Who’s Your One? Pt 1 - One Lost Sheep

This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville Missouri as part of our "Who’s Your One?" series on the biblical vision for kingdom of God mission in the every day lives of believers. For more resources on faith and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community.

You can email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708

What a joy to be together. You guys are such a gift. Seriously, it is a privilege to be up here serving you guys today.

We are starting something new today. We're taking a little pause from 1 Samuel and we're doing a short little series that we're calling Who's Your One? And I am excited for this season together as a church. I mean that. I've been eagerly praying for this little bit of time. We're going to spend the next 5 weeks talking about what it can practically look like for you as followers of Christ to join with Jesus in his mission of seeking and saving the lost. Because here's the deal, guys, joining with God in his mission to actually seek out those in need of Christ, in need of the gospel, in need of salvation— that is the normal and natural outpouring of you finding life in Christ.

We say that every week. That's our mission as a church. As Christ pours into us, He pours out of us. That's not like a cliché we made up for social media posts. Like, we really believe that.

And by the way, I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to guess most of you believe that as well. If you're in the room and you're a Christian, the research shows that you most likely overwhelmingly agree with the idea that sharing your faith is a command from Scripture. That we're supposed to evangelize, to share the invitation of the gospel with those who need it. Jesus tells us to join with him in the gospel invitation.

But what's interesting is the same research shows that the vast majority of American Christians haven't had any sort of evangelistic conversation in the last 12 months. And even more shocking, the vast majority of American Christians have no plans to do so in the future.

So I actually think it's worth asking yourself, can you clearly, clearly remember the last time you shared the gospel invitation, the invitation to confess your sins and repent and find life and salvation in Christ with someone who was not a believer? Can you clearly remember that moment? How about your own story? When was the last time you shared your testimony with someone who didn't know Christ?

And man, if you can remember that, like, was it at a church event, like a mission trip, or was that in your everyday life? Do you have any plans to do so in the near future? Are you ready to do so if the opportunity presents itself?

And by the way, you need to hear this. I'm not saying that to like pile on. I'm not trying to make you feel bad if you don't like the answers you just gave internally to those questions. That doesn't mean like you're a monster or anything. That just means you're the average American churchgoer, right? Like, that's the boat we're all in.

And by God's grace, I believe he can grow you and grow me in holiness and faithfulness in this area of our faith over the coming weeks. And guys, I am genuinely excited to see how God moves in our hearts and in our church over this next month. I believe firmly that God wants to see Immanuel Fellowship Church be a bright, shining outpost for his glory in this community, and that starts— that begins when you and I live our lives with our heads up and our eyes open.

Beloved, God is working in this world. He's doing the work. He's advancing his kingdom. The question is whether or not you and I are going to be a part of it, whether or not we're going to join him in it. And you need to know this: you can. You can. You can join with him in that work, and it's not some big scary thing.

So we're going to start today, start our series today in a really simple truth. We're going to be in Luke chapter 15. If you want to go ahead and turn there, we have house Bibles around the room. If you don't have one with you, we really believe and the importance of access to God's Word here at Immanuel Fellowship. So if you didn't bring a Bible with you, if you don't own a Bible, we'd encourage you to take one of the pew Bibles, or even better, talk to one of the pastors and we'll get you one that's a little nicer, right?

But Luke chapter 15, and the point today is going to be really simple. We're going to look at the relatively well-known parable from Jesus, the parable of the lost sheep, and my point is just going to be this: Every sheep matters. That, that's going to be the point we talk about today. Every single sheep matters.

And even as I say this, I know that some of you are already on the defensive, like just from this introduction, just from me talking about evangelism and mission. There's a lot of us who are just uncomfortable with discussions around the mission of God and evangelism because we know as Christians we should be participating in the work, and most of us don't. And so it's just painful. It's defensive. It's uncomfortable.

But here's the deal. You need to know something. I understand that you almost certainly have really good reasons for not being on mission. And this is not like a trick. This is not me being like, I'm going to get you, like Jesus juke you. I understand that that's reality.

Like, you're busy. We're all busy. We're all stressed. We all have varying levels of anxiety. Many of us who've been following Jesus for a few years, we don't even have a lot of deep relationships with non-believers. We've built most of our social circle around those we fellowship with in Christ, and the relationships we have outside the church— maybe it's coworkers or neighbors— oftentimes those relationships don't seem deep enough or intimate enough that the idea of sharing something as personal as the gospel. Like, it just feels out of the bounds for that relationship.

Or maybe even you go, well, there's rules against that at my work. I would get in trouble. I would get sent to HR if I did that, right? Like, there's a whole lot going on.

I think even maybe more basic than any of those things I just said, a lot of us are just so thoroughly consumed trying to make it through today to make it through all the things we have going on to maintain our lives and our home and our job and our families and our internal emotional and social health and all these different things that the idea of you hearing one more thing you're doing wrong from me just feels like too much. Yeah? Anybody? Anybody?

Well, guess what? I'm here to beat you up. No, I'm just kidding. That's not it at all. That's not it at all.

If any of that resonates with you, I want to encourage you to stick with us today and for the rest of this series. I believe genuinely in my heart that God has a balm of healing for you in this area, but I also believe God has a needed word of encouragement and challenge for you and for me. Guys, the call of the gospel isn't beating you down with guilt and duty. You're not doing enough. You're not a good enough Christian. That's not at all what this is.

No, no, no, no. We're simply talking about remembering the truth of how Jesus treated you. I'm simply asking you to take a minute in this space where we can slow down, we can breathe, and we can have just enough distance from the chaos and busyness of our life, from the stresses and anxieties that dog us every day, we can have just enough quiet to stop and reflect and remember. Remember how Jesus saw you. Remember how Jesus noticed you, how Jesus sought you out.

Guys, he invites us to live that same way. Jesus noticed you, and he invites you to live your life with your head up, with your eyes open, to notice the need around us and to seek him to do the work he promised to do.

Pray with me and we'll jump into this text.

Jesus, we need you today. We need you to be our discipler. We need you to be the one who teaches us, the one who encourages us. Lord, for those in this room who are exhausted, who are beat up, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would do that amazing work you do where you step into our lives and you challenge us to needed growth, to needed sanctification without piling on, without beating us up, but actually in the gentleness of your love. Let each of us today leave having heard from you what our hearts needed. Being filled up with your goodness, being reminded of the amazing grace of the gospel, and being challenged to participate in the work of the kingdom with me. God, we, we know that you're the only one who can do this work. So we need your help, Spirit. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.

The Setting: Tax Collectors and Sinners

Luke chapter 15 picks up in the middle of Jesus's ministry. He's pretty established at this point. He's traveling around. He's built up a pretty large following, and what we're going to see as we pick up in this chapter is that for the most part, Jesus's following has grown up amongst the common folk, the everyday person, and that actually creates a problem for him.

Luke chapter 15, starting in the first verse, we read this:

All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching to listen to him, and the Pharisees and scribes were complaining. This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.

Okay, so that's, that's kind of the context, the setup here, right? Jesus is starting to build a crowd, and he's got these religious leaders, these religious establishment, these theologians and pastors, those sorts of people who are paying attention to him because he's becoming a famous, well-known religious teacher. But they look at the other people gathering around Jesus, and they start to get upset. The text tells us that the religious leaders are becoming increasingly anxious and critical of Jesus's ministry. They don't like the idea that these sinners and these tax collectors are gathering around Jesus.

Now, here's the thing. If you've been in church for a while, you've likely already heard this kind of historical context of the general dislike of tax collectors in New Testament times. But I want to take a minute to reflect on this because I think it's important for this text. And I think it's easy for us to gloss over this truth.

Like, in the United States in 2026, I doubt any of us particularly like tax collectors, right? Like, when you actually go to pay your tax at the end of the year, you're not like, oh, this is awesome. Like, that's, that's not something we get stoked about. But in general, when we think of tax collectors, I may be in the minority here, but I don't think I am. I think about just nerds. Right? Like, I think about someone who got a master's degree in finance and accounting, and they just chose to work for the IRS instead of being an accountant somewhere. And, you know, we can question the wisdom in that, but we're just talking about nerds, right? And it doesn't really go much beyond that.

In the first century Palestine, tax collectors— some of you are like, I was a finance major. Yeah, I have bad news for you. You are a nerd, uh, and I love you. I'm one as well, but there's no getting around it. Uh, anyway, in the first century Palestine, tax collectors were legitimately like the singularly most hated people in Jewish society, period. Period. More hated than their Roman oppressors even.

A tax collector was a literal slur people used for one another because of how much they hated these people. These were people who had paid money to the Roman oppressors for the right to collect taxes on behalf of Rome from their fellow Jews. In the area of tax collecting, you need to know they had the absolute power of the Roman army behind them. They would set up their booths in places agreed upon with the Roman prefects, and they had soldiers in place to enforce their will.

Right? Like, they would often set up near where folk worked. Levi, or Matthew, the tax collector who became a follower of Jesus, he set up his booth on the beach of the Sea of Galilee in Capernaum, where Peter had grown up, Peter's hometown. You know why he did that? He did that so he could be standing there when the fishers got back to shore from working, and he could immediately tax them on their day's work. That's the kind of guy Matthew was.

I mean, other tax collectors would set up their, their booths at the entrance of towns, and when you walked in, they had the right to make you strip your pockets and empty your bags and immediately tax you on the contents of what you were carrying. And you go, I don't have enough money for that tax. Well, lucky for you, a lot of tax collectors offered loan services at payday loan interest rates so that you could pay the taxes to them. Oh, and by the way, Rome didn't actually oversee these guys. All they cared about was that they got their set amount of money each quarter. So how much money the tax collectors collected, how they gathered it, that was left entirely up to them.

And so they robbed people blind. Many historians believe that the Jews living in the region of Galilee where Jesus grew up were living under about a 90% tax burden because of the tax collectors who lived among them. Think about that for a moment. 90% tax burden. Children literally starved because of these men. Literally. And they lived in lush, lavish wealth and riches.

You can understand why these people were so despised. They were traitors to their people. They worked for the oppressors. They got rich and wealthy off of furthering oppression and furthering suffering.

In other words, tax collectors were corrupt and evil pretty much across the board. They were doing terrible things to people who were already under immense political and social oppression. And Jesus hangs out with these people. He hangs out with them.

In fact, the text tells us that these were the people who were seeking Jesus out. They were coming to find him. And beyond that, he was spending time with them. He was sharing meals with them.

You kind of have to ask yourself, why do you suppose these folks were seeking Jesus out? I mean, if you were that guy, if you were Levi, you were Zacchaeus, wouldn't you feel like garbage hanging out next to a Jewish rabbi? What was it about him? What was it about his message, his teaching, his person that the most vile people in that world wanted to hear what he had to say? And beyond that, wanted to share their fellowship time with him?

I think both the story of Levi or Matthew and Zacchaeus, 2 different tax collectors we read about in the Gospels, I think they're really informative here. When you look at Jesus's interactions with Levi and Zacchaeus, what you find is that he didn't just spend time with them. He did more than that. He identified them. He saw them. He called them up. He noticed them. He spoke to them. Didn't condemn them, didn't shred them to pieces, didn't rip them apart, didn't yell at them.

He invited them. You need to hear this, church. He invited them to be more than they were. He invited them to stop settling for the debased, cursed, rattled stories they were living. He met with them and said, man, you could be so much more than this. Is this the life you want? This what you want? You don't want this. You could be so much more than this.

He called them up, called them out. He called on Levi to follow him. He looked Zacchaeus in the eye and he treated him like a brother in the faith. And when you look at those 2 men's stories, what you see is that both men were radically saved by Jesus, radically transformed by him. I mean, Levi became one of the authors of one of the Gospels, right?

See, this is an interesting thing about this. It's not as if Jesus was, was complacent with their sin. He wasn't that. He certainly didn't approve or affirm of what they were doing or the way they were living. But when Jesus saw these people, he called to them. He, he told them a better story for their lives, one where they didn't have to live off of the suffering of others, one where they were kind and sacrificial and just, one where they lived a life of service and love. And here, this unity with their God in their community.

And here's the thing that you actually see in the story of Zacchaeus, in the story of Levi, that's apparently a really compelling story. That's apparently a really compelling invitation. That's why their hearts, what their hearts were actually crying out for and desiring. And when they had that opportunity, when they were invited into that, when Jesus saw them, when Jesus noticed them and called them something to something better, they responded. They responded.

And the religious folk just couldn't handle it. They couldn't deal with this. They didn't see someone lovingly calling sinners to a better life and a better story. They saw human garbage who were evil and didn't deserve the time of day.

And by the way, on some level, like, it's not untrue. These people are doing horrific things. These religious leaders looked at them and they saw people who were so debased, so given to their flesh, that their very presence was spiritually contaminating. How could you possibly share a meal with someone like that?

They didn't see the people. They saw the sin. They saw the curse. They saw the garbage.

But Jesus was able to cut through that and see the actual people. And so before we even got into the parable yet, but I think there's a question worth asking as we consider this.

Beloved, do you see the people that Jesus sees?

When you think about the way you walk into this world and those you interact with, whether it's in person, in life, and social media, through the news, when you consider the people around you, do you see the people that Jesus sees? We don't have Roman tax collectors today, right? But our world has its share of sinners. We have all kinds of people that we put intense social stigma upon, right?

Maybe it's raging and controlling narcissists. Maybe it's dishonest landlords or crooked politicians or corrupt police officers, or man, how about like really, really evil acts, right? Rapists, murderers, abusers, pedophiles. Maybe the smaller, more petty evils, the selfish, the self-obsessed. The bullies, petty bosses who make you miserable because they can.

Beloved, I guarantee you live among tax collectors. I guarantee you have tax collectors in your life, in your real life. So do you see them when you interact with those tax collectors in your life? Do you see the sin? Do you see the curse? You see the evil? Did you see the person? Do you notice them? Are you lined up with the Pharisees to say, how dare you, Jesus? Don't you know what they have done? Don't you know who they are?

Man, if that is the bent of your heart, because by the way, that's the bent of all of our hearts at times. Read on with me because Jesus has a word for us.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Verse 3.

So he told them this parable. What man among you who has 100 sheep and loses one of them does not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders.

See, Jesus saw the, the anger and the righteous indignation of the religious leaders, and he told them a parable. And that's about the most Jesus thing he could possibly do. Jesus loved to tell stories. He's considered, even like outside of Christianity by historians, to be the most prolific teller of parables in history. He really defined the idea of a parable.

And if you don't know, a parable is a short, quippy, punchy story that has symbolic meaning behind it. And so you take something very everyday, very normal, and you put deeper, abstract spiritual truths in it. That was Jesus's absolute favorite way of teaching. And so in this moment, he gets this rebuke from them, he gets this challenge, and he responds by telling them a parable.

And when you're interpreting Jesus's parables, there's a couple rules that can help you. The first one, the general rule of thumb, whenever you read one of Jesus's parables, is to start by asking the question, what would this story mean if Christ himself were the main character of the story? What would that mean? So let's start there. This story is about a shepherd who has a flock of 100 sheep.

Now, the second really helpful rule for interpreting Jesus's parables is to look for the things that are very normal and boring in the story, and the things that are very weird and strange. Because usually— not always, but usually— how Jesus tells a parable is he takes something really normal and boring that everyone would know and something really absurd, and he mashes them together. And it's almost always right at the intersection of the normal and the strange that Jesus puts the point of his parable.

So this story is about a shepherd who has 100 sheep. That's a very normal thing by all accounts. A flock of 100 sheep is A relatively normal flock for kind of just a family homestead to have, right? And by the way, it's not that strange for one to get lost. Sheep do have a strong herd instinct that it kind of pushes them to stick together, but oftentimes when they feed, especially if their wool's getting a little longer, they bend down and they're moving from little pile of grass to little pile of grass and they lose track of what's around them and they just go from grass clump to grass clump to grass clump.

And sometimes they wander off by accident and they get far away from the flock without realizing it. And so it's not like an everyday sort of thing, but it's not unheard of for a lamb to get sick, to get lost, to get hurt, to get stuck. And so the obvious solution, if someone has sheep and they lose one, is to go find it. And by the way, this is meant to be obvious to the reader. Jesus even presents this as a rhetorical question because the answer to it would have been obvious to everyone. Listening, every sheep is an investment. It's money, it's time.

And if this is your little homestead flock, that's food on your kids' table, right? And if you live in an oppressive, hard world like many of these ancient Palestinians did, you keep track of every single sheep. It may be different if you were a hired hand watching someone else's massive flock of hundreds and hundreds of sheep or thousands of sheep. And they're not even really yours. If one of them goes off missing, you may not want to do the work of going to find it.

But that's not the image Jesus is setting up. This is a normal person with a normal one-family flock. These are his sheep. These are his family's welfare. And he notices when one is missing.

And so he goes to find him. Again, it's not even strange that he left the 99 in the open field. It was actually really common in this day for the smaller shepherding operations to kind of have agreements with one another for this exact kind of scenario. Hey dude, lost one of my sheep on the way in. Can I leave my flock with you for a couple hours while I go and find him? Sure, absolutely. That's a relatively normal thing.

So he leaves the 99 in the open grazing pasture, probably with a friend or a neighbor or someone he knows, and he goes to look for his lost sheep. Now I spent some time a little bit reading about shepherding this week. I don't know if you know this, I've never shepherded. So this is abstract knowledge to me. Um, but I spent some time reading about it and I came across something really interesting.

I was reading this forum post where someone had gone into the subreddit for shepherds, which I think is hilarious that shepherds have their own subreddit where they're asking shepherd questions. Right. And someone jumped into this and said, hey, I'm not a shepherd, but I just read this verse in Luke 15 and it's really weird to me. And he was asking questions and real shepherds were answering.

And one of the things that came up that was so interesting is the shepherd said, you know, nowadays it may have been different back then, but nowadays it would be really weird to not take the whole flock with you when you go to look for the lost sheep. And here's the reason why: sheep have a really strong herd instinct. And so when they see or hear their flock, they run to it. But if it's sheep by itself and the shepherd just walks up to the sheep, the sheep's not going to do what the shepherd says. Sheep has no one, has no, has no reason to obey just some random person walking up to them.

Even if that person is their shepherd who they know and hear every day, that's not how sheep work. They actually said, you know, the only real reason you would do that, leave your flock and go look for the one, is if you thought maybe that one was in danger. Like maybe you walk through some rough terrain and maybe that sheep got hurt or stuck. Otherwise, it would be so much easier to just take the flock with you because otherwise the only way to get the sheep back is to pick it up and carry it.

And what's funny is this guy who had put this verse, he hadn't put the verse in where it says the shepherd carried it. And so they didn't see that in the discussion. But the reason I put that in there is, is, is to think about this for a minute. These aren't tiny creatures. These kind of sheep, they're called fat-tailed sheep that live in Palestine at this time. They weigh north of 100 pounds.

So like any of you guys who've been to my house, imagine my dog Beverly. This is a good recent portrait of her. Yeah, that's great. And that's— she weighs 130 pounds. Imagine picking her up and slinging her across your shoulders and then going for a hike through the Palestinian wilderness, right? That's what this shepherd is signing up for, right? That's wild.

But this shepherd has lost his sheep and he wants his sheep back. And he, he doesn't necessarily know, or for whatever reason he's decided, I'm not going to take the whole flock back. I've just got to go get this guy and bring him back. Which means throwing him on his shoulders and hiking back with him. A ton of work, a ton of exertion.

But look how Jesus describes the shepherd. When he finds the sheep, he has joy. He's joyful as he throws the sheep over his shoulders and marches back.

Guys, you need to know something. It can be difficult to consider the reality that Jesus freely offers the gospel invitation to all the people we hate. That can be difficult to consider. It can be difficult to admit you think that way, but I guarantee you do. We all do.

You think about the most despised people in your personal mental categories of what sins are the worst, and to think of the worst person you can imagine and to realize that Jesus loves them and freely offers his gospel to them, freely offers salvation and redemption to them. That can be difficult to consider, to think that Jesus really does dine with the tax collectors and the sinners, that he really sees those people, that he notices them, that he invites them to life and redemption. Because it's easy to stand in judgment against that, right? I mean, that's not pleasant to remember, but it's easy to do so.

Until, until the moment when we remember that we also are lost sheep. Amen. If you're in this room and you're a Christian, you need to know something. That was you at some point, right? At some point, that was you.

You were the one lost in your sin. You were the one who had wandered away from God's design for you, who had stepped off into the evils and hurts and brokenness of this world. You were the one who was lost and lonely and isolated, away from the family you were made for, away from the shepherd who cares for you. And Jesus noticed you were missing. He noticed and he sought you out. He knew your need and he went looking for you and he found you. He brought you back.

And guys, here's the thing. We've been following Christ for a while. It can be easy to forget that part of your story. It can be easy to forget the truth that to be lost is terrifying. It is. To be lost is terrifying.

Once when I was a kid, I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket and I wanted this 12-inch tall plastic Spider-Man action figure. And they sold them at KB Toys inside of the Mid Rivers Mall in St. Peter's. Any, any, like any St. Louis people know what I'm talking about this way? Okay. Yeah. KB Toys. They're not around anymore. That was the standard mall toy shop in the '90s. It was an amazing place.

And so I bugged my mom. I bugged my mom. I want to go get this Spider-Man. And so one day we're out and about doing errands. My mom says, okay, I'm going to let you go in with your brother. The mall's about to close. I'm going to let you go in with your brother. He's going to take you to KB. You're going to get your toy. You're going to come right back out. I'm going to wait out in the car.

My little brothers were like, I think only one of my little brothers was born. He's a little bitty baby and the mall's about to close. And so she goes, I'm going to stay in the car. You guys go in, get the toy, come back out.

And so we pull up to Dillard's at the Midrivers Mall. And if you've been to the Midrivers Mall, lots of malls back then had Dillard's. The Dillard's that the Mid Rivers Mall had was a 2-story Dillard's and had 2 entrances, one at the second story, one at the lower story. And so she dropped us off at the upper level. We went through Dillard's, went right out into the mall, went down the escalator, went into KB Toys. I spent my money. I got my Spider-Man. Life's awesome.

We go back through Dillard's, go outside, and mom's gone. Now, what you might have missed in my telling of the story was that we went in the upper level, went out into the mall, went down the escalator, went into KB. Then went into the mall, went straight into Dillard's and went out the door. We went out the wrong door. We go out the lower level exit. Mom's out there.

And right about that time, the mall closes. And little bitty me, I get so scared. I'm so freaked out. We can't go back inside. The doors are locked. It's nighttime.

And out in the mall parking lot is mall teens. Now, if you're not a child of the '90s, you may not remember this. But mall teens are terrifying. They cuss and they smoke. Some of them have skateboards and they're spread out all around the entrance to the Dillard's.

And me and my older brother, I'm with my older brother. He's about 5 years older than me. We're freaked out. Mom's not around. And I honestly, like, I was, I was like beside myself. I start crying. We're freaking out.

We wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. A mall security guard keeps driving by. He every now and then yells at the mall teens, keeps driving by. We had no idea what to do.

My brother finally takes some of my change from Spider-Man and he goes to a payphone. A payphone is like a cell phone that you pay for and it's bolted to the wall. You can't carry it with you. He goes to the payphone and he calls my grandma and she lives about 30 minutes away and he tells her and she goes, okay, I'll come out and find you guys. And so he gets off there.

And that, some of you are going, why didn't you call your mom? This was the '90s. You can't do that. She didn't have a cell phone. We used the, we used our option. We called grandma. Right.

And so we wait and wait and wait, and I'm crying and crying and crying. I'm so sad. And eventually, I guess, I don't know what happened to the other end of the, I should ask my mom. She probably knows the other end of the story, but eventually grandma gets there. Grandma or mom, someone rolls down to the lower parking lot. They find us. Oh. We're saved. It's wonderful. Get in the car. We're sad. We're crying. There's tears. There's hugs, reunification, all of those things.

Here, here, here's the thing about that, guys. That, that, that's like a core memory for me as a kid. That scared the heck outta me. I mean, I cried and cried and cried and cried. I was scared because I was lost.

And guys, to be lost, it is incredibly disorienting. It's incredibly scary. It's, it's haunting. And I think often being lost is so disorienting because we don't immediately realize we're lost. We're walking along, driving along, moving along, thinking we're fine, and then suddenly there's a moment where you notice, I'm not where I thought I was. I'm not 100% sure what's going on here.

And like sheep, going from tuft of grass to tuft of grass until one moment you look up and the flock is gone. I was riding high on birthday Spider-Man action figure, walking through Dillard's thinking life was fine until I walked outside and realized I don't know where I am. And it was terrifying because my mom wasn't there.

Because there are so many people, so many people in this life walking along, living their lives with no idea that they've actually gone astray. No idea, no clue that their life is actually separated from the flock, that they're actually away from the shepherd who cares for them. They've stepped away from the life they were made for. And often it takes some kind of danger, some kind of suffering, some kind of pain to open our eyes and help us realize that we're actually lost. And when you realize you're lost, you want to be found.

Do you know the most wild part about that story from my childhood? Most wild part about the whole thing. The most wild part about the whole thing is that my mom, being a good mom, had told the mall security guard, my boys are lost and I'm looking for them. Here's what they look like. I dropped them off. Here's what happened.

And that same mall security guard drove right by us. A dozen times he yelled at the mall kids. He was doing his job. And then whatever the heck was going on in his head, he did not notice, uh, didn't see it even though he'd been asked to look for him. That's a bad mall cop, right?

But you understand what I'm saying? That mall cop was a shepherd watching someone else's sheep. He wasn't invested, and so he didn't look very hard and he didn't notice. You need to know something, beloved. Jesus has been better to you than a mall cop. He noticed you. He saw you. He sought you out and he found you.

Beloved, think of your own story. If you're in Christ, you know that's your story. You know you were lost. How good did it feel when he found you? When he broke through to you, when you stopped being lost and you were brought home?

Of course these sinners come to Jesus. Of course the tax collectors gather around him. When you realize your loss, you want to be found.

But Jesus did this for you. And you need to know this, he longs to do it for them. And there's a dead simple reason why he does, even though it's hard work, even though it's intense. There's a dead simple reason why God wants to do this for those who are lost. Read on, we'll finish this out.

Rejoicing Over the One

Verse 6.

and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep. I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don't need repentance.

This is where the story finally gets its weird twist. The shepherd does all this work to go and find his lost sheep. He brings it home, and immediately he goes around to his neighbors and starts shouting, look, I found my sheep! It was lost, but I found it. Come celebrate with me. Let's feast. Let's party. I found my sheep. Woo woo. Let's do this.

Now, here's the thing. It's not strange that the shepherd is glad he found his sheep, but that he would involve his friends and neighbors in his celebration is where it gets weird, right? That he would invite them to celebrate with him, that, that Jesus connects this whole idea to parties in heaven. It's strange. It feels, if we're honest, with the shepherd story, like the celebration outweighs the occasion. You wouldn't feast or invite neighbors over because you found your sheep. I mean, it's cool that you found him, but it would cost more to have the feast than the sheep cost, right?

But here's the thing, beloved, that's the point of the story. That's the point of the story. This is what Jesus is getting at. Any family shepherd worth his salt would find the lost sheep and he would be happy he found it. But this shepherd, our sweet Jesus, he rejoices. He's ready to party.

And this little end line tells us why. Because repentance is worth celebration. And the reason is because every sheep matters to Jesus. Every person who lives, every single human being with human DNA, with a heart, heartbeat, with breath, has those things because Jesus wants them to. Because all of you matter to him, because every single person is made in God's image and is of infinite value to him.

And Jesus notices every single person. And because Jesus loves every single person, every single one, even the ones we hate, because of that, no life— hear this— no life ever in all of the world, in all of human history, slips into pain and suffering and sin and loss without Jesus noticing the loss, without Jesus caring about the loss, because every sheep matters to Christ.

Beloved, you matter to Jesus. You matter to him. He saw you and he sought you and Every single other sinner living lost and in mortal peril of their soul is noticed and loved by Jesus. Every single one.

Heaven rejoices when sinners repent. Hear that, church. The angels, God himself, they party when one of God's preciously and lovingly created sheep repents of their sin and turns from death and damnation to life and redemption. Because that's worth celebrating.

Imagine for a moment you visited an art museum and you saw some amazing classic painting that had been ruined. I love a Rembrandt, so maybe it's his Portrait of Saint Peter and His Martyrdom. This is one of my favorite Rembrandts. Maybe you walk up to the museum and you see this sitting out in the parking lot or in the driveway walking up to the museum, and someone has slammed it into the ground and they've broken the frame and they've creased up the canvas. And they poured out their caramel macchiato on it and they stomped on it and ground it into the, into the sidewalk. I don't like Rembrandt. He's a hack.

And you see them stomp away. And let's say for the sake of the story that you realize in this moment, this isn't like a print, like a poster from, from the gift shop. You, you actually know in your heart of hearts, this is the real one. This is actually Rembrandt's St. Peter. And you realize, oh my gosh. The Dutch master, because you all love Rembrandt. I know, it's fine.

What would you do? Would you walk past it and go inside the museum? No, no, no, no. You would get someone more qualified than you, right? You would pick it up and carry it inside and go, I promise I didn't do this. Someone else did. We got to do something.

And you know what the museum would do? Could they do this all over, all the time, all over the world? They would bring in multiple people with PhDs and X-ray machines and microscopes, and they would encase the thing in like hermetically sealed glass. And they would spend years upon years, bit by bit, micron by micron, restoring and reclaiming the painting. They're actually doing this to one of Rembrandt's paintings right now in Europe. It's a huge one. And they have it encased and people have to put on hazmat suits to go in and work on the restoration of it. And they would spend years upon years doing the best they could to repair this painting.

And years later, they would come back out and they would say, the famous sidewalk painting that got stomped for some reason, we've finally fixed it. We're ready to unveil it. And they would put it out there and you would go and see it and you'd be so excited, right? Look at that. They managed to fix all the creases and they fixed that part and they put a new frame on it.

And you would still be able to tell a little bit, you know, like you'd still be able to tell because you study Rembrandt. So, you know, this is a good story. Uh, you, you would notice the little differences, right? But how amazing would it be to see the redemption, to see the restoration? And maybe even those scars might make the restoration all the more meaningful because you would know how damaged and destroyed that painting was. And to see it brought back would be such a cool thing, right?

I think you guys know what I'm getting at with this. Beloved, this is what Jesus has done for you. He found you. He found you in your sin. He found you in your ruination. He noticed when you were missing. When, when you feel lost, beloved, Jesus sees you. He finds you.

This is the way our God treats us. This is how Jesus wants to treat everyone you have ever met. Can I stop there for a second? That is how Jesus wants to treat every single person you have ever met in your entire life. Wants them to feel seen when they're lost, to be found, to be redeemed, to be restored. People you love and the people you hate, the people you respect and the people who have wronged you, all of them, the religious people and the atheists, the selfless and kind and the self-centered and manipulative. Jesus sees them all. He goes off for the lost sheep. He celebrates when they're found.

And so the question for us today as we land out is simply this: does the reality of Jesus's amazing, persistent, celebratory love for you— does that move you to love others in the same way? Does, does Jesus's love for you impact you so that you are moved to love others as he does?

If you want it to be so, I'm telling you, it will start with you noticing those who Jesus notices. It will start when you see the people Jesus sees. It will start when you seek out those that Christ seeks out.

You, beloved, are surrounded by lost sheep. They may or may not know it, but they're lost and they need to be found. They need restoration. They need to be called out of this life of the curse and invited into the better story that is the kingdom of God. And every single one of them matters.

They matter to the Lord.

So beloved, will you notice them?

We see them. Look, I know you're busy. I know you are. I know that's real. I'm not, I'm not begrudging you that.

I know you have your own anxieties that you work through that dominate your mind at times. I know that. I know you have so much on your plate that you carry. Oftentimes it's as much as you can do to just get through the day. I understand. I've been there.

I'm not trying to shame you right now. I'm certainly not condemning you, but I am beseeching you in the midst of that, in the midst of your busyness, in the midst of your anxiety, in the midst of your struggle to live life in this world, will you notice them? Will you see them? Will you lift up your head and open your eyes to the world around you, head up, eyes open to see the need around you?

Will you notice?

Jesus sees you, beloved. Will that compel you to look around you and see?

And if you want to come back up, because that's where we start. That's the first step in the journey of walking with Christ to do the work of the kingdom. Will you live with your eyes open to the need around you? Will you notice the lostness around you in your family, with your parents, with your siblings, with your children, with your grandchildren? Will you notice them?

Your friends, your coworkers, your classmates, your teammates, your neighbors. Will you notice them, beloved?

And here's what I'm going to invite us to do as we land out today. We've got these cards around the room. We're actually going to have these out pretty much every Sunday for the next several weeks. And the reason is this.

I think the first step we can take as we consider what it means to join with Jesus in the work is to simply have open eyes to notice lostness around us.

I want you to take a few minutes before we continue on to actually think about the world God has placed you in. Think about your circle of influence, your marriage, your immediate family, the place where you work, places where you play, where you have recreation. Think about the people in your life. Think about the lostness that might be around you.

And I want you to ask the Holy Spirit to give you eyes to notice. And if a face pops in your head, if a name pops in your head, whether that's your child, your grandchild, your high school best friend, I don't care. The name and the face pops in your head. I want to encourage you to put it on that card and to begin this week to pray for them. We're going to come back to that idea several times over the coming weeks. Who are the people you have noticed? Who's missing from the flock that has drawn your mind, drawn your eyes?

This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville Missouri as part of our "Who’s Your One?" series on the biblical vision for kingdom of God mission in the every day lives of believers. For more resources on faith and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community.

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