The People of God as Sheep

[00:00:00] All right, let's get our bible turned to the Book of Acts, chapter 20. We're going to, Lord willing, going to finish up this last portion of acts, chapter 20 in our study in the Book of Acts, which is just as a reminder, because we haven't been in acts in a little bit of time, just because of all the various events. This is the continuing works of Christ by means of the Holy Spirit in the church. That's what the Book of Acts is. And so we want to look at this final portion of Paul's his parting farewell to the ephesian elders. [00:00:37] In verse number 17, you can see it, it says, and from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church. Okay, so we'll pick up in verse number 28 and read to the end of the chapter. The Bible says, take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. [00:01:20] Therefore, watch and remember that by the space of three years, I ceased not, not to warn everyone night and day with tears. And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. I have coveted no man's silver or gold or apparel. [00:01:47] Yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me, I have showed you all things how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Now, note, just one quick note before I read the last three verses. Is what's in your Bible maybe a red letter? Is that red letter in your bible that is recorded nowhere in the gospels at all? This is the only place in the Bible where it is recorded. So this is a. The words of Christ quoted outside of the gospels, which is interesting because it begs the question, as far as Paul is concerned, where did he get that? You know, from a human perspective, where did he get that? It's just an interesting little note of trivia there. Verse 36. And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with them all. And they all wept sore and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more, and they accompanied him unto the ship. Let's pray together. [00:02:58] Lord, I praise you for the opportunity to meet together as your people, as the flock of God here. And I thank you for what you're doing in each and every person's heart and life that's here this evening. Lord, as we look in your word, I just pray that you would be the teacher and that you would show us things from your word, many wonderful things, and that you would help us to understand and help me, Lord, as I attempt to teach your people, to know how to apply these things in a way that meets their needs, whatever that might be, for each individual person. And, Lord, just bless our time together, Lord, and I pray it would be a time of refreshment and a time of strengthening and encouragement, like the word says here, that the word of grace would do a great work in our hearts and would strengthen us and edify us. And so, Lord, we commit this time to you once again in Jesus name. Amen. [00:03:53] So, in verse number 28, it is interesting to note that, of course, Paul is speaking to the ephesian elders in verse 17. [00:04:02] And in verse 28, he says, take heed therefore unto yourselves, which is speaking of the elders, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers. Now, we're going to pick this apart a little bit. It mentions feeding the church of God, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. But it's interesting to note that I don't know how big the church at Ephesus was, but what we do see here is that there were spiritual leaders with an s in the church at Ephesus that together we're taking care of the church, the elders, these people who are elder, just as a word, that means older people who are mature in the faith primarily, and then likely mature in age as well. But they had been appointed by the Lord to oversee the church of God. And this tells us it wasn't just one man who was paying attention. And there were other people. And I'm thankful in our church, there are other people besides myself that can teach and can lead and give counsel and give instruction from the word of God and to feed the church of God. And really, just as a matter of practice, every man in particular in the church should be moving in the direction of being able to. To lead the church, to give guidance and direction. It should not. It should not be a one man show. There should be spiritually mature people that are able to lead not only their families, but to lead others in the church in spiritual things. And of course, we have to have people that lead in spiritual things, and there's got to be people that lead in temporal things as well. And that's all important. [00:05:53] But every man should be moving in the direction of being able to take some leadership in the church. Can I get an amen? It's quiet in here. It's quiet in here. But that's not only true of men, it's true of women as far as their roles and their spheres of leadership, that everyone should not be someone who is being led, but there should be people who are moving into places to lead. You think about leaders at this moment. There's a group of leaders, maybe Sunday school teachers, maybe people that can teach and instruct others, but eventually they're going to pass off the scene. Who is going to fill their place? There have to be up and coming people, right? That can fill those gaps and can take their place and can instruct God's people. It can't all be everybody's like, look at the pastor. And he does everything and he teaches everybody and counsels everybody and he does. And I'm happy due to all. I mean, that's why I'm here. That's why Brother Stewart was here. I mean, that's the reason we, we live and work and do this ministry. But other people should be able to do it, too. Amen. [00:07:01] That's good. In other words. And one of the best places that you can start in that is in your family, is in your own family instructing your kids and instructing your. In fact, is that not the requirement for a bishop says that very thing, right? It says that very thing, that the bishop, he must be a one who is able to rule his own house. Well, so you have this dynamic of these elders, and they're meeting together with Paul. But notice the Lord says through Paul in verse 28, he says to take heed. That is, be careful, be watchful of yourselves and to all the flock. So even spiritually mature people have to watch it. There is no arrival in the christian life. He tells these elders, these ones who are leading the church, you better watch it. Pay attention to yourselves, you. And this goes to the main point, I want to say tonight, but none of us ever grows out of the place when we have to be careful. [00:08:12] Every one of us must take heed to ourselves and pay attention. Walk circumspectly and be sure that we're following the Lord and doing his will with a pure heart. No matter what our age or spiritual maturity is, every one of us must do that. [00:08:30] But he also says to these elders that they're to take heed to all the flock. Now notice in verse 28 and 29, the shepherding language. Notice, it says, take ye therefore unto yourselves and to all the flocks. That's number one, right over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God. Now, that word feed, there is a loaded term. Okay, I'll explain that to you in a minute, but just say, feed the church of God. [00:09:02] And then it goes on to say, which he hath purchased with his own blood. Verse 29. For I know this, that after my departure shall grievous wolves entering among you, not sparing the flock. So what do you have in this? You have the mention of the flock. Now, the flock is. What's a flock? Somebody help me. It's not a trick question. Is a group of. Okay, so when you say flock, you are implying sheep. So each individual is being referred to as a sheep, and corporately, and together being referred to as a flock. So. And then you have the mention of those who feed the church of God. That's the mention of shepherds and overseers, and that's what a shepherd is. And then you have the mention of what the shepherds do, which is feeding the flock, taking care of the flock. [00:09:53] And then you have the mention of wolves. [00:09:56] And wolves are a primary enemy of sheep in scripture. There are other enemies, of course, but wolves are a primary enemy of sheep. Now, on the subject. So this is, he's talking to the shepherd. So I want to just make something clear in the scripture there, not just in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament as well. There are two layers of shepherds mentioned in the Bible, of course. First and foremost, you have whom the Lord Jesus. He is the great shepherd. He is the chief shepherd, and he is the. What's the last one? [00:10:33] The good shepherd. The great shepherd. The chief shepherd. The good shepherd. We could go into that, and it emphasizes three different things about his care for us. But the Lord is the chief shepherd, and all sheep, all the sheep in God's flock, inclusive of every believer everywhere. [00:10:54] From the first believer all the way up until the time the Lord returns, every believer everywhere is in the Lord's flock. And we could say in his fold, and Jesus is the shepherd, and there is no other. All right, I'm his sheep. You're his sheep. We're all sheep together. And that's the first layer. And then the second layer is what you might call a human shepherd. And that's who Paul is talking to right here. And the human shepherds seek to follow God's example, the example of the Lord Jesus, specifically in their work as a shepherd. So they look to him. And when you look at it in the secondary or the second layer, you see, you see they overlap their similarity. But you and I both have to remember that even the pastor, the word pastor just means shepherd. Even the pastor is a sheep himself. So everything we say here, although it might apply to an earthly shepherd, also applies to the shepherd himself. Everything we see here, and that's what I want to look at tonight in particular is this comparison, this illustration the Lord uses, and this is throughout scripture, how the people of God are like sheep. The church of God is as a flock, and then the Lord is as a shepherd. [00:12:16] You know the Lord. [00:12:18] You know, there aren't many. In fact, off the top of my head, I cannot think of one repeatable animal that the Lord uses to compare with his people. Occasionally he refers to donkeys and their perceived stubbornness. [00:12:37] The Bible does refer to humankind like that, but not particularly to God's people. Almost always, the animal that represents God's people are sheep. [00:12:46] And that's found from all the way back in Genesis all the way through to even when you, when you get to the, even the book of Revelation pictures Christ as a lamb that had been slain. [00:13:01] So this is a common theme in the Bible, and you cannot separate sheep from the shepherd. Now listen, listen to what I'm saying. We're, now we're talking about, we're not talking about sheep, wild sheep that live in the mountains. We're talking about domesticated sheep. [00:13:20] No matter how old a sheep is. Remember Jesus said to Peter after his resurrection, he said, feed my lambs. Then he said, feed my sheep. And he said, feed my sheep. Right? So the idea of progressive age, did you know that for a sheep, it doesn't matter how old a sheep gets, whether it's a lamb, newborn lamb, or it's an old sheep, it doesn't matter how old the sheep gets. The sheep always needs the shepherd. He never outgrows that. Which actually goes back to what I just said about the elders here, is no matter how old we get, we never outgrow the need for the shepherd. We always need him, even in a spiritually mature case. And that's true of sheep as well. Without a shepherd's active care of the sheep. In other words, the shepherd cannot be passive. There is no passive shepherding. There is no passive shepherding. The Lord does not do that with us, nor should earthly shepherds pastor God's people passively. It's an active role. In other words, you have to be proactive and do stuff to prevent a lot of calamities and to take care of the sheep. And that's exactly how the Lord does with us. He doesn't. Let us figure it out ourselves, and you'll see why in just a minute. [00:14:44] Without the shepherd's active care of the sheep, the sheep will die. Think, man. I mean, we think sometimes of sheep. As you know, we know things about sheep a little bit. How many of you have actually been around sheep for any extended period of time where you could observe their behavior? I never have. I mean, you just see them driving or, you know, at a petting zoo or something. I never have. But some of the things in this lesson here, I borrowed from a friend of mine who wrote a book, and he cited a book that was written by a renowned shepherd and a man in the wool industry. And so he had a lot. He has a lot of experience with the personality of sheep. And so he gave some information that was helpful here. [00:15:29] So without a shepherd's active care of the sheep, they will die. They don't just. They're not just hurt, they're not just wayward. No, they die. They cannot live without the shepherd. [00:15:42] Sheep are needy animals. How many of you have heard sheep referred to as being dumb? [00:15:49] It's not that sheep are dumb. They're needy. That's the better way to describe it. [00:15:55] Sheep are needy animals. They need domesticated. Sheep need a shepherd. [00:16:01] Now notice, before we get into a few specifics, notice what the Lord says in verse 28. [00:16:09] He says this, take ye therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood, that is, the flock belongs to Jesus. Let that be a warning to every earthly shepherd. The flock belongs to Jesus. Take a peek at one. Peter, chapter five. [00:16:37] First. Peter, chapter five. [00:16:50] Some of these truths overlap in one. Peter, chapter five. And verse number one. The Bible says this. The elders, which are among you, I exhort, who am also an elder. Notice that overlaps with what we're reading. And a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God which is among you. Taking the oversight thereof. Not by constraint that is out of a compulsion, or because you have no choice, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, that would be a hireling. Right. Verse three. Neither as being lords over God's heritage. Notice what it says. God's heritage. Who knows what the word heritage means? [00:17:39] The word heritage is simply a possession. [00:17:43] A possession. You own land, it's a heritage. [00:17:47] You own anything, it's a heritage. This says. This verse says that the flock of God is God's property, but being in samples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Notice it says plainly that the. The flock of God, the sheep of God, are God's sheep. God's sheep. [00:18:10] And that sets everything in its proper order. Sets everything in its proper order. Now go back to acts 2028. [00:18:19] I wanna bring you a few ways that sheep are needy. And we'll look at some Bible references as well. Some of these are directly stated in the Bible, and some of them are just things we have to dig out ourselves about the nature of sheep to help us understand why the Lord chose sheep as an animal to represent his people. Again, it's not the dumb, it's not weird dumb. [00:18:43] It's that our nature is needy. In other words, God made sheep in such a way that built into their nature is a need. [00:18:55] I mean, it's a fantastic picture how many of us as God's people could live and thrive, especially without God. [00:19:07] I mean, God has so designed his economy that that's not possible. [00:19:11] It is not possible for us to live. And as a Christian, in a christian life without God, he has built into us a need for him. We are needy. And that's exactly true of sheep as well. [00:19:26] Now, the first thing I want you to see is this. Sheep do not have the ability to search for their own food and water. [00:19:35] So here's basically what a sheep will do again, a domesticated sheep. The shepherd leads them out to a pasture. Maybe there's a watering hole. Maybe there's, you know, maybe there's a place where they can get water there. And the sheep eat everything in that vicinity and drink all of the water in that vicinity. And without the shepherd's intervention, the sheep will begin to eat the dirt and the roots and everything. Once the grass is all gone, and once everything is completely eaten, completely on, and once all the water is dried up and there's no more water to drink, they'll stay there until they die. [00:20:19] Now, you think that's dumb? [00:20:23] But it's a part of a sheep's nature that the sheep do not have the ability to search out water like other animals, I'm sure on different tv shows or whatever, by animals, how that some animals can smell water, they can smell food at great distances, right? That is not true of sheep. If it's not provided for them, there's. They'll die. [00:20:47] And that reminds us of the fact that they need the shepherd. You're going to hear me say that a lot more times. Many more times. They need the shepherd. They must have the shepherd to intervene. And the shepherd's watching them. The shepherd is paying attention. The shepherd is looking to see what the state of the pasture is, and if there's sufficient water and all of those things. [00:21:11] And when they've eaten all the grass and it's time to go to a new pasture, the shepherd is the one who steps in and leads them to it, because they have no idea where to go. And even if they knew where to go, they wouldn't go. [00:21:24] They need the shepherd in their lives. [00:21:29] Not only that, but whenever sheep do forage in places where there's things other than grass, sheep have no discernment as to what is healthy and what is not healthy to them. [00:21:42] They will eat whatever trash, garbage, poisonous plants, whatever. They have no concept of what they should or should not eat. [00:21:51] And so they need the shepherd. The shepherd has not only. Remember I said the shepherd has to be active, right? The shepherd can't just lay down and take a nap. The shepherd has to be present and paying attention, not only to the pasture and to the water, but he also has to be ensuring that the sheep are not getting into something that they're not supposed to get into. So he has to be on them, paying attention, taking heed. And that goes back to what we're studying. [00:22:20] And this is also true, listen, this is also true of God's people as it relates to the Lord, but also as it relates to spiritual leaders, as it relates and whatever level you want to look at spiritual leaders in a church, or spiritual leaders in your family, or whatever spiritual leadership capacity that you might have, we have to be paying attention. We cannot if we're leading. I'm speaking to the men now, whether it's your family, whether it's the church, whatever. If you're leading, and even as, even if you're a mother, if you're leading your family, you cannot slam that thing into neutral and let it go. That's not how it works. You cannot shepherd sheep like that. They need constant observation, paying attention to what's going on and dealing with issues and making sure things are good. You have to check up. You have to be active. If you're leading your family, the church, or whatever, you have to be active. [00:23:21] So feeding sheep is not like feeding other animals. They must be constantly watched. You know, if you had pigs, you just throw the slop into the. What do they call that thing? [00:23:34] Just a trough. Thought there was a more technical word, the feeding trough. Slop trough. I don't know what you call it. Yeah. So you just throw it in there and the pigs do the rest, right? As long as there's food, they're fine. You look at other animals, you let them go. You look at it, you have a cat, you let a cat go, he'll just do his thing. He'll catch stuff, whatever. And when he gets done, he'll come back. You know, dogs are largely that way. There's feral dogs that get out. They don't have to have human supervision. But that's not true with sheep. Not true with sheep. But notice this, I want you to know this before we move on. It says in verse number 28, to feed the church of God. Now, we think of feeding as you might do with a hog or something, where you just dump food and walk away. That is not what this word means. Only this word includes food. But remember, if you feed sheep, that is a loaded word, because with a sheep, unlike another animal, you can't just drop food down and walk away. [00:24:32] Feeding sheep is a huge time investment. [00:24:36] Feeding sheep is a big deal because you have to be there and you have to lead them to it. In other words, you can't do it remotely with your app. [00:24:48] You have to be present, active, paying attention. So when you say you're gonna go feed the sheep, I mean, you might as well just cross off everything off your agenda for the rest of the day. [00:24:59] I mean, it's a lot of work, that's all in that word feed. And in fact, the word feed here is, you know how sometimes we say, we refer to shepherding people? Shepherding people. That's what this is. Taking the noun shepherd and putting it into a verb, whatever a shepherd does, that's what it means to feed sheep. And as we can see here from some of these points here, that's a big. That's complicated and time consuming and hot and, you know, but this is what's required, you know, and this is what the. This is kind of the kind of investment the Lord puts into us. If any of us think that God's not putting time into our lives. We are mistaken. Just the very fact that he calls a sheep tells us that he's having to really put himself out for us just to keep us alive, just to keep us fed. Is that not true for you? I know that's true for me every day, every day, multiple times a day, have to be watching me all the time, directing me all the time, you know, making sure that I'm not getting into something I shouldn't be getting into. I'm just talking about Adam Wood here. [00:26:12] I think you could probably relate, though. That's the lord working in us as an active shepherd. Second thing is this. Sheep cannot clean themselves. [00:26:23] They get all kinds of things in the. In their wool and maybe thorns. They get. [00:26:31] They get various kinds of seeds. Of course, you get lice and pests like that, and then they get disease. And because sheep are pack animals and they go together in a flock, that disease spreads like crazy. [00:26:45] Get this. So in that book I referenced earlier, it was written by a mister Bowen. And Mister Bowen tells a story in which of a flock of sheep that he knew of that had been left alone on an island by themselves. Had been left on an island by themselves. [00:27:02] And when they returned just a few years later, half of the flock was dead, and the rest were totally filthy and disease ridden. [00:27:14] In other words, as a case study. Well, I'm not sure it was done on purpose, but for whatever reason, the flock was left there by themselves with no shepherd. And eventually, if someone had not intervened, they would have all died. [00:27:32] They would have all been consumed. They would have all been disease ridden, because they have no way to clean themselves. And that's certainly true of us. Oftentimes we are so averse to getting right with God when we're found at fault with something, aren't we? The Lord has to just work on us and work on us and work on us and to break our will down until we finally yield to him and say, lord, okay, I did it. I confess I'm wrong. I'm sorry. Forgive me. [00:27:59] But he had to actively work on us to get us to that point. [00:28:04] So sheep cannot clean themselves again. They need the shepherd. [00:28:09] They need the shepherd. [00:28:11] Another thing is the sheep have no personal defense. [00:28:16] And as far as non personal defenses, there are only two non personal defenses that they have. Number one, the shepherd. Right. That's the most obvious. [00:28:31] Number two is other sheep. Because there's in the flock, when they're together, there's a certain safety in that. [00:28:40] And the danger comes is when someone gets separated from the flock. Look at Matthew chapter seven real quick. [00:28:47] And where the Lord brings up this subject of the enemies of the sheep. [00:28:52] Matthew seven, verse 15. [00:29:04] Clarify a few commonly misunderstood parts in this passage. Matthew 715. The Bible says this, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Now, a false prophet, if you're dealing with a false prophet, you're dealing with someone who presents themselves to be a religious person, a spiritual person already. Okay? So a false prophet is not going to come into a church or into your life, you know, with, you know, tatted up and earrings and, you know, with a, you know, with what they call a pentagram or something, you know, like a satanic, you know, he's not going to be like a wiccan priest. A false prophet is someone who claims to be a prophet, a preacher, a teacher of the truth. [00:29:57] They wear the, you know, they wear the suit and the tie, and they look the part, they act the part, they talk the part, they know the lingo. That's a false prophet. And you see, it matches here with the description because it says, which is which come to you in sheep's clothing. [00:30:11] That means they appear to be sheep. [00:30:14] Inwardly, they're not. In reality, they're not. In other words, they're not truly one of God's sheep. [00:30:21] They're a goat, if you want to use the analogy. They're not one of God's people. They're not God's sheep. They are without God, but they appear to be. So, but because of the sheep's clothing, the sheep don't, don't know any better. [00:30:39] So what do they need? [00:30:42] They need a shepherd who is active, who's paying attention, who's watching. See, the shepherd knows the sheep. He knows how many there are. He knows the way they're supposed to act. And when he sees something, one that looks like a sheep that's not really acting like a sheep, he's like, hmm, maybe I need to go examine that. And the shepherd's brave enough because the sheep are his. He's brave enough to go up to the wolf that's in sheep's clothing and figure out what's going on, you know, and there's a certain level of personal risk in that. And of course, the greatest example of that is the Lord Jesus who died for the sheep. [00:31:20] It says, verse 16, ye shall know them by their fruits. No, who's them? In the passage, it's the wolves. It's the false prophets. So it's not right to use this verse to say, oh, I'm going to be a fruit inspector. And I can tell if everyone else is saved. You can't tell that. [00:31:41] You can't tell. I can prove it to you from verse 15. You and I can't tell if other people are truly converted by looking at them or by asking them questions. You can't tell that the wolves are in sheep's clothing. The sheep are deceived. [00:31:56] So you and this verse is not teaching. And I've heard people, there's some in here that have heard you shall know them by their fruits. And they say, well, if that means if you don't act like a Christian, then you're not a Christian. And there is a kernel of truth in that. The Bible does say that if someone is born again, then they should have evidence of righteousness in their life first. John says that, but not here. This verse is talking about false prophets. [00:32:22] In other words, false prophets, false teachers will bear fruit, and that fruit will be corrupt. [00:32:29] It will be divisive. It will be carnal. It will be proud. [00:32:36] And so he goes on to talk about that. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? And sometimes it takes a little bit of time, the shepherd must observe to find out how exactly that wolf is acting. It's not exactly clear, but over time, he starts to. He can't hide all of his nature. Eventually it comes out. [00:32:58] Eventually it comes out. [00:33:03] But this is one of the only defenses the sheep has, the shepherd. [00:33:10] Only the shepherd discerns the wolf. [00:33:15] And only the shepherd stands between the wolf and the sheep. You know, if you going back to the analogy with your family or even in the church, spiritual leaders must stand between danger and those they lead in the physical sense and in the spiritual sense. Even if it offends people, we must stand in the gap between them. We cannot be passive and say, well, they're nice. I get so sick of that. My family knows what I'm talking about. [00:33:52] He's so nice. [00:33:54] False prophets are often nice. [00:33:56] They're often nice. [00:33:59] The other defense that sheep have are the other sheep. There's great safety being together. [00:34:07] There's safety in being together. Not only that. [00:34:16] Well, let me just go on. All right. A couple more things I want to point out to you. [00:34:22] In addition to these things, sheep are extremely weak in spirit. I was surprised to hear this. Extremely weak in spirit and give up very easily. [00:34:34] Unlike other animals, they will not struggle to survive. [00:34:40] Man, what an indictment of us. Right. [00:34:44] Often when sheep fall over they will make no effort to get back up, even though they can. [00:34:54] Sister Pam's the only one that gets that. Maybe she's more wicked than everybody else. [00:35:00] They fall over, they can get up, but they won't. They just quit. Give up. I'm done. [00:35:08] Once again, the shepherd is necessary. You know what? Cause he's watching. He sees that sheep, you know, his legs flopping up in the air. [00:35:18] So what does he do? [00:35:20] Eventually, the sheep, he stops flopping like a cockroach, you know? He just stops flopping. Just lays there, waits for the inevitable, right? Till the shepherd comes over and says, get up. [00:35:34] Get up, silly. [00:35:37] His hope is found in the shepherd, not in himself. He gives up. Boy, I don't know about you, but I see myself all in this. [00:35:46] We fall, we stumble, we sin. [00:35:52] And inevitably, the Lord always, always comes to pick us up. A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again. And if that was the only verse in the Bible, you might think he does that out of his own strength. But behind the scenes, you see the Lord in the spiritual realm, where you can't see. [00:36:16] He's rising seven times. The key being seven. Seven. In other words, it's something that always happens. And here the Lord is picking him up. That's why he's getting up. That's why the sheep's getting up is because the shepherd's coming over, he's paying attention, and he picks him up. [00:36:32] The shepherd is so necessary. [00:36:35] So that which might, in another circumstance be benign to the sheep, like falling down, would be fatal if it wasn't for the shepherd's intervention. [00:36:49] That's true of us. [00:36:53] The last thing is this sheep have a tendency to wander. [00:37:00] They have a tendency. In other words, that's kind of their nature. Now, I know they're pack animals. They like to be together. But there's a part of them that also likes to wander. [00:37:10] And here's one thing I want us all to remember, and this is a key principle. [00:37:15] To wander from the shepherd is to also wander from the flock. [00:37:22] Because when you. The moment that you wander away from the shepherd, where is the shepherd? He's doing his duty, watching the flock. So when you wander from the shepherd, you're also simultaneously wandering from. From the flock. The church. [00:37:36] This is why when someone begins to withdraw from God's people in the church, you know something's not right, you know something's wrong. It's not that we're. It's not that we browbeat people because we want to make sure we have the number. We maintain the numbers on our graph, it's not like that at all. It is. It is a symbol. It is a mark. It is an alert. [00:38:03] Something's not right. Something's not right. This idea that, you know, we can serve God and have no association with God's people. Baloney. [00:38:12] Baloney. That is not true. That is not scriptural. [00:38:19] And often one of the first outwardly visible signs that someone is starting to, we say, backslide or slip. Their feet are slipping a little bit, is that they're become aloof, intentionally aloof from the people of God. [00:38:39] You know the story of the lost sheep. You know the 90 of nine. Matthew 1812 says this. How think ye if a man have an hundred sheep and one of them be gone astray? Doth he not leave the 90 of nine and go into the mountains and seek at that which is gone astray? [00:38:56] But here's the problem. Given all the things that we've seen, seen previous to this, when a sheep goes astray, it could very well be fatal. [00:39:07] Think about it. Disease, wolves, no food, no water, no way to get it. [00:39:14] All of those things can combine to absolutely be spiritually fatal to us if the Lord did not seek us out when we have fallen and when we have gotten away from God. And maybe some of you in here, you know, you got. Maybe you got saved and you began to follow the Lord. And maybe there was a period in your life when you were wayward that you kind of got away from God and you weren't following the Lord faithfully. Some people. Some people. [00:39:43] The problem from my perspective with that is sometimes people do that. [00:39:49] They make a profession of faith in Christ and then they begin to follow the Lord and it appears that. And then they all of a sudden, they're gone, they disappear. [00:39:59] And sometimes that's an indicator that they weren't truly converted, because that is a thing. [00:40:04] But then other times it could look exactly the same, but not be the case. It could be that the sheep has just wandered. [00:40:13] You know the difference? What is the difference? How do you tell the difference? There's one way. [00:40:19] It's when the shepherd goes and gets him and brings them back. [00:40:22] That's when. That's how you know the difference. So we can't go fruit inspecting, knowing. Knowing if people are born again, that's not something we can do. But when someone wanders from God, you can mark it down. If they're one of his sheep, he's not. He's not saying, well, it's just one. No, no, no. He's leaving the 90 and 90 he's going to go find them, and he's going to bring them back, one way or another. And that's the way the Lord deals with us. Maybe some of you have lived a period in your life of waywardness, but you're here. [00:40:53] Yes, sir. [00:41:02] Much harder. [00:41:05] Yes, sir. [00:41:06] It all rests upon the shepherd, you see that? All rest upon the shepherd. [00:41:13] And so the Lord says to close in acts chapter 20 to those spiritual leaders, feed the flock of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. [00:41:27] For this I know that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. [00:41:33] The Lord's paying attention. The earthly leaders must also pay attention in those areas and spheres of leadership that the Lord has given to them as well. [00:41:43] But ultimately, it will rest upon the Lord and his active shepherding work in us. [00:41:51] Let's pray.