“That None of the Father’s Sheep should Perish”
Matthew 18:1-20
9/7/08
I’m sure you all know John 3:16 by
heart: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish,
but have eternal life.” In this one verse alone we can see
how concerned God is that no one suffer under His wrath in hell, but
that all come to trust in His Son, Jesus Christ in order to live and
reign with Him in His heavenly kingdom forever. Here the Apostle
John reveals the heart of God towards His fallen creatures, and
it’s a heart of love and compassion. Yes, God often
displays His wrath in the Scriptures, but He does that as a last
resort. He pours out His wrath only when He is driven to do so by
those who spurn His love. Pouring out His wrath is the last thing
God wants to do to sinners. The first thing He wants to do is
pursue us with His love in Jesus Christ, in the hopes that that love
will draw us back to Him, so that we might not perish, but have eternal
life. And in today’s Gospel text Jesus illustrates this
love that God has for us with the story about a man who cares so much
about one of his sheep that has wandered off that he leaves the rest of
his sheep to go looking for the one that’s gone astray until he
finds it.
In this story we note that, though God is concerned
about the whole world, that all should believe in Jesus and not perish,
here the Lord focuses in on His special concern for those who are His
sheep - those who have come to faith in Christ, who repent of their
sins, and live under the care of their Good Shepherd, receiving the
spiritual food they need to nourish and strengthen them in the
faith. The flock of 100 sheep represents the Christian Church on
earth. You are part of this flock by virtue of the fact that God
the Father pursued you with His love through His Son while you were
still dead in your sins. You may have been caught by that love
while you were still an infant, or you may have been caught later on as
an adult, but either way, you were caught as God’s love had its
way with you through Baptism and the Word. And now you are a part
of God’s sheepfold under the care of the Good Shepherd, Jesus
Christ as He protects and feeds you through undershepherds like myself.
Now, you would think that the sheep would have no
reason to wander off, when they have it so good under the care of such
a loving Shepherd as Jesus, who went so far as to give His life on the
cross for them to save them from the wages of their sins. But for
some reason or another, something entices us and lures us away.
Not satisfied with the gifts we are receiving from Jesus among the rest
of His sheep, we look for satisfaction elsewhere. Instead of
feeding on the green pastures of God’s Word and Sacraments, we go
after weeds. Weeds often look better, but in the end they make us
sick. There are all kinds of enticing desserts out there in the
form of false doctrine, false christs, and false gospels. There
are much more pleasurable experiences out there that are forbidden in
the sheepfold. And the more they have God’s “You
shall not” attached to them, the more alluring they become.
Like the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, they look good for food
and pleasing to the eye. And so, we go wandering off. Oh,
we might be in church physically, but we’ve left our hearts in
San Francisco or somewhere else.
We sheep wander quit frequently. In fact, we
do it every time we sin. Every sin is an attempt on our part to
bolt for the door of the sheepfold and leave. We like what
we’re not supposed to have, and even though our Good Shepherd has
redeemed us with His blood, baptized us, and given us a new nature, we
still have the old nature within us that wants what’s not good
for us, even though it leads to death. So, we wander. Most
of the time, however, the Lord catches us before we get too far.
Those of you with children can appreciate this. It’s easier
to catch a child when he’s first headed out the door than once
he’s around the corner and out of sight. That’s when
you have to go looking for him. The same goes for us. The
Lord pursues us with His Word, specifically His Word of Law, which He
uses to expose our sin, showing us that we have wandered away from Him
by falling into sin and unbelief. Though it’s His Law we
hear from Him when we do this, it’s His love that drives Him to
proclaim that Word to us, in order that we might be brought back to Him
in repentance and not perish. And this is what He does every
Sunday here in this place, where He leads us to confess our sins, so
that we can then hear His words of Gospel - the forgiveness of our sins
for Christ’s sake. And even during the week, when we sin He
brings these words back to our minds and leads us to repentance, so
that we might not continue to wander away from Him, but return to the
place where He graciously feeds us, takes care of us, and gives us
eternal life.
Sometimes, however, sheep insist on wandering
further away. They are enticed by their lusts to follow a path
that leads to destruction. The delicacies of sin are too good,
and we insist on indulging in them, in spite of any warnings not
to. Then, instead of repenting of our sins, we stubbornly live in
them and give ourselves over to them. We may even use God’s
forgiveness as a license to do so, saying to ourselves,
“It’s okay to sin. God will forgive me.”
But Jesus didn’t give His life for you on the cross to give you
license to live in sin. To live in sin is a contradiction in
terms. There’s no life in sin. Sin leads to
death. It takes life away from you, by separating you from the
One who is life. Sin is what will cause you to perish, if
it’s not dealt with. God saw this, and that is why He sent
His Son in the first place and why He pursues you when you sin in the
second place. First, He sent Jesus to save you from the wages of
sin by taking those wages upon Himself on the cross. Jesus
perished for you, suffering hell for you on the cross, so that you
wouldn’t have to. He who did not wander away from His
Father paid the price for you and me, who have and do wander away from
the Father all the time. And now, because it is still possible
for us to perish if we are not brought back to the Father’s
sheepfold, our Lord runs after us when wander.
He does this through me, your pastor. As He
uses me to proclaim His words of Law and Gospel to you, He leads you to
repentance and faith in the forgiveness of your sins for Christ’s
sake. He does that publicly as you confess your sins together
with the other sheep that are gathered here today to hear the
Lord’s absolution, and He also does that privately for you, when
you come to me by yourself to confess your sins and hear the
Lord’s words of forgiveness spoken to you personally. But
if there comes a time when I become aware that you are living in sin,
living in a state of unrepentance, or keeping yourself from the divine
service and from the rest of God’s sheep, the Lord will use me to
go after you, in order to try to bring you back. The Lord can
also use you, too, to try to bring back those wandering sheep that you
know by confronting them with their sin and encouraging them to return
to the place where the rest of God’s sheep gather to hear their
Good Shepherd’s words of forgiveness and be fed with His body and
blood.
All this is done because it is not the will of the
Father that any of the sheep that He has purchased with the blood of
His Son should perish. Consider how much God loves you and how
much you are worth to Him. Do you think He wants His Son’s
suffering and death on the cross to be for nothing? After He has
redeemed you for Himself at such a high price, will He lightly give you
up and let you wander off? No! Notice how important just
one sheep is to the man in this story. He leaves the 99 to go
searching for the one who’s wandered off. Now, it’s
not that God abandons the rest of His people to go looking for one
who’s gone astray. In those days, there were often more
than one shepherd to look after the sheep, so that if one sheep
wandered off, one shepherd could go looking for it while another stayed
behind to take care of the rest of the sheep. But here in the
story that Jesus tells, it’s the owner of the sheep that goes
looking for the one that’s wandered off. There may be many
undershepherds for God’s sheep, but there’s only one who
owns the sheep, and that’s the One who bought them with His
blood. You are too precious to God for Him to lose you. He
runs after you when you sin against Him.
But beware of tempting Him in this.
Don’t wander away from God just to try and see if God will come
after you. This is what the devil tried to get Jesus to do when
he told Him to jump off the top of the temple to see if God would send
His angels to save Him. Again, God’s love and forgiveness
is not a license for you to live in sin. The Apostle Paul asks,
“Are we to continue in sin that grace might abound? By no
means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
In your Baptism you died to sin that you might live to Christ.
Remember, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. To live in sin means you will
perish. But to live in Christ means you will have eternal
life. God pursues you with His love when you sin, seeking to
bring you back to repentance, so that you won’t perish, but live.
When you are on the receiving end of God’s
pursuit, remember, then, that it is out of His love for you that He
comes after you. Often times when the pastor or others confront
us with our sin we get angry and want to fight back. We try to
justify our behavior while telling the one who’s confronting us
that it’s none of his business, and who is he to judge?
Nobody wants to be caught in his sins. It’s
embarrassing. But God isn’t trying to embarrass you or
condemn you or make fun of you or make you out to be a worse sinner
than anybody else. He simply wants you to confess that you have
sinned and that you deserve to perish, but that He has taken care of
that in His Son, Jesus Christ. God warns of punishment so that
you might escape it through repentance and faith in Christ, not because
He enjoys pouring out His wrath. He enjoys showing mercy.
And as the Apostle John states, “If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.”
It is not God’s will, then, that any of His
sheep perish - that you should perish, but that you should repent of
your sins and continue to receive the gifts your Good Shepherd has to
give you through His Word and Sacraments. In order that you might
not cut yourself off from His care, God pursues you with His love when
you sin in order to bring you back. Think about this kind of
love, that God, the Maker of heaven and earth and your Redeemer, goes
after you to keep from losing you! He sent His only-begotten Son
to give His life for you on the cross, so that you wouldn’t
perish, but have eternal life. And it is that same love that
keeps you safe in His sheepfold and runs after you when you
stray. Eat and drink of that love today and live under your
heavenly Father’s mercy in Jesus Christ. Amen.