Lost Sheep
What matters most to God?
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought much about that question… but I think it’s an important question for us to lean into. Because if there’s something that matters deeply to the heart of God not only do I want to KNOW about it, I want to CARE about it, too!
So what matters most to our Heavenly Father?
Stories
One of my favorite parts of being a father is telling stories to my kids. I can’t remember when this started, but when my girls were really little, I started telling them Princess Penelope stories.
You may be wondering, who is Princess Penelope? That’s a great question. And the only way you would really know about her is if you lived in our house. We made her up. And you can ask my girls, every Princess Penelope story starts the same way…
Once upon a time in a land far, far away, so far you could never ever even go there, there lived a beautiful princess in a beautiful palace in a beautiful kingdom. And everything was absolutely wonderful until one day…
At that point, something always goes horribly wrong! There’s a misunderstood dragon stomping through the village who’s looking for food, or a giant bear who scares all the children but really just needs a friend. Every time Princess Penelope has to figure out how to solve the problem in her kingdom and every time, the solution is something we can all learn from about how to handle difficult situations.
Now, I’m not that great of a story teller, but these little stories are just a fun way at bedtime to talk to my girls about some of those things that really matter.
We’ve probably all told a story or two. Stories have this incredible way of communicating on a different level.
The Master Story Teller
If you’ve ever told a story like that then you have something in common with Jesus.
Jesus was a master story teller. He told stories over and over again to help people understand what God is like and what the Kingdom of God is like.
What’s most interesting and most important about these stories is that they reveal over and over again what matters most to God.
In Luke 15, Luke gives us three stories back to back to back that all have a similar meaning. Whenever you find something repeated in scripture you know it’s incredibly important. So what Luke is going to reveal over these next three stories that Jesus taught is that the subject of these stories reveals something that Jesus cared very much about. But I want us to start by looking at this first story with laser focus.
Lost Sheep
Here’s the story…
1 Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!
3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!
You and I don’t live in a culture where we see a lot of shepherds and sheep. But Jesus did. The people Jesus was teaching knew something about shepherds and something about sheep.
So when Jesus asks the question… If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? They all already know the answer to that question.
When it comes to sheep, they know the value of a lost sheep. They know that the shepherd of that sheep knows how many sheep are under his care, counts his sheep every night before calling it a night to make sure they are all present and accounted for, they know that the shepherd looks after that sheep every day to make sure they have food to eat, water to drink, and if they need any attention, if one is hurt in any way, needs anything at all… that shepherd will take care of and provide for that sheep.
AND… If it wanders away and become’s LOST… Jesus asks a question that really isn’t a question.
Losing Something of Great Value
It’s like if I asked you… What would you do if you lost something of value?
The other day because of the ice and snow we left our back gate open so if the power went out and we had to get a car out for any reason, we could do that. Then we let our dog out in the back yard. And that was fine until a rabbit shot across our back yard. Of course our dog went after it.
If our dog had ran out of our backyard after that rabbit what do you think I would have done? What do you you think my kids would have done? We would have ALL been out in the snow walking the neighborhood to find our dog! And… I love our dog but she’s just a dog!
So when Jesus asks, If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost… Jesus asks a question that really isn’t a question. Of course the man is going to go look for the lost sheep! Until that lost sheep is found, his flock is INCOMPLETE.
So why did Jesus tell this story? And what does this story reveal about what matters most to God?
The Stories We Tell
It might be helpful to first answer this question… What kind of stories do you tell?
My guess is you probably don’t think too much about the kinds of stories you tell… but more than likely the stories you tell most often reveal something about what matters most to you.
If you constantly tell stories about your kids, it reveals the fact that your kids matter a lot to you.
If you tell stories about your church, it reveals the fact that your church matters a lot to you.
If you tell stories about your job, your company, your side hustle, it reveals the fact that your work matters a lot to you.
If you tell stories about certain issues you care about, it reveals the fact that those issues matter a lot to you.
If you tell stories about a sport or a hobby you like, it reveals that those things matter to you.
The same thing is true with Jesus! His STORIES reveal his HEART. Just like your stories reveal your heart.
What Matters Most to God?
If you want to know what matters most to God, just look at the stories of Jesus. And what you’ll find over and over again is that what matters most to God is people.
Especially people who for whatever reason are far from God.
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