Tawa Baptist

He Guides Me

Scripture: Psalm 23:3b – with reference to Matthew 15:1-20

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake

 

Title: He Guides Me

 

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Psalm 23:3b
    • The Lord guides me
    • Righteousness is a path
    • For his name’s sake
  • Matthew 15:1-20 – Jesus guides the people
  • Conclusion

 

Introduction:

Over the past couple of months we have been journeying through the 23rd Psalm making reference, as we go, to the various ways in which this psalm points to Jesus, the good shepherd.

 

The message of Psalm 23 as a whole is: the Lord is my security.

  • God looks after me (personally) like a shepherd looks after a sheep.

 

So far we have covered the first two and half verses…

 

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…

 

‘Lying down’ is about God providing rest

  • ‘Green pastures’ is about nourishment
  • ‘Still waters’ is the peace God gives
  • And ‘he restores my soul’ has to do with rescue

 

  • When I am lost the Lord brings me back or rescues me
  • Rest, nourishment, peace and rescue – these are the ways in which God takes care of his people

 

Today we complete verse 3…

 

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake

 

This is primarily about the guidance or wisdom that the Lord offers

  • After bringing me back (or rescuing me) when I’m lost, the Lord then sets me on the right path, so I can carry on to find more green pastures

 

Psalm 23:3b

When we were young we used to play a game called Snakes & Ladders

  • With Snakes & Ladders you roll the dice and move your counter the number indicated on the dice
  • If you land at the foot of a ladder then you move up the ladder
  • But if you land on the head of a snake then you slide all the way down the snake and have to make your way back up the board again
  • Whoever gets to the end first, wins

 

Snakes & Ladders is entirely a game of chance – there is no skill involved and no choice – the dice determines your fate

 

Life is not exactly like Snakes & Ladders though

  • In life we can (to some extent) choose the path we will take
  • However we don’t always know where that path will lead us (at least not at first)
  • Sometimes what we think is a ladder turns out to be a snake & vice versa

 

 

The journey through life is more like travelling in a foreign country where you don’t know the language or the customs

  • You can try to do it on your own but that can be a bit hit & miss – you never really know if you’re landing on a snake or a ladder
  • If you’re smart you will find someone with local knowledge to guide you
  • With a trustworthy guide you can avoid the snakes and find the ladders

 

Returning to our key verse for this morning’s message – there are three main points to note in this phrase…

 

The Lord guides me:

Firstly, the Lord ‘guides’ me.

  • We are not guided by fate or the throw of the dice
  • We are guided by the Lord
  • The Lord is like the person with the local knowledge who shows us the way by walking with us through life

The Lord doesn’t force us or manipulate us or drive us – he guides us.

  • Guidance indicates a relationship of listening and trust
  • A relationship of freedom and respect

 

So we are not following a set of rigid instructions or a list of rules

  • We are following a person
  • The shepherd doesn’t give the sheep a map and a compass and then leave them to it – saying, “you’re on your own now mate”
  • The shepherd remains present with the sheep
  • He walks ahead of the sheep and the sheep follow the shepherd’s lead – his example

 

Righteousness is a path:

There is a new concrete pathway between Tawa and Porirua – running parallel to Kenepuru Drive

  • If you are starting from the Porirua end, heading south, then you come out at Findlay Street – by the Cricket Club
  • It is lovely to walk on and you have no doubt about where the path is
  • The way ahead is very clear

 

In the wild Middle East pathways are not so clear

  • There may be a number of faint trails in the wilderness but not all of them lead to a good destination
  • The shepherd knows which is the right path and consequently which other paths to avoid

 

I remember when I was 18, at the end of the 7th Form (Year 13), I wasn’t sure what to do next

  • In the end I decided to study business management at Waikato University
  • Most people in my family had a business background and so I followed the tradition of my ancestors
  • Unfortunately, at 18, I didn’t know myself very well
  • Truth be told I wasn’t really like anyone else in my family
  • I would have been better studying something like philosophy or sociology or something else in the field of humanities
  • The problem with those sorts of subjects is that they don’t have a clear career path – what would I do for a job at the end of the degree?

 

I thought that by doing business management I was landing on a ladder

  • Little did I realise that for me business management was a snake
  • Ironically the right path seemed wrong and the wrong path seemed right

 

Now I’m not saying that business management studies is bad – for some people it is the right path, it just wasn’t right for me

  • One man’s ladder is another man’s snake I suppose

 

In hindsight I didn’t really listen to God

  • In fact I don’t remember even asking for his guidance
  • For some reason I compartmentalised the different parts of my life
  • It didn’t occur to me as a young man and a new-ish Christian that I could ask God about career options
  • But even if I had asked for God’s input and he had answered, I’m not sure I would have had the faith at that age to step into a path which no one in my family had ever walked before

I battled my way through the degree with a B average but my heart wasn’t in it

  • Despite being on the wrong path God eventually brought me onto the right path
  • When I returned to Varsity some years later to study the Bible and theology I found my fit

 

Not that the business management stuff was wasted

  • As it turns out pastors these days spend a lot of time doing management type tasks
  • Perhaps there was some method in God letting me wander off on the wrong track

 

The second thing we note about our key phrase today is that David describes righteousness as a ‘path’

  • Think about that for a moment – righteousness is a pathway
  • For many of us righteousness is a destination – it equates to achieving some kind of moral or ethical standard
  • But in the Bible the destination is abundant life and righteousness is the path which leads to life
  • Furthermore the Bible teaches us that righteousness is by faith
  • So we walk the path of righteousness by faith – by trusting God

 

The right path is not always clear to us, is it

  • (Not like the pathway between Porirua and Tawa)
  • And so, because the right path is not always clear, it takes a certain degree of faith to walk in it

 

A path indicates movement, process, change and journey

  • The Lord’s guidance is not rigid or static – it is flexible and dynamic, appropriate to the terrain.
  • We don’t always know what’s around the corner and we may sometimes stumble or grow weary as we walk along the path
  • But we don’t trust in our own skill or strength – we trust the good shepherd who guides us

 

God is particularly interested in the inner pathways of our heart & mind

  • Where are our desires, our thinking and our feeling taking us

 

For his name’s sake:

The third point to note in this verse is that the Lord rescues us and guides us for his name’s sake

  • On a fairly superficial level “for his name’s sake” means for the sake of his reputation
  • But at a deeper level “for his name’s sake” means for the sake of his integrity

 

In other words, the Lord isn’t worried about what other people might think of him

  • The Lord rescues the lost and guides his sheep in the right path because he is a good shepherd and that is what a good shepherd does
  • The Lord could not live with himself if he did not take proper care of his sheep
  • By keeping his sheep safe & sound the Lord is being true to himself

 

For his name’s sake takes a lot of pressure off us

  • It means that God’s care of us does not depend on whether or not we are good enough
  • God’s care depends on his own integrity which is without question

 

Okay then – that’s the three main things David is saying in this phrase

  • The Lord guides me by his example
  • Righteousness is a path, and
  • God’s motivation for all of this is his own character – his own integrity

 

Matthew 15:1-20 – Jesus guides the people:

How then does this point to Jesus, the good shepherd?

  • Please turn with me to Matthew chapter 15 – page 22 near the back of your pew Bibles
  • There are many examples of Jesus guiding the people in the right path
  • I’ve chosen this one largely because it draws attention to the fact that the path of righteousness is not always as it appears to be
  • From Matthew 15, verse 1, we read…

 

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the Law came from Jerusalem to Jesus and asked him, 2 “Why is it that your disciples disobey the teaching handed down by our ancestors? They don’t wash their hands in the proper way before they eat!”

 

3 Jesus answered, “And why do you disobey God’s command and follow your own teaching? 4 For God said, ‘Respect your father and your mother,’ and ‘If you curse your father or your mother, you are to be put to death.’ 5 But you teach that if people have something they could use to help their father or mother, but say, ‘This belongs to God,’ 6 they do not need to honour their father. In this way you disregard God’s command, in order to follow your own teaching.

 

We are going to pause there – so don’t close your Bibles, leave them open, we will return to this reading shortly

 

Here we have two pathways

  • The path of righteousness according to human tradition, and
  • The path of righteousness according to the Lord

 

According to the Jewish tradition of that time righteousness was maintained by washing your hands frequently in a prescribed way

  • The thinking was that the world out there is contaminated
  • There are certain foods you can’t eat and certain people you can’t associate with and certain things you can’t touch
  • Because if you do you will become unclean and then God won’t accept your worship

 

To avoid the risk of contamination one must wash their hands in a particular way before eating – that was the tradition passed down by the ancestors

  • God did not require that – but tradition did

 

The original intention may have been good but over time what resulted was a very superficial form of righteousness

  • This pathway of righteousness, according to human tradition, didn’t lead to abundant life – it led in ever decreasing circles to a dead end

 

When the Pharisees (the guardians of human tradition) notice that Jesus’ disciples don’t wash their hands in the prescribed way they ask Jesus, why?

  • Presumably the disciples are following Jesus’ example
  • And Jesus doesn’t follow the path of human tradition

 

The Pharisees are on the wrong path and because Jesus is a good shepherd he wants to guide them onto the right path

  • But before he can do that Jesus has to show the Pharisees they are on the wrong track – so he asks them a question…
  • And why do you disobey God’s command and follow your own teaching?
  • Then Jesus gives the example of how the Pharisees say it’s okay not to provide for your elderly parents if you give the money to God

 

In those days there was no fortnightly superannuation payment from the government for those over 65

  • Your children were your superannuation scheme in the sense that you hoped your adult children would take care of you in your old age

 

The Pharisees were basically saying, give your money to God (or to the temple treasury, which we control) and you don’t have to take care of your parents

  • In order to make themselves rich the Pharisees made up a rule which effectively undermined God’s command to honour your father & mother
  • That was not the right path – that was not cool – and Jesus told them so

 

From verse 10 of Matthew 15 we continue…

 

10 Then Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand! 11 It is not what goes into a person’s mouth that makes him ritually unclean; rather, what comes out of it makes him unclean.”

 

12 Then the disciples came to him and said, “Do you know that the Pharisees had their feelings hurt by what you said?”

 

13 “Every plant which my Father in heaven did not plant will be pulled up,” answered Jesus. 14 “Don’t worry about them! They are blind leaders of the blind; and when one blind man leads another, both fall into a ditch.”

 

15 Peter spoke up, “Explain this saying to us.”

 

16 Jesus said to them, “You are still no more intelligent than the others. 17 Don’t you understand? Anything that goes into a person’s mouth goes into his stomach and then on out of his body. 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these are the things that make a person ritually unclean. 19 For from his heart come the evil ideas which lead him to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie, and slander others. 20 These are the things that make a person unclean. But to eat without washing your hands as they say you should—this doesn’t make a person unclean.”

 

May the Spirit of God illuminate this reading for us

 

There is a lot emphasis these days on keeping the environment clean

  • Now tell me, when it comes to a motor car – which is better for the environment?
  • Washing your car, so it’s nice and clean and sparkly on the outside
  • Or taking measures to improve the fuel efficiency – maybe getting a hybrid vehicle or an electric engine [Wait]
  • That’s right – taking measures to improve the fuel efficiency
  • Washing your car does nothing to help the environment – in fact the waste water may be bad for the environment
  • It’s what comes out of the car that really matters
  • It’s the engine (the inner workings) that is important

 

Returning to Matthew 15, Jesus could have dropped the subject after responding to the Pharisees, but he doesn’t

  • Jesus’ integrity won’t allow him to abandon the crowd to following the path of human tradition where that tradition is wrong
  • Jesus is the good shepherd so he gently (but clearly) guides the people in the right path saying…
  • “It is not what goes into your mouth that makes you ritually unclean; rather, what comes out of it makes you unclean.”

 

The disciples still don’t understand what Jesus means so he explains further…

 

“…from the heart come the evil ideas which lead you to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things… 20  These are the things that make a person unclean.” But to eat without washing your hands… this doesn’t make a person unclean.

 

To Jesus’ original audience this was a revolutionary idea

  • It was a radical reversal of what they had been led to believe was true

 

Jesus was effectively saying – the world out there is not bad, it is not contaminated

  • God’s creation is good – you can eat whatever you want

 

The problem isn’t out there with those who are different from you

  • The problem is in here – in the human heart – because that’s where evil comes from
  • You can wash your hands as much as you like but it’s not going to change what you think inside
  • You can polish your car till you can see your own reflection in it but that won’t change what comes out of the exhaust

 

Jesus is talking about inner pathways here

  • Where are your thoughts, feelings and desires leading you

 

Remember righteousness is a pathway – not a destination

  • When we look at the 10 commandments what we find is that they are talking about avoiding certain destinations
  • Do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not bear false witness, do not murder and so on
  • These are all destinations we should avoid
  • And the way to avoid those destinations is not to start on the path which leads to them

 

In Matthew 5, during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about paths of righteousness and paths of destruction

  • For example, he says (and I paraphrase a bit here) – don’t look at a woman lustfully, because that will put you on a path to adultery
  • And don’t stay angry with your brother and don’t call your sister insulting names, because that will put you on a path to committing murder
  • And don’t make an oath (don’t swear by heaven or earth), because that puts you on a path to bearing false witness
  • And don’t worry about money or food or clothes, because that puts you on a path to stealing

 

Instead you should love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you because that puts you on a path to God and to life

 

The problem isn’t out there – the problem is in here

  • It’s not what we eat that makes us unclean – it’s what we say and do that makes us unclean
  • And because what we say & do comes from inside us we need to take care with our inner pathways – our neural pathways
  • We need to make sure we are on the right track with our thinking
  • We need to be careful not to allow the desires of our heart to lead us in the wrong direction
  • We need to acknowledge what we feel without being led by what we feel
  • We need to let Jesus, the good shepherd, guide us from the inside out

 

Conclusion:

Many people these days think that it doesn’t matter too much which path you take in life – because all paths eventually lead to God anyway

  • I don’t believe that
  • That is not how life works in my experience
  • Some pathways lead to joy and peace
  • While other pathways lead to frustration and regret
  • They don’t all lead to God
  • But the good news is: God has sent his Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Christ) to show us when we are on the wrong path and guide us into the right path
  • What’s more God has a canny way of redeeming the time we spend on the wrong path

 

Let us pray…

 

Tawa Baptist

Rescue

Scripture: Psalm 23:3a   (He restores my soul)

 

Title: Rescue

 

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • He brings me back
  • Conclusion

 

Introduction:

This morning we continue our series on Psalm 23

  • The key message of Psalm 23 (as a whole) is, the Lord is my security
  • God looks after me like a shepherd looks after his sheep

 

The plan is to look at one aspect of the psalm each week

  • So far we have covered the first two verses…

 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside still waters

 

Today we start verse 3…

 

He restores my soul…

 

He brings me back:

On the wall here we have four pictures

  • Tell me, what do these four pictures have in common?
  • What is the one word tying them all together?
  • Wait for people to respond

 

That’s right – rescue

 

We often understand, He restores my soul, to mean something along the lines of

  • ‘I was tired or depressed and the Lord lifted me out of my sadness and gave me back my strength & joy’
  • However, this is not the primary meaning of verse 3

 

A more accurate translation of He restores my soul is He brings me back [1]

  • With this translation the sheep is lost and so the good shepherd goes after the lost sheep and brings it back
  • So, He restores my soul or (more accurately) He brings me back is primarily about rescue

 

When a sheep is lost it will hide under a bush or in the cleft of a rock and begin to quiver with fear and bleat so that someone will come to its rescue

  • In the wild middle east (where David was a shepherd) a lost bleating sheep was at risk
  • The shepherd had to find the sheep quickly before some wild animal heard it and killed it
  • Then, once the shepherd found the sheep, he would pick it up and carry it back – because it would be too traumatised to walk

 

So, he restores my soul really means, ‘I was lost and alone and scared but the Lord found me and carried me back

 

Henry Baker captures this idea in his hymn, The King of Love My Shepherd Is, where he says…

  • Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
  • But yet in love He sought me,
  • And on his shoulder gently laid,
  • And home rejoicing, brought me. [2]

 

Please turn with me to Luke chapter 15 – page 100 in your pew Bibles

  • This image of the good shepherd finding and bringing back the lost sheep reminds us of Jesus
  • From Luke chapter 15, verse 1 we read…

 

One day when many tax collectors and other outcasts came to listen to Jesus, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law started grumbling, “This man welcomes outcasts and even eats with them!”

 

So Jesus told them this parable…

 

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them – what does he do? He leaves the other 99 sheep in the pasture and goes looking for the one that got lost until he finds it. When he finds it, he is so happy that he puts it on his shoulders and carries it back home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says to them, ‘I am so happy I found my lost sheep. Let us celebrate.’

 

In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 respectable people who do not need to repent.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading for us

 

During the week, early Tuesday evening, I got a call from Robyn saying she had lost her keys at school

  • As a teacher Robyn has a lot of keys and losing them is quite stressful
  • It would be an expensive and time consuming exercise to try and replace them all
  • One of the keys has an electronic chip in it which means it costs about $120 to get a new one
  • We didn’t really want to buy new keys – we wanted to find the old ones

 

Without the keys Robyn was pretty much incapacitated

  • For starters she couldn’t get into her car to drive home
  • So she called me to ask if I’d come and help

 

By the time I arrived Robyn had been looking everywhere for these lost keys but had no joy in finding them

  • We decided to go home and start the search again tomorrow
  • You see there is a child in Robyn’s class who has been known to hide things in strange places
  • It could be this child had hidden the keys somewhere

 

So the next morning Robyn very gently approached this 5 year old and said…

  • “I’ve lost my keys. Do you think you could help me find them?”
  • And the 5 year old said, “Yea, I’m really good at finding keys”
  • Then they went straight to the place where they had hidden them and restored them to Robyn’s hand

 

I got a text from Robyn shortly after to say she had the keys

  • Needless to say I was overjoyed

 

I like the way Robyn approached the child

  • She didn’t go in with all guns blazing
  • She didn’t make any threats,
  • She invited the child to help her
  • She made it easy for the 5 year old to do the right thing

 

Earlier we heard a parable of Jesus, about a lost sheep and good shepherd who went searching for and rescued the lost sheep

  • This parable is the first of three which Jesus tells, not to his disciples, but to the Pharisees and teachers of the Law
  • Following this parable Jesus went on to tell two similar stories – one of a woman finding a lost coin and another of two lost sons
  • All three parables have the same message essentially – something is lost and then is found or restored
  • We are just going to look at the first parable of the lost sheep

 

As I was saying, Jesus tells this parable to the Pharisees and teachers of the Law

  • That is, the religious leaders – the shepherds of Israel at that time
  • These were the men who were in charge – the ones who were supposed to take care of the people, at least in a spiritual sense

 

Sadly the Pharisees and teachers of the Law weren’t behaving like shepherds

  • They were not looking after the people – in fact they made life more difficult for the people with their man-made rules and traditions
  • And when Jesus welcomed outcasts & sinners they grumbled against him

 

On this occasion Jesus responded with gentleness

  • He didn’t go in with all guns blazing
  • He didn’t make threats or accusations
  • Jesus told them a parable

 

The Pharisees and Scribes were experts in the Hebrew Bible – what we call the Old Testament

  • So they would have known the 23rd Psalm back to front
  • They would be well aware that the Lord God is like a shepherd who brings me back (or rescues me) when I’m lost
  • Jesus was starting where they were at, with a metaphor they were familiar with, from a source they accepted

 

The parable Jesus told was both explanation and invitation

  • Jesus was explaining to the religious leaders why he was welcoming outcasts – because the outcasts were like lost sheep and that is what a good shepherd does – he rescues the lost
  • At the same time Jesus was inviting the religious leaders to join him in the work of finding and bringing back the lost
  • Can you help me find my keys?
  • Can you help me find the lost sheep of Israel?

 

Jesus begins the parable by saying…

  • Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them

 

There are a number of things to note in this simple phrase…

  • Straight away Jesus is saying, ‘you Pharisees and teachers of the Law are the shepherds of Israel’
  • And by implication, as shepherds, you have a duty of care for the people

One thing which is lost in translation is that the shepherd owns the sheep in this parable

  • He has a hundred sheep – means the sheep belong to the shepherd [3]
  • It is a closer (more invested) relationship than merely being a hired hand looking after someone else’s sheep
  • Jesus is saying to the religious leaders, these outcasts that you are grumbling about, they are actually part of your flock
  • The loss of even one of them is a loss to you personally and it’s a significant loss, like losing a $120 electronic key
  • You don’t want to get a new one – you want to find the old one

 

Another thing worth noting: 100 sheep at that time and in that place was a large flock

  • By NZ standards it is a small-ish flock but to Jesus’ original audience it was big – you would need to be quite rich to own 100 sheep
  • But even though the flock is large and the shepherd is wealthy the value of the one lost sheep is not less
  • The rules of supply and demand don’t apply with God
  • Each sheep is valuable in its own unique way

 

If Robyn had 100 keys on her key ring (she doesn’t have that many but she does have quite a few) but if she had 100 and she lost one of those keys, she wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, I’ve got 99 more’

  • She would say, ‘I need to find that key because without it I can’t access the door which it opens’
  • You see, none of the other 99 keys will be able to do the exact same job that the one lost key can

 

Everyone is important to Jesus – everyone is valued by God – everyone has a particular purpose (a unique gift) which no one else offers

  • The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you”. And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you”. On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable… [4]

 

 

Jesus goes on…

  • …and suppose you lose one of them
  • Now this is quite a confronting thing to say
  • Normally in the Middle East, where there is a strong honour / shame culture, to preserve reputation, you would say something like…
  • ‘The sheep went astray’ [5] or, ‘the sheep got lost’
  • So it would be the sheep’s fault
  • You would never admit to losing the sheep yourself
  • And you certainly wouldn’t say, ‘You lost the sheep’
  • But that is what Jesus says here…
  • Suppose you lose one of your sheep

 

In a very gentle way Jesus is pointing out that the Pharisees and teachers of the Law have lost some of their sheep – the outcastes and tax collectors

  • As shepherds it is their responsibility to bring the lost sheep back

 

I say that Jesus is being gentle in his approach with the religious leaders because compared to the prophets of the Old Testament he is

  • In reprimanding the shepherds (or kings) of ancient Israel in Old Testament times Ezekiel writes…

 

The weak you have not strengthened

The sick you have not healed

The injured you have not bound up

The strayed you have not brought back

The lost you have not sought

And with force and harshness you have ruled them [6]

 

Ezekiel goes on to say that the Lord is against the shepherds of Israel and will put a stop to their tending of the sheep

 

As I said before Jesus’ parable to the Pharisees and teachers of the Law is both explanation and invitation

  • Jesus is inviting the religious leaders to join him in searching for and bringing back the lost sheep of Israel
  • He is making it easy for the religious leaders to do the right thing

 

Kenneth Bailey who I find so helpful in this study decodes what Jesus was saying to the scribes and Pharisees…

 

Gentlemen, you are not trapped by the past. We all know that the bad shepherds in the writings of the prophets who lost their sheep and failed to even try to bring them back were harshly punished for their failures. But you are not trapped into following that path. You are free. I have pioneered a way forward. When a shepherd loses his sheep he naturally goes after it until he finds it. He then carries it home and has a party. It is as simple as that. The lost that I am “bringing home” are sheep that you yourselves have lost. I know that you don’t like them and that you despise me for going after them. But when they are lost – you lose because they are part of your flock! When they are found, it is your gain!           …Can you join me in the great task of restoring the lost sheep of the house of Israel? …  [7]

 

Returning to Jesus’ parable we note how the shepherd leaves the 99 where they are in the wilderness to go looking for the one lost sheep

  • In reality a responsible shepherd in the Middle East would never leave his flock unattended in the wilderness
  • The original audience understood that the shepherd would leave an apprentice or another shepherd to protect the 99 sheep
  • So the 99 are not abandoned – they are cared for too

 

When it comes to searching for and bringing back (or rescuing) the lost sheep, it is the shepherd who does most of the work

  • The shepherd has to walk all over the place looking for the sheep, calling out to the frightened animal
  • And when he finds it the shepherd then carries the sheep home on his shoulders because the sheep is too distressed walk by itself

 

But although the shepherd does most of the work the sheep must still want to be found

  • Because the lost sheep will likely be hiding behind a rock or under a bush it must bleat and call out so the shepherd can hear where it is
  • If the sheep doesn’t make a noise, well, the shepherd is unlikely to be able to find it
  • Or if the sheep hears the shepherd calling and runs in the other direction then the shepherd can’t rescue the sheep

 

Perhaps the sheep’s bleating is equivalent to a human being praying – calling out to God for help

  • If we are lost we have to want to be rescued
  • It is a fact that we won’t call out to God until we realise our need for Him – until we become aware that we are lost

 

One of the key elements of this parable (and the two which follow) is the joy and celebration when the lost are found and restored

  • In verse 7 Jesus interprets his own parable saying…

 

In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 respectable people who do not need to repent.

 

The main point here seems to be: the Scribes & Pharisees shouldn’t grumble about Jesus welcoming sinners and outcasts – rather they should be happy that Jesus is restoring their flock

  • But it is curious, don’t you think, that Jesus talks about the respectable majority who don’t need to repent?
  • We know that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
  • So we all need to repent – right?

Yes – precisely

 

Jesus’ parable finishes with the lost sheep safely home and the 99 respectable sheep still out there in the wilderness

  • The Scribes & Pharisees were themselves lost, only they didn’t realise it
  • They didn’t think they needed to repent but clearly Jesus’ parable indicated they did

 

Heaven, aka the heart of God, does not rejoice in self-righteousness or blindness

  • God rejoices in the truth
  • He rejoices in those who know they are lost and accept being found
  • Jesus was telling the Pharisees and teachers of the Law in a gentle way that the very people they despised brought more joy to God than they did

 

Whether we are part of the respectable majority or whether we are outcasts – at some point we all need to be found and brought back to God

  • But before we can accept being found we must first realise we are lost and believe God wants to find us

 

Conclusion:

Jesus is the good shepherd who searches for and brings back the lost sheep

  • This speaks to me of a God who pursues us with His love

 

[1] Kenneth Bailey, The Good Shepherd, page 44

[2] Quoted in Kenneth Bailey’s book, The Good Shepherd, page 45.

[3] Refer, Kenneth Bailey, ‘The Good Shepherd’, page 121.

[4] 1 Corinthians 12:21-22

[5] Refer Kenneth Bailey, The Good Shepherd, page 123.

[6] Ezekiel 34:4

[7] Refer Kenneth Bailey, The Good Shepherd, page 125.