The ninety and nine

Matthew 18:11-14  For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.  (12)  What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?  (13)  And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.  (14)  Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

     This may surprise you but this verse has always bothered me.  Maybe it is because I have been connected to the church for so long.  Maybe it is because I have been around Christians for most of my life.  (Although I did not grow up in a Christian family I went to church as a child because of the bus ministry.)

     I am not sure why  it took me so long to get the true meaning of this parable.   I was shocked that Jesus would leave 99 vulnerable sheep to go look for the one who wandered off on their own.  If the sheep would have stayed with the others this would not have been a problem.  What if while he was gone th other 99 decided to leave, or wander off?  This was my thinking.

    Now don't get me wrong I love the idea of seeking the lost but not at the expense of losing the found.  That was at least my reasoning.

    This week it hit me.  The idea here is that Jesus had made preparation for the 99 to be taken care of.  He put them in a safe place.

    I guess I have gotten so use to the church taking care of its own needs that I saw no purpose in leaving them to go find the others.   There should be a point in ministry where you are able to leave Christians to themselves so that we can do "the will of the Father" and that is "to seek those that are lost".  

    If we are always trying to take care of the church then we are never spending time to pursue the lost.  Wow! This is such a simple yet profound revelation.

    It explains why a pastor or church leader gets frustrated because they can't spend time with the lost.   

    There is a place for discipleship in the church.  We are expected to train and help Christians grow.  The question is, "To what ends?"  The answer is not so that they can make it to heaven, this is settled in the decision to follow Christ.  The answer is that we train and lead Christians so that they can to go out and find the lost.

    What if just one Christian decided to reach one person who is lost?  Where would Christianity be.  We must admit that we spend far too much time MAINTAINING the found and not enough time SEEKING the lost.

    Jesus left the 99 to find the 1 because he had the 99 ready.  He expects us to do the same.

So what do you think?

Keeping the Main Thing The Main Thing

I have been at the SC Church of God Campmeeting this week.  If you are not familiar with this it is a time where pastors, leaders and members across SC come together to hear preachers share what is on their heart.

For me it has always been challenging.  Many times it is a renewal of vision and purpose.  Sometimes there is a total "refocus".  Monday morning has been the most challenging for me so far.

Mitch Tolle reminded us an simple but important principle, "Keep the main thing the main thing."  How easy it is for me to get off track in life and in ministry.

We are reminded of this in Jesus feeding the 5000.  All four of the gospels (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:34-44, Luke 9:10-17, John 6:1-13) ) tells us the story, so it must be important.  He challenged the disciples to feed the people.  A young boy didn't have much but he had 2 fishes and 5 loaves of bread;.

      Jesus took the small amount and fed the multitude.  The estimates are between 15 to 24,000.  This is no small feat.  

     John 6:35  gives us the crowds reaction.  They wanted to crown Jesus king.  The question is, is this the intention of Jesus?  Did he come to be king? 

       Jesus was upset about this.  He didn't want to be their king he wanted to be their savior.  They wanted him because he filled their belly.  Jesus was more interested in their soul than their belly.  

     Even the disciples missed it.  He had to send them on the lake to learn the lesson of who Christ really is.

       Christ wanted to be their Messiah.  He wanted to have a deep relationship with these disciples.

       I was challenged by this thought.  When it comes to benevolence am just feeding people or also introducing them to Jesus?  Am I bringing them to the Messiah?

       What a challenge.  Am I keeping the main thing, the main thing?  Is my ministry focusing on helping people change lives or just filling their bellies.  Feeding people is good but helping them see Christ has eternal  effects.

      It seems to be that churches gets caught up doing ministry instead of leading people to Christ.  The church can get so focused on maintenance and waiting on God's next blessing that we miss winning souls.

       My prayer is that the Lord will lead us back to being about the Father's business.

       When you get time reread the story of Christ feeding the multitude.  This time look at it as a lesson Jesus is trying to teach instead of another miracle to perform.

         

        So what do you think?