The Parable of Redemptive Joy, Part 1 | God’s Rescue Mission

Luke 15:1-10

We are in Luke 15 looking at the theme of redemptive joy in the first two parables. Jesus gives a series of three parables here in Luke 15: the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. The three of these parables are directed at the Pharisees and the scribes because of their, well, we just call it a poor reaction to the salvation of sinners rather than rejoicing over the salvation of sinners, which really is the only fitting response. They grumbled and they criticized. They tried to turn others against him, so Jesus confronts their sinful attitude with these three parables.

Starting in verse 1. Let’s read the text, Luke 15, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’ So, he told them this parable, “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, “the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 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.’ 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.

“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? 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.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

The most striking feature of these two parables is the love of God for lost sinners. God loves his people. He set his affections upon them from before the foundation of the world, and he rejoices to execute all his good pleasure and do his perfect will. He freely pardons his people from all their sins, because, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, he laid down his life for the sheep. In love, God is like a shepherd who has compassion for a lost sheep. Every single lost sheep matters to him. He knows the gravity of the danger that a lost sheep is in. So, he goes after the lost sinner until he finds him. In love, God is like a woman who so values this lost coin. So, she searches for it diligently and exhaustively until she finds that lost coin, and God is the same with the lost sinner. He will seek and save the lost. He never stops until he reclaims his own.

So, the theme that we want to consider today is the fact that God’s love is not coerced in any way. He’s not reluctant about loving us. He’s not forced to love us. He has made a free, sovereign choice of his people. He is compelled by nothing but his free choice, the good pleasure of his purpose in redemption, and all of that, to the praise of his glorious grace.

If we put this plainly about what we’re going to see this morning, God delights to love us. God delights to love us and then he rejoices to do his will, which is to save us, to redeem us from all of our sins. And Jesus Christ is the one who executes that plan of redemption. Like the father, he delights in the love of God for sinners, he rejoices to do God’s will to seek and save that which is lost. And, though it cost him dearly, at the price of his shed blood, he rejoiced. We can see from the wrap up, the summary of each parable, verse 7, verse 10, all of Heaven rejoices in the accomplishment of God’s will. All of Heaven responds in joy to what God has done in the salvation of lowly sinners, to seek the lost and to find them.

The question we want to put before ourselves today, we want to ask ourselves, am I more like the Pharisees, having a tendency to grumble and complain in our spirits? Have a tendency to be critical or am I more like God’s friends, rejoicing over the thing that really matters, which is the salvation of lost souls? Is my soul, on the one hand, poisoned with complaint? Do I have a darkened soul of criticism and bitterness? Or does my soul burst forth with the joy of God in the rescue of lost sinners?

To help us answer those questions, let’s consider what I see in the text, here, are four affections of those who share in divine joy. Those who share in God’s joy in the salvation of sinners, they’re characterized by these four affections. Let me give you the first one.

Ask yourself, do you have, number one, righteous affections? That is, are your affections, are your internal affections lined up with what is right, with what is appropriate, with what is fitting? The substance of the Pharisees’ complaint there in Luke 15:2 is that Jesus is keeping company with the deplorables, with the unlovelies, with the unclean sinners. They couldn’t countenance him welcoming sinners, letting them draw near, or even worse, sharing table fellowship with them by eating a meal. That was, that was unconscionable to them.

The Pharisees stayed far away from sinners. They were separate from the defiled and the unclean. They even used to rehearse prayers of their loathing. It’s the same sentiment we hear, actually, from the Pharisee who prayed in the temple. Jesus portrays him in Luke 18:11, saying, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector.” When he says that he’s not making it up for the point of a parable. He’s heard that language among the Pharisees in the temple. They were self-righteous to the extreme. They separated themselves from sinners so they didn’t get any on them. Think about it, your life. Let’s think about my life. Are we in a bubble? Do we keep ourselves so separate that we don’t get any on us? Don’t prefer that company. Do we keep aloof and then criticize when we see them getting their just due?

So, Jesus cuts through this sanctimonious attitude, the Pharisees, and he delivers parables about common people doing common things; common people like a shepherd or a woman in a house doing something common, facing a common loss. He talks about what’s normal among people. These proud-hearted religious men, they’re rebuked by the common manner of a shepherd who seeks his lost sheep, rebuked by the woman who searches for her lost coin because, in finding what they lost, they rejoiced. They can’t help it. What they lost matters to them.

More to the point, they’re rebuked by the friends and the neighbors who come forth to rejoice with them when that lost thing is found. The friends and the neighbors don’t hold themselves aloof. They don’t criticize and say, woman, can’t keep track of your coin? Shepherd, what kind of shepherd are you, losing the sheep? “When” the shepherd. “comes home,” verse 6, “calls together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I’ve found my sheep that was lost.’” And what is the appropriate response of true friends? How do they demonstrate their friendship?

When the woman cries out in joy, having finally found her lost coin after a, a diligent, exhausting search, choking on all the dust she swept up to try to get it out of the way and see if she can spot that coin, her anxious heart is lifted to a state of joy in recovering her valuable. I mean, that is one tenth of her savings! “She calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I found the coin that I had lost.’” What is the fitting response of a true neighbor? A true friend? And what does a false neighbor and a false friend do?

Port that appropriate fitting response in these common things, port that over to the spiritual realm, now, and think about the grave situation of a sinner, if we coined, you know, use the term of Jonathan Edwards of a “sinner in the hands of an angry God.” Think about the eternal consequences before this lost sinner. Issues of heaven and hell are at stake. Eternal life and eternal death. So, when God saves a lost sinner from this certain, eternal death, listen, it is appropriate, it is fitting, let me just put it this way, it is righteous to rejoice. It is righteous to give thanks.

It is a righteous affection to celebrate with the lost being found and the self-righteous cannot see this. They’re so filled with themselves, so self-satisfied, they flatter themselves in their own opinions, their own judgments, the thoughts of their own heads. They are blind to what is true righteousness. They have no share in salvation, no part in the inheritance of the just. They don’t know what it is to be justified by faith, forgiven of all their sins because of the free grace of God. They don’t know that. They have no gratitude because they don’t sense a need for it. They’ve not received a pardon for their own sins. They think they’re fine. They pat themselves on the back for doing good works that God accepts.

The righteous, though, they can be counted on to rejoice because they know, first of all, number one, it is right to rejoice in finding the lost because they know what it is to be lost and found personally. They too, they remember, they were lost sheep. But the searching Christ came, and he found them, and in love he snatched them out from the jaws of death.

They, too, they remember, they were lost coins. Dumb, inanimate objects, having no feeling, ignorant to the core, they were falling into deep cracks, covered with filth, mud, mire, lying there, unable to make a sound. They’re dirty, they’re hidden from view, but they were never forgotten by the searching Christ. They’re never out of the sight of the omniscient searching Spirit of God, and Christ searched diligently and found them, and, in love, he reclaimed them as his own.

They know what it is to be lost. With David, they exclaim, Oh, ha! “How blessed,” Psalm 32, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity.” And, we can add, how blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes righteousness instead. Having been found, forgiven, justified by God, they are covered now in the righteousness of Christ. They know, in the core of their being, they know it is right to rejoice in the salvation of the lost.

For the righteous, number two, they can be counted on to rejoice because they know, secondly, it is right to rejoice with those you call friends. It is right to rejoice with those that you call friends. That is true friendship. Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”

Some of you have experienced great cause for weeping in your life. And it is the mark of true friendship, when that friend comes near you and weeps, when that friend shares your burden in prayer and lifts you up before the throne of God and visits you, and maybe sends you a card, or an email, or a text, or however that comes to you. But it’s expression of care and concern. They weep with those who weep.

In the same sense, on the other end of the emotional spectrum, they rejoice with those who rejoice. Your joy is their joy. They rejoice. Like, it’s like a parent watching their child grow up and, and do good things, whether it’s on the playfield or in school or accomplishments, it doesn’t matter how small or how big. They love to see the child or grandchild succeed and do well, and you rejoice. Back to verse 6, “When he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I found my sheep that was lost.’” Again, in verse 9, “When she found it, she calls together her friends and her neighbors, ‘Rejoice with me, for I found the coin that I had lost.’”

Listen, if you’re a friend of the shepherd, if you are a neighbor to the woman, then you will be like the angels of heaven surrounding the throne of God, sharing in the joy, eager to obey this polite command, “Rejoice with me.” Because in your heart of hearts you know this is, this is right. This is appropriate, this is fitting and because this is a friend. This is a friend.

In fact, this is the verb that is used at the very end of the chapter, fitting. Last verse, Luke 15:32. The father is there with the older son. He’s trying to coax this proud older brother to come back on inside and rejoice with them. He tells him in verse 31, “Son, you’re always with me.” I mean, that’s the true joy of, of sonship, right, to be with the father? He says, “Son, you’re always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” Then this, “It was fitting.” That’s the verb de, meaning it is necessary or it is morally right. “It was fitting,” necessary, morally righteous, “to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and he’s alive; he was lost, and he’s now found.”

When the father is rejoicing in this way over his younger son, for the older son to stay outside and sulk is wickedness to the core. It doesn’t show any affection, not just for the younger brother, it shows no affection for the father himself. Listen, if it is morally right to rejoice, then it is morally wrong not to rejoice.

Those who are indifferent now in the salvation of the lost, those who remain cool and stand aloof and stay apart, those who have a critical, judgmental spirit, the spirit of the Pharisees, grumbling and complaining, refusing to rejoice over the salvation of lost sinners, or refusing to come near enough to even see it for themselves because they’re so far afield, do they really think that God approves of them? Does God really approve of that kind of attitude? Do, do they really think that they share the heart of the father?

When sinners around us are being saved, you know, ask yourself, and I think we all have to ask ourselves and be really honest with what’s going on in our hearts, do we find ourselves cold? People with new found salvation; do we choose to grumble and complain instead, caught up with negativity, unwilling or unable to rejoice, so preoccupied with our own judgments and thoughts, and…? We consider it instead a matter of righteousness? Do we consider it, I don’t care how I feel, I don’t care what’s been going on in my life. Man, there’s a salvation of a lost sinner! I must rejoice, I must come forward, I must congratulate, celebrate. I must exult in God, the Savior, who plucked this fire brand out of the fire!

 Consider again those words of the loving father, appealing to his hard-hearted son, “Son, you are always with me.” Son. I love that language, calling that old brother who pictures the Pharisees, calling him son. “Son, you’re always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad. Listen to the appeal, “for this brother of yours is dead and now he’s alive; he was lost, he’s found.” Come on, back in the house. Come on, rejoice with me, rejoice with us.

If you’re inclined to respond with righteous affections, if this appeal to you is landing and hitting its mark, then you know what? You’re going to find room in your heart for the next affection as well. The next affection, number two, you will have, number two, Gospel affections. If you’re compelled internally by righteousness of the issue, well then, it’s an easy step to see the Gospel issue and the Gospel affection that comes out as well.

So, what makes the Gospel the Gospel? This is what makes the Gospel such good news. These tax collectors and sinners, they are our hope. You take the very dregs of Jewish society and if they can be saved and draw near and be welcomed by Jesus Christ and Jesus eats with them and fellowships with them, he receives them, they’re reconciled to God through him; if they can come, we can come. You get the picture? Such good news.

These tax collectors, sinners, they were considered truly the scum of the earth and Jesus does not receive them or welcome them or eat with them because they made themselves acceptable. That’s the way of the Pharisees and the scribes, making themselves acceptable and thinking they have a right to be at the table with Jesus. Salvation does not come through external law keeping, and frankly, I think that is what really irritated these self-righteous religious leaders the most. The grace of God really nullified their entire life of good works that they try to make themselves acceptable to God with. What made sense to them in their flesh is that salvation is earned. It’s merited through effort.

And the grace of God says, No. God justifies the ungodly by his grace, and by his grace alone. It’s through a faith that anyone can exercise. Yes, even tax collectors. Yes, even sinners. Even the very worst of sinners, like the woman at the end of Chapter 7 in Luke’s gospel, anointing his feet with her tears and wiping them, drying them with her hair. She is so joyful over receiving his salvation. Anyone can come because anyone can exercise faith in him.

God justifies the ungodly not by their merit, by Christ’s merit. He justifies the ungodly not by overlooking their sins, but by dealing with their sins in punishing his son. The grace of God completely subverted these pharisaic expectations, and it offended them. They hated this, because if they were to embrace salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, you know what that means for their whole life? Worthless. They’ve got to admit that their entire life of works, their entire life of effort means nothing before God.

Grace of God is what levels the playing field. All are sinners. All ground is level before the cross. So that counts for the opportunist tax collectors to these scrupulous scribes. That counts for the morally fastidious Pharisees all the way to the irreligious and unclean sinners and everybody in between, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” So there, if there is salvation to be had, and there is, praise God, it can only come by the grace of God. It’s only according to his mercy. By his grace alone. It comes through faith in Jesus Christ, and faith in him alone.

Those with Gospel affections rejoice in that truth. They rejoice in that Gospel; their hearts are filled with gratitude for the grace and the goodness of God in the Gospel. And that’s why Jesus rejoices in seeking and saving the lost, because he wants to rescue them. He wants to receive them to himself. These are gifts of God to him. The father loves to send him, execute salvation, the plan of redemption through Christ. And he loves and rejoices to go find those sinners, receive them to himself, and bring them to the father.

Jesus Christ has Gospel affections. He rejoices to reverse the expected outcome. Those condemned to die are now alive forevermore. He rejoices in that. He rejoices to rescue the vulnerable and the helpless, snatching the prey from the jaws of death, pulling the lost from eternal judgment. He loves that. He rejoices to receive the repentant sinner and deliver that one to the father as his gift to the father.

Will we as a flock of lost sheep, now all of us found, now all of us gathered together as lost coins, now safe in the kingdom’s bank, will we grumble? Is there any place among us for a critical spirit, complaining attitude? A voice of self-centeredness and self-absorbed pity? Certainly not. Our joy and our gratitude, it will come forth, it must come forth from a deep well of Gospel affections. It must burst forth from us in exultant praise for God’s great salvation.or this block. You can use this space for describing your block.