“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Luke 19:10
Letty, our dog, and I were out for a short walk the other day when a car pulled up next to us, and the driver asked me how to get to Rutherford County (NC). “Just turn around up ahead, and come back to the Stop sign. Make a right, go about two miles to 221 and turn right again, and you’ll be five miles from the Rutherford County line.” Immediately, the frustration on the driver’s face transformed into a relieved smile, he wasn’t lost any more! It came to me, as Letty and I stood there, that she and I are a lot alike—we’re both retrievers. She because she was bred to be, me because that’s what Jesus makes of the lost he himself came to find.
Of course, there’s a big difference between giving some helpful directions to a driver who has somehow lost his or her bearings, and seeking out those who are irretrievably lost without Jesus. For that frustrated driver I was not the only hope. If Letty and I hadn’t happened to be there, or if he had asked directions to someplace I had never heard of (There are a lot of those places around here!), he would have eventually come upon someone else who would have helped him. But with the irretrievably lost, which includes every man, woman, and child who has ever lived, either Jesus finds us, or we’re doomed to be lost forever. In fact, offering someone who is lost any other direction than Jesus only serves to get them even more lost.
Of course, Jesus is seated at present at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Which is where his retrievers come in. You see, Christ’s singular mission of seeking and of saving the lost continues. But, ever since his ascension into heaven forty days after the Resurrection, Jesus has employed a pack of retrievers to faithfully go out and track down the lost, find them, and bring them home. Heck, you and I were retrieved at one time by one or more of the Lord’s loyal seekers.
That’s the thing about retrievers, Golden or otherwise, their loyalty to their master, and their passion for seeking and finding (or fetching, as us dog lovers say) that/those in need of being retrieved. Funny, but when you hear church folks talking about seekers they have the lost in mind, not themselves. But a truly seeker-friendly worship service is one that trains up Christ’s retrievers, and gets them all excited to rush out and go find those lost ones. All I have to do is look at the door, and Letty starts to get charged up, “Hooray, it’s time to go out and retrieve!” Letty, and all good retrievers, have this passion for going out and seeking and finding. Somehow, most of the Church seems to have lost sight of this fact about what Jesus came to do, and what he calls all of his disciples to do.
Make no mistake, we should experience as much passion in seeking, and know the same joy in retrieving the lost, as Letty does whenever we head out. And, just as retrieving is on Letty’s mind every time she goes out the door, it should be what we are thinking about at the end of every worship service, Bible study, retreat, small group, conference or rally. Retrieving is what we, in our rebirth have been “bred to do,” so to speak, in and through Jesus, who sought and retrieved us, when we were irretrievably lost.
S.D.G.
Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4
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