I watched them all the way to the luggage claim area. He never stopped kissing that baby. He never stopped welcoming that baby back home. I thought, "Where did I ever get the idea that my Father God is less loving than a young daddy in white slacks and white shirt with white flowers and a green paper?"

The following Associated Press story came from the ESPN Outdoors website. I have edited it to fit our time restraints.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A Tahitian man who drifted for 133 days across the South Pacific was recovering in a hospital in the Cook Islands Friday after his boat ran onto a reef and he was found by local fishermen.

What a terrifying ordeal this man must have gone through over the 133 days he was lost at sea! No onboard food and very little water, no paddle to propel his boat, and no assurance against the fear that he might never be found. And what joy it must have been for him to see the boats of those fishermen that rescued him.

Now imagine that those fishermen who found him and picked him up had instead decided to turn him back to the sea – that is, they placed him back aboard his disabled boat with no assistance, no food or water, and committed him once again to the whims of the ocean currents.

"What kind of cruel person would do such a thing?" you ask. Well, if I read my Bible correctly, the same kind of person who was the recipient of three parables Jesus taught about being lost in Luke 15. That is where we will spend our time this morning.

The contents of Luke 15 have been called affectionately, "the gospel within the gospel" by those who love the Bible – the "good news" within the "good news." That is because the contents of this chapter tell us that God is favorably oriented toward those who have sinned and become lost. He doesn’t "turn them back to sea," so to speak, when they come to Him in repentance. He is favorably oriented toward them and receives them back no matter how badly they have sinned or how lost they are. It’s the very best of news.

Of course, this chapter is best known for its "Prodigal Son" parable, as you'll probably recognize as we get underway. But there were three parables that Jesus spoke - not just one. He spoke of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. To understand these parables best they need to be taken together, which is what I propose to do in this message. We’ll take a brief look at the setting, then consider each parable in the order and context Jesus spoke it.

At the time these parables were spoken, Jesus was passing through Perea on His way to Jerusalem to observe the Passover. It would be His last before the crucifixion. According to verse 25 of chapter 14 He had quite a crowd of people around Him. It says, Great multitudes were going along with Him," and He was teaching them as He went. Now that kind of interest in His teaching should have been cause for rejoicing. But not everyone was celebrating.

The Jewish leaders were grumbling because Jesus was associating with and teaching all those willing to listen to Him – not just the religious ones. He was even teaching and accepting dinner invitations from hated tax gatherers and notable sinners!

The scribes and Pharisees were particularly offended because Jesus did not maintain their level of separation from those they considered the lowest of the low. It was not the first time they objected to Jesus’ associations. Matthew 9:11 is one of the cases where Jesus had dinner with "tax gatherers and sinners." During the dinner the Pharisees asked Jesus’ disciples, "Why is your teacher eating with the tax gatherers and sinners?" Jesus overheard them and answered, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick… I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Unless they are hypochondriacs, people who think they are healthy don’t usually enlist the services of a doctor. Likewise, people who think they are good enough to please God on their own don’t usually look for a savior.

Verse 1 tells us that the tax gatherers and sinners were coming near Jesus "to listen to Him." People came near Jesus for a lot of reasons in those days. Some came near for healing. Some came for free food. Some came to argue and/or trap Him in something He might say and thus discredit Him. They all had their motives. These tax gatherers and sinners came to listen to Him because they were interested in His message and recognized their need for it. They had discovered that His was a message of salvation and not condemnation. Other religious leaders just hadn’t spoken to them like that before.

The interest shown by these people from the underbelly of their society really bugged these Jewish leaders. They considered them unworthy of salvation because they were such great sinners.

This is one of the great ironies of the gospel – often those who have gone the farthest away from God are the most interested in His salvation, once they learn of it, while those who have been religious for a long time often think they don’t need it.

It is remarkable that these who would be considered the least likely hearers came to listen to Him while those who should have been most interested wanted only to silence Him. Consequently, I think it is reasonable to say that God would rather have one sinner come to Him who knows his guilt and is willing to repent and live for Him than a thousand "respectable" persons who won’t listen because they see no need. God has a solution for sin, no matter how bad it is. He has no solution for willing arrogance and self-righteousness.

The teaching of the scribes and Pharisees was that God’s people should not associate with those they considered sinners. You might recall that the word "Pharisee" means "Separated One." In fact, according to commentator William Barclay, they held the view, not that "There will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents," but "There will be joy in heaven over one sinner who is obliterated before God."(2) They looked forward, not to the salvation of sinners, but to their destruction. In essence, they were the ones who would take someone like that man lost at sea that I spoke of earlier and turn him back to the sea to his meet his doom - and feel justified for doing it.

Perhaps you can see why they would be so upset with Jesus. He seemed to love such people, not because of their sin but because they recognized their problem. He gave them his time and attention. Yet from their twisted Pharisee perspective this was sure proof that He could not be the Messiah.

That is the backdrop for these three "lost and found" parables. Now let's look at each one…

While the scribes and Pharisees were not shepherds themselves, they would understand the setting of this parable because their most respected patriarch, David, had been a shepherd.

The shepherd in the parable, upon gathering his flock in the evening, discovered that out of the 100 animals he cared for, one was missing. Rather than simply cutting his losses and being satisfied with the 99 who remained, he left the 99 safe seep and went looking for the one that was lost.

Since Jesus was defending His own practice, I think it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus was the shepherd in the parable. He is elsewhere called the Good Shepherd. The tax-gatherers and sinners, even if there have been only one of them, were the lost sheep. The placing of the recovered sheep on the shepherd’s shoulders was a picture of the tenderness and willingness of the shepherd to bring someone who is lost back to safety. (R.C.H. Lenski, in his commentary on Luke, made a thoughtful comment on this carrying. He wrote, "As far as Jesus is concerned, humanly speaking, the sinner is heavier when he lies on Jesus’ heart before he is found than when he lies on his shoulders after being found.) The friends and neighbors are the inhabitants of heaven who stop what they are doing to rejoice with the shepherd when even one sinner is recovered.

What are the lessons of this first parable?

I think first that it is clear that unlike the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day, God feels compassion for people who are lost. While He could say, "You should have known better," or "You’re too dirty to be admitted back into my flock after all the things you’ve done," or "Sorry, but you’ve burnt all your bridges," instead He goes out to actually search for the sinner.

And that is a good second point: God is not just willing to accept sinners when they repent, He is actively seeking them. This is such a contrast to what the scribes and Pharisees were doing. They were actively avoiding sinners!

Thirdly, a repenting sinner makes heaven celebrate. Far from a situation where the inhabitants of heaven say, "Oh, no! You mean to tell us that you’re going to bring that awful person in here?" heaven actually halts momentarily as everyone there rejoices! That’s why this passage is such good news. It means that no matter what you have done or where you have been, God will receive you joyfully if you repent and turn to Him. And it’s also why the tax gatherers and sinners listened to Jesus so readily. These parables were like life from the dead for them!

The message in this parable is similar to that of the first, but was it intended to be identical? Probably not. Each parable seems to reveal slightly different aspects of the same point - that being that God is willing to receive repentant sinners.

Here a woman replaces the shepherd in the first parable. The ninety-nine sheep are replaced by nine silver coins. The lost sheep is replaced by a single lost coin.

One suggestion I came across as I was studying these parables is that the lost sheep, the lost coin, and (in the next parable) the lost son represent three kinds of lost people.

The lost sheep perhaps represents someone who becomes lost because he foolishly strays from the flock. Maybe that would be like one who grows up in the church but doesn’t see the need to stay close to the shepherd. Through inattention and distraction, he wanders away.

The lost coin perhaps represents those who are lost through no particular fault of their own. After all, the coin was lost through the carelessness or mistakes of someone else. Likewise, some people end up lost because of the carelessness of others. People who are not taught about God as they are growing up would fit this category. Their parents didn’t know God so no one taught them about Him. How does God feel about such people? The picture is one of searching the house to find them and rejoicing when they are found.

And the lost son perhaps represents one who knows God, yet in spite of all he knows, he rebelliously departs to pursue his own selfish desires.

What a brazen request! A person’s family inheritance usually came after the death of a parent, not while he was still living. This kid is saying, in effect, "Dad, I don’t want to wait for you to die. It’s taking too long. Give me my money now!"

It must have been a sad day for that father to be so treated by his own flesh and blood, yet he cashed in that portion of his wealth and gave it to his boy. As the younger of two sons, that would be 1/3 of all his father’s holdings.

The boy just couldn’t wait to leave home! He left just a few days after receiving his money. His youthful rebellion and foolishness wouldn’t let him stay a single day longer than it took to get his money. Like so many with that mindset, He thought he knew better. He could run his life thank you, and he couldn’t wait to prove it. The only trouble was that without his father’s steady and responsible hand on the wallet, the inheritance money ran though his fingers like water. Soon he was broke. "Oh well," perhaps the boy thought, "no matter. I’ll just get a job. Surely people will line up to hire such a fine specimen of humanity as I am."

But a famine struck and there were no jobs to be had except for one that nobody else wanted.

Feeding pigs was the lowest, most vile and degrading job a Jewish person could have. Pigs were ceremonially unclean animals. They were not to be touched. This boy was now feeding them. Any Jews he met would shun him. And not only that, his new job didn’t pay enough money even to feed himself. It was probably the first time in his life he had ever longed for pig slop.

Life surely has a way of bringing things around, doesn’t it? Fortunately, this boy was brought around.

Smart kid! He knew the score. He knew that when you have sunk as far as he had there was no going back to the way things were. The best you could hope for was a spot in the bunkhouse, away from those you had shamed with just enough to survive and get by.

This is a big reason why many people don’t come back to God. They think like this boy was thinking. "It will never be the same. I can never be a part of the family. At best I’ll be like a hired servant. If I return I'll always be on the outside. I don’t know all that this boy thought but to his credit, he headed back home.

Driven by his hunger, shamed in his humiliation and regret, the boy rehearsed the speech he was going to give his father as he neared the homestead. Then he got the surprise of his life!

How different the reception was than what the boy had expected. The robe his dad gave him was not just any robe. It was the "best robe." The ring wasn’t just any ring, it was probably the family signet ring. The sandals weren’t just to shield his bare feet from the rocks and thorns. Only members of the family wore sandals. Slaves and servants went barefoot. Dad welcomed his wayward boy back into the family! He gave him an honored position and threw him a party in spite of the way he had shamed his father. Why? As it says in verse 24, "this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again!"

Jeannette Clift George tells the following story of a familiar scene:

You see this is where mankind’s thinking digresses from God’s thinking. God is not like the vomit stained passengers. He’s like the loving, waiting father. He’s not like the scribes and Pharisees. He’s like the father of the lost son who rejoices to see His son return!

Most people wouldn’t have treated that boy like the father did. If they received him at all, they would only make him a slave and keep him out of the family. This is the remarkable thing about God. He doesn’t think like we do.

Man thinks more like the boy’s older brother who comes into the scene next. I won't have time to describe it. I'll just read it.

If you are among the saved this morning, let me ask you about your attitude toward the lost. Are you anxious to receive lost people like God receives them or is your attitude more like the older brother in the third parable?

If you are a person who is lost and you need to return to God, I hope you can see that He stands ready to receive you no matter where you have been or what you have done. If you’re ready to repent and return to Him, the only thing that stands between you and Him is your obedient decision. Will you make the choice? Will you come back to your Heavenly Father?

Maybe you’re like the lost sheep. Maybe you were part of the flock at one time but you were careless and wandered away. I want you to know that the Shepherd has been looking for you since the day you departed.

Perhaps you’re like the lost coin. Maybe you don’t know much about God and the church. No one ever taught you. You have been thinking about getting closer to God but you look around at all those "church people" and don’t know how you’ll be received. I was in your spot once, so I know how it feels. Take another look at the joy over the recovery of that lost coin. That could be you. Heaven is waiting to rejoice over your return to the one who has been searching for you.

Or maybe you’re most like the lost son. Maybe you left the Lord and His family sometime back with all of your rockets burning. You took off in the opposite direction from God's family as hard and fast as you could go. You thought you knew better. You thought you were smarter than those who tried to persuade you to stay. Then you learned about life without God. You’re coming to your senses. Why not return to your heavenly Father? He’s waiting to receive you and throw a party for you and return you to an honored part of the family. Heaven could begin rejoicing before this day is out.

Whatever your need, God stands ready to receive you and we stand ready to help you. Won’t you come?

Footnotes: Please use your "back" button to return to your place

1. http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing/news/2002/0718/1407325.html
2. William Barclay, Commentary on Luke, paperback edition, p. 201.
3. Jeannette Clift George, "Belonging and Becoming," Preaching Today, Tape No. 93.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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