To view the video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkasKgSxoqw
SHOW NOTES
On today's episode of the Hope Rescue Podcast, Tim and Kimberly continue their series on God’s heart for the messy, the wounded, and the broken. They start by explaining how God goes to great lengths to search for the lost. Kimberly starts with a story about recently losing her mother’s rings. In the past year, Kimberly and Tim decided to sell their family home of seventeen years, and in the process of packing up their belongings, she misplaced the two rings her mother had recently gifted her. These rings were incredibly sentimental to Kimberly, not only because they were from her mother but also because she was gifted them right after having brain surgery to have her brain tumor removed. Once she checked the safe and realized they were not where she remembered placing them, she began searching frantically. She went through all their drawers and closets, and she looked in any practical place one would think to put a ring. Feeling defeated and devastated, Kimberly continued to pray daily and trust God that the rings would appear. On the final day before they moved, Kimberly went back through the same drawers she had searched already, and back in the far right corner in a tiny silk pouch were the rings. Although the rings were insignificant in the grand scheme of things, they had so much significance to Kimberly, and when she found them, she celebrated. When searching for the lost, the Lord never gives up. When something precious goes missing, you will do anything to get it back, just like the Lord does searching for the lost.
As Tim and Kimberly discussed in Episode 2, the three parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son are Jesus’s response to the Pharisees accusation in Luke 15:1-2 that He “...receives sinners and eats with them.” In the Parable of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15:4-5 scripture says, "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” Tim explains that this parable is a beautiful picture of the way that God not only searches for the lost but also carries them back when they can’t find their way. To answer the question simply, the Pharisees want to know why Jesus hangs out with sinners, and the answer is because He loves them.
Kimberly goes on to ask Tim a couple of questions, the first being, “Why do some churches seem to want people to conform to moral standards that are not present in scripture?”
Tim answers by calling it “the spirit of legalism” explaining that although rules are not bad, keeping these rules does not make a person spiritual. When a person correlates keeping rules to being spiritual, that is when legalism creeps in. Tim explains that we need to take people where they are at and help them move forward instead of marginalizing them, rejecting them, and taking them to a place of shame.
The second questions is “Why do some churches make it safer to help sinners than others?”
Tim answers “A lot of churches that have it right have taken on a mission of love. Not that they watered down the gospel, not that they changed Truth, but they accommodate where people are at in order to get into the heart of people who are wounded. That’s what Jesus did. He actually spent time with sinners to get to know sinners in order to help sinners.” Tim then references Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” The gospel is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and on the third day, he rose from the dead. That penalty was paid for our salvation, and we can’t be ashamed of this or water it down. All you have to do is believe in the Gospel, and you can have eternal life and salvation. The Good News is that God is pursuing you and all the people in your life who may believe they have gone too far! You can never go too far for God, and His mission is always to save the one lost sheep.
Join us next week to find out if God personalizes our bad behavior! We love you guys!
QUOTES
“Messy, broken, wounded people are children of God, and He will pursue them with all the tenacity of a parent who loses a child.” -Tim
“Jesus goes to wherever the sinner is, loves them well, and moves them forward instead of saying ‘Once you clean up your life you can come to me.’” -Tim
“What I love about Jesus’s response to the Pharisees is that He goes for the one. Whether you have 100 sheep, ten coins, or two sons.” -Tim
“When Adam and Eve sinned in Genesis chapter three, the response of God was not rejection; it was pursuit.” -Tim
REFERENCED SCRIPTURE
Luke 15:1-2: Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
Luke 15:4-5: "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
