Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning, this morning I wanna focus your attention on .

Luke chapter 15, now as we have been moving through the book of Exodus we have been learning about the heart God has for redeeming and saving men and women.

We have seen that god’s desire is to take these normal everyday people and carry them to a land filled with blessing, and abundance.

God desired to take Israel from slavery into what we know as the promised land.

So God has heart for rescuing His people.

This morning were going to take a short hiadus and speak some more about the heart of the great God we serve.

This morning I wanna talk with you about “the God of the missing sheep.”

Let’s take a look at , please stand with me this morning in honor of the reading of God’s word.

Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father this is Your day, these are Your people.

You desire good things for those who seek to hear Your voice.

Lord of Heaven we wanna hear your voice this morning.

Tune our hearts to sing your grace, help us feel Your mighty presence this morning.

CHANGE US OH GOD in Jesus MATCHLESS NAME I PRAY AMEN.

The God of the missing sheep.

Phil Yancey writes about a friend, a social worker who worked with the down and out in chicago.

The friend relayed to him a disturbing story of meeting with a young woman, who prostituted herself to serve her drug addiction.

Worse she also sold out her little daughter in prostitution to men interested in sick sadistic relationships.

When confronted about this horrific decision she exlaimed:

“I have to do it, so that I can buy more drugs.”

The counselor was disturbed naturally about what he heard.

First of all he knew he had an obligation and legal responsibility to report to the authorities the story he had just heard...

But in the moments that he had with this young lady he wanted to say something to be of help to her.

He said the only thing that came to his mind, “have you ever considered going to a church for help?”

He said he would never forget, the naive look of pure shock on this young womans face as she replied:

“Church?

why in the world would I ever go there?”

“I was already feeling bad about myself, those people would have only made me feel worse...

Unfortunately the young lady was probably right about how she would have been treated if she had gone to the average church for help.

Worse, is the fact that when you read the pages of the New Testament you will discover that people much like this young lady were drawn TO Jesus not scared away FROM JEsus.

This is the occasion of

The tax collector was as low as you could go in ancient Palestine, and this was not merely general dislike for IRS agents.

These men were hated because they were governement authorities working for the wrong government.

They joined themselves with the occupying forces of the Roman empire to take taxes from teir fellow JEws and they used whatever means neccesarry to extort more money from them men they did.

By extortion and intimidation they stole from poor families and lined their owned pockets.

The tax collectors were the ancient forerunner of organized crime.

They were Israel’s “mafia” and rightly hated by them people.But here they are standing before Jesus and not only these tax collectors but also the text says there are sinners there.

This is a broad term isn’t it?

I mean isn’t everyone a sinner?

Then why does the text distinguish between the tax collector and sinner?

The term sinner refers to anyone who misses the mark of God’s righteous standard but over time it had developed a broader definition.

It referred not just to the one who disobeyed God but it was also being used to refer to those who did not submit to the traditions of the religious leaders.

One translation puts “sinners” in quotation marks indicating that these more than like were not wicked people they were “irreligious people”

The text says they were “drawing near” to Jesus.

Note verse 1 says emphatically that it was ALL of them drawing near to Jesus.

They were gathering around Jesus not just as religious groupies following around the newest preacher in town, they were gathering because they wanted to hear Jesus preach and teach.

There was something different about the sermon when Jesus preached even His enemies were amazed by His teachings stating:

Matthew 7

In the last verse of chapter 14 notice what Jesus says:

14:35

Only those with spiritual ears can hear and understand what the Lord is saying.

but in our passage Jesus has a captive audience.

Now the first verse of chapter 15 tells us that there were social outcasts and rebels who took Jesus up on His chllenge and they drew near they were drawing near to hear the gospel message of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed.

They were not the only ones in the crowd verse 2 tells us that the Pharisees and the scribes were there..

Suffice it to say that if the tax collectors and sinners were as low as you could go in Israel the scribes and Pharisees were as “high” as you could go.

If the tax collectors and sinners were the ultimate outsiders the scribes and the Pharisees were the ultimate insiders.

The down and out, and the “up and in” both gathered around Jesus.

When these religious leaders see these misfits, these sinners in the presence of Jesus they murmered and comaplined against Him.

L

Luke 15:

“this man” notice they dont even call Jesus by His name.

This man recieves sinners and eats with them”

Their underlying concern is legitimate.

The Bible warns in both the Old and New Testaments that Godly people must be careful with who they associate themselves with.

the idea is, its gonna be impossible for you to follow the way of God if you handcuff your life to people who are going in the opposite direction.

So the Godly person MUST be careful about his or her association with ungodly people, but the religious people in the text here took that to the extreme.

They claim that godly people were supposed to have NO ASSOCIATION with ANYONE who was branded a sinner.

So they see the people surrounding Jesus and believe that they have now a legitimate criticism against the ministry of Jesus to undermine His credibility...

THIS ONE RECEIVES SINNERS rather than rejecting them, HE RECEIVES THEM, and not only does He receive them HE EATS WITH THEM TOO!!

This is more than about sharing a meal.

In this culture when you shared a meal with someone, it was not about food it was about fellowship, for you to share a meal with another person was an act of friendship.

So they questioned the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus to them could not be a man of God much less the Son of God, hanging out with scrubs like that.

God would never break bread with people this messed up...

The remaining verses record Jesus’ response to the words of the religious leaders.

Verse 3 says he responded by telling them a parable.

Actually verses 4-32 record 3 parables verses 4-7 is the parable of the missing sheep.

Verses 8-10 is the parable of the lost coin, verses 11-32 is the parable of the prodigal son.

These 3 parables are considered 1 because they all make the same point.

It is the point of the chapter, it is the heart of Luke’s gospel, it is the mission of Jesus I can state it in 5 words:

LOST PEOPLE MATTER TO GOD

This is how Jesus responds to the grumbling religious people.

They are murmuring to one another, “if Jesus really knows God why is He partying with those sinful people?”

By telling these stories Jesus is saying: “If you really know God then WHY HAVEN’T YOU JOINED THE PARTY?”

These 3 stories are told directly to the religious leaders for the spiritual benefit of the sinners and tax collectors, but the stories told are about THE LIVING GOD.

Here Jesus is teaching us God’s heart towards lost people.

He first does so in our text 1-7, by describing what a shepherd does when He has lost one of His sheep.

3 lessons are found here

Lesson #1

The Shepherd purposefully neglects the 99 to find the lost 1.

Luke

Here Jesus tells a parable about a shepherd and His sheep.

It was a common trade of the day, and so people would have understood and related well to it.

This was a story to stick it to the religious leaders who despised shepherds and their work as demeaning activity that was beneath them.

The truth is in the OT the leader would be called the shepherd of his people.

This metaphor was also used for God’s relationship with Israel.

Jesus speaks about a shepherd who has about 100 sheep.

which was an average sized flock.

While he is leading them out to pasture one day He counts how many sheep he has knowing he has 100, he gets nervous when on his count he only has 99.

Jesus turns to the crowd and says: what would you do if you were that shepherd?

Jesus says if the shepherd who has 100 sheep will lose 1 of them he will LEAVE THE 99, and go looking for the 1 who is lost.