You can sit in the front pew for thirty years and still be completely, quietly lost.
Familiarity isn’t fellowship. That reality came into sharp focus for me this past week through two different voices speaking on the very same passage of Scripture.
Every evening, my wife, Teng, and I leash up our chihuahuas for our walk in the park. It has become our daily rhythm: side by side in the cooler air, a mobile device on speaker, listening to sermons, talks, or podcasts. Earlier this week on our walk, we tuned into a message by JohnMaxwell breaking down Luke 15.
Maxwell distilled the parables into a sharp contrast:
The coin did not know it was lost. It simply slipped into a crack, sitting in the dark and dust with zero awareness of its condition until the woman lit a lamp and swept the floor.
The sheep knew it was lost, but couldn’t get back. Sheep don’t plot rebellion; they nibble grass one tuft at a time until they look up and realize the flock is gone and night is falling. Terrified and helpless, the sheep knows its predicament—but it needs a shepherd to go out, find it, and rescue it.
The lost son knew he was lost and came back to the father. Unlike the sheep that had to be carried or the coin that had to be swept up, the prodigal came to his senses in the pigpen, turned his boots around, and walked home.
A few days later, on September 27, 2026, the theme resurfaced right at our home congregation at Westside Church of Christ. Rick Pitts was delivering the sermon. Rick is a longtime fixture at Westside—he has served as an elder, teaches Bible classes, and speaks with the grounded wisdom of someone who has shepherded people for decades.
Across all of Luke 15, heaven’s response is identical: an embrace and an open banquet. When the shepherd finds the exhausted wanderer, he doesn’t scold it—he carries it home on his shoulders rejoicing.
The Sign on the Road
Most of the time, the shepherd hunts down the oblivious wanderer. But sometimes, a lost sheep catches a glimpse of the fold and sprints toward it.
To illustrate this, Rick shared the story of Steve.
Steve had spent an entire lifetime around faith. He grew up in church, knew the hymns, and spoke the language. But six decades slipped by, and he had never been baptized. He had lingered at the edges of the flock for sixty years without ever stepping through the gate.
One weekday afternoon, Steve was driving past a church building when four words on a roadside marquee stopped him cold:
“I am the Good Shepherd.”
Decades of polite delay evaporated in an instant. He swung his car into the parking lot of the Central Church of Christ.
Walking toward the entrance, an internal war erupted within his spirit. Every old habit urged him to hesitate, wait for a better day, or turn around. He pushed through the doors anyway.
The building was empty except for the church secretary. When Steve explained that he had come to be baptized, she looked around the quiet office and gently suggested he return on Sunday when the ministers and congregation would be present.
Steve didn’t blink: “I need to be baptized today.”
Conviction doesn’t wait for office hours.
The secretary picked up the phone, reaching an elder and a deacon who dropped what they were doing and drove over. That afternoon, with no crowd and no choir, sixty-year-old Steve stepped into the water and buried sixty years of hesitation.
When he returned home and told his wife, Gloria, the relief on his face said everything words couldn’t. Seeing her husband’s sudden, genuine peace, Gloria realized she needed that same anchor. She agreed that they should walk this path together, and she was baptized as well. Both went on to live as devoted, faithful sheep following the Good Shepherd.
Stop Lingering at the Edge
Delayed obedience is still a quiet form of running away.
It is easy to stay near the church—respectable, informed, and completely uncommitted—convincing yourself that next month or next year will bring a more convenient time to settle your soul.
Grace doesn’t ask you to carry yourself home:
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”
— 1 John 5:13
God doesn’t call you to spend a lifetime guessing where you stand. The Shepherd’s shoulders are broad enough to take your weight today—if you’re willing to stop wandering and let Him carry you.