Easter Is for Black Sheep

Black sheep are often dis­par­aged, shunned, and avoided. Yet God did just the oppo­site. He loved us so much, and yes, we all are black sheep in God’s fam­ily, that He sent His Son to die in our place and He was raised from the dead as a guar­an­tee of our eter­nal sal­va­tion. This is the mes­sage of Easter and our pas­tors at Flatland Church were the ones that preached on the black sheep.

Be sure to lis­ten to the pod­cast to get the full ser­mon. I will not be post­ing my ser­mon notes as usual but here is a quick sum­mary. God loves black sheep, He hates so called white sheep — white sheep being those who go through all the motions of reli­gion but have no rela­tion­ship with the Father (see Matt 23 [show]Matthew 23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his dis­ci­ples, [2]“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, [3]so prac­tice and observe what­ever they tell you–but not what they do. For they preach, but do not prac­tice. [4]They tie up heavy bur­dens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoul­ders, but they them­selves are not will­ing to move them with their fin­ger. [5]They do all their deeds to be seen by oth­ers. For they make their phy­lac­ter­ies broad and their fringes long, [6]and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the syn­a­gogues [7]and greet­ings in the mar­ket­places and being called rabbi by oth­ers. [8]But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all broth­ers. [9]And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. [10]Neither be called instruc­tors, for you have one instruc­tor, the Christ. [11]The great­est among you shall be your ser­vant. [12]Whoever exalts him­self will be hum­bled, and who­ever hum­bles him­self will be exalted. [13]“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hyp­ocrites! For you shut the king­dom of heaven in people’s faces. For you nei­ther enter your­selves nor allow those who would enter to go in. [15]Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hyp­ocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a sin­gle pros­e­lyte, and when he becomes a pros­e­lyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as your­selves. [16]“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If any­one swears by the tem­ple, it is noth­ing, but if any­one swears by the gold of the tem­ple, he is bound by his oath.’ [17]You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the tem­ple that has made the gold sacred? [18]And you say, ‘If any­one swears by the altar, it is noth­ing, but if any­one swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ [19]You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? [20]So who­ever swears by the altar swears by it and by every­thing on it. [21]And who­ever swears by the tem­ple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. [22]And who­ever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. [23]“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hyp­ocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weight­ier mat­ters of the law: jus­tice and mercy and faith­ful­ness. These you ought to have done, with­out neglect­ing the oth­ers. [24]You blind guides, strain­ing out a gnat and swal­low­ing a camel! [25]“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hyp­ocrites! For you clean the out­side of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. [26]You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the out­side also may be clean. [27]“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hyp­ocrites! For you are like white­washed tombs, which out­wardly appear beau­ti­ful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all unclean­ness. [28]So you also out­wardly appear right­eous to oth­ers, but within you are full of hypocrisy and law­less­ness. [29]“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hyp­ocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and dec­o­rate the mon­u­ments of the right­eous, [30]saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shed­ding the blood of the prophets.’ [31]Thus you wit­ness against your­selves that you are sons of those who mur­dered the prophets. [32]Fill up, then, the mea­sure of your fathers. [33]You ser­pents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sen­tenced to hell? [34]Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and cru­cify, and some you will flog in your syn­a­gogues and per­se­cute from town to town, [35]so that on you may come all the right­eous blood shed on earth, from the blood of inno­cent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you mur­dered between the sanc­tu­ary and the altar. [36]Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this gen­er­a­tion. [37]“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gath­ered your chil­dren together as a hen gath­ers her brood under her wings, and you would not! [38]See, your house is left to you des­o­late. [39]For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (ESV)
). Be a redeemed black sheep, not a pre­tender white sheep. I really loved one of Pastor Bart’s state­ments, “Jesus was the ulti­mate black sheep.” He was a black sheep to all the reli­gious lead­ers of his day. He was a black sheep to all the peple that were reli­gious. Yet, He was the per­fect, blame­less white sheep offered up on the cross. He was per­fectly accep­ti­ble to God the Father as the sac­ri­fice to take away the sins of the world. He res­cued us black sheep.

Ok. I had to laugh a bit because I sup­pose no one would con­sider me to be a black sheep. I didn’t rebel against God, go off and do all kind of wicked­ness or any­thing like that. Yet in my own way, I did rebel. I rebelled against the pre­tenders, the white washed graves that called them­selves Christians but were really about the do’s and don’ts and not about hav­ing a rela­tion­ship with God. This is exactly what Pastor Bart said he did too. Maybe that is why I appre­ci­ate a lot of what Pastor Bart says and does.

We all are black sheep when it comes to our Heavenly Father. We all have gone astray. No mat­ter how hard we try (per­fect reli­gios­ity included), we can never turn our black wool into pure white. And the won­der­ous thing is, God doesn’t expect us to! He knows we can not and often don’t even real­ize we need to. Yet there God is, with arms open wide invit­ing us back to Him through His Son.

I guess I have always felt a bit of a black sheep when it comes to God. I don’t feel that I can ever be wor­thy of His love, never can be good enough to enter His pres­ence. And so, the mes­sage of Easter, that Jesus died and rose for me ever before I was born that I might enter into God’s pres­ence blame­less… well, it floors me. It is some­thing I am so thank­ful for.