Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Father’s Care for His Straying Little Ones (Matthew 18:12–14)

Transcript

The Father’s Care for His Straying Little Ones (Matthew 18:12–14) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reformed thinking. It is really great to be here
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for this one. Yeah, I am really looking
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forward to this. So imagine you are the chief
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executive of a massive, highly successful global corporation,
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OK. I am picturing it.
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You have, let's say, 100 vital assets spread across the globe,
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and one day you get a report that one of those assets has
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gone completely off the grid. Right.
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And honestly, it is probably your least productive, most
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troublesome asset. Yeah, that is usually how it
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goes. So good business sense, you
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know, the kind taught in every MBA program in the world,
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dictates that you just write it off.
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It is an acceptable loss. Absolutely.
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I mean, you do not halt your entire global operation, risk
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your best personnel, and spend exorbitant amounts of capital to
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track down 1 malfunctioning piece of inventory.
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Especially not when the other 99 are operating Florida.
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State right, the corporate math supports cutting your losses and
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moving on. But today, well, we are looking
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at a divine economy that throws our pragmatic corporate math
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completely out the window. It really does.
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Our mission for today's Deep dive is to examine 2 rigorous
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theological expositions focused on Matthew chapter 18, verses 12
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through 14. Which is the parable of the
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wandering sheep? That is the one.
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We're going to investigate how this brief 3 verse text
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completely shatters worldly concepts of status.
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And it exposes human depravity in a way that modern
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sensibilities find incredibly hard to swallow.
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It really magnifies the Good Shepherd's unilateral rescue
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operation too. And all of this is secured by
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the Father's sovereign decree. Which is such massive comfort.
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It is. I want to speak directly to you,
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the listener, right now. Have you ever felt like that one
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lost sheep? That is a tough question to ask
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yourself. It is.
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Maybe you have drifted into isolation and you know you sit
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there wondering if heaven even registers your absence.
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Or, looking at the other side of the coin, perhaps you have
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watched a struggling, inconsistent believer in your
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own local church. Right, and you have mentally
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written them off as an acceptable loss for the
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congregation. Which happens a lot more than we
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like to admit. It does.
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If either of those scenarios rings true for you, the
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theological realities we are impacting today will challenge
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your fundamental assumptions. The stakes here are incredibly
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high. We have to recognize right from
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the outset that this text is not a simple children's story.
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No, not at all. Modern evangelicalism has a
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terrible habit of sanitizing this parable.
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Yeah, you know, with cute Sunday school illustrations of a
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smiling Jesus carrying a sluffy, pristine lamb over his
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shoulders. I can picture the exact felt
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board right now. Right, but that completely
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misses the rugged life or death reality of the text.
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It really softens it too much. It does.
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This is a striking, ironclad declaration of the perseverance
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of the Saints and the efficacious will of God.
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It deals with spiritual starvation and fatal deception.
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In eternal security, plus the staggering, offensive nature of
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divine grace. To grasp the weight of what
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Jesus is teaching well, we have to situate ourselves in the
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historical setting. So Jesus is likely sitting in a
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house in Capernaum. Yes, and the disciples are
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there. These are men who have been
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casting out demons, walking on water and experiencing massive
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public ministry success. And they have just asked him a
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highly revealing question. They asked who is the greatest
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in the Kingdom of heaven. That question exposes the
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unvarnished ambition and the fleshly assumptions still
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lingering in their minds. It really shows where their
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hearts were at. Absolutely.
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They were thinking in strict categories of rank, prominence
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and visible status. They completely misunderstood
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the nature of the Kingdom they were inheriting.
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They are essentially treating the Kingdom of God like a
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Fortune 500 company. They really are.
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They are networking, maneuvering and jockeying for the best
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corner offices in heaven. They want the most lucrative
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divine stock options. Looking for the best retirement
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plan basically. Yeah, they are looking at Jesus
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and asking who gets to be the vice president of the Kingdom.
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And Jesus flips their entire corporate ladder upside down.
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He really does. He does not point to the
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strongest, the most articulate or the most religiously educated
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Pharisee in the room. Instead, he places a vulnerable,
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dependent child right in the center of their gathering.
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He uses that child to establish that greatness in his Kingdom is
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measured by humility and dependence.
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Not public prominence or utility.
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And from that visual illustration, Jesus moves into a
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sequence of terrifying warnings. He tells these ambitious men
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that whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in him
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to stumble, well, it would be better for them to have a great
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millstone fastened around their neck.
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And to be drowned in the depth of the sea, that is such an
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intense image. The imagery he chooses there is
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deliberate and horrifying. A great millstone in the
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original language refers specifically to a mulos unicos.
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Which is not just a handmill. Right.
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No, it is a millstone so massive or required a donkey to turn it.
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We are talking about a stone weighing hundreds of pounds.
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Fastening that to a person's neck and hurling them into the
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sea was a method of execution reserved for the worst rebels
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and criminals in the ancient world.
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Furthermore, to the Jewish mind, the sea represented chaos,
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judgment, and separation from God.
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Exactly. Jesus is painting a picture of
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total, inescapable destruction. He goes on to demand radical
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amputation, like cutting off hands or feet and tearing out
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eyes to kill sin. The language is brutal because
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the offense is abhorrent before God.
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We need to clarify who Jesus is talking about here though.
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Right, because it is not just about physical kids.
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No, when he refers to the little ones, he is not speaking
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exclusively about biological children.
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In the context of the covenant community, the little ones are
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humble, unassuming, dependent believers.
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They are the people who lack visible status, prominence or
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worldly clout. They might be immature in the
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faith, they might wrestle with recurring weakness, and they are
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entirely unimpressive to the outside world.
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OK, let's unpack this, because verse 10 functions as the
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doorway into the parable itself. It sets up the whole thing.
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Jesus issues a strict command, He says.
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See that you do not despise one of these little.
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Ones the concept of despising someone is fascinating in this
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context. It doesn't always look like
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active, aggressive hatred, does it?
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No, it really doesn't. In a church setting, despising
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someone often looks like passive neglect.
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It looks like condescension. It is treating a weak Christian
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as expendable. Or simply ignoring them because
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they do not contribute to the visible success of the churches
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programs or the aesthetic of the Sunday gathering.
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You can despise someone simply by treating them as spiritually
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irrelevant. Which is so easy to do in our
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modern context. The disciples were infected with
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notions of greatness, which meant they naturally gravitated
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toward the influential, the wealthy, and the put together.
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All while overlooking the frail and the messy.
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Jesus is warning them that heaven operates on a completely
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different scale of value. The little 1 is not unseen by
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the Father. The straying inconsistent
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believer is not expendable. You cannot write off the weak.
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Because these believers are so incredibly valuable to heaven,
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their tendency to drift is not treated as a minor
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inconvenience. It is a fatal crisis.
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This leads into verse 12 where Jesus introduces the sheep that
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has gone astray. And we need to 0 in on the
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concept of wandering here. In the Greek text, the word used
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for gone astray, plenus. This is the route for the
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English word planet it. Carries a heavy connotation of
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spiritual deception and fatal error.
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I love diving into the etymology there.
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What was the historical context for that specific word plenus in
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the ancient world? In the Greco Roman world,
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ancient sailors and travelers relied on the fixed positions of
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the stars to navigate across massive, futureless oceans.
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Because they did not have GPS or modern compasses.
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Right. The fixed stars meant life and
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safety, but they observed certain celestial bodies that
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appeared to wander off the fixed paths.
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They called them wandering stars or planets.
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To a navigator, a wandering star was useless, and following one
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meant certain shipwreck. That makes total sense.
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The term planish was also applied to philosophers who
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deviated from objective truth into chaotic speculation.
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So when Jesus applies the specific word to a sheep, it
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implies being LED into active deception.
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It is a deviation from the source of life, truth and
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safety. That sets up the law aspect of
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the this text perfectly. When we read Scripture, the law
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exposes our grim reality. And the reality exposed here is
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that sheep are utterly defenseless.
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Think about the biological makeup of a sheep.
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They do not possess an internal GPS system to find their way
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home once they wander off. They do not have sharp fangs,
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venom or claws to fight off predators.
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They are not fast enough to outrun a wolf.
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If they are separated from the shepherd, they are as good as
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dead. But hold on, that creates a
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massive collision with how people think today.
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Doesn't modern culture tell us that wandering is actually a
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healthy, necessary thing? Oh, absolutely.
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We hear phrases all the time like not all who wander are lost
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or we validate people having a finding yourself phase.
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Society treats spiritual drift like it is a noble, authentic
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quest for personal truth. If we connect this to the bigger
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picture, we have to bring in the Reformed doctrine of total
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depravity. Yes, the culture romanticizes
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wandering, but Scripture condemns it as lethal.
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Total depravity, as articulated in the Westminster Confession,
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means that every part of our human nature is corrupted by
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sin. Our mind, our will, and our
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desires. We are innately prone to wander.
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We do not have a neutral spiritual setting where we can
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just objectively evaluate different life paths.
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Without the shepherd, leaving the fold always without
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exception, results in spiritual death.
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The robid perilous mountains in this text represent the jagged
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terrain of sin, false teaching, deception, and isolation.
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A sheep on those mountains is not on a journey of self
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discovery. It is starving, it is terrified
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and it is being hunted. That completely shatters the
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modern notion of self-guided spiritual enlightenment.
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It really does, and honestly, it is a massive indictment of
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pragmatism in the modern church. We see these massive seeker
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sensitive church models that run entirely like corporate
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franchises. If a church has 1000 members and
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10 people quietly stop showing up, stop joining the gatherings
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and drift away into the culture, well, the leadership might not
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even notice. In a pragmatic business model,
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losing 1% of your crowd is a totally acceptable margin of
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error. You do not panic, you just focus
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on the 99% who are tithing, volunteering and keeping the
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lights on. A 1% loss might be acceptable to
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ACEO analyzing a quarterly report, but Heaven does not
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calculate souls using pragmatic corporate math.
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The Good Shepherd refuses to accept that margin of error.
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He values the individual little one with such intense jealousy
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that he refuses to write them off as collateral damage.
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He does not view his elect as a nameless mass or a demographic,
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no. He views them as specific
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individual names written in the Book of Life before the
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foundation of the world. Since the sheep is completely
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helpless, wandering in fatal error, and possesses absolutely
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0 moral or physical ability to find its own way back to the
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fold, well, the shepherd must take radical unilateral action.
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The grammar in this section is astonishing.
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The verbs tell the entire story of salvation.
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The sheep is described using a passive participle.
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It is a creature having been LED astray.
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It is stuck, but the shepherd is described with highly active,
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aggressive continuous verbs. He leaves, he goes, he seeks.
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The shepherd is the sole active agent in the rescue operation.
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The syntax leaves no room for human boasting.
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He takes the absolute initiative of restorative grace.
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He does not passively lament the absence of the sheep.
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He does not stand at the edge of the safe pasture, cup his hands
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and shout into the wind, hoping the sheep figures out the right
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path back. He acts, he rises, he physically
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invades the dangerous wilderness.
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Here's where it gets really interesting.
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I want to point out a word the author did not use because
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sometimes what is missing from a text is just as revealing as
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what is there. That is a great point.
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Jesus did not use the Greek word menu, which translates to remain
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or to wait. The shepherd does not sit by the
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campfire tending the 99, waiting for the lost sheep to exercise
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its own autonomous free will and walk back into the fold.
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That single omission completely dismantles Armenian theology.
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It really does. From a Reformed confessional
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lens, the initiative belongs entirely to God.
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Arminianism suggests that God provides a sort of general
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prevenient grace to everyone, but ultimately waits for the
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human will to take the first decisive step toward Him.
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It treats salvation like a lifeguard throwing a life
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preserver to a drowning man and waiting for the man to grab it.
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This text destroys that idea. Grace is extra nose.
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That is a Latin term meaning it comes entirely from outside of
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ourselves. The sheep's movement is always
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away from safety. And the Shepherd's movement is
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always toward danger for the sake of recovery.
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If our salvation depended on us taking the first step back to
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God, every single one of us would rot on those mountains.
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We are not struggling swimmers, we are dead at the bottom of the
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ocean and the shepherd dives down to pull us up.
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The imagery Jesus is using here would have sounded massive alarm
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bells for anyone familiar with the Old Testament prophets.
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He's pulling directly from the archives of Israel's history.
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This is a direct, unmistakable fulfillment of Ezekiel chapter
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34. In that chapter, Yahweh issues a
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blistering, terrifying rebuke to the false shepherds of Israel.
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The kings, priests and religious leaders had fed themselves
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instead of the flock. They ignored the sick, they
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exploited the weak, and they absolutely refused to go after
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the scattered sheep. And Yahweh steps in and says, I
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myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.
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Jesus is standing in that house in Capernaum, looking at his
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ambitious disciples and declaring that he is the
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fulfillment of that ancient promise.
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He is Yahweh in the flesh, actively pursuing His elect.
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We cannot gloss over the immense cost of that pursuit either.
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He leaves the 99 on the mountains.
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Let us think about what that means theologically.
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The Son of God leaves the unceasing worship of the angelic
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host. He leaves the perfect
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undisturbed glories of heaven to enter the jagged, deadly, sin
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stained mountains of earth. And the cost of seeking that
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sheep was not just a few hours of his time.
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The cost was his own life. He pursued his elect all the way
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to the horrors of Golgotha. He shed his blood to and secure
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the return of the Wanderer. The rescue was not free.
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It required a life laid down to satisfy divine justice.
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And because he paid that ultimate infinite price, his
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pursuit is never a failure. He seeks in order to find.
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He does not attempt a rescue. He accomplishes it.
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When that costly rescue operation is successful, the
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result is so counterintuitive to how we operate in our daily
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lives. When the shepherd finds the
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sheep, he doesn't let out a heavy sigh of annoyance.
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He doesn't drag the sheep back by the scruff of its neck while
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scolding it for being so incredibly foolish.
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There is an absolute explosion of gladness.
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This brings us to the emotional posture of heaven.
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Verse 13 tells us, and if he finds it, truly, I say to you,
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he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went
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astray. The shepherd delights in the
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restoration. He does not resent the massive
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effort, the pain, or the resources it took to secure the
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sheep. He does not view the recovered
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believer as a nuisance, a second class citizen or an
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administrative burden. I have a ointed question about
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this, looking at the landscape of the modern church.
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Go for it. Why is it that in so many
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congregations, when someone genuinely repents and comes back
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from a brutal season of backsliding, they are met with
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folded arms? Oh, that is such a good
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observation. They are met with suspicion,
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whispers in the foyer. And this perpetual, unwritten
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probationary period. It is as if the Church is
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saying, fine, you can sit in the back row, but do not expect us
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to be happy about it. What's fascinating here is that
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this frosty reception stems directly from self-righteous
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pride. Proud people are continually
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annoyed by needy people. We forget our own total
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depravity. When we forget that we are also
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prone to wander. We become impatient and
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disgusted with the weakness of others.
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We view their wandering as an inconvenience to our polished,
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comfortable, respectable lives. But the shepherd delights in the
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recovery, and we must understand why that joy is so intense.
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The joy is magnified not because the sin of wandering is treated
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as a minor, excusable offense. The joy is massive because
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sovereign grace has triumphed over a lethal threat.
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The danger was entirely real, the spiritual death was
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imminent, and the rescue succeeded against all odds.
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That distinction is crucial. I also want to clarify something
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about the 99 because it is very easy to misread this text and
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think Jesus is insulting the faithful.
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Right when Jesus says the shepherd rejoices more over the
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one, he does not mean the faithful 99 are loved less.
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He is not creating a rivalry among the sheep where the
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rebellious ones get all the affection.
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It is the specific acute relief and gladness of a rescue
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operation succeeding. Think of a massive search party
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looking for a child lost in a freezing, dense forest.
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When the searchers finally find that child shivering under a
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log, the emotional explosion of relief, the tears and the
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cheering do not mean the parents love their other children
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sitting safely at home any less. The emotional force of a rescue
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dramatically surpasses the ordinary steady satisfaction of
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those not presently in mortal danger.
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This localized, intense burst of joy over one specific sheep is
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anchored in some something much larger.
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It is anchored in an unmovable eternal reality, and this is
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where we reach the theological summit of the passage, the.
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Absolute decree of God in verse 14.
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Jesus says so. It is not the will of my Father,
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who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
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Everything we have discussed today, the danger of the sheep,
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the act of pursuit of the shepherd, the explosive joy of
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recovery, is interpreted and guaranteed by this one
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statement. The word translated as will in
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that verse is the Greek word thelema.
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And this is where confessional reformed theology provides
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necessary clarity. Thelema in this context is not a
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passive wish. It is not a wistful hope where
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the Father crosses his fingers, looks down from heaven and hopes
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the sheep manages to survive. It is the sovereign efficacious
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decree of the Almighty. When we consult a Westminster
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Confession, specifically the chapters on God's decree in
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Providence, we are taught that God from all eternity did freely
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and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.
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The Father has unconditionally elected his people.
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His will cannot be thwarted by human rebellion or demonic
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interference. If he wills that not one little
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1 perishes, then absolutely 0 little ones will perish.
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Hold on, that creates a massive logical problem for a lot of.
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People, it definitely raises questions.
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If the Father already decreed from eternity past that the
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sheep is completely safe and will not perish, then the whole
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rescue mission seems like theatrical nonsense.
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Why go through the agonizing effort of searching?
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Why all the severe warnings about millstones?
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Doesn't the absolute decree mean the sheep is safe no matter what
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they do? That is the classic objection to
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reform theology, and the answer lies in understanding how God
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operates in time and space. God ordains the ends, which is
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the final glorified salvation of the sheep.
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But he simultaneously ordains the means to achieve those ends.
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The act of pursuit of the shepherd.
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The severe warnings in Scripture.
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The agonizing pastoral care of the local church.
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The preaching of the Word. These are the very mechanisms by
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which God preserves his elect. This framework refutes the Roman
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Catholic or Armenian views which claim a justified sheep can lose
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their salvation. But it's simultaneously kills
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antinomianism. Which is the false idea that
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because we are secure in election, we can live however we
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want, indulge in sin and wander without consequence.
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Because if you are truly one of the elect, God will use the
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severe means of His pursuit to drag you back.
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You will not be allowed to rest peacefully in your sin.
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The Shepherd will come for you, and sometimes that rescue is
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painful. I want to speak directly to you,
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the listener. Again, think about your personal
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assurance. So often we base our security on
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the strength of our own grip on Christ.
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We think if I can just read my Bible enough, pray enough, and
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hold on tight enough, I will be saved.
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But your grip is incredibly weak.
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You are defenseless sheep. Your internal security rests not
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in the strength of your grip on Christ, but in the Father's
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unyielding, sovereign grip on you.
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He has decreed your preservation.
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That doctrine brings immense comfort to the weary, struggling
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believer. Your preservation is a matter of
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the Father's immutable character, not your daily
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performance metrics. But we cannot stop at comfort
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because this doctrine demands rigorous action from us.
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Because the Father's decree guarantees the preservation of
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the Saints, the earthly church has a massive non negotiable
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responsibility to act out this pursuit.
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We are the hands and feet of that divine decree.
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So what does this all mean for the local church on a Tuesday
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afternoon? We often talk about the law
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showing us our sin and driving us to Christ for justification.
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But reformed theology also recognizes the third use of the
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law. The third use of the law, or the
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normative use, guides believers in grateful obedience.
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It shows us how to live in a way that pleases God now that we are
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justified. Because Christ sought us when we
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were wandering, hostile and helpless, we are now morally
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obligated to seek each other. We do not pursue the lost to
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earn God's favor or to pay him back.
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We pursue them because it is the family trait.
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We are reflecting the communicable character of the
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Father to the world. If you look at your Bible, the
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very next verse is immediately following this parable.
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Matthew 18 verses 15 through 20 or Jesus famous instructions on
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church discipline. If your brother sins against
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you, go and tell him his fault. We often treat church discipline
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like a sterile, punitive legal proceeding.
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We treat it as a mechanism to kick messy people out of our
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pristine religious club so we can protect our brand.
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Which is a complete tragic betrayal of the immediate
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context. Discipline in the context of
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Matthew 18 is a search and rescue mission.
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It is the earthly outworking of the heavenly Shepherds pursuit.
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Confronting A sinning brother or sister is not about
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institutional control, flexing authority or retaliation.
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It is about going into the treacherous mountains to pull
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them back from the edge of a Cliff.
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A church that refuses to practice discipline out of a
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false modern sense of tolerance is not being loving.
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They are watching a blind sheep wander directly into a pack of
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wolves and refusing to shout a warning because they do not want
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to seem judgmental. That is outright cruelty
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disguised as kindness. And this is not just a job for
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the paid professionals. I think people sit in the pews
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and think, well, the pastors and elders will handle the wandering
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sheep. That is why we pay their
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salaries. I'm just here to listen to the
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sermon. But the text calls the entire
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congregation to this grueling duty.
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The command not to despise the little ones applies to every
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single member of the Covenant community.
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You. Cannot outsource your mutual
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care to a committee or a pastoral staff.
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If you notice a fellow believer drifting, maybe they are
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skipping the Sunday gathering. Maybe you hear a cynical change
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in how they talk about the Lord, or you see their affections
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cooling for the things of God. You do not go to your friends
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and gossip about them under the guise of a prayer request.
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You do not shrug your shoulders and assume someone else will
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handle. It you go into the mountains
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after them, you pick up up the phone.
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You drive to their house and knock on their door.
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You pray for them, you look them in the eye and admonish them,
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and you bring them the word of God.
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Because you know that the Father's absolute will is for
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their preservation, and He might be sending you as the precise
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mechanism to rescue them from the Cliff edge.
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Let us briefly recap the progression we have traced
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today. We started by seeing the radical
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countercultural value heaven places on the unassuming weak
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believer. We investigated the lethal
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reality of our total depravity, that we are sheep prone to
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wander into fatal deception. We saw the unilateral active
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rescue of the Sun, who invades the wilderness to seek us out at
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the cost of his own life. And we anchored all of this in
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the ironclad guarantee of the Father's sovereign decree, which
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ensures that not one single sheep will be lost to the
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wolves. Only leave you with a final
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thought to Mull over. Think of the most frustrating,
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spiritually weak or inconsistent straying member of your local
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church right now. Picture their face.
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That brings it really close to home.
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The way you view them, the way you speak about them at the
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dinner table, and your willingness to pursue them when
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they drift, does it reflect the pragmatic corporate math of the
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world where they are just an acceptable loss?
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Or does it reflect your belief in the sovereign decree of a
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father who refuses to lose a single one of his little ones?
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The diagnosis of the human heart is murky, and our innate
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tendency to wander is a terrifying reality.
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But the shepherd's grip is fixed, and his rescue never
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fails. Amen to that.
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Thank you for joining this deep dive on Reformed thinking.
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Rest in the shepherd's grip today and go after the wandering
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sheep in your own life.