Golden Bells Stories Jesus Told
A man had one hundred sheep...
#422
2 T #Th4e 2 Lost
hen all the tax collectors and the near to Jesus to hear Him teach... Pharisees and Scribes complained,
Sheep
This parable tells us
who Jesus is and why He came. Jesus is
God the Saviour. He came into this world to save sinners. A Saviour who stayed away from sinners would be like a doctor who stayed away from sick people.
Matt 9:10-13
Jesus Christ was and still is
The Friend of Sinners
...There was once a shepherd Have you ever thought about being a shepherd?
White sheep… green grass... blue skies… butterflies buzzing... Ok, so now you can stop imagining… because I am going to tell you the truth about being a shepherd.
sinners drew And the saying... and
HRMPH! I don’t want anything to do Yes, there are robbers, cheats, with a man liars and all sorts of scumbags here. who is the But Jesus talks with them friend of sinners!
Just look at all these bad people listening to Jesus teach!
None I have heard that of these He even goes to people some of their even go to houses for dinner! church!
S
o Jesus spoke this parable to them saying...
1. It is a Full Time Job --- Yes 24/7. You even have to sleep with the sheep! Sheep pens don’t have any door. The Shepherd lies down across the doorway so no sheep can get out and no wild animals can get in! 2. It is a Hard Job --- You have to look after the sheep all by yourself! You have to be a shearer, a dentist, a doctor, a midwife… everything for your sheep! 3. Sheep are stupid --- They don’t have many brains at all. If there is a cliff they will fall off it… if there is a hole they will fall into it… if there is a lion they will make friends with it...! They are REALLY dumb. 4. You get a gun --- to shoot the bears, tigers, hyenas, panthers, wolves… ok ok no you don’t. That bit is not true. All you get is a crook (a flimsy stick with a hook on the end).
He had 100 sheep They were all out in the sunshine together. Harold was eating. He never stopped eating! Miranda and Agatha were playing skipping and hoping games. Cecil was studying trees (he wanted to be a horticulturalist). The little lambs were lying down listening to Pa & Ma telling stories about ‘The Wolf of Craggy Rock’. Martha was dreaming about buying a bicycle and seeing the world…
He lost one of them Every night the Shepherd counted every sheep...
1 Mandy, 2 Elizabeth, 3 Eugene… ...97 Ned, 98 the other Mandy, 99 Cyril... …...?......? oh no! ...Martha was lost!
So the Shepherd left his 99 sheep and went looking for the one which was lost. It was getting dark. Soon the wolves and bears would be coming out! A storm was in the air. Martha was out on the mountain in danger! The Shepherd remembered the time she got a feeding bucket stuck on her head and thought she was lost, but she was still in the corner of her pen! Talk about pulling the wool over your eyes! Now there was no time to lose. He must go out and find her. So, with a light, a rope and his crook (that flimsy stick with a hook on the end of it) he went up the mountain to find Martha. And so his search began...
Up
an d a
&
Down...
nd
nd rou ...
Arou
9 O’clock,10 O’clock, 11 O’clock… midnight 1 O’clock, 2 O’clock…
He searched and kept on searching until he found it.
Suddenly he heard a sound… a little bleat… it was Martha! She had fallen off the cliff and was stuck down in some rocks. She was crying, cold and bleeding.
When he found his sheep, he put it up on his strong shoulders and carried it home. When the Shepherd reached Martha, he picked her up in his big strong arms. He did not yell at her. He did not even get her in trouble. Martha did not know how tired he was. She did not know how long he had been searching. Poor stupid Martha! The Shepherd just put her on his shoulders and carried her all the way home.
The Shepherd was so happy about finding his lost sheep that he had a party and invited all his friends. The Shepherd invited almost everyone he knew to the party. Butcher and baker came (they were next door neighbours to Shepherd). Shopkeeper came (he lived across the road). Butcher said ‘I wonder why Shepherd is having such a big party?’ Baker said, ‘I heard it has something to do with a sheep called Martha’. Shopkeeper said, ‘But Shepherd has 100 sheep… what about the other 99?’ When Shepherd heard them talking he stood up and said to everyone at the party
‘Rejoice with me! I have found my sheep which was lost!’
The Shepherd
=
The Shepherd cared for the lost sheep.
The Shepherd went on a search and rescue mission. Out into the dark... Up the mountain... Into the forest... ...Wherever he needed to go to find the lost sheep.
The Shepherd was so happy that he had a party with his friends when he found his lost sheep.
Jesus Christ Jesus cares for lost sinners. He goes after them one by one.
Jesus Christ has come to seek and to save lost sinners, to be friends with sinners, and then go all the way to the cross to die for sinners!
The whole of heaven celebrates with the Lord Jesus when one sinner is found.
The Lost Coin Co
wi louri th n Cu g rly
2 4
After Jesus told the story about the Shepherd and his lost sheep, He told another story about a woman and her lost coin. Retell this story in your own words on the blank spaces and colour in the pictures to match. [Read Bible Bits on the back page to help you].
Activ
vities
Instructions
• How many sheep are sleeping? ___ • How many sheep are wearing sunglasses? _____ • Circle the sheep with a bow • Circle the sheep wearing a scarf • Circle the sheep with scissors • What is the black sheep doing? _______________________________ • Circle the wolf in sheeps clothing • How many flowers can you see?___ • How many sheep are there? ______ • What is the correct name for a shepherd’s stick? _______________________________
3
Find Me Hidden somewhere in the magazine is a note that tells us what it means to be lost. Find it and write down what it says below. __________________ __________________ __________________
2
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Code Breaker
Solve both codes so the shepherd can get to his sheep
Start at the letter indicated, then count up the hill where you see a +sign, or down the hill where you see a - sign.
The Sheep Was...
+*
* +
=O =T =L =S
C+3
M+7
O-2
2
A+2
U-2
K+9
E+3
G + 16 C - 2
W-8
B-1
A + 13
M+2
C+2
M+7
T-1
G-2
T-5
B-1
P+3
K+2
S+1
I-1
W-9
W-4
N-2
P+4
Z - 25
J-2
F+9
A+5
G + 1 Z - 25 R + 1
E-4
U+2
T-2
B+3
P-1
B+3
I+2
W-8
Q-2
J+4
A+3
L + 10 D + 1
H + 1 V - 19 V - 19
T-1
K+9
3
?
Have You Got the
Wrong Idea?
The Pharisees and Scribes had the WRONG idea about God and religion.
God is only interested in good and respectable people...
Jesus said that God loves sinners. He cares for the hopeless, dirty, wicked, hurting, weak, needy and sad.
God sits and
watches sinners go to hell because they deserve it... Jesus said that God personally came to save sinners who deserve to go to hell. He does not want a single one of them to perish.
Religion is
about trying hard to get up to God... Jesus said that God has actually come down to us.
Religion is all
about what you can do for God... Jesus said true religion is all about what God has done for us.
God is most
happy when you try to keep all the rules... Jesus said that nothing makes God rejoice more than one sinner who repents.
Young Christians Page
T
he Lord Jesus was surrounded by crowds of people when he told the Parable of the Lost Sheep. They were ordinary, everyday people and they were people who knew they were sinners. At the same time, He was being watched by the Pharisees. These were people who thought that they were better than the others in the crowd and despised the people Jesus was speaking to. The Pharisees really could not understand why He was so interested in them. Why would he even bother with people like this?
Once I visited the Shetland Islands. These Islands are in the middle of the freezing North Sea, not far from the Arctic Circle. I was staying on a big farm. At the back of the property were steep and dangerous cliffs that dropped hundreds of meters into the cold, raging ocean below. As I walked around the farm, I watched a large flock of sheep eating the grass. As they ate, they moved closer to the edge of the cliff. One sheep was careless - he was getting very close to the edge. Suddenly he slipped and disappeared over the cliffs. Down, down he fell until he landed on the sharp rocks below, just meters from the raging ocean. He was stuck and badly injured, unable to move for fear of being swept away. There were still plenty of sheep safely grazing in the field and I thought that nobody would be very interested in the one that had fallen. To me, the risk of rescuing the sheep was so enormous, it just seemed impossible. I didn’t think it was worth it. To my surprise, the Shepherd felt very differently. He was extremely concerned. He quickly decided that he could not possibly leave the sheep alone. It was his, it was in danger, and he had to rescue it. He decided to do a very dangerous thing. He tied a thick rope around his waist and asked me and some of his friends to hold on tightly to the end of it while he slowly and carefully lowered himself down the steep, rocky and dangerous cliffs. The wind was howling as it swept across the rocks. The waves were crashing
against the cliff face so loudly we could hardly hear each other speak. In fact, the waves were so big and crashing so hard that the icy cold spray was hitting us, hundreds of meters away. But slowly, carefully, the shepherd kept lowering himself down. He did not give up. He was risking his life. Finally he reached the sheep that had fallen. He picked it up and put it on his strong shoulders, then gave us the signal to pull them both up. We gradually lifted them back up the cliff to safety. The shepherd was so pleased to have his sheep back. When I saw how happy he was, I realized that only a shepherd would risk his life like that for his sheep. Only a shepherd would feel that way over one lost sheep.
My story is very similar to the Parable of the Lost Sheep. In the parable, the Shepherd represents God. A God of love, grace, mercy and compassion. A God who is interested in and cares for sinners! The way He feels about sinners is a lot like the way that Shepherd felt about his lost sheep.
In the parable the lost sheep represents you, me and every sinner. Sin is the reason we are lost. The Bible says, ‘All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way…’(Is 53:6). Sin takes us far away from God and separates us from Him forever because it must always end in death.
The Shepherd in the story went on a search and rescue mission for his lost sheep. God our Creator became Jesus Christ the Saviour - the Friend of Sinners. The Shepherd in the story risked his life for the lost sheep. Jesus Christ actually gave His life for lost sinners. He died to remove our sin and bring us safely back to God. This is how far He was prepared to go to seek and to save the lost!
God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were sill sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)
Claire’s Column
Competition
The Rich Fool...
READ - The para ble in Luke 12:1621. ANSWER - Wha t do you think th e lesson of this pa ally is? (in 25 wor rable reds or less) HINT - Read the verses before and after WINNERS - Publ ished in #423 PRIZES - Awesom e! CLOSING - June 21 - Date Extend ed! ANYTHING ELS E? - No, just hurr y!
Meet The Team Hi, I am Dr Paul. I write the Young Christians Page (YCP) in each issue of Golden Bells. Did you know we chose the parable of the lost sheep for #422 because we think it is perfect for children! The Lord Jesus told it another time when a little child was sitting on his knee (read about it in Matthew 18). It’s as if Jesus was explaining to adults just how important children are to God. Children are like lost sheep and He has come especially to save them because God does not want a single one of them to perish.
Dr Paul
Next Issue: Meet Curly
Golden Bells readers from the CMML Sunday School, Chingola ZAMBIA
What does it mean to be
LOST?
Lost = far awa y from God
Meet Some Readers Hi my name is Tiana. So far Golden Bells has helped me learn a lot and it will teach you a lot to keep reading to learn more about God :-)
Orders printed copies of this magazine can be ordered in bulk. Please direct all enquiries to the below email address
Tiana from North Queensland AUSTRALIA.
mail@goldenbellsmag.com.au
For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost Luke 19:10
[NKJV] Luke 15:1-10
Bible Bits
The Parable of the Lost Sheep 1 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’
Luke 19:10
7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. The Parable of the Lost Coin 8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’ 10 Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”