Oh Happy Day
Luke 15:1-10

I tell you that in the same way [the same as in this parable] there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance . . .

And I can see Jesus looking around on the scribes and Pharisees and on the tax-gatherers and sinners. The moment is hushed. And from face to face he sees something glorious and something terrible—perhaps he still sees it happening today.

Two Attitudes confront Jesus
1. Something Terrible 

On some faces the question mark begins to harden and narrow into a tight, resistant exclamation point of NO. NO. Nobody can talk like that in our world. Nobody—parable or no parable, we can tell what you are saying; we know this arrogance—nobody can claim what you are claiming. That God Almighty, in you, is seeking and finding his lost sheep. That the Old Testament prophecy of Ezekiel 34 is being fulfilled in you.

"Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken," Ezekiel 34:23–24.)

That you are God's promised Messiah. The Savior. That when you receive sinners and they repent, they are part of God's flock—because they're in fellowship with you! That God is seeking them in you and rejoicing over them when they come to you, which is the same thing as coming to him. We know what you are getting at. And we think its blasphemy (in a Jewish setting), or preposterous and arrogant (in a modern, pluralistic setting).

That's one thing Jesus probably saw on some faces. And it probably made tears come to his eyes as he began his next story—longer, even more heart-felt, and ending with a word to the elder brothers with the hard exclamation points of NO on their faces.

2.                  Something Glorious 

But he saw another kind of face around the room. He's just been condemned: This man receives sinners and eats with them. He has just answered: when I do this, it is like a shepherd seeking and finding a lost sheep and a woman seeking and finding a lost coin. And they have just heard him say that the joyful celebration of the shepherd and the woman is a picture of the joyful celebration of heaven over one of these repentant sinners who is eating with me.

Verse eight speaks of searching for a lost coin. Seen here is a woman who was searching diligently for a lost coin. A praise song entitled You Are My All in All speaks a few words relating to God’s value to his people. The song says, “Seeking you as a precious jewel, Lord to give up I’d be a fool.” The Lord should be as valuable to his people as a precious jewel. Some people fail to realize that God sees his own children as precious jewels too. This revelation will unfold by looking at the symbolism of the coin.

What was so important about the coin? Could it be that the buying power of this coin made the difference between having food on the table and not having food? This coin today would be 18 cents, which was a great deal of money then. This may have been why the woman was searching so hard for it, but there is a more “romantic” reason, as William Barclay put it. was that the lost coin was a sort of crown jewel. He stated,

In Palestine the mark of a married woman was a headdress made of ten silver coins linked together by a silver chain. For years maybe a girl would scrape and save to amass her ten coins, for the headdress was almost equivalent of her wedding ring. It may well be that it was one of these coins that the woman in the parable lost, and she searched for it as any woman would search if she had lost her wedding ring.

When the Father searches for those who do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior, he searches diligently as a woman who has lost her wedding ring. He is searching for a crown jewel. The Lord views each and every individual in the world as a precious jewel.

And on some of their faces now Jesus sees the light of worship rising. We hear you. You are the love of God seeking and finding what belongs to God.

You are the heart of God.
You are the arm of God reaching out.
You are the crook of the Shepherd's staff in the wilderness.
You are the shoulders of God where the sheep gets carried home.
You are the lamp in the woman's house. You are the broom with its bristles in the dirt of our lives.  

And you sit to eat with sinners - you receive sinners and eat with us, this is the party, isn't it? Or at least the beginning of the party. And in your receiving us, God is receiving us. And in your joy we see what God is like. He is happy that we have come home. We have seen him. We have seen the Father.

Two reactions in a pluralistic world where Jesus says—with parable and actions—"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me" (John 14:6). Which is your face?

Three Applications - Repentance

Def.: A turning from sin to embrace Christ. It’s God's aggressive initiative in Jesus that brings it about.

True confession is not the mere mental assent that we have done wrong, for even a thief will admit he’s done wrong. No, confession means seeing and agreeing with God how our sins have harmed us and others. It is pouring out our shame and deep sorrow to the Lord over our misdeeds. It is repenting of our evil ways, turning around and doing what’s right and good, and it’s seeking reconciliation with others and God. As the Bible says, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2Corinthians 7.10).

Verse 7, "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents . . . " Repentance is the heart of the parable. Will God receive us? Yes- Yes - yes…we see Jesus receiving sinners and eating with them. Jesus is the seeking heart of God going out after sinners and winning our repentance. We must repent.

A boy told his father, "Dad, if three frogs were sitting on a limb that hung over a pool, and one frog decided to jump off into the pool, how many frogs would be left on the limb?" The dad replied, "Two." "No," the son replied. "There’s three frogs and one decides to jump, how many are left?" The dad said, "Oh, I get it, if one decides to jump, the others would too. So there are none left." The boy said, "No dad, the answer is three. The frog only DECIDED to jump."

Does that sound like our repentance sometimes… often times we only decide, and months later we are still on the same limb of do-nothing.

But here we see that God has not left us alone in this. He has taken the initiative to reach us and change us. This message today and your being here is one of them. It is no accident. God is here and is speaking. And his word is this: come to Christ, repent. The closness you feel with the Father is worth the cost of following Jesus.  

God’s Love for You

• In spite of his majesty - holiness and universal power he astonishingly cares for people one at a time.

The greatness of God is amazing. When you let your mind ponder just how great, powerful and majestic God really is it is boggling. Look at creation; think about the spider, the roach, cats, dogs and other splendors of creation. Think about the human creation. People created in the image of a living God.

On the very first page of the Bible the absolute transcendence of God comes to our attention. Without strain or fatigue He calls the whole world into existence by His word alone. By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host created by the breath of His mouth (Ps. 33 :6). He speaks and it is done; He commands and it stands fast (Ps. 33:9). All nations before Him are as nothing.  When God speaks to Job out of the thunder and displays the magnitude of His works  Job humbly bows his head, and says: Behold, I am vile, What shall I answer Thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth (Job 40:4). "I am unworthy” 
Such knowledge is too wonderful – It’s too high. We cannot attain unto it (Ps. 139:6).

There was one sheep—out of a hundred—and one coin—out of ten. God has a universe to run and galaxies to uphold and atomic particles to manage and governments to rule in his providence.

But there is not much in the Bible that says, all heaven rejoices over orbits of the stars or the rise of kings or a global health conference in Spain or the G-8 Conference. But Jesus is clearly referring to something special in these parables. When one sinner repents, there is a special joy in heaven. God cares for us one at a time.

The Ninety-Nine

• Finally, consider the ninety-nine who are already in the fold. Jesus says there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over these ninety-nine. Does this mean that God does not delight in our worship? What about me!

John 4:23 says that God is seeking worshipers.

23 The time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

The lost sheep is lost because he worships something other than God. The reason God rejoices so much over the winning of the lost is not because God doesn't have tremendous delight in our worship, (inhabits the praise of his people) but because he delights most in the worship of the whole family. If we content ourselves with our worship experience, without wanting to include the lost sheep that don't have this joy, then the God we are dealing with in worship is not the God of Luke 15.

Therefore, for the sake of worshiping the one true God for who he really is, we are being called as a church—in a world of diversity and pluralism—to repentance of sins – to recognize  God’s love for all people – to leave the ninety-nine - receive sinners and eat with them. To seek and to save the lost. That the Joy of the father may be complete.