Live with Lon - God Loves Lost People

Well, hello everybody and welcome to Live with Lon.

I'm Lon and I'm so glad to have you with us today. We're going to continue in our study of the Gospels, one of the greatest chapters in all of the Bible, in my opinion, we begin today. But before we do that, let's pray and make sure our hearts are ready for that passage.

Here we go. Dear Lord Jesus, please forgive us for our sins and cleanse our hearts by the power of your Holy Spirit and fill our hearts with the Holy Spirit that he might illuminate the word of God to our hearts and help us to apply it to our lives. And draw from this passage the hope that is there for all of us. And so we commit our time in the word of God to you today. In Jesus name we pray. Amen and Amen. Now, I said a moment ago that I believe we're beginning one of the greatest chapters in the whole Bible.

And I want to reemphasize that. Luke chapter 15. Luke chapter 15, all of us, I think, probably know one of the parables out of the three that Jesus tells in this chapter.

The parable of the prodigal son. But there's way more to this chapter than just that one parable. In this chapter, we see the heart of Almighty God for people outside of Christ displayed openly for everybody to understand. We see the heart of God for lost people displayed openly for everybody to see without apology, without equivocation, without any kind of hedging in any way. God makes it clear where he stands when it comes to his feelings about lost people, people who don't know Jesus.

What a wonderfully revealing chapter. Remember, the reason we read the Bible is to come to Christ to understand the plan of salvation and then after that, to get to know the living God in every passage to say, now, what does this teach me about the character and the attributes and the attitudes of the living God of our universe? And this is one of the greatest chapters in the Bible in terms of teaching us about the heart of God. It's a great passage in Psalm 103 that says that God showed his acts, his deeds to the Israelites, but he showed his ways to Moses. So we just don't want to know the acts of God as followers of Christ. Friends, we want to know the ways of God, how God thinks, how God sees the world, what makes God tick, why he does what he does, when he does.

Now, we may not be able to figure out everything, but to the degree that we can, that's what we want to know. The ways of God and this chapter, baby, the ways of God when it comes to lost people is never displayed in the whole Bible, I don't believe, any more dramatically than in this chapter. So you can tell I'm excited about this chapter. I love this chapter. I just think it's a pinnacle point, an apex in the gospels, OK, after Jesus has been rejected and maligned and mocked after he they're trying to kill him and they're refusing to believe in him. The Jewish people are led by their rabbis who in their hypocrisy are trying to catch him so that they can kill him, catch him in something he says. After all that, Jesus still reemphasizes in this chapter how he feels about those lost people and us.

All right, here we go. Luke, chapter 15, verse one. And of course, New King James Version of the Bible. All right, first one, then all the tax collectors and sinners in this case, mostly prostitutes is what we're probably talking about, drew near to him, Jesus, to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. Now, what's the what's going on here in the in the what's the context of this chapter?

The context of this chapter is very important to interpreting this chapter correctly. Jesus, everywhere he goes, the lowest dregs of society in the minds of the rabbis are flocking to him. Tax collectors, prostitutes, other sinners in the minds of these self-righteous rabbis, people that these rabbis would never rub shoulders with, would never be willing to even be seen with in public and probably wouldn't get near him in private either. And they're flocking to Jesus. And if you remember, there's several passages in the Gospels where the rabbis say, if this man, Jesus, knew who this person was, this sinner was, this woman was, this man was, as a righteous man, he would have nothing to do with her.

No, no, no. Friends, Jesus knew exactly who these people were. He knew exactly what they had been doing in terms of their personal behavior. And and and the reason they flocked to him is because he loved them and he he gave them a second chance and he offered them a way out of the life that they were living.

Okay. And so the scribes and the Pharisees and the rabbis, they murmur against him and they say, well, I can't believe he's hanging out with these terrible people. And this is the context of the rest of the chapter, the complaining and the hardness of heart and the complete lack of sympathy and the complete lack of pity for these folks who are lost.

They are lost spiritually and and the rabbis have no compassion on them at all. Now, watch Jesus in response to this tells three stories and the word lost is used in this chapter seven times counted or get a magic marker seven times. What do you think this chapter is about?

Would you think it's about people who are lost seven times? The word used? Yes. All right.

Ready. And Jesus spoke a parable to them, saying, verse four, what man of you having a hundred sheep? If he loses, there's the first one, one of them does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is number two lost until he finds it. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, which was third time lost. I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine just persons who need no repentance.

Now, stop for a second. What's the point of this parable? Remember, a parable has one point. Well, the point is that the shepherd loved that lost sheep enough to go out there and find it. He wasn't content just to let it be lost. And you say, well, yeah, here at the end, he says that the angels don't people in heaven don't rejoice over persons who need no repentance, folks.

Don't make this terrible walk on all fours. Of course, there's nobody who doesn't need to repent and come to Christ. He's just trying to make a point about how much heaven rejoices when a sinner repents and comes to Christ. Now, look, and he tells another parable or what woman having 10 pieces of silver, if she loses one, number four use of the word, does not light a lamp, sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it. And when she has found it, she calls her friends and her neighbors together, saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I had what lost. Number five. Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

All right. This is stories to parables Jesus tells to counter the attitude of these rabbis who find no joy whatsoever in these sinners come into Christ. They find no joy in seeing tax collectors and prostitutes turn their lives around and suddenly be saved out of this not just horrible lifestyle, but out of their sinful condition and out of their destination going to hell. The rabbis aren't rejoicing at that. No, they have no excitement about that.

Why? Because they think they're already so righteous that they don't understand. They don't understand the deliverance that Christ offers to people who are lost, to people who are down and in sin. And they know they're in sin and they don't have a self-righteous bone in their body like these rabbis.

They know that they're lost. And then when God grabs you from something like that, then anybody else he grabs from it, you rejoice because you know what it feels like. Hey, I know what it feels like to be saved and dragged out of the deep mud of sin and depravity and debauchery and profanity.

And when I hear about somebody coming to Christ who has been in that same life, you know, I rejoice because I understand that these rabbis didn't understand grace because they didn't think they needed grace. Say it. You know, whenever I just throw this in, whenever I lead trips to Israel, by the way, I'm leading one in October. Lord willing, you should go with me.

Check our website out October four. But anyway, we always do it towards the end of our time in Jerusalem. We always do a salvation message and a sinner's prayer. And I ask people to raise their hand if they prayed that prayer with me to have enough guts to do that. And then I tell them this because all of them aren't from around. I always say this.

Look, if you're not from the McLean area, if you're from some other place, the United States, and we have tons of people like that. When you get home, you go to your pastor and you tell that person that you this crazy Jewish person led you through Israel and preach the gospel to you. And you prayed the sinner's prayer and you gave your life to Jesus.

And you can already tell that the Holy Spirit is moved in and that you're a new creature in Christ. And you want to start growing out of your sinful ways and into a biblically obedient ways. You tell that to your pastor. And if your pastor picks you up, swings you around, says how you praise the Lord, then you're in the right church. And if your pastor looks at you like you have lost your cotton pick in mind, you get out of that church and you go find a pastor that rejoices with you. Hey, why do we rejoice with people who do that? Because those of us who have experienced grace understand grace and we rejoice every time grace is displayed in a person's life because they humble themselves and come to Christ. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. This is preaching, brother.

Yeah, it is. Now, what was the point of both of those parables, whether it was the shepherd who went to look for that sheep or the woman who tore her house up looking for that coin? In both cases, the shepherd and the woman cared about what was lost and they care deeply about what was lost and they desperately sought to find it.

OK, right. This is something the rabbis did not do. But this is the heart of God. And next week, we're going to talk about not the lost sheep, not the lost coin, but the parable of the lost son, the prodigal son. But it's really the parable of the lost son, because that's what the father is going to say. My son was lost and now he's found.

But we'll get to that passage next week. By the way, I should mention the most common imagery of the Lord Jesus Christ in paintings down through the centuries has been that of the shepherd with the sheep over his shoulder. Let me show you a picture. This, if you look carefully, this image comes from the catacombs in Rome. This is from the Domitilla catacomb, the Domitilla catacomb, which dates back to the second century A.D., the 100s A.D. They uncovered this image in the catacombs there. So this is one of the earliest images of Christ in the world. And look, what's he doing? He's carrying that sheep, that lost sheep. And this is, like I said, the most numerically prevalent imagery in paintings and sculptures and frescoes of the Lord Jesus carrying that lamb over his shoulder. Now, that's the end of our passage, but it's time for us to ask our most important question.

Are you ready? Here we go. And let me just say, before we do this, I got an email from somebody about last week's message. And they said, you said there were going to be eight things about a disciple that you were going to talk to us about. And you only did seven.

And this person who wrote me said, I feel cheated. I want to know what number eight was. Oh, OK.

He made it clear that he was kidding a little bit. But yeah, I noticed that there was an eighth one. But I left it out because of time.

But I wasn't able to go back and change that I said eight because this is live. You understand what I'm saying? The eighth one was, and I have it written down here, that to be a disciple, it's going to cost us doing what is ethical and not just what is legal. OK, I left that one out, not doing just what is legal, but doing what is right, morally and ethically right.

You know, do those things that are right in the sight of all men, as Paul says in Romans 12, 17. OK, so now we got it. All right. I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to rob you. OK, you ready? So what? Here we go. Come on now.

One, two, three. So what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm so excited about this passage. So, you know what I have to say? Come on. Say it with me. Come on. I know you love this.

How? Come on. How sweet. Come on. It is.

Absolutely. Now, what does this passage have to do with us? Well, friends, before we talk about that, let's just remind ourselves that this imagery of being a lost sheep in particular is throughout the Bible, the New Testament in particular. Jesus used this terminology all the time.

Look, if you would, let's look at a couple of passages. Look, if you would, at Luke Chapter 19 in Luke Chapter 19, we have our good friend Zacchaeus, who meets with Jesus, who comes to faith in Christ, who says, if I've if I've cheated anybody, I'll give them back four times what I took. Look, Jesus says today, salvation has come to this house because he, Zacchaeus, is also a son of Abraham. Watch verse 10 for the son of man, Jesus, has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Who's he talking about?

He's talking about Zacchaeus, obviously. How about in Matthew's gospel when he sends out the disciples in Matthew Chapter 10? Look what he says to them. Do not go to the Gentiles, he says in verse five, or the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now, you understand, I told you, Israel, the Jewish people are the chosen people, but they're not chosen for automatic salvation. So every Jewish person, you know, and I know they're lost if they don't know Christ. So we're Gentiles, but Jewish people are. OK, and Jesus sent his disciples to Jewish people. Look over Chapter 15 of Matthew's gospel. When Jesus went to the visit, the Syrophoenician woman, we've already talked about her. Yes, Lord, but even the dogs can eat the crumbs that fall off the table. Oh, woman, great is your faith.

You remember that? Well, earlier he said to her, she said, my daughter is severely demon possessed. Help me. Look at verse 24. But he answered and said, I was not sent except for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And listen to that passage.

There was a reason he ignored her there, but he used that same terminology. The lost sheep of the house of Israel. Jewish people are lost without Christ. And that's the whole argument of the first eight chapters of the Book of Romans.

OK, there is no distinction. Romans Chapter three, for all have sinned, Jews and Gentiles and fallen short of the glory of God. And they all need Christ. OK. And, you know, the reason this imagery is used so often by the Lord is because this is sheep. I don't know if you've ever been around sheep, but every year when we go to Israel and go to Bethlehem, we always go in and find a herd of sheep to kind of read the passage about the shepherds out in the field because they're still there. Sheep are the dumbest animals you ever saw in your life. I mean, they're just dumb animals. And they're also incredibly a wayward animals. They are just they they you leave a sheep for a minute and don't watch it and it runs away.

Now, of course, by running away, it becomes easy prey for carnivores out there to kill it and eat it. But sheep are incredibly wayward. So this image of lost sheep made perfect sense to these people at the time of Jesus.

And he uses it about the Jewish people as well as the Gentiles. Now, the Gentiles are lost to listen to Ephesians Chapter two. At that time, before Jesus called you, you were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, crazy lost, have been brought made near by the blood of Christ.

All right. So Gentiles lost sheep. Jewish people lost sheep. Muslims lost sheep. Mormons lost sheep. Buddhists lost sheep. Confucians lost sheep. Scientology people lost sheep. These are all lost sheep. And what is the attitude here that the Lord displays to lost sheep? In this chapter?

Very simple. He cares about lost sheep and he goes after lost sheep. He just doesn't care about them and go, gee, that's terrible. I'm so sorry. I feel so bad for them.

No, no, no. The shepherd in this story, the parable, he was proactive and not laissez faire about that lost sheep. He went out there looking for the woman who lost the coin. She was proactive and not relaxed. She just didn't sit there and go, oh, well, I got nine more coins.

Oh, well, I got ninety nine more sheep. No, the woman and the shepherd were proactive and they went out with a passion to search for what they had lost. Friends, this is the heart of God. The heart of God is that he loves lost men and women and he searches for them and he goes to find them. He came to seek and to save, not just to save, to seek and to save that which is lost. And how does he seek lost people? He seeks lost people by the power of the Holy Spirit, reaching out to them, drawing them to Christ and convicting them of sin and of their need for a savior and of judgment that they can't escape apart from what Christ did for them on the cross.

This is God seeking people. And, you know, and not only does he seek them with special revelation like that, the Bible and the Holy Spirit, but he seeks them even in general revelation. He made the stars, the planets, the moon, the sun, the human bodies, all of nature.

Why? As a way of drawing people to him, Romans Chapter one says, and convincing them that there has to be a God, a great creator God. And then he gets some of the news about Christ. But, you know, he could have made the world with no sun, no stars, no moon, very banal and a place and just not given us that testimony.

But the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament rings out his presence, the Bible tells us. So what this tells us, my friend, is that if you are a believer today in the Lord Jesus, you know why you're a believer today? You say, yeah, because I trusted Christ.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You didn't do that first. Yes, you did it. But first, the living, risen Christ came seeking you and drew you to himself, maybe drew you to himself through the prayers of a mother or a father or grandmother or grandfather, drew you to himself through the preaching of some solid biblical pastor when you were growing up or some solid Sunday school teacher when you were growing up, drew you to himself by some friend that knew you or a girlfriend or a boyfriend who shared the Lord with you, drew you to himself by the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit in your heart to convict you of sin and righteousness and judgment and your need for Christ. And then you trusted Christ. And that's why you're saved today. But you didn't remember what Jesus said.

No man can come to me unless the father draw him in John's gospel. So that's why you're a believer today. Hey, I'm a believer today because God came looking for me. I didn't go looking for him. God sent Bob Eckhart to stand on the street at Chapel Hill, Franklin Street. He sent Bob Eckhart to look for me.

I didn't go looking for Bob Eckhart. Friends, God came to seek Jesus did and to save that which is lost. Now, why is that so important? Because a lot of us know people I think all of us who are Christians know people who are still lost. Many of these people are close to us and we really care about them very deeply. A mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a child, a grandchild, a spouse, a neighbor, someone at work, an extended relative. And we love these people, but they're lost.

They haven't come to Christ. And if we're not careful, listen to me now. Listen carefully to me. Look, look me.

Look here. If we're not careful, it's very easy for us to begin feeling like we're in this alone trying to reach them. You know, we pray and we share the Lord with them and we pray and we try to speak to them and nothing happens for weeks or months or years. And we begin to feel like we're praying that the heavens are brass.

Have you ever heard that expression like your prayers are just bouncing off the brass and coming right back? We begin to feel like there is not a God who's all that interested in our people we love. We begin to feel like like we're trying to push a dead horse uphill with their regarding their salvation. And we're trying to talk God into being interested and into being proactive and into intervening in these people's lives to bring them to Christ. And we're trying to convince God he needs to do this and that God is not listening to us. Very easy for the enemy to whisper that in your ear or my ear. And we begin to impugn God and be upset with God because he's not doing anything. Friend, look at me.

Look here. Nothing could be farther from the truth. That is a lie from hell that your God, that your savior, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are not interested in the salvation of these people you love. That is a lie from the pit of hell. Jesus came to seek and to save that which is lost. And the people you care about, he is seeking them.

He is drawing, trying to draw them. And yet he wants to save them. For it is the will of God. First Timothy, Chapter two, that no one perish, but that all come to faith in Christ. This is the will of God because this is the heart of God.

Like the shepherd and the woman. And so, folks, you're not praying to a deaf God. You're not praying to a disinterested God. You're not praying to a God who's in neutral about your loved ones.

He's not. He's more proactive about bringing them to Christ than you are. He loves them more than you do. And he's doing everything he can justly and righteously do to bring them to himself in response to your prayers. And you got to believe that or you will falsely malign our great God. However, there is a point beyond which God cannot go. His holiness will not allow him to go past that point. His justice, these attributes of his will not allow him to go past that point. His righteousness will not allow him to go past that point because they're sinners. And unless they in their own free will choose to trust what Christ did on the cross. He can't save them. Because it would violate his holiness, his justice, his righteousness.

So we have to understand that. That if they don't come to Christ. It's not God's fault. It's not because God sat in the neutral corner and did nothing. No, God did everything he could do except make them believe. God will not make people believe.

It has to be their free will. We understand each other here. You know, my mom and I, you know, had a terrible relationship growing up. I hated her. And she eventually came to Christ.

You know the story. But my dad was precious to me. He never spent much time with me. He was always working to try to keep up with the spending habits of my mother.

I barely ever, I barely ever spent much time alone with him. But he was precious to me. I loved my dad. He was a completely different personality than my mom. He was gentle and sweet and kind and everybody loved him. They didn't call him Irving Benjamin Solomon. They called him Buddy.

Everybody called him Buddy. But, you know, when I came to Christ, I began praying for my dad. I prayed. I wanted him to come to Christ so badly. I knew he didn't have much time to live because he'd already had a couple of heart attacks. And back then there was nothing anybody could do except the doctor would just pat you on the back, send you home, tell you to change your diet and stop smoking. And I prayed year after year after year for my dad.

And there was no movement at all. I mean, I would try to share the Lord with him. He would get up and walk out of the room. We had any kind of conversation, I tried to take him to the gospel with the conversation.

He was out, gone. And I got discouraged. And I accused God of not being interested in my dad. And that made me angry at God. Falsely angry.

It wasn't true. And finally, one older Christian gentleman, when I was talking about this, said to me, Lon, you got it all wrong. You need to read Luke 15 and you'll see the heart of God for your dad. But you have to pray, God, do all that you can justly and righteously do to save my father and bring him to Christ. And Lord, if he doesn't come to Christ, I will not blame you. I promise I won't. I won't be angry with you.

And Lord, it won't affect our relationship because I understand there's only so much your nature allows you to do. My dad has got to come. But Lord, please draw him with everything you got. And that became my prayer. My dad came to Christ the week before he died.

It was a miraculous story I don't have time to tell you. But I'm going to see him in heaven. But if he had not come to Christ, like my grandparents I don't think did, I do not blame God.

I make the assumption that God did everything he could justly and righteously do to draw my grandparents to him, including having me share the gospel with them six times. And they would not. Jesus said, how many times, Jerusalem, I wanted to gather you under my wings like a hen gathers her chicks. And you would not. You were not willing.

And I'm okay with this. Some of us have been holding it against God for years that somebody didn't come to Christ when we were praying for him and asking for him. Friends, you've misunderstood the heart of God. He sought your friend and your loved one and pulled them with everything he could pull them with, up to the point where he would have had to sacrifice his holiness and his righteousness to do more.

And he couldn't do that. And the final decision was made by your friend, your loved one, not by God. I hope this will release some of us who've been angry and upset with God for a long time. And now when you pray for people who are lost, remember, God, do all that you can justly and righteously do to draw my whoever to you and to Christ. But if they do not come, I will not hold it against you, Lord. Okay, that's our wonderful passage for today. Let's pray.

With our heads bowed and our eyes closed. Many of us here have been angry of God, disappointed with God, hurt. That God did not bring our loved one or friend to Christ. And we've impugned him and we've blamed him for something that's not his fault.

We need to release that today, my friends, if that's you. And understand that he came to seek your friend and he did seek your friend as far as he could seek your friend without violating his character. Take a moment and pray. Lord Jesus, thank you that the Bible says you came to seek and to save those who are lost. That's why we're in Christ today, those of us who are. Lord Jesus, remind us you seek our friends and everyone we care about to the nth degree, right up to the point where you would violate your holiness and your character to go any farther. Help us believe that and not hold you responsible for things that are not your fault.

Lord, some of us here need to be liberated after years of bad feelings towards you. Do that today, we pray in Jesus name and everybody said, Amen. All right. Ha ha. Hey, that's preaching, brother.

It is. And next week, we're going to finish out this chapter with the parable of the lost son and the heart of the father of that son for him. OK, God bless you. We love you. Thanks for being with us. Check out my Israel trip. I'd love to take you and have a great week. We'll see.