Dr. Roger Parrott, Belhaven University Chapel Series

It happened 27 years ago.

But the emotion of it and the fear and the terror in my spirit, that moment feels like it was yesterday every time I relive it.

We were on a family vacation to Disney world.

Kids were 3 and 5.

They loved was exhausting.

It was expensive, but we were having a great time.

So we've been on enough rides.

We went to this little place called Honey.

I Shrunk the kids.

I think they've taken it out since.

But it was this little playground thing.

You had one interest come in in this playground.

It was great for little kids.

And so the kids were having a fun time, and Mary Lou said, you know, I need a little break.

I'm going to go get something to eat, and you can watch them, right?

And she.

She'd always taught me to watch them carefully.

She said, watch the baby means actually watch the baby.

Don't just be in the same room with the baby.

So I said, yeah, no problem.

I got this.

I can watch the kids.

And she left.

And they said, you know, we want to go back on that slide again.

There was this big slide.

You come down three different slides.

And I was going to crawl up there one more time, and I thought, oh, I can't.

They'll come down.

I. I said, yeah, go on up.

And so I waited at the bottom of the slide, and no Grady came out, and no Madison came out.

And I started going back and forth between them.

And then I started to get nervous because they weren't there.

And then I started to look.

Maybe they were riding one of those little ant things, and they weren't there.

And I looked in the play.

D'oh.

And they weren't there.

And I crawled up into this spider web thing, and I'm crawling through this with these little kids, trying to get them out of the way, and I hear this announcement.

Will the father of Grady and Roger Madison Parrott please come to the entrance?

I thought they'd been abducted.

So I go to the entrance, and there they are, and they came running to me, and I came running to them, and I picked them both up, and we were crying, and I said, I'm just so glad to have you back.

And let's not tell mom, Okay?

We won't tell Mom.

I put them down.

Here comes Mary Lou around the corner with the ice cream.

Mom, dad lost us.

Don't ever trust a three year old unless it's roller coasters.

They won't give you out on that one.

But there's no statute of limitations on roller coasters, so don't say a word, I'm telling you.

But it was so overwhelming when I lost them.

And then when I found them, it was pure joy.

When you lose what's valuable most, you do whatever it takes to find it.

And that's the story Jesus tells about the lost sheep.

He says, suppose there's one of you that has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.

Doesn't he lead the 99 in the Open country?

So he'll go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

Sheep was a really common image that Jesus used all through the Bible about 200 different times.

He talks about us as being sheep and him as the shepherd.

So this is a very common image he's talking about very often.

But it's really a perfect example of our relationship to Christ as sheep, to a shepherd.

Because sheep are really absolutely hopeless without the shepherd.

There's lots of things we have in common, but there are three common characteristics that really stand out.

One is sheep are self absorbed.

And so they tend to wander.

They just tend to wander off.

They don't mean to get into trouble, but they're focused on the immediate.

They're hungry, they're thirsty, they're bored.

That butterfly looks interesting, that groundhog looks interesting.

And so off they go.

And pretty soon they're so far away they can't find the shepherd because the shepherd doesn't put up a fence and our shepherd doesn't put up a fence for us.

The way the sheep could stay close to the shepherd was they recognized his voice.

And as long as they were in earshot of his voice and could hear his voice, and he could always call them back to him.

But when they drift so far away, they got where they couldn't hear the voice of the shepherd.

And their self absorption and their wandering took them into a scary place.

They weren't lost because they were rebellious.

Really, it wasn't intentional.

Sometimes it's just wandering.

And Christians are like that.

Sometimes they don't mean to walk away from God.

They're not really rebellious, they just start wandering.

But when you're wandering and you get far enough away from the shepherd, as a sheep, you are always vulnerable.

They drift from one good thing to what looks like the next good thing.

And it doesn't really feel dramatic to the sheep.

They don't really feel like they're lost.

It feels fairly normal until they realize they're all alone and they're vulnerable.

Then they don't know how to get home.

And so they're out there someplace where the risks are enormous.

When they're away from the shepherd just because they were wandering.

Well, the second thing about sheep is sheep have no way to clean themselves up.

And we have that in common with sheep as well.

Sheep are dirty.

They're not like the little lamb in the picture at the beginning.

You know, that's what we imagine sheep are.

That's not how sheep are in the country.

The wool gets matted, they get filthy.

They can't clean themselves up.

They don't have any mechanism for cleaning themselves up.

And if the shepherd is not there, the wool gets so thick and so matted and dirty, they will get sick and, and eventually they will die.

You see, the shepherd is their only hope of ever getting cleaned up.

Just like us.

We can't clean ourselves from the stain of sin.

Only the shepherd can do that for us.

Well, the third thing about these sheep that we have in common is sheep are totally defenseless on their own.

Just completely defenseless on their own.

They have no defensive capability.

They can't kick, they can't bite, they can't run from a lion or a wolf.

They have no offense that stands up to anything.

It doesn't mean they don't think they do like us.

We think we can handle the world, but we really are awfully vulnerable.

And sheep are that way.

They may think they can take on every challenge alone.

They can be tough.

They can feel confident, determined, self sufficient in all their self talk and bluster.

It doesn't change reality, does it?

That's why Jesus uses the Image in the 23rd Psalm of the rod and the staff.

The rod which is an offensive weapon to protect sheep.

And the staff, which is a long stick with a curl on the end to protect and pull them back into safety.

You see, the bottom line for sheep is they are lost, no matter how far they've gone, if they're away from the shepherd.

And if you can't get back on your own, it doesn't matter where you are if you can't hear the shepherd's voice any longer.

Now we need to study the biblical images of sheep because they're good lessons about our relationship to the shepherd.

But the parable we're looking at today is not about the sheep, it's about who God is.

And that was the point of the story Jesus told to tell a story about the nature of God, not about what sheep ought to do or not do.

And so look at the scripture.

It says that when he found it, he whoops, that's the wrong scripture.

I think we got Frank.

No, that's I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, that's right.

And when he found it, he was joyfully carried home on his shoulders.

When he arrived, he called them together with his friends and neighbors, rejoice and be with me, because I found the lost sheep.

You see, the parable point of this story is it's not about our search for God.

It's about God's search for us.

That's what the story of the lost sheep is about.

The parable is not how we need to do better.

It's about how much God loves us and how much God values us.

The scandal, the story which he told the religious leaders, so they were really scandalized by this, was not that there was one sheep lost.

That was really common.

It wasn't a big deal.

The scandal, the shock was that he would leave 99 in order to find the 1.

And I love how Jesus says it here.

Of course he would leave the 99.

It wasn't even a question for Jesus.

He would leave the 99 for any one of us.

And so out of this, we find some things that are important.

First, he leaves the 99 because the stakes are so high.

That's the nature of who God is.

He doesn't wait, he doesn't send somebody else.

He doesn't say, well, let's see if he comes back.

He'll probably come back.

No, the shepherd is in an urgency, like I was, to find my kids.

I've got to find them right now, and I'm going to look until I find them.

See, the cost, the stakes are so high because we're talking about whether or not you're in eternity with God or not.

We're talking about the restoration of this earth as a new earth and the way God designed it and to live and to enjoy him and enjoy each other and it forever in the way he designed it.

And if you're lost, you won't be part of that.

It's not about how to get us to better behave.

It's about how to help us to live now within earshot of the shepherd and follow him.

And so the stakes are so high that he leaves the 99 in order to find the 1.

Secondly, he searched until the lost one was found.

We see in the scripture there wasn't any time limit.

He didn't do a cost benefit analysis and said, well, you know, I got 99 here, I got one there.

It's really not worth risking these for that one.

No, he just went and see.

For a shepherd in biblical times, that would have been a huge Risk, because the sheep flock was his economic base.

That was all he had.

That's all the assets he had, was those sheep.

So he was risking that.

He was also probably part of a family as a sheep herder and would have been a younger son who was out to take care of the sheep.

So he was risking family reputation and family interaction dynamics in order to go find the lost one.

And then he was risking his reputation as a shepherd among his peers.

Everything was on the line, but it was so important he went to find them.

Because grace is persistent.

It's not passive.

And the grace of God, Jesus is telling us here will come find you.

You are never, ever too far gone that God will stop looking for you.

You know, it really doesn't make any sense to leave the 99 for the 1 unless you're the One.

And then it makes all the sense in the world.

Well, thirdly, he carries the lost sheep home.

The scripture says so.

You see that he picks him up on his shoulders and he carries him all the way back.

We don't know how far that was probably a long way.

The sheep contributes absolutely nothing, zero to his own recovery.

This is not teamwork.

Shepherd says, well, you work with me and I'll help you get home.

It wasn't that.

Shepherd didn't say, well, this is the way.

Come on, let's hustle up, let's go.

He didn't do that.

This is a rescue.

He was out there alone in a mess, probably hungry by this time, and he picked him up and he put him on his shoulders and realize what he put on his shoulders.

That sheep was dirty and messy and probably pretty gross from what he'd been into.

Where he'd been on his own was not a good place.

But the shepherd gets down in the mess to pick up the sheep and to rescue him and to bring him home.

The shepherd gets him out of the mess even when the shepherd knows he may have to rescue him again sometime because sheep are dumb and they may do it all over again, just like with us.

And he does.

Well, fourthly, he celebrates that the lost sheep is found.

There was no lecture to the sheep.

There was no shame.

He didn't put him on probation for a while.

He didn't try and put him in a fence for a while.

See, finding him was so important, he invited everybody else to celebrate with him.

Christ delights when the lost are restored.

He made you, he loves you.

He sacrificed himself on a cross for you.

So of course he's going to come looking for you if you're away from him.

You are not an inconvenience to God.

You are the reason for his joy, to bring you back home again.

This is the nature of God.

The parable is about who Jesus is, not just who sheep are.

And so he put him on his shoulders to carry him all the way back.

Now the story ends with the shepherd carrying the sheep on his shoulders.

And that's the Christian life.

Not you searching until you find it.

Not you cleaning yourself up till you're respectable.

Not you earning your place somehow so that the shepherd will accept you.

It is being carried all the way home, just like you are straight out of the mess you've created.

You are not saved because you finally found God.

You are saved because God came looking for you.

And he hasn't stopped rejoicing ever since that time.

Jesus told that detail, I think, on purpose.

It's not an accidental imagery of the shepherd with this sheep on his shoulders.

Because this is the gospel.

Jesus is showing us exactly what he would do on the cross for us.

He did not save us from a distance.

He did not wait for us to get clean.

He did not rescue the polished version of us that looks good to each other.

He took the mess onto himself, onto his shoulders.

And he carries the sheep back.

Rejoicing, he says, not frustrated, not embarrassed.

Rejoicing, happy that he's found the lost one.

God is not disgusted by your mess.

God's not shocked by your weakness.

Now religion tells you to hide your dirt.

Jesus carries it on his shoulder.

Religion tells you to scrub up harder.

Jesus said it is finished.

When the shepherd arrives home, he doesn't isolate the sheep.

He doesn't restrict the sheep.

He throws a celebration.

He invites everybody to come and be part of it.

You see, you and I are not loved because we're improved.

We're not accepted because we behaved.

We're not held because we stayed clean.

You and I are loved because he carried us.

We're accepted because he finished the work on the cross.

We're held because he chose us.

If that doesn't make you fall in love with God and want to be close to the shepherd, nothing will.

God, who puts your dirtiest mess on his shoulders.

A savior who absorbs the shame instead of avoiding it.

The Father who rejoices over you while you're still a mess.

That's who God is.

It's not a fragile love.

It's not a conditional love.

It's a love that looks like the cross.

See, finding you when you were lost is not a burden to God.

It's a joy.

And he carried you home.

And he would carry you again without hesitation.

Not one bit.

Let's pray together.

Our benediction.

No eye has seen, no ear is heard.

No mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.

God bless.

Glad you're back in chapel.