The Shepherd and Sheep: Protection

But this I know with all my heart

His words have paid my ransom

But this I know with all my heart

His words have paid my ransom

Well, Father God, thank You again

for the opportunity to be here.

Thank You for the opportunity to worship You

and to sing Your praises.

And thank You for the ability

to call on Your name,

to receive salvation,

to receive provision,

and Lord, to just trust in You

when everything around us fails.

And God, as we gather today,

Lord, we're just reminded once again

of how important it is to just trust in You.

Well, I don't know where every person in this room is.

I don't know what they're facing in their life.

I don't know what they're facing in their marriages,

in their families with relationships,

with friendships, with co-workers.

I don't know what they're dealing with in the world.

But God, You call us to come to You

and to simply trust in You.

And Lord, as we read Your Word today

and we study what it means to be a follower of Yours,

I pray that You would help us to surrender.

And Lord, as the Father come

and ask Jesus to heal His Son,

He said that He believed,

but He said, help me overcome my unbelief.

And Lord, there may be a lot of ways

that we do believe in You,

but there's still some things

that we're just not sure about yet.

We're not ready to turn that over

and put that into Your hands.

And God, I pray this morning

that You would help us

to get to the point

where we are ready to surrender to You,

where we're ready to turn it all over to You.

If there's any area of our life

that we don't believe in,

that You would help us to overcome that today.

God, as we meet together,

it's a wonderful privilege to be here,

and we know we have a lot of church family

who are hurting today.

God, we continue to pray for Ms. Tammy and Pat

as they're recovering from their hospitalizations.

Pray for Sister Lella Rhea

as they continue to be in the hospital.

And Lord, just touch them.

God, we pray for Ms. Helen

as she's in restorative care

and just pray that You'd help her body

to continue to heal.

Thank You for being with James this past week,

and pray that You'd be with him

as he's at home recovering.

Thank You for being with Ms. Jackie Scruggs

and her surgery,

and Lord, just pray that You'd continue

to help her heal.

And Lord, we lift up Joan and Quay

as they're in the hospital now,

and Lord, they're in a tough spot

because they're a little far from home.

God, we pray that You'd touch his body

and help them to get to the point

where they can get back up this way.

And Lord, I know I'm missing a lot.

There's so many people,

so many people who need You,

health-wise, spiritual-wise.

And God, we just pray that You can do

what only You can do

to be with everyone in their situations

all at the same time

and work and move in ways that we cannot.

Jesus, we love You today.

We thank You for being the one that we can call on

to do what we can't do for ourselves.

We ask all this in Jesus' name,

all God's people said.

Amen.

You may be seated.

I got a confession to make.

There's been several people talk to me

about the potential of joining in membership.

There's actually been a lot of people,

and I've been at the hospital for several hours

almost every day for about the past two and a half weeks,

and I honestly don't know who you are.

So if you can text me and call me this week,

if you don't know my number,

I got a business card back there in the foyer.

My number's on the church website

underneath the staff page.

Reach out to me.

Remind me.

Let's make sure,

because I don't want to mess your name up on Sunday.

I'm horrible names.

If you put me on the spot,

I'm not going to remember.

I'll remember you like in the foyer,

not when I'm in front of people talking.

I can't spell in front of people.

I just crumble, okay?

So contact me.

Remind me.

Make sure we have all that set up.

So this morning,

I'm going to go ahead and get Matthew

to put Psalm 23 on the screen,

and I'm going to try to keep the day

as short as possible,

because I have three kids in here,

and I don't want to tempt them

any more than we got to.

So Wednesday night,

we're in 1 Samuel,

and we were studying the passage of Scripture

where King David challenges...

I'm sorry, Goliath challenges the Israelites

and David slays Goliath, okay?

And he talks about some of the things that he has.

So as we were discussing this,

Pastor Wes was kind enough

to bring some of his things.

He brought the staff,

he brought the rod,

brought a sling,

brought a stone from the Valley of Elah,

the same stream that David pulled the stone out of

to slay Goliath,

which was really cool.

But I asked if he would leave these today,

because I wanted to talk with you about these,

because when we talk about God being our shepherd,

it's pretty tough to make that transition.

Like, we like for people to help us when we need it,

but we also like being self-sufficient.

And it's a lot more difficult for men

to come to what we're talking about today

than it is for women.

Women, for the most part, not everybody,

so I don't want you to come up and be like,

man, women power after today.

But for the most part, women enjoy

having someone to protect them,

help them in things of life.

That's a comforting presence for them,

but for men, we like to do it on our own.

And so as God is our shepherd,

he has his staff,

which is more of like a preventative tool of protection.

To be able to reach out and grab a sheep or a goat

or a small animal or something like that,

kind of pull them away from danger, guide them along.

You see these things in cartoons,

and they reach out and they jerk somebody real hard.

That's not typically what a shepherd does.

A true shepherd really loves and cares for his animals.

And so you will watch people who are really good farmers,

they will love and care for their animals

in a very different way than others do.

And so this right here is kind of like a thing to use

to just kind of guide and protect them from dangers

that they can put themselves in.

But then you have this thing called a rod.

And I don't know if you've ever seen

or held one of these things, but if you haven't,

I'd invite you to come up after the service

and check this thing right here out,

because this is more of a business style

of dealing with things.

And you could bust concrete with this.

Like it's made of wood,

but by any means you could kill something

or somebody with this in a hurry.

And when you look at Psalm 23 verse 4,

Psalms 23:4

I'm going to put these back

so I don't drop them or throw them around.

And it talks about God protecting us

with his rod and his staff.

And one of the things that we have to remind ourselves of,

especially as men this morning,

I'm going to pick on you men

because most of the women are going to the beach.

We have some women here,

but it's going to be really tough for us

to kind of get into this idea.

Like we like being fed.

Most of you have probably been like,

oh, it's nice.

You know, somebody brings you food.

We like that.

Somebody brings you something to drink.

We like that.

But to think about somebody protecting us

and us just putting ourselves in a vulnerable situation

to let someone protect us,

we don't like that.

We don't like to have to depend on somebody else

to really provide for us and make sure that we're safe

and we're okay.

We want to do that ourselves.

And so as we talk about God protecting us,

we've got to overcome this mindset

of all the things that we've been taught

and focused on in the American church.

So for instance,

we talk about Jesus being love and merciful

and gracious and accepting

and how kind and gentle he was

in which God and Jesus are all of those things.

We need him to be that because we are sinful.

We are wicked.

We have so many flaws and things

that we have to overcome as people

and we do that through Christ.

We need him to be merciful and kind

and loving to welcome us in

because we don't deserve that

because of our sinfulness.

So we need him to be that,

but that's not all that he is.

So for example,

as we're studying in the Bible in 1 Samuel 15,

God calls the Israelites together

and he tells King Saul,

go and destroy the Amalekites.

Destroy the men,

destroy the women,

destroy the elderly, the children,

the babies, the animals, everything.

And so while God is loving

and kind and merciful

and welcomes us in and cares for us

and provides us,

there is a side to our Heavenly Father

that we don't talk about a lot

because it's hard for us to rationalize

and understand how we have a God

who could also be ferocious

and vengeful and angry.

And in the midst of that,

that puts us in a predicament

where it's hard for us to understand

and comprehend how God can be both

because a lot of times when we venture

into those realms,

we don't do it the right way.

But God is perfect.

And so this morning as we talk about

God being our shepherd,

we have to submit

to his protection as our shepherd.

And as men, that's very difficult.

For women, you're a little more willing

to do this probably,

but for men, extremely difficult.

That we submit to him

to being our protector.

Someone read a passage of Scripture

to you from Ezekiel 34 verses 11 through 16.

Ezekiel 34:11–16

Now God gave this message to Ezekiel

when the people of Israel were in exile.

Sometime between 571 and 593 BC,

that's when Ezekiel was writing

the words in his book.

So just under 600 years before Jesus is born,

Ezekiel has this message

and he writes about this relationship

between God and the people of Israel

and how he's going to bring them

out of captivity

and restore them back to the land of Israel.

So I want to read this with you.

It says,

For this is what the sovereign Lord says,

I myself will search and find my sheep.

It's very important that you belong to the Lord

because if you're not his,

he's not going to find you.

He's not going to search for you.

But he searches for his sheep.

It's important for us to belong to him.

I will be like a shepherd

looking for his scattered flock.

I will find my sheep and rescue them

from all the places where they were scattered

on that dark and cloudy day.

Now he's talking about the exile.

When they were pulled out of Israel

and they were sent all over Babylon and Assyria.

I will bring them back home to their own land of Israel

from among the peoples and nations.

I will feed them on the mountains of Israel

and by the rivers and in all the places where people live.

Yes, I will give them good pasture land

on the high hills of Israel.

There they will lie down in pleasant places

and feed and lush pastures of the hills.

I myself will tend my sheep

and give them a place to lie down in peace,

says the sovereign Lord.

Now I don't know about you guys,

but the older I get,

the more appealing peace sounds.

It's not something you think about whenever you're younger.

You typically want to be in the action.

You like loud, you like busyness,

but as you get older, peace is a lot more appealing.

So he leads them to peace.

I will search for my lost ones who strayed away

and I will bring them safely home again.

I will bandage the injured and strengthen the weak,

but I will destroy those who are fat and powerful.

I will feed them, yes, feed them justice.

And so here you have this imagery

of God who wants to take the people of Israel.

Now He Himself has punished them.

He arranged for the Assyrians and the Babylonians

to come in to take them into exile

to punish them for their sins,

because that's the God that we serve.

He's just, He punishes sin.

He doesn't allow anyone to get away with anything.

And I don't know if you've ever realized that or not,

but in your life,

you may think you've gotten away with something,

but you've paid for it in some way

and you might still be paying for something,

or you're eventually going to pay for it,

whether you realize it or not.

We get away with nothing.

God is just.

And if He pays us back

and we can feel the weight of our sins

and the guilt and the shame

and the consequences that come along with it,

we have to rest assured

and remind ourselves that He is very quick

and willing to pay others back as well.

So the first point this morning I want us to get

is God wants to be your protector,

your rescuer, and your Redeemer.

And all three of those things are found

in this passage that we just talked about.

God wants to protect us.

And when you protect someone,

you protect your children,

just imagine your children or grandkids,

you want to protect them

in a preventative way to keep bad things from happening.

God can protect us

and keep things from happening in our lives

that would affect us negatively

or harm us or hurt us in a lot of different ways.

Now, we may not always understand that,

but being a 42-year-old

and being saved for 22 years,

I can look back in my life

and I can clearly see times

where God protected me in a preventative way

to keep me out of places,

to keep me from certain people,

to protect me and guide me

so that certain things would not happen in my life.

And I can look back now,

because looking back,

Vision 2020 on the rear side, right?

You can see much clearer.

And you can see how God protects us

in a preventative way.

But He's also a rescuer.

You know, as David talks about this,

he talked about when he was challenged,

when Goliath was challenged in Israelites,

he said, I'll fight the giant.

He talked about all the things that he did

to protect the sheep.

But then he talked about

how whenever a lion or a bear would come,

that he would snatch the lamb

from the lion or the bear's mouth.

He would pull, that's rescuing.

You know, it's like you get put in a position

where you may not have necessarily

brought this on yourself,

but you find yourself in a spot

where you're just like, man,

I'm in a really bad place

and I can't do anything about this.

God is a rescuer.

He wants to rescue us from situations

that maybe we caused ourselves.

Maybe we wandered away a little bit.

Maybe we did something

to put ourselves in this situation,

but He can come and rescue us.

And the final thing is He's a Redeemer.

Even though the Israelites

were sent into exile,

and they belong to the Assyrians,

they belong to the Babylonians,

they were their property, their slaves,

their people, God arranged for them

to be set free and sent back to Israel.

Only God can do that.

You know how many instances in history

where people are just like,

hey, we got this whole group of people

that we own, let's just let them go.

That don't happen.

It never happens in history.

Pharaoh didn't want to let the Israelites go.

God forced his hand on that.

But in this situation,

God literally arranged for the free release

of the Israelites to go back to Israel

and rebuild Jerusalem in the temple.

God is a Redeemer.

He can take us from situations

that we are stuck and mired in

and we have no control over,

where we are literally in a position

where we are enslaved in things

and we can do nothing at all

to get ourselves out of it,

and he can come and he can redeem us

and set us back to freedom

for how he's intended us to be.

But he can't protect you

and he cannot rescue you.

He cannot redeem you

if you do not allow him to.

One of the most sobering moments of my life

was two years ago

whenever I took Perry to school

for the first time.

Dropping them off at daycare

is totally different

because you get to walk them in,

you get to kind of see

where they're going,

you get to tell them by,

you put them in the thing,

you know who's got them,

and it's like the goodbye process

and the walking in process

is a lot more comforting.

When you take them to school,

and this is 4K,

I mean, this is like,

well, I guess it was 5K.

5K, you drop him off,

he gets out on the sidewalk

and he's as happy as can be.

He's not scared at all.

He was ready to go.

But I was like,

this stinks

because I don't know

where he's going.

Like, he's walking in that school

and you're trusting

probably somewhere around 50

to 70 faculty people

to take care of him,

make sure he's safe,

keep him safe

around all the other kids

that he's going to go,

get to where he needs to go

and do what he's doing.

And I can remember sitting there

that first morning

and had not even thought about it.

I was like, Lord,

be with him and protect him

when I can't.

And the truth is,

is that God can protect him

and Naomi and Hattie

way better than I can.

But there's a sober moment

whenever they're not

in my sphere of influence.

They're not within my eyesight.

They're not within my ability

to guard and protect them

that they're in somebody else's hands

that it's much more aware

during that time.

God, I need you more now

than even during the normal times

when I can be aware

and I can be there.

And as they get older,

and as some of your kids

have been older

and are getting older,

you begin to realize

that you want to protect them,

you want to rescue them,

you want to redeem them,

but you can't

if they don't let you.

If they don't talk to you

about what's going on,

if they don't allow you

into their lives,

if they don't disclose things to you,

maybe they're keeping

to their chest

and boxing you out of their lives

in a certain way

because they're looking for freedom

and they're looking for independence,

you can't do for them

if they don't let you.

And the same thing happens

with us in God.

There's so many of us

who claim to be fathers of Christ,

we said, I want eternal life,

I want forgiveness of sin,

I want a relationship with Jesus,

but when it comes to letting Him

literally be in charge of our lives

and protect us and have that,

we're just like, nah,

I don't want to do that.

Another good example is,

I like

to at least be able

to feel like I can protect myself

and my family.

Whether it's something as simple

as carrying a pocket knife,

that may sound silly.

I've carried a pocket knife

since I was like six years old.

Carried one to school

almost every day growing up

and now there's not many places

that you can go

where there's not metal detectors

and it's like you can't even,

it's like going on an airplane,

you can't even take a pair

of fingernail clippers somewhere now

and it's like they have these buildings

that are so guarded

and they have all these metal detectors

and then they have these security guards

and no offense,

I don't know if anybody here

is a security guard.

Some of you are more than capable,

some of you are not.

And you go in some of those buildings

and you see the security guards

and there's some people that I look at

and I'm like,

I do not trust that person

to die for me

or my family

and that's just how I feel.

And there's sometimes

you go around somewhere

and it's like you're with someone

who has that responsibility

to maintain the safety

and integrity of everything

that's going on.

It's like, I don't know,

I don't know them

but I would,

I would trust them.

If something happens,

I'm going with them.

But a lot of times

I don't feel that way.

And as believers,

you and I have a decision

to make this morning

as to do we truly believe

what we say that we believe

about Jesus.

Okay, He can provide me eternal life.

Okay, He can forgive me of sin.

Do I really trust Him

to guide me to places in life?

Even though it's maybe not necessarily

where I want to go,

do I trust Him to lead me there

and do I trust Him to protect me

along the way?

Because the truth is,

a lot of us don't,

don't trust Him to do that.

We haven't connected those dots yet.

But in John chapter 10 verses 6 through 16,

John 10:6–16

you jump to the New Testament,

you jump to this

account of John where he's talking about

this conversation that Jesus is having

with His disciples and the people of Israel.

And the title of this passage is

The Good Shepherd.

So God is described as the Good Shepherd

in Ezekiel 34.

Jesus is described as the Good Shepherd

in John 10.

Let's read verses 6 through 16.

Let's see what Jesus said about it.

Those who heard Jesus use this illustration

didn't understand what He meant.

So He explained it to them.

I tell you the truth.

I am the gate for the sheep.

So He's not just the shepherd,

but He's also the gate.

See, the idea is if you can build a wall

and you can have a gate,

you can offer extra protection

for the sheep.

A lot of us don't like boundaries.

We think boundaries hinder us.

We think laws or rules or

commands hinder us, but in truth,

there's many things out there

that exist to protect us.

Jesus is the gate for the sheep.

All who came before Me were thieves and robbers,

but the true sheep did not listen to them.

Yes, I am the gate.

Those who come in through Me will be saved.

They will come and go freely

and will find good pastures

because the great thing about Christ

is like, yeah, there's a fence

and there's a gate.

There's limitations at certain times,

but you also have the ability

to come and go freely.

And what you find is,

is that many times people who think,

well, I'm living outside the fence,

I'm living outside the gate,

they're enslaved

and they can't come and go freely.

They're just in what they're in.

The thief's purpose is to steal

and kill and destroy.

My purpose is to give them

a rich and satisfying life.

Every person in this room this morning

will raise their hand and say,

I want a rich and satisfying life.

That sounds good.

And Jesus said,

my purpose is to give you

a rich and satisfying life.

He doesn't put you in a pin

behind a gate

to hold you hostage or captive

or keep you enslaved.

No, that exists there for your protection.

And as He protects you,

you can come and go freely.

And the purpose is to give you

a rich and satisfying life.

I'm the good shepherd.

The good shepherd sacrifices

his life for the sheep.

A hired hand will run

when he sees a wolf coming.

He will abandon the sheep

because they don't belong to him

and he isn't their shepherd.

And so the wolf attacks them

and scatters the flock.

The hired hand runs away

because he's working only for the money

and doesn't really care about the sheep.

This morning,

a lot of us claim to believe

and love Jesus.

A lot of us claim to want

to go to heaven

and spend eternal life with Him.

But we have yet decided

whether or not we're going to treat Him

like a hired hand

or if He's actually the one

that owns us and loves us

and is willing to lay down His life for us.

Those are two very different things.

And the way that those people get treated

are very different from one another.

In verse 14, he says again,

I am the good shepherd.

I know my own sheep and they know me

just as my father knows me

and I know the father.

So I sacrifice my life for the sheep.

I have other sheep too

that are not in the sheepfold.

I must bring them also.

They will listen to my voice

and there will be one flock

with one shepherd.

The awesome thing about Jesus is

that if you truly believe in Him

and you believe what you say

you believe about Him,

you trust that He has already

laid down His life for you.

He has already died for you.

And so to trust that He would

lay down His life,

why would somebody who's willing

to die for us

not have our best interest in mind?

Because this morning

I want you to think about

who it is in this world

that you would be willing to die for.

And it would only be somebody

that you probably have nothing

but their best interest in mind.

Because that's a price to pay

that you can't get back.

It's sealed, it's done.

And Jesus paid that price for us.

If you want to be saved,

it's through Him.

You got to come through the gate.

If you want to have a rich

and satisfying life,

it's through Him.

You want to be protected,

it's through Him.

The green pastures,

the peaceful streams,

the protection,

it only comes through Him.

But we have to have faith

and trust in Him to do that.

So point number two,

we must trust Him to protect us.

And that's really hard.

One of the hardest things

I've had to do in my life

is to trust God

to just take care of things many times.

And I've talked about it years ago.

You know, I was in this situation

where I had someone in authority

over me about 12 years back,

and it was a really ugly situation.

And I felt that that person

who was in authority

had done and said some things

that were wrong,

and I felt like that needed to be addressed

and needed to be held accountable.

And I had exhausted

every single aspect

that I could exhaust

to do it the right way.

And from that point forward,

if I was going to continue

to take this into my hands

and try to see that

this thing was rectified,

it was going to be sinful

and divisive within the church

and the body of Christ.

And as we did that,

I had to let it go.

I had to totally turn

that thing over to God.

But one thing we have

to remind ourselves of

is that God is faithful.

God is capable.

He is equipped.

He is powerful,

and He is more than able

to do anything

that we need Him to do.

That's a fake thing.

Do you believe that?

Do you believe that

in the situation of your life?

Because there's probably

at least one person

who found multiple people

in this room who feel like

you've been mistreated,

you've been done wrong,

there's something going on in your life

that you want it to be fixed,

and you're angry with someone,

someone hurts you,

and you want to do something

like the greatest desire

in your life is to get even.

And that's not abnormal.

I got three kids.

They haven't hardly

learned anything yet,

but let me tell you,

they're very good at revenge.

As soon as one does

one to the other,

it's eye for an eye

and tooth for the tooth.

They knew the law of Moses

long before we ever told it to them.

They know.

And that carries with us

as adults, too.

The question is,

is do we trust in God

to take care of that?

In Ephesians 3, verse 20,

Ephesians 3:20

Paul writes to the church

in Ephesus and says,

Now, all glory to God,

who is able,

through His mighty power,

to work within us,

to accomplish infinitely more

than we might ask or think.

Truthfully, when we pray to God,

we're like the dad

who asked Jesus to come heal his son.

We believe that he can,

but there's always

a little bit of doubt

as to whether or not

he's going to.

And as we sit here this morning,

we say, okay,

I'm going to rely on God

to protect me.

There's probably enough faith

to know that God

can protect me,

but then there's that

little bit of doubt that says,

but I don't know

if he's going to.

And then we find ourselves

as people,

we give to God,

but then we take.

We give to God and we take.

That's the problem

with living sacrifices.

You're called to be

a living sacrifice.

You know what the problem is

with living sacrifices?

They can get up

and get off the altar.

We give God our faith.

We give God our trust,

but then in a moment,

we're like, no, not today.

We pull it back.

But God is more than able,

more than capable.

He's equipped.

He's faithful.

And there has to be

a point in our life

where we turn it over to Him.

And in that situation in my life

12 years ago,

whenever I was dealing with that,

and that was super,

that was super tough, man,

because the person who was

in authority over me

was one of the people

who should have been

one of the most spiritually

healthy and godly people

that I knew in my life

at that time.

And it was a very ugly situation.

And I had to turn that over

to God and let God deal with it.

And 12 years later,

I can sit,

well, it's actually 14 years later.

14 years later,

I can look back on that situation

and I can see

perfectly clear how God

dealt in that situation.

How God dealt with that individual.

But guess what?

I can see even more clear

how God dealt with me.

Because there was things

that I did and said

that I couldn't see

in that moment.

That they were immature.

They were wrong.

I shouldn't have said them,

I shouldn't have done them

in different situations,

in different kinds.

There was things that God

had to reveal to me.

And the awesome thing

about God is,

is that if we turn it over to Him

and let Him deal with it,

not only will God deal

with the person who did you wrong

and work a better thing

in their life,

but He'll also work

a better thing in your life.

He's the only one

who can take sin

and use it for His glory

and our good.

That's the whole thing

about rescuing and redeeming.

There's plenty of us

in this room,

like we have messed up our life,

we have done enough

in our life to ruin our life

completely,

and God is the only one

who can come in

and rescue us

and redeem us

and take everything

that was done for bad,

that was done for...

to spit on God

at some point

in time in our life

and use it to glorify His name

and use it for our good

and our benefit.

God's the only one

who can do that.

So we have to ask ourselves

and remind ourselves,

do we really trust?

Do we trust Him?

Solomon wrote in Proverbs

verse 20 verse 22,

don't say,

I will get even for this wrong.

Wait for the Lord

to handle the matter.

In Nahum chapter 1 verse 2,

Nahum 1:2

Nahum wrote,

the Lord is a jealous God

filled with vengeance and rage.

Again,

hard qualities of God to explain

when we talk about peace

and love and mercy

and all these other things,

but at the same time,

He's jealous

and He's filled with vengeance and rage,

which are kind of negative terms

in our culture today.

So how can a perfect God

be those things

and still be perfect and good?

And I don't have a good explanation for you.

But the only thing I can tell you is,

is when you look,

that He's jealous

and He's filled with vengeance and rage.

He says,

He takes revenge on all who oppose Him

and continues to rage against His enemies.

So many times in passages of Scripture in the Bible,

you see over and over and over again

that vengeance is the Lord's.

It is not your job to protect yourself,

it's God's job to protect you.

It takes an immense amount of faith

and trust on our part

to allow God to do that

and trust Him to do that.

And one of the great things

that I can tell you this morning is,

is that if you are walking in fellowship with God

and you're living in fellowship with Him

underneath His will,

under His law,

under His authority,

when someone opposes you

or mistreats you,

they're mistreating Him.

And you have a promise

that His anger will rage

against those who oppose Him.

And I'm going to give you two examples.

Because when you go back

and you look at Moses and the people of Israel

complain against Moses in the wilderness,

and as they're complaining against Moses,

because Moses isn't providing what all they want,

Moses goes and cries out to God.

God says, don't worry about it, Moses.

They're not complaining against you.

They're complaining against me.

And then you go back to 1 Samuel,

which we've been studying on Wednesday nights,

and the people of Israel start complaining

against Samuel,

and they want Samuel to give them a king.

And God says, don't worry about it, Samuel.

They're not rejecting you.

They're rejecting me.

They don't want me to be their king.

And so if you walk in fellowship with God

and you live under His law

and you live under His will,

then you are protected

and promised the fact that God

will take revenge on all who oppose Him.

Now, if you're sitting here this morning

and you're living under your own will

and your own desires

and you're doing your own thing

and you're not surrendering to the Lord

and someone opposes you or does you wrong,

I can't say within Scripture

that God promises to avenge you

or take care of you.

Only thing I can promise you is that God's just,

that He deals with everything,

that no matter what,

nobody on earth has ever gotten away

with a single thing in this life.

And God makes sure of that

because He is the perfect judge.

Point three, last one,

we must do our job

and allow God to do His.

We got to do our job

and allow God to do His.

Now, God's the shepherd

and He's the protector.

What does that mean for us?

What are we supposed to do?

In Romans 12, verses 19 through 21,

Romans 12:19–21

Paul writes to church in Rome.

He's dealing with many issues that they're struggling with.

He quotes Deuteronomy 32, 35.

So this passage is a direct quote from Deuteronomy.

Dear friends,

never take revenge.

Leave that to the righteous anger of God

for the Scriptures say,

I will take revenge.

I will pay them back, says the Lord.

So again, you see another passage

where God promises to pay it back.

That He will deal with it.

Now, verse 20 is the tough part.

This is the one that most of you are going to go home

and you're going to feel like you got fleas.

You're going to be itching for the rest of the day.

And you're just going to be like,

I don't know how I feel about that.

But in verse 20, it says,

if your enemies are hungry,

these are people who wrong you.

These are people who hurt you.

These are people who have taken from you.

These are people who do anything to you

who might be your enemies.

He says, if your enemies are hungry,

feed them.

And if they're thirsty,

give them something to drink.

And in doing this,

you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.

Don't let evil conquer you

but conquer evil by doing good.

And so this morning,

the hardest part of the sermon is to accept,

especially for some of you men in this room,

because I can see it on some of your faces right now.

This is hard.

And I would love to say that I have not mastered this

because every situation is different.

Every time somebody hurts you or does something against you,

it hits a little different.

And we're not always surrendering in every moment.

But as we have enemies,

God's job is to pay them back

according to His will and His plan.

And God can do more to them

than you'll ever be able to think or dream.

He knows their hearts.

He knows what they cherish.

He knows what means the most.

He can take anything away at the snap of a finger.

He can put more on them

than they would ever be able to handle.

And worst of all,

He can send them to eternal damnation

and eternal destruction

and punish them for all eternity.

What you can do then will last a moment.

But what God can do to them will last forever.

God can do so much more than you can.

But our job is to not be conquered by evil.

Somebody does evil to you

and you do evil, evil wins.

Satan wins.

Our job is to make sure that God wins.

So we conquer evil by doing good.

Your job in God's sheepfold,

as Him being your shepherd and you being a sheep,

you being adopted into His family,

you are called to do good.

You are called to love other people.

If they're hungry, feed them.

If they're thirsty, give them drink.

What does that sound like?

Exactly what we've talked about the past two weeks.

God is our shepherd.

He feeds us.

He gives us, leads us beside peaceful streams.

So there's some aspects of shepherding other people

that God gives you the privilege

and the calling on your life to do.

To feed into water,

even people who don't deserve it.

You're called to be a shepherd to guide people to Christ.

Now, you don't have the full authority of a shepherd

because you're not given the authority

to protect and take revenge on people.

That's God's job.

And you have to trust for God to do it for others.

You have to trust for God to do it to you.

And every parent in this room,

at some point in time throughout your child's childhood,

you're going to have to entrust them into God's hands.

And then one day when they reach an adult

and they move out of your sphere of influence

and they become their own adults living their own lives,

you have to fully entrust them back to God's care

and protection in that moment, which is extremely difficult.

But that's what we're called to do.

God is the ultimate protector.

The question is, do we trust Him?

Every single person here has to decide,

do I really trust God to do what He says He's going to do?

Do I really believe that He will take care of everything

just like His Scripture says that He will do?

In Micah 5, verse 4, it says,

Micah 5:4

And He will stand to lead His flock with the Lord's strength,

in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.

Then His people will live there undisturbed,

for He will be highly honored around the world.

Christ wants to guard us, protect us,

rescue us, and redeem us in this life.

And we have to understand that as we're walking through this life

and we're trusting in God to do that,

that eventually the journey of our life

is leading us to the eternal place of rest

that He has for us, that He's prepared for us.

But we have to make that journey with Him.

And it is dangerous along the way.

There's going to be predators.

There's going to be people who wrong you.

There's going to be situations and circumstances in life

that you have no control over,

that you are absolutely going to need your God to protect you.

And it will always be a temptation to pull back and want to do it yourself.

The question always comes back to,

do I really trust and believe that He's going to do

what He's always said He's going to do?

Let's pray.

Father God, thank You again for this day.

Thank You for the opportunity to be here.

Thank You for Your love and mercy.

And Lord, at the same time,

we thank You for being a God who is jealous of us.

Lord, I can't imagine what it would be like

to love my wife and not be jealous of her,

to not want her, to not want to share her with anybody else,

and to think that You look at us with that same jealousy that You love us

and You don't want to share us.

And You're full of vengeance and rage,

and there is a capacity that exists within You

to perfectly execute anger and revenge

in a way that we could never fathom or imagine.

And Lord, that's a good quality, because we want justice to be served.

If we love You and we want the right thing to be done,

justice has to be served.

In one of the passages we read, it said,

you will feed them justice.

So God, thank You for being a God like that.

Help us to trust You and believe in You

and rely on You to do Your job.

And Jesus, help us and strengthen us to do ours.

It's extremely difficult to love and care for people who have wronged us.

But help us to be faithful in that,

knowing that if they don't repent and they don't turn,

You'll take care of everything,

not only in this life but in the one to come as well.

Lord, thank You for who You are and what only You can do.

We love You and ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.