The value of One , two , or Three [page 2 ]

The Value Of One, Two, Or Three...Continued from page 1


Look at v. 12, "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?" The owner of the sheep leaves in good hands to the shepherds the ninety-nine and goes looking for the one absent sheep. He knows much about sheep. He knows they get lost easy and won't find their way home by themselves. He knows they cannot take care of themselves, so he personally goes after the stray. Why does he care? Because each sheep is of great value to the owner. Let me say that each of us are of great value to God. He loves each of His children as if each were the only one He had. How it must break our Father's heart to see what the world and Satan does to the strays who have dropped from bible study, prayer, church fellowship, and service. They could be so much happier and fulfilled if they stayed with the flock, but for some reason or another, they have wandered off. What do we do with the strays, the absentees? The temptation is to drop them, to ignore them, to pretend like they never belonged. But if we follow Christ we will not be content to leave them alone. We will pray for them, love them, contact them and we will welcome them back. Look at v. 13, "And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off" I am so thankful for those of you who have never wandered off from your church fellowship or fellowship with God. You are to be commended, but do not look down on or neglect to go after those who have.

We have just went thru back in March, the time of tournament basketball. They call it March Madness. We have a challenge to give each of you in Sunday school. We are planning on dividing you into four teams with a coach per team. The emphasis is not on attendance but on contacts. We want to spend the whole month of March contacting absentees and non-church attenders and inviting them to Sunday School and church. These can be friends, families, neighbors, AWANA kids, fellow workers and acquaintances. We will only do this one month out of the year, so please join us in this important outreach. We will call it May Madness at______ Baptist Church. Each team will get points for contacts. Three points for a person to person contact, three points for that person attending Sunday School or church, two points for a phone call invitation, and one point for a card. Email, or letter sent. We can do this if we will realize the value of each one person.

Now look at v.14, "In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost." Normally when we think of lost, we think lost from salvation and on the way to hell. But Jesus is speaking here of being lost to fellowship, to discipleship, to Bible study, to active involvement with other members of the family of God. For all practical purposes they are living unfruitful and unproductive lives as strays or those who have wandered away from the will of God. Each child of God is too valuable to be left alone and lost to the will of God. What if you are the lost, the stray? What would you want others to do for you? I would want someone to care enough to come after me.