Life: God’s Version of
‘Take Your Child to Work’ Day

Week 7: Dad’s Happy! (so are we)

Luke 15:1-10

 † In Jesus Name †

May the grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus be yours, and may you rejoice as others who were lost are found!

Intro – The Job is done!

There were days that I went to work with my dad that were more special than others.

We were doing something with cement, building a new stone wall, or patching some foundation, or creating a walkway. As we laid down the last wheelbarrows load of cement, as we were younger we always watched my dad take out a pencil and carve his initials in the last section.

As we got older, my brother and then I would do enough work, and do it well enough, that our initials, STP and DTP would join TEP in some corner of the project.

And then off to Howard Johnson’s for an ice cream shake and a beer.

There was great joy, the job was done. Something was created, something was made right!

Time to celebrate!

That is the same thing that happens in heaven, every time a sinner is found and brought home. And like my dad and brother celebrating, like the shepherd finding the one, and the lady who found the silver coin, there is incredible joy, and a party that goes beyond belief.

And what is really cool – because life is God taking his kids to work, we get to celebrate as well!

And what a celebration it is! Dad is happy, and so we are happy.

Sort of like the shepherd who carries home his sheep…and the woman who found her very valuable coin.

Law – We don’t like those…. People/Sinners

The context of Jesus’ parable cannot be overlooked.

The Pharisees and those that studied the law didn’t get it. Both of these groups focused on living their lives as holy as possible, trying to eliminate any practice or behavior that wasn’t allowed for in scripture. They were devoted to their way of life, and proud of it, because of the effort put into it.

As hard as they practiced their disciplined life-style, they forgot to love their neighbor, to be concerned about them, and they just looked down on them, because they didn’t follow.

When they Jesus spending his time with these lesser beings, they are ticked off—if he’s truly God’s holy chosen messiah, he should be with them, praising them for their diligence and hard work.

Here again how the Bible declares the scene.

² This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!  

Imagine Jesus coming back today, and sitting here in church, and then we invite him to come eat with us, and his response was to leave, and head down to a picnic with…. Hmmm… who you do you think you are holier than? Or maybe those horrible rotten sinners who…

Or maybe, instead of heading to lunch with us, he heads to a jail in Colorado, to spend a couple hours with a 22year old assassin.

Maybe that puts us in the mood of a the pharisees.

“Pastor, you can’t mean that Jesus would rather spend His time with “him” rather than us…

My only reply – is God’s job today to search for the one, or the ninety nine?

Who is the lost coin that needs to be found – us  or him?

Yet the interesting thing is, that God would have some of his kids with Him, to make the point of God’s love – to be there, as God does what only God does. As God works on Him seeking to finished the job that began as Jesus died for everyone of his sins.

And those of us who can’t go to jail to visit him, can God at work by praying for him, and for his family, as they realize that only Jesus can deal with the depth of his sin.

For in prayer, asking God to be at work, we confess that we believe God can and desires to save everyone.

And can you imagine the joy that would be in heaven, should this young man be brought home, carried by Jesus? Could God do it? He already has – in David’s case, in Paul’s case, in the case of one of the soldiers at the cross, a man named Longinus, who used his spear to prove Jesus was dead. Each a murderer was changed by the power of God’s love.

I know who the first person who would want to greet him when he gets before God’s throne.  I mean after God the Father would welcome him home. Two forgiven sinners, saved by Jesus – what a image!

And I would pray we would all go ballistic with joy!

Gospel – Look at how God searches for us, finds us brings us home and rejoices!

Moving on to how incredible the gospel is–When both the lost sheep and the lost coin are found, the term used gives us a modern word- heurisko – the art and science of finding something, or someone. It combines intuition, deep research, intelligence, basically pursuing the thing with everything one is, and haves.

And Jesus came to find us, with everything He had and is, including His life.

To find all of us.

I saw something in Luke that I’ve never seen before in this parable,  but it is there, both in Matthew’s account and the account from Luke we have today…

“Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness”

As I thought through this passage, this one verse captured my heart.

The 99 weren’t even home yet. They were still in need of their Shepherd for they were in the wilderness.

They were on the way, but they weren’t home, yet we still need Him to bring us home.

We still need Jesus, we still need the Spirit’s guidance, we still need the Spirit’s guidance to deal with temptation, to live a life with Him. And because we are really all more like the 1 than the 99, we know the Lord is with us. We and the pharisees aren’t the 99- we are the one, and Jesus is carrying us home.  `1

We know that heaven went ballistic with happiness when we God put His mark on us. He was so happy.. another job well done.

And then he invites us to work with Him to share in His happiness, to share in His joy, as others are re-created in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

As He invites to go to work with Him, even as He takes on the toughest of jobs.

Amen!