Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Josh.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the gospel, we are continuing our series of events found in Luke, chapter 15.
This event today is the parable of the lost coin, and it's found in verse eight through ten. Follow along with us as we read.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost. Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: So, it's a very short story, but there's so much in this. And as you were reading it, I was thinking of, when I lose my keys in my house and I need to get to work, I'll search, and eventually, I need to pray, and I pray. And then while I'm praying, this idea, go check the couch again. I check the couch. Let me just check it again. I go back to the couch. I check the couch again, and right there are the keys. I just prayed, and so what do I do at that point? I call my kid. Hey, kids, guess what?
I prayed. I was looking for my keys. I prayed, and I found it. And I'm excited to share it with them that God answered the prayer.
I see the joy in the face of this woman who she has found the coin and she's wanting to go and share.
We have this story here.
This is now a one in ten.
Before, with the sheep, it was one in 100. So this coin is of more value. Is that fair to say?
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah, we can say that.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Does that mean that this person, if we're likening this parable to a person, is of more value than a sheep that's lost?
[00:02:34] Speaker B: I wouldn't go that route. But on the other side, I like what you said. The lost value in the first parable is 1%.
Now the lost value is 10%. And we'll be surprised that in the following parable, the lost value goes up significantly.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: And that shows a different intention, a different approach, a different way. God addresses the lostness well.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: And to me, the lost value being 1% shows just how important that is. The sheep.
If I lost all my coins, I'm going to look for them really hard. But if I lost one penny out of a million dollars, will I even bother looking? And if a shepherd goes and looks and searches for that one penny, that one penny holds, so much value when it's next to a million for the person to stop what they're doing and going.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: And look, it's very interesting to emphasize that she's a woman, because the shepherd in the first parable, it looks to be a male he. And this is about women. Maybe there were some women in the room and Jesus Christ wanted to include them. How much God appreciates them, even if they saw themselves as a lost value.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: So this woman, or. Sorry, let me go back to the shepherd. The shepherd, who does that represent?
[00:04:11] Speaker B: The good shepherd, which is Jesus Christ, and who came to express or to show us how much God loves us.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: So in this parable here today that we're studying, who does the woman.
Yeah. And so God is going and seeking. Now, let's talk about the coin.
Did the coin choose to get up and walk away from, let's say, a safe or the purse or the coin jar where it was supposed to be?
[00:04:42] Speaker B: No, you can say that in the previous parable, the lost sheep at least had a conscience, sometimes later realized that she was lost and started making some noise. Or here, the queen does not have conscious, will not realize that it is lost.
And it's very interesting that the coin is lost in the house.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: And as we look at this parable, we think of people who are lost in the community.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: If this woman is God, her house is the house of God. And Jesus Christ is talking to the Pharisees, who seems to be lost in the house of God. And that is a very shocking reality for us today. We see church as a place of refuge, like a hospital, where people are being healed. But at the same time, Jesus Christ has this parable making us aware that we can get lost in the house of God.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: So we think we might be doing right. We're going through the paces. We're looking like a good coin on the outside, but really we're lost.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: One of the elements of lostness in this parable. I like to connect with your introductory illustration from your life. When you lost your keys, first you went to the place where you have the keys. Always when this woman went to find the coins, she went to the place where she put the coins. Generally, you have a place for your key, and we have place for our money. God has a place for us in his ministry.
There is a place in church. The apostle Peter talks about the church as being like a living temple with living stones.
And if we think about the construction, there are some stones or bricks which are close to the foundation. They carry the load of the whole building. There are some leaders in the church that carry a lot of load right from the ministry.
Some other stones or bricks, they were added at the end just before the roof. They didn't carry too much load. Some stones or bricks are inside. One is warm and cozy, others are outside during the winter and weather right. They have to support more. My point is, there are different places for us in ministry.
Am I happy with the place that God assigned to me?
Or I'm looking always to my neighbor, to my friend in church and say, oh, his ministry is better than mine, his role is more honorable than mine, and I'm not happy with a place that God assigned to me. And little by little, disappointments will make me get disengaged and disconnected with the ministry of God. And this is one pathway to get lost inside a church.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: And so once this coin is lost, this woman does three things to find it. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and then seeks diligently.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Three verbs, three verbs.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: How does that relate to God searching for us when we're lost in the church?
[00:08:31] Speaker B: The church is supposed to be the light on the hill. It's supposed to be the lighthouse. There are many churches with this name, lighthouse, but sometimes we can lose the light in the same way salt loses its saltiness, and we need a fresh light. Not that it's different than that before, but a fresh revelation of God's presence. Like Elijah on the mountain, he was running away. He was discouraged until God revealed himself to Elijah in a different way. A fresh new light.
That fresh new light might come from studying the scripture, from listening to a sermon or a podcast, or most likely it is God speaking to you directly. It is the light of God that shines into the souls, as John chapter one says, and will drive out darkness.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: We have a word for that revival.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Beautiful.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah. That God brings revival into us. This light and sweeping the house.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: It's reformation revival. And reformation light is revival. Sweeping the house is reformation is changing something, putting things in their place, removing the dust that doesn't belong there, and so on.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Yeah, the dust and dirt that have accumulated through over the use of the building.
And so once it's swept, once there's.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Light, there is one more step. You have to maintain that, and we have to do it diligently. Remember that patience of the saints that have to endure all the way to the last one. Experience is important, but is not enough.
In the same way, we have to give ourselves to God every morning, giving ourselves to God only once, when we get baptized, when we turn around our life and experience, repentance, that may not be enough. It has to be a continual experience, and this is what I seek here. Diligently.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: You might be able to get away with giving to yourselves, to God. Every morning. For me, I need to do it constantly. I need to do it almost every hour, every minute of the day. I find my brain is easily distracted, and I need to constantly bring it back to God.
But there's joy in that.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Beautiful.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: So how does this passage speak to us today? What does it reveal about God?
[00:11:17] Speaker B: First is the love of God. For those who are unconscious of their condition, there is something that God has to do in our hearts to revive it so we are able to respond to the work of the Holy Spirit. In theology, there is a more complex concept called the prevenient grace, the grace before the grace that our protestant reformers discussed. I see how God represented by this woman goes to find something that is immaterial, something that doesn't realize that it is lost, a coin, and that becomes the source of the same level of rejoice. She goes to her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: So for me, this is speaking to me today, asking, where am I in the house of God? You likened it to the bricks, the foundation, the building blocks. Am I where God has called me to be?
Am I desiring to be somewhere else?
Am I wanting to be in a different place?
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Am I happy with the amount of burden I'm called to carry?
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Yeah, there's that saying, the grass is greener on the other side. And oftentimes we only see the fruit of a long, hard labor, and we want to partake in that fruit. We don't get to see the behind the scenes where someone's diligently preparing at home or working in different ways to make sure that they're a success. And so for me, am I doing what I can to be as much of a success as possible for those who can be blessed by the ministry?
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Some people are looking for a place that is in the front, that is visible with a picture in the newsletter.
Words of appreciation.
But there are many other places which are necessary, as you mentioned, behind the scenes or in preparing an event. And for God, each one of those roles are important because we work together as living stones to grow the house of God, the kingdom of God. In these times.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Let us pray.
Father God, we want to be diligent, we want to work, we want to be used by you, and we want to be satisfied where we're at.
Father, I pray that we can take part also in sweeping the house and turning the lights on and helping the church be a place where coins don't go missing.
But, Father, if we are that coin that's lost inside the house, I pray that you will work in our hearts to light that lamp again, to light a fire, to help us to get back to where we should be, to get back on track and to do the work you've called us to do.
Help us to fulfill the mission you have for us. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
