Parable of the Lost Sheep – Grace 9
Today we will be looking at the Parable of the Lost Sheep found in Matt 18:10-14
• By now we should understand that context is very important to a correct interpretation of scripture
• Earlier in this chapter we have the story of the apostles arguing amongst themselves about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven
• Jesus responds by calling over a little child and telling the disciples that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven they have to humble themselves and become like little children
• Mark in his account in Mark 9 adds another important detail
• Mark 9:33-37 (NRSV) 33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
• Remember when we started this series we talked about how differently Jesus views things than we do
• In the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares we saw how the farmer told the servants to leave the weeds mixed in with the wheat
• Pretty lousy farming technique but fortunately for us Jesus is not in the farming business He is the Salvation business
• Now in this section of scripture we see another paradoxical yet important salvation principle outlined by Jesus
• And that is, “If you want to be in the Kingdom business “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all”
• Ever come last in a race? Ever been last in the class? How does it feel? Ever been picked last for a team?
• In our society, winning is everything. Even coming second is considered being a loser
• Larry Birds comment after losing the NBA championship game, “We’re just a bunch of losers”
• Yet Jesus is making the point and that in the salvation business it is not “winning” that counts, in fact “losing” is winning
• Luke 17:33 (NKJV) 33 Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
• In this section of scripture and the coming parable the following words come up
• The last, the least, the lost, the little and the dead
• Jesus himself would be considered the biggest outsider and loser of all, yet His greatest work would be achieved through His biggest failure, “a criminal’s death on a cross outside the city!”
It is with this background that we now pick up the Parable of the Lost Sheep
• Matthew 18:10-14 (NKJV)10 “Take heed that you do not despise one of these “little” ones,
• Yet what is it that our society does to the little ones and the less fortunate? We despise them, we don’t want them to upset our nice middle class existence
• And if you go back to verse 6 of this same chapter you will see the fate of those who do despise and prevent these little ones from coming to Jesus
• “it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
• If Jesus is talking about the “little ones” and the “lost” who can we assume He is addressing here? The “big ones and the winners”
• Even Christianity gets swept up in this “winning formula” of the world
• We like to peddle Christianity as a religion of winners. Just do what I do cry the TV evangelists and you will also be blessed with unbelievable wealth
• Go into any Christian bookstore and you will find the shelves covered with books on winning and success, health and wealth, spiritual and moral achievement
• You don’t find too many titles on losers, on being the least, of taking up one’s cross and following Jesus, of saving one’s life by losing it
• Totally misses the point that none of us is accepted on our own performance
• Fortunately, none of us rocks up to the pearly gates and are accepted or rejected on the basic of a good or bad report card
• We are accepted solely on the basis of the saving work of Jesus Christ
• 10 “Take heed that you do not despise one of these “little” ones for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.
• This implies that the little ones, these losers have an ongoing relationship with the Father through their angels
• 11 For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost
• Who does Jesus come to save? The losers
Let’s switch over to Lukes account in Luke 15:1-7
• As we read this account, notice who the winners and losers are in this story
• Luke 15:1-7 (NKJV) Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.”
• Who are the losers in their society? Who are the winners?
• 3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?
• No farmer likes to lose an animal as it is his livelihood – it is his business
• I know this feeling as we lost a calf this week. Got stuck in the birth canal and died before we could get it out
• But this story tells us something about God’s priorities – He is more interested in “losers” than He is in “winners”
• And if we are honest with ourselves for one moment it is the really the only world we have – we are all losers, we are all fatally flawed by sin
• And just to jump ahead of the story the account in Matt 18 finishes by saying as much
• Matthew 18:14 (NKJV) 14 Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
• Lost sheep are God’s livelihood and He doesn’t want to lose any of His children if He can help it any more than a farmer wants to lose an animal
And what is the response of the shepherd to finding the lost sheep?
• 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
• How many of us would cheerfully throw a smelly, squirming, burr covered sheep that had cased us major inconvenience on our shoulders?
• But this is exactly our state when Jesus finds us in our lost condition. We are smelly and dirty and covered with sin and we have caused Him some major inconvience
• What does Jesus say to us as He throws us on His shoulders? 28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, (In other words, you bunch of losers) and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28 (NKJV)
• 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’
• Now me, I would at least want to take a shower and have a beer, but this shepherd charges around the neighbourhood and invites everyone to a party to celebrate finding a smelly lost sheep
• 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.
• Jesus is here speaking from experience. He not just making up a story, He is describing precisely the response in heaven to a sinner coming to repentance
Let’s look at the 99 for a moment?
• How many “just” people do you know that don’t need repentance? None
• So Jesus is speaking hypothetically because no such persons exist
• Yet to whom is He relating the story? The scribes and Pharisees, the winners, the just, the righteous or so they thought
• And the sad part of the story is these winners are the ones who didn’t realise they were lost and felt no need for repentance
Also, in the recovery operation, how much did the sheep contribute to its being found? Nothing
• The entire recovery operation is organised and completed by the good shepherd
• All the sheep does is hang around in its lostness
• Which tells us that it is precisely our sins, and not our supposed righteousness that makes us acceptable to and entitled to the grace of God
• Grace by its very nature can only function in an environment of sin and lostness
• There is no need for grace in the world of the just, or the world of the righteous, or the world of winners. It can only function in a world of losers and sinners
• This is why the Pharisees and the Scribes missed out. Their supposed righteousness prevented them from acknowledging their need for grace
• Romans 5:8 (NKJV) 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
• God does not wait around for us to somehow find ourselves, or get our act together, or to repent first. He takes the initiative while we are lost in our sinfulness and comes looking for us
• Jesus finds us in the wilderness of death, and in the power of His resurrection throws us on his shoulders and heads home to organise a party
• Such is the grace of God to all those who acknowledge their failure – the last, the lost, the loser, the little and the dead
