The Bible reveals how the early church experienced and gracefully endured severe persecutions, and today we're also seeing a growing wave of hostility against Christians. In his new book, God's Final Call, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you to the compelling and comforting words of Jesus in the book of Revelation. Get your copy of God's Final Call by Dr. Youssef, on the way to you when you give a gift of any amount to the ongoing ministry of leading the way today. Learn more about this special offer and the powerful content in God's Final Call at ltw.org. Near the beginning of the New Testament, in the book of Luke, to be specific, we read Jesus came to seek and save that which is lost.
How beautiful. And one way he reached the lost was by using parables, stories spotlighting current dinnertime conversations with the twist of biblical truth. Thank you for joining Dr. Michael Youssef for Leading the Way. Today, Dr. Youssef takes you to what we often call the parable of the lost coin, which reveals the powerful truth about the God who pursues us.
So listen along with me as Dr. Michael Youssef begins this Leading the Way. Today I want to look closely at the second parable of the lost coin. So please turn with me to Luke chapter 15, verses 8, 9, and 10.
Only three verses continuing on from the previous passage. Luke 15, verse 8. He said, "'Or suppose a woman who has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a candle, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says to them, "'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. In the previous illustration of the lost sheep, that sheep was lost in the wilderness. But then the search comes closer to home in this particular parable. The coin was not lost in the wilderness but was lost where?
In the house. The coin was not lost in the far country but was lost in the home. Now I need to give you a background, particularly all of you, the younger generations, because I'm sure you read this story and you would say, okay, she had ten coins and lost one. You know, what's a big deal? I mean, if you got ten bucks and you lost one dollar, it's not a big deal to you. I mean, you just can't find it. Well, that's too bad.
And move on. You see, without understanding that historical background, that story would not make sense. During the time of Jesus, a woman who is engaged to be married would wear a frontal on her brow and it is made up of ten silver coins.
And it's called the simde. When a woman wore that simde was actually an indication to the whole world that she is engaged to be married. It was very important. And so imagine her sense of panic when just before her fiancé is about to come home for dinner and she loses one of those.
Think about that. It would be in modern language today would be like a guy who goes out and spends a small fortune on a diamond ring and he gives it to his beloved. And just before his coming to dinner, she loses a diamond. Just think about it this way and that's exactly how it was.
And you will get the sense, you get the urgency, you get to understand the importance of what Jesus is talking about. What would she say to him? Imagine her anguish in trying to find that diamond before her fiancé comes to dinner. Imagine her anguish trying to explain to him how she lost that diamond that cost him a fortune.
Imagine her sense of panic and frantically searching in every corner of the house trying to find that diamond. Because to have those perfect ten silver coins on the brow, on the forehead, represents her love for him. It represents her fellowship with her beloved. It represented her bond with her beloved.
It represented her affection and their affection to one another. And that is why the loss is so traumatic. It's not just losing a buck out of ten. There is a feeling of panic.
There is a feeling of urgency. There may be sometimes even a feeling of guilt perhaps and a feeling of remorse, a feeling of shame. Not only that, but the average home back then in the time of Jesus was very small and dark. There are no windows to speak of. And the floor was a dirt floor. And there are lots of cracks in which the coin could have fallen into. Lots of dirt, lots of cracks. And therefore, a lamp had to be lit even at noontime.
It needed some light. And sweeping the whole house was a must. And sifting with a sieve, the dirt that you just gather from the house was a must.
Removing the straw was necessary. And going over the same area over and over and over again was normal. You understand that urgency of Jesus telling them this story.
It wasn't just a simple thing. But the one thing that keeps her motivated in looking and in searching, the one thing that keeps her going that she cannot stop is because she knows that she lost that coin in the house. Had she lost it in the river, she would have given up. Had she lost it in the streets, she would not have persisted. Had she lost it in the fields, she would have easily lost hope. But the reason she persists in her search is because she knows she lost the coin in the house. And in that particular culture of the day, no doubt, she searched diligently and probably as she was searching, she was blaming herself and saying probably herself in the house, stupid of me to lose this and of all times I'm losing it now. Had I been more careful, probably I wouldn't have lost it.
And what will I say to him? How can I explain that I only have nine and the ten is not there? I think it's a fact that in our culture, any culture probably, women tend to feel a lot more guilt than men. But as I see sometimes, both men and women put themselves under a lot of false guilt. The problem is that most of that false guilt is absolutely not only not necessary but it's not of God. And here's the problem so many believers do not understand the difference between false guilt and conviction. When God brings you under conviction because of sin or because of a deliberate disobedience or because something in your life that is not pleasing unto the Lord, there is only one way to deal with that conviction and that is to come into repentance and turn away and ask the forgiveness of God and move on onward and forward with Christ.
But false guilt that comes that people put on us and others put on, that's not of God. And there's a world of difference between the two. And so, to her, there was no effort. There was too much. No search. It's too difficult. No obstacle. That is too great.
There is no difficulty that is too insurmountable until she finds the coin in the house. Now, beloved, I want to tell you something. Most of you will understand what I'm talking about. That we live in a culture and we live in a day in which is so many so-called preachers and pastors and priests are not preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's so many who are preaching a false gospel. There are so many who are denying the gospel, fearing that it will offend people and therefore the crowd is more important, the numbers are more important and therefore they soften the message of the gospel and because of their negligence and because of their effort, their failure to preach the truth, therefore today we have found so many millions of people who are lost but they are in the pews of the churches. They're lost but in the house, in the house of God. Because there are so many Christians today who are living for self and all of their needs and all of their ambitions and all of their desires. There are people lost in the homes and in the churches because there are so many ministers who have neglected to teach the whole counsel of God and therefore we have so many lost people in the house, in the churches and that is why you and I must not spare any effort, do whatever it costs to diligently search no matter how long it takes until we find the lost in the church pews.
But there's another application here that I don't think will be straining the text to share it with you as I studied this message and this parable over and over. This woman lost her coin in the house and let me ask you this, what have you lost in your house? Have you lost your love for your spouse in your house? Have you lost your peace of mind in your house? Have you lost your joy? Have you lost the respect of your family? Have you lost your intimacy with God that once burned with fire? Have you lost your first love for Jesus Christ?
What have you lost in your house? Whatever it is that you have lost in your home, get up, light the candle of the word of God, light the light of the word of God, get up, sweep your heart clean, get up, examine your heart, get up, find out what caused you to lose your first love for Christ, find out what caused you to lose your love for your spouse, what caused you to lose your love for your family, what caused you to lose your love for God's family, get up, get up, light a candle, light a candle and begin to search, search diligently your attitude and your motives, search diligently your priorities in life that have gone high wire, search diligently your misplaced focus on life, search diligently for the root cause for feeling of being victimized all the time, search, get up, light a candle and search diligently, let the word of God and the light of the word of God shine on your inner being, sweep clean all of the cobwebs of self-centeredness, sweep clean all of the dust of self-pity, sweep clean all of the straw of bitterness and unforgiveness in your life, sweep clean all of the dirt of diminished loyalties in your life, sweep clean all of the junk of your unfaithfulness in life, don't sit back, don't sit back, don't rest, don't rest until you find that which is lost in your house, make that phone call, ask for forgiveness, make that phone call and confess that anger, whatever it is, however long it takes, whatever it takes to find the lost joy in serving Christ, whatever it takes to find that lost passion for serving Christ, for ministering to others, for giving yourself holy to Him, do whatever it takes to find that first lost love that you used to have for Jesus, do whatever it takes to find that lost desire to witness for Christ, do whatever it takes to find that lost person in your home or in the church, whatever it may be. You know, I have to tell you, Luke 15 is just one of the richest parts of the Scripture because it really reveals to us the Lord Jesus Christ, God of very God is revealing to us the very heart of His Father. It tells us that He is the God who pursues us, the God who pursues us. In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus is telling us how individualized the love of Christ is and in this parable of the lost coin, He shows us how personalized the love of Christ is. Listen to me, you're not just a face in the crowd, you're not just a name on the roster for God.
No, no, no, no, no. That may be the case in an earthly church, but not with God. He carries you individually on His shoulders as if you're the only person that ever lived.
He focuses on you as if you're the only person around. What a God. Now beloved, God's love is not just in words.
People always use words and often they don't really mean them. You see, God's love is not a theory, it's not just an experiment. God's love is not just an emotional feeling toward you that He feels kind of warm and fuzzy toward you, I'm sure He does that too, but that's not just it. You see, God's love is action. God's love is costly, it cost Him.
God's love is sacrificial love. And I was thinking about those incredible illustrations that Jesus gives to reveal the heart of the Father and how He loves us individually and how He personalizes love to us and my mind went back to a story that was headline news back in 1991, some of you will remember. The story was of a luxury Greek cruise liner that went down off the coast of Africa. The 492 foot cruise liner, at the time it had 217 passengers and 184 crew members. And as evening activities began, the ship encountered a gale force wind and it began to take water.
And then immediately after that it lost power and began to drift in the dock. And the sound of the screaming passengers was mixed with the sound of the howling wind and the creaking of the doomed vessel. What is most incredible about this incident is that in the midst of this danger, in the midst of these people perishing, the crew members, including the captain, they secretly boarded the lifeboats and left the sinking ship. One crew member refused to leave and he stayed on board and they called him the hero. And it was his remaining on board and sounding the alarm and SOS that caused the rescue of all the passengers.
Without him, they would certainly have met their end. Now beloved, let me tell you something. There are so many people who are in lifeboats and they're outscaping for their lives and they don't care about those who are perishing and those who are dying and those who have never heard that Jesus loves them and that Jesus wants to forgive them. And you and I cannot live for ourselves. You and I cannot just turn a blind eye toward those who are lost on a perishing. You and I cannot try to use some soothing words to describe the lost out of fear that we may offend them. Listen to me. I would rather initially offend a person and then have him or her bless me throughout eternity than make them like me now and then curse me throughout eternity and say, you never told me.
You never told me the truth. What we need to do is light the candle and lovingly, diligently, but persistently go after the lost, whether they are in the far country, whether they are out in the wilderness or they are under our noses, wherever they may be. But I don't want you to miss, as I conclude, the one common thing that happened in both illustrations and in both parables, the one thing that you see consistently in both places. When the sheep was found, there was celebration and rejoicing.
When the coin was found, there was celebration and rejoicing. When the Lord Jesus Christ is saying to us that there is more rejoicing in heaven than you will even understand on this side of heaven. When one person come to Jesus Christ, angels will rejoice.
Heaven will rejoice. There's so many of you who have known the Lord for a long time and your Christian life has just become routine. You go to church.
You do your bit. Your Christian life has just coasting along in a routine fashion. In fact, some of you probably have lost your joy that you used to have when you came to Christ. And I want you to ask yourself that question.
I'm not saying it is, but I want you to ask yourself the question. Could your loss of joy possibly be is because you began to seek your own fulfillment, your own success, your own ambitions, your own desires. Not understanding that when you do that, you lose everything. It's a lie from the pit of hell. That it is only when you seek first the kingdom of God, it's only when you seek His righteousness first then these things will come to you. That's what Jesus said. I didn't make up the stuff.
That's what He said. Could it be that the reason you lost your joy because you've lost your passion for the kingdom of God and for the lost people of the world. Today you can renew the lost passion. Today you can renew your first love for Jesus Christ that has become so lukewarm.
Today whatever you've lost in the house you can find. Father God, only you are the searcher of every single heart. Only you know our motives. Only you know our misplaced focus in life.
Only you know the secret to our loss of joy. But Father we know too. And so we come to you in the name of Jesus, individually and corporately. Ask you for your power, for your strength. Father we come to you in the name of Jesus that every single person here, whatever loss them have experienced in their life, that they will find the joy of knowing you.
The joy of knowing that they will be spending not only fifty or sixty or seventy years or eighty years with you, but eternity. Father whatever loss passion, restore it to us. In Jesus name. Thank you for listening to Leading the Way Audio with Dr. Michael Yousaf. And if you'd like to speak with a pastor or a counselor, just fill out a contact form at ltw.org slash jesus. While you're there you can check out all the FAQs and other spiritual resources.
Again that's ltw.org slash jesus. Did you miss any part of today's Leading the Way? You can always listen online at ltw.org or you can sign up for the podcast or you can learn how to use the Leading the Way app to replay or consume more content from Dr. Yousaf and Leading the Way. And while you're there take a moment to learn more about a powerful podcast called Candid Conversations with Jonathan Yousaf. Each week Jonathan, who serves as director of ministries at his local church, discusses current trends and topics. Through his own biblical reflections or conversations with trusted guests, he offers ways for Christians of all ages to respond biblically to the challenging days in which we live. Possessing gold is not the same as embracing the prosperity gospel.
The danger we face is not so much the gold we have, but the gold that has us. We cannot save our child, we cannot change our child, we cannot make them do really much of anything, but God can work in ways that we can't understand. I knew that Christianity was not an option because I was gay, so I can't pursue that, so what am I going to do?
I was very, very- Sometimes, though, we have to remember that what we want is not what is best for us. Strength of the evidence that points so powerfully toward the truth of Christianity, it would have taken more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian. So that's when I put my faith in Christ and my life, like hers, began to change. Only the one that's stamped with the blood of Jesus Christ. On what basis do I have confidence I'm going to heaven? The blood of Jesus Christ, period.
My ticket's stamped with that blood. Learn more, go to L-T-W dot org. You can also speak with a friendly ministry representative at the Leading the Way call center. That number, 866-626-4356. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.
