SPEAKER - Kevin DeYoung
SCRIPTURE - Luke 15:1-32
Luke 15 contains three parables everyone knows. One of them is the longest and most famous of Jesus' parables.
A - There is One Thing You Need to Know to Understand These Parables
THE CONTEXT
In this passage, what question prompts these parables?
Luke 15
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
Jesus has sinners and tax collectors listening, and the Pharisees don't like the company he's treating.
The Mishna often mentioned thieves, robbers and tax collectors together as a catagory. Both conservative and liberal Jews agreed you could lie to tax collectors. They were truly the lowest of lows.
Jesus is not only teaching them. He's receiving them. He's friends with them
To understand what this is like...
- Imagine you go to a college fraternity party and your pastor is joining in the mix
- Imagine you go to an abortion rally and your pastor is inviting abortion doctors to their home
- Imagine the person you most respect spending time with the most reviled
Jesus loves the poor but does he also love the rich?
B - Two Things We Need to Learn About God
In each story he introduces a character.
The important details is that we learn characteristics of god
- If a farmer is like this...how much more is god like this
- If a father is like this...how much more is god like this
1 - God Seeks Out Sinners
- Story 1 - Think whea kid loses a pet...you don't stop looking
- Story 2 - Think like a parent searches not a teenager...they search diligently
- Story 3 - The father desperately wanted his son to return
God seeks out the lost. We need to have a passion for seeking out sinners
2 - God Rejoices When They are Found
Jesus is contrasting the grumbling of the Pharisees with the rejoicing of God in finding the lost.
- God rejoices over repentance and restoration
- It is just as much an act of grace to not sin in the first place as it is to repent
When you repent you are saying "I was wrong and you are right."
God rejoices when we go from destruction to restoration.
C - Three Things We Ought to Do
1 - Let Us be Mindful of the Need for Both Relationships & Repentance
We need to be filled with relationships that don't have sides but which all calls for repentance.
People reviled Jesus for his relationship, but he called them to repentance
We must not think of friendships with sinners as dangers.
Have I ever been accused of being a friend of sinners?
No one has been more inclusive towards repentant sinners than Jesus
No one has been more intolerant of sin than Jesus
2 - Let Us be Prepared to Seek & Find All Kinds of Lost People
This is really the story of the compassionate father and his two lost sons.
- We easily spot the first lost son
- We usually forget the second
It is very possible to be very anti Pharisee in a very pharasitical way
- Some of us have no love for the self-righteous
- Are we willing to plead for both and invite both to our church?
3 - Let us be Marked by the Experience and Expectation of Joy
Are you waiting for something amazing from God?
Joy awaits you on the other side of repentance
But you must are sick and need saving
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