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Teaching Text: Luke 15
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine 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 that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
The Parables of Jesus
The Lost Coin, Sheep, and Son
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
In Luke 15, Jesus tells 3 stories of lostness and being found.
We will look at the the why of the stories and what those together tell us about reality
The Why is found in the first verse of Luke 15 …
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then Jesus told them this parable
– Luke 15: 1-3
Question from the pharasees and teachers: “Why do you welcome sinners and eat with them?” (2 big offenses)
And Jesus as a true Middle Eastern rabbi doesn’t simply being a conceptual debate with them. He tells 3 stories:
STORY 1 | THE LOST SHEEP
Jesus is saying, you are shepherds who have lost the sheep
And now you are witnessing the cost of bringing them back and you resist.
There is a tremendous cost to go after this lost sheep and then to find it, place its 70 -100 lbs on your back and make the long arduous trek back.
But the now good shepherd rejoices, and celebrates with his community.
STORY 2 | THE LOST COIN
Luke does a particular work at highlighting a powerful and unique aspect of Jesus’ ministry for His time.
In that He does just tell stories that address the world of men and mens’ cultural expectations, but the world of women as well.
The woman here has been entrusted and is responsibly for the resources for her home.
A coin is lost and she will search diligently and not give up until it is found.
The sheep would not simply return on its own and the coin certainly is not simply going be found on its own.
The coin can show no initiative whatsoever in being found.
But again the search is all too worth it once what has been lost is found and the priority of Heaven is to rejoice over what is lost being found.
Any person turning to God.
Jesus is confronting these leaders with how they were a block to others finding and being found by God.
STORY 3 | THE LOST SONS
“Any Middle Eastern son who requests his inheritance from a healthy father is understood to want his father to die. Such a son is indeed dead to the family.”
– Kenneth Bailey
He humiliated his father and wished him dead and went off his part of the family’s money and came to ruin.
But the younger son comes to the end of himself in his own humiliation and he’s reduced to feeding pigs and longing to eat the pods the pigs ate.
Finally the Pharisees may have begun to think Jesus took sin as seriously as they did.
And in this way he invites them in for the shock of the rest of the story.
The son begins to return home with a prepared speech of how he would simply be a hired worker in his fathers home, no longer a son.
There was a formal ceremony where a pot would be broken in front of a son like this to say to the whole community, he is cut off.
This is the expectation he should have returned home to.
Instead we see this absurdity …
RAN - experienced disgrace himself and interrupted the speech
ROBE - heir to the kingdom, identifying him as a member of the family.
RING - authority to speak and act as an heir to the Kingdom.
SANDALS - freedom to move uninhibited about the father’s land and business.
PARTY - celebration of the best kind.
It is then we see the lostness of the older brother. There are more parallels than we can go into right now.
But he comes in from the field and humiliates his father by refusing to go into the banquet that his father has thrown.
And in the speech he does share we learn that he has been close in proximity but far in heart from his father.
He has been lost by keeping all the rules, perhaps even worse than his brother who broke them all.
Jesus boldly confronts these leaders who are convinced they are diligently seeking God but have lost touch with God’s heart.
God’s heart is to go after the lost and there are many ways to get lost.
We can wander off accidentally
We can be lost and not know it and not have an ounce of ability to return
We can with God was dead and go utterly do our own thing
We can follow all the rules and have a heart hard as stone
Heaven celebrates what is lost being found.
Be careful when you become certain in your exclusions
if God hates everyone you hate, its a pretty sure sign you’ve tried to make God in your own image.
There is a cost to be born in restoration
The burden and the long walk back
The difficult and diligent search
The bearing the cost to welcome in
The offer of grace at personal expense
Lets Celebrate today - celebrating the heart of God in restoration.
Lets remember the tremendous cost God has paid for our restoration
Lets be those who love grace - not those so comfortable in our own place (or insecure in our own place ) that we despise grace.
