40 Days of Witness
LEAVE THE NINETY-NINE (lost sheep)
Luke 15:1-7
Great Commission Church
Intro: It was a genius moment of spiritual insight. As the shepherd went about his daily duties of tending sheep, he reflected on his relationship with God. Suddenly, he realized there was a vital connection. The loving care he gave his flock of sheep was like the loving care he received from his God. So, David began his most famous psalm: “The LORD is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1). From there, David began to list some of the things his shepherd did for him: laying him down in green pastures, leading him beside still waters, restoring his soul, walking with him through death’s valley, anointing his head with soothing oil, and filling his cup with overflowing joy. The shepherd from David’s psalm became part of Israel’s working definition of God. When the people needed help, they looked to their shepherd for salvation. Here’s how they prayed in times of trouble: “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock…Restore us, O God…and we shall be saved!” (Ps 80:1, 3). This is a monumental truth – that God is a good shepherd. The prophets developed it further. Isaiah emphasized God’s kindness and care towards His littlest sheep: “He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom” (Isaiah 40:11). But some of the prophets detected a problem. God had entrusted the work of His shepherding care to the spiritual leaders of His people. But they were not always good shepherds. Jeremiah even accused them of scattering God’s flock (Jer 23:2). Ezekiel condemned these bad shepherds even more severely: “The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost…My flock was scattered over the whole face of the earth, and no one was seeking or searching for them” (Ezekiel 34:4, 6). According to the prophets, God’s sheep were lost. But the prophets also saw the solution to this problem: the Good Shepherd Himself would come to seek and to save His people. So Ezekiel gave this message from the LORD: “Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered” (Ezek 34:11-12).
What the Scripture said about shepherds was well-known to anyone who knew the OT.
It certainly would have been familiar to the religious leaders of Israel at the time of Jesus. These men claimed the LORD was their shepherd.
They considered themselves to be spiritual experts in Israel, yet they failed to understand the most important truth ever.
Jesus was the answer to God’s promise that He would come and save His own people. They not only missed the most critical truth, but they also failed to see themselves as part of the problem.
Rather than searching for the lost sheep of Israel, the scribes and Pharisees misled them. They were also deeply offended when they saw Jesus associating with people who were not even religious at all.
This was typical of the Lord Jesus: He always seemed to attract religious outsiders and social misfits.
Luke 15:1 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him.
Luke 15:2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.”
We must not let the modern chapter division make us miss an important point.
Jesus has just made an uncompromising demand. Following Him meant hating your own life and bearing your own cross (14:26-27). He finished with “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (14:35).
Luke’s very next words tell us that these sinners came near to hear Him. Whatever the case was with the Pharisees, these sinners had been challenged. They knew what discipleship meant. They were called on to hear. And they heard.
The word “sinners” was a catch-all for people who had notorious reputations for bad behavior – thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, and anyone else who refused to conform to the holy habits of the religious community.
Tax collectors and sinners almost never went to worship and did not seem to have much interest in following God.
Members of the religious establishment stayed as far away from such people as they could, believing that any contact would contaminate them.
A prayer of the Pharisees from the first century gives classical expression to this rule: “I thank you Lord, my God, that you have set my portion with those who sit in the sanctuary, and not with those who sit on street corners. I rise early and they rise early: I rise to attend to the word of Torah, and they to attend to futile things.”
As far as the scribes and Pharisees were concerned, sinners and tax collectors were outside of Israel, outside of the faith, and outside of God.
People in the church sometimes have the same attitude – despising people who do not meet our standards for decent living.
Pharisees: “Why do you associate with these kinds of people? Do you not know their reputation? They will ruin you. Get away from them. You are becoming unclean.”
But for Jesus, their wretched, stained conditions were exactly the point! These outcasts were the lost sheep of Israel – the very ones that Israel’s shepherds were supposed to rescue, and the very ones Jesus Himself had come to save.
Therefore, tax collectors and sinners were just the kind of people that Jesus should be eating with!
Luke 15:3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying:
Luke 15:4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?
Luke 15:5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
Luke 15:6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’
Jesus’ parables, though hypothetical, tell stories that happen to ordinary people. The only prerequisite needed to understand his parables is life experience.
To the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus tells such a parable. After the first line, they were likely thinking something like this:
“Why would you tell a story…put me in the story…and then give me a job I despise and would never do?”
Jesus begins His parable by shocking the sensitivities of the targets of the story. A man who believed shepherds were unclean would naturally be offended if addressed as one.
Included in the parable:
• Emergency
• Search
• Celebration
• Application
EMERGENCY
“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them”
“having a hundred sheep” – anyone wealthy enough to own a hundred sheep will hire a shepherd, or let some less prosperous member of the extended family take care of them.
The average family might have 5 to 15 animals. Several families get together and hire a shepherd.
Therefore, the shepherd is not a “hired hand.” The extended family owns the sheep, and he is a member of the family. He naturally feels responsible before the entire family clan; any loss in the flock is felt by all of them.
“if he loses one of them”
Who lost the sheep? The man. The words Jesus uses clearly assume that the shepherd has been negligent in his duty.
“does [he] not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness”
The shepherd counted the flock while they were still in a remote place. After discovering that one was missing, he left the 99 sheep in the wilderness. We must observe for the time being that the shepherd did leave the 99 sheep hanging in limbo.
There’s no way around it yet in the text. The Lord Jesus wanted his hearers to feel this tension. It’s a desperate moment.
SEARCH
“does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?”
What kind of search does he make? He has a singular focus. There is only one option for him. This is no token search where he can tell his conscience and his family that he did his best. He wants his sheep, so he looks till he finds it.
When you are lost, no thought is dearer than home; when you are searching, no thought more pleasing than finding.
“And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.”
A lost sheep will lie down helplessly and refuse to budge. It is frightened and disoriented. The shepherd is forced to carry the animal over a long distance and over difficult terrain.
Surprisingly, this shepherd in the parable is happy to exert all the effort necessary to get this lost sheep safely home. He rejoices in the burden set before him to restore a single sheep. The hard work ahead does not phase his attitude.
Ezekiel 18:23 Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord GOD, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?
There is joy in the burden of restoring a sheep that is lost.
In this parable Jesus is defending His welcoming of unworthy outcasts. This welcoming involves restoring them to a community.
The wandering sheep must be brought back to the fold now gathered in the village. For any shepherd, this comes with a price.
It is dangerous to search for the lost sheep, and it is difficult to carry it home.
The parallel to Jesus is His journey to the cross. In the same way that Jesus had to carry the cross beam on His shoulders, the shepherd must carry on his shoulders the burden of the lost sheep – a detail that is specifically mentioned.
Without the shouldering of this burden there can be no restoration.
Any believer who is willing to obey Jesus must understand that recovering a lost sheep was never meant to be easy.
In the parable, the shepherd accepts this task with joy!
CELEBRATION
“And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’”
This word “home” tells us what kind of shepherd is in view.
There were two types in ancient Israel: (a) beduoin shepherds – roaming tribesmen who kept their sheep in the open at night (b) peasant shepherds – lived on the edge of pasture lands brought the sheep back to the courtyard of the family home each night.
One middle eastern shepherd wrote, “I have never seen in Israel a flock attended by a single person. Two, and even three, shepherds are commonly employed. When one sheep is lost and the shepherd goes to seek it, the other shepherd takes the flock home.”
“calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, ‘rejoice with me’”
Once he returned home with the lost sheep, the village would be relieved. It would be a matter of substantial thanksgiving.
The shepherd rejoices, but he does not celebrate alone. The shepherd rejoices in “community.” He shares his joy in solidarity with those who are also connected to the sheep. The lost sheep was a village loss.
Likewise, the sinner is lost from the community. It is natural to expect collective joy at his recovery and repentance – not “complaining” as the scribes and Pharisees exhibit in v.2.
To participate on earth in the rejoicing that comes from seeing sinners repent is to duplicate the joy of heaven.
APPLICATION
Luke 15:7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.
Edersheim quotes a Jewish saying, ‘There is joy before God when those who provoke Him perish from the world’. But Jesus has a very different concept of God. He rejoices over the returning penitent more than over many safely in the fold.
“than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.”
Jesus is not saying that some do not need repentance, only that some do not know they need repentance.
The essence of the story is: As the shepherd’s friends rejoice when he finds what was lost, so do God’s friends rejoice when He recovers what was lost to Him. Therefore, Jesus’ accusers who resent His fellowship with sinners, may not really be God’s friends.
Jesus is saying by parable: “The shepherd sought the lost. I seek the lost. So should you!”
Conclusion: Our goal this summer – GO AFTER THE ONE…so there will be…MORE JOY IN HEAVEN!
