Sermon Tone Analysis

*“Relating One-to-One” Manuscript*

Luke 15

Bridging the Chasm series

Jeff Jones, Associate Pastor

August 1~/3, 2003

 

I’ve not always been the romantic genius I am today when it comes to my relationship with Christy.

I’ve made just about every romantic mistake in the book.

After we had been dating for some time, long enough to have begun talking about marriage, my parents invited Christy to come with our family to go skiing over Christmas in Colorado.

We would celebrate Christmas with my family and we would be together—which we were both looking forward to.

I bought her a gift for Christmas, which I was excited about, but was totally insensitive.

I bought her a gold bracelet, and one night on a date, I decided to give her some hints about what I’d gotten her.

Now, keep in mind that we were of marriageable age, we’d discussed marriage, and were very serious.

Christy’s friends were all telling her that if she was coming with me to Colorado for Christmas, this had to be it—when I’d ask her to marry me.

All that didn’t really enter my mind.

I was just excited about my bracelet.

So, I give her some hints.

It’s gold.

It’s round.

It’s jewelry.

So, what is she thinking?

I’m clueless.

So, we are opening gifts on Christmas Eve with my whole family around.

I hand her the gift, which is in a little box, and she says, “Are you sure you want to do this here?”

“Yeah, why not?! Sure!”

I say with a smile on my face.

She opens the package, pulls open the box, and voilla!

Not a ring.

I’m excited to see her expression of delight with my bracelet, and she is not.

She was hoping for one thing that would thrill her heart above others, and I totally missed it.

Today in Luke 15 we are going to see the thing that thrills God’s heart more than anything else.

Have you ever wondered what you could give to God that would cause him to rejoice?

If you want know how to cause a party in heaven, this passage will tell us how.

God appreciates every sacrifice we make, everything we do, but only one thing causes a party up there.

When we understand God’s heart, then we understand what to get him that pleases him more than anything.

What God cares about most is people, including the people right around your life and mine.

All around my life are individuals who are precious to God.

In fact, when Jesus Christ came in the incarnation of the Almighty God, he proved one thing to us, that God's first probing, primary, passionate agenda is people.

That's it, just people.

That's why Christ came, that's what he lived for, that's what he died for, and all around my life are these people who are precious to God.

A lot of them are in phenomenal danger, the danger of an eternity apart God, facing God's fair, just judgment, hurtling their lives down the interstate of their brief time on this planet.

God says, 'They're precious to me.' God can say, 'I came and I gave everything I had to rescue them.'

I wonder if he looks at you and he looks at me and our lives reflect 'Who cares?

Who cares?'

Turn with me to Luke 15, where Jesus tells 3 short little stories to let us know his heart—what thrills him the most.

And as you are turning there, let’s set the context for the passage.

Jesus has been teaching a crowd, including all kinds of people.

In that crowd were tax collectors, Pharisees, prostitutes, quite a mixed bag.

And one group was not so happy about it—the Pharisees.

They clearly didn’t understand the heart of God.

So in Luke 15:1-2, it says, /Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around near him.

But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

/

 

The Pharisees were people who desperately wanted to please God, and they were doing the best they could.

They were serving God and trying to be holy with all their legalistic do’s and don’ts.

They believed that the best way to make God happy was to stay pure, and the only way to stay pure was to stay away from those who are impure.

The only way to keep from getting stained is to stay away from the dirt, so they did.

If you don’t want fleas, don’t hang around dogs.

They were separatists—people who decided that the best way to be holy was to isolate themselves from the sinful world of people and keep a safe distance.

They hung around each other, where it was safe, where they wouldn’t be tempted by the sinners around them.

These were respectable people who were trying to live God-pleasing lives.

We have well-meaning separatists today, too.

People who feel that the best way to please God is to keep a distance from those who are doing things that obviously are displeasing to God.

We Christians have become pretty good about building our own little subculture in the bigger culture, so that we never really have to significantly relate to the wider culture if we don’t want to.

Others have us have tendencies to be separatistic just by virtue of the fact that we are so busy with Christians.

We get so busy with each other that we become isolated from the world around us.

We may not mean to, and it is not a theological issue as with the Pharisees, but we are separatistic nonetheless.

The Pharisees were very confident that such an approach was exactly the way to thrill the heart of God the most—stay away from the sinner, from those who don’t have a relationship with God.

They assumed such people were objects of God’s contempt, not compassion.

So, when they saw Jesus hanging around people they would never hang around, they

 

They didn’t realize that Jesus can hear mutterings.

I am a mumbler, from a long line of mumblers, and Christy cannot understand the language of mumble very well.

But Jesus can hear our thoughts as well as our mutterings, and so he responds to their mumbles by telling three stories, each of which illustrate the heart of God…the lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son.

1) The Lost Sheep

 

The first story is the lost sheep: /Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.

Does he not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.

Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’

I tell you in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent.’/

A great little story, of a shepherd who goes out to look for the lost sheep in danger and brings it to safety.

And Jesus makes the application very clear.

When someone comes into relationship with God, when a so called “sinner” repents—there is more rejoicing in heaven than over 99 legalists like the Pharisees who think they don’t need to repent.

It is important to note that the Greek word behind the English translation “rejoice” is a word that referred to formal celebrations, not just a little informal “yeah!” Jesus is saying that there is a party in heaven whenever somebody who doesn’t know God comes into relationship with him.

2) The Lost Coin

 

Then he tells a story of a lost coin, of a woman who loses one of ten silver coins, a drachma, which was worth a day’s wage.

Her husband would have worked all day for the coin, and she lost it.

Some people think that Jesus was referring to a custom where women would put a string of coins on a headdress which was part of their dowry coming into the marriage…and that she lost one of these coins.

So, it would be like losing a wedding ring.

That makes for a better sermon, but it is at best unclear that this is what Jesus has in mind.

The custom seems to be later than the New Testament era.

Regardless, she goes into a panic, and begins to search the whole house for the coin.

She lights a lamp to look in every crevice.

She gets out her broom, to sweep under every possible space she can.

She searches and searches, and her anxiety builds.

What is she going to do if she can’t find this coin?

But then she does find it.

And her response is similar.

She throws a party to celebrate that she has found what she has lost.

And Jesus says, “/In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”/

/ /

God throws a party when someone comes to know him.

You can imagine the world as one big game of hide and seek, where we tend to hide from God…and he is it.

He is looking.