Matt's House Church: Arbutus, MD

Search

Reflective Time Out

Alford Usher Soord (1868-1915) “Lost Sheep”

Question: What’s the setting in this painting?

Question: Examine the subjects, their positioning?

Question: Who’s the central figure? What are the other subjects?

Question: What subject do you identify with most? Why?

Question: What makes the risk the shepherd is taking worth while?

Download Series: Search & Rescue

Illustration: Hide and Go Seek…

During the next two weeks we’re going to explore what I’m calling “Search & Rescue.”

This week we’ll focus on the element of searching…; next week we’ll look at the

Rescue.

• Question: What comes to mind when you hear the terms “Search & Rescue?”

• My Answer: Someone dangling from a mountain side or someone who is about

to drowned if rescue doesn’t arrive soon.

Illustration: Jimmy…

A few days ago I was hanging out in front of the Connection Center waiting to drive

a friend down to a detox center on North Caroline Street. Before I left the house that

morning I had already determined, in my mind, that this friend was going to bail and

not show up.

• Question: Do you ever find yourself wondering, how can someone so obviously in

need of help not get the help they need? Are they that blind to their desperate

condition?

• Question: Why should I even try to help someone that doesn’t even want to help

themselves?

• Question: My time is precious, I’m a busy person, I have important things to do,

why waist my time when the odds are against this friend staying on the wagon?

Reading: Genesis 3:8-10

vv.9 - “Where are you?”

• Question: Why in the world is God, the omniscient (All-Knowing) One asking this,

“Where are you?”

• Answer: The beauty of the question God asks is that it appears that God, the

“Seeker,” “Searcher,” “IT” gives us the opportunity to choose to be found.

Free Will: God doesn’t force us to KNOW Him, LOVE can’t be forced, we must choose

to KNOW Him and choose to be KNOWN by Him.

Poem: The Hound of Heaven (Excerpts) by Francis Thompson

I fled him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled him, down the arches of the years;

I fled him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind;

and in the mist of tears I hid from him,

and under running laughter.

vv.10 “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

Question: What did Adam mean by, “I was naked?”

Answer: Was Adam referring to physical nakedness? or Maybe he was feeling

exposed/naked because he had betrayed God, did something God asked him not to

do?

• Question: Have you ever found yourself in Adam’s position, hiding?

Poem: The Hound of Heaven (Excerpt) by Francis Thompson

Up vistaed hopes I sped…

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat—and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet—

“All things betray thee, who betrays Me.”

The beauty is that in-spite of our hiding…God takes the initiative…He gives chase…

relentlessly…unendingly…passionately He never ever stops…

We get a glimpse of this Hound of Heaven that relentlessly pursues, this time though,

the Hound is dressed in the clothing of a Shepherd…

Reading: Luke 15:1-2

vv.1 - Tax Collectors & Sinners gathered…to hear Jesus

• Hear = Intently and Actively listen too…

vv.2 - Pharisees & Teachers of the Law…muttered against Jesus and Sinners

• Muttered = Grumble & Complain

Point: One group comes with a desire to hear the “Good News.”

Point: One group comes to criticize the “Good News,” it’s carrier and those who have

come to hear.

Reading: Luke 15:3-7

Barriers

Question: What keeps us from joining Jesus in the pursuit of the one lost sheep?

• In John 15:13 Jesus says this, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down

his life for his friends.”

Question: Are we, like the Pharisees, don’t see sinners, as our friends?

Question: Are we, like the Pharisees, ignorant to the depths of our own depravity?

• Luke 7:39-42, “Which of them will love him more?”

Question: Are we, like the Pharisees, so far from God ourselves that we can’t believe

that Christ came not only to Seek us out, but to Restore us?

Question: Are we, like the Pharisees, so self-centered that our priority, is not others,

but is dwelling on our own religious superiority?

Question: What’s keeping you from going after the 1 and hanging with the 99?

Challenge

Question: Will we join Him, Jesus, on this “Search and Rescue” mission?

Matt's House Vision

We see Matt's House as a place where:

 ï¿½-� All find refuge - the hurting, the confused, and the detached

 ï¿½-� All discover God's mercy

 ï¿½-�All are encouraged to engage personal transformation

 ï¿½-� All live boldly, committed to changing the world one person at a time as

Christ's Followers.