The Parable of Redemptive Love, Part 2 | God’s Rescue Mission

Luke 15:1-10

So the pardoning love of God is evident in spiritual regeneration, responding and repentant faith to this radical call of discipleship. There’s a, next, a second theme that actually gets us into the parables. Okay, number two, the particular love of God. Number two, the particular love of God.  Luke chapter 15, having received these repentant sinners, Jesus is now pleased to receive them all the way. He embraces them, he tucks them safely into his fold, his flock, he protects them against these hostile criticisms of these grumbling, self-righteous Pharisees and scribes.

So, we see him here in defense of these newly pardoned sinners, his true sheep. We can see as an apologetic for his Messianic mission, that is a defense of it. And as an appeal to any lost sheep among the Pharisees and the scribes, he’s even appealing to them to draw out from their number many of his true sheep. Luke tells us in verse three, “He told them this parable.” It’s very clear in the Greek he’s specifically speaking to them, to the grumblers.

So three parables here that follow the lost sheep, lost coin, lost son. Jesus is speaking these parables directly to the grumblers. He’s speaking directly to the critics. This man, they said, this man, he welcome sinners, even eats with them. A.T. Robertson says, quote, “There’s a contemptuous sneer in the use of the pronoun ‘this man.'” They spoke out openly and probably pointed at Jesus, this man. They’re grumbling, but not quietly. They’re murmuring, but loudly.

They spoke openly among the crowd and fully intending to turn all these people away from Jesus. And that’s why Jesus denounced them so strongly in Matthew chapter 23. Pronouncing those seven woes on the scribes and the Pharisees, Matthew 23:13 says, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”

They’re barring the door to salvation, like barking dogs trying to intimidate the crowds, it’s shocking, it’s unconscionable. Shouldn’t these Pharisees and scribes, those who are appointed as Israel shepherds. Shouldn’t they shepherd the sheep toward the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, not away from him? Why are they acting this way? That’s because they’re false prophets. It’s because they’re false shepherds, they’re disqualified and they’re rejected by God.

Luke 15, Jesus hears the grumbling against him. As he, as he sees the tacit accusations against his sheep. As he sizes up the effect of their words and their grumbling upon his sheep. It’s in his role as Israel’s Shepherd, their true shepherd in the face of these false shepherds. This is the metaphor he chooses for the first parable. Look again, a verse 4, “What man of you having one hundred sheep, if he’s lost one of them does not leave the ninety-nine the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it.” What man of you indeed. Every man who understood shepherding in that time would hear that and say, course, that’s what you do.

You have one hundred, flock of one hundred, ninety-nine, your count is off, you count again, find one missing, and you get that flock taken care of, and go after the one. Everybody knows that. The Shepherd was vital because he took care of sheep and the sheep were vital back then because they didn’t eat much and they were very useful providing wool for clothing, mutton for M.L.T.’s. What is that? That’s mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwiches. I’m told they’re very good. In Israel, in specific, sheep provided animals for sacrifice, their sacrificial system, and made shepherding for them a vital necessity because it’s really no secret.

Sheep can’t survive on their own, they won’t survive. Why? Because they can’t find pasture on their own. So without food and water, they’ll die. They’re prone to eating and drinking things that are harmful, things that will kill ‘em, they’ll die. They follow instinctively and thoughtlessly, and at times to their own detriment. They’ll follow some leader, even following another sheep over a cliff or into a ravine, down a rocky crevasse. They get spooked easily and run away, distracted and wander away, oh shiny and they go after it. When they do they get lost, they fall into a ditch, they, if they don’t die there they are separated from the flock and they are totally defenseless. If they are left alone, they become fast food, uh, an easy meal for predators, just like a snack.

So this shepherd, he’s doing his count, he discovers one of his sheep is missing. So he doesn’t hesitate. He takes immediate action, he leaves the ninety-nine in the open country to go after that one lost sheep. The focus here, what Jesus wants to emphasize and wants to convey is clearly not about the shepherd’s attentiveness to the ninety-nine. What he wants us to see is the shepherds concern, a grave concern for the one.

He wants us to see the shepherds, pity and compassion and concern and love. For the one, his all consuming attention on the particular. Percentage of potential loss doesn’t matter to the shepherd. Losing one out of a hundred is unacceptable to him. Ninety-nine percent is not okay. This one percent at this moment is all he cares about because the individual sheep is precious to him. You out there who have large families. Which kid do you want to do without with? Right? If you lose one, you don’t say Well, the Lord has blessed us with fourteen others, so we’re good. Oh we’ll get another one.

 No, it’s the same there. He’s willing to leave the majority behind in order to go find that one solitary lost sheep because that lost sheep has his heart. Goes through great effort to get to that one sheep, going after it, present tense, continuous effort on his part, he retraces his steps. He takes whatever risks are necessary, endures whatever conveniences are required, pain, cold, hunger in order to find that one particular solitary, lost sheep. Why? Because he can see in his mind’s eye, he knows which sheep it is. He’s got a mental picture of all the sheep, he knows them, calls them by name and he can picture this one bleating, alone, terrified, it will certainly die unless he finds it soon. Sinner if you are here and you’re among the redeemed. You know this particular love that God has for you, that the Good Shepherd has for you.

But if you’re yet to be redeemed my friend, you need to know that God does not play percentages. His love is a particular love. He didn’t send his son to die on the cross for the potential of a massive humanity who might come. He put his si, his Son on the cross to die for his people, to save his people from their sins. It’s a particular people. He knows them by name. His love is particular, its individual, it’s specific. Christ’s atonement is particular, individual, specific, as Paul says, Galatians 2:20, “The son of God loved me, and gave himself up for me.”

Before the foundation of the world, God chose you, beloved, and he chose you by name, a mental picture of you, he chose you. He decreed your salvation, decreed you for salvation, by name, divine care and compassion is all directed toward you, to care for you in your particular situation, facing your particular dangers, with your disposition, and your quirks and your liabilities and your challenges, all of you, subject to your particular fears and anxieties.

He knows them all and he doesn’t leave you there. Doesn’t leave you in a ditch. He doesn’t leave you in a briar patch. He doesn’t leave your wool matted, infested with bugs. He doesn’t leave you as prey for the beasts, lions and the bears and the dogs and the wolves. God sent his one and only son, to die for sinners and to die for you by name. Son of God knows you by name and as Jesus Christ hung on that cross, receiving from the father, the full penalty due for your specific sins. You were in mind, in the mind of the eternal Son of God, he knows you by name.

He loves you by name, John 10:14. “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” And was it a point in time that he came and sought you, sending his spirit to cause you to be awakened to truth, just as a shepherd seeks his lost sheep, so percentages don’t matter to him. He leaves behind the ninety-nine in a heartbeat to go after that one. Particular love of God is a set, eternally fixed love. It’s a love that’s under the inescapable eye of divine omniscience. It’s a love, that’s backed by the power of divine omnipotence. It’s a love that’s bound by the sphere of divine omnipresence, meaning there is no binding, God will rescue, he will find every one of his lost sheep.

Let’s consider a third theme as we get into that second parable, a third theme, number three, the persistent love of God, the persistent love of God. When God sets out to, to find that which is lost, there is no stopping until that lost one is found, it’s illustrated in both parables. “The shepherd,” verse 4 “leaves the ninety-nine behind to go after the one that is lost.” And what does it say at the end of the verse there? “Until he finds it.” Right? Emphasis in the first parable was on the one versus the many. Emphasis in the second parable, verse 8 is on the persistent effort that goes on in the search.

So look at verse 8, “Or what woman” first it’s a man, now it’s a woman oh, “What woman having ten silver coins. If she loses one coin does not light a lamp and sweep the house and diligently seek again until she finds it.” So Jesus has swapped characters here from a man to a woman, he switches scenes from the pasture lands of shepherding to the domestic life of the home, he changes the lost item from an animate object, a sheep, which evokes the shepherd’s sympathy and pity, to an inanimate object, a small silver coin which is valuable to the woman.

Perhaps your home is similar to mine where it’s rather normal. It’s a far too familiar experience to lose things. Uh, keys, phones, passwords, shoes, important papers, on the day you need them, to feel that tinge of panic and the pressure that comes from needing to find, that frantic feeling of the search, followed by prayer, usually, right? Followed by a more careful and slower search. And then the joy of finding that lost item, the relief, followed by giving of thanks.

Having studied to prepare for this sermon, I now praise God for those routine experiences in my life, though I don’t always recognize them in the moment, of losing and finding because that repeated pattern in my home all along. For many, many years, he’s been preparing my heart to grasp this text, and I rejoice. Here’s a woman who reacts to what would have been a rather common scenario in a home. The home is pictured here is a typical dwelling of someone who’s living in a small rural village, mud brick walls, no windows, hard packed dirt floors

A small coin like this dirty, tarnish silver, wouldn’t be easy to find in the dim light of the home. So as she discovers the loss, she gets right to work. She lights a lamp, middle the house, she moves articles of furniture outside, hurriedly starts sweeping out the house. She’s choking on the dust, but it doesn’t matter. She is intent on finding that coin. Searching diligently, looking at every crack on the floor, every corner of the room until at last she finds her coin.

Why’s she so persistent? Because that little coin, though it’s small, though it’s dirty, though it’s insignificant to many of much wealthier means than her, for this woman size does not matter. Relative value in the eyes of others doesn’t matter. This coin, this particular coin is her coin, and it’s precious to her. So for her this coin is of immense value, relative to her whole savings account.

Small coin matters. It’s so valuable, she puts forth whatever effort is required, forever, whatever time is required to find that lost coin. And when she finds it, she tucks it back into the folds of her apron or she fastens it back on the string with the other nine coins, like that inanimate object, the dirty, tarnished silver coin, lost down on the dust of the floor, a dirty floor. It’s a picture of sinners, isn’t it? Covered beneath the mire and the filth of a fallen world. Ignorance as a coin with no thought. Ignorant of their true condition, oblivious about the wretchedness and the hopelessness of their situation. Apart from any move of divine grace, that’s where they sit until Judgment Day.

Spurgeon put it, “The silver piece was lost, but not forgotten.” So too the lost sinner, though ignorant, and oblivious as a dead inanimate object like a dirty coin. God has not forgotten his own. At the right time, the Son of Man comes to seek and save that which is lost. So this woman’s effort pictures the persistent love of God, diligent to search out and find what’s precious to him, what is valuable to him, he’s not going to stop searching until he finds what he considers valuable and precious to him.

I’m reminded of David’s words in Psalm 139. “Oh, Lord, you’ve searched me and known me. You know, when I sit down and when I rise up, you discerned my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.” Notice how David is picturing the omniscience of God. He knows all things and yet God searches, “Even before a word is on my tongue. Behold, oh, Lord, you know it all together. You hem me in, behind and before, you lay your hand upon me.” Like a dirty lost coin. David goes on in that beautiful, Psalm 139 to describe the implications of God’s omniscience, his omnipresence that in reality, David’s place David’s ways, David’s thoughts, David’s situation, David’s circumstances, nothing in his life is unknown to God.

Nothing is hidden from his persistent searching, all knowing, always searching gaze, and it’s a gaze of love for David. It’s a gaze of love for those coins like you and me that he owns, that he strings together around his neck. God, each one of his people is far more valuable than a small silver coin, to him each one is, of them is like a jewel, absolutely, and uniquely precious to him. The imagery is justified based on Zechariah 9:16 and 17. “On that day the Lord their God will save them, as the flock of his people; for like the jewels of a crown they shall shine on his land. For how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty!”

Brings both of those images together, doesn’t it? Shepherd sheeping, seeking sheep, woman seeking lost coin, but now a jewel. When we come under the pardoning love of God. When we’re received, we are received by Jesus, the friend of sinners, listen, we have the individualized, particular care and concern of God, never forgetting us, always seeing us. His love is particular, his care is persistent, even when you may feel not paid attention to, even when it feels like God is not listening to your prayers, he is. He knows your thoughts before you think them your words before you speak them.

Brings us to, here a fourth theme, number four, the protective love of God. Go back to the shepherd searching for his lost sheep and we’ll take it up in verse 5 after he finds his sheep. It says there “When he is found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” He lays the sheep on his shoulders, rejoicing. That is, he’s not scolding the sheep. You dumb sheep. You know how much trouble you cost me? I had to go. I almost broke my ankle crossing that ditch right there. How many times have I told, none of that, right? What a contrast.

 I’m, I’m only quoting that because that’s how I tend to think. We tend to be like that, don’t we? I mean, what parent among us has not had that panicked feeling in a crowded area, teeming with thousands of people, some country fair or some place like that? And the panic sets in as you realize one of your kids is missing. When you finally find that kid, after all the hugs and kisses and all that kind of stuff, right? You get back in the car, where no one can hear ya. And there’s a mild scolding that follows about safety and responsibility and all that other stuff, right? None of that here. He’s just joyful. He’s thankful that he’s found his beloved sheep. That’s what happens here.

The shepherd comes, sees the sheep, pulls the stickers and stuff out of its wool, scoops up this helpless sheep by this point exhausted from its panic, completely out of energy, trembling and shivering from fear and worry. And he cradles that animal, putting its belly against the back of his neck, pulling the legs, all four legs down, holding the two hind legs and the two front legs together, pulling them tightly to his chest. Starts the journey back home and notice end of verse 5, what is he doing? What’s his attitude? Not murmuring, not grumbling, not like the Pharisees and the scribes, not like false shepherds, he’s rejoicing, rejoicing.

 Listen, whatever you come in this church with, if you are a repentant sinner, I don’t care what your baggage is. We love you. We love you. We want you here. There’s not a one of us who doesn’t have sins like that, that need the tender care of a shepherd who rejoices over us being found rather than blaming us for all the stuff we’ve gotten into. We want you here.

Notice, Jesus portrays the shepherd here, is returning in the parable, not to the sheep fold, not to cast it back in with other ninety-nine, he’s going back to his own home in verse 6. It’s as if he brings the sheep into the warmth of his own house. Remember the shepherding Psalm, Psalm 23, where David says, that he treats him like a sheep. And then he says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, my cup runneth over.” Like, wait a minute, we’re thinking of a sheep and picturing David as a sheep.

 And now he’s sitting at a table with little hooves up on the table. Can’t, he can’t even hold the wineglass, you know, he’s gonna drop it. It’s the picture though that we’re given, where, he’s sitting at a table. The sheep comes into the house, he’s in the safety, in the friendly company of the shepherd’s friends and his neighbors. He’s safe in the arms of a shepherd. In his loving hands, that’s what it means to belong to Jesus Christ. That’s what it means to be one of his disciples.

So these new converts, these repentant tax collectors and sinners, they’re experiencing the protective love of their shepherd. At this very moment, while Jesus is correcting the grumblers. They didn’t need to face the scorn and contempt of the Pharisees and scribes alone. They didn’t need to have an answer. Jesus had one. These redeemed people, pardoned, reconciled to God. They’re now wrapped as it were, around the neck of Jesus, such a beautiful picture. Their bellies against his neck, born upon his shoulders, him bearing all the weight. Such a beautiful picture. And if you think about it, it’s a theological picture, isn’t it? It portrays Jesus as the one who bears upon his shoulders, his people from start to finish, from salvation to glorification.

Our Lord’s career is a course of soul winning, of a life laid out for his people. And in it you may trace the whole process of salvation. It’s a good word. Everything from start to finish, from eternity past to eternity future. So born upon Jesus shoulders, wrapped around his neck, worn like jewels in the crown upon God’s head, the sheep are under divine protection.

That’s our point number four. It’s a protecting love. Look, “If God is for us, who can be against us,” right Romans 8, for those who are the recipients of God’s pardoning love, which is evident in the fruit of regeneration, repentance of sin, coming to Jesus in faith, hearing and understanding his teaching, following him and obedient discipleship. Listen, for those who are recipients of God’s pardoning love, there are no limits at all to the infinite and eternal love of God. God pulls out all the stops. He showers us with this pardoning love, this particular love, persistent love, and this protective love. Let’s pray.

God, how do we respond to this? But except to say, thank you. You who did not spare even your own son, but freely gave him up for us all. How will you not along with him freely give us all things? Indeed you have. Jesus said, “Dear children, your father has given you the kingdom.” There’s nothing to worry about. There’s nothing to be afraid of. And before you we, we know what this is like. We are like lost sheep.

We are, that is such an apt picture for what we are, often distracted, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. We’re like sometimes that dumb, inanimate coin laying in the dirt. Father, we are so thankful that our salvation is not up to us. It’s completely up to you from start to finish, from beginning to end, and you who began a good work in us will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. We love you. We give thanks to you in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. May we bathe in this message about your love and never wonder in Jesus’ name, amen.