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Lost sheep need rescuing. They need to be saved. God initiates (and completes) the salvation of lost sheep (sinners)! And the response? JOY!
Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, my name is Mike Apendroth, and I'll tell you what I'm not going to be doing in 49 minutes, oh sorry, 34 minutes, and that is watching the WNBA Finals on Thursday, USA Network, Peacock, well I probably wouldn't even watch if Kaitlin Clark was playing, but I definitely won't be watching those two teams as they are ashamed of the National Anthem, etc., I don't usually talk about that kind of stuff, but bad product, losing money, as Victor Navis Hanson says, it just needs to go away.
Well my name is Mike Apendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry, you can always write me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com, I'm trying to think of anything funny I have to say, I sometimes people talk about food before they get into the subject of the day, I had the best clam chowder maybe I've ever had in my life at a place called Cabby something, Cabby, I don't even know, Cabbylicious, actually I can find out right here because I've got the best clam chowder, Cabbyshack, not, yeah, Cabbyshack, thick, creamy, that's butter on top of it, chowder, New England style, that was so good, just in Plymouth, Massachusetts, I don't know why sometimes it's P-L-I and P-L-Y, the Cabbyshack, creamy chowder, homemade, in a cup, in a bowl, my wife got a cup, I got a bowl, so much for that, wasn't that fun radio, wasn't that really dumb radio?
You're like, Mike, get onto the subject. I was reading Leland Ryken's son's book, Philip Ryken's book on Luke 15, see how I rescued that? I meant to say Philip, then I said Leland, that's the dad, the literature expert dad, Leland, but then, see, we made it happen.
George Takai is still alive, but Walter Koenig on Star Trek died, and I met him at Disneyland of all places in 1982, summer of 1982, I believe Wrath of Khan was recently released and Khan put that weird bug thing into Chekhov's ear to make him comply with whatever, Riccardo Montalban as Kandanin Singh, so when I was a kid, I drove, I think, to Kansas City with a buddy to see, let's see, DeForest Kelly was there, bones of Star Trek, and Nicole, what is her name, Uhuru, Nicole, not Kidman, Nicole Williams, Nicole Nichols, I think maybe that's it, anyway, and then I met Leonard Nimoy at Gorky's, a little Russian avant-garde breakfast place in downtown LA, well, met, he said, could you please pass the creamer, so I guess that's meeting.
I did look at his ears, and then I never met William Shatner, I saw him go to a play at a small little theater in Los Angeles, but I never met him or anything like that, nor probably will I ever, that's just the way things go, and Scotty, I never met him, anyway, I used to love Star Trek, as we say in Nebraska, Star Track, Star Track, I'm trying to eat more oatmeal, cholesterol and all that, no statins, but I'm sure you'll probably all send me all your articles now about how I can lower my LDL and HDL and lipid panel, I'm taking red rice yeast, and I'm taking some flour statin, over-the-counter herb thing, that's it.
Reichen, back down to Reichen, Luke 15, four through seven, Jesus is giving a defense on why he is hanging around, socializing with sinners and tax collectors and the riffraff and the scumbags and the scallywags and the, what else starts with an S, less than stalwarts of society, and Reichen says there's the shepherd's quest for the lost sheep, there's the shepherd's burden for the lost sheep in a shepherd's celebration, so that's a pretty good breakdown, but I'm going to make it alliteration, I'm going to make it alliterate, chasing, caring, celebrating, don't you, I think that's actually better, mine's better, but I wouldn't have gotten mine without Reichen, what man of you having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it, and when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing, and when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying, rejoice with me, I've found my sheep that was lost, just so, Jesus said, I tell you that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance, and as you know, with this one parable in Luke 15, with three components, a three-in-one parable, we have lost, found, and rejoice as the theme, something was lost, sheep, coin, son, something was found, sheep, coin, son, and there should be great rejoicing, and the foil here is the Pharisees and the scribes, they're not rejoicing that Jesus is finding lost sinners, they are mad, they are not celebrating, they're not rejoicing, they are grumbling, and remember, last show, two shows ago, on the Tuesday show, you've got Ezekiel 34, where God is going to shepherd his people, right, via the Davidic promise, via the Messiah, and here, Jesus, he is the great shepherd, he is God, and even when he says in verse 7, just so I tell you, that is language, that is revelation, I'm telling you, here's revelation from me, I'm not quoting from the Old Testament, here's what I'm telling you, I'm telling you there's more joy in heaven.
How does he know that? Is he just speculating? Is he thinking about some verse? Or do you think he has descended from heaven? Remember John chapter 3, no one has ascended into heaven except he who has descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
John chapter 6, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. Jesus understands what's going on in heaven because he left heaven, right? Language of, you know, we have to understand what that means, and certainly, he took on flesh and dwelt among us.
The Pharisees were horrible shepherds, and so the Lord is not going to allow that, and he himself will seek and search for his sheep. That's Ezekiel chapter 34. So, there are three scenes. First scene is the chasing.
If you wanted to say combing, you could, not like combing your hair, but combing the field for this lost sheep. You've got 100 sheep, 100, 100 sheep, lose one, leave the 99, leave the 99 in the open country, and go after the one that's lost.
Won't he do that until he finds it? So, this is what man of you, this is how Jesus opens the first part of the parable, of the one main parable in all of Luke 15, and you leave the 99, and you go to find the lost one.
My guess is he was counting, right? And you get up to 99, and then you look around, and you're like, did I forget one? And you're just going to leave the 99 literally in the desert, the open country, and start searching.
This is a very dangerous place. You need to have a shepherd for protection. The shepherd was personally responsible for all the sheep, and he has to give an accounting. Some have said, as they studied shepherds back in those days, if you lost a sheep to like a wolf or a lion or something, you had to bring back the sheep's fleece to show this is the result of what happened, and here's proof.
Now, the question is, you leave the 99 and go to the one, is that smart? Is that something good to do? Is this something, matter of fact, that people during Jesus's day would know all about, caring for sheep?
And it's amazing to me that even the incarnation, when you think about the shepherd, the great shepherd, the good shepherd, Jesus, the chief shepherd, that he'd even associate himself as a shepherd because they're pretty low-ranking.
I mean, they're above tax collectors, they're above sinners, but in society, do you think the Pharisees would ever say to themselves, oh, we want to be good shepherds? That wouldn't be kind of their deal.
And so a sheep wanders off, and it's easy for them to die down and be in a little kind of trough in the ground and can't get back over, rolled back over. Philip Keller has a little book called The Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.
I read that years ago, and all of a sudden, the center of gravity, he says, of a sheep gets all messed up, and they can't get up. Then he says they lie there struggling, gases begin to build up in the rumen, and these expand.
They tend to cut off the blood circulation to the extremities of the body, especially the legs. And if the weather's hot and sunny, a cast sheep can die in a few hours. So, you've got 100 sheep, one goes off, and now you are going to try to find it.
I mean, left to itself, it's going to be dead. It is going to perish. Now, you know the backdrop to this. You know the spiritual truth behind all this. Isaiah 53, verse 6, all of us like sheep have gone astray.
Each of us has turned to his own way. Lost. Of course, we are unbelievers. We are not saved. We are unregenerate. And this word lost is pretty bad. I mean, is there any hope in the word lost? But God, but God, he initiates monergistic salvation.
He seeks, he saves, he rescues. God takes the initiative. And the way the Pharisees thought, if you clean yourself up and repent prior to, then you can be kind of one of us. It's not like God really seeks and saves lost people, unregenerate people, ungodly people, unrighteous people, but become more righteous and then you can be part of the group.
John 10, when you think about God, the son's initiation, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who has a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees.
And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me.
And I know the father. I lay down my life for the sheep. Jesus is the great shepherd. And Jesus is saying like a shepherd will go after the one I'm going after the lost. I love the lost. Jeremiah 23, and I have to do this because woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture.
Therefore, Jeremiah 23 says, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel concerning the shepherds who care for my people. You've scattered my flock and have driven them away and you've not attended them. Behold, I'll attend to you for your evil deeds declares the Lord.
Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries that I've driven them and will bring them back to their fold. And they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will ship set shepherds over them who care for them and they shall fear no more nor be dismayed.
Neither shall be any missing declares the Lord. Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he will reign as King and deal wisely. He's going to be called the Lord is our righteousness.
God is seeking, God is saving. And by the way, that's how you pray, right? You pray, Lord, find them. It's not, you know what? I'll clean myself up first. Uh, no, he goes after them. Well, you know, this has to be true because the Old Testament and the New Testament both teach.
None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. Right now, from the human perspective, you might say he, it seems like this person seeking for God. He's reading the Bible. He's praying.
Well, he's doing that. If he is doing that legitimately because the father's drawing him. But when you're dead and trespasses and sins, dead men don't seek. God has to go rescue. Your testimony, my testimony should be not.
I'm the subject that did all the work. I was the object that received Christ work. I think some have said, if you're ever going to give a testimony, you don't start off with I, unless you're going to say I was a sinner.
Jesus, the good shepherd, pursuing, initiating, loving, self-sacrificially. And you can just go back to Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and God searches them out. Where are you? Caring is number two.
First, we've got the chasing going after. Now we have the caring. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders. And when he has found it, he said, get out of here. Get up. I told you so. How could you, you dummy?
Others didn't do this. Well, the sheep is too weak to come back on its own. So he lays it on his shoulders. Care, love, kindness, patience. Not just finding it, but bringing it back. Philip Keller said, as soon as I reached the cast you, my very first impulse was to pick it up.
I would hold her erect, rubbing her limbs to restore the circulation to her legs. When the sheep started to walk again, she often stumbled, staggered and collapsed. Little by little, the sheep would regain its equilibrium.
It would start to walk steadily and surely. By and by, it would dash away to rejoin the others, set free from its fears and frustrations, given another chance to live a little longer. Well, this is such a tired sheep, such a sick sheep, maybe such a hurt sheep.
He has to lay it on his shoulders. Now, he didn't yell at the sheep. He didn't get the whip out for the sheep. He's not grumbling. He's happy he found the sheep and he secures the sheep and he puts it on his shoulder.
Can you imagine draping that around your neck and having the four legs just sticking out, stomach up against the back of your neck? Some say a full grown sheep is 100 pounds. You put 100 pounds on your back and carry that sheep.
This is me, I know. I know I'm weird. I thought, well, I'm in a basement. If I'm that shepherd, that's a very difficult thing to do, 100 pounds around the neck and trudging through rocks and stuff like that and hills and inclines.
I thought, I'm going to be able to smell that sheep's breath. I did ask online, what does a sheep's breath smell like? It says a mix of gray, too tired of grass, hay, cud, slightly sour, earthy odor. Well, how shocking that it would smell like grass, hay, and cud.
Healthy sheep, their breath smells mildly sweet. After chewing the cud, a little sour. If it smells really rotten or foul, it says it might have a mouth infection. Fun fact, sheep have four compartments in their stomach that they can bring partially digested food back up again to chew.
That contributes to their distinctive breath. Isaiah 40, he will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arm. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young.
What a picture of salvation. What a picture of grace and love. What a picture of what the Pharisees should be doing. What are they doing? What a picture of us when we are, what does the Bible say in Romans 5, 6, for while we were still helpless, no strength, no power, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
And we watch as Jesus rescues sinners. Prayer answered. What prayer is that? Listen to David's prayer in Psalm 28. Oh, save your people and bless your heritage. Be their shepherd and carry them forever.
Wow. The shepherding ministry of Jesus. Determination to find kindness when found. Jesus, the shepherd bearing the sheep. And then when you think about that, you start saying bearing our sins at Calvary, where was he going to carry us?
Some say right to the cross. Melanchthon, Luther's co-laborer, said that end of the text, quote, is a sweet signification of the passion of Christ. He places upon his shoulders the sheep he has found.
That is, he transfers to himself the burden of us. The Lord has laid on him, Isaiah 53, the iniquity of us all. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
By his wounds, you have been healed for you were strained like sheep, but now have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Ambrose wrote the church father. He said, let us rejoice that the sheep that had strayed in Adam is lifted on Christ.
The shoulders of Christ are the arms of the cross. There I laid down my sins. I rested on the neck of that noble yoke, carried safely home. Not if you find, but when you find. And of course, carried home all the way.
I give eternal life to them. Jesus said in John 10, they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. So you can just imagine the wolves coming. Here's the shepherd. He's got the sheep around his neck.
He saves through many dangerous toils and snares. I have already come to his grace. It brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home. Chasing, caring, and now celebrating. He lays it on his shoulders, verse five, celebrating or rejoicing.
When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I found my sheep that was lost. Rejoicing, full of cheer, happy, joy, emotional. What were the Pharisees doing?
Grumbling. What were the scribes doing? Complaining. The sheep has been found. They should be excited. Rejoice with me. He loves the sheep. His shepherd's heart rejoices because the sheep is not devoured or did not perish in some other way, Hendrickson writes.
Rejoice with, congratulate. Moody Bible Commentary said this is over the top reaction. So, you compare this with and contrast this with the Pharisees who grumble. Can you imagine when your spouse gets saved, parents get saved, child gets saved, a friend gets saved, anyone gets saved.
I found my sheep which was lost. My sheep reminds me of Titus 2 who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession. A people for his own possession.
It says also in 1 Peter chapter 2, chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, a people for God's own possession. And then 1 Corinthians 6, are you not your own? See, you belong to the Lord Jesus. You once were lost, but now you're found.
Celebrating. And then Jesus says in verse 7, here's the point, here's the application. I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 persons, righteous persons who need no repentance.
Share my joy. There's joy in heaven. Instead of complaining, you should be doing the work with me and rejoicing at the work I'm doing. The sheep are lost. Now they're found. They should be rejoicing. And Jesus uses language here of accommodation.
Heaven, there's already joy in heaven, but he's saying, do you know what? There's joy in heaven when someone gets saved. That's the attitude of God. The attitude of God is joy. We're not saying there's emotions in God, ad intra or anything like that.
This is just language that we all can understand. Shepherds rejoicing, neighbors rejoicing, heaven's rejoicing, Jesus is rejoicing, God is rejoicing. The ones that aren't rejoicing are the 99s who think they're righteous.
This isn't really righteousness. This is language that's been used in Luke 5 earlier. They think they're righteous, but they're not. The contrast is the thing. We were lost. We were stuck. We were stuck in sin, and we were going to be devoured, and we couldn't get back, and Jesus came to save us.
And we have great joy in that, do we not? We have great joy, Jesus seeking and saving the good shepherd. I read this week that one writer said, the good shepherd who travels the wild terrain, climbs the steep hill, goes down to the rocky ravine, and braves every danger to find his lost sheep.
Rest assured, he will keep looking until he finds what he is looking for. Every person is an unrighteous person or a self-righteous person in Adam, and they need salvation, including these Pharisees.
I think Jesus is referring to the 99 as the Pharisees and the scribes. They think they're righteous, and they have no need to repent. Jesus said in Luke 5, as I alluded to earlier, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
The 99 sheep, we don't stray. We stayed where we're supposed to stay. They're the scribes. They're the Pharisees. They're the ones who are probably saying, look at us. There's joy in heaven. There's already joy in heaven.
That's true. Matthew Poole said, what is meant by joy in heaven? The inhabitants of heaven are God, the blessed angels, and the glorified saints. How can they be said to rejoice, whereas rejoicing is in us the product of a passion by which we triumph in our union to some good, which before we wanted?
Answer, when terms expressive of our passions are applied to the perfect beings, we must understand them so, as they alone can agree to such beings, separated from those excesses which they have in beings more imperfect.
Joy signifying nothing but the full satisfaction of the will and a good obtained. Thus, God has said to rejoice in his people. God in heaven rejoicing over his people, over what Jesus did, Jesus for the joy set before him.
Why does Jesus keep associating with sinners? Because that's why he was sent by the Father. And you could ask the question as we wrap up the show, there'll be more rejoicing over somebody repenting. So, do you need to repent?
If you're not a Christian, you do. You need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You begin turning from your sins, saying no to sin and yes to righteousness. Repentance as a fruit of faith. We love sin, Ryle said.
We take to sin as soon as we can think or act, just as a bird takes to flying and a fish takes to swimming. There never was a child that required schooling or education in order to learn deceitfulness, selfishness, passion, self-will, gluttony, pride, and foolishness.
So, we need to be rescued. So, we have repentance, genuine repentance in how you've turned from God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven, 1 Thessalonians 1. Side note, P .S., do you think you can lose your salvation?
You have to reread this and think to yourself, if that's how he finds, do you think he's going to lose what he's ever found? Do you should probably tell people in heaven, don't rejoice until he dies and make sure he goes all the way?
See what I mean? I know. Mike Ebenroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. You can write me, Mike at No Compromise Radio. Eternal security, preservation by God, and our response is, perseverance of the saints.
Kenneth Bailey said, it is the shepherd's willingness to go after the one that gives the 99 their real security. Isn't that true? Thanks for listening. Mike Ebenroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry.