Real Hope: Jesus' Life & MinistryНамуна

Loving the Lost

READ LUKE 15:1–7

Not many of us would criticise a doctor for spending lots of time with sick people. It’s the doctor’s job after all. When Jesus came to earth, His job was to tell the good news of God’s grace to those who needed it. He figured people were in need of help and He came to offer it. And so He spent much time with those in most need of help. When criticised for this by the scripture scholars of the day, He replied that, if He was going to help the sick and the lost, He had to seek them out and spend time with them.

In Luke 15, Jesus illustrates His ‘job description’ by speaking of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. The overriding point is that the lost person or object or creature is of great value. Jesus does not just shrug His shoulders at those who stray from Him. He doesn’t just move with the movers, content with those who are close to Him. He has no elite inner circle of followers who are in His good books. He is not the type to just enjoy the company of the safe and sound and respectable.

Quite by contrast, He goes out looking for those who have made a mess of things, who have turned their back on Him, who have been given one too many chances, who haven’t measured up. This is consistent with the picture of God we see in the Garden of Eden: a God who goes looking for those who are trying to hide in shame from Him. God has no too-hard baskets. No one is beyond His loving looking. No one has gone so far away that they have no chance of coming back. No one is so lost that they cannot eventually be found.

Written by DAVID REAY