Shepherding

Anthony W. Franklin

Easter • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Scripture: 1 John 3:16-24

1 John 3:16–24 NLT

We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister* in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him. And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.

God’s Shepherds

Across time and all over the world, God consistently chose shepherds to lead His people.

King David

One of the highlights of this was King David. David's first profession was a shepherd. God worked with what young David had learned about being a good shepherd of sheep and helped him apply that to being a shepherd of God's people.

While there were lots of shepherds God could have picked from, David showed special promise because he considered himself one of God's sheep. He understood that he was the same as everyone else around him, and also stepped up to take responsibility as a shepherd over all his peers.

The best place we can find this is in David's most famous psalm: Psalm 23. Some of you know this psalm by heart. It was written as a cute poem to teach young children, like nursery rhymes. It was written as a pledge of allegiance.

After David

Israel lost sight of what it meant to be shepherd sheep in the centuries after King David. When they lost their ability to shepherd one another the way God shepherded them, they fell apart as a community, as a nation, and as a people of faith.

1000 years later, Jesus came and taught that He (God) was the Good Shepherd and that He was looking for His lost sheep. Then He taught those sheep, or disciples, to love and care for others the way He cared for them.

The world has never really understood shepherding though. It is not about getting people to come to us. It is about us drawing in the people around us.

Churches and people do not get famous by being good shepherds. It's not about fame and popularity. It is about faithfulness.

Thesis: Jesus calls us to shepherd others the way He shepherds us.

Shepherding Sheep

Sheep that Shepherd

Sheep watch over the young, weak, and hurt until they are healthy and strong.

They do more than watch them though.

They keep them in the middle of the herd

They get very close and guide them together

They shepherd each other

Sheep are very good at distinguishing who is and is not part of the flock.

They don't shepherd wolves or other predators.

They don't try to shepherd cows or pigs or chickens.

It is conceivable that, over time, they might adopt in a sheepdog or domesticated goats... but those random exceptions prove the rule.

To be shepherded by the sheep, you are already considered part of the family. Not just biological family, but treated as one of their own.

So how can you tell a strong healthy sheep from one that is distressed and broken? A strong healthy sheep is leading and guiding the rest of the sheep around it.

It is imitating a shepherd.

Following the Shepherd

Sheep learn to shepherd other sheep from their Shepherd.

They don't take a class and there is no test on shepherding. They initially learn it from one another. Over time (and it doesn't usually take long) the sheep who have a relationship with the shepherd are able to pass on that trust to the younger or newer sheep to the family.

Unless the sheep are terribly distressed or broken, their natural tendency is going to be to follow the herd, because that is where they will be the safest.

The stronger sheep will not only follow the herd, they will follow the shepherd and bring the herd with them.

The shepherd often leads and guides them by voice.

Sheep don't always see well. They have great peripheral vision, which helps them see all around them, but they don't have very good depth perception. They also can't see right in front of their noses. I don't know about you, but sometimes I can relate to that myself.

Sometimes they see their shepherd working. Often they hear their shepherd. They become very familiar with the shepherd's touch when He comes to clean them, shear off the excess wool, and anoint them to keep the parasites from attacking them.

It is a similar feeling of love and protection they get from the other shepherding sheep around them, but there is a distinct difference in feel and purpose when the true shepherd comes to work on them.

Sheep are one of the most destructive animals on the planet. They will destroy meadows and grasslands with their overeating and lack of care where they step in order to get food.

Without a true shepherd guiding them, they will overgraze to the point that nothing will grow, wreck the water supplies, and then end up dying of starvation along with the rest of the herd because they won't know where to find a new source of food.

Shepherds are essential for keeping sheep moving so the land can recover from their appetites and so they can continue to grow the flock and keep them healthy.

It is more than just being eco-conscious. Starving sheep get sick and then spread the sickness to one another. The strong do not survive while the weak die. They all go down together in the flock.

Shepherding Love

1 John is a whole letter that compares God's love and our love. You might expect there to be a lot of differences between God's love and ours. However, John seems to disagree. For John, the proof that God really does live in us, that we truly are Christians, is that God's love flows from us.

That's incredibly challenging and convicting and it tempts us to come up with lots of excuses why these scriptures don't apply to us. But they do, that's why they are there in the Bible.

In the context of shepherding though, this love becomes easier to understand and, more importantly, possible to put into action.

Here are a couple ways I have experienced shepherding love.

Bill Mitchell

Not only Bill, also friends from UM Church bible study - helped each other thrive and grow, not just survive.

Jason

We were all very different, but learned one another, learned to love one another

We walk together and take turns encouraging each other as we went where God was leading us.

And that was not easy. We knew God wanted much more than for us to just graduate and make it to the next phase of life. He wanted us to make the most of the time He was giving us.