A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, what is your thought about this? A man owns a 100 sheep and one of them wanders away. Will he not leave the 99 out on the hills and go in search of the stray? If he succeeds in finding it, believe me, he is happier about this one than about the 99 that did not wander away.
Just so, it is no part of your heavenly father's plan that a single one of these little ones shall ever come to grief and this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Whether it's very sensible or whether it was very sensible for a shepherd to to abandon 99 sheep on the in the hills or on the hills and to go out just to get one, and he wasn't even sure he could find it. I don't know whether that makes sense or not. But what our blessed lord was trying to tell us wasn't so much about the 99, but he was trying to tell us how god loves us and runs us down.
It's just it's the I was gonna say it's the theme of the Hound of Heaven, but the Hound of Heaven by Thompson came a little bit after that. But, you know, this is something we just don't realize. We think in so great terms that we have to do so much to get to God, that we've got to do it. It rest this is nothing but Pelagianism. Of course, lot of this goes back to Luther and Company, and goes way back, as I say, to the to Pelagius in the time of Saint Augustine of Hippo, that we are saved by ourselves, that the grace of God is just a a nudge to push me in the right direction.
Doesn't make notice, I'm saying that was a heresy. We do not realize how god loves us. Someone after I made a statement about that theme of god loving us said that in a church where there was a crucifix as big as this or bigger, and over it was in great big letters, god loves us or god loves you. Do we realize this? CS Lewis has a lot to say about this.
But you see, what we don't realize that God actually loves us. So he's going to in in so far and he has everything to do with it. And so far as he pursues the little old sheep that's wandering away, and you know who that is. He does everything he can to bring us back. And as I've said many times, and I someday I'm going to bring it in here and read it, but Lewis has a page on this of and he draws a parallel between God treating us because he loves us, and a good, decent, proper owner of a dog who loves his dog.
And he doesn't want that dog rummaging around in a lot of people's garbage. He doesn't want his dog to be running out and getting mauled and shattered, killed by automobiles and trucks. He doesn't want to pick up the mangled body of dog. So what he what he does, he when he takes him out on a nice romp, he puts a leash on him. Now, what Lewis does, and he he develops this, what Lewis then does is to to look at the master from the dog's point of view.
How what a tyrant he is. He won't let me run. He won't let me eat. You see, who are we to judge God? How do we know that when we feel that choker on our neck yanking us back that it isn't saving us from being mangled under a truck wheel?
You see, as Lewis says, when you say God loves you, you better know what you're saying because God actually loves you. And he doesn't care how you take it. It doesn't change his love for you. The only thing that can change is your love for him, and there is the whole point. You're not going to do anything about god's love for you.
That that has been given. What you can do and what you must do, and if you don't do it, it'll never be done, is to make your contribution. To make your contribution. Now in this season of Advent, we ought to get our sights straightened out. You'll notice if you read the gospels of Jesus Christ, and they're they're the you can't improve on those gospels.
Whether whatever you think of them, however you regard them, whether you think them of them as absolutely historical down to every little dot and comma, or whether you think they're just myths. The point is that's the best we have about Jesus Christ. Volumes have been written about the blessed mother. What have you in the New Testament about the blessed mother? I've seen a whole book about Saint Joseph and about all you have in you you know what we have in the New Testament about Saint Joseph.
When you read this, you will see how our blessed lord appeals to you as a person and as an individual. It remember, salvation is not collective. You either make it or you don't make it, and that's you, the individual you. And as what in one of the Psalms, it says that God has called every one of the stars by name. Do you know what what that means when you say every star by name?
The psalmist is trying to tell us how God regards you and regards me. We are not numbers. We are not a security number or a social security number with God almighty. We have names. God comes after us as an individual human being.
Can we ever realize that? Do we ever get that into our thinking and make it operational in our daily lives? If we don't do that, qui bono. What difference does it make? Just remember the words of the gospel Sunday.
If the tree doesn't bear good fruit, cut the darn thing down and throw it into the fire. And that's what our lord said. Don't run around hollering out Lord, Lord. Because Christ said, I'll I don't recognize you. Christ said this.
And so in this season of let's get our thinking straight. I don't care what situation any one of you is in as you sit in those pews this morning. I don't care what that situation is. I only know that it is. I know what mine is.
And I know that in the situation in which I find myself this morning on the December 6 is where God wants me to be, and that's where I have to work out my salvation. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not this evening, this morning. And here's the clincher, we don't do it alone. We don't do it alone. God is coming after us.
He's coming after me, the one, and the 99 I left back in the hills. The name of the father and the son, holy spirit. Amen.