Download - Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church

Pentecost 9
July 26, 2015
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Eleven days ago Joe and Amy were in the hospital holding a newborn baby in their arms. They named him Asher. Today
they placed him into the arms of his Savior to give their son what they cannot not give him – the forgiveness of sins, shelter
from the power of the devil, and an eternal home in heaven. Joe and Amy will spend the rest of their lives taking care
Asher– feeding him, changing diapers, comforting him, disciplining him, and training him until he leaves home to be on his
own. But more than anything they will keep teaching him about Jesus and promises Jesus made to him in baptism.
Babies are some of the most helpless creatures on earth. They depend entirely on others for their basic needs and
protection. They depend on others to pick out the right food for them, clothe them, clean them, hold them, protect them, and
love them. Without such tender care they will become sick and die. There is no sadder sight than a child who has been
neglected and left to fend for himself. It can melt the coldest heart and move us to do something.
That picture of helplessness is what Jesus had in mind when crowds of people came to him. They were tired and hungry
and hurting in their souls. When Jesus saw them he saw helpless babies, sheep, who need someone to lead and care for
them. “When Jesus….saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a
shepherd.” Jesus did what a good shepherd does when his sheep are crying out for food and shelter – what any parent
does for his child. He gave them shelter, food, and love. “So he began teaching them many things.” Mark 6:7-13
Children need faithful parents who will be there for them and take care of them. Sheep need faithful shepherds. Through his
prophet Jeremiah God tells us how he works through shepherds - one to save his flock, and others to serve his flock.
1. The LORD works through a shepherd to save his flock
Jeremiah was a prophet during the final years of the independent kingdom of Judah. He served as God’s spokesman during
a time when the nation was falling apart spiritually and morally. This should not have been. These were God’s flock, his
people. He loved them as a father loves his children. From the beginning he’d supplied spiritual shepherds for his flock kings to govern and protect them, prophets to proclaim his Word, priests to lead them in worship, and elders to teach and
counsel them.
But over time most of these shepherds did not share God’s love for his people. Most were unfaithful. They forgot about the
people and used their offices and positions to serve themselves. Instead of teaching and proclaiming God’s Word and
calling the people to repent of their sins and turn to God for mercy, they did what permissive parents do. They told God’s
people what they wanted to hear and gave them whatever they wanted. They put God’s Word on a shelf and encouraged
the people to follow the false gods of the nations around them because they were appealing and popular and made them
feel good. But without the Word of the true God, the people were lost and their souls were drowning in false teachings. As a
judgment against them and as a call to repentance, God disciplined his children. He sent the Babylonians to carry them off
into captivity.
This was an awesome act of love. God cared what happened to his people. If the shepherds he provided would not lead
them, then God would do it himself. He would make them see the folly of mocking God and rejecting his Word. He would
work in them a hunger and thirst for his love again. He would turn their ears from the lies of the false shepherds and toward
his truth again. He would lift their eyes to heaven and move them to pray for his mercy and help. He would point them to his
promise of a Savior who would deliver them from the judgment of their sins.
God often uses the most dark and dreary times to make his most blazing and beautiful promises. That’s when we realized
how much we need those promises. That’s when they shine the brightest. Just when his people had been driven the farthest
from him and were blown like dust in the wind, that’s when God gave them hope and a future. He promised to gather them
together again under one Shepherd whom he would send to save his flock. “The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the
land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The
LORD Our Righteousness.” Six hundred years later that King, that Shepherd, came down from heaven to seek and to
save what lost. It took him all the way to a cross, where he finally laid down his life for the sheep. Jesus became their
righteousness by taking the eternal punishment for their sins and giving them all they needed to be pure and holy in God’s
sight. Jesus was the faithful Shepherd through whom God worked to save his flock.
You probably don’t remember it, but there was a day in your life when that faithful Shepherd picked you up in his arms and
brought you into his flock. He dressed you up in his righteousness through baptism and saved you from your sins. He made
you safe in his love. He has called out to you through his Word ever since. Yet you have never seen him. You don’t know
what his voice sounds like. You’ve never felt the touch of his hand. Instead, the Lord gathers and calls and leads his people
through human shepherds whom you can see and hear. He works through them to serve his flock by proclaiming and
teaching his Word.
2. The LORD works through shepherds to serve his flock
This was God’s promise through Jeremiah: “I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no
longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the LORD.” (v.4) Later the apostle Paul helped us
identify some of those shepherds in Ephesians 4, “He ….gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be
evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body
of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become
mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” He later told a gathering of elders from that church in
Ephesus, “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.”
Jesus’ apostles were some of the faithful shepherds whom God was promising through Jeremiah. Through them the Word
of the Lord spread everywhere and people from every nation, tribe, language and people were gathered into his flock. Down
to this day the Lord has continued to work through shepherds – pastors, teachers, elders – to tend our faith with his Word.
That Word alone has power to bring souls from death to life and keep our faith strong. As a parent tells his children, “I’m
here” when they are lonely or afraid – Jesus tells us, “I’m here” to assure us that we are safe in his care. No sin can
condemn us. Death, hell, and Satan cannot harm us. We hear his voice through the lips and voices of his faithful shepherds.
So pastors, teachers, and church leaders need to remember that they are stewards of precious treasures. The people
they’re called to serve are not theirs to do with as they please. They are souls for whom Christ paid the highest price. So “it
is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” (1 Corinthians 4:2) It all begins with how a
shepherd handles God’s Word. Shepherds are not allowed to trade what God says for their own ideas or opinions, or
teaching what’s popular or appealing but plainly untrue. God’s warning is clear: he will not be mocked. Every shepherd –
faithful and unfaithful – will answer to him.
This part of Jeremiah’s also reminds me that being a pastor, a shepherd, of God’s flock is one of the greatest privileges and
responsibilities a man can have. What an honor it is to announce the most important, amazing, life-changing message in the
world - that God has fully and freely forgiven all your sins. You belong to Jesus. You are never alone. You are his lights in
the world. You are on the way to heaven. I hear the Good Shepherd urging me to “Watch your life and doctrine closely.
Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (1 Timothy 4:16)
It’s also my duty to warn you to accept no substitutes for God’s Word, beginning with what I tell you. The children of Israel
did not hold their spiritual shepherds accountable. They did not require them to be faithful to God’s Word. In fact, they didn’t
want them to be faithful because that meant they’d have to hear thing they didn’t want to hear. In the end both they and their
spiritual shepherds suffered for trading God’s truth for Satan’s lies. Do not permit me or any other pastor to do that to you.
Encourage your pastor to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Good Shepherd so that you will always hear what is
right and not what is popular. Heed their warnings. Repent of your sins. Believe the gospel of forgiveness. God is working
through your shepherd! And pray for him and for all the pastors and teachers who are being trained in our schools and
seminary so they will be faithful shepherds of God’s Word for his flock, too.
Then you will be sure of your salvation and live in safety – safe from condemnation for your sins, safe from the Satan’s
power, safe from death’s sting. Lord, just as you saved your flock through a Shepherd, give us faithful shepherds to keep
them safe in that Shepherd’s care. Amen.