Lost Found Restored

INTRODUCTION:

Major Barb Sherer, a fellow Presbyterian minister and chaplain in the United States Army, was in Iraq during the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Moments before worshipers arrived for Sunday service, a fire broke out and destroyed the tent. By a miracle, no one was hurt.

Later Chaplain Sherer returned to the charred remains of the tent where a guard retrieved for her a cup of ashes to be used in her Ash Wednesday service. As she sifted through the ashes to prepare them for the service, she found a silver cross amongst the ashes. In an article which Guide Post Magazine published, the Chaplain shares her excitement over this serendipitous find and what it meant to her there in war-torn Iraq.

I appreciate the Chaplain’s excitement because I know personally the thrill of stumbling across unexpected treasure and I know the joy of finding something that has long been lost.

Guess who else is appreciative of these lost and found experiences of life? That is right; our Lord Jesus Christ. In the narrative we have before us, he tells three parables to illustrate the joy which rises when something lost is found.

The three parables (one right after another) may seem like overkill. But that is not the case. Jesus is making an very important point which demands repetition. As a carpenter it was the tap, tap, tap of the hammer which drove home the nail. Now Jesus drives home the message of joy with his parabolic hammer: tap, tap, tap; a lost and found sheep, a lost and found coin, a lost and found son.

Ministers and Sunday School teachers have applied these parables over the years to the salvation message. Over and over again the story is told about how heaven rejoices when an unbeliever is plucked from the fire of hell. This certainly is a legitimate use of these parables. Jesus is definitely involved in the saving business. But Jesus is also involved in the finding business, and I think we miss a great opportunity for instruction when we do not apply these parables to this very important aspect of Jesus’ ministry.

Close examination shows a legal relationship already exists between the seeker and the sought in each of these parables. The sheep already belongs to the shepherd, the coin already belongs to the woman. The son, already belongs to the father.

And guess what? You and I already belong to Jesus. Paul declares in Ephesians 1:4: “Before the world was made, God chose us in Christ.” Think about that. Before the worlds were made God had you and me picked out. He stamped his name on us.

1. EVEN CHRISTIANS GET LOST!

Perhaps you can now see the relevance of these parables for you and me. You and I are in these stories. In each case, we are the Lord’s treasure. In the words of a well beloved gospel song: “Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me, not for the years of time alone, but for eternity”. We are the Lord’s Treasure, we Christians; but even Christians can lose their way!

And this losing our way is usually not a one time deal. A while ago we sang the much loved song “Amazing Grace”. Verse one declares “I ONCE was lost but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see." These thoughts are the perfect expression of my experience of God’s salvation. But they are not the perfect expression of my experience as a Christian pilgrim. As a Christian pilgrim, I must admit that I have been lost more than