PRINCIPLE OF TAPPING INTO THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD – PART ONE
Friends, I greet you again in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I come today with a message that is dear to my heart, which is drawn from our Spiritual Emphasis for this year, which is from Psalms 23. But I am not going to bring a message from Psalms 23 – but just the first line of Psalms 23:1
Psalms 23:1
1The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
I want to draw some implications from that statement. And to do that, we will go to another scripture: in the New Testament in St. Luke’s Gospel 5: the experience of Peter as a fisherman – his experience with the Good Shepherd – the Lord Jesus Christ.
Luke 5:1-11
So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, 2 and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. 3 Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.
4 When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
5 But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” 6 And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. 7 So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” 11 So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him.
PRAYER:
Father, we say thank You again for bringing us to this time of reasoning with You in Your Word. And then we believe that Your Spirit has something for us today to refresh our hearts and to refresh our minds…in Jesus Name. Amen!
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. This statement is based on the all-sufficiency of the Good Shepherd, among other things; among other things like His sovereignty, among other things like His power, His grace and His mercy. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want – or I shall not lack. The Lord’s sheep will not lack because the Good Shepherd is self-sufficient. And because He is self-sufficient He is all-sufficient; but we must not think that just saying the Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want is all it takes to be free from want or lack. Some Christians today have been taught to use the Word of God more or less like a talisman; as a magic wand. Take for example, these familiar favorites of many of us Christians, one from,
Deuteronomy 28:13a
13 And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath,
And we run with that. But we forget that that is not the end of the statement, because it continues:
Deuteronomy 28:13b
if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.
The other one is Exodus 15:26b,
I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.
And we even have a song based on that: I am the Lord that healeth thee. I am the Lord your healer. But that’s not all that God says in,
Exodus 15:26.
He says,
”If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”
So you can see that these two promises we just looked at are conditional promises. We need to learn how to tap into the all-sufficiency of the Good Shepherd, following certain spiritual principles or conditions. And we will learn from the experience of Peter, which we read from Luke 5:1-11.
Let us go straight into these principles.
Principal One
Get involved in the grand purpose or plan of the Good Shepherd
Get involved in the grand purpose or plan of the Good Shepherd, if you want to have access to His all-sufficiency.
We read in Luke 5…but let me take us a little back a little from Chapter 4:42
Luke 4:42-43
42 Now when it was day, He departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowd sought Him and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from leaving them; 43 but He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent.”
And then of course you go down to Chapter 5 where He says He came to the Sea of Galilee, which is the same as Gennesaret, which is the same as the Sea of Tiberias. The same water has three different names. And then He met Peter and the other fishermen; and He said to them, I must preach the Kingdom of God to the other cities also. And He says, this is the purpose for which I have been sent. So when we get involved in the grand purpose, grand in the sense of the big picture of the purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ, His grand purpose for coming into the world; and that grand purpose was to save the lost. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And Peter is involving himself now in this grand purpose; for it is for that purpose that He borrowed the boat of Peter which he willingly surrendered to Him; and He sat in his boat and started ministering to the multitudes. But let me observe that when you know what God has called or sent you to do nobody and nothing can sidetrack you or distract you.
Jesus knew what He came to do. And that was why He refused to be detained by them. We find this truth very prominent in the life of Jesus Christ. When the end came the bible said that He kept His face as flint to go to Jerusalem. And some Samaritans, because He made up His mind to go to Jerusalem to sacrifice Himself, they did not want to receive Him. And it was at that juncture that the sons of Zebedee said to Him, because these people are insulting you, do we call down fire from heaven to condemn them? And Jesus said, you do not know the manner of spirit you are of. That should be a good lesson for those who call down fire today to consume their enemies.
The purpose – the grand purpose for which Jesus said He came has not changed. And this is still His heartbeat.
Peter got involved in this grand purpose.
Principal Two
Free up something for the Good Shepherd, for this grand purpose.
Free up something the Good Shepherd needs for this grand purpose. We find that in,
Luke 5:3
3 Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.
Peter was busy all night fishing. But the sleepless night labor was fruitless. He and his friends caught nothing. Now he is ready to go home and get some badly needed rest; but the Good Shepherd shows up. Jesus Christ shows up, demanding Peter’s vehicle, his boat; and demanding his time. Amazingly Peter suspended going home to rest and freed up his boat; and freed up his time for the Good Shepherded. This is what I call the conduit principle: the channel principle.
When you make up your mind to be God’s conduit, there is no end to how much He will pour into your life – as long as He sees you as a conduit, as a channel. What are you willing to give up for the Good Shepherds, friend? If you do not have material resources, with a doubt, you must have that which He has given equally to everybody. That is time.
When we come back we will continue from here, and examine the rest of the principles for tapping into the all-sufficiency of the Lord.
PRAYER:
Father, thank You for this time. How I pray that my friends will get hold of these principles – so that they will find the answers: the solution to want and lack in their lives, in Jesus Name we pray. Amen!