Luke 15 paints this picture: A God who notices when one goes missing. A God who searches until He finds. A God who carries the weak. A God who rejoices when the lost come home. He doesn’t quit.

A year ago, a man asked if we could meet regularly so he could grow as a disciple, a learner of Jesus.
We picked Thursdays at 6 a.m. at a diner.

Then another man joined.
Then another.
One moved away.
Then more came.

This week, I walked into a bigger diner with a private room and found nine men around the table.
A high school senior. A construction executive. Entrepreneurs. A retired officer. Project managers.
Different stories. Same hunger.

I knew this wasn’t me.
The Lord built that table.

We’d been walking through the Old Testament, but as I prepared this week, that quiet nudge from God came again.
“What do they really need right now?”

If this was the last time I saw them, what would I tell them?

The answer hit hard.
Tell them Jesus.

So I went back to Luke 15, the “salvation parables.”
And this one in particular: the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one.

The parable Jesus tells to describe Himself.

The Setting

The religious crowd didn’t like who Jesus ate with.

“This man receives sinners and eats with them.” (v. 2)

They said it like an insult.
Jesus took it as His mission.

J.C. Ryle wrote,

“Few chapters perhaps have done more good to the souls of men.”

Luke 15 shows what God is really like, a Father who refuses to quit on His children.

The One That Went Missing

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them,
does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?” (v. 4)

Most of us would cut our losses.
One percent isn’t bad.
But that’s not how the Shepherd thinks.

James Boice said Jesus starts not with the sheep’s misery but with the Shepherd’s loss.
God feels it when one of His goes missing.

Sin isn’t just breaking rules. It’s breaking relationship.
And His response isn’t fury. It’s pursuit.

Psalm 23:6 says,

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

That Hebrew word follow means pursue.
God’s goodness doesn’t trail behind. It chases us down.
That’s the same heart Jesus shows here.

The Search

“He goes after the one…until he finds it.”

That line burns.
No giving up.
No shrugging.
No “maybe they’ll come back.”

He keeps going until He finds it.

Guzik noted that most rabbis believed God would receive a sinner who found his way home.
Jesus flipped it. God goes looking first.

That’s the gospel.
We don’t climb to God. He climbs down to us.

A Father’s Search

When I taught this to my guys, and again later to my family, I used an example they all know well.

My daughter Harper.

When she was little, she wandered. Constantly.
At Target, the park, anywhere with aisles or people, she’d slip away in seconds.

We used to joke and call her “Amber” because of Amber Alert.
But it stopped being funny the moment we realized she was gone.

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