Starting here, so often it would seem that the next question would be trying to find the lost things. That's good, but there's an even more basic question that we have to ask first.
There is the old saying that says you'll find something in the last place you look. Which is a very true statement...mostly because if you continue to look for something after you've found it, then I would have to question you sanity. What that saying doesn't mention is how many places you have to look first before you get to the last place. My experience has been that that can be a large number.
In this message, we're taking a look to answer the question above. Are we looking in the right places, but looking for what? We're looking for the lost sheep. Over the course of this post and the second post in the series I'm working through the parable of the lost sheep that Jesus tells in Luke 15:1-7. This post answers the question above, and the second post will look at what it takes to be part of the 99 who are left behind, and how that impacts our ability to look in the right places.
Why do we look for the lost sheep? Take a look at verse 7:
We look because they are the ones that need help. We say people are lost, not because they are physically lost, but because as people of faith we believe that their lives will be better with faith in God and knowing the person of Jesus Christ. But this is where things get tricky. We can't force the lost to be found. We've tried that, and with every thump of a Bible we lost more people. In fact, this was the very thing that Jesus was concerned with as he told this story.
Many times, when we read this parable, we think that Jesus is talking to the lost and this is a message to them that says you can be found. This is what Jesus is doing, but it isn't the only thing that he is doing. The lost who are hearing this story already know that they can be found, and they have come to the right place for it. This story is primarily directed at the other group of people that Jesus is talking to.
There were two groups of people with Jesus as he told the story. One was the sinners (lost), and the other where the legal experts (flock). As Jesus is telling the story, he is directing it at the flock. In Jesus' opinion, they weren't looking in the right places. Jesus is telling them that he is going to go to where the sinners are to find the lost. The legal experts weren't doing that. They were expecting that people would be good enough when they came to them to be found. That kind of thinking never works.
In the legal experts case, it became a situation where they were looking down on the very people they were supposed to be finding, precisely because they needed to be found. This was never a sustainable system and showed that they were looking in all of the wrong places. Jesus was showing them a different way of reaching out to the folks who are lost. This was a way that involved compassion, teaching, empathy, and a desire to help those that need help.
This is the same kind of mindset that we need. If we are going to reach people who are lost, we can't do it through humiliation and coercion. We have to do it by showing the genuine love of Jesus Christ through every action we take so that it creates a desire to be found on the part of the lost, so that they develop a desire to know what sends us out to them.
The good news for us is that God is always working on that with us. There is a reason why this story of the lost sheep sticks with us. It is our reminder that we need to be doing this kind of work, and that it is this kind of work that Jesus sends us out to do.
As you go through this next week look for the lost. Don't just look for them in the same places as you always do, but look for them in new places. Look for the people who are trying to be found, but maybe don't know the right direction to look. We can help them see that. Most importantly, go out listening to the story that Jesus tells and go out in the same way that Jesus did so that his love will show through you.
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