Luke 15:1-10, Luke 19:10

Fiona Bridges

Ever lost a sheep? I'm guessing most of you probably haven't, but you may have had the experience of loosing something.

For me lost items have ranged from things as simple as a paper clip or a receipt to my great, great grandmothers engagement ring which was handed down to me on my 18th Birthday. No prize for guessing which lost items I spent the most energy looking for! I spent three weeks looking for that ring and boy was I glad when I found it...my mother no longer wanted to disown me! To me searching round my house for three weeks seemed like a lot of dedication, but it was nothing compared to the man in this story I am about to tell you.

Back in the early 18 hundreds, England shipped over 162,000 convicts to Australia. Some of these convicts were murderers, but a lot of them had simply been caught stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family. David, a 24 year old Londoner was caught stealing a pint of milk for his wife and new little baby and sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor out in Australia.

Legend has it that on the day David was being shipped out of England his wife managed to break through the police lines and ran up to David handing him a locket she had worn around her neck since the day they had been married 4 years before. From that day onwards David wore the locket round his neck and each night as he went to sleep he would open it up, look at the picture of his wife inside and declare out loud 'that's my girl...that's my girl'!

After serving 40 years of hard labor in chains David, who had become an old man, was re-assigned to domestic duties in the prison settlement. His duty was to go around to all the officers' accommodation, collect the waste from their toilets and empty it into a large sess pit.

One night in his cell as he reached around his neck for his locket he realized that it had gone. After searching the cell he remembered that the last time he had the locket on him was while he was shoveling the officer's waste into the sess pit.

The next day David pleaded with the officers to give him one hour at the end of each day to search through the sess pit to find his locket. Thinking it would be a bit of a laugh seeing an old man searching through their own excrement the officers agreed. A new sess pit was created for future waste and David was allowed one hour a night to sift through the old sess pit equipped only with his bare hands. For weeks he sifted through the muck night after night, whether it was raining or shining, when it became maggot infested and stank beyond all comprehension.

Finely after months of searching David felt a thin chain running through his putrid fingers. In absolute joy he rose to his feet holding the locket above him and cried out at the top of his lungs 'I found my girl', 'I found my girl'. Having heard his cries one of the officers ran out to see him standing there with tears running down his cheeks. Moved by the dedication and passion of this old man the officer called back to him 'convict...come inside...clean up...tonight you dine with me!' That night David sat at the table like a free man and celebrated with joy for what was once lost had been found!

So why tell you this story?

Well, in a lot of ways the man in that story is like God. The difference is, what God is searching for is far more precious. What God is searching for is his people. It's you and me!

The Bible tells us in Luke 19:10 that the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.

For so many of us we know that there are times when we find ourselves lost in some of the rubbish that life throws at us. For some of us that rubbish is a sense of shame, of not being good enough, of feeling we don't look the right way or we don't have what it takes. For some of us it's the pain of different situations that we have encountered in life. For others it is what the Bible calls sin, where there is something in our lives which we know is getting between us and God.

The incredible thing in all of this is that no matter how much rubbish we are covered in, God is searching for us. He longs to reach out to us, pick us out of the muck and cry out over us 'I found my girl', or 'I found my boy'. Not only that, but he wants to take us in his loving hands and gently clean us up.

So why is it that God wants to seek us out like that?

Firstly because he doesn't want us to perish.

Think back to the passage you read about the lost sheep for a minute. The shepherd goes out looking for the sheep because that sheep is precious to him, but also because he knows that one sheep out there on his own is bound to perish. Without the protection and direction of the shepherd and the companionship of the other sheep, it just won't make it.

It's the same with us. Like it says in the U2 song, 'sometimes you can't make it on your own'. God is desperate to seek us out because he doesn't want any of us to perish.

Secondly God seeks us out because things just aren't right without us!

This time think back to the story of the woman and the lost coin. Now not every one knows this when they first read the passage, but the coins the woman had were apparently a set of coins that she had which were made to sit in a head piece she would wear on her wedding day. With one coin missing the head piece was just not complete. She was so desperate to find it because things just weren't right without it. In the same way things just aren't right without you. God has a unique purpose for each of us and when the muck we get lost in holds us back from that, things just aren't quite right.

So here is the challenge.

Take a few moments before you go into the rest of the day to ask God to reveal to you whether there are areas of your life where you need to be found or cleaned up. Ask God to come and seek you out and know that as you allow him to find you, there is a load of rejoicing that goes on up in heaven.