Lost & Found (Week 2)

Well, good morning.

Forrest Coleman Lee, pastor here at Multiply.

If I've not met you yet, glad that you're here, myself, and about a hundred other folks launched the work of Multiply Church.

Next week will be two years where we celebrate our second birthday.

And then the week after that is Easter.

Wham! This is gonna be so great.

Before I get into my message in this series, lost some found.

I'm excited about Easter.

And uh you heard about the X hunt that's going on here in town.

Look at the social media, we got prizes that are happening.

It's kind of fun, like they just post a uh a clue of where this giant uh uh golden egg is in town, and then you have to race there to get as fast as you can to get the prize.

We're gonna have a little extra egg hunt that you can do for your friends.

Uh, and as you leave today, when you walk out, you're gonna get an egg that looks like this.

It's got a piece of candy and an invite to Easter uh multiply.

And what I would love for you to do with this, because everybody's gonna get one, is that neighbor or that coworker or that neighbor, like throw it in their yard close to their door.

So when they walk out, or that neighbor put it on the computer, you know, there at the at the desk or something, so that they find it and they get their own little uh they get their own little invite to Easter at multiply.

Now, some people are gonna walk out of their door, they're gonna see that egg and toss it in the trash, but maybe somebody's gonna look at it and the tears are gonna come to their eye because they've been asking for a sign from God.

And that's gonna be sitting there at their desk, or that's gonna be sitting there close to them.

So uh we're jumping into this uh sermon series again, the second week, Lost and Found, as we're taking a look at people in the Easter story who have lost their way or lost the path.

And uh you guys know as well as I do, maybe in your office or every single school or library or museum, there is one place with a random collection of junk called the Lost and Found, right?

It's like a closet and or it's like a box like this under some random desk, and it's always just filled with just the most random stuff, tons of umbrellas.

Um uh there's uh oh yeah, sunglasses, all the way people always leave in their sunglasses.

Um a jacket.

I lost a jacket four years ago at a restaurant.

I still miss that jacket.

I wish so bad that it was in the lost and found at that restaurant.

I love that jacket.

Uh and you know, sometimes it's like trivial things, you know.

Uh the coffee cup, everybody's losing their coffee cup all the time, right?

You can never find it.

But sometimes it's those things that when you realize it, when you've left that place, it's a wave of anxiety that hits you.

Like your wallet with your ID and all your credit cards.

Anybody been there before?

I'm so thankful with the restaurant.

When you leave it there, they like put it in the little host stand because that's been me before when I had to call and say, Do you have my credit card?

Please have my credit card, please have my credit card.

And thankfully they do.

Um, what about uh, ooh, this is good.

You get to the parking lot.

Ooh, where are these?

Oh man, pretty, pretty tough.

Um to say the least.

We all have uh things at times that we have that are lost, and we desperately want to find them.

And even for time to time, we ourselves find our state in a place where we have lost our path and need to be found.

And just like for our lives, that's you can lose trivial things or you can leave, you can lose things of great importance.

We've looked over this last week and continuing through the Easter story to look at some people that have walked on a different road or different path from Jesus or coming back to Jesus.

And in our uh story today, we look at a couple of different people.

One that has found their way, some that have lost their way.

And one thing that you don't ever see, probably in a lost and found, is uh some cologne.

This is my uh this is my polo blue.

Uh it's uh it's uh I like this stuff.

It's not super expensive, but what the story that we're gonna look at today, there was some very expensive perfume that was used in the story.

Now, where we are in the story, like last week, is before Jesus goes to Jerusalem.

Before he has the triumphal entry.

Next Sunday we celebrate what's called Palm Sunday, which is a celebration of when Jesus with his disciples made this entry, this grand entry into Jerusalem, where the people around all laid palm leaves on the ground and their coats down, and Jesus was marched into the city, and people behind him, they're all screaming, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest, and this beautiful moment of worship.

And just a short time later, the same people were screaming, Crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.

And we talked last Sunday about a man, Barnabas, a blind man that Jesus met on the road.

And how he received his sight.

And before the triumphal entry, as Jesus met Bartimaeus and Jericho, the Gospel of John tells us about a story that happens right before the triumphal entry, and that's the story that Jesus' friend, Lazarus, has died.

And Jesus goes to Bethany.

And Mary and Martha, who are Lazarus' sisters, meet Jesus, and Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave, and Lazarus, who once was dead, was now alive.

And there were some people there who celebrated, now we're going to see from the text of what they did to celebrate, and there were some people there who saw that who hated Jesus, who wanted to stop Jesus, who didn't like what was going on.

These religious leaders and people who were alongside them and were their fans.

In John 11, we see that many people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen, the resurrection of Lazarus.

But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

And the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together.

What are we going to do?

They asked each other.

This man certainly performs many miraculous signs.

If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him.

How awful, right?

Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our temple and our nation.

See, there were people who were in the crowd who saw what happened with this amazing miracle of Lazarus being raised from the dead.

But all that they could think about was that this person who claims to be the Messiah, that if he ends up being put into a place of being a king of Israel, that the Romans who occupied the land of the time, that they would come down and they would crush their kingdom because all of a sudden they had this earthly king.

They were completely deceived and looking at the situation completely wrongly.

Even though the miracle was happening right in front of their face.

And so right after this beautiful moment happens with Jesus and his friend, he doesn't just see Lazarus raised from the dead and then leave.

But they stay behind and have a dinner party.

And in John chapter 12, we see that six days before Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus, the man who had been raised from the dead.

John 12 · chapter mention

A dinner was prepared in Jesus' honor.

Martha served, and Lazarus were among those who ate with him, and then Mary took a 12-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from the essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair.

The house was filled with the fragrance.

But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said that perfume is worth a year's wages.

It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.

And then John gives us a little behind the scenes.

He says, not that he cared for the poor, he was a thief.

And since he was in charge of the disciples' money, he often stole some for himself.

Jesus replied, Leave her alone.

She did this in preparation for my burial.

You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.

And when the people heard of Jesus' arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus raised from the dead.

Then the leading priest decided to kill Lazarus too.

For it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus.

You have a dinner party.

And in the exact same room, in the presence of Jesus, you have someone who is pouring out their heart and a gift to Jesus in an act of worship.

And at the very same moment, someone who has severely lost their way.

See Mary.

Recognizing that Jesus was the most precious gift.

Went to the feet of Jesus and worshipped him in an extravagant way.

While others were completely closed off.

That my family isn't floating away into outer space.

That my car's four wheels are touching the road right now.

You probably didn't post that on social media this morning in your list of gratitude.

Why?

Because we just take gravity for granted.

In the same way we can take God's presence for granted.

God's presence that we can access at any time.

We have to be just like Mary in the fact that in the midst of our life that we need to discover God's presence, not ignore it.

See, Mary recognized that this earthly gift that she had paled in comparison to the love that she had for Jesus and the worship that she wanted to show to him.

Same way for us.

You know, Jesus is just one thought, one prayer away from you.

You may have come into the room this morning, and I don't know everybody's story and what's going on, but you may have come into the room today and you feel like God is a million miles away from you.

And maybe today was one of these, it's kind of like a uh just a ditch effort to say, okay, life isn't going how I how I want.

I want to try to learn something more about God.

I don't feel him.

Can I tell you today that Jesus loves you?

And he is so close to you.

Waiting for you to discover him.

See you have in this very same room.

Someone who discovers Jesus' presence, and someone who's severely deceived.

Judas.

And because of this, in the same way for us as believers today, we need to get so good at detecting deceit and lies of the enemy in our life.

We need to be like holy polygraph tests.

Figuring out when not only our enemy, Satan, wants to steal, kill, and destroy us is what Jesus said.

But also that there are other people who actively want to steal God's presence away from you.

Judas looks at Mary and he says, What a waste.

There are people in your life who think you being here right now is a waste of your time.

Don't you know that religion is just a bunch of made-up myth?

Aren't you aware of all the bad things and the wars that have been started over religion?

What about all the Bible says and the bigotry in there?

The Bible says that God loves every single one of us.

And that he hates that is what is evil and sinful and wants nothing more than for people to come to him and be changed.

See, walking with Jesus is not a waste.

This ability that we need to have to detect evil desires.

It says a protection for those that are that would be around us that will want to deceive us, but also what's inside of us and the sinful nature that we carry.

See, we we studied and went through the book of James a few weeks ago, and James says it like this in James 1, 4, 14 through 15.

Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.

These desires give birth to sinful actions.

And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.

So we have to be on guard of evil desires that may even creep up in our own hearts.

You know who a lot of times is most grateful for God's grace and presence?

People who came to Jesus later in life.

I had a conversation this week, I was in a group with uh an older lady named Patty.

And she was talking about the fact that she didn't come to know Jesus and was not saved and didn't begin her walk with Jesus until she was in her mid-twenties.

She didn't grow up in a Christian home.

She didn't grow up in an environment that knew the Bible or knew who Jesus was.

And she was invited to church and she came and she accepted Christ in her life.

And then her husband and some others walked with her and discipled her.

And she said this week, I wish that I had been discipled earlier.

I wish that I had found Jesus earlier.

It was time in her life that she could have been walking with Jesus that was stolen.

And maybe for you, you're in here right now, and there's been a time of your life and it has been stolen from you, not walking with Jesus, receiving the grace and forgiveness that he has for you.

I think it's interesting in this story that we see Judas, the one who very soon in the story is gonna betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and give him a kiss on his cheek so that he would be arrested and then brutally murdered.

And in this story, we see a glimpse of where that evil desire started.

You know, I I I hear this, I've heard this from time to time.

When someone has fallen into or has committed a sin that is really tragic, a betrayal, unfaithful.

And at times people might even say something like this, I just I just don't know how it happened.

It just happened.

But what we know is true, and from what James just told us, that the evil desires, they start inside of our hearts and start inside of our minds as a thought, and then they give birth to action, and then they give birth to death.

And so most of the time we don't just accidentally sin.

Most of the time, there's there's there's several small steps that lead to whatever decision we're going to do that's not going to bring glory to God.

We see this a perfect picture of this in where Judas, where his heart was.

In a moment where beautiful worship is being poured out to Jesus.

He's standing there with a hard heart.

You know, that's why.

And even today, there may be some of you who are in the room right now, and you're thinking, is this really for me?

Is all this true?

There may be a hardness in your heart, but it takes an action and an intentional decision to be found.

See, we have to decide to be found in Christ.

We have to be, we have to decide to be found.

Isn't it so interesting that we serve the God that's the creator of the universe, but we think we can hide from him?

We think that we can, as long as we don't look at him, he's not looking at us.

Coming to Jesus.

Jesus is not like Santa Claus.

Jesus loves you so dearly that he died for you.

To forgive you, to save you, and for you to be found.

And when you are found, heaven throws a party.

See, Jesus said this in Luke 15, just these couple verses that he tells this brief little story about another woman.

He says, Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one.

Won't she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it?

When she finds it, she'll call her friends and her neighbors and say, Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.

In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels when even one sinner repents.

That repentance means that you ask for forgiveness and that there's change in your life that's not done by you, it's done by the power of God through you.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a story from a Christian leader in Canada named Danielle.

In 1994, the the world was rocked by a very quick sweeping timeline that over 800,000 people were massacred in the afternoon.

Country of Rwanda.

A civil war broke out, and because of political powers, local people were convinced by their local officials that they needed to take up arms against their neighbors.

And what ensued and what happened is one of the worst mass genocides that the world has ever seen.

Millions of people displaced.

Hundreds of thousands of people died.

And this Christian leader, Danielle, not too long ago, she took a trip to Rwanda and she was there, and she was with some local church leaders there in Rwanda.

And there was a lady there, her name's Sonia.

And Sonia, when she was a little girl, during what happened in this genocide, all of her family was killed except for her when she was a child.

And not only does she remember, does she remember what happened to her whole family when she was a little girl, she remembered the man who did it.

This man who still lived in the same city.

Years later.

Now this man riddled with guilt and shame, gave his life to Jesus.

And some local church leaders there knew this person and knew the shame, knew that he was carrying.

And she wanted to extend grace to this man.

And so this whole scene was set up.

This man came to Sonia and to the place where she was.

And as the man walked up towards her, she fell on the ground and fainted out of a trauma response of seeing his face.

And these two sat next to each other.

And Sonia put her hand on his arm.

And she forgave him.

With his head hanging low to receive that grace.

And Danielle, who's witnessing this scene, she says out loud, this is unbelievable.

And Sonia looks at her and she says, Oh, do you not know Jesus?

Jesus.

The only one.

The only one that's worth extravagant worship.

Jesus.

The only one that to extend extravagant grace is not a waste.

What that woman did was an act of worship.

In the same way, Mary at the feet of Jesus worshipped him and poured out and flowed to him.

Love that she knew of her Savior who had done the miraculous in her life and for her family.

And I wonder today, if there's anybody in the room right now who, because of something that's happened, or a tragedy that you have experienced, or something that you've gone through, your life kind of looks like this bottle right now.

It's all bottled up.

And you haven't taken the step to open up yourself to Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

The one who loves you so much, that he gave himself for you.

That maybe this very moment, this very morning, is the time for you to open up and pour out to God and ask for his forgiveness so that you might be found.

And that listen to me, Christians, that we would be people that would overflow with the love and grace of God that would pour out onto other people.

So much so that they might even say, This is unbelievable.

Who could worship like that?

Who could live like that?

Who could forgive like that?

Who could give like that?

Who could serve like that?

Who could love like that?

Let me pray over you now.

Father, I pray right now and thank you, God, for your great mercy and love.

Great grace of your hand.

Jesus, thank you that you didn't spare one bit of yourself, but you died in our place.

And we give glory to you this morning for that.

Father, I pray for every single believer, every single follower of you, every single Christian in this house today, God.

Lord, you would make us into people, God, that would overflow in worship towards you, God, and that we would overflow your power and presence, mercy and love and grace to the people that are in our lives.

And God, I pray right now for anybody in the place today.

That God's here and where they're closed off right now.

They're bottled off, bottled up, closed off to you.

That today, God, will be the day that they ask God to receive your finished work on the cross to be saved, to be forgiven, to be found.

And in doing so, God, that one day they'd be in heaven with you, but God, you would also put heaven inside of them today.

So, Father, I pray, God, right now, all across the room, if there's anybody in the place that needs to receive you, Jesus, to follow and walk with you, that they would pray, Jesus, something like this, Jesus, save me.

You could pray it to Him now, your heart and mind.

Jesus, save me.

I believe that you're the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sins, and that you're alive.

Forgive me, cleanse me, so that I can be in heaven with you one day.

I give you my life so that I might be found.

Thank you for saving me.

In Jesus' name.

No way looking around.

This morning, if that was you today, for you to take the step, pray that from a genuine place to the Lord.

I'm gonna count the three, and what I want you to do is an action, as a step towards God, for you to raise your hand and lock eyes with me so I can pray for you.

If that's you today, the count of three.

Raise your hand up so I can see it.

Ready?

One, two, three.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep, yep.

Thanks for locking eyes.

Thanks for locking eyes.

All of you right now, I'm gonna pray over you right now.

God, for every single one right now who's just locked eyes with me.

Every single one, God, who's taken a step to pray for you to save them, forgive them, purchase them with your blood.

God, thank you.

Thank you for their action today, God, to step in faith towards you.

And God, I pray right now, Lord, that what they pray, God, it's come from a genuine place, and that God, you would seal it, and that today would be the day of their salvation.

That they would be forgiven, that their sins, their slate will be wiped clean from this day forward until they walk into eternity with you.

We thank you, God.

We praise you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Church, we stand your feet as we worship.