The Joy that Welcomes the Lost

In Luke 15:1-7, Jesus tells a parable about a shepherd leaving 99 sheep to find one lost sheep, revealing God's heart for the lost. Speaking to both sinners and religious elites, Jesus challenges the Pharisees' exclusionary attitude. As a rabbi, Jesus redefined spiritual leadership from mastery to mercy, choosing disciples others rejected. The parable demonstrates that God actively pursues the lost, celebrates their return, and values restoration over religious conformity. Heaven rejoices more over one sinner who repents than over 99 who need no repentance, calling us to align our hearts with this divine celebration.

Transcript

All right, friends, I'm going to invite you to open your Bibles today if you have them with you. We're going to open up to the book of Luke. It's in the New Testament. It is one of the gospels. We're going to start in Luke 15, and we're going to read a short section today, seven verses.

So we're going to read Luke 15:1 through seven. I was telling Kim earlier, Kim, who leads our worship, telling her earlier that this sermon is only like 10 pages long, so it is going to be one of the shortest ever. So get ready to get lunch early. Okay? All right.

We're going to open this morning with the Word, so if you don't have your Bibles, you can follow along on the screen. Here's a word of the Lord for us this morning. Now, the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, this man welcomes sinners and he eats with them. Then Jesus told them this parable. Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.

Doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me. I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who do not need to repent.

I don't really enjoy hearing that. Right. I am one of the righteous, Right? Like, sometimes I think all of us feel like we are that righteous person. I go to church, I give my gifts of dollars to the church to support the ministry of God.

And I want heaven to be thankful for me. What about me, Jesus, Right?

This morning we're talking about the kind of joy that makes heaven throw a party. And spoiler alert, it's not on us. It's not on us here in this room. It's not on the righteous people who have their lives figured out and they have everything all put together. Today, our focus is going to be on the lost.

And the parable that Jesus uses here in Luke 15 is followed by two more, right? Later on, we hear the story of the woman who loses her lost coin. Right? And then later on, we hear the story of the lost son.

Today our focus is going to be on the lost and these parables that Jesus uses in Luke 15 aren't just meant to teach us. Jesus is using these particular parables to kind of reframe reality. And the context of what Jesus is saying is super crucial. So we're going to dive into that this morning. So let's get back into chapter 15.

We're going to read just the first four verses, and I want us to dig in. So it says, now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and the teachers of law muttered, this man welcomes sinners and he eats with them. Shame on him. Right? And then Jesus launches into the parable.

Suppose one of you has 100 sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? So we have to set the scene here, right? So Jesus in this moment, he's talking to two very specific and very different groups of people he is in. We could just assume that Jesus is in Judea, right?

He's walking around Judea, but in this particular section of Scripture, he's not in a temple, he's not in a synagogue. Scripture just kind of leaves us to imagine that Jesus is just in a public area somewhere, and then the people start to gather around him. And who does scripture say are the people that gather around him? Sinners. And so sinners and sinners, right?

That's us.

Scripture says it's the tax collectors, it's the sinners. And so Jesus, who is a rabbi teaching out in the open, just hanging out, walking around town, is surrounded by the people that nobody wants to be around. And that in itself would be pretty radical. So when you think about Jesus, and we've all heard, like, the different names that have been used for Jesus throughout Scripture, what are some of the names that come to your mind when you. When you think about who Jesus is?

What do his disciples call him? What do other people refer to him as? Give me some names. Teacher, Messiah, master, rabbi. Lots of different names for Jesus.

And all of those infer that Jesus is some sort of, like, spiritual guide, right?

I want to talk today a little bit about the word rabbi. There's a lot more to rabbi than I think that we get because we are not from a Jewish community. And I don't think we fully understand what it means when we talk about that word. In the first century in Judea, a rabbi wasn't just a synagogue employee or a robed official.

A rabbi was going to be a recognized teacher of God's word, the Torah. He Was often itinerant. You know what that word means? He goes from one place to another. Oftentimes rabbis don't stay in just one little area.

They move around. And his authority didn't come from an ordination, but from his mastery of scripture. And it was based on the caliber of his disciples.

Jesus fit into this mold, but he shattered the expectations of what people thought of when they thought of rabbi. During Jesus day, rabbis weren't judged specifically and only by what they taught, Evaluated by the quality, the character and the commitment of those who followed them. A rabbi's reputation was inseparable from the kind of students that he attracted and that he grew informed and sent out to share his message. But Jesus chose for himself disciples that no other rabbi would touch.

A rabbi's credibility was often measured by how well his disciples understood and lived out the the commands that were found in Torah. A rabbi was judged by whether his disciples could teach other people. They were judged by their moral and spiritual integrity, and they were judged by their disciples loyalty and their public behavior. How they acted out in public made a difference. The word rabbi meant master, right?

Some people interpret it as teacher, but it's more than that, it's deeper than that. But Jesus refined the definition from mastery to mercy. So what does all this tell us about Jesus? About the people he surrounded himself with? We know.

And scripture directly points to the fact that in this moment, Jesus constantly found himself surrounded by people who were often of a troubled past, who didn't look like the kind of people that many of us would like to invite into our homes. He was often surrounded by that same group. Tax collectors and sinners. Right, that's the phrase. Tax collectors and sinners.

And when Jesus chose his 12 disciples that would lead in the early ministry of the church and how the church would expand and grow, he didn't choose the 12 people who were the smartest. Right. He didn't choose the disciples based on their ability to interpret Torah and apply it to their lives. He didn't choose the kind of people that were wealthy enough to support Jesus ministry. Right.

Jesus was also itinerant, walking around from different area to different area. And he often needed money for food and places to stay. He didn't rely on the wealth of his disciples to do that. Jesus chose for himself those that would have been rejected by any other rabbi. There is not one rabbi in the ancient near east that would have gone out to fishing boats to try to get the followers from there.

So when we're looking at the scripture, we know that Jesus is talking to these two very different groups. He's talking to the tax collectors and the sinners, the folks that who knew in their lives that they had problems and trouble. And these folks flocked to Jesus pretty much everywhere he went, because Jesus shared a radical message that sounded a lot like, man, he could be something special. This Jesus guy, is he the Messiah that we've been hearing about for hundreds of years? Is he the one that's going to deliver us back to Jerusalem, the Kingdom of David?

Are we going to be able to be our own people again? Is he going to save us from the Romans? Is he the chosen one?

That's one group. The second group that's listening to Jesus was made up of the Pharisees and the religious elite. They were the ones who were already found. They were the ones who thought they had their lives all put together. They knew the Torah, they taught the Torah.

They were followers of God. They thought they had their lives put together. And these people claimed God's kingdom for themselves. And basically, because they heaped on religious laws and this legalistic idea of what Torah meant, they got into the kingdom of heaven themselves and then shut the door behind them. And Jesus tells here in this moment, a story that flips this whole mentality upside down.

The story he tells is a simple one, right? It's just a couple of verses long, and it's a story about sheep. And that story is pointed, and it's important for us to hear today. So we got to talk about sheep for a second, right, Friends, as many sheep videos as you've seen on the Internet. Sheep, I'll just say they're not smart, okay?

They wander around. They often get stuck in fences, in shrubbery and branches of trees. If the wind blows too hard, sheep will panic and run for no reason whatsoever, right?

And oftentimes in this particular culture, when a sheep goes missing, the shepherd, who's in charge of tracking all these sheep and making sure they're all safe and sound, he doesn't say, well, okay, I've done a count. I've got 99 out of 100. That's still an A. I think I'm good. We'll just let that one go, right?

The shepherd was responsible for every one of the sheep. And so if one is missing, he goes after the one. He walks away from the 99 other sheep who are all together, and they're all kind of in relative safety so that he can go and search out the one that's not there. And Jesus is telling us here in this moment that that is his heart for us. It's exactly the point of anything that Jesus ever says or does.

He's not content with the 99 who have it all figured out. He's not okay with anyone being lost. He wants that one. Friends, hear this. Jesus wants the addict.

He wants the skeptic. He wants the doubter. He wants the person who hasn't been to church in 20 years. He wants the one that they've been told that they don't belong.

He wants the one that constantly messes up, constantly is in trouble, constantly is broken.

And here, Jesus uses the story of a sheep to talk about God's desire for salvation for all people. Jesus points out that the shepherd doesn't wait for the lone sheep to wander back into the pen. The shepherd takes an active role, goes out in search of that one lost sheep.

In case you aren't connecting the dots, this morning, using this parable, Jesus is talking about himself. Christ is the shepherd, right? And I don't know about you guys, but I am very thankful that there were moments in my life that Jesus came and found me and brought me back home. So scripture goes on, and here we are in Luke 15, 5, and 6, and it says, and when he finds it, the sheep, right? He joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.

Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and he says, rejoice with me. I have found my lost sheep. So the shepherd has gone out in search of the lost sheep. And when he finds it, he doesn't just wipe his brow and say, phew, I'm just checking on you. You're good.

I'll come back and we'll see you again later. He grabs that sheep where it is, in the midst of. Of it being lost, and takes it home.

This is a very active role. The shepherd isn't content to leave the sheep. He wants the sheep surrounded by the others, protected and in the same place. And when he brings the sheep back where it belongs, he tells everybody about it, right? So when I was a kid reading this, it literally says, he calls his friends and neighbors.

And I'm like, oh, Jesus picks up the telephone and. And calls his friends and neighbors, and they have a big party right? In my mind from the time I was a child, I have this vision of Jesus on the phone. Hey, guys, you got to come over. We're having a party.

I found my lost sheep.

I imagine Jesus, like, telling, it was a dark and stormy night, right? Starting a story, and my sheep was gone. It had been scared by the wind and the shadow of a flower. The sheep ran away and I hiked all day up a mountain, down into the ravines and I crossed the river and I finally found it and I brought it home. Friends, rejoice with me.

And Jesus continues on in verse seven. And here's where it gets poignant for us. I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Let's say that again. There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner than 99 righteous people. And that's not just a theological statement here that Jesus is making. This might end up hurting us right in the feelers for some of us who think we've got our lives put together. Jesus is saying that you're more excited about church attendance than about finding grace in that church.

Then you've missed the very heart of God. If you're more concerned with following the rules and welcoming the broken into a salvific relationship with Jesus, then we are not celebrating the same thing that heaven celebrates. And I believe that is not the kind of church that Jesus wants us to be. If you read Jesus the same way that I read Jesus in the Gospels, it means that we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we celebrate the things that Jesus celebrates, rather than us being legalistic about our faith and who we welcome. So I'm going to ask you a question.

I want you to think about it for a second.

Who's your one?

Who's the person that you've written off? Maybe the person you've ignored, the person you've quietly judged? Who's the person that you think is too far gone?

Because this story proves that Jesus doesn't write anyone off. Instead, Jesus chooses to write them into the story. And here's the challenge for us. Are we willing to leave the comfort of the 99 to go after the 1? These seats are pretty cushy, friends.

This air conditioner is rather nice on a balmy September afternoon, and we're not called to comfort.

If heaven throws a party for the outsider, then the church needs to be the DJ at that party.

So how do we do that? Well, first of all, friends, we have to start celebrating restoration. When somebody finds grace, we don't just say neat, right? That's our tendency. Jesus shows us that we have to rejoice.

We've got to throw a party. We've got to make some noise. We have to let our joy about salvation Be contagious because heaven's joy is never quiet, right? We live in a world that celebrates a lot of upside down, weird things. The world around us celebrates success, achievement and image.

But Jesus celebrates return.

Heaven doesn't cheer when you get a promotion at your job. It cheers when people get redeemed. So when someone walks through our doors after years away and someone says yes to grace, when someone finally believes that they're loved and they're welcomed, we're not just called to smile, we are called to celebrate like heaven does. That's why when we have baptisms, when we have people who join our church, it should be like standing ovation. Yes, they've come to Jesus.

Because if we don't rejoice over restoration, we are not reflecting the heart of Jesus and friends. We also have to be willing to pursue the One. And that, that's the hard part.

We can't just sit in our air conditioned sanctuary and wait for people to show up at our building. We have to go to them. We have to be the shepherds who search, not the gatekeepers who wait. Jesus didn't sit in the synagogue hoping the broken would just show up, that he could save them from there. Jesus got out.

He walked the dusty roads, he entered messy homes. He crossed boundaries both social and political. And he calls us to do the same. And if we are not doing the same, we are not truly following the radical Jesus that we see in scripture. So this week be thinking about who is my one?

Who's the person in my life that needs to be pursued not with judgment, but with love and with care. Maybe it's a neighbor, a co worker, a sibling, a child, a parent. Maybe it's someone we've given up on. But I want to remind you that Jesus never gives up on the one. And so we shouldn't either.

If we are not willing to leave the 99, we're not following the shepherd. And then we have to be the people who challenge the grumblers. So I will say this. When I was a young youth minister, I was the yes guy. Anything you want, I'll do whatever you want.

I worked myself.

So I went from being the part time youth minister to the full time youth minister pastoral assistant. I was the garbage man. I did all the it at the church like I did everything I could because I didn't want to disappoint anyone or let them down. And so oftentimes people would tell me things and I'd be like, okay, I don't know what to do with that information. One time I'm sitting in worship, I'm in the balcony running the slides for the pastor.

Right. Like I was back there where Levi is today. And as I'm running the slides, there's a gentleman sitting right next to me and people are getting up to go switch the slide over to the appropriate communion slide. And I'm just kind of humming along with the piano that's playing. And he looks over at me and he says, can you believe what that young girl is wearing?

So it was a young woman who was in our youth group who had a choice. She could have been anywhere else in the world that Sunday morning, but was sitting in our sanctuary with her family. Yeah, she was wearing like black fishnet gloves and had black lipstick on and a really short black kind of tutui dress on. And I had to look at him and I was like. Because again, I was 23.

Like, what do you say to a 50 year old man who just complained about what somebody's wearing? In church, there are always going to be grumblers. And we're going to have to be the people that challenge the grumblers. If we are the people who hear people in our own congregation mumbling like the Pharisees, we have to remind them that Jesus eats with sinners and thank God for it. Because if Jesus didn't eat for sinners, none of us would have a seat at the table.

Every church has its grumblers, and we're not exempt just because we do church in a really weird way. In a location above a sushi restaurant.

I know that we have people who say things like, why are they here? People who whisper they don't belong. People who think grace should be earned and not given. And when we become the flock that says things like that, we are breaking our shepherd's heart.

Again, Jesus did not come to show up just for the people who had their lives all put together. Jesus showed up for the sick, the lost, the broken. He didn't come just for those who had their lives polished and proper. He came for those who were left. And if we forget that, we become the very people that Jesus confronted.

So when you hear grumbling, speak up. And I don't mean speak up with anger, but with the truth. Remind them that if Jesus didn't eat with sinners, we'd all be outsiders.

The moment we stop welcoming the lost is the moment that we actively stop following Jesus. So here's the question today, church. Do we celebrate what heaven celebrates? Are we pursuing who and what Jesus pursues?

And are we willing to rejoice over the one.

I want to remind you that the joy of Jesus isn't safe. It's reckless, it's radical, and it's waiting for us to join the party.

So let's say yes to that church. Let's pray.