When You Think You Can Out-Think the Lord
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Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 3824 Saviour like a Shepherd Lead Us
3824 Saviour Like A Shepherd Lead Us
One Christmas Eve, Ira D. Sankey was traveling by steamboat up the Delaware River. Asked to sing, Mr. Sankey sang the “Shepherd Song.” After the song was ended, a man with a rough, weather-beaten face came up to Mr. Sankey and said: “Did you ever serve in the Union Army?” “Yes,” answered Mr. Sankey, “in the spring of 1860.” “Can you remember if you were doing picket duty on a bright, moonlit night in 1862?” “Yes,” answered Mr. Sankey, very much surprised.
“So did I,” said the stranger, “but I was serving in the Confederate army. When I saw you standing at your post I said to myself: “That fellow will never get away from here alive.” I raised my musket and took aim. I was standing in the shadow completely concealed, while the full light of the moon was falling upon you.
“At that instant, just as a moment ago, you raised your eyes to heaven and began to sing. Music, especially song, has always had a wonderful power over me, and I took my finger off the trigger. “Let him sing his song to the end,” I said to myself. “I can shoot him afterwards. He’s my victim at all events, and my bullet cannot miss him.” But the song you sang then was the song you sang just now. I heard the words perfectly:
We are Thine, do Thou befriend us,
Be the guardian of our way.
“Those words stirred up many memories in my heart. I began to think of my childhood and my God-fearing mother. She had many, many times sung that song to me. But she died all too soon, otherwise much in my life would no doubt have been different.
“When you had finished your song it was impossible for me to take aim at you again. I thought: “The Lord who is able to save that man from certain death must surely be great and mighty” and my arm of its own accord dropped limp at my side.”
Our Lord is described in many ways, using many types of images. One of the most endearing of them is that of the “Good Shepherd,” based upon the 23rd Psalm.
Today’s Gospel passage , while only addressing the issue directly when the “great crowd” is described in v. 34 as “sheep without a shepherd,” gives us a picture into what it looks like to be under the Good Shepherd’s care. We will also see Jesus again delegating authority as He continues to disciple the men whom he has selected. In so doing, He also shows us what He, the Great Shepherd, expects from those who serve in His name.
Our Gospel text picks up, after last week’s side trek into the Herod’s assessment of the reports concerning Jesus’ activities and the tragic murder of John the Baptizer, with the return of the 12 from their first “field assignment.” Prior to this sending of the 12 by Jesus, they accompanied Him, but we see no reports of them exercising any sort of ministry. We cannot firmly describe the mood of this meeting, but since Jesus did not initiate a request for their report, but they spontaneously provide it upon their return, and, as Mark writes it, in great detail. it sounds like they are quite excited about what had taken place.
30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught.
So Jesus listens - He’s good about that, listening, I mean - He never interrupts you while you’re talking to Him, even when you get kind of long-winded about it, right? Still, Jesus knows that they need to decompress, and He also sees that where they are right at that moment is not the best place to do so, so He suggests that they go someplace more quiet.
31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.
Now, in the meantime, word has gotten out that the 12 are back, and that they had been pretty successful on their assignment. so when Jesus and the 12 get in the boat, the crowd sees them and figure out what’s going on so...
33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.
Now, you have to understand, this was not the plan! Jesus was planning on some time alone with his disciples, but now everybody else is crashing the party. They are actually meeting the boat as it pulls up!
Now, if that were some of us, those folks might have seen another side of us - you know how people get when their plans aren’t going right, right? people get frustrated, discombobulated, irritated - but not Jesus!
34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.
Part of the reason that Jesus reacts this way is because He knows that His people have really been getting the short end of the stick from the people whom the Lord had assigned to take care of them.
1 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. 2 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.
God’s people, the ones of His special favor. He had given them a Law, He sent prophets to them, and He gave instructions for a dwelling place for His glory. His appointed shepherds did not recognize that He was their source; instead, they treated Him like a resource, an option. The shepherds whom God promoted to watch over His flock were not doing so, and so they were scattered, hungry, and confused.
If this was the situation with Israel, it was even worse for the Gentiles. They had no tablets, no directions for worship, no priesthood that was chosen by God, no relationship with God at all. They were in darkness - until Jesus came after John’s murder:
Now, Jesus was beginning the training of the new shepherds, who would care, not only for Israel and Judah, but also for the Nations - for the world:
3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. 5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
But the shepherds must learn their role. They must be discipled. That is what Jesus is now doing with the 12 and also teaching them so that they can teach others, carrying the ministry of reconciliation forward to succeeding generations, carrying the teaching of Christ forward. Today, it is time for a new lesson:
35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.”
Is the question that the 12 ask hyperbolic? Maybe not; after all, they did have a treasury, superintended by Judas. Granted, according to John 12:4-6, he stole from it, but that means that there was enough in it to steal, seemingly without it being noticed.
The solution that they put forward, if it was within their reach, might have been a problem for that reason. Jesus was training them to walk in His steps, not in the steps of the world. They would need to know that God would supply all their need according to His riches by Christ Jesus, and today was as good a day as any to begin the lesson.
39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
Some people hear this passage and, like the people who ate that day, can’t see past the loves and fishes. They want God to do that again, not because it brings glory to God to bless His children, but so that they won’t have to work. They want a God who does parlor tricks, who hands out material blessings like a soda machine, who responds on command to their piously phrased demands; if they can’t have that, they would rather have no God at all - or even better, they will worship what DOES give them the material things that they crave.
1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
Avoid those who mock God’s Holy Commandments, who make light of sin. Avoid those who treat Jesus’ bitter sufferings and death for sin as if it was something of no consequence. Avoid those who tell you, contrary to the Word of God that, without the shedding of blood there can be the remission of sins. That we don’t need the blood of Jesus in order to be reconciled to God, and that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son does not cleanse anyone from any sins because the only sin is to deny yourself of the lusts that seek to dominate you. Those are lies from the pit of Hell.
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Jesus fed the crowd to meet their physical need, but He taught them many things before he broke one piece of fish. More importantly, He taught the 12 that they could trust Him to supply all their need to accomplish all of His will. It is still His will that no one should be lost. It is still his will that people come to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge. It is still His will that we love one another, as He gave us the command.
What do we have? We have two hands and two feet one mouth and one message - given to us by God Himself. It is the message of reconciliation, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself through the blood of His cross. Jesus is the lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, and salvation can be found in no one else, for there is one name given under heaven whereby we must be saved - and that name is Jesus!
So let the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.