Lots of items and lots of worship. And then the word time goes on for a long time as well. And then we finished at about 1 o'clock, and then they said, "Now we'll have a break and then we'll have communion." Because it was Communion Sabbath. And they had another hour-and-a-half-long service for communion. So at 3 o'clock we went and had lunch. So I had this understanding of Luke 15 until— this was the rostrum. That's my chair where I sat before the sermon. That table is this. And behind it is sheep and goats and bells on their necks. There's always this ambient sound of bells jingling when you're in Maasai land, because there's at least 1 or 2 or 3 cows and goats that have a bell on them. To help them be able to find them. And also, Joseph said that sometimes we just put it around one that we really like them a lot. So maybe when I'm out with my sheep, I can find— or out with my goat and my cows, I can find the one I like really easy because I just listen, "Oh, that bell. Here's the frequency of that bell." And he goes and finds it and goes and pats that because that's his favorite. So there's different reasons why we put the bells, but it's mainly so that when they're off in a herd, they can find them. So this is where I preached from. And I realized after being there for a week, these stories, the second time, the second week we went to the second school, I just started with Luke 15 again. Because these stories make so much more sense to those people than they do to us. When we tell these stories, we have to explain the context and the culture so that we in the West can understand it. When we tell these stories, when I told these stories in Kenya, I didn't realize how deeply these stories were just part of their lives. The lost sheep— I know those are cows. But that little boy behind the cow, his name is Brian. He's 5 years old, and he has a stick. That cow knows what that stick can do, and he doesn't care that Brian's 5 years old. Because Brian is a Maasai shepherd. And Brian is coming towards the cow with the stick, and the cow will just keep moving. The cow is upset with me because I'm standing in his way of getting away from Brian. So that's why he's going— he's actually mooing right now. Moo! And so I look at him. Out of the way, but I wanted to get that photo. That also is the best toilet I found in Kenya. It was nice that it was the first, because it was a shocking awakening for the rest of them. But this is the way that they shepherd in Kenya. The children do it. The boys, particularly. They look after their fathers, their uncles, their grandpas. Goats, sheep, cows, whatever they have. That's what they look— the children look after them until they're old enough to go to school. So you might have a somewhere between a 3-year-old or a 6-year-old, and they usually walk around. This is in the compound, so he's just walking the cow up to the other cows, and then they'll join together. He'll join together with a couple other boys and they go out for the day. So the shepherds are children. Jenny brought something to my mind when I came back and I told her that. She said, wow, you know, when The angels came and sang to the shepherds who were watching their flocks by night. Do you think that that was a children's sentence? Do you think that the angels actually came and sang to young people? We always have this picture of, you know, old shepherds stroking their beards. They were probably just like this. They were probably children. The angels came and announced first that the Christ child was born. So when I was listening and learning about them and watching them shepherd, In the second place we went to, in Eldoret, one of the boys gave his testimony on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday morning I told the story. And he said, "I used to look after my grandfather's sheep. My parents didn't want me, and so I was living with my grandparents, and they didn't really want me either, and my grandfather was an alcoholic, and he beat me every night." And he said, "And especially beat me if he had a reason, but if he was just drunk he would just beat me because that was who he was." But one night I came home and he said, there was, Grandma said, where is your grandfather's money bag? And I said, I don't know, I've been out with the sheep all day. And she said, yes, but the money bag's been gone all day too, and your grandfather says that you took the money. And he said, I didn't take it. And his grandfather got upset and he realized he was going to get beaten, and so he thought quickly and he said, I did, I did take it. And I buried it in a field where the sheep were, and I'll get it tomorrow. And when he went to get it tomorrow, he never came back. Because he knew that his grandfather would beat him, because there was no money in the field. His grandfather probably spent it, didn't want to tell his wife. He said, as he was telling this story, every night when I would bring my grandfather's sheep home, I would count them. And I would count them again. And he said, "And I would count them so carefully because if I got the wrong number, I knew I would be in very, very big trouble. I would be beaten. And so I would count them again, and then I would go out and I would look for them until I had the right number." And I had never thought about when Jesus is telling the story, the people that are reacting to this story and going, "You have to find the lamb. You have to find the sheep," very potentially were children, or used to be children shepherds. And would say, "No, no, no, you can't stop until you've found it." And why would they throw a party afterwards? Oh, would you ever? But he said, "I have not been punished for what I've done, because I've found the sheep. Everything is okay." Jesus throws a little tagline in to each one of these stories. Let me get through them quickly. I'm going to just tell you what I've learned about them, and then I want to look at the actual parable. This is a girl. Every morning they cleaned our hut like this. They swept the floor, because it was a mud floor, and then they watered it down to keep the dust down. And when the woman was looking for the coin, she probably used a broom like this. She probably— it's just a bit of, um, a few tree branches, and they just use it to sweep whatever's fallen on the ground, goes out the door. And then they water it so that it keeps the dust down. And the woman who was searching for her coin would have looked very much like this while she was doing it. They don't have a lot of coin. In Kenya, especially in the villages like this, because everything they do is done for— it's a bartering system. So if you have cows, they're the most valuable thing, and you would trade. You wouldn't go use— you could sell a cow and get money, but what you would most likely do is trade that cow for something else. And they— some people grow this crop and they trade for that crop, and it's a bartering system. So when you have money, money is like— I mean, it is gold, but it's like gold in their communities because A little bit of money is very useful because you don't use it very often. And so people treasure it more highly. Joseph went and lived for a year in the city, in Nairobi, and when he came— and just lived on the streets and lived as poorly as he could and worked and did any job that he could so that when he got home he had some money. He only made in the full year $2,000. But when he came home, it was enough to buy a piece of land from the man who lives next door to where he wanted to live. And he bought this piece of land, and that's where he's built his house and the house we stayed in and where he has his goat pen, or his his cow pen, and where he has everything, and where he looks after the children for $2,000. And then the rest of the time, I said to Joseph, Joseph, what do you do for money? He said, I don't need money very often, but when we need money, he said, for like sending the children to school, he said, that's constant money, and that's the way that Westerners think. They make money, you know, every month, and so we look for sponsors. And he said, but I do what I do, and everyone knows what I do, and so they help me. And he said, "And I help them." And so it's a different sort of system. So when this woman lost one of her 10 coins, it was a huge loss. And it was a devastating thing. So when she found it, and she had a party, it's because she found a treasure, not just, you know, 5 cents that she dropped. These are all the kids. And I just put that picture there for the lost son, because I actually want to dig into the story of the lost son here. But I wanted to just help you visualize each one of those is a lost child that's been found. Each one of them is a child that was lost and has been found and has a new life and goes to school. And then there's Joseph holding Brian. And I'm holding— some people just gave a jump on me. And yeah, that was on Sabbath afternoon when we went for a walk. And the last slide you'll see is A picture of the sunset on that night. So, what I didn't tell the kids when I was telling the story of the prodigal— of these 3 parables, was the beginning and ending. I didn't talk about the older brother. Because the older brother is really us. We're the older brother. In the West, we get jealous of people who do good. We get angry at people who are forgiven for things. And children Not so much. And so Jesus was talking to, and we learned that at the beginning of the parable, it says, all the tax collectors, if you have your Bibles, we're gonna be in Luke 15. All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching and listening to Jesus. And the Pharisees and scribes were complaining, this man welcomes sinners and eats with them. We have a really good picture of who was in the crowd. It says, all of the tax collectors and sinners, and the Pharisees and scribes. So there's this huge collection of people from every level of it. And of course the children would have been there as well. So Jesus tells these stories, and we know, 'cause it says, "So he told them this parable." It's interesting, it says "parable." It's singular. It doesn't say in the Greek that he told them these 3 parables. It says he told them this one parable. And as you look at it as one, you see what Jesus is actually teaching these men. He told them this parable. What man among you who has a thou— a hundred sheep and loses one of them does not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!' I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who do not need repentance. Had the sheep done something wrong? But where does Jesus go? How does he go from a lost sheep to repentance? It doesn't really fit the idea of a sheep. There must be something coming. Let's keep reading. Or what woman who has 10 silver coins, if she loses 1 coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she finds it, she calls her women friends and neighbors together, saying, 'Rejoice with me, because I have found the silver coin I lost.' I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels over one sinner who repents. The coin done something wrong? Was it a sinner that it needed to repent? No. So the sinner bit must be talking about something that's coming up. Then we get into the story of the lost son. It's interesting, those first two parables, or stories, 'cause it's all one big parable, are really short. Bang, bang. And then Jesus stretches out. Now, Luke is the one who's written it down. I'm sure when Jesus told the story, he told these stories probably many times, but when he told the story of the 100 sheep and the one being lost, I bet he stretched it out as much as he did with the parable of the lost son. But the way Luke tells it, he's driving towards something, and so he makes short, short, long, and he does something amazing which we're gonna look at in, as his conclusion, as his big moment. So let's keep reading. He also said, verse 11, a man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, Father, forgive me— I'm sorry, Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me. So he distributed the assets to them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, country where he squandered, squandered his estate in foolish living. After he had spent everything, A severe famine struck the country and he had nothing. Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. He longed to eat his fill from the carob pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him any. When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have more than enough food, and here I am, starving to death!' dying of hunger. When he came to his senses, the phrase that's used in Greek there is actually talking about a religious experience, about the first step of repentance. It's talking about an awakening. So when he woke up to himself, he said, "Who am I? Who is my father?" He remembered, "I'm dying of hunger. I'll get up. I'll go to my father and I'll say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against— and in your sight, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired hands.' So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against you and heaven in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father told his slaves, 'Quick, bring out the best robe and put it on him. Bring a ring and put it on his finger, and sandals on his feet. 'Bring the fatted calf and slaughter it, and let's celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and he is found.' So they began to celebrate. Then Jesus finishes the story this way: Now his older son was in the field. As he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he summoned one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 'Your brother is here,' he told him, 'and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and did not want to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him. But he replied to his father, 'Look, I've been slaving away for many years.' What did the younger son say? 'Let me be a slave.' This guy's been here at home the whole time, and he sees himself as a slave. 'I've been slaving away for you for years,' And I've never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours comes home, who devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughter the fattened calf for him.' 'Son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we have to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and he is found. Now Jesus, and Luke in the way he's put it together here, he finishes with a statement to the Pharisees, and he started with a statement about the Pharisees. And when that happens in the Bible, you say, "What's in the middle?" Because it's a chiastic structure. You've said your same point at the beginning and the end. And in Hebrew thought, they like to build things with The main point, with an introductory point at the beginning and end, and then building until in the middle, at the apex of the story, there was the main point. And Jesus knew who He was talking to. He's talking to Pharisees, who think like Hebrews. Luke knew who he was writing to. He's writing this so that the Pharisee who picks up this, or listens to this being read, says, "Wait a minute." He's saying more than what he's saying. There's something in this. And they go and they study it until they find what is in the middle. And if you take all of the verbs in Greek in Luke 15 and you find the middle verb, it's the verb form of the word resurrection. Now resurrection is not a verb, it's a noun. But to be raised up is what you would say if you were going to turn resurrection into a verb. You go right down to the middle of this and you find verse 18. "I will get up, go to the Father, and say to him, 'Father.'" The Son said, "I will arise." I will rise up. I will be resurrected. I will— can you think of another time? If you were a— If you're a Hebrew scholar, and you're sitting there as a scribe or a Pharisee, and you're reading through this, and you say, "Wait a minute. These Christians, they're saying it again." "The Son said, 'I will rise up and go to the Father.'" It's the resurrection. It's right in the middle of the story. Now, why? Why would Jesus put the resurrection at the middle of this story about lost things? And why would he have A sheep needing repentance, a coin needing repentance, and then a son who repents. Says it twice. "I've sinned against you and I've sinned against God." He's confessing. Why would he have this son coming to his senses, awakening? The son wakes up and then he gets up and he goes home. The sheep wasn't a sinner. The coin hadn't sinned, but the parable is challenging the Pharisee and all of us in the way that we treat the lost when they're found. When we sweep sin under the carpet— imagine that. If the woman searching for the coin searched and searched and searched all day and she finally found it, she went, "There it is!" And she lifted up the corner of the carpet and swept the coin under there. Whew! Nobody will ever know I lost it. Because I wouldn't want people to know that I lose things. That would be horrible. And then she doesn't tell anyone. She doesn't do that. And Jesus doesn't counsel that that's a good idea. When you find it, sweep it under the carpet. She holds it up and she rejoices. And in rejoicing, she's saying, "I lose things! I've lost this! But guess what? I also found it, and that's why I'm celebrating. The lost has been found." What about the sheep? The shepherd, he could have just said, "You know, that sheep was never actually a really good sheep anyway. He was a bit of a black sheep. And so I don't really think I'm going to go find that sheep because—" And when people ask, "Didn't you used to have 100 sheep?" I say, "No, look, I only had 99 really. There was one extra one, but he was a black sheep. He was never really any good. We didn't know until we really started looking at the way he lived his life." But, you know, he's been swept out the door. We've gotten rid of him. So, we deal with sin this way, often. We, in our own lives, if we have a little sin or a big sin, and we say, "Is there any way that I can sweep this under the carpet so nobody else knows about it?" We don't say, "The lost is found." We don't let it become something that changes us, causes us to awaken, and causes us to rise and go to the Father. Instead, we hide it. Or other times there's people in our midst who do things that are wrong, and rather than challenging them, I think sometimes the reason why we sweep people out the door is because we swept that same sin under the carpet in our own lives. And when we see the black sheep and we say, "Whew, he's gone," then we've gotten rid of it from among us. And Jesus is challenging them, and he's really Putting an amazing statement right at the end, right in the middle of that apex, he's saying, "If you sweep the sin under the carpet or sweep the sinner out the door, you have stole from them the privilege of resurrection." You have stole from them the right of resurrection. Jesus came, gave his life on the cross, and at the cross there is forgiveness for sins. But then he rose from the dead, and at the empty tomb there is the promise of a new life. We need to embrace people when they fall. We need to gather the coins when we find them. And we need to celebrate. Yes, okay, we lost this one, but we found it. We had a sheep that was wandering, but we found it and we brought it home. And Jesus challenges us through Luke and through the the nature of the Pharisees, to think about the way we deal with the sinners in our midst. We must stop sweeping sin under the carpet. And we must stop sweeping sinners out the door. And we must instead invite them to the cross. Because when you collapse at the foot of the cross, and when you are decimated in spirit, and you only have one way to look, you can only look up, and you look up and you see Jesus on the cross and you say, I get it. And you come to your senses. You have an awakening. And then you rise, just as he rose, and you go to the Father. This is the challenge of what it means to be not just a Christian, but a church, a community of Christians. We are the ones who do not do away with sinners, but instead embrace them and take them