Lost Coin (Luke 15:8-10)

In Chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel, Dr. Luke pays attention to the lost race and most importantly how God sees and treats them as opposed to how people see and treat them. In the parable of the lost sheep our God goes after the lost sheep, leaving the ninety-nine sheep in the open country. Luke presents the heart of God in a striking way of contrast with that of the Pharisees and the experts in the law who condemned and judged the tax collectors and the prostitutes as public sinners. The loan sharks, drug dealers, pimps, homosexuals, and slanderers and swindlers are the ones our God goes after with immeasurable compassion and mercy until he finds them. It’s because they get lost although they never mean to get lost. They are simply the victims of the mastermind of the lie and murder, the devil. In the parable of the lost coin, our Lord makes a great revelation how our God searches the lost ones. There are three divine activities of God—shining light a lamp, sweeping the house, and search carefully until he finds the lost.  

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:8-10)

Here ten silver coins must be a dowry for the woman in the parable our Lord Jesus tells. Ten silver coins don’t have significant monetary value itself but symbolically incomparable value to the woman because it is inseparable part of her. That’s the reason why she searches very carefully suppose she loses one of ten coins until she finds it. In light of the previous parable, the parable of the lost sheep our Lord Jesus is teaching who are really the lost. All human race in Adam is lost without an exception. No one means to get lost but all is born in Adam that way.

In this parable of the lost coin, our Lord Jesus uses one lost silver coin to teach who the lost are. Since the owner of the silver coins never means to lose, the lost coin indicates the lost ones who are ignorantly and unknowingly lost. The coin has been there years so it hasn’t been even noticed until it is suddenly found lost. There are many people who started a Christian life with vigor, excitement, and commitment and most Christians do, and yet suddenly get lost without any noticeable trace. They may be raised in the Christian family amply protected and guided by the believing parents, the church, and most importantly by the scriptures. But when they leave home and are exposed to the world without protection and guidance which they have taken it for granted, they feel the tremendous urges and desires for the wrongdoings and transgressions. Right at the moment they begin to rationalize with a powerful force that everyone is doing it. Apostle Paul calls the experience as sold to sin, being deceived.

“For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.” (Romans 7:11)

How does our God see and treat such an ignorantly and unknowingly lost? Jesus says, “Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?” That’s how our God in heaven reacts when one of his own children is unintentionally and unknowingly lost. It doesn’t mean that God is ignorant and unknowing when his children get lost. Rather, it means the lost one doesn’t know that he gets lost.

There are three divine activities involved in finding the lost one. First, he shines light by kindling a tremendously big search light out of the dark world. God can use anything as a tool to shine light upon the fallen race. Nature is one, natural disaster another, and disease yet another. Difficulties and struggles in daily lives are also used to shine the divine light, constantly and faithfully beaming the ray of truth and reality. That’s how our God shines a great search light out of the darkened mind and heart of people. No light no seeing. No light no understanding. No light no perceiving. What is it that the lost one do not see, understand, and perceive? It is that they cannot live with all the costs of their own. There is nothing more dangerous and harmful than the lie that man has what it takes.

Is it not the lie the devil disguised and masqueraded as a shining one in the garden who beguiled the woman? The cunning deceiver said to the woman the most dangerous and harmful lie, “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) So, the case is hopeless because there is absolutely nothing for the race can do to get out of the fall. The first thing God did to Adam and the woman was to make a visitation in the cool of the day. It is the divine act of shining the gigantic search light upon the fallen and lost race. That’s the first and foremost divine activity of God.

Next, our God does sweep the house. This divine activity of God is being conducted under the shining light because no one can sweep the house in the darkness. Sweeping is cleaning the house. It’s put everything in order so that the lost coin may be found. It’s the activity of removing the dross and trash. That’s what God is doing to find the lost one by sweeping and cleaning the dross and waste. What is it the dross and waste deeply embedded in humanity? It’s the blindness and stubbornness of the fallen humanity. Despite the brilliant light shining around and upon the race out of the darkness many shut the mind and heart deliberately not to see it.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:20-21)

It is not true that the fallen humans take the initiative to go back to God out of desperation and cry for help. It is not possible for the lost race to come and ask God for help unless they are drawn by the merciful and graceful hand of God who shines a great light through nature, body, storms, earthquakes, and volcanic explosions, billions of billions of galaxies, chronic diseases, and broken human relationships. Our Lord Jesus says so out of his own lips that no one can come to him unless the Father in heaven draws them.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:44)

There was a man called Saul of Tarsus. He was so zealous and fervent for the Mosaic teachings of the Law that he would destroy the sect of the Nazarenes who were following Jesus Christ. He was charging and brewing the murderous passion to root out the Nazarenes from the face of the earth because he believed that it was the way to defend the Law of God. He was ignorantly and unknowingly blinded and darkened and missed the whole point not seeing the longsuffering and patient heart of God. Eventually, God arrested him in a dramatic way on the road to Damascus. It’s the divine act of sweeping and cleansing the dross and facades in Saul surgically and drastically operated by the merciful and truthful hand of the Father in heaven. The Scripture says that it took years for Saul to get fully and wholly the revelation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was so obsessed with the old traditions and rituals that it took years until he learned and understood the new way of life in Jesus Christ. He was released and freed from the legalistic way of life and fully experienced of being made righteous in Christ under the new covenant.

“Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:4-6)

Our God then searches carefully until he finds the lost one. Carefulness observed is not because God may be making a mistake in finding the lost one, but because he is making the lost one holy and blameless. The Holy God cannot accept any dross and waste because he is holy. Jesus says to his disciples that they shall be holy for the Father in heaven is holy.

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

There is a remarkable dialogue recorded in the Prophecy of Malachi between the LORD God and the people of Judah. This is the exact reflection of the self-centered and stubborn humanity that they deliberately don’t see the divine provisions of God. All they do is to exalt themselves and to blame God when the things go wrong. But God carefully searches the mind and heart of man with a great light and sweeping actions for them to see through truth and reality in light of the heart and mind of God.

“I have loved you,” says the Lord.

“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’

“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.”

But this is what the Lord Almighty says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord. You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel!’

“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty.

“It is you priests who show contempt for my name.

“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’

“By offering defiled food on my altar.

“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’

“By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty.

“Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”—says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 1:2-9)

That’s how our God searches carefully the lost one by lighting a lamp, sweeping the house, and searching carefully until he finds them. When he finds them, he shares joy and delight with his friends and neighbors together. Our Lord Jesus adds a phrase which he says the same in the parable of the lost sheep.

“In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:10)

It strongly suggests that all events happening on the earth are closely related to the heaven though it is invisible. There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. The source of rejoicing is God only who loves the lost ones with compassionate heart and merciful hand until he finds them. The angles of God continue to participate in the rejoicing with God who continues to search carefully the lost one.
"To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen." (Jude 1:24-25)

Prayer: Thank you our heavenly Father for your compassionate heart and merciful hand unceasingly offering a great light, sweeping the house and searching carefully in order make us holy and blameless and acceptable and presentable in the sight of the Holy God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

December 17, 2015

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