Three Things Needed for Reaching the Lost
Luke 15:1-10
Intro: I’ve heard about a little six-year old boy who was struggled to listen to a rather lengthy sermon. After the service, the little boy asked the question that sooner or later most "church kids" ask.
"Dad" he asked, "what does the preacher do the rest of the week?"
The dad replied, "Son, he’s a very busy man.
He takes care of church business.
He represents the church in the community.
He studies the Bible and writes sermons.
And he has to take time to rest up. You see, preaching in public is not an easy job."
The little boy thought about that and said, "Well, listening ain’t so easy either!"
The truth is that listening really is NOT very easy.
So, Jesus often taught lessons through what were called parables or stories.
Let’s look at what these three parables are about.
In all three of these parables something of value is lost.
The thing lost, was a sheep, a coin, and someone’s son.
All three are valuable or very important.
The sheep had a particular value to the religious leaders.
Especially lambs as an offering or
A sheep could provide milk, and cheese, or be cooked for meat.
It is something that if even one is lost you would put forth every effort into finding it
and would rejoice when you did.
The coin we are told was one of 10 silver coins.
I knew a person who had taken money out of the bank for Christmas.
When he got home he stuck the money between the pages of a magazine he was reading.
When his wife came home she had brought in the mail.
She was cleaning up the house and since the mail included the newest magazine,
She tossed the old one in the garbage along with the money.
What is funny about this is we have probably all gone through the garbage
searching for something we have lost.
The bible says when the woman realized that one of the coins was lost she got a lamp for light.
She got a broom and swept the house searching until she found the one coin.
Since this is true about things that are lost, the sheep, the coin,
then shouldn’t it also be for people who are lost?
The term "lost" refers to those who are spiritually lost,
to those who are not Christians, who are outside of the household of God
but God desires to come home.
You can see this in the story of the Prodigal Son where the father says about the son who has repented and returned home "he was lost and is found (verse 31)."
These three stories all represent the spiritually lost.
We should respond to people who are lost in the same way or even a greater way than we would to lost things.
We are to put forth effort, and perseverance in searching for them.
And we would be filled with joy at there being found.
The reason for these parables is to remind Christians of how we should respond to the lost.
You could also interpret these parables as illustrating how God responds and searches for the lost.
Read Luke 15:1-2
1. The first thing needed for reaching the lost is compassion.
Jesus had the "tax collectors and sinners" gathering around him.
These are lost people who were not running from Jesus
but rather running to him.
They were not avoiding him, ignoring him, or even hostile towards him.
Verse 1 says that they were "gathering around to hear him."
Why were sinners so willing and even eager to listen to Jesus?
Why did the "lost" seek out Jesus rather than run from him?
I believe the answer is that the lost saw in Jesus his compassion.
Jesus loved them
Jesus showed that he saw value in each of them.
They mattered to Him.
Everyone is important to Jesus.
People could feel the concern, the kindness, the caring, and love.
The Bible says in verse 2 that Jesus "welcomes sinners and eats with them."
One of the definitions for the Greek word translated as "welcomes" in this verse is to "receive as a friend."
This was Jesus attitude toward those who were lost in sin.
Jesus welcomed them;
he was compassionate and accepting of them despite their sins and faults.
He was a friend and treated them like his friend.
What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.
Jesus had a attitude that lost people were attracted to, do we?
For us as individuals and as a church to reach people
we are going to have to show the same love to them as we would our closest friend.
and have that same love and acceptance.
The first thing needed for reaching the lost is compassion.
At the scene of an accident there are three groups of people,
each with a different response toward those involved in the accident.
The first group is the bystanders and onlookers.
They are curious and watch to see what happens but they want get involved.
The second group is the police officers.
Their job is to investigate the cause of the accident, assign blame, and give out appropriate warnings and punishments.
The third group is the paramedics.
They are the people are usually most welcomed by those involved in the accident.
They could care less whose fault the accident was
and they do not engage in lecturing about bad driving or bad habits.
Their response was to help those who were hurt.
They bandaged wounds, freed trapped people, and gave words of encouragement.
Three groups - one is uninvolved,
one is assigning blame and assessing punishment,
and one is helping the hurting.
Which group are you in?
When it comes to reaching the lost and hurting,
we’re going to be in one of these three groups.
In Jesus’ day much of the church was responding to the lost like the police officer
instead of the paramedics.
This is what the Pharisees and Sadducees and teachers of the law did.
They were more condemning and criticizing sinners than in showing compassion.
The lost have never flocked to hear those who are condemning
and they never gather with us listen
if we have that same attitude.
The first thing needed for reaching the lost is compassion.
The next lesson from theses parables is.
2. The second thing needed for reaching the lost is effort.
Read Luke 15:3-5
One morning a mother and father got up,
And noticed that their daughter was not in her bed.
At first they were calm because they thought she must have gotten up in the middle of the night
and gone into one of her two sisters room.
Soon they realized that she was not in either of the other beds
and they began to grow frantic.
Their hearts began to accelerate
and they began to yell for their daughter
calling out her name at the top of their voices,
but there was no response.
At that point their love for her compelled them to make every effort to find her,
including running from room to room
and throwing open the doors to the closet and cabinets searching everywhere for her.
It never crossed the mother or fathers mind, "Well we’ve lost one child but we have two other children."
No, one child mattered!
She mattered enough to give everything they had toward finding her.
I bet right now…, even you want to know what happened?
What is the rest of the story?
How does the ending turn out?
Was their daughter lost?
Or did they find her?
You want them to find her safe.
You want her to be o.k.
I am going to wait a few minutes to tell you what happens.
Here’s the point - it takes effort to find that which is lost.
It takes some seeking
It takes some energy and strength and exertion and sweat and
It is not easy to find the lost.
Do you still want to know what happened to the little girl in my story?
Eventually they find their daughter under her own bed sound asleep.
Jesus emphasizes the effort that went into finding the lost.
In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus said that the shepherd would "leave the ninety-nine sheep in the open country and go after the lost sheep. . ."
In the parable of the lost coin, the woman lights a lamp, sweeps the whole house, and searches carefully for the lost coin according to verse 8.
In the story of the lost son the father sees his lost son a still a long ways off.
He is so filled with compassion
That the Father gets up and runs to his son,
It was undignified for a man to run
You have to remember that middle Eastern men wore robes.
Could you see me running down the road in my robe on Sunday morning?
That would be a pretty funny sight to see.
The father runs to his son.
He would have had to lift up his tunic and held up his robe so he would not fall as he ran
He would have been showing his bare legs.
Again, just go ahead. Picture me with robe, trying to hold it up.
My bare legs.
I don’t know if I WANT to go there? Lol
The father throws his arms around his son and kisses him.
In all three parables about that which was lost…
It took some effort
They had to search for
They sought after with great effort that which was lost.
The shepherd did not wait for the lost sheep to wander home
the woman did not wait for the lost coin to turn up.
I believe it is a right interpretation of the scripture to conclude that the father
The bible says the father saw his son while he was still a long way off.
In other words they were both still a long ways away from the porch of the house.
I believe the father may very well have been out walking along the fence row.
Search along the trail home.
Looking out as far as he could to see if just maybe his son was heading toward home.
I believe our Heavenly Father is very much the same.
That God will search for us.
That God will reach out to find us.
That God will meet us as far as he can.
In our Christian lives and in the church it sometimes seems that we tend to wait for the lost to come to us.
When the church is supposed to be out searching for the lost.
We’re waiting for people to come to Christ
instead of putting forth effort into bringing them to Christ!
The second thing needed for reaching the lost is effort.
How do we practically practice this principle?
What do you and I need to do in order to be following Jesus instructions about giving effort to reaching the lost? There are several things we can do.
First, a significant part of our prayers should be for the lost.
Second, making every effort means that a significant part of the ministries of the church
should be directed toward reaching the lost.
I know that we must also be careful to dedicate a significant part of the ministries toward discipling
those who are already Christians.
Nevertheless, we can’t disciple those who are not coming.
We can not instruct those who are not here.
Third, making every effort to reach the lost means we must be willing to make outreach a significant part
of our church strategy and plan and church spending goes to seeking the lost.
So far I’ve shared two things necessary to reach the lost like Jesus did.
1. The first thing needed for reaching the lost is compassion.
2. The second thing needed for reaching the lost is effort.
There is also a third thing necessary for reaching the lost found in these parables.
3. The third thing needed to reach the lost its persistence.
Read Luke 15:4, 8
Jesus notes specifically that the person continued seeking after the lost item until he or she found it.
In other words, Jesus seems to be pointing out that persistence was a needed quality for success.
After all, lost sheep…, out in the fields, the valley’s and hills,
and the lost coins in the dirt floor of the Jewish home
would not have been easily or quickly found.
And a lost child. We know a lost child is not easily found.
Whether it is under her bed or out in the world.
It’s the same way with reaching the lost.
It is not easy to reach people’s hearts so that they receive Jesus.
As I mentioned in the sermon this Sunday Morning.
It is not usually the case there our first efforts meet with success.
Sometimes it takes years and years of persistence,
but we should not be discouraged or give up.
If a sheep or coin was valuable enough to persistently search for,
then people who are spiritually lost are too valuable to give up on.
There is a true story that was in the Chicogo Tribune in May of 1999
Following an exhilarating performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall,
celebrated classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is a French and American cellist.
Born in Paris to Chinese parents,
He is a child prodigy, performing from the age of five on the cello
Yo-Yo Ma went home, slept, and awoke the next day exhausted and rushed.
He called for a cab to take him to a hotel on the other side of Manhattan and placed his
cello—hand-crafted in Vienna in 1733 and valued at $2.5 million—in the trunk of the taxi.
When he reached his destination, he paid the driver, but forgot to take his cello.
After the cab had disappeared,
Yo-You-Ma realized what he had done.
He began a desperate search for the missing instrument.
Fortunately he had the receipt with the cabby’s ID number.
After searching all day the taxi was located in a garage in Queens
with the priceless cello still in the trunk.
His smile could not be contained as he spoke to reporters.
Citation: Greg Asimakoupoulos, writer and speaker, based on story in Chicago Tribune (10-17-99)
Here’s the point, Yo Yo Ma did not quit but persisted because what was lost was too valuable to give up on.
The spiritually lost are too valuable for us to quit trying to reach even though our efforts do not pay off quickly.
3. The third thing needed to reach the lost its persistence.
Read Luke 15: 5-7, 9-10
Closing: The religious leaders of the day had been indifferent, apathetic, unresponsive toward the lost
and even antagonistic and hostile toward them coming to Jesus.
Jesus uses these parables to illustrate how wrong their response was,
especially when compared to how they would have responded toward recovering something of far less value.
Jesus pointed out how joyful they would have been at the recovery of a lost sheep or lost coin,
certainly then they would have been joyous at the homecoming of a lost child.
Jesus then pointed out that the one thing that matters most to God is the lost.
They matter so much to God
that when the lost are found,
even one of them,
all heaven rejoices!
There is more joy over one sinner coming to Jesus than over ninety-nine people being right where they’re supposed to be with God.
If the lost people matter so much to God, shouldn’t they matter this much to us?
Shouldn’t we be willing to give everything needed in order to reach the lost?
My answer is "yes" and I hope yours is also.
What is needed to reach the lost? From this passage we discovered at least three things.
1. The first thing needed for reaching the lost is compassion.
2. The second thing needed for reaching the lost is effort.
3. The third thing needed to reach the lost its persistence.
