Parable #20 — Matthew 18:12-14 — Lost Sheep

Parable of the Lost Sheep

12 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! 14 In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish.

Luke 15:1-7

Parable of the Lost Sheep

15 Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

Parable #20 — Matthew 18:12-14 — Lost Sheep

1. To what lengths would you go to recover a missing wallet? Your mother’s lost

diamond ring? An important irreplaceable document?A winning lottery ticket?

Your missing child?

2. Bible commentators are divided about the meaning of the parable of the lost

sheep. Some think the flock represents Christian believers and the lost sheep refers to a weak believer who has slid backward and strayed from his belief in Jesus.

Others think that those who belong to Christ are eternally secure and cannot

wander so far off as to get lost. They think the lost sheep refer to the unredeemed of Israel (in Jesus’ day) who characteristically hadn’t listened and were prone to

wandering far away. …Today, the lost sheep would be a nominal Christian who behaves in a way inconsistent with that of a child of God. What do you think?

3. Does it change your image of God to see him as a caring shepherd searching

frantically for one lost individual? How does this jell with the image of God as a

judge to whom we must give account?

Hebrews 4:13…13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.

…inLuke 15, Jesus teaches about the lost in three parables.

He was clearly passionate about the topic, because nowhere else in Scripture does he do this. …Through these parables, Jesus reveals to us the principle that when we have lost something of great value, we’ll stop at nothing to find it.

In the first parable—concerning the lost sheep—Jesus says,

Luke 15:4

4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it?

When the shepherd loses one sheep, Jesus tells us he will leave all the others who are safe in the fold to search for the one that is lost.

This man lives from the inside out—he leaves the ninety-nine sheep on the inside because he realizes that His flock are in danger because of the one outside that is lost.

He also knows that the sheep did not get lost on purpose; it had probably strayed off after some tasty grass or something.

Similarly, people do not get lost on purpose; often they simply get caught up in the turmoil of day-to-day life—just trying to survive, pay the bills, and raise their kids.

We need to be like the shepherd, willing to do whatever it takes to find those lost sheep.

Why Jesus taught these parables…Let us look at the particular details of these parables.

The situation in which Jesus is speaking can be seen in

Luke 15:1–2.“Now the tax collectors and ‘sinners’ were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them’”

Notice that the Pharisees did not complain that Jesus is teaching sinners. Since the Pharisees thought themselves to be righteous teachers of the law and all others to be wicked, they could not condemn His preaching to “sinners,” but they thought it was inconsistent with the dignity of someone so knowledgeable in the Scriptures to “eat with them.” The assumption behind the statement of the Phariseesis ,“this man welcomes sinners,” is what Jesus addresses in all three parables.……To understand the significance of the opening statement in chapter 15, we must consider that the Jewish culture is a shame/honor-driven society that used shame/honor in a way that developed a sort of social group system.

Virtually everything that is done in Jewish culture brings either shame or honor.

The primary motivation for what and how things are done is based on seeking honor for oneself and avoiding shame.

This was the central and all-consuming preoccupation of all Jewish interaction.……In the first parable, Jesus invites His listeners to place themselves into the story with, “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep.”

In doing this Jesus is appealing to their shrewd reasoning and life experiences.

As the story complete, the Pharisees in their pride refuse to see themselves as shameful “sinners,” but eagerly take the honoring label of being “righteous.” However, by the implication of their own pride, they place themselves in the position of being the less important group of ninety-nine: “There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” There may be a bit of sarcasm in the reference to the Pharisees “who do not need to repent” (seeRomans 3:23).……In the “lost coin” parable, the ten silver coins refers to a piece of jewelry with ten silver coins on it worn by brides. This was the equivalent of a wedding ring in modern times.……Upon careful examination of the parables, we can see that Jesus was turning His listeners’ understanding of things upside down. The Pharisees saw themselves as being the beloved of God and the “sinners” as refuse.

Jesus uses the Pharisees’ discrimination against them, while encouraging the sinners with one clear message.

That message is this:

God has a tender, personal concern (“and when he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders,” v. 5).

God has a joyous love for individuals who are lost (in sin) and are found (repent).

Jesus makes it clear that the Pharisees, who thought they were close to God, were actually distant and those sinners and tax collectors were the ones God was seeking after.

We see this same message in 18:9-14. There, Jesus is teaching on attitudes of prayer, but the problem he is addressing is the same as in chapter 15. In 18:14 Jesus provides the conclusion for us: “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”……Patterns of progression in the parables…By identifying things in common in the parables, we can gain context to help us understand the significance of otherwise subtle elements in the story. As the saying goes, “Proper context covers a multitude of interpretive errors.”

The progression of value:…in the first parable a sheep is lost, then a silver coin in the next, followed by a son in the third. As mentioned before, part of the power of these parables to reach the audience comes from the shame/honor aspect of their culture. …To lose a sheep as a shepherd would be a very shameful thing, a coin from a piece of bridal jewelry lost in her own house would be more shameful, followed by the lost son, which was the worst of all in Jewish culture. …2) The personal progression from seeking after only 1 of 100 sheep, then 1 of 10 coins, then 1 of 2 sons. This shows the scope of God’s personal concern for individuals and would have been of great comfort to the “sinners” Jesus was teaching. …3) A change in tense in each parable regarding the rejoicing at that which was found, from future tense, to present, and then to past tense: “will be more joy” to “there is joy” and finally “had to be.” This may have communicated the certainty of God’s acceptance of those who repent. 4) The progression of earthly references to what the thing was lost in (a subtle reference to sin). The sheep was lost in open fields, the coin was lost in the dirt that was swept up, and son was in the mud of a pigsty before coming to his senses. 5) The relational power of each parable: Poor men and young boys would have related best to the shepherd and the lost sheep. Women would have related best to the lost bridal coin. The last parable dealt with everyone present by dealing with the relationship of a father and son.……Patterns of Consistency in the parables…1) The main character possesses something valuable and does not want to lose it.…2) The main character rejoices in the finding of the lost thing, but does not rejoice alone.…3) The main character (God) expresses care in either the looking or the handling of that which was lost.…4) Each thing that was lost has a personal value, not just a monetary value: shepherds care for their sheep, women cherish their bridal jewelry, and a father loves his son.……Incidentally, this first illustration of the shepherd caring the sheep on his shoulders was the original figure used to identify Christians before people began identifying Christianity with crosses. In these parables Jesus paints with words a beautiful picture of God’s grace in His desire to see the lost return to Him. Men seek honor and avoid shame; God seeks to glorify Himself through us His sheep, His sons and daughters. Despite having ninety-nine other sheep, despite the sinful rebellion of His lost sheep, God joyfully receives it back, just as He does when we repent and return to Him.…

 

When we seek to find who are lost, we are expressing our love toward our neighbors and valuing people as God values them.

We will be fulfilling our God given purpose by doing what we were placed on this earth to do— by taking what is inside the Church out into a broken world.

The question is “Do you value the same things God values?”…If so, then let’s reach out to those people that God lovesbut are lost so that He can restore them in His Kingdom

 

Psalm 71:20–21…20 You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth.…21 You will restore me to even greater honour and comfort me once again.

Even if our mishap carry us to the depths of the earth, God will restore us to honour and comfort us.

Illistration

I once used this illustration at a youth camp to prove a point.

I held up a brand-new, crisp R 100 note and asked the group if anyone wanted it. …Of course, they all shouted yes, yes, as any youngster would .…I then scrunched the note up and jumped on it. …Held it up again, only this time the note was all scrunched up, and I asked if there was anyone here that still wanted it. …Again, everyone shouted yes they still wanted it.

I then described the possible history of that R 100 note. …Maybe it had been used to buy drugs, …Or to pay for sex with a prostitute…Orit may have been used to bribe someone, …Or as a payoff for having someone killed, …Or maybe it was his last R 100 that a father lost when he gambled out all his money instead of buying food for his family …Or maybe this note was part of a bank robbery

Would they still want it I asked?…The entire group immediately raised their hands saying

we were all still willing to take it. …We all understand that the value of money is not determined by what it had experienced or even how it looked. …Its value was determined by the Treasury Department who printed that R 100 note. …I then drew the parallel between our view of the R100 note and God’s view of a lost person.

Can you see our value in God’s eyes is not determined by our past, our achievements, our failures, or our circumstances or what we look like?

But rather, our value is determined by the love that God has for us. That value is expressed in the fact that Jesus died on a cross for every single one of us, in spite of our shortcomings.

Jesus did not wait for us to get cleaned up before rescuing us, for “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”

Rom. 5:8…8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.…Even on our worst day, we are worth the blood of Jesus—and nothing is more valuable than that.

We live in a world that often gives more value to animals, the environment, and individual rights than it does to people, but there is nothing more valuable to God.

He loves all of us. Furthermore, God places the highest value on lost people. …If he didn’t, he would never have sent Jesus to seek and save all of humanity. …Where would you and I be today if God did not value lost people? …All of us were once lost and needed to be spiritually rerouted back to Him.

And we would still be lost today if it wasn’t for believers thatreached out to us.

Let’s look at it again

God places value on every human being—to him we are priceless! …He grieves over every person who is lost. When you reach out to those who are lost, you are bringing joy to the heart of God in Heaven.

Luke 15:7

7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

We as believers have been chosen and are predestined to work out everything in conformity with the purpose and will of God.

In a sense, we are God’s spiritual GPS’s, sprinkled throughout the world. …He has placed us in our environments to help people who are lost to help reroute their lives.

Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost …Let me read Mark 16:15 again…15 And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.…We are his Body and we are to continue this mission.

Just like Matilda my GPS, we get are influence the people around us who have not yet chosen to believe in Jesus. …By the example of our lives and through the relationships we build, we can communicate the deep love God has for them and gently steer them closer to his destination for their lives.

I want to ask you this morning

Do you know someone who has somehow taken a wrong turn and ended up off the beaten path? You can help that person find the main road again. …Not by judging or preaching but by walking along side such a person by showing the love of God.