I Once Was Lost

Ill - I’ve read instances of shepherds in the Middle East where there’s a lamb with a tendency to run off by itself and get separated from the group. The shepherd takes the lamb and breaks a leg, making it partly cripple the rest of its life, to save it! Seems extreme, but the lamb that wanders off is a goner. That’s how serious it is for sheep to be lost. Jesus said in Mt 5 that if your eye causes you to stumble it would be better to gouge it out and throw it away, or if your hand causes you to stumble, better to lop it off and throw it away than to keep all your body together and lose it to hell. Learn this from the shepherd: Better to be broken than to be...lost!

Ill - You’ve probably seen them in a store – a 3yr-old child who turned down a wrong aisle and lost Mom -- weeping, desperate. The look of horror and complete helplessness on that little face is usually enough to melt any heart. To not care about him would take a pretty cold heart, especially since you’ve probably been there yourself in one way or another. LOST.

Think about a time when you were lost. Remember what it’s like? Remember the feeling of desperation? Remember the choking feeling in your throat? Remember the loneliness? THAT’s where people without Jesus are! LOST! They’ve wandered from the Father. They’ve lost the security of a loving Shepherd. They’ve lost the certainty of having their needs provided. They’ve lost protection from predators. They’ve forfeited the happiness of the rest of the flock.

If you’ve become indifferent to people outside of Christ, remember what it’s like to be lost!

"Well, the gates open. Those lost sheep can come in any time they want to. We’re not keeping them from coming!" Listen - Jesus said He’s the gate. He’s the one Who has opened the gate for lost sheep to come in. That’s not up to us! And maybe we’re not keeping them from coming in, but someone is! What’s up to us is going out and bringing them in.

By the way, when you were being read to in Spanish earlier, not only were you lost because of the language – you were also deceived, because what was being read to you wasn’t Lk 15 at all. That’s exactly what’s going on to the people around you who are lost. Not only are they at a loss to know what to do, but they’re also being lied to. All around them are voices that say, “This is truth!” “This is real happiness!” “This is what life is about!”

It’s up to us to is to seek out those who are broken and confused, who’ve been scattered, who are struggling, who are at the mercy of predators and the elements. It’s up to us to bring them to the gate so they’ll go in.

quote - George MacLeod "I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the market place as well as on the steeple of the church, I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles: But on a cross between two thieves; on a town garbage heap; At a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek... And at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died, and that is what He died about. And that is where Christ’s men ought to be, and what church people ought to be about."