ILLUSTRATION- I don’t remember much about
my grade 10 science class, but I do remember at least 2 things.
The
first thing that I remember is that I liked it so much that I actually took it
twice!
The
second thing I remember from my grade 10 science class is what Chris said.
We
had received our grades from an important test.
Apparently he
didn’t do very well on this test, because I remember him telling the rest of
the class, “I even prayed to God about this test”
Now,
I’m not here to judge him but, I don’t recall him being associated in anyway
with the Cause of Christ.
But
he is not unlike countless other people who come to Jesus for all sorts of
reasons.
Some
people who come to Jesus do so for valid reasons. Some people truly recognise
their need for a Savior, and they surrender their lives over to His Lordship.
But
there are other people who are not so serious. Some people come to Jesus, and
use Him as a get out-of-jail-free card.
Some people come
to Jesus because they are in a tight spot, and they want Him bail them out.
ILLUSTRATION- This reminds me of the story
of a man who fell off a cliff but managed to grab a tree limb on his way down.
As
he was hanging on the branch, looking at the ground below, he looked up and said:
“Is there anyone up there?”
Suddenly a Voice
from above said: “I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe me?”
The man
replied: “Yes, Lord, I believe. I really believe. But, I can’t hang on much
longer.”
The Voice
responded by saying: “If you really believe, you will be alright. I will save
you. Just let go of the branch.”
The man paused
for a moment and then yelled up, “Is there anyone else up there?” (http://www.clarklakecommunitychurch.com/LET_GO_OF_THE_BRANCH.pdf)
Many people come
to God for many different reasons, but as far as we know, none of the disciples
came to Jesus because they were stuck, sick, alone, in debt, or even hanging on
a limb.
As
far as we can tell, all of the disciples followed Jesus simply because He
passed them one day and said: “Come, follow me…” (Matthew
4:19a, NIV)
The
disciples followed Jesus because He called them, but as you read the Gospels
you’ll notice that Jesus put them to work.
This
is the 6th shift that the disciples experienced, and it is a shift
from Sheep
to Shepherd.
It’s
a shift from following
Jesus to leading others toward Jesus.
Let’s
take a brief look at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel and see how this shift played
out in the lives of the Disciples.
In
Mark chapter 1, Jesus began preaching that the Kingdom of heaven had come, and
He invited the people of the day to: “Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark
1:15b, NIV)
“As Jesus walked
beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net
into the lake, for they were fishermen.
17 "Come,
follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." (Mark 1:16-17, NIV)
From the very
beginning, Jesus wasn’t looking for followers or a crowd.
From the very beginning, Jesus
was on a mission; He wanted His disciples to “fish” for people who were far
from God.
Hear the call
one more time: “Come,
follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” (Mark 1:17,
NLT2)
The statement
that Jesus was making is: Found people find people.
Moving on to
Mark 3, Jesus pulled His disciples aside and commissioned them to “…be with him and
that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out
demons.” (Mark 3:14b-15, NIV)
Once again, we
see that Jesus not only called His disciples to follow Him, but He actually
sent them out to lost people.
In Mark chapter
6, Jesus gave His disciples: “authority over evil spirits… (and) They went out and
preached that people should repent.
13 They drove out
many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.”
(Mark 6:7b, 12-13, NIV)
There it is one
more time: The call to
move from Sheep to Shepherd. The call for found people (Christians) to find (lost)
people.
Well, this
brings us to our text for the day. It’s a text that some of us have heard at
least once; it’s the feeding of the 5,000.
This event is
recorded for us in Mark 6 beginning at verse 30: “The apostles returned to Jesus from their
ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught.
31 Then Jesus said,
“Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.”
He said this
because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles
didn’t even have time to eat.
32 So they left by boat for a quiet place,
where they could be alone.
33 But many people
recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead
along the shore and got there ahead of them.
34 Jesus saw the
huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because
they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
35 Late in the
afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s
already getting late.
36 Send the crowds
away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.”
37 But Jesus said,
“You feed them.”
“With what?” they
asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all
these people!”
38 “How much bread
do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.” They came back and reported, “We
have five loaves of bread and two fish.”
39 Then Jesus told the disciples to have the
people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of
fifty or a hundred.
41 Jesus took the five loaves and two fish,
looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into
pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it
to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share.
42 They all ate as
much as they wanted, 43 and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets
of leftover bread and fish.
44 A total of 5,000
men and their families were fed from those loaves!” (Mark 6:30-44, NLT2)
As the disciples
come back from their ministry tour, there was still one more thing for them to
do.
When Jesus saw
the crowd of people approaching the place where they were trying to get to, “he had compassion
on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mark
6:34b, NLT2)
As Jesus was
teaching the people, the disciples approach Him and remind Him of the time, and
they ask Him to send the people away so they can get some food, when all of a
sudden Jesus drops a grenade in their laps and says:
“You feed them.” (Mark 6:37, NLT2)
There it is one
more time. Jesus not only called His disciples to follow Him, He also called
them to meet the needs of the people.
The same applies
to you and me.
Jesus didn’t come to save you
from your sins and cater to your every need from that point on.
Jesus came to save you from your
sins and then recruit you into His mission to redeem the world.
Jesus is calling
His followers to move from Sheep to Shepherd, because found people find people.
Found people
don’t keep the Good News to themselves. Found people tell others about the Good
News.
Found people
don’t avoid lost People. Found people find people.
Jesus was asking
His disciples in Mark 6 to meet the needs of the people of the day, and Jesus
is still asking His disciples to meet the needs of the people of this day.
The call has not
changed. We are not to take, take and take some more. We are here to give, give
and give.
Just as Jesus
had compassion on the people of His day, we too are to have compassion on the
people who don’t know Jesus, but we’re to do more than that, we are to lead
them to Jesus, because found people find people.
Jesus asked His
disciples to meet people’s needs and not to let a petty little thing stand in
their way.
Jesus asked His
disciples to heal people; to deliver them from demons; Jesus wanted His
disciples to set captives free.
Jesus wanted
more from His followers. He didn’t want them just to follow Him; He wanted his
followers to become shepherds.
“Jesus is
looking for disciples to become shepherds, because the problem with the world
is that so many people are like sheep without a shepherd.” (DeNeff)
So the question
that we need to figure out this morning is this: How
do we move from Sheep—from following Jesus—to Shepherd—to leading others to
Jesus?
There are
several practical steps that I could give you this morning; several different
things that you can try to help you move from Sheep to Shepherd, but there is
only one that will truly help us move from following Jesus to leading others to
Jesus.
Share the Gospel
I believe that we can share the Gospel with the
words we use and in the lives we live.
Sometimes we
need to use words. Sometimes we need to speak up and tell the world what the
Bible has to say on an issue.
Other times we
need to close our mouths and let our lives do the talking.
Sometimes people
need to hear what we believe, other times we need to demonstrate what we
believe.
Someone once
said “Preach
the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words."
Sometimes words
are needed in order to preach the Gospel, sometimes no words are needed to
preach the Gospel.
Paul said in
Colossians 3: “Whatever
you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.”(Col 3:17, NIV)
When we move
from Sheep to shepherd, we will look for ways to share the Good News of Jesus
with the people in our circle of influence—with our family, with our friends, with
the people we work with.
Why?
Because Found People find People.
Who do you know
that could benefit from hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ? Who can you lead
to follow Jesus?
Who, in your
world, needs to be fed?
You understand
church that we still need to follow Jesus. There will never be a time that we
will not need to follow Jesus.
We are sheep and
sheep can be dumb, so we will always need to follow, but we can commit to bring
someone else along to follow Jesus; we can lead someone to Jesus.
I should warn
you, however, that this will not be a quick process.
Sometimes it
will take years for you to see the fruits of your labour, but as you begin to
move from Sheep to Shepherd, from following Jesus to leading others to Jesus,
you are making a commitment to stick with this person no matter how long it
takes.
ILLUSTRATION- Last Saturday, I officiated
the funeral of a man who I have been witnessing to for years.
Stan
lived in Havelock and as far as I knew, Stan never attended a church, except
when he was a little boy.
I
first met Stan 8 years ago at the prompting of one of the men in our Havelock
church.
Stan was in the hospital in Moncton due to an accident involving a
Transport.
Because
Stan had no connection to church, he had very little use for preachers, and the
preachers he knew, he didn’t like all that much.
As
I walked into Stan’s hospital room that day, I was scared to death.
How would he respond to me, a pastor, coming visit him?
I talked with
Stan for a few moments, and in that time I didn’t bring up Jesus or religion.
As I was
preparing to leave, I asked him if I could visit him again next week, and to my
surprise, he said yes.
Week after
week, I would visit with Stan and we would talk about anything and
everything... everything that is, except church.
Shortly after I
began visiting Stan, I was told by his wife that he had no use for preachers,
but he liked me because I didn’t preach at him.
I will never
know this side of heaven if Stan received Jesus in his final hours of his life,
but because I had built a relationship with this man who was far from God, I
was able to share my faith with him 3 weeks ago… all because I moved from sheep
to shepherd.
Now you might be
saying—“you’re
a preacher, you’re supposed to do that kind of stuff”.
With Stan, I
wasn’t a preacher. I was a follower of Jesus, who had compassion on someone who
didn’t know Jesus, and I did my best to share with Stan the love of Jesus.
This is what it
means to move from Sheep to Shepherd. It means getting involved in the life of
a person who is far from God.
It’s taking an
interest in their life, in their family, building a relationship with them, so
one day; you can share the gospel with them.
Jesus, before He
ascended to heaven, said: “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19
Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations…” (Matt. 28:18-19a, NLT2)
The call to
follow Jesus isn’t just a call to be a sheep; it’s a call to be a shepherd, to
invest in the lives of people in your corner of the world to look for ways to
share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them.
God’s plan to
save the world includes you and me.
He is calling us
to move forward, to quit following Him from a safe distance, and walk along
side of Him, helping Him do the things He is trying to do in our world.
It all begins
when you hear the familiar Voice of your Shepherd say: “those
people in your world are like a sheep without a shepherd… you feed them”
As the band
comes back for our final song, I would like for you to spend a moment in prayer
thinking about the name—or names—of someone who God might want you to lead.
It could be a
family member, it could be a co- worker, whomever it is, I would invite you, to
pick up a piece of paper on the alter, and write this name down, and commit to
God that you will do whatever it takes to share the Gospel with them.
By doing so, you are telling God that you will
move from Sheep to Shepherd.
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