Now, when you’re trying to understand a parable, one of the best ways to do it is to, since it’s a metaphor, it’s an extended metaphor, is to meditate on the images. And so, let’s take a look at the sheep, the search itself, and the shepherd, and see what each one of those teaches us about how grace creates community.

First of all, the sheep. Now, when you and I hear that we are sheep, and He is the Shepherd, it just makes us feel warm, fuzzy, gauzy, you know, and we think of fluffy little lambs and, you know, green pastures and still waters. But you need to know that when the Bible calls Him the Great Shepherd and us sheep, it is a very important and very well-meant spiritual insult. It’s an insult.

Here are the words of a pastor who before he went into the ministry was a shepherd. Here’s what he says. He understands what it means. He says, “A sheep is a stupid animal. It loses its directions continually in a way that a cat or dog never does. And even when you find a lost sheep, the lost sheep rushes to and fro and will not follow you home. So, when you find it, you must seize it throw it to the ground, tie its forelegs and hind legs together, put it over your shoulders and carry it home. That’s the only way to save a lost sheep.”

Okay, let’s meditate on the meaning of this metaphor. I’m not kidding. There’s two things this teaches us. The Bible tried to tell us something about ourselves, about us. And the two things are, first of all, this teaches us that, like sheep, we need to be rescued. We constantly need to be rescued. Probably the favorite thing my wife and I do in our and have ever done our whole lives and do, is that if we get to Britain, we get out a book called Back Roads of Britain, and we drive, you know, into the most remote parts we can find. And one of the things you’ll see in those remote parts is sheep. And even us tourists can see something pretty interesting, and that is, when sheep see grass, no matter where it is, no matter how steep or how dangerous a spot, they just go for the grass. They go and start eating the grass, even though they go to a place that is impossible to climb down from. So, they go and they eat the grass till the grass is gone, and then they either have to be rescued or else they plunge to their death. And we actually saw this. There’s all these, you know, on these steep mountainsides, and they’re the sheep, you know, eating, and there they are, sometimes they’re eating and suddenly, and they fall down, fall to their death at the bottom of a cliff, you know, why? They’re sheep.

10. What stands out to you from Keller’s meditation on the metaphor of sheep? Application?

But not only that, the metaphor doesn’t just teach us that all sheep have to be rescued, but it also teaches us how thoroughly they need to be rescued. Remember what the man said, the shepherd said about sheep? If you find a lost sheep, your job’s not over, because the lost sheep won’t follow you home. The lost sheep will run all around, and you have to grab it and throw it down and tie it up and take it all the way home. See, if your dog is lost, your dog loses its way. Well, you find your dog, all right? And when the dog, it jumps up and then follows you home, or maybe once you’ve pointed in the right way it goes, all you need is to put it in the right direction, and it gets home itself. Not a sheep. Sheep’s not going to follow you home. Do you know what that means? A sheep can contribute nothing to its salvation.

The shepherd to rescue the sheep, unlike rescuing a dog or a cat, the shepherd to rescue a sheep has to take, basically has to walk it all the way home. The shepherd has to do everything for the sheep. The sheep, it’s not a cooperation between, like with a dog or a cat, that the shepherd does something and the animal does something. No, the shepherd has to go home for it. The shepherd has to put it on its shoulders and go all the way home. And what does this mean? You know what it means? In traditional language, this is saying that you, we human beings, are utterly lost in sin and can do nothing to contribute to our salvation and have to be saved sheerly by grace, not by cooperating, not by…

It would not have helped since we’re sheep. It would not have helped if God had sent just a great teacher who tells us how we should live. And gives us an inspirational picture of how we should live. And then we emulate Him and we try our best to live like Jesus. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve had people say, I’ve asked people, what does it mean to be a Christian? He says, “It means trying very hard to live according to the example of Jesus.” So, you think you’re a dog or a cat, but you’re not. You’re a sheep. We’re not Fido. See? We’re sheep. A teacher wouldn’t have been enough.

A teacher wasn’t enough. We’ve had all kinds of teachers. There’s a place where Jesus says, I keep sending you sages and wise men, and you’ve killed them all. Sheep with teeth. We need a Savior. We need somebody who has to do everything that we should do, has to live the life we should have lived and die the death we should have died to bring us all the way home.

12. What is the difference between a sheep and a dog as far as getting home safely? What is the point?

Now, in traditional language, we’re saying that everyone is utterly lost in sin. And I know how absolutely repugnant that doctrine, that biblical doctrine, that Christian teaching is to people, especially in a place like New York. And for 200 years in Western culture, the elites, the educated people, the intellectuals have all said that the Christian doctrine of original sin, that we are hopeless, that we are born sinful, that we cannot save ourselves in any way, that that is a repugnant doctrine. It’s been for 200 years since the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau, for example, taught that human beings were, that children were born innocent. And that we just mess people up with education, we mess people up, the culture mess people up, but we’re essentially innocent and the idea of original sin is repugnant.

Now here’s the great irony. After 200 years, after two world wars, after global terrorism, after being so disillusioned with all of our leaders and all of our cultural institutions, everybody knows that the Enlightenment is wrong. Everybody knows that Rousseau was wrong. And yet our culture is actually in a kind of schizophrenic situation because it still says, oh, we don’t believe that awful stuff about sin. Christians say everybody’s a sinner. How awful, how repugnant, every so often. Some, you know, member of the intelligentsia comes out and says that. And they all know that Rousseau was wrong. It’s intriguing because of the facts.

So, Alan Jacobs has recently written a book on original sin and he quotes a critic, a secular critic named Randall Jerrell who says this, quote, “Most of us know now that Rousseau was wrong. That man, when you knock his chains off, set up the death camps. Soon we will know everything the 18th century didn’t know about human capacity for selfishness, greed, and violence.” And then Alan Jacobs goes on and he says, and by the way, this is his quote, his words, not mine. Alan Jacobs goes on and says, but now wait a minute, he says, “Modern culture says it has left behind Christianity’s repulsive doctrine of original sin. But it also says that it has left Rousseau’s naivete about human nature behind. So, where the hell are we?” I’m just reading the quote. He just said, All right. That was in the book. I just read it to you. And what he’s actually saying is, you, really can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you’re somebody who says, oh, this I can’t believe. You’re up there talking about original sin and about how every human being is so sinful. How negative. And yet, when a culture says, We don’t believe in original sin, the facts pull it back to seeing that it was right all along. Solzhenitsyn did not believe in original sin, then he got into the Gulag. Blaise Pascal, smarter than anybody else in this room, struggled with this doctrine of sin, and yet at one point in his pensées he says, “Nothing jolts us more rudely than this doctrine. And yet, but for this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we remain incomprehensible to ourselves.” So, if you are a New Yorker and you don’t believe that you’re hopelessly lost in sin, just give it time. Just give it time. So that’s what the sheep teaches us, that we are sinners and we have to be saved by sure grace.

13. What are some illustrations that Keller gives that show the idea of being sinful is repugnant to man? Have you observed this?

We know that the gospel saves us from the penalty of sin, but we may be slower to understand it can also save us from the power of sin. When God awakened me to my sinful habit of side-ways comments, to stop, I had to have faith that if I responded instead in a godly way, that I would experience the good fruit of submission, in myself, and perhaps also in my relationships.

14. What sinful habit are you longing to conquer? What do you need to believe and trust in order to obey?

Thursday: Grace Creates Real Community

This point is so obvious, yet I needed to be reminded. As we rid our hearts of sin, we become closer, a real loving family, whether it is our biological family, our church family, or right here!

Now, secondly, what’s the Search the Scriptures. Now, the context, very important, the context for all of these parables is verses 1 and 2. Jesus did not tell these parables just simply to say, well, I guess I’ll get up and lecture on sin and grace. He was responding something, and guess what he was responding to? Verse 1 and 2 says, Now the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around to hear him, but the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Now, in those days, in that ancient time, to invite somebody into your home to welcome someone and eat with them meant much more than it does now. Today, it’s a gesture of friendliness still. It is. I mean, it’s a friendly thing to do. But in those days, it meant an offer of friendship, and it was a way of saying, I want to be in community with you. And the Pharisees and the teachers of the law are absolutely dumbfounded. You know why? They see Jesus Christ seeking to build a faith community with these people in it. And here’s what they say. They say, “There’s never been a faith community with people like that in it.” Those people are excluded because, after all, a faith community is based on the idea that you are obeying God and that you are practicing God’s ways, and these people aren’t doing so they can’t be in the community. “There’s never been a community, a faith community,” they said, “including people like that. How can you do that?”

And therefore, it’s Jesus’ effort, His project, to create a new kind of community the world had never seen that brings up a huge objection. And in response, all of these parables. That’s the reason why for seven weeks we can take a look and see, what do these parables teach us? About how grace creates community. And see, Jesus, the one thing that comes up through these parables, especially these two, is this word joy. Joy. See how often it happens? It’s joy. Rejoice with me, I found my sheep. Rejoice with me, I found my coin. There is more joy in heaven over a sinner that repents. And what is Jesus saying? He says, by the way, isn’t it amazing that Jesus very casually can say, Listen, I’ve come from a community in heaven. I know exactly how things go up there. Pretty interesting. What an amazing kind of claim. And he says, I have come from a community. It’s the community in heaven that celebrates sinners saved by grace. It does not celebrate righteous people who don’t think they have anything to repent of. It celebrates sinners saved by grace. That’s the joy that motivates the heavenly community, and I’m creating a community like that here.

15. Give an example from your life about how true repentance brought you closer to another person. Be specific.

Now, what is he saying? Well, let’s stand back for a second and ask the question, what’s a community? And one dictionary definition I came upon was, a community is a group of individuals who have been bonded into a body through an intense common experience. Now, some years ago, and by the way, the more intense an experience, the more strong the bond and the more strong the community. Some years ago, I remember I was talking to a man who was a Bosnian and he was living in New York City. And he said, interestingly enough, I guess it must have been an election year because he said, boy, an election year, you know, you Americans, the Democrats can’t stand the Republicans. Republicans think the Democrats are crazy. You’re just at each other’s throats. And he says, I’m a Democrat. I’m a strong Democrat. But when I meet a Bosnian here who’s a Republican, that’s totally inconsequential to our relationship. And I said, that’s interesting, why? And he says, well, because we’ve been through life and death. Even a Bosnian that I’ve never met before, I know that he has been through the same life and death experience. And that creates a bond that’s more important than whether you’re Democrat or Republican, whether you’re white collar or blue collar, anything else. Isn’t that interesting?

Now here’s what he’s saying. Everybody has got identity factors. Everybody’s got things about themselves. You’re male, you’re female, you’re a black, white, Asian, Hispanic, you’re a first generation immigrant, you’re a second generation immigrant. All these things are very, they have factors in who you understand yourself to be. You have made it into a good school. You have achieved this. You have all, there’s all part of your identity. And your identity is self-worth and self-image, what makes you distinctive, what makes you feel valuable. And these different factors are all there, but some are much more foundational than others. Some are closer to the foundation of who you are. And for example, this man mentioned that his son also values him. His son had grown up and had gone off to law school and was a lawyer in the city. And his son, even though his son certainly valued his being Bosnian as part of his identity, the fact was he’d never been through that life and death thing. You know, he was really, he was pretty much raised here, he’d never been through that life and death stuff. And as a result, he said he could see his son felt more oneness, a bond with, say, other white collar people than he did with other blue collar Bosnians. But, you know, the more intense an experience, the more intense the experience, the more all those, it goes beneath all the other factors. It transcends all the other factors. It’s the bond that makes all the other factors inconsequential.

You know how many buddy movies there have been? Buddy, you know what a buddy movie? It’s a movie about one or two or more people who doesn’t like each other. They’re different. They can’t stand each other. But then they go through some kind of life and death experience and on the other end, you know, they now have a bond thicker than blood, right?

In Ephesians chapter 2, Paul begins the chapter by saying, you, were dead in your trespasses and sins, and you’ve been made alive in Jesus Christ. For it is by grace you’ve been saved, and that not of yourselves, it’s a gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast. And then at the end of the chapter, after saying, you,’ve been, you were dead and you’ve been raised to life through Jesus Christ, saved by sheer grace. At the end of the chapter it says, We’re all like living stones that are being fitted together to build a beautiful temple in which God’s Spirit will dwell.

17. What experience have true believers been through that should bond them together? Has this been true for you? Explain.

Now think about this metaphor. First of all, what this is saying is other religions, other religions say you’re saved by following the rules, observing the rituals, doing all the things you want to do, and then you reach the divine. In other words, all of the religions treat you like a dog or a cat. You need help. You need pointers, but then you’ll be fine. But the gospel is we’re sheep. The gospel is we can contribute nothing to our salvation. And the gospel, when the gospel dawns on you and you understand what Jesus what Christ has done for you. It’s like dying and being reborn. It’s not like adding something, it’s not like just getting a kind of shot in the arm. It’s not like it’s just not an inspiration, it’s a life-death experience.

Because when the gospel dawns on you, you begin to think things like this. You begin to say, I am feeding myself, I’m feeding my soul on things that are going to kill me. And I’m running away from my shepherd. But I’m not just infinitely lost, I’m infinitely loved, I’m infinitely valued. I’m His treasure. I’m one of His coins. I’m His treasure. He leaves His entire wealth, the 99, the flock, and goes off and gets me. I’m His treasure. See, these parables aren’t just saying I’m infinitely lost, but I’m infinitely valued. The Shepherd will do anything to bring me home. And He does do everything to bring me home. And it’s grace from first to last.

Now, when a Christian has the gospel dawn on you like that, do you know what that does? That blows your old identity out of the water, because every other identity factor gives you a joy. Every other identity factor gives you a joy.

Let’s just say, what if your foundational identity factor is, I have gone to an Ivy League school. Or I have raised a great family, all my kids are just fine. Or I am a moral and very, very, very Bible believing person. All of those identity factors bring a joy, don’t they? But in every case, sure, look, I’ve achieved, look what I’ve done. You get a joy from doing it or being it, and that’s what makes you feel good about yourself, right? But it’s a joy that automatically makes you feel superior to the people who don’t have that factor. You automatically feel better than the people who didn’t make it into the school. Why? Because that’s why you feel good, because you did. You automatically feel better than the people whose families are a mess. You automatically feel better than people who aren’t living good, strong moral lives. Automatically. You get a joy, but it’s a joy that excludes tax collectors and sinners. It excludes moral failures. It excludes all kinds of people.

And this is now the reason, do you see, why Jesus Christ is able to start to create a community that the world has never seen before. Because if the new joy you get is a joy over being saved by grace, if the joy is I’m infinitely lost and I’ve been saved by sheer grace and I’m infinitely loved and valued, that’s a joy that can’t make you feel superior to the people outside. That’s a joy that creates an absolutely new kind of community the world’s never seen. Because on the one hand, it’s a community that, first of all, keeps you from looking down your nose at the people outside, but secondly, creates a bond unlike any other bond with the people inside, the other people who have experienced the life and death of repentance and faith in the experience of grace in the gospel. That’s the reason why Paul, at the beginning of chapter 2, he can say, you know, we’ve died and risen with Christ through grace. And at the end, he could say, we’re like living stones being fit together into a beautiful temple.

18. Why is it that if your identity is in something other than being a child of God, it brings stress and sorrow?

19. Are you growing in having your primary identity in Christ? Or do you need prayer?

Friday: The Bond That Cements

You know where he gets that idea? If you go back to 1 Kings 6, we learn something about how Solomon’s temple, the temple of God, was built. At the quarry, the masons worked very hard on the blocks. They took stones and they chiseled and they hammered and they made them perfectly so perfectly that when they were brought to the building site, the temple went up in silence. There was no hammer, there were no chisels, there was no need for mortar. Why? Because at the quarry, they had been so perfectly formed that when they came together, they fit. They fit perfectly. And this is Paul’s way of saying, if you’ve been to the quarry, if you’ve been through the life and death, experience of grace then when you meet another Christian, you fit. There’s a bond. You’ve been through life and death. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Democrat or Republican. It doesn’t matter whether you’re white or black. It doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female. It doesn’t matter whether you’re old or young. And I’m an old white guy from America. You put me with a 17-year-old African woman from the rural areas who’s a mother of four. Give us 15 minutes to go to talking about Jesus and we will know that bond. You know how that works if you’re a Christian.

Or maybe you don’t. You say, “Well, gee, I think I’m a Christian, but I don’t feel that way.” Because when I see these people, you know, these people with other political party, they say they’re Christians, these people of other race, they say, but I don’t sound like, then maybe you haven’t been to the quarry. Maybe you’re a cultural Christian. Maybe you haven’t experienced the life and death of a new birth.

David Martin Lloyd Jones used to say it like this: “You’re a Christian first and you’re white, black, Asian or Hispanic second. You’re a Christian first and you’re from Africa or China or Germany or Alabama second.”

And when you meet somebody else who’s been through that same life and death experience of the gospel, a person of a different race, a person of a different profession, a person of a different class, and you all the kind of person who all your life you’ve been told by others in your race, your class, your profession not to trust those kinds of people, when you a Christian find another Christian from one of those kinds of groups, because all of those barriers are knocked down by Jesus Christ and your brother and your sister.

20. What illustration from the above stands out to you and why?

21. Share a time when you bonded with a “stranger” upon discovering your bond in Christ.

Now, let’s conclude. When Jesus Christ says, I’m the shepherd, he’s making an astounding claim because, you know, shepherds totally control the life of their sheep. Jesus, the shepherds aren’t consultants to sheep. Shepherds don’t get to sheep together once a month to give them some data points on how to eat, you know. Sheep are absolutely dependent on shepherds for absolutely every part of their lives. And when Jesus says, I am the shepherd, which is clearly what he’s saying here, then he’s saying, Give yourself to me completely.

Now, that’s not easy. And we modern people don’t like the idea of losing control, but here’s why you should do it. On Passover, Israelites celebrate Passover, Jews celebrate Passover, to commemorate the time back in Egypt when God led them out by every family slaying a lamb, putting the blood on their doorpost, eating the lamb, and by taking shelter under the blood of the lamb, the angel of death passed them over. And every year from that time, they remember the salvation through the shed blood of the lamb by having a Passover night. But the night before Jesus Christ died, He had Passover with His disciples. And it was the weirdest Passover anybody had ever seen. Because at every Passover meal you have bread and you have wine and you have a lamb, you know? Bread, the wine, and the main course. But you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and you’ll see there’s the bread, of course. There’s the wine, of course. But there’s no mention of a lamb on the table. Why not? There was no lamb on the table because the Lamb of God was at the table. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and all the other lambs were just pointing to that. And here’s why you can trust Jesus. Jesus is saying, I am the one shepherd you can trust. I’m the one person you can put yourself in my hands and you can trust. Why? Because I’m the one shepherd who became a sheep, became a lamb to save you. That’s how I brought you home.

Now, please trust your shepherd by committing to one another. Because let me just close like this. What we’re learning here is if you believe in the gospel, that belief creates a unique kind of community, and it’s our job to realize that community in our midst. In two ways tonight and then we’re done.

First of all, I want you to commit yourself to building a community that is filled with beautiful, unified difference. And if you are a person who comes here and you look around, for example, I’ve heard this for years. Even back when we started the church and my wife and I were 38, we’ve always been the oldest people in the church, always been the oldest. And so often I would meet somebody else my age and they’d all say, Well, you know, I don’t know about coming to Redeemer. Well, well, everybody’s, well, you know, what they’re really saying, everybody’s slimmer because we’re older, we’re fat. Everybody’s, you know, prettier because we’re older and we’re bald. I mean, you know, and there was a place at a certain point, well, you know, everybody was single. Everybody was white in the beginning. Everybody was young in the beginning. How boring. And so much, it’s not what the Bible says we’re supposed to be. And these other identity factors are important, and yet if you’re a Christian and you come in and you say, I don’t see my kind of people around, well, then please stay because we need you. We need you to become what we’re supposed to be. Maybe you need us to become what the Bible says the church can be, a place of beautiful, unified difference.

But secondly, it’s also a place where sinners are free to admit that they’re sinners. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, only, see, Bonhoeffer says, every other community is based on performance, living up to certain things, and therefore you’re never allowed to be a sinner, you’re never allowed to admit failure. It’s like evolution, you know, when one member of the herd starts to go limp, we just eat it. Yeah, that’s it. But the Christian community’s got to be different, and Bonhoeffer said, In James chapter, he’s commenting on James chapter 5 verse 16 where it says, Confess your faults to one another and heal each other. And he says this, he says, Religiosity and morality permits no one to be a sinner. Everyone must conceal his sin from him or herself and from others. But it’s the grace of the gospel which is so hard for the religious to understand. The grace of the gospel confronts us with the truth and says, you, are a sinner. You are a great desperate sinner, now come as the sinner you are to God who loves you. He doesn’t want anything from you. He doesn’t want to sacrifice a work. He wants you alone. This message is liberation through truth. The mask you have to wear before everyone else will do you no good before Him or before your brothers and sisters. Confess your sins to one another. Get the freedom of being sinners before one another. Confess your sins to each other, accept one another, and be healed.

And you know what he’s really saying? Isn’t that interesting? He says, if you become, by the gospel, a member of Jesus’ flock, you become a person who’s so gentle and kind and patient with other people who sin, of course, because your self-image is based on you being a sinner saved by grace. And yet, when it says, Confess your sins to each other and heal each other and love each other and care for each other. What it’s really saying, it’s not just talking about a community of sheep, it’s also talking about a community of shepherds. We’re supposed to confess to each other and heal each other. We’re all shepherds. Now, how did that happen? The answer is we can go from being witless, selfish sheep to being shepherds to each other because our great Shepherd, Jesus Christ, turned himself into a helpless sheep, a lamb, and died for us. Commit yourself to building a community based on grace.

Let’s pray. Thank you, Father, for giving us this great invitation, a community in which we can be sinners. We can say, I’m a great big sinner, and have others around us love us, care for us, pick us up, hold us accountable, but never give up on us. And we thank you, we’re also a community of grace where we can all be sinners, but also a community of grace where we can learn from each other, where we can have a bond with each other that goes past all the other things that divide people, whether it’s race, whether it’s class, whether it’s generation, whether it’s nationality. And I pray, Lord, you would make us increasingly a community of grace because of what your Son did for us. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

22. Tests of real communty

1. Do you feel free to admit you are a sinner at church? Here?
2. Does your church reflect the community in which you live or is it mostly made up of upper class, or white, or aged?
3. Are you able to give grace to challenging sheep?

Saturday:

23. What is your take-a-way this week and why?