God's Plan to Save — with Phil Whittall

Welcome to the Grace Church Weekly Podcast. We're an international church right

in the heart of Stockholm, Sweden.

Each week, we share a message that's rooted in the faithful teaching of God's

Word and open to the vibrant work of the Holy Spirit among His people.

Here's this week's message.

Heavenly Father, we'd be glad that You're a God who speaks,

not silent but you speak through your living word

and we just pray that you give us hearts to hear and

ears to hear what you would say to us today help us to we bring ourselves under

the authority of your word it is your word that gives us everything we need

for life and godliness and so we just pray that you would speak to us today

as we look into your word and what you would have for us as a people together

in Jesus name we pray Amen,

so I'm going to read the entire chapter Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

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

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

So he told them this parable.

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, If he has lost one of them,

does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds him.

When he has found it, he lays it upon his shoulders rejoicing.

And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying

to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.

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 known 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 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.

And he said, There was a man who had two sons.

And the younger of them said to his father, Father give me the share of property

that's coming to me and he divided his property between them.

Not many days later, the youngest son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country.

And there, he squandered his property in reckless living.

And when he'd spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country,

and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country,

who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything.

When he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have

more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger.

I'm going to rise. I'll go to my father and I'll say to him,

father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion

and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it

on him and put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened

calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate.

For this my son was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found.

And they began to celebrate.

Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house,

he heard music and dancing.

And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.

And he said to him, your brother has gone, and your father has killed the fattened

calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.

And he was angry, refused to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him.

But he answered his father, look, these many years I've served you.

Now, I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that

I might celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours came who has devoured your property with prostitutes,

you killed the fattened calf for him.

And he said to him, son, you're always with me and all that is mine is yours.

It was fitting to celebrate and be glad.

For this, your brother was dead and is alive.

He was lost and is found.

This is God's word.

What is your most precious possession?

Or what in your care is most precious to you? Think for a moment.

Parents are thinking of their children, other people are thinking of their phones,

dads are thinking, oh, I was thinking of my phone, I should have been thinking of my children.

Our phones, right? Because they've got all our conversations,

all our contents, all our photos, everything's all on them. It's not the phone.

It's what the phone has on it that we care about.

Now think about what you feel, whatever that most precious thing is,

or that person, if you think you've lost them.

What happens to your thinking your heart rate your sense of peace and calm,

the moment when you suddenly you can't see where your child is and you don't

know where they've gone they're not in view any longer,

we had a moment in our family just recently where a bag was not being able to

be found and there was a moment of stress.

Has someone stolen it? I've looked for it. I can't see it. It's gone.

It's not where I thought it would be.

Maybe someone stole that now. Really stressful moment.

Everything worked out, but in the moment it was stressful.

Now, sometimes as Christians, we can have a tendency to downplay the seriousness

of the situation that the Bible describes as lost,

lost-less.

But being lost is incredibly serious, especially if the thing that is lost or

the person who is lost is never found.

It's lost might not feel like a big thing when you find what is lost again but if it remains lost,

that's not great there are thousands of families all around the world for whom

someone they loved has disappeared and never returned not only is there no happy

ending there would seem to be no ending at all.

They don't know. They just never heard. It's lost.

When you're out, someone who's out hiking, walking in the mountains somewhere,

doing an adventure or expedition, there are still places in the world,

believe it or not, where your GPS, there might not be no GPS,

where your phone battery dies and where suddenly you are not on the path you

thought you were and you're lost. Thank you.

When we are lost, we are separated from the ones who love us.

And sometimes we're separated from the things that keep us alive.

We're separated from shelter, protection, food, water. So being lost is incredibly serious.

How will I live? Or will they come back to us alive?

And that, according to the Bible, is the spiritual condition.

Of humanity, lost, separated by sin, from the one who loves us and the one who gives us life.

Our lostness and our separateness from God, separation from God,

Jesus says ultimately leads to perishing.

We will perish apart from our source of life and love.

So we're like a bunch of cut flowers.

Eventually, the beauty of the flowers fades and dies because they are cut flowers.

They're separated from roots that sustain life.

Something can look alive for a while, but ultimately, if it's lost, it will perish.

And so being lost and feeling lost if you've

ever felt yourself not only the one sign

i'm lost of me but that sense of yourself of i'm

i'm what i don't know where i am and i'm somewhere where

i don't feel safe i don't know how to get to where i want to go and that's the

feeling not just sometimes geographically but sometimes we can just feel that

in life i'm lost i don't quite know how to get things are right for me where

I am and I don't know how to get to a better place. I feel lost.

And that's a really serious place. It's not an enjoyable place to find yourself in.

And sometimes it really is a matter of life and death.

And so I want to urge you, if you believe in Jesus, if you will count yourself

as a follower of Jesus, to take seriously, as seriously as Jesus does,

and that I lean more seriously than you have done until now,

to hear what Jesus says about those who remain lost, about the state of lostness.

They perish and sympathize and empathize and for our heart to be what God's

heart is towards those who feel lost.

And many feel lost because they live in a world they no longer understand.

They don't understand how certain things can happen in this world. How is it possible?

How can the world be like this? they don't

know how to be in such a world and they're

looking for a way how do i find my way

through this life which is harder than i thought i

was told it would be great and in fact it's just really difficult

how do i be what is the

way others are just confused by the polarized voices the arguments each side

sometimes making this you know equally powerful rhetoric sometimes good points

how do I know what to believe what to think any longer,

they're looking for truth.

And some know that everything they've been promised by the world has turned up empty.

Everything they've tried, nothing has truly satisfied.

They look around the world outside them, and they look at the internal world

inside them, and they feel hopeless but hungry.

They're looking for life.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

We can know that he is the way and the truth In part because of the life that

he gave up for us, his own And the life he gives, his own, to those who follow him.

We're doing a series on being a witnessing church And one of the things that

we want us to understand Is both God's heart of compassion and what God has done,

why then he calls us into being

a people who witness to what god has

done and understand and are able to share

it with others so we were able to give to people what we believe they most need

the way the truth and the life so it's we want to understand not just from the

perspective of the one who is lost,

but also the perspective of the one who wants them to be found,

and to understand how the lost can be found.

When something precious is lost, usually it goes right to the top of our list to find it.

That's other things will have to wait. I'm looking for this.

And that's true for God. That's what we see here in this chapter.

Three stories in response to a complaint from religious people.

Religious leaders, known as the Pharisees and scribes, were grumbling.

And by the way, God does not like grumbling. If you do a little search on the

word grumbling and grumble, you'll see that God really doesn't like.

He comes hard against the grumblers.

But here you've got the Pharisees and scribes grumbling that this Jesus,

who is this rabbi, this teacher, crowds are following him. And there's two problems.

Tax collectors and sinners are coming to Jesus and Jesus is not pushing them away.

There's two problems with these groups. One is a specific group.

The tax collectors is a very specific group of people.

There couldn't have been that

many of them. There would have been enough of them, but not that many.

It's a very specific niche group. Tax collectors who would have been considered

traitors working for the other side.

In this case, the Roman occupying force. We don't know Jesus' views on the tax collectors.

We don't know Jesus' views on whether he thought what they were doing was good

or bad or okay or indifferent. We don't know.

But what we do know is that Jesus was unafraid to be associated with tax collectors.

One of them became one of the 12 disciples.

He went and ate with another one in his house. Zacchaeus and here they're complaining

because tax collectors are,

are in Jesus' presence, and he's not pushing them away.

The other group is a general group, sinners, from the Pharisees' point of view.

It's not a specific group. It's a pretty broad group.

This covers a lot of people in the Pharisees' and scribes' eyes,

but they're ones of lower moral standards, who engage in behaviors,

speech, lifestyles, significantly below their own moral standards.

And Jesus is not put off by associating with them either.

Jesus is crossing into, by associating with tax collectors, that's a political

question, it's politics.

By associating with sinners, it's an ethical question, it's morality.

So Jesus is getting himself into hot water in both cases. He's risking being

misunderstood, maligned, misrepresented, because why?

Why would Jesus risk that?

In Luke 5, he says very clearly, My mission, I have come not to call the righteous,

but sinners to repentance.

Jesus said, that's why I've come. That's the purpose.

Anyone who's self-righteous or righteous enough that they don't think they need

me, I haven't come for them. I've come for sinners.

So Jesus was happy to be in the presence of tax collectors and sinners because

that was part of his mission.

He was willing to put himself in a place where other people might misunderstand

him, but where he would fulfill his mission.

As a church, are we putting ourselves

in places where we can fulfill the mission that God has given us?

Or are we keeping ourselves apart from the people who need us most?

In each of Jesus' three parables, there is something that is lost.

A sheik, a coin, a son.

In the first story, a man has a hundred sheep and loses one.

Just 1% of his flock has gone missing.

But that's enough for him to go looking. The one matters.

The one that might feel themselves small and

insignificant just the one percent just

a tiny bit of the overall thought who

would care for me they must

be found too the shepherd goes looking for the one in the second story a woman

has 10 silver coins has lost one she's lost 10 percent of her financial resources and security.

That's significant enough. So she diligently searches her house until she finds him.

Those who are lost are more precious than they realize.

In the third story, a man has two sons and loses one.

50%. 50% of his children, his legacy, his family, gone.

The interesting thing in the third story is that the father both lets the son

go and does not go immediately looking to bring him back.

Not because he doesn't care, but I think because sometimes people need to discover

for themselves the true value of the choices that they have made.

As the son had spent and lost everything, as he was starving,

hungry, and no one is helping him,

the son comes to his senses and realizes, out of self-interest,

he would be better if he went back to his father.

But when he does, what does he find?

Does he find this the father a locked

door with a father saying well you made your

choice son too bad is there

judgment is there recrimination is the father telling him you know let me list

all the things you did wrong let me let me educate you on your choices here

son for a moment because they're long all the mistakes you've made do we hear

we don't see that what we see is a father who had his eyes on the road,

looking and waiting.

And when he sees his son, he runs to embrace him.

His son, filthy, stinky, dirty, having spent time in the company of pigs,

comes trudging down the road.

And the father runs, throws his arm around his smelly, filthy son,

kisses him and restores him to sonship.

Each story ends with a celebration.

The man who lost a single sheep causes friends and neighbors to rejoice. The woman does the same.

The father throws an extravagant party.

Jesus declares in each story there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner

who repents than 99 who need no repentance.

There's joy, more joy, joy in heaven when one sinner repents.

So today, if you know and feel separated from God, if you identify yourself

with that sense of being lost in life,

then know this, God wants you so much to be found.

He's searching, awaiting, and looking for you.

And if you take a step towards him, he will run to embrace you,

no matter what you have done.

No matter what you have done.

The story, the last story, doesn't end there because there's another soul,

the elder brother, the one who won't rejoice, the one who refuses to join the party.

Why? Because in his self-righteousness, he cannot accept that the father would

welcome back and give and treat so favorably,

to show so much kindness towards one who has messed up so badly.

Grace is a scandal, and the elder brother is scandalized.

I've worked hard and obeyed your commands. How come this one who's done all

the opposite has been treated so well?

He thinks his goodness should earn him more love than the Father is already giving.

And Jesus leaves the story open. I love how good a storyteller Jesus is.

And he leaves the story open.

We don't know what happens.

We don't know. The father comes out to the older brother and pleads with him, come in. Twice.

We don't know what the older brother did. Did he repent and go in? Did he stay out?

Jesus has left it to his hearers because it is a warning to his hearers.

Will they stay hard-hearted and in their moral superiority and miss out on the father's joy,

that's what Jesus is a very clear warning it would I assume be fairly obvious

to the Pharisees and scribes who the elder brother was in this story,

I wonder how they would have felt Would they have got harder in their heart after hearing Jesus'

stories, or would they have melted in their heart and wanted to see the goodness

in the fact that tax collectors and sinners are turning to Christ?

Here's the truth. No one is too far gone to be embraced by the Father.

No one is too wrecked to be welcomed into his house.

And if God says he will rejoice over their repentance, then we will too.

One of the things that we must learn is how to welcome people who are broken

by poor choices, damaged by sin.

In so many ways and to welcome them and love them if they return to Christ.

Jesus' mission and his methods were consistent with each other.

He was calling to the lost to come home, to call those who are sick to receive

healing, to call those who are hungry and thirsty to find something to satisfy.

Jesus was also consistent in saying that God's offer of forgiveness entails

something very specific.

It wasn't like a blank check that actually required nothing from us.

It did require something from us.

Jesus consistently required this from us. It was repentance and trust.

And we see this consistently through the New Testament.

So repentance, this seeking of forgiveness, of reconciliation and a change of

direction, no longer walking our way, but walking the way of Christ. That's repentance.

No longer believing our own truth, we're following his teachings and his truth.

We no longer walk in the things that God calls sin and to bring death to us,

we'll be asked for forgiveness and trust and walk in the things that God would have for us.

And there may be some here and you say, I don't know if I've ever done that.

I don't know that I've ever repented. I don't know if I've ever asked God to

forgive me for not walking his path or not believing in him or for moral choices

that God calls sin. And you should.

You should. Because those who do not repent remain lost.

But the Father is calling you even today, don't harden your heart.

But I think there are some of us, probably more of us here, who would be afraid

of telling a friend that what they need to do is repent.

Feels like a hard thing to do. That we would be seen as self-righteous, judgmental.

But the truth is, there's no life in Christ without it.

There is no life in christ the very first step of coming to christ is what is a repentance step,

and we we do not serve our friends by saying it's all right god will just love

you without it if we if somehow our message is that there is no repentance necessary,

and we are selling we are not we are not offering to our friends the thing that christ offers,

so we there's something here now obviously there are good ways and bad ways

of saying something like that there are ways that you can say it that will mean

you definitely are going to get heard,

but at the end of the day our prayers for our friends who do not follow Christ

is that they would repent.

The reason Paul preached that Peter preached that and most importantly, Jesus preached it.

If throughout the New Testament, the consistent ways, the way in which someone

goes from being an unbeliever to a believer,

a non-follower to a follower, going from death to life, found,

lost to found, is through the steps of repentance, then we mustn't be afraid

of encouraging and leading others to do the same.

Because for the new to come, the old must die. In order for forgiveness to be

received, sins must be acknowledged.

But how can they be forgiven? Many people can be confused by this out in the world.

They're confused by Christianity's obsession with sacrifices and blood.

You'll hear people say, why can't God just say they're forgiven and that be enough of them?

Why sacrifice and death and substitution? The songs we've been singing,

why are you making so much of the cross?

Why is it so important? Why couldn't God just forgive?

And so we need to know how to answer our friends and that's one of their objections.

Why is it necessary that Jesus would die in our place?

Well, when there's been an offense against you personally, someone's offended

you, hurt you, wounded you, or offense against the state, a crime has been committed,

or something has happened, or against God.

And interestingly, the son says, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

Well, there's two options. And it's the offended person must choose which option it is.

Make the perpetrator pay make the guilty party pay you can do that by withholding

relationship making the person suffer seeking their punishment the guilty will pay,

the other option is that you'll take the hit you'll pay the price you'll absorb the cost,

If a car gets repped and the father says, I'll pay for her.

If the state says, no, we're not going to punish this. We're going to let it

go. We're absorbing the cost.

Forgiveness means the offended person bears the cost rather than making the offender pay.

So either that person pays for it or you do.

Well, on the cross, God did not just forgive humanity, he paid for the forgiveness himself,

absorbing and taking on the sins of the world into himself, because only Christ,

only God was sufficient to be able to carry the sins of the world.

Only a pure savior could do that.

And he paid that cost through the suffering and death of Jesus.

And God doesn't take pleasure in bloody sacrifice. But we also need to know that sin is deadly.

Sin is deadly. We need to see where our sin inevitably leads us.

And how costly it is to be forgiven.

Jesus absolved that cost.

And we believe that we know that it was accomplished because of the resurrection,

death and sin and being defeated.

So that's the first thing, repentance. That's the first necessary thing.

The second necessary thing is trust or in the language of church, faith. Trust.

Repentance itself is an act of faith, but trust is the second thing that God asks of us,

that we see our wrong and we trust in the one who puts things right to trust

ourselves into the hands of Jesus Christ to let now him lead us and guide us repent and believe.

For those of us who already follow Jesus we need to be confident in telling

the simplicity of the gospel story.

People are lost.

God sent Jesus to find them. People are separated from God. God sent Jesus to reconcile them.

And when people hear this, want to respond in a positive way,

it involves these two things.

Acknowledgement of fault an offense caused. I've sinned against heaven.

I am sorry and trust.

Faith in Christ. I'm now going to live trusting in Christ, not trusting in myself

as I was doing before. It must be both of these things.

And God, having accomplished his plan so that anyone, anyone,

no matter where they were born, no matter what they've done,

can come to God and find mercy.

Said that it should be those who've received mercy should be the one to tell others.

Who better than forgiving people to tell others how great forgiveness is?

Who better to tell thirsty people where they can find water than one who has

already drunk from the world.

That is God's plan. God's plan was always Jesus.

But God's messengers about Jesus was always meant to be his church.

That's you and me.

That's you and me. That's our privilege. We have tasted and drunk from the goodness of God's grace.

We've received it. We know how good it is. We know how sweet it is to love Christ.

We know how sweet it is to be loved by Jesus and to be safe in his hands.

We know how great it is to know there is a way, a truth, and life.

We know what it's like to have the burden of sin removed from our shoulders,

and to feel the lightness and forgiveness,

and what it is to be adopted and accepted into the family of God.

We know how good these things are.

And that's why God has entrusted us with a message of telling other people who

are just like us, this is where you can come and find the help that you need.

As a church, we want to get better at, we want to grow in introducing people

to the greatest person who ever lived.

The one who brought us life.

And that means simply telling others about Jesus.

You can tell them about the church. You can tell them about all sorts of other things.

But the most important thing that we tell them as we tell them about Jesus.

So what might be stopping you?

What might be stopping you from telling someone that you know about the greatest thing in your life?

And who is the one person that you can be praying for even today?

Even today that you could pray in a moment that God would give you a chance

to share his grace with them and his goodness with them.

That we would be able to rejoice together over the one that repents.

What do you mean even now? Begin to pray for that person.

Remember, this is God's plan, people are lost, God sent Jesus to find them, people are sinners,

God sent Jesus to forgive them, people are separated from God,

God sent Jesus to reconcile them, and he's given us the great privilege of sharing

that good news, the gospel with those around us.

Let's pray and then we'll move into taking communion together.

Father, I want to say that sometimes I'm more, sometimes I'm just too hesitant,

too unsure, too afraid, too many other things that stop me from speaking about you.

And so I think I need a greater boldness and a greater confidence in the goodness

of the gospel message that it really matters.

And sometimes I don't think that people are as lost and as serious as you seem to think it is.

May you say it is in your word. And so I always pray you help me line up myself

with the word that those who are lost are in a serious state and that you want to find them.

And I pray for my friends and people that I know that don't know you, my family members,

those you bring across my path that I wouldn't be afraid of offering to them

Jesus Christ, the way that someone brought you Jesus into my life.

I'm so grateful to be included in your family.

I'm so glad to be loved by the Lord of heaven and earth.

I would love everyone to know that great privilege to help us we pray help us we pray Amen.

In a moment, we're going to take communion together in our church as we welcome

guests from different places.

We trust you that if you have repented and believed, if you trust in the Lord

Jesus Christ as your Lord and

Savior, that you are welcome to receive with us the bread and the wine.

If you don't know Jesus, if you're not sure whether you're yet ready to take

that step of trust, or whether you've taken that step of asking God to forgive

you, then we just ask you just to remain in your seats.

Or if for other reasons you don't feel comfortable taking as a guest here or

taking, then that's fine.

There's no judgment, just remain in your seats as others people come and take and receive.

What we usually do is we'll have a few people who are just come,

either my usual crew of volunteers or other people can

race up and serve for church by all you

have to do you need two skills you need to be able to

hold something and not drop it and stand

without falling over so if you can hold something and not drop it if you can

stand without falling over then you are qualified to come and help in a moment

and there'll be some people come and stand here i want to invite you to come

to take the bread and the cup return to your seats and then we

eat them and drink them together.

But just first, just a reminder of what it is that we're doing or why it is that we're doing it.

So there was always sacrifices. In the Old Testament, there were sacrifices.

And they would bring, in order to be forgiven, the people would bring a lamb.

And they'd bring a lamb before the priest. They had to be their best lamb.

It had to be white. It had to be pure. it had to have no blemishes and no physical defects.

And they would bring the lamb before the priest.

And the priest would examine the lamb.

He wouldn't examine the people. He would examine the lamb.

He would pick up and hold the lamb and he would look at it, turn it around,

make sure that it was pure and spotless.

He didn't pick up the people. He didn't look at the people. He didn't examine

them to see if they were pure and spotless. He looked to the lamb.

And if the lamb is pure and spotless, he said, that is it. We accept your offering is acceptable.

And the lamb would be sacrificed, would be dying, would be killed and we seem

to be in place of the people and there will be forgiveness.

The writer of the Hebrew says, this is a great symbol, but the problem was,

is you have to keep doing it year after year after year.

And the priest himself has to make sacrifices because he's not performed.

But then it says, we have a great fine priest, one who is tempted but without

sin, one who is able to receive but also be able to become the offering themselves.

So Jesus is both a greater priest and also a greater sacrifice.

One who was pure and without sin, who offered himself for his people in their

place so that they can be forgiven.

God examines Jesus and says, yes, you are pure and spotless.

There's no fault in you. This is an acceptable offering.

And so the people are free, free from their burden, free from the burden of sin because of Christ.

Jesus said to his disciples, I'm making a new covenant with you,

a new agreement with you.

It's in my body and it's in my blood.

It's for you that if you, by faith, say to God, what I'm bringing to you is

the body and blood of Christ. This is in my stead.

God will look on it and accept it as a pure offering.

And so we remind ourselves until he comes again that the thing that gives us

life, the thing in which we have forgiveness, the place in which we are freed

is the offering that God has given us through Jesus Christ.

Remember it through his body and his blood, symbolized by bread and by wine.

It's an amazing thing. We get to eat and receive.

We get to again and again say Jesus is the one in whom I'm trusted so if Jesus is the one,

Jesus is your offering that has been given to you you say to God look on Christ

and not on me thank you for looking on Christ and not on me I'm trusting in Christ,

We hope that this sermon has encouraged you. If you'd like to learn more about

us, visit us online at gracechurch.se.

Thanks for listening.