Graduate 149: Five Reflections for the Church, Part 2

God's heart for the lost sheep.
Composed: 03 May 2009.

"What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!' I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." (Luke 15:4-7)

This is one of a series of parables in which Jesus reveals the heart of God for the lost people of the world. a friend of mine referred to this passage during a prayer and worship service a couple weeks back, and I've been meditating on it off-and-on ever since. For many in Jesus' audience, this parable presented a new and startling picture of God—as One who is seeking sinners out. Other Jewish teachers taught about God's readiness to forgive and to receive the repentant. But the idea that God would actually go out of his way to pursue, and look for, and reach out to sinners—that was news.

Is that news to us? Perhaps we are very well acquainted with this truth about God. After all, we have the Biblical record to look back on. Paul writes, in Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." And Jesus tells the religious leaders, in Luke 19:10, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." That God was and is in the business of seeking out sinners is written all over the pages of Scripture. It may not be news to us, but think for a moment: do we really understand that truth and its implications for our lives?

Do you grasp or understand God's desire to know and be in relationship with each and every lost person? He wants to save your next-door neighbor. He loves that co-worker who has the desk next to yours. He wants to embrace your supervisor. He knows the name of that person you pass every time you walk your dog. He wants to adopt every man and woman in your fitness club as His son or daughter. He wants to heal and restore the clerks and managers at the grocery store. He wants to pour out His Spirit on the couple at that bus stop. The people you meet and pass throughout your day--the customers and clients, the old friends and new acquaintances, the people on the golf course and the fans at the baseball game, the kids at the park and the folks at the senior center, the waiter and host at your favorite restaurant, the bus-boy, the janitor, the receptionist, the colleague, the woman who's watering her lawn and the man who's mowing his, that teenager on his bicycle, and that girl walking with her little sister--God knows each and every one of them by name and He is seeking after them and reaching out to them and desires to save them. Is that your desire as well? Is that your desire: that they would come to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ?

In John 3:16, Jesus says, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son…". And the question that's hitting me right between the eyes is: What am I doing to reach out to a world of lost people--of lost sheep? After all, there was a time when I was one of those lost sheep; and God came looking for me; and Christian people came looking for me. Pray that we would all catch a vision of God’s heart for the lost in our neighborhoods, communities, city, nation, and world.

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.