Luke 15 is probably one of my favorite chapters. There is so much rich truth and encouragement within the verses! Let’s dive in and talk about it.
Luke 15:1-2 “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.”
Right off the bat we see the context of this chapter. The contrast between the self righteous and those they deem unworthy or unfit for God. Often the longer we sit in church and the longer we adapt to the Christian culture we can become self righteous, forgetting about all the sins and mistakes we have made, forgetting about how far God has brought us from. We judge those who don’t seem to have their acts together, we mock those who struggle with sin but still try to be Christian. Notice how Jesus responds to this.
Luke 15:3-7 “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.”
Immediately we see Jesus subtly rebuking the self-righteous attitude of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. He reminds them that even they leave the ninety-nine sheep in order to go find their lost one. He paints the picture of a merciful God, a loving father who does not go after the lost sheep in order to punish him, but he goes after him with love and compassion, with mercy and grace, rejoicing once the lost sheep is found.
Luke 15:8-10 “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.”
Again, Jesus is pushing back on this idea that some people are unfit or not holy enough, not righteous enough, or made too many mistakes to try to be in the presence of God. His grace is always deeper than we expect!
After these two parables, Jesus then gets even more direct and presents the most compelling parable yet.
Luke 15:11-13 “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.”
Notice the picture that Jesus is painting this time. This isn’t just someone who is lost. No, this is a son. A child of the Father. He goes and asks for his inheritance, he might as well say, you are dead to me!
Luke 15:14-24 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.”
Jesus is painting a beautiful picture of God’s love and grace. Notice Jesus says, “But while he was still a long way off,” the son was not even close to the house yet, he was still on his way, not fully home. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him.
Let that sink in. How often have we felt far away from God due to our sin? How often have you allowed sin and mistakes and regrets separate you from God? Have you ever thought how much better it would be if you just came home, but at the same time feel as if you are too far gone?
This son felt disqualified from being a son, he was content to just come home and beg to be a servant. He knew his sin, he knew his failures, humility brought him to a place of repentance.
But his father saw him.
In his brokenness, in his failure, in his sin. The Father saw him. He didn’t just see him, it says his father saw him AND was filled with compassion for him! His father ran to him! He embraced him! He restored him!
This means that the father didn’t wash his hands of his son, he didn’t give up on him, he was waiting for the day his son would come home! From the day his son walked out the father would stand outside looking, with eager anticipation, for the moment his son would reappear.
The father wasn’t caught off guard by the sons return, he wasn’t frustrated that he was coming back, he didn’t have people waiting to rebuke him. The father simply waited.
This is the love that God has for us! John tells us this in 1 John 4:10-11 “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
What a beautiful reminder! The only reason we can even love God in the first place is because he first loved us!
Romans 5:6-10 “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”
I want us to really wrestle with this. God demonstrates his own love for us in this: WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, CHRIST DIED FOR US.
Back up a little bit and Paul says, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Often as Christians we have such a lopsided view of God. We know that Christ died for us, we know that he loved us before we loved him, but once we have been saved we shift and believe that God is always angry or disappointed in us.
How backwards! Look at this quote from the book Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund, Pg. 194,
“As John Flavel put it, "As God did not at first choose you because you were high, he will not now forsake you because you are low."
How easily we who have been united to Christ wonder what God thinks of us in our failures now. The logic of Romans 5 is: Through his Son he drew near to us when we hated him. Will he remain distant now that we hope we can please him?
He eagerly suffered for us when we were failing, as orphans. Will he cross his arms over our failures now that we are his adopted children?
His heart was gentle and lowly toward us when we were lost. Will his heart be anything different toward us now that we are found?
While we were still... He loved us in our mess then. He'll love us in our mess now. Our very agony in sinning is the fruit of our adoption. A cold heart would not be bothered. We are not who we were.”
Isn’t that beautiful? Why would we ever want to live for anyone else? Before we continue in Luke 15, I want to share a personal story that is connected to this.
When I was still in my old movement and before I was even considering leaving, I had an encounter with God that changed my views on grace.
I was struggling with a secret sin, I couldn’t shake it. This struggle haunted me, I was so afraid I was going to lose my salvation, so afraid God was going to punish me for this thing that I was trying to get rid of. I would go to prayer so defeated, so ashamed, and I would practically beg God to not forsake me.
Every time I would pray I would encounter his love and grace, it would break me! I would come to him in shambles, and he was always there as if he was just waiting for me to come to him. One time I remember asking God, in a moment of self pity, why are you still here?
I’ll can’t say God spoke to me audibly, but a thought came to my mind that I’ve never been able to shake.
It was this, “You may waver at times, but you are in the hands of an unwavering God.”
After that, I stopped focusing on my struggles and focused on His love and grace, this helped me break out of the struggle I was in. Sometimes his love and grace is so radical that it breaks through even when we don’t understand it!
Luke 15:25-32 “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.’ ”
This is where the story gets a little too real for most of us. You see, when we look inward at our own sin, or our own abilities we land in one of two places. Either we will land where the prodigal son landed, laying in a mess of our own making in complete despair, or we land where the older brother landed in prideful self-righteousness.
The older brother who didn’t make the mistakes of the younger brother, the one who stayed faithful and obedient to his father, is now angry and frustrated over the reception his rebellious brother is now getting.
How often have we turned our noses up at others we feel are not as spiritual as we are? How often have we judged others for not having the same convictions, the same commitment, the same loyalty to God that we have?
How often have we seen someone else be blessed and think, I’ve been more obedient! That should have been me being rewarded!
When we look to ourselves as the reason we should have salvation, we either believe we cannot do it and that leads us to despair and brokenness. Or, as in the case of the older brother we feel like we are doing everything right and deserve salvation. It creates self-righteousness and pride. This attitude in itself is sin!
Matthew 20:1-16 ““For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ “ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.””
In this parable, Jesus is showing that it doesn’t matter who has done what and for how long. The reward is the same! What more could we ask for than eternal life? None of us deserve this gift!
Those who have labored longer, who have sacrificed the most. Those who have the best resumes are often those most susceptible to temptation of pride and arrogance.
Why should this guy who barely attends church and never gives in the offering receive the same reward as me? Don’t you see what I do? Don’t I deserve better?!
Jesus is reminding us, didn’t I give everything for you? Didn’t I bring you out of the clutches of sin and death and give you newness of life? Why then, do you look down on those who are just coming out of the same mess I delivered you from years ago?
Our flesh produces pride. We can’t help ourselves. One of my favorite quotes is from George W. Bush, he said, “Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples - while judging ourselves by our best intentions.“
In other words, we tend to grade ourselves on a curve and hold everyone else to a different standard. We know we intend to do better, we know we want to be righteous, this leads to excuse making for ourselves and all the while we are looking down at others for coming up short also.
Proverbs 29:23 “Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor.”
The older brother saw himself in a higher place than his brother. He expected to be more favored and loved for his loyalty. The younger brother, however, was completely broken and in his humility came expecting nothing.
As the proverb says, pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor. The younger brother was celebrated for his repentance and humility, while the older brother was brought low through his own pride and arrogance.
The antidote to both pride and despair is to take our eyes off of ourselves and place them on the unchanging one, Jesus Christ. This comes only through humility.
Philippians 2:3 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,”
When we see ourselves as sinners, saved by grace through faith, there’s no room for pride. When we realize the love that God has for us, that he sent His Son to take away our sins and offer us salvation, we have no room for despair.
When he have humility, understanding that salvation is all in Him, then we can love our brothers and sisters the way the Lord asks us to. We can serve each other out of love and humility because we know He loved us first.
Philippians 3:9 “and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”
1 Corinthians 1:30-31 “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
1 Peter 2:24 ““He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
Titus 3:4-7 “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”
Galatians 2:20-21 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Ephesians 2:8-10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
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