A sermon based on Luke 15: 1-10 about how God comes to rescue us. A recording can be found below and the script below that.
When my wife and I were first dating we used to spend a lot of our time walking along the river and up the mountains around Abergavenny. And once we were climbing the Sugarloaf with some of our friends. We had made it up the one side to the top and were now coming down the other. This second side I knew very well as my Grampy had lived in a cottage halfway up so I’d been along that track many times. As we were coming down we passed the gate to the cottage (my grampy wasn’t living there anymore at this point but we still owned it) and I spotted a lamb inside the gate bleating loudly, it was trapped. Somehow it had got through the fence or over the walls from the mountainside into the cottage grounds and now couldn’t get back out.
So I climbed over the gate to try and pick it up and release it back over the wall. Of course at this point it bolted up along the boundary wall. Now when I say cottage grounds you might be picturing a beautiful little cottage surrounded by a small square garden of immaculate lawns and flower beds, possibly even a vegetable patch. What I’m actually talking about is a few acres on a fairly steep slope with a track running through from the gate, past the cottage and along to the back field. Sloping up on the left of the track and gate and down on the right. The right hand side is fairly unkempt fields. However on the left, up the hill, is a wood with fallen trees, overgrown brambles, roots sticking out everywhere all on a fairly steep slope. Which way did the lamb go? Up the hill on the left. So I’m chasing this lamb up along the 250m boundary, at the top of the grounds trying to keep my footing and not go tumbling down. Meanwhile the lamb is racing away from me as fast as its little legs can carry it. The boundary is a drystone wall, but to stop the sheep knocking it down there’s a wire fence next to it. I reach the far side of the boundary where the lamb is now cornered, and I can grab it and get it over the wall. Or so I think. Instead it turns, drops down into the gap between the fence and the wall and runs back the other way. I must have spent a good 10-20 minutes chasing this lamb back and forth along the top boundary. Meanwhile Katy and my sister are running along the track in the middle of the grounds in parallel in case the lamb runs down the hill. I tripped multiple times and got covered in dirt, the brambles hanging from trees and running up along the ground covered me in cuts. The lamb is bleating and somewhere over the fence I can hear its mother bleating back. Eventually we get it cornered back by the gate and Katy picks it up and pops it over the fence to its waiting mother. I then had to explain to my startled friends that my family owned the house and I wasn’t just chasing a lamb around some strangers land. That lamb is us. Off we wandered after stuff that seemed so great and exciting and then we suddenly realised we were stuck. We were lost and alone and trapped. Cut off from what we need to survive we faced certain death, crying out for help but no-one could help. Until God comes, He see’s we’ve got ourselves stuck on the wrong side of the fence and we freak out. The problem is, more often than not we’re not excited to be found are we? What was the response of the first humans when God found them where they shouldn’t be? They hid, they didn’t want to be found, they didn’t want God to know what they had done. Despite the fact that God had the way out, that only God could help them now, they hid. And so often that’s us. Even Christians of many years wander off somewhere we shouldn’t have gone. If the Israelites in our reading from Exodus (32:7-14), having just seen all the plagues which befell Egypt, and the escape through the sea, and being fed manna in the wilderness, if they could turn from God and end up where they shouldn’t, how much more easily can we? Despite all the wonders we might have seen God do we wander off and end up where we shouldn’t be. And when we realise we’re somewhere we shouldn’t be and worse, realise we are now trapped we don’t call out to God do we. Like that lamb we hide from God, we run away. We think that maybe if we can get ourselves back over the wall ourselves then we’ll let God find us. ‘Oh, Hi God, look I’m on the right side of the wall, nothing to see here, all good here thanks’. But we can’t get over the wall on our own, so we just end up running up and down trying to get out and just wearing ourselves out. And when we’ve finally worn ourselves out God gently picks us up and carries us back to safety. We were worried He’d tell us off for being so foolish to get stuck there weren’t we. But what we’d missed when we’d seen God and run and hidden was that he jumps over the gate without hesitation and pursues us. We think we are in trouble but it’s a rescue mission. He doesn't stand at the gate trying to beckon us to Him, making cooing noises to try and get us close enough to reach over and grab us. No, He jumps over the gate. Jesus is God jumping over the gate. He enters our world. He came from the glory of heaven into the dust and dirt of our world and is willing to get filthy chasing after us. And in chasing us takes no regard for himself but instead ends up covered in cuts, covered in blood. He dies pursuing us, He dies to bring us home to safety. God chased down each one of us here this morning. Rescued us from the mess we had got ourselves into. Some of us may have been Christians since we were born but each of us is known and loved by the God who pursued and rescued us. God didn’t sit back waiting for us to find Him, passively waiting for us. He came and sought us, actively seeking us out. He chased after us as we thought we’d got the answers, thought we could get ourselves free. He chased us as we repeatedly rejected His help and tried to get out without Him. Jesus came into this world to save each one of us. And when we inevitably wander off, again, He pursues us to bring us back to safety, if only we’d stop running away and let Him catch us. We know this, at least I hope we do. Each of us was once that lost sheep. There may be many times in our lives when we were like that lamb. We know this good news of the God who chases after us to rescue us. But the people out there don’t. More often than not if they think of God they think of the God waiting to tell them off, to punish them, to mete out divine wrath and judgement. But we know that actually He’s chasing them, coming to rescue them, to bring them home to safety. But they won’t know that if we don’t tell them. They won’t know that unless we get to know them and they get to know the ones God has already rescued, in meeting and knowing us they will get to know what God is like. But they won’t come in here of their own accord, they’re expecting God to judge them, they’re trying to get back over the wall to safety before they come in. Waiting until everything is fine. So it’s a good job God is already pursuing them rather than waiting for them to wander into His house. He chases after them as they think they’ve got the answers, think they can get themselves free. He chases them as they repeatedly reject His help and try to go without Him. And God invites us into that pursual, we are to join Him in rescuing the lost, in chasing those who have got themselves stuck on the wrong side of the wall. Not to tell them off but, with God’s help, to bring them back to safety, to bring them back into the fold. So this morning remember that God came into this world to save us, not waiting for us to take the initiative He came to us, chased us to rescue us from the mess we were in. And if you find yourself running from God ponder why. Are you running because you think He’s coming to condemn you? He’s not, He’s coming to bring you back to safety if you’ll let Him. Coming to rescue you. And sure in the knowledge of this, let’s go out to join God in rescuing those who don’t yet know Him. Those who are desperately trying to get themselves back over the wall themselves. Let’s bring them to God, that He might carry them to safety, that He might rescue them, as He rescued us. Amen
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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