Download Life Guides >
Sermon Text: Luke 15:1-10
A Relentless Love for the Lost
Despised by some
Demonstrated by God’s Son
Celebrated by God’s People
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Okay, just for a minute, I want you to imagine that as you’re walking into church today, you see a fellow you haven’t seen for years, but you know who he is. You know he’s divorced. You heard that his wife left him because he wouldn’t stop drinking. Maybe there was some jail time. You know he hasn’t been in church for years. In fact, you’re pretty sure he was removed from membership quite some time ago. And now, there he is standing all by himself in the narthex. Tell me, in that situation, what’s going through your mind? Might it be, “What is he doing here? He doesn’t really belong here, does he? Am I supposed to just welcome him with open arms? I mean, after all the pain he put his family through? Maybe I should just kind of look the other way and avoid the situation altogether.”
My friends, if a situation like that would leave you feeling a little conflicted, not quite sure what to think or do—you’re not alone. People in Paul’s day, people in Jesus’ day were faced with similar feelings. Fortunately for us, Jesus knows our hearts. He knows our struggles. And, in his Word, he addresses our internal struggles by turning our attention not on what’s in our hearts, but rather what’s in his heart. Today we will see that God’s heart is filled with what we might call,
A Relentless Love for the Lost
In our study of God’s Word today, we’ll see that that is a love that is:
Despised by some
Demonstrated by God’s Son
Celebrated by God’s People
Our text for today begins with these words, Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathered around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Do you see the contrast there? It’s like two opposite ends of the spectrum. On the one hand, you have the church people, that is, the Jewish religious leaders, the people who saw themselves as the keepers of God’s law. They were the ones who in their own minds, were following all the rules. They knew what was right and what was wrong. And they figured that by their behavior they were in good standing with God. At the other end of the spectrum, you have what Luke describes as the tax collectors and sinners, that is, the people who were openly living lives contrary to God’s commands. The tax collectors were infamous for lining their own pockets at the expense of others. The term “sinners” would include those who were guilty of things like prostitution and drunkenness, but ultimately would apply to anyone who did not live in strict observance of the laws of Moses. In the minds of the Pharisees, these were the people who were unfit to even associate with. They were unsavory, unredeemable. These were the people that good Jews wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole—which is why these Jewish teachers of the law were bothered when this Rabbi from Nazareth was not only not condemning these sinners. He was spending time with them. Luke says that Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with him.” The Pharisees felt that Jesus should be doing just the opposite. At the very least, he should be ignoring them. And at the most he should be outright condemning them.
Tell me, can you relate? Have you ever found yourself in the sandals of those Pharisees? Have you ever judged someone on the basis of their past? You know what they said or did. And because you don’t want to be seen as approving of their sinful behavior, you kind of put up a little wall. You put them in a different category. You label them as people who don’t belong. You give them the cold shoulder. That’s what the Pharisees were doing in Jesus’ day. And too often, because we’re all we all have a sinful nature, it’s also what you and I do today.
But now contrast that attitude, with Jesus’ attitude. Rather than labeling those people with a checkered past as “losers”, he sees them for what they really are. They are “lost”. And Jesus knows what his mission is when it come to the lost. How did Jesus put it in Luke 19:10? “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
In fact, here in our text, Jesus gives a pair of examples to illustrate what his mission to the lost looks like. He says to his listeners, “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” And again, “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?” What do those two examples have in common? Isn’t it the determination that both individuals showed, the length that they went to find the one thing that was missing? In each case, their search was relentless. They did not give up until they found what they were looking for.
My friends, you realize, it’s that kind of relentless love for the lost that Jesus demonstrated not only toward the sinners and tax collectors in his day, but you and me as well. Let’s face it. There was once a time in our lives when every single one of us was lost. We came into the world spiritually separated from God. We were lost. And like the lost sheep in the wilderness, or the lost coin on the floor, there was nothing we could do to get ourselves to be “found.” If we were going to be found, someone else was going to have to do all the work—which is exactly what Jesus did. Think of the lengths that Jesus went to, to seek and find you.
First, he left the comfort of his throne in heaven to come to Earth to live under the law in your place. He endured all the temptations that you and I face and overcame them all. He allowed himself to be pierced for our transgressions so that the serpent’s head could be crushed. Jesus defeated death by his resurrection from the grave. And after Jesus did all those things for all the people in the world, then he came looking for you. And with the loving determination of a good shepherd, Jesus found you. Maybe he found you as an infant as your parent or sponsor held your head over a baptismal font. God made you his child through the washing with water and the word. Or maybe God found you later in life, through the words of the gospel, the good news of God’s unconditional love for you in Christ.
In fact, maybe God had to find you multiple times. Maybe there was a time in your life when you kind of wandered away from God, maybe in your college years, or when life seem to get just too busy, or when a death or a sickness or a divorce just kind of rocked your world—and suddenly you were wondering “Where am I? What’s going to happen to me?” Do you know that feeling, when you sense that you might be lost? Maybe you’ve experienced it when you were a kid, when you lost track of your parents in a crowd of people or even as an adult when you’re out in a marsh or in the woods and suddenly all the trees look the same. You’re not sure which way to go. You start to feel a little panicky. Your heart starts to pound; your hands are sweating. It’s not a fun situation to be in.
Well, if that’s true in a physical sense, whether we’re separated from a parent or lost in the woods, how much more true is it in a spiritual sense? To be separated from God and to not know where we’re going to spend eternity, that’s the worst kind of lostness.
But now look where you are right now. You’re here in God’s house. Why is that? What brought you here? Maybe you’re here because you came with your parents. Maybe you’re here because it’s simply what you do on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Maybe you’re here as a visitor because you wanted to check out this church. Maybe you’re here simply because you wanted to give thanks to your God and Savior. There may be any number of reasons you are here today. But the bottom line is: you’re here because Jesus looked for you and he found you. You may think that you found God; but the fact is, he found you. How did the hymn writer put it? “Oh, the heights of Jesus’ love, higher than the heavens above, deeper than the depths of sea, lasting as eternity, love that found me—wondrous thought—found me when I sought him not.”
That, my friends, is a miracle, a miracle of God’s grace. An expression, yes, a demonstration of our savior’s relentless love for the lost. And when God finds us, what was the result? The answer is unmitigated joy and celebration. Isn’t that what happened when the shepherd found his lost sheep here in our text? Jesus says, “When the shepherd finds his lost sheep, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’” So also, with a woman when she finds that one lost coin. Jesus says, “She calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me. I have found my lost coin.’”
Christian, you realize that very same kind of celebration breaks out in the realms of heaven whenever God the Holy Spirit works saving faith in the heart of an unbeliever. At the moment when God called you or me to repentance, that is, when he led us to acknowledge our lostness, when he led us to see that without Christ we are dead in our sin, but in Christ we are alive, we’re forgiven, we’re children of God—at that moment of our conversion, the angels in heaven burst into a song of thanks and praise to God. How did Jesus put it? “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
If it’s true that God and his holy angels are thrilled when even one sinner comes to know Jesus as Savior. If it’s true that God is absolutely relentless in seeking out and finding lost sinners and welcoming them back into his family. If those things are true in God’s heart, shouldn’t it also be true in the hearts of God’s people?
I mean think about what Jesus has done for you. He didn’t judge you. Instead, he forgave you. He didn’t push you away or ostracize you. Instead, he welcomed you into his family. Could it be that Jesus is now asking us to do the same for that next lost sheep? You know, the one with the checkered past. The one who’s probably carrying some emotional baggage. The one who’s wondering what God thinks of her. The one who is wondering how you’re going to treat her. Will you treat her like Jesus treated the lost in his day? Will you love her like Jesus loved you?
Or maybe you’re thinking about someone who hasn’t yet stepped through those doors. They aren’t ready to. They have too many questions, too many objections to what they think the Bible teaches. Rather than pointing out what they’ve got wrong, can we just listen? Can we build on some common ground? Can we let that person see not the Pharisee in us, but let them see Jesus, who took the time to meet people where they were to give them what they truly need?
Now, is that easy to do, to be like Jesus to people? No, it’s not. We all have a little Pharisee, that is tempted to judge people instead of just loving them. But isn’t that why we’re here? We’re not here because we think we are better than everyone else. We’re here because we know we’re not. We’re here because we know that we are flawed. We mess up on a daily basis. We confess with Martin Luther in the explanation to the Apostles Creed that we are lost and condemned creatures. But more importantly, we know what Jesus has done. Jesus went out of his way (like all the way to hell) to search for us and find us. Like a shepherd going after that one lost sheep, Jesus has rescued us and brought us home. And now, he asks us, as his people, to show that same love, that same concern, that same passion for the next lost sheep that our Savior longs to find and bring home. Let the celebration of the angels begin! In Jesus’ name. Amen.