Searching for One Lost Sheep
By Pastor Jim May
Luke 15:1-7, "Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."
One lost sheep out of a hundred. One sheep that is a part of God’s own that has somehow strayed away from the safety of the Shepherd’s care and has gone out into a hostile, deadly world because something out there has caught it’s attention and taken it’s eyes off of the Shepherd just a little too long. One lonely, hurting, lost sheep out of a hundred. But God will leave the 99 who dwell in safety and his whole focus shifts to finding that one little lost sheep. I’m so glad that I have a Great Shepherd that loves us that much!
Charles Spurgeon, in writing a sermon that is far better than mine, made this observance.
When he is looking for that one lost sheep, the shepherd pursues a route which he would never think of pursuing if it were only for his own pleasure; his way is not selected for his own ends, but for the sake of the stray sheep. He takes a track up the hills and down into the valleys, far into a desert, or into some dark wood, simply because the sheep has gone that way, and he must follow it until he finds it. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as a matter of taste and pleasure, would never have been found among the publicans and sinners, nor among any of our guilty race: if he had consulted his own ease and comfort he would have consorted only with pure and holy angels, and the great Father above; but he was not thinking of himself, his heart was set upon the lost ones, and therefore he went where the lost sheep were; "for the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
The shepherd look over his little flock of 100 sheep but he can only count 99. He counts them again, and he notices that a certain one has gone: it may be a white-faced sheep with a black mark on its foot. The shepherd knows all about it, for "the Lord knoweth them that are his." The shepherd has a picture of that wandering sheep in his mind’s eye, and now he thinks only a little of the ninety and nine who are feeding in the green pastures that he has found for them. Instead, his mind is in great turmoil about that one lost sheep. One idea possesses him and his whole purpose is changed as he thinks of the fact that "a sheep is lost!" This agitates his mind more and more—"a sheep is lost." He is overcome with grief over that one little sheep. He cannot eat bread; he cannot return to his home; he cannot rest while one sheep is lost.
To a tender heart of love for his ship, this one lost sheep is a painful subject of thought. It is a sheep, and therefore utterly defenseless now that it has left its shepherd. If the wolf should spy it out, or the lion or the bear should come across its track, it would be torn in pieces in an instant. The shepherd asks his heart the question—"What will become of my sheep? Perhaps at this very moment a lion may be ready to spring upon it, and, if so, it cannot help itself!" A sheep is not prepared for fight, and its not fast enough to run for the swiftness of its enemy is great. These thoughts make the compassionate shepherd even more sad as he thinks again—"A sheep is lost, it is in great danger of a cruel death." A sheep is of all creatures the most senseless. If we have lost a dog, it may find its way home again; possibly a horse might return to its master’s stable; but a sheep will wander on and on, in endless mazes lost unless I go and find it and bring it home again.”
If only we could see the heart of God after that one lost sheep. If only we could have that same concern, and that same heart after them that God has.
My heart yearns to see the lost sheep of our families come to the Lord. My greatest prayer is for a mighty revival that will begin here with us in the church and then sweep across the land, bringing in our loved ones. The time is surely drawing closer for the Coming of the Lord and the rapture of the church and so many of our loved ones are not saved.
I often find myself thinking about those that are lost, wondering what I can do next to try to reach out to them and bring them home. I know that all of us love our children, our family and our friends that don’t know Jesus as their Savior and we all want to see them saved.
I know that you have done, and are still doing all that you know how to do to reach out to them and the question arises – What more Lord? What more can I do to bring them in.
Ultimately we must come to the conclusion that we are not the ones who are doing the calling. The call of God upon the heart and life of a lost soul is just that – A CALL OF GOD! I can only preach the message – I can’t make it penetrate your heart. I can only tell people about Jesus – I can’t make them respond. We should never feel like we failed if our witness isn’t producing results because the results are up to Jesus and the decision of the lost soul that we are trying to reach. All we can do is plant a seed, water it, and then allow God to make it grow and bring forth fruit.
One of the most terrible things that can happen is to lose a child. I can remember years ago when we were working for the Lord in the area of Bible Quiz. My son was very young at that time and we had taken him along with us on a trip to Washington, D. C. We were to compete in Bible Quiz tournaments that week. One evening, we discovered that some of the youth who were on the team were short on clean laundry so we visited a Laundromat somewhere outside the Beltway. We had not been there long when we missed our son. We began a frantic search for him. We finally found him. He didn’t know he was missing. He had just taken a walk for a moment, but the fear that he had been lost is a fear that we could never forget.
In our modern society children are lost every day. When you purchase a milk carton, you can find pictures of missing children. When you go to the Post Office, you can find their pictures there too. One of the latest things to be put into action is called and “Amber Alert”. When a child is missing, the news is spread across the airwaves at lightning speed in an all-out effort to locate that missing child and bring them home safely.
My friend, we need to be concerned about our missing children, but let us never forget that God has some missing children too. God’s love for the lost can only be measured by the value of the blood that he shed for them on the Cross of Calvary. I cannot help but believe that God never gives up looking for those lost sheep.
True enough, many of those lost sheep, are not lost because they wander away without thinking. A lot of them are lost because they choose to be lost. They don’t want to have anything to do with the Great Shepherd. But that does not affect God’s love for them. He still seeks after them and searches for them.
My hope in seeing our loved ones come to Christ is based on God’s love and the fact that I know He loves them more than I do and He has the power, the wisdom, the methods and the desire to bring them home again. Because we have that hope, we can never give up trying to reach out to them. We can never stop trying to minister God’s love to them. And we can pray, hope and believe that one day they will come home.
What’s the best thing you can do when you are looking for a lost Child of God? How should we act? What should we say? What kind of actions can we take on their behalf? After looking at the law enforcement recommendations for finding lost children, I thought that some of them would make good points for you and I as we are also helping God to find His lost sheep.
1)Contact authorities immediately. Call out the child’s name. Blow a whistle if one is available. Give the authorities a physical description of your child, your child’s intended destination, favorite spots, and so on.
This constitutes the absolutely most important thing that you can do to see your loved ones come back to Christ! TAKE THEM TO THE LORD IN PRAYER! CALL OUT THEIR NAMES BEFORE GOD! I know this sounds so simple but I find that most Christians will always try to play god in reaching out to their lost loved ones. It’s as though we want to put conviction upon them, and we want to drag them down to an altar and force them to repent before God. My friends we don’t have the authority under God’s Word to convict anyone. That’s the job of the Holy Ghost! We don’t have the power to make them repent. That is also the job of the Holy Ghost! Not one of them is going to repent simply because we “preach at them” every time we see them. We should lift them up in prayer and treat them with the Love of God and let the Holy Ghost do His job. I believe that God is well able to handle his part of the work, don’t you?
Blow the whistle on them before God. Tell God where they are, what they are doing and that you are concerned for their souls. God wants to know that you have the same concern over their lost condition that he has, so pray!
2)Recruit others to help you and begin a methodical search of your area, spiraling outward for quite a distance. Make sure someone remains in the camp (or at home) in case the child returns on his or her own.
This is where we often make a mistake too. We tend to carry our burdens alone. It’s as though we are embarrassed by asking our Brothers and Sisters in Christ to pray for us and with us. We think it’s a sign of spiritual weakness to seek the help of the pastor or ask others to pray with us.
I hate to be bearer of this news to you, but we are all weak within ourselves and we all need the help and support of one another. That’s one reason that God says for us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as a Body of Christ! Too many Christians have backslidden on God, walked out of the church, and become another of the lost sheep simply because they would not confess that they had a problem in the first place. We live in denial! We want to put on a façade of super spirituality! We just can’t stand allowing anyone else to see us as weak as we really are!
There is strength in numbers. We are here to exhort, build up, and pray for one another. And when someone does come forth seeking prayer, we should pray for them and not gossip about them. God answers prayer, not gossip! God will answer the “effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man”, not the loose lips and wagging tongue of a gossiper.
3)The third step that law enforcement agencies give as a part of the search for a lost child is that we should start a base of operations for your search so that everyone can consult a central place to find out if the child has been recovered yet.
That base of operations is the church. It is the meeting place of this family of Believers. We come here to support one another and to collectively worship our God and pray for one another.
4)Have friends search out all local watering holes and bodies of water; lost children are frequently found near bodies of water.
Is there any truer statement concerning our lost children today? It seems that I don’t have the impact upon my own loved ones that other Christians may have. Sometimes it takes someone else, at the right time, to get the message across that they need the Lord. It’s always good to ask other Christians who might come in contact with them to witness to them every chance they get.
Most of the time, when a sheep leaves the fold of God’s House, they wind up in the watering holes called bars and nightclubs. You can find them out on the lake, or near the swimming pools and beaches. They are drawn to the pleasures of sin for a season and that’s where the Holy Ghost has to find them to reach out to them.
5)We are told to keep in mind that sheriff departments, fire departments and state troopers are usually trained in search and rescue and know the best course of action to take to find your child. They also have resources at their disposal to aid the search, such as helicopters, dogs and professional trackers.
Aren’t you glad that Jesus has more power than you do to reach out to a lost loved one? He can do more to make them hungry for God than I can for sure. He has methods at his disposal that are far beyond my ability to understand and he can reach down, right into their very heart of hearts, and shake them into reality. God not only can lead them to the cross, but then he can bring conviction upon them, and then he can also bring salvation. I pray for them. I seek God for them. But I leave them in the hands of God to let God do his work.
6)Stay positive and hopeful. Most lost children are found the same day, or within 48 hours, but a crafty child can survive alone in the wilderness for several weeks.
This is the most powerful statement that I can leave you with concerning your lost loved ones. Stay positive yourself. Don’t be pulled into their lifestyle in an effort to reach them. You will end up as lost as they are. You can reach out to them in love, pray for them with faith believing, and you can witness to them as much as possible, but you can’t become one of them on their own ground. You have to stay close to Jesus. Why should they want to come out of the world to join you in serving the Lord, if you are in the world with them?
Finally, never give up faith and believing that Jesus will bring them home.
My wife’s dad was lost without God for many, many years. All during her childhood and teenage years she prayed for him and believed God for him to be saved. Sometimes it would get discouraging as there seemed to be nothing happening. Then, just a year before he passed on, he came to know the Lord as his savior and would not miss church even though it caused him great pain just to ride in a car long enough to get to church. God found that lost sheep, put him on his own shoulders and brought him home.
Was God working behind the scenes all that time? Yes he was! God didn’t give up. But God knew how to reach him, and he also knew that this man would not come easily. God took some pretty drastic measures to bring him home.
God is the one who carries the heaviest burden for the lost! He is searching through the earth looking for as many lost sheep as he can. He is far more concerned about that lost and dying soul than he is about taking care of the sheep that are already in the fold.
He’s not as concerned over our padded pews, magnificent buildings, carpeted floors and all the trappings of a church building. God is more concerned about that lost sheep.
Let us pray that God gives us the same love for the lost that He has. Let us never give up on them. Keep praying for them. One day, by God’s help and grace, they too will come to the know the Lord as their Savior and we will enter Heaven’s gates together.
