Lost Sheep
- Ashland Church of Christ
- Feb 2
- 20 min read
Updated: Feb 10
Guest Pastor David Lee
February 2, 2025
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Transcribed by Turbo Scribe
I knew how to kneel and sit and stand, and I knew how to respond to the priest, but I had no idea who the Lord was. And so, anyway, in the 80s, I ran into some friends who maybe were these hippies. And I became a deadhead, running around with a Grateful Dead.
And what I realized is, I look back and I realize, wow, this is, I can be who I want to be. I can wear a tie-dye, I can have this, and everybody knew my identity. So I started to find a false identity in the hippie community.
Peace, love, and rock and roll, and drugs, and all that came with it. And so I started using just some simple drugs. I don't want to say simple, but it wasn't the hard stuff that I came in.
You know, drugs, alcohol, and marijuana was just normal. And it wasn't long before LSD. Now, some of you guys are going to be shocked at what I share.
I do it for the shock factor. I'm going to tell you some dark things that maybe some of you have no idea that these things happen. Why? Because I want to show you the goodness of God, that He can reach someone like me in a dark, dark pit that I was in.
So I'm going to be taking ten hits of acid at a time. I mean, it's really a miracle that I can come up and have an intelligent conversation. It is.
It's a miracle. God was keeping me, for sure, for times such as this. And I'm doing all this crazy.
I'm running all over the country. And in the meantime, I had three beautiful children with my first marriage. See, God can take anything, and He can bring something good and a blessing out of it.
I had three wonderful children that I could thank the Lord for, even though I had no idea I would be a parent. I was a terrible parent at that time, right? And so I had three kids, and things got crazy. And my first wife was an addict, and I was a functioning addict.
And we decided to move to Springfield. And we moved to Springfield to run away. But my problems were waiting for me in Springfield.
Amen? Do you know how that works? You can't run from it. You have to deal with it. And I wasn't dealing with it.
And that marriage was dissolving. There was a year spent in Springfield. There was no relationship at all between my wife and I. I mean, I see identity down here.
We are struggling with identity. It's what the devil tries to steal. And I found identity in relationships.
I've been in relationships my whole life. I went from one girlfriend to another girlfriend to another. I know I'm not that good looking.
I'm not sure how I got so lucky. But literally, the day that my wife kind of kicked her out, the day after that, I moved in another woman. Because of identity.
Because I found value and identity in someone showing me affection. Does that make sense? If you guys can show me a shot of Amen or something like that. So I found identity in these relationships and codependency, right? And so that was a disaster because then crack cocaine entered into my life.
And I'm telling you one time, ladies and gentlemen, I know there's a lot of people in here who, all these things are completely foreign. One time, it just got a hold of me. That's how dangerous it is.
And it became everything. It became everything. Now, I've always been in management.
I've always been a good worker. And I've worked through all of my addictions up until this point. And crack cocaine took me out of that.
I struggled to work. I struggled to find. But I always managed to figure out how to get money.
And sneaking and conniving and stealing. That's who I was. And it became a time when that relationship was just a complete dissolve.
I'd gone to jail, in and out, mostly domestic, because we'd get arguments over drugs. And I'd always be the one who'd go to jail. You know, I never swung at her.
I never hit her once. But they always took me because I'm the man and, you know, whatever. That's a whole other issue.
I'm not going to get into social issues today. I think it's a little different now. I think they arrest all women sometimes too.
But anyway, and so I'd come home and everything was gone. Anything that had value. Anything that was sold, it was gone.
It was stolen. I kicked her out. And I was working.
But then I stayed home to protect whatever little stuff I had. You know, I had walked away from a house in Chicago that day. And I just left everything behind.
A whole house of stuff that Dixon's took from me. Everything. I brought a little bit I could fit and moved to Springfield, and it was very little.
And I built it all up again, and I lost it all again. Twice I'd lost everything I'd owned. And I found myself in this house, no electricity, no power, no food, a couple minutes left on my flip phone.
And I had worked at Lowe's, and there were some people there that I knew had like a party house. And I used a couple minutes, and I called them, and I said, Hey, I haven't seen my children in two years. I hadn't even talked to them on the phone for two years.
I hadn't seen my family, my parents, my brothers, years. And I'm in Springfield, and I knew nothing of anything except where the drug houses were, where they could get beer, where the parties were. I didn't know anything.
And so I called them, and I said, Hey, I've got three minutes left on this phone. Can I come stay with you for a while? I didn't have a friend in the world. Drugs had taken everything from me.
And I moved in with them, and it was a party every single night of the week. Every night. It didn't get any better.
And they let me stay there for a little while while I tried to figure it out, but I stumbled one day into a Starbucks. Now, I didn't have an ID. I didn't have a social security card.
I didn't have a piece of paper that had my address or my name on it. Okay? I was a ghost. And by the grace of God, that store manager gave me a job.
Lied on all the 1099s or whatever they are, the Ws, all that stuff. Fake it. And I got a job at Starbucks.
And I was an opener, and I had to be there at 5 a.m. You start your shift. And I kind of got back at that point to understanding the work ethic that my dad taught us. Me and the seven boys.
It worked really hard to raise seven boys. So I learned good work ethic. I've always been in management.
Always. And so I started at Starbucks, and I was a functioning alcoholic and a functioning addict, and I was drinking a case of beer a day. Because that was cheaper.
You get a case of that, you're like, pretty cheap. Cracker cheap is pretty expensive. So I was drinking copious amounts of alcohol, but I showed up to work at 4.45 every day.
Now, the guy who was a believer at the time, he was a Christian. He was working there. He was a Christian.
He could not stand me. He wouldn't have given me a drop of water if I was dying of thirst. He did not like me.
He was a believer. And so he was like, man, I walked six, seven blocks to get to Starbucks every morning, pitch black, raining, snowing. It didn't matter.
And I got there, and he was so mad that I beat him to work. He started getting there at 7.40, and I was like, one day, and that took. I was like, well, I'm going to get here at 7.35 then.
And it made him so angry. And he tried to get me fired so many times. And it was one day, I come in through the door.
I come walking up. He beat me. I was mad he beat me.
And I had a garbage bag over me, and I ripped a hole in the garbage bag because it was pouring rain. And he said, hey, I'm going to pick you up for work. And it was the beginning.
And my story changed because of the cotton ball. And so going to work, I was a terrible person. I mean, I'm on a headphone, a headset.
If any of you ever worked a drive-thru or anything, you know, you can communicate to just employees, not through the speaker. And I was saying horrible things. And people would be coming through, and I was saying things about the women.
And you're up above them, so you can only imagine some of the horrible things and womanizing and terrible things I was saying. Discussing and terrible jokes. And he'd be like, oh, trying to get me fired multiple times.
But he had some compassion. And I'm outside one day, smoking a cigarette, and little did I know that his pastor had preached a message. He gave everybody a cotton ball.
He said, pray for the Lord to send you a lost sheep. So he's walking to the bank, and I'm sitting outside smoking a cigarette, probably stinking like alcohol like I always did. And as he walked past me, he felt the water out of his collar.
He said, turn around. And he did, and he looked over at me, this pathetic human being that I was. And he said, that's a lost sheep.
And he was like, no way, God. And he started showing up to work. And he would go in the back with another worker who happened to lead worship on Friday night that I worship, where I used to go.
But I can't say anything. And they would be in the back, and I'm up there making the coffee and doing all the work. And they're in the back praying for me.
And I had no idea any of this was happening. So one day, the Lord told him, it was a payday Friday, by the way. Every payday I ever had, I paid my rent, bought a little bit of food usually, and then my money was gone instantly.
And he said, I want you to invite David to your house. Now he had two young boys, 11 and 12, I think at the time. He had told his wife a hundred times that he couldn't stand it, he wanted to get him fired.
And he's like, I'm not bringing this guy home, no way. And the Holy Spirit said, do it. And he says later, he said, I was going to do it or I was going to go throw up.
Well, guess what he chose to do? He went to the bathroom. So he went to the bathroom, and he was trying to throw up, and he couldn't throw up. And he comes out, and he comes over to me, and he says, hey, what are you going to do tonight? It was Friday.
I get off at one in the afternoon, and I go home and usually get a case of beer. One in the afternoon, drink until 5, 6, 7 at night, and then pass out and get up and go to work at 4 in the morning. I said, well, I got to try to get my roommates to take me to do laundry.
He says, hey, why don't you come to my house and do laundry? I said, okay. Now, I want you to understand my intentions. My intentions were that I didn't have to buy a roll of quarters and buy laundry soap.
That I could buy more drugs and alcohol. So I was like, sure, I'll come use your machine for free. Sure.
So we get in the car. Now, remember, I'm from Chicago. I know nothing about Springfield.
Barely know anything about Springfield except where I can buy drugs and where I can drink. So we get in the car after, and he takes me down to my house, and I load up my laundry. And, you know, I had title loaned all my cars away.
I didn't have a car in here. So I just took buses and walked. We get in the car, and we start heading down to 72 towards Mechanicsburg.
What is going on? What is out here? This is the boonies. I'm like, thinking to myself, this man could kill me, and no one would ever know I'm missing. Truly, this was my thought.
I'm like, who would know I was missing? My family hadn't heard from me in two years or more. I didn't talk to my kids on the phone or anybody on the phone. I didn't have a friend in the world.
My boss might wonder where I'm at, but that's about it. He's not going to do anything. He figured I'd quit.
I'm like, this guy could just lock me up in his basement, and no one would ever know. I'll never use that guy. And he said, hey, hey, you want to stay for dinner tonight, too? And I was like, cha-ching, free food, more drug money, more party money.
So we whip out of Mechanicsburg. He pulls into his driveway, which happened to be on Third Cross, which I think is really beautiful. And he whips into his driveway, and I'm like, here comes the night.
Oh, my God. I'm done for now. He says, hey, we're going to church tonight, too, if you'd like to come.
So I said, sure, whatever. I'm stuck here now in the middle of nowhere. I can do my laundry for free.
I love church. And we went in the house, and he knew I was coming over. He knew I was there.
It was 1 o'clock in the afternoon. He brought me in. He laid me down on his couch, and he got up.
He said, hey, I'm going to get dinner started. Just, you can rest if you want. I know you're tired.
And I laid there, and I looked on this wall, and there was a giant painting of Jesus. And I didn't know what was happening. And I felt something happening, and I didn't know what was happening.
And he'd come around the corner into the living room, and I jumped off the couch, and I went over, and I'm not a hugger. Now I'm a hugger, but I was not a hugger back then. And I hugged him, and I embraced him.
I said, thank you. He said, for what? I said, I don't know, just thank you. And I went outside to smoke a cigarette, and I was done in that living room.
Something happened. I smoked a cigarette, and I ran down that side door right into the basement, and I switched my laundry, and I lit one cigarette after another, because I was like, I ain't going back in that house. This is weird.
Here comes his wife, never met me. She knew me as the guy that he wanted to get fired. What I didn't know was that he called her, and he said, Julie, I'm bringing David home.
I don't want you to do anything. I don't want you to clean. I don't want you to do anything.
I want you to turn on worship music, and I want you to pray that the Holy Spirit fill the living room with his presence. So then she ran in there, and here comes the two boys I never met. And I'm lighting the cigarette up.
God, there's weird, more weird people here. They're so nice to me. Called me in for dinner.
We sit down at plates, ready. Food is on the plate already. This is crazy.
What's happening? He says, Taylor, who was 11 years old, he says, Taylor, say grace. I'm doing good on time. Taylor says, God, I'm filled with joy to bring David to church today.
I thought to myself, what's joy? And why does an 11-year-old have joy to bring a grown man he's never met to church? What is going on? And I cried. And I cried into my plate of food. And they didn't hand me a napkin.
They didn't hand me a tissue. They just ate. And finally, when they're all gone, I finally managed to pull myself together.
I ate my salty food. Because I cried so much into it. I'm going to church.
And I'm sober. But you know what happened there? Just like here today, it wasn't good preaching. It was the presence of God.
And no one can ever take that from me. And I felt it. And I didn't know what it was.
But I felt it. And I felt His embrace. And I felt His forgiveness.
In that moment. Usually on Thursday night. But I felt it.
And I don't even know what the message was. But I remember a couple of things about that night. I said, Eric, Eric.
I'm looking around the back of the church house. You know, confessionals. Eric, when do we do confession? He said, just wait, just wait, just wait.
Okay. And then I said, Eric, where's all the crucifixes? He said, well haven't you heard? Jesus is off the cross. He's alive.
I'm like, oh my gosh. It's so simple, right? And I felt the presence of God. And I remember the pastor at the end of the service.
He said, Lord. It was a Friday night service, by the way. And, you know, Friday night isn't Sunday morning people.
Friday night is the people who don't want to get up early. Right? And they want to watch the football game. So it's a little bit of a different problem than a Friday night service.
And so the pastor prays a little different. And he says at the end of the service, he said, Lord, forgive us for all the stupid stuff we did this week. Lord, and help us to not do stupid stuff next week.
And he just said, confession. What I did then is I surrendered. I said, God, if you're real.
This is what I said. I said, God, if you're real, I need you to help me. I need you to save me.
And I felt his forgiveness. I felt it. No one can ever convince me that that didn't happen.
Because if good preaching was enough, the world would be safe by now. Because there's been some great preachers. What I think the church struggles with is the presence.
The Holy Spirit. The welcoming. The love.
The kindness. The free spirit. Right? I'm sorry to say.
But I feel it here. I felt it this morning. But that cotton ball that he put on his nightstand and he prayed over every day.
That was me. And he was faithful to that. Even though it looked like an impossible task.
And so now it's Friday night. And Sunday I go back to church and I bought this Bible. It's been 15 years, October.
And all I did was read the word. I'd get home to that party house and I'd lock myself in my room and I'd just read the word. I had so many idols.
The Bears, the Cubs. I know you guys are from Chicago. You weren't carving the stains up there.
You got beat up. You were Cubs for size, right? So I'm a Cubs fan. I still got beat up because I'm a Cubs fan.
And the Bears, Chicago Bears, and Survivor. I used to love that show. I still want to be on that show.
I want to win and not tell lies, right? I want to be the first pass of the game. But God says, done. I don't want you to do none of that.
Everything stops now. And all I did was devour the word of God. For a year, I didn't even watch the Tiramisu TV stream.
I didn't watch it. I didn't see nothing for a year. I just devoured the word of God.
I met my wife in that time. We were both going to. Now the good stuff, okay? Sure, a little bit about the good stuff.
Food's not burning, I promise. Is that okay? Five minutes? Ten minutes? I don't have any hands raised. You can say yes.
Come on. Listen, you've got to be with the goodness of God. Because when I was in the pit.
Listen, I tell people this all the time. When you're in the pit, right? That I don't have time. My wife says I don't have time.
Alright, so who am I from that story? My testament. I'm going to bring it back. I'm going to come back to that.
Because this is a challenge I have for you. So, I'm born again. I'm growing a year.
I'm doing leadership right away because I'm just so sold out. And the church is asking me to do things and to teach. My kids aren't restored to my life yet.
Right? So, it was a whole other year before my kids started restoring my life. But in the meantime, I started doing Salvation Recovery. I did prison ministry.
That's where I met my wife. Then we went to anger management classes. Which was really funny.
We were the only people in there that were just like all goo-goo, ga-ga at each other. Everybody else was like anger at each other. And so, this was it.
And so, I'm doing prison ministry. And we got an opportunity to do Salvation Recovery. And I love recovery.
I love recovery. I like Christ-centered recovery. I love helping people with addictions.
Whether it's our phones, drugs, alcohol, Netflix. There's a lot of addictions. The world is full of them.
And so, now all these amazing things start happening. My health comes back. So, within two weeks, I'm spending as many nights as I can at Eric's house on his couch.
And he brought me home one day. And they had trapped a cat in my room. Because they had a party the night before.
You know, there's a reason they say all dogs go to heaven. I'm not sure where cats go. I'm sorry, cat lovers.
I don't like cats. But God made cats. So, I'm not sure why.
So, I opened my door. And the cat comes running out. And the cat had peed on my stuff.
And that smell. And I was just... I couldn't. So, I walked back to the suburbs.
I looked at my room. I walked out. I walked through the door.
And tears in my eyes. And I opened the door. And there's Eric working.
And he goes, What? What happened? And I couldn't even say anything. I couldn't. I mean, I just couldn't.
I'm crying. I had six boxes of belongings. And the cat had peed on most of them.
I've lost everything again. And he pulls out his keys. I hadn't had a driver's license in years now.
And he pulls out his keys. He goes, Here. Take it back now.
Go get your stuff. You're moving in with me. Two weeks of sober.
Two weeks of safe. And this strange man is coming to move in with his young children. And I moved in his basement.
And it was the most glorious thing that's ever happened to that man. Other than being safe. I mean, when you go down, you had to step down from a landing into the lower part of the basement.
And in the winter, this was around... Well, October is when I surrendered. So there would be this much water in his basement. So I had to take my socks and shoes off and pull up my pants and slosh through cold water to step up into a higher part of the basement to get to my room.
And it was amazing. I was so happy. All we did, he mentored me.
He discipled me. We studied the Lord. I remember finding him here.
Actually, it was a message Bible I had as well. And it was like, I'd be at work. And I'd take a break.
And I'd read. And he's the manager still. And I'd run outside.
I'd come running inside. I'm like, you know what it says right here? He's like, yeah. I remember reading.
And the message talked about preschool finger painting. Does anybody remember that verse? And he says, let's move beyond the preschool finger painting. Things such as raising the dead.
And I'm like, the Bible says raising the dead is finger painting. We should be doing more, church. Well, I was dead.
I've been raised from the dead at this point. I was dead in my transgressions, right? I had come to life for the first time. I was born again.
And so that was amazing. Learning the words from him. We studied.
We worshipped every night. Tea was never on. He had worshipped me constantly.
And he just mentioned we'd drive to work. We'd talk about the Lord. We'd take a break.
We'd talk about the Lord. We'd drive home from work. We'd talk about the Lord.
We'd sit at home. We'd have dinner. We'd talk about the Lord.
And that's all I did for like a year. For like a year. And God started doing amazing things.
All of my children, my three adult children, who are adult now, they all moved back home. None of them even lived in Illinois. And one of them even lives in Pawnee.
And he's brought all the children home. That's amazing. That's a miracle in and of itself.
Praise God. But it took time. It took time.
It took me to get on my face at my daughter's feet and weep tears onto her shoes and beg her for forgiveness before restoration started happening. But God is a God of restoration. And so now I'm teaching people.
I'm leading people in recovery. My kids are coming home. I met my amazing wife.
We got married. Gosh, how many years did we know each other? Months. We only knew each other like eight months and we were married.
Because God had done her story similar. Huh? Seven months. Fifteen years later.
Right? God is amazing. God is the builder. Wasn't that scripture in Amos talked about restoring and rebuilding the walls, right? Wasn't it something like that? I love that.
Right? Rebuilding David's team. And like it's so beautiful what God can do to a surrendered life. You've got to be sold out for the gospel.
This isn't fun. This is serious business. We're at war.
And so had he not gone to war for me, Eric, I would be probably dead by now in prison. I'm just being real. We've got to war for the lost.
We've got to fight for our salvation. We have to walk it out with fear and trembling. Amen? So we started doing that.
Well, years go in. We were doing celebrating recovery. I pastored for four and a half years in Outreach Church.
It was beautiful. I loved it. I love preaching the gospel.
I love it. But it sees it. The building was crumbling around us, right? Literally the ceiling.
I come in, the ceiling tiles got on the ground, you know, from the rain. And I was just like, oh, my gosh. I'm cleaning the toilets.
We didn't have staff, you know? I'm cleaning the toilets, putting every chair in its place. But I said, who cares about chairs? They're like, no. I'm going to honor God and the people who come and sit in these chairs.
It's going to be perfect. The rows are going to be perfect. Right? I don't know how good I preach, but the rows were perfect.
So anyway, now all this is so beautiful. And I remember we decided we're going to take a season off. And celebrating recovery ended and the passing ended.
And we thought, we're just going to go to church. And she had been asking me, because she had a son. And she had been asking me to foster for years.
And she wanted a big family. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I'm done.
Like, none of our kids have diapers. Like, they're all kind of grown. And I remember I was worshiping.
And I was laying upstairs. And I was worshiping. And I was like, Lord.
Lord, I just want to go. I had been to Toronto eight times on mission trips. So I was like, Lord, I just want to go on mission trips.
And I want to go mushroom hunting. And I want to go fishing. And everybody was like, Lord, you have to.
And once a month, she'd remind me that she wants to foster. And she wants a big family. But Lord, what about what I want? And he said, hey, man.
There's children out there who don't have a father to take them to mushroom hunting or fishing on mission trips. And I cried. And I cried for 20 minutes.
He said, I want my wife to see me at lunch. Hey, baby, you know that fostering you were talking about? Let's do that. So we have 10 kids now.
Wow. Only five of them are here. We've adopted four.
We have four. She has one. I have three.
We've adopted four. We have two. They're in our care now.
He's amazing. He's got a treasure chest, these cotton balls, because people are treasures to God. And had he not given me a little bit of time, had he not prayed for me, had he not simply invited me to church, I don't know where I'd be.
I don't know where my kids would be. My biological youngest is a youth pastor in Springfield. Her son, my stepson, is at Fowler College with Rod Parsley in Columbus, Ohio.
All of my kids know the Lord. Because of the obedience of one man. Because of the obedience of one man who did something he couldn't even fathom doing, and that's bringing David home, this alcoholic drug addict.
So my challenge to you guys today is I want every single one of you to get a cotton ball. So when you are passing around, would you guys please do that? Because I want you guys to put a cotton ball up your nightstand. And every morning, I want you to wake up.
You want to take it? Pass it around? I mean it. Because not only was my life saved and changed, as a by-proxy, God's into multiplication. He's not into addition.
He didn't just add me to the kingdom. He multiplied the seed that was sown in my life in, well, ten children, a fourth grandchild on the way, and we've been doing recovery ministry for 13 years now. We wrote a book.
We have our own ministry that the Lord gave us. It's called Refiner's Recovery. And we have weekly meetings, and it's about nine pillars of refining.
We've been doing that ministry, and drug and alcohol, and really any kind of addiction ministry for 13 years or so. So we wrote a book, Refiner's Recovery. You can find it on Facebook.
It's Refiner's Recovery Community. If you know anybody that wants to attend a virtual meeting, we're out in Carlinville is where we meet, but they can join us every Tuesday evening around 7 o'clock. We go live with a virtual meeting.
We teach nine pillars. Surrender, repentance, identity are the first three. You hear what I'm saying? This is our path.
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