"Back to School: Finding"
Dean AngellOctober 15/16, 2005
This story is taken from a book written a few years ago a very deep theological book called, “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten” by Robert Folgum.
“In the early dark of an October’s Saturday evening, the neighborhood children are playing hide-and-seek. How long since I played hide-and-seek? Thirty years; maybe more, but I remember how and I could become part of the game in a moment, if invited. But adults don’t play hide-and-seek. Not for fun, anyway and that’s too bad.
Did you have a kid in your neighborhood that always hid so well, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would just give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was and sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn’t keep looking for him And we would get mad back; because he wasn’t playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. “There’s hiding and there’s finding,” we’d say. And he’d say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP, and we’d all yell about who made the rules; and how we wouldn’t play with him anymore, if he didn’t get it straight, and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He’s probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know.
As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves, in the yard just under my window. He’s been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they’re about to give up on him over at home base I considered going out to the base and telling them where he was hiding. And then I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out and finally, I just yelled, “GET FOUND, KID!” out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It’s real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes (he goes on to say).
A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. (And he knew about dying), but he didn’t want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret and died and everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn’t need them, and that he didn’t trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn’t say good-bye.
You see he hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game and yes, adults play the game too, only the rules are a bit different: (wanting to hide, needing to be sought, and confused about being found.) (that’s) hide-and-seek, grown-up style.”
In Luke chapter 15, in the Bible, Jesus dedicates a complete chapter to this whole theme of hide and seek; of being lost and then found. “Let me set the scene a bit “ There is a group of people gathered around Jesus waiting to hear Him. Some of them were tax collectors and sinners, (it says) not a very nice or respectable group of people. Others in the group were called Pharisees – they were the religious leaders of the day – very nice, very respectable people who didn’t associate with sinners because they thought they were better than those. And Jesus needed both groups to hear the truth about their spiritual lives and to face up with the truth about being human – that we want to hide, and that we need to be sought out, and that we are confused about how to be found. So, as Jesus often did, He told a story, a very direct story, to get his point across to both groups.
And today I want to tell you the same story Jesus told, to look at why we hide, and to discover how it is that God goes about finding us, and just like Jesus’ listeners you will have a chance to respond to His story. Funny – I’ve read this story before – you’ll see in a moment.
Hear this, Luke 15:3-7 – “Then Jesus told them this parable: ‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who turns to God than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.’”
Now, there are more than a few things from this story that parallel our game of hide and seek and the way we live our lives. The first parallel is this:
- We have a need to be sought.
What Jesus does here, is He talks about God and human beings in hide and seek language. (Now you know how “hide and seek” works, right?) Everyone runs off and hides and one person seeks and the fun part is in the hiding – because if you hide you get to be in control, you decide where and with whom you are going, you get to keep your eyes open, and really, you call the shots. The harder job is to be the one who seeks – that’s just not really as fun as the hiding. The seeker has to let everyone of the hiders run away from him and place himself in the awkward and humble position of the one who searches for people who are trying to evade him, who are laughing at his inability to find them. Nobody wants that job, because everyone avoids you. That person, (the seeker) doesn’t even get a title, or a real name. What do we call the one who seeks in “hide and seek”? We say “You’re IT”. Not captain - IT. Not Chief Executive - IT. Not Professor – IT. Just “it”. “You’re IT!” Nobody wants to be it. In fact, how does the game begin? With everyone saying “Not it – not it – not it!” “I don’t want to be it I don’t want to be associated with it in any form! It - isn’t for me – at all.” And so the one who is it, searches for those who are hiding and lost to him.
Have you ever searched from something that is lost? When our kids were small (like babies)– the thing we searched for the most was for soothers, pacifiers. All three of our kids took them as babies, and needed them to quiet down at night or during the day and if you are a parent with small children you will connect very much with what I’m gonna say next.
At any rate, as you know, when a baby is used to their soother, they can’t sleep without it and they cry But as a baby, they can’t tell you where they dropped it, spit it out, or hid it. And so, when it’s bedtime, or in the blackness of night, or in the thousands of square feet of a West Edmonton mall, we searched for soothers as the babies would scream This was a huge bone of contention at our house and my line was always the same, “can we not fix it so it can’t be lost?” “Glue it, tape it, tie it somehow so that it doesn’t get lost?” Or another option is this (especially in the middle of the night), I just wanted to buy a case of soothers and hand them out at will. But, I’m always amazed when I think back at the lengths we would go to and the time we would spend searching for soothers. By the time our kids were out of diapers my guess is that I had spent 11 months of my life searching for soothers. It’s amazing really what you will do to find something lost, and to help someone you love, and it’s amazing what satisfaction comes over you when you can calm a baby and watch them go to sleep contented. Do you see the parallel?
Folks – do you have any idea the lengths that God goes to in order to find lost people? He longs to be in relationship with His people; He longs to break down the walls that separate you and Him. He longs to build into your life; He longs for you to be found by Him and His heart breaks when He isn’t in complete communion, and in relationship, with you. His greatest desire is to be with you, and He will go to any lengths to try to search you out.
Now, the story Jesus tells is one of searching – a shepherd searching for a sheep. But really, the story is about God searching for human beings, about God’s search for us. Now, as you look at the story, who is “it” in the story? Who searches? Well, “it” is God. The shepherd is “it” in the game. God is “it” in this game we play of hide-and-seek, and God is the One who searches for hiding people.
You know, often, when people have a spiritual awakening in their lives, they refer to it as the day they found God. They’ve finally seen the light, or they say, “I found Jesus and He has changed my life.” Now, these are all wonderful explanations, but from a theological (hide-and-seek type) perspective, they are completely backwards because the truth of the matter is, (as Jesus says), the one who is “it” finds us, not vice versa. That’s how the game is played.
Now, let me explain the other side to that this weekend and really all throughout this fall.
Many of you are beginning your spiritual journeys and in a way– you’re seeking and searching also in fact, lots of you are here for that reason – you are searching for God, and maybe just lately you find yourself asking questions and reading books or taking classes because the answers to your spiritual questions seem elusive. It is a good thing to search for God. In fact, the Bible says we can all search with confidence. God says, “seek with all your heart, because when you do, you will find Me.” It’s a promise to all those who seek Him. But guess what? That is not the whole truth. The truth is that we are not only searchers we are also hiders. (That’s the next thing I’d like you to hear today) – there is an art to hiding.
In any good game of hide-and-seek, good hiding is part of the success of the game. Under a pile of leaves, or in the back of dad’s pickup truck, or in the middle of a bush. Good hiding, in this game is an art, (as it is in the game of life.) And we humans have refined that art to a tee. From the very first human being on, we have been hiding. Remember the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden – and how they ate that apple from the tree God had told them not to eat from. And how they had sinned and when God came to look for them this was Adam’s response (right from the Bible): Adam says to God “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid and so I hid.” (Seems sort of futile – actually physically hiding from God) – amazing. See, hiding has always been our first tendency to run from God when we do bad things, or to avoid facing the truth about our condition and ourselves. To avoid being confronted by God for what it is we’re becoming, and so we hide. The Bible describes it like this “All we, like sheep, have gone astray.” We all have turned to our own way and all of us have run from God’s plan for our lives, and we have a hard time facing up to it, so we choose to hide from God. See folks, sin always involves a choice to hide from God. So let’s cut right to the chase. How do we do it? Who sins? Who hides from God? Well, I thought about that quite a bit lately, (who hides from God?).
- It is the man whose priorities are so messed up that his kids don’t even know him, and he can’t remember the last time he prayed or thought seriously about God. He’s the one who says, “I’ll do that someday, when there’s time.” And he is ignoring his soul and he’s chasing something else – anything else, but he’s hiding
- And it is the woman who is filled with anger towards her husband, and towards her children, and towards God for not giving her the kind of family or marriage she wants to have. She’s angry, but few people ever see it – it sits just below the surface and once in a while it surfaces and it’s ugly, and it scares her. She’s hiding from God.
- And it’s a couple that comes to church every week – and they’re friendly and clean cut, sort of above average folks. But there’s a problem – the husband is involved in a sexual addiction that he can’t control anymore. He’s ashamed, and wishes he could stop, but he doesn’t wish that he could stop it enough to get help, and to confess it. And he’s hiding.
And it’s not just them – everyone of us in this room knows how to hide from God. Whether it’s mistakes, betrayals, cheating, laziness, rage, greed, addictions, dishonesty, arrogance, (or a whole bunch of other stuff) – lustfulness and sin are pretty easily discovered as we look inside.
What did the Bible say? “All we, like sheep, have gone astray.” Folks, every sheep is lost and that goes back to Jesus’ story. See in Jesus story there is an assumption made: the assumption is that that one sheep who is lost will never make it back to the flock by itself – and the shepherd must go find that sheep. Why is that? Well, the bottom line is that sheep are not very bright. (Now, get a cow on the other hand, and that’s a whole different story. But a sheep isn’t too bright.) Think about this. I’ve been studying this, most animals that are smart, that are intelligent in our society, end up getting a TV series or movie of their own, because they’re so smart. Think about it, when I was a kid there was – a smart dolphin, Flipper; a smart dog, Lassie; a smart horse, Black Beauty, and now if you’re a talking donkey – you get to be on Shrek and if your a smart cat, Garfield; or how about a smart pig named Babe? But no sheep. Sheep are just a little too dumb to even get a TV show. And just in case you’re wondering, (for those of you who lives in the 70’s), Shari Lewis’ Lambchop doesn’t count – that’s not a real sheep. I hate to ruin the dream for you, but that was Shari Lewis’ hand talking (all those years), not Lambchop’s mouth.
One writer of sheep puts it like this:
“Sheep are notorious creatures of habit. Left to themselves, they will follow the same trail until it turns into ruts, grace the same hills until they become wasteland, and pollute the same ground until it becomes corrupt with disease.” Sheep just aren’t too bright. And they are also followers. If there is a whole flock of sheep moving and one of them goes over a side of a cliff, guess what happens to the rest of the flock? They all will just follow right over – every one of them, plunging impulsively into the same hurtful and reckless course of action one after the other. Sheep are just not very bright at all.
Now the sheep in Jesus’ situation had one thing going for it – that sheep knew it was lost. That sheep never said to the shepherd, (“I’m not in bad shape, there are other sheep a lot worse off than me.”) This sheep is not in denial – its eyes are open, it knows it’s lost. It knows it needs to be saved! Folks, do you get what I’m saying? I’m not talking about sheep – I’m talking about you and me.
Which leads to the third thing I want you to remember today. Not only are we being searched for by God, and not only are we hiding from Him, but sadly, there is a confusion about foundness. We are confused about how to be found. That sheep knew it needed to be found, knew it was lost, knew that it needed to be saved. But what of us? (honestly) We’re a little confused about being found. We often say, “If I’m just good enough, I think I’ll be okay,” or “If I do more good things than bad things, everything will balance or I can keep sinning and I’ll be okay – my soul will continue to expand out “ And folks, the Bible is very clear on this. (It says the wages of sin is death, that on our own we’re lost, we are without hope.) We cannot earn our way back to God, and to the Shepherd. We need to be saved, (on our own) we need to be found . . And it is only God who keeps our soul and our actions in line only God. Now here’s the good news it’s very possible to be found The place where lost sheep are found is the cross, that’s the place where Jesus paid the penalty for our lostness and if it helps, think of it in terms of a debt, a debt of sin we just couldn’t pay (not one of us could pay it on our own). But Jesus paid it, and He paid it with His life. Jesus suffered for our punishment; He took our penalty and by His death on the cross, He wiped out our sin so that we might be found. “All we, like sheep, have gone astray.” That verse ends by saying this: We have turned to our own way, and the Lord has placed on Him (on Jesus) the sin, the lostness of us all.” And the cross is our only hope of being found, our only hope of salvation, our only hope of not remaining lost and our only hope of getting rid of the sin that strangles our lives.
Now, there were two groups listening to Jesus. Remember – group #1, a corrupt group, people who cheated and lied and lived lives with no moral integrity they were clearly a group of sinners. But group #2 (listening to Jesus) thought of themselves as good people. They were very religious, paid their taxes, and were good citizens, lived good lives. But the difference between the 2 groups is this, the corrupt guys were lost and they knew it; the second group was lost but they didn’t think they were. They were confused about their need to be saved, (to be found). This group wasn’t even as smart as the sheep in Jesus’ story – (at least that sheep knew he was lost)
(All we, like sheep, have gone astray.) Now, some of you here already understand your basic lostness to God, and have begun your journey back to the Shepherd. You’ve done that. Some of you (lots of you), are just here to learn – you don’t know much about God or Jesus or the cross or being lost and found and you need time to ponder, to think, to search out if you want to be found by God. (That’s what weekends are all about at Lakeview Church. Open invitation – come and investigate Christianity). Continue on your search for God. If you seek, you’ll find, I know that.
But some of you in this room, I need to talk straight to you, cut to the chase. You’re the group that is kinda stubborn about your state of being lost. You’re following the flock over the edge of the cliff and you don’t know it. Maybe it’s your pride or a kind of hard-heartedness at a deep soul level. Whatever it is, it causes you to refuse to see that you are lost, to refuse to acknowledge your need to be saved. It causes you to refuse to open up to God and say, “I am a sinner. I need a Saviour. I am lost and I need to be found.”
And folks, those of us who have been following God for a while – know how to hide as well. I mean – it is really remarkable that we think we can have that secret addiction or make some pretty brutal moral choices or have a judgmental condemning attitude towards others and think that it won’t affect our hearts. We think we can hide our actions from God and by so doing we block His light from shining into every corner. We hide and He seeks. He seeks to shine brightly into every part of our lives.
Here’s the bottom line. It’s a bit of a danger warning that says this…
(Every time God tugs at your heart and your heart says no, it gets a little harder inside) Some of you are at a crossroads this weekend about whether your gonna stay hidden or not. If that’s you, hear the end of Jesus’ story again. When the shepherd finds the sheep, he doesn’t run up and get mad at the sheep and say, (“You stupid sheep! How come you ran off?! You only have yourself to blame. Didn’t you know you’d get hurt? Now, don’t come bleating back to me!”) No, the shepherd doesn’t say that at all. The shepherd simply opens up his arms and gathers the sheep around him, goes home, and throws a party. The story ends with a shepherd filled with compassion, with a heart so full. (And the story ends with the fading laughter of all the sheep together at his homecoming celebration). A bunch of laughing sheep together with the Shepherd. Amazing
Now, as we hear this story, a startling understanding should be taking place, because Jesus Himself is that good Shepherd. Jesus has come as God in human form, (and He’s here today) searching for lost people, and searching for you, searching for me. Jesus wasn’t just a good guy who told some great stories, He is the Son of God and He came to seek and to save we who are lost.
If you want to get found - today’s a great day to do that
Been hiding?
Come out in the open – confess – I’m lost – I’m a sinner – I need a
Saviour. Great things happen in our lives when we quite hiding.
You know someone reminded me last night (Bart Gilbert), that when we played “hide and seek” as kids after the one who was “it” found you, your job was then to help him seek after you got found. You helped find the one’s who were still hiding (until everyone got found), and in a way that’s how God has designed the church to work.
That if we get found by God first our job is to help Him find others and I gotta tell you – That is a very clear picture/description of what were trying to do here at Lakeview Church We’re just doing all that we can to help people get found by God that’s why we do what we do every weekend. We’re trying to make church/Jesus very available and accessible for people who are seeking, especially in these 10 weeks between now and Christmas. These weekends (coming up) are gonna break down a lot of barriers for people who are seeking. It’s gonna be awesome. So I want to challenge you to get in the game. We’ve opened up another 200 seats on the weekends for people who want to seek answers to their spiritual questions. Confession - I pray every week that God will allow each of you the chance to use your influence and my voice to help hundreds be found by Him. So bring people during the weeks ahead, step out boldly and help people in their search for God. These 200 seats are empty now – but each one of them (from God’s perspective) has a name attached to it. together lets continue to look outward to the next group of people that want to be found – use your influence and invite folks.
