Shepherds

Hebrews 13:17-25

Please stand….

English Standard Version Chapter 13

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

18 Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. 19 I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.

Benediction

20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Final Greetings

22 I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. 23 You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. 24 Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings. 25 Grace be with all of you.

Pray

We have a church directory and I have started pulling it up and adding names to it so that I can pray for you daily. I have been noticing that my prayer life has been lacking and I thought a good place to start was to spend time daily praying for the people of this church. I look at the names on the directory, I see your faces, I remember certain things about some of you that you have told me or that I have heard in the past and I have been praying for whatever comes to my mind in that instance for you.

I hope that my prayer life increases and that I keep this discipline going. On my knees pleading with the Lord over this body, my family and the ministry that He is calling me to.

I want nothing more than for God to use this place and this group of people to make disciples that go out and live their lives sold out to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I want you to have fulfilling lives, great marriages and healthy, well adjusted kids. I want you to be prosperous in business, healthy in your finances and thought well of in the community. I genuinely want that for everyone here, but the thing I want most is that you would have a life changing experience with Jesus. I want Him to break through all your preconceived notions of what Christianity is supposed to look like, all your traditions and what you grew up thinking and I want Jesus to come in and radically shift your heart to want to love Him and serve Him with all your heart, mind, body and strength which causes you to love your neighbor as yourself.

I want you to be healed of all your sicknesses so you can go and tell everyone who did the healing. I want your bank accounts to be filled and your giving to be joyous so that you can go out and tell people who gave your the bounty you are enjoying. I want your kids to grow up to be great adults so they raise their kids to know the true Jesus that was the key to their successful life and raising.

This is a family and for some strange reason, God puts people in charge of the family.

We looked at John 10 a few weeks ago in the bible study that I lead. That chapter is about Jesus being the Good Shepherd. Ultimately, all that call upon the name of Jesus are His sheep. Jesus uses the illustration of shepherds in Israel at the time. At night, or while the shepherd was away, all the sheep were kept in the same pin. They weren’t tagged, just a bunch of sheep from different pastures and different owners would all go into this pin. When the shepherd comes for his sheep, there is a gatekeeper that stands at the door guarding the sheep. The way the gatekeeper knows that the shepherd has sheep in the pin is when he opens the door, the Shepherd calls the sheep by name and they come because they recognize his voice.

This job of gatekeeper is an important one. A good gatekeeper keeps the sheep safe. He guards the door so no wolves come in. He makes sure they are fed and watered. The sheep are on loan to him, in his care. If someone is trying to go in the sheep pin from over the wall, the gatekeeper drives them away. If a shepherd comes to the door and calls and no sheep come, the gatekeeper stops him from coming in and taking sheep.

It is a noble task to be a gatekeeper. The best gatekeepers know the shepherd. They know how the shepherd likes the sheep to be taken care of. They know the heart of the shepherd.

All throughout our time in Hebrews, this pastor is taking care of the flock of Christ. Giving them the food of the Word and nourishing their souls by giving them strong teaching to help them endure the hardships they are facing. He does an outstanding job of keeping the sheep in the pin. The lays out the ground work for why wondering off would be detrimental to their souls.

I am friends with Ben here. We do things for each other. My donkeys got out several months ago and I called Ben and he showed up with a few friends and got them back in. It was amazing. We do those things for each other. A few weeks ago him and Niki were out of town and they asked if Clive and I would check their cows. They have quite a few longhorns and I told him, “of course.” I’m not much of a cow guy, but I’m better than no guy. We showed up and found that one of the baby calves had gotten separated from its momma and I had to run this calf info another pasture. No problem. Do you know how fast a baby calf is? I bet I chased that thing for over a mile until finally it turned and jump into the fence next to me and I had to pick it up and carry it a few hundred yards. I would go for about 50-75 yards then have to stop and rest holding it down so it wouldn’t run away and I repeated that process about three more times until finally I got it where it needed to be.

That calf did not like my man-handling and I’m sure if it sees me today, it will run the other direction. When I got into the truck, half dead, sweating and breathing hard, Krysta said, “You have cow hair everywhere on you.”

It was for that calf’s good that I grabbed it and took it where it needed to be. A good shepherd should smell like sheep. Good shepherds should have scars from sheep. Good shepherds should pray over their sheep. Good shepherds should weep for their sheep and good shepherds should protect their sheep.

There is a resistance to our text today in the American church,

English Standard Version Chapter 13

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them,

This is a problem for some of you. If someone approached you about sin in your life, you will just go somewhere else, but that is not what Scripture says that you should do. Scripture says that pastoral counsel is good for you. Paul dishes out healthy doses of it throughout his letters because the Church needs it.

Walking this life out without the Church brothers and sisters and Overseers or Elders is like playing baseball without umpires. Eventually your team will be losing and those balls start looking like strikes and there are a lot more fair balls than foul.

One thing that Hebrews shows us is the love of the pastor for the congregation. He desperately wants them to understand the Gospel and that the hope for their future is in Christ and not the comfort of the moment.

I desperately want you to know the One that is calling out your name. I want you to be one of the sheep that when you hear His voice, you come forward. I desperately want you to give your life to Jesus before your time runs out. The elders of this church give themselves week to week to make sure that the flock is taken care of. Whether it is helping financially, spiritually, showing up in hospital rooms or homes, these men want to be the hands and feet of Jesus to serve you.

Some of you have been to churches where there was a hardness to the leadership and if you were caught in sin, you were excommunicated. That is terrible and I am sorry that happened to you, but that is no excuse for living however you want. Being a victim does not excuse future sin. It was not your fault that someone treated you poorly, but every choice after that is.

Church leaders should love so much that when they see you in danger, they should speak up and help the sheep. Do you know why?

English Standard Version Chapter 13

they are keeping watch over your souls

Who? Zach? Yes. God has put me in this place to help keep watch over your soul. That is why I take the bible serious. That is why I say hard things up here. That is why I sometimes take some of you aside and ask questions and give guidance. This is not a job that is comfortable for me. I don’t speak on things as often as I should

We don’t tend to think about church leaders as watching out for souls. You mean Zach? If he says one thing that I don’t like, I’m out.

Let the author pray us out.

ENDING PRAYER

English Standard Version Chapter 13

20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.