FBC Morning Light – March 23, 2023

A good Thursday morning to you. Today we're reading in Deuteronomy chapters 9 and 10,

Luke 15, and the 59th Psalm. Today I want to look at these parables that Jesus tells in Luke chapter 15.

They're parables about lost things. How do you respond when you find something that's been lost for a while?

We have a couple of grandchildren running around our house, and one of them is about two years of age.

He just turned two the other day. We have this little thing, it's a hide -and -seek game that uses a mouse.

What you do is you hide the mouse and you push a button, and every once in a while the mouse will give a little message.

The idea is that they hear the thing, and then they get closer. It's a very small, faint noise at first, doesn't last long, and so forth.

The kids were playing, one of the kids hid the mouse, and then something happened.

They got distracted and they never found the mouse and went into something else. Our little two -year -old is walking around for a couple of days saying, where'd the mouse go?

Where'd the mouse go? We're looking all over the place trying to find this mouse and couldn't find it anywhere.

She just keeps asking, where'd the mouse go? Where'd the mouse go? One afternoon I opened a cabinet, and there on the top shelf of that cabinet was the mouse.

I found the mouse. I brought the mouse out, said it before the granddaughter, she's so excited, the lost mouse has been found.

She didn't say it that way, she said, the mouse, the mouse, she's all excited. That's how we normally would respond when something we've lost, we treasure, has been found.

That's the point that Jesus makes in these parables. The parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the lost son.

Notice how Jesus moves from maybe the lesser to the greater, perhaps,

I don't know. Obviously, the last is the most significant thing that was lost and is found, but in each case, the response to finding that which was lost should be a response of elation.

When the lost sheep is found, the shepherd goes out and says, rejoice with me,

I found my sheep which was lost, and everybody would. Everybody would rejoice with the shepherd that finds his lost sheep.

The woman who loses the coin, she finds the coin, and she goes to her neighbors and says, rejoice with me, for I found the coin that was lost.

You would expect that's what would happen. Same with this prodigal son, who seems to be lost.

He goes off into the far country and lives a life of squandering wealth and then squalor, from squandering to squalor.

But he comes to a point of repentance, and he returns home to his father, and the father basically says, let's have a party, my son who was lost is found, let's rejoice, rejoice with me, my son who was lost is found.

Why is Jesus telling these parables? Because, as chapter 15 opens, there are some people who are pretty ticked with Jesus because of whom he's rubbing shoulders with.

We read it like this, it says, all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Jesus to hear him, and the

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

The Pharisees, in seeing these tax collectors and sinners, as they call them, drawing near to Jesus, they heard what

Jesus has to say. They should be rejoicing, they should be rejoicing, finally somebody has reached these people, these ones who really didn't want to have anything to do with religion or with God.

Definitely, perhaps, didn't want anything to do with the religion of the Pharisees, but they didn't want anything to do with God. They were living their own life, they were doing what they wanted to do, and they just had no regard for God and his word.

But Jesus comes along, and they're drawn to him. They want to hear what he has to say.

They should be rejoicing that these tax collectors and sinners want to hear what

Jesus has to say. They should be like the angels in heaven, who rejoice over one sinner who is lost and is found.

But no, they're critical, they're caustic. In the last parable that Jesus tells, he tells the parable of the prodigal son, but it's the elder son that is really the target of that parable.

The elder brother, when he sees his younger brother return back from the foreign land, he's filled with envy, he's filled with animosity toward his brother, toward his father even, because his father welcomes him back with open arms and throws a party.

The elder brother is critical and caustic. The father says to the older brother, should we not be glad that your brother who is dead is alive again, he was lost and is found?

With that statement, Jesus sends a dagger into the heart of the Pharisees, who are standing with their arms folded and a scowl on their face, criticizing

Jesus for receiving tax collectors and sinners who are hungry to hear what

Jesus has to say. They should be rejoicing that they've come to him. Let's not have this attitude of the

Pharisees when those whom we may think aren't worthy actually have an interest in the things of God.

Instead, let's rejoice, let's rejoice. What the angels do, rejoice over one sinner who repents.

Our Father and our God, deliver us from the attitude of the Pharisee. Give us a heart that is filled with joy and celebration when sinners come to Christ, when sinners turn to the

Savior. We pray this in Jesus' name, for his sake. Amen. Have a good