Good Shepherd

I want to continue our message from last week as we together look back in the book of John, and find with me chapter 10. Chapter 10.. and as your finding chapter 10.. and if its ok, let me start with this… God is a restorer. Let me say that again, God is a restorer. I’ve been reading the book of Psalms for my morning devotional time, along with a podcast called, “Hidden Streams” and, since of course we’re looking at John 10 and Jesus as our Good shepherd I’ve been praying through Psalm 23.

Let me read it for you, even though I know many of you have it memorized… but if you do have it memorized, would you just close your eyes and.. would you just imagine with me this, that, this is the very first time you’re hearing it. And not just that, but would you stand with me, if you can, in honoring of God’s word… as we hear God's word together.

Paslam 23, The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 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 mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And all of God's people said, Amen. You may be seated. God is a restorer. There’s a verse in psalm 23 that I sometimes overlook. And in preparation for this Sunday, for today. I’ve been reading this Psalm and for whatever reason, I tend to over look this phrase.

It’s never caught my eyes or my attention until now… In this Pslam, there are Four simple words in English. Two simple words in Hebrew that I tend to overlook. And I don’t know why I over look this phrase. I think, maybe I tend to glaze over it because I’m so focused on the hardships and trials that I am in. That I tend to lean more on, the verses of…

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…” or the verse, “although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” But this week, I found comfort in these words, from verse 3… It says, He restores my soul. And what we have before us in Pslam 23, the image of a shepherd, before his flock. The images in verse 2 are clear. We can see the lush pastures beside the quiet stream where the flock finds comfort and food.

Nourishment and rest, is what we see. The sheep scattered throughout the land with no care in the world, their safe, and secure under the watchful eye of the shepherd. David, in a moments turns the attention from grazing sheep to a person. This is the painting that we see David carefully envisioning with every word that pours out from the well spring of his heart.… David has shifted his gaze from the sheep to the shepherd.

And he sings, with great love and joy in his heart… “He restores my soul.” That’s what a good shepherd does….. a good shepherd restores his sheep. I imagine David in this moment, seeing himself as a sheep of the flock and eating, and resting, and then looking up and seeing the shepherd there wit him, and when he sees the shepherd, his heart is secured. Knowing that trouble is ahead, knowing that life gets tough, knowing that although we walk through difficult valleys that bring about the shadow of death…

But yet, still knowing that, ”The darkness is never so deep that the light of love cannot penetrate it.” He’s connecting with his shepherd. We see it in our world all the time.. Just Yesterday I was watching a video of a cross country meet and the boy was running behind, but the mom got up and went to the roped off line and began yelling his name, and began encouraging her son, and when her son locked eyes with his mother, arms began to pump harder, legs began pound the ground faster and he began to overtake others competitors towards the finish line.

We’ve got to learn that, Knowing and recognizing His presence is our greatest victory. We all need someone to anchor us like that… David is anchoring himself in His god.. in the good shepherd of the flock. And so, I say to you this morning… God is a restorer! The whole Bible, from start to finish is God looking to restore his people. We say it all the time in our christian circles, the Bible is a love story of God…

loving us so much, that he sent his only son Jesus to the cross to restore us. John 3:16 is a reminder of that.. the greatest Christmas verse is John 3:16.. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Love came down…. So that love would restore. God is a restorer… he restores our souls.

We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and the Good Shepherd gives us new life. The sheep that are weak and injured, he heals and binds them up. He restores them to full life so that they are once again able to stand and walk and feed, to hold their own as part of the flock. Our old life left us not only dead in our sins but weak, sick, and damaged by our sins.

Why go back to that life? The good Shepherd finds the lost, he finds the one, he seeks to restore the lame and hurting… and he offers to them life. Not just any kind of life, but real, authentic enteral life. David writes, He restores my soul.. my nephesh. Our soul is the seat of our desires. It’s the seat of our appetites. In restoring our souls, He makes us hunger and thirst for righteousness.

He feeds that hunger. He quenches that thirst. There just so many anemic christians running around malnourished because they have yet to learn to stop looking and chasing everything else, they only need to just look up! To get their face out of whatever it is they're pursuing, and just look up.. And then they’ll see the good shepherd looking back at them. That’s why, when David looks to the shepherd, and when their eyes meet, he has peace in his heart for the hard times ahead, because he knows everything that shepherd has, he has with abundance.

I have what he has, all because I belong to the shepherd. I belong to him. God is a restorer. And that’s the same in our story. If you recall, Jesus is restoring the disciples. He corrected them about the blind man. It was his or his parents sin the made him blind, but he was blind to bring glory to God. Jesus restored the blind man. He restored him in two ways.

He restored his sight, and then when the pharisees rejected him back into community, Jesus restored him into His kingdom. If you recall from last week, once they threw him out… to be casted away from the community, Jesus went looking for the blind man. Think about what Jesus said to the blind man when we restore him… Verse 35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked.

“Tell me so that I may believe in him.”37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” Did you hear what Jesus just said t him???? You have now seen him. You were once blind but now, through Jesus, and in Jesus you too, just like David, jut like the sheep of the fold can now look up and see the good shepherd standing there…

God is a restorer. What does it mean to be a good shepherd? Let’s read chapter 10, in the book of John and find out. Jesus say’s in verse, 14, 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.

I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. What does it mean when Jesus says, I am the good shepherd? Well first we need to understand something… when Jesus says he’s good, It’s an outward description of his inward heart. It’s not, like when we say, Good job, or Good Luck, or good morning… But, the Bible tells us that the word ‘good’ actually means holy, pure and righteousness.

It’s intertwined with this word holiness. Goodness is the fruit produces from a heart that is pure and holy. Jesus tells us, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The aim of Jesus Christ is not to reform the manners of society, but to change the hearts of sinful mankind. He's after your heart. He’s seeking to change it. To make it alive. To make it beat in the same rhythm as his own.

But Why the heart? Well, the heart is the center of all we do. It’s our motivation headquarters. What ever your heart loves and desires, that is what it will pursue. It’s what defines and directs you. That’s why Solomon in all of his wisdom tells us to: Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. The heart is where life gets it purpose. If you want to know what kind of person you are, all you need to do is find what your heart wants and where it leads you in all circumstance in life, that’s the center of your heart.

And to save you the trouble, most often you’ll realize the center of your own heart is you. That’s the center of sin…it’s exchanging the glory of God for mere idols. And the greatest idol in the life of man is ourselves. Our wants, our needs, our desires… we want to be fulfilled people. And so we fulfill our desires with everything in life, but often not of God. I believe that with all of my heart.

Because that’s what I wanted before I came to know Jesus. I wanted to fulfill my life in the way I wanted. I wanted to be satisfied. But I never realized that what I pursued for my own satisfaction was leading me to death. I thought I was living. I thought I was living my best life now… but in all reality I was living a life that lead no where but eternal separation.

Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. His goodness is the outward fruit of his inward heart. What does his heart look like? That’s a very interesting question because, did you know, in all four gospels, which includes 89 chapters, there is only one place, and one time where Jesus tells us about his own heart. DO you know where its found? It’s found in Matthew chapter 11, where he says, I am gentle and lowly in heart.

This is the only place where Jesus pulls back the veil and lets us peer way down into the core of who he is. His heart drives his goodness. Look now to what Jesus continues to say, , “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.

There an intimacy that Jesus has for his flock. I’ve said it before, Intimacy is us knowing God and God knowing us. It’s not knowing about God, it’s a mutual relationship. And regardless of our part, God always is faithful to pursue and to know us 100 % of the time. He has a willing heart. Isn’t it better to know that we have someone loving us, not out of duty but out of willingness?

My wife loves me because she’s willing to love me. I love her not because I have a duty to care and to protect, but I willingly do it because I love her. I think of all the overtime in the oil and gas industry, the torn knee that comes with a life long disability, the broken back, the scars on my hands and body. I think of the long drives that took over an hour to get to the yard, and one time I was so tired that I only got 15 minutes from our home heading towards work and in a terrifying moment, I forgot who I was and where I was going.

I was so stressed and tired that I lost all reality. I lost my mind, and my surroundings. I had to pull over because my mind had left me. It was a willing heart to provide and care for my wife and kids. My family will never know the full extent to the hardships I’ve endured to provide for our family. But they know this.. I did it, willingly because I love them.

God isn’t impress with your duty. Jesus never went to the cross out of duty. He went to the cross fueled by love. Each nail that pieced his hands and feet bled and poured out love. Each prick, cut and splinter from the crown of thorns bled upon the brow of Christ, that was love. The very breath in his lungs as he took one final breath and breathed his last, was out of love.

He says, I am the good shepherd, and I know my own and mine own know me just as the father knows me and I know the father… and I willingly lay down my very life for them. What a wonderful reminder it is to know in my time of trouble, in my time of regret and in my time of need, I can look up, and see my savior looking back at me.

It’s a promise! It’s a promise that he is always faithful. Don't you remember, Stephen? The book of acts tells us that as he was being Stoned to death, “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” He looked up!

And there in all of His glory he saw the good shepherd staring back at him… and led him into glory. I am his and he is mine. I have no other care in the world because I know, Just as David knew, jsut as Stephen knew, that not matter how broken I become, no matter how hard this world becomes, He restores my soul with one look into the eyes of the good shepherd.

He restores me! He has a willing heart if you would but trust him. He has a willing heart. His whole soul and Spirit is thrusted into his sheep. Everything he has and owns is given to his sheep. There is goodness and tenderness and willingness in his care. What a great encouragement that is that Jesus cares. And if Jesus is so pleased to be my shepherd, let me be just as equally pleased to be his sheep.

Because all that Jesus is and all that he offers is made available to me as a sheep of his fold. Do you know how important that is for you to know? That intimacy is loves ways of saying, I am willing. Without doubt.. without hesitation. Without thinking about it… Once my sheep looks to me… I am willing. What is he willing to do? Well, Look with me back in verse 15, Jesus says, and I lay down my life for the sheep Do you know what this greek word, “life” means?

It means, to his very last breath. Now hear it this way, I will lay down my life, my very last breath for my sheep. Jesus is pointing us to the cross in this moment where he actually will lay down his life. Jesus is the only one able to lay his life down and pick it up again. Because he tells us that in verse 18, 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” Listen church, do you really give your life to your faith? Im not asking if you give yourself to coming to church. Im not asking I you give money in the plate. Im not even asking if you serve the poor with moments of servitude. Im asking.. have you given your whole self to the good Shepherd?

Jesus says, I give my entire life, for my sheep. The very precious breath, that is in my lungs, my everything that is within me, is thrusted to you, to care for you. All you need to do us look up, and see that he is there. Do you, give the same to Him? DO you really give your life to the faith you believe? I pray today, that today would become a day where you’re sanctified completely.

Where there wold be no more talk or wonder who’s our shepherd is. David Writes in Psalm 34, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. 19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” This nearness is from a love only a shepherd has for his flock. And so this morning, as we close on this day of love.

I want to challenge you to ask yourself.. is your love for your shepherd the same as the love that he has for you? Because There is no brokenness in life that the love of God can not restore. Jesus took the love within him, and poured it out for all to see.. he paid it all for you for you, to be restored. *