The Amazing Love Of God. Luke 15 Part 1 The shepherd who never stops searching.
Notes
Transcript
Text - Luke 15:1-7
Subject - Love
Theme - God’s love
Thesis - God’s love is displayed through his effort to find the lost.
Principle -
I was having a conversation last week about our time here in the book of Luke and felt it would be good to talk a little about it here this morning.
One thing that we see as we go through this book is the Luke doesn’t pull any punches.
He lays out Jesus words and teachings in a direct fashion.
That is good because it is clear what Jesus desires.
But it is also hard because it can make us feel guilty.
Guilty because we don’t measure up.
True feelings of guilt keep us humble as we recognize no one can be good enough to earn God’s favor.
A recognition of guilt should drive us to gratefully receive all God has done on our behalf.
These words of Jesus are good because they should convict us of where we are falling short.
It is good to be convicted.
The problem though is that we often confuse shame with guilt.
In a book I have been reading, the author gives a wonderful description of the two.
Guilt is the conviction we feel when we have violated some standard, when we have done wrong.
If a person lies, steals, gossips, or any other thing that goes against God’s standards.
But while guilt says, “I have done wrong,” shame says, “I am wrong.”
Shame is a feeling (which quickly becomes a belief) that we are defective, flawed, bad, or worthless.
The lens of shame always focuses not on what a person has done but on who the person is.
It focuses on one’s self.
The heaviness and torment of shame are unbearable.
And the verdict is always the same—that at our core we are inferior, inadequate, or unacceptable.
Shame becomes a barrier to God’s offer of mercy, love, and care.
Another author writes - Shame is the raincoat over the soul repelling the living water of Jesus that would otherwise establish us as the beloved of God.”
I have come to realize that I have been falling short as your pastor in also reminding us of the hope we have in Jesus in these passages.
I have only dabbled it in and not poured it on as it should be applied.
God pursues us, even in the face of our disobedience and broken trust.
The truth is, as with the parable of the great banquet, we all have excuses for why we don’t come to Jesus as we ought to.
None of us consistently renounce all that we have, we don’t always have Jesus at the top of our priority list all the time.
And Jesus knows that.
In fact that was why He came to earth.
To save lost a broken people.
God’s grace rings ever true in the fact that He sent his son to the broken and the needy.
I hope you know that you are not alone in feeling like you don’t measure up.
Because I for one feel that way as well, and I now others do also.
But thanks be to God that we don’t don’t have to measure up.
Because we never would on our own.
God paid a high price so we could walk in freedom (2 Corinthians 9:15).
Justification nullifies guilt.
For those in Christ, guilty feelings can be a wake-up call that something isn’t right, and we have the opportunity to confess sin if that is the case and turn from it.
Guilty feelings can be a tool God uses to to reveal sin when He is convicting us.
Guilty feelings can also be a tool used by Satan to tell us we aren’t good enough.
Now Satan is not omnipresent - he is not everywhere, he is not omnipotent, he does not know everything.
When we feel guilt, that does not mean Satan is there whispering in our ears, you’re not good enough.
But there is a very real spiritual battle going on, and because of Satan’s work in the garden tempting Eve, our sinful nature can rear its head with Satan’s intentions.
When sin is present, it is the conviction of the Holy Spirit making us feel guilt because He is pointing us to our need to repent.
When no sin is present, guilt is being misused by our enemy and needs to be renounced.
Jesus took our guilt and our shame, he carried them to the cross and made payment for them there.
14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
Because of Christ, we can walk in the light and never again suffer under the burden of guilt.
Jesus gave his life for sinners who can never measure up.
The difference between the people in the passages that we have been looking and hopefully us, is that they thought they were measuring up.
When we know we are not and never will.
We know that we are hopeless and helpless apart from Jesus.
So we run to Him.
We rest in His finished work upon the cross rather than trying to be good enough.
I hope to better communicate this hope we have going forward.
Thankfully, God actually made a way to do this for me as we enter into chapter 15.
I think the chapter break does us a bit of a disservice here again breaking the flow up.
In chapter 15 Luke begins with the word now - implying a short time between the dinner party and these people coming.
He finished with ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear’.
Luke’s very next words tell us that these sinners came near to hear him.
Jesus tells three parables.
The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost sons.
God’s amazing love is fully displayed in the chapter we are about to study together.
Through this chapter we will see that God loves to find lost people/things.
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So he told them this parable: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
Accusing Jesus
Accusing Jesus
Luke 14 ends with Jesus saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Luke 15 begins with the notice that all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him.
One commentator refers to this chapter as God’s lost and found department.
Tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus because He was preaching a message of hope.
The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Role of Tax Collectors)
Tax collectors earned a profit by demanding a higher tax from the people than they had prepaid to the Roman government.
This system led to widespread greed and corruption.
The tax-collecting profession was saturated with unscrupulous people who overtaxed others to maximize their personal gain.
In regards to the term sinners, as the Pharisees used the term, it did not necessarily describe notorious sinners.
More commonly it referred to ordinary people who lived with indifference to the strict rules they imposed.
This caused the Pharisees and scribes to grumble, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
They regarded fellowship with sinners as guilt by association which was equal to moral compromise.
Which, when we look back at it now, it is no wonder that Jesus was so hard on these religious men.
And hard on us if we are doing the same as they were.
We still see this today - some Christians look at others with the same sort of attitude - some non-Christians will as well.
Jesus didn’t merely tolerate these people’s presence.
They felt comfortable in His presence!
“And eats with them.”
In the culture of Jesus day, to share a meal meant acceptance and approval.
The Pharisees though, how could a good man behave like this?
More than than that, how could a teacher, how could the Messiah - God’s chosen one, behave like this?
How could He enjoy their company and have them enjoy His?
These religious leaders judged Jesus by the company he kept.
And in their eyes, since He’s not with good people, He’s obviously not a good man.”
The truth is that it is Jesus message of hope for sinners that they truly need.
If the thought of standing before the holy God who knows everything you have ever thought, said, or done frightens you,
because you know that your sin is great, don’t run!
Rather, do what these sinners in Jesus’ day did: Draw near to Him and listen to Him.
He will receive you.
Jesus is being accused of being with these tax collectors and sinners and he says - yup I sure am.
He defends Himself by telling three parables that all make the same point, but with different emphases:
God goes to great effort to seek lost sinners and He greatly rejoices when they come to repentance.
The first is the parable of the lost sheep.
Parable of the lost sheep -
Parable of the lost sheep -
Jesus begins by addressing this to every person listening - what man of you.
Jesus wanted his hearers to personalize the message that he was about to share.
Who having 100 sheep, would not leave the 99 in open country (some translations read wilderness - it literally means a open or deserted place)
And go after the 1.
We have to understand the value of sheep in the culture.
They provided wool, food, and many other necessary items in Jesus day.
If you have been around sheep at all, you know just how bright of an animal they are.
Favorite sheep video
No creature strays more easily than a sheep; none is more inattentive; and none so incapable of finding its way back to the flock, when once gone astray:
it will bleat for the flock, and still run on in an opposite direction to the place where the flock is.
In the story Jesus tells, the shepherd leaves 99 others, to go and look for one of these animals...
That seems a bit reckless.
There is a popular Christian song that came out in 2017 that you have likely heard - Reckless love
The chorus of the song is somewhat based upon this story.
The chorus of the song
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights 'til I'm found, leaves the ninety-nine
I couldn't earn it, and I don't deserve it, still, You give Yourself away
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God,
I take issue with the use of the word reckless in the song depending upon interpretation.
The main problem is with the way we use the word reckless.
We understand reckless to mean - without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action.
The author of the song has admitted that that is not his intention in using the word.
When I used the phrase, 'the reckless love of God,' when we say it, we're not saying that God Himself is reckless, He's not crazy. We are, however, saying that the way He loves, is in many regards, quite so.
Cory Asbury
I don’t completely agree with that statement though either because again - God’s love is certainly not reckless - it may appear so from our point of view, but we do not serve a reckless God.
This is a parable that Jesus is telling.
It is a story used to show an aspect of God’s character - namely His great love.
Jesus’ parables were stories that were “cast alongside” a truth in order to illustrate that truth.
His parables were teaching aids and can be thought of as extended analogies or inspired comparisons.
A common description of a parable is that it is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.
What is the heavenly meaning here?
God, because of His great love, initiates!
Many rabbis of that time believed that God received the sinner who came to Him the right way.
But in the parable of the shepherd and the sheep, Jesus taught that God actively seeks out the lost.
He does not grudgingly receive the lost; instead, He searches after them.
God finds the sinner more than the sinner does find God.
That the sheep don’t seek the shepherd, but the shepherd seeks the sheep is a perfect picture of God seeking men, especially those who don’t seek Him.
God takes the initiative in salvation.
Paul makes it quite clear for us
English Standard Version Chapter 3
None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.
In the case of Jesus story here, the sheep had been found already, was with the shepherd, but wandered off.
Why do sheep get lost?
Sheep get lost when they can’t hear their masters voice.
They become distracted, the move too far away looking for good food to eat.
Jesus says the shepherd searches after the one lost sheep until he finds it.
When he does, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing!
He does not get out his whip and drive the wandering sheep back into the fold.
He picks it up and carries it home.
This shows deeply God’s great love and compassion for the lost, for those who have wandered.
A sheep on the Good Shepherd's shoulders reminds us of our Lord bearing our sins on the Cross! It is also a beautiful picture of our Good Shepherd Who reaches down to pick us up after we cease running from Him and finally falling to our knees, "bleating out" because of our otherwise hopeless, lost condition?
6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’
7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
I want to take a minute and share a clip of a video with you.
Sheep video 2:37-5:20 ish
This story is not about sheep, it’s about you and I.
To begin with, have we heard the call of our good shepherd?
If not, He is calling. Jesus is calling out to you today.
He will lead you to all that you truly need.
If you have heard the voice of the good shepherd, where are you today?
Are you in with the sheep, following the shepherd’s voice?
Great, keep on listening, keep on following!
Perhaps you have become distracted, and wandered seeking other good things.
We can get away from God by wondering away from Him to the point where we can’t hear his voice and don’t know where to God.
Many Christians have wandered away from God, gotten out of church by slowly drifting away from the Lord.
The psalmist speaks of this in
10 With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!
If you wander from His Word, you will wander from Him. They are intertwined.
But the best news is that the Good Shepherd never stops looking.
God is faithful to come look for you and for me.
There is such great joy in heaven when one sinner repents!
In recognition and remembrance of what the Lord has done for us I want to take the time this morning to share in the Lord’s Supper together.
The Lord’s supper is for the sheep who have heard the Shepherd’s voice.
It is for those who have heard and are following and for those who have wandered as well.
I think it is a wonderful opportunity for each of us to remember the voice of our Shepherd.
In a world filled with distractions, filled with uncertainty and conflict.
Jesus is our only certain hope offering salvation and peace beyond anything that this world can provide.
And He is actively going out to seek the lost.
Jesus on the night we was betrayed shared a meal with his closest followers.
14 And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
Through this meal that Jesus began, and told his followers to continue, we together declare that God finds the lost.
Because He sent His son to die for us.
That is how much He loves us.
We lay down our pride, our self righteousness.
We lay down our sin and we grab a hold of symbols of broken body and shed blood and remind ourselves that God did all the work.
He came to find us.
We rest in the love of the Good Shepherd.
19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
Sing
Pass, Pray, Eat
20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
Sing
Pass, Pray, Eat