{"id":1365,"date":"2021-02-07T13:13:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-07T12:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1365"},"modified":"2021-02-07T13:13:31","modified_gmt":"2021-02-07T12:13:31","slug":"to-seek-and-save-the-lost-luke-151-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1365","title":{"rendered":"To seek and save the lost Luke 15:1-7"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there is one job I would not have wanted to do in the Middle East in New Testament times, it would have been job of a shepherd. It was DANGEROUS. In the heat of the sun, or the rain and the wind. In the cold nights, out in wild without shelter. Then there were the wolves, and the lions and other fierce animals. As well as the robbers and bandits. Think of Wild West cowboys rather than shepherds today.
\nAnd all the time a shepherd was working with sheep \u2013 not the brightest of animals \u2013 sheep which will get themselves trapped on a cliff side, or fall into a gully or get trapped in a stream or in a thicket of gorse \u2013 or just wander off and get themselves lost!
\nThat is the background of the parable Jesus told about a shepherd who sets out to rescue his lost sheep.
\nLuke 15 4 \u2018Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn\u2019t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
\nWe are the lost sheep, Jesus is the Good Shepherd
\nJesus Christ the Good Shepherd – just how much it cost Christ to die for us
\nJohn 10:11 11 \u2018I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. \u2026 14 \u2018I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me\u201415 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father\u2014and I lay down my life for the sheep.
\nIn describing himself as the Good Shepherd, Jesus was making a great claim! Because every Jew knew that there was only one Shepherd for the nation of Israel \u2013 God Himself. Psalm 23 \u2013 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. But there was another less well-known passage in the OT which portrayed God even more clearly as a shepherd who sets out to search for his lost sheep.
\nEzekiel 34 11 \u2018 \u201cFor this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 13 \u2026 14 I will tend them in a good pasture, \u2026 There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture. \u2026 16 I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak,
\nThe Good Shepherd not only looks after the 99 in the fold but also goes out to search day and night for the one lost sheep. \u201cI myself will search for my sheep.\u201d \u201cI will search for the lost and bring back the strays.\u201d
\nThis was Jesus\u2019s mission. Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. To seek and save the lost!
\nAnd let\u2019s remember that every one of us is are only here today because Jesus came to find us when we were lost. When we were hiding away from God, God came and found us!
\nAmazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
\nI once was lost but now am found! Was blind but now I see.
\nI was lost but Jesus found me! There is no hope of being saved until a person realises that he or she is lost. Until we accept we are sinners. God did not send His Son Jesus Christ into the world to save those who think they are righteous. Jesus says Himself that He “came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
\nEven today, the Good Shepherd is still looking for those who are lost, longing to bring them home.
\nLuke 15 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, \u201cRejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.\u201d 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.
\nJesus came to seek and save the lost.
\nAll the people around us are still lost sheep
\nMore lost than ever! So many problems in families, in relationships, with finance. Difficulties in employment. Injustice as the gap between the \u201chaves\u201d and the \u201chave nots\u201d gets bigger everyday. Inequalities in opportunity, in prospects, in health and life expectancy.
\nWe usually don\u2019t realise just how lost people are today
\nPut your hand up if
\n\u2022\tYou grew up in a Christian home
\n\u2022\tWent to church when you were growing up
\n\u2022\tHad some other links to church when you were growing up (BB, GB, YP etc)
\n\u2022\tAlways believed in God even though you never went to church
\nIs anybody left without a hand up?
\nMost of our neighbours and friends would be \u2013 because most people in Chelmsford don\u2019t have meaningful contact with any church!!
\nLuke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.
\nAnd God commands us to reach out with his love and his saving truth to these lost people! A few weeks ago we thought about the parable which Jesus told just before this parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the Wedding Feast. Remember all the silly excuses people made why they couldn\u2019t come to the banquet. But the host was determined that as many people as possible should be there to enjoy the celebration.
\nLuke 14 21 \u2026 Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, \u201cGo out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.\u201d
\n22 \u2018 \u201cSir,\u201d the servant said, \u201cwhat you ordered has been done, but there is still room.\u201d
\n23 \u2018Then the master told his servant, \u201cGo out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.
\nOur God is a God who is determined that his house should be full! So he sends his servants out to seek and save the lost \u2013 even in the streets and alleys, even in the roads and country lanes. And he sends US out! At the beginning of the year we thought about the Great Commission and the promise that Jesus is with us always.
\nMatthew 28 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, \u2018All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.\u2019
\nThat command is for EVERY follower of Jesus, in every place in every age. Make disciples. GO!
\nWE must seek and save the lost!
\nLuke 15 4 \u2018Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn\u2019t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
\nThe Good Shepherd LOOKS until he finds !! He searches high and low, up and down, everywhere. That was what Jesus spent three years doing.
\nMatthew 9:35 35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and illness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, \u2018The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.\u2019
\nGod cares just as much about people who are lost in sin today. The harvest is plentiful \u2013 but the workers are few. God still needs ALL OF US to be his workers to bring in the harvest of souls. God needs US to seek and save the lost.
\nToo many churches have drifted into the Little Bo Peep strategy.
\n\u201cLittle Bo Peep, she lost her sheep and doesn\u2019t know where to find them.
\nLeave them alone and they\u2019ll come home, wagging their tails behind them.\u201d
\nBut we can\u2019t sit back and wait for the lost to come to find us! The heart of the problem of people who are lost is that they don\u2019t know they are lost. Many of them don\u2019t want to be found! People who are lost without God don\u2019t find him for the same reason that the burglar didn\u2019t find the policeman. He wasn\u2019t looking to find the policeman. He was too busy running in the opposite direction hiding from the policeman!
\nWe can\u2019t just sit back and expect the lost to come back to God by themselves! Here\u2019s a very short poem by Gordon Bailey, called \u201cHow far?\u201d
\nHow far would world communism have progressed?
\nIf all they had done is stick \u201cYou need Lenin\u201d posters up outside the Kremlin?
\nThe shepherd goes OUT and LOOKS for the sheep! God has NOT commanded us just to sit around and wait until those who are lost knock on our doors and ask how they can be saved.
\nMatthew 28:19 As you GO, make disciples of all nations, baptising them \u2026 20 and teaching them \u2026
\nJohn 20:21 Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
\nWe are SENT. We must GO. Whatever dangers the shepherd faced, however uncomfortable the journey, his mission was to find his lost sheep. And he wouldn\u2019t give up until he found it! Go \u2013 seek and save the lost!
\nSince the first lockdown last March most of our old ways of reaching out have closed down. Toddlers. Caf\u00e9. Drop In. Even our contact with young people on Sundays has fizzled out. It will be months before any of these activities can start again, and then it will take a long time to build them up. We did manage to continue our Christmas card deliveries, and we did have visitors to our Christmas Zoom events.
\nBut we will need to find new ways to reach out into the postmodern post-truth society of the 21st century. We have already started to explore some of these new ways using the internet, video and social media.
\nOur Services on Zoom are also posted on Facebook and YouTube, as are our prayer reflections. We know that many visitors are watching them, including some from around the world. An old school friend who now lives in the midlands got in touch the other day because he had found our services on Facebook.
\nOur new little book \u201cMore of The Difference Jesus Makes\u201d has been great to share our stories with neighbours and friends. And we are going to put some of those stories on to video so they can go out on Facebook and YouTube as well.
\nMy book Prepared To Give An Answer has helped many of you to feel more confident in talking about Jesus with your friends and neighbours. It tackled some of the most common questions inquirers ask about the Christian faith. I am going to turn parts of that book into some videos in the next few months as well.
\nWe need God\u2019s guidance for HIS ways to reach today\u2019s lost sheep. There is a true story of a missionary overseas who arrived in a city and hadn\u2019t a clue how to reach so many these unfamiliar people with the gospel. He prayed for a way to make a few contacts who he could begin to talk about Jesus with, and he was led to put a tiny advert in the classified section of a newspaper offering mail-order Bible studies. He received literally THOUSANDS of requests \u2013 so he had to start actually writing some Bible studies and posting them out! That\u2019s one way to plant a church! What new ways of sharing our faith will God lead US to do in the months ahead?
\nThe Good Shepherd went out to find his lost sheep. Have you ever lost anything and had to search for it? Mercifully we never mislaid any of our children for more than a minute or so. We did once lose a dog. In the New Forest our first Golden Retriever Tara ran off chasing a deer. We called and whistled but she didn\u2019t come back, so we began to search for her. It was a very distressing time. We would have stayed in the Forest searching all night if she had not eventually reappeared after about half an hour. But our desperate concern to find our lost dog was only a faint shadow of the concern which Jesus the Good Shepherd has for his Lost Sheep.
\nNorth Springfield needs Jesus. God the loving shepherd who searched for us and found us and saved us sends us out to continue His mission to proclaim Jesus to the world.
\nLuke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save what was lost. (NIV\/NRSV)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there is one job I would not have wanted to do in the Middle East in New Testament times, it would have been…<\/span><\/p>\n

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