Sermon Tone Analysis

Big Idea: Heaven rejoices over repentance so Jesus seeks lost people

Introduction

I wonder just how much of a parent’s life is spent hunting for things their children have lost?

Parents, what do you think?

30%?

This week Rachael and I were hunting for a tiny piece of lego that our daughter Elizabeth had lost from her new set.

It was missing and she needed it to finish the next step of the build.

We suggested just moving on and seeing if it turned up.

We suggested replacing it with a similar alternative.

But nothing would do apart from exactly that one missing piece.

So we began to hunt.

The table.

The floor.

Under the chair.

And then through our other lego to see if we could find a match.

Perhaps you’ve met our lego collection but if not, suffice to say, we do have a piece or two.

The good news here is that eventually Elizabeth discovered she’d already put that piece onto the model, just in the wrong place - cue much rejoicing from her and an opportunity for her searching parents to grow in grace!

But do you know what it’s like to have something go missing, something precious to you?

You know it’s somewhere - can’t just have disappeared - but it’s not where it should be.

How long have you spent searching for something like that?

The photo you know have somewhere.

The missing shoe.

That crucial piece of paperwork you need to complete the form.

The homework for tomorrow that you mislaid.

Jesus knows what that’s like: to be missing something, something precious to you.

Transition

We’ve been working our way through the Gospel of Luke, Luke’s biography of Jesus, for over a year now here.

We’re taking it bit by bit so we really have chance to think about what each section has to teach us, and to consider who this Jesus is that it’s showing us.

Today we come to a section where we see Jesus getting hassle for hanging out with the wrong sort of people - at least according to the goodie-goodie religious types grumbling at him.

He responds with three stories about how much God wants those people back and how happy he is when he gets them.

We’re going to take on the first two of these stories today because they are very similar, giving us two chances to see the same thing.

We’ll look at the third next week because in that one Jesus takes things to another level.

Jesus’ first two stories tell us about things which aren’t where they belong - they’re lost - but someone misses them enough to go look for them.

And when they’re found and safe home everyone gathers to rejoice.

What does this have to say to us today?

Well, let’s read together first, and then we’ll dig in and see.

Rachel’s going to read for us this morning and we’re in the book of Luke and if you have one of these blue bibles we’re on page _______.

We’re looking at chapter 15, that’s the big 15, verse 1 which is right at the big 15, page _________.

Chapter 15 verse 1.

Goodies and baddies

Before we dive into these two parables, these short stories Jesus uses to make his point, just a moment on the context: what leads up to this encounter?

what’s gone before that we should be aware of?

If you were with us last week, you’d have heard Caleb helping us consider Jesus’ serious words about just how costly it would be to choose to follow him.

Keep that in mind as we meet our cast of characters.

Jesus has just been speaking about the cost of discipleship.

So on the one hand we have these “tax collectors and sinners”.

Taxes are never popular but in Jesus’ time and place there was pretty much no-one more despised than tax collectors: working for the invading oppressors, the Romans, they squeezed money out of their own people to pay to the enemy - and they got rich in the process!

You can see that wouldn’t make you so popular, right?

And sinners?

That’s people who don’t measure up to moral and religious standards.

Law-breakers.

Baddies.

But it also carried a sense of being an outsider in the religiously charged world of that day.

Failing to keep the rules - whether deliberate or just because you were foreign - made you an outsider, a sinner.

These “tax collectors and sinners” are gathering around Jesus, gathering around him to hear - and they’re probably considering following him since Jesus has just had to warn them to count the cost first.

And set against them there are these “pharisees and teachers of the law”.

Pharisees were the ultra-goodie-two-shoes of the day.

Keeping every religious rule to perfection.

Knowing their bibles back to front and inside out.

Utterly committed to their religion, they were seriously impressive and well respected.

These “teachers of the law” or scribes are experts in religious matters - particularly in Jewish religious writings.

People who know what’s what and what’s not, what’s right and what’s wrong.

So basically we’ve got baddies v. goodies.

And the goodies are miffed because Jesus is hanging out with the baddies.

That just doesn’t compute.

“He should be hanging out good people like us.

What’s he doing spending all his time with those people instead?”

And you’ve got to feel for them at least a bit.

So Jesus tells these three stories - a lost sheep, a lost coin, and one more for next week.

Cliff-hanger!

You’ll have to come back!

These first two have a lot in common: lost sheep, lost coin.

Let’s unpack them a bit.

Missed and sought

What’s the first thing we should notice in these stories?

Something’s lost - not where it should be, not where it belongs.

But actually it’s more than that - something’s missed.

See you could lose one of a hundred sheep and just write it off.

One sheep no longer in the flock.

1% loss - oh well.

Not so bad.

You know Shaun did always have a bit of a limp anyway.

You could lose one of ten coins and just shrug.

Oh well.

Still got my nine.

But it’s not just that something’s lost - it’s missed.

The shepherd misses the lost sheep - we know because he goes after it.

And he doesn’t just go after it - he goes after it until he finds it.

The woman misses the lost coin - we know because she lights a lamp and sweeps the house - we know because she searches carefully until she finds it.

In both cases, Jesus speaks as though this missing and pursuing is a no-brainer, an automatic, obvious response to the situation.

See that in v4 and v8? Suppose this happens, says Jesus, then don’t you do that?

The answer is “well of course you do.”

That’s how it’s written.

Jesus is saying it’s totally obvious that when you find you’re missing something precious, you go after it.

So first thing: missed.

Restored at a cost

Second thing we should notice?

These are stories of restoration, stories where what’s lost and missed is returned.

The lost sheep is found and brought back.

The lost coin is found and put back in the purse.

In particular when we’re talking about sheep, we get the detail of v5.