Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Acts 20:28-32
Pastor: Pastor Horton
Sermon Date:  April 21, 2024

Dear Fellow Sheep, Following Our Good Shepherd,

Last week, 12 hours after returning from our honeymoon, we attended a family funeral.  My uncle was called home to heaven.  He was a pastor and had 14 children the majority of them either pastors or married to a pastor.  Some of the grandsons and grandsons-in-law are pastors as well.  As you might imagine the church was packed and the hymns sung at full voice.  I wondered, with such a church full of ministers, what sort of extra-elaborate message would be shared?  What sort of profoundly deep sermon would be proclaimed?  And the presiding minister did a masterful job of taking us back to the basics of today’s lesson: my uncle, you, and I are sheep who follow our Good Shepherd to heaven.

Good Shepherd Sunday has a way of doing that, doesn’t it?  No matter who you are (or who you think you are), the picture of Jesus as our shepherd and we his sheep appeals to our childlike faith.  It returns us to our youth when we first were comforted by the love of God in Jesus and embraced this imagery, maybe even gazing upon a picture of the Good Shepherd.  Perhaps when you sing some of the familiar Good Shepherd hymns today you are transported back to those moments many years ago when a parent or grandparent taught you to sing “I Am Jesus Little Lamb.”  What a blessing to see with the eyes of faith, that Jesus is our Good Shepherd!

We also know that this picture of the shepherd and sheep was not lost on the Apostle Paul.  We catch up with him this morning following Jesus, trotting along life’s path, and on the end of his third missionary trip.  He is on the clock so to speak, and we’re told that he is trying to make it back to Jerusalem in time for the day of Pentecost.  As he sails full steam ahead across the eastern Mediterranean towards Jerusalem, the boat docks at Miletus, coastal port city to Ephesus.  And in Ephesus there was a church Paul was familiar with.  He had founded that church and had spent more time in Ephesus than any other church he started.  That congregational flock was near and dear to his heart.  Considering how close he was, and that it would be his last chance to see the believers in Ephesus, he sent word to the church leadership to come and visit him.

When they arrived, what did Paul hear from them?  And what did he see?  Was his beloved flock still following Jesus?  We don’t know what they said.  Perhaps not all the reports were good or some of the leaders he had worked with had fallen away.  What we do know is what he told them: “Always keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.”

Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  He is the one who bought us with his own blood.  Remember the Gospel lesson for today?  Independent of our ability to save ourselves, Jesus alone is the one who sacrificed and laid down his life for us on the cross.  Jesus alone took his life back up just as he said he would do.  Jesus alone had the authority to do so.  He alone was able to save us.  He alone gives us forgiveness and life with God!

The Good Shepherd is also the one who sets up under-shepherds as spiritual care-givers for his flock and points our eyes to this priceless gospel truth.  Called workers are the same sinners in need of Jesus’ blood and righteousness as you.  But the Good Shepherd has seen fit to graciously train and place mere humans into such positions to be blessings to your soul.  Our Good Shepherd’s guiding hand is in the divine call.  And that means that the work done, by church pastors and teachers, as well as leaders and parents, is work done to the glory of God.  It is done humbly yet with authority, with both gravity and yet abounding in Christ’s love – it is done to point your eyes of faith to Jesus.  So, if the church leader ever encourages you to return to God’s house it is not done to get money, or to shame you, or in a prideful spirit, but to save you.  When the pastor steps into the pulpit it is not for attention seeking or an ego boost, but to hold up the saving work of Christ.  And when a parent teaches their child to pray, as I remember my uncle speaking of my grandmother doing just thing for him, it is done to direct the eyes of future generations to Jesus who has saved us from our sins.  This is how Jesus continues to shepherd us – he uses us in his kingdom.  And there may be many ways he may be able to use you as well.

As Paul looked at the Ephesian shepherds, he must have felt mixed emotions.  There was joy that Jesus had purchased those many individuals looking back at him with his very own blood.  They were saved in Christ!  What joy!  Those leaders even traveled some 30 miles to be with Paul.  What a joyful reunion with fellow sheep in God’s flock!  As we are gathered here together today, we also can be joyful in Christ Jesus’ gathering us together in a unity of faith, and strengthening our commitment to him in his kingdom.  The Sacrament of the Supper unifies us in the same faith and with Jesus.

But there was also a word of concern, wasn’t there?  “Always keep watch…be always on alert.  Remember that for three years, night and day, I never stopped warning each one of you with tears.”  Paul’s passionate care of souls belonging to Jesus – that was very real.  Daily prayers and interceding and teaching were done for those sheep of God’s flock.

And that’s because the danger is very real for us sheep here in life.  Scripture is all too clear about our old adversary the devil prowling around like a roaring lion looking for you to devour.  I happened into a collection of clips online of zoo lions pouncing at small children the moment they turn their back.  Thanks be to God for the reinforced plexiglass separating them so that those lethal paws and teeth don’t have their way.  That is the danger from the outside, and there is danger within as well.  We sheep – we ourselves – like to go astray.  We are enticed away from the voice of our Good Shepherd by the sparkling sin that catches our eye, and off we go away from God into ultimate danger.  We think we were built to be free-range sheep.  We think we are perfectly strong.  We think we are ram-tough and can take on the forces of evil ourselves but are only really fooling ourselves.  We need help.  We need protection.  We need guidance.  We need saving when we go astray.  We needed and have received from God a capable, competent, and willing to-fight-and-to-die-for-us shepherd in Christ Jesus.

But Paul tells us about something else to watch out for: “I know that after my departure savage wolves, who will not spare the flock, will come in among you.  Even from your own group men will rise up, twisting the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.”  Wolves look to kill sheep.  There’s no other way to say it.  That is what they are there for: destruction.  Wolves become noticeable when there are those within the flock who do not want what the shepherd Jesus wants.  They may hear him and blatantly ignore his words.  They are there with the purpose of fighting against the will of Jesus and destroying the good shepherding that he does.  “Watch out!”

And how do we watch out as a flock of sheep?  Paul answers that for us today as he says goodbye to the dearly loved Ephesian flock:  Verse 32 “And now I entrust you to God and to the word of his grace, which has power to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”  Want to be kept safe?  Stay close to your shepherd through “the Word of his grace!”  Want to see the devil’s snares foiled and your enemies sent running by Jesus?  Be in “the Word of his grace!”  Want the comfort of the gospel?  The green pastures and quiet waters there with forgiveness in Christ?  Want your soul restored, renewed, and refreshed by Jesus?  Be in “the Word of his grace!”  Want your future generations to be saved long after you are gone?  Point their eyes to Jesus and how he has saved us in “the Word of his grace!”

There God utilizes his “power to build you up” and give you a saving faith, “and to give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”  That is where Christ Jesus is shepherding you to: eternal life in heaven with him.  That is where Paul is right now.  He would leave the Ephesian flock of believers and travel through some really dark valleys: his path with Jesus would lead him through a riot, imprisonment, shipwreck, danger, sword, and execution.  But his eyes of faith would remain on his Savior Jesus.  And heaven is his home.  And heaven is your home too.  Take heart and rejoice, fellow sheep, Christ Jesus is shepherding us to salvation.  Amen.