Lost & Found (Luke 15: 1-10)

Trinity 15 (12 September 20010)

Text: Luke 15: 1-10 (Lost & Found)

 

There are three parables put in sequence about something lost that was found.  This morning we have two of the parables: the first parable, a little lamb is lost and the Shepherd leaves the others to go out and find the individual lamb.  The second parable is about a woman who lost one of her ten coins. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house and searches carefully until she finds it.

I like watching the cartoon “Shaun the Sheep” shown on Astro TV. Shaun the Sheep was a cunning and often mischievous sheep.  But real-life sheep are not like Shaun the Sheep: some people consider them dumb, stupid or stubborn animals.   That is why we never see a sheep being used in a circus.

Sheep are also without defence.  Almost all animals have either claws, sharp teeth, quills, a hard shell, or speed to escape predators, but not a lamb: they have no defences.  Sheep are also without a sense of direction.  They get lost easily.  Birds and bees can find their nests.  Cats and dogs can often find their way back home, but sheep have no idea about how to find their own way back home once they are lost. And worst still, sometimes they don’t even know they are lost. 

So when the Bible describes people as sheep, it is not very complimentary.  But it is really an exact description of people when they are lost without realising it; or when they become stubborn because they think that they are right; or when they go without directions because they don’t want to follow God’s leadership.  In many respects we can be dumb, defenceless, and directionless because, like the sheep, we all have a tendency to stray away from God and from the truth.  That is why in Isaiah 53:6, the Bible says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

It can be sad and terrible experience to be lost.  It is also a distressing experience as well.  The word L-O-S-T is one of the scariest four lettered words in the human language.  We hear news about people who lost their belongings or investments, or those who lost their lives.  You have heard about people who lost their health, or their minds, or losing a fortune. There are people who lost their characters, or even losing their lives in accidents.  Terrible as they are, none of these is as serious as losing our souls.  These losses will end when we die, but a lost soul is for eternity.  This is what Jesus is referring to when he uses the word “lost”: it is the spiritual condition of being eternally lost.

But the good news is that Jesus cares about the one who is lost.  To emphasis his points he speaks about a shepherd who had 100 sheep. Just before he took them to the shed in the evening, he counted them, and found one is missing.  So he left the other 99 sheep and went out to find the single lost lamb.  There are people who think that the shepherd is foolish to leave the 99 sheep in order to search for one lamb.  After all, you have the 99: it’s only a 1% loss!   

But Jesus was not talking about people: He was talking about God.  Even if the shepherd had 10,000 sheep and one was lost, he would have left the 9,999 and gone after the one.  So the first thing that this parable teaches us is that God loves each and every one of us and he will go all the way to seek the lost.  That was why Jesus came to earth.  In Luke 19:10 Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” It is the nature of God to seek the lost.  If people are to ask you how a Christian faith is different from their faith, this is one of them. While most religions of the world teach about men seeking and searching for God, the Christian faith teaches about the God of the Universe who comes seeking and searching for men!

The second thing we learn from this parable is that every individual matters.  The shepherd is happy that the 99 sheep are safe, but he is concerned about the one lost sheep. Many of us tend to think that a single person matters less than the whole crowd. We don’t feel it to be a great lost if one of our members is missing. We tend to reason out, “Why should we be bothered with just one person who is not here – any way we still have a crowd of people.  But God does not think like that: he is concerned with the missing person.  Perhaps I need to stretch this further.  I want you to see that God often deals with us as individuals and not as groups.  Jesus cannot save a crowd of people, but He will save every individual in the crowd who will accept His love and forgiveness.  I want you to understand that you are not saved because you hang around other Christians. You are saved because you have a personal encounter with the Shepherd yourself.

Finally, I want you to take note how the shepherd found the lost lamb.  He just searched the field.  When he finally found it, he didn’t chase the lamb back to the flock with a stick.  Instead, he picked up the lamb, put him on his shoulder, and carried him all the way back home. It is a beautiful picture of how God deals with us. We need not come back to the flock with fear because God does not chase us back in. Instead he lovingly carries us home.  That is what Jesus does.

In the second parable, it’s not a lamb that has wandered off on its own; it’s a coin that has been accidentally lost. The woman had ten coins and one of them was lost.  Most scholars believe this coin was part of a headdress that brides wore. Jewish brides often wore a headdress of ten coins strung across their foreheads. So the coin had great sentimental value because it was part of her wedding vows. That’s why she literally turned her house upside down to find it.

In this parable, the woman is so intent on finding the lost coin she does two important things: First, she lights a lamp and second she sweeps up the dirt on her floor.  In our lost condition, we are represented by the lost coin and Jesus is the one searching to find us. There is an important application we can make from these two details of light and sweeping.

It tells us that Jesus lives to give us light.  The first thing the woman did was light a lamp so that the coin can be seen.  When we are lost we don’t know where we are.  Likewise when we are lost in sin, we do not know our condition, because we are in the darkness of sin.  Jesus came into this world to provide the light of truth. In John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

In addition to being light, Jesus died to sweep out our dirt. The lost coin was somewhere on the floor, and the best way to find it was to take a broom and sweep up all the dirt. In the process of cleaning every square inch of the floor, the woman found the coin. There’s a great lesson here as well. In addition to giving you light, Jesus desires to cleanse our lives of all the dirt and filth that has accumulated there. He died on the cross so our sins could be forgiven.  We read in 1 John 1:7, “And the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

What else do the two stories teach us?   First, it teaches us that there are different ways in which people may get lost.  The lost sheep is like some of us who have wandered away from God. The sheep didn’t get lost on purpose. He didn’t do it out of rebellion or maliciousness toward the shepherd. But the sheep has wandered away because he was distracted or lured away while looking for food.    

In life we can be lured away too. We all get deceived from time to time, even though we may not want to admit it.  Sometimes we are led to believe something which wasn’t true. Some of us have been hurt in a relationship by people who deceived us into believing them. Some of us have been financially cheated by someone we trust. Some of us have been betrayed by the words and actions of those we love. We have all been deceived, and some of us have even deceived ourselves. The parable reminds us that the good shepherd is searching for people who are in this situation.  

There are people who are like the lost coin – they don’t know that they are lost. These include people who don’t understand that they were created by a loving God. They don’t realize that when this temporary life ends, an eternal life begins. They may believe that their purpose in life was to be good persons, to be financially successful and take care of their families.  But God, heaven or hell was never an issue. Some of these people may even claim to be Christians. They say they believe in God; they believe in morality and integrity; and they admire truth, but for some reasons they are cut off from the fellowship of other Christians. They don’t think that they are lost, but they are lost. 

The other thing we can learn about these two parables is that they are different from the Parable of the Prodigal Son. In these two stories both the sheep and the coin had to be searched with great effort. The shepherd did not wait for the lost sheep to wander home and the woman did not wait for the lost coin to turn up.  But in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the father just waited patiently for the son to return.  Sometimes, God behaves in such manner when he sees being lost.  Though he longs for us to return to him, he will not interfere with our choice of lifestyle. 

However, the two stories are chosen for our reading this morning to remind us 3 things.  I want you to note that as Jesus was travelling around preaching the Good news there were always the "tax collectors and sinners" gathering around him.  These were lost people.  Verse 1 says that they were "gathering around to hear him."  Jesus was not teaching them something that was nice to hear or easy to accept.  But why did the "lost" seek out Jesus rather than run from him?  It was his compassion that drew them to him.  The Bible says in verse 2 that Jesus "welcomes sinners and eats with them."   He received a sinner as a friend.  This was Jesus attitude toward those who were lost in sin. Jesus welcomed them; he was compassionate and accepting of them despite their sins and faults.  Jesus had an attitude that lost people were attracted to.   So one thing we must learn: if we, as individuals and as a church, want to reach out to people, we have to show and have that same love and acceptance.

The stories tell us both the shepherd and the woman made an effort to search what was lost. How do we put this into practice as a church? I believe there are several things we can do.  First, a significant part of our prayers should be for the lost. Second, making every effort means that a significant part of our ministries should be directed toward reaching the lost, and not just helping those who are already Christians.   Not all of us can physically go out there to reach out and bring the lost back to God.   If we cannot do the work, we must support those who are doing it. I have been watching the wardens counting money at the end of the services.  My comment is we can do more than just giving a dollar a week to the church. 

We also can learn about the persistence of the two persons.  They continued seeking after the lost items until they found them.  In other words, Jesus seems to be pointing out that persistence was a needed quality for success.  It would not be easy to look for a lost sheep among spacious fields and hills, and lost coin in the dirt floor of the Jewish home. 

It is the same way with reaching the lost.  It is not easy to reach people’s hearts so that they receive Jesus.   Sometimes it takes months and years of persistence, but we should not be discouraged or give up.  If a lost sheep is so important that the shepherd has to leave the rest of the 99, or if the woman has to sweep the whole house to look for a lost coin, then people who are spiritually lost are too valuable to give up on.

The religious leaders during the time of Jesus had been indifferent toward the lost and even angry at them for coming to Jesus.  Jesus uses these two parables to illustrate how wrong their response was.  They should be joyful to see the lost saved just as the shepherd was happy to find a lost sheep and the woman - her lost coin.

Jesus then pointed out that the one thing that matters most to God is the lost. They matter so much to God that when the lost are found, even one of them, all heaven rejoices.   If we are truly the Body of Christ, then we must have the concern that Christ.  If lost people matter so much to Jesus, then they must also matter much to us.  If Jesus was willing to die on the cross to save the lost, the church must also be willing to give everything needed in order to reach the lost.