Sermon - Trinity III - Luke 15:1-10

How much worse are the sins of another than our own? If a man were to come into town guilty of murder, we would all avoid him as the worst of sinners, desiring him to be locked up in a prison cell! But when we hate our own neighbors, holding onto grudges and seeking revenge, we call it strength and pride, while the scriptures call it murder. If we were to see a poor man lying drunk in a gutter, we would disdain him as the scum of the earth. But when a rich man turns a blind eye to the poor and feasts sumptuously every day, stumbling into bed drunk each night, we consider him a great rich man who has worked hard for his wealth, while the scripture still calls him a drunk and a glutton.

I tell you, whether one is engaged in manifest sins or hiddens sins, both are sinners. While the world may despise the one and honor the other, Christ looks upon both with mercy. Truly, Jesus doesn’t pass by either sinner, but instead both are lost, and Christ seeks the lost. 

It’s just as Jesus says elsewhere in Luke “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Another place in Luke Jesus says “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Christ seeks the lost; this is revealed to us in today’s most precious Gospel lesson. So based upon today’s Gospel text, let us consider who are the lost Christ seeks, and how does Christ seek them.

So who are the lost? Looking at the beginning of our text, we read “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”” From these two verses we see that Jesus graciously receives all kinds of wretched sinners! He receives tax collectors, who at that time would charge much higher tax rates on people in order to pocket a good chunk of profit for themselves. And Jesus receives people who are such horrible people they’re simply known as sinners! Moreover, as we heard last week, Jesus sat with Pharisees and ate with them.

So to answer the question of who the lost are that Christ seeks, we must plainly answer: Christ seeks all the lost without distinction. He goes in search of those who are the most terrible well-known sinners! He goes after the heathen who do not worship the true God, but worship their false idols. He goes after those who have fallen from the faith and rejected Him. He seeks the ones who call themselves Christians but behave nothing like Christians. He pursues those who have become stagnant in their faith, indifferent in regards to salvation. He even seeks those who call themselves Christians, look like Christians, behave like Christians, but inwardly in their hearts are no less sinners than the most wicked heathens. 

In short, Christ seeks all the world because all people have sinned. “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way.” All humans are by nature sinners who are lost and in need of their Good Shepherd to seek them out and rescue them from the dark places of their wretched hearts. We are those miserable wretched sinners lost in the deceitful recesses of our own despicable hearts. 

When at times we look at other sinners with pride in our hearts and hatred and loathing towards them, we are no better than the Pharisees and scribes. We prove ourselves sinners, indeed worse sinners than those who drew near to hear Jesus. For the greatest sins take place not with our hands but in our hearts, and what’s worse is the sin of pride and the sin of failing to repent. 

The tax collectors and sinners whom Jesus ate with were indeed sinners, there’s no doubt about it. But they drew near to Jesus because they knew their sins and their hearts were heavy leadened with their guilt. These sinners were repentant, like the tax collector Zacheous, who welcomed Jesus into His house and heard those comforting words spoken by his Savior, “Today salvation has come to this house.” While those sinners knew they were sinners and repented, the Pharisees and scribes failed to repent and didn’t want to found by Jesus. 

We are likewise all sinners whom Jesus is seeking, some of us with well-known unhidden sins and others of us with secret sins of the heart. But together we are all sinners in need of repentance. While Jesus seeks all of us, He seeks some of the lost more fervently than others, namely those whose sins are ever before them and earnestly repent of them. Jesus says this at the end of these two parables, in verses 7 and 10, “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...Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

It doesn’t matter how great your sins are or how numerous they may be or the weight of them in this life. God is abundantly gracious towards sinners! Listen to what we read from Micah again, this is profoundly beautiful! “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

What great comfort this is my friends! I hope you see how gracious and compassionate God is towards us! No matter your sins and how great they may be, God loves you and seeks you out! His steadfast love knows no boundaries in order to find you and bring you back to Him. There’s not one of us that Christ our Good Shepherd doesn’t seek out! 

So this now brings us to our second point. How does Christ seek out the lost? Look again to the two parables in Luke today. Jesus compares Himself to both a shepherd seeking a sheep, and woman seeking a coin. 

In the first parable Jesus says, in v.4, “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 one that is lost, until he finds it?” In the second parable Jesus says, in v.8, “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?”

The first parable is ridiculous. When Jesus asks who would leave 99 sheep alone in the wilderness to go and find one lost sheep, which is probably already dead by this point, the assumed answer to this question is no sane person would do this! If you abandon your flock to go and save one sheep, you could end up losing all of them! But it shows that God’s love for the lost goes beyond human reason. 

Jesus is willing to risk everything in order to find the lost. Jesus does risk everything. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the lost sheep. Jesus, God Himself, laid down His life upon the cross, in order to save sinners such as us. God died so that we wretched people would be forgiven and found. This is ridiculous that God would choose to die for us, and yet He did, God died for you in order to find you and bring you back to Him. 

God never stops seeking the lost, but like the shepherd He goes out “until He finds it.” God never stops searching for us, like the woman seeking the lost coin, she “lights a lamp and sweeps the house and seeks diligently until she finds it.” God looks diligently for us, and when we give up on God, He doesn’t stop. God never forgets us, He never forsakes us, He never stops searching. God says in Isaiah, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will never forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.” So the hands of Christ shall bear the marks of the cross for eternity, because His love for you shall never wane nor be forgotten.

So to answer our question of how Christ seeks the lost, it’s plainly obvious that He seeks us relentlessly and even died so that we may be found. My dear hearers, rejoice that we who are lost may repent and be found by the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. 

Therefore, heed the words of St. Peter, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” Cast your sins upon Jesus, and He will find you, lifting you upon His shoulders, so that all the angels of heaven shall rejoice over you, one sinner who repents.