Back in the Fold :: Matthew 18:12-14
What do you think? If a certain man has 100 sheep, and one is led astray, would he not leave the 99 upon the mountain and go seek the one being led astray. And if he happens to find it, Truly, I tell you, he rejoices in it more than in the 99 who weren’t being led astray. Thus, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be destroyed.
Brothers and sisters in Christ ... Rejoice with the joy of joys! Praise the Lord! Say Hallelujah and Amen, again! Sing Glory to God in the Highest, and peace to his people on earth.
There is more joy in heaven today because a certain man has found you. Immanuel has left his mountain paradise and has come after you in the Word made flesh. Our Lord Jesus Christ has heard your confession and delivered to you absolution and washed you clean in his baptismal grace. Our Good Shepherd has lifted you upon his shoulders and brought you back up the mountain.
And here, in this place today, our Father who art in heaven has prepared for you ... to the immeasurable joy of heaven above ... a feast of unimaginable forgiveness that gives life and salvation to those who have faith in his words and promises, and he nourishes you in body and soul.
Thank the Lord and sing his praise; Tell everyone what he has done.
THERE IS MORE JOY IN HEAVEN TODAY ...
because Jesus has overcome the devil, the world and our sinful nature and brought you back to his mountaintop paradise.
4. Did you even know you needed to be rescued today?
Given how extremely faithful this congregation really is, I wonder how many of us recognized that truth before arriving this morning. Worshipping on Sunday becomes so natural for us that simply missing one worship service disrupts your entire life.
So we come. We sing with all our heart and set aside all of our cares, if for only an hour. Not including the COVID shutdown, I bet many of you can’t even remember the last time you couldn’t come. You know you belong to the flock of the Good Shepherd. And that gives you peace.
But did you notice how the Divine Service has been taking you on a journey?
Christ has been leading you out of the world and back to the mountain of God ... away from self-service back to God’s service ... away from yourself and back to where more than two or three are gathered in his name.
Today, our Lord Jesus discovered that his sheep had been led astray ... again ... and so he came to find and restore each of you, assuring each of you that you have the gifts of heaven. This is what the Divine Service does for us twice a month.
The Divine Service is not a man-made ritual ... it is scripture in action.
Our congregation has been following the basic liturgical orders used by the church for thousands of years. The prophet Ezekiel, a priest without a temple who wrote our Old Testament reading, even used them.
If you’ve paid attention, the Divine Service ... which is more properly called God’s service, or for you Lutherans ... Gottesdienst ... has been reminding you of and delivering to you the forgiveness of sins at every point so far today, beginning with the first two sentences we sang twenty minutes or so ago ... My soul, now praise your Maker ... who makes you full partaker ... of mercies more than you dare claim.
This is a mountaintop experience.
Here we experience the living waters of baptism, where Christ enables you to confess sins and receive his absolution that the forgiveness declared to you was just as valid and certain as if our dear Lord himself spoke it.
Here, we hear his word of peace to you, through the Introit and the Kyrie, the oldest prayer of the faithful. We rejoice with all the angels and saints as we sing the Gloria. And then we were reminded of his Gospel to us through both the written and spoken Word.
Every time we come together in this worship ... in one way or another, we see reflections of the mountain we call the kingdom of the heavens.
3. So why is it that we wander away so often?
Today’s Parable of the Lost Sheep is different than you probably remember.
It comes to us in the middle of a longer discourse to the Holy Christian and Apostolic Church. Whereas last week Jeremiah reminded us that the hardest thing to do is to call our brothers and sisters to repentance, this week Jesus shows us that he is the one who does all the work in this regard.
Matthew’s entire gospel reveals that there is no one who is not a lost sheep who longs to wander from the security of the Gospel. So Jesus is continually coming to us, loving us, calling us, feeding us, taking our burden from us, and carrying us back to the fold.
That is what today’s parable reveals.
What do you think? If a certain man has 100 sheep, and one is led astray, would he not leave the 99 upon the mountain and go seek the one being led astray.
Jesus didn’t tell this parable to a group of people who had been “lost” and were now “found” ... he told it to “good church members” who were already following him.
More specifically, he told it to the Twelve Disciples, who knew Jesus was the Christ, the son of the Living God. They knew Jesus was the master of heaven and earth. They knew he was God’s only son, that he was on his way to Jerusalem, so that he could bear the full wrath of God for the sins of all the people, be crucified, die, and be raised to new life on Easter Sunday.
They didn’t understand what any of that meant at the time Jesus spoke this to them, but they knew Jesus had come to save the lost.
And all of us have been lost. As Paul reminds us so well in his epistle to the Romans, None is righteous; no not one. No one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside. No one does good.
And so we wander .... led astray by our complete lack of awareness of what sin is actually doing to us ... led astray by a world of false religions that tease you into believing you can live Purpose-Driven Lives, that you can Think Better and Live Better, that you can Become the Man God Believes You Can Be. ... That you don’t need a savior ... that Jesus is nothing more than a good man with a good word about good living. It is amazing to think that 33 percent of evangelicals believe that Jesus was only a man, not God.
Those are all lies.
There are not greener pastures than the mountain of God.
2. The problem of straying ... of wandering away from the mountain of God is not simply some sort of running away into the moral morass of law-breaking.
The problem of straying is also drawn away into a disregard of the Gospel of God’s mercy. Into a disregard for God's service.
You need to know: the devil doesn’t want you to be here on this mountain where God reminds you continually of his promises through Word and Sacrament. The devil will tell you everything and anything to make you think that you don’t need the forgiveness of sins. That if you receive the forgiveness of sins too often, it will lose its specialness. The devil doesn’t want you to even think you are a sinner who needs a savior.
In the name of Jesus, Repent, everyone of you. Long for the forgiveness of sins. When you don't long for it, put your hand on your heart to see if it is still beating. Because you will surely die in your sins otherwise.
God loves you so much he has sent Jesus to you for this very reason. Because it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be destroyed.
1. We can now rejoice with all the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven at the news that today the will of our heavenly Father is being fulfilled.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today through the proclamation of his Gospel and the blessing of his sacraments, there is more joy in heaven.
Your Good Shepherd has found you and brought you back to the safety and security of paradise on God’s mountain, a place where heaven and earth meet. Here, God’s good and gracious will is done as he breaks and hinders every evil purpose and plan that do not want you to hallow God’s name or to let his kingdom.
Jesus made sure that we could do this.
The Lord of heaven and earth humbled himself like a child, so that all who receive him alone, all who have faith in him alone, confessing his name alone and believing in his promises alone, will not perish but will have eternal life. This is the good and gracious will of God for you.
Jesus overcame all the temptations to sin for you ... living a life of active righteousness for you ... so that he who knew no sin could stand in your place, being beaten for you, being crucified for you, dying for you on a cross, and rising from the dead for you ... to give you the promises of promises, that death has no more dominion over you. As a result of this, God has reconciled himself to you, and given you the righteousness of Christ. This is the good and gracious will of God for you.
There is now nothing you need to do to receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Jesus has done it all for you.
Do you see now why ...
THERE NOW IS MORE JOY IN HEAVEN TODAY?
Our Lord Jesus Christ has brought all of you home to the mountain of God, where no one will perish. Here, Christ ensures you have all that you need. Through his word and his name attached to the living waters of baptism, God creates saving faith in you and brings you forth in the joy of new life. There is now more joy in heaven today as he separates you from his wrath and punishment, and delivers to you the cup of his salvation. It’s all to his glory and our good.