If you don't have your Bible, would you join me in Luke chapter 15, a classic chapter in the Bible, one that you are familiar with, whether the chapter alone resonates or not. When we arrive in Luke chapter 15, understand that the passion of Jesus is gonna show up. The lifestyle, the ministry of Jesus is going to shine through. In fact, if we relegate this to just familiar stories or to words on a page, we're going to miss out on the potency of what Luke has here in his eyewitness account. He wants us to sense in this moment the love of Jesus for all of the lost. I hate losing stuff. I'm good at losing stuff and bad at finding it. I imagine that all of us, whether it's through some preoccupation, maybe even something that is stolen, we've all lost something. Every now and again, I'll go shopping and the church lost and found. It's really great if you need an unused Bible or a random Tumblr of some kind. Other than that, it's utterly pointless. Lost and found, we grasp the idea of picking through a bin. Picking through a bin of overlooked items. Things that seemingly no one cares about. Things of very little value. This chapter is all about lost and found things. I tried to start with a great story. I looked and looked for moving and meaningful stories of lost things that were found. The only one that arrested my attention was of a girl who was rock climbing in Georgia, stopped to eat lunch while she was rock climbing and took her retainer out and set it on the ground. When she went to put her retainer back in her mouth, she could not find it. She went home. Three years later, she came back to the same rock to rock climb, and there in the leaves was her retainer. I don't know if she stuck it back in her mouth or not, but that story, I thought, okay, I'll tell it, see if it doesn't arrest anyone's attention, and you laughed, so it worked. You're not smart. He is, because he gets my humor. That's what this entire passage is teaching us about those seemingly meaningless riffraff things, items overlooked that are lost and yet here found. Here Jesus is gonna tell the most probably famous parable that he will tell in all of his teaching. It is the story, the parable of the prodigal son. In fact, he'll tell three stories within this passage. One about a lost sheep, one about a lost coin, and one about a lost son. But I need you to understand that what Jesus is doing in this moment is corrective in nature. Jesus is eyeballing the Pharisees and the scribes and He is correcting them. Jesus is not only correcting the Pharisees and the scribes, He's communicating unto us why He's here. What it is He's all about. He's after seeking the lost. Three words really repeat in this chapter. They make up the theme of it. You see two of them there. Lost and found. And the third would be rejoice. That's what this passage of scripture is about. Three parables. Now, I never want to take for granted that everybody understands Bible or church language. What in the world is a parable? A parable is defined as this, to place alongside. What a parable is, is a method of Jesus Christ in His teaching. He will tell an earthly story and He will place alongside of it an eternal or a heavenly principle. Jesus is going to tell these parables and He's going to teach us something incredibly valuable. Now before we arrive in the first parable, there's a little bit of drama going on behind the scenes. Jesus, again, is under attack by the Pharisees and the scribes. We pick it up in verse one, Luke tells us this. Then drew near unto him, that is Jesus, all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." Now perhaps there's no more maligned group of people in the New Testament than the Pharisees and the scribes. We enter into this scene, and the Pharisees would imagine that to us, the publicans and the sinners would be the hated group, but because we have hindsight, which is crystal clear, we dislike immediately the Pharisees and the scribes. The Pharisees are those religious leaders. The scribes are Jewish lawyers who specialized in Mosaic law, and they're mad. By the time we get here, they're mad again at Jesus. Why are the Pharisees and scribes upset with Jesus? In short summation, they're mad because Jesus is receiving sinners and be aghast at this reality. He even dares to eat with them. Implied in this word, receiveth sinners, is the idea that this is a pattern with Jesus. He's regularly receiving sinners. This is a pattern of his life. He's regularly eating with sinners. This is what Jesus does. Now it's significant to me that Jesus attracts sinners while the Pharisees and the scribes repel them. It is factual that lost sinners came to Jesus. Now, they did not come to Jesus because He catered to them. They did not come to Jesus and feel comfortable around Him because He compromised His message of truth to them. They came to Jesus because they knew that He cared for them and they stayed away from the Pharisees because they knew that they would criticize them. These people were drawn to Jesus. This is a pattern for the Pharisees and scribes, to complain about Jesus, to malign his character. In fact, in four chapters, Jesus is going to have dinner with a man named Zacchaeus. In fact, Zacchaeus was a wee little man. A wee little man was he, the commentaries say. Did anyone else sing that in kids' church? Zacchaeus is a publican and he was a hated man in his city and Jesus has the audacity to go into his home and to eat with him. And when he comes out of his house, the Pharisees and the scribes are standing there again, pointing their finger at him, and they're saying, you are anything but godly, for you constantly hang out with these sinners. You're always around this group of misfits, to which Jesus will deliver a classic statement. It's actually the core of this study. Jesus is going to tell us something about the intrinsic nature of his entire ministry. Really, he's going to reveal unto us the purpose of the incarnation when Jesus says in Luke 19 10, for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. That's why I'm here, Jesus would say. I'm on a lost finding mission, Jesus would tell them. The lost. Jesus came to find the lost. Who are the lost? To put it plainly, Everybody without Jesus Christ as their personal Savior is lost. There are only two kinds of people on this earth. There are only two kinds of people that are in this room. There are the lost and those that have been found. Here, Jesus is surrounded by some lost people. And some individuals who deem themselves to have been found are maligning Jesus concerning his ministry to the lost. Now in this direct context again, the lost are labeled for us. We're told they're the publicans and they're the sinners. Now it's election season, I did not say republicans and sinners. The publicans and sinners. A publican was despised by his own people. A publican was a Jewish man who had purchased the rights to be a tax farmer for the Roman government within his region. Now, this taxation system was rife for abuse. These men were notoriously greedy and crooked, and within their own hometowns, they were considered traitors. They were abusers of their own people, authorized and protected by the hated Roman government. They were considered ceremoniously unclean. In fact, one commentator said these publicans were cordially hated and despised by their fellow countrymen. Cordially hated makes no sense to me. But I thought it kind of speaks to most Christians today. They cordially hate people. This message is dotted with those moments. If you don't laugh, I'm doing them anyway. See? It works. I guilt you into a little bit of it. They were cordially heeded. Nobody likes the publican. turncoats, outsiders. There were also within this group, the sinners. Now that kind of sounds strange to us, because we know something is true. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We know that all are sinners, even you and me that are here this morning, we're sinners. But in this context, within this culture, they were speaking specifically about a group of vile people. The sinners are hanging around Jesus. Now we can let the scripture teach us a little bit about what they implied when they said this very thing. For in Matthew 21-32 we read this, John came unto you in the way of righteousness. And you believed him not, but the publicans and harlots believed him. The harlots. The prostitutes. They were there along with the publicans. To the Pharisees and scribes, sinners was intentionally used for a class of people who were manifestly immoral in their lives. They were sketchy individuals with questionable occupations. No respectable Jew would ever have anything to do with sinners of this nature. There's another way we can amplify and understand how this group of people, the sinners, would have been viewed. In fact, in John chapter 9, we read this, and as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? It was common to the mind of the day that if you had a physical malady, it was because you were a sinner. And so the disciples are looking at this blind man, and they wanna know from Jesus, who was it, Lord? Was his parents the sinner, or was he the sinner? Why is he blind? It's instructive, because it tells us that these people, The publicans and the sinners, the harlots, the prostitutes, the maimed and the diseased, the social and religious outcasts, the riffraff of society, the freaks and the goons of society, the outliers, the poor, they were the ones that were around Jesus. It's striking in its messaging. The Pharisees and the scribes are so blown away by this. They don't even feel compelled to give a reason for their agitation. All they need do is state the fact, this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. Enough said, case closed, he's guilty. They believe that God withdrew from sinners. And here Jesus is welcoming sinners. In effect, what they thought was the religious people looked and imagined that their separatism and their religious purity always took precedence over winning somebody through forgiveness and restoration. So as far as they were concerned, Jesus himself was unclean and Jesus himself was lawless and No way could Jesus be from heaven because we have this idea that God in heaven is holy and distant. He's a rejecter of sinners and here's Jesus from heaven proclaiming the reality that he's here to find sinners. It shook them up. It turned their entire religious system on its head to see Jesus. By the way, Jesus knew exactly who these people that surrounded him were. He understood that they were publicans and sinners. Jesus knew their background. He knew where they came from. He grasped that they were maimed. When Jesus passed by a leper, He did not wonder whether that man was leprous or not. Oftentimes, He would reach out and touch and heal the leper. Jesus was constantly surrounded by the maimed, the halt, the lame, the blind, the poor, the beggar, the outsider. That was what he was here for. Jesus doesn't argue with the Pharisees for calling them sinners. He never defends the extortion of the publican. He never defends the sinning ways of the sinner. He's not accommodating their evil. What Jesus knows is the truth. Everybody there in that circle, including the Pharisees and the scribes, the publicans and the sinners, all alike are lost. No matter what they think about themselves or what they might have been called by others, all of them were lost. This prompts Jesus to tell his first lost and found parable. His first story where he's gonna lay aside a heavenly principle and in my mind, though this is only opinion, I see the scene unfold a little bit in this way. Jesus is in this moment undeniably surrounded by publicans and sinners, those that were hated. This is a group of people that were off-putting to individuals like us. We would have looked at this group and we would have almost smelled from a distance, viewing the tattered clothes and the ragged group of misfits that drug themselves into the presence of Jesus. We would have seen the ghastly way that the publican dressed himself in an ostentatious manner and he would have stood there. He's so used to the condescending gazes that no longer does it even bother him. But Jesus is reclined with this group of people and eating. And behind this group of ragged misfits come the religious Pharisees and scribes. And the Bible depicts them often times in their robes that go all the way down. trying to appear as righteous and as ritually clean as possible, and they stand while Jesus sits with this group, and they look and say, look at Him. There's no way He's from heaven. He's constantly receiving this group of publicans and sinners, and in my mind's eye, Jesus goes from a reclined position and he stands. Standing at the back are the Pharisees and scribes. Standing at the front is Jesus, surrounded by all the freaks and goons. And Jesus begins to tell this story, and if we hear it only as words, it loses its punch. Understand the passion and the ethos, the life of Jesus pouring out. grasped the corrective nature, grasped the defensive posture of Jesus who sees himself in this first story as a shepherd for these lost sheep. And he spake a parable unto them saying, what man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which was lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. And by the way, more than over 99 just persons which need no repentance. When Jesus began to tell this story, again, in this context, all of the listeners would have understood the urgency of the story. A hundred sheep, that's a pretty large flock, and one of them is lost. And Jesus says, which of you, having a hundred sheep and one of them being lost, would not immediately drop everything you were doing and go after that one lost sheep? And I see myself in the scene raising my hand and going, me? I'd be looking to get rid of the other 99. I don't want sheep. This would have been lost on me. They grasp what Jesus is telling them. They understand in their mind, well, any shepherd worth his salt would have gone after that lost sheep, because one commented, no shepherd ever said, well, you win some and you lose some. Every single sheep mattered. The Bible comes alive to you, Old and New Testament, when you understand the role of the shepherd. For you see, every night the sheep would be brought in to some crude rock enclosure or fenced or pinned area and the shepherd himself would stand at the opening in the enclosure with his staff and he would count and he would inspect every sheep that entered in. He would have gotten to 99 and noted that one was missing. This brings the Bible to life, for Jesus tells us that He is the door, and you basically can't get in unless you come through Jesus. Jesus tells us, I'm a shepherd, I'm the good shepherd. My sheep, they know my voice, and when I call their name because I know them, not just corporately or congregationally, But individually and personally, they respond because I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Jesus is the shepherd in this scene. And one sheep is lost. And He's telling us of the urgency. He's telling us in this story, the shepherd cares. By leaving the 90 and 9, He's not in effect saying, they don't matter. They're safe. They're here. But there is one sheep that is lost. I read that shepherds were experts at tracking. They could follow the sheep's hoofprints for miles. This was not unusual work for a committed shepherd. And by the way, sheep are dumb. That's what I've read. I'm not insulting sheep if you're pro sheep. We live in a world where you even have to say stuff like that. I'm not against sheep, but hey, sheep are dumb. Sheep have no instinctive ability to find their way back to the flock. They're dumb. As I understand it, they have no sense of smell to find food or water, nor the flock that they have left. They are utterly dependent on the shepherd, caring enough to leave where he was, to go out where they are, to find them and safely bring them home. That's what Jesus tells us. That's the whole thrust of this story. The Pharisees and the scribes standing at the back, this ragtag group of misfits in the presence of Jesus, Jesus standing in the front and He's saying, I know you think I'm on your team, but the reality is that I'm here for these folks. I'm not looking for the 99 just that stay in the pen. I'm here for these stragglers who work their way far from the flock. I'm after them constantly and ceaselessly. And it's a beautiful picture. For He says, does Jesus, He puts that lamb, that sheep on His shoulders and carries them home. It's a beautiful depiction that our Savior carries us home, not on the power of our four feet in this analogy, but on his two. Taking the burden that we are, putting us on his shoulders and walking back. When does Jesus become our shepherd? We read the 23rd Psalm, the Lord is my, when does Jesus become my shepherd? Jesus becomes your shepherd when Jesus becomes your Savior. And Jesus becomes your Savior when you acknowledge that you are a sinner, when you recognize that you are one of the lost and you place your faith in the work that Jesus did on the cross. Here's what Paul wrote in Romans 10, 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And when that happens, you're safely on his shoulders, a party actually begins in heaven. That's what Jesus tells us. I love how one old commentator, and sometimes they just write things beautifully, he said of this moment, in woven in the text, there's a sweet signification of the passion of Christ. He places upon his shoulders the sheep he has found, that is he transfers to himself the burden of us. Have you ever seen yourself as a lost sheep? Peter did, Peter said this, who his own self, speaking of Jesus, bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live under righteousness. By whose stripes ye were healed, for ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. And all are lost little sheep. Isaiah in his great prophetic chapter Isaiah 53 says this in verse 6. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Jesus is conveying incredible eternal truths about the lost. He's telling us why he's here, and then he lets us in behind the scenes in heaven. When Jesus says, I say unto you, and he does it twice, he does it in verse seven, he does it again in verse 10, and he'll depict it in the story of the prodigal son. I say unto you, he's basically saying, let me tell you something you don't know. Let me give you a little peek behind the curtains in heaven. That's what Jesus is saying. Now, one might ask, how could Jesus possibly know what's going on in heaven? Well, that's his home. And he left there to come here, and he left here to go there, and he's still there now, but he's gonna leave there to come here to get us to go there. That's a message in and of itself for another time. Jesus knows what happens in heaven, and here's what he says in verse 6, when he, that shepherd, comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, rejoice with me. For I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repented. More than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. This is an over-the-top reaction from Jesus. I think his over-the-top reaction to even tell those Pharisees and scribes is, hey, there's a party that happens in heaven when one sinner repents. He's letting those sinners in his presence know, don't worry about their condescension. Don't worry about their criticism. Don't worry about their judgment. We party in heaven for you, not for them. They standing in the back, they think they're the reason heaven exists. They imagine they're the reason that heaven's happy. And in reality, we want all the freaks and goons. We want all the outsiders and the outcasts and the non-religious to come. I say that unto you, C.S. Lewis said this, joy is the serious business of heaven. Another added this, heaven is already filled with joy, but when a sinner gets saved, they throw a party just like the father of the prodigal son did. Can you imagine a burst of exaltation that exists within heaven when one sinner repents of their sins and places their faith in Jesus? That's not made up, that's not some gimmick to try to get people to do it, that's what Jesus tells us happens. And we have this thing so turned upside down. Because in this mind of this day, there was a concept theologically that God would welcome a sinner to come and repent, but there was no thought that God would actually go after the sinner. Except at the incarnation, God sent Jesus, whose sole mission was to seek and to save that which was lost. That's why he was tireless for 33 and a half years. That's why he looked out at the massive crowd of people at the feeding of the 5,000 and his heart was moved with compassion because he looked at them and all he saw was sheep who didn't have a shepherd. He saw lost people. That's why when he'd walk through and a leper would say, can you please heal me, an individual who couldn't even enter their own village, Jesus would walk over to them. And he didn't have to do this because he could simply speak and they would be healed. But many times Jesus would reach out his hand and he would touch them to heal them. And for many of them, that was literally the first physical touch they felt in years because no one wanted near them, but Jesus would always go there. that funeral procession coming through the city with that coffin on top and weepers and mourners all around and Jesus will walk over and he'll touch the coffin and the little boy will rise up and he'll be put back with his mother. Jesus will weep over Lazarus and he'll say, Lazarus, come forth. Jesus will patiently put up with the questions of the disciples and rather than burn the Pharisees and scribes off the face of the earth, it's in John chapter 3 that he'll meet with Nicodemus, One of the leaders of the synagogue, and he'll say to him, for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And we know that Nicodemus was saved, and that he cares for the body of Jesus in the end. Listen, Pharisees and scribes are not what Jesus is about. Jesus is about the lost. Jesus is about the misfit. Jesus is about the one who's so far out there. That's who Jesus is after. Now we'd like to think, no, Jesus in heaven throws a party when a wicked person dies. That's anti-truth. Because we read this in 2 Peter 3 verse 9, The grace of God is not limited. You can be saved, your neighbor can be saved, they around the world can be saved, those from a first world country or a third world country can be saved, the English speakers and the non-English speakers, those who are different than you ideologically and different than you physically and different than you in your birthplace and they don't look anything like you and they don't seem like they would fit in, they're the ones that Jesus is actually surrounded by. When Jesus says, rejoice with me, it's actually an invitation then to join him in the search. Howard Hendricks, who is a Bible teacher, warns against, quote unquote, enshrining the gospel in the church building. In effect, keeping it only between these four walls. He said, I can't find a verse in scripture that commands a lost person to go to church, but I know a lot of scripture that commands believers to go into a lost world. You can't reach lost people from your couch, and you can't reach lost people from your chair, but we must go out to where they are with the message of the gospel and compel them to come in. That's why Jesus came, and that's why we're here. Now I'll close with a old hymn that I found, and you're thinking, I thought we were done with all the old hymns in the beginning. No, we just keep them coming, even at the end. This one's really old, like 1868 old. Didn't even know they had pens and paper then, but apparently they did. It's really kind of hard to sing, but the lyrics are very poignant, worthy of hearing. Here it is. None of the ransomed, none of those that are found, ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, nor how dark was the night the Lord passed through, e'er He found His sheep that was lost. Out in the desert He heard its cry, sick and helpless and ready to die. Now there's a little conversation in this verse between the sheep and the shepherd. Lord, whence are those blood drops all the way that mark out the mountain's track? The response, they were shed for one who had gone astray, ere the shepherd could bring him back. Lord, whence are thy hands so rent and torn? The response, they're pierced tonight by many a thorn. And all through the mountains thunder riven, and up from the rocky steep, there arose a glad cry to the gate of heaven, rejoice, I have found my sheep. And the angels echoed around the throne, rejoice, for the Lord brings back his own. Let me ask you two things. One, are you found? Because I know you're lost. Secondarily, does your heart beat like Jesus? Are you anything like Jesus? Because Jesus lived to find the one that was lost. Churches can at times become little clubhouses. And they can get really comfortable. And people can dislike change and they can hate growth and movement and all kinds of things. But what you can never get over is finding lost people. What you can never get past is the heart of Jesus, which was to find that which is lost. Would you just for a moment bow your heads with me? Thanks for listening this week to the Graceway Baptist Church podcast. For more information about our church and our ministries, head on over to our website at gracewaycharlotte.org. We are a church located in South Charlotte. We are growing and our ministries are doing big things for Christ. If you're looking for a way to get plugged into what we're doing, email us at info at gracewaycharlotte.org. Also, stay in the loop with everything happening by following us on Facebook and Instagram. Our handle is GracewayCharlotte. Thanks again for listening to the Graceway Charlotte podcast. We'll see you next week.