Jesus Seeks Those Who Are Lost

Consider the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Luke 15:1 tells us that "all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him." They knew they needed a Savior, so they came near to Jesus to consider Him and to listen to what he had to say. But "the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them'" (v. 2). So Jesus replied with two parables explaining why He sought out sinners.

Jesus said, "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, 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 neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!' I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance" (vv. 4-7).

This is a great story, and so true. Some years back, I was pastor of a church in western Wyoming. Out on the hills, shepherds watched their flocks. Each shepherd knew his sheep and kept a close count. When one was lost, he went searching for it and would not rest until it was found. That is what God does. We are His sheep, and when we are lost in sin He searches for us and does not rest until He finds us and redeems us.

Then Jesus told a second parable: "Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!' Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents" (vv. 8-10).

A virtual repeat of the parable of the lost sheep. When a coin is lost you search diligently for it until it is found. And when you find the coin you rejoice greatly. Again, this is a picture of God searching for lost sinners. He pursues His own. When they are lost, He searches for them until He finds them. When He finds them, He rejoices greatly with the angels in heaven as He redeems them. Both pictures are of a loving God pursuing the sinner who is lost and the saint who has strayed from the fold.

That is the way God operates. He pursues His own until they respond to His call and are saved. We are not saved because we seek after God. We are saved because God knew us from eternity, and He pursued us and called us to Himself. We are not saved because of our ability and faithfulness to find Christ and to keep hold of Him. We are saved because God is faithful to draw us to Himself and to keep us in Christ for all eternity.

2 Timothy 2:13 says, "If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself" (NASB). He saved us because He promised to save us, and He is always faithful. We are not saved because of our ability to hold on to Him. We are saved because of His ability to hold on to us. Amen.

The Lord's Deep Knowledge of You

David penned a great psalm that details God's pursuit of man. The first four verses of Psalm 139 reveal that God knows us very deeply. He knows us better than we know ourselves. "O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether" (Psalm 139:1-4).

The Lord searches your heart because His desire is to know you intimately. He watches your every move. Even your thoughts are not hidden from Him, and He hears every word you speak. That should make you fully aware of the things you say and do. Knowing that God is watching should make you strive to be holy. Knowing that God is listening should make you watch what you say and how you say it.

The Lord is there for you every day. "You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me" (v. 5). His hand is on your shoulder to guide and direct you. He has "hedged" you in on all sides. He has put up a barrier between you and the enemy to keep you safe. You can trust Him, walk with Him, and depend on Him. He will see you through every trial, hardship, and challenge that life brings. What an amazing truth!

But David acknowledges that even this can be a hard concept to grasp. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it," he wrote (v. 6). It is in times like this, times when we cannot quite wrap our minds around such truth, that we want to cut and run. But before you do, before you run from God and try to hide from Him, consider the rest of this psalm.

In verse seven David asks the question, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?" And he answers his own question: "Nowhere." He writes: "If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall fall on me,' even the night shall be light about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You" (vv. 8-12). There is nowhere to hide. Wherever you go, God will find you. He will pursue you until you come to Him. He made you and He wants the best for you.

Psalm 139 continues, "For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well" (vv. 13-14).

The Lord established your days. He determined who you are and what you would do for Him, even before you were born: "My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them" (vv. 15-16).

God made and established you. He loves you and wants to fellowship with you. That is why He pursues you as He does. You are always on His mind. "How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You" (vv. 17-18). Every morning when you awake, God is there. He is with you as He promised. "For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'" (Heb. 13:5b).

Because God made you, because He loves you and seeks after you, you should have only one response—to seek after Him and to follow Him! You should flee from your enemies and be separate from them. Turn them over to God and let Him deal with the wicked. But as for you, have nothing to do with them.

Again in Psalm 139, David said it well: "Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God! Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men. For they speak against You wickedly; Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies" (vv. 19-22).

Then David prayed, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting" (vv. 23-24). The same prayer should be on our lips! Knowing that God pursues us, knowing that He loves us, knowing that He will always be there for us watching over us, we too should ask God to search our hearts and cleanse us from anything that does not belong. We should seek God's face every day and trust Him to lead us in the way we should go, the way of righteousness, the way of Christ Jesus. Amen.

Drawn to Jesus

John 6:44 speaks of that encounter with God when He seeks you and finds you. There, Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." In the Greek, the word "draws" means to influence someone or to cause someone to do something (Spiros Zodhiates, Th.D., The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament, [AMG International, Inc. 1992, revised edition, 1993], 568). It carries the idea of pursuing someone, finding him, and bringing him back. God is the one who "draws" you to Jesus.

An unregenerate sinner will never come to God of his own accord. It is not in his nature. He must be pursued and found, and his heart must be changed by God, or he will not come to Christ. That is why God pursues you when you stray. It is the only way to bring you back to Himself.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 points out, "For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin." No one is just. God searched the earth and found no one from any era that was without sin. All are guilty before God. No one will find their way to heaven based on works or his own righteousness. This verse makes it clear that no one does good. No one is without sin. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23).

Psalm 14:1-3 expands on this truth: "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one."

God "looks down from heaven" (v. 2a) and searches the earth for a righteous man, finding none. Apart from Christ no one is just. No one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned away from God and are corrupt. Apart from Christ there is no hope.

Paul quotes from these verses in Romans 3:10-12: "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one."

Again, no one is justified in his own right or on his own merit. All have gone their own way. All have turned away from God. There is no one who even tries to find God. Therefore, God takes the initiative and pursues His own. He pursues you. If He did not pursue you there would be no possibility of salvation.

A few verses later Paul declares: "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:19-20).

The law cannot save you. It makes you aware of your sin. It points out how far you have strayed from God and makes clear your need for a Savior. Still, we do not seek after God. If God did not pursue us, we would never know Christ.

So Paul continues: "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:21-26).

If it were not for God, no one would be saved, especially not you or me. We are no different from anyone else. We are sinners who fall short of God’s glory. We do not do good. We do not seek after God. It is God who took the initiative and pursued us. He provided the Savior. He seeks and finds us. He draws us to Christ. He even provides faith. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). Yes, even our faith is God's gift. So if God had not sought after us, we would not know Christ and we would not be saved.

The twenty-third Psalm says, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever" (v. 6). In Hebrew, the word "follow" means to pursue someone in an aggressive manner (Warren Baker, D.R.E. and Eugene Carpenter, Ph.D., The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament, [AMG Publishers: Chattanooga, Tennessee, 2003], 1037). David sets up a contrast here. While his enemies pursue him in order to kill him, they cannot do him any real harm because God is pursuing him with all His goodness and mercy. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, God pursues or follows him with everything good to keep him unto Himself and to protect him and guide him. It is clear that God pursues those who are His own. Amen.

Pursued by God

Man's habit of hiding from God began way back in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. On the sixth day of creation, "the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" (Gen. 2:7). God had "planted a garden eastward in Eden" (v. 8). "Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it" (v. 15). The Lord made "a helper comparable to him" (v. 18) and "brought her to the man" (v. 22).

Adam and Eve lived in the garden and took care of it, just as God intended. They walked with God in the garden every day, fellowshipping with Him according to God's own purpose. That is, until that one fateful day.

Now God had forbidden Adam only one thing, saying, "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen. 2:17). Having fallen from heaven, Satan went right to work. He lured Eve into eating fruit from the forbidden tree (Gen. 3:1-6a) and she "gave to her husband with her, and he ate" (v. 6b). Adam was right there with Eve as they disobeyed God.

Sin had entered the world and the fellowship they enjoyed with God was broken. "And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden" (v. 8). They were afraid because they had sinned, so they ran and hid from God. But the Lord knew all about it, so He came looking for them. He pursued them in order to restore their relationship with Him.

"Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, 'Where are you?'" (v. 9). So he came forward confessing his sin, along with Eve (vv. 10-13). "Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them" (v. 21),  a blood sacrifice being made to cover their sin. Then, "the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken" (v. 23). Though no longer in the garden, relationship restored, Adam and Eve again walked with God.

When you stray from God, you experience a constant wooing that comes from the throne of God. The Bible says, "the Son of  Man" came "to seek and to save that which is lost" (Luke 19:10). When you stray from God, Jesus seeks after you to save the lost sinner and to bring the straying saint back to Himself. Amen.

Be Faithful in Telling Others About Jesus

Like Stephen, Philip was also called to greater things. "Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, 'Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza'" (Acts 8:26). Philip did so, and found "a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians… sitting in his chariot… reading Isaiah the prophet" (vv. 27-28). "Then the Spirit said to Philip, 'Go near and overtake this chariot'" (v. 29). Philip did as the Spirit told him and, "beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him" (v. 35). The man believed, "and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him" (vv. 37-38).

Then we are told: "Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea" (vv. 39-40). What a great story of how God uses those with a willing heart.

Like Stephen and Philip, when God speaks to your heart you need to respond by faithfully doing as asked, even in the little things. That is the sign of a willing heart. When you see some small thing that needs to be done, God is making it known to you. Be faithful to do it, even if it is nothing more than cleaning up after a church social, or cleaning the church, or mowing the church lawn.

When you are faithful in the little things, God will give you something more to do. Perhaps He will lay it on your heart to pick up a friend or neighbor and bring him to church. Be faithful. Maybe it will be the day of salvation for him. Then you may be led to meet with him weekly for Bible study. If so, be faithful, and God will use you to help ground him in his newfound faith. Do you catch the idea? That is how it often works when you have a willing heart. Amen.