The Lost Coin

And I want to start off with this question. What's the most valuable thing that you have lost? What's the most valuable thing you have, you've misplaced? Can't find it. I want to tell you a story.

In 2021, for my 32nd birthday, I was given a $100 Topgolf gift card. And I was given to some dear friends of ours. And it was very generous. $100. Come to find out, $100 if I can go that far at Topgolf.

But then we moved to a new house in Arkansas and across town, and I misplaced that gift card. My wife, Carrie, she was so mad. Man, was she so mad. And she was so mad, mostly because. Not that I had misplaced it, was that my comment when I was given the gift card was like, I don't like topgolf anyway.

I wish I would have given me $100 to Amazon or something like that. She's like, are you ungrateful? You. You are so spoiled. I misplaced it.

And she got really mad. And we searched and searched for. We turned the house upside down. Never found it until we moved here. And then we did find it.

We found it when we were packing up. And Carrie, she said, when we found it, she said, give me that gift card. You ain't touching this gift card anymore. I'm keeping up with it. Well, guess what happened?

She lost it. And we looked and looked and looked. Turned our house upside down here in Raleigh and couldn't find it. And finally she found. I can't remember where she found it.

But then we took that gift card almost five years after we had been originally given. And this is what we did with that gift card. It was a great night to be had.

Look at that. Yeah, Money well spent, right? It was a great time.

Our story is the second of back to back to back stories of things that are lost. And these stories are told right next to each other. You ever been in a conversation where someone tells a story and you're like, oh, that. And you want to interject and they tell you another story and then they tell you another story? That's what's happening here, that Jesus tells these stories back to back to back to drive home a very important point that we want to look at today to provide context for why these stories were told.

We're going to look at Luke 15, verses 1 and 2. Now, the tax collectors and sinners, they were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, this man, he welcomed Sinners, and he eats with them. See, this was the Pharisees looking at what Jesus was doing, and they're confronting Jesus. They're muttering to themselves that somebody needs to say something, that this guy's clearly in the wrong.

How can he proclaim to be a rabbi? And he's associating with these terrible people that don't care about God's law, that are going about their lives wrong. And these stories that Jesus tells is a. As a response to their rebuke to him confrontationally. These stories are meant to be an encouragement for us, but primarily they're meant to be a confrontation for the Pharisees and for those of us that have embraced a similar mindset, it's a rebuke even more than it is an encouragement.

See, the Pharisees and the law teachers, they. They're being told by Jesus, by these stories how they are in the wrong. They're trying to confront Jesus, and Jesus is actually turning it around, saying, no, you're in wrong. And here's why. See, the Pharisees and the religious leaders of the time, they worked hard to separate themselves from these sinners and these tax collectors.

The tax collectors were viewed as traitorous, friends of the enemy that were stealing money from their own people and giving it to their oppressors. And these sinners were people that cared nothing about God's law. They're just going about their lives, not caring about what God told them to care about. And so the Pharisees and religious leaders, they wanted this clean, visible separation from them. And the sinners, they didn't want to be associated with them at all.

And they thought this was honoring to God that this separation, that this distance that they created between them and these sinners and tax collectors, that it was actually something, a way that they were loving God. But here Jesus is, they view him as a rabbi, a teacher, and he is seeking them out. He's hanging out with these sinners, and he's having a good time with them. He's creating relationships with them. He's learning their names, he's learning their stories.

And these guys are trying to confront him and say, what in the world are you doing? This guy is clearly not about the right things. So these stories, they're meant to reveal to these Pharisees and to us how God feels about people who are far from him, people who are wandering from God, people that may even be running from God. But in today's story, we're going to look at how it's meant to reveal how God feels About people that feel unseen by God, feel even forgotten by Him. But primarily, I want us to always have in the back of our minds is primarily to confront those of us that avoid these types of people, that avoid the people that run from God or wander from him, or feel unseen.

So Jesus tells the story. Verse 8, Luke 15. Suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one. Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? That coin was worth about a day's wage.

And maybe because of the cultural context that this coin was a dowry necklace that the bride got on her wedding day and might even have represented the family's life savings. And so it was 10% of that life savings or a day's wage. It was valuable to. To her. And the coin, unlike the sheep, it didn't wander away.

Unlike the prodigal son that we're going to look at next week, it didn't run away, but it was still lost in the dark, in the dirt, unseen. And this coin, it mattered to this woman. It was valuable to her. So she lit up the dark house to find it. She swept the dirty floor, she looked hard until she found it.

We can look at our world today, and so many people are just born into dark and dirty and unseen places that here in North Raleigh, we like to ignore. It's easy not to see the chaotic communities that surround us. It's easy to ignore so many people. No matter what kind of community you're born into, you're born into a broken home. That's something that touches all of us in our society.

It seems like so many people are born into darkness. It's not their fault they didn't create it. It's just the world that they were born into. And this story, all three of these stories, they're an encouragement for those people that may feel lost, that feel separated from God, maybe because of their own choices or. Or the choices that came before them, and that you feel unseen and maybe even rejected by God.

And this story, in preparation for this, it reminded me of another story that's 1,000 years before Jesus, and it's from the Old Testament. We're going to be looking at 2 Samuel. Flip over to chapter 4 is where we'll start. But just to set the scene. David, he was anointed king, but there was already a king in place, King Saul.

And Jonathan is Saul's son, and he's next in line to be king. But there's this other king that has been anointed, and so there's Some tension there and a weird relationship where David is kind of the mentee to Saul, but also the next in line. But it's clear that Saul's not going to last very much longer as king. And so there's weird tension. But in the middle of that tension, Jonathan, Saul's son, and.

And David, they become best friends. They have a close, close relationship. They're like brothers. And then David, he then becomes king after Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle. And there's this scene in chapter four two Samuel of kind of the aftermath, this scramble.

And Jonathan, verse 4 of 2 Samuel, chapter 4. Jonathan, son of Saul, had a son who was lame in both his feet. And here's how that happened. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan, about them being killed in that battle from Jezreel, his nurse picked him up and they fled. But as she hurried to leave, he fell and he became disabled.

His name was Mephibosheth. So Mephibosheth at the time he was 5 years old, couldn't walk, his legs didn't work. And from the time he was five years old, he was lame and he was hiding from the new king. And being the grandson of. Of the old king is not a good place to be in, especially when you're the next in line, the son of the son of the king.

And so he hid from the new king. He probably grew up thinking, this David, he hates me. He wants me dead so he can preserve his spot as king. Cause I'm a threat to the throne. So he's hiding unseen, unable to walk.

What a difficult situation. It's not his fault. He didn't make these decisions.

He's not paying for something that he did.

And maybe a decade later, seven to 14 years later, David, he's been king for all that time and he's really doing a good job. Things are going really well. And his thoughts turn to his old king Saul and his old best friend Jonathan. In verse 3 of 2 Samuel 9, he says, the king asked, is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can show God's kindness? Ziba answered the king, there is still a son of Jonathan.

He is lame in both feet. And so David, being a man after God's own heart, he's convicted by the kindness that God has shown to him as king. And he's looking back at the old days and he's saying, you know, I wish I could show kindness to one of Saul's family the way that God has shown kindness to Me, Is there anybody? He's told about the son of his best friend, and he says, where is he? The king asked.

Ziba answered, he is at the house of Makir, son of Ammiel, and Lo Debar. So King David had him brought from Lo Debar, from the house of Makir, son of Amiel. And when Mephibosheth, son of David, or son of Jonathan, rather, the son of Saul, came to David, and he bowed down to pay the king honor. And David said, mephibosheth called him by his name.

At your service, he replied. Verse 7. Don't be afraid, David said to him. A man who's lived his whole life, a young man, probably a teenager, who lived his whole life in fear, unable to walk, a threat to the throne. David, the king says, don't be afraid, Mephibosheth, for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father, Jonathan.

I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.

Mephibosheth, he didn't search for the king. He didn't reach out to David and say, hey, can you do something for me? I'm in a bad spot. The king, he searched for Mephibosheth. He brought Mephibosheth, and he called him by his name.

And he sits him at his table as one of the king's family, as a son of the king. He gives them back his family's land and man. We see Mephibosheth's response to this humbling, humbling experience. And you see Mephibosheth's view on himself in this next verse. In verse 8, Mephibosheth bowed down and said, what is your servant that you should notice a dead dog like me?

See, David, he valued Mephibosheth in a way he did not value himself. And he probably never experienced that kind of value from anybody else in this story and the story of the lost coin, the search for that coin, the search for Mephibosheth, the search that reveals value.

You may have walked into this room from a dark, dirty place in a bad spot. It may not even be your fault that you're there.

God, I want you to hear this before we talk about anything today. And there's different pieces of today's sermon, but. But I want you to get this right away, is that God created you.

You are an image, bearer of Creator, God of our heavenly Father. He knows you. He knows your name. He knows the situation that you're in. He knows the trauma you've experienced.

He knows your future, he knows your hopes, he knows your fears. And he values your you. No matter how you feel about yourself, no matter if you view yourself like Mephibosheth did and say, who are you that you treat me like this, that you do this for me, a dead dog like me. That's not the way God sees you. Everybody in your life could have told you differently, but God doesn't see you that way.

You are valuable of God. So valuable that he sent Jesus, his own son, rightful place in heaven, the Son of Almighty God. And he set his rightful place far above this dark and dirty world and came and entered into this dark and dirty place. And he lit it up with the good news, with the gospel, to find us, to bring us back to a place not that we deserve, but he wants to bring us to.

This is of course, this story is meant to be a rebuke. So get to. We're going to get to the rebuke side of it. Here's a question that's going to help us dig into that confrontation. Do we value people the way that God does, the way that's revealed and these stories?

Because if we don't search for the lost, we don't value what God does. If we're not proactive in looking for those people that feel unseen, the people that are wandering away, the people that are running away, the people that may even curse God. If we're not looking for those people, we're not valuing what God values. We have a goal for this year that you may have already know. This may be new to you, but we're going to get on the same page this morning at least.

The goal that we set for our church is this, to work towards accomplishing our vision. Every Southbridger will take a risk by having at least one gospel conversation beyond the walls of the church. So we are challenging us as a church as we look at our vision to reach the city, to see the gospel be brought to a million people, to see 100,000 lives transform. We want to do that through one on one encounters and we want to have a gospel. Every single Southbridge will have a gospel conversation beyond the walls, beyond the comfort, beyond the familiarity, beyond kind of the predictability of our little Southbridge world and get out there to the dark places, to the unseen places, to the ignored places.

As we go about our lives and as we are intentional about what we say to people and how we say it to them, that we have the name of Jesus on our lips, and we're ready to have that conversation. So when you read the scroll, how do you feel?

Excitement?

Dread? Maybe you're looking for the wiggle room. Maybe you're looking for a way that you can kind of do it or get out of it. I know what eyes feel. There's a bunch of different things, conflicting things.

Is there someone that when you read this, that you know needs to hear the good news, that you need to present to the gospel, that does not believe in Jesus, that either they don't know about it or they've rejected it, they're running away from it, they feel unloved by God, and you need to meet them with the good news of Jesus to have a conversation about the gospel. That Jesus came for them, is looking for them, and he died for them and came back to life for them, and is offering a new life and eternal life through that victory over sin and death. And here's the way that Paul expresses the Gospel, because you read that and you say, what is even the gospel? And the gospel conversation. Let's look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, where Paul clearly defines what the Gospel of Jesus is.

Verse 1. Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel, you are saved if you hold firmly to the word that I have preached to you. Otherwise you have believed in vain. For what I received I pass on to you is of first importance.

And here it is. That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. That's good news. That's the best news. That's the best thing you're gonna hear today or any day.

That Christ, being the son of God, being fully man and fully God, did the one thing that we can't do ourselves, that he took on flesh, lived that human experience, experienced temptation, yet never gave into it, experienced a sinner's death, even though he didn't deserve it, was in the tomb, but he came back to life, and he's offering you what's rightfully his eternal life, new life. That's good news. And so when you read that and you think about that, who do you know that needs to hear that? Is there a name that comes to mind? I want to do something with that name, if a name does come to mind.

So there should be an index card in your seat, and there should be a pin in the chair back in front of you. Or if you're on the front row. This front row is full. Congrats guys. Good job.

You are over achievers. I appreciate you. I want us to do an activity together. With that card in your seat, write down a name of somebody that you know you need to have a gospel conversation with that does not believe in Jesus, has not placed their faith in what Jesus has done for them. Not a group.

Don't say my co workers, my neighbors. A name. There's power in that. When David says Mephibosheth, imagine what he experienced. Imagine that feeling where the king who he thought just moments before, in that moment he may be thinking, this is it.

I've been hiding my whole life. And, and this is it. David's about to kill me to preserve his rightful throne. And instead he gets good news he's brought to the king's table. And so I want you to think about that name.

I want you to think about how you can look for opportunities to talk about Jesus, to share how your life has been changed to not just name Jesus and just say, just slip it in there, but you can have a full conversation with them about that. Jesus lived, he died and he came back to life for them and how it's changed your life. You write down that name. I want you to put it in your normal everyday life. Put it in a place of prominence where you'll see it every day.

Maybe your bathroom mirror, maybe dashboard of your car, maybe the pantry, the little candy basket.

And every time you see that name, you take a moment and you pray for them. You pray for opportunities to have that conversation. You pray for boldness, you pray for obedience to that, and you pray for them to respond in faith that they'll be no longer lost and will turn to Jesus, be found by him and have their life and everything changed. So let's take a few moments and I'm going to pray. It's just kind of like the intermission between second and third period of a hockey game.

I think I'm saying all those words right. I don't know. I'm new to. I'm from Arkansas, I'm new to hockey. But we're going to pray for these names before we move forward with the sermon.

Allow the Holy Spirit to stir in you this conviction for these people in a place that they might find themselves. Let's pray. God, I thank you for the names that have been written down.

I pray for the people that are in this room that wrote down those names, that you give them clear opportunities to talk to them about what you've done for them in Jesus, to talk to them about their life change that they've experienced firsthand and the gospel, the good news that has changed their life.

We pray for boldness in that faith that you'll take the things that they didn't say, the things that they did say, where they messed up, where they did really well, and they trust you with it.

And I pray for those people that are on the receiving end of those conversations, that they respond, faith and have their lives changed. We just thank you for the way that you work through us.

We ask that you bless our efforts, bless our conversations in the name of Jesus. Amen.

We do have, with this intermission, we do have a commercial if you want some help with what it could look like to have these conversations on May 19th. I can't believe it's May 3rd. On May 19th, we're gonna be having a workshop style event that's church wide. If you're fifth grade and older, like we want you to be in this room. We're gonna have childcare for everybody younger than that.

We're gonna share a meal together, have some fellowship, have some connection with one another. But then we're gonna share some tools with you, some strategies, even provoke some thoughts and some discussions that is meant to build your confidence as you go out to try to have these conversations. And we want everybody, you can register for that as May 19, childcare, food provided. And we want you to have some fun with these conversations that you feel so confident that God's gonna take whatever opportunity you take and whatever your effort is, whether you feel good or bad about it, that your faith in what God is doing through you is super high. And that you're dependent on, on what God is doing through your obedience.

And that you can be confident in having those conversations.

So commercial's over. We are doing this, we want you to come to this because we want to see people's lives changed by Jesus. You're probably sitting here because you've had your life changed by Jesus. The power of that good news, the power of the gospel. And what a feeling it is when lost people are found.

What a feeling it is to see marriages changed by the power of the gospel. Addictions overcome. People that were in dark and dirty places that feel abandoned by God. And they realize and they hear the good news that they're not abandoned by God. That God sent Jesus to look for them and find them and bring them to a place where they are a son and daughter.

What a feeling it is when we see that and People take that step of baptism and we celebrate with them.

We see that feeling represented in what happens next in the story of the lost coin. In case you forgot, Luke 15, verse 9. And when she finds that lost coin, when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and, and says, rejoice with me, I have found my lost coin. She doesn't breathe a sigh of relief and say, oh, thank you, and go about her day. She gathers her loved ones and she throws a party.

She celebrates this celebration. It reveals affection. It reveals how she feels about this coin. And God loves the lost, the most unlovable people that we can come in contact with. When you come in contact with them and you say, man, they are unlovable, aren't they?

Man, they are tough to be around. God loves that person. He sent Jesus for them and he may be using you to go and be his hands and feet, to find them and bring them to a place where they can understand what God has done for them in Jesus. And when lost people are found, God is overjoyed and there's a celebration. In verse 10, Jesus ends this story by saying, in the same way I tell you, there was rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

A party is thrown for one.

Heaven isn't quiet about one person turning to Jesus. There is the highest profile party that you can imagine. And imagine Jeff Probst and Dwayne the Rock Johnson at a party. It's higher profile than even that. Beings that we can't even imagine are in heaven, looking down at our dark and dirty world and seeing somebody's life change, that they're lit up and they have a new life in eternal life.

And the Holy Spirit of God is now living within them. And they were lost, but now they are found and they are throwing a party for them.

How do you feel when people place their faith in Jesus?

If we aren't overjoyed, if we aren't wanting to throw a party, if we are dissatisfied with a golf clap, if it doesn't affect us, we need God to stir our affections. We need a mighty word. We need a miracle. We need God to transform our hearts. Because, man, it's so easy in this world, especially in the comfy church world where this is part of our culture.

It's kind of like a rite of passage to place your faith in Jesus. It's just what you do. I've been in the Bible Belt my whole life. I was a grown man before I realized that Christian and Morality were not equal. I thought if you were a good person, it's because you believed in Jesus.

And if you were a bad person, it's because you didn't. And it rocked my world when I met somebody who was a good person and rejected Jesus.

But every single one of us are born into this dark world, this dirty world. And even though some of us are born into privilege, some of us are born into unseen places and everything in between. We all need some good news. We all need Jesus. And when we see people turn to Jesus and they were lost, but now that they are found, if we aren't overjoyed, if we aren't wanting to throw a party, if we're not moved by it, man, we need God to stir something in us.

We've become too much like the Pharisees, and we need this confrontation, we need this rebuke.

We're about to take part in something together that's meant to help stir our affections, to become more aligned with God, to remember something that's meant to help melt our hearts. We're about to observe communion, and we see Jesus institute communion when he and his disciples, they're. They're observing the Passover on a Thursday night. They're observing it probably a little bit early. And the reason is that Jesus is about to be arrested that night.

He's about to be put on the cross the next day. And Jesus, he's sitting at a table in that upper room awaiting those moments, awaiting the garden, awaiting the arrest, awaiting the trial, awaiting the beatings, awaiting the condemnation and his death on the cross. And Jesus is sitting there observing this holy meal, not with the religious elite, not a Pharisee in the room, not a teacher of the law in the room. He's sitting there with a tax collector, a traitor, someone who steals from his own people to give to the oppressors, to enrich their oppressors, to keep his people down and. And in check.

He's with a murderous political zealot who would be happy to murder those oppressors. He's with a man that is about to deny him after. He's like, no way. No way am I going to deny you, Jesus. I'm going to die with you.

And then just a few hours later, I don't know the guy. I don't know the guy. And he curses that I don't know the guy.

He's with men that are. Every single one of them to. The man is going to desert Jesus, leave him alone, distance themselves from him. These guys, they didn't search for Jesus. They didn't go looking for a rabbi.

Jesus interrupted. You look at those stories and how he met these guys and how he called these guys and how these guys lives were changed and he interrupted their everyday life beyond the walls of their religion. Beyond the walls. And he said, hey, guess what guys, you need to follow me. Everything's about to change.

You need to come and follow me. And Jesus brought these, he searched for these guys, brought these guys to sit at the table. And at this table he tells them, my body is about to break, My blood is about to be shed. And it's for you, Matthew, you thief, you traitor. For you, Peter, you hothead, you liar, you hypocrite.

And he's sitting there and these guys, that there's a reason they're not the religious elite. Nobody looked at these guys and said, those guys are holy. Those guys are close to God's heart. Those guys follow the law. That's what life looks like.

No, but here they are sitting at the table with Jesus, being told by the Son of God, I'm about to die for you.

I'm going to be arrested, beaten, put on a cross for you.

Whether you believe this or not, this is true. Jesus has searched for you. And because of that, God is not far from you. He's close, so close. And if you believe in him, he has brought you to the table through his broken body and his shed blood.

And he has brought you to the table. And you are sitting with him at the table as a son and daughter, as a co heir with Christ. You don't deserve it, you didn't earn it. You came from a dark and dirty place. But Jesus has changed everything and he's put you at that table and he's asking you to have a heart like his and be looking for who else needs to be brought to the table.

He wants to use you. He's given this great commission to you, this job, this occupation to you, for you to go out into those dark places and to look for those of them that do not believe in him, so that they can come and have what we have. Does that stir something within you?

Are you comfortable? You kind of feel good about what you do to the point where you're not thinking about those people. You're thankful for where you are, but you're not thinking about where they are.

He's asking you to look at this rebuke, look at these stories of the confrontation and allow the Holy Spirit to stir some affections within you so that your heart can be transformed to look more like his, and so that you can have eyes to see that he has for people that are far from him, that are running from him, that are wandering from him, that don't even know about him, so they can have what you have, so you can be used to reach the city, to reach your neighborhood, to see the life of the name that you wrote down changed because of the power of the gospel. Let's pray this morning or this afternoon. God, we need you to stir our hearts as we look and are grateful for the life of your Son and his death and resurrection. We come with gratitude, thanking you for looking for us no matter where we found ourselves, that you found us because of the power of the gospel. You brought us to this table.

You sat us down, knowing our name and knowing where we come from, knowing what we did. You valued us. You loved us. And when we turned to you, you celebrated all of heaven celebrated.

We thank you for inviting us to look for others, to help bring them to the table.

We ask that your Holy Spirit, it stirs our affections that you reveal to us the value that you've given to the unseen, to the people that are running, to the people that are hiding, to the people that are cursing you, to the people that proclaim proudly that they are opposition to you.

And help us to meet them with the good news that you've entrusted to us. To be willing to share our stories of how you've changed our lives. Help us search. Help us celebrate.

Let these next few moments of focusing on our communion with you allow those moments to change our hearts to become more like yours.

We ask that you do this for your honor, for your glory. In the name of Jesus, amen.