Luke 15 begins with a complaint. “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them” (Luke 15:1-2). Jesus answers with three stories: a sheep, a coin, a son. All three answer the same complaint, and all three use the same words: lost, and found. That is the key. It opens every one of them.

Luke 15:4-7

“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?… Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.”

Luke 15:4, 6

The Pharisees complained that Jesus receives sinners. So the lost sheep is a sinner. Not a believer who wandered off, but someone who has not yet come to the Shepherd. The Shepherd goes after it until He finds it. Then He carries it home and calls His friends to rejoice.

1 Peter 2:25

“For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.”

1 Peter 2:25

Scripture explains its own picture. A lost sheep is a person before they come to the Shepherd. Being found is being brought back to Him. So the key is set: lost means unsaved, and found means saved.

I was that sheep. I did not find my way home. I was found.

Luke 15:8-10

“Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?… Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.”

Luke 15:8-9

A coin cannot do anything. It cannot wander off, it cannot be sorry, it cannot come back. It just lies there. That is the point. This story takes away everything the lost one might do and leaves only this: it was lost, and then it was found. All the work is the finder’s. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

Luke 15:11-24

“For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.”

Luke 15:24

In the third story Jesus says the key out loud, and twice: dead and alive again, lost and found. This is a person passing “from death unto life” (John 5:24). It is not a saved man who lost his salvation and got it back. He was a son the whole time, the father’s own. But he was dead and lost until he came home. God has children who are not yet gathered, “the children of God that were scattered abroad” (John 11:52).

Look at what the father does. The son had a speech ready: “make me as one of thy hired servants” (Luke 15:19). He wanted to pay his way back. But the father “ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” (Luke 15:20) before the son said a word. And when the son did speak, he never got to that part about being a servant. The robe, the ring and the feast were given, not earned. Saying “I have sinned” did not buy his place as a son. It is what a son says on the way in.

Even his leaving was paid for by his father. “Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living” (Luke 15:12). His freedom lasted only as long as the father’s money did. When “he came to himself,” the first thing he thought of was his father’s bread (Luke 15:17). He was never on his own. He was a son cut off from what his father gave.

I know that son. I took what was given and went my own way, as if it were mine. It is my story.

Then there is the older brother (Luke 15:25-32). He is angry that his father is so kind to a sinner who came home. He is the Pharisees of verses 1 and 2, the very men who were grumbling. He is real, and he stands outside the feast. And the father goes out to plead with him too (Luke 15:28). The story ends with the door still open.

What this means

Three stories, one key, one subject: the sinner of verse 1, received. Lost means unsaved. Found means saved. The same word means the same thing all the way through the chapter. We may not read it one way for the sheep and another way for the son.

God is the one who seeks, finds, runs and carries home. The lost one brings nothing but himself. And heaven rejoices “over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:7).

Connected chains

• Thorns and Thistles: The Cursed Fruit
• No Root, Still Purged