Grace for the Lost
Lent: A Journey to the Cross • Sermon • Submitted
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Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!
So Jesus told them this story: “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? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 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!
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”
Read Luke 15:1-10
How does this conversation get started?
What is the reason for these stories/parables?
Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!
Jesus' habbit of partying, eating, and doing “life” with the wrong people.
Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.
Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them. But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?”
Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”
These parables answer the unasked question about why Jesus likes to party and why he likes to visit and be around the “sinners” in his world.
Have you ever lost something and searched hard to find it?
I lost keys to my motorcycle...
over a year later I found them in the small pocket on my chaps
What do you do when you lose something? Why?
You search for it! Why, because it means something to you. It is valuable. I guess there are times where you might misplace something that isn’t too important. In those cases, you ignore that it is lost and think “Oh well, it will turn up eventually.” But, in these parables, the sheep or the coin have value to the shepherd and the woman.
Lost items have value.
Lost things DON'T find themselves!!
Yes, it is true that lost coins cannot just show up and say, “Here I am!”
Pets that wander off might find their way home. But, things that are actually lost do not magically reappear. Lost things do not find themselves. They MUST be searched for!
Imagine you are the sheep...
I pondered the sheep this week and began to ask how common it would be for a sheep to stary from the flock. Is a sheep that strays from the pack a rebel?
I did some reading to better understand the social habbits of sheep.
"Sheep display an intensely gregarious social instinct that allows them to bond closely to other sheep and preferentially to related flock members. Flock mentality movements protect individuals from predators."
"Under standard grazing situations, sheep graze together in casual affiliations; social hierarchies are not as apparent as they are for cattle."
I guess we probably know this, or could discern this. Sheep are a flocking/heard animal.
Normally, sheep do not wander off by themselves. If one sheep leaves, the rest follow. If a sheep notices the flock leaving, that sheep follows. So, to move sheep, you get one going in the direction you want it to go and the others will follow because of thier flocking instincts.
For those reasons I found it interesting to learn that separation from the heard causes deep anxiety in sheep. Sheep stress and could have a “mental breakdown” away from the heard. They cannot function without the rest of the flock!
"Separation from the flock can cause stress and panic. Isolation from other sheep can cause severe stress and should be avoided."
What would cause this sheep to get separated? We do not know, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the sheep is lost and cannot function and needs desperate assistance.
In this parable, the sheep that has been separated from the flock cannot function. It MUST have the assistance from the shepherd!
Notice: The shepherd does not simply search for the sheep! He leaves the 99 others, presumably in safe grazing land under the care of other shepherds or “under shepherds.” He searches until he finds the lost sheep. Then when he finds the lost sheep, the shepherd does not simply call the sheep unto him (even though the sheep knows his voice). He finds the sheep and then lifts the sheep up and carries the sheep back to safety.
How does the image of a lost sheep better help us to understand grace?
This is a reckless picture of grace! Our great shepherd, Jesus Christ, does not simply CALL us back unto saftey. He searches and finds and carries us back to safety!
Like that lost sheep, or lost coin, we are in NO WAY going to find ourselves. Like the sheep we are utterly helpless.
This is not to lessen our self esteam, this is to show us the optimism of grace. We are helpless, distraught, and cannot function. We are fully dependent upon the grace of Jesus to search for us, find us, and carry us back to the safety of the Father! Our Shepherd, Jesus Christ, does for us what we CANNOT, SHOULD NOT, and WOULD NOT do for ourselves!!
We see in this parable that Jesus states there is good reason to party! We party, he parties, because heaven parties. Heaven parties because God made good on God’s promises and through that, sinner, the unrighteous, the lost, are rescued! That causes God to rejoice and it should cause us to rejoice!
Promises?!
Ezekiel 34:1-24
In Ezekiel 34: 1-24 Israeil is portrayed as a stray flock in need of the help of a good shepherd. God promises to send a good shepherd to rescue and lead Israel.
God promised an annointed one who would not only lead the people of Israeil, but who would provide for their cleansing.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.
Jesus declares that HE is the promised Shepherd
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep.
“I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.
“The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”
But the Good Shepherd does not ONLY search for the lost sheep of Israel, he searches for ALL God’s lost sheep.
I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.
This is why the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law had issues with Jesus. They felt that they were guardians of God’s sheep. They felt that God woudl deal with pepole through repentence offered in the Temple. But, this Jesus Shepherd Guy, he has redefined who God’s sheep are. And he has redefined how God deals graciously with ALL the lost sheep.
Jesus, the Great Shepherd declares that God deals with ALL the lost sheep, not through the temple, but through the One God sent to search, find, and carry back to safety the lost sheep.
Jesus Christ is THE way to the Father and to safety. NOT the Temple. Not tradition. Not in purity laws. Only Jesus Christ!
John 10:7-9
so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures.
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
So, why is there a party? There is a party becasue lost get found. There is a party because grace finds us and carries us back to the safety of the father. There is a party because God’s love is reckless and searches out all His lost sheep. There is a party because of God’s grace.
What can we do in our world to share in the party?
What can we do to show that God searches for ALL His lost sheep?
What can we do to display God’s grace and when our world asks why we party and why we do what we do, we can tell them the story of how lost items, including ourselves, get found?
How can we live and model the Reckless Love of God?