Finding the Lost

 Luke 15: 1-10, I Timothy 1:12-17

 

In Luke 15 the Pharisees are grumbling because Christ not only welcomes sinners but eats with them. In response Jesus tells them two parables one about a sheep that is lost and how the shepherd leaves the other 99 to look for it. Then he talks about a woman who loses a coin and drops everything to search for it. In both stories the shepherd and the woman rejoice in finding what they have lost.

Jesus is telling then that he has come for the lost – those sinners – including tax collectors – IRS beware and how heaven rejoices over one who repents over the 99 who don’t need to repent – it rejoices over the one sinner who repents.

Timothy is the letter that Paul writes to new pastor Timothy. In I Timothy 1 Paul tells how he was one of the greatest sinners – a blasphemer, a persecutor of Christians, a man of violence. But Jesus approached this lost sheep and Paul accepted Christ, repented of his sinful life. Paul talks about God’s mercy and the grace of our Lord which overflowed him with faith and love. He is calling himself the poster child of the foremost sinner who should be an example to the other lost sheep who may feel unworthy of God’s forgiveness. Surely Paul would sing John Newton’s Amazing Grace, “I was lost but now am found.” John Newton who wrote it was the captain of a slave ship and describes himself as a wretch.

So many Christians isolate themselves with other Christians, but not so our greatest example of how to live the Christian life – Christ himself. He socialized with sinners. He reached out to save the lost in this way. Paul rejoices that God is using him, appointed him to God’s service of leading the lost to Christ where salvation comes. May God use us too to reach out and welcome the lost, showing them the way to salvation through Jesus. Amen

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