I’ve been reading in the gospel of Luke today, the section in chapter 14 where Jesus is giving some difficult teachings around the cost of being a disciple, or to be clearer, the cost of being someone who follows Him.

As an aside, this doesn’t appear to be a great strategy if you wanted to increase your followers! Thankfully that wasn’t Jesus’ primary motivation.

Around the same time as we read these words, in Luke 15, we hear about Jesus eating with many sinners and tax collectors. This was a big deal. The religious leaders who were looking on did not approve of what He was doing. When Jesus hears these people grumbling about what He is doing He responds by telling them the parable of the lost sheep.

You may know it.

The story talks of a shepherd who had 100 sheep. We find out that the shepherd loses one of his sheep and decides to leave his 99 other sheep in the open country in order to find the one that was lost. Jesus tells us that when the shepherd finds the sheep that was lost he puts it across his shoulders, carries it home, calls his friends together, and asks them to rejoice because his lost sheep is found.

That all makes sense I guess but Jesus finishes the parable by saying this;

I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. Luke 15:7

Ok, now my brain is working.

To be honest, for years this parable didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Firstly, the sheer economics of the story are strange (certainly from my western understanding of the parable). The cost of one sheep versus ninety nine don’t balance up, and the suggestion in the parable is that the 99 weren’t locked up safe and sound in a barn, and there is no mention of another shepherd was there to protect them. That means that there was a chance that something could have happened to them, right?

So, why would you risk losing 99 sheep rather than one?

If we take out the practical implications and apply the kingdom application here we find another thing that for years I, and many others who I’ve lead, couldn’t grasp either.

This is the reason I am writing this post.

At the end Jesus says that heaven rejoices more over a repentant sinner than a righteous person who does not need repentance. Whilst it shouldn’t, in our ‘me centred’ world that is hard to hear. As someone who has already repented and is ‘trying’ to live a righteous life what I have created in my mind is that heaven isn’t as excited about me as someone who has led a horrible life but turns around and repents.

Am I not important to God?

Is this fair?

Whilst I am leaving out a lot of context and counter arguments here, the reality is, in our human terms, it’s not fair.

But in heavens terms it’s totally right.

Let’s remember the whole story here. In the beginning all of humanity (present and future) was connected with God. However like the lost sheep we wandered away. The shepherd, God, went off to seek those of us who were lost. That means that we were once that sinner who needed to repent and there came a time where we were found and heaven rejoiced over our returning.

It’s not that once we repent he throws us on the scrap heap. When we are ‘found’ it doesn’t mean God doesn’t love us, care us etc. He is love and He loves us unconditionally. He still loves us as much as the sinner who has repented but the Kingdom reality. To further highlight this truth when Jesus goes on to teach the parable of the lost son, just a few verses later, He describes at the end how the father loves all His children.

God’s love isn’t higher for the one who was lost. He loves us all but heavens rejoicing increases when the one who was lost returns.

But still many ‘found’ don’t get it.

Again and again in churches who have prioritised reaching those far away from Jesus we hear dissenting voices who have missed this teaching. There is always a group of believers, sometimes a large group, who can be found shouting – “what about us? I hear so much about us reaching the lost, but what about the found, the people already in the church, do you not care for them?”

I used to find this very frustrating, especially when I read passages like Luke 14 & 15.

Let me illustrate how crazy this sounds by using a modern day parable.

Imagine 100 people were trapped in a burning building. Within the first 10 minutes of the blaze 99 people are rescued, unscathed. People cheer them, hug them, and rightly celebrate that they are alive. The rejoicing is high. Once the celebration dies down everyone realises that one more is still in there. All attention begins to turn to the one. The fire crew, paramedics who were attending to the 99 when they needed rescue all move away to focus on the one who is lost in the building.

Is that the right thing to do? Absolutely!

But how selfish would it be if one of the 99 continued to demand more attention and affection? What if they asked the professionals to divert their efforts away from the one who was lost? Imagine if when the final one was pulled out of the building alive after a long search, the same person complained that no one was longer celebrating them. What if tomorrows newspaper only mentioned and pictured the final one to come out of the building and the 99 began to heckle and shout about how they had been sidelined?

What might we say to that person, to that group?

We’d say, COME ON! We love that you are OK, but this one was lost, destined to die, but now they have been found. Come and celebrate. We love you all equally, we’re delighted that you are all well, but we must rejoice that the one who we thought was gone has been found.

I hope I’ve made my point.

It’s hard to separate Luke 14 & 15. The cost of being a disciple ultimately is to lay down our lives and put Jesus first. It seems non-sensical then that any follower of Jesus would complain about any believer, church, or ministry, prioritising or celebrating over someone who was far away from God returning home.

The hard reality is that if we haven’t understood the cost of being a disciple, the desire to lay our lives down, we will miss the Kingdom and spend our days fighting to preserve our lives on this earth.