Party Time

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Christianity... in many ways.... is a response to a party that is going on.

I remember when I found my new apartment in Redondo Beach, I was really excited, It felt like I had lucked out…… because ....it was right by the pool, and the workout area, and it looked like a nice little sleepy apartment complex, where I could get some peace and quiet….unwind a little.

But that first Saturday night, it was total chaos in Prairie Gardens! (thats the name of my complex)

 Imagine this, it’s late… your T. V. show ends, you turn off the lights in the living room, and then you start to hear this thumping base music… (like insane dubstep or something)….

and you go to brush your teeth and you start hearing tons of footsteps,…… and  the clanking of high heels against cement stairs… and you realize, the awful truth, that there are many, many, awkward white people dancing in the apartment, that is literally right above your head. (Annoying much?)

Of course my first thought was “is this going to happen every Saturday night?”

Thankfully, I found out later that it was just one of my neighbors celebrating a birthday. PTL, when the next Saturday rolled arond things were a lot quieter.

But it got me thinking…………………..

It's really interesting how one person’s celebration, can be a totally annoying night for someone else, especially if they don’t understand the reason for the party.

Something like this is what Jesus is talking about in Luke 15:1-10,

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.  But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

 Then Jesus told them this parable:  “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’  I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?  And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’  In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Jesus is telling this story because he is making a habit out of spending time with all the wrong people.

Jesus was eating with tax collectors, Jesus was eating with alcoholics, Jesus was eating with straight up sinners (people who were not following the pharisaic law), and the religious establishment of his day, was none too pleased.

Don’t miss-understand, Jesus friendship with these guys does not completely condone their behavior. The addict (something we all are:in one form or another) is best loved by being told that they are not defined by their disease, but also, ensuring that their disease is completely done away with……… it has to go...........so that the person it is destroying...........can be made....whole.....alive.....well.  

The sheep…

The lost coin….

are eventually ….found.

For Jesus critics, repentance meant adopting a strict standard of moral purity, and law observance, for Jesus, when people follow him, and his way…..that will do. And in the underwriting of these parables Jesus is suggesting that the Pharisees need to repent too.

 What Jesus is trying to do here is expose the two halves of God’s creation to one another. He knows that if humans could just discover what was going on in heaven, they would know how things were supposed to be on earth.

For the Pharisees and legal experts, the closest you could get to heaven was in the temple. And, the temple required strict purity from the priests; and the closest a non-priest could get, was to maintain a similarly strict purity in every aspect of life.

But now, Jesus was declaring that heaven was having a great noisy party every time a single sinner saw the light, and began to follow Gods way!

Imagine you are at a party, one that was thrown to celebrate the life of someone who left a normal comfortable life, so that they could start an orphanage in Africa. Year after year, she dedicated her life to raising hundreds of children who had ended up on he doorstep because they had no one to care for them.


 And while you are there, after you have eaten cake, and danced a little bit, they switch things up, and through the mic some one says, if anyone in this room has been affected by what this courageous person has done, will you please stand up……………………………..and one by one….you watch...... as hundreds and hundreds of orphans........ who are now doctors, lawyers, and teachers, ..........who now have beautiful families of their own…… stand up….. to give their most heartfelt thank you.

 Jesus left a seat in heaven so that he might seek and save the lost. The bible teaches us that though lots of us have earthly parents……. that at one time..... we are all ......orphans, totally separated from out Father God. The really, truly, good news, is that God desperately wants to adopt us, ..........in fact he is willing to drop everything in order to  seek us out,......... and embraces us, ..........and bring another lost child back home; truth is, there is a whole host of orphans in heaven having the most glorius party!

 The question that we need to be asking ourselves every day is……………………am I ready to join the Jesus party?