Hello, saints. I would like to read from John 10 and remind us of a portion of Psalm 23.
As Psalm 23 begins, it says:
The Lord is my shepherd.
There is that phrase which many of us may have memorized. Then I want to read something from John 10 about the Lord as a Shepherd. It is John 10:11:
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep.
One more time:
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep.
Let us pray together.
Dear Lord, we come to You. We can confess freely how we have been Your sheep, and You have found us and rescued us. Lord, we worship You and thank You for the cleansing of the precious blood.
Lord, we thank You for laying down Your life for us, Your people, for Your sheep. We thank You for rescuing us, and also for not leaving us alone and not leaving us lost. We thank You for Your great love, Lord, and we trust in You.
We pray right now, as we are in Your Word, that You would fellowship with us, that You would share Your heart with us, and that You would lead us right now as our Good Shepherd. In Jesus’ name, amen.
All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. In Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 53, there is another famous set of passages that speaks about us as sheep, how all of us have sinned, and how all of us need a Savior. The sins of us all were put upon our Savior, the Lord Jesus. As the Good Shepherd, He has laid down His life for us.
I think this is something among Christians that is pretty well known. It is really our foundation: He died for our sins. If you are a believer, there is a strong amen in your heart.
Sometimes, if you are a God-fearer, like I was for years, you know this is true, but there is a disconnect. You know that He died for the sins of the world, but then you have your own personal sins. The connection needs to be that you take them and allow Him to cleanse you from your sins.
The experience of saying, “I am a lost sheep,” is known among every soul. But the experience of His dying for my sins personally happens when I bring them to Him. That is when you find out that He is a Good Shepherd. That is when you personally know Him as the Good Shepherd.
You know that He not only laid down His life for the sins of the world, but that He has also laid down His life for my sins. You know it in your mind, but you do not really know it until your heart is willing to bring those sins directly to Him and say, “Me too, Lord. Me too. Take my sins also.”
Sometimes you are kind of like a believer, but a believer with a big gap. You know that you were meant to be His sheep, but you are at that place of needing to be rescued. It is at that moment that you cry out with your bah. You are trying to cry out to the Lord: “Lord, me too.”
He hears your voice, and you begin to hear His voice as He comes, picks you up, rescues you, and saves you from your sins.
Not long ago, we were looking into this concept of shepherding and a phrase found in 1 Peter 5, where Jesus is called the Chief Shepherd. We borrowed that phrase to speak about how, even when believers do a little shepherding and care for one another, there is always the Chief Shepherd first.
He is in charge of every shepherding experience that we have. Even if I am called to love my brother, care for someone, call someone on the phone and pray with them, remember someone in prayer, or spend time with someone who is lonely and needs a friend, we connect with the Chief Shepherd. He says, “Amen, let us do this together.”
Sometimes it is easy to think of shepherding as a specific responsibility, or as something I am doing right now, and miss the fact that the Chief Shepherd does all the shepherding. It is the Chief Shepherd alone who shepherds the sheep—only Him.
When there is any real shepherding experience in the church, it is Christ Himself who is doing it. He may do it through somebody, but it is Him who is doing it. When it is some other kind of experience, there is something wrong about it.
Today we are going to look at how the Lord shepherds us, especially in this description of Him as the Good Shepherd. What is connected with Him as the Good Shepherd is that He lays down His life for His sheep.
If you pair those two things together, “the Good Shepherd” especially has to do with how He lays down His life for the sheep.
If you think of a good person, the way we use that phrase is not always the way the Bible thinks of a good man. You might think that a good person is someone who does not sin much, or someone who does good and has been good. But the Bible makes a distinction between a righteous man and a good man.
For example, Romans 5 speaks about how God loved us even while we were sinners. It says that scarcely for a righteous man would one die; perhaps for a good man someone would dare to die.
A righteous person is right before God. But a good man is good toward other people. If someone has done good to you or to others, your heart is touched more deeply. That goodness has to do with what they have done for others, perhaps even how they have laid down their life for other people.
So when we speak about the Lord as the Good Shepherd, we are especially thinking of Him in what He has done: He lays down His life for the sheep. He laid down His life for the sheep historically on the cross, but He is also regularly, right now, the Good Shepherd.
The Lord is my shepherd.
This is something all of us can say today. It is not merely, “The Lord was my Shepherd.” It is, “The Lord is my Shepherd right now.”
As a believer, you not only have the foundation that He died for you and rose from the dead; you also know the goodness that the Lord has done in your life this week. You know how He has been praying for you. Hebrews 7:25 says that He is alive right now, risen from the dead, active, and praying for you.
He is also the Good Shepherd because He does good things to us, even tangibly.
Now, how does He do it today? He has ascended and is at the right hand of the Father. The way He does much of His goodness today is through the church, through His body. The church is called the body of Christ.
When there are His hands, His feet, His mouth, and His eyes, He works through the church. Part of His shepherding us now is that He does it through the church.
Who is the Good Shepherd? Christ.
If you experience being part of the body of Christ, you experience the flow of the Good Shepherd working through you to do some goodness for others. That goodness often means that you lay down your life a little bit for the brethren.
I am the good shepherd: I lay down My life for the sheep.
This is the way of the Lord.
There is a similar verse in John 15. It describes an experience where life is laid down for us, and we are also involved in this. John 15 is about abiding in Christ:
Abide in Me, and I in you.
There is this abiding experience where you are in the Lord’s presence, and His presence is in you. His life is in you, and He lives through you.
In John 15:12, He says:
This is My commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you.
Then He describes how He loved us:
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Ye are My friends, if ye do the things which I command you.
The way He has loved us is that He laid down His life for us. He calls us His friends.
If the Lord laid down His life for you, then you are His friend. He laid down His life for His friends. You get to experience that, and you can say, “He has called me His friend.”
But at the same time, He commands us to love one another. He says, “You are My friends if you do what I command you to do.” There is a double friendship experience here.
First, I have received His friendship. He laid down His life for me. That means I am His friend. I know I am His friend because He died for me and brought me near to Him. He is the Friend of sinners, and He has brought me near as a friend.
Then He says, “Be My friend. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” What has He commanded us? To love one another in the same way that He loved us.
The way He loved us was by laying down His life for us. Therefore, He commands us to love each other by laying down our lives for one another.
We are constantly receiving His friendship and realizing that He laid down His life for us. At the same time, there is a response. We love Him back, and we are glad and appreciative. But there is another response because we hear His command: “Do this. Do the same thing. Love the others. Lay down your life for them. This is the way that I have loved you.”
The call of the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep is also a calling for us, as sheep, to join in His shepherding and lay down our lives for one another.
One more similar verse is 1 John 3:16. This is a great one to memorize, just like John 3:16.
Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Here is how we know love: He laid down His life for us. Do you know that love? Can you say, “Yes, I know that love. He laid down His life for me”?
Because He laid down His life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Let me overemphasize this point: it is not only the Christian experience of receiving the love of God through His laying down His life for us. That seems like everything, but there is also a joining in the flow of that love.
He wants to flow His love through us today. He wants us to experience more of Him, more of His life in us, walk together with Him, and lay down our lives for the brethren.
The next verse brings this down to a practical level:
But whoso hath the world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him?
The world’s goods might be clothing, money, or a place for someone to stay. You have something, and you see your brother in need, but you close your heart to him. How does the love of God abide in you?
When there is goodness to do and you run from it—when you do not want to answer the phone call, do not want to help, and hide from the need—is the love of God resting inside of you?
The flow gets cut off, because part of the flow is that I have received love and now it is to flow out of me. We lay down our lives for the brethren.
The Good Shepherd’s goodness has to do with what He does for us—especially His finished work of dying on the cross, but also His present laying down of His life for us. This call to lay down our lives for one another brings us into the work of the Good Shepherd and into the love of the brethren.
When I think of the phrase “the Good Shepherd,” I immediately think of Luke 15, where the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine and goes after the one sheep. This almost belongs with the concept of the Good Shepherd.
But Luke 15 begins with people grumbling. They are upset that Jesus is eating with sinners and spending time with tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees and leaders of Israel were trying to do what was right and not break the rules. Yet instead of spending time with them, Jesus was spending time with absolute, known sinners.
Then He tells three stories of something lost: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. In every story there is rejoicing when what was lost is brought back. There is a realization that, to God, when something is found, He is filled with joy.
But what about the ninety-nine sheep? Have you ever felt bothered when the Lord is focusing on someone else and not on you? Or when another believer is caring for someone who is needy or brand new, and you would rather those believers pay more attention to you?
I have felt this way before, and I have seen it happen many times. You can be bothered and think, “What about me? I feel left out. All this attention is on this wandering sheep. Why spend so much time with that person? I am actually showing up. I am doing all these things.”
You may think, “Why spend hours with this person who is not even around much, or who is sinning and messing up?” You get bothered and almost jealous for other people’s time and attention. That is the feeling of the ninety-nine.
Then you ask, “Lord, what about the ninety-nine? Are You just leaving them in the wilderness? Who is going to take care of them? Who will protect them? What about the rest of us?”
But our whole picture of the story is backwards. Our mindset is missing where we are in the picture.
All of us have the foundational knowledge that we are the lost sheep. Even if you are a Christian and doing really well today, even if your outward sins seem minor, you know that you have been the lost sheep and that He found you.
You know about the rejoicing at salvation. We remember that when we remember the Lord. But sometimes you do not feel it because you feel that you have been doing pretty well compared with someone who is really sinning.
That person may be an unbeliever, or perhaps a believer who is wayward and walking at a distance. But remember this: you are actually the one. You are always the one. You are never part of the ninety-nine.
To think of yourself as part of the ninety-nine is the wrong mindset. In this story, Jesus calls the grumblers the ninety-nine—the ones who were saying, “Why are You eating with sinners?”
All the sinners are the ones who need a Savior. Do you need your Savior? Yes. Do you know that you need a Savior? Then you are part of the one.
Even if someone else needs rescuing at this moment, you have been the one, and you are currently in need of your Savior, no matter how well you are doing. You need Him every hour.
Every failure helps you realize, “I am that lost sheep. However good other people think I am, I know I am the lost sheep. Thank You, Lord, for saving me again today.”
You may be about to sin, but the Lord saves you. Call on His name, and He saves you. You overcome and conquer. What were you? You were not the ninety-nine. You were the one whom the Good Shepherd rescued in that moment.
There is another place to be in this story: in the rejoicing. As the Shepherd brings back the sheep, the angels rejoice. In the next story, when the woman finds the lost coin, she calls her friends, and they rejoice with her.
We are also called to be the Lord’s friends. Remember John 15: you are His friends if you do what He commands you.
It is as though the woman’s friends were in on the searching. They knew what was happening. So when she called, there was rejoicing with everybody.
It is like that with the Lord. He shares with His friends what He wants to do. He shares with us, “I want to rescue this person.”
When a sheep is sick and needs extra attention, we are called to be the friends of Jesus. We may be directly involved, but we are also part of the team that prays. We care that the person is rescued, and we rejoice when the Lord says, “They are back. I found the coin.”
What is it like to be a friend of Jesus? Abraham is described as the friend of God. When God was speaking about Abraham, He said:
Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do?
That is the friendship experience. He shows you what He is doing because He knows that you know His heart. He shows you because you might pray for what He is praying for.
Abraham prayed for the city where his nephew Lot lived. Lot was righteous, but he was in a mess. He was surrounded by sin and tormented in the city where he lived.
Abraham was not jealous that God was speaking to him about another city. He was not saying, “What about the area where I am? What about me, God?” Instead, he prayed, “Lord, have mercy. Do not destroy this city if there are righteous people there.”
God rescued Lot and heard Abraham’s prayer. That is the friendship experience.
It was similar with John the Baptist. His disciples saw more people going to Jesus, but John did not become jealous. He said:
He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, that standeth and heareth Him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.
You may find yourself on the side, but you are not really on the side. You are on the team. You are His friend.
In the Good Shepherd’s work in the church, whenever you are not the one in the immediate experience of lostness, you draw near to the Lord as a friend. That is the difference.
If you find yourself bothered, jealous, or neglected, look to the Lord and say, “Lord, let me be Your friend.” Otherwise, you lean toward the mentality of the ninety-nine: “Why are You spending so much time helping sinners instead of me? Why am I neglected?”
The Lord wants to bring us into a fuller shepherding experience. First, you are rescued. Then, you become His friend. You become part of the rejoicing team.
Consider the lost son. The father goes out, receives him, clothes him, brings him home, and there is great rejoicing in the household. But the older brother is bothered.
He says, in effect, “I did not get the fatted calf. No one is excited about me because I showed up to work today. I have been here daily with you, and You are not doing all this for me.”
That is the feeling of those who consider themselves righteous but have not shared the heart of the Father.
What if the older brother had been part of the prayer team with the father? The father had surely been praying daily for his son. As he watched for him, he must have been praying.
What if the older brother had stood beside the father and said, “Father,” and the father had said, “Son, let us pray for your brother”? If they had prayed every day, what would the older brother’s experience have been when his brother returned?
He would not have been bothered at all. He would have been there with tears in his eyes, rejoicing with his father. Together they would have embraced the brother who had returned.
When you join the heart of the Father, you are not thinking about yourself. You have been praying together for the lost person. When they return, you rejoice together. You become part of God’s experience as He is the Good Shepherd bringing someone home.
Another experience of the Good Shepherd is when the shepherd goes to take the lost sheep, places it on his shoulders, carries it far, and brings it home.
Sometimes we are part of this experience as the body of the Good Shepherd. In 1 Corinthians 12, there are many members and many parts of the body, with different functions. Yet Scripture says:
So also is the Christ.
We know Christ as the Man who died on the cross, rose from the dead, ascended, and is at the right hand of the Father. But there is also Christ in connection with the body of Christ, the church. His life flows in the church, and His hands and feet, in a spiritual sense, are His people.
He wants to rescue a lost sheep through the voice of someone who says something helpful and shares the Word with them; through the feet of someone who goes to help them; and through the hands of someone whose kindness touches their heart.
Sometimes you are not merely waiting at home to rejoice when the sheep returns. The Lord may directly use you in laying down your life—to walk, find, and rescue; to bear a weight on your shoulders; to bear one another’s burdens in love.
You feel the burden of the Lord as He carries that lost sheep on His heart. As He prays for them, you pray for them. You bear that burden and help bring them home. Maybe it is through prayer. Maybe it is through speaking with them and sharing with them.
Because you are on the Lord’s side and part of the Lord’s body, it is still Him who is the Good Shepherd. Even the lost sheep can say, “The Lord has rescued me. Yes, He used this brother or this sister, but the Lord Himself is my Good Shepherd.”
That is how it should work.
There is another time the ninety-nine are mentioned in Matthew 18. Jesus again speaks about how God cares for the one and how a shepherd goes after the one. But the context is different.
The disciples are asking who is greatest in the kingdom. Jesus says that they must become like children. He speaks of the children’s angels who always behold the face of the Father. God cares greatly for these little ones.
Then the Lord turns this toward His people. All of His people are like children to Him. He warns against causing one of these little ones to stumble. He is not merely speaking about children in age; He is speaking about all His people.
Then He speaks of the shepherd going after the one. There is much offense and stumbling in this world, but if you would become great in the kingdom, you realize that you are that child whom He cares for.
Then, after the story of the ninety-nine and the one, He says that if someone sins against you, go to your brother so that you may restore him. That is going after the one.
It is not only that you are the child who needs care and whom God cares for deeply. You are also brought into going after your brethren to restore them. This is laying down your life for them.
It includes forgiving someone and not being bitter. It includes compassion: “I actually want to restore this person, even though they did something wrong to me.”
That is just like Jesus. He laid down His life for us while we were sinners and while we were His enemies.
Let us return to John 10. The Lord tells a story that the listeners did not understand, and then He explains it.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
When he hath put forth all his own, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
Then Jesus explains in John 10:7:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
This is a major principle of shepherding: the only way is the Lord Himself. The only way anyone is saved, rescued from lostness, or delivered from darkness is through Jesus Himself as the door.
Jesus continues:
All that came before Me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
I am the door; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, and shall find pasture.
If someone comes in another way, it is something different from Christ. There are ways to help people that do not include Christ, but it is like stealing. You may temporarily fix someone’s mindset so they can function in life, but they remain lost. They are not saved.
Something foundational for us is this: however you help someone, bring them to Christ. Bring them in through Christ. Everything has to go through Him as the door.
It does not matter if you understand psychology or know how to repair someone’s wrong mindset. If it is not through Christ, you may temporarily help them function, but they are still lost.
John 10:10 says:
The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
We know that the thief is Satan, and that the Lord gives life abundantly. But let us look at this in the shepherding experience. Jesus has also said that those who come another way are thieves and robbers.
Satan destroys deliberately, but sometimes believers accidentally become like thieves. When we help people apart from Christ, we rob them of something.
If you steal money, it becomes your money. If you steal a bicycle, it becomes your bicycle. If you steal a sheep, does it become your sheep?
That is what can happen in disciple-making or shepherding when Christ is not the door. You spend much time with someone, but not for Christ’s sake. They become attached to you instead of attached to Christ.
You are not meant to become someone’s walking stick or crutch. The only true walking stick is Christ Himself.
You have your limitation. You are not meant to lay down your life until you become their Christ. You are meant to lay down your life with the Lord, with Him as the door, so that they may have life and find Him as the One who rescues them.
This creates safety. Someone may cling to you, but you can say, “Do not cling to me.” It is like John in Revelation falling down before an angel, and the angel saying:
See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee… worship God.
When you help someone in the Lord, and they have been lost and find Christ, they may first see you and say, “You are awesome. You are amazing.” At that point, you can either steal from them and damage their spiritual life, or say, “No, no, no—not me. I am just like you, a lost sinner who has been rescued.”
Then say, “Let us go to the Lord in prayer. Let us go through the door. Let us thank the Lord for rescuing you and enlightening you about this problem.”
You get on your knees together, and they say, “Thank You, Lord.” Suddenly, they are connected directly to the Shepherd. It is beautiful. Their lives are not destroyed; they receive life and have it more abundantly.
You did not steal the sheep or the glory of being the Savior. You did not rob them of the goodness of finding Christ. Instead, you blessed them. You were not helping them in order to get something out of them.
The whole heart must be: bring them through the door. The Lord is the door. That is the safety experience: are they finding Christ?
When helping someone first find Christ, make sure they are not merely changing their lives in order to attend church meetings every week. That does not truly rescue them. It may make us look good, but that would be like stealing and destroying.
If I can get ten friends to come to my Bible study group, then my Bible study group is big. Great. But is that my goal? Is that what I am after? No, it cannot be.
I want to bring them through the door, which is Christ. It is not enough to do other things. It is not enough merely to change their lives.
Sometimes this happens when helping teenagers. A teenager may be messy, funny-looking, and need a lot of outward change. It would look nicer if we quickly fixed how they looked and behaved. They might look more like sheep.
But that is a temptation. We have to emphasize helping them find Christ, even while they look funny. Christ will clean them up. Christ will deal with what is wrong. Sometimes we do need to speak about practical things, but the point is that we are always finding the door, which is Christ.
Jesus says in John 10:11–13:
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep.
He that is a hireling, and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, beholdeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth.
And the wolf snatcheth them, and scattereth them.
He fleeth because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep.
The sheep do not belong to the hireling. He sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep. It makes sense: “I am not paid enough to fight a wolf.”
If you are working a cash register and a robber comes in, you might say, “I am not paid enough to fight this robber.” It is not your business. It is not your place.
The hireling is not truly concerned about the sheep. That is a major issue: not actually being concerned about the sheep.
Jesus says:
I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me.
We know the enemy and his darkness as wolves. In Acts 20, Paul warned the elders in Ephesus that wolves would enter among them. He even warned that some from among them would arise and draw the sheep away.
When the wolf comes, the sheep are scattered away from the Shepherd.
But what about those who serve for wages? They may help out, but they are not going to lay down their lives for the sheep. None of us are called to serve for wages when it comes to shepherding.
How do you know if you are serving for wages? Your service may be connected to a title, glory, praise, or sometimes money. You may think, “I am being paid to do this, so I will do it.” In some settings that may be rare, but the principle is real.
Even a title can be a wage. If you are called a missionary, a pastor, or a shepherd, then you may think, “I have this title, so I need to do this work.” But what if you have no title? What if you are not on a mission trip? How do you enter into shepherding then?
I remember going on mission trips in college. As a young believer, I had been preaching the gospel in my town. But on a mission trip, people who did little at home suddenly became enthusiastic missionaries, preaching the gospel everywhere.
I asked, “What got into you all?” They said, “We are on a mission trip.”
But what happens when you are not on a mission trip? It does not work if you only serve for wages. It works when the sheep belong to the Shepherd and you are on His team.
People sometimes ask, “Are you a missionary? Are you a pastor?” When I read my Bible on an airplane, people sometimes ask me if I am a pastor. I tell them, “No, I am nobody. I am just a believer.”
Believers read the Bible even when they are not pastors. We do not study the Bible merely because we have a sermon to preach or because we have a title. When it is true shepherding, it is the Shepherd who owns the sheep and cares about them.
We are naturally bent toward serving for wages. We tend to think, “I will do that if it is my turn.”
I think of Kenny Pittman. I used to be in his Bible study group, and eventually we told him, “You do not need to open the Bible study group ever,” because he prepared as if he were opening the study every time.
Maybe the rest of us prepared a lot when it was our turn to lead. Do you see the difference?
The Lord was teaching us: prepare as if you are leading, even when you are not given the title of leading the Bible study. Nobody was paying him to do it. I think it is this concept: you step into the Lord’s heart for God’s people and step into a responsibility mindset.
You do these things without it being your turn.
To get out of serving for wages, we join with the Lord and become part of His rejoicing team. We become part of His prayer team. Something changes in our heart, and we become concerned about the sheep.
Normally, we are not concerned about the sheep. You may naturally have a big heart or be an outgoing and loving person. But genuine concern for others is hard to find.
Paul said of Timothy in Philippians 2:20:
For I have no man likeminded, who will care truly for your state.
Timothy genuinely cared how the Philippians were doing. Paul could ask someone to join him on a mission to Philippi, and they might initially have the experience of serving for wages: “I am on a mission trip with the apostle Paul. I had better live right, speak right, and help.”
That is not necessarily bad, but something deeper needs to happen.
They are daily on their knees with Paul. They hear him pray, sense the Lord’s prayer, and begin to pray with Paul. Timothy was daily praying with Paul. Gradually, Paul’s concern for the believers in Philippi became Timothy’s own concern.
He genuinely cared for those sheep. He was with the Shepherd, and the Shepherd’s heart was in him. He would lay down his life for those sheep. He would spend time and prayers for them, not because he had a missionary title, but because the Shepherd’s life was in him.
You can notice that you are serving for wages when you do things differently because people are watching or because you have suddenly been given a responsibility.
Sometimes we receive an email with a Scripture portion for the next day’s breaking of bread. It is wonderful when someone prayerfully takes it up. You can often tell from their prayer that they read the passage on their own time. They came in as though they might have been sharing the opening word, though nobody assigned them that task.
They were not serving for wages. They simply took it up.
That is the kind of thing the Lord leads us into. He brings us into a mindset where we care with genuine feeling about what is happening.
If you have no care for something, begin to pray for it.
I have mentioned before that I had no personal concern about a sisters’ meeting because I would never be there. But when I prayed with the Kongs in the morning for the sisters’ prayer meeting, I began to care genuinely about how it went. Otherwise, it was merely something on the board.
Prayer brought me into the Lord’s concern.
The Lord says in John 10:14:
I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me.
To remember everyone’s names in a church gathering is to pray for those people. To know people is to see that they are the Lord’s sheep and begin to know them.
If our prayer is merely general—“Lord, bless this Bible study”—but then we show up and see people without knowing their names, that is not the Lord’s way.
The Lord sees every person as the one. He does not see us as the ninety-nine. He sees every one of us as having a name. You are known, cared for, and loved.
As the Lord brings you into this experience, in your measure, there will be people you really know and have genuine concern for. Our capacities are different, but I think the Lord gives everyone the capacity to care about one more person—to pray for one more person beyond themselves.
As you pray for that one person, you begin to know them. You may not know all that is happening in their life, but you know them because you know the Lord’s heart for them. You may know more about them than they know about themselves, even if you have not yet learned their favorite color.
Perhaps the Lord puts someone on your heart, and you pray daily for them. Then, when you sit down at a meal with them, you become a good listener. You hear them speak about their hobby, and you genuinely care how they are doing.
You are not merely putting up with their interests until you can talk about the Bible. You genuinely care because you care about that person.
The Lord numbers every hair on our heads. He knows every detail about us. He knows what you like, and He actually cares. He cares that you like to walk in the woods. He cares that you like to look at birds. He cares about these things.
As we begin to pray for people, He shares that same Shepherd’s care with us. We join Him and become people who care, at least for the person He has placed on our heart.
You may not need to enjoy their sports team or all their hobbies. But when you listen, you genuinely care. If they are involved in something sinful, you care with sorrow rather than merely saying, “You know that is bad, right?” You may even have tears because you see that something is entrapping them.
You know their name. This is what the Lord is bringing us into.
Jesus continues in John 10:
Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again.
No one taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
Jesus is speaking about what was coming: by His own authority and choice, He laid down His life on the cross. Then He rose from the dead.
He laid down His life, but His life overcame death. His life came forth more abundantly, so that He could share His life with others.
Laying down our lives for the brethren is not mere death. It especially includes resurrection. You spend yourself and become spent, it seems, but what happens is life. Other people come back, and that becomes your greatest joy.
Your greatest joy is when a sinner repents. There is no greater joy than when an unbeliever you have been praying for comes to Christ. It can feel even better than your own salvation. Or when a wayward Christian who has broken your heart comes through, it is such a great joy.
As John says:
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
That is resurrection life flowing from laying down your life for others.
When, in Matthew 18, the brother who sinned against you is restored, you get your brother back. That is life from the dead. You receive fellowship with that person again. It is resurrection life.
The Lord died on the cross for our sins, but He also rose from the dead so that we could receive eternal life and have life more abundantly.
This Good Shepherd experience involves much time spent laying down our lives for the brethren, but we receive back. It does not always come through the response of the person we are helping. Many do not respond. The Lord has died for many in this world who never respond and never believe. This is the sorrow of God’s heart.
But when we lay down our lives for the brethren, we do it with the Lord. What does the Lord do with us? He gives us resurrection life.
If He is with us in it, and we are not doing it for wages, glory, or some other gain, He makes sure to share fellowship of life with us.
Paul says in Philippians 3:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death;
If by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.
The two always go together: fellowship in His sufferings and the power of His resurrection.
There is death. There is laying down our lives for the brethren. But this is how we, as sheep, are fed. The way we grow while walking with the Lord is by experiencing the laying down of our lives for our brethren.
Jesus said that if you are going to be His disciple, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him. A major part of this command is to love one another.
Ye are My friends, if ye do the things which I command you.
This is My commandment, that ye love one another.
When we love, we love as He loved us. The way He loved us was to lay down His life for His friends.
This is not a heavy thing. It is where you will find your feeding, your joy, and the abundance of life. With even a little laying down of our lives for the brethren, the Lord shares His resurrection life with us. He makes sure that we receive the needs we have.
If you stand to the side and say, “What about me, Lord? Why are You paying so much attention to this person? What about my needs?” the Lord may be redirecting your attention.
Peter had been a fallen and wayward sheep. He had been restored, yet he still seemed to be struggling. He went fishing, and it was as though he was saying, “Lord, what about helping me right now?”
The Lord said, “Go and shepherd. Go and feed. Go and do this.” That was Peter’s way through.
You may have needs. You may feel lost or be struggling with something. You may ask, “Lord, why do You want to use me to help someone else?”
What you find is that, in helping someone else, the Lord turns it around, and that is where your real help comes. Many times you are delivered from problems of sin because you help someone else who is sinning. It becomes your way through.
Stand in the place of rejoicing with God. Stand with the Shepherd and be His hands and feet. The Lord will meet all our needs as His sheep, and we will join in the joy of the Lord in the house of the Lord.
Let us pray together.
Lord, all of us like sheep have gone astray. We have gone our own wayward course. We cannot and dare not look around at anyone we know—at any fallen believer or anyone on a dark path—and think of ourselves as better.
Lord, instead we look to You and say, “Good Shepherd, rescue that soul. Rescue our friends. Rescue our family members who are struggling.”
Lord, we come to You and pray that You would share afresh Your heart with us. We pray that You would meet the needs of all those who have needs. Reach those who need to be reached.
Lord, share Your resurrection life with us, that we may be brought into this, know You, and know You in abundance as the Good Shepherd. In Jesus’ name, amen.