Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

My name is Eric, I am one of the pastors here at Abide Church.

I will be taking the next few weeks to preach through Luke chapter 15.

This is a continuation of the series we have been in on Jesus’ teaching through parables.

I am really excited that I got this chapter in Luke to teach on, it contains some of my favorite parables.

I am truly humbled to share the word of God with you today, it is a great privilege for me to teach.

My desire is to rely on The Lord to impact the hearts of His people, so lets begin with prayer, asking the Lord to speak.

Prayer:

Father, Please be near to your people this morning.

Help us experience transformation through your word, open our ears to hear your truth.

We are so unworthy of Your intervention in our lives, but you made a way for us to know you.

Help us draw near to You, do not let our wandering hearts keep us from experiencing your life giving Word.

We love you, we need you, please be our master teacher.

Amen.

The Context:

Let’s begin by reading the first few verses in the chapter, this will lay a foundation and provide context for our stories.

The scene opens up with Jesus, He has tax collectors and sinners drawing near to him.

Whenever you read the scriptures it is important to understand historical context.

Tax collectors were on the Pharisees list of sinners.

In fact, they would be in the same category as an adulterer.

They were seen as traders to their own people, working for the Roman government and not acting with good moral character.

They would have been pretty universally distrusted and despised by their own people.

So when the Pharisees see Jesus hanging out with this crowd they begin to grumble against Him.

Even worse in their eyes, Jesus eats with the tax collectors and sinners!

This might not seem significant in our culture, but in this time eating with someone was the same as giving that person a blessing.

Sharing a meal required a high level of acceptance.

The Pharisee in their grumbling and accusations say, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

This statement was an attempt to put Jesus to shame, but little did they know that their sentiment described Jesus mission on earth more accurately than they would ever know.

In trying to shame Jesus by accusing him of His “seeking of sinners”, they are engaging in irony that will be completely lost on them, because Jesus has chosen in this season of His ministry to judge their hard hearts by teaching in parables.

The Chapter:

Look at what it says in verse 3: “So he told them this ‘Parable’”

Although this chapter presents as three individual stories, it is actually only one parable in three parts.

Notice in verse 3, the word parable is singular.

This is a trilogy of stories, but only one parable with a central theme throughout.

The three stories found in this chapter are: The Lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

Each story centers around something that is lost and then found.

Each one of these stories will take a different angle on the same concept, and we will get to see the character and nature of God revealed through the stories.

The stories that make up this parable have one main theme:

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God’s celebration in seeking and saving the lost

The stories reveals the nature of our God.

Our God seeks and saves the lost, and He has great joy when a lost sinner is found and repents.

Jesus’ says this directly in Luke 19:10:

Jesus’ response to the Pharisees was to teach on the very aspect of His mission that they were criticizing.

The Pharisees tried to condemn Jesus, but instead they actually identified his mission on earth without even realizing it.

We as believers can see the true meaning of Jesus’ parable, and that Jesus chooses to teach us that the Son of Man did come to seek and save the lost.

With some context in place, lets dive in.

We are going to look at the first two stories this week, The Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin.

I am going to start by reading them both, open your bibles to Luke Chapter 15 or follow along on the screen.

In both of these stories, something is lost, then it is found.

Like I said earlier, they share the same theme, but they put the emphasis in different places.

In the first story we have a shepherd, and he looses one of his sheep.

His immediate response to this is to drop what he is doing, leaving the 99 other sheep, and going to search for the one that is lost.

This would have implied traveling on foot through rugged terrain, searching far and wide for the lost sheep.

When he finally does come across the sheep, he takes it onto his own shoulders.

Carrying it all the way back to his home.

In the second story we have a woman who looses a coin in her house.

You might be thinking, “Just flip over the couch cushion, it’s probably there.”

But these houses are not like ours.

They would have likely been made of large black basalt slabs with small gaps in-between.

And it this case it is also poorly lit, the window would have been nothing more than a few slits in the wall high about the ground.

So in a desire to find the lost coin, the woman lights a lamp and diligently uses it to sweep the whole house until she finds the coin.

Both of these stories end with a celebration around the lost item being found!

The stories are very short, and easy to understand if you take them at face value.

But beneath the surface of the stories are truths about how our God seeks and saves the lost!

In the first story we might picture ourselves as the 99 sheep God left behind to go look for the silly sheep that wandered off.

Or maybe we are the light the the woman uses to search diligently throughout the house.

However, neither of these assumptions are correct.

In these stories the character we get to play is the lost object.

We are the lost sheep, we are the lost coin.

We are the foolish ones who stray away like sheep.

Without God’s pursuit of us we are nothing more than hopeless, lost, sheep.

Ephesians chapter 2 puts it this way:

That is what being a lost sheep actually looks like.

Dead in our sin, followers of satan, living into the passions of our flesh and desires, children of wrath.

The only way you will understand and feel the impact of these stories is to take a moment to remember that you were once lost.

No one in this room was born a follower of Christ!

The depth of our sin runs deeper than we could ever realize.

We were all once lost, and it wasn’t until we were found that we made the choice to repent and follow Jesus.

It is God who seeks us out.

Both of these stories emphasize that point in different ways.

In the story of the lost sheep the shepherd goes looking for the sheep at great personal effort and sacrifice to himself.

Loading that 50-70 pound animal onto his own shoulders and carrying it home.

This story about the sheep is just a picture of the cost Jesus paid to be the ultimate Good Shepherd.

Look at John 10

Jesus laid down His LIFE for us, the sheep, willingly.

Not only did He suffer and die, He took the wrath of God we deserve!

It is a sacrifice so far beyond our comprehension that we will be 10,000 eternities in heaven and STILL marveling at the work of Jesus on the cross!

Jesus is the ultimate good shepherd, this story is a reflection of the cost he paid to save His lost sheep.

So in the first story we see God’s sacrifice, the cost he paid for our salvation.

The second story has the same theme, but it has a different emphasis.

In the second story, we are represented as the lost coin.

But the real unique angle to this story is in the search for the coin.

It’s dark in the woman’s house, we have black basalt slabs for a floor, walls, and ceiling, and the searching woman lights up a lamp and diligently sweets the house with her light until the coin is found.

This second story is still about the Lord seeking and saving the lost, but what we see illustrated here is the diligence and intentionality in the searching.

There is almost no detail in the first story about the search for the lost sheep, but in this second story that is where the emphasis is placed.

We can key in on the nature of God’s search for the lost though his diligence to find those he seeks.

God is not random, He is intentional and precise in His efforts.

He is not reactive in His search, He is sovereign over all the history leading up to your salvation.