I'm going to be reading out of Matthew 9 35 through 36. Jesus went through all the towns and villages teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had come passionate men because they were harassed and helpless like she without a shepherd. And Matthew 18 12 through 14, what do you think if a man owns a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away?
Will he not leave the 99 on the hills and go look for the one that wanders off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier with that one sheep than about the 99 that did not wonder off in the very same way your father in heaven, not willing that any of his little ones should perish. The word of God for the people of God, thanks be to God. Okay so if you are anywhere close to my age, you were a child of the 80s, you know, you had probably Friday night TV rituals that you had.
So I'm going to give you a couple of hints to this one. So if I was talking to you about, I'm not going to say the first one because it's such a giveaway, I don't even know. Well, you raised your hand, we know what I'm talking about. So Basset Hound, CB radios, dynamite, tape to arrows, and cut off blue jean shorts.
We know what I'm talking about? The Duke's a hazard every Friday night. The Daisy Dukes became the name for your cut off blue jean shorts, right? Almost war some today but I decided not to.
I was not going to wear those. I'm just kidding. So dynamite on arrows, that was always funny because thinking about it now, I try to shoot this perfectly clean arrow into a target only 20 yards away and I'm all over the place sometimes. But Bo and Luke could strap on this huge stick of dynamite, you know, shoot it like a country mile, hits exactly where they're aiming to blow up at just the right time and save the day, you know.
So dynamite arrows, I'm still working on that one. But the CB radios is one of the things that was so cool about the Duke's a hazard back in the day. No, of course no one even cares now about a CB radio because I'm on the internet and I can do whatever. But back in the day, that was really, really cool.
And so I don't know if you remember some of the, if you're a CB guy, or if you were a CB girl or whatever, you had a handle, you know, you had a name for the CB, for the radio when you're on air, I guess, right? And so there was the mechanic, anybody remember the mechanic from the Duke's hazard? What is Bo's name? Cooder, Cooder.
When he got in the radio, he'll go, he'll go, break a wall and break a wall and I might be crazy but I ain't dumb. Crazy Cooder coming at you. You know, that was his deal, right? And then Daisy, hers was Bo Peep, that was her handle.
And then Bo and Luke, the boys, they were, remember what they were? They were lost sheep. So Uncle Jesse, who's the patriarch of the family, he was shepherd. Because you hear that every week, shepherd of the lost sheep, shepherd of the lost sheep.
What do you boys come back, come back, what do you boys do? Shepherd to lost sheep. Every Friday, shepherd to lost sheep. And so we have this idea in our heads, I think, sometimes of what a shepherd is.
So like with the little kids, if I ask you that question, if I tell you to draw a picture, a picture, draw a picture of a shepherd in your head, you begin to draw it a certain way, don't you? Like think about it, just for a minute, just pause. What's a shepherd look like? If you're doing it in your head, all right?
Think about that. So some of us might say that shepherd is kind, shepherd is gentle, right? Because you have the little lambs, maybe shepherds have, you know, they like cute animals, right? And they talk in their cute animal voice, oh, come here, you know, whatever.
I love your willy fur, whatever you go, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's what they do, right? That's kind of one image of the shepherd. And then we might have the image of the shepherd, like probably a lot of you went here, you went with Jesus with the shepherd over his shoulders.
I mean, not the shepherd over the shoulder, because that shepherd can't walk me. The sheep over his shoulders and carrying him back to the big flock. Some of you might have went all the Christmas version, you know, I mean, you all are a lot of Ricky Bobby's at heart. That's the shepherd you love best, maybe.
But you thought of the shepherds and the angels? I don't know. But that's what we kind of go there. I mean, I'm probably right.
That's where we tend to go when we think about the shepherd. But I want to read something to you. This is from the original shepherd boy. This is his description.
King David, when he was still young, this is like right before Goliath and his description of what a shepherd does. So if you remember the story, King Saul and the Israelites, they have this, you know, the armies and Goliath over there, they got to figure out what to do. And so Saul replied to David, because David shows up and he's like, I'm going to go take care of business. And he says, you're not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him.
You are only a young man and he's been a warrior from his youth. But David said to Saul, and listen, your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. And when a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.
Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. So yeah, a little different version of the shepherd.
The shepherd's going to reach in and save the sheep. Our men's group that meets on Tuesday mornings, we were talking about this a while back and we were on this exact story. The shepherd will reach in and save the sheep, ripping it away from the jaws of the lion or the bear. And then he says, when the bear or the lion turns on me, this is what I do.
I fight back. So shepherds may have a kind side to them, but they also have to be fierce. And this God that we serve is both kind and fierce. I mean, David is this example of a shepherd.
I don't know if you know how the shepherd, that part of the story ends when he faces off Goliath. The sword or the sling, the stone, the rock, the head. The story ends with David holding Goliath's severed head and declaring his tax-exemption to the rest of the Israelites, right? That was one of the rewards for killing Goliath, you and your family were tax-exemption.
So John Steele, one of our Bible study guys, he imported that out to us so funny. But that's how the story ends. He's a fighter. He's a fighter.
He's not just a cuddler. God is not just a warm blanket. He's a fierce warrior. He's a defender.
So another image, when I said shepherd, if we really would have raised hands and let people talk about it, if we were in an open discussion instead of having one joker up here dominating the mic, some of you would have said probably something along the lines from the 23rd Psalm, right? Because some of us in the room were old enough to probably when we were in Sunday school, we were taught to memorize that, right? The Lord is my shepherd. Yeah, what does he do?
Yeah, it makes me lie down in greed pastures, leads me beside squat waters. He restores my soul, right? Remember that stuff? What else does he do?
What else happens? Help me out. Yeah, he restores my soul. Yay, though I walk of the shadow of death.
They can look about it. I told you I was going to bounce today. I will fear no evil, for you are with me. You're Rod and your staff comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me. Goodness and mercy will follow me if you're child of the 80s like me.
That's the way you learned it. All the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Man, when I was little, I used to think that was the longest. Like, oh my gosh, the 23rd Psalm, what do you want me to do?
Like, come on, it's the Bible. And you read it now, it's six verses. It's six verses. And it so much sums up who God is.
Because in that, you really get the kind and the gentleness of God, right? You get that side of him, but you also see this fierce defender. He'll set a table before you in the presence of your enemies. He's not afraid.
And he leads you out of stuff into better stuff. That's the image we get him and he, the shepherd provides. He guides. He brings peace and he anoints.
And I think about that where you anoint my head with oil. Like lots of times, what we think about that is like an anointing for healing, which yes, God does that. And in the old days, that was a big thing. Anointing people with all of this is a sign of the healing that God was going to bring.
But they also anoint it. Who else? Huh? Warriors and kings.
Kings were anointed for leadership and a good warrior is going to lead. And kings were anointed for leadership. And David was a warrior king. That's kind of how he rose to his position.
He defeated Goliath and he had a heart for God. And so we're anointed for leadership. So he anoints my head with oil. I think a lot of times, well, as a third grader, I just thought that was weird.
But now thinking, you know, when you hear that a lot, you think about healing, which God does, but he also anoints us for leadership. And so I would make the argument that if you are a true follower of Christ, you've been called out of darkness into light and no doubt. And God is like, help you get rid of some demons and he's brought healing into your life 100% I agree. But if you stop there, you're not getting it.
He's also anointed you for leadership. In some way, somehow in some capacity, you are supposed to lead. That's part of the deal. And sometimes we flounder and sometimes we just kind of like the comfort of the flock.
But we're called to lead. We're anointed for leadership. That's part of who we are. And then I love the last line.
I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I sort of adopted that as kind of the end of my prayer for when I pray for my kids. They'll walk with Jesus all their days and dwell in his house forever. So when Mr.
Burdle was reading earlier, she read Matthew 9, 3 and 5. And I'm not going to read it again, but she did a great job. But I want to set the stage like that happens. Like that happens right when, after Jesus has done all these key healings.
He's healed the woman of the 12 year bleeding. He raised the girl who everybody thought was dead. And then he's like healing some mute guys. And then he kind of gets to this point where everybody's just crowding around him.
People are coming from all directions at this point in the ministry. Because they've sort of heard the voice of the shepherd. They've heard these rumblings of this shepherd who really provides, who really guides, who really annoys. And they want to go see him.
And Jesus looks out upon them. And it says he looks out on the crowds. And so the Pharisees would be in the crowds as well. And it's really easy for church people to go, well those dang Pharisees, yada, yada, yada, whatever.
You know, they're in the crowds too. And Jesus looks at all of them. And he says they're harassed and helpless. Like sheep without a shepherd.
All these people are coming to him because they are harassed and helpless. Even the Pharisees. They're harassed by their own pride. They can't get out of their own way.
Horsaste and helpless. Like sheep without a shepherd. For a sheep, that's like a place you don't want to be. It's without your shepherd.
Then you're in the danger zone. Then you're with the wolves and the bears. And you're not by the green grass. And you're not by the quiet waters.
And there is no table. And everything's crazy. And you're walking through the valley of the shadow of death or by yourself with no one to lead you through it. I love that line in the song, you know?
You walk me through the valley, but you've never steered me wrong. Oh my gosh. I mean, that's something to be excited about, right? I mean, I was thinking about like we were with the Thompson's son on Friday and just all the stuff that comes with that.
Being in surgery and thinking about cancer in your life walks with us through the valley, but he doesn't steer us wrong. I'm pretty good with that. Like if my life sucks, but God's going to kind of guide me through it. I'm okay with that.
I'd rather have that than not have him. Walks me through the valley, but it doesn't steer me wrong. So good. So, so, so what you think about this?
I want you to think about when you've been harassed and helpless. I want you to think about how that feels and harassed and helpless isn't just like you're walking down the street and someone's, you know, begging you for something or are you going to store and trying to get you to buy something or you are you calling into Verizon to finally get your wife's new phone activated and they're going, well, would you like a protection plan or whatever? You know, I mean, that's, that's, that's not what I'm talking about, right? Those are real things, but I'm, that's what I'm talking about.
When you're harassed and helpless. I mean, you know, you've been there before, whether that was at work, whether that was in your own family or maybe just the inner turmoil in your own soul, you felt harassed and helpless. If you've been a parent, you've been helpless or you've at least felt helpless before. Right?
We all have if you've been a parent. And sometimes we just watch that back and look at people and watch you feel helpless to act. So we've all felt that feeling. We've all been harassed and helpless.
We all want the good shepherd to swoop in, hook us, you know, with that staff that we were talking about earlier, bring us back in and, you know, carry us, throw us over his shoulders, set us down by the gentle brook, let us eat some grass, drink some water. That's what we want. And that's a great place to be. But now I want you to think about all those who you know who are harassed and helpless.
I want you to think about the flock that you might have charge of and those that are harassed and helpless. And what's your role in that? Because you're anointed not just for your own healing, but also for leadership. Think about those around you that are harassed and helpless.
Like kids today? Oh my gosh. Just by being a kid, they're harassed and helpless. Think about that.
Think about coworkers or someone in your own family, someone who's really struggling to figure out, you know, is this good shepherd thing a real deal? Is there really a God at all? Because it doesn't feel, I don't see any green pastures. The waters are not quiet on my street and my house and my family.
They feel alone and detached. And there's a song on the radio right now that she says, honestly, I think we just need Jesus. It's a great song. I love it.
But saying that and then doing something about it, those are two different things. It's easy to look at someone and well, you just need Jesus. If you come on Sunday at 1030, you know, maybe you might find him or whatever. It's easy to be like that or boy, they just need to get their lives straight.
But they just signed Jesus. Well, then they'd be good. But no, we're supposed to be part of that. We're supposed to be part of that.
So, and I want you to, Jesus kind of gives us an answer, right? So this is in John 10. This is also another one of those shepherd passages. You'll recognize these words.
Very truly, I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep in by the gate, but climbs in some other way is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him. And here's a big one.
The sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he's brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. They'll never follow a stranger.
In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice. I would just say this for us this morning about that is that just like we follow the voice of the good shepherd, like our voice matters. What we speak into people's lives is huge and we can call them to the good shepherd. By the way, the things that we say and the way we say it.
We don't want to be the voice that people run from. I mean, yeah, sometimes people run from God, but a lot of times what they're running from is someone else's version of God that God's shown to him and they don't trust it. It seems strange to them. But if we are like a good shepherd, like a good neighbor or a stake farmer is there, like a good shepherd, I didn't even plan for that when that just came in.
Like a good shepherd, right? Jesus is there. Oh my gosh, that's so cheesy. We got to be like that though.
People have to hear our voice and connect it to Jesus. Otherwise, we are wasting our time here. We just are. We have got to use this voice that God has given us.
Otherwise, what do we do? What are we doing? So at Foundry, there's two verses that are kind of like Foundry versus from way back. A wife told me the other day, you need to stop talking about how Foundry was or whatever.
That's exactly how John's voice goes. I'm just kidding. But she made a good point. But I will say this though, all right?
These two verses, they're from way back. I mean, I think maybe sometimes we've kind of lost them a little bit. One of them, the original Foundry verse, is Jesus became flesh and what? Moved into the neighborhood.
That's the original Foundry verse. And we literally moved into the neighborhood because we were at first we were in a small building and then we were in a gym. And it was a neighborhood kind of thing. It felt that way.
We were right by Thatcher or whatever, right by that area. So they were like, good verse. That's John 1, not a 1, 14, 1, 12 somewhere in there. The other one though, John 14, 12 is this one.
All right. One of you will recognize this very truly. I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing and they will do even greater things because I'm going to the Father. That's all in John 14.
That's just four chapters after all this good shepherd stuff. And Jesus identifies himself as a good shepherd and then he tells us and to the well, he tells us of the disciples specifically, but that trickles down to us that we'll do even greater things. We do what he has been doing. If we love him, we obey his commands, we do what Jesus does.
That's how the whole thing works. We're not the Savior, but we live like him in order to point people to him. We're not the shepherd, if that's how you want to look at it, I don't care. But if we're not doing that, we're missing the point.
We're missing the point. So if you remember the lost sheep story that was read up here earlier, chapter 18 of Matthew, the kids almost quoted it. If one wanders off, the shepherd is going to go find him. That's how it works.
The back story to that, just a few verses. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned into the depths of the sea. Listen to this. Whoa to the world because of the things that cause people to sin. Such things must come.
We live in a broken world. But whoa to the man through whom they come. Whoa to the man through whom they come. There's going to be sin.
But whoa to those who bring it. And the living God who's about the kind and gentle shepherd, but also a fierce warrior, if he tells me whoa to the man that brings sin, that ought to have my antennas up. That ought to make me listen because I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to cause people to stumble in the sin.
So then in fact, we're supposed to do the opposite. Instead of leading them into sin, we are to lead them to the shepherd. So I want you to think about how that lost sheep story might be playing out for you this week. Are you the lost sheep?
Do you need to listen for the voice of the good shepherd on the radio calling you back? Or are you the one, the shepherd, the assistant, the one who is like the one who is like the one with the good shepherd who will go to those lost sheep? I promise you, you fit in somewhere in that story. You like the sheep or you like the shepherd.
You might be like the one who enticed the sheep away. And I know we're in church. Nobody wants to say that they've done something like that before. And yeah, openly and blatantly probably nobody has in this room.
Maybe I don't know. But kind of sorta in a backdoor way by the way we talk or by what we say or how we respond to people. Maybe we have sorta led to the way. And it's our responsibility to go find them.
And it's also our responsibility if we're really the church of God to think about who is harassed and helpless in our neighborhood that Jesus has moved into and go to them. Bring them to the good shepherd. So wherever you are in that story, and I guarantee you, you and I are somewhere in that story. If this is really the living word of the living God, then we should figure something out about this.
We should act. Because to me, of all the descriptions of the shepherd, that's one thing that they all have in common. He acts. He does not sit idly by.
He does not wait for someone else to do it. He goes and does it. Whether it's helping a sheep just gently back into the fold or whether it's ripping the sheep out of the jaw of the lion. He acts.
In some situations he goes after the lion or the bear or the wolf. So we have to act. You're somewhere in that story today. You are somewhere in there.
And man, I would hope that that's your prayer this week. That you would live out your place in that story. And I want to just go back to those verses of that song real quick. And I know already said it, but you're the, you may be the sheep in your own story.
And we all really are. We're the sheep in our version of the story. But in someone else's story, you're the shepherd or you're the wolf. You got to figure that out.
You got to act. You got to do something. And so today, like, let this be the day to you do something about that. So I've been turned around, but I've never been lost.
We've been in trouble water, but we walked across. My knees are shaking, but you held my hand. I love this line turning my problems to the promised land. And that's where we want to think, oh, gosh, this is so terrible.
Now, that's not, that's not how God works. He flips it. He infinity canyons that He brought me through mighty big mountains that just up and move, walking with my father into the great unknown. Step by step, day by day, road gets dark, walk by faith, you walk me through the valley, but you've never steered me wrong.
I turned 53 a few days ago, and the only thing that I know, the only thing that I know is that in all my life, this is the one constant, one consistent thing. If I was ever cognizant of God's hand, He's never led me in the wrong direction. Now there have been times where I've just paid no attention to him. There have been times where I thought I could do it myself.
There have been times where I was so focused on the massive mountain or the troubled waters that I wouldn't even listen to the voice of God. But anytime that I have in any situation, and I've been in some pickles like some of you and you have experienced before, things haven't always gone well. He has never steered me wrong. Not once.
He has his perfect unblemished record. Last thing I'll pray. So remember the Titans famous football movie, whatever. There's a scene in there at the end where they're in the locker room at halftime and they're trying to find a way to win the game and the one guy says, you know, we're not perfect.
But you've demanded perfection from us. He's talking to Denzel or whatever. And then he says, but as a team, we are perfect. They hadn't lost the game to that point.
Church is not up. The flock of sheep is a bunch of imperfect sheep. No matter how long you took ready to get this morning, it's still unperfect, right? We are not perfect.
But as a team, we are. Because we're forgiven. We have God's grace and his truth. And we're following the good shepherd.
And we've got a chance. A chance to make a difference in the world. A chance to bring in the harass and help us. Because God has never steered us wrong.
So during this last song, I mean, maybe this is your moment. Maybe this is your time. Maybe you just need to reach across the chairs or whatever and pray with somebody next to you. I don't know where you're at.
I don't know where you are in that story. And I'm not going to presume to know. But I know you fit into that story. And so I would challenge you to hear the voice of God today, even right now, and respond to his voice.
How does he want you to act? Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity to gather and worship. We thank you for your word, which is true. And I thank you for your Holy Spirit that works in us and through us to show us more about what it means and who you are.
I thank you indeed that you are the good shepherd. I thank you that you call to us constantly. And I thank you, God, that you never steer us wrong. Praise be to you.