LOST AND FOUND

Source: www.LumoProject.com

All of us, in different ways, have been once lost and found; then lost and found again and again and again. Luke 15 has three parables that show man’s tendency to drift away from God. But they also show us the heart of God towards the lost because God is in the business of finding the lost.

The Lost Sheep

In Luke 15:1-7, Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd who is willing to leave the 99 sheep to search for one missing sheep. We are very much like sheep. We easily veer away from the Lord, the Shepherd of our souls. In Isaiah 53:6, God said that we all, like sheep, have gone astray.

In 1757, a pastor and hymn writer named Robert Robinson penned the words of the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." He was just 22 when he wrote the song yet at a young age he knew his own capacity to drift away from God (Source: Wikipedia).

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
—Robinson

Have you ever felt like you are so far from God? A sheep is subject to dangers, forces of nature, and wild beasts when it is away from the shepherd. The same is true for us. Apart from the Lord, we are in harm's way and we are exposed to the enemy’s attacks.

Yet, as Bill Crowder once said, "Our tendency to wander is matched by God's willingness to pursue." In Luke 15:6, upon finding the lost sheep, the shepherd calls his friends and tells them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!" He called the lost sheep "my sheep.” He never lost possession of it.

How many times have we found ourselves doubting if God still loves us after we have veered away from Him? But such is the heart of God that will not be content with the 99 sheep until he finds the lost one.

The Lost Coin

The second parable is about a coin lost out of neglect (Luke 15:8-10). Merriam-Webster defines neglect as "to give little attention or respect to" and "to leave undone or unattended to especially through carelessness."

Our relationship with God, our pursuit of our inheritance, our care for the house of God, and our spiritual gifts – these are things we can neglect because of carelessness, forgetting the word of God, preoccupation, and ignorance or lack of knowledge.

1. Neglecting our relationship with God – In Song of Solomon 1:6, the Shulamite kept others’ vineyards but her own vineyard she had not kept. We can certainly perform ministries and at the same time, neglect our relationship with the Lord. This can result to backsliding. If there is anything we should prioritize, it’s our ministry to the Lord but how many times have we taken it lightly?

2. Neglecting our pursuit of the inheritance – Joshua reproved the Israelites for their slackness in conquering all of the land of inheritance (Joshua 18:3). For us, an inheritance can speak about a territory, a people, a calling, or ministry. When we neglect them, we shortchange ourselves for eternity. How we need to keep our inheritances and fight for them!

3. Neglecting the House of God – We neglect it by withholding our resources and not supporting God’s house. But not only that. How are we in praying for our leaders? And our brethren and the work of the Lord? Are we doing our part in the body of Christ or are we just self-focused? When the house of God is neglected, God’s kingdom is not advanced.

4. Spiritual Gifts – First Timothy 4:14 warns us not to neglect spiritual gifts. When we do, the growth of church is stunted and the people are not edified.

We can learn from what the woman did in search for the lost coin. She lit a lamp, swept the house and looked for it carefully (Luke 15:8). As we read His word, He sheds light to our feet and our path (Psalm 119:105).

Sweeping the house means repentance and getting rid of the dirt and trash from our hearts which accumulated because of our negligence. And like the woman, let us not be careless anymore but meticulous in every detail of our lives before the Lord and we will find what we have lost.

The Lost Son

Here in the last parable, which is famously known as the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31). The son was lost because of willful disobedience. Unlike the first parable where the shepherd looked for the sheep; the father did not search for the son. When we deliberately disobey God, there are times we are left to ourselves and God takes His hands off us.

It took a crisis for the son to come to his senses. After he had squandered his inheritance, he was left with nothing and he gladly ate the pods of the peas that were food for the pigs. His plight was so severe he had to compete with the pigs in order to eat. For some people, it can take a crisis, like losing their inheritance, in order to wake up and repent.

The son remembered that in his father's house, the servants were well provided for so he made his way back to the father. As the father was waiting and seeing from afar his son who was lost, he ran towards him. The son pleaded to the father to make him one of the hired servants for he reckoned himself unworthy to be called his son. Such is the mark of true repentance, that the son was ready and willing to accept the consequences of his sin.

However, the father commanded his servants to clothe his son with a robe, put sandals on his feet, and put a ring on his finger. The robe speaks of ministry; ring symbolizes authority; and sandals speak of our walk with God. All three were restored to the son but not his inheritance.

There are wrong decisions that man makes in life that cannot be changed even if he repents like marrying the wrong person. Hence, let us have the fear of the Lord in our hearts lest we lose our inheritance because of wilful disobedience.

Therefore, we see that there are varying degrees of being lost – the lost sheep because of wandering, lost coin because of neglect, and lost son because of disobedience. Yet in whichever situation, God's desire is to seek the lost and restore them. At the end of the parable of the prodigal son, the father told the complaining older son that the younger son was dead but came back to life. God does not want us to perish, He wants us to live.

Are you lost? Go back to the arms of the loving Heavenly Father.

Works Cited:

"Neglect." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 05 May 2017.
"Prone To Wander." Our Daily Bread. N.p., 14 Aug. 2015. Web. 05 May 2017.
"Robert Robinson (Baptist)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Mar. 2017. Web. 05 May 2017.