7/17/16-Luke 15:1-10-The Heartbeat of God
When we lose something that is precious to us, we may go crazy trying to find it, but if it is a person that we lose and cannot find, we go reckless, crossing over every barrier to get them back!
When we find them, we have such joy and relief that they are found and back where they belong with us.
*Did you know God experiences joy and relief as well? We sometimes picture God as serious. solemn, stern, and with no joy.
It is true that we should take our relationships with God seriously, but also be seriously joyful! What gives God joy? It is when those who are lost to sin are found by His love, when they who were captured are set free, when they who were broken are now restored!
Just like our recklessness in find our lost child, God gets reckless when it comes to finding us His lost children!
See last week we mentioned Jesus hung out with a pretty rough-cut crowd. These were the worse of sinners, broken and they knew it.
They did not think God could ever love them, and no religious leader (the very people who should have been the first to show God’s love) did not even want to be seen with them!
The Pharisees did not even go near them to try to get them to accept God and come into His Kingdom. Worst of all, by slamming the door in the sinners’ faces, the Pharisees thought they were making God happy.
Jesus is going to show all of them, including us, what really makes God happy, and that He loves human beings so much, He is reckless in order to save them, as the shepherd in this parable shows us.
In the first parable, the shepherd tears the wilderness apart and risks it all to save the life of the one lost sheep compared to the other 99. When he finds the lost sheep, there is not scolding or yelling at the sheep, there is only rejoicing.
The second parable has a similar picture. The woman who lost the precious coins tore her house apart to find the lost coin.
When both are found, there is a cause for much celebration. IT’S PARTY TIME! God celebrates and has joy over you and me and over all sinners who repent.
The Pharisees when they heard this, probably thought, “God cannot act like that! Maybe if these sinners clean up their act and get more moral and upright, God will forgive them from His throne in heaven, but He won’t go chasing after them or anyone else. He can’t love them that much! Can He?
Answer from Jesus: Who do you think I am? Who do you think sent Me? I am the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep.
The Parable of the Good Shepherd is the Gospel in a story: We all were like sheep who went astray, but God does not stay in the safety of the sheep pen and expect us to find our way back. NO He rescues us!
Jesus is the Good Shepherd who is on a rescue mission, chasing us down, and saving us, and when that happens, heaven rejoices! For remember, the gospel is not moral behavior, it is not saying “clean yourself up and then God will love you”. No, He already does, which is why He sent a Savior.
Jesus Christ is not just a teacher, for to give us good rules to live by does not pay our sin debt. We had to be saved from sin. Christianity is not about rules or “be moral and go to heaven” It is about accepting the offer the Good Shepherd has made you to save you and bring you back to where you belong…with God
Jesus is saying to the Pharisees in this parable that “God delights and rejoices when people are saved, and when these tax collectors and sinners take His hand and accept Him, they are more friends of God than you are. In fact, you Pharisees, if you think God doesn’t rejoice in others being saved, You don’t know God!
God is in the redemption business. Before we became believers, we were all sinners and lost sheep, and just as that love saved us, that same love is reaching out to others, and we cannot be afraid, or think anyone is beyond the Gospel, for no one is beyond it.
We run into both Pharisees and sinners in our lives today. We know people who think either “I don’t need Jesus” (moral Pharisees) or “Jesus could never love me” (immoral sinners), but the Gospel is a wrecking ball, breaking down walls. The cross both makes us humble and gives us joy. It humbles us because it shows the depth of our sin, but it gives us joy by also showing the depth of His love for us.
The Gospel is the ministry of reckless redemption and reconciliation. That was Jesus’ mission then, and it is our mission now: To show all that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, pursuing and loving the lost sheep. That is what brings God joy, and it should bring us joy as well, and that should motivate us to spread the Word. It may not be easy, but just as the friends rejoiced, so we too will rejoice when those who were lost are found.