The
Lord blessed us with a wonderful day in the Lord's House yesterday. The reading
for yesterday was taken from Psalm 23. It was "Good Shepherd Sunday". All the
hymns and music were based on the particular theme. The message made reference
to Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to
his own way; and the Lord has laid on his servant the sins of us
all.” I
would like to compare us as human beings to sheep. We human beings are vulnerable to
the wolves of life. We know that our lives are essentially and intrinsically
vulnerable to death, disease, and injury. We know that life is infinitely
fragile and easily broken and hurt. Life is easily shattered. Suddenly, it can
happen via a car accident or a debilitating disease that strikes a person living
in our home. It may be that everything was going so well last week, and this
week it has all changed. Yesterday was glorious and today is tragic. You and I
know are well aware of the twists and turns in the pathways of life. We are
vulnerable to disease, accidents, and all kinds of disasters, enormous
disasters, that suddenly shatter our lives with almost no warning.
Sheep are known to be stupid animals. Human
beings are compared to sheep, and yet the Bible declares that "You have made them a little lower than the
angels
and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet". The Lord has made many to be brilliant and intelligent people, though some of the most gifted, talented, and brilliant people think that there is no God. They think they are gods, but they make some of the dumbest decisions with their lives. Some of beautiful people decide to abuse the bodies with drugs and thereby destroy themselves. Some of the athletes earning millions of dollars go bankrupt, because they make dumb financial decisions and poor life choices. It is like sheep we are prone go astray and make stupid decisions time after time.
and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet". The Lord has made many to be brilliant and intelligent people, though some of the most gifted, talented, and brilliant people think that there is no God. They think they are gods, but they make some of the dumbest decisions with their lives. Some of beautiful people decide to abuse the bodies with drugs and thereby destroy themselves. Some of the athletes earning millions of dollars go bankrupt, because they make dumb financial decisions and poor life choices. It is like sheep we are prone go astray and make stupid decisions time after time.
Another characteristic of sheep is that they
tend to wander away from their shepherd. Likewise with human beings, we wander
away from God and do not fully realize what we are doing. I know very few human
beings who have said: "I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in Christ. I
renounce God and Christianity and therefore I am going in a new direction with
my life." That rarely happens. Instead, human beings drift away from God,
drift away from Christ, ever so slowly, losing the closeness and deep faith that
they once had. Then, one day, after months or years, they wake up and say,
“Where is God? Where is Christ? What happened to the faith that I once had so
many years ago?”
Another characteristic of humans that likens
them to sheep is that not only are we vulnerable to the wolves of life and not
only are we herd animals who follow the crowd, but we human beings do not have
strong homing instincts. When sheep get lost, they do not find their way home.
A dog living can be placed twenty or thirty miles from his home and that dog
will find its way home. A dog has a very strong homing instinct. A sheep has
absolutely none. A sheep when it is lost, does not find its way back home.
Somebody has to go out and find that sheep and bring it back.
One of the great deceptions of life and one
of the great pretenses of life, is that we are not sheep. Some think they are
strong, self-reliant men or women, who can control their own life and destiny.
They think they do not need a shepherd. Yet, we need a good shepherd who will provide with provisions and
protection. If we are sheep, the greatest need for us is to have a
shepherd. God provided a shepherd for us in the person of Jesus Christ.
A personal relationship is
formed between the good shepherd and the sheep. The shepherd knows the name of
the sheep and Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, knows our name. Christ knows us
personally, our names, and the sound of our voices. Jesus, the Good and Winsome Shepherd, leads us to green pastures and
still waters. The good shepherd, Jesus, also leads us in the paths of righteousness
for his name sake. Christ leads us into a right relationship that pleases God.
There are relationships that please God: relationships with Christ, with our
spouse, with our children, our grandchildren, our friends.
The last place that the good
shepherd leads us is to the cross where it all becomes very strange as the
shepherd becomes the sheep. The lamb of God is led to the slaughter and killed
on our behalf, and his blood cleanses us from all sin. It is all so very
strange to the mind that the good shepherd leads us to the cross only to become
a lamb and be sacrificed for our sin.
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