Let's find one thing that was lost
(Luke 15:8-10)
In Luke 15, there are three parables of God's love.
The parable of the prodigal son, the second son of whom one went out,
The other is the parable of the shepherd looking for one lost sheep out of 100 sheep, and the other is the parable of the woman looking for the one lost out of the ten drachmas in today's text.
The meaning of these three parables is one.
That is, they are parables that show the love of God.
These are parables depicting God's love to seek and save sinful humans.
In order to understand the parable of this text more, we need to know the Jewish customs of life.
In the days of Jesus, when ordinary poor women married,
It is said that the groom received a set of 10 drachmas as a gift.
So, how must the woman feel when she finds one missing! What we do is easy to understand.
Considering these Jewish customs, among the things I have received from God, what has I lost today?
That's what we're going to do to find it.
In the beginning, when God created the world, he said that man was created in His image.
And he built the Garden of Eden and entrusted everything to them.
He told them to eat all the fruit in the garden, but not to eat only the ones in the center, and other things in the air, in the sea, and on the ground, everything else in the air, in the sea, on the ground, and all these things should be governed and governed. They gave it all to me without missing anything.
However, there was one thing that was lost while being deceived by Satan.
It can be seen as one drachma.
It means that one out of ten has gone out.
This is what we are today.
However, we are not even aware of what we have lost, and there are problems today.
So what would be one of those lost things?
It is the image of God.
It is the very Spirit that was blown by the breath of God to become .
In English, it is called the Living Spirit.
It is the loss of this spirituality.
Therefore, what we need to find now is this image of God.
1. We must find the lost image of God.
In Genesis 1:26 it says, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them...".
Humans are the only creatures made in the image of God.
Therefore, man is the primate of all things.
However, when sin entered, the {image of God} was lost.
That's why today's era is called the 'era of self-losing' or 'the era of dehumanization'.
Since they became people who lost themselves, they lived by imitating others.
That is to say, living according to fashion.
Fashion is not your own.
It is fashionable for everyone to follow others.
If you look closely at the outfits, hairstyles, and behaviors these days, it's just that everyone follows the wave of fashion.
Put blue eyes on your black eyes, or paint yellow on your black hair,
Raising your nose, doing double eyelids, shaving your chin, everything you do,
If other people do that, I can say that I am following the trend.
As modern people are polluted with material culture, they have become increasingly dehumanized and have lost all of their identity.
This is because whatever you seek after losing yourself is not yours.
That's why the writer of Ecclesiastes said that there is nothing new under the sun, and everything is like a chasing after the wind.
Therefore, the most urgent problem is to recover the lost self.
In Genesis 6, it is said that human beings without the image of God became flesh.
“And the sons of God, when they saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, they took wives with whomever they liked,” said the Lord. “My spirit will not be with men forever, for they are made flesh, but their days will be an hundred and twenty years.” (Genesis 6:2-3)
If we lose the image of God in man,
From that moment on, you will be reduced to a physical animal.
As Pascal said, humans can be both angels and demons.
It can be extremely moral, and it can be extremely sub-animal.
In other words, if you regain the image of God, you can become an angel, or you can become an animal while living according to the desires of the flesh.
In that sense, a few years ago, the so-called criminal group can be considered.
They call themselves the most noble, or the most noble, and they kidnap people who are well-off, that is, people who drive luxury cars.
He killed, but he committed the most cruel and careless killing.
When the interrogating policeman said, "How can a human being do this?"
Do you know what they answered?
"We are not human. We have given up being human," he said.
What an amazing answer.
It is also a good example of what happens when a person loses the image of God and lives according to the desires of the flesh.
It means that human beings become non-human beings.
They can be more frightening than demons and more immoral than animals.
2. How would you go about finding what was lost?
People don't try to find the one lost drachma, they live bragging about the nine they have. That's the problem.
These are ① learning, ② culture, ③ wealth, ④ health, ⑤ beauty, ⑥ youth, ⑦ honor, ⑧ status, and ⑨ power.
These are the values that the world cherishes. Even if they lose the image of God, they do not try to find it.
However, the Iranian number means incomplete, lacking one in .
When a person loses a spiritual relationship with God, it means that he is an imperfect being.
In other words, even if there are nine things that are hard to achieve through human efforts, if they lose the image of God, they are imperfect beings.
If you have lost spiritual fellowship with God, you are incomplete.
Therefore, just as this woman sweeps the entire room to find the lost dog, we must also seek out our lost relationship with God.
1) First, this woman turned on a lamp and swept the house to find it.
Of course, this is a metaphor for God's love to find and save sinners, but
We, too, should strive to find lost spirituality in this way.
Lighting a lamp means the lamp of the Word.
The word of God is a lamp that shines in darkness.
It illuminates the dark corners of your heart, allowing you to see your lost side.
The Word is the lamp that restores the lost self.
Therefore, we should not look at these words as dry words, but open our hearts.
2) And this woman said that she found it while sweeping the whole room with rain.
This means sweeping away the dust of your tainted mind.
We need to wipe away the habits of sin that have accumulated without knowing it.
The first time you commit a sin, there is remorse and it makes your heart pound, but it accumulates like dust over and over again.
It means to sweep away these old dust.
We have to recover the original self that was buried in it.
The joy this woman had when she regained the one she had lost was indescribable.
3. We had a feast of joy when we found what we lost.
When a soul regains the lost image of God, God is most pleased.
It says that God the Father is most pleased when he sees the return of sinners.
This is evident to any parent who has ever found a lost child.
How sad would it be for the parents who were never found by the kidnappers even now? So is our God.
"Come! Come! Don't wander, come!
Come here, you sinners, come before the Lord Jesus!"
When we regain our lost spiritual relationship with God, not only God is pleased, but also ourselves.
Even if you have everything in the world, your soul apart from God is not satisfied.
As Augustine confessed in the Book of Confessions, human beings cannot find satisfaction apart from God.
What did you think of the last time you watched the World Trade Center building, a symbol of today's capitalism, collapse in flames? What are the problems we should feel together as we see the tragic appearance of the tall buildings of material civilization collapsing?
Americans say when something great happens, or when something surprising happens, oh my god! (Oh My God!)
This time, just before death, it was the voice of the stewardess that was urgent inside.
Everyone! Oh my god, what did you think of when you heard the sound of oh my god?
Isn't it that humans eventually seek God in a hurry?
As the stewardess cried out urgently, everything built up apart from God will collapse in an instant.
When we lose our human identity in this way, the results that come are all fruits of the flesh.
They are hate, terrorism, separation, covetousness, pleasure, etc.
Originally, it was said that human beings have everything that allows them to know God.
But the Bible tells us that we are trying to forget.
Now, as we look back on ourselves, have we not lost the image of God in me?
There must be a decision to go out in search of what has been lost while deeply reflecting on it.
Everyone!
We must retrieve the sincere prayer from our lost hearts.
We must bring back the passionate service that was hot.
And there must be a decision to turn back and repent.
In this case, our father will welcome us as he did when he followed his returning son. ♣