Grace In Pursuit
Matt. 18
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Pastor Alan Morse
First Baptist Church of South Lake Tahoe
This parable is about the one sheep that was lost and is found of the shepherd and is
saved. It is the heart of God for the lost and His great love for us, and His great joy over one
sinner that comes to repentance.
Grace in Pursuit
Matt. 18:11 “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.”
The heart of God in this world is in a pursuit for sinners to be saved. Taking it here from
the words of Jesus Himself, this is the very heart of God being opened up to us. What is in
the heart of God is to seek out, to find the least of us, the lost; those of us whose lives have
been mauled by sin; those without hope, without God in this world, and to Grace us with
the greatest gift imaginable. It is God’s gift of Jesus Christ to us. It is the free gift of eternal
life, the forgiveness of sins; a new life of hope in a relationship with God. Grace is at the
very heart of God’s pursuit of us that we might choose to be saved. Jesus is willing to take
the least of us, the worst of us; those of us who are most undeserving and most unworthy,
and Grace us to become the children of the King, the children of God.
The pursuit of Grace has not been cheap. It has been a long, hard-fought road that Jesus
has travelled all the way to Calvary to win the victory for us. Against all odds, Jesus won it,
and we won it in Him. This is Grace in pursuit.
His leaving Heaven’s glory, taking on the form of a man, being born of a virgin, walking
through this suffering and sinful world, identifying Himself with us in all that we go through,
was to rescue the perishing and care for the dying. Jesus has never been distant from
humanity’s sorrows and the terrible tragedies of life that sin has brought upon this world.
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God became us in the flesh to be with us, to understand us and what we are going
through and for His heart to be moved toward our desperate cries for mercy and Grace to
lift us out of what our sin has done to us.
Mercy is the compassion of God. He see, knows and feels everything that we are going
through.
When we ask Him in Jesus’ name, and come to Him through the Cross, He steps into our
lives, embraces us in His love, and saves us out of what sin has done to us. It is Grace in
pursuit; mercy is the fruit.
There is more than enough mercy with God toward our greatest sins to find forgiveness
with Christ, and more than enough Grace in our unworthiness to be given a relationship
with God.
Mercy moves the heart of God toward us in the mess sin has gotten us into, and His
compassion to get us out of it. The hole that we have dug for ourselves in living in sin, has so
enslaved us, crippled and mauled us; it would be impossible for us to find freedom from this
demonic hold on us if it wasn’t for the fact that Jesus shed His blood for us at the Cross, and
defeated the devil for our freedom.
Jesus is the grave robber; He is the Resurrection and the Life.
Jesus is sin’s destroyer; “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed”.
“When Jesus looked on the multitudes, He had great compassion toward
them for they were as sheep without a shepherd.”
They were lost and without hope apart from God; but the eye of God is upon them from
the least to the greatest. His eye is upon the one who went astray, to the 99 back in the
fold.
Behind all the suffering and butchering in this world; disease, death, famine, poverty,
raping, maiming, killing, wars and rumors of wars; genocide, abortions, human slave
trafficking of women and innocent children; there you will find the devil.
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The Mercy of God at the Cross
It was God’s love for us, and His compassion for us: He died for us to rescue us out of our
misery.
Eph. 2:4 “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,”
Jesus endured loneliness and rejection by this world that we might have a friend in Him.
Jesus Christ our Lord endured temptation and overcame sin that we might have a Savior
in Him Who is greater than the greatest of sins, Who is more than able to conquer that sin
and give us triumph over tragedy, victory over vice, and freedom over slavery in Himself. He
did it all for us at the Cross. This mercy at the Cross, this is the pursuit of Grace.
The One in the Masses
Matt. 18:12 “How think ye? 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?”
The eye of the Shepherd is upon every one of His own. He knows His sheep and His
sheep recognize the voice of the Shepherd and know Him. He calls us all by name. He goes
in and out among us leading us to pasture.
Not one of His own will be lost. If one of us goes astray and falls into sin and falls back
into the world; if one of us is deceived by the devil into sin, led astray from the fold,
isolated, and cut off to be destroyed by the destroyer; the great Shepherd of the flock of
God is going to come after you, hunt you down, snatch you out from the devil’s hold on you,
and bring you back where you belong.
God will let you run as far away as you can get from Him, as fast as you can go, if you
choose to think you know what is best. But you will never be able to outrun God; you will
never be able to hide from Him. His eye is upon you. If you are His child, He knows right
where you are, watching what you are doing, and in His time, and in His way, He’s going to
discipline you and bring you back to Himself.
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On the Judgment Day all of God’s sheep, His true followers, every child of God, all that
have been saved, are going to be present and accounted for when Christ calls His Church to
stand before Him.
Not one of God’s elect, not one of His sheep, not one who has been saved is ever going
to be lost. He called us, He forgave us, He justified us and has glorified us. It’s all by Grace.
From the beginning to the end. Jesus saved us on His own, keeps His own saved, and will get
every one of His own safely home when He calls for us. He is the author and the finisher of
our faith. This is the pursuit of Grace.
There Is Joy in Heaven Over The One
Matt. 18:13 “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.”
From the world’s perspective we are just a huge meaningless mass of worthless
humanity. We have lost our eternal worth to God, and the sanctity of life having been
created in His image. Life came from God, and the very breath of life from God lives in us.
We are a living soul, designed by our Creator uniquely, with the qualities of mind, emotions,
and will to know God, and with a soul which will live forever. We are of infinite worth to
God. He is passionate about us. It is Grace in pursuit.
When one soul, one child, one wayward, backslidden sinner, one of the least of this
world, and one of the worst of humanity comes to His senses, to the end of his sin, and
turns to God, and says, “Father, I have sinned, and I am not worthy of your forgiveness, but I
come to the Cross today, and I am asking you, Jesus, into my life, I receive you as my Lord
and my Savior”, I am telling you Church there is such an explosion of joy in Heaven that
breaks forth, it can be heard from one end of it to the other.
God is Not Willing That Any Should Perish
Matt. 18:14 “Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven,
that one of these little ones should perish.”
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This is the pursuit of Grace. The Lord wants all people to come to Christ, come to the
Cross, repent of sin and be saved.
Every person must make that choice, what are you going to do with Jesus Christ? Jesus is
God’s invitation to come to the Cross and be saved. It is God’s way, the only way, the Bible’s
way; Jesus’ way.
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