Sermon for Wyoming District Convention The Grammatical God Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Transcription

1 Sermon for Wyoming District Convention The Grammatical God Ezekiel 34:11-16, How different Christianity is than any other religion. Our founder is still alive. Our founder, though He died, lives and can never die again. The founder of Islam is quite buried. The founder of Buddhism is quite buried. The founder of Judaism, Moses, is quite buried. We just don t know where. The founder of Christianity is quite alive. We are the only religion whose founder continues to minister to the people of the religion. He has become the shepherd of all of the sheep. In the Old Testament, God sent priests, prophets, and kings. Those human surrogates for God, the shepherds of Israel were really inadequate. But why should that surprise us because the shepherds suffer all the same problems that the sheep have? The shepherds too are sinners. The shepherds too have their weaknesses. The shepherds too need the redemption that only this God can bring. Still today it s easy to point our finger at the shepherds and say, They have failed, they are wrong, they are incompetent, they have sinned. And do you know what? All of that is quite true; absolutely true. But we aren t left with mere human shepherds. We have that one great and good shepherd who lives forever, that He might live among His flock and guard and guide them. One word resounds 1

2 throughout this text in Ezekiel over and over again: I, I, I myself will lead them. We have a God who will never leave or forsake His children. He will always watch over them. He Himself will be our shepherd and we will be His sheep. We have the perfect leader. And thankfully we don t choose Him. That wouldn t work out very well. We don t do a great job of choosing our own leaders, do we? I think of Saul. People said, We want this dude, he s tall and good looking. How did that work out for you? Not so well. God has this habit of sending less-than-perfect shepherds. The shepherds who don t look the part, the shepherds who are weak, the shepherds who fail. Because they are sinners like the sheep. What s left then to us? Where do we go from there? The answer is very simple: To the ultimate shepherd, to the good shepherd, to Jesus, who lives. We hear amazing things in this text. We have to get the nouns and verbs all straight. We have a grammatical God. There is a good reason why my tenacious eighth grade teacher drummed into me the basics of English grammar, even though I argued that I already spoke the language well enough and did not need to lear the grammar of it. Oh yes, I did. I needed to know grammar because God uses it. The question is: who is doing the doing? Who is the subject of all of these sentences in Ezekiel? Well, it s none other than God. I, I, I Myself will be their shepherd. I Myself will find them when they are lost. I Myself will carry them home to the flock. I Myself will redeem them. I Myself will feed them. I Myself will bring them to their heavenly home. This is the shepherd we have. This is our God. And how amazingly this God acts! 2

3 In every other religion, the god requires your service. Here s what you do for me. Here s what you do to get in good with me. Here s what you do so that you can get into my heaven. Here s what you do to satisfy me. Here s what you do for me to consider you good. No such thing is taught in Christianity; or at least not in the Bible s Christianity. Unfortunately, there are lots of preachers out there that will tell you what you ve got to do to get right with God. That s not what the Bible says. The nouns and verbs have to be kept straight. In Christianity who is doing the doing? It s not me. It s not you. Because it won t work out very well, if it is. That s why God, the good shepherd, has to go out and find the sheep. He says, I come to seek and to save that which was lost! Lost! That which was lost.oh, how blessed it is to consider yourself The Lost. Why? Because you have a shepherd who seeks and saves the lost. The little lost sheep was brought back to the fold by the shepherd who carried him on his shoulders. After being placed in among his fellows they asked him, Where have you been? The little sheep replied, Oh, I have been out looking for the shepherd. He was lost. And as you can see, I have found him! The other sheep laughed at him because they knew who had been lost and who did the finding. Sometime people will say, I found Jesus. I reply, Oh, I didn t know He was lost. We are lost and we need to be found by Him. If you are too good to be found, if you are too holy to need finding, if you know the way, if you are your own way, if you are your own 3

4 truth, if you are your own life, you don t need this Shepherd. You do not need this God. You do not need this service. And you will be just fine taking care of yourself. I, for my part, am quite happy to be lost, because I know the shepherd seeks and saves the lost. The nouns and verbs have to be kept straight. The verbs are God s action. God s doing. God s seeking. God s saving. Now I ask you, if this is God s business, if this is God s doing; will it be done right? Will it be done well? Will it be done completely? Will it be done competently? Oh, let s look at the earthly shepherds. How will they do? Not so well. But, it doesn t depend on me. It doesn t depend on President Boche. It doesn t depend on Pastor Holthus. It depends on God. That s why when Jesus comes among His people after the resurrection, He repeats to them the word that he had spoken to them that all these things would be fulfilled in his life, his death, his glorious resurrection: Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Lk 24:46-47). The doing is all his. It is not our own. He runs the verbs. How beautifully his text speaks in prophetic perfect. Not just does He now, but he continues to seek and save the lost until that last moment. This is what it is to be God. The sheep are fed by the good shepherd. The 23 rd Psalm puts it so beautifully: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. This word follow means to pursue, even to chase after. Our Lord Jesus is always calling us back to Him, and 4

5 He is going to extraordinary, even humiliating lengths to bring us the holy Gospel. We are found by him and brought back to his flock. He brings us where he can give us safety and life. He beats off the wolf. He gives us, not just ordinary food, but the green pastures and still waters of His own Word. He comes and sets the table here for us in this place. Not with ordinary food; not merely with the bread of this world; not merely with the fruit of the vine; for these we have in our homes. But rather that bread which is His body and that wine which is His blood. The sheep then are fed on the richest of fare. They are given to drink in the life-giving blood of the eternal Son of God. We have heard the words of the gospel over and over again. And until we draw our ragged last breath we pray that our preachers will proclaim that same gospel again and again. We pray that we shall never tire of hearing it. But sometimes we become tone deaf and forget this; that God has fed us on Himself in this great Supper. That he has become our servant. That He has come to us in preaching and in his great sacrament. He has come to sinners. He s come to the lost. He s come to the weak. He s come to those who sorrow. He s come to those who feel the clouds of darkness surrounding them in their lives, who have struggles and trials. He does not cast us off. He does not reject us. He makes no demands. He says, Come to me all you who labor and heavy laden. I, I myself will give you rest. Oh yes, He sends the under-shepherds and they distribute the great gifts which He gives. They baptize, but they do not. He does. They preach, but they do not. He does. They distribute, but they do not. He does. The shepherd lives. The sheep receive all the benefits of his life. How blessed we are that the Lord lives. He is 5

6 the shepherd of his flock. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed Alleluia. Scott R. Murray, Houston Texas Wyoming District Convention