Being Lost and How to Fix It

I have been lost more than once.

I can look back through many different times in my life.

and think of different times when I didn't know where I was going or how to get there or I thought I knew and I was wrong or went the wrong road and drove too far.

That's happened to me more than once.

It's usually not a nice experience to be lost.

Sometimes it's irritating.

Sometimes it can be dangerous.

If you're lost at Disney World, if you can't find your car, that's irritating.

It's not usually dangerous.

If you're scuba diving in Michigan under the ice in the winter and you can't find where you came up out of a hole, that's probably a little dangerous.

The theme of being lost is a common one that we Christians use.

We just sang the song about seeking the loss.

Our scripture reading from Luke 19 states, the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

And if saving the lost is why Jesus came to this earth, it sounds kind of important.

So maybe we'd better pay attention to that.

And I want to spend a little bit of time this morning exploring the concept of being lost, the concept of finding our way of getting directions and progressing in the Christian walk.

The Bible talks a lot about being lost and about being found.

It talks about saving the lost.

And one of my favorite areas where this is discussed is in the three parables told by Jesus in Luke 15 about the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son.

Now, if you want to know what God thinks, and if you want to know what Jesus thinks is important, one of the best ways is to look at what He said when He was here on this earth.

One of the best ways to do that is to listen to the parables that he told to illustrate a specific point.

Now on a side note, I really appreciate the parables of Jesus because it shows that he's sensitive to people like me.

Now let me tell you what I mean.

If you know me, you know that I'm just a tad impatient at times.

especially when I have to sit in meetings and especially if the meetings tend to drag on and on and somebody is lecturing and they say the same thing over and over and we're not making much progress.