I might from my Presbyterian and Reformed roots here started off in Westminster. I actually just decided to change the sermon text, not the sermon, but the sermon text. I have it wrong in the bulletin. So if you would turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Matthew, we'll look at Chapter 2, Matthew Chapter 2. My my from my present seat Bibles as found on page 807. You're looking at 807 Gospel of Matthew Chapter 2. One of the nice things about being a visiting preacher is you can pick some topical sermon. Sometimes that's what we're going to do this morning. We're going to sort of go on a blitz through the whole Bible. So I have a lot of verses listed on your sermon notes. There's quite a few. If while I'm reading, maybe you want to rip your bullets enough and put bookmarks in. We're going to go through all of those. So, starting in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 2, we'll read the first six verses of this Gospel, and the focus will be on verse six. Here now, God's Word to us. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. This is God's word to us. Sometimes I think we become so accustomed to the way we talk as Christians. It's helpful to take a step back and maybe analyze that talk. So what is it that you think of when you think of the word shepherd? Shepherd. We hear that term thrown around quite a bit, right? It's tossed around. We use it in relation to Jesus. Obviously, the Gospel of Matthew relates it to Jesus. It's all over the Old Testament and in the New. But what exactly is a shepherd? Well, I could spend about 20 minutes going into the history of shepherding and the ancient Near Eastern forms of what a shepherd was and then move into first century Palestine and understand that shepherds don't push or pull and manipulate and talk about sheep, how dumb sheep are, and derogatory things to make you all feel good about yourselves. And I decided not to do any of that, though, because I think The motif of the shepherd in the Bible can be seen in its fullest capacity or its fullest way when we see it in its biblical sense. In other words, I want to view the message that the Bible wants to tell us about shepherds and then ask the question, why is Jesus called a shepherd and how should we understand him as a shepherd? And then our lives, how should we live our lives in reflection of this shepherd? But again, let me first ask you, what is a shepherd? Have you ever thought about it or what image enters your mind of a shepherd? I know for a lot of us who maybe grew up in the church, it's probably that that flannel graph of the white middle class Jesus that we put on the flannel we played with in Sunday school. And we don't do that in the reform world. But when I grew up, I had a flannel graph. But perhaps there's something much different with that word shepherd for some people. Maybe shepherd is you think of the rod, maybe you think of overbearing parents who shook a rod in your face that was conveniently called the shepherd's rod. Or perhaps shepherd reminds you of your own failures to protect or your own inability to lead your own life lived in the back of the crowd and the results of those failures staring at you every day. You see, we all have maybe different ideas of what a shepherd is sometimes good, sometimes not so good, sometimes not very well thought out. But the question I want to ask today is, what did Matthew have in mind when he quoted this prophecy saying a ruler will come and will shepherd my people Israel? Or what did the Holy Spirit have in mind when he decided to mine the Old Testament to tell the people of God that a ruler would be present that will shepherd his people? I said I wouldn't go through the historical details but I still think it's a little bit important to gain our bearing in our bearing of where we are what we're talking about when we come to Matthew. The gospel studies are always interesting to me and they're fascinating that we have four different gospels right. But sometimes we have the tendency to mash them all up into one and not give respect to the different gospel authors as they are authors in their own right. So we need to first see that I'm going to work with Matthew and Mark a little bit and understand first that Matthew and Mark are not opposing messages and they're compatible, right? We can't see them as opposing messages that are not compatible, but we have to see that they're different authors with particular audiences, methods, goals that are unique to them. So I want to begin in Matthew by going back to the first chapter. And the major difference, as you might recall, between Matthew and Mark is probably the beginning, right? The beginning in the first chapter of Matthew, he introduces the gospel and he ties Jesus to the Old Testament. He basically ties the coming of Jesus to the working of God throughout the generations, all the way back to Abraham. He goes all the way back to Abraham. In fact, Jesus is called the Christ, right? The Messiah, the promised one, the son of David, he says, and the son of Abraham. Now, why is this? It's a good question to ask. Why this connection to the past? Why this constant desire to mind the Old Testament and always tie Jesus to the past? Aren't we in the present when Matthew's writing, right? Well, Matthew's whole gospel really is a connection to the past. His whole gospel is making the case that Jesus is the fulfillment of the history of redemption. More fancy words essentially to say it's the fulfillment of God's plan to bring about salvation to the world. But Matthew takes the Old Testament to remind his readers just who this Jesus figure is. And he starts out his very initial his beginning is to start out by telling them that Jesus is a shepherd, a ruler who will shepherd his people. And so he begins, I think, by reminding them of exactly what a shepherd was in the Old Testament. So, as we go through the Old Testament, there are three images, I think, that come to mind. Three kind of images of a shepherd. And I label these, and they're labeled on your outline here. The first is the abominable shepherd. I thought that was a good name. The abominable shepherd. The second is the absent shepherd. And the third is the necessary shepherd. So, what does this all mean? Turn with me, if you would, to Genesis chapter 46. Genesis chapter 46 verses 28 to 34 will read if you want to turn there and feel free. If not, I'll go ahead and read it. It's down on page 40 of the of the Bible in the seats. Genesis chapter 46 beginning in verse 28. We read. He had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to show the way before him to Goshen and they came into the land of Goshen. And then Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to meet Israel, his father in Goshen. He presented himself to him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while. Israel said to Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen your face and know that you are still alive. Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's household, I will go up and tell Pharaoh and will say to him, My brothers and my father's household who were in the land of Canaan have come to me. And the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all they have. When Pharaoh calls you and says, What is your occupation? You shall say, Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth, even until now, both we and our fathers, in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen. For every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians. Every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians, is what we're told here. Interesting. The first time in the Bible that we approach this concept of a shepherd is when Israel comes in contact with Egypt. It's when Israel comes in contact with Egypt. So Joseph essentially meets his father, and here we're told that Joseph's brothers and fathers, the people of God, they're shepherds. That's what they do. They brought their flocks and their herds, but there's a problem. We read that Joseph is going to go tell Pharaoh that his family are keepers of livestock, right? Those aren't shepherds. Livestock are cows and things of that nature, not sheep. So Joseph is going to go tell Pharaoh that they're keepers of livestock in order that they can still dwell in the land of Goshen, in order that they can still have this land. And the reason why, he says, is because every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians. The question struck my mind when I read this intrigued me why this statement in Genesis why this seemingly insignificant statement in Genesis that shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians and why here. Well, as we go on in this story, Joseph tells his family essentially to downplay the sheep side and emphasize the cattle side. And historically, this was verified, right? The Egyptians did despise shepherds. They thought sheep and shepherds of kind of a lower class of people. But it's interesting that this account was written years after the event. Why include this little, seemingly insignificant point? I think we better understand it, this point, in light of its larger context. You see, the book of Genesis up to this point has really been building the story of God's redemption. God bringing his people out of Ur, right, into covenant with him and then giving them a promise, a promise of land and a promise of seed, land and seed. And now here with Joseph, we find the first time where the Israelites come into contact with the Egyptians. And who are the Egyptians in Exodus? The Egyptians in Exodus are the ultimate enemies of God's people, the people who will stop at nothing to disobey God's command. And now, at this beginning point, we find out that Egypt despises shepherds. And here come the Israelites. When we read a bit further, we turn to another interesting point. In Genesis chapter 48, if you look a few pages down or a few chapters down, 48, 15, we come to the point where Jacob is giving a blessing to his two grandsons, but he first blesses Joseph. And he says this. The God before whom my father's Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been a shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel has redeemed me from all evil. Bless the boys and let them and in them let my name be carried on in the name of my father's Abraham and Isaac. Let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. So, two chapters after we're told that the Egyptians despise and hate shepherds, now we're told that the God of Abraham is a shepherd, right? And so I ask the question again, why that little phrase that the Egyptians hate shepherds? Well, I would propose, and I think that it was placed here intentionally to get us as readers to ask the question, why did the Egyptians hate shepherds? And why is it so important that we know that they hate shepherds? Because in just two chapters later, for the first time in the Bible, we're told that the shepherd of Israel is God. It's the Lord. He's the shepherd. And it's the Lord who, through his shepherding, promises Israel a land and promises them the blessing of seed. He will take care of them. So in other words, yes, you may be living in the land of Goshen right now. Yes, the Egyptians might give you this little suburb off to the north. And yes, you may have saved off famine because the Egyptians and Joseph blessed you. But don't forget that the Lord is a shepherd and it's the Lord who ultimately blesses you. And the Egyptians hate sheep. See, the Israelites had to remember, they had to be reminded that they were given a promise, a promise of land. And though God through Providence had blessed them with Goshen and had blessed them by bringing them through famine, they were not home yet. They were not home yet. They were still moving forward to that promised land. They had not reached that true blessing yet. The Egyptians hated shepherds. And so as we move through, Consider again what your view is on shepherds. What do you think of when you think of shepherds? It's begun to shift a bit. Or what's the world's view on shepherds? I think this relates quite well to us, actually. We get quite comfortable in America in our modern condition, right? We have our homes. We have forced air conditioning and heating. We go to the grocery store. We have 16 flavors of wheat cereal and 19 flavors of pop tarts. And we're quite comfortable where we are in this country. And God in his providence has blessed us magnificently. We have many blessings here in America. But sometimes I think we fail to look back and ask, you know, what's the American ethic on how to get ahead? How are we told to get ahead and act and live? Many of us know the famous speech from Gordon Gekko, right in the movie Wall Street. He says, the point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Telder Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. See, I think sometimes our modern ethic teaches us that the way to get ahead is to exploit the weakness of others. Is corruption in that environment? Sometimes we have to sit back and ask the question, where's room for the shepherd in this environment? It appears they might hate the shepherd. No room in some governments or economies or lifestyles But Christians throughout the century, sometimes we have a tendency to get caught up in the providential blessings of God in the current condition. Sometimes we like to proclaim America as a Christian nation or something along these lines. And sometimes we simply mistake a land, a blessing that God's given to us in providence for that promise that he's laid ahead of us, that promise that he said is coming soon. The promised land, the new heavens and the new earth. Sometimes we get so caught up and we fill every minute of our lives considering how we can get ahead of this land, how we can make more money in Goshen. And we fail to ask the question, how should I get to the real promised land, the real blessing God has given to me? And so do you fill every minute of your lives with ways to get ahead in this land, to exploit Goshen, to make yourself more comfortable and in doing so forget that the Egyptians hate shepherds. Or do you feel your time and your day building the kingdom of God? Following Abraham, who in Hebrews 1110 were reminded looks forward to that city whose whose foundations were from God, whose designer and building building is from God. So, I want to move forward then as the story continues through the Bible, we move through Genesis and we get the next time we find a reference to shepherding comes actually in Numbers. The story continues, the people are cast out into the wilderness, they're punished for 40 years and then we come to Numbers 27 and it's actually the next mention of shepherding in the Bible. We come to a time when the baton of God's leadership is being passed from Moses, the one who brought them out of Egypt to Joshua, the one who will lead them down to the promised land. And in numbers 27 verse 12, we read, we read as follows. It says, the Lord said to Moses, go up into this mountain of a beer and see the land that I have given to the people of Israel. When you've seen it, You also shall be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was, because you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin, when the congregation quarreled, failing to uphold me as holy at the waters before their eyes. These are the waters of Meribah, Kadesh, and the wilderness of Zin. Moses spoke to the Lord, saying, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation. who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that have no shepherd. And so as they stand on the brink of the promised land and they look out onto the promised land, the great danger for the people as they enter this promised land is that they might come a point in time where they are as sheep without a shepherd. They're as sheep without a shepherd. And interestingly, we're reminded in Genesis that God was the shepherd, right? God was the shepherd, we're told in Genesis. But now we're told that God shepherds his people through human agents. So he uses human agents in the shepherding process. Yet as we follow the story, it doesn't really turn out as we might think it would here in Numbers 27, does it? They enter the promised land, and as we read in the book of Judges, they quickly go their own way. They quickly go their own way. They did become as sheep without a shepherd. They scattered and did their own thing. And if we ask the question, why? What was it that caused this? What precipitated them to be as sheep without a shepherd? We find the answer in Judges 21-25. It's because there was no king in Israel. Then we sit back and say, wait a minute. King? Where did that reference come? King, I thought the great danger was a shepherd. I thought the big problem was that they needed a shepherd. They would be a sheep without a shepherd. Now we're talking about a king. Well, we don't hear about sheep again in the Bible at all from Numbers 27 until we reach 1 Samuel. And in 1st Samuel, the people called Saul, they're under King Saul, and it's a mess, right? They're in the promised land, but it's a mess. They're being pummeled by the Philistines, being controlled in their land of promise. And then in 1st Samuel 16, 19, we meet somebody. We meet a young boy named David, or a young man named David, who's, we're told, he's a shepherd. And then in chapter 17, the author goes through great lengths to remind you that David, this shepherd, has a shepherd's bag and uses shepherd's tools like stones and such and a sling and shepherd's weapons to slay Goliath, the ultimate enemy of Israel. At last, we think the shepherd is here. At last, it's finally come. The promise will be fulfilled, right? And look at David's response in first Samuel 17. Verses 33 to 37, Saul said to David, you're not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him for your buddy youth. He's been a man of war from his youth. But David said to Saul, your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and I struck him and I delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God. And David said, The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Go and the Lord be with you. So David says, I'm a shepherd. And I was in the wild among the wild animals. Remember that reference because it's going to come up two times again. I was in the wild among the wild animals. And when those wild animals came after my sheep, I grabbed them by their beards and I slayed them. So at this point now we meet David. A young man who becomes the human agent of deliverance, who's reliant upon the true shepherd. He's reaffirmed in his poetry. We think of Psalm 23. It seems like the true shepherd has come, right? The borders spread. They conquer all the people in the promised land. The people are blessed. David's fame is known throughout the region. And then something happens. David falls into sin and he abuses the flock. He takes another man's wife and then to cover up his sin, he murders him. And how does the Lord confront David? In 2 Samuel, chapter 12, verses one to six, and the Lord sent Nathan to David and he came to him and said to him, there were two men in a certain city. One was rich and the other poor. The rich man. So here we have two shepherds. The rich man had many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it and it grew up with him and with his children. He used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler for the rich man and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity. And then Nathan looks at David and says, David, you are the man. You are the man. You've abused the flock. You came to be the shepherd, the human agent that would take care of God's people. And you've become that man. And for this reason, we're told the sword never leaves David's house. There's division and unrest. David dies and his son then allows idolatry into the land. The nation splits. And then in First Kings, chapter 22, verse 17, an important phrase is made. The prophet Micaiah comes up and he looks upon Israel and he says when he sees Israel, I see people who are as sheep without a shepherd. It's the great danger. It's happened again. Where was David? Where was that legacy that he brought? Where was that man who said, when the lions come and the bears come, I'll grab them by the beard and slay them if they abuse my sheep? Where was he? And then something happened, right? The exile came and they're scattered because there's no shepherd. And then in Jeremiah 17 and in Ezekiel 34, we're told by both of those prophets, That when the exile came, the people are described as food who are placed before the wild beasts. In the absence of the shepherd, the people were cast out into the wild to be eaten by the wild beasts. What happened? Why the failure? God was always there, right? We're told God was the shepherd, but that human link kept breaking, kept failing. Where was the shepherd king that we were promised? What happened? When the human agent of God's shepherding left or failed, the people went their own way. They did their own thing. They became food for the wolves. Sometimes it's easy to look back at the Bible and point the finger and say, I don't know why they did that. God was their shepherd, right? But so often we fail to maybe reflect upon ourselves and ask the question, how often do we decide to become our own shepherd, to lead ourselves? become the masters of our own world, determine our own destiny. This really is, of course, the great American ethic, right? You do your own thing. You're the captain of your own ship. You listen to no one. Nobody tells you what to do because you have ultimate freedom. And then we wind up in the midst of trouble and we wind up in the midst of the wilderness and our flesh is being feasted upon by the beasts, the beasts of greed or of lust or of pride or of selfishness or of anger. And the list goes on and on and on. And it's easy to point the finger at those outside the faith, saying you sort of brought this on. You try to do your own thing and you fail. But sometimes we need to think, how often do we do it, too? We're reminded in John 21 that Jesus put shepherds to love us and to care for us and to help us grow in our sanctification. Sometimes we neglect that, don't we? First apostles, he said, and then elders. We have to seek out the means that Jesus provided for us to be nurtured and to grow. And really, for myself and the other elders here as well, it's a call for us to. Do we take our calling seriously, do we shepherd or are our sheep being devoured in the wilderness like sheep without a shepherd? The last time we sought to shepherd the sheep. And so one of the questions that we ought to ask ourselves, do we think of ourselves as a renegade Christian, we do our own things, And we leave the under shepherds that God has put there for us to care for us. So that we can run our own life. So going back to where we left off, they're out in the wilderness and I want to read this passage, it's a little lengthy, but I think it's important. Ezekiel, Chapter 34, Ezekiel, Chapter 34. We read verses two through nine says, ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves Should not the shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered. They wandered over all the mountains and on every hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek them. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, declares the Lord God, surely because my sheep have become a prey and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts. Since there was no shepherd and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves and have not fed my sheep. Therefore, you shepherds hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God, behold, I am against the shepherds and I will require my sheep at their hand to put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths that they may not be food for them. I will rescue my sheep, he says. You see, we don't find the fulfillment of the promise for the shepherd in the rest of the Old Testament, do we? After Ezekiel, those shepherds who fed themselves, it continues. But we remember three things. God is the shepherd of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, and he made a promise that he fulfilled, but we haven't seen it yet. Where is it? That's the first. The second, God thus far has used human agents as those shepherds, that shepherding link, so to speak. And after the reign of David, the sheep were left helpless, scattered in the wilderness, devoured by beasts. You wouldn't pick this up reading the English Bible because we structure our canon a little bit differently. But if you were to look at the Hebrew Bible, and this is how it was structured when the New Testament was written, the very last book in the Hebrew Bible, the very last book is Chronicles. The last book is Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible. That's how it ends. It ends with Chronicles 1 and 2. They're put together. Do you know how Chronicles begins? It's one of those books we sometimes don't get to. Chronicles is sometimes boring. We think, but there's actually a lot of stuff in Chronicles. The way Chronicles begins, it begins with the genealogy. Very beginning of Chronicles, we have this genealogy, and there's two focal characters in this genealogy and one big gap in Chronicles. And the two characters, you probably can guess who they are. It's Abraham and it's David. It's Abraham and David. And Chronicles is trying to answer the question, where is the promise of Abraham and of David? Where is the shepherd? And what we read at the very end of the Hebrew Bible, at the very end of of Chronicles, who is there among you of all his people? May the Lord be the Lord. Has God be with him and let him go up? The great question that we're left with when you come to the very end of the Hebrew Bible is where is he? Where is that promise of Abraham and the promise of David who will go up for us? Where is that shepherd? Where is he? If we think back to Genesis 48, we think hard. So the shepherd was God, right? And that shepherd was called the shepherd of Abraham and of Isaac, the fathers of Jacob. And the first human agent fulfilling that role that we see kind of clearly defined, if we think back to 1 Samuel, is David. So we have this Abraham and David. Where is the shepherd, thought the Israelites, during the exile? Where is the shepherd during the intertestamental time? That was a messy time. Where was the shepherd? And the answer is silent for 400 years. There's no answer. Where is he? We just have silence. Until one day, when you turn the page, and there's another book. And we read the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. The son of David. The son of Abraham. And then he divides that genealogy in verse 17. From Abraham to David. And from David to exile. And from exile to Jesus, the Christ. Sound the alarms, right? Ring the bells. This is it. This is the promise that we've been waiting for the whole time. This is the answer to the 400 years of silence. Here it is. The genealogy is completed, says Matthew. It's finished. Here it is. The Chosen One has come. But there's something different here. If we look at chapter 1, verse 18 of Matthew. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, we're told. He was given the name in verse 23, Emmanuel, which means God with us. You see, God decided to come down and become that human agent, to take it all upon himself. To take it all upon himself and upon his shoulders. And for what purpose is this young infant brought into this messy world that we live in? We read it here in chapter two, verse six, that we read this morning. For out of you, Bethlehem shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people, Israel. Now, if that doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, I quite frankly don't know what will. Here it is, the fulfillment. It's happened time and again. Where is Abraham? Where is David? The sheep are in the wild. They're in the wilderness being devoured by the beasts. And here comes Emmanuel, God with us, a ruler to shepherd the people. And where does Jesus go first in the Gospel of Mark? The first place he goes, we read in his ministry, he's cast out into the wild to be among the wild beasts, just like David was, right? To be among the wild beasts. To rescue his people. Time and again, God used human agents to shepherd his people, but time and again they failed. But why were they there? They were there to lead up to this very moment in history. This very moment when God himself would take upon his shoulders both roles. He would become the shepherd and he would become the human agent. As we're reminded by the gospel writer John, was the word that became flesh and dwelt among us. The glory of the universe, the creator of all things, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the one who holds your very breath in the palm of his hand, the one who controls every molecule and atom in this universe. He loved you so much that he humbled himself and became a man, became the shepherd of his people. And why did he have to become a man? So that he could become the sheep. So that he could become the sheep. This is the beauty and the magnificence of the incarnation. On one night, you had a tiny little helpless baby. And yes, Mary and Joseph had to wipe the gunk out of his eyes, right? Clean out his nose with that big ball, that big blue ball. And he was messy, just like everyone else was messy when they're born. And he was too purple to take pictures at the beginning. Unlike the movies, they take pictures right away. But usually the baby's too purple, right? Just like any of our own babies was born. In this messy life, he comes out and feels the warmth of his mother, Mary. And you could imagine Joseph there, right? Proud as a father, taking pictures and the video camera rolling and smiling uncontrollably. And here was this little infant, just like your child was born, right? But different. Different, because as Joseph and Mary looked at this little baby, they saw the glory of God. They saw one who was fully God and fully man. They saw the one who was upholding the very world that they were living in. They saw the one who governed everything. They saw their judge. I think back to Genesis 46. The Egyptians hated shepherds and they hated sheep. But what was it that gave the Israelites safety during their initial exodus out of Egypt? After the Lord said he would take the firstborn of their sons. It was the sacrifice of sheep. The very thing the Egyptians hated. He would sacrifice those to save his people. It's the Passover lamb. And here, the great shepherd, as we're told in Genesis 48, God is the shepherd. The great shepherd became that human shepherd so that he would give you safe passage into the promised land, so that he would give you the exodus out of sin, because he would become the sheep on your behalf. And this is why he came. This is why he humbled himself. It was for you. And then what happened? He was crucified, received the wrath of God in the place of all who believe on him. And he was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God the Father. And then he established his church to take care of his sheep. Peter, he says in John 21, tend my lambs, shepherd my sheep, tend my sheep. See, Jesus has come as the great shepherd, the human agent, and the new Passover lamb. And he shepherds his sheep like no mere human could possibly do. Why does he do this? And how does he do this, rather? It's because he loves us. He doesn't push us and pull us. He doesn't manipulate us. He doesn't beat us with the rod. But he leads us first by example and then by proclamation. And we hear his voice and we follow him because we know that he is the great shepherd. And we could take comfort in the shepherd and know that he will never, ever abuse you. He will never abandon you and leave you out to be devoured in the wilderness. And you can rest in the hope and the peace of this proclamation that out of Bethlehem came a ruler who would shepherd his people. And we can live our lives an example of this, right? All of our relationships, really, in our home, in our church, how ought we live or how ought we lead? Love is never boastful, right? It's never prideful, never manipulative or abusive. True leadership and true love is sacrificial. We can all live this sacrificial life out in a sense as we trust upon Him. It lays its life down, it guides, it shines an example, it understands, it comforts, it never ignores. But instead, it goes out into the wilderness and it confronts those wild beasts and it tends. And Jesus has come and loved us so much that we could love one another so that all of us could love one another, our husbands and our wives, so that we can love in a shepherding way so that we can be sacrificial to one another, our children, our family members, our co-workers, our church family members. When you wonder, How to live and how to lead. Here's your example. Look to Jesus. When you try to live by the wisdom of man, it will always follow down that track of Gordon Gekko, right? Manipulation of exploitation of destruction. But when we follow the example of Jesus, we follow the way of love. But be warned, I think all of us should step back and realize that The only way we'll do this is we're all going to stumble and fall and time and again. But the way we do this is by growing in our union with Christ through the means that he's given to us. It's only because Jesus came and shepherded us that we can live in this way. And so we're called really to grow in that union, to grow as a church body, to grow in our relationship with the under shepherds that he's put in charge of us and in our families and such to grow And then you'll grow in your life and your shepherd. You see, the story of of the shepherd is much more than a flannel graph. Story of grace, the story of mercy, the story of sacrifice and of love. It's a story of real shepherding. And so we're brought together here under the name of that great shepherd, under his grace, so we can go forth and remember why he came for us, why he became an infant. And he loves us so we can go and ask ourselves the question, what is our relationship to that shepherd? Let's pray. Our heavenly father, the great shepherd, the sheep. We are so thankful that you humbled yourself and became a man for us and for our salvation. We're so thankful that you've blessed us abundantly with so many gifts. We pray, Lord, that we'll not lose sight of the true blessing, of the promise that you have given to us, the promised land. Lord, we pray that you will bless each member here today, each person in worship, that you will watch over them this week, that you will give them your peace and your grace, that you will give them the love of the shepherd. Lord, we pray that we will follow you with a renewed vigor, that you will inflame our souls in a passion for you that no man can put out. She will change our lives. Lord, bless us this week. Pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the risen and exalted King, the great shepherd of the sheep. Amen. Will respond by.