I Am No.3 The Good Shepherd

Glad to have you here. We're going to be thinking this evening about the way that God reaches out in our lostness and extends his arms towards us. There's a rather clever caption in the Guardian, at least one of the sections of the Guardian yesterday, High Flyer Who Lost His Bearings.

There's a sense in which we're all like that, you know. The Bible tells us that through one man's sin, the world sunk very deep into its own lostness and created increasing problems for succeeding generations. And the Lord Jesus came along to seek and to save people who were lost.

There's a sense in which what our Lord Jesus did in terms of recovery far outmatches the disaster of men in their sinfulness. Now David was a man who also knew what it was to lose his bearings. He also was a man who found the recoveries that there are through the grace of God.

And he writes, probably in his middle years, this 23rd Psalm. Let's read it together. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. Even 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 overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And there's a song that's based on that Psalm, not the traditional 23rd Psalm rendering. It's number two in the supplement, and the opening lines are, a pilgrim was I in a wandering in the cold night of sin.

I did roam when Jesus, the kind shepherd, found me, and now I am on my way home. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. Number two in the supplement.

All the days, all the days of my life. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. All the days, all the days of my life.

Mercy shall follow me. All the days, all the days of my life. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Father, we're grateful for the one who came from your immediate presence, who so partook of your nature that one could have been pardonably confused in thinking that you were he. We thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ who revealed to this world not only the Father love of God, but showed in his own character the shepherd-like qualities of the God whom we worship. Father, in the words of the lovely Book of Common Prayer, we all know what it is to have gone astray.

We have erred and strayed like lost sheep, but we praise you that there was one who took knowledge of our condition and was prepared to hazard his own life in order to achieve recovery. We thank you for one who taught the inestimable value of a single life, and we praise you for him who many of us here are proud to call our Savior. And as we look into his word, and later as we come around his table, may the word illustrate the benefits of taking bread and wine, and may our worship be informed, enthusiastic, intelligent, and directed by your Spirit for the Savior's sake.

Amen. Do sit down. I'm told a few weeks ago, well I'm not just told, I know because I saw the video, there was songs of praise given over to the old Sankhya and Muri hymns, and that brought back a lot of memories for a number of people at the tab.

My former secretary was really in delight, so I've asked that one of those Sankhya hymns will be sung this evening just to warm her heart and all of yours too. It speaks about the sheep that went astray, the ninety and nine. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear him, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, this man welcomes sinners and eats with them.

Then Jesus told them this parable, suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does he not leave the ninety and nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Away on the mountains wild and bare, away from the tender shepherd's care, away from the tender shepherd's care. Lord thou hast here thy ninety and nine, are they not enough for thee? But the shepherd may answer, this of mine has wandered away from me, and although the road be rough and steep, I go to the desert to find my sheep, I go to the desert to find my sheep. But none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, nor how dark was the night when the Lord passed through, they found his sheep that was lost.

Out in the desert he heard his cry, sick and helpless and ready to die, sick and helpless and ready to die. Lord, when sir's blood drops all the way that marred the mountain's track, they were shared for one who had gone astray, if a shepherd could bring him back. Lord, when sir thy hands so rent and torn, they're pierced tonight by many a thorn, but all through the mountain's thundering and up from the rocky steep, there rose the cry to the gate of heaven, rejoice I have found my sheep, and the angels echoed around the throne, rejoice for the Lord brings back his own, rejoice for the Lord brings back his own.

Well, some of that Sankey stuff will never be beaten, and we're grateful to the men for putting that together quite recently. Let's turn in, that is they practiced quite recently, I don't mean that they put it together, even William can't remember when it was written. Let's turn to John's gospel and chapter 11, which actually has the verse, John's gospel chapter 10 has the verse for this evening's address, which we're particularly concentrating.

Here's our Lord, and he's teaching in the whole area of the shepherd and sheep and so forth, and he makes another of those grand declarations which we've already discovered on a few occasions in John's gospel. The 11th verse, which is then repeated or nearly the same in the 14th, I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.

We've been trying on Sunday evenings to show you how interconnected Scripture is. That is that the Old Testament is actually an anticipation of the New Testament, and the New Testament is a commentary on the Old. And some of the characters that you read of in the Old Testament and some of the teachings that you find locked up in that first part of the Bible stand out in greater relief in the New Testament.

I often think of the Old Testament as a negative of a photograph. From the negative you can work out quite a bit, but when the photograph has been processed, and assuming it's a colored one, you get it in all its color, in all its texture, you then see the picture that much more clearly. So, the Old is the negative, the New is the fully developed picture.

The Old, you come across a character by the name of King David, and we've been looking into certain aspects of his life. Now, there is a sense in which David anticipates our Lord Jesus, that's why he's referred to occasionally as King David's greater son. There are certain common denominators and also a lot of dissimilarities.

David was a shepherd boy king. Our Lord, he too looked upon himself as a shepherd, anticipated when he was just a boy, and fully developed as an adult is his shepherd-like qualities. David, he looked after sheep some miles away from Bethlehem.

Our Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem. David, because of his military strategy, was able to bring peace and raise the economy of Israel, so that you could say that David gave Israel bread. Our Lord Jesus, by miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes, was on one occasion able to feed several thousand people, and he repeated the miracle.

But even more significant was his claim, I am the bread of life, that within him is not just the ability to create physical food, but the spiritual abilities to meet the hungers of the heart. What David was, in some degree, our Lord Jesus is in fullest measure. I've often felt that the whole of the Watchtower theology, that is the whole of the claims put out by Jehovah's Witnesses, fall apart on two verses of Scripture, one in the Old Testament and one in the New.

In the Old Testament, you get that declaration, Psalm 23, verse 1, the Lord is my shepherd, and that clearly refers to Jehovah God. In the New Testament, with back reference to that twenty-third Psalm, our Lord Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. And there can be no doubt, if you come to the Word of God without any bias whatsoever, that our Lord is saying all the shepherd passages in the Old Testament which refer to God, I fulfill as I represent my Father and have come on earth.

Why in the Old Testament do you often find reference made to God in terms of the shepherd, and indeed why in the New? Well, you've got to know a little bit about the geography of Palestine and its tendency to attract more of a pastoral interest than an agricultural one, because of the terrain, the lay of the land. There's one plateau that stretches something like thirty-five miles. The land itself is scrubland.

It's not very good for agriculture. Either side of this high-lying plateau, which actually does drop down a little as you go northwards, there are precipices. Not the best sort of land for agriculture, but excellent for the ministry of a shepherd and his flock or his flocks.

Now, in those days, simply because of the terrain and the habits of the shepherd, it wasn't easy to keep the sheep all together in one place. There weren't these pocket-sized fields that we have here in England. So, the shepherd has to be very vigilant, because if he's not, well, the sheep might stray.

One of them, several of them, might go onto the rocks, onto the precipice, and no shepherd wants that to happen. For there is a relationship between sheep and shepherd in those days which one would wish could be recaptured in Western pastoral practice today. Sometimes, the relationship between a shepherd and his sheep could be so close, the shepherd could identify each individual sheep.

You see, then the lifespan of a sheep was not three months or six months. It went for years, because the object of pasturing these sheep was not for the production of meat. More often than not, it was for the production of wool.

So, the sheep were wool. So, the shepherd could be with his flock, and the flock could enjoy the pastoral care of their leader for several years. And the Old Testament Hebrew, if you try to transliterate it, at least if you try and put it exactly into the English language, you'd have to make a word.

It talks about God shepherdizing his flock, you and I being thought of in terms of sheep. And our Lord Jesus says, the same way in which God had a relationship to his sheep people yesteryear. So, I have a relationship as Savior to people who put their trust in me.

So, in the Old Testament, there are many scriptures, I say, which speak about the Lord in terms of the shepherd and us in terms of sheep. We are the sheep of thy pasture and give thanks to thee forever. A lovely verse in Isaiah, he tends, that is God, 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. And when our Lord comes on earth, what happens? Well, he speaks as a shepherd, doesn't he? I mean, he talks about the shepherd who comes to risk his life in order to save and to seek out the straying sheep, as we've just heard.

On one occasion, our Lord looks around at the multitude and he sees them going to and fro and he says, they're just like sheep without a shepherd. They've got no anchorage. They've got no leader.

They've got no stability. On another occasion, he said of the disciples that when he, the shepherd, is smitten, the flock will scatter. So, there you are.

I've set the back cloth, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, with references to God as shepherd and the Lord Jesus exploiting this imagery. And so, he brings it all to a crescendo when he makes this declarative comment, I am the good shepherd. And I want to ask you, do you know the benefit of entering into the blessings of a relationship with Jesus Christ as your shepherd? For that's what is here promised.

As a shepherd is to the sheep in biblical times, so Jesus wants to be to you. So, intimate, close, beneficial relationship. Imagine that plateau on which the sheep were grazing.

Now, think not so much of a literal plateau but your life. Stray one side, stray the other side, there are the rocks, there are the problems. If ever there was a society that needed the vigilance of a good shepherd, it is our society.

And this is what Jesus is here offering in his statement, I am the good shepherd as a shepherd to the sheep, so I want to be in relationship with you. As a good shepherd as opposed to a bad one, I want to relate. The good shepherd, verse 11, lays down his life for the sheep.

The hired hand, the hireling, to quote the authorized version, is not the real shepherd. He has no real concerns for his sheep, but I do. Pardon the application, but one is inclined to make it because it's obvious and it needs stating.

In biblical days, the care and attitude to animals was quite dissimilar than from today. There is no way in which you could think of the biblical shepherd being content, if it were possible, for sheep to be compressed into a small or relatively small mode of transport or taken from terra firma and have the scary experience of being transported on a boat or a ship. You cannot bypass that application because Jesus said, speaking to those who were not exactly his closest colleagues, which of you, seeing a sheep go astray, will not risk his life in order to bring it back? Which of you, even if your donkey is in problems on a Sabbath, will not put aside the law of the Sabbath in order to minister to the needs of your animal? Well, there are bad shepherds and good shepherds, and how much more important is the spiritual and physical well-being of a human being than an animal? So, the Lord Jesus will not put aside the former, but he will attend also to the latter and show his concerns for ordinary folk like you and me.

The good shepherd who wants to relate to us as a shepherd relates to the sheep in biblical times as a good shepherd as opposed to a bad shepherd. What is more, as a knowledgeable shepherd as opposed to an ignorant one. I am the good shepherd.

I know my sheep. At night, even to this day in Palestine, because obviously the terrain is exactly the same as it was in our Lord's day, the shepherd will often round up his sheep. He will put them in a sort of stony corral, and he will ensure that each sheep passes through the entry point by placing his rod over the entry point, and as the sheep goes through, the shepherd will check each one of them.

And particularly in biblical times, he would ensure that each sheep was in a reasonably good condition, and if it needed physical help in any way, he would minister to it. The shepherd, because of the length of his relationship with his sheep, as I said, they were reared for their wool, not for their meat, he tended to know each individual sheep. And the Bible says this about you.

Now, if you forget everything else, and I trust you won't at least let this point register in your mind, you are important to God. He is the good shepherd whoever has his eyes, not just on the flock en masse, but every individual. I know, I know those sheep, that sheep, by name.

And often the biblical shepherd would know the sheep because of its inadequacies, because of its blemishes, the one that's got a bit missing out of the ear, the one who limps because, well, at one point it broke its leg as it strayed on the precipice. Very often it was the imperfections of the sheep that helped the shepherd to know each individual animal. And that's the same with you and me.

Just last year I sat in Eastern Europe alongside an elderly man who looked as though he's about 200 years of age. I'm sure more seriously he was around 80. He got a face that looked as though it had been chiseled out of granite, and a lovely gray beard to go with it.

And by his feet was a young dog that he was training. He was a Romanian shepherd. And you could see, even though he was elderly, the vigilance with which he was looking after his relatively small flock.

Now the Bible invites us to think of God like that. It says of our Lord Jesus almost as though it's lifting a toast in his honour. The writer of the Hebrews, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep.

So if you please, here is the statement, I am the good shepherd. The next part of the verse contains the proof. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

There's a story told, it's apocryphal, that means that you cannot historically verify it, about Moses. Why did Moses become the leader of Israel? Well according to this story, and this bit you can verify, he was looking after the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro. On one occasion he goes chasing after a young kid, and he wants to remonstrate with this animal for having strayed, and then he sees it greedily gulping down water.

And Moses said, I didn't realize you were so thirsty, and that's the reason why you went off. And according to the story, he took the little animal and wrapped it around the nape of his neck and supporting it with its four dangling legs, with one hand and his rod, helping him to be stable as he returned to the main pastulant. The Lord spoke to him and said, because you have shown pity in leading back a sheep belonging to a man, you shall lead my flock.

What a nice story. And not up for the possibility of being a legend, because this one is inscripturated. It's actually in the Bible.

Is David standing before Saul and justifying why he, David, should go down the valley of Eloth and have a bashet fell in Goliath? Hey Saul, don't get too worried about me, you know. I look after my dad's sheep. Well I guess that really helped Saul to have confidence.

Sir, when I was looking after his sheep, once a bear came and I sorted it out. David, on two occasions, as he was a youngster, showed the concerns that he had for the preservation of his flock. Our Lord Jesus, he laid down his life for you and for me.

He stooped from heaven and came on earth. He laid down his life, even as he lived amongst us, ever stretching and straining himself in the interests of others, sometimes spending a night in the cold Palestinian evening hours in prayer, going from pillar to post. He didn't actually say that the sheep had a better time, but he did say the foxes were often better equipped than he was.

The whole of the life of Jesus is seen as a self-emptying life, a self-giving life. The Good Shepherd, showing that he has the qualities that are necessary for this title which so befits and describes him. But of course it's when he went to the cross, when he fully entered into the proof of his right to be thought of as the Good Shepherd.

You remember the events just before? The flock, the disciples were sleeping in the garden of Gethsemane. The wolf, so to speak, was at the door, bearing its teeth, wanting to have a go at Jesus and everything he stood for. And the shepherd is by the gate and he will not allow those hostile forces to display their absolute venom until the sheep, one by one, have fled into safety.

And the hours go by and this Great Shepherd, he exposes himself again and again to the snarling attacks of those who were his enemies. They wounded him in the head, they wounded him in the hands, they wounded him in the side, they wounded him in the legs. And ultimately he gave up his life, having done what he came on earth to do, which was what? To make a payment for your sin and for my sin, to make it possible for sinful sheep like us to know forgiveness.

And when he had gone through the mauling and the ferocious attacks of his enemies, as they pinned him finally to the cross, he right at the end said, it is finished. The work that I came to do has been accomplished. None of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, how dark was the night the Lord went through to find the sheep that was lost.

And that's what he did on the cross, bearing your punishment, taking the pain that should have been yours, and then at the end crying, it is finished, and submitting his life into the tender care of his heavenly Father. And as he died, within a matter of moments, so to speak, proverbially, he's alive again, springs back to life, you cannot keep him down. This great shepherd brought back in the power of an endless life in order to make it a convincing argument for ordinary people to realize that he, Jesus the shepherd, can meet their every need.

Not a dead Savior, but a living Savior. So what's your response? You do need him. You need spiritual rescue far more than Baring's Bank needs financial rescue.

And the possibility is there. We all are like sheep. Sheep have terrible problems.

They get so afraid. They sometimes can feel so uncomfortable. Fear, friction, famine, and to cap it all, fleas, are what natural sheep suffer from.

Now, as the natural sheep is weak and dependent on the shepherd, how much more are you dependent? Am I? So what is my response to this declaration? I am the good shepherd. Right, Lord, I want you to be my shepherd. I will respect your rights over me, your right to instruct me, your right to dip me, your right to direct me.

Ultimately, your right to terminate my life on this earth. And what is more, I will receive your blessings. I will know sin is forgiven.

I will know your pardon. I will go through life dependent as a sheep upon my shepherd God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Is he your shepherd? Have you recognized what he has done for you, for your life? Let's pray.

Listen to the third verse. Yea, though I walk through death's dark veil, yet will I fear none for thou art with me and thy rod and staff me comfort still. And then the fourth, my table thou hast furnished in presence of my foes, my head thou dost with oil anoint, and my cup overflows.

Then it speaks of God's goodness and God's mercy following us all our lives. Let's accept that goodness and that mercy right now as we sing those lovely words of that fifth verse. Goodness is And the Lord has laid out on Him the iniquity of our souls.

Let's sing it again. Who was fierce for our transgressions, And rude for our iniquities, Come to bring us peace He has finished, And by His Christ we are healed. He was dead like the ashes of the earth, Although He was innocent of crime, Because of God's own hand of relief, He paid for the guilt of our time, In our sheep have gone our prey, But each one to his own way.

And the Lord has laid out on Him the iniquity of our souls. For they watched Him die, His cross rejected, But God He shed. Sing, amazing love, The song of God before me, The song of God before me.