And please turn with me in your copies of God's word to the gospel of Luke, gospel of Luke chapter 15. And we will read together verses one to 10. This is God's word. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the 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 99 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 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Or what woman, having 10 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. So ends the reading of God's word. Let us go once again to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we thank you for your word, and we thank you that you are the God who draws sinners near, that we may hear your voice. Help us now, Lord, as we draw near as your people. Cause your word to have its intended effect in each of our hearts. Bring on each one of us a greater repentance and conformity to you, that there may be much rejoicing in heaven and on earth. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, boys and girls, have you ever lost something that was very precious to you? Maybe your grandparents were visiting and they gave you a crisp $20 bill and you kept it safe. But then suddenly you went to look for it and you couldn't find it anywhere. It was nowhere to be found. Well, what do you do at that point? Do you just shrug your shoulders and say, oh well, you know, it's gone, it's lost? No, of course you don't. You turn over every sofa cushion, you interrogate every sibling, you go to whatever ends necessary in order to find the lost precious treasure or imagine Imagine if you got separated from your parents at a fall festival and you couldn't find them anywhere. Well, do you think that they would just leave without you? Would they say, oh, well, we still have another four at home. It's all fine. Of course not. You're precious to them. And so they would not leave until they found you. They would search for you until they found you. Well, boys and girls, God has done something even greater than that in saving sinners. God has sent his only begotten son into the world to seek and to save those who are lost. In our passage today, Jesus is continuing on the road to Jerusalem. He has been teaching how the kingdom of heaven is not for the righteous, really the self-righteous, it's not for the elite of the world, but rather the kingdom is open to those who see their need for a savior. It's for those who know that they are spiritually blind and weak and lame and have nothing to offer. And as Jesus is sharing this message, sinners and tax collectors are drawing near to him. They want to hear more about this message, But the Pharisees are not happy about this. They're offended that Jesus would spend time with the likes of these. And so in response to their cynical grumbling, Jesus tells three parables. the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. And each of these parables serve to challenge the Pharisees in their self-righteousness and to further reveal that Christ's kingdom is a kingdom of grace. Each of these parables shows us how God goes to great lengths to find and to restore lost sinners. Each of these parables serves to show that God is a God whose arms are open wide, all who repent of their sins and come and trust in his saving work through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Each one of us here needs to hear this this morning, this afternoon, don't we? Whether we are lost sheep whose souls are in great peril or whether we are straying sheep wandering from the fold of God. or whether we are those who are cynical and critical in our hearts like the Pharisees, each one of us needs to be reminded of this refreshing good news of the gospel that causes even the angels of heaven to dance and to party and to celebrate with great joy over sinners who repent. And so let's consider then our lost condition, our rescuing Savior, and our joyful reception. Well, the first thing that Jesus wants us to grasp is the seriousness of our lost condition. Now, this isn't a new idea in Jesus' teaching. It's something that he's been showing us throughout his journey towards Jerusalem. He has been continually emphasizing that the kingdom of God is not for the self-sufficient. It's not for the righteous, as it were, right? The healthy don't need the physician. Rather, it's the unhealthy, it's the ill, it's the sick. And the reality is that everyone falls into that category. There is truly no one who is righteous, there is no one who is unhealthy and not in need of the great physician that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Christ is leading us to see that it is to those who humble themselves, who recognize their brokenness and their inadequacy, it is to those to whom the kingdom is open, wide, And in verse one, we see how many are responding positively to this message. Many are coming to recognize their lost condition. We read in verse one, now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. So the tax collectors and sinners are flocking around Jesus. They want to hear more. They want to know more of this message of salvation for sinners. But not everyone is comfortable with this. In verse 2 we read immediately, the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. Now to understand the Pharisees reaction we need to really get a better sense of how shocking it was for a respected rabbi like Jesus to be eating with these sorts of people. The word sinners is really a catch-all for the most despicable and offenders of society. It's a description of those kinds of people that are known as thieves, as drunkards, as prostitutes, and really anyone who didn't conform to the particular habits of the Pharisees. Tax collectors were lumped into this group with the sinners because they were seen as traitors to their own people and extortionists. They profited off of the oppressive Roman tax system that was farmed out to basically these local tax collecting agencies. And when you think of these tax collectors, don't think of a harmless, helpless, nerdy accountant with an abacus. No, think of Don Corleone from The Godfather. These men were vicious. They were thugs. John Chrysostom, who was a man living in the ancient world and had seen these guys up front, he describes them this way. He says, the tax gatherer is the personification of licensed violence, of legal sin, and specious greed. So this is basically your organized crime syndicate in this local town, these tax gatherers. And in contrast, the Pharisees were those who prided themselves as being nationalists and patriots. They were those who were also separated from the unholy hoi polloi. They would never want to be seen with the likes of these people, let alone sit across from a table eating with them. And yet here is this Jesus who's drawing a great following, who obviously has a good handling of the scriptures. He is a respected rabbi and yet he's sitting at the table and he's eating with these people. Now to eat with someone in the first century world wasn't like grabbing a coffee with a friend or grabbing a slice of pizza from Messinos. To eat with someone in the ancient world was really a great show of fellowship with that person. It was a sign of deep friendship. Now to be clear, Jesus wasn't eating with them in order to share in their sin. He wasn't eating with them in order to kind of gain some street credibility. He wasn't there to approve their sin. No, he was there eating with sinners and tax collectors to save them from their sin. Of course, this didn't make any sense to the Pharisees. They were simply disgusted by this. They had no category for something like this. And this response of the Pharisees, their disgust, their grumblings, really it reveals less about Jesus and less about the sinners and tax collectors, and it reveals a whole lot more about their own hearts. Their hearts were filled with pride and arrogance and self-righteousness. They failed to see that they were just as lost as those sinners and tax collectors. Maybe their sin wasn't as outwardly shocking as the external sins of the others, but their sin was no less grievous and damning, that internal pride, that cynicism. And so to drive this point home, Jesus tells these three parables, two of which we will focus on today. In verse four, he begins the first parable about the lost sheep. He says, what man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost? So the picture is of a shepherd who is counting his sheep, and as he gets to 99, he realized his last one is missing. And so he knows that he needs to go searching for it. And a missing sheep is really a sheep that's in real danger. Sheep, so I'm told, are not the brightest of animals. And sheep don't have the same sense of direction as maybe your cat or your dog at home, who maybe if they get let out of the house, they run away for a while, and then they find their way back. Well, sheep are not like that. When sheep wander, they become very disorientated. They often wander into danger. They get lost in a thicket. They might run off a cliff. And of course, in the face of any predator, they're almost completely defenseless. The white puffballs that they are. And so a straying sheep is not just a lost sheep, really, it's a sheep that's on the path to self-destruction. Well, the second parable is that of a woman who loses a precious coin. In verse eight, Jesus says, or what woman having 10 silver coins if she loses one? So here we have the picture of a woman who maybe she's a widow, And maybe her entire life savings is this collection of 10 coins. This is what she's hoping will see her through her old age, maybe when it's more difficult for her to work. And she loses one of them. And these coins were the equivalent of a full day's wage. Now, it's hard to quantify and work out exactly today's equivalent, and so I won't. But although the parable does not give us any more details about the woman's financial situation, these coins are clearly very precious to her. But now, one of those coins is lost. In fact, in both parables, there's something that's very precious that is lost. Verse 7 and 10 show us that the lost thing is the sinner who repents. And therefore, Jesus is showing that We are the lost thing. We are the lost sheep. We are the lost coin. This is our condition. Apart from Christ, we are lost, wandering in the wilderness, helpless and in danger. We're not just on a spiritual journey, trying to find our way. No, we are utterly lost like sheep, wandering to our own destruction. And until God finds us, we are helplessly lost. A lost coin doesn't find itself. It doesn't return itself to our pockets or our wallets. It remains lost until someone seeks it out and finds it. And such is our spiritual state. We cannot find ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. That's what Jesus is teaching here. This is why he's drawing near to these tax collectors and sinners. It's because they are lost. They're lost sheep in need of a shepherd. But he's also teaching that it's not just the outcasts of society who are lost, but even the Pharisees, with all of their religious observance, are equally lost until they repent and turn to Christ. Their self-righteousness is just an external show that masks their own unrepentant hearts that are far from God. And we all need to recognize that apart from Christ, we are all lost. It's not just the dregs of society. It's not just the category of people that we may not like or may think that they are below us in some kind of way. No, the Old Testament says that all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. We all, apart from Christ, are lost and we all need to be returned by Christ. Being described as a lost sheep is not a compliment that the Bible pays us. Rather, it's a term that describes the depths of our lostness. It means that we're needy. We're vulnerable. We're prone to wandering into danger. It means that we don't need a life coach or some kind of spiritual guide. No, we need a savior. Now, Satan wants us to believe that we're not lost, it's the other person who's lost. It's the guy in prison, he's the lost guy. Or it's the drug dealer, or it's the person you see on TV, or the celebrity who's been found out in their sin. That's what every false religion will tell us, that, well, really, we're not all that bad. And if we just work a little bit, well, we can improve ourselves and we'll be fine. But Jesus wants us to see that our condition is far, far worse than we realize. Our problem is not that we have an unfulfilled life and we simply need a few points to guide us in the right direction or that we need to be more spiritual or meditate more. No, our condition is that we are lost sheep. And apart from Christ, we're worse than lost. The Apostle Paul says that we're dead. Paul says, you were dead in your sins and trespasses. And dead things don't need a little moral improvement. Corpses don't need improvement of that sort, no. What corpses need is resurrection life. And so just like the sheep, and like the coin, and like a corpse, we need God to do something for us that we cannot do for ourselves. Well, although we may be helplessly lost, we are not hopelessly lost, for we have, secondly, a rescuing savior, one who comes and finds us and takes us to himself. So the shepherd has lost the sheep, the woman has lost her coin of great value. Well, what now? Boys and girls, if you have a toy, maybe a collection of toys, a collection of dolls, Find it. One of them is going missing. What do you do? You go and you search for it, don't you? Why? Because it's of value to you. It's precious. It's yours. You want it. It must be returned from wherever it's lost. And so likewise, both the shepherd and the woman begin their diligent search to rescue that thing that was lost. A shepherd usually counted his flock before putting them away for the night. And in our story, the shepherd counts his flock and realizes that one of them is missing. And so he goes and he searches for the sheep until he finds it. And when he finds it, he places the sheep on his shoulders and he brings it back to the fold. Similarly, the woman who loses her coin doesn't shrug it off. Instead, we have the picture of a very diligent search. In a home that was probably windowless and very dark, she lights a lamp, and then she sweeps the whole house. She probably gets on her hands and knees and searches every corner and every dust pile, listening carefully for the sound of a coin perhaps rolling across the floor until she finds it. And what these two parables illustrate for us is how God initiates our salvation, how he searches for us and seeks us and rescues us. And when he finds us, he carries us home. And we see God do this from the very beginning of scripture, don't we? Consider Adam in the garden. After he sins, what does Adam do? He hides in shame. He tries to cover himself. He flees from God. What does God do? Does he abandon him to his shame? Does he allow Adam to hide? No, he searches for Adam, and he finds Adam, and he clothes him, and he provides for him. Ever before there is provision of atonement, God in his mercy searches for Adam and provides the promise of a future savior to come. Or think of Abraham. Abraham was a pagan. He wasn't searching for God. He wasn't on a spiritual quest to find the true God. He was a pagan, his parents were pagans, and God searched him out, and in his mercy, entered into a covenant with him, calling him from the land of Ur, bringing him to a promised land. Or think of Israel. So many times, Israel went through that cycle of disobedience, and even all the way to exile, and God, again and again, searched and found and sought and returned Israel to himself. You see, all throughout Scripture, God is depicted as the shepherd who pursues and rescues his flock. In Isaiah chapter 40, verse 11, we read those very tender and comforting words. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. In fact, the prophet Ezekiel foretold of a time when God himself would do this. In Ezekiel chapter 34, verses 11 and 12, God says, I myself will search for my people, or for my sheep, and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock, and when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered. From beginning to end, God initiates our salvation. He doesn't wait for us to find our way home or perhaps come halfway home until he reaches out. No, he doesn't do that because we can't do that. We are spiritually lost. And this great promise of God himself coming as the shepherd to rescue his lost sheep is finally fulfilled when in the fullness of time, the father sent his only begotten son into the world where Christ came And he took on a true body and a reasonable soul. Jesus came on a mission to seek and to save that which was lost. And so when we were lost, wandering in the foothills of disobedience, Jesus came to our rescue. For he is the shepherd who traverses the wild terrain, who climbs the steep hills and descends the rocky ravines, who braves every danger to find his lost and straying sheep. And Jesus is not simply the shepherd who lifts us out of our difficulties and our troubles, but he is also the good shepherd who lays down his own life for the sheep. As the apostle Peter writes, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. And this Christ did for all of his sheep, for all of his elect. And if you are one trusting in Christ, he has done this for you. The shepherd knew you by name. And he said, this one is mine. And he came and he rescued you. He took you, he put you on his shoulders, and he brought you to himself. In history, Jesus did all that was necessary for your salvation in coming in the incarnation, in living a sinless life according to the law, in dying on the cross, in being raised from death, and ascending to the Father's right hand. This he did in history. And this he also did for you personally, applying the benefits of salvation to you as an individual. Think of how he did that. Think of how he put that relative, that friend, perhaps that stranger who shared the gospel with you, maybe that series of people who one after another testified and gave that answer to the hope that was within them, leading you to see your lostness and to see the Savior. He placed you under the preaching of God's word and through the means of the preached word, the Holy Spirit opened your heart to believe by faith and trust in Christ. And now you are his, secure in his arms. And the good news is that this gospel promise of a savior is open to all who call upon him. So if you are a lost sheep here today, there is good news for you. The good news that Jesus is still the shepherd who is seeking and saving those who are lost. Christ is that shepherd who rescues us from our lost condition. But what happens next? We know that we're saved by Christ, we are brought into his kingdom, but what does that reception into the kingdom of Christ look like? Is God or heaven itself half-hearted about our reception? Do the angels in heaven watch with criticism and cynicism, wondering how have they been let in? Is that the response of heaven? Well, Jesus shows us heaven's response, and it's nothing of the sort. When a sinner is saved, when a sinner is brought back into the fold by Christ, heaven rejoices. And so third, we'll consider our joyful reception. Well, after the shepherd finds his lost sheep, does he scold the sheep? Does he humiliate the sheep for being lost? Does he beat the sheep and make the sheep do penance or laps around the fold? No, nothing of the sort. Look at verse five. 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." The shepherd rejoices that his sheep is found. And he doesn't share that, doesn't experience that rejoicing privately, but he calls his neighbors and friends to celebrate with him and the celebration of this restoration. In the same way, the woman who finds her lost coin, she doesn't keep her happiness to herself. She can't contain her joy. And so she invites her friends and neighbors all around her saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost. The recovery of this precious, precious coin that was part of her life savings, no doubt, is cause for community-wide celebration. And Jesus tells us that these parables are images for how repentant sinners are received into heaven. Look at verse seven. Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. And verse 10. Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. When a sinner repents, heaven rejoices. The courts of heaven burst into celebration when a sinner turns to God. This is not a half-hearted welcome, is it? It's not a kind of a cold reception where we're kept at an arm's distance. No, it's a festal reception where all of heaven rejoices over the return of the lost sheep. But notice there's a key word here, and that word is repentance. Jesus' message to sinners and tax collectors and Pharisees is not that their sin is fine or God doesn't really care about their sin, you know, just kind of come as you are, it doesn't really matter. No, that's not his message. And there would be no hope in a message like that. Christ's message is that he has come to deal with our sin. Repentance. means to turn away from sin, to turn away from former ways of unbelief, and to turn and to trust in Christ. Repentance is not just feeling bad about our actions. We all, sooner or later, at some point in our life, feel bad for the bad things we've done. Believers, unbelievers alike feel remorse. True repentance is more than remorse. True repentance involves coming to God and saying, Lord, I am a sinner, forgive me. As 2 Corinthians 7.10 says, this is the godly sorrow that brings repentance that leads to salvation. And this repentance, this turning to God is what leads to the joyful celebration of all of heaven. When a sinner repents, when a sinner turns from their sin and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, There's a party in heaven. In Hebrews chapter 12, it speaks of how we come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering. Heaven, if you've ever wondered what it's like, is a place of great joy, where angels have parties and rejoice over repentant sinners. And it's not only the angels who are full of joy, but Jesus is too. Jesus did not save you begrudgingly. He did not go to the place of crucifixion and mount the cross begrudgingly or half-heartedly. And now as repentant sinners turn to him in repentance and faith, he doesn't welcome you back with a half-hearted politeness or Keep you at a distance. No, he is the shepherd who, once he finds you, he grabs you and he throws you over his shoulders and he brings you home rejoicing. All that he did for your salvation, he did joyfully, as Hebrews 12, two says, for the joy that was set before him. He endured the cross, despising the shame. Even the shame he bore joyfully. And what was this joy? Well, it was the joy of saving lost sinners like us who are wandering far from Him. And now Jesus wants us as His people to share in that joy. He wants us to have a taste and to become intoxicated with the joy of heaven itself. But how often are we prone not to heaven's joy, but to the Pharisees' cynicism and skepticism. We sometimes, like the Pharisees, look at the lost and wonder with skepticism how they could ever be saved, how they could ever be part of a church, given their sin or their past sins. Or if we're honest, sometimes we look down on others, whether it's the troubled youth or the drug addict or the drug dealer, the outsider, But this is exactly the attitude of the Pharisees. And it's exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ is speaking against and rebuking. It's so easy to fall into the heart trap of the Pharisees, to look on others, to compare ourselves with others and always come out superior, better, more mature. But this is not the joy or heart of Christ. This is not the joy or heart of heaven. No, the joy of heaven is found when we first humbly recognize that we too are lost coins, unable to find ourselves or save ourselves. We are lost sheep in need of a shepherd to save us. And thus, when we are found, we know that heaven rejoices. And when we see others found, we rejoice with all the angels. And this joy is something that should permeate our lives. It is a joy we can have even in happy times and even in times of sorrow and pain. There's this kind of false notion that some Christians have that it's more spiritual to be stoic, joyless, emotionless, having a kind of a Spock-like demeanor and character, as if that is the pinnacle of Christlikeness. But as we can are brought to Christ in scripture, we see that that is not Christ-like at all. Because heaven is not an emotionless place. Heaven is a place that is filled with joy. And therefore we should not try to be more somber or more reverent than heaven itself. And so when we witness a baptism, yes, it should be a time of reverence and awe for we are worshiping the Lord. but it should also be a time marked by great joy where our hearts are reflective of the angels in heaven who are celebrating the repentance of a lost sinner. In John 15, Jesus says, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. Beloved, Jesus wants you to be filled with his joy, with heaven's joy. He wants you to be filled with the joy of seeing sinners come to him in repentance and faith. And we do share in that joy as we share in the joy over the things that make him joyful, as we rejoice in our salvation and as we rejoice over the salvation of the lost. And so, beloved, share in your Savior's joy, share and the joy of the angels in heaven. Rejoice in your salvation. Rejoice in the salvation of others. Pray for the salvation of many more lost sheep, that they might come to God in faith and repentance. And do so knowing that if God saved you, can he not save the most wretched and vile of sinners? Yes, Christ is the good shepherd who laid down his life and who still searches, finds and saves and brings to heaven lost sheep. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, we thank you for your great plan of redemption and sending your son to be the great shepherd of our souls who not only found us but paid the price to return us to the fold, the price that our sins incurred. And now the one who has given us the Holy Spirit that we may be filled with his joy, the joy of heaven. And Lord, we pray that through your word and through even the remainder of the elements and the service this afternoon, that you would continue to fill our hearts with heaven's joy. We pray these things in Jesus name.