We're in Luke chapter 15, and I want to read from verse 1 through to verse 7. Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him, that is, to the Lord. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.

And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this reading from his word.

Now, if you have any familiarity with the Gospels and the Gospel of Luke and this chapter 15, you will know that it is a chapter which concerns three parables, the parables of lost things. And there's the parable of the lost sheep, there's the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the lost son. We are thinking today about the parable of the lost sheep, the first one in this chapter 15. And I think that probably these three parables were all given on the same Sabbath day following the meal at the Pharisee's house, which, if correct, and it appears to be, makes this a very full day indeed for the Lord.

As he begins to set out these three parables, he has already been to the synagogue for worship, he has healed a sick man, the man sick of the palsy, he has supplied, well, I counted six other parables in the previous chapter, and taught about the cost of discipleship.

So the Lord did not waste much time. And the contents of this chapter appear to be addressed principally to the scribes and Pharisees as before when he had been speaking with the parables to do with the tables and the wedding feast in the previous chapter.

But this time it is done in the hearing of the publicans and sinners. The circumstances are altered, however, are as these lessons are given to convey the importance that the Lord placed in seeking out his own dear people whom he loved, many of whom were to be found amongst the poorer classes, the outcasts, the common people, the publicans and sinners. And we may deduce that the meal the previous chapter being over and the Lord departing out of the house, many of these common folk who heard him gladly, happily crowded around him.

They had been denied access to the Pharisee's house and therefore these poorer folk from the community and perhaps those who were of ill repute amongst them particularly, took this opportunity to hear Christ speak and perhaps to bring their sick and needy to him. And as might be expected, the Lord welcomed them. He welcomed them all.

It was at times like this and on occasions like this, rather than in the company of the Pharisees, that the Lord found and engaged with those precious little ones, God's elect people, the flock of God, whom he had come to seek and to save. And the scribes and Pharisees were offended that the Lord should receive such people. By their calculation, it was inappropriate to be seen connecting with such reprehensible people. And yet here, despite themselves, these foolish Pharisees preached a fine gospel message to their own age and to the world hereafter.

Let their words be chiselled in stone and mounted in gold. They said, this man receiveth sinners. And never was a truer word spoken, never were truer words found upon the Pharisees' lips. This is a message that has been of great encouragement to poor sinners down through the ages. Jesus practised it, Jesus received sinners. And the Pharisees despised him for it, but they couldn't deny it. And what they regarded as an affront to Jesus' character, guilty sinners delighted to hear and know. Jesus receiveth sinners.

And of course, the problem was the self-righteousness of these Pharisees. These men were too good for these publicans and sinners. And they felt that Jesus ought to have been above mixing and consorting with their sort. And yet what history has proved is that it is from amongst the ranks of those who know themselves unrighteous that the Lord is pleased to gather his flock.

And these men could not help but testify to the truth. Let us just apply that personally in a single statement. Do not ever imagine that a particular sin, or indeed even a sinful course of life, prohibits access to the Saviour. On the contrary, Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

And Christ did indeed, as these Pharisees alleged, eat with the publicans and sinners. He ate with them, for example, in the house of Matthew the tax collector. But again, there's a spiritual application for us all. It is those who hunger and thirst after righteousness who are satisfied with Christ. Christ welcomes sinners to his banqueting house. His is a table, fitly spread for our needs.

And as we considered in the previous chapter, in the previous studies, he calls his people from the highways and byways when those who were first invited turned away and went about their business. He calls them from the ends of the earth and he says to them, come and dine. And in the gospel, he supplies milk for babes and bread, the bread of life and sweet wine and strong meat for all who are mature. And he sets forth a great salvation and he bids us come to the feast. And it is a wonderful invitation to hear and to receive to those who are hungry for Christ.

And then the Lord spoke this famous parable. It was given, this parable of the lost sheep, it was given for the confusion of the scribes and the Pharisees and for the encouragement of the publicans and sinners. and it also served to vindicate the Lord's work amongst these needy people. It is so appropriate that the Lord always draws upon the ordinary and relatable in order to convey his precious teaching. When we think of the Lord's parables, they were so frequently used by employing or delivered by employing the commonplace things that people would be aware of in their lives every day. And what could be more commonplace for these people than the picture of a hundred sheep in the wilderness being cared for by a shepherd? And note too that this was not a hireling.

These sheep are in the care of their owner. Consequently, he is more concerned than anyone if some should go astray. And the sheep are prone to wander and to get into danger. I used to live in a moorland area where sheep rearing was the main form of farming. And there were two types of sheep, those that were bought and brought into the area to be fattened up and made ready for market, and those that were born and reared in the local area. Those ones were called heath sheep.

They didn't wander away. They stayed more or less where they were born and reared, and they could be left out on the side of the moor to feed and be rounded up at the end of the season for wool or for whatever, while the others had to be enclosed, and even then they were through the hedges and under the fences and over the walls as soon as the farmer's back was turned. They would knock down walls just to get free and they would happily walk along the side of the road oblivious to the hazards that they faced. And that's like us.

There's a foolishness in the Lord's sheep still. We are prone to wander and tempted to stray into dangerous places, oblivious of the trouble that we are in until we find ourselves separated from the flock, out of the sight and sound of the shepherd and exposed to spiritual trouble. A good shepherd leads his flock beside still waters and green pastures. and yet foolish sheep stray into the wilderness and become prey for enemies and foes. The hymn writer Robert Robinson wrote, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. And I feel that we all can emphasise with that sentiment a little at least.

The Lord's lesson was of a lost sheep, yet it was a sheep that was precious to its owner. So precious, in fact, that the shepherd will leave 99 unattended to go and rescue, search and recover that which was precious to him, that which was lost. Now, as with many of the Lord's parables, it is a principle lesson that is being emphasised and conveyed. It is not always necessary. In fact, it is sometimes inappropriate to try to find an application for every aspect of the parable and every character involved. Here the principal lesson is the shepherd searching for the lost sheep. That's what's key. The identity of the 99 is less important.

Every one of the Lord's people are lost sheep at some point in their experience. So too, we all wander, even after we have been found and converted to Christ. but there is no sense in which the Lord's flock are left by Christ in the wilderness of this world. He is always watching over his own as he has done from eternity, always securing our blessedness as he did on the cross. If anything, the ninety and nine might be likened to the Jewish religious order that thought God was theirs alone. And now in the coming of the Messiah, whom the Jews acknowledged to be a shepherd of his people, they discover that he seeks out the unrighteous to make them righteous by his death, while leaving others in their self-righteous ignorance in the wilderness of this world.

When the Lord Jesus finds a lost sheep the elect child of God, lost and alone, helpless and hopeless, miserable and spiritually dead. He picks that sheep up. He cradles it in his arms. He places it upon his shoulder and he carries that sheep home. However, here's another point that I think is worth making.

Finding his sheep does not mean that the Lord goes out looking for us as though he does not know where we are and must search all around. This isn't the picture of the preacher going preaching and looking in his congregation to see if there's any of the Lord's elect. God and our Saviour knows where every elect soul is at all times. Whether we're saved or unsaved, we don't know who Christ's sheep are, but he knows and he has known from eternity.

So finding his sheep rather signifies Christ's redeeming work of atonement when the Saviour left heaven, came to this world as a man, humbled himself unto death, and purchased that which was eternally his own from the just condemnation of the law by the shedding of his blood, paying the price of our salvation and our recovery. And it's in that sense that Christ searched for us on the cross, and he found us.

He saw the travail of his soul. He saw that he had successfully redeemed his lost sheep and he was satisfied. He rejoiced. And in this sense, I think, in a very real sense, the Lord lays us on his shoulders. He laid us on his shoulders when he bore our sins and carried our sorrow. And he lays us on his shoulders when he brings us to glory. There's something very lovely in this picture, I think.

Believers are not left alone in this world to make our own way on our own two feet. That's what people say, oh he's got to make it on his own two feet. Well, not in Christ's family you don't. We are carried. We are cared for. And this shows that salvation and spiritual matters of growth and the provision for our needs are all of Christ. There's nothing in the flesh that contributes to our salvation or to our eternal entrance into glory. Nothing of man in the work of getting to heaven, just as there was nothing of the sheep in getting home.

Christ carries us all the way and he does so rejoicing. It's not the sheep that's rejoicing, it's Christ. Christ is as happy to save his people as his people are to be saved by him. More, more happy because he truly understands what it costs and he understands what we've been saved from, which we don't.

So laying us on his shoulders includes carrying us home. And it includes giving us life. It includes quickening us. It includes giving us a knowledge of the truth. It includes granting us the gift of repentance. It includes prizing us from Satan's grip. It includes cleansing our conscience and robing us with a sense of his righteousness and justification.

All of these things are included in being laid upon Christ's shoulders. And finally, we are told that upon arriving home, the shepherd calls his friends to rejoice with him. We may think of home as being the body of the church where we are united to Christ and located as part of his glorious body. Or maybe we think about it as heaven in his father's house. Christ brings us into his fold. And there's a message there for the perseverance of the saints, a message in support of once saved, always saved.

Having been chosen, having been redeemed, having been found, carried hence by the Lord, how can a sheep lose its safe entrance into the great shepherd's house? There could be no rejoicing if a lost sheep were found and then lost again. The notion is preposterous. Dare I say, what could be the cause of a sheep being thus lost? Did the shepherd stumble and fall? Did he drop the sheep on his way home? Did he become too tired and go to sleep and the sheep wandered off again? Nonsense, never.

We're going to think about the friends and neighbours that Christ spoke to, or the shepherd spoke to when he returned home. And spiritually speaking, these are the saints of God in the Church of Christ. These are the angels that rejoice in the entrance of a believer into glory. but we'll speak about them another day because each are going to be mentioned again in the successive parables and we will pick up on those on another occasion. Thank you once again. Amen. Amen. Amen. There we are.

Good. Right. We've lost you, Barry. We've lost your picture. Okay, well, we'll have a wee time of prayer. You can pray in the dark if you like. That'll be all right. We'll still listen to what you're saying. And maybe when we flick on to the other rooms, you'll bounce back. Or else you could go out and come back in again, Barry, if you want, but your choice. Well, I actually went out and had to come back in again, and I didn't come back in. The symbol came back in. Okay, well, play around with it. You might get something.

Right, let's have a wee word of prayer. We've got plenty to pray about in this little group. Right, we've got a great big pile of prayer needs, so we won't speak any more about it. As the Lord lays on your heart one and another, then you bring them to the throne of grace. Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this time of fellowship together. We thank Thee for the Word of God amongst us. We thank Thee for the care that we have and the love that we have for our brothers and sisters who are in need.

And we pray that if our prayers are audible, that they will be heard. at thy throne. If our prayers are inaudible, silent in our heart, that they too will be heard at thy throne. And we ask that thou wilt answer the needs of our brothers and sisters according to thy goodness and faithfulness. For Jesus' sake. Amen.