Usually when we think about searching, we are thinking about an intentional and intense hunt for something or someone. If your two-year-old is lost you do not passively wait for them to turn up, you go an intense search. That is the imagery we get in Luke 15:4, ““What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?” This shepherd searches “until he finds” the one sheep that is lost.
We see similar action in Luke 15:8, “Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?” This woman carefully searches her entire home with an intentional and intense approach “until she finds” the lost coin out of the ten.
But in Luke 15, Jesus gives three parables back-to-back to back. Each has to do with something or someone being lost. Each has a celebration when the lost has been found. But in the last parable, the thing that is lost is a person, and the response of the one who longs for the return of this lost person is not an intentional search, but an intense longing. Luke 15:20 records, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”
I do not think this parable teaches us that we should not be intentional about going to those who are spiritually lost. But I do think it teaches us a particularly important lesson about the Holy Spirit’s conviction and our attitude of availability. This story results, like the others, in the father gathering all who would come. For he said to them, “let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ “And they began to celebrate.” (Luke 15:23-24).
This father in the parable does not represent us but represents God. He has let the son stray but knows exactly where he is. When conviction sets in, and the son is ready to repent, the father is watching and waiting. And as the son turns to come home, the father runs to embrace the son who has now repented. The father is anticipating, expecting, hopeful, and available.
We are to be like the sower in a different parable scattering the seed of the word of God in our field. And we are to be like the gathered family and friends in the parable of the lost son, celebrating the repentance of a sinner. Searching for the lost is about being available to the work of the Holy Spirit. Scattering seed and celebrating the work of God in the miracle of salvation.
By His Grace and For His Glory,
Pastor Mark