The Stories That Jesus Told

Sermon # 12 

“The Parable of the Lost Sheep”

Luke 15:1-7 

In our study today of  “The Stories That Jesus Told” we are going to be looking in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Luke at what is known as “The Parable of the Lost Sheep.”

Among the twenty-seven or so parables of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, there are a number of them that are particularly well known because they deal with salvation.  Among them are the three found in Luke chapter fifteen; the lost sheep (vv. 4-7), the lost coin (vv. 8-10) and the lost son (vv. 11-31). In these parables God is the shepherd whose sheep has wandered off; he is the woman who grieved because she has lost a coin; he is the father whose son has gone away. It is an amazing picture of God, he is seen grieving, seeking and rejoicing. If you are lost today, the first application is to you, you are valuable to God even in your lost condition. We will examine only the first of these parables today.

An interesting feature of these parables is that they grew out of a response to an attack by the self-righteous Jewish religious leadership. As we begin reading in verse one the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling again. “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." Specifically, they were grumbling about the fact that Jesus “received sinners” and ate with them. When it says that Jesus “received sinners” in verse two, it literally means “to welcome or receive as a friend.” Not only did the Pharisees not care about those they considered as “sinners” but they were upset that Jesus did! But we have to ask ourselves, “Why should it matter to them whether Jesus chose to associate with sinners?” The problem was that to associate with those whose lives were outwardly sinful was to challenge the whole system of spirituality that the Pharisees had developed. 

       “The religious leaders were people who claimed to know God and who were offended by the kind of people Jesus attracted. They were not alone in having these feelings. If we are honest with ourselves, we sometimes share their attitude. Not everyone who follows Jesus is ‘our kind of person’” [Gary Inrig. The Parables: Understanding What Jesus Meant. p 12.]

       We are told in verse three that Jesus tells the parables found here in response to the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes, “So He spoke this parable to them, saying…”

And in verse four Jesus begins to tell the story that we are going to examine today a story has come to be known as “The Parable of the Lost Sheep” (vv. 4-7) "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? (5) And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. (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!' (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.”

       I want to share three principles drawn from this parable with you today.  

First, Sheep Need A Shepherd.

       One hundred sheep were an average size flock and shepherds tended flocks together in open country. The shepherds would count their sheep as they came into the fold each night and got to know them individually.

       Sheep need constant supervision… because they are well… they are intellectually challenged. The fact is that they are not only, not very bright but they are willful. Sheep can and do wander off easily and do not have a good sense of danger. They desperately need a shepherd.

In the parable, God is the Shepherd, and the lost lamb represents us. In Isaiah 53:6, the Bible says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all.” There are three words starting with “D” that describe sheep: They are dumb, defenseless, and direction-less. You won’t see any trained sheep acts at the circus – they are too dumb. Almost all animals have either claws, sharp teeth, quills, a hard shell, or speed to escape predators – but not a lamb – they have no defenses. Sheep get lost easily, too. There are homing pigeons, and cats and dogs can often find their way back home, but sheep are clueless about how to find their own way back home. In many respects, we are the same way in our ability to rescue ourselves from our lost condition. We are dumb, defenseless, and directionless. Like sheep, we all have a tendency to stray away from God. The hymn says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.”

It can be unnerving to be lost. How many of you have ever been in a strange city and gotten lost? I once took the loop around the city of Dallas and circled the city twice before I understood what had happened.  It can be a distressing experience, but you were only lost temporarily, because you are here today! In this passage Jesus uses the word “lost” to speak of the spiritual condition of being eternally lost. The word L-O-S-T is one of the scariest four lettered words in the human language. A lost soul is the most tragic condition in life.

In fact the biblical description of those who do not know Christ as their savior is not “unsaved” but “lost.” In Ephesians 2:12 the Apostle Paul describes those without Christ as “without hope and without God in the world.” Perhaps there is no better illustration of this than the image of a child lost in the supermarket. The helpful worker comes to the crying child and says, “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?” “I’m lost” says the little boy, “I can’t find my Daddy.” For the little boy, “lost” means being absent from his father. And so it is with us.

You can lose your health and it’s not as bad as losing your soul. You can lose your mind, and it’s not as tragic as a lost soul. You can lose your character, and it’s not as bad as a losing your soul. Death will heal the loss of a fortune, or a loss of health or a loss

of a mind – but a lost soul is for eternity. We are all like a lost lamb at one time in our lives. Jesus can never find you until you admit you are a lost sinner. That’s the bad news, without Christ we are lost.

       A lost sheep in the Judean wilderness was doomed. The shepherd took whatever time was necessary to search for his lost sheep. He had to expose himself to the same dangers of the wilderness and the weather. The same lions and wolves that were stalking his sheep might stalk him as well. The longer the sheep remained lost the greater the risk of being destroyed.  

       Sheep Need A Shepherd and… 

Secondly, God Himself Becomes the Shepherd.

The word shepherd has a long and rich heritage in the Old Testament. The scandal of the uncaring attitude of the religious leadership was as the teachers of the law they were considered “under-shepherds” of God. The prophet Ezekiel made some harsh prophecies concerning these men (34:1-2, 10-12).  “And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, (2) "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD to the shepherds: "Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks?......  (10) Thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand; I will cause them to cease feeding the sheep, and the shepherds shall feed themselves no more; for I will deliver My flock from their mouths, that they may no longer be food for them." (11) ‘For thus says the Lord GOD: "Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out.”

       As we have already seen these undershepherds could not have cared less but the Shepherd could not have cared more.

In fact Jesus says of himself, “I am the that

shepherd. What I am doing is exactly what Ezekiel prophesied.” In John chapter ten Jesus says, (10:11) "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” The words of the Lord are so comforting. The shepherd knows the sheep so well that he knows their names. Jesus knows all our names.

God Himself Becomes the Shepherd and…. 

Third, The Shepherd Seeks The Sheep

The parable really begins with the concept of loss. When the Shepherd finds one sheep missing He does something surprising, he leaves the other 99 sheep and sets off to find the single lost lamb. A shepherd loses one of his flock. On paper the loss of a single sheep might not affect him too much economically. But because each of the sheep have individual value to the shepherd he began his search immediately. He searched because he cared for each of his sheep.

 Remember, that’s what God is like. Have you ever heard the statement, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one?” If you are a Star Trek fan you will remember this line from the analytical Mr. Spock, but Jesus never said anything like that. God is more concerned with the individual than with the group. God deals with us as individuals – not as groups. He cannot save this congregation, but He will save every individual in this congregation who will accept His love and forgiveness. You don’t get saved by hanging around other saved people – that’s called salvation by association – it doesn’t work that way. You have to have a personal encounter with the Shepherd yourself. Now, many folks think the shepherd is foolish to leave the 99 sheep in order to search for one lamb. After all, you have to factor in some attrition, or depreciation, what’s the big deal if one is lost? You still have the 99 – it’s only a 1% loss! But with God, every individual matters.

The search is not a perfunctory, token search. He pours his heart and his energy into the task. This is a new idea to the people Jesus is telling the story to, they had been taught by the Rabbi’s that God would welcome a repentant sinner, the ideal that God seeks sinners in a new insight.

In the other religions of the world, man is seeking and searching for God, but in the Christian faith it is the God of the Universe who comes seeking and searching for you! The shepherd did not stop until his mission had been completed and the sheep had been found! The text does not say, “if he finds it”, it says, “when he has found it!” The finding of the sheep is an absolute certainty!

Notice what happened when the shepherd found the lost lamb. He didn’t scold the lamb or take a whip and drive the lamb back to the flock. Instead, the shepherd picked up the lamb and carried him on his shoulder all the way back home. This demonstrate that salvation is something Jesus does for us – not something we do for ourselves. He does it all. He carries us home. Won’t you let the shepherd pick you up today and carry you home?

If the shepherd had 1,000 sheep and one was lost, I believe he would have left the 999 and gone after the one. Why? Because it is the character of our God to love the individual and to seek the lost. If you were the only person on earth who was lost and needed a Savior, I think Jesus would have still come to earth and died on a cross for your sins. That’s why Jesus came to earth.

The bad news is without God you are LOST, LOST, LOST. But the good news is Jesus loves you so much He died on the CROSS, the CROSS, the CROSS! In Luke 19:10 Jesus said, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” It is the nature of God to seek the lost.

The primary purpose of the church was and still remains, bringing the lost into the flock. Bill Hybels, Pastor of the Willow Creek

Church says, “We have never locked eyes with someone that did not matter to God.”

       Matthew Parris a journalist for the Sunday Times” a man who by his own confession is not a Christian wrote. “The New Testament offers a picture of God, who does not sound at all vague. He has sent His Son to the Earth. He has distinct plans for each of our personally and can communicate directly  with us. We are capable of forming a direct relationship, individually with Him, and are commanded to try. We are told that this can be done only through His Son. And we are offered the prospect of eternal life – an afterlife in happy, blissful or glorious circumstances if we live this life in a certain manner. Friends, if I believer that, even a tenth of that, how could I care which version of the Bible is used (he uses prayer book)? I would drop my job, sell my house, throw away all my possessions, leave my acquaintances and set out into the world burning with desire to know more and when I found more, to act upon it and tell others. Far from being puzzled that the Mormons and Adventists should knock on the door, I am unable to understand how anyone who believed that which is written in the Bible could choose to spend their waking hours in any other endeavor.” [Matthew Parris. As quoted by Joe Harding. “The One That Got Away.” Luke 15:1-10. www.SermonCentral.com] 

Application

First, a significant part of our prayers should be for the lost.

Secondly, the underlying purpose behind each ministry of First Baptist Church should be directed towards reaching the lost.