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Published May 20, 2012

The Parables of the Lost Valuables

This morning we’re going to look at three different parables – all about lost valuables. Jesus tells these three stories back to back to back in order to make a very clear point – specifically for the Pharisees – but also for us. We’re going to be looking at Luke chapter 15 this morning – we’re actually going to go through the entire chapter – verses 1 through 32. But we’ll read it in bite-sized chunks, so it’s a little easier to digest. So let’s start with just verses 1 & 2.

“Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!” Luke 15:1-2

Now before we go any further, in order to understand the issue at hand here, we need to understand who these Pharisees and teachers of religious law were. These guys were extreme legalists. They were totally devoted to following the all laws of Moses – right down to the very last detail. (The laws of Moses being all that stuff you read about in Exodus & Leviticus. The “Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do this…) Obeying the law was the most important thing to these Pharisees – and they took their obedience to extremes. For example, where the law said to give a tithe – a tenth of their crops to God, the Pharisees would go out to their herb garden and clip off a tenth of their mint or a tenth of their basil or whatever else they had growing in their garden and tithe that. Or where the law said not to do any work on the Sabbath, if their house caught on fire on the Sabbath, they would not do the ‘work’ of trying to put the fire out. They took the greatest care in making sure they were no where close to breaking the law. It was like they obeyed the law, PLUS, just to make sure.

The were totally devoted to keeping the letter of the law and staying pure and holy – and of course, staying separated from anything or anyone that was sinful. Actually, that’s where the word “Pharisee” comes from – it means ‘separated ones. They were to be separate from the sinfulness around them. So of course, for Jesus to be hanging out with notorious sinners like the tax collectors, the town drunks, the prostitutes, and all sorts of shady characters … That was a serious no no. And for a reputable religious teacher, like Jesus, to sit and eat a meal with these lawless sinners, that was absolutely repulsive to these Pharisees. It went against everything they stood for.

So to address their complaints, Jesus tells them not one, not two, but three little stories. Three parables – which of course, as you remember, are also parallels. There is a hidden spiritual truth running parallel within each story. So let’s start at verse 3 for parable #1… We just read that the Pharisees were complaining about Jesus hanging out with notorious sinners…. verse 3.

“So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” Luke 15:3-7

You know, Jesus probably could have stopped after just that one story. Just in itself, it’s a pretty powerful rebuke to these “righteous” Pharisees. In essence, Jesus is telling them that God rejoices more when one of these ‘lawless sinners’ repents of his sin and turns to God – than when 99 of these ‘righteous’ Pharisees faithfully follow all their rules and regulations all their life.

Now that might seem a little backwards to us. Why would God care so much about some sinner that has wasted away his life – living in sin, breaking God’s commands, ignoring God – doing whatever he wanted to do regardless of what God thought about it. Why would God rejoice when this guy repents and turns to God – MORE than when 99 fine, upstanding, righteous citizens faithfully follow God’s commands all their life?

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The Parable of the Three Servants

Did you had $100 in 1986? The reason I ask is because I was doing some figuring this week, and I found out that if you had taken $100 in 1986 and deposited it in the bank – the interest rates were about a 5¼% back then -so today, with the compound interest, that $100 would be worth $390.41. That’s an increase of nearly 300%. That’s not too bad, eh?

But then I thought, well, then instead of putting that money in the bank in 1986 – what if we had instead invested it in a reputable company – What if we had invested it in Ford? Well, if we had invested that same $100 in Ford in 1986, today it would be worth $716.38. That’s a little bit better isn’t it? As you see on our little bar graph chart, that’s nearly twice as much as you would have made from the bank. That would have been a much better investment.

Now I know that some of you don’t really appreciate Ford vehicles, so you’re not likely to invest with them. So let’s say instead that you invested in another big name company – General Electric. That same $100 invested in 1986 in General Electric would now be worth some $1552.13. That’s a 1400 percent increase! That’s twice as much as Ford, and four times as much as the bank. If only you had know this back in 1986.

But you know, both Ford and General Electric are pretty ‘safe’ companies. They’ve both been around for a long, long time – over a hundred years now. What if we had been a little more risky and invested in a company that had just formed only ten years prior to 1986? What if we had invested in Apple Computers Inc.? Are you ready for this? Well, believe it or not, that $100 invested in 1986 in Apple Computers Inc, would now be worth… over $45,000. $45,818.81 to be specific. That’s just from a little $100 dollar investment. Isn’t that incredible? If you had $100 in 1986 – you could have done that!

But let me give you just one more scenario.

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The Sower & the Soils

Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 8, starting at verse 4.

“One day Jesus told a story in the form of a parable…” Luke 8:4

Now we’re just going to stop right there. Before we go any further, we need to talk about this verse – specifically about this word “parable” that we just read. Now if you don’t speak Christian-ese, this word “parable” might seem a little foreign. It’s not really a common, everyday-language kind of word. The guys in the coffee shop don’t usually tell ‘parables’. But Jesus did. And lots of them. In fact the count in my Bible says that Jesus told 39 different parables in the books of Matthew, Mark, & Luke. And He probably told more that just weren’t recorded.

So what exactly is a parable? Simply speaking, a parable is really just a short story about something very common and very familiar that illustrates a unfamiliar spiritual truth. Jesus would tell a story about something very common like a farmer planting seeds – everybody in that time understood what that was all about – many of his listeners would have been farmers themselves, so they knew about planting seeds. But within that story of a farmer planting seeds, Jesus would have a hidden spiritual truth that would be illustrated by the characters and events that happen in the story.

You could almost think of a parable as a parallel. You know how parallel lines run directly beside each other? Well, the story and the spiritual truth would run parallel to each other – you could compare the two. In fact quite often Jesus would begin his parables by saying something like “The kingdom of heaven is like…. THIS” – then He would tell this story – drawing a parallel between the story and the spiritual truth about the Kingdom of heaven that He wanted His listeners to learn.

So when we read in Luke 8:4 that…. “One day Jesus told a story in the form of a parable…” we know that Jesus is about to tell us a story about something very common and very familiar – something we already understand – and that in that story will be a parallel, hidden spiritual truth that Jesus wants us to learn and understand.

So let’s try this again: Luke chapter 8 – starting at verse 4:

One day Jesus told a story in the form of a parable to a large crowd that had gathered from many towns to hear him: 5 “A farmer went out to plant his seed. As he scattered it across his field, some seed fell on a footpath, where it was stepped on, and the birds ate it.6 Other seed fell among rocks. It began to grow, but the plant soon wilted and died for lack of moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns that grew up with it and choked out the tender plants. 8 Still other seed fell on fertile soil. This seed grew and produced a crop that was a hundred times as much as had been planted!” When he had said this, he called out,“Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” Luke 8:4-8

So let’s see if we can wrap our heads around this story.

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Tag: parable

The Parables of the Lost Valuables

The Parable of the Three Servants

The Sower & the Soils