My text today comes once again from the 23rd Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.”
Last week we spent time
unpacking that that first clause – “The Lord is my Shepherd.” David didn’t know
what we know of the Lord because God had not fully revealed Himself as a triune
Being: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. According to the New Testament revelation,
Jesus – the Son of God – is the Good Shepherd. He applied that title to Himself
in the 10th chapter of John’s gospel.
We also looked briefly
at a few of our Shepherd’s characteristics, namely that He is our Creator, He
is utterly holy, and He is abundantly merciful. I want to spend some more time
today looking at only two additional characteristics of our Shepherd, specifically,
the Shepherd is deeply and passionately in love with us; And the Shepherd is our
personal protector.
First, let’s look at His
intimate and very personal love for each of us. I think one of the most
beautiful word pictures in the entire Bible is in Isaiah chapter 40:11 “He
tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries
them close to his heart; He gently leads those that have young.”
When our children were
in cribs, sometimes I’d slip into their bedrooms while they slept, lift them
into my arms, and hold them close, rocking from side to side as they slept. And
I like to think that maybe once in a while – now this is “Richard Theology”
what I am about to say – I like to think my Shepherd sometimes slips into the
bedroom while I sleep, He lifts me into His arms – and hugs me.
And I wouldn’t be
surprised that Jesus – YOUR Shepherd – does the same to you, too. But for most
people – even those in pews and pulpits – for most people, God's love for them
is insufficient reason to reciprocate their love to Him.
And so, the reasonable
question is raised: Yes, He loves us; But WHY should we love Him? What should drive
our love for Him?
Luke tells of a
Pharisee who invited Jesus to his home for a meal. While they were eating, a harlot
entered and approached Jesus to wet His feet with her tears and wipe them with
her hair. The Pharisee said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, He
would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that
she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:39).
Listen now to the
Lord’s response “A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five
hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they were unable to
repay, he graciously forgave them both. So, which of them will love him more?”
Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said
to him, “You have judged correctly.” Turning toward the woman, He
said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave
Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them
with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came
in, has not ceased to kiss My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil,
but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her
sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is
forgiven little, loves little.” (Luke 7:41-47)
I need to repeat part
of this text. When Jesus asked the Pharisee: “Which of them will love him
more?” Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
Simon’s answer is key
to understand why the Christian – of all people – should yearn to reciprocate
the Shepherd’s love. “The one who is forgiven much, loves much.”
I spoke last week about
the sins in our mind such as greed, anger, lust, and so forth. I think we only
begin to understand the depth of God’s love for us when we begin to grasp just
how utterly sinful we truly are. In the warp and woof of our very being we are corrupted
by our sin nature. We can’t turn there now, but I remind you of St Paul’s desperate
cry in those last verses of Romans chapter seven where he mourned out loud his
complete inability to stop sinning. And likewise, it is only when we grow in
our understanding or our sin-saturated situation that we can begin to grow in
our love for God who has completely erased our sins through our faith in the
Good Shepherd who took on Himself the Father’s wrath for our sins. How can
anyone not love the Shepherd so much when He has forgiven us so much?
God's love for us simply cannot be overstated. And yet, how often do we take his love for granted – for if we did not take His love for granted, we would GRIEVE over the things we so often do and say and think. The Lord Jesus said it plainly enough: “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15). And I am convinced that the degree of our love for Christ is directly related to our obedience to him.
Think about that for a
while. The degree of our love for Christ is directly related to our
obedience to Him. Does that cause you discomfort? I hope so. It certainly causes ME discomfort.
So, how shall we face
this challenge to obey Him more fully? I’ll tell you how I try to do it: I often
ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to me my sins when I do something offensive to
Him. And I ask Him to please change my heart day by day so that I may
demonstrate more perfect obedience to Christ – obedience not out of fear, but
out of love, out of a desire to please my Shepherd.
I ask the Holy Spirit
for His supernatural aid because I know I am totally incapable of long-term
obedience in and of my own strength. And neither are YOU capable of long-term
obedience in and of your own strength. The apostle Paul said it quite well: “The
mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject
itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.” (Romans
8:7)
Long-term obedience and
a deepening love for Christ is supernaturally driven. To think otherwise is to
blind ourselves to the magnitude of the machinations and influence of the spirit
world. St Paul was not speaking in hyperbole when he warned: (Ephesians 6:12) “For
our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the
rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of
this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness
in the heavenly places.”
And because of His
great love for us, and because of the supernatural enemy who daily seeks to pull
us from the narrow path of Christ, I now turn attention to the next
characteristic of our Good Shepherd. His love naturally results in His divine protection
of His sheep.
The Lord told His
followers: “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the
sheep did not hear them . . . . The thief comes only to steal and kill and
destroy; I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the
good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”
(John 10:8-11)
When scripture speaks
of wolves in sheep clothing, it does not refer to literal wolves. He refers to predators
far more dangerous. Literal wolves devour flesh. but the wolves God warns
against devour souls.
Early in His ministry,
the Good Shepherd warned his followers: “Beware of the false
prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous
wolves.” (Matthew 7:15)
Jude also warned about predators
who’d already become part of their local church: “For certain individuals
whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among
you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license
for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” (Jude
1:4)
You and I must be
keenly aware that the same kinds of predatory wolves who scattered and devoured
the sheep of the first century are still active in the 21st century.
They are false teachers who stand behind pulpits and in front of seminary
classrooms, who seduce unsuspecting Christians with ideas and philosophies that
SOUND reasonable but are soul-destroying deceptions. Many even have a
Bible tucked under their arm as they stand smiling at your door.
But it is not only
those deceptive non-Christian groups that destroy souls. There are a growing number
of Protestant and Catholic churches – even in this town – led by seminary-trained
pastors and teachers who ALSO lead God's flock astray. I heard one false
shepherd tell his congregation, “God doesn’t care if you’re gay or straight.” Another
pastor actually taught a doctrine of Hinduism from the pulpit. Another member
of the clergy in this town proudly spoke of her marriage to her lesbian partner.
And I know of church leaders who tell their congregations that we can have a “reasonable
hope that hell is empty.” Another high-ranking clergy teaches his massive
flock ‘all religious roads lead to God.”
I’ve said these things
before, and I repeat myself because the Good Shepherd Jesus knows very well how
badly His sheep need His protection. That’s why He provided His Holy Spirit to
guide us into His truth (See John 14:17, 26). But that begs the question: HOW
does He guide us into His truth? That’s easy. He does so primarily through the
Scriptures.
You might remember the
story of Lazarus the beggar and the self-centered Rich Man. (Luke 16:24-31) When
both died, the poor man was carried to Abraham’s bosom, The Rich Man, in the
fiery torment of Hades, cried out ‘Father Abraham . . . I beg you, father,
that you send [Lazarus] to my father’s house— for I have five
brothers— in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come
to this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They
have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ But he said,
‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will
repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the
Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Focus with me on those
last words of Abraham to the Rich Man in agony: “They have Moses and the
Prophets; Let the hear them.” Listen, my brothers and sisters here in this
sanctuary: THAT is also a word of warning for you and me who are sheep of the
Good Shepherd. God's Truths are all there between the covers of our Bible, and
we must be convinced that no teaching, doctrine, or philosophy about God will
EVER contradict the Scriptures. If anyone comes with a teaching from a source
other than the Scriptures – that person is a false teacher.
Christian: Be aware. For
good reason God told us through the prophet Isaiah: “To the Law and the
testimony (i.e. of the prophets) “If they do not speak according to this word,
it is because they have no light.” (Isaiah 8:20). In other words, those who
contradict the Scriptures are walking in spiritual darkness – the blind leading
the blind.
God uses His word to
lead sheep into His kingdom. It is no wonder, then, that from the beginning,
Satan mocks God's word and seduces others to do the same. You remember what he
said to our First Mother: “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat
from any tree of the garden’?” And then he added: “You surely will
not die! (Genesis 3:1-5)
Likewise, today’s
predators mock the foundation of Christian faith by suggesting the Bible is not
a reliable modern guide to life and holiness. They say it’s merely an archaic
set laws and rules of an ancient people. They say we ought to get guidance
about life and holiness from contemporary intellectuals, scientists and social
philosophers.
Yet, Solomon warned: (Proverbs
22:28) ‘Do not move the ancient boundary which your fathers have
set.” In other words, don’t move from the historic teachings of the Church which
date to the first century. And God warned through the Psalmist: “I will instruct
you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with
My eye upon you. Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no
understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check,
otherwise they will not come near to you.” (Psalm 32:8-9)
The Psalmist also
warned: “If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?” (Psalm
11:3).
If you know your Old
Testament history, it was BECAUSE the ancient boundaries were moved, and the
foundations were destroyed that the populations of Judah and Jerusalem – and
the Northern Kingdom of Israel more than a century earlier – that they ended
their lives in horrible captivity.
Listen to what God told
His stiff-necked Chosen People just before Jerusalem’s bloody exile – and
listen to their response: (Jeremiah 6:16-17) “Stand by the ways and see and
ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it;
And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not
walk in it.’ “And I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to
the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen.’
Did you ever wonder
about the spiritual anemia running like a pandemic through so much of the Body
of Christ? It’s because people in the pew AND the pulpit are simply unwilling
to abide by the commandments of Scripture. Multitudes know what God says to
them, but they respond the same way Israel did in Jeremiah’s day: “We will not
walk in it. We will not listen to it.”
Those who want to live
in sin find it easy to pick and choose what they like and what don’t like of
God's commandments. And the result of picking and choosing? According to recent
polls, 70% of Protestants and 85% of Catholics do not believe the Bible
is literally true. Nearly 75% of self-identified Christians do not believe
Jesus is the ONLY door to salvation.
Do you begin to grasp
the importance of knowing – and obeying – what the Book says? The only way sin
and false teachings can make headway in churches is when shepherds in the
pulpits do not preach the full inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, and when
their congregations blindly follow their local shepherd. There is simply no
other way for sexual perversions and immorality of all kinds, along with their
attending heresies, to spread through churches.
And now a quick word of
application: Are you and I listening to God speak to us through His word? Just
because someone has academic letters after their name does not necessarily mean
they are godly pastors or teachers. When the apostle Paul preached the gospel
in Berea, Luke tells us, “They received the word with great eagerness,
examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”
I hope you caught that.
The laity of Berea examined the Scriptures daily to verify what the
great apostle Paul was telling them. And that is why EVERY person in this
sanctuary not only has the right to examine what I and anyone
else tells you about sin, righteousness, and judgment – you not only have the right
to examine our words, but you have the responsibility to God do so. And one
final word about this point: If any pastor tells you that you should NOT examine
what they tell you, then run, don’t walk, out of their church.
The Lord Jesus is our
Shepherd. The Father created us through Him and for Him. He is holy. He is
merciful. He deeply and passionately loves us, hugs us to Himself, and calls us
His own. And He protects us by His Holy Spirit through His infallible and fully
inerrant Scriptures – but ONLY if we want to be protected.
The Lord is our Shepherd.
By His help alone, we will hear His voice and obediently follow Him.
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