CHRIST THE KING IS OUR GOOD SHEPHERD
EZEKIEL 34:11-16 -- November 21, 2004 – Last Sunday of End Time / Christ the King
EZEKIEL 34:1-16
11" `For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 13I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. 14I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. 16I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
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Dearest Saints in the Lord:
Christ the King as we have heard in our readings today was no ordinary king. We do not see Christ the King sitting on an earthly throne. We do not see Christ the King with a vast army or ornate palace. Instead we have heard of Christ the King who was questioned on the cross whether he had any authority or power at all (LUKE 23:35-43). We heard how the criminals made fun of Christ the King. But this morning as believers, you and I see beyond just the title of Christ the King. You and I, by God’s grace, know and believe in our hearts that Christ is the King, our King. And Christ as the King, as our text tells us is also our good shepherd. Christ is no ordinary king. He left his throne, his throne, which was perfect in heaven; he left that and came to live here. Christ Jesus lived among us sinners. He lived among us who are subject to temptations. Jesus lived among us so that he might be put to death as Christ the King, our good shepherd. And of course those references are found in the Old Testament as Christ the Savior, Good Shepherd. We also sang that in verse 6 in our hymn (Christian Worship, 358) how he is good shepherd, guardian, friend, prophet, priest, and king. Isaiah writes: “He (the Sovereign Lord) tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young”(ISAIAH 40:11). So this morning the Lord brings us close to his heart once again and holds us near to him as we look and hear and listen to his word. Consider:
CHRIST THE KING IS OUR GOOD SHEPHERD.
I. Christ the King, the good shepherd, searches. II. Christ the King our good shepherd rescues.
I. CHRIST THE KING SEARCHES
Once again these words sound much like today’s reading from Jeremiah (23:2-6). Both sections of scripture come during the same time of history of the children of Israel. It is amazing how often Israel turned away from God, and had to face God’s divine wrath, punishment and justice. So once again the children of Israel no longer lived in the Promised Land. They gave that up. It happened just as Moses said. When Moses sent them into the Promised Land, he said be careful. As you live in the land of abundance you might forget about the Lord your God. The Israelites did exactly that. Worse than that, worse than just forgetting about God, they turned to other gods. They worshiped false gods. In the end, God caused his enemies to come to destroy Jerusalem, destroy the temple, and take away the Israelites as slaves to Babylon. That is where they are now living in Babylon, with no country of their own. This is where they dwell, as slaves subject to a foreign nation.
Ezekiel comes to them. God still sends them prophets, for God did not forget them. Although the Israelites could have thrown up their hands and wonder if there was any future. What is the use; we have been forgotten, forsaken and lost. Even though they did that to the Lord -- they forgot him and forsook him first. Our text began by saying: For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. The Lord knew his people were taken away as captives, but the Lord was going to search for them. He would find them. The Israelites were not forsaken, they were not forgotten, even though they deserved it. But they were given a chance to repent. They were given a chance to consider all the things that they once had and all the things they gave up because of their sinful pride, and because they cared more about themselves than God.
This was a harsh judgment, humanly speaking. It was devastating. Many people died. Many people were lost. But there still was a small remnant that God was going to search out. He describes this devastating time in their history in verse 12. Ezekiel writes: “I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness”. God describes this time in the history of Israel as a time of clouds and darkness, doom and gloom. It was a time of despair and frustration for God’s people. For God took from them what they didn’t care about anymore. And once the blessings of the Promised Land were taken from them, then they began to realize what they had lost. Thankfully they had a merciful God, a shepherd, who is also a king who cares for his sheep. Towards the end of our text he says: “I will search for the lost, and bring back the strays”. The Sovereign Lord was going to look for them and find them. Those who were lost were going to be found - the strays.
Then the Lord is going to help them as he says: “I will bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy”. So those who were hurting and suffering he is going to bind up. The weak he is going to strengthen by the power of the words of his prophets. But the ways for the sleek and the strong, those who feel they don’t need him, as they trusted in themselves, they will be destroyed. But his promise to them: “I will shepherd flock with justice”. We have to understand he is going to shepherd the flock with his justice, God’s justice which displays divine mercy much more than earthly judgment.
In our books we would have written off the children of Israel, saying they did not deserve to be saved again. They had been delivered from the Egyptians. They had been provided for forty years of wandering in the wilderness. They had been taken to the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. No longer did they have to struggle for a living. Still, they forgot God, forsook God, and worshiped false gods. We might have said, well that is enough! The Lord says: I’m going to search for them again. I’m going to recover the strays and bind up the weak and the injured. This merciful example reminds us that Christ is no ordinary king. But he is our good shepherd, who cares for us. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. We, also, in our own life, in our own history can see that often act like the children of Israel. Sometimes we are close to God and he does have us close to his heart as he safely leads us and gently guides us. But sometimes we go off on our own path. We forget the direction the Lord has given us. This, all too often becomes too easy, since our society today has many attractions that can distract us. Our own sinful nature which we live with day in and day out sometimes overcomes the new man in us. Then we do sin and fall short of God’s glory. Jesus told the parable of the seed and the sower and how some of the seed doesn’t produce much. Some of the seed is choked out. And when the disciples said what does this mean, Jesus explains: “Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful” (MARK 4:18,19). Each of us can probably remember a time in our life when these temptations distracted us. The deceitfulness of wealth happens when we only think of money, money, money. The worries of this life try to choke out the comfort of God’s word. Or Jesus says even the desires for other things.
On our own we are lost. On our own we would never be recovered. But we are not on our own. Christ the King is our good shepherd. He seeks us out to find us. One time as Jesus was walking into Jerusalem the tax collector Zacchaeus, who was a short man, climbed up into a tree and Jesus noticed him and invited to come down. Of course the rest of the Jewish crowd didn’t like that because Zacchaeus was a tax collector. He wasn’t a Jew. But what was Jesus’ response to these naysayers? Jesus answers the objections of the people: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that what was lost” (LUKE 19:10). You and I rejoice today because we are like Zacchaeus. We are not Jewish by birth or nature. We are gentiles just like Zacchaeus was. We are outcasts. But the Lord Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Christ the King, our Good Shepherd, came to bring us as outcasts back into the fold. And now we aren’t lost, we aren’t straying, but we are in God’s flock by God’s grace.
Now in today’s selfish society which has very little care or concern about anyone else but themselves, it becomes vitally important for us to be concerned about others. It becomes important for us as God’s sheep to follow that good shepherd. It seems as if when we look around in this world that people find whoever they want to or whatever kind of guru they might follow. Many people turn to self-acclaimed experts to use his or her advice as more important than even God’s word. We notice that from all kinds of experts or so-called-experts, who have their own radio talk shows or TV shows, self-help programs that only want to lead people in the direction of their thinking. And the direction of the thinking of this world is only to look out for number 1, and only take care of number 1. The Lord reminds us that our concern is not just for ourselves. Our concern is for our fellow man. Our concern is for our fellow believers. In the book of Hebrews we are reminded: “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (HEBREWS 3:13) There is a warning there for us. There is an encouragement, but a warning as scripture says: Do not be deceived by sin in this world. Our world has us become overly concerned about ourselves and not our neighbor. Rather than self-concern we are reminded, instead, to encourage one another daily.
Christ our King, who is also our good shepherd, encourages us by seeking us out among the lost. When our good shepherd finds us, II. Christ our King then rescues us.
II. CHRIST THE KING RESCUES
Here comes the exquisite joy of the message of Ezekiel for these people. Remember how sad it was for them. How full of gloom and doom these people felt, because they had lived in the Promised Land. Now they had nothing. They were slaves. Ezekiel writes: As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so I will look after my sheep. You can now begin to picture the people faces brightening up a little bit more. These Israelites personally knew how a shepherd would go out of his way to find that one sheep which was lost of the ninety and nine. The Lord says: I’m going to do the same thing. He goes on to say: I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. Not only is he going to search for them, but also the good shepherd is going to find them. And when he finds them he is not just going to leave them there, he is going to rescue them. The Sovereign Lord is going to save them.
He is going to provide for them once again, although he never did stop providing for them. Our text continues: I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. Again, you can picture the joy of these people as they hear these words and realize they are not going to stay as slaves forever. They are going to come back to their own land. All of this would happen. It would take years, but they would come back to Jerusalem. Of course when they came back to Jerusalem it wasn’t quite like they remembered it. Their enemies had destroyed Jerusalem. The Israelites spent a lot of time rebuilding it. But still they were in their own land. They were brought back to that Promised Land which the Lord God Almighty had given to their forefathers. Then he adds: I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements of the land. I will tend them in a good pasture and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. The Lord is describing that land flowing with milk and honey. He talks about the ravines where the water runs because the rivers are there. Talks about the mountain heights of Israel where the temple was located. All that would be restored to them to these who had forgotten God and forsaken him. But God had not forgotten them nor forsaken them.
Then Ezekiel continues the Lord is even going to provide them with rest. He writes: There they will lie down in good grazing land, there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. The straying sheep of Israel, the lost believers, will find rest, no longer having to work as slaves for another nation. They are not going to have to be nomads, roaming the countryside. But they are going to be brought back as a group to that Promised Land. And of course as we look at this, we realize the Lord is also speaking of the future promised land. They will return to the Promised Land on earth, but also the promised land of heaven itself. The Lord does that for these his sheep.
The Lord still does the same for you and I, his sheep today. At times people put the wrong emphasis on Jesus. They put the wrong emphasis on Christ the King. They look at him as one who is going to do away with all the earthly enemies that are around. Some expect Christ is going to make earth a place like heaven. But the Lord reminds us until the end of time, there is still going to be wars and rumors of wars. There is going to be all sorts of bad things that happen, because this isn’t heaven yet. The emphasis on Christ the King as our good shepherd is a spiritual one. Our good shepherd has come to pay the price for our souls. Christ our King provides rest for us, because we are given forgiveness of sins. From time to time Jesus as he meet with his disciples had to settle some of their squabbles they had, their arguments with each other. One time they wondered who was great in God’s kingdom. The disciples were jockeying for position. They wanted to feel like they were more important than the other one. But the Lord reminded them it doesn’t make any difference who is great. He told them: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (MARK 10:45). Jesus described greatness. Greatness is not who is better or greater. Greatness is the one who is serving, who is doing the will of God. Jesus used himself as that example. Jesus’ emphasis and example was not to sit over them as a king, who just rules as a king, but a king who is a shepherd. This King / Good Shepherd was a servant of his heavenly Father.
Christ our King is the Good Shepherd. He seeks us out from the millions of people in the world, and he finds us. And by his grace -- by his awesome grace -- Christ rescues us from hell itself. He saves us; he saves us from torment that would last forever. Christ saves us from torment that is beyond our imagination. All because of his mercy and love for us. From Titus, we have heard these words before, but it is important for us to consider them again: “God our Savior saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (TITUS 3:5). As we are brought before the Lord’s alter as infants to be baptized, we are brought into God’s heavenly kingdom with the power of water and his word. Our good shepherd saves us.
And he saves us for time and eternity. What a blessing to know this, especially as we come to the end times. As we come to the end times we see people who are struggling, struggling because they think life is unfair. Struggling because they are looking for more out of life. Struggling because they are overly concerned and worried about the future. The Lord reminds us the future is certain for his sheep. He knows us as a group. He knows us as an individual. This also is part of God’s amazing grace. In the gospel of John Chapter 10, known as the Good Shepherd chapter we read: “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me--just as the Father knows me and I know the Father--and I lay down my life for the sheep” (JOHN 10:14,15).
This is the Good Shepherd, this is Christ our King. I think sometimes we picture a king as someone who sits on a throne and has all of his servants carrying out his every whim. That is a picture of an earthly king. But we have a heavenly king. Christ our King is more than a king. He sits on his heavenly throne, but came down here to endure the throne of the cross as our good shepherd. And he gives up his life for us. He searches us out, finds us, he rescues us. We are reminded of Psalm 23 and how the Good Shepherd takes care of us. Today let’s stand and together read those first three verses of Psalm 23. It reminds us very vividly of how Christ is our King, our Good Shepherd – who searches – who rescues: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (PSALM 23:1-3). AMEN. Pastor Timm O. Meyer
