Matthew 18:10-14- God delights in pursuing you and brining you home

Matthew 18:10-14

      Psalm 23

God delights in finding you and brining you home

It is amazing to hear and see the transforming work of God in people’s lives.

Have any of you heard of Nicky Cruz

For those who haven’t, here is just a quick snippet of his story.

Nicky Cruz was born in Puerto Rico.

His parents were spiritualists, whatever that is, and his family upbringing was tough.

His mum would call him the “son of satan”.

He was often abused.

Cruz was always getting into trouble in Puerto Rico and so at the age of 15, his parents sent him to New York city to live with his brother.

Shortly after arriving in New York city, Cruz left his brother’s house and lived on the streets of New York and quickly found himself caught up in the Mau Mau street gang.

After 6 months in the street gang, Cruz became the warlord of the gang- the big boss.

Soon after becoming the leader of this violent street gang, he had a brief encounter with a street preacher called David Wilkerson.

Wilkerson told Cruz that "Jesus loved him and would never stop loving him". Cruz responded by slapping Wilkerson and threatening to kill him. Wilkerson attempted again later to convert Cruz, and received the same response.

Wilkeson was not deterred and on so, later on, he held an evangelistic event at a boxing ring, where he invited all the Mau Mau gang to come and hear the gospel. Wilkerson even organised a bus for them. The Mau Maus went to this evangelistic event with the intention of stealing the collection that was given that night, but God had other ideas.

As Cruz approached the boxing ring, he felt a deep sorrow for all the things he had done wrong, he asked God to forgive him and Jesus found him. And when Jesus found Cruz his life was so transformed, that he and he his gang members went to the police and handed in all their weapons, bricks, knives and handguns.

The police didn’t know what to do. They thought it was some kind of hoax.

You can read the story of Nicky Cruz in the book “the cross and the switch blade”

To this day Cruz is still following Jesus after leading many others to Christ.  He also founded, with Wilkerson, the Teen Challenge mission who help teens who have drug and alcohol addictions.

Cruz is just one example of many, where Jesus pursued him, found him and transformed him, and Wilkerson is one example where one person, continued to pursue a lost soul despite the danger to himself.

I love those stories, I want to hear more of them in this place- please God.

Now, I am sure we have heard many great testimonies- that is of stories of where a person has come to repentance and put their trust in Christ, and at one pivotal point in the story, the person says something like:

“I found Jesus when…….”

Or

“I came to Jesus when……..”

Or

“After I had tried everything else, I decided to try Jesus and………”

And I don’t doubt for one minute that many of these people who say these things are genuine disciples of Jesus, as you witness the dramatic change in their life, as you see them surrender their weapons to the police, or you see them burn their witch craft books or you see evidence of the fruits of the spirit working in and through them……..and yet, as we look at this passage today and in fact the rest of scripture, it is clear,

that no-one finds Jesus,

no-one tries Jesus,

no-one comes to Jesus,

but clearly and most graciously, Jesus finds them.

Now, you may think I am splitting hairs here, you perhaps think it doesn’t matter whether a person finds Jesus or Jesus finds them, and in one sense your right, as long as they are disciples of Jesus- that is what ultimately matters

but……but……it actually makes a huge difference to know the truth that Jesus found you, and you didn’t find Jesus.

If you were here last week, we saw that it was only by God’s revelation that the apostle Peter knew who Jesus really was- the Messiah- God’s forever king. Peter didn’t discover who Jesus was, he didn’t find out, but it was revealed to him by God.

Just look at Matt 16:17 with me:

And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar- Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven

It is the same God who graciously opened the spiritual eyes of Peter, who opens our eyes to the wonderful truth of the gospel and when I say gospel I mean the person and work of Jesus.

Who Jesus really is and what he has done for you.

As much as we search and look for God: ultimately it is God who finds us.

Ephesians 2:8-9 makes this clear when it says, for it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God

In a similar parable in Luke from the one we read in Matthew about a farmer and sheep, Jesus again made it clear that it is He who finds the sinner, not the sinner who finds Jesus.

Just turn with me to Luke 15:3-7

So he told them (the pharisees and scribes) this parable: 

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? ⁵ 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 neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Now Jesus was speaking to the pharisees and scribes here, and remember they were the ones who were self-righteous, they were the ones who thought they didn’t need to repent, they were the ones who thought they didn’t need Jesus to save them.

Hence they represented the 99 sheep in this parable, that the man left alone since they thought they had no need to repent.

And yet for the sinner, the person who was lost, it was Jesus who was the man in the parable, who went looking for the sinner, found the sinner, put him on his shoulders and carried him home.

Friends, this is my story, this is your story- Jesus found you, he rescued you from your sins and he will carry you home.

But why is it so important for us to know that Jesus found us…… and just as important for us to know that we didn’t find Him?

1.        It should protect us from pride and arrogance.

We cannot boast in our salvation, we cannot boast that because we are superior to others in some way that we are saved. We cannot boast that we figured it out, because of our supreme intellect, we cannot boast that we showed more remorse than others, we cannot boast that we did the right thing and so we are now saved…..NO…..we are saved purely on the mercy of God.

Jesus found and rescued us- He didn’t need a helping hand from us.

2.        It should protect us from playing God.

Since salvation is based purely on the mercy of God, we don’t know whom God will find and bring home, we don’t know whom God will show his mercy to, and so it is not up to us to decide who God saves or doesn’t.

We don’t decide who is worthy of God’s mercy or not- that is for God to decide and He alone.

Therefore it should humble us to call all people to repentance, all people, from all nations, from all cults, from all religions from all cultures to repentance, knowing that it is God and God alone who saves.

Who are we to pick and choose?

We don’t just put out the call of repentance to a certain group or certain people, but we put the call out to all people.

And finally the third reason why it is important for us to know that Jesus found us and we didn’t find him, is because of this wonderful truth that I want you to hold today:

3.        We can be certain that just as Jesus found us, He will bring us home

If your salvation was based upon you, you simply wouldn’t make it home and when I say home, I mean heaven. I know I wouldn’t make it home. If my salvation depended upon my level of faith which wavers, my level of doubt which wavers, my level of commitment which wavers, my level of love for Jesus which wavers, I would never make it home.

But praise be to God, I know it doesn’t depend on me, but it depends on Jesus who found me and will bring me home.

This assurance of our salvation, or what some theologians like to call “the perseverance of the saints” is what this little passage in Matthew is all about.

Look at Matt 18:10-14 again with me:

¹⁰ “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. ¹² What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. ¹⁴ So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

Now in this parable, the 99 sheep are not the self-righteous pharisees as they were in the other parable from Luke, but these sheep are us, the members of God’s family and the one sheep that goes astray, is not completely lost as it was in the parable from Luke but it is a sheep that has wandered off.

The other 99 sheep are not described as ones thinking they don’t need to repent, but as sheep that haven’t gone astray.

And as the sheep wanders off, the shepherd, the good shepherd Jesus brings them back.

Friends, I don’t know where your heart is at with Jesus.

Perhaps your heart has been growing cold, perhaps your faith is wavering, perhaps through times of hardship you have doubted the goodness of God, perhaps you are wandering in your heart, perhaps you have let the things of this world push Jesus aside……………………………..

If that is you today, I just want to read these words again to you from verse 14……..

So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

Or let us put it in the positive- It is the will of my father, that these little one’s live.

Just let that promise sink in…

It is not the will of God in heaven that you should perish.

Jesus will carry you home

You don’t have to have life figured out, you don’t have to have all the human logic squared away…..NO…….just trust in his promise, like a baby who depends and trusts in their mother to feed and nourish them, we just depend and trust upon God.

Like a sheep who looks to his shepherd to guide, we just trust God.

Trust in this promise from Philippians 1:6 which says that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ

Or this promise from John 10:29, My Father, who has given them to me is greater than all, and no-one is able to snatch them out of the father’s hand. I and the farther are one.

Friends if you perhaps have been straying, I want you to know this also, Jesus rejoices when you stop wandering.

Jesus, all of heaven, God, they all rejoice when your heart stops wandering and settles back home with God.

God delights in perusing you, He delights in finding you and brining you home.

And so this leaves us with a couple of applications for our own lives.

1.        Do we rejoice when God brings back someone who has been straying?

I know, as I have gotten older, I am more cynical of people’s wandering hearts coming back to Jesus. Some would say I am wiser, as I try and discern the reality of their belief and yet perhaps, I, may be like you have lost the Joy I should have when a person comes back to Jesus, or more accurately I should, I say when Jesus brings them back.

2.        Do we rejoice when a sinner repents and God opens their eyes to His Son?

Or do we judge them unworthy?

Maybe we need to pray that God will give us a desire for the lost, give us his heart for the lost, and then we would find the joy he has in saving the lost.

And finally, let me leave you with a challenge, that I personally struggle with.

Do you pursue those who have wandered?

For Wilkerson, a slap in the face, a fear of his own life, being treated with utter contempt didn’t stop him from pursuing the soul of Nicky Cruz.

God may we have that same stubbornness, that same resolve, that same determination to see and pursue people to come into God’s green pastures.

Let us pray.