Safely Home

He says, the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is, not the Lord used to be. The Lord might one day be.

He once was. No, the Lord is present tense. The Lord is my shepherd.

Personal pronoun. The Lord is my mother's shepherd. The Lord is my grandfather's shepherd. I've had a lot of people say, oh, my grandfather, man, he walked with God.

What about you? See, this works when you can say with him, the Lord, he's mine and I'm his. Sometimes our lives here on Earth are turbulent. Our circumstances are marked by trouble and trials. We face things that frankly, we would rather avoid if we could. But for all of us, trials and difficulties are unavoidable. So what do we do? In order to face this world successfully and deal with all of the uncertainty that comes with life, we need to entrust ourselves fully to God. We need the good shepherd to guide and guard every aspect of our lives until we arrive at heaven. That's our theme today here on Wisdom for the Heart.

Here's Steven with today's lesson called Safely Home. I came across this article recently entitled How to Stay Safe in the World Today. Avoid riding in automobiles, planes, boats, or trains.

They're responsible for 36% of all fatal accidents. So don't travel anywhere, I suppose. But don't walk either because 14% of all fatal accidents occur to pedestrians. Say, well, I just won't go anywhere. No, don't stay home. 17% of all fatal accidents occur in the home. So where do you go?

Well, don't go to the hospital. 32% of all deaths occur there. That all adds up to 99%. And that remaining 1%, research shows that really it's one half of 1% of fatalities occur on Sunday in church. So the safest place to be.

The truth is still obvious. Life is filled with risks and hazards and injuries. The big part of the problem is that we depend on so many other people and a host of unseen things that we can't control. Your health is tied to the skill of that surgeon or the carefulness of that pharmacist who numbers out that prescription. Your safety tomorrow is going to be tied to the alertness of that bus driver taking you to school or the alertness of all the commuters who are heading in your direction and they're going to miss you by about three feet. Life is one calculated risk after another.

Question you might be asking is, do I get out of bed in the morning? So much of life is entrusting yourself into the hands of mortal, fallible, distracted, dishonest creatures. And then you became a Christian and it got worse. Because now sin is a danger to you and it really never was before.

Temptation besieged you and you never really noticed because you never resisted. There's now a culture that might mock your values, a family that might misunderstand or misrepresent you, applying pressure to you. Now you're facing pressure at school you never faced before, like a student. I was talking to a student's parents and the challenge of this young lady in college to go entirely openly, totally against her professor and the assignment on that research paper related to gender, which she totally disagreed with because her gender beliefs are tied to scripture. Now you face the risk of being overlooked or ridiculed or ignored or demoted at work or maybe failed at school. All of that adds all the more reasons to maybe just stay in bed, hide under the covers.

That's not really safe either. So how do you go out into the world? How do you face the world with any kind of hope or any kind of assurance or any kind of joy beyond that and purpose? Well that would be the question swirling around in the minds of the first century believers who were facing unjust suffering, who were facing financial loss. In fact the writer of scripture will say, of them you had your property seized yet with joy.

Imagine that. The body at large following Christ is facing here in the first century and in any century around our world a government and a culture that is growing more and more hostile to concepts like objective truth, that concept of defined justice, ethical principles, moral boundaries. I mean how do you live in a world like that, like this world? Well all of that is sort of going through the hearts and minds as we've studied these early Christians when the apostle Peter was moved by the Holy Spirit to write to them a letter. It would circulate among the churches scattered throughout the Roman Empire. He's been informing us that we've really got to look beyond this stuff, see beyond all of that if you want to face your world with purpose and hope and joy. We're coming to the conclusion of his thoughts so go back with me to 1 Peter. We're at chapter 2 and verse 25. I could have tucked verse 25 up into our study last Lord's Day verse 24 but I thought it might be a good idea to slow down for a lot of reasons. One of them struck me was that in chapter 3 verse 1 which would be the next verse and it would have been for today wives be submissive to your husbands.

I thought no there's a good Mother's Day text for you. In fact you know whenever you study the Bible you see these names of God, the names of our Lord. They're not throwaway. They're not well what should I say now about him oh I know I'll come up with this title. They are rich meaningful truths as he is self disclosing through these apostles his character. It's no surprise beloved that Peter's going to wrap up his thoughts on the response of believers to government and culture and unfair masters and uncontrollable situations. It's no surprise that Peter ends this thought with verse 25. For you were continually straying like sheep but now you've returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. Now before we get to where Peter talks about who God is he reminds us of who we were.

Let's stop there for a moment. We were notice continually straying like sheep. He again I think in his mind is going back this is an obvious paraphrase of Isaiah chapter 53 where we read of the suffering savior where Isaiah describes us in verse 6 of that classic chapter all of us like sheep have gone astray.

Peter's pulling that right into this context. Throughout the Bible Christians are most often identified as sheep for good reason sheep aren't the brightest creatures on the planet. They need constant attention from their shepherds. What Peter highlights here is the nature of sheep to stray and he's speaking categorically at this moment of the unbeliever but it is the nature of the believer as well. Maybe you've come in here today and you know in your heart you're straying from your Lord. Maybe you've come in here today and you've never come to him to become your savior and Lord and you're still wandering. It is the nature of sheep to wander.

That's why you see it appearing over and over again in the scriptures. God referred to and leaders referred to as shepherds. They seem intent on straying.

One news article I came across reported on this very problem. It reads for centuries shepherds have tried to keep sheep from straying which is their nature everything from additional staff to trained dogs. In more recent times shepherds have turned to a more sophisticated method.

One of them is a metal grid eight feet wide built into the ground on ground level around the edge of a pasture. The sheep can't walk across the grid without their hooves slipping through so they stay in their pasture except this news reporter said in one county one of the sheep figured out that it could lie down and roll over the grid. And when it did all the other sheep of the flock watched and then they all rolled over the grid scampered away. Part of the bigger problem I've never raised sheeps I'm reading and researching for our benefit some of you may have. Part of the bigger problem I've learned with sheep is they can't find their way home. For a sheep to wander or to stray is the same thing as saying that a sheep has become and will remain lost lost unless something happens. Now Peter is drawing the analogy of the straying of an unbeliever who's returned. Now it might at first glance sound like the sheep actually did come back. Well the verb translated returned is a word that refers to salvation most often conversion you could render it to turn about. They encounter the shepherd and turn. This doesn't mean that the sheep were once walking with Christ and they wandered away and now they're they're back.

That can happen by the way there are plenty of passages to talk about that and I know for me that's a problem how about you? What Peter though is drawing out here is he's not describing the life of a disobedient believer. He's describing the life of an unbeliever and what is their life like? It is constant never ending wandering straying without purpose hope joy. That's the description beloved of the world you're going to face tomorrow. In fact the Lord Jesus saw a huge crowd of people coming toward him and Mark recorded in his gospel his perspective the perspective of Jesus he writes that Jesus seeing them seeing the multitude was moved with compassion. Why? Because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

That's about the most pitiful state you could be in. Mark chapter 6 verse 34 wandering. So in Peter's mind the idea of returning back here in the heiress tents is a reference to a decisive moment in life. That moment perhaps where you understood the gospel and the Spirit of God opened your eyes the shepherd drew you and you believed. This is the same verb Peter uses by the way in Acts chapter 3 verse 19 where he preaches therefore repent and return same word so that your sins may be wiped away. Same verb appears again in Acts 9 verse 35 where people are watching the healing of this paralyzed man and it says all those people who saw that turned to the Lord. In other words they became believers in the gospel of Christ. Paul uses the same verb over in his letter to the Thessalonian believers he writes how you speaking of them how you turned to God away from idols to serve a living and true God. First Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 9 this is who you were as an unbeliever wandering like sheep that went astray but now you've turned you're a follower of Jesus.

Peter says now I don't want to just you know remind you of who you were now I want to focus on who he is. Notice again now you've returned to the shepherd. He's our shepherd.

Let's stop here. We need to rehearse the truth of who he is but also how we need him. There's a good reason the believer you and me we're not shown in scriptures being you know galloping stallions. Even though converted we have that tendency to wander prone to wander Lord I feel it the hymn writer wrote. It's interesting as you study this particular animal that sheep are anatomically weak they're unable to bear burdens you don't see them with a saddle or a sack. They're weak that's why the shepherd is needed to bear their burdens. Sheep are too timid to drink from running water that's why David boasts that his shepherd leads him to still water he's taken his staff and he's dug a little inlet next to that rushing stream and so now it'll pool and the sheep can safely drink sheep can't grow their own food they can't chase it down. That's why David again praises the shepherd for preparing the Spanish renders that I love that a mesa a table land for him. See without a shepherd sheep are in deep trouble. In fact I couldn't help but go back in my mind to that description where David is boasting as it were in his shepherd the Lord is my shepherd because the Lord is my shepherd there's nothing that I want every good gift comes from him so if there's something that I want that I don't have it's not good in his eyes for me to have. The Lord is my shepherd by the way the Lord I think he emphasizes there isn't anybody else who can pull off the rest of that text all those things that only a good shepherd can do the Lord as if to say hey everybody look at my shepherd is it's the Lord it's the Lord he says the Lord is my shepherd the Lord is not the Lord used to be the Lord might one day be I'd like the Lord to be he once was no the Lord is present tense the Lord is my shepherd personal pronoun not the Lord is my mother's shepherd the Lord is my grandfather's shepherd I've had a lot of people know my grandfather Manny walk with God what about you see this works when you can say with him hey look I want you to know who my shepherd is it is the Lord he's mine and I'm his it occurs to me that from the first century to the 21st century the problem with the world then can be summarized into one sentence we tend to get sidetracked on all the symptoms of the disease but the real disease is simply this the world is following the wrong shepherd all you have to do is Google like I did in preparation for this just the top news stories of the past 12 months talk about wandering confusion Russian aggression North Korean threats failed peace talks nuclear ambitions in rogue countries economic crises in several countries trillion dollar deficits here at home potential shutdowns of governments failing educational systems drug cartels and human trafficking and on and on and on and on and on that's just the last 12 months the world is also wandering morally it's staggering around and in more and more confusion if you look for moral and ethical consistency the highest levels in our culture and in our country you discover those pedestals are virtually empty frankly our country is in desperate need of the right shepherd Jesus Christ issues an invitation by the way through you a satisfied sheep a well-fed sheep look I know you're following that shepherd that'll never work follow mine never told anybody that at your workplace or your school or your neighborhood a well-fed satisfied sheep saying I know a shepherd you ought to follow he's speaking with shepherding terminology he's the one who knows how to navigate you through life and he's the one who knows the path to heaven and he'll take you there I commend this shepherd to you there's a reason he's called the good shepherd what an understatement the good shepherd John 10 verse 11 Peter look there in verse 25 again he writes not only the truth that the Lord is our shepherd he's noticed the guardian of your souls the guardian that's the word episcopas it's it's used for the elder of the church we get the word episcopal bishop overseer the verb form means to look after to administrate to care for again the analogy to the believers is really perfect here we need somebody to administrate our lives how you doing on your own by the way how did you do on your own many of you came to Christ because you did it on your own and you said really this is where I want to go it's got to be something better than this timothy laniac a man you're perhaps not as familiar with but he also wrote a wonderful book on on shepherding and the analogy to believers he spent several years living among middle eastern shepherds and wrote in his journal how trouble prone sheep were he writes even the hardy mountain breed are susceptible to braxy I have no idea what that means but it sounds awfully horrible to pulpy kidney again I don't know but it staggers pneumonia pasturella hypothermia in the winter scab and scrapy they push their heads through fences and get cut or stuck they tumble into ponds and can't get out they gorge themselves on fallen ash leaves and swell up like balloons they poison themselves on ragwort they starve easily freeze easily fall ill easily he writes but every affliction they face can be countered by a good shepherd see it matters who your shepherd is Peter is effectively reminding the believer that we have been rescued from a world that's wandering and staggering and falling and hungry and thirsty and drowning and deeply needy hungry afraid in fact in that text where David writes you prepare a table of Mesa before me I love the fact that he adds the last phrase you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies not my friends he's implying in other words that following the Lord means you can end up surrounded by enemies he hasn't promised you and me that he's going to lead us through life so we're always surrounded by friends he's going to prepare table for us in the presence of a world that is at enmity with the gospel hostile to the objective claim of Christ that we are sinners and must be saved that is not happy news to our world culture grows more and more hostile to this the Lord is not guaranteeing the absence of danger or difficulty or risk he's simply guaranteeing his presence in the middle of it again Laniac writes in his journal while shepherds watch their flocks at night so do the wolves it's a nightly match of watching and outwitting he wrote I've I've been with Middle Eastern shepherds who spent all night shouting whistling throwing stones into the darkness in all directions with their slings they knew the wolves were there they couldn't see them Peter writes to these believers who in this culture had nowhere to run had nowhere to hide it won't be long before they're dying for their faith and he says to them you're following a shepherd who is also a guardian of your souls don't miss that Peter is implying to these believers and the believers in every generation you may be ruled by tyrants you might be suffering bodily harm and mistreatment and abuse Peter reminds them that that inner being that immaterial part of who we are which is the real us inside this clay vehicle to get us around that is safe no matter what happens to the outer shell so to speak there's no way a believer can be taken away from the Lord there's no no way anybody can snatch you out of his hand you you can't be ripped away from the flock which you belong to that's how you enter your world surrounded by hazards and risks and and dangers this is how you enter it with joy nothing occurs to you other than that which has slipped through by his design he's your shepherd and your guardian but in the midst of it all no matter how may how badly it may be for you how difficult it may be how deep your suffering your soul it's going to arrive safely home and you're going to be given a new body and your nature will no longer be one to roam stray this is how you handle it this is how you see past all the stuff the cultural issues and you get up with joy purpose because you see beyond all this and you're looking to the one who authored and has shown us how to complete the faith you belong to the shepherd and the one who is the guardian who will lead you through life and bring you safely home and let me say this well there are a lot more people out there who would love to have written on their tombstone the Lord is my shepherd a lot more people want that written on their tombstone than they would ever want it written on their lives write it on your life it doesn't do any good on a tombstone if it wasn't true in life a lot of people want to die with him as their shepherd would have no desire to live with him as their shepherd maybe you're one of those turn by the grace of God to the savior make him your shepherd in this present hour make him yours by possession so you can say the Lord is my shepherd and live with that kind of perspective don't be beaten down listen the world might be looking at you but your guardian is looking out for you he's never surprised keep following him the world might be watching you your shepherd is watching over you none of us will fail to arrive safely home and with joy and confidence we go through the day because we know the path is marked by his divine purpose see his eye isn't just on the sparrow it's on his sheep too this text and context reminded me of the lyrics to a song by don wurtson written a number of years ago sort of combined all of it together and with this i close he writes when alarmed by the fury of the restless sea towering waves before you roll at the end of doubt and peril is eternity though fear and conflict sees your soul but just think of stepping on shore and finding it heaven of touching a hand and finding it gods of breathing new air and finding it celestial of waking up in glory and finding it home so look there can you see that there according to his perfect timing this faithful shepherd and guardian of your soul will land you without accident without casualty without any risk safely home safely home is the title of this message today here on wisdom for the heart and with this message steven concludes a series entitled above politics and parliaments this series helps believers live like citizens of heaven while we're still citizens of the earth if you missed any of the lessons in this series we've posted all of them online if you go online to wisdomonline.org you'll find them there next time steven begins a series from romans join us then here on wisdom for the heart you