Grosey's Messages

Luke 15 The Seeking Saviour

1 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."

 3 So he told them this parable: 4  "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? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 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.' 7 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.

8 "Or what woman, having ten silver coins,  if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 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.' 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

1662 Prayer Book of Anglican Church:

"Almighty God, who calledst Luke the Physician, whose praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, and Physician of the soul: May it please thee that, by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the diseases of our souls may be healed, through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord."

What are the greatest chapters in the Bible? If I compiled a top five list, I think Psalm 23 would be near the top, along with Romans 8, and the third chapter of John. I would also add Luke 15 to the short list of the greatest chapters in the entire Bible. It contains three parables about things that were lost and then found. The first parable is about a lost sheep and the shepherd who goes out to rescue it. The second parable is about a lost coin and the woman who searched frantically for it. The third story is called the Prodigal Son and is the most familiar of the three. It's about a son who becomes lost to his father. The theme connecting these three parables is when that which is lost is found, there is great rejoicing.

The Lostness of the Individual

What is it that makes heaven happy? In all three of these parables, Jesus reports there is great rejoicing in heaven when one person turns from their sins and puts their faith in Jesus Christ.

In Isaiah 53:6, the Bible says, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all." I shared with you a couple of months ago there are three words starting with "D" that describe sheep: They are dumb, defenseless, and directionless.

You won't see any trained sheep acts at the circus–they are too dumb. Almost all animals have either claws, sharp teeth, quills, a hard shell, or speed to escape predators–but not a lamb–they  have no defenses. Sheep get lost easily, too. There are homing pigeons, and cats and dogs can often find their way back home, but sheep are clueless about how to find their own way back home. In many respects, we are the same way in our ability to rescue ourselves from our lost condition. We are dumb, defenseless, and directionless. Like sheep, we all have a tendency to stray away from God. The hymn says, "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love."

The sheep was lost, the drachma was lost, the son was lost. But in each case the reason for the loss was different.

The sheep did not intend to go anywhere, either to keep with or to leave the shepherd. It simply knew that grass was sweet, and that there, ahead of it, was another tuft, and it went after that. So it nibbled itself away out of the path, out of the shepherd's care, out of the flock's companionship. It was heedless; and therefore it was lost.

They do not intend any mischief, they have no purpose of rebellion or transgression, but they live what we call animal lives. The sheep knows only where the grass is abundant and fresh; and it goes there. An animal has no foresight, and is the happier; it can't look ahead and doesn't think about where it has been. It lives by its inclinations. Many live that way, living by their appetites, living like "a material girl." So they wander further and further from the right road, and find themselves in trouble.

Jesus uses the word "lost" to speak of the spiritual condition of being eternally lost. The word L-O-S-T is one of the scariest four lettered words in the human language. A lost soul is the most tragic condition in life. You can lose your mind, and it's not as tragic as a lost soul. You can lose your character, and it's not as bad as a losing your soul.

Now turn to the second parable. The coin was heavy, so it fell; it was round, so it rolled; it was dead, so it lay. And there are people who are things rather than persons, so entirely have they given up their wills, and so absolutely do they let themselves be determined by circumstances. It was not the drachma that lost itself, but it was the law of gravitation that lost it, and it had no power of resistance. There are masses of people who have no more power to resist the pressure of circumstances and temptations than the piece of silver had when it dropped from the woman's open palm and trundled away into some dark corner.

Some people live by circumstances. The wind blows them one way or another..but in the end they too are lost.

In the third parable the foolish boy had no love to his father to keep him from going to the foreign country. He wanted to be his own master, and to get away into a place where he thought he could sow his wild oats and no news of it ever reach the father's house. He was willfully lost.

But the other two parables still speak of the deeper reason why the sheep and the coin were lost. It wasn't just gravity, the circumstances, that drove the coin or the sheep to be lost. It wasn't just the desires and inclinations that pulled them away from God and let them be lost.

Yes! and down below the ignorance, and inadvertence, and error, and heredity, and domination of externals, there lies the individual choice in each case.

All three parables are to be taken together. The lostness of each individual is not just to be laid at the doorstep of mere unaccountable circumstances nor to inbuilt inclinations, but rather to the whole person being sinful, from the will to the actions. All the way through this lostness affects every aspect of our individual humanity. We know the falleness of humanity in the mass and in the individual.

The coin undoubtedly had an inscription. Its worth was given by its inscription. You were inscribed with your worth as a creation of God created in His image.

That word 'the lost' has a tragic significance in Scripture. The lost are lost to themselves and to blessedness. The word implies destruction; but it also carries with it this, that God prizes us, is glad to have us, and, wants us to be restored to Himself.

 The Searcher Who Saves Us

The shepherd had 100 sheep. Just before he was ready to bed them down, he began to count them, "...95, 96, 97, 98, 99...Whoa, I'm missing one! Hey, where's Snowflake? I haven't seen her all afternoon." Then the Shepherd does something surprising, he leaves the other 99 sheep and sets off to find the single lost lamb. Remember, that's what God is like. Luke 19:10 Jesus said, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

The parable does not so much speak of a hired shepherd, but of a shepherd proprietor. "What man of you having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them." The sheep are Christ's, first, because He chose them from before the foundations of the world--"Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." His, next, because the Father gave them to Him. How He dwells upon that fact in His great prayer in John 7:1-26.: "Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me"; "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." We are the Lord's own flock, furthermore, by His purchase of us; He says, "I lay down My life for the sheep." This thought, therefore, presses upon Him, "One of My sheep is lost."

His great compassion for His lost sheep. The wandering of a soul causes Jesus deep sorrow; He cannot bear the thought of its perishing. Such is the love and tenderness of His heart that He cannot bear that one of His own should be in jeopardy.

Look at the intensity of the search

V. 4 – "go after… until he finds it" V. 8 – "seek diligently until she finds it"

An Intensely Definite Search. The shepherd goes after the sheep, and after nothing else; and he has the one particular sheep in his mind's eye.

An Intensely All-absorbing Search. Romans 9:1-3

An Intensely Active Search.

An Intensely Persevering Search.

In His incarnation He came after the lost sheep; in His life He continued to seek it; in His death He laid it upon His shoulders; in His resurrection He bore it on its way, and in His ascension He brought it home rejoicing.

But now, see, the shepherd finds the sheep, and he lays it on his shoulders.

It is an uplifting action, raising the fallen one from the earth whereon he hath strayed. It is as though he took the sheep just as it was, without a word of rebuke, without delay or hesitancy, and lifted it out of the slough or the briars into a place of safely.

This laying on the shoulders, it was an appropriating act. He seemed to say, "You are my sheep, and therefore I lay you on my shoulders."

It was a serving act to the sheep. The weight of the sheep is upon the shepherd. The sheep rides, the shepherd is the burden-bearer. The sheep rests, the shepherd labours. "I am among you as he that serves".

It was a necessary act. The sheep couldn't get back on its own, and like many had run out of steam. Weary and worn and tired.  What a rest it is to you and to me to know that we are borne along by the eternal power and Godhead of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In all three of these parables, the single theme that emerges is

The Repentance That Indicates Salvation         "one sinner who repents"

Luke 10:20  rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

REPENTANCE - Luke 24: 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and³  forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem

Acts 2: 37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" 38 And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."

Acts 3: 18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

Acts 11: 18 When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life."

Acts17:30 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

Acts 20:21 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts 26:19-20  19 "Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, 20 but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

2 Pet. 3:  9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,  not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

"one sinner who repents" Verses 7, 10, 24, 32

Have you repented? Have you come to yourself and turned to the Saviour?

Luke 13: 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

The Joy of Salvation