Nathan E. Lewis

“Parable of the Lost Sheep”
Luke 15: 1-7

Luke presents to us three parables of Jesus: The Lost Sheep; The Lost Coin; and The Lost Son. Jesus’ main point tying these three parables together is that heaven rejoices in the repentance of a sinner. The occasion for the telling of these parables was the Pharisees and scribes grumbling over Jesus, who was receiving the tax collectors and sinners. Luke writes, “the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus.” Jesus attracted sinners. Particularly his gospel message attracted them. As Jesus preached, all sin was condemned and certain hope in God was declared to everyone. These outcast sinners could not stay away from Jesus. While they listened to his every word, the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling. They believed that association with such outcast sinners would make them all unclean. As Jesus told his three parables, the sinners heard the gospel of the God who seeks and finds his lost children. They heard the gospel of heaven rejoicing over repentant sinners. This is the gospel Jesus has given to his Church in all ages to proclaim.
In this first Parable of the Lost Sheep Jesus makes his point by finding a situation in which the grumblers must agree with him. His apologetic strategy is to change the perspective of his enemies. The perspective of the Pharisees and the scribes was a view of evil transferring from a sinful person to a righteous person, tainting, even damaging the righteous person. Their perspective produced separatism. The righteous must not associate with the sinner. Anyone who adopts this perspective would find Jesus to be a dangerous man. His behavior encouraged association with sinners. His perspective forces us to admit that we all are sinners. Jesus tells this parable to replace the perspective of separatism with a better perspective, one that brings together the whole counsel of God in the Holy Scriptures.
The perspective of Jesus focuses us upon the God who seeks and finds his children. The perspective of Jesus focuses upon heaven rejoicing over a repentant sinner. The Pharisees and the scribes truly believed that freedom from sin was the blessed result of their perspective focused upon separation from evil and sin. But Jesus has presented to the world freedom from sin as a gift from the God who seeks and finds his lost children resulting in their being found and freed from all the dangers of this dark and craggy world.
Do not misunderstand Jesus: He is not promoting our entering into associations that would taint and harm us. He is not advocating that we would spend time with sinners to become more sinful ourselves. Nevertheless, he points out that God’s way of salvation includes the Righteous Son of God descending from heaven into the miseries of this dark and craggy world to preach the gospel to all creation. God’s way of salvation is incarnation, association, imputation, and representation. All of these big words describe a God who has come close to us in our impurity, our unworthiness, our evil and our sinfulness.
As we adopt Jesus’ perspective, our eyes become fixed upon God and heaven, finding here the source of freedom from all evil. The first glimpse of God in this parable is of God looking for the lost sinner. God does not search for us because he has lost us, but because we desperately need his help. In the garden, after Adam and Eve had sinned, God came seeking them, calling, “Adam, Adam, where are you?” Did God not know where to find Adam and Eve? He knew precisely where they were hiding and the reason why they had covered their nakedness with fig leaves. He came searching for them and calling out his questions for their good. God is not a stumbling fool of a shepherd who has fallen asleep awaking to discover that one of his lambs has wandered away from the flock. He does not stumble out into the darkness blinding searching, hoping that luck will lead him to his lost lamb. He knows precisely where we sinners are and the reason why we are hiding from him. He comes to our hiding places to remove our feet from the steel trap and our hands frozen to our stone idols. He comes to embrace us in the midst of our putrid squalor and to lift us out of the mire, to lead us home.
The second glimpse of God in this parable is of God rejoicing over us sinners. The shepherd finds his lamb and safely wraps it around his shoulders carrying it home. As he does so he rejoices. The prophet Zephaniah says: “The Lord our God is in our midst; the Lord of Hosts, who saves; He will renew you in his love; He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy!” Just as the shepherd rejoices at finding his lost lamb, so God rejoices over finding us sinners, saving us from the sin that so easily entangles us. We are not a bothersome burden to Jesus. He lifts us to his shoulders, carries our weight rejoicing in us. Some of us might say, “But you don’t know the weight of my sin; I am worse than you know or can imagine.” My friends, the apostles call us to look “to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Undoubtedly our sins are an affront against the holy God who made heaven and earth, but nevertheless, Christ rejoices in saving us. He bore our guilt and shame, covering our sin and he received the divine wrath for sin as he died upon the cross. He suffered with his eyes upon the joy set before him. Our risen and ascended Lord Jesus has received his reward of joy and he now rejoices in every repentant sinner, the fruit of his passion.
The third glimpse of God in this parable is of God inviting everyone he knows to join him in rejoicing. Our God of the covenant gathers us into his covenantal love, to receive it and to share it in our relationships. God does not rejoice alone, but in the company of friends and neighbors. The repentance of a fellow sinner is cause for great rejoicing. All of us who are friends of God join him in rejoicing over each and every sinner who returns home. The emphasis in the parable is upon God inviting, persuading, and compelling the rest of us to rejoice with him. God delights in shared rejoicing. He desires that we have his mind and heart, his perspective on the world around us. To have the mind of Christ is to adopt his view of the repentant sinner. To have the heart of God is to jump at the opportunity to celebrate the return of a sinner. To be holy as God is holy is to be given to rejoicing. In our circles we discuss the relationship of faith and repentance, a fine discussion indeed. Which comes first, faith or repentance? What is absolutely clear in this parable of Jesus is that rejoicing properly follows repentance.
We must take note of this parable’s description of repentance. How does a sinner repent? In this parable, Jesus teaches us that God seeking and finding his lost sheep, bearing us home on his shoulders is the path of repentance. In other words, God is the cause and giver of our repentance. Our remorse for sin is a gift from God. Our confession of sin is a gift from God. Our hatred of our sin, turning away from it, grieving our part in it, is a gift from the hand of God. Our endeavor to do the right and any sustained obedience is nothing less than a gift from God. And so, as we are occupied with a daily repentance we are to remember that we have been found of God and are happily bouncing on his shoulders as he carries us home.
True to his amazing rhetoric, Jesus untangles the meaning of words defined by religious systems returning us to a true understanding of righteousness. In (7) the one sinner who repents is the cause of heavenly joy more so than 99 “righteous” persons who need no repentance. This is a jab at the self-righteousness of the grumbling Pharisees and scribes. Ever since the fall of the human race it has been impossible for any fallen human being to be righteous apart from repentance. Repentance is the only righteous path open to us. Jesus makes his point only to serve his greater point, namely, that heaven echoes with rejoicing over the repentant sinner. Between heaven and earth there is an antiphonal liturgy performed. We earthbound followers of Jesus shed our tears and lament our sins. The response from heaven is rejoicing, shouts of joy, songs of praise, the laughter of freedom pierce the veil between heaven and earth. “Weeping lasts for the night but joy comes in the morning.” As you mourn your sin, listen for the response of heavenly joy. Strain the ears of your soul to hear the sweet revelry of heaven. You do not repent in the dark crags of this world alone and rejected. You repent as you are carried home on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd, Jesus, our Redeemer.

The Parable of the Lost Coin
Luke 15: 8-10

Jesus tells three parables in Luke 15, all to the same audience with one same point: heaven rejoices in the repentance of a sinner. In the first parable we have learned that God rejoices over the repentance of a sinner and he invites everyone around him to rejoice with him. We also learn that the path of repentance for any of us is a gift of God. He carries us along the path of repentance as a Shepherd carries on his shoulders his lamb.
In this second parable Jesus introduces us to a fictitious woman who has lost one of her ten silver coins. She lights a lamp and sweeps the house diligently until she finds it. Once again we learn that God highly values those of us who are repentant of our sins. To repent of our sins means that we turn away from them with grief and hatred and turn unto God endeavoring to do what is right before him. In the first parable, God is represented by the shepherd, who highly values his one lost lamb. In this second parable, God is represented by the woman, who highly values her lost silver coin. You might think, “Why would God value me?” God created you in his image and made you the highly functional creature that you are. He takes pleasure in what he has created. Why would God make anything that he did not value? You are precious in the eyes of God and thus cherished.
Once again we see the main point in this woman calling her friends to join her in rejoicing over her finding the lost silver coin. Just like this woman and her friends rejoicing so heaven rejoices every time a sinner repents. The lost coin found is a metaphor for a sinner repenting. When I was lost I was living disobediently apart from God. When God found me, he was not searching unaware of my location and condition, but rather, he was bringing me the help that I so desperately need. A lost coin is of little use covered with dust under the bed. But a silver coin in the hands of its owner has the potential of investment returns and purchasing power. Left to ourselves, while we may have intrinsic value, we are little to no use. But in the hands of our Maker and Master we reach our created and intended potential.
When I was a boy I helped a spinster, Miss Dolson, care for her garden including hundreds of potted succulents. She taught me how to start new plants, force bulbs, divide and conquer perennials, and to love gardening. Miss Dolson invited me to her Saturday Good News Club for children in our neighborhood. I began to go on a regular basis. She would hold up a large poster in the shape and color of a Stop Sign and sing: “Stop and let me tell you what the Lord has done for me….He forgave my sins and he saved my soul; he cleansed my heart and he made me whole. Stop and let me tell you what the Lord has done for me.” Then she would hold up a poster of a Green Traffic Light and sing: “Go and tell the story of the Christ of Calvary….He’ll forgive your sins and he’ll save your soul; he’ll cleanse your heart and he’ll make you whole…. Go and tell the story of the Christ of Calvary.” She introduced me to the Wordless Book: The first page black representing my sin against God and my hopeless condition apart from him; the second page red representing the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, atoning for my sins; the third page white representing my cleansed condition, my purity having received the righteousness of Christ; the fourth page gold representing the heavenly streets of gold.
One Saturday I brought my younger brother, Stephen, as a guest. He participated in the club and listened respectfully as Miss Dolson invited children to put their faith in Jesus Christ. We walked home and that night we climbed into our beds crowded into one bedroom along with our older brother, Jon. While Jon was reading his maps and making entries into his daily weather log by the light of his flashlight, Stephen asked me in the darkness of the room if I would help him pray to God as Miss Dolson had invited the children to do. I helped him to pray his repentance from sin and his faith in Jesus. The next day, as our family walked home from church, we walked past Miss Dolson’s house and so Stephen and I dropped in to tell her the good news. She was elated. In that brief meeting I discovered that Miss Dolson possessed a deeper joy and satisfaction in seeing children put their faith in Jesus than she derived from gardening.
Miss Dolson had not attended church for some years. She was a follower of the founder of the church and the four subsequent ministers, including my father, did not win her approval. She also thought that the church was failing to evangelize the community and so she stopped going to church and concentrated on hosting her Good News Clubs. The Sunday following Stephen’s prayer of faith and repentance, Miss Dolson showed in church, a black hat covering her gray braided hair tied neatly in a bun. By coffee hour everyone in the church knew that the Preacher’s kid had prayed to receive Christ as a direct result of her Good News Club. There was much rejoicing and soon there was a baptism and to this day, those of us who love Stephen Lewis, Pastor of Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Salem, rejoice over his conversion and his persevering in the faith. Miss Dolson was an instrument in God’s hands to seek out lost children, dearly loved of God, bringing to them what they desperately need, the good news of sins forgiven and God’s eternal love.
Miss Dolson would not be correlative to the woman in Jesus’ parable but to the lamp and the broom. The woman is a metaphor for God. Those of us who are used by God to find lost souls, proclaiming to them the gospel, are lamps and brooms.
Nearly everyone in the western hemisphere knows of the little dark cave in the crags of the Himalayas, home to the guru who is wise beyond all others. Westerners save their money, fly to Tibet, hire barefoot packers and guides and ascend the mountain. Along the grueling climb these pilgrims are rehearsing their questions for the guru. They are hoping to receive answers to the plaguing, ultimate questions of life. They are desirous of a deeper spirituality. Finally, they reach the cave, and one by one the pilgrims squat in the darkness to peer into the candle-lit face of the guru. Each asks his question and the guru answers: “Look within yourself…strive hard to reach your full potential…deny yourself worldly pleasures…empty your mind but for this one mantra I give to you…descend the mountain and work our your spirituality.”
There is another troupe of pilgrims gathered from all hemispheres who seek the mountain of God. They have been given copies of an ancient map, which they follow closely. After many adventures and unexpected twists and turns, they see a glowing pinpoint just below the cornice of a grand peak. As they ascend toward it they discover that it is a cave warmly glowing. They peak into its mouth to see a large table heaped with delicacies from seven cuisines, crystal bowls laden with fresh, tropical fruit, goblets of mead and pitchers of glacial water. At the far end of the banquet table stands a white robed man smiling and saying, “Welcome. Please enter.” But the pilgrims say, “We are sorry to disturb you. Obviously, you are expecting guests for an important feast. We have come for spiritual direction and we will return in the morning. We will make our bivouac one more night on the icy ledge and seek your wisdom after you have entertained your guests.” But the smiling man says, “But you are my guests. I have been awaiting your arrival for a long time. It was I who put the ancient map into your hands and it has been my song on the icy winds beckoning you to this feast. Now that you have arrived our rejoicing over you increases. He claps his hands and the musicians appear around the fire playing flute, harp and drum. He stands to the side so that the pilgrims are able to see that the table and the cave stretch further than the eye can see. An uncountable number of guests already seated and feasting stand to their feet rejoicing with the white robed man, rejoicing in the new pilgrims taking their places at the table.
I had the privilege of meeting one such pilgrim years ago and I asked him after he recounted to me his story, “What wisdom did you take from the white robed man in the cave to guide you in your common life in the valley?” He said to me: “God rejoices as repentant sinners come home; all of heaven rejoices with him every time a sinner repents.”

“The Parable of the Lost Son”
Luke 15: 11-32

Jesus tells three parables in response to the Pharisees and scribes grumbling about his eating with tax collectors and sinners.
In one continuous answer, Jesus tells the parables of the Lost Lamb, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. All three have the same main point: God rejoices over the repentant sinner. The first two are short parables while the third before us today is longer so that we might understand more about repentance and rejoicing. Few stories have captured the attention of the church as the Parable of the Lost Son. Most recently, New York Times bestselling author and PCA Minister, Tim Keller, has published, The Prodigal God, inspired by Dr. Edmund Clowney’s unforgettable sermon, “Sharing the Father’s Welcome.” Both the sermon and the book will stand the test of time as they stick to Jesus’ main point: God rejoices over the repentant sinner.
Jesus tells the story of a man who had two sons. The younger demanded his share of the property, departed to a distant country and there “squandered his property in reckless living.” We have learned that repentance is turning away from our sin. From this parable, Jesus shapes our understanding of sin. We learn that sin squanders divine capital. God has given to us every good and perfect gift and he has given to us his covenantal law to guide and direct our proper use of his gifts to us. Sin takes these divine gifts and uses them toward selfish and destructive ends. Sin moves us farther and farther away from the God of the covenant who has given to us gifts and his law so that we might live contentedly in his presence.
The younger son enjoyed his life apart from the father until his inheritance was spent. To make matters worse, God’s common grace gifts upon the country in which he was living came to an end through a severe famine. In this situation, bereft of divine gifts, he begins to feel the misery of his sin. He finds a job feeding pigs and realizes that the pigs are being better fed than he is. In a moment of clarity he says to himself, “How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!” From this story we learn that as we begin to repent our minds consider the goodness of God, our Father. Sin is distracting. As we sin we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We purposely lose any connection to God so that we can selfishly pursue sin. But as we being to repent, to turn away from sin, our eyes are fixed more and more upon God. In his desperate situation, the younger son began to consider the goodness of his father.
The younger son’s repentance begins with his eyes set upon his father, moving him to face the reality of his condition and his need to return home. “I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.’” We learn that repentance is returning to God as we face the reality of our condition. We are unworthy of being sons of God. We deserve to be hired servants. The repentant person is humble, facing the reality of his/her sinful condition.
The younger son began his travels home. While he was still far from home, his father saw him, felt compassion, and ran to embrace and kiss him. In this part of the story we learn, perhaps, the sweetest and most profound teaching about repentance: God’s eyes are ever upon our repentance. Not only is repentance our fixing of our eyes upon God, but repentance is also described as God watching over us, expressing his great love for us. God oversees our repentance. He is the Giver of it and he helps us along in it. The father’s love for his younger son is beautifully expressed in the father’s embrace of his son and his listening to his son’s confession. The son begins to deliver his rehearsed three lines: 1)“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.”
2) “ I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
3)…But before he can utter the third line, the father interrupts him with commands to let the rejoicing and feasting begin. The father does not allow the son to say, “Treat me as one of your hired servants.” The Judge is the only one who can deliver the sentence. It is for the father to decide what he will do with his repentant son. Apparently, the father, as he fixed his eyes upon his repentant son, was planning in his mind the feasting that would express his rejoicing over his repentant son. His mind was not engrossed in plans of punishment, the working out of the due consequences of his sin.
The main point of this parable is that God rejoices over repentant sinners. As we have learned a little more about repentance in this parable we also learn a little more about rejoicing. God’s rejoicing dignifies and honors the repentant sinner. No scarlet letter is hung around the younger son’s neck. He is not known for the rest of his days in his father’s house as the black sheep of the family, the son who squandered his inheritance through reckless living. From the first moments of his return, he is known as the beloved son of his father. His new clothes dignify him as one who is inseparably related to the Master. The feast is spread in his honor. God’s includes many others who join him in his rejoicing. Anyone who belongs to the household of God joins in rejoicing over repentant sinners. We hear the invitation of the father, “Let us eat and celebrate!”
Jesus concludes the story by introducing us to the older son. In short, the older brother is one who refuses to rejoice with his father. Jesus includes the older brother in the story to represent the Pharisees and the scribes who were grumbling about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. As Jesus describes the older brother we discover that we can obey God doing nearly everything properly and faithfully, but if we fail to enter into his rejoicing over repentant sinners, then we do not share in what matters to God. The older brother refuses to claim his younger brother. He says to his father, “When this son of yours returns home you celebrate.” He claims his father, but he does not realize how far from his father he is.
In the first two parables Jesus tells us that the shepherd and the woman call together their friends and neighbors inviting them to join in the rejoicing. In the Parable of the Lost Son, Jesus gives us a fuller picture of God inviting us to join in his rejoicing over a repentant sinner. Firstly, the father in persuading his older son to rejoice, expresses his love for him. It is clear to the older son that his father loves his younger son. What may not be altogether clear to the older son is that the father also loves him. The older son has defined his relationship to the father solely on obedience. But as the father speaks to his son, it becomes clear that love is the foundation is the relationship. Secondly, the father hints to the blessings the older brother has received that should not only remind him constantly of his father’s love but also should free him to rejoice over a repentant sinner. Those of us who have remained in the covenant community have been blessed to live in God’s presence and hopefully to enjoy such an intimacy with God. We have not squandered God’s gifts to us and so we are well endowed. The inclusion of a repentant sinner, a brother returned home, in no way jeopardizes our blessed standing in God’s house. We have nothing to lose but pride, our sense of self-justification by rejoicing with God over the repentant sinner.
Thirdly, the father insists that rejoicing is the proper response to a sinner’s repentance because it is part of divine redemption. The younger son was dead, but now he is alive. The path of repentance leads from death to life. The younger son was lost but now he is found. The path of repentance leads from hopeless wandering to the warmth of home. This redemptive perspective convinced the entire household to celebrate. What will the older son do? Jesus stops his story short of telling us how the older son responded to his father’s plea to join in rejoicing. How would the grumbling Pharisees and scribes respond? How will respond to Jesus? Which of the brothers are you most like? Can you identify with both? Jesus calls us to repent and to rejoice, and by doing so, to come home to the father’s love.