LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 99

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100

CONVENTION BIBLE STUDIES

All of this carries over into the New Testament as the
Word becomes flesh (John 1:14). “Anyone who has seen Me
has seen the Father.” In our Lord Jesus Christ we see the
very nature of God; we see the heart of God and that heart
is poured out for the lost. Matthew 23:37: “O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent
to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and
you were not willing.” The Savior speaks as His heart is
moved, Matthew 9:36: “When He saw the crowds, He had
compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.” For the lost the Savior came. For those entangled in the traps of this world and
of Satan, for those who listen to the voices of the culture,
He came to die. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to
save the lost” (Luke 19:10).
How many ways does He say it to us that His heart is
for the lost, Luke 15:3–7: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the
ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep
until he finds it?” John 10:11: “I am the good shepherd. The
good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
The grace of God, His undeserved love, is inseparably
linked to the lost ones. For if it were not for His very nature, His very grace, He would care nothing for the lost
ones. Yet, the heart of God is moved to seek them, to find
them, and to make them His own. This concept is found
from Genesis to Revelation and revealed in the flesh in His
only Son. The very nature of God is care for the lost ones.

II. Woe to us if we care nothing
for the lost ones
God tells Ezekiel to prophesy against the shepherds of
Israel, “you have not strengthened the weak or healed the
sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back
the strays or searched for the lost” (Ez. 34:4). The prophet
Zechariah does the same, “Woe to the worthless shepherd
who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and
his right eye” (Zech. 11:17).
We can become so caught up with being the children of
God, with being His chosen people that we become like the
Pharisees against whom Jesus spoke the parable of the lost
sheep in Luke 15. For we can come to think that we are the
ninety-nine faithful and do not need a shepherd to look for
us. Why, we are so faithful that we forget the lost ones in
our own pride of being one who is found. We are so proud in
our righteousness that we conclude we are right and everyone else is wrong. In that moment, with those thoughts we
are ourselves lost. To say by thought, word, or action, “We
are here; let the lost find us,” can be called nothing but sin.
To become so wrapped-up in ourselves, our parish, our people, our District, our Synod that we forget the lost, ignore
the lost, or simply are filled with apathy for the lost is, and
will always remain, sin. For our Lord did say such things
from the throne of heaven. He did not say as He sat in
glory, “They got lost; let them find their own way.” No, He
came down from the throne of glory and emptied Himself
to seek and find the lost ones—us. We dare not turn our
backs on the lost in subtle rationalizations or by simply ignoring them. Our sinful nature is just the opposite of the
2004 Convention Proceedings

nature of God. We would leave the lost, ignore the lost in
our own pride and selfishness. We are called as the people
of God to have the heart of God for the lost ones.
C. F. W. Walther says, “The Word of God is not rightly
divided when the person teaching it does not allow the
Gospel to have a general predominance in his teaching”
(Walther, The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel, p.
403). The Gospel is to predominate. For it is the Gospel that
after the preaching of the Law will change hearts and bring
the lost ones back into the fold. Behind this very concept is
the nature of God and His work. For we have always taught
that His opus proprium, His proper work, is the Gospel, to
save, to seek the lost ones.

Group Discussion Time
Why is it so hard for us to grieve for the lost? Why is it
so easy to forget them? What gets in the way in our personal lives and in our churches from grieving for the lost
and then being proactive in getting the Gospel out beyond
our own homes and our own churches?

III. Grieving for the Lost
The grace of God is the only thing that can work in us a
heart like God’s. The grace of God is the only thing that can
work in us so we, too, grieve for the lost ones to the point
that we are willing to do something about it. We go back to
the parable of the lost sheep. We begin by remembering
that we were born into this world quite lost. We were born
into this world filled with sin and death. We were born into
this world rebellious enemies of God. Yet, the Good Shepherd came looking for us. The Good Shepherd left the mansions of heaven and was willing to come so far, far down for
you and me. We were lost and God, by His grace, in His
love, through His Son, reached out and found you and me.
We were lost and God found us, not to scold but to forgive,
nourish, care for, bless, and give us life now and forever.
When we behold what God has done for us when we were
lost, then He will work in us a grief for the lost. When we
rejoice in His forgiveness, then our eyes can turn to those
who are not forgiven. When we live in the hope of eternal
life, we can feel for those who face eternal damnation.
Romans 5:6, 8: “You see, at just the right time, when we
were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly . . . But
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we
were still sinners, Christ died for us.” “All this is from God,
who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us
the ministry of reconciliation: that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s
sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us”
(2 Corinthians 5:18–20a).
We are ambassadors. We are people who were lost. We
are people that God came to in Holy Baptism, through His
Holy Gospel to find us, work faith in us, forgive us, and give
us eternal life. We are His blood-bought people. Yet, we
dare not lose sight that all people are blood-bought at Calvary. We as ones who were lost now are given a message to
bring to the lost ones. We have the message of reconcilia-