Doing Lost, Being Found

May 7, 2000

(cf September 17, 1995)

Luke 15:1-10; 1 Timothy 1:12-17

This chapter is about what it means to be LOST. When I think of "lost" sometimes I remember the story of "Lady Be Good."

In the early years of World War II after the United States forces invaded northern Africa, crude airstrips were established on the desert, and bombing runs across the Mediterranean were begun on Axis targets in Italy.

"Lady Be Good" was a Flying Fortress, B 17 bomber, that was making these long and dangerous flights. The night this plane was tragically lost the crew had made it to Italy and was returning on a radio beam from the desert air strip. When the beam would come on the Lady be Good made certain it was on a straight line toward home.

The crew never knew until it was too late that they had a strong tail wind that brought them back much sooner than expected. With no visual point of reference they simply overflew the directional signal and kept straight on until they ran out of gas and came down in the Libyan desert more than a hundred miles south of the coast and water. They were LOST. They simply disappeared off the face of the earth no one knew they had overflown their base into the heart of the desert.

Their plane has been almost perfectly preserved in the dryness the men themselves survived the emergency landing only to die of thirst in the desert with no one knowing where they might be.

This story has always been a classic object lesson to me, personally, that doing MY best and following rules, even good rules, is not enough. These men were literally "on the beam." And perhaps the chilling part of this story is that people can be lost and not even know they are lost until it has ruined their lives or worse.

In order to find our way in this world there has to be a dependable point of reference, a point of personal contact with God. The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes and the guidance of scripture are all good, but they cannot save us, and we can keep them all so far as human effort is concerned and still be lost.

"Lost" is being where you're not supposed to be. "Lost" is not really knowing where you belong, or how to get there. [I had a son to get lost in a great museum in Manhattan one day; it still frightens me more than thirty years later!] "Lost" is having no valid point of reference outside of "self." A great proportion of society today is unaware that there is any reference point beyond what looks good, or feels good, or seems good at the moment. The worst kind of being lost is not having a clue that you are lost at all.

These people Jesus was talking to when he told these stories about "lost" and "found" did not think at all that they were lost themselves! They were sure and certain they knew all about God and what God expects; they "knew" they didn't need Jesus or anything he could tell them. And one thing for sure, the Pharisees are not the only people who ever thought they knew more than anyone else about right and wrong.

These people thought they were all right because they went to church and kept rules. Whenever religion becomes a matter strictly of "doing" with no reference point for "being" we have people who are lost and don't even know they are lost. The three stories about being "Lost and Found" in Luke 15 are a warning to people not to just DO RELIGION apart from really knowing GOD.

How do we find ourselves? What do we DO to be FOUND? The answer is WE don't!

The message is: GOD IS THE SEEKER ! He is looking for us! We're the sheep! We're the coin! The stories of our Gospel lesson speak of one who seeks the lost one who turns the house upside down looking for the lost.

So– what do we do to be saved? How can we be sure we're not LOST?

If you care at all about your relationship with God I can tell you that grace is at work in your life! If you even THINK that maybe you need to find God and move closer Him, then you can be sure that grace is already at work in your life. If you WANT a God centered faith, you are a lot closer that you might think. Being FOUND is there for the asking.

I remember a story of the sea from days gone by.

A sailing vessel had become becalmed off the coast of South America and had drifted for days with not enough wind to go anywhere. Their supplies had been low when the wind had died, and now they were becoming desperate for drinking water. They prayed for rain, prayed for a wind, but just scorching sunshine. Then over the horizon came a coal burning steamship. They shouted and hoisted flags, and soon the ship turned and came toward the becalmed vessel.

They shouted as soon as they could make themselves heard "Do you have any water for us? We're dying of thirst?"

They thought they heard the reply "Let down your casks into the sea?" They asked again and got the same strange answer. Anyone knows that to drink sea water doesn't quench thirst and is inviting death. "Let down your casks where you are right now!"

Someone threw over a bucket on a line and hoisted it on deck, and, amazingly, it was sweet and fresh. The reason they has drifted into the mouth of the Amazon River, which is 100 miles wide when it flows into the ocean. They had been dying of thirst with water to drink all around them.

There are people not far from where we are right now who are drying up in spirit, and dying of spiritual thirst with the provisions of God all around them. We don't have to DO anything to bring God where we are. But maybe we DO need to let down our buckets into the water of life!

GOD IS HERE!

He is here, waiting for us to recognize Him and ask His help in putting him at the center of our lives.

We can respond to a God that seeks us in our lost condition.

Pray with me:

INTO COMMUNION - Make the confession count: make the prayer your own.