God’s Heart for Sinners
Luke 15:1-10 ·March 3, 2024· Joel Passmore
Part of: Luke
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God is good. We are, there's kind of a theme that's emerging in today's service. I must admit that most of that is of the will of the Lord and not so much a master plan or something. But I think that you'll see how a lot of the things that we have sung and said really connect with today's sermon from Luke 15. Look at God. Yeah, amen. So let me ask you this, a little crowd participation to start. What are some questions that you ask someone when you're trying to get to know them?
Somebody just say one. What? Where are you from? That's good. Where do you work? Have any children? How do you spend your days? Okay, that's good. There's a couple of questions here in this text that Jesus answers about his father. And I think it tells us a lot about the father, a lot about God himself. So there's two questions that you guys were kind of hinting at that I think are really get to the heart of someone very quickly. And the first is this.
What are you willing to sacrifice for? What do you want so much that you will go out of your way? If there's a restaurant on a road trip and you really want to go there, Nikki really loves Slotsky's. And the Slotsky's have disappeared from this area. And so whenever we're on a road trip, she's scouring her phone. We will do a whole big loop around to get to a Slotsky's. So what do you want so much that you're willing to go out of your way for, to sacrifice for, to work hard for?
The second question is this. What brings you joy? Not just a little joy, but real deep joy, lasting joy. What lights you up even on a bad day? God's word.
I love that answer. And now those are questions that I think get very quickly to what someone is all about. What are you willing to sacrifice for and what brings you joy? Today, in today's passage, some people are really frustrated with how Jesus is spending his time and who he's spending it with. And he's basically like, guys, if you knew me and you knew my father, you would get it. You would understand why I'm doing these things. So he says, let me tell you a little bit about more, about me and about my father.
And that way you can understand why I'm doing this. Let me introduce you to my father. Let me reveal to you the heart of God. So there is all kinds of great news in today's passage. There's all types of things to rest your heart in because it's the very heart of God that is being revealed in today's passage. What is God all about? Who is he? What is he sacrificed for? What brings him joy? This is not just about information for us, but it's influence for us.
Because we're supposed to not just take notes about God and, oh, that's interesting. We're supposed to worship him. And in so doing, become like him. So this is very important because the heart of God draws us into worship, but it also, it becomes a pattern that changes us. And we say, Lord, make us more like you. So come with me to Luke 15. God's holy and inspired word. I do hope it brings you joy, like Sean just said. Lord, may it bring us more and more joy, the more time we spend in it.
Because we encounter the Holy Lord through his word. Luke 15, starting in verse 1. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. So he told them this parable. 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? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
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. 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. 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? 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.
Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Pray with me. God, we come before you, and we want to know your heart. We want to know what you're all about. Would you please, by the working of your word, open up our eyes and our heart to see you and love you. And Lord, as we worship you, will you change us to make us more like you? Thank you, Lord, for your powerful working word and for your spirit, which is here among us, dwelling in us and changing us even now.
Lord, we love you. Thank you for who you are. We praise you for who you are. Jesus, we pray this in your name. God's heart for sinners. Luke 15. What a great chapter this is. This is an amazing chapter of the Bible. Jesus pursues the lost and rejoices when they're found. Just two things today, two sections today. Jesus pursues the lost and rejoices when they are found. So let's talk about this, diligently pursuing the lost. That's what God is all about.
Now, remember what came before this. Luke 14 is a really important prelude to Luke 15. Jesus had just finished giving maybe his clearest call to discipleship ever. He laid it all out there for them. He said, love me even when it puts you at odds with your family and with yourself. Bear your cross, leave behind all that you have if necessary, and follow me. Follow me. When you put it that way, you might think that everyone would just leave, would just walk away from Jesus.
And undoubtedly, some probably did. There were moments that Jesus said things and people, it's right there in the Bible where people say, this is a hard saying. I don't know about this. And they walk away. But not everyone does. Not everyone does. Some came even closer. Isn't that remarkable? Jesus says something so hard, so challenging, and they come even closer. The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him. Now, these were scandalous people.
Tax collectors were Jews that were working for the Roman government. They were, they paid a small fee so that they could get into a position where they could collect taxes on behalf of the Roman government. And they got paid because they would collect more than the people owed. So if you wanted a raise, you would ask for more. If you wanted even more money, you'd ask for even more than that. Because whatever you didn't give to the Roman government, you kept.
They exploited their own people to get rich. That's a fact. They were traitors, and they were exploiting their own people. They were hated. They were called thieves. Nobody liked them. Nobody invited them to parties. They were right there in the community, outcasts, counting their money.
Now, when Luke references sinners, though, he's not confused here. He knows that every person is a sinner. The writer, the writer of this gospel knows that. Everyone's a sinner. This is a social term, sinners. It's a social term for anyone who disobeyed God's commandments publicly, who just lived a flagrantly sinful life, whose very lifestyle communicated, you know what, I don't care about God at all.
They were not keeping any kind of appearances of respectability at all. So Jesus is surrounded by reprobates. Bad seeds. People that polite, law-abiding citizens would cross the street so that you wouldn't have to encounter. You didn't want to get near these people. These were the, they came from the wrong side of town.
Those are the people drawing near to Jesus. They heard Jesus talk about a banquet, and they're like, I want to come to that. I want some of that. They heard Jesus talk about how far and wide people have been brought in, and they've been like, hey, you know what, he might be talking about us. Maybe this is for us too. And they heard him talk about leaving everything behind, and they're like, you know what, I kind of want to leave all that behind. I don't, I hate it.
If I'm being honest, dragging me down. He said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And they're like, I'm listening, Jesus, I'm listening. Tell me more. But the Pharisees and the scribes, they see the scene of these people, the bad seeds flocking around Jesus, and they grumble. They complain. This man receives sinners and eats with them. Now listen, Jesus does not dismiss their complaints, so neither should we. Let's understand it. When I was at the end of middle school, beginning of high school, my mom didn't like my friends.
She would say to me sometimes, can't you find some different friends? At the time, I was like, come on. How ridiculous. I look back, and I know why she said that. She didn't want me hanging around with them. They were a bad influence. They didn't particularly show all that much care for me. I mean, they weren't great friends. They're just the people that would, you know, have me around.
My mom wanted me to separate from them, and the Pharisees were separatists. That's how they thought righteous people were supposed to live. If you're righteous, you're supposed to stay away from bad apples like this. Stay away from them. Have you ever seen in a fruit bowl how, like, one piece of fruit goes bad, and then it's the fruit that's next to it that goes bad? That actually happens. It actually transmits the rottenness to the other fruit.
To them, it was totally inappropriate for Jesus to be hanging around these people. And they think that because of Scripture, like Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners. Okay? So, maybe the Pharisees have a point. You think about that? Is Jesus breaking God's commands by being with these sinners? Is he guilty by association? Well, here's why the answer is no. The first thing is this.
The point of passages like Psalm 1 is to tell you about the influence of other people. God is warning about the counsel of the wicked, the way of sinners. Jesus is not seeking their counsel or their way. Right? They're coming to him to seek his counsel because he is the way. He's not worried about getting influenced by them. He's influencing them. But the second reason why the Pharisees are wrong is because they have overlooked that sin is not just out there, but it's in here.
And they're all worried about the sin out there corrupting them. They don't even realize that the sin in here has already corrupted them. And that's why they need Jesus. Think about what's inside here, Pharisees. You can't deal with the sin inside by staying away from sinners because guess what? You already are one. Me too. Them too.
So to help them see the heart of God because Jesus can see why they've gotten off track. He wants to show them the heart of God and he tells them two parables. The first parable is the lost sheep. Sheep are not the smartest creatures. I don't know if you know this. They're dumb. They don't stick together very well. They don't have a lot of... They can't protect themselves. They're just a big ball of, you know, wool. They don't have any horns.
Sometimes one will get separated from the flock because they're dumb and they wander off. The 99 are safe most likely because they're watched by another shepherd. But the one, even that one has value.
How far is the sheep gone? How long would it take to find that sheep? It might require a journey of miles. You might have to circle back and double back everywhere you went that day because you might not know when it went lost. But Jesus says to them, I know what you'd do. You would go after that lost sheep because you don't want to lose even one sheep from your flock. The second parable is about a lost coin. This coin is worth about a day's wage.
It is not a lot of money. But to this woman it is. Maybe these ten coins are all she has. It's important to her. She wants it back. We all know the best thing to find something if you lost it in your house is to clean, right? You just start cleaning and you hope that you find it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We literally moved and there was something that Bree was looking for and she still couldn't find it.
So she starts cleaning. That's what she does. She turns on as much light as she can. She starts sweeping and cleaning. She's moving furniture. She turns the house upside down and inside out. She's got to find this coin. Now these two parables are about hide and seek. I don't know about you. I loved playing hide and seek when I was a kid. I seem to recall that most kids love being the hiders. Is that true? One time when Cadence and Bree were playing a long time ago, playing with friends, I heard a round end and I heard someone say to one of them, you're a good hider.
Well, the truth is that we're all good hiders. We're very, very good at it. In the spiritual game of hide and seek, we are not the seekers. We are the hiders.
This was the first impulse of Adam and Eve. The father that loved them was walking in the garden. They had just sinned. They knew that things were different now. We are different now. They heard him coming. Can you put up that passage, Jackson?
I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. They hid. David says in Psalm 14 and then Paul quotes him in Romans 3, no one seeks for God. Listen, if life is a big game of hide and seek between us and God, there's one dynamic. We're the hiders.
We're always the hiders, but here's the good news. God is a seeker and he is better at seeking than you are at hiding. He's better at seeking than you are at hiding. Like the man going after the sheep, Jesus leaves home. He left home. He was in fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory. When the time came for his saving mission to start, he did not hold on to that position. He let it go. He emptied himself. He took on the very flesh that he created and he became man.
He was born and like the man, he left home to go after the lost. Like the woman searching for the coin, Jesus went to great lengths for his rescue mission. He turns on the lights everywhere he goes. He searches every corner of Judea. Every corner he goes looking. He's saying to the Pharisees, of course. Don't you see? Of course I'm eating with the sinners and the tax collectors. I came to seek them. My mission can't be done by separating from them.
It can't be accomplished that way. I had to come to them and that they had to draw near to me. They had to come. So let this passage make this clear to you. No one is too far away from God's rescue. No one. You can't name anyone on earth. Whatever circumstances they're in, whatever hardship they're facing, whatever hardship of their own doing they're facing, whatever sin that they've committed, there is no one who is too far away from God. God can go and rescue anyone.
If you're not a Christian today, if you're listening to me speak, I want you to know God is still seeking. Jesus is still eating and receiving sinners and tax collectors. Don't you want to be one of them? Don't you want to be one of them? He's receiving the people that everyone else walks away from. You can be one of them today. He's still seeking.
The call of the gospel is going out every day. It's God's broom going out over every corner of the earth, sweeping, sweeping, looking for people, calling people. It's God's light breaking through the darkness. It's the lamp that's been lit. All over the earth. It's here. It's now. Don't you want to come?
Now, if you're a Christian and you're hearing this, here's my question for you. Don't you want to be like the one who sought you? Don't you want to be like him? His beautiful character of going out and seeking and saving the helpless sheep, the lost coin. Don't you want to be like him? Will you leave home with him? Will you diligently search for the lost with him? He wants to use you and he wants to speak through you.
Everyone can be used by God. Everyone can be a broom in God's hands as he is sweeping and sweeping, finding the lost. Now, that's the first thing. The second thing, you saw it coming. The other thing about the heart of God is he is greatly rejoicing when the lost are found. Greatly rejoicing. Both parables end the same way. The same way. The lost thing is found. The person searching is overjoyed. When the man finds the lost sheep, there's no anger.
Did you see that? There's no anger. There's no scolding. He does not beat the animal for running away, for causing all this trouble. He doesn't drag it home by a chain. Though a sheep can weigh up to 70 pounds, he puts that sheep on his shoulders and he doesn't complain. What does he do? He rejoices. He rejoices. Can you picture the man? Sweaty and dirty. Tired from that long search. Now with that smelly animal draped around his shoulders. He's walking home at sunset.
He's hungry. He's tired. And he is smiling. He's beaming, in fact. I found my sheep. That is your Savior with you on his shoulders. He is rejoicing that you have been found. I found my sheep. He is so happy to have you on his shoulders. He's smiling from ear to ear. He's whistling a tune while he is bringing you home.
And when the woman finds the lost coin, she throws a party. Just like the man does, actually. They both do. She calls her neighbors and her friends and she says, Rejoice with me. Be glad with me. This is a really strange but common experience, isn't it? When you find something you've been looking for, you want to tell other people about it, right? Have you ever called someone in the room, someone who didn't even know you were looking for something and you're being like, I found it.
That's so weird, right? Why do we do that? Why do we do that? Well, there's this sense of success, right? I did it. A sense of relief. It almost feels magical. It's like a magic trick. I thought it was gone. But now it's here again. It's reappeared. The joy is contagious and it gets even bigger when other people participate. Isn't it charming to picture a group of neighbors gathering with this woman and she's holding up this coin and they're all cheering and celebrating?
Even more, the lost sheep, right? You picture the sheep in the middle of a circle of neighbors. They're all clapping and cheering. The sheep doesn't know what's going on. But everyone's so happy. This reminds me of when babies have their firsts. Their first rollover, their first crawl, their first words and certainly their first steps, right? This is an event. Family and friends are called, videos are taken and when they're together they all cheer.
They're clapping and cheering, yay! And there's a shared joy and the little kid, she's looking around just bemused. Like, what? Why are you cheering? Sometimes the kid will start to smile a little bit. Everyone else is smiling. I guess I should smile too. She knows that she's the focus but she doesn't really know why everyone is so joyous in this moment. But those watching know she has just learned to do something really important. It's a milestone.
That's why it's celebrated. That's why everyone's happy. Everyone is full of joy to see those first shaky steps. That is how the company of heaven responds when sinners like you and me repent. They are so overjoyed. They're so overjoyed and what are they celebrating? Repentance.
Did you see that? Verse 7 and verse 10. Joy over one sinner who repents. That's what makes the host of heaven celebrate because this is a milestone. These are the first steps of faith. We might not get it but they do. A sinner has begun for the first time to do something really, really important. To turn away from their sin and to turn towards God. That's a milestone. And they are overjoyed.
It's a supernatural work accomplished by God. It's a miracle in someone's heart. The response of joy what is lost is now found. The heart of God loves to see repentance in people.
And this is something else that the Pharisees didn't understand. I'm sure they thought in some part of them they thought Jesus if you eat with those sinners if you spend time with them people are going to think that you approve of how they live.
Some people think that nowadays. Right? They say look here Jesus received sinners and eats with them. He spent time with them. That means that he accepted them the way that they are. And so should all of you. That's what people will say. Or they'll say you know what we can't possibly be with them. That might look like that we are accepting what they're doing. But that doesn't square with the Bible with the Gospels or even this passage. Right? It doesn't make sense.
Jesus called everyone to repent. To change to turn from their sin and turn towards him. These sinners who drew near to him that was them repenting. Them turning from their sin. That's what made them found instead of lost. That's why they were like the coin and the sheep that had been lost and now found. So this parable teaches us something important. The solution to a joy-starved spiritual life is repentance.
The witness of heaven is that the path of joy does not go around repentance. It goes through repentance. That's how you get to joy. Grace is only amazing if you know what you've been saved from and saved to. Right?
If you're struggling with joy reflect on the profound spiritual need that you have. The ways that you still wander. Acknowledge those things to God really and truly and ask for forgiveness and change but then do this. Remember that your sins have been paid for by your Savior.
I have such strong assurance that when you do that what comes on the other side is joy because I've seen it for people and I've seen it for myself. Realizing your need for God and how He has met that need in Christ that's what restores our joy. If you don't believe me let's follow the example of King David. remember he sinned greatly you may know the story he committed adultery with Bathsheba he arranged for the battlefield murder of Bathsheba's wife Uriah when he was convicted and saw this in plain day he wrote a prayer that prayer became Psalm 51 look here in just a few verses of this Psalm at the connection between repentance and joy he says purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow let me hear with joy and gladness let the bones that you have broken rejoice hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities restore to me the joy of your salvation repentance is turning again to the God who saved you and when you do you see that he's already rejoicing over you he started rejoicing before you did he wants you to join in the rejoicing to celebrate to celebrate with him over you the one who once was lost but is now found Isaiah says this as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride so your God rejoices over you Jesus came seeking the lost friends and he did it for the joy the joy that was set before him he endured the cross let's join in with the joy of heaven as we repent as we rest on the shoulders of our Savior knowing that he is bringing us
home even now if your hope is in Christ you are slung on his shoulders and he is smiling and rejoicing as he is bringing you home let's pray Jesus thank you for revealing the heart of your father thank you father for sending the son to go into every corner of the earth and light a lamp so that lost people could be found Lord I know that there are many lost people in this room who are rejoicing that they are now found will you help us to feel even more the joy of our salvation that we are found that we're on your shoulders that you started rejoicing before we did thank you for seeking us when we were hiding and Lord for those here who are still thinking about this who they're just not sure that they want to entrust themselves to you Jesus will you help them to see the relief that it could be when they are found by you when they trust you when they follow you help them to see your great love for them seeking after them Lord the gospel call is going forth and we praise you for it continue your work of salvation in us and among us we pray this Jesus in your name