GOD AND THE LOST
Luke 15:1-32
Scripture Reading: Luke 15:1-10
INTRODUCTION
1. Luke 15 is a beautiful chapter, sometimes called the gospel in the gospels.
2. It depicts man’s plight and God’s right in such vivid detail that no one can possibly misunderstand God’s longing for us.
3. The Pharisees and scribes accuse Jesus of what they considered a detestable act.
4. Verse 2 "This man receives sinners and eats with them."
a. How dare he call himself a Rabbi and eat with sinners.
b. If he were truly from God he would never eat with a sinner and a tax collector!
5. But that is exactly what Jesus does, and he makes no pretense of remorse or apology
6. In fact he teaches the Pharisees why he accepts sinners and tax collectors in three parables about lost things: The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son
7. These parables open our eyes to the same truth we want to notice two areas for study:
a. The looker
b. The leaver
8. We hope to learn that no matter where we are God longs to carry us home.
TRANSITION: Let us look at the one who searches for us.
I. The Looker
A. What man will not look for a single sheep even if he has to leave the 99 in the field? What woman who loses a full day’s wage will not stay up all night until she finds it? What father among you will not stay up days on end searching out the road for the wandering child?
1. God desires for all men to come to salvation (II Peter 3:9)
2. His greatest desire is that lost men come to Him
3. This is evidenced by these three parables.
4. He leaves those who are safe in the pasture to retrieve one who has wandered
5. He searches day and night until that which is lost is recovered.
6. He looks far off to see us returning and throws his arms around us to welcome us back and great is the rejoicing when one sinner returns.
B. These parables show us God’s deep desire for our safe return in two ways:
1. The search.
a. There is a diligent, on going search underway for all who have wandered off from the flock of God.
b. Just like the woman who searches feverishly to find the coin she lost.
i. She lights a lamp and sweeps the house.
ii. She will not quit her search until her precious coin is found.
iii. Her rest will not come until she is secure in the knowledge that her valuable possession has been recovered.
c. See, we are like the lost coin and lost sheep to God our father.
i. We talk about how dumb sheep are and how they are completely defenseless (which is true) but we leave the impression that they are worthless.
ii. Sheep were the main source of living, and still are, in some parts of Palestine.
iii. They provided food, milk, wool, and certain sacrifices.
iv. They were of immense value to Palestinian lifestyle.
d. In being compared to them, we have that value placed on us.
2. The joy
a. The shepherd, the woman, and the father are all filled with overwhelming joy at the return of the lost items.
b. The Pharisees taught, "There is joy before God when those who provoke Him perish from the world."
c. In actuality, there is joy when a sinner repents of his sins and comes home to the Father.
d. God does not dismiss the tax-collector as worthless.
e. He does not simply condemn the sinner to hell.
f. He deeply yearns for their return and rejoices greatly when one returns.
C. God is the father who has everything but the one who refuses to repent.
1. He stands at the ready to accept those who will repent.
2. He longs for the day that his wayward child comes to himself and then comes home.
3. He will run out to greet him and like a shepherd who finds his sheep he will put the wanderer on his shoulder and carry him home rejoicing as they go.
TRANSITION: God seeks those things that are lost to him.
II. The Leaver
A. One thing that we must keep in mind is that God is seeking us when we are lost.
1. Just as the shepherd seeks the sheep that wanders off until he finds it
2. And the woman searches the house from one end to the other and back again until she finds her lost coin
3. And the father peers off into the distance looking beyond the horizon for the first sign of the return of his lost son
4. God searches for us longing for our safe return to him.
a. We are not useless and worthless items that he can just dispose of
b. We are of great value to him because of his great love for us
c. His love that prompted the plan that brings us back to him
d. His love that sent his son down from heaven to walk the earth with a physical body and hang on a cross of humiliation
e. God don’t make junk, and he made us
f. We are worthwhile, like the sheep that is the heart of commerce in Palestine, and the woman who needs her day’s wage to buy tomorrow’s bread, and the son for whom the father would give everything to have home safely
g. We are God’s precious creation and he hopes to have us with him eternally.
5. God is searching for you, earnestly longing to have you, heart, mind, and soul, as his own again
B. Let us look at the leaver in the context of himself now
1. Isaiah 53:6-7, "All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth."
a. He saw that we as sheep had wandered off
b. So he took it upon himself to do something about it
c. He came looking for us.
d. But we are the ones who left him, he never left man
2. Man can be lost in various ways:
a. Sometimes it is like the sheep
i. Men wander aimlessly at times.
ii. Not intending to wander off they get separated from their own and do not know how to get back
iii. Peter indicates that this will happen in II Peter 3:16 and says that if uncorrected this accidental error can lead to destruction.
iv. God is looking for you.
b. Sometimes we are lost like the coin
i. Seemingly through no fault of your own.
ii. You were placed in that position by someone else.
iii. Philippians 2:12, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"
iv. Paul says that even if I am not there to guide you, you are responsible for your relationship with God
v. In Galatians 1 he warns that we are to keep God’s word even if someone else that we respect and love dearly brings on some other message
vi. Our salvation is an individual relationship with God, our lost condition is an individual breaking of that relationship and is our own responsibility
vii. God is looking for you
c. We can be lost like the son through our own willing and deliberate act.
i. He made a decision to leave the comfort of his father’s home and go out on his own.
ii. Against wisdom and better judgment he willfully and purposefully walked out and left.
iii. Notice that in this state he had to come to his own and realize where he was before he could come home.
iv. The sheep and coin were brought back the son had to come back.
v. But remember, God is looking for you
C. Before we close, I want us to contrast the conditions of the two sons.
1. The wandering son was lost but saved.
a. He demanded his inheritance and took it and left home.
b. He was obstinate and hurtful.
c. His father languished and lamented over the loss of his son and no doubt sat up late nights wondering about his son’s condition.
d. The son had no regard for that love that was shown for him.
e. He was content as long as he had money and people to help spend it.
f. When all the pleasure wore off there was a different story told.
i. He was lower than all his father’s servants.
ii. He was feeding the abominable swine that no self-respecting Jew would be caught dead doing
iii. Even they were better provided for than he was
iv. So he decided to repent of his stupidity and ask to be taken back as a servant in his father’s house.
g. The father would not have it, he made a feast for the son who was dead and is now alive.
i. His welcome was joyous and complete
ii. It was conditioned only on the son’s willingness to return
2. But there was another son in the story who was saved but lost
a. He was self-righteous
i. All he could find was the bad in his brother.
ii. He did not rejoice at his brother’s return, he stayed in the field and would not even go in to see him.
b. He was jealous
i. He sat outside and sulked
ii. "You never even gave me a kid, but this son of yours comes home from his wild party and you give him the fatted calf."
iii. It’s not fair ƒ¼
c. He was heartless
i. He would rather have seen his brother beaten than forgiven
ii. He did not see it as a gained brother but the loss of an opportunity to punish a sinner
3. It is a valuable lesson we learn from the older brother.
a. Man does not have to go on a long journey in order to be lost
b. He can stay right at home and not know his father or the heart of his father and be just as lost as someone who wandered miles away.
D. Augustine said it well, "It is not with our feet, or change of place that we leave thee, but in lustful, darkened affections is the true distance from thy face."
E. When we wander God misses us.
CONCLUSION
1. We wander off from time to time.
a. No matter who you are you wander
b. When you do, you have left, not God.
1. He searches for us when we do stray.
c. He leaves the 99 to find the one
d. He sweeps the floors over and over
e. One end to the other
f. He peers off into the horizon and beyond waiting for the first sign from us
1. But even if we have not traveled far as we see others, we can be just as lost
g. If we do not seek God’s heart we are lost
h. If we do not seek love for others we do not have God’s heart and we are lost.
1. We wander and God watches. We leave and God looks.
