Joy In Heaven

Text: Luke 15:1-10

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Losing things is probably one of the most patience testing things to endure. For me anyway. But I’d guess it probably ranks pretty highly for you as well. Losing the car key when you need to get out of the house right away. Losing the remote control when your favorite show, or the big game, is coming on. But I think the one that’s the most aggravating is lost socks. They come off your feet, go directly into the hamper. Go straight into the washing machine. Transfer to the dryer. And then when every last piece of fabric is extricated from the dryer and you go to match them up, socks are missing. It’s not really that surprising that pairs get separated. What’s so amazing is that some are never found. Where do they go? I literally have single socks that are sitting on the top of my shoe rack that have been there, alone and unmatched for over a year. It’s no wonder the sign on the wall in the laundry room reads “Department of Missing Socks.”

By comparison, a silver coin or a sheep that we hear about in today’s Gospel is much more valuable. And when we read the remaining portion of Luke 15, we can clearly say that a human being is much more valuable still, even than the silver coin or the sheep. And there are a lot of lost people. Ourselves included. Which is why it’s so important to talk about how all the  lost people can get matched up with Jesus Christ.

Jesus is again talking to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law in today’s parables. These church leaders consider unbelievers and sinners as trash to be discarded. An old Jewish proverb says, “There is joy before God when those who provoke Him perish from the world.” But Jesus proclaims a very different joy before God. It’s a joy that declares that unbelievers and sinners are brothers and sisters who are lost and need to be found! Jesus says, “There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righ­teous persons who do not need to repent.”

Jesus’ parables challenge us to consider our own response to God’s mercy and grace, not only as He gives it to us, but also as God freely gives it to others. Are we more interested in the joy of salvation as God reclaims lost sinners, or in the joy of seeing lost sinners get what they deserve? It’s abundantly clear from God’s Word which of the two results in more

JOY IN HEAVEN!

          When Jesus associates with anyone who the leaders of the church feel is unworthy He generates criticism. Here today He wants to seek out and bring the lost back into the fold “and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” This is the kind of muttering that Luke often records in his Gospel. They complain when Jesus dines at the home of Matthew, a tax collector. A Pharisee wonders why Jesus allows a woman who is a sinner to anoint his feet with perfume and then dry them with her hair. People mutter because Jesus eats in the home of Zacchaeus, another tax collector. Because of their belief that association with the outsider, the sinner, the unclean ones, will infect them, they’re in shock when anyone would do such a thing. And eating with them is the worst because in their tradition this implied welcome and recognition, things they didn’t think these people deserved. Really, they’re only concerned for their own well-being as opposed to any thought of anyone else who might be in need of what they think they have.

I think even in the Christian church today, we can too often fall into this type of mentality. Protect what you have. Keep it for yourself, lest someone we don’t know or trust come in and mess up the good thing we have going here. I think this is one of the reasons that overseas missions are sometimes more appealing than doing something in our own backyard. Being a fisherman for Jesus is easier when you don’t have to clean the fish you catch. When that work comes home, it can be a little less appealing. And for the Pharisees, they didn’t even believe that those dirty fish were worth cleaning. Which is why they constantly grumble against Jesus for associating with them.

Think what you may about how Charlie Kirk went about his proclamation of the Gospel, but no one can ever say that he wasn’t bold. Or that he wasn’t willing to get into the fray to boldly proclaim the truth of the Gospel message. Not from afar, but up close and personal. On college campuses. Where the honest and open exchange of ideas has for years been shut down. Not afraid to respectfully debate or of what fish might be caught on the end of the line, or of the process of bringing them to the feet of Jesus in order to be cleaned. May there be many more who are emboldened to boldly proclaim the Gospel message in places where the outcome isn’t certain, but where the lost are certainly in need.

Jesus responds to all this criticism from the leaders of the church by proclaiming his mission. He answers every grumbler and mutterer. Back in Luke 5, at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus proclaims, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Those are His words as He calls Matthew to be one of His disciples

Then again, in response to the Pharisee in Luke 7, Jesus tells a parable about two debtors, one with small debts and one with huge debts. He asks, “Who will love more?” The Pharisee answers correctly by saying the one forgiven more. At Zacchaeus’s home, Jesus says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Jesus is so concerned for those who have put themselves outside of His fold by their own sinful ways, that He’s willing go anywhere, do anything, to seek us out and return us to the safety we only have with Him.

Unlike his opponents who rejoice when enemies are eliminated, Jesus rejoices when enemies repent, cease to be enemies, and are friends. God desires salvation for all. Complaining about God’s mercy toward those who are unlike us, who we feel are different, even underserving, brings no joy in heaven. But there is an alternative. Instead, we can join with the angels by rejoicing in God’s mercy.

Jesus teaches about the joy that’s in heaven by telling stories. Stories of a lost sheep and a lost coin. And each of these parable is an invitation to rejoice. When the sheep is found, the shepherd says, “Rejoice with me.” When the coin is found, the woman says, “Rejoice with me.” And there is indeed rejoicing in heaven by the angels when a lost soul is found.

You are also a story of one lost and then found by your Shepherd. And in this constant back and forth between lost and found, God will say as many times as necessary, “Rejoice with me, when my lost son, my lost daughter, is found.” There was much rejoicing in heaven when you were baptized. When you trust in Jesus to forgive your sins, there is even more joy in heaven. The angels in heaven are just waiting to rejoice, even today, as you trust in the Lord who seeks you out and finds you over and over again, and returns you to His fold.

Luther wrote on this parable: “Therefore, if you know yourself to be a lost sheep, which has been enticed and led astray by the devil far from the right way, then take to heart this sermon of Christ. For your sake it is preached, in order that you may repent, that is, that you may be comforted by the Lord Jesus Christ and his grace, and be freed from the snares of the devil and become better.” God’s mercy to you was free—not dependent on either your payment of goods or the good you would do to make payment. Neither the sheep nor the coin did anything in order to be found. There’s nothing they could have done. The sheep could have resisted being taken back to the fold. Just as we sometimes do. And I think we do that sometimes because we don’t truly believe that we have a God who takes such initiative to find us. We think that there’s something that we need to be doing and if we’re not doing it then we must not be worthy of the gift we’re receiving. You don’t have to pay for having strayed from the flock. Jesus paid the price for you. And not only did He make it possible for you to return, but He seeks after you, finds you, and lovingly carries you back to His place of safety and protection. Just don’t fight Him while He’s carrying you home.

Because repentance is nothing more than believing the gift of God is yours. And then, as the angels in heaven rejoice, so we rejoice in repentance because we have God’s mercy. We don’t rejoice in seeing the sinner get what he or she deserves. Instead, we rejoice in the good fortune of being invited to a great party. That Jesus would come to us and invite us to His table. To receive His good gifts. And then when we’re filled with His grace and mercy, and strength for the day, we can go forth and share God’s mercy with others.

Because the shepherd uses us to reach lost sheep, lost coins, and lost sons and daughters today. He seeks the lost by using the preaching, teaching, and telling of the Word. It’s done from here through the Office of the Holy Ministry. But it’s also done out there by the Priesthood of All Believers. That’s you. Responding with joy to the goodness and mercy of God by sharing that goodness and mercy with the lost. The very ones Jesus came to save.

I think the biggest frustration with those lost socks is the fact that the one sits there unmatched. It’s incomplete. Not whole. That’s us when we find ourselves lost, wandering from the sheepfold. But thee is great joy in heaven when the Good Shepherd finds us and brings us home. May that joy be yours too, as you recognize that only in the arms of Jesus are you complete and whole. Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.