Dear fellow sinner/saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Who summarizes His parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin for us in our Gospel text today, saying: ’ [7] I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. . . . [10] Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15:7

Why? Because this is the very will of God for every sinner of the human race since Adam and Eve—every man, woman, and child from conception unto death, Old Testament and New. And it is the task of every Servant of the Word, also Old Testament and New, to this very age.

“So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me. . . . Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Ezekiel 33:7, 11

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, . . .For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:1, 3-4

Indeed it is the very reason He sent His One and only Son to suffer and die for us as we hear from the hosts of heaven according to Christ’s apostle, John, in Revelation 5:9:
And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,–which, by the way, would encompass every color, or rather shade, of skin.

50 Therefore God, out of His immense goodness and mercy, has His divine eternal Law and His wonderful plan concerning our redemption, namely, the holy, alone-saving Gospel of His eternal Son, our only Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, publicly preached; and by this [preaching] collects an eternal Church for Himself from the human race, and works in the hearts of men true repentance and knowledge of sins, and true faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. And by this means, and in no other way, namely, through His holy Word, when men hear it preached or read it, and the holy Sacraments when they are used according to His Word, God desires to call men to eternal salvation, draw them to Himself, and convert, regenerate, and sanctify them. 

And that there be no mistaking this means EVERYone, and that no servant of the Word thinks himself exempt, and thus to negate any who would reject this ministry of the Church to call one and all sinners to repent as hypocritical, the two foremost apostles of our Lord, are subject to the same standards. Christ’s threefold absolution of Peter for his denial, in the closing chapter of John’s Gospel. And Paul, according to his letter to Pastor Timothy in today’s Epistle lesson: “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

It is for this purpose in particular that Luther put together the Small Catechism, in general, and the 20 Christian Questions with their answers in particular. In order to lead the sinner to repent, because, as we each (pastor and hearer alike) learn from the Word of God and confess in the Third article of the Creed: ”I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, and sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith, . . .”
And, to use the words of the Pharisees prompting our Lord’s Parables of the Lost, this is the way that Jesus “receives sinners and eats with them.”
 

So in a little while, we are going to look at the Small Catechism’s Twenty Christian Questions with Their Answers as we prepare to join hosts of heaven in rejoicing over one sinner who repents, and indeed in order that each one of us, in order that YOU, be the One Sinner Who Repents that Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel parable of the Lost Sheep when He says: “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

But first, please take a look at “The Parable of the Lost Sheep” folder with me and follow along with the sermon to be found in those three little pictures.

Picture one in the upper left. See those sheep? They are watching their shepherd head off to look for one of their lost brothers. In the parable, Jesus is likening the Pharisees as of the ninety-nine, and chastising them–and anybody today that thinks they are better or more special than anybody else and therefore are more deserving of God’s attention and blessings. They didn’t like the people Jesus was hanging around with. So “the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’”

Because they were so prideful and full of themselves, they didn’t realize that Jesus came to seek the lost, let alone that they were themselves lost in sin. They kept looking at Jesus and watching what he was doing with everybody else, all the while holding Him in contempt to the point of scolding Jesus by “grumble[ing] at his disciples, saying,“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

It is this complaining and grumbling of the Pharisees and their disapproval for Jesus’ ministry with sinners that prompts him to tell the parables in our Gospel text this morning. You see, the Pharisees had the idea of the promised Messiah all wrong. They were looking for a Messiah, a Savior, who would come to praise them for their goodness, deliver them from those sinners out there, and make their world a better, less troublesome and cleaner place for them.

But Jesus, the Messiah sent by God the Father in heaven, didn’t come to clean up the world for the good people—mainly because “no one is good except God alone.” Luke 16:18

This seems to have been an ongoing problem then. In Luke 5, Jesus answers the same question when He feasted with Levi the tax collector after calling him to be His disciple, the one called Matthew. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Luke 5:31-32

It was no different in the early church, as we learn from Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome as he addresses the apparently ongoing superiority displayed by the Jewish believers over the Gentiles. Paul writes: “…there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” Romans 3:22-24

No, Jesus did not come for the holy ones of this world to save them from the unholy. He came to deliver sinners from their own sin. He came to take those who are unclean and unholy– that is, unfit for the kingdom of heaven—and make them a clean and holy people. As the apostle Peter puts it, “a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10

Now look at picture two in the upper right of your bulletin. The shepherd has found the lost sheep and begins leading it home. Look at the bounce in the step of the little lamb and the playful stride of the shepherd.

And, finally, look at the bottom picture. That is how each one of us is finally brought into the kingdom of heaven to join the gathering of friends and neighbors waiting to rejoice with another lost sheep—for they were all lost sheep too and brought into heaven in the same way. We are each of us carried in on the shoulders of our Good Shepherd

  • shoulders outstretched as He was crucified for our sins and carried that burden to the grave;
  • shoulders with us slung across them as He ascends to heaven bearing each and every baptized believer with Him to the right hand of the Father.

That really is what Church, the Office of the Ministry, and the Twenty Christian Questions with Their Answers from the Small Catechism are all about:

  • Preparing each of us to come into the kingdom of heaven,
  • showing each of us how and why it happens,
  • and leading each of us, leading you, to confess that you are the sheep being carried on the shoulder of +your shepherd, Jesus Christ—that you are the one sinner who repents.

So open your folder now and let’s go through those Twenty Questions. I’ll ask the question and let us also answer and confess together with one voice, the voice of the one holy Christian and Apostolic church.

[Recite: The Small Catechism’s Twenty Christian Questions
with Their Answers from the folder.]

Dear fellow sinner/saint of Divine Savior-Niwot, you One Sinner Who Repents, hear again the Word of the Lord by which He welcomes you into the kingdom of heaven to live with Him now and forever. Hear again the Words and the very name of God placed upon you in His Holy Baptism that forgives you all of your sins–in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen