.
You are living, you are living, you are living, oh
So the end and early Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me
See on the portals His waiting and watching, watching for you and for me
Come home, come home, you are living alone
Early sleep and early Jesus is calling, calling, oh Savior, come home
Oh, how wonderful all we have from it, from it for you and for me
Oh, we have seen He has mercy and pardon, pardon for you and for me
Come home, come home, you are living, come home
Early sleep and early Jesus is calling, calling, oh Savior
Oh, you are living, you are living, you are living, come home
Would you join me in prayer?
O gracious God, we thank you so much for your presence with us here.
We thank you that you are a God that is great beyond all our understanding.
We thank you that you are with us from before the day that we were born and will be with us through eternity, that you will never leave us alone and that when something is wrong and if we go missing in life, Lord, that you care and you can't wait until we can be brought home to that fold.
Thank you, Lord, for the people that come into our lives and that bring us a sense of direction, a sense of belonging.
Lord, please lead us when we are those people that you need to give the direction and the sense of belonging to someone else.
Gracious God, we ask that you be with those today that are in pain, whether it's physical pain or pain of loss or fear, uncertainty.
We ask that you be with them and help give your healing spirit to them, Lord.
We thank you, Lord, that you are a God that invites us to the table to be around our brothers and sisters that are so different and gives us that special vision through your eyes that can help us come away from that table enriched and blessed.
Thank you, Lord, for the wonder of your universe. Thank you, Lord, for the simplicity by which you hear a child's prayer or our simple prayer of help and thank you.
All these things we ask, Lord, in the name of your son, Jesus, who taught us to pray, saying, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our day to pray, and forgive us our debts, and as we forgive our debts, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,
for our land is clean, and in power and in glory forever. Amen.
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him, and the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them. So he told them this parable,
which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices,
and when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
The ninety-nine so peaceful to lay in the safety of a good shepherd's home, but one had wandered out on the hills far away, far off from heaven's gates of gold.
Out in the mountains so wild and so bare, away from the good shepherd's tender loving care, far away from the good shepherd's tender loving care.
None of the ransomed ever could have known how deep were the raging waters crossed, for how dark the night that the good Lord passed through, where he found his wandering sheep that was lost.
Out in the desert he heard its people cry, sick and helpless and ready to die. It was so sick and helpless and ready to die.
Then out from the mountains so dark and thunder-rivened, and out from the rough and rocky ski, there arose a glad cry unto the gates of heaven, rejoice, I have found my wandering sheep that the angels they echoed all around God's throne.
Rejoice for the good Lord as bringing back his own. Rejoice for the good Lord as bringing back his own.
Numbers have a lot of significance in the Bible. For instance, the number seven appears frequently because it's the number of days in the week, and the Sabbath is on the seventh day.
Keeping that trend, every seven years the Jews would celebrate the year of Jubilee, where debts were forgiven and the land reverted to its original owners.
Likewise, forty, indicating a long, long period. So the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years, and Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, which is why we have forty days of Lent.
So, because this is the 99th sermon and worship service for Disciples Net, I decided to look for ninety-nines in Scripture, and it turns out that Abraham was ninety-nine years old when God promised him a son, which was interesting, but it didn't really catch my imagination.
What really caught my imagination was the parable of the lost sheep. There are ninety-nine sheep, safe, with the shepherd, and then there's one, lost, out in the dark.
Now, you may know that the mascots of Disciples Net are sheep. To help us remember both the shepherd and our flock, all of you, hearing and seeing this all over the world. For that reason, it seemed most appropriate to use this parable for the Scripture for our 99th sermon, and so here we are.
Before I get into the parable from the text, I do want to talk a little bit about how Luke places it. Luke 15 is a set of three parables. The lost sheep, which we'll talk about today, the lost coin, and the lost son, or the prodigal son, as we usually know it.
We'll save those for another time. The parable of the lost sheep is often considered solely in context with the parables that follow, but I think that we might consider it in the context of the verses that come before it.
Let's understand it with reference to chapter 14. You might recall from chapter 14 that Jesus had some very tough words for the people who were following him. Those who come after Jesus must count the cost.
Well, we normally read that advice in the context of the words that immediately precede it. You must hate your mother and your father and your sister and your brother.
But I think if we read counting the cost with what follows, we get a whole different view of it. That is, counting the cost takes two things into consideration.
The first thing is this new definition of family that Jesus is talking about. But the second thing is the life of grace, the gift of grace of God.
And I think that's a very good emphasis to consider counting the cost of discipleship.
The second part of the setting is that Luke says that this parable was actually addressed to an audience of Pharisees and scribes who were complaining about Jesus welcoming tax collectors and sinners.
Now let's be honest. The word sinner has lost some of its bite in these last years. People talk about being sinners because they do things that are just mildly irritating.
Whereas in Jesus' time, sinners were people you avoided, avoided like the plague.
The parable then is about God's love and mercy for sinful human beings and of Jesus' steady ministry of engagement for those who did not observe the law, for those who were sinners.
This is about his call for repentance and conversion. The call is not primarily about religious observance and following the law. It doesn't exclude that.
But it's not its primary focus. Jesus' call for conversion is focused on turning our heads around a change of heart and attending exclusively to God's rule and realm to the characteristics of God's government in this world.
And this also means a conversion of the heart and a change of attitudes in regards to various people in the world, particularly those who are despised and condemned by the so-called righteous folk.
The story is a reminder that grace almost always precedes repentance and reconciliation. It comes before, not after.
The Pharisees were expecting the reverse. They got it backwards. The Pharisees and the scribes were seeing these sinners with the cold calculus that determines a person's worth using themselves as a standard.
So how much is a sheep worth? Absolutely nothing if you've already given up on it. But absolutely everything if you care for that sheep. Or if you care for the sheep's master.
Contrast Jesus the Good Shepherd with that way of seeing, with the way that John describes Caiaphas, the High Priest.
Remember, Caiaphas said, Don't you understand that it's better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation be destroyed?
In other words, Caiaphas and his kind would say, Hey, sometimes it's all right. Maybe even necessary to sacrifice someone or something for a greater cause.
For the company bottom line, or for freedom or democracy, or for victory, or efficiency, or a brighter future, or so on and so forth and so on.
Those people become expendable. In this world, filled with Caiaphas, the church is called to be a Good Shepherd.
The church is called to be Good Shepherd people. God is the shepherd who first of all notices that the sheep has gone missing out of 100 sheep.
God sees the one who isn't there. Without the one that is lost, God's heart is broken and shaped by Luke 15 story.
We in the church believe that we should be searching for every missing sheep and bringing it home.
It's not the most efficient use of our time. It's not very cost effective, but it's who we are and it's what we're called to do.
And when you're the one sheep that's lost, it is a matter of life and death.
But there's more to this than a call of compassion by our Good Shepherd.
The lost sheep is more than a prized possession of their owner. They're also parts of a whole.
The sheep belongs to the flock, and without them the whole is not complete.
God doesn't want to just get back together with the one. God wants to get the one back together with the 99.
So that whatever community has been lost or broken is restored to wholeness.
The search then is a quest for restoration and wholeness.
In this sense, all of us who are part of God's creation should be just as anxious as God is until those lost are restored.
And we are made whole again by their presence among us. Reconciliation makes wholeness.
Paul tells us this in 2 Corinthians 519.
In Christ, God was reconciling the whole world to God's self.
And in John's Gospel, Jesus says,
And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.
God doesn't just love the majority or the holy righteous, but every single one.
This is extremely good news for us given how many times we miss the mark and hurt ourselves and loved ones and strangers and neighbors around us.
Yet despite our mistakes, our brokenness, or how far we have gone astray, God will not let any one of us stay lost.
No one is expendable. No one is extraneous.
And when we look across the table and see not the one with different color, or the one with different politics, or the one with different abilities, or the one with different age,
but the one for whom our shepherd braved the dark night to go and bring back,
the one without whom our fellowship would be that much less robust,
the one without whose gifts our service would be that much weaker,
the one without whose perspective our understanding would be that much less insightful,
the one for whom Christ came and died, the one who is dearly loved by our God.
And when we see that one, we are finally seeing through God's eyes.
I describe myself as an occasional songwriter.
On one occasion, I had been in a conversation with one of my cousins who was having trouble with a 19-year-old daughter as only mothers and 19-year-old daughters can have.
She was not approving of some of the choices that her daughter was making.
She didn't really feel like she was going down the healthiest or best path for her life.
And they were really just at odds and at each other all the time about this.
And I was in conversation with her about that.
And she said, you know, I finally just got to the point where I had to tell her, you know, I don't approve of what you're doing.
I don't think you're making the right decisions, but I want you to understand one thing,
that if this doesn't work out for you, that this is always home and you can always come back here.
As the song developed, it really took on this kind of prodigal quality.
I really wondered what that conversation between a father and son was like when a son is saying,
hey, give me what I've got coming to me, I want to go, I want to live my own life, I want to do my own thing.
And to realize that then at the other end of that, there's this father that, you know, I vision,
I see standing on the front porch every day just watching, looking, hoping, thinking this might be the day.
And then one day he does see this figure on the horizon and knows immediately who it is.
I think God approaches us the same way, that, you know, we make decisions that aren't right.
We follow paths that don't suit us best or aren't going to give the best results or be the most beneficial for us.
But God says that, you know, I'm going to let you do what you choose to do, but know that this is home, that there's a table here for you
and you can always come back. You can always come back home.
I tried to be the one that you could talk to, still you never told me what was weighing on your mind.
Is the world outside the place you'll find, life you're seeking?
Hold enough to make your own decisions, young enough to think you've got the world at your command.
Things don't always work out like we planned in our young dreams.
And if you come up empty, you don't have to stand alone.
There's room here at the table, you can always come back home.
I won't keep you from the path you've chosen.
Time to hold you past this year by year, watched you grow.
I always knew someday you'd have to go down your own road.
And if you come up empty, you don't have to stand alone.
There's room here at the table, you can always come back home.
As you leave, don't close the door, don't close the door behind you.
Please don't draw the light across your heart and turn away.
You will find if you return someday, a love that's waiting, a love that's waiting.
And if you come up empty, you don't have to stand alone.
There's room here at the table, you can always come back home.
There's room here at the table, you can always come back home.
My wife is fond of telling a story of an occurrence many years ago
when she was doing some substitute teaching in a high school English class.
And this was a group of students who were, let's just say they had difficulty
with certain concepts in school.
And she was explaining some point of grammar.
And one of these students said to her,
but Ms. McNeely, it don't make no sense.
As I heard Russ' sermon, I am reminded that there are certain things
that we believe which don't make no sense.
Leaving 99 sheep at risk in order to chase down one that is lost,
some would say don't make no sense.
And if you really understand what the grace of God is about,
if you really understand what reconciliation is about,
those things make no sense either.
They do not make sense in the way that things are supposed to make sense in our world.
They make sense only in the mind of God.
And if we are lucky, they begin to make sense to us a little bit
as we open ourselves and understand a little better the mind of God.
The good shepherd who gave his life for us
in the actions that are represented by this table.
Those actions also do not make sense to anybody except Almighty God
and the Son Jesus Christ.
And we have learned to appreciate and to enjoy.
If it made sense, it would not be grace.
If it made sense, we would not need the activity of God.
And so let us come to this table today.
Let us come with sheep of every flock and every fold.
Let us come uniting together as one family in the love of that good shepherd.
Let us pray.
God bless to our hearts and to our minds and to our spirits, to our very souls today.
The elements representing your body and your blood.
As we break this bread, as we eat this bread, as we drink the juice in this cup,
as we literally make these things a part of our own body,
may we truly feel and receive your Holy Spirit inside of us as well.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
The Lord Jesus Christ on the night he was betrayed took bread.
When he had given thanks, he broke it, saying,
this is my body which is broken for you.
Take and eat.
In the same manner also he took the cup after supper,
saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
All is in readiness.
Come to the feast.
Drink this cup.
Come to the ever-ending offering.
Drink this bread.
Drink this cup.
Trust in the end with will and honor.
Go out into the world with eyes and mind and heart open
to seeing those lost ones, those dear ones,
those loved of God who are waiting to be brought back into fellowship.
Go out into the world and bring them back
and the joy in heaven and earth will be so much greater
when we bring back even one.
Away from the good shepherd's tender loving care.
Far away from the good shepherd's tender loving care.
None of the ransomed ever could have known
how deep were the...
