The Lost Sheep

Matthew 18; The Lost Sheep

10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. 11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. 12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? 13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. 14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

Luke 15:4 3 And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 4 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? 5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 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. 7 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.

Luke 19 10 For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

1. Jesus goes to Seek

2. Jesus rejoices if he finds one.

3. Jesus keeps those he saved.

One Hundred Sheep. One is lost. Still have 99. If I am out fishing and I catch 100 fish and as I am bringing in the net, if one jumps out, I would be glad that I brought in 99 and not worry about the one that got away. Oh, we may like to talk about the one that got away, how it was bigger, brighter, stronger or of a rarer species, but while we may moan about its lose, the reality is that we do not make more than a token effort to see if we can get it back.

This is not the way that the Lord works. I am glad that He is not just satisfied with the 99 but that The Bible says that He doesn’t desire that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Not only that but it is the Lord Himself who goes out of His way to find us.

God is in the seeking business. Talk about a wilderness, look at what we have done to the Earth. It was a paradise and now the curse of our sin has damaged it. God who lives in heaven, left heaven to come to earth to seek and save you. We may talk about going a bit out of our way to hand out a track, or even to go to a foreign country, but Jesus took the ultimate Mission’s Trip when he left the heavenly glories, where for all of eternity, they were signing ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’. He suffered the humiliation of the incarnation to seek and save that which was lost.

This afternoon’s message is entitled “The Lost Sheep”.

In Matthew 15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

In Jeremiah 50:6 God tells us one of the reason that we are lost; My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace.

In the Gospel according to Luke, we see this is called a parable. A story laid alongside a truth, to help us to understand the truth. So let’s look that the truth.

There are a lot of sheep. Here we see that the sheep are people. The wilderness is the present world system that cares nothing for them. The shepherd is Jesus. The rejoicing is really rejoicing.

First: Jesus goes Seeking.

He goes out of His way. Notice the language here, the sheep is lost in the mountains, it is lost in the wilderness. This poor soul is in a place by himself. Jesus Himself went apart to a lonely place, because He wanted to be alone.

Maybe this lost soul wanted to be alone from God, not knowing the goodness of God that leadeth to repentance. There are over 7 Billion people in this world. Most of whom have never one time heard a clear presentation of the Gospel in their own language. Romans chapter 1 is still true that they have a knowledge of God because He has put it into their hearts. However, they don’t know Who He is. They do not know of His love towards them in that while we were yet sinner Christ died for us.