Lost Sheep
Today we begin a new series I’ve been promoting for a while now – “Story Time with Jesus.” I’m excited about this series because I’ve never preached through these short stories – the parables – that Jesus used when teaching about this life and the life to come. I’ve read through them all, of course, but if we believe that Jesus is the center of our faith, then I think it will be foundational for us to look at the stories He told and the lessons He taught.
We need to see what Jesus thought was the most important thing for people to understand about God and their relationship to Him, so that’s what we’ll be learning about from now until Easter. Yes, that is a long time, but we have over 25 different parables recorded for us in the Gospels. These stories Jesus told were His primary way of teaching, and we have plenty of content to uncover.
What exactly is a parable?
It is simply a short story that teaches a spiritual lesson. It has human characters and follows a plot in which everything has a parallel meaning to the lesson it is teaching about. It’s like a fable, which people have used for hundreds of years to teach children morals; but parables involve real-life situations, whereas fables are more akin to fairy tales with talking animals.
Why parables?
Stories avoid the technicalities the Pharisees kept trying to argue with Jesus about. Stories cut to attitudes and concepts, and they transcend culture, so they still teach us today. Also, being in story form, they are easier to remember and to pass down to new generations.
Jesus had an additional reason (beyond these practical ones) for teaching in parables. He gives that answer when He is directly asked why He teaches this way.
Matthew 13:13-14 – 13This is why I speak to them in parables: though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
Jesus knows that by teaching with these short stories He is fulfilling a prophecy AND He is hiding His teaching from those with corrupt and hardened hearts. In Jesus’s day it was the Pharisees and religious experts who often seemed to miss the point Jesus was trying to make. Today these parables still confuse those who think they are wise and don’t see their need for a Savior. Meanwhile, others who hear these stories immediately hear the good news made available to them, and they respond exactly the way Jesus wanted people to respond when He told these stories 2000 years ago.
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
We begin with the parable of the Lost Sheep as recorded in Luke chapter 15. This is the first of three parables about someone looking for something that has been lost. Today we look at the story of the lost sheep, and next week we will explore the parable of the lost son – better known as the prodigal son.
Before we get into the story itself, though, we need to see the scene in which Jesus is teaching. Identifying the audience helps us understand the point Jesus is trying to make.
Luke 15:1-2 – 1Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
There were two groups of people around Jesus that day. One group was those who were far from God but had come to hear Jesus because they were enthralled by Him and His teaching.
The second group included the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, who couldn’t believe this so-called “rabbi” was sitting with such low-lifes. Since Jesus was becoming something of a celebrity, I wonder if some of their disdain was actually jealousy. Maybe they wished they would get more of Jesus’s attention for themselves.
Whatever the situation, it’s clear from these verses that the Pharisees had no interest in sitting with the sinners that regularly surrounded Jesus.
Luke 15 –Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.”
First, Jesus knew that NONE of the Pharisees could ever imagine being a lowly shepherd. That job was totally beneath them. Yet He begins the story inviting them to pretend – What if? What if you had 100 sheep (no small flock for that day) but when you counted them you counted only 99. What would you do?
For many, 99 is good enough. The risk of leaving the 99 to find the one makes no sense. It feels risky and even reckless, and there’s no guarantee you will even find the sheep, much less find it alive.
But Jesus has a different way of telling the story.
“Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.”
Jesus tells how the shepherd in this story isn’t satisfied with almost all of his sheep. He leaves the flock out in the wilderness and goes searching. He knows that a lost, scared sheep is easy prey; so he walks back and forth, up and down the landscape, until he finds it. And when he finds it, that stubborn, scared sheep won’t follow him. So he does what shepherds in that day often had to do. He picks it up and joyfully carries it home.
Before we continue, I have to tell you a story about my sheep because, if you recall, I got sheep simply for sermon material. Anyway, when I got my sheep two months ago, I told you I knew they would get out of their paddock. That first week, they did. Since I had lost all five, I HAD to go looking for them. I put on my headlamp and walked up and down my hills, looking around all my cedar trees. In the farthest corner of my property I spotted glowing green eyes. I had found my sheep. And I was pumped! But then I had to get them to follow me back, and they are stubborn. I finally got them back to where they belonged, and I can completely relate to the joy of bringing a beloved animal home.
“Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’”
In this picture of the shepherd we see the incredible value that each sheep has to him, especially the one that is lost. Not only does he go out searching for it and bring it home, he then celebrates with friends and neighbors that he found his sheep! This is more than just a normal day’s work. There is something extra significant to the shepherd that this sheep, which was as good as dead by being off on its own, has instead been returned to its flock.
Then Jesus shares the spiritual meaning of the lesson – something we don’t always get when we look at these parables.
“I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
So Jesus shows us how this story about a shepherd and sheep is really a story about sinners who repent – sinners just like the ones who are gathered around Him listening to His teaching – sinners whom the Pharisees would rather not go out looking for since they find them so distasteful.
Remember that in the heavenly realms, these sinners carry incredible value. The heavens rejoice more over one of these sinners finding Jesus than over all the so-called righteous people – i.e. the Pharisees who don’t think they need to repent.
God the Good Shepherd
Here’s the real story in this parable. Hundreds of years earlier, God had already told Israel’s religious leaders they were terrible shepherds. The Pharisees’ lack of concern for the common people was nothing new. God spoke about this exact same issue through the prophet Ezekiel 600 years before Jesus arrived on the scene.
Ezekiel 34:1-2, 4-5– 1The word of the Lord came to me: 2“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! . . . . 4You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. 5So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals.
Ezekiel 34:11-12 – 11“For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep.
Is that not an amazing passage that truly shows the heart of God? The heart of man will always turn in on himself. God knew He needed to send His own Shepherd, who would do what the religious leaders wouldn’t: heal the sick, bind up the injured, and search for the lost.
As Jesus taught about the shepherd going after the lost sheep, I’m sure the Pharisees heard echoes of Ezekiel 34. It proved that they were just like those who had gone before them; they cared nothing for the spiritual care of the people. Meanwhile, Jesus once again demonstrated how He was the fulfillment of the shepherd who would search for the lost sheep.
Lessons for Today
As I have said from the beginning, these stories aren’t just for the people of Jesus’s day. As parables, they transcend time and culture and still speak to us today. What do we learn for ourselves?
Jesus is the Good Shepherd still searching for the one lost sheep.
As Christians we believe Jesus is our Savior, and part of how He saves us is that He finds us and bring us home. Sometimes when we aren’t even looking for Him, He is wooing us. He is looking in all the dark corners of this world to find people like you and me; and when He finds us, He doesn’t drive us to where He wants to go. He picks us up and carries us into His eternal home. His grace does all the heavy lifting. The good news of the Gospel is that until the last day, when the trumpet sounds, He’s not going to stop scouring all the corners of the earth, searching for His sheep. His love is too extravagant to ever give up or to be satisfied with the sheep who are already home.
You are invited to join the search.
Here’s an important implication for all of us who call Jesus our Savior. If He is still out searching for the one, and if we know Heaven rejoices over every life who finds faith in Jesus, then we should join the search! Each of us has a role to play in helping other people find the hope and joy we have in our relationship with God.
We can’t just be satisfied with our own personal relationship with Jesus. There are others who are lost! People are struggling, looking for meaning and love in all the wrong places. They are trying to figure out what this life is all about, and we have those answers. We need to find those people and share with them that the hope and purpose and love they are looking for can be found in a living relationship with the God of this world. Pray about who you can invite to find that living relationship.
If you’re lost, Jesus is looking for you today.
This is the most important point in this message today. Perhaps some of you in this room right now are lost. When I say that, you might be thinking, “Ryan, what do you even mean when you say lost.”
You are lost if you can’t seem to find happiness, if everything you chase leaves you feeling empty, if your relationships lack joy, if you worry about what is going to happen when you die, if you don’t know how you fit into this world or why you should even exist.
If that’s you, then you are lost in this big, messy, chaotic world without the anchor of your soul tying you to God – the God who loves you, created you, is seeking for you, and wants to have a living, personal relationship with you.
That God, who in the person of Jesus Christ died on a cross but walked away from his tomb alive, is looking for you!
If this message is resonating with you right now but you don’t know why, it’s because Jesus made sure you came here today. This is how He finds His lost sheep. He works through His church and through the preaching of His Word.
These parables don’t make any sense for some people. But maybe for you today, this parable makes a ton of sense and you just want to be found and loved and carried out of the mess you have made.
God wants to do that for you today. The heart of the Good Shepherd is for YOU! God wants you in the fold. He wants you to put your faith in Him and trust in Jesus with every fiber of your being.
Conclusion and Communion
Today, on this first Sunday of 2024, I know some of you came because you want to connect with God in a more meaningful way this year. All of us at First Baptist want that for you and for ourselves as well.
If you don’t have a church home, I want you to know that our church is not a place for just Good People. It’s a place for ALL people, even the messy ones. You don’t have to feel like you must have everything cleaned up before coming to join us on Sundays. We don’t care about those things. We just want to celebrate when lost sheep repent and find their way home. Each of us has been that lost soul who needed Jesus to come find us. Praise God that He did, and He brought us all together.
It’s with this in mind that we will now conclude our service by remembering exactly what Jesus did for us to find us and save us from our sins and from ourselves.
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