Happy New Year!

It will be interesting to see what 2025 has to offer.
I have a habit of saying that “Life is relentless.” As I write this blog, I am sitting in a rehab center where my wife is recovering from a terrible fall that resulted in a broken hip and bruised ribs. The recovery from her surgery has been difficult. And, in the column of “Life is relentless” – this was not on our to do list at all! Perhaps you too have encountered a hard left turn in life. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, Jesus did say that “In the world we would have tribulations,” but He also said, “I have overcome that world of tribulations.” And He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” I take encouragement from these truths and promises.

We are continuing this Backyard Conversations series called:

Pray Kingdom, Think Kingdom, Act Kingdom

We are taking a look at the Kingdom Parables – the “stories” that Jesus told to help us understand this very big idea of the Kingdom of God and the terrific, good news (Gospel) that the coming of the Kingdom brings with it. Let’s turn our attention to two of the so called Lost Parables – The parable of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. You can find them in Luke 15:1-7.

Luke 15:1-7
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. ² But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” ³ Then Jesus told them this parable: ⁴ “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? ⁵ And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶ and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ ⁷ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

The Parable of the Lost Coin
⁸ “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

This pair of Kingdom Parables does a couple things. First it addresses the misconception held by the Pharisees that some people are more holy or better than others. They understood the kingdom to be merely ‘Israel’ and the most important people in Israel were those who were the attentive to the Law. The Gentiles, those outside of the Hebrew bloodline, were thought to be not only unimportant to God, but actually an offence to God.

These parables demonstrate God’s unconditional love for individuals who are considered “lost” and of his eagerness to welcome them back, even at the expense of leaving the “righteous” behind. This was an insult to the Pharisees and Sadducees who were locked into their narrow and largely false understanding of the Kingdom of God and who are welcome into it!

But there is a second truth embedded in these stories. What we see is that every lost person has intrinsic value – eternal value. Every human being is created in the image of God, whether we live into that privilege or not! The world sometimes tells us that we do not matter. That we are not only unimportant but that we haven’t lived a worthy life. That we have let God down and worse, let ourselves down. And the world tells us lies every moment of every day that if we do not perform well or look pretty, we don’t have value.

Let me illustrate how the world lies to us.

There is an amazing movie released in 1946 with a Christmas theme entitled, It’s a Wonderful Life. If you are one of the 7 people in the world that have not seen this movie you can see it here, for a cost I guess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnqj06xMy_A

The movie follows the life of George Bailey, who is at the end of his rope. Facing lifelong disappointment, loss, and failure, he is thinking of ending his life. Perhaps you remember this moment when George, who confesses to “not being a praying man,” utters a quiet, desperate prayer.

And then the miracles start. At just the right moment, God steps into George’s life in the person of Clarence, George’s guardian angel. He is shown what the world would be like without him. George’s eyes are opened to all the eternal work happening largely unseen, in the life of this otherwise common, small person. As Clarence notes, “You see George, you have really had a wonderful life.”

Kevin, my cohort here at 100 Fold Ministries, alerted me to a new abridged version of It’s A Wonderful Life, released in December 2024. Here are his observations:

This Christmas, Amazon released an abridged version of It’s a Wonderful Life. Get this… the “abridgment” removes the entire section of the movie where Clarence shows George Bailey what life would be like for the town if George had never been born. It goes from angel Clarence and George Bailey drying off from the river to George running ecstatically through town.

The entire message of the movie – of an individual’s worth and our largely unknown impact on others – is entirely lost.

When I went through it a second time to see why this bizarre change was made, I think it was an effort to eliminate the concept of suicide from the film. It’s not mentioned at the beginning that George Bailey was about to throw away the most precious gift he had been given by God (as it is in the original full version), and it’s not mentioned afterwards. And the concept of how the world would look without him is simply cut from the film.

The world is lying to us. The divine Kingdom of God, the reality of God’s love and the intrinsic value of every person ends up on the editor’s cutting room floor.

The Kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus is breaking into our lives in ways we cannot see. Even in the tough times of life that we did not anticipate or want (like broken hips) God is in charge of all things!

Peace to you! This is Dave Scherrer, and you have found Backyard Conversations, the blog format of One Hundred-Fold Ministries. I invite you to our website homepage where you can engage some other resources and please do connect with me at: dave@100foldministries.org