If you turn with me to Luke chapter 15, Luke chapter 15. Luke chapter 15 is familiar ground for us. I've preached on this a number of times, including here, and this is certainly stories and accounts that we've heard in the past, probably likely in Sunday school and other similar things, but I felt like we should look at it again today. Luke chapter 15, I'll start with verse 1 and read through verse 7. Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 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 that which is lost until he finds it? And when he hath found it, he lays on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. And I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over the ninety and nine just persons which needed no repentance." We'll end there for today. You can continue on if you want to this afternoon and look there's two additional parables that have a very similar concept to them in this same chapter. But I want to talk about the lost sheep. the 99 who remained behind. Just for a little bit of context we see here that the publicans and sinners those who were technically Jewish but maybe not practicing Jews at the time and those who were outright sinners and all manner of peoples what this is describing were gathering in unto Jesus Christ and even eating with Him. And the good, quote-unquote, religious people at the time thought this was horrible. How could we have this man who clearly is doing God's work, clearly performing miracles, clearly somebody we're curious about, clearly seems to have some authority and some teaching authority, how could he possibly entertain people who are sinful? How could He possibly allow people around Him who were sinful? In fact, we even know that during that time period, the tradition was that if you were unclean, if you were engaged in some type of active sin or had some illness and you touched a rabbi or a teacher, which is what Christ was considered, that would make Him unclean and unholy and you were not allowed to do that. And here was Jesus Christ mingling with us, talking with those who needed to hear what he had to say, teaching them, preaching to them, giving them parables. And it really upset all the people who knew how you were supposed to behave and act according to their customs. And that's what we see in the previous few chapters and then on into this one. And so they all came close to hear what he had to say. And he taught them. It says they murmured to themselves, they talked amongst themselves, and they gave him a hard time. But he didn't care. He didn't care because he did what his father told him to, and the people who need a doctor are the sick. It says that in another place. So He gives them this parable and He explains to them. And as we need to understand, Christ is giving a parable and a parable has a wonderful ability to not only give us a hidden meaning, but to meet us where we're at. And so this parable was told to all of those who were there, both the sinners who needed to be saved and both those who were righteous and again, quote unquote, the good people, the teachers who needed to hear and understand what was going on. And He was speaking through this to both those groups of people. And so the reality is today in our church service, we have both groups of people, don't we? We have those who have been saved and we have those who need to be saved all together. And this parable serves the purpose of speaking directly to both. And so listen to what the spirit will tell you as we go through it today. They spoke the parable and it says, what man among you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after that which is lost until he finds it. Now, this may sound a little odd and maybe wilderness isn't quite the best translation to have here. It sounds as though he's leaving. We take wilderness possibly to mean somewhere dangerous. And I don't think the implications that he's leaving the rest of his 99 in risk. But instead, rather than take them back home to where they're going, he's going to leave them where they're at. Somewhat secure, he's going to go look for the one who's lost. You might even take this imagery of a father who knows that several of his children are in danger. He's going to try and save them. He can only save one at a time. And he goes, and he gets one, and he brings them out, and he leaves them, and he goes back in to risk his life to save the next child or the next. So he's taking them somewhere. He's leaving them, but not forsaking them, but leaving them somewhere that's safer until he can desperately save all of them. So this isn't some sort of irresponsibility here. He is in fact taking care of them but he's leaving them together in one spot while he goes and rescues the other. Now we don't know in verse 4 how long this happens and of course this is a parable so we don't know. So the interesting question is how long did he look for the one that was lost? What did he go through to find the one who was lost? We don't totally have the answer for that, but we know that Christ went through a lot. We know that Christ was willing to die to save the one who was lost. And again, if we expand this and we think about what he had to do, and there's a beautiful song related to this, and I may or may not sing it for you at the end. I've done that before for this song because it really touches me. And it describes the environment that he went through to go after this one sheep that was lost. And we don't know if he crossed mountains, if he traversed valleys, if he waded through rivers, if it was dark and it was cold, if he was put in danger to find this one that was lost. But we know that it cost our Savior His life to find us when we're lost. And He was willing to do that even for just one. Why? Because He loves us. And because His Father told Him to do it. And He was obedient to what His Father said. And so He goes out and He looks for the one who was lost. So let's talk about this lost sheep for just a minute. We are often called sheep. There's a very good reason for that. And he says, this sheep was lost, lost importantly from the flock, but lost to God. And so when we use this term, and we do use this term, and I think it's an appropriate term, we talk about someone being lost. What we mean by that is when someone has the realization, and God reveals to their heart, that they don't know who God is, that they are separated from God, and that they've never been forgiven for their sin, the moment that this happens, you become lost in a sense. I don't know if anyone here has ever actually been lost, Maybe it was when you were a small child. And everything's going fine until all of a sudden you realize that you're lost. Does that make sense? Everybody can probably think back at a time like this. Or you have seen a small child who wanders away from their parents and all of a sudden they look around and their parent's not there anymore. And that moment of panic that like sets in, right? I don't know where I'm at. I don't know which way to go. My comfort, the people who I thought I knew, I'm no longer around them. This is that same idea that we can have spiritually because the reality is at some point in your life God will speak to you and reveal to you just how lost you actually are. And all of a sudden you look around and you realize you're not anywhere around who you thought you were around. You are far away from God and you have no idea how to get back. And the only way you can possibly get back is for the Savior to come and find you. You can call and cry out and hope the Savior hears you. But never forget that He's desperately searching for you. You can also run away from the Savior. Anybody ever done that? Sounds weird to think about. You would think a lost and dying sheep that's hungry and thirsty who hears the voice of his master would run toward the voice, but that doesn't always work that way. And we're stubborn like that too. Sometimes we know in fact that we are separated from God, and we know that God is coming to find us, and we know that He's nearby, and rather than to call out with all of our might we run and hide, and continue to be lost. But the reality is the sheep doesn't just find his way back on his own, God comes and gets him. We can try all the things we want to, but we're never going to find our way back to God unless the Lord is there. There's a number of verses that make this very clear. Ephesians 2 talks about how we are dead in our transgressions and our sins. We don't have the ability to run to God. One of my favorite passages is of the two sons, the one we call the prodigal son, and then there's the other son. I preached on that before too. Notice who did the running there. The prodigal son, yes, decided to turn back to his father, but guess who got up and ran when he saw him? His father. Guess who never ran in that culture? The father. But God will run to you the moment you try to come back. We are separated from God. Isaiah 59 and 2 says, your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden his face from you so that you will not hear. And so brothers and sisters, if you happen to hear, if the spirit of God moves in you to remind you that you are lost, then you must call out at that time because naturally you will not do it. Romans 8 and 1 through 8. And we've spent some time looking at that in the past. "'For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.'" There may be times in our lives that some of us have realized that we're lost, and I mean spiritually, separated from God. And you might think for a while, well, that's okay, I'm having a good time. I'm enjoying the things that are here. I'm not missing the flock. I'm not missing the shepherd. But those things will come to an end. And the reality is those who are purposely leaving from God, those who have gotten lost and are off without Him, you begin to be consumed only with the things of this world, only with your flesh, only with the things that don't actually last, and you don't even realize that you're separated. You don't even realize how sick and weak you are becoming. But the longer you're away from the care that the shepherd provides, the weaker you become. And of course, John 6, 44, no man can come to me except the father which has sent him draw me and I will raise him up on the last day. Jesus Christ has been sent to find you. the lost sheep that wandered away, whether you did it on purpose, whether you did it by accident, you are separated from God, you are separated from the rest of the believers, and you are alone and at risk of all manner of things happening to you without your Lord. And Jesus has gone to find you. And so when He is looking for you, when you know He is close, it is our duty to cry out. So I've tried to describe what it means to be lost. What about what it means to be found? Well, God provides tremendous care for those who are found. And we see this in this precious way that He lifts it on His shoulders, rejoicing. Maybe sometimes we think and we're lost and we think, well, God's going to be really mad at me. How could I have wandered away? But if you let him bring you back, he rejoices. God is rightfully angry at the things that we do. I want to make that entirely clear. And God is right in sending those who never repent to hell, as we heard for the song today. But when you come to him, when you repent, when he finds you and you are willing to go with him, and you give up and give into Him, and you move from being lost and separated from God to being found, He rejoices that another soul has been won, and He places you carefully on His back, on His shoulders, lifts you close to His chest, as it says in Isaiah, and He carries you back to everyone else, to stay there forever, to never wander again. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of what God will do, but instead let Him find you. He also doesn't force you home, doesn't drive behind you, doesn't come in behind you and punish you, doesn't force you to walk the way, because let's be honest, many of us have been so lost we couldn't have found our way home even if we tried. We probably couldn't have made it if we were forced to follow along behind the master. No, he picks us up and he takes us and he moves us in a way that we cannot go on our own. And when he comes home, everyone rejoices. He tells us himself a couple of chapters after this in 19 for the son of man came to seek and save that which is lost. And we're reminded in Isaiah 53, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid him on him, the iniquity of us all. You see, there's the key passage when we talk about this. We all are like sheep. We all go our own way. We will all be lost at some point in our lives. And it is only the shed blood of Jesus Christ and his forgiveness that can bring us all back together with the shepherd who wants to take care of us. There is no other way, there is no other power. It is by His blood and His sacrifice that we can be restored, that He will go, He will come searching for us, and if we will simply give in and confess and be obedient to Him, He will hold us, He will put us on His shoulders, and He will take us to a place that we cannot go on our own. Also in Isaiah 40, it talks about this in another way. He said, See, God is not a taskmaster in the way that He's portrayed sometimes in books and media and popular culture. God knows what we can't do. God knows what we can do. And God cares for us gently, gently leads those that are young. So God takes in verse 6, He takes it back, says, Then the explanation in verse 7, I say to you likewise, Joy shall be in heaven over the sinner that repents. It's very easy sometimes for us to lose track in the big picture of things. It's very easy for us not to find our place in the scripture, our place in the way things are going. Brothers and sisters, listen to me. for the thousands of years that life has been going on before, today, and however long we have in the future, God is individually searching for every single lost soul, and he wants to bring every single person on his shoulders into the sheepfold, into heaven, and celebrate whenever one is recovered. And that is beautiful. That is comforting. And that is a beautiful image that we should always carry with us. Now, to those who've been found, let me talk about that for just a moment and remind us that when we are separated, we can do nothing. And sometimes, even though we've been saved, we gradually start to, like, move a little bit further away from Him, a little bit further outside the fold. Never to the point that we're lost in the sense that we lose our salvation, but certainly in the sense that maybe we can't hear the Savior call very clearly. And maybe some of you have experienced this in your life, maybe you're experiencing it now. You think you'd know God's voice if you heard it because you know what His voice sounds like. Sheep know the voice of their shepherd, their follower. Maybe it's getting really hard to hear. Maybe you've moved a little too far away And so if that's your situation, I certainly encourage you to get a little closer. Come back to the one who loves you. Come back to the one who risked everything he had and gave everything he had to win you the first time and be satisfied with where he leads you and what he has you to do. The further we get and the more separated we are, the harder it is to hear. And I know everyone's probably experienced that in their lives. And so what we have here and what is probably a very short sermon, which may work out well today, is a very clear picture of where we're at. We are sheep, which if I can summarize, if you weren't here a few years ago and we studied this, we're just a bunch of dumb animals who don't make the wisest decisions, who get stuck in places they shouldn't, who get lost in places they shouldn't. I'd like to huddle together for the seeming protection of it. And then we have Jesus Christ, who is the shepherd, the one who takes care of the flock. the one who wants to protect the sheep, who wants to do what's good for the sheep, the one who wants to keep them together with him so he can guard them. The one in other places in the scriptures, it talks about how he guards the entrance to where all the sheep stay. In fact, he lays his body in front of it as a gate so that no one can get in or get out and harm those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And if he loses a sheep, he goes out desperately searching to find you. And so if the Lord has revealed to you today that you are lost and separated from Him, then, brother and sister, what I want you to do is understand that God is pursuing you relentlessly. He's searching for you. He is waiting for you to come back. And if you can hear His voice, you got to call out like a little lost sheep, willing to give up everything just to be back in the arms of your Savior. Because that's what he wants to do, to scoop you up, to take you home where you belong. Why do we run away? Why do we fight it? Why do we see it any other way than the beauty that it is? I pray that those who are here would know the safety and security of the shepherd and would let him love you. I do want to sing this song real quick. I've had this for years and years. I guess since high school. And it always touches me. And you've probably heard it before. I don't know who originally wrote it. I have a version of it. But I want you to listen to the lyrics.