Category Archives: misericordias domini

Called to follow the Good Shepherd

Posted on by
Sermon
Download Sermon
Service

To download this video, press here to go to the download page. You may need to scroll down to see the download button.

 Download Service Folder Download Bulletin

Sermon for Easter 2 – Misericordias Domini

1 Peter 2:21-25  +  John 10:11-16

The second Sunday after Easter is traditionally celebrated as Good Shepherd Sunday because of the Gospel you heard from John 10. And it’s all the more fitting today as we celebrate a confirmation. Two confirmations, actually. Because what is it to be confirmed? What is it to be a Christian, for that matter, other than to follow the Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ, wherever He goes?

Now, following the Shepherd does not mean becoming the Shepherd. That’s impossible. There can be only one Good Shepherd. Only the Lord Jesus could stand up to the wolf on behalf of the sheep, could stand up to the devil and take him on and defeat him, and rescue the captives from his kingdom, and gather His sheep and tend to them as His own. Only the Lord Jesus could suffer and die for the sins of the world and take up His life again. Only the Lord Jesus could turn unbelieving, impenitent sinners into believing sheep, who belong to Him, and who live within the sheepfold of His Holy Christian Church. Only the Lord Jesus knew how to go looking for His sheep and find them and bring them safely home into the Father’s house. Only the Lord Jesus could give life to the sheep, eternal life that knows no end, eternal life that includes the resurrection from the dead at the Last Day. He alone will speak over the graves of His believing sheep and raise us to life again and bring us into the heavenly sheepfold. Only the Lord Jesus knows His sheep perfectly and is known by them. And they follow Him wherever He goes.

But what does it mean to follow Him? Saint Peter gives us some examples in today’s epistle. He writes, For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow in his steps. To this you were called. To what were you called? To follow the Lord Jesus Christ, to follow in His steps.

Now again, there are steps that Jesus walked that no one else can ever walk. He is the eternal, only-begotten Son of God, whose first step toward our salvation was taking on human flesh in the first place, choosing to become man, born of the Virgin Mary. That’s not a step any of us can take. He took on the office of the Christ, as our true Prophet, Priest and King, to save us from our sins. That’s not a step any of us can take. He came preaching and teaching in the name of His Father. That’s only a step we can take if He Himself calls us to do it, if He calls us through the call of the Church, as it calls ministers of Christ to minister in His name.

But there are steps Jesus took in which Christians can walk by the power of the Holy Spirit and are called to walk. The first step that Peter mentions is this: He knew no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. Well, that certainly wasn’t the natural state in which any of us was born. We all know sin by nature. And in one way or another, we all practice deceit by nature. Whether it’s to keep ourselves from getting in trouble, or whether it’s to take advantage of our neighbor. All have sinned, says the apostle Paul, and fall short of the glory of God. Or, as John puts it in his first epistle, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Whereas in the case of Christ the Good Shepherd, He never knew sin. He never practiced deceit. Ever. From the moment He was conceived, He was sinless, unlike the rest of us. He had no sinful flesh. No sinful nature.

So you can’t follow the Good Shepherd by being sinless. But the greatest gift Christ has given us is the forgiveness of sins. God promises to forgive us our sins, for the sake of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. When we look to Christ, in repentance and faith, He wipes our slate clean before God. But when He does that, He also gives us His Holy Spirit. And He creates within us a new man, a new nature, who is able, at least to some degree, to walk with the Spirit. To say no to sin. To say yes to righteousness. To walk in holiness, as those who have been set free from sin and set apart from the sinful world. To live no longer for sin, but for Him who died for us and rose again. And so, in this way, you are called to follow in the footsteps of your Good Shepherd. To live for God and not for yourself. To recognize the path of sin in your life, each and every day, and to avoid it. To walk a different way, to walk in the way of Jesus, with love for God above all things, and with love for your neighbor, and with a special love for your fellow Christian. Your love can never equal His love or match His love. But you can strive to imitate it, to follow in His steps.

Liam and Kaity, you have learned God’s commandments. And you’ve learned Luther’s explanations of them, too. You know how Jesus walked, and you know how He calls on you to walk. So follow Him. All of you Christians, follow Him in this way, shunning sin, and running toward God’s commandments. Not as a way to be saved from sin, not as a way to earn eternal life, but as a way to follow in the footsteps of Him whom you call your Lord, your Savior, and your Shepherd.

But your Shepherd did not only show you by His example how to avoid sin and how to serve God by doing what was right. He also showed you by His example how to suffer with courage. Now, suffering isn’t something you choose. It’s not something you go looking for. You suffer things that other people do to you. But Jesus assures His sheep that if the world persecuted Him, then the world will also persecute His believers. If the devil went after Him, he will most certainly go after those who follow Jesus.

When that happens, there are two questions you will have to answer. First, will you agree to suffer for Jesus sake, or will you run away from suffering in order to save yourself? To accept the suffering that the devil and the world will bring on you is to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who willingly accepted the suffering that His Father ordained for Him, who drank that cup of suffering, for as much as He didn’t want to drink it. So to follow Him is to accept the suffering that goes along with being a Christian. To follow Him is to walk toward suffering, if that’s what faithfulness to God requires, to take up your cross and follow Him.

The second question you will have to answer, if you are willing to follow Jesus into suffering, is how you will respond to it. Peter writes, When he was insulted, he did not hurl insults in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but turned it over to the one who judges justly. When the world comes after you for speaking the truth, when people mock you, or insult you, or exclude you, or make life hard for you because you hold to God’s Word and you follow Jesus, you could do what so many people do. You could grumble. You could complain. You could hurl insults back at those who insult you. You could make fun of people, just like they make fun of you, or even threaten them. But, as Peter reminds us, that’s not how Jesus responded to suffering, is it? He took it patiently. He took it without complaint. He turned it over to His Father, who judges justly, and who will see to it that those who hurt His children will answer for it in due time. So if you would follow in the steps of your Shepherd, you will respond to suffering in the same way, turning it all over to God the Father, turning it all over to the risen Lord Jesus, who reigns at the Father’s right hand.

And why will you do all this? Why will you follow Jesus in avoiding sin, and doing what’s right, and speaking the truth? Why will you follow Jesus toward suffering and not away from it? Because you believe in Him, which means you believe what Peter wrote about Him, that He Himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, should live for righteousness. By his wounds you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray. But now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Why will you follow in the steps of your Shepherd? Because all your steps were leading straight to hell, and would have led there, if the Shepherd hadn’t come in to face the wolf for you, if He hadn’t taken responsibility for your sins, if He hadn’t laid down His life for you, if He hadn’t called you by name to make you His own. But He did, and now you are. And so you love Him. And anyone who truly loves Jesus also wants to listen to Him, and to imitate Him, to be like Him, wants to follow Him, and does follow Him. See, He has shown you the way again today!

Liam and Kaity, you’ve been following Jesus ever since your baptism, and your parents have been guiding you by the hand along the way. But now you have learned more about what it means to follow Jesus and are about to confess, before God and before this congregation, your determination to follow Him for the rest of your lives, just as all the members here have, by the grace of God, made the same confession, and the same commitment. May God strengthen you by His Spirit, through His Word and through His Sacrament, to persevere in His grace and in your walk as Christians, to walk according to your calling to follow in the steps of the Good Shepherd all the days of your life, until you follow Him into the eternal life of His heavenly pasture. May the blessing once written to the Hebrews be upon you today, and upon all the Christians here: May the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Source: Sermons

The Good Shepherd’s shepherding, past and present

Posted on by
Sermon

Download Sermon
Service
[vimeo 934582900 w=540 h=360]
Download Service Download Bulletin Download Service Folder</

Sermon for Easter 2

1 Peter 2:21-25  +  John 10:11-16

St. John’s Gospel includes many pictures to help us understand the Lord Jesus better. He is the Word of God, who was with God in the beginning and who was God. He is the Bread from heaven, the Light of the world, the Door of the sheep, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the Vine, and we the branches. It’s the Apostle John who also records the words of John the Baptist, identifying Jesus as the “Lamb of God” who takes away the sin of the world. But, how is He like a lamb? We learned that on Good Friday as He died on the cross and became the sacrificial lamb, the substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of the world.

But in another sense, Jesus is not like a lamb at all, because when a lamb is slaughtered, it has no say in the matter. A lamb doesn’t choose to be slaughtered. It doesn’t lay down its life for anyone. Its life is taken from it by others. It’s an involuntary victim. Not so with Jesus. In today’s Gospel, Jesus pictures believers in Him as sheep and Himself as Shepherd. I am the good Shepherd, He famously says. He is the good shepherd who voluntarily laid down His life for the sheep, and who also took up His life again in order to keep caring for His sheep for all eternity.

I am the good shepherd, says the Lord. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He calls Himself good in contrast with the bad. The bad shepherd, the “hireling” as he’s called in our Gospel, is not the owner of the sheep. He doesn’t care about the sheep. He’s a hired hand who’s only out there in the field tending the sheep because it’s a way to make money. He stays with the sheep as long as it’s convenient for him, as long as it’s not too much trouble. But if danger comes, he’s looking out for himself. He sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and flees. And the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees, because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.

Who is the hireling? He’s every shepherd or “pastor” who looks out for his own best interests ahead of the safety and security of the flock entrusted to his care. And there have been many, many of those over the millennia. But Jesus is not like them. The sheep are His. They belong to Him. And He does care about them.

Who is the wolf? He is the devil. And he has power over people because of sin, power to accuse them before God, power to hold their guilt over them, power to drag them to hell. And no one could be free from his power, because no one is without sin. No one is righteous, no, not one, the Psalm says. And as Isaiah wrote, we all like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, each one, to his own way.

When did we last hear those words? We heard them on Good Friday. Why? Because, as Isaiah’s prophecy continues, the LORD has laid on Him—on Christ, our good Shepherd—the iniquity of us all. Now tie those words to Jesus’ words: The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Willingly. Intentionally. Voluntarily. In fact, He came to earth in the first place for the very purpose of confronting the wolf and laying down His life so that the sheep might be saved. He laid down His life in every way, by living His life, not for Himself, but for us, and by giving His life on the cross for us. The Son of God took on our flesh and lived among us as both God and Man. He devoted His life to serving us by preaching the truth, the truth about us as sinners and about Him as the One who freely forgives sins to all who trust in Him. He laid down His life as the atoning price for our sins, and not only for ours, but for the sins of the world. You should picture your Good Shepherd bleeding and dying on the cross. That’s what it meant to see the wolf coming and to stand His ground for the sake of the sheep, so that He might be attacked and killed in their place. The good Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep.

Of course, you should also picture Christ, your Good Shepherd, risen from the dead, perfectly healed and alive again on Easter Sunday—healed, though He kept the marks of His crucifixion, the nail prints in His hands and the spear print in His side, as He showed them to Thomas in last Sunday’s Gospel. Those are the scars of the Shepherd from His battle with the wolf, and even as He wants you always to remember His resurrection from the dead, so He wants you always to remember His crucifixion, so that you never look at sin lightly, or take for granted the price that was willingly paid for your redemption: the holy, precious blood of your Shepherd.

Jesus’ life on earth, and His innocent death, and His glorious resurrection are His great shepherding acts in the past. But He isn’t done shepherding His sheep. He has more shepherding to do. As you know, it was never Jesus’ plan to stay on earth in visible form and to shepherd His flock, from Jerusalem or from some other place. Imagine how sad that would be! A Shepherd who lived on the other side of the world from where you are, who had only so much time to spend with each one of His sheep. No, the Lord had a different plan for this New Testament era, with a different form of shepherding in mind.

Jesus says in our Gospel, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd. But that “bringing” into the one flock didn’t happen, or at least, was far from being finished during Jesus’ life on earth. This is the bringing the Good Shepherd does through the shepherds whom He has been sending into the world since Easter Sunday and whom He will continue to send until all the sheep are found who are to be found, until the whole flock is gathered into the One Holy Catholic—that is, Christian—and Apostolic Church.

So it is Jesus who sends the shepherds, which is the meaning of the word “pastor.” Jesus said to Peter, “Feed My lambs. Shepherd My sheep.” And as Paul writes to the Ephesians, Christ Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry. That means that every pastor of God’s Church is placed exactly where the Good Shepherd wants him, in every time and in every place, so that Christ might preach to men through the humble service of men, so that He might gather His sheep, minister to His sheep, forgive the sins of His sheep, and preserve them in His flock through that very same preaching and through the administration of the holy Sacraments.

So, too, it is Jesus who brings the sheep, who went looking for each and every one of you, who brought you into contact with His Church and with His Gospel, who brought you—or will bring you—to Baptism and to faith. I know My sheep, He says, and am known by My own. He knew you from before the foundations of the world were laid, and He knows you still. Even if no one else on earth truly knows you, He knows you—who you are, what you need, what you’ve done, and what you will do. And He also knows all who will believe in Him as His Spirit calls them through the Gospel, even if they don’t yet know Him. There is still time to know Him! The invitation still goes out, to everyone!

And now, as St. Peter wrote in today’s Epistle, the Lord calls you to do good to others and for others, just as your Good Shepherd did, and to be willing to suffer for doing good, just as your Good Shepherd was. That means living as the light and salt of the earth. That means taking this Christian faith seriously, living a life that stands out in the world, that stands out in goodness and kindness and generosity, that shines with truthfulness in all things, that honors God’s Word above all things. You will suffer in this world if you live like that. But then, you’ll just be walking in the footsteps of your Good Shepherd, following behind Him wherever He goes, first to shame and then to glory.

May the voice of the Good Shepherd ring in your ears today and every day. You know Him. Now follow Him. He will make you to lie down in green pastures. He will lead you beside still waters. He will restore your soul. He will be with you as you walk, even through the valley of the shadow of death. And He will follow you with His goodness and with His mercy all the days of your life, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.

Source: Sermons