The Sweet Song of Heaven

Well, good morning.

It is great to see everybody this morning.

If I hadn't had a chance to meet you, my name is Russ.

I'm one of the pastors here at Church of the Grove.

So excited to have all of you with us this morning as we continue in our series Grace Upon Grace.

And if you have your Bibles and you want to go ahead and prepare to follow along, we're going to be in Luke chapter 15, Luke chapter 15, looking at a a familiar parable in a passage that contains three parables back to back to back, and I'll explain hopefully some of the significance of that as we get into the text.

Luke 15 · chapter mention Luke 15 · chapter mention

Now, I don't know how we've grown accustomed to living without these little devices that connect by Bluetooth to our phone called air tags.

Because man, I keep losing things with them and have a hard time finding uh whatever the air tag is attached to.

And so uh it made me think a little bit about uh growing up and and uh my my brother and his wife tell the story they've got three daughters and a son, and uh they when they were raising their kids, they they noticed that that things started going missing in in their household.

And it and it was very common things like keys to the car, keys to the house, and and and then other items, things like the remote control, uh, you know, these small items that could be picked up by by little fingers and and taken off to some location that that was yet to be determined.

And and they noticed this pattern happening over and over and over.

And so they it was an all-out search for for all these items, keys, remote control, other other small items.

Some of you know what I'm talking about.

And and so they they made their way through all the children's rooms and all the children's toys, and they found this little car that, if my memory is correct, it belonged to my niece Meg.

Uh, this little little little item, and it had a it had a you know a little seat on it that opened up, and it probably felt like it was a trunk or or some you know, area to hide things, and they found all of these items in Meg's little toy, you know, car, and and and she had been just you know, uh what do you call a person that that just happens to take things?

Kleptomaniac, right?

It's a kleptomaniac, it right in our family, and and so I didn't even know she would be here this morning.

Actually, I did know she would be she would be here this morning.

I've been planning this for three weeks because it's so much fun to talk about my family.

Plus, my wife said if I tell one more story about her, you know, I may go missing.

So somebody attach an air tag to me.

And so you so so the problem, air tags are a blessing.

Of course, at some point the batteries wear out and you and you you can't find the item, the air tag that that's attached to the item that's been lost.

And so we all hate losing things.

We hate losing things, and we tend to lose some of the same things over and over and over.

Things like our purse or our wallet, our phone, our keys, um sometimes just bigger things.

Uh, you know, uh a car maybe, or in a parking lot.

Um but when something is lost, we search for it diligently.

We search for it, and the more the more valuable an object, the more diligently we search to find it.

It's one thing to lose your keys, but it may or may not be life-threatening.

It's inconvenience.

It can be uh an expense, it can be, you know, sometimes a minor expense, sometimes it can be a little more of a major expense, but losing keys may or may not be the worst thing that you can lose in life.

Um sometimes if you lose a child, for example, it's a little more serious, right?

It's a little more life-threatening.

Some of you are looking at me like, that's not true.

I would let my child go on being lost, and it's cheaper that way, right?

No, we no, but the reality is um uh the more valuable something is, the more intense the search is.

For example, if you lose a$1 bill versus losing a$100 bill, which one are you more likely to be intense in the search?

I mean, a dollar bill is like, is like used to it used to be like a penny.

You would, many of you would pass a dollar bill walking along a sidewalk, and you wouldn't even bend over to pick it up.

That's like a penny was.

I don't pass anything that has money on it, that has in God we trust.

I don't pass anything.

My whole, I was taught, and it stuck with me, a penny is a penny.

And if I pick up all the pennies I pass over the course of my life, who knows how much money, that extra money that might be.

It's probably not worth it, but sounds good, doesn't it?

And so, but if we lose a hundred dollar bill, we are going to be diligent to find it.

And kind of the idea of this is the search reveals or shows the significance of the item lost.

The intensity of the search shows the significance of the item that's lost.

Now, how does that, what does that have to do with us today?

What does that have to do with us as we are talking about grace, the grace of God, and grace upon grace?

It's because that there is a search, there's a search that God has, and it's an all-out search.

And that search is for people who are created in the image of our Lord and Savior, people that are created in the image of God, people that are created in the image of the Creator.

They have value, they matter to God, and so I my prayer today is that we, as I'm about to pray right now, is that the Holy Spirit would quicken us and draw us to a place of seeing the value in other people, seeing the fact that they are all created in God's image.

Every person from every nation, from every background, from every country, from every nationality, every person matters to God.

Lost people matter to God.

So let's pray.

Would you pray with me that the Holy Spirit would quicken our hearts and that we would have a heart for the things that God has a heart for?

Father, we ask you, would you work and would you speak and would you give us a conviction and a desire and a passion for the things that you are passionate about?

Work in our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, move in us as we look at this uh particular passage and this particular parable that helps us understand your heart for lost people.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

And so as we continue in this series, Grace Upon Grace, it's been, I hope it's been as good for you as it's been for me and uh some of the conversations that I've heard about.

We're in Luke chapter 15, starting with verse 1.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

And here, but here's what I want you to know as you as you open up to that, or if you follow along on the screen with this passage, you need to know this.

This is the only place in Scripture, the only place where Jesus is speaking, teaching, um, sharing, the only place where he shares not just one parable, not just two parables.

Anything that Jesus says should carry weight.

But when Jesus shares two parables back to back along the same idea or topic, then our ears should perk up even a little bit more.

But this is a place that is even more significant than where he shares two parables.

He shares three parables back to back to back.

And it's the only place in the Bible.

It's the only place that Jesus is trying to, I think, to share something that is extremely important to his heart.

Look at verse 1.

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

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

Now, if you're gonna understand the power of Jesus' life, you have to understand the religious system of the day.

As we've said in previous weeks, we've seen these characters uh mentioned.

We see these characters as being prominent in these stories, in Jesus' life, in his teaching.

He's constantly got these uh these groups of people: the Pharisees, the religious leaders, the scribes, the professionals of the day, the religious priests of the day, the pastors of the day.

They're all following him and they're listening and they're paying attention.

They're trying to catch him into saying something that can be used against him.

They're trying to break down his authority as a religious teacher or a scribe or a scholar.

And so as Jesus is teaching, um, he knows he's got sinners, he's got non-religious people listening to him, and he's got these religious elite, the religious leaders of the day, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, all following him, all listening in on what he's teaching.

And so what is he continually calling out in their lives?

Self-righteousness, pride, um, being considered religious elite.

Uh Jesus is trying to make sure that they understand and see themselves as God sees them, as religious, prideful leaders, trying to make their life and to make their way on the backs of the poor and and the irreligious and those that really don't have the privilege that they've had in their own religious upbringing.

And so he calls out self-righteousness, he calls out the religious leaders that are serving in the temple and the synagogues, and and he he knows that these religious leaders would never find themselves hanging out with the sinners of the day, the irreligious, the people that are despised, the people that don't have the religious pedigree, the people that don't have the understanding that these scribes and Sadducees and Pharisees have.

And so this is what makes Jesus and his ministry so countercultural.

Jesus comes on the scene, and we do see him in the temples and in the synagogues regularly, but we also see him hanging out with people that don't go to church, that people that don't have a religious background, people that haven't been raised to know God or to be a part of some religious system.

Not only does Jesus interact with these people, Jesus interacts with them in a way that is more intimate and more close up than anybody should be that's outside of your family.

He eats and has meals with them.

He shares and as being a guest in their home.

He shows up as if he's their friends and as if he is connected with them relationally.

And if you're gonna share a meal with somebody, that's one of the most intimate, personal things you can do.

And Jesus shares meals with these sinners.

If you watch from the outside, it appears that Jesus likes being with them, and they like being with Jesus.

And so Jesus begins to, in a sense, establish a new relational community.

It wasn't built on the righteousness and how people behaved and how they lived and how they modified their behavior, but it's a community founded on grace.

Not a community founded on behavior, right living, self-righteousness.

It is a community founded on grace.

A community where those that are invited are the people that would be considered the least likely to be invited to church, to religious activity, and the religious leaders that Jesus is confronting can't comprehend while someone like Jesus, who obviously knows God, who obviously is acquainted with the truth and the scriptures, why would this man be associated and be connected to people who are sinners and low life and can't measure up spiritually?

In verse 3 it says, He told them this parable.

And so Jesus compares these religious leaders to shepherds.

See, this is part of the world that Jesus lived in.

He took the surroundings, he took the everyday events in the culture in which he is born and raised, and he uses these events, these lifestyles, these practices, these professions, and he points to them and he says, Let me tell you something that you should know based upon this agricultural sheep, shepherd's lifestyle.

He understands there's a social order.

Shepherds were typically uneducated, they were on the bottom of the social ladder.

They are considered dirty, less than less than desirable.

They don't have the value that others would seem to be having.

Religious leaders would would have almost taken offense at this story as they're being talked about as shepherds.

But here's the story.

When we talk about chickens or we talk about some sheep, we either have somebody in our family or we have a friend or we know somebody that has sheep and chickens and other types of varmits, right, that they're raising.

We all we can identify with it a little bit.

We live in the vicinity, probably where we hear some cluckety cluck, and we hear some ba, ba.

And so, some of you, if you're a city person, you may not be as familiar with livestock and agriculture.

And you may not get the whole impact of this story.

But basically, the Bible often relates us to sheep.

He often relates us.

We see God relate us, we see Jesus relate us, we see the scriptures relate us to being sheep, and we think, oh, they're so cute.

They're all fluffy, they're fluffy and they're white, kinda.

They're just cute and they got the thing going on.

But the more you look at sheep, the more you watch sheep, the more you study about sheep, the more you understand that this is not a very flattering comparison.

Why?

Because sheep are dumb.

And God is saying, Some of you are too.

Now, the person that's saying amen, I wonder, are they are they thinking about themselves or are they thinking about their spouse?

I'm not looking.

She's back there.

You talk me while she's back there.

My wife's not here, I can say whatever I want.

And then she's not gonna watch this on video because she doesn't.

I can tell her I said anything.

And then I'll tell her if you say that I didn't say it, you're a liar.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

And so sheep are they can be fluffy, they can be cute, but really they are dumb.

They can, they're they're they're they're pretty much directionless.

And so I I've had the the benefit, I guess, of being able to watch some sheep grow up, or watch some sheep being raised close up because my brother and his wife have some sheep.

And there's always there there's always a a crisis with sheep.

There's always a crisis.

They're being run down by by dogs, or they're they're they're they've been uh scared to death by a storm, and they just start running for no reason.

I mean, all kinds of things happen.

And and and you see that this this is this is true about sheep.

They they can be less than smart, less than intelligent, directionless in how they approach things.

And and just look at a story like this.

This is something that came across on the news, and and this took place out right outside of Istanbul in Turkey.

And and one sheep began this process by jumping off a cliff to its death.

And it stunned the Turkish shepherds who left the herd to graze while they had gone to have some breakfast in town.

And they and so they come back, and nearly 1,500 other sheep had followed the leadership of that one sheep and jumped to its death.

And and these shepherds are interviewed, and they said, There's nothing that we can do.

There's 26 families in that rural area who all had sheep that were grazing together and all had sheep that jumped to its death.

And so they estimated the loss to the families in this village area to be upwards of a hundred thousand dollars or more.

Not necessarily a significant loss in one sheep, but when you count up all these sheep that had jumped to their deaths, now why did they jump to their deaths?

Because they had simply, they simply were copying the actions of the next sheep in front of them.

That gives you some insight into how there's a lack of intelligence or the problems with with herding or or raising sheep, how how quickly they can follow poor leadership.

Let's say it that way.

And so Jesus uses this agricultural backdrop to help us understand how sheep can easily wander off, even to the point of their death.

And then Jesus is telling us in this parable that every sheep is of value.

Every sheep matters.

In the eyes of God, there is no sheep.

That doesn't have value.

And he's saying in the kingdom of God, in the kingdom of God, in this in this creation that God has established, every human being matters to God.

And humanity is created lower than the angels, but humanity is created distinguished from every other part of the animal kingdom.

We have value.

Why do we have value?

Because we're created in the image of our Creator.

He goes on in verse 5 and he tells us, he demonstrates or he gives us a visible picture of what our Savior is willing to do when one sheep wanders off from the flock.

And he says, and when he has found it, he said in verse 4, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99.

How many 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 it.

And it says in verse 5, and when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

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.

And so when he finds that lost sheep, he does what he has to do.

He picks it up and he puts it on his shoulders and he carries it back on his back, rejoicing.

Why is he rejoicing?

Because that sheep matters.

It matters to its honor.

It has value.

To the point that he gathers his friends and neighbors to celebrate.

He throws a party.

My sheep was lost, but now it's found.

Right?

I was lost, but now I'm found.

That hymn has a title, right?

It's called Amazing.

It's what we're preaching about in this series, the grace of God.

Why does Jesus share this story?

Because He is trying to help us understand that we are a part of a community of sinners that have a heavenly Father who cares for us.

And the Father's desires that all of us, men and women, boy and girl, would come to know him and love him and receive him and repent and believe in what Christ has provided for us in his life and his death and his resurrection.

And the search shows the significance, right?

We said that the search shows that it helps us to understand the value of what has been lost.

And because of our value in the eyes and in the sight of the heavenly father, what is the heavenly father willing to do?

The heavenly father is willing to give up his son.

So that we don't remain lost, so we don't remain unknown.

So you don't remain separated from your heavenly father.

You are worth fighting for, searching for, paying a price for.

And I want you to watch this video testimony with me, and it's from a lady named Shirley Hayes that is part of our social circle campus.

And I just want to give you a bit of a disclaimer.

Shirley is sharing, she's sharing some very personal stuff from her life that involves the topic of abuse.

And so I just want to throw that out there because I know that potentially it could be a trigger if for those of us that may have some similar background issues as Shirley, but but I want you to to, even beyond that, I want you to see and hear her story and listen for how the father would be willing to pursue her.

Hi, I'm Shirley.

I grew up in Decatur, Georgia, and we probably look like just, you know, your normal, typical family.

On the inside of our house, it was there was a lot of abuse, a lot of anger, a lot of confusion, a lot of fear.

Our mother had some severe mental health issues and could be quite cruel.

And our father was a pedophile.

And because the abuse started when I was under the age of two, I had blocked out most all of that.

It was horrific.

It was ongoing night after night.

It was sadistic and it was scary.

I can remember one of the houses, old houses had a central big closet.

I remember I would go into the back of that closet trying to hide.

I didn't know that God was with me at the time.

I didn't learn that until many, many, many years later.

When I was just graduated from high school, I was still 17.

Someone introduced me to a man that was five years older, which at that time was a big difference.

So I married when I had just turned 18, and the next year I had my daughter.

I was threatened for a few years after that.

I guess two years later, I switched jobs, and a guy worked there that actually we were in a biology class together in tenth grade.

We started seeing each other and we married.

My daughter was by then probably about two and a half.

It seemed like at first it was just an ideal life.

I felt loved by my husband.

I had a daughter.

I was the apartment manager at our apartments.

Maybe close to a year, I became extremely depressed.

Thoughts would just kind of come out in my dreams of some of the abuse.

I started going to a therapist.

God in his goodness.

It came out little by little.

I was extremely depressed and at times suicidal.

My ex-husband said he just couldn't deal with it.

So all of a sudden, here I was at 37.

I had moved out of the house because my son stayed with my husband.

I thought he would be better than me.

Here I was in an apartment with my daughter, and I was so angry and so angry at God.

Like, God, you know, I did this, I did this.

You know, I was a good wife.

I didn't, you know, very angry.

Even so, after the divorce, I turned away from God for a number of years.

In 1988 is when I divorced and had to go to work full-time.

Um, I large school system.

I worked in um the department that bought school buses and maintained the buses.

One of the mechanics would come and um sit with, you know, and bring me an apple or bring me cinnamon rolls or that kind of thing.

And just very friendly, how are you doing?

So another year and we started dating, and in 1990 we married.

God gave me the kindest, uh, most level-headed, even killed, friendly men.

God used him to start healing my heart because Tim, that's his name, loves me unconditionally.

Tim stood by me.

He didn't stop loving me, even though he didn't understand it all.

We were married for 23 and a half years.

Going to church, he loved God, and um he was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2010, and he lived for three and a half years, and passed away in um December of 2013.

Little by little, and particularly in the last three to four years, God has shown me, He brought me through that because I would come across other people who had been through the same or worse, and that needed to hear if there was hope.

And you could trust God that his love and his mercy and his grace were so big that it would blow my mind.

Some Sundays I was up at the front just just crying, and people would would come up to pray with me, and I said, no, no, I don't need anything.

I'm just blown away by how God would take someone who's so bitter, who's so rebellious, who's so angry, and and work and work in their heart, and then want to use me, want to use me, that I could have confidence because of my relationship with Jesus.

He is the reason, the only reason that I could stand before him, I you know.

It is um today do I feel dirty, unclean?

No.

There are times when I still feel unworthy, and it's only because when I when I'm praying to God or standing before God or hear teaching here, that reminds me that there wasn't anything I could do to make myself worthy, that it was all God's love and his grace and his mercy.

When I had nothing to give, when I was lowly, when I when I gave my life to Christ, it says, He who knew no sin became sin for me so that I might become the righteousness of God, and that still blows me away to hear that.

Jesus says, just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents and over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

And that that word repentance is a beautiful word, and repentance is the sweet song of heaven.

Repentance is the sweet song of heaven.

And so what gets heaven excited?

It's when a sinner repents.

When a sinner is found after being lost, there is great joy and there's cause for celebration.

You want to bring joy to the Father's heart.

It's found through the repentance of a lost person repenting and putting their faith in Jesus.

And so these religious leaders didn't understand the significance of that because they didn't see the need for repentance in their own life.

They never experienced this unbelievable joy, the song of heaven that reverberates throughout, throughout history.

The one person that brings joy to a heavenly Father is a sinner who has repented and turned from their sin and put their faith in Jesus.

And it's knowing this that the shepherd goes after the lost sheep, regardless of the debauchery, regardless of the level of sin, regardless of its own self-righteousness.

The shepherd goes after every lost sheep.

Isaiah writes this, I'm gonna close with this.

Talking about Jesus, hundreds of years before Jesus is born.

This prophetic word is given about the one who will come.

In verse 5, it says, But he was pierced for our rebellion, Isaiah 53, crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so we could be whole, he was whipped so we could be healed.

All of us like sheep have strayed away.

We have left God's path to follow our own.

Yet the Lord laid upon him the sins of us all.

See, we've all strayed.

We're all in need of forgiveness and redemption and a savior.

And our story may be different than Shirley's story in the details, but we are similar in the sense that we we all need redemption.

We all need a savior.

And repentance is the sweet song of heaven.

You want to see heaven rejoice, and it's over one individual that repents and puts their faith in their Savior, Jesus.

So would you bow your heads with me right now and let's just spend a moment in prayer before the Lord, asking Him to work this morning.

And I want to speak first of all and pray, first of all, for those of you that might be here this morning and you're not real confident about your salvation.

In reality, you don't know whether there's rejoicing going on over your life and your heart or not, because you can't recall a time where you've put your faith and turned and repented and put your faith in Jesus.

And I want to give you that opportunity this morning.

If there's any question at all about your salvation, let me encourage you to stop right where you are and to repent.

Repent means to turn away from trying to gain strength, purpose, meaning, significance, salvation in your own strength, and you put your faith in Christ who came and he suffered and he died and he was crucified and he was buried, but he was also bodily resurrected three days later to prove that he had power over sin and death in the grave.

So I want to encourage you this morning if you need to come and repent and put your faith in Jesus, this invitation is for you.

But it's also for those of you that may already know the Lord, but but you have yet to join Jesus in his search for lost sheep.

Maybe you don't understand the value that God has placed upon every individual.

Maybe you don't have the confidence to share your faith or invite someone someone to church.

Well, this morning, you can ask the Lord to give you strength, to ask the Lord to give you confidence.

God, give me courage in my faith.

Give me a generous heart to want to share my faith just like someone shared with me.

And Father, as a result of your spirit working this morning, we will see people invited, invested in, encouraged to come and put their faith in Jesus.

Father, we love you and we worship you.

If it was not for your reckless love for the individual sheep that has wandered away from the flock, none of us would be here.

So, God, we thank you for your reckless love that was willing to abandon safety and security, willing to come after us, and we thank you and we praise you.

God, let us be people that will partner with you in the Great Commission to go after those that have yet to be reached.

God, we ask you.

Would you work?

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.