I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
Luke 15:19
Last year my wife and I were taking a trip to Orlando to see our son, Greer. He lives in Orlando, and it’s a pretty long drive for us. I know the route pretty well. Get on I-95 to I-4 west. That’s about it. No real turns or fun things to do along the way except an outlet mall or two, but I try to speed past those in the event my wife might want to stop for some reason to check them out.
So it turns out that this trip ended up taking us into the night a little, and I happened to take a wrong turn. We rolled slowly down the exit ramp, and I knew I messed up. It was a foggy night, and all I could see was some night club off the exit. It looked like something out of a movie. I quickly turned around and got back on the interstate. It would have been a huge mistake to stay. It was quite dangerous. So we turned around.
Light a Lamp and Sweep the House
There is one thing for sure; this lady was diligent. She had ten silver coins and lost one of them. It drove her crazy as she frantically lit a lamp and went through the whole house looking for that one coin. It reminds me of all those times I’ve looked for my keys when I’m already late for an appointment. I was thinking about how difficult it is to find things in daylight and how much more difficult to find stuff with lamplight.
You can see the picture. This lady is tearing the place apart, looking for that one coin. She is relentless in her pursuit. She searches for who knows how long. Finally, after sweeping and cleaning and looking all through her house in the dim light, she finds the coin.
I can imagine the scene. She opens her door and screams for her neighbors and says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin I had lost.” There is the expectation that everyone would be ecstatic over that one coin. Now we say it’s just one coin, but we also have to realize the intent of the story.
This is not a story of a coin. This is a story about a person. Keep reading.
Rejoice over the One Who Experiences Repentance
The coin? It’s really a person who was headed to an eternity separated from God in Hell. BUT, after diligently seeking the coin, it was finally found. What does God have to do to get your attention? You might be the lost coin. But still, that isn’t the theme of the story.
The real theme of the first two parables in Luke 15 is repentance. Follow me for a minute. We were all born on the wrong exit. So God does all kinds of things to get our attention as we travel through life. Difficulties, disappointments, and discouragement come our way with the hope that we will realize there is a God who loves us and cares so much for us.
When He gets our attention, He helps us realize that we are what the Bible says is “lost.” That means that we are outside of His family and apart from others who will experience heaven one day. He softens our hearts and helps us to realize that we are also sinners.
I know that’s a churchy word and sometimes an offensive word. But it shouldn’t be because we are all that way. But God made a way to fix that. In Romans 5:8, it says, “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That means that our sin has been covered, removed, and forgiven. Jesus took the punishment for the sin we committed or ever will commit and died as a result so that we would not have to die.
We have to embrace that truth by having faith, but we also need to repent of our sins. That is the theme of the story. REPENTANCE. Trusting God is not just about having some kind of fairy godfather. It is about us turning around and going in a different direction. We turn from our sinfulness and turn towards God. This is true repentance.
Back to the story. It was foggy, and the nightclub was lit up with flashing lights and was the only thing on the road. Only a couple of cars were parked there, and who knows what was going on behind the closed doors. But the one thing I knew is that we had to turn around and go the other way. If I kept going in the same direction, we could have been in a terrible situation. So that’s what we did. We turned around and went in a different direction. That’s precisely what repentance is.
Have you truly repented of your sins? Have you turned towards Jesus? When you do, it’s worth a party!