Jesus Receives Repentant Sinners With Joy

Have you ever lost something incredibly valuable to you? Something difficult, even impossible, to replace? Maybe a piece of heirloom jewelry, a significant amount of cash, or perhaps even one of your children temporarily? When you lose something valuable, something difficult to replace, it’s a horrible feeling. A few weeks ago, my son lost his all-important school binder. This binder held homework that had taken significant time to complete, assignments that needed to be turned in, and a quiz that he had corrected to earn back valuable points in math class. You can probably imagine the sinking panic my son felt as he scoured the school bus, checked his locker, and walked the halls of the school looking for his binder. It was terrible. If you have ever lost something that you couldn’t easily replace, do you remember how you felt when you found it? I wish I could have been there to see the mixture of joy and relief on my son’s face when he found his binder the next day. There is a unique kind of joy that you feel when you find something valuable that has been lost.

Our passage this morning records three of the Lord Jesus Christ’s best-known parables, and each one is about the joy of something that was once lost finally being found. The parables are about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son who are finally found. Of course, the joy of finding a lost sheep, coin, or son is not the point. Rather, these parables point to the far greater joy in heaven over a lost sinner being found by God himself. Notice how the Lord Jesus makes this point in each of the parables. At the end of the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus said, *“Just so, I tell you, there will be more **joy** in heaven over **one sinner who repents** than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance”* (Luke 15:7). At the end of the parable of the lost coin, Jesus said, *“Just so, I tell you, there is **joy** before the angels of God over **one sinner who repents**”* (Luke 15:10). And in the parable of the lost sons, the father says, *“And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and **let us eat and celebrate**. [24] **For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found**.” And they began to **celebrate**”* (Luke 15:23–24).

Now, why did the Lord Jesus tell these parables about the joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents? Because not everyone joins in heaven’s celebration. Luke 15:2 says, *“And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’”* The message of these parables is clear, and it is the **big idea** of Luke 15: **Jesus receives repentant sinners with joy.**

Since the Lord Jesus receives sinners with joy, what should we do in response? Our passage provides two answers:

1. Rejoice (vv. 1–10)
2. Return (vv. 11–32)

**REJOICE (vv. 1–10)**

Let’s set the scene for our passage. You may remember that last week, at the end of Luke 14, the Lord Jesus Christ taught the large crowds about the high cost of following him. He taught them that God’s grace is both free and costly. In Luke 14:33, Jesus said, *“So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”* Now, you might think that the Jewish scribes and Pharisees would be the ones who denied themselves and followed Jesus. After all, they knew the Bible and its promises about the Messiah well. However, it was actually the tax collectors and sinners—the most unexpected people—who counted the cost, repented of their sins, and followed Jesus. The Pharisees and scribes actually grumbled and complained about it. Luke 15:1–2 says, *“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’”*

The Pharisees, like many modern people, failed to see that Jesus received tax collectors and sinners who repented of their sins and turned to him. The Pharisees probably assumed that Jesus was guilty of impurity because he dined with tax collectors and sinners. Modern people think Jesus dined with tax collectors and sinners because he was a progressive, gracious guy, unlike those stuck-up religious types. Both the Pharisees and modern people fail to see that Jesus came to seek and save the lost, and he receives **repentant** sinners with joy.

**Jesus receives repentant sinners with joy, but the Pharisees grumble at this. In response to their grumbling, the Lord Jesus tells them the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.** Like a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep, seeks the one that is lost until he finds it, and then calls everyone to celebrate over the sheep that has been found, and like a woman who searches for a lost silver coin and rejoices when she finds it, there is more joy in heaven among the angels over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance. The shepherd and the woman represent Jesus. As Luke 19:10 says, *“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”* These parables remind us that salvation is entirely an act of God’s grace and that Jesus receives repentant sinners with joy. The Pharisees’ failure to rejoice over this shows how far they really are from heaven and from the angels. As Tom Schreiner writes:

It is not as if the ninety-nine do not matter; the point is that the ninety-nine have already repented. Nor does Jesus teach an unconditional love so that repentance becomes unnecessary. The love of God provides an opportunity for repentance, and the Pharisees and scribes should rejoice instead of grumbling over the tax collectors and sinners who were turning to God. **Their failure to rejoice shows how far they are from the angels in heaven.**

Jesus receives repentant sinners with joy. The Pharisees’ failure to rejoice shows how far they are from the angels in heaven and how far they are from God’s kingdom. **How should we apply the first two parables that Jesus told the grumbling Pharisees?** Simply, we should rejoice when even one lost sinner repents and returns to Jesus. Consider six ways that you can rejoice when Jesus receives a lost sinner with joy:

1. Pray for lost sinners to repent and turn to Jesus. Do you know any lost sinners in your family, at your school, at work, or attending our church? Pray for them! Regularly ask the Father to draw these lost sinners to repentance and faith in Jesus. At Citylight, we often say that it’s wonderful to have your “three”—three lost sinners who live in the Philadelphia area for whom you regularly and fervently pray. Rejoice when lost sinners repent by praying for it without giving up.

2. Invite lost sinners to repent and turn to Jesus. Since heaven rejoices over one sinner who repents and turns to Jesus, seek every opportunity to invite lost sinners to repent and turn to Jesus. Many of us often talk to people about Jesus, share our own testimonies of faith, or invite people to church. These are all wonderful things. Don’t stop. Do so all the more. Additionally, I encourage you to explicitly invite lost sinners to repent. Don’t only share about Jesus; invite them to repent and turn to him, because that makes heaven rejoice.

3. Rejoice when lost sinners repent and turn to Jesus! Rejoicing means expressing joy verbally. When someone is baptized in our church, see it for what it is: Jesus has tracked down a lost sinner, saved them from the precipice of hell, and carried them home to his kingdom. So rejoice! Say how wonderful it is. Talk to one another about how wonderful it is. Sing about how wonderful it is. Remind one another of the joy of our salvation. Rejoice!

4. Invite lost sinners who repent into your life. I would love it if, when someone repents and believes in Jesus in this church, it became a race among you to invite that person to your CG, ask them to coffee, perhaps begin discipling them, and help them get connected to others.

5. Devote yourself to fellowship with repentant sinners who are not your type. We all have types of people we easily get along with and naturally enjoy more than others. The church is composed of people with various personality types, temperaments, and opinions about secondary matters. We are all tempted to join the grumbling of the Pharisees by keeping our distance from saved sinners who aren’t our type or who bother us in some way. But remember what you have in common with every other member of this church: We were all lost, Jesus found us all, and heaven rejoiced. So rejoice by devoting yourself to fellowship with one another, even those people in your CG or church whom you don’t naturally enjoy.

6. Rejoice when the church is crowded. You may think, “I would never grumble when a lost sinner repents.” I hear you, but are you ever tempted to grumble that parking fills up quickly on Sundays? Are you ever tempted to grumble that your child’s Citylight Kids class is full? Are you ever tempted to grumble that more people mean more services and events, which require more of us to serve more often? Are you ever tempted to grumble about how loud the lobby gets when so many people are in it? Jesus receives repentant sinners with joy, so don’t grumble when the church is crowded or grows larger than you prefer, or when you have to endure inconveniences. Instead, rejoice.

Jesus receives lost sinners with joy. What should we do? First, rejoice! Second…

**RETURN (vv. 11–32)**

Lost sinners are repenting and being received by Jesus. The Pharisees, instead of rejoicing and repenting themselves, grumble. The third parable that the Lord Jesus tells the Pharisees and scribes in response is perhaps the greatest of all Jesus’ parables. It’s often called “The Parable of the Prodigal Son,” but it might be better titled “The Parable of the Two Lost Sons” or “The Parable of the Prodigal God” (prodigal meaning extravagant or lavish).

As Jesus tells the parable, there was a father who had two sons. The **father** represents God. The **younger** son represents the tax collectors and sinners who have squandered their lives in the “far country,” far from God. The **older** son, who lives in his father’s house, represents the Pharisees, who are scrupulous about some aspects of God’s law but, in their hearts, are as far from God and as entrenched in the “far country” as the tax collectors and sinners.

The younger of the two sons asks his father to give him the share of his property that will come to him when his father dies. He demands his inheritance now. This is an extraordinarily rude, cruel, and selfish request. It indicates that the younger son wishes his father were already dead. Amazingly, the father divides his property between them. The Bible says in Romans 1 that when lost sinners exchange the worship of the Creator God for the creation, God gives them over to their worst inclinations. The younger son then liquidates his considerable inheritance and journeys **into a far country away from his father**. Remember that the younger son represents the tax collectors and sinners who rejected God’s rule and moved far away from him in their lives and hearts.

While in the far country, the younger son squanders his fortune in wild living. It’s amazing how quickly it can all go. To make matters worse, after the son has spent everything, a severe famine arises in that country. The younger son is in need, so this once-rich son hires himself out to one of the citizens of the far country. He is sent into the fields to feed pigs, ceremonially unclean animals for God’s old covenant people. This is truly degrading work. Worse than feeding pigs, the son is so hungry that he longs to be fed with the pods the pigs eat, but no one gives him anything. The far country looks so satisfying, but it leaves you empty. **Is that you?**

The son then comes to his senses, remembering that his father’s servants have more than enough bread while he is starving to death. So, the son begins to rehearse a genuine speech of repentance from his heart to his dad. Listen to what it sounds like when a lost sinner repents. Luke 15:18–19 says, *“I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, **I have sinned** against heaven and before you. [19] I am **no longer worthy** to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.’”*

That is the heart of repentance. No excuse-making. No presumption. Just a repentant return.

So, the son begins his journey home from the far country, and what happens when he returns is my favorite part of the parable. Luke 15:20 says, *“And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his **father saw him and felt compassion**, and **ran** and embraced him and kissed him.”*

I love that! According to Deuteronomy 21, the father could legally have had his rebellious son executed for being a glutton and a drunkard. Instead, the father sees him while he is still a long way off. He is moved with compassion for his son, and he begins to run.

Have you ever noticed that you rarely, if ever, see an American president run? Why? It would be undignified and beneath the president of the United States to run around in his suit. He doesn’t hurry for people; people hurry for him. He doesn’t rush; people wait. Similarly, in the ancient Near East, older men did not run because it was considered undignified. But this man is so full of compassion and love for his son that he runs.

The younger son did not take that into account when he rehearsed his repentant speech. As Kent Hughes writes:

What the son did not realize was that everything about him was burnt on his father’s consciousness. Every feature had been treasured in his dear father’s memory and wept over repeatedly, so that he would recognize his errant son anywhere. Even more, the father had been daily scanning the horizon for his lost son.

The Lord Jesus is teaching us that our God is like that toward those who repent and return! Psalm 103:13 says, *“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.”*

When the father embraces and kisses his son, the younger son expresses the heartfelt repentance he had rehearsed, but he cannot even complete his repentant speech before his dad cuts him off. Luke 15:22–24 says, *“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. [23] And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and **let us eat and celebrate**. [24] **For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found**.’ And they began to celebrate.”*

The father forgives everything in an instant, restores the son’s status as a son in an instant, and calls for a great celebration because his son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.

This part of the parable reminds me of Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:1–5:

*And you were dead in the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—[3] among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. [4] But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, [5] even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—*

However, there is one person who is not rejoicing and celebrating the younger son’s return: the older brother, who represents the Pharisees who grumbled over Jesus receiving repentant sinners with joy. When the older brother comes home after working in the family field, he hears music and dancing and asks a servant what is going on. After the servant answers him, the older son becomes furious. So, the father comes out to his older son, just as he went out to his younger son when he was a long way off.

But the older son shows his true colors. He despises his father just as much as the younger son did when he demanded his inheritance and went off to the far country. The older son’s heart is in the far country, too. Luke 15:29–30 says, *“But he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. [30] But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’”*

These are the older son’s final words in the parable, and they reveal that you can go to the far country without ever moving your feet. You can go to the far country while being dutiful, responsible, successful, respectable, and even religious. As Mark Twain once wrote, the older son was “a good man in the worst sense” of the phrase.

The older brother’s words reveal his disdain for his father’s love, forgiveness, compassion, and mercy toward the repentant. He is far from the father because he thinks he has nothing to repent of. **He’s a good man whose heart is firmly set in the far country while his feet are firmly planted in church.** **Is that you?**

So, what happened to the older son? We don’t know because the final words in the parable belong to the father. In Luke 15:32, the father says to his oldest son, *“It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”*

We don’t know what became of the older brother or the scribes and Pharisees because that’s not the point of the parable. The point is that the Father receives repentant sinners with joy—older-brother sinners and younger-brother sinners. Jesus and the Father are one.

**Question: Do you identify more with the older brother or the younger brother?**

Regardless of which one you identify with more, the application of the parable is the same: **return**! As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. So, return.

Whether you’ve gone to the far country with your feet or only in your heart, return. Whether you’re currently squandering your life through wild living or honoring God with your lips while your heart is far from him, return. Whether you need to be converted and return for the first time or you’re a Christian who has wandered to the far country with your feet or your heart, return.

There is a sense in which every time we sin, we are journeying to the far country. **Every sin is a character assassination of God. Every sin is saying to God, “I wish you were dead so I could do things my way with no consequences.”** Since every sin is a journey into the far country, return for the first time, and return every day.

Returning to the Father, whether you’ve only ever lived in the far country or have temporarily returned, requires only two things:

1. See your waywardness.

To return from the far country, whether you’re an older-brother or younger-brother type, you must first see that’s where you are. You must see that before the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you have sinned, you’re not worthy to be his servant, and you can’t do anything to make yourself worthy.

You must see that you’ve squandered your life through reckless living. You must admit that, in all your rule-keeping, you’ve hated his merciful heart and scoffed at the idea that you need mercy, too. You must see that even now, though you’ve been converted to Christ, you are prone to wander to the far country through reckless sin or, more subtly, by thinking of your Father as a hard man.

Do you see your waywardness? If so, then you’re ready for the second requirement to return…

2. Savor the Father’s love.

The point of the parable is the father. The point of the parable is to help you savor the truth that, just as a father shows compassion to his children, the heavenly Father shows compassion to those who fear him.

Do you savor the Father’s love? Do you savor the truth that, when you were still a long way off, he predestined you for adoption as his own? Do you savor the truth that, when you were squandering your life in the far country, he ran to you by sending his only righteous Son to live, die, and rise for you?

Do you savor the truth that the Father’s love led him to give his Son in your place so that you, older and younger brothers alike, can be welcomed home from the far country? To savor the Father’s love, look no further than the cross. God shows his love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Do you savor the truth that, if you return, the Father will forgive you instantly, welcome you home, and restore you to his family? If you savor his great love, you cannot stay in the far country. You’ll want to return.

Perhaps the most beautiful words on the Father’s love and the significance of savoring it that I’ve ever read outside the Bible come from the Puritan John Owen:

Eye the Father as love; look not on him as an always lowering father, but as one most kind and tender. Let us look on him by faith, as one that has had thoughts of kindness toward us from everlasting. It is misapprehension of God that makes any [to] run from him, who have the least breathing wrought in them after him. “They that know you will put their trust in you” (Ps. 9:10). Men cannot abide with God in spiritual meditations. He loses soul’s company by their want [=lack] of this insight into his love. They fix their thoughts only on his terrible majesty, severity, and greatness; and so their spirits are not endeared. Would a soul continually eye his everlasting tenderness and compassion, his thoughts of kindness that have been from of old, his present gracious acceptance, [then] it could not bear an hour’s absence from him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.

Jesus receives lost sinners with joy. Rejoice and return.