People Matter To God: The Lost Sheep | Pastor Foo Seng

Good morning, everyone! How are you all doing this morning? A bit gloomy, but let’s—oh, now it’s brightened up already. Just turn to the person on your left and right and say, “God bless you, great to see you here this morning!”

A reminder of our Christmas blessing envelope—we started this move last year where we take a collection, and we want to bless people within our church who are struggling financially. It says in Acts 2 that the people sold all they had and supported one another. You don’t have to sell everything—just sell part of it, okay? Let’s support one another in love.

Today, we want to start a series; it’s a four-week series leading up to Christmas called “People Matter to God.” Let’s just say that out loud, everyone: “People matter to God.” Say that to the person on your left: “People matter to God.” And on your right: “People matter to God.” And we’ll be looking very specifically at the parable of the lost sheep, okay? So, that’s where we’ll be focusing our attention.

At the end of it, after we sing our closing song, I’m going to spend a bit of time teaching us one very classic, time-tested, and proven method on how to share with our friends and family members, okay? And that’s what that white piece of paper there is for. Afterwards, if you have a pen or pencil, just take it out and follow me as we actually learn how to do that, okay? If you don’t, the ushers will also pass pencils—they have all that ready for you this morning.

People matter to God, and the parable of the lost sheep is classic. It’s been here for many thousands of years, I guess. And this is what Charles Spurgeon says about this parable: Jesus’ parable emphasizes the lengths to which God will go to rescue and restore even one lost soul. You know, sometimes we always wonder, “Okay, how much does God love us?” Or you know, you ask somebody, “Hey, do you really care for this person?” Or, “How much do you care for your work, for example?” Often, that is reflected in the kind of effort that person puts into the work, right? If, let’s say, a student says, “Oh, math is very important, I must study,” then you know it actually doesn’t match what the person says and the effort, right?

So, when we say “people matter to God,” it can just be something we say because we’re in religious circles, we’ve been in this Christian game and business long enough to know what to say, but we don’t really know—and how do we justify that God really loves people? That’s what Jesus did here when he shared the parable of the lost sheep: it is to emphasize that one thing—that all of us matter to God. It’s easy to say, but he gives a classic and solid example of how we matter to God, and we’ll go into that shortly.

So, the parable of the lost sheep gives us a good glimpse into the heart of God for us—not just us seated here but also, and more importantly (since we already know Christ), I’m assuming that if you don’t know Christ, you are important—you are important to God. And those out there, known as the lost sheep, God cares for them. God loves them, and God wants them to come into his kingdom and be part of his family.

And in the same way today, I hope I can just flesh this out for you guys—flesh it out that God wants all of us to take on that same heart, that all of us take on that heart of care and compassion and have that eye to seek and save the lost—those who we call the lost. That means those who do not know God, who have turned away from him. And here we have a parable in Luke chapter 15, verse 1 to 7. I have the verses up—we’ll all read this together slowly. We’ll just go through this, and I’ll just expound it verse by verse as we go on.

Luke 15:1-7—let’s read it:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 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 persons who do not need to repent.”

This is an amazing parable. It starts with Jesus—actually, the reason he told that parable was because of the setting there. You see, Jesus liked parties. We read often, okay, he’s hanging out with people, eating with them. In other words, he’s having parties—maybe not with dancing and all that or loud music and all that, but the parties of those days, that’s how it was, all right?

And it says here that Jesus responded to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, who were complaining about what he was doing. So, it says that there was something going on and everybody was gathering—they were gathering, and Jesus probably was at the center of it. And at the same time, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law came, and they saw him, and they started complaining, “What’s this guy doing?”

Now, for us to really understand the parable and how it’s applicable to us and what it means—you know, a parable, it’s written in such a way that it’s a story but it tells a meaning. I think we all know that, right? It’s a story, but it has a meaning behind it. But here, the meaning can be different for different people, and the way people receive it can be different, all right?

And here, he was directly responding to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. Now, for us to really understand why Jesus said what he did here in the parable, we need to understand: who are these Pharisees and who are these teachers of the law? Now, for today, the teachers of the law I will also call them, in some translations, the scribes. What’s a scribe? A scribe is somebody who writes something. You go to a meeting sometimes, you say, “Okay, who’s taking minutes?” Right? “Okay, me.” Or sometimes we take turns—nobody likes to take minutes, right? All right. But sometimes we say, “Okay, who’s the scribe for today?” In other words, who’s going to be taking down minutes? The scribe is the one who writes down something, who’s going to be writing it down.

And the scribes here are also known as teachers of the law because they are people—this group of people—who really knew the Torah back then, which is the Old Testament, okay? And they knew it word in, word out. Every word—they knew where it went, how it was written—because that was their job. Last time, no photocopying machine, no scanner where I can just scan a few pages and print it to you immediately. You kind of know whether it’s the truth or not, right? But back in those days, they didn’t have that. They needed people to actually look at the Torah and copy it word for word and pass it on.

But because they knew and they thought that this was God’s word, they had to take it so seriously, it became their life’s job. You know, that was their job—the scribes or the teachers of the law were actually to write word for word and try to know what this is going on and try to apply it to the lives of the people. And they were really serious about it. So, that was one group, okay? That was one group of people.

Don’t worry about what’s on the screen right now, right? But there was one group of people which were gathering around, listening to Jesus, and the teachers of the law started complaining. The other group here we see are the Pharisees, right? So, what are the Pharisees? The Pharisees are like a political group—like a political party. So, what they do is, together with the teachers of the law, they partner up, okay? And then they set the tone for society. We know generally what political parties do nowadays, isn’t it? They set the tone; together with the cabinet, they come up with some legislation or they come up with some rules and regulations. “Okay, now we want to increase the speed limit.” All right? So that’s what they do, all right?

Of course, the Pharisees didn’t have that power back then because they weren’t ruling anymore. You must know that they weren’t ruling the Jewish land then. The Jewish land then was being ruled by the Romans. So, the Romans were making the laws. But what happened was, these guys—they wanted power because they felt, “Oh, I know the Torah so much, I’m going to tell you how to live your life so that you can please God.” So, you had this bunch of people called the Pharisees, and they are like, today, our influencers on social media, right? But much more direct, okay? Influencers on social media, you see, they try to sell you a piece of clothing. You know, recently I’ve been watching some social influencers trying to sell me a robot vacuum, okay? So I’m thinking, “Wow, nice!” Okay, and then, you know, nowadays they don’t just say, “Hey, come and buy the robot vacuum, okay?” You know, they put up a price tag, they put it in a story, you know—oh, this guy came back from work, too tired, scared to go in the house because the wife is going to scold me, because I didn’t do any housework today—how? Okay, so, buy a robot vacuum! This guy comes in, “Hey, why are you sitting here?” “Oh, buy a robot vacuum.” “Oh, buy robot vacuum.” Okay, wow, then the wife is happy already. That’s how they influence you, right?

But in this case, the Pharisees were kind of like that, all right? They basically knew they couldn’t make any laws, but through their readings and through the influence they had on the people (because they were all temple people, and generally, you know, people wanted to please God, right, back in their society), they said, “Okay, I want to please God, so what do I do?” The Pharisees would say, “You do this, you do these hundred things, and you can please God.” And it became quite a strong pressure group in the community.

So, together, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, when they partnered up, because the teachers of the law would feed them with information and say, “Oh, this is what the Torah says, this is what that word says, this is what this means.” “Oh, okay, therefore we must do this rule.” Right? So they became a pressure group. And with every pressure group, and also political group, eventually they get corrupt. And that’s what happened. That’s why if you read through the Bible, there’s always been this tension which some, in the end, exploded between the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, and the scribes on one side, and Jesus of Nazareth on the other side.

Because Jesus of Nazareth came and he said, “No, no, no, what you’re doing is wrong, guys.” He came to the Jewish population—all Jewish people—and said, “Listen to me now, okay? What’s being promoted by them is wrong.” You know, with power comes corruption. And how that took form and took place among the Pharisees was that they actually started making additional laws. You know, I mean, they wanted power, right? Okay, they come in mean—uh, okay, you know, anybody who is power-crazy? I hope none of us are, all right? But you know, we’ll do all kinds of things to just make sure people follow, and then I can feel so good about myself. Of course, that also comes with money, and that also comes with additional taxes, more giving in the temple, and so on and so forth.

But this is what eventually Jesus says about them in Matthew chapter 23, verse 1-4: “Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’s seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you, but do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.’” Can you see how he could cause so much tension and frustration among the Pharisees and the scribes? Because he’s basically telling them, “These guys are all tin cans, empty things, a lot of noise. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”

Now, this was who Jesus also called to be hypocrites, because they came up with all these laws and they made life so difficult for the people to live. Because if you want to please God, this is what you’ve got to do, and people became so burdened. And that’s what Jewish society back then found themselves caught in—a burdensome system which really kept them away from God rather than bringing them to God. I’m spending a bit of time here because you have to understand this before we go in to talk about the parable of the lost sheep. The context here is so important.

So, there was this group of people—the Pharisees and the scribes. Let me quickly summarize that and say they were against Jesus because of what he was teaching. And the first thing they saw was this: “What on earth is Jesus doing? Why is he hanging out with these people?” And let’s start with the first part of the parable, Luke chapter 15, verse 1-3. So, we know who the Pharisees are to a certain extent, we know who they are, we know who the scribes are so far, okay?

Verse one: Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” This is part two of the introduction—I’m still at the introduction, okay? But the rest will be shorter. I really need to lay the ground so we understand this.

The second group of people which we see here are the sinners and the tax collectors. Now, we need to understand now who these sinners and tax collectors were. These tax collectors—not LHDN, okay? All right, they’re not, you know, every June if you’re, you know, a business owner. June, you know, you must submit your taxes, or April, you know, do it online. You know, my wife always helps me, all right? “Hey, remember to do it!” “Oh, okay, okay.” You know, they’re not the guys in some office somewhere. You see, the Jews back then were under Roman control. You know, the Romans were the bosses of the land. And the Romans didn’t care what you did, they just wanted you to pay taxes, because that’s how empires grow. How do they feed their soldiers? How do they make new chariots and new swords? By actually getting money from the people and spending it on themselves. That’s how the Romans grew rich, and that’s why they conquered lands—so that the more lands they conquered, the more money they would have.

So, here we have a group of people called the tax collectors, and the tax collectors were people designated by the Romans. They weren’t Romans themselves; they were actually Jews. So, somehow the Romans had to find, among the Jewish people, people who knew what was going on, knew the Pharisees, knew the culture, knew the religion of the time, and say, “Hey, come—you help me collect taxes.” Wow.

I remember my dad telling me a story, and, you know, long ago he actually lived through World War II, all right? And he said, “You know, when I was a boy at the end of the war, when the Japanese were defeated, the people in the kampong (and this was a new village, the Chinese kampong), they gathered up all those people who supported the Japanese, they put them in a pit, and basically killed them.” I won’t tell you how they killed them—he told me, I don’t want to tell it up here. But these were the sympathizers; these were the people who they saw as traitors, who eventually were killed. This is the idea of the tax collectors here. The tax collectors were people among their midst, maybe even their neighbor, okay, who decided to work with the Roman government to come and collect taxes from the people. “Oh, how much are you earning? Okay, I’ll collect tax.” And eventually, it became a very corrupt system—a system in which not only did they collect for the Roman government (maybe they were supposed to collect 20%), but they’d say, “No, this time it’s 25%—20% goes to the Roman government, 5% comes into my pocket.”

All of us know a very famous tax collector in the Bible. Anybody know his name? Zacchaeus. Remember Zacchaeus? Zacchaeus was a very rich man, and he so happened to be short like me. So that’s why we all have to climb trees to see Jesus, right?

But the point here is this: the tax collectors were so despised, right? And the Pharisees said, “Oh man, hate these people—do not hang out with them.” That’s the first group. And together with the tax collectors in the same sentence were mentioned the sinners. Now, these are people—the sinners—who are people with lifestyle issues, okay? I’m talking serious lifestyle issues. They could be prostitutes, they could be thieves, and they could be those who engaged in what were considered morally or religiously unacceptable behavior. And the main complaint the Pharisees and the scribes had towards Jesus was, “Why are you hanging out with these people?” Now, we can say, “Okay, why not?” But the Pharisees said, “No, no, no, no, no, the Torah says you cannot hang out with these people.” But in reality, if you go through it carefully, there is no law which actually forbids society from interacting with these individuals.

And that’s what I mean earlier—they added to it, right? They said, “You cannot hang out with them.” So the next question is: why is Jesus doing that? Why is Jesus, you know, clearly opposing what was the social norm at that time to hang out with the sinners and the tax collectors? I mean, it can be looked back in Leviticus 11:25 and Numbers 19. Tax collectors were often seen as collaborators, but nowhere does it say you don’t interact with them. Sometimes the Pharisees would say Psalm 1:1 says, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers.” They would say that, and then you know what would happen is, “Oh, then we shouldn’t be hanging out with sinners. We shouldn’t be hanging out with tax collectors.” But that’s not what that verse means. You see how they twist it around? We shouldn’t follow the example. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t reach out to them.

So, here we see the fight between sinners and tax collectors, who were totally shunned. The community norm and the society norm at that point in time said, “Stay away from them as far as possible.” And all of a sudden, we see Jesus having parties with them. Jesus calling Zacchaeus down from the tree: “Come, I want to come to your house and eat, even though you’re a tax collector. Doesn’t matter to me—I want to be in your presence. I want to eat with you.” This is the setting. Does that make sense to everyone? Can we roughly get the kind of stress which is going on, right? It’s not just the parable. This setting is so important, and this is where Jesus then comes in and uses this parable.

Why didn’t he tell them straight to their faces? Because I think it’s for effect—that’s one, all right. Number two, I think there were other people listening to that as well. And there’s this Malay saying which says this, “Who ate the chili will experience the spice.” I’m directly translating, okay? Correct or not? Okay, for those of us who don’t understand Malay, “Who eats the chili, they will feel it.” So, that’s what the parable does. “Who are you talking about, me?” “I didn’t say anything, you—you decide.” Classic, okay? I don’t think—I don’t know, Jesus can do this. And this is what we learn from the parable.

Let’s start, okay? Let’s go in and start. Lesson one: God pursues. Okay, everyone say with me, “God pursues.” One more time, “God pursues.” That means God goes after. In verse 3, this is, “Then Jesus told them this parable.” All right, so they complained already, “Jesus, you know, you know our laws, right? You know how much we hate the tax collectors and the sinners, right? Hey, look everybody—look at Jesus. You see how he’s breaking the law? Why do you want to follow Jesus for? Useless guy! Look at him—he’s hanging out with the people we very much hate, and you should hate as well. Look at that Jesus there.” He wasn’t fazed—steady only—and he said, he told them this parable:

Verse 4: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.” He’s talking right to the Pharisees and the scribes. “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

He’s trying to explain why he’s doing it. He wants them to know, and he immediately draws reference to a shepherd situation, which people back in those days know. We may not be so clear, all right, because I don’t think some of us may even have seen a sheep before, let alone touched one, okay? I think I’ve seen one, okay, probably somewhere, I can’t remember.

So Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

So we see a shepherd here leaving his ninety-nine sheep to go after just one lost sheep. One point to first note: when I first read this, I thought, “Wow, this shepherd is a bit irresponsible, isn’t he?” And sometimes we get distracted, you know, when we read this parable, we say, “What’s wrong with this shepherd? How can he leave the ninety-nine? Who’s going to take care of the ninety-nine? What if a wolf comes?” and so on and so forth, right? Just to go for one—wow, so great, God’s love, is it? No, actually, sometimes we get confused. But then, why is he so irresponsible with the ninety-nine?

Actually, in clarity, if you read carefully, it says here he left them in open country. And that’s what Jesus makes clear here: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in open country?” And for a shepherd, open country—we know that’s a place where it is safe. Open country is not around any trees or any rocks where predators can hide, and when you go away, they will come and eat. Open country means that the shepherd can see at the distance. Okay, it’s clear—there are no predators in the distance, so I’m going to leave the ninety-nine here and go out and look for that one sheep.

So, the shepherd here was not being irresponsible. The shepherd here, by doing this, doesn’t mean he doesn’t care for the ninety-nine. God loves all his sheep, and here we see that the shepherd goes after the sheep which is lost. If we read very carefully, the word “lost” means this sheep is destroyed, you know? The word is destroyed. That means something happened, and Jesus doesn’t explain why or what happens, but this lost sheep here is a sheep which has probably died or may have died or something happened in such a drastic way that the shepherd thinks it’s lost—it’s died. It’s not just lost like I misplaced it, okay? This sheep, something happened; it must have died—it’s destroyed. That’s what it means.

And why does Jesus—you know, sometimes when we understand the language a bit better, then we understand the sense that this is supposed to give us. Jesus is saying that this shepherd was starting to panic a little bit because this sheep which is lost actually may have died. Now, I don’t know how many parents are here—I know there are some of you who are parents, and you have young children. And I don’t know whether you’ve experienced this, but I have: go to the supermarket, bring your kids along, all of a sudden, you want to buy some chips, you turn around—the kid is missing. That feeling is horrible, you know? After, you know, you watch, “Oh, this kid—kidnap la, sell to Thailand, okay, organs donated, what?” Then you are all stressed out there, you go to the supermarket, you know, just look at—you turn and they’re gone. The feeling is a sunken feeling, you know?

And that’s what Jesus says about the shepherd here. Don’t think it’s just a matter of, “I think I can’t find the shepherd under the chair,” you know? There’s a sense of desperation set out here—that’s what Jesus is painting about our great shepherd. Because whenever he used “shepherd,” all Old Testament people—all the Jews—will know who he’s talking about. God is described as our great shepherd who takes care of us, who feeds us.

That sinking feeling when you lose your child—you know, at home, not so bad, right? “Hey, which sofa are you under?” you know? But when you’re out there in public and you can’t find that person, man, you go like, “Oh, man!” And that’s the idea conveyed here. The shepherd here is desperate to find this sheep who has gone missing.

Luke 19:10, it says this: “For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” That “lost”—the word “lost” there is not like “lost in the cupboard,” but is dead, possibly dead, may not come back to life. So the Son of Man came to seek desperately and to save the lost. The word “seek” here, and in this case also the same, it says how the shepherd, when he saw there was lost, he started a process—”came to seek and save the lost.” God started a process with all of us when we were in our sin, because sin is what causes us to be lost—to be destroyed, to be dead. We might be living, but sin causes us to die—spiritual death, physical death, and that’s what happens. And we see here that God wants to search for all of us desperately.

If you think you are dead in your sin and have no hope, God is for you. You are not shunned. He doesn’t get rid of you. That’s why that song, “Above All,” is so meaningful, isn’t it? That God is thinking of us. You know, this is a God who nobody created—God just existed. He will forever be there, and he will never end. And a God like this sets out a process through his son Jesus Christ to save you from your destruction and from the sin and the sinful situations you are living in.

Now, there’s a place in God’s heart for you, regardless of what society says. And that’s what Jesus was trying to say and compare. The Pharisees said, “Don’t hang out with these people—they are sinners,” right? You may be thinking that of yourselves: I’m not worthy because I’ve done this sin in the past, I have this issue, I made this mistake. Or maybe some of us, we’ve had some trauma in our past life, which has now caused us to say we are no good, we are useless, okay? Failed a bunch of exams, okay? And then, you know, been put down when we were young, had some physical trauma when we were young, done onto us—not our fault—and for some reason, our mental state is such that we now tell ourselves that we are no good.

So, you don’t need Pharisees to tell you these things, okay? You can be the one telling yourself that you are no good. But God tells here—Jesus describes the picture of our great shepherd—of how desperate he is to come and reach and seek and save people like you and me, dead to sin, destroyed. But God seeks us out, and he starts that process to bring us home.

And, you know, Jesus explains it a little bit more. He says here, “Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” It’s not just randomly looking around. “Don’t have? Go back.” Until he finds it—this is the picture given to us about God seeking us out. He doesn’t give up, even when we run. Can you imagine that shepherd going out there—there he is. As you run, normally what do you think that little sheep will do? Run away some more.

I’ve tried to catch, I’m not a little sheep, but I got puppies who actually escape the house when I run. I remember Peggy—those of you who know my previous dog, passed away already. So, Peggy, you know, she would escape through the front door, and I would run after her, and then she would disappear. And we would go about one kilometer down, and we would find her. Me and my friend, Iman (if you know him), we went to look for her. And the closer we got, the further she went, until we had to go and go behind and try to… But the point here is this: God seeks us out until he finds us. Even though he comes close to us, we run. He comes close to us, we run. He still continues. This is the picture given here. Everyone say, “Amen.” Amen to God. Amen.

He starts a process until he finds you.

Lesson two—let’s all read together: “There is no condemnation.” One more time: “There is no condemnation.” In verse 5, it says this: “And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.” It didn’t say, “When he finds it, he kicks it.” “When he finds it, I’m going to wring your little neck, man!” It says here, “When he finds it, what is God’s attitude of this great shepherd?” He joyfully—that means he’s happy. Even though you’ve been running, trying to escape, eventually, when he finds you, he’s happy. That is his first reaction. He doesn’t say, you know, he’s angry. He doesn’t say he’s angry. He doesn’t say he’s going to condemn you, all right? But he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. God is joyful and happy when he finds you. When he finds the lost, when people are lost and they turn back to him, he’s happy and he’s joyful.

It’s a call to all of us, right, who sometimes find ourselves in self-criticism. You know, I think especially in Asian cultures, right, there is this sense that the more you belittle yourself, wow, you’re humble. That’s not true, okay? This is where we also sometimes have to wake up. We are actually embarrassing what God did for us when we belittle ourselves too much. Yeah, fine, it’s important to know what our strengths and weaknesses are, but we don’t step on ourselves.

And we do that for many reasons, isn’t it? We do that because of society—we don’t match up. You know, some of our—the people over us, they tell us, “Oh, you don’t match up.” Inside, we then believe that, that we don’t match up, and you are trapped in your own cage, where you think, “Maybe I’m not good enough for God. I don’t think, you know, I don’t do my quiet time often enough,” and all that. That’s not what’s important to God right now. God wants to find you where you are.

The parable here is not only for the Pharisees—as we read it today in 2024, we take that same idea that if you have a critical heart, that means you are so self-critical of yourself. Stop that, because God is finding you out. He is taking every measure he can; he’s pulling out all the stops to go and look for you. Okay, if you watch that Liam Neeson one, “Taken,” he’s like that, if not more. He’s desperate to find you, so desperate until he gave his son. That was the process. He realized that for me to find these guys in their sin and to carry them back home, it was going to cost me my son, Jesus Christ. It’s amazing, isn’t it?

When he finds us, God is joyful. Please, iron that into your minds—when he finds you, God is joyful. Sometimes, when we do wrong, our fellow humans, when they find us, the first thing they do is condemn us, okay? Make us feel bad, all right? Remind us how lousy we are. That’s not God.

It says in Romans 8:1: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” No condemnation. That’s what we need. Amen.

God is there to find you, but we have our role. I’m going to talk a little bit about the role of the sheep now. God finds you—are you going to run? You know, what does it mean, God finds you? Does he, like, show up in front of you? In rare circumstances, in our circles, we believe that may be possible, right? Sometimes he speaks to us in a loud, audible voice—very rarely, but there have been occurrences. But most of the time, he works very quietly in our hearts. When we come to church, for example, there’s a little sense that, “Hey, this is for me.” We run by saying, “No, let’s forget it.” We run by saying, after we leave this church, we just go and do back what we want to do, even though we know God doesn’t want us to do that. We run by saying, “I’m not ready.” We run by saying, “I don’t think I can give everything.” We run in many ways, but God tells us today, you know? What is the role of the little sheep? When he comes and he finds us, don’t run. You may not be able to immediately come out of the sinful situation you’re in immediately, but start, at least. Don’t struggle.

When he starts making some moves in your life, he may engineer a certain situation which can be painful to bring you out of that situation you’re in. You can fight it—and that’s what the sheep does when it runs—or you can say, “Lord, you just…” “Okay, I’m going to just steady myself down. I’m going to take this situation and trust that you’ve got something better for me.” And he does. He’s putting you on his shoulder and going home. Could be anything in your life. God works, he talks, you’ve got to hear it. Let’s not “don’t want to be found,” okay? Let’s not run. He can’t force us and carry us home.

And this picture is a very gentle picture. He’s joyful, he sees us, he lifts us on his shoulders, and he goes home. The last thing you want to do is, you know, leg-kicking everywhere—“I’m not going home!”—and you run off.

Our last lesson before we come to an end here is this: we belong in his kingdom. His kingdom is for people who have all kinds of issues, who have issues, who want to repent and change but they still struggle. But the heart is there to want to turn back to him. He doesn’t say, “You must be totally perfect first, then you’re in my kingdom.” No. This lost sheep of mine, you turn, you want to change—I’ll be with you, let’s work together.

And in the last part, he says this: “Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ Now, we already know God is happy, right, when he goes out and he finds us in our sin, in our difficult situation, in the mistakes we’ve made. Often, our situation is because of our own selves now, okay, because of some mistake—don’t want to hear, you know, just do our own thing and end up, ‘Oops, stuck.’ He finds us in our death, in our destruction, in our destroyed life, and we know he’s happy from the verse before. But this is what he then goes on to add: he says, ‘Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, “Rejoice with me.”‘

Another party broke out. Another party. Why does he say this? It’s because, at the end of the day, we are in his kingdom. And who is in his kingdom? Are the Pharisees in his kingdom? He didn’t say anything about that. Maybe, maybe, okay? Are the scribes in his kingdom? He’s not so interested, but that’s not the point here. But he’s saying that those who are lost, when they want to turn back, come. They are part of our kingdom. They may not have met all the rules or followed all the laws, but they are part of our kingdom. That’s why he says, “Let’s call our friends and neighbors together in this community, and let’s rejoice together, because we have found this lost sheep.” Amen? Amen.

And then Jesus says this last part here—let me just end here. He says this: “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 persons who do not need to repent.”

Now, here’s what Jesus says: “I tell you, in the same way…” That means, after listening to this parable, and we all have read this parable already, right? Is he really talking about sheep? No, he’s talking about us. That’s why he’s saying, okay? If you think you want to go back and, you know, take care of your sheep a little bit more, okay, no, that’s not my—my key point is this: I’m talking about people who are lost, about the sinner who repents. 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 persons who do not need to repent.

His point here is this: for every heart which decides to turn back, every lost sheep which is sitting here and says, “Lord, today is the day I want to turn to you, okay? I want to try to stop and change a little bit and repent and turn from my way of living. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, but at least I want to start,” he’s the one for you, and you are called. And it is people like you which he is desperate to seek out, and he will continue to seek out until he finds you. Our role is to stop rejecting him, stop struggling, and say, “Okay, Lord, I’m not sure what the future is going to hold, but the first step is yes to you today.” And let’s turn back to him, because it’s this—it’s us who want to repent and turn who belong in his kingdom. Not how many ticks you can meet, not how religious you are, but it starts from your heart.

Amen, everyone? Amen.

Let’s have the closing song. I’m just going to—we’re going to sing this song as a response, right? And then after that, we’ll sit back down, okay? And I’m going to teach you something unique, all right? All right, so let’s stand, everyone.

[Music]

I want us to do two things today as we bring this time to a close, before teaching the evangelistic method.

First, I want you to think about your own life, and this is in the context of this song, “Above All.” And as we think of God’s love, his desperation to find us, and he will never stop finding us, think of your own life right now. Where are you? Have you been found by the Lord and just run? Or is today the day you’re going to just tell him, “Lord, I don’t want to run anymore. I don’t want to fight anymore. I want to just trust you with my life. Maybe today’s the day.” And that’s you—I won’t ask you to put out your hands or anything like that, you just talk to the Lord right now as the music plays.

The second is this: God calls us to rejoice with him when he finds a loved one, when he finds a sheep which is lost. That means when he reaches out and he finds somebody who is living in sin, whose life is being destroyed by sin, by their own sin, their own arrogance, their own way of thinking, and they’re struggling, and this person says, “Okay, I’ve had enough, Lord. I want to follow you.” He says, “Rejoice.” And that’s a call to all of us also, and directly that’s a call to us also to have that same mindset—that we too should be on the lookout for our friends and family members who need to turn back. We too follow the example of the great shepherd and say, “I’m going to look for them, I’m going to go out and search them, find them, and bring the Lord into their lives. I’m going to pray for them, and when the time is right, together with God’s help, we’re going to bring them back home.” Amen, everyone?

Two things: think of yourself and think of somebody out there who you just need to reach out to. God is so desperately wanting to love them. God is so desperately wanting to care for them, regardless of their religion, regardless of their faith or where they are right now or how low they are—God wants to reach them.