His Sheep

We'll look at Matthew chapter 18 this morning for a little while. Matthew 18. Verse 12. Our Lord Jesus asks his disciples, How think ye, if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep. and of the 99 which went not astray." So much rich gospel truth in this very, very simple illustration.

Let's remember that this particular conversation in Matthew 18 began with our Lord asking his disciples, while you were walking along, what were you discussing? As the Lord was walking with them at some distance, apparently they spoke where they thought he couldn't hear them because they didn't want to answer his question. And when he asked them, what were you talking about? Nobody wanted to answer the question because they knew it says they held their peace because what they were talking about was which one of them was going to be the greatest. And they knew that was wrong. That's why they didn't want to answer him.

And we also know that it's wrong to be prideful and to be self-promoting, but it doesn't stop us either from being that way. And so the Lord, just with a simple question, reminded them of the foolishness of that. And he's faithful to remind us. In Mark 9, 33 through 37, we read the story told by Mark in a little different way and with some more details. And the Lord, when He knew that they were talking about who would be the greatest, it doesn't say that He spoke any words to them at all at first. All he did was take a little child into his arms. And from our text in Matthew 18, we see some other things that he said to them, unless you become as this little child, he said, in the arms of the Lord Jesus, defenseless, dependent, perfectly safe, in the arms of the Son of God, perfectly safe. You know, when the Lord called the disciples to himself, he came to some fishermen and said, follow me. That's all we're told that he said, follow me. And they did. And they didn't ask him, well, this is how we make a living. How are we going to survive? How are we going to make a living? How are we going to get by? What are we going to eat? What are we going to wear?

No, they were like little children then, weren't they? They just knew by the power of his voice and him revealing himself to them in that sovereign character, they knew it would be fine. They knew it would be fine. But the flesh rises up at times, doesn't it?

They just trusted him then, but then they began to murmur and talk about things that were foolish, and our Lord reminds them, you're nothing but a child. We trusted him in the beginning, shall we depart now and begin to lean on the arm of the flesh now? Should we trust him? to be our Savior, the very life, the very spiritual life that we possess before God, our very righteousness in the sight of God, our sin offering, and then shall we think of mundane things like greatness and the things that this world strives after, fleshly things, and then That was in verse six, and then having mentioned offenses and offending his little ones, he says to his little ones, if anything or anyone does hinder you, if they put a stumbling block in your way with regard to entering the kingdom, cut them off, verses eight and nine. And then our Lord in verses 10 through 14 comforts and instructs them with regard to their status in the kingdom. Let's look at that for a minute.

Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones, he warns. And then, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. And look at how he comforts them in this next story with regard to their status in his kingdom. He instructs them by showing them that this is not a hierarchy like earthly kingdoms are. He said to them at another time, You see how the rulers of this world lorded over one another, and they rule over one another. And he said, it shall not be so with you. The greatest in the kingdom of God is he who serves, he who is lowly, he who is humble. And he teaches them that.

And then he emphasizes that with this parable or illustration, you're a sheep. You're just a sheep, like the little child, pretty much helpless, utterly dependent. You've got to become like this little child, and you're a sheep in the kingdom of God, is what you are. Not a ruler, there's no hierarchy, all of God's people or sheep, and you're not even a smart sheep.

You're not even a smart one. You're one that goes astray. You're one that would leave everything that you need. Your nature would be self-destructive apart from grace. You would absolutely deprive yourself of everything necessary and be quite happy doing it, if not for the Lord's grace. No sheep are smart, but even among sheep, you stand out as being unruly, foolish, and self-destructive.

You're the one out of the hundred that didn't stay in the fold. And as we've mentioned many times, people argue about the 99 and the one, and who does the 99 represent? The only question in any of that that matters is, which one are you? Which one are you?

First, a little child in the arms of the Savior, and you must become, as this little child did now, a straying, lost sheep. Are we starting to get the picture? He called that little child unto himself and took him up in his arms. And the sheep, the shepherd had to go after that sheep and find him and lay him on his shoulders and bring him home. Does this put some perspective on this discussion they were having about who's going to be the greatest and how it really is in God's kingdom? The shepherd goes after the sheep. He doesn't invite him back. He doesn't call for him. He doesn't shout some kind of safe word so that the sheep will understand and come back. He doesn't welcome him back.

Do you think it bothers religious people, and did it bother us when we were lost, who believe that salvation is by the so-called free will of man? Does it bother us as sinners without the Savior, that no picture of salvation in the Scripture has the sinner capable of doing anything to save himself?

The woman with the issue of blood, Every resource she had was spent and she got worse a leper a leper being eaten from the inside out and I recently heard brother Chapman Preaching on leprosy and he talked about the not in detail it's just the simple truth of the fact of what a horrible disease it is and if you if If you if you research it, he was saying how that it affects the whole body.

It starts out as just a little white spot somewhere on your arm or on your face. And then that's like us as little children. We're cute and adorable and all that. And the sin is not so apparent that as we get a little older and our sin nature, the poison of it tends to well, it doesn't tend to, it starts affecting every part of our body.

The scripture says our feet are swift to shed blood. We sin with both hands earnestly. The Lord hates our faces, a proud look. Everything about us, it begins to corrupt us. And it's from the inside out. The outward effects are the symptoms of the problem. The problem is on the inside.

And all of these different illustrations of salvation, it never has the sinner able to do anything about it for themselves, naming the leper. What's he going to do? He's going to have to come down, isn't he? And trust God and believe the truth of God, God's prophet, and abandon his own self-sufficiency. Did we wonder about that at all when we were lost? No. No, it doesn't matter. The truth of scripture is not gonna have any impact on us at all until it does. And when it does, it's when God shines the light in our heart so that we can understand. He opens the understanding that we might understand the scripture, Luke chapter 24.

Let's talk about why the shepherd goes after the sheep. Why does he go after the sheep? Well, it's because he knows that if he doesn't, that sheep is never coming back. He knows sheep. A shepherd knows a lot about sheep. A true shepherd now. This is not the hireling. This is the shepherd.

He's never coming back on his own. He's a goner. The Lord doesn't leave us to our free will. If he left it up to us, as religion loves to say over and over and over again, we're never coming back. We have no intelligence or nature or inclination at all to come back to God. We have no desire to.

The Lord said to the Pharisees, you will not come to me that you might have life. That doesn't mean that you just happen to not do it. That means you refuse to do it. You will not do it. It is distasteful to you to even consider that. Sheep are not smart enough to come back, for one thing. They're just not smart enough.

Our Lord could have used any animal to illustrate us. Any animal. A dog, we've seen amazing stories of dogs finding their way back home from being 20 miles away. Dropped off miles and miles away and finding their way home. But a sheep, if one tree gets between them and the foal, They're never looking back. They're never going to look back.

And the Lord calls us dogs with regard to our unworthiness. Mephibosheth said, I should just look upon such a dead dog as I am. But with regard to being lost and found, we're not lost dogs. We're lost sheep. Psalm 14, two, the Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside. They are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Isaiah 53, six, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. What's the solution to that? Well, the solution in our text is that the shepherd goes and finds us and brings us home. What's the spiritual equivalent of that? What does that represent?

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. The solution to all of us going astray and turning to our own way is Christ crucified. all we all we which one of those hundred sheep are we isaiah said the lord jesus died for that one he hath laid on him all we like sheep have gone astray If you're one of the Lords, if you're one of the one that the Lord laid your iniquity on his son, then you're the one out of the hundred. And so am I, if that's true of me. And you can argue about who the 99 are for the rest of your life, but you're wasting your time. The Lord says, my sheep are that one.

Every one of them went astray. that He laid our iniquity on His Son and brought us home. Luke 15, 7, 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. The joy is over the one, the one. The joy in heaven is because of the one.

And think about this, you know the parable where the Lord spoke of it, and in the parable of the sheep and the coin and the prodigal son, And he said, I went and I found my sheep and I laid it on my shoulders and I brought it home rejoicing. And he called all of his friends, didn't he? And said, come and rejoice with me because I found my sheep, which was lost. You ever thought about that?

In earthly terms, finding one sheep out of a hundred and bringing it home is not party material. Unless you love that sheep. Unless you loved it, if it's just livestock, we're not throwing a party. But if you loved it. If you love that sheep like a son. And everybody that you know, all your friends know you do, they're going to come rejoice with you. They're going to rejoice with you.

Isaiah said, all everyone whose iniquities were laid on him, all of them were the one sheep that went astray. And sheep, not only are they just dumb, but they're helpless and defenseless. He goes after the sheep because they are prey to every predator. He loves that sheep and he can't let it go. We're dumb and we're weak. The sheep can't feed themselves.

David said, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures. You know why the shepherd does that? Because we'll wander off up into the mountains. Did you notice the word mountains where we read a minute ago? That's not the place for a sheep. Goats are at home in mountains. They love mountains, but not sheep.

They need fields, grass. He maketh us to lie down in green pastures. If he doesn't do that, I will starve to death. I'll wander into some rocky place or deep forest where nothing grows that I can eat and I'll starve to death. We wandered in the wilderness. It's all through the scriptures. Why did he come after us? Thirdly, because we're his sheep and he loves us. We talked about that. Here's what we're to understand in our Lord's teaching here.

When he says, what think ye? What think ye? Look what he said right before he said, what think ye? How think ye, verse 12. Right before that, he said, the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. Now, what do you think? If God's Son came down here to redeem a bunch of fools, a bunch of sinners, a bunch of worms, he's talking about how jealous he is over us, how secure we are under his protection right before this. And then he tells this parable to illustrate it so simply and so beautifully.

And we're forced to understand here what we mean to him. They were thinking about themselves. Who's going to be the greatest? You thinking about yourself and promoting yourself and doing what's in your self-interest is not going to help you. It's what he thinks of you that's going to take you to glory.

The shepherd goes out after the sheep and finds him, and he always does. He doesn't look in vain. He didn't shed his precious blood in vain. He didn't do something in the fold while the sheep is out there that would attract the sheep, because we're unattractable. We're not that smart. We don't know anything.

He goes and finds us where we are, the parable of the Good Samaritan. What happened there? My favorite words in that parable is, he came where he was. He came right where he was. If not, that man bleeds out and dies right there on the spot. He came right where he was. poured in the oil of his grace and the wine of his precious blood and lifted us up and by his power took us to a safe haven and paid our way and said if he ever owes anything, it's on me. What was our part in that? Just simply that he did all of it for us. He did it all for us. We know what it's talking about when it says he went and found his sheep and brought it home.

Listen to 1 Peter 3.18.

Christ hath also suffered, hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us. That laying us on his shoulders and bringing us home. is the illustrative equivalent of the spiritual truth that he suffered once for our sins, the just. He suffered the just. He suffered for my sin. He suffered for the unjust, but he suffered the just, that he might bring me home to God.

Isn't it simple and beautiful? John 10, 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. That's how we get home. Hebrews 13, 20, how does he bring us home? Turn over there with me, let's close with this. If I cut into Moose's time, he's gonna be mad at me. Hebrews 13, 20. Here's the picture now.

The illustration our Lord gives is a shepherd, one that knows sheep and knows that sheep is never coming home on its own. Otherwise, why would he go to the trouble of going out into the wilderness? It's dangerous for him too. Why would he go without the camp if there's a chance that we're coming home ourselves? The Lord's given us all a chance. No, he hadn't, he went and got us. A defenseless sheep.

Hebrews 13, 20, now the God of peace that brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever amen how does the how does this story of the lost sheep have a happy ending through the blood of the everlasting covenant, the precious blood of our Savior. Now we're safe. Now we're under the blood, safe in the shepherd's fold, under the blood of Jesus, safe while the ages roll, safe though the worlds may crumble, Safe though the stars grow dim, under the blood of our Savior, the blood of the everlasting covenant, I'm secure in Him.

His Sheep

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His Sheep

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