To Save the Lost

In the gospel account of Luke, chapter 15, we are given three stories which Jesus told. Each involves a loss.

Someone- a shepherd or farmer, owns one hundred sheep, and one of them goes missing. Does the owner leave the creature to its own fate? No, he leaves the flock in safety and searches until he finds it, joyfully carrying it home again.

A woman has ten silver coins and loses one. She searches her house, using a lamp to peer into dark nooks, sweeping out every possible crevice where it may have rolled. When she finds it, she happily tells all her friends.

A wealthy landowner has two sons. The youngest requests his inheritance ahead of time, leaves home and squanders all he possesses. Destitute and ashamed, he returns home to the father he abandoned, with the hope of living as one of his father’s hired hands. His father runs to him, rejoicing, and celebrates his son’s return with a lavish feast.

Our lives too, are filled with losses, great and small. I once owned a terrier dog who panicked every time we experienced a thunderstorm, and would break through the fence and run away. I remember how anxious I would be to locate him, and how happy I was each time he was found. We can lose objects, and relationships, and jobs. The death of loved ones is a grievous loss. I’ve lost both of my parents, and whilst I rejoice in the knowledge that they are in Heaven, I still feel the pain of separation, knowing I will spend the rest of my earthly life without them being here.

So it is with God. He is not unaware of the unsaved people in this world, far from it. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, God loves all of the people that He created, and grieves that they choose to follow a life without Him, rejecting Him, not understanding the wonderful life that God wants for them. God has given each of us free will, to reject or follow Him. Sometimes in our rejection we are led through suffering and disillusionment until we find our way to Him. 

“He [Jesus] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

The triune God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, wants relationship with you. He created mankind to be in relationship with Himself. When Satan, the rebellious angel, tempted Adam and Eve into sin and doomed mankind to a sinful nature, God still made a way for us to be reconciled to Him. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth, to pay the debt of sin. The Son of God died, taking upon Himself the penalty for sin - death. Yet He defeated death. He rose again. We who accept Christ have the promise of eternal life with Him. 

On the night when Jesus was betrayed and taken to be tried and crucified, He ate a meal, the “last supper” with His disciples. He prayed for them. He also prayed for those people who would believe in Him through their message. In effect, this means that Jesus, when He was alive on this earth, prayed for me, and for you too, if you become a believer through the message of Christ’s followers. What an amazing thought! Jesus is a God whose love stretched through the centuries to our present age, knowing us then as He knows and cares for us now.

Like the shepherd in the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus, our Good Shepherd, is seeking the lost souls of this world. He rejoices with thousands upon thousands of angels in Heaven when a person commits their life, in repentance and faith, to Him.

I wonder if the shepherd had some helpers to locate the sheep? Did the woman have friends looking for her coin? Each calls friends and neighbours to celebrate when the lost is found. The father of the lost son, however, finds opposition when he organises his celebration. The prodigal son’s older brother is resentful of the celebrations.

As the family of God, our earthly task is to be a witness for Christ. It was the great commission given to Christ’s followers prior to Christ’s ascent to Heaven. Following His return to Heaven, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to this earth, to empower God’s people, so that they could “be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). We are to be used of God to witness His love and care, to minister to the needs of the unsaved and draw them to faith in Jesus Christ. If not, we become like the prodigal’s older brother, enjoying the benefits of his father’s household without caring for his lost brother, leaving his father to wait and grieve alone.

 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:4-7)