The Amazing Love Of God. Luke 15 Part 2
Notes
Transcript
Text - Luke 15:8-10
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Theme -
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Last week we began looking at Chapter 15 of Luke.
Luke begins with the word now - implying a short time between the dinner party of chapter 14 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 is rightfully being hard on the religious people who think they have it all together.
Who think they are doing everything right.
But he is also being compassionate on those tax collectors and sinners.
He is ultimately calling people across the whole spectrum to repent and turn to God.
The reason Jesus is doing this is because of God’s great love for people.
Jesus illustrates this love through telling three parables.
The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost sons.
God’s amazing love and the hope we have is clearly displayed in the chapter we are studying together.
Through this chapter we will see that God loves to find lost people/things.
8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
We pick up this morning with another illustration of God’s love for finding lost people.
Jesus began with a man who was a shepherd.
These men were clearly not respected among the Pharisees.
To tend livestock they had to work 7 days a week.
They could not come to the temple for ritual cleaning.
They were the outcasts of society.
He continues with a woman, who similarly was not rightly respected by the Pharisees.
If the scribes and Pharisees were insulted that Jesus asked them to think like a shepherd, calling on them to imagine themselves in the place of a woman was an even greater insult.
Shepherds were considered unclean, and in that male-dominated culture women were deemed insignificant and not worthy of respect....
It was mercy that prompted Jesus to assault their foolish pride, since only the humble can be saved
The woman that we see this morning has lost something very important and valuable to her.
Greek ten drachmas; a drachma was a Greek coin approximately equal in value to a Roman denarius, worth about a day’s wage for a laborer
These ten coins may have been this woman’s entire life savings.
The only detail that Jesus provides is that she was a woman.
We don’t know if she was a widow perhaps.
No matter what, the loss of one coin for this woman would have been a serious matter.
While one coin "may not seem like a large sum, in a bartering society, where money was not used as frequently as in most modern societies, it was a significant loss."
These coins may have been significant for another reason as well.
In Bible times, the women in the Middle East would often receive ten silver coins as a wedding gift.
If this woman was married or widowed they would have been sentimental to her.
They could have been worn on her headdress across her forehead or as an necklace.
Many historians believe they were like the wedding ring of today.
As such, the lost of a coin may have been considered as an indication of unfaithfulness to the husband.
These are some of the reasons why this woman is in "panic" mode.
This woman sets out to actively find the lost coin.
She lights a lamp, she sweeps the house, she seeks diligently.
The average home was very dark.
Most were lit by one little circular window not much more than about eighteen inches across.
The floor was beaten earth covered with dried reeds.
To look for a coin on a floor like that was very much like looking for a needle in a haystack.
And what does she do when she finds it?
She calls her friends and neighbors together to rejoice with her.
English Standard Version Chapter 15
Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.
Jesus is again using this parable to show something true about God.
When God searches for the lost, He does so with a holy zeal, leaving no stone unturned!
Who has ever lost something precious to them?
As adults, if we are married, our wedding rings are special items.
Maybe its a family heirloom.
As kids especially, we often have a precious item.
I asked Ayden if I could share this story -
Teddy Dog
This is Teddy Dog - Tiffany and Ayden were walking in the store when he was around a year old or so and his attention was drawn to this stuffed animal.
Teddy Dog has been his precious companion ever since.
There have been a few times over the years when Teddy Dog has gone missing.
Ayden used to pack him around all over the house and stash him in random places.
He would turn up in drawers and and cabinets, normally he would be found by bed time, occasionally it would be a day or two.
But recently he spent an extended amount of time missing.
We scoured the house, thought maybe he got left here at the church, checked every nook and cranny we would think that he might possibly be in, but Teddy Dog was not found.
We began to wonder if we would find him.
A few months actually went by, keeping an eye out until one day, Tiffany and I were out of town and Gavin happened to put his hand under couch we have in their room and felt the little ribbon around his neck.
The party was on!
It was time for a celebration!
When we think about our story and kids items, why do things like this typically get lost?
Teddy Dog got lost because he was either placed or pushed under the couch.
The woman in our story, if the coin was part of a necklace, the clasp may have become loose and she did not tighten it.
Or if she was holding the coin, she did not have a good grasp of it and accidently dropped it.
We often loose things because of carelessness.
But just as I mentioned last week in regards to recklessness.
God is not reckless.
He is also not careless.
The carelessness is not on God’s part but our part.
There are a couple of different audiences listening to Jesus here.
One remember is the tax collectors and sinners that were drawing near to hear Him, and the other is the Pharisees and scribes who were grumbling.
There are a number of applications we can make from this story, all stemming from God’s amazing love.
First we see Jesus using a woman as an example.
Jesus cares as much about women as he cares about men.
This may seem an insignificant detail to us today.
Men and women are on much more equal footing today.
Jesus could have told his story about a man, too, but instead he chose to tell it about a woman.
He did this despite the fact that he was likely speaking mostly to a group of men
There was likely women in the audience, but they would not have been in the prominent places.
This is part of the upside down kingdom that Jesus is proclaiming.
Luke shows this in this book though.
Back in chapter 7 for instance, Jesus healed the centurions servant, then immediately following he raised a widow’s son.
In chapter 13, Jesus healed the women with the disabling spirit, then in 14 he healed the man with dropsy.
In contrast to other teachers of Jesus day, He taught women as much as he taught men.
The woman in this parable also represents the character of God himself.
As she looks for her lost coin, and as she rejoices in finding it, she shows us the joy that God has in finding lost sinners.
This is a connection we often miss but must remember - though God is male, both male and female were created in the image of God.
It is easy to see that the shepherd who finds his lost sheep must be God the Son, who said, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:14).
It is also easy to see in the story we will look at next week that the father who finds his lost son must be God the Father.
But these three stories are parallel, so the woman who finds her lost coin in some way must also represent God.
Women display God’s comfort and compassion in a far greater way than men ever can.
God says that his love is like a mother’s affection for her only son.
Here in Luke, Jesus tells us that the love of God pursues us the way a poor woman pursues a lost coin.
God made women in His image to reflect His grace.
Luke, Volumes 1 & 2 What Woman …?
Jesus cared for the women in his life in a way that elevated their sense of dignity. Therefore anyone who treats women with disrespect, or fails to prize their gifts, or dismisses their capacity to learn sound theology, or puts them down in any way does not have the love of Christ, who cares about women as much as he cares about men.
This type of love leads us to the next application -
To the tax collectors and sinners we see the example of God’s vigilance to find the lost.
Until God does find us, we are helplessly lost.
But God is seeking as this women searched for her lost coin.
And that is the most amazing news for sinners.
A lost coin is certain to stay lost until it is found.
We are in the same situation spiritually, for we cannot find ourselves.
Once we are lost, we will stay lost until we are found by God.
And we are all born lost.
When we use this parable as an illustration of our own spiritual experience,
we have to admit that what happened to the coin is never the whole story for us.
We can never say that we got lost through no fault of our own.
Like sheep we wander, or as we will see next week, we may be rebellious in some way.
But what happened to the coin is part of our story.
The reality is that we are as helplessly lost as this silver coin was.
Luke, Volumes 1 & 2 Lost!
Like a coin that is lost,” writes Richard Phillips, “sinners lie unused and unseen, no longer contributing the value for which they were fashioned, while God’s image with which they were stamped is increasingly tarnished and covered with the dust of sinful living.”
People who are lost like this coin do not praise him, have not loved him, and will not serve him.
Though helplessly lost, sinners are not hopelessly lost, because Jesus is able to come and save us.
Although the coin was lost, it was not forgotten.
What great news it is for sinners that though lost, we are not forgotten.
And God searches thoroughly for the lost.
Jesus looks for lost sinners: in such a way as to find.
The reason Jesus came to earth in the first place was to seek and to save what was lost.
This is why he became a man, why he performed miracles, why he preached the kingdom of God, and why he died and rose again.
Jesus was looking to find.
Even now he is still conducting his search, looking in every corner of the world for the sinners he died to save.
Jesus has sent his gospel out into the world—the gospel that says everyone who trusts in his cross and believes in his empty tomb will be saved.
So what about those who have been found, what is the application for us?
Am I as vigilant as this woman in seeking the lost around me?
If not, why not?
Not only will I have joy, but when they are found it pleases my Father and gives Him joy!
Have I become careless in my walk with the Lord?
God rejoices when we turn to him!
Every lost sinner has a different story to tell, because we all get found in different ways.
But whenever and wherever and however Jesus finds us, we all share the same joy.
It is a joy to be found by Jesus Christ—a joy that lasts forever.
I am sure most of us have watched a game of T-Ball.
It can be kind of painful to watch at times.
But one of the great things about T-Ball is that every kid on the field gets a taste of the fun and joy of the game before they taste the disappointment of striking out.
Players get to swing until they hit the ball and then run!
Occasionally a player gets a hit that soars into the outfield where all of the kids on the other team go chasing after the ball leaving nobody in the infield.
The kids aren’t worried about that though, they are simply excited to have the ball.
Those who have recently come to know Jesus as Savior have an unrestrained joy that is a delight to be around as well.
We rejoice with them, and so do the angels in heaven! (Luke 15:7).
New Christians are in love with God and excited about knowing Him and learning from His Word.
Those who’ve been Christians for a long time may get discouraged with the struggles of the Christian life.
It is easy to forget the joy of new-found faith.
What we need to do as well is to rejoice with God and the angels over each sinner who repents.
Take the opportunity to rejoice with those who’ve come to faith.
God can use them to inspire you to renew your own commitment to Jesus.
It is always a joy to find something that is missing, as we know from everyday experience.
Even when it is something small or something we didn’t know we were missing.
Who has put on a sweatshirt or coat they haven’t worn in a while and found some money stashed in a pocket.
We generally tell someone about it - “Hey look what I found!”
Yet the simple joy of finding something lost cannot compare with the surpassing joy of being found by Jesus Christ.
What a joy it is when Jesus finds you in your lost and helpless situation, when you respond by repenting of your sins and receiving the free gift of eternal life.
What a joy it is to see someone else come to Christ.
What a joy it is to the angels, who love to celebrate the grace of God for the poor lost sinners of our fallen race.
What a joy it also is to God himself.
Bayview Glen Church in Toronto, Ontario, where Pastor Sam Nasser was preaching in Persian to an Iranian congregation during the summer of 2004.
Pastor Nasser was troubled by the fact that one of the women in the church was talking on her cell phone during the worship service.
At first he thought it must be some kind of emergency, but when it happened again the following week he was even more disturbed.
Nasser invited the woman to his office to confront her about this ongoing distraction.
“Pastor,” she said, “I already told you! My husband in Iran is very interested in how I became a Christian because of listening to you.”
This still did not explain the cell phone, but when the pastor asked for a further explanation, the woman said,
I bought a calling card, and I call my husband in Tehran so he can hear you preaching.
He puts the call on the speakerphone so my mother and sister can hear too.
They have been inviting other friends and family over, and for the past three months, they have been listening to you preach.
More people come every week.
I am not talking on the phone.
I’m just holding it up so they can hear your message about Jesus!
Needless to say, Pastor Nasser invited the woman to sit right at the front of the church.
The following week he preached on the love of Jesus for his precious children.
At the end of the service he asked if anyone wanted to pray to receive Christ.
Suddenly the woman with the cell phone started to shout: “My husband! My husband! My husband got saved!
My mother and sister want to come to the Lord too!”
Even if he does it over the cell phone halfway around the world, Jesus is looking for lost sinners.
He is looking for them every time somebody preaches the gospel.
He is looking for them right now.
I pray that he has not, that he will find you, because I know that when he does, you will rejoice.
So will the hosts of heaven.
And so will Jesus.