Today is Good Shepherd Sunday.
Are you following the Good Shepherd?
Or are you following someone or something else?
Who are you following??
Who influences you in your life?
What or who is behind the decisions you make?
This week as you make decisions
As you respond to how others react
As you live your life ask yourself who or what am I following?
Is it other people?
Other ideas?.
Or other approaches to life?
One of the Early Church Fathers is a gentleman called Augustine.
He has had a significant influence on some aspects of Christianity.
Despite being born to a Christian mum.
His father was an open pagan.
Early in his life he did not follow the faith,
Instead he loved women, debating and many lustful joys of life.
He openly had what we would call mistresses.
He followed some of the popular thoughts of the day
that encouraged people to think of themselves first, second and third.
Even as he turned to God he was still pulled like a strong magnet to other approaches to life.
As he was going through his early life he had a famous prayer, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet"
After some disappointments with what he was following and believed,
realising that this were not going to satisfy him.
He read the story of St Anthony of the Desert,
Resulting in Him turning away from many things in His life.
To God.
Then he picked up Romans 13, from verse 13.
This is what he read:
13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
Overtime he became one of the most influential followers of God.
What about you are you following God?
Sometimes we think we are following God…
But are we?
I often I am confident I am following God,
And then I think of Paul when he was called Saul
He followed God as the Jews knew God.
His understanding of God was not just based on what we know as the Old Testament
But also the traditions of His father
And in the way He wanted to follow God..
He was bound a lot by traditional ideas and thoughts.
Even in the church we can think we are following God.
However at times I am amazed what people think is Christian.
Early in the history of the Lutheran Church in Australia
There was a discussion at one congregation about introducing a new worship service
An English worship service…
The children of the German families spoke mainly English but all the services were in German.
But there was opposition.
One lady said if German was good enough for St Paul then it is good enough for me.
Often we too can be bound up with ideas about how things should be.
And whilst these ideas maybe helpful for some people they aren’t for all
Some years ago I was at a congregation when a missionary from Papua New Guinea,
Questioned the pastor why people were so disrespectful and ungrateful to God for His suffering and dieing.
He said you go with your head bowed, and you look so sad.
And you return the same way looking so sad.
He went on to say, “Don’t you understand what God has done for you.”
“Aren’t you happy that God laid down His life for you so you can have life, and has taken all the weight of your sins.”
In Papua New Guinea people come down the aisle dancing and smiling because they are so thankful that God wants them in heaven so much that he would lay down His life for us.
They are grateful of what God has done.
He really got me thinking.
And realised both responses are very valid.
When my head is bowed and I look sorrowful
I am reminded of the fact that even though God loves me
I have sinned and I continue to sin.
That I am ashamed.
And when I come away smiling and being thankful
I am reminded of the fact of what Jesus has done for me.
That He laid down His life for me.
Isn’t that something to be joyful and thankful for.
And we truly need to examine what we think,
how we act and how we see things
Through having a deeper relationship with God.
By spending more time with God
And this means spending time in the scriptures
And allowing God through the scriptures reveal himself to us.
This means we rely on not just what someone has said
Or what you have read in a book
Or what people think makes sense
Or even what is said in official church documents
Now it is not that these ideas are wrong
but we need to understand their context in scripture.
Because following God means following
who God says he is and how God says we are to live?
And this morning we have heard that as Jesus
God is our Good Shepherd
John 10:10
I am the good shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays his life down for the sheep
Now it is important to understand something…
Good and Shepherd is a little like an oxymoron
It is like saying Honest Car Salesmen
It is not that there are no Car Salesmen who are honest
But the word honest is not what first comes to mind when I mention car sales man.
Jesus is a Good Shepherd because of what He has done for us.
He voluntarily laid down His life for you…
You have life because He has died for you.
In yesterdays Age there was a story of why AFL teams win premierships.
It wasn’t because of money or tactics.
It highlighted that the recent AFL grand final winners had players who would significantly put their body on the line for their team mates.
There was example after example of players who are prepared to put their bodies on the line so that their team can get an advantage…
And this is exactly what Jesus has done for you
He has put His body on the line for you.
What a great God to follow!
And what does it mean to follow this God.
Well listen to this from 1 John 3:16-20
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Following God involves laying down our lives for others…
Now Jesus is not asking you to go on the cross
But He is calling each of us to be prepared to serve others.
Not because they deserve it, but because they need it.
One of the most influences in my life is my grandma.
By the time my father was six
Her husband had died
She brought up four children at a time when there was little welfare.
But she was also dedicated to her Lord.
She was involved in a Lutheran Rest Home not in her town by a near by town.
When you visited her home she had mission boxes for not one but a number of missions
Her focus was about helping others experience and gain the love of Jesus
Not because they deserved it but because that’s what they needed to experience God and His love.
Even those who were different to her or saw things differently,
she was generous with.
And this reminded me of something a pastor once said
He got up one Sunday and said to His congregation…
Don’t come to church…
The elders and the treasurer just about had a fit.
Then he said I want you to be the church
When we just come to church
We are more interested in what we get from church
Whether the music was what we liked
Whether some did what we wanted.
But when we see ourselves as being the church
We not only look to receive God’s grace and love
We hear the cries of others
We see the people in need
And we look for ways to serve others so others benefit
We look to be God’s hands and feet.
And often at this church we have some great people who are keen to be the church.
Keen to serve.
We have people who are regularly helping others.
But there are also people and groups crying out for help.
We have parents and children who are crying out for a safe place for their children.
Our Bible song team needs extra helpers and teachers
On Wednesday, we have midweek communion, and we need people to transport others to church.
Being the church means helping others experience the one who has laid down his life for us.
And laying down your life may mean putting aside how you look or even what you believe is important.
As we enter a phase of evangelism there will be people who will come in here who will irritate you and me.
People who are interested in developing a relationship with God but not necessarily in the ways we do
Laying down our life means putting some of our likes aside so these people can experience more of the one who laid down His life for us.
So this week ask yourself
Who are you hearing and seeing who needs help so that they can experience God more?
And how can you lay down your life for them?
Has anyone read the Heavenly Man?
It is the story of Brother Yun, who was called by God to be involved underground house church movement in China.
I need to stress Christianity is not illegal in China.
But it is very rigidly controlled.
Brother Yun was prepared to share the gospel with people through the house church movement even though it meant imprisonment.
But even in prison he got to share the Gospel.
And when he was released from prison,
Do you know what he did?
He continued sharing the Gospel.
He was prepared to lay down his life for others so they could develop a relationship with the God who laid down His life for them
Come on follow the good, the true shepherd who gives you life
And help others follow him…Amen
