Word of Salvation – Vol. 44 No.27 – July 1999

 

What is the Life of a Sinner Worth to You?

 

Sermon by Rev R. Noppers on Luke 15:8-10

Scripture Readings: Mark 8:31-38; Luke 5:27-32

Suggested Hymns: BoW: 337; 357; Rej 500; 419; BoW 407:1-5, 6

 

Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What a lot of fuss over one silver coin!  Fancy that: if you lost a coin from your pocket or purse would you turn the house upside down looking for it?  Mind you, when you translate what it was worth into today’s terms, then it is a different story!  A coin like that was worth about a day’s wages: would you turn your house upside down if you lost, say, a $100 note?  It would be worth at least a good look around, don’t you reckon?

It all boils down to how much something is worth to us as to how much time and effort we put into it!  How much energy we commit to finding something depends on what value we place on it!

So, Jesus tells a story, a brief yet beautiful story that in its brevity reveals all the emotions of anxiety, worry, elation and joy in a couple of sentences!  And yet the story is complete.  A woman had ten coins: each worth about a day’s wages.   if you work a five-day week, that would be equivalent to a fortnightly pay cheque!

Sometimes ten of these coins would be given as a dowry to a woman when she got married: and so it would mean a lot more to her than just the monetary value: when she lost one it would be like you losing your engagement or wedding ring!  Such a loss lets loose all sorts of emotions: dismay, anxiety, worry!  And she knows it must be in the house somewhere – it was completely unthinkable that someone would have stolen it!

Now the houses of poor people in that time had no windows.   At best a couple of stones left out near the roof to allow some ventilation, but not much light!  So even in the middle of the day it was quite dark inside.  Which is why she had to light a candle, so that she could search properly on the floor, made either of dirt or large flat stones which often had sizeable gaps between them into which small objects could fall.  The house was also used to store everything they owned, and even the animals might occupy a part of it!

Somewhere in this house was the coin the woman had lost.  She took a broom and, with the light of the candle flickering uncertainly into the shadows, she swept the house carefully.  Every place where she might have been was searched, until at last she caught sight of a gleam of metal or heard the tinkle of the coin upon the hard floor.

What a relief!  Her anxiety and worry disappeared and gave way to joy and jubilation!  A joy and jubilation she just couldn’t keep to herself!  She called to her friends and neighbours, and said: rejoice with me!  I have found my lost coin!!

In the same way, says Jesus, is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.  If a coin is so valuable as to be worth turning the whole house upside down for, so the life of each and every sinner who turns to God is worth turning the whole world upside down!

And for you and me it really does boil down to what we think such a life is worth as to how much effort we put into finding it!  God will do anything, including sacrifice His one and only Son.  What will you do?

For the question is still relevant: what is the life of a sinner worth to you?  Mark 8:36 reminds us, “What does it a profit a man if he gain the whole world but loses his soul?”  This world has become, for most, a mad race to possess things – a mad battle to be the one who has the most.

It wasn’t that long ago that some rich man said, “the one who dies with the most toys wins!”

And even as Christians in this society, many of us tend live the same way: work, money, possessions, bigger house, better car, too busy to give a lot of time to the work of the Lord!

But the reality is that no matter how much you have, no matter how much you may be able to put together, even the title deed to the whole planet earth would not be enough to compensate for the price put on your soul: a price of perfection, of sinlessness, of perfect obedience.  So, such a life is really meaningless!

For all the times we talk about the value of the soul, we give so much more attention to the body than we ever do to the soul!  On the one hand we have body building courses and gymnasiums that do a roaring trade; we have shops that cater for every size and shape; and, of course, we all need to keep up with the fashion!

We spend millions as a society on minor ailments and plastic surgery, feed our bodies with the best food we can afford, and spend hours watching others who are good with their bodies in all sorts of sports, movies, and other things.  But how much time or attention do we give to the eternity of their souls, or to ours?  We say eternity is important, but how does it show?

The scene on earth is so different to the scene in heaven where the joy is over the souls of sinners who are saved!  How important is the soul of every sinner to you?  Does a day at a cricket match seem more important than an hour or so in church?  Is the afternoon at the beach of greater worth than an hour in worship to God in the afternoon?

Are your shelves lined with secular novels, your magazines the ones off the rack at Coles or Safeway?  Or can the odd Christian periodical be found in your home?  Actually, which one do you have more of?  What are you feeding your mind on?

Do you own books that explain the Bible?  If you do, what percentage of your leisure time would you spend reading them?  Is this an accurate reflection of the worth of your soul?  I could go on: how much time would you spend in prayer and devotions compared to the amount of time meditating on junk mail?

A further question: the importance you attach to your soul, to your spiritual food, the amount of joy you receive from spiritual things – is that also reflected in how important other souls are to you?  Does the salvation of others rate highly with you or not so high?  Is it your joy in life to bring joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, or is it merely just another one of those things the church and the minister keeps reminding you of?

Isn’t this why Jesus came in the first place?  He came to bring good news of great joy!  He could have called ten thousand angels to rescue Him, but instead He chose to die alone!

All of His suffering, His death, the pain of Gethsemane, the trial, the scourging with whips and the crown of thorns, was all for the very special purpose of saving you and me!  He went through all this so that there would be joy in the presence of the angels because of you and me!

That is why His blood is so precious, as 1Peter 1:18-19 declares: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

The purpose of redemption is the joy of God!  Can it then be shelved into some unimportant place in our lives?  Can the winning of souls be something we do as an afterthought, or preferably not at all?  I daresay, no way!

After all, the reality of hell is but another reason why this calling of ours can never be put away!  Each one saved is plucked from the fires of hell!  And for many people they do not even realise what they risk unless you tell them!  Only when both sides of the deal are revealed – heaven and hell, Jesus the loving Saviour or Satan the sinners’ taskmaster – does the fact that such a trade-off in this life makes no sense at all become obvious.  Pleasure for a season is nothing compared to joy for eternity!

At times we need to move to the brink of hell and peer over the precipice to be re-motivated to point sinners to Christ, to go to Him ourselves and be reminded that the things of heaven are far more valuable than the things of this earth!

For in this parable we get a glimpse of the joy of heaven.  As the house of this woman was filled with joy and laughter, so heaven rejoices when a sinner repents and turns to God in faith!  As the woman rejoiced with her friends, so God rejoices with the angels!

God’s love is directed towards His children, and His joy is completed when we return to Him!  For this is how God demonstrated His love toward us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!  (Romans 5:8).  Which was the reason Jesus told this parable and the others in this chapter in the first place!  The Pharisees, those righteous religious-ites, had pointed the finger at Jesus, spat in the gutter and said, He eats with tax collectors and sinners!  He is a sinner, too!

Actually, He loved the immoral and the social outcasts; He entered their homes, ate and drank with them, and because of that He was given the nickname “friend of sinners”!  It was meant as an insult, but I’m sure it would have sat very comfortably on His shoulders!  For He was in the business of showing God’s love to the sinners of His day!

Can you imagine these Pharisees squirming in their seats?  Perhaps you are doing a little squirming of your own?  Is it not the concern of every believer to love the people we want to despise?  Should not the Pharisees have had a deep concern for the real spiritual well-being of the tax-collectors and the sinners instead of despising them and avoiding contact with them?

Should we not have a deep concern that translates into genuine action with all the sorts of people we tend to despise?  A short list: prostitutes, homosexuals, drug addicts, drunks, people who sleep around, people like ferals, who have an aversion to a regular wash, people who have made an obvious mistake and now they’re gonna pay for it for the rest of their life?  Maybe those who can’t control their children – you would never have let your children get away with what they do!  Shame!  Or those who don’t work as hard as you do – bunch of bludgers!  And the clothes some people wear!  I’m ashamed to sit anywhere near them!

Imagine if Jesus went through His life like that?  Could you imagine that any of the social rejects of His day would have trusted Him?  Would any of them have even listened to a word He said?  Not likely!

Is it likely to be any different now?  And is the call to do all in our power to help them any different now?  No!  Which goes to show, doesn’t it, that no matter how judgmental we might be of the company a person keeps, it does not automatically make them birds of a feather!  Just because you love the prostitutes of this world and you spend time sharing the love of God with them does not necessarily mean you are the same!

It is not always detrimental to your health to step out of your comfort zone and live a little dangerously for the sake of the gospel, bringing that supreme message of love and forgiveness to those whom even we consider to be outcasts and beyond the pale!  Nor does it matter what others think of you in that regard.  You might hear some whingeing and complaining because you associate with “Sinners”, but if your aim is to share the gospel with them then those whingers should either put up or, well, you know the rest!

The church, which is the body of Christ, which is you and me, is called to extend love and concern to the men, women and children who are spiritually lost in this world.  Our supreme calling in life is to seek that which is lost and tell those who live in sin that Christ died for the ungodly – that just as He died for me, a sinner, so He died for them!

The fervour that Jesus displayed in associating with so-called sinners of His day is the life-glow of every member of His church, His family; and as we radiate that same warmth and evangelistic zeal, we, too, may rejoice with God over every sinner who repents!

Do we get excited when someone is converted to Jesus Christ?  There is great rejoicing in heaven when such a great change takes place in a person’s life.  Someone has come home to God!  It is because a man or a woman or a child has been saved – and saved for all eternity.  It is not merely that he or she had decided to follow Christ.  It is because God, their heavenly Father, has brought these people to Himself and transformed them!  They have been washed from their sins in the blood of Christ and have been made God’s children.

That’s the greatest reason ever to be excited!  To join in the rejoicing in heaven!  And it is only, as we are committed to that task, that the times of rejoicing take place!  For the joy of seeing another person pulled out of the pit of despair, and come to the realisation that Jesus gave His life for them as He did for you and me, is enough to make the whole body of Christ burst out in song!

Isaiah 62:5 says, “as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”  Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”

Nothing brings more joy in heaven than the salvation of sinners!  In the presence of the angels there is celebration.  Heaven rejoices each time another sinner repents!  Every single one!  He was overjoyed when you came to know and trust Him!  He was overjoyed when your parents turned to Him, and He is still overjoyed when even the worst person in the world (from our perspective, that is) suddenly realises that without God he or she cannot live!

Jesus is still seeking sinners today!  He is still busy with the task of bringing joy to the Father in the presence of the angels at each sinner that repents!  And He has called us to this same task!  Each one is important.  The parable of the prodigal son is one out of two who went missing; here it is one out of ten; the sheep is one out of a hundred.  God never says, I’ve got 99, that’s enough!  He doesn’t say nine out of ten of the elect will do.  Every single person is worth chasing up as far as God is concerned!  There is never a point at which God says, that’s enough!

Like Peter declares in 2Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.   He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

And there is never a point at which we can say: Now we’ve done enough!  For us, just going to church and remaining in our isolated little world is not enough.  To have a church building is not enough.  To preach the gospel inside these four walls is not enough.  That is just a beginning.

We need to go out to the people – the sinners, the outcasts, the rejects – in fact, to all who need a Saviour, and as each one comes to know Jesus as Lord and Saviour, rejoice with each and every new child of God, so that a thousand tongues may sing our great Redeemer’s praise!

Amen.