It is embarrassing to admit, but my cousin and I were turkey hunting the other day on property we have hunted for years and we . . . GOT LOST! It was a cloudy day and there was no sun to help us keep our bearings. We were in acres of over-grown thicket while going around and around trying to follow two gobblers. When we lost the gobblers. . . that’s when we noticed we were lost. Finally, we came to a woods road that looked familiar and we were able to return to our truck. Being lost is not a good feeling—it's something that you should always avoid.
Jesus came upon some Pharisees who were lost. But, they weren’t turkey hunting. Actually, you might say that they were turkeys themselves. Their problem was that they had no idea just how lost they actually were. Luke’s Gospel tells us about this, and the three parables that Jesus gave in an effort to lead them out of their lost state. In Luke 15, we find: 1 “Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. 2 Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’ 3 So He told them this parable, saying, 4 ‘What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 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 which was lost!’ 7 I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Luke 15:4-7 (NASB)
This is the first of the three parables Jesus gave. It takes advantage of His listeners’ familiarity with their agrarian society. Everyone could appreciate a shepherd’s attachment to his sheep. In this case, the “Shepherd” represents God, who is not only concerned with His “flock” as a whole, but also loves each and every sheep that He has. God is not like some lazy, loveless shepherd who would be content to stay with the 99 sheep and let the stray one continue to be lost. No, the Good Shepherd loved the one lost sheep and initiated the process to bring him into the fold.
In this parable, the “lost sheep” are people who have never come to faith in God. They are not necessarily atheists. They have a vague sense that there is some “Greater Being” who is out there somewhere. But, their understanding of Him is woefully undeveloped and undefined. In other words, they are largely indifferent to spiritual matters and are disinterested in the things of God. Consequently, they are like sheep who wander about aimlessly in life until one day they stumble into a gully too steep to crawl out of. If they would only pay more attention to the “Shepherd,” such potentially fatal mishaps like this would never happen.
So, why did Jesus tell this parable to the Pharisees? Well, the Pharisees didn’t care about “lost sheep.” If a person was a sinner who had gone astray, the Pharisees made a point of staying clear of him. They didn’t want to associate with sinners and couldn’t have cared less if they never came to faith. But, Jesus told them (as He tells us today) that the “lost sheep” (i.e., sinners and unbelievers) are just as important, if not more so, than the ones who are in the fold. In this parable, the shepherd gathered his friends and neighbors so everyone could rejoice with him over this once lost sheep that was now found. What we have here is a depiction of the gracious and merciful heart of God celebrating the repentance of a sinner who has come to faith. Jesus was trying to get the Pharisees to understand that they too were “lost sheep.” They were lost because they failed to understand that God loves and goes after sinners. Consequently, they should do the same. If these Pharisees wanted to experience the joy of Heaven when the angels rejoice over just one sinner’s repentance, they would need a radical change of heart.[1]
And, in order jump-start their change of heart, Jesus gave them a second parable to let them know that something of vital importance was missing in their lives. This is the second parable: 8 “Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15:8-10 (NASB)
I think we can all sympathize with this woman. For example, isn’t it maddening when you can’t find your car keys. Or, what about that cell phone that seems to love walking off and hiding in the hardest of places to be found. Or, my wallet—it seems that I am forever looking for my wallet. I recently found a solution to this problem when I came across my lunch box from grade school with all the cool WW II artwork on it. Now, I make a point of putting my car keys, cell phone and wallet in this lunch box when I get home. Hopefully, I won’t lose the lunch box. But, Jesus’ second parable is about more than simply a misplaced coin or other personal items. This woman lost something that had been very dear to her. So, what did the lost coin represent? It represented her faith. She lost her faith. She didn’t lose it on purpose, but through her own neglect. Little by little, she had abandoned the things of God—like studying the Bible, worshipping God in Church, praying, etc.). One day she looked around and her faith was nowhere to be found. Perhaps something happened in her life to make her realize this. Maybe it was a sickness, a family crisis, or a financial crisis. Whatever it was, she knew she couldn’t hold up alone. And, when she tried to fall back on her faith, she realized it wasn’t there anymore. Then, she realized she couldn’t continue living her life that way. And so, she frantically started searching for God. She wanted Him with a renewed commitment that she had never had in the past. That was a very good thing because the Scriptures promise that if you seek God with all your heart, you will definitely find Him.[2]
Now, what was it that caused this woman to drift away from God and so carelessly lose the silver coin of her faith? One detail in the parable suggests the answer. Notice that Jesus said she had “10” coins. Jesus could have picked any number, but why “10”? The choice of 10 does not appear to be random. Rather, “10” seems to refer to the most important “10” of all—in other words, the Ten Commandments. The brightest silver coin is the first one: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” Exodus 20:3 (KJV) Apparently, when she let her faith slide, this was the first coin that became lost. She started to put the “god of worldly pleasure” ahead of the One True God. Next, the “god of her career.” Then, the “god of money”, and so on. Until finally, there were a host of “gods” that she placed ahead of the Real God. But, as the parable indicates, she repented. She got her priorities straight and put God back in first place. When she did, the most precious coin of all was found again. And, she “rejoiced.”
But again, why did Jesus give this second parable to the Pharisees. Well, like the woman who lost the coin, the Pharisees had lost sight of something precious as well. They had lost the very same thing that Jesus would warn the Church in Ephesius about in the Book of Revelation.[3] Like the Pharisees, the Church in Ephesius prided itself for being separate from the evil of the world. Jesus told that Church He knew about their “works” in this regard and how they could “not bear those who are evil.” But, Jesus went on to condemn them because they had lost their “first love.” That is to say they had lost their love of Christ. Pastor and Christian writer, Warren Wiersbe, put it this way: “Just think of it: It is possible to serve, sacrifice, and suffer ‘for [Christ’s]name's sake’ and yet not really love Jesus Christ! The Ephesian believers were so busy maintaining their separation that they were neglecting adoration. Labor is no substitute for love; neither is purity a substitute for passion. The Church must have both if it is to please Him.”[4] Without a devoted love to Christ, you cannot share His love with a world of sinners who need to see His Light to come out of their Darkness.
The Pharisees rejected Jesus and scorned Him rather than love Him. Their hearts were devoid of God’s love. As a result, they couldn’t share with sinners a love that they failed to possess. Jesus’ message to them, in this second parable, was that they needed to imitate the woman who realized that her coin was missing. The Pharisees were guilty of violating the First Commandment because they had firmly worshipped a “god” who took precedence over God the Father. Their “god” was their own self-righteousness. Unless they repented, they would end up joining, for all eternity, those same unrepentant sinners they had kicked to the curb.
The third parable Jesus gave was much longer than the first two. It is also one of the most familiar parables today. It is the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Within the context of this parable, “prodigal” describes someone who is recklessly extravagant and wasteful.[5] Bear in mind that this is actually a two-part parable. The first part deals with a younger son who showed his father deliberate disrespect. This son demanded that his father give him his inheritance even before the father died. This was tantamount to saying, “Why don’t you drop dead dad, so I can have my money now!” The son got his inheritance and headed to a faraway land. There, he blew his inheritance on wild partying—nothing but, wine, women and song. But, when the money was all gone, a famine hit the land and he almost starved to death. Then, it dawned upon him that his father’s lowest servants were living much better than he was. He made up his mind to head back home and ask his father for forgiveness. Perhaps, his father would allow him back if he became one of the servants. When he was almost home, his father looked out in the distance and saw him coming. The father ran out to greet him and was so happy that his younger son had returned that he gave him a new set of clothes, a ring, some classy sandals, and threw him a spectacular celebration party! At that point, the first part of the parable came to an end with the father shouting for joy: “For this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found!” Luke 15:24 (NASB)
The metaphors in the parable are straightforward. The father represents God, and the younger son represents all those who had, at one time, openly rejected God only to later find out that life without Him is no life at all. Those who are truly open and honest as to their hopeless position without God turn to Him in repentance. When they do repent, God graciously offers forgiveness to those whose faith and love for Him comes from the heart. If you are looking for an example of someone like that today, you might consider Ayaan Hirsi Ali [pronounced: “I-Yarn, Her-see, Ah-lee]. Ayaan is a noted research fellow at Stanford University Hoover Institution. For many years, she was an outspoken atheist who wrote extensively against any belief in God. But, more recently, she (like the Prodigal Son) realized that God is real and that her soul was starving without Him. During a conference earlier this month in New York, she squared off against today’s headmaster of atheism, the evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins. Like Dawkins, Ali had said many disparaging things about religion in general, and about Christianity in particular. Reflecting on her past attacks on God and faith, she said: “I do regret doing that. I’m guilty of having said all faiths, all perceptions of God are the same and are equally damaging, so. . . I have come to regret the damage that I’ve done.” Then, she defended the Christian worldview as a necessity in today’s crazy, mixed-up world: “What you value in Christianity is something that really is absolutely necessary to pass on to the next generation. And we have failed the next generation by taking away from them that moral framework and telling them it’s nonsense and false. We have also not protected them from the external forces that come for their hearts, minds and souls.” But, Dawkins shot back that he didn’t believe that she had really converted from atheism to Christianity. He turned to her and sneered: “Seriously, Ayaan? You, a Christian? You are no more a Christian than I am.” He then told her that Christianity is a “nasty religion” filled with “nonsense” and is nothing more than an “obsession with sin.” [6] She calmly, but firmly, responded: “I find that Christianity is actually obsessed with love. And that the figure, the teachings of Christ as I see it, and again, I’m a brand-new Christian, but what I’m finding out—which is the opposite to growing up as a Muslim and the message of Islam—but the message of Christianity I get is that it’s a message of love, it’s a message of redemption, and it’s a story of renewal and rebirth. And so, Jesus dying and rising again for me symbolizes that story. And in a small way I felt like I have died and I was re-born. And that story of redemption and re-birth I think makes Christianity actually a very, very powerful story for the human condition and human existence.”[7]
Until recently, no one would have thought it possible that someone like Ayaan would ever accept Jesus as their Savior. She was as hard-core against God, as the Prodigal Son was against his father. But, it goes to show you that no one is so lost that they are beyond the reach of Christ. There are many things that contributed to Ayaan’s Christian conversion. But, one of them was certainly one woman’s willingness to share with her the power of prayer. During the conversation with Richard Dawkins at the conference, she stated: “People who have faith. . , like the woman who told me, ‘Well, you’ve had everything. [But,] you’ve lost hope. You’ve lost faith. Try it—[try] praying. I think, just in that one word there is so much wisdom.”[8] It may seem like a little thing, but this unnamed woman took the time to share with her the power of praying to God. It was a little seed that grew through the power of the Holy Spirit. And it apparently had a big impact on Ayaan’s faith journey. Can you imagine the rejoicing in Heaven when Ayaan followed the example of the Prodigal Son and turned to God for salvation! And that aspect of “rejoicing” brings us to the second part of the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
You see the Prodigal Son had an older brother. This brother would have nothing to do with his younger brother. Why?—because the younger brother had been such a sinner. Like the Pharisees to whom Jesus spoke, the older brother thought highly of himself and was appalled that his father was throwing a big party for this lost sheep who was now found back in the fold. The father urged the older brother to come into the party. But, he refused to come in. So, the father gave it one last try and explained to his older son the reason for the party: “We had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.” Luke 15:32 (NASB) That is the way the parable ends. We are not told whether the older brother changed his mind and finally joined the party. The message Jesus was giving the Pharisees was quite clear. They had been behaving like the older brother. If they didn’t change their way of thinking and start reaching out to lost sinners, they’d end up being just as lost and miss out on the greatest party of all—the one known as THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
The Pharisees were not the only ones to whom these three parables were directed. Jesus presents them to us as well. At one time or another, all of us have been prodigals just as lost as a wandering sheep or a misplaced coin. These parables bid us to seek the lost and lead them to Christ. We are not to regard these supposedly “hopeless sinners” as being lost causes. Nor are we to cast them aside with an attitude of disdain and self-righteous judgment. We need to remember what Paul wrote to Titus, saying: 3 “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 4 But, when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:3-7 (NASB)
Did you hear that?—“heirs according to the hope of eternal life!” If you are not an “heir” of Jesus Christ, then you need to change your pedigree. Why?—because only “heirs” get to come into the party! The “Big Celebration”—The “Messianic Banquet”—The “Great Heavenly Feast”—it’s the one eternal celebration you can’t afford to miss in God’s heavenly home. If you are a lost sheep, if your coin of faith can’t be found, if you are a prodigal son or daughter, then come to Jesus. For those who genuinely repent, ask for forgiveness and have faith in Him, He is mighty to save.
For the lost who have been found, for those who love the LORD and are ready for the heavenly celebration, the Prophet Zephaniah reminds us: 17 “The LORD your God is with you; His power gives you victory. The LORD will take delight in you, and in His love He will give you new life. He will sing and be joyful over you, 18 as joyful as people at a festival. The LORD says, ‘I have ended the threat of doom and taken away your disgrace.’” Zephaniah 3:17-18 (TEV) This is the promise God gives to believers. If you have accepted that promise as being true, then don’t you want to share it with a world that is so very lost? Our Lord and Savior proclaimed, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10 (NASB) Shouldn’t we, as His followers, actively pursue the lost as well? Jesus’ three parables give us the hope that, in seeking the lost, we will plant seeds which allow their faith to grow and lead them to Christ.[9] Your efforts will not go without effect. For as the Psalmist says: 5 “Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting. 6 He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” Psalm 126:5-6 (NASB)
Just how important is it that we seek the lost and bring them to Christ. In closing, consider the words of the great British pastor of the 19th century, Charles Spurgeon, who said: “If there be anything about which we cannot tolerate lukewarmness, it is the matter of sending the Gospel to a [lost] and dying world. . . Every Christian is either a missionary or . . . an IMPOSTER.”[10] This morning, the question is: Which one are you?
Let us pray.
Darvin Satterwhite, Pastor
Forest Hill Baptist Church
May 12, 2024
©2024 All Rights Reserved as follows:
Anyone is at liberty to use this sermon or any portions thereof for educational or religious purposes, with or without credit. The pastor believes the material presented herein to be true to the teaching of Scripture, and desires to further, not restrict, its potential use as an aid in the study of God’s Word. The publication of this material is a grace ministry of Forest Hill Baptist Church in Louisa, Virginia.
Visit us on our Face Book page at https://www.facebook.com/4409sspotswoodrdgordonsvilleva.
[1] Darrel Bock, Luke: From biblical text...to contemporary life, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 407.
[2] Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” (NASB)
[3] Revelation 2:2-5 2 “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; 3 and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary. 4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place--unless you repent.” (NKJV)
[4] Warren Wiersbe, Be Victorious (Revelation), (Colorado Springs, CO: Victor, 2003), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 572.
[5] Amanda Williams, “What Does ‘Prodigal’ Mean In The Bible?” Christianwebsite.com, https://www.christianwebsite.com/what-does-prodigal-mean-in-the-bible/ (January 14, 2024).
[6] Michael Foust, “Former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali Finds Redemption in Christianity: It’s ‘a Message of Love’,” Crosswalk.com, https://www.crosswalk.com/headlines/michael-foust/former-new-atheist-ayaan-hirsi-ali-finds-redemption-in-christianity.html (May 6, 2024).
[7] Mark Powell, “The Humble Faith of Ayaan Hirsi Ali,” AP, https://ap.org.au/2024/05/08/ayaan-hirsi-alis-journey-to-christ/ [accessed May 10, 2024].
[8] Ibid.
[9] Darrel Bock, Luke: From biblical text...to contemporary life, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 406.
[10] James Jennings,“Quotes on Reaching Out to the Lost,” [quoting Charles Spurgeon] https://illbehonest.com/quotes-on-reaching-out-to-the-lost (September 13, 2011).
