Greetings. My name is Lars Larsen. I'm the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Levenster. We welcome you to this broadcast of the Word of Truth. It is our desire as a church to be able to present to you a message from the Holy Bible, the Word of God, in a clear, understandable, and applicable fashion. If we can help you further as a church, we would encourage you to contact us There will be some information at the end of our broadcast to help you with this. May our God bless you as you give attention to His Word being proclaimed. ill today and Connie was I guess coming down the stairs and she fell last few steps and so she hurt her back and so she's at home recovering. Mike wasn't sure whether he'd be able to make it. They drive in from Marlboro and so we want to remember to pray for Connie and little Mike also. Would you turn with me in your Bibles please to Luke 15 When the Word of God is taught and preached, when the Bible is proclaimed, and God chooses to bless the message to its hearers, a sense of personal sin frequently arises within the soul. And sometimes this can be quite acute. A person can become aware of sin and God's wrath upon sin, Because as God gives His understanding to Himself, we understand who He is as a holy and just God. Not only a loving and merciful God, but a holy and just God. And God reveals to us our own sinful condition. And we stop making excuses and we begin to see our condition as it really is, as it's described in the Scriptures. And again, sometimes this can become quite acute. And the result is shame and humiliation before God and before God's people. And every one of us that are walking with Christ know what this is like. Because we understand and agree with what the scriptures say, that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and Jesus Christ is that Savior. But sometimes, it would seem not very often in these days, but sometimes Again, a person can become so distressed over sin, it can become so acute in his mind, in his heart, that he might despair of hope. And he begins to, again, emphasize God as a holy and just God who condemns sin, maybe to the exclusion of those attributes of God which are encouraging to sinners, that of His mercy, that of His grace, and certainly that of His love. As we again are emphasizing the advent of love with the coming of Christ into the world. And so we wish to today to emphasize this love that God has for sinners. And particularly humble and broken sinners, no excuse sinners. We read in the scriptures that God has a love for them. a love in which he welcomes them to come on to him as they are and then he cleans them up when they come to Christ in repentance and in faith. But again, some, even many, will doubt God's love. The Pharisees and scribes of the day when Jesus was ministering on earth were doubtful of God's love. And there were occasions when our Lord Jesus rebuked them for their wrong understandings of God. And basically here in Luke chapter 15 we have that. We have a rebuke of our Lord of those who did not believe God was all loving and received sinners. And on the other hand we I think can understand our Lord Jesus teaching that God the Father delights in receiving sinners because he loves them and he delights when they turn to him in faith and repentance. And so here we see in Luke 15 a series of three parables in which we have displayed for us God desiring fully and rejoicing greatly over every person who repents of his sin and turns to him through Jesus Christ. And at the same time, through these parables, there's also an underlying theme in which the Lord Jesus condemns the spirit of those who claim to know God and yet who refuse to embrace a pardoned offender. And so, I thought that we would look here at Luke 15, at these three stories, these three parables, Now, the setting of our Lord's Sermon cannot be precisely known. It was within the setting of a journey that our Lord began in Luke 9, 51 and completes in Luke 19, in which he's traveling from Galilee in the north, the 90 to 100 miles to Jerusalem, where he would suffer and die. And there's a great deal of teaching in this middle portion of Luke's Gospel that was given by our Lord while on that journey. And so it's difficult to pin down exactly when and where he taught it, but we do read in verse 1 that there were tax collectors and sinners who drew near to him to hear him. And it was within this context, speaking to these people, these fallen ones who had been alienated from the people of God and the life of God, these coming to hear him that he gives these three parables, and they were no doubt encouraging to them. I might say, by the way, that in biblical studies, biblical scholars have pointed really to two great scandals with respect to Jesus that the early church had to deal with and explain. One was this. How could Jesus be the Jewish Messiah when he died on a cross? Because death on a cross, of course, was the death that was given to the lowest of low criminals. How could Jesus be the Messiah and yet die upon a cross, the form of death reserved for the most notorious of sinners, ones who everyone believed was forsaken of God? That was a scandal. And the apostles explained, of course, that Jesus died upon the cross in order to atone for sinners. The second scandal concerned the kind of persons who became Jesus' followers. He seemed to seek out sinners, and sometimes the most wretched of them, and he would call them to himself and they would become his disciples. And not a few of them became his apostles. And that was a scandal. His followers were not the kind of people that you and I would necessarily pick, you know, to commend a new kind of message to the world. And so this was a scandal also. where our Lord would enlist these kinds of people, the sinners in the neighborhood, people who were despised, but they would become not only his followers but also his leaders in this great movement of this kingdom of God. Now, both of these scandals were subjects introduced by the opposition, and we see one of these scandals being addressed here in Luke 15, particularly verse 2, where we read, Although sinners and tax collectors, and they were despised, they were seen as traitors, Jews who had betrayed to Rome. came near to hear him, we read in verse 2, the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. And as a response, we see our Lord Jesus speaking this parable to them. So on the one hand, he wants to encourage these text collectors and sinners to come to him, and on the other hand, he wants to correct and rebuke those that saw that somehow these people were not in any way to be regarded as the object of God's love or favor. And so we have these three parables given. We have the parable of the lost sheep provided for us in verses 4 through 7. And then we have the parable of the lost coin found in verses 8 through 10. And then we have the parable of the lost son in verses 11 through 32, by far the lengthiest of these three. And it's through these parables, we're not going to be able to deal with them thoroughly, all three of them, but it's through these three parables that our Lord Jesus emphasized that God the Father loves sinners and receives sinners, and that God the Father delights and desires in their salvation. And moreover, we see in these three parables that it was good and it was right for Jesus to seek such ones as these. to come unto him and to be his followers and that through this work of redemption, this work of salvation, God himself is greatly glorified and God himself rejoices greatly when these sinners come to faith in Christ. And so by these I think we can receive encouragement also that there is nothing that can bar us if we are repentant from a loving God who receives sinners. And also it, I think, should encourage us, lest the spirit of the Pharisee arises in our hearts and minds sometime, that certain ones who we might think are terribly wretched have no place among us, because that's not how the Lord Jesus dealt with people. And so let's first of all look at this parable of the lost sheep in verses 4 through 7. Our Lord tells this story, this analogy of a shepherd and his sheep, The analogy itself is really an understatement of the truth that's being conveyed. It's an understatement to give emphasis and legitimacy to Jesus' behavior. He's dying with sinners, with tax collectors and sinners. The understatement is something like this. If a shepherd would do this with respect to a sheep, should God do less with respect to men and women? There's the understatement. And so we read. What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which 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 neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, which was lost. I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. Now perhaps the most difficult question to answer regarding this parable is the meaning or the identity of the 99 sheep. We know who the one sheep is. That's a sinner that the shepherd goes out to find. But who are the 90 and 9? Well, several possibilities are suggested. One, maybe the 99 sheep is just an incidental detail to the story. And that is probably likely. Certainly possible, likely. And sometimes we can get ourselves into trouble by pushing to find a meaning for some detail which is just used to fill out the account. There may be no significance to the 99 in the story. We should avoid getting ourselves into that trouble, finding some hidden meaning in every word or every detail when perhaps it wasn't intended. A second possibility is that 99 may be redeemed people. They are described in verse 7 as needing no repentance. And so it's as though the problem is that is that, you know, here they are, they're already redeemed, and the Lord Jesus is still going out and seeking those that are in need of recovery and restoration from their lost condition. However, the problem with this is that we're all in need of repentance, aren't we? And just because we're believers, that doesn't mean we're in no need of repentance. And so I have a little problem with this view, by saying that the 99 may be redeemed people. Thirdly, the 99 may mean they're the Jewish people of Jesus' day who thought they did not need repentance. Okay, and so the words of verse 7 therefore would be viewed as ironic. Okay, I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 who think they're just persons and who think they are not in no need of repentance. And so it may be ironic. It may convey that idea. The Pharisees and scribes did not think they had need of repentance. The problem, however, with this is that the emblem of sheep, the 99 sheep, the emblem sheep is usually a common metaphor for the people of God, not for those who are unbelievers like the Pharisees and scribes. And so there's a problem with this. In John's gospel, the religious leaders who refuse to believe on the Lord Jesus are specifically said not to be his sheep, in John 10, 26. And so the idea that these are unbelieving Jews, these 99 sheep, and Jesus leaves them and goes out and finds this one sheep that's lost, may not fit the context. I prefer a fourth view, or the first, And that is the hundred sheep represent the sum total of the chosen people of God. In other words, his people who he intends to redeem. A flock of a hundred sheep, there's a finite number, a specific number, and he saves all of them. He redeems all of them. The number of the elect, as they're frequently called in the Bible. Christ did not lose one of them. He doesn't end up with 99. He ends up with the total number, the 100, the ones he intended to save. And he'll be successful in this. Our Lord Jesus once prayed to his father, while I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you have given me, those whom you gave me, I have kept. None of them is lost except the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled. A reference to Judas Iscariot. It was prophesied that he would fall, that he would not remain among his people. And so I tend to think here the Lord Jesus is indicating that he's got a flock and he's going to see to it that every one of them is redeemed. He's not going to lose a one of them. And God delights when every one of his sheep come to experience reclamation, redemption, and a return to the fold. Well, let's look a little more closely at the text if we could. Look at verse 4. Here we read of the search beginning. What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? Now we shouldn't think that somehow the Lord is abandoning the ninety and nine and going after this one. That somehow the ninety and nine are neglected and left without care. The issue being presented is that he cares for all the sheep. And he's not just satisfied with the ninety and nine. Oh well, there's one loss. He cares for each and every one of his people. And he's going to see to it that every one of them are within the fold. And so certainly the idea is that the shepherd assures the security of the nine. If he cares about the one, certainly he cares about the ninety and nine, and he would have provided for their care. But the idea is that even the threat of one being lost moves him to take urgent steps for its recovery. And so he'll do whatever's necessary to go out and find that one, because he cares for it as an individual. And so, let's bring it home to us. If you're a sinner, a no-excuse sinner, a self-admitted sinner, as the Bible describes sinners, you may be assured that God desires your recovery. He desires your recovery more than you desire your recovery. You're lost, but he's seeking, and he's gonna see to it that if you are a humble, broken sinner that recognizes you need a Savior, that God has designs upon you. And so he desires your recovery. He does not delight in the death and the punishment of the wicked. He doesn't apologize for, you know, the punishment that he renders and will render on judgment day, but he doesn't delight in it. God desires that men everywhere turn from their sin and return to him. God is a gracious God, a loving God, a merciful God, and he wants people to come to him. And we should not think of God as being hard or harsh in not receiving sinners because he does. That's what our Lord Jesus is emphasizing. By the way, this is particularly true if you're a believer in Jesus Christ and you have strayed from God. You have laid yourself over to indulge the lust of the flesh, and you have walked away from the Lord. This is particularly true of you. He desires your recovery and restoration. And the fact is, He won't let you get away with whatever you're doing. He's going to see to it. He's going to chasten you, because He loves you, to bring you back to Himself. And so he will not lose one which follows him or belongs to him. Take note again, he says he goes after that sheep. And notice he goes after that one which is lost until he finds it. And so there's a sense of certainty, there's a sense of success there. He goes after him until he finds it. And so it's not like the Lord is somehow playing a blind man's bluff game with people in respect to their salvation. God doesn't grope around the world hoping to grab one to one here or there and bring them into the kingdom. But rather the Lord Jesus puts forth a definite effort to save individuals. And if you are a Christian, if you're a believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's because Christ put an effort, a concerted, definite effort to redeem you, and he came after you, just as this shepherd in this parable is described as going after this one who was lost. And so he had a definite purpose to save his people. They were lost, and he would see to it that he would reclaim and restore the ones whom his Father had given him. Christ regards straying ones as a shepherd regards his sheep. He cares for them. They are his property, but they are lost. They are helpless as sheep, defenseless as sheep, vulnerable as sheep, perhaps careless and senseless as sheep. At any rate, they're not going to find their way back to the sheepfold on their own. They're incapable of doing so, and so he will go after them. And that's what our Lord Jesus says. Now notice the search is successful as we read in verse 5. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. Jesus did not say, and if he finds it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. But when he found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. Again, there's no hint here of a possibility of failure. Christ finds and restores all lost sheep. Lost coin he's seeking for, he finds it. A lost son, a prodigal son who strays, that son comes home. God sees to it. The Lord recovers all of his own. The Lord's power is not too short that he cannot say he accomplishes all that he sets out to do. He goes out looking for this lost sheep. He seeks for it until he finds it. When he finds it, he lays it on his shoulders, and that's what shepherds did, I suppose still do. and brings it back to the fool. Notice that the shepherd comes to the lost in their condition. Sometimes you'll read testimonies of people who came to tribes and they're right in the midst of their sin and the worst possible den of iniquity and God comes to them. The Spirit of God convicts them, and they are made aware of their sin, and they come to repentance. Christ goes into the very dens of iniquity and pulls His people out, awakens them to their condition, gives them repentance, gives them faith, and brings them out. And so Christ comes and saves sinners. He brings them to repentance. He brings them to faith. Now, we always emphasize the need to believe and the responsibility to repent. But we are never suggesting this, that somehow the sinner has to clean himself up before Christ will come to him. Christ comes to him as a sinner and reclaims him as a sinner. And so the sinner comes to realize his condition. He acknowledges it. He calls upon Christ, and he looks to Christ to deliver him. He is not commanded to find the Savior, but rather we read that the Scripture has the Savior finding him. It's God taking the initiative, God taking the action, and here we see the sheep is passive. It's the shepherd that's active. And the idea somehow that, you know, you were lost, and one day you found Jesus. You know, it's just not the case. Jesus found you. You were the one that was lost. Jesus wasn't lost and you found him. You were lost and he found you. And it was a result of his work of grace intended, motivated by his love for his own. A love that we read in the Bible was in Christ Jesus even before time began. We read that the shepherd lays the sheep on his shoulders. He is the Savior. He alone can return his lost sheep to the fold. The sheep has no ability to return on his own. It's Christ's job to save us. It's Christ's job to change us and to cleanse us and to bring us back to the fold of God, and he has the power to do so. The sheep is laid on his great shoulders, the great shoulders of the great shepherd, and he can bear any sheep from his danger and preserve any sinner from the threat that any sin might pose to him. And some of us can testify that we were the worst in the bunch, worst in the crowd that ran together, and God singled us out. When everybody else seemed to be voicing some kind of sensitivity or openness to the things of God, we were the ones who were most antagonistic, most objectionable to anything speaking of Christ, and yet Christ came in and saved us. It's a work of God, all the power of God. Verse six, we read of the homecoming. We read, he goes home. From first to last, the work of salvation is the work of the great savior who saves his people. He seeks the lost, they do not seek Him. He finds the lost, they do not find Him. He subdues their stubborn will, and they cannot submit to Him until He does. He conquers their rebellious heart. He removes their hardness of heart. He removes their ignorance and informs their mind. He conquers their rebellion. He brings them back to a place of safety, security, and fellowship in the fold of God. He does it in a way that he alone gets the glory, he alone gets the credit. Now our Lord, after giving this parable, gives the lesson in verse 7. And so we read, I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. The Lord gives this lesson very forcefully, once again encouraging the tax collectors and sinners, and at the same time rebuking the Pharisees and the scribes. He gives it forcefully. God rejoices over every sinner that's brought to repentance from sin and to faith in himself. God rejoices greatly. In fact, he rejoices so greatly that the angels watch him as he's rejoicing. Notice the rejoicing is not done by the angels. The rejoicing is done by God in the presence of the angels. What Jesus is emphasizing is that God loves sinners and he desires and delights in their redemption. God rejoices. Angels rejoice too. But here the emphasis is God rejoices when any and every soul is brought to experience salvation. And so the main object of this parable is this. Not only is the behavior of Jesus justified in eating and drinking with sinners because he's performing the work of a shepherd, restoring his sheep, but the attitude of the Pharisees and scribes is terribly wrong and conflicts with the purposes of God. And when we are not willing to reach any and everybody out there in the world with the gospel of Christ, then we are playing the Pharisee and God would rebuke us if we listened to him closely. God's in the business of saving great sinners. Now look at verses 8 through 10. Here we have the parable of the lost coin. Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I lost. And likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. This parable basically says the same thing, doesn't it? That the repetition of the idea gives weight to it. The idea that God delights in finding and reclaiming his people. Again, similarly, as the first parable in verse 8, we see the search begins. See, she searches high and low for her lost coin. She's not satisfied until the coin is restored to her. And then in verse 9 the search is successful. She finds her coin. She doesn't give up until she finds it. And then immediately she calls her friends to share the good news with them. She rejoices over this. And then in verse 10 the lesson is given. Again, the Lord states the point quite forcefully. God rejoices over every sinner that's brought to repentance from sin and brought to faith in himself. God rejoices greatly even as angels watch when any and every soul is brought to experience salvation in Christ. And so again, the main object of the parable is this. Not only is the behavior of Jesus justified in eating and drinking with sinners because he's performing the work of a shepherd seeking a sheep and as a woman seeking a coin, but again, the attitude of the Pharisees and scribes is terribly wrong. Their desires conflict with the purposes of God. And so a woman who finds a coin rejoices, again, the idea of an understatement. If a woman's going to rejoice at finding a lost coin, how much more God will rejoice at finding a lost sinner? It's an understatement given to press the matter home. Christ is right in doing this, and the Pharisees were wrong. It would be most reasonable that people should rejoice with God in the recovery of the one who is most wayward, the most rebellious, the most sinful. And that's what we're doing. This is one of the difficulties, folks, when our Christianity becomes defined by social issues. Because we have maybe many moral values and standards that we'll have in common with other religious people, but yet they do not have the same understanding of salvation and the gospel. We have a similar view of moral standards, but differing view on the nature of salvation and the gospel. And what results is a coming together, a banding together over standing on some moral issue. And what is sacrificed is the gospel going after these people. And we need to be on our guard about this. Because we become associated with people like the Scribes and the Pharisees, who acknowledge those are sins, and yet they cut off any hope of redemption for them. That's not the way we are. Yes, we want to make known what sin is. All manner of sin, not just one kind of sin, not just a sexual sin, but all manner of sin. And we desire their redemption. But when we are going shoulder to shoulder with the Pharisees and scribes, we're perhaps cutting ourselves off, and we're not following the same pattern of Christ as going and eating and drinking with them. Not in any way compromising what is right and wrong, but pressing upon them their responsibility and the opportunity they have to be recovered from and restored from the sin that has damned them and condemned them and enslaved them. We are offering them basically what we ourselves have received. That is forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ. But all too often anymore, we are being associated with so many others. We are being associated with the spirit of the Pharisees and the scribes. And we need to make it very clear. We desire the redemption, the recovery, the salvation. We desire that sinners would come among us. from anywhere and everywhere who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and join with us as the people of God. Not living in sin. We lament that. We say that is a barrier and that has to be repented of. But those who repent and believe the gospel, we don't care what their background is. We desire their entrance and we delight in them being among us. And we call them brothers and sisters in Christ. Whole different spirit. and we need to be on guard about this. Well, we have this third parable which is of course the most lengthy and so maybe we should just avoid today getting into it and we'll address it next week. It's really the parable of the lost son. Commonly it's referred to as the parable of the prodigal son, but really the son's lost too. And he's recovered also, as we see in this story. And so we'll address this more fully next week. There is the story of the elder son, too. When the prodigal son returned to the home, the elder son resisted, remember? And you have the idea of the Pharisees and the scribes. How can God pardon this guy? Look what he's done. And we don't want to have that spirit. But rather we should be rejoicing when there is redemption manifest, when there's power manifest in anybody and everybody coming to Christ for salvation. Let us pray, please. Thank you, our God, that you are a God that loves sinners. Indeed, even while we were yet sinners, you demonstrated your love in that Christ died for us. and he did not die because there was something in us that was good and foreseen by you but rather you loved us as sinners and therefore you determined to forgive us cleanse us and to make us holy like yourself we thank you father for your great love and we pray that we would understand it better and more fully and that we would be governed by this same desire and spirit that was manifest by our Lord Jesus May we be actively seeking, going out, Father, as this shepherd in this parable, or this woman, and seeking to find that which is lost, proclaiming to them the gospel of peace, making known to them Jesus Christ and the way of forgiveness through faith in him who lived and died on the cross to suffer on behalf of sinners, who was raised again so that they might be raised to life both spiritually and one day physically. May you help us to be faithful representatives of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. you