In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, ‘This Man receives sinners and eats with them.’” (Luke 15:1–2)

That is the reason Jesus speaks these three parables that you heard this morning. The Pharisees and scribes grumbled and complained that our Lord Jesus would receive tax collectors and sinners and eat with them. Since we don't really have the same types of tax collectors that they had back then, it might be helpful for you to use your imagination.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Then all the tax collectors and sinners drew near to Him to hear Him, and the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

That is the reason Jesus speaks these three parables that you heard this morning. The Pharisees and scribes grumbled and complained that our Lord Jesus would receive tax collectors and sinners and eat with them. Since we don't really have the same types of tax collectors that they had back then, it might be helpful for you to use your imagination.

Suppose you were following Jesus around, and while He may have given you a hard time now and again because you're one of the Pharisees following around, you had difficulty denying the power and authority of His preaching and teaching, so you kept following around, following Him around. He was a man worth listening to, but you saw Him constantly allowing people who seemed to be the lowest of the low, in your estimation, to dine with Him and come and hear His words. He associated with people such as abortion doctors, adult content creators, gender reassignment surgeons, health insurance or big pharma CEOs, textbook clergy killers, narcissists, people you see posting quasi-Christian content on their social media but who have no real or active connection to any kind of Christian congregation.

Use your imagination and insert what you think of as the worst of the worst because that is exactly what tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners were in the time Jesus first spoke these parables. This is not the first time, it's not the only time the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled and complained in this way. You remember the woman of the city that's washing Jesus' feet with her tears, and one of these guys says to himself, if He knew what kind of woman this was, He wouldn't be doing this, letting her wash His feet.

Saint Luke tells us that all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Jesus to hear Him. This kind of hearing wasn't just engaging in some sort of half-hearted listening of a podcast while you washed your dishes or folded laundry. It wasn't going to see a spectacle or going to see some stand-up routine.

They're just going to see some nice cheap entertainment. That's not what the word hear, hear means. They came to hearken unto the Lord, to pay close attention to His words, to give heed to them.

Even to obey Him is what the word means. The kind of hearing they came to engage in is the kind Jesus means when He says, He who has ears to hear, let Him hear. But this isn't enough for the Pharisees and scribes.

They don't care. They know what these people have done. They have the label.

Jesus should not be associating with them. They grumble and complain that Jesus would associate with such disgusting individuals. Didn't He know what kind of people these were? I want to walk through this hymn that you probably never have sung that we sing as a hymn of the day today.

And it's a way of singing what Jesus is trying to get across in these three parables. And if you want to follow along, you can look in your bulletin. Just the first two stanzas to begin with, O come, ye sinners, straying long! Come, hasten, come and join the throng, ye weary and heavy laden.

Hear Jesus' open heart receive, Disclosed for all who weep and grieve, And own their sinful burden. Lo, Jesus' sinners doth receive, So come, He can and will relieve, And fold Thee in salvation. Come weeping, owning Thy defeat, And fall in faith before His feet, He'll give Thee consolation.

Jesus welcomes sinners. But you can hear, and you hear that in these words, He welcomes sinners no matter how long they have been going, straying in their sin and unbelief, living after the pleasures of this world, living for what this world can give them. Worrying nothing about the Lord and His church for decades, just being concerned with the comfort this life can give, accruing as much wealth or whatever earthly inheritance they could get, like the prodigal son, grasping at what this world can give you.

No matter how long they've gone in that, no matter how awful what they did was, tax collector, prostitute, or otherwise, He welcomes sinners. But the sinners He wants there are not the ones who are not in need of repentance. He doesn't want the ones coming to hear a stand-up routine, or a spectacle, or hear someone pat them on the back in their sin and say, peace, peace, where there is no peace.

He welcomes sinners who come to hearken onto Him, to take heed to what He has to say. In a nutshell, what He has to say is repent and believe in the gospel, or believe on the one whom the Father has sent, and love your neighbor as yourself. That's what He comes preaching, and that is what St. Luke is saying the tax collectors and sinners are coming to hear.

They're coming to hearken to that, not to leave there and go back to betraying their countrymen as tax collectors, or living a sexually immoral life, but to hearken onto what Jesus has said when He convicts them of their sin and points them to the only answer to that, the only solution to that sin himself. He welcomes the sinner, no matter what they've done, and no matter how long they've done it, to hear that word of long gospel, always saying these words to us, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice, hearkens onto my voice, and opens the door, I will come into Him and dine with Him, and He with me.

Or when He says in Matthew 11, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. People who are comfortable in their sin and feel no contrition are in the same boat as the Pharisees and the scribes who trust in themselves that they are righteous and despise others.

This is not the person who is going to receive eternal benefit from what the Lord has to speak at the dinner table, but those who come heavy laden with their sin, needing the Lord, wanting to hearken onto the answer He has to give in His words, is always welcome there. Stanzas three and four, a shepherd leaves no straying sheep, but ever doth His vigil keep, and all the field surveyeth. He leaves the ninety-nine to stand, and all those in the desert land to find the one that strayeth.

Our dearest Jesus is the one who seeks His sheep in Aragon, and in His fold sustaineth. Wherefore, dear soul, be found and flee to Jesus' wombs that gape for Thee, while grace's day remaineth. That's pretty vivid, His wounds gaping for us like you haven't drank any water all day, and you've been out in this heat and worse.

That's the thirst He has, and that's the desire He has when He goes out and seeks us. He welcomes at the dinner table those who are burdened with their sin and need Him to take it away, not those who have no need of a repentance, but He also goes out to seek the lost who do not feel that yet, those who think that they're good enough, have done enough, that aren't in need personally for what He has to offer. He goes out to seek them as their shepherd, and He is so irresponsible in this, His grace and mercy seems so irresponsible to us, that He would leave 99 of His sheep to go find one.

Or if you've ever been out in, I mean I'm sure they have them in Texas, but I haven't seen them in Texas, but I went, I did vicarage out in Nebraska, and when I first drove out there, I saw all these cattle out, you know, getting collected in these gates, and it was way off in the distance, because it was, I was in the southwest corner of Nebraska, so you could see forever, and it was just these black blobs, and I didn't even know there were cattle, it was so many. It would, think about it that way, that that farmer, thousands of head of cattle, will leave all of them with no one to watch them to go find you off in the hinterlands. That's Jesus, constantly.

The one He's seeking is the Pharisee and the scribe that are grumbling and complaining against Him. The one He's seeking is the abortion doctor still performing abortions, or the person who is self-righteous and judgmental and says they're a Christian, but has nothing to do with the church, and constantly only has things to say about what they've done, or the person that has wronged you, or wronged someone you care about deeply, and doesn't seem to give a rip about it even now. Those are the ones He's going out to seek, and that includes us.

In our own self-righteousness, that includes us. In our own comfort, when we are in sin, and we're looking to keep it going, and keep that fire going, we're not looking to stop. He's seeking us.

The fifth and sixth stanzas. O Christ, Thy boundless love and care, I seek the weary, poor, and bare. O grant me Thy compassion.

I've lost my way. O come and aid a sheep confused, distressed, dismayed, and caught in its transgression. O woe is me that I from Thee should fall away so speedily.

Lord, let me be returning to join Thy flock, my bruised nurse, and free me from the ban and curse, for this my heart is yearning. The people that the Pharisees and scribes are complaining about, that is the prayer they have. That is their disposition when they're coming to hear the words of the Lord.

I'll say it again, not just to halfway listen, but to hearken onto the words of the Lord in their need. They know they're tax collectors. They know they're sinners, and what the Pharisees have told them over and over again, stop being such a dirtbag and live a perfect life, isn't working.

So they've come to hearken onto Jesus, who has a different word to speak. A word backed by His blood poured out on the cross. Where He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to His own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. That's the word He comes to speak.

Along with the law that tells you that you are a sinner, that is the word of gospel that He comes to speak. And so let our prayer be the same as theirs. I want to say it again.

This prayer needs to be ours. O Christ, Thy boundless love and care I seek, though weary, poor, and bare. O grant me Thy compassion.

I've lost my way. O come and aid a sheep confused, distressed, dismayed, and caught in its transgression. O woe is me that I from Thee should fall away so speedily.

Lord, let me be returning to join Thy flock, my bruises nurse, and free me from the ban and curse. For this my heart is yearning. That ought to be our prayer, and we shouldn't be so deluded as to think we've gotten a grip on ourselves and we aren't sinning anymore that we've conquered in this life.

We may be granted little victories over besetting sins, but your sinful flesh hangs around your neck in this life until you breathe your last, and that life is going to be confusing and dismaying, and you'll constantly need Him to keep you here in the fold. Last but not least, the last three stanzas. May I Thy lamb forever be, and Thou my shepherd faithfully in life and death my savior.

Let me forsake the worldly mind and as a child of God's own kind adhere to Thee forever. Henceforth the lusts of sin that rave I will renounce until the grave, and as a new creation in holiness and righteousness serve Thee this little hour of grace I'm given for salvation. Take as Thy dove my lowly soul and keep it ever safe and whole within Thy wounds deep riven.

Preserve me from the work of sin and let Thy spirit strength within my feeble soul be given. We know that our Lord welcomes sinners at His dinner table, sinners coming to hearken onto His words. We know when those sinners aren't interested in those words, He is out seeking them, seeking them as intensely as you would be looking for a bottle of water after having not drunk any water for a week, desperately trying to find them.

And now we hear in these last few stanzas something else that we heard in these three parables too, especially in the prodigal son with the clothing of this son when He comes back, is that our Lord preserves this flock, and He is the one who keeps you there. The father said to His servants, bring out the best robe and put it on Him and put a ring on His hand and sandals on His feet and bring the fatted calf here and kill it and let us eat and be merry for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found and they began to be merry.

For Galatians 3 27 St. Paul says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, we put Him on like clothing, He's put himself on us. And this is so that you don't get lost again. So you don't forget who you are.

The Ephesians we're going to talk about this morning talks about the seal of the Holy Spirit. We talked about this in Ephesians one. This word is the same word seal of the Holy Spirit is the same word for a tattoo in the Roman world that would have been put on a slave or a soldier to remember, not just who you belonged to, but under whose protection you were, what your responsibilities were, what you were given to do.

And we have that same sort of seal as God's baptized children. We know who we belong to. We're not a slave to sin.

We're a slave to righteousness. And we know whose household we belong to the Lord Jesus household, the household of faith. And so He clothes us in himself so we do not forget that, that we do not forget what we look like now.

I want to leave you with this. The last question and answer in Christian questions with their answers. After you talk about how you're a sinner, who died for you, why you hope to be saved, why you believe that the body and blood of Jesus are given in the sacrament.

The last question is, but what should you do if you are not aware of this need and have no hunger and thirst for the sacrament? You could think, what if you're thinking you have no need of repentance? To such a person, no better advice can be given than this. This is the answer. First, He should touch His body to see if He still has flesh and blood.

Then He should believe what the scriptures say of His flesh. Second, He should look around to see whether He is still in the world and remember that there will be no lack of sin and trouble as the scriptures tell us. And third, He will certainly have the devil also around Him, who with His lying and murdering day and night will let Him have no peace within or without as the scriptures picture Him, as He's pictured in 1 Peter 5 that we heard this morning.

When you have the chance to pray for or interact with one of Christ's lost sheep, do not rumble and complain, but rejoice that Christ has given you a chance to be His chosen instrument in trying to bring that lost soul back into the fold, no matter how far they have gone away from Him in faith and life, because that's what He has done for you. That's why you're sitting here. When you see someone show up here that you think has no business being in such a holy place, remember your own concupiscence, your own sinful desires.

Remember that you have flesh and blood, you live in an unbelieving world, and that the devil is working furiously to devour you and your eternal inheritance with the saints in Christ. Take heed to yourself, lest you fall and rejoice with God and His angels that a lost sheep has been brought to the means of grace. And when you are brought to sorrow over your sins and are forced to come to grips with how badly you've squandered your God-given inheritance, wasting your life pursuing worldly accomplishments and pleasures, trusting in your own works, powers, and riches, seeking after pig's food rather than the bread of the angels that Christ offers, when you are filled with that contrition that once filled the wayward son in our gospel this morning, know that this is the work of your Good Shepherd seeking you.

Repent and cling to Him. Behold, He is standing ready, even while you may feel far off from Him. Even if you have ignored Him for a long time, He is there with His gracious presence.

He has already girded himself so that He might sprint to you to embrace you as fast as He can, ready to clothe you in His robes of righteousness and dine with you on food that endures to eternal life. Ready to do this as soon as He sees the speck of you on the distant horizon. And the distance between you and Him at this very moment is much closer than that.

Let us pray. O benevolent Lord Jesus Christ, as every manner of tax collectors and sinners drew near to you to hear you, so grant that we poor sinful men and women may thus draw near and hold fast to you your word and the most worthy sacrament, that our faith and heart may thereby be edified, confirmed, and increased, so that we may obediently follow your word and command. Protect us from the grumbling of hypocrites, lest we become angry at you and your church, and despise and forfeit your inexpressible grace.

But rather may we rejoice and find consolation and revival in the same, here in time and there in eternity. For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.

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