HELP ME

#1 · June 7, 2006, 11:39 am

Quote from Forum Archives on June 7, 2006, 11:39 am
Posted by: henkf <henkf@...>

                                              HELP ME, I'M LOST

                                                Luke 15:1-10

         Ken Davis tells a delightful story in his book, I DON'T REMEMBER DROPPING THE SKUNK, BUT I DO REMEMBER TRYING TO BREATHE. He writes that one morning, not long after Diane and he were married, he saw her wedding ring lying on the bathroom sink. He thought it would be great fun to make her think it was lost, so he hid the ring. That evening, Diane asked him if he had seen her ring. He wasn't ready for the joke to be over yet, so he said no. Late at night, he woke up to the sound of uncontrollable sobbing. "What's wrong?" he mumbled, still half asleep.

         "Nothing," she replied. Now he was wide awake. How was it possible to be crying uncontrollably in the middle of the night over nothing? After a great deal of probing, Diane finally blurted out, "I've lost my wedding ring."

         "What a relief!" Ken thought. This was something he could solve immediately. "I have your ring," he confessed, thinking she would hug him in relief and he could go back to sleep. The hug never came.

         "What?" she growled.

         "I took your ring as a joke," Ken said. "I know just where it is, so you can go to sleep." "It was dark," Ken Davis writes, "so I didn't see her fist coming--but I did feel it land. In twenty years of marriage, that was the only time she ever hit me. It was also the last time I ever took her wedding ring." ((Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990). )

         Great story! It reminds me of an item that was in the newspaper sometime back. A new bride accidentally flushed her $1,800 diamond wedding ring down the toilet. Her husband, who was still making payments on the ring, wasn't going to let the one-carat diamond get away without a fight. He spend the night digging up the yard and tearing up the plumbing searching for the ring. The wife spent the night at her sister's house because, in her words, he was really upset and I didn't want to be around him." By morning the frustrated groom felt the ring was no longer in the plumbing in his house, so he called the water department. The city sent out its "lost diamond crew" to look for the tiny, valuable rock. After installing a trap at a downstream manhole, they flushed the pipe by sending a high pressure stream of water down the sewer pipe. Then one of the crew crawled down into the manhole and fished the diamond ring out of the sewage. (Naomi Rhode, MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN DIAMONDS, (Nashville, TN; Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991). )

         I guess most of us at least temporarily have lost something valuable to us. It is characteristic of Jesus' teachings that he took one of the most familiar situations in human life and used that situation to teach us about God.

         In chapter 15 of Luke's Gospel we read about a woman who lost not a ring but a valuable coin. It may be difficult for us to relate to that. After all, our coins are worth so little. We can't imagine anyone going to such lengths to find a single coin.

         Baptist pastor Adrian Rogers once offered an interesting perspective on this story. Remember that Jesus begins the story by saying, "What woman having TEN silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?" What's the significance of the number ten? Rogers suggests that these ten silver coins Jesus referred to were valuable because of the sentiment attached to them. When a man took a bride, he would give her a ribbon on which would be strung ten coins. She would wear this token of love on her head even as women do in the Middle East today. Like a wedding band 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 were unfaithful to her husband, one of the coins would be taken out leaving a gap to show that she had disgraced her marriage vows. Now we can clearly see why this woman was so frantically searching for the lost coin. It wasn't as though she only lost a few dollars; her reputation and marriage were at stake. ("Lost and Found," Message at the American Festival of Evangelism, July 28, 1981. )

         Fortunately the woman did find the coin. And when she found it, she called together her friends and neighbours and said, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost." Then Jesus adds the moral to the story, "Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

         Do you really believe what Jesus is saying--"there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Do you believe that? Jesus must have believed it, for he made the same essential point three times in this same chapter. First in the parable of the lost sheep, then in the parable of the lost coin and finally in the parable of the lost son which we know as the parable of the prodigal son. In each, Jesus repeated this theme. God rejoices over the sinner who comes home. Do you believe that? Do you believe there is rejoicing in heaven every time a sinner repents?

FOR US TO BELIEVE THAT THERE IS REJOICING IN HEAVEN WHEN A SINNER REPENTS IS TO BELIEVE, FIRST OF ALL, THAT SIN IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.

That alone is a stumbling block for many Many don't really take sin seriously. We're like a legal client I heard about recently.

         While working as a court-appointed attorney, Emory Potter was assigned a client who had been accused of criminal trespass. Mr. Potter probed his client with some general questions of background. He asked if he had any previous arrests or convictions. The man ashamedly said, "Yes, sir. I've got quite a few." The thorough attorney then asked, "Any felonies?" The man indignantly replied, "No sir! I specialize in misdemeanours!" ( READER'S DIGEST, December 1992, p. 18. Cited in IN OTHER WORDS) That sounds like many of us. We know in our minds that we are sinners, but we specialize in misdemeanours not in felonies--in small sins not in large ones. In our minds, ours are excusable sins. We are like the Pharisee who thanked God he wasn't like the tax collector. His sins fell within a range of acceptability.

          British actor Peter Ustinov said he once dreamed he had been elected Pope. In his dream he saw smoke rising from the chimney pots, and heard people saying he must go out on the balcony at once and wave, and that he must choose a name. Under pressure he did come up with a name. "Not Guilty The First!" he cried. The bishops were dismayed. "Don't you mean Innocent?" they asked. "I'm not Innocent," Ustinov replied. "I'm Not Guilty." That's us. We're not innocent; we are just not guilty. We're not perfect but our sins are really not that serious in our estimation. They're misdemeanours--not felonies.

         And yet, according to Jesus, there really is no such thing as a misdemeanour. To those who prided themselves on never committing adultery, Jesus said if you have looked upon a woman with lust, you have already committed adultery in your heart. To those who prided themselves that they had never committed violence, Jesus said that anyone who had ever said, "You fool," was in danger of the fires of hell.

         Sin is an attitude of the heart. Just because you were never provoked enough to actually strike out at another human being does not mean you are innocent. Just because you have never been put in a situation where it became easy to cheat on your spouse does not mean your heart is pure. Sin is serious business. And it crouches in every heart eager to spring forward to devour homes and to devour lives and to devour careers. Sin is serious business. That is the first thing you would have to believe if you believe there is rejoicing in heaven when a sinner comes home.

IN THE SECOND PLACE, YOU WOULD HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE REALLY CAN REPENT FROM THEIR SIN.

If people really can't repent from their sins, there can be no rejoicing. Unfortunately, there is much skepticism nowadays that people really can repent.

         Norman Vincent Peale once told about addressing a Methodist conference in Atlanta, Georgia along with a fine preacher, Bishop Noah Moore, and Pierce Harris, a much-loved local pastor. In his message Peale said that he believed that Jesus Christ could come into a life and change it, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

         After the service, when he and the other guest preachers were gathered in the minister's office, they were told that a man wanted to see them. A somewhat disreputable-looking man, they were warned--unshaven, unwashed, poorly dressed. When the man did come in, he was reeking of alcohol, but his mind was full of the message he had just heard. "Do you really believe that Jesus can help me?" he asked.

         "Without a doubt," Peale replied. Then the man asked if they would pray with him.

         So the four ordained ministers prayed with the man. When he went out, Bishop Moore said, a bit wistfully, "If that man changes, we'll all be surprised, won't we?" There it was, a flicker of doubt from a good man that change is possible for some people.

         Six months later, Peale said he was sitting in the lobby of a hotel in Clearwater, Florida, when he saw a man coming toward him, leading two little girls by the hand. The man was immaculately dressed, and his daughters were exquisite children, attractive and well-behaved. At first Peale didn’t know who he was, but as he came closer, he recognized the former derelict from Atlanta. There was a smile on his face, and he was humming "Amazing Grace" as he held out his hand in greeting. Peale said it was one of the most emotional and unforgettable encounters of his life. (DAILY GUIDEPOSTS, 1991, (Carmel, New York: Guideposts, 1990), pp. 128-129. )

         People can change. It doesn't happen easily. Most people who try fail. In fact, anyone who has ever studied Twelve-step programs and other attempts to transform human behaviour will tell you that people almost never really change unless God is involved somehow. God can change the human heart. To believe that there is rejoicing in heaven over the sinner who comes home is to believe that sin is serious business and that repentance is possible.

FINALLY, IT IS TO BELIEVE THAT GOD REALLY DOES FORGIVE THE REPENTANT SINNER.

         God really does forgive. You see, many people live joyless lives because even though they no longer live the sinful lives they once did, they don't really believe God has forgiven them. They don't realize how much God loves to forgive. Forgiveness is what God is all about.

         Roy Angell once told a beautiful story about a widow during the First World War who lost her only son and her husband. She was especially bitter because her neighbour, who had five sons, lost none of them. One night while this woman's grief was so terribly severe, she had a dream. An angel stood before her and said, "You might have your son back again for ten minutes. What ten minutes would you choose? Would you have him back as a little baby, a dirty-faced little boy, a schoolboy just starting to school, a student just completing high school, or as the young soldier who marched off so bravely to war?"

         The mother thought a few minutes and then, in her dream, told the angel she would choose none of those times. "Let me have him back," she said, "when as a little boy, in a moment of anger, he doubled up his fists and shook them at me and said, 'I hate you! I hate you'' " Continuing to address the angel, she said: "In a little while his anger subsided and he came back to me, his dirty little face stained with tears, and put his arms around me. "Momma, I'm sorry I was so naughty. I promise never to be bad again and I love you with all my heart." Let me have him back then," the mother sobbed, "I never loved him more than at that moment when he changed his attitude and came back to me." (Roy Angell, SHIELDS OF BRASS, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1965), pp. 70-71.)

         Jesus said that this is how God feels about each of us.

Sin is serious business.

God will help us conquer our sins.

Even more important, there is forgiveness

--Total, complete, unlimited forgiveness--

Available to all who request it.

That’s why even the angels rejoice whenever one who has been lost is found.

http://www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod/

http://www.worldoutreach.ca/fun/

…..

Posted by: henkf <henkf@...>

HELP ME, I'M LOST

Luke 15:1-10

Ken Davis tells a delightful story in his book, I DON'T REMEMBER DROPPING THE SKUNK, BUT I DO REMEMBER TRYING TO BREATHE. He writes that one morning, not long after Diane and he were married, he saw her wedding ring lying on the bathroom sink. He thought it would be great fun to make her think it was lost, so he hid the ring. That evening, Diane asked him if he had seen her ring. He wasn't ready for the joke to be over yet, so he said no. Late at night, he woke up to the sound of uncontrollable sobbing. "What's wrong?" he mumbled, still half asleep.

"Nothing," she replied. Now he was wide awake. How was it possible to be crying uncontrollably in the middle of the night over nothing? After a great deal of probing, Diane finally blurted out, "I've lost my wedding ring."

"What a relief!" Ken thought. This was something he could solve immediately. "I have your ring," he confessed, thinking she would hug him in relief and he could go back to sleep. The hug never came.

"What?" she growled.

"I took your ring as a joke," Ken said. "I know just where it is, so you can go to sleep." "It was dark," Ken Davis writes, "so I didn't see her fist coming--but I did feel it land. In twenty years of marriage, that was the only time she ever hit me. It was also the last time I ever took her wedding ring." ((Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990). )

Great story! It reminds me of an item that was in the newspaper sometime back. A new bride accidentally flushed her $1,800 diamond wedding ring down the toilet. Her husband, who was still making payments on the ring, wasn't going to let the one-carat diamond get away without a fight. He spend the night digging up the yard and tearing up the plumbing searching for the ring. The wife spent the night at her sister's house because, in her words, he was really upset and I didn't want to be around him." By morning the frustrated groom felt the ring was no longer in the plumbing in his house, so he called the water department. The city sent out its "lost diamond crew" to look for the tiny, valuable rock. After installing a trap at a downstream manhole, they flushed the pipe by sending a high pressure stream of water down the sewer pipe. Then one of the crew crawled down into the manhole and fished the diamond ring out of the sewage. (Naomi Rhode, MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN DIAMONDS, (Nashville, TN; Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991). )

I guess most of us at least temporarily have lost something valuable to us. It is characteristic of Jesus' teachings that he took one of the most familiar situations in human life and used that situation to teach us about God.

In chapter 15 of Luke's Gospel we read about a woman who lost not a ring but a valuable coin. It may be difficult for us to relate to that. After all, our coins are worth so little. We can't imagine anyone going to such lengths to find a single coin.

Baptist pastor Adrian Rogers once offered an interesting perspective on this story. Remember that Jesus begins the story by saying, "What woman having TEN silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?" What's the significance of the number ten? Rogers suggests that these ten silver coins Jesus referred to were valuable because of the sentiment attached to them. When a man took a bride, he would give her a ribbon on which would be strung ten coins. She would wear this token of love on her head even as women do in the Middle East today. Like a wedding band 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 were unfaithful to her husband, one of the coins would be taken out leaving a gap to show that she had disgraced her marriage vows. Now we can clearly see why this woman was so frantically searching for the lost coin. It wasn't as though she only lost a few dollars; her reputation and marriage were at stake. ("Lost and Found," Message at the American Festival of Evangelism, July 28, 1981. )

Fortunately the woman did find the coin. And when she found it, she called together her friends and neighbours and said, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost." Then Jesus adds the moral to the story, "Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Do you really believe what Jesus is saying--"there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Do you believe that? Jesus must have believed it, for he made the same essential point three times in this same chapter. First in the parable of the lost sheep, then in the parable of the lost coin and finally in the parable of the lost son which we know as the parable of the prodigal son. In each, Jesus repeated this theme. God rejoices over the sinner who comes home. Do you believe that? Do you believe there is rejoicing in heaven every time a sinner repents?

FOR US TO BELIEVE THAT THERE IS REJOICING IN HEAVEN WHEN A SINNER REPENTS IS TO BELIEVE, FIRST OF ALL, THAT SIN IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.

That alone is a stumbling block for many Many don't really take sin seriously. We're like a legal client I heard about recently.

While working as a court-appointed attorney, Emory Potter was assigned a client who had been accused of criminal trespass. Mr. Potter probed his client with some general questions of background. He asked if he had any previous arrests or convictions. The man ashamedly said, "Yes, sir. I've got quite a few." The thorough attorney then asked, "Any felonies?" The man indignantly replied, "No sir! I specialize in misdemeanours!" ( READER'S DIGEST, December 1992, p. 18. Cited in IN OTHER WORDS) That sounds like many of us. We know in our minds that we are sinners, but we specialize in misdemeanours not in felonies--in small sins not in large ones. In our minds, ours are excusable sins. We are like the Pharisee who thanked God he wasn't like the tax collector. His sins fell within a range of acceptability.

British actor Peter Ustinov said he once dreamed he had been elected Pope. In his dream he saw smoke rising from the chimney pots, and heard people saying he must go out on the balcony at once and wave, and that he must choose a name. Under pressure he did come up with a name. "Not Guilty The First!" he cried. The bishops were dismayed. "Don't you mean Innocent?" they asked. "I'm not Innocent," Ustinov replied. "I'm Not Guilty." That's us. We're not innocent; we are just not guilty. We're not perfect but our sins are really not that serious in our estimation. They're misdemeanours--not felonies.

And yet, according to Jesus, there really is no such thing as a misdemeanour. To those who prided themselves on never committing adultery, Jesus said if you have looked upon a woman with lust, you have already committed adultery in your heart. To those who prided themselves that they had never committed violence, Jesus said that anyone who had ever said, "You fool," was in danger of the fires of hell.

Sin is an attitude of the heart. Just because you were never provoked enough to actually strike out at another human being does not mean you are innocent. Just because you have never been put in a situation where it became easy to cheat on your spouse does not mean your heart is pure. Sin is serious business. And it crouches in every heart eager to spring forward to devour homes and to devour lives and to devour careers. Sin is serious business. That is the first thing you would have to believe if you believe there is rejoicing in heaven when a sinner comes home.

IN THE SECOND PLACE, YOU WOULD HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE REALLY CAN REPENT FROM THEIR SIN.

If people really can't repent from their sins, there can be no rejoicing. Unfortunately, there is much skepticism nowadays that people really can repent.

Norman Vincent Peale once told about addressing a Methodist conference in Atlanta, Georgia along with a fine preacher, Bishop Noah Moore, and Pierce Harris, a much-loved local pastor. In his message Peale said that he believed that Jesus Christ could come into a life and change it, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

After the service, when he and the other guest preachers were gathered in the minister's office, they were told that a man wanted to see them. A somewhat disreputable-looking man, they were warned--unshaven, unwashed, poorly dressed. When the man did come in, he was reeking of alcohol, but his mind was full of the message he had just heard. "Do you really believe that Jesus can help me?" he asked.

"Without a doubt," Peale replied. Then the man asked if they would pray with him.

So the four ordained ministers prayed with the man. When he went out, Bishop Moore said, a bit wistfully, "If that man changes, we'll all be surprised, won't we?" There it was, a flicker of doubt from a good man that change is possible for some people.

Six months later, Peale said he was sitting in the lobby of a hotel in Clearwater, Florida, when he saw a man coming toward him, leading two little girls by the hand. The man was immaculately dressed, and his daughters were exquisite children, attractive and well-behaved. At first Peale didn’t know who he was, but as he came closer, he recognized the former derelict from Atlanta. There was a smile on his face, and he was humming "Amazing Grace" as he held out his hand in greeting. Peale said it was one of the most emotional and unforgettable encounters of his life. (DAILY GUIDEPOSTS, 1991, (Carmel, New York: Guideposts, 1990), pp. 128-129. )

People can change. It doesn't happen easily. Most people who try fail. In fact, anyone who has ever studied Twelve-step programs and other attempts to transform human behaviour will tell you that people almost never really change unless God is involved somehow. God can change the human heart. To believe that there is rejoicing in heaven over the sinner who comes home is to believe that sin is serious business and that repentance is possible.

FINALLY, IT IS TO BELIEVE THAT GOD REALLY DOES FORGIVE THE REPENTANT SINNER.

God really does forgive. You see, many people live joyless lives because even though they no longer live the sinful lives they once did, they don't really believe God has forgiven them. They don't realize how much God loves to forgive. Forgiveness is what God is all about.

Roy Angell once told a beautiful story about a widow during the First World War who lost her only son and her husband. She was especially bitter because her neighbour, who had five sons, lost none of them. One night while this woman's grief was so terribly severe, she had a dream. An angel stood before her and said, "You might have your son back again for ten minutes. What ten minutes would you choose? Would you have him back as a little baby, a dirty-faced little boy, a schoolboy just starting to school, a student just completing high school, or as the young soldier who marched off so bravely to war?"

The mother thought a few minutes and then, in her dream, told the angel she would choose none of those times. "Let me have him back," she said, "when as a little boy, in a moment of anger, he doubled up his fists and shook them at me and said, 'I hate you! I hate you'' " Continuing to address the angel, she said: "In a little while his anger subsided and he came back to me, his dirty little face stained with tears, and put his arms around me. "Momma, I'm sorry I was so naughty. I promise never to be bad again and I love you with all my heart." Let me have him back then," the mother sobbed, "I never loved him more than at that moment when he changed his attitude and came back to me." (Roy Angell, SHIELDS OF BRASS, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1965), pp. 70-71.)

Jesus said that this is how God feels about each of us.

Sin is serious business.

God will help us conquer our sins.

Even more important, there is forgiveness

--Total, complete, unlimited forgiveness--

Available to all who request it.

That’s why even the angels rejoice whenever one who has been lost is found.

http://www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod/

http://www.worldoutreach.ca/fun/

…..