Parables of Grace: The Parable of the Lost Sheep; Enjoying God as Your Shepherd

So we're going through different parables uh throughout this summer.

Haven't taken a break from the book of Acts, which we have been going through for a few months.

So this is the parable of the lost sheep that we're gonna be talking about this morning.

Christy and I are we're in a dinner group with a a group of our our best friends, and last week we sat down at a really nice restaurant in Atlanta because it was one of the guys' birthdays, and he got to pick the restaurant.

So we're at this nice restaurant, and you know the appetizers come out and we're around this round table, and it's just we're there for a couple of hours, and it happened again for me.

It always happens when I'm with this this group of people and we're eating.

It happens every single time.

And it doesn't matter if we're at a really nice restaurant, it doesn't matter if we're at the Waffle House, it doesn't matter if we're like at a taco stand, it doesn't matter where we're at.

Just the fact that we're together, I'm always reminded these are my people.

Like these are my people.

I I want to talk to these people.

These are the people that I call when I'm stressed out, these are the people when I'm freaking out, these are the people that I call to confess things.

I need to just talk things out.

These are my people.

I want to be having dinner with these people when I'm 50 and when I'm 60 and when I'm 70 and beyond.

They're my people.

Right?

It's always been this way.

You dine with your people.

Like if you want to know who your people are, you can just look at who you eat with.

It's why in high school the lunch room means everything, right?

Like, who do you eat with?

What table are you with?

And who are you gonna eat with?

It's why you stress out about it in high school.

Like, who am I gonna eat lunch with?

Because people are gonna be watching.

It's why when my granny moved into assisted living, the dining room was everything.

What table do you eat with?

They're 85 years old and they're stressing out about social status playing out in the dining room.

It's because who you dine with means everything.

Who you dine with reveals who your people are.

These are your people.

In ancient times, the table meant even more.

So take what we feel, multiply it out, make it religious.

Right?

Because in ancient times, if you were religious and you were Jewish, you only ate.

You only ate with people who ate kosher and were deemed pure.

You would never risk not eating with somebody who ate kosher or was not deemed pure.

And so Jesus shows up and he starts eating with whoever he wants to eat with.

I mean, the people who break the rules, the people on the outside of the customs.

So he's not obeying custom.

And this is why all the religious people get upset.

That's why they're always saying, oh, Jesus, you know, he's a he's eating with drunkards and gluttons.

He's a drunkard.

He's a glutton.

This is why the religious people are upset.

Because they're going, are these his people?

Like these are his friends?

These these these are these are his friends.

And so we see this at the beginning of this lost sheep parable.

This is the thing that instigates, ignites Jesus into the parable is these religious people's concern about this, their misconception about who they themselves are, and who God is, how God thinks about people.

So let me reread the parable, having thought a little bit about that.

Luke 15, 1 through 7.

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.

And the Pharisees, the religious people, and the scribes that grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

Right?

So they're oblivious, they're oblivious to the fact that they might be sinners.

And so Jesus figures out this attitude that's going on with these religious people.

So he told them this parable.

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.

Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

So a few points.

Number one, we are messy, stubborn people.

We're the sheep in the story, preferably the one.

Hopefully, you don't think you're in the 99.

The goal of the story here is to understand you're the one.

We are messy, stubborn people.

And sheep are known to be messy, and they are known to be stubborn, right?

They go their own way, they lose their own direction, they can't find their way back, right?

You think, I think, that path will fulfill me.

That'll be the path.

This path, certainly, this will finally work for me, this path.

This will solve my problems.

And you go down that path, and it leads you to more wandering for more fulfillment or more acceptance or some sense of absolution that you're never finding for yourself.

Because to be human is to be lost, not worthless, not without beauty, but lost, certainly lost.

Now on Instagram, you you don't look lost at all.

Christy shows me the pictures, you look wonderful.

You're at the beach, you make sure the picture is taken at just the right angle, so that part of your body you obsess about is not in the picture.

And if it got in the picture, you delete it, you take another one and make sure the angle is adjusted just right.

And the Insta story did not show you blow up on your children as you're setting up the beach umbrella, sweating, and it didn't show your wife blow up on you because you forgot the cooler, and all that's kind of a passive hatred, passive hatred that's been going on all morning because both of you think that you put in more effort to the family.

And then underneath that, really, is just like this ultimate, ultimate reservoir of issues, right?

Like anxieties and fears and discontentment, that we're not talking about those things.

And coping mechanisms that come out of all of that, and the entire time, all of it's just lostness.

The Bible would call it sin, losing our way from peace with God and thus peace with other people, because we're just not allowing God to be our guide.

Two weeks ago in the New York Times, Crispin Sartwell, he's a professor of philosophy, he wrote an article, What's So Good About Original Sin.

So this is in the New York Times.

He argued that even if we forget the Bible's argument for original sin.

So let's just put that aside, he says.

He says, there's a secular argument for original sin.

Here's what he says, what he wrote in the New York Times.

When I look within, I see certain extreme failings.

I have not been able to get rid of most of them, and I have accumulated others as I've gone along.

Perhaps you've done better, but most of us certainly come up short of our own ideals.

Ones I hope most people, religious or not, generally share to be generous, peaceful, energetic in helping others, and hesitant to help ourselves at their expense, to take care of the world we inhabit, to not only not kill one another or even think about it, but to love one another.

Even by our own mortal standards, we are profoundly flawed.

You see, none of us, none of us, and I can say this after being a pastor for 15 years, none of us have our acts together.

Doesn't matter what you dress like, doesn't matter what social economic level you're in, none of us have our acts together.

And the reason why you feel lost is because you're lost.

That's the reason why.

To be human is to be lost, and you are human.

And I'm human.

Everyone's lost.

Point number two, we are messy, stubborn people.

That was point number one.

Point number two adds on, with a loving, joy-filled pursuing God.

We are messy, stubborn people with a loving, joy-filled pursuing God.

So that's the good news that the shepherd in this story, the shepherd sacrifices to come after his sheep.

In the parable's language, he seeks us in our wandering, he seeks us in our lostness.

We're not even aware we're lost, we're just going our own way.

And he comes after us.

And when he gets there, he doesn't berate the sheep in this story, he doesn't lecture the sheep in this story, there's no shame, there's no condemnation, there's only one thing.

There's only rescue, there's open arms.

And this is profound.

This is life-changing.

That the God of this world is so in love with you in your lostness, in your stubbornness and messiness, so in love with you, he pursues you, raises you up whole and redeemed out of his ability, not yours.

And not only that, it is his joy to do this.

Right?

Verse 5, and when he has found it, it being the sheep, you being the sheep, so I can say, and when he has found you, he lays you on his shoulders, rejoicing.

See, this leaves us with only trust and thanks, quite relieved, and really back at a party that Jesus talks about.

Point number three.

You are free to enjoy the grace of God.

But either way, the grace of God's enough for you.

Let me explain this.

I'll say it again and then I'll explain it.

You are free to enjoy the grace of God.

But even if you don't, the grace of God's enough for you.

See, the gospel is the grace of God known in Jesus as our sin is put upon him on the cross, as righteousness is given to you.

You are secure by that.

So this speaks absolution and acceptance over you as you place faith in Jesus by grace.

This is true for you.

It will always be true for you.

It's enough.

But your enjoyment of that gift, of that victory, that thing that's been deemed to you in this hour, that is another matter.

Imagine you walk into a casino.

I know, far-fetched.

Work with me here.

Imagine you walk into a casino, you're walking around.

You know you're gonna eventually spend something, some amount of money, but you're watching some people blow through some money, and you're just uh you can't believe it, but you're walking around.

You keep walking by this one slot machine, and it's the big one, the mega slot machine.

It says above it,$10 million.

And so finally you're walking around, you're having a good time, your friends are playing, you're and you think finally to yourself, you know what?

I'll waste a dollar.

No big deal.

But if I'm gonna waste a dollar, I might as well waste it on that machine.

I might as well go for it.

So you get one token and you go over to that machine and you you put it in that slot machine, that$10 million you pulled up, you pull that thing down, and the bells and the whistles go off.

It is going nuts.

Everybody starts cheering because that's what happens in a casino.

Everybody starts cheering because like one person, everybody else losing money, one person wins.

Everybody's cheering, can't believe it.

It prints out your winnings on that ticket and it says ten million dollars.

You will never have to work again in your life.

Merit is over, it is yours.

Now you've already won.

Nobody can take that from you.

You were granted victory.

But whether you want to walk that ticket over to the counter and enjoy the victory that was already given to you is another matter.

You see, you're already his sheep.

The victory's already been deemed to you in Jesus.

Now, whether you want to appropriate that gift into your life this hour, this day, and enjoy it, that's up to you.

You actually have the choice to continue in gloom and despair, not appropriating the fact that you're already righteous, or appropriating that love conquers fear.

To enjoy that is a matter of appropriating the victory already given to you in Jesus into your life right now, today.

This past week, a volcano erupted in Guatemala, wiped out villages.

I don't know if you saw it on the news, right?

Like at first, there's the one in Hawaii, and then this one in Guatemala is even worse as the villages were built on the hillside.

Just wiped it away.

And people lost their families, villages is gone.

I don't know if you saw the footage.

And the footage is horrible.

I think it's even worse if you've ever been if you've ever been down there.

Some of us have been down there, we support a ministry down there.

I've been down there maybe eight, nine times over the years.

I know exactly where this volcano is.

I can remember being with Bo and Brad, and a group of us went down and we ate dinner in Tigua, which is 20 minutes from this volcano right there.

I've taken high school students down there, college students down there, adults, we go down, we build houses for these people.

I know these people, I've seen these people.

And what I've learned is this these trips are great for these people.

Like the ones we're going to serve.

Like they're they're cared for, they love.

I mean, it's unbelievable.

But it's amazing for the people who go.

And here's why.

And I think this is probably the difference between somebody who sees footage like that and they've never been to a place like that versus seeing footage by like that.

And I immediately email my friend Tony, who lives about 45 minutes away from there, right?

And the difference is this it's just the difference of proximity.

It's just the difference between I've actually been there.

I I saw the footage in Hawaii and people lost their homes.

I'm like, okay.

But I I I know who these people are.

It's different.

There's something different about the about proximity.

And this is why these nonprofits, I don't know if you hear these trips called vision trips, like nonprofits, they they get a whole bunch of supporters, people who like to give money away.

They gather these people up, and maybe you've been on one, it's a vision trip, not even a mission trip, it's a vision trip.

And they gather people up and they do this to take people to a place, to a site, Guatemala or Africa or somewhere, I don't know, anywhere, India, and take people just to see the work.

And you go, oh, what a waste of money.

That's a lot of resources.

They should just send the money.

Why do they send it to people?

Because proximity means everything.

If I can get just get you there, if I can get you there to see this, this will change everything from now on.

I think this is what Jesus is doing here.

This grace of proximity.

Right?

Like, if I can just get you to see this, this will change everything in how you react and live.

If I can just get you to see the sheep and the shepherd and understand who you are and who God is, you'll understand your salvation, you understand repentance, the need of a savior to come and get you to live in honesty and confession and repentance to get into the, to, to enjoy that party, to enjoy that rejoicing that God has, a loving, joy-filled God pursuing you?

That's what abiding and growing grace is.

It is taking this great grace, gospel truth of salvation, having been found in your lostness by Jesus' work for you, and letting it speak to the fearful sheep that's still inside of you.

And what we need is we need to declare again Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

My brothers and sisters, you and I may be sheep.

We are sheep.

But we have a shepherd who loves to pursue us, lift us up, put us on his shoulders, and he does it rejoicing.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that while we are lost, you are the one who finds.

Many of us in this room do know you.

We have placed faith by grace, but there's a few who don't.

Would you give them eyes to see this sheep and this shepherd?

Would you give them the grace of proximity that would change all things from now on?

Would you give them the gift of repentance, our desire to go our own way, to wander about, self-save?

And would they this morning understand that you are a loving, joy-filled, pursuing God, rejoicing over us?

And for most of us who know you, we need to be reminded again that you are our shepherd.

And you are not a shepherd of shame or condemnation, but you are one who pursues us, lifts us up onto your shoulders, carries us in our stubbornness, and you do it rejoicing.

May this bring great relief to our hearts, and may it turn to great trust and thanks and awe and worship for you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.