Search & Rescue: God's Initiative & Heaven's Joy

Intro: The tale of two neighbors. You have one set of neighbors that are great. Your other neighbors are a sorry excuse for neighbors. The carouse at all hours, frequently having equally rowdy guests. They drink and smoke and carry on. They don’t take very good care of the place: the lawn is long, the hedges are hideous, the siding is mildewed, and deck is dilapidated. There’s even a bit of trash in the yard. They don’t talk to you much, and when they do, you can’t relate well to their lives and they often use foul language. Due to all this, you tend to stay away from and avoid them.

The previous neighbors mentioned, though, are really much better. They keep a tidy place, they don’t swear, they’re not disruptive, they’re easier to talk to, they offer to help with things if needed… just great neighbors. In fact, from the conversations you’ve had with them, you’re pretty sure they’re believers and you’d gladly have them in your home.

Now, I know it’s painfully obvious in this scenario which neighbors are easier and preferable to interact with. BUT… As disciples of Jesus Christ, which neighbors almost certainly need you to interact with them more? Which neighbors need you to seek them out? Which one affords the greatest opportunity to reflect the heart and example of Jesus?

In our text today, the Pharisees and scribes, you know the neat and clean and highly religious people… they really don’t like it that Jesus keeps associating with the likes of sinners and tax collectors. But Jesus doesn’t seem to be about what they’re about. In fact, he teaches them that they’ve got it backwards, and that God is in fact searching out sinners to rescue them.

Luke 15:1–10 ESV

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.” 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 ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on 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 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.”

[Explain where we’re headed in our study of the text…]

The setup/setting: While sinners draw near to hear, the self-righteous grumble.

Setting: Sinners Draw Near & the Self-Righteous Protest

Those who have ears to hear are drawn to Jesus. His concern for the outside and outcast is evident. - Receiving and eating with them presumes acceptance and fellowship. Why does Jesus behave so differently toward sinners and outcasts than the religious leaders do?

Tax collectors were severely disliked for two reasons: They were helping “the hated Romans in their administration of conquered territory.” At the same time they were lining their own pockets at “the expense of their fellow-countrymen.” So they were ostracized by many in society and treated by the religious as outcasts. -Leon Morris, Luke: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 3, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 255.

“Sinners,” according to the religious, would have been people known for their immorality, or who participated in activities or occupations not consistent with the Law (capital L - the Mosaic law and their interpretation of it), and even those who suffered affliction (as it was assumed by many that their affliction was consequence of sin).

Both tax gatherers and sinners would have been excluded from the religious community. They thought they were keeping themselves pure, clean, untainted by sin (at least the sins of others) by keeping their distance.

But Jesus has a different ethos (different custom and moral character). Jesus doesn’t shun sinners, bc if he shunned sinners, there would be no one at all on earth with whom he could associate. Instead, in love he came to rescue sinners.

The 3 parallel parables explain then why Jesus associates with sinners, & it gives greater focus to some previous teaching on the gospel invitation’s openness (or broadness). [To clarify what we have seen thus far: the way is narrow (only Jesus) and comparatively few enter by it, but the invitation is broad/open, including outcasts and outsiders.]

Let’s look then at the first two of three parables that Jesus uses to turn the self-righteous attitude of the scribes and Pharisees on its head when compared to the activity of God, and of the Savior himself as God’s representative.

Parable: Lost & Recovered Sheep

How many sheep have you lost recently? Yeah, so Jesus’ audience would relate to this because there were plenty of shepherds around with flocks of sheep. - Maybe we can think of an illustration a little easier for us to relate, not that you can’t picture the shepherd/sheep scenario. But maybe you or someone you know raises a certain breed of dogs. (And lots of us have pets.) ***

God takes the initiative to find the lost, God pursues and succeeds, God ensures the rescue and safekeeping of the lamb, and God’s joy causes the joyful celebration of the heavenly host.

God takes the initiative because must. The lost cannot un-lose themselves. The finding must come from God. [Illust. - A man gives his testimony and speaks only of grace and takes no credit for believing. When he finishes, someone else speaks up and says that he emphasized all that God had done but not what he had done first in order for God to do his part. The first man who understands grace responds then by explaining his part: I ran from God in my sin as hard as I possibly could. That was my part. Everything else was God’s part.] Anyway, our understanding of parables must correspond with a theology from all of God’s word, but you don’t build your entire theology on a single parable.

The shepherd searches until he finds the lost lamb. God pursues those who are his and will succeed. If it were up to the lost one, there would be no success. But it is up to the all-sufficient shepherd; therefore, success is ensured.

And it is God who puts the lamb safely across his own shoulders with this legs securely in his hands, and carries the lamb home. If God is the shepherd in the illustration, then this lamb will not be lost again. Charles Spurgeon kind have has a little fun with the misconceived notion that this lamb could get lost again according to what we believe is sound biblical theology. Here’s how he makes the point from the parable: somebody needs to tell the angels in heaven that they better temper their rejoicing, or that they’d better postpone it until the very end, just in case this one should lose himself again and not be found after all. :-)

(I’ll say again that we don’t build our theology on a single or even a trio of parables, but they certainly do and must enhance our understanding of God.) So let’s turn then to that joy.

God’s joy in this parable (and the concurrent celebration in heaven) is over the repenting sinner, not over the righteous who need no repentance.

Here is where I’ve decided to ask the question: Who are 99 sheep in the fold that the shepherd leaves to find the repenting sinner? There are two possibilities: They are either those who have already been justified by grace through faith, or they are merely the so-called righteous.

If the first is the case, then the rejoicing over the lost would be explained like finding one child who was lost even though you have 7 other children. It isn’t that you love them less, but that there is cause for rejoicing in finding the one. That seems to match the parable pretty well, but it doesn’t explain so well what seems evident from the context as Jesus ironically addresses the religious and pious in Israel as the “righteous,” even though they fail to see their need for God.

So this is equally an indictment of the Pharisees and scribes in the audience, what Jesus began to tell them back in Luke 5:32 and continues even now…

Luke 5:32 ESV

I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Only the repentant are being saved. In fact, how many righteous are there? “No one is righteous; not even one.” (Rom 3:10)

The way to God is through repentance. The kingdom is meant for people who recognize their need for God. Jesus pointed the way and is the way that God restores lost sinners.

Parable: Lost & Recovered Coin

This parable is the twin of the first. - But it does have unique emphases or distinctions.

Instead of one out of 100, it is now one of ten. (Next it will be one of two sons.) In other words, the stakes are growing higher in terms of the severity, and the value, of that which is being lost.

In the way Jesus tells the story, we are led to believe that this missing silver piece, although it is the value of about a day’s wage of labor (the word her for the ten coins is Gk drachma, used on here in the NT, was approximately equivalent to the Roman denarius)… this missing silver piece is to this woman very valuable. I sounds like she has only ten; losing even one is a big deal. Presumably then we are meant to see the value of these repentant sinners to God.

There is also the emphasis of this woman’s thorough search… which surely infers (from a human perspective) great effort/great lengths on God’s part to search and find the lost. She lights a lamp (necessary bc their houses would have had little to no windows), and sweeps every nook and cranny, every crack to see if the coin may have fallen in some place. She looks everywhere to be sure she didn’t misplace it. Her search is thorough, and she doesn’t stop until she finds it.

Imagine yourself in the jungle. Imagine that you realize you are lost. How hard do you want to be searched for?

For the repentant sinner, we can rest assured that God seeks us and finds us. We need not fear that we will not be found.

Common Theme: God’s Own Initiative

Both of these first two parables have an emphasis that is a unique teaching from Jesus: God’s initiative in rescuing the lost. “Other Jewish teachers stressed God’s forgiveness for the repentant, but did not stress God’s seeking sinners out.” -Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Lk 15:3–4.

Why does that matter? Why is it important? Well in this context it’s important because it communicates a necessary perspective for those listening to Jesus.

As Jesus teaches these parables, each subset of his audience should find application: 3 Perspectives, 3 Applications

Comfort for Sinners

God’s caring concern for the lost sinner is most clearly expressed in Jesus himself:

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

What is a comfort to sinners is also the condemnation, the needed correction, of the attitude of the Pharisees and scribes

Correction for the Self-righteous

Jesus turns the “too good for sinners” attitude on its head.

Caring Concern of His Disciples

Here is the heart of evangelism. The heart of God for lost sinners. God’s compassion and search for we who are dead in our trespasses and sins. And yet… But God… God seeks his own. The example that Jesus sets here for his disciples is that example that we are to follow.

***(here?) Like Jesus, we can befriend the lost without engaging in their activities, in order to encourage them to know God and challenge them to repent, as Jesus does.

As Jesus himself is the way to God and reflects the way of God, so we too, in Christ, are to be an expression of God’s caring concern for the lost. God is seeking those who will recognize their need and respond in repentance in order to be restored to him.

As we invest ourselves in looking for the lost sheep, the lost coins, that God is making his own, so too we should rejoice, we should celebrate finding what was lost. So too even evangelism is grounded in this final common theme: tGod’s joy (and therefore our joy) in recovering what was lost.

Common Theme: Joy in Heaven Over Repenting Sinners

Besides the unique perspective of God’s own initiative in rescuing the lost, there is a plainly common theme of… the joy of God when the lost sinner is found.

As we said, in love Jesus came to rescue sinners.

Luke 19:10 ESV

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

It is the one who admits he is lost, from his own perspective, who responds in repentance and acceptance when the shepherd seeks and finds him.

JOY*** How does Jesus help us relate to this joy? It’s so much joy that you call your friends and neighbors to celebrate! - Are you saying God, the God of the universe, who created all things, sustains all things, who raised nations and demolishes them, the God of perfect love and perfect justice… God rejoices over finding me and giving me life? And that the angels celebrate? YES! God rescued another one! Glory to God, Hallelujah! JOY! Do it again, God, do it again!

PRAY

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