Seeking both openly rebellious and secretly self-righteous

Sermon for Trinity 3

1 Peter 5:6-11  +  Luke 15:1-10

I think you probably know the story of the prodigal son; it’s at the end of Luke chapter 15. Today’s Gospel doesn’t include that story, but that story gives us a useful perspective that helps us understand the two parables we have before us today: of the lost sheep and the lost coin. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father has two sons. One is openly rebellious, the other is openly obedient but is revealed in the end to be secretly self-righteous. In that parable, both sons become lost, but in different ways. Both sons need their father to go looking for them. Both sons need to repent. Both sons need saving.

That’s the story of all mankind in a nutshell. All people are lost, by nature, by birth, neither knowing nor worshiping the true God. We all start out life openly rebellious against the true God, pursuing our own beliefs, our own passions, our own pleasures, our own good. People’s rebellion begins in their heart from the earliest age and then manifests itself in all kinds of ways. (You don’t get a “pride month” recognized and celebrated around the world without most of the world being openly rebellious against the true God.) Now, some of those openly rebellious people are brought to a knowledge of the true God and make a beginning in His Church. They fix up their lives, for the most part, and become openly obedient children of God. But then many enter into another state of lostness. They become secretly self-righteous. They begin to trust in their own goodness and merit before God, as if He should be proud of them for being such good people. Openly rebellious or secretly self-righteous—in the end, it doesn’t matter, because both groups of people are lost. Both wretched in the eyes of God. Both under His condemnation.

And yet, our God wants no one to remain lost. He wants no one to be condemned. And so He goes out looking, pleading with them now, before it’s too late. Because one day soon, He will come, not seeking to find the lost, but to give them the everlasting punishment they deserve. For now, He still seeks, as we see in today’s Gospel, where we encounter both groups of lost people.

First, we see the tax collectors (who, at that time in Judea, openly practiced legalized theft and extorsion) and the “sinners” (that is, well-known, public scoundrels, sex workers, and adulterers). They’re openly rebellious against God. They’re impenitent—not sorry for their sins but determined to keep living in them. They have no desire to change (or to be changed). At least, not until they hear Jesus. These tax collectors and sinners in our Gospel were coming near to hear Jesus preach, calling them to repentance, offering a clean slate with God the Father to all who came to Him, seeking God’s mercy through Him. And Jesus was happy to have them come.

Second, we see the other lost group. In the Gospel they’re called Pharisees and scribes. These are the self-righteous religious people. They’re lost, too. They’re impenitent. They don’t believe God when He tells them that all people (including them!) have sinned and fall short of His glory. They don’t humble themselves before God, as Peter told us to do in today’s Epistle. Instead, they exalt themselves before God. They signal their own virtue before the world. They don’t cry out for God’s mercy, they don’t appreciate His grace. In fact, they’re so arrogant and condescending that, when they see the tax collectors and sinners coming to Jesus, they get angry: The Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

Since we have two groups of lost people in our Gospel, it’s fitting that we also have two little parables, one for each group. The parables are similar in many ways and we wouldn’t want to press the distinction too far. But we might say that the parable of the lost sheep focuses on the lost openly rebellious sinners, while the parable of the lost coin focuses on the lost secretly self-righteous sinners. (While the parable of the prodigal son that follows deals with them both.)

The tax collectors and sinners were like the one sheep out of a hundred that goes astray and becomes lost. They rebelled against God and lived for themselves, oblivious to the very real devil who, as Peter says, is like a roaring lion, prowling around looking for someone to devour. But God, the Good Shepherd, wasn’t willing to give up on them. No decent shepherd would be, as Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees, that any of them would do the same thing for one sheep that went astray. How much more shouldn’t God seek to bring back the human beings (His special creation, made in His own image) who have gone astray! Of course He receives them when they come to hear Him! Of course He welcomes them back into His Church and into His family when they repent and seek forgiveness from Jesus! He is, after all, the one who would soon give His life on the cross to pay for all the wrong they had done. He’s thrilled when sinners recognize the error of their ways and come to Him for mercy! And all of heaven rejoices with Him when that happens. I tell you, in the same way there will also be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance.

Such is the care and concern of God for every sinner, yes, even for the openly rebellious. That includes all non-Christians, no matter how decent they may appear, because all non-Christians are, by definition, open idolaters, people who deny the true God and refuse to worship Him through His beloved Son Jesus Christ. It also includes the Christians who have rejected the holy life to which God has called us and have chosen instead to live in sin. It includes all LGBTQ supporters and practitioners, and all those who have committed or supported abortion. It includes all the heterosexual people out there, too, who shack up or hook up outside of marriage. It includes porn stars, and porn producers, and porn watchers. Thieves. Race-baiters. Liars, false accusers, etc. God sent His Son Jesus into the world to suffer rejection, torture, and crucifixion as the payment for their sins—for the sins of the world. And now the risen Lord Jesus sends out ministers in His Church to call sinners to repentance, to look for them and to find them with His Word, with His Law and His Gospel. And the Holy Spirit works through the Law to bring them to see how lost they were, to change their attitude toward sin, so that they no longer love it and embrace it, but come to hate it and reject it. And through the Gospel the same Holy Spirit leads them to flee in faith to Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. And when they do, God and His angels and all the saints, in heaven and on earth, rejoice over them.

But there are some, like the Pharisees in our Gospel, who do not rejoice over them when they come to repentance, because they have come to believe that they have earned God’s approval, and that other people need to earn it just like they did if they are to have it. No mercy! No forgiveness! Certainly not for free!

The Pharisees in our Gospel were like the one silver coin that the woman lost. Now, a sheep may be dirty and smelly and prone to wander. But a silver coin was seen as very valuable. And the woman who lost it didn’t have a hundred of them; she only had ten, so losing one was a much bigger deal than losing one sheep out of a hundred. And yet, for as much value as that coin may have, it’s absolutely worthless as long as it remains lost. It can’t purchase a single thing. It’s good for nothing.

But with the same care and concern as the shepherd had for his one lost sheep, the woman in the story lights a lamp and sweeps the house and searches until she finds her one lost coin. And with the same joy as the shepherd had over finding his lost sheep, she rejoices and calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me! For I have found the silver coin that I lost.

The Pharisees were outwardly good citizens, shiny and valuable, like the silver coin. But they were secretly self-righteous, still lost, still impenitent, and, therefore, useless before God. They trusted in themselves, not in God. They looked down on others, instead of loving them as God demands. They didn’t seek the repentance and salvation of the tax collectors and sinners around them; no, they wanted to see them all burn in hell. They were generally mean and nasty people, because pride and self-righteousness always end up making a person mean and nasty. But God valued them just as much as He valued the tax collectors and sinners. He wanted to find them and to have them found just as much. The blood Jesus shed on the cross for the tax collectors was the same blood He shed for the Pharisees, and His joy when any of them repented—like Nicodemus, or like the Apostle Paul—was just as great.

We don’t have Pharisees anymore. But there are plenty of Christians out there who share much in common with them. These are the ones who think highly of themselves and who look down their nose at everyone else. They’re proud of how religious they are, or how orthodox they are, and they mock those who don’t live up to their standards. What they don’t realize is that, by their self-righteous attitude, they have broken away from Christ. They have become lost. They need finding. And so our merciful God goes looking for them, too, warning them to recognize and repent of their self-righteousness, persuading them to seek God’s approval in Christ, and never in their own worthiness.

Now, I ask you this morning to examine yourself. Do you find yourself among the openly rebellious? Do you find yourself among the secretly self-righteous? If so, then repent! And what does repentance look like for both groups? It looks like coming to hate your sin, whether it’s open rebellion or secret self-righteousness. And then, it looks like trust in the Lord Jesus, who paid for those sins and yearns for you to be found and find peace and comfort in the forgiveness of sins. It looks like being baptized. And then, it looks like a life lived within God’s holy Church, a life of daily contrition and repentance, a life of prayer, a life of hearing and learning God’s Word and receiving the Holy Supper of Christ’s true body and blood, a life now devoted to fighting against your own sinful passions and desires, a life now devoted to loving God and to loving your neighbor.

As Peter expressed in today’s Epistle, living in repentance as someone who has now been found by the Lord Jesus also means you get to cast your cares upon the Lord, because He cares for you. It means being sober and diligent as you watch out daily for the many ways in which the devil tries to lead you back to impenitence and lostness. It means resisting the devil, and there’s hope in that, because it means the devil can be resisted. As a penitent child of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, you can stand against the devil. You don’t have to go along with him either into open rebellion or into self-righteousness. You don’t have to follow him into hatred or into despair. Peter reminds us that, for as much as we may feel alone in this world, suffering so many attacks from the devil, the world, and our flesh, we aren’t alone. It just feels that way. In reality, Peter says that the same sufferings are being brought upon your brothers in the world. But the God of all grace, who has called us to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen