"Jesus and the Lost"
Luke 15:1-10
It was very late at night, and the old hobo scanned the ground beneath the streetlight diligently looking for some money he’d lost. A policeman happened upon him and joined him in the search. After a few minutes the policeman asked the man, “Exactly where did you lose the money?” The man replied, “Oh, I lost it half way down the block that away.” The policeman stood up straight and said, “Then why are you searching here?” The hobo, looking at the policeman as though he were an idiot, said, “Because the light is better here!”
I open with that story because I’ve come to realize that the first law of evangelism is this: Look for the lost where they are. Don’t continue the mistaken notion that they’ll just appear at your doorstep or the church’s doorstep. How many times have you lost your keys and—defying the law of physics—they dropped into place before your very eyes? Look for the lost where they are! Go to them. And where are they? It’s not that likely that they’re visiting the church anymore, though there certainly are a few that are courageous enough to come in seeking to find out something about the Lord. More likely they are in your own home or where you work or where you go to school or waiting on you in a restaurant or assisting you in a store. We should never forget that the first word in the Great Commission is “Go.”
In both of these little parables something of value is lost—a sheep and a coin. Nobody would ignore such a loss; rather they’d put every effort into finding what was lost and would rejoice when they found it. Then shouldn’t that also be true for people who are spiritually lost? This term “lost” refers to those who aren’t Christians, to those who have stayed outside of the salvation of God but whom God longs to come home. Shouldn’t we respond to people who are lost in an even greater way than we would to lost things? Shouldn’t we exhibit the same efforts and perseverance in searching for them? Shouldn’t we be filled with joy at their being found? The point of these parables is primarily to remind us as Christians of how we should respond to the lost. And there are three things needed for us to reach them.
The first thing needed for reaching the lost is effort. In looking for whatever was lost, the sheep and the coin were sought after with great effort. The shepherd leaves the flock in the open country to go after the one lost sheep in the wilderness, and the woman lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully for the lost coin. The shepherd didn’t wait for the lost sheep to wander home, and the woman didn’t wait for the lost coin to turn up. Of course in the church, we oftentimes do the opposite. We wait for the lost to come to us. We’re passive rather than active. We’re waiting for people to come to Christ instead of putting our wise, intelligent effort into bringing them to Him! I confess that I’ve been guilty of this. I want people to know the Lord but haven’t gone out in a search party for the lost with great effort. This has to change if we’re to reach the lost like Jesus wants us to.
The second thing needed for reaching the lost is persistence. In both parables Jesus notes specifically that the person continued seeking after the lost thing until he or she found it. It seems quite clear that Jesus was pointing out that persistence is a needed quality for success in finding the lost. After all, a sheep lost among spacious fields and hills and a coin lost somewhere on a dirt floor isn’t always easily or quickly found. By the way, the word Jesus used here was for a coin that didn’t actually have much monetary value at the time, but it did refer to one of the coins that were traditionally a part of a headdress worn by Jewish brides—a headdress of ten coins strung across their foreheads. So the coin had great sentimental value to this woman because it was part of her wedding vows. That’s why she literally turned her house upside down to find it. It’s the same way with reaching the lost. It isn’t easy to reach people’s hearts so that they receive Jesus; it isn’t usually the case that our first efforts meet with success. Sometimes it takes years and years of persistence, but we should not be discouraged or give up. If a sheep or coin was valuable enough to persistently search for, then people who are spiritually lost are too valuable to give up on—even if our efforts do not pay off quickly.
The third thing needed for reaching the lost is compassion. It was the tax collectors and sinners and other disenfranchised people who gathered around Jesus. They weren’t running from Him; they were running to Him. They weren’t avoiding Him or ignoring Him or even hostile toward Him. Why? It certainly wasn’t because Jesus had an easy message that tickled people’s ears. It wasn’t because Jesus compromised on sin and said that everything they were doing was okay. It wasn’t because He was putting on some sensationalistic show of signs and wonders. Then why? Because of His compassion! Jesus loved them and showed that love with a compassionate attitude instead of a condemning one. He welcomed them. The Greek word translated “welcomed” means “to receive as a friend,” and this was Jesus’ attitude toward those who were lost in sin. He welcomed them in spite of their sins and faults. He was a friend and not a foe. He kept an attitude that lost people were attracted to. Do we? If we’re actually going to reach the lost, we must have that same love and compassion and welcoming spirit.
And how do we practically practice these principles? What can we do to better follow Jesus’ instructions about reaching the lost? We must be on guard against our own self-righteousness. For when we grow to be self-righteous, we begin to exclude people who aren’t like us—and when we do, we become like the religious leaders criticizing Jesus. Look at their accusation: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” My response to that is, “Thank God He does or I would never have had a chance to know Him!” Their criticism was actually a compliment! In fact, if you’re feeling like you’ve failed and blown it too many times to approach God today, let me remind you that Jesus welcomes sinners! And because Jesus welcomed sinners, we as the Body of Christ need to welcome sinners too!
What else can we do? Surely a significant part of our prayers should be for the lost. And as we put feet on those prayers, a significant part of our ministry as a church should be directed toward reaching the lost. Yes, we must be about worship and discipleship and fellowship and ministry; but how we spend our time and effort and resources should also reflect our calling to spread the good news of God’s salvation. While it’s important that we as the church corporately make every effort to reach the lost, the most important thing you and I need to do in reaching the lost is to do our best to live and tell about Jesus with all those we come into contact with.
As a newspaper reporter in both Tennessee and Indiana, I covered a great number of traffic accidents, some of them with very severe injuries and even fatalities. I began to notice that at the scene of these accidents were three groups of people, each with a different response toward those hurt in the accident. The first group was the bystanders and onlookers. They slow down to look—holding up traffic—and are curious to see what happens but have little active involvement. The second group was the police officers. They’re on the scene to investigate, assessing the cause of the accident and perhaps assigning blame. The third group was the paramedics. They’re the people most welcomed by those involved in the accident. They couldn’t care less whose fault the accident was and they don’t lecture about bad driving habits. They simply help those who are hurt. They bandage wounds, free people trapped in their vehicles, all the while giving words of encouragement.
Three groups. One is uninvolved, one is assessing cause and assigning blame, and one is helping the hurting. Which group are you in? When it comes to reaching the lost and hurting, we’re going to be in one of these three groups. We can be uninvolved and let others do the work. Or we can condemn people for their foolish behavior, saying things like, “It’s your own fault that you’re in this mess. If you’d been going to church and doing like you should have been this never would have happened!” Or we can concentrate on helping those who are lost and hurting.
The tendency of the church is to respond like the police officer. We’re rightfully upset about the current state of moral values—abortion, mass shootings, pornography, divorce, LGBTQism, the breakdown of the family. But we must be careful that our concern about these issues doesn’t turn into consternation toward the lost. The lost have never flocked to hear those who railed against them, and they’ll never listen to us if we carry that same condemning attitude.
In Just Like Jesus, Max Lucado writes: “Let one child consent to be dressed in righteousness and begin the journey home, and heaven pours the punch, strings the streamers, and throws the confetti. When a soul is saved, the heart of Jesus becomes the night sky on the Fourth of July, radiant with explosions of cheer.”
And so it is that the point of these parables boils down to this: What makes heaven happy? Jesus answers that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue. Sure, our community may be impressed when we build a beautiful building, but heaven doesn’t really celebrate much over it. Other churches may be impressed—or envious—with the growth of our attendance and programs and ministries, but heaven doesn’t throw a party even over that. We should celebrate what heaven celebrates, and what heaven celebrates is every time one lost soul turns to God!
Let us pray: Thank You, Lord, for seeking and searching for all of us who were once lost. Thank You for saving us by Your grace. Help us now, through Your love and compassion, to reach out to those who don’t know You—that they too might come to experience Your love and mercy and grace. In Jesus’ name.
Luke 15:1-10
It was very late at night, and the old hobo scanned the ground beneath the streetlight diligently looking for some money he’d lost. A policeman happened upon him and joined him in the search. After a few minutes the policeman asked the man, “Exactly where did you lose the money?” The man replied, “Oh, I lost it half way down the block that away.” The policeman stood up straight and said, “Then why are you searching here?” The hobo, looking at the policeman as though he were an idiot, said, “Because the light is better here!”
I open with that story because I’ve come to realize that the first law of evangelism is this: Look for the lost where they are. Don’t continue the mistaken notion that they’ll just appear at your doorstep or the church’s doorstep. How many times have you lost your keys and—defying the law of physics—they dropped into place before your very eyes? Look for the lost where they are! Go to them. And where are they? It’s not that likely that they’re visiting the church anymore, though there certainly are a few that are courageous enough to come in seeking to find out something about the Lord. More likely they are in your own home or where you work or where you go to school or waiting on you in a restaurant or assisting you in a store. We should never forget that the first word in the Great Commission is “Go.”
In both of these little parables something of value is lost—a sheep and a coin. Nobody would ignore such a loss; rather they’d put every effort into finding what was lost and would rejoice when they found it. Then shouldn’t that also be true for people who are spiritually lost? This term “lost” refers to those who aren’t Christians, to those who have stayed outside of the salvation of God but whom God longs to come home. Shouldn’t we respond to people who are lost in an even greater way than we would to lost things? Shouldn’t we exhibit the same efforts and perseverance in searching for them? Shouldn’t we be filled with joy at their being found? The point of these parables is primarily to remind us as Christians of how we should respond to the lost. And there are three things needed for us to reach them.
The first thing needed for reaching the lost is effort. In looking for whatever was lost, the sheep and the coin were sought after with great effort. The shepherd leaves the flock in the open country to go after the one lost sheep in the wilderness, and the woman lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully for the lost coin. The shepherd didn’t wait for the lost sheep to wander home, and the woman didn’t wait for the lost coin to turn up. Of course in the church, we oftentimes do the opposite. We wait for the lost to come to us. We’re passive rather than active. We’re waiting for people to come to Christ instead of putting our wise, intelligent effort into bringing them to Him! I confess that I’ve been guilty of this. I want people to know the Lord but haven’t gone out in a search party for the lost with great effort. This has to change if we’re to reach the lost like Jesus wants us to.
The second thing needed for reaching the lost is persistence. In both parables Jesus notes specifically that the person continued seeking after the lost thing until he or she found it. It seems quite clear that Jesus was pointing out that persistence is a needed quality for success in finding the lost. After all, a sheep lost among spacious fields and hills and a coin lost somewhere on a dirt floor isn’t always easily or quickly found. By the way, the word Jesus used here was for a coin that didn’t actually have much monetary value at the time, but it did refer to one of the coins that were traditionally a part of a headdress worn by Jewish brides—a headdress of ten coins strung across their foreheads. So the coin had great sentimental value to this woman because it was part of her wedding vows. That’s why she literally turned her house upside down to find it. It’s the same way with reaching the lost. It isn’t easy to reach people’s hearts so that they receive Jesus; it isn’t usually the case that our first efforts meet with success. Sometimes it takes years and years of persistence, but we should not be discouraged or give up. If a sheep or coin was valuable enough to persistently search for, then people who are spiritually lost are too valuable to give up on—even if our efforts do not pay off quickly.
The third thing needed for reaching the lost is compassion. It was the tax collectors and sinners and other disenfranchised people who gathered around Jesus. They weren’t running from Him; they were running to Him. They weren’t avoiding Him or ignoring Him or even hostile toward Him. Why? It certainly wasn’t because Jesus had an easy message that tickled people’s ears. It wasn’t because Jesus compromised on sin and said that everything they were doing was okay. It wasn’t because He was putting on some sensationalistic show of signs and wonders. Then why? Because of His compassion! Jesus loved them and showed that love with a compassionate attitude instead of a condemning one. He welcomed them. The Greek word translated “welcomed” means “to receive as a friend,” and this was Jesus’ attitude toward those who were lost in sin. He welcomed them in spite of their sins and faults. He was a friend and not a foe. He kept an attitude that lost people were attracted to. Do we? If we’re actually going to reach the lost, we must have that same love and compassion and welcoming spirit.
And how do we practically practice these principles? What can we do to better follow Jesus’ instructions about reaching the lost? We must be on guard against our own self-righteousness. For when we grow to be self-righteous, we begin to exclude people who aren’t like us—and when we do, we become like the religious leaders criticizing Jesus. Look at their accusation: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” My response to that is, “Thank God He does or I would never have had a chance to know Him!” Their criticism was actually a compliment! In fact, if you’re feeling like you’ve failed and blown it too many times to approach God today, let me remind you that Jesus welcomes sinners! And because Jesus welcomed sinners, we as the Body of Christ need to welcome sinners too!
What else can we do? Surely a significant part of our prayers should be for the lost. And as we put feet on those prayers, a significant part of our ministry as a church should be directed toward reaching the lost. Yes, we must be about worship and discipleship and fellowship and ministry; but how we spend our time and effort and resources should also reflect our calling to spread the good news of God’s salvation. While it’s important that we as the church corporately make every effort to reach the lost, the most important thing you and I need to do in reaching the lost is to do our best to live and tell about Jesus with all those we come into contact with.
As a newspaper reporter in both Tennessee and Indiana, I covered a great number of traffic accidents, some of them with very severe injuries and even fatalities. I began to notice that at the scene of these accidents were three groups of people, each with a different response toward those hurt in the accident. The first group was the bystanders and onlookers. They slow down to look—holding up traffic—and are curious to see what happens but have little active involvement. The second group was the police officers. They’re on the scene to investigate, assessing the cause of the accident and perhaps assigning blame. The third group was the paramedics. They’re the people most welcomed by those involved in the accident. They couldn’t care less whose fault the accident was and they don’t lecture about bad driving habits. They simply help those who are hurt. They bandage wounds, free people trapped in their vehicles, all the while giving words of encouragement.
Three groups. One is uninvolved, one is assessing cause and assigning blame, and one is helping the hurting. Which group are you in? When it comes to reaching the lost and hurting, we’re going to be in one of these three groups. We can be uninvolved and let others do the work. Or we can condemn people for their foolish behavior, saying things like, “It’s your own fault that you’re in this mess. If you’d been going to church and doing like you should have been this never would have happened!” Or we can concentrate on helping those who are lost and hurting.
The tendency of the church is to respond like the police officer. We’re rightfully upset about the current state of moral values—abortion, mass shootings, pornography, divorce, LGBTQism, the breakdown of the family. But we must be careful that our concern about these issues doesn’t turn into consternation toward the lost. The lost have never flocked to hear those who railed against them, and they’ll never listen to us if we carry that same condemning attitude.
In Just Like Jesus, Max Lucado writes: “Let one child consent to be dressed in righteousness and begin the journey home, and heaven pours the punch, strings the streamers, and throws the confetti. When a soul is saved, the heart of Jesus becomes the night sky on the Fourth of July, radiant with explosions of cheer.”
And so it is that the point of these parables boils down to this: What makes heaven happy? Jesus answers that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue. Sure, our community may be impressed when we build a beautiful building, but heaven doesn’t really celebrate much over it. Other churches may be impressed—or envious—with the growth of our attendance and programs and ministries, but heaven doesn’t throw a party even over that. We should celebrate what heaven celebrates, and what heaven celebrates is every time one lost soul turns to God!
Let us pray: Thank You, Lord, for seeking and searching for all of us who were once lost. Thank You for saving us by Your grace. Help us now, through Your love and compassion, to reach out to those who don’t know You—that they too might come to experience Your love and mercy and grace. In Jesus’ name.
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