I want you to turn back in your
Bibles to Luke 15 as we continue our observation of the parable
that our Master gave us as I shared with you our last discussion
around the parable of the sheep and the shepherd, that most famous
parable of the prodigal son. And today we will be considering
the second of those three the woman in the lost coin. And the
first thing that I want you to do right now is to underline
and circle in your bulletin under the title, the cause of successful
ministry. Erase that word and put the word
means, the means of successful ministry. Last week we talked
about the cause. This week we are talking about
the means. I suggested to you that all three
parables in Luke's account are connected together and they develop
a comprehensive thought concerning our Lord's objective in the salvation
of sinners, which is the context in which he is giving these parables.
Certainly the parables are worth their own consideration Independently,
but they they must also always be considered in their context
in the immediate context the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking
to multitudes of men Women and children they are coming to him
as we learned last week coming to him avidly and earnestly wanting
to hear from Him. They are surrounding Him. He
has an eclectic group of people with Him. He has men. He has
women. He has children. He has the leaders
of the church. He has the Sanhedrin. He has
the Pharisees and the scribes. Then He has businessmen. And
then He also has housewives. He has the whole gamut of what
you and I would call a normally mixed society in front of him,
for which as he speaks to them, he takes that in regard. The
Lord Jesus Christ did not speak in such lofty terms as to only
address the elite or the scholarly among them. He did address them,
but he didn't do that exclusively. He understood his audience. And
very frequently the parables that he sat down were parables
that really related to their everyday life. Talking about
accommodating those to whom you are ministering our Lord did
that with perfection He spoke in simplicity in a very poignant
way to what was taking place in their life Helped them to
see the greater redemptive message and hopefully to recognize that
the Messiah for which that whole group were alleging to look for
was right in front of their face and right in front of their face.
So here's some fundamentals that I want to lay down. We are talking
about means today. The means of successful ministry.
Last week we talked about the cause of successful ministry. The cause, the grounds of successful
ministry, the source. Where does salvation have its
source? In God. God is our salvation. God is our Savior. We are saved by God. The scheme of redemption was
drawn up by God, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. The
purpose of redemption was rooted in God. The efforts applied to
save us were performed by God. The end result is that you and
I, if we are saved, are objects of God's grace in the salvation
which he has accomplished. But now when we say that salvation
is all of the Lord, What we never want to do, and I've admonished
us on this before, is to reject the methodology or the means
simply by focusing on the cause. In much of religion today, methodology
and means and technique is often exalted above source and cause
and grounds. And in doing so, men have stolen
God's glory as the first cause of everything, including our
salvation. We know that all things are of
God, by God, and to God. Do you guys believe that? They
are of God, they are through God, they are to God. That triad,
that Hebrew triad teaches us that God is the one to whom we
must always acknowledge for our blessing and for everything.
So we sing praise God from whom all blessings flow. What do you
have that you did not receive? God gives us everything but what
I want us to contemplate now in this second parable is the
means that God uses to bestow blessings upon us. I hope it
hasn't escaped you but the way that God created this world,
he created this world out of divine fiat. He spoke it into
existence but he did not create the world in a way in which it
had to directly relate to or depend upon God without secondary
means through which it would then have its existence. Virtually
everything in this universe Upheld by a law a principle that God
put in place by which that thing is sustained So we will say won't
we that we live and move and have our being where in God we're
acknowledging first causes But we dare not say therefore I do
not need to eat to support the health and strength and the sustaining
of my physical body that would be what foolish and And it also
would be denying the means that God uses to sustain our bodies. See, so we want to be careful
as we think about the glory of God in all things to recognize
causes, to recognize methodology, and then to recognize what we
call the ultimate aim or the goal. What is the purpose for
my life? It's the glory of God. What is
the purpose of all things? The glory of God. Why did God
make all things for himself? for his own glory. And ultimately
all things will glorify God. But now we are talking specifically
within the window of redemption of whom we are about. We are
about the redemption of sinners. Our praise and our contemplation,
our thought and our life is around what God did in Christ to redeem
our souls. And last week we saw how that
the great shepherd of the sheep, So labored to retrieve his sheep
that he was willing to hazard his life And in fact he did in
order to retrieve the sheep and what I suggested is that first
parable of the shepherd and the sheep Is the ground and means
are caused by which people are saved We have no message to preach
if Christ didn't come as our great shepherd We have no joy
to experience if Christ did not infallibly redeem us from hell's
damnation and curse by becoming a curse for us. We have no message
apart from the shepherd having successfully recovered all his
sheep. And yet the message we preach
and the labors we engage in to share the gospel with the human
race is the very means by which the shepherd is retrieving his
sheep. The message we preach And the labors we engage in as
the church of the living God are the very means by which evangelism
is successful. So the title of our message today
is the successful means or the means of successful evangelism. Now you notice that he addresses
in the second parable, the use of a woman. In the first parable,
he spoke to the men. Now he's speaking to the women.
And that's so, ladies and gentlemen, because the woman is often used
in the scriptures as that vehicle through whom God chooses to accomplish
his purposes. I want you to mark that as we
work through this account. The woman is often used in the
scripture as that vehicle through whom God chooses to accomplish
his purpose. The man is the image bearer of
God, but without the woman, the man doesn't have his existence.
The man is what God created to represent him, but without the
woman there won't be a multiplication of men around the world. The
man is first, the woman is second, but no other man comes into the
world apart from the means of the woman. So in the scriptures,
the woman is often used as a great type of the means and in this
case she is universally the means by which redemption is accomplished.
Her office as mother is given to us in the Genesis narrative
teaching us that she is the means for all that live. The name Eve
we talked about in our men's meeting means the mother of all
living. Now that does not mean, as we
said before, that she is the cause of life. God is, but she
certainly is the means. Now what this does, brothers
and sisters, is this raises the level of the woman's role to
the highest dignity that you could ever imagine. Not only
is the woman called to be a means, a type of means by which God
disseminates his blessings upon the human race, but she becomes
the vehicle by which the Savior assumes a human nature by which
that is accomplished. I am driving home the point then
that there is to be an inseparable connection between the cause
and the means in our minds. That way we have a balance when
we read the Bible. So God in his love, that is the
Lord Jesus, has given this second parable speaking to an audience
just as broad in scope as ours, knowing that half of them were
men and half of them were women. And when we get to the third
parable, he'll be dealing with families. It will be glorious
then. This parable now is designated
to the women, and that wasn't done in Jewish culture in the
days of Christ. The Pharisees, when they taught,
they primarily derogated women to almost chattel status, and
most of their parables were to the exaltation of men. Here in
this account, the woman becomes an imminent, imminent, imminent,
imminent, imminent vehicle by which sinners are saved. And
we'll see as we work through our points, she becomes a type
of something even more significant that we must consider as well. First and foremost, we are contemplating
what the Lord Jesus has come to do. He has come to seek and
save that which is lost. Point number one in your outline,
seeking and finding the lost. Seeking and finding the lost. Look at verse eight in our account.
Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she loses
one, doth not light a candle and sweep the house and seek
diligently until she finds it. Now immediately our Lord lays
out a parable for which the women in that culture could have easily
and immediately identified. He says that the woman had ten
coins and she lost one. And in losing that one, she now
is set out to pursue that coin that she lost. The women sitting
in that audience aren't scratching their head wondering what the
message is that the message is automatically pulled on the Heartstrings
of those ladies because they understood to have ten coins
to ten this these were drunkers in that day They could have been
also denarii. This is the Roman term for the
coin and each coin Represented a day's wages. So this woman
was not rich. She wasn't wealthy. She was a
poor woman and And the gospel is preached to the who? The poor.
The women that were sitting there could totally identify. Not all
the women listening to this parable had 10 extra dollars to roll
with. And so some of them would say,
I'm thankful by the grace of God that I have a little extra
resource. Others are saying that woman in this parable is privileged,
but they all could identify with what takes place when you start
to lose your resources. 10 coins. And of course, the number 10
is just a convenient number in the mind of our theologians,
our prophetic brethren, particularly in the Old Testament of completion. The number 100 sheep also denoted
completion. But uniquely in this parable,
he's speaking to the common situation of the day. He's not making her
very wealthy. He's not making her so poor that
the average person can identify with it. He's making her average.
But in this case, she has lost something for which she is on
a diligent search. The application then to you and
me, as we have been considering for the last few weeks, is our
purpose in this world as the body of Christ, as the church
of Jesus Christ, is to seek and save that which is lost. Our
call is precisely the call that Christ gave to the disciples
when he sent them on that trial run in Luke's gospel chapter
10. He sent them out two by two.
Remember that? Groups of 72 by two to go through all the villages
and tribes of Israel and call the lost sheep. That was a dry
run before Acts chapter one. then in Acts chapter 1 the whole
mission of the church was to what go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel begin at Jerusalem then Judea then Samaria
and then the uttermost parts of the world now admittedly where
you and I are today I don't know where your mindset is but I I
consider that Are we aware, children of God, that our job is still
the same as it was in the first century? Now, one of the reasons
why this message will be so challenging to you is because there is a
natural tendency on the part of us all to sort of settle down
into the church and fail to realize that the gospel does not end
with us. Now, the church has gone through
this tension for hundreds of years, where the zeal for lost
souls dominates and prevails as a prominent objective, and
therefore they are strengthened by the grace of God to witness
and to evangelize and to share the gospel with others. But over
time, is this not true in your own life, that you get a little
bit lax a days ago? that you find yourself not inclined
to want to share the gospel. That over time when you look
back you realize that you have become so comfortable that the
last time you actually said something about Christ to somebody was
maybe only in church. Can I get a witness? Now this
is problematic and we know this and the Lord in his wisdom saw
to it that when he gave the commission to share the gospel to the church
that he let us know through the apostles that this is not an
option. Witnessing evangelism, spreading
the gospel by every means necessary is not an option. It's not an
option. That's why I had you read 1 Corinthians
chapter 9. We always laud the Apostle Paul for the kind of
person and the inexhaustible labors that he exhibited in his
ministry, don't we? Well, 1 Corinthians chapter 9
opens up to us the heart of the Apostle Paul. And granted, his
modus operandi would challenge all of us. Now watch this. Here's
what he said. Have become all things to all men that if by
any means now watch this not only that I might win some but
save some now see in our Orthodox theology we would challenge Paul
on that term wouldn't we we would be really quick to say Paul You're
you know, you're getting ahead of yourself. You're talking a
little arrogantly only God saves only God saves but remember God
is the cause and The means are the people that he uses by virtue
of the message that is preached. And I want you to understand
something as we work through the parable. What the woman does
not do is demonstrate an indifference to the lost coin simply because
she has nine. And nor does Paul, for Paul takes
on the interest of Christ in the interest of the gospel by
demonstrating an interest in the souls of men. Paul takes
on the interest of the Son of God in the interest of the gospel
by demonstrating an interest in the sons of men. Why would
God give us the gospel, you and me, in order that others might
hear the gospel and be saved? This is what he meant by a dispensation
of the gospel was given unto me. If I preach this thing reluctantly,
well, I got an answer for that. and woe unto me if I preach not
the gospel. You know what Paul was saying?
See, it's really not about me, it's about what the gospel will
do when it's preached. He understood that if the gospel
simply is let go, if the gospel is allowed to run its course,
that it will hunt down sinners like it hunted Paul down and
bring him back into the kingdom of God. He understood that. And
he also understood that that powerful dynamic of the gospel
of the grace of God in Christ was committed to him. He had
no option. He could not say, I'm not going
to preach the gospel. It was committed to him. It was
committed to him and the gospels committed to us as a church too.
We therefore understand that this woman's pursuit of the coin
is not rooted in sort of just this morbid desire for wealth. She's not a covetous woman. She's
seeking the coin because it was lost. She's seeking the coin
because it was lost. And for her, this is an urgent
matter. and saints of God, failure to
live out that urgency on our part will result in certain calamities
in our life, both individually and collectively. I remember
when I was reading through the book of Pilgrim's Progress, and
it's a great book to read. Every now and then I'm surprised
when I make mention of the term Pilgrim's Progress, and some
of you have never read Pilgrim's Progress. You should read it.
If you ever read the whole book, you'll read it again. because
the book actually gives us the journey of the Christian from
his call out of sin and darkness all the way to glory. And along
the journey, he has to struggle through a life of faith. And
what God does for the Christian pilgrim is to give him helpers
along the way. He needed helpers along the way.
Don't we need helpers along the way? But he needed helpers along
the way because the journey was long and there were dangers in
the way, dangers in the way. Now, also within the framework
of that journey, you learn some things about people who started
the race with him. They started off well, but once
they found the dangers were increasing, they turned back, they turned
back. But Pilgrim did not turn back.
because he saw the end from the beginning because his call was
legitimate and authentic and yours and mine as we call ourselves
children of the living God begotten of the gospel we have a charge
we're headed to glory and as the church of the living God
we are called to encourage men and women to come along with
us and then we are to warn them should they not there is no option
There is no option all men and women are under obligation to
bow the knee to jesus christ everywhere in the world and the
voice The mouthpiece for that word is the church of the living
god you and i are to tell men and women this so Let's work
through our points. The first objective is seeking
and finding the lost Should be the desire and the passion of
our hearts now when I say, uh, uh seeking the lost and and finding
the lost I am not suggesting or implying that that's all to
the church's job. The church's job is worship.
The church's job is personal devotion. The church's job carry
many vocations, all of which are part of evangelism. The church's
job is seeking a knowledge of God in Christ. The church's job
is preaching and teaching. We'll get that here in a moment.
And all of that facilitates evangelism. And in fact, I would suggest
to you, and I do to many of you who come to join Grace, do not
go out and tell anybody anything about Christ until you learn
the gospel. Especially in America because
America is filled with so much apostasy and false doctrine that
you can get easily sidetracked by people's arguments and questions
Until you are clear on the gospel. See our Lord didn't call the
the apostles or the disciples and two months later send them
out He sent them out a good year and a half after he sat them
down and taught them the kingdom of God And then he modeled it
for them They went with him on his excursion as he was the son
of men seeking and saving that which is lost. They had the privilege
of simply following him and watching how he ministered the gospel
everywhere he went. And in their leisure time, they
would ask him, Master, why did you do this? And why did you
say that? And he expounded all things unto
them. And at the appropriate time,
he sent them out. The woman before us, It's worth
our note. She actually represents the church
of the living God. She represents the church of
the living God in a very unique way. She is poor, but she has
some resources. Those resources that she has,
she is diligent to want to retain. And so she is on her search.
Point number one, seeking and finding the lost. Point number
two, the motive for her diligent search. See, the passage is clear
in verse eight. The woman having 10 pieces of
silver or 10 coins, if she lose one piece, doth she not light
a candle, sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find
it? Well, in your outline under point number two, there are three
things that I want us to contemplate concerning her diligent search.
The first is, nine is not enough. I said that a little bit earlier.
Nine is not enough. As was the case with the shepherd.
Remember that? The shepherd had 100 sheep. But
he left 99 in the wilderness to go get the one, didn't he?
Nine is not enough. So what's going on in our thinking
when we have a large sum of something or a significant sum lose a little
bit? We are no longer content with what we have until we retrieve
that which we lost what's going on. There's a sense of Stewardship,
there's a sense of commitment. There's a sense that until I
Regain that which I had I'm lacking something Now the attitude is
the same with our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know when he came?
You know what? He said in the Gospel of John all That the Father
giveth me shall come to me All that the Father giveth me shall
come to me. You know what he said? I must be about my father's
business. When he came to do ministry,
he came to do ministry not to make a small contribution to
the change of this world, but to actually seek and to save
everyone of God's elect sheep that were lost. Everyone. Everyone. Now, that idea of not Not nine
is not enough comes out of the concept of a completion of a
program that God is accomplishing Let me say this before I move
on to the second motive See God is not rubbing his hands and
kind of hoping that the world comes to him Yeah, I'm sorry. He's just not doing that. He's
saving sinners deliberately intentionally and successfully from every nation
kindred tribe in tongue and He knows the number that are he
is. Are you guys hearing me? He knows his sheep. He knows
their voice. He knows their state. He knows
their condition. His death for them was definite
and purposeful. And therefore, when he goes out
to seek his sheep, he's not just hoping, he's aiming deliberately
at an object that God had chosen for him before the world began.
And in the same sense, Our thoughts about evangelism must be this.
We're not seeking to simply get masses of people to hear us.
We are seeking to find that lost sheave. Is that okay? Now, I
know that's offensive in this religious age. I deal with a
lot of pastors and a lot of religious folk. And to be honest with you,
this doctrine of election is hated more today than it ever
has been. But we can't worry about that.
Can I tell you why? Listen, you and I could share
the gospel with the same kind of force that would allow us
to speak to people on the moon or on Saturn. I wanted to galaxies
out there and if God hasn't chosen that sinner on the salvation
our words will be in vain. One of the reasons why historically
the church has been so zealous to cross land and sea in order
to reach people with the gospel is because the church was sure
that God has elect people who would hear the gospel and believe
it. Why would I do any missionary work anywhere if I was not sure
that God was capable, willing, and determined to save a sinner?
Am I making some sense? And therefore, when Jesus came,
you know what he says? I am come to seek the lost sheep
of the house of Israel. And you know, even in that preaching,
you know what he did often? He discriminated. He often, when
some people came to him, he says, I'm not here to talk to you.
Herod wanted to talk to Jesus. Jesus said, tell that fox, I
got three days to go. Now see, that's unpolitically
correct today too. Because if you love like God
loves, Then you would talk to, you would take a hearing up with
Herod, who was the tetrarch at that time. Why wouldn't Jesus
go sit with him? He's an eternity bound soul.
Because Christ knew what his mission was all about. He knew
what his mission was all about. So there were some to whom he
spoke and there were some to whom he did not speak. because
he knew. And so what I want us to understand
is our objective and understanding that we must call men to the
gospel. And because we don't know who the elect are, we share
the gospel with everybody, don't we? We share the gospel with
everybody, but we are under no illusions that everybody with
whom we share the gospel will believe the gospel. But we are
sure about this to be affirmed at the end of our message. If
we are called by God to preach the gospel of the glory of God
in Christ, will you hear me? This is my confidence. God will
save some. This is what I've learned in
20 years of ministry, that the preaching of the truth of the
gospel never returns void. Now, the error, therefore, is
in us thinking that we don't have to do it. There is some
major fallacy in our thinking, isn't it? when we get to a point
where we are not willing to share the gospel. The only hope of
glory, the only power of salvation, and I won't open my mouth in
a given situation where I know the individual is ignorant or
desiring to hear something about Christ, I'm in trouble, am I
not? And so I want to encourage you, ladies and gentlemen, to
understand it is critical that we have the same diligent mindset
that this woman has. Nine is not enough. And until
Christ comes, I don't care how many people God is pleased to
save among us, it will never be enough. Did you hear what
I just said? Don't ever get settled on your
leaves. Don't tell God the number that
he's going to raise up among us. Don't tell him. Don't ever
be settled on your lease. Always be ready to give the answer
of the gospel to every man. I was thinking about Willie and
Trudy. They're not here today. I don't
see them, but they have sent me an email over the other day.
And I didn't know they were doing this, but Willie and Trudy are
kind of up in age. I think they're in their 70s,
almost 80s, right? 70s? Okay, I don't want to make
them older than they are. I'm sorry about that, Willie
and Trudy, but they are in their own little way, always witnessing
the gospel, writing tracks in the local newspapers and sending
the tapes all over the place. And so the other day they sent
me an email saying that God had opened the door for our messages
here at Grace Bible Church to be spread in the country of Kenya. because he's doing ministry with
pastors over there and they are hungering for the teachings here,
hungering for the word. So they're asking for dozens
and dozens of CDs. And you know what I said when
I got that email? I said, there you go. That's
what I'm talking about. That's precisely what I'm talking
about. And so we always want to be about
our Father's business because right along with Christ, we want
to say, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. The other reason for which we
are compelled to seek diligently, compelled to seek diligently
is this, that the condition of the lost is unacceptable to God
and unacceptable to us. See, the coin was lost. Are you
hearing me? The coin was lost. The coin was
not in its proper place. The coin was not in the possession
of its owner. The coin was lost. The condition of men, ladies
and gentlemen, is that they're lost. Don't you care about lost
souls? Just think about that for a moment.
If you and I have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost, which reveals to us the love of Christ, for
us who were lost. Ought not we to love what God
loves? And ought not we to be concerned
with the things that God is concerned with? So now mark it now, the
reason she is diligently seeking is because the coin is lost. It's lost. It's lost. Now again, That kind of terminology
in the 21st century is not nice either. Come on, be honest. When
last time you told somebody, man, you lost. I mean, you might
have said it, but I'm just... When last time you had a situation
where as you heard them and you assessed their heart, you said,
you know what? You're lost. You're lost. And yet it was a common terminology
in the New Testament. It's the Greek term apollyon,
a derivative thereof. And it means to be in a state
of perishing. Again, because of humanism prevailing in our
culture today, we don't think people are perishing. You know
why? Because they look good outwardly. They dress nice, got good jobs,
and many of them are moral. But they're still perishing.
Men and women are perishing while as yet they are outside of Christ.
They are perishing to be developed more fully next week when we
deal with the depravity of man in the prodigal son. But this
woman understood the condition of the coin that even though
she had nine that were safely in her care, the one coin was
lost. Now, ladies and gentlemen, listen
to me carefully. Lost men and women cannot do
anything for themselves. Lost men and women cannot do
anything for themselves. When you are lost, you are lost
irretrievably on your own. Men and women don't recognize
their lostness until somebody searches them out. Men and women
don't recognize their deplorable state until someone tells them. Men and women will not really
ultimately know the severe danger they are in with God until someone
lets them know. Man, woman, gentlemen, family,
you are under the wrath of God while as yet you do not believe
Christ is your Savior. So then here's what the woman
must do if she's going to find the coin. She has to go after
that coin. She has to go after that coin.
Because the coin, as we talked about last week, serves as a
great metaphor for you and me. The thing about the coin is that
it has no life in it whatsoever. The coin is dead. It can't even
scream and cry, hey, I'm lost. I'm under the table. Here I am. I'm lost. No. Can I help you? When God begins to save you,
that's when you start saying, I'm lost. By the time you recognize
you're a lost estate, for real, God has already saved you. He's
already saved you. But we go after the coin because
the coin has no capacity to call out or deal with its condition
while there is not a rescue mission taking place. Men, by nature,
according to Ephesians 2, according to Colossians 2, according to
Ezekiel 37, are dead. We are dead in trespasses and
sins. We are dead morally. We are dead
spiritually. We are dead to God. We have no
spiritual life in us at all. No life at all. We are separated from God. We
are outside of the covenant of God, the blessings of God. We
do not have the Spirit of God in us. Remember Ezekiel's vision? Ezekiel, let me show you the
condition of your religious people. And he took Ezekiel to chapter
37 and verses 1 through 10 describe a valley. We call it the valley
of what? Dry bones. And when Ezekiel looked,
what Ezekiel saw in that valley were a grave of bones, many,
many, many dead bones as if they had been slaughtered in a battle.
And they were so dry that there was no moisture in them. And
what that indicated is that they had been dead a long time. and
that there wasn't even the spark of life in them. It's quite interesting,
because right now, as I deal with lots of different people
in ministry, different persuasions and stuff like that, people are...
Do you know men and women, until they are persuaded of the gospel,
are really trying to resurrect that human carcass, give it some
credibility? I got pastors... Pastor Jesse,
I mean, isn't there a spark of goodness in the man? No! Not
a spark! Not a spark! Not a spark. He's as black and dead as a dumb
nickel. Dead. Dead. That coin couldn't give you life
if it wanted to. Dead. Dead. Man is dead. And the only answer to death
is life. It's not, you know, changing
of the circumstances. It's not getting him a better
job. It's not getting rid of his wife and giving him another
wife or another husband. That's not going to solve your
problem. Oh, if I could just get another husband or another
wife, I can live a better life. No, you need life from God. Oh,
wait a minute now. Yeah, wait a minute. Hold on.
Hold on. Yeah, you do need another husband and his name is Christ.
Yeah, his name is Christ. You do need another husband,
by the way. Yeah, we all need that husband. And we need to
be delivered from our first husband, which was the law which slew
us because of our own sin and to be found in Jesus Christ,
who is the life giving Lord. That's what we need. But that
only comes in the seek and rescue mission. It only comes in the
seek and rescue mission. Now, I want you to understand
something. If you miss assess people, if you simply say, you
know, they're halfway there, you're messing up. You're messing
up. I'm going to make this fully
known next week. There is no halfway. Either you're
in or you're out. Either you're living or you're
dead and no halfway. There is, there is no halfway.
Either you are quickened by the grace of God, by the power of
God and the salvation, and you know Christ, or you are still
dead. Are you hearing me? And the fruits
of death are clear. It's the works of the flesh.
It's the pride of life. It's the lust of our fallen nature.
It's the ego of everything being about me. This is how you know
you are dead. Again, the prodigal will teach
us that. See, the parable of the sheep and the shepherd is
relational. It's that deep, profound relationship
between the shepherd and the sheep. The parable of the woman
and the coin for us is vocational. It's relational too, but it's
more vocational. The coin can't talk to the woman and say, I
thank you for retrieving me. Now, if she hears that in the
coin, we know she got problems. But this is all vocational. This
is vocational. and the job of the church is
vocational. We have a task to reach lost
sinners for Christ because they're Christ's, but they're also ours. I want you to hear me now. The reason why she also goes
after the coin is not because the coin is so valuable that
she just couldn't live without it. There's a redemptive connotation
to that. But she goes after the coin,
ladies and gentlemen, because it's hers. So I'm gonna drop this on you
again, this hurts because we love to park and develop all
of our exhortation and communication around first causes objectively
concerning Christ, but the Bible has a whole lot to say. And you
know what the Bible says? What's God's is mine. What's God's is mine. See, Christ is our ultimate and
quintessential model. He came to model for us as the
perfect Adam, as the perfect son of God, how to love his father
and how to love what his father loves. And the reason why Christ
could lay down his life for the sheep is because he loved his
father and he knew his father loved the sheep. And Christ owned
the sheep as the father owned the sheep. And we are taught
that what's Christ's, are you ready, is ours. I want this to
sink in a little bit, because there's an admonition that I'm
going to bring at the end of the message. I know that I will not go after
sinners if I don't think of them as myself. I will not go after
sinners if I don't think of them as myself. If I'm selfish enough
to think that the gospel stops with me, I could care. Go to
hell. I know it seems harsh, but if my attitude's not right,
that's what it amounts to. If God doesn't change my heart
and give me the same passion and love for sinners that Christ
had, I will not go after them. Do you understand what kind of
power it takes to talk to somebody you don't like? Do you understand that? It's
the reason why you don't share the gospel much. You don't like
a lot of people. I'm trying to be helpful here
to you. Some of you would just be just
as content with you and Jesus and the world be empty. He saved me. Yes, he saved me. But he saved you for a reason.
And this woman goes after the coin, ladies and gentlemen, because
the coin, the coin is hers. She goes after the coin because
there's a sense of ownership. She knows that the coin is hers. Like Paul says, all things are
yours. Christ is yours. And what's yours
is mine. And what's mine is yours. And
the whole body of Christ is the body of Christ. And without that
attitude, we won't be willing to operate in that supernatural
sort of thinking where we care about people. I'm just telling
you the truth. It's important for you to own
that. It's important for you to own that. She is diligent
to seek after the coin because nine is not enough. There is
a completion. All that the Father gives me
shall come to me. She is diligent to go after the coin because
of its condition. The condition is the coin is
lost and the coin is dead. It's dead. It's dead. It's dead.
She goes after the coin because the coin is hers. It's hers. God gave it to her. And do you know God gave to us
as the church? lost sinners all over the world
who are yet to be discovered. God gave to the church lost sinners
all over the world who are yet to be discovered. And what joy
it is when God uses you, any burden to yourself, to be a means
by which a lost sinner comes to discover his calling and election. What joy it is! See, but the
mind that is engaged in the good news of the gospel of the glory
of God in Christ is going to always be looking, always be
looking. Now, why does she seek? Because
nine is not enough. Why does she seek? Because the
condition is irretrievable without some assistance. Why does she
seek? Because the coin is hers. She seeks it because it's dead
and because now the coin is hid. The coin is hid. In Jerusalem,
just like in third world countries today, I'm sorry, they didn't
have vinyl floors and tile floors and marble floors and wooden
floors and carpet. The floors in most of the homes
were dirt, just the dirt of the ground. And the average poor
woman had maybe one window in her house. And if the window
wasn't put strategically in a proper place by some dumb carpenter,
Then she didn't get much light in there unless she lit a candle
And so she loses her coin in her house and she's uh hard pressed
to find that coin And the only way she's going to find that
coin is to go to work Now there's a message in that for us You
and I are all by nature children of wrath even as others ephesians
chapter 2 4 and 5 that means Humanly speaking, we look like
everybody in the world. We act like everyone in the world.
We talk like everyone in the world. We have the same passions
and desires and drives as everyone in the world. Immediately when
somebody meets you upon first presentation, you don't come
off as some unique individual to them. I'm sorry, you just
don't. They classify you or categorize you in something that they are
aware of and familiar with in this life. You don't have a halo
over your head. You don't float. You don't smell
extra spiritual. Nothing in your conversation
betrays that you are God's elect. Can I tell you why? Because you
and I are still hid in Christ and only made known until we
open our mouths. Now watch this. You and I are
part of the dirt. So when God created mankind,
Genesis chapter two, verse seven, out of the dust of the ground,
I want you to hear this. This is glorious. He created
man out of the dust of the ground. His physical body was made up
of all of the components of the earth. You and I are dirt bags. That's what we are. We are sacks
of dirt. The doctors will tell you doctors
y'all just tell them we all of the nutrients and components
that's in the soil That's what we are And so the biologists
would swear that there is no Metaphysical dimension to us
because all they see is the biological evidence We are the dust of the
ground but in that dust god was pleased to breathe the breath
of life And man became a living soul And it's the breath of life
inside of man that gives him his value, his substance, and
his relativeness to God. He is created in the image of
God, not because he is made out of some special dirt, different
than the rest of the animals, but because God breathed into
him the breath of life. While as yet the breath of life
is not in a man today, he's still dead, no different than the animals. He's the dirt of the ground.
Am I making some sense? But when the Spirit of God breathes
into him, the life of God, then he manifests his being created
in God's image. Now what I'm talking about is
not the first creation, but the second creation. What God must
do to expose the coin hidden in the dirt. what God must do
to expose the coin hidden in the dirt. The coin is our election. The coin is our being chosen
in Christ. The coin is God having purposed
us in Christ before the world began. But until somebody goes
to work to seek out that coin, you are hid in the dirt, hid
in the dirt of humanity, looking like everybody else. She knows
this. She knows this. And so she goes
to what the text says to work. Listen to what verse 8 says again.
Once she loses that one piece, doth she not light a candle? Do you see that? She lights a
candle. And then she begins to what? Sweep the house. She lights a candle and sweeps
the house. which brings us to point number
four in our outline. What is the method of discovery? How will the dead coin be distinguished
from the dust of the floor? By revelation and by sanctification,
by the light being cut on and by the labor of the sweeping,
which constitutes the preaching and teaching of the gospel. The
sweeping of the floor on the part of the church is the work
of preaching and teaching. Pastor, where do you get that
from our context? The man who was yielding forth
the parable is teaching us that unless we preach and teach the
coin remains hid Unless we are expounding the Word of God proclaiming
the truth of the gospel Shedding forth the light of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. You can never know who God's
elect are Please hear me You can have social club dances You
can have, you know, marshmallow campouts. You can get into business
endeavors. You can do all kind of crazy
evangelical stuff that wacky people do today. But by that,
you will never discover whether there is a coin in the dirt.
Am I making some sense? The only way you can discover
whether there's a coin in the dirt is by sweeping the dirt.
Sweep the dirt. Preach, teach, expound. Explain,
open the scriptures alleging that this is the very Christ
of God proclaiming the gospel of the glory of God everywhere.
That's what Christ did. It's beautiful because here he
is, the woman sweeping amongst all of those lost people. And
you know what he's doing as he's preaching and teaching? He's
waiting for a sound. He's waiting for a sound. He's
waiting for a sound. Do you understand a coin makes
a sound when the broom hits it? The coin makes a sound. The coin
shows up. And there's a sound every elect
chosen sinner makes when he hears the gospel. There's a sound we
make. There's a sound we make. You
know what it is? Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. There's
a sound we make. This is the voice of God. There's
a sound we make. I believe the gospel. There's
a sound we make. I repent, Lord, I repent. What
I thought was right was wrong. There's a sound we make. This
is the truth. I've never heard it before. This
is the truth. There's a sound we make. Christ
is Lord. There's a sound we make. The
word of the Lord is right and all of his works are done in
truth. There's a sound we make. I believe God. I believe God. There's a sound we make and it's
the sound of life. It's the sound of life. My sheep
hear my voice and they follow me. That's why he tells us in
John 17, 17, preach the word, tell the truth, sanctify them
in thy truth, thy word is true. See, the sweeping is a labor,
but it's a necessary labor because the sweeping is a sanctifying
process that separates the elect from the non-elect, the believer
from the non-believer. the person who's being called
from the person who's not being called that's what the sweeping
does now listen to me folks who are not being called don't like
the sweeping going on the pharisees and sadducees who sat there and
watched our lord sweeping hated what he did Hated what he did
I heard our elder talking about it a little bit earlier this
morning one of the primary and chief jobs that we're called
to do as Rulers in the church is to teach you the gospel that
you might be pointed to Christ so that you might know that your
hope is in Christ Your hope is in the glory of God in Christ.
Your hope is in that man Jesus Christ That's what we do, but
we're also sweeping because the gospel sanctifies the heart doesn't
it then the gospel clean you up and Doesn't the gospel straighten
out your mind? Doesn't the word of God purge
your conscience? Doesn't the teaching concerning Christ Jesus
just line you right up? You come in here, you know, you're
all twisted up, and you need to get straightened
out, and the gospel does that for us, doesn't it? The Word
of God. The Word of God. And remember
those who have spoken unto you the Word of God. Because the
Word of God is able to give you an inheritance among those that
are sanctified. Only the Gospel. Only the Gospel. Only the Gospel. And while you're
not hearing the Gospel, you remain hid. I don't know whether or
not you're one of God's coins until the Gospel is preached
and I hear a sound. And the sound is, that's right.
That's good. I've never heard anything like
that before. Have you heard the gracious words
that came out of his mouth? He spake as one that hath authority.
Is not this the Christ? Are you hearing what I'm saying?
That's what the gospel does. And this is why we don't want
to waste our time listening to anything else but the proclamation
of the glory of God and the exalted person of Jesus Christ. Because
that's going to continue to make my calling and election sure.
I'm going to know I'm His every time I hear the gospel because
the gospel is going to remind me that I'm His and He's mine
as my heart settles down in the rest that the gospel brings to
my soul. sweeping and cutting the lights
on. Cutting the lights on is the
work of the Holy Ghost. And God commanded the light to
shine out of darkness, having shown in our hearts to give us
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. You know it was dark in your
life until the gospel came in power. It was dark. It was dark. Was it dark? It was dark in your
life. It was dark. And you thought
you had light when you went to church. But when you heard the
gospel, that's when the lights were cut on. That's when the
lights were cut on. That's when the lights were cut
on. And she labored and she toiled diligently until she found it. Point number five the celebration
of friends over the lost coin Notice what it says in verse
9 and when she had founded she called her friends and her neighbors
together saying rejoice with me For I have found the peace
which I had lost see Now here I want you to understand again
the great blessing of being part of the work of God in the salvation
of sinners. I delight in when God makes manifest
his people through the preaching of the gospel. Can I tell you
why? That's a miracle of grace. That's a miracle of grace. If
you are here saved today, you are a miracle of grace. I don't
want to make anything out of you. I'm talking about what God
does. To take a lost, hell-bound sinner
and make him right with God through Christ is a miracle of grace.
Now listen to me. You can't do that. I can't do
that. Only God can do that. Only God can do that, but he
uses what? Means. He uses means. He uses means.
This is why we bring our family tenaciously week in and week
out until we hit the dust. Our children, our grandchildren
will stay under the gospel until the Spirit of God is willing
to rain down on their soul and wake them up as well. And wake
them up as well. I believe this thing, don't you?
I want to share with you briefly a glorious, undeniable, Trinitarian
allusion in our text. It cannot be denied. The Lord
Jesus, as he gave this triad of parables, undoubtedly is setting
forth both the cause and the means, and the aim is obvious. Heaven filled with objects of
grace for all eternity. God is pleased to have a people
for himself who are the objects of his praise and glory because
of his grace. The means is evident. I've said
that. We've got to preach the gospel. The church is the only
authorized institution for the people of God. I'll make that
my last point. But in our account, we actually
have a reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. See, the great shepherd who saves
his sheep is the Son of the living God. He's the second person.
Without him, none of this is possible. And our Father will
be seen so fully and vividly as the one who drew up this scheme
and purposed this scheme when we deal with the prodigal son.
Because no one can deny that within the framework of the prodigal
son that Jesus discloses the character of our loving Heavenly
Father in a way that no other parable sets him forth. Am I
making some sense? But it cannot be denied that
the Church of the Living God, the woman that's here operating,
successfully finding the coin, also represents the Spirit of
God. Please hear me now. The Spirit
of God is always that agency, always that agency, which is
willing to work with the clay, willing to work with the clay
to get the job done. Not by power nor by might, but
by my spirit, saith the Lord. The church has no life, no message,
no power, no influence without the olive trees. Am I making
some sense? And this is why Jesus told the church that Nucleus
in Acts chapter 1, tarry ye here, you better wait, because once
I have accomplished redemption, going back to my glory, sat down
at the right hand of the Father, I am dispatching the third person.
The third person is God himself and the person of the Holy Spirit.
He will be with you. He will be in you He will be
one the one doing the work accomplishing the retrieval of lost sinners
And I love the way the Bible closes out. You don't have to
go there but hear this Revelation 22 17 tells me and the spirit
and the bride say come Let everyone that hear it say come don't tell
me you can hear and aren't willing to tell sinners to come let everyone
that's a thirst come let everyone that's thirsty and hearing come
and drink of the water of life freely and you know what god
did he closed the book by demonstrating the unity of the work between
Christ and His Spirit and the bride whom Christ raised up to
actually affect the redemption of all of God's elect all around
the world. You see, the book of the revelation
of Jesus Christ is to the church. Chapters 1 through 3 is the church. The last chapter is about the
church in a glorified state. It's a word of encouragement
to us as the church to know that Christ is with us always to the
end of the world as we go about the job of preaching the gospel
and seeking out that which is lost until every one of them
is found. And with that, I want to close
with an admonition to every one of us. It's point number seven
in your outline, a word to the coins. word to the coin. I want to bridge the gap between
the dead coin and the depraved son. I'm going to bridge the
gap between the the dead coin and the depraved son so that
the lessons of the prodigal will come home to our hearts next
week. Jesus is no he knows where he's going. The Lord knows where
he's going as he begins to deal with the parable of the prodigal
son Every one of us who are God's
elect are a prodigal Do you hear me your prodigal
and the shameful thing about the prodigal is this He was at
home in his father's house with all of his father's resources. And he despised his father. And it is not uncommon for lost
coins that are retrieved who hoop and holler and thank God
for their salvation for a few years and then afterwards start
to despise the means by which God saved you. It's not uncommon. The attitude in this present
generation is All I need is Jesus. But we would argue that's not
so. For Jesus has chosen to use means by which he would draw
you to himself. So I want to encourage you to avoid and fight
like I don't know what this attitude of I don't need the church. Do not despise the means of grace
by which you are brought into the kingdom of God. Do not despise
or play down the role of the church, that woman whom God used
to call you and to keep you through the gospel. Do not despise it. Paul had to warn the churches
at Thessalonica and at Corinth. He used this phrase several times,
and God hath given us his spirit. And God hath given us his spirit.
God has given us his spirit. What was he saying? God had deposited
the spirit in the church by which the gospel can be heard in order
that sinners might be saved and whether you know it or not The
gospel is designed to keep you It's designed to keep you It's
designed to keep you and don't drift away Don't do like the
prodigal drift The prodigal started to apostatize Don't you do it? Don't you get careless. Don't
you start forsaking the assembly of yourselves. Don't you start
saying, well, all I need is a half a week, one day. Don't do it. God help you. Don't do it. You
can't keep yourself. And the way God keeps us is through
the means. The way he keeps us is through
them. Are you guys hearing me? Don't despise the means. Next
week, we'll get to exercise ourselves on not despising the family.
All right, let's stand, and we're gonna have the offering at this
time, then we're gonna have our last hymn, and we'll close in
a word of prayer.