February 14th. 2010
Text: “The Son of Man came to seek and
to save the lost.” Luke
19.10
Every summer when I was a
student, I used
to spend two weeks in July and August, actually, the Glasgow Fair, on summer
mission at Southerness on the
These were happy days, but
there were serious moments, one beautiful summers
afternoon some of the older children, the 12 year olds, went with five or six
leaders to climb Criffel, which is a beautiful summit near the coast,
overlooking the
where
the leaders discovered they had lost one boy. Jimmy, by name.
There was great consternation. And four or five of the young men from the
mission set immediately back out. They went to the summit but Timmy wasn’t
there, they followed the path back down, couldn’t find him. They looked in all
the likely places and after an hour and a half, they heard him calling. This
was hardly surprising, since he was in the middle of a vast area of bracken,
about six feet high. He was only four foot six. But, what relief, lost, he was
now found, and the afternoon finished on a happy note for everyone.
Seeking
Luke’s gospel shows us just how Jesus, the Lord Jesus, looks for and
seeks the lost.
I have come, says Jesus, to seek...... the lost.
Luke’s gospel shows us just how Jesus, the Lord Jesus, looks for and
seeks the lost.
All the way through the
gospels – we see Jesus in the company of sinners, those who never bothered with
the law, those outside of religious life - the weeping woman, Zacchaeus and
many others. But all the way through
the gospels, Jesus is not far away or at a distance, but among the outcasts,
present among them, present among the lost. This , you
see, is the wideness in God’s mercy we were singing about earlier on.
We read this in Luke 6 this morning, and we see it all the way through the gospels. We see Jesus, pure in heart, the sinless One among sinful men and women. The Lord of eternity, dwells in humanity, as the hymn says.
We see Jesus, pure in heart,
the sinless One among sinful men and women - and not because He does not know
what they are like........ quite the opposite !
Jesus sees all the secrets of the human heart, He knows what the company He
keeps is like, He knows what Zacchaeus is like, He knows what Mary Magdalene is
like. He knows the wickedness, the hypocrisy, the sinfulness of those whose
company He keeps, he knows that they are sinners, but sent by the Father in heaven, He has come seeking the lost sheep, who
have wandered far away.......... He came to seek the lost. These are His own
words.............
I have come, says Jesus, to seek...... the lost.
It is there in the parables Jesus tells - of the Shepherd, who has a
hundred sheep and loses one of them...... He goes out onto the hills, in the
driving rain and wind, searches, seeks, looks, until there....... he finds the
sheep that was lost, puts it on his shoulders and brings it home........
Jesus says I am the good Shepherd……………. What is a
good shepherd like ? The gospel of John tells us. The good shepherd goes out and calls in the
sheep, leads them back from the pastures round about, before the night comes
on. They are brought back through the gate into the fold. Safely, within the
fold, they are cared for, the injured are tended……….by the good shepherd, This is what Jesus says of Himself……… I am the good Shepherd……………
and this is what He says ........
I have come, says Jesus, to seek...... the lost
Complaint
But, how typical, how very characteristic
that all the way through the gospels, there is something else going on. Again and again we hear the complaints of those round about, about what Jesus is doing..............
Again and again, we hear the complaints.........
of the onlookers !
When Jesus says to Mary
Magdalene your sins are
forgiven............... the teacher of the law sitting next to Jesus says
to himself, doesn’t Jesus know what sort of woman she is ? She’s a sinner, he
complains. When Jesus calls Zacchaeus out of the tree where he is sitting to
get a better view, and says, in grace and love, I am coming to your house, the crowd complain.... Jesus has gone as a guest to the home of
a ‘a sinner !
Once, when a large crowd of tax collectors and outcasts came to listen to Jesus,
the teachers of the law complained
“This man welcomes sinners...................” Luke 15.2
God’s grace and loving faithfulness have arrived in Jesus...... breaking
through to reach the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed............ but
the gospel of Luke shows that here is where the fiercest, most bitter struggle
is....................
For there is a deeper and more serious side to these complaints,
and they have to do with what is in the human heart,
what the human heart is like, what sin is like.
These complaints are, in fact, a rejection of Jesus
When the teachers of the law say: This man
welcomes sinners they are dismissing Him, and His work, dismissing His
grace and mercy, showing that they do not understand. Jesus, the One who welcomes sinners is despised and
rejected, as the prophet said He would be. A man of sorrows, familiar with
suffering, declares the prophet, despised and rejected. So - the deadly trace
of rejection of the Lord Jesus, is all through Luke’s
Gospel.......from His birth in the stable to the cross on
This man welcomes sinners it was said, but are these not the dearest
most precious words we can hear............ for if Jesus Christ welcomes sinners,
then He welcomes you and me, and when one sinner turns to Him, as Jesus says in Luke’s gospel, heaven’s
purposes are fulfilled and a great shout of joy rings out in God’s presence.
This man welcomes
sinners..............
These are His own words: I have come to seek ....... the lost and to save
I have come to seek ....... and to save the lost
This is exactly the message of the apostle Paul, in the book of Romans. There, Paul tells us this: that we human beings are alienated, we are estranged from God.
God’s anger is revealed from
heaven against the sin and evil of the world, against the sinfulness of men and women...(Romans
1.18)
Genesis 3 - tells us of Adam and Eve who turn their backs on God....reject
him....
sin came into the world through one man Adam.... and since that catastrophe sin is rooted, in our nature...that’s what’s wrong.....
So, now the whole world is under God’s judgment....everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s presence....
That’s the drastic situation according to the Gospel..................
But the New Testament in fact proclaims this miracle,
The gospel of John declares that God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world but to save the world … says John 3.17
I did not come to judge the
world but to save it, says Jesus.
The Gospel of John declares
that the God of grace and love, the Father, has sent His Beloved Son, Jesus
Christ, to us, for us. Jesus, the Good Shepherd has taken upon Himself our
human life and as the Good Shepherd, He came seeking us when we were far from
the Father’s house, far from His presence. As the Good Shepherd, He has come to us where we are, we who were wandered…… over the high hills and mountains.
Jesus says: I have come to
seek and to save the lost...............
As the Good Shepherd He lays down His life for the sheep. He gave Himself for us
at the Cross.
There the sin and guilt that burdens our hearts, and keeps us far from God, was dealt with once and for all. At the Cross, our sin, guilt, and condemnation that should have been ours was laid on Jesus Christ. He has taken all the sin of the world upon His shoulders, taken it away once and for all at the Cross.
Paul writes very simply: He
saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done but because of His
mercy
Through the Cross we, who were once far away, are brought into the presence of the Holy God - we are saved, redeemed.
And so all our joy, our peace, our healing, is in this, that:
The Son of Man, came to seek and to save the
lost.........