Back when I was in high school, I spent my summer evenings pitching and playing first-base on a men’s beer league softball team. Our club was young, inexperienced, and flat-out terrible! We lost most of our games, but we sure had a lot of fun. I remember one steaming hot Saturday afternoon when we lost our first two games of a double elimination tournament. Our shirts and ball caps were drenched with sweat and my teammate Jeff said, “Let’s head to my farm and go swimming in the pond.” We immediately took off!
I jumped out of the car and sprinted through the pasture toward the pond, stripping off my shirt, socks, and shoes as I ran. I flew off the dock and cannonballed into the cool water. The rest of the guys followed right behind me. As I came up out of the water and turned my head, I watched my friend Doc jump in without taking his glasses off. I tried to stop him, but it was too late. And sure enough, when his body came to the surface, his glasses were gone. He was so eager to dive in that he completely forgot about his glasses. He didn’t even realize he did this until I told him.
He immediately panicked because it was his only pair and he was as blind as a bat without them. To make matters worse, he had recently been kicked out of his parent’s house and he didn’t have any money to replace them. I remember thinking to myself, “There is no way we will ever find his glasses! We’d have a better chance finding a needle in a haystack!” The pond was at least 14 feet deep and it was as black as cup of coffee. Even if we had been courageous enough to open our eyes in that water, we couldn’t see anything. So, we repeatedly dove down to bottom and fished our hands through the mud and manure and hopelessly searched. But to my great amazement, about an hour later, my friend Cory came up holding Doc’s glasses.
I don’t know if I have ever seen anyone so overjoyed. Doc got out of the water, put his glasses back on, and shouted, screamed, and danced a jig. The rest of us laughed hysterically as we watched his spontaneous spectacle of jubilation. For the next 15 minutes, he was the happiest man on earth.
Have you ever experienced the joy of finding something that you had lost? Your wallet? Your keys? Your passport? Or perhaps, something even more precious? There is indeed a great sense of relief and joy when we find something that was lost.
In today’s Bible text, Jesus speaks about this joyful phenomenon of finding something that was lost, but he applies it directly to human souls! You see, the scribes and Pharisees were getting on Jesus’ case for welcoming tax collectors and “sinners,” a term that describe a multitude of morally degenerate people on earth. As usual, they were more concerned with maintaining their own purity and pious reputation than they were with helping people.
And it is certainly true that Jesus hung out with sinners; he was not afraid to spend time with people who were monetarily dishonest, ethically corrupt, or sexually promiscuous. How could he share God’s love with sinners or call them to repentance if he wasn’t willing to spend time with them? So, Jesus tells three “lost and found” parables to teach the religious leaders about God’s great love for sinners. We will look at the first two parables today, and save the third one for another day.
A Lost Sheep (3-7)
Jesus begins with the parable of the lost sheep. He paints a hypothetical picture of a shepherd counting his hundred sheep and one comes up one short. Sheep are notoriously dumb animals—they don’t listen well, they frighten easily, and they get lost all the time. (It’s no wonder that the Bible often compares human beings to sheep.) The wellbeing of the sheep is dependent upon the shepherd’s care. If a sheep went missing, a good shepherd would leave the rest of the flock in pasture with a responsible family member or neighbors and go looking for the lost sheep himself, and that is precisely what this shepherd does.
In this case, the shepherd’s search for the lost sheep is successful. He is elated to discover that the sheep had not fallen off a cliff or had been torn to shreds by a wild animal. Then, as shepherds often did with injured or missing sheep, he hoisted it on his shoulders and carried it all the way home. When he returned, his joy compelled him to throw a party in celebration of his recovered sheep, saying to his neighbors and friends, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.”
As he concluded the simple story, he looked directly into the Pharisees eyes and delivered a scathing application, saying, “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” This sarcasm-laced line cut right to the heart of the Pharisees problem: they looked down on sinners and put their hope in their own self-righteousness. Jesus wanted them to know that everyone needs to repent, sinners and saints alike. And all of heaven rejoices when a sinner repents and comes into the fold of God.
This ancient parable speaks to our modern lives in a variety of ways. First, it reminds us that we are all sinners and that we all need to repent. Let us not be like the Pharisees who tried to get to heaven by living a moral life and maintaining a high level of purity. Many people today do not even see the need to repent. They either dismiss sin altogether or they think that their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds and they will go to heaven because they were relatively good people. This is so wrong! We cannot do it on our own, no matter how hard we try! We are all lost sheep and we need Jesus, the Good Shepherd, to get us home! Have you really repented from your sins? Have you given your heart to the Good Shepherd?
Second, this parable shows us that God pursues us when we wander away. What a comfort it is to know that Jesus loves us and cares about us so much that he actually comes after us when we go astray. He doesn’t just leave us to fall off the cliff of disastrous decisions or to be devoured by the wolves of the worldly desires. Have you wandered away from the fold of God? Have you been busy doing your own thing? Stop running away! Allow yourself to be rescued by the Redeemer!
Third, this parable serves as our ministry model for relating to the lost. Far too many Christians prefer to hide in their little bubbles of righteousness and purity than to risk getting their own hands or souls dirty by spending time with tax collectors and sinners. Too many Christian are concerned about becoming polluted by the world or influenced by non-believers that they don’t even have any friends who aren’t Christians. Sadly, I know some Christians who don’t even know any non-Christians! How will you bear witness to the good news of salvation if you don’t know any sinners? Jesus wants us to be good shepherds and go looking for lost sheep!
A Lost Coin (8-10)
Well, that is probably enough for a whole sermon right there, but Jesus went on and told a second parable about a lost coin. This time he pictures a woman who has ten silver coins and loses one. He asks the rhetorical question, “Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it.” This may not seem like a big deal at first glance. Why would she go to such an effort to find a simple lost coin?
Well, this was not a simple quarter under a couch cushion or a dime under your car floor mat; the silver coin pictured here was a “drachma” which was the equivalent of a full day’s wages. This would be more like misplacing a $100 bill; you would spend some time looking for it! Just as the shepherd called his friends to rejoice with him over finding his lost sheep, so the woman calls her friends and neighbors to inform them about the recovered coin and to share in her joy.
Can’t you hear just this conversation? She immediately got on the switchboard and shouted, “Ethel, you’ll never believe it! I found my lost coin! Woohoo! Call all the girls and tell them that we’re going to The Abbey for dinner tonight! We’ll even break out a bottle of wine!”
In the same way, Jesus applies this domestic tale to real life. God seeks the lost sinner with the same passion as the woman searches for her lost coin. And when a lost sinner is found and repents, there is great rejoicing in the presence of angels in heaven.
Friends, this is the way Jesus looks for lost sinners. The reason Jesus came to earth in the first place was to seek and to save what was lost. This is why he became a man, why he performed miracles, why he preached the kingdom of God, and why he died and rose again. Jesus was looking to find.
Even now he is still conducting his search, looking in every corner of the world for sinners he died to save. Jesus has sent his gospel out into the world—the gospel that says that everyone who trusts in his cross and believes in his empty tomb will be saved. He has sent his church into the world to befriend sinners, to eat with sinners, to share life with sinners, to love sinners, and to share the good news with sinners. Jesus will keep searching and he wants us to keep searching for every last one of the precious coins that belongs in his pocket. If you are lost and waiting to be found, Jesus is looking for you. He is searching and seeking to save you.
Are you able to sing with the great hymn writer?
Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost and now am found, was blind but now I see.
If you haven’t been found yet, I pray that you would before you leave church this morning. And if you have already been found, I pray that your search will now begin!