Luke 15:1-7 ‘God is good: he rejoices in seeking and saving the lost’

1.0 introduction
Now I don’t mind admitting there is much that I do not know,
things about life, things about the world, and even things about myself.

Having said that, there is a couple of things, that even a simpleton like myself can figure out, and say with certainty. And those couple of things are;
firstly I am alive. And secondly, I will die.
These are just the scientific and historical recordable facts. Indisputable really to anyone who doesn't want to buy into tedious philosophic word games.

But it seems to me there is something else that is certain about life as well, about the more positive bit between our birth and our death. The more positive reality, that we all exist in a network of relationships with other people. Our lives intersect and interact with so many others.

Have you ever stopped to consider how many new people you would have actually met during your entire lifetime?
It would be a big figure wouldn't?

In a positive sense, think of all the friendships, the relationships, and the love these people have brought into our live's, into our very person's.

But on the flip side there is a negative sense to this isn't there, a darker side. Because did you ever stop to think what everyone of those relationships did to you? That when we entered into each of these relationships, it resulted in you having any number of new places on someone else’s pecking orders.

You know what I mean those pecking orders by which we evaluate other people that you meet and they evaluate you.

you know like, where do you live?
Plumpton, well Glenbrook trumps that!



What job do you do?
A doctor! That is interesting tell me more.
OR An Anglican minister! That is interesting, excuse me think I see someone else I know over there, on the other side of the room.

What car do you drive?
A family car -- oh okay!
OR A four-wheel-drive -- really!
OR A people mover van -- oh I am sorry.

People even (and when I say people - I mean women at this point) even manage to have a pecking order over childbirth. And Not just about how many children you have, but how you went about having them as well.

Did you have an epidural?
Did you go to the birthing centre?
Or did you wander off into the national park on your own like a Kalahari bush woman?

All of this is part of the pecking order's by which we crazily evaluate each other. The funny thing about pecking orders is that they are man-made, and because of this they are mostly arbitrary, and even worse than that they are almost without exception --- unloving --
They are used to justify excluding those whom we deem not good enough for us.

And it tells you something about the pride that is deep in the human heart, that we feel we have just cause to judge our fellow human being, another person made in the image of God, (which is wrong, no matter how faded the image may be at the moment we meet them).

Thankfully, God is not like us in this, he cares for all his creation, all people made in his own image, that is the good news of a God who cares.

The challenge for us of a God who cares is that he will also hold us to account for the things we have done wrong, and he will judge justly.
But this good God, the God who cares is far more keen to seek and to save than he is to judge. So it is a good thing he is not so self-interested like us.
But in God's pecking order, there isn't a spectrum of positions, there isn't a bell curve like a university exam, it is only a binary proposition, there is only two types of people in this world, when it comes to relating to the God of creation. Those who are lost, and those who have been saved. And the difference between those two people depends on one thing, it depends on how you respond to God's Shepherd, the shepherd who has come to seek and to save the lost.

2.0 Jesus draws a crowd with two types of people, the (in crowd) and (the rest). (V1-2)

Luke 15:1    Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So we see two groups of people who have gathered to listen to Jesus and to be in his company. And it is one of those weird moments, where you meet some of your friend's friends, and you are surprised, because you never imagined your friend would have friends like this!
And the first group of people who meet with Jesus in verse one, are “the others”, "the out crowd" if you like. And among this larger crowd is a first group of “the tax collectors”. Now as much as we may cast our minds straight to some sort of ATO employee, that really doesn't explain the imagery all that adequately. To get the real sense of who a tax collector was in the first century. We would be better off picturing ourselves in Belfast Ireland, seeing a Roman Catholic person, whose job is to extort money from his own people to pay for the occupying British troops. (This gives us a much better sense of who these tax collectors were). These people are basically traitors and grubby little ones with their hands in the till at that.

Also in this first group of people, of the "out crowd", is a group called "the sinners".
And to get a sense of how outcast and despised these people would have been by the "in crowd", imagine a woman who lives in Afghanistan, under American occupation, but as one of the local residents is supposed to live under Shari law. But this woman rejects the Burqa, and doesn't even where Hi-jab, but instead is dressed like Paris Hilton, and tangibly expresses her sexual permissiveness in the face of her whole conservative Religious culture. These sinners are also in their own ways, traitors. As they turn their back on their own culture and its norms. These norms that are a particular expression of their national identity, but more than that they are an expression of the God they worship.

The "out crowd" are quite obviously not God's people.

And the second group we meet hanging around Jesus are quite keen to point that out. In verse two we meet the “in crowd". We meet the Pharisees and the teachers of the Jewish law. They are the religious leaders in Israel who claim to speak for God, and enforce his will on his people.

This whole scene is quite a shocking scene, it is as outrageous, as to imagine the Queen of England coming to Australia to visit, only she doesn't visit the Prime Minister, she doesn't visit the Governor General, she doesn't visit the Christian Democratic party, or even family first party, she doesn't visit the Archbishop. But instead of her first action on her official visit being to visit the key heads of state who would rightly be expecting her to visit them, instead they have to track her down based on other people sightings posted on twitter, and they come to find her sitting comfortably having a schooner in the public bar of a Redfern Pub, amongst a cast of shady and disreputable characters, that causes the whole thing to look like a scene from underbelly.

It is a shocking scene, when we see the company that Jesus keeps.

And the religious leaders rightly ask a question, "how is this Jesus really the Messiah? How is this Jesus God's king sent to save his people?". "I mean he actively makes friends with this kind riffraff, these unclean people, are his mates. Aren't these are the exact sort of people that a king should do away with, not give the keys to the palace to?"
Can this Jesus really be from God?

3.0 Jesus tells a parable (V3-6)

Now Jesus (as you'd expect), is a pretty astute fella, so he picks up on the grumbling of Israel's religious leaders who seemed so troubled by his actions. (And if you know a bit about the Bible, in particular the old Testament, you'll know that is Israel's religious leaders grumbling about God's actions, particularly through his prophets, was nothing new at all, and it definitely wasn't a good thing!).

And so Jesus hearing this grumbling, decides to tell this parable. (A story that has a central message, which usually has a thinly veiled rebuke at the centre of it. If the listener is prepared to take the time to think about this story and hear what it has to say.)

Luke 15:3    Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not 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.’

And so Jesus answers the question of the Pharisees in this story, but he does it on his own terms, by telling a story about Sheep and a shepherd. It's kind of quirky really, but it has the desired effect of conveying Jesus answer truly, but only to those who will take the time to hear.
The main character in Jesus story is the shepherd, but first off we meet one of his sheep. And the sheep is the one of his hundred sheep who is lost. Now It could be lost because of its carelessness, (maybe it wandered away from the flock), or it could be lost because of its own willfulness, either way, it doesn't make much difference in the end, the sheep is very much lost, and as a result, very much in danger away from the safety of the flock, and even more importantly from the safety and care, of the shepherd.

And so as the story continues, we wonder what will the shepherd do with this lost sheep. [And you can't help thinking that the sheep ought to consider itself lucky that the shepherd wasn't Australian, because I don't know a single Australian who if they got 99%, wouldn't have been quite content with that day's work, to at that point duck off down to the pub on the way home, and buy a ticket in the meat tray to make up the difference.]

But like I said earlier, it is a good thing that God is not self-interested like us, it is a good thing that God cares. The shepherd in the story, Gods Shepherd, values every single one of his sheep. And he leaves the 99, to chase after the one lost sheep. Now there are three things we can tell about the shepherd from his actions in the story.

Firstly he seeks. He seeks out this precious lost sheep.
Secondly he saves. he saves this precious lost sheep.
Thirdly he rejoices. He rejoices with all his closest friends over this precious found sheep.

So the shepherd seeks this one precious sheep. He is totally focused and intentional in saving this one who is lost. You could even say that at some level he risks the 99 for the sake of saving this one lost sheep. The Shepherd seeks the lost sheep.

And once he finds the lost sheep he saves the lost sheep, because the sheep is precious to him. And in what manner did he save the sheep, well it is completely isn’t it? He doesn't just get within earshot and say to the sheep, “follow me if you want to live”. He doesn't even just get close to it and guide it with his shepherd's crook. He goes over to the sheep he picks it up he puts it on his shoulders, and then he carries it home. The Shepherd saves his sheep completely. The sheep does nothing towards its salvation, other than trust the shepherd to fill his role.

And when the shepherd has rescued the sheep, he doesn't chide the sheep for its wayward behaviour, he doesn't even put it back in the paddock with the other 99. Did you notice what he did? He took the sheep into his own house and had a celebration with his friends because his precious sheep has been found and saved.

It's a pretty simple story, with a pretty simple message. But it is a profound message, because it tells us what God is like, it tells us what God is like towards us. God is good; he rejoices in seeking and saving the lost.

4.0 Jesus explains the parable (V7)

So what is Jesus point from this story?
Or have a look with me v7 -- Read v7
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.

The simple message of this story is, God’s Shepherd, Jesus, has come into the world to seek lost sheep and save them. And not just save them, but save them completely, and bring them into their eternal home, Gods heaven.
In Luke chapter 19 verse 10 Jesus says this in a much more direct fashion;
"for the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.".

Now in the story, it's fairly obvious who are the lost sheep at one level, it's the sinners and the tax collectors, the refuse of this particular society. But in an ironic twist, there is a thinly veiled rebuke in this parable for the Jewish religious leaders. Now the Jewish religious leaders were a quirky bunch in the first century in Palestine, but the one thing you could say for sure is that they read their Bibles. And in particular they most likely would have known this verse from the book called Isaiah;

Is. 53:6    We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity [sin] of us all.

The apostle Paul he came just after Jesus, & he quoted the old Testament when he said in the book of Romans in the new Testament, in chapter 3:10-12
10 As it is written:
  “There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
Rom. 3:12    All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
The Pharisees should have known that they too were lost Sheep. That we all are lost sheep in our relationship with God, who need to be saved.
The Bible teaches us, that none of us has lived every moment of our lives, rightly honouring God, as God. We are never wholehearted in our worship of God, in fact we all have denied his rule in our lives in various ways, shapes and forms, at various times, and the Bible calls this pattern of behaviour sin.

And deep down, our experience tells us the same thing, that we do do things we know are wrong, wrong in our own eyes, wrong against other people, but is specially wrong in the sight of a holy and just God. All of us who are over two years of age will admit that to be true, those of us who are two will deny until we are blue in the face.
Which of course doesn’t change the truth!

Sin is a real problem, in our world, in all of our relationships, but especially in our relationship with God. And so what does God do, does he banish us, or ostracize us, as some sort relational outcast, as we would do to someone who sinned against us? Well we know the answer to that from the story don't we!

God sent his shepherd to seek and save the lost. To seek and save the lost, like you and me. God save his sheep by his grace, his generous gift of forgiveness.

In another one of the Gospel stories, written by the apostle John, we read of Jesus words in John chapter 10,

John 10:11    “I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep

The good Shepherd came into the world, the son of God became a man in this world, to seek the lost. The good Shepherd came into the world to save the lost, and to save them completely. To take them home to be with him, and his father in their heavenly home, to celebrate with them because the good Shepherd has saved his lost and precious sheep.

And how can and did this good shepherd save his sheep? Well not only did he come into the world, this son of God, to seek the sheep, but he came into the world to save the sheep. And he saved the sheep, this son of God, by dying a brutal, bloody, lonely and naked, shameful death upon a wooden Roman cross for his sheep. Jesus the perfect son of God, died a death in our place, for our sin, on that cross, so that our sin would be dealt with, so that we could be reconciled to God.

The good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, so he can graciously give them the gift of forgiveness.

And you know what?


5.0 Jesus still draws a crowd with two types of people!

As Jesus comes to speak to us today from the pages of Luke's gospel, the reality is, there is still two types of people in this crowd today. The saved and the lost. And within those of you who are lost, there will also be two types of people, those who are lost and know it, and those of you who are lost towards God and don't know it, because you are viewing the world through your own pecking order, and thinking things are ok with you and God, because you can see a bunch of people in society, who behave worse than you do. But their excessive bad behaviour towards God - doesn’t excuse yours!

The reality is that In this story Jesus, the son of God, tells us that our relationship with God is a binary proposition, of either being lost or found, and there is only one way to go from being lost before God, to being found, and it depends on how you relate to the shepherd.

God could have left us to wander in our lostness, but instead he paid an incredibly high price by sending his son into the world to die, so we could be saved. That he could give us the gracious gift of forgiveness.

If you are being honest with yourself, and you know that you are one of the lost, can I encourage you to trust; that Jesus is the good Shepherd and because of his death on the cross he is able to save you completely. To save anyone who turns from trying to fix the problem of their lostness themselves, but instead puts their trust in him to save them. Those who turn from their old way of life and put their faith in Jesus. Those who receive his gracious gift of forgiveness.

People aren't Christians because they are good people, people are Christians because like that sheep they are carried on Jesus back to the celebration in his family home. Christians are people who admit they are stuck in their lostness and then, ask Jesus, and trust Jesus to save them completely. Will you ask and trust Jesus to save you completely today?

If that is you, why don't you come and speak to me after the service, so you can know a little bit more about what that means. What it means to accept Jesus offer of forgiveness and what it means to now follow Jesus in your life.

The Shepherd, the good Shepherd, God's Shepherd came to seek his precious lost, to save his precious lost completely, and rejoice with the whole heavenly host, because God is a God who cares for the lost.

John Newton the slave trader, who was converted to call Christ his saviour and Lord, was able to pen these famous words.

"Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a rich like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see ".

‘God is good: he rejoices in seeking and saving the lost’ - And so Should we!