Jesus, That Great Shepherd of the Sheep

Jesus, The Great Shepherd of the Sheep

John 10.11-18

Shepherding in Israel (photos of me with shepherds)

 Jesus gives His Life for the Sheep.

The LORD is my Shepherd.

I am the Good Shepherd.

Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep

When Christ the Chief Shepherd appears I Peter 5

1. He watches over us.

The LORD way watches over you... The LORD is your shade at your right hand. Palm 121.5

He Who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.

Psalm 100.3 Know that the LORD is God.

    It is He who made us, and we are His;

    we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Psalm 95.6-7 6 Come, let us bow down in worship,

    let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;

7 for He is our God

    and we are the people of H is pasture,

    the flock under His care.

Luke 12:32 (KJV)

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

2. He protects us.

Protected By The Power of His Name. John 17.11

 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of Your name, the Name You gave me, so that they may be one as We are one.

Pastor Joes and Nigette in Haiti in front of that door of the apartment off the church where we slept.

3. He feeds us.

John 21 "Feed My Lambs. Feed My Sheep."

Acts 20.28 28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

4. He knows us.

The hairs of our head.

Our life. Our days, all the days ordained for us.

Psalm 139

5. He Has Other Sheep He wants to bring in.

Harvest Dinner

When you have a banquet, don't invite your friends...

The Rise and Decline of IBM ...Down With Big Blue... I want my PC

We must adjust, we will adjust.

Maintaining A Sense Of Urgency

Maintaining A Sense Of Urgency

John 9.4

Due to us having electricity in America we have work going on at night. 

Nightshifts

Open 24 hours

Road work is done at night under the lights. 10-6am we see the signs on Sunrise and Southern State.

While we may  able to do a little work at night, the great majority of the work is still done from sun up to sun down.

The Bible tells of this of this in Psalm 104.22-23 

The sun rises...then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening.

I remember working the night shift 10am to 6am. I did it over the summers when I was in college. It felt like I was always tired. Night is for sleeping. I remember friends whose father worked the night shift back in the hey days of Grumman when it has contracts with NASA. Their father worked the night shift. When we got together at their house we had to be real quiet because he was sleeping.

Go to the first century Israel or to any third world country and you will find the cessation of work at sun down. 

1. Day Is The Time For Work.

This point is appreciated more by those who live in places where there is no electricity. It is true spiritually all over the world.

We need to recognize this.

I must work the works of Him that sent Me—a most interesting statement by Jesus. It tells us:

*that He had a precise work to do upon earth, with every particular part of it arranged and laid out to Him.

So do we!

Psalm 139.16 All the days ordained for me were written in Your Book before one of them came to be.

Ephesians 2.10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

All we need to do is to walk in them.

*that all He did upon earth was just "the works of God"—particularly "going about doing good," Not just the miracles but by all He did.

Everything Jesus did and said was foreordained by His Father, the time, the place.

 

His period for work had definite termination. 

Ours does as well.

Psalm 90.10, 12  The length of our days is seventy years or eighty if we have the strength... Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

He acted ever under the impulse of these considerations, as man—"the night cometh when no man (or no one) can work." What lessons are here for others, and what encouragement from such Example!

*Brother Hazard

In Wyandanch on Monday night, told how I was there when the church was dedicated. I was about 14 years old.

*Seymour Cole, Pastor of Bronx Bethany, went home to be with the LORD this Friday at 88 years of age. Heard him speak last year at 87 years of age.

*Dr. McCoy Oyster Bay Baptist Church

The Real McCoy

I need to tell a story now, about Charles McCoy, a great waterfall rider. I got it from Franklin Graham's book, This One Thing I Do. McCoy was pastoring a Baptist church in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, when at age 72 his denomination mandated his retirement. A life-long bachelor, he had cared for his mother as long as she lived. In his spare time he had earned seven university degrees, including two Ph.D.s, one from Dartmouth, the other from Columbia. But now, at 72, he was being forced out of the pastorate because he was considered too old.

He was depressed. "I just lay on my bed thinking that my life's over, and I haven't really done anything yet. I've been pastor of this church for so many years and nobody really wants me much—what have I done for Christ? I've spent an awful lot of time working for degrees, but what does that count for? I haven't won very many for the Lord."

A week later he met a Christian pastor from India, and on impulse asked him to preach in his church. After the service the Indian brother asked him matter-of-factly to return the favor. Since he had preached for McCoy, would McCoy come to India and preach for him? McCoy told him that he was being forced to retire and move into a home for the elderly down in Florida. But the Indian insisted, informing him that where he came from, people respected a man when his hair turns white. Would he come?

McCoy prayed about it and decided to go. The members of his church were aghast. The young chairman of his deacon board summed up the congregation's attitude: "What if you die in India?" I love McCoy's answer. He told him he reckoned that "it's just as close to heaven from India as it is from Oyster Bay."

He sold or gave away most of his belongings, put what was left in a trunk, and booked a one-way passage to India. It was his first trip out of the United States.

When he arrived in Bombay, he discovered to his horror that his trunk was lost. All he had were the clothes on his back, his wallet, his passport, and the address of missionaries in Bombay he had clipped from a missionary magazine before he left. He asked for directions, got on a bus, and headed for their house. When he got there, he discovered that while he was on the streetcar his wallet and passport had been stolen!

When he knocked on the door of the missionaries' house, he was greeted with a polite smile and a blank look. Not only were they not expecting him, but the man who had invited him to India was still in the U.S. and would probably remain there indefinitely.

What was he going to do now? Unperturbed, McCoy told them he had come to preach and that he would try to make an appointment with the mayor of Bombay the next day. The missionaries warned him that the mayor was very busy and that in all the years they had been missionaries there, they had never been granted an appointment with him.

Nevertheless, McCoy set out for the mayor's office the next day. When the mayor's secretary gave him McCoy's business card, listing all his degrees, he thought McCoy must not be merely a Christian pastor, but someone much more important. Not only did he get an appointment, but the mayor held a tea in his honor, and invited many of the city's influential officials.

Old Dr. McCoy was able to preach to these leaders for half an hour. Among them was the director of India's West Point, the National Defense Academy at Poona. He was so impressed at what he heard that he invited McCoy to preach there.

Thus was launched, at age 72, a brand-new 16-year ministry for Dr. Charles McCoy. Before he died at age 88, this dauntless old man circled the globe preaching the gospel. There is a church in Calcutta today because of his preaching, and a thriving band of Christians in Hong Kong because of his faithful ministry. He never had more than enough money to get him to the next place he needed to go. He died one afternoon in a hotel in Calcutta, resting for a meeting he was to preach at that evening.

I remember a young boy going with my parents to  his Memorial Service in that Baptist Church in Oyster Bay. 

Brother Hazard, Dr. Seymour Cole and Dr. Charles McCoy... Examples of those who worked while it was still day. Their works do follow them.

In 1956 the famous missionary Jim Elliot was speared to death, along with his four colleagues, by the tribal people they were trying to reach with the Gospel. Jim was a passionate follower of Jesus Christ. About four years before he died, he wrote in his journal, “When it comes time to die, make sure all you have to do is die.”

2. Night Is Coming.

The things we needed to do in Bellevue Haiti when the evening came. Lights may come on or may not. 

There it hit home.  Since the electricity is very spotty  and only comes on at night if it does come on we would prepare to get all the things done we needed to before the sun set. When it rained the government would shut the electricity off.

There was a sense of urgency. We need to have that spiritually these days.

Our Saviour felt that He was commissioned as a Servant of his Father, sent here to do a certain work, and He must be doing it. It is well for God’s servants to feel a holy compulsion. It does not take away from them the freedom of their action, and their delight in the service of God; but still it exercises a powerful influence over a man when he feels, “Woe is me, if I preach not the gospel;” or when, like the LORD Jesus, He says, “I must work the works of Him that sent me.” Did the Well-beloved, the Prince of Heaven, come under compulsion? Did He put himself under that “must” which is for the king? Then you and I may well put ourselves under holy bondage for the Lord. Then, do not hinder me; do not tell me that I am too feeble in health; “I must work the works of Him that sent me.”

We are reminded every day by our hands and the sunrise and sun set that for us night is coming when all possibility of work will cease.

Psalm 39.5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before You.

3. When Night Comes No One Can Work.

I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day: Instead of focusing on the man as a theology problem, Jesus saw him as an opportunity to work the works of God. Jesus sensed an urgency to do this while it was still day – the time of His earthly ministry.

* I must work is a marvelous statement of Jesus. The Worker is “a well-earned title to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the worker, the chief worker, and the example to all workers.” (Spurgeon)

* “He worked under the limitations of mortality, and recognized in the brevity of life another call to eager and continuous service.” (Maclaren)

* “Whenever you see a man in sorrow and trouble, the way to look at it is, not to blame him and inquire how he came there, but to say, ‘Here is an opening for God’s almighty love. Here is an occasion for the display of the grace and goodness of the LORD.’” (Spurgeon)

The night is coming when no one can work: Jesus understood that opportunities for service and doing good don’t last forever. Jesus knew that healing this man on the Sabbath would bring greater opposition from the religious leaders who already wanted to silence and kill Him. Yet His compassion for the man drove Him to do it anyway.

Our LORD as a man here on earth had a day. It was only a day-a short period, and not very long; He could not make it longer, for it was settled by the great LORD. (Spurgeon)

Anna Louisa Walker was born in England in 1836. She moved to Canada with her family some years later, where her father worked for the railroad. The family lived for a time in Sarnia, Ontario. There Anna and her sisters operated a girls’ school. It was in 1854, while living in Canada, that Anna wrote the words for a gospel song based on the words of the Lord Jesus in John 9:4, “The night is coming when no one can work.”

In this statement, Christ is speaking figuratively of the time when our earthly labours come to an end. “Man goes out to his work and to his labour until the evening” (Ps. 104:23). No matter how long we live, our day of opportunity to serve the LORD here will soon be over. We need to make good use of the days allotted to us. With these thoughts in mind, the author wrote:

Work, for the night is coming,

Work through the morning hours;

Work while the dew is sparkling,

Work ’mid springing flow’rs.

Work when the day grows brighter,

Work in the glowing sun;

Work, for the night is coming,

When man’s work is done.

We sing Jesus Here Am I...

Welcome readers of The Sunday Morning Message recently from Russia, India, Brazil, The United Kingdom, The Ukraine, France, Germany, 

Hungary, Cambodia, Spain, Haiti, Italy, and The Netherlands. 

God bless you as you share the Word of God with us.

If Someone Is Caught In A Sin

If Someone Is Caught In A Sin

John 8.1-11
Galatians 6.1

Caught=
John 8
to seize upon, take possession of
of evils overtaking one,
of the last day overtaking the wicked with destruction,
of a demon about to torment one
govern it

Galatians 6
to take before
to anticipate, to forestall
to take one by forestalling (him i.e. before he can flee or conceal his crime)
surprise, detect

I John 2.1-2
A Christian's Life


This woman was caught in the act of adultery. Where is the man? According to the law he was to be stoned too. Leviticus 20.10
Adultery was one of three gravest sins punishable by death.

This was a trap and Jesus knew it.
John 8.4-5
4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

He showed  us how to love sinners. They called Him a Friend of Sinners. He showed us how to love sinners without condemning them and without condoning their sin. What a Wonderful Master!

If He says to stone her then His message of love and grace is out.
If He says stone her then He would be in trouble with Rome. Only they could carry out the death penalty. (ex Jesus' Crucifixion)
If He says to let her go then He would be breaking the law.

He does what is perfect. He always does. Jesus doeth all things well.
The word writing means to write down a record against someone.
We do not know what He wrote but it is a good possibility He was writing down their name with their personal sins.

These religious leaders failed to show mercy and grace.

John 1.14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and only Son, Who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Micah 6.8 He has shown you, O man, what is good.
    And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

Matthew 9.12-13 ...Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

He has come to call sinners!


1. If someone is caught in a sin.

Out of the church- seized, it is a lifestyle.
In the church- surprise, it is against a lifestyle.

There should be surprise. We expect each other to live for the LORD.
I John 2.1-2

There needs to be spiritual mature direction to restore the person who is caught.

We need to watch ourselves.
Saying things like that would never happen to me shows pride.
Look at yourself. Contemplate. Pray. Meekly and gently restore this person.


2. Jesus exposes sin and comes against self righteousness in spiritual leaders.
The scribes and Pharisees saw their authority to be that enforcing the law.
They asked about Jesus' authority to forgive sins. He showed them that authority.

8.2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery...


3. Jesus is Gentle and Humble.

We see that in how He dealt with this woman.

Pastor Jim Cymbala "Secret Sins" Message

We are to represent Him and reflect Him.



4. Jesus has come to seek and save that which is lost, to make people over in  love and grace and truth and to set those in prison free.

Jesus didn't come to condemn. John 3.17-18

The church is to be the safest place on earth.

Don't like that saying, "The church is the only army that shoots down its wounded." Nor do I believe it.
Prostitute in What's So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey

Yancey tells the story of a prodigal daughter who grows up in Traverse City, Michigan. Disgusted with her old fashioned parents who overreact to her nose ring, the music she listens to, the length of her skirts, she runs away. She ends up in Detroit where she meets a man who drives the biggest car she’s ever seen. The man with the big car – she calls him “Boss” – recognizes that since she’s underage, men would pay premium for her. So she goes to work for him. Things are good for a while. Life is good. But she gets sick for a few days, and it amazes her how quickly the boss turns mean. Before she knows it, she’s out on the street without a penny to her name. She still turns a couple of tricks a night, and all the money goes to support her drug habit.

One night while sleeping on the metal grates of the city, she began to feel less like a woman of the world and more like a little girl. She begins to whimper. “God, why did I leave? My dog back home eats better than I do now.” She knows that more than anything in the world, she wants to go home. Three straight calls home get three straight connections with the answering machine. Finally she leaves a message. “Mom, dad, it’s me. I was wondering about maybe coming home. I’m catching a bus up your way, and it’ll get there about midnight tomorrow. If you’re not there, I‘ll understand.” During the seven hour bus ride, she’s preparing a speech for her father. And when the bus comes to a stop in the Traverse City station, the driver announces the fifteen-minute stop. Fifteen minutes to decide her life.

She walks into the terminal not knowing what to expect. But not one of the thousand scenes that have played out in her mind prepares her for what she sees. There in the bus terminal in Traverse City, Michigan, stands a group of forty brothers and sisters and great-aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandmother and a great-grandmother to boot. They’re all wearing goofy party hats and blowing noise-makers, and taped across the entire wall of the terminal is a computer-generated banner that reads – Welcome Home!

Out of the crowd of well-wishers breaks her dad. She stares out through the tears quivering in her eyes and begins her memorized speech. He interrupts her. “Hush, child. We’ve got no time for that. No time for apologies. We’ll be late. A big party is waiting for you at home.”

He was not condemning. He was not condoning. He was forgiving and restoring. That is what the church needs to do. That is what it means t be a follower of Jesus Christ!

5. If some is caught in a sin.
Forgiveness
Grace
Humility
Lifestyle- be saved
Christian, restore him gently, Watch yourself.

Jesus And The Storms Of Life

Mark 4.35-41

Hurricane Irma, Jose and Maria threatened Haiti this past month when we were there.

1. Sometimes Jesus Calms The Storm.

2. Sometimes He Takes Us Around The Storm

3. Most Of The Time He Takes Us Through The Storms.

He is faithful.

The Servants Knew

John 2.1-11

v.9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew...

The highest calling on this earth is to be a servant of God. These servants at the Wedding in Cana of Galilee became that in a moment. Jesus called them, gave them a specific task and they did it. He is calling people to be His servants today.

If you looked at this scene in 30 A.D. in Cana of Galilee, Israel you would look at the Banquet Master. That is who was overseeing and directing this wedding feast. He was kind of the Maitre' D of the 1st Century. It is interesting how so often we look at the person in charge.

The activity among the servants and Jesus and His Disciples were where things were really happening. That is the way Jesus works! You would not have even heard of that little out of the way place called Cana of Galilee if it were not for Jesus.  He goes where needs are to help.

It is still so today. Go to the horrific disaster in Texas to today caused by Hurricane Harvey. You will find relief efforts by Nazarene Compassion Ministries, Samaritan's Purse and The Billy Graham Rapid Response Team with its chaplains among other Christian groups and churches. I love that Pastor from that Spanish Church in Houston who took his boat out to rescue people! (Video)

Go to any natural disaster world wide and it will be the same. Who is still going into Haiti, 7 1/2 years after the earthquake? The church, small mission groups.

Go to the local food pantry and it is run by the church or people from the church.

All over the country today people who do not drive were picked up and brought to church by others.

All these things manned by people who felt Jesus speak to them about serving.

V.5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever He tells you."

1. The Definition of a Servant is Just That! v.5

"Do whatever He tells you." Great advice! Godly counsel!

My cousin to my Mom about our trip to Haiti

My Mom's answer... God has told him to go!

Mary did not know what Jesus would do. She knew if anyone could help He could! Often we do not know what the LORD will tell us to do.

Serving the LORD means doing whatever He tells us to do.

The  directions Jesus gives us are very simple.

"Fill the jars with water."

"Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet."

Go here. Go there. Speak to this person.

Write this person a note.

Jesus' followers follow Him and His Directions.

2. Servants Get To See Things Others Don't. v.9

Special Moments as God works.

God could do miracles in the sky. He chooses rather to work through our hands, the hands of His servants.

In the most menial tasks like filling water jars He appears and does wonders. We watch Him move. Years ago when we had Thanksgiving Dinners we would see the LORD open hearts. 

Each task is dignified when it is done for Jesus.

The servants knew... the Banquet Master did not.

The secrets of the kingdom...

Mark 4.11 The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. -Jesus

He spoke this to His disciples. Nicodemus was struggling to understand, seeking... The disciples didn't fully until after Jesus rose from the dead.

Then they knew!

We are on this side of the resurrection. We have understanding, insight into the Word of God, the ways He works, His Hand upon us.

The servants knew the power of God.

The servants knew Jesus could work miracles. 

The servants knew Jesus' character.

* He was not into making a spectacle of Himself.

* He cares about people.

* He saves the best until last.

Get involved in serving the LORD and you will see things that will blow you away! Barbara with the Haiti Children. Our neighbors know.

3. Servants Can Look Back on God's Hand Upon Things.

These servants never forgot what happened that day. 

They never saw anything like this before!

When God works in our lives those moments stand out.

In John 14.11 Jesus is giving His Last Will and Testament to His Disciples before He goes to the Garden of Gethsemane to be arrested and the next day be crucified.

He is speaking to them about things they have never heard Him say before. 

He states, "Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is Me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves."

Servants of God can look back on a vast array of Divine Moments when God stepped in and worked.

I am using this in my life when I come up against things that make no sense or when I am praying and there is no answer coming.

Habakkuk struggled in his prayers at one point in his life.

The nation was going down the tubes. He had been praying. God had seemingly been silent. In Habakkuk 1.2 "How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but You do not listen?" 

Habakkuk found out that God was working even though it did not appear He was. Serving the LORD, wrestling through these issues, shows us God i working all things together for our good, for us because we are the called according to His Purpose.

Psalm 100.2 Serve the LORD with gladness... The most content people are those! Filled to overflowing with joy.

The Servants Knew

The power of Jesus Christ.

The compassion of the Savior

The joy of obedience

Him!