Lost but Found
We Gather
We are Called to Worship
Chris led
us in rejoicing for God having rescued us from the wilderness and having swept
away the darkness, bringing joy to us all.
Hymn TIS 143 "Immortal, invisible,
God only wise" Exuberance generated by our wonder at God's might among
everything that exists.
We pray, offering God praise
and adoration Chris
led us in praise for God's creative power; for God's justice; for God's
continual searching after us; for the gift of Jesus. - greater and more
precious than any other possible.
We pray, honestly and openly
confessing
We
confessed to the gap between what we confess to believe and the way we behave,
acting as though the world is ours, not God's; as though the church is ours to
run as we like instead of according to God's will; as though we are supreme,
demanding obedience from others instead of submitting to God.
Chris: The steadfast love of The
Lord never ceases, God's mercies never come to an end;
They are
new every morning.
In the
name of the Lord, who is our portion and our hope, I declare that our sin is
forgiven.
May our
mouths be filled with praise.
We Listen for a Word of God
In the scriptures Jeremiah
4: 11 - 12, 22 - 28; Luke 15: 1 - 10. Jeremiah tells of mourning over the world
that was desolate because everyone had turned away. But God says He will not
make a final end to it all. In Luke people were complaining because Jesus was
associating with the not-so-respectable citizens but he pulled them up short by
making it clear that there is great joy in bringing home the lost.
As we reflect Chris spoke about the
parables of the lost sheep and lost coin which were used by Jesus in the
account read from Luke, to turn the thinking of the people upside down. Chris
explained that the thinking of the Pharisees and Scribes was that their
function was to protect those who appeared to be living "holy" lives
- living according to the law - and exclude those who weren't, so they could
not contaminate the rest of society. However, in the crowd listening to Jesus,
drawn by His welcoming attitude and message were many of these outcasts and,
worse still, Jesus socialized with them and even ate with them, breaking all
the rules of the Jewish faith.
The
Pharisees and Scribes didn't take kindly to this, and protested but Jesus told
them of the shepherd who left the 99 safe sheep and searched for the lost one
and then of the woman who searched her house until she found one lost coin. All
the shepherd's sheep were precious to him. All the woman's coins were needed.
And so it is with us and God. We are all precious to Him and we are all needed
in His natural word and in His spiritual kingdom. We are loved by our creator.
But Chris
alerted us to another message. The one the Pharisees and Scribes, particularly,
needed to hear. As committed Christians we are sure of our place in the kingdom
and rightly so, but we need to be careful about our attitude to people we might
perceive as being outside the kingdom. God's love knows no bounds.
Our task
is clear. "How can we open up an experience of God's nonjudgmental love to
those around us"
On a
personal note, I spent some years away from fellowship with God and it was the
willingness of someone who really had no responsibility for me, to take time to
listen to me and talk with me, that ensured I made the journey back. I was
pursuing God - I thought. The truth of the matter was that He was hanging on to
me and I was responding to the annoyance (at the time) of that constant
prickling that wouldn't let me be comfortable.
We begin Responding to God's
Word
Hymn TIS 129 "Amazing Grace"
"I once was lost, but now am found". Peace, security, fulfillment,
quiet.
Our offerings were then received. God
blesses us mightily. It is only proper that we should return some of this for
His service.
We Pray Chris led us and we responded, "hear our
prayer".
Chris led
us in praying for the ability to search for the lost; for being willing to go
into areas where we may not be comfortable. Chris prayed for those who have not
heard the good news, that our lives will speak of it to them. He prayed for
those who feel abandoned and the troubled, that they will find peace. He prayed
for those that mourn or whose families are broken that they will find the
comfort of God's presence.
Then we
prayed as we have been taught, the Lord's Prayer.
Hymn TIS 456 "We head out to seek the
missing" A comment on the parables Chris spoke of, "And when you find
the drifter, The one alone and cold, You take it to your shoulder; Return it to
the fold."
We are Charged
We have a
choice.
We can
stand on the margins of the feast,
grumbling
about the other guests,
or we can
join in the dance of seeking and
saving,
feeding and being fed.
Blessing
May the
Creator's holiness burn away our complacency.
may the
Living Word expose our foolishness,
may the
Spirit of mercy turn us home,
that
God's grace might spill from our Iives,
giving
hope to a perishing world.
Amen.
Amen. Amen.
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