Lost and Found

Our scripture reading this morning is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Perhaps in the larger world, this chapter is one of the most familiar passages, especially the latter half that we'll cover next week.

Luke chapter 15, I encourage you to turn there.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible with you, there should be a Pew Bible located in front of you.

You can find the scripture passage on page 874.

We list that as well in the bulletin if you need that, page 874.

And I'd encourage you, if you are here and you don't own a copy of the Bible, to please take that pew Bible and following the service, take it home with you as our gift to you to read and to study.

Luke chapter 15, verses 1 through 10.

Luke 15:1–10

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.

And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

He told them this parable.

Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it.

And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.

Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Does God really care?

Does he care what I'm going through?

What is his attitude towards me?

Is he distant, aloof, uninterested, dispassionate?

Does God look down at me as a perpetual disappointment?

Is God waiting until I try a little harder, work a little more, get a little better?

How long will God put up with me?

This morning we come to this passage in Luke.

I want to take it a little bit out of order, and I want to focus first on verse 2, and you'll see why as we go through this passage.

The sinners were drawing to Jesus.

In fact, we saw at the end of chapter 14, Jesus says, He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.

And then it says, Now the tax collectors and the sinners were all drawing near to hear him.

Catch that?

Sometimes chapter breaks don't help.

See what's happening.

But I want us to look first at the Pharisees.

It says, and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled.

They were grumbling because sinners were coming to Jesus.

They were grumbling about Jesus because he was associating with sinners.

The attitude of the Pharisees was one of contempt.

They looked down on others.

They were self-righteous.

They were the righteous ones.

They were the ones who were the keepers of the law.

The scribes were the ones that collated and collected and laid out all that was there, and they were the ones that were the keepers of it.

They were self-righteous and condescending.

They looked down on other people.

They looked down on everyone else who wasn't quite like them.

Didn't quite measure up.

Didn't make the grade.

They were proud.

They were proud of their righteousness.

They walked with God, they thought.

They were holy.

They were pure.

They were undefiled.

They didn't touch any unclean thing.

They were the ones who not only kept the law, but they followed it.

They were performance-based.

They would look at themselves and look at one another, and they would evaluate themselves based on one another and based on how well they kept their perceived understanding of the rules and regulations that God had laid out for them.

They were judgmental, as we see here, and critical.

Critical of others, these tax collectors, these despised ones, these tax collectors were traitors.

These were Jewish people who were collecting taxes for the occupying enemy.

And in addition to that, they were extorting the people and whatever extra they collected beyond what they had to give to the Romans.

They were keeping for themselves.

In the eyes of the others, they were the lowest of the low.

They were the scum of the earth, the dredges of society.

They were the outcasts.

And then these sinners, these unclean, perhaps caught up in sin, perhaps just not meeting the grade.

Perhaps ceremonially defiled.

They were other.

And so they grumbled.

And the word here is a continuous accent.

It's in the imperfect tense.

They're grumbling and grumbling and grumbling about Jesus.

They're murmuring and muttering and sputtering and spitting out because Jesus is hanging around with sinners.

They were better than others.

They were more moral than others.

They were religious.

In fact, Matthew 23, 23 tells us that they were so religious when they thought of the tithe, they even went and all of their kitchen spices and gave a tenth of their spices to God.

That's how religious they were.

Fastidious in keeping all that they thought were required.

They were very moral.

They were very religious.

They were very faithful.

They were very consistent in their religious practices.

They would never miss a time of prayer, a time at the synagogue.

Wherever they were, they would stop at the appointed times of prayer and they would raise their hands and pray to God.

Didn't matter if they were in the street.

In fact, they rather like that.

They would just happen to be in those places where they might be noticed so that their righteousness could be seen by others.

They were consistent in all of their practices.

But they were blind, lost, dead, and corrupting others.

They should have been the spiritual leaders.

They should have been the shepherds in some sense of their day.

Just like the religious leaders in the Old Testament in Ezekiel chapter 34.

Ezekiel 34 · chapter mention

It reminds me much of what we see in Jesus' day.

It says this, the word of the Lord came to me, Son of Man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.

Prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord, Ah, shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding yourselves, should not shepherds feed the sheep?

And then in verse 4, the weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the stray you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.

This is the background that we enter these passages.

We need to keep this in mind as we look at what Jesus says in the rest of chapter 15, both this week and next week.

And I want to see a contrast here, and we're going to go back and examine a couple of the verses in greater detail, but I want to see a contrast of the parables to what we just talked about with the Pharisees.

First, look at the parable of the lost sheep in verses 3 through 7.

He says, so he told them a parable.

He said, What man of you having a hundred sheep?

And that would be a good number.

This person would have been moderately wealthy.

Somebody having between 50 and 200 sheep would have been moderately wealthy in that culture.

And he says, which of you, if one had been lost, one had wandered off, one was helpless and vulnerable, cold and hurting?

You have a hundred sheep and one of them is lost.

Do you not leave the 99 in the open field?

They would have been safe together.

They would have had one another, would have put them in a place where they would have had some protection.

Would you not have left them in the open country and gone after the one that is lost?

Look at what it says here.

The language that Jesus uses, and when he has found it, this is not a perfunctory search.

This is somebody who is passionate about finding this lost sheep.

And he searches until he finds.

He's undaunted in his pursuit of this lost sheep.

And he says he goes after this one and he searches until he finds it.

When he finds it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

He finds this sheep and he treats it tenderly.

I remember once hearing, and there's nothing in this passage that would ever lead us to this conclusion, but I remember hearing somebody once say, Well, you see, when the shepherd would find somebody like this, he would break the legs of the sheep, and then the sheep would never wander again, and then he would carry it back.

That is not the picture here.

There is a tenderness.

This sheep is lost, cold, bleeding, crying out, no way to find its way back, perhaps hungry and weak.

And the shepherd tenderly lifts his sheep, places it on his own shoulders, and begins to rejoice that he's found his sheep.

Look what it says.

And when he he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.

The sheep that was lost.

Look at verse 8 with the next parable.

Similar imagery here.

It says, What woman?

Presumably here, this woman was poor.

If she only had 10 coins, and the word here in the Greek is drachma, which would have been equivalent to about a denari.

It would have been about a day's wages of a laborer.

So this was ten days of work.

This was most likely all that she had.

Some speculate maybe she hung it around a necklace and she wore it.

But whatever the case, she had ten silver coins, not much by the world standards, says if she loses one coin, it may not have been much, but it was valuable to her.

If she loses one coin, does she not light a lamp and sweep the house?

Now, in those days, a small house would have had maybe a small entryway and a small window.

You would not have seen much.

It would have been very dark, and you would have had the hard, dusty floor that perhaps you would have put straw on.

And so a coin that was dropped could have been anywhere.

And it says, does she not light a lamp and sweep?

And she's sweeping around, sweeping all of the straw that's on the ground and all of the dust on the ground, listening for the clink of that small coin.

And when she finds it, verse 9, and when she finds it, she calls together her friends and her neighbors, and she throws a party.

Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.

Again, we see the rejoicing and the celebrating after diligently searching because this was near and dear to her heart and it was valuable to her, and she was going to search until she found it.

Well, I skipped over a couple verses.

So I want to go back and look at them.

Because I want us to see the disposition of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit towards sinners.

Notice what it says in verse one.

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.

Why was Jesus so attractive?

I want us to think about this deeply.

Why was Jesus so attractive?

It's in such stark contrast.

They don't go to the Pharisees.

In fact, the Pharisees reject them, but they are drawn to Jesus.

What is it about Jesus that is so attractive to sinners?

Let me just share a few things.

Jesus had compassion for sinners.

He saw them in their plight.

He saw the pain and the misery that sin had caused.

And his heart was moved with compassion, with pity.

In Matthew chapter 9, verses 35 and 36, it says, And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction.

Matthew 9:35

And then it says, when he saw the crowd, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus saw the crowds, and his heart was moved with compassion.

He saw them in their plight.

He fed the hungry, he gave sight to the blind, he raised the dead, and he cleansed the lepers.

And we've seen this over and over again.

I think of Mark chapter 1, verses 40 and 41.

Mark 1:40

It says, and the leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling, said to him, If you will, you can make me clean.

Remember this?

We studied the Luke passage of a similar account.

And it says here in Mark's gospel, chapter 1, verse 41, moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will be clean.

This man who was an outcast of society, he was unclean.

He was a leper.

No one would touch him.

He would have to cry out, unclean, unclean, so that people could back away out of his way so they wouldn't come into close proximity, that perhaps somehow they might touch him and become ceremonially defiled.

And when this man comes to Jesus, he sees this human being hurting because of the pain and the misery of sin.

And he reaches out and he touches him.

There's a gentleness to Jesus that was attractive to sinners.

In Matthew chapter 12, verse 20, it says, A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench.

Matthew 12:20

The imagery here, a bruised reed, if you had a reed that had already been folded, there would be a bruise there, it would be very delicate, and anything could tip it over.

And in talking of the gentleness of Jesus, it says, a bruised reed he won't break.

And a wick that was smoldering, he wouldn't quench, that little bit that might snuff out whatever bit of hope was left.

Jesus would say, Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

That he was gentle and humble at heart.

Jesus had mercy.

One author describes mercy as God's goodness towards distress.

Jesus was never indifferent towards suffering.

I remember hearing this once, and it stuck with me.

I heard the, and I don't remember where now, but I remember hearing somebody say that the opposite of love is not hate.

And it kind of struck with me.

It stuck with me.

He said the opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is indifference.

And I think there's a lot of truth to that.

Jesus was never indifferent to the suffering around him.

Jesus was moved to step into the pain and the distress of this world.

Jesus gave people dignity.

People felt elevated by Jesus, where the Pharisees looked down on them.

The Pharisees looked down their nose in judgment and derision at these people that were less than.

That were bruised and battered and broken and dirty and disgusting, and they looked down on them because of their sin.

And Jesus treated them with dignity.

And here, the Son of God himself, incarnate, would lift up these people with dignity and treat them with respect.

They were never his project, they were his friends.

In fact, that was one of the criticisms that they continually throw at Jesus.

They say, He is a friend of sinners.

Do you see who he associates with?

Do you see who he hangs around with?

He's around them so much.

And they're so attracted to him, and he's attracted to them.

Even here in verse 2, this man receives sinners and eats with them.

To eat with them was the most intimate type of communal relationship you would have as you are sharing a meal with somebody, and it showed your love and your care for them.

And so in derision, they say, this man eats with them.

The love that Jesus showed.

Even the story, and we often miss it, but the story of the rich young ruler in Mark's gospel in Mark chapter 10, and this man, he Jesus, we've talked about this recently, and in Mark's gospel, there's this little phrase in verse 21 it says, and Jesus looked at Him and loved him.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

This man who was to turn and walk away, and yet we see in the heart of Jesus this disposition towards the sinner who was going to reject him.

And then the forgiveness of Jesus.

Remember the story in John chapter 8 of the woman who was caught in adultery.

John 8 · chapter mention

I often wonder where the man is.

As far as I understand the definition of adultery, that it takes two people, and yet it's only this woman that was dragged before Jesus to try to trap them.

You remember this story?

And they drag this woman before Jesus and they begin to question Jesus about things.

John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

Now, when the law of Moses commands us to stone such a woman, what do you say?

And they want to catch him on the horns of a dilemma because if he disagrees with Moses, as they understand what Moses said, it was really the upper limits of punishment.

There could be mercy involved, but in their understanding, there was only one choice to stone this woman.

But if Jesus said to stone this woman, then it would be violation of the Roman law, and so that Jesus would get in trouble with the Romans, so they were trying to catch him in the horns of a dilemma.

They did it to test him so they might have something to charge against him.

And Jesus began to write on the ground.

And as they continued, uh as he as they continued to ask, they were asking and asking, and he stood up and said to them, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.

And he bent down and wrote on the ground.

But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the oldest ones, the ones who had lived longer and sinned more.

And Jesus was left alone with the woman.

Interestingly, Jesus was the only one there who could have cast the first stone.

Jesus stood up and said to her, Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?

She said, No one, Lord.

Jesus said, Neither do I condemn you.

Go and from now on sin no more.

Time and again, Jesus said, Your sins are forgiven.

Jesus actively sought the lost.

The Bible says that he came to seek and to save those who were lost.

Luke chapter 19, verse 10.

Luke 19:10

He actively sought them out.

Have you ever had somebody who actively pursued you?

Maybe those of you who are married, you ladies, your husband, when they when he met you, he pursued you.

He did everything he could to happen to run into you and to see you and to stop by where you worked or to get in contact with you, or maybe a friend that you meet somebody, and that person just decides that he or she wants to be a friend with you.

And so they take the time to actively pursue you.

And what that reminds you of when you see that is how much you are valued in their eyes that they would seek to have a relationship with you.

Jesus reveals the heart of the Father.

And this is something I want us to grasp here as we wrestle with this in next week, and honestly, something that God is showing me.

Jesus, and I want us to think about the Father for a few minutes.

God the Father, we've been talking about Jesus now, but Jesus reflects the heart of God the Father.

That's what the Bible says.

And you remember John chapter 14, the upper room, it's the same setting as the Lord's table and John's gospel.

John 14 · chapter mention

We have the foot washing that's there, and then Jesus, we have this discourse, the long high priestly prayer in John.

And in John chapter 14, Philip says, Lord, show us the Father, and that is enough for us.

John 14 · chapter mention

And Jesus says to him, Have you been with me so long?

And you still do not know Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

When we look at Jesus, we see the heart of God the Father towards us.

John chapter 1, verse 18, no one has ever seen God.

John 1:18

The only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

The incarnate Christ on this earth, when we look at all that we've just described about Christ, we need to understand, he is revealing to us the heart of our Heavenly Father.

John chapter 5, verse 19.

John 5:19

So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees his Father doing.

For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

I have to be honest with you about something God's been revealing to me that we can have disconnects in our lives.

Theologically, we can know all of these passages and all of this reality of everything I've said, but in somewhere in our hearts, uh there's a disconnect between what we know and where we live.

Between our theology proper and our practical theology, if you will.

And oftentimes, and I think I have fallen many times into this trap, we see Jesus' love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

But for whatever reason, in our hearts, not in our minds so much, but in our hearts, we see God the Father as distant, aloof, angry, or disinterested with us.

About a month and a half ago, I went to a pastor's conference, uh, Desiring God conference, and uh our college coordinator, Luke Hershey, went with me, and and and as we were driving back, um, there was a verse that uh that that he shared, it didn't really resonate with me that day.

Um I shared a little bit about it in my newsletter a couple weeks ago.

Um, but the next day I was sitting in uh on a lecture on the Puritans, and it was uh the discussion that day was on a book by John Owen on communion with God.

And it was based in this verse in Zephaniah, Zephaniah chapter 3, verse 17.

Zephaniah 3:17

It says, The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.

He rejoices over you with gladness, he will quiet you by his love, he will exalt over you with loud singing, he will rejoice over you with love, he will exalt over you with loud singing.

It is the imagery of this spontaneous singing over the joy of seeing someone who brings delight to the person who begins to sing.

Look at verses seven and ten in Luke's gospel for a moment.

I have to be honest with you, I miss this.

This week, and I don't know the disconnect and thinking this through of somehow missing it.

Um, and as I was translating it this week, it just hit me.

Look at verse 7.

Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

And now look at verse 10.

Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Look at this again.

There is joy before, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God.

Who is rejoicing?

I in my mind I just picture all of the angels having a celebration, but the angels are celebrating because of the joy of the heavenly Father who is rejoicing when a sinner repents.

And when we come to Christ, we come into a relationship with him that begins with joy and it continues with joy throughout our lives.

We are the delight of our Heavenly Father.

He delights in you, He rejoices over you, He sings over you, He He exalts over you.

You bring Him joy and pleasure when He looks at you.

He looks at you with love and compassion and mercy and joy.

He has never stopped singing over you from the moment you came to Christ.

He rejoices over you.

He sings over you.

You bring your heavenly father joy.

He is intimately interested in you.

You are not a disappointment to him, you are not a failure to him.

You don't have to work harder to earn his favor or to gain his attention.

And maybe for many of us, we view our earth our heavenly father like we do our earthly father, and we need to recognize that that is not how our heavenly father is.

And if we had a good earthly father, we need to see God is so much greater than that.

Continuing in Ezekiel 34, the Lord says, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds.

I will require my sheep at their hands and put a stop to their feeding the sheep.

No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves.

I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, and they that they may not be food for them.

Verse 11 of Ezekiel 34, for thus says the Lord God, Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.

As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so I will seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

The silent partner in all of this is the Holy Spirit that is that behind all of this, it is the Holy Spirit that is at work.

He is the one who woos and draws, he is the one who convicts and convinces.

The Holy Spirit is the one who opens blinds' eyes and then stops deaf ears.

The Holy Spirit is the one who goes before and prepares our hearts that we might understand the love of God in the cross of Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the one who applies God's word and enables us to turn from our sin to faith in Christ.

God the Father is pursuing us.

God the Son is pursuing us.

God the Holy Spirit is pursuing us.

God delights in sinners who repent and continues to delight in them for our whole life.

Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, who seeks and saves the lost, now rejoices as our elder brother, the Holy Spirit, who quietly works in our lives, drawing us to God, draws us into this love relationship with God that we have from the moment we accept Christ.

We need to stop trying to love God and first know the love of God.

We love because we first love God.

We get it backwards.

I get it backwards.

I think that the Christian life is me trying to love God.

That second.

God's love for me is what draws us into this love relationship.

And then we respond in love.

Your Heavenly Father rejoices over you in love, and he has never stopped from the moment you came to him.

Let's pray.

Father God, loving Heavenly Father.

You delight in us.

It's hard for us to accept sometimes.

We see our sin.

We see our failures.

We see our shortcomings as Christians.

We know our flaws.

We know our past.

We know everything about us that will never measure up to what we think we ought to be.

And somewhere in the back of our minds, in our hearts, we have believed a lie that only if we get to that point will you begin to love us.

But you have never, ever, ever stopped loving and delighting in us from the moment we came to Christ.

Oh Father, through the work of your Holy Spirit, impress that reality on our hearts and our minds.

We pray in Christ.

Amen.