Your Soul Has a Shepherd

1 Peter 2:18-25 (MSG): 

18-20 You who are servants, be good servants to your masters—not just to good masters, but also to bad ones. What counts is that you put up with it for God’s sake when you’re treated badly for no good reason. There’s no particular virtue in accepting punishment that you well deserve. But if you’re treated badly for good behavior and continue in spite of it to be a good servant, that is what counts with God. 

21-25 This is the kind of life you’ve been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step. 

He never did one thing wrong, 
Not once said anything amiss. 

They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right. He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing. You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you’re named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls.

Transcript
Please forgive any errors in this automatic transcript. Thank you!

I'm going to read some statistics to you. They might be familiar to you, or it might be the first time you've ever heard them. This is, I'm going to call it the majority world. The majority Christian church is very persecuted even to this day. Now, perhaps you're you're not sure just how much though. Like, does that only happen in a few areas? Is that only in um, I know we're supporting Nigeria in our conference and certainly there's persecution going on there. That's why they've been on the prayer list. We're praying for those Christians, but it's it's more than perhaps we know. There's a mission organization called Open Doors. You can find them open doors dot org, and they explain or they bring light to the Christian persecution that happens in this world. A quote from the very front of their website says in Open Doors world watch list. Top fifty. So the top fifty countries facing persecution. Let that sink in. There are a top fifty list where Christians are persecuted. In those top fifty alone, three hundred and fifteen million Christians face high to extreme levels of persecution, three hundred and fifteen million just in the worst fifty face high or extreme persecution. Now here's the stats for you. Worldwide, that means about one in seven Christians are persecuted. In Africa, it's about one in five in Asia, it's more like two in five. I did a quick count. We have about forty five people here today, and we're going to watch this test in my mouth, which means about For every group of seven of us. One of those groups would be persecuted about. So if we pulled. If we went around here and we counted off one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, on and on and on again, one of us from each of those groups would be persecuted based on these numbers. And one in five, of course, is even more. That's what nine of us, or even more in Asia. Y'all are. Yeah, I have a math degree, but I'm struggling up here with math. It's a lot. That's the point. But that's a lot for for a group of a church where we don't really expect to have any problems on Sunday. Yes. Do we have some cautions? Yes, we have some some some security things we do just to be safe. We don't really expect to be persecuted like these churches do. When they gather, they expect something to happen in particular Nigeria since I've mentioned them. They're ranked number seven on that top fifty list. Christians especially converts from Islam living in states governed by Islamic law are also at great risk. Anyone suspected of blasphemy or insulting the Prophet Muhammad can be violently oppressed and even killed in vigilante mob attacks. And that's their day to day reality as Christians. Now, our reality here where we live is different. It is different. We are, like I said, statistically most likely, much less likely to be persecuted for our faith. But we also witness horrors in this world, don't we? In the last two weeks, there have been a couple heartbreaking news stories locally. A shooting involving teenagers in Thompson and sexual assaults involving teenagers in Grovetown. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. It might not be for religious persecution, but we see the evils of this world. And there it's whether it's be for one reason or another, they're they're there. What do we do with it? And that's really the question for us today. What are we as Christians meant to do when we are faced with such horrors, whether it be that persecution beyond in the majority world or here in just the the violence, it seems that comes with being a sinful person in a sinful world. What are we supposed to do with this? And what does Jesus have anything to do about it? Have anything to say about it? Two thousand years after the birth of the gospel. I think Peter steps boldly into this question. The context of his letter, of this part of his letter is to Servants. These are likely household servants in Roman, the Roman Empire, and they were persecuted because they were Christians. And so they were they were servants. They were doing what they were supposed to do. But because they were doing it as Christians, they were often persecuted, beaten, killed for their faith. And so Peter is encouraging these original readers, these servants, by telling them that Jesus took on a servant's body. He came into a flesh like theirs, and he was persecuted. He was beaten, and he suffered because he followed God. God sees them, and God will reward them, just like he did with Jesus. And Peter faced this himself. I don't think it came as any surprise to Peter that his life ended as a martyr. I don't think that surprised him one bit. I think he probably knew that from Pentecost, if I had to guess, he knew. He knew this is how it would end. But he knew who was on the other side, too. And so he knew a little something about enduring persecution. And so while we aren't beaten and persecuted for our faith, we are carrying wounds of living in a fallen world. And I believe Peter has something to teach us about how to endure in those times where we are just heartbroken by the world around us. The scripture, verses twenty two and twenty three. Oh, I used the message for this one because there's a few times where I just think Eugene Peterson's paraphrase just really strikes at the pastoral heart of the passage. And so that's why we did it today. Jesus never did one thing wrong. Not once said anything amiss. They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right. Jesus did nothing wrong. You could look around at other persecuted Christians and say, well, I guess maybe they could have done something because they're sinful humans. But Jesus did nothing wrong and he was killed for the faith he was birthing. He was killed. He did nothing wrong. And so of course, we should expect to suffer too. I love how it reads. It says in the message he was content to let God set things right. Or the NIV says he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly, the one who judges justly. If you ever wish you could get the one who judges justly to come down in a situation and speak for you for a moment like, okay, you judge justly. Can you tell us what's going on here? Are you on my side? Judges justly. But you know, Jesus didn't actually call him down. Jesus did not call the judge down in that moment. He was content to take the suffering because it was worth it. Imagine if you were Jesus and you were hanging on that cross, and there are people there who probably were sitting at your sermon on the Mount. They were people there who had celebrated you, who had put palm trees. Palm palm branches down on the ground on Palm Sunday. And now they have handed you over to be killed in a horrible way. Imagine what that must have felt like. Have you? If you've ever been betrayed by a friend, you probably have just a glimmer of an idea of what that feels like. Or a family member or somebody you thought you could trust. And then suddenly you can't. And Jesus hangs on that cross saying, father, forgive them, for they know not what you do. They know not what they do. I don't know about you, but sometimes in my moments of betrayal, forgive them is not the first thing that comes out of my mouth or my mind. It's often unsanctified, I'll put it that way. Not always the kindest, not my first reaction. And yet Jesus says, father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. I want to ask you a question. What would you say is the most significant part of the Christian journey? The most significant part? I'll give you some steps here. We have that moment of justification where we first receive salvation. We have a lifetime of sanctification, becoming the person God made us to be. And then someday in heaven, new heaven, and new earth we will have. We will be glorified. We will get glorified heavenly bodies. So what do you think might be the most significant part? It's almost like saying, what's the most significant part of being a human being? Is it most important when, when, when you were conceived? Is that the most important part of your life? Was it your birthday? We celebrate birthdays. It must be a big deal. Was it those milestones along your life, those things you can look back on and say, wow, those were some cool moments here. Which parts the most important? I don't think I can pick one, but I think that largely we as Christians tend to we pick justification. We say that that moment that you first received salvation is the most important part. But doing that's like celebrating a birth and then expecting someone to stay a baby. Even in the two years that we've been here, y'all have watched a couple babies grow up. They are not the same. They are not potatoes anymore. Y'all remember she was so little when we first got here. I think Savannah was, what, two months old? Two months old. Very, very little. Uh, I heard rumors that there was talk about how protective Phil was with her. And they're like, Phil, let somebody touch the baby. It's a big deal, but she's not that way anymore. Well, we're protecting her from everything. At two months old now, she's running around and someone's like, she's going to fall. And I'm like, she's got to learn. It's different. It's different. This is how we learn. Once you're almost two, this is how you learn. But we expect ourselves as Christians to stay babies that, oh, well, you know, I received Jesus, but Jesus wants more for you than that. Yes, birthdays are amazing. I was I was thinking about the birth of my kids yesterday, and it's just one of those beautiful moments for me, especially with the firstborn. And you're like, oh, I made this. And it's just it's beautiful and it's just beautiful. But I didn't expect either of them to stay that way. Now, there were moments I kind of wish they would because they were so small and they didn't sass me, and yet I wouldn't want to hold them back. Just like none of us want to hold our kids back. And God wants us to grow to. He wants to experience this Christian life. But that means growing from babies to being mature Christians. And this is what all of this has to do with this text. I'm coming back here, okay? We are not persecuted in the way the majority church is or the way this early church was. But we do run into friction when we act like mature Christians instead of baby Christians. The world is cool with baby Christians. Baby Christians are still quite worldly because we're still getting, you know, sin out of us. They're often quite worldly. They're excited and joyful, and they like those emotions. Those are cool baby Christians. We like those. Those are cute and they're easy and just so, so sweet. But then when when they start growing up and the Christians start acting like Christians, sharing the gospel, choosing to do good things instead of the former bad things they do, and then their friends are going, what are you doing? You're like a different person now. Yeah, you've been reborn. And we start learning what it means to share our faith boldly, to not be ashamed of what we believe. It's interesting that in our non persecuted culture, we don't see massive growth for the church. We see that more in persecuted cultures, because sometimes we let that freedom actually slow our growth. But it doesn't have to be that way. We can boldly share our faith. We can boldly go to God every single day and just say, I'm yours. What do you want to do with me today? And then be open to it. When he prompts you at work to go talk to somebody, you go do it. When he prompts you to go up to someone and say, ah, I think God wants me to pray for you. You do it. What's the worst thing that's going to happen? You pray for somebody. You start living out what it means to grow to be a Christian, and then you really start to look different from the world. And that does create friction in our world. No, not persecution, but friction. And yet those who suffer it might not be us, but it might be those that we don't witness to because we feel timid in our religious freedom. Isn't that isn't that an irony? But it it seems true. So we're going to deal with friction living in a world that doesn't look like who Jesus is making us into. Verse twenty five here says, you were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you're named and kept for good by the shepherd of your souls. I think I shared the story around Christmas, but I'm going to share it again. When we had those sheep out at Christmas at Cedar Rock and all the other animals for the live Nativity was super cute. I had this really unique perspective where, as y'all remember, my job was to sit in a chair and wait for the wagon to come up, basically preach the gospel through those images, drink a bunch of water, and do it again. That was, that was my job. And so while I was sitting down getting refreshed, I was watching these sheep. I don't just so you know, I don't really know anything about farm animals. I have heard sheep are dumb. That's what I've heard. And I watched the sheep wind itself around its little pole so tightly that it couldn't even get all four of its legs on the ground. Now, Crystal, who's not here. But she she was there. And she loves farm animals. And so I would just send her a text and say, hey, the sheep stuck again. And she'd go out there and she'd done. Oh, baby. She'd unwind them and just take care of him and love him. The sheep that she'd never met before. She was in that moment like a shepherd to that sheep. Caring for it, taking care of it. And we have a shepherd, too. I was talking to a friend about the shepherd and sheep imagery in the Bible. She goes, you know, I used to find that kind of insulting because sheep are kind of dumb. What does God think about us? Well, do we all tend to go back to those same old patterns that we know are not part of the Christian life. So we tend to listen to what we want instead of what we know God wants us to do. And yet God is so gentle. He he's I think he's a bit like Crystal was just unwinding that sheep, speaking kindly to it and helping it get all four feet on the ground again. That's what God does for us. He's the shepherd, the overseer. Another word for overseer is guardian. Jesus leads and feeds and protects us. He calls you by name. He knows your name. When we wander, he goes after us. Now we do have to listen for our shepherd. He's not going to force us to turn around. But when we do, he's ready and he wants to take us back to safety. Jesus watches over us. He stands guard. He bears responsibility for us. He protects not just our skin, But our soul. Now, I think a lot of us have stories where we think back to an incident and we're like, that should have probably killed me. And we know in those moments, God did protect your skin. But even when this flesh is gone, your soul will live on and will get a new body. And he protects that, too. Going back to the human baby image, he's nurturing you. He's helping you grow. And if you haven't been little in a while, or you haven't been around little ones in a while, growing hurts. I kind of forgot because, you know, I grew up. I left childish things behind, right? And now my four year old comes and just crying her little eyes out in the middle of the night because there's nothing to distract her from the massive growing pains in her legs. Also, she's getting really tall. And it hurts. But what I tell her is, I say, what do you think you're going to reach next? What do you think you're going to reach? Or I'll say, hey, I noticed you can reach this now. I know it hurts, but you're growing. And that way I'm a shepherd to her. And God's a shepherd to us saying, hey, I know this is hard. I know it's hard learning to be a Christian, to not be a baby Christian, but to grow. And then it's hard because everybody wants you to be a baby Christian, but you're growing up and I'm right here with you. And look at how different things are for you now. So I'm going to come back to our first question. What are we as Christians supposed to do when faced with such horrors and violence of our world, whether it's from persecution or not? And what does Jesus have anything to do with it two thousand years after the birth of the gospel? Let's start with the Jesus part. Think about what Jesus did in the face of horrors and violence and sin of the world he made in the face of evil, in the face of the beautiful thing he made being ruined. Jesus stepped into earth. Then, as Jesus was heading towards the cross, Jesus chose you. Jesus chose the Muslim terrorist. Jesus chose the attempted assassin. Jesus chose each of us heading towards that cross, knowing the betrayal that was there and chose us anyway. And then, as Jesus resurrects to new life, Jesus witnesses what it will look like for us to live as new people, as risen people. When we have that glorified body in his life itself, he shows us how to live it now and then in his resurrection, he shows us what's to come. That we will be resurrected too. And so what does Jesus say about the horrors and violence around us? He says that he stepped into them. He died for those people, for us. Even the worst person you can think of. If they turned to Jesus, he would accept them. It's a hard truth. Sometimes I think there are some people we feel much more comfortable thinking about them going to hell than heaven. That's a little blunt, but I think it's true for a lot of us. But not Jesus. He wants everyone to end up with God. So what about us? What can we do? What can we do in the midst of these horrors and this violence? Well, the first thing that I want you to do is pray for the persecuted church. When you think of the horrors, when you think of the violence, when you see it on the news, when you see it shared anywhere, pray for them and your prayer can be, this is terrible. And yes, it's why I must pray for him to have a revival in this or that country. Pray for revival. Pray for those Christians to be bold. Pray for your enemy. There are some incredible stories of people who once persecuted Jesus. By the way, Paul is at the top of that list. Who wrote, you know, half the New Testament. There are some incredible stories of people who were essentially terrorists, who had visions of Jesus. Yes. In a much similar in a similar way to what Paul had. And it changed their whole life. You know, that they had some friction after that, leaving behind that former faith that hated Christians. So pray for the persecuted church. Pray for your enemies. Any things that come up in the news that just breaks your heart. Just pray that somehow God would work through even this horrible thing to bring about good. Because if God can use the death of His Son to bring about good for everybody, we might not ever see it, but we can trust that he will even use horrible things for good. And then I want you to let Jesus wounds heal you. Let Jesus's wounds reveal the ways that you've been adapted to the ways of the world. Let Jesus wounds heal those broken parts of you that have been molded by the world. And you realize, well, this helped me for a time, but now I realize it was hurting me more. Let Jesus wounds heal those parts of you that are just so hurt, that are just so sad by the events of this world, or maybe even in your own family, in your own town. And how do you do that? Again, I would pray and I would read that. gospel story over and over and over again. See if Jesus can teach you what it means. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And then let Jesus heal your wounds and introduce Jesus to others through your wounds, through those really hard moments in life where you wondered where Jesus was. And then on the other side, you saw him. Or if you're going through one of those moments now being vulnerable enough to to show and display your own wounds to others and say, this is hard. I wouldn't choose this. And yet I can see God is with me and this or that way that can be really powerful for somebody questioning if God is good, if God really loves them. And you're saying, yeah, life's really hard right now, but I can see God loves me because of this and this and this, and I can tell he's here because of this and that and that, and it's still hard. But I trust my healer. So what do we do? We pray. We entrust ourselves to the healer. We entrust ourselves to the Shepherd of our very soul, who will guide our soul when we're on this earth, and will guide us all the way through to the new heaven and new earth. When we have those glorified bodies that are are perfect. We're the only one of us who shows any wounds will be the scarred hands of Jesus. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, your love is. I'm. I'm amazed by the depth of your love. The more and more I read scripture, the more I pray. I realize that your love is greater than I thought it was the previous time that I read the gospel story. When I realized that your mercy and judgment and wrath in some ways are all tied to your love. Your love wants justice to be paid for. And so you sent Jesus to us to do that. Because you want a relationship with us. God, your love is is more than I can comprehend. I ask that you would take all of us a little deeper in your love, that you would help us see how we're growing, even through pain, and help us realize that sometimes when we suffer challenges and tensions in this world, it's because we're actually acting like Jesus. We're doing the right things, and we look to you for approval. To you who judges justly. In Jesus name, Amen.