Lamps, Brooms, and Confetti | Max Lucado | The Porchlight Is On | Oak Hills Church

51:39 A porch just makes me think about lemonade, love, laughter. Most of all, a porch makes me think about coming home. The whole Bible is dedicated to God's welcome home message. One chapter in particular stands out. as every single word contributes to his invitation to meet him on the porch. Luke chapter 15. Yes, right in the heart of Luke's gospel is the heart of God's gospel. And we're dedicating our Sunday sermons to conversations about Luke 15. Three stories, three parables, three messages, all working together to invite us to come home.

52:38 Your homework assignment, read Luke 15 each week this fall. Read it each day if you want. And don't miss a single message. And if you happen to miss one of the first two, they're online. Take a moment. You don't want to miss the great chapter of redemption. We continue the series today under this title, lamps, brooms, and confetti. Let's pray. what if you were to return today dear lord what if even at this moment you have signaled to the angel who holds the trumpet that it's time for the trumpet blast that you will rend the heavens and enter and rapture your church what if this is it? What if this is our last time?

53:40 My prayer is that you would find us attentive, clear-minded, sober- thinking, undistracted, willing, hungry, hearts tender, Bibles open. We would like to invite you to come. We'd also request you forgive our speaker for his sins are many. And help us to see Christ, just Christ. Through Christ we pray. And all God's people said.

54:15 A wedding ring languishes in the dirt of the hills somewhere in the area of Fort Worth, Texas. It's a very affordable, unimpressive wedding ring. bought for $120 in 1981 at a discount jewelry store by a fourth-grade teacher. It bears no initials, has no jewels, no diamonds, nothing that would make you want it, nothing that would make you covet it, nothing that would make you even think about it. but I think about it quite often because it was mine. How it fell out of my golf bag, I do not know. What I do know is that it is impossible to find a missing wedding ring that is somewhere on the acreage of a golf course.

55:21 I tried. The July sun was hot, but still I looked. I retraced my steps, walked the entire course. My friends needed to go home. I told them to go on. I kept looking. The maintenance crew was helpful, but still no luck. We never did find that ring. It was a sad occasion, but if it has served any benefit, it helps me appreciate the message that Jesus shared in the second of three parables in Luke chapter 15. It reads like this.

56:03 Suppose a woman has ten silver coins but loses one. She will light a lamp, sweep the house, and look carefully for the coin until she finds it. And when she finds it, she will call her friends and neighbors and say, be happy with me because I have found the coin that I lost. In the same way. there is joy in the presence of the angels of God when one sinner changes his heart and life.

56:42 The story could hardly be briefer, just three verses. The parable could hardly be simpler. Something lost, something found, pursuit, and then party. and the promise could hardly be more beautiful. Jesus will not sit still as long as one of his treasures is missing. He owns a lamp, he owns a broom, and he's going to use both to shine light and stir things up. You're going to love this story. Not everyone who first heard it did. However, before we unpack it, can we be reminded of the people who first heard it? There were outsiders and there were insiders. We know this by turning back to verse 1.

57:38 By this time, a lot of men and women of questionable reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. They were the outsiders. They were the bikers, the brawlers, the dancers, the drinkers. And they were prone to run around, sleep around, and get around. They lived by that old line, don't take life too seriously because no one gets out of it alive. Among the fun lovers were tax collectors. That's mentioned elsewhere in the chapter. Tax collectors. These were Jewish turncoats who padded their pockets with money levied by the Roman government. You see, Rome let them keep anything they could get out of the people they taxed as long as Rome got its share. So they taxed everything, every person, all the time.

58:34 They levied their way into fancy homes and fancy clothes and fancy jewelry. good Jews would spit in the ground at the very thought of them no one wanted anything to do with the first century version of an IRS agent no one that is except Jesus word on the street was that he would hit the streets to be friends with the lonely and the friendless these outsiders were drawn to Christ. These insiders were ticked off at him. They were the religious hierarchy, the clergy, the pastors, the priests, the scholars, the seminarians, and they kept their distance from the riffraff. They looked down their noses at them.

59:29 The self-righteous spirit still exists. During the early days of my ministry, I served at a church in Miami, Florida, and because of our proximity to the inner city, we had plenty of opportunities to interact with the very types of people whom Jesus loved to teach. One of our staff members had a special heart for the homeless, and he was known to show up at church on Sunday mornings with a guest who smelled like the street on which he had slept the night before. And most of the members, the vast majority of the members were thrilled with this, were happy with this, supported him in this, applauded him in this. But there were a few arched eyebrows. One of them, an older fellow, who liked the church to be unsoiled by the soiled, took this young pastor to task.

1:00:30 And one day he said to him, these people that you bring to church are a bit odd, don't you think? The minister was quick on his feet. And he said, well, no odder than the ones you bring. He said, what do you mean the ones I bring? And the young minister said, well, your guests are invisible. Jesus would have chuckled at that reply.

1:01:00 Every detail about these three parables cooperates to proclaim one message, and that is God has a place for the lonely, the lost, and the left out. Consider this simple story about the coin, for example. It contains a promise, and that is God searches for the lost. the primary character in this parable is a woman that in and of itself would have ticked off the pharisees a woman jesus is going to center stage a a female pecking orders in ancient israel kept women a few rungs down the ladder not christ when the adulterous woman needed defense when a sick woman needed help when a desperate mother needed an answer to prayer, Jesus was always there to give it. So it only makes sense that one of his stories, these three stories intended to reveal the kindness of God, that one of them would include a woman. This particular woman had 10 coins drachma they were called a drachma d-r-a-c-h-m-a one drachma was worth a day's wage a day's wage doesn't sound like a lot but then again the woman may not have had a lot wealth is relative after all it's possible that this coin was the equivalent of one-tenth of her available income. It's also possible that this coin was part of her dowry. The father of the bride would present the couple with a dowry, with a gift of money. And this gift of money could come in handy if there was ever a crisis in the family, if there was a job loss, if there was sickness, or if the husband died. The money would be valuable at that point. Whatever the

1:03:12 The origin of the coins, we know this. The coin meant much to the lady. It was valuable to her. She still had nine, but she wasn't about to chalk up the lost one just to the cost of doing business. She was determined to find her coin. Let's try to imagine this. Picture a small, simple village, a small, simple house, four walls. a door, an entryway, low entryway, no windows, a place for ventilation of smoke. That's about it. It was dark on the inside. The floor was made of dirt, and the dirt had cracks. And inside the cracks, there were debris. and on a given day this housewife do you mind if we just call her Gladys Gladys realized that her coin bag was just slightly light so she poured the coins out on the table and counted them one two three four five six seven eight Thank you.

1:04:28 She counted again. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Huh. Count again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. One of them is gone. does she give it away no does she spend it no, but one of her coins is missing. And when she realized that one of the coins is missing, she does what women do best. She went on a search. According to Jesus, Gladys searched, he uses the word carefully.

1:05:22 It's a Greek word that means with urgency, urgency and complete focus we can relate to this we've had this happen in our lives right dinalyn my wife and i we lost not a drachma we lost a daughter we have three but we lost one we left six-year-old sarah at cracker barrel it was on a Sunday we went to church as we always have to do in two cars and so we went then to lunch at the restaurant all three daughters but when we got home we only had two we didn't lose the drachma we lost a daughter i thought sarah six-year-old sarah was with deanland deanland thought sarah was with me so we jumped in my car and hightailed it back to cracker barrel parked got out hurried in you know we never have found her she's still missing all these many years there she was in that little shopping gift section we searched urgently so did the woman she was missing one of her 10 coins so she did this she lit a lamp the interior was dark the sun had set the walls were thick she needed light So she poured oil into a clay lamp and dropped a wick onto the oil.

1:07:15 She then lit the floating waxy thread and set out about the house. She lowered herself down on her hands and knees and she examined the corners. She moved the chairs and the tables. She hovered the flame over the tiniest of openings. No nook or cranny was off limits to this lady. Gladys was a woman on a mission. Women do this so well.

1:07:47 We men, we succeed at losing things, misplacing things, forgetting things. Women, you can say amen if you want. and when we men cannot find something we do what my wife would tell you that I do I ask her she has this built-in device this radar it's it's like she can see the whole house at once and she know oh that's up in that oh it's over just to go look how does she do this the women who listen to Jesus tell this parable listened and nodded thinking I can relate to Gladys the husbands who listen to this parable nodded thinking I'm married to Gladys the woman however meets with no success the lamp chases away the shadows but it does not disclose the location of the coin.

1:08:52 So it's time for tool number two. What is it? A broom. She made it using straw on a tree branch. She sweeps furiously, stirring up little clouds of dust. Pebbles get flung, leaves get swept, but no coin is to be found until, what is that? is it maybe she spots something over in the corner her eye falls on something shiny in a crack in her dirt floor and she hurries over and she leans over and she looks closely and she pulls it up and holds it up and looks and says eureka I found it.

1:09:44 And you know what she does next? She releases a sign, and she takes the coin, and she returns it to her purse, and she looks sheepishly around, hoping nobody saw this. She lost it in the first place, and she goes about her day, resolving to never say another word about it, right? Far from it. You know what she does? Gladys throws a party, a drachma party. She orders a cake from the local bakery. She calls her son-in-law, who's the band director of the local high school. Assemble the band, she says. We're going to have a parade. Her neighbor next door, Thelma, had just had a birthday party. And so she runs over to Thelma, to her house, and knocks on the door and says, Thelma, you still got any of those party favors? Hats, confetti, ribbons, tablecloths.

1:10:46 And Thelma is soon at the door with an arm full of party supplies and the word is soon on the street that something grand is happening at the home that sits on the corner of Lost and Found. Villagers crowd into the humble cottage. Oh, it's a busy, fun place. they're happy to drink the punch, happy to eat the cake. There's so many people, some of them don't even know what the party's about.

1:11:19 One of them says to the other, hey, this is a blast. What are we here celebrating? And he says, come here, I'll show you. And the two elbow their way through the crowded cottage until they come to a table. And there on the table, there's a six-inch tall velvet box. And at the top of this velvet box, there's a small box that has leaning against it a drug mat, a coin. and when they look at the coin, both of their eyes begin to mist,

1:11:57 and one of them swallows a lump, and one puts the arm around the other, and they gaze at that was lost, now found coin, and they start to weep with joy, and they hug each other, and then they back up, and they dance a jig, it's time for celebration and the whole place erupts

1:12:24 we'd do the same Or would we? a person would be forgiven for thinking. A bit of an overreaction, don't you think? I mean, yeah, it's a coin, but she still has nine.

1:12:50 And I'm happy she found it, but party, come on. Remember, however, that this coin represents more than currency, but this coin represents a human being, a soul, a person. and when Jesus has a person, and this person is lost, and Jesus finds the person. nothing is greater.

1:13:35 And the promise is this. When a soul gets lost, Jesus will do whatever it takes to find it. Paige Lohman knows what it's like to feel lost. She was eight years old when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. The family turned all their attention toward the treatment of the disease. The page felt left out, forgotten, a bit like a lost coin. she prayed for her mom, but her mom, the condition worsened.

1:14:33 And as the condition worsened, and as Paige grew into adolescence, she found herself angry at God. And when her mom died, something inside of Paige died as well. By the time she was 18 years old, she was addicted to black tar heroin. And the next couple of years were just an endless cycle of violence, excess, disaster. and loneliness. She supported herself by dancing in a men's club and serving as an escort.

1:15:34 And she recalls one night leaving a cheap hotel and catching a glimpse of herself in the motel room mirror. And she later said, I didn't even recognize the person I saw in the mirror. But then came the woman with the candle and the broom. Well, better said, there were several women, and they came not with a candle and a broom, but they came with smiles and warm food. and they visited with the dancers at the strip club. in the changing area backstage. They would talk and they would listen.

1:16:30 and Paige felt something begin to stir in her heart. She later wrote these words. These women came to tell us that we were loved, that God had a plan, even for girls like me, and that night I wrote on one of their prayer cards, God help me. it was her first prayer in years.

1:17:02 The change didn't occur overnight. The path out of the shadows led through rehab and AA. She stumbled more than once, but each time she fell, she was found, found by the one who refused to give up on her. These days, she's married. she's a mother of three she has a law degree she still goes to strip clubs but not to dance for the men but to tell the women what Jesus did for her Jesus. He was the shepherd in search of the sheep. He's the woman with the candle and the broom. He's the one.

1:17:56 who keeps the light on. He takes the initiative. He takes charge. He takes every opportunity to come searching, to come calling. And when he finds one, just one, just one, he celebrates.

1:18:26 So do the angels. So do the hosts of heaven. The saints sing. And the people of paradise have a party in honor of the soul that has been saved and the Savior who saved it. Do any of you feel like that lost coin? you're not sure how you ended up here at this stage of life in this situation it's kind of like you got dropped discarded maybe the person who was supposed to be in charge of you didn't pay attention You're not quite sure how you ended up in this mess, and you're sure not certain how to get out.

1:19:25 if you feel like a lost coin, here's what you need to know. Jesus has a candle. He has a candle. He is the light of the world. And he will not leave you in the dark. He will not. And he will shed light on your life. he will shed light on your life he will chase away the shadows so that you can see clearly you may be the only one in your family you may be the only one in your school you may be the only one in your circle that has this moment but he comes to you and you say oh now I see the light just went on he may speak through a friend he may speak through a praying grandma he may speak through a scripture or through a message that's on a billboard he may even speak through a sermon here's what you need to know he's out to get you because you're his and there is no exception to that rule he's got a candle You know what else he has?

1:20:50 Anybody want to guess? Got a broom. He's going to stir things up. Things are going to get changed. He'll turn the world upside down if that's what it takes to get you to look in his direction. Because he loves you that much. Job layoff.

1:21:13 Relationship issues. physical challenges. He'll use anything. Not because he doesn't love you. Just the opposite. Because he loves you so much. And his dream for you is out of this world. No, I never did get that wedding band located. I've long since given up on it. It's destined to... Maybe some archaeologists someday, if they're ever digging around in the dirt, and AI doesn't destroy Western civilization, maybe somebody will find it and say, look at this great relic. And they'll be right. It was special to one person. But I've given up.

1:22:06 But Jesus, never. not on you. not on your life. Help us, oh Father, to appreciate the depth that you have, the love that you have, the commitment that you have to save each soul.

1:22:30 And if there be any person in the earshot of my voice who thought that you had given up on them, now they know the truth. You haven't. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. The difference, however, between you and me and the coin, the coin really didn't have a choice, right? It was inanimate. You and I, we have a choice. have you made a choice? If you've said yes to Christ, I hope that these parables make you feel so grateful that though lost, you're now found. But if you've not said yes to Christ, then you know what it's like to be lost, and you're ready to be found. We're going to offer a prayer of salvation. I'm going to ask the entire church to repeat it out loud.

1:23:24 I'll ask you to stay in your seats for just a few moments. This is such an important, important time. Because people right now are considering whether or not they're going to let Christ find them. Say the prayer with me. And then at the end of the prayer, if you're saying yes to Christ, we'll invite you to stand up so we can celebrate.

1:23:44 Jesus, I'm not perfect, for I have sinned. But I believe in you. Save me. Change me. Forgive me. I give you my life in Jesus' name. Amen. who's saying yes to Christ would you stand up so we can celebrate your decision just rise to your feet stand up