Loving The Lost

Sermon Intro:

Luke 19:10 “For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost”

Lost = anyone that is not a part of the Kingdom of God, because they never were or perhaps because they have wandered away

Seek = actively search for

Save = bring into the Kingdom of God, for the first time or help return

Why did Jesus do this? Because he loves the lost, kingdom people ought to as well!

Slide Read Luke 15

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!

* The set up...

The people who gathered to hear Jesus

Tax Collectors - generally not liked people, worked for Roman government, sometimes they took more than needed, but even without this people did not tend to like them because of their position

Sinners - non specified but something was evidently obvious about them that identified them as sinners. Perhaps these were people who had been seen sinning before, men and women that worked as prostitutes or people who had offered sacrifices to Roman idols, maybe people who had been branded for crimes against the government, perhaps they had a public trial...whatever they had done they held this label

These people are coming to hear from Jesus about the Kingdom of God

Also the Pharisees are there - these were the leaders in the temple, similar to a priest. They did not always do the “preaching” but they did handle the sacrifices. It was the Pharisees that made sure people knew the laws both of Moses and tradition and adhered to these law

Quick note - it should be stated that Pharisees were not a position God ordained in the creation of the Tabernacle and the pattern of Worship for the people of Israel...they came later

The Teachers of the law were also there - these people were like the “pastors” of they day. They taught people in the temples daily and were most likely students of the Pharisees

Now these Pharisees and Scribes are supossedly also there to learn from Jesus (though some had likely been sent to trap or question Jesus...or gather evidence against him) and they find themselves in mixed company...

A teacher of the law might find himself standing by a sinner

A Pharisees is suddenly sitting beside a tax collector

They do not much like this and feel Jesus should address the imbalance...they surely should not be expected to need to learn the same things as the “riff raff”

And yet Jesus is teaching them all the same, he is making the sinner and the tax collector feel WELCOME eating with them even...appalling behavior indeed to the “more religious” and so muttering happens

Do we ever mutter?

Perhaps we do not speak out against people we feel don’t belong but we mutter... what do they think they are doing here

We don’t openly oppse them maybe but we try to find people that agree with us... certainly we would want “those people” in our company

Maybe we do neither of these things...but we still do not openly welcome those that are different than us...we do not seek to learn about the poor and the refugee and those with diffent cultural backgrounds

We don’t want to welcome them because then we would learn their story and learn that they are people that deserve our love... even if they are lost

But Kingdom People... love the lost

Slide Read Luke 15

So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

*Example of Loving the Lost 1 - leave the crowd to find the one

Jesus addressed the religious leaders with this parable (remember a story with a deeper meaning)

Sheep: 99 that stayed are the religious, 1 lost are the sinners that need to be found

Shepherd: Jesus and those who would seek to be like Jesus

Jesus is saying that Kingdom people show their love for the lost by leaving the crowds to find the lost

It is not being Kingdom people to stay in a Christian bubble...repeat