We tend to think about a lot of things on a continuum. Take food, for example.

Let’s say you want to drop a few pounds, so you resolve to start eating more salads. The problem is that you don’t particularly like salads. The idea of lettuce, kale, cucumbers, and some tomatoes for flavor just isn’t very appetizing. On the other hand, the idea of lettuce, ham, bacon, and Ranch dressing is much more palatable. So in your effort to eat more healthy, you opt for the second version of a salad.

Now is that healthy?

Well, it’s certainly more healthy than what you might have chosen. It’s more healthy than a cheeseburger, for example. But then again, it’s not as healthy as it could be if you took all the, um, accoutrements, off of it.

See? It’s a continuum between more healthy and less healthy.

But the Bible doesn’t think that way. Rather than a continuum, the Bible tends to speak in categories. There is light, and there is dark. There is good, and there is evil. There is sin, and there is righteousness. No degrees. No grey area. Just categories. And here’s another set of categories that we find in the book of Luke:

Lost and found.

One of the summary verses in the book of Luke is found at the tail end of the story of Zaccheus, the wee little tax collector who climbed a sycamore tree because he wanted to see Jesus. He did see Him, but more importantly, Jesus saw Zaccheus. And their encounter forced a radical life change. Here’s how the story closes:

But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, I’ll give half of my possessions to the poor, Lord. And if I have extorted anything from anyone, I’ll pay back four times as much.”

“Today salvation has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:8-10).

This statement in verse 10 describes the identity and mission of Jesus. This is who He is – the Seeker – and what He came to do – seek and save the lost. We also find that same emphasis a few chapters earlier in Luke 15. In that chapter, Jesus told three stories about things that were lost and the subsequent celebration that happened when they were found.

The lost coin. The lost sheep. The lost son. All three objects were lost, and all three were found.

Notice again that there is no continuum. None of these objects were “sorta lost.” None of them were “almost found.” They were one way or the other. And that’s true of all humanity. Every human being is in of these two categories – we are either lost in our own sin, separated from God and without true purpose and direction and life, or we are found by Him. And in being found, we have been brought into God’s family with great celebration.

Now why is that good news?

Well, it’s good news if you know and love someone that is in the lost category. And all of us do. Someone we pray for. Someone we ask the Lord to reach. Someone we stay up late at night worrying over. Now our inclination is to assign degrees to that person’s lostness.

If, for example, that person is a child who is being raised in the faith, we might think of them as “nearly found.” And if that person is someone who has outrightly rejected the truth of Christianity, we might think of them as “really lost.” But once again, the Bible doesn’t think in those categories. A person is lost not by degrees, but by totality. On the surface, that might seem like bad news. It might mean the person we think of as “nearly found” just needs a little shove over the edge in faith. But in the Bible’s thinking, that person is just as lost as someone who has intentionally and with great hostility rejected the gospel.

But the opposite is true. The lost don’t find themselves, but Jesus is the great Seeker. And He is not intimidated by the perceived level of someone’s lostness. The only way the “nearly found” person gets found is the same way the “really lost” person gets found. It is by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

To put it another way, the “really lost” person is just as close to being found as the “nearly found” person. And they are all within the searching of Jesus. So keep praying friends. Be encouraged. Jesus is the great Seeker, and He is still seeking and saving the lost no matter how “lost” we might perceive them to be.