I Am The Good Shepherd

I Am the Good Shepherd

Series: Divine Declarations

Brad Bailey – March 24, 2024

Intro

Here we are on final Sunday before Easter Sunday… a week in which we reflect on the week of Christ’s suffering. And as we prepare to engage his death… I can’t think of anything more valuable than realizing who he was… that suffered for us.

Today we are continuing in our series entitled: Divine Declarations

We are allowing God to speak to us through the declarations that Jesus makes about who he was.

No statements are more profound than what have become known as the great “I am” statements.

With these words… Jesus was declaring his divine nature…for they make use of the very name which God had told Moses he could tell the people who it is that sent him… He said tell them “I am that I am”. (Ex 3:14-15)

(This name…transliterated in four letters as YHWH or JHVH and articulated as Yahweh or Jehovah. Jesus takes the tetragrammaton YHWH, the verb “to be” in Hebrew, the name of God who is the I AM that I AM, and applies it to Himself.)

Each of these statements is also a divine revelation… of what Jesus is providing. He adds a metaphor to explain who he is to us. “I am the Bread of life. I am the True Vine. I am the Light of the world.

Each of these speaks to our souls… in different ways… about who Jesus is in relationship to us. Each is an invitation to know him… and more importantly…to receive him as such. Today…Jesus declares…

I am the Good Shepherd.

When we think of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, we’re reminded of how much we need help and guidance in our lives.

But being cast as a sheep may not seem like the “nicest” thing anyone has said about you.

• When there is one of those questions placed to people: If you could be any animal, what would you be and why? Why is it that no one ever says they want to be a sheep?

• It is never a mascot of a sports team.

• We have a basic sense that they aren’t particularly bright…and they may be stubborn. Have you ever seen a trained sheep? At the circus, come see the tigers… elephants… but there don’t seem to be many sheep acts.

> But we do well to realize that this may be just what the human soul needs.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus looked upon the crowds with compassion… because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

The truth is that our minds may appear to navigate earthly life reasonably well… but spiritually we are like sheep… wandering with little understanding…and vulnerable.

> We are vulnerable… but also valuable.

In Middle Eastern life…sheep are held in great value…

And God sees the care that shepherds provide sheep as a quality needed for our spiritual lives. [1]

- Over 200 times the Scriptures refer to shepherds or shepherding

- There is something about this role that so parallels that which can serve and lead the human soul well….that we see God draw out spiritual leadership from the life which had spent years shepherding sheep.

- Abraham…was a shepherd.

- Jacob was a shepherd.

- Moses was raised as a son in the home of Pharaoh…to rule a Kingdom… nice start…but then spent 40 years in the desert among nomadic people learning to be a shepherd before God called him to come back and lead his people out of Egypt.

- … and of course David.

What does this tell us?

The leaders were to serve as shepherds. God speaks of the priests as shepherds.

> And something arises in God…when those entrusted with such…fail to do so. [2]

[NOTE: When this message was actually shared, due to length, I only summarize the texts from Ezekiel below.]

Ezekiel 34:2-6, 11-12, 15-16

"Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? 3 You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. 4 You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured.

> If they had been good shepherds…they would have done what was needed … with sacrifice….but instead they acted selfishly

Ezekiel 34:2-6, 11-12, 15-16

You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. 5 So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. 6 My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.