Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

On Columbus Day 1992 American scientist launched the greatest search in history.

NASA called it Search For Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, or SETI for short.

Frank White in his book The Seti Factor tells us this project using radio scopes and newly developed computer technology was designed to scan the sky for signals that may be sent by any civilization beyond our solar system.

It is estimated that in 25 years man will know if there are other intelligent beings in our universe.

They began by searching the thousand sun-like stars within 80 light years of earth.

They had hoped to pick up signals that may come from a star that has a planet like our own sun has.

The amazing computer is able to process an entire encyclopedia full of random noise per second.

It is 10 billion times more comprehension than the sum of all previous searches.

They began this search on Columbus Day in honor of a man who went searching for a new world and found it.

Man is a searching being by nature.

God made him as curious as the cat, but with more tools to search with, and the result is that man has searched the microcosm and the macrocosm for life invisible to the naked eye.

This literal star search is fascinating to scientists and theologians as they speculate about life on other planets.

My only problem with the search is that it is another of man's efforts to find the meaning of life by searching in all the wrong places.

Man has searched the planet for a paradise and has not found it in materialism, hedonism, or any other ism.

Like the Prodigal Son, man has wasted his substance in riotous living, and instead of going home to the Father he is hoping to find an elder brother somewhere out in space who will give him a lift, and give him the hope of finding meaning without going home.

Man continues to side step the one search that God wants all men to get into, and which He reviewed through Jeremiah the prophet.

God says in Jer.

29:11-14, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

I will be found by you declares the Lord."

Wow!

Here is a search guaranteed to succeed and put you into communication with the most intelligent life in the universe.

Many are the stories that parallel that of the Academy Award winning actress Joan Fontaine.

She was sickly from birth and spent her life searching for health.

Her stepfather was a military man who had all of life regimented, and with no warmth and affection.

She spent her life searching for love.

All her success and riches and fame never met her need.

It was only when she found Christ and joined the body of Christ that she felt her search was completed, for she finally felt that she belonged.

If we expect the coming year to be a good one, then we have to be committed to be searchers.

Only searchers find the best.

All of the lost and hidden stuff in the world is found by searchers.

That is why God is Himself the Sovereign Searcher.

As soon as Adam and Eve fell God came searching for them in the garden.

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.

None are wiser than those who seek to be found by the searching Savior.

And for those found and saved there is still the need to be searched by the Lord's laser light so they can be cleansed.

Psa.

139 begins, "Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me."

And it ends with, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

This is a prayer, not only for every New Year, but for every new day as we call on God to do a sin search and get it out of the way so we can see the way to go to please Him.

While man is searching the heavens for a sign of intelligent life heaven is searching earth for a sign of intelligent response to God's communication.

In Jer.

17:10 God says, "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."

God has a scanner going at all times trying to pick up signals from everyone of His children that would indicate that they long to know and do His will.

Paul writes in Rom.

8:27, "And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will."

What kinds of signals will God pick up from our hearts and minds in the coming year?

Will they be strong signals of obedience, or dying signals that reveal we have joined the secular search for the meaning of life in other realms?

It is possible for Christians to lose their way and get off the track of God's will, they can become weary in well doing.

It is possible for the best of people to get so preoccupied with other things that they lose Christ, and this brings us to our text, for here in Luke 2 we see a literal example of the best people losing Christ.

We hear often about the lost sheep, but seldom to never do we hear of the shepherd being lost, but here is a case where Jesus, The Great Shepherd, is lost, and His parents who lost Him are frantically in search for Him.

I don't know if you have ever lost one of your children, but it is one of the most frightening experiences of life.

I know, for Lavonne and I lost our first son Steven for several hours.

Jesus was 12, and so He could take care of Himself, but Steve was only 3. We were boarding on hysteria.

I ran across a field in back of the apartments where we lived.

My heart was pounding as I looked over the cliff in fear that I would find him at the bottom.

Lavonne had gotten neighbors to help scan the neighborhood.

Kidnapping didn't seem logical since I was a student and could barely keep my car running.

It was a total mystery as to where he could be.

But finally we found him playing inside a public phone booth on the corner.

He was on the floor with the door shut and so no one could see him.

It was not as noble a place as the temple where Jesus was found, but we were so happy and relieved when that search was over.

Many of you could tell stories about a lost child because it happens frequently, and even to those who are in the center of God's will.

Mary is the only woman in history to conceive by the Holy Spirit, and yet she lost that sacred child.

Mary is the only woman ever to give birth to the Word made flesh, and yet she lost Him.

Mary is the only woman ever chosen by God to raise His only begotten Son, and yet she lost this precious child.

This would not look good on anybodies resume, but here it is on Mary's record.

Would you hire her to run your childcare center?

She is the least likely person to ever loose her child, but she did it, and she demonstrates for all time that even the best can blow it.

They can make mistakes by being too preoccupied and by taking too much for granted.

Verse 44 says, "Thinking He was in their company, they traveled on for a day.

Then they began looking for Him among their relatives and friends."

They assumed Jesus was with some friends of the family, and so they went a whole day and never even gave Him a thought.

We cannot throw any stones here, for Joseph and Mary were not being neglectful parents.

They just forget to check out their assumptions.

They made this trip every year to Jerusalem, and this was not the first time Jesus had been off with friends or relatives and not hanging around His parents all day.

At 12 years old it was even more likely He would not stay at His parent's side.

It was a normal thing for Jesus to be gone all day.

They just did not check to see if it was the case that time.

They made the common mistake of taking too much for granted.

It cost them a great deal of emotional anxiety as well as 3 lost days.

Theirs was a search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, for Jesus had His origin from outside of our universe.

Jesus was the very form of life that NASA was looking for.

If you read the motive behind the expensive search of the stars, you will discover that the scientists are really looking for a Savior.

They hope to find beings who have made it through the dangerous technological state that man is now in.

Man has the capacity to eliminate life on this planet.

If they can find a civilization that has reached this state and survived, that will give hope that we too can survive.

Man is looking for an intelligent mind with great power who does not use it to destroy, but uses it to save and benefit others.

This is the very person that Mary and Joseph were looking for.

They did not fully grasp all that He was to be, but He was the one who would have all power in heaven and on earth, but who longed to use that power to save rather than destroy the earth.

Jesus was and is the very being that man is scanning the stars to find.

The Christian Gospel is the good news that there is intelligent life in this universe beyond our earth.

It is friendly, and it will come to our aid and save us from our sin and folly, and our inability to use power wisely.

Jesus has already come and made the way into the kingdom of heaven possible for all who trust Him as the Way.

Man is spending a fortune seeking for a Savior in the heavens, and the fact is He can be found freely in Jesus Christ.

This means that in reality Jesus is still lost to millions, and unfortunately they are not searching for Him as was Joseph and Mary.

They were bad examples in losing Jesus, but they were good examples in that they began to search for Him as soon as they knew He was lost.