WWUTT 2431 The 99 Sheep and the One that was Found (Luke 15:1-7)

In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, we have three very famous parables, and sometimes those parables get twisted to mean something that they don't actually mean. But in these parables, we can find great hope in our Savior when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Luke 15 and the Context of the Parables

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Luke, we're up to chapter 15, and this is perhaps the second most popular chapter in Luke. After chapter 2, we have a trilogy of parables here, and I'm going to go ahead and read through the whole chapter.

This is Luke 15, verses 1 through 32. Hear the word of the Lord. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus, and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

So Jesus told them this parable, What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine 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 ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one, 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.

And he said, There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country.

And there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger.

I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate.

For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate. Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.

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

But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours who came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him. And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

It was fitting to celebrate and be glad. For this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found. And that's actually not the end of these parables that we're reading here. When we go into chapter 16, Jesus tells yet another parable right along with this one.

So we're going to look at chapter 15 this week and consider these three parables and what they mean in the context in which they are presented. You know, the parable of the prodigal son, it is perhaps the most famous parable that comes out of the gospel of Luke.

Back when I read the parable of the Good Samaritan, I said that was the second most famous parable after perhaps the parable of the prodigal son. And the reason why I would put the prodigal son ahead of the parable of the Good Samaritan is because a lot of people think that they hear the gospel in the parable of the prodigal son and they will use that as here.

See, here's the gospel. This is the heart of the gospel. The parable of the prodigal son is the heart of Jesus' entire ministry. I've even heard that said like this is everything. Everything is in this parable right here.

Can't even tell you the number of times that I've heard that it especially comes from people who hate the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. There doesn't need to be a death or bloodshed or anything, because look at how the father just forgives his son.

And that's the way that God is with us. People may have put Jesus to death, but that doesn't mean that he took our sin upon himself, or it doesn't mean that God crushed him or that God needed blood in order to satisfy his wrath or anything like that.

This is what they will say with regards to the parable of the prodigal son. The father just forgave his son, and so the father just forgives us. Jesus was put to death because people are evil, but it wasn't a penal substitutionary atonement.

Anyway, we'll talk about that when we get to that. Some of those false views, some of that wrong teaching that comes about out of a misinterpretation of that particular parable. But let's come back to the beginning so we can consider all of this in context.

Tax Collectors, Sinners, and the Pharisees' Grumbling

So in chapter 15, beginning in verse one, the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled about this saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them.

And that is the key to understanding this trilogy of parables here, because that's the context. It's Jesus spending time with tax collectors and sinners, and the Pharisees hating that. How is it that Jesus is spending this time with these unclean, filthy, disreputable people?

Remember that previously Jesus was dining at the house of a Pharisee, and there was a woman of ill repute who came in and began to anoint Jesus' feet and to wipe them with.

Her hair.

And she kissed his feet over and over again. And the Pharisees are looking at this going, if Jesus knew what kind of woman this was, he would not be allowing her to do that. And then Jesus rebuked them for the thoughts that they were thinking in their hearts.

So he spent much time with those who had a bad reputation for sin.

And you know what?

They probably rightfully had that reputation. They probably did do wicked things. Tax collectors were known for cheating people. They would not only collect the taxes that were owed, but they would charge them more than really what they owed so that the tax collector could receive that little bit extra and keep it for themselves.

The taxes that you had to pay to the Roman government, they'll pass them on. But then the tax collector kept a little bit for himself. We're going to see this also with Zacchaeus. That's coming up in chapter 19.

Jesus had, or sorry, Zacchaeus had such a bad reputation with people because of being a tax collector. So they were known cheats and scoundrels, especially among the Jews, where you had the Jews who were betraying their fellow Jews and working on behalf of the Romans.

That made them doubly disgusting in the eyes of the Pharisees and the rest of their Jews, the rest of their kinsmen. So then you have those that are mentioned here as sinners, the tax collectors and sinners.

Now some have interpreted sinners as being the prostitutes, but most likely sinners is just the word that the Pharisees would use to describe anybody who broke God's law, or at least that's the way that they would apply it.

Really, they're labeling sinners as anybody who doesn't keep the law of the Pharisees. See, the Pharisees would even have labeled Jesus and his disciples as sinners, because remember they were plucking the heads of grain while on the Sabbath, or Jesus healing somebody on the Sabbath, and that was against the law that the Pharisees had established and imposed upon every person.

Jesus wouldn't follow it. It was the traditions of men. It wasn't according to what God's law had said. So they would label anybody who didn't keep the Pharisees' law as sinners. And here you have these people who don't keep the law, who are marked in culture or in society as those who don't keep the Pharisees' laws.

They're marked as sinners. So you have the tax collectors and the sinners, these disreputable people. And here they are coming to Jesus to hear him, and these are the people that Jesus is giving his attention to.

And the Pharisees and scribes grumbled, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. He's dining with them, which was considered to be an unclean thing. Remember if you're eating with unclean hands, you're defiling your food and you're putting unclean things into yourself.

So the very fact that Jesus is sitting at table with tax collectors and sinners, this is as bad, if not worse, than Jesus sitting at a table with Gentiles. And so this is disgusting in the eyes of the scribes and Pharisees who are seeing this.

This man receives sinners and eats with them. But why is it that they are coming to Jesus? They are coming to him to hear him, to listen to him. They're disciples, they're learning from him. And so these people who look at Jesus as the Savior and listen to his word and abide by it, that they may have favor with God through Jesus Christ.

These people are being redeemed by the Savior right there in the presence of these Pharisees and scribes. And so Jesus is telling a parable to everybody who hears. But he's telling this especially to the Pharisees who are grumbling about what Jesus is doing.

The Lost Sheep and Joy in Heaven Over One Sinner Who Repents

Now before going on to this parable, the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus leaving the 99 to go and find the one. Often it is said of Jesus that he ate with tax collectors and sinners or prostitutes and sinners or however it will be communicated.

Jesus hung out with sinners. That's the way it will be said. As if Jesus went into sinful places and hung out with sinful people and did not tell them that they needed to repent of their sin. That's usually the way that thing will be said.

So Jesus hung out with sinners, yes, but he did not approve of them in their sin. These are people that have a reputation and that's the reason why they're being labeled.

This way.

They're being called tax collectors and sinners because that's their reputation. Jesus is not approving of their sin and he's not saying to anyone there that we all just need to be tolerant of one another.

We all just need to let everybody do what makes them happy to each their own. That's not Jesus attitude about this at all. He told sinners all the time to repent, to turn from their sin or something worse may happen to you.

Remember in John chapter five, the lame man, the beggar that was by the pool at Bethesda and Jesus just tells him to get up his mat and walk and he does. When Jesus encounters him later, he says, go and sin no more or something worse may happen to you.

One of the most famous accounts attributed to Jesus is the pericope adultery in John chapter eight. This woman that was caught in adultery brought before Jesus, thrown on the ground before.

Him.

The scribes and the Pharisees say, the law of Moses says that such a woman should be.

Stoned.

What do you say, Jesus? And then of course he says the famous line, let he who is without sin be the first to cast the stone at her referring to the dude because where's he at? Apparently he's without sin.

If she's guilty of adultery, where's that guy at? Let he who's without sin be the first to throw the stone at her. And of course he caught the Pharisees in their own trap. He trapped them in their own trap and then they dropped their rocks and split.

And he says to the woman, woman, where are those who condemn you? And she says, nowhere, Lord. And he says, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Now, of course, as I've said about that account, it wasn't actually written by John.

It was written by somebody else and shouldn't really even be included in the gospel since we don't know who the original writer was. We cannot verify that it's an actual gospel account, but nonetheless, we still have this account of Jesus telling a sinner to go and sin no more.

So Jesus was not approving of a person's sin. The scripture does say, come as you are, but not stay as you are. We come before Christ to be cleansed. And that's what these tax collectors and centers are doing.

They come before Jesus to be cleansed by the savior, to learn from him and know what is good and pleasing to the Lord, according to what this teacher sent from God is saying. So they come to Jesus just as they are.

They don't go clean themselves up first, just like you and me. We do not clean ourselves up in order to come before God. It is Christ who cleanses us. As I quote often 1 John 1, 9, if we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

In first Corinthians chapter six, Paul listing a bunch of sins and saying, such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.

We come to God and we are cleansed. Come as you are. You don't get to stay as you are. So these tax collectors and centers are coming to the savior and the Pharisees and the scribes are grumbling about that.

And they're always going to look at these tax collectors and centers as being just that in the eyes of these Pharisees, they can't be redeemed. They're already guilty of their sin. They're a lost cause and though, and, and so therefore Jesus responds by telling them three parables.

We have the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the prodigal son. So first of all, the parable of the 99 and the one sheep that ran away. 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 I lost.

And so Jesus says 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. Now something that all three of these parables have in common is that there's always a party.

There's always a celebration. There's always a feast because the one that was lost was found. And so everybody comes together to celebrate. And notice that as we go through these three parables, there's always one lost, but the size of the group that the one was lost from shrinks.

Does that make sense? So we start with 99 sheep and one that ran away. Then we have nine coins and one that was lost. Then we have two brothers, one that was obedient and one that was disobedient. And it's the disobedient son that comes home and humbles himself before his father.

So we're going from like a large amount to smaller and smaller increments until we get to that last parable, 99 to one, nine to one, and then one to one. But Jesus making the point here with this parable about the lost sheep, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.

So why are you not with us eating and partying? Essentially, Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, yeah, I'm eating with these tax collectors and sinners. So look again at verse two, this man receives sinners and eats with them.

Yeah, come on, sit down and eat with us. Why don't you? Don't you know that there would be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over you guys who are just standing over there in your self-righteousness pouting.

There's no celebration in heaven over you guys. You know, on Friday on the Q &A, Becky had brought up this particular parable and it was when we were talking about different persons in contemporary Christian music who turned out to be hypocrites.

They presented themselves one way, but then behind the scenes, back behind the curtain, behind closed doors, they were living wicked sinful lifestyles. And of course, the topic of conversation at the time was regarding Michael Tate, who was the lead singer of the Newsboys, one of the great members of one of the best selling Christian bands of all time, DC Talk.

And yet this guy was a sexual predator, a drug user, alcohol and cocaine use, which he himself had admitted to and preyed upon young men, promised them fame and fortune. And really, that was the expectation they probably had.

And yet he's using them to do sexual favors. Yet Michael Tate had come out with this apology. And like I said, we don't know whether it's genuine or not, because there's plenty of things that Tate did that he doesn't confess to in that in that apology.

But let's say it's genuine. Let's say he has actually come before the Lord and he has genuinely repented, even over the wicked, awful things that he has done, even though he's left a trail of bodies behind.

Him.

Of the people that he took advantage of and scarred probably for the rest of their lives. Those young men who looked up to him as this great Christian figure, a holy man of God, they would have thought of him as being because he's a Christian musician.

And look at how God has blessed him, the songs that he sings and yet the fame that he's managed to accumulate as a result of that. These young men look up to that guy and he used them to pleasure himself.

And even after all the wicked things that he's done, if he's genuinely repentant, God actually forgives him. He would actually forgive him of all of that evil that he has done if genuinely repentant. And again, I don't know.

And that's going to be between him and God. But that's one example that I can cite. Even if he's done all of that, if he comes before God and seeks forgiveness, God will give it to him. And there would be a great party in heaven over the fact that this man has repented and come back to Christ.

I think also of, you know, the stories that you'll hear of the OnlyFans girls. I don't encourage anybody to look up these girls because even though they're not on this porn site anymore, their footage is still out there on the Internet.

So I'm not even going to mention their names. But you've probably heard stories of some of these girls that have left that life of pornography and prostitution online and have repented and maybe even gotten married.

And they have come to Christ and have been baptized and they have left that life behind. There are plenty of people that look at that that filthy lifestyle because it is indeed a very filthy, degrading lifestyle.

And they look at that and wonder, how can anybody come out of that and actually be a different person? Who are you to believe that this person could actually be forgiven and be saved? But Jesus Christ does forgive such people.

He does wash and make new. We'll read the verses, we'll say we believe it. But then when we encounter such a person who actually lived in deep, depraved wickedness, who comes out of that and says, Jesus has saved me, and suddenly we scowl.

Suddenly we don't really believe that. Oh, really? That person? I don't believe it. Then you don't believe in Christ. If you don't believe Jesus can transform that kind of person and make them new, you and I believe in a completely different Savior.

You think of Jeffrey Dahmer, the famous serial killer, infamous serial killer would be the better way to put it, who actually ate people. That's how that's how disgusting his murders were, not just killing men, but even consuming them quite literally.

And yet, while he was in prison, he found Christ and believed that Jesus had forgiven him of all of those wicked, awful things that he had done, even the people that he had harmed and scarred for the rest of their lives.

And yet Christ had forgiven him. Do you believe that Jesus can forgive such a person? That there would actually be much rejoicing in heaven over somebody who was that lost, who gets found by the Good Shepherd?

And so shouldn't it be upon us to praise God? Whenever we see a sinner come to salvation like that, praise the Lord. You know, my worst enemy, if my worst enemy comes to faith in Jesus Christ, I want to believe that on that day that that happens, that I'm going to rejoice in that instead of holding a grudge against that guy.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You say that you come to Christ, but you know, all the stuff that you did to me, you need to apologize to me about that first. I hope that would not be my response, but I would just rejoice and celebrate that this person who did all this evil against me has yet sought the Lord and has been forgiven.

And so I also forgive, I have nothing to hold against such a person who was lost and is.

Now found.

Rejoicing Over the Lost Who Are Found

I do have a couple of stories to share regarding something like that. And I'll do that tomorrow as we come back to these parables in Luke chapter 15. Heavenly Father, I thank you for what we've read and I pray that it would be to our great joy to see sinners come to the Savior.

We would even go out with the gospel to those who are lost and headed to hell so that they would turn from their sin to the Savior and so live. And then great rejoicing in the church that is here on earth and even among the angels in heaven that this one who was lost has been found.

Even as we sing in the old hymn, I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now.

I see.

Restore us, Savior, and let us see the goodness of your salvation that you give to lost and hopeless sinners such as us. Praise you, Jesus. In his name we pray, amen.

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