The Nature of the Shepherd

Dr. Hershael York, professor at Southern Seminary and senior pastor at Buck Run Baptist Church, was my preaching professor and a member of my dissertation committee.  God has greatly blessed me with his preaching instruction, pastoral counsel, and friendship.  I highly recommend his book on preaching.

Yesterday, Dr. York shared this excellent personal story on Facebook that is not only good counsel for those in Christian ministry, but also a great illustration for the kind of Shepherd Jesus is to His people.  Dr. York connected the story to John 10:1-18.  He writes,

On one of my trips to Israel I once saw a man behind a flock of sheep, driving them down the road by holding out two long sticks, one on either side, in an attempt to force them to stay together in front of him. Puzzled that I had never seen a shepherd lead his sheep like that, I asked my guide, Zvi, “Why is that shepherd driving his sheep that way? I’ve never seen that before.” “Oh,” he answered. “That’s not a shepherd. That’s a butcher. He has bought those sheep and now he has to drive them to the slaughterhouse. They won’t follow him, because they don’t know him. He can’t lead them, so he has to drive them.” 

Shepherds lead from the front. Butchers drive from behind.

 

This story could illustrate sermons from many passages in addition to John 10, including words to pastors like Ephesians 4 and 1 Peter 5 (especially verses 1-4).  It also would fit well with passages that speak of Jesus as the Good Shepherd: Psalm 23, Matthew 2 (verse 6), Matthew 9 (verse 36), Paul’s words to the Ephesians elders in Acts 20, the benediction of Hebrews 13, 1 Peter 2 (verse 25), and Revelation 7 (verse 17).

 

Tags: Jesus, Good Shepherd, Shepherd, Sheep, Psalm 23, Matthew 2, Matthew 9, Mark 6, John 10, Acts 20, Ephesians 4, Hebrews 13, 1 Peter 2, 1 Peter 5, and Revelation 7.

Jekyll and Hyde

John Stott in The Cross of Christ:

“There is, therefore, a great need for discernment in our self-understanding.  Who am I?  What is my ‘self’?  The answer is that I am a Jekyll and Hyde, a mixed-up kid, having both dignity, because I was created and have been re-created in the image of God, and depravity, because I still have a fallen and rebellious nature.  I am both noble and ignoble, beautiful and ugly, good and bad, upright and twisted, image and child of God, and yet sometimes yielding obsequious homage to the devil from whose clutches Christ has rescued me.  My true self is what I am by creation, which Christ came to redeem, and by calling.  My false self is what I am by the Fall, which Christ came to destroy.  Only when we have discerned which is which within us, shall we know what attitude to adopt towards each.  We must be true to our true self and false to our false self.  We must be fearless in affirming all that we are by creation, redemption and calling, and ruthless in disowning all that we are by the Fall.  Moreover, the cross of Christ teaches us both attitudes.  On the one hand, the cross is the God-given measure of the value of our true self, since Christ loved us and died for us.  On the other hand, it is the God-given model for the denial of our false self, since we are to nail it to the cross and so put it to death.  Or, more simply, standing before the cross we see simultaneously our worth and our unworthiness, since we perceive both the greatness of His love in dying, and the greatness of our sin in causing Him to die” (285).

Several parts of this quote would be great for use in sermons on the battle between the Spirit and the flesh, as well as the image of God, or the new creation we are in Christ.  Or, you could take Stott’s use of the story of Jekyll and Hyde and run with that.

Tags: Genesis 1, Genesis 2, Jeremiah 31, Romans 6 (especially verse 4), Romans 7, Romans 13, Galatians 5, Ephesians 2, Ephesians 4, 2 Corinthians 5, Hebrews 8

Top 5 Deathbed Regrets

My wife sent me this article today, written by a palliative nurse, who lists the top 5 regrets people have revealed to her on their deathbeds.  She says these are the 5 most common, although it is unclear to me whether she actually tabulated the regrets given to her and came up with this statistical result.  That doesn’t really blunt the power of the article, though.

I think any of the five or perhaps all five could be used as part of any sermon dealing with life and death (Mark 8:36), the brevity of life (James 4:13-17), or having an eternal perspective (Psalm 39).  Below are her five, with other passages that could be used with each one.  I think it would be ok to use just one in a sermon.  You could say something like, “A palliative nurse compiled the 5 most common deathbed regrets, and one of the five dealt with exactly what we’re talking about.  It was ______.”

Here are the five:

1)  I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. [In this case, I’m thinking of it more like: “I wish I had lived a life true to God’s calling, instead of letting peer pressure or the world influence me as much as they did.”  The REAL life lived true to ourselves is the one lived in line with the purpose for which God made us.]

Daniel 3, Acts 5:29

2) I wish I didn’t work so hard.

Matthew 6:19-21, Matthew 6:24-34, Mark 8:36

3) I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Ephesians 4:15, James 3

4) I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Proverbs 18:24, Acts 20 (Paul’s closeness with the Ephesian believers), 2 Timothy 4:9-18

5) I wish that I had let myself be happier.

John 10:10, Philippians 4

 

By the way, you could also use this whole article as a contrast between the author’s this-worldly understanding of “happiness” (which seems to end when someone achieves “peace” and then dies) and the Bible’s infinitely deeper, eternal joy in the presence of Christ.  That would work with Matthew 25, Revelation 5, Revelation 21, Revelation 22, and plenty of others.   [I write all these references out so that they will show up when people search on particular texts.  I’m still trying to figure out how to make tag searches work like I want them to.]