This morning we’re going to look at three different parables – all about lost valuables. Jesus tells these three stories back to back to back in order to make a very clear point – specifically for the Pharisees – but also for us. We’re going to be looking at Luke chapter 15 this morning – we’re actually going to go through the entire chapter – verses 1 through 32. But we’ll read it in bite-sized chunks, so it’s a little easier to digest. So let’s start with just verses 1 & 2.
“Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!” Luke 15:1-2
Now before we go any further, in order to understand the issue at hand here, we need to understand who these Pharisees and teachers of religious law were. These guys were extreme legalists. They were totally devoted to following the all laws of Moses – right down to the very last detail. (The laws of Moses being all that stuff you read about in Exodus & Leviticus. The “Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do this…) Obeying the law was the most important thing to these Pharisees – and they took their obedience to extremes. For example, where the law said to give a tithe – a tenth of their crops to God, the Pharisees would go out to their herb garden and clip off a tenth of their mint or a tenth of their basil or whatever else they had growing in their garden and tithe that. Or where the law said not to do any work on the Sabbath, if their house caught on fire on the Sabbath, they would not do the ‘work’ of trying to put the fire out. They took the greatest care in making sure they were no where close to breaking the law. It was like they obeyed the law, PLUS, just to make sure.
The were totally devoted to keeping the letter of the law and staying pure and holy – and of course, staying separated from anything or anyone that was sinful. Actually, that’s where the word “Pharisee” comes from – it means ‘separated ones. They were to be separate from the sinfulness around them. So of course, for Jesus to be hanging out with notorious sinners like the tax collectors, the town drunks, the prostitutes, and all sorts of shady characters … That was a serious no no. And for a reputable religious teacher, like Jesus, to sit and eat a meal with these lawless sinners, that was absolutely repulsive to these Pharisees. It went against everything they stood for.
So to address their complaints, Jesus tells them not one, not two, but three little stories. Three parables – which of course, as you remember, are also parallels. There is a hidden spiritual truth running parallel within each story. So let’s start at verse 3 for parable #1… We just read that the Pharisees were complaining about Jesus hanging out with notorious sinners…. verse 3.
“So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” Luke 15:3-7
You know, Jesus probably could have stopped after just that one story. Just in itself, it’s a pretty powerful rebuke to these “righteous” Pharisees. In essence, Jesus is telling them that God rejoices more when one of these ‘lawless sinners’ repents of his sin and turns to God – than when 99 of these ‘righteous’ Pharisees faithfully follow all their rules and regulations all their life.
Now that might seem a little backwards to us. Why would God care so much about some sinner that has wasted away his life – living in sin, breaking God’s commands, ignoring God – doing whatever he wanted to do regardless of what God thought about it. Why would God rejoice when this guy repents and turns to God – MORE than when 99 fine, upstanding, righteous citizens faithfully follow God’s commands all their life?
