As Jesus continues to preach the gospel of salvation, many people who are known to be leading sinful lives gather around Him to hear His message. When the Pharisees see this, they are immediately critical of Jesus, saying, “This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them” (Luke 15:2).

Jesus responds to this criticism by relating three parables. The first of the three is one that He has used at least once in the past. In order to understand what Jesus is saying here, we need to flash back to the first occasion when Jesus used this parable…

In Matthew 18, Jesus is instructing His disciples as to how they can be successful as His followers. For example, He instructs them to be humble like little children, to cut things out of their lives that would prevent them from serving God, and to resolve offenses through the law of offense. As part of this instruction, He relates this parable:

“If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” (Matthew 18:12-14)

The disciples who hear this parable can relate to it, as some of them are shepherds themselves, and the rest are familiar with that profession. They know that if a shepherd loses even one sheep from his flock, he will drop everything to try to locate the missing sheep and will be happy when it is returned safely to the flock. Losing even one of his sheep is unacceptable since he loves them all.

Jesus is, of course, relating the flock of sheep in the parable to His own flock — everybody who is following Him. For our purposes today, the membership of His Church constitutes His flock. Just like the shepherd in the parable, the Lord does not want to lose even one sheep (one follower) from His flock since He loves them all. So, He is willing to drop everything and locate any one of His followers who has gone astray and return him to the flock.

That’s where we come in. As caretakers of the Lord’s Church (and shepherds of His flock), He expects us to act on His behalf to try to recover church members who have gone astray. Hopefully, we are willing to do so because we love all of the brothers and sisters, even the ones who don’t attend church anymore. However, regardless of our feelings toward any of these individuals, it’s important to understand that the Lord loves them all and doesn’t want to lose any of them.

Anybody who has ever been a member of the Church had a day when they went to the water’s edge and were baptized. On that day, they declared their intention to serve God for the rest of their life, and they received the Holy Ghost to help them to do so. Any such person who has since “gone astray” (which covers a multitude of reasons for no longer attending church) is potentially recoverable, so we should pray that we have the opportunity to recover some of these lost sheep.

How can we begin the process of trying to recover a lost sheep? Depending on the situation, it can be as simple as a phone call, a text message, or sending a card in the mail. Just something to let the person know that you care and that you miss them. The Church is currently in the process of identifying some suggested strategies to assist those who have a desire to be used for recovering lost sheep.

Whether you become actively involved in reaching out to people who have gone astray or whether you simply pray for people to return or whether you do your part to make people feel welcome when they do return, recognize that this is an important initiative in the Church today, just as it was important to Jesus when He related this parable. As the good shepherd, He doesn’t want to lose even one sheep, and we should feel the same way today.

OK, that’s the end of the flashback. Now, we return to the day when Jesus relates this parable to the Pharisees. But wait a minute, why would Jesus tell the Pharisees about recovering church members who have gone astray? And how is this parable a response to their criticism of Him spending time with sinners?

Clearly, when Jesus related this parable to the Pharisees, it must have had a different meaning than when He related it to His disciples. And it does! But you’ll have to wait until the next article to find out what that meaning is. Tune in next week!

This article has undergone ministry review and approval.

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