Sermon
for Trinity 3, June 28, 2020
Grace,
mercy, and peace to you from the one true God, the Savior and Shepherd of your
souls. Amen.
Dear
friends treasured by our Lord Jesus Christ,
A terrifying disease has swept across the earth
separating loved ones, dividing households, causing unending worry and
distress, killing thousands upon thousands, inflicting pain and suffering, even
causing hatred, prejudice, riotous behavior, selfishness, and political
upheaval. And, unless I miss my guess,
you are guessing that I am talking about the coronavirus which causes
Covid-19. Yet, the really terrifying tribulation
that afflicts every person on earth is sin—sin which leads to death for
everyone and is the root cause of every illness and every ill behavior known to
mankind.
Sin
separated all of us from the One who loves us more and better than any human
being ever could. Sin separated us from
God. We were the lost. Yes, it started in the Garden of Eden, but
our own sins also keep us away from God.
Guilty people don’t want God telling them they are guilty. Guilty people don’t want others to point out
their guilt. Guilty people don’t want
God to notice them. In their lost
condition, many actively try to hide from the God who loves them, even while
they are likely to be blaming Him for their ills.
The holy
gospel for this third Sunday after Trinity shows us the love God has for the
lost.
Luke 15:1-10 1 All
the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees
and the experts in the law were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and
eats with them.” 3 He
told them this parable: 4 “Which one of you, if you had
one hundred sheep and lost one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the
wilderness and go after the one that was lost until he finds it? 5 And when he finds
it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes
home. Then he calls together his friends
and his neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost
sheep!’ 7 I tell
you, in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who
repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent. 8 “Or what woman who
has ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, would not light a lamp, sweep the
house, and search carefully until she finds it?
9 And when she finds it, she calls together her
friends and neighbors and says, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the lost
coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence
of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
(EHV)
Here, in this
text, we see some guilty people, many of whom were considered virtual outcasts
by the leading teachers of Israel. The
tax collectors were despised and considered traitors by their neighbors, the
poorer people were thought to have earned their lowly stations in life by
offending God somehow, and many of the rest were called sinners because of
immoral lifestyles or simply because they couldn’t live up to the strict
standards of Israel’s finest. Israel’s
leaders, the scribes and Pharisees, looked down on all those people, judging
them offensive to God, unworthy to be in their fine company, and certain to
taint anyone who would be willing to associate with the like.
But, wait
a second, we need to note one other group of sinners in that scene—the
Pharisees and teachers of the law. Oh
yes, they looked good on the outside, but without a bit of irony, Jesus would
call them sons of the devil. (John 8:44) Those two groups actually didn’t like each
other, either, because in their self-conceits, they each considered themselves
more appealing to God—in other words, better than the lowly sinners that
surrounded them, better than you and me, and remarkably, even better than
Jesus.
Imagine
that—people so enamored of their own piety that they thought themselves better
than the Son of God! Yet, what do we see
populating the world today? Yes, there
are some people who know they don’t deserve anything but God’s wrath, but at
the same time, many people are so wrapped up in their own thoughts and
imaginations that they don’t see a need for a Savior. In fact, so full of themselves that they have
no time for God’s Word, and many of even those claim to be members of a
Christian church.
Now,
understand, I am not here to preach against all those really bad sinners out
there. There are more than enough
sinners right here among us—even here in this pulpit. What I do want you to know is that sin
separated all of us from God, and we couldn’t fix the problem. We had no ability to work our way back to
God. Sin was killing us, both, here on
earth and for eternity. You and I are
the lost sheep and the lost coin in Jesus’ parables. Separated from our Creator who desired only
to have us in His loving arms and in the safety of His household and flock, but
lost, we had no way to go back to Him.
Now, we
could speculate about why Jesus used a sheep and a coin to illustrate His
point, but you know from experience that if you drop a coin in the street, it
isn’t going to leap back into your pocket, and if you have no idea where it
fell or even when it did, it becomes very hard to find. Likewise, a lost sheep isn’t going to find
its shepherd in the wilderness. Separated
from the main flock and shepherd, a sheep will simply wander around—sometimes
contentedly grazing whatever is before it and sometimes terrified of the beasts
that surround it—but always at the mercy of whatever predator comes along that
might eat it up. In both kinds of lost
treasures, without the owner’s intervention, there can only be a permanent
loss.
That’s
where Jesus enters the picture. To seek
and to save the lost, the Son of God entered this world and took on human flesh
in Mary’s womb. There, God became one of
us! Jesus came down to earth to search
for those who had been led or tossed to destruction by sin.
If you’ve
ever lost something valuable, especially if a certain amount of time has passed
since it disappeared, you know how hard it can be to find it again. The Son of God needed to do some very hard
work to seek and to save the lost. It
wasn’t because God didn’t know where to find His precious ones. That wasn’t the issue, because God knew
exactly what was causing His loss and that only He could fix it. The
hard work comes because, in our place, Jesus had both to live the perfect life
the law demands, and He had to die so that we wouldn’t have to face the
everlasting death our sins had earned.
No ordinary man was up to the task.
Only the Son of God and man could do it.
In our
text, we see Jesus seeking those lost souls, reaching out with the Good News
that He was living for them and heading to the cross to die for them. Jesus was teaching all who would listen that
God had sent Him to be their Savior and Redeemer. He was teaching them of God’s mercy, grace and
love. For people who had no hope of
earning God’s love, this was the most joyous news they could ever hear. They listened gladly and believed. On the other hand, to those who imagined
themselves equal to the demands of God’s law, it sounded like foolishness and
for that reason, most of the scribes and Pharisees rejected Jesus and even
determined to kill Him.
But, dear
friends, I want you to listen to the words of Jesus’ parable, here, and apply them
to yourself: “Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!” Jesus wanted those teachers of Israel to
rejoice that He was reaching lowly sinners with the Good News of salvation by
faith. Jesus wants you and me to rejoice
that we are saved by faith in Him.
That’s what being a Christian truly is.
We rejoice that Jesus came down to earth to become one with us and to rescue
us from condemnation. We rejoice that
though we were unworthy to be in His presence, God entered our lives at Baptism
and washed our sins away. We rejoice
that even though we have done nothing to come to God, He came looking for us
through the preaching of His Word. We
rejoice that we have believing parents or friends who loved us enough to lead
us to the Shepherd of our souls so that we could live with Him forever.
Being a
Christian also means that we rejoice at every opportunity to lead some lost
soul to the Savior. Every time we have
the opportunity to show a sinner his need for a Savior and then open His eyes
to God’s love, we are giving the angels in heaven a reason to sing. For all eternity, we too will sing with them
because we know what Jesus did for us with His holy life and innocent death.
Actually,
it isn’t just the angels and saints who rejoice when a sinner turns away from
his rebellion to believe in Jesus. Jesus
said, “In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the
angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Who is rejoicing in this picture?
God Himself rejoices for every lost soul He saves. God rejoices that He gave His own dear Son
into sin and death so that we can live in His presence forever. Now, if that doesn’t show you the greatness
of God’s love for you, I don’t know what will.
To rescue
us from an eternal banishment, God sent His own beloved Son, Jesus, into the
world to be our Redeemer, and Jesus lived and died for you and me and for all
people. Then, after Jesus rose from the
grave in victory and returned in glory to His Father’s side, the Holy Spirit
brought that Good News to each of us, individually, through Word and Sacrament,
whereby He worked faith in what had been stone dead hearts so that, having been
made alive again, we could believe in Jesus and be carried on His shoulders to
a reunion with all the flock in heaven.
Our part in that rescue was being the lost, but God has found us, and
our joy in our reunion with Him will also be never ending.
From this
day forward and forevermore, rejoice that Jesus has found you, and rejoice in
whatever role He gives you in finding other lost sheep. Then rejoice forever for the faith God has
worked in you, faith that gives you a place in His eternal flock.
Dear
Christian friends, Rejoice with Jesus for the treasure He finds. Amen.
The peace
of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
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