Election for President of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Senate will take place by electronic

ballot June 17th through the 20th. Please vote to re-elect LCMS President Matt Harrison.

If you're not a voter, encourage your pastor and congregations lay voter to do so.

The complaint from the Pharisees is that this man receives sinners and eats with them.

The response from Jesus himself is a series of parables, a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost

son, and the great forgiveness and love that God has for the lost. Greetings and welcome to

issues, etc. coming to you live from the studios of Lutheran Public Radio in Collinsville, Illinois.

I'm Todd Wilkin. Thanks for tuning us in. We'll be looking forward to Sunday morning,

according to the one-year electionary, the third Sunday, after Trinity with Pastor Peter Bender

getting into that parable, that series of parables in Luke 15. A little bit later, listen or email

and the issues, etc. comment line. Then we will be spending some time with Pastor Tom Baker

teaching a Sunday school lesson on Moses and the plagues in Exodus chapter 7. Pastor Peter Bender

is pastor of peace Lutheran Church in Sussex, Wisconsin, and director of the Concordia Catechetical

Academy. Peter, welcome back. Good to be with you, Todd. How would you describe the theme for

this coming Sunday? With the Lord, there is forgiveness. Therefore, we can trust in Him as the

Savior of every sinner, no matter what our sin is, no matter how far we have fallen from Him.

So this is really the theme, you know, that the Lord seeks us to save us and to forgive us.

And this is of inestimable comfort. So as the gospel for the day will highlight from Luke chapter 15,

there's more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the 99 who needn't know repentance,

that heaven's greatest joy, that the Lord's greatest joy is the salvation of the single sinner,

and that each of us individually are the objects of His most ardent love. That's the theme of the

Sunday, and it's the radical character of this Sunday, and it's why we come to Him as the great

...