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Welcome to a new series—Walking With Jesus: A Journey to the Cross.
Over the next four weeks, we’ll be guided by Major Dr. Terry Masango through a thoughtful exploration of Scripture and its meaning in our everyday lives.
As the Training Principal at The Salvation Army College for Officer Training at Crestmont, Major Masango leads an institution dedicated to developing men and women in spiritual maturity, character, and knowledge to advance the mission of The Salvation Army. In essence, he is helping shape future Salvation Army officers—pastors who will serve in full-time ministry across the western United States.
In this collection of messages to come, Major Masango invites us to walk alongside those who encountered Jesus on his journey to the cross—from the lost sheep being carried home on the shepherd’s shoulders, to the Good Samaritan who showed true compassion across social boundaries, to the thief on the cross who found salvation in his final moments, and finally to the empty tomb that changed everything.
This series comes at the perfect time as we prepare our hearts for Holy Week.
Major Masango’s attentive interpretation of Scripture reminds us that Jesus consistently and intentionally sought out those on the fringes—the broken, the outcasts, the forgotten—showing us that no one is beyond his reach and that his love knows no boundaries.
As you listen in over the coming weeks, you’ll discover how Jesus demonstrated unconditional love through his actions, his teachings and ultimately through his sacrifice and resurrection. You’ll be challenged to see yourself in these stories—sometimes as the lost sheep, sometimes as the Good Samaritan and always as recipients of God’s grace.
And speaking of Holy Week, we have something special to enhance your Easter experience this year. The team at Caring Magazine has created a beautiful Holy Week Art Journal that allows you and your family to journey with Jesus from Palm Sunday to Easter morning.
This free downloadable resource includes daily Scripture readings, creative activities, and prayer prompts that follow Jesus’ path through Jerusalem. It’s a wonderful way to engage hearts and minds of all ages as we mark this sacred time.
To get your free Holy Week Art Journal, visit caringmagazine.org/journey or follow the link in our show notes.
Now, we begin our journey with the first message from Major Dr. Terry Masango where we’ll discover the lengths to which the Good Shepherd will go to find those who have strayed.
Listen and subscribe to The Do Gooders Podcast now. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.
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From his book, “No Wonder They Call Him Savior,” Max Lucado writes a story about Cristina. Cristina wanted more. At 17, beautiful and trapped in a tiny town in Brazil, she wanted more. She looked around the room dwelling she shared with her mother. Wash basin, dirt floor, wood burning stove. She wanted more.
Her father had long died, a long time ago. Her mother, Maria, a hardworking maid, had raised her. From underneath the pallet that was her bed, she pulled the magazine someone had left on the bus. She looked at the picture of Rio de Janeiro, glittering lights and happy faces and the clothes. Wow. Cristina only had two dresses. 17, beautiful and only two dresses. Cristina looked at the lines in her mother’s face and the fun-filled faces in the Rio pictures. She longed for Rio. Maria walked one morning to find the bed of Cristina, her only child, empty, both dresses gone and Maria knew exactly where she had gone.
You see, Cristina had often spoken of the city. Maria had warned her, “Life is harsh and cruel in this city. How would you eat? How would you survive?” Maria knew exactly what pretty girls would do, would have to do to make a living in Rio. Maria also knew what she must do. She threw some clothes in a bag, gathered all her money and headed for the bus stop. On the way she stopped at the drug store for pictures. She sat down in the booth, closed the curtain, and put in all the coins she had. With a purse full of photos, she caught the bus for Rio. Maria knew that her daughter had no way of earning money. She also knew that she was stubborn and should do whatever it takes to survive.
Maria knew that when pride meets hunger, one will do whatever they do that is unthinkable to survive. She began her search. She went through bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with a reputation for streetwalkers or prostitutes. At each place, she left her picture taped on a bathroom mirror, tagged on a hotel bulletin board, first sent to a phone booth. On the back of the picture, she wrote a note.
Today’s Scripture comes from Luke 15:1-7. It’s entitled The Parable of the Lost Sheep. I’ll be reading from the New International Version.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable: “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? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 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.”
Luke, Dr. Luke as we call him, he was a physician who worked with Jesus. He was one of Jesus disciples. He followed Jesus everywhere and recorded the life of Jesus. They are in the New Testament, what are called the Gospels. The four Gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And what are called the synoptic Gospels, which are Gospels that have similarities in what they say are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And Luke wrote 24 chapters worth of words about Jesus.
His goal was to show that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. When Luke wrote this passage, he was talking mostly about Jesus spending time with, as the Scripture says, with the sinners, with the bad people like the tax collectors. They were not liked. They were hated. It starts by saying here that all the sinners were seated with them, not some, but all the people that the religious leaders looked at and called the spiritually untouchable. The people who were sinners, the human rejects, the religious outcasts, the people sitting on the fringes of society were the ones that Jesus spent time with.
I want you to look at the Scripture more closely with me as we analyze what it means to have Jesus as someone who cares for those who sit on the fringes. Now, when Luke wrote this, many people back then knew of Jesus, but they didn’t understand why he did what he did. He spent time with the least, with the lost and with the last. So in this chapter 15, we see particularly three stories that Jesus told. He told these stories after people had accused him of spending too much time with those sinners. So first and foremost, we read this story of the lost sheep. There is a man with 100 sheep. He loses one, and then he leaves the 99 in the open field and goes after one that was lost. He finds it, he puts it on his shoulders and he celebrates and he says, “Celebrate with me for I have found that which was lost.”
The second story Jesus tells is the story of a woman who loses her coin and turns the whole house upside down, looking everywhere to find a coin. And when she finds it, she celebrates and says, “Rejoice with me for I found my lost coin.” And the third story is the story that is famously called The Prodigal Son. This is the story of a son who decides to leave his family to leave everything that he had known to go and squander his father’s inheritance in a faraway country. And while he was there, he had a moment of repentance and he comes back in a very contrite way. Yet the father said, “Let’s kill a fattened calf. Let’s celebrate because my son who was lost is now found.”
Now let’s go back to our story for today. Our story for today again is Luke 15:1-7.
Jesus tells this story of a man who has 100 sheep. He realizes at the end of the day he has lost one and he decides to go and look for it. This story gives us a glimpse into most likely this, that Jesus is talking about a fairly wealthy person. A person’s wealth was calculated in their livestock. He had 100 sheep, that’s quite a lot. Sheep served as a meat source, but also served, they would take the skin of the sheep and use it for various things in the home, but they also used the ram’s horns. Everything with that sheep helped the family. So this was an important thing that everybody who owned sheep were people who were respected in society. So losing one would mean that you’re losing part of your business, part of your livelihood. So it was imperative for this man to go look for his sheep.
In God’s economy, it is interesting that he leaves the 99 to go for one. To me, that puts value in that one sheep. To say one sheep is more valuable, that it’s worth his time. And typically in this culture, they would count their sheep to make sure all of them are there at the end of the day. So this is probably dark. It’s probably cold, and he leaves the others to go look for this one. And it mattered to him so much that he had to go and look through maybe behind rocks, in caves behind trees and thickets and bushes to find the one lost sheep.
Now, throughout Scripture, from the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament, God talks much about sheep and shepherds, partly because the hearers of God’s Word back then there were farmers, there were people who raised sheep. So when Jesus used examples of sheep, there were things that they could hear and understand because they raised sheep themselves.
Unlike for us today, we don’t. We have to travel to a farm somewhere to see. But for them, this was a day-to-day thing. So for them, they understood exactly what it meant to lose one sheep and to go look for it. But in the Bible, many times God talks about himself as the shepherd and human beings as sheep.
We have a familiar Psalm that is quoted in movies and in churches and everywhere, Psalm 23, where King David, who himself was a shepherd who used to watch sheep. When he’s introduced to the scene, when the prophet Samuel is ready to anoint a king. After gotten disappointed with Saul, Samuel had been led to Jesse’s house and Jesse paraded all his sons. And God kept saying, “No, no, no, no.” Until Samuel asked Jesse, “Do you have any other sons?” And then he says, “Oh yeah, there’s a young boy.”
David was watching the sheep when David is brought on. He was a young man, maybe a teenage boy at that point. He said, his resume was saying, “I watch sheep all the time. When a lion comes, I fight and kill a lion to protect my sheep. When bears come, I protect my sheep.” So he was fit to be a king because he had been a shepherd of actual sheep. Now he could shepherd God’s people.
So we see throughout scripture the same things. Even in John 10:10, Jesus says, “Then I’m the good shepherd.” So as we read in today’s story, we can see the link where Jesus is spending time with those sinners, with people who are on the fringes. And then he says a story of a man who already owns 100 sheep. He loses one and he leaves everything to go look for it. Like a good shepherd would do if they lost their sheep, they would go high and low to go and look for it.
This shows the love that Jesus has for his people. He was explaining to the people accusing him of spending time with the sinners, that he didn’t just come for the good people. He didn’t just come for the healthy people. He didn’t just come for the religious people. Jesus came even, yes, even for the sinners. He came even for those who are sitting on the fringes of society, just as a shepherd would go look for that one lost sheep.
So from this, we learned that Jesus love is active. Jesus love goes and searches. In fact, by him leaving the splendor of heaven to come down to earth and be identified with humanity and then dying on the cross for them so they can be saved, a sign that Jesus’ love would not keep him in the comforts of heaven, but he had to go and search for the lost souls.
John 3:16 reminds us this, that For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only-begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn it, but to save the world through him.
So Jesus came to search and look for the lost souls. Also, from this, we learned that Jesus love is unconditional. It’s sacrificial love. There were dangers that lurked in the darkness where the shepherd went. There were dangers to the sheep, but there were also dangers even to the shepherd himself. But he still said, “I’ll still walk in darkness. I’ll still go to where the enemies are. I’ll still go to where the predators are. To go and make sure I save my sheep.” This is what Jesus did was before the sheep even knew the shepherd was sacrificing so much, he went and looked for it.
Romans 5:8 tells us that, But God shows his love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In Ephesians 2:4, 5, we’ll read this, But God reached in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in trespasses made us alive together with Christ. By grace, we have been saved. This shows that God’s love went in an unconditional way. We didn’t have to do anything in our lostness, in the lostness of the sheep, while it’s still out there lost, he showed his love by going and looking for it. Isn’t that encouraging to know that God loves us so much that he’ll search for us wherever we are? This for us is Westlands. We believe is what is called prevenient grace. Prevenient grace means God’s love precedes our recognition of him.
He’s already searching before we even know he’s already searching for us. There are moments and glimpses that people see of God’s grace, of God’s love before they even know and accept that he’s their Savior.
And 1 John 4:9-11, we read, In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this we see love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
In Zephaniah 3:17, we read, The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He’ll exalt over you with loud singing.
So God so loved us that he searched high and low until he found us.
So in the case of the shepherd, he looked and looked, and at some point he found his sheep. It was probably cold, scared, maybe wet. Maybe it was raining. It was in a state where he was alone and lost. In my mind, I envision the shepherd kneeling down, picking up the sheep. As the Bible said, he put it on his shoulders and probably even consoled it and said, “It’s going to be okay. I got you now. I found you now. I’ll take you home.”
Like the shepherd, Jesus, who’s our Good Shepherd, has been searching for us, has been searching for you, has been searching for me. And he has gone to the nightclubs, he has gone online. He has searched high and low in your home, at school, at work, everywhere, and then he has found you. For some, he found you on Sunday through the reading of the Word, of the preaching of the Word, or he found you through listening to music.
He found you through an argument. He found you through reading a book. He found you after hearing a preacher or a theologian speak. He found you in your sorrow. He found you somewhere, but he doesn’t leave you out there by yourself. He picks you up, puts you on his shoulders, and he consoles you. He comforts you. He tells you it’s going to be okay. He walks with you and talks with you a long life’s narrow way, and he says, “It’s going to be okay.” And he says, “Come back home with me.” And he leads him home.
Though the sheep was lost, it is no longer lost because the shepherd has found it. Though the sheep could have been in danger, it is no longer in danger. It’s now in the safety of the shepherd. Though the sheep was far from home, now it can return home to be with other sheep, to be together with its shepherd.
Isn’t that worth rejoicing, that God has gone everywhere and searched for us and found us, and now he says he wants to take us home to be with him forever? You see, being home means being in the very presence of God each day. I don’t know about you. I don’t know where you stand. I don’t know what your faith is. I don’t know how you have been feeling, but I want to remind you that he loves you so much that even if you were the only individual on Earth, he would’ve still left heaven to go and search for you. Wherever you are beaten, left for dead, whatever it is, he was looking for you so that he can lift you up and take you home with him.
Now, at the beginning, I told you this story about Cristina. It didn’t end there.
Before long, Maria, Cristina’s mom’s money ran out. Her pictures went out. She wept as she got up on the bus to go back home alone. A few weeks later, Cristina descended the stairs in a hotel. Her young face was now tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare 1,000 times. She had wished to trade those countless hotel beds for her pallet back home, but home was in many ways so far away.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she noticed a familiar picture. There on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mom. Cristina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she removed the small photo. Written on the back of the picture where the words, “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”
Cristina came home.
God has been searching for you and has left his pictures, as it were, everywhere, leaving messages to say, “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.” Jesus is pleading with you, “Whatever you’ve done, whatever you’ve become, please come home.”
Have a relationship with him. God bless you.
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