10/40 Window Reach Out Series
You Are Not Too Far Gone
— The God Who Pursues the Lost
By Missionary John | missionaryjohn.online | 10/40 Window Reach Out Series
The Thought That Keeps People Away
Of all the reasons people give for not responding to the gospel, one comes up more often than almost any other. Not intellectual doubt. Not cultural pressure. Not lack of information. Something more personal than all of those.
The quiet belief that it is too late. That what they have done — or what has been done to them — has placed them beyond the reach of a God who is good. That other people may be candidates for grace, but not them. Not with their history. Not with what they know about themselves in their most honest moments.
This belief is understandable. It is also, according to the Bible, completely wrong. Not wrong in a vague, motivational-poster way. Wrong in a specific, documented, historically grounded way. The God of the Bible has a long, detailed, astonishing record of pursuing people who were exactly as far gone as you fear you might be — and welcoming them home with a celebration that leaves the watching world confused.
"The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." — Luke 19:10 (KJV)
The Story Jesus Told About People Like You
Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners — the most disreputable people in his society. The religious leaders were offended. And in response to their offense, Jesus told three stories in a row, each making the same point with increasing intensity.
A shepherd has one hundred sheep. One goes missing. He leaves the ninety-nine and searches for the one — until he finds it. Then he comes home and calls his neighbours: rejoice with me. I found what was lost.
A woman has ten coins. She loses one. She lights a lamp, sweeps the entire house, searches carefully until she finds it. Then she calls her friends: rejoice with me. I found what was lost.
And then — the third story, the one that has never been forgotten — a man has two sons. The younger one demands his inheritance early (which in that culture was effectively saying: I wish you were dead), takes the money, and wastes every coin of it in deliberate, spectacular moral failure. He ends up feeding pigs in a foreign country — the most degraded image Jesus could have chosen for a Jewish audience — and eating what the pigs eat.
And then the story says: "And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants."
He does not expect restoration. He expects servanthood at best. He has burned every bridge. He has used up every claim on his father's goodwill. He is returning not because he thinks he deserves to come back, but because there is nowhere else to go.
The most important detail in the story is not what the son said. It is what the father did before the son could finish saying it.
What the Father Did
"And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."
The father saw him when he was still a great way off. Which means the father had been watching the road. Every day. Watching for the silhouette that might be his son coming home.
And he ran. In the culture Jesus was speaking into, an older man running was undignified — almost scandalous. Wealthy men of position did not run in public. But the father did not calculate the social cost. He ran. He threw his arms around a son who smelled of pigs and poverty and squandered inheritance. He kissed him before the son could complete his prepared speech.
When the son tried to begin his rehearsed confession — I am no more worthy to be called thy son — the father was already calling for the robe, the ring, the sandals, the celebration. He did not wait for the speech to be finished. He was not listening to the speech. He was holding his son.
"For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
This is not a story about a lenient father who ignored his son's failures. It is a story about the nature of God — the God who watches the road, who runs toward the returning prodigal, who restores before the full confession is even spoken. This is the God Jesus was describing. Not the God of the respectable. The God of the lost.
The People Jesus Specifically Sought Out
The pattern of who Jesus pursued during His earthly ministry demolishes the idea that the gospel is for clean people.
He sought out a Samaritan woman who had been married five times and was currently living with a man who was not her husband — a woman so marked by social shame that she came to the well alone at midday to avoid the other women. He initiated the conversation. He offered her living water. She became the first evangelist in Samaria.
He called Zacchaeus — a chief tax collector, the most despised category of person in Jewish society, a man who had built wealth by collaborating with Roman oppression — down from the tree and invited Himself to dinner at his house. The crowd murmured. Jesus did not flinch.
On the cross — in His final hours, in agony — He turned to a man being executed beside Him for real crimes and said: Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. No repentance process. No religious instruction. No probationary period. A dying thief, at the last possible moment, looked at Jesus and asked to be remembered. And Jesus said: today.
That is the last word on how far gone is too far gone. Nobody.
"Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." — The last promise Jesus made before He died. He made it to a criminal. He means it for you too.
What About What You Have Done?
You may be reading this carrying something specific. Not a general awareness of imperfection, but a particular thing — a particular failure, a particular sin, a particular wound you have caused or received. Something that has made you feel that the grace described in these articles is for other people.
The apostle Paul — who wrote more of the New Testament than any other person — described himself as the chief of sinners. He had watched men and women be killed for their faith in Jesus and done nothing to stop it. He had hunted Christians through cities, dragged them from their homes, and handed them over to punishment. He met the risen Jesus on a road, was transformed, and spent the rest of his life proclaiming the gospel he had tried to destroy.
If his story was possible — if the man who supervised the first Christian martyrdom became the greatest Christian missionary in history — then the argument that your particular history is beyond redemption does not hold.
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." — Isaiah 1:18 (KJV)
The Invitation That Has Always Been Open
This is the final post in the 10/40 Window Reach Out Series — and in a sense, everything in this series has been building to this one point: the invitation is open. Right now. For you, exactly as you are, wherever you are in the world.
You do not have to clean yourself up before you come. You do not have to resolve your doubts first. You do not have to have your theology straight. The prodigal son did not wait until he felt worthy to come home. He came home because he had nowhere else to go. And the father ran.
God is watching the road. He has been watching it since the moment you turned away — or since the moment you were born into a world where no one told you He was there. He is not waiting for a better version of you. He is waiting for you.
Father, I am coming home. I have wasted time, I have gone my own way, and I am not what I should have been. But I am coming. I believe that Jesus died for me and rose from the dead. I receive His forgiveness. I receive His life. I am done trying to be good enough on my own. I run toward You — and I trust that You are already running toward me. Welcome me home. Amen.
Read the Full Series
- There Is a God Who Knows Your Name — The foundation: who God is, what the gospel means, and how to receive it.
- What Happens When You Die? — The only answer from the only person qualified to give it.
- Who Is Jesus? — Seven claims He made that no prophet ever dared.
- Why the Bible Can Be Trusted — Historical, archaeological, and prophetic evidence.
- Is There Only One God? — What the Bible says about the God of all nations.
- Why Good People Still Need Jesus — The truth about goodness and God's standard.
- What Does It Mean to Be Born Again? — Jesus and the conversation that changed everything.
- The Holy Spirit — Who He is, what He does, why He changes everything.
- How to Pray — A complete beginner's guide to talking with God.
- All posts available at missionaryjohn.online
The God who made you is not finished with you. This is not the end of the story. It is, if you are willing, the beginning of the real one.
— Missionary John
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