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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

Reflections on Luke 15

I want to invite you to open your Bibles, if you have not already, to our Scripture reading, Luke chapter 15, and beginning in verse 1, Jesus is speaking and there is a host of individuals that are crowding in around him, and the Bible describes this group in particular as tax collectors and sinners.

These were the uncouth of society, individuals that perhaps grew up on the other side of the railroad tracks or in a part of town that you did not go to at night.

And Jesus is being thronged by this host of individuals.

And this bothered the Pharisees so much that they vocalized it openly by saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them.

And if you so desire, I invite you to open or pull out your study guide.

You can see it there, the first passage there on the screen, and I've highlighted this man receives sinners and eats with them.

Jesus associating with sinners bothered the Pharisees so much that they vocalized this openly.

How can it be that this person associates and hangs out with these people?

It bothered them, and I would venture to contend that the reason why it bothered them was that they had a certain picture of God, a picture of God that when we sin or are categorized as a sinner, by the way, we all are, that God backs up.

He disassociates with sinners so much so that he doesn't even want to eat with them or associate with them and this idea of God came into conflict with the activity of Jesus when he was on this earth.

He was associating eating with publicans and sinners.

I pastored a church in which we had an individual that would regularly attend and he had a medical condition, Diabetes, and he was not able to be properly treated.

And I remember the first time I shook his hand as he was leaving.

He left, and then afterwards there was this aroma that just wafted past me.

In the summertime, it grew worse, as the sores would become infected and there were slits in his shoes, and as he would walk, there would be fluid that would ooze out of his shoes onto the floor.

And in the summertime, he would be in this enclosed, small Sabbath school room, and those saints would come out of there literally gagging because the whole room was filled with the stench and the aroma of this individual and he would sit on 1 side of the church and I got up to preach 1 day and I wondered why the right side of the church was so full all of a sudden and I noticed that there was this man on the left side.

The reaction of the saints, well-meaning saints, was they wanted to avoid the presence and the interaction with this individual.

And that is the picture of God that many people have, that when we are categorized, or when we sin, or when we fall, that God backs up and doesn't want anything to do with us, much like the putrid smell of this individual we don't want to associate.

And that was the picture of God that the Pharisees had, and it was so entrenched in their thinking that when Jesus began to associate with these people, that they complained.

How is it that this man receives sinners and eats with them?

This type of thinking was so abhorrent to Jesus that he could not let it pass.

He was so passionate about correcting this misunderstanding about the character of God that he said, I'm gonna tell you 3 stories, 1 after another.

And you know the first story is the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd at night, he's counting his sheep as they're going into the fold, and he gets to 98, 99.

One's missing, counts again, sure enough, there is 1 missing and he goes out to find the lost sheep and when he finds it, he does not beat the animal, he places the animal on his shoulder and rejoicing goes home and calls together his friends and neighbors and says, rejoice with me, for my sheep was lost, but now it is found.

And just a simple observation about the lost sheep in your study guide the sheep knows He's lost and does not know the way back home This is an application that we can make about individuals that are lost They know that they are lost.

They know that they're in an unsaved condition, but they don't know the solution.

They don't know their way back home, and there are individuals in Anchorage today, they know that they're not in a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

They don't know how to get back to the fold.

And you'll notice that the lost condition of the sheep entails the full attention of the shepherd.

In other words, our state does not cause God to back up.

It gives me a lot of hope in the realization that when I, from the moment, begin to stray from His will, That right there, God is putting into operation all of the resources of heaven necessary to bring me back home.

He's not backing up and saying, oh, David, what's your problem?

You can know that even in your or my lost condition, that there is a plan, a strategy.

All the resources of heaven are marshaled to bring you back home.

Christ Object Lessons, page 189 and 90, desponding soul, take courage.

Even though you have done wickedly, do not think that perhaps God will pardon your transgressions and permit you to come into his presence.

While you were in rebellion against him, he went forth to seek you." God is initiating.

Moving very quickly to the lost coin, the first was the sheep.

The sheep does not know the way back home.

In the parable of the lost coin, a woman is in a house, she has 10 silver coins, she loses 1, and she sweeps the entire house to find the lost coin.

And this is an application that we can make.

The coin does not know it's lost, and it's lost in the home.

The first category was a category in which the sheep knows he's lost.

The problem is he doesn't know the way back home, but in this case it can be argued or applied that the coin does not have the capability to know its lost condition.

It's unconscious of its state, its spiritual state.

The coin does not know its lost and is lost in the home.

And yet, the simple fact that the coin is unconscious of its spiritual state does not mean that it does not have the same regard of heaven.

Even though we may be unconscious of our spiritual state, heaven is engaged and seeking to reclaim us, even though we may be lost in the home.

Now, 1 application that Christ Object Lessons brings out, in page 195, if there is in the family, because remember this lost coin was lost where?

1 child who is unconscious of his small, sinful state, Parents should not rest.

Search the word of God, and by its light, let everything in the home be diligently examined to see why this child is lost.

Let parents search their own hearts, examine their habits and practices.

I don't know why it is, but sometimes it is easier to share Christ on a mission trip or someone out there than to your own family members.

But we have individuals that are associated with us on a regular, intimate basis, our family members, that perhaps are not in a loving relationship with God.

As I studied this, this was particularly resonating for me as a minister, as I thought, what would it Profit if I engaged so much time and energy and resources in saving the quote lost out There which I should do as a minister, but if my own family is not in the kingdom That would be a devastating moment I Was sharing with the sab school class this morning about the reality of the second coming and how emotionally there is this idea that at the second coming, it will be nothing but euphoria.

And I think there will be euphoria at the second coming.

Remember, Jesus comes in the clouds of glory.

We're caught up to meet Jesus in the air, and I'm going to be like, oh, wow, praise God, oh, wow, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.

And as we are in the cloud, from my emotional and I should say just from my psychological emotional standpoint of view as we are in the cloud there is going to be with me individual and I believe with you that we're going to be looking for.

It's kind of like being rescued from the Titanic and you're on the rescue ship and you're so thankful, but the immediate thing that you do after being thankful that you're rescued is to look for people that are near and dear to you.

And you expand from there, my parents, my sister.

And heaven forbid That in that moment at the second coming as we're caught up and in the cloud people are going to be looking for family it's going to be that dynamic looking around for family and heaven forbid the sinking realization that sets into individuals after searching the entire multitude and then the realization comes in, they are not there.

It's going to be the strangest conflict of emotion, euphoria on 1 hand, and yet The most devastating moment of your experience the realization that your loved 1 the same person that you Existed with in the same home for years is not going to be in heaven And the good news is we're not there yet.

That reality hasn't happened yet, And we have the opportunity now to ask Jesus to shine through us to our own home so that they can be touched and drawn by His love.

I don't understand how intercessory prayer all works, but the Bible indicates that prayers are not just a psychological means of making us feel better.

The Bible indicates that there is power in prayer.

And by the way, prayer is not to convince God of something that He is not convinced of yet.

He wants to save more than we want to but evidently there are certain agreements in the great controversy between Christ and Satan and 1 of the Foundational elements is this notion of consent?

And it seems to be that we can not only consent for ourselves, but we can also ask God to intervene in someone else's life.

Now, I'm not saying that it's the same category as them asking for intervention from God.

But in the Bible, you see that story of those 4 friends that are bringing that paralytic to Jesus.

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Reflections on Luke 15

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