How God Treats His Sheep

When a sheep wanders off, the shepherd does not write it off. He leaves the ninety-nine and goes after the one. That is the central image Jesus uses in Matthew 18, and it is the framework Rick Warren builds this message around: God as a shepherd who does not give up on lost or wandering sheep, and who disciplines rather than punishes when they stray.

The Shepherd Goes After the Lost

Warren makes a direct claim about what this passage means for the church. If a shepherd has a hundred sheep and one wanders away, Jesus says the shepherd will leave the ninety-nine to find the one. Warren applies this to Saddleback Church's growth strategy: "We don't grow for our benefit. We grow because people need the Lord." He notes that the church recently had over 71,000 people across its campuses, but insists growth is not about numbers. "My favorite size church was 300 people," he says, because he could know everyone and the headaches were fewer. But he argues that a church that stops growing is effectively saying to the world, "We're all saved, we're happy, we're going to heaven. The rest of you can go to hell."