The Lost Sheep Series

INTRODUCTION

• Do you feel comfortable as you look around you today in the sanctuary?

• Many of you know many of the folks here, and that is comfortable for many.

• Do you think we have enough people here today?

• What do you see when you look at the world around you and the people around you each day?

• When you deal with people who are lost, what do you think?

• Do we let the comfort of our situation at church make it easy to look at those outside of Christ differently?

• When you look around and at lost people, what should you think, what should we feel, and what should we try to do?

• How does Jesus see lost souls?

• When we look around us today, do we feel satisfied with the number of people here?

• This is not a numbers pride issue; it is an issue of knowing that in each of our worlds, there are people who are dying without Jesus.

• How should we feel about that?

• What should we do?

• How does Jesus feel?

• I have heard folks say they like a small church where they know everyone, and I understand that.

• The problem with that philosophy is that it will take away our motivation to seek and try to save the lost.

• This is not about bigger churches; although that would be a result, it is about something much more profound.

• Jesus is facing another attack from the religious goon squad, and this series of three parables are designed to both refute their attacks and explain why Jesus was doing what they were criticizing Him for.

Luke 15:1–2 (NET 2nd ed.)

1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming to hear him.

2 But the Pharisees and the experts in the law were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

• Jesus will answer their question with the first of three parables.

• In the three parables, we will examine and talk about four ways to become lost, all evident in this remarkable sermon.

• The sheep was lost by wandering away from the flock; the coin was lost through no fault of its own but through the inability or carelessness of the woman.

• The prodigal was lost by overt and willful disobedience, and the elder brother was lost through pride, selfishness, and self-righteousness.

› Big Idea of the Message: Christ seeks the lost, the outcast, and the weak, leaving the herd for the sake of the one.

• Our new three-week series unpacks three of Jesus’s “lost” parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

• By understanding God’s heart for sinners and for bringing the lost to him, we can celebrate salvation and conversion with generous and joyful hearts.

• Today we will be in the gospel of Luke, chapter 15, verses 1-7.

• Let’s begin verses 3-4.

Luke 15:3–4 (NET 2nd ed.)

3 So Jesus told them this parable:

4 “Which one of you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go look for the one that is lost until he finds it?

SERMON

I. The dilemma.

• The religious goon squad was continually critical of who Jesus spent His time with.

• The squad was particularly upset that Jesus had the gall to eat with the sinners.

• Table fellowship and breaking bread together was a sign and seal of full acceptance.

• We remember the charge, which has become almost a refrain of rejection by now: “Behold, a glutton, and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (7:34).

• The attitude of those self-righteous leaders of the people who held themselves to be so far above the common class of sinners was in itself the worst of sins, and Jesus made it the climax of this sermon on the lost, as exemplified by the older brother in the third parable.

• Jesus begins His parable knowing the answer.

• Who among them, if they had 100 sheep and one wandered off, would not leave the 99 in the open pasture and go and look for the one who is lost until they are found?

• Jesus knows the answer; all of them would.

• These people would not say, well, I still have 99, and leave the one who has wandered off go.

• Imagine if the shepherd had the attitude that it is just one lost sheep.

• What happens when the next one wanders off?

• Now you are down another one; eventually, you would have no sheep.

• The shepherd loved all 100 of his sheep, and losing one that wandered off was a big deal because the shepherd placed great value on all the sheep.