Luke 15 - Lost People Matter to God

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A pastor I was most influenced by frequently said, “Lost people matter to God, so they should matter to us. Nowhere is that principle illustrated as strongly as the parable of the lost sheep.   

The Parable of the Lost Sheep  

The tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus. Jesus was available to all people. The Pharisees took offense at this. Why? 

They thought they were better than them.  Remember these men were supposed to be shepherds of God’s flock. So Jesus tells them a parable to show them what God’s love looks like. 

In the story a shepherd realizes one of his 100 sheep is lost. So he leaves the 99 to find the lost one. Note he would have had to keep a count to realize one was gone. He must have done a lot of sheep counting. So we realize numbers matter. Every number represents a person who God loves and Jesus died for. 

When he finds the lost sheep he puts it over his shoulder and goes home joyfully.  In the same way all of heaven rejoices when one lost sinner is found. In the church we should always be thinking and praying about the person who isn’t with us. Whether this is someone who has strayed from his the flock or someone who has never been in the flock. 

Does your church focus more on those who are lost or those who are found?

The Parable of the Lost Coin

This story is very similar to the previous one but in this one a woman loses one of her ten silver coins.  This was a lot  of money, so she sweeps the floor diligently in search of it. 

When she finally finds it, she is overjoyed and tells all her friends about it,  and they all rejoice together. 

The result is the same as there is much joy over one sinner who repents in the presence of angels.  Once again we see lost people matter to God, and so they should matter to us. 

When is this last time you or your church rejoiced over someone who repented from a life far from God.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son. 

This is my favorite parable of the three. In this case it illustrates the love of a father for his son. The son decides to take and spend his inheritance money on wild and reckless.  Think Las Vegas bachelor party. 

The son losses it all and is eating pods with the pigs. Then it says he, “Came to senses”. He realized how good he had it home, and so he sulks home thinking he is going to get a good talking too. He starts planning what he will say to his dad. 

Now for my favorite part. The father is scanning the horizon waiting for his son to come to his senses and come home. He doesn’t care about what he has done wrong, he just misses his son. 

So finally he sees his son way in the distance and runs to him. When he reaches him, he gives him a huge bear hug and kisses him. The son admits he has sinned against both God and him, but the Father is so excited to see the Son, he throws a huge party for him telling his servants,

Come let us celebrate. My son who was lost has been found. 

Meanwhile his older brother is a little miffed. After all, he had stayed home, worked hard, and not disobeyed his father. Where was his party? It didn’t seem fair. 

But the Father says to him tenderly, Son, you will always have my love and everything I have is yours, but this night is special. Your brother has come home 

This could very well be the Jewish people who had tried to follow the Law all their lives.  Then Jesus welcomes these sinners who never before gave a rip about God. Why is he making such a big fuss over them.  What about us? 

We will know are churches are following Jesus when they demonstrate the heart of the Father by searching for lost people. When the church stops caring about lost people we are not the church Jesus started. 

When we try to do things to attract new people to church and people get uptight and say, “We’ve never done it that way before!!!”, we are in trouble. 

When church becomes all about providing religious good and services to consumers who want their spiritual needs met on their terms, we are in trouble!  

Lost people matter to God and they should matter to us. After all you were lost once and there was a party in heaven when you were found!