Last night, Wed. July 23rd, I taught the youth on the sweet parable of the lost sheep. It was good to see this well known text new and afresh. Its been 2 weeks since the last Bible study blog, we had VBS last week and therefore no youth service.
This passage is in Luke 15:1-7. We discussed how intruiging Jesus was when He was here on earth. He was one of those people that everyone wanted to be around. He made things better. But He did it differently. Today the cool people are the ones who attract others. In schools, the best looking & best dressed tend to have the most people around them. Jesus wasn’t like that. Jesus had people around Him because He was so kind, so honest, so genuine, so holy, so gracious, and so fascinating. We see this in the many places in Scripture where it says people were coming near to Him. Like here in Luke 15 it says they were all drawing near to Him.
Well, as sinners were drawing near to Him, (notice that Jesus doesn’t have a problem with hanging out with sinners. I told the youth it shouldn’t matter who you hang out with because you should be influencing them. However, if they influence you more than you influence them, then it may be a bad thing. And while Jesus doesn’t mind sinners coming to Him, He also doesn’t mind telling anyone that they cannot be His disciple. see Luke 14:25-33.) So while sinners were drawing near to Him, the religious folks began to grumble. Upon hearing their grumblings, Jesus tells this great parable of the lost sheep.
You may already know the story. Jesus asks the rhetorical question, what Shepherd who has 100 sheep, if he loses one, doesn’t leave the flock to go get the one? And upon finding the one lost sheep, the shepherd places it on his shoulders and rejoices while returning it to the flock.
Then Jesus adds “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Lk. 15:7)
Heaven rejoices! Heaven rejoices when 15 year olds turn from their sins! Heaven rejoices when 13 year olds commit all of themselves to Christ. Heaven rejoices when youth and all people repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus!
Have you done that? Have you ever repented? Has there been rejoicing in heaven over you?