God’s Heart for the Lost
This month at City Church we’ve been talking about God’s heart for the lost. It’s not an idea we dreamed up. It’s an idea that’s repeated through the Bible but nowhere more clear than in Luke 15. Chapter 15 is central to Luke’s whole gospel. And it’s central to City Church’s whole purpose. It tells the story of God’s posture towards the world and towards us. Luke 15 shows us that God’s heart delights in rescuing the lost.
At the start of every City Church new member’s class we spend an hour reading and discussing Luke 15. We do this because if we understand what it’s saying, we’ll understand God’s grace. And if we understand God’s grace, we’ll understand how we’re supposed to live.
Of course, when we talk about God’s heart for the lost, it’s just another way of talking about God’s heart for us and God’s heart for all people. That’s because we’re all lost. As Harrison said this past Sunday, the key to being found by God’s love is first admitting that you are lost.
Here’s where it gets interesting, though. We can be lost in a variety of ways. Usually we think of “the lost” as the younger brother in Luke 15’s story of the prodigal son. The lost are the irreligious and the immoral. Many of us know personally from earlier in our lives what it’s like to reject God, to be far from him, to live on our own as if we’re in charge. And we find comfort in the truth that God pursues that kind of lost person.
But in Luke 15 we also meet another lost brother—the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. He shows us another way to be far from God. We can be far from God in our righteousness, as much as in our unrighteousness. We can be far from God even if we’ve never left the church. In that case, what makes us far from God is a heart of pride, an unyielding belief in our competence, and the recalcitrant thought that we are God’s servants.
Churches have an uncanny way of taking younger brothers rescued by God’s love and turning them into older brothers who are arrogant and judgmental to the lost. Still, there’s good news for these older brothers. Older brothers can be rescued by God’s pursuing grace, too. We can yet learn that we are God’s beloved children—his sons and daughters. We can hear what the Father says in Luke 15: “Son, you are always with me, all that is mine is yours.”
Once we understand God’s heart for the lost, it changes the way we live. Gradually we’re transformed to want to be like and act like God in the world. For starters this means we want to throw parties that display God’s lavish love. A month ago in this space I explained that this fall City Church wasn’t going to throw its annual Harvest Party. Instead, we’d be hosting multiple, localized Harvest Parties.
I’m glad to report that this fall people from City Church are throwing at least four Harvest Parties. On October 28th, we’ll hold three of these parties: one in the Museum District (Tim Hayes and Liza Clark), one in the Fan (Erik Bonkovsky, Blake and Sabrina Parrott), and in the Surreywood neighborhood of Chesterfield (James and Jennifer Murphy). On November 4th, we’ll host a party in the Northside near Bryan Park (Ben MacKinnon). Knowing God’s heart for the lost and God’s heart for you, won’t you join in hosting one of these parties?
I realize that last month when I announced the plan to host multiple Harvest Parties, you may have felt overwhelmed and out of your depth—that was too much of an undertaking to even wrap your mind around. But now that we have these four parties scheduled, here’s what you can do:
Choose the party that is close to where you live and contact the host (details below). Ask them how you can partner with them in throwing a party that displays God’s heart. Maybe you can help provide food and drink. Maybe you can organize activities to serve the kids who will come to the party. Maybe you can stick around and clean up when all the guests have departed. Or maybe you have two or three friends that you can invite into a party that doesn’t have an agenda or even a hint of bait-and-switch. You can invite some friends to join you in conversation, in laughter, in joy.
Now, note carefully: the idea behind these parties isn’t that you’d coordinate your schedule to go to all of the parties, like some sort of Harvest Party Pub Crawl. That would be a fail. The idea is that you’d pick one. And that you wouldn’t just show up, but that you would host, you would invite, you would serve. You would delight in people from outside the church the way the Father delights in you. The idea is that together we start to look a little more like God Himself—hosting a party for our friends from outside of City Church; providing a glimpse of the full life we’ve found in Jesus.
I told the hosts earlier this week that we don’t have to call these celebrations Harvest Parties. We don’t have to call them City Church Harvest Parties. We aren’t doing this to build our brand. We’re not doing it to be noticed or to feel good about ourselves. We’re doing it to celebrate what God has already done for us. We’re doing it because God’s heart is for the lost and because we believe that celebrating with others makes our hearts just a little more like His.
To get connected to a Harvest Party, choose the party you’d like to be a part of and contact one of the people listed below. They can’t wait to partner with you in this effort to show God’s heart for the lost.
MUSEUM DISTRICT (October 28th)
Tim Hayes: tjhayesj@gmail.com
Liza Clark: lizafarleyclark@gmail.com
FAN (October 28th)
Erik Bonkovsky: erik@citychurchrva.com
Blake Parrott: blkparr@gmail.com
Sabrina Parrott: sbporrata@gmail.com
SURREYWOOD (October 28th)
James Murphy: jamesmurphyp@gmail.com
Jennifer Murphy: jennifer@citychurchrva.com
NORTHISDE (November 4th)
Ben MacKinnon: benmack@udel.edu