Wednesday, January 19, PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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We had a few minutes for later from the last time we looked at this passage.

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So we'll go back to Luke chapter 15 and listen to Jesus' parables about a lost sheep, lost silver and a lost son.

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Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for the time you've given to us. We thank you again for a warm place to meet and that we were able to feast together and enjoy the fellowship that we have as believers.

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And we thank you for the Browns putting together the meal.

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Thank you so much for them and thank you for making provision for us all together.

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Lord, I now ask that you would help us to understand your word, that you would encourage us according to your truth, and that we would agree together about your goodness and that we would rejoice in the things that you rejoice in.

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And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so Luke chapter 15, whole chapter again.

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Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to him to hear him.

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And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

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So he spoke this parable to them, saying, What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety -nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

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And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them,

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Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety -nine just persons who need no repentance.

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Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?

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And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which

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I lost. Likewise I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

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Then he said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father,

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Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. So he divided them to his livelihood.

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And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

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But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want.

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Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

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And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.

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But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger.

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I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

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Make me like one of your hired servants. He arose and he came to his father, but when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

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And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.

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But the father said to his servants, Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet, and bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again.

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He was lost and is found, and they began to be merry. Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.

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So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant, and he said to him, Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.

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But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father,

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Lo, these many years I have been a young goat, and yet you never gave me a young goat that I might make merry with my friends.

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But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.

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And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.

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It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.

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So last week we talked about the problem with the Pharisees and the scribes, is they didn't want to rejoice.

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They didn't want to rejoice. They didn't see anything worth rejoicing over when they looked over and there was

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Jesus of Nazareth, whom lately they had had at their table, and enjoyed his company, because he was very famous and everybody wanted to get close to Jesus.

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But now they see him dining with tax collectors and lesser sinners.

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There's the tax collectors and there's all the other sinners too. And they think this is terrible.

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And they have often said this in the Gospel of Luke. They have made complaints about Jesus and his disciples hanging out with tax collectors and sinners, when if they were a real holiness movement, if they were really godly, then they would have nothing to do with sinners and tax collectors and so on.

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And so Jesus wants to demonstrate how nonsensical their complaining is.

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The temple. And he does it here, when they don't want to rejoice over sinners being engaged with the

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Gospel of the Kingdom. So he tells these parables about a lost sheep and lost silver and a lost son.

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And he shows how natural it is for the shepherd who has lost a sheep, when he leaves the ninety -nine with the other shepherds or his other servants out in the field, and he's lost that one sheep.

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And he looks high and low and finally finds the sheep. He labors in a difficult way to find that sheep and he puts the sheep on his own shoulders and hauls it all the way back home.

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And he rejoices. And who wouldn't want to rejoice after a day like that? The sheep was lost and now it's found.

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Everybody come together, let's rejoice, let's make merry. And the same with the woman who has lost one of her ten silver coins, a precious gift to her from her father.

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She would have held onto this so dearly. To lose one of those ten coins was not only a financial loss, but an emotional loss.

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She cleans the house up and down, organizes everything until she finally finds the coin and then has to invite all of her friends over to rejoice.

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She couldn't post, selfie, found it, and everybody emoji celebrate.

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No, back then they actually had human relationships. She and her friends came together physically and rejoiced together about finding the coin.

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And then this extended parable that is very famous, the parable of the lost son.

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And we need to examine this because in efforts to obey

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Jesus and take up his call to rejoice over finding, rejoice over the lost and never bother to see whether they've been found.

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Right? And so we need to look at some of the indicators in the story of the prodigal that indeed he has been found.

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We find him in a faraway country, obviously not a Jewish country, because the job that he found was feeding pigs.

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So in their minds, how far would the young man have to travel away from his father's homestead to find a place to squander away his inheritance and prodigal living and then end up having to feed pigs?

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Did he have to go as near as Decapolis or did he have to travel far out into the boonies of Asia Minor in northern

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Galatia and find himself in these problems? Who knows where he ended up. He's a far, far away from home and he's out there feeding the pigs.

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He has nothing to eat. Everything has gone wrong and he realizes the problem.

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And we actually read that something very important happened to him. Verse 17.

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This is a wonderful expression that indicates how lost he was.

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He wasn't anywhere near himself he was so lost. He had to come to himself.

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Which means that in his mind and his affections, his affections were so disordered that he really didn't even realize the foolishness that he had been engaging in.

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Sometimes people are so lost they're nowhere near themselves. They don't know that their affections are disordered.

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They don't know that they have embraced folly. They don't know that everything in their life is so wrong it's hard to find anything straight or right.

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And their lives are full of excuses and justifications and stories and so on and so forth to try to piece together some sort of story that makes sense of it all but it doesn't even make sense.

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But he came to himself and he realized that even the servants of his father had bred enough in despair and here he is perishing with hunger.

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How foolish he was. He was the son in the household and now he doesn't even match up to one of the servants of his father's household.

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He realizes the true lowliness and the problems of his situation.

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And so he realizes what he needs to do. He needs to go home.

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He needs to return. And return in such a way that he's not looking for another handout. He's not going to go home with a story of excuses about, you know, how it wasn't his fault and I need a loan,

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I need you to finance my continued rebellion, please.

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That wasn't his approach. He said, I will arise and go to my father and say to him,

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Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. Now notice, he's not saying,

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I'm going to go back and I know I'm going to have to bend a little bit here and I'm going to say something like,

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I feel bad that we had a misunderstanding. No, no.

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I have sinned before heaven. I have sinned against heaven and I have sinned against you. I have offended

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God and I have offended you. I am entirely in the wrong. This is what you call repentance.

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This is what you call confession. This is what you call a godly sorrow, brokenness.

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I want you to see that when he came to himself with who he really was by the grace of God, he examines his life in the light of God, in the light of heaven, and he says,

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I'm wrong. I did wrong. I sinned. I transgressed against the law of God.

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I have offended the holiness of God. When by the grace of God, we come to ourselves and we see ourselves for who

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God sees us in his light, we take God's side against ourselves.

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You know what, God, you know, look at my life, it's a mess and you know, I've come to the other side of the matter on this.

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We used to be on opposite sides and now I'm on, I'm taking your side against myself now. You were right all along, okay,

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God, you called your son, make me like one of your hired servants.

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And so he, he is humble. He's not going to try to put any kind of merit here.

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He's just, I'm not worthy to be your son. Can I, can I have a job? I'll be willing to work as a servant here.

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So this is his plan. It is a good plan. It is a clear sign that he has already been found before he ever meets his father.

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He's already been found by the hound of heaven. God has got a hold of him.

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He's not let him go. Remember how God's love is expressed towards Jacob and how

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God hounded Jacob time and time and time again, even wrestling him and giving him a permanent injury.

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So every time he tried to walk in limp, he would remember the Lord and live in the fear of the Lord. And this is the love of God that he would not leave us alone.

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Jacob, I have loved Esau, I have hated, God said, and he let Esau alone and didn't mess with him at all and let

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Esau be Esau and do whatever Esau wanted. And that's how you see the hatred of God when he doesn't bother with you at all.

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But it is love when he hounds us, when he won't let us go and he, and he comes after us. And so the son did as he had planned.

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He arose and came to his father and we see the compassion of the father. Now it's interesting that this, this man, obviously, uh, having two sons and, uh, at the point where he can leave an inheritance already, uh, that he has some years to him, but he runs to meet his father, uh,

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Jewish men in the ancient near East did not run. This man is like a city elder.

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They were too dignified to run. Uh, they weren't, uh, they weren't too dignified to ride around on donkeys and, and, um, and hitch up their knees a little bit so that their feet didn't drag on the ground, but they were too dignified to run.

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They just did not do that. But here this father doesn't care. He loves his son.

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He sees him a far away off. He's been looking for him and he runs and greets him and kisses him and shows him compassion and mercy and love.

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And the son starts in and says, father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

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And this is true. This is very true. But the father shows grace and mercy and says, my son was dad is alive again.

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Let's feast. Let's make Mary, let us rejoice. And as Jesus is telling this parable again, the point is that the

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Pharisees and the scribes are being found, complained. They're looking at some, some sinners and as they are hearing what

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Jesus has to say and hear, and some of them are being found, but they're complaining.

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They're griping. And they're like the older son. They're like the older son who doesn't think he has any need of repentance.

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And in fact, he is so righteous and holy that when he talks about his brother, he doesn't say my brother.

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He says to his father, your son, right? This son of yours. He has, he has no joy at all in the fact that one who was lost is found, that one who was dead is now alive.

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And in this way, the older son fits the bill of Jesus's satire at the end of the parable of the lost sheep and the lost silver when he says, or at the end of the lost sheep when he says,

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I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance.

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Well there is no such person. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no not one.

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But the Pharisees and scribes believed that they were just. They didn't think that they had any need of repentance.

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When you think of the parable that Jesus tells of the Pharisee who's in the middle of the temple court and he's praying to God and saying, and he was praying to himself.

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Also very funny line. Praying to himself, I thank you God that you did not make me like, you know, all these sinners and so on.

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And this tax collector over here, I thank you that I tithe and I do all the right things and God don't you love me because I've got it all right.

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Contrasted with the tax collector who did not even dare to look up to heaven but he bowed his head and he beat his chest and he said,

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God be merciful, Greek word for propitious, be propitious to me a sinner.

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And Jesus says, truly I say to you that man went away justified to his house. Because righteousness, the righteousness that we need is the righteousness of God and that can only be given to us by his grace through the propitiation of Jesus Christ.

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So having looked at this, if the son, the prodigal son, making excuses and if he was trying to bilk some more money out of his father and so on and the father was like, you know, well at least you came home and oh it's okay and then, you know, had a big party for him even though the son obviously was still in rebellion.

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Then the older son might have a complaint where he says, why are you helping him to continue to rebel?

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There's nothing worth celebrating here. But the fact is that he had been found.

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There was repentance. It was clear. There was a great change. He had come to himself. He came confessing his sins.

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He was saying the same thing about his sins that God would say about his sins.

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He wasn't looking for anything. He was humbling himself. There was a true repentance and that should be rejoiced in.

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That should be something worthy of praise and gladness.

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So when we read these three parables, especially the parable of the lost son, we see that being found is something that is clear.

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He came to himself, he confessed his sins, and he returned in humility.

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He wasn't going to go back to the old ways and go back to the pigs and so on and so forth.

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There was a genuine change in his life. What Jesus was aiming at when he was receiving sinners and eating with them, when he was spending time with the tax collectors and sinners, he was seeking their repentance.

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He told the adulterous woman, go and sin no more. He told the rich young ruler to repent of his idolatry.

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Jesus would spend time with sinners and tax collectors and prostitutes and so on and so forth, not because he was affirming them in their identity.

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He wasn't affirming them in their lifestyle choices. He was telling them the truth and calling them home to their maker, calling them to repentance.

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And that's what he was doing. Now this brings up something

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I think of practice. When the

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Pharisees and scribes complained about Jesus sitting down at a table and eating with sinners and so on and so forth.

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This might be a live complaint within churches today.

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And it has been in history. For example, the old joke was that Baptists have long been against adultery and getting drunk because that might lead to playing cards and dancing.

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There was a concern about holiness to be sure. However, how do you get the gospel to people who need it?

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Drive by bad looking areas and shake your head sadly. It's not going to cut it.

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So we have to be clear. Let's go to 1 Corinthians. I think we just need a bit of clarity on this principle.

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Paul's writing to the church in Corinth, which again, wow, when people say, we need a first century church,

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I don't want a first century church. Have you read 1 and 2 Corinthians?

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Well, that first century church has lots of problems. And so he writes and he rebukes very strongly, very strongly that there was immorality among them and they had not taken care of it.

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That there was incest in their midst. Then we come to verse 9,

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I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.

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You see that? Do you not keep company with sexually immoral people? I said, but wait a second, didn't

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Jesus allow that sexually immoral woman to break her perfume over him and wipe his feet and cry over him and so on?

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Now, he goes on, yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters since then you would need to go out of the world.

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We don't need an out of this world Christianity. Alright, Jesus in John 17 explicitly prayed to the

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Father and said, don't take them out of the world concerning his followers, Christians.

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He explicitly says, Father, do not take them out of this world, leave them here.

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John 17, that's what he prays. He wants them there, why? So that they will testify to the truth.

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So here, he says, Paul says, I didn't mean with the sexually immoral people of the world or the covetous, extortioners, idolaters since then you would need to go out of the world.

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But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner.

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Not even to eat with such a person. Now you see the difference?

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What Paul is saying, now, so the complaint of the Pharisees and scribes against Jesus hanging out with sinners is an illegitimate complaint.

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Jesus is there giving them gospel. He's saying repent of your sins. Don't you realize you're in pig slop?

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Don't you realize that you're trying to fill your life with that which just leaves you hungry? Why do you spend your money for that which will not satisfy?

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Come buy and eat from me. Right? He's witnessing to them. He is calling them to repentance.

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He is with the sinners. So the Pharisees and scribes think that's an awful thing.

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But it's not. What would be awful, what would be awful is if there were some who were saying that they were followers of Christ and they were bearing the name of Christ but they were bearing it in vain.

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And in fact, they were members of the church but they were sexually immoral and they were covetous and they were an idolater and they were a reviler and they were a drunkard or they were an extortioner.

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And to keep on bringing them back into the church every week, sit with them, affirm them as a brother in Christ or a sister in Christ.

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Have communion with them at the Lord's table and say everything's alright and hunky dory. Paul says that's the problem.

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He says that's the problem, that should not be done. Because the church is the temple of the

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Holy Spirit. And why are we defiling God's temple here?

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But there needs to be a call to repentance and if there's not repentance then there needs to be church discipline.

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So Paul is saying the people you don't eat with, the people you don't eat with are those who call themselves

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Christians and live like the devil. Don't give them affirmation but call them to repentance and if they won't then they need to be under church discipline.

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As it regards the other folks who are pagans doing pagan things, surprise surprise, pagans are going to pagan, they need to hear the gospel.

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So spending time with them means not, oh tell me more about all who you are so I can celebrate with you.

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No. You know, tell me more about your sin -filled identity so that I can affirm you.

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No. But taking the opportunity as Jesus did to call them to repentance.

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But showing them love and showing them hospitality, so on and so forth. So sometimes

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I think there can be some confusion when we see instructions like this in 1 Corinthians 5 and we see examples of Christ in Luke 15.

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These are not contradictory and in fact they affirm each other.

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They affirm each other. So there's the last bit of Luke 15.