LOST AND FOUND
Ever lose your phone, search for hours, and discover you’d laid it in some obscure location? When you find it, you might not jump for joy, but you’re dancing inside. Last week, Maryland resident Becki Beckman, took the lost-and-found scenario to a whole new level. She noticed a strange clanking noise whenever she flushed the toilet. Frustrated, her husband began passionately plunging the pipes, and was shocked to discover Becki’s lost cell phone emerging from the commode after being lost for ten years! Although somewhat battered, the screen wasn’t cracked, nor had the device blocked the flow of flushes.
Unbelievable. Am I the only one, who just touches my phone screen, and it cracks? Or accidentally drops a Q-Tip in the toilet bowl and it backs up for a month? But after ten years in the toilet? Amazing.
But here’s something even more amazing. In Luke 15, Jesus tells three “lost parables.” He starts with a lost sheep who wanders off. The shepherd finds it and throws a party with his buddies. Jesus follows up with the parable of the lost coin, about a woman who loses a valuable coin, finds it, and throws a party. In verse seven, Jesus explains these parables: Heaven rejoices when lost sinners return.
But the pièce de résistance is the story of the lost son; the tale of a young man who demands his father’s inheritance, heads for a distant land, and squanders his estate. On the verge of starvation, he has a moment of clarity, returns to his father, and begs for pops to accept him back as a servant. Dad refuses, and instead welcomes him home as a son, with no strings attached.
Each story ends the same—with a party—demonstrating that God loves to celebrate when sinners return home. It doesn’t matter where we’ve been, what we’ve done, or how many times we’ve done it, God runs to us with open arms, like the father in the story, declaring, “Welcome home child!”
I guarantee you, no one in the audience saw that ending coming! A God of over-the-top forgiveness, which seems too amazing to believe—except that it’s true.
Finding your cell phone in a toilet after ten years might make the news, but it’s nothing to celebrate. But a sinner returning to God? Drag out the party favors, because angels are dancing in heaven.
Principle: Heaven celebrates when a lost sinner is found.
Ponder:
What do you think prevents most lost sinners from returning to God: shame, religiosity, failure to understand God’s grace, or something else?
How can I help lost sinners know they can return to God?
Pursue: For a deeper dive, study Luke 15.
Prayer: “Father, help me understand your heart; that you want to forgive us, and are waiting for us to take that one step toward you of surrender.