Saving Faith| Luke 15:4–7
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 viewNotes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
We are so excited that all of you are here tonight! I want to kick tonight off and give you a simple reminder, if you love someone you would do whatever you can to save that person if they were in a bad situation.
When I was younger, I spent a ton of time at my grandmas house with my brothers. She lived a few blocks from the school, she had this super comfy couch that I would nap on, and she made me a grilled cheese sandwich someways after school. I was there nearly every single day during the school year!
One day, my brothers and I were outside on the porch looking for something to do and low and behold I see a scooter.
Has anyone ever ridden a scooter before? (Raise hands)
At this point in my life I had rarely ridden a scooter, but on this particular day I was feeling it! I mentioned a moment ago that grandma lives super close to the school, just a few blocks away. My brothers and I wanted to ride the scooters over to the school and play on the playground, the scary part the trip is that from Grandma’s house to the school playground it is almost an entire downhill slope.
I set off on the scooter, made my way to the hill heading toward the playground and......... it was all downhill from there.
I hit the hill and began to pick up speed, at this point I’m not super far down the hill, but I’m already going faster than I ever have before. As I got a little further the next downhill moment happened, see when we grabbed the scooter, we didn’t inspect the quality of the scooter. As I’m going the fastest I’ve ever gone in my young life, the scooter decided to turn into a skateboard and lose the handles.
One thing you guys will learn about me as we get closer through the years is that sometimes I’m not the most coordinated person, especially on a skateboard.
Here I am on the tallest hill I’ve ever been on and I wiped out. I’d like to tell you that it stopped there, but I just kept rolling down that hill. When I finally rolled off the side of the road I was bruised up and bleeding bad.
I was terrified, and while I’m sitting on the side of the road, crying, trying to make a band aid for my elbow out of a leaf. My younger brother booked it for my grandmas house, we were both young and neither of us knew the severity of my bleeding, and while we look back and know that we kind of blew it out of proportion, in our young minds at the time we were terrified.
My younger brother loves me, and in his young mind at this moment he was going to do whatever he needed to do to save me. He sprinted to grandmas and told her about me, he sprinted back and helped me get back to the house, my younger brother loved me enough to do whatever he could to save me.
if you love someone you would do whatever you can to save that person if they were in a bad situation.
Can I tell you that Jesus does the same thing for us? That Jesus loves us enough to save us from the bad situation we are in.
See the bible says in Romans 3:23
23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
What is sinning?
Sinning is human activity that is contrary to God’s will, in other words sinning is doing things your own way instead of God’s way.
Each one of us in the room has done that at some point in our lives and therefore we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Our sin puts us in a bad situation, the bible says in Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Because of our sin, we deserve to be eternally separated from God, but there’s good news for us. The gift of God! is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!
What’s a gift?
When you give someone a gift, you don’t expect any payment or anything back in return. In the same way, God gave us a gift and there is no amount of good we can do to pay for the gift he gave us of Jesus, but the good news is there is hope for our eternity. That we can have eternal life. It’s nothing you do, nothing you pay, because the price for your eternity has already been paid by Jesus.
It says in Romans 5:8
8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Jesus paid the price for our sin through his death on the cross, burial, and resurrection.
God proves his own love for us that even while we were sinners, Christ died for us!
Does that sound too good to be true?
Jesus loves much deeper than we do, that while we were still living against God he would die on the cross to help us have an eternity with God!
In response to Jesus and the price he paid on the cross, the bible tells us in Romans 10:9-10
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
When you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will have a righteous salvation through Christ!
In order to receive the gift, the bible shows us we must trust and surrender to Jesus as Lord.
Lord is a title for God, it is basically saying that he is all powerful over creation and your life, so to say that Jesus is the Lord of your life, means that you believe in your heart that Jesus is God and that you will seek his ways over your own ways.
Jesus loves us enough to save us from the bad situation we are in.
Will you let him? Will you trust and surrender to Jesus as the Lord of your life?
Body
Body
Some of us might say, well Brenden I’m a good person, I go to church every week, I’m nice to my friends, and I don’t break the law.
6 All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
Our righteousness acts are like filthy rags to God! I’m not saying doing good things is bad, those things are all good, but don’t get it twisted, none of those things save you, none of those things pay the price for our sin. Jesus paid the price and making Jesus Christ your Lord saves you!
I want to turn us in scripture to the gospel of Luke ad as we head there I want to explain what’s going on in the story we are about to read.
Today, we are going to look at one of the parables that Jesus shared in Luke 15, as we turn there again I want to ask you:
Will you let him? Will you trust and surrender to Jesus as the Lord of your life?
See in the verses we are going to read today, Jesus uses a parable.
Does anyone know what a parable is?
A parable is symbolic speech that teaches a lesson or makes a point. It uses familiar situations, persons, or events to illustrate an unfamiliar or unrecognized truth.
What that is saying is when we read a parable we have to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who Jesus spoke this parable to. We are going to be reading the parable of the lost sheep, now today that might not mean much to us, but I want each of you to put yourselves in the shoes of a first century shepherd, the person who takes care of the sheep.
See for a shepherd during this time, it was a dirty and filthy job, often you would sleep outside with your sheep to protect them from wolves. Also, sheep were your livelihood, so the thought of one straying away would break your heart, a good shepherd or savior would do anything in his power to find that lost sheep and return it home.
So, again put yourselves in the shoes of a shepherd during Jesus time and lets turn and read Luke 15:3-7
3 So he told them this parable: 4 “What man among you, who has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? 5 When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, 6 and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’ 7 I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need repentance.
A good savior and shepherd makes it his mission to retrieve the one lost sheep, God makes it his mission to save the one sinner who knows that he needs to trust in Jesus.
This is the beauty of the gospel, that even if you were the only human ever, Jesus still would have came and made a way back to God for you.
You mean that much to God!
There will be joy and celebration in heaven over one sinner who repents!
Will you trust and surrender to Jesus as the Lord of your life tonight?
This parable was spoken by Jesus to a crowd that mostly consisted of Pharisees and other “righteous” religious leaders.
We see often around Jesus lifetime that the Pharisees were self-righteous individuals who kept themselves apart both socially and theologically from common people.
They were so committed to their beliefs, that some would even take up weapons to defend their beliefs if it was necessary. These men, while to some degree we can admire their respect for the OT law, we must also not lose sight of what they were missing.
See Pharisees often lived by the reality of, “I worship often, I do good things, I’m a godly person.” and they fail to live with the reality in their heart that they are a sinner in need of a savior.
6 All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
Our good deeds are filthy rags to God, heaven rejoices and has a celebration over one sinner who repents!
We can fall into the same boat as the pharisees trying to measure up, but be excited today that we don’t have to measure up to this standard of “good”
Eternal life and salvation through Jesus is a free gift. It’s not because of any price that we paid, but instead the price that Jesus paid for us that we can have eternal life.
Will you trust and surrender to Jesus as the Lord of your life tonight?
Let’s recap what we talked about today!
#1 - We are all sinners by our own choice
23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
#2 - We receive eternal life as a free gift from God
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
#3 God demonstrated His love for us, while we were still sinners
8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
#4 - We must trust and surrender to Jesus as Lord.
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
We serve a savior who loves us enough to save us from a bad situation.
Will you trust and surrender to Jesus as the Lord of your life tonight?