MAKING UP THE NUMBER
Andrew Burr
Luke 15: 1-11; 22-25
This chapter is one that especially brings home to me the very small measure I have in relation to the preaching of the gospel, because in this chapter the preacher is the Lord Jesus Himself. He unfolds these simple, well-loved stories about someone He knows better than anybody else. The stories were about God, about the Father, stories that tell us how much God wants to have us for Himself. The stories themselves are very simple but their insight into the knowledge of God is very wonderful. The stories could apply to anybody. We often speak of them in relation to wanderers, people who are lost, but we might say – wandering from what? The subjects of these parables are people who had a place in the company: they had a place among others who were saved which for one reason or another they nearly lost. The parables are spoken in the hearing of tax-gatherers and sinners and Pharisees, a community of hearers about as diverse as you could find. We have read them this evening to ourselves, and they apply to us as much as they do to these people. Let us not believe that these stories have some particular application to the unsaved, or to those who have never tasted of the blessings that we announce to the glad tidings, because it would be much easier to show that they apply to people like us. They apply to people who belong in the company and for one reason or another have not sufficiently valued the place they had in that company.
We have been speaking about fellowship over the weekend and I believe we have enjoyed speaking about it. We have spoken about the reality of it and the need to be real about it and the need to really possess the truth that relates to fellowship. This leads me to use these scriptures to raise a question with each: do we really understand how much it means to God that each of us should take our place in relation to His interests here and among the company of His people? How much do we understand what it means to God that we should have a place in that company?
I turn to these narratives here to seek to bring that out. There are four examples, different kinds of objects: the sheep, the coin, the younger son and the older son. We often speak about the parable of the prodigal son, but it as much a parable about the elder son; and it might be more a parable about me in that relation than it is in relation to the prodigal son. Each of the four had fallen out of a place that was theirs. The purpose of this chapter is to show the lengths to which God will go, and the reasons why He will go to those lengths, to recover people to a place among His people. You might say, we are all here today, which of us needs to be recovered? But any of us could under-value what we have been called to, and any of us who under-values it stands in danger one day of letting it slip, letting it all go, losing it, losing ourselves. The preaching is announced among those who may have assented to its first message as to guilt and as to the need for the work of Christ. The preaching continues to be addressed to such so that they might not give up what they have once possessed, perhaps without realising entirely what it was they had been given.
I never take up this first parable about the lost sheep without recalling the story Mr Darby tells, which some of us may know, about the time when he was a curate. The story is called, ‘How the Lost Sheep was Found’. He had been called to a house where a boy was dying from the consequences of exposure. The boy was in his last days. He had never read the Bible, and as far as Mr Darby was concerned God was a stranger to him, and he did not know how he could preach the gospel to him. Then he found that the reason why this boy was so ill was that he had gone after one of his father’s sheep the previous winter in very bad weather. He had been out all night and came home ill, and now he was going to die. When Mr. Darby showed him the connection with this parable he was converted. The reason I keep referring to the story is that behind what the Lord Jesus says is this great truth that the sheep were the Father’s. The shepherd went after them because they were the Father’s and because He loved the Father. Have you thought of that? When the Lord Jesus found you, when He reached after you in your lost condition away from Himself, and perhaps on other occasions since, and you have felt the sure hand of the shepherd catching hold of you, have you remembered that he did that because you were the Father’s. He did it, not only because He loved you but because He loved the Father? How precious it is to think of this that the Lord Jesus has gone to the lengths that He has because He loved the Father. He has laid down His life because He loved the Father.
This story goes on. Mr Darby asked the boy what he did when he found the sheep. He laid it on his shoulders and brought it home that way. The boy said, the sheep was dead beat and tired. He would not have trusted it to come back on its own. The Lord Jesus does not trust you to come back on your own. He has carried you on His shoulders and brought you back because He knows what a wanderer you are, what a wanderer I am. He knows how far away I easily get, the things I might get into so quickly; and as this boy said, I did not trust the sheep to come on his own, so I carried him, he did not have the strength. Nor have you had the strength. It is the power of the Lord Jesus that has brought you back and it is His sure way that has brought you back.
Where has He brought you? He has brought you where others are. The gospel is preached because the Lord Jesus wants to bring you where others are. The reason is that He sees you as part of that number and what I would like to convey to you is that that number is not complete unless you come.
Someone may say, as the disciples said, how many are going to be saved? We sing this hymn:
Some guest will be the last (Hymn 70)
How many will there be, how near to that number are we? We make these foolish suggestions. The Lord’s interest in you is as if you were part of a number that will not be complete until you are in it. He seeks to bring you to a company that will not be complete until you are livingly and fully and securely part of it. I am not talking about this meeting, or anything of that sort, but imagine you were the shepherd: imagine what a difference it makes to the shepherd if all his sheep are there on the one hand, or if all his sheep except one is there. You might say, the sheep is out in the snow and we had better leave it until the morning, we cannot go out now – shepherds do not think like that. There is an urgency with a shepherd to find one who is missing. The gospel is preached because if you are missing it is urgent. The Lord addresses your need and comes into your life as if it made all the difference to Him whether you were there or not, just you. You might think you do not account for that much. Oh yes you do, the Lord Jesus is intensely interested in you and the number of the saved is not the same to Him if you are not among them. We preach with that intensity and the urgency that you should come. Submit to His shepherd care today that there should not longer be a space in that company where you should be.
He says, “having found it, he lays it upon his own shoulders, rejoicing; and being come to the house, calls together the friends and the neighbours, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep”. People say they are the Lord’s and they speak as if that it is something they have arrived at but, beloved, you were the Lord’s away in the far country, that is how He sees you, “my lost sheep”, not my found sheep, but “my lost sheep”. You may be away, you may be far away, but you are one of His sheep. It makes all the difference to Him that you are away. To Him it is a life and death question whether you come. He has given Himself for you, that is how much He loves you, needs you, wants you. In the urgency and fulness of His love, He has been prepared to die for you, and shed His precious blood. He has done that because He loves you.
I go on to say something about the coins. If you went to the Middle East and you met a married woman, you might well find that she had around her head an ornament made of coins. It would be a gift from her husband, and it would be mark of her honour for him that she wore it. Can you imagine how such a woman would feel if one day she took that ornament off and found that one of the coins was missing? These were not just coins in the woman’s pocket or money box; this was, I think, a collection which depended for its value on its integrity, and the honour of her husband depended on that integrity. It happens from time to time, and it may have happened to somebody here. Just imagine that one of the wives here lost a stone out of their ring; can you see what a search would be launched for such a tiny thing; the whole house would be swept for it. The search would go on and on and the whole house would be turned over in the hope that this little stone could be found. Here we see how, with that same sense of urgency and value, the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit are looking for you. Imagine the state of mind of a woman who wore a dowry from which one of the items was missing: what a dishonour she would feel was cast upon her husband. He out of his love for her had given her this thing, and out of some carelessness or lack of watchfulness it was incomplete. Just imagine her feelings, imagine the intensity of it, this is a public display of the honour in which she held her husband and it is damaged. She would be ashamed to wear it. Nothing would stand between her and the rediscovery of this missing piece. The Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit feel exactly the same and much more so about you. You say, I am just an ordinary person, what difference does it make? It makes every difference possible that you should be found. The Lord Jesus says in John’s gospel as to the Holy Spirit that the wind blows where it will. That refers to the sovereignty of the Spirit, but I hope nobody suggests that the Spirit blows round some people and not round other people. It is impossible to stand out on a windy day and for some people to feel the wind while others to say, What wind? If the wind is blowing everybody feels the wind. The Holy Spirit is working in relation to the will of God, “The wind blows where it will” (John 3:8), there is a reference to the will of God there. What is the will of God? “The Lord does not delay his promise … but is longsuffering towards you, not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3: 9). The Holy Spirit is working to the will of God that nobody should perish, and He is therefore looking for you. It is not just in a casual way as if someone else will do if He cannot find you, but because it matters intensely to God that you should be among the saved. The Spirit therefore seeks entrance so that you might be discovered and that you might take your place in something that is for the honour and glory for Christ? What greater fulfilment is there for a man, woman or child but to be here for the honour and glory of Christ. What an opportunity you have! Who would lie, as it were, in a dusty corner when they could be on display for the honour and glory of Christ?
These are simple applications I make of these passages, and I just want to add something about the last passage. There is so much in it that I cannot go into it all, but the simple point I would like to make is that the Father has made a preparation. We know it is so because the One who tells this story is no one else but the Lord Jesus Himself. If any one knows what the Father is doing it is He. He has made this preparation, a fatted calf, a ring, and sandals, and he has trained people in his house who can sing and dance. He has servants who share his feelings and who move about with him, who know how to run, and he has other servants in the house who understand His longings and are able and willing to speak to other people about them. All that is missing is you. If you would come, all this celebration could begin: think of that!
It is poised ready to begin, the father’s feelings pent up so much that he takes a vantage point from which he can see the far country, so that as soon the person for whom He is waiting begins to move in repentance, the father runs. There is urgency because all this preparation is waiting ready. It says in chapter 14, “Come, for already all things are ready” (v 17), all that is missing, as we find there, is the person for whom it has all been prepared. These two sons were away. I think it is fair to say that the father had prepared all this for them both. He would have liked them both to be there. We know that because, when the elder son would not go in, his father went out and besought him. Think of the way the gospel is preached by the Father Himself: the messenger went out, but then the father went out. He pleads, Come in, this is for you; it will not be same if you are not there. The elder son says, if you want to have it for the younger son that is fair enough but it is nothing to do with me. But he was as much needed to complete that occasion as the younger son. “It was right to make merry and rejoice” (v 32) and so it is that there is nothing to make merry or to rejoice about until the lost sinner returns.
You might say, that is all very well, but how should I come? The Lord Jesus makes it very simple, you come repenting. That way sounds rather severe, what does that mean? We all have our own view of ourselves, perhaps until we read a section like this, and perhaps until we have really thought about it, we had not understood what our waywardness from God meant to God. Maybe we thought that a bit of self-indulgence, or a bit of sailing near the wind, would not do any harm. We have done a lot of things that we could not see any harm in, they did not seem to carry any risk. It is rather like this elder son, he lived at home, he had got his circle of friends, but the father was not one of them. They were not like the father, and although he lived at home he was really as far away as the one who was eating the pig food in the far country. So it is, but see how different things look when you come and see them as God sees them. The Lord Jesus is presenting the feelings of God here in a way these people had never seen. Perhaps in the preaching of the gospel a renewed impression about the urgency and the desires of God make you see things differently. Maybe you thought someday you had better do something about this: someday I had better be committed, someday I had better take my part in this, someday I had better yield and acknowledge that God has a claim over me, and then you come into the presence of God and you see how self-indulgent that is, how truly sinful it is to think like that. You are sinning not just against the rights of God, but you are sinning against the heart of God.
Mr Alfred Gardiner was asked why the son says he had sinned against heaven? Well, heaven is the throne of God and sin is against the throne of God, against God’s rights. It is an offence. It is guilty to sin, and it attracts God’s judgment and wrath. But then why does it say, “and before thee”? Mr. Gardiner said, Imagine sinning against a Father like that! We have all done it, and we have done it over and over again. It has perhaps not troubled us when we did it, maybe a long time has gone by; and then it comes to us that we sinned against a Father like this, a Father who wanted to bless us, a Father who wanted to treat us, a Father who had something prepared that He was waiting for us to enter into. Rather than please Him we pleased ourselves, and we got nothing but misery out of it. When we came back we found that everything that had been prepared long ago was still there and the Father’s heart was unchanged. He loved us just as much as when we ever first heard about Him, and before that, and He still wants us to have the place that perhaps we have long neglected. It still matters as much to Him as it ever did that that place should be ours.
I believe that this goes with what we have been having over the weekend. We speak about the company and what it is to us, but think of it as if it meant something to God that the completion of this company was a thing for which He has given everything. “He who, yea, has not spared his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him grant us all things?”, Rom 8: 32.
KIRKCALDY
20 June 2004